Freethought & Rationalism Archive

vid · 05-04-2012, 03:11 PM

Mostly within the topic of Tacitus' source of information on Jesus, I often encounter possibility he got his information from archives. So I wonder... what do we actually know (eg. from primary sources) about state of archives in 1st-2nd century CE? Even outside Tacitus context, this is a very interesting-yet-unexplored blank area for me, a guy who likes to spend much of his time in archives hunting for old papers on dead people.

Toto · 05-04-2012, 03:18 PM

Tabularium

Quote:

The Tabularium was the official records office of ancient Rome, and also housed the offices of many city officials. Situated within the Roman Forum, it was on the front slope of the Capitoline Hill, below the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to the southeast of the Arx and Tarpeian Rock.

...

The Tabularium was first constructed around 78 BC, by order of M. Aemilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus. It was later restored and renovated during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, about 46 AD.

DCHindley · 05-04-2012, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

Mostly within the topic of Tacitus' source of information on Jesus, I often encounter possibility he got his information from archives. So I wonder... what do we actually know (eg. from primary sources) about state of archives in 1st-2nd century CE? Even outside Tacitus context, this is a very interesting-yet-unexplored blank area for me, a guy who likes to spend much of his time in archives hunting for old papers on dead people.

Like any bureaucracy, the Romans required reports and statistics. From what I have read, they kept tax rolls (both people and fixed assets) at a local level, and officials, from local magistrates up to provincial governors, had to send a summary of their decisions periodically to the next level up the hierarchy, each upper level I suppose condensing it into statistics to send on. This, of course, is how it was done in a Roman province. In the client kingdoms, the rulers were granted autonomy to do these things themselves, and usually had to pay tribute of some kind (money, grain, auxiliary forces on demand, etc).

How long did they save them for? Like anyplace, there would be records retention policies with archives for the sake of periodic research or the compiling of accounts. Like the leader of any modern state, the ruler gets a simplified summary every day or so. When they are old and stale for useful purposes, they will be culled and the excess trashed. I believe I have heard of a case where some archived bit of info (not about Jesus, but a Roman patrician) was found a century and a half after the events transpired.

In fact, from the ancient garbage dumps of Egypt, which was the emperor's personal property and run like an Imperial province, we have many examples of trial results, official decrees, individual tax records, minutes of official business, and even wanted posters for escaped slaves and criminals.

Tacitus, when talking about Christians, comes across to me as relating anectdotal, not archival, information. I cannot imagine what might induce a member of the Roman elite classes to betake himself to the archives to personally research such a thing as what these "christians" were all about.

I think there is some info on this matter in the FRDB archives.

DCH

mountainman · 05-04-2012, 06:16 PM

Many people, including Roman Emperors, consulted the public archives of the Greek Sibylline oracles on important occassions. These themselves were archived for centuries until the 4th century, when they commenced to be "Christianized" by pious christian forgers.

Sibylline oracles:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The Sibylline Oracles (sometimes called the "pseudo-Sibylline Oracles") are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive. These are not considered to be identical to the original Sibylline Books of Roman mythology, which have been lost, but a collection of utterances that were composed or edited under various circumstances, between perhaps the middle of the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnaldo Momigliano

ON PAGANS, JEWS, and CHRISTIANS

--- Arnaldo Momigliano, 1987

p.138

Jewish and Christian forgery of the Greek Sibylline oracles
-----------------------------------------------------------

"The Jews began writing Sibylline oracles in the 2nd century BCE".

"The Jews stopped writing history after 100 CE and the Christians
did not write political history before the fifth century. The
Sibylline oracles filled a historiographic gap."

p.139

"The collection of Sibylline Oracles which has reached us
contains both Jewish and Christian Sibylline oracles. The
collection as it now stands was put together and transmitted
by Christians. Here we find Christian forgers using Jewish
forgeries and adding their own more or less for the same
purposes: anti-Roman feeling, apocalyptic expectations, and
general reflection on past history presented as future.
Father of the Church (notably Lactantius) hurried to quote
these texts, and of course the Christians went on composing
their Sybilline texts (now also in Latin) throughout the
Middle Ages.

Paul Alexander in his volume "The Oracles of Baalbek" (1967)
edited a text which Silvio Giuseppe Mercati had discovered
on Mount Athos, but which was not published. Alexander showed
this text to be an expanded version put together between
502-506 CE of an earlier Greek oracle composed about 378-390 CE.
The earlier Greek text is still recognisable under the Latin
guise of medieval Tiburtine oracles .... the Sibyl is made
to speak on the Roman Capital and to answer questions put by
a hundred Roman judges. The text is definitely Christian.
Yet Jewish priests interven in the dialogue and respectfully
question the Sybil about rumors in the pagan world regarding
the birth of Christ. The Sybil, of course, gives a precise
confirmation, and the Jewish priests are not heard again,
What concerns us here is that Jews are here shown to question
a pagan Sybil as a matter of course.

sotto voce · 05-04-2012, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

pious christian forgers

mountainman · 05-04-2012, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

pious christian forgers

Quote:

Originally Posted by In the Letter of Jesus H. Christ to the King of Edessa

Blessed art thou who hast believed in me without having seen me. For it is written concerning me, that they who have seen me will not believe in me and that they who have not seen me will believe and be saved. But in regard to what thou hast written me, that I should come to thee, it is necessary for me to fulfill all these things here for which I have been sent, and after I have fulfilled them thus to be taken up again to him who sent me. But after I have been taken up I will send to thee one of my disciples, that he may heal thy disease and give life to thee and thine.

Oh what a sunshiney day it was when Big E. found this letter in "the archives".

Pious forgery

When an historian knowingly used forged sources in his narrative.

See Momigliano.

Endo · 05-04-2012, 06:57 PM

It seems odd the Tacitus would go digging through the archives to find a 100 hundred year-old execution record just to confirm a single sentence regarding Christian claims and then not even use Jesus' real name.

mountainman · 05-04-2012, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Endo

It seems odd the Tacitus would go digging through the archives to find a 100 hundred year-old execution record just to confirm a single sentence regarding Christian claims and then not even use Jesus' real name.

It's more than odd.

Anyone attempting to use Tacitus as a source on christians must understand that the Tacitaean reference first "suddenly appeared" in the 15th century, under suspicious circumstances. The manuscript under ultra-violet light reveals a correction from a reference to "Chrestians" to "Christians". These issues represent negative evidence against the authenticity of the Tacitus reference, and they need to be addressed by those who wish to argue for the authenticity of Tacitus. See Arthur Drews.

Blind repetition of suspect claims is not an investigation, it is mindless apologetics.

stephan huller · 05-05-2012, 12:11 AM

Can you just shut up Pete? These same fucking points, year after year. The same old, outdated scholars. Give it a rest.

Roger Pearse · 05-05-2012, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

... what do we actually know (eg. from primary sources) about state of archives in 1st-2nd century CE? Even outside Tacitus context, this is a very interesting-yet-unexplored blank area for me, a guy who likes to spend much of his time in archives hunting for old papers on dead people.

I agree; it's an interesting question. Which literary sources discuss the subject, I wonder? I'm looking very hastily in the RE under "tabularium".

Augustan History, Life of Marcus, ch. 9:

Quote:

7. In the meantime, he put such safeguards about suits for personal freedom — and he was the first to do so — as to order that every citizen should bestow names upon his free-born children within thirty days after birth and declare them to the prefects of the treasury of Saturn. 8. In the provinces, too, he established the use of public records, in which entries concerning births were to be made in the same manner as at Rome in the office of the prefects of the treasury, the purpose being that if any one born in the provinces should plead a case to prove freedom, he might submit evidence from these records.

Servius' commentary on the Georgics of Vergil II 502:

Quote:

populi tabularia, ubi actus publici continentur. Significat autem templum Saturni, in quo et Aererium fuerat et reponebatur acta, quae susceptis liberis faciebant parentes.

I'm out of time so can't look up more. There's not much in the way of primary literary sources; mostly inscriptions or secondary sources. But the following are referenced for different types of archives:

Eusebius, HE, V 18, 9.

Cicero Pro Milone 33, 73.

Livy IV, 22.

Flaccus 154, 19.

Hyginus 202, 11f.

Digest 22,3. 29,1; 50, 4 1, 2 and 18, 16; 50, 4, 19, 10 (and others)

Apuleius Apol. 89.

Cassius Dio LIX 22.

Syll. or. 707 (I think this is the sybilline oracles, about a tabularium in Egypt)

Cicero, Pro Archias 8.

Must run,

Roger Pearse

05-04-2012, 03:11 PM	#1
vid Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Myjava, Slovakia Posts: 384	Archives in ancient Rome Mostly within the topic of Tacitus' source of information on Jesus, I often encounter possibility he got his information from archives. So I wonder... what do we actually know (eg. from primary sources) about state of archives in 1st-2nd century CE? Even outside Tacitus context, this is a very interesting-yet-unexplored blank area for me, a guy who likes to spend much of his time in archives hunting for old papers on dead people.

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05-04-2012, 06:57 PM	#7
Endo Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Nebraska, USA Posts: 3,834	It seems odd the Tacitus would go digging through the archives to find a 100 hundred year-old execution record just to confirm a single sentence regarding Christian claims and then not even use Jesus' real name.

05-05-2012, 12:11 AM	#9
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Can you just shut up Pete? These same fucking points, year after year. The same old, outdated scholars. Give it a rest.

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