Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

September 21, 2013 ~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

… always seem to be in catchup mode:

CJ Online Review: Sedley, The Philosophy of Antiochus

September 21, 2013 ~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

posted with permission:

The Philosophy of Antiochus. Edited by David Sedley. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. ix + 377. Hardcover, $110.00. ISBN 978-0-521-19854-7.

Reviewed by Joseph McAlhany, Carthage College

The philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon, influential teacher to leading intellectual lights of 1st-century bce Rome such as Cicero and Varro and companion to dimmer bulbs such as Lucullus, is best known for his revival of the "Old Academy" in a hostile reaction, known as the Sosus affair, to the skepticism that had come to reign among the heirs of Plato, including his own teacher Philo of Larissa. Treatments of the man and his thought have not been lacking, though for anything approaching a digestible yet substantial overview in English, nothing surpassed Barnes’ lucid and concise "Antiochus of Ascalon" in Philosophia Togata I (Oxford 1989). However, David Sedley has now edited an outstanding collection of papers on Antiochus, and even though he explicitly denies any attempt to produce a "Cambridge Companion to Antiochus," this comprehensive volume featuring a stellar cast of contributors all but renders one unnecessary (or, at least, even more unnecessary). A product of the Cambridge-based project on "Greco-Roman Philosophy in the First Century bc," the collection begins with coverage of Antiochus’ biography and intellectual background, proceeds through his philosophical positions and arguments, and ends with his influence-a natural arrangement that allows free and fruitful overlap, which is one of the strengths of this volume: rather than redundant and repetitious re-visitations of the same ground, the internal engagement among individual contributors sounds a stimulating polyphony.

Little about Antiochus’ life and teachings rises above controversial conjecture, since, with only one verbatim quotation surviving from Sextus Empiricus for sources, we are left with interpretative quagmires such as Cicero’s Academica and Philodemus’ Index Academicorum. Yet even though this pivotal figure of late Republican intellectual culture remains enshrouded in hermeneutic murk, every contribution in this volume offers its own insights, always based on close engagement with the sources. In fact, a notable feature that alone makes this book a valuable resource is the collection of testimonia (and fragment) with translations at the end of the book, including David Blank’s new readings of the Index Academicorum. (The longer speeches from Cicero are not reproduced in full, but neatly summarized.) A thorough reading of the book thus paints the most complete portrait one could hope to have of Antiochus at present, without offering the illusion of settled conclusions.

After Sedley’s introduction sets the stage for the volume as a whole, the next three chapters contextualize Antiochus’ life and teaching: Hatzimichali ("Antiochus’ biography") and Polito ("Antiochus and the Academy") give thorough accounts of what is known of his life and career, not without challenges to the status quo, while Flemming in "Antiochus and Asclepiades: medical and philosophical sectarianism at the end of the Hellenistic era" makes a welcome comparison of intellectual networks. The chapters that focus on Antiochus’ philosophical thought open with Sedley’s "Antiochus as historian of philosophy," an examination of Antiochus’ evolution in his (mis)use of philosophical history, which serves as a useful introduction to the chapters on epistemology and ethics that follow: "Antiochus’ epistemology" (Brittain), "Antiochus on contemplation and the happy life" (Tsouni), "Antiochus, Aristotle and the Stoics on degrees of happiness" (Irwin), and "Antiochus on social virtue" (Schofield), all notable for a clarity of exposition in their wider discussions of Antiochus and Greco-Roman philosophy than the plain-spoken titles suggest. The next three chapters cover physics and, if not logic strictly speaking, at least argumentation: Inwood ("Antiochus on physics"), Boys-Stones ("Aristochus’ metaphysics"), and Schofield again ("The neutralizing argument: Carneades, Antiochus, Cicero") all present closely argued challenges to the other readings of Antiochus. Blank leads off the final chapters on Antiochus’ influence with "Antiochus and Varro," a fine portrait of the Roman polymath’s intellectual debt to Antiochus, while Lévy ("Other followers of Antiochus") treats the question of influence more broadly, including a convincing reading of Brutus. Bonazzi’s "Antiochus and Platonism," while more speculative than the others, is a comprehensive and sympathetic reading of Antiochus’ efforts at philosophical reconciliation and a fitting conclusion to the collection.

Antiochus’ troublesome claim that the doctrines of the Stoics, Peripatetics, and Academics differed only in terminology, not substance, underlies much of the more technical discussion: What does apatheia really mean? If katalepsis itself can constitute knowledge, what then is knowledge? Can ennoiai be understood as Platonic Forms? There’s a vita beata,a vita beatior,and a vita beatissima-seriously? For Antiochus, these questions had important consequences and literally defined philosophical identity: what did it really mean to be a Stoic, or a Peripatetic, or an Academic in the 1st century bce? It is a virtue of this collection that the detailed engagement with the philological and philosophical technicalities is likewise never unmoored from larger intellectual issues, making it a significant advance in the study of post-Hellenistic philosophy. Well-produced and remarkably accessible, The Philosophy of Antiochus will remain a standard for scholarly reference and engagement for a long time to come

©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

August 31, 2013 ~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment

… catching up with August:

CJ-Online Review | Dueck and Broderson, Geography in Classical Antiquity

August 30, 2013August 30, 2013 ~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

posted with permission:

Geography in Classical Antiquity. By Daniela Dueck with a chapter by Kai Brodersen. Key Themes in Ancient History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi + 142. Paper, $29.99. ISBN 978-0-521-12025-8.

Reviewed by Brian Turner, Portland State University

Pliny the Elder (NH 3.1.1-2) long ago bemoaned the near impossible task of writing about geography, an assignment which was, he wrote, “not easily handled without any criticism.” Recognizing the difficulty of encapsulating so much of human knowledge in a single volume, he claimed that he would neither “blame nor refute” any of his sources. Alas, Pliny did not have to write book reviews. It is, then, a relief to recommend Dueck’s brief but effective primer on the topic of geography in the Greek and Roman world. The pace and breadth of the text will require an active and prepared instructor (not to mention an array of supplementary readings) to help guide students through topics that are often only introduced and then overwhelmed by new concepts, developments, and items of evidence. But the topic of geography in antiquity relies on so much and so varied evidence-even (as I note below) more than the text emphasizes-that the authors can hardly be faulted for brevity in such a concise and necessary introduction.

The book consists of five chapters. A bibliography and index are by no means exhaustive but should at least offer students a starting point for the pursuit of further study. There is also a chronological table listing authors, texts, and principal events. Polybius might have preferred to be included in the 2nd rather than 3rd century bce (xi), and certainly Ammianus Marcellinus, since he is discussed in the text itself (50), deserves inclusion. But such quibbles aside, the table will helpfully introduce new students to the large number of texts available for the study of ancient geography.

The bulk of the volume is organized according to groups of sources rather than chronological development, so that the three main chapters deal with as many different approaches to the study of geography in antiquity. Chapter 2, “Descriptive Geography,” explores the presentation of geographic material in poetry, prose, and even travelogues including periploi, itineraria,and other more detailed travel narratives. The next chapter, “Mathematical Geography,” examines how ancient scientists “used numbers and calculations” (69) along with theoretical approaches regarding form and symmetry to determine the shape and size of the world as well as the nature of the peoples who inhabited it.

A description of how geographic coordinates, principally longitude and latitude, were calculated or estimated closes the discussion and offers a neat transition to the next chapter on the practice (or lack) of cartography in classical antiquity. Kai Brodersen (who wrote the chapter) warns readers of the dangers of applying a modern worldview that is too map-centric onto the ancients, and quite rightly concludes that the “pre-modern Greco-Roman world generally managed without maps” (109). The argument against the use of maps for practical purposes (e.g. for travel or military plans), however correct, tends to overpower the fact that cartographic depictions did exist in antiquity, even if only for the illustration of power and might. Even discounting the difficult problem of the form of Agrippa’s famous depiction of the orbis terrarum, there is more than enough evidence to illustrate mapping on a grand scale, especially during the Roman imperial period (for which see Richard Talbert’s chapter in Ancient Perspectives: Maps and Their Place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome (Chicago 2012)). Although the precise form of such maps is beyond reconstruction, their existence and value should not be doubted.

Three principal themes, outlined in the first (“Introduction”) and final (“Geography in Practice”) chapters, underpin the entire work. Two of the themes are specifically introduced as such in the introduction (5). The first notes the reciprocal relationship between expansion, whatever its principal motives, and geographic knowledge. The second focuses on the comparison between Greek and Roman geographic knowledge, its development and its practical uses.

The third theme is not specifically introduced like the others, but it nevertheless dominates the volume and illustrates a fundamental element of modern discussions about the nature of ancient geography. With minor exceptions, the volume emphasizes text as the dominant medium through which geographic knowledge was created and transmitted. Though such a view appears throughout, it is, perhaps, best summed up in the volume’s final line: “All these [the motives, methods, and tools of geography] enabled these pre-modern societies to break new ground and to record their experience and thoughts in writing” (121). Brodersen’s warning (100) that pre-modern societies lacked the ability to copy and transmit illustrations such as maps should be taken as a warning against such textual emphasis and should offer a reason why we ought to expand and emphasize that non-literary evidence which does exist. As it stands, discussions of artistic creations do appear in the volume, but only fleetingly. The geographic and ethnographic information presented on the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias, for example, makes only a brief appearance at the beginning and end of the work (9 and 121) and is overwhelmed by the text’s conclusion that “geography” is predominantly understood as the “writing” about the earth.

In the end, this little book successfully enhances the curiosity of the reader. Even though it is meant to be a basic introduction, the book sparks debate. It is, therefore, a reflection of the difficulty and the potential of the topic, and is a most welcome addition to the ongoing discussion.

©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved.

Catching Up With Bryn Mawr Classical Review

August 8, 2013 ~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

I think I missed all of July … I’ll catch up with August in a day or so:

Iactetur bloggus:

Iactetur bloggus:

Iactetur bloggus:

Iactetur bloggus:

Iactetur bloggus: