Chapter 2
THE IMPOSSIBLE MANUSCRIPT
“I’m afraid that would be impossible,” replied Johnston in a dry tone. That was not the answer Irena wanted to hear. She had made the trip to Oxford expecting to see Dr. Elmer J. Galway, professor of Classical History at Oriel College and a specialist in pre-Socratic philosophy, but instead of meeting the famous scholar she was talking to Bradley Johnston, a junior member of the faculty who had been trying his best to fulfill her expectations, so far with little success.
Professor Galway had cancelled their appointment at the last moment and asked his colleague and former student to look after his overseas visitor. “A Miss Monyan, or Morian,” he had told Johnston over the phone, adding that she worked for a museum in North America but giving no further explanations. It was early morning on a Thursday of November 1997 when Johnston received the call, and the appointment had been set for two o’clock that afternoon. He could not refuse Elmer such a favor, even if it meant missing cricket practice.
“Bradley Johnston,” he introduced himself, “you must be Miss Morian.” “Montryan,” she corrected him, “Irena Montryan. Pleased to meet you. I have an appointment with Professor Galway.” Johnston apologized on Elmer’s behalf for the last-minute cancellation and led the way to the office, situated in one of the upper floors. He had not expected to see such a young woman, having perhaps unconsciously associated “museum” with “old.” Her accent was definitely not British; that much he knew.
“Are you American?” he asked on the elevator. “Canadian,” she corrected him for the second time. “But my father was American, from Minnesota. He emigrated to Canada after the war.” “The second world war, I presume,” Johnston said, venturing a smile. “Of course!” she exclaimed, returning the smile. “How old do you think I am?” They were both laughing as the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor.
They entered Johnston’s office, a small room with a single tall window overlooking a central court known as the quadrangle. Oriel, founded in 1326, is one of Oxford’s oldest colleges. Nothing survives of the original construction, a large house known as La Oriole that was demolished when the four buildings enclosing the quadrangle were built during the seventeenth century. Demand for more accommodation for undergraduates resulted in two more blocks being added a century later. The passage of time had had little effect on their austere exterior, but extensive interior renovations had taken place in order to increase office and classroom space and to accommodate some modern amenities. In the 1980s, a fourth floor and an elevator were added to one of the west wings where Johnston’s office was located.
He offered her tea, but since she declined, he decided against making a cup only for himself. It was time to get down to business. “So what precisely did you want to see Professor Galway about, Miss Montryan?” asked Johnston.
“I work for the Royal Ontario Museum of Science in Toronto as assistant curator,” she began. “As you may know, UNESCO has declared the year 2000 World Mathematical Year.” He did not know but kept silent. “The ROMS is preparing an exhibition on the history of mathematics,” she went on. “One of the main themes will be Greek mathematics, and in particular the Pythagoreans, given that mathematics as a science was born with the Pythagorean school. In fact, we are planning our marketing campaign around the figure of Pythagoras as an icon, the archetype of the philosopher-mathematician of ancient times.”
“I see . . . , a kind of ‘Pythagoras Superstar’ that would appeal to the masses.”
“That’s precisely the idea. We are counting on Pythagoras to sell the exhibition to the general public. Who has not heard of the Pythagorean theorem?”
“Indeed. And since Elmer, I mean, Professor Galway is a leading authority on pre-Classical Greece . . .”
She finished the sentence for him: “. . . I came to seek some information from him. You’re right again, Dr. Johnston.”
“Please call me Brad. As a matter of fact, Irena . . . may I call you Irena?” She nodded. “As a matter of fact, I may be able to help you. I did my doctoral dissertation on Aristotle, whose treatises are considered the most reliable source on Pythagoreanism, in particular his Metaphysics and his monograph On the Pythagoreans, of which unfortunately only a few fragments have survived.” He was beginning to warm up. The prospect of talking about his work to an attentive and attractive young lady had produced a stimulating effect on him and he no longer regretted the missed cricket practice.
But his excitement was to be short-lived. “Actually, Brad, I did not come to see Professor Galway to be lectured on the Pythagoreans and their mathematical theories—the museum has its own consultants for that. I hoped he could help me locate some artifacts, manuscripts perhaps, dating from Pythagoras’ own time. Our exhibition will be centered on objects, and I thought it would be fantastic to be able to exhibit an original Greek mathematical manuscript, perhaps one written by Pythagoras’ own hand. It would be the centerpiece of our exhibition.”
“I’m afraid that would be impossible,” was Johnston’s dry reply. She noticed a shift in his mood. “Why’s that?” she asked, raising her voice for the first time. “First of all,” Johnston began to explain in a calm voice, “because written accounts were strictly forbidden. The Pythagoreans lived in a sort of brotherhood or sect devoted to the study of numbers, which they believed held the key to unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Their discoveries were considered sacred, and were passed on to other members of the group orally, under an oath of secrecy. Only when the few surviving Pythagoreans were expelled from southern Italy, in around 450 BC, did they preserve some of their knowledge in writing, according to certain sources. Pythagoras himself left no writings. All specialists in the field agree on that point.” He then delivered the final blow to her hopes. “And even if the experts are wrong and Pythagoras did put down some of his teachings in writing, the probability that such a document, most likely a papyrus scroll, has survived for 2,500 years is virtually nil.”
“How about the Dead Sea scrolls discovered in 1947?” She would not give up so easily. “They are from the second century BC, which makes them almost 2,200 years old.” He thought for a moment before replying. “The exact age of those scrolls is still being debated,” he said at last. “Carbon-14 dating put their origin at the year 68 of our era, which means they would be less than 2,000 years old. Besides, those scrolls were exceptionally well protected, wrapped in cloth and kept in pottery jars, with covers tied over the jar tops. On top of that, if you forgive my pun,” he was beginning to enjoy being challenged, “we are talking here about a site in the Judean desert and therefore extremely dry and hot, the ideal conditions for preservation.”
How does he know that the Pythagoreans didn’t also take “exceptional precautions” to preserve their writings? she thought, but instead of putting the question to him she tried a different approach. “You say there is almost no chance that very ancient manuscripts have survived. Where did you learn all you know about Aristotle and his philosophy, then?” It was a simple question, but he appeared a little disconcerted by it. “Where did I learn it? Well . . . , from books, articles, lectures, scholarly reports, doctoral dissertations, discussions with other specialists and the like. The present body of knowledge on the classics is very impressive, you know.” “I see,” she said, not very convincingly. “And where did the authors of those learned articles and books get their knowledge? From other books?” He saw where she was leading him.
“What you really want to know is how it all started, don’t you? What is the source, if there are no originals around any more?”
“Right.” She was smiling, and enjoying having him on the defensive.
“It is a fact that none of the original works of Aristotle has survived,” he said, “but there are copies, or rather copies of copies. Take Aristotle’s Physics, for example.” He got up, took a book from one of the shelves lining two walls of his office, and returned to his chair.
“This is an English translation by a highly respected philologist of the first two volumes of his Physics,” he said, holding the book in one hand, “but by no means is it a translation of the original written by Aristotle himself—or dictated by him to one of his scribes.
“Before the author could begin the actual translation, he had to establish a text that was to the best of his judgment as close as possible to the original, using the scores of extant manuscripts of Aristotle’s works, the oldest of which date from the ninth century—more than twelve hundred years after Aristotle’s time. These ‘sources’ are all different and far from original. They have been copied from a variety of ‘models’ that are lost. And copyists make mistakes, sometimes unintentionally but other times with the best of intentions, to correct a presumed error in the model. Now, it is this ‘established text’—a creation of the philologist out of ‘copies of copies’—that finally gets translated.” He stopped for a brief moment before asking: “Do you get the idea?”
She nodded and replied: “Yes, I see what you mean.”
“The knowledge of the classics is therefore based on copies,” he continued. “The oldest extant of these are written on papyrus, fragments of which, and occasionally entire rolls, survived, protected by the dry Egyptian soil.” He was warming up again. “During the dynasty of the Ptolemies, when the Macedonian kings ruled in Egypt for three hundred years until 30 BC, it was customary to decorate human mummies with layers of linen cloth and papyrus fixed together with glue and coated with stucco. By removing the plaster, the layers could be separated and the documents used could be recovered in a more or less legible condition.”
He pushed back his chair and crossed his legs before resuming. “In 1899, a team excavating at a Ptolomeic cemetery in Upper Egypt came across the Athenaion Politeia, Aristotle’s treatise on the Constitution of Athens, until then known only by a few citations. It was one of the most sensational discoveries of those excavations. The four rolls making up the manuscript are palimpsests, papyri from which the original writing, a record book from a farm in the years 78 and 79, had been scraped off and written over with Aristotle’s text. But for most of his works we have not been so lucky, and must rely on much more recent medieval copies that may contain many errors. Cicero speaks of ‘books full of lies,’ the work of unscrupulous copyists, or the result of using teams of low-paid, unskilled scribes who wrote from dictation.”
“And where are those ‘copies of copies’—the most ancient versions, I mean—kept?”
“Most have been bought by, or donated to, museums and universities. We have some right here in Oxford, at the Bodleian Library, and Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens is at the British Museum. Others have found their way into private collections or to dealers in rare books and antiquities in London, Berlin, Vienna, or New York. There is a lucrative market for that kind of thing, and for every authentic document there are perhaps half a dozen forged ones.”
Irena was beginning to appreciate how different the research methods in classical studies were from those in the natural sciences. She had a Master’s degree in biology, and had done some research on the effect of pollutants on salmon reproduction before joining the “Save the Earth” movement and later the museum. Scientists look at facts and formulate theories, which their experiments will either confirm or refute. They have no practical use for old manuscripts, despite their sentimental or historical value. Classical scholars, on the other hand, do not start with facts but with words in ancient languages—which in many cases they only half understand—written on fragments of parchment or papyrus. Out of those scarce and often contradictory or unreliable sources, they have to piece together plausible interpretations and tentative hypotheses—hypotheses that cannot be tested by experiments.
She kept silent; her earlier enthusiasm had all but disappeared. “Are you telling me,” she resumed wearily, “that I’ll be wasting my time trying to find an original Pythagorean manuscript for my exhibition?” He felt a bit sorry for her and wished he could leave her on some optimistic note. “I can’t . . . , I mean, as far as I know, yes. But I’m not an expert in that department. I wish Professor Galway were here. I’ll talk to him as soon as he comes back and explain the situation. He’ll most certainly get in touch with you. Do I have your card, by the way?” She handed him her business card over the cluttered desk and got up, preparing to leave.
“Would you join me for dinner?” he asked, getting to his feet. “There is an excellent Italian restaurant five minutes away, or we could go to a pub for a taste of the local cuisine.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t stay. I’m driving back to London right away; I have a dinner appointment there already.”
“Oh, I understand,” he said, trying not to appear too disappointed.
He accompanied her back to her rental car, a brand new red Opel. “Have a good trip, and remember to drive on the left side of the road,” he said with a smile as they shook hands, and, almost apologetically, he added: “I wish I could have been more helpful.” “Who knows?” she replied in a cheerful voice, “Maybe some mysterious private collector has been hoarding away some precious manuscripts no one has heard of yet.” She too wanted to part on a positive note. “I’ll try posting an ad on the Internet and see what happens.”
“You never know,” he said, not sounding very encouraging. He wished her good luck and waved to her as she drove off, the late afternoon sun reflecting on the rear window of the car.
Johnston was forced to admit that Irena had come to knock at the right door in her search for information on Greek manuscripts. Elmer was a leading scholar on the Archaic period of Greek civilization, going from the eighth to the sixth century BC, with a particular interest in the early Pythagoreans. He was also an accomplished linguist and philologist whose mastery of ancient languages had allowed him to study original sources and to author many translations from Phoenician and Greek that became standard references among historians. But Elmer was above all a field man, a man of action who had traveled the world. He was often away from Oxford, as a guest speaker at some international conference or visiting an archaeological site, when he wasn’t responding to a call to give his expert advice on some ancient artifact or manuscript. If you needed to track down a document on ancient Greek history, he was your man.
Elmer’s father, Sir Ernest, still in pretty good health at age ninety-three, was a famous archaeologist and explorer. He was only eighteen when he took part in the Antarctic expedition under the command of an even more famous Ernest—Sir Ernest Shackleton. It was to be Shackleton’s last trip, for he died of a heart attack on board his ship, the Quest, in January 1922. Young Ernest’s passion for adventure would later take a heavy toll on his family life. In 1931 he married Elizabeth Jennifer Williams, the only daughter of a barrister, who gave him two sons: John Arthur, in 1932, and Elmer James, born two years later.
Ernest was away most of the time digging at some remote site in Egypt, Greece, or South America, while Jenny looked after the children in their spacious Salisbury house. The boys did not get to see much of their father, except during the short intervals between his trips. Ernest would then take them to nearby Stonehenge for a visit and a lecture on the possible origin of the enigmatic monuments, or the whole family would spend a rare vacation together at the seaside in Bournemouth.
Not long after the war, in 1949, Ernest and Jenny divorced. It was a painless and long anticipated event. The boys were already away at boarding school when the Salisbury house was put up for sale. Besides its centuries-old massive furniture, it contained a vast collection of objects and artifacts that Ernest had brought back—or smuggled—from excavation sites around the world: sculptures, pottery, tools, weapons, religious vases, papyrus scrolls, coins, gold jewelry, and even several sarcophagi. Some of the objects were put in temporary storage while Ernest searched for new living quarters. Much to Elmer’s regret, though, most of his father’s treasures were donated or loaned to museums or sold at auction, but he later managed to recover a few items. Unlike his elder brother, he had always demonstrated a keen interest in those ancient artifacts, silent witnesses to the early chapters of humankind’s unfolding saga.
Johnston had been invited to Elmer’s place on Blackhall Road on several occasions, first as a student and later as a colleague. One evening after dinner, the professor had shown him and the other guests his coin collection, which he kept in velvet-lined trays inside a large cabinet in one corner of his study. Then Elmer had proudly called their attention to his favorite piece, dating from around the fourth century BC: a one-and-a-quarter-inch silver coin, depicting on one side the naked figure of a Greek god or hero, probably Heracles, holding a club in his left hand and a sort of chain in his right one, and sitting on the lion he had just conquered. The Greek words “KPOTΩNI ATAN” (coin from Croton) were written in big capital letters along the circular edge of the coin.
It was funny he should remember that particular event just now, he thought. Croton is the city in Italy where Pythagoras established his brotherhood, and Irena had come to inquire about Pythagoras. He hoped Elmer would be able to help her. Johnston recalled his telephone call that morning. The professor appeared to be in a hurry and had vaguely mentioned “a business trip.” A week later, Johnston would learn that Galway’s trip also had something to do with Pythagoras.
