I’ve just typed the last line of the table of years and events in the Chronicle of James of Edessa, not without relief. Now I need to go back and review it from the top, as I started it so long ago that there will be consistency errors. Ideally I’ll add dates AD to it, and some notes at critical points too.
Category: Ancient world
Olympiads in the 6th century AD
I’m still transcribing the Chronicle of James of Edessa, who wrote in the mid 7th century. He starts with the reign of Constantine, continuing the Chronicle of Eusebius. Naturally he has a new line for each new olympiad, just as Eusebius does.
I’m typing in the table of years. Tiberius II becomes Eastern Roman emperor; and then Maurice ascends the throne. But the chronicle continues to mark the olympiads. Maurice becomes emperor in the second year of the 340th olympiad, according to James. He continues to mark olympiads right down to olympiad 352 — the 20th year of Heraclius. The chronicle then omits them.
There is something both beautiful and sad to see this writer of the 7th century continuing to use the ancient Greek reckoning, centuries after the abolition of the olympic games. These vanished, presumably as part of the anti-pagan legislation of Theodosius I, before 394 AD.
How the human mind holds on to things gone past! How we seek to ensure continuity, especially in troublesome times, and build whatever framework we can against the chaos and the ruin that must in the end engulf all our endeavours, and indeed ourselves. A man must be very comfortable and very complacent indeed not to feel the tug of antiquity and tradition, and to treat it as nothing! James, at least, was not such a man. Nisi dominus frustra.
Reference for the claim that only 1% of ancient literature survives
People sometimes make arguments from what our surviving collection of classical texts do NOT contain. I tend to reply by pointing out that only 1% of classical texts survive, which makes such a procedure very risky. This figure comes from a statement by N. G. Wilson on the Archimedes Palimpsest Project web page, although the site has changed and I couldn’t find it just now.
When I met N. G. Wilson by accident at the Oxford Patristics Conference some years ago I asked him about this, and he said that the figure came from Pietro Bembo, the renaissance scholar.
The discussion on CLASSICS-L of the same issue has now produced a quotation with a modern academic reference. I reproduce the post (by Atticus Cox) here:
In partial answer to Jeffrey B. Gibson’s original question — “What percentage/How much of pre-second century CE literature is lost to us and how has this figure, whatever it may be, been determined?”
Rudolf Blum in his Kallimachos : The Alexandrian library and the origins of bibliography (Wisconsin, 1991) [= transl. by Hans H. Wellisch of BLUM, R.: Kallimachos und die Literaturverzeichnung bei den Griechen : Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Biobibliographie (Frankfurt, 1977)] states as follows (p.8):
Literary criticism was made difficult for the ancient philologists (similar to what their modern colleagues experience when they deal with medieval literature) because among Greek authors as well as among medieval ones there are so many namesakes (Apollonios, Alexandros, etc.). Thus, for example, we find that Diogenes Laertios (3rd cent. A.D.) lists for 29 of the 82 philosophers with whom he deals in his work on the lives and opinions of famous philosophers (the most recent are from the end of the 2nd century A.D.) several known namesakes, most of whom had also been authors.[n.31] Quite a few bearers of the same name were active in the same field, were compatriots and contemporaries.[n.32] It also happened frequently that an author had the same name as his father, equally well-known as an author. In such cases the customary procedure for the identification of persons — complementing the personal name by an indication of the father’s name (in the genitive) and the place of birth or domicile (in adjectival form) — was not sufficient. One had to find further biographical details and to add them.
The large number of authors with the same name was a corollary of the large amount of Greek literature, the sheer bulk of which alone would have been enough to keep the ancient biobibliographers busy. The small nation of the Greeks was immensely productive in art and scholarship. Although it is impossible to ascertain the total number of all works written by Greek authors, there were certainly many more than those that have been preserved or are merely known to have existed. For example, we have no adequate idea of the multitude of works which Kallimachos listed in the 120 books of his Pinakes. Of the Greek literature created before 250 B.C. we have only a small, even though very valuable, part. We do not even have the complete works of those authors who were included in the lists of classics compiled by the Alexandrian philologists. Of all the works of pagan Greek literature perhaps only one percent has come down to us.[n.34] All others were in part already forgotten by the third century A.D., in part they perished later, either because they were not deemed worthy to be copied when a new book form, the bound book (codex), supplanted the traditional scroll in the fourth century A.D.,[n.35] or because they belonged to ‘undesirable literature’ in the opinion of certain Christian groups.
In n.34 Blum explains that his figures are based on the counts of Hans Gerstinger [= GERSTINGER, H.: Bestand und Überlieferung der Literaturwerke des griechisch-römischen Altertums (Graz, 1948)] —
n.34: “According to Gerstinger (1948) p.10, about 2000 Greek authors were known by name before the discovery of papyri. But the complete works of only 136 (6.8%) and fragments of another 127 (6.3%) were preserved. Gerstinger counted, however, only authors whose names were known, not works known by their titles. The numerical relation between these and the works that are preserved wholly or partially would certainly even be much worse. Whether a count of known titles would serve any purpose remains to be seen. The main sources would be the biobibliographic articles in the Suda, but even the authority on which it is based, the epitomator of the Onomatologos by Hesychios of Miletos (6th century A.D.), no longer listed many authors which e.g. Diogenes Laertios (3rd century A.D.) had still named in his work.”
The other notes are as follows:
n.31: “He lists on average 5-6 homonyms, in one case 14 (Herakleides), in two cases 20 each (Demetrios and Theodoros).”
n.32: “E.g. in the fifth century B.C. there were two Attic tragic poets by the name of Euripides other than the famous one.”
n.33: “Despite the more precise Roman system of naming persons (/praenomen/, /nomen gentile/, /cognomen/) there were many homonyms, although relatively few among authors, because there were fewer of them than in Greece.”
n.35: “Widmann (1967) columns 586-603 [= WIDMANN, H. : ‘Herstellung und Vertrieb des Buches in der griechisch-römischen Welt’ in /Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens/ 8 (1967) 545-640].
Obscure material
When I look at older editions and translations of the classics, or indeed the fathers, I am sometimes struck by the way in which the authors make use of curious and recondite sources such as scholiasts. Never have I seen it explained, however, how they come to locate these.
Looking at 16th and 17th century editions, we quickly find that the indexes in these contain all sorts of references. How did they do it?
Demonax and the trolls, and other snippets from Lucian
I was reading Lucian’s Life of Demonax here and came across this remark, which seemed eminently applicable to much online posting:
He once saw two philosophers engaged in a very unedifying game of cross questions and crooked answers. ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘here is one man milking a billy-goat, and another catching the proceeds in a sieve.’
In Lucian’s Remarks addressed to an illiterate book-fancier here, we find another comment appropriate to those who always have a quote from an ancient source at their hands.
There are two ways in which a man may derive benefit from the study of the ancients: he may learn to express himself, or he may improve his morals by their example and warning; when it is clear that he has not profited in either of these respects, what are his books but a habitation for mice and vermin, and a source of castigation to negligent servants?
Most of Lucian’s works seem to be here.
What percentage of ancient literature survives: some data
An interesting discussion is going on at CLASSICS-L at the moment.
Jeffrey Gibson: How much pre-second century CE literature is lost to us — and how has this figure, whatever it may be, been determined?
…
Patrick T. Rourke: Even if you limit yourself to the plays produced at the Greater Dionysia during the productive lifetimes of the three great tragedians (~485 bce – 406 bce), that would be 33 out of 12×79=948, or 3.5%. That number is not an estimate, but a ceiling, because of all the factors you have to ignore to get that nice clean number:
- I think the Rhesos is under the wrong name and is later than 406.
- At least 15% of the Iphigeneia at Aulis has been replaced with a later attempt at a reconstruction.
- There are fragments of hundreds of lost tragedies, enough to count as maybe 3 additional play equivalents.
- Tragedy officially started in 534 bce, though we might not consider the earliest plays to fit our definition of the genre, and the productions of tragedies continued into the common era, though after about 400 bce repertory productions of older plays could take the place of new plays
- We are counting satyr plays
- We are ignoring the Lenaia, and other feativals and cities where tragedy came to be performed.
- We are ignoring later book tragedies, which date to the mid 4th century bce.
As I said, that is a ceiling, amd a rough back-of-the-envelope number that my gut tells me is an order of magnitude too high (it’s probably closer to 0.4%), but it’s a nice way to demonstrate the problem.
We have 33 surviving tragedies (including satyric and pro-satyric plays):
7 of Aeschylus*
7 of Sophocles
19 of Euripides*1 play ascribed to Aeschylus by all ancient authorities has been challenged on stylistic grounds, but I believe the skeptics still think it was anciently produced. 1 play ascribed to Euripides was challenged in antiquity on stylistic grounds – and we have a much better sample for Euripides; those theories would place production after 406 bce. Those three between them wrote slightly over 300 plays (123 for Sophocles, 91 or 95 for Euripides, ~ 88 or 92 for Aeschylus), so we have 10% of their work; 24 of the plays survive due to their use in schools, and 9 of Euripides plays survive due to an historical accident of transmission. It is possible that some of the surviving plays were produced at the Lenaia, which would add an additional several plays a year to those totals (obviously I don’t know, and can’t quickly find, the actual number; and we know that some of the lost plays for the big three for which we have titles were produced at the Lenaia, and at least four outside Athens altogether.)
The two dates I’ve chosen are the year before Aeschylus’ first recorded first prize and the year of Euripides’ and Sophocles’ deaths. That gives an active period for the three great tragedians of 79 years. The actual active life of the Greater Dionysia was closer to 700 years, but only some of the plays produced before Aeschylus would fit our definition of tragedy, and after the death of Sophocles, it became common to revive older plays. By the mid-4th century ther were only 9 new plays per Dionysia, and we can assume that the late 1 st and early 2 nd century had no new plays, so we might average out at 4 new plays per year for the last 500 years, which would raise the total closer to 3000 plays and lower the percentage to a little over 1%. Throw in the Lenaia and the number drops well below 1%.
The number twelve refers to the fact that three poets were chosen for each Greater Dionysia to present four plays: three tragedies and a satyr play. We believe that in some festivals in the 5 th century the satyr play was replaced by another kind of play, a prosatyric play, and that Euripides’ Alcestis is an example. By the mid 3rd century the satyr play is gone.
Aristotle mentions what I’ve called book tragedies – closet dramas that take the form of tragedy. They were apparently popular by the mid 3rd century, and there is no way of estimating them. None survives.
Other cities came to imitate Athens’ genre, but there is no way to quantify that. We hear about dramatic productions in Alexander’s camp, but at least some were revivals (I think at least one was a new play).
I’m also ignoring the rural Dionysia on the assumption (possibly quite wrong) that it was repertory only.
The sources include the scholia, hypotheses, lives of the poets, inscriptions, a couple of contemporary speeches, allusions throughout the history of Greek literature (including Aristophanes the comedic playwright), the Suda, numerous literary essays from Roman times, &c. The most accessible collection of evidence is Csapo and Slater, *The Context of Ancient Drama*. One book that experts use a lot for ancient evidence is probably Pickard-Cambridge, *Dramatic Festivals of Athens*, though even in its updated form, it is quite old now and so doesn’t take into account the past 40 years if research. For the whole discussion, I’d recommend as a starting point for general readers is the popular account in several brief sections of Stuart Kelly’s *The Book of Lost Books*. Reynolds and Wilson’s book from the 70s (and that may be the second edition), *Scribes and Scholars*, is the best in depth discussion of the transmission of classical texts that I know about.
I’d guess that the numbers for all other genres are worse than for tragedy – we are lucky that we have so much of it!
Gene O’Grady: I’m being lazy and not checking, but I seem to recall that toward the end of this period there were reproductions of old plays (Aeschylus) at the festivals, so that would reduce the number of plays in the corpus, thus raising the percent that survive.
Also, do we know for sure that there was a satyr play every year? And the site of original production of some plays (Andromache, Archelaus, Aetnaeae) apparently wasn’t Athens.
Patrick T. Rourke: I had forgotten about Andromache, so my “at least 4” should be “at least 5”.
I admit that I know nothing about Greek tragedy. So this is all out of period for me. Nor do I know anything of the Greater Dionysia. I’ve asked for some clarification for us late-antiquity buffs, but it looks as if we have some information that a play was performed 12 times a year for 79 years. I’d want to see the data, of course.
But this sort of quantifiable stuff is invaluable.
Stephen of Alexandria’s fourth lecture on alchemy before the emperor Heraclius
The philosopher Stephen (or Stephanos) of Alexandria delivered a series of lectures ca. 620 AD in Constantinople at the court of the emperor Heraclius. These were concerned with alchemy, in the main.
The fourth lecture begins:
Of the same Stephanos on that which is in actuality the fourth lecture with the help of God
Every good gift and every perfect gift from above is came down from the Father of Lights. Therefore calling upon Jesus the light of the father, which <light> is the true effulgence of light, shining upon every man that cometh into the world. For he is the light and the truth and the light, the supreme Deity’s word of God, the wisdom and power the wisdom of God, ready for all and ineffable, the living word of the Father, being God and (?) every being directed towards God, he who by whom all things came into being, he who furnishes light to the faithful for them to know the gnosis of beings and to hymn the mighty works of the all ???ing God. For he is the dispenser and saviour of the cosmos, he illuminates our intellect (nou=j) and hearts and makes to shine for us a light, shining down for us upon the unsearchable (/not to be searched out) depths of his gnosis and wisdom, to the true and apranh~ (not in L+S; pranh~j s??? for prunhj = prene?) gnosis [2] of knowing thee the only (dm?oousik?) and living and true God of us, the holy and consubstantial triad, the all life-giving Father and Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and to all ages of ages, Amen.
It is then needful for us to refute the e0mpiplegmena (? … ? fulfilments e0mpimplhmi) issuing from ancient and virtuous men allegorically and variously and to unveil their sparks in their writings, by our grace from above, both to seek (or ? are these passive) out and to discover and display the same hidden mystery. We come to the question and problem of their systematisation according to intelligent men listening-as-pupils we learn what indeed the philosopher intends to have spoken before. Speak, O philosopher, and tell us the better way, by which the whole life of men is hastened (pressed down, overpowered), concerning which the multitude blindly desiring it, labour in vain. Speak to us of the experienced and fire-hot flame, begin the problem of the word. Uncover thy gifts. For we serve the living God. But O holy flock and lovers of wisdom, who wish to discover this, in (? dative) the consideration directed toward God [3] they are won…
OK, that’s not very clear, is it? That’s because I was transcribing it from a photocopy of a handwritten translation which I could barely read. The translation itself was forgotten, and rediscovered by me physically sorting through the papers of F. Sherwood Taylor at the Oxford Museum of the History of Science. Lectures 1-3 were translated by him and printed in Ambix before WW2. He made a first draft of the fourth, but never revised or published it, and its existence was forgotten.
In 2012 is the 75th anniversay of Ambix. Wouldn’t it be nice if a paper by Sherwood Taylor, one of the founders of the journal, appeared there for the first time? I thought so anyway, so I wrote to the editor, Peter Morris, and told him about the translation. He’s interested.
Of course there are problems. Firstly, we need a transcription. I’ve passed the PDF over to some people interested in alchemy in the US, who may or may not transcribe it. My contact is a little vague about what they’re doing with their alchemical transcriptions; I hope they’re not all trying to find the philosopher’s stone for real or something!
Secondly, the translation is not fit for publication as it stands. Sherwood Taylor would revise his translations several times. His first draft was handwritten; then he typed it up, and corrected that. Then he typed up a new version, incorporating the corrections, and corrected that, and so on until he was happy. At least four revisions of the other lectures 1-3 are among his papers.
So I have placed a post in CLASSICS-L asking for anyone competent in Greek and with knowledge of alchemy. I’ve already had a potential reply.
If all these people can be linked together, we will get a result!
Ever heard of the Cyranides?
Did you know that there is an ancient Greek text called the Cyranides? I certainly didn’t, until I saw a message in CLASSICS-L. A good article in Wikipedia tells me that it is a 4th century AD compilation in four books of Hermetic magical/medical texts, amulets, etc. An English translation exists of book 1.
Ancient references to Montanism
Daniel R. Jennings writes to say that he has compiled all the ancient references to Montanism in English into a single page. This must be useful to everyone, I would have thought. It’s at:
http://danielrjennings.org/AncientReferencesToMontanism.html
He adds:
I have attempted to compile ancient and medieval references to Montanism (the 2nd-6th century heretical group) from patristic literature. I ended up collecting references from the 2nd-12th centuries and then attempted to list them chronologically. There are a few texts that were not included but the majority of the ancient texts relating to Montanism are here (a total of some 100 pages if printed out on 8.5 x 11). For me it was a labor of love, something that I am sure you can sympathize with when it comes to the study of patristics. There are a few things that I would like to add in the future (I know that there is room for improvement to include more bibliographic data and the remaining missing texts) but I think that for the moment this can provide an excellent resource for anyone curious about the Montanists. To my knowledge there is nothing this extensive anywhere else on the web.
The Stapleton manuscripts in Oxford
An email brings news of an interesting collection of papers in the Museum of Science in Oxford. These are the papers of H.E.Stapleton, who was a contributor to Ambix, the scholarly journal of Alchemy, along with F. Sherwood Taylor who translated Stephen of Alexandria. I’ve also been sent a catalogue of the manuscripts, which are mainly Arabic or Syriac. There are copious unpublished translations into English from unpublished Arabic alchemical manuscripts. There are 40+ Arabic manuscripts, mostly late copies. My eye falls on correspondance with Louis Cheikho in Beirut about the library there. There are also translations from the German of published articles.
An sample entry is this (some extra formatting by me for readability):
136 Notebook, containing R. F. Azo’s edited Arabic text of Ibn Sina=s treatise for As-Sahli, and translations of the treatises of Jamas, Asfidus, and Agathodaimon
I cannot say that alchemy interests me. But I really feel that material such as this should be online and accessible. Much of it is in typescript. Here we have an edited critical edition of an Arabic text, sitting forgotten in a basement. Mss. 50-138 are full of interest.
My correspondant probably would like me to go to Oxford and photocopy some of it, and I suppose I could, although there is far too much to do in a day. But really he should go himself, and work with the papers. After all, most of the authors are just names to me, and I would probably miss stuff of the highest importance.
But considering the quantity of unpublished English material, these papers really should go online.