• 2013.04.14:  Mary Louise Gill, Philosophos: Plato’s Missing Dialogue.
• 2013.04.13:  Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Philo of Alexandria: A Thinker in the Jewish Diaspora. Studies in Philo of Alexandria, 7.
• 2013.04.12:  Stefania S. Skartsis, Chlemoutsi Castle (Clermont, Castel Tornese), NW Peloponnese: Its Pottery and Its Relations with the West (13th-early 19th Centuries). BAR international series, S2391, 2012.
• 2013.04.11:  Alexander Müller, Die Carmina Anacreontea und Anakreon: Ein literarisches Generationenverhältnis. Classica Monacensia, Bd. 38.
• 2013.04.10:  Laurence Cavalier, Raymond Descat, Jacques des Courtils, Basiliques et agoras de Grèce et d’Asie mineure. Mémoires, 27.
• 2013.04.09:  Ernesto De Miro, Graziella Fiorentini, VI. Agrigento romana: gli edifici pubblici civili.
• 2013.04.08:  John Yardley, Pat Wheatley, Waldemar Heckel, Justin. Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Volume II: Books 13-15: The Successors to Alexander the Great. Clarendon ancient history series.
• 2013.04.07:  Richard Neudecker, Krise und Wandel: Süditalien im 4. und 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Internationaler Kongress anlässlich des 65. Geburtstages von Dieter Mertens, Rom 26. bis 28. Juni 2006. Palilia, Bd 23​.
• 2013.04.06:  Ian Ruffell, Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound. Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy.
• 2013.04.05:  Matilda Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube in den griechischen Versinschriften. Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, Bd 108.
• 2013.04.04:  Giuliano Chiapparini, Valentino gnostico e platonico: il valentinianesimo della ‘Grande notizia’ di Ireneo de Lione: fra esegesi gnostica e filosofia medioplatonica. Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico. Studi e testi, 126.
• 2013.04.03:  Rumen Teofilov Ivanov, Tabula Imperii Romani K-35/2 Philippopolis.
• 2013.04.02:  Christos Kremmydas, Commentary on Demosthenes Against Leptines.
• 2013.03.50:  Maria C. Shaw, Joseph W. Shaw, House X at Kommos, A Minoan Mansion Near the Sea. Part 1, Architecture, Stratigraphy, and Selected Finds. Prehistory Monographs, 35.
• 2013.03.49:   , Die Artemis von Pompeji und die Entdeckung der Farbigkeit griechischer Plastik. Katalog einer Ausstellung im Winckelmann-Museum vom 2. Dezember 2011 bis 18. März 2012.
• 2013.03.48:  Sven Günther, Ordnungsrahmen antiker Ökonomien: Ordnungskonzepte und Steuerungsmechanismen antiker Wirtschaftssysteme im Vergleich. Philippika, 53.
• 2013.03.47:  Michael Blömer​, Engelbert Winter, Iuppiter Dolichenus: vom Lokalkult zur Reichsreligion. Orientalische Religionen in der Antike, 8.
• 2013.03.46:  G. E. R. Lloyd, Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies.

posted with permission:

The Codrus Painter: Iconography and Reception of Athenian Vases in the Age of Pericles. By Amalia Avramidou. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011. Pp. xiii + 237. Hardcover, $65.00. ISBN 978-0-299-24780-5.

Reviewed by Judith M. Barringer, University of Edinburgh

The Codrus Painter (fl. c. 440–420 bc) takes his name from one of the 106 painted vessels, mostly kylikes, assigned to his hand or to that of one of his circle. The vase paintings are less noteworthy for their technical skill than for their often unusual subject matter, which, together with their mostly non-Attic provenance (when known), makes them remarkable. Avramidou addresses all these topics—style, subject, and provenance—in this volume derived from her doctoral dissertation. Like most dissertations, this is a book for specialists—graduate students and scholars. This monograph devoted to a single vase painter follows a long tradition although there has been markedly less of this type of study in recent years. Avramidou’s text offers a model of its kind.

The text begins with a review of the history of the “creation” or the “recognition” of the Codrus Painter and his oeuvre and the establishment of a chronology of his works. In this (perhaps overly) detailed treatment, every step in the process is articulated as one scholar after another recognized one set of works by the same hand, then refined the group. Avramidou then takes up precisely this issue, establishing the oeuvre, as—in true Beazley spirit—she offers a meticulous study and definition of the painter’s style and that of painters similar to him (“Near the Codrus Painter”). The author may be a fan of John Beazley, but to her credit she is not shy about challenging some of his attributions, as well as those made by other notable scholars. There follows a chronological ordering of the painter’s output; changes over time in shape, composition, and subject matter; and a comparison of the products of the Codrus Painter to that his contemporaries—the Eretria Painter, Aison, the Meidias Painter, and the workshop of Polygnotos—with regard to subjects, shapes, markets. The subsequent consideration of subjects is thorough, considering literary versions of mythological subjects, earlier and contemporary visual examples, changes in iconography, provenance, social and historical context, as well as the impact of current political events, drama and other visual media, such as public sculpture and wall painting. Avramidou seeks meaning from a unified reading of all images on any given vase, which is successful in most cases. Finally, the author devotes an entire chapter to the leitmotif throughout the text, the relationship between the Codrus Painter and the “Etruscan market.”

This last subject has become an overriding concern of scholars working on vase painting iconography and especially iconology in the last few decades. How did all those Athenian vases end up in Etruscan graves? Were they made for Attic “consumption” or solely for export to the Etruscan “market” and therefore for Etruscan tastes? Vase shape and subject matter are key matters in this debate. Avramidou ties the Codrus Painter’s choice of subject matter to current Athenian events so, for example, warriors’ departures are painted because of the frequency and familiarity of this event in contemporary Athenian life. Accordingly, such images served as models and exhortations for the Athenians as they prepared for war. Elsewhere, she explains the Codrus Painter’s choice of mythological themes as having connections with current politics: the appearance of Medea and Aigeus on the exterior of the “Codrus cup” (32; pl. 1c) refers to tension between Athens and Corinth prior to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Likewise, the presentation of Aias to his father Telamon on another cup refers to Athens’ appropriation of Aias “as a figure proving the legitimacy of the Athenian claim over Salamis,” where Telamon had settled after his exile from Aigina (41–2). Such political readings of Attic vase paintings are problematic because of the provenance of the vessels (usually not Athens) and, more critically, the complexity of the interpretations and erudition required to decipher them. What is the chain of thinking required of an ancient viewer to get from Telamon’s reception of the baby Aias to Aias as a vehicle to justify Athens’ political claims to the island where his father was resettled? Some of Avramidou’s proposals stretch credibility: the images on the Cassandra cup “… invoke parallels with the upcoming Peloponnesian War and remind the viewer of the wrongdoings that occur in such conflicts” (49). If the war hasn’t happened yet, how can it invoke parallels? Here, the zealous interpreter seems blind to implausibility.

With such proposals in mind, one must question the intended viewers of the vase paintings when the vessels were found outside of Attika. Avramidou adopts a “polyvalent” approach: the vases and their decoration were intended for an Athenian audience, but were also legible in a different way to Etruscans who purchased them in Etruria. According to the author, the vases were produced so as “to evoke an Etruscan interpretation” (69) of Greek themes. The link between the Codrus Painter’s depiction of Themis’ augury and Etruscan recognition of the augury scene because of Etruscan practices works well (40) but other themes, such as the story of Erichthonios, are less convincing.

Likewise, claims about the Theseus cup—“The owner … advertised his own knowledge of Athenian culture and his potential connection to the Greek city” (39)—are hard to square with an Etruscan owner. To whom was such cultural sophistication advertised, and would it be recognizable? It is possible, even plausible, as some scholars suggest, that the Etruscans could not read the dipinti on Attic vases, and did not know the Greek myths, but simply wanted Attic products. On the other hand, if the vessels were intended for an Athenian owner, one must question how many people saw these images, which were (presumably) designed for use in the symposion.

A catalogue and numerous b/w plates follow the text. Most images are of good quality but there are some poor ones that do not help the author’s argument (e.g., pl. 17, 28a, 70, 72). Unfortunately, the numerous comparanda are rarely illustrated, making it difficult to follow the author’s points. The text is elegantly written although the organization sometimes is illogical, and some chapters, e.g., Chap. 11, could have been abbreviated (or presented as a table or chart) without losing anything. Nonetheless, this thought-provoking study raises the right questions and endeavors to answer them in intriguing, if not always convincing, ways.

posted with permission:

Latin Panegyric. Edited by Roger Rees. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi + 430. Hardcover, £76.00/$150.00. ISBN 978-0-19-957671-5. Paper, £29.50/$55.00. ISBN 978-0-19-957672-2.

Reviewed by Eleni Manolaraki, University of South Florida

The Table of Contents of this volume can be found at:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ClassicalStudies/ClassicalLanguages/Latin/?view=usa&sf=toc&ci=9780199576715

Edited by Roger Rees, this volume contains sixteen previously published essays spanning a century of international scholarship on the “Twelve Panegyrics”: Pliny’s gratiarum actio to Trajan and eleven Panegyrici for emperors from Maximinian to Theodosius. Rees provides a valuable resource for newcomers and veterans alike by threading together essential readings on imperial praise.

The volume consists of “Introductions” (three chapters, 3–74), “Pliny’s Panegyricus” (six chapters, 77–220), and “Gallic Panegyrici” (eight chapters, 223–386). These are followed by a bibliography (387–423) and a brief index (427–30). Words and phrases in the ancient and modern languages are translated, while numbers in brackets throughout indicate the original pagination of the essays.

The rich editorial introduction traces panegyric from Pindar and Thucydides to Mamertinus and Venatius Fortunatus, and surveys ancient and modern responses to praise-giving in various contexts (epinician, funerary, forensic, philosophical, etc). From the discovery of the XII Panegyrici Latini manuscript in 1433 to the present, recurrent research themes include the Classical, Hellenistic, and Republican models of the speeches, their intended audiences, the divergences between their original delivery and their written version, the relationship between panegyrist and emperor, and the panegyrist’s professed “sincerity.” Rees discerns a dominant, moralizing approach to panegyric and maps it onto shifting political landscapes and social sensibilities. A striking such example is the contrast between the enthusiastic reception of Pliny’s Panegyricus in early European royal courts and its condemnation by twentieth century criticism (15–16).

Rees’ introduction is followed by Mynors’ 1964 preface to the OCT edition of the XII Panegyrici, which clarifies and has since authorized the manuscript tradition. Pichon (1906) responds to the German scholarship of the late-nineteenth century, which postulated a single author for the unattributed Panegyrici. Drawing on paleography, stylistics, and autobiographical references in the speeches, Pichon establishes the Panegyrici as the product of diverse Gallic authors.

Section II, on the Panegyricus, variously explores Pliny’s laudatory ethics. Radice (1968) hesitantly endorses Pliny’s innovation in elaborating and publishing “stock themes,” and she claims the speech as a source for Pliny supplementary to his Letters. Braund (1998) identifies Cicero’s praise of Pompey and Caesar as nascent panegyrics influencing Seneca’s de Clementia and Pliny’s Panegyricus. Braund also underlines the normative function of Ciceronian and Senecan praise, now a guiding principle for reading Pliny and his Late Antique successors. Fantham (1999) detects in the speech oral formulae transmitting the oaths exchanged between Trajan, the senate, and the consuls; through ritualistic language Pliny solemnizes and authorizes his praise. Morford (1992) defends the respectability of the Panegyricus qua political contract; through hortatory eulogy, he argues, Pliny circumscribes imperial conduct and proposes a “working relationship” between emperor and senate. Bartsch (1994) shows that Pliny preempts senatorial criticism of his sincerity by declaring the coalescence of private and public “scripts,” by announcing the end of political role-playing, and by re-signifying formerly eviscerated political terminology. Hoffer (2006) illustrates how Pliny exploits the notional oxymoron of the “fortunate fall” in the Panegyricus and his letters to Trajan, to negotiate the transitional moment of Nerva’s death; human wisdom and divine providence collaboratively transform Trajan from subject into emperor, while he maintains both self-agency and no control over the succession. From Radice’s call to canonize the speech, to Braund’s calibrating its balance between affirmation and exhortation, to Hoffer’s non-judgmental appreciation of Pliny’s “Accession Propaganda,” the loosening of the moralistic stranglehold yields ever more sophisticated conversation on the Panegyricus.

Section III, on the Gallic speeches, is inevitably circumscribed by several unknowns. For most Panegyrici, authorship, chronological sequence, audience, and the role of the panegyrist in the imperial court are still matters of debate, and the controversy privileges historicizing rather than literary readings. These unknowns, however, also discourage the preoccupation with earnestness (or lack thereof) which shadows Pliny’s speech. Consequently, appreciation of the Panegyrici long predates the recognition of the Panegyricus as aesthetically and ideologically respectable.

In the earliest of these essays, Maguiness (1933) performs a combined stylistic–thematic analysis of select excerpts to surface their rhetorical skill. His essay is refreshingly unconcerned with the panegyrists’ honesty and even revels, among others, in their “ubiquitous tendency … to reconcile opposing actions or statements” (266). Verreke (1975) criticizes top-down views of the Panegyrici as either derivative from earlier Latin prose or as following Greek rhetorical precepts such as Menander Rhetor’s Basilikos Logos. For him, commitment to either approach dismisses the Panegyrici as imitative of “models” and of each other. MacCormack (1975) aligns oratorical and visual ekphrases of grandeur as they appear in motifs of imperial arrival (adventus), accession, and funerals. Lippold (1968), Blockley (1972), and Warmington (1974) examine speeches addressed to Theodosius, Julian, and Constantine respectively, all focusing on oratory as responding to immediate circumstances: Warmington compares Constantinian speeches to contemporary coinage as mutual reinforcements of ideology; Blockley tends to Mamertinus’ delicate negotiation of Julian’s predecessor; Lippold shows Pacatus’ renewal of traditional laudatory language in his praise of Theodosius. Along similar contextualizing lines, Nixon (1983) rejects the Panegyrici as bluntly propagandistic. He emphasizes instead their oral qualities and circumstantial nature, which belie their speculative function as imperial mouthpieces; the panegyrists and the court, Nixon argues, are more subtly connected through the Schools of Rhetoric at Gaul. Saylor-Rodgers (1986) defines the thematic significance of religious vocabulary for imperial portraiture; she traces continuities and permutations of this vocabulary across speeches, but she justly rejects an overarching linguistic “system” of divine attributes.

With their thematic variety, their chronological and geographical range, and their disparate methodologies, these wisely chosen essays highlight perennial questions emerging from a monarch’s praise and illustrate versatile and evolving responses to these questions. As for quibbles, a longer index tracing more than proper names across essays would have enabled readers to pursue thematic connections among the Panegyrici and their continuity with Pliny. Neither this nor the single typo I found (“emphasiszed,” 11), however, weaken what is surely an indispensable volume on Roman imperial laudatio.

posted with permission:

Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World. Edited by Susan E. Alcock, John Bodel, and Richard J. A. Talbert. The Ancient World: Comparative Histories. Malden Mass., Oxford and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Pp. xx + 289. Hardcover, £85.00/$140.95. ISBN 978-0-470-67425-3.

Reviewed by Cornelis van Tilburg, Leiden University

This volume contains 14 contributions concerning roads in pre-modern societies all over the world, dating from the second millennium bc until the 19th century ad, thus covering a period of ca. 4000 years. In the Introduction, the editors state that they were forced to make a selection; it was impossible to include all contributions concerning pre-modern road systems. There are two contributions concerning the Chinese road system and even three concerning the Roman network, but contributions discussing, e.g., Russia, Crete, the Carolingian and Aztec Empires are lacking.

At first sight, the order of the articles is unclear. They seem to be placed neither chronologically, nor geographically. The majority of the contributors are working at American universities and for some reasons they have chosen to start exactly on the other side of the world: India. The journey around the world goes eastward from here: via China and Japan to Meso-America and South America, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and, then in order, the Sahara Desert, the Persian Empire, Egypt, the Roman Empire and, finally, the Holy Land. The sequence of the last contributions especially—8 to 14—is strange. The other part of this volume suggests a journey from west to east—so why not at first the Sahara Desert, and then Europe, Egypt, the Holy Land and, finally, the Persian Empire, to the boundaries of India, the theme of the current first article? In that case, the circle of the earth might have been closed.

Starting at the first article and travelling through the entire volume, the reader meets many types of road systems. Empires with a central capital—the Persian, Roman, Chinese and Japanese Empires—have an extended road system of well-built roads, staging posts and lodges. Civilizations where a central capital is absent are not equipped with a long-distance road system: India, the Maya area and the Southwestern part of (nowadays) the United States. Some articles do not discuss roads at all, but routes, like the article on Masonen: the theme of this contribution is the caravan route system in the Sahara Desert. The last article (by Silverstein) does not discuss roads or routes, but Jewish social networks. In the present volume, only inter-urban and inter-regional road systems are discussed; roads and streets inside cities are not mentioned at all.

Not only do the different articles show different types of roads, but the scientific approach of the articles also differs. On the one hand, some articles discuss the routes, the histories and the archaeology of the roads widely; the article by Vaporis contains a large number of beautiful pictures of the Japanese road system. On the other hand, the information in some other articles concerning the roads themselves is scarce, but they focus on the interaction of the roads and their landscapes (Julien) and on even more abstract aspects like Hinduism (Neelis) and the road gods in China (Nylan). In some articles, roads are even mentioned as metaphors. The main goal of this book is to compare not only different road types but also the backgrounds and functions of roads.

Talbert points out rightly that we have to be careful not to consider, study and research roads too much from our modern point of view, i.e., considering roads as concentrated means of communication. Road maps, for example, were unknown in any pre-modern society, as far as we know. Moreover, traffic in former times cannot be compared with traffic nowadays (see, e.g., my Traffic and Congestion in the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 2007)).

Because of the divergent points of view in the articles included, a comparison between different road systems is almost impossible. In some articles (Nylan on China, p. 35 and Vaporis on Japan, p. 91), the road systems are actually compared with the Roman road systems, but it is difficult to compare, e.g. the Chinese and Maya road systems. All articles, however, are equipped with sufficient bibliographies.

The volume would have profited from an overview—or appendix—providing all measures (linear, cubic etc.). On p. 15 (Neelis), it is said that “every eight kos I have had wells excavated.” What is a kos? Another example: p. 36 (Nylan) speaks about “30 zhong of grain.” How much is a zhong? Even in the endnotes of these articles an explanation concerning the different measures is lacking.

The layout of the volume is well done; the number of typographical errors is low (e.g., Neelis, p. 15, mentions Hultszch but in the bibliography it is Hultzsch). A useful index with many cross-references is added. The title, however, Highways, Byways and Road Systems, suggests that byways are also discussed, but according to the index, there are only three references to “byways,” all in India. A subtitle like Constructions, Functions and Metaphors would have given a more accurate indication of the book; as it is, the reader first encountering the book’s cover might expect a merely archaeological and historical approach.

In short, the articles offer good starting-points for further research, and they provide as well good and elaborate bibliographies, but more uniformity would have been helpful.

• 2013.03.45:  Maria Wyke, Caesar in the USA.
• 2013.03.44:  Emmanuelle Raymond, Vox poetae: manifestations auctoriales dans l’épopée gréco-latine. Actes du colloque organisé les 13 et 14 novembre 2008 par l’Université Lyon 3. Collection du Centre d’études et de recherches sur l’Occident romain – CEROR, 39.
• 2013.03.43:  Kay Ehling, Gregor Weber, Konstantin der Grosse zwischen Sol und Christus. Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie.
• 2013.03.42:  Pierluigi Leone Gatti, Nina Mindt, Undique mutabant atque undique mutabantur. Beiträge zur augusteischen Literatur und ihren Transformationen. Vertumnus, Bd 8.
• 2013.03.41:  Elise A. Friedland, The Roman Marble Sculptures from the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Panias (Israel). American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports No. 17.
• 2013.03.40:  Sandrine Dubel, Sophie Gotteland, Estelle Oudot, Éclats de littérature grecque d’Homère à Pascal Quignard : mélanges offerts à Suzanne Saïd.
• 2013.03.39:  Daniel J. Geagan, Inscriptions: The Dedicatory Monumnts. The Athenian Agora 18.
• 2013.03.38:  Roger Scott, Byzantine Chronicles and the Sixth Century. Variorum collected studies series, CS 1004.
• 2013.03.37:  Ergün Lafli, Eva Christof, Michael Metcalfe, Hadrianopolis I: Inschriften aus Paphlagonia. BAR international series, 2366.
• 2013.03.36:  Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, The Black Sea, Greece, Anatolia and Europe in the First Millennium BC. Colloquia antiqua, 1.
• 2013.03.35:  Beatrice Lietz, La dea di Erice e la sua diffusione nel Mediterraneo: un culto tra Fenici, Greci e Romani. Tesi. Classe di lettere, 8.
• 2013.03.34:  Eugene Afonasin, John Dillon, John F. Finamore, Iamblichus and the Foundations of Late Platonism. Ancient Mediterranean and medieval texts and contexts; Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic tradition, 13.
• 2013.03.33:  Roslyn Weiss, Philosophers in the ‘Republic’: Plato’s Two Paradigms. Ithaca;
• 2013.03.32:  Stanley Ireland, Menander: the Shield (Aspis) and the Arbitration (Epitrepontes). Aris and Phillips classical texts.

posted with permission:

Reading Herodotus: A Guided Tour through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors, and Crazy Tyrants of The History. By Debra Hamel. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Pp. xxiii + 329. Hardcover, $60.00/£29.45. ISBN 978-1-4214-0655-8. Paper, $29.95/£15.50. ISBN 978-1-4214-0656-5.

Reviewed by Emily Baragwanath, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Herodotus’ famous volume can be bewildering indeed for lay (not to mention professional Classicist) readers, and Hamel sets out to provide “a ‘good parts’ version of The History, … a loose retelling of Herodotus’ account, with obscure references explained and the boring bits left out” (3). Hamel frankly admits the subjectivity of such a project, and that her own interests “tend to the scatological, sexual, and sophomoric” (4). Taking us from Croesus (Ch. 1) through to Plataea, Mycale, and Sestus (Ch. 13), the shape of the book follows closely that of the original, with just occasional divergences from the sequence of Herodotus’ presentation. “Psammetichus and the Antiquity of Egypt,” 2.2 (67–8), for example, is held back until the middle of the chapter dealing with the Egyptian logos; the Arion digression (1.23–4), with its brief mention of Periander, is saved up until the end (107–8) of a chapter that retells the stories of Polycrates and Periander (Herodotus Book 3). Herodotus’ complicated Ionian revolt narrative is clearly and engagingly retold, with its connections to the later War well brought out. Ethnographic material receives shorter shrift than the historical narrative, but there is coverage of the more sensational, e.g. prostitution of the Lydians (33), or “Gilded Skulls and Merry-Go-Rounds: Scary Scythian Customs (4.16-82)” (138–40).

As the back cover of the book promises, the experience of reading it is rather “like reading Herodotus while simultaneously consulting a history of Greece and a scholarly commentary on the text.” There is much helpful parenthetical explication of historical background (e.g. on the importance of burial to the ancient Greeks, in the discussion of Arion) as well as lengthier treatments of such historical cruces as whether the False Smerdis was really false, or why the 300 Spartans were chosen from among Spartans with living sons. Just occasionally I noted an inaccuracy (e.g. twice “Herodotus says” of 3.80—which is not authorial statement but character speech), or wondered at the interpretation (would a Spartan combing his hair really be as jarring an image to a Persian spy as “a marine checking his lipstick before battle would be to us” (233)? It would perhaps be more jarring to non-Spartan Greeks of Herodotus’ audience than to the well-coiffed Persians).

With glances out to fifth-century literary works (Bacchylides’ Ode on Croesus on the pyre, Aeschylus Persians) and forward to the Macedonian conquest of Persia and beyond, Hamel opens up a broad historical and cultural perspective. She includes much wondrous comparative material that the Father of History himself would doubtless have appreciated, for example on Vlad the Impaler (whose grim techniques are compared to Astyages’: 45), on the fascinating modern reception of Herodotus’ account of Amasis’ fart (76), and on other people reputed, like Pheretime, to have died by worms. We hear even of a genus of earthworm named Pheretima (296 n. 1). In some instances, the retelling becomes too glib or reductive, e.g. the dramatization of the Spako-Mitradates’ story (39), which elides its power; the rather odd interpretation of Spargapises’ suicide (as having killed himself rather than “face his scary mother again”: 50—which robs the narrative of much of its pathos), or the paraphrase of Amasis’ letter (“Amasis, that is, wanted Polycrates to keep throwing stuff away in order to offset the successes he was enjoying in other respects”: 99–100).

Hamel interjects the occasional comment on Herodotus’ storytelling art (e.g. 32: Herodotus’ presentation of Croesus’ confrontation with Apollo), and useful remarks on some important patterns that have an explanatory role as well as helping his text cohere (e.g. the wise advisor, king, transgression of physical boundaries). But the lay reader could have done with more appreciation of the formidable skill with which Herodotus controlled and wrestled into narrative form such an extraordinary array of material (especially to counter occasional disparagement: “not particularly interesting”: 50; “doesn’t make a lot of sense”: 157)—and more on the principles on which he based his efforts.

Hamel frequently points to probable historical inaccuracies, and alerts readers more generally to the thorny question of the historicity of the stories Herodotus preserves. Herodotus’ Gyges’ narrative is employed as a test case: four alternative versions of Gyges’ accession, preserved in authors from Plato to Justin, bring out how Herodotus has molded his account, “dropping details and introducing dramatic elements and making use of stock narrative motifs. … Herodotus’ account …, then, cannot be taken at face value” (13). But Hamel stops there: no guidance is offered about the processes Herodotus might have followed in shaping his text, about whence and why traditional patterning arises and replaces a more literal truth, and what the narrative effect might be; and we get no sense of Herodotus’ text as a literary work shaped under the influence of rhetorical concerns and narrative predecessors (most crucial among them, Homer).

Markers of epistemological uncertainty already pervaded Herodotus’ account, in explicit authorial comments, and also in the extraordinary prominence of the so-called “source-citations”—which an abbreviated retelling necessarily elides. It’s also quite possible that Herodotus wanted readers to have to wrestle somewhat with the complications of his Histories and its numerous story strands. And Herodotus deemed everything in his History interesting. Even an engaging “best parts” abbreviation, like this one, cannot help but go against the grain of these important qualities of Herodotus’ text.

Herodotus’ text is also pan-Greek (or perhaps even international) in its orientation, whereas Reading Herodotus felt destined purely for local American readership, with such linguistic mannerisms as “offed themselves” (= “killed themselves,” 83), “D’Oh” (31, 95), “a defeat off of the Peloponnese” (250), and (numerous times), “the guy who.”

To lay readers I will continue to recommend Herodotus himself first and foremost in an accessible edition that includes a good introduction and commentary—for example Oxford World Classics or Penguin.

posted with permission:

Commentary on Demosthenes Against Leptines. With Introduction, Text, and Translation. By Christos Kremmydas. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xi + 489. Hardcover, £99.00/$170.00. ISBN 978-0-199-57813-9.

Reviewed by Phillip Harding, University of British Columbia

Demosthenes’ speech Against Leptines (number 20 in the corpus) was his first recognized foray into public affairs. He acted as one of the prosecutors (συνήγοροι) against a law that had been introduced more than a year before by Leptines of Koile. His speech was well respected in antiquity and has been equally well received in the tradition. Nevertheless, the most recent modern commentary in English is that of J. E. Sandys in 1890. This neglect is particularly hard to explain, since the speech, quite apart from its importance to students of Demosthenes’ development as an orator, is full of juicy material for those interested in Athenian legal and legislative procedure (νομοθεσία); the liturgical system and, particularly, exemption from its grasp (ἀτέλεια); the extent of Athens’ dependence upon imported grain, especially from the Black Sea area (and by extension, the size of the population of Attica); and the political and financial situation in Athens at the end of the Social War in 355 bc. Kremmydas successfully remedies this neglect with this publication. He provides a lengthy Introduction (1–69), which discusses all the above issues; a new Text with 35 departures from Dilts’ OCT; a facing Translation, which is generally clear and accurate, and a detailed Commentary (175–458), which contains material for all interests—historical, political, social, legal and rhetorical.

The speech Against Leptines was dated to the archonship of Kallistratos (355/4) by Dionysios of Halikarnassos (Ad Ammaeum 1.4). Whilst appearing to tip his hat to those who contest the reliability of Dionysios’ dates, Kremmydas concludes that the internal evidence from the speech confirms this date (33–4). Therefore, the law it contests must have been introduced and ratified at least a year before (356/5), since the proposer, Leptines, was no longer personally responsible under the statute of limitations (one year) for prosecutions under the νόμον μὴ ἐπιτήδειον θεῖναι (proposal of an inexpedient law). Following established procedure, the state chose five σύνδικοι to defend the law against its prosecutors (συνήγοροι), of whom there may only have been three. The σύνδικοι were all men of standing: Aristophon of Azenia, Deinias of Erkhia, Kephisodotos from Kerameis, Leodamas of Akharnai and Leptines himself. The συνήγοροι were relatively or almost completely unknown: Apsephion, son of Bathippos (the man whose original indictment of Leptines had lapsed due to his death), Phormion (an unidentifiable individual) and Demosthenes, who spoke third. Those who like to see factional politics behind every public lawsuit in fifth- and fourth-century Athens identify the five σύνδικοι as members of one faction (Aristophon’s) and suspect another (Euboulos’) hiding behind the inexperienced prosecutors. Kremmydas discusses these possibilities with circumspection (34–42) and concludes with others that the litigation belongs in the more general context of the effort to find a solution to Athens’ straightened financial situation at the end of the Social War (357–355 bc).

It is only from Demosthenes’ citations of clauses of Leptines’ law that we can recreate it. Whilst some might question the reliability of Demosthenes’ representation, Kremmydas concludes that the citations provide a clear idea of what the law was (52–3). Quite simply it stated: “In order that the wealthiest men perform liturgies, no one shall have ἀτέλεια, neither citizens, ἰσοτελεῖς or foreigners, nor shall it be possible to grant ἀτέλεια in the future; the only exceptions to this law being the descendants of Harmodios and Aristogeiton.” Not surprisingly this raises issues about the liturgical system; what were liturgies, who was eligible for them, who got exemption from them (ἀτέλεια) and how? Kremmydas devotes a large part of his Introduction to these issues (11–23). On the key question about the attitude of the wealthy elite to this form of compulsory contribution to the operation of the democratic system Kremmydas finds himself faced with a familiar dilemma. On the one hand, he argues that “liturgies became the primary field of competition for honour for Athenian elites” (13), on the other, he recognizes that very many wealthy men did their best to avoid them, and concedes that no one complained when Demetrios of Phaleron abolished them later in the century.

It was against the background of reluctance at a time of financial shortage that Leptines introduced his law to do away with honorary ἀτέλεια (exemption from liturgies except the trierarchy), a liturgy-loophole that had been granted to an unknown number of people both citizen and foreigners as an reward for services rendered. On its introduction the previous year it had passed easily. No one, it seems, questioned the need to tighten the screws on the wealthy. Even Demosthenes shies away from attacking the law on financial grounds; rather he concentrates his appeal on the damage it will do to Athens’ reputation at home and abroad, if it rescinds honors it has already granted and if it can no longer make such grants, which are an important element in its foreign and domestic policy, in the future. He devotes almost one third of his speech to the benefactors of Athens, sandwiching some group benefactors—Corinthians, Thasians and Byzantines—between four special individuals. The first two are foreigners: Epikerdes of Kyrene, a grain merchant, who had helped Athens in the past, and Leukon of Pantikapaion (an area Demosthenes knew well), for his pro-Athenian trade preferences and gifts of grain. The last two are great heroes of fourth-century Athens, Konon and Khabrias, the latter of whom had just died fighting at Khios and whose son, Ktesippos, was probably present in court (maybe even represented by Demosthenes). These were all tear-jerking references and it is not surprising that Kremmydas concludes (58–60), despite the absence of confirmation from ancient commentators, that Demosthenes was successful in bringing about the repeal of Leptines’ law.

The bulk of the volume is taken up by the Commentary, which, as stated above, is full of valuable and well-considered information. So much information leaves scope for quibbling. Each will have his own. For my part, I cannot pass unnoticed the non sequitur on p. 279, that IG II2 10 is “Thrasyboulos’ overly generous decree, which was indicted through a graphe paranomon by Archinos ….” A successfully indicted decree does not get inscribed!

Nevertheless, overall, Kremmydas has produced a very thorough study of this important work and made a valuable contribution to the growing modern interest in fourth-century Athens, and Demosthenes in particular.

• 2013.03.31:  Elizabeth Minchin, Orality, Literacy and Performance in the Ancient World. Orality and literacy in the ancient world, vol. 9; Mnemosyne Supplements. Monographs on Greek and Roman Language and Literature, 335.
• 2013.03.30:  John Mouratidis, On the Jump of the Ancient Pentathlon. Nikephoros-Beihefte, Bd 20.
• 2013.03.29:  Lin Foxhall, Gabriele Neher, Gender and the City before Modernity. Gender and history special issue book series.
• 2013.03.28:  Verena Vogel-Ehrensperger, Die übelste aller Frauen?: Klytaimestra in Texten von Homer bis Aischylos und Pindar. Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, 38.
• 2013.03.27:  Dimitris Paléothodoros, The Contexts of Painted Pottery in the Ancient Mediterranean World (seventh – fourth Centuries BCE). BAR International Series, S2364.
• 2013.03.26:  Tatiana Korneeva, Alter et ipse: identità e duplicità nel sistema dei personaggi della Tebaide di Stazio. Testi e studi di cultura classica, 52.
• 2013.03.25:  Phillip John Usher, Isabelle Fernbach, Virgilian Identities in the French Renaissance. Gallica, 27.
• 2013.03.24:  Fabio Tutrone, Filosofi e animali in Roma antica: modelli di animalità e umanità in Lucrezio e Seneca. Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell’Università di Pavia, 126.
• 2013.03.23:  Lee Fratantuono, Madness Triumphant: a Reading of Lucan’s Pharsalia.
• 2013.03.22:  A. J. Woodman, From Poetry to History: Selected Papers.
• 2013.03.21:  Stephen Ruzicka, Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire, 525-332 BCE. Oxford studies in early empires.
• 2013.03.20:  Nicole Belayche, Jean-Daniel Dubois, L’oiseau et le poisson: cohabitations religieuses dans les mondes grec et romain. Religions dans l’histoire. Paris: 2011. Pp. 410. €22.00 (pb). ISBN 9782840508007.
  Reviewed by Natacha Trippé.
• 2013.03.19:  Rosa Rita Marchese, Cicerone: Bruto. Introduzione, Traduzione e commento. Classici, 15. R
• 2013.03.18:  Marino Mengozzi, Monte Sorbo: le pieve singolare.
• 2013.03.17:  Anna Heller, Anne-Valérie Pont, Patrie d’origine et patries électives: les citoyennetés multiples dans le monde grec d’époque romaine. Scripta antiqua, 40.
• 2013.03.16:  Peter Turner, Truthfulness, Realism, Historicity: A Study in Late Antique Spiritual Literature.
• 2013.03.15:  Vayos Liapis, A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides.
• 2013.03.14:  Fabian Schulz, Die homerischen Räte und die spartanische Gerusie. Syssitia, Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur Spartas und zur Sparta-Rezeption, Bd 1​.
• 2013.03.13:  Jonathan Bardill, Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age.
• 2013.03.12:  Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439-700. Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought: fourth series, 82.
• 2013.01.11:  Jamie Sewell, The Formation of Roman Urbanism, 338-200 B.C.: Between Contemporary Foreign Influence and Roman Tradition. JRA Supplementary series, 79.

posted with permission:

Compiling the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum in Late Antiquity. By Robert M. Frakes. Oxford Studies in Roman Society and Law. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv + 368. Hardcover, £80.00/$150.00. ISBN 978-0-19-958940-1.

Reviewed by Shaun Tougher, Cardiff University

This book turns a spotlight on a mysterious late antique text. Known also as the Lex Dei quam praecipit Dominus ad Moysen (its original title is lost) this text compares ordinances from the Hebrew Bible (all associated with Moses) with Roman law and legal opinion. It is organized under 16 titles: 1. Assassins and Murderers; 2. Severe Injury; 3. The Law and Cruelty of Masters; 4. Adultery; 5. Those Engaged in Illicit Sexual Intercourse; 6. Incestuous Marriages; 7. Thieves and their Punishment; 8. False Testimony; 9. Not Admitting the Testimony of Family Members; 10. Deposit; 11. Cattle Rustlers; 12. Arsonists; 13. A Moved Boundary Marker; 14. Kidnappers; 15. Astrologers, Sorcerers, and Manichees (De Mathematicis, Maleficis et Manichaeis); and 16. Legitimate Succession. The book marks the culmination of Robert Frakes’ study of the text and is designed to be accessible (it is aimed at both specialists and non-specialists). The book is divided in two parts, the first discussing the Collator and his text, the second providing an edition, translation and commentary. The edition is based largely on that of Mommsen, and the English translation is “the first one in nearly a hundred years.” The book is also supported by four Tables, Bibliography and Indices.

After a brief Introduction, Part I provides a series of chapters about the Collator and his text. Chapter 1 places the Collator in his historical context, tracking the Roman empire from Diocletian to Theodosius I and emphasizing political, legal and religious developments. This is for the benefit of the non-specialist in particular; specialists will probably want to jump to Chapter 2 which considers the date of the work. Frakes favours 392–395, the end of the reign of Theodosius I, who he argues is seen by the Collator as the “sole powerful legitimate ruler.” Chapter 3 addresses the sources of the Collator. These comprised the five major jurists (Paulus, Ulpian, Modestinus, Papinian and Gaius), law codes (the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogenianus), and (rarely) contemporary laws (one of two is a constitution of 390 concerning homosexual prostitution which was posted in Rome in the atrium of the temple of Minerva). As for the Collator’s Bible, it seems he used a version of the Old Latin Bible. Chapter 4 turns to the Collator’s method, setting out to show that this is more systematic than has been thought. While it has been recognized that the text owes something to the Ten Commandments (namely Commandments 6-10: 6. You shall not murder; 7. You shall not commit adultery; 8. You shall not steal; 9. You shall not bear false witness; 10. You shall not covet) Frakes argues that the apparently anomalous titles 15 and 16 (the inclusion of the Manicheans being the most problematic element to accommodate) also fit with the Ten Commandments theory, falling under the 10th Commandment. This chapter is also concerned with the Collator’s working practices; emphasized are his editing of Biblical passages “to exaggerate the similarity between biblical law and Roman law,” and his tendency to use runs of quotations. The chapter ends somewhat prosaically with reflections on how the Collator physically conducted his work (did he use tables to lay his books on?). More urgent and central is Chapter 5 which ponders the identity and purpose of the Collator, and no doubt many will turn to this chapter first. As the text contains no stated purpose there has been much academic debate about the author and his aims. It is argued that he was a Christian lawyer of middling social status, probably living in the western half of the Roman empire, possibly in Italy, maybe in Rome itself (Frakes spends much time rejecting the notion that the author was a Jew). It is also argued that the author was writing for other jurists and legal experts, in particular pagans. Fundamental for Frakes is that the Collator “is attempting to show pagan jurists that his religion … has intrinsic worth in that such laws anticipated similar legislation of the Romans.” For him the text has an apologetic purpose, and is revealing of “middle level” views rather than the elite views which dominate so much of our thinking about religion in the fourth century. Frakes does recognize that his argument “stands against current scholarly opinion” but still considers it “the most likely probability” that “a Christian collator attempted to draw pagan lawyers to Christianity through demonstrating the connections between the divine laws of Moses and the historic jurisprudence of the Romans.”

Overall this book is to be greatly welcomed. It provides an admirably accessible and useful guide, edition and translation of a fascinating if enigmatic late antique text. It provides an intriguing window on to late Roman law and religion. The picture of a “non-elite” fourth century Christian lawyer with a particular interest in sexual deviance is an arresting one. Whether its arguments (particularly its central thesis regarding the purpose of the text) convince remains to be seen. Points can be debated and questions remain. It is not clear to me why a pagan audience should be considered the sole target, or why they might be convinced by it. The text itself seems too matter of fact to have an apologetic purpose, and it does not attempt to conceal all differences. It seems more utilitarian, no doubt part of the explanation of its survival. Nevertheless, in the ongoing debates about this mysterious text this book will have a central place.

posted with permission:

Fire and Sand: Ancient Glass in the Princeton University Art Museum. By Anastassios Antonaras. Princeton University Art Museum Series. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012. Pp. 408 + 556 color + 40 b/w illustrations. Hardcover, $65.00/£45.00. ISBN 978-0-300-17981-1.

Reviewed by Chloë N. Duckworth, University of Nottingham

Antonaras is an archaeologist and curator at the Museum of Byzantine Studies, Thessaloniki. His work to date has been extensive, though with a focus on ancient glass and particularly Byzantine material from northern Greece. In this attractive book he presents the illustrated collection of 509 ancient glass objects from the Mediterranean world housed in the Princeton University Art Museum, with which he has worked extensively. The objects range in date from the mid-second millennium bc to the 7th century ad (though the majority are Roman and Byzantine), and in type from simple flasks and jugs to core-formed vessels, fragments of millefiori glass, and miscellaneous items such as stirring rods and inlay. Most were purchased by the museum in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. In addition to the catalogue, an introductory essay and glossary of glass working techniques are provided.

Antonaras ensures that his 19-page introductory essay adds to, rather than replicates, the existing body of glass catalogues and introductions to ancient glass by pursuing a specific focus: the people involved in glass making, working, and trading. He does this well, marrying archaeological, historical, and literary evidence in a brief but interesting and well referenced introductory section in which the social status, gender, and provenance of glass artisans, and the value of glass itself are all commented upon. These considerations are interspersed with the usual introduction to the raw ingredients and furnaces used in glass making. Throughout, the focus is on the Roman-Byzantine periods, for which there is more abundant historical evidence.

The introductory essay is followed by an illustrated glossary of glass working techniques, a useful reference tool for those not familiar with glass production who wish to fully understand the catalogue descriptions that follow. The description of cold-working (“carving”) glass may be somewhat misleading, as it states that this technique is now thought to have been used only very rarely if at all, but does not make clear that this opinion is not yet shared by all scholars. The other entries are well summarized and clearly written, however, and the accompanying illustrations or photographs facilitate understanding of these.

The catalogue consists of 5 sections, divided according to the technique by which the glasses were worked: Core-Formed Vessels; Rotary-Pressed, Slumped, Cast, and Sagged Vessels; Blown Vessels; Rod-Formed Vessels; Miscellanea. These sections are further sub-divided as appropriate. Each entry in the catalogue is accompanied by a full color photograph, and includes details of date, dimensions, provenance, modeling technique, and condition, as well as a thorough technical description and list of comparanda. The collection mainly consists of a wide range of complete vessels and tableware, though smaller fragments are also included for earlier periods (Egyptian New Kingdom) and unusual production techniques (such as millefiori or cameo). Of particular interest are three glass baby feeders of the 1st–4th centuries ad, two 1st-century ad inkwells, and two fragments of rare cameo glasses of the early 1st-century ad.

The volume also features profile drawings of the entire collection, presented together following the main catalogue. This is a most useful addition for those interested in glass typology and in using this book for comparative purposes. It might have been helpful to include scales along with these illustrations, but given that dimensions can be found with the main catalogue entry for each item, this is a minor criticism.

The presentation of material from this collection, which has never before been published in full, is justifiable in itself. The value of this book is increased, however, by the comprehensive nature of the catalogue entries, the inclusion of profile drawings as well as color photographs for each item, and the interesting introductory essay. It is also an attractive, well produced book that could easily fit into the “coffee table” as well as the academic genre.

Not sure if this is one we need to keep our eye on or not … a review in the Oxonian Review  (by a Classicist) of Toby Miller’s Blow Up the Humanities … A single paragraph from the review is enough for me not to bother:

Perhaps BUH was intended as a challenge for elite philosophers, historians, and literary critics. Certainly, it wantons in French, Latin, and Greek quotations, sometimes incorrectly (“ethoi [sic] of social Darwinism”). Miller also reveals a penchant for the prodigious offspring of ill-matched buzz-words, such as cognitariat (“legitimizing the precarious employment of the cognitariat”), cybertarian (“the cybertarian utopics of the technological sublime”), and collegecrat (“collegecrats constructing themselves as corporate mimics”). Alliteration and assonance abound ad nauseam: “people fish, film, fuck, and finance from morning to midnight”. So do jeux de mots, whose ingenuity is italicised for emphasis: “the dilemmas are manifold and perhaps should have been manifest to me avant la lettre (or avant le cliché)”. There are even gratuitous misquotations of Shakespeare: “something is rotting in the state”. It is evident that Miller wants to write as pretentiously as the most self-indulgent of literary critics; unfortunately, he only sounds like a poetaster. His style might have benefited from consulting one of those elitist scholars he criticises—or at least a dictionary.

• Blow Up Media Studies

posted with permission

The Passionate Statesman: Erōs and Politics in Plutarch’s Lives. By Jeffrey Beneker. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xii + 258. Hardcover, £55.00/$99.00. ISBN 978-0-19-969590-4.

Reviewed by Sophia Xenophontos, University of Oxford

In twenty-first-century politics, erotic passion is typically connected with scandalous stories of the private lives of well-known politicians. But when it comes to Plutarch’s statesmen of the Graeco-Roman past, erōs, or erotic desire, does not always denigrate their moral character and political careers. In his stimulating and well-argued book, Beneker explores the interplay between passion and politics in the Parallel Lives on the basis of three biographical pairs, the Alexander–Caesar, Demetrius–Antony, and Agesilaus–Pompey. These cases offer different perspectives in the way Plutarch represents erōs: sometimes it rewards the hero, at other times it destroys him; still, Plutarch’s ethical message may be unified in his focus on self-control as the mean between sexual lavishness and total abstention.

The book comprises a short Introduction and five main Chapters. The lack of a separate conclusion is compensated for by the brief summaries Beneker gives towards the end of each Chapter; these work most effectively in reminding readers of the main premises and leading them securely in new interpretative directions. Furthermore, the lucidity in exposition and diligent analysis of relevant passages make the book easily accessible.

Beneker argues that Plutarch introduced the element of erōs in his biographies as a response to previous accounts that failed to interpret properly certain historical events. In creating thus his ethical biography, Plutarch attributed the public success of a hero to the control of his erotic impulses in his private life. This argumentative strand is not totally new—one need only refer to the pioneering work of Pelling and Swain, who have explained the heroes’ uncontrollable emotions as resulting from their insufficient education. Beneker, however, casts light on the modulation not of any kind of passion (anger, ambition, envy), but of erotic desire in particular, and not on the causes of pathos but on its consequences.

In Chapter 1, Beneker explores the philosophical background to Plutarch’s notion of erōs, by delving carefully into Platonic psychology (division of the soul) and Aristotelian ethics (concept of friendship, philia). In light of the Amatorius, Beneker suggests that an ideal marital relationship is the product of mutual love of both soul and body; and he then applies these theoretical views to the case studies of Brutus and Porcia and of Pericles and Aspasia. In describing the way that Ismenodora develops the character of younger Bacchon in the Amatorius (31–9) or how Pericles becomes an ethical model to the Athenians in rational response to passions (43–54), he rightly makes his case by employing the vocabulary of “piloting” and “government” of which Plutarch is so fond. I wonder whether Beneker here could have pondered moral guidance in Plutarch as an alternative form of power. That would make sense in light of Plutarch’s role as a dedicated moralist, who differs from his contemporary sophistic setting which assesses power as political or social imposition. It would also fit Beneker’s emphasis in the rest of the book, and especially his extensive discussion of Antony’s relation to dominating women in Chapter 4 (173–94). In commenting on the influence that Fulvia and Cleopatra exercise over Antony and the relevant deterioration of the hero’s character, Plutarch uses the intense language of power, e.g. Ant. 10.4–7: κρατεῖν, ἄρχειν, στρατηγεῖν, and most significantly γυναικοκρατία (female domination of men). Similar overtones occur with Demetrius’ submission to Lamia (Demetr. 16.6) and Antony’s manipulation by Curio (Ant. 2.4), all of them cases of ethical imposition.

In Chapter 2, Beneker establishes the term “historical-ethical reconstruction,” which refers to Plutarch’s technique of transforming history through the lens of ethics. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the precise meaning of παραλόγως in the proem to Pelopidas–Marcellus (2.8–9) (66–9), which not only encourages sensitivity in translation for modern readers, but also affirms Plutarch’s sophisticated language and often ambiguous expression. In this Chapter, Beneker is insightful in associating Plutarch’s system of characterization with larger philosophical contexts of human psychology. In at least two cases (84 and 101; cf. 176) he persuasively refers to Plutarch’s depiction of “types” rather than of “individuals,” with particular allusions to Plato’s descriptions of the timocratic or the tyrannical man from the Republic. Such distinctions not only improve upon the existing discussion of “character” and “personality” in Plutarch; they additionally offer new ways of evaluating the appropriation of Plutarch’s Platonic material.

Chapters 3 and 4 deal with how eroticism determines the course of a public career: Alexander and Caesar withstand erotic appetites for the benefit of their political and military objectives, but are later on undone by their erōs for glory. Demetrius and Antony succumb to carnal pleasures, so that erōs eventually brings on their catastrophe. Chapter 5 revisits the notion of self-restraint in Plutarch’s ethics by welding together the four previous chapters. One of Beneker’s contributions to the understanding of Plutarch’s theory of passions is his analysis of the gradations of sophrōsyne in Alexander. That helps him to argue that Xenophon is an important, though less known, philosophical model for Plutarch’s conception of erotic desire. With the examples of Agesilaus and Pompey, Beneker concludes that acting ethically shows a person’s ability for a successful performance of his public duties.

I recommend Beneker’s book as an excellent resource not just for scholars and students of Plutarch, but for anyone interested in Greek politics and ethics.

posted with permission:

Plato’s Republic: A Critical Guide. Edited by Mark L. McPherran. Cambridge Critical Guides. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv + 273. Hardcover, £53.00/$90.00. ISBN 978-0-521-49190-7.

Reviewed by David Schur, Brooklyn College, The City University of New York

As McPherran observes in his introduction, this collection of twelve essays is not for those just beginning to explore the Republic, but is most suited for scholars pursuing more advanced paths of academic study. Each of these essays is clearly written and well organized, and the book offers a fresh and thought-provoking body of inquiry. While accessible to all readers who have studied the Republic, this book will resonate best with philosophers drawn to the kinds of logical quandaries that arise when one looks for consistency in the arguments deployed by Socrates over the course of a Platonic dialogue; most of the essays revisit fairly specific cruxes that have been previously identified and pondered by modern scholars. (Zena Hitz on degenerate regimes and Malcolm Schofield on music are notable for addressing neglected topics.) Most of the papers here had their genesis in a colloquium on ancient philosophy held at the University of Arizona, Tucson; the resulting collection brings together distinguished philosophical perspectives on a full range of topics, including politics, moral psychology, education, mimesis, the divided line, and the structure of the dialogue.

In the present review, it will be possible only to indicate some trends and exceptions found in the volume. An installment in a series of guides to philosophical criticism, the book presents a fairly homogeneous picture of how contemporary scholars approach Plato’s dialogues. Issues of character, setting, and the like are largely ignored in favor of analytic literalism. The work here is dominated by the careful (sometimes superfine) teasing out of logical claims and arguments, arguments that Plato is understood to be endorsing, but which nonetheless require further explanation. Guided by the assumption that Plato must have meant to communicate a consistent, coherent, logical, and (more or less) linear series of arguments, the authors regularly address certain apparent inadequacies—unfortunate or infelicitous misunderstandings that stem from Plato’s indirectness as well as from our own limitations.

Accordingly, these scholars often set out to reconstruct Plato’s arguments, correcting mismatches between the author’s form of expression and our own powers of comprehension. In these readings, puzzling parts of the Republic present a challenge to the dialogue’s status as a logically coherent whole. So, for example, Rachana Kamtekar is concerned with rescuing Socrates’ defense of justice from being occluded by the apparently irrelevant but lengthily elaborated ideal city of the Republic; she does this by viewing the city as a primarily ethical (rather than political) part of the dialogue’s argumentation. Nicholas D. Smith answers the “happy philosopher problem” by suggesting that the return of (potential) philosophers to the cave can fit into the logic of the dialogue if we understand happiness in terms of Socrates’ explanation of psychological harmony. Christopher Shields, arguing that the soul in Socrates’ account may be understood as having aspectual rather than compositional parts, is able to reconcile the soul’s tripartition with its immortality. Shields thereby “saves Plato” (167), or our interpretation of his text, from a contradiction that would ultimately seem to undermine Socrates’ explanation of justice. And Malcolm Schofield reconciles two seemingly incompatible versions of mimesis presented in the Republic by directing our focus to the importance of music, using evidence from Plato’s Laws to support his striking claim that “the few pages on music in the Republic give us a keener insight into its theory of the shaping of the human soul than anything else in the dialogue” (246).

Some of the essays are less conclusive. McPherran observes multiple ways in which the Myth of Er seems to weaken “the Republic’s entire project of adumbrating a theory of justice” (135); unlike his fellow contributors, however, McPherran displays an unusual willingness to leave a puzzle standing, and he invites readers confronting Socrates’ account of the afterlife to “admire and commiserate with Plato on the size of the problem he raised but did not solve” (143). In an essay containing references to an amusing range of modern Atlantises, Julia Annas anchors the Atlantis story in the Republic’s emphasis on the intrinsic value of virtuous behavior; at the same time, Annas suggests that the story (like Socrates’ description of the cave, she might have added) may really have been too seductive for Plato’s purposes.

The contributions by G. R. F. Ferrari and Rachel Barney, which open the volume, are distinguished by broader and especially fertile topics. Ferrari confronts the underlying and pervasive problem of Socrates’ reluctant participation in the dialogue’s recorded conversation. Socrates’ role as an internal narrator, observes Ferrari, draws attention to Plato’s authorial control. And Barney takes the highly original approach of considering ring composition, typically associated with Homeric verse, as a philosophically significant aspect of Plato’s writing.

The essays in this book rely on various translations of the Republic and Plato’s other works, with transliterated Greek provided for key textual details. Each essay is accompanied by endnotes, while the back matter contains a bibliography of works cited, an index of passages, and an index of names and subjects. The book is handsome, well edited, and—given the range, density, and number of contributions—pleasingly slender.

• 2013.03.10:  Michael C. J. Putnam, The Humanness of Heroes: Studies in the Conclusion of Virgil’s Aeneid. The Amsterdam Vergil lectures, 1.
• 2013.03.09:  Peter Grossardt, Stesichoros zwischen kultischer Praxis, mythischer Tradition und eigenem Kunstanspruch: zur Behandlung des Helenamythos im Werk des Dichters aus Himera. Leipziger Studien zur klassischen Philologie 9.
• 2013.03.08:  Heinz Heinen, Kindersklaven – Sklavenkinder: Schicksale zwischen Zuneigung und Ausbeutung in der Antike und im interkulturellen Vergleich. Beiträge zur Tagung des Akademievorhabens Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei (Mainz, 14. Oktober 2008) (Redaktion: Johannes Deißler). Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei, Bd 39.
• 2013.03.07:  Giulio Paolucci, Susanna Sarti, Musica e Archeologia: reperti, immagini e suoni dal mondo antico.
• 2013.03.06:  Richard Whitaker, The Iliad: A Southern African Translation.
• 2013.03.05:  Rachel Hallote, Felicity Cobbing, Jeffrey B. Spurr, The Photographs of the American Palestine Exploration Society. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 66.
• 2013.03.04:  Mats Malm, The Soul of Poetry Redefined: Vacillations of Mimesis from Aristotle to Romanticism.
• 2013.03.03:  Saskia T. Roselaar, Processes of Integration and Identity Formation in the Roman Republic. Mnemosyne supplements. History and archaeology of classical antiquity, 342.
• 2013.03.02:  Francesco Menotti, Wetland Archaeology and Beyond: Theory and Practice.
• 2013.02.58:  Aude Cohen-Skalli, Diodore de Sicile. Bibliothèque historique. Fragments, Tome 1: Livres VI-X. Collection des universités de France. Série grecque, 486.
• 2013.02.57:  Lázaro Gabriel Lagóstena Barrios, José Luis Cañizar Palacios, Lluís Pons Pujol, Aquam perducendam curavit: captación, uso y administración del agua en las ciudades de la Bética y el occidente romano.
• 2013.02.56:  Dennis Pardee, The Ugaritic Texts and the Origins of West-Semitic Literary Composition. Schweich lectures of the British Academy, 2007.
• 2013.02.55:  Matteo Martelli, Pseudo-Democrito. Scritti alchemici: con il commentario di Sinesio. Edizione critica del testo greco, traduzione e commento. Textes et Travaux de Chrysopoeia, 12.
• 2013.02.54:  Jonathan Ben-Dov, Wayne Horowitz, John M. Steele, Living the Lunar Calendar.
• 2013.02.53:  Kostas Kalimtzis, Taming Anger: The Hellenic Approach to the Limitations of Reason.
• 2013.02.52:  Charlotte Schubert, Anacharsis der Weise: Nomade, Skythe, Grieche. Leipziger Studien zur klassischen Philologie, 7.
• 2013.02.51:  Claire Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate.
• 2013.02.50:  Jean-Marc Narbonne, Martin Achard, Lorenzo Ferroni, Plotin. Oeuvres complètes, Tome 1, volume I: Introduction; Traité 1 (I 6), Sur le beau. Collection des Universités de France. Série grecque, 482.
• 2013.02.49:  Paul J. Du Plessis, Letting and Hiring in Roman Legal Thought: 27 BCE-284 CE. Mnemosyne Supplements. History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, 340.
• 2013.01.47:  Gerolemou auf Thumiger auf Maria Gerolemou, Bad Women, Mad Women. Response by Maria Gerolemou.
• 2013.01.48:  Armand D’Angour, The Greeks and the New: Novelty in Ancient Greek Imagination and Experience.

posted with permission:

Hippocrates: Volume X. Edited and translated by PAUL POTTER. Loeb Classical Library 520. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2012. Pp. xxii + 432. Hardcover, $24.00/£15.95. ISBN 978-0-674-99683-0.

Reviewed by Lesley Dean-Jones, University of Texas at Austin

In 1983, after a hiatus of fifty-two years, Potter produced the fifth volume in the Loeb translation of Hippocrates and with the appearance of the present volume he will have made accessible in modern English translations thirty-two treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus.[[1]] Many of these treatises had no previous English translation and some of them (as is the case with On Barrenness in the current volume) had not been edited since the mid-nineteenth century editions and translations of Littré and Ermerins (French and Latin, respectively). For this Potter deserves heartfelt thanks.

Apart from the ready availability of text and translation there is much that is useful in these volumes. Each volume is introduced with a very brief account of the manuscript tradition of and relationship between the treatises translated in the volume and a brief select bibliography. The present volume also has a brief note on technical terms (as did volume VIII). Each treatise has its own brief introduction explaining when it was first associated with the name of Hippocrates, the nature of the treatise, an outline of its organization (very helpful) and a list of the editions, translations and studies that have been done on it. Where previous editions exist Potter bases his edition largely on them. In the case of Barrenness he collated the manuscripts that were unavailable to Littré and Ermerins (M & V) from microfilm. This volume also includes Lexicons of the therapeutic agents used in the treatises in both English and Greek. Volume VI had similar indices of foods and drugs and I have found these very helpful. Volume VI also had indices of symptoms and diseases and I could have wished that Volume X did too, at least of symptoms since the illnesses detailed in the treatises in this volume are not given explicit names that often.

There are five treatises in the volume. Four deal with human reproduction: Generation, Nature of the Child, Nature of Women, Barrenness. The fifth treatise, Diseases IV, is almost certainly written by the author of Generation and Nature of the Child and is quite rightly included here. The relationship of this group of three treatises to Nature of Women and Barrenness—and to the two gynecological treatises yet to appear in a full English translation,[[2]] Diseases of Women I & II—is a vexed question on which there is no consensus at the moment, but the treatises at the very least share some theories (importantly the existence of hydrops as a significant bodily fluid) and the inclusion of all five in one volume is not unwarranted.

With that said, however, I do wonder if the non-specialist reader is well served by this use of space. As my repeated use of the modifier “brief” above indicates, the 400+ pages of the volume are almost entirely given over to the text and translation. There are no introductory essays such as those in the first four volumes of the series. In the Introduction to volume V Potter directed the reader to these essays for an orientation to Hippocrates, but they were already a little out of date in 1983 and a great deal of work has been done since then. Nor are there any notes to the translation to help a reader with the author’s argument and train of thought, which is particularly dense and convoluted in parts of Diseases IV.[[3]] David Balme’s 1991 Loeb of Books VI–X of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium included some very extended notes, so it is not a concept foreign to the format.

Naturally, with texts so rich and so under-studied no two scholars are going to agree on every reading or interpretation and it would be invidious to raise issues requiring extended debate here. It is to be hoped that now the texts are more readily available their intrinsic interest will also be more widely appreciated. Potter’s deep familiarity with these texts will be invaluable in the close analysis which they deserve.

NOTES

[[1]] Volume VII (Epidemics 2 & 4-7) was translated and edited by Wesley D. Smith.

[[2]] A translation of selected chapters by Ann Ellis Hanson appeared in Signs 1 (1975) 567–84. These, along with a few other translated passages, are now available in M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B. Fant’s Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (3rd ed., Baltimore and London, 2005).

[[3]] Interested readers can find some help with these passages in Iain M. Lonie, The Hippocratic Treatises On Generation, On the Nature of the Child, Diseases IV: A Commentary (Berlin and New York, 1981).

posted with permission:

Hippocrates: Volume X. Edited and translated by PAUL POTTER. Loeb Classical Library 520. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2012. Pp. xxii + 432. Hardcover, $24.00/£15.95. ISBN 978-0-674-99683-0.

Reviewed by Lesley Dean-Jones, University of Texas at Austin

In 1983, after a hiatus of fifty-two years, Potter produced the fifth volume in the Loeb translation of Hippocrates and with the appearance of the present volume he will have made accessible in modern English translations thirty-two treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus.[[1]] Many of these treatises had no previous English translation and some of them (as is the case with On Barrenness in the current volume) had not been edited since the mid-nineteenth century editions and translations of Littré and Ermerins (French and Latin, respectively). For this Potter deserves heartfelt thanks.

Apart from the ready availability of text and translation there is much that is useful in these volumes. Each volume is introduced with a very brief account of the manuscript tradition of and relationship between the treatises translated in the volume and a brief select bibliography. The present volume also has a brief note on technical terms (as did volume VIII). Each treatise has its own brief introduction explaining when it was first associated with the name of Hippocrates, the nature of the treatise, an outline of its organization (very helpful) and a list of the editions, translations and studies that have been done on it. Where previous editions exist Potter bases his edition largely on them. In the case of Barrenness he collated the manuscripts that were unavailable to Littré and Ermerins (M & V) from microfilm. This volume also includes Lexicons of the therapeutic agents used in the treatises in both English and Greek. Volume VI had similar indices of foods and drugs and I have found these very helpful. Volume VI also had indices of symptoms and diseases and I could have wished that Volume X did too, at least of symptoms since the illnesses detailed in the treatises in this volume are not given explicit names that often.

There are five treatises in the volume. Four deal with human reproduction: Generation, Nature of the Child, Nature of Women, Barrenness. The fifth treatise, Diseases IV, is almost certainly written by the author of Generation and Nature of the Child and is quite rightly included here. The relationship of this group of three treatises to Nature of Women and Barrenness—and to the two gynecological treatises yet to appear in a full English translation,[[2]] Diseases of Women I & II—is a vexed question on which there is no consensus at the moment, but the treatises at the very least share some theories (importantly the existence of hydrops as a significant bodily fluid) and the inclusion of all five in one volume is not unwarranted.

With that said, however, I do wonder if the non-specialist reader is well served by this use of space. As my repeated use of the modifier “brief” above indicates, the 400+ pages of the volume are almost entirely given over to the text and translation. There are no introductory essays such as those in the first four volumes of the series. In the Introduction to volume V Potter directed the reader to these essays for an orientation to Hippocrates, but they were already a little out of date in 1983 and a great deal of work has been done since then. Nor are there any notes to the translation to help a reader with the author’s argument and train of thought, which is particularly dense and convoluted in parts of Diseases IV.[[3]] David Balme’s 1991 Loeb of Books VI–X of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium included some very extended notes, so it is not a concept foreign to the format.

Naturally, with texts so rich and so under-studied no two scholars are going to agree on every reading or interpretation and it would be invidious to raise issues requiring extended debate here. It is to be hoped that now the texts are more readily available their intrinsic interest will also be more widely appreciated. Potter’s deep familiarity with these texts will be invaluable in the close analysis which they deserve.

NOTES

[[1]] Volume VII (Epidemics 2 & 4-7) was translated and edited by Wesley D. Smith.

[[2]] A translation of selected chapters by Ann Ellis Hanson appeared in Signs 1 (1975) 567–84. These, along with a few other translated passages, are now available in M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B. Fant’s Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (3rd ed., Baltimore and London, 2005).

[[3]] Interested readers can find some help with these passages in Iain M. Lonie, The Hippocratic Treatises On Generation, On the Nature of the Child, Diseases IV: A Commentary (Berlin and New York, 1981).

… these are all pdfs:

• David Roochnik, reviewing Mark McPherran, ed., Plato’s Republic: A Critical Guide
• Rachel Zelnic-Abramovitz, reviewing Sara Forsdyke, Slaves Tell Tales and Other Episodes in the Politics of Popular Culture in Ancient Greece
• Graham Zanker, reviewing Heinrich F. Plett, Enargeia in Classical Antiquity and the Early Modern Age: The Aesthetics of Evidence
• Georgia L. Irby, reviewing Daniela Dueck, Geography in Classical Antiquity

posted with permission:

Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric. By David Sansone. Oxford, Chichester, and Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Pp. xi + 258. Hardcover, £66.95/$99.95. ISBN 978-1-118-35708-8.

Reviewed by Michael Lloyd, University College Dublin

This book argues that the art of rhetoric in Greece was inspired by fifth-century Athenian tragic drama, and that any increase in rhetorical sophistication in tragedy was due to a coherent development within the genre itself rather than to the influence of orators or rhetoricians. The present reviewer’s book The Agon in Euripides (Oxford, 1992) is frequently cited for the “standard view” with which Sansone disagrees, that the plays of Euripides in particular can usefully be related to rhetorical developments outside the theater.

No one now suggests that Euripides relied on a lost earlier version of the fourth-century treatise known as Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, as was argued by Thomas Miller in “Euripides Rhetoricus” (diss. Göttingen, 1887), but it was in the life-and-death contexts of the assembly and the lawcourts that new and effective arguments were most essential and therefore most likely to have been developed. For example, the hypothetical syllogism (e.g. “you should have done x, if you were not bad, but you actually did y”) is needed to convince a jury at Lysias 12.32–3 but is addressed to someone who already knows the truth at Euripides, Medea 586–7. Sansone offers an interesting and detailed discussion of prokatalepsis, the anticipation of potential counterarguments (180–4, 192–204), while failing to make a convincing case that it was more likely to have developed in the theater than in the courts. He repeatedly notes that rhetorical devices appear in Euripides considerably earlier than in any extant orator (e.g. 148), but the accidents of transmission have no bearing on the direction of influence. He could also have looked more closely at the speeches in Thucydides, with dramatic dates going back to the 430s bc.

Sansone overlooks the ways in which the tragedians evoke the courts for dramatic effect. This goes back at least to Aeschylus’ Oresteia, which is full of legal imagery and culminates in a trial by jury on the Areopagus. Euripides never portrays so formal a trial, but this “poet of courtroom cant-phrases” (Aristophanes, Peace 534) recognized the dramatic potential of forensic debate. Hippolytus begins his defence speech in the agon of Hippolytus by saying that he is unaccustomed to addressing a mob (986–9), while actually talking to his father in the presence of fifteen far-from-unruly Trozenian women. The gambit has no meaning without its lawcourt resonance, which is reinforced as Hippolytus establishes his good character, appeals to witnesses, swears an oath, and develops an elaborate argument from probability. This speech is also good example of the self-consciousness which was a hallmark of the new rhetoric, manifesting itself in reference to the act of speaking itself (990–1), explicit subdivision of the speech (991, 1007, 1021), and point-by-point refutation of the opponent (991–3, 1002, 1008). Sansone’s discussion of rhetorical self-consciousness (155–9) fails to adduce anything on a remotely comparable scale in earlier authors, and he further confuses the issue by failing to distinguish reference by dramatic characters to their own speaking (as in Hippolytus’ speech) from their comments on the utterances of others or even the poet’s own self-consciousness about his art (e.g. 7, 156–7). Hippolytus is portrayed as a character whose fluency in the latest rhetorical devices will inevitably infuriate his elders, a striking example of the generation gap which was a notable feature of Athens in the 420s (Hippolytus was first performed in 428 bc, a year before the famous visit of Gorgias).

Sansone’s discussion of rhetoric occupies the second half of the book. The first half, which is as absorbing as the second half is flawed, deals in an original and discursive way with no less a subject than the essential nature of drama. Its ostensible relevance to the treatment of rhetoric in the second half is that the characters on stage were granted the eloquence that was previously the prerogative of the Muse-inspired poet, and that “counterpoint” between speaker and listener in drama inspired new forms of argumentation. This counterpoint requires the audience to pay attention to the characters who are not speaking as well as to those who are. Sansone stresses the distinctive and revolutionary nature of drama, criticizing attempts by Plato and Aristotle to obscure its differences from narrative. The quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in the first book of Homer’s Iliad is frequently and subtly discussed as representative of the narrative mode, and there are especially interesting discussions of complex stage situations in Sophocles’ Electra and Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. Sansone also has sharp and amusing words about the fashionable concept of performance culture, which further erodes the distinctiveness of drama: “[i]t seems that everyone in ancient Greece was performing, and they were doing it all the time” (78). The book is elegantly and often wittily written, with a wide range of cultural reference, and can strongly be recommended to anyone interested in the drama of any period.

posted with permission

Horace: Satires Book I. Edited by Emily Gowers. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xi + 370. Hardcover, £60.00/$99.00. ISBN 978-0-521-45220-5. Paper, £23.99/$40.00. ISBN 978-0-521-45851-1.

Reviewed by Amy Richlin, University of California, Los Angeles

Richly abundant as the lanx satura, Gowers’ long-awaited commentary serves up Horace’s first book of Satires, bursting with two decades’ thought. Gowers began publishing on Horace in 1993, the year in which she brought out The Loaded Table, and that long span of work informs this current product.[[1]] Hallelujah, for the cryptic Satires I needed a good commentary to make some sense of it all.

Making sense of the book as a whole is just what Gowers sets out to do; in a neat ring-composition, she explains on page 1 that “the full reinstatement of Satires I is in progress [as] a ten-poem pre-Augustan poetry book,” and concludes the notes to 1.10 on p. 338 with, “H.’s loose chartae … have finally been pulled together into a self-respecting poetry book.” In making her case, Gowers treats the state of the question as a team effort, the combined thoughts of many scholars. Unusually for a commentator, she presents a complete reading of her text across the notes and separate introductions: the poems are autobiographical but deliberately un-pin-down-able; in 1.9, for example, “he takes the part of a satirist to suit the times, inoffensive, reticent and passive-aggressive,” teasing his reader (281). At the same time, Gowers presents all sides of disputed points and a generous helping of others’ ideas, with a superb bibliography. Her main interlocutors here are Kirk Freudenburg and John Henderson, but no dogma dominates.

The most loving attention is devoted to detail, including meter. Likewise excellent are the notes on Roman culture (for example, on barbershops ad 1.7.3) and the dramatis personae (for example, on Hermogenes Tigellius ad 1.2.3, or the literary cliques in 1.10). Yet Gowers wears her learning lightly, with never an unkind word. Her particular strengths in the Bakhtinian side of satire show well in her treatment of 1.2, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8, several of which have suffered from scholarly neglect due to their subject matter; here they are treated as respect-worthy parts of that self-respecting poetry book. Her own style is entirely suited to the Sermones—chatty, witty: so on Forum Appi, “a well-known dump of a town” (ad 1.5.3); on one leg of the trip to Brundisium, “a rare line of latitude in a longitudinal poem” (ad 1.5.26); on “the chutzpah of [Horace’s] freedman father” (214—a rare sighting of Yiddish in a Cambridge green-and-yellow); the battle between Persius and Rex, “a seedy courtroom aristeia” (ad 1.7.1-4).

The book is hugely welcome to the teacher of satire, previously dependent on P. Michael Brown’s necessarily much more concise version in the Aris & Phillips series (1993), Kiessling–Heinze (7th ed., 1957), and the shelves of old school texts whose communis opinio goes back at least to the seventeenth century, some of it still quietly persisting here (though Gowers is very good about divulging the lineage of ideas with long ones).[[2]] The book is still not without issues. As commonly in the green-and-yellows, there is no apparatus criticus, although the notes do discuss points Gowers considers crucial. The general index is sketchy, and a book this dense needs an index locorum; buried within lies a parallel between the text of Horace and that of ps.-Sulpicia (imitator of the satirist), and without me you would not know to look for it ad 5.53–4.[[3]] I would have liked a list of the places where Gowers draws connections between Satires I and the Epodes, and especially all the ties to Persius and Juvenal, of whom I would have liked to see more; so also Ennius is well represented in the notes, Plautus hardly at all, although Lucilius receives full and first-rate attention. As does Bion, who plays a large part in Gowers’ reading of the philosophical aspects of the sermonizing satires, helping the reader to stay awake through Satires 1.1 and 1.3. I would have liked to see more on the reception of a book that served as a school text, with Persius and Juvenal, almost continuously from antiquity to the 1800s. Greedy to ask for more when so much is given; indeed, the book has the faults of its virtues (est brevitate opus, 1.10.9), often repetitive, sometimes too generous in the attention given to far-fetched observations, usually others’—sort-of palindromes, quasi-rhymes, “unspoken puns” that “float in the air” (251). In stretches, there is too much glossing for ideal classroom use, especially ad 1.6, 1.9.52–78, and 1.10.2–35. This is not immediately noticeable since the glosses are separated by vast stretches of commentary; those students who most need help will be the least inclined to dig through the lemmata in search of help on vocabulary and grammar, which, however, is handsomely provided. Almost never did I think a reading was just wrong (but see ad 1.8.39, 47). The book well serves the advanced students and their instructors who constitute this series’ readership.

As for today’s usual problem, I read every word and found a total of five typographical errors in the commentary, all in punctuation but one (318, line 4, for “H.’s” read “His”—Cicero’s, not Horace’s). There is, oddly, a typo in the Latin text at 5.31 (optimus has slipped in before atque, echoing line 27), and assisto at 6.114 is mysteriously italicized. In short, a miracle of accuracy in the current deplorable state of book production.

Morris Zapp’s monumental work on Jane Austen, he hoped, would put an end to all further writing on the subject.[[4]] After reading this commentary, it is hard to think what could be left to say about Horace Satires I; whatever it is will certainly be much better-informed than before Gowers.

NOTES

[[1]] Emily Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford, 1993). Articles appeared on S. 1.5 (1993), 1.7 (2002), 1.4 (2009), and 1.6 (2009), along with several general articles.

[[2]] P. Michael Brown, ed., Horace Satires I (Warminster, 1993, 1995): with a short bibliography and introduction, facing translation in English, and brief notes, useful but keyed to the translation. Brown’s observation on S. 1.7, “perhaps included as a make-weight,” marks his distance from Gowers’ approach.

[[3]] Density: Compare Elaine Fantham’s exemplary Lucan De Bello Civili Book II, also in the green-and-yellow series (1992): 23 pages of text, 147 pages of commentary; Gowers has 26 pages of text, 281 pages of commentary. The pages in Fantham’s Lucan are also much smaller, the paper much better, and the ink, for reasons best known to the press, much blacker.

[[4]] David Lodge, Changing Places (London, 1975) 35.

• 2013.02.46:  Burkhard Fehr, Becoming Good Democrats and Wives: Civil Education and Female Socialization on the Parthenon Frieze. Hephaistos. Kritische Zeitschrift zu Theorie und Praxis der Archäologie und angrenzender Gebiete / New approaches to classical archaeology and related fields.
• 2013.02.45:  Jennifer Ebbeler, Disciplining Christians: Correction and Community in Augustine’s Letters. Oxford studies in late antiquity.
• 2013.02.44:  Michaela Stark, Göttliche Kinder: Ikonographische Untersuchung zu den Darstellungskonzeptionen von Gott und Kind bzw. Gott und Mensch in der griechischen Kunst. Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge, Bd. 39.
• 2013.02.43:  Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, Susan A. Stephens, Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets.
• 2013.02.42:  Jaime Alvar, Los cultos egipcios en Hispania. Institut des sciences et techniques de l’Antiquité.
• 2013.02.41:  Walter Gauß, Michael Lindblom, R. Angus K. Smith, James C. Wright, Our Cups Are Full: Pottery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age. Papers Presented to Jeremy B. Rutter on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday.
• 2013.02.40:  Peter Van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic period. Greek culture in the Roman world
• 2013.02.39:  Bjørn Lovén, Mette Schaldemose, The Ancient Harbours of the Piraeus: the Zea Shipsheds and Slipways (2 vols.). Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 15.1-2.
• 2013.02.38:  Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, Libanios: Zeuge einer schwindenden Welt. Standorte in Antike und Christentum, 4.
• 2013.02.37:  Holger Essler, Glückselig und unsterblich: epikureische Theologie bei Cicero und Philodem (mit einer Edition von Pherc. 152/157, Kol. 8-10). Schwabe Epicurea, 2.
• 2013.02.36:  Friedemann Drews, Menschliche Willensfreiheit und göttliche Vorsehung bei Augustinus, Proklos, Apuleius und John Milton (2 vols.). Topics in ancient philosophy / Themen der antiken Philosophie, Bd 3.
• 2013.02.35:  Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD.
• 2013.02.34:  Sewell on Jolivet on Sewell, The Formation of Roman Urbanism.
  Response by Jamie Sewell.
• 2013.02.33:  M. F. Burnyeat, Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy. (2 vols.).
• 2013.02.32:  Michael Squire, The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae.
• 2013.02.31:  Louis Callebat, Priapées. Collection des universités de France. Série latine, 402.
• 2013.02.30:  Jeffrey A. Becker, Nicola Terrenato, Roman Republican Villas. Architecture, Context, and Ideology.

posted with permission:

Performing Oaths in Classical Greek Drama. By Judith Fletcher. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xi + 277. Hardcover, £60.00/$99.00. ISBN 978-0-521-76273-1.

Reviewed by Edwin Carawan, Missouri State University (ECarawan).

“Speech acts” are familiar in many areas of classical studies, but there has been no systematic work in the arena where they loom largest, Greek drama. Judith Fletcher’s book fills a big part of that gap. The focus is not performance in the usual sense but oaths as “performatives.” As J. L. Austin defined them in his lectures of 1955, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, 1962), these are sayings that enact the very actions they proclaim, as when one says “I do” (or the like) at a marriage, or “I give and bequeath” in leaving a legacy. Oaths and curses are perhaps the most potent of these performatives. An oath-taker swears to do thus and such or suffer the consequences, and the very pronouncement makes that pattern of action a reality. Of course much depends on circumstances: does the speaker follow an accepted procedure, correctly and completely? Is he (or she) properly qualified, and is the speech act made with the clear commitment to carry it out, not as a joke or ploy? Violating any of these conditions renders the performative “infelicitous,” not necessarily void but dubious. This framework is essential to Fletcher’s approach. For much of ancient drama seems to revolve around oaths that are infelicitous in that Austinian sense: the (per)formative declarations of young men coming of age, the oaths sworn or invoked by designing women, the ploys of cheats and conniving servants.

For background and comparative material Fletcher draws upon the Nottingham Oath Project and the volume of conference papers, Horkos, that she co-edited with Alan Sommerstein (Exeter, 2007). She begins with an introduction to the archaic paradigm, focusing on the oaths that frame the Iliad. For Achilles is fully qualified and committed to his vows, and the main action of the epic follows that program. From the Oresteia to Lysistrata, the oaths of drama also drive the plot, but the circumstances prove rather less felicitous.

Oath-taking is a gesture of gender and authority. A man swears upon his standing in the group and the favor of god, and he wagers his very genos. The “cut pieces” of the sacrificial victim may have included the testicles, and the oath-taker who stands in this bloody mess is reminded of what is at risk (46–7). The tale of Glaucus, who asked the oracle if he might falsely swear to be rid of a debt, brings home the implication (Hdt. 6.86): the Pythia warned that the offspring of such an oath is nameless and limbless but snatches up the whole house. Glaucus abandoned his scam but the very idea doomed his progeny.

Tragedy often turns upon infelicities that create suspense but end well enough. Thus in the Oresteia (Ch. 1), the young man, scarcely his own master, has sworn to Apollo to avenge his father, but he has a moment of hesitation (Choe. 899). The doubtful commitment frames the plot that defines the character. That success of the oath, as the ephebe becomes anēr, also defines Hyllus in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Neoptolemos in Philoctetes (Ch. 2).

Euripides mastered a different kind of plot, weaving doubtful oaths into disaster (Ch. 6). In Medea, after all, the complication builds upon the oath that Jason has already forsworn, and the peripety comes with the oath that Medea demands of Aegeus, when she recognizes in him the plight of a man without sons. Hippolytus similarly turns upon an oath solicited by a conniving woman (the nurse), all the more infelicitous as it is sworn by a celibate nothos who promptly reconsiders. Fletcher’s analysis of the plot (190–4) is intriguing and suggests how the peripety was staged: if Phaedra is indeed at hand to hear Hippolytus compromise his vow of silence before the chorus, it makes the unraveling all the more inevitable and ironic. This self-righteous youth would never violate his oath, but, like Glaucus, he damns himself by the mere suggestion.

Comedy similarly builds upon performatives, and the parallel plot device opens the stage to intertextual gags. Here Fletcher’s findings are especially insightful. Thus in Thesmophoriazusae (Ch. 7), the point of the parody is not that Euripides disrespects the gods but that he builds his plots around outrageous infelicities. The action of Clouds also revolves around oaths perversely rendered (Ch. 5). But Aristophanes’ masterpiece oath-play is Lysistrata (Ch. 8); for the women’s pledge in the prologue guides the plot to the end, where the men negotiate over naked Reconciliation and then must plight their troth to recover the “hostages.”

Along the way there are a few disappointments. Performatives in tragedy make us ponder the puzzle of agency (111): do “speech acts cause action or reflect a more potent force?” Oedipus and Creon wrestle with that overdetermined reality, and we expect Fletcher (in Ch. 3) to explore their recognition, as they face the curses they called down in ignorance; but she barely hints at that arc from oath to anagnōrisis. In comedy, of course, we can dispense with determinism but we don’t want to miss the stage directions: so in the tease scene in Lysistrata, Myrrhine should be swearing to Kinesias (917–18) that “she cannot just <let him> lie on the ground”—woman on top (correcting p. 237). But, however we construe the infelicities, this book is an important contribution to the way we understand ancient Athens, as a culture defined by devices of discourse.

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The Empire of the Self: Self-Command and Political Speech in Seneca and Petronius. By Christopher Star. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Pp. viii + 302. Hardcover, $65.00/£34.00. ISBN 978-1-4214-0674-9.

Reviewed by Gareth Williams, Columbia University

This book constitutes an important addition to the burgeoning body of scholarship on the self and on Roman attitudes/approaches to self-shaping and self-articulation in the early Imperial era. Star’s particular objective is to show how Seneca and Petronius “address the problems and possibilities of self-shaping and self-revelation in the new world of empire” (19). This broad theme is developed from varied angles of approach in six main chapters, all of which combine sensitive micro-analysis of individual passages and texts with the patient unfolding of Star’s macro-argument. Eschewing an approach which sets Petronius and Seneca against each other as philosophical and literary opposites (even opponents), Star sets the two in a dialogue of sorts, both of them contributing in complementary ways to the larger theorization of self-shaping that is constructed across the six chapters.

The book is in two movements: after an anchoring introduction, the focus in Part I (Chapters 1–3) is on “Soul-Shaping Speech,” in Part II (Chapters 4–6) on “Soul-Revealing Speech.” Star’s starting-point in Part I is the familiar idea that traditional modes of military and political command gave way in the early empire, amidst “the new problem of political autocracy” (3), to an internalizing tendency that prioritized self-empowerment and self-command (sibi imperare). In Chapter 1 Star focuses on Senecan self-apostrophe as a key mechanism by which self-command is asserted and inculcated—a mechanism already of wide rhetorical application, but Star nevertheless argues persuasively for Senecan improvisation: he “‘theorizes’ it, turning this literary and declamatory figure of speech into a philosophical concept” (59). In Chapter 2 Star turns to self-address in Senecan tragedy, demonstrating through the examples of Medea, Clytemnestra and Atreus how the therapeutic apparatus of self-apostrophe is reapplied to galvanizing effect as the tragic characters ready for heinous action. As in Chapter 1, Star boldly attributes considerable originality to Seneca (so, e.g., 73–4: “Seneca develops a portrayal of the passions and the psychology of vice that goes beyond basic Stoic theories of the passions as simply unstructured and inconstant: he develops a new image of the passions built around the Stoic ideal of constantia”); he also smoothly downplays tension between Seneca’s philosophical prose and the tragedies (“In his tragedies, Seneca is neither negating, inverting, nor denying his philosophical ideals; rather, he is expanding them,” p. 83; my emphasis), but (i) without quelling at least this reader’s disquiet at the troubling implications of Stoic constantia being reapplied in a context of evil, and (ii) without dwelling at greater length on the precise nature of Seneca’s tragic “expansion” of his philosophical ideas. In turning to Petronius in Chapter 3, Star continues indirectly to illuminate the function of self-apostrophe in Seneca through contrast with the different trajectory of self-address that he explores in the Satyricon: whereas Seneca focuses on interior self-shaping, Petronius “brings Senecan ‘command psychology’ down to the body” (111) in physicalized counterpoint to the “higher” mode of meditatio explored in Chapters 1 and 2.

In turning his focus to self-revelation in Part II, Star offers in Chapter 4 a penetrating analysis of De clementia, again with emphasis on the shaping of self. Here, however, the shaping process is external, in the sense that Seneca molds (the projection of) a merciful Nero, he prescribes the conduct to be expected of the young emperor, and he shapes “the populace’s capacity for critical judgment of Nero in order to determine whether he is a king or a tyrant” (118); De clementia offers, that is, a pattern and paradigm for Neronian self-revelation—a script for him to follow. In the Apocolocyntosis, by contrast, Seneca orchestrates self-revelation of a more sordid kind as the feeble Claudius struggles to breathe his last: in Chapter 5 Star predicates his impressive reading of the Apocolocyntosis on a two-fold system of comparison, first relating Claudius to Petronius’ Trimalchio and to the latter’s all too graphic account of his digestive problems (Sat. 47.1–7; cf. the excrement with which the dying Claudius dirties himself at Apoc. 4.3), and then exploring the Apocolocyntosis as a form of comic double to De clementia. Finally, in Chapter 6, “Trimalchio’s surprising usurpation of the name of Maecenas” (171; cf. Sat. 71.12) provides the departure-point for Star’s instructive treatment of Seneca’s Maecenas in Letter 114. If in De clementia Seneca “developed his position as Nero’s speech-writer in order to stress how the emperor’s language could both shape and reveal the mildness of his soul” (177), Seneca’s treatment of Maecenas’ literary style in Letter 114 (written after Seneca’s de facto retirement from the Neronian court in 62 ce) is very different in import: Maecenas’ style “reveals that his manner of living was incongruent with the imperial power he was granted” (177–8), to the effect that the positive shaping of self that takes place in De clementia now gives way to a negative paradigm.

This bare sketch can hardly do justice to the scope and richness of Star’s argument in each chapter, to the thoroughness with which he discusses his chosen texts, and to the creativity with which he exploits his simultaneous treatments of Seneca and Petronius. The writing is clear and uncluttered, his chains of reasoning are lucidly constructed, and there are few typographical errors of note (but read “smile” on p. 93: “all the faces that usually create a simile among lovers”). In sum, this book makes a major contribution to the modern bibliography on selfhood and self-formation in the early empire, and it will doubtless generate further debate in so vibrant an area of study.

posted with permission:

A Written Republic: Cicero’s Philosophical Politics. By Yelena Baraz. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 252. Hardcover. $45.00/£30.00. ISBN 978-0-691-15332-2.

Reviewed by Jonathan P. Zarecki, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

In this well-written and thought-provoking book, Yelena Baraz engages with the prefaces of Cicero’s philosophical works written in the 40’s to demonstrate how he used these introductions to “sell” philosophy as a viable method of stabilizing the Republic. Using Genette’s study of textual presentation as her starting point, Baraz focuses on the “historical and circumstantial nature” of the prefaces.[[1]] She adroitly counters the arguments of scholars who believe that philosophy was, for Cicero, merely a pastime or a consolation for personal and political misfortunes. Baraz is not interested in the minutiae of the philosophical arguments. Rather, she concentrates her argument on the two primary difficulties faced by Cicero in composing the philosophica: convincing his readers that philosophy is both useful and consistent with Roman mores, and convincing his readers that he is the right man to engage in such arguments.

Chapter 1, “Otiose Otium,” describes the social criticisms Cicero faced in writing his philosophical program. Cicero found himself fighting the perception that philosophy is acceptable as long as it remains on the periphery. This is Cicero’s greatest challenge—to convince his readers that philosophy is not an abandonment of civic duty. Sallust and the anonymous author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium are used as comparanda: Sallust for his exposition of the cultural biases Cicero was combating in his prefaces, while the author of ad Herennium represents a mouthpiece for the criticisms Cicero expects to encounter.

In Chapter 2, “On a More Personal Note,” Baraz examines Cicero’s correspondence as a tool for understanding Cicero’s goals for the philosophica. Cicero expressed a myriad of goals in his letters. Baraz believes that this is intentional; Cicero is contradictory only when it serves a rhetorical purpose. She argues that Cicero persistently believed that philosophy was “a tool that men can use in making decisions with implications for the state” (47); furthermore, in his letters, he “blurs the traditional boundaries between the political and philosophical spheres” (95). She disagrees with scholars who view Cicero’s philosophica as a form of consolation; he turns to philosophy only when he finds himself on the political margins.

The third chapter, “A Gift of Philosophy,” concerns itself with the act of translation. Baraz presents Cicero as a translator of ideas: from Greek to Latin, to be sure, but, more importantly, from useless to useful, un-Roman to Roman. A basic premise of Cicero’s arguments for philosophy is that the “subject matter cannot be allowed to stand on its own merits” (111). Cicero hoped through his philosophy to encourage, indeed, restore, communication between the boni—dare we say, restore the concordia ordinum—by casting philosophy as a useful activity for those engaged in public life.

Chapter 4, “With the Same Voice,” continues the themes from the previous chapter by examining Cicero’s use of oratory as a way to establish a link between philosophy and traditional public life. Cicero uses himself as the exemplar for the validity of engaging in philosophical inquiry. For example, the preface to the Paradoxa uses rhetorical terms to validate Cicero’s adherence to Academic skepticism vis-à-vis Cato’s active resistance to Caesar. In N.D. 1 Cicero establishes a connection between his past and present activities, thereby refuting the detractors who would comment that he had only suddenly turned to philosophy. Because Cicero, and men like him, engage in philosophy as part of their negotium, the two are intertwined whether one writes philosophy or not.

Chapter 5, “Reading a Ciceronian Preface,” looks at the ways Cicero attempts to control the author–audience dynamic, primarily through the construction of an ideal reader, identified as an upper-class man open to the possibilities of Greek learning combined with Roman mores. Cicero employs the precepts of amicitia to invite the general reader to identify with the ideal reader/dedicatee, thereby making the general reader one of Cicero’s amici; the philosophica become the beneficia of one friend to another.

The final chapter, “Philosophy after Caesar,” looks at the effect of Caesar’s assassination on Cicero’s philosophical project. Adoption and paternalism become key metaphors as Cicero recasts his previous view of philosophy as a substitute for public life. Caesar’s death removed the barrier to public life which contributed to the earlier works, and Cicero becomes much more didactic. Philosophy loses its position as integral to the future of the state, though it still carries importance.

Philology is at the heart of Baraz’s book. Careful readings of the text abound, with her interpretation often hinging on a particular word here or an antithesis there.[[2]] However, some readers may find a few of the readings tenuous, a complaint Baraz acknowledges (192). My only quibble regards the scope of the book. I do not believe that the break between Cicero’s rhetorical-philosophical works of the 50’s and the later program of the 40’s is as clean as Baraz makes it out to be. Some discussion of a pre-civil war Cicero is contained in Chs. 1 and 2, but little mention is made of events between 61–49, a precious few letters notwithstanding. While Baraz makes her reasons clear for not treating the earlier works in detail, she does make connections between the two groups (e.g. Sen. and Amic. are linked to Rep. and de Orat. in the choice of interlocutors and their didactic nature on p. 198). I hope that in the future she will tackle the prefaces of the three earlier works as well.

In summary, Baraz’s stimulating and nuanced argument about Cicero’s literary and political goals should make this book a standard reference for anyone interested in Cicero, his philosophical program, or the intellectual life of the Late Republic.

NOTES

[[1]] G. Gennette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

[[2]] The careful reading extends to the copyediting. I noted only one small mistake of fact—the attribution of a letter from Cicero’s proconsulship to the 40’s (73)—and two minor typographical errors.

posted with permission:

Learn to Read Greek. By Andrew Keller and Stephanie Russell. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012. Part I: Textbook. Pp. xxiv + 384. Paper, $45.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11589-5. Workbook. Pp. xi + 632. Paper, $32.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11591-8. Part II. Textbook. Pp. xvii + 512. Paper, $45.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11590-1. Workbook. Pp. ix + 544. Paper, $32.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11592-5.

Reviewed by Wilfred E. Major, Louisiana State University

This latest entry among beginning textbooks for Greek continues in the vein of expansively detailed presentations geared toward making students highly sophisticated readers of Classical Greek. Teachers who consider this book should be certain that this approach matches their teaching style and students’ learning abilities. Teachers who find this level of detail overwhelming may yet find the supplementary workbooks a valuable resource.

Keller and Russell offer across two volumes comprising sixteen chapters, each with very full and precise presentations of grammar and reading samples, mostly gnomic utterances (the “short readings” from Chapter 3 onward) and samples of mostly high literary and philosophical texts (“longer readings,” usually a short paragraph, from Chapter 6 on). These selections form a trove of interesting material, and teachers of intermediate or advanced Greek classes might find them valuable for review or as sight passages. Unfortunately the readings are often not congruent with what students have been learning and practicing in the grammatical material. For example, the first readings (seven short sentences) conclude Chapter 3, where students have been introduced to the present, imperfect and future tenses, indicative and infinitive moods, in the active, middle and passive voices, of –ω verbs. All the verbs in the reading, however, are present indicative (except for one aorist, which is glossed). The sentences do manage to work a range of noun forms (Chapter 2 introduces nouns of the first declension, including variations, and the second declension, along with the full definite article), although there is nothing like the range of the fourteen case usages described in Chapters 1 and 2. A couple of instances of κακός constitute their exposure to the adjective forms (also included in Chapter 2). Even more extreme is the introduction of the paradigm of οὗτος (p. 48), which does not appear in a reading until Chapter 7 (p. 233) and not with any regularity until Chapter 8 (pp. 261ff.). The correspondence of the vocabulary lists (one in each chapter) to the readings is no better. By Chapter 3, students have met 98 words in the vocabulary lists (many with extensive notes), but only 25 of these (+ the definite article) are used in the first readings, even though the authors have to gloss an additional ten words so students can read even these seven sentences.

Keller and Russell present a phenomenal amount of detail, but narrowly and sometimes overlooking other crucial details. Thus they include lunate sigmas (in alternate chapters) and Ionic dialectical forms, but Koine Greek (and most post-Classical Greek) is kept to a minimum. Keller and Russell boast that they used the TLG search engine to root out vocabulary items that are rare in Attic Greek (pp. xv–xvi), but they have given little thought to high-frequency material. Thus students learn 2nd-declension nouns in Chapter 2 and begin seeing the regular noun οἶνος in the readings starting in Chapter 3 and repeatedly thereafter in Part 1 (Chapters 1–9), which is fine, except that οἶνος does not appear in a vocabulary list until Part 2 (Chapter 12). Many high-frequency words are delayed until Part 2, presented alongside much less common material. Excessive schematization sometimes trumps what is in students’ best interests as beginners. Thus Chapter 3 presents the relatively rare future passive forms before Chapter 5 introduces the very common forms of εἰμί, and common –μι verbs are delayed to Part 2, mostly in the final three chapters, meaning that students meet forms like the aorist optative passive before they meet the simplest forms of δίδωμι, τίθημι, ἵστημι, and ἵημι. Granted that this is a problem found in a number of beginning Greek textbooks, but that is no reason to repeat the mistake in a new one.

To Keller and Russell’s credit, they have also put their attention to detail and thoroughness to good use in the supplementary workbooks. Numerous exercises provide opportunities to practice forms and translate (both Greek to English and English to Greek). While the drills are numbered and keyed to the chapters in the grammar, many of them can stand alone as exercises for practice or review. Generally there is a shortage of such straightforward practice and drill resources for Greek, so teachers seeking such materials can consider the workbooks even if they are not using the textbook.

The present reviewer has not had the opportunity to use this book in the classroom, but two teachers have generously offered their perspectives for this review. Independently they agree that students successful with these books will be formidable readers of Greek. Conversely, the books can be unforgiving for students who do not control the details. They also agree that chapters are of unequal length and difficulty. Ultimately, preference depends on the value a teacher puts on the detail work. Those who favor the comprehensive, detailed presentations in beginning Greek textbooks should consider the presentation in this book. Teachers put off by detail will find nothing attractive here.

Finally, there is a broader issue to consider. In an age when students look to their phones and tablets for information, these books dwarf all other Greek textbooks in mass (2,000+ pages across four volumes, all 8½” by 11”) and weight (more than 10 lbs. total). Inside, despite the efforts of the press, the graphic presentation of the grammatical material, no matter how clearly demarcated and presented, is not an appealing read. It is the great challenge of the digital age to be faced with huge amounts of data and then to find a mechanism for navigating it in a meaningful way. Keller and Russell have embedded an enormous amount of valuable data here. Perhaps they will have an opportunity in the future to embed it in an interface that will make it accessible to a wider range of teachers and students.