Saturday, March 28, 2020

Aventinus on why God lets the Turks defeat the Christians -- Part 1 and 2

Among his smaller writings is a pamphlet in which Johannes Aventinus (Turmeyr) reports on his musing about why God allows for the Turks to defeat the Christians and what the Christians can do in the face of so much suffering.

Aventinus notes that his thinking began with the death of Ludwig, King of Hungary and Bohemia, on the battlefield of Mohacs (though he cites the event, not the locale) [172] but that the context of publication is the Turkish emperor besieging Vienna in 1529. Aventinus complains that he had warned people in high places of the impending dangers but had been ignored due to the unpopularity of his message (depicting the truth as a coarse farmer's wife that cannot bribe and speak after people's wishes) [172]. Similarly, the emperors, Friedrich II, Henry VII, Sigismund and Maximillian had written against the problems with the estates and the popes, but no one seems to read them [173]. Aventinus could have ignored these warnings as well, but his friends E.W. (Ernst and Wilhelm, the dukes of Bavaria?) pressed him, given how the present danger of the Turks in Austria makes the matter urgent ("the water is reaching the mouth"), and so he composed the pamphlet in four parts [173]. The first will explain the causes, the second the indicators for worst parts to come, the third what the Ancients---Christians, Jews and Pagans had done---and the fourth proposes reforms that will prevent this from happening in the future [174].
Christ alone is the throne of grace, powerful, self-ruling lord in heaven, hell and on earth, the eternal, just, natural pope and emperor, our doctor, salvation and justice; .... [174]

Part I 

Aventinus [175] discusses the great abuses of the masters, of the Church and of the world, that lead to this calamity. Because God is merciful, He would not be punishing Christianity if there was not a reason [175]. Concilia and Diets have not figured out why the Turks have grown so strong [175];  the Knights of St-John wrote to the emperor when Rhodos was under attack, that the Turkish Sultan was not afraid of the Empire, much less the Germans, because they are divide, focused on physical pleasures, cannot tell top from bottom and practice no justice [176]. And since, as Aristotle argued, all things in nature are naturally good [177], it must be the government that is the problem. Aventinus reminds his readers that even the pagans know that the love of money, avarice and the own advantage is a source of injustice [177]. The rapacity of the bureaucracies and the knavery of the judges amplifies this and was the death of the Roman empire [177]. Even worse than the unfair and impatient prince is the money fool ("geltnarr"), who only focuses on increasing his profit while showing neither mercy nor understanding for the lower orders [178]. Even the pagans handle this situation of the poor being oppressed by the rich better [179], how the office holders steal from the rulers even:
The office holders grow rich; the rulers rot away together with the lands and their people. [180]
Vox populi vox Dei is here taken to mean that the protest of the poor is the accusation of God [180]. Aventinus includes the hanseatic organizations in these, and how the money-fools press the last bit of bloods from everyone else [180], worse than any tyrant in the history of the world. They think themselves to be good Christians but are not even good pagans [181]. Since bringing life is the hard part, not bringing death, God cannot be react or He would stop being God [181].
If you punish the heretics, why do you not punish the bishops, pastors and the monks? [181]
Aventinus now refers to Maximillian's pamphlet against the German estates, calling himself a king of kings, because all of the rules of Germany want to be their own master and do not suffer the emperor [182]; the money fools take it from everyone and no one pursues unity. This is the core of the problem (though coin, toll and customs association could be mentioned as well, since they weigh down the people and anger God) [182].

But the Christian and the Jewish authors teach, that such abuse has its root in the wrong worship of and service to God [183]. God is infuriated and he uses one people to punish another:
Always one people has to punish another, eliminate and exterminate them [183]
The one form of this blasphemy is to exhibit outwardly proper religious behavior and long prayers while stealing from the widows and stiffing the poor [183]. This is especially galling in the case of the barfeeted monks [183], who sell their prayers and will end up like the stupid virgins, without any [184]. Aventinus sees the mendicant orders as the source of much of this, and compares the light of their churches to the darkness of their hearts [184]. Mendicant orders are like whore houses and equally forbidden by God [184]. They take and never give and the preaching orders are no better [185]. And the female orders are worse than the Amazons attacking the Greeks ever were; did StPaul and StJerome not say that the women should be quiet in church and not sing loudly? [186] And the auxiliary bishops (Weihbischof) the same, who pay for the bishopric of a far-off land that the Turk now controls, swear to go there and preach but never mean that, perjuring themselves? [187] This was the kind of thing that the reformation of Emperor Sigismund was planning to fix [187]. Aventinus compares the pastors unfavorably to the Good Shepherd, who are unwilling to sacrifice anything for their sheep.
They take leave of absence, eat the sin and drink the evil of mankind, preach nothing, do not earn a farthing, place vicars like themselves over the poor, don't inquire into the salvation of the poor people. [187]
The religious lords were supposed to be poor but now they are rich:
It was forbidden that bishops, prelates and clergy own any worldly good, no churches nor feudal estates, to pull toward them, had to get by on the Tenth. ... Now they own cities, markets and castles, and do not want to do anything for it. [188]
The once who have to support this are the poor, and Aventinus again points to Emperor Sigismund's reformation [188]. Now, with the Turks near Vienna again and threatening Bavaria, people still refuse to see the signs and recognize that God is getting ready to punish them for their sins [188].

The other blasphemy [189] is the way in which both clergy and laymen live openly in violation of the laws of God [189]---but especially the clergy, who will not marry but practice whoring, will not be honorable but are traitors and knaves. Again Aventinus refers to Emperor Sigismund's attempts of reform in the face of such simony that put them into imperial banishment in the empire of God [189]. For anyone who wants to live in agreement with the word of God, they are the worst traitors [190]. If their deeds happen without intent, they lack diligence, if they happen on purpose, they are knaves of the worst kind [191]. Adultery, weakening the virgins and abusing the widows, those are worse crimes than thievery in the eyes of God, but the only thieving that is punished is that of the poor, and the highers ones simply add it to their pile [191]. David was punished for his adultery, and Troy destroyed over adultery [192]. It would be better to have no order at all than one that is not enforced [192]. Even if by now all have fallen short, the only way to remedy the matter is to start at the head, because once the head is cured, the whole body will already be doing better [193]. A concilium needs to take place [193], as Pope Hadrian allowed at the last Diet, and as Emperor Maximilian I had demanded in his writings against Pope Julian [193].
 But the Pope fears a free concilium of the church like the devil fears holy water .... [194]
And Constanz and Basel have shown them that this is where popes are removed from office [194]. In the face of all these pointless consultations, the Turks say [195]:
The Christians consult much and have many diets, in the mean time I conquer land and people. [195]  
When they meet in Hungary, the Turk invades Friaul and beats the Venetians; they meet in Worms and the Turk wins Greek-Weissenburg; they meet in Nuremberg and the Turks take Rhodos; they meet in Speyer and the Turk invades Hungary and kills the king [195].
Nobody wanted to come and help [the King of Hungary, RCK], however much he kept writing for help; they [Herzog Ernst of Bavaria, RCK] had to help the Bishop of Salzburg against his own poor people at the same time instead. [195]
That year, they met in Speyer again, and the Turk invaded Austria and besieged Vienna, an no one knows how the story will end [195].

Part II

Aventinus now turns to other signs of coming disaster [196]. Aventinus now enumerate learned men who have prophesied that the Turks would come up to Cologne, that the Papacy will suffer and eventually be destroy, and that the Roman Empire before the Judgement Day will return to Asia [196],
The sundown will be suppressed again, the sunrise will rule again. [197]
Equally, Ezechiel had prophesied that the peoples Gog and Magog would come and cover the faithful [197]. 
Now many interpret Gog and Magog as meaning the Turks and the Saracene Belief [i.e. Islam, RCK]. [197]
Aventinus reminds them that at the Diet of Speyer, Philip Melanchthon had published a book that warns about how the Turks will fulfill the prophecies of Daniel, and things would have been better if the powerful had listened to him [197]. Also there were many signs in the heavens, but people only make fun of them [197]. As King David warned in his psalms, the godless do not recognize the anger of God [198]. Did God not embarrass the pope and have him called the antichrist in the streets? [198] Does anyone still fear his banishments?
I see no one who still fears him or gives much [for his opinion, RCK], except for those, that benefit from it, if they did not anymore either, they'd be his worst enemies. [198]
But Rome was sacked by the German Landsknechts [198], and the powerful French king embarrassed [1525 at Pavia, RCK], and now they write stupid pamphlets [199].
If the heads do this, there is no need to ask nor wonder, why the Turks are coming: they must punish the evil, as the scourge and rod commanded by God. [199]
The Franks and the Suebians have been attacked by their own farmers [199]. Even CharlesV, the powerful emperor, sees his siblings in danger, and the death of his brother-in-law Ludwig, king of Bohemia and Hungary [during the battle of Mohacs, 1526, RCK] [200]. Aventinus sides with Luther against Georg of Saxony and the Emser Testament, complains, that the lords do not understand Greek but want to help the clergy with their knavery [201]. God is ready to punish them, after several century of difficulties with the Turks [the crusades? RCK] [201].

(continued in next post)

Friday, March 27, 2020

Justins Epitome of Trogus and Hartmann Schedel

The story at Justin's Bk 11, Chapter 8, reads almost like Hartmann Schedel.

But there is also proximity to Aventinus too, bringing the siege of Tyre before the mentioning of the return of Darius to Babylon.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Aventinus' simile for the big wall

When Aventinus describes the stone blocks that Alexander used to fill in the moat around the city of Tyre during its investure, Aventinus thinks of Regensburg and its old city wall:
Then Alexander thought of an unbelievable thing, had no one for that, who could have suggested this: mobilized land and people, let them bring there big trees, that is with their branches still, the same big stones, square mined pieces (just as they are in Regensburg at the old wall) || from an old broken city nearby, sunk them in the sea, banked up from the land to the city, so that he would be able to move dry and straight from the land toward the city with the might of his army. (own translation)
Da unterstuend sich Alexander eines ungleublichen dings, het niemant darfür, das es geratten solt: pot land und leuten auf, lies zuehin pringen groß päum also ganz mit esten, dergleichen gros stainene vierecket außgehauen stuk (wie zu Regenspurg an den alten mauern sein) || von einer alten zerprochen stat daselbs, versenkts in das mer, macht vom land pis in die stat ein beschüt, das er truckens und ebens fues auf dem land mit herskraft für die stat mocht ziehen.
(Bavarian Chronicle, Bk I, Cap 158; p.347 and p.348 in the Academy edition)

Aventinus complains about the Turks in Alexander Depiction

I missed this on the first reading of Chapters 153 and 158, but when Aventinus gives the context for the Battle against Darius (Book I, 158 of the Bavarian Chronicle), he complains in Chapter 157 about how the Alexandrian Empire had been converted to Christianity by St Paul and then lost to the Turks (Aventinus began the translation "at Abensberg on Saturday evenings in the year 1526").

Nach obgenanter schlacht [i.e. mit den kaiserischen hauptleuten, RCK] viel zu im von den Persiern das ganz clain Asia, so vom nidergang gegen Constantinopel und Kriechen über ligt, an mitternach an das mer, darein die Thonau felt, von süd an das mer, darin gegenüber Rhodis und Cypern ligen, stöst; und von osten schaidet's von gros Armenien der wasserflues Euphrates und das pirg, so man den Taurn und Aman nent. Hat grosse mechtige geweltige (ân die grossen insel Cypern, so auch ein künigreich ist, Rhodis und ander vil mêr) künigreich: Pontus, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, clain Armenien, Phrygia, Mysia (pêde, gros und clain), Troia, Meonia, Lycaonia, Aeolia, Jonia, Caria, Lydia, Lycia, Isauria, Pisidia, Pamphilia, Cilicia. Die land hat s. Pauls alle pekert zum glauben und alda prediget; ietzo hat der Türk alles in, haist die gros Türkei. 
My own translation:
After the aforementioned battle [with the imperial diadoches, RCK] fell to him from the Persians all of Asia Minor, vom the lowlands toward Constaninople across from the Greeks, toward Midnight [i.e. North, RCK] from the sea into which the Danube empties, toward the south to the sea in which Rhodos and Cyprus lie; and from the east it separates from Greater Armenia the waterflowing Euphrates and the Mountains, which are called Taurus or Aman. It has mighty powerful (in the large island of Cyprus, which is also a kingdom, in Rhodes and in many others) kingdoms: Pontus, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Armenia Minor, Phrygia, Mysia (both, the Greater and the Lesser one), Troy, Meonia, Lycaonia, Aeloia, Jonia, Caria, Lydia, Lycia, Isauria, Pisidia, Pamphilia, Cilicia. These lands had St Paul convert all to the [Christian, RCK] Faith and preached all over there; now the Turks control it all, now called Turkey Maior.

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Jouko Väänänen's Short Course on Finite Model Theory

Jouko Väänänen, who also authored the higher-order logic page at the Stanford (Internet) Encyclopedia of Philosophy, published his lecture notes as an introduction to finite model theory, based on his teaching them in Lissabon in 1993 and Helsinki in 1994.

His remarks are extremely helpful in following the basic gist. After disproving the compactness theorem (as Fagin had done in 1993), he comments:
It is only natural that the Compactness Theorem should fail, because its very idea is to generate examples of infinite models. (5)
In the lecture notes, the Trakhtenbrot Theorem of 1950 is proven, namely that the set of finitely valid first order sentences is not recursively enumerable (by mapping it onto the halting problem, which is also undecidable).  From the fact that Sat is recursively enumerable but undecidable, it follows that its "complement" cannot be recursively enumerable. This has the consequence that neither the Completeness Theorem nor the Dowardward Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem hold.

Some notes on Finite Model Theory

It was with great appreciation that I began to read Ronald Fagin's explicitly personal introduction to Finite Model Theory of 1993. Fagin was then working at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, and presented his thoughts at the 3rd International Conference on Database Theory in 1990. Fagin bemoans that so many results are for infinite structures, when databases are all finite. Logic, developed to deal with the hard part of mathematics, the infinite (Gurevich) [p4], but too many of the results for infinite structures do not hold for the finite [ibid]. In practice, finite model theory mostly found application in computability with its connection to algorithmic questions of complexity [p4], which Fagin devoted a whole section (5) to, showing that the class of generalized spectra from his thesis work are the class NP (non-deterministic polynomial time), while spectra are the NE (non-deterministic exponential time) [p.10].

But Fagin correctly pointed out that databases are finite structures [4].

As an aside: The Humanities are in a very similar situation. Even the analysis of an absurdist play like Ionescu's mathematics Lesson with its ridiculously huge numbers does not require an infinite domain of discourse like ℕ. The number of humans and objects and locations and years that matter for Humanities research are all finite. Yes, time and distance are reals, but for the purposes of most arguments, nano-seconds and angstrom provide more resolution that our sources possible allow us to handle anyway. (In fact, the Humanities have the opposite problem that the amazing accuracy of GPS and Google Maps belies knowledge about the exact location of past events on our present-day maps that misleads; but that is a separate rant.)

For example, Fagin shows that taking ℒ to be a "recursive, finitely controllable set [i.e. either unsatisfiable or finitely satisfiable] of first order sentences", then the decision problem is decidable, because each sentence p is either finitely satisfiable or its negation (¬p) is, via the completeness theorem (3.1).


Is weak second-order logic sufficient for Humanities research?

In the process of reading Jouko Väänänen's article on "Second-order and Higher-order Logic" in the Stanford (Internet) Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I came across the question of whether weaker forms of second-order logic are decidable or not.

One interesting paper in this regard is Michael O. Rabin's paper from July of 1969, where he shows the decidability of some second-order theories (using the automata on infinite trees, a reduction of a Turing machine that can only read but not write to the tape).

Perhaps most promising seems to me to be that both linearly ordered sets (Corollary 2.2) and countable well-ordered sets (Corollary 2.3) is decidable. The result that Rabin seems to be especially proud of, that the second-order theory of a unary function in a countable domain is decidable (Theorem 2.4), seems to be unhelpful for the knowledge representation needs of the Humanities.

What seems unclear at this point is whether weak second order logic allows the relating of sentences as well as contextualization. That seems to be the crux of the matter for the Humanities, after all. Väänänen writes:
In weak second-order logic we have no function variables and the relation variables range over finite relations only. The resulting logic is in many ways similar to the extension of first order logic by the generalized quantifier Q0
The inability to iterate over the functions seems acceptable, as we can turn all finite function applications into terms anyway.

Perhaps it will require a look at finite model theory to make progress on this question.

Addendum: Notice that Daniel Leivant's Higher Order Logic discussion also emphasises that the key features of weak second-order logic is that the relations variables "range over finite relations" [p44], which is later clarified to mean that the relation variable "R is ranging over finite sets" [p.45] and that there are not function variables [p44]. Among the noteworthy results, Leivant mentions that

  • Though the upward Skolem-Löwenheim property does not hold, the downard Skolem-Löwenheim property does [p.45]
  • The set of f-valid second order formulas is PI-1/1 [p.45].
  • Linear ordering and one function are both decidable [p.45].

Some details on the relation between 2nd Order Logic and Set Theory

For Humanities researchers, who relate sentences to sentences, 2nd Order Logic seems more unavoidable than perhaps to knowledge engineers, who prefer to remain decidable. This tension forces me to revisit the precise ways in which 2nd order and first-order formalisms influence expressivity.

Now I found a nice quote in the Stanfard Encyclopedia Of Philosophy article on Higher-Order Logic about the relationship between 2nd-order logic and set-theory that illuminates some of the puzzlement about that connection:
Perhaps this [result of comparing the model hierarchy and the Levy hierarchy, RCK] would not be so puzzling if we thought of set theory as a very high order logic over the singleton of the empty set. After all, set theory permits endless iterations of the power set operation, while second-order logic permits only one iteration.

Monday, March 2, 2020

Applying Peirce to Image Interpretation --- Part Two

If we look again at our four categories --- NONE, ALL, UNIQUE and SHARED --- we immediately realize that they are all grappling with a disjunction that is the enumeration of our sources. Recall that we said that Altdorfer is facing the following situation (in the single source case):
Rufus v Arrian v Justin v Schedel v Harlieb v Aventinus
(where v is the usual vel of classical logic, inclusive or): a big disjunction of choices.

Thus, if we see 32k as the number of battle participants on the flag of the Macedonian infantry, we know that it is either Justin or Schedel or Aventinus, but not Rufus, Arrian or Hartlieb.

The problem is that this representation is logically incomplete. What is missing is the precondition that these are in fact all of the possible sources on the Issos battle that Altdorfer could have consulted. So, the more correct logical form would be something akin to (now in sentential representation):

(and  (sourceUsedInCW Altdorfer-Alexanderschlacht-1528 ?X)
  (memberOf ?X (TheSet Rufus Arrian ... Aventinus))

  (not 
     (thereExists ?Y
        (sourceUsedInCW Altdorfer-Alexanderschlacht-1528 ?Y)
        (not (memberOf ?Y (TheSet Rufus Arrian ... Aventinus))))))

Since this construction is so awkward, we usually have syntactic sugar to make this more palatable.

(candidateSourceUsedInCW Altdorfer-Alexanderschlacht-1528 Rufus)
...
(candidateSourceUsedInCW Altdorfer-Alexanderschlacht-1528 Aventinus)

And then some meta-predicate that makes the same point

(completeExtentAsserted candidateSourceUsedInCW)

... most likely in a suitably restricted microtheory context.

While this is inferential successful and will allow us to conclude NONE in the case of the 12k killed Persian foot, or UNIQUE in the case Oxarthes and the Frauenzimmer, it is also historically false. We have in fact no way to know that there are no other historical sources that were available to Altdorfer at that time. In fact, any day a chance find in the Regensburg library, comparable to the one that recently uncovered the Quintus Rufus edition that Aventinus apparently used (cf Wagner-Jehle, Albrecht Altdorfer: Kunst als Zweite Natur, in: Regensburger Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, Bd 17, Regensburg 2012), might reveal another source.

This could directly affect our UNIQUE or NONE queries, or turn an ALL into a SHARED. It might also upend our source dependency analysis in the case of a former SHARED query. 

This is where truth maintenance comes into play. We must at all times be prepared to take this enumerated set extents and re-validate them against the latest state if historical research, and modify our claims accordingly. The specific transformations are as follows (if there is any change, rather than no change):
  • NONE into UNIQUE if the new source contains the feature
  • UNIQUE into SHARED if the new source contains the feature
  • ALL into SHARED if the new source does not contain the feature
Only SHARED would continue as SHARED, albeit potentially influencing the dependency graph. For example, in a situation before Cord Meckseper's Iconography Paper, discussed in Part One, where only Justin's Epitome and Aventinus' Bavarian Chronicle might be in consideration as source for the 32k Macedonian foot, one might be tempted to think that Aventinus used Justin; but the insertion of Schedel's World Chronicle makes opens up new possibilities here.

Applying Peirce to Image Interpretation --- Part One

The basic notion of Charles Sanders Peirce's, that the positing of an abduced structure of some sort (e.g. a Schankian script in a Davidsonian representation world) can organize a set of disparate pieces into an explanation, is sound. The problem is how to play that through for the specific case of, say, Albrecht Altdorfer's Alexanderschlacht.

The start of the story must be the flags and the labels, because they give specifics. We also need to hold the inscription aside, because there is a strong suspicion that it is not by Altdorfer himself, but later (possibly by Jean De Pay in 1658, whose restauration receipt is already mentioned by Franz von Reber's Catalogue of the Old Pinakothek's collection of 1900 in the 8th edition, though Buchner in the 1938 Katalog for the 400th anniversary exhibition in Munich seems first to suggest that this included a reworking of that inscription).

There is a list of possible sources that Altdorfer could have used for obtaining the details of the battle. That list includes Arrianus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Justin's Epitome of Trogus, Aventinus, the Alexander Romance of Johannes Hartlieb, Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, and Plutarch. (For some of Aventinus' views on this matter, see this post here.)

Per CSP's recommendation, we can now construct alternate worlds of various forms. The basic idea would be that Altdorfer used exactly one source. For example, as Cord Meckseper did in his article on the iconography of the battle (Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, XXIII, 3/4, 1968, 178-185), one might assume that Schedel's Weltchronik might suffice.

The point is to expand what »suffice« might mean in terms of a strategy of mechanical interpretation. We assume that the narrative (it is not very long in Schedel) is summarized in a suitable Davidsonian event representation. This instantiation then identifies actors, actions, matériel and similar.
We also need a similar instantiation of the content of the painting itself, as an event, describing the various discernibles. Here, we can simplify the problem by delineating (e.g. with TEI standard bounding boxes) and describing at the action level (moving, turning, etc.) all those entities that any of the art historic works we have considered have identified, i.e. the superset of the interpretation constituents. Recall that we wish to model the argumentation, not automate the argumentation.

But if we have the description of the picture, and the description of the events as reported in the various sources, what then is the abduction doing for us? It is the mapping between these components, a representational correspondence. The picture has a golden-armored man riding a white horse. The story has Alexander leading a charge (say, not all sources go into that detail). The abduced mapping then says that the man on the white horse is Alexander (and by one step of inference that leads us beyond the sources, the horse is Bukephalos).

Consider the battle flag for a moment, which consist of the following pieces of information:
  • the army to which the troops are attached (Greek/Macedonian or Persian, often mentioned pars pro toto via the commanders Alexander and Darius III)
  • the type of troops we are talking about (here, mostly foot vs horse, i.e. infantry vs cavalry)
  • the number of men present at the beginning
  • the cardinalities of the categories at the end of the battle
    • killed (presumably this includes missing in action, in modern parlance)
    • captured (e.g. 40k Persians in Justin and Schedel)
    • escaped (1k horse w/ Darius in Quintus Curtius Rufus, 4k in Arrian)
Here we are matching not against actors or roles in the script, we are matching against event statistics, so to speak, or statistics of sub-events (e.g. the troop numbers at the beginning and at the end of the battle). The flags visually represent the battle statistics (which are abstractions and therefore not visible per se).

In all of these representational mappings, we can run into four situations:
  • NONE: there is something in the image that is in none of the sources (the scythes on the fleeing chariot, the chariot driver felled by the arrow, the boats on the sea), 
  • ALL: there is something in the image that is in all of the sources (Alexander, Darius)
  • UNIQUE: there is something in the image that is only one of the sources (the women, Oxarthes)
  • SHARED: there is something that is in some, but not all of sources (the 32,000 Macedonian foot in Aventinus, Justin's Epitome of Trogus and Schedel's Weltchronik)
We have different reactions to these situations, then, as they give us different information about the question of which sources were used.
  • NONE means that Altdorfer invented the matter himself
  • ALL means that we cannot distinguish between the different source theories based on this piece of information
  • UNIQUE means that the specific source was definitely used
SHARED has a special status, as it is often an indication of the genealogy of the sources themselves. For example, Altdorfer was not the only one working from sources, both Aventinus and Schedel had to use ancient reports to underpin their reconstructions. We may not be able to separate out Justin from Trogus, since Trogus did not survive the ravages of time as an independent source. But since Justin  (200-400 AD) is temporally before Schedel (1493) and Aventinus (1526), it is likely that Schedel used Justin (in the particular case of the 32k Macedonian foot). There are other cases were Schedel agrees with Justin, such as the number of 40k captured Persians.

The problem is trickier in the case of Aventinus, whose Bavarian Chronicle was published in 1526 when Aventinus was already living in Regensburg. Since Schedel predates Aventinus by over 30 years, and Aventinus only discusses Quintus Curtius Rufus as well as Arrian (Bk I, Cpt 153, p.337), as well as disparaging Hartliebs Romance. So perhaps Aventinus used Schedel and not Justin; unfortunately he mentions neither.

One more point about the NONE category, because Alexander's horse Bukephalos falls into it. None of the source I have looked at specifically mention that Alexander was riding Bukephalos at the battle of Issos. But Bukephalos is not invented in the same way that the chariot driver pierced by the arrow is, and not in the same way that the scythes on the carriage are. So we will have to return to the problem of this category at a later point.

But before that, we have to look at the problem of dealing with the open-ended disjunctions.

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Links to the Griffin Warrior

Not sure how this escaped my notice earlier, but the World of the Griffin Warrior is of course supremely fascinating, especially the battle gem.

The article in Archeology by Andrew Curry of 2019 is here, and the later news item on the trade links exemplified by Hathor is here.