Forty Centuries of Ink Part 5

"Sanchoniathon, a Phoenician author, who if the fragments of his works that have reached us be genuine, and if such a person ever existed, must be regarded as the most ancient writer of whom we have any knowledge after Moses. As to the period when be flourished, all is uncertain. He is the author of three princ.i.p.al works, which were written in Phoenician. They were translated into the Greek language by Herennius Philo, who lived in the second century of our era. It is from this translation which we obtain all the fragments of Sanchoniathon that have reached our times. Philo had divided his translation into nine books, of which Porphyry made use in his diatribe against the Christians.

It is from the fourth book of this lost work that Eusebius took, for an end directly opposite to this, the pa.s.sages which have come down to us.

And thus we have those doc.u.ments relating to the mythology and history of the Phoenicians from the fourth hand."

Mr. Astle continues:

"Manetho's History of Egypt, and the History of Chaldea, by Berosus, have nearly met with the same fate."

From Anthon:

"Berosus; a Babylonian historian. He was a priest of the temple of Belus in the time of Alexander.

The ancients mention three books of his of which Josephus and Eusebius have preserved fragments. Annius of Viterbo published a work under the name of Berosus, which was soon discovered to be a forgery."

By Astle:

"The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus consisted likewise of forty books, but only fifteen are now extant; that is, five between the fifth and the eleventh, and the last ten, with some fragments collected out of Photius and others."

By Anthon:

"Diodorus, surnamed Siculus, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Agustus. He published a general history in forty books, under the t.i.tle 'Historical Library,' which covered a period of 1138 years. We have only a small part remaining of this vast compilation. These rescued portions we owe to Eusebius, to John Malala and other writers of the lower empire, who have cited them in the course of their works. He is the reputed author of the famous sophism against motion. 'If any body be moved, it is moved in the place where it is, or in a place where it is not, for nothing can act or suffer where it is not, and therefore there is no such thing as motion.' "

By Astle:

"The General History of Polybius originally contained forty books; but the first five only, with some extracts or fragments, are transmitted to us."

By Anthon:

"Polybius, an eminent Greek historian, born about, B. C. 203. Polybius gave to the world various historical writings, which are entirely lost with the exception of his General History. It embraced a period of 53 years. Of the forty books which it originally comprehended, time has spared only the first five entire. Of the rest, as far as the seventeenth, we have merely fragments though of considerable size. Of the remaining books we have nothing left except what is found in two merger abridgments which the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the tenth century caused to be made of the whole work."

From Astle:

"Dionysius Halicarna.s.sensis wrote twenty books of Roman antiquities, extending from the siege of Troy, to the Punic war A. U. C. 488; but only eleven of them are now remaining, which reach no further than the year of Rome 312."

From Anthon:

"He was born in the first century B. C. His princ.i.p.al work was 'Roman Antiquities.' It originally consisted of twenty books, of which the first ten remain entire. Dionysius wrote for the Greeks, and his object was to relieve them from the mortification which they felt at being conquered by a race of barbarians, as they considered the Romans to be.

And this he endeavored to effect by twisting and forging testimonies, and botching up the old legends, so as to make out a prima facie proof of the Greek origin of the city of Rome. Valuable additions were made in 1816, by Mai, from an old MSS."

By Astle:

"Appian is said to have written the Roman History in twenty-four books; but the greatest part of the works of that author is lost."

By Anthon:

"He was the author of a Roman History in twenty-four books which no longer exist entire; the parts missing have been supplied but was not written by Appian but is a mere compilation from Plutarch's Lives of Cra.s.sus and Antony."

By Astle:

"Dion Ca.s.sius wrote eighty books of history, but only twenty-five are remaining, with some fragments, and an epitome of the last twenty by Xiphilinus."

By Anthon:

"His true name was Ca.s.sius, born A. D. 155; --we have fragments remaining of the first thirty- six books, they comprehend a period from B. C. 65 to B. C. 10;--they were found by Mai in two Vatican MSS., which contain a sylloge or collection made by Maximus Planudes (who lived in the fourteenth century. He was the first Greek that made use of the Arabic numerals as they are called)."

Mr. Astle further observes:

"The Emperor Tacitus ordered ten copies of the works of his relation, the historian, to be made every year which he sent into the different provinces of the empire; and yet, notwithstanding his endeavours to perpetuate these inestimable works, they were buried in oblivion for many centuries.

Since the restoration of learning an ancient MSS.

was discovered in a monastery in Westphalia, which contained the most valuable part of his annals; but in this unique ma.n.u.script, part of the fifth, seventh, ninth and tenth books are deficient, as are part of the eleventh, and the latter part of the sixteenth. This MSS. was procured by that great restorer of learning Pope Leo X., under whose patronage it was printed at Rome in 1515; he afterwards deposited it in the Vatican library, where it is still preserved. Thus posterity is probably indebted to the above magnificent Pontiff, for the most valuable part of the works of this inimitable historian."

Accounts which differentiate in their descriptive details of questioned ink-written fragments of antiquity and on the genuineness or authenticity of which rests the truth or falsity of ancient history or other literature, serve to taint such remains with a certain degree of suspicion and doubt. When, however, in the light of investigation, the materials of which they are composed are found to approach closely the age they purport to represent, then it is that such fragments can be said to have fairly established their own ident.i.ty.

Taylor a.s.serts:

"The remote antiquity of a ma.n.u.script is of ten established by the peculiar circ.u.mstance of its existing BENEATH another writing. Some invaluable ma.n.u.scripts of the Holy Scriptures, and not a few precious fragments of cla.s.sic literature, have been thus brought to light.

"The age of a ma.n.u.script may often be ascertained with little chance of error, by some such indications as the following:--the quality or appearance of the INK, the nature of the material; that is to say, whether it be soft leather, or parchment, or the papyrus of Egypt, or the bombycine paper; for these materials succeeded each other, in common use, at periods that are well known;-- the peculiar form, size, and character of the writing; for a regular progression in the modes of writing may be traced by abundant evidence through every age from the remotest times;--the style of the ornaments or illuminations, as they are termed, often serves to indicate the age of the book which they decorate.

"From such indications as these, more or less definite and certain, ancient ma.n.u.scripts, now extant, are a.s.signed to various periods, extending from the sixteenth, to the fourth century of the Christian era; or perhaps, in one or two instances, to the third or second. Very few can claim an antiquity so high as the fourth century; but not a few are safely attributed to the seventh; and a great proportion of those extant were unquestionably executed in the tenth; while many belong to the following four hundred years. It is, however, to be observed, that some ma.n.u.scripts, executed at so late a time as the thirteenth, or even the fifteenth century, afford clear internal evidence that, by a single remove only, the text they contain claims a REAL antiquity, higher than that even of the oldest existing copy of the same work. For these older copies sometimes prove, by the peculiar nature of the corruptions which have crept into the text, that they have been derived through a long series of copies; while perhaps the text of the more modern ma.n.u.scripts possesses such a degree of purity and freedom from all the usual consequences of frequent transcription, as to make it manifest that the copy from which it was taken, was so ancient as not to be far distant from the time of the first publication of the work."

CHAPTER V.

REVIVAL OF INK.

THE DISAPPEARANCE AND PRESERVATION OF INK WRITINGS, AS ESTIMATED BY LA CROIX--COMMENTS OF OTHER WRITERS--DE VINNE'S INTERESTING EXPLANATIONS OF THE STATUS QUO OF Ma.n.u.sCRIPT WRITINGS DURING THE DARK AGES WHICH PRECEDED THE INVENTION OF PRINTING--PRICES PAID FOR BOOKS IN ANCIENT TIMES--LIMITATIONS OF HANDWRITING AND HANDWRITING MATERIALS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIFTH CENTURY--WHO CONTROLLED THE RECORDS ABOUT THEM--INVENTION OF THE QUILL PEN--THE CAUSE OF INCREASED FLUIDITY OF INKS--ORIGIN OF THE SECRETA--CHARACTER OF INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM THEM--IMPROVEMENT OF BLACK INKS IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY AND EMPLOYMENT OF POMEGRANITE INK.

LA CROIX' preface to his "Science and Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance," refers to the Dark Ages:

"In the beginning of the Middle Ages, at the commencement of the fifth century, the Barbarians made an inroad upon the old world; their renewed invasions crushed out, in the course of a few years, the Greek and Roman civilization; and everywhere darkness succeeded to light. The religion of Jesus Christ was alone capable of resisting this barbarian invasion, and science and literature, together with the arts, disappeared from the face of the earth, taking refuge in the churches and monasteries. It was there that they were preserved as a sacred deposit, and it was thence that they emerged when Christianity had renovated pagan society. But centuries and centuries elapsed before the sum of human knowledge was equal to what it had been at the fall of the Roman empire. A new society, moreover, was needed for the new efforts of human intelligence as it resumed its rights. Schools and universities were founded under the auspices of the clergy and of the religious corporations, and thus science and literature were enabled to emerge from their tombs. Europe, amidst the tumultuous conflicts of the policy which made and unmade kingdoms, witnessed a general revival of the scholastic zeal; poets, orators, novelists, and writers increased in numbers and grew in favour; savants, philosophers, chemists and alchemists, mathematicians and astronomers, travellers and naturalists, were awakened, so to speak, by the life-giving breath of the Middle Ages; and great scientific discoveries and admirable works on every imaginable subject showed that the genius of modern society was not a whit inferior to that of antiquity. Printing, was invented, and with that brilliant discovery, the Middle Ages, which had accomplished their work of social renovation, made way for the Renaissance, which scattered abroad in profusion the prolific and brilliant creations of Art, Science, and Literature."

This author to some extent discredits himself, however, p. 455, where he remarks:

"Long before the invasions of the Barbarians the histories written by Greek and Latin authors concerning the annals of the ancient peoples had been falling into disfavor. Even the best of them were little read, for the Christians felt but slight interest in these pagan narratives, and that is why works relating to the history of antiquity were already so scarce."

Another authority writing on the same subject discusses it from a different standpoint, remarking:

"As in the middle ages invention busied itself with instruments of torture, and as in our days it is taken up almost as much with the destructive engines of war as with the productive arts of peace, so in those early ages it applied itself to the fabrication of idols, to the mechanism and theatrical contrivances for mysteries and religious ceremonies.

There was then no desire to communicate discoveries, science was a sort of freemasonry, and silence was effectually secured by priestly anathemas; men of science were as jealous of one another as they were of all other cla.s.ses of society.

If we wish to form a clear picture of this earliest stage of civilization, an age which represents at once the naivete of childhood and the suspicious reticence of senility, we must turn our eyes to the priest, on the one hand, claiming as his own all art and science, and commanding respect by his contemptuous silence; and, on the other hand, to the mechanic plying the loom, extracting the Tyrian dye, practising chemistry, though ignorant of its very name, despised and oppressed, and only tolerated when he furnished Religion with her trappings or War with arms. Thus the growth of chemistry was slow, and by reason of its backwardness it was longer than any other art in ridding itself of the leading-strings of magic and astrology. Practical discoveries must have been made many times without science acquiring thereby any new fact. For to prevent a new discovery from being lost there must be such a combination of favorable circ.u.mstances as was rare in that age and for many succeeding ages. There must be publicity, and publicity is of quite recent growth; the application of the discovery must be not only possible but obvious, as satisfying some want. But wants are only felt as civilization progresses. Nor is that all; for a practical discovery to become a scientific fact it must serve to demonstrate the error of one hypothesis, and to suggest a new one, better fitted for the synthesis of existing facts. But (some) old beliefs are proverbially obstinate and virulent in their opposition to newer and truer theories which are destined to eject and replace them. To sum up, even in our own day, chemistry rests on a less sound basis than either physics, which had the advantage of originating as late as the 17th century, or astronomy, which dates from the time when the Chaldean shepherd had sufficiently provided for his daily wants to find leisure for gazing into the starry Heavens."

The observations of a still earlier commentator are of the same general nature. He says:

"In the first ages of Christianity, when the fathers of the Church, the Jews, and the Heathen philosophers were so warmly engaged in controversy, there is reason to believe that pious frauds were not uncommon: and that when one party suspected forgeries, instead of an attempt at confutation, which might have been difficult, they had recourse perhaps to a countermine: and either invented altogether, or eked out some obscure traditional sc.r.a.ps by the embellishments of fancy.

When we consider, amongst many literary impositions of later times, that Psalmanazar's history of Formosa was, even in this enlightened age and country (England, about 1735), considered by our most learned men as unquestionably authentic, till the confession of the author discovered the secret, I think it is not difficult to conceive how forgeries of remote events, before the invention of printing and the general diffusion of knowledge might gain an authority, and especially with the zealous, hardly inferior to that of the most genuine history."

De Vinne, however, in his "Invention of Printing,"

New York, 1878, best explains the status quo of those times, relative not only to book (MSS.) making, and methods of circulation, but the causes which led up to their eventual disappearance and the literary darkness which ensued. His remarks are so pertinent that they are quoted at length: