It may be worthwhile to mention another* case in Posidonius, who is perhaps our earliest source on Celts, Druids, and the like. His History was used by other writers, includng Strabo. The commentary on Posidonius provided by I.G. Kidd (Cambridge U.P., 1988, pp. 308ff) laments on how these later writers were tradents only of bits of the presentation by Posidonius, the Stoic writer whose history explored not only chronology but causation, fate, and moral lessons (you know the sort of thing, the value of both the bios theoretikos and the bios praktikos, "every good man is free," and the like). Kidd laments that the loss of most of this book leaves us with fragments wrenched from their context. As we see in Antiquities 13.
If I understand, Russell Gmirkin objected that the first Essene mention in Antiquites 13 (which has two mentions) is not the sort of thing one would find in a history book, not the History of Posidonius, neither the History of Strabo, nor history books generally. And yet, there it stands, in Antiquities 13, which is to say, a history book. best, Stephen Goranson * for my earlier (13 Oct) response to Russell, see http://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
