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A Brief Introduction to Translation Theories in Ancient Rome

Liu Yunxin,刘运心, Hunan Normal University, China

Abstract

Ancient Rome's translations represented the beginning of translation practices and theories, and had a significant effect on subsequent generations of translators. It witnessed two important waves of translation practices, the wave of literary translation and the wave of religious translation. Influenced by the prosperous translation practices, translation theories were proposed corresponding to the translation practices. Translation theories of the Ancient Rome mainly focused on the translation methods and strategies which are still discussed even today.

Keywords

Ancient Rome; translation theory; literary translation; Bible translation

摘要

古罗马的翻译是翻译实践和理论的开端，对后世的翻译家有重大影响。它见证了两次重要的翻译实践浪潮，文学翻译浪潮和宗教翻译浪潮。在翻译实践蓬勃发展的影响下，翻译理论应运而生。古罗马的翻译理论主要集中在翻译方法和策略上，至今仍吸引了大量讨论。

关键词

古罗马; 翻译理论; 文学翻译; 圣经翻译

Introduction

George Steiner, in After Babel, divides the history of translation practices and theories into four periods. The first started from the statements of Cicero and Horace on translation up to the publication of Alexander Fraser Tytler’s Essay on the Principles of Translation in 1791. The translation activities of this period can be further divided into three stages: the translation of ancient Greek classics into Roman; translation of the Bible in the Middle Ages and inter-translation of Arabic and Greco-Roman works; translation of the Bible and translation of secular literature into national languages. Those translation activities correspond with the philosophical trends that successively emerged in the timeline, including the natural culture of ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Christian culture, humanism of Renaissance and the Enlightenment. (Meng 2005; 9)

The translation theories produced in the first stage are called classical theories of translation which are closely related to the translation practices of translating Greek classics into Roman. From Steiner’s point of view, the translation in Ancient Rome marked the beginning of translation practices and theories and exerted considerable impact on the successive generations of translators. Steiner was not the only one who recognized the important role that translation in Ancient Rome has taken in history of translation theories. Eric Jacobsen claims rather that translation is a Roman invention.

The translation practice reached its very first climax in translation history during the end of 4th Century B.C. when the Roman Empire replaced the Greece as the most powerful country economically and militarily in the Mediterranean region. However, the Greek culture with abundant legacy of predecessors still exerts great attraction to the Romans. Many roman writers flung themselves into the translation of Greek literature and inherited the great heritage of Greek culture. The translation theories of this time, which all stemmed directly from practical work of translating mainly discussed the standard and methods of translation in order to provide better guidance to the translation practice in return. The very first translation theory formulated by Cicero stemmed from his translation practices of Greek classics.

In the late period of Ancient Rome (around 3rd to 4th century A.C.), with the decline of literature creation in Rome, literary translation gradually faded away. In the aim of winning over the people and save the country from collapse, the ruling class resorted to the Christianity. Under such circumstances, religious translation especially translation of the Bible gained great importance during this period. This is said to be the second translation climax in western translation history. The prosperous religious translation practices gave rise to the translation theories. The most influential figure of this time were St. Jerome and St.Augustine. Both as a translator and translation theorist, they proposed feasible translation principles and strategies and applied when translating. (Tan 2004; 24)

In conclusion, the translation theories first appeared in ancient Rome all shared an empirical focus and primarily unsystematic. Those theories of early theorist exerted considerable impact on the successive generations of translators.

Cultural and Historical Background

In the 5th century BC, the Roman Republic was established. As a result of great growth in productivity and the need for better development, the Roman Republic began to expand outward. After many wars, Rome conquered much of the Mediterranean and the Balkans areas and thus established its political, economic, and military dominance therein. The definitive Roman occupation of the Greek world was established after the Battle of Actium (31 BC), and afterwards conquered Alexandria (30 BC), the last great city of Hellenistic Greece. The Roman era of Greek history continued with Emperor Constantine the Great's adoption of Byzantium as Nova Roma, the capital city of the Roman Empire.

From 1400 BC to 1200 BC, Greek culture had reached its peak especially in literature, philosophy, architecture, aesthetics, science and art. By the 4th century BC, Greece was still the center of culture and philosophy. Although after the conquest on Greece, Rome served as the political center of Mediterranean area, the splendid heritage of Greek culture outshone those of Rome. Since the 3rd century BC, namely the heyday of the republic, the Romans began to absorb nutrition from the Greek culture through translating and imitating Greek classics. The fact that Greek Roman translation scripts spread over so many genres including speech, letters, lyric and epic poetry, etc. demonstrates how important the translation of Greek works was to Roman culture. Scholars have acknowledged that Roman literature originated in the appropriation and translation of Greek texts. Livius Andronicus (280 BC-205 BC) was the pionner of Roman epic and drama and also the first translator in Ancient Rome. Around the year of 250 BC, he translated Homer’s Odyssey into Latin, which became the first Latin poem and the first literary work translated into Latin. During the same year, Andronicus translated two Greek dramas into Latin and put them on stage. This marked the born of stage performing art in Ancient Rome. After Andronicus, two of the most famous translators, dramatists and poets are Gnaeus Naevius (270 BC-201 BC) and Quintus Ennius (239 BC-169 BC). They made great contribution to the development of Roman literature through their translation of Greek classics. (Tan 2004; 16-17)

Under the influence of the Greek tradition, Roman religion was polytheistic and regional. Each city had its own collection of gods and goddesses that had been Romanized from ancient Greek gods and goddesses. Until the 1st century, Christianity spread throughout the Roman empire posing great threat to the imperial cult of ancient Rome. For Roman, Caesar is the highest power.Only one divinity could be accepted by Christians, and it wasn't Caesar.In order to consolidate the power of the government, persecutions of Christian occurred. “There was a general enactment, precisely formulated and valid for the whole empire, which forbade the practice of the Christian religion. The origin of this is most commonly attributed to Nero, but sometimes to Domitian". Until the year of 312, the issue of the Edict of Milan by Constantine the Great, Christianity was officially accepted in Roman Empire. After the Edict of Milan, the Government of Roman Empire attached great importance to Christianity which gave rise to Bible translation. According to Tan, owing to the prosperous religious translation, it is around this period that the western translation practices reached its climax.(Whitby 2006; 23), (Sherwin-White 1952; 200). (Tan, 2004; 24)

Translation theories

Ancient Rome has played an important part in the history of both translation practice and translation theory. Ancient Rome witnessed two major waves of translation, namely the wave of literary translation of Greek classics and the wave of Bible translation. The prosperous translation activities gave rise to the development of translation theories. Corresponding to the two translation waves, translation theories can thus be classified into the translation theories of literal translation and the translation theories of Bible translation.

Literary Translation

The Roman exaltation of Greek literature has been interpreted as a proof of their lack of originality. Roman literature was thus already “secondary” and “imitative”. However, the conclusion in such a generation is incorrect. Romans believed that modification, deletion and addition are acceptable and even preferred when translating. The main purpose of translating is neither to interpret nor imitate but to compete with the source text. In other words, translation should not center on or speak for the source text. Translation should be creative and go beyond the original text. Translators believed that the knowledge of Roman can be displayed by translation by doing this. Even the first known translation in Rome, Livius Andronicus' Odussia, translation of Odyssey reduced the original's volumes from twenty-four to one. Terence, a comedic playwright who is sometimes considered to be a more faithful translator than Plautus, blended two Greek plays to create a single Roman one. Germanicus Caesar made a free translation of Aratus' Phaenomena, a Greek treatise on the stars, and also added an entirely new part. The basic principle of translating to improve their native language and literature places a greater emphasis on the target language product rather than more rigid notions of fidelity. This attitude towards the relationship between the source text and the target text is the main focus of the translation theorists at that time. The theorists also explored the translation methods and made distinction between word for word translation and sense for sense translation (a term which was later proposed by St. Jerome). (Tan, 2004; 19) (McElduff 2013, 10) (Bassnett 2002; 51)

Two of the most important translation theorists are Marcus Tullius Cicero and Quintus Horatius Flaccus. The fact is that none the two takes up their career as a translator but rather regarding translation as a way to express their own ideas. And no treatise purely on translation has been produced, but rather their thoughts on translation are scattered in other works.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman orator, statemen, scholar, philosopher and also a translator and translation theorist. Cicero translated not as an interpreter but as an orator. The translation theory of Cicero mainly scattered in the "On the ends of good and evil" (De finibus bonorum et malorum) and The Best Kind of Orator (optimo genere oratorum). Both of these two dialogues are not purely on translation. Only few chapters in them involve the translation. However, Cicero’s unique insights exert profound influence on generations of translators and translation theorists to come. Cicero’s biggest contribution to the development of translation theory lies in his distinction between translating as interpreter and translating as orator which can be also interpreted as distinction between word for word translation and sense for sense translation.

Cicero first discussed the relationship between orator and translator in On Invention. There the orator is the original, the perfect, the only possible translator of men.Greatly influenced by Greek philosophers, Cicero believed that the orator is the original civilizing force.“At this time someone—who was surely great and wise—understood what material lay in men’s minds and that it was capable of achieving great things if someone could entice it out and use their instruction to render it into something better.” The orator, according to Cicero, does not only persuade people, but also renders and converts them. This is a "scene of translation", in which the orator control and translate people rather than texts in real translation. (McElduff 2013; 97-98) (Cheyfitz 1991; 115–117))In The Best Kind of Orator, Cicero makes a distinction between interpreter and orator.

“And I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and the forms, or as one might say, the ‘figures’ of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language. For I did not think I our to count them out to the reader like coins, but to pay them by weight, as it were.” For Cicero, interpreter may translate word for word regardless of the language habit of the target language and without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. While translating as orators means reproduce the general style of the original text without the total following of the form and meaning of the original. Such a distinction become the cornerstone of any debate about translation from the Antiquity. Among the two translation strategies, Cicero has absolute preference for sense for sense translation. This tendency is because the orator’s task is to impress the audience which means the task for translator is to impress the reader. (Robinson 1997; 9)

Another reason why sense-for-sense translation is preferred might be related to Cicero’s classification of translation: translation can also be regarded as a kind of literary creation. Once translation becomes literary creation, the translator is not responsible for the original work or the author which means the accuracy of the translation is unnecessary. In this way the source text thus becomes things to be transcended instead of being imitated. Cicero believes that during the translating process it is significant to maintain the identity of the translator so that the translation can be thus be distinguished from the source text. By applying sense for sense translation in the translation of Greek works, Roman translators can choose the appropriate form and style to display the Roman culture while meantime reproduce the meaning of the original text. The task of translation is to enrich Roman literary system and produce Roman literary works. We can see in Cicero’s dictation:

“And supposing that for our part we do not fill the office of a mere translator, but, while preserving the doctrines of our chosen authorities, add thereto our own criticism and our own arrangement: what ground have these objectors for ranking the writings of Greece above compositions that are once brilliant in style and no mere translations from Greek originals? Perhaps they will rejoin that the subject has been dealt with by the Greeks already. But then what reason have they for reading the multitude of Greek authors either that one has to read? . . . If Greek writers find Greek readers when presenting the same subjects in a differing setting, why should not Romans be read by Romans?” (Robinson 1997; 7-9)

In conclusion, Cicero ushered in the emergence of translation theories. He made a distinction between translating as interpreter and translating as orator, namely word for word translation and sense for sense translation. He insists on the superiority of the sense for sense translation for two reasons. First, sense for sense translation better can better impress the reader. Second is that translation is literary creation which contributes to the enrichment of Roman literary system. Guided by those principles, Cicero’s translation practices also left large legacy to the world. His translation of Odyssey was Romanized and set a model for Virgil to follow. Plato’s works in his hand are both Platonic and Ciceronian. By translating Greek philosophical works and terms, Greek philosophy was disseminated to Rome and even the entire Europe and made significant contribution to the development of western philosophy. A large number of common words, for example, “quality”, “individual”, “vacuum”, “moral” and etc. are translated by him. Despite his contribution of translation practices, his contributions to the development of translation theory cannot be underestimated. Since cicero proposed his idea on translation, translation began to be regarded as a literary and artistic creation. Cicero’s point of view on translation marked the beginning of the history of translation theory and his interpretation of the relationship between word for word translation and sense-for-sense translation, form and content, source text and target text and on the rights and responsibilities of the translator has long been discussed by generations of translators and translation theorists. (Tan 2004; 20)

Quintus Horatius Flaccus

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, generally known as Horace in English, was the foremost Roman lyric poet during the reign of Augustus. His works include Satires 1-2, Epodes, Odes 1-3, Carmen Saeculare, Ars Poetica and etc. All of Horace's writing was greatly influenced by Greek poetry, particularly Greek lyric, and he weaves translated sections of Greek poetry and allusions throughout his works. Aside from being a poet, Horace is also a translator and a translation theorist. Like Cicero, Horace has created no monograph on translation. His discussions on translation are mainly found in his poem Ars Poetica. Horace's Ars Poetica or The Art of Poetry is a 19 BC poem written in hexameter verse as a letter to Lucius Calpurnius Piso (the Roman senator and consul) and his two sons. In Ars Poetica he mainly discusses the achievement of poem and drama and instructs poets on the art of writing poetry and drama. Horace attaches great importance to translation for the role it plays in literary creation and in the development of Roman language. Like cicero, he is also a firm advocate of sense for sense translation and he also regards translation as a kind of literary creation. However, Horace, as a poet, holds different view on the reason of choosing word for word translation. (McElduff 2013; 136)

“It is a hard task to treat what is common in a way of your own; and you are doing more rightly in breaking the tale of Troy into acts than in giving the world a new story of your own telling. You may acquire private rights in common ground provided you will neither linger in the on hackneyed and easy round; nor trouble to render word for word with the faithfulness of a translator.” (Robinson 1997; 34 )

We can see Horace’s reason of choosing sense for sense translation here. For Horace, translating the source text word for word like a slavish translator is a hackneyed treatment which would only be a waste of time. He believes that through sense for sense translation, the theme and thoughts of the source text can be better utilized by the translator in order to create their own works. Instead of writing brand-new story from the start, reproducing the material of the Greek literary works which are familiar to the reader in translation and transform it into one's own private property may be the right way of literary creation. (Bassnett 2002; 52)

Aside from the role that translation plays in the process of literary creation, Horace believes that translation also contributes greatly to the development of Roman language. He proposed that the use of new words in translation can enrich Roman vocabulary as long as moderation is exercised by the writer. If the translator arranges sentences skillfully, those household word can obtain new meanings which may perfect the expression. Moreover, if the meaning is abstruse and can only be expressed by new words, new words can be coined in moderation. The best way is to borrow the Greek word through translation, which not only can satisfy the need of writing and translation, but also can enrich the target language. (Tan, 2004; 21) To illustrate this idea, he compares the process of adding new words and losing old ones to the shifting of the leaves in the spring and autumn, considering this process of enrichment via translation as both natural and acceptable as long as the writer follow the principle of moderation. (Bassnett 2002; 52)

When it comes to the translation criteria, like his contemporaries, Horace holds the view that the evaluation of a translation should not be based on its fidelity to the original text. The translation must be faithful to its reader. In other words,“It is not enough that poems be beautiful; let them be tender and affecting, and bear away the soul of the auditor whithersoever they please. As the human countenance smiles on those that smile, so does it sympathize with those that weep. If you would have me weep you must first express the passion of grief yourself.” Although here Horace is mainly discussing the literary creation, we can guide translation by this principle for, according to Horace, translation can also be regarded as literary creation. (Robinson 1997; 32 )

Horace’s Ars Poetica are of great importance in the history of western history not only for its enormous impact on later literary creation, but also for its contribution in the development of translation theory. He further developed the word for word and sense for sense translation theory and put it into practice. His emphaisis on the reader's reaction might be regarded as the embryonic form of reader's response theory.

Translation Theories Originated from Practices of Bible Translation

With the spread of Christianity, translation inevitably acquired another role, which is disseminating the word of God. "A text-based religion, such as Christianity, presents the translator with a mission of producing translation with both aesthetic value and evangelical value. The history of Bible translation is accordingly a history of western culture in microcosm." The Bible which includes the New Testament and Old Testament is the canon of Christianity. The Old Testament was originally written almost entirely in Hebrew in about the 4 BC. The New Testament, which was originally written in Greek, came into being around the year of 33 to about 80. In order to spread the Christianity to other countries, it is essential to translate it into the national languages of different countries. The first translation of the Old Testament was completed by 72 Jewish scholars from 285 BC to 249 BC. Commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus to translate the Bible from Hebrew to Greek, the 72 Jewish scholars came to the library of Alexandria. They were asked to work in pair and produced 36 versions of translation that were very similar. In the end, the 72 translators gathered to compare their translation and agreed on the final version which is commonly known as the Septuagint. The Septuagint, the very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon. Jerome based his translation on the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the Masoretic text), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books. (Bassnett 2002; 53) (Tan 2004; 14)

Until the 1st century, Greece remained the dominant community of Christianity. However, with the spread of Christianity through Rome, a Latin version of the Bible texts became necessary. By the second century there is one such version in use in north Africa and another in Italy. These versions become corrupted and others are added, which as commented by Jerome "there are almost as many texts as manuscripts". However, during the 4th century, this situation was changed when St. Jerome produced his translation of the Bible called Editio Vulgata. In 382, the pope, Damasus, commissioned Jerome to provide a definitive Latin version. In his monastery at Bethlehem, tended by aristocratic virgins, Jerome produced the Vulgate. This eventually becomes established as the Bible of the whole western church until the Reformation. Another figure to be discussed here is St. Augustine. St. Augustine relate the language to the translation. Both of St. Jerome and St. Augustine take pivotal position in the history of western translation.

St. Jerome

Jerome was a priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He was regarded throughout the Middle Ages and well into the modern era as the “official” translator of the Bible, the author of the Vulgate Latin translation that in matters of doctrinal dispute took precedence over all Hebrew and Greek texts until the sixteenth century and beyond. Among the translators in antiquity, St. Jerome proposed the most systematic and precise translation method. He also put forward feasible translation principles and defend it. Those principles and methods are scattered in his works such as Letter to Pammachius (Ad Pammachium), Preface to the Pentateuch (Praefatio in Pentateuchem) and Letter to Sunniam and Fretellam (Ad Sunniam et Fretellam). Jerome’s contribution to the development of translation theory mainly lies in two ideas. First, he made a distinction between literary translation and religious translation and proposed that the choosing of the translation method should base on the text type of the source text. Second, Jerome believes that translator should serve as a conqueror to conquer and then enslave the source text and absorb it into the target language. (Robinson 1997; 23) (Tan 2004; 25)

Jerome sees the difficulty in literary translation as “it is hard to preserve the beauty of idiom which in the original is most distinguished”.And the transpositions of words, the dissimilarities in the word usage, the varieties in figures of speech and the peculiar vernacular essence of the language all added to the difficulty of literary translation. In his early stage, Jerome struggles to find a solution as “if one translates each and every word literally, the passage will sound absurd; and if by necessity I change anything in the order and wording, it will seem that I have abused the function of translator.” However, in Letter to Pammachius, Jerome restated that when translating literary works, translator should adopt sense for sense translation to translate the substance not the literal words. “Now I freely announce that in translating from the Greek—except of course in the case of Holly scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery—I render, not word for word, but sense for sense.”However, when it comes to translating the Bible, Jerome renders rigid word for word translation for “even the syntax contains a mystery.” Susan Bassnett came up with a Jerome model with the sacred text, the Bible in the center. The translation of Bible should be given utmost fidelity, in which one word would match another, which means the translated word would be written under the word it was supposed to translate. "Even if the interlinear ideal could not be maintained, and the text produced is so syntactically skewed as to become unintelligible, such word for word translation remains ideal." (Robinson 1997; 25-26) (Bassnett 1998; 2)

Another important view of Jerome is his translation as conquest. Jerome illustrates his idea by taking Hilary the Confessor for example. “When he turned some homilies on Job and several Psalms from Greek into Latin, he did not bind himself to the drowsiness of literal translation, or allow himself to be chained to the literalism of an n adequate culture, but, like some conqueror, he marched the original text, a captive, into his native language.” The attitude towards the source text evolved from competing with it in the time of Cicero to conquer the original text. Such transformation is resulted from the change of the national power of Rome. During Jerome’s age, Rome become the dominant power in the western world. We can see how power and translation is related. (Robinson 1997; 25-26)

St. Augustine

Augustine (Aurelius Augustinues, 354-430) is one of the pivotal thinkers in the Western world. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God (De Civitate Dei), On Christian Doctrine (De Doctrina Christiana), and Confessions (Confessiones). Among them, On Christian Doctrine mainly discuss language from the perspective of theology. This book involves the general topic of language and translation and thus can be regarded as important work of linguistic of antiquity and translation theory. Augustine’s role in the history of translation theory cannot be overestimated. His emphasis on the relationship between significatio, sonus and the judgment of the translator during translation contribute to the development of translation theory. (Tan 2004; 28)

Augustine makes a distinction between significatio and sonus. According to his definition, significatio refers to things existing in the actual world. Sonus refers to things which cause us to think of something beyond the impression things themselves make upon the senses. Verbal signs can be regarded as sonus. Sonus are only an expression of something else and were objects of the senses. The genuine object of true knowledge is the reality that lies behind the sign. A word usually contains both significatio and sonus. The relationship between the signification and sonus is arbitrary and is decided by the customs of the language community. As a result, one signification might have multiple sonus. Guided by this theory on language, Augustine proposes that during translation it is the translator's task to achieve the equivalence between the signification instead of the sonus. (Tan 2004; 28) (Robinson 1997; 31)

For it is the translator's task to achieve the equivalence, Augustine believes that there are several conditions that a translator needs to meet. First, a translator must be proficient in the two languages he is going to translate between. Augustine claims that the difficulty and ambiguity of Bible translation is mainly caused by the unfamiliar word and polyseme in Bible which make the proficiency in two languages essential. Second, a translator must be familiar and can empathize with the subject of the source text due to the sanctity of the translated text. The translator needs to be familiar and can resonate to the Bile in order to understand and translate in the correct way. Third, a translator must have the ability of collating. Since the there exists great amount of translated versions of the Bile, the translator need to make comparison between those versions and produce the his own version. (Tan 2004; 28)

Augustine's definition of significatio and sonus inspired linguistics in the 20th century. And how the significatio and sonus they are connected to translation brought the translation theory into a new direction. The requirment for translator to meet also served as an instruction for translators of his age.

Conclusion

Translation practices and theories in Ancient Rome witnessed two waves. First is literary translation in the early stage of the Roman Empire. While the second is the religious translation in later stage. Translation theories of Ancient Rome was born out of the translation practices of translating Greek literature which was dominant at that time. Produced in such historical and cultural background, translation thus became a way to enrich the Roman culture. Translation theories of Ancient Rome also share some other similarities. Although from different perspectives, Cicero as an Orator while Horace as a poet, they all encourage translator to render sense for sense translation.

In the later stage of Ancient Rome, with Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan, Christianity was officially accepted by the government of Roman Empire. Two of the most important Bible translators during this time are St. Jerome and St. Augustine. Distinguished from their predecessors, Jerome and Augustine go beyond the discussion of word for word translation and sense for sense translation, but emphasize the choosing of translation method according to the text type. Though not systematic, the translation theories of Ancient Rome influenced generations to come. Sense for sense translation and word for word translation later developed into literal translation and free translation and are still widely discussed around the world today. Augustine’s concept of significatio and sonus lay the foundation for the development of modern linguistics. Those theories proposed by Roman still inspires us until today.

References

Bassnett, Susan & Lefevere, André. (1998). Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Bassnett, Susan. (2002). Translation Studies (New Accents). London: Routledge.

de Ste.Croix, G.E.M. (2006). Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Liu Miqing刘宓庆. (2005). 中西翻译思想比较研究[Translation Thinking in China and in the West]. Beijing: China Translation Corporation中国对外翻译出版公司.

McElduff, Siobhán. (2013). Roman Theories of Translation: Surpassing the Source. New York; London: Routledge.

Meng Fanjun 孟凡君. (2005).论西方译学发展的文化传统["The Culturally Sustained Development of Translation Studies in the West]. 中国翻译 Chinese Translation (3) 8–13.

Robinson, Douglas. (1997). Western Translation Theory: From Herodotus to Nietzsche. London: Routledge.

Sherwin-White, A. N. (1952). "The Early Persecutions and Roman Law Again". The Journal of Theological Studies. 3 (2): 200.

Tan Zaixi 谭载喜. (2004) 西方翻译简史 [A Short History of Translation in the West]. Beijing: The Commercial Press商务印书馆.

Written by --Liu Yunxin (talk) 11:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Classmate's suggestions The proposed corrections have been indicated and marked in this paper where emendations are needed.

Corrected by--Wei Zhaoyan (talk) 09:36, 10 December 2021 (UTC)