Philip Graves wrote:The publication of the Teubner critical edition of Rhetorius, originally slated for 2007 (with pre-orders having been accepted by Amazon in the latter part of 2006), has now been postponed to July 2015, a date so far off into the future that I have to wonder what is going on at Walter de Gruyter (the publisher that inherited the project).
This points to problems with the source materials themselves. In Holden's Preface to his 3rd Edition (2005), he writes,
I had hoped that I would be able to read the few chapters that had not previously been edited and translate them. Unfortunately as mentioned above, MS 2425 is written in a miserable semi-cursive hand that sometimes degenerates into a mere scribble. Since I am not a trained paleographer, I have only been able to decipher a portion of the words in the MS. Consequently I have not been able to profit from it as much as I had hoped.
In the Preface to the 4th Edition (2009) Holden continues with,
Recently, Stephen Heilen has undertaken the laborious task of preparing for publication Pingree's edition of the Greek text of Rhetorius's Compendium as it is contained in Books 5 and 6 of MS 2425. . . . Therefore, the present translation of Chapters 1-118 is now complete. However, it does not reflect other changes that Pingree [deceased - Dave] may have made in his edition of the earlier Chapters, since I have not yet seen the complete edition being prepared by Heilen, which is expected to be published in the latter half of 2009.
Which, as Philip has now told us, is not scheduled to come to pass for some time.
Different sorts of problems seem to have delayed the Anthologies of Vettius Valens, Mark Riley's translation of which I will publish later this year. The language in the book is sophisticated and I believe has eluded amateur astrological translators. On the other hand, the sheer complexity of the many astrological techniques overwhelm translators - as well as all astrologers, frankly. The result is very nearly incomprehensible. There are a great many tiny details that you must note and remember that turn up without warning many books later. In the Riley edition there will be certain problems with language. Where Helenists use "bounds", Riley used houseruler, which I rendered as house ruler. I queried Riley once or twice about specific terms. His answer always was that he was translating what was in front of him. Which makes me wonder where "bounds" came from.
It's also clear that an ideology is being imposed on Greek texts. "Greeks used this kind of equal houses," for example. Well, no, they didn't. The school in Alexandria might have, but Valens, who turns out to have been born in the Ukraine and who lived in the Crimea, did not. At 45 degrees north, you really need an MC.
And it wasn't hard to get a midheaven: Any sundial will mark noon with great precision. In fact, with tables set for your klima, if your sundial is big enough, you can read the ascendant degree directly from the gnomon's shadow. Nor was it hard to trisect the arc from MC to Asc, as Valens explicitly says to do. Which are Porphyry cusps. Valens backs that up with Alcabitius houses, in other words, the time it takes a sign to rise. This was based on the work of Hypsicles (2nd century BC) who worked out the rising times in a 360 degree day. Valens gives his rising times in this system, which results in mysterious "20 minute rising" for various signs. He presumes you know this system, he presumes you know that each of these "minutes" are equal to four ordinary ones. On the other hand, and what intrigues me, is that "Hypsicles units" are more or less equal to degrees of right ascension. Hypsicles might be set for a comeback.
There are puzzles in Book 8 of the Anthologies that still elude me, even after constructing two of the tables. I need to construct the hidden table of rising times (from Book 1) and then see if I can puzzle out a missing third table from Book 8.
Which are some of the reasons why these books can be so hard to publish.
Dave Roell