I’ve just discovered a blog about ancient Antioch. The current article is about a panegyric on Antioch by Libanius.
Libanius was a voluminous writer. His letters and orations fill volumes. Yet few have ever been translated into any modern language. A few that were have made their way onto my collection of the Fathers. A good selection now appears in the Loeb. Yet… how little that is, and how little of all that little is online!
Pleasingly an English translation of the lengthy Oration 11 on Antioch is linked to from the page. I wonder what its copyright status is?
Thanks for the comments. I too have felt the frustration of not being able to get one’s hands on an electronic version of the Antiochikos translations. I have a hard copy of Norman’s book, the JSTOR version of the Downey and a variety of tidbits in French by various translators.
I too wondered about the copyright. I only excerpted the translation leaving the extensive introduction and copious footnotes for people to explore themselves if they can track down a JSTOR-enabled library. Does the advent of JSTOR mean that out of print books are now “in print”? As a librarian in a former reincarnation the rule of thumb that we used was not copying more than 10% of a work. Is the journal the work or the article?
The most frustrating thing is not having an electronically excerptable version of the work. I hope to have solved the problem.
Good thought. I suspect that it *is* in copyright, but that no-one will care so long as money doesn’t change hands. I hate this whole business of worthless copyrights obstructing access anyway. It benefits no-one.
I greatly appreciate your generosity in making or. 11 available online. I wonder when the copyright on the Norman runs out; long after we’re dead, I suspect. Ah well.