12-07-2013, 07:28 PM
Evan,
The work I was referring to was the Onamasticon by Julius Pollux. You're right, it's not a military treatise. Rather, it's a collection of terminology and names with explanatory notes in Greek, organized by topic rather than alphabetically. It was dedicated to Caesar Commodus, so it is dated to before AD180.
I don't think it has ever been translated into any other language besides Latin, and I don't think it has been printed either in Greek, or Greek with Latin translation, since the 19th Cent.
I had to go to the Library of Congress to view a Greek/Latin edition that was printed in 1703. Being so old, couldn't copy or photograph any of it and had to use white gloves; I could only look through it and make notes (but at least the Latin alphabetical index and side-by-side translation made it much quicker to find what I was looking for). What I found most interesting was that some of the passages were very similar to parts of the Taktika of Asclepiiodotus. There were also some Greek terms for Roman army organization which I had not seen anywhere else except in the Strategikon of Maurice.
Pollux and his Onamasticon seems to have been derided and satirized in his day by Lucian, and largely ignored in recent times. But there is probably a lot of material in the Onamasticon which would be of use to reenactors and historians because it explains some obscure terminology and quotes from some works which are now lost. Translating it would be a project far beyond my capacity. But a facsimile of copy of an 1824 edition in Greek is now available through archive.org, so hopefully some interesting bits will be read and translated over time by the online community.
The work I was referring to was the Onamasticon by Julius Pollux. You're right, it's not a military treatise. Rather, it's a collection of terminology and names with explanatory notes in Greek, organized by topic rather than alphabetically. It was dedicated to Caesar Commodus, so it is dated to before AD180.
I don't think it has ever been translated into any other language besides Latin, and I don't think it has been printed either in Greek, or Greek with Latin translation, since the 19th Cent.
I had to go to the Library of Congress to view a Greek/Latin edition that was printed in 1703. Being so old, couldn't copy or photograph any of it and had to use white gloves; I could only look through it and make notes (but at least the Latin alphabetical index and side-by-side translation made it much quicker to find what I was looking for). What I found most interesting was that some of the passages were very similar to parts of the Taktika of Asclepiiodotus. There were also some Greek terms for Roman army organization which I had not seen anywhere else except in the Strategikon of Maurice.
Pollux and his Onamasticon seems to have been derided and satirized in his day by Lucian, and largely ignored in recent times. But there is probably a lot of material in the Onamasticon which would be of use to reenactors and historians because it explains some obscure terminology and quotes from some works which are now lost. Translating it would be a project far beyond my capacity. But a facsimile of copy of an 1824 edition in Greek is now available through archive.org, so hopefully some interesting bits will be read and translated over time by the online community.
