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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Students of ancient metrology have long since been acquainted with a short tract, though so far none seems to have been aware of the fact that it has been published in four different versions:
(1) The manuale legum, or Hexabiblos, of Constantine Harmenopulos, a Byzantine compilation dating from 1345 and transmitted in a great number of manuscripts, has been published a number of times since the editio princeps of 1540; the most accessible edition, with Latin translation and some notes, is that of Heimbach. In book 2 ch. 4 (De novis operibus), there appears (but not in all MSS) a page-long metrological table (# 12), purporting to derive from an architect Julian of Ascalon, according to the editors not attested elsewhere. The text in the still basic collection of F. Hultsch, Metrologici scriptores (Leipzig 1864) i. 54 ff.; 200 f., on which all students of ancient metrology depend, derives from this authority. Though there is nothing in the text of Harmenopulos that indicates the end of his excerpt of Julian, it is implicit in the discussions of modern scholars that only the metrological table is Julian's work and that the paragraphs devoted to building laws which follow it derive from a different source.
2 There exist at least two unpublished MS versions, cod. Marc. Gr. 174 f. 38v (see Mioni, E., Codices Graeci manuscripti divi Marci Venetiarum i [Rome 1981] 272)Google Scholar and cod. Scor. R II 11 f. 276 (see Revilla, P. A., Catálogo de los códices griegos de la biblioteca de la Escorial i [Madrid 1936] 117)Google Scholar; cf. Svoronos, N. G., La Synopsis Major des Basiliques et ses appendices, (Études Bibl. Byz. 4), Paris 1964, 58.Google Scholar
3 Const. Harmenopuli manuale legum sive hexabiblos cum appendicibus et legibus agrariis … illustravit Gustavus Ernestus Heimbach (Lipsiae 1851); see also Krumbacher, K., Gesch. byz. Lit. 2 (München 1897) 607.Google Scholar A volume dedicated to the six hundredth anniversary of the work in 1945, Τόμος Κονσταντίνου Ἀρμενοπούλου ἐπὶ τῇ ἑξακοσιετηρίδι τῆς Ἑξαβίβλου αύτοῦ [1345–1945], Saloniki 1952, does not contain anything of relevance for the present investigation.
4 Viedebannt, O., ‘Forschungen zur Metrologie des Altertums’, Abh. sächs. Ges. Wiss., philol.-hist. Kl. xxxiv.3 (1917) 123 ff.Google Scholar The texts were copied by E. Pernice from Codd. Vat. Gr. 852 f. 152 and 914 f. 1882.
5 It has been suggested by Diller, A., ‘Julian of Ascalon on Strabo and the Stade’, CP xiv (1950) 22Google Scholar that these MSS were the antiquissimae schedae referred to by Casaubon's note in his edition (Paris 1620) on Strabo 322 and cf. on 518. However Casaubon could have been referring to any of the Venetian or Escorial MSS (n. 2), all unknown to Diller, as well as the Geneva MS of the Tactica inedita (see below).
6 See Dölger, F., ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der byzantinischen Finanzverwaltung besonders des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts’, ByzArch ix (1927)Google Scholar; the text of Julian is at pp. 113–4. The earlier publication is Ashburner, W., ‘A Byzantine Treatise on Taxation’, JHS xxxv (1915) 76 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Dain, A., Sylloge tacticorum, quae olim ‘inedita Leonis tactica’ dicebatur (Paris 1938)Google Scholar The text is based on cod. Laur. 75–6. It had been thoroughly discussed by Vári, R., ‘Die sogenannte “Inedita Tactica Leonis”’, BZ xxvii (1927) 241–270.Google Scholar
8 The chapter had been published already by R. Vári from cod. Bern. 97, an apographon of cod. Laur. 75–6, in a review (in Hungarian) of Diels, H., Die Handschriften der griechischen Arzte, Egyetemes Philologiai Közlöny xxxi (1907) 610–611.Google Scholar
9 Viedebannt, O., RE x (1917) 17f s. v. no. 10Google Scholar; H. Chantraine, Kl. Pauly s.v. no. 20. There are no entries in OCD2, Lexicon der alten Welt or PLRE (but for this last work cf. below, n. 64). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, which appeared after this paper was accepted for publication, has an entry on Julian with discussion of Harmenopulos, the Geneva MS and the legal contents, but ignores altogether the metrological chapter and its problems and does not attempt to date the author.
10 Λέοντος τοῦ Σοφοῦ τὸ Ἐπαρχικὸν Βιβλίον. Le livre du Préfet. L' Édit de l'Empereur L'éon le Sage sur les corporations de Constantinople. Texte grec du Genevensis 23 publié pour la premierfois par Jules Nicole avec une traduction latine, des notices exégétiques et critiques et les variantes du Cenevensis 23 au texte de Julien d'Ascalon (Genève 1893). Though elaborate subtitles are not in vogue now, it is worth while to reproduce this one, including as it does a reference to Julian of Ascalon on the title-page.
11 See the review of Nicole by Zachariä v. Lingenthal, C.E., BZ ii (1893) 132ff.Google ScholarStöckle, A., Spätrömische und byzantinische Zünfte, Klio Beiheft ix (Leipzig 1911) 142 ff.Google Scholar dates the compilation certainly between Leo VI (886–911) and 968, and possibly between 963 and the latter date. Zoras, G., Le corporazioni bizantine. Studio sull' Ἐπαρχικόν βιβλίον dell’ imperatore Leone VI (Roma 1931)Google Scholar, accepts the dating under Leo VI.
12 Metrol, script, i 37 ff.; 187 ff.
13 Ferrini, G., ‘Gli estratti di Giuliano Ascalonita’, RIL 2 ser. ii xxxv (1902) 613 ff.Google Scholar = Opere i 443 ff.; ‘Ambitus und Angiportus’, ZSS RA xxiii (1902) 431 ff. = Opere i 439 ff.; ‘Beiträge zur Kenntnis des sogenannten römischsyrischen Rechtsbuches’ ZSS RA xxiii (1902) 101 ff. = Opere i 397 ff.; Scheltema, H. J., ‘The Nomoi of Iulianus of Ascalon’, Symbolae … J. Chr. van Oven dedicatae, ed. David, M., Meijers, E. M., (Leiden 1946) 349 ff.Google Scholar
14 A. Παπαδόπουλοσ–Κεραμεύς, Ἱεροσολυμιτικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη iv (Petersburg 1899) 37 f. The codex is from the end of the fourteenth century.
15 Δ. Γκίνης, Τὸ ὲπαρχικὸν βιβλίον καὶ οί νόμοι Ἰουλιανοῦ τοῦ Ἀσκαλωνίτου, Ἐπετηρὶς ᾿Εταιρείας Βυζαντινῶν Σπουδῶν xiii (1937) 183 ff.
16 That is, in the Geneva and Constantinople MSS; in Harmenopulos one must assume that the title is not restricted to the metrological table.
17 The references are to the paragraphs of the text of Harmenopulos. Curtis, R. I., Carum and salsamenta: production and commerce in materia medica (Studies in Ancient Medicine 3, Leiden etc 1991) 188 f.Google Scholar refers to paragraph 22 of our text as belonging to the Byzantine period ‘and perhaps referring to the area of Phoinicia or Palestine’: this may be taken as implying his awareness of the authorship of Julian.
18 The only scholar to date who has tried to reconstruct the tradition of the text—and the only one, to my knowledge, who has been aware of, though not interested in, the twofold tradition of Julian (though he, too, was not aware of the texts preserved in the Marcian and Constantinople MSS)—was Diller (n. 5) 22 ff. Focusing on a definite section of Julian's metrological table—on which later—he asserted that it was not Julian's work. He maintained in fact that the metrological texts are interpolations, though he does not attempt to show how two different, but not dissimilar, interpolations got into the same place in the two branches of the tradition. Nor does he prove his contention that ‘the original home’ of the metrological excerpt was the Tactica inedita Leonis.
19 Both recent learned commentaries on Posidonius, apparently unaware of the publication of Nicole, follow Diller and assign the table to the anonymous author of Dain's Sylloge tacticorum: see Edelstein-Kidd fr. 203 with commentary = Theiler fr. 469 with commentary.
20 That Harmenopulos manipulated the text of Julian both by means of transpositions and interpolations has been convincingly demonstrated by Scheltema (n. 13) 349 ff.
21 Op. cit. 67 ff., followed with some inaccuracies by Scheltema (n. 13) 352.
22 On #47–51, counted by Nicole as part of this section but shown by Scheltema to be an interpolation, see below. The excerpts in the Constantinople MS come from the section on fire and from the interpolated section # 47–51.
23 Not three: see Heimbach's n. 49 on # 47, vindicated by the text of the Constantinople MS.
24 Confirmed by the Geneva MS; some scholars have emended the place in Harmenopulos, see Heimbach n. 93 ad loc.
25 Susumov, M. J., ‘O traktate Juliana Askalonita’, Istorii Antichnaja Drevnost, Srednie Veka xxxviii (1960) 3 ff.Google Scholar I am most grateful to Mr Robert Powell of Columbia University Library for procuring for me a copy of a journal published in Sverdlovsk now again Ekaterinburg and not easily available in the West, and to Dr D.-B. Kerler who disembarrassed me of my ignorance of Russian.
26 Lieberman, S., ‘A few words on the book by Julian the architect of Ascalon The laws of Palestine and its customs’, Tarbiz xl (1970–1971) 409 ff.Google Scholar (Hebrew with English summary). The English summary is reprinted in Lieberman, S., Texts and Studies (New York 1974) 309.Google Scholar
27 Lieberman (n. 26) 416 may be right in suggesting that such references to local customs may have been frequent in Julian's work but have been omitted by the excerptor.
28 Op. cit. (n. 26) 411 ff.
29 Lieberman, S., The Talmud of Caesarea: Jerushalmi Tractate Nezikin, Tarbiz Suppl. ii 4 (1931) (Hebrew).Google Scholar
30 Fenneberg, Ludwig Fenner v., Untersuchungen über die Längen- Feld- und Wegemaasse der Völker des Althertums insbesondere der Griechen und der Juden (Berlin 1859) 87 ff.Google Scholar It should be kept in mind that Fenneberg knew Julian's table only from the work of Harmenopulos.
31 τέταρτον in Dain's Tactica inedita is evidently a wrong expansion for δ (δακτύλους).
32 Hultsch, F., Griechische und römische Metrologie 2 (Berlin 1882) 437Google Scholar; cf. id., Metrologici scriptores (Leipzig 1864) 54 f.
33 E.g. Lehmann-Haupt, C. F., ‘Historisch-metrologische Forschungen 2: Die hebräischen Masse und das pheidonische System’, Klio xiv (1915) 345 ff.Google Scholar; Viedebannt (n. 4) 123 ff.; contra Oxé, A., ‘Die Masstafel des Julianus von Askalon’, Rhm cvi (1963) 263 ff.Google Scholar, who does not quarrel with the main proposition here under discussion, but insists on the use of the Babylonian-Persian system in Palestine.
34 Talmudic Concordances s.v. המא will provide all the necessary evidence; the most comprehensive for our subject is Scheftel, H. J., Erech Milin … for Coins, Measures, Weights etc2 (Berdichev 1907, repr. Tel-Aviv 1969) 11–19 (Hebrew).Google Scholar For a succinct survey see e.g. Krauss, S., Talmudische Archäologie ii (Leipzig 1911) 388 ff.Google Scholar
35 mKelim 17.10; bPesachim 86a.
36 cf. Böckh, A., Metrologische Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfüsse und Masse des Altertums in ihrem Zusammenhange (Berlin 1838) 270 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 It has been shown that the relationship expressed in fathoms is based on one in cubits. For the sake of convenience I shall speak of cubits, even though the text deals with fathoms.
38 Cf. Oxé (n. 33) 267.
39 Hultsch, Metrologie (n. 32) 349 ff.; 437 ff. Needless to say Hultsch's calculations, based as they are on the ratio of 100 : 112, should be disregarded.
40 W. Schneemelcher, s.v. Epiphanius von Salamis, RAC v. 917.
41 The Syriac text was first published by Lagarde, Paul de, Symmicta ii (Göttingen 1880), 150 ff.Google Scholar; it is available in an English translation by Dean, J. E., Epiphanius' treatise on weights and measures: the Syriac version (Stud. Anc. Or. Civ. xi), Chicago 1935.Google Scholar
42 Moutsoulas, E. D., ‘L’oeuvre d'Epiphane de Salamine “de mensuris et ponderibus” et son unité littéraire’, StudPatrxü (1971) 120.Google Scholar
43 Including myself, see ‘The revolt under Gallus and Julian and the rebuilding of the Temple’ in Baras, Z. et al ii (eds.), Eretz Israel from the destruction of the Second Temple to the Muslim conquest (Jerusalem 1982) 202 ff.Google Scholar (Hebrew).
44 Abel, F. M., ‘Chronique. I. Inscription grecque de I'Aqueduc de Jérusalem avec la figure du pied byzantin’, RB xxxv (1926) 284–8.Google Scholar
45 The foot was not a Jewish measure: see e.g. Hultsch, Metrologie (n. 32) 434 ff. The foot is never used as a unit of measurement in the Hebrew Bible or in Talmudic literature.
46 Dauphine, C., ‘A VIIth century measuring rod from the ecclesiastical farm at Shelomi in Western Galilee (Israel) (with one plate)’, JOeB xxxii, 3 (1982)Google Scholar = Akten, XVI Intern. Byz. Kongr. ii.3, 513–522. This seems to be the only whole Byzantine measuring rod discovered to date as well as the only one discovered in Palestine from any period.
47 For these measurements cf. Scott, R. B. Y., ‘The Hebrew cubit’, JBL lxxvii (1958) 205–214Google Scholar; id., ‘Postscript on the cubit’, JBL lxxix (1960) 368. Kaufman, A. S., ‘Determining the length of the medium cubit’, PEQ cxvi (1984) 120–132CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arrives at very similar results (446 mm for the standard cubit), but by far less reliable methods; see also Busing, G., ‘Metrologische Beiträge’, JDAI 97 (1982) 1 ff.Google Scholar
48 Epiph. de mens. 59, 69 Dean. He discusses the cubit of six hands at 69 f.
49 Ben-David, A., ‘The Hebrew-Phoenician cubit’, PEQ xc (1978) 27 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar should be disregarded.
50 For what follows I am indebted to Michael Vickers, who also enabled me to consult his forthcoming ‘Wandering stones: Venice, Constantinople and Athens’, Festschrift W. Heckscher.
51 On her life see Mango, C. and Ševčenko, I., ‘Remains of the Church of St. Polyeuktos at Constantinople’, DOP xv (1961) 244.Google Scholar
52 Harrison, R. M., Excavations at Saraçane in Istanbul i (Princeton 1986) 410CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., A temple for Byzantium. The discovery and excavation of Anicia Juliana's palace-church in Istanbul, (Austin 1989) 137 ff.
53 Diller (n. 5) 24 n. 16 has drawn attention to the fact that similar statements occur in schol. Lucian Icarom. 1, 99 Rabe.
54 See Xen. Anab. ii 2.6; v 5.4; vii 8.26. N.b. that all three passages have been bracketed by Krueger: this reference may be an argument in favour of authenticity.
55 The bibliography on the subject is enormous. The latest contribution known to me, which may also be consulted for some earlier bibliography, is Engels, D., ‘The length of Eratosthenes' stade’, AJP cvi (1985) 298 ff.Google Scholar
56 See Viedebannt, O., ‘Eratosthenes, Hipparchos, Poseidonios. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Erdmessungs-problems im Altertum’, Klio xiv (1915) 232 ff.Google Scholar; Oxé (n. 33) 269 ff.; Diller (n. 5) 24; Engels (n. 55) 299 n.3.
57 cf. Dilke, O. A. W., ‘Table ronde on Graeco-Roman cartography (Paris 1987)’, JRA i (1988) 89.Google Scholar
58 cf. Viedebannt (n. 56) 233; Oxé (n. 33) 269, Diller (n. 5) 24.
59 Regrettably nothing in the Nachleben of the authors mentioned in the various recensions of the text admits conclusions as to its date.
60 E.g. Jos. BJ vi 81ff; Martial iii 25.2; CIL xiii 10010.1063.
61 Three of these five chapters appear also in the Constantinople MS.
62 It is altogether unintelligible why Scheltema (n. 13) 360 has to discuss the point after having (correctly) asserted that the relevant passage did not form part of Julian's work.
63 This identification has been already suggested, perhaps overcautiously, by the late Dan, Y., The city in Eretz Israel during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (Jerusalem 1984) 182Google Scholar (Hebrew), an excellent work that deserves to be better known. The identification has been also made by van der Wal, N. and Lokin, J.H.A., Historiae iuris Graeco-romani delineario; les sources du droit byzantin de 300 à 1453 (Groningen 1985) 50Google Scholar, who also try to fix the date between September 531 and December 533. Their dating is based on the interpolated parts of the text. I am indebted for this reference to the kindness of Ranon Katzoff.
64 Most accessible in Hercher, Epistolographi 24 ff. or Gaza, Enea di, Epistole a cura di Lidia Massa Positano (Naples 1950)Google Scholar (with introduction, Italian translation and commentary). This Julian is duly registered as no. 16 in PLRE ii, where however no notice is taken of, and needless to say no identification is attempted with, Julian of Ascalon.
65 The distance between the two cities is approximately 22 km.
66 See Legier, E., ‘Essai de biographie d'Enée de Gaza’, Oriens Christiamis vii (1907) 349 ff.Google Scholar; Schemmel, F., Die Hochschule von Konstantinopel (Berlin 1912), 17.Google Scholar The absence of a formula appropriate to the dead in a reference to him in 514 by Zacharias Scholasticus does not seem to me sufficient evidence that he was still alive at the time, as Legier would have it. Nothing is gained by the fact that Aeneas' Theophrastus was composed prior to 534.
67 The dates of Aeneas are far from safe. If we put his birthdate at roughly 450 (as Legier [n. 66] would have it) we can put the date of birth of Julian between C. 420 and 480. It will be clear (cf previous n.) that these dates do not enable us to decide with certainty whether Julian composed his work before or after the codification of Justinian, though on chronological grounds the former possibility seems much more likely.
68 Lassus, J., Sanctuaires chrétiens de Syrie (Paris 1947), 257Google Scholar inscr. no. 1, 259 inscr. no. 9. See also a discussion of the building activities of Julian in Tchalenko, G., Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord (Paris 1953) i, 108 f.Google Scholar
69 This is an almost certain deduction from the text of the first inscription.
70 For an interest in the subject at approximately the same period see the Excerptum de qiiattuor elementis, printed at 127–8 of Mynors' edition of Cassiodorus. Cameron, A., Circus factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford 1976) 59Google Scholar; 64 discusses the writers who trace the colours of the factions to the four elements: note among them Malalas, p. 176 Bonn, approximately a contemporary of Julian of Ascalon.
71 See my ‘Greek Intellectuals from Ascalon’, Cathedra 60 (1991) 5–16 (Hebrew). For a list of intellectuals in Ascalon see Steph. Byz. s.v. and for a brief discussion e.g. Schürer, E., The history of the Jewish people in the age of Jesus Christ ii, ed. Vermes, G. and Millar, F. (Edinburgh 1979) 49.Google Scholar From later periods one may mention e.g. Ulpian the sophist, Zosimus and the important mathematician Eutocius, whose commentaries on Archimedes and Apollonius of Perge are extant.
72 This last reference would enhance the temptation to accept # 49 as genuine: in the discussion of laws governing the viewing of public pictures Achilles and Aiax are given as examples.
73 I am preparing, in collaboration with Rivkah Fishman-Duker, an edition, with introduction, English translation and notes, of the text of Julian.
