Disputatio:Sacra Eleusinia

De arcanis

Mihi videtur "arcana Eleusina" rarius audiuntur, saepius "sacra Eleusinia" aut "mysteria Eleusinia". Alii quid dicunt?

Pro "sacris Eleusiniis" duos fontes antiquos addidi. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:25, 5 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Quin igitur ex his fontibus antiquis hauriamus? Si usum antiquorum respiciamus, titulus iustus sacra Eleusinia sit. Mysteria Eleusina, quod Graecum Ἐλευσίνια μυστήρια Latine reddere tendit, spurium esse videtur, quippe quod Eleusina pro Eleusinia habeat. Neander (disputatio) 23:10, 12 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Neander, thanks for your emendations, which always prove useful for study. Please continue! A couple of points:

1. I used the adjective Eleusinus, -a, -um because that's the (only) adjectival form given in Cassell's, and it's well attested.

2. For English counterpart (your cognatio), I used res simillima because that's what Cassell's advises. Is there a danger that someone will understand cognatio to mean 'cognate'?

Yes, there certainly is. I must say that I'm not sure what "counterpart" is supposed to mean in the present context. My translation was based on the belief that the alleged similarity was presented as an etymological speculation. Basically, it'd be bad methodology to connect etymologically words the similarity of which consists in a lambda at the onset of the second syllable. But if the "counterpartness" of the words mentioned isn't of etymological nature, what is it? Personally, I find it rather idle to point out the these words are similar in some respects. To me, the only similarity between those words is that they're all supposed to be of Pre-Greek provenience. Neander (disputatio) 23:52, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Cassell's is incomplete, then: "Eleusinius" is well attested in classical texts according to Oxford Latin Dictionary and Lewis & Short. Several phrases can be found, but in classical prose the oldest precise equivalent for what we want, according to OLD, is "sacra Eleusinia" apud Suetonium. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:40, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Suetonius doesn't antedate Vergil !!! IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:08, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Cassell's doesn't pretend to be "complete": quite the opposite: it pretends to serve "as an aid to Latin Prose composition, by which is meant the conversion of English prose of various styles and periods into Latin prose of a 'classical' type" (p. ix). In other words, what has been presented has been presented, and what has been omitted has been omitted, For Our Own Good. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:08, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

So on those terms, too, it failed. But it's probably a very good book most of the time!

Its time was 1968. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:11, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Vergil isn't classical prose, and I don't believe he supplies any phrase that is a precise equivalent of "Eleusinian mysteries". I believe I was right in saying that Suetonius's is the first. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:28, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

The hexameter is: "tardaque Eleusinae matris volventia plaustra" (Georgica, I.163). Eleusiniae would ruin the meter, but then so would (and maybe does) the famously problematic Laviniaque (Aeneis, I.2). IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:11, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

To sum up, the set phrase that we find in classical Latin is "sacra Eleusinia" (or in the ablative "sacris Eleusinis"). Cicero's "sacra Cereris" is nice but it might refer to any rites of Demeter or Ceres, not just the ones at Eleusis. Ampelius gives us not a set phrase but two juxtaposed words (whose exact form is uncertain anyway). The other possible terms seem to belong to recent Latin. So we should, as we usually do, prefer the classical term and move to "Sacra Eleusinia". Am I right? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:16, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Since no one objected, I'll make the move. But nothing's final on Wikipedia! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:34, 26 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Also ...

I moved this from above. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:56, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Also: generally in recounting the plots of myths & fables, English prefers the present tense, but the account in the English wiki uses the past tense. Do people have an opinion on that? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:23, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised by what you say about English: the present tense doesn't strike me as normal usage at all! But, anyway, we're writing Latin here. Latin surely uses past tenses for a mythological narrative, as for a historical one. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:56, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Ampelius

Your emendation of footnote 2 may be over-confident, Iacobe. The form "misteria Eleusinae" (meaning, I suppose, "mysteries at Eleusis": genitive or locative from a nominative "Eleusina") is accepted in the Oxford Latin Dictionary as well as in the text used on line here, so it pretty clearly isn't a mere error. Perhaps more likely the form given by Beck in the 1826 edition that you found was his or somebody else's emendation. Do you mind if I adjust the footnote? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:41, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Anybody can edit anything! If the Latin Library version were an edition of Beck's Ampelius, then the Latin Library would be nothing but wrong; however, if it's editing an earlier manuscript, who knows?—especially when no authoritative manuscript seems to be extant. Wikipedia says the MS from which the editio princeps was made is lost. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:11, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

The edition by Beck has been superseded by at least four more recent ones as enumerated here. Which of these they used at The Latin Library is perhaps not vouchsafed us, but the Oxford Latin Dictionary cites from the Teubner edition by Assmann (1935). Bill Thayer (at the link I just gave) used the edition by Wölfflin (1854) and has the spelling "mysteria Eleusine": if he typed correctly, there we have a third interpretation of the editio princeps and the lost manuscript. You and I can hardly presume to say which of these may be the false reading. So I will now add neutrality to the note. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:57, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

I removed the citation of Ampelius (here it is ) because (1) reading the whole sentence shows that these are two words that happen to come together, not a phrase meaning "Eleusinian mysteries"; (2) since the text is so uncertain it can't help us much in deciding the terminology. If I decided wrongly, it can simply be put back again :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:46, 26 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Greek name

Iacobe, why did you change the Greek spelling? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:38, 14 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Ελευσίνα μυστήρια is apparently attested in Greek-language contexts of the past two centuries, including Lexikon tēs Hellēnikēs glōssēs tritomon (1837):

"5. χαί (ν Νέμ. 10. 63. χαλοΰνται τα' Παναθήναια «τελεταί Αθηναίων" ' παρ' ΊοΌχράτ. Πανηγυρ »τελετηι< τα' χχτ' "Ελευσίνα μυστήρια.» Κχί έντευ.}»» ό Άθη'». έ» β'."

That passage begins on line 7 of p. 249 (which Google seems to call p. 254). Granted, modern attestations of Ελευσίνια μυστήρια are far more numerous. One wonders whether this is a Katharevousa-versus-Dimotiki thing, and if so, which form is which. Vicipaedia would presumably want to favor the former. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:35, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Modern Greek ("Neograece") isn't relevant to this: let the Greek wikipedia worry about it. (It uses Ελευσίνια Μυστήρια incidentally.)

We're interested in ancient Greek ("Graece"), since this is an ancient Greek rite. In ancient Greek the form "Ελευσίνα" is unattested, I believe. You might like to know that you can't normally change the last few syllables of an ancient Greek word without giving some thought to the accentuation -- so the un-footnoted change stuck out like a sore thumb :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:41, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Ελευσίνα and Ελευσίνια would appear to have the same accentuation. :) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:51, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's what stuck out.

I'm really very happy that you found the line you're citing above in the facsimile text, because the OCR is nonsense. Thank you very much for that! Well, in fact the tiny Greek text says "τὰ κατ' Ἐλευσῖνα μυστήρια", which is a perfectly good expression, but you can't take the first two words away from it: it means literally "the mysteries down at Eleusis". Ἐλευσῖνα is the accusative of the place-name Eleusis. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:23, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

Date of origin

"Etiam memoriae traditum est cultum Demetris anno 1500 a.C.n. institutum fuisse." Mylonas is quoted in the footnote as saying "in the 15th century BC", not "in the year 1500 BC", so the sentence would need altering. But, even at that, Mylonas had his fingers crossed behind his back (like Cahuzac more recently). There is no such traditional dating, surely. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:57, 16 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)

I have now taken this sentence out, along with its footnote. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:51, 26 Aprilis 2013 (UTC)