Im Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften liegt ein Dokument vom 13. Februar 1893, das die Schrift-Sonderanfertigungen für das Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum im Vorjahr samt ihren Kosten auflistet. Die Aufstellung steht in engem Zusammenhang mit der Beschwerde des Verlags über die hohen Ausgaben für die Herstellung der CIL-Bände. Der Beitrag unternimmt den Versuch, die 1892 von verschiedenen Schriftgießereien und xylographischen Anstalten gefertigten Positionen in den Bänden aufzuspüren und mit Objekten, Druckklischees, im Archiv des Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum zu identifizieren. Abschließend werden die Aufwendungen für die Anfertigungen zeitgenössischen Arbeitslöhnen und Warenpreisen in Berlin gegenübergestellt. The archive of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities holds a document dated 13 February 1893 that lists the custom-made fonts for the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum from the previous year, along with their costs. The list is closely related to the publisher’s complaint about the high costs of producing the CIL volumes. This article attempts to trace the items produced in 1892 by various type foundries and xylographic institutions in the volumes and to identify them with objects, printing plates, in the CIL archive. Finally, the costs of the productions are compared with contemporary wages and commodity prices in Berlin.
The origin of the name ‘Old Oligarch’ for the author of the Constitution of the Athenians has long been uncertain. This article argues that Gilbert Murray did, in fact, coin the name in A History of Ancient Greek Literature, paraphrasing an earlier remark in German by Adolf Kirchhoff, and that the name was supposed to be humorous.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, national and liberal political currents significantly increased politicisation in Schleswig, Holstein, and Denmark. The Three Years’ War (1848–1851) and the Danish defeat in 1864 were pivotal events in this context. Theodor Mommsen’s work, particularly his views on Roman imperialism, remains relevant today. Scholars often claim that Mommsen laid the foundations for the approach to the past described as ‘defensive imperialism’. Seldom used in this context is Mommsen’s 1865 work Die Annexion Schleswig-Holsteins: ein Sendschreiben an die Wahlmänner der Stadt Halle und des Saalkreises. The work is based on Hegel’s view of history and explains the expansion to the north (the duchies) as a historical necessity. The German navy played a decisive role here, as bases for the navy were another necessity. Mommsen accepted Roman imperialism until the turning point, the Second Punic War. The unification of Italy under Roman rule and the unification of Germany — including the annexation of the duchies — can only be described as acts of imperialism. What he opposed were the dangers inherent in overexpansion. The notion of Mommsen as an anti-imperialist must therefore be rejected or at least contextualised. The conquest of the duchies and the defeat of Denmark in the 1864 war were acceptable because they provided access to the sea and aligned with visions of Germany’s natural frontiers.
In einem wesentlichen Teil seines Werks richtete sich der Althistorikers Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) nicht nur an ein akademisches Fachpublikum, sondern auch an eine breitere, interessierte Öffentlichkeit. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Aktivitäten des «public ancient historian» Finley als integralen Bestandteil seiner wissenschaftlichen Praxis und verortet sie in seiner akademischen Laufbahn. Unter Rückgriff auf die Feldtheorie Bourdieus wird gezeigt, inwiefern Formate wie Buchbesprechungen in Wochenzeitschriften oder Radiosendungen dazu beitrugen, das wissenschaftliche Kapital des Althistorikers zu mehren und seine Position in der Fachwelt zu festigen. In a significant part of his work, the ancient historian Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) addressed not only an academic audience, but also a broader, interested public. This article examines Finley’s work as a “public ancient historian” as an integral component of his scholarly practice and situates it within his academic career. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, it shows how media pieces such as book reviews in weekly magazines and radio broadcasts contributed to increasing the ancient historian’s academic capital and consolidating his position in the scholarly world.
L’articolo presenta l’edizione attualmente in corso d’opera del materiale inedito di Leone Allacci sul Περὶ Ὕψους, che comprende una traduzione latina, due serie di annotazioni e un commentario in latino. Si introducono brevemente i diversi testi e si fornisce una descrizione dei due testimoni manoscritti, il cod. Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Carte Allacci XXIX, e il cod. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. gr. 190. Dopo aver discusso gli aspetti filologici — autografi, copie, mani e danni materiali — l’articolo illustra i criteri editoriali, affrontando questioni come la scelta tra edizione diplomatica e critica, nonché aspetti di trascrizione e traduzione. Infine, viene presentato un saggio di edizione di ciascun testo, al fine di offrire un’idea dei contenuti, dello stile e della rilevanza, e viene proposta una datazione ipotetica per la composizione di questo materiale. This article presents the forthcoming edition of Leone Allacci’s previously unpublished material on the Περὶ Ὕψους, which includes a Latin translation, two series of notes, and a Latin commentary. It briefly introduces the different texts and describes the manuscript witnesses: cod. Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Carte Allacci XXIX, and cod. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. gr. 190. After discussing the philological aspects — autographs, copies, scribal hands, and material damage — the article outlines the editorial criteria, addressing issues such as the choice between a diplomatic and a critical edition, as well as matters of transcription and translation. Finally, it presents a sample edition of each item, offering insight into their contents, style, and significance, and proposes a hypothetical dating for the composition of this material.
This paper reviews the main features of the ancient dispute concerning the cultural role of the Greeks in comparison with the Jews, with particular attention to the Greek responses on the eve of the revolution of 1821. The debate reveals a strong awareness of the Greeks’ past and a sense of continuity with the present, while also highlighting the circulation of contemporary knowledge, texts, and ideas.
In early 1939, the British classical scholar, and later notorious politician, J. Enoch Powell (1912–1998) sent a letter in German to Eduard Schwartz (1858–1940) alongside a copy of his newly published book The History of Herodotus (Cambridge 1939). This interesting letter was published by Eckart Mensching in 1999, while Schwartz’s reply lay unpublished among Powell’s papers at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Both letters are here published with an English translation, displaying not only their value for the biographies of both scholars, but also for Schwartz’s concise yet significant reflections on Greek historiography, the relationship between history and poetry, and the role of historians in ancient societies.
The story of Latin and its professors at the University of Liverpool (UK) is not only of intrinsic interest for its procession of prestigious figures and their scholarly achievements, but can also tell us much about the surprisingly slow emergence and gradual professionalization of Latin as a distinctive field of study in the UK, from the late Victorian wave of new university foundations to the late 20th century.
In der Berliner Arbeitsstelle des Akademienvorhabens Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) befinden sich acht Notizbücher, die Heinrich Dressel während seiner Italienreisen in den Jahren 1874–1876 und 1878 führte. Dressels Aufgabe war es, systematisch die Inschriften jener Regionen aufzusuchen und aufzunehmen, für die Theodor Mommsen 1852 mit den Inscriptiones regni Neapolitani Latinae den Prototyp einer für die damalige Zeit modernen lateinischen Inschriftenedition vorgelegt hatte. Mit seinen Reisenotizen schuf Dressel die Grundlagen für die 1883 von Mommsen herausgegebenen Bände CIL IX und CIL X. Die Notizbücher wurden 2023 im Rahmen einer Drittmittelförderung durch das Berliner Einstein-Zentrum CHRONOI digitalisiert, transkribiert und in ersten Grundzügen erschlossen. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt Einblicke in Dressels Reisen und skizziert anhand von Beispielen die praktische Organisation seiner Aufnahmefahrten: die Routen samt der besuchten Orte und aufgenommenen Inschriften, die an den Orten von ihm genutzten und aufgebauten Personennetzwerke sowie die Arbeitsumstände. Eight notebooks compiled by Heinrich Dressel during his travels in Italy in the years 1874–1876 and 1878 are kept in the Berlin office of the academy project Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Dressel’s task was to systematically identify and record the inscriptions of those regions for which Theodor Mommsen had presented the prototype of a modern edition of Latin inscriptions for its time with the Inscriptiones regni Neapolitani Latinae in 1852. By the notes of his travels, Dressel prepared the basis for the volumes CIL IX and CIL X, which were edited in 1883 under the aegis of Mommsen. In 2023, the notebooks were digitized, transcribed and made accessible in their fundamental characteristics by funding through the Berlin Einstein Centre CHRONOI. This article provides insights into Dressel’s travels and gives examples of the practical organization of his field work: the routes, including the places he visited and the inscriptions he recorded, the network of people he used and built up at the various places, and the working conditions.
Two ambitious Asia Minor map series by the Kieperts — Heinrich’s lithographed Specialkarte and Richard’s engraved Karte von Kleinasien — are probed here for the first time. What can be recovered about their planning, production, revision and impact from the 1880s through the 1920s forms the main focus, together with their relationship. It is reassessed both with the aid of largely forgotten accompanying texts, and with an Appendix identifying all named informants (over 200) and the expertise each contributed, ranging from geology and archaeology to military intelligence and railroad engineering. Both series — with their double ancient and contemporary focus — emerge as fundamentally Heinrich’s lifelong accomplishment, and as capstones of cartography based principally upon travelers’ itineraries with their inevitable shortcomings. This method remained the sole permissible approach to mapmaking in the Ottoman empire until 1908, by chance also the year when Karte von Kleinasien’s first edition achieved completion. Reviewed finally are the exceptional circumstances in which subsequent editions continued as standard reference tools through the 1920s and even beyond, while the Turkish Republic’s General Staff undertook a triangulated survey.
This paper aims at reconstructing the stages of the negotiations set up by the Italian scholars Bartolomeo Borghesi and Luigi Nardi with the French intellectuals Lazare Carnot and Jean-Louis Brad for the nomination of Napoleon Bonaparte as official member of the Rubiconia Accademy of Filopatridi in Savignano sul Rubicone. In the epistolary exchange between the protagonists of this affair, a central role is played by the discussion about themes of Roman history, especially Julius Caesar’s passage over the Rubicon in 49 BCE and the site where the so-called Second Triumvirate was formed in 43 BCE. These episodes are exploited as elements of cultural attraction and persuasion, with the attempt to increase the Academy’s prestige in Napoleon’s eyes and convince him to become its member and patron. L’articolo si propone di ricostruire le fasi della trattativa avviata dagli eruditi italiani Bartolomeo Borghesi e Luigi Nardi con gli intellettuali francesi Lazare Carnot e Jean-Louis Brad per la nomina di Napoleone Bonaparte a membro ufficiale della Rubiconia Accademia dei Filopatridi di Savignano sul Rubicone. Nello scambio epistolare intercorso fra i protagonisti della vicenda, un ruolo centrale è rivestito dalla discussione su temi di storia romana, in particolare sul passaggio del Rubicone da parte di Giulio Cesare nel 49 a.C. e sul luogo in cui si concretizzò il secondo triumvirato nel 43 a.C. Gli episodi furono sfruttati come elementi di attrazione culturale e di persuasione, nel tentativo di aumentare il prestigio dell’Accademia agli occhi di Napoleone e di convincerlo a diventarne socio e mecenate.
Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) has long been considered the greatest Roman historian of the nineteenth century. Above all he was an accomplished philologist, editor and scholarly organiser. This paper provides one historian’s reflections on decades of engaging with Mommsen in various contexts and in various places. It traces a personal encounter with Mommsen and his work, especially his activities in later Roman history, from undergraduate through postgraduate education, a four-decades long career outside academia, then a return to Mommsen in recent years. These various adventures with Mommsen demonstrate how much the business of doing research and writing about any individual or topic has changed especially in the last thirty years. Essentially autobiographical in approach, this paper also highlights both the role and the limits of autobiography in understanding one’s own education and scholarly development.
The outstanding contribution to classical scholarship made by Tadeusz Zieliński and his unusual Polish, Russian, and German cultural background warrant a new discussion eighty years after his death. This brilliant philologist and pioneer of classical reception inspired great admiration in his time. However, his philosophical beliefs and private life caused public controversies that need reassessing today on the basis of a review of Zieliński’s life and career within their historical and cultural context.
Among the female students of the ancient world who have largely been written out of the record is Susan Helen Ballou (1868-1940). She was a scholar of Latin who taught for years at the University of Chicago, Bryn Mawr, and elsewhere. She spent several stints at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome where she mastered the complex manuscript tradition of what is known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA), or Historia Augusta, culminating in a German doctorate and an invitation to be part of a new Teubner edition of the SHA. Her contribution to the edition was aborted but she became a key contributor to the first volume of the Loeb SHA. The story of Ballou’s academic life and work has never been told. Piecing it together from a range of documents, published and unpublished, not only illuminates her career and publications. It also helps explain why, although a reputable scholar in her day in both the USA and Europe, Ballou has largely disappeared from the scholarly record. She was not only a woman at a time when women encountered institutional obstacles to appointment and advancement, but she also specialised in a Latin text never read or taught in American universities. Recent research on the manuscripts of the SHA is bringing a fresh appreciation of Ballou’s distinctive and fundamental contribution to the study of the SHA. The time has come to reclaim her reputation and achievement as Latinist and palaeographer.
George Kennedy was an accomplished scholar and leader of national classics and humanities associations. He was an extremely effective chairman of the Classics Department at the University of North Carolina, who substantially raised the quality of its faculty and students. In this memoir he describes the department as he found it in 1966 with sketches of the faculty in place and those he subsequently hired. He also describes both the honorary and everyday duties that he was obliged to perform.
L’articolo discute l’erronea trascrizione del verbo optinere nella lex de viginti quaestoribus nel De iure antiquo di Carlo Sigonio. La discussione di questo problema rende possibile la ricostruzione della tradizione manoscritta del testo epigrafico nel sedicesimo secolo, e al contempo una proposta interpretativa dell’abbreviazione q. urb. nella prima riga dell’iscrizione. The article discusses the erroneous transcription of the verb optinere in the lex de viginti quaestoribus, in Carlo Sigonio’s De iure antiquo. This makes it possible to reconstruct the 16th-century manuscript tradition of the epigraphic text; at the same time offering an interpretative proposal of the abbreviation q. urb. in the first line of the table.
Sul finire dell’Ottocento, a Monza, le amministrazioni comunali discussero a lungo della possibilità di inaugurare un Museo patrio simile a quelli già aperti al pubblico in altre città lombarde. Nucleo fondativo era un insieme di testimonianze archeologiche cedute da generosi privati oppure relative a rinvenimenti occasionali del territorio. Nondimeno, il progetto non andò mai in porto e solo nel 1935 si ebbe la fondazione dei Musei civici monzesi. Il contributo intende esaminare per la prima volta le probabili ragioni del fallimento ottocentesco grazie alla documentazione conservata presso l’Archivio Storico del Comune di Monza. By the end of the 19th century, the creation of a city museum in Monza was discussed at length, after similar museums had already been opened to the public in other Lombard towns. The core collection contained archeological evidence both donated by individuals or found in the neighbouring area. Despite the town council’s efforts, this important project did not come to fruition until 1935, when the Civic Museums of Monza were officially established. This paper aims to take a deep dive into the reasons for the initial failure of the ambitious plan, drawing from the documentation kept at the Historical Archive of the city of Monza.
Paola Paesano Introduction Paolo Garofalo, Riccardo Montalto Editors’ Preface Isabella Iannuzzi Ch. I: Achilles Statius: A Portuguese Humanist in Mid-16th Century Rome Paolo Garofalo Ch. II: A Preliminary Investigation of Achilles Statius’ Correspondence: The Vallicellian Manuscripts B 102 and B 106 Joan Carbonell Manils Ch. III: Aquiles Estaço y Antonio Agustín entre amigos, cartas, epígrafes y libros José C. Miralles Maldonado Ch. IV: Poema laudatorio al papa Pío IV compuesto por Aquiles Estaço: edición y estudio Alejandra Guzmán Almagro Ch. V: Aquiles Estaço y las Inscripciones no Itálicas Ginette Vagenheim Ch. VI: Schedae epigraphicae di eruditi nella raccolta di Achille Stazio (1524–1581) conservata alla Biblioteca Vallicelliana (cod. B. 104): Pirro Ligorio (1512 c.–1581), Nicolaus Florentius (Roma 1558–1564), Ottavio Pantagato (1494–1567) e Pedro Chacón (1526–1581) Elisabetta Caldelli Ch. VII: Stazio annotatore di ‘libri’ Riccardo Montalto Ch. VIII: The Origins of the Greek Library Livia Marcelli Ch. IX: Un’aldina di Stazio a Parigi e una lettera scomparsa: i “dispersi” del lascito
In November 2023, at a conference of the Classical Association of South Africa, I presented an idiosyncratic view of the quirks, foibles, and academic grandeur of many distinguished Classicists I have encountered over the past seventy years. My talk covered South African scholars such as Professors Frans Smuts, André Hugo, Lydia Baumbach, Suretha Bruwer, Bert van Stekelenburg, Piet Conradie, and Jannie Louw. I also reflected on international figures like Sir Ronald Syme, Jasper Griffin, Francis Cairns, Peter Green, Frank Snowden, and Elaine Fantham. These scholars were seen through my unique perspective, often with a touch of humour, but always with deep respect for their contributions.
This note gives the text of a letter drafted by A. E. Housman in reply to an unnamed correspondent, perhaps J. P. Postgate, concerning the textual criticism of four passages in classical Latin poetry: Tibullus 1.1.39–40, 2.1.47–62; Juvenal 12.92; and Horace, Odes 1.35.22.
