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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.

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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.

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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.

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Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims, Modern Observers. Edited by Christopher A. Faraone and F. S. Naiden. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp.xiv + 209. Hardcover, £55.00/$95.00. ISBN 978-1-107-01112-0.

Reviewed by Sarah Hitch, University of Oxford

Is animal sacrifice the central act in Greek and Roman religion, or is this a modern construct borne out of Christian criticism of pagan practices? So the editors begin their reassessment of the theoretical interpretations of ancient Greek and Roman sacrifice predominant in the 20th century. The emphasis on sacrifice as the center of Greek religious practice in the models of Walter Burkert and the scholars working with Jean-Pierre Vernant in Paris is the main issue addressed by the eight papers in this collection. The papers are organized into pairs in four topical sections, concluding with a brief “Afterword” by Clifford Ando. This volume joins a series of edited collections on this topic; like those edited by Pirenne-Delforge and Prescendi (Kernos 2011) and Knust and Várhelyi (Oxford University Press, 2011), the papers cover both Greek and Roman sacrifice. Indeed, one of the criticisms often levied at the prevailing theories of Burkert and Vernant is the exclusive focus on Classical Greek culture; this volume has a much wider scope anchored within an overview of the history of scholarship on the topic.

Part I, “Modern Historiography,” establishes the limits of theoretical objectivity through a penetrating look at the social contexts in which the great theories of sacrifice were developed. Bruce Lincoln locates early interpretations of sacrifice as part of sectarian French discourse between the French revolution and the end of the second world war (“From Bergaigne to Meuli: How Animal Sacrifice Became a Hot Topic”). Lincoln points to the French political milieu in which Hubert and Mauss wrote their study on sacrifice, which they intended as a “political intervention” (15), situated by Lincoln in the development of the “Aryan” and “Semite” opposition that colored much of the contemporary scholarship in religious studies. Fritz Graf picks up the thread with a discussion of the wave of new theories in the wake of the second world war (“One Generation after Burkert and Girard: Where are the Great Theories?”). Graf illustrates how J. Z. Smith’s interpretation of sacrifice as a “meditation on the domestication of animals” (44) is a sensible theory with much to offer the discipline, but without the following of the more sensational approaches of Burkert, Girard and Vernant. Although Jaś Elsner’s chapter on “Sacrifice in Late Roman Art” comes in Part III of the volume, his richly illustrated test of the application of grand theories to the wide variations in visual representations of sacrifice in third-century art echoes many of the points raised by Lincoln and Graf. Based on the virtual disappearance of animal sacrifice in the decoration of public monuments throughout the empire, with some notable exceptions in North Africa and in Jewish iconography, Elsner concludes that the centrality of animal sacrifice in theoretical interpretations of ancient Roman practice reflects the importance of sacrifice to Christian polemicists rather than historical fact. All three contributions raise the importance of perspective, both ancient and modern, an aspect commented on by Ando: “virtually all reflections on cult surviving from the Greek and Roman worlds have the status of interpretation” (197).

Part II, “Greek and Roman Practice,” moves from hierarchies of scholarship to the hierarchies of participation in public sacrifices. Naiden gives a functionalist critique of the evidence for sacrificial feasts as a method of food distribution in Greek cities (“Blessèd are the parasites”). He outlines the varying modes of meat distribution, emphasizing the social hierarchy expressed by honorary portions of meat reserved for special participants, often pieces set aside for gods which were then appropriated by priests. While Naiden focuses on the dynamics of human participation in Greek sacrifice, the divine portion is outlined in John Scheid’s chapter, “Roman Animal Sacrifice and the System of Being.” Drawing on the inscribed records of the fratres arvales and evidence for libations without sacrifice, Scheid shows the theological hierarchy implicit in the Roman offering system. Variations in scale of offering reflect differentiation of divine status, such as between the Olympian gods and the smaller offerings given to deified emperors by the Arvals. Libations without animal sacrifice may fall on the small side of the offering scale, but still reflect the importance of ceremonial sharing with gods in recognition of their superior status. These papers make a nice pair, although Scheid’s presentation of evidence seems abbreviated in comparison with the voluminous case put forward by Naiden for the varying distribution of meat to human participants. In this way, even within a framework explicitly designed to criticize and analyze the sociological trend in twentieth century scholarship, the theological arguments still take a back seat.

Part III covers “Visual Representation” and Part IV “Literary representation.” These papers mostly address the much-discussed notion that sacrifice is central because it is violent. With reference to Athenian sculpture, Richard Neer (“Sacrificing Stones: On Some Sculpture, Mostly Athenian”) questions the centrality of sacrifice per se, proposing that manipulations of sacrifice as image, such as the “Procne and Itys” statue group from the Acropolis, suggest the centrality stems rather from “everything that went on around sacrifice” (119). A compelling aspect of his argument is the relative marginalization of sacrifice in comparison to sacred buildings and decorations, which are demonstrations of immortal and mortal relationships on a scale which completely overshadows the theoretical centrality of sacrifice. In Part IV, the violence of sacrifice leads to the pleasure of eating in Redfield’s discussion, “Animal Sacrifice in Comedy: an Alternative Point of View.” Redfield revives Vernant’s thesis that sacrifice is a prelude to meat-eating in the context of New Comedy, which generally depicts social harmony through feasting. He critically applies Vernant’s structural interpretation of sacrifice as expressive of the cosmic order to the motif in Old Comedy, which is as transgressive as New Comedy is affirming. Most notable in Redfield’s essay is his comparison of Hesiod’s aetiology of sacrifice in the Theogony with the book of Genesis; whereas the Hebrew narrative illustrates divine sanction of meat eating through sacrifice, the relative silence of Hesiod on the link between sacrifice, meat eating and divine will opens the doors for the problematization of sacrifice as “murder.” In the final chapter, “Animal Sacrifice in Greek Tragedy: Ritual, Metaphor, Problematizations,” Albert Henrichs pulls together the relevant descriptions in tragedy and the schools of interpretation to which they gave rise, concluding that, although corrupted or failed sacrifices are frequent signposts of disorder in tragedy, the distinction between sacrifice and murder is carefully maintained. He points out the popularity of tragic representations in theories on the topic, without consideration of the context.

The editors have gathered together essays by senior scholars with long experience in the discipline and the result is mature and concise, particularly their coverage of the history of scholarship on the topic. The individual essays are highly polished and extremely well written, providing a sophisticated valediction to the prevailing theories of the 20th century.