Latin Text Research Articles

The Catalogus geometrarum from the Corpus Agrimensorum

Abstract An overlooked fragmentary Latin text preserved in the Corpus of Roman Land Surveyors proves to be a translation of a lost branch of the Aratean commentary tradition. Stripped of the classicizing veneer mistakenly applied by earlier editors, the fragment can be recognized as the work of an unknown and inept late-antique Translator, perhaps working within a generation of the fragment’s earliest manuscript witness, the Codex Arcerianus. The branch of the commentary tradition used by this Translator made use of Euclid ‘the Sicilian’, an authority now absent from the surviving tradition: if this Euclid is identical with the famous geometer, as argued here, we may have radical new evidence for his homeland, hitherto unknown. The Aratean manuscript used by the Translator was equipped with interlinear Latin glosses and with illustrations of a type otherwise unattested in the surviving Aratean tradition.

New Roman milestones and other Latin inscriptions from Bani Walid, Tripolitania

AbstractThis paper publishes the texts of three new Roman milestones and two other Latin texts from the vicinity of Bani Walid. These stones were found lying on the ground in the western suburbs of the city, apparently having been collected up and put aside by the landowners in clearing their fields to grow crops on their farms. Although previously postulated, these milestones are the first confirmation that a Roman road ran through Bani Walid. As a group these new texts offer new insight into the development of the transport infrastructure and agricultural economy of this Pre-Desert zone in the third century AD.

Arthur and Kingship as Represented by the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth

The present study investigates the representation of King Arthur in the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1343–1400). In doing so, it concentrates on specific historical context – early Anglo-Saxon England – and a specific form of authority – Anglo-Saxon kingship. The intention of the study is to show how Geoffrey of Monmouth used historical chronicles, not only for cataloguing the stories of various rulers of the island, but also for creating and shaping a single leader who can unify the kingdom.The study claims that the ideal kingship constructed around the figure of King Arthur in the Historia involved a re-orientation of some of the more conventional norms of kingship; the heroic qualities of martial prowess, generosity and morality are quite essential in every conception of an ideal king. Geoffrey’s conception of this ideal king was largely influenced by his personal aspirations, some of which have been outlined in the introduction of this article. The remaining parts of this study offer a historical as well as a literary analysis of the text, addressing the main qualities of kingship that were articulated in the text.All translated quotations from Historia Regum Britanniae are taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe (London, Penguin Book, 1966). The Latin text consulted was Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regnum Britianniae, Vol. 1, Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Ms 568, ed. Neil Wright (Cambridge; D.S. Brewer, 1984).

Hydrocephalus in Context: A History from Graeco-Roman Sources

Abstract The history of the scientific description and conceptualisation of the condition named “hydrocephalus” goes back to Graeco-Roman antiquity. The present article provides an extensive examination of the ancient Greek and Latin texts on the topic, including the only extant medical papyrus dealing with it. A thorough investigation of these primary sources allows us to expand our knowledge of this disorder throughout history and how its nosological conception has varied over time.

Apocrypha Hiberniae II: Apocalyptica 2

Apocrypha Hiberniae II: Apocalyptica 2

The Phoenix and the Interlingual Dimensions of Early English Literary Culture

The Phoenix and the Interlingual Dimensions of Early English Literary Culture

Ethnogenesis and Stranger-Kings in Old Scandinavian Literature

Ethnogenesis and Stranger-Kings in Old Scandinavian Literature

Gothic leiþu, “strong drink; fruit wine?” and its Cognates in the Germanic Languages

Gothic <i>leiþu</i>, “strong drink; fruit wine?” and its Cognates in the Germanic Languages

Latines en La Araucana (o cómo leyó Ercilla La Eneida y La Farsalia)

There is no doubt that The Aeneid and The Pharsalia were very important sources in the composition of La Araucana. However, we do not know for sure whether Ercilla read Virgil and Lucan in their original version or in translation. This work attempts to resolve this question. In order to do so, the passages of La Araucana are compared with the Latin versions of the works of both poets, as well as with their Spanish translations. The work concludes that Ercilla used the Castilian texts, although in some cases he may have referred to the Latin text of The Aeneid.

MedLatinEpi and MedLatinLit : Two Datasets for the Computational Authorship Analysis of Medieval Latin Texts

We present and make available MedLatinEpi and MedLatinLit , two datasets of medieval Latin texts to be used in research on computational authorship analysis. MedLatinEpi and MedLatinLit consist of 294 and 30 curated texts, respectively, labelled by author; MedLatinEpi texts are of epistolary nature, while MedLatinLit texts consist of literary comments and treatises about various subjects. As such, these two datasets lend themselves to supporting research in authorship analysis tasks, such as authorship attribution, authorship verification, or same-author verification. Along with the datasets, we provide experimental results, obtained on these datasets, for the authorship verification task, i.e., the task of predicting whether a text of unknown authorship was written by a candidate author. We also make available the source code of the authorship verification system we have used, thus allowing our experiments to be reproduced, and to be used as baselines, by other researchers. We also describe the application of the above authorship verification system, using these datasets as training data, for investigating the authorship of two medieval epistles whose authorship has been disputed by scholars.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Российская (Псевдо-) Амвросиана в переводческих традициях Синодального периода

The article studies the history of works signed by the name of St. Ambrose of Milan which was translated into Church Slavonic and Russian. The tradition of translations of the Bishop of Mediolanum is very young and heterogeneous. The first translations have been appeared sporadically only in the second half of the 18th century, and they were not systematic. The chronological framework of the article is due to the fact that the main body of the theological, homiletic and moral-ascetic heritage of the St. Ambrose was translated and published precisely in the Synodal period. Later, some early translations have been reprinted again and again or taken as a basis for adapting texts into modern language. Thanks to the educational activities of the St. Petersburg and the Kiev Theological Academies, which began to translate regularly and print the texts of the Holy Fathers, the number of publications from the authentic texts of the saint, as well as The pseudo-Ambrose's “Words”, increased noticeably. Many translations were published in the journals “Christian Reading”, “Sunday Reading”, “A Guide for Rural Shepherds”, which contributed to the spread of the patristic heritage outside the walls of religious educational institutions. In the article we reconstruct, if possible, the names of the translators and establish the source of original Latin texts, due to misattribution of many writings published under the name of St. Ambrose. The results are expected to contribute to clarify and to supply bibliographic lists, as well as to prepare a complete annotated catalog of editions of St. Ambrose of Milan in Russian and Church Slavonic.

The medieval skincare routine according to the formulations of Madgistra Trotula and the Medical School of Salerno and its reflection on cosmetology of the third millennium.

Officinal plants, minerals, animal derivatives, and miscellaneous have always been used to treat and improve appearance despite the different aesthetic canons of a specific historical and cultural context. The aim of this work was to make a critical comparison between medieval and modern dermocosmetics analyzing the works of Trotula de Ruggiero, a female doctor of the 11th century teaching and working inside the illustrious "Medical School of Salerno," who devoted particular attention to the promotion of female care, beauty, and well-being. We applied the historical-critical method analyzing the Latin text and the nglish translation of the standardized corpus of the main Trotula medieval manuscript De Ornatu Mulierum with a multidisciplinary scientific approach ranging from botany to pharmaceutical chemistry and technology, pharmacology and pathology. We identified the medicinal plants, derivatives of animal origin and minerals used in the recipes of Trotula, highlighting their biological properties in the light of current scientific knowledge. A critical comparison between medieval and modern dermocosmetics is reported also taking into consideration the chemical, pharmaceutical, and technological literature. Beyond the obvious changes in the paradigms of cosmetology and the different beauty canons of Middle Age with respect to modern times, our results emphasize the attention of Trotula to female care, beauty and well-being as well as the extraordinary combination of tradition and modernity in her work.

Latijnse vocabulaireverwerving in context

A central topic of discussion in second language acquisition research is the question whether new vocabulary should be presented to pupils by means of vocabulary lists or in phrases (context). This question is not raised as often by teachers of Latin and it is therefore unsurprising that vocabulary lists have dominated Latin text books in the Netherlands for decades. This article concentrates on the effects of presenting Latin vocabulary in context. It investigates which learning strategies pupils use if vocabulary is presented in context, and the relationship between these strategies and memorisation. For this purpose, three pupils are involved in a think-aloud protocol while learning Latin vocabulary in context. The analysis shows that the pupils seldom attempt to translate the phrases, presumably because of the complex grammar, but tend to fall back on familiar, common strategies such as repetition, to memorise new words. Therefore, the author advises future writers of text books who consider to present vocabulary in context, to develop exercises that explicitly stimulate pupils to translate the context as a strategy to discover the meaning of new words.

Defect‐Induced Effects in Nanomaterials

Defect‐Induced Effects in Nanomaterials

Latin Vocabulary Knowledge and the Readability of Latin Texts: A Preliminary Study

Studies have found a strong correlation between vocabulary knowledge and L2 reading comprehension. This preliminary study of the readability of Latin texts considers how common measures of lexical complexity (word length, word frequency, lexical sophistication, lexical density, and lexical variation) can inform instructors about what texts have the least (and most) lexical complexity. By defining several key measurements of Latin lexical complexity, we establish a provisional account of the lexical difficulty of some familiar Latin texts that are frequently taught in elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels, and propose LexR, a single, informative, integrated score that provides a sense of the comparative lexical complexity of Latin texts.

Introducing a Bit of Active Latin into Your Current Advanced Latin Classroom: Usus loquendi et audiendi de Terentio Catulloque

The purpose of this paper is to show how easily and profitably one can introduce a small portion of active Latin into an upper-level Latin classroom through select questioning and response that draws directly from and reinforces grammatical structures and forms, as well as key vocabulary, from the students’ advanced Latin texts under study. Use of active Latin supports SLA (Second Language Acquistion) research about the value of spending time “in the language” in the classroom. The current Standards for Classical Language Learning recognizes this value as well.

The Afterlife of St Cuthbert: Place, Texts and Ascetic Tradition, 690–1500

The Afterlife of St Cuthbert: Place, Texts and Ascetic Tradition, 690–1500

Guidelines for editing papyri

Text prepared at the request of the president of the AIP (August 2018) by a committee headed by Jean-Luc Fournet and made up of the following people: Rodney Ast, Amin Benaissa, Willy Clarysse, Hélène Cuvigny, Alain Delattre, Nick Gonis, Jürgen Hammerstaedt, Federico Morelli, Paul Schubert, Joanne Stolk, Katelijn Vandorpe. These guidelines were presented to the AIP General Assembly at the end of the XXXth International Congress of Papyrology (July 30, 2022). - 1. Editing Greek / Latin texts. - 2. Editing Demotic texts. - 3. Editing Coptic texts.

Releasing Everything Bound in the Knot: P.Saqqara inv. F.17.10

Abstract Re-interpretation of a Coptic magical text on paper from Saqqara in light of parallels from earlier Egyptian as well as medieval Greek, Latin, and Syriac ritual texts: the central motif, which refers to wind, wave, and snakes, is applied to the cure of impotence, conceived as the releasing of ritual binding.