Don't Call it my "Grail," it's Much Cooler than That

When it comes to recovering lost texts of Classical Greek and Latin, there are those who are looking everywhere, scouring specialized journals and general news outlets for finds and for clues to possible finds, who are very optimistic and excited about the chances for great recoveries, convinced that the era of great discoveries begun during the "Renaissance" in no way has to be regarded as closed. -- and then there are those who snicker and point at the first group. I'm way over on the optimistic fringe of the first group. I don't mind the snickering. I still get along just fine with the second group, and everyone in the second group agrees that the first group has included experts of the first degree. Still, just know that when I go on about such things, I do not have a broad consensus of experts behind me.

But I personally think it would be absurd to assume that there will be no more major discoveries of Livy.He was THE historian of ancient Rome, the one whom Tacitus, Suetoniusand Ammianusall felt they were following, writing, as it were, only appendices and updates to his work. The work of PaterculusandFlorusand others was in major respects no more than excerpts and paraphrases of Livy's work, everybody from his time through Late Antiquity and the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to today who ever quoted a lot of ancient Roman authors has quoted a lot of him, there are beaucoup 5th-century manuscripts of the surviving 35 books, and you, you snickerers and pointers, you're going to sit and snickeringly opine that the other 107 books are just gone, forever? I'm sorry, but that just makes no sense to me.

They say that it is unproven that Gregory the Greatordered destroyed all copies of Livy's work upon which hands could be laid. They also say that he was convinced that the end of the world was at hand and that volcanos, several of which were active in Italy at the time, were gateways to Hell, which was full to bursting with all of the souls it held.

That sounds like a book-burner to me. I'm not saying I know for sure that Gregory did indeed try to wipe Livy's life work off of the face of the Earth. But I am saying that the time when he reigned as Pope, from 590 to 604, fits well into the timeline of the damned strange state of the known remains of the text of Livy's history, with so many 5th-century manuscripts of books 1 through 10 and 21 through 40 surviving, and the rest gone except for a couple of scraps, and one 5th-century copy of books 41-45 which turned up on the shelf of a monastery in 1527, looking very much like it was originally a copy of books 41-50. You snickerers, you honestly expect us optimists to stop looking for the other half of that volume? You want us to cease looking at the notes written in the margins of that manuscript and others as clues in a glorious treasure-hunt? Who's being absurd here?

Back to Gregory. Look for crypto-pagans of his time (there were no other kinds of pagans left) and ask yourself where they hid books 11-20 and 46-142. (It's not strange at all to picture books 1-10, the partly-mythical tale of Rome's founding and early growth, being hidden before any of the others, as soon as people got word that the Papal troops were coming and looking for heathen books, and books 21-30, the tale of Rome's struggle with Hannibal, being hidden next.) Ask yourself where the cellar or attic or hollow tree was where they would hide books 7-12 of Ovid's Fasti.No, with no disrespect to the abundant genius and deep learning on your side, snickerers, I really don't think I'm the one who's being ridiculous.

We, I should say. We aren't the ones. Yes, Professor Conway, who edited several volumes of Livy for Oxford in the early 20th century, was taken in by perhaps the biggest hoax in classical studies of his time: a young professor in Naples claimed to have found all 142 volumes of Livy written out in one ancient hand. But then he went into hiding, with friends claiming that he was naive in the ways of business and that they were merely trying to guarantee that whatever library or museum purchased the spectacular find from him paid him fairly, and it was front-page news day after day in Naples, with one newspaper backed by the Fascists saying it was all a hoax, and another newspaper aligned with another political party and with the great Benedetto Crocesaying no, no, it was all true! and back in England Professor Conway wrote excitedly and credulously about it, and it happened that someone was digging outside of his apartment, the water department perhaps, and overnight some wag put a big sign on the rope cordoning off the hole which read "DANGER: EXCAVATIONS FOR LOST BOOKS OF LIVY," and yes, that was funny.

But Professor Conway was not a fool for hoping. And those like him and me are much cooler than the searchers for the Grail or for Bigfoot, because however much you may choose to believe that our search is pointless, there is absolutely no doubt that what we seek did once exist.