®mm\\ Wluivrnxty ptarg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Bcnrtj W. S&q* 1891 #.&.&&<£.%?.. &&/^., 6896-1 Cornell University Library G89 .C83 1909 cpple Chrstian topography of .Coamas Ind 3 1924 029 854 803 olin The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029854803 THE CHRISTIAN TOPOGRAPHY OF COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS HonUon: FETTER LANE, E.C. C. F. CLAY, Manager tt : THE CHRISTIAN TOPOGRAPHY OF COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES EDITED WITH GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY E. O. WINSTEDT, / LATE SENIOR DEMY OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD Cambridge at the University Press 1909 (Eambrtoge: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.a. AT THF UNIVERSITY PRESS. PREFACE THIS book is the partial result of a journey to Italy in the spring of 1904, and another to Mt. Sinai and again to Italy in 1905. Of both journeys the costs were defrayed by grants liberally made me by the Craven Committee, to whom I owe my sincerest thanks. My gratitude is no less due to the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, who by electing me to a Senior Demyship gave me the opportunity of spending on this and other research work time which must otherwise have been devoted^ to the weariness and vexation of earning a liveli- hood. For the suggestion of this particular author I hardly know whether I am most indebted to Prof. Heiberg of Copenhagen, from whom the suggestion originally came, or to Monsieur Seymour de Ricci, who passed it on to me, and whose friendship enlivened days spent in collating a text, which even the most ardent admirers of Cosmas—if there are any such—must admit is not exhilarating as a whole. Since the main interest of the work is geographical, the Syndics of the Cambridge Press desired me to add notes on the geographical portions ; and I undertook and carried out that task to the best of my ability, though I could not help feeling some natural diffidence, since geography is a subject with which I am little familiar, and since in Cosmas' case there are special difficulties. The famous Adulitic Inscription, for instance, demands an intimate knowledge of the geography of Abyssinia and Ethiopia in the third or fourth century of our era : and those who have claimed such knowledge and treated of the subject, differ so greatly in their conclusions, and in some cases spend so much time and energy in throwing stones at one another, that, after wading through a sea of their pamphlets, I ended much where I began—with no personal views on the vi PREFACE » geography of those countries at such an obscure epoch. I have therefore generally contented myself with endeavouring to summarize such views as appear worthy of mention without attempting to decide between them. For these and any other notes that I have given I am under great indebtedness to McCrindle's annotated translation in the Hakluyt Society's publications and to Mr Beazley's section on Cosmas in his Dawn of Modern Geography\ the fullest and most illuminating sketch of Cosmas' work which has yet appeared. Those who have seen or heard of the MSS. may perhaps wonder why the magnificent illuminations with which all of them are furnished, are not reproduced. The chief reason is that of the illuminations of the oldest MS., which are far the best, Monsignor Stornaiolo was already preparing a facsimile edition, which has now appeared : and, though it might have been interesting to some few readers if the illuminations of the Laurentian or Sinaitic MSS. had been given in full for comparison with the Vatican volume, it would have increased the cost of publication materially, and besides, to be properly treated, would have required a greater knowledge of Byzantine art than I can claim. With the concurrence of the Press, I therefore thought it better to limit the illustrations to such few plans and pictures as seemed necessary for the comprehension of the text; and even those had to be further reduced to such as were likely to look more than a smudge when reproduced. Hence a few of the interesting pictures of animals described in the eleventh book had to be omitted. For the selected plates which appear in the volume I am indebted partly to the kindness of Prof. Biagi of the Laurentian library, and partly to the courtesy of Mr Beazley and the Clarendon Press, who have allowed me to reproduce the plates given in the Dawn of Modern Geography. My thanks are also due to Dr M. R. James for sending me what looks like a reference to Cosmas in two Cambridge MSS., and to Mgr. Stornaiolo for examining one or two doubtful points in the Vatican MS. for me. E. O. W. November 1909. CONTENTS PAGE Preface . v Addenda and Corrigenda ix Introduction i List . of MSS. and Textual Criticism . .15 List of Signs 34 List of Contents of the Books as given in the MSS 3 5 Text . 37 Notes 333 of . Index Biblical Quotations . 359 Index of Personal Names 363 Index of Geographical Names 367 General Index 370 Plates I—XIV . .at end of book ; ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA References to and quotations from Cosmas are so rare even in Greek MSS. that one is disposed to regard him as a voice crying in the wilderness and certainly one would not look to find any traces of him in the western world. But Dr M. R. James has very kindly pointed out to me a passage occurring in two MSS. of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, both of English origin, which may almost certainly be reckoned as a reference to the Christian Topography. The two MSS. are nos. 183 and 320, and are probably of the tenth and eleventh centuries respectively, though Stubbs dated the latter of them as early as the eighth century. And the passage in question, which is on fols. 68v to 691' of MS. 183, reads as follows:— Christianus historicus dicit longitudinem mundi esse XII milium, latitudo VI miliorum. Longitudo templi IX cubitos in longitudine et XXX cubitos in latitudine et XXX cubitos in altitudine. Tabernaculum habens longitudinis cubitorum XXX, latitudinis X, altitudinis aeque X. De area noe CCC cubit in longit, in lat L cubitorum, in altit XXX cubitorum. As Dr James remarks, the dimensions of the world here given correspond exactly with those of Cosmas, and the name Christi- anus Historicus is not inappropriate. He has also pointed out to me a passage in a letter of Koaena, archbishop of York (767 to 781 A.D.), to Lullus of Mainz which he thinks may perhaps throw light on the composition of the MSS. The passage may be found in Jaffa's Monumenta Moguntina, p. 291, and runs : — Illud vero, quod de libris inquisisti, marinis aestibus terram advectantibus, omnino incognitum—nisi quia falsum— est. Ceterum libros cosmografiorum, necdum nobis ad manum venerunt ; nee alia apud nos exemplaria nisi picturis et litteris permolesta. lam sepius mihimet perscribere destinavi, sed non illorum potui scriptores adquirere ; forte, tuis adiutus subplicationibus. The difficulty of finding copyists may perhaps point to Greek as the language of the cosmographers referred to : but in any case the presence of a copy of Cosmas, or of extracts from his work, in the west seems sufficiently attested by the passage just quoted. I append a regrettably long list of corrigenda, including some corrections of misprints and some alterations of the text, the latter mainly derived from a recollation of the portions of which photographs appear in Mgr. C. Stornaiolo's recently published work Le Miniature della Topografia Cristiana di Cosma Indicopleuste (Milano, 1908). ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA ' P- 8, 1. 26 read been, still.' 'Erythraei.' P- 11, 11. 5 and 31 read l ' ov V. P- 40, 1. 34 after om. S add tov Notoj^ with V. P- 62, 1. 3 read 1 tovtco altering the footnote to tovto V . P- 62, 1. 6 read cos nal with V. P- 62, 1. 31 read tov avdpa with V. P- 74, 1. 15 read 1. delete the comma. P- 82, 2 1. read devrepos icrrlv, Tovreariv with V. P- 28 20 1. has dirjicvovpevoi rightly. P- 43 32 V 1. omits dprjv. P- 44 24 V 1. 28 read rvrrov with VS. P- 49 1. read Aecnrorov f]pcov XpicrroO with V. P- 62 13 1. reads yevopivr)?. P- 64 24 V the heading should end at Koo~fi.o<p6pos and the paragraph P- 64 1. 32 begin with tovto. 1. delete 6. P- 7i 30 2 1. for read (man. rec). P- 7i 36 V V 1. 18 omits tov alcovos. P- 85 V 1. appo^ov for appo^ov. P- 86 14 read 1. avQpcotzivov with V. P- 87 3 read 1. ovtos Mi^aias with V. P- 87 20 read 1. iv tco ovpavco with P- 88 17 read V. ovtcos. P- 89 1. 17 V omits 1. 20 omit fj with P- 89 V. 1. dvo-ias P- 9i 12 read with V. 1. omits 6 Seos. P> 9i 25 V irpbs tov erepov P- 95 I. 19 read deleting the footnote. P- 208 II. 19, 20 read eVi tov 8e6v \0nr6v deleting the footnote. 1. dva.7r\r)pcoo~iv. P- 209 26 read P- 210 I. 18 omit tcov dBavaTcov with V. P- 224 1. 37 read Gen. i. 26 and add the same reference to 223, 1. 25. P- 227 1. 30 for to-Tcov read Icttcov.