You never know who is planning to translate something. Scholars don’t talk as much as they might, either, which leads to silly situations, such as three English translations of Eusebius Onomasticon being released in a period of a couple of years (including the long forgotten Wolf translation which appears online).
I enquired a couple of weeks ago whether anyone fancied translating the Commentary on Isaiah for money. I quickly found that one gentleman was already doing so, and had a publisher lined up. Today I learn of another who has a proposal with another publisher to do the same. Neither knows of the other, I think.
After I decided to commission the Quaestiones I quickly learned that a scholar was doing the Eclogae Propheticae. His initial reply made it sound like a side-project, but it turns out otherwise.
I then enquired about the other obvious untranslated works, the Against Marcellus and Ecclesiastical Theology (which form a pair of works against Marcellus of Ancyra). I’ve been told so far of two people who ‘might be doing these’, plus a reference to a book which also refers vaguely to ‘someone’. One of these two is actually NOT doing so; I look forward to an email from the other.
I’ve not asked about the Commentary on the Psalms. Not yet, anyway.
Apparently there is a conference in Brussells in March on Eusebius, about which I can find no details. If anyone does know, I’d be interested to learn more. I might even be able to go.
Your experience, and a similar one that I had, shows why a central database or listing of work being done on manuscripts in specific fields might be a good idea. In a recent update of a bibliography of medieval rabbinic works, the writer commented on how three editions of the same work were published within a few years of each other, lamenting that this happened while others have yet to be touched.
It’s the neglect of other works that results that is unfortunate, I agree.
I suppose the reason why people don’t trust each other with an idea is that other people might zoom in and hijack it. Someone might rush out an edition before the original editor can get going, or else he might end up in a race to publication with someone else!