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The Great Livy Manuscript Hoax of 1924

9/25/2013

16 Comments

 
Given how much of alternative history rests on false, fabricated, or outright non-existent documents, I thought it might be fun to discuss a ninety-year-old case of intellectual fraud that sent the media into a tizzy when a respected professor claimed to have discovered not one but all of the lost books of Livy. The story bears more than a passing similarity to the recent efforts of the Republic of Georgia to concoct a suitable epic past for their country by rewriting ancient Linear A texts as Georgian. Here’s how Time magazine reported the story on September 15, 1924:

Classics and History students read with excitement an announcement from Naples that one Professor di Martino-Fusco, recluse paleographer, had discovered a complete collection of 150 codices, comprising the 142 books of Titus Livius, Roman historian (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), of which only 35 books have been known to scholars since the 7th Century. The authenticity of the find was endorsed by Professor Delis, Director of the Neapolitan Library, and by Professor Nicola Barone, Director of the State Archives at Naples.

Much, but not all, of the information that follows I have borrowed from B. L. Ullman’s 1973 essay “The Post-Mortem Adventures of Livy.”

A few weeks earlier, on August 5, Revista Indo-Greco-Italia, a well-regarded classical journal, published a notice announcing the discovery, noting that Di Martino was the editor of Mouseion, another classical journal, giving credibility to the claim. According to later statements by the Revista editor, he had contacted Di Martino by telegram on August 27 to verify the claim, verified that Di Martino had convinced other classical scholars that he had the Livy texts, and sought verification of the claims from independent classical experts. After passing all three levels, the editor published the notice despite the fact that neither he nor anyone else had seen the texts.

On August 21, the Times of London published the first popular notice of the find, and the Italian government took notice. Government officials contacted Di Martino and the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini—which fetishized ancient Rome and had every reason to want to trumpet the find—began official proceedings to forbid export of the manuscripts because they were national treasures. Punch joked that schoolboys everywhere protested the publication of any more Livy, there already being quite enough for them to read and translate as it was.

However, critics noted that no one had seen the alleged codices. Nevertheless, the Hume Professor of Latin Literature at Victoria University, R. S. Conway, an expert on Livy, published a stirring defense of Di Martino, arguing that no hoaxer would be so motivated as to fabricate 15 thick codices of Latin text on vellum in historically accurate ink. (The number of alleged codices varies by source, sometimes 15 and sometimes 150.) “It would take an army of superlunatics to begin such a task,” Conway wrote. Conway, of course, had never seen the codices but could not imagine that Di Martino would lie about their very existence.

Di Martino himself would only tell reporters that he was copying the text one book at a time and would publish the Second Decade of Livy, after which he would allow other scholars to see the codices. American and British papers made offers on the publication rights to English translations. Di Martino reportedly asked for a million gold marks for German publication rights and a million pounds sterling for English language rights. To back up this demand, a German friend of Di Martino’s offered a facsimile photograph of the first few lines of the text, which read, in part “Ubi multitudo hominem inspirata occurit…” R. S. Conway pronounced it in the style of Livy and likely genuine Livy. But professors at Oxford and Cambridge recognized the text as the first page of Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St. Martin of Tours. Conway was humiliated when it was discovered that Di Martino’s German friend had simply lifted the photo from a Neapolitan newspaper, where it had been published as an illustration of what a Latin codex looked like.

From there the story began to unravel. Ullman believes the German friend, Dr. Max Funke, had fabricated all of his claims from a German-language short story called “Die verlorene Handschrift” by Gustav Freytag in which a professor discovers a complete lost manuscript of Tacitus. Many of the details of the stories matched—from the age of the manuscript, to the type of location where it was found (a castle), to the fact that monks supposedly kept it hidden to protect it from foreign invaders.

Di Martino never published anything about the fictional Livy texts in his own classical journal. Calls for him to produce the codices increased, and the Italian government became involved. An official inquiry discovered no evidence of any manuscripts, and they proclaimed the claim a hoax. The Italian government arraigned Di Martino on charges, and Di Martino confessed that he had not actually found the codices but rather had been studying medieval book culture in Naples and had come across references to Livy manuscripts that suggested to him that such texts must exist somewhere in the city. Di Martino signed a confession.

That ended the affair for the most part, but it launched a conspiracy theory. In 1925, a man named G. L. Perugi, a humanist professor and an inventor of a “photographic deciphering system” published a pamphlet claiming that Di Martino had in fact found manuscripts but that these contained a dark secret that the Italian government considered a threat to world security and contrived to suppress. He called on the government to release the texts.

Granted, it was a different time, but it’s amazing how willing the media and even scholars were to endorse something they had never seen. A parallel immediately arises in my mind in the wacky claims for Henry Sinclair’s trip to America, which spring from an Italian text almost no one involved in the hunt for Sinclair history has read and that says nothing of the sort. Perhaps closer, though, is Erich von Däniken’s uncritical acceptance of the Stanzas of Dzyan as genuine ancient records of prehistoric astronauts despite the fact that no one had ever seen the originals that Helena Blavatsky allegedly found squirreled away in a Himalayan monastery. Coincidentally, monks also supposedly protected the Naacal tablets recording the history of Mu, also unseen by any eyes but those of James Churchward, just two years after the Livy hoax.

The most famous missing originals are probably Joseph Smith’s ancient “reformed Egyptian” golden tablets, which share quite a similar story to Di Martino’s fake Livy. Smith, the founder of Mormonism, allegedly had an angel show him the ancient texts hidden within an ancient burial mound, and he, too, refused to let anyone else see them. Even the man who supposedly helped him translate and record the contents never saw the texts and had to work on the other side of sheet from Smith. Nevertheless, Smith convinced everyone who met him that he really had lost gold texts from a pre-Columbian Jewish civilization. Martin Harris, an acolyte of Smith’s, took a transcript of some of the writing from the tablets to the great classical scholar Charles Anthon, who proclaimed it a hodgepodge of characters copied without context from a variety of published texts. The Mormons, however, simply asserted that Anthon agreed with their position and canonized that version as official scripture, teaching to this day in the Pearl of Great Price that Anthon authenticated the text, confirmed Joseph Smith’s magical translation skils, and fulfilled biblical prophecy in so doing. Conveniently, the golden tablets vanished back up to heaven, a trick that Di Martino might have tried were Livy not a secular author.

16 Comments
GottaFindTrueHistory
9/25/2013 09:14:49 am

Bravo Jason! This article made me want to stand up and clap! You are a brilliant man, and articles such as this one is the reason I go to your site daily, to learn the truth in historical matters. You are making a huge impact with this life of yours. A legacy of history corrected, for those that follow in coming generations.

Reply
Sean
9/25/2013 09:38:16 pm

I guess that people like Conway fell for this hoax simply because they wanted it so much to be true, For someone who's dedicated their entire career to the study of classical literature, the sudden rediscovery of the complete works of Livy would have to rank there as an epochal moment in your field. Enthusiasm can easily get in the way of healthy skepticism.

Reply
Thorne
9/26/2013 04:54:10 am

That's true for just about every hoax-believer or conspiracy theory nut, to one extent or another. They would rather believe the lie than admit a truth that they find disturbing. You see the same thing in the conspiracy nuts today: the Kennedy Assassination plots, the 9/11 conspiracy nuts, the Obama birth certificate freaks. The lies are far more interesting, or at least entertaining, than the truth, so they accept the lies. Eventually the lies become so intertwined with their sense of self that they cannot even conceive that their beliefs could be wrong.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
9/26/2013 07:41:44 am

I suppose some of the conspiracy nuts just like to feel special, like they're privy to some secret, forbidden information. It appeals to their anti-establishment, "us against the world" fetish.

Assuming the conspiracy theory isn't just part of a greater bid for fame and cash.

Varika
9/26/2013 01:02:01 pm

I'd phrase it "The lies are far more satisfying" rather than "interesting" or "entertaining." Living with a conspiracy nut, I can tell you that he doesn't always find the conspiracies "interesting" or "entertaining," but they deeply satisfy his emotional needs on a given subject. Usually his emotional need to feel persecuted, though the Obama birth certificate thing seems to satisfy his need to vilify and disregard the President.

At the core I think that's the reason these conspiracy theories actually continue to exist. Whatever the conspiracy theory is about, the people who believe it find it either so threatening (a President of another race) or so incomprehensible (the physics behind crashing a fully-fueled jet liner into the Twin Towers) that some other explanation satisfies their needs much better than the truth.

Only Me
9/26/2013 01:52:19 pm

And let's not forget, the belief in the hoax or conspiracy theory can become so ingrained in their believers' sense of self, that any criticism of the hoax/theory constitutes as a personal, emotionally-driven attack on both the believers and those who champion the hoax/theory.

Any factual evidence contrary to the hoax/theory is all part of the effort to "suppress the truth".

Thorne
9/27/2013 03:07:44 am

Varika: "the Obama birth certificate thing seems to satisfy his need to vilify and disregard the President"
When someone tries to make those claims with me I like to point them in the direction of Ted Cruz, the current GOP fan-fave. Tends to either shut them up quickly or at least force them to admit that their fantasies are racially motivated.

Thorne
9/27/2013 03:13:16 am

Only Me: "the belief in the hoax or conspiracy theory can become so ingrained in their believers' sense of self"
There was an excellent interview on the Thinking Atheist podcast this week in which a psychiatrist noted that the area of the brain dealing with belief systems is closely linked to that area of the brain dealing with self image and identity. That's why it can be so difficult for people to really examine their beliefs and change those which are false. It really DOES seem like an attack on themselves.

Dave Lewis
9/26/2013 04:27:07 pm

Only Me, you hit the nail on the head! Beliefs v facts. Believers always have some doubt that they don't want to deal with.

Dave Lewis

Reply
The Other J.
9/26/2013 11:02:11 pm

Yep. Belief takes personal investment; facts don't much care if you believe in them or not.

An Army of Superlunatics should be the name of a 10,000 Maniacs cover band.

Reply
Only Me
9/28/2013 06:58:46 am

Here's another way to think about it:

If you believe something no evidence is necessary. If you do not believe something no evidence is sufficient.

Reply
Thorne
9/29/2013 02:40:11 am

Believing without evidence is faith. Believing despite the evidence is stupidity.

I believe many things: I believe the world is round; I believe that there are probably billions of planets in our galaxy; I believe that evolution is the best explanation for the development of living things on this planet. I believe these things because of the evidence! Show me enough evidence to counter these claims and I will happily rethink my beliefs.

When the global warming debate first became prominent, I didn't believe what they were saying. I didn't see enough evidence for their claims. Now, however, the evidence is overwhelming and I have changed my view. Most rational people have.

Only Me
9/29/2013 07:23:01 am

Ah, but Thorne, your last comment is rather loaded in your favor, no?

You said,"Believing despite the evidence is stupidity". Then you use the global warming debate as an example of your ability to "happily rethink my beliefs". You finish by asserting that "most rational people have" because "the evidence is overwhelming". I, however, disagree. I don't see enough evidence, nor find it overwhelming; in fact, in light of recent reports, most scientists don't agree, either. Because we disagree, we are all, by your logic, stupid and irrational. Beware of the opinion that can be wielded with the same conviction as a proven fact.

You see, what I was trying to point out with my previous comment was this: you have those with faith, and then you have those who will NOT accept evidence, precisely due to what we were talking about beforehand.

Thorne
9/30/2013 02:38:12 am

"I don't see enough evidence, nor find it overwhelming"
Where are you looking for evidence? Are you looking for scientific evidence or political evidence? Yes, there are scientists who deny global warming. However, many of them are not scientists, they're engineers, and many of those engineers depend upon the fossil fuel industry for their paychecks. Upwards of 95% of CLIMATE scientists agree: the world is warming and human activity is a large part of the cause.

"Because we disagree, we are all, by your logic, stupid and irrational."
Not at all! If you have, as you say, truly looked at the evidence and are honestly convinced that the climate scientists are wrong, then we have a difference of opinion. If you are basing your opinion on statements by oil company engineers or conservative politicians and talk show personalities, then it would be my opinion that you are irrational. Just like those who believe in a conspiracy of real historians and archeologists trying to hide evidence of Atlantis and giants in Minnesota and Templar treasures in North Dakota or whatever.

As I said, when I had questions about global warming I looked for answers. I didn't ask my local congressman, I didn't call in to the most popular conservative radio entertainer, I didn't even ask the Fox News weatherman. I looked at the CLIMATE studies, and I found the answers I was looking for. When I have questions about history, I ask historians, not Ancient Alien conspiracy theorists.

"you have those with faith, and then you have those who will NOT accept evidence"
True, but you have to weigh not only the evidence but the source of that evidence. When discussing climate you seek out the climatologists, not the geologists; when learning history, talk to the historians, not the biologists; when learning about diseases, check with the medical specialists, not the shamans. And above all, don't rely on any single source of information. Try to get the data from both sides of the argument. And after doing that, if you still decide that the world is flat, then yeah, you're either ignorant or irrational, or both.

Reply
Only Me
9/30/2013 06:26:27 am

Thank you for the clarification. I wasn't trying to be dismissive; like you, I also looked at multiple sources. We'll just have to leave it as a difference of opinion, as you say. For now, I'm just not convinced that global warming is the approaching apocalypse many claim. It is unfortunate, also, that like most modern debates, political ideology has contaminated the discussion. Too many opportunists are using global warming/climate change to line their own pockets.

Reply
Thorne
10/1/2013 03:31:24 am

"For now, I'm just not convinced that global warming is the approaching apocalypse many claim."
I think that this is the major problem most people have with claims of global warming. The press has radically overstated the effects. In reality, the effects will be far less apocalyptic for most of us. Where the problems lie is in the effects on nature: places like the US midwest, where a significant portion of our food is grown, may become desert, no longer suitable for growing crops, or suitable for growing different crops. Where it becomes dangerous for humans is when people in underdeveloped countries, unable to grow their own food, begin to migrate towards new areas, adding pressure to populations already pressured by food shortages. Humanity will survive, but civilization is going to be strained. Meanwhile, nature and its systems will adapt.

"Too many opportunists are using global warming/climate change to line their own pockets."
I agree. This is common in almost any changing system, though. There will always be leeches and profiteers. But their presence doesn't change the cold (or warm) hard facts.


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