Category: Announcements

General announcements

The Townley Homer at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A very welcome addition to the British Library collection of digital manuscripts is announced on their blog today.  In an excellent article by Julian Harrison, Hooray for Homer!, we learn that BL. Burney 86, a 10th century manuscript with copious scholia, is now accessible here.

The article itself is really useful, giving the history of the Ms. in modern times, links to other Homer mss. at the British Library, and a bibliography.  It would be impossible and unnecessary to do this for every manuscript placed online; but it is nice to see, once in a while.

It is also very nice to see an appreciation of a manuscript that is of textual interest, rather than the “pretty pretty picture” type manuscript that tends too often to attract digitisation.

Scholia are remarkably hard to get access to, and only Eleanor Dickey’s handbook Greek scholarship is available to guide those interested.  So it is nice to see pictures in the blog article of the text, and some explanation (with translation) of what these have to offer.

Well done.

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Selections from Schröder’s “Titel und Text” – 3

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here is a rough English translation of the conclusions for part 2 of Bianca-Jeanette Schröder’s book, Titel und Text.  It was made in haste for my own purposes, so is probably not 100% reliable.  Nevertheless, the material is so important, and is apparently so little known, that it seems well worth placing this here.

Part 2 – Conclusion (p.153)

The briefly examined examples, from Hyginus to Cassiodorus, make it clear that questions about the organisation of a text is not a problem that can be separated from the “real” text.  It is important to know how ancient readers intended to “use” a text, and how other, later needs have interfered in the form of organisation taken.  It is  important to examine this issue carefully, assessing the authors and editors of  individual works.

It may be noted how new ways to make information accessible came into existence and were disseminated.  The (probably) numbered table of contents, as an influential innovation, was made known through Pliny’s Natural History in the 1st century AD, was promptly adopted (by Columella in the later-added book 11) and was increasingly used in other genres (Gellius, Augustine, historical writing); tables of contents for other works were created subsequently.

The adoption of the table of contents had influence on the preface; an important role of the proemion, to provide information on the content to follow, is shifted on to the more precise summaries.  In this way the author can bypass a stylistically unappealing task, and, in addition, getting an overview is much easier and makes lookup and retrieval possible (in connection with numbering).  In a similar way the relatively monotonous formulae for closing a subject and transitioning to the next give way over time to the sub-title. The use of diaeresis, which, in imitation of oral teaching, is used in systematic text books to structure information, is not abandoned but receives a serious competitor in the use of chapter headings.

Mutschmann (p.99-100) accepted the following development, particularly in view of the Didymus papyrus: the first step is the column heading: the second is the collection of column headings into a table of contents (συγκεφαλαίωσις); from the column heading the chapter heading develops. But it has been shown that these phenomena are more complex. In the papyri we see already early headings for lists, and disengaged lemmata in lexica.  There are centred headings, and numbered and marked chapter beginnings in Latin bronze  tablets of laws.  Pliny and Columella do, inter alia, have tables of contents but they certainly did not devise chapter headings.  A two-way exchange may be expected, namely that works with tables of contents (e.g. Columella) acquired chapter headings, while for works with leading lemmas (e.g. Hyginus) tables of contents were then created.

The tendency towards dividing things up extends beyond prose.  Probably because of the influence of articulated textbook prose, didactic poems were provided with helps for orientation:[184] in the manuscripts of Lucretius, Manilius and also Ovid’s Metamorphoses, lists of Capitula may be found and also corresponding chapter headings, as in prose textbooks.[185] Reeve (conclusion, p.507 f.) points out that Ovid’s Fasti is, since R. Merkel’s 2nd edition of 1851, divided into days identified by headings, and content-related sections, and he gives examples of how the interpretation is affected by this classification. That these subtitles are not by the poet is shown by the structure of the text.  The same formulae for transitions and new subjects appear as in textbook prose (see above, p.107); signal words indicate the beginning of a new concept, e.g. in Lucretius: quaeres, inquis, nec me fallit, praecurrere cogor, sed nunc ut repetam, nunc et scrutemur, nunc age quoniam docui, nunc age quod superest cognosce, denique, tum porro quoniam etc.; likewise Manilius introduces new sections thus: nunc vero, iam vero, restat ut, his adice, accipe, percipe nunc, ergo age, nec te praetereat, nunc age, ergo age, forsitan et quaeras etc.  – The headings in Lucretius have been dated by Fischer to the 2nd century AD, after analysing the content of them (so also Diels, p.xii: “neque indoctus fuit ille editor qui primis haud dubie saeculis capitula praefixit”).[“nor unlearned was that editor who first at an unknown date added capitula to the front”]

184. Haye has commented on the types of divisions in medieval didactic poems (p.348-358 ‘Optische Präsentation’); it may be added that this does not merely apply to manuscripts of the 12th century (so Haye, p.352), but also for example in mss. of Ovid and Lucretius of the 9th century.

185.  Vergil’s Georgica are equipped with metrical argumenta (like the books of the Aeneid and the comedies), but, as far as I can see, they were not divided into chapters like other didactic poems. – In the relevant manuscripts for Ovid’s Fasti (A = Vat.Reg. 1709, 10th c.; U = Vat.Lat.3262, 11th c.) there are no calendrical entries as headings, such as are often silently added in editions (an example of their insertion for clarity is Robert Schilling, Ovide, Les fastes, Tome I, Paris 1992, p.LIX), and are found in the younger manuscripts. In Vat.Lat.3265 (12th c.) there are references to the content in the margin (e.g. fol. 9v, de cursu solis, de lirae occasu, de pectore leonis); but I have seen calendrical information in Vat.Ottob. 1464 (13th c.) (e.g. fol. 3v.: VII kl F, III kl F).

Housman gives a list of chapter titles in the appendix to his edition of Manilius (vol. 5, p.55-99); Goold devotes a chapter of the praefatio to his edition of Manilius to the chapter titles (p.xii ff), but does not discuss when they developed. – In the manuscripts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses there are chapter titles (e.g. Chaos in species; terra in varias personas; mundus in saecula quattuor, aureum, argenteum, aereum et ferreum; item annus in tempora quattuor; edited by Magnus), and sometimes prose summaries, which like the chapter titles are inserted before the passage in question. These summaries (by “Lactantius”) must date, on grounds of vocabulary, to late antiquity.

The increasing tendency for labelling and dividing is not limited to didactic poetry, but extends to the whole of the book trade.  The divisions in tragedy and comedy have already been thoroughly researched, so here I will limit myself to only a few notes.  Already, in the oldest mss. (Terence: ‘Bembinus’, 4-5th c.; Plautus: Palimpsest Ambros., 5th c.), the change of scenes is indicated in various ways (names, rolls, notes, Greek sigla),[186] and Donatus refers to comedies with divisions: (Ter. Ad. praef. 3,1f.) primus actus haec continet […]. secundus actus […]; (Ter.Ad.254) in hac scaena gratiarum actio est […]; (Ad.praef. 1,7) […] saepe tamen mutatisper scaenam modis cantata, quod signifi­cat titulus scaenae habens subiectas personis litteras […]. […] secundum persona­rum nomina scriptis in eo loco, ubi incipit scaena.  That the division into acts and scenes, and also the insertion of the names of the speakers, was not provided by the authors, has been shown systematically by Andrieu. — The following information was obtained on the age of these things in the mss.: Bader dates the scene-headings, in Plautus, to the late first / early second century A.D. (p. 150-154) and Tarrant (in: Reynolds, p.306) considers that it is unlikely that the creation of an edition equipped with these things can be later than the 2nd century AD. — Likewise the archetype for Terence (before the Cod. Bembinus) was similarly equipped (Reeve in: Reynolds, p.413). — Zwierlein showed that the archetype for Seneca’s comedies, which should be dated to the 3-4th century, contained a basic set of scene-headings and people-sigla (Prolegomena, p. 52) and that this information was added to or  modified by editors or copyists during the process of transmission (ib., p.249).

186. On the origin and development of the various types of information, see the relevant chapter in Andrieu.

Here again, as with prose textbooks, we observe several phases of philological activity.

In the course of transmission, the “organisation” of texts by means of numbering and tables of contents has not been without drawbacks.  The chapter number, which in early examples (bronze tablets, see above p.116 f., early mss., see above p.119) is under or before the text break of the new chapter, changes position over the course of time, for various reasons:187 the situation of the chapter number in the codex, where usually a page contains one or two columns, is very different from that in the roll, where one column follows another.  If the page has only a single area of text, and the chapter number is in the left margin, there is a risk that on the recto the number will partially or completely disappear in the rebate (in the binding); on the verso, the number may disappear if the pages of the book are trimmed. — If the work is written in two columns, there must be enough space in the middle, between the two columns, for the numerals belonging to the second column.  If instead the numbers, while the numbers for the first column are on the left of it, the numbers for the second column are written on the right hand side, uncertainty is introduced for the reader, just by changing the position in that way, and it has the same risks as before; one part of the numbers may disappear into the fold, while the other is threatened by cutting off the margin.  Another factor with great influence on the chapter number is the rise and expansion of the initial letter.  The more elaborate the design of the letter, the less important will be the – consistently simple – numeral before it (see plate 1), if there is room for it at all. It may be observed that the numeral appears more and more frequently in the Spatium at the end of the last line of the preceding chapter, to the right over the relevant section within the textblock.  There is it safe from the trimmer’s knife and the binding, and leaves room at the start of the chapter for the development of the initial – however, having given up their special place in the margin, the only way to emphasise them is with colour; if the numeral is the same colour as the text, it no longer catches the eye. This general trend may be observed in mss. containing the same text but from different centuries,e.g.188 In Cod.Troyes Bibl.mun. 504 (7th c.; the oldest ms. of the Liber pastoralis of Gregory the Great; fol.48v.)

187. This description of a general tendency does not mean that in some cases the earlier form was not retained.

188. See Glenisson for illustrations of the folios in which this phenomenon may be seen (plates 8, 9, 11, 12 on pp. 47, 49, 52, 53).

the chapter numbers (alternately red and green) stand in the left margin and are accentuated by an ornate frame.  The first line of each chapter, except for the first letter, is written in red. The first letter of the chapter is somewhat enlarged, but does not extend into the margin.  The number XXIII extends into the text block and pushes the first letter more to the right.  In a younger manuscript of this text (12th c., Cod. Troyes Bibl. mun.955, fol.57) the first letter of each chapter is done in different colours, two lines tall, and is positioned half in the margin, half in the text block.  The chapter numbers (in red) stand in the free space at the end of the last line of the preceding chapter: the number is displaced into the text block by the enlarged first letter of the chapter.  – Similarly we may compare the Hincmar bible (9th c. Reims, Bibl. mun. 1, fol.8) with the bible of Saint-Benigne de Dijon (12th c., Cod. Dijon, Bibl. mun. 2, fol.7v.).  Both versions have, at the beginning of the book of Genesis, a decorated first column as far as the words “et facta est lux”, and the second column consists entirely of text.  In the Hincmar bible the chapter numbers stand in the margin before the second column, before the slightly enlarged and decorated chapter initials.  In the bible  of Saint-Benigne there is very little room between the right edge of the decorated first column and the text block of the second column, so that the chapter initials cannot protrube more than slightly into the margin, and the chapters do not always begin a new paragraph. The red chapter numbers stand wherever there is room; at the end of the last line of the preceding chapter, or, when there is no line break, in the right margin.

It need hardly be said that with the change of position came an increased risk of damage to the numbering or omission.  But we must emphasise this:  if the numbering is not complete or consecutive, or that in the text does not correspond to the table of contents, this is no indication that it does not derive from the author; the degree of incompleteness or incorrectness corresponds to the increasing distance from the author (see especially p.146 on Isidore).

Likewise numbered tables of contents are not transmitted without error. The dangers that lists and numbers are exposed to, during the process of coping, are obvious.  However defects are not observed only in the numeration, or lack of numeration, because of the lack of rubrication, and the loss of elements from the tables of contents, but there are also spontaneous and individual errors. There are other sources of errors and changes, which are due to more or less conscious decisions by the copyist.

Particularly influential is the desire to save space, and to create a more unified and compact block of text, whether for pragmatic reasons such as saving materials, or aesthetic ones.  In the table of contents, as in the beginning of chapters and the chapter numbers, the text is squeezed together more tightly.  There is a tendency, as with the beginning of chapters, to only separate the first letter, and often the text is written left-justified, and not always with the first letter of each argument highlighted.

But even if only the number is in the margin, and the text of the table of contents is written as a block without protrusions into the margin, still a lot of space can be lost if one considers that numerals like I or C or even CLXXXIII can be in the margin.  Sometimes there is a block where the text is written directly after the number and under the number.  Another possibility is that the numbers go in the space at the end of the preceding argument (i.e. on the right, above the argument in question), so that there is no longer a vertical list of numbers.  Finally the table of contents can be written as text, abandoning the list format completely and writing it as continuous text, but simply alternating numbers and text.  So long as the numbers are written in red, one need only examine the start of the table to see whether the number belongs to the previous argument, or the next one; but if the numbers are written in the same colour as the text, it becomes a tedious task.

As has already been indicated, a tendency can be observed that clarity diminishes over time, and is never improved.  In three manuscripts of Aulus Gellius, arbitrarily chosen from different centuries (Vat. Reg. 597, 9th c.; Vat.Reg. 1646, 12th c.; Vat.Reg.3452, 13th c.), it seems to be no coincidence that it is easiest to find a specific chapter in the oldest of them.  In Vat.Reg.597 the chapter number is always in the same place, before the (undecorated) chapter initial; in the table of contents, the number always stands before the argument.  – In Vat. Reg. 1646 the chapter number stands at the end of the last line of the preceding chapter, and catch the eye because written in red.  But more striking are the chapter initials (alternately in blue and red), which are two lines of text high.  In the table of contents, the numbers move about.  On the verso they stand on the left before the argument, on the recto to the right of it, because not enough space has been left before the text.  – The Vat. Reg. 3452 is in two quite different parts.  In the first part the chapter numbers (in Greek letters) always stand before the chapter initial, and likewise in the tables of contents.  In the second part (from p.57), the tables of contents are not written as a list but as continuous text, with red numbers between each of the individual arguments.  A new line is not used at the start of each new chapter, but the end of one chapter is immediately followed by the (red) chapter number for the next chapter, and then immediately the text of the next chapter.  While the numbers are written in red, they can be found, but very soon they too are written in the normal ink colour, and so can only be found by reading through the text.

As with the numbering of chapters, no improvement is seen in the numbering of tables of contents in the Middle Ages.  Scribonius Largus, most likely also Pliny and Gellius, and certainly many late antique authors organised their text using numbers and so it may be assumed that the numbering of the chapters and tables of contents was initially congruent and usable.189  But they have been much distorted in the course of transmission, because only actually using the table of contents to find specific chapters, i.e. only from a copyist aware of the needs of the reader, will produce a set of usable numbers.

Now that we have the results of the first two parts, it is possible for us to examine poetry headings.  Both the linguistic form of the book titles, and the relationship between title and text, as well as the (partly retrospective) ‘organisation’ of the text into longer and shorter sections of text, observed in many genres, using tables of contents and headings, and their influence upon the text, should be observed when assessing the headings of poems.

189. Some examples of numbering that became unusable with the passage of time: Columella, see under p. 134; Isidore, see under p. 146; see also the discrepancy between index and chapter headings in Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis, ed. W. Kroll, F.Skutsch, Leipzig 1897 (repr. Stuttgart 1968).

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An extract from Galen’s “De Compositione Medicamentorum Secundum Locus”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Another interesting snippet from Dorandi[1] is a piece of a work by the 2nd century medical writer Galen.

Galen’s works fill 20 huge volumes in the standard edition by Kuhn.  Few indeed have ever been translated.  Yet they contain interesting snippets on the history of books.

Dorandi gives us the text and a French translation of a portion of De Compositione Medicamentorum Secundum Locus,  i.e. The compounding of medicines according to place.  An Arabic version exists of this work, I learn. Galen issued the first two books of the work, but the other volumes he kept to himself, in his lockup on the Via Sacra in Rome.  Unluckily a fire broke out in 192 AD, and the whole area was destroyed, including Galen’s possessions.  His friends pressed him to rewrite the lost books, and he did so.

Here is what Galen says, in the preface to the new version:

This treatise I have written once already.  The first two books had been put into circulation, but I had left my own copies of them, with the others, in my store-room situated on the Via Sacra, and there they were when the Temple of Peace and the great libraries of the Palatine were entirely destroyed by the fire.  Because of this catastrophe, the works of numerous authors were destroyed, whatever I had and was kept in the store-room in question.  On their own admission, some of my Roman friends only possessed a copy of the first two books.  When my friends pressed me to rewrite the same treatise, it seemed necessary to me to signal the books put into circulation previously, in case someone should obtain them by accident and enquire why I had composed twice a work on the same subject.

Galen wrote elsewhere about this fire and the permanent losses he suffered, in the letter Peri Alupias, i.e. On Grief, which was rediscovered a decade ago by a PhD student left waiting for a book for a tedious time, alone in the Vlatadon monastery in Thessalonica, with nothing more exciting to do than read the rare Greek catalogue of the monastery’s holdings.

But it is nice to see another mention of it in his works.

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  1. [1]T. Dorandi, Le stylet et la tablette, Les belles lettres, 2000, p.141.↩

The origins of marking written work in red ink – Cicero and Atticus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

While reading Tiziano Dorandi’s fascinating work, Le stylet et la tablette, on how ancient authors composed their works, I find on p.113 a little snippet.

Cicero sent his works to Atticus for correction and publication.  It seems that Atticus would ‘mark’ the work in red ink, just like a modern school-teacher.

We learn from Cicero’s letter to Atticus (book 16, 11, 1) that the former pretended to have just the same feelings, as a modern pupil would:

Nostrum opus tibi probari laetur … cerulas enim tuas miniatulas illas extimescebam!

I am glad that my work pleases you … for I was afraid of your little red crayon!

How little some things change down the centuries.  Red and black have been the standard colours for inks for centuries, probably because they were easiest to prepare.  I wonder whether Roman schoolboys did homework?  There are certainly schoolboy exercises among the papyri from Egypt.

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(Ps.)Chrysostom, Homily on the Nativity, now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Bryson Sewell has kindly translated for us a homily transmitted under the name of Chrysostom on Christmas.  This is not the better known Christmas homily, but a second one whose authenticity was defended by C. Martin.

The translation of the homily may be found here:

As usual, the translation is public domain; do whatever you like with it, personal, educational or commercial.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been working away at Bianca-Jeanette Schröder’s Titel und Text for what seems like forever.  It’s an excellent book on chapter titles, tables of contents, and the like; but if your German is as limited as mine, it can take a while to get anywhere.

I’ve actually been translating lengthy sections of the book, in order to read it.  Over the weekend I realised that, if I continued, I would finish the remaining 40 pages sometime in September.  And I would hope to be back among the wage-earners before then!

So I decided to deal with that last 40 pages differently.  I took each page in turn, copied it into Google Translate, and hit enter.  Then I selected the translation, ragged as it was, and pasted it into a Word document.  Then I hit Ctrl-Enter, to throw a new page, and repeated.  At the end of this I had a Word document of 40 pages.  I already had the 40 pages of German in a photocopy, two pages per sheet.

This morning I sat down in front of the two piles, German and Google-English, and picked up a ballpoint pen.  At the foot of each page of ‘English’, I wrote a few bullet-points of what the page said.  Then I went on to the next.

Several hours later, I have gone through the whole 40 pages, and now have notes on the lot.  I feel a considerable sense of relief, I can tell you.  At least there is a prospect of getting my life back!

There is a long appendix in the book which I did translate, containing lots of quotes from ancient authors in the original.  I need to post this online, but with the quotes translated.  I have been gathering translations, so it may soon be possible to do in a reasonable time.

What I also now need to do is to condense all that I learned from Schröder, and make sure that I know what is being said.  I can already seen points at which I don’t agree with her thesis; points where she asserts something which might be so, but equally might not.  It is a fine book; but it is not the last word on the subject.

I’ve also spent time with Aelian the Tactician, a very obscure military writer whose work is important for the topic of chapter titles and tables of contents.  Alphonse Dain wrote a monograph on the transmission of his work, and I read long sections of it this morning.  (Lucky for me that French is a language that I am comfortable with!)

In the mean time I have commissioned a translation of the second Christmas homily of Chrysostom — probably pseudonymous, but historically interesting –, and the translation of Eusebius’ Commentary on Luke continues to progress.  It’s all go here.

One day I shall come up for air!

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Leontius of Byzantium, Against the frauds of the Apollinarists – now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The 6th century Chalcedonian theologian, Leontius of Byzantium, is most likely the author of a compilation of texts by the 4th century heretic, Apollinarius of Laodicea, entitled “Against the frauds of the Apollinarists”.  What was happening was that Monophysite polemicists were using these texts for anti-Chalcedon arguments.  The texts themselves were circulating under the names of respectable authors such as Pope Julius I or Gregory Nazianzen.  Leontius tracked down the original comments by Apollinarius and his disciples, and compiled a set of them, so that their ideas could be recognised.

Bryson Sewell has kindly translated it into English for us, from the text printed by Angelo Mai and reprinted in the Patrologia Graeca.

I have uploaded the translation to the Additional Fathers site here.  In addition I have uploaded a PDF of the translation (plus the word .doc file) to Archive.org here.

This translation is public domain.  Do whatever you like with it, personal, educational or commercial.

If you would like to help me commission further translations, why not use the donate button on the right, or purchase a copy of my CD from here.

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Which manuscript of Leontius Byzantinus did Angelo Mai use?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The translation of Leontius of Byzantium’s Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum (CPG 6817) is going great guns.  But we have found at least one lacuna in the printed text, where a heading promises a quotation from Apollinarius, but is in fact followed by Leontius’ diatribe in reply.

The Greek text of this work was published by Angelo Mai in Spicilegium Romanum vol. X, part II, p.128-151.  I’m not sure that anyone has published an independent edition since, although Migne reprinted it in PG 86, cols. 1948-1976.

In part I of the same volume, p.v-vi, he mentions that:

I myself … obtained also a Greek codex of the treatises, ancient, complete and very rare, which once belonged to Cardinal Salvati, then to the Colonna family, and finally, a few years ago, while presiding at the Vatican library, it was brought in by me for a price; … if the Vatican codex should perish by an accident, it would be difficult to find another of this kind.

He also remarks that the Latin translation was made from a defective Greek manuscript, and indeed at one point Turrianus’ Latin did not contain the text given in Mai’s Greek.

But which manuscript did Mai use?  I could find no catalogue of Vatican Greek manuscripts online. But a search in the Pinakes database of Greek manuscripts reveals only a single manuscript of this text, Vatican gr. 2195, 10th c., and our text is on “p. 165-184.”[1]  CPG confirms that this is the only manuscript of this text known.

The work is preceded in the manuscript (p.1-50 and p.85-165) by Leontius’ Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos libri tres, edited by Mai at the same time; and p.50-84 contain two further works against Severus.  Other works of other authors are also found therein.

The Latin translation printed by Migne was made before 1584 by Turrianus, as I remarked previously.  A correspondent, Albocicade, has kindly sent me some further information about Turrianus, or Francesco Torres, S.J., to give him his real name.  Among other things, he was the first translator of Arabic Christian writer, Theodore Abu Qurrah — presumably of his Greek works.

There is a summary of his life and work here.  There is a list of his publications here. A Google Books preview of a book that mentions him (text and n.26) is here.  All three are in French, I should add.

It would seem that others have wondered about what manuscripts Turrianus used.  There is a 1970 publication, “Zu griechischen Handschriften des Francisco Torres S.J.”, although just at the moment I cannot cope with more German.

Another correspondent, Walter Dunphy, added:

There is something about Torres in Hurter/Nomenclator vol.3,col.281. Long list of his publications in Sommerfeld: Bibliotheque (of SJ writers) vol.3, col.1231.

If you get PDF (big/slow!) from Gallica it’s image n.418.  (Difficult to navigate Gallica online.).

The work in question seems to have been published from the notes/papers left by Torres (cf. Canisius, IV, p.163).

All useful stuff to know – thank you both!

UPDATE: Reading the CPG, it looks as if a critical edition of Leontius’ works exists, by Brian Daley, and a google search reveals: “B. E. Daley, Leontius of Byzantium: A Critical Edition of his Works, with Prolegomena (Diss. Oxford, 1978).”

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  1. [1]Pinakes gives as its source of information: S. LILLA, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae… Codices Vaticani graeci. Codices 2162-2254 (Codices Columnenses), Vaticano, 1985↩

Who translated Leontius of Byzantium, Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum, into Latin?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The project to translate Leontius of Byzantium, Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum, goes on.  We’re using the text in Migne, Patrologia Graeca 86, and making reference to the parallel Latin translation.  But who wrote the latter?  And when?

According to the table of contents in PG 86, the text is a reprint of an edition by Angelo Mai,[1] while the Latin is by “Canisius”.

A search for Canisius gives us a certain Petrus Canisius, whose dates are 1521-1597.  There is a Catholic Encyclopedia article about him here. He was a Dutchman named Pieter Kanis, a Jesuit, and was made a saint in the 20th century.  The Wikipedia article relates a charming anecdote about him, that:

If you treat them right, the Germans will give you everything. Many err in matters of faith, but without arrogance. They err the German way, mostly honest, a bit simple-minded, but very open for everything Lutheran. An honest explanation of the faith would be much more effective than a polemical attack against reformers. — Burg, Kontroverslexikon, Essen, 1903, p.224.

Being aware of the likely accuracy of a Wikipedia quotation and reference, I felt obliged to verify it.  I see the 1905 edition of Burg starts an article on Canisius on p.224, but I am unable to see this ‘quote’ in that article.  Let us hope that it is true, and that he did say this.

In Smith’s elderly Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, (1846) vol. 2, p.756, we find mention of our work, and Canisius, in a list of works by a certain Leontius of Byzantium:

3. Liber adversus eos qui proferunt nobis quaedam Apollinarii, falso inscripta nomine Sanctorum Patrum seu Adversus Fraudes Apollinistarum.  4.  Solutiones Argumentatiorum Severi. 5.  Dubitationes hypotheticae et definientes contra eos qui negant in Christo post Unionem duas veras Naturas.  These pieces have not been printed in the original, but Latin versions from the papers of Franciscus Turrianus were published by Canisius in his Lectiones Antiquae, vol. iv (or vol. i, p.525 &c., ed. Basagne), and were reprinted in the Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. ix. fol. Lyon, 1677, and in the above-mentioned volume of the Bibliotheca of Galland.

But a search for Lectiones Antiquae reveals a Henricus Canisius, of Ingolstadt, in a copy of vol. 4 dated 1603 here, which contains our work (annoyingly, the PDF download is monochrome and unreadable, while the online version is colour).  According to the Catholic Encyclopedia he was the nephew of Petrus Canisius, and died in 1610.

In the 1603 edition, the start of Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum may be found here, which the table of contents lists as f.106.  It states, roundly:

Leontii Byzantini.  Adversus eos qui proferunt nobis quaedam Apollinarii, falso inscripta nomine sanctorum patrum. Nunc primum ex ms. in lucem editus. Interprete Francisco Turriano Societatis Iesu.

Leontius of Byzantium.  Against those who profer to us certain works of Apollinarius, falsely inscribed with the name of the holy fathers.  Now edited for the first time from a manuscript.  Translated by Franciscus Turrianus, S.J.

I can find nothing to explain why Turrianus’ translation was used, but he is clearly named as the translator.  There is plenty, though, about Lutheranism, which explains the context of these publications.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Turrianus, or Francesco Torres (d.1584), was yet another Jesuit, who translated masses of Greek texts, not without accusations of lack of critical judgement, nor of mistranslation to do down protestants.

So Turrianus is our translator.  It would be nice to know something about him, and what manuscript he worked from!

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  1. [1]Angelo Mai, Spicilegium Romanum, vol. 10, 1839, part 2, p.128-145. ↩

Still more on early French travellers to Libya – Durand’s article at last!

Posted on by Roger Pearse
Illustration opposite p.200.

In 2010 I wrote about the circus at Leptis Magna, and how guidebooks say that Durand, a 17th century traveller, found it in much better condition.  In 2011 I found a snippet from it.

This week Joe Rock,[1] who commented on the article, has come to all of our assistance.  He has obtained a copy of the article in Le Mercure Galant, March, 1684, and generously shared it with me.  The article, on p.199-219, contains  a letter by Monsieur Durand describing what he saw at Leptis, together with a diagram opposite p.200.

The PDF of the article is here: Mercure Galant_mars_1684_p.199-219 – smaller (PDF)

Dr Rock also created a transcription of the article, which he has kindly allowed me to place here: Mercure Galant transcription (.doc)

The spelling is of course that of French as it was more than four centuries ago.  So I have created a rough translation of the article, which is as follows.  (The drawing above appears opposite p.200).

    *    *    *    *    *    *

Mercure Galant,
March 1684.

[p.199] …

You have heard talk of a great number of columns, which are at Paris, on the Quai, between the Gate of the Conference and the Course, in a forecourt of the Palace of the Tuileries, and of which there remain a very great number at Toulon, which [p.200] must be transported here.  I believe that you have already said that the columns come from Lebida,  otherwise Leptis, an ancient ruined town, and whose territory is today under the government of the state of Tripoli; but here is something curious on this subject. It is a letter of Mr Durand, a young gentleman, who having been at Lebida, there has noted with care everything that he believed worthy of the curiosity of those who love antiquities, and has made a relation of it which he has sent [p.201] from Tripoli.  A copy has been handed to me, and from which I give you the following extract:

LEBIDA, a place situated at thirty-five leagues from Tripoli, to the east, was formerly called Leptis, following an old English author who spoke in these terms, of the place where may still be seen the debris of which I shall speak.  Here is what he says.

Leptis Magna was so-called to distinguish it from another Leptis which was nearby, on the other side of the river.  There may be seen [p.202] another town, also called Leptis.  The Romans having made themselves masters of the place, first occupied by the Greeks, joined these places together and made of them a very great town, very rich and very renowned, which they called Tripolis.  It has been destroyed many times by the inroad of many different peoples, rebuilt likewise many times, and finally entirely abandoned.

Everything is spoken of these, the three towns that the name of Tripolis signifies, the situation, the prodigious [p.203] quantity of debris, and the little to distinguish
the [other] two places which are named by this name; so this town and another small habitation forty leagues from here, at Ponant, named in the maps as Tripolis Vetus [old Tripolis], in both of which there is no mark of antiquity, no appearance of a river, and which are not in the situation spoken of; these are something other than Leptis Magna.

Be that as it may, the place must have been extremely impressive, since one may still see there three things which are incomparable, the [p.204] magnificence of the port, which is entirely silted up, a circus of prodigious grandeur, which may easily be distinguished, and a space of almost two leagues along the sea entirely surrounded with walls, and a league inland, and the suburbs of the town were entirely filled with constructions and monuments.  The port resembled the figure marked A in the illustration.  It is of a prodigious extent and labour, entirely surrounded with chiselled stone.  At the mouth are two towers, which it is easy to distinguish, and immediately [p.205] to the two sides of the entrance, there are still some steps which go down to the sea. One may still see there the remains of broken columns.  From the two sides of the circuit of the port, one finds every so often steps, although not so beautiful as those of the terraces of the Tuilleries, and all around there are Amares (?) of stone which once served as vessels.  Near the entrance to the port, the circuit opens into a square, and beyond a platform, there one still goes up twenty-five very large steps; behind which there are five [p.206] arches, and debris of marbles and columns. Apparently there was at that place some kind of magnificent loggia, where the sailors went to render account of their
voyages. 

The striped area that you see in the circuit marks a special opening where the river goes into the sea under an arch, rather than obstruct or inconvenience the port, which is entirely filled up. 

The circus situated on the east side (= côté du levant) along the sea-shore is incomparable. It is a little like the figure marked B in the illustration, being more than twelve hundred feet long and three hundred wide. [p.207]  It has fifteen or sixteen steps all around, almost entirely complete. The square below had some arcades, beneath which one walked.  Of them there are still some remains standing.

The place that you see marked in the middle around which apparently the chariots and horsemen ran, was full of columns, pedestals and figures of marble.  Of these one sees many remains, all dilapidated.  There are some traverses at certain intervals which are two persons wide, and at the end a type of circular amphitheatre. [p.208]  Behind, at the end of the great circus, was a grand arcade which emerged outside. 

The body of the town, as one may easily see, is almost two leagues in length along the sea, surrounded by walls of chiselled stone; of which in places one may see the rampart (le cordon).  There are in this wall some stones with Roman inscriptions, turned upside down and in no order, which indicates that the barbarians have desired to reuse them.    The largest part of the town inland is no more than a league; the wall can be followed almost everywhere. [p.209]  One of the gates of the town which was of a dozen arcades, and of which one may see three still standing, resembles a triumphal arch, and the others half of one. 

Many columns of marble have been taken from this gate, and three among others which are still at the sea-shore (? = la marive), and which nobody has been able to load onto ship because of their size and length, being twenty-five feet de tour (?) by forty long.  This gate belonged to a palace, or perhaps a temple, or maybe both together; whatever the case, it is impossible to describe to you the magnificence of the [p.210] remains of the place. 

One cannot recognise any regularity there.  It is a very great plain, full of masonry made of great stones, especially of marble, without lime or mortar, but which were joined with iron, and covered within with a green marble of which one finds quantities of fragments of the width of a finger, of which the most part has been carried off to Constantinople.  There has been taken from this place, either for Constantinople in the past, or for us at present, more than seven or eight hundred columns, and there are still more than three or [p.211] four hundred of them, either buried or broken and damaged by time.  I have only seen of these ten which are very complete.  This place was without doubt the most impressive in the town. 

The rest is an infinity of buildings, one after another, part filled with sand, and many razed almost to the ground, but all of chiselled stones, and in all of them a very great quantity of columns of all kinds, the grandest made of marble, broken and gnawed, so that it seems that the town has been built over.  There are [p.212] a dozen of them which appear entire, but if one digs the sand out of one, one finds quantities of others in the sand.  The environs of the town are full of ruined masonry, and of the remains of habitations, of which these are the principal ones.  An extraordinary wall fifteen feet thick with supports at a certain interval which are twelve feet square.  This wall is still three hundred feet long, the river whose course it determined having eaten it away, despite its thickness; and although it does not run at all with water in the summer, it was still diverted from the port, [p.213] so that it would not be inconvenienced.  It is half a league from the town.  At a quarter of a league, on the other side, the debris of a very large temple with the marks of a village; three aqueducts, one large and two small, stone blocks, figured with square towers (? Figures de tours en quarré), with pictures of the sun and animals, made apparently to decorate the roads, or to the memory of someone; because there is such a quantity of them, and which are very elevated, some square, some pointed.  At a single league from Ponant along the sea, [there are] the marks of a very great village [p.214] surrounded by walls, the remains of forts and cisterns; in the environs of the town,  the remains of a quantity of subterranean cisterns, and magnificent in their grandeur, but all filled with sand. As it does not rain here in summer, these are apparently all the cisterns of the town filled which have forced the abandonment of a  country as beautiful as this. 

Here are the inscriptions which I have found.  I have copied them faithfully.  There is reason to believe that the great pains that the barbarians have taken to destroy them have ensured that one may not find anything more considerable, [p.215]  or in greater quantity, or, if they are there, they are under the sand. 

On a pedestal of white marble, four feet high, in writing like that of today, like all the others of which I will make mention, one reads on one of the faces:

Divina stirpe progenitor.
D.N.Fortissimo Principi,
Valentiniano. Victori Pio,
Felici. ac Triumphatori.
Semper Augusto.
Flavius Benedictus, V.P.
Preses Provinciae
Tripolitano Numini   [p.216]
Maiestati que eius
Semper devotus.

On the other face of the same pedestal there is:

Dignissimo, principali,
Innocentissimo puero,
T. Fabio Vibiano junior;
Pontifici Duro Viro filio,
Ac collego T. Flavio Frontini,
Heraclii, in parvulis annis,
Exibentio Aqualiter
Voluptatem genera patris
Sui studiis, populi suffragio,
Et decreto ordinis.

On many stones in the middle of the town, scattered and out of order.

Traiano,   [p.217]
Amilia,
Divi Trajani,
Nerva
Imp. VI. Cosu.
Imp. Galba
pro Repu.
C. Pomponius R.
Proimp. Provive,
Bombei, io.
Sari divi Nervae
Max. trib. Pro XIIII.
Coloniae Vulpiae Tr.
Cum ornament.
Q. Pompa
io, cerea
li, ex de
creto Or   [p.218]
dinis Rom.

On a small square stone.

In large letters on the sea side, the others being without order.

IMP. CAES.

Outside the town, on a stone which is presently in a wall.

Pulcretio
Cressenti
Bono filio
Bono fratr.
Pulcretius,
Rogatinus,
Pater feci.

On another stone, which [p.219] is still in use in a wall.

Domitiae Roga,
Tul. vixit,
annis XXIII.
M. Jullius,
Cethegus,
Phicissiam Uxori,
Carissimae fecit.

In another place.

D.M.
L. CL.
Perpe.
Tui pro
Bati
Vixit ann.
XX.    [p.220]

On another stone, in Greek, Latin and Arabic.

Birichi Basiliei
Mater flodi Medici.

DIOSIATROS in Greek letters, and the rest in Arabic.

In the open countryside.

Rutilius Victor
Vixit annis XI.

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  1. [1]PS: Joe, if you’re reading this, your email isn’t working.↩