Jeffrey Gibson

FWIW, in his Ancilla to Classical Reading (or via: amazon.co.uk), Moses Hadas states that

Quote:

Divisions of large works into separate "books" originated in Alexandria, but authors naturally conceived of their work in well-defined parts. Each part of the Anabasis closes with a kind of summary; the book-division of the Republic may well be Plato's own. By the time of Pliny division into books was so well established that he can make of his first book a table of contents for the rest. " (pp. 13-14)

For instance, Diodorus Siculus speaks of the divisions of his history as hAI BIBLOI (1.4.6-7), and Lucian similarly refers to the nine divisions of Herodotus's history as BIBLOI (Herodotus 1.1).

Quintilian uses the beginning of book 3 of the Instituto Oratoria to summarize the contents of book 2 and provide a brief overview of book 3

Quote:

In the second book the subject of inquiry was the nature and the end of rhetoric, and I proved to the best of my ability that it was an art, that it was useful, that it was a virtue and that its material was all and every subject that might come up for treatment. I shall now discuss its origin, its component parts, and the method to be adopted in handing and forming our conception of each" (3.1.1). LCL

Of the 12 books of the Instituto, most begin with a brief account of the content of the book (the exception is book 2).

And Josephus divided his work Contra Apionem into two books (Contra Apionem 1.320). Book 2 begins with a recapitulation of the contents of book I (Contra Apionem 2. 1).

Then there's Cicero. Div. 2, 1, 3; Off. 3, 33, 121 Q. Fr. 3, 5, 1 Off. 2, 13, 43.

But of course these are all Eusebian interpolations, aren't they.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

I noted earlier that

Quote:

Divisions of large works into separate "books" originated in Alexandria, but authors naturally conceived of their work in well-defined parts. Each part of the Anabasis closes with a kind of summary; the book-division of the Republic may well be Plato's own. By the time of Pliny division into books was so well established that he can make of his first book a table of contents for the rest. " (pp. 13-14)

I've just had this from Classicist Nicholas Lowe:

So, as I mentioned before, Jay's "guess" that "[references to books and book numbers"] were extremely rare or did not exist before the time of Eusebius" is hardly well founded. It is certainly very poorly researched.

And it leads me to wonder how many other of Jay's "guesses"/pronouncements about Eusebius are also as flimsy and as lacking in real acquaintance with the methods, techniques, practices, and idiosyncrasies of pre-Eusebian authors as this one is.

Jeffrey

Roger Pearse

Thank you for this reference -- I knew the story but not that it was in Plutarch (whose lives I occasionally am tempted to scan and place online somewhere).

Must be, of course. The Greek text was probably published by Jeffrey Gibson under a false name too. Everyone who knows Greek is Jeffrey Gibson, we all know that.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

We could also mention Pliny the Elder's Natural history with a praefatio which mentions book 1, and book 1 being a list of contents for the other books. The creation of multi-volume histories (necessitated by the maximum length of the papyrus roll) is a feature of Hellenistic times. The arrival of the codex does not change this until the 3-4th century, when the technical problems of manufacturing a large codex had been resolved.

But this is all stuff covered in Scribes and Scholars, and Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome and books like that. Any book about ancient book manufacture will discuss these things.

Jeffrey Gibson

Many of them are already available on the Perseus site.

And just so you know, the statement in question appears at 2.4, not 4, and there is there a specific naming of Aristarchus of Samothrace (c.217–c.145 BCE), as the one who established the particular book divisions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey with which Plutarch was familiar.

Must be, of course. The Greek text was probably published by Jeffrey Gibson under a false name too. Everyone who knows Greek is Jeffrey Gibson, we all know that.[/QUOTE]

Damn! My cover is blown! And I was trying so hard to keep secret the fact that I was the text's publisher. How did you find out?

Jeffrey