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