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Firmicus Maternus, On the Error of Pagan Religions – now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanum religionum, is a very interesting late Roman text on paganism from the mid-4th century.  Unfortunately it has never been online.

A correspondent kindly lets me know that a PDF containing a 1971 thesis with a full translation can be found here (PDF here): Richard E. Oster, Julius Firmicus Maternus: De errore profanum religionum. Introduction, translation and commentary, Rice University, 1971.  I suspect that this is the same person who blogs here, with many of the same interests (and outlook) as myself.

Grab it while it’s hot!  Rice University are to be commended for making this accessible.

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Theodoret on Deuteronomy, from “A word in season” by the Augustinian Press

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Church lectionaries sometimes contain English translations of chunks of the fathers.  I came across this one on Facebook here.

Tuesday after Septuagesima:

A READING FROM QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY BY THEODORET OF CYRRHUS

After the Lord God had brought the people out of Egypt, he gave them, on Mount Sinai, the Law that was to govern the behaviour of the children of Israel. Then, in the second year, he sent them to take possession of the land he had promised their fathers he would give them. But they absolutely refused to set out on the conquest of the country. Then God swore he would not give this land to any of those whom Moses, the lawgiver, had counted but would let them all perish in the wilderness. After forty more years had passed and that entire generation had died in accordance with God’s decree, the Lord ordered a census of their children; the latter were then at the age their fathers had been at the time of the first census.

Before God led them into the promised land, he taught them, through his minister, Moses the prophet, the Law he had given to their fathers and which their fathers had disobeyed. This is why Deuteronomy contains a recapitulation of the events and legal codes found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. There was no question of giving them a second law but of reminding them of the first set of laws, as the book itself tells us at its beginning: Moses began to teach this law clearly to them, saying: The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb. Moses reminds them of how the Lord had told them to enter the promised land and take possession of it and how he himself had appointed Joshua, son of Nun, to succeed him as leader of the people.

Then Moses reminds them of how the God of the universe had shown himself to them: he had spoken to them from the midst of fire, but without displaying any form. They are therefore forbidden to fashion any image or to try making for themselves a representation of God, for they had not seen any form of him who is the archetype of all things. “Everything under heaven,” he tells them, “has been made by the creator for the use of men. Do not turn into gods that which the God of the universe has destined to serve the needs of man.”

You realise, of course, that the prophet did not address all these words to the people in a single day, but rather explained them day after day. This fact explains why he often repeats the same ideas, in order that persistent repetition might strengthen their memory of them. Elsewhere the words of the prophet himself show that he is not here giving a new law but instructing in the first law those who, because they were so young, had not been able to hear its promulgation: The Lord your God, he says, made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with your fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with you. Since these fathers had perished because of their sin, it was to them, their children, that the Lord was giving the land once promised to their fathers, that is, to those to whom he was giving the Law.

— Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Questions on Deuteronomy 1 (PG 80:401-408)

On enquiry I was told that this is from A Word in Season, vol. II, 2nd ed., Villanova: Augustinian Press (1999).  This, it seems, is a collection of volumes by English Benedictines, containing readings from the fathers for two years.  This blog tells us:

The English Benedictines also produced a set of volumes for the two-year lectionary, A Word in Season, Augustinian Press, 2nd edition 1999. These contain the Scriptural references but not texts; and texts of second readings, mostly patristic, but a number from more contemporary sources. These volumes contain responsories for each reading. Copies of some volumes are available from Stanbrook Abbey bookshop and occasionally come up on AbeBooks. There is an especially good representation of English spiritual writers.

The very generic title, unfortunately, makes it hard to find these volumes, but I could see that volumes of an earlier edition (1995) were on Abebooks, and some marked as edited by John E. Rotelle.  Google books indicated that they were translated by Edith Barnecut.

However, it seems that there is no need to track these volumes down.  For precisely the same entry is to be found in a two-year lectionary which is freely available at Durham University.  It is here.  The editor writes:

In the English-speaking world there was an attempt to produce a two-year patristic lectionary led by Henry Ashworth which became the eight volume series of books ‘A Word in Season’, most recently published by Augustinian Press. The later volumes in this series, however, departed from the strict concept of a ‘patristic’ lectionary and took the majority of readings from later periods of Church history. Given the special place of the fathers in the history and theology of the Church and the fact that they are part of the patrimony of all Christians, some felt it would be better to have a two-year lectionary which drew most of its readings from the early Church. On this basis Abbot Hugh Gilbert OSB of Pluscarden Abbey in Scotland asked me to create a two-year cycle of patristic readings for use at the Abbey.

Worth being aware that there is a mass of useful material here.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I noted yesterday that my posts no longer appeared in Twitter.  Today I noticed that the sharing buttons had vanished from my posts as well.  Sigh.  It’s all down to WordPress Jetpack, which kindly disabled this functionality without telling me.

Let’s see if I have managed to reenable it….  Hmm….

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The buried west gate of Roman Lindum (Lincoln)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The ancient city of Lincoln is well-known as a Roman city, Lindum.  But an interesting discovery was made in 1836 by a rascally inn-keeper, who was burrowing away at the castle mound, trying to expand his premises.  He came across the Roman west gate.

Not the foundations.  The whole gatehouse had been buried when the Norman mound was built, and it was intact, certainly to the extent of the first floor chamber.  Unfortunately the pressure of earth caused a partial collapse within a few days; and then the authorities stepped in and ordered its reburial where, to my knowledge, it still is.

I owe my knowledge of all this to Dr Caitlin Green on Twitter here.  But I feel that it is worth exploring the sources a bit.

Our information comes from the Gentleman’s Magazine of January-June 1836, online here at Google Books, p.583 f.  This includes an engraving:

Lindum, West Gate, 1836

The story is as follows, given in a letter of May 17th 1836 (paragraphing mine):

MR. URBAN, Lincoln, May 17.

A very interesting relic of the olden time has been recently brought to view in this city. …

The ditch around the walls of the castle having been suffered to get into private hands, the greater part of it has been filled up for the purpose of being formed into building ground, and the picturesque appearance of the old castle has been nearly destroyed by the erection of a large number of small tenements and other buildings near to its walls. With a view of pursuing this barbarous practice, an individual of the name of Ball has been recently engaged in filling up the ditch at the north-west corner, near to the Sally Port, and has thrown down, to the great danger it is to be feared of the castle walls, a large portion of the earthen bulwark.

This, however, has led to a most unexpected result, the discovery of the western gate of the old Roman city, which was found in the bank on Monday the eleventh of April last, where it has no doubt been hid for more than seven hundred years. It will be seen from the Plate, that the long-lost Western gate was near to, and a little north of the Sally Port, and that it was buried in the earth when the fortifications were constructed by our Norman conquerors.

This very interesting relic of the great Roman people was, however, no sooner found, than it was again lost for ever, as the square mass of masonry nearest the Sally Port gave way on the Friday after it was first discovered, and the fine old arch, constructed in all probability more than fifteen hundred years ago, fell to the ground.

As the workmen had only partly excavated the arch at the time it fell, any account of its dimensions must necessarily be in some respects a matter of conjecture; it appeared how ever to have been very similar to the North gate, measuring about fifteen feet in the clear, and being composed of about the same number of large ponderous stones four feet deep from front to back, two feet high, and from twelve to eighteen inches broad.

On each side, the masonry was carried up above the crown of the arch for about twelve feet, and went, no doubt, originally much higher, forming two pillars or wings measuring seven feet by four; and between these the work men represent there were the remains of three smaller arches forming as many openings four feet wide over the centre of the great gate.

The masonry on the north side was forced over by the workmen, and as the earth in consequence gave way behind it, part of the square return-wall of the gate was then disclosed to view. This showed another opening towards the north, of the same width and on the same level as those mentioned to have been observed in the front towards the west; and as there were the appearances around the inner parts of the wall, above the crown of the arch, of places where floor timbers had once been, there can be no doubt the Romans had a square watch-tower over this gate, standing in advance of the walls of their town, which they used as a place of observation, the situation of it being such as to command a very extensive prospect, not only over the plain north of Lincoln, but also over a considerable extent of country to the west and south…

The arch had in some degree lost its proper semicircular form, and had become a little flattened towards the north abutment, which had been thrown considerably out of the perpendicular, causing two of the large stones to separate more than four inches at the bottom. The traces of the Roman wall are very apparent in various parts around Lincoln, and as this great gate must have been double, the inner arch may be buried in the earth a little way within the area of the castle, as will appear probable on inspecting the Plan in Camden’s Britannia, by Gough, Vol. II. Pl. v1.11. and drawing a straight line from the marks indicating the remains of the Roman wall on each side of the castle.

The crown of the recently discovered arch was about nineteen feet below the castle walls, about thirty-five feet in advance of them, and the entire front occupied a space of thirty-three feet. The posterns, if there were any, have not yet been exposed to view; and it is not now probable any further excavations will be permitted, as the Vice-Chancellor has recently granted an in junction against Ball, restraining him from doing further damage to the castle walls by removing more earth from the western mound.

In making the excavations, three Roman coins, and the iron head of an arrow, bent and blunted at the point, were found. Two of the coins are so much cankered and defaced, that it is impossible to decypher them; but the other is a Galba in good preservation. On the obverse around the head of the Emperor is the inscription IMP. SER . GALBA CAESAR AVG . P: M. and on the reverse is the legend DIVA AVGVSTA, with the figure of Concord holding a chaplet in her right hand, and a hasta pura in the left. This may be considered rather a scarce coin, as the emperor Galba reigned less than seven months, having succeeded Nero in the middle of the year of our Lord 63, and fallen a sacrifice to his avarice and severity at the very commencement of the year following, in which short period no very great number of medals could be coined.   FREDERICK BURTON.

A reconstruction by David Vale of how it looked is here:

The wretched “Ball” is apparently a certain Philip Ball, as an 1854 guidebook to Lincoln, The Strangers’ illustrated guide through Lincoln, by George Lockyer, p.6 makes plain.  It also documents the process of widespread destruction of the Roman walls then in progress.

The 1856 History, gazetteer and directory of Lincolnshire by William White, p.65 adds that

the arch was completely bared, and exhibited a counterpart of the north gate, with this difference, that no posterns could be found, nor could any traces be found to shew that there had been any.  After gratifying the eyes of many antiquaries for a few days, the whole fell down, but not before a very excellent sketch had been made of it, which has since been lithographed.

There is, therefore, possibly an original sketch somewhere, maybe with a plan?

Again my sincere thanks to Dr Green for making this information accessible to the rest of us!

 

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A post on the death of the blogosphere

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I came to blogging comparatively late, and I was never one of the “cool kids” anyway.  But here I am still, while the grandly named “blogosphere” has passed into history.

Recently I came across an article on Legal Insurrection entitled Surviving the death of the blogosphere:

I read two very interesting posts recently on the demise of blogging, destroyed by social media and click-driven media. ….

“I feel entirely the same way about the blogging golden age. What was precious about it was its simple integrity: A writer gets to explore his craft and develop his own audience. We weren’t in it for the money or the clicks or the followers. We were in it for the core experience shared between a writer and a reader — and the enormous freedom that removing the editorial gatekeepers unlocked. It was a brief period, but an alive one, and it was largely lost — or abandoned — because of a major failure of nerve on the part of most print media….”

“But there’s hope on the horizon again. The sewer of most of Twitter is now so rank that even addicts have begun to realize that they are sinking in oceans of shitholery. Facebook is long overdue for a collapse, and the old institutions are showing signs of developing more character and coherence….”

Social media really is a sewer, and I attribute much of the evaporation of the blogosphere to Twitter. It’s much easier to find an instant audience on Twitter than to build the relationship with readers to get them to come to your website. Twitter pundits are the worst pundits, counting their worth based on “followers” (many of whom are fake and purchased).

I saw this on the 5th February.  It seems prescient, with the mob now baying for Facebook’s blood (if on largely spurious grounds).

The centralisation of the web is an evil.  It has placed the web in the hands of a tiny handful of people, none of them worthy of our trust.  Wikipedia sucked out of the web the joy of research, and replaced it with an official truth decided by trolls and perverts and who knows what.  Facebook was always dishonest.  Twitter has turned into a platform for censorship.

What started off as a world in which anyone might be heard is now all about deciding who may be allowed to speak.  Instead of a place where anybody could start a blog, or a website, on equal terms with everyone else, we have this tiny number of corporations.

Fortunately this too will pass.  Let us hope that better days lie ahead.

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The Annals of Eutychius of Alexandria (10th c. AD) – chapter 5 – part 1

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Let’s continue with translating the “Annals” of Sa`id ibn Bitriq, the Melkite patriarch of Alexandria in the 10th century.

1. After him reigned David, son of Yassà.  From the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt to the kingdom of David there had passed 606 years; from Abraham to the kingdom of David, 1,113 years; from Fāliq to the reign of David, 1,654 years; from the flood to the kingdom of David, 2,185 years; from Adam to the kingdom of David, 4,441 years.  At the age of thirty David, son of Yassà, reigned over all the tribes of Israel.  He reigned forty years and six months, of which seven and six months were at Hibrūn, and thirty-three at Jerusalem. The head of Saul’s soldiers was Abnīr, son of Nīr.  Abnir killed ‘Ashā’il (1), brother of Yuwāb.  Yuwāb then went out with his men and killed three hundred and sixty men of Abnīr’s, burying his brother ‘Ashā’īl at Bethlehem. After the killing of Saul, Abnīr took Yasūsit (2), son of Saul, and proclaimed him at Ğal’àd, as king of the sons of Ephraim and of the sons of Israel. Yasūsit was forty years old at the time he began to reign.  Between the soldiers of Saul and those of David there were many wars and many deaths.  Saul had a concubine named Risfà (3). Abnīr took her for himself, but Yasūsit, son of Saul, forbade him. Abnīr became irritated and went over to David asking for his protection.  David accepted him and left him at liberty.  Yuwāb, son of Sāruyā (4) and husband of David’s sister, took Abnīr, who was the commander of David’s soldiers, and had him killed to avenge the death of ‘Ashā’īl, brother of Yuwāb.  David became very annoyed when he learned of it, and he ordered all his soldiers to tear their clothes and weep over Abnīr.  Then he had him buried at Hibrūn.  There were two brothers among the commanders of Saul, one named Rihāb and the other named Bā‘anā, of Rimmūn (5), of the tribe of Beniamin.  When they heard that Abnīr had been killed, they went at night (6) to the house of Yasūsit, son of Saul, and they set fire to the door, went in and killed him.  They then took his head and brought it to David.  But David had their hands and feet cut off, had them killed and hanged.  The head of Yasūsit, son of Saul, was buried in the tomb of Abnīr.

2. David founded the city of Ūshā and he called it the city of David, which is now  Sihyūn (7).  When the kings of the foreign tribes heard that David had become king, they gathered to fight him.  David confronted them with his army, killed them and annihilated them, thus consolidating the foundations of his reign. The counselor of David was called Yūshàfāt, son of Akhlīq (8).  Hīram, king of Sūr (9), sent him as a gift wood of cedar and fir, with which David built a temple.  He gathered the chiefs of the sons of Israel and he went to the house of Abīnādāb.  He brought out the ark and placed it on a cart.  The wagon was led by ‘Uzza and Ahyū, sons of Abīnādāb (10), two Israelites of the descendants of Qāhāt, son of Levi, because no one else of the Israelites could carry the ark apart from the descendants of Levi.  In loading the ark on the cart they covered it with fabric, and between the ark and the people there was a distance of a thousand cubits.  ‘Uzzā and Ahyū had already loaded the ark onto the cart when the bullocks leaned on their legs and the ark threatened to fall.  ‘Uzza then grabbed the ark but he fell dead to the ground.  David was frightened and he had the ark brought to the house of ‘Ubaydādūm the Hittite (11).  The ark remained with him for three months. David later took the ark away from the house of ‘Ubaydādūm.  Around the ark there were seven rows of men with trumpets, flutes and all sorts of musical instruments.  David wore a colorful robe, and he danced and strutted before the ark.  He then placed the ark in the middle of the tent that David himself had raised at Giluwā (12).[1]  David slaughtered many heifers and rams.  The ark was made of cedar wood, it was long, wide and tall a cubit and a half and all covered with gold.

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  1. [1]The text seems to be corrupt here.↩

Trying to find a picture of the “Cista mystica” of M. Modius Maxximus from Ostia

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In my previous post, I put up a picture of a vessel, a cista or modius, surmounted by a cock, which belonged to the High Eunuch (archigallus) of Cybele at Ostia, M. Modius Maxximus.  In fact there is a pun here; the Latin for a cock is a gallus, which is depicted on top of a large modius (modius maximus).

Here is the image from yesterday again.

In fact the image is also available on Wikimedia Commons here, where the source is given as Rieger, Heiligtümer in Ostia, 1994.  The image is no clearer, tho.

Looking at this intently, some things are visible.

The syrinx or pan-pipes are in the middle.  To the left seems to be an animal with a tail, and above that a head wearing a phrygian cap.  Is there something above that also?

The picture leaves much unclear; and I have been attempting to track down more images.  This is not simple.  The item was held in the Lateran museum; but this has long since been moved to the Vatican.  But surely there is a published drawing?

One annoyance in 19th century scholarship is the use of abbreviations for references.  In case my struggles may help others – or at least turn up in Google, let me outline how I went about this.

Thus Decharme tells us in his article (p.288 n.7 and 8) that Visconti’s publication of the cista may be found in “Annal. Inst. Arch., 1868, p.390 et suiv; Ibid., 1869, p.242″.  Graillot says the item is studied on p.240 ff.  That’s helpful; if you don’t already know what that might be, you aren’t going to find out from here.

Luckily we have the internet.  After some difficulty I found this:

Annali dell’Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica = Annales de l’Institut de Correspondance Archéologique

And found it at Arachne, here, attached to the 1877 volume.  It required a bit of fiddling to find the list of volumes, which led me to volume 41 (1869), which – again with some fiddling – can be downloaded.  Volume 40 (1868) does not appear to be there.  The resulting PDF is enormous.  p.240-5 seem to deal with the cista.  But no image.  On p.240 tho is a reference – infuriatingly abbreviated also – to “la nostra tav. VIIIa n. 1”.  On p.245 I find references to “Mon. dell’Inst. Vol. VIIII tavv.” and Showerman refers to “Mon. dell’ Ist. IX, tav. 8 a. 1”; not helped by a misspelling.

Guessing, therefore, I substitute “monumenti” for “annales” and  get “monumenti dell’instituto di corrispondenza archeologica”.  And … this does exist!  (as does “bulletini dell’instituto di corrispondenza archeologica” – what a system).  This likewise points me to Arachne, and, searching in Arachne, clicking on “books”, then “list” leads me to volume 9, 1869.  There it is!  And the drawing is as follows (click to enlarge):

The “statua di Atti” I have cropped.  The “utensile sacro” is our cista.  Both found in the excavations of Ostia.

Zooming on the left-hand side, we get this:

The three figures that Visconti thought he saw are certainly present.  The top one is supposed to be Attis, the middle one Zeus Idaios or possibly a river, the bottom one a lion (sacred to Cybele), while the vertical elements are reeds.

In the absence of a better image, it’s hard to see more.

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Canna intrat: “Finding the infant Attis among the reeds”?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting claim on twitter a few days ago began:

On this date in ancient Rome, the annual Festival of Attis and Cybele began with a procession of reed-bearers to commemorate the finding of the infant Attis among the reeds.

This instantly suggested a parallel with the baby Moses to me; and hence, the fear that this might be one of the “Jesus is really Attis” headbangers.  In fact there is more to this; and it is quite interesting to which bits of this are actually attested.

It isn’t hard to find the claim elsewhere, in respectable sources.  For instance Antonia Tripolitis, Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age, Eerdmans (2002) p.34 discusses a series of events celebrating Cybele in March and states:[1]

The festival began on the Ides of March, March 15. On this day, a six-year-old bull was sacrificed by the cult’s high priest, priestess, and cannophori, or reed-bearers, for the purpose of promoting the fertility of the mountain fields. The cannophori then carried reeds to the temple of the goddess. This is believed to be a commemoration of the early days of Attis based on an early version of the legend. According to the legend, Attis as a child was abandoned among the reeds by the banks of the Gallus River and was rescued by shepherds who raised him.[2]

Likewise Maria Grazia Lancellotti, Attis: Between Myth and History: King, Priest and God, Brill (2002), p.81 states (with references this time):

The calendar of these ceremonies, which we know from a late source (354 CE), is as follows [101]:

Id. Mart.    Canna intrat
XI K. Apr.  Arbor intrat
(etc)

The day of the Canna intrat marked the beginning of the ceremonies. The college of the cannophori – evidence for which at Ostia oscillates between the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd centuries [102] – was connected specifically with this feast day in which, probably, were remembered the birth, the exposure and finally the rescue of little Attis on the banks of the river Sangarius [103].

102.  Cf. Vermaseren 1977-1989, III, nos. 398, 399, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 416, 417.
103.  Jul., Or. V 165b, and Sall., De diis et mundo IV. Two representations of Attis in connection with reeds are quoted by Graillot 1912, p. 117 n. 2.  [3]

There is actually a minor mistake here: the river is Gallos, not Sangarius, the name of Attis’ grandfather.

On the other hand Grant Showerman, “Canna Intrat and the Cannophori”, Classical Journal 2 (1906) 28-31 (JSTOR) makes plain that much of this is speculation.

The theory that the infant Attis was found among the reeds seems to be that of Decharme, in Rev. archeol. 1886, I, p.288 f.  Not everyone agrees.

So let’s proceed to the sources.  These are largely very late, and we know that the ceremonies of Cybele developed during the first few centuries AD.  So how much of this is representative of anything but 4th century paganism may be questioned.

The Chronography of 354, section 6, also known as the Philocalian calendar, simply states “Canna Intrat” – “the reed enters” against the 15th, the ides of March.  There is nothing associating this with Cybele here.  It’s just a list of events.

John the Lydian, De mensibus book 4, states:

49. On the Ides of March,[45] there is a festival of Zeus, on account of the mid-month, and public prayers that the year will be healthful.  And they would also sacrifice a 6-year-old bull on behalf of the mountain country, under the leadership of the high priest and the “reed-bearers”[46] of the Mother.  And [106] a man clothed with a goat-skin would be led in, and they would strike him with long, slender rods, calling him “Mamurius.”  …

This does associate “reeds” and “reed-bearers” (cannophori) with both the ides of March, and with Cybele, the Great Mother.  It is, therefore, reasonable to associate “canna intrat” with the rites of Cybele.

Julian the Apostate, in his Hymn to the Great Mother (Oration 5) states:

… we regard this Attis as the generative Power and the Gallos at one and the same time—-him who, as Fable tells, was exposed by the side of the streams of the river Gallos, and there grew up, and afterwards, when he had got tall and handsome, became the favourite of the Mother of the Gods, and she committed to his care all other things, and placed upon his head the star-bespangled cap.

Sallustius, On the gods and the world:

To take another myth, they say that the Mother of the Gods seeing Attis lying by the river Gallus fell in love with him, took him, crowned him with her cap of stars, and thereafter kept him with her. He fell in love with a nymph and left the Mother to live with her. For this the Mother of the Gods made Attis go mad and cut off his genital organs and leave them with the nymph, and then return and dwell with her.

Now the Mother of the Gods is the principle that generates life; that is why she is called Mother. Attis is the creator of all things which are born and die; that is why he is said to have been found by the river Gallus.

Both Julian and Sallustius are aware of a legend connecting the origins of Attis to the river Gallos, and even that he was exposed there.

A cista from Ostia, dedicated by the Archigallus M. Modius Maxximus is our next piece of data:

I copied the image from here.[4].  The inscription tells us that he was Archigallus of the colony of Ostia (CIL XIX, 385).  Although the image above does not show it, supposedly the head of Attis appears in the reeds alongside the head of a lion, and the head of Zeus, or possibly a river.  That said, Hepding says that while Decharme could see the head of Zeus Idaios; Visconti saw the head of a lion, and he could only see a plain head.[5]  According to Clement of Alexandria, Protrepicus 2.19 and scholium,[6] these items contained the severed genitals of the castrated Attis.[7]  Obviously if this does show the child Attis, reeds, and the river, then this is very interesting; but there seems more than a little doubt!  I shall look further into this.

A further item is “a bronze statuette at Toulouse, showing Attis holding in one hand the syrinx and in the other a sheaf of reeds.”[8].  This item is listed by Vermaseren in the Corpus cultus Cybelae attidisque (CCCA) 3, p.146:

It is noteworthy that Vermaseren thinks it is corn, not reed that is held here.  Here’s the item (click for a larger image) from here. Toulouse, Musée Saint-Raymond, inv. 25560:

Duncan Fishwick’s 1966 article[9] states:

What exactly was the significance of this parade is still very uncertain. Nothing final can be inferred from the Ostian cista of M. Modius Maximus, the archigallus or high priest of the Cybele cult, representing the head of Attis flanked by reeds (CIL XIV 385); nor from a bronze statuette at Toulouse showing Attis holding in one hand the syrinx and in the other a sheaf of reeds.10 The most likely interpretation is that the festival recalled the finding of the infant Attis by Cybele on the banks of the river Gallos, where he had been exposed at birth by order of his grandfather Sangarios.11

The finding of Attis by the river is attested.  The reed-bearers are attested as associated somehow with Attis and Cybele.  That reed is associated in the myth with the birth of Attis seems plausible, although nothing actually says so; only that he was found by the river.  Reeds are associated with him on the two monuments.

So we have to say that we simply do not know what the canna intrat actually signified.  The reed-bearers get up to something on that date.  What did they do?

Was it “the finding of the infant Attis among the reeds”?  Maybe.  But the sources do not say so.

Let’s be careful here, people.

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  1. [1]During the reign of Claudius, the cult gained new vigor and was one of the most popular and most favored of the foreign cults. By the end of the 1st century C.E., its popularity had spread throughout the Western world and in Asia Minor. The restrictions on Roman participation were removed. Roman citizens, both men and women, took part in the processions and Roman men were permitted into the ranks of the galli. In addition, although the Megalensia continued to be celebrated in April, a new annual cycle of events was established by Claudius. The new festival, which was held March 15-27, introduced Cybele’s consort Attis into the Roman cult. It is thought that this festival was the original Phrygian cycle initially ignored by the Romans.66 From that time on Attis was honored as a divinity together with Cybele. The significance of the rituals performed during the festival is not certain, and many hypotheses exist. The interpretations presented here are those most widely accepted and found in early literary works, artifacts, and inscriptions.67.  The main sources for the claims that follows is given as Grant Showerman, The Great Mother of the Gods (Chicago: Argonaut, 1969), chapter 4, and Maarten J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis: the Myth and the Cult (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), chapter 5.  Unfortunately neither is accessible to me.↩
  2. [2]No specific reference is given.  The account continues, “A nine-day period of fasting and abstinence began on March 16. On March 22, a pine tree was cut, decorated, and carried to the temple, where it lay in state. This represents the pine tree next to which Attis is often depicted and under which it is believed he bled to death following his self-mutilation in service to the goddess. … (etc)”↩
  3. [3]Graillot = H. Graillot, Le culte de Cybele, Mère des dieux à Rome et dans l’Empire romain, Paris, 1912, online here.↩
  4. [4]This states that it is taken from Rieger 1994, Abb. 119a-b.  This would appear to be Anna-Katharina Rieger, “Der Isistempel von Pompeji”, MA Thesis, Munich, 1994, to which I do not have access↩
  5. [5]Hepding, Attis seine Mythen und sein Kult, p.148-9.  Online here.  See also Squarciapino, I Culto Orientali Ad Ostia, p.12.  Decharme, “Note sur les Cannophores”, Revue archeologique, 1886, vol. 1, online here, 288-9.↩
  6. [6]Hepding p.32. See also here.↩
  7. [7]Jurgen Blanssdorf, “The defixiones from the sanctuary of Isis”, in: R.L.Gordon &c, Magical Practice in the Latin West, p.168.↩
  8. [8]Fishwick, p.195↩
  9. [9]D, Fishwick, “The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater”, TAPA 97 (1966), 193-202. JSTOR.  P.195.↩

A new edition and translation of Hyginus, De munitionibus castrorum

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email from the editor, Duncan B. Campbell, tells me of a new edition, with facing translation, of an unusual text: ps.Hyginus, On fortifying a Roman camp (Liber de munitionibus castrorum).  He has self-published this, and it is available in eBook form for a trivial price through Amazon here (Amazon.co.uk here).

I must say when I received the email, my first question was “what on earth is this?”  It’s a rare author whom I have never heard of.

In fact this short text is one of a collection of ancient surveying texts, made in the 6th century, and preserved in the so-called Codex Arcerianus, preserved today and online in the Wolfenbüttel library in the Herzog August collection, under mysterious shelfmark “Codex Guelferbytensis 36.23 Aug. 2°”).  These are the “Gromatici” (groma-users), or “Agrimenores” (field measurers).  The groma is a Roman surveying stick, depicted on monuments. In fact part of one was found at Pompeii, I believe.

Few medieval surveyors would need to fortify a Roman camp.  The copies of the Arcerianus, therefore, always omit De munitionibus castrorum.

Top of folio 125r of the Codex Arcerianus – the title of Hyginus

Ps.Hyginus has been translated before.  Alan Richardson – Theoretical Aspects of Roman Camp and Fort Design (BAR, 2004), includes a 1925 translation of “De Munitionibus Castrorum” by Ian A. Richmond.  But few will have any access to this.

Likewise a translation is online: appendix 1 in Catherine M. Gilliver, “The Roman Art of War”, (PDF). PhD Thesis, is an English translation of De Munitionibus Castrorum, “based on the 1977 Teubner text of Grillone and the 1979 Budé text of Lenoir”.  No doubt this will do for many purposes.

Dr Campbell, however, has produced a new Latin text indicating all proposed emendations, and his version is no doubt superior.

Let us by all means encourage the production of translations at trivial prices online.

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New at Livius.org: a revised Zosimus translation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Zosimus, “Count of the fisc” in the 6th century, wrote an oddball history in 6 books, which only just reached us.  It was an oddball text because Zosimus was a pagan, and blamed Constantine for everything.  Although he wrote around 550, he had access to lost sources, which make him our only source for events in Britain after the death of Theodosius I in 396.  The sole surviving manuscript was kept on the closed shelves in the Vatican until modern times.

Long ago I placed online an English translation of this work, which I obtained with great difficulty.  My introduction to it is here.

Today I heard from the excellent Jona Lendering of Livius.org, who has tidied this up and added it to his marvellous site:

I have copied your scan of Zosimus and put it online. I have also

  • polished a part of the spelling (as you already indicated, it’s a bad reprint of a cheap book that does not even mention the name of the translator),
  • added chapters and sections according to the Budé edition (anchors for the page numbers have been inserted),
  • linked to relevant pages,
  • and wrote an introduction based on information from the Budé.

You will find it at

The public domain English translation appeared in 1814, but was itself a reprint of a 1684, probably very lax, translation.  A nice modern translation by Ridley exists, done for the Australian Byzantine series, but of course this is not public domain and so is known only to specialists.

Back in 2002 I requested a copy of Zosimus by interlibrary loan.  What arrived after a considerable delay was a bound photocopy of the openings, itself faint, and with the pages effectively back to front.  This I scanned.

A year later I discovered that a copy was in Oxford, in the Bodleian, and I mae a special trip there to find it.  It wasn’t in any normal part of the Bodleian.  I ended up going to a building that I’d never known about; and then being directed to an annex in a house in an obscure part of west Oxford.  The street was narrow and with quite peculiar architecture, and an odd roundabout-park at the end of the road.  I was the only visitor!  I photocopied what I needed, and left.  Years later I saw the street in an episode of Inspector Morse.

That was in 2003, I find.  Back then Google Books did not exist.  Today a copy of the 1814 printing can be found there, at this link.  But so can a copy of the 1684 volume, here!  An 1802 German translation is here.

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