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On Waxen Tablets with Fables of Babrius (Tabulae Ceratae Assendelftianae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

D. C. Hesseling
D. C. Hesseling
Affiliation:
Leiben
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Extract

Some six months ago Mr. A. D. van Assendelft de Coningh presented the Leiden library with a set of seven waxen tablets, forming a small book. They were acquired at Palmyra in 1881 by his brother, Mr. H. van Assendelft de Coningh, officer in the Royal Dutch Navy. Mr. H. van Assendelft de Coningh died soon after his return to his country; we know, however, that the tablets were found at Palmyra from a fragment of a letter which he wrote some days before his death. It runs as follows: ‘During my brief visit to Palmyra I acquired these wooden tablets.’ The tablets came into the possession of Mr. A. D. van Assendelft de Coningb and were put aside with other souvenirs of his brother's travels. They happened to be shown to me and I easily saw that they contained Greek writing. The tablets were then presented to the Leiden library, the principal librarian of which, Dr. W. N. du Rieu, gave them the name of Tabulae ceratae graecae Assendelftianae, in honour of the generous giver and his deceased brother.

The seven tablets are covered with writing on both sides, except the first one, of which the recto-side is plain wood. Of the others the wooden surface is sunk to a slight depth, leaving a raised frame at the edges; they are of beech-wood, like most waxen tablets preserved in the British Museum. The wood is coated with wax of a very dark colour, probably due to pitch being added to the wax in order to prevent melting and to make the writing clearly visible. They measure 14·5 by 12 cm. (5·7 by 4·7 inches).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 13 , November 1893 , pp. 293 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1893

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References

1 Blümner, (Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Künste der Griechen und Römer, Leipsic 1875–1886, ii. 245Google Scholar and iv. 556) does not cite beech-wood as a material out of which writing-tablets were made.

2 Babrii Fabulae, ex recensione Eberhard, A., Berlin, 1875Google Scholar. In the following pages this edition is referred to, when no name of editor is cited.

3 Fabularum Babrianarum paraphrasis Bodleana, ed. Knoell, Pius, Vienna, 1877Google Scholar.

4 συναγωγή, Μύθων Αἰσωπείων (Parerga Biblioth. Hellen. ed. Coray, , Paris, 1810)Google Scholar.

5 Fabulae Aesopicae, ed. de Furia, F., Leipsic, 1810Google Scholar.

6 Fabulae Aesopicae collectae, ex recognitione Halm, C., Leipsic, 1889Google Scholar.

7 Babrii Fabulae, recensuit Gitlbauer, M., Vienna, 1882Google Scholar. Gitlbauer's edition is only cited in those cases where he has tried to give a restitution of Babrian fables not found in our manuscripts.

7* Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana (Corpus glossariorum Latinorum iii, Leipsic, 1892).

8 Archäol. Zeitung 31 (1874), p. 1 ff. and Plate I.

9 Crusius, , de Babrii aetate, p. 228Google Scholar in Leipziger Studien 2 (1879).

10 Proceedings of the American Acad. of Arts and Sciences, iii. p. 371.

11 On a waxen tablet preserved at the Bodleian, library (Gr. Inscr. 4)Google Scholar we find:

12 Thompson, (Handbook, etc.) p. 118Google Scholar ff.; Mahaffy, , On the Flinders Petrie Papyri, Dublin, 1891, p. 31Google Scholar; Wileken, , Tafeln zur älteren griechischen Palacographie, Leipsic and Berlin, 1891, p. Vb.Google Scholar

13 Thompson, p. 126, where a facsimile of some lines is given.

14 Wilcken, Tafeln, etc., Vla.

15 Thompson, , p. 149, Table of AlphabetsGoogle Scholar, col. 8–11.

16 Thompson, , p. 149, Table of AlphabetsGoogle Scholar, col. 9 and 10.

17 This rule is stated by Quintilian (i. 7, 15). See Sophocles, , History of the Greek Alphabet and Pronunciation, Cambridge U.S., 1854, p. 63Google Scholar, and Blass, , Palaeographie, p. 315Google Scholar (Iwan Müller's Handbuch, i., second edition).

18 Hatzidakis, , Einleitung in die neugr. Gramm., Leipsic, 1892, p. 333Google Scholar, Meyer, Wilhelm, Simon Portius Gramm. ling. gr. vulg., Paris, 1889, p. 81Google Scholar. Meyer, cites as the first example of this law χερί, χερός in a papyrus of 160Google Scholar B.C., but it is conceivable that the form owes its existence to the analogy of χερσίν. All other examples cited by Hatzidakis and Meyer are of a much later date.

19 In most manuscripts is often written instead of but the contrary is rare. I have tried to explain this in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, i. (1891), p. 382 ff.

20 Foy, Griechische Vocalstudien, p. 57 (Bezenberger's Beiträge, 12, 1887).

21 Other faults of orthography are: α for αι, κλαε (II. verso 15); η for ι, τη (II. recto 10), ηκεθ (IV. verso 10); ι for (III. verso 7), (III. verso 11), (VII. recto 9), επι (V. recto 3); ι for (IV. verso 18); ω for (II. recto 21); σ for (II. recto 10), υ for οι, σν (VII. recto 21); β for (II. verso 1). Often a letter is wrongly doubled: (II. verso 6), (V. recto 7), (V. verso 11), (V. verso 17), (II. recto 17). instead of etc. often occurs: (V. verso 15), (IV. verso 18), (V. recto 13); in the same way we find: (IV. verso 4), (VII. recto 4). The boy, aspiring at etymological orthography, even writes (II. recto 16)!—There is no punctuation in our text. Iota subscriptum is never found.

22 Mommsen, , Röm. Gesch. v. p. 441Google Scholar note.

23 Mommsen, , Röm. Gesch. v. p. 441Google Scholar.

24 Sachau, , Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien, Berlin 1883, p. 45Google Scholar.

25 I am indebted for these details to Prof. W. Robertson Smith's masterly article on Palmyra in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where authorities are cited.

26 Procopius, , de aedif. ii. 11 (p. 243Google Scholar ed. Bonn) and v. 1 (p. 309 ed. Bonn). Robertson Smith, l. l.

27 Quien, Le (Oriens Christianus, Paris 1740, ii. p. 846)Google Scholar gives the names of three bishops: Marinus 325, Joannes I. 451, Joannes II. 518. They are taken from the Acta Conciliorum.

28 Mommsen, , Röm. Gesch. p. 441Google Scholar note. Le Bas, and Waddington, , Voyage Archéol. iii. p. 592–611Google Scholar; C.I.G. 449; de Vogüé, , Inscript. Sémitiques, Paris 1868, n. 116Google Scholar.

29 Crusius (de Babrii aetate) sees in the of the second proem Alexander Severus. Neumann, K. J. (Rhein. Museum 35 (1880) p. 301 ff.)Google Scholar, although agreeing with Crusius in the date he assigns to Babrius, believes that the allusion is to Caracalla, who liked to be compared to Achilles and Alexander. Accordingly Babrius dedicated his work to Elegabalus, who after Caracalla's death passed for his son. It seems that Crusius, has adopted Neumann's, views (Philol. Anzeiger 14 (1884), p. 176)Google Scholar. Werner, , the latest author on the subject, assumes that Babrius lived in Egypt in the 1st century, but his arguments are exceedingly weak (Quaestiones Babrianae, Berlin, 1891, p. 22Google Scholar, 24).

30 Rutherford, , Babrius (London, 1883)Google Scholar, lxxxvi.—xc.

31 E.g. Bergk, in Philol. 47 (1889), p. 386Google Scholar.

32 A clear survey of the various prose versions is given by Fedde, (Ueber eine noch nicht edirte Sammlung äsopischer Fabeln, Progr. Gymn. zu St. Elisabet, Breslau 1877, p. 1—3)Google Scholar; Knoell, Pius (Die babrianischen Fabeln des cod. Bodleianus 2906, Jaihresb. über das Gymn. der inneren Stadt, Vienna 1876)Google Scholar has carefully examined the Bodleian paraphrase.

33 Such was the opinion of Tyrwhitt, Bernhardy, Knoch, etc. (Fedde, , l. l. p. 15Google Scholar). We must make an exception, however, of the Bodleian paraphrases which closely follow Babrius (Knoell, , Die babr. Fabeln, etc. p. 14Google Scholar ff., 31 f.).

34 Knoell, , Wiener Studien 3 (1881), p. 195Google Scholar. Crusius, , de Babrii aetate, p. 228Google Scholar.

35 Knoell, , Neue Fabeln des Babrius in Sitzungsber. der Kais. Acad. zu Wien 91 (1878), p. 663Google Scholar.

35* Perhaps we should except the first and the last line of Fable 8:

36 Meyer, Wilhelm, Abhandl. d. bayer. Acad. de Wiss. 1 cl. 17 (1885), p. 308Google Scholar, 325. Krumbacher, , Sitzungsber. d. bayer. Acad. der Wiss. 1887, p. 53Google Scholar ff.

37 Eberhard, , Observationes Babrianae (Berlin, 1865), p. 12Google Scholar, note 2.

38 Many examples of a confusion between and in our manuscripts are gathered by Dindorf at the end of his article on in Stephanus' Thesaurus.