Month: April 2013

Lost Books Redux

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 7 Comments

In the wake of my umpteenth repost of my 1994 April Fool’s day prank report that originally appeared on the Classics list, it seems useful to note that it gave rise to an interesting discussion of the lost/missing works the Classicists on that august discussion group would really like to have (besides the lost bits of Tacitus, of course) … so I culled the list for the list:

  • Ovid’s Medea and Varius’ Thyestes
  • Petronius (the *whole* Satyricon)
  • Lucilius
  • Comedies by Cratinus
  • Callimachus
  • Ennius
  • Asinius Pollio
  • Poseidonius
  • Aristotle’s On Comedy
  • Protagoras’ Truth (or anything by him)
  • Sybilline Oracles
  • Eupolis
  • lost diaries of Sosylos and Silenos (as an alternative to Polybius)
  • The Atthis of Philochorus (or of Androtion)
  • Theopompus
  • Aristotle’s collection of constitutions
  • Hieronymus of Cardia
  • Cato’s Origines
  • Claudius’ Etruscan and Carthaginian histories
  • the lost books of Ammianus Marcellinus
  • the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia
  • Syriscus of Chersonesus
  • Didymus Chalcenterus
  • Aethiopis_ of Arctinus
  • Cicero’s Hortensius
  • Sappho (all)
  • Aeschylus (more/all)
  • Pseudo-Aeschylus (Prometheia)
  • Suetonius’s Roman Games And Festivals, and Famous Courtesans
  • Claudius’ Etruscan history
  • Euripides’ Oedipus
  • Livy’s missing bits

… there were probably quite a few more (items started repeating). While it’s always amazed me what we do have, it boggles the mind to think how much we’ve lost and how different our view of the ancient world might be if we hadn’t …

Nineteen Years Ago Today ~ Missing Tacitus Manuscript

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment

… and still no updates:

(Vatican City). Staff in the Vatican Library announced
today the discovery of a complete book including the
missing portion of the ancient historian Tacitus’ Annals. Tacitus
lived in the first century A.D. and his work is an important
historical source for the early Roman empire.
“What we seem to have is a complete codex of the Annals,
including the missing sections dealing with the emperor Caligula
and the early reign of Claudius,” said Vatican spokesman Benito
Trovato.
The book itself was discovered when shelving was being replaced
in one of the many reading rooms of the Vatican Library. “We knew the book
existed because it appears in catalogs dating from the fourteenth
century, but it seems to have fallen behind some shelves years ago
and forgotten.”
“What’s really exciting, however, is how much light it sheds
on the early Roman Empire. Scholars consider Tacitus to be quite
accurate and this discovery sheds new light on a number of controversies.”
Among the new information is the date of Christ’s crucifixion, which is said
to have taken place in 41 A.D., shortly after the emperor Claudius
came to the throne. Although the codex was discovered over a month
ago, the Vatican delayed announcing it until Good Friday, which
seemed appropriate.
“Outside of the importance for Christianity, the text also
is surprising in the portrait it paints of the supposedly `mad’
emperor Caligula. Scholars have, for example, argued often over
Caligula’s building a boat bridge across the Bay of Naples. Usually
it is seen simply as a sign of his insanity. Tacitus tells us,
however, that it was in fact a military exercise conducted shortly
after Caligula’s failed attempt to cross over to Britain. It appears
that the soldiers were afraid to cross the English Channel by boat
and the boat bridge was designed to allow them to march across.
Unfortunately Caligula was murdered before he could attempt it.”
Mr. Trovato did not reveal when the text would become
available to scholars, but did say that a number of publishers
had already been in touch with him.