Category: Ancient world

Let’s do that jargon thing, Mr. Porphyry

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve started translating Porphyry’s Ad Gaurum, on how unborn babies get souls.  It uses quite a few technical terms, and although I have Festugiere’s French translation to hand, examination of the Greek is unavoidable, and puzzling over what each word means likewise.

Porphyry begins his treatise thus:

In general, men of learning and almost all physicians have wondered whether it is necessary to consider embryos [1] as living beings, or whether they have merely a vegetative [2] life.  The real character of living beings is perception [3] and impulses [4].  Vegetative beings are those which have the functions of nutrition and growth without the accompaniment of perception and impulses.  Therefore, since embryos, in their behaviour, show no imagination or impulses,  and are governed only by the functions of growth and nutrition, as evidenced by observation in each case, it is necessary to admit that embryos are similar to plants, or equivalent to plants. 

Now all four words marked with notes seem to be  technical terms. 

Note 1, ’embryo’, is ἔμβρυον, which Festugiere renders “embryo” but I suspect means specifically “unborn baby”.  (Am I alone in detesting the word and use of the term ‘foetus’ to refer to such?)

Note 2, ‘vegetative’, is φυτικός, plant-like, which I have so far treated with “vegetative”.  But I wonder if there is a better word to use?

Note 3, ‘perception’, is αἴσθησις , or perhaps judgement, discernment, rendered as “sensibility” by Festugiere (shades of Jane Austen!).  I’m not happy that I understand what is being said here.

Note 4, ‘impulses’, is ὁρμῇ, which Festugiere renders as l’impulsion.  Amusingly this is rendered in NT Greek as “assault”, and with a range of meanings in LSJ.

Then I discovered this version of a Bryn Mawr review of Luc Brisson, Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, Jean-Luc Solère (ed.), L’Embryon: formation et animation. Antiquité grecque et latine, traditions hèbraïque, chrétienne et islamique. Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquité classique 38.   Paris, 2008.

[Véronique Boudon-Millot] first reviews the widely differing views of [Galen’s] predecessors (Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics) and pays attention to the almost insoluble translation problems as far as terms like Greek kuêma (embryo) and embruon (foetus) are concerned. She finally argues that in Galen’s (and others’) view an embryo does have life from the beginning but that is a form of life ‘in potency‘ that only gradually develops into life in the full sense of the word. Stages in that development are, e.g., the beginning of heartbeat and of movements, and the final stage is of course breathing that is only reached at birth.  …

Next, Tiziano Dorandi discusses the textual history of Ad Gaurum, a work formerly attributed to Galen, but since Kalbfleisch’s edition of 1895 to Porphyry. This important treatise is wholly dedicated to the question of how an embryo is ensouled, but has been preserved in only one manuscript. Dorandi traces the indirect tradition of the text in the form of quotations and paraphrases in later authors such as John Philoponus and Michael Psellus and assesses their value as textual witnesses.

Gwenaëlle Aubry also focuses on Ad Gaurum but deals only with its concept of epitêdeiotês: the embryo is said to be a plant in actu but also a living being in potency kat’ epitêdeiotêta, which she translates by ‘according to receptivity.’ “Si l’on peut, selon Porphyre, dire de l’embryon qu’il est animal en-puissance, c’est donc en un tout autre sens que celui qu’ entend Aristote: ce n’est pas parce qu’il serait capable, déja comme embryon, et à un certain stade de son evolution, de developper par lui-même les facultés distinctives de l’animal, mais parce qu’il est, à la naissance, et à terme seulement, apte à recevoir l’âme animal” (155).  …

Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, too, like Dorandi, deals with the Byzantine reception history of Porphyry’s Ad Gaurum, especially in John Philoponus (who uses it as one of his sources for opposite arguments), Michael Psellus (who by and large agrees with Porphyry), and the 14th century anonymous author of Hermippus sive de astrologia (who combats Porphyry’s embryological ideas). There is some overlap with Dorandi’s piece here, but only to a limited degree, for Congourdeau is more interested in the Byzantines’ philosophical argumentation than in their value for textual criticism.

Who says you can’t find useful technical information on the web?  Now if only I could find the book online!  But sadly I don’t know where French-speaking pirates hang out.  I’m not sure, in truth, that my French would be quite equal to so technical a discussion anyway; for all these essays are in French.  But even this review has given me something.

Share

Porphyry Ad Gaurum in Festugiere’s translation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The volume of Festugiere, La Revelation d’Hermes Trismegiste III, which contains a French version of Porphyry Ad Gaurum, has arrived!  My local library is open late on Tuesdays, and I drove into town and collected it. 

All I’ve read so far is the opening portion of the prologue, in which Porphyry argues that unborn children and newborn babies are properly vegetables in nature, rather than living sentient beings.  I fear we all know what motive lies behind such an argument — a defence, against Christian criticism, of the evil pagan practices of procuring abortion and infanticide.    Dehumanising those whom we propose to treat in an inhumane manner is a standard method whereby men who are set on evil deeds attempt to quiet their consciences.

Still, it should make for an interesting read.  There is no English translation.  Festugiere’s translation is clear and accessible.  I may run it over into English.  First I need to explore the volume a  bit  more, and see what else he says about it. 

It also contains a translation of Iamblichus On the Soul, a work about which I know nothing.  Iamblichus was the he-witch who successfully played on the gullibility of Julian the Apostate and lured him to practice theurgy, or so I believe we are told by Libanius.

Share

A description of Alexandria in Achilles Tatius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A review at Bryn Mawr draws my attention to a new book on the famous library by Monica Berti, La Biblioteca di Alessandria.  But the review (in English) mentions descriptions of Alexandria in ancient literature.  One of these is at the start of book 5 of the 2nd century novel by Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon. 

Like most people I have never paid any attention to this work.  So it was a pleasure to have a reason to go and look at it.  The 1917 Loeb edition and translation is at Archive.org — aren’t these old online Loebs useful! — here.  Here’s the relevant passage, over-paragraphed by me for readability.

1. After a voyage lasting for three days, we arrived at Alexandria. I entered it by the Sun Gate, as it is called, and was instantly struck by the splendid beauty of the city, which filled my eyes with delight.

From the Sun Gate to the Moon Gate — these are the guardian divinities of the entrances — led a straight double row of columns, about the middle of which lies the open part of the town, and in it so many streets that walking in them you would fancy yourself abroad while still at home. Going a few hundred yards further, I came to the quarter called after Alexander, where I saw a second town; the splendour of this was cut into squares, for there was a row of columns intersected by another as long at right angles.

I tried to cast my eyes down every street, but my gaze was still unsatisfied, and I could not grasp all the beauty of the spot at once; some parts I saw, some I was on the point of seeing, some I earnestly desired to see, some I could not pass by; that which I actually saw kept my gaze fixed, while that which I expected to see would drag it on to the next.

I explored therefore every street, and at last, my vision unsatisfied, exclaimed in weariness, “Ah, my eyes, we are beaten.”

Two things struck me as especially strange and extraordinary — it was impossible to decide which was the greatest, the size of the place or its beauty, the city itself or its inhabitants ; for the former was larger than a continent, the latter outnumbered a whole nation. Looking at the city, I doubted whether any race of men could ever fill it; looking at the inhabitants, I wondered whether any city could ever be found large enough to hold them all. The balance seemed exactly even.

2. It so fortuned that it was, at that time, the sacred festival of the great god whom the Greeks call Zeus, the Egyptians Serapis, and there was a procession of torches. It was the greatest spectacle I ever beheld, for it was late evening and the sun had gone down ; but there was no sign of night — it was as though another sun had arisen, but distributed into small parts in every direction; I thought that on that occasion the city vied with the sky for beauty.

I also visited the Gracious Zeus and his temple in his aspect as god of Heaven; and then praying to the great god and humbly imploring him that our troubles might be at last at an end, we came back to the lodgings which Menelaus had hired for us.  …

6. … On the morrow came Chaereas at dawn: for very shame we could make no further excuses and got aboard a boat to go to Pharos; Menelaus stayed behind, saying that he was not well.

Chaereas first took us to the light-house and showed us the most remarkable and extraordinary structure upon which it rested; it was like a mountain, almost reaching the clouds, in the middle of the sea. Below the building flowed the waters; it seemed to be, as it were, suspended above their surface, while at the top of this mountain rose a second sun to be a guide for ships.

After this he took us to his house, which was on the shore at the extremity of the island. …

14. … [A rich Ephesian woman living in Alexandria wants to marry the hero] … it was agreed upon between us that the next day we should meet at the temple of Isis in order to discuss our future and take the goddess as witness to our troth. Menelaus and Clinias came there with us, and we took oaths, I to love her honourably, and she to make me her husband and declare me master of all that she possessed.

Note the reference in chapter 2 to street-lighting!

This is all that Achilles Tatius gives us about the city.  It’s rather vague; but of course the author had no notion that his work would be scanned by readers 18 centuries later for clues about ancient Alexandria, any more than I consider some possible future reader of these words, of two centuries hence, who impatiently scans these paragraphs of tedious-seeming antiquarianism on the off-chance that it may contain a description of modern London!  We do not describe what we see every day, until it is vanished.

Share

If only we had a time-machine to take us back to ancient Rome!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Reading in bed can be perilous.  I was just reading this in Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights (book 5, ch. 4), and had to get up and write about it:

4.  On the word duovicesimus, which is unknown to the general public, but occurs frequently in the writings of the learned.

I chanced to be sitting in a bookshop in the Sigillaria 1 with the poet Julius Paulus, the most learned man within my memory; and there was on sale there the Annals of Fabius 2 in a copy of good and undoubted age, which the dealer maintained was without errors.  But one of the better known grammarians, who had been called in by a purchaser to inspect the book, said that he had found in it one error; but the bookseller for his part offered to wager any amount whatever that there was not a mistake even in a single letter. The grammarian pointed out the following passage in the fourth book:  “Therefore it was then that for the first time one of the two consuls was chosen from the plebeians, in the twenty-second (duovicesimo) year after the Gauls captured Rome.”  “It ought,” to read, not duovicesimo, but duo et vicesimo or twenty-second; for what is the meaning of duovicesimo?” . . . 3 Varro in the sixteenth book of his Antiquities of Man; there he wrote as follows: “He died in the twenty-second year (duovicesimo); he was king for twenty-one years.” . . .

1. Quintus Fabius Pictor, who was sent as an envoy to Delphi after the battle of Cannae (216 B.C.), wrote a history of Rome from the coming of Aeneas to his own time. He wrote in Greek, but a Latin version is mentioned also by Quintilian (I.6.12) and was used by Varro and by Cicero.
2.  A street or quarter in Rome where the little images were sold which were given as presents at the festival of the Sigillaria.
3. There is a lacuna in the text which might be filled by “This question might be answered by.”

 Ah, which of us would not wish to be there, back in 160 AD, sitting in that bookshop in the Sigillaria, and looking over the shoulder of Aulus Gellius and Julius Paulus, as they examine the aged copy of the archaic Latin Annals of Q. Fabius Pictor!   What lover of books cannot sigh at the thought of that book, of “undoubted age”.

I wonder just how long it was, after that event, that the very last copy of Pictor’s work vanished from the world?

(Thanks to Bill Thayer for the text here).

Share

The transmission of Aulus Gellius down to our own days

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Texts and Transmissions tells me that the fundamental edition of Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights is the editio maior of M. Hertz, Berlin, 1883-5 (2 vols).  This is online in two volumes here(1883) and here (1885), although the title pages in these two PDF’s seem to have been exchanged.  The Teubner text of C. Hosius (1903) involved no new work on the manuscripts, and the most recent full critical edition is the Oxford Classical Texts edition Noctes Atticae by P. K. Marshall (1968), 2 vols.  Rene Marache has produced a Bude edition, Les Nuits Attiques

Some details of the transmission and publication of the text are accessible to all in Google books preview here of Leofranc Holford-Strevens Aulus Gellius: an Antonine scholar and his achievement, which seems to be an excellent volume indeed. 

The Attic Nights are quoted a lot in ancient times, as such a compilation of anecdotes and learning was bound to be.  Apuleius (De Mundo 13-14); Lactantius (Epit. inst. div. 24.5), Nonius and Ammianus Marcellinus and Macrobius in many places, and the Historia Augusta 28.1.1, together with Servius (Commentary on the Aenid 5.738, and on the Georgics 1.260 and Aen. 7.740) and Augustine in the City of God 9.4.

We have a fourth century manuscript, even, a palimpsest, written in rustic capitals and containing large parts of books 1-2 and some of 3-4.  It also has the chapter headings for books 17-18 presented continuously, indicating that when new the codex originally contained all 20 books, with the headings at the front, immediately after the preface.

Incidentally I have complained before about the manner in which the unmeaning non-English word “lemma” is tossed around in classical studies, attached to a range of objects as a jargon word.  In scholia it denotes the couple of words of quotation from the main text, to which the scholion relates.  In dictionaries it means the word in its base form, nominative singular etc.  But it seems that yet another use is found in Aulus Gellius studies, where “lemmata” means the index of chapter titles!   To scholars I say: Enough!  Stop using  this word.  It’s simply a barrier to ordinary people.

Back to the text of Aulus Gellius.  It was transmitted in two halves; but instead of books 1-10 and 11-20, as we might expect, it has reached us in books 1-7 and 9-20.  Book 8 is lost.

Books 1-7 are known to us from four manuscripts from France, of the 12-13th century.  There are also quotations in a couple of anthologies.

Books 9-20 are known to us from three families of manuscripts.  The first of these is a single manuscript written at Fulda in 836, as a group effort, on the orders of Rabanus Maurus for Servatus Lupus.  But no-one ever seems to have copied it.  There is a second family of four manuscripts, 9th, 10th, 12th century, plus one 15th century copy written by the great Florentine collector Niccolo Niccoli himself, probably from a 9th century ms., and which was the parent of all the renaissance copies, presumably because it was the easiest to read and most accessible.  There is a third family of three manuscripts of the 12-13th century.

The two halves of the text were first put back together in the early 15th century.  But one other important event took place then.  Someone, somewhere — we don’t know who or where — found something present in no manuscript now extant.  He found the chapter headings for book 8, the lost book; and he found the ending for book 20.  These were added to the printed edition, and appear first in the edition in Venice in 1493.  Hertz discusses this in vol.1 p.406, note; the italics are Hertz’ words, while the normal text is quotations from somewhat vaguely specified early editions.  All they say is that the material came from an “old copy”.

Share

Armenian versions of Michael the Syrian

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The massive world chronicle of Michael the Syrian, composed during the crusader period, survives in a single manuscript in a box in Aleppo.  The box has two locks, each held by a senior figure in two different churches.  Access is difficult.

Making things worse is that J.-B. Chabot in the early 20th century somehow got access, and somehow surreptiously made a copy.  Quite how you can surreptiously make a copy of something the size of two telephone directories I don’t know, but he did.  He published it with French translation — we may all be grateful for this, since many Syriac books were destroyed in WW1 — but the owners still remember, and are still angry with him.

The opening portion of the chronicle is lost.  But an Armenian version preserves the preface, which Langlois’ edition of 1868 (French only) makes available online.

Few people seem to know much about the Armenian versions of Michael the Syrian.  But from Michael E. Stone, The Armenian texts of Epiphanius of Salamis De mensuris et ponderibus, CSCO 583, Subsidia 105 (2000) — an excellent text, fromwhat little I can see in the preview — on p.25, I learn this:

Vardan Arewelc’i translated Michael’s Chronicle into Armenian in the year 1246, with the assistance of the Syrian priest Ishox and at the request of the Armenian Catholicos Constantine.  See N. Bogharian, Armenian Writers, 296.

He also refers to an article by F. Haase, Die armenischen Rezensionen des syrischen Chronik Michael des Grossen, Oriens Christianus NS 5 (1915), 60-82, 211-284.  That ought to be online somewhere!  Apparently this indicates that more than one version exists or existed.  He also indicates that material from Moses of Chorene contaminates the translation of Vardan Arewelc’i.

 Another link indicates another article: Andrea Schmidt, Die zweifache armenische Rezension der syrischen Chronik Michaels des Grossen, Le Museon 109 (1996), p.299-319.  This seems to be inaccessible to proles like you and I, but searching around the web reveals that this has been mentioned to me before here in a useful set of comments.  Andrea Schmidt has a home page here, with a long bibliography.  I do wish that some of it was online.

I also find D. Weltecke’s article in English on the chronicle here in PDF form.  This useful introduction tells me that there are two versions, published in Jerusalem in 1870 and 1871 (but not what the titles etc are).  A book in German by Dorothea Weltecke, Die “Beschreibung der Zeiten” von Mōr Michael dem Grossen (1126-1199) is online in preview here, where on p.7 we read more about the history of these versions, and a review of previous research.

So … a rather inconclusive result.  I’ve gained a little impression of the subject, but not much.  I was hoping to locate an Armenian text online, although not with much hope.

Share

The manuscripts of Juvenal

Posted on by Roger Pearse

L. D. Reynolds, Texts and Transmissions: A survey of the Latin classics, Oxford 1983, is the first port of call for any enquiry into the transmission of any of the Latin classics.  On p.200-3 is the article by R. J. Tarrant on Juvenal.

Juvenal went through a period of obscurity after his own times.  Not cited by Donatus, or Jerome, he is referenced more than 70 times in the commentaries on Virgil by Servius.  Some of the manuscripts include subscriptions which suggest Servius may have been connected to their rediscovery: ms. K, for instance, contains Lego ego Niceus apud M. Serbium Romae et emendavi — I, Nicaeus, read this at the house of M. Servius in Rome and corrected it, and ms. L a version of the same.

More than 500 manuscripts later than the 9th century exist.  Unfortunately, by the 4th century, a considerable number of spurious lines  had already found their way into many copies of the text.  Difficult language was sometimes replaced by simpler expressions.  The vast majority of the medieval manuscripts derive from such corrupted copies.

As a rule we tend to find that medieval manuscripts go back to a single Dark Ages exemplar, or perhaps a few.  In the case of Juvenal, however, we can clearly see that two ancient families of manuscripts both gave rise to medieval children.  For in addition to the majority, we have a few manuscripts which preserve a more correct and less interpolated text, although the text itself is often rather more corrupt than in the interpolated copies.

The better mss. are:

  • P:   Montpellier H 125, first quarter of the 9th century, from Lorsch (online here).  Once owned by Pierre Pithou, who used it for his edition of 1585.  The Pithoeanus is the best and most important manuscript of Juvenal.  It also contains Persius.
  • Arou.:  Aarau, Stadtarchiv I, Nr. 0. The fragmenta Arouiensia.  These are five leaves from a destroyed manuscript of the 10th century, written in Germany, and broken up to use in bindings.  They are now in the Stadtarchiv in Aarau  (website here) An enquiry by email to them got the reply: “Das Juvenal-Fragment befindet sich im Stadtarchiv Aarau, I Nr. 0, vgl.: Katalog der mittelalterlichen Handschriften des Klosters Wettingen ; Katalog der mittelalterlichen Handschriften in Aarau, Laufenburg, Lenzburg, Rheinfelden und Zofingen, S. 195f.”.  It also contains scholia, which are important for several reasons.  Firstly each scholion is introduced by a quotation of a few words from the text.  These headwords or lemmata are themselves valuable for the authentic text.  Secondly the scholion itself sometimes reflects a different version of those same words, showing that the two were put together at different times.
  • Sang.:  St. Gall ms. 870, second quarter of the 9th century.  This is a florilegium — an anthology — which contains 280 lines of Juvenal.  Pp.40-326 contain the ancient scholia.
  • R:  Paris latin. 8072, from the end of the 10th century, probably French, containing long sections of the text.
  • V:  Vienna 107, end of the 9th century, containing book 1, line 1 – book 2, l.59 and book 3.107-5.96.

P, Arou. and Sang. are very closely related.  The first two are almost identical, with the text even laid out in the same manner on the page.  R and V are less reliable, and V has been much influenced by the other family.

The remaining manuscripts — hundreds of them — are hard to classify.  No stemma can be constructed because cross-contamination is so general, and even geographical groupings are pretty blurred.  This will not surprise any manuscript enthusiast.  For heavy lumps of wood and parchment, manuscripts travel about just as much as rock groups on tour, or so it seems sometimes.

Finally there are some fragments of ancient books containing Juvenal.  Two pages of a 6th century volume exist in ms. Vatican lat. 5750, with scholia, and also a portion of Persius.  More pages from a different 6th century book exist in Milan in ms. Ambrosianus Cimelio 3.  Finally a parchment leaf from Antinoe, ca. 500 AD, contains 49 lines of book 7.  None of these fragments agrees consistently with either of the medieval groups, unfortunately.

By the last decade of the 4th century, Juvenal had been equipped with a substantial commentary, which is the source for our scholia vetera (there are also Carolingian scholia), found in the three mss. P, Arou. and Sang.  Mommsen discussed the date of the commentary in his Gesammelte Schriften 7 (1909), p.509-11: Zeitalter des Scholiasten Juvenals.  The scholia must post-date 352-3, since there is a reference in the scholion on Juvenal book 10, l.24 to a praefectus urbis named Cerealis.  But much of the material must be older, or so the footnote says.  It can hardly date later than the abolition of paganism — the scholiast shows little knowledge of Christianity, and resorts to quoting Tacitus.  It is difficult to believe that the compulsory state religion could be unknown in the 5th century, and indeed the writer says that the gods are still worshipped.  The festival of the Matronalia is a state festival, as it still is shown in the Chronography of 354, but not in that of 449.  Likewise the term used for the silver coinage is not the silliqua of the 5th century, but the older terms argenteolus or nummus.

Mommsen concludes  that the commentary was composed ca. 400 AD, and that later, as is usual with ancient commentaries, it was pillaged for the materials to create the scholia in the margins of the new-fangled codex-style books.

Share

The scholia on Juvenal

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few days ago I managed to find an edition of the “scholia vetera” on Juvenal, in an 1839 edition .  It starts on p.153, here.   It’s not a critical edition.  Indeed I believe the critical edition is that of 1937, but this is not accessible to me.  So … let’s make do with what we have.

The scholia begin with a vita.  Then the scholia begin, starting with some remarks on Semper ego…? (Why should I always…?)  I can’t help feeling that the scholia could usefully be translated.

Share

UV light to reveal colours of ancient statuary?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting article here via Dyspepsia Generation:

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be all that’s required to see them as they were thousands of years ago.

Something about this reporting — reproduced widely on non-scholarly sites — makes me nervous.  It’s not very coherent, and no sources are quoted, no researchers given.  The source for the images is supposed to be a certain Venzenz Brinkmann, and there is yet another non-scholarly item — a PDF — here.

Share

Translations of ancient Greek literature into Middle Persian

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In 529 AD the emperor Justinian closed the Academy in Athens.  The remaining heirs of Plato chose to travel to the court of the Sassanid Persian King of Kings in order to continue  their studies there.  Finding conditions among the barbarians uncongenial, in time they returned. 

But it raises the question of why we never hear of translations of Greek literature into Persian.  The Persian empire was a potent adjacent power throughout the Greek classical period, and revived in the 3rd century and continued down to the Moslem conquest in the 7th century. 

I never read L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (3rd) without learning something.  On page 256 I learn that a few texts are indeed extant in translations into Pehlevi. 

Wilson lists four texts: the novel about Alexander the Great known as ps.Callisthenes; the Geoponica; and two astrological texts, the handbook of Vettius Valens which we have discussed before, plus Teucer of Babylon’s Paranatellonta, which is a new text to me.

Wilson references “Studies presented to E. G. Browne, 1922” (in his usual casual fashion), which turns out to be A Volume of Oriental Studies Presented to Edward G. Browne on his 60th birthday (7 February 1922), and thankfully online at Archive.org.  The specific article is that by C. A. Nallino, which turns out to be on p.345-363 and entitled Tracce di opere greche giunte agli Arabi per trafila Pehlevica.  Unless my eyes deceive me, this is about texts which ended up in Arabic via Persian, rather than about Greek texts in general.  The article merely discusses these four texts, and the evidence for them.

It would seem, therefore, that there might be more, were one to look.

Share