Aldus Manutius (a Latinized form of the Italian name Aldo Manuzio, hereinafter referred to simply as "Aldus") was born in about the year 1449 and died in 1515 Common Era. His most illustrious accomplishment in life was the foundation of the trend-setting Aldine Press in Venice in the 1490s, in collaboration with such distinguished friends as Cardinal Domenico Grimani and his bibliophile nephew Marin Sanudo (business partner of Aldus), Giorgio Valla, Carlo Bembo, Alberto Pio, Lucrezia Borgia, Greek Cardinal John Bessarion and Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus. Aldus is remembered as "Grandfather of the Paperback Book", and the computer word-processor program "Aldus Pagemaker" was named after him. He is credited with the invention of the "octavo" or 8-page "signature" grouping of pages, in which 8 pages of a book were grouped together and then bound with other "octavos" to create the final product. Variations of this "octavo" binding method are still in use today by many publishers of books, magazines and tabloid newspapers; additional information follows at the conclusion of this essay. However, as Martin Lowry has written, "The notion that Aldus introduced both the octavo and the italic as a means of price-cutting is a modern inference only, and if the printer knew that he was widely heralded as the originator of some kind of 'paper-back revolution', he would probably writhe in his unknown grave."
For more about the life of Aldus, the reader is referred to the excellent book The World of Aldus Manutius by Martin Lowry, published in 1979 by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Aldus' life per se will not be discussed here, except for its relevance to the literary history of Apollonius of Tyana.
Aldus had promised to publish both Greek and Latin versions of Philostratus' The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. In 1501, he published the Greek version only, and apparently it was later that he acquired the Latin translation by a man named Alemannus Rhinuccinus, about whom we know nothing else. Aldus may have obtained this Latin translation from Friar Zanobi Acciaioli of the San Marco Monastery Library in Florence, or so it could be presumed at first glance. Aldus apparently assured "Zenobius" (as he addressed Zanobi) that he would publish it, but later he regretted his decision. Aldus was a broad-minded but nevertheless devout Catholic, and he was surely aware of the "controversy" and "heresy" surrounding this biography. It is implied also in his preface that Aldus may have postponed the Latin publication of Philostratus' Apollonius until 1504, by which time he had also acquired Friar Zanobi's Latin translation of Bishop Eusebius' Contra Hieroclem (Against Heirocles), which was a point-by-point rebuttal both of Philostratus' Apollonius and of the assertions by Roman Consul to Egypt Hierocles in Filalethes (Lover of Truth) that Apollonius was the "model" upon which "the Jesus Christ" had been fashioned, that there was never a Hebrew "Jesus Christ", only Greco-Aramaean Cappadocian Apollonius of Tyana. Aldus appears to have reluctantly published Philostratus' Apollonius only if accompanied by this "antidote to the poison" written by the "Father of Ecclesiastical Catholic History" Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea Maritima, Palestine.
Hierocles was a friend of Roman Emperor Diocletian (284-306 CE) who "violently persecuted" the Christians, in his understandable defense of traditional Greco-Roman polytheism, a philosophical struggle dating back to the days of Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) and the half-century-long Severan Dynasty (193-243 CE). Lover of Truth was published in about 301 CE and is lost to us today, destroyed in the flames of the frenzy of temple-burning ordered by Hitlerian Emperor Theodosius in 381-89 CE. Bishop Eusebius (who lived c264-340 CE) published his treatise of refutation in about 316, about nine years before it was accepted as "doctrine" by the Council of Nicaea which was convened by Emperor Constantine I in 325 to establish the dogmas of the new Christian religion and cement that religion to the political exigencies of the Roman State, as well as to the gluttonous excesses of the Roman aristocracy. The Josephus-forger Bishop Eusebius attended the Council of Nicaea and sat at archmurderer Emperor Constantine's right hand.
See also: http://www.apollonius.net/chronology.html
In retrospect from our modern point of view, this inclusion by Aldus of Eusebius' treatise was ultimately of great historical value to us. Eusebius admitted that Apollonius of Tyana was indeed a real historical personage, not a "fabled character" as some modern revisionists would have us to believe; and I refer to Professor Glen Warren Bowersock of the University of California at Berkeley, author of the 1994 Fiction as History: Nero to Julian, in which he wrote that Philostratus' biography was a "novel", not a true "history". Without this treatise by Bishop Eusebius, we would not be nearly so certain about the historical authenticity of Apollonius.
Regarding Aldus' devotion to Christianity, the publication of Philostratus' Apollonius should not have been such a "concern" for Aldus, since Philostratus never once mentioned the Christians or "the Jesus Christ" in his biography. If such information was indeed included by Philostratus in his original Greek publication in 220 CE, it has since been "censored" or "excised" out of existence; and it is not unreasonable to infer that Aldus himself might have had a hand in this manipulation of ideas. Today, without further evidence, it is simply impossible to know the truth about such hypothetical "monastic editing" of Philostratus' original manuscript.
The Loeb Classical Library of Harvard University has republished the original Greek edition of Philostratus alongside the 1912 English translation by F.C. Conybeare of London. Included in this Harvard publication are "The Epistles of Apollonius" and "The Treatise of Eusebius". This Harvard edition consists of two volumes of approximately 1,200 total pages, half in Greek and half in English. However, the Harvard edition does not contain the original preface that Aldus wrote to accompany the publication of his Latin translation. Somewhat parenthetically here I might add that the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard is, to a certain extent, what Aldus himself had envisioned five centuries ago. Our modern printing technology has allowed Harvard to accomplish what Aldus, Sanudo and Valla could only have dreamt about.
Aldus and his colleagues were fluent in both Latin and Greek, as well as Medieval Italian. They organized a literary society in Venice and Verona, and one of the requirements for admission was a knowledge of both these classical languages. In writing his preface, Aldus mixed both languages. To view the original, CLICK HERE. The Aldine Press, which was supervised by Erasmus, printed several thousand copies of each of their books, which were distributed all over Europe and even to the New World America; but after the death of Aldus in 1515, if one were not in actual possession of an original Aldine edition of Philostratus' Apollonius, then one would not have had access to Aldus' preface, since his preface has ceased to be included with subsequent translations and republications of Philostratus' biography.
See also: http://www.apollonius.net/bibliography.html
In attempting to trace the route of Philostratus' manuscript from the time of Apollinaris Sidonius and Pope Leo I, around 500 CE, until the time of Aldus 1,000 years later, we encounter an unfortunate but absolute lack of information. Where was this manuscript hidden away for 1,000 years? Why was it not destroyed along with other "heretical" manuscripts, including Hierocles' Lover of Truth and Moeragenes' Life of Apollonius? Why was Bishop Eusebius' treatise also not destroyed? From exactly whom, if not Zanobi, did Aldus obtain this manuscript?
Since Aldus would often dedicate a publication to the person who had provided him with a Latin translation from the original Greek (of any manuscript), it seemed important to determine to whom Aldus had dedicated his publication of Philostratus' Apollonius. Last autumn my colleague Nicolas Verger of Bordeaux, France, and I began to pursue this question by contacting various scholars in Europe and the United States. Eventually I was placed into contact via the Internet with Professor Roberto Espinosa of Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah. BYU owns a complete collection of all the Aldine first editions (see below), and Professor Espinosa was kind enough to scan the 5-page preface as JPGs and send them to me electronically. CLICK HERE to view them.
And let me take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to Professor Espinosa for sending me this preface, and also to state categorically that much of my modern work piecing together the complete Apollonius saga simply could not have been accomplished without the existence of our worldwide Internet and all of its vast informational resources. We researchers in all fields of intellectual endeavor today are most fortunate to have the unlimited Internet at our keyboard fingertips. The following two JPGs are from the Brigham Young University website. The one on the left depicts the cover of the Aldine publication of Philostratus; and the one on the right, the Aldine introductory page, with the Aldine symbol of the dolphin and the anchor.
Subsequently, in early 2002, I placed these pages from Professor Espinosa at my website and began the search for an English translator. Professor David Armstrong of the Classics Department of the University of Texas at Austin was commissioned for this task, and he completed this exclusive, original English translation in March 2002. Professor Armstrong's translation follows. I have edited it to some extent in terms of grammar and syntax only. Also, I have interspersed some personal [Comments] within it. As noted, Aldus wrote in both Latin and Greek. In the translation, Greek passages are designated separately from the Latin by the use of << French quotes >>.
Any reader who would be interested in seeing Aldus' original preface as it was sent to me by Professor Espinosa can find it at my website.
http://www.apollonius.net/aldus1.html
***
THE ALDUS PREFACE
I had hoped, most learned Zenobius, that I was going to read much that was worthy of knowledge and excellence in Philostratus' books on the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, but it certainly came out far otherwise; for not only did it all seem fabulous and like old wives' tales, but silly, too, and thoroughly inept. For which reason I could not easily tell how much trouble and tedium the reading of it cost me, but what could I do? To desist once begun, I thought shameful, for I had promised the book both in Greek and Latin to the scholarly public. Then, since it was printed thrice in Latin, like a poison without antidote, and was in circulation (for it lacked the little work of Eusebius, to chasten it and refute it and show its falsity), it seemed worthwhile were I to send out from my office both Philostratus' books and the little work itself of Eusebius against them, both in Greek and Latin, so elegantly translated into Latin by you: so that if anyone had drunk in something of poison from Philostratus, he would have Eusebius, to which, like a snake-bitten weasel to rue, he might run for the cure.
[Comment: Obviously Friar Zanobi Acciaioli himself had undertaken the translation from Greek to Latin of Eusebius' "antidote to the poison". Whether Zanobi actually had earlier supplied Aldus with the Philostratus' Latin translation can only be surmised, but this impression lingers in one's thoughts. My colleague Nicolas Verger feels that perhaps this manuscript was brought to Venice in 1453 by Greek Cardinal John Bessarion, who was fleeing the Turkic invasion of Constantinople and from whom Aldus subsequently acquired it and commissioned Alemannus Rhinuccinus to translate it into Latin. Even if so, then who were the other three previous translators? Notice that Aldus stated that "thrice" this book had been translated into Latin without the inclusion of the "antidote" by Eusebius. Thus, we are forced to conclude that at least three Latin translations were completed between the time of Apollonaris Sidonius and Pope Leo I in the Fifth Century and Aldus in 1500. It has been impossible to determine if Aldus included a Latin translation by Apollonaris Sidonius amongst these three older translations which he cited. And why did Aldus not provide us with the actual names of these three other "mystery translators"? Did he know their names or not? It almost seems that Aldus was trying to hide something from posterity. RS]
Now, Saint Jerome [Hieronymus] seemed to believe in eight books of Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, since in his letter to the priest Paulinus about the books of the Sacred History he says that "Apollonius - a magus, as the many call him, or a philosoher, as the Pythagoreans claim, travelled through the [lands of the] Caucasus, the Albani, the Scythians, and the Massagetes, arrived at the rich kingdoms of India, and at last, having crossed the wide stream of the Sison, came to the Brahmans, that he might hear Iarchas, sitting upon his golden throne, and drinking from the fountain of Tantalus, discoursing amongst a few pupils about nature, ethics, the course of the days, and of the stars; and thence, through the Elamites, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Assyrians, Parthians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Arabs, and Palestinians, returned to Alexandria, and went to Ethiopia [Abyssinia], that he might see the Gymnosophists [Naked Sages], and the famous Table of the Sun in the sand."
[Comment: In the above short paragraph we have four very peculiar statements that Aldus attributed to Saint Jerome, who flourished about the year 420 CE and wrote "favorably" about Apollonius. The period of Saint Jerome, significantly, overlapped the lives of Bishop Nemesius of Emesa, Ambassador Apollinaris Sidonius of Bordeaux/Burgus (who was married to Papianilla, the daughter of Roman Emperor Avitus) and Pope Leo I (who requested of and received from Sidonius a "treatise" on the life of Apollonius, whether it was an actual full Latin translation of Philostratus' biography being unknown).
[1. Aldus wrote that Hieronymus "seemed to believe in eight books of Philostratus" about Apollonius. My Harvard edition contains "eight books", or "eight parts" within the complete biography. Thus, I cannot understand what Aldus meant. It is as if Aldus possessed fewer than eight books by Philostratus. If so, then how do we have the "eighth book" today, if not from Aldus; and which of the "eight books" did Aldus not know about?
[2. Aldus next provided a litany of the various peoples whom Apollonius had visited, including the Palestinians. There is no record in Philostratus' biography that Apollonius ever visited Palestine. Quite the contrary -- in the year 69 CE, Roman Generals Vespasian and his son Titus were preparing for their impending attack upon and destruction of Jerusalem. Fresh troops were being brought into Palestine from Cappadocia, homeland of Apollonius of Tyana.
[The time was June of 69 CE. Turmoil and interregnum plagued Rome, which was being governed by a temporary triumverate of Otho, Galba and Vitellius, following the suicide of Nero in 68. Rumors abounded that the scheming aristocrat Vespasian would be selected as the new Emperor. Apollonius and Damis were in Rhodes, having arrived there from Spain and Libya earlier in the year. They set sail for Alexandria and arrived to a tumultuous welcome towards the end of June. A Roman messenger from Egypt informed Vespasian that Apollonius had just arrived in Alexandria. Vespasian was eager to consult with Apollonius concerning his future as possible Roman Emperor, and Vespasian sent a message back to Apollonius, requesting that Apollonius travel to Jerusalem to meet him. However, Apollonius refused "to enter a country which its inhabitants polluted both by what they did and by what they suffered". Thus, Vespasian was forced to travel to Alexandria to meet with Apollonius there. This meeting took place on 1 July 69 CE.
[Philostratus was explicit in this regard. And why did Apollonius refuse to visit Jerusalem? Would you yourself want to travel to a country whose inhabitants had once tried to kill you and had left you with a lifetime "signature scar" above your left eyebrow, reminding you until your death of that horror and narrow escape? Certainly, not I. And without intending to seem "facetious", I once knew a man with whom I got into a "fight" which left me with a "dent" in my nose. Everytime I look in the mirror, I see that scar, and I don't recall that man or that occasion very fondly. This "chip on the shoulder" attitude by Apollonius about the Jews is clearly normal. "Even the blind man does not fall into the same hole twice," advises the old Turkish proverb.
[For further information about this "Number
11" scar, please see:
http://www.apollonius.net/bust-shroud.html
[And parenthetically here, a "mystery physician" of the time of "early Christianity", supposedly named "Apollonius Pergamenus", wrote a "medical book" on "scarification"; however, this matter will be dealt with in "The Many Faces of Apollonius" later this year.
[Thus, whom do we believe - Philostratus or Hieronymus? If Aldus was missing one of the books of Philostratus cited by Hieronymus, then was that book the portion of the biography that described the suffering by Apollonius at the hands of the Jewish Sadduccees and their Roman lackeys? Why would Hieronymus, who lived 200 years after Philostratus, refer to a visit to Palestine when Philostratus explicitly denied it?
[3. Next, Aldus wrote that Jerome had stated that Apollonius "returned" to Alexandria. Originally in my own research I had come to the conclusion that after "The Jesus Masquerade", both Apollonius and Damis had travelled to Ionia. There exists a certain "gap" within the Philostratus biography which was analyzed over one hundred years ago by the renown British explorer and writer Sir Flinders Petrie - loosely referred to as "the missing twenty years" in the life of Apollonius, which curiously parallel the "missing years" of "the Jesus Christ" from age 12 to age 30, not to mention the "missing years" of the revolutionary Hebrew Elkhasaite John The Baptist. It is most significant that Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded much more about the life of John The Baptist than the "brother of James" reference (only!) that he included of the one who was called "Jesus". Bishop Eusebius himself has been accused of forging the "mysterious" paragraph that was added later to Josephus' history merely in order to legitimize the existence of a non-existant "Jewish Messiah". For centuries, all honest Christian historians, of whatever denomination, have agreed, and still do, that this passage in Josephus is, in all likelihood, a forgery that can be attributed directly to Bishop Eusebius, primarily for linguistic and stylistic reasons.
[Recently, I have uncovered new information about Apollonius, information which indicates that following the aborted crucifixion, he and Damis went not to Cappadocia but to Alexandria, where they founded what has become known via "The Suda" and related writings as "The School of Didymus". Apollonius wrote several books whilst he was in Alexandria for approximately those 15 "missing years", before returning to Greece to attend the Dionysiac Festival and Olympic Games in 45 CE.
[In the biography of Philostratus, after their voyage to India, Apollonius and Damis "eventually" returned to Ionia and Greece. There is no mention of a trip to Palestine or Jerusalem, and there is no definitive timetable for these "interim" events. This is the point in the continuity of the biography in which there seems to have been a "conflict of opinion" between the author Philostratus and the Christian apologist Saint Jerome Hieronymus.
[Nevertheless, the very fact that Aldus wrote that Jerome recorded that Apollonius "returned" to Alexandria following a trip to "Palestine" and that Aldus was "missing" a portion of the original edition from which Jerome was quoting, send up all sorts of red flags that would never have been anticipated by such "plotters" as Bishop Eusebius, the three "mystery translators" and possibly Aldus himself.
[4. Nowhere in the Philostratus biography is there any mention of "The Table of the Sun" in Ethiopia. If Jerome referred to a "Table of the Sun", then clearly he obtained his information from a different source, or a different version of the Philostratus biography, than Aldus (or Harvard!) had seen, leading to these comments by Aldus. It is the opinion of Nicolas and me that this "Table of the Sun" was actually a literary remembrance or symbolism of "The Emerald Tablet of Hermes", later known to Catholic Crusaders as "The Philosopher's Stone". This investigation is on-going. RS]
Now since by these words St. Jerome seems to believe the writings of Philostratus, I think that he read neither the work of Hierocles, in which from Philostratus' trifling he daringly compares Apollonius to Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, or Eusebius' Apologia, and indeed did not accurately read the eight books of Philostratus on Apollonius' Life. For never would that enthusiastic defender of Christianity have been able to resist inveighing against, let alone not writing against, Hierocles' work, or at least in the letter itself to Paulinus, or somewhere in his writings, mentioning his efforts. Certainly I have not read any such thing in Jerome, nor heard of anyone who has, and many are the scholars of Jerome whom I have asked.
[Comment: This is a most fascinating statement by Aldus! Why apparently hadn't St. Jerome read Hierocles? Jerome flourished only 120 years after Lover of Truth was published. Certainly copies were still in existence? Or were all of these books burned in the fires set by soldiers loyal to Theodosius around the time of Jerome's birth? And Aldus doesn't even mention Moeragenes and Maximus of Aegae here. Aldus seems to imply that Hierocles' book was only a "spin-off" of the Philostratus biography. It has always been my own hunch that Hierocles' book was based upon a lot more than merely the "trifles" of Philostratus.
[Thus, we can draw one of two conclusions: (1) Aldus mistakenly assumed that Philostratus himself prepared his biography with the intention of comparing Apollonius to "Jesus", which he didn't; or (2) Aldus knew some additional "dangerous" or potentially "heretical" information about the connection of Apollonius with "Jesus" and deliberately withheld that information, leading to this otherwise unexplainable confusion in his writing. RS]
Also, when he speaks of the throne of Iarchas, he says it was of gold, while Philostratus says it was of dark bronze decorated with little golden images in these words: << Now Iarchas sat upon a high throne which was of black bronze, decorated with golden images, whilst the others' thrones were of bronze, undecorated and less high. For they were sitting around Iarchas. >> Also he says that Apollonius went to Ethiopia, that he might see the Gymnosophists, and the famous Table of the Sun in the sand. But Philostratus says nothing of a Table of the Sun, nor claims that Apollonius saw anything worthy of mention in Ethiopia, besides the statue of Memnon, son of Aurora, of which he writes: << The statue, not yet bearded [i.e., a youth, not yet bearded], is turned toward the Sun, and is of black stone, its feet together in the manner of the statuary of Daedalus' age, its hands set straight upon its chair. For it sits there in the manner of one who is wanting to stand up, they say, and << 4-5 untranslatable Greek words >> the intention of its eyes and mouth are as of one about to speak; and they say they wondered at it less at other times, because it seemed to do nothing; but when the Sun's rays touched it, as happened at sunrise, they could not contain their wonder, for the minute the Sun's rays touched its mouth, it spoke, and its eyes seemed to brighten like those of human beings, and then, they say, they understood that it seemed to be standing up for the Sun, like men who stand to worship a God. >> Which is, if any are reading who are ignorant of Greek, let them understand. [Same follows in Latin. DA]
[Comment: In the Harvard Conybeare translation, this description is rendered as follows: "The eyes seemed to stand out and gleam against the light, as do those of men who love to bask in the Sun."
[The only logical conclusion that one can draw from these remarks by Aldus is that Jerome/Hieronymus had read a different version of Philostratus than the one that Aldus received and published. Aldus was clearly and honestly puzzled by some of the material written by Jerome.
[Regarding the color of Iarchas' throne, this is nitpicking by Aldus. "Bronze" and "gold" could easily be confused when used as "descriptive colors" rather than references to the actual material used to build the throne. And yes, Aldus was correct when he stated that Philostratus did not mention the "Table of the Sun" in Ethiopia. RS]
Of this statue, Juvenal says in his 15th Satire, "Where magic chords resound from Memnon split in two." And also Pliny and Strabo mention it. Now since many came to see this very famous statue, Philostratus tells us that Apollonius also came; but of the Table of the Sun he never makes mention; but Solinus, [in] chapter 40, does say it was in Ethiopia: "There is a place amongst them, the Table of the Sun, always spread with rich banquets, on which everyone eats indiscriminately, for they say that the table is also refilled by the divinity." So also [wrote] Herodotus, in Book Three called Thalia: << They say there is such a Table of the Sun, as follows: outside the city, there is a field full of cooked meat of all the quadrupeds, where, they say, the magistrates of each of the cities brings the meat at night; and in the daytime, anyone who likes can come up and dine off this meat, and the inhabitants think that the Earth itself produces this food each time; and so, that is what the 'Table of the Sun', as they call it, is said to be like. >>
[Comment: When I was living in Abyssinia, I investigated local witchcraft and superstition. I was a high-school science teacher, and I discussed these matters at great length in science class with my students. I have heard many stories from people all over that country, and I personally have visited the same places that logically Apollonius and Damis would have visited. I never heard any person recount such a legend about this "Table of the Sun", but obviously it was mentioned by other travellers and writers, not only by St. Jerome. And from the description of it given here, it certainly does not seem equivalent to "The Emerald Tablet" or "Philosopher's Stone". Whether it is truly pertinent to the actual life of Apollonius himself is unknown.
[And for the record, in the following paragraph, one "stadium" was equal to about 630 feet (about 190 meters). One mile is equal to about 8.375 "stadia". One kilometer would equal about 5.25 "stadia". In his Histories Herodotus estimated that one-day's travel, presumably by foot, was from about 150 "stadia" (v.53) to 200 "stadia" (iv.101). That works out to about 18-24 miles (27-39 kilometers) per day. I personally can easily walk 3 miles in one hour, so that would require 6-8 hours' walking per day. If one were used to this, it would not be a problem. When I lived in Abyssinia, from Massaua to Asmara was about 65 miles or 110 kilometers. There were countless people who walked this distance, back and forth over a period of 3-4 days; and understanding this ancient necessity to travel by foot from place to place, small villages with inns and restaurants were always available along the route, at intervals of about 20 miles. Even the train ("Littorina") stopped at all these small villages, ultimately resulting in a 4-hour train-trip over this same 65-mile stretch of travel - or 16 miles per hour on the train compared to 3 on foot! By automobile, it took about an hour and a half, as the treacherous mountain passes near Asmara required more careful driving-time than the coastal desert flatlands west of Massaua.
[Also, "Caucasus" in earlier eras was often used to designate all of the mountains from east of the Black Sea to south of the Caspian Sea and across Iran and Afghanistan (together considered to be Ancient Persia) to India and Tibet. Thus, the "Caucasus" would have stretched from the modern Caucasus Mountains to the high plains of Nepal and Tibet, where the mountains became known as the Himalayas. RS]
Now I think that Jerome read this in Herodotus, and confused the one for the other, in error, the Table of the Sun, I mean, for the Statue of Memnon. So also, I think, for the Indian river he wrote Sison, when he says that "at the last, crossing the broad stream of the Sison, he [Apollonius] came to the Brahmins", for Philostratus says nothing of the Sison, but mentions the Tigris, Euphrates, Cophinus, Indus, Hydraotes, and Hypasis, which we find in the text before he [Apollonius] comes to the Brahmins, and the Indus is the broadest of all these. Philostratus says, << And thus they travelled the Indus, about forty stadia, for that is what is navigable of it, but this is what they write of that river: the Indus rises from the Caucasus, and is greater there than all the rivers that flow through Asia; but as it goes forth, it makes many another river navigable out of itself. >> Now though this was not the last river Apollonius had crossed before he came to the Brahmins, for that was the Hydraotes, for Philostratus says he got to Hypasis; nor did he cross it, for he travelled down it. Nonetheless, the Indus is the greatest of all the rivers [on which] he travelled. Since Philostratus tells us that the Indus has the people round it called the "Indians" (as Stephanus says: << Indus river, from which we get 'Indi' >>), it seems more probable that the Indus is meant for this "broad river Sison" than the Hydraotes or some other.
Now that Jerome wrote Sison for Indus, because the Hebrews call the Indus "Sison", seems improbable to me, both because the Indus arises from the Caucasus, and the Sison from the gardens of delight called in Greek the << Earthly Paradise >>; and because he himself in his commentary on Genesis where it says "one of them is called Sison", [Jerome] says, "people suppose this to be the Ganges, the river of India". But that he took it for the Ganges is impossible, for Apollonius is never said to have crossed the Ganges. Also, it seems absurd for him to have used the Hebrew language, rather than Greek, particularly in writing to a Latin. So I think that he did this inadvertently and mentioned it unintentionally, since he cared little for such things, as he says in his commentary on Daniel; for we often misremember when we cite from secular literature by memory, and cite things we have forgotten, not by our intention but by dire necessity, so to speak; nor is it surprising that Jerome could make such an error; for he was [only] a man, and [he was] very busy always in translating and composing sacred literature. Amongst others, we read that M. Tullius Cicero did the same [thing], as Gellius testifies in his Attic Nights; and Politian in his Miscellanies; himself calls it in Epistles to Atticus a << mnemonikon hamartema >>, or error of memory.
Now if someone objects that Jerome may have found in others who wrote about Apollonius, that he visited Ethiopia and saw the Table of the Sun in the sand, I would deny that he read this, because Philostratus collected all of the writings about Apollonius that he knew into one, as Eusebius says in his treatise on the book of Hierocles: << Damis, who came from Assyria, who lived a long time with Apollonius, and took up with him first in Assyria, has handed down his travels with him from that time on; Maximus wrote a few things singly which were done by him; but Philostratus, the Athenian, who says that he collected all the things which Damis and Maximus handed down, as well as the writings of others, and compiled them into one [book], composed the most complete history [of Apollonius] from [his] birth to death. >> And Philostratus himself says at the beginning of his first book, << I have read the book of Maximus of Aegae and the testaments written by Apollonius from which one can gather how inspired a philosopher he became; nor is attention to be paid Moeragenes, who wrote four books against Apollonius, for he was ignorant of many things pertaining to Apollonius. >> "That I combined these scattered circumstances together, and took care with my composition, I have said." [Philostratus 1.3]
[Comment: First of all, Aldus used the word "against" Apollonius in describing Moeragenes' book, which was, in fact, "pro" not "contra" Apollonius. But in his Latin text Aldus used the word "contra" so this is a literal English translation. I noticed this "anomaly" immediately upon reading Professor Armstrong's translation. However, since Aldus was quoting Philostratus directly here in Greek for his Latin translation, it was possible for me to consult the original Greek in the Harvard edition for comparison. Philostratus used the Greek word "es" in this sentence: "es Apollonius". I consulted a Greek acquaintance about this, and he informed me that "es" can be translated as "about" or "to" or "for" but never "against". Thus, why didn't Aldus use the Latin word "de", meaning "concerning" or "about", instead of the word "contra"? Was this a deliberate act of deception or an honest mistake by Aldus? (And incidentally, in Aldus' preface some of the passages are written down twice, in both Greek and Latin, but they have not been duplicated in this translation. As I noted earlier, you may view the original Preface at my website.)
[And here we once again encounter an idea that has troubled me since I first began to investigate the life of Apollonius. Moeragenes' book "supposedly" contained all the earliest evidence from the actual era of Apollonius, contemporaneously with the "son" of Apollonius who was named Alexander Peloplaton or "The Clay-Plato". In fact, both their lives (as well as the lives of Alexander Paphlagonaeus of Abonoteichos and Apuleius of Medaura - see my Synchronized Chronology) spanned the years from the death of Apollonius to the pre-dynastic Severans and Flavius Philostratus. Moeragenes "supposedly" outrightly stated that "the Jesus Christ" was a "fiction" based upon the life of Apollonius. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Moeragenes' book is "lost" to us today, like so many other valuable writings of the first three centuries of the Common Era.
[In the following paragraphs we find an explanation of sorts as to why Aldus was being so "rhetorical" and "skeptical" about these different details between Philostratus and St. Jerome. The irony for Aldus, who may also be "writhing in his unknown grave" for reasons other than the invention of the paperback book, is that by providing all this commentary about St. Jerome, not to mention the publication of Bishop Eusebius' "antidote to the poison", Aldus belied his "cover-up mode" (if one may call it that) by these internal anomalies, which I have pointed out.
[But to play the "Devil's Advocate"
here, Aldus may have had no other choice than to make such remarks
as these, since many of his close friends and confidants were
connected to the Italian Catholic Aristocracy, such as Lucrezia
Borgia who was the daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, subsequently elected
as Pope Alexander VI. Money talked, then as now. If there had
been Vatican or local Venetian Catholic funding for the Aldine
Press (from men like Cardinals Bessarion and Grimani), then Aldus
might not have had the complete freedom to publish such controversial
ideas. Certainly there are official records somewhere in modern
existence of any "deals" that Aldus might have had to
make for the sake of the success of his printing company. At least
there have been no more Catholic library-burnings in the last
half-millennium, of which we can be thankful. RS]
But why have I said so much about those things that Jerome records
about Apollonius? In order that if anyone believes as a result
of them in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, he may cease
to believe. Or rather that he may believe Philostratus [to be]
a liar and Hierocles a fool, and Apollonius a most empty "mountebank"
[charlatan]; and most similar to those who, in the marketplaces
and piazzas, gathering a crowd, and deceiving the mob of simple
people, stand on stools or wooden platforms and earn their living
gabbling; and Damis, Apollonius' henchman, to have acted the part
of the hired boy who gets up on a stool or a three-legged table
to answer his "mountebank" master from amongst the [regional]
crowd.
[Comment: This is just pure, unadulterated bullshit, if you'll pardon my French; and Aldus knew it. Aldus wasn't that stupid. Aldus had his own private and personal agenda, no doubt about it. RS]
Lactantius says that Apollonius was a magician, and also inveighs against Hierocles, [both] in many other words but particularly these: "When he had poured forth these ravings of his ignorance, when he had tried utterly to efface the truth, he dared to call his nefarious and blasphemous book philaletheis, that is, 'lover of truth'. O blind heart, O mind, as they say, blacker than Cimmerian darkness! Perhaps he was a student of Anaxagoras, who used snow for ink! And it is the same blindness, to give truth the name of falsehood, and falsehood the name of truth. Yes, this tricky man tried to cover up the wolf under the sheep's skin, so that he could inveigle the reader with his intriguing title. Or let us say that you did this out of insanity, not malice; [so] what kind of truth have you brought us at last, except that, trying to prove there are gods, you have at the end destroyed those same gods? For in composing the praises of the highest God, whom you call king, great creator of all things, fountain of the gods, parent of all things, nourisher of all things that live, you have taken away the kingdom from that Jove of yours, deposed him from the summit of power, and made him a mere servant? And so your epilogue itself accuses you of folly, vanity, error: you say that there are gods and yet you subject them and enslave them to that very God whose religion you are attempting to evert." Thus, Lactantius.
[Comment: Lactantius shows quite clearly what Hierocles was trying to elucidate. Throughout the second and third centuries CE, there developed two conflicting schools of philosophical thought within the Roman Empire: those who wanted to preserve the traditional Greco-Roman pantheon versus those who wanted to supplant this "pagan polytheism" with "Lord Jesus Christ" and maudlin Christianity, as opposed to "pure science"; we still have this inane debate going on today in America, unfortunately: Evolution VS Creationism. It is like listening to a "broken record" from one backward fundamentalist century to another, spanning thousands of years. Enough is enough at some point, wouldn't you agree? But once again, not thinking ahead, Aldus unwittingly provided us with a vital clue to our complete understanding of the suppression of information about Apollonius and the "pagan" Gnostics by the Catholic Vatican and their priestly pedophile puppets, who from the dissolute days of Constantine have been determined to degrade all of us, from the Village Idiot to the Queen of England, down to the same vacuous lowest common denominator of pseudo-spiritualism and anti-intellectualism, into perpetual philosophical slavery to the Gospels of "Lord Jesus Christ"! This is true of most religions.
[As international, self-styled "Hermeticist" Darío Salas Sommer of Santiago de Chile has so rhetorically observed in his controversial book The Stellar Man, "Although the world has progressed from a barbaric state to civilization in the course of history, the 'savage sapiens' is today basically as primitive as in the distant past, covered only with layers of cultural and educational varnish. ... No more revealing of secrets which are hidden from sapiens! Let us spread a cloak of silence on this subject in order to comply with the mandate of the esoteric sphinx who demands silence. Speech and silence are two swords which must be handled with sublime skill in order not to disrupt universal harmony. Those who have 'eyes to see' will understand everything not stated in the written word, but in the cryptic language of the initiate. For those not in this state, it is best that they understand nothing and continue sweetly sleeping. Ultimately, the Archons run no risk of a 'bad harvest' from a possible rebellion of sapiens. For sapiens is too blind to see where danger really is found." RS]
"Ye walked according to the Æon
of this world, according to the Archon that has the domination
of the air. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against
the dominations, the powers, the lords of darkness, the mischievousness
of spirits in the Upper Regions." Ephesians 2:2, 6:12
The weariness of reading Philostratus was increased for me by
the translation [by Alemannus Rhinucinnus], which is not only
barbarous in places but also even inaccurate. As (opening words),
"The votaries of Pythagoras have this story to tell of him,
that he was not an Ionian at all, but that, once upon a time in
Troy, he had been Euphorbus": which the translator renders
as "whoever praises [the] Samian Pythagoras, says that before
[his present incarnation/life], he was born an Ionian, he was
the Trojan Euphorbus," whereas we should rather say this,
or something like it, "they who praise [the] Samian Pythagoras,
say [that] he [Apollonius] was not an Ionian, but the Trojan Euphorbus."
For << onta P. anti tou on >> is Philostratus'
meaning. A little later, he [Rhinuccinus] translates "and
they honoured him as an emissary from Zeus, but imposed, out of
respect for their divine character, a ritual silence on themselves"
since "in everything they honored him as if begotten and
born of Zeus, and think that the silence imposed by him draws
its origin from the gods." But it [really] means that "they
venerated him as a messenger from Zeus, and practiced silence
because they were of divine character."
[Translator's Note: "That also siope is a logos" is translated "and they think the reason for silence was invented by him" though you have to translate it rather "silence itself is a form of speech". On the same page oute diakeimenis pros tous anthropous is translated "not saying what they say in ways accomodated to the times and places", though it means "because they were benevolently disposed to human beings". On the fourth page he translates "I shall give therefore leavened bread and palm dates, like amber and of good size" [Loeb., p. 62, 1.21] "will give therefore leavened bread and red nuts of wonderful size", when it means "leavened bread and enormous amber-coloured palm dates". On page six, there is much missing which I have added, and translated, among it the epigram on the Eritreans [Loeb, p. 72]. Again on the sixteenth [page], in the first verse kai tot' isos en to melampugon tuchein, he says "it is as sweet, as if we lit on a fountain of sweet water", where it's something like this, "and perhaps then it was this, to light on the black-butted one", that is Hercules. It's a proverb: "May you light on the black-butted one." (i.e., "May you catch a Tartar.") DA]
[Comment: Professor Armstrong spelt the word as "Eretrians", but I have corrected it to "Eritreans", the proper modern spelling. I used to live in Massaua, Eritrea, on the coast of the Red Sea, where I taught high-school science. Certainly this reference is to the same ethno-linguistic group of people, along the shores of "The Erythreum Sea" or Red Sea. RS]
On this word Suidas says, "the Melampugoi were two vainglorious boys, the sons of Limne; and for their effeminate dissoluteness, their mother warned them never to mess with a man with a hairy ass. Well, they fell afoul of Heracles, and got bound to his bearing-pole. Then, seeing them laughing and bending down, they said, "There's a saying of our mother's that we were going to run into a man with a hairy ass," and Heracles burst out laughing and freed them from their chains, because they [Heracles and other men with hairy asses] "made fun of men with white-skinned butts as a bunch of sissy boys."
Although, perhaps, that melampugoi, egenonto perperoi limnes huioi, I would bet, is written wrong for duo tines adelphoi egenonto Kerkopes, Semnonidos huioi; for under the entry Kerkopes, Suidas says, "There were two brothers, the Kerkopes [Cecrops], who committed every crime on Earth. And they were called Kerkopes from the evil of their deeds, and one of them was named Passalus and the other Aclemon. Their mother Semnonis, perceiving this, warned them never to fall foul of a black-butted man, that is, Hercules."
Also, in the collection of stories in the works of Gregory, it says, "The Kerkopes were two brothers, who committed every crime on Earth; and as the commentator Dius relates, one of them was named Passalus and the other Aclemon; and when their mother Semnonis had learned of their grave crimes, she warned them not to fall afoul of a black-butt. And when they found Hercules sleeping under a tree, on which his own weapons were leaning, they took their own arms and attempted to attack him; but he immediately awoke and caught them, bound them and tied them to a pole and carried them head down behind his back. Then, hung upside down behind him, when they perceived that Hercules' butt was black with abundance of hairs, they remembered their mother's saying and started commenting on it, which made Hercules laugh so hard he untied them and set them free from their chains."
There are a number of things that I found most displeasing that I could not resist altering, as, for example, that passage in the eighth book: "And even if the land of Arcadia were not such as I have described, so that they could in addition afford like other nations to sell their own slaves abroad, what advantage could the wisdom of the babbling accuser derive by getting a child from Arcadia to murder and maim with a knife?" Translated thus, "If the Arcadians were not such, but like the rest of mankind sold their slaves for profit, who would have heard of such a common sacrifice from Arcadia that was to be murdered"; and since I could make no sense of that at all, I altered the translation to "If the Arcadians were not such, but sold their slaves like the rest of mankind, what would it contribute to this so-called talked-of wisdom to have someone from Arcadia to murder," etc., for he seems to have misunderstood the Greek word "contribute". And where else and what else I have altered, you may, if you like, find out by comparing the texts.
But I haven't put all this down for the mere purpose of criticising the previous translator, for I could use the words of Aristotle in Metaphysics, Book II, "We need not be thankful only to those we agree with, but even to those who have made more superficial progress, for these too are useful, since they serve to sharpen our own critical sense."
So therefore it wasn't to carp at the translator that I wrote all this down, but to admonish those [writers] who want to add Greek to their Latin skills; that neither to this fellow or others of his ilk, who over the last thousand years have translated something from Greek into Latin, with very few exceptions, should one give perfect credit. No, one has rather to pay attention to the Greek text. And indeed our friend Scipio Carteromachus, who has made it possible for me to be brief on this topic, at Venice this year in his public lectures on the orations of Demosthenes, showed how necessary Greek learning is to our scholars, in a most beautiful speech which for the use of the scholarly public I have put forth from my press quite recently. And as to the extent to which we can trust our translators so far, he plans to explain in another oration 'ere long.
But you, most learned Zenobius, are well aware of this matter, both because you have translated Eusebius' treatise not unlearnedly nor barbarously but learnedly and in fine Latin, and because you would not endure for Philostratus' fantasies to circulate in mens' hands unknown for what they are, but set Eusebius' treatise against them as their exposer, refuter and antidote. And thus it is deservedly with your name at the head [i.e., as the dedication] that this book comes forth from my New Academy to the public with your name "at the head" [dedication]. For in these times of ours, you stand out as one whom uniquely "Just Jove hath loved". [Aeneid 6. 129] Farewell [Vale].
Venice, Month of May, 1504.
***
After reflecting upon this Preface for quite some time, my strongest impression is that Aldus had something to conceal or camouflage. This Preface is not at all like what I'd expected it to be before I read it, and I am glad that I read it after I'd gotten well into this research in order to be able to view it from a grander perspective of history. Aldus' exact motives are not clear, but he seems to want to hide behind the cloak of St. Jerome. Why did Aldus place so much emphasis on Hieronymus and ignore so many of the other authors who wrote about Apollonius, either favorably or unfavorably, such as St. Augustine and Apollinaris Sidonius, not to mention Pope Leo I? Surely Aldus knew about all these other writers. The Aldine Press itself published "The Suda" of "Suidas" in 1514, so obviously Aldus was aware of these other writers. And certainly Aldus had read all of the 127 volumes of classics that his company published over a period of 20 years (see below).
In 1549 three new Italian-language editions of Life of Apollonius were published in Italy: Della Vita di Apollonio Tianeo by F. Baldelli, Florence; La Vita del Gran Philosopho Apollonio Tianeo by L. Dolce, Venice; and Della Vita del Mirabile Apollonio Tyaneo by G. Gualandi, Venice. But it wasn't until the year 1596 that the first French translation by Blaise de Vigenère was published in Paris. Neither Nicolas Verger nor I have seen any of these books and, in fact, do not even know where copies may be located today. We presume that they are Italian and French translations of the Aldine Latin of Philostratus, but it is entirely possible that they were translations of another transcription of Apollonius' life, such as the "uncensored version" available to St. Jerome, perhaps translated from Greek into Latin earlier than Aldus by one of the three "mystery translators" to which Aldus enigmatically referred without explanation. One would actually have to consult these four original translations and compare them with Philostratus to determine their true source and authenticity.
The 1680 translation by Charles Blount in London, with extensive commentary, was the first translation of the Philostratus biography into English. And thereafter, further English publication was totally condemned by the Anglican Church's Archbishop of Canterbury as "heresy", possibly even punishable by death!
Aldus probably never envisioned that 500 years after him, people like my colleagues and I would be scrutinizing his every word under the magnifying glass of Truth. And having learned my lessons often the hard way in life, I can easily spot someone who is trying to hide something. I am reminded of that quote from The Alexandria Quartet in which Lawrence Durrell wrote, "When one has something to hide, one becomes an actor. It forces all those round one to act as well."
The fifth and final page of the Aldus Preface is the Greek information about Apollonius contained in "The Suda", which follows:
***
LIFE OF APOLLONIUS IN THE SUDA
Apollonius of Tyana, a philosopher, son of Apollonius, and of a mother of that city of noble descent. When his mother conceived him, she beheld a Daemon who said that it was he whom she was conceiving, and that he was Proteus of Egypt from which she understood him [Apollonius] to be Proteus' son; and his floruit was under Claudius, and Gaius (Caligula), and Nero, and up to Nerva, under whom he died; he kept silence according to Pythagorean custom for five years and then went off to Egypt, then to Babylon [and] to the Magi; and then came to the Arabians, and gathered together from all of them the countless magical trickeries told of him. And he composed the following books:
Initiations, or On Sacrifices
Testament
Oracles
Epistles
Life of Pythagoras
It was upon him that Philostratus of Lemnios
wrote a biography befitting a philosopher, saying that Apollonius
of Tyana "surpassed Sophocles [in chastity], who only said
that in reaching old age he had escaped from a mad and cruel master
(Plato, Republic 1); but Apollonius by dint of virtue and
temperance never even in his youth was so overcome".
[Philost. 1.13, Loeb p.35]
And also that "Apollonius more divinely than Pythagoras wooed wisdom and soared above tyrants; and though he lived in times not long gone by, nor quite of our own day, men know him not because of the true wisdom he practiced as a sage and sanely man, but one man praises this and another that about him; and some, since he associated with the Magi of Babylon and the Brahmins of India and the Gymosophists of Egypt, consider him a magician and slander him that he was only by violence, illegitimately a philosopher, but little do they know; for Empedocles and Pythagoras himself and Democritus consorted with wizards and uttered many strange things, yet never stooped to that art; and Plato went to Egypt and mingled often with the sages and prophets there; [and he] had to choose carefully his words; and though, like a painter, he laid their colours onto his outline sketches, no one called him a magician, though of all men [Plato was] the most envied for his wisdom.
"For the circumstance that Apollonius foresaw and foreknew so much does not justify slandering him for this kind of wisdom; we might as well accuse Socrates for his predictions, and Anaxagoras, who at the Olympics, when there was no rain, came forward wearing a fleece into the stadium by way of predicting rain. These feats are set down to the wisdom of Apollonius, by the same people who would rob Apollonius of having predicted things by wisdom.
"It seems to me then that I ought not to acquiesce in the ignorance of the many, but write a true account of the man and the exact times at which he said or did this or that, and the habits and temper of wisdom by means of which he came near to being considered a supernatural and divine being. And I have gathered my information partly from the many cities that loved him, and the temples, whose long neglected and decayed rites he restored, and partly from the accounts left of him by others and partly from his own letters; for he addressed these to kings, sophists, philosophers, to Eleans, Delphians, Indians, Egyptians, about gods, about ethics, about laws, and in all these things ... but the most precise details I collected from Damis." (Philost. 1.2, paraphrased slightly).
Now this Apollonius of Tyana was a memory expert above all others, who would restrain his voice in silence while reading very much to himself, and even at [age] 100 had a stronger memory than Simonides. And there is a hymn to Memory which he used to sing, in which he says that all [things] fades as Time passes, but Time itself is ageless and immortal because of Memory; and he inquires into more things about Apollonius and other prophecies of his in the Timasion.
[Comment: "Everything is worn and withered away by Time, whereas Time itself never ages but remains immortal because of Memory." Apollonius of Tyana.]
And he said that "Anaxagoras of Clazomene
kept his philosophy for cattle rather than men when he abandoned
his fields to flocks and goats, and that Crates of Thebes, when
he threw his money into the sea, benefited neither man nor beast."
[Loeb 1. 13, p. 35]
There was another Apollonius of Tyana, a philosopher, the Younger,
who lived in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, as Agresphon says
in his On Men With The Same Name.
***
In A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (Volume I, Page 75) by Professor William Smith and Others, London, 1890, we find the following information about Agresphon:
"AGRESPHON, a Greek grammarian mentioned by Suidas (s.v. Apollonius). He wrote a work Peri Omonymown (concerning persons of the same name). He cannot have lived earlier than the reign of Hadrian, as in his work he spoke of an Apollonius who lived in the time of that emperor."
This information can be interpreted in two different ways. First, Hadrian was born in the year 76 CE, which was 21 years prior to the death of Apollonius. Hadrian supposedly acquired "The Emerald Tablet" from Apollonius and had a marble bust of Apollonius in his Palace at Antium. Thus, the lives of Hadrian and Apollonius of Tyana were contemporaneous during 76-97 CE. This "Younger" Apollonius may in fact have been the same man as the "Elder" Apollonius.
Second, we have the odd circumstance of the lives of Alexander Peloplaton, the "son" of Apollonius Tyanaeus, and Alexander Paphlagonaeus of Abonoteichus, the "successor" of Apollonius, living during the reign of Hadrian and his pre-Severan successors. In 138 CE, year of Hadrian's death, Alexander Peloplaton would have been about 50 years old and Alexander Paphlagonaeus, about 30 years old. Perhaps one of them was the "Younger Apollonius".
The most astonishing bit of information by Suidas is that Apollonius wrote the following books:
Initiations, or On Sacrifices
Testament
Oracles
Epistles
Life of Pythagoras
There is definitely correlated evidence that Apollonius Tyanaeus wrote several books, perhaps under "pseudonyms" in various places, such as "Apollonius Archibius of Alexandria". Philostratus provides certain information about this, but with little detail to support it. In this Suda list, the only title that matches anything that I have encountered thus far in my research is the Life of Pythagoras. In approximately 285 CE, Nicomachus Geransenus wrote a book titled Life of Pythagoras, in which he mentioned Apollonius of Tyana. Here we begin to tread on different ground. For further information, at the moment, I can only refer the reader to my "Synchronized Chronologies". Later this year I plan to compose another companion essay titled "The Many Faces of Apollonius", dealing with all of the First-Century Apolloniuses, their ancestors and successors. Meanwhile, see:
http://www.apollonius.net/chronology.html
The following is a complete list of all the 128 volumes (including both the 1501 Greek and 1504 Latin editions of Philostratus' Apollonius) that were published by the Aldine Press between the years 1494 and 1515 (year of Aldus' death), including the invaluable "Suda" of "Suidas". This information was taken from various charts in The World of Aldus Manutius by Martin Lowry. G refers to a volume in Greek, L to Latin and I to Italian. The notation "73f fol." accompanying Philostratus' Apollonius indicates that there were 146 pages in the book. Thus, Aldus published 146 pages in Greek and 146 pages in Latin. In the Harvard Loeb edition of Philostratus' Apollonius (including Eusebius but not the "Epistles" of Apollonius), there is a total of 544 pages in English, as well as in Greek (488 English/Greek pages for Apollonius, plus 56 English/Greek pages for Eusebius), so about 3.7 pages of the Harvard edition are equivalent to one page printed by Aldus. It is obvious that Aldus printed larger pages with a more compacted method of type-setting. This is shown by the scanned images of the Apollonius Preface at my website.
http://www.apollonius.net/aldus1.html
"4to" or "4°" means "quarto", and "8vo" or "8°" means "octavo".
The following is an excellent URL for Aldus information. It is stated that Aldus was born in 1452, but Martin Lowry suggested that it could have been slightly earlier; and I personally favor the date of 1449 CE.
http://www.lib.sfu.ca/proj/aldus.htm
Here is a quote from this website, regarding the "Anchor & Dolphin" impresa used by the Aldine Press:
"The graceful Anchor and Dolphin design, perhaps the most famous of all printer's marks or colophons, first appeared as an illustration in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the first edition of which was published in December 1499. Aldus adopted the device as his printer's mark in January 1501 in the second volume of Poetae Christiani veteres, and subsequently used it in at least 19 versions.
"The Anchor and Dolphin emblem is called an impresa, a form of pictorial puzzle popular in renaissance Italy. The picture illustrates a motto, in this case a saying of the emperor Augustus that Aldus knew from Suetonius' biography and from the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius: Festina lente, 'Make haste slowly.' The anchor was symbolic of slowness and the dolphin of speed, an apt representation of the printer's painstaking and relentless style of work."
Regarding Aldus' invention of the "folio" and "octavo", here is another quote from this website:
"At the heart of Aldus' production were the Greek classics. Of his total output, 30 editions were editiones princepes (first printed editions) of a number of Greek literary, historical and philosophical texts, including the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, the histories of Thucydides and Herodotus, and the speeches of Demosthenes. Since many of these texts survived only in rare manuscripts, their future was guaranteed by Aldus' work. The most famous of Aldus' printings was the editio princeps of the philosopher Aristotle. The five volumes, published in folio between 1495 and 1498, contained all of Aristotle's works with the exception of the Poetics and the Rhetoric. Between 1450 and 1500, classical authors were typically published in large folio volumes, often with marginal commentaries or glosses by later writers. This resulted in large, cumbersome volumes which could only be read at a desk. In the first years of the press, Aldus conformed to the established practice, but after 1500 he began producing smaller, more manageable books, in which the text was unencumbered by commentaries. This change in format, the octavo-sized volume, was an innovation popularized by Aldus.
"The terms 'folio', 'octavo', and 'quarto' refer to the number of times a sheet of paper was folded after printing to produce a given number of pages; the greater the number of folds, the smaller the resulting pages. The popularity of the new octavo format is clear from Aldus' production record. During his career, Aldus printed 55 editions in the old folio format, then 48 - almost as many - in octavo, after 1500. Twenty-nine of his editions were quartos, and he experimented with even smaller formats - 1 sextodecimo and 1 trecesimo-secundo.
"Aldus' octavo editions of the classics have often been called the precursors of the modern pocket book, but the comparison is misleading. Despite economies of scale made possible by the printing press, his books remained relatively expensive: the price of an Aldine Latin Octavo - the Greek books were more expensive - was equivalent to one or two days' salary of a Venetian schoolmaster, comparable at least to the price of a good modern scholarly monograph. Then, as now, publishing was a lucrative business, and demand for Aldine texts was high. Aldus once remarked that the pace of work in his shop was such that 'with both hands occupied and surrounded by pressmen who are clamorous for work, there is scarcely even time to blow my nose'."
Rob Solarion
Dallas, Texas
1 May 2002
***
PUBLICATIONS BY THE ALDINE PRESS, VENICE
1494? (2 volumes)
Musaeus, 10f 4°, 12f 4° (G)
Galaeomyomachia, 10f 4° (G)
1495 (5 volumes)
Lascaris, Grammar, 166f 4° (G)
Gaza, Grammar, 198f fol. (G)
Thecritus etc., 140f fol. (G)
Bembo, De Aetna, 30f 4° (L)
Aristotle I, 234f fol. (G)
1496 (2 volumes)
Benedetti, Diaria, 68f 4° (L)
Grammatici Veteres, 270f fol. (G)
1497 (14 volumes)
Aristotle II, 268f fol. (G)
Aristotle III, 475f fol. (G)
Aristotle IV, 517f fol. (G)
Valeriani, Grammar, 212f 4° (G)
Iamblichus, 184f fol. (L)
Epiphyllides, 54f 4° (L)
Dictionarium, 243f fol. (G)
De conversione propositionum, 72f 4° (L)
Quaestio Averrois, 32f 4° (L)
De Gradibus medicinarum, 55f 4° (L)
De Morbo Gallico, 29f 4° (L)
De Tiro seu Vipera, 8f 4° (L)
Horae Virginis, 112f 16° (G)
Psalterium, 150f 4° (G)
1498 (5 volumes)
Aristotle V, 316f fol. (G)
Aristophanes, 339f fol. (G)
Politiani Opera, 425f fol. (L)
Reuchlin Oratio, 12f 4° (L)
Catalogus, 1f fol. (L)
1499 (6 volumes)
Epistolographi Craeci, 266f & 137f 4°
(G)
Perotti, Cornucopia, 321f fol. (L)
Aratus, Theon, Proclus, Astronomici Veteres, 376f fol. (G)
Dioscurides, Nicander, 167f fol. (G)
Amasei Poema, 12f 4° (L)
Hypnerotomachia Polifili, 234f fol. (I)
1500 (2 volumes)
Lucretius, 101f 4° (L)
Epistole de Sancta Catherina, 412f fol. (I)
1501 (11 volumes)
Poetae Christiani, I 4° (L)
Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, 73f fol. (Greek Edition)
Virgilii Opera, 228f 8° (L)
Horatii Opera, 143f 8° (L)
Petrarch, Cose volgari, 180f 8° (I)
Juvenalis et Perii Satirae, 78f 8° (L)
Martialis, 192f 8° (L)
Valla, De exp. et fug. rebus, 300f fol. + 336f fol. (L)
Aldi Rudimenta Grammatices, 88f 4° (L)
Donati Oratio, 4f 8° (L)
Io. Francisci Pici De Imaginatione, 39f 4° (L)
1502 (16 volumes)
Pollucis Vocabularium, 104f fol. (G)
Cicero, Epistulae Familiares, 267 f 8° (L)
Lucani Pharsalia, 140f 8° (L)
Thucydides, 124f fol. (G)
Dante, 244f 8° (I)
Sophocles, 196f 8° (G)
Statius, 256f 8° (L)
Herodotus, 140f fol. (G)
Interiani, Vita de zichi, 8f 8° (I)
Valerius Maximus, 215f 8° (L)
Egnatii Oratio, 8f 8° (L)
Ovidii Metamorphoseos, 267f 8° (L)
Ovidii Fasti, 203f 8° (L)
Stephani De Urbibus, 80f fol. (G)
Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, 150f 8° (L)
Poetae Christiani, II Admonitum, 1f fol. (L)
1503 (9 volumes)
Catalogus, 2f fol. (L)
Luciani Opera, 286f fol. (G)
Ammonii Commentaria, 146f fol. (G)
Bessarion, In Calumniatoren Platonis, 112f fol. (L)
Ulpiani Commentarioli, 172f fol. (G)
Xenophon/Plethon, 156f fol. (G)
Florilegium Epigrammatum, 290f 8° (G)
Euripides Traoediae, 268f 8° & 190f 8° (G)
Originis Homeliae, 182f fol. (L)
1504 (10 volumes)
Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, 73f fol. (Latin
Edition with Preface)
Iohannes Grammaticus in Aristotelis Analytica, 148f fol. (G)
Theodorus Gaza, 274f fol. (L)
Carteromachi Oratio, 15f 8° (L)
Gregorii Nazanzeni Carmina, 4° (G)
Cimbriaci Encomiastica, 24f 8° (L)
Homeri Opera I, 277f 8° (G)
Homeri Opera II, 306f 8° (G)
Demosthenis Orationes I, 160f fol. (G)
Demosthenis Orationes II, 144f fol. (G)
1505 (8 volumes)
Bembo, Asolani, 96f 4° (I)
Augurelli Carmina, 128f 8° (L)
Horae Virginis, 160f 32° (G)
Pontani Urania, 241f 8° (L)
Adriani Venatio, 8f 8° (L)
Aesopi Fabellae, 150f fol. (G)
Virgilii Opera, 304f 8° (L)
Quinti Calabri Paralipomena Homeri, 172f 8° (G)
1506 (0 volumes)
1507 (1 volume)
Hecuba et Iphigenia interprete Erasmo, 80f 8° (L)
1508 (5 volumes)
Aldi Grammatica, 192f 4° (L)
Erasmi Adagia, 249f fol. (L)
Plinii Epistolae, 263f 8° (L)
Rhetores Graeci I, 367f fol. (G)
Rhetores Graeci II, 209f fol. (G)
1509 (3 volumes)
Plutarchi Opuscula, 525f fol. (G)
Horatii Opera, 155f 8° (L)
Sallustii Opera, 104f 8° (L)
1512 (4 volumes)
Lascaris, Grammar, 274f 4° (G)
Chrysoloras, Grammar, 148f 8° (G)
Cicero, Ep. Fam., 267f 8° (L)
Caesar, Commentarii, 296f 8° (L)
1513 (13 volumes)
Rhetores Graeci: (G)
I, 99f fol.
II, 82f fol.
III, 134f fol.
Cicero, Ep. ad Atticum, 331f 8° (L)
Platonis Opera (G)
I, 251f fol.
II, 220f fol.
Alexandri Aphrodisiei Comm., 141f fol. (G)
Perotti Cornucopia, 359f fol. (L)
Pontani Urania, 255f 8° (L)
Catalogus tertius, 5f fol. (L)
Pindari Carmina, 187f 8° (G)
Strozzorum Poemata (L)
I, 100f 8°
II, 152f 8°
1514 (11 volumes)
Ad Herennium, 245f 4° (L)
Catonis de Re Rustica, 308f 4° (L)
Hesychii Dictionarium, 198f fol. (G)
Athenaei Dipnosophistae, 142f fol. (G)
Quintilian, 230f 4° (L)
Petrarch, Cose vulgari, 183f 8° (I)
Sannazaro Arcadia, 89f 8° (I)
Virgilii Opera, 220f 8° (L)
Valerius Maximus, 216f 8° (L)
Aldi Grammatica, 214f 4° (L)
Suda, 391f fol. (G)
1515 (1 volume)
Lucretius, 125f 8° (L)
