Roger Pearse

There has been discussion in this forum over some time about scanning Ammianus Marcellinus. I saw a couple of days ago that it still hasn't happened tho -- and I've been sitting here with a 2-inch thick pile of photocopies for some years which I am anxious to get off the shelf. So I have gone ahead and scanned the old Bohn (1862) translation by C.D.Yonge. It's here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/in...us_Marcellinus

The text etc is all public domain everywhere in the world, so go ahead, take copies, use it as you see fit with my blessing. That's what it's for.

Pressure of other tasks meant that I had to omit footnotes, and probably there are typos. If you see the latter, and feel like sending them to me, I will fix them!

This book is also on Google books, complete -- but only if you're in the US! I find that a lot of people outside the US dismiss Google Books. This is because we can't actually see most of the content. In fact it contains acres of useful stuff that we cannot see. For several links for Greek, Latin, etc, all available complete -- in the US! -- see the links here:

http://semperegoauditor.typepad.com/...gle_books.html

The whole collection of English translations of the Fathers not in the
ANF etc (plus related texts) is at:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers

A CDROM of the site is also available, if anyone feels like saying "thank you" in a concrete way:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/al...hers_on_cd.htm

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

Well done Roger.

Roger Pearse

You're welcome!

Roger Pearse

mountainman

In your research of the descent of the manuscripts as summarised
on your Introduction, or indeed elsewhere in your journeying,
did you happen ever to find any information relating to when
the first 13 books went missing?

Roger Pearse

None at all. The 9th century Hersfeld ms is clearly the ancestor of all the mss that we have, and it didn't have these books. This manuscript was probably at the Abbey of Fulda in the 9th century (hence the existence of a copy written there at that time). Fulda contained Irish and British monks, and some of its texts came from that part of the world. The Hersfeld ms has traces that it was copied from a manuscript written in insular book hand (we can tell because people not familiar with this book hand tend to make certain common mistakes when copying from it). If so, this suggests that the previous stage was a manuscript copied in the British isles. This manuscript or its ancestor will have been acquired during the Dark Ages, possibly in Rome.

Ammianus is a large work. The surviving bit was 650 pages. I would guess that the original was split into two or more parts, as long works always were, and the two parts travelled down the centuries separately. Unfortunately the first half didn't make it.

My guess would be that the last copy of books 1-13 perished some time in the early Dark Ages. Ammianus clearly shows the late antique fashion for 1st century authors, so would continue to be in fashion up to the collapse. The start of book 14 is also lost -- obviously leaves were lost from the front of the sole copy of the second half sometime before it reached Fulda, perhaps in an unbound state.

All the best,

Roger Pearse