Category: Announcements
General announcements
A wooden model of Old St Peter’s
I found this on Wikimedia Commons here, and adjusted the image to make it clearer.
Old St Peters, the Circus of Caligula and the Phrygianum
The Vatican hill is famous today for the great basilica of St Peters, constructed in the third decade of the fourth century by Constantine, and demolished and rebuilt in the 16th century. A collection of essays on this building appeared in 2013, edited by R. McKitterick,[1] which contains various interesting snippets.
Few today are familiar with the layout of the church, so the diagram at the side is useful. A flight of steps led up to a gatehouse, behind which was a courtyard. This later contained the immense bronze pine-cone now in the Vatican museum. Behind this was the church proper, with a nave and two aisles. The transept gave access to two circular structures, the mausoleum of Honorius (which was turned into the chapel of St Petronilla during the early Dark Ages) and the chapel of St Andrew.
Around the church were all sorts of structures, not depicted on this diagram. The church was the constant resort of beggars, seeking alms, and doubtless many of the dwellings were hovels. Theodoric ordered the distribution of grain to them in the late 5th century; Pope Symmachus had shelters constructed for them near the church, and the Dialogues of Gregory the Great record a crippled girl who more or lived in the church until she was healed by a miracle.[2]
A plan of the church by Alfarano, who had been associated with the church since the 1540’s, was published as an etching by Natale Bonifacio in 1590, when construction on the western end of the new basilica was well advanced. It shows the new construction as a ghost under the old.
Tiberio Alfarano drew the plan in 1571, and the hand-drawn original, known as the Ichnographia, is extant in the archive of the Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro. Comparison shows that the printed version tinkered with the original in various ways, and that not every architectural feature on the drawing appears in the etching.[3]
On the south side of the basilica were two circular structures, the chapel of St. Petronilla, actually the Mausoleum of the emperor Honorius; and the chapel of St. Andrew. Beyond these was the obelisk which now dominates St Peter’s square.
The function of the structure as a mausoleum was remembered as late as the 8th century, but thereafter forgotten until 1458 when a splendid late Roman burial was discovered under the floor, possibly of Galla Placidia and her child. Another was found in 1519, and finally in 1544 the intact sarcophagus of the empress Maria, wife of Honorius, complete with 180 precious objects in two silver chests, all of which were dispersed or melted down. The depiction of the basilica in the Nuremberg chronicle of 1493 depicts a round, squat building, which was doubtless the mausoleum.
The structure to the east of it, labelled “Vatican rotunda” in the plan, must predate the basilica as it appears in a gem of the 3rd century. It was converted by Pope Symmachus in the 5th century into a chapel of St Andrew.[4]
I have also seen a paper suggesting that the “mausoleum of Honorius” was itself a 3rd century tomb, as was the Rotunda di Sant’Andrea. The mausoleum was demolished during the building of New St Peter’s, but the Rotunda remained until the 18th century, becoming the church of Santa Maria della Febbre. A 1629 painting of it, still behind the obelisk (which was surely moved by then?) and with New St Peter’s half-built behind it is available online:
And another 18th century drawing by Piranesi[5] shows it nestling next to the basilica, when it was used as a sacristy[6]:
The obelisk is an interesting feature, since it is quite unlikely that it was placed there by Constantine. We learn from Pliny’s Natural History that Caligula erected an obelisk from Heliopolis on the spina of his Circus, in the Horti Agrippinae on the Vatican.[7] There is apparently consensus, among interested scholars, that the only certain fact about the location and orientation of the circus is that this obelisk was in the centre of it.[8].
Two different circus plans appear online. I don’t know the source of the second one.[9]
What can be said with certainty is that material from the circus was found during excavations in St Peter’s square, some 5 metres down.[10]
Somewhere nearby, in all this, is the temple of Cybele and Attis, the Vatican Phrygianum. That such a temple existed in 160 A.D. is recorded by an inscription from Lyons which reads:
Taurobolio Matris d(eum) m(agnae) I(daeae) / quod factum est ex imperio ma tris deum /pro salute imperatoris Caes(aris) T(iti) Aeli Hadriani Antonini Aug(usti) Pii p(atris) p(atriae) / liberorum eius /et status coloniae Lugdun(ensium) / L(ucius) Aemilius Carpus IIIIIIvr Aug(ustalis) item / dendrophorus / uires excepit et a Vaticano trans/tulit ara(m) et bucranium /suo inpendio consacrauit / sacerdote / Q(uinto) Samnio Secondo ab XVuiris /occabo et corona exornato / cui sanctissimus ordo Lugdunens(ium) perpetuitatem sacerdoti(i) decreuit / App(io) Annio Atilio Bradua T(ito) Clod(io) Vibo / Varo co(n)s(ulibus). [11]
Various inscriptions from the end of the 4th century consist of dedications to Cybele by the last holdouts of the pagan aristocracy, suggesting that perhaps the temple was still in use in this period, and recording that the ritual of the taurobolium – being bathed in bulls’ blood – was taking place here.
Pensabene states that the 1959-60 excavations by Castagnoli – I don’t have a reference for these – revealed that there were major works in this area during the Severan period. The ground level was artificially raised by several metres and a large circular building was constructed whose foundations were contiguous with the obelisk. The foundations of this building contained Severan stamps from the first quarter of the 3rd century A.D. The suggestion is that this was to allow the building of a new Phrygianum, and that this was done under Elagabalus, who was enthusiastic for the cult.
The text is accompanied with a very poor quality image which appears to suggest that the Rotonda di Sant’Andrea stands on the site of the Phrygianum, and that the building was originally circular, with a south-facing portico:
My Italian is not good enough to work out whether Pensabene is suggesting that the Rotondo was, in fact, the carcase of the Phrygianum, stripped of its portico and reused for something else. But if so, this would certainly be very cramped, next to the basilica, and the presence of the vile eunuch priests and their revolting sacrifices right by the south door sounds rather unlikely to me. Even if it was a state cult, which Constantine might have been unwilling to interfere with, this seems improbable.
So where was the Phrygianum, if not here?
- [1]R. McKitterick, Old Saint Peters, (British School at Rome Studies), 2013. “Look Inside” on Amazon here.↩
- [2]For these details I am indebted to Paulo Liverani’s paper “St Peter’s and the City of Rome” in the McKitterick volume, of which I was able to read parts via the Amazon “Look Inside”. The material may be found on p.26; Gregory, Dialogues I, 3.25.1, 108; Life of Symmachus, 53, c. 7, in the Liber Pontificalis I 262; Theodoric in Procopius, Anecdota 26.29.↩
- [3]These details appear in the front matter of the McKitterick book, whose footnotes were sadly inaccessible to me.↩
- [4]Meaghan McEvoy, “Chapter 6: The mausoleum of Honorius” in: R. McKitterick &c., p.119 f. Accessible via Google Books preview here.↩
- [5]Via Wikimedia Commons↩
- [6]See Italian Wikipedia article here.↩
- [7]Plin. NH XVI.201; XXXVI.74; CIL VI.882 = 31191. All these references I owe to a remarkable discussion in the Ancient Coins forum here.↩
- [8]Patrizio Pensabene, “Culto di Cibele e Attis tra Palatino e Vaticano”, Bollettino di Archeologia 2010, Online at http://www.archeologia.beniculturali.it/pages/pubblicazioni.html; except that, at the time of writing, this is offline and I was only able to access the article via the Google cache. UPDATE: Later I found it at Academia.edu here.↩
- [9]The first is from R. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, 1892, and appears on Wikimedia Commons here. Both have been copied from here.↩
- [10]Or so it claims on this website; it would be interesting to have proper details of these excavations.↩
- [11]CIL XIII, 1751. ↩
Worrying questions about the supposed new NT papyri from mummy cartonnage
In my last post, I noted that Peter Head pointed out that we have a forger active among us, who knows how to play to the predispositions of scholars.
I have just seen a very sound post by Roberta Mazza, discussing the supposed discovery of a bunch of interesting papyri from mummy cartonnage – papyrus reused to stuff the packing of mummies, and make up the coffins etc in the late period. No doubt cartonnage contains much of interest.
But Dr Mazza is absolutely right in pointing out that we have NO previous examples of New Testament papyri from mummy cartonage; and noting the rather confused reportage coming out of the Green collection.
These are very sound questions. Failure to see that the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” was too good to be true is what undid Karen King and Harvard.
A first century fragment of the New Testament? Exciting if true. But … too good to be true? Quite possibly. Particularly when we note that the recipient of the material is predisposed to believe that the material is genuine; just as the hapless Karen King was.
At the moment all we have is various bits of excited and not-too-knowledgeable comment from amateurs involved in helping in menial capacities. I think the Green collection are absolutely right to be open-access with their finds; indeed it is essential to bring all available talent to bear.
We have an enemy of learning active in the world at the moment, remember. Only a fool would neglect every precaution. Particularly when a find might be too good to be true.
How to scam a scholar – the ps.Gospel of Jesus’ Wife affair
I expect many of us have watched the story of a papyrus fragment purporting to reveal that Jesus had a wife. Coptologist Christian Askeland discovered clear proof of forgery, thanks to a bit of carelessness by the forger, and the story is now history.
Peter Head has an article here which is so useful that I will file it on my hard disk: Pseudo-Gospel of Jesus Wife as Case Study.
He asks the sensible question: now that we have evidence of a forgery which passed the science lab tests, what can we learn for next time?
The article is full of good points, but the first paragraph makes an unusual, and very interesting point (I have over-paragraphed it):
It is possible for a forger to get hold of papyri, mix ink according to ancient conventions, compose a semi-plausible pastiche of a text, and mislead scholars, academic institutions, the media, and the public. Exactly what he (or she) hoped to gain from it is not clear, but if it was simply mischief, then he has probably far exceeded his wildest dreams.
Given this possibility it is important that if someone approaches you with an unpublished text which meshes in with your own academic interests, then critical skepticism rather than credulity should control your responses. Nothing is innocent until proven guilty in this scenario.
Also the forger will target a scholar who he thinks is persuadable, not a manuscript expert, and who has wider credibility to make the discovery known (remember that in this case Prof King at first didn’t respond to the invitation, but the forger didn’t go to some other scholar, he waited a year and then went back to reel in Prof King).
In patristics, fortunately, there is no money to be made. If someone turned up with “fragments” of Marcion’s Antitheses or a lost work by Justin Martyr, it is unlikely that it would atttract attention.
But one point is clear: we have a capable and determined forger out there, who is aware of what tests are likely to be applied, and how to fool them.
What can we tell about the forger?
- He has some knowledge of Coptic, probably to undergraduate level, but is not an expert.
- He has had a western education.
- He has access to textbooks on Coptic (not too easy to obtain).
- He has access to ancient papyri.
- He has some sort of lab training.
- He might be a Muslim – the forgery would be convenient to Muslim polemicists.
- He is probably not a Copt – the forgery is a bit anti-Christian.
The motive was probably money; to create a sensation and then monetize it, as they say in the computer games industry. I infer, therefore, that this is not a rich man.
This text acquired quite a following. It nearly worked. So I think we must expect more attempts at forgery.
In this light, I do hope Harvard involve the police. This was an audacious fraud, and if it had succeeded would have garnered the author some real money, in sales,and with film rights, etc. It would be very useful to have the author behind bars where he can do no more harm.
UPDATE: All of which makes the questions that Roberta Mazza is asking about the supposed NT papyri from mummy cartonage very pertinent.
Origen hardback arrives!
The hardback test copy of Origen of Alexandria: Exegetical works on Ezekiel (text and translation of the homilies and fragments) has arrived and is fine. This is the first time I have seen the hardback, and its cover, and it all looks very good! It’s a meaty volume and no mistake!
I’ve now pressed the buttons on the Lightning Source website to tell them to make it available, both hardback and paperback. They already have the pricing etc information from Nielsen, the ISBN people. So I don’t see that there should be much delay.
The next thing I have to do is to add information about the book to Amazon. This is not a pleasant process, as I recall, since Amazon don’t bother to make it so.
It will interesting to see when the Amazon site changes to say that it is available to purchase! (For I doubt that it will really be available before then, come what may).
Origen of Alexandria on Ezekiel has arrived!
The paperback proof of the new book has arrived! Origen of Alexandria: Exegetical works on Ezekiel, translated by Mischa Hooker, has hit my doormat with a mighty thump in its paperback incarnation:
So far, so good. I can’t see any obvious problems with it, which means that we can go to print and (I hope) sell some copies.
It’s a long time since I started this project. The objective is to get the homilies online and freely accessible. To do this, I commissioned a translation of the homilies on Ezekiel, including the Greek fragments, with parallel original language. At the time no translation existed, and it has taken years to get here. And a translation has appeared since (although it is not as comprehensive as ours). But the idea was always to sell some copies in printed form, and then place the book online. That is still the aim.
I can’t quite make the book available as yet; I need to check that the hardback is also correctly printed. But we’re probably only a few days away. It will, of course, take a little while to trickle through the Amazon.
Caesar’s reform of the calendar – some ancient sources
Plutarch, Caesar 59:
59. 1. The adjustment of the calendar, however, and the correction of the irregularity in the computation of time, were not only studied scientifically by him, but also brought to completion, and proved to be of the highest utility.
2. For not only in very ancient times was the relation of the lunar to the solar year in great confusion among the Romans, so that the sacrificial feasts and festivals, diverging gradually, at last fell in opposite seasons of the year, 3. but also at this time people generally had no way of computing the actual solar year; the priests alone knew the proper time, and would suddenly and to everybody’s surprise insert the intercalary month called Mercedonius.
4. Numa the king is said to have been the first to intercalate this month, thus devising a slight and short-lived remedy for the error in regard to the sidereal and solar cycles, as I have told in his Life.
5. But Caesar laid the problem before the best philosophers and mathematicians, and out of the methods of correction which were already at hand compounded one of his own which was more accurate than any. This the Romans use down to the present time, and are thought to be less in error than other peoples as regards the inequality between the lunar and solar years.
6. However, even this furnished occasion for blame to those who envied Caesar and disliked his power. At any rate, Cicero the orator, we are told, when some one remarked that Lyra would rise on the morrow, said: “Yes, by decree,” implying that men were compelled to accept even this dispensation.
Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk 1, ch. 14:[1]
2. Subsequently, however, since there was thus inconsistency in the marking of the times and seasons but all was still vague and uncertain, Gaius Caesar introduced a clearly defined arrangement of the calendar, with the help of a clerk named Marcus Flavius, who provided the dictator with a list of the several days so arranged that their order could be easily found and, that order once found, the position of each day would remain constant.
3. Caesar therefore began the new arrangement of the calendar by using up all the days which could still have caused confusion, with the result that the last of the years of uncertainty was prolonged to one of four hundred and forty-three days. Then, copying the Egyptians – the only people who fully understood the principles of astronomy – he endeavored to arrange the year to conform to the duration of the course of the sun, which it takes three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter to complete.
4. For just as the lunar cycle is the month, since the moon takes rather less than a month to make a circuit of the zodiac, so the solar cycle must be reckoned by the number of days which the sun takes to turn again to that sign of the zodiac from which it began its course. That is why the common year is styled the “turning” year and is held to be the “great” year (since the lunar cycle is thought of as the “short” year), 5. and Vergil has combined these two descriptions of the solar year in the line:
Meanwhile the sun completes the turning of the great year. [Aeneid 3. 284]
It is for this reason that Ateius Capito too thinks that the word “year” (annus) is to be explained as a circuit of time; namely, because of old an used to stand for “around,” as, for example, where Cato in his Origins writes: “Let the plough be driven around the boundary,” using an instead of circum; or when we say ambire
for circumire.6. Julius Caesar therefore added ten days to the old arrangement of the calendar, in order that the year might consist of the three hundred and sixty-five days which the sun takes to pass through the zodiac; and, to allow for the remaining quarter of a day, he ordained that the priest in charge of the months and days should insert one day every fourth year in that month, and in that part of it, in which of old an intercalary month used to be inserted, that is to say, immediately before the last five days of February. This intercalary day he ordered to be called bissextus [as doubling the sixth day before the Kalends of March].
7. The arrangement to distribute the ten additional days to which I have referred was as follows: January, Sextilis, and December received two days each, and April, June, September, and November one each. No addition was made to the month of February, lest changes in connection with the worship of the gods below might result; and March, May, Quintilis, and October remained as they had been of old, because they already had the full complement of thirty-one days apiece.
8. And, since Caesar made no change in these four months, they also have the Nones on the seventh day, as laid down by Numa. But in January, Sextilis, and December, the months to which Caesar added two days apiece, although after his reforms each for the first time had thirty-one days, nevertheless the Nones come on the fifth day and the Kalends that follow return on the nineteenth day after the Ides, because Caesar would not insert the additional days before either the Nones or the Ides for fear that an unprecedented postponement by two days (which would be the result of such change) might interfere with religious ceremonies appointed to be held on a day fixed in relation to the Nones or Ides.
9. Nor yet would he insert the additional days immediately after the Ides for fear of disturbing appointed rest days, but a place was not made for them in any month until the celebration of the rest days held in that
month had been completed. Thus in January the allotted days to which we refer were the fourth and third days before the Kalends of February; in April, the sixth day before the Kalends of May; in June, the third day before the Kalends of July; in August, the fourth and third day before the Kalends of September; in September, the third day before the Kalends of October; in November, the third day before the Kalends of December; and in December, the fourth and third days before the Kalends of January.10. Consequently, although, before this reform, in all the months to which days were added the Kalends of the following months returned on the seventeenth day after the Ides; afterward, as the result of the additions, the Kalends returned on the nineteenth day after the Ides in the months which received two days and on the eighteenth in the months which received one.
11. In each month, however, rest days kept their appointed places. For example, if the third day after the Ides was generally observed as a festival or a rest day and used formerly to be known as the sixteenth day before the following Kalends, even after the number of days in the month had been increased, the religious observance remained unchanged and the ceremony was still held on the third day after the Ides, although (in consequence of an increase in the number of days in the month) the day was no longer the sixteenth day before the following Kalends but the seventeenth, if one day had been added to the month, and the eighteenth, if two days had been added.
12. That is why Caesar inserted the new days, in each case, toward the end of the month, at a time when all the rest days in the month were found to be over. Moreover, he caused these additional days to be marked in the calendar as fasti, so as to make more time available for legal business; and he not only arranged that all these days should be such days of legal business but also that none should be a day on which an assembly might be held, his intention being that this increase in the number of the days should not add to a magistrate’s power to exercise undue influence.
13. Caesar’s regulation of the civil year to accord with this revised measurement was proclaimed publicly by edict, and the arrangement might have continued to stand had not the correction itself of the calendar led the priests to introduce a new error of their own; for they proceeded to insert the intercalary day, which represented the four quarter-days, at the beginning of each fourth year instead of at its end, although the intercalation ought to have been made at the end of each fourth year and before the beginning of the fifth.
14. This error continued for thirty-six years, by which time twelve intercalary days had been inserted instead of the number actually due, namely, nine. But, when this error was at length recognized, it too was corrected, by an order of Augustus that twelve years should be allowed to pass without an intercalary day, since a sequence of twelve such years would account for those three days too many which, in the course of the thirty-six years, had been introduced by the premature action of the priests.
15. After that, one intercalary day, as ordered by Caesar, was to be inserted at the beginning of every fifth year, and the whole of this arrangement of the calendar was to be engraved on a bronze tablet, to ensure that it should always be observed.
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, bk. 18:
56. There follows the question postponed to this place, a question that needs very careful consideration – that of the proper date for sowing the crops; it is in a large degree connected with astronomy, and consequently we will begin by setting out the views of all authors in regard to it. …
57. First of all it is almost impossible to explain the system of the actual days of the year and that of the movement of the sun, because to the 365 days an intercalary year adds a quarter of a day and of a night, and consequently definite periods of the stars cannot be stated. In addition to this there is the admitted obscurity of the facts, as sometimes the specification of the seasons runs in advance, and by a considerable number of days … , whereas at other times it comesbehind … and in general the influence of the heavens falls down to the earth in one place more quickly and in another place more slowly; this is the cause of the remark we commonly hear on the return of fine weather, that a constellation has been completed. Moreover although all these things depend on stars that are stationary and fixed in the sky, there intervene movements of stars and hailstorms and rain, these also having no inconsiderable effect, as we have shown, and they disturb the regularity of the expectation that has been conceived. …
Additional difficulty has also been caused by authors through their observations having been taken in different regions, and because in the next place they actually publish different results of observations made in the same regions. But there were three main schools, the Chaldaean, the Egyptian and the Greek; and to these a fourth system was added in our own country by Caesar during his dictatorship, who with the assistance of the learned astronomer Sosigenes brought the separate years back into conformity with the course of the sun – and this theory itself was afterwards corrected (when an error a had been found), so as to dispense with an intercalary day for a period of twelve successive years, for the reason that the year which had previously been getting in advance of the constellations had begun to lag behind in relation to them.
Both Sosigenes himself in his three treatises – though more careful in research than the other writers he nevertheless did not hesitate to introduce an element of doubt by correcting his own statements – and also other authors whose names we prefixed to this volume have published these theories, although it is seldom that the opinions of any two of them agree.
… the morning setting of the Pleiads is given by Hesiod – for there is extant an astronomical work that bears his name also – as taking place at the close of the autumnal eqninox, whereas Thales puts it on the 5th day after the equinox, Anaximander on the 30th, Euctemon on the 44th, and Eudoxus on the 48th. We follow the observation of Caesar specially: this will be the formula for Italy; but we will also state the views of others, …
70. From midwinter till the west wind blows the important stars that mark the dates, according to Caesar’s observations, are – the Dogstar setting at dawn on December 30, the day on which the Eagle is reported to set in the evening for Attica and the neighbouring regions; on January 4 according to Caesar’s observations the Dolphin rises at dawn and the next day the Lyre, the Arrow setting in the evening on the same day for Egypt …
75. Between the period of west wind and the spring equinox, February 16 for Caesar marks three days of changeable weather, as also does February 22 by the appearance of the swallow and on the next day the rising of Arcturus in the evening, and the same on March 5 – Caesar noticed that this bad weather took place at the rising of the Crab, but the majority of the authorities put it at the setting of the Vintager – on March 8 at the rising of the northern part of the Fish, and on the next day at the rising of Orion; in Attica it is noticed that the constellation Kite appears. Caesar also noted March 15 – the day that was fatal to him – as marked by the setting of the Scorpion, but stated that on March 18 the Kite becomes visible in Italy and on March 21 the Horse sets in the morning. …
I’ve added a little more from Pliny than strictly necessary, as it indicates that Caesar’s calendar was not merely what we think of as the Julian calendar, but comprised a whole series of astronomical notations, for the purpose of crop management. No doubt Sosigenes compiled these, but it is interesting to see them.
- [1]Translated by Percival Vaughan Davies, Columbia University Press, 1969.↩
More on Old St Peters in Rome
This morning I found some more material of interest about Old St Peters in Rome.
Firstly, I found a rather good line-drawing of the appearance of the church here.[1]
https://www.highlandpediatricdental.com/getting-xanax-without-prescription/
This is really helpful in trying to visualise Constantine’s basilica.
https://www.carolinasmilesnc.com/clomid-store/
The “atrium” at the front looked like this (drawing by G. Grimaldi), although normally it must have been full of people. The murals on the wall of the church were medieval.
A partial map is here:
But I learn that a detailed set of drawings and plans was made by Martino Ferrabosco, just before the demolition of the old church. His very detailed and labelled plan is here (warning: the zoomable online reader caused my eyes to malfunction for 10 minutes with flickering zigzag lines):
https://www.bordeauxcenter.com/stromectol-ivermectin-online/
And the following image is a detail from an image in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493):
I wonder where the Ferrabosco dossier is?
UPDATE: It seems that Martino Ferrabosco published Libro de l’Architettura di San Pietro in 1620. An article (in Spanish) about it is here.
- [1]The source URL given on that page has vanished, so I don’t know the source of it.↩
De’Cavalieri’s image of the Septizonium.
Well! The British Museum seems to have quite a few engravings by Giovanni Battista De’Cavalieri online. Browsing them here, I quickly see that some come from a 1569 book entitled, promisingly, Urbis Romae aedificiorum illustrium quae supersunt reliquiae, i.e. Remains of famous buildings of the city of Rome. It contains some fascinating images.
Here’s the one of the Septizonium:
