On the Months (De Mensibus) (Lewiston, 2013)
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John Lydus On the Months (De mensibus) Translated with introduction and annotations by Mischa Hooker 2nd edition (2017) ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations .......................................................................................... iv Introduction .............................................................................................. v On the Months: Book 1 ............................................................................... 1 On the Months: Book 2 ............................................................................ 17 On the Months: Book 3 ............................................................................ 33 On the Months: Book 4 January ......................................................................................... 55 February ....................................................................................... 76 March ............................................................................................. 85 April ............................................................................................ 109 May ............................................................................................. 123 June ............................................................................................ 134 July ............................................................................................. 140 August ........................................................................................ 147 September ................................................................................. 155 October ...................................................................................... 159 November .................................................................................. 163 December .................................................................................. 169 On the Months: Fragments of Uncertain Position ......................... 181 Fragments Falsely Attributed to De Mensibus ............................... 186 Appendix A: Comparable Accounts ................................................ 189 Appendix B: Tabulation of Correspondences ............................... 219 iii ABBREVIATIONS ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt AP Anthologia Palatina [= Greek Anthology] BNJ Brill's New Jacoby BNP Brill's New Pauly CAH Cambridge Ancient History (most recent editions) CCAG Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Cod. Just. Codex Justinianus CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CTh Codex Theodosianus Diels-Kranz H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 11th ed. (1964) EPRO Études preliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain (series) FGrHist Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (ed. Jacoby) FHG Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (ed. Müller) HLL Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike (in Müller's Handbuch) HRR Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae (ed. Peter) IAH Iurisprudentiae Antehadrianae quae supersunt (ed. Bremer) IAR Iurisprudentiae Anteiustinianae Reliquiae, 6th ed. (ed. Huschke) IG Inscriptiones Graecae LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae LCL Loeb Classical Library (series) LSJ Liddell, Scott, and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica NH Natural History (Pliny the Elder) PE Praeparatio Evangelica (Eusebius of Caesarea) PG Patrologia Graeca (ed. Migne) PL Patrologia Latina (ed. Migne) PLRE Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire PRE Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft QN Quaestiones Naturales (Seneca) RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum iv On the Months: Introduction INTRODUCTION The four-book work "On the Months" (De mensibus) by John Lydus (that is, John the Lydian),1 offers intriguing views of Roman and Greek traditions about the calendar, religion, philosophy, natural history, and much else, through the lens of antiquarian scholarship from the late Roman empire. John, its author, was an early Byzantine bureaucrat, working from early in the 6th century into the age of Justinian. He enjoyed a 40-year career with some successes and some setbacks; he ended up with some exposure and recognition at a high level, having delivered a panegyric at court, and then being invited to write the official account of war against Persia. He always took pride in his books and his educational attainments, and he put them to employment in a teaching position and in writing the results of his researches. Bitterness and pessimism, however, are a recurring undertone in his surviving works: the Roman empire had declined from its zenith, he felt, and the ways of the past needed to be remembered and revived. John's personal experiences with "reform" only served to reinforce his longing for an unrecoverable antiquity. All in all, he was a moderately successful functionary and teacher who nevertheless felt that he ought to have done much better—that he never achieved the brilliant success and recognition that he truly deserved. Barry Baldwin's summary remark is apt: "Lydus is a complex and fascinating fellow, by turn likeable and insufferable."2 Beyond the questionable charms of his personality, however, his works are of lasting importance, yet have been largely inaccessible except 1 R. Wuensch (ed.), Ioannis Laurentii Lydi liber De mensibus (Leipzig, 1898). The name "Laurentius" that appears in Photius' notice, Bibliotheca cod. 180 (i.e., in the phrase Ἰωάννου Λαυρεντίου Φιλαδελφέως τοῦ Λυδοῦ) and has sometimes been treated as part of John's name, is more likely his father's name. The primary documentation of John's life history is the extended autobiographical section of De magistratibus 3.26-30; the other ancient sources are Photius and the Suda entry on John (ι 465 Adler). The most recent, full discussion of John's biography is that of J. Schamp in M. Dubuisson and J. Schamp (ed., tr., comm.), Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain (Paris, 2006), 1.1: xiii-lxxvi; other treatments are to be found in C. Kelly, "John Lydus and the Eastern Praetorian Prefecture in the Sixth Century AD," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 98 (2005), pp. 431-58; id., Ruling the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2004); M. Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age of Justinian (London, 1992); J. Caimi, Burocrazia e diritto nel De magistratibus di Giovanni Lido (Milan, 1984); A. Bandy (ed., tr.), Ioannes Lydus: On Powers or The Magistracies of the Roman State (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. ix-xxvi; T. F. Carney, Bureaucracy in Traditional Society: Romano-Byzantine Bureaucracies Viewed from Within (Lawrence, Kansas, 1971), 2: 3-19. Good briefer accounts of John appear in Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 242-8; E. Stein, Histoire du bas-empire, vol. 2 (Paris, 1949), pp. 729-34, 838-40; R. Kaster, Guardians of Language, pp. 306-9; Martindale, PLRE 2: 612-15 (s.v. Ioannes 75); see also A. Klotz, PRE XIII.2: 2210-17 (s.v. "Lydos 7"); T. F. Carney, PRE Suppl. XII: 521-3 (s.v. "Lydos 7"); M. Chase, "Lydus (Iohannes -)," in R. Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. 4 (Paris, 2006), pp. 205-10 [non vidi]. 2 Baldwin, "A Byzantine Sir Humphrey Appleby? John Lydus Reconsidered," review article on M. Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past, Échos du Monde Classique / Classical Views 38, n.s. 13 (1994), p. 66. v On the Months: Introduction to the specialist, and (concomitantly) fertile territory for finding evidence on a broad range of subjects without sound understanding of the context of such material and the nature of John's work and perspective. BIOGRAPHY In A.D. 511, at the age of 21, John came to Constantinople from his home town of Philadelphia in Lydia in search of employment in the civil service, and hoping to secure a position among the officials of the imperial palace.3 While waiting for opportunities, he studied Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy under Agapius, a student of the great Proclus.4 His entrée into government work was soon secured by a fellow Philadelphian, the Praetorian prefect Zoticus.5 Early on, he prospered in the prefecture, at first as an exceptor (short-hand clerk). John's cousin Ammianus was already so employed. Zoticus oversaw John's education in the process of deriving solid financial benefits from his post, as well as his exceptionally quick advancement to the position of first chartularius (secretary) in the department of civil law (headed by the ab actis) within the prefecture.6 Beyond the remuneration he secured through his posts, John was also specifically rewarded by Zoticus for a panegyric he delivered, probably on the occasion of the latter's departure from his brief tenure in office (512); John cites the rate of one gold solidus per line. Through the good graces of Ammianus and Zoticus, too, John found a respectable wife who was endowed with a dowry of 100 pounds of gold (7200 solidi); little is known about her except that she died early.7 John further, and concurrently with 3 For Byzantine bureaucracy in general, see A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Oxford, 1964), pp. 562-606; C. Kelly, "John Lydus and the Eastern Praetorian Prefecture in the Sixth Century AD"; Dubuisson-Schamp, 2: cciv-cccxiii; J. F. Haldon, "Economy and Administration: How Did the Empire Work?" in Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 28-59 (with useful structural diagrams on pp. 42-3, 46-7); M. McCormick,