A Daily Mail article is filled with glorious photographs of Christian frescoes from a catacomb in Rome.
Month: June 2010
Greek translations of Latin literature
Greek language and literature enjoyed considerable status among Roman optimates during the republic and after. Cicero himself did not disdain to translate treatises into Latin.
But in late antiquity, as the centre of Roman government moved to Constantinople, there began to be a need to translate in the other direction. I must say that I have never known much about this.
One instance of this process is material quoted by Eusebius. Little of this is from Latin sources, but he makes use of a translation into Greek of Tertullian’s Apologeticum. In other places he quotes imperial edicts, evidently from official translations. But he does not seem to have known much Latin himself.
Another instance is material by Jerome. Jerome himself tells us that his Life of St. Hilarion was translated into Greek by a certain Sophronius. His De viris illustribus was translated into Greek by ps.Sophronius, and the version is extant. Interesting the version of the Testimonium Flavianum given by Jerome features the crucial variant, He was believed to be the Christ (credebatur esse Christum). But in the Greek version the text has been harmonised to the normal Greek text, He was the Christ.
All these things are something I would like to know more about. Today I stumbled across a volume on Google books, extant in preview mode, John J. Winkler &c, Later Greek Literature (1982). This is a collection of essays, but includes on p.173-216 a paper by Elizabeth Fisher, Greek translations of Latin Literature in the fourth century. This discusses in a very interesting way some of these examples, and shows precisely how the translator handled his material.
Sometimes this was with considerable freedom. Jerome’s negative portrayal of Alexander was modified for a Greek audience, where the latter’s hero-status could not be ignored, for instance.
Much of the article is visible through Google Books, and is worth a look.
Choking off non-Americans from Google books?
Non-US readers of Google Books aren’t allowed to see most of the content. This is because of threats by European publishers afraid that somehow they might suffer some financial loss if their captive market could see books before 1923. Google responded by simply barring access to people outside the US. After all, if people outside the US want to be uneducated, how is that Google’s problem, they doubtless reasoned. But it has always been possible for the techno-literate to get around this, albeit with some effort.
But it looks as if Google books might be raising the drawbridge even further. Today I tried to get access to volume 13 of Texte und Untersuchungen, published in 1895. Of course as one of the humiliores of the internet, I knew that I would not be allowed to see it. But I tried my usual methods.
Unfortunately the download link still did not appear. With some wrestling, I was able to get a page with a link on, albeit not on the usual page, but for a while I feared the worst.
Never presume that Google books will always be available. It may not.
Philip of Side update
I forgot to mention that fragment 7 of Philip of Side arrived over the weekend as well. It’s the bit which is alchemical in nature.
I’m always wary of alchemical texts. I have a degree in Chemistry, but I find them quite hard to understand. However this one is clear enough, and refers to dyeing copper.
Mischa Hooker’s links – a new incarnation
I can’t be the only one who has found some pages compiled by Mischa Hooker of links to material on Google books extremely useful. His table of links to the PG was long an aid, although these days I prefer the Cyprian project list.
It seems that Dr Hooker has started a new set of links. This appears in wikispaces, presumably for the same reason that I have used a wiki — that it’s easier to add links when you find them, ad hoc, if you can bash them in online. Likely to be very useful.
The list of authors down the left hand side stops with Commodian, in IE6. I’m not sure if that is the browser or the list.
Chrysostom’s sermon on new year (in kalendas) now online in English
The translation that I commissioned of John Chrysostom’s sermon on the new year festivities is now online here. I hope it will be useful! It’s public domain – do whatever you like with it!
From my diary
Up early and to the laptop to work on QuickGreek, my tool for working with ancient Greek. It really has suffered from being worked on in bits and pieces. Moving bits of code around to simplify things, so I can build on top of it.
While doing so, downloading more of the RealEncyclopadie in PDF form from the web. The download site places obstacles in your way. For each PDF you have to click on a link, then “request a download ticket” (just an excuse for another click), wait while the advertising downloads, then click on “Download”, then wait as IE blocks the download, then click on the “if it didn’t download click here”. If you download more than one or two, it adds an extra step and demands you type in a “captcha”. All very wasteful of time and energy, but the RE is worth it, even in so many, many PDF’s. How else would someone like me ever even see a copy?
Rainy and dull and cool, which is all to the good. If the sun was shining I’d feel morally obliged to go out and do something summery. But as it is, the pressure is off!
UPDATE: One of the nicest days I’ve had for a long time, in fact. I spent most of the day working on QuickGreek, untangling some code that had given me pain for years. It is strange, tho, how long it all takes! Also I got my upgrade to Office 2010 downloaded and installed, and I finished getting hold of the RE at long last. I didn’t really post online much — my alternative to working! — but I stuck to the job. I also went out early and got a haircut, which mysteriously made me feel more cheerful as well — I don’t know why. Did all the hippies take drugs to get away from the fact that they all felt so unkempt?!? I walked down to Sainsburys at lunchtime to get a baked potato and a scone and some very necessary diet coke, or liquid caffeine as I think of it. There’s always a queue, but somehow I timed it right and didn’t have to wait long. It rained on and off all day, just a cool, quiet, grey, and comfortable day.
Today was one of the good ones, in other words. As ever, tomorrow is Sunday and the PC goes into the cupboard in a few moments. First to run my backup software!
Greek and Latin books at Google
An extremely useful list (thanks to George Kiraz):
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/ancient-greek-and-latin.html
From my diary
I’ve pulled QuickGreek out of the drawer and I’ve been working on it again.
It’s always hard to remember where I was with the code. Software development is definitely NOT something best undertaken in short bursts with weeks in between.
This time I’m trying to include some matching for Greek words by stripping off the accents. Quite a lot of words are unique, even without an accent. It should improve the hit rate.
Reading about software is tedious. My apologies!
The manuscripts of Socrates Scholasticus
I have Gunther Christian Hansen’s evidently excellent new critical text in the Berlin GCS series of Socrates Scholasticus before me. So I have placed online a summary of what he says about the extant manuscripts of that work, plus their translations into Armenian, Syriac, etc. The notes are here.