Scythica Vindobonensia
♦ ♦ ♦ Scholarship ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ The Scythica Vindobonensia alias Dexippus Vindobonensis were discovered during a research project of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Byzanzforschung), which focused on Greek palimpsests of the Austrian National Library (ANL) in Vienna and was led by Otto Kresten. In 2008/2009 (after a series of systematic examinations, which started 2007), Jana Grusková identified the scriptura inferior of the palimpsest leaves 192r–195v of the Codex Vindobonensis historicus gr. 73 as remains of an ancient text, probably coming from Dexippus’ Scythica. In her book on Greek palimpsests of the ANL, Grusková published a work-in-progress transcription of one page (fol. 195r) and announced the intention to further examine the text (see Untersuchungen, 2010, 51–53).
♦ In 2012, the FWF project "Important textual witnesses in Vienna Greek palimpsests" started, which was hosted by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Byzanzforschung), with Otto Kresten as project leader. Its objective was to examine – among other valuable palimpsests of the ANL – the Scythica Vindobonensia (see GLO 2012, 75-77). Jana Grusková together with Gunther Martin, a specialist on Dexippus (see Dexipp von Athen, 2006), deciphered 60% of the palimpsest and examined the new text. Cutting-edge methods of digital recovery of erased writings were applied to make the original manuscript visible. The decipherment of the faint surviving traces of the erased text, which is concealed by another script (a so-called palimpsest), proved to be very difficult. Considering the importance of the new evidence on the one hand, and the long-lasting process of recovering the text on the other, Martin and Grusková decided to make their results available at a preliminary stage. In the spring of 2014, they published a preliminary transcription of four pages.
- Fol. 192v+193r: G. Martin – J. Grusková, ‚Dexippus Vindobonensis (?)‘. Ein neues Handschriftenfragment zum sog. Herulereinfall der Jahre 267/268. Wiener Studien 127 (2014) 101–120 (mit Abb. 1–4) (for important corrigenda on the date etc. see Grusková – Martin, Tyche 29, 2014, 38–39; Tyche 30, 2015, fn. 2, and, in more details, J. Grusková – G. Martin, Rückkehr zu den Thermopylen, Mommsen-Tagung 2014, Stuttgart 2017, 267–281)
- Fol. 194v, 195r: G. Martin – J. Grusková, ‚Scythica Vindobonensia‘ by Dexippus (?): New Fragments on Decius’ Gothic Wars. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 54 (2014) 728–754 (with Figg. 1–4)
♦ In 2013, Laura Mecella included the text of fol. 195r published by Jana Grusková to her new edition of Dexippus (see Dexippo di Atene, 2013).
♦ The text on fols. 192v, 193r, 194v, and 195r was the object of an international workshop organized in Vienna on 20–22 June 2014 by Fritz Mitthof (Dep. of Ancient History) and Herbert Bannert (Dep. of Classical Philology) of the University of Vienna and Jana Grusková and Gunther Martin on behalf of the above-mentioned project of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The new evidence was discussed by experts on ancient and Gothic history and classical philology. The Scythica Vindobonensia were declared to be of great importance for our understanding of the history of the 3rd century AD, and for many other aspects of Greek, Roman, Gothic/Early German and Byzantine history. Their contribution to the classical literature was emphasized. Grusková and Martin continued to work on the deciphering of the Vienna fragments. In due course, they published a preliminary transcription of two other (only partly legible) pages, fols. 194r and 195v.
- Fol. 194r: J. Grusková – G. Martin, Ein neues Textstück aus den "Scythica Vindobonensia" zu den Ereignissen nach der Eroberung von Philippopolis. Tyche 29 (2014) 29–43 (mit Tafeln 12–15)
- Fol. 195v: J. Grusková – G. Martin, Zum Angriff der Goten unter Kniva auf eine thrakische Stadt (Scythica Vindobonensia, f. 195v). Tyche 30 (2015) 35–53 (Tafeln 9–11)
Some additional observations concerning the decipherment and reconstruction of the Scythica Vindobonensia, including important corrigenda, were published by the two editors in the proceedings of the Mommsen-Tagung 2014 (see J. Grusková – G. Martin, Rückkehr zu den Thermopylen, Mommsen-Tagung in Wuppertal 2014, Stuttgart 2017, 267–281).
♦ Based on the preliminary transcription of the six above-mentioned pages published by Martin and Grusková in 2014 and 2015, other scholars provided important contributions focusing on various aspects of the new evidence: Herwig Wolfram, David Potter, Olivier Gengler, Bruno Bleckmann, Ioan Piso, Christopher Jones, Christopher Mallan, Caillan Davenport, Laura Mecella, Carlo Lucarini, Giuseppe Zecchini, Fritz Mitthof, Dilyana Boteva, Amphilochios Papathomas, Herbert Bannert, Peter Schreiner, Roland Steinacher, Kai Brodersen, and many others (see the bibliography below).
♦ Martin and Grusková continued deciphering and examining the text and working towards the ultimate goal of preparing a critical edition (editio princeps) of the Vienna fragments with a philological and historical commentary (see below).
♦ In order to reveal the remaining (still illegible) 40% of the erased writing and prepare a critical and commented edition as well as to further explore the Vienna fragments in their contexts, Kresten, Grusková and Martin together Fritz Mitthof, a specialist in Ancient history, applied to the FWF for new funding at the end of 2014. The project "Scythica Vindobonensia" started in 2015. It was led by Fritz Mitthof and Otto Kresten and conducted at both the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Additional state-of-the-art methods, also including XRF element mapping, were applied to make the previously illegible parts of the palimpsest legible. The first results were published in 2017.
♦ The project "Scythica Vindobonensia" also dealt with exploring the Vienna fragments in their historical and historiographical contexts. Extended studies on selected historical, prosopographical, epigraphical and geographical aspects were published by Fritz Mitthof and Olivier Gengler. An international conference "Empire in crisis: Gothic invasions and Roman historiography" was organized on 3 to 6 May 2017 in Vienna, which led to the publication of a volume of its proceedings (Wien 2020, TYCHE Supplementband 12, Holzhausen Verlag). The volume unites a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary contributions on invasions of Goths and other Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire, focusing primarily on the 3rd century AD. The contributions explore the Scythica Vindobonensia in their contexts, from the Roman to the Byzantine Era, and the history of the invasions themselves.
♦ Another goal of the project has been to study in detail various aspects of palaeography, codicology and book history of the palimpsest in the Codex Vind. hist. gr. 73. Leading specialists in Greek palaeography – Giuseppe De Gregorio, Ernst Gamillscheg, Otto Kresten, Brigitte Mondrain and Nigel Wilson (listed in alphabetical order) – were brought in to discuss and settle the problematic issues. A Colloquium of these experts and the two editors, Jana Grusková and Gunther Martin, took place on 7–8 May 2017 at the Austrian National Library and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Division of Byzantine Research) in Vienna.
♦ At the end of 2017, fast scanning XRF element mapping was performed on the Vienna palimpsest of the Scythica Vindobonensia at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg with Leif Glaser as the principal investigator (Project I-20170505 EC, project leader: Jana Grusková). The costs of the trip of the valuable manuscript from Vienna to DESY in Hamburg were covered from the Holzhausen-Legat of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (project leader: Fritz Mitthof).
In the past years, Grusková and Martin, the two editors of the Scythica Vindobonensia, and the image scientists assembled by EMEL Roger L. Easton, Jr., and Keith T. Knox have been intensively working on the image data, trying to "excavate" characters illegible so far. Based on the images which resulted from these efforts, Grusková and Martin have been able to decipher and examine several new lines. The two editors will publish a paper on the new passage in due course:
♦ From the very beginning, Gunther Martin and Jana Gruskováhave been working towards the ultimate goal of preparing a critical edition (editio princeps) of the Scythica Vindobonensia alias Dexippus Vindobonensis, including a comprehensive commentary on the text and extended studies on the authorship, the language and style etc. This edition will be published as soon as the complex process of digital recovery and the decipherment of the Vienna fragments have been completed and the new-revealed passages have been examined.
Publications on the Scythica Vindobonensia alias Dexippus Vindobonensis (in chronological order)
See also the list of publications in the volume "Empire in Crisis", 2020, pp. 565–570.
- G. Martin - J. Grusková, Facing the Plague and the Goths: A New Passage from the Scythica Vindobonensia (Codex Vindobonensis hist. gr. 73, fol. 192r, lines 13–30). Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 62/4 (2022) 437–493.
- H. Wolfram, Die Anfänge der Goten und die Scythica Vindobonensia. Zur Debatte. Sonderheft zur Ausgabe 4/2020, 2–5
- Empire in Crisis: Gothic Invasions and Roman Historiography. Beiträge einer internationalen Tagung zu den Wiener Dexipp-Fragmenten (Dexippus Vindobonensis), Wien, 3.–6. Mai 2017. Hrsg. von F. Mitthof – G. Martin – J. Grusková (Tyche Supplementband 12). Wien 2020
- J. Grusková – G. Martin – (mit einer Vorbemerkung von) O. Kresten, „Scythica Vindobonensia“: Geschichte und Ausblick. Geistes-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 153, 2018 (2019) 69–92
- D. Potter, Decius and Valerian, in: D.W.P. Burgersdejk / A.J. Ross (Hg.), Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire, Leiden / Boston 2018, 18–38
- R. Rollinger / J. W. G. Schropp, Exercitus Romanus ad Thermopylas? Zu f. 194r Z. 1–16 im neuen Dexipp, in: K. Ruffing / K. Droß-Krüpe (Hg.), Emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est. Studien zur Wirtschafts-, Sozial-, Rezeptions- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Antike. Festschrift für Hans-Joachim Drexhage zum 70. Geburtstag (Philippika. Marburger altertumskundliche Abhandlungen 125), Wiesbaden 2018, 429–438
- W. Eck, Marianus, vice agens proconsulis Achaiae, im Dexippus Vindobonensis. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 208 (2018) 248–250
- I. Piso, Das verhängnisvolle Jahr 262 und die amissio Daciae, in: L. Vagalinski / M. Raycheva / D. Boteva / N. Sharankov (eds.), Proceedings of the First International Roman and Late Antique Thrace Conference “Cities, Territories and Identities” (Bulletin of the National Archaeological Institute, XLIV), Sofia (2018) 427–440
- M. Emion, Des soldats de l’armée romaine tardive : les protectores (IIIe-VIe siècles ap. J.-C.). Histoire. Thèse de doctorat, Normandie Université 2017 (21 März), zugänglich unter: https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01740232
- H. Wolfram, Ostrogotha – ein mythischer Amaler erhält zumindest einen historischen Namensvetter. Lebenswelten zwischen Archäologie und Geschichte, in: Fs. Falko Daim (Monographien des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 150). Mainz 2018, 447–457
- A. Hostein, Note sur les dariques de Cniva (Dexippus Vindobonensis) et autres curiosités ‘barbares’. Revue Numismatique (2017) 37–64
- S. Rendina, Review on "L. Mecella (ed.), Dexippo di Atene: testimonianze e frammenti, Tivoli 2013". Athenaeum 105/2 (2017) 831–836
- J. Grusková – G. Martin, Neugelesener Text im Wiener Dexipp-Palimpsest (Scythica Vindobonensia, f. 195v, Z. 6–10) mit Hilfe der Röntgenfluoreszenzanalyse. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 204 (2017) 40–46
- R. Steinacher, Rom und die Barbaren: Völker im Alpen- und Donauraum (300–600). Stuttgart 2017, 52–61, 213–215
- G. Zecchini, Il nuovo Dexippo e l’Historia Augusta, in: Historiae Augustae Colloquium Dusseldorpiense, hrsg. von B. Bleckmann und H. Brandt. Bari 2017, 189–196
- G. Martin, Die Struktur von Dexipps Skythika und die Historia Augusta, in: Historiae Augustae Colloquium Dusseldorpiense, hrsg. von B. Bleckmann und H. Brandt. Bari 2017, 97–114
- J. Grusková – G. Martin, Rückkehr zu den Thermopylen: Die Fortsetzung einer Erfolgsgeschichte in den neuen Fragmenten Dexipps von Athen, in: Das dritte Jahrhundert. Kontinuitäten, Brüche, Übergänge. Hrsg. von A. Eich, S. Freund, M. Rühl und Ch. Schubert (Ergebnisse der Mommsen-Tagung in Wuppertal 2014). Stuttgart 2017, 267–281
- U. Hartmann, Review on "B. Bleckmann – J. Gross, Historiker der Reichskrise des 3. Jahrhunderts I. Ediert, übersetzt und kommentiert von Bruno Bleckmann und Jonathan Gross (= Kleine und fragmentarische Historiker der Spätantike A 1–4 und 6–8). Paderborn 2016". H-Soz-Kult, 5. 12. 2016
- D. Potter, War as Theater, from Tacitus to Dexippus, in: W. Riess and G. G. Fagan, The Topography of Violence in the Greco-Roman World. Ann Arbor 2016, 325–348
- O. Gengler, Johannes Malalas und seine Quellen: Überlegungen zum Fall Philostratos (Malalas XII 26), in: Juhász, Erika (Hrsg.), Byzanz und das Abendland IV. Studia Byzantino-Occidentalia (Antiquitas - Byzantium - Renascentia XXI. Bibliotheca Byzantina 4), Budapest 2016, 79–89
- O. Gengler, Review on "Laura Mecella, Dexippo di Atene. Testimonianze e frammenti. Roma 2013". Anabases 23 (2016) 325–327
- B. Bleckmann – J. Gross, Historiker der Reichskrise des 3. Jahrhunderts I. Ediert, übersetzt und kommentiert von Bruno Bleckmann und Jonathan Gross (= Kleine und fragmentarische Historiker der Spätantike A 1–4 und 6–8). Paderborn 2016
- C. M. Lucarini, Zum neuen Dexipp, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 197 (2016) 42–45
- B. Bleckmann, Südosteuropa im III. und IV. Jahrhundert – ereignisgeschichtlicher Teil, in: Online-Handbuch zur Geschichte Südosteuropas
- Ch. P. Jones, Further Fragments of Dexippus (2), online unter: https://www.academia.edu/26199041/Further_Dexippus_2_
- J. Grusková – G. Martin, Zum Angriff der Goten unter Kniva auf eine thrakische Stadt (Scythica Vindobonensia, f. 195v). Tyche 30 (2015) 35–53 (Tafeln 9–11) (doi http://dx.doi.org/10.15661/tyche.2015.030.06)
- I. Piso, Bemerkungen zu Dexippos Vindobonenesis (I). Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 18 (2015) 199–215
- Ch. P. Jones, Further Fragments of Dexippus, online unter: https://www.academia.edu/11913736/Further_Dexippus (abgerufen am 24.08.2015)
- Ch. Mallan – C. Davenport, Dexippus and the Gothic Invasions: Interpreting the New Vienna Fragment (Codex Vindobonensis Hist. gr. 73, ff. 192v–193r). Journal of Roman Studies 105 (2015) 203–226 (First view published online on 10 August 2015)
- J. Grusková – G. Martin, Ein neues Textstück aus den "Scythica Vindobonensia" zu den Ereignissen nach der Eroberung von Philippopolis. Tyche 29 (2014) 29–43 (mit Tafeln 12–15) (doi)
- O. Hekster, Een andere slag bij Thermopylae (267/268), in: F. Meijer, H. van Dolen, O. Hekster (Hgg.), Te wapen! Acht spraakmakende slagen uit de oudheid, Amsterdam 2015, 64–75
- Ch. P. Jones, The New Dexippus, online unter: www.academia.edu/11913736/ im August 2014 veröffentlicht
- G. Martin – J. Grusková, ‚Scythica Vindobonensia‘ by Dexippus (?): New Fragments on Decius’ Gothic Wars. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 54 (2014) 728–754 (with Figg. 1–4)
- G. Martin – J. Grusková, ‚Dexippus Vindobonensis (?)‘. Ein neues Handschriftenfragment zum sog. Herulereinfall der Jahre 267/268. Wiener Studien 127 (2014) 101–120 (mit Abb. 1–4) (with Corrigenda on the dating and major characters published for the first time in Grusková / Martin, Tyche 29, 2014, 38–39; see also Tyche 30, 2015, fn. 2; for more details see J. Grusková – G. Martin, Rückkehr zu den Thermopylen, Mommsen-Tagung 2014, Stuttgart 2017)
- L. Mecella, Dexippo di Atene. Testimonianze e frammenti. Tivoli (Roma) 2013, 106, 535–536
- J. Grusková, Further Steps in Revealing, Editing and Analysing Important Ancient Greek and Byzantine Texts Hidden in Palimpsests. Graecolatina et Orientalia 33–34 (2012) 69–82 (75–77)
- J. Grusková, Untersuchungen zu den griechischen Palimpsesten der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek. Codices Historici, Codices Philosophici et Philologici, Codices Iuridici. Wien: Verlag der ÖAW 2010, 42–53 (mit Literatur), 179–181 (Abb. 7–9)