Ancient World Review

The Argonautica By Apollonius Of Rhodes

Note: The rest of this 5-part series can be found here. Scroll down to "Uploads" section.

The Argonautica: "The Voyage of Argo," aka The Argonautica, by Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd cent. BC) is one of my favorite books from the ancient world. The story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told and reading its descriptions of battles and monsters and sacrificial rites is like traveling thousands of years back in time. If you're interested in this classic story, I can recommend the Penguin Classics edition (1959,1971), translated by E.V. Rieu, which is particularly clear and easy to follow. The book is full of luminous scenes like this one where the Argonauts, having just landed on the island of Thynia after passing through the Clashing Rocks, see Apollo pass to the north:

"But at that time of day when heavenly light has not yet come, nor is there utter darkness, but the faint glimmer that we call twilight spreads over the night and wakes us, they ran into the harbour of the lonely isle of  Thynias and went ashore exhausted by their labours. Here they had a vision of Apollo on his way from Lycia to visit the remote and teeming peoples of the North. The golden locks streamed down his cheeks in clusters as he moved; he had a silver bow in his left hand and a quiver slung on his back; the island quaked beneath his feet and the sea ran high on the shore. They were awe-struck at the sight and no one dared to face the god and meet his lovely eyes. They stood there with bowed heads while he, aloof, passed through the air on his way across the sea." -- The Voyage of Argo, Book II, pp. 89-90.

Another great scene describes the Argonauts conducting an animal sacrifice to Triton, the son of Poseidon and the messenger of the sea:

"They urged Jason to kill the best of their sheep and hold it out to the god with words of praise. Jason hastily selected one, lifted it up and killed it over the stern, praying in these words: 'God of the sea, you that appeared to us on the shore of these waters, whether the Ladies of the Brine [Nereids?] know you as that sea-wonder  Triton, or as Phorcys, or as Nereus, be gracious and grant us the happy return that we desire.

"As he prayed he slit the victim's throat and threw it into the water from the stern. Whereupon the god emerged from the depths, no longer in disguise but in his own true form, and grasping the stem of their hollow ship drew her on towards the open sea."

Great stuff. Highly recommended. The 1963 movie with stop-motion effects by Harry Harryhausen is a classic. The scene where Talos wakes gave me the shivers when I first saw it as a kid.

The Acta Diurna & Acta Senatus

"For practical purposes, the history of written journalism can be said to have begun in Rome, with two remarkable productions - the 'acta senatus,' transactions of the senate, and the 'acta diurna,' a daily summary of current events, including law reports and human interest stories. These were handwritten news-sheets, published daily (over a period of nearly 300 years) by being posted up in public places. Copies of them, which could be bought from scribes, were widely read both in Rome itself and throughout the Roman empire." Source: New York Times (1988).

The Acta weren't originally written by hand. According to Ancient Origins, "the Acta Diurna is said to have first appeared around 131/130 BC during the Roman Republic. At this point of time, the Acta Diurna , which were known also as the Acta Popidi or Acta Publica , was carved on stone or metal ... By the time of the 1st century BC, the Acta Diurna ... was handwritten, most likely on sheets of papyri."

The Acta Diurna was originally a kind of government gazette. Posted in public places like the forum, markets, baths, etc., it just covered things like trial results, new laws and so on, but "as time went by, the range of topics reported by the Acta Diurna increased as well. The contents of the Roman notices began to include public announcements, such as military victories, and the price of grain. Apart from these, the Acta Diurna also included other pieces of noteworthy information, such as notable births, marriages, and deaths, as well as news about gladiatorial combats and other games that were being held in the city. The Acta Diurna even included a gossip column, which often contained the latest amorous adventures of Rome’s rich and famous." (Ancient Origins)

The Structure Of A Medieval Manuscript

"Most medieval manuscripts were written on specially treated animal skins, called parchment or vellum (paper did not become common in Europe until around 1450)." Source: The Getty Museum.

"... After the surface had been prepared, the parchment was ruled, usually with leadpoint or colored ink ... The scribe wrote with a quill pen made from the feather of a goose or swan. The end of the feather was cut to form the writing nib. A slit cut into the middle of the nib allowed the ink to flow smoothly to the tip of the pen. The appearance of the script—whether rounded or angular, dense or open—was partly dependent upon the shape and the angle of the nib."

"... Once the writing and illuminating had been completed, the parchment sheets were folded and nested into groups called gatherings. The gatherings were ordered in their proper sequence and sewn together onto cords or leather thongs that served as supports. Once the sewing was finished, the ends of the supports were laced through channels carved into the wooden boards that formed the front and back covers of the book. The binding was usually then covered in leather or a decorative fabric."

Beowulf The Work Of A Single Author?

Video from 2014.

"Beowulf, the epic poem of derring-do and monsters, was composed by a single author, research suggests, pouring cold water on the idea it was stitched together from two poems." Source: The Guardian.

Based on a computer analysis of "small features of the text," this research "suggests – although cannot conclusively prove – that it was the work of a single poet, the researchers say.

"...But mysteries remain – not least the identity of the Beowulf author. 'The most that can be inferred from the language of the poem is that the author probably spoke the Mercian dialect and probably lived during the first half of the eighth century,' said Madison Krieger, co-author of the study from Harvard University."

Note: According to Wikipedia, "The Beowulf manuscript was transcribed from an original by two scribes, one of whom wrote the prose at the beginning of the manuscript and the first 1939 lines before breaking off in mid sentence. The first scribe made a point of carefully regularizing the spelling of the original document by using the common West Saxon language and by avoiding any archaic or dialectical features. The second scribe, who wrote the remainder, with a difference in handwriting noticeable after line 1939, seems to have written more vigorously and with less interest. As a result, the second scribe's script retains more archaic dialectic features which allow modern scholars to ascribe the poem a cultural context."

Beowulf Background

"The events in [Beowulf] take place over most of the sixth century, after the Anglo-Saxons had started migrating to England and before the beginning of the seventh century, a time when the Anglo-Saxons were either newly arrived or were still in close contact with their Germanic kinsmen in Northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. The poem may have been brought to England by people of Geatish origins. Many suggest that Beowulf was first composed in the 7th century at Rendlesham in East Anglia, that the Sutton Hoo ship burial also shows close connections with Scandinavia, and that the East Anglian royal dynasty, the Wuffingas, may have been descendants of the Geatish Wulfings. Others have associated this poem with the court of King Alfred the Great or with the court of King Cnut the Great." Source: Wikipedia.

Related: Beowulf Is A Mystical Red Pill Bible

The Nowell Codex

Notes: "The Nowell Codex is the second of two manuscripts found in the bound volume Cotton Vitellius A.xv, one of the four major Anglo-Saxon poetic manuscripts. It is most famous as the manuscript containing the unique copy of the epic poem Beowulf." Source: Wikipedia.

"In the British Library there is a manuscript, its edges scorched and brittle, of Beowulf, one of the very earliest poems in English and its first great literary masterpiece," according to the University of Chicago. "It exists only in this one vellum codex and has survived for a thousand years, telling of an even earlier time, when the heroic age still was remembered by a Christian audience.

Reading by Seamus Heaney. Part Two here.

"The origin of the manuscript is completely unknown, but it may have belonged to one of the monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII. It first is mentioned in 1563 (the owner, who was gathering manuscripts for a proposed dictionary, signed his name on the first page) and eventually came into the possession of the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton. His library, which was augmented by his son and grandson after his death in 1631, was the richest collection of Anglo-Saxon literary and historical documents in existence. The manuscripts were bound in leather and placed in fourteen bookcases, each watched over by the bust of one of the twelve Caesars, with those of Cleopatra and Faustina (?) presiding over the remaining two. The manuscript of Beowulf was known by the designation Vitellius A. xv: the fifteenth volume on the first shelf under the bust of Vitellius.

Related: Cotton's Library: The Many Perils Of Preserving History, by Matt Kuhns

The Beowulf manuscript (with images) in the British Library collection.

The Education Of Julian The Apostate

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus (331 - 363 AD) was a great man and one of the last true Romans. He is more commonly known today as Julian the Apostate, the name he was given by the Christian church for his determined attempt to restore paganism in the dying Roman empire.

Born in Constantinople in 331, Julian was "placed in the care of an Arian bishop" as a child and "from 342 was confined for six years on an imperial estate in Cappadocia," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "He impressed his Christian tutors there as a gifted and pious pupil, but his reading of the Greek classics was inclining him in private to other gods."

Christians who read and think too much tend to lose their faith, even if they're "heretics" like the Arians. "In 351, as a student of philosophy, [Julian] encountered pagan Neoplatonists and was initiated as a theurgist by Maximus of Ephesus," a Neoplatonist philosopher and magician who should be commemorated by pagans everywhere for the role he played in converting Julian to the traditional beliefs of the ancients.

Related: The philosophy of Neoplatonism.

Julian played a double game for years while waiting to see if he would be executed or made emperor. "For the next ten years Julian's pagan 'conversion' remained a prudently kept secret," according to the OCD. "He continued his studies in Asia and later at Athens until summoned to Milan by [Constantius II] to be married to the emperor's sister Helena and proclaimed Caesar with charge over Gaul and Britain."

Julian fought successful campaigns against the Alamanni and Franks that made him very popular with the army, which mutinied and declared him emperor after Constantius "ordered the transfer of choice detachments to the east..." (OCD). Luckily, civil war was avoided when Constantius died later that same year (361) and Julian took over Rome.

He publicly declared his paganism, purged the imperial court, issued a declaration of general religious tolerance that "foreshadowed a vigorous program of pagan activism in the interest of Hellenism," restored "the temples and finances of the ancestral cults," and established "a hierarchy of provincial and civic priesthoods." During the process, "Christian churches and clergy lost the financial subsidies and privileges gained under Constantine and his successors."

Julian discriminated in favor of pagans, but, unlike the Christians themselves, he didn't believe in using violence to persecute the people who didn't share his beliefs. Instead, he tried to marginalize Christianity, partly through argument, such as in his essay Against the Galileans, which is still well worth reading.

Julian's "learning and literary talent" as well as his control of the Roman legal apparatus could have changed the future course of the world in dramatic ways, but he was killed in a "minor skirmish" in his war against Persia after only three years in power. Wounded on June 26, 363, he died three days later on June 29, a  day which should also be commemorated by pagans.

By the time of Julian, Rome was already in serious trouble and the western empire would collapse around a hundred years later. Ultimately, Julian was fighting a rearguard action against Christianity, but his reforms might have made a difference if he had lived longer. After all, Christianity owed much of its influence to official support and a lot of important people converted in order to gain the favor of the court. Once that support had been removed, who knows what might have happened?

The real Rome was a pagan, not a Christian, empire. In Julian's day, the empire was being destabilized and distorted beyond recognition by a foreign religion and Julian might have been able to turn that around. 

"One of the persistent themes of Julian's antagonism towards the Christian church was his belief that they were troublemakers, causing political discord in any community where they formed the majority: 'they turn everything upside down.'" -- from the introduction to "Julian's Against the Galileans," edited and translated by R. Joseph Hoffmann, Prometheus Books, 2004.

Here's to Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus. Rest in peace.

Cambridge And Heidelberg Announce Major Project To Digitize Treasured Medieval Greek Manuscripts

Video from 2013.

"Hundreds of medieval and early modern Greek manuscripts – including classical texts and some of the most important treatises on religion, mathematics, history, drama and philosophy – are to be digitised and made available to anyone with access to the internet." Source: Archaeology News Network.

The Cambridge Digital Library.

Ancient Egyptian Shipwreck Proves Herodotus Was Right

"One of the most elusive boats from the ancient world — a mysterious river barge that famed Greek historian Herodotus described nearly 2,500 years ago — has finally been discovered." Source: Live Science.

"Herodotus dedicated 23 lines of his 'Historia' to this type of boat, known as a baris, after seeing the construction of one during his travels to Egypt in 450 B.C. In his writings, Herodotus described how the long barge had one rudder that passed through a hole in the keel, a mast made of acacia wood and sails made from papyrus."

The Enigma Of The Etruscans

According to Wikipedia, "there are two main hypotheses as to the origins of the Etruscan civilization in the Early Iron Age: autochthonous development in situ out of the Villanovan culture, or colonization of Italy from the Near East." In other words, Etruscan civilization either developed locally from the Villanovan Culture in Italy or the Etruscans were the descendants of migrants from the east.

DNA evidence has supposedly established that the Etruscans originally came from the area of modern Turkey:

"...the Etruscans, whose descendants today live in central Italy, have long been among the great enigmas of antiquity. Their language, which has never properly been deciphered, was unlike any other in classical Italy. Their origins have been hotly debated by scholars for centuries." Source: The Guardian (2007)

"Genetic research made public at the weekend appears to put the matter beyond doubt, however. It shows the Etruscans came from the area which is now Turkey - and that the nearest genetic relatives of many of today's Tuscans and Umbrians are to be found, not in Italy, but around Izmir."

This is an old story and the findings could be inaccurate or misleading. For instance, it might be possible that the modern Tuscans and Umbrians used in the DNA tests were more closely related to Turkish people than they were to the ancient Etruscans. Also, the connection between the Etruscans and the area of modern Turkey may be due to the fact that the Villanovans developed from the earlier Bronze-Age Urnfield Culture which covered a large area of central Europe. It's possible that eastern peoples migrated into central Europe and then spread into Italy, where some of them eventually laid the foundations for the Villanovan Culture and then the Etruscan civilization.

The theory that the Etruscans emerged locally from the Villanovan Culture in Italy apparently goes back to the Italian historian Massimo Pallottino. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), "Pallottino's hypothesis of ethnic formation in Etruria itself has long provided the best explanation of the facts." This doesn't necessarily contradict the idea that the Etruscans were descended from eastern migrants through the Villanovan Culture, however.

The picture is still very murky. For instance, ancient Greek historians such as Herodotus wrote that the Etruscans were descended from a group of Greek colonists from Lydia and linguistic analysis of the Etruscan language might support that view. According to the OCD, "the only language that has so far been shown to be 'related' to Etruscan, i.e. to be descended from a common source, is the pre-Greek idiom of Lemnos, and the evidence even for this is limited to a few texts. It may at best provide an argument in favour of the view championed by Herodotus that the Etruscans originated in the region of the Aegean and Asia Minor."