Aethicus

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Last page of a manuscript from the Cosmographia of "Aethicus" with a secret alphabet

Aethicus (often incorrectly Aethicus Ister ) is the fictional author of a travelogue that supposedly originated in antiquity . All that has survived is an early medieval text, the unknown author of which claims that it is a revised version of the work of Aethicus, originally written in ancient Greek , which has been translated into Latin and has the title "Description of the World" ( Cosmographia or, as the author uses it, Chosmografia ) sluggish. According to the prevailing view today, Latin cosmography originated in the 8th century. The circumstances of the creation as well as the identity, ethnicity and goals of the unknown author are controversial. What is certain is that the name Aethicus is fictitious and that the alleged ancient Greek travelogue never existed.

The cosmography

According to the title and the opening words, a priest by the name of Jerome - meaning the church father of that name, who lived in the 4th and early 5th centuries - wrote the work on the basis of the report of a traveler named Aethicus. Aethicus, who is known as Skythe and, according to fiction, lived in pre-Christian times, is said to have traveled to all countries and islands on earth between India and the Iberian Peninsula, from Africa to the far north. He is portrayed as a daring navigator and as the most important scholar of his time and is also said to have been an engineer and philosopher. The alleged editor “Hieronymus” also wants to give the impression of being critical of the descriptions of “Aethicus”, which he claims to reproduce and comment on; he warns against gullibility. However, this does not prevent him from spreading an abundance of fabulous material.

Content, sources and language

The cosmography begins with an illustration of the biblical creation story and then goes to describe the earth, the sea, the stars and astronomical phenomena about which the author is also a theory of volcanic activity presents. He regards the earth as a flat disk, the mainland is surrounded by the ocean. The hell and the biblical heaven , which is firmly connected to the ground, appearing as part of the material world. Hell, which is under the surface of the earth, consists of four parts, which correspond to the four cardinal points; purgatory forms the southern part . Then the author reports on the sometimes adventurous journeys of Aethicus. It starts with the islands in the extreme north and then goes to the south; then he turns to the west coast of Europe with its islands. He describes in detail the peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus , including the mythical Amazons , as well as Greece and the Balkans. He is particularly interested in the islands. He lets the legendary founder of Rome, King Romulus , successfully wage war against Francus and Vassus, alleged progenitors of the Franks . Then he goes back to Asia, choosing India as a starting point and turning west from there. Via Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria, it leads the reader to North Africa, where it progresses to Mauritania . He seems to know little about Italy and Gaul . A detailed catalog of largely imaginatively invented ship types has been inserted into the text as a foreign body. It concludes with a chapter on the origin of wind and water as well as a secret alphabet supposedly invented by Aethicus .

Some of the geographical names as well as names of people and peoples given by the author are completely unknown, while others are modifications and extensions of known words that are only attested here. He interspersed such enigmatic expressions not only in depicting exotic countries, but also in dealing with regions that were well known at the time, such as Greece and Asia Minor , where he invented islands and landscapes. These designations may come from his mother tongue, unknown to us, or have been distorted by oral tradition, but there is little doubt that he invented some names for the purpose of misleading gullible readers.

His handling of the sources he has determined so far also shows his intention to deceive the readers. By deliberately and arbitrarily modifying and alienating the information from his sources for no apparent reason, he tries to cover up his dependence on them and to pretend a mysterious scholarship. In addition, he occasionally cites famous authors for his inventions, for whom none of them can be found, and alleged sources that probably came from his imagination. First and foremost, he draws on the etymologies of Isidore of Seville . The other writings he consulted include De mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae by the Irishman Augustinus Hibernicus, the world history of Orosius and the Latin translation of the Revelationes of Pseudo-Methodius. He may also be familiar with the early Carolingian court historiography ( Liber historiae Francorum , Fredegar Chronicle, Historia Daretis Frigii ) and the Liber monstrorum . In numerous cases his relationship to sources allegedly used by him is unclear.

Since 2006, the speculative hypothesis, which was already considered in the 19th century, has been discussed that the author of the cosmography might have known the lost poem Orpheus by the ancient poet Lukan or at least a script containing quotations from Orpheus , because he cites a Lucanus who mentioned certain names of animal species.

The work moves on different levels of style. The allegedly literally translated passages by Aethicus are written in a particularly dark, sometimes hardly understandable Latin. The author assigns the blame for the confusion and incomprehensibility of his fictional source. The alleged paraphrases and commentaries by Jerome form the greater part of the work . Although they are based on the style of the church father - especially that of his letters - they are far removed from his cultivated Latin. They are not easy to read either.

All in all, cosmography is one of the most difficult Latin texts there is because of the highly idiosyncratic approach of the imaginative author to the language. In addition to the often confusing peculiarities in morphology and syntax, there are individual peculiarities and negligence, as well as a general tendency to intentionally obscure and make understanding more difficult. An abundance of newly formed words, some of which are derived from Greek and occasionally from Semitic roots, and some are pure fantasy products, create the appearance of mysterious knowledge and an exclusive education. In places the author shows bizarre humor, for example when playing around with names or in the excessive, obviously caricaturing use of alliteration .

Author, dating, text transmission

In 1854 it was proven that the church father had nothing to do with the text. One consequence of this insight was the realization that the Greek model is also an invention. Thus it turned out that the work is a double fiction: the text passages of "Aethicus" come from the same early medieval author as those of "Hieronymus".

Who the author - apparently a clergyman - was and what his aim was, is still unclear to this day, despite numerous investigations. There is agreement in the research that he did not really travel, but rather took all his information partly from the literature available to him, partly invented it or produced it by falsifying the information of his sources. His enthusiasm for Greek culture and his interest in the legends of Alexander the Great are striking . He had aversion to the Romans, Franks, Saxons and Irish.

Different explanations have been suggested:

  • According to a hypothesis by Heinz Löwe that is now considered refuted , the cosmography comes from the Irish bishop Virgilius von Salzburg († 784) and was written after 768. Virgilius wanted to covertly polemicize against an already deceased adversary, the famous missionary Bonifatius .
  • Kurt Hillkowitz also assumed an origin after 768. In his opinion, the unknown author came from Istria and lived in Bavaria.
  • Franz Brunhölzl dates cosmography to the second half of the 7th century. He relates the statement at the end of the work that the alleged Aethicus was a distinguished Skythe to the actual author and suspects that his original home is the Dobrudscha (an area in today's Romania ) and that he lived in Istria.
  • Otto Prinz considers Istria to be the author's homeland and believes that he came to the Franconian Empire as an immigrant. There he wrote his description of the world around the middle of the 8th century. Prince gives evidence that this may have happened at the Carolingian royal court.
  • Michael Herren suspects that the author came to Franconia at a young age, later lived in Ireland and England, and spent his old age in Bobbio Abbey in northern Italy. He had worked on cosmography for a long time and finally completed it soon after 727 in Bobbio. According to Herren, a satirical intention can be seen in some passages , gullibility and boastful erudition are targeted. Other parts of the text are meant seriously. For example, the claim at the end of cosmography that the term ethics is derived from the name of Aethicus speaks for a humorous background .

More than thirty partly incomplete manuscripts have survived. These textual witnesses and mentions in medieval library catalogs indicate the popularity of cosmography , which, however, fell sharply in the late Middle Ages.

Text output

  • Otto Prinz (ed.): The cosmography of Aethicus . Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich 1993 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Sources on the Spiritual History of the Middle Ages, Volume 14), ISBN 3-88612-074-0
  • Michael Herren (Ed.): The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister . Brepols, Turnhout 2011 ( Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin No. 8), ISBN 978-2-503-53577-7 (edition with translation and commentary)

literature

  • Ernst Hugo Berger : Aethicus . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 697-699.
  • Terence AM Bishop (Ed.): Aethici Istrici Cosmographia Vergilio Salisburgensi Rectius Adscripta. Codex Leidensis Scaligeranus 69 . North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1966 (photographic reproduction of a cosmography manuscript of the 10th century)
  • Dagmar Gottschall: Aethicus Ister . In: Author's Lexicon . 2nd edition, Volume 11, de Gruyter, Berlin 2004, Col. 22-26
  • Michael W. Herren: The 'Cosmography' of Aethicus Ister: Speculations about its date, provenance, and audience . In: Andreas Bihrer, Elisabeth Stein (eds.): Nova de veteribus . Saur, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-598-73015-2 , pp. 79-102
  • Kurt Hillkowitz: To the cosmography of the Aethicus . Part 1, Bonn 1934 (dissertation); Part 2, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1973
  • Kurt Smolak : Notes on Aethicus Ister . In: Filologia mediolatina . Volume 3, 1996, pp. 135-152
  • Ian N. Wood : Aethicus Ister: An exercise in difference . In: Walter Pohl, Helmut Reimitz (ed.): Limit and difference in the early Middle Ages . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2896-7 , pp. 197-208

Web links

Wikisource: Aethicus  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the incorrectness of the name addition Ister see Otto Prinz (Ed.): Die Kosmographie des Aethicus , Munich 1993, p. 1f.
  2. ↑ Otto Prinz (Ed.): Die Kosmographie des Aethicus , Munich 1993, pp. 14, 18.
  3. ↑ See also Heinz Löwe: Aethicus Ister and the old Turkish runic alphabet . In: Deutsches Archiv 32, 1976, pp. 1–21; Otto Prinz (Ed.): Die Kosmographie des Aethicus , Munich 1993, p. 78f.
  4. ↑ Otto Prinz (Ed.): Die Kosmographie des Aethicus , Munich 1993, p. 21f.
  5. ↑ Richard Matthew Pollard: Denuo on Lucan, the Orpheus and "Aethicus Ister" Nihil sub sole novelty . In: The Journal of Medieval Latin 20, 2010, pp. 58-69; see. Michael W. Herren (Ed.): The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister , Turnhout 2011, pp. XLIII – XLV.
  6. ↑ Otto Prinz (Ed.): Die Kosmographie des Aethicus , Munich 1993, p. 19.
  7. ^ Franz Brunhölzl: History of Latin Literature of the Middle Ages , Vol. 1, Munich 1975, p. 63.
  8. ↑ Heinz Löwe: A literary adversary of Bonifatius. Virgil von Salzburg and the cosmography of Aethicus Ister , Wiesbaden 1952; Heinz Löwe: Salzburg as the center of literary creation in the 8th century . In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde 115, 1975, pp. 114–143. See also Heinz Löwe: The Vacetae insolae and the origin of the cosmography of Aethicus Ister . In: Deutsches Archiv 31, 1975, pp. 1–16, where Leo considers dating before 768. Maartje Draak argues against the Virgilius hypothesis: Virgil of Salzburg versus Aethicus Ister . In: Dancwerc. Opstellen aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. D. Th. Enklaar , Groningen 1959, pp. 33-42.
  9. ^ Franz Brunhölzl: On the cosmography of Aethicus . In: Festschrift for Max Spindler on his 75th birthday , Munich 1969, pp. 75–89; Franz Brunhölzl: History of Latin Literature of the Middle Ages , Vol. 1, Munich 1975, p. 63f.
  10. ↑ Otto Prinz (Ed.): Die Kosmographie des Aethicus , Munich 1993, pp. 14-18, 44-52.
  11. ↑ Michael Herren (Ed.): The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister , Turnhout 2011, pp. LV – LXI, LXXVII.