At home today, and I’ve spent part of the afternoon OCR-ing and proofing the section of Brockelmann’s History of Arabic Literature dedicated to historical writers of the classical period (750-1000 AD). I hope to turn it into English and put it online. It’s only from the first edition, but should still be useful.
Tag: From my diary
From my diary
Small stuff today.
A revised version of the leaflet for the Eusebius book arrived today — better, but not there yet.
Also a note from the library that Bloch, God’s plagiarist, — a biography of the Abbe Migne — has arrived.
I’ve started in on the OCR of the first edition of Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, but not got very far.
And no, I haven’t managed to get my Wifi working yet!
Death by heatstroke
Some days nothing works. It was 30.5C outside when I came out from work, and it’s hotter than hell up here in the study room. I was going to take my PC downstairs, where I have an aircon unit working, but today, of all days, my Wifi has decided to take a break. After an hour and a quarter, I’ve given up and am sitting here doing what I have to do.
For some reason the hardback of the Eusebius book has dropped off Amazon.co.uk — all that is accessible is the import from the US. Will have to email them and enquire why. Some sort of kink in the distribution chain.
Another draft of the leaflet for the book, to go in the pack at the patristics conference has arrived, but I’m too knacked to look at it. And a nice email from someone involved in the project asking about reviews and offering to help.
Too hot to do anything this evening, I think!
Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur and the greed of Brill
I realised this evening that I really do need to look at the definitive work on Arabic literature, the Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur by Carl Brockelmann. He did a first edition back in 1898, and a second edition in 1943. The second edition is the standard work. It was issued in two volumes, and there were three volumes of supplements.
I discover this evening that it is available for sale at the Brill website, in a single volume form. Oh goodie, I thought — until I saw the price. They wanted, for this lump of paper costing around $25 to manufacture at most, nearly $1,000! And the resale value is almost nothing.
There is an Arabic translation, but not an English translation. The Arabic translation has been bootlegged and is freely accessible online.
As a publisher myself, I don’t deny Brill the right to a reasonable profit. But a price like that means that no-one can afford a copy.
It’s ridiculous. It’s also very short-sighted. And it is hardly fair to Prof. Brockelmann, now long dead, who doubtless was paid little or nothing for his efforts. He died in 1956, which means his work will come out of copyright in 2026. But that does none of us any good now.
Yet … to read it means a paper copy, at least for most of us, where corners can be turned down and bits underlined and notes written in the margin.
Because it is a reference volume, just borrowing it from a library is probably difficult. But I’ve had a go this evening. Let’s see if anyone will lend me a copy of vol. 1, which covers literature to the end of the Ummayad period. It’s worth a try.
If it does work, I will probably make a copy of it for my own purposes, and get around the problem that way. But I am perfectly willing to buy a copy, at say $50, if only they would sell them at that price.
From my diary
Yet another attempt to install IE9 on my machine has failed. For a moment this morning it looked as if my attempt to do so had hopelessly corrupted my windows install. It always fails when restarting on “setting up personalized setting for browser customizations”. I don’t have any browser customisations — not intentional ones anyway — and I don’t want my “personalised settings” at this price. I disabled all the add-ons. But it is telling that attempting to reset IE8 to factory defaults hangs. I did try deinstalling IE8, but that didn’t help. All that … for a browser?
Meanwhile … this site is NOT banned in China! Which is good news.
The bill for photocopying Bar Hebraeus Chronicon Ecclesiasticum vol. 3 arrived this morning, ca. $50. I’ve paid it, but it is sobering to see how much it costs just to upload a couple of books. Vol. 3 is on Archive.org, by the way — but I hope to find the time to rescan the pages, because I think I can do better.
I’m reading a review copy of James Romm’s Ghost on the throne, which Random House sent me yesterday. It’s very readable and seems to be the sort of thing Michael Grant used to do. It’s done very well. A general reader who wants to know what happened after Alexander died will find it very useful. It is source-driven, thankfully. I approve! But I will do a post with a proper review in due course.
I’ve reached the point at which Alexander is dead and the Athenians are about to drive Aristotle out of the city as a friend of Macedon. The tactics used by the demagogues are uncommonly like those I have seen used on Wikipedia!
What I do miss, in the book, is the witty quips of the people under discussion, which appear in volumes like Paley’s Greek Wit. Dr Romm should be given a copy!
Oh, and the book cover is terrible. Worse than it appears on the website.
From my diary
Ordered vol. 2 of Vermaseren’s CIMRM today. Let’s see if my local library can get it.
Ordered 1,000 flyers from a local designer, to go in the welcome pack of the Oxford Patristics Conference. These are due by 4th August, so need to be ready by then. Some poor souls then have to make up those packs by hand. Also contacted the conference to remind them I exist and intend to have such a flyer. (Need to think about how personally I am going to get there, and how to do some kind of book display!)
I also ordered two review copies, one for Vigiliae Christianae, one for the Journal of Theological Studies. It’s interesting that the journals have a rather stand-offish attitude to publications. You don’t exactly feel enthused to send them copies. I wanted to send a copy to the Journal of Early Christian Studies, but I can’t find a contact address! My email enquiry was ignored. Rather baffling that.
A couple of days ago I had the offer to review a history of the Successor period, after Alexander, by James Fromm. I agreed yesterday, and — to my utter astonishment — a copy arrived today. By international priority post, no less! That must have cost a bit. But it’s timely — something to read over the weekend.
I took a load of paperbacks down to the local charity shop — four plastic bags full. Glad to see the back of books that I know I shall never read again. I rescued a few from the pile, tho!
I also have a pile of academic books I want to get rid of. I have an academic in Europe who could use them, and I’d be willing to donate them. But … you can’t post books from Britain. You really cannot. I’ve been into two post offices today, enquiring. I had with me six small books. Total weight just under 2 kg (about 4 pounds in real weights). Price to post was over 11GBP (i.e. $17). It’s more costly for individual books. If I get 20kg, it will cost me about 90GBP (i.e. $140), just to post them. Cynically, surface post for printed papers is made more expensive than airmail.
I found myself wondering if the cheapest way to do this is just to hire a student to fly over there by a budget airline with a suitcase. I bet it would cost less than 90 GBP!
A scholion on Lucian about Mithras, and a translation of Theodoret
Here’s a couple of stray thoughts, relating to previous posts.
Firstly, I can confirm that there is a translation into English of Theodoret’s Fabularum Haereticorum Compendium in the 1990 these by Glenn Melvin Cope, An analysis of the heresiological method of Theodoret of Cyrus in the “Haereticarum fabularum compendium”. I got hold of a copy today, and all five books are translated.
Secondly … Andrew Eastbourne very kindly translated a scholion on Lucian, which related to Mithras. I extracted it from Cumont’s Textes et Monumentes and asked him to do the honours. Here’s what he says:
Cumont cites two scholia on Lucian which discuss Mithra(s), from the edition of Jacobitz. For a more recent edition, see Rabe, Scholia in Lucianum (1906).[1]
Scholion on Lucian, Zeus Rants / Jupiter tragoedus 8 [cf. Rabe, p. 60]:
This Bendis…[2] Bendis is a Thracian goddess, and Anubis is an Egyptian [god], whom the theologoi[3] call “dog-faced.” Mithras is Persian, and Men is Phrygian. This Mithras is the same as Hephaestus, but others say [he is the same as] Helios. So then, because the barbarians would take pride[4] in wealth, they naturally also outfitted their own gods most expensively. And Attis is revered by the Phrygians…
Scholion on Lucian, The Parliament of the Gods / Deorum concilium 9 [cf. Rabe, p. 212]
Mithrês [Mithras]… Mithras is the sun [Helios], among the Persians.[5]
——-
[1] I have noted points where Rabe’s edition differs in substance from the text printed by Cumont. Rabe’s edition is available online at http://www.archive.org/details/scholiainlucianu00rabe
[2] Lucian’s text here mentions Bendis, Anubis, Attis, Mithrês [Mithras], and Mên.
[3] The Greek term normally refers to poets who wrote about the gods, like Hesiod or Orpheus. Note that this is an emendation; the mss. read logoi (“words / discourses / accounts”), which Rabe adopts in his edition.
[4] Gk. ekômôn; lit., “wore their hair long / let their hair grow long.”
[5] Rabe’s text: “Mithras is the same as Helios, among the Persians.”
I will add this material to my collection of Mithras literary references.
More on the Eusebius and Hegesippus of Rodosto / Raidestos
Today I managed to get a look at R. Forster’s De antiquitatibus et libris manuscriptis Constantinopolitanis, 1877. [2019 update: now here] This, if you remember, contains a catalogue of Greek manuscripts said to exist in the 16th century at Rodosto / Raidestos, a town just outside Constantinople.
Well, it does contain such a list. The list covers two and a bit pages, no less, starting on p.29. The publication is rather rubbishy, and I wasn’t easily able to work out just where the data came from — the article text was in Latin, and badly structured. But I laboured through the list of Greek works. (It was in a rare books room, so I could get no photocopies)
And … I think it’s a hoax.
A lot of books look reasonable to me. But I don’t believe, or not very much, that the library contained a copy of the lost comedies of Menander. That is quite unlikely, and appears close to the top of the first page, shortly after some works of Aristotle.
On the second page, close to the bottom, are two entries, one above the other. These were in Greek, but they read:
History of Hegesippus
Eusebius Pamphilus against Porphyry
This is highly suspicious. The first of these probably wasn’t extant much after the fall of the Western empire. But it does appear as bait in various lists of books supposedly extant during the 16th and 17th century, published by Theodor Zahn (my translation here) and Ph. Meyer (ditto). If it existed, such a book would be beyond price; and that, probably, is precisely why it is listed in book lists designed to tempt western collectors. Its very presence suggests fraud.
But for this improbability to be followed by yet another lost work primarily of interest to westerners is beyond probability, in my opinion.
I would imagine that the list is a hoax. It doesn’t look real to me. Normal medieval catalogues start with biblical works, patristic works, and add other material towards the end. This one is a mixture of stuff, much of it clearly far more interesting in the west than to any Greek monastic collection. Close to the top, where the eye will fall on it almost immediately, is something a westerner would want — Menander. And the two other items? Well, doubtless there were all sorts of people hunting around Greece in the 16th century, asking after this, asking after that. What easier than to make up such a list, include a few of the items, inveigle someone to come out with a belt of gold, make the long journey, and then say (with straight face) “Sorry, we’ve lost those; but look what we can sell you!”
Was there ever a collection of books at Rodosto? Perhaps there was. It should be investigated, certainly.
But, alas, I can no longer feel any confidence that the Eusebius against Porphyry was ever there.
Is there room for a remake of “Up Pompeii”?
Do you remember the old TV series, Up Pompeii? Possibly not. It hasn’t been shown in many, many years. It was a hit before most people reading this were born. There was also a film version, from which the image (left) is taken.
The comedy — or farce, for such it was — was set in Roman times, with a bunch of actors pretending to be Romans, and the whole thing really just a setup for a series of smutty jokes of the kind told 50 years ago, and which have not worn well today.
Similarly there was a US stage show, A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, of much the same vintage and, I fear, much the same quality.
But could such a show be made today? And if so, what would it look like?
The broad, lazy farce style would have to go. I doubt a single gag could be reused. The episodes would have to tell a story. But surely, surely, this is essentially a sit-com? If The Big Bang Theory, set in a roomful of young physicists, can work, something similarly organised would work, set in ancient Rome.
One element that was integral to the original was the titillation. This relied on the fact that porn was not available readily. In these less innocent days, that side of things would have to go.
But there is clearly a market for light fiction set in Roman times. The ‘Falco’ detective novels of Lindsay Davis prove this, where the characters all speak as if they were moderns, but live in ancient Rome.
The main character, the humorous slave Lurcio, on whom “the heat and burden of the action fell”, would need to be a sharp modern comic — something like Frank Skinner used to be. But surely that is possible?
It seems to me that modern TV producers are missing a trick. There is a sit-com here, ready to be made.
I hate Lightning Source
Yup. They’ve done it to me again.
I uploaded the stuff for the Eusebius paperback three weeks ago. Yesterday I got impatient and asked where the proof was — no reply. Today I got onto their chat system, and they tell me my order wasn’t processed because the book files were not uploaded! Oh yes they were!
SO unprofessional…
Better still, the chat “representative” is now giving me the run-around — “contact my client representative” (who didn’t reply yesterday).