>N.b. 'infra' (adv.) (In this case a preposition.) >means 'below'; and a passage that exclusively follows >the course of the River Jordan and - here - of the Dead Sea, Actually, the text says this: >71 >Iordanes amnis oritur e fonte Paneade, qui cognomen dedit Caesareae, de >qua dicemus. amnis amoenus et, quatenus locorum situs patitur, ambitiosus >accolisque se praebens velut invitus Asphaltiten lacum dirum natura petit, >a quo postremo ebibitur aquasque laudatas perdit, pestilentibus mixtas. There is our north-south movement finished in Asphaltitis (let's go north again!). By this stage the writer has basically stopped talking about the Jordan, except for the following clause, which allows a smooth transition for a quick excursion to the sites around Gennesaret: >ergo ubi prima convallium fuit occasio, in lacum se fundti, quem plures >Genesarem vocant, XVI p. longitudinis, VI latitudinis, amoenis circumsaeptum >oppidis, ab oriente Iuliade et Hippo, a meridie Tarichea, (The location of Taricheae (Magdala) according to Pliny is south, whereas it should be north of Tiberias.) >quo nomine >aliqui et lacum appellant, ab occidente Tiberiade, aquis calidis salubri. It's interesting that the account doesn't deal with anything between Gennesaret and Asphaltitis. If one had a continuous account for a march down the valley one would expect it, Scythopolis or Pella, Coreae, Alexandrium or even Jericho. After returning to the Dead Sea, we go to the east of the sea: 72 >Asphaltites nihil praeter bitumen gignit, unde et nomen. nullum corpus >animalium recipit, tauri camelique fluitant; inde fama nihil in eo mergi. >longitudine excedit C p., latitudine maxima LXXV implet, minima VI. prospicit >eum ab oriente Arabia Nomadum, a meridie Machaerus, (This "a meridie" may be "south of" Arabia Nomadum. It was the point furthest south of the Jewish territory to the east.) >secunda quondam arx Iudaeae ab Hierosolymis. What interests me here is "quondam", "formerly" or "once", ie Machaerus is no longer the fortress it once was. Machaerus was destroyed by Gabinius and rebuilt by Herod and was in use up till the time it was destroyed again by the Romans (it was the task of Lucilius Bassus) towards the end of the Jewish War. If I understand quondam correctly here, it indicates that this information came from after the Jewish War. >eodem latere est calidus fons medicae >salubritatis Callirrhoe, aquarum gloriam ipso nomine praeferens. So the movement that follows across the sea is from east (Callirhoe) to west. >73 >Ab occidente And, as we arrive on the west side, there is no sense of a southward movement. >litora Esseni fugiunt usque qua nocent, ... ie the Essenes flee the coast(s), from that which is harmful. (It is after all the coast of Asphaltatis, which has already been made to seem not a nice place with words like "pestilentibus mixtas" in 5.71.) This naturally makes it pretty certain that we are not dealing with Qumran which is on the same coast from which the Essenes flee. This also means that we can do away with further down as we've gone inland, a point made clear by Solinus's description of "interiora iudaeae occidentum". >infra hos Engada oppidum fuit, secundum ab Hierosolymis fertilitate >palmetorumque nemoribus, nunc alterum bustum. inde Masada castellum in >rupe, et ipsum haut procul Asphaltite. et hactenus Iudaea est. Unlike a military march, this has been a tourist route guided by Pliny (although his sources may well have been military). He's covering all the sites he knows about (and he doesn't apparently know about any between the two seas). >is always to be >understood in the sense of 'suedlich von'. It might be worth while before making this comment to read the debate (in RB) I mentioned in an earlier post on the subject and you mightn't make such devil-may-care statements. Stephen, taking fewer risks, gives three different usages -- including yours. Moving "down" along a conducting geographical formation, a river, or a valley (though a sea wouldn't give such an idea), is a well-attested use of "infra" -- as is "below" when going toward the coast. So, umm, not "always". And given the constant use of cardinal points in this passage, one would naturally expect an "a meridie" if the writer were to be consistent, but as "infra" is being used it is probably indicating something else. >Otherwise one would expect a >specification like 'infra... ...inter septentriones et occasium solis >(spectans)', ie 'below... ... northwest of'. >And I don't believe that a German scholar of old ever went out into the >field without a military compass. This doesn't mean that he never got lost. It may just have confused him more. Ian For private reply, e-mail to "Ian Hutchesson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: "unsubscribe Orion." Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il.
