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Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:02 am
by Secret Alias
ὰν γὰρ θελήσῃς ἀπελθεῖν ἐπὶ τὸν Βασικανὸν ἢ ἐπὶ τὴν ὁδὸν τὴν Ὠστίαν
For should you want to go on/at the Βασικανὸν (WTF this means) or on/at the Ostian Way
The way scholars unconsciously read "Vatican" in place of Βασικανὸν epitomizes what's wrong with scholarship. I see no evidence for what Βασικανὸν means. The closest I get is:
FA′SCINUM. (βασκανία), fascination, enchantment. The belief that some persons had the power of injuring others by their looks, was as prevalent among the Greeks and Romans as it is among the superstitious in modern times. The ὀφθαλμὸς βάσκανος, or evil eye, is frequently mentioned by ancient writers (Alciphr. Ep. I.15; Heliod. Aethiop. III.7; compare Plin. H. N. VII.2). Plutarch, in his Symposium (V.7), has a separate chapter περὶ τῶν καταβασκαίνειν λεγομένων, καὶ βάσκανον ἔχειν ὀφθαλμόν. The evil eye was supposed to injure children particularly, but sometimes cattle also; whence Virgil (Ecl. III.103) says,
"Nescio quis teneros oculos mihi fascinat agnum."
Various amulets were used to avert the influence of the evil eye. The most common of these appears to have been the phallus, called by the Romans fascinum, which was hung round the necks of children (turpicula res, Varr. De Ling. Lat. VII.97, ed. Müller). Pliny (H. N. XIX.19 §1) also says that Satyrica signa, by which he means the phallus, were placed in gardens and on hearths as a protection against the fascinations of the envious; and we learn from Pollux (VII.108) that smiths were accustomed to place the same figures before their forges with the same design. Sometimes other objects were employed for this purpose. Peisistratus is said to have hung the figure of a kind of grasshopper before the Acropolis as a preservative against fascination (Hesych. s.v. Καταχήνη.)
Another common mode of averting fascination was by spitting into the folds of one's own dress (Theocr. VI.39; Plin. H. N. XXVIII.7; Lucian, Navig. 15 vol. III p259, ed. Reitz).
According to Pliny (H. N. XXVIII.7), Fascinus was the name of a god, who was worshipped among the Roman sacra by the Vestal virgins, and was placed under the chariot of those who triumphed as a protection against fascination; by which he means in all probability that the phallus was placed under the chariot (Müller, Archäol. der Kunst, § 436.1, 2; Böttiger, Klein. Schr. III. p111; Becker, Charikles, vol. II pp109, 291).
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:10 am
by Secret Alias
Apparently fascinus means penis or phallus in Latin and most charms were in the shape of penises.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascinus
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:16 am
by Secret Alias
Can any one explain why Βασικανὸν is taken to mean "Vatican" other than scholars unconsciously "connecting the dots" between our inherited truths and what they read and can't otherwise expain.
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:33 am
by Ben C. Smith
wrote:Can any one explain why Βασικανὸν is taken to mean "Vatican" other than scholars unconsciously "connecting the dots" between our inherited truths and what they read and can't otherwise expain.
Probably because (A) codex Mosquensis 50 has Βατικανόν instead of Βασικανόν and (B) Rufinus has
Vaticanum.
Vatican Hill is hardly a stupid guess on the part of these scholars. They may not be correct, but they are not just being dense. And Vatican Hill is a far better guess than anything thus far offered on this thread.
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:43 am
by Secret Alias
The tau changes things. But in 300 years I see no discussion of other possibilities.
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 1:50 pm
by perseusomega9
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:33 am
[Insert X] is a far better guess than anything thus far offered on this thread.
too bad signatures are disabled
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 1:50 pm
by Ben C. Smith
perseusomega9 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 1:50 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:33 am
[Insert X] is a far better guess than anything thus far offered on this thread.
too bad signatures are disabled
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 1:58 pm
by perseusomega9
then again, I do have fault in that
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 2:18 pm
by Secret Alias
If Rufinus DIDN'T read Vatican it would be match set point. By Constantine there are all these basilica. Fine. But how did the other reading creep in? It would be like a reference to New York becoming Neymar.
Re: Was the Vatican Originally Associated with Evil and Magic
Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2021 8:40 am
by mbuckley3
If I was a brutalist textual critic who regarded τόν βασικανόν as hopelessly corrupt, I 'could' emend it with τό βασιλικόν, i.e. the imperial treasury (cf. 2 Macc 3.13), which was on the Capitoline hill.
But that would be wrong and pointless. Dialectal interchangeability of sigma and tau is a given, and as Ben shows, ancient readers, who should always be our first recourse, had no problem plausibly understanding the word. More importantly, 'my' emendation would do nothing to advance your argument : it doesn't matter what goddamn hill is being referred to !
Elsewhere, you use Marcovich's (well-supported) emendation of Justin 1Apol 33.7 as essential evidence for an argument. Here, to fret about τόν βασικανόν is a needless distraction from your Ostia hypothesis...