Jaybees

Awesome research. Too bad Tacitus didn't have the Web at his disposal.

Actually, as you know, he was just a kid when the fire happened and wasn't even in Rome at the time. So he's writing a couple of generations after the event and depending chiefly on oral memories. Frankly, I doubt very much that he knew anything about this tiny minority group (which was still small at the time of his writings). As for the forgery--I wouldn't be a bit surprised, since old manuscripts were constantly being amended, redacted or just plain written over.

It's still interesting to see new views of the situation, especially with the growing number of techniques we have for analyzing these ancient documents.

spin

Definitely not. There is an "ri" digraph used throughout the text--just look at "christus" and "Tiberio" on the next line to see how "ri" are written together in order to know that "christianos" didn't have the "i".

ETA: Here's the previous incarnation of the discussion about the calligraphy.


spin

DCHindley

Spin,

Not always. Below is a transcript of the Latin text of Annales 15.44 from those stuffed shirt ivy tower elites at Perseus. I've bolded all fourteen occurances of the string "ri" and underlined the three instances where there is no fancy ligature for the "i". There are also cases where the "fancy i" follows "g", "t" (well looky dey, right in "christianos"), and is even used for an "o" in line 7 (procuratoreum). Maybe it is just that, a fancy ligature when the copyist felt fancy. I think he just didn't feel fancy when writing that word there, in fact so unfancy that besides forgoing the fancy ligature he went and misspelled the damn word. Satan made him do it.

01 ... mariti erant. sed non ope humana, non largitio
02 nibus principis aut deum placamentis decedebat
03 infamia quin iussum incendium crederetur. ergo
04 abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissi
05 mis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vul
06 gus Chri stianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius
07 Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pon
08 tium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque
09 in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non
10 modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam quo cuncta
11 undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebran
12 turque. igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indi
13 cio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine
14 incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt.
15 et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis
16 contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus
17 adfixi aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies
18 in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. hortos suos
19 ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat et circense ludicrum
20 edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo ...

DCH

mountainman

Aside from the fact that the inscription does not mention "christians" or "chrestians", the historicity of the Neronian persecution of "the nation of Christians" is exceedingly remote in some literary based fantasy land that bears no resemblance to reality. The WIKI page on Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire lists the following imperial persecutions:

Roman Emperors who persecuted the "nation of Christians"

Nero
Domitian
Trajan
Marcus Aurelius
Septimius Severus
Maximinus the Thracian
Decius
Valerian (P. Oxy 3035) <<=== this was discussed recently and does not mention "christian"
Diocletian and Galerius

The next on the list after Nero is Domitian.

Domitian's Persecution of "the new and strange nation of Christians"

Has anyone here read the "Acts of John the Theologian", but more importantly know when this text was authored? The text appears to mimic Eusebius's trope in that it makes explicit mention of "a new and strange nation of Christians". So it appears the author may have read Eusebius.

It describes the Domitian persecution in a strange and effected manner. The Jews cleverly write a book to the Emperor Domitian complaining about the new and strange nation of Christians, and immediately, as a result of reading the book, Domitian was affected with rage and persecuted this "new and strange nation" of Christians. The tradition of the Domitian persecution -- in my mind -- is probably sourced from this text.

What is the genre of this text?

It is certainly not history - and more like Monty Python (ie: some sort of "spoof"). It suggests the Domitian persecution was not historical. It suggests also that the "new and strange nation of Christians", was exceedingly new and exceedingly strange, in the 4th century.

The Neronian and Domitian "persecution of Christians" - most likely literary fictions.

When we move to Marcus Aurelius, there is a wealth of literature from the Classicial History department to assure us that this emperor may not have even been aware of such persecutions, if they in fact really occurred, as is aserted in the "Church History" of Eusebius.

The imperial Roman persecution of this "new and strange nation of Christians" is exceedingly suspect, and depending on how one views Eusebius, may be not based on any ancient historical truths.

spin

Sorry, no go. You need to look at the examples you point to closely.

1. "primum" is in fact "pmu". An omissus is seen above the "p" and a 7-like sign to indicate a routinely omitted "m" after the "u". (See Pontiu' Pilatu'.)
2. "curriculo" is in fact "circulo". (Scribal error. Compare with "circense" in the line above.)

The hopeful "christianus" still looks exceptionally lonely.

ETA: There are a lot of scribal conventions used in the text, eg a semicolon indicates a "ue", a "p" with downstroke crossed is "per" (see "per urbe[m]"). The "p" of "procurator" is actually loop-crossed, indicating a "pro" (see "proinde").


spin

DCHindley

Whaaat? Can't the scribe abbreviate? Eu Eu, P'mu', P'mu'! Another case of not feeling fancy, no doubt.

This part of the photo of the mss is unfortunately not as sharp as the top portion. "Circense" is correctly spelled, or do you refer to it as an example of the letters "ir"? What you identify as an "i" I identify as a "u", as in "ludicrum" directly above it, but run into the "r". The "i" is there between the "r" and "c", looking like a tiny "iota" (see the slightly larger "i" in "ludicrum"). Thus amended (I love them thar big wards) the word that should be "curriculo" appears to be "curiculo".

I encountered numerous examples in this sample of letters dropping out of words (usually as abbreviations marked above the line, like the final "n" in "ludicrum", but not always). It seems the scribe was quite fond of abbreviations and ligatures, and frequently spells words slightly differently than the Perseus text does. I have no idea whatsoever what word is between "generis" and "sunt" at the end of line 14 (it should be "convicti", but appears to be "c" with overstroke - maybe an abbreviation for "con" - then "lunati").

But all this is ludicrus, isn't it?

DCH

spin

It was the first four letters, which are exactly the same as "circulo" ("curriculo"), noting the way "rc" combo is written precludes an insinuated "i", as "ri" requires a short "r". What could have happened is that the scribe jumped up and got the "circ" from "circense", then returned to the correct place and finished with "ulo", making "circle/circuit/ring" and the scribe turned the page.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

The upshot is that there is nothing comparable with the "ri" digraph in "christianos", ie it's wrong. Then there's the excessive gap which is best explained by the partially erased "e" which was revealed in the infrared analysis of the text (as per the previous incarnation of this thread).


spin

judge

Do you have scholarly reference backing up your claims...or once they get posted by an anonynous internet poster on this forum do they then become fact..?

zhugin

The ligature form is mandatory in Beneventan script.

"[About the ri-ligature:] Obligatory. The stem of r remains invariably on the line. The shoulder, instead of turning upward, bends down-ward and descends below the line in a sinous stroke like reversed s. The lower part of the stroke represents the i." - E. A. Lowe, The Beneventan Script, 1914, p. 146

"The confusion of E with I is frequent in copying from an exemplar written in rustic capitals. But one finds it difficult to believe that our scribe could have made such an error in so familiar a word as 'Christiani'. The only reasonable explanation for his writing 'Chrestiani' (with an E) is that the original had an E which he automatically reproduced. This fact not only throws light on the fidelity with which the eleventh-century scribe reproduces his ancient original, but it suggest that the original must go back to a time when 'Chrestiani' was still a common spelling. That the Palatine manuscript of the eleventh century also writes xpm in this pasage does not surprise us in the least, when we consided that the writing of nomina sacra in the contracted form had been a rule for centuries standing. But the scribe of Tacitus in Annals, xv. 44, writes the word 'Christus' out in full. It seems highly improbable that this nomen sacrum would have remained in its original uncontracted form had the copies made by Christian scribes intervened between the ancient archetype and our eleventh-century [exemplar]" - E. A. Lowe, Palaeographical papers, 1907-1965, vol 1., p. 301

The fact that the original form was Chrestianos has indeed been a fact at least since the 16th century.

"Vulgus Christianos appellabat. Siue Chrestianos vt scripsere per inscitiam illi." - Ivsti Lipsi, Ad Annales Corn. Taciti Liber Commentarivs sive notæ, Antverpæ 1581, p. 455

Dr. R. A. D. Pihl has apparently made a reconstruction of the alleged interpolation containing the Christus reference, for illustrative purpose: