The idea comes from Christian Jacob’s article on Athenaeus in the collective work Athenaeus and his World (2000). Jacob claims that the way Athenaeus navigates through the large corpus of literature available to him could be compared to what a creator of electronic hypertexts would provide. It is, according to Jacob, a reading of a large and heterogeneous corpus of texts, where decisions are made in order to link together key words of lexical searches or thematic investigations. Jacob calls this a new way of reading but also a new way of writing. This is exactly what happens with electronic publications, where often the distinction between readers and writers tend to disappear.

A similar proximity of ancient dealings with their books and modern internet publications, can bee seen when thinking about the ancient concept of editing (ἔκδοσις). It has often been emphasized that it should not be compared to the modern idea of editions or publications. The link between the author and his text was not so tight as it is in a modern book, with copyrights for both, editors and authors. Van Groningen for instance emphasizes that by editing a text an ancient author loses control over the text. It can be copied and altered freely by readers either directly from the original or from a copy of the text. This is also perceived as one of the dangers of online publications.

However besides this disadvantage, there could also be an important gain from this online experience for scholars working on ancient texts. It could bring us again closer to the ancient ways of dealing with literature. It could for instance bring new insights on questions concerning revisions of ancient books by the authors themselves. Would a revision done by, let’s say, Thucydides or by Strabo on his own work be similar to a work updated on internet, which has already been quoted in its older form in other texts? Quoting an online publication and the difficulties linked to the possibility of updating a previous version of a text and the absence of pagination could perhaps be compared to the ones faced by an ancient reader trying to refer to a book or to make a quotation.

In this context, and besides the difficulties just mentioned, we could also add a statement made by G. Nagy, who believes that an online edition of the Homeric texts could come closest to the way they were available in Antiquity. There would be no need to find an original, first or best text of the Homeric poems and the many variants could coexist as they did in the different versions available in different places throughout Antiquity.

So by losing such great achievements as the codex (a very stable gathering of pages) or printing (a mean of making hundred of identical and unchangeable copies of a text linked to an author and an editor), classical scholars may also gain a lot…

See:

Jacob Ch., Athenaeus the Librarian, in Braund D./Wilkins J. (ed.), Athenaeus and his World, Exter 2000.

Van Groningen B.A., “Ἔκδοσις”, Mnemosyne 16, 1964, 1-17.

Nagy G., Editing the Homeric Text: West’s Iliad, in Homer’s Text and Language, Urbana/Chicago 2004.

Among many tools, blogs and web-pages on and about the ancient Greek language, I just want to emphasize two. One is based in Europe and the other in the US.
Greek Grammars and Other Resources for Learning Ancient Greek
CIRCE

It is well-known that the format of our book derives directly from the ancient codices. After a coexistence of about three centuries (roughly from the 2nd century AD to the 4th century AD) of both of the formats (rolls and codices), the codex won over the roll. And some modern scholars claim even that it has not changed its format since then for over a millennium (see Roberts C.H./Skaet T.C., The Birth of the Codex, London /New York 1983, 76).

Nevertheless with the better understanding and growing usage of the new electronic devises to create texts the domination of the codex is somewhat challenged. It will certainly not be completely ruled out, as the advantages of its format are far to many. One could mention for instance the compactness which allows to take along a book while travelling. This has been suggested as one of the reasons for the preference for codices in ancient times, especially in a Christian tradition (see McCormick M., “The Birth of the Codex and the Apostolic Life-style”, Scriptorium 39, 1985, 150-158). In our times, even if travel is again an important part of our lifes, the weight of some of the book is now seen rather as an inconvenient.

It has also be suggested several times that the use of internet changes the way of reading and writing, especially as the notion of “page” tent to disappear (as well as paginations, which is more inconvenient for modern readers).

The comment I would like to add to this debate occurred to me while reading an article by T.C. Skeat, where the scholar investigates the reasons why the codex replaced finally the roll and why this process took so long (see T.C. Skaet, “Roll versus Codex- A New Approach?”, ZPE 84, 1990, 297-298). He mentions one advantage of rolls, which could also be of interest for a discussion on web-based publications.

He mentions the fact that when illustrations are involved in a text, the roll, with its continuous process of reading unbroken by page-turning, allows to see an illustration and the discussion about it simultaneously. In a codex, on the other hand, in a great number of cases, the illustrations and the comments on them are not visible together. The illustrations are either given before or after the discussion, sometimes even at the end of the book, or their presence interrupts the discussion, because they are, for instance, on the right-hand page, which has to be turned over in order to read the end of the argumentation.

The possibility to display visual data along with texts without page-turning is also an advantage of web-based publications.

There are now quite a few electronic journals for Classics. Some of them are listed by the Digitalclassicist.

Here is another example, which is slightly different in scope. It is devoted to didactics and methodology in the field of Greek and Latin and the contributions demonstrate this in a convincing way (Pegasus).

There are two article, which could be highlighted in relation to the present project:

• First there is the contribution by Lars Fengler on the recent movie on Troy. This modern reading and reshaping of an old story has, of course, its predecessors and can be added to the now long list of such revisions or re-makings of the Homeric story. Besides providing an useful tool for classrooms, Fengler’s contribution makes two interesting points: the table shows clearly how much of the Trojan story is not told in the Iliad. According to Fengler, we have to wait for 50 min before the film shows a scene referring to the first lines of the Homeric text. This statement leads us the the second contribution of Pegasus we shall discuss. The second interesting point in Fengler’s table, is the emphasis on the settings in his second column. For a project focusing on the topographical elements of the Homeric text and how there were read in Antiquity like the present one, a new list of settings from the Troad or from the Homeric text is very interesting. The choice of the mentioned places made by Petersen raises several questions. First of all, it is interesting to see that for a movie (not a book neither for an oral performance) the settings seem to be the most important elements to create the outline of the story. Second, making a choice always involves leaving out some items. This is true for Antiquity and for modern times. Having now this subjective choice made by a modern movie-maker, we could compare it to the choices ancient authors or commentators made and ask the question why some settings are thought to be more relevant to modern movie-watchers and other more appropriate for ancient audiences. One important difference is, of course, the presence of the Homeric poems in everyday life. This leads us again to the second article from Pegasus. (see Fengler, Pegasus-Onlinezeitschrift 2+3, 2005, 80-87).

• The second contribution is written by Gerson Schade on the classrooms in Antiquity. He discusses the new insights given by papyrological findings. In our discussion here, his article, as well as many others, emphasizes once again the importance Homer had in ancient education and how much the Trojan story was well-known in Antiquity. This is a major difference one has to bear in mind when creating or commenting on new version of the Tojan war (see Schade, Pegasus-Onlinezeitschrift IV/2 (2004), 55).

JSTOR has conducted a study on needs, challenges and missions of University presses in a digital age and has published its report. The study is based on interviews of several institutions involved in university publishing, coming however mainly from the US.

The authors of the study believe that University presses could play a more substantial role in the new publishing schemes than in the traditional ones. According to them Universities’ missions, as non-profit organizations, should also involve publishing scholarly results, besides producing them and transmitting them through eduction. They also emphasize that the new means promote sharing of information and results among scholars and create further discussion for specialists, which could again be of great interest for Universities. Another important aspect of these activities is a closer link to librarians and their needs for storage and creating new repositories for the electronic publications. And finally the authors believe that these changes could be a great opportunity for smaller institutions to be more attractive.

The study shows also that one should not create a too clear-cut distinction between printed books and new electronic publications. The documented change does not mean the end of the book, which still -and always may have- some advantages over electronic publications. It is therefore not the scholarly monographs, which will be the main target of electronic publications. There are other forms of scholarly writings, which are more suitable for electronic publications and the authors of the article mention for instance electronic journals as a good starting point (maybe relying on their own point of view). They also draw attention to the fact that there is also a wide range of methods to give access to these electronic publications, reaching from suscription-based publications to open access documents, each of these methods having advantages and inconvenients for scholars, readers and publishers.

One striking though could however be added:

- according to the graphs following the article, the part taken by publications from the fields of Humanities (books or journals) is amazingly high in the institutions selected for the study.

Scholarly research based in Humanities could then take an important part in shaping the development of the new medias for their own needs. But often, as their own domains of research do involve less technological aspects, the fields of Humanities are the most reluctant to move to electronic publications. There are no doubts good reasons for this situation. For the Humanities, the book has always be central, as source for information, object of study and goal to achieve. And the question remains of how much value a printed book may always have as objet of study and evidence of scholarly activity in the field of Humanities. There lays then another important challenge for electronic publications.

L. Brown, R. Griffiths, M. Rascoff, K. Guthrie, “University Publishing in a Digital Age”, JEP 10, 2007

The annual meeting of the TEI was held at the University of Maryland, College Parke last week. It allowed project from all kind of disciplines to be presented and to learn the latest development in the field.

see:
TEI@20
TEI

When we think about Strabo and the place where he studied, we have to bear in mind that at that time Rome become a major place for scholarship. If we believe Sueton (De Grammaticis, 2) Crates of Mallos shaped the Roman scholarship. This link to Pergamon is also strengthened by the fact that Attalus III gave his kingdom to Rome at his death (170-133 BC). However the Alexandrian philology, linked to an Aristotelian method, was also present in Rome. On may mention there the Latin poet and grammarian Accius (170-86 BC).

At this stage enters Tyrannion: he came to Rome in 68 BC, bought the library of Aristotle from Apellicon of Teos and started to publish the works of the Greek philosopher unknown to a larger public. With this huge editorial project Tyrannion emphasized the text. This focusing on new texts written before the works carried out in the two major Libraries could be felt by Tyrannion’s contemporaries as a kind of new start in philolophy: a midway between the two great philological traditions and a compromise in a long lasting debate between Pergamon and Alexandria.

Tyrannion was also the teacher of Strabo and may have influenced his student and shaped his work. Tyrannion was for instance well known for his geographical expertise (Cic. Ad Att. 2.6.1), he incarnated the ideal Strabonean scholar (a learned man coming from Asia Minor, counsellor of great politicians), and maybe one could add to this list Strabo’s preference for the Homeric text. In fact often Strabo tries to give new reading of the Homeric text, against previous readings, which could reflect this consciousness of a new Rome-based philology.

see:

Blaensdorf J., “Cratès et les débuts de la philologie romaine”, Ktema 13, 1988,141-147.

Dangel J., “Accius grammairien?”, Latomus 49, 1990, 37-58.

LehmannY., “Varron et le grmmairien Tyrannion: l’apport doctrinal de l’aristotélisme”, Ktema 13, 1988, 179-186.

The work of Demetrios of Scepsis is known to us mainly thanks to Strabo’s Geography. So our understanding of Demetrios’ achievement depends on the knowlegde we have of Strabo’s intentions and his way of using sources. In recent researches on Strabo, this aspect has been emphasized and they provide new facts about the Greek geographer.

One of the more striking features about Strabo is his combining of two rather different aspects in one work. On the one side, he is clearly a Greek scholar and he adopts a very Greek point of view, espacially when he is speaking about Greece and Asia Minor. On the other hand he is writing for a Roman audience. He spends some time in Rome, which is at this time one of the major center for scholars.

This doubleness of Strabo has been pointed out by A.M. Biraschi. She links Strabo’s reaction against Eratosthenes’ famous statment that poetry should aim to entertain rather than instruct (Str. 1.1.10 C 7) to a discussion found in Horace (AP, 333: aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae). Both authors, Biraschi goes on, react against Eratosthenes’ point of view and echo a cultural debat in Rome at this time.

So the question is: Why the researches of Demetrios were so useful for Strabo that he made this scholar one of his main sources? Is it his link to Pergamon, his Trojan origine, his particular position in regard to the location of Troy, his close reading of the Homeric texts?

See: A.M. Biraschi, Strabo and Homer: a chapter in cultural histroy, in D. Dueck et al. (eds.), Strabo’s Cultural Geography, Cambridge 2005

There has been much thinking about the way the new tools available on the WWW could or would influence old forms of writings. Commentaries are not excluded from these changes and their availability on Internet will transform radically their form and their scope. Some of the possible changes have been discussed by classical scholars themselves. Most of the transformations are ambiguous in their impact on scholarly works.

The infinite space available, for instance, is a great opportunity to go beyond the boundaries of a printed book. As Fowler puts it, the WWW “provides ourselves with infinite large margins to our text”. It allows also an interactivity between texts and visual or aural material and could be seen as a kind of virtual museum where the difference between exposed objects and texts tend to disappear. The new commentaries could also be seen as everchanging fluids of information built by layers and layers of (more or less personal) readings and comments, this in opposition to a monumental work aiming at becoming an long-lasting authority in the field. On the other hand, the absence of a “printed” or fixed version raises the question of authorship, of what a document is and of how to refer to it. Finally the huge amount of material that can be displayed on Internet gives more weight to the questions of order and hierarchy helping the reader to find his way in a chaotic variety, but without imposing on him a too ideologized view.

see:

Fowler D., Critisism as Commentary and Commentary as Criticism, in G.W. Most (ed.), Commentaries-Kommentare, Göttingen 1999, 426-442

Goldhill Simon,Wipe Youor Gloss in G.W. Most (ed.), Commentaries-Kommentare, Göttingen 1999, 380-425

McCarty W., A Network with a Tousand Entrances: Commentary in an Electronic Age?, in Gibson R.K./Shuttleworth Kraus Chr. (ed.), The Classical Commentaries, Histories, Practices, Theories, Leiden-Boston-Köln, 2002, 359-402

Shuttleworth Kraus Ch., Introduction: Reading Commentaries/Commentaries as Readings, in Gibson R.K./Shuttleworth Kraus Chr. (ed.), The Classical Commentaries, Histories, Practices, Theories, Leiden-Boston-Köln, 2002, 1-27