F. W. Walbank. 1957–1967. A Historical Commentary on Polybius (Volumes 1 & 2). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

In downtown Copenhagen Vangsgaards Antikvariat has an ongoing Antikvariske Bogudsalg (Antiquarian Book Sale) that is kind of run like a Dutch auction. In short, the maximum price for a single book in the book sale on the first day when all the new stock is put on the shelves (starting at 100 kr. or roughly $14.32 USD) and then this number is gradually decreased incrementally as the days go on, and this is done over the course of month at a time until finally it reaches 5 kr. per book (about $0.72 USD) by the final two days (but by which time the good stuff is largely picked over). I have been frequenting this sale fairly regularly for about a year now and while there is often lot of random stuff that is of no interest to me, I have made some occasional surprising finds including Robert Beekes' A Grammar of Gatha-Avestan, the first volume of the second edition of Johannes Friedrich's Hethitisches Elementarbuch, Rüdiger Schmitt's edited volume of essays on Indogermanische Dichtersprache in the Wege der Forschung series, and more. Basically, the impression that I have gotten (this is just a guess) is that Vangsgaards Antikvariat has so much overstock from buying out other antikvariater in Denmark and it would cost far more to appraise the market value of what they have and store it (until the right buyer comes along) than to just sell it off like this.

Anyway, I went there yesterday for the first time since the new stock was put out and found myself a very bonny first two volumes of Frank Walbank's A Historical Commentary on Polybius in good condition, and in the first printing with the original Oxford University Press red cloth bindings. The third and final volume was not to be found, but I will take my good book-hunting fortune as it comes. Polybius is, of course, one of our most important sources for the period 264 – 146 BCE, covering the early expansion of the Roman empire down to the sack of Corinth and the sack of Carthage (both in 146) which cemented Rome as the dominant state in the Mediterranean, so I am sure that I will probably have some use for these at some point. Total cost to me for these two was 120 kr. or approximately $17.31 USD, a right bargain, considering how much various sellers are trying to get for them on the online international book market.

If you happen to be in Copenhagen in the near future, this is the current schedule for the book auction. I have no doubt it will repeat again in the months to come.

W. Skalmowski & A Van Tongerloo (eds.) (1993). Medioiranica. Louvain: Peeters Press.

New stock recently appeared in Vangsgaards Antikvariat on Fiolstræde – not in the shelves near the front windows where covers and spines are left exposed to bleach by the sun's UV radiation – but in the back in back room on the top shelf marked Filologi where the good shit is kept. I laid my hands on a volume of papers about Middle Iranian philology and linguistics and I knew it had to be mine.

Lots of fun stuff in here (table of contents below). I started reading the first paper by R. Bielmeier on Alanic glosses in John Tzetzes and I was delighted to find some interesting stuff on the first attestation of an obscene Greek word μουνί 'cunt'. Apparently in Tzetzes' Theogony there is an epilogue as a show of his learnedness in which he gives greetings in many different languages. The glosses the article looks at are:

Greek:  

τοῖς Ἀλανοῖς προσφθέγγομαι κατὰ τὴν αὐτῶν γλῶσσαν· 

καλή ἡμέρα σου αὐθέντα μου ἀρχόντισσα πόθεν εἶσαι·

"I greet the Alans in their language:

Good day my lord, noblewoman, where are you from?"

Alanic: 

ταπαγχὰς · μέσφιλι ·· χσινὰ · κορθὶ · καντὰ; καὶ τἄλλα.

To which is also added, where the gloss is found:

Greek:

ἄν δ᾽ἔχη ἀλάνισσα παπᾶν φίλον; ἀκούσαις ταῦτα·

οὐκ αἰσχύνεσαι αὐθέντριά μου νὰ γαμῇ τὸ μουνίν σου παπᾶς;

"But if an Alanic woman has a priest as an intimate companion, you might hear:

Aren't you ashamed, my lady, that a priest fucks your μ.?"

Alanic: 

το φάρνετζ, κίντζι · μέσφιλι · καὶτζ · φουὰ · σαοῦγγε ·

Now, I don't know what the pejoration of μουνίν is at this time in Medieval Greek, nor if it is necessarily Tzetzes' original or a scribal interpolation (Nick Nicholas over at Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος gives us some context about this). I suspect Bielmeier's translation (in German) is given in the way that it is ("Schämst du dich nicht, meine Herrin, (daß) ein Priester (mit dir) Geschlechtsverkehr hat?") to avoid having to deal with this issue, but intransitive Geschlechtsverkehr haben "to have sexual intercourse" isn't exactly what the Greek actually says. The verb γαμέω definitely has a direct object that is possessed by the αὐθέντρια.

Anyway, that was quite fun to learn about. I have not yet had a chance to read much of the rest of the volume yet, but 10/10 I would buy again.