History of Classical Scholarship

A South African Classicist at Cornell

Jeffrey Murray — 2022-02-05

Barbara Isabella Buchanan (1854–1944), the first Chair of Classics at Huguenot College in Wellington in the Cape Colony, was the first South African-born woman to gain a Master’s degree. To date, historians of women’s education as well as classical education in South Africa have erroneously credited her with a doctoral degree from Cornell University. This article supplements lesser-known aspects of Buchanan’s biography, and in doing so, sheds light on her experiences in South Africa during the Second South African War of Independence (1899–1902).

'De epigrammatis Emeritensibus et Salmanticensibus cum Legionensi uno ex codicibus manuscriptis'

Joan Carbonell Manils — 2022-02-09

La revisión de la tradición manuscrita para la epigrafía de Mérida, Salamanca y León -y singularmente el uso de los mss. Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia 2/Ms. 23 y Ciudad del Vaticano, Vat. Lat. 6040- nos permite dar a conocer un nuevo epígrafe inédito (Salamanca) y precisar lecturas y noticias sobre otros, la mayoría perdidos.

The revision of the manuscript tradition for the epigraphy of Mérida, Salamanca and León (Spain) and particularly the use of MSS. Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia 2/Ms. 23 and Ciudad del Vaticano, Vat. Lat. 6040, allows us to make known a new unpublished inscription (Salamanca) and to specify readings and information about other ones, most of which are lost.

La prima serie dei prefetti d’Egitto: documenti inediti sul contributo di Bartolomeo Borghesi alla raccolta di Giovanni Labus

Alfredo Sansone — 2022-05-03

Nel saggio si pubblica la copia inedita di una lettera di Bartolomeo Borghesi (1781–1860) a Giovanni Labus (1775–1853), riguardante lo studio di 25 prefetti d’Egitto in epoca romana. L’analisi del documento consente di rilevare l’importante contributo di Borghesi a tale campo di studi, nonché il debito metodologico di Labus nei confronti delle ricerche prosopografiche di Borghesi. Questi può ormai essere considerato a buon diritto il primo studioso che impostò su basi scientifiche la serie dei praefecti Aegypti.

This paper presents the first edition of the draft of a letter from Bartolomeo Borghesi (1781–1860) to Giovanni Labus (1775–1853) concerning the study of 25 prefects of Roman Egypt. By analysing this document, it is possible to appreciate the important contribution provided by Borghesi to this research field, as well as Labus’ methodological debt towards the prosopographical investigations carried out by Borghesi. The latter can now rightly be considered the first scholar who drew up the series of the praefecti Aegypti on a scientific basis.

I marginalia dell’incunabolo marciano 507 della Miscellaneorum centuria prima di Angelo Poliziano

Alberto Longhi — 2022-06-14

Quando Angelo Poliziano consegnò alle stampe la sua Miscellaneorum centuria prima (1489), era ben consapevole che si trattava di un’edizione ‘incompleta’, contenente numerosi errori di stampa e omissioni nei testi greci. Negli anni successivi il Poliziano stesso corresse e modificò il testo a margine di alcune copie del libro; anche dopo la sua morte amici e allievi seguirono l’esempio del loro mentore e continuarono ad annotare l’editio princeps, pur avendo a disposizione l’edizione di Aldo Manuzio (1498), che fornisce un testo ‘migliore’, redatto secondo le indicazioni dello stesso Poliziano. Scopo del presente contributo è esaminare e fornire l’edizione dei marginalia che tre mani, nel corso dei primi tre decenni del Cinquecento, scrissero ai margini dell’esemplare dell’incunabolo oggi conservato presso la Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana di Venezia con segnatura Inc. 507.

When Angelo Poliziano published his Miscellaneorum centuria prima (1489), he was aware that it was an imperfect edition, and that the Greek texts contained numerous typos and omissions. Over the years, Poliziano himself corrected and amended it on the margins of some copies; after his death, his friends and pupils continued that revision work, and went on annotating the editio princeps, even though they had access to Manutius’ edition (1498), which offered a ‘better’ text and implemented the instructions of Poliziano himself. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and edit the marginalia which three hands, over the first three decades of the 16^th century, wrote on the margins of the copy now preserved at the Marciana Library in Venice (shelf mark Inc. 507).

Per la storia di un “rompicapo”: a proposito della terza regola del Lachmann. Un carteggio inedito tra Sebastiano Timpanaro ed Enzo Cecchini

Alessandro Fabi — 2022-08-08

Nel suo La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, Sebastiano Timpanaro si sforzò di dimostrare come la terza regola del Lachmann risultasse controversa e non potesse essere pienamente applicata, se non attraverso l’impiego di consistenti correzioni. Tra i filologi che cercarono di emendarne il testo, Enzo Cecchini propose alcune modifiche, ritenendole meno invasive delle soluzioni fornite da altri (Bornmann, Grassi e La Penna): benché Timpanaro non fosse convinto dell’emendazione, la menzionò nella ristampa della seconda edizione del suo lavoro, comprensiva di addenda. Questo contributo comprende una trascrizione commentata della corrispondenza tra Cecchini e Timpanaro, in cui i due studiosi ebbero modo di chiarire i rispettivi punti di vista sulla questione.

In his The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, Sebastiano Timpanaro tried to demonstrate that Lachmann’s third rule could not be fully applied unless substantially revised. Among the philologists who attempted to amend its text, Enzo Cecchini proposed few corrections, considering them to be less invasive than the solutions offered by others (Bornmann, Grassi and La Penna): although Timpanaro was not convinced of this emendation, he mentioned it in the reprint of the second edition of his work, which included some addenda. This paper includes a transcription of the epistolary correspondence between Cecchini and Timpanaro, in which the two scholars discussed their own points of view about this problem.

Zwischen Herrschertypus und Epochenbegriff. Eine begriffsgeschichtliche und wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Archäologie des Burckhardtschen Pseudoneologismus ‚Soldatenkaiser‘.

Matthias Haake — 2022-10-20

Es gibt Begriffe, die scheinen selbsterklärend zu sein. ‚Soldatenkaiser‘ ist solch ein Fall. Seit nunmehr über einhundert Jahren insbesondere in der deutschen althistorischen Forschung zum dritten nachchristlichen Jahrhundert präsent, hat er jahrzehntelang ein Schattendasein gefristet, wenn es um seine konzeptionelle Fassung geht. Während sich dieser Umstand in der jüngeren Forschung markant geändert hat, sind trotz einiger weniger Studien die Begriffsgeschichte des gleichermaßen schillernden wie — allerdings nur vermeintlich — eindeutigen Wortes ‚Soldatenkaiser‘ und seine wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Entwicklungslinien in vielerlei Hinsicht immer noch eine terra incognita, was noch weit mehr als für die deutschsprachige Altertumswissenschaft für die nicht-deutschsprachigen Forschungen zum dritten Jahrhundert gilt.

There are terms that seem self-explanatory. ‘Soldatenkaiser’ is one such case. Present for over a hundred years now, especially in German research on the third century ce, it has for decades led a shadowy existence when it came to its conceptual definition. While this circumstance has changed markedly in recent research, the conceptual history of the equally iridescent and opaque word ‘Soldatenkaiser’ and its lines of development in the history of scholarship remain terra incognita in many respects. This is even more true for non-German-speaking research on the third century than it is for scholarship produced in German.

The Exploration of Asia Minor: Kiepert Maps Unmentioned by Ronald Syme and Louis Robert

Richard J. A. Talbert — 2022-10-26

The starting point is a tribute to Anthony Birley’s studies of Ronald Syme, with attention to his map consciousness; Asia Minor becomes the focus, and comparison is made with Louis Robert. There emerges the puzzling outcome that neither Syme nor Robert shows awareness of several map series derived from Heinrich and Richard Kiepert’s Karte von Kleinasien. Hence investigation of this neglected cartography follows: its accuracy is probed, as well as its prolonged impact through the half-century 1890–1940, with particular reference to World War I and the subsequent Greco-Turkish War. All this activity (primarily by British, Greek, Italian and Ottoman military agencies), together with the successive obstacles to completing a triangulated map of Turkey, gives reason to question the long-held consensus that after Heinrich Kiepert’s death (1899) his work quickly lost its significance.

Mind the Gap. Women Authors in Anglophone Classical Scholarship, 1970–2016

Thomas A. Leibundgut — 2022-11-13

Although women have a long history of contributing to classical scholarship, they continue to be a minority both among faculty members and scholarly authors. In this paper, I compare the proportion of women employed at Classics departments in the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland with their proportion among the authors of a sample of English journal articles. While the overall institutional gender balance is approaching parity, women continue to be underrepresented in senior positions, and progress seems to have stalled over the last ten years. In addition, my analysis of the L’Année philologique database demonstrates that while the share of articles written by women has greatly increased from 1970 to 2009, it has remained stagnant since, hovering just around the 28% mark. I hypothesise that the main reason for women’s continued underrepresentation in Classical scholarship, apart from unconscious biases, is the disproportionate share of care responsibilities shouldered by women both within and without academia. In order to improve the situation, I propose a series of interventions to be taken by journal editors and university administrators, particularly the introduction of quotas.

Scipio Tettius and the Latin Classics

Justin Stover — 2022-11-23

Scipio Tettius (d. ca. 1571) is not a household name amongst classical scholars. Nonetheless, his most important work, the Index auctorum nondum editorum, written in 1553, attempts for the first time to describe the extent of classical literature which survived transmitted in manuscripts, but which had yet to appear in print. This study provides the most comprehensive treatment yet available for Tettius’ life and career, and, focussing on the Latin works in his list, situates his achievement as an important landmark in the history of classical scholarship.

Lily Ross Taylor on “The Contribution of the Coinage to the Study of Caesar’s Dictatorship and Deification”

Jane M. Cody — 2022-12-31

At the heart of this essay is the transcription of a collection of Lily Ross Taylor’s unpublished notes. These were first presented at a colloquium held at Bryn Mawr College in November 2019 as a memorial to the fiftieth anniversary of her death. As presented here, they provide her view of the coins as evidence for Caesar’s aims between 49 and 44 bce and for his later deification. They also clearly articulate her methodology for using numismatic sources in historical research. A short introduction attempts to put these notes in their scholarly context and points toward Miss Taylor’s planned work, much of it uncompleted at the time of her death.