Google's new library indexing and Alexander

[ancientlibrary]

As some of you may have heard, Google is going to start
scanning books from Harvard, Stanford and other libraries,
offering page images and OCR text. Public domain material
will be viewable; copyright material can be searched, but they
promise to stay within copyright law (ie., probably only short
quotes will be visible at a time). .This, however, will take years to do, and will not necessarily
start with the stuff or ever include the stuff want to see online.
So, my question to you guys is: What Alexander material--or
you may expand to other areas of Greek history--do we want
to see scanned in and online? Please restrict yourself to public
domain material..My list starts with (1) Dodge's translation of Curtius, (2)
Berve's Alexander proposography, (3) Strabo (there's a PD
translation), (4) All the FGrH authors on Alexander.

[marcus]

Hi Tim,I totally agree with all the FGrH stuff - it's difficult to find copies of it outside the stuffiest of university libraries (where I imagine even they have removed books in favour of DVDs and computers ...).All the Dryden translations of Plutarch would be good, too, for curiosity value at least - there are more accessible translations about, after all!All the bestMarcus

[nick]

All the FGrH - for sure!Regards ---Nick

[jona]

The problem is why we can't use the occasion to update books like FGrH and Berve. FGrH contains several grave errors, Berve is partly superseded by Heckel's Marshalls...Jona

[marcus]

And Heckel's "Who's Who", which is out next year, will supercede more of Berve. Which is handy, because I'm not aware that Berve was ever available in an English translation, and my German isn't up to reading the original ...All the bestMarcus

[canto]

Thanks Tim for bringing up this subject. I unlike the rest of you had to look up the word proposography...fasinating. Sorry what I have learned about ancient history (Alexander) has been from picking up bits and pieces on my own. Please tolerate me. What are the FGrH authors? And what are the "Lancaster Pamphlets"?

[marcus]

Hi Kyra,FrGH, or FGrH (I can never remember which it is) is the abbreviation for (the German for) "Fragments of Greek Historians", which were collected together by a chap called Jacoby (in the 1920s or 30s, I think). Most of them are collected from other works, where lost (and other) historians are quoted. So, for example, there's a group of Callisthenes fragments, which are collected from where Arrian, Plutarch or whoever say "Callisthenes tells us that ..."The fragments fall into two categories (and I believe Jacoby collected both, but I might be wrong): those where Arrian (for example) tells us some information and then says "Callisthenes said so"; and those where it seems more likely that Arrian directly quoted from Callisthenes' work. All the bestMarcus

[marcus]

I believe that all the fragments that deal with Alexander were published, in English translations, in "Lost Historians of Alexander the Great" by Lionel Pearson. I've never been able to get hold of this book, but there'll be a second hand bookshop somewhere that's holding it just for me ... :-)Marcus

[ancientlibrary]

I agree that updating things is best, but beyond
our means. As one of the few fully-equipped
(training, physical resources and time) scholars
here, if you want to update the unclaimed
portion of Berve, well, I offer you good luck and
web space. .In fact, I think if we put some of the older
material online and allow the people here to
add commentary, it would, in fact, be quite a
service. There are texts and portions of texts that
have never had commentary on them,
particularly Alexander-centered commentary. I'm
picturing a sort of Wiki-commentary. Actually, I'm
doing much more than picturing it, I've been
building it for a while. (I don't ask questions
without a reason.).*FGrH: As you probably know, the FGrH is
actually getting somea ction. The old FGrH has
been released on CD-ROM--expensive and with
an unbreakable license, of course--is being
finished (slowly). I also hear they are revising
the early books, although I understand the
project is going to take some time. I had a
conversation with your fellow citizen Jan Stronk
about it. I gather he's got a bunch of authors..*Berve: Part of me hopes Heckel doesn't cut
down all the thickets. In any case, I feel a severe
disability without Berve by my side, so a web
edition looks very good to me.

[amyntoros]

*The Lost Historians of Alexander the Great"Those darn historians - no sense of direction. Just went out for their daily constitutional one day and never came back!

[ancientlibrary]

I have most of the Alexander authors xeroxed,
and am considering posting scans. I hestitate
because the scans are going to be presented in
concert with OCR-ed renditions, and a xerox of a
text mostly in Greek is not going to OCR at all. .I thought that the Dryden Plutarch's were all up.
They are all in Project Gutenberg anyway, and
easy to put up. I was thinking the main nut on
Plutarch was the Moralia, much of which is in
PG, but not online in a good format.

[ancientlibrary]

No, the authors are mostly discussed, not
comprehensively translated. Alas.

[ancientlibrary]

Another nominee:(1) Muller's _Fragmenta Scriptorum de rebus
Alexandri Magni_ (1846). .Ares reprinted this a while back. There are few
sources in it that weren't picked up in the
FGrH--maybe the Itinerarium and a version of
the Romance? In any case, it has the virtue of
collecting a lot of material, Latin notes, and a
facing Latin translation. Since Robinson's _The
History of Alexander the Great_ is in copyright,
this is the closest we'll get to an
English-language translation online.

[ancientlibrary]

The book you may be thinking of is Robinson's
_The History of Alexander the Great_ (1953).
This would be a good book to get online, and I
think Susan has got some of it up. I was
thinking it was copyright, but the fact that Ares
reprinted it is highly encouraging. They are
mostly or entirely a reprint house. It's possible
the copyright expired, although the only way to
find out is to go to the copyright office (at the
Library of Congress), or pay someone there a
lot of money to do it for me.

[Halil]

:-)Halil