Robert Knapp.  Invisible Romans.  Cambridge  Harvard University
Press, 2011.  400 pp.  $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-06199-6.

Reviewed by Alison Jeppesen (Red Deer College)
Published on H-Albion (March, 2013)
Commissioned by Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth

Investigating the Mind-set of Ordinary Romans

What was life like in ancient Rome? For a slave in Rome, were the
conditions horrific or tolerable? Did women yearn for a better life
or were they satisfied with what society gave them? Julius Caesar and
Cleopatra are well-known figures from antiquity but what about Marcus
Volcius Euhemerus and Posilla Senenia? These two Romans, known only
from their tombstone inscriptions, are examples of the 99.5 percent
of Romans who lived below the level of the upper-class elite who are
often associated with Rome. These are the “ordinary” Romans that
Robert Knapp seeks to make visible to the modern reader (p. 3). What
were their hopes and dreams? What were their fears? What did they
think and believe, individually or as part of a group? What was their
“mind world” (p. 105)? The difficulty of this type of project lies in
finding a common mind world for such diverse groups as “the poor” and
“women,” and one questions if these groups would have had the same
overarching concerns.

Whether male or female, slave or free, poor or moderately wealthy,
the lives of these people are difficult to recreate. In his efforts
to make these Romans visible, Knapp combines a variety of sources for
a nonspecialist audience. He brings together recent work and presents
it in an accessible way. For a general reader, this work will be both
inspiring and depressing as it breaks down the romanticized view of
ancient life that has plagued the perception of ancient history and,
instead, highlights the realities of life in the empire. For the
student, this work provides an excellent overview of the ordinary
with avenues for further investigation. Overall, Knapp succeeds in
presenting a readable text with excellent illustrations and a very
good list of further readings for each chapter (necessitated in part
by the lack of footnotes, which, though adding to the readability for
nonspecialists, will likely irritate anyone looking for the exact
reference to an idea).

In nine chapters, Knapp discusses ordinary Romans: men from the
middle (not the poor and not the rulers), women, the poor, slaves,
freedmen, soldiers, prostitutes, gladiators, bandits, and pirates.
This is a daunting list of invisible people to make visible in some
three hundred pages. There is bound to be overlap. Knapp makes clear
distinctions between ordinary men and the absolute poor whom he
defines as those with no “resource cushion,” but between ordinary
women, the female poor, and prostitutes, there is definite repetition
(p. 95). The four chapters separating the chapters on women (chapter
2) and prostitutes (chapter 7) seem like an odd delay (both male and
female prostitutes are discussed in chapter 7 but as the focus is
mostly on female prostitutes the two chapters might have been better
placed together). Some readers may also take issue with Knapp’s
terminology, as he casually switches between calling ancient
sex-trade workers “prostitutes” and “whores.” Some discussion of the
nuances of Latin terminology would have been beneficial for all
readers as would some clarity between chlamydia and genital herpes,
which he treats as the same sexually transmitted infection. Notably
absent is a chapter devoted to children. Children appear in various
chapters (on women, soldiers, and freed people) but there has been
enough research done on children in Rome that a chapter bringing the
evidence together would have been a welcome addition.

Where Knapp achieves his goal of presenting the mind-set of the
ordinary Roman is in his portrayal of the drudgery of life in
antiquity and the struggle for survival. Even a trip to the often
glamorized baths might end poorly: the description of the putrid
waters is bound to affect all readers as is the account of the young
woman beaten at the baths in Egypt. The lives of women come across as
particularly dismal. Certainly the slave collar found with a woman’s
skeleton requiring the return of the “adulterous prostitute”
indicates a horrid life, but the overall portrayal of women seems
more negative than other topics (p. 244). Interestingly, Knapp
illustrates his points with multiple sources for other groups in the
book. For women, however, the larger scale well-known monuments, such
as Aurelia Philematium’s epitaph, receive the greatest attention
while elite women are seen as “accounterments” rather than “partners”
(p. 96). Together, these two chapters would have benefited from
additional context and greater nuance in assessing the evidence.

Knapp’s use of ancient evidence is commendable. Throughout the book,
he avoids the use of the usual suspects (e.g., Suetonius, Tacitus,
and Cicero) and turns, instead, to the less usual: inscriptions;
papyri; fables and proverbs; astrological works, such as the Carmen
Astrologicum by Dorotheus of Sidon (a first-century astrologer) and
the Interpretation of Dreams by Artemidorus (a second-century
astrologer); and other nonelite sources, including the New Testament.
Knapp argues that these works, since they were aimed at a wide
audience of ordinary people, encompass the “actual concerns of real
people” (p. 320). The variety of evidence used is good and
illustrates how these materials can be used to investigate what
average Romans may have thought and felt, though the degree of common
ground found in any one of these groups may be a topic of debate.
More discussion of the temporal and cultural context is given in the
sources section, but additional discussion would have been worthwhile
in the main body as it can be confusing to the reader when various
authors and their works are treated largely synchronically. Knapp is
up-front about the “problematic insights” granted by some of his
sources, but this comment appears at the end of the work and would
have been useful at various points in the main text (p. 315).

Overall, however, Knapp has made visible the invisible by presenting
the lives of everyday Romans. These are Romans who have more in
common with us than the Caesars and Cleopatras of antiquity but have,
until relatively recently, been less studied. Ordinary Romans, such
as those presented in this work, will make Rome more real to modern
readers, and Knapp’s attempt to help these marginalized members of
ancient society speak to us will benefit many.

Citation: Alison Jeppesen. Review of Knapp, Robert, _Invisible
Romans_. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. March, 2013.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=37416

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posted with permission:

Homer’s Versicolored Fabric: The Evocative Power of Ancient Greek Epic Word-Making. By Anna Bonifazi. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2012. Distributed by Harvard University Press. Pp. x + 350. Paper, $24.95/ £18.95. ISBN 978-0-674-06062-3.

Reviewed by Alexander C. Loney, Yale University

The “versicolored fabric” of the title of Anna Bonifazi’s book refers to the way certain objects change color when viewed from different perspectives, which means they can truthfully be said to be one color for one viewer and one color for another. The situationally dependent status of such an object is an analogue for the aspects of Homeric language Bonifazi examines in her book. Using the tools of the field of linguistics known as pragmatics, she focusses on third-person pronouns and adverbs/particles with the element αὐ-. Although Bonifazi sidesteps the issue, simply defining pragmatics can be controversial. (See Mira Ariel, Defining Pragmatics (Cambridge, 2010).) But, essentially, pragmatics can be thought of as the study of the role context plays in generating meaning. All language, as actually used, is spoken (or written) by someone to someone in some setting.

In her first chapter, Bonifazi brings her pragmatic approach to anaphora. Following linguists Catherine Emmott and Francis Cornish, Bonifazi calls for a “radical change” (19) in how anaphora is understood. She calls this the “referent in the mind” model (20). Anaphors do not refer to words but to “mental representations.” Regarding the much-discussed first word of the poem, ἄνδρα, she finds it is not “vague,” though it has no verbal antecedent; rather, “the referent of ἄνδρα is in the mind” of both the poem’s narrator and audience “as a relevant shared knowledge” (66). This example is programmatic for Bonifazi. Just as Odysseus is on the mind of the poem’s external audience, whose sympathies lie with him right from the proem, so also is Odysseus on the mind of the internal characters and “emotionally near” them. In the first four books of the poem, Homer thematizes the anaphoric/deictic pronoun (ἐ)κεῖνος as a signal of Odysseus’ emotional and (imagined) visual significance as a “cognitive presence,” despite his physical absence.

In her second chapter, Bonifazi reads Odysseus’ visit to Eumaeus’ hut in Book 14 as a “layered” scene, in which multiple dramatic situations co-exist and are communicated by the same text. The traditional interpretation of the scene sees dramatic irony at work: the audience knows Odysseus’ identity and Eumaeus does not. Some interpreters, however, have seen Eumaeus as, on some level, aware of his guest’s identity. Though contradictory, these interpretations are not incompatible, according to Bonifazi. Both realities (plus a third ritual layer) are present in our text. They are “multiple readings that the performer deliberately enables for the multiple pleasures of the audience” (83). Bonifazi’s third chapter offers further layered readings of Odysseus’ encounters with allies and foes on Ithaca. In this context, she introduces a pragmatic analysis of Homeric αὐτός. It can act as an intensifier, marking out a center (the referent of αὐτός) distinguished from a periphery; it can also act as a demonstrative of identity. Bonifazi sees a dialectic between αὐτός and (ἐ)κεῖνος, which culminates in Odysseus’ self-revelation to Laertes at 24.321: κεῖνος μὲν δὴ ὅδ’ αὐτὸς ἐγώ, “That one is here, it is myself, here I am …” (Bonifazi’s translation). This coincidence of pronouns “summarizes a fundamental fact, which is personal and social, private and public, at the same time: Odysseus cannot be either κεῖνος or αὐτός; he is both” (180).

On Bonifazi’s “layered” reading, each interaction between the disguised Odysseus and his Ithacan subjects exhibits an unresolved ambiguity: they both recognize and do not recognize him. Although some of her readings are clever, I cannot accept Bonifazi’s argument in its entirety. Her insistence on the multiple status of these scenes depends on a slippage between the idea that, e.g., Philoetius could be imagined “as if” he “really had recognized his master” (162, emphasis mine) and that he actually had. The poem we have does allude to alternative narrative paths in which characters become aware of Odysseus’ identity at different points, but these remain hypothetical and unrealized alternatives. To be sure, Bonifazi would find my critique too literalistic and “unitary” (see 169–70). Despite my sympathy with her approach, I remain unpersuaded on this point, as I expect some other readers will as well.

In the final two chapters, Bonifazi gives pragmatic accounts for adverbs beginning with αὐ-. Eschewing the term “particle” (properly, in my view), she classifies αὖ, αὖτε, and αὐτάρ as discourse markers. They do not affect the propositional content of language, but function at two other levels: the “presentational” level, relating an utterance to what comes before or after and the “interactional” level, relating speakers and interlocutors. At the presentational level, these words “primarily mark a shift from what is ‘on the one side’ to what is ‘on the other side’” in the addressee’s “visual framework” (218). This applies especially to characters in different locations (e.g., across a battlefield), but can also apply to different threads of narrative (e.g., in transitions from one scene to another). At the interactional level, these words can indicate the emotional force of an utterance. The other adverbs beginning with αὐ- are more likely to have propositional functions, but they can still function at the presentational or interactional level: e.g., αὐτίκα can propel the action of a narrative.

In the end, Bonifazi succeeds at providing a richer account of how, why, and to what effect speakers of the Homeric texts use these pronouns and adverbs/particles. As a result, now anyone interested in the Homeric usages of these words will want to consult this book closely. Bonifazi has advanced our appreciation of the nuanced pragmatics of Homeric diction.

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.

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