| Archaic |
Homer, Iliad & Odyssey (Greek) |
βούκολος = “cowherd”; βουκόλια = “herds/pastures” (passim). |
Frequent pastoral/common-noun usage (herdsmen, cattle, grazing scenes). Exact loci can be appended on request. |
| Archaic |
Hesiod (Greek) |
βούκολος “cowherd”; βουκόλια “herds.” |
Standard agrarian vocabulary; precise passages available on request. |
| 5th c. BCE |
Herodotus, Histories 2.17 (Ionic Greek) |
Mentions the “Bucolic branch” of the Nile; marsh district settled by βουκόλοι (“herdsmen”). |
Identifies the northwest Delta “Bucolic” mouth; ancient scholarship links the name to local herdsmen. See also note on Βουκολικόν στρόμα in later Latin/Greek sources on the region. |
| Hellenistic–Early Imperial |
Strabo, Geographica (Greek) |
Mentions βουκόλοι (herdsmen) in connection with parts of Alexandria and the wider Delta. |
Pearson: Strabo’s generic references to βουκόλοι are not probative for locating τὰ βουκόλου in Alexandria; the term occurs for several areas, so it cannot fix the Boukolou quarter. |
| Hellenistic |
Theocritus, Idylls (Greek) |
βούκολος/βουκόλοι “cowherd(s)”—Daphnis is a βουκόλος in Id. I & VII; two βουκόλοι sing in VI. |
Canonical bucolic usage later reshaped by Longus. |
| 5th c. (post-Constantine) |
Gelasius of Cyzicus, Historia Ecclesiastica I.3–4 (Greek) |
«…Ὅτι Ἀλέξανδρόν τινα πρεσβύτερον Βαύκαλιν ἐπονομαζόμενον, διὰ τὸ σαρκὸς ὑπερτραφοῦς ὄγκον ὑπὸ τῶν μεταφρένων αὐτοῦ σεσωρευμένον ἄγγους ὀστρακίνου ἐκμιμεῖσθαι σχῆμα, ἅπερ οὖν βαυκάλας ἐπιχωρίως Ἀλεξανδρεῖς εἰώθασιν ὀνομάζειν, τοῦτόν φησιν τὴν δευτέραν τάξιν μετ᾿ Ἄρειον ἔχοντα ἄρξαι τῆς αἰτίας ἐξ ἧς ἡ διαφορὰ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ Ἀρείῳ συνερράγη, καὶ τὴν τοῦ ὁμοουσίου ἀνακήρυξιν ἐκεῖθεν ἐπιτεχνασθῆναι.» — “A certain presbyter of Alexandria named Baucalis (so called because a mass of overgrown flesh on his back resembled an earthen jar, which the Alexandrians call baucala), holding the second rank after Arius, began the cause from which the quarrel between Bishop Alexander and Arius burst forth; and from this the proclamation of the homoousios was contrived.” |
Explains the nickname Baucalis as a local jar-term; places him immediately beneath Arius in rank; makes him the instigator of the Alexander–Arius rupture that led to Nicene ὁμοούσιος. Useful for tying “Baucalis/Boucolia” clergy to the origins of the controversy. |
| Modern thesis (contested) |
J. J. Fernández Sangrador (Spanish-language studies on Mark/Alexandria) |
(As summarized) Concedes the Martyrium of Mark lay in the northeast, but claims the earliest seat of the community—Boukolou—was actually in Rhakotis (southeast), near the Serapeum. |
Pearson’s target: Sangrador splits martyrium vs. Boukolou and moves Boukolou to Rhakotis/Serapeum. Pearson rejects this, calling the Strabo/herdsmen appeal irrelevant and the split unwarranted against the hagiographic loci. |
| Modern analysis |
Birger A. Pearson, “Ancient Alexandria in the Acts of Mark” (in Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt, 2004) |
“There can be no doubt as to the location … τὰ βουκόλου lies in the eastern district, by the sea, beneath the cliffs; the tombs are those of Shatby. By the fourth century this area is a suburb; hillocks (‘cliffs’) once inland of the shore are seen on old maps but were leveled by modern works.” |
Pearson integrates Acts of Mark + Passio Petri Sancti + topography/archaeology. He identifies Boukolou with the Shatby coastal strip (E Alexandria). The “cliffs” = low hillocks now erased by modern cut-and-fill but attested on historical cartography. He allows that by late antiquity the zone could literally be cow-pasture. |
| 1st c. CE |
Philo of Alexandria, In Flaccum 55–56 (Greek) |
“ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων μὲν οἰκήσεων ἐξελαυνόμενοι… εἰς τὴν μικροτάτην… πλήθει δὲ περιουσίῳ μὴ χωρουμένην ἐξεκχυθῆναι καὶ εἰς αἰγιαλοὺς καὶ κοπρίας καὶ μνήματα.” — “Driven out from four of the five districts… into the smallest… and, because of their numbers, they spilled out onto the seashores, the refuse-heaps, and the tombs.” |
Philo never names “Boucolia,” but his triad (shore–rubbish–tombs) describes the extra-mural coastal–necropolis fringe east of the city later remembered as Bucolia/Baucalis. Used as the primary topographical anchor for placing Boucolia by the shore and cemeteries beyond the urban fabric; the linkage is inferential but widely adopted in modern discussions. |
| Late antique Alexandria (context) |
Luijendijk, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Aphroditē’s Dump” (English with Greek citations) |
Discusses a settlement “on the trash/dung heap,” with Greek labels for dump-sites and their role in late antique Egyptian urban life; documents the practice of discarding texts on refuse mounds (κοπρίαι) at village edges. |
Establishes that κοπρία/refuse mounds were normative urban features in Roman–Byzantine Egypt, supplying concrete background for how a “dung-heap” topos would map onto Alexandrian place-imaginaries. |
| Imperial Roman Egypt (2nd–3rd c.) |
Gnomon of the Idios Logos (Greek, administrative code) |
§41: «Ἐὰν Αἰγύπτιος ἐκ κοπρίας [ἀν]έληται παῖδα καὶ τοῦτον υἱοποιήσηται … μετὰ θάνατον τεταρτολογεῖται»; §107: «Τῶν ἀναιρουμένων ἀπὸ [κοπρίας] … μετὰ θάνατον τὸ τέταρτον ἀναλαμβάνεται.» French tr. (Perdrizet): «Le fisc prélèvera le quart de la succession de tout Égyptien qui aura, de son vivant, recueilli ἐκ κοπρίας et adopté un enfant.» |
Key administrative usage: ἐκ κοπρίας (“from the dung-heap”) is a legal category for exposed infants; the code imposes a quarter-tax on estates of those who adopted such a child—evidence that “dunghill” exposure was a known social-legal reality in Egypt. |
| Imperial Roman Egypt (2nd–3rd c.) |
Gnomon of the Idios Logos (Greek, administrative code) |
§92: «[Κ]οπριάρτῳ οὐκ ἐξόν ἱεράσθαι» (Perdrizet’s restoration); tr.: «Il est défendu à un ἐκ κοπρίας d’exercer comme prêtre.» |
Direct cultic exclusion of those “from the dung-heap” from priestly office; Perdrizet argues the correct reading against Schubart’s earlier misreading. Useful for showing the stigma attached to “κοπρία” origins in Egyptian religious settings. |
| Homeric to Imperial; esp. Egypt & Macedonia (various) |
Perdrizet, “Copria” (French, onomastic/papyrological survey) |
Derivations from κόπρος/κοπρών: discussion of Κοπρεύς “from κόπρος” and the pejorative by-form Κοπρώνυμος; catalogue of names Κοπρεύς/Κοπρία etc. in papyri and inscriptions. |
Shows a long-standing pejorative semantic field around dung-terms; Perdrizet lists numerous Egyptian papyri with such names and notes frequent slave/servile associations—social degradation semantics that late-antique rhetoric could leverage. |
| Imperial Roman Egypt (159 CE) |
P.Ryl. [] 162 (Greek papyrus deed); synthesized by A. M. Luijendijk |
House sale in Soknopaiou Nēsos borders a dung/rubbish heap: «κοπρία» on the north; dung-heaps could sit inside inhabited quarters. |
Places κοπρία within lived urban fabric (not only extra-mural), strengthening the plausibility of Alexandrian districts whose identity was tied to dung-heaps and refuse. |
| late 2nd–early 3rd c. |
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.7.37 (Greek) |
«Καταφαίνεται τοίνυν προπαιδεία ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ σὺν καὶ αὐτῇ φιλοσοφίᾳ θεόθεν ἥκειν εἰς ἀνθρώπους… ὃν τρόπον οἱ ὑετοὶ καταρρήγνυνται εἰς τὴν γῆν τὴν ἀγαθὴν καὶ εἰς τὴν κοπρίαν καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ δώματα· … καὶ δὴ κἀνταῦθα χρησιμεύει ἡ τοῦ σπόρου παραβολή, ἣν ὁ κύριος ἡρμήνευσεν· εἷς γὰρ ὁ… γεωργὸς ὁ ἄνωθεν σπείρων… οἱ καιροὶ δὲ καὶ οἱ τόποι οἱ δεκτικοὶ τὰς διαφορὰς ἐγέννησαν.» (“…and here too the parable of the seed is useful, which the Lord interpreted; for there is one farmer from above who sows… but the receptive seasons and places produced the differences.”) |
Clement explicitly anchors his image in “the Lord”’s explanation of the Seed Parable, which he maps onto history: the divine λόγος/σοφία rains down, producing varied results according to the “receptive… places.” He first valorizes γῆ ἀγαθή as the “good soil” of Greek προπαιδεία/φιλοσοφία (a positive preparatory medium), then pointedly pairs it with κοπρία/δώματα/μνήματα—images of refuse, rooftops, and tombs. On Pearson’s Boukolia topography, this second cluster evokes the Alexandrian littoral necropolis/refuse margin where later memory places Baucalis/Boukolia. Read this way, Clement is juxtaposing the noble “good soil” of philosophy with the ignominious physical margins in which the seed nevertheless took root as [the Church] in Alexandria. Thus the passage carries a double register: theological (how the Lord’s word found “good soil”) and topographic (the Church’s humble/borderland beginnings in/near Boukolia), cohering with Acts of Mark and Jerome’s inter Bucolia notices. |
| late 2nd c. polemic (via Origen) |
Celsus, Alethēs Logos (Greek), preserved in Origen, Contra Celsum 4.23–31 |
“…σκώληξιν ἐν βορβόρου γωνίᾳ ἐκκλησιάζουσι…” / “worms holding assemblies in a corner of filth” (4.23); “…οὐ μᾶλλον οἱ ἐν Χριστιανοῖς… ἐν γωνίᾳ βορβόρου καλινδουμένοις σκώληξιν” (4.25–26). |
Reading the phrase “corner of filth” topographically (not merely abusively) aligns with the Boukolia/Baucalis belt on Alexandria’s eastern littoral—an area characterized in Alexandrian memory by rubbish-heaps and tomb grounds (κοπρία / μνημάτα). On Pearson’s placement of τὰ Βουκόλου in/near the necropolis/refuse strip described by Philo, Celsus’ image likely lampoons Christians as literally “assembling” at the filthy/tomb-side edge—i.e., the Baucalis/Boukolia site where [the Church] of St Mark was later remembered. Origen replies by spiritualizing the slur but never denies a concrete locus. Clement (Strom. 1.7.37) and Jerome (Vir. ill. 8: Mark buried “inter Bucolia”) provide cross-lights, as do Acts of Mark and the Coptic Synaxarion. |
| late 2nd c. (hypothetical; inferred via Origen) “the Borborites” |
Celsus, True Word (Greek) — lost Alexandrian passage referring to the Alexandrian tradition |
Reconstructed polemical motif (per Origen’s rebuttal): Christians/Jews likened to “worms holding assemblies in a corner of filth” (σκώληκες ἐν βορβόρου γωνίᾳ), “frogs round a marsh,” “a string of bats,” with swinish images: “pigs delight in mire rather than pure water” (ὕες… βορβόρῳ ἥδονται μᾶλλον ἢ καθαρῷ ὕδατι), “they go mad upon dung” (ἐπὶ φορυτῷ μαργαίνουσιν). [Eng. gist:] “Your assemblies are like vermin in muck; you glory in filth and tomb-grounds.” |
Theorized source for Epiphanius’ label “Borborites” (< βόρβορος, “filth”). Anchors: Origen C. Cels. 4.25–28 quotes Celsus’ slur “σκώληκες ἐν βορβόρου γωνίᾳ,” which plausibly targeted Alexandrian Christians at/near Boukolia/Baucalis (tombs/refuse zone). Clement’s parallel diction—“pigs delight in mire” and “go mad upon dung” (Protr. 9.24–27; Strom. 1.1.2.3–4.1; 2.15.69.1–2; 5.8.51–53)—shows an internal Christian counter-topography that acknowledges the ignominious setting while reframing it theologically ([the Lord] sowing the Word even amid “mire”). On this reading, Epiphanius’ “Borborites” preserves a Celsian/anti-Alexandrian nickname for the Markan church milieu; direct Celsian text is lost, but the βόρβορος cluster (βορβόρῳ, φορυτός, κόπρος) survives in Origen’s transcript and Clement’s Alexandrian rhetoric. |
| (Epiphanius as parody of Clement) |
Texts/lexemes: Clement, Strom. 1.7.37.1–6 (“εἰς τὴν γῆν τὴν ἀγαθὴν καὶ εἰς τὴν κοπρίαν … βλαστάνει … φύεται … τὰ θρεπτικὰ σπέρματα”; one sower/one rain → different soils) || Epiphanius, Pan. (Γνωστικοὶ “διαφόρως … φυόμενοι … ὥσπερ ἀπὸ κοπρίας καρποί … ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐβλάστησαν”; κωμῳδεῖ τὰ “Μήτραν” κτλ.). |
Hinge & inversion: exact overlap in growth/dung lexicon—κοπρία; βλαστάνειν/φυόμενοι; καρποί—yet reversed logic. Clement’s agrarian theodicy uses dung as didactic foil within one providential ecology; Epiphanius recodes dung as the sect’s essence/provenance. Even Clement’s inclusive “animal arts” (ποιμενική/βουκολική/μελισσουργική) is grotesquely mirrored by Epiphanius’ bestiary (dung‐beetles vs bees). |
Argument: Epiphanius lifts Clement’s imagery to perform a scorched-earth pastiche—same words, opposite valence—turning “rain on dung” (logos’ largesse) into “fruit of dung” (heretical origin). In an Alexandrian dossier, this is best read as deliberate parody of Clement’s agronomy, feeding the wider βορβορο-register that brands Alexandrian “Gnostics.” |
| 3rd c. (Alexandria) |
Origen, catena-fragment (Greek) on preparatory “partial” knowledge and the fig-tree (attrib.; likely from a Matthew/Luke scholion) |
«…οἱ πολλοί… οἴονται δύνasθαι… εὑρεῖν τὸν ἕνα πολύτιμον μαργαρίτην καὶ θεωρῆσαι “τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ,” οὗ συγκρίσει πάντα τὰ πρὸ τῆς… γνώσεως, οὐ “σκύβαλα” τῇ ἰδίᾳ φύσει τυγχάνοντα, σκύβαλα ἀναφαίνεται, ἅπερ ἐστὶ τὰ παραβαλλόμενα τάχα τῇ συκῇ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀμπελουργοῦ κόπρια, αἴτια τυγχάνοντα τοῦ αὐτὴν καρποφορῆσαι.» |
Origen aligns Paul’s “σκύβαλα” with the κόπρια of Luke 13:6–9: earlier/partial knowledges are not intrinsically foul, but serve as manure that makes the fig-tree bear fruit. Read in an Alexandrian dossier, this reframes the city’s “dung-heap” topos (Boukolia/Baucalis) as pedagogical soil: the Markan-initiate tradition grows precisely where opponents sneer “filth.” Thus the proverb functions as an Alexandrian counter to the βορβορο-register later exploited by Celsus/Epiphanius. |
| late 4th–early 5th c. (as preserving the sense of Clement) |
John Chrysostom, Homily on the Fig Tree (Luke 13:6–9) (Greek) |
«Συκῆν εἶχέ τις ἐν τῷ ἀμπελῶνι αὐτοῦ… Ἀπόκ. Συκῆν ἔθος τῇ Γραφῇ καλεῖν τὴν ἐν ἁμαρτίαις ψυχήν· ἀμπελῶνα δὲ τὴν τῶν πιστῶν Ἐκκλησίαν· ἀμπελουργοὺς δὲ τοὺς ἀγγέλους… “Κύριε, ἄφες αὐτὴν καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἔτος, ἕως οὗ σκάψω περὶ αὐτὴν καὶ βάλω κόπρια.” … Πολλοὶ γὰρ, ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ γήρᾳ μετανοήσαντες, διὰ θλίψεών τε σκαφέντες, καὶ διὰ πειρασμῶν δεξάμενοι κόπρια, τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐκαρποφόρησαν.» |
Fig tree = sinning soul; vineyard = the Church; vinedresser = angel. The “manure” (κόπρια) allegorizes trials/penances that, after digging (ascetic “spadework”), make the barren soul bear virtue. Strong dung-as-pedagogy motif that dovetails with Alexandrian “filth → purification” rhetoric (cf. Clement), but here framed as pastoral/ascetical therapy within the Church. |
| Early 4th c. |
Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 10.4.8–9 (Greek) |
«…εὐφράνθην ἐπὶ τοῖς εἰρηκόσιν μοι· εἰς οἶκον κυρίου πορευσόμεθα… μέγας κύριος… ἐγείρων ἀπὸ γῆς πτωχὸν καὶ ἀπὸ κοπρίας ἀνιστῶν πένητα· καθεῖλεν δυνάστας ἀπὸ θρόνων, καὶ ὕψωσεν ταπεινούς… τῷ πατάξαντι βασιλεῖς μεγάλους καὶ ἀποκτείναντι βασιλεῖς κραταιούς…» |
Panegyrical chorus after the peace of the Church, weaving Ps 121:1; 26:8; 47:1 and esp. Ps 112(113):7 LXX («ἀπὸ κοπρίας ἀνιστῶν πένητα»). The “dung-heap” topos (κοπρία) functions as biblical warrant for elevation from abjection; read within the Alexandrian dossier, it resonates with Boukolia/Baucalis as a stigmatized “filth” locale that Clement/Origen reframe as the very soil from which the Markan initiate tradition is raised and purified. |
| Late Antique rhetorical framing (4th–7th c.) |
Gregory of Nyssa, In inscriptiones Psalmorum; Council of Ephesus (431) epithets—collected by Luijendijk |
Gregory: trash outside the city = «stinking dung … dogs live in the filth»; Council of Ephesus: opponents called «αἱ κοπρίαι τῆς πόλεως». |
Witnesses to the moralized metaphor of dung-heaps as markers of impurity/exclusion—background that makes Arius-as-filth tropes legible. |
| 2016 (modern secondary) |
Andrew S. Jacobs, Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity (English) |
On Epiphanius’s narrative arc around Nicaea, Jacobs notes that “the efforts of Bishop Alexander of Constantinople, who prayed for the humiliating death that came to Arius while he sat on the toilet,” bring the episode to its climax (p. 87; citing Panarion 69). |
Concise synthesis that explicitly phrases the motif as Alexander’s prayer → Arius’s latrine death within Epiphanius’s dossier; useful pointer to Panarion 69.1.1, 69.3.1–2, 69.11 and modern discussions. |
| 2015 (modern secondary) |
Ellen Muehlberger, “The Legend of Arius's Death: Imagination, Space, and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography,” Past & Present 277 (2015): 3–29 (English) |
Synthesizes the dossier; prints/expounds the Alexander-prayer passage (Athanasius, Serapion), Rufinus’ latrine, Socrates’ Forum version, Sozomen’s toilet and memory politics, and Photius’ reception. |
Use as the source for the stories summarized here; cites primary texts and tracks how the locus shifts from private latrine to public Forum spectacle. |
| c. 358–359 (4th c.) |
Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Serapion (Greek) |
Alexander, shut in the church, “prayed that God intervene to stop Arius … As those with Eusebius threatened, the bishop prayed, and Arius … went to the ‘throne’ because of the necessity of his gut… ‘falling face first, he burst in the middle’ … and immediately expired.” |
Earliest narrative to link Alexander’s prayer with Arius’s latrine death; the locus classicus for the “prayed-down” toilet scene. |
| c. 402–403 (early 5th c.) |
Rufinus, Church History X.14 (Latin) |
On the way to the church, “pressed upon by a crowd,” Arius turned aside “to a public facility, out of necessity,” and “his intestines and all his guts flowed out down the drain.” |
First historiographic amplification; makes the death a public spectacle on the way to communion. |
| c. 439 (5th c.) |
Socrates Scholasticus, Church History I.38 (Greek) |
Near the Forum of Constantine: “a loosening of the bowels … his bottom fell through … the rectum immediately fell out … the rest of his intestines flowed out together with his spleen and his liver, and he died immediately.” |
Centers the scene at the porphyry column/Forum; most influential public-space version used by later writers. |
| mid-5th c. |
Sozomen, Church History II.29–30 (Greek) |
Locates the death “inside a public toilet”; reports rival explanations (stroke, magic, divine judgement) and notes an Arian tried to buy/demolish the privy “so that the people might forget.” |
Shows the site’s mnemonic power and contested interpretations; records later memory-management of the latrine. |
| 9th c. |
Photius, Bibliotheca 127 (Greek) |
Complains earlier historians omitted “the just and sudden end of Arius, which came from God and was seen by every eye.” |
Attests the dominance of the public (Forum) version in later reception. |
| c. 358–369 (Nicene aftermath) |
Athanasius of Alexandria, γνώμων Διονυσίου (Greek; fragments reflected in De Sententia Dionysii & Epistula ad Afros; echoed by Theodoret, HE I.8) |
«…οἱ μὲν πατέρες ἐκ τῶν γραφῶν ἐλάλουν· οὗτοι δὲ ῥήματα ἄγραφα τολμήσαντες κομίζειν, ὡς ἐκ κοπρίας εὕροντες, καὶ ἀληθῶς ἐκ γῆς ἐφθέγξαντο.» — [Eng.: “The Fathers spoke from Scripture; but these men, daring to import unscriptural terms, as though found from a dung-heap, truly spoke from the earth.”] |
Period: Athanasius’ Dionysian dossier is mobilized against Arian appeals. Claim: The very title γνώμων (“touchstone/measure”) signals a test to separate authentic Alexandrian–Markan Dionysius from Arian ventriloquism. Context: Arius’ prestige derived from the Baucalis/Boukolia Markan line in Alexandria; Athanasius counters by branding Arian “Markan” slogans as λόγος ἐξ κοπρίας (refuse rhetoric) and re-centering Dionysius as the orthodox heir. Upshot: The work reads as a targeted reply to Boukolia-based claims—using the filth trope to flip the local topos and to authenticate the Alexandrian (Markan) tradition under Nicene terms. |
| c. 369 |
Athanasius’ Epistula ad Afros (via Theodoret, HE I.8) |
Against Arian unscriptural terms: «ὡς ἐκ κοπρίας εὕροντες … καὶ ἀληθῶς ἐκ γῆς ἐφθέγξαντο»—they “found [their phrases] as if from a dung-heap … and truly spoke from earth.” |
Athanasius (as quoted by Theodoret) likens Arian vocabulary to words scraped from a dung-heap, in contrast to the Fathers’ scriptural terms. Anchors κοπρία as a stock polemical marker for doctrinal baseness; slots into the Alexandrian “filth” register that Epiphanius weaponizes against heretical lexica. |
| 4th c. (Aetius dossier) |
Philostorgius, Ecclesiastical History (lost; via later epitomes), on Aetius in Cilicia and Alexandria |
«Ἀλλὰ κἀκεῖθεν αὐτὸν ὁ φθόνος αὖθις, ὡς Φιλοστόργιος ληρεῖ, ὡς δ' ἄν τις ἀληθεύων εἴποι, τῆς γλώσσης ἡ ἀκρασία καὶ τὸ τοῦ φρονήματος δυσσεβές, ἀπελαύνει. ἐκεῖθεν οὖν τὴν Κιλικίαν καταλαμβάνει· καί τις τῶν Βορβοριανῶν, λόγοις αὐτῷ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἰδίας δόξης συμπλακείς, εἰς ἐσχάτην κατέστησεν ἧτταν… μετ’ οὐ πολὺ… Ἀφθόνιός τις… ἐν τῇ κατ’ Αἴγυπτον Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ συμπλέκεται… εἰς ἀφωνίαν συνελάσας ὁ Ἀέτιος τὸν Ἀφθόνιον… ἑπτὰ ἡμερῶν.» |
Aetius, driven out (whether by “envy,” as Philostorgius claims, or—more truly—by an unbridled tongue and impiety), comes to Cilicia, where “one of the Borborianoi” engages him and is utterly defeated; soon after in Alexandria he debates the Manichaean Afthonius, reduces him to speechlessness, and Afthonius dies within seven days. Reading: preserves an explicit “Borborianoi” opponent and situates Aetius’s polemical theater in Egypt/Alexandria. The notice bridges Epiphanius’s “Βορβορίται” label with Alexandrian settings and the filth-register; even hostile redaction (“Φιλόστοργιος ληρεῖ”) transmits the Borborian tag as a living ethnonym. |
| 4th c. (Latin West) |
Ambrose of Milan, De Fide 3.19 (Latin) |
Paul humbled; Arius boasts: «Paulus … nescire se dixit; Arius, sordibus volutans, Deum novit.» (“rolling in filth” = Lat. sordes). |
Ambrose mocks Arius for claiming divine knowledge while “rolling in filth,” signaling moral and doctrinal impurity. Latin reception preserves the same dirt/stench semantics; demonstrates cross-lingual continuity of the βορβόρος/κοπρία topos. |
| c. 439 |
Socrates Scholasticus, HE I.38 (Greek) |
Arius, about to enter Constantine’s church, withdraws to a public colonnade; “a violent relaxation of the bowels” expels his viscera; immediate death—at a public latrine. |
Locates Arius’ death in a latrine; later tradition treats it as divine retribution—death amid filth. Shifts “filth” from metaphor to topography; literal scene feeds the βορβόρος tradition reused by hagiography and Epiphanius-style invective. |
| 381 (4th c.) |
Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 34 → preserved in hagiography |
Alexander’s prayer “brought down the leader of impiety to a place equal to the filth (χῶρον ἀντάξιον τοῦ βορβόρου) which was pouring from his mouth,” so hubris met hubris. |
Gregory frames Arius’s end as fitting: a place “worthy of the filth” flowing from his mouth; doctrine → βορβόρος. Explicitly ties verbal/doctrinal βορβόρος to spatial βορβόρος; strengthens the idiom Epiphanius exploits when branding opponents as “Βορβορίται.” |
| Early 5th c. |
Rufinus of Aquileia, trans./cont. of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History (Latin) — via Martha Bayless, Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture, p. 129 |
«Arrius ad ecclesiam pergens… constipatus, humanae necessitatis causa ad publicum locum declinat; ubi cum sederet, intestina eius atque omnia viscera in secessus cuniculum defluxere; ita in loco dignam mortem blasphemae et foetidae mentis exsolvit.» |
Rufinus’ Latin fixes the latrine setting and filth-register (public secessus, cuniculum; “foetidae mentis”), with scatological wordplay (constipatus, pergens/purgans, exsolvit) noted by Bayless. Strengthens the dung/privy topos around Arius that later Greek sources (Socrates; Gregory; Synaxarion) amplify. |
| 6th c. |
Arator (Latin verse) |
«Qui criminis auctor / Errorisque tui est, fusa ruit Arius alvo… / Viscieribus vacuatus obit…» |
Poetic recapitulation: Arius “poured out” his bowels, paired typologically with Judas; emphasizes “fall” and excretive justice. Bayless, 130 (Lat. & Eng. trans.). |
| 8th c. (Constantinople memory culture) |
Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai (Greek) |
At Arius’s Constantinopolitan monument: “they used to defile (μιαινοῦσιν) [it] with dung, urine, and spittle (κόπρον, οὖρον, πτύσιν),” and the same triad is repeated in another notice. |
Shows a ritualized association of Arius/Arians with κόπρος (dung) in urban topography; strengthens the polemical coupling of Arianism with filth. |
| Byzantine era |
Synaxarion of St Alexander of Constantinople (Byzantine hagiography) |
Repeats Gregory’s motif: Alexander’s prayer “brought down the leader of impiety to a place equal to the filth [βορβόρος] which flowed from his mouth.” |
Hagiographic reception fixes the image of Arius dying on/at filth (latrine/dung) as vindication of Nicene faith. Codifies the βορβόρος trope in liturgical memory; shows how the “filth” register becomes a standard branding device—continuous with Epiphanius’ βορβορίτης tag and countered by Clement’s “dung-as-didactic foil.” |
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