The SHA and online archiving: textual classification and editorial theory

Previously, I blogged about the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA), the collected biographies of the Roman emperors compiled in the fourth century. The only Latin edition with English translation is that edited by David Magie in the early 1920s, comprising three volumes in the Loeb Classical Library series. The text is an important primary source for study of the ancient world, thus it is of concern to students of classical history. It is also a rather enigmatic text, giving off the faint whiff of forgery. The earliest copy of the SHA is a single medieval manuscript held by the Vatican Library, which Susan Baillou believed was the source of all later editions. While six biographers are named in the text, philologists believe that it was actually compiled by a single author. Although the SHA is internally dated by dedication to the Emperors Diocletian (ret. 305) and Constantine (d. 337), some of the biographies are thought to have been edited at an unknown later date.  Thus, the text ought to be of interest to book historians. 

Any study of the SHA from the perspective of book history must consider e-texts. Indeed, the Loeb edition appears on the website, the Lacus Curtius: a Gateway to Ancient Rome [link]. This is not an academic database, but is a compendium of archived e-resources compiled by a non-academic, Bill Thayer. A hyperlinked index of the site's contents includes a large list of primary sources in ancient Greek and Latin with English translations, mostly Loeb editions, along with the odd medieval text. The list is organized alphabetically by author, so that the works of Procopius (d. 554) follow those of Plutarch (d. 120) with no concern for historical era. What effect this alphabetic order has on users is unknown, but consulting the texts here differs from finding them on academic library shelves. There, they are organized by historical era according to library classification, which is a pity, if one wants to encourage reflection on the SHA in relation to the world of books. 

The Loeb series has recently been described as "middlebrow" culture. According to Kevin Sheets, founding editor James Loeb (d. 1933) wanted to promote classical ideals in working-class readers in opposition to modernist literary trends and modern consumer culture. The books' pocket-size scale made them affordable and portable. Original text and English translation appear on opposite pages of each opening. Loeb hoped that readers might exercise their Latin- and Greek-language skills learned in high school. The translations were meant to be "elegant and artful". Specifically, those passages with coarse language were editorially cleansed. (1) 

Although the Lacus Curtius e-version is a transcription of the Loeb text [link], the two are completely different editions. While the former features original text and English translation in visual correspondence, the website offers only a table of hyper-linked biographies in one language or the other, which discourages reading of the original languages. According to Thayer's introductory remarks, he included only some of Magie's prefatory material and footnotes, because "they are both overkill and not enough". As Sperberg-McQueen claimed, every "markup reflects a theory of the text". (2) Thayer's theory is that a text, especially those of broad interest, should be free: both relatively unencumbered with critical apparatus and freely available. 

If "middlebrow" is an accurate characterization of the Loeb series, then it also applies to the SHA e-version on the Lacus Curtius website. The internet strives to democratize the world of information and this is the case here. The text is available to anyone who wishes to read it, even if they don't know what they are reading. There is no attempt to make this a completely new edition of the SHA with critical apparatus, updated contextual and historical notes or a listing of recent bibliography. I think it is opportune to ask here whether the task is only to democratize information or to make knowledge freely available. Like John Maxwell, I think we can do better in archiving ancient texts, especially with the aim to make them available for the study of book history. (3) 

Best, Laura 

1) Kevin B. Sheets, "Antiquity bound: the Loeb Classical Library as middlebrow culture in the early twentieth century," The journal of the gilded age and progressive era 4.2 (2005): 149-71.
2) C.M. Sperberg-McQueen, "Text in the electronic age: textual study and text encoding, with examples from Medieval Texts," Literary and Linguistic Computing 6.1 (1991): 34-46.
3) John W. Maxwell, "E-Book Logic: We Can Do Better," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 51.1 (2013): 29-47.