7.0153 Rs: Intelex Texts; Ciphers (3/85)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 2 Sep 1993 14:37:34 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0153. Thursday, 2 Sep 1993.


(1) Date: 1 Sep 93 12:00:35 EDT (22 lines)
From: "David A. Hoekema" <DHOEKEMA@legacy.Calvin.EDU>
Subject: Re: 7.0147 Qs: E-Texts from Intelex (1/21_

(2) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 12:44:33 EDT (45 lines)
From: gfgf@math.ias.edu (Gary Forsythe)
Subject: Re: 7.0148 Qs: Caesarian Ciphers

(3) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 13:52:16 -0400 (18 lines)
From: Thomas Izbicki <izbicki@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.0147 Qs: E-Texts from Intelex

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 1 Sep 93 12:00:35 EDT
From: "David A. Hoekema" <DHOEKEMA@legacy.Calvin.EDU>
Subject: Re: 7.0147 Qs: E-Texts from Intelex

I have not used the Intelex texts, but have seen them demonstrated at
American Philosophical Association conventions, talked with the
developers, and heard generally highly favorable reports from
colleagues. It seems to have begun as a philosophical hobbyist's
project and grown, modestly, from there. The texts are likely to be
drawn from older editions now in the public domain: thus the Hume
_Treatise_ is the Selby-Bigge edition, not the most recent Oxford
critical edition (which is also available in electronic form, at many
times the price). Prices are very modest, and the search engine
rather staggeringly efficient--it dredged up every instance in Hobbes
of "religion" and "coercion" in the same paragraph within a minute or
two. Possibly the use of older editions would be a drawback for
libraries.


|| David Hoekema, Academic Dean, Calvin College (Grand Rapids MI 49546) ||
|| tel. 616 957-6442 || fax 616 957-8551 || <dhoekema@calvin.edu> ||

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------56----
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 12:44:33 EDT
From: gfgf@math.ias.edu (Gary Forsythe)
Subject: Re: 7.0148 Qs: Caesarian Ciphers (1/41)


My text of Suetonius is not at hand, but there
will probably be another person
who will respond with the
correct citation and quotation.
I just wanted to point out two other items
which might interest you.
In the fifth book of his Gallic War Caesar describes how secret messages
were carried through
enemy Gallic territory.
The messages used a substitution cipher involving the Greek alphabet.
That is to say, rather than using Roman characters, Greek letters were used
to spell out Latin.

Another ancient means of making secret messages was devised by the Spartans of
the
sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries. Two wooden staffs would be
made of identical length and shape. Their diamters would be varied, for
reasons which will soon become apparent.
One staff was kept in Sparta by the state officials,
while the other was sent out
with a military commander or governor abroad.
Whenever they wished to send secret messages,
they would take a leather strap and wind it around the staff.
They would then write their message in lines along the length of the staff,
so that when the leather strap was removed,
it was a long piece of leather bearing a series of jumbled
letters
which could not be read but could be easily reconstituted into a
coherent text by the person with the other staff simply
by wrapping the leather strap around his staff.

Both the staff and the leather employed
in this method of communication
were termed 'skytale'
and is described by Plutarch in his
biography of Lysander.

Gary Forsythe
gfgf@math.ias.edu
Institute for Advanced Study
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------32----
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 13:52:16 -0400
From: Thomas Izbicki <izbicki@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.0147 Qs: E-Texts from Intelex (1/21_

Johns Hopkins has had three of the Past Masters databases
for about three years.
They are not used as often as I would like,
but they have proven easy to use.
Those who do use them have been glad
to have access to them.
One caveat:
InteLex uses whathever edition
is not in copyright,
so the user may need to consult
another edition of more recent vintage
when in doubt about the text.