Rhino or pony?

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agesilaos
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Rhino or pony?

Post by agesilaos »

In his ‘The Death of AtG’ Andrew Chugg, hereafter Taphoi suggests that Curtius is actually merely translating his source, Kleitarchos
...If indeed Curtius was the Quintus Curtius Rufus who was the Proconsul of Africa at the time of his death in AD53, then there are potentially yet more absurd incongruities, which I can only resolve by supposing him to have operated as Cleitarchus’ translator. In particular it is instructive to examine in detail a problem with some ancient rhinos in Curtius 8.9.16-17.The manuscript readings (with a few alternatives indicated seem to have been:

Aves ad imitandum humanae vocis sonum dociles sunt. Animalia invisitata/inusitata ceteris gentibus nisi invecta. Eadem terra et rynocerontas/rinocerotas/rinocerontas alit non generat. Elephantorum/elefantorum maior est vis quam quos in Africa/Affrica domitant et viribus magnitudo respondet/respondit.

The statement regarding the elephants is also in Strabo 15.1.43. He attributes it to Onesicritus (Alexander’s helmsman on the Indus voyage), who was also undoubtedly a major source for Cleitarchus. By the 17th century Freinsheim was giving the passage as:

Aves ad imitandum humanae vocis sonum dociles sunt. Animalia inusitata ceteris gentibus, nisi invecta. Eadem terra et rhinoceratas alit, non generat. Elephantorum maior est vis, quam quos in Africa domitant; et viribus magnitudo respondet.

The same form persisted through to C.H. Weise in 1840, but by 1841 Julius Muetzell had dropped the et in front of the rhinos. E. Heidicke (Teubner 1908) saw that it is fairly preposterous for the text to suggest that the rhinos were not native to India. In fact the Great One-Horned Rhino is native to the foothills south of the Himalayas and was certainly encountered by Alexander’s expedition. It is at least unlikely that an eyewitness source like Onesicritus would have suggested that it had been imported. Furthermore, the preceding sentence has alluded to Indian animals that were unknown (or at least uncommon) elsewhere, so one would naturally expect the rhinos tobe mentioned as a specific example. Hediecke therefore proposed a rather heavy-handed emendation:

Aves ad imitandum humanae vocis sonum dociles sunt. Animalia invisitata ceteris gentibus, nisi invecta. Eadem terra rhinocerotas aliis ignotos generat. Elephantorum maior est vis quem quos in Africa domitant, et viribus magnitudo respondet.

Which was translated by John Rolfe (Loeb 1946) as:

‘There are birds which can be taught to imitate the sound of the human voice. The animals are unknown to other nations except such as are imported from that country. The same land produces rhinoceroses, which are unknown to other peoples. The strength of its elephants is greater than those which men tame in Africa, and their size corresponds to their strength.’

Other 20th century editors took a different approach. Bardon in 1947 seems to have sought to lessen the difficulty by arbitrarily dropping the entire sentence beginning ‘animalia’ even though it exists on perfectly good manuscript authority.

Aves ad imitandum humanae vocis dociles sunt. Eadem terra rhinoceratas alit non generat. . Elephantorum maior est vis quem quos in Africa domitant, et viribus magnitudo respondet.

Yardley following Bardon’s text in the 1984 translation:

‘Birds can be trained to imitate the sound of the human voice and the country also supports a population of rhinoceroses, though this is not indigenous. Its elephants possess greater strength than those trained in Africa and their size matches their strength.’

The logic here seems to be that Curtius believed African rhinos to be imported to the Himalayan foothills from Africa in the 4th century BC, which is a little preposterous. But Curtius probably did know about African rhinos: a rhino was exhibited at Pompey’s games [Pliny, NH 8.71, whose description, despite a solitary horn, appears to be following Agatharchides, De Mari Erythrum 72, whos described a rhino from Eritraea or Northern Somalia] in 55BC and Martial [Liber De Spectaculis 9.2 & 22.1; otherearly mentions of rhinos in Rome include, Suetonius, Augustus 43.4 and Dio Cassius 51.22.5 & 55.33.4] mentioned the African rhinoceros, which also appears on a quadrans of Domitian. Why then would he have written, as Heidecke would suggest, that they were unknown outside India? I think the likely answer would be that he was translating his Greek source (Cleitarchus) rather than compiling a fresh account. [According to Athenaeus 5.201C a rhino from Ethiopia was displayed in the Grand Parade of PtolemyPhiladelphus in Alexandria in 275-4 BC, however, Cleitarchus probably wrote at an earlier date and was himself probably closely following the primary account of Onesicritus.]

Although I feel Hediecke had the right idea regarding what this corrupted passage is trying to say, his particular emendation is rather too gross to be easily credible. I suspect instead that the et in front of the rhinos that was dropped so long ago, might have been a mistake for est (ie copulative use of the verb esse, as also occurs for the elephants in the ensuing sentence), in which case we would not be very far from, ‘The same land possesses rhinoceroses elsewhere not indigenous.’
To summarise, the argument is that the Greeks only knew the Asian rhino whereas the Romans were aware of both African and Asian species therefore if Curtius says they are only found in Asia then he must be following a Greek source, uncritically translating it. That hemay have been Proconsul of Africa is a complete canard as the African rhinos are called ‘Ethiopian Bulls’ in the sources and come from somewhere far to the east and south of Roman Africa which comprised only the former Carthaginian homeland.

There is nothing sinister or incorrect in Freinsheims transcription

Aves ad imitandum humanae vocis sonum dociles sunt. Animalia inusitata ceteris gentibus, nisi invecta. Eadem terra et rhinoceratas alit, non generat. Elephantorum maior est vis, quam quos in Africa domitant; et viribus magnitudo respondet.

Aside from variant spellings of nouns, he had only two decisions to make, whether the animals were uncommon (inusitata) or unknown (invisitata) to other people and whether Asian elephants size responded in the past to their strength (perfect – respondit) or still did in Curtius’ time (present - respondet). Translating this we get;

‘There are birds which can be taught to imitate the sound of the human voice. Animals, rare among other peoples unless imported. The same land also supports rhino, though they don’t breed there. The strength of the elephants is greater than those tamed in Africa, their size corresponds to their strength.’

Once translated it is surely clear that the ‘Animals, rare among other peoples unless imported’ are the talking birds. If one tries to project the phrase forward then in must include the elephants explicitly stated to also exist in Africa, a nonsense. And there is a major clue that Curtius is not translating. Kleitarchos would not have used the term ‘Africa’, the Greek Afrike being a later coining to mean the roman province, a Hellenistic Greek would have used ‘Libya’.

Nor does the fact that Strabo attributes the elephant material to Onesicritos mean that he is the ultimate source for the rhinos.

The rest is rendered superfluous since it does not say that rhino were imported only that they did not breed in India....equally preposterous to us but Oppian writing c 170AD says
The Rhinoceros is not much larger than the bounding Oryx. A little above the tip of the nose rises a horn dread and sharp, a cruel sword. Charging therewith he could pierce through bronze and with its stroke could cleave a mighty cliff. He attacks the Elephant strong though it be and many a time lays so mighty a beast dead in the dust. On his yellowish, hairy brows and on his back dense spots show darkly. All the breed are males and a female is never seen. Whence they come I know not, but I speak as I have learnt, whether this deadly race springs from rock or whether they are children of the soil and spring from the ground, or whether the wild monsters are begotten of one another, without desire and without mating and without birth. Even in the wet depths of the sea with its watery ways there are tribes which come into being self-made and motherless — Oysters and feeble Fry and the races of Sea-snails and Testacea and Spiral-shells and all that grow in the sands. Cynegetica II 551-69
It is a great shame that the text does not mean what Taphoi would like it to, for then, as he notes in his footnote 4, since an Ethiopian rhino appeared in the Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphos Kleitarchos would have had to have written before 275BC which stretches the story of his tutoring Philopatros in POxy 4808 somewhat.

The moral of the story being translate passages you quote and do not rely on later translators working from different editions.

Now, the correct method for determining if one author is translating another is, of course, to compare the surviving fragments with the supposed translator. A methodological problem immediately arises in that most fragments are paraphrases as opposed to direct quotes which means that the most one could say with any degree of certainty is that the extant author had used the fragmentary one as a source. In the case of Kleitarchos, however we do have:
Demetrios On Style 304
Τῇ δὲ ὀνομασίᾳ πολλάκις χαρίεντα πράγματα ὄντα ἀτερπέστερα φαίνεται, καθάπερ ὁ Κλείταρχος περὶ τῆς τενθρηδόνος λέγων, ζώου μελίσσῃ ἐοικότος: ῾κατανέμεται μέν,᾿ φησί, ῾τὴν ὀρεινήν, εἰσίπταται δὲ εἰς τὰς κοίλας δρῦς.᾿ ὥσπερ περὶ βοὸς ἀγρίου ἢ τοῦ Ἐρυμανθίου κάπρου λέγων, ἀλλ̓ οὐχὶ περὶ μελίσσης τινός, ὥστε καὶ ἄχαριν τὸν λόγον ἅμα καὶ ψυχρὸν γενέσθαι. παράκειται δέ πως ἀλλήλοις ταῦτα ἀμφότερα.
Corresponding to
Diodoros XVII 75 vii
[7] ἔστι δὲ καὶ ζῷον κατὰ τὴν χώραν ἐπτερωμένον, ὃ καλεῖται μὲν ἀνθρηδών, λειπόμενον δὲ μεγέθει μελίττης μεγίστην ἔχει τὴν ὠφέλειαν: ἐπινεμόμενον γὰρ τὴν ὀρεινὴν ἄνθη παντοῖα δρέπεται καὶ ταῖς κοιλάσι πέτραις καὶ τοῖς κεραυνοβόλοις τῶν δένδρων ἐνδιατρῖβον κηροπλαστεῖ καὶ κατασκευάζει χύμα διάφορον τῇ γλυκύτητι, τοῦ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν μέλιτος οὐ πολὺ λειπόμενον.
: ῾κατανέμεται μέν ῾τὴν ὀρεινήν, εἰσίπταται δὲ εἰς τὰς κοίλας δρῦς.᾿
`It lays waste the hill-country, and dashes into the hollow oaks'

: ἐπινεμόμενον γὰρ τὴν ὀρεινὴν ἄνθη παντοῖα δρέπεται καὶ ταῖς κοιλάσι πέτραις καὶ τοῖς κεραυνοβόλοις τῶν δένδρων ἐνδιατρῖβον
it roams the mountains gathering nectar from every kind of flower. Dwelling in hollow rocks and lightning blasted trees ...

Of note is that Demetrios has ‘tenthredonos’ whereas Diodoros uses ‘anthredonos’ Demetrios ‘kata-nemetai’, which with the aorist rather than the present indicative as here, can mean ‘lays waste’ but need only mean ‘spreads across’, Diodoros’ ‘epi-nemomenon’ similarly means to spread out and is frequently used of cows being let out to pasture(cf Liddell Short Greek Lexicon, available at Perseus Project). Given that Diodoros is also supplementing a source he is allegedly abridging, with the ‘hollow rocks’ I suspect that it is Diodoros that is actually quoting and Demetrios has improved upon his model! So if one cannot even be sure that a quote is a quote there is no chance of demonstrating a translation.

:twisted:
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
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Taphoi
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Re: Rhino or pony?

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:To summarise, the argument is that the Greeks only knew the Asian rhino whereas the Romans were aware of both African and Asian species therefore if Curtius says they are only found in Asia then he must be following a Greek source, uncritically translating it. That hemay have been Proconsul of Africa is a complete canard as the African rhinos are called ‘Ethiopian Bulls’ in the sources and come from somewhere far to the east and south of Roman Africa which comprised only the former Carthaginian homeland.
This is a rhino living on the Nile (therefore African) depicted in the Roman Palestrina mosaic of ~100BC and clearly labelled as a rhino (NOT an Ethiopian bull).

Image

The Ethiopian bull is actually thought to be the African buffalo as this site explains: http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/TauroiAithiopikoi.html
Martial, Liber de Spectaculis IX wrote:Praestitit exhibitus tota tibi, Caesar, harena
quae non promisit proelia rhinoceros.
agesilaos wrote:There is nothing sinister or incorrect in Freinsheims transcription: "The same land also supports rhino, though they don’t breed there."
Pretty sinister that the rhinos live in India but don't breed there. I wouldn't have thought that they'd live there for long. :D (Non generat would mean that they are not produced/created in India at all, not just that they don't reproduce sexually there.)

Best wishes,

Andrew
agesilaos
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Re: Rhino or pony?

Post by agesilaos »

Pausanias, Description of Greece IX 21 ii

I saw also the Ethiopian bulls, called rhinoceroses owing to the fact that each has one horn (ceras) at the end of the nose (rhis), over which is another but smaller one, but there is no trace of horns on their heads.

But then he had no web access!

Egypt is still not Africa (the Roman Province), nice though the mosaic is and there is no reason to think its presence means more than that the commissioner of the work had seen and been impressed by a rhino, clearly an African in this case.

I was not saying that the Romans only called African rhino, ‘Ethiopian Bulls’ but that the fact they used that name demonstrates where they thought they came from. I had not made that clear.

Of course it is a nonsense that animals can populate a territory for much time without breeding but the Oppian shows that the Romans clearly did believe nonsense! It could be that Curtius found a refutation of the earth-born theory in his source and did not quite get it. For, even though Oppian is much later he draws on early material, similarly, Pliny’s insistence that Pompey’s rhino had but one horn may be a refutation of somebody’s statement that they had two, Agatharchides’ rhino have only one in the three versions, Photios Myribiblion 250, Diodoros II 35 iff and Strabo XVI 4 xv, which derive from him. Strabo’s autopsy does seem more like an Asian to me with its serpentine belly.
African
African
Afr Rhino.jpg (3.74 KiB) Viewed 2873 times
Indian
Indian
rhinI.jpg (3.39 KiB) Viewed 2872 times
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
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