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I am trying to get information about the time period when descriptive subtitles were added to chapters of ancient writings.

In the writings attributed to Suetonius, Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata and Cassius Dio I noticed NO subtitles but in almost all Apologetic writings there are numerous descriptive subtitles for each chapter of those books.

Does anyone know when these descriptive subtitles were first introduced in Apologetic Texts???

Roger Pearse

You've raised an interesting and very difficult question.

Firstly, I presume that you are looking at English translations? If so, please be aware that the subtitles / chapter titles in these are usually inventions of modern translators.

But medieval manuscripts DO contain short titles on the chapters. But the chapter divisions themselves may be late.

Editors of classical texts have tended to presume that all the titles in the manuscripts are scribal additions from the middle ages. Consequently they tend not to print them at all (although I notice modern French editions are including them).

Greek historical writers, who tended to produce works in a large number of books (multiples of 10), seem to have prefixed each book with a summary, or list of contents. It is not certain whether these lists correspond to chapters, or whether the chapter divisions are later. What is known is that in medieval manuscripts of the 10th century, we find this

Pliny the Elder, in his "Natural History" -- a technical work -- made book 1 consist entirely of summaries of the following books. But it is not known whether the text was marked up into sections.

It seems likely that divisions, and subtitles, appeared first in practical handbooks, rather than in literary texts, and only subsequently made their way into literature.

Even in the 5th century, we have a manuscript of St Augustine's "City of God", written in Africa in his own scriptorium, which has no titles or divisions. These appear, for Augustine's works, only in the 6th century.

On the other hand Cyril of Alexandria in the early 5th century refers to them in the prologue to his Commentary on John.

Eusebius of Caesarea -- always up with new technology -- certainly has lists of contents at the front of each book of each of his works. Whether there were divisions in the body of the text; whether the titles were put next to the division by the author; these things are impossible to say. The manuscripts that survive tend to be late, and have all these things.

As I write this, it occurs to me that a 5th century manuscript of two of Eusebius' works exists; the Syriac translation of the "Church History", and the AD 411 manuscript of a Syriac translation of the Theophania. It would be very interesting to know if the chapter titles of medieval Greek text of the Church History appear in this early copy!

But returning to the question: it is difficult to say.

All the best,

Roger Pearse