The Siglia in an Edition of an Ancient Latin or Greek Text

In the volumes of ancient Greek and Latin texts published in the series Oxford Classical Texts, also known as scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca oxoniensis, and in what is known as the Teubner series, or bibliotheca scriptorum graecorum et romanorum teubneriana, and in many other similar series of publications from other publishers as well, customarily, after the preface by the editor and just before the ancient text itself, there is a section, perhaps half a page, perhaps several pages long, entitled "SIGLA," which is Latin for "KEY" [PS, 15 February 2020: OOPS! "SIGLA" actually means "ABBREVIATIONS," which makes even more sense] ,

or something similar to "SIGLA."

In this key are listed the manuscripts (and sometimes other sources such as earlier editions) which were discussed in the preface, upon which the editor has based the present text, and which are referred to in the writing at the bottom of each page of the text which is known as the critical apparatus, and which shows which sources the text has been based on, as well as differing readings -- called variants -- which are to be found in other manuscripts, editions etc.

Let's take for example the key to volume 1 of W M Lindsay's edition of Isidore's Etmology in the Oxford Classical Texts, first published in 1911, reprinted some time later, ISBN 0-19-814619-1. The key, entitled "SIGLA CODICUM" in this edition, lists the manuscripts Lindsay used. The first item on the list is:

"A = Ambrosianus L 99 sup., saec. viii"

What this means is that the manuscript referred to as A in the critical apparatus has the library card number of of L 99 sup. in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, and that it was made in the 8th century. Any reader who has paid any attention at all to these keys is used to seeing dates for the manuscripts listed in the keys, from saec. V, 5th century, to saec. XV, 15th century, and, in a very few cases, dates earlier than the 5th century or later than than 15th. Or the date may be given more exactly, if it is known more exactly: early 10th century. Late 12th century. 1320's. Sometimes the exact year is known. On the other hand, the editor might end an entry in the key with something like saec. IX vel X, which means 9th or 10th century, or saec. XI?, which means possibly 11th century, but the editor isn't sure.

Then there are rare volumes, the actual subject of this post, such as Robert Maxwell Ogilvie's 1974 edition of volume I, books I-V, of Livy, published 1974 in Oxford Classical Texts, or Otto Seel's 1985 Teubner edition of Justinus. In these volumes, the keys do not mention dates for the manuscripts at all. For example, the second item in Ogilvie's "CONSPECTUS SIGLORUM" on p xxiv is

"V = Codex Veronensis rescriptus"

which means "V refers to the palimpsest of Verona."

And the first item in Seel's "SIGLA" is

"A = Cod. Parisinus, olim Puteanus"

Which means "A refers to the Paris manuscript, formerly known as the DuPuy manuscript."

No information about the dates of the manuscripts.

Now, the dates of the manuscripts are given in the prefaces of these volumes, just as they are in every other volume from Oxford Classical Texts and Teubner. So, by referring to Ogilvie's preface, I can see that V was written in the 5th century, overwritten witten with Saint Gregory's Moralibus in the 8th century, and discovered by Blum, who published his finding in the Rheinischer Merkur in 1828. Likewise, Seel informs the reader of his preface that A is a 9th-century manuscript.

It's just that putting that information in the key, in the sigla, like everybody else does, is much more convenient for anyone looking for that specific information. Which is why, I presume, that specific information has been put in the key by almost everyone for centuries now.

Classicists and the General Public

A few days ago, I was observing, not for the first time, an online discussion by non-Classicists of Ridley Scott's Academy Award-winning movie Gladiator.

"Are you not entertained?" Scott's fictitious Maximus shouts. The general public shouts back, "Yes!" while those who have studied even a little bit of Roman history clutch our heads in dismay and groan "No!" but are unheard. We're groaning and clutching our heads, not because the masses are entertained, but because they're all praising Gladiator's supposed historical accuracy, while describing themselves as "history buffs."

I thought about jumping into the discussion and pointing out the long list of glaring inaccuracies and absurdities in Gladiator, and how they are not merely matters of detail, but give a spectacularly inaccurate overall impression of the Roman Empire in the late 2nd century. I thought about pointing out that the general public is quite simply wrong in thinking that Gladiator towers above other sandal epics in historical accuracy.

I've jumped into these discussions before, when the topic is Gladiator, when it's the fate of the ancient library at Alexandria, and when it's something else. And one thing which has struck me every time is the near-complete indifference of the general public to everything which I, and professional Classicists who know more than I, have to say about ancient topics. With few exceptions, the general public have already decided on a version of history which is convenient for them, and have no desire for experts to tamper with their version of things.

This last time, I ended up just turning away, without contributing a word to this particular online discussion. Was I right to do so? Was I right in thinking, this time, quite differently than I have thought in the past, that all I would do was to unnecessarily annoy people who were enjoying themselves? I'm not asking these questions rhetorically. I rarely pose rhetorical questions. I'm asking because I don't know and would greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn the views of anyone else who's considered the same questions: what to do, when one comes across a group of people who believe that Commodus was slain in the Colosseum by Maximus, thus returning the Republic to Rome? Or that Constantine and the Pope wrote the Bible at the Council of Nicea? Or that there are thousands of surviving written documents composed in Jerusalem during Jesus' supposed lifetime, none of which mention Him?

What to do, in short, when confronted with people who have a mistaken view of certain historical topics, and who are not the slightest bit interested in being corrected? Be a Sisyphus and roll that boulder of our knowledge of the sources uphill with all out might? Let the general public believe whatever they like, ignore them and concentrate on discussing things with our fellow ivory tower-dwellers? Something else? I repeat: I'm not asking any of these questions rhetorically, I'd really like to learn the opinions of other who've pondered such things.

1841. And Latin. And New York City

The 1840 census recorded a population of over 317,000 for New York City, making it just three times the size of the second-largest US city, Baltimore.

At the time, New York City still consisted only of Manhattan; Brooklyn was a separate city, the 7th most-populous in the US with just over 36,000 inhabitants. The Brooklyn Bridge, and the joining of the other boroughs to Manhattan in the area we now know as New York City, were still nearly a half-century away.

The upper crust of New York society was large, growing, entrenched, and committed to at least an appearance of acquaintance with the finer things in life, among which were considered to be at least a fair command of Latin and at least a slight acquaintance with Greek. The two largest universities in the city were Columbia College and New York University, the upstart democratic institution founded in 1831 and at that time, somewhat the opposite of today, committed to educating promising students from all classes of society. Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia published A Classical Dictionary in 1841. The New York Review, in a tone somewhere between admiration and disparagement, described Professor Anthon's volume as an effort to establish American Classical scholarship at a level "as may not blench in presence of European rivalry."

Besides Columbia and NYU, Princeton was not far away across the Hudson River, and educated many of New York City's upper crust; others attended various other institutions of the Ivy League.

Ronald Syme Redux

Seven years ago, I published on this blog a post in which I declared, among other things, that I found the prose of Ronald Syme to be unreadable.

In that post, I jokingly speculated whether there had been something wrong with Syme's medulla oblongata, and mocked his prose style thusly:

"Syme irritates me with the over-use of periods. Which unnecessarily breaks up medium- to long-sized sentences. Into smaller ones. Which in turn leads to the above-mentioned conjecture. About the poor man's lower brain stem. A medical speculation not necessarily to be taken seriously. And not the only stylistic affection of Syme's which annoys me. But to find the others, I'd have to read more Syme. Which I really don't want to do. So suffice it for now to say that the turnip would use twelve periods after the last semicolon above. By the time I would use one. If I were not mocking him."

Ronald Syme, for those of you still wondering, lived from 1903 to 1989 and was among the the 20th century's most prominent Classical scholars and historians of ancient Rome. In fact, in the years since writing the above-mentioned dismissal of him on the grounds of unreadability, I kept coming across his name in the work and footnotes of other scholars, so often and with such positive remarks that I finally decided, quite recently, that I had to try again to read his work, that I had no choice, that surely the problem was with me and not with the way Syme wrote.

Whatever my problem was, it's now gone, to my amazement. I now find that my above-quoted satire of his prose is quite unfair, because far from all of his sentences are extremely short, and those which are I now find to be justifiably so. I now find Syme's prose quite good, witty, extremely erudite, polished, elegant -- in short, suddenly, my opinion of his writing now much more closely resembles the opinion of the rest of the world, and my earlier distaste is now mysterious to me, as it surely must have been to anyone else who'd noticed it.

I had two of Syme's books laying around, The Roman Revolution, first published in 1939, and Ammianus and the Historia Augusta, first published in 1968. I devoured the former with great delight and am now struggling, with just as much delight, with the subtleties and many, many footnotes of the latter. I had already begun to, as Edward Gibbon put it, "dive into the ocean" of the Historia Augusta. Now, unlike Gibbon, I have the very best guide to the flora and fauna of that ocean.

As has the rest of the world, for the past half-century. I apologize to the rest of the world, and to Syme's memory, for taking so long to catch up.

In case you're wondering what the Historia Augusta are: they are a collection of biographies of 2nd- and 3rd- century Roman Emperors, purported compiled by six authors writing in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. Or, as the world has gradually been figuring out since Hermann Dessau had a major breakthrough in the late 19th century, they are a parody of biographies of 2nd- and 3rd- century Roman Emperors, written by one jokester in the late 4th century or later. Back when they were considered to be historical writing, the more perceptive of later historians, such as Gibbon, were constantly cursing them for the many errors they contained. Now, when they're seen as historical fiction with a satirical bent, as many papers and volumes and conferences are devoted to them, as speculation rages about who actually wrote them and when, we're able to see more and more delicious jokes in them. They are, as Syme says, a "garden of delights."

Classical Studies and Reception Theory

I'm not sure how well I understand various literary theories. It may be that I am far below average when it comes to my ability to grasp them. I do, after all, officially have a mental disability, and this may be one example of it.

On the other hand, it may be that I understand literary theories better than almost anyone, and that above all, I understand how stupid and sad they all are, and how thoroughly there is no there there. Or it may be that my aptitude in understanding literary theories is about average.

It may be by far the most prudent to assume that the first of these possibilities is the case, that I have an unusually hard time distinguishing my discourse analysis from my post-modernism, and that therefore I should proceed very carefully. (I must apologize, and clarify in advance: I have not promised that I will proceed carefully, just acknowledged that I should.) For example, when I say that reception theory, extremely popular in the past several decades in Classical Studies (and perhaps in the academic study of literature more generally, I don't know), seems to me to consist of the study of the tradition of the Classics, which was a part of Classical Studies long before anyone called anything reception theory, plus a lot of pretentious malarkey, I ought to hasten to underscore that that's how it it seems to me, and that a lot of people with much more cred than I have gone on at great length about how it's actually a whole lot more than that,



and that I am the source of the malarkey here. Far be it from me to rule out, categorically, that my writing consists primarily of malarkey.

If I understand it correctly, the study of Classical Literature can be seen figuratively as movement in two opposite directions: the editor of a Classical text uses the evidence, mostly manuscripts of the primary text, to approach, as nearly as he or she can, the text as the author intended it. In the case of an ancient text which survives in a great number of manuscripts, one of the tasks of the editor is to eliminate from consideration those manuscripts which do not contribute to the establishment of the text. For example, if it is proven that an entire group of manuscripts derive entirely from another existing manuscript, than that entire group may be of very little or no interest to the editor in his capacity as editor. The study of that text's tradition, on the other hand, starts with the author and travels in the opposite figurative direction, studying the ways in which the author's text has reached readers directly via manuscripts and printed edition, and indirectly via translations, and other literary works which imitate or otherwise make reference to the first one, and also in other media such as visual art, music, movies and what have you. No matter how many manuscripts of one text there may be, it's somewhat harder to say that any of them are of no interest whatsoever in studying the text's tradition. Not to mention printed editions and translations, which may be of interest in editing a text as well, but primarily in cases where the other manuscripts are missing or have gaps or mistakes which cannot otherwise be remedied.

It seems to me that both of these directions, if you will, are perfectly natural ways of studying Classical literature. (Ah. I might as well mention now, in case I forget to later, that reception theory has greatly increased the number of texts which are considered to belong to the Classical canon -- mostly by including works composed at later dates.) Traditionally, more weight was given by Classical scholars to the editing of text, and the constant effort to improve upon previous editions. Editing texts was the dog, and study of the transmission was the tail.

Reception theory says that studying the transmission of the texts is the proper focus of literary study, the dog itself, with textual editing being relegated to the role of the tail. Except that reception theory goes farther, and claims that there is nothing of significance to be studied before that interaction of text and reader: the reception.

Except that they go farther, and seem to be, in some instances, quite hostile to the editors. And here, if not sooner, is where reception theory begins to seem like malarkey to me, because if the text with which the reader interacts is not rigorously defined in some way, such as, oh, for instance, its relationship to the text which the author wrote -- not the only way in which a text can be defined, to be sure, but a valid example! -- then we're no longer talking about the text at all, but anything and everything, which is to say: we're talking about nothing.

It may be that before reception theory, the editors went too far in dismissing the effect of the text which they constantly strove to improve. It seems to me that both editing and study the transmission are perfectly natural things to do, and that there's no need to choose between one or the other, or to decide which one is the dog and which the mere tail. I'm more temperamentally inclined toward studying the transmission in all of its sometimes vast variety. But I'm convinced that both directions, inward toward one imagined original text and outward into all of its sometimes far-flung effects and permutations, are essential parts of studying Classical literature.

I suppose it's much easier for me to say the latter than it is for academics, who have to argue over syllabi and degree requirements and so forth.

Still: Reception theory often presents itself, in so many words, as a "provocation" to more traditional approached to Classical Studies. Maybe there was a great deal lacking in earlier approaches to the Classics, which called for a radical break.

Maybe. Still, it is very easy to provoke, and to have provoked, to have upset someone, is far from a guarantee that one has said anything of any worth. The latter is not necessarily so easy.

I don't know very many of the players involved. I worry that reception theory may be discounting the worth of scholarly editing, which would be disastrous if reception theory proves to be more than a passing fad. But perhaps I misunderstand completely, and the provocation of which reception theory seems so proud is a provocation of which it should be proud: for example, if it's a challenge to entrenched tendencies of sexism and racism and other forms of bigotry within Classical Studies.

I'm Having An Extremely Difficult Time Finding Information About Classical Scholarship In Peru

Yes, I'm sure that this would be much easier if my Spanish were better, thanks for asking.

Why Peru? Because the University of San Marcos in Lima has been in continuous operation since 1551. (Sorry, Harvard.)

No results found for "classical scholarship in peru".

No results found for "erudición clásica en Perú".

Ah, but soon after that, we find that "erudición clásica" in Spanish does not mean the same thing as "Classical education" in English: the study of ancient Greek and Latin literature.

Okay, I guess next we'll try filología.

"filología en peru" yields 2 hits.

Hm, it would seem that filología, in Spanish, like philology in English, does not always mean the study of ancient Greek and Latin.

The search filología peru, without quotation marks, makes me think that filología might indicate the study of Classics in Spanish even less often than does philology in English.

"classical scholarship in spain" yields many links containing references to a book with exactly that title by a certain D Rubio.

Aaaaaand, hard work made me quit -- for today! I shall return, Peru!