Category: Ancient world

Divus and Deus in Varro and Servius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Hans Dampf has made a series of very interesting and learned comments on a post of mine about an inscription calling Julius Caesar god.  If you haven’t seen these, you probably want to.

In particular he has tracked down and translated two statements by Servius, the 5th century commentator on Vergil, which illuminate the way in which the Latin terms deus (god) and divus (divinity) diverged in meaning as emperors were deified. 

I won’t repost all of Hans’ comments, which can be read there.  But I will repost what he gives from Servius, discussing “deus/dii” against “divus/divi”, as I think it will be of general interest.  The works by Varro etc are lost.

(1) Servius, Ad Ad Aeneidem 12.139 (= Varro, De Lingua Latina fragment 2, edition Goetz-Schoell)

Deus autem vel dea generale nomen est omnibus: nam quod graece δέος, latine timor vocatur, inde deus dictus est, quod omnis religio sit timoris. Varro ad Ciceronem tertio: “ita respondeant cur dicant deos, cum [de] omnibus antiqui dixerint divos”.

Translation: “Deus or dea is the general term for all [gods]. […] Varro to Cicero in the third book [of De lingua Latina]: ‘That is the reply they would give as to why they say dii, when the ancients said divi about them all.’”

(2) Serv. Ad Aen. 5.45 (= Varro fr. 424, Grammaticae Romanae fragmenta, ed. Funaioli)

divum et deorum indifferenter plerumque ponit poeta, quamquam sit discretio, ut deos perpetuos dicamus, divos ex hominibus factos, quasi qui diem obierint; unde divos etiam imperatores vocamus. Sed Varro et Ateius contra sentiunt, dicentes divos perpetuos deos qui propter sui consecrationem timentur, ut sunt dii manes.

Translation: “The poet [Virgil] usually employs ‘of the divi‘ [divum] and ‘of the dii‘ [deorum] indifferently, although there should be a distinction in that we call the immortals dii, whereas divi are created from men, inasmuch as they have ended their days; from which we likewise call [dead] emperors divi. But Varro and Ateius hold the opposite opinion, claiming that divi are eternal, whereas dii are such as are held in honour because they have been deified, such as is the case with the dii manes.

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Magnetic images at Caistor St. Edmunds

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Nottingham University have done a geophysical survey of the Roman town of Caistor St. Edmunds.  The images are splendid, and confirm the town plan.

The town lies outside modern Norwich, in a large field grazed by sheep.  The Roman walls rise around it, battered but still impressive.  A church stands in one corner.  The site is visible from the A140 Ipswich to Norwich road, and is well worth a visit.  There are no tourist amenities there, no tickets to buy.  I always walk a circuit around the Roman walls — it isn’t that far!

 

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An new hero takes on the ancient astronomical works

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve just discovered http://www.wilbourhall.org/index.html.  This site deals with Mathematics, and Mathematical Astronomy in the works of ancient writers.  It does so by getting hold of whatever texts exist and fixing the errors in the Google scans and so forth.  If you want the complete works of Hero of Alexandria, they’re here.  Archimedes, Ptolemy… likewise.  Arabic writers?  They too.  The author, Joe Leichter, writes:

I hope to make available public domain materials that are essential for the study of ancient and early modern mathematics and mathematical astronomy. Google, for example, has done some things to achieve this through its books.google.com project. However, like most other efforts at digitally copying non digital materials, “mistakes were made”. For example, Google currently has several (all incomplete) versions of Teubner’s’s edition of Euclid available for download. Most of these unfortunately contain page after page that are illegible, missing, out of order or otherwise unusable.

The man is a hero.  Ancient scientific works are a horrendously neglected part of the ancient world, because they require skills and interest in both the humanities and the sciences.  Still more neglected are the Byzantine writers on this subject.

All this from a blog that I had not seen before, opuculuk by Nick Nicholas, reporting on a search that he did on the works of Chioniades.  (Nick works for the TLG, and was working on their lemmatizer, when he started to come across chunks of untranslated Arabic in the scientific works of Chioniades.  Mr. C., a 12th century writer, had been taking lessons from some Persian, so had got a whole load of jargon for his pains!)

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A famous passage of Gregory of Nyssa… but where from?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Everyone has read this:

Everywhere, in the public squares, at crossroads, on the streets and lanes, people would stop you and discourse at random about the Trinity. If you asked something of a moneychanger, he would begin discussing the question of the Begotten and the Unbegotten. If you questioned a baker about the price of bread, he would answer that the Father is greater and the Son is subordinate to Him. If you went to take a bath, the Anomoean bath attendant would tell you that in his opinion the Son simply comes from nothing.

But… where in his works does Gregory of Nyssa say this?  And does an English translation exist?

UPDATE: From the discussion in the comments (which includes the Greek), I learn that the work is his Oratio de deitate Filii et Spiriti Sancti, (= Oration on the deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) which is printed in PG 46, and the passage is on col. 557, section B.   (It’s in the modern 1996 edition of Gregory’s works also, but of course no normal person would have access to that.[1])  An offline (!) German translation of the whole treatise exists in V. H. Drecoll and M. Berghaus (eds.), Gregory of Nyssa : The Minor Treatises on Trinitarian Theology and Apollinarism (Brill 2011).  But … a complete French translation exists, made by Matthieu Cassin, and is online! The direct link is here, and a PDF at the bottom contains the whole article. Our phrase is on p.11 of the PDF, p.591 of the article.   (For those without French, be aware that Google Translate does French-to-English very well.)  Thank you to everyone who contributed!

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  1. [1]“De deitate filii et spiritus sancti et in Abraham” in Gregorii Nysseni Opera vol. X part 2 (ed. E. Rhein), Brill, 1996.↩

Reference to Mithras in the Commentary of Servius?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A strange Jewish anti-Christian site here has the following claim:

Plutarch (Pompey, 24, 7) and Servilius (Georgics, 4, 127) say Pompey imported Mithraism into Rome after defeating the Cilician pirates around 70 BCEE.

This is starting to circulate around the web, and caught my eye.  We all know the Plutarch reference, and it says only that the Cilician pirates worshipped Mithras (which may be a mistake anyway).  But the “Servilius” reference is new to me.  This, I presume, is Servius, the 4th century commentator on Vergil?

The commentary of Servius on the Georgics is online at Google books here.   The comment on the Georgics 4, 127 is on p.354 of the PDF, p.329 online. So, what does it say?

127. CORYCIVM Vidisse SENEM Cilica: Corycos enim civitas est Ciliciae, in qua antrum illud famosum est, paene ab omnibus celebratum. et per transitum tangit historiam memoratam a Suetonio. Pompeius enim victis piratis Cilicibus partim ibidem in Graecia, partim in Calabria agros dedit: unde Lucanus <I 346> an melius fient piratae, magne, coloni? male autem quidam ‘Corycium’ proprium esse adserunt nomen, cum sit appellativum eius, qui more Corycio hortos excoluit: quod etiam Plinii testimonio conprobatur. Vidisse Senem ordo est ‘memini vidisse’. dicimus autem et ‘memini videre’: Terentius memini videre, quo aequior sum Pamphilo, si se illam in somnis. Relicti deserti atque contempti; quis enim agrum non sperneret nulli rei aptum, non vitibus aut frumentis vel pascuis? et aliter: ‘Corycium’ autem Cilicia, a monte et civitate Cïliciae Coryco. alii Corycium non natione, sed peritia, quod haec gens studiose hortos colat. et sic dictum est, ut Arcades ambo.

No mention of Mithras.  But this states that Pompey settled the Cilician pirates, partly in Greece and partly in Calabria. 

I wonder what Servius’ source was?

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Still thinking of Lebanon

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’d like to go to Baalbek, and see the temple of the sun.  Indeed I’d like to visit Syria.  But these days I tend to insist on 5* hotels!

Some weeks ago I saw Voyages Jules Verne’s Restoration Story tour.  Seven days, including three in Beirut, including a trip to Palmyra and Baalbek.  It sounds wonderful.

But of course the political situation is a factor.  I have no desire to get involved in Near-East politics!  The Lebanese election this week returned a vaguely sensible government; but I think I will wait a little and see whether it calms things down before booking.

I’m in the process of dumping my existing credit card provider; when the new one comes through, I’ll look at this again.

Postscript: or maybe not.  Their September departure won’t accept any single travellers.  Oh well.

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Israelis visiting Petra

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This article cheered me up today.  It relates how Jordan and Israel are working together to facilitate tourism to Petra.  Israeli tour guides take parties to the border, and hand them over to Jordanian guides who take them to Petra for the day.

It’s pleasant to see animosity giving way to a chance to make money together.  And the Jordanians are quite right!  All these Israelis have money, and are willing to hand it over to the Jordanians in exchange for tickets to Petra, maps, souvenirs, cans of Pepsi, bus-travel, guide services, hotels…  the list goes on and on.  A lot of Jordanians will get rich.  Most Jordanians will become better off. 

Tourism is such a big business that only really, really stupid countries don’t get in on it.  Arnold Swarzengger appears on UK television, promoting tourism to California, because it’s serious money.  Even the most hideous despot — and Jordan is not run by one! — recognises that coaches full of foreign tourists bearing dollars is A Good Thing, and a very profitable form of farming.  Egypt runs Luxor these days pretty much as a tourist farm; and quite rightly too.

Someone in Jordan has had a very clever idea.  Good for them.

(Thanks to Paleojudaica for the tip).

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Pricing John the Lydian, De Mensibus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

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…!

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Anti-Christian posting and an inscription about Julius Caesar

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The quantity of anti-Christian scribbling in online fora is extraordinary.  Much of it presents “evidence” which is supposed to undermine Christianity.  It can be an interesting task to take this material, and verify it — something that the posters never do, curiously — and see what, if anything it is based on.

I came across the following in the last few days, used as a “signature”.  This is the entire text:

“Gaius Julius Caesar…Chief Priest…God made manifest and common Saviour of Mankind.” (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum 2957 [48/47])

I think we can see that this is intended as some form of anti-Christian comment, since there is no apparent reason to post it otherwise on all one’s posts.  But what is the argument?  It is insinuated, rather than stated.  This is a common way to cast doubt on something by means of an argument that wouldn’t bear examination, if clearly and openly stated.  That’s the first problem with this.

The next question is whether the item is what it appears to be.  It is a good general principle never to trust these sorts of “quotes”.  They can be wrong, misleading, selectively edited, and the “references” may be fake.  The presence of dots indicates some massaging is going on; the use of Christian-sounding language likewise.  But it’s fun to find out!

The CIG is a 19th collection of inscriptions, so is out of copyright.  Annoyingly it does not seem to be online.  But a google search reveals a quote from it in an online source, L. M. Sweet, Roman Emperor worship (1919).

The conclusion that Caesar favored his own deification has been questioned, but it seems to me the evidence indicates that he went rather far. At any rate, epigraphic evidence for the deification of Cassar at the time of his pro-consulship in Bithynia can be cited.95 Hirschfeld maintains that the deification of proconsuls was a customary and accepted procedure. Pompey and Antony were so honored as well as Caesar. It is interesting to note, and may go down on the credit side of Cicero’s career that he was offered honors like these and refused them, partly on the ground that they rightly belonged to the gods and the Roman people. 

95. An Ephesian inscription (C. I. G. 2957) of the year 48-47 B.C. speaks of Caesar in a way that is strongly reminiscent of Egypt and the Ptolemies as: τὸν Αρεω καὶ Aφροδείτης θεὸν ἐποφανὴ καὶ κοινὸν τοῦ ἀνθρωπινου βιοῦ σωτῆρα. Of like tenor are C. I. G., 2369, 2214g, 2215, 2957 and C. I. A., III 428.  …

Even from this, clearly incomplete quotation, we can see at once that using this description of Caesar as if he was a parallel to Christ is misleading.

A look at the Greek shows that it mentions Ares and Aphrodite.  The Hellenistic term “soter” (saviour) appears, as it does for so many Seleucid or Ptolemaic monarchs.

My Greek is still minimal and I don’t have my books, but some of this looks suspect, even now.  I’ll have to try it out in my Greek translator software!  It should be a good test.

And… does anyone have the full text?

Later: Silly me.  It’s in the PHI database:

Ephesos 948.    Honorary inscription for Gaius Iulius Caesar by poleis, [demoi], and ethne (of Hellenes) in Asia; 48 BC; found at Ephesos: CIG 2957; LW 142; Syll3 760; Tuchelt, Frühe Denkm. 141; *IEph 251.

IEph 251

αἱ πόλεις αἱ ἐν τῆι Ἀσίαι καὶ οἱ καὶ τὰ ἔθνη Γάϊον Ἰούλιον Γαΐοὸν Καίσαρα, τὸν ἀρχιερέα καὶ αὐτοκράτορα καὶ τὸ δεύτερον ὕπατον, τὸν ἀπὸ Ἄρεως καὶ Ἀφροδετης θεὸν ἐπιφανῆ καὶ κοινὸν τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου βίου σωτῆρα.

Soter at the end agrees with Kaisara, of course.

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Old hoaxes; Notovitch, Jacolliot, Jesus and India

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The internet has given new life to some old hoaxes.  The idea that Jesus visited India and left otherwise unknown gospels there was advanced by a certain Notovitch in the 19th century.  I have just seen it appear again, all innocent and oblivious of criticism, in a crank discussion forum here.  Long ago I scanned some articles from Nineteenth Century magazine, in which the efficient British administrators of India went and interviewed the Tibetan lamas, with whom he supposedly communicated.

Rereading that article, I found references to other hoaxes in Max Muller’s comments. 

Be that as it may, M. Notovitch is not the first traveller in the East to whom Brâhmans or Buddhists have supplied, for a consideration, the information and even the manuscripts which they were in search of. Wilford’s case ought to have served as a warning, but we know it did not serve as a warning to M. Jacolliot when he published his Bible dans l’Inde from Sanskrit originals, supplied to him by learned Pandits at Chandranagor.

 Thanks to Google books, Mr Jacolliot’s book is available to read here, in the 1875 English translation.  The table of contents alone raises suspicions: long chapters on subjects like “Christian morality”, of no evident relevance, pad out the volume.  For as we know, most of these hoaxes are published for money, and a long book can be sold for more.  Sadly, after reading some 50 pages, I was unable to induce myself to read more.  The animosity of the author against the Christians was only equal to the vagueness of his rhetoric.  We must congratulate Dr Muller, that he managed to find something of substance in all this.

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