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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The analysis of the use of ethnics across a wide range of literary and documentary sources, alongside the investigation of the text of the Epitome of Stephanus shows that, as full an understanding as is possible of the use of ethnics over more than a millennium must be based on the use of material from both sources. Stephanus illuminates constantly the varying history of the ethnic through the ages, even though his evidence is linguistic and literary. It is also evident that although Stephanus quotes the varying views of grammarians, notably Herodian, for the true accentuation of ethnics, on the whole he does not commit himself on this topic, and in a great many cases makes no comment of his own.

The text of the Epitome of Stephanus contains no preliminary statement of principle regarding grammatical rules for individual ethnics, and although reference may be made under individual ethnics to regional or local usage, the information is repetitive and simply ad hoc. We are not in a position to say whether that is how the text was left by Stephanus, or whether an opening section or sections were excised by the epitomator(s). There are two recognisable features of the Epitome as a whole: (a) the inclusion in it, with corresponding ‘ethnics’ or a similar term, of a number of items which cannot by their very nature have had a civic role, and thus could not strictly have generated an ἐθνικόν, since they do not belong to that category of names. Alongside these irregular entries, there is another group of linguistic terms (b), which Stephanus uses to express departure from either an analogistic or local form, in such phrases as ‘it should be … ’. This chapter presents a list of some typical examples of the first class of entry; a second list illustrates different principles of linguistic usage recorded by Stephanus for features which have no independent political (including tribal) existence, but are included by him in his text; that is to say, forms which are justified or rejected by him in terms of the rules of ‘ethnic’ usage.

The epitomised Stephanus is the only text of an Ethnika surviving from antiquity. Consequently we cannot speak of his successors in the same way that he himself may be regarded as successor of Oros, or at a further remove, of Alexander Polyhistor or Herennius Philon. There survive a number of unnamed quotations regarding ethnic forms in various Etymologica and elsewhere, which sometimes provide more information than the corresponding entries in Stephanus, but it is a manifest oversimplification to suppose that all these entries derive from the full text of Stephanus. Stephanus and the Epitome were subsequently used by a few Byzantine writers, notably by Constantine Porphyrogennetus and the Continuators of Theophanes, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and above all, though last in time, by Eustathius in the twelfth.

The colloquy not only failed to unite Lutherans and Calvinists but fanned polemical flames and resulted in a bitter publishing war. In spite of Theodore Beza's plea that notaries be engaged to produce a protocol that the collocutors could sign, this was not done. Instead, Lucas Osiander and others of Jacob Andreae's party kept notes that Andreae then used to produce Acta of the colloquy. When the Acta appeared, Beza could not allow the ball to remain in Andreae's court. In 1587, he published his Responsioand early in 1588, his pars altera. Andreae returned the ball, and by February 1588 he had written a refutation of Beza's Responsio. Andreae's Epitome appeared in Latin and German. It was only in 1634 that Montbéliard became Lutheran.

It is often assumed that late antique historians tended to rely on a single source and copied it faithfully. That assumption is demonstrably wrong in the case of Orosius. The chapter demonstrates in particular that Orosius used the exempla collection of Valerius Maximus, a work specifically aimed at orators, and contaminated it with other sources. In addition, Orosius used the technique of amplification to develop entries from the Epitome de Caesaribus and the consularia constantinopolitana into a fully fledged narrative, especially towards the end of the Historiae. This suggests he did not have access to a continuous narrative of his own times. Orosius also used numerous contemporary works as sources, including Christian authors which he shared with Augustine, but also pagan ones, such as Symmachus.

The polymath Athenaeus (2^nd Century AD) is a literary treasure-house of quotations, many unique, from Greek literature, particularly verse and Tragedy. The paper assesses their number of these book-fragments (quotations in other ancient authors), and their accuracy when the source-texts survive complete, and by comparison their probable reliability when only Athenaeus preserves them. These issues are the chief subject of the paper, which begins with the author's methodology. It first takes account, however, of a problem in Athenaeus’ own text, the relationship between the medieval manuscripts of the complete work and an Epitome which, when the paper was written was attributed to the 11^th Century Byzantine scholar Eustathius.

Having sketched the shape of the hospital in Carolingian Francia and Lombardy, the investigation now moves earlier, to uncover the legal foundations of welfare, as fostered under Roman law. This chapter redefines the tradition for welfare facilities in Roman law and identifies a distinctive Western legal model. It reappraises two extracts from Julian’s Epitome in the Collectio capitularium of Ansegis of Saint-Wandrille, the only evidence for Justinianic law in the West regarding hospitals. These are found not to relate to Carolingian welfare and new light is shed both on the palace’s use of these Roman law extracts and on the possible character of Ansegis’s book 2, on Louis the Pious’s ecclesiastical laws. The chapter then uses Justinian’s collections of law to explore the long development of welfare foundations in Roman law, finding them first accommodated under testamentary law. It argues that this basic testamentary model was moulded in the East, via the ‘pious promise’, into an institution under divine or public law. In the West, however, the early testamentary form was developed via the documentary practices that characterized Roman law in the West, c.400–800. These practices reveal a distinctive Western approach, which enshrined not the institution but the right to institute; that is, the right of the testator to prescribe and fix acts of human charity. A final section offers a new account of the development of welfare institutions in early Christianity, as East and West diverged and the West developed a vernacular Christian practice, one that was not owned by the church but enacted and developed by testators.

Hincmar is notable for citing Roman legal texts more extensively than his contemporaries. However, the range of sources available to him was limited, mostly deriving from the tradition of the Breviary of Alaric, especially in a form augmented by religious material from Theodosian Code Book 16. Much of this material was mediated through two of his “working” manuscripts (Berlin SB Phillipps 1741 and its derivative BN Par. Lat. 12445), whose contents reflect two active periods of collecting and use, the later 850s and 868-871. The other significant source in the latter period was Julian’s Epitome of the Novels, the principal way Justinianic law was known in the early mediaeval west. For Hincmar, the Roman legal materials were always less important than Biblical or canonical texts, often gaining status only as being laws the church had approved; he was generally less interested in the substantive law of Rome than its procedural rules, which were key tools in his legal disputes, especially in that with Hincmar of Laon. Hincmar was canny at selective quotation to suit his purposes, even to the extent of minor textual emendation.

Trajan and Hadrian were natives of Hispania Baetica, sons of Roman senators, and cousins once removed. Trajan became Hadrian’s guardian, and around 100, Hadrian married Trajan’s grandniece Sabina. Nothing else of her first 30 years or so is recorded by the literary or (so it seems) inscriptional sources—even her whereabouts in August 117, when Hadrian learned of his adoption by Trajan in a dying act. This chapter reviews the few available chronological items for Sabina’s life: assumption of the title ‘Augusta’ in 128; presence on Hadrian’s third and final journey (128–133); survival into 137; deification upon death; and burial (in later 139) in Hadrian’s Mausoleum. The chapter also surveys Sabina’s representation in the literary sources, which are essentially late epitomators and the Historia Augusta. Even the most basic outlines of what Sabina did and how contemporaries regarded her are obscure, never mind her internal life.

This chapter examines John’s Medical Epitome. The focus here is on the first four of its six books. In contrast to the established view that this work was intended for physicians, it is argued that it was primarily written for philiatroi, intellectuals who were deeply interested in medicine, but not practising physicians themselves. The Medical Epitome, unlike John’s other two works, mainly consisted of material from earlier sources. The analysis of the text starts with a close reading of John’s proem and a discussion of the background of his dedicatee, the Byzantine statesman Alexios Apokaukos. It then shifts to an examination of the work’s structure with the aim of emphasizing John’s intentions in putting together his material. The analysis proceeds by way of a number of case studies focusing on diagnosis and therapy, and goes on to show that John intentionally condensed his material, removing specialized advice, so as to make it appeal to non-expert readers. Thus it is shown, for example, that the absence of details on invasive operations is consistent with the character of his intended readers, who were only able to use non-invasive techniques, such as phlebotomy and arteriotomy. Finally, the particular attention John paid to differential diagnosis, especially as regards eye affections, which is often supplemented with his own advice, is highlighted.

This chapter deals with the last two books of the Medical Epitome, which focus on pharmacology. John’s material presents a unique amalgamation of earlier Greek and Byzantine sources with recently introduced Arabic pharmacological lore. It is argued that, unlike the first four books, the last two books may be addressed not only to philiatroi but also to the expert reader, since they provide a revision of the subject that was much needed in late Byzantium. Special emphasis is given to the role of experience (peira) in the pharmacological part, which, unlike in the first four books, plays an important role in the selection process here, as it is often highlighted by John himself. The analysis then shifts to John’s sources, including Galen’s On the Composition of Drugs According to Places and also the Greek translation (Ephodia tou Apodēmountos) of the famous medieval Arabic medical text by Ibn al-Jazzār Zād al-Musāfir wa-Qūt al-Ḥāḍir, more commonly known by its Latin title Viaticum. A particular section is devoted to John’s adaptation of Arabic pharmacology, including his many recipes for sugar-based potions and his reference to oriental materia medica. In the first case, a potential unedited source ascribed to an otherwise unknown author, one Chariton, is identified. As regards oriental ingredients such as zedoary, galangal, cubeb pepper, and various kinds of myrobalan, a further contextualization is attempted by making use of other contemporary non-medical sources, especially merchants’ accounts, which show that many of these substances were readily available in Constantinople, although usually at a high price.