“Simonides Is Still Alive!”: An Interview with Author Rüdiger Schaper about His Biography of a Manuscript Forger

1. Hunting for rare books, collecting mania, true forgeries, falsified history, fictional elements in biographical writing – these are just some of the topics I talked about with author Rüdiger Schaper. He has dedicated a biography to the famous forger Constantine Simonides.¹ After the publication of Codex Sinaiticus by Tischendorf, Simonides went public with the claim to have written the whole manuscript at the age of 17 within only eight months – “the most insane thing Simonides ever did”, as Schaper says. In this way, he also contributed in a curious way to the history of the diaspora manuscripts of St Catherine’s Monastery and sheds an interesting light on the time in which their dispersion in Europe took off. Schaper and I spoke via video call for about an hour in mid-May. He was in Berlin, I was near Munich. The conversation took place in German. I have translated the version of the interview published here into English.

2. What sparked the idea of writing a biography of Constantine Simonides?
Rüdiger Schaper: I have to say that the whole Greek world, especially the ancient Greek world, has fascinated me ever since. But also later periods, the Byzantine culture. I was very fascinated by icons, the Byzantine world of images. That had to do with a trip to Russia. And I also went through a phase of collecting icons myself. My wife and I ended up in an icon shop in Berlin by chance after the Wende, when this was booming here, simply because the borders were open and more stuff was coming over. I also became very interested in Mount Athos, which we’ll surely talk about later. In any case, I had the opportunity to travel to the Sinai in 2007. That was a completely different context, we were supposed to study Bedouin culture there. But I was of course very keen on visiting St Catherine’s Monastery. I then got myself some literature. You immediately come across Tischendorf and then this strange Greek name pops up. I’m a journalist, as you know, and something piqued my interest. I can’t remember exactly what piqued my interest. Then I thought, well, an exciting figure, if there were such feuds in the media back then, in the newspapers that is, let’s try and find some literature about Simonides, too …

3. About whom you couldn’t find much, I suppose …
Rüdiger Schaper: Practically nothing. What also made me curious was a comment by a Greek friend. I had already collected some material. But he said he knew that the name “Simonides” was taboo in Greece. That was over fifteen years ago. He said that was a topic better not to be investigated. He told me about theology students who wanted to work on it but then abandoned it. In short: there’s no blessing in it. So I thought, well, it’s getting better and better. I then really started researching. I suddenly realised that I could pursue my passions, the Greek world, Byzantine culture, and then this crazy character.

4. According to the title of your book, we are embarking on an “odyssey” with Simonides. What were the stages of your own journey as you followed his traces?
Rüdiger Schaper: Through a colleague who is half Greek and half German, I got in touch with people who then went out for me. To the Gennadius Library, for example. The feedback I got was: that’s great, something seems to be there. I then went there myself and had them bring me everything they had on Simonides. That’s the right library. The next thing that baffled me was that they had already converted a lot of things to digital, but for Simonides they were still rifling around in library card boxes. Then they brought me everything they had about him. I suddenly thought, what happens if you take the library cards? There was no supervisory staff there. If I pack up these books now, the topic will be gone. I also realised that the books were not in good condition. I copied them and had everything translated that was in Greek. That was a lot of material to start with. I then thought about how to organise it and came across this strange biography – or autobiography – by Charles Stewart, which I strongly suspect was written by Simonides himself.² It was a bit difficult to get hold of, so I rummaged around in London. Piece by piece, I gathered everything together. Of course I read in parallel, also about Tischendorf. When I think about it today, I had an initial interest and by searching around, which took a certain amount of time, I became more and more curious. Because on the one hand, I found what I got exciting, but on the other hand it was also full of gaps. And the whole time I had that feeling that there was something hidden that perhaps didn’t want to be unearthed.

5. Simonides is of course the hero of your book, which inevitably puts Tischendorf in the role of the anti-hero. Where did this aversion to Tischendorf come from, which you also express in the epilogue of the book?
Rüdiger Schaper: Originally, Simonides’ name only appeared as a marginal note, I can’t remember in which book, simply as Tischendorf’s mortal enemy as it were. Now my book is about the odyssey of the forger and not that of the theologian or the like. You somehow decide or it happens to you or you let it happen that the character takes centre stage. When he is the centre of attention, he automatically attracts more sympathy. And of course I also wanted to side with the Greeks after their fight for independence. I felt a bit like a philhellene, I’m willing to admit that. Tischendorf on the other hand, everything I’ve read about him I’ve found really boring to be honest. A tame scholar’s life. Well, maybe I didn’t develop that further in the book, but I think he had his dark sides too, of course. You don’t have to be a grave robber, but of course you have to have a bit of a knack, I’m not saying you have to have criminal energy. But you have to really want the thing you’re after. I always thought that Tischendorf pretends to be so scholarly and he’s the good guy, goes back home, fathers another child, a good Protestant – and that’s it. He just wasn’t that tangible to me as a person.

6. In contrast to Simonides?
Rüdiger Schaper: Simonides is not that tangible either. But he leaves more room for reflection. In my opinion, the decisive factor was to play a role in this huge business, in this huge market, for adventurers, scholars and museums. An active role for someone from the people, who were rather passive. I don’t think that should be underestimated and that’s how I explained it to myself: that Simonides, in the then young capital of Athens, which was ruled by a Bavarian king and Bavarian administrators, had to do something about it, to play a part and profit, and not just watch everyone march through. I can’t prove that. I also didn’t write an academic piece and I took liberties, as is usual in journalism. But there are also reports from the time, for example the famous book by Fallmerayer,³ where you can sense this atmosphere.

7. Simonides not only had a bad reputation because of his manuscript forgeries. You have already mentioned the biography by Stewart, which was probably one of Simonides’ pseudonyms. How do you deal with someone who repeatedly manipulated and falsified the data about his own life?
Rüdiger Schaper: I hope you don’t misunderstand me. The book is mainly about things that I can be convinced can be traced, that there is evidence for them. But if someone dies twice, at least according to the newspaper reports, then you have to speculate a little, there’s no other way. It starts already with Simonides’ birth. The tendency towards the island of Symi is much stronger than that towards the island of Hydra, but Hydra was somehow more attractive to him. You’re right, we’re basically dealing with an author who constantly rewrote his own life. Now you have to come to terms with that. I’ve tried to make it as transparent as possible and as non-transparent as necessary. For example, I don’t know whether he really died in one of the Meteora monasteries, as I write at the end, but it seemed logical to me. I admit that there are fictional elements in the book that are based on probabilities. But I think I have named them. Maybe I’ve also left things out and in some cases I’ve worked with these fictional elements. When the book was published, I was often asked about it. I then said to people, why don’t you tell me what you think is not true? And people were always wrong.

8. An important point of the book is that it is not all that simple: forgeries are not simply on the side of falsehood. But history is not automatically true either. The question can also be asked the other way round: What is true about forgeries, what is untrue about history?
Rüdiger Schaper: This question of original and forgery or fake really preoccupied me at the time. In general, the idea of the original only emerged very late. It was something that museums and collectors only developed in the 19th century. Copyright also came very late in the world of books, and much later still in the world of music. In the time before that, we are in an area where it is not so easy to decide what is an original. Let’s come back to the Byzantine world and icons. If an icon is four hundred or five hundred years old, it is beautifully painted and of course not signed, because that was not customary, then you will still always be dealing with a copy. If only because the motifs always come from a canon and are then further developed. They are copied, but also painted over, restored and so on. So you’re reaching the limits of what an original is and you won’t be happy with that concept. Similarly for manuscripts. This was also the subject of Simonides’ trials in Leipzig. The production of a Greek manuscript on original paper, I mean on old paper or parchment, by someone who does this in the 19th century and is very good at it, a master of his trade – what do we have here? We don’t have an original from the 6th or 8th century, but an original from the 19th century. That’s all very difficult.

9. But what if he tries to sell it to me as an original from the 6th or 8th century?
Rüdiger Schaper: Well, then you’ve been duped a bit. On the other hand, you don’t have any rubbish. Because it’s authentic in the sense that it was made by someone who comes from that culture, who used the original material and did it with sense and understanding. That just shows how difficult this question is. Of course, if someone claims that it’s something else, that it’s a thousand years older, then that’s fraud. Because they are trying to get a different price. And then, of course, there’s the question of historic sources. I was once invited to a historians’ conference in Freiburg.⁴ It was about forgeries. I was the only non-academic speaker. There too: coins, documents and I don’t know what all, and big fat question marks everywhere. Because at some point we had to decide, that’s a reliable source or not. And it’s better that way, because otherwise we won’t be able to put things into order. That’s what I see in this whole Simonides story and I don’t know whether he did it consciously. But I then understood why in Greece perhaps no one wanted to take up the issue in the past, because otherwise something unpleasant might come to light.

10. I would like to come back to the point about the market, which you have already mentioned and which also plays an important role here. Because it fuelled the emergence of a character like Simonides. He catered to the collecting mania of the time. What does his story tell us about it?
Rüdiger Schaper: It tells us a lot! With Simonides, there is of course the connection to imperialism and the museums that arise from it, which created a huge market. I’m currently reading Marina Belozerskaya’s book about the emergence of the antiquities trade.⁵ The Grand Tour, the educational journeys through Europe that emerged during the Renaissance, is already beginning. Back then, people had travel guides in Rome, for example. And this guide led you through Rome, but he also arranged it for you if you said, I want a statue like this or I want something like that. And these things would probably still be in the ground today. It wasn’t just an academic interest, if we hadn’t really also had the interest of collectors. I imagine it was really wild in Athens back then. People were travelling all over the country and somehow, spurred on by the museums at home and the competition between the European capitals, tried to procure something. Simonides was a fortune hunter, saying to himself: I’ll join that game.

11. But why was it so important to own a part of the past, be it statues or manuscripts? Isn’t that almost a fetish?
Rüdiger Schaper: There are certainly different motivations. I myself, for example, have just bought a painting by a painter from Berlin. It wasn’t expensive. I really liked it and it now hangs in the hallway of my flat. I enjoy the painting and it connects with certain stories. I just need a few things around me that make me feel good when I come home or when I’m here. These are aesthetic pleasures. But that’s harmless. It gets difficult when I need ten or a hundred things that are just sitting in a corner somewhere. There are a lot of theories about the libido of collecting, what it’s a substitute for, sexuality or motherly love. For me, it has something to do with the fight against one’s own mortality and decay. I can imagine that certain objects have a certain gravitas and that’s good for you. Collecting books is a different story. I also know people who are severely afflicted by it. A certain hunting instinct should also not be underestimated. It’s like collecting mushrooms. Collecting doesn’t mean that the object is lying around at home or hanging on my wall. It’s an activity of searching and finding or not finding. It also involves effort, perhaps even danger. That’s great, of course. Hunting for rare books, I’m also at risk myself. With researchers like Tischendorf, for example, there was also something else involved. They were certainly also driven by vanity, because you want to be the first, it was about fame, about position, about competition. That’s a whole bundle of motives. Certainly also a bit of a thirst for adventure, riding around the Sinai, negotiating with scruffy monks and returning home in triumph. Simonides also exploits this narrative very skilfully, I think. He is also someone who has no fixed place of residence, who is constantly covering his tracks, who is almost on the flight.

12. You said collecting might be a way of fighting against one’s own mortality. On the other hand, you also quote the notion “Alexandrism” that was coined by Czesław Miłosz, the Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.⁶ He criticises the obsession with archiving and documenting, the hegemony of an “omnipresent memory”, as he says. How does Simonides relate to this?
Rüdiger Schaper: There is also this other Simonides, Simonides of Ceos. I also include him in the book. He’s the better-known of the two, who always comes up when you google ‘Simonides’. Interestingly, he was the master of memory. That’s perhaps a coincidence, but it’s of course very nice. We’ll never completely remember the past, but still. You were also there in St Catherine’s Monastery, you get a certain feeling there, a building from the sixth century. I feel that way, many people feel that way when it’s really old and when you’re standing there in front of it and so close to it, you simply connect with things from the past. It’s not necessarily an escape from the present, but it gives you a feeling of continuity or – it’s very difficult to say – there are almost religious feelings that creep up on you. I really think it has something to do with your own mortality or the awareness of it, because then you suddenly realise, that was 1500 years ago and I’m standing here now and you extend yourself a bit, but backwards. I regretted a little afterwards that I couldn’t ask anyone about Simonides or Tischendorf during my visit to St Catherine’s Monastery. It was only during the trip, as I was reading, that these names stuck with me. I thought long and hard about whether I should go there again. But it didn’t work out for various reasons. Mount Athos was also more important to me, I’ve been there a few times. I also finished the book in Ouranopoli, simply because I thought there was this certain vibe, the monks were walking up and down all day and you feel a bit closer to your story. Of course, that’s always an illusion.

13. It’s been 13 years since the book was first released. Was Simonides’ case closed for you with its publication? Or did certain topics or aspects pop up again?
Rüdiger Schaper: Well, I was involved in two translations. The book was translated into Italian and into Greek.⁷ I was invited to the national book fair in Thessaloniki with the Greek translation. The presentation was well received, but practically nobody knew Simonides there. I was amazed! I felt a bit like an impostor because I didn’t want to tell the Greeks something that was actually from their country, from their culture.  As for the Italian edition, that was a real Simonides stunt. Luciano Canfora, a respected author and scholar who also wrote a wonderful book about the Library of Alexandria,⁸ and the classicist Luciano Bossina, they practically took me under their arms. This was in connection with the dispute over the authenticity of the Artemidorus Papyrus, a document that was purchased for many millions of euros and exhibited in Italy. Canfora insists to this day that it is a forgery by Simonides.

14. He doesn’t seem to stop causing people trouble …
Rüdiger Schaper: Yes, but they also want to believe it. It’s very similar with Karl May, the famous German adventure writer, about whom I wrote my next book.⁹ That was connected to Simonides as well, because the same publisher asked me to work on it not much later. They said that Karl May was also that kind of 19th century figure, a bit dodgy, a fabulator, phantast, perhaps also a fraudster. Simonides was very helpful, because in Karl May I once again encountered someone who deceived the world with stories. You surely know that he has never been to the places where his stories are set. He was there later, as an old man, but by then all the books had already been published. And he was extremely disappointed with the United States, Egypt, and the Middle East. He really invented things that, like in Simonides’ case, got to his head. On a trip to Egypt, he writes from Cairo: I’m here again – again! As always, my fans are besieging me and want autographs. That was all bullshit! He was there for the first time, hardly came out of his room, probably had an upset stomach. It was all absolute rubbish. And the way he recited his stories, that he was a friend of Winnetou, was at his grave and so on. I think he had completely internalised that, and because he was selling it as a travel story, he had to prove that it wasn’t his own fantasy. His fans didn’t care, by the way. So fake news is nothing new! We can also see that with Simonides. For me, the most insane thing Simonides ever did, when Tischendorf presented the Sinai Bible, was to say that the original in that case is a forgery, because I made it and I’m a forger. It has so many twists and turns, I find that completely bonkers.

Published: 19 July 2024. Last updated: 3 October 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC. Download PDF

1. Rüdiger Schaper, Die Odysee des Fälschers: Die abenteuerliche Geschichte des Konstantin Simonides, der Europa zum Narren hielt und nebenbei die Antike erfand (Munich: Siedler, 2011). For those who read German, a sample of the book can be found here. [↩]
2. Charles Stewart, Biographical Memoir of Constantine Simonides, Dr. Ph., of Stageira, with a Brief Defence of the Authenticity of His Manuscripts (London: J. Skeet, 1859). [↩]
3. Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, Fragmente aus dem Orient (Stuttgart and Tübingen: Cotta, 1845). [↩]
4. Rüdiger Schaper, “‘Forschen, Finden, Fälschen’ – der zivilisatorische Dreisatz am Beispiel des griechischen Schriftgelehrten Konstantin Simonides”, Pontes 7: Tagung zur Rezeption der Antike: Verleugnete Rezeption: Fälschung antiker Texte, 22-24 September 2011, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. [↩]
5. Marina Belozerskaya, To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology (New York: Norton & Co., 2009). [↩]
6. Czesław Miłosz, “Alexandrismus”, in: Joachim Sartorius (ed.), Alexandria – Fata Morgana (Stuttgart and Munich: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 2001). [↩]
7. See Rüdiger Schaper, L’Odissea del falsario: Storia avventurosa di Costantino Simonidis, intr. by Luciano Canfora, contr. by Luciano Bossina (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2013); idem, Η Οδσσεία του πλαστογράφου Κωνσταντίνου Σιμωνίδη: η περιπετειώδης ιστορία του Έλληνα που ξεγέλασε την Ευρώπη και παράλληλα εφηύρε την Αρχαιότητα, tr. by Natasa Sechidou (Athens: Ekdoseis Nephelē, 2012). [↩]
8. Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, tr. by Martin Ryle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). [↩]
9. Rüdiger Schaper, Karl May: Untertan, Hochstapler, Übermensch (Munich: Siedler, 2011). [↩]

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