Simonides - Sophronius

Steven Avery

Administrator
He could have been. Monks never used their given names


David
David W. Daniels


There is a Sophronios entry in Panteleimon that is clearly Simonides

1723928310166.jpeg
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
hi David "my first stay. 2nd, I was at Mount Athos for political reasons, and was habited as a monk, and was known as Sophronius and not as Simonides. These matters would be well understood by those who know the peculiar relations of the Greeks, Roman Catholics, and Turks in those regions, but may be incomprehensible to some of your readers." Was he know AT Mt. Athos as Sophronius? Probably not?
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Baricourt in 1890 in the NY Sun
is it credible
Baricourt = 1850/51 his 2nd visit to Athos; manuscript smash and grab

He also used the fake alias "Baricourt".


Daily Alta California,
Volume 83
Number 132
Sunday, November 9th, 1890
Subheading: “An Erudite Rascal”
Page 11


“He sold it for $3200 to the Duke of Sutherland [= Sir Thomas Phillips], and also disposed of a beautiful letter from Alcibiades to Pericles to the same purchaser for $1000. When the fraud was discovered, Simonides was away off on the Continent again. No trace of him could be found, and the scholars' of Europe hoped and thought they were at last relieved of this disturber of the traditions of antiquity. One day, however, the news came from the Athos cloister(s) [= plural] that the indefatigable forger was loose again, under the assumed name of "Baricourt". The monks throughout that part of the world [i.e. all of Mt. Athos] were warned against him, and he was eventually caught in the Iberian cloister in the act of adding to an old manuscript a little supplementary matter of his own composition. He was rushed out, the warning against him was published far and near, and he was made so notorious that his profession ceased to be profitable...”

My Footnote

The Iberian cloister = the Iviron Monastery (Greek: Ιβήρων) has a library which is one of the richest in Mount Athos, containing more than 2,000 codices and 15 liturgical scrolls, 100 manuscripts and 15,000 printed books. The library also contains several important imperial and patriarchal documents.

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DAC18901109.2.117&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Curious Literary Frauds
E. W. Mayo
Era Magazine - 1903
https://books.google.com/books?id=Nn9MAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA389
The Rose-Jar - 1905
https://books.google.com/books?id=10957ZxKsEwC&pg=PA200
From time to time the world of letters
is shaken up by a successful literary
imposture; and while these fraudulent
attempts were more frequent some gen-
erations ago, a fresh venture now and
again serves to show that the field is still
open. It is not very long, indeed, since
a commotion was caused by the exposure,
in London, of the man calling himself
Louis dc Rougcmont, whose story of a
thirty years’ experience among cannibal
blacks in Australia turned out to be
merely one of a long line of literary fakes
and frauds.

...

Mormon - Islam

Undoubtedly the greatest of modern literary forgers was the Greek, Alcibiades Simonides, who died no longer ago than 1890. It is a question indeed if Simonides has ever had an equal in his peculiar calling. To the sublime impudence of Psalmanazar, he added accomplishments which were invaluable to him in the particular line of work which he had selected. He was a chemist, an artist and a lithographer, a combination especially valuable in the manufacture of ancient manuscripts, which was the forte of this modem Alcibiades. In 1835 Simonides appeared in Athens and laid before the king an ancient manuscript supposed to have been forever lost. His uncle and himself had discovered it in the cloister of Chilandri, on Mt. Athos. The delighted king paid $10,000 for the precious documents. In a year Simonides was back again with a fresh lot. This time it was ancient Homer, written on lotus leaves, that he had found. The king felt that lie could not afford to buy all of this, but he suggested to the directors of the University of Athens that they buy one-half of the manuscript and that lie would pay for the other half. A commission of
twelve scholars was appointed to examine the work. All but one reported in favor of its authenticity. This one, Professor Mavraki, insisted on further investigation, which brought out the peculiar fact that this ancient manuscript reproduced all the misprints of Wolff’s edition of
Homer. By this time Simonides had disappeared.

Some years later a man by the name of Baricourt appeared in Constantinople with a palimpsest history of the kings of Egypt and other Greek and Assyrian manuscripts that set the learned world agog. After submitting them to examination at the hands of eminent scholars in Berlin and Paris he sold them for $40,000. The publication of the palimpsest history had actually begun before the Egyptologist, Lepsius, discovered that it was in part a translation of some of his own writings. But Simonides, for it was he, had again disappeared. His next victim was Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, in whose garden the Greek dug up a box containing an ancient manuscript, for which the flattered dignitary at once gave him a round price. Later he sold to the Duke of Sutherland a forged letter front Alcibiades to Pericles for $4,200. From the point of view of a financier Simonides was certainly the most successful of all literary forgers.

A less successful contemporary
of his was the impostor Schapira, whose
“Moabite manuscript” and other works
in ancient Hebrew gave rise to consider-
able discussion and have been extensively
written about.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator

Baricourt = 1850/51 his 2nd visit to Athos; manuscript smash and grab

Thanks!
Yes, I had noticed it was reported late, in 1890, but the event and name, if reported properly 40 years later, was c. 1850.

However, do any reports from c. 1850 show this Baricourt name?

Baricourt Shows up in a different report from E. W. Mayo in 1903:

Curious Literary Frauds
E. W. Mayo
Era Magazine - 1903
https://books.google.com/books?id=Nn9MAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA389
The Rose-Jar - 1905
https://books.google.com/books?id=10957ZxKsEwC&pg=PA200

Undoubtedly the greatest of modern literary forgers was the Greek, Alcibiades Simonides, who died no longer ago than 1890. It is a question indeed if Simonides has ever had an equal in his peculiar calling. To the sublime impudence of Psalmanazar, he added accomplishments which were invaluable to him in the particular line of work which he had selected. He was a chemist, an artist and a lithographer, a combination especially valuable in the manufacture of ancient manuscripts, which was the forte of this modem Alcibiades. In 1835 Simonides appeared in Athens and laid before the king an ancient manuscript supposed to have been forever lost. His uncle and himself had discovered it in the cloister of Chilandri, on Mt. Athos. The delighted king paid $10,000 for the precious documents. In a year Simonides was back again with a fresh lot. This time it was ancient Homer, written on lotus leaves, that he had found. The king felt that lie could not afford to buy all of this, but he suggested to the directors of the University of Athens that they buy one-half of the manuscript and that lie would pay for the other half. A commission of twelve scholars was appointed to examine the work. All but one reported in favor of its authenticity. This one, Professor Mavraki, insisted on further investigation, which brought out the peculiar fact that this ancient manuscript reproduced all the misprints of Wolff’s edition of Homer. By this time Simonides had disappeared.

Some years later a man by the name of Baricourt appeared in Constantinople with a palimpsest history of the kings of Egypt and other Greek and Assyrian manuscripts that set the learned world agog. After submitting them to examination at the hands of eminent scholars in Berlin and Paris he sold them for $40,000. The publication of the palimpsest history had actually begun before the Egyptologist, Lepsius, discovered that it was in part a translation of some of his own writings. But Simonides, for it was he, had again disappeared. His next victim was Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, in whose garden the Greek dug up a box containing an ancient manuscript, for which the flattered dignitary at once gave him a round price. Later he sold to the Duke of Sutherland a forged letter front Alcibiades to Pericles for $4,200. From the point of view of a financier Simonides was certainly the most successful of all literary forgers.
 
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