Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
The translations of John the Lydian’s comments on September and October in book IV of his On the Roman Months have arrived, and are very good as always from this translator. One needs a footnote finishing, but otherwise they are done. Once they are complete (and after I have paid for them!) then I will place them online and into the public domain so that we can all do with them as we wish.
I’ve asked my friend if he would consider doing the next five pages also, which covers November!
A CD arrived today from a kind correspondent, containing photos of the entire unpublished study and translation of the 6th century Jewish medical text by Asaph. I confess that Jewish literature is not something I know anything about; but it seems clear that this item is not otherwise translated. The translation is public domain, but OCR’ing it would be quite an effort. Not sure what to do with this, if anything. I think my correspondent may do something.
Meanwhile my commission for a translation of further parts of John the Lydian On the Roman months, has been accepted, so this should happen. The result will be made public domain and placed online, as ever.
Another correspondent kindly pointed out that a PDF online contains an electronic text of the Greek of this work. This professes to be from Migne; but I have my doubts. I don’t know if De mensibus is in the TLG, but if so, I would guess that this is the text in question.
I spent a little time reading the introduction of the Wunsch 1898 edition, but not really enough to master it properly. But it seems that only a single manuscript, from the 9th or 10th century, preserves the text. There are lacunas later on, indeed. The work was known to Photius, who mentions it in his Bibliotheca, so the surviving manuscript, Caseolinus Parisinus supplementi graeci 257 (=O), is contemporary with him. This seems to have been discovered during the 19th century, for I found a publication on Google books from the 1820’s, which contained only excerpts. Wunsch, indeed, lists a bunch of manuscripts containing extracts, as well as a group of manuscripts containing a ‘recension’ by Planudes, and another group containing a ‘recension’ found in the Vatican Barberini manuscript and its relations. Both recensions, I would guess, are really collections of extracts. So this is a text that only just survived in something like its complete form.
I also found that there are quite a few snippets about John and his career in Google Books, in previews. John the Lydian seems to have been a contemporary of the historian Procopius, although nothing links the two except that both pursued a career in the imperial civil service in the same period, the early to middle 6th century.
I spent a bit of time this evening with the 1898 edition of John the Lydian, De mensibus, which I got from Google books. There is no table of contents, so I opened it in Adobe Acrobat pro and went through adding bookmarks.
The result was as follows. It’s far more useful as a guide to the work, and made me realise how book 4 is actually the largest portion of the work, larger than books 1-3 together. Getting a translation of book 1 (18 pages) will cost less than I paid for the March section of book 4 (23 pages).
It’s worth considering that it was a worthwhile exercise, just to edit this PDF in this fashion. I shall also OCR the praefatio, so that I can have the assistance of automated translation tools in trying to come to grips with the transmission of the text.
The 6th century antiquarian John the Lydian has left us three works, all of great interest for the light they shed on Roman customs. Most interesting of these, to me at least, is De mensibus — On the Roman months. This is in 4 books, and the fourth book walks us through the year, detailing the festivals and annual events. But it has never been translated into English.
This morning I’ve emailed a friend and commissioned him to translate September, and perhaps October. He’s already done March, some time back, and part of December. September, October and November are all short, and it will be nice to have them in English.
UPDATE: The March portion was announced here.
The 6th century writer John the Lydian wrote a book De Mensibus, On the months, in which he gathered a great deal of antiquarian lore about the Roman world. Book 4 of this work goes through the months, noting the festivals together with other information.
Some time back I commissioned a translation of “March” from book 4. Mischa Hooker kindly undertook the work, and has done his usual splendid job.
The HTML version is here, and with luck will be mirrored at CCEL sooner or later. The original Word .doc file is here:JohnLydusonMarch-final_version.
Both I place in the public domain; do whatever you like with them, personal, educational or commercial.
Back on the chain gang, moan groan … until I consider that there are many people who would gladly swap places with me!
I’ve just upgraded the memory in my laptop this evening from 4Gbto 8Gb. It makes quite a remarkable difference to the speed of the machine. The memory I got from Crucial.com, whose bit of software telling me what to get was quite useful. Mind you, it gave me several choices at the same price, and I had to burrow through the unfamiliar specifications for a while to work out that one set of memory must be rather faster than the other. How long it is, since I knew PC hardware in endless detail!
Meanwhile I have received a Word document from Andrew Eastbourne containing a translation of John the Lydian’s De Mensibus (On the months) book IV, chapter 3 (‘March’). It’s very good indeed, and contains a lot of interesting material, and not merely about Roman dates and events. When I get a moment, I shall upload it.
No news from Lightning Source, from whom I ordered a new proof copy a week ago. I shall have to pester them, I see.
Here’s a little translation that I commissioned of a page of book IV of John the Lydian “On the Months”. It’s relevant to our discussions of bruma. This translation is public domain – do whatever you like with it, commercial or educational.
The Romans customarily divided their citizenry into three [groups] and distinguished those who were suitable for arms, those [who were suitable] for farming, and those [who were suitable] for hunting; and the season of winter brings an end to these [pursuits]. For in it, neither do they arm themselves, nor do they practice farming, because of the season’s cold and the shortness of the days—and hence in the old days they named it bruma, meaning “short day.” And Brumalia means “winter festivals”;[1] so at that time, until the Waxing of the Light,[2] ceasing from work, the Romans would greet each other with words of good omen at night, saying in their ancestral tongue, “Vives annos“—that is, “Live for years.”[3]
And the farming people would slaughter pigs for the worship of Cronus and Demeter[4]—and hence even now the “Pig-Slaughter” is observed in December. And the vine-dressers would sacrifice goats in honor of Dionysus—for the goat is an enemy of the vine; and they would skin them, fill the skin-bags with air and jump on them.[5] And the civic officials would also [offer as] the firstfruits of the collected harvest wine and olive oil, grain and honey and as many [products] of trees as endure and are preserved—they would make loaves without water and they would bring [all] these things to the priests of the [Great] Mother.[6] And this sort of custom is still observed even now; and in November and December, until the “Waxing of the Light,” they bring [these] things to the priests. For the [custom] of greeting [people] by name at the Brumalia is rather recent; and, the truth [is],[7] they call them “Cronian festivals”[8]—and because of this the Church turns away[9] from them. And they take place at night, because Cronus is in darkness, having been sent to Tartarus by Zeus—and they mysteriously signify[10] the grain, from its being sown in the ground and thereafter not being seen. And this is quite true, as has been said: The attention to [these] things goes on at night, such that finally, in truth, the Brumalia are festivals of the subterranean daemones.
Notes
[1] Gk. Βρουμάλια δὲ οἱονεὶ χειμεριναὶ ἑορταί; alternatively, “…[function] as winter festivals,” but οἱονεί introduces the significance of a term just before, with bruma.
[2] Gk. τὰ Αὐξιφωτία, presumably referring to 25 Dec., as (e.g.) in the “Calendar of Antiochus” the date is marked: ἡλίου γενέθλιον· αὔξει φῶς. For the phrase, cf. also Cosmas of Jerusalem, Comm. in S. Greg. Naz. carm. [PG 38:464].
[3] Lit., “you will live for years.”
[4] I.e., Saturn and Ops, who were considered husband and wife, and whose festivals were associated at this time of year; some further considered them the equivalents of Heaven and Earth (Macrobius, Sat. 1.10).
[5] Cf. askoliasmos / Askolia, the name for such an “event” at the Rural Dionysia.
[6] I.e., the Magna Mater (Cybele) (?).
[7] Gk. τὸ…ἀληθέστερον; lit., “the truer [thing]” / “the quite true [thing].”
[8] I.e., Saturnian festivals (Saturnalia).
[9] Gk. ἀποτρέπεται; alternatively, “turns [people] away from them.”
[10] Gk. αἰνίττονται.
There is a certain amount of wild talk around online about a festival of bruma, or the brumalia, connected with Christmas. It would be interesting to find out what is truly known and discoverable from ancient sources about the nature and date of this event. So I reached for the OLD!
According to the Oxford Latin Dictionary (p.243), the word bruma is the superlative of brevis (=short), i.e. breui-ma which became breu-ma. Three meanings are listed.
1. The shortest day, the winter solstice or the period during which this occurs, mid-winter; also (astronomical) the position of the sun at the winter solstice.
References are given for this:
ubi solstitium fuerit ad brumam Cato, Agr. 17.1; Varro L. 6.8. eas (litteras) mihi post brumam reddiderunt Cicero ad fam. 3.7.3; dies continuos xxx sub bruma esse noctem Caesar, Gallic war 5.13.3; Vitruvius 9.3.3; Livy 43.18.1; Ovid fasti 1.163; Manilius 2.404; Columella Arb. 24; Pliny the Elder, NH 18.231; Terence Ph. 709; Cicero Div. 2.52; solis accessus discessusque solstitiis brumisque cognosci N.D. (?) 2.19. (A couple more references to the latter meaning are also given)
2. Winter.
References are given for this, and also for a third meaning expressing “a winter” as a period of time.
The adjective brumalis is also listed, meaning “connected with the winter solstice”, the tropic of capricorn, or merely “wintry”. For the first meaning it gives
Cicero Arat. 295 (61), de orat. 3.178, Div. 2.33; Lucretius 5.616; Ovid Pont. 2.4.25.
I need to look these up and tabulate them here.
A google search revealed remarkably little of substance, but apparently there is something in John Lydus, De mensibus (which we have met before!). However doing the same search via an anonymising proxy reveals more.
John Malalas in his Chronicle 7.7 gives an account of the origins of the festival. This tells us it was in the winter, and instituted by Romulus (or “Romus” as Malalas calls him).
Because of this Romus devised what is known as the Brumalia, declaring, it is said, that the emperor of the time must entertain his entire senate and officials and all who serve in the palace, since they are persons of consequence, during the winter when there is a respite from righting. He began by inviting and entertaining first those whose names began with alpha, and so on, right to the last letter; he ordered his senate to entertain in the same way. They too entertained the whole army, and those they wanted. . . . This custom of the Brumalia has persisted in the Roman state to the present day. — [The Chronicle of John Malalas, trans. E. Jeffreys et al. (Byzantina Australiensia 4, Melbourne, 1986), p. 95]
John the Lydian in his de Mensibus book IV discusses the Brumalia. According to that secondary source it was celebrated between November 24 and December 17. Apparently John says that the people all call it the festival of Cronos (i.e. Saturn). Unfortunately I can’t see the references in that text.
Lydus’ description of the Brumalia, however, hints that the situation was not in fact quite so simple. This popular holiday, celebrated between November 24 and December 17, was a time of dinner parties and wishing one’s friends “vives annos.” It had an extremely long history connected with the celebration of the winter solstice, and Lydus gives many details of the pagan rites associated with it in antiquity. The holiday continued to be celebrated in Lydus’ time, for he notes that “to greet someone by name during the Brumalia is a rather recent development,” and more pointedly, “the truth of the matter is that people call this the festival of Cronos; consequently the Church shrinks away from this affair.” He goes on to tell about Cronos and the association of chthonic demons with the festival. If it were not for the mention of ecclesiastical disapproval, we would not know that the festival had any contemporary dimension at all. This is all the stranger because Agathias reported without censure of any sort that the Brumalia was being celebrated by the citizens of Constantinople at the time of a great earthquake in 577. Malalas also described the contemporary imperial celebration without flinching. We know that Justinian celebrated the Brumalia on a lavish scale with banquets and spectacles throughout the empire, as Choricius of Gaza’s Oration attests. In 521 Justinian had inaugurated his first consulship with magnificent entertainments during the Brumalia (on the day that began with the first letter of his name). As spelled out in Novel 105 some years later, this was in accordance with his attitude about the ceremonial responsibilities of the consulship to provide parades, games, and theatrical productions for the populace. The pious emperor felt no impropriety in celebrating the Brumalia together with the consulship. In another law concerning pagan worship, Justinian reiterated the idea that ancient festivals might be celebrated by his subjects – as long as no pagan sacrifices were performed. We see here the grounds on which he was prepared to celebrate time-honored festivals. He was no more concerned about the “paganism” of the Brumalia than he was about that of the consulship. Both were simply part of the secular ceremonial of everyday late-antique life, as far as the palace and the public were concerned. On one level de Mensibus can be seen as a simple expression of this interest and of the acceptance of certain civic celebrations.
Lydus’ comment on ecclesiastical disapproval, however, suggests a more complicated situation and requires that we look to a later period. Such ceremonial did not forever remain immune from charges of religious impropriety. By the end of the next century, attitudes would change considerably. The Quinisextum Council (“in Trullo” ) held in Constantinople in 692 proscribed in its sixty-second canon celebrations of the kalends, Vota, Brumalia, and Panegyris, festivals going on in Lydus’ Constantinople and all described in de Mensibus as they existed in Roman antiquity. Pagan associations that the church found merely objectionable in Lydus’ day assumed greater significance in the seventh century. Why did Lydus make a point of the church’s censure when the Brumalia was being celebrated without comment by the emperor and devout Christians? He evidently recognized its pagan (as opposed to merely antique) history, but did not wish to elaborate further. Perhaps the antiquarian material had not been completely neutralized after all. [Michael Maas, John Lydus and the Roman past, 1992, p.64-6]
Just as an aside, every time I read a passage of Maas’ excellent book, it makes my fingers itch to commission someone to translate the 111 pages of book 4 of de Mensibus! Or even just the 8 pages on December! It looks as if the passage is on p.174 (PDF p.276) of the 1903 edition which is online. But back to the brumalia.
The festival was proscribed by the Quinsext synod (“in Trullo”) in 692.
Tertullian apparently also mentions the festival (De idololatria 14).
Suggestions are welcome as to where else we might look!
UPDATE: Cato, Agricultura 17.1:
Robus materies, item ridica, ubi solstitium fuerit ad brumam semper tempestiva est. Cetera materies quae semen habet, cum semen maturum habet, tum tempestiva est.
Oak wood and also wood for vine props, is always ripe for cutting at the time of the winter solstice. Other species which bear seed are ripe when the seeds are mature, while those which are seedless are ripe when they shed bark.
Here brumam is used to mean “winter”, as an adjective for solstitium. Or possibly “shortest solstice”?
Varro, De Lingua Latina 6.8:
Alter motus solis est, aliter ac caeli, quod movetur a bruma ad solstitium. Dicta bruma, quod brevissimus tunc dies est; solstitium, quod sol eo die sistere videbatur, quo ad nos versum proximus est. Sol cum venit in medium spatium inter brumam et solstitium, quod dies aequus fit ac nox, aequinoctium dictum. Tempus a bruma ad brumam dum sol redit, vocatur annus, quod ut parvi circuli anuli, sic magni dicebantur circites ani, unde annus.
8. There is a second motion of the sun, differing from that of the sky, in that the motion is from bruma ‘winter’s day’ to solstitium ‘solstice.’ Bruma is so named, because then the day is brevissimus ‘shortest’: the solstitium, because on that day the sol ‘sun’ seems sistere ‘to halt,’ on which it is nearest to us. When the sun has arrived midway between the bruma and the solstitium, it is called the aequinoctium ‘equinox,’ because the day becomes aequus ‘equal’ to the nox ‘night.’ The time from the bruma until the sun returns to the bruma, is called an annus ‘year,’ because just as little circles are anuli ‘rings,’ so big circuits were called ani, whence comes annus ‘year.’
This tells us that the bruma and the solstice are not the same.
Note: thanks to Bill Thayer for spotting the mistyping of De mensibus as De mensuribus! Oops!
I got hold of the 1898 text of John the Lydian and did some calculations. There seem to be about 7 words per line, about 26 lines per page, and 177 pages of text. That comes out at 32,214 words, which is probably a fair-ish estimate of how long the text is.
If I were to pay someone 10 cents a word to translate it, that would be $3,222. I don’t have any such sum to spare, so I won’t do so. But it’s interesting. To a corporation such sums are almost petty cash.
Ah, if I were a rich man…!
It seems that at least some of the Tuebner editions of the works of John the Lydian are also on Google books. Daniel Abosso has written to tell me so, and to point out that the Bonn series text is defective, and the Latin translation sometimes quite wrong. Here is the link (from a search for “lydi Wünsch”):
I still hope to get De Mensibus online.