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ANNA JUDIT TÓTH
almost completely neglected by modern scholarship. Its standard edition
was published in 1898, replacing an earlier edition from 1837." A modern
edition and translation, which will probably not be able to fulfil the same
role,‘ an unofficial English translation on the web,° and a handful of articles
have been published concerning Lydus’ book. This neglect can only partly be
explained by the fact that the De mensibus survived only in a fragmentary
form; the main cause paradoxically lies in the reliability of the author: his
citations are usually correct and precise, he used the best sources and focused
on his main effort: to preserve his Roman cultural heritage. The predictable
consequence of this attitude is that most of his data are familiar from other—
earlier and better—sources. Yet, among his lengthy argumentations crowded
by dense Neopythagorean and Platonic terminology and veiled by obscure
mysticism, we can find surprising information which begs some explanation.
In Book IV, we read the following mysterious sentence about Dionysus:
LepeAans dé avdtov TTOLODOLV VIOV, WG 10 yfv KPUTTÓHEVOV Kai 51a ToD Eppod, TovtéoTt
TOD Aöyov, TPOLÖVTA- Kal TW uNP@ TOD ALög Evtpe~opevov, oiovel ev Tois àmopphTois
Tod Kdopov AavOdvovta: Kal Auddpaußov Kal Auınropa tov dbo Mpoddouc Aaxdvta,
Tv HÉV ÁVATOAIKT]JV TIpÖG VÓTOV ÉV XELHÖVI, TÍJV Őé Bopelav mpdc dvopdc év TH pet.
kai tadta pév mepi Atovboov. (Lydus, De mensibus IV, 51)°
Commentary and Indices, Philadelphia, The American Philosophical Society, 1983, with
English translation; Michel Dubuisson (ed.), Joannes Lydus, Des magistratures de VÉtat
romain, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2006, with French translation. Monographs and other
publications on this work are Carney, Bureaucracy in Traditional Society; C. N. Tsirpanlis,
John Lydus on the Imperial Administration, Byzantion 44 (1974), 479-501; Bandy, loannes
Lydus on Powers; James Caimi, Burocrazia e diritto nel De magistratibus di Giovanni Lido,
Milano, Dott. A. Giuffre Editore, 1984; Anna J. Töth, John Lydus as Pagan and Christian.
In: Marianne Säghy — Edward M. Schoolman: Pagans and Christians in the Late Roman
Empire: New Evidence, New Approaches (4th-8th centuries). Budapest, CEU Press, 2017.
59-68; Sviatoslav Dmitriev, John Lydus and his Contemporaries on Identities and Cultures
of Sixth-century Byzantium, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 64 (2010), 27-42.
Edition of the Liber de mensibus: R. Wuensch (ed.), Ioannis Lydi Liber de mensibus, Leipzig,
Teubner, 1898; Immanuel Bekker, Joannes Lydus. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae,
Bonnae, Impensis ed. Weberi, 1837, 3-118. I do not know of a single article whose only
theme would be the De mensibus, while there are publications dealing with all three works
of our author like, e.g. Michael Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past, London — New York,
Routledge, 1992. Anthony Kaldellis, The Religion of John Lydus, Phoenix 57 (2003), 300-316.
* Anastasius C. Bandy, Ioannes Lydos On the Months (De mensibus). Translated and edited
by Anastasius C. Bandy with associate editors Anastasia Bandy, Demetrios J. Constantelos,
Craig J. N. de Paulo, Lewiston — Queenston — Lampeter, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2013.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Lydus/de_Mensibus/home.html
accessed on 25 February 2016.
“They describe him as the son of Semele, as being hidden under earth and coming forth by
virtue of Hermes, that is, the Logos; and being fostered in the thigh of Zeus, as lying hidden
in the secret places of the cosmos; and they call him Dithyrambus and Dimétér [‘having two
mothers’], the one who has two paths of procession, the one, from the east toward the south,
in winter, and the other, from the north toward the west, in summer. So much regarding
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