ClassicalViewsvol28no011984

((HOS DU MONDE ClASSIQUE
ClASS CALVIEWS
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XXVIII - N.S. 3, 1984
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E.CHOS DU MONDE ClASSIQUE
ClASSICAL VIEWS
XXVIII, n.s. 3, 1984
No.1
MATIERES/CONTENTS
P. Y. Forsyth, Lemnos Reconsidered
L. Rutland, Hope S~ringS Eternal:
Thucy Ides
Disaster in
15
F. Mitchel, The Assessment of the Allies in the
Second Athenian League
23
L. Schear, Semonides Fr. 7:
39
Wives and their Husbands
P. Murgatroyd, Genre and Themes in Ovid Amores 2.15
51
Barry Baldwin, Late Antiquity:
57
A Review Article
F. D. Harvey, The Wicked Wife of Ischomachos
68
S. M. Burstein, Callisthenes and Babylonian Astronomy:
A Note on FGrHist 124 T3
71
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
75
David A. Campbell, The Golden Lyre: The Themes
of the Greek Lyric Poets (Emmet Robbms), 75.
Carnes Lord, Education and Culture in the political
Thought of Aristotle (Alan D. Booth), 79.
~~~~~~r~:~wr~~c~a{u~uF{ K~~~I)~v~~~nce fJ~h~in~:~;~ in
Herodotus and Greek History (J.A.S. Evans), 87.
Peter R. Pouncey, The Necessities of War: A Study of
+~~c~~:~~:~r:e~fiTi~~ca~i~e~~~t~o~· ~Jae~'~7resr li~ibert
(~hi~~~ Ha~ding), 9;~er r;~~~b s:~~~~rB'a:tz~i~~it~~
der Diadochen (Waldemar Heckel), 103.
K. Stiewe and
N. Holzberg (eds.) PO~~ioL (E. Badian), 105.
Michael L. Barre The 0 - ist in the Treaty between
Hannibal and Philip V of Macedonia (Robert R. StIeglitz), 110.
cont'd
Richard Klein, Die Romrede des Aelius Aristides: EinfUhrun
(C. P. Jones), 112.
.
urgatroyd,
vi with Love:
Selections from Ars Amatoria I and II (Paola
Valeri-Tomaszuk), 114.
Alan Wardman, Religion and
Statecraft amonq the Romans (K. R. Bradley), 116.
William L. MacDOnald, The Architecture of the Roman
Empire, I: An Introductory Study (John Humphrey), 122.
POEMS/POEMES
123
ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES
125
Remerciements/ Acknowledgements
a
Pour "aide financiere qu'ils ont accordee it la revue nous tenons
remercier / For their financial assistance we wish to thank:
Societe canadienne des etudes classiques/Classical Association of
Canada
Societe des etudes c1assiques de l'Ontario/Ontario Classical Association
Societe des etudes c1assiques de I'ouest canadien/Classical Association
of the Canadian West
Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada/Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada
I nstitut canadien de la mediterranee/Canadian Mediterranean Institute
University of Alberta
Brock University
University of Calgary
Concordia University
Memorial University of Newfoundland
University
University
University
University
University
of
of
of
of
of
Ottawa
Toronto
Victoria
Waterloo
Guelph
LEMNOS RECONSIDERED
The following examination of the island of Lemnos is intended to
re-open a problem that seems to have been too quickly closed by
modern classical scholars.
Rather than advocating a specific solution,
I hope to stimulate discussion and encourage classicists, archaeologists and geologists to work together towards a solution.
The island of Lemnos is perhaps best known today for two myths
associated with it:
that of the infamous Lemnian women who (all but
one) murdered the men of the island, and that of the hero Philoctetes, abandoned there by his fellow Greeks because of his noxious
wound.
In addition, Lemnos is famous for its connection with the
fire-god Hephaestus, after whom one of the two main cities. of the
island in antiquity was named.
Turning from myths to geology, one finds that most standard
classical reference works recognize a volcanic origin for the island.
The Oxford
volcano
Classical
Dictionary tells
us
that
lithe
(reputed to be the forge of Hephaestus,
lava
from
but extinct
its
in
historical times) gave it high fertility", 1 and Smith asserts that lithe
whole island bears the strongest marks of the effects of vOlcanic fire;
the rocks, in many places, are like the burnt and vitrified scoria of
furnaces";2 finally, in Pauly-Wissowa we read that "e ine flache H6he
1The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. 2 (1970), 594.
2William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (London,
1854),11.156. Apparently, Smith's source here is Hunt as quoted in
Walpole's Travels in Various Countries in the East (London, 1820),
59. It should be noted that another name for Lemnos, Aethaleia, also
reflects such an appearance.
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSYTH
auf
der
Landenge
erloschenes
ist
der
alte
Erdfeuer trug. ,,3
A
Mosychlos,
volcanic
der
natu re
einst
would,
ein
fruh
of course,
agree neatly with the mythological connection of Hephaestus with the
island.
Thus it comes as a surprise to find the following note on ~
24.753
in
evidence
directs
the
of
the
Loeb
edition:
volcanic
activity
reader
to
further information.
play,
Jebb
states
l'modern
on
Jebb's
the
edition
travellers
island. ,,4
of
have
The
Sophocles'
no
then
Philoctetes
for
Commenting in his Appendix on line 800 of the
that
"the
references
in
ancient
I iterature
burning mountain of Ler.-lnos have an interest which,
is
found
author
perhaps unique;
they afford an exception
to the
notices can be verified by modern observation. ,,5
to
the
in one respect,
rule that such
After citing some
(but not all) of the ancient references alluded to, Jebb asserts that
"no crater is now discoverable in Lemnos, and it has not been shown
that
there
are
any
traces
of
volcanic
agency. 1,6
Jebb
then
asks,
"Are we to infer, then, that this Lemnian volcano was an invention of
the poets?", but quickly admits his unease with this possibility since
"in most -- perhaps all -- other cases where the ancient poets allude
to volcanic energy as conspicuous in certain places. we know that the
allusion
was
founded
on
fact.
,J
To
effect
a
compromise,
Jebb
concludes his discussion by supporting the theory that the volcanic
mountain
known
3pauly-Wissowa,
as Mosychlus layoff the east coast of Lemnos and
~' ~.
4 A . T. Murray, Homer:
619.
5R . C. Jebb, Sophocles:
6Jebb, ibid , 243.
7Jebb , ibid., 244.
"Lemnos", col. 1928.
The Iliad, vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1925),
The Philoctetes (Cambridge, 1890). 243.
LEMNOS RECONSIDERED
was at some time submerged. 8
from
signs
of
volcanic
Thus we can keep Lemnos itself free
activity
without
calling
into
question
the
veracity of the ancient sources.
The difficulty with this solution is that Mosychlus seems to have
stood to the southwest of Hephaestia on Lemnos itself, rather than off
the
island1s
east
coast. 9
In
fact,
Nicander
refers
to
shepherds
cooling themselves beneath the tall pines of Mosychlus (Theriaca 472),
an unlikely scenario for a small volcanic islet off the coast of Lemnos
proper.
It
seems,
then,
that
Jebb1s
compromise
solution
is
not
satisfactory.
The picture becomes even more confusing when we turn to Walter
Burkert1s
reconsideration
quite dogmatic:
of
the
question. 10
Burkert1s
opinion
is
liThe commentators on Homer and Sophocles and the
Roman poets clearly speak of a volcano on Lemnos; this volcano was
active in literature down to the end of the 19th century,
with some
scattered
Sophocles'
eruptions
even
in
later
commentaries
on
Philoctetes, though geographical survey had revealed that there never
was
a
volcano
inhabited
advisable
by
to
on
Lemnos
homo
send
at
sapiens.
the
earth
any
1I11
fire
time
since
Burkert
of
this
Mosychlos
volcano after the volcanic vapours of Delphi,
completely under the spade of the excavators.
planet
continues:
has
"it
together
which,
12
too,
been
seems
with
the
vanished
11
We are thus left with the problem of determining whether or not
the
ancient
sources
are
to
be bel ieved.
There
is a need
both
to
8Jebb • ibid., 245.
9C f. L. Bernabo-Brea, Poliochni (Rome, 1964) 1.16, and J. Boardman
inthe Princeton Encyclopecrraor Classical Sites, ~. Lemnos.
lOW. Burkert, "Jason, Hypsipyle, and New Fire at Lemnos:
in Myth and Ritual", ~ 20 (1970) 1-16.
llBurkert. ibid., 5.
12Burkert, ibid , 6.
A Study
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSYTH
review the ancient testimony itself, and also to consider what modern
geological studies have to say to us about the island of Lemnos.
The Ancient Testimony
Lemnos first appears
in Greek literature in
end of the first book (571
between
Hera and
with Zeus,
Zeus;
ff.),
the
Iliad.
At the
Homer depicts Hephaestus mediating
to drive home the difficulty of contending
Hephaestus recalls how he himself had once been hurled
out of Olympus by that god, landing at last upon Lemnos, where he
was tended by the "Sintians"
who then
inhabited the island.
This
early association of the god of fire with Lemnos is also reflected in
the Odyssey, where we are told that Lemnos was the dearest of all
lands
to
Hephaestus
(8.283-4).
This
will continue throughout antiquity,
connection,
once established,
later Greek and Roman
13
poets will insist on Hephaestus-Vulcan being "Lemnian ll •
It perhaps
ought
to
associated
be
recalled
at
this
with
Hephaestus
14
volcanic in nature.
as
point
(~.,
both
that
Etna
other
or
regions
Vulcano)
traditionally
tended
to
be
Towards the end of the ~' Lemnos reappears in the lament of
Hecuba for Hector, where it is called amichthaloessa
(24.753).
The
adjective is still not fully understood, but most authorities believe it
to
mean
IIhazy ll)
•
either
lIinhospitable
Significantly,
ll
or
II smo k y ll
("shrouded
in
smoke II ,
the same adjective is attached to Lemnos in
the Homeric Hymn to Apollo,
36,
possibly indicating that the phrase
Lemnos amichthaloessa was a stock one in the bardic repertoire, akin
to IIMycenae, rich in gold II .
In the 5th century B.C., references to Lemnos multiply in Greek
literature.
Hephaestus,
of
course,
continues
to
enjoy
a
close
connection with the island, as in Sophocles, Phi loctetes 986-987,
13.
. . .
OVid, Met. 4.185 and
Fa~'3.~~c;er~{ca~e;:5~he~~~~1145:.eneld8.454;
14 C f. G. A. Macdonald, Volcanoes (New Jersey, 1972), 28.
LEMNOS RECONSIDERED
/\TJ~vLa
CJ.)
X8wv xue .0 nayxpa.£c; of-Aac;1 'H<paLO.m£ux.ov,
and in Antimachus fr. 6,
'f1<paL01:"OU <pAOyL £[X£AOV, -/jv pa n.uox£L
5aL~v clxpma.aLC; 5pwc; xOPU<plJOL MOaUXAOU.
It is also clear from both these passages, however, that fire or flame
has
become an
moreover,
fire
integral
part of the
the Antimachus
on
Mt. Mosychlus,
15
Hephaestia.
fragment
to
the
Hephaestus-Lemnos association;
provides a focal
southwest
of
the
point for such
ancient
city
of
"Lemnian fire" itself was in fact mentioned in several 5th-century
sources.
One of the earliest references is Bacchylides 18.54-56,
6~~a.CJ.)v 5£1 O1:"LA~£LV ano /\a~vLavl <poLvLooav <pAoya.
Whether
16
Aeschylus
clear.
also
Cicero
knew
(Tusc.
Prometheus Unbound,
of
fire
2.10.23),
from
in
Lemnos
is
speaking
not
of
entirely
Aeschylus'
to the pain suffered by that Titan ~
refers
furtum Lemnium; that is, Prometheus must have stolen fire from that
island
to give
Aeschylus
on
Philoctetes
on
eum
doctus
expendisse
it
to mankind.
this;
rather,
Lemnos:
unde
Prometheus/
supremo.
But Cicero does
he
It
provides
ignis
cluet
clepsisse
may
well
a
mortalibus
dolo
be,
not directly
passage
from
clam/
poenasque
however,
that
quote
Accius'
divisus;
lovi/
fato
Accius
was
borrowing from Aeschylus here.
There can be no doubt about Sophocles' view when one considers
another association of Lemnos with fire in the Philoctetes, 799 ff.:
2; .hvov 2; yevva'Lov, ci.na auna~v
.0
/\TJ~VL~
£~npTJoov,
}:05'
clvaxuAou~f-V~ nupL
til yevva'L£.
Similarly, Aristophanes, Lys. 299, refers to
This
concept of Lemnian
e.g. Lycophron Alex. 227:
Our
problem
at
this
fire
continued
/\T]~VLOV
into later
.0 n0p.
periods
as
well,
.e(j)pWoac; yu'La /\TJ~val:~ nupl:.
point
15 See n.9 above.
16 pace Jebb (n.5, above), 243.
is
to
determine
how
the
phrase
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSYTH
"Lemnian
fire"
arose and
what exactly
was
conveyed
by
it.
While
Hellanicus of Lesbos (FGH 4F71 b Jacoby) apparently bel ieved that fire
was called Lemnian because it was on Lemnos that fire and forging
were first discovered (which may reflect the association of Prometheus
with the island), Jebb more recently voiced his belief that "Lemnion
~
was proverbial for 'a fierce fire'" 17 citing in this regard Aris-
tophanes, Lycophron, and Hesychius'
/\f]~vLov ~A€nELv·
In£LoTj 1:"0 nup
/\f]~vLOV.
Jebb adds, liThe legendary association of Lemnos with fierce
18
crime (Lemnia kaka) may have helped to suggest such phrases. 11
One source that speaks directly to this issue is Eustathius,
his commentary on the~.
in
At 157, Eustathius is writing about the
mythical connection of Hephaestus with Lemnos:
That he was deposited in Lemnos contributes something
historical (we; ana I. <Yrop Cue; ) to the persuasiveness of
the myth, not because cinders from the sky fallon Lemnos,
but because fire at one time actually used to be produced
spontaneously from the ground there. Therefore it seemed
right for the myth [by special selection 1 to cast Hephaestus
down, as it were, into some germane place. For a place which
spouts up fire and has other indications of heat (such as
its hot springs, the bareness of its land and its infertility)
is entirely congenial to the Fire, Hephaestus.
It
seems
clear
from
this
passage
that
Eustathius
was
aware
of
phenomena associated with Lemnos that appear strikingly volcanic in
nature:
fire rising up from the ground of its own accord ,19 thermal
springs (still found on the island), and barren earth.
At 158, Eustathius adds another comment of interest about what
he te rms pu roes sa Lemnos:
History (T] l.<YropCu) associates Lemnos with Hephaestus in
other ways too, not only because of the craters of fire
coming up from the earth in it (as already mentioned),
but also because the island once bore bronze men, who
were the first to forge bronze weapons and were there-
17 Jebb , ibid., 130.
18Jebb , ibid., 131.
19 C f. Heraclitus All. 26.15.
LEMNOS RECONSIDERED
fore called Sinties because of their doing damage
(oLv£o8uL) or harm by the invention of weapons.
This passage seems to echo the views of Hellanicus, but at the same
time
supports
a
basically
volcanic
landscape,
especially
with
the
mention of Lemnos' " cra ters of fire". 20
Eustathius,
then,
Lemnos had been
view
is
further
provides
evidence
supporting
the site of apparently volcanic
the
who
Lemnos
earlier
that
around
168
writers.
For
This
example,
visited
by
view
presence of "burnt land" on the island was attested by Galen,
apparently
supported
the
phenomena.
A.D.;21
in
speaking
of the
"Lemnian earth" famous for its healing qualities, Galen notes that the
hill from which the earth was taken looked as if it had been burned:
O!-WLO'rU'rO<; x£xuu!J.£vee, xU'ru y£ cT}v xpouv xut. OLa 'r0 !J.TJO£v £v U\h~
(De Simpl. Medic. 9.2).22
qJU£08UL
Another
volcanic
phenomenon
connected
Accius,
for example,
presence of Ilvapoursll.
Lemnos
writes:
Valerius
pendentia
(Argon.
nemus
Flaccus
says
nigrisl
2.332-3).
expirante
of
vapore
Lemnos:
fumant
saxa
Finally,
ventum
iugis
Statius
with
Lemnos
in his
vides
erat
(536);
ad
coquiturque
writes
that
physical conditions on
that una gravi
nebulae,
et
penitus
plaga
supernel
cuius
vaporibus
antra
aer
dei
Statius may also
Lemnos when he comments later
latet obruta caelol
caeca
the
similarly,
rupem,
quater
fumantis anhelosl exseruere apices (Theb. 5.87-8).
be reflecting
was
Philoctetes on
texitur,
Lemnos,
una
in
vagis
hanc
tristes
Lemnos
non
agnita nautis (Theb. 5.183-185).
There
antiquity
one
other
that also
is
points
20 C f. Eustathius 1598.44:
oL~'ro0<; hd: xpari'jpu<; 'rou
phenomenon
to
~n
associated
volcanic activity,
o£ qJLhu'rTJ yULclwv
with
Lemnos
namely,
the
Tj
'r~
I\fl!J.vo<;
in
sudden
• YcpULOTee
ITUpo<;.
21 V . Nutton, liThe Chronology of Galen's Early Career", CQ 23 (1973)
158-171.
22 For this IlLemnian earth" see also Nicander,
Flavius Phi lostratus, Heroicus 5.
Theriaca
864-6;
and
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSVT-H
10
disappearance of a land mass, as at Thera.
The first reference to
something of this sort at Lemnos comes from Herodotus:
Onomacritus,
an infamous oracle-monger, had been banished from Athens {between
527 and 514 B.C.) for allegedly lIinserting into the oracles of Musaeus
a prophecy that the islands lying off Lemnos would disappear beneath
the
sea"
(Hdt.
7.6.3).
It
is
reasonable
to
infer
that
such
disappearances had already taken place, and that Onomacritus was,
by
his
interpolation,
adding
weight
to the authority of Musaeus'
oracles.
That such disappearances had indeed taken place is confirmed by
Pausanias: "The island of Chryse was a short sail away from Lemnos;
this is where Philoctetes' affliction by the water-snake is said to have
taken place.
The wave (0 xAu6wv) overtook this whole island, and
Chryse sank and
disappeared beneath
the deepll
(Paus.
8.33.4).
Other islands left near Lemnos were, moreover, quite barren, 23 as
might be expected
of volcanic
These islands are specifically
islets
of
recent
geological
origin.
referred to by Flavius Philostratus,
Heroicus 5, where Philoctetes is said to have conquered the small
islands near Lemnos.
Thus the ancient testimony about volcanic phenomena on Lemnos
is quite clear,
and
taken
cumulatively
is quite substantial.
Not
simply the famous connection with Hephaestus, but also the presence
of smoke and fire,
of vapours and burnt earth,
of disappearing
islands off the coast, all attest to an ancient memory of vulcanism on
the island.
The Geological Testimony
Burkert's above-mentioned assertion that "there never was a
volcano on Lemnos at any time since this planet has been inhabited by
homo sapiens" is supported in his text by a reference to K. Neumann
and J.
Partsch, Physikallsche Geographie von Griechenland (1885),
LEMNOS RECONSIDERED
11
314-318, with the additional comment that these scientists "immediately
thought of the earth fire, cf. Fredrich, 253-4,,?4 this article by C.
Fredrich, entitled "Lemnos", appeared in Athen. Mitteilungen 31
(1906). Indeed, throughout Burkert's paper, there is no reference
to what may be called "modern" geological work pertaining to Lemnos,
despite the fact that Burkert's article was published as recently as
1970.
Given that the earth sciences have undergone a revolution in the
last few decades, such a reliance on early geological investigations
seems less than satisfactory. This is especially so when the topic
involved is vulcanism, one which has been much affected by the now
generally accepted concept of plate tectonics. Thus it seems imperative to examine recent geological studies of Lemnos.
Unfortunately, there is an apparent lack of modern research.
Computer-assisted bibliographical searches of both Georef (of the
American Geological Institute) and Geoarchive (of Geosystems) have
found no citations of material pertaining to Lemnos in the last twenty
years.
A subsequent manual search through issues of the
Bibliography and Index to Geology has revealed fewer than six
articles (from the 1940's on) with anything substantial to say about
Lemnos. Lemnos, it appears, has been rather neglected by modern
earth scientists, and this neglect is surely one reason why the
problem of "Lemnian fire" In antiquity has not yet been solved once
and for all.
Nevertheless, some data do emerge from the few works available.
To begin, "geologically the island is made up of Tertiary sediments
separated and partially covered by younger volcanic rocks. The most
recent of the three volcanic eruptions which have been determined is
observed In the western section of the island and is trachitic". 25
24Burkert (n. 10, above), 5.
25 N• Papakis, "Macroseismic Observations on the Island of Lemnos",
Neues Jahrbuch fur Geo!. und Palaontologie 12 (1962) 647.
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSYTH
12
There are two
things
volcanic
of
rocks
to be noted
Lemnos
areas of the island:
are
here:
location
concentrated
mainly
and
in
date.
two
The
adjacent
the westernmost third of its landmass. which is
indeed the area of the famous hot springs, 26 and around the large
Gulf of Mudros in the south. 27
Thus, Jebb's incl ination to relocate
the ancient Mosychlus from north of the Gulf of Mudros to off the
east coast
of
chronology,
Lemnos
now
appears
even
less
convincing.
As
for
it seems clear to geologists that the "vulcanism of the
North Aegean area must be related to a subduction process older than
the present one" in the South Aegean. 28 and that it began in fact in
the Tertiary age.
To place this vulcanism even more precisely,
it
appears to have commenced "in Eocene time, but reached its climax in
the
Oligene(sic)-Late
however,
is
to
Miocene".29
determine
when
The
(or
even
crucial
if)
problem
vulcanism
for
on
us,
Lemnos
ceased.
It seems instructive at this point to examine some other volcanic
regions of the Aegean:
the Active Volcanoes
Susaki, Melos, and Kos.
of the World
(Part
three sites as fumarole (or solfatara)
X II:
30
fields.
The Catalogue of
Greece)
lists
these
Fumarolic vulcanism
has been well studied, and certain features are constant:
no magma
26 A. N. Georgiades, "Les Thermes de 'Vulcain' dans I'ile de Lemnos",
Annales Geologiques des Pays Helleniques 1 (1947) 194-203.
27 A. Papp, "Erlauterungen zur Geologie der Insel Lemnos". Ann.
Geol. des Pays Hellen. 5 (1953) 1-25; F. Goigner and A. Papp, "Ul::>er
die Ergussgesteine der I nsel Lemnos", ibid., 26-33; E. Davis. "Die
Vulkangesteine der I nsel Lemnos", ibid . ...,..,-( 1960). 46-81; M. Fytikas
et al., "Geochronological Data on Recent Magmatism of the Aegean
searr-: Tectonophysics 31 (1976) T29- T34.
28Fytikas. ibid., T31.
29Fytikas, ibid., T31.
30 A fumarole is normally defined as a vent from which various
volcanic gases issue at the surface; a fumarole in which sulphurous
gases are prominent is termed a solfatara.
LEMNOS RECONSI DERED
13
is involved in the eruptive process, no ejecta (aside from very
and very small amounts of ash) are produced, and no structures are
generally built up around
does
produce
is
an
the
vent
"essentially
itself.
What
nonexplosive
fumarolic
weak
to
activity
moderately
strong long-continued gas discharge". 31
The key words here are II0ng-continued";
as G. A. Macdonald
has written, fumarol ic " gas vents are associated with most active and
dormant volcanoes and commonly persist for thousands of years after
the volcano has become extinct.
such
fumaroles,
Phlegraean
Macdonald
To illustrate the long duration of
II
goes
Fields near Naples,
on
to
refer
to
the
well
known
where
"there appears to have been
32
little change in the fumaroles ... since Roman times ll •
But we have closer examples at hand in Greece itself.
Susaki,
east of the Isthmus of Corinth, is still the site of fumarolic activity,
although it is stated in the Catalogue that the vulcanism in this area
is slowly dying out. 33
of the island
active
mainly
According
to
Melos contains solfatara fields in several parts
(along with hot springs).
in
the
its
northeast
Catalogue,
Finally,
section
these
34
belong to a well shaped volcano. 11
three
(also
Kos has fumaroles
with
fumarole
hot
fields
springs).
lido
not
To return now to Lemnos, researchers have perhaps been misled
by their desire to locate a " we ll shaped volcano" on the island, and,
on not finding one, they have too readily dismissed the possibility of
historical volcanic activity of any sort on Lemnos.
is an
older
volcanic
region
than
Susaki,
Melos
Given that Lemnos
and
Kos,
it
seems
possible that it was in a fumarolic stage of activity for thousands of
31 G . A. Macdonald (n.14, above), 211.
32Macdonald, ibid., 323 and 327.
33Catalogue of the Active Volcanoes of the World (Part XII: Greece),
3.
34Catalogue, viii.
14
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSYTH
years in the past,
producing
the smoke,
obvious
on
the
island,
this
vapours and burnt earth
I f such activity is in fact no longer
mentioned in ancient literature.
will
most
probably
be
because
the
fumarolic activity only recently died out (d. Susaki), leaving the hot
springs behind as the last vestige of activ; vulcanism. 35
As
for
the
famed
Lernnian
fire,
perhaps
a
quotation
from
Mdcdonald is once again in order:
It is common knowledge in fumarole areas that bringing a flame
... close to the windward side of a fumarole vent often causes a
spectacular increase in the amount of visible vapor .... The
increase of vapor is, of course, only apparent.
I nvisible steam
becomes condensed into tiny droplets around nuclei and then
becomes visible. The nuclei are partly tiny smoke particles, but
they are also ions produced by ionization of the air by the heat
of the flame or glowing ash. Electrical sparks will also cause
ionizatiJlr of the air with the same increase in visibility of the
vapor.
Such a phenomenon could indeed have given rise in antiquity to tales
about a mysterious, evanescent" Lemnian fire".
That
fumarolic
activity
is
somehow
recorded
in
the
ancient
references to Lemnos is at least worthy of closer examination on the
part of historians and geologists alike.
In fact, this theory may even
come to explain one other peculiar feature associated with Lemnos in
antiquity:
the foul smell connected not only with the Lemnian women
but also with the wound of Philoctetes may be tied to the presence of
solfataras
once
on
the
island.
Perhaps,
then,
Burkert's
abrupt
dismissal of volcanic activity on Lemnos ought not to be enshrined in
37
stone.
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
PHYLLIS YOUNG FORSYTH
35Davis (n.27, above), 49.
36Macdonald (n. 14, above), 328-329.
37 1 would I ike to thank Dr. Robert L. Fowler of the University of
Waterloo and Dr. Georgia Pe-Piper of Saint Mary's University for
their help in matters bibliographical.
15
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL:
DISASTER IN THUCYDIDES
There has been considerable discussion of the roles of rationality
and irrationality in the work of Thucydides, and in such discussion
~
is
an
often-mentioned
source
of
irrationality.
Though
the
Greek word has a whole range of English equivalents,l scholars seem
inclined to restrict Thucydides' use of the term to the meaning which
most closely fits their own concept of Thucydides' work.
for
example,
capricious
seems
power,
to
~
refer
whimsical
Lady
during the Hellenistic period. 2
a
"scientific"
historian,
appearance
Luck,
of
which
Cornford,
the
term
became
so
to
the
popular
C. N. Cochrane, making Thucydides
asserts
that
what
may
appear
to
be
the
intervention of "transcendental Fortune" must be regarded by science
(and therefore by the "scientific" Thucydides)
accident".3
narrative
While
de
essential
functions,
maintains
The
range
of effectiveness
is also a question
Romilly
feels
rationality
that
the
has
Thucydides'
elicited
even
essence
of
~
to
the
itself, 4
Thucydides'
~
to
various
narrative
of the human mind and
subordinating
as
which
"merely as a happy
assigned
is
the
based on
world
in
which
Hans-Peter
narrative
in
responses.
the
the
it
Stahl
short-
sightedness and emotionalism of human planning, which often seems to
1See Betant's Lexicon Thucydideum and LSJ.
2F . M. Corn.ford, Thucydides Mythistoricus
and (on tyche in Diodotus' speech) 122-123.
(London,
1907),
3Thucydides and the Science of History (London, 1929), 127.
4Histoire et raison chez Thucydide (Paris, 1956), 51, 174ff.
97-106
16
LINDA RUTLAND
subject
human
actors
to
Herter has considered
the
whims
of
unreasoning
~. 5
Hans
range of ~ in Thucydides'
the effective
work, and more recently has noted the gap between the necessa ri Iy
limited
knowledge
Thucydides
6
observer.
who,
of
the
like
human
planner
Democritus,
fills
and
the
the
role
perception
of
of
omniscient
Few will deny that sheer luck plays a role in the actions which
Thucydides relates.
The focus of this paper,
however,
will be the
appearance and effectiveness in the narrative of a specific Tyche, the
colorful personification of that concept whose representations loomed
so large in the Hellenistic world.
Has that figure begun to intrude
itself in the history of the fifth century's close?
that Tyche 7 appear in Thucydides' work?
If so,
how does
Did the man who has been
called by some lithe historian of reason" leave room in his scheme for
a whimsical being who plays havoc with all human endeavors?8
9
Lowell Edmunds
has catalogued the occurrences of the
5Thuc dides:
Die Stellun
( unc en, 1966 , 63.
des Menschen im
word
eschichtlichen Prozess
6H .
Herter,
"Freiheit und Gebundenheit des Staatsmannes bei
Thukydides", RhM 93 (1950) 133-153; "Pylos und Melos, ein Beitrag
zur Thukydides-Interpretation", RhM 97 (1954) 316-343; "Thucydides
und Demokrit uber Tyche", '!!i n~O (1976) 106-128.
7Hen_ceforth Tyche (upper case) will refer to the whimsical goddess,
tyche (lower case) to the general use of the term.
I shall refer to
~X~.he as a feminine character only because the Greeks so referred to
8Herter,
WS
n. f.
10
(1976)
106-128,
deals
not
so
much
with
a
:~~~~~aITTI~~~idaess ~~t~ ~n~~ris~7~~~~d II~~S q~~~~~~sa're~~w~~~~~
ever its source. Again, the crucial consideration is the gap between
the Staatsmann, embroiled in the problems of the moment, and the
II ruckschauende Blick" of the historian.
The classic statement on the
problem is Aristotle's (Physics 2.4. 196a-197a).
9Chance and
176-189.
Intelligence
in Thucydides
(Cambridge,
Mass.,
1975),
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
~ (all types) in the History.
narrative comments.
discourse,
17
Only seven are in Thucydides'
Twenty-eight occur in speeches, two in indirect
one in a decretal
formula,
and
two in
passages where
Thucydides is apparently stating a case from someone else's point of
view.
The reader is referred to Edmunds for details of all relevant
passages.
Suffice it here to state that no colorful intrusions by any
whimsical force appear in Thucydides' own comments.
unforeseen
occurrences
take
place
cannot
be
The fact that
gainsaid,
but
the
narrative is one of very human hopes and expectations, consequent
failures and successes.
Considering the popularity of Tyche as a rhetorical figure, one
may expect that
in
the speeches with
which Thucydides fills his
work, passages in which colorful and metaphorical language abounds,
the whimsical Tyche might make her appearance.
10
Indeed,
refer-
ences to the irrational turns of human affairs are most frequent in
the
advisory
speeches.
Though
numerous
speakers
refer
to
the
incalculable element in human affairs, the terminology is inconsistent.
Different speakers refer to the
uocu8W1TOV TaU flEAAOVTOC;
TO nA£ LOCC{) napaAOyce SlJfl~aLVOv
added.
SlJflCjJopat. TWV npaYflclTwv
(4.62.4),
(1.140.1),
TO
TO aLCjJVLOLOV Kat. unpoa60KrlTOV Kat.
(2.61.3).
Other
examples
could
be
The word tyche appears, but most consistently in colorless
phrases and without striking personification.
Pericles refers three
times
mean
to
(2.62.5)
sides
tyche.
Once
(2.42.4)
it
seems
to
"crisis",
once
he indicates that luck is to be considered equal on both
and
that
only
boldness
gives
the
edge.
When
he
states
(1.140.1) that "we tend to blame Tyche for everything that develops
contrary to expectation", the reader must wonder whether Pericle.,; is
replying to an audience al ready beginning to lay all success or failure
10 A useful treatment of Thucydidean speeches is Donald Kagan's "The
Speeches in Thucydides and the Mytilene Debate", YCS 24 (1975)
71-94.
Kagan's consideration of the two speeches orlMytilene visa-vis Thucydides' own programme statement (1.22) has ramifications
for other speeches in the work
I agree with the general view of the
speeches which he states on page 77.
LINDA RUTLAND
18
at the feet of a whimsical deity. 11
There are, however,
personified
attention.
by
The
revolution.
two passages in which Tyche is strikingly
Thucydides '
first
is
in
speakers,
Diodotus '
and
speech
these
on
the
demand
psychology
of
I n speaking of the ineffectiveness of capital punishment
as a deterrent from crime (3.45), Diodotus refers to the involvement
ot
Tyche.
elements
in
But
long
the
complex
"Egged on by hope",
before
Tyche
have
he says,
appears,
already
been
men run
the
really
brought
risks
significant
to
the
fore.
in spite of all odds,
since no one who takes a terrible risk ever expects to fai I.
I t is not
Tyche which dominates the passage as a source of human disaster,
but human emotions and reactions (~).
Diodotus sums up:
But hope (elpis) and desire (eros) above all-the one leading, the other following along,
one hatching the plot, the other supplying the
means of success--are especially harmful, and
being invisible are worse than terrors which
are seen (3.45.5).
Next comes
the
reference
to Tyche,
here
II
Lady
Luck"
or
perhaps
"success" :
and success (~), along with these, no less
contributes to egging people on; for success
sometimes unexpectedly takes up a position at
someone's side and leads him on to take risks
beyond his actual capacities; and this can
befall cities no less than individuals (3.45.6).
Hope, desire, and along with these~:
drive
humans
to
ruin.
There
is
such are the forces which
nothing
rational
about
them;
Diodotus clearly concerns himsel f with two human emotions which are
11 Pericles cannot simplistically be dubbed the "hero" of Thucydides'
History, but he certainly has a unique role.
For no other character
does Thucydides intrude to defend, in such detai I, the effectiveness
and comprehensiveness of his planning, and to indicate that even the
most unexpected of occurrences need not have shown his plan to be
lacking, had there been able men to succeed him and to pursue
energetically and in good will the course which he had marked out
(2.65) .
HOPE SPRI NGS ETERNAL
devoid
of
rational
calculation
or
19
foresight.
Even
tyche,
passage, seems to have its human psychological reference.
in
this
Previous
experiences of tyche, Thucydides l speaker maintains, may contribute
to
expectation
of
further
well-planned and supported venture.
a
person's
irrational
At
least,
success
in
this section Diodotus refers to human nature alone,
metaphysical force:
"He is simply
(J
in
a
less
the conclusion of
and not to any
fool who thinks that when human
nature has enthusiastically set itself a goal there is anything which
can restrain it, either force or law or any other terror".
(3.45.7)
The next passage in which Tyche is relatively important and her
personification
a colorful
claim
on TlJ~£XPL1:o15EH;oCf;';:ouq'1:UX1J (5.112.2),
to
rely
one
is
the
Melian
dialogue.
The
and
Melians
admit
that it is difficult for them to confront both the Athenians and tyche.
Here ~
period,
is
not
the
divine
figure
~ as a guarantor of success,
strikingly personified entity.
popular
in
the
Hellenistic
The Athenians disparage
in a passage which does reveal a
Again, however, the strongest imagery
is not of Tyche but of elpis.
II
so
but a gift granted by the gods.
When
the Melians indicate that they
hope II for a favorable outcome in spite of their inferior forces,
the
Athenians leap to the charge:
Hope (elpis), being an inciter to danger,
does notrUin completely those who make use
of her from a position of abundance; but those
who risk everything on a single throw (for
she is extravagant) get to know her only in
the moment of their ruin, and there is no time
left in which one who has recognized her can
protect himself from her (5.103.1).
Pericles had once (2.62.5) advised the Athenians that hope must be
only a last resort,
when all else fails, and the Athenians here note
that the Mel ians are in exactly that situation,
in L
ponfle;
I-lLUe;
8\1ne;
(5.103.2).
As
the
Athenians
picture
danger, deceptive, ruinous.
it,
then,
hope
is
an
incitement
to
In the game of life, it quickly turns the
tables.
Its nature recalls that of the Hellenistic Tyche, always poised
to
new
find
a
favorite.
At
this
juncture,
however,
Thucydides'
Athenians speak not of Tyche as playing games with mortals, but of
LI NDA RUTLAND
20
hope:
But whenever visible hopes l hai phanerai
elpides) abandon them in their distress,
men place themselves in the camp of invisible
~~~::nse~~~ ~~~~i~e~~~i~~:c~h~~~,o~I~~~s:i~~
hopes, drive men to ruin (5.103.2).
In this passage the Athenians draw a distinction lexically unattested
in the remainder of the History.
of ~
(or elpides).
well-founded
expectations
manifest or evident.
There are, they indicate, two kinds
In the context,
or
hopes,
phanerai elpides
those
whose
The phrase thus answers
seem to be
foundations
are
"those who make use
of her from a position of abundance" at the opening of the section.
Those
which
are
aphaneis,
on
the
other
expectations which lack any apparent basis,
hand,
who risk everything on a single throw", above.
Athenians maintain,
people abandoned
are
hopes
or
and this echoes "those
by all
In dire straits, the
rational
expectation of
success take refuge in irrational hope and its comrades in madness.
The Melians cite as their sources of hope, first, the luck which
comes from the divine (5.104;
Spartans
Persisting
(5.104) .
Athenian proposals.
5.112.2), and second, the aid of the
in
thei r
resolve,
they
reject
all
Frustrated and disgusted the Athenians return
home, but not before a parting thrust:
So you alone, as it seems to us, on the basis of
your own intentions (bouleumata) judge the future
to be clearer than what is before your very eyes,
and because of your own wishful thinking view
uncertainties (ta aphane) as already taking
place. And indeed, having run the greatest risk
~~:e~~;eC: ?~p1~:sTP:~~a~~v~~~ ~~~~t~~~ most
greatly, most greatly also will you be
disappointed (5.113).
In a game for such high stakes, the Melians fall back on hope,
luck,
and
other
irrational
considerations.
Gnome
and
pronoia
fail
them, and for the moment at least, the Athenian position seems to be
vindicated.
The
Mel ians,
however,
were
not
the
only
victims
of
deluded
hopes, and the Athenians, so quick to give advice, succumbed to the
21
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
very "weaknesses" which they detected in the Mel ians .12
Here human
hopes and expectations stand at the very center of Thucydides' work.
Egged on by the consistent human desire for "more",
undertook their great campaign in Sicily.
the Athenians
The confrontation did not
proceed according to expectations, and the Lacedaemonian all iance was
soon to be victorious.
The hopes of the Athenians had been
Sici Iy,
then
of the
Peloponnese and
the
lofty ones -
mastery of
rest of Greece -
success they had relied on their naval superiority.
and
for
That superiority
quickly evaporated, and the Spartan Gylippus described the ruinous
effect of dashed hopes in the following way:
For whenever men are disappointed in that area
where they expect to excel, the very failure
of their expectation (doxa) itself makes them
weaker than if they hadnot conceived it in the
first place, and, being balked of their boasted
success by what is contrary to their hope (elpis),
they also surrender contrary to their objectIVe
capability (7.66.3).
Here,
voiced
from the mouth of the opposition,
by
Pericles:
unexpected
(2.61.3).
on
their
realities,
and
by
"High
spirit
what occurs
is
with
comes the doctrine earlier
subdued
by
the
sudden
and
a maximum of incalculability"
The Athenians were now forced to rely more on luck than
careful
they
preparations;
now
desired
compelled
only
to
to
Sicilians, on the other hand, had redoubled.
champions and
would
now,
it
seemed,
adapt
escape.
The
their
hopes
hopes
of
to
the
They had defeated the
themselves assume
the
title.
Only at this stage does the personification of Tyche appear.
And so let us join battle with eagerness
against such disorder of our g!eatest
enemies and against their tyche now that
it has betrayed itself (7 .6~
The most significant element in the Athenians' plight, as depicted by
12 F . M. Wassermann, TAPhA 78 (1947) 3D, points out the irony of
Nicias' later situation, ~in Sicily, ~ can rely only on "hope".
22
LINDA RUTLAND
Gylippus,
was
their
own
despair,
resulting from dashed hope.
extreme
and
unreasoned
despair
Tyche is merely an ornament, a cap on
the doom of the ambitious Athenians.
The pi ight of the Athenians in Sici Iy is not a unique one in the
History.
By
virtually
every
depicting
party
the
to
repeated
the conflict,
reliance
on
Thucydides
false
hopes
refuses
by
to credit
any of those parties with a wisdom which is consistent and reliable.
The
Melians
hoped
for
disaster.
war on
have
too
been
much,
discussed
eschewed
above.
Demosthenes
rational
in
considerations,
Aetolia
and
met
At Pylas the Athenians had an opportunity for ending the
favorable
"more".
terms,
Throughout
but
the
let it
slip
History
through
human
their ambition
hopes
run
high,
for
are
deceived, and the result is disaster.
I t is not a whimsical or envious
Tyche
who
but
whose
emotions
whimsical
brings
and
Tyche
Thucydides,
is
in
the
expectations,
disasters,
shortsightedness
of
the
not
historical process.
only
these
the
Hellenistic
human
type,
predominant
beings
continually
though
element
of
themselves,
betray
them.
A
clearly
known
to
unreason
in
the
Personifications of ~ are not numerous, occur
speeches,
often
and
personified
chiefly
in
themselves,
situations
where
human
are already drawing
the
actors to thei r doom.
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
LINDA RUTLAND
23
THE ASSESSMENT OF THE ALLIES IN THE
1
SECOND ATHENIAN LEAGUE
Relying on the experience of the past, both ancient and modern,
concerning military expenditures,
most historians have assumed that
the Second Athenian League received income from the allies at least
2
from the so-called foundation date (March, 377) if not before.
The
classic common-sense statement for an early date is Beloch's:
"With-
out its own income a league cannot exist; it was therefore necessary
for
the
members
to
make
contributions. ,,3
Then
in
1963
George
1A version of this paper was presented to the Seventy-eighth Annual
Meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South at
Atlanta in the spring of 1982.
It was argued that assessments were
made from the very beginning, and that those who bel ieve that the
phrase 1-if]5t: qJopo\J (jJ£po\J'H in Aristoteles' decree tells against initial
introduction of oU\JTat,;l.<; have misinterpreted the evidence.
George
Cawkwell's important article in JHS 101 (1981), which reached me
after the paper had been present~ is referred to where appropriate
in the notes but has produced no changes in the text.
2The date is from the Aristoteles decree (IG 11 2 43), but it is clear
both from the decree itself (lines 23-25-:-where other states are
invited to join the League "on the same terms as the Chians, the
Thebans and the other allies"), and from surviving earlier treaties
that Athens had been active in creating an alliance even before this
date.
3 2 .2.165:
"Ohne eigene Einkunfte kann ein Bund nicht
es war also notig, die Mitglieder zu Matrikularumlagen
heranzuziehen".
Cf. Ed. Meyer, GdA (1905) 5.380-387,
at 383; "Zum Kriegfuhren brauchte man Truppen, Schiffe und vor
allem anderen Geld, die man dem Vorort zur Verfugung stellen
musste.
Es kann
nicht zweifel haft sein,
dass die Hohe der
Contingente und der Beitrage zunachst von Bundesrath festgesetzt
wurde,
wenn
auch
im Zusammenwirken
mit Athen
und
seinen
Executivbeamten, den Strategen, und verrnutl ich hatten diese ihrn
auch Rechnung zu legen."
3GrGesch
bestehen;
(ou\JTa.t,;n<;)
24
FORDYCE MITCHEL
Cawkwell pointed out that this was indeed a
assumption; 4 that
there was no solid evidence for payments before 373 when Timotheos'
force quartered at Kalaureia is recorded as being paid at least in part
~
5
£, X ,wv XO Lvwv au v,at,£'wv •
' N
N
,
Cawkwell argued that lithe conditions of membership ... excluded
the
payment
financing
of
<popo<;
and
military operations
I that),
if
an
from a common
alternative
treasury
had
system
been
of
set
up, the distinction between 'tribute' and 'contribution' would certainly
have been made explicit";
he continued that initially the allies were
not expected to contribute money but only to pay for their own forces
in League operations.
were
later
precise
date
To the question of when money contributions
instituted,
of
the
Cawkwell
suggested
aforementioned
Mounichion,
expedition
of
373,
6
Timotheos.
the
The
inevitable impl ication of this is, of course, that the Athenians alone
had financed all their naval operations up to that time from
and
,a
n£,pLovLa of the annual
I.l£,PL0l.lo<;.
411Notes on the Peace of 375/4," !::!..!.?toria 12 (1963) 84-95, at 91-93.
5PsDem. 49.49.
At 49.16, however, the money Timotheos had with
him is said to be lx ,wv mpanwTLxWv. The relationship between the
Athenian War-Chest and the Common Treasury of the Allies is a
different problem.
6Cawkwell now recognizes that some of his arguments for 373 lacked
~~g~~~yF:i~~redaot:sth~es~~~~~d~Ct~~~iao:C~~i=~=~~c~~~,teSH~7;1~1(';~~i~~
40-55, at 43, n. 3); but he still maintains that it is --nvery unl ikely
that the early alliances would not have made more explicit the dis-
~~nr~~i~,~ b~:;seue~a~~~b~~e :I~~ ~tliltab:i~e'vei: 1~:!. ~~~. ,b~e;teinir~~~~~~
that it is an argument against syntaxeis irl375that I sokrates (15
Antidosis 109) boasts that the Alyzeia campaign cost the city only 13
talents and this would have little point if Timotheos had received
funds also from the allies.
But Isokrates is telling the truth only
about what the campaign cost his fellow citizens, not about what the
campaign cost, and it would lose no points with the Athenians who
were being reminded only of how much they got for so little.
The
argument is repeated and augmented by C. H. Wilson, "Athenian
Military Finances, 378/7 to the Peace of 375," Athenaeum 48 (1970)
302-326, at 307f.
----
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALLIES
25
These conclusions, wrong in my opinion, were based on several
misinterpretations of both the epigraphical and literary evidence; they
were
taken
over,
however,
by
C.
H.
Wi Ison,
who
added
a
few
misinterpretations of his own before attempting to divine from a score
of unknowns and
unknowables
the extent of Athenian
ship-building
and naval operations from 378 to 375, on the basis of purely Athenian
financing
- £Lo<POPa.,
other annual
and deficit spending. 7
income
loot
(iy)(uXALoC; bLOL)(YjGLC;),
Wilson's estimates of the number of keels laid
in particular years are probably low, his picture of Peiraieus littered
with rotting hulls without basis,
and his analysis of fleet-strengths
virtually ignores allied ships and crews, which Cawkwell was careful
8
to emphasize.
Finally,
the useful new book by Jack Cargill gives a thorough
survey of the problerrl of the syntaxeis in the Second League, 9 but
denigrates the evidence for their early (i .e. initial) introduction and
persists in viewing the remarks of Theopompos (in the 10th book of
his Philippika) and Plutarch (the Life of Solon) as " cyn ical, II instead
of searching
for
the true difference between
phoros
and
syntaxis.
He declines to exploit the evidence in Plutarch's Life of Phokion and
takes an agnostic position. 10
Let
us
begin
with
Cawkwell's arguments quoted
above:
1)
If
there had been a " sys tem of financing ... from a common treasury, II
2)
the
Aristoteles
between
'tribute'
decree
and
would
have
'contributions'.
II
spelled
1)
Does
out
lithe
Cawkwell
distinction
seriously
question the initial existence of a Common Treasury of the Allies?
72£.
£i.!.
It
(note 6).
8Some of the shortcomings of Wilson's treatment have been pointed out
by R. K. Sinclair, liThe King's Peace and the Employment of Military
and Naval forces 387-378, II Chiron 8 (1978) 29-54, at 49-52.
9The Second Athenian League:
1981), 124-128.
10~.,
page 126, esp. note 32:
Empire or Free Alliance?
(Berkeley,
"I offer no opinion on this issue."
26
FORDYCE MITCHEL
to me that lines 45-46 of the Aristoteles decree make it pretty
clear
that
such
a
thin9
emphasized long a90,"
did
exist
and
that,
as
Busolt-Swoboda
it was a common treasury of the allies alone;
not a joint one of the Athenians and their allies, but one which was
controlled by the Synedrion.
The decree makes it the duty of the
Synedroi to confiscate and auction off any property in allied states
illegally acquired by an Athenian; they are to give half the proceeds
to the
informer and
allies."
"the
rest
is to
be
common
[property]
of the
Now money which is common to the allies certainly constitutes
an allied treasury, and it is comforting to find that it still existed at
the time of the Social War when a decree 12 condemns to death and
confiscation any Athenian or ally
allied
state,
confiscated
and
lines
(a.yWyqJ.u)
14-17
in
all
who may
provide
the
that
allied
in the future attack an
"his
states,
property
and
if
is
to
any
be
city
sequesters it, that city owes [the amount] to the koinon (i.e. Common
Treasury) of the allies."
Although
the
Common
Treasury
of
the
Allies
can
hardly
be
doubted, it is true that the only money in it, according to our only
sol id but lacunose evidence,
comes from confiscations.
It
would be
naive, however, to assume that this was the only source of income,
for both decrees are designed to prevent, with severe penalties, the
specific actions which might lead to the confiscations.
The hope, if
not the real expectation, was that these actions would never happen,
and therefore the Common Treasury of the Allies, which is recognized
as already existing
created
simply
creation
of
administration
as
the
of
in
a
the Aristoteles decree,
repository
Treasury
the
for
and
Synedrion
such
its
must
could
not have been
infrequent
being
have
placed
foreseen
income.
under
far
The
the
greater
amounts and entailed very important guarantees against the repetition
of abuses of the fifth-century type.
11GrStkd 2. 1385.
12 1G 112 125.
The main income must have been
27
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALLIES
the syntaxeis, which were in turn set and, I would add, administered
by the Synedrion. 13
2)
Cawkwell's
second
point,
that
the
Athenians,
once
having
guaranteed that a new ally would not have to "bear tribute," would
have had to be explicit about syntaxeis if they expected them from
the date of the Aristoteles decree, ignores the fact that many expl icit
points are missing from that document.
The League already existed,
and the Aristoteles decree is better described as a rhetorical
invi-
tation to additional members with a few new points and guarantees.
It
is not the League's charter,
as
it is sometimes called,
for
in
it
states are invited to become "an ally of the Athenians and their allies
... on the same terms as the Chians, Thebans and the other allies."
The specifics of many of these
terms we shall never know,
may suggest, on the basis of what
decree,
that
the
earlier
terms
J2
but we
spelled out in the rest of the
provided
both
guarantees
against
unilaterally imposed phoroi
(i.e.
set by the Athenians alone), and a
method whereby
were
to be assessed
syntaxeis
by allied
represen-
tatives sitting down together in
the Synedrion of the Allies,
the
nor
Athenians
had
neither
seat
vote
and
could
only
where
bring
in
proposals about actions and budgets.
The main 9uarantee of the Aristoteles decree itself deals with the
divestiture and disclaimer of all
land currently held or held
in
the
13 The real significance of PsDem. 49.49 is not, it seems to me, that it
is the first attested example of pay for an allied expedition EX 'riDV
XOLVWV
auv-rul:;£wv, but that Timotheos, who had collected the money
from the allies (undoubtedly with the Synedrion's approval), had to
render an account of it (probably to the Synedrion):
xu!. 0[, £0£ L
wJ-rwv \6yov ano5015vuL.
This is in contrast to the money which
Timotheos had from the Stratiotic Fund (49.12 and 16); concerning
this the accounts were so confused that his tamias was condemned and
Timotheos himself, though acquitted, avoided his final audit by
leaving the city and taking service with the King.
Timotheos'
impeachment is discussed by J.
T.
Roberts,
Accountability in
Athenian Government (Madison, 1982), 40-45.
For~ynedrionrs
2
sale competence to try Athenian citizens, d. IG 11
43.41-46; for its
competence shared with an Athenian court, cf.llnes 57f.
28
past
FORDYCE r.1ITCHEL
by
Athenians
" un favorable"
in
documents,
allied
and
states;
heavy
the
Boule
penalties
are
is
to
destroy
prescribed
anyone attempting to control allied land in the future.
for
This topic
represented one of the most hated abuses of the fifth-century empire,
14
uni lateral imposition of tribute.
Since
along with the arbitrary,
financial
matters are
~i] tpopO\i tpE. PO\iTL,
not mentioned
at all by Aristoteles beyond the
we must assume that they were covered al ready in
those terms to which lithe Chians, Thebans and the other allies" had
15
agreed.
14C . D. Hamilton, "lsocrates, IG 11 2 43, Greek Propaganda and
Imperialism," Traditio 36 (1980)83-109, at 104-106, has argued
persuasively that the guarantees catalogued in lines 19-23 apply more
specifically to the recent outrages of Spartan imperial ism than to more
remote abuses of the Athenian arche of the fifth century; he adds,
however, that the reference to---pFiOros applies equally to both.
I
assume that these guarantees were included in the articles of
incorporation and that Aristoteles' decree dealt with an entirely
different, purely Athenian abuse--the acquisition of land abroad.
Abnegation of this became necessary at the point when the League
decided to invite other states to join, those which had suffered from
Athenian land-grabbing and feared that the Athenians might press old
claims possibly recorded on the O"TllAQL cl\if-n vrfjouoL (I ines 33f). That
Athenian landholding in former subject territory was the most-hated
practice of the fifth-century arche (as Hamilton would have it) I find
less convincing than my interpretation that Aristoteles' detailed
concern with such holdings stemmed from the fact that they were
specifically Athenian in contrast to the Spartan abuses catalogued in
lines
19-23,
and
constituted
a
new,
additional
concession
("sweetening") addressed to a wider audience.
On this particular
point Hamilton places more weight on the sources than they will bear;
one of them, Diodoros, calls the Athenian abdication of all claims,
past and future, to allied land an act of 'philanthropy' by which they
regained the goodwill of the Greeks and made their hegemony more
secure (15.28.8). I take Diodoros' meaning to be that the hegemony
was more secure because many more states had joined as a result of
Aristoteles' decree than had been members at the time of the
foundation of the League. Either interpretation is possible.
15These terms were known to the prospective allies and had been
hammered out at a session of the Athenians and the charter members
in which they transformed their separate bilateral treaties into a
multilateral agreement creating the League.
Undoubtedly there were
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALLIES
Indeed
we
contemporary:
Harpokration,
phoroi
have
a
description
of
29
the
neC)otiations
by
a
Theopompos in the tenth book of the Philippika (apud
FGrHist
syntaxeis,
on
115
F 98)
the
suggestion
says
that
of
they
began
Kall istratos,
calling
the
because
the
Greeks (prospective allies) turned green about the gills at the very
word
phoroi.
Most
scholars
have
dubbed
Theopomposl
report
"cynical" and gone on to assert that the "contributions" of the LeClgue
16
differed little, save in name, from the old tribute.
But what is
cynical?
It
is
rather
a
straightforward
description
of
the
circumstances and principal speaker on the occasion when they first
began the new terminology.
Ehrenberg 17 was surely right to deny
that the only change was the word, and Marshall correctly recognized
that the participation of Kallistratos, whose public career began about
18
the time of the Kingls Peace, indicates an early date.
copies of this agreement for each charter member and very probably
numerous others available to prospective members, but there is no
need to suppose that it was ever committed to stone, at Athens or
elsewhere.
16 From these Cawkwell has distanced himself somewhat in JHS 101
(1981) 51, note 46:
"So Kallistratos was not being merely cynical in
using a new name for the thing in some degree new."
Had he
realized that "the thing" was altogether different, he would have seen
that the fl~.st. (jJopov (jJi~OVLL was no bar to initial introduction of
syntaxeis.
Cawkwell also recognizes (Ioc. cit., note 45) that IG 11 2
~l
175)
"shows that assessment-was the work oT the
Synedrion, II but does not take the final step and see that the
Synedrionls control is what makes syntaxeis totally different from
phoros.
Although IG 11 2 233 dates ~39, only a little over a
year-before Philip-finally dissolved the League, the Synedrionls
control goes back to the beginning, for no one will argue that its
powers were increased, and even Cargill only argues that they were
not decreased to the extent that most scholars have assumed.
17 V • Ehrenberg,
322-338, at 337.
18 F . H. Marshall,
1905),38.
"lum
The
zweiten
Second
attischen
Athenian
Bund,"
Hermes
Confederacy
64
(1929)
(Cambridge,
FORDYCE MITCHEL
30
Ehrenberg's argument for a difference in substance, not just in
name, is that the suspicious allies could not have been hoodwinked by
mere window-dressing.
This is right
ClS
far as it goes, but the word
Ql.)V1:"fl!;:CLC;
itself is perhaps a clue to that substance.
the verb
OU'JTclOC(
Deriving from
it can mean not just "something put together"
LV,
but "something arranged by persons acting in concert."
Nor should
we forget that the syntaxeis were set by the Synedrion, or perhaps
we should say Synhedrion, a word which in the early fourth century
was itself as novel and distinctive a term as was syntaxis.
Unlike
the old Synodos of the Delian League, the Synedrion was a "group
which sat down together'!
Athens (d. the idiom
like the Council of the Areios
OUyxa8C;>;:ELV EV
TWL
OUVEOpCWL
Pagos at
in Eukrates ' Law
against Tyranny), "and as such it suggests a closed elite corporation
or club.
The term was chosen to convey the idea that the Council of
the Second Alliance ... was to be an effective instrument.,,19
This statement by Noel Robertson is surely correct, but in truth
the
Synedrion
is
not
even
mentioned
in
the
Aristoteles
decree.
Neither its composition nor its basic competence is defined; there we
learn only that the synedroi are to have what are surely at this point
additional
duties:
to confiscate and auction off illegally acquired
property should any be discovered and to share with the Athenians in
the condemnation of anyone who might try to change the terms of the
alliance.
Now since both the Synedrion and the syntaxis were of
19 N. D. Robertson, "False Documents at Athens:
Fifth-Century
History and Fourth-Century Publ icists," Historical Reflections 3
(1976) 3-24, at 17. One of the referees has kindly added that the
word synedrion had already been used earlier in the fourth century,
at Diodoros 14.82.2, "in reference to the equally novel allied council
established at Corinth to pursue the Corinthian War against Sparta."
Robertson also points out that Zeus first acquires the epithet
Eleutherios in Aristoteles! decree, and per litt. suggests that the fact
that the stele was to be set up by the Statue of Zeus which stood on
the central axis of the Stoa of Zeus might indicate a close relationship
between the Synedrion and the Stoa, i. e. that it met there during the
periods that the members were resident in Athens. He is currently
revising a book-length study of the Stoa and its uses.
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALLIES
prime
importance,
and
their
existence
is
31
presupposed
in
the
" ep itheta ll of the Aristoteles decree, it is not far-fetched to suggest
that they were both spelled out earlier in a document or documents
which, though referred to by Aristoteles, we no longer have.
Having
argued
that
there
is
good
reason
to
posit
the
introduction of syntaxeis at the beginning of the League and no really
cogent reason against it, we may look at some other bits of evidence
for the early
expected
recognition
(i.e.
of the fact that money-contributions were
before Cawkwell's " after 375 11 ) ,
some of it early and
First we should look at ~ 11
epigraphical, some late and literary.
2
123 of the year 356.
This is some twenty years too late to be of
direct use
an
in
setting
early
date
for
syntaxeis,
but
the decree
happens to preserve most fully certain phrases which illuminate those
areas of League administration in which the Synedrion exercised final
authority,
decisive authority
held
initiative
the
(i.e.
in
the
sense that the Athenians,
hegemonia)
in
the
League,
had
who
bound
themselves by oath not to carry through with an initiative without the
approval
arranging
(q>LJAUKfJ)
of
the
for
Synedrion. 20
the
pay
on Andros,21
the pay is to come
of
the
The
overall
troops
in
concern
the
during the Social War.
EX TWV
OUVTUt;E.WV
WHO. TO.
of
11 2
protective
123
is
garrison
Lines 11-12 say that
66Y~UTU TWV ou~~cixwv (i.e.
the Synedrion).
20 For the relationship between initiative and decision in contemporary
Athenian democracy, see M. H. Hansen, IIlnitiative and Decision.
Reflections on the Separation of Powers in Fourth-Century Athens, II
GRBS 22 (1981) 345-370.
Since most of the Synedroi were familiar
~ democratic institutions in their home states and had ample
opportunity to observe the workings of Athenian government, we
should not be surprised to find that the Synedrion had organized
itself on the model of the Boule.
I have no hesitation in following
Larsen in identifying the Theban who put the only surviving dogma
to the vote as a proedros, pace Cargill, League, p. 115, note 3.
21 Not a q>pOLJpa. or
Aristoteles ' decree.
occupation
force
which
was
a
"bad
word"
in
FORDYCE MITCHEL
32
It is the phrase
MTa Ta 66YflUTU TWV OUflflaxwv which is important
here, for it shows that the disbursement of the syntaxeis was the
voted decision of the Synedrion after the Athenians had initiated the
action by showing what needed to be done, budgeting the cost and
suggesting how it should be accomplished in the existing perilous
circumstances.
Now since the Synedrion had voted pay from the
syntaxeis for the garrison, it is clearly implied that it had earlier
also voted to send out the garrison in the first place, and it is
altogether likely that the other provisions of the decree had also been
presented to the Synedrion before implementation.
These include the
sending out of an Athenian general to be in charge, the authorization
22
of one Archedemos
to collect Ta. £y v[Tjawv XpTj)flUTU
and to turn it
over to
TW[L lipxovn TWL £v)"AVOpwL for the soldiers ' pay.
Clearly
the money which the Synedrion had voted to pay to the garrison from
the syntaxeis had not yet been collected, and so it voted also that it
should be collected by (the general?) Archedemos and that it should
be turned over to the [archon] on Andros.
If this is true, we find the Synedrion voting dogmata to collect
money from League members (phoroi being the old Athenian term,
syntaxeis
the
new
League
term)
and
to disburse
it
(which
had
previously been an Athenian prerogative), to send out a protective
garrison to a member state (jlUAuxTj,
not <ppoupa), and to place in
charge of a member state an administrative/military officer ([archon],
the "bad" word if the supplement is correct),
~
abjured by the Athenians in Aristoteles· decree.
actions specifically
And yet it was
within the competence of the Synedrion to authorize the doing of each
of these things if it seemed necessary (the necessity in this case
being the early successes of the seceding allies in the Social War),
22 The general to be sent out was to be selected from among the board
which had already been elected. There may have appeared in the
portion of the decree missing at the bottom some phrase indicating
that Archedemos had been selected, and the secretary had then
inserted his name in line 17 before the decree was inscribed.
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALL! ES
and
it would
be difficult to argue
acquired power.
the
red
tape
that
this
33
was
in
357/6
a newly
One would rather expect the Athenians to try to cut
of the
Synedrion's
approval
in
the
face
of
such
an
emergency, but obviously they did not, if for no other reason than to
keep the loyalty of the states which
light of the general
opinion
had not yet seceded.
In
that the Synedrion's powers tended
the
to
deteriorate vis-a-vis Athenian aggressiveness in the years after the
370s,23 it is likely that whatever powers the Synedrion had in 357/6
it had had since the foundation of the League,
and all we need
is
corroborating evidence.
Such evidence may be found in ~ 11
2
44 of the year 377,
membership treaty of the Chalkidians of Euboia.
interesting contrast to
napa. 1:"a.
56y~a1:"a
1:"WV
xa1:"o. 1:"0. 56nw1:"a 1:"WV ou~~axwv
ou~~axwv.
24
This
phrase
the
Lines 23-26 offer an
in the phrase:
follows
the
Athenian
23 0n1y Cargill has argued against the traditional view of Athenian
encroachment, based on a thorough review of the evidence.
S. M.
Sherwin-White (JHS 102 [1982] 269-271) gives the book a generally
favorable review~ut points out that Cargill is perhaps too kind to
the Athenians in his treatment of the late 360s and early 350s.
Cawkwell, too, has thoroughly reviewed the evidence for the League's
failure (JHS 101 (1981) 40-55).
So long as he sticks to the evidence
he painrs--a brilliant picture of Athenian rectitude and satTSTfeCf
participation by the allies on the basis of the original agreements at
the time of the League's foundation.
Only when he turns to search
for imperialistic actions - and even here he pauses to defend the
Athenians against the charge of establishing klerouchies in allied
states and shows that he knows that the money collected from
members by Athenian generals on campaign was authorized up to an
assessed amount does he rely on
inference for the early
annual ization of the collection of syntaxeis and the early imposition of
archontes without a thought for whether or not these too were
authorized by the Synedrion.
I t is thus with considerable disbel ief,
after such a spirited and well-documented defense, that one comes
upon the unsubstantiated conclusion:
III t may be confidently enough
asserted that in the 360s the Confederacy was in no small measure
converted into something resembl ing the earl ier empire ll (p. 52).
24Cawkwell (JHS 101 [1981) 49) argues that
napa. 1:"a. 66y~a-ra
1:"WV
means lIin
contravention
of
the
decrees
which
have
constituted the Confederacy, II but this cannot be.
He may be right
ou~~axw"
FORDYCE MITCHEL
34
guarantee
(repeated
Chalkis when
almost
verbatim
from
it became a member of the
Aristoteles'
decree)
that
League would not have to
receive an Athenian garrison, pay phoros or accept a governor.
has sometimes been called empty verbiage,
two
distinct
ideas
have
here
been
It
but I suggest rather that
yoked:
the
guarantee
of
the
Athenians, on the one hand, and the competence of the Synedrion, on
the
other.
There
were
to
be
no
unilateral
impositions
by
the
Athenians; they promised that any proposals for garrisons, governors
or the collection of money would be brought before the Synedrion of
the Allies and that they would not act without that body's approval;
specifically they would do none of these things against the decisions
of the allies - nao-J. '[0. 66YIJ.aTa TWV OUf.J.f.J.Ctxwv.
The converse was also true.
}taTa. Ta. 6OYf.J.aTa '[wv OUf.J.f.J.axwv -
With the Synedrion's approval -
all these things could be done, as
saw in the case of the Andrians twenty years later, except that in
two of the three provisions the language had been changed to reflect
the
allies'
preferences
decision-making.
But
and
in
377,
participation
when
the
or
partnership
treaty
with
in
the
Chalkis
was
passed only a very few weeks after the Aristoteles decree was set up
(and this was the first
" additional" ally to join under the terms of
(for the sake of the argument) when he claims that a distinction
should be made in the treaty with Korkyra (I G 11 2 97.32-35) between
procedure in the business of peace and warand procedure in lithe
other things. II
Witt] regard to lithe other things" Cawkwell claims
that the oath leal. ,[clAAa nOL /fJow xa'[a. Ta. 66Yf.J.a'[a '[<3. 'A8Tlvo.Cwv XUl. '[wV
OUf.J.f.J.G.xwv, refers to lithe decrees, the decrees which in 378 prescribed
the working of the Confederacy. II
That is, lithe other things" were
fixed constitutionally whereas peace or war were to be decided at any
time by a vote of the Athenians and a majority of the allies.
If we
grant that this is so, then the napa '[a. 6OYf.J.a'[a '[wv OUf.J.f.J.CtXWV cannot
possibly be taken also as constitutional for the simple reason that the
essential words '[0. 'A8TlvaCwv XUl. are missing.
We cannot be asked to
believe that the constitution of the League was composed of the
decisions of the allies alone or that it was ever so described in a
formal treaty.
In the phrase from the Chalkis decree the word
dogmata has its usual meanings - things already voted and things
that may be voted in the future.
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALLIES
35
that decree)25 the Athenian oath not to do certain things carried the
qualifying
phrase,
Synedrion)
and
This
.11
" con trary
to
the
decisions
is something of which
of
the
the Chians,
the other Charter Members were well aware,
allies
(the
the Thebans
but it had
to be
made explicit for the new states which joined now on the invitation of
Aristoteles' decree.
It was made clear by the oath that the hegemon
would not act arbitrarily, but it was also clear from the added phrase
that the Synedrion had the power to approve of what was necessary
and, although internal interference and the sending out of archontes
and garrisons was not contemplated in 377,
the Synedrion certainly
had the power from the beginning to assess amounts and to authorize
the
collection
of
operations - i.e.
Finally,
money-payments
for
the
purposes
of
League
ouvrul',;t: L<; XaTo. TO. 66YllaTa TWV OUllllclXUlV.
the
earliest
event
(as
distinct
from
epigraphical
evidence) involving syntaxeis is in Plutarch's Phokion 6-7.
The story
concerns Phokion's early attachment to Chabrias and his presence at
the battle of Naxos on 16 Boedromion, 376.
was
crumpling,
force,
and
Athenians'
so
there
Chabrias
the
sent
victory
young
was
won
The Athenian left wing
Phokion
after
a
with
sharp
a
relieving
fight
first victory since the defeat at Aigospotamoi.
-
the
Chabrias
won great fame and Phokion a reputation of being fit for command.
As
Chabrias
a
result
sent
him twenty
of
this
Phokion
ships.
episode
to collect
Phokion
(Ex TOUTOU),
the
replied
nesiotic
with
Plutarch
continues,
syntaxeis and offered
the old chestnut:
twenty
ships were not enough if he was going against enemies, whi Ie one was
25 The
Chalkidians
are the
first
members
inscribed
after
the
charter-member Thebans, in line 80 in the register of names on Face
E. Schweigert, Hesperia 7 (1938) 626,
A of the Aristoteles stele.
claimed that IG 112 155 was a duplicate copy ~Chalkis decree,
but it is prooably just another decree, perhaps a treaty with some
other member, at about the same time, perhaps even the same day.
Actually, the key connexion between the two stones is the distinctive
five-point punctuation separating the secretary's name from his
patronymic, which led Schweigert to recognize the secretary and so to
date the stone.
36
FORDYCE MITCHEL
sufficient for calling on allies.
The point missed by both Phokion and
Plutarch is that a fleet of twenty would be safe against the scattered
surviving
units of the
Peloponnesian squadron; 26 thirty-three had
escaped and might still be lurking about the islands which were still
under
Spartan
control.
The
point
was
not
lost
on
the
allies,
however, (though Plutarch gives the credit to Phokion's blameless and
considerate conduct) for "Phokion returned with many ships which the
allies sent out to bring the money to the Athenians.,,27
Plutarch's purpose was not to date the introduction of syntaxeis,
but his story, within the context of the battle of Naxos, which we
know about from other sources, fits the facts.
It indicates that the
Synedrion had authorized the collection of syntaxeis for the support
of Chabrias'
allied
fleet
when
it had
set out
from Athens.
The
neutralization of the pro-Spartan Naxos and the annihilation of the
Spartan fleet were both of primary concern to the seafaring members,
and it should not be surprising to find them using their power of
self-assessment in support of the allied effort.
These two pieces of evidence (epigraphical and literary) do not
perhaps constitute solid proof, but I hope they are enough at least to
tip the scales back to the pre-1963 communis opinio that syntaxeis
26 The figures are based on Diodoros 15.34.3-36.2, which is the only
circumstantial account of the battle. The Spartans had 65 triremes to
begin with, and lost 24 outright and 8 by capture. The 33 remaining
could have been taken had Chabrias not been mindful of the fate of
the victorious generals of Arginousai; but as it was they escaped and
their whereabouts were unknown, so they constituted a threat to a
single ship - if indeed Phokion was allowed to sail out with only one,
as Plutarch says.
27 Some scholars have claimed that there is no evidence either that the
allies participated in the collection of syntaxeis or that the money was
ever in the early days brought to Athens. Plutarch's story certainly
involves the allies in the collection, but "to the Athenians" is
ambiguous, i.e. either to Athens or to the Athenian fleet. Although
the assessments had been authorized when the fleet set out from
Athens, their collection after the battle was somewhat superfluous
because the victory produced a large profit, and Diodoros has
Chabrias sailing back more or less directly to the Peiraieus.
ASSESSMENT OF THE ALL! ES
were collected from the beginning.
37
It should also be realised that the
counter-opinion rested on nothing much more solid than an argument
from silence and a failure to distinguish in meaning between phoros
28
--
and syntaxis.
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA
FORDYCE MITCHEL
28) wish to thank the Research Council of the University of Missouri
and the American Council of Learned Societies for grants-in-aid while
working on this and related fourth-century problems.
The present
version was completed during a year at the Institute for Advanced
Study as research assistant to Christian Habicht who has assisted me
more than I him.
The journal's referees suggested substantial
improvement, but the errors are all mine.
39
SEMONIDES FR. 7:
WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS
Semon ides Fr. 7 is not a favorite of modern classicists, and has
1
Herman Frankel found in the poet the
a history of being disliked.
weakening of the creative spirit, and objected that in this poem "the
thoughts are superficial,
penetration
merit
in
extends
the
work,
the narrative disjointed,
only
but
to
detail". 2
feels
its
thought in which it moves". 3
He
sees
importance
and the power of
very
I ies
in
little
"the
literary
modes
of
Wilamowitz considers the poem "grobe
und ziemlich salzlose Spottereien ohne Reize der Form". 4
Campbell,
while conceding that the poem is "often very amusing", also finds it
1I0ccasionaily naive and repetitive". 5
least
half
serious". 6
But
Gerber allows the poet to be "at
Lloyd-Jones
takes
emphasizing the poem's value as entertainment.
of
taking
it
for
granted
that
it
represents
a
different
view,
"We should be wary
the
writer's
personal
attitude, or that it is intended as a serious study of the subject. ,,7
1For
a short
history
of
negative
scholarly
opinion,
Lloyd-Jones, Females of the Species (London, 1975), 22.
2H . Frankel (tr. M. Hadas and J.
Philosophy (London, 1975), 205.
Willis),
Early
Greek
see
H.
Poetr~
3 lbid .
4U.
v.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
Die griechische und
Literatur und Sprache (Leipzig and Berl in, 1912), 31.
lateinische
5D . A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry (New York, 1967), 184.
6D . E. Gerber, Euterpe (Amsterdam, 1970). 57.
7Lloyd-Jones op cit. (n. 1), 24.
Lloyd-Jones uses his theory that
the poem functions as entertainment partly to rebut Wilamowitz's idea
LESLIE SCHEAR
40
Semonides
is
not
a
writer
"for
whom
truth
carne
first
and
entertainment second". 8
Several
aspects of the
poem ClS entertainment.
poem
support
Lloyd-Jones'
view of the
The comparisons of the women to animals, or
to the sea and earth, which take up most of the poem, are expansions
of
the
ropular
pi'lstime.
J
game
The
use
to
the
resemblance:
Archilochus.
But
entertClinment
lies
of eikasmos,
that
the
a
the
Lloyd-Jones'
theot-y
of
to
and
animals
in
Aesop,
emphasis
familiar'
most
on
widespread
bears
some
Hesiod
and
the
readers
of
as
archaic
that
public.
These conditions also relate, however, to the "truth '! of the
since
entertainment
Semonides '
has
for an occasion and
poem
poetry,
poem,
it is poetry written
ancient
makes
~ound
animal-fables
behind
very
poem
much
sentiments
to
cannot
say
be
about
performed
the
completely
people
foreign
in
it
or
repugnant to his audience, or his poem would fail as entertainment.
The
poet,
I
believe,
is
telling
the
truth
in
a different way,
telling a different truth, than has previously been realized.
poem
can
only
be
understood
through
an
and
But the
understanding
of
its
occasion.
One
possible
occasion
would
be
the
kind
of
ritual
festivities
that the poem had a ritual function, that of the male response to the
ritual abuse of men by women at the festival of Demeter.
(See
Wilamowitz, Einleitun
in die
riechische Tra odie [Berlin, 1907], 57;
Der Glaube der
ellenen
armstadt, 1959 , 287~)
L1oyd-Jones '
argument against this interpretation is sound; ritual insult does not
call for a response.
But perhaps Wilamowitz is correct about the
ritualistic aspect of the poem, though wrong about the occasion of the
ritual.
If fr. 7 was performed at symposia associated with weddings,
the poem is both for the purpose of entertainment and connected with
the ritual of r.larriage.
8 lbid .
9See E. Fraenkel on A. ~.
(Firenze, 1960), 162-164.
1629 and in Elementi Plautini in Plauto,
SEMONIDES FR. 7:
which M.
But
L.
these
Demeter,
WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS
West suggests
festivities,
would
in
almost
all-male audience (114)
the original
honour
of
certainly
deities
include
as
women,
for
iamboi.
Dionysus
and
the
10
and
poem's
seems to favour the alternative possibil ity of
performance at a symposium.
ordinary sympotic poetry.
Yet the poem differs significantly from
The dominance of the male view and the
all-male audience are factors in most,
poetry.
context
such
41
if not all,
of archaic sympotic
The striking difference is that women in this poem are not
treated as erotic objects,
or as mythological
figures,
but as wives.
This distinction makes it probable that the symposium itself is not the
everyday drinking-party but an occasion somehow linked with wives
and marriage.
References
to
marriage-feasts
are
quite
common
in
Greek
literature, and indeed the usual word for wedding, ~ , can also
"wedding-feast".
wedding-feasts.
On
For
Achilles'
Homer,
weddings
(~
shield
eilapinai are two different sorts of feasts.
similar
phrase
at
~.
1.225ff.
where
called
18.491ff.),
for
~
This is confirmed
Athena,
and
by a
disguised
pretending not to understand what is happening in Odysseus'
and
halls,
asks Telemachus:
TL<; 5aL<;, TL<; 5aL (S~d.o<; (S5' fTIA£TO; TLTIn 6£ a£ xpc...D;
d.AanLvT] f]( yci~o<;; CTIC.L oux fpavo<; Ta5£ y' laTLv.
The
point
obviously
of
her
not
the
observation
is
that
the
communally-supported
banquet
eranos;
alternatives are both feasts paid for by the host.
finds Menelaus
(~.
5uLvuvTa ya~ov nonol: LV
£TTJ
LV
I
she
the
sees
other
is
two
Later Telemachus
lJ L£o<; f]5( OlJyaTpo<;
4.3-4).
Marriage-feasts are also found in later classical works and in the
New
Testament.
In
Isaeus
8.18-20,
a
litigant
seeks
to
prove
his
mother's legitimacy, and does so in part by arguing that otherwise
10M . L. West,
Chapter 2.3
Studies
in
Greek
Elegy and
Iambus
(Berlin,
1974),
LESLI E SCHEAR
42
his
father
would
not
have
given
a
wedding-feast
(gamous)
or
marriage-banquet (gamelian).
Wedding-feasts are mentioned as
of
ideal
the
social
life
of
Plato1s
state
(Laws
6.775).
a
part
Menander
considers the inexpensive wedding clever, but the adjective he uses,
oikositos, surely refers to the wedding-feast itsel f
(fr.
384 Koerte).
In Diphilus ' Apolipousa (17.1ff Kock) a cook needs to know how many
have been invited to the ~ , so that he can decide what food to
prepare.
A thenaeus
(185
b)
writes
of
the
wedding-banquet
customary occurrence:
aUi-lnOOLU nLOL TOUe; YUi-l0lie; TWV TL
li.u.l T!1e; Ol.OVLl i-ln.pTUpLOe;.
He also mentions (128 c) an especially luxurious banquet given by a
bridegroom
for
twenty
guests.
The
~
at
Cana
was
a
wedding-banquet at which Mary, Jesus and the disciples were present
as guests,
22.2,
and
paralleled
in
by
the
parable of the
Luke
14.16,
the
wedding-banquet
similarity
between
in Matthew
~
and
deipnon is quite clear.
There is no obstacle, then, to conceding that ~ means both
"wedding" and "wedding-feast", and that the wedding-banquet clearly
provides an occasion both sympotic and nuptial.
But there is another
occasion that fulfills these requirements as well.
I saeus mentioned above,
In the passage of
the speaker says that his fClther gave both
~ and gamelia when he married his mother.
in more detail,
he
explains:
Ycli-lOUe; LlOTLOOL XOl (XclALOL TpLle; mJTou <pLAOUe;
mJTou npoOllxovTwv, TOLe; TL <pPclTLPOl YOflT1ALOV
li.OTG. TOUe; (XLLVWV V0i-l0ue;.
The
litigant
is
at
pains
to
find
public
occasions
TWV
that
confirm
his
mother1s legitimacy, but since two different sets of men are mentioned
he
cannot
be
resorting
Demosthenes (57.43;
£1:.
to
rhetorical
57.69)
hendiadys.
A
speaker
in
also uses the gamelia as a part of a
proof of his legitimacy, and thus of his Athenian citizenship:
.. xaALl i-l0l ... TOUe; TaU rIpwT0i-laxOU Ul.LLe;, £nElTO TOUe;
noponoe; T0 nOTpl XOL TWV <pPOTCPWV TOUe; OL X£ LaUe;, o~e;
E-lanv[.yx(,v 0nlP -rile; flTlTPOe; 6 non']p ...
SEMONIDES FR. 7:
These
references
WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS
show
that
the gamel ia was of a more official
nature than the wedding-banquet or~.
of the Apaturia,
the
festival
Ionian nation (1.147).
of
the
year
The gamelia was a part
that Herodotus
says characterized
As part of this festival,
conducted
a
43
sacrifice
and
entertained
phratry-members with the sacrificial meat. 11
the
the new bridegrooms
their
fellow
I t is probable that the
Apaturia was celebrated on Amorgos,
since the island was Ionic, as
were
to
the
Samos,
cities
and
which
later
Mi letus.
claimed
Herodotus
have
attests
colonised
that
the
it,
Naxos,
festival
was
celebrated on Samos (1.147.2).
Hellenistic inscriptions from Aegiale,
12
on Amorgos, show that Apaturion was a month-name there.
If this
festival was indeed observed on Amorgos,
the banquet that followed
the gamel ia is another possible sympotic, nuptial occasion. 13
It is important to note that at neither of these occasions were
women likely to be present.
~
In only two of the quotations cited for
are women said to be present.
wedding-feasts
in
Plato's
theoretical
They are allowed to attend the
state of the ~~,
mother is at the wedding-party at Cana.
and
Jesus'
But on Amorgos, and in the
sixth century before Christ, it is far more likely that the usual rule
for
women
at
symposia
applied:
Frauen ... davon
ausgeschlossen". 14
been
occasion,
a
male
"Considering
that
the
the usual
young
11~, ~.
bride
with
Greek
was
"Namentlich
The
its
social
brought
foundation
customs,
to
ehrbare
gamel ia,
the
too,
in
would
the
have
phratry.
we must not suppose
banquet
in
her
honour.
qamelia.
121nscriptiones Graecae XII2.7, nos. 412 and 515.
13
....
.
.
OC~:Si~~e f~~o t~~SS~~I~~I.es, T~hee 5Tn~=b:~~U~or~s a:tr:~;II~:r ,as m~~:
intimate occasion, and the point of the poem would be more apparent
at a party which immediately followed the wedding, rather than the
annual, more formal gamelia.
14~, ~.
symposion.
LESLI E SCHEAR
44
The feastings of the Phratriai will have been male junketings. ,,15
If the tradition of the all-male party connected with weddings
existed, it is not too large a leap to ask about appropriate sympotic
entertainment.
Lloyd-Jones thinks that "the notion that the abuse of
women was a regular literary theme ... seems to have much
in its
favour" ,16 and this idea is supported by the poem1s iambic meter, the
meter of psogos.
It is difficult to think of a better occasion for the
expression of this
theme
than
a
symposium
itself connected
with
marriage, and attended only by the male friends and relatives of the
groom (at the ~) or by fellow phratry-members (at the gamelia).
This particular banquet calls for a different sort of poetry from that
which is usually associated with the symposium, and our fragment
would belong to the
~ of poetry composed for the stag-party. 17
The poem, if performed at the wedding-banquet immediately after the
wedding, would act as wry congratulation and humorous warning to
the groom about the nature of his new wife, and would also mock the
18
groom and husbands in general.
If the party and the performance
take place as part of the gamelia, the grooms may have been married
for some time, and the poem would then confirm what the bridegrooms
might
already
suspect.
In
either
case,
the
performance
would
initiate, or confirm the initiation, of the groom into a new kind of
knowledge, available only to married men, about the nature of women.
If the poem is performed at a party of men only, and connected
with the marriage of one or some of the symposiasts, some of the
15 H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977), 90.
16L1oyd-Jones, op.cit. (n. 1), 23.
17phocylidesl shorter fragment (Fr. 2) may also belong to this
~.
18Cood-humoured abuse of the groom is traditional in epithhlamia.
Sappho generally concentrates on poking fun at the p ySlcal
attributes of the groom or his attendants, perhaps with ribald
overtones (Sappho, frr. 110a and 111 L-P). Semonides ' joke on the
groom, we shall see, works in a different way.
SEMONIDES FR. 7:
WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS
puzzling aspects of the poem are clarified.
£nOLTjU£v voov,
the
interpreted as
" god
and so,
words
made
be
the
seen
strictly
tJf.oc,
XWPlC; YUVQLl<.OC;
poem,
the nous of women
would
then
different
be
best
from ours",
"women are different".-,g- This opening would
for the rest of the poem.
will
that open
45
set the tone
The poem wi II be about women, but women
from
the
male
point
of view,
and
the
views
expressed about them will be for an exclusively male audience.
notion
of
male
clannishness
behind
the
choris
re-emerges
The
in
the
poem's last lines (especially in the plural of ou gignoskomen in line
114),
which
symposium,
testify to a common bond among the men attending the
and
indeed
among
all
men
who
share
in
the
is;; moira
involved in marriage.
In the last two lines of the poem the is;; moira that men share is
put into a historical and mythical perspective.
The symposiasts have
experienced the trials involved in living with a woman; the heroes of
the
Trojan
man's
War
wife,
lost their
a wife as
very
faithless
lives
as
fighting
several
on
behalf of another
of the animal-prototypes
that Semon ides sketches.
For the symposiasts, this tacit comparison
between
the
themselves
imposed-upon,
satisfying
one.
and
figures
of
the
most
admirable,
heroic
age
Though other mythical
and
would
be
examples may
also
a
the
most
humorously
have
followed
the one with which our text ends, the poem is close to its conclusion
20
here.
The symposiasts may now feel a renewal of the camaraderie
encouraged
by
the
banquet-setting
of
the
poem,
by
the
initial
acknowledgement that women are essentially different from men,
and
19L1oyd-Jones, op. cit. (n. 1), 63-64.
20Gerber thinks the poem is " probably complete" (op. cit. [n. 6),
57), but Lloyd-Jones sees Helen as one of a serieSOffnythological
exempla of the treachery of women (op. cit. [n. 1 j, 92).
But the
point is the danger of women in their role as wives, and a more
appropriate example of the dangerous wife than Helen would be hard
to find.
Helen, as the cause of the Trojan War, becomes, in wife-like
fashion, the burdensome responsibility of all the men involved in the
war, Greeks and Trojans alike.
LESLIE SCHEAR
46
by the plural ou gignoskomen, but temporarily suspended during the
catalogue
force,
of women.
but
men
Even
can
within
unite
the
poem,
themselves
with
wives
are a divisive
contemporary
fellow-
sufferers, and with thei r heroic ancestors.
The fairly large number of prototypes might be explained by the
~,
number of symposiasts, which, if the occasion is a
been
ten.
guests'
But
wives
such
is
exact
numerical
not necessary,
as
correspondence
long
as each
may have
of
type
types
to
is different
enough to be distinct.
This is so, despite the vices that the types
21
share.
In the fairly limited sphere of the domestic world, even the
possible failings of the women
are not numerous.
The
imaginative
listener should also visualize each woman as not just sharing the vices
of her animal-prototype,
but also as looking a bit like her animal.
The variety of types need only correspond roughly to the variety of
wives
of
the
husbands
entertainment of the
attending
poem
may
the
symposium.
Part
be each guest's fitting
of
the
one of the
prototypes to the wife of each fellow-guest.
The bee-woman appears at the end of the list of the types of
women and before the poet's concluding generalities.
This gives her
a place of prominence in the structure of the poem, and surely the
audience,
by now attuned to Semonides l method of invective,
using
the animals to point out failings of women, would be startled by the
poet's change of tone and method of characterization.
The bee-woman
is the only woman whose connection with her animal (or the material
she
is made of)
is
not at all
explored.
Semon ides'
interest is
in
drawing the most attractive portrait of the bee-woman that he can.
This necessitates the picture of her as wife, mother and housekeeper,
which is more appealing than a description could be that relied more
on her animal-prototype.
with
the
animals.
less
satisfactory
She
is
a
But she is best appreciated in comparison
clever
wives
who
woman
are
seen
in
relation
(poluphradestate,
93),
21 For an opposing opinion see Frankel, op. cit. (n. 2), 205.
to
yet
their
her
SEMONIDES FR. 7:
WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS
intelligence is admirable (in contrast to
woman,
8),
47
the intelligence of the
fox-
because it is directed at the right goal, the increase of
her husband's prosperity.
The dog-woman,
though inquisitive (13),
does not direct her curiosity to a valid end, and in this she is like
the
ape-woman,
(81-2).
whose
ambition
is
to
do
whatever
harm
she
can
In contrast with this destructive intelligence, the pig-woman
and the earth-woman share a paralyzing stupidity.
The paragon's increase of her husband's bios (85) also forms an
implicit contrast with the expensive tastes of the horse-woman (58-70)
and
the voracious appetites of the pig-woman
(24) and the weasel-woman (56).
I inked
with
sexual
weasel-woman
bee-woman,
reproach.
(53).
appetitiveness
All
the
(6),
the earth-woman
Insatiability of appetite for food is
in
women
the
of
ass-woman
the
poem,
for
and
the
have failed to have children, and so are liable to moral
IIL'ane, la belette, la cavale; mais aussi la femme-singe, la
chienne ou la femme de la mer:
que Ie texte les dote ou non d'une
sexual ite specifique, aucune de ces femmes n'est conforme
parce
(46-9)
except
qu'aucune
n'enfante.
lI22
But
have led to her loving husband,
the
virtues
of
a
la norme,
the
bee-woman
admirable children and
prosperous
household.
The bee-woman, then, according to the poet,
is everything that
the other wives are not, but not every man will be fortunate to win
her as a wife; only those whom Zeus favors will receive her (92-3).
But what is her function
in the poem?
The bee-woman may be the
optimistic portrait of the new bride, and may also be the woman whom
each
man,
imagines
(future?)
including
his
wife
as
the groom,
the
thinks of as
bee-woman,
and
his
inserts
own.
himself
children into the happy tableau of lines 86-87.
Each
and
man
his
The lofty
tone of these I ines emphasizes that life with the bee-woman is ideal.
But
the
poem's
closing
lines
(94-118)
husbands to recognize their wives.
cast doubt on
the ability of
The wife may seem to be,
22 N . Loraux, IIS ur la Race des Femmes,1I Arethusa 11 (1978), 62.
like
LESLIE SCHEAR
48
the bee-woman, a helpmate:
f)v TL 1<01. OOX((.()OlV W<p[hL:v
f.!.clAlCnG. yt.VnOl 1<OXOV
~X:OVTl, TC<.'L
(97-8),
but in fact the closing lines reintroduce the familiar faults found in
all
the
negative
extravagance
in
pictures
lines
dangers of 106-107;
of
101-102;
the
animal-women:
sexual
wantonness
misdirection of intelligence in
gluttony
in
the
108.
and
potential
The vices
distributed among the various types of women are reiterated and now
gathered
This
together
makes
into
the
background.
a general
attractive
composite
bee-woman
portrait
fade
of all
completely
women.
into
the
The poet begins his summing-up section with lithe other
breeds (94) II.
in contrast with the bee-woman,
glance backward at her.
but this is the last
The unique qualities of the bee-woman are
not repeated as the common failings of the typical woman are.
Finally, the poet asserts that husbands are unaware of the kind
of wives that they have. and he blurs the distinction made
types
of
women
(including.
presumably,
the
startling
~mong
the
differences
between the bee-woman and all other types) by stating EOT)v 0' Kxovnc;
f.!.ol:pov ou YlVWOXOf.!.[V
(114).
Thus both the bee-woman and the chance
of marrying her are illusory. 23
ideal,
but this ideal
stand up to scrutiny.
She is in the poem to illustrate the
is undermined by the suspicion that it cannot
The husband who got the bee-woman would of
course have a far different lot from the man who married one of the
other
women
differences
of
the
among
poem.
wives.
but
ise
Behind
moira
each
destroys
man's
the
qualitative
bee-wife
is
a
weasel-woman, or dog-woman. or one of the other types of the poem.
23 Admirers of the bee-woman may be upset by her relegation to the
realm of the imaginary and ideal, and with it, the imyossibility of a
happy marriage.
The words which follow ta d'alla phula could all be
governed by the adversative idea of this line, and the bee-woman may
be excluded from the closing statements about women.
That men
share an ise moira is a gnomic generality found in other Greek
writers (e.~7.152).
This is a more optimistic reading, but I
am not sure that this is what the poet means.
SEMONIDES FR. 7:
WIVES AND THEIR HUSBANDS
49
clearly perceived by his more objective neighbors, but misunderstood
by the unfortunate husband. 24
The joke is on
the male audience,
since each of its members is an incompetent judge of the woman whom
he
should
best
know
and
especially on the grooms,
understand,
his
own
wife;
the
joke
is
who even with this poem as warning must
fail to understand their new wives.
If the theory of the occasion of the poem is correct,
becomes successful on its own terms, as entertainment.
directed
at
the
bridegroom(sl,
society of married men.
reliable,
poem.
generally-felt
Full
of
vice
and
celebrates
the work
The poem is
initiation
into
the
Though the background of the poem is the
Greek
the
misogyny,
women
may
intelligent enough to understand them.
men
be,
are
but
the
their
butt
men
of
the
are
not
The portraits of the women
would amuse the symposiasts, as they tried to match the prototypes
with the wives of their fellow-symposiasts,
initiation of the bridegroom.
and as they watched the
Finally, the poem would help unite the
society of married men, making both them and their heroic ancestors
the hapless victims of women. 25
TORONTO
LESLI E SCHEAR
24 The contrast between the perspicacity of the neighbors and the
subjective bl indness of the husbands has only one exception, in the
portrait of the sea-woman.
The stranger who praises the sea-woman
has caught her in a good mood, but the husband has experienced the
whole range of her moodiness.
I n the case of the horse-woman, the
contrast is not between the insider's and outsider's knowledge ot the
woman, but between the deg ree of involvement of the men:
the
stranger only enjoys the kalon theama, but the husband must pay for
what has gone into making her a vision.
For this reason, and not
because the husband realizes her real nature, the horse-woman is a
kakon to the man she marries.
25 This paper originated in a conversation with Liz Warman, whom I
thank for her help and encouragement.
I should also like to thank
Professor Leonard Woodbury, Professor M. B. Wallace, Christopher
Brown, Patrick Sinclair and the anonymous referee of EMC.
51
GENRE AND THEMES IN OVID AMORES 2.15
Amores
II
g ift-poem ll
gift).l
~.
2.15
(i.e.
belongs
to
a
actually
poem
a
genre
or
which
may
supposedly
The genre was a well-established one:
Athen.
15.669d,
5.90,91,301,
12.96,
Theoc.
~.
~.
28,
5.1,
termed
the
a
see Dionysius Chalcus
4.1,2,3
6.227,229,249,250,328,335,345,
Catullus 1 and 65, Martial 3.2,
be
accompanying
(esp.
98ff.).
9.93,239,541,545,778,
6.1;
cf.
also
(mottoes)
Martial 13 and 14, and see Howell on Martial 1.111.
Ovid's version
contains
several
is
always;
the
of its
recipient
standard
is
features:
mentioned,
metre (by far the most common)
as
the gift
almost
is employed;
4.1.3,2.5,3.10Bff.,
9.239.4,778.6,
6.1. 2ff.).
5.90,91,301,
defined,
the
as
elegiac
and the poem contains
compl iments, as such poems very often do (cf.
A.P.
always;
Theoc. ~. 28. 12ff. ,
6.250. 7f. ,335.3,345.5f.,
12.96.lff., Catullus 1.5ff., Martial 3.2.6ff., 5.1.7ft.,
However,
and uncommon with
in Amores 2.15
there is much
respe~enre.
that is original
The type of present is new, 2
and so is the very I ight and frivolous tone of the poem, along with
its sustained wit, ingenuity and (often risque) humour.
time,
too,
combined
we
with
have
the
rarely-found
address
to
the
For the first
3
gift itself
the much more common address to the recipient
(see
1That Amores 2.15 is to be read as a poem intended to accompany the
gift to the girl (in fact or fiction) is a natural assumption in view of
the lengthy address to her and the various examples of flattery and
blandishment (see the third paragraph of my text), and this interpretation gives the poem far more point than any other.
2C f. A.P. 5.301 (Paulus Silentiarius). which is probably to accompany
a pearr:3C f. Theoc. Id. 28, Martial 3.2.
52
P. "'\URGATROYD
1,7,11,21,27) Clnd ir. lines 3 and 27 (with eas and proficiscere) Ovid
4
In addition, this may well be
5
the first gift-poefTl sent to a rlistress.
gives the present a formal send-off.
I Meleager I
Typically, Ovid produces a lengthy version (~. 4.1
alone
among
Catullus
his
65
and
in
fashion
exceptions
discuss,
~.
and
gift-poems),
innovative
predecessors
(see
are
4.3
doing
a
below),
cf.
longer;
so
all
he
of
the
precedent
combines
motifs.
main
in
also
in
an
With
themes,
the
considerable
innovation
metamorphosis,
here
for
example
the
in
which
is
first time
Greek
or
in
his
in
rare
Latin
Latin,
in
of
literature: 6
I
shall
and
and
possible
they
now
are
So at 9ff. there is
the
general
distinguished
two
which
28,
lengthy
enlivening
gift-poem,
treatment
rather
for
only
themselves given fresh and unusual turns here.
~.
Theoc.
Scholasticus I
[Agathias
variety
without
is
lover's
and
Ovid's
by
imagination as he explores the situation in detail,
his
wish
which
is
the
for
appears
longest
invention
and
and there is also
originality in the object into which the lover is changed, 7 the use of
magic to account for and smooth the transition to the metamorphosis
4C f. Theoc.
~.
28.3, Martial 3.2.2.
5A. P. 5.90 and 91 seem to be addressed to
anonymous and their date uncertain.
A.P.
assigned to the Hellenistic period by COw
addressed to a beloved boy, although the
state his love for the addressee.
a mistress, but they are
12.96 (also anonymous) is
and Page HE; it may be
author does not actually
6C f. Page, Carm. Conv. 17, 18 (=PMG 900, 9011. Theoc. Id. 3.12ff.,
A.P.
5.83,84,174,
7.669
(also
cited
in
Apul.
Apol.
10),
lT52, 142,190, 15.35, Anacreontea 22. 5ff., Longus Daph~et Chloe
2.2,4.16.
See also (on an Egyptian love song in which the speaker
wishes to become a seal-ring) M. L. West, Harvard Studies 73 (1968),
132 and (on Pompeian inscriptions with similarities to Am 2.15) A. W.
Van Buren, AJP 80 (1959), 380-382 and O. Hiltbrunner, Gymnasium
77 (1970), 2~299 (I do not find at all convincing Hiltbrunner's
argument that Am. 2.15 is based on these inscriptions).
7Cf. the Egyptian
Carm.
Conv.
18
Anacreontea 22.14.
love song referred to above (note 6), possibly
(where XPlJOLOV
may
refer to jewellery),
and
GENRE AND THEMES IN OVID AMORES 2.15
(9f. ),
19f.)
which
and
the
miraculous
are
more
similar handling.
lover's
possession
powers
in
frequent
his
in
of
elegy
as
Ovid
organs
state.
and
and
(13f.
and
Various other motifs
other
love
poetry
receive
The sending to the beloved of material gifts, and
the lover's use of poems as gifts,
here
human
altered
53
cleverly
may well
combines
the
be given a novel
two
in
a
twist
simultaneous
presentation,8 playing on and contradicting the traditional antithesis
between
poetry
and
materialism,
9 and
showing
for
uncommonly well-disposed attitude to material gifts.
an
elegist
an
Again, the theme
of jewellery lOis treated in a highly refreshing manner thanks to the
notion of the lover himself as a ring,
antics
of
the
ring.
Similarly
with human organs,
the
lover's
envy 11
is
and the
rather
paradoxically and most unusually directed not at another man but at
an object, his own present (7f.) ,12 and the motif of love letters 13 is
made piquant and amusing when the lover himself is employed to seal
them,
and
possibly
letters
that
will
distress
him
at
that
(15ff.).
8For the motif of material gifts see Pichon,
Index Verborum
Amatoriorum s. v. Dare, Donare and the index to my commentary on
Tlbullus I, s~ dives amator and wealth.
For the lover's use of
poems as giTIS d. e.g. Tib. 1.4.61ff., Prop. 4.5.57, Ovid Am.
1.8.57f., 1.10.59f., 3.1.57, A.A. 2.273ff., 3.533.
For possl5Te
predecessors for the simultaneouspresentation see note 5 above.
9See my commentary on Tib. 1.4.61-62.
10 C f.
e.g.
Catullus 69.4,
Tib.
1.6.25, 1.8.39,
4.5.21f., 4.7.9, Ovid Med.Fac. 21f., A.A. 1.432.
Prop
3.6.12,
ll C f. e.g. Sappho 2D, Theoc. Id. 14.34ff., A.P.
Catullus 51.1ff., Hor. ~. 1.13, OVTd Her. 16.22~
5.158,160,190,
12 C f. the lover's envy of mosquitoes at A.P. 5.151 (Meleager), of a
wine-cup at A.P. 5.171 (Meleager), of a 500k at A.P. 12.208 (Strato)
and of sun, earth, breast-band and couch at Anth. Lat 381. 2ff.
13 C f. e.g. Hor. Epod. 12.2, Tib. 2.6.45f., [Tib.! 4.7.7, Prop.
2.20.33,3.23,
OviOAm.
1.11,1.12,
2.2.5f.,19,
2.5.5,
2.19.41,
3.14.31, A.A. 1.383,437ff., 2.395f. ,543, 3.469ff. ,621,630, Rem. Am.
717f.
-
P. ,.,·1URGATROYD
54
Finally, the details of the touching of the girl's breasts (11fL),14 the
observation of her nakedness (23ff.) 15 and the subsequent erection
(25L) 16 are all given a brand new slant in view of Ovid's changed
ci rcumstances.
Furthermore,
element,
Ovid
-
by
quite
considerably
expanding
possibly
the
gi ft-poem a love poem too,
for
first
the
compl imentary
time 17
-
makes
ring on the recipient by means of flattery and blandishment. 18
such it has a twofold appeal.
various scattered
compliments
On an emotional level,
to the girl
(1,5, 7L,
position of amor)
end
as
and
well
important central
then
(28;
section
As
in addition to
17 ,21,22),
carefully affirms his love and faithfulness at the start (2;
very
the
an elegy to reinforce the impact of the
Ovid
note the
for greater impact and emphasis at the
note
on
the
his
placement
of
fidem),
while
the
metamorphosis clearly demonstrates
his susceptibility to the woman's attractions,
and
the extent of his
daydreaming there suggests the extent of his affection and desire for
her.
Amores 2. 15 charms on a more intellectual level too:
its length
implies that he feels that this mistress merits more than just a few
lines, and for her enjoyment and appreciation he expends much wit
and ingenuity, puts on a display of numerous technical skills 19 and
14 C f. e.g. Theoc. Id. 27.49f., A.P. 5.248.6, 258.2ff., 272.1, 294.15,
Ovid Am. 1.4.37, 1-:5.20, 3.6.81~
15 See Pichon op.cit. (note 8),
~'
Nudus.
16 C f. e.g. A.P. 5.104.6, 12.95.5f., 216.1, 232.1f., Catullus 32.10f.,
Hor. Epod.lr.T7ff., 12.19f., Ovid Am. 3.7.67f.
17 For possible precedents see note 5 above.
Even if this amatory
element is not original in the genre, it is certainly handled at greater
length and lNith more elaboration by Ovid than by any other author.
18 For similar poems addressed to the beloved containing flattery and
blandishment cf. e.g. Catullus 5,7,48, Tib. 1.5, 3.3, Prop. 1.2,
2.26A, Ovid Am. 1.3,2.11.
19E . g.
the
tricolon
diminuendo
at
27f.;
chiasmus
(of
and
GENRE AND THEMES IN OVI D AMORES 2.15
55
takes pains to achieve a neat overall structure (a short introduction
[1-8] and conclusion
which
has
evidence:
at 4 and
a
[27f.]
distinct
typical
28,
generally
23ff.;
and
ring-composition
the gift as a token of love in 2 and
elegiac domina,
poet
at
is
in
dare at 2 and 28, munus at 3 and 27, ~ at 3 and 28, ~
send-off of the gift in
her
frame the central metamorphosis section,
climax
and
is
artistic,
not
3 and
27).
In
view
28,
of the
who naturally expects love and
immune
accomplished
to
flattery, 20
and
and
who
sophisticated, 21
the
formal
nature of the
fidelity from
tends
such
a
to
be
poem,
elegant, stylish, engagingly roguish, charming and not too serious or
heavy,
might
successfully,
be
supposed
to
perform
its
primary
besides being amusing and entertaining
function
very
to the general
reader.
UN IVERSITY OF NATAL,
PIETERMARITZBURG
P. MURGATROYD
adjectives} in 3,6,7 and (of forms of ille and convenio) at 4f.;
balanced arrangements of nouns and adjectives in ~ d 20; the
parallelism at 3,5 and 2lf.; the contrast at 7f. (felix and miser), 13f.
and 16f. (siccaque and umida); the repetition at4f., 5,---ar:-and 15
and 18 (~); the juxtaposition in 11 and 23; the "golden I ine" at
17; the internal rhyme in 1,3,4,7,8,15,17,20 and 22; the assonance
and alliteration in 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,14,16,17,18,20,23,25,26 and
27; the weighty spondees at lff. and the light dactyls (especially
expressing speed and excitement) at 9ff. and 21 ff.
20 C f.
e.g. [Tib.] 4.5.1lf., 4.10, Prop. 1.8.40, 2.19.4, 4.8.5lff.,
2.7, 3.1.46, A.A. 1.439f.,468,61lf.,619ff.,663, 2.373ff.
OVid~.
21 C f. e.g. Prop. 1.2.27ff., 1.3.41f., 1.7.11, 2.1.9f., 2.3.17ff.,
2.11.6, 2.13.1lf., Ovid Am 2.4.17, 19ff., 2.11.3lf., A.A. 3.315ff.
57
LATE ANTIQUITY:
A REVIEW ARTICLE
P. Brown, Society and the Holy
University of California Pres~, 1982.
in Late Antiquity.
Berkeley:
Pp. vii + 347. $22.95.
J.
Phi losopher-Bishop.
Berkeley:
Pp. XI + 206. $25.00.
Bregman, Synesius of Cyrene:
University of California Press, 1982.
K. Holum, Theodosian Empresses:
Women and Imperial Dominion in
Late Antiquity.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Pp.
xiv + 258. $25.00.
S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity.
Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981. Pp. XVI + 417. $39.50.
I am no Nestor. but I can remember a time when late antiquity
seemed a remote and forbidding area, something apparently invented
by Bury and my own Professor E. A. Thompson, who seemed between
them to have written all of the relevant books and articles, at any
rate in English.
This situation was owed not least to the fact that
the late Roman centuries are also the opening of Byzantine history, a
period only now recovering from the damage done to it by the scorn
and contempt of Montesquieu,
Voltaire,
Hegel, Gibbon, and
(it must
be added) the apologetic tone that informs the writing of some of the
best
modern
scholars
intellectual history.
its
literature
and
The end product of all this is,
especially
with
regard
to
of course,
the
sole and pejorative sense of the adjective "Byzantine" as used in the
mass/crass media.
Things were never quite so bad with late Rome herself.
for
obvious
instance,
may
proper in a single chapter,
what
good.
337.
happened
in
the
have
skated
through
Gibbon,
Byzantine
history
but he gave the bulk of his attention to
West.
Modern
attitudes
are
not
always
so
The average textbook of Roman history will usually go down to
With varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Still all too typical is the
BARRY BALDWI
58
experience of C.
T.
H.
R.
Ehrhardt,
~~
whose
suitably
wry
account
deserves to be quoted (it is equally significant that a classical journal
in the last decade or so thought it deserved to be published):
liAs
ground,
a
lecturer,
either
expatiating
on
I
staying
the
had
always
safely
constitutional
however, I was cornered:
managed
among
the
to
keep
Greeks
off unknown
or,
at
furthest,
arrangements of Augustus.
Now,
I had to give a course on Roman imperial
history to the death of Marcus Aurelius, and my ignorance was to be
exposed. 111
Just as revealing is the decision of the Oxford Latin Dictionary
not to stray beyond the end of the second century A. D.,
thereby
excluding Ammianus, the last important historian and stylist of Latin
literature,
Claudian his counterpart in poetry,
Latin of the De Rebus Bellicis,
the sometimes exotic
one of whose words
(delectabilitas)
eluded the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, and the Historia Augusta, late
antiquity's most enigmatic and controversial literary document.
But things have looked up enormously.
The late Roman period
is now widely recognised for what it was, one of the most momentous
times of change in all history.
Christianity. which is at the heart of
all the books here under review. was imposed by Constantine in what
Bury called
" per haps the most audacious act ever committed by an
autocrat in disregard of the vast majority of his subjects". 2
True or
false (there are those of us who would compare Lenin's imposition of
his version
same again.
of communism on
the
Russians),
nothing
would
be the
Not that every aspect of Roman life changed overnight.
And some would argue that Julian, had he lived longer, might have
stopped the clock if not actually pushed it back.
replacement
by
the
Christian
1C . T . H . R . Ehrhardt,
World 63 (1970) 222-5.
Jovian,
and
the
But his prompt
failure
of any more
"What should one do about Dacia?",
The quotation is from page 222.
2J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, I, 366.
Classical
LATE ANTIQUITY
Julians
to
appear
(the
problematic
and
59
abortive
case
of Eugenius
apart) are the most telling comments.
In secular terms,
decline,
fall,
dismembered,
being
whether we want to call
pushed,
or
the consequence
whatever,
being
the
the process one of
western
a significant
empire
redrawing
was
of the
map of Europe and the course of mediaeval history set in motion.
In
the East there came the Byzantines, Greek speakers who suggestively
thought of themselves
as
the
whatever one thinks of it,
new
lasted
Romans,
and
whose
civi I isation,
from almost a century before the
Gothic capture of old Rome in 410 to within 50 years of the coming of
Columbus to the Americas.
This simple chronological fact should have
made it a priori unlikely (despite Voltaire, Gibbon and company) that
nothing of any interest happened.
Yet the sketch of the history of
Byzantine scholarship provided in the first chapter of Ostrogorsky's
classic
History of the
Byzantine
State
discloses
how
relatively
and
reprehensibly recent that story is.
Perhaps the most cogent indication of how things have improved
is that the period now attracts the attention and energies of some of
the greatest figures in modern classical scholarship.
Especially in the
Engl ish-speaking
Bury
world.
For
some
generations,
and
then
Thompson looked relatively lonely amidst the European giants such as
Seeck,
Stein
and
their
pupils.
Not
to
mention
the
Russian
(for
obvious reasons, good and bad) tradition of scholarship in the field.
But now in our own lifetime we benefit from the interest and writings
of
(for
easy
longer) A.
on
the
and
quick
instance
-
the
I ist could
have been
a
lot
H. M. Jones (The Later Roman Empire), Syme (his books
Historia
Augusta
and
ancillary
papers),
Momigliano
(as
characteristically energetic and erudite here as in all other periods),
Robert Browning (many studies including a biography of Julian which
I,
unl ike some
Averil
and
reviewers,
Alan
Cameron
would call
the best in a crowded
field),
(a host of well-known and justly admired
books and articles), and Peter Brown.
For it is no disrespect to the others to say that of the quartet
under
review
Brown
is
the
most
celebrated
impact was first felt with a biography of St.
and
influential.
Augustine (1967)
His
that
BARRY BALDWIN
60
opened mcJnY eyes to the possibility, soon to be established by Brown
as a certainty,
that the people of late antiquity were guided, often
ruled, by recognisable passions and emotions.
I myself can say this
with glad sincerity as one who still finds Augustine an unattractive
figure in human terms.
A collection of cognate papers,
dottin9 and crossing many historical
definitively
appeared
in 1972
under the title Religion and Society in the Age of Augustine.
A year
before
that
volume,
had
emerged
a
I's and T's,
deceptively
small
and
primer-looking
The World of Late Antiquity, as much a part of a scholar's
library as of a required textbook shelf in a campus bookstore.
More
recently, Brown has brought out The Making of Late Antiquity (1978)
and The Cult of the Saint (1981):
both slim, both shining examples
of multum in parvo.
And now the present volume.
readers
Moore,
should
Times
Markus in
consult the
Higher Education
the Times
pertinent is E.
Empire
A.D.
D.
In addition to my own remarks,
valuable and
detailed
Supplement
reviews of R.
3017/82,
Literary Supplement of that
Hunt,
same time.
A.
Also
Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman
(Oxford,
312-460
I.
and of R.
1982),
published
after
cf.
Brown;
Garth Fowden's detailed review in TLS 1/10/82.
The book is formally divided into two sections.
The first, called
"Approaches'l, offers two essays on Gibbon, an evaluation of Pirenne
on Mohammed and Charlemagne, and an I naugural Lecture on I'etat de
la question,
as protreptic as all
such exercises have to be,
good deal more successful than most.
but a
Since one of the most legitimate
functions of collecting a scholar's papers and pieces within expensive
hardbacked
hinder
covers,
young
items not
in
scholars
readily
an
age
when
from getting
available
in
economic
into print,
considerations
is
the
often
inclusion of
smaller and younger institutions,
the
presence of this lecture (given at Royal Holloway College in 1977) is
welcome.
As is the Stenton Lecture for 1976, on Relics and Social
Status
the Age of Gregory of Tours,
in
in the second and
longer
section entitled "S oc iety and the Holy".
Here
we
are
treated
to
various
good
things,
for
instance
a
critique of Browning's aforementioned book on Julian, even though at
LATE ANTIQUITY
times
I
personally
find
it too severe;
61
and one of his most contro-
versial articles, that on Iconoclasm and its causes. 3
But the jewel of
the collection must be "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late
Antiquity, ,,4
most
a
recently
Antiquity,,5
study
Garth
and
that
has
spawned
Fowden's
which
now
has
many
imitations,
"The
Pagan
Holy
the
added
advantage
including
Man
in
of
Late
being
denounced by G. de Ste. Croix for being "marred by blindness to the
realities
of the
Class
Struggle
in
the
later
Roman
Empire'l. 6
The
pillar saints and their (in Gibbon's matchless phrase) aerial penance
were an unlovely phenomenon, albeit their inspiration of Luis Bunel's
film St. Simeon of the Red Desert makes me glad they existed!
But
Brown's relentless combing of the hagiographical sources (he can even
establish the number of consecutive pushups performed by one holy
fool - 1244, and without legwarmers!) produces a remarkably rational
account of the irrational.
There are not many specific targets at which to take aim.
I find
B's style sometimes woolly (e.g. "The category of popular religion is,
by definition, timeless and faceless, because it exhibits modes of
thinking that are unintelligible except in terms of failure to be something else," 12), sometimes overripe (e. g. 'Ithe shimmering presence
of a bodiless power, whose function identified it with the vast and
tranquil hierarchy of the universe," 14).
Seemingly incompatible
conclusions are drawn from the effects of youthful loneliness upon
Julian (21, 91), although this sort of inconsistency is inevitable in a
collection of papers encompassing a good quinquennium, and it is a
poor scholar who cannot change his mind.
B's retention of faith in
the "Letters" of Nilus (147, n. 231) is hard to follow after Alan
Cameron's demolition job in GRBS 17 (1976).
The index of names is
not always reliable; for instance, the Henry James quotation is on
202, not 201; it actually occurs first on 138, but this appearance is
not indexed.
3English Historical Review 88 (1973) 1-34.
4Journal of Roman Studies 61
(1971) 80-101.
5Journal of Hellenic Studies 102 (1982) 33-59.
6G . de Ste. Croix, The
(London, 1981), 447.
Class
Struggle
in
the
Ancient
Greek
World
BARRY BALDWIN
62
But
these
thinking
of
are
their
relative
scholarly
trivia.
Few
colleagues
scholars
(or,
all
really
too
alter
often,
the
rivals).
Peter Brown is one of the elite who has.
One only has to observe
the
the
plethora
make up S.
of allusions
to
his
work
by
various
scholars who
Haeckel (ed.J, The Byzantine Saint (Birmingham,
1981).
Whatever the disagreements over detail, these Brown studies are, and
will continue to be,
quity.
central
to all other considerations of late anti-
In his memorable book on Tertullian, T. D. Barnes expressed
the hope that he could do for a church father what others had done
for
pagan
sophists--an
ambition
the process is reversed:
tional
he
admirably
realised.
Nowadays,
what Brown has done is to write the emo-
history of late Rome,
something
we now need for the earlier
periods.
If Bregman's book is perhaps the least exciting of the quartet,
that is more the fault of his subject than himself.
son once said of Gray,
For as Dr. John-
Synesius is not only dull in himself but the
cause of dullness in others,
though he could hit off the occasional
good line, as when he likened the lifestyle of the emperor Arcadius to
that of a mollusc.
Synesius
is only
interesting as a symbol of the
transformation of the classical heritage that gives the series begun by
these four books its title.
But if Bregman overvalues his subject,
that is a sin of which we are all probably guilty.
His detailed asses-
sment of the life and "thought" of this hellenising christian (or do I
mean christianising hellene?) sets out the salient information, and the
generous
provision
of extensive
English
translations
of
the
Greek
makes that information accessible to all types of reader.
Some details.
4, n. 6:
on the identification of characters in
the De Providentia, d. Jones, JRS 54 (1964), 79;
17 f:
B's
discussion of Synesius' career a"ild dates was apparently written
before the second volume of PLRE came out, albeit that event
predates B's publication date by two years;
18: on pagan survivals
in the teeth of imperial legislation, d. A. Frantz, DOP 19 (1965);
20, n. 14:
on Hypatia, see J. Rist, Phoenix 19 (1%5);
41:
by
now (d. 3, 18) Synesius has been three times described as a Xenophontine man of hunting and letters ~
44:
Eunapius could have
been brought into the discussion of teachers, students, and respective religious affiliations, since that ardent pagan had masters of both
persuasions;
50 f:
B's account of Synesius at Constantinople and
the complex history of that period unaccountably ignores Alan
LATE ANTIQU ITY
63
Cameron's Claud ian , a mine of relevant information;
54, n
3:
Menander Rhetor is now available with translation and commentary in
the edition of D. A. Russell f; N.G. Wilson (Oxford, 1980);
56, n.
48:
B's generalised scorn of fourth-century conservatism in economic
matters ought to be tempered by the revolutionary ideas of such as
the anonymous De Rebus Bellicis--even if they were not acted upon,
the fact of their existence is significant;
72:
on "Perses" and the
Hand of God, see both Holum and MacCormack below, also R. C.
Blockley, The Fra mentary Classicisin
Historians of the Later Roman
Empire (Liverpoo, 1981 ,161;
125:
the sentence on
el enism and
paganism could mislead the unwary;
127:
B on Macrobius neglects
Alan Cameron's change of date for him in JRS 56 (1966);
132, n. 9:
for Jerome and Christian criticism of monKs, cf. D. Wiesen, St.
Jerome as a Satirist;
138 f:
Lucian is oddly missing from B'S
account of the Second Sophistic.
Kenneth Holum's beautifully written book
(beautifully produced,
too, apart from a notable reluctance to put accents on French words,
55,
n.
67,
73,
and passim,
and one glorious misprint--"wontonly",
18--that will delight lovers of Chinese food)
should
delight,
achieve.
feminists
at
what
Byzantine
The princesses he deals with
(notably one of the ancient women
Dinner
Party),
uniquely)
pagan
had
after
her
women
were
able
to
set the stage for Theodora
included
individuals
in Judy Chicago's The
such
as
I rene
who
(not
ruled in her own name--something that never happened in
Rome.
her
and
11 ,
would surprise, and
own
I rene was an
son
iron lady in more than one sense (she
blinded),
and
was
less
congenial
than
Margaret
Thatcher, the modern holder of that title, but the point is not thereby affected.
Where the late Stewart Irwin Oost (Holum1s teacher) had led with
his Galla
Placidia Augusta
(Chicago,
1968),
Holum both
follows and
establishes new directions of his own.
The title implies a biogrrlphical
approach,
nothing
and
to
my
taste
there
is
wrong
with
that;
but
those who agree with Syme that this genre is "cheap and easy" will
be consoled to find that the broader issues of foreign affairs, statesmanship
(Holum
l'statespersonship" ~),
perhaps,
to
say
to
and
his
in this last category,
about
John
eternal
religion
Chrysostom
credit
does
not
are given their due.
say
Too much,
since a good deal of what Holum has
(73
Controversy was largely anticipated
f.,
in T.
147
E.
f.)
or
the
Gregory,
Nestorian
Vox
Porul i:
64
BARRY BALDWI N
Violence
and
Popular
Involvement
in
the
Religious
Controversies of
the Fifth Century A.D. (Columbus, 1979), a work not cited by Holum
who had no doubt completed his own before it appea red.
H is readers
will also need a copy of Alan Cameron's "The empress and the poet:
paganism and politics at the court of Theodosius 11,11 YCS 27 (1982),
217-90, since parts of Holum's book constitute a friendly polemic with
it.
At the risk of pallid neutrality, I can only say that I sometimes
agree with one,
sometimes the other,
over points of interpretation.
In one matter. however, that of the poetry and theological IIthought"
of Cyrus of Panopolis (193, n. 79),
I had reached a conclusion that
supports Holum. 7
A t centre stage for much of the time are Ael ia Eudoxia, empress
of Arcadius;
her daughter Aelia
Pulcheria,
a rancid virgin
(of her
own choice) who ruled the imperial roost for much of the long reign
of Theodosius
II;
and Ael ia Eudocia,
nee A thenais,
history encapsulates the conflicts between
lenism,
and
who
to my
taste
is
the most
whose personal
pagan and christian
interesting
of them
helall.
Apart from Holum and Cameron, who from their respective viewpoints
give
her
Athenais:
Paris,
full
measure,
readers
might
sometimes
enjoy
1976), an opuscule not mentioned by Holum.
shows how Christianity at various
Byzantine
J.
Imperatrice de Byzance (French version by M.
shape of things
to
intellectual
come,
and
Just as Brown
levels
Bregman
Tsatsos,
Colombos,
prefigures
the
the co-existence
within one man of the old hellenism and the new, so Holum shows how
these
women,
Pulcheria
above all,
transformed
the basileia
into its
future mould.
A few points.
1:
H gives no reason for clinging to 434 as the
date of Honoria's affair with Eugenius as opposed to the 449 of Bury
(LRE2 1. 289, n. 2), followed by PLRE;
11:
I do not see why H
carTS the verse inscription to TheoaosTus "remarkable ll , which it is
not--cf. parallels in the Anthology with Cameron's discussions in his
Porphyrius the Charioteer--especially as H himself goes on to call its
imagery "traditional" in the very same sentence;
30, n. 86: Elagabalus' mother is better called Soaemias, as witness Magie's note on
7Vig . Christ. 36 (1982) 169-172.
LATE ANTIQU ITY
65
~.
2. 1 in his Loeb edition of the HA. along with ibid. 12. 3-4
where the story changes to the grandmOther Maesa;
5~ see above
and below for Perses and the Hand of God;
92:
the i solation of
Theodosius II was no more "mysterious" than that of Arcadius, or
indeed many another late emperor;
100:
His date of 423 for
Eunapius, fr. 87, based on Paschoud, Cinq Etudes sur Zosime (1975),
173-5, is spuriously precise.
For the complex issue of Eunapian
literary chronology, cf. Blockley, op. cit., 5 f, also Barnes, The
Sources of the Historia Augusta (19~4-7;
116: His contention
that Theodosius would not have concerned himself with Leontius and
the chair of rhetoric at Athens does not square with that emperorls
notorious concern with scholarship and piety;
140:
H down plays
quite seriously the role of women in the early church, though the
~~ii1:~t~er~~yp~~~eni~~ia~n~e~f~srceu~~~~8~:~4'-/' aCc;osrt~n~~~~~II:~~:;Ji~~
His bibliography;
191, n. 74: H says that the office of praepositus
is not attested for Chrysaphius but that he probably held it anyway.
In point of fact, it is attested in both Greek (Suda P 898, from
Malalas) and Latin (Prosper Tiro and Victor Tunnensis) sources, but
is not believed in by, e.g., PLRE;
207:
also on Chrysaphius, H
accepts the late evidence of Theophanes, Zonaras, and the I ike for
the eunuch's exiling by Theodosius, a claim regarded by PLRE as
" certainly false"--H might be right on this and other controversies
signalled above, but the view presented tends to be misleadingly
clear.
Sabine MacCormackls
book
is
by
far
the biggest of the
four,
perhaps suitably for a work based on the Panegyrici Latini.
Other
8
reviewers, both sympathetic and hostile, 9 have complained about her
tendency
to
write
in
the
abominable
style
of
her
subjects,
with
sentences up to nine lines long and some opacity of meaning; but this
was perhaps an inevitable contagion.
these same critics,
point.
The
text
Her book is deemed too long by
a Callimachean attitude that is justified up to a
itself
(1-175)
might
have
benefited
from
a
less
indulgent sub-editor, and there are times when one feels MacCormack
had
already
10
articles.
made her point
Since
some
far
of their
more
topics
economically
overlap,
I
in
feel
two excellent
justified
in
noting the same reaction in the case of Fergus Millar, when comparing
8T . E. Gregory, American Historical Review 87 (1982) 1373-4.
9 J. Trilling, Times Literary Supplement, 13 Aug. 1982.
10" Roma,
Constantinopolis,
the
Emperor,
and
his
Genius",
Classical
BARRY BALDWIN
66
the precIsion of his paper IlEmperors at Work
nagian Emperor in the
Roman World
(1977).
ll11
with the brobding-
However,
the
text
is
followed by notes that occupy 101 pages, along with a further 21 of
bibliography.
Ordinarily, this would be an offputting example of the
foot and note disease, but what MacCormack has done, quite rightly
as I think, is to supply a rich repertoire of texts, often from out of
the way authors in editions not always easily come by.
This amounts
to a sourcebook in itself, and a very valuable one.
MacCormack's subject is the threefold one of imperial accession,
adventus, and consecratio, and how these were described in both art
and literature.
In a word, tradition.
Thanks to the verbal excesses
of the Latin panegyricists, the subject can seem superficially boring,
especially
breakaway
perhaps
from
the
in
the
Old.
New
World
But
it may
that
be
was
partly
better
to
founded
adapt
one
on
of
Kingsley Amis' wisest epigrams and observe that other people's traditions are endlessly odd.
What MacCormack has attempted to show is
(in her own words of epilogue, 275) that the ideas and their expression with which she deals lead directly from the pagan and classical
to the Christian and mediaeval, both in the west and the east.
inevitable disagreements over detail apart,
Some
it seems to me that Mac-
Cormack has produced a compelling and convincing account.
Details.
Trilling in his TLS review criticises M frequently for
her choice and treatment of works of art.
I am no art historian,
hence will merely alert readers to this issue; the item he picks out
from 38 (+ plate 47) certainly looks odd even to my untrained eye.
1:
M begins beautifully with a quotation from St. Augustine
expressing his qualms over the polite and public lies expected of a
professor eulogising those in authority--a cynic might extend the
point to our own times!
I t should certainly be kept in mind when
assessing Eunapius, J ul ian, Dioscorus of Aphrodito, and the other
ancients cited by M throughout the book.
I n this opening section
along with concomitant notes and bibliography, M had no doubt
finished her work before the appearance of a series of good papers
by C. E. V. Nixon in Antichthon 14 (1980 L Phoenh 35 (1981 Land
~UnatlrqtuelrtlyY", 25
(1975)
131-150;
"Change
Hjstoria 21 (1972) 721-732.
11Journal of Roman Studies 57 (1967) 9-19.
and
Continuity
in
Late
67
LATE ANTIQUITY
T APhA 111 (1981) which her readers should consult;
4 + n. 12: M
must have finished before the Russell-Wilson edition of Menander came
out;
9 + n. 23:
M neglects to mention that Stertz's article on the
Eis basi lea is in fact an attack on C. P. Jones' ascription of it (J RS
~ to Aelius Aristides--Jones replied to Stertz in CQ~
(1981);
11:
on the recurring matter of Perses and the Hand of
God, note that Blockley, op. cit., 161, attaches the incident to old
Rome, whereas M, also Holum 51, puts it in Constantinople;
31 (cf.
43):
see Trilling for criticism of M's handling of the artistic
evidence;
42:
Trajan (cf. Phi lostratus, VS 488) is an earl ier
example of an emperor riding in golden chariots;
59 + n. 226:
the
image of an emperor's trampling foot is also common in Byzantine
epigrams of the Anthology;
63:
Sidonius' single venisti might
consciously echo Jul ius Caesar's famous veni, vidi, vic:r;-68 + n.
271:
Heitsch's edition came out in 1963, not 1961: and why not give
the author's name for the panegyric in question, the hapless
Dioscorus of Aphrodito.
M's discussion (she is not alone in this)
underrates the pathos of a situation whereby some parts of the empire
never saw any more of their ruler than his images;
77 + n. 304: M
overlooks the discussion of Justinian's Augustaeum statue by Downey
in the 7th vol. of Dewing's Loeb of Procopius;
79:
Liutprand was
certainly a hostile witness, but not "uncomprehending"--he belittles in
the spirit of one who had come determined not to be impressed;
103:
Nero was surely not as concerned to claimdivinity as M says.
He was openly contemptuous of all cults, and significantly described
his Golden House as fit for a man to live in (Suetonius, N 31, 56);
118:
in the light of the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca or Severus'
deification of Commodus, M perhaps exaggerates the degree to which
Romans had
taken
consecratio
seriously;
150:
the
sentence
beginning liAs a result~ no grammatical sense;
162 + n. 7:
the reference to Shahid on Heracl ius and imperial terminology can now
be updated to include his recent paper in DOP 34/5 (1980/81);
199:
sidus novus is presumably a misprint, asopressisset, 295, n. 165;
234 + n. 340:
on royal long hair, cf. Ave~n, Revue Beige
48 (1965);
243:
M says the acclamations for Marcian are not
reported, an error redeemed on 245 where, however, thei r pol itical
side (Reign like Marcian! Cast Out the Informers! Restore the Army!)
is neglected;
249:
Calinius is an error for Calinicus;
300:
on
the Circus Dialogue, cf. Alan Cameron, Circus Factions (1978), 318 f.
for translation and commentary, also P. Karlin-Hayter, Byzantion 43
(1973), and my own paper in Rev. Et. Byz. 39 (1981).
--These books are all expensive, capriciously so in that B regman's
costs more than Brown's, albeit almost half its size!
of the modern publ ishing world.
That is the way
But we do have the powerful
solations that they are handsomely produced, a joy to hand and eye,
and in content well worth the bank loan needed to afford them.
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
BARRY BALDWIN
6B
THE WICKED WIFE OF ISCHOMACHOS
We all know the wife of Ischomachos, that paradigm of the "dear
little wifey":
"Ah, Ischomachos,1I said I [Socrates] ... " did you
yourself train your wife to be of the right sort?"
... "She earnestly promised before heaven [said
Ischomachos] to behave as she ought to do; and it
was easy to see that she would not neglect the
lessons I taught her.
. .. I considered who was the
best partner of home and children that we could get.
My choice fell on you [Mrs. Ischomachos]. ... The
pleasantest experience of all is to prove yourself
better than I am and ... to feel confident that with
advancing years, the better partner you prove to me
and the better housewife to our children, the greater
will be the honour paid to you in our home.
. .. I am
prepared to give you [Socrates] other examples of
high-mindedness on her part, when a word from me was
enough to secure her instant obedience. II "Tell me
what they are, II I [Socrates] cried; "for if Zeuxis
showed me a fair woman1s portrait painted by his own
hand, it would not give me half the pleasure I derive
from the contemplation of a living woman's virtues."
(Xen. Oikon. 7.4,8,11,42; 10.1)
A rather different picture is given by Andokides:
Kallias married a daughter of Ischomachos; but he had
not been living with her a year before he made her
mother his mistress. Was ever man so utterly without
shame? He was the priest of the Mother and the
Daughter; yet he lived with mother and daughter and kept
them both in his house together.
. ., The daughter of
I schomachos thought death better than an existence
where such things went on before her very eyes. She
tried to hang hersel f ... then she ran away from home;
the mother drove out the daughter. Finally Kallias
grew tired of the mother as well, and drove her out in
her turn. She then said she was pregnant by him; but
when she gave birth to a son, Kallias denied that the
F. D. HARVEY
69
child was his.
. .. Now some time afterwards, gentlemen,
he fell in love with the abandoned old hag once more
and welcomed her back into his house, while he presented
the boy to the Kerykes.
. .. Kall ias took hold of the
altar and swore that the boy was his legitimate son
by Chrysilla.
(Andok. de Myst. 124-7) 1
These ladies are one and the same.
This fact will be familiar to
readers of MacDowell IS commentary on Andokides On the Mysteries and
of
Davies1s
appear
to
exists).
on
in
the Greek
but fail
Both authors,
does
not
prosopographical
reached
work, 2
One
the
news
(if such
does
a
not
creature
world,
who
regularly
incidentally,
mention
naturally
as
I schomachos,
mention
Ischomachos l
3
to make the connection with Chrysilla in Andokides.
reliable
the
conform to Athenian practice:
woman
4
Andokides does name the woman he vilifies.
sources
but
the average classicist
In particular, it seems to have escaped the notice of writers
women
wife,
great
have
name
wonders
of
just
historical
Chrysi lIa,
freed
the
what
the
eulogizes,
happened.
witnesses,
from
he
then
If we
after
the
Xenophon
whereas
take
both
death
of
repressive attitudes of her
1The translations are taken from the Loeb series (E. C. Marchant and
K. J. Maidment respectively), with a few trivial adjustments.
For
lithe abandoned old hag" MacDowell (n.2 below) 153 suggests lithe old
battleaxe" - just as vivid, but less close to the Greek.
2D . M. MacDowell, Andokides On the Mysteries (Oxford, 1962) 151-2,
207 (Appendix L), tentatively; J. K. DaVies, Athenian Propertied
Families (Oxford, 1971) 264-8 (no. 7826, XI-XIV), firmly, with a
~of documentation.
J. K. Anderson, Xenophon (London, 1974),
174 n.1, can hardly bring himself to believe-i-t.-3E . g . W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (London, 1968),
15"1"=3, 167-9; Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and
Slaves (London, 1975), 72-3.
4D . Schaps, CQ n.s. 27 (1977) 323-30; J. P. Gould, JHS 100 (1980)
45; J. Henderson, YCS 26 (1980) 187-8; A. Sommerstei~Quaderni di
Storia 11 (1980) 391--=418; J. Bremmer, AJP 102 (1981) 425-6.
70
THE WICKED WIFE OF ISCHOMACHOS
late paternalistic, pompous and priggish husband, simply ran wild and
made whoopee.
That would be understandable.
There is, however, another explanation, which I find preferable.
Andokides delivered his speech in 399;
" pu blished".
we do not know when it was
The dating of the majority of Xenophon's works is far
from certain, 5 and the Oikonomikos is no exception;
appeared later than Andokides On the Mysteries.
is doing
his best
to
clear
the
name and
but it certainly
Perhaps Xenophon
reassert
the
virtue
of a
woman he had known and respected. 6
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
F. D. HARVEY
5The author of the article on Xenophon in the OCD2 is to be
censured for implying otherwise; d. Anderson (n.2 above), 174-5.
6Contra, Anderson 174 n. 1, who thinks that Xenophon never knew
the eventual consequences of Chrysilla's second marriage.
71
CALLISTHENES AND BABYLON IAN ASTRONOMY:
A NOTE ON FGrH 1ST 124 T3
Commenting
on
Aristotle's
remark
In
Metaphysics
1074a14
that
some astronomical problems had to be left for future generations, the
sixth-century neoplatonist Simplicius observed that this was IIbecause
the observations sent from Babylon by Callisthenes, as Aristotle had
required of him, had not yet reached Greece,
(observations) which,
as Porphyry reports, had been preserved for 31,000 years until the
times
of
Alexander
the
Macedonian ll .
A
long-standing
and,
unfortunately, inconclusive controversy exists about the historicity of
this remarkable statement, since plausible arguments can be made for
or against it.
I n its favor are two points, namely that, according to
H ipparchus, 1 Callippus used Babylonian data in preparing his revision
of the Metonic cycle which was published in 329; and that Callisthenes
who was in Babylon in 331
Against
it are
the
lateness
is the obvious source for this new data.
of our
sources
-
not itself a weighty
consideration when they are of the quality of Porphyry and Simpl icius
-
and,
more
important,
the
historically
absurd
statement
that
Babylonian astronomical observations had been preserved for a period
2
of 31,000 years.
Curiously ignored in the discussion to date,
l A . Rome (ed.), Commentaire de Pappus et de Theon d'Alexandrie
sur l'Almageste (Vatican, 1931-1943), 3.1, 822-823.
Ct. J. K.
Fotheringham, liThe I ndebtedness of G reek to Chaldaean Astronomyll,
The Observatory 51 (1928) 314; and S. Schiffer, "Aristote a Athenes
et Call isthene a Babylone," REA 38 (1936) 273-276.
2The essential points were mode by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, An
Historical Survey of the Astl'Onomy of the Ancients (London, 186:[f;"
286-287.
72-
S. M. BURSTEIN
however,
has been one question:
why did Porphyry make such a
seemingly silly statement in the first place?
Perhaps,
because
Babylonian
mathematical
astronomy
primarily a development of the last millennium B.C., the question has
hardly seemed worth answering.
on the passage,
years
of
A.
B.
observations
Thus, the most recent commentator
Bosworth,3 dismisses the purported 31,000
as
probably
"an
unintelligent
guess"
by
Porphyry 11based on Aristotle1s vague phrase ek pleiston eton"; 4 and
"a
good
example
of how
known
spurious biographical data".
facts
were
This, however,
combined
to
produce
is little more than an
evasion of the problem.
Even more important, it ignores the fact that
it
scholars who are disturbed
is
not only
figures.
modern
by
Porphyry's
The wording of Simpl icius' text indicates that he also was
puzzled by them and cited Porphyry for that reason.
His concern
was different, however, as is revealed by his comment on De Caelo
nOb11,
where he notes that he had heard
(ekousa ego)
that the
Egyptians had preserved observations for not less than 630,000 and
the Babylonians for 1,440,000 years - truly astronomical dates which,
moreover, are not isolated.
470,000
years
of
Cicero (De divinatione 1.19.36) refers to
observations,
astrologer Epigenes (Pliny,
Diodorus
(2.31.9)
473,000,
the
~. 7.193) 720,000, Hipparchus S 270,000
and the Babylonian priest Berossus (FGrHist 680 F 16) 490,000.
Far
from being inflated, Porphyry1s date actually represented a drastic
downward revision of the date of the origin of Babylonian astronomy.
But why?
Porphyry1s
revisionism
is,
at
first
glance,
all
the
more
3"Aristotle and Callisthenes", Historia 19 (1971) 411.
4The reference is to Aristotle, De Caelo 292a8-9.
Sproclus, Commentaire sur Ie Timee, trans. A. J. Festugiere, vol. 1
(Paris, 1966) 100, p. 143, citing ra-mblichus who criticized Hipparchus
for underestimating the age of Babylonian astronomy.
CALLISTHENES AND BABYLONIAN ASTRONOMY
73
surprising because, as the reference to Berossus indicates,6 the high
dates were based on genuine Babylonian tradition.
In fact, however,
in so doing he was following a well-documented tendency among
Hellenistic and
antiquity
there
later chronographers
advanced
is
a
by
difficulty.
the
various
If the
late
to reject the claims of extreme
7
Near Eastern peoples.
Still,
31,000
years
attested
by
the
Greek
manuscripts of Simplicius is too low for the traditional dating of the
origin of Babylonian astronomy, it is far too high for the revisionist
tradition just mentioned, since its adherents simply replaced the high
8
Babylonian dates with the much lower ones provided by Ctesias.
Fortunately,
Simplicius'
Moerbeke
years.
a
text
in
solution
is
available.
is actually the
1271
which
reads
Latin
at
this
Paleographically the corruption
emendation
provides an
interesting
The
earliest
witness
to
translation made by William of
point
not
31,000
but
1,903
is easy, 9 and accepting
result.
Certainty
is
the
impossible,
but if Porphyry's "times of Alexander the Macedonian" were calculated
from the death of Alexander in 324/323,10 then counting back 1,903
6C f. William W. Hallo, liOn the Antiquity of Sumerian Literature",
JAOS, 83 (1963) 176 for the Babylonian scholarly practice of ascribing
antiquity
to
various
texts
including
those
dealing
with
astronomy.
high
7For an example of this polemic see Diodorus 1.26.
8Robert Drews, "Assyria in Classical Universal Histories", Historia 14
(1965) 135-137; and Ben Zion Wacholder, Eupolemus:
A ~ of
Judaeo-Greek Literature (Cincinnati, 1974), 113-114.
9 1t involves mistaking A~I = 1,903 for A~11 = 31,000; for details d. C.
F. Lehman, Zwei Hauptprobleme der altorientalischen Chronologie und
ihre L6sung (Leipzig, 1898], 109-110.
10 lt should be noted that the 470,000 years of Diodorus 2.31.9 are
counted from Alexander's invasion of Asia in 334, but lithe times of
Alexander the Macedonian" suggests that Porphyry was thinking of
his reign as a whole.
Godefroy Goosens' suggestion ("L'H istoire
d'Assyrie de Ctesias,1I
L'Antiquite classique 9 [1940J
36)
that
Porphyry was counting from Callisthenes' stay in Babylon in 331 is
unlikely.
74
S. M. BURSTEIN
years brings one to 2227/2226, Ctesias 1 date for the
11
Babylon.
The
impl ications of this
finding,
if
Porphyry's chronographic views are clear.
foundation of
correct,
for
When Babylonian tradition
claimed that the practice of astronomical observation dated from the
foundation of Babylon itself, he was prepared to agree provided that
the
reference
was
to
foundation of the city
what
was,
documented
in
by
his
opinion,
the Greek
the
historical
historian
Ctesias.
Equally clearly, Porphyry's views as a chronographer on the antiquity
of
Babylonian
Callisthenes '
astronomy
possible
have
role
no
in
relevance
the
to
the
transmission
of
problem
astronomical data to Greece, a problem which must be solved,
can
be
solved,
dismissed
with
on
a
the
basis
reference
of
to
the
available
the
apparent
of
Babylonian
evidence
if it
and
absurdity
not
of
a
chronographic statement treated in isolation from the ancient scholarly
debate in which it arose.
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY,
LOS ANGELES
"Goosens
(~
n. '0). 35-36.
STANLEY M. BURSTEIN
75
BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS
DAVID A. CAMPBELL.
The Golden Lyre:
Lyric Poets.
London:
Duckworth, 1983.
£28.00.
ISBN 0-7156-1563-7.
Students
Campbell
for
of
Greek
his
text
Lyric
and
owe
a
considerable
commentary,
standard work for the past fifteen years.
his
good
sense
and
clarity
in
Greek
views and
to
David
Poetry,
a
with
the
fragmentary
and
The Golden Lyre shows many of
the dependable strengths of the earlier anthology,
and sensational
debt
Lyric
He is widely respected for
dealing
elusive poems of the Archaic Age.
The Themes of the Greek
Pp. VIII + 312.
Cloth,
setting
before the
avoiding
radical
reader a considerable
variety of material in a sober and informative manner.
There is, in fact, no other book in English that covers so wide
a range.
C. M. Bowra1s Greek Lyric Poetry (2nd. ed. Oxford, 1961)
deals with only the melic poets, leaving elegy and iambus aside.
M.
Kirkwood's
Early
Greek
Monody
ignores,
as the title suggests,
English
of
H.
Griechentums
Frankel's
(2nd
ed.
P h ~ [Oxford,
entire
field,
but
all choral
Dichtung
Munich,
und
1962,
=
and
lyric.
A
London,
translation
Philosophie
Early
G.
1974)
des
Greek
into
fruhen
Poetry
and
19751) gives a splendidly coherent picture of the
analyses
fragments closely.
(I thaca
only
a
relatively
small
number
of
the
The recent trend, with the continuing discovery
of important fragments and the proliferation of interpretations of the
existing pieces, has been to longer studies of individual poets rather
than to comprehensive coverage:
Duckworth,
Campbell's
publ isher,
has, to take but one example, given us two long studies of Sappho in
the past year (Richard Jenkyns and Anne Burnett).
good
deal
to be said
for
subjecting
the
There is still a
entire corpus
to a single
standard of taste and judgement as Campbell has done here.
It
making
is
a
gallant
decisions
undertaking,
which
will
for
puzzle
or
it
necessitates
anger
many
the
author's
critics.
Three
hundred pages is simply insufficient space for discussion of the many
problems
light
that cloud
emerges.
approach.
almost every
Campbell
has
text,
been
some
resolutely
so densely
that
old-fashioned
in
little
his
He avoids the contemporary preoccupation with genre and
~OOK
76
occasion,
takes
no notice of current critical
individual
poems
reference
to
unifying
REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
and
fragments
scholarly
key
to
the
with
discussion.
book:
The
each
theory,
almost
of
no
and
presents
bibliography
sub-title
provides
chapters
deals
the
or
the
with
a
particular topic (or two related ones) and sets out what the poets say
on each of these themes,
beginning
in most cases with Homer and
proceeding chronologically down to Pindar and Bacchylides.
It goes
almost without saying that Campbell is not worried about voice, only
with ideas.
That is, it makes little difference in this book whether a
theme is to be found in a poem commissioned for a public celebration
or in one sung to a private gathering (as Campbell believes Sappho's
poetry was,
whether
p.
what
appropriate
166).
is
He is not much concerned with the question
expressed
to
the
is
the
occasion,
poet's
own
whatever
view
that
or
may
something
be.
The
oresupposition, certainly a defensible one if not a fashionable one at
present,
show
is that the
sufficient
subjects chosen and sung about by the poets
homogeneity,
background and society,
springing
from
these
poets'
to be discussed by thematic analysis, and
that similarity of subject matter is more important than differences in
circumstances
of
production.
In
this
respect
Campbell's
work
is
closer to that of Frankel, with his interest in Ideengeschichte, than
to,
say,
Merkelbach and West,
with
their concern about when and
where particular poems were performed.
The chapters are entitled
II
Lovell , IIWine ll
,
IIAthletics ll , IIpolitics ll ,
IIFriends and Enemies ll , IIGods and Heroes ll , IILife and Death ll , IIPoetry
and Music ll (surprisingly there is no chapter on Myth).
There is a
remarkable similarity between this organization and the organization of
Bowra's
headings.
Bowra.
book
on
The
Pindar,
system
which
works
has
better
for
several
identical
Campbell
than
chapterit
did
for
For Bowra it resulted in an astonishing book in which no
single poem of Pindar's was ever discussed in its entirety.
fragmentation
But the
implied in such a variety of rubrics works reasonably
well for fragmentary or short poems.
Not perfectly, though.
Many
fragments are not clearly about one theme rather than another, and
the need, imposed by I imitations of space, to discuss them only once
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
~.
produces surprises:
love.
77
Mimnermus is absent from the chapter
Longer poems sit uneasily in their chapters:
iambus
categorizing
uncomfortably,
women
under
falls
"Friends
most
and
Semonides' long
conveniently,
Enemies"
(are
if
these
rather
categories
really applicable to his satire?); the Louvre Partheneion of Alcman is
discussed at length under "Gods and Heroes" (but very little of the
charm of this lovely work
comes
from the fact
that
the chorus of
maidens seems to be making an offering to a divinity);
Olympian of Pindar
is given
in
the chapter on
the Seventh
"Athletics"
(again,
little of the beauty of this masterpiece comes from the catalogue of
Diagoras'
victories,
whereas
no
one
who
reads
intrigued by the unusual mythical narrative).
inevitable
theme:
result of the
it
can
fai I
to
be
Some duplication is the
difficulty of categorizing
certain
poems
by
Archilochus' lines on his shield are given, for instance, both
in the chapter on "Politics" (p. 85), and in the chapter on "Life and
Death" (p. 208), though the comments are much the same in the two
places.
The author,
whom
his
translation,
in his
book
(2)
the first time,
is
Preface,
intended:
lists three groups of readers for
(1)
students
of
Greek
students of the Greek language coming
(3)
lyric
in
to lyric for
poetry-lovers who want to know what the Greek
lyric poets wrote about.
Groups
(1)
and
(3)
will presumably have
little need of the extensive Greek texts which have no other effect
for them than to make the book unaffordable; they will, however, be
pleased to find such extensive coverage in a single volume.
(2)
Group
will be grateful for the Greek, but the book will serve only for
their first cursory survey.
Since it avoids discussion of problems it
will not take them far and they will be better served, on the whole,
by Campbell's other, cheaper, anthology than by this one.
I confess
to some concern that all three groups may be misled by some of the
pronouncements offered
some examples:
jealousy
(this
on
is
given as a clever
acrimoniously,
without
page
hotly
suggestion
14 we are
debated);
on
told
on
paCJes
To give
is about
pages
rebuke of a homosexual
debated);
of alternative.
that
244-45
Sappho 31
21-22
girl
the
Anacreon
(again
great
hotly,
358
is
even
eschatology
of
78
BOOK REVIEVIS/Cm.\PTES RHlDUS
Pindar's Second Olympian, one of the most memorable and important
passages in Greek poetry, seems to emerge as a confusion in which
the
realm of Hades and
Persephone is a land of eternal
light
(!),
indistinguishabie from the eternal light of the tower of Cronus and
the
I sles of the Blessed.
problematic
passages
Lack of assistance
I imits
the
usefulness
in dealing with
of
the
book.
such
Even
if
limitations of space prohibited extended discussion in the text, could
not some bibliographical help have been provided to alert the student
to the complexity of knots which Campbell frequently cuts rather than
unties?
Such bibliography as there is is perfunctory and does not
always list the works of even those critics who are mentioned in the
text
(~.
"Lesky wondered ...
II
p.
,
169, but Lesky's name appears
only here).
Individual
points
of
difference
could
be
multiplied
almost
endlessly in an appraisal of a book dealing with such a vast array of
poetry.
Complaints are not meant to obscure Campbell's very
virtues.
He
reads
the
poetry
closely
and
sensitively.
real
There
excellent comments on structure,
sound, and how poetic effects are
achieved.
The
generally
decisions
about
translations
meaning
are
sometimes
seem
deft
and
accurate.
arbitrary,
If
Campbell
is
nonetheless a trustworthy critic who clearlv has the intimacy with his
material that has earned him the right to speak with authority.
is
a
valuable
collection
produced,
though
frequently
so
the
faint
as
of
poetry,
aspiration
to
appear
on
as
for
the
initial
a
most
vowels
simple
part
in
the
dot and
This
beautifully
Greek
there
is
is
a
curious tendency to misaccentuation of the genitive of the article in
Aeolic
(~.
pp. 10, 132, 133, 266, the last three instances accented
perispomenon as in Ionic).
The conflation of Proetus and Proteus (p.
191 and in the index, p. 310) is misleading.
Such other errors as I
found are inconsequential.
ST. MICHAELIS COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
EMMET ROBBINS
79
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
of
p.
This study is devoted to a detailed analysis of Politics 7 and 8.
In the "Introduction"
(17-35)
Lord discloses two particular aims:
to
show that Aristotle's concerns are as much with adult education as
with
the
instruction
of
children,
his nUL5du
encompassing
both
culture and schooling, and his ~o\JaLxrl comprising the performed arts
as well as the training of boys in music (29);
to redress a present
tendency to interpret catharsis as a form of aesthetic or psychological
enjoyment by showing
tragedy
concerned
education,
of
understood,
education
that what is principally at issue is cathartic
with
adults
the
moral
(34-35).
So
improvement,
Lord
a link between education
in
virtue which
would
and
see
in
hence
music,
the
thus
in virtue in boyhood and
should continue in adult intellectual
the
life,
during the 5LUyWyfJ to which citizens of the best state are to aspire.
In chapter 1 "Education" (36-67), Lord advances two contentions
fundamental to his thesis.
He takes the discussion of the soul's parts
at 7.13.6-7 to suggest "that a capacity for theoretical reason or for
the pursuit of science or philosophy is not to be expected in every
citizen of the best regime" (40).
And, from the treatment of music's
place in 5LUywyf] at 8.2.5-6, he deduces "that the central activity of
leisure
'serious'
as
Aristotle
activity
-
here
is
describes
the
it
-
or
enjoyment
of
at
any
music'!
rate
its
(57).
most
Lord's
reconstruction of the school-curriculum of the ideal state accordingly
ascribes a prominence to music as that study which prepares citizens
for
intellectual
life.
Thus
in
chapter
2
"Music
and
education"
(68-104), Lord proceeds to extract from the analysis of the uses and
effects of music in
ongoing
will
adult
life at 8.5.1-5
education through
combine,
as
it
seems,
music during
the
that Aristotle intended an
,')LClYCC;yn:
pleasures
of play
"Genuine pastime
with
the
benefit
deriving from the continuing education of the character and the soul"
(84).
Now
instrumental
by
p.O\JCLl1.~
music but
Aristotle
poetry
<:1nd,
would
in
understand
particular,
epic
not
only
poetry
iwd
80
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTE5 RENDUS
tragedy.
So
schooling
the
theatre
would
be
an
academy
for
adults.
and
in music "ideally suited to providing an education in that
'correct jUdgment and enjoyment' which appears to be an integral part
of the leisured pastime of mature citizens" (93).
With
adult
particular
chapter
3
statements
catharsis
education
through
"Music
about
in
through
tragedy)
now
catharsis ll
and
catharsis
at
Poetics.
The
the
in
theatrical
the
(105-150),
8.7.4-6
to
with
desired
performances
picture,
connect
his
link
Lord
mention
he
would
(in
seeks,
in
Aristotle's
of
tragic
forge
by
identifying the theatrical music recommended for citizens at 8.7.7 as
tragic poetry; such then would be the main fare of educational 5wywyf]
(138-140).
Lord
music from the
boys,
the
does
not
'ethical'
deny
kind
that
Aristotle
to be employed
separates
in
the
cathartic
instruction of
but he does bel ieve that the phi losopher specified jJ.OUOL)(11 as
agent
catharsis,
of
lifelong
which
he
education.
takes
Therefore
he
would
attribute
to be a pleasant stimulation and
to
partial
purgation of the emotions, a key role in adult education.
This role Lord sets himself to define in chapter 4 IIPoetry and
education ll
any
(151-179).
The main use of catharsis would be to curb
excesses of spiritedness
citizens.
a laudable quality
(8ujJ.6C;),
Indeed the 'tragic error'
innate
in
would be engendered by 8uiJ.6C;.
and II ca tharsis will be intimately related to the audience's reaction to
a hero whose susceptibility to spirited passion leads him into error
and punishment, and its ultimate effect will be to fortify the audience
against a similar susceptibilityll (173).
Aristotle may have placed comedy,
And
he
concludes
this
chapter
Lord proceeds to suggest that
too,
with
education would contribute to practical
in such an educative role.
the
thought
reason
that
'musical'
rather than to moral
character in the modern sense, poetry providing II models of moral and
political behavior that can stimulate and guide acting men ll (178).
In chapter 5 "Politics and culture" (180-202), Lord addresses the
fact that Aristotle appears to assign prime importance to philosophic
speculation in his discussion of the best life at the start of Politics 7.
He
maintains,
however,
that Aristotle
did
philosophy in the strict sense of the term.
not
intend
all
to
study
liThe best way of life for
81
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
the
city
is
not
the
speculative
life
simply
but
rather
the
closest
approximation to that life which is possible on the level of politics ...
The activity in question -
the way of life characteristic of the best
regime - is the leisured enjoyment of music and poetry" (198).
Lord
repeats
"politics and
the
contention
philosophy
advanced
previously
in Aristotle's Politics",
in
Thus
his
article
Hermes 106
(1978),
336-357; this final chapter is in fact a reworking of that article.
But
our author is no more persuasive here than before.
In this last chapter (199). as in the first, Lord assumes that the
distinction of the soul's parts at 7.13.6-7 shows that Aristotle did not
expect a capacity for speculative thought in each citizen.
treatment of this
deny
any
part
question
or
elsewhere,
potential
Aristotle
function
of
Yet, in his
does not appear
the
soul
to
any
to
normal
gentleman, although individual circumstances and inclinations may of
course
prevent
the
development
or
use
of the
soul's
every
part.
Lord needed to probe more thoroughly this issue, which is intimately
connected with the intent of the following passage (7.3.5):
... XUL XOLViJ na.OTle; nohwe; av £tTl XUL xu8'
£XU01:0V apL01:0e; ~Coe; 6 npUX'l:L xoe;. clAAa 1:0V npUX'l:L XOV oux
avuyxuLov £[VUL npoe; £1:£pOUe;, xu8a.n£p oEov1:uC 1:lV£e;, 0150£ 1:ae;
OlUVOCUe; £ [VUl ~OVue; 1:mJ1:Ue; npUX'l:L xae;, -rae; 1:WV clnO~ULVOV1:WV XapLV Ylyvo~£vue; EX 1:00 npa1:1:£lV, UAAa nOAu ~ilA.AOV 1:ae; UU1:01:£A£Le; xut. 1:ae; mhwv £.v£x£v 8£wpCue; XUt. OLUvoTjo£Le;' Yj yap £unpul'Ju 1:£l..oe;, won xut. npat;le; 'l:LC;.
From the context it seems that Aristotle means this higher pursuit,
which centres upon
phi losophy
rather
than
the
performed
form the most important part of every citizen's life.
Lord
confront this
his
interpretation which,
if correct,
causes
arts,
to
fails to
thesis
to
crumble.
Lord's
philosophic
rather
substitution
study
arbitrary.
impression
Aristotle.
that
of
apparently
And
Lord's
traditional
musical
recommended
throughout
the
preconceptions
in
work
are
culture
the
the
being
text
for
the
seems
then
reader
has
inflicted
Thus, for example, in the first two chapters the thrust of
the argument depends upon a dubious interpretation of 7.15.11.
the
the
upon
philosopher
clearly
intends
to
distinguish
two
Here
periods
of
education, one running from the age of seven to puberty, the other
82
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
from
puberty
to
twenty-one.
Lord,
however,
would
have
him
describe "two forms of education that indeed correspond to the ages
from seven to puberty and from puberty to twenty-one, but which
are 'distinguished' primarily 'with a view to' the ages that follow II
(45).
It would then be a question of three periods of education:
from seven to pubE'rty, from puber:y to twenty-one, from twenty-one
Having
progressing
avoid
the
primary
thus
made
Aristotle
signal
through tightly interrel<:lted
obvious
sense of the
cycle of study
before
text,
a
lifelong
phases,
which
puberty,
Lord
places
and
has
education
proceeds to
music
the
in
consecrate the three years after puberty to the study of music:
decisive consirleration
...
is Aristotle's principle
...
the
philosopher
lithe
that the two
periods in the education :)f the young are to be distinguished above
<III by their relation to the ages or to the education of the ages
i;-,lln2diately following them.
Aristotle has indicated that the
~.jucation
;;, j',lusic ;nust be understood as a direct preparation for the
activity -
the
'pastime'
-
of mature citizens"
(61).
In
:~i::;ured
this way
Aristotle is forced to assign to music the role required by Lord's
thesis.
To his credit, however, Lord does seem to doubt the cogency
of his interpretation; for towards the end of the long chapter :'Music
and education", he frames tentatively what needed by this stage to
have been proven beyond doubt from the text, were his argument to
stand:
liThe
music
education
of
the
young
may
have
to
be
understood as at once an education in virtue and a preparation for
the music education of mature citizens" (102).
Had Lord shown convincingly, by this point in his work, that
Aristotle made music,
in
its specialized modern and comprehensive
ancient sense,
the
focal
concern
then
the
search
for a
5wywyfj,
of boyhood
education
and adult
particularly educative function
catharsis in chapters 4 ,md 5 might have been justified.
in
But, as
matters stand, the emphasis of the interpretation there offered must
remain suspect.
:r.ast pcsitive
Indeed if Lord's argument were presented
I:gnt,
it woulj
r~duce
to something
in
its
like this:
limited information makes it not absolutely impossible to reconstruct
the curriculum intended by Aristotle in the Politics in such a way as
83
BOOK REV) EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS
to accord a central role to music, although such a reconstruction does
apparent violence to the text; but if music had been given this key
role, then Aristotle would have meant it to retain such a role in adult
oLUYWyi);
in that case catharsis ought to be principally educative in
function;
creating
our
limited
information
such a function;
this
on
catharsis
supposed
does not
function,
forbid
our
allow
our
if we
logic to dispense with rigour and our argument to become circular,
then
strengthens
importance
accorded
the
of
music
music
this
improbable
in
supposition
boyhood
importance
education;
in
boyhood,
about
and
it
the
if
would
supreme
Aristotle
had
confirm
the
alleged importance of music and the educative function supposed for
catharsis in adult owywyi).
As noted above, the final chapter adds the crowning touch not
of conviction
substantial
but of frailty
contribution
to
Lord's
If he
has
to the subject he addresses,
made any
it is to have
underl ined the need for a thorough study of two basic questions, the
curriculum
and
the
aim
of
life
recommended
by
Aristotle
in
the
Politics.
BROCK UNIVERSITY
ALAN D. BOOTH
~~e~~:.T ~~;W~~ve~a~ileLos~do~~e~~I~eO~~v~~~lt~in~~:~~,i~ 9~tome;~:~
Classical Monographs, 4.
Cloth, U.S. $18.50, ISBN 0-300-02831-8.
Those already in possession of Truth may not be pleased by this
book; it will, however, be welcomed by scholars willing to explore, to
learn,
and
to
revise
conventional
wisdom
all
disregard for the complexities of our sources.
of study
one might,
~.,
mention
here the
too
often
based
on
In this particular area
recent attempt by
F.
84
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Bourriot
to
challenge
traditional
views
on
the meaning
of
~. 1
Basi leus, on the other hand, would not on the face of it appear to be
a likely candidate for demolition - all the more reason to congratulate
Drews for diagnosing the problem.
The present volume is a by-product of a larger study of lithe
founding
of
cities
in
pre-classical
antiquity"
(vii).
While
one
recognises Drews! gift for economy and concise argument, as well as
his desire to get on
with
his main
work, 2 the significance of his
material and findings might well have merited less slim a book (which
is
otherwise
scholarship).
reported
in
characterised
The
contents:
Greek
tradition II
by
circumspect
Ilntroduction"
(10-97,
a
and
(1-9);
thoughtful
liThe
region-by-region
kings
survey3
which produces the evidence for his thesis); liThe meaning of basileus
in geometric and archaic Greece"
(98-115,
with
some very
observations in connexion with the Homeric epics);
basileis of the archaic and classical period"
sensible
liThe hereditary
(116-128);
"Conclusion"
1F. Bourriot, Recherches sur la nature du genos.
Etude d'histoire
sociale athenienne erlOdes archalque et classique (edle, Paris,
1
vos.
ese arls, 1
.
rews was una etoseethebook
(1 n. 1); lowe my knowledge of Bourriot's arguments to his generous
gift of his study.
2F . Prinz, Grundun sm then und Sa enchronolo ie, Zetemata 72,
(Munchen, 1979 , although use ul only as a collection----ormaterial,
should not be missing from the bibliography.
To it must now be
added F. Schachermeyr, Die
riechische Ruckerinnerun
im Lichte
neuer Forschungen, SBAW 404
len, 19 3 .
3Least satisfactory is the treatment of Argos.
He spends a
disproportionate amount of space on Pheidon of Argos whom he views
as a magistrate-basileus (see text at n. 4) turned tyrant. He accepts
the sixth-centur~from T. Kelly, A History of Argos to 500 B.C.
(Minneapolis,
1976) 94ft.,
but is unaware of my independent
confirmation of this dating:
K. H. Kinzl (ed.), Die altere Tyrannis
~nf.ZU ::n'/~~~~~~~bf~nal~~a~~~J~~~~e~9~~~~u~~8f:i his~ie4r (~t9~~~
on tyranny, Historia 21
256ft.
---
(1972)
129ft.
= K.
H. Kinzl (ed.), ~.
£i..!.
85
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
(129-131);
there
is
also
a
(perhaps
too
"selected")
bibliography
(133-35) and a general index (137-41) but no index fontium.
Drews demonstrates
been
ruled by
Athens,
Korinth,
hellenistic
that only
very
few ~ claimed
kings after the heroic age.
in particular)
fabrication.
owe their kings
For some ethne,
to
Those who did
have
(Argos,
to late classical
however,
kingship may
or
be
accepted, ~. in Achaia, Arkadia, Messenia, and possibly geometric
Lakedaimon.
The
problem
is
reduced
meaning of words and their history.
to one of logic,
and
of the
Just as we cannot stand on its
head the statement " a is, therefore b is", we must not automatically
translate basileus as "king", "Konig", etc., only because it would be
correct to translate "king" as basileus.
monarchs such as Amasis of Egypt or
Greeks'
horizon
that
basileus
also
It was only when the real
Kyros of Persia entered
assumed
(perhaps
facilitated
the
by
hereditary basileiai at Sparta, Kyrene, etc.) the " more regal meaning"
In the ~ of archaic
(128) which we translate properly as "king".
Greece
basileis
we
encounter
who were
not
monarchies
but
pry tanis-like, archon-like
4
subject to supervision and scrutiny
(and whose
title we should merely transl iterate as we do in the case of archon,
etc.).
This office came into existence about the middle of the eighth
century when the "informal regime of the basileis" (115)
(who operate
as a group and whom Drews would term "highborn leaders" if we must
translate basileis)
was
replaced
(perhaps
by a " more formal structure" (ibid.).
under oriental
influenceS)
The archaic basileus was not
an emasculated remnant of an earlier King but a truly novel figure:
the first-ever republican head of state of the ~ (108f.).
In
the
compass
of
a
short
review
I
cannot,
reproduce in detail and discuss Drews' arguments.
regrettably,
If I now proceed
to comment critically on one set of problems, it is not for a negative
4As for Sparta, I pointed this out in Gymnasium 85
reference to Herodotos 3.80; £f.. Drews~.62.
(1978)
120, with
5C f. Drews' similarly derived theories on tyranny (above, n.3).
86
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
purpose but to demonstrate the great advances still possible in
field if approached with an open mind by a responsible scholar like
Drew~.
Basileus
qa-si-re-u.
is
generally
suspected
as
This was a minor official.
lurking
behind
Linear
B
There were of course other
officials, e.9.. the te-re-ta, or the e-qe-ta,6 who also were of higher
rank.
ten
Drews fails to explain why these minor officials should, some
generations after the smashing of the palatial administrations,
turn up as either IIkings ll (in regions where no poleis rose) or as
congregations of IIhighborn leaders ll (in regions that ascended from
ethnos to polis)
basileus.
-
and still
both be known by the same name of
Corollary questions remain unasked.
did the title (and position) of the
wa-na-k~
In what circumstances
disappear?
was used by the Late Mycenaean Middle III C leaders?
Which title
Which by the
first new settlers in formerly Mycenaean Peloponnese who were again
of Greek stock, the North-Western Greeks?
Did they perhaps usurp
7
the word basileus in the same ignorant fashion as the name Achaia?
The evidence produced by recent Late Bronze Age archaeology8 has
not
been
Herodotos
Kleomenes,
adequately
5.72
absorbed
(83f.)
Drews,
like
and
by
the
Kleomenes
Drews.
claim
and
to
In
his
discussion
IIAchaian ll
Herodotos
lineage
(who
may
of
by
be
forgiven for their ignorance), fails to realise that, if accepted, this
claim amounts to North-Western Greek descent of the leading II royal ll
60n the e-qe-ta see S. Deger-Jalkotzy, E-QE- T A.
Zur Rolle des
Gefol scharrswe5ens in der Sozialstruktur mykenlscher ReIche, SBAw
344
ien, 1978.
er proposed enquIry 203, n. 695 Into qa-si-re-u
has not yet come to my attention.
---7Schachermeyr, ~. ~. (n.2l. 196f.
8The massive survey by F. Schachermeyr, Die a~aische Fruhzeit, 5
vols., SBAW 303, 309, 355, 372, 387 (Wien, 1976- 2 J had progressed
in time-----rDr Drews to take note of it (or at least of the evidence
gathered there)
to volume 4,
Griechenland
im Zeitalter der
Wanderungen vom Ende der mykenischen Aera bis auf die Dorier,
1980.
87
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
house of the Agiadai (the Eurypontidai had a "noticeably unstable and
defective" king list [81] and became basileis only as a consequence of
eunomia).
It would place them in the same category as the Argive
Tisamenos who also embodies the North-Western Greek element and its
transitory
rulers
conquest
(but
who
Herakleidai'I, ~.
of most
was
less
of
Peloponnese
successful
the Dorian invasion,
been on this hypothesis).
attempts at re-writing
from
during
the
the
Middle
"Return
than the Agiadai
III
of
would
C
the
have
This would seem to fit in well with Drews'
at least some of early
Lakedaimonian
history
(78ft.) with which I sympathise greatly.
The book is very well written (at times with a refreshingly fine
sense of humour).
Production and proof-reading are generally good
(some quotations in German have suffered).
A must for every library
and required reading for anyone at all concerned with this period of
Greek history, its transmission and its reconstruction.
K. H. KINZL
TRENT UNIVERSITY
JOHN HART.
Herodotus and Greek History.
London and Canberra:
Croom Helm; New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1982. Pp. 227. Cloth,
£13.95.
ISBN 07099-1224-2.
The
accurate
Herodotus
title
of
John
description
as
of
historian
Hart's
the
of
Herodotus
scope
Greece;
of
and
his
the
Greek
book.
fact
is
Herodotus was equally an historian of Persia or,
History
is
Hart
deals
with
shoved
aside
that
at least, Asia, and
does not reach the first of his "big battles", Marathon, until his work
is two-thirds complete.
"The present work is siMply intended to help
the student of Greek history", he writes in the preface.
"To essay a
full discussion of Herodotus' treatment of Egypt, the Middle East and
Scythia would have inflated the volune to unmanageable size ... and in
any case I ies outside my competence.
matters of composition .... "
Nor have I attempted to handle
88
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Fair
enough,
as
remember that there
far
as
it
goes,
is some peril
though
in using
the
reader
should
Herodotus as a source
without a glance over his shoulder at "matters of composition".
The
chapters proceed to look at the standard concerns that every student
of the
titled
sixth
liThe
and
early
Athenian
fifth
centuries should examine.
Nobility",
deals
with
the
The first,
Alcmaeonids
Philaids, the second with religious outlook and the role of fate.
and
The
third chapter, on politics and politicians, begins, "No one could claim
for Herodotus a burning interest in constitutional detail" - and, to be
sure, he was no constitutional lawyer, but he had a real interest in
political philosophy.
The next chapter, on "War, the Causes of War
and Men in War", is a diverse essay where Hart notes, rightly, that
Herodotus was very aware of war1s tragic elements, but he was also
aware - as Hart fails to point out force behind historical action.
that imperialism was the kinetic
The book ends with a chapter on some
characters in Herodotus, and an essay on the historian as a man of
his time.
This is a good book for a university course in Greek history.
Hart
is
usually
instance,
media
sensible,
and
willing
to compromise:
is made to fall in 544 B.C.,
between
the
flawed
Croesus,
for
a date that hews to the
~
evidence of the Nabonidus Chronicle and
Herodotus' belief that Pisistratus' restoration preceded the taking of
Sardis, but ignores Herodotus' other belief that Croesus' dedications
to Delphi
temple
of
were caught in
Apollo.
deserve comment.
II
A
few
the fire of 548
of
Hart's
II
Both
that destroyed
jUdgements,
the
however,
He speaks twice (p. 43, pp. 170-71) of Herodotus'
sa tirical defence" of the Alcmaeonids,
friends.
B. C.
value
the
satire,
friendship are open to question.
which
who were, nevertheless,
I
cannot
discern,
and
"his
the
The debate of the Persian grandees
on constitutional forms is a "reflection of practical political questions
as discussed by the busy man in the Athenian equivalent of club and
pub ll (p. 45).
It more likely reflects the mind of Protagoras, but we
should not be too quick to assume that Herodotus' effort to pass it
off as an actual event is artistic insincerity.
The likely date for the
"Wooden Wall" oracle is "where Herodotus puts" it (p. 146), between
89
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Xerxes'
crossing
the
Hellespont
and
his
arrival
in
Thessaly.
Herodotus does not, in fact, put it there, and the historian, it seems
to me, has a choice between 481
B.C. and early in 480 B.C., when
the oracle opened after the winter.
This is carping, but I must enter a small protest against Hart's
view that Xerxes is a Sophoclean tragic hero, a victim of hubris (pp.
31-32).
him,
People around Xerxes suffer but Xerxes, as Herodotus treats
lives
anything.
on,
giving
no
story of Masistes 1 wife was,
Xerxes.
sign
that
his
defeat
has
taught
him
I t has not been often remarked how curious a choice the
with which Herodotus took his leave of
Had Herodotus wanted to present Xerxes as a tragic figure
who fell as a victim of his own hubris, he could have told the story
of Xerxes' death, which was a very satisfactory end, for a tragedian.
Instead,
he chose the tale of Masistes'
wife,
which
told once again
how Xerxes brought disaster on those around him~
While I am quibbling, I should also point out that Hart writes a
"with it" prose which occasionally grates the ear of those raised on a
different jargon.
But no matter.
This is a worthwhile book.
J. A. S. EVANS
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
PETER
R.
POUNCEY.
The Necessities of War:
A
Thucydldes' Pessimism.
Columbia University Press, 1980.
Cloth, U.S. $22.50 ISBN 0-231-04994-3.
HUNTER R. RAWLINGS III.
Princeton University Press,
ISBN 0-691-03555-5.
Study of
Pp. 195.
The Structure of Thucydides' History.
1981.
Pp. 278.
Cloth, U.S. $21.00,
In what we now know as 431
B. C., an armed conflict erupted in
the Greek world so sweeping as to take on the character of a global
It
has
not
been
easy
for
modern
scholars
to
separate
this
devastating struggle from the vision of it offered by Thucydides, the
son of Olorus, who has inspired in students of the past a
accorded
to
no
other
classical
historian.
The
recent
books
of
90
BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS
Pouncey
and
of
Rawlings
seek
to
re-examine
Thucydides'
interpretation of the war and the ways in which Thucydides leads his
readers
to
accept
provide valuable
the
validity
insights
of
this
interpretation.
into the mind
Both
of Thucydides.
books
Neither
is
consistently careful in distinguishing the opinions of Thucydides from
what actually happened:
the two are not always the same.
The problem is less pressing for Pouncey, who deals largely with
Thucydides' thought, than it is for Rawlings, who is concerned with
the ways
in
readers.
Pouncey's book offers a valuable corrective to the works of
which Thucydides
sought to guide the thinking of his
De Romilly and of Stahl, both of whom tend to oversimplify the nature
of the
gloom
uncover
that
what
he
overhangs
Thucydides'
work.
calls
"inte!lectual
infrastructure"
the
Pouncey
tries
(xiii)
to
of
Thucydides' work, and this infrastructure he outlines and explicates
quite
persuasively.
architectonic
Human
concept
of
nature,
Pouncey
Thucydides'
maintains,
History
and
is
the
lithe
ultimate
explanation of everything that is done" (xi), and that nature is made
up of basic
impulses
of aggression,
same impulses that bui Id a society
power to bring it down,
the
building
up
of
fear
and
self-interest.
up also contain
within
These
them the
for lithe fear and self-interest that govern
societies
on
both
sides
of a
polarity
will
also
ultimately bring them to war against each other", and lithe pressures
or necessities of war ... act to undo the solidarity of a society,
testing
its
alliances
and
producing civil conflict
control
(stasis)
of
its
within
subjects,
itself"
and
(xii).
first
ultimately
Thus fear and
self-interest, while still the dominant forces, come to be exercised in
what
Pouncey
calls
'I an
ever-narrowing
circle",
for
" w hen
stasis
attacks the center, all collective action is seen to be impossible, and
the war is of every man for himself"; at this juncture human nature
is "finally tracked to its proper ground in the human individual II (xii)
-
human
nature
which
" carr ies
within
destructive of its own achievements II (xiii).
itself
drives
that
are
Arguing that Thucydides
subscribed to a fundamentally Hobbesian view of human nature (or,
one
might
better
Thucydidean one),
say,
that
Pouncey
Hobbes
shows
subscribed
to
how Thucydides l
a
fundamentally
rather puzzling
91
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
eighth
book
focuses
circumstances
appl ied
of
relentlessly
continued
for onesel f,
at
on
the
pressure,
way
the
the expense of any
in
which
primary
larger
"under
aggression
claims
from
is
any
society or institution to which one belongs" (43).
This
view
of
Thucydides'
"infrastructure"
provides
a
helpful
guide to the principles that inform Thucydides' History, but it is the
great merit of Pouncey's work that it is able to refine this formulation
in a variety of ways.
ambivalences
First,
Pouncey shows a number of profound
Thucydides 1
in
thought.
These
understanding of Thucydides' view of history;
are
vital
for
an
much of Thucydides'
ambivalence concerning individual persons or events - Alcibiades, for
example, and the Mel ian episode - points to a deep conflict about the
value of aggression.
Pouncey is quite right to see in Thucydides "a
double track of speculation about human nature, one of tolerance, or
even
approval,
of
the
pessimistic awareness
(37).
Second,
will
that
Pouncey
to
the
power"
but
at
the
same
same drive may ... destroy
stresses
the
fact
that
time
"a
a societyll
Thucydides
did
not
consider human nature to operate in a vacuum; his careful listing in
the Archaeology of natural disasters as part and parcel of the horrors
of
war
can
be
traced
in
fact
to
a
fascination
with
the
kinds
of
external pressures which upset normal life and drive a civilization to
its extremes.
Finally,
Thucydides avoids a one-sidedly deterministic
view of humanity and history even under the pressures of war; deep
in
the
midst
Thucydides 1
of
the
mind,
process
of
exceptional
disintegration
individuals
which
arise
-
so
gripped
B rasidas,
for
eXilmple, and Hermocrates.
Pouncey is especially acute in examining the reduction of group
aggression
Book
8,
to
opposition
and
in
individual
tracing
a
of individual
his
last
aggression
process
speech
that
as
to communal
to
the
it
begins
reaches
with
interest
Athenians.
in
its culmination
Pericles'
the
funeral
Pouncey's
in
calculated
oration
interpretation
goes beyond the hard words at 2.65 with which Thucydides contrasts
the
personal
statesmanship
feuds
of
and
Pericles
ambitions
himself.
of
Pericles'
In
successors
particular,
he
with
shows
the
great
sensitivity to the unfolding of Thucydides' thought as the war itself
92
BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS
unfolded.
He is at his best in his analysis of Thucydides' treatment
of Alcibiades and of the perplexing problem which Alcibiades l career
posed for Thucydides.
Clearly Alcibiades represented a dramatic inversion of Periclean
priorities
state,
regarding
and to
the relationship between the individual and
Pericles l
stability and
incorruptibility
Alcibiades l fickleness and self-interest.
the
we may oppose
Did Alcibiades then stand in
the History as the decadent post-Periclean par excellence?
This is a
view ot" Alcibiades which Thucydides, for all his desire to present his
History in a neat package, is ultimately hard-pressed to sustain.
Thucydides l
inevitably
Athenian
demos
victim
not unl ike the historian
-
also
frequently
led
him
to
expressed
see the
contempt
beleaguered
for
Alcibiades
himself after Amphipolis;
For
the
as
indeed,
Pouncey suggests that the two men may have conversed during their
shared exile in Thrace.
Finally, as Pouncey points out, Alcibiades'
activism would have been attractive to Thucydides, making as it did
such a stark contrast with the fatal conservatism of N icias.
not
Alcibiades'
restless
imperialism
equally
fatal?
But was
Thucydides
ultimately diverts this accusation from Alcibiades by throwing it back
on the Athenian demos.
that
Alcibiades'
preoccupation
It is true, Thucydides concedes at 6.15.4,
luxurious
(~.,
living
implicitly censured
by
the
Pericles)
sort
" p layed
of
private
a significant
part in ruining the city"; but Thucydides goes on to trace a rather
complex line of development from the life style of Alcibiades to the
demos'
fear
of the scale of excess
in
his life
(hardly a legitimate
cause of concern by some lights) to the fear of his ambition and then
of
his
possible
Alcibiades l
tyranny.
enemy,
" an d
Thus,
though
he
in
concludes,
fact
his
the
demos
public
became
fTlanagement
of
wartime affairs was excellent (kratista), they were personally angered
by his way of life; so, by entrusting the state to others, they soon
brouQht it down" (6.14.4).
In this way Thucydides not only shifts
the burrlen from Alcibiades hinself to the demos but also betrays a
profound
played
in
ambivalence
Alcibiades'
as
to
the
downfall:
role
which
was
the
private
problem
considerations
Alcibiades l
own
preoccupation with the pleasures of private life, or did it lie rather
93
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES REND US
in the demos ' failure to make a proper distinction between private and
public Platters?
statement
In
here
addition,
concerning
of course,
the
Thucydides made a strong
connection
between
the
rejection
of
Alcibiades and the loss of the war, a statement which implies praise
of Alcibiades'
conduct
of
career with
war
talents
was
to strike,
should
and
play
beyond
kratista.
the fascination
cobra coiled
Alcibiades
military
the
the
simple
Thucydides
assertion
watched
that
his
Alcibiades'
normally accorded to a raging
fire or a
in his inability to decide just what role
in his
History
we may
see
the emblem of a
deep ambivalence about the legitimacy of aggression,
an ambivalence
that haunts the History as a whole.
Pouncey's book
is not without its problems.
In the very first
sentence of the preface Pouncey describes the book as "an attempt to
reach
the mind of Thucydides,
reading of his text"
(ix).
as
In
historian
and
writer,
through a
the course of this attempt,
Pouncey
sometimes fails to draw proper distinctions between 1) the truth about
historical
causation;
causation;
processes
claimed
3)
at
what
work
2)
what
individual
in
the
Thucydides
Athenians
war;
and
in their public speeches
about these processes.
appear,
I
think,
the Athenians'
in
thought
thought
4)
what
(reported
about
about
historical
the
individual
causal
Athenians
by Thucydides)
to think
The most striking methodological difficulties
the discussion of Thucydides'
defeat in
Sicily
-
which
interpretation of
Pouncey argues Thucydides
did not seek to portray as nemesis for Melos or indeed for anything
at all - and in the broader discussion of Thucydides' view of the role
of the gods in human affairs generally and in the war in particular.
Pouncey
seems to lose sight at times of the
self-serving
nature of
some of the speeches delivered during the course of the war:
there
is no reason to assume the Athenians at Delium or Melos believed what
they
said,
and
it is very odd
indeed
to
imagine that
the
religious
opinions voiced by N icias in his last speech are those of Thucydides or indeed of Nicias.
Pouncey's book, however, remains a valuable contribution to the
study
the
of Thucydides '
kind
thought,
of sensitivity
to
which cannot be understood
Thucydides'
ambivalences
which
without
Pouncey
94
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
demonstrates.
his
I n the preface, Pouncey suggests that he has focused
research
on
the
text
of
Thucydides
itself
and
has
taken
comparatively Iittle notice of the large body of secondary scholarship,
and
he announces
too
'lis
ir.tention
of confining
secondary scholarship to the footnotes.
policy-decision do Pouncey a disservice.
reading
the
discussion
of
Both the disclaimer and the
The ample footnotes show
in the secondary sources both wide and deep; and it might
indeed
have
offered
there directly into the text so as to give readers a better
been
helpful
sense
of
where
to
Pouncey
incorporate
has
some
added
most
of
the
discussions
helpfully
to
the
understanding of Thucydides.
The relegation of the secondary scholarship to the footnotes and
the transliteration of the Greek are likely to give the impression that
Pouncey's book is for generalists in the field of western civilization
more than for classicists.
going too far;
This, as I have tried to suggest, would be
but it would be fair to say that Rawlings'
book by
contrast has a bit more to say to fewer people.
Rawlings ' thesis is that Thucydides, while certainly viewing the
Peloponnesian War as one great war, also saw the war as comprising
two distinct wars almost identical in length - wars which presented to
the combatants similar problems and similar opportunites to which they
responded
in
opposite.
This
ways
that
"double
were
generally
vision"
different
Rawlings
thematic regulator of Thucydides ' work".
views
and
as
frequently
the
"principal
Rawlings' meticulous study
proceeds carefully from the beginnings of Thucydides' history to what
Rawlings imagines might, had it been completed, have been its close,
and indeed the book is so closely argued that scholars are likely to
entertain his speculations about the missing last books of the History
with greater grace than they would suffer the conjectures of a less
careful
scholar.
unfolds slowly,
gracious
and
Despite
a wealth
of detail
and
Rawl ings l book is never dull;
precise
carries
the
reader
an
argument
that
a prose style at once
through
the
meticulous
argument with not only comfort but pleasure.
Both at the beginning of his work
takes
issue
with
scholars
(Mabel
Lang,
and
at the
for
example,
end,
and
Rawlings
Virginia
95
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Hunter)
who
have
substi tutinq
argued
interpretation
that
for
Thucydides
f<:Jct.
These
oTter
!S
scholars.
"underestimate Thucydides' historical accuracy" (4)
to
such
scholars'
"rewriting
of
Thucydidean
quilt'}
he
(If
bel ieves,
Rawl ings appl ies
ilccounts"
the
deadly
epithet "fashionable", and he accuses these scholars of CJssuming "that
because Thucydides can be shown to have great artistic control over
his material, he must therefore be guilty of manipulating or distorting
that material" (268).
example,
in
This allegation is unfair.
Rawlings'
There is nothing, for
account of Lang's methodoloqy
to
portrait of her scholarship as based on "assumptions";
justify
rather,
his
even
Rawl ings' own version of Lang's methodology suggests that numerous
inconsistencies
possibility
of
Rawl ings'
in
Thucydides'
bias
on
the
"assumptions"
are a little peculiar,
narrative
part
about
of
have
the
Thucydides'
particularly
alerted
historian.
her
It
historical
to
is
the
in
fact
accuracy
that
in the fau: of the evidence which
Rawl ings himself presents.
In an
elaborate excursus on
Thucydides
Athenian
sought
fear
of
to
the
draw
pp.
100-113,
parallels
Peisistratids
in
Rawlings shows how
between
the
sixth
the
exaggerated
century
and
the
hysteria which attended the mutilation of the herms on the eve of the
Sicil ian expedition a hundred years later.
he
bel ieves
parallel
Thucydides
more
distorted
effective.
In
j
he
Rawl inas makes clear that
: ruth
Thucydides'
if'
order
desire
to
to
make
this
portray
the
tyrannicide of 514 as "motivated by personal and class hatred" (107),
Rawlings
writes,
the
historian
sought
social rank and political status" (105).
TWV
a.OTc:,v the political slur
meaning"
which
"is
to
~£OOl, I'OALT1!l."
intentionally
praise
of
the
bland
tyrants'
[Aristogeiton'sl
(ivYjo
a phrase with "no technical
insists, "Thucydides added insult to injury"
Thucydides'
"belittle
in adding to the words
rule
and
damning,"
ar
Rawlings
Rawlinqs finds in
(105'
'-Issertion
"just
remarkable in its judgment as those denigrating Aristogeiton"
as
(1 Ll61
Similarly, in the matter of the herms a century later. Rawlings finds
Thucydides'
"exaggerated
description
and
of the
tendentious"
lower-class
(101),
and
origins
he
ot
cites
the
informers
with
approval
Dover's contention that in some passages bearinq an the hermocooidae
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Thucydides
has
Thucydides,
" sacr ificed
accuracy
Rawlings writes,
to
indignant
rhetoric"
(102)
seems to have been so eager to make
point here that I'he was willing to bend the truth in 28.1 and to
:,IS
overemphasize
Thucydides
it
was
in
53.2.
Rawl ings
II
motivated
here
by
goes
his
popular faith placed in "hearsay evidence,
(103)
-
on
to
passionate
explain
hostility
that
to
the
untested and unreliable"
a faith which in Thucydides' mind links the demos' handling
of the hermocopidae affair with its many misapprehensions concerning
the
tyrannicide
of 514.
In
his
account of this
event Thucydides
promises to "reveal that neither others nor the Athenians themselves
sa'.
anything
accurate
about
their
own
tyrants
nor
about
what
happened" (6.54.1).
t n the interests of the higher akribeia, then, Thucydides seems
by
Rawlings'
reasoning:
own
admission
to have
followed
a rather odd
line of
the same sorts of lower class people who place faith in
unsubstantiated rumors are the sorts of people we should blame not
only
for
the
misunderstandings
about
the
tyrants
and
the
hermocopidae but also for the murder of H ipparchus which gave rise
to
those
very
misapprehensions
in
the
first
place.
How
very
astonishing.
Now in his discussion of this parallel,
Rawl ings maintains that
Thucydides "does not often betray his bitterness in so unguarded a
fashion" (102).
he
is
bulk
all
of
Perhaps not; but where Thucydides is more guarded
the more dangerous,
his
monograph
hermocopidae parallel.
cost
the
Athenians
the
to
and
forget
Thucydides
war.
As
Rawlings
seems
throughout
the
lessons
of
had
strong
opinions about
a highly
the
the
tyrannicide/
what
intelligent contemporary
observer, he deserves to have his opinions about the war taken very
seriously
gospel,
indeed.
and
"assumptions"
this
But he does not deserve to have them taken for
Rawlings,
while
about Thucydides'
skepticism an
unrefined
censuring
the
skeptics
historical accuracy,
trust
which
accords
ill
for
their
substitutes for
with
what
he
hir1self obviously knows about the kinds of class prejudice fermenting
fhucydides l mind.
97
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
The picture Thucydides presents of the Athens of his day is one
with which all Greek historians are familiar.
Thucydides maintains,
Athens was
the demos rather than was led by it.
Athens
became
a
true
Pericles
in
perceptible
proposing
Athenian
political
civic-mindedness,
the
Sicilian
since Pericles
and
this
development
life.
These
acted
expedition
on
in
men,
devoid
own
behalf,
their
the
the Athenian demos as a whole,
first
place,
and
though
they
had
done
best
any
in
second
in
In a larger
Pythodorus, Sophocles and
for their failure
the
of
first
bereft of Pericles' steadying
hand, treated the strategoi irresponsibly;
Eurymedon were condemned
proved
Self-seeking demagogues succeeded
recalling Alcibiades in the early stages of the campaign.
sense,
led
After Pericles died, however,
democracy,
catastrophic for the war effort.
While Pericles was alive,
well-governed,
job
in
they
Sicily
could
in
in
the 420's,
the
difficult
cirumstances in which they found themselves; Thucydides himself was
exiled after the fall of Amphipolis;
very
legitimate
fear
decisions which
led
of
the
and Nicias was compelled by his
demos
inevitably
to
make
unfortunate
to the disastrous end
strategic
of the Sicil ian
campaign and, in the fullness of time, to the loss of the war.
Alternative views of the war are possible.
example:
Consider this,
for
Pericles' foreign pol icy in the late 430's was foolhardy and
shortsighted.
decrees
He
against
imagined
Megara
and
that
the
the
alliance
investiture
of
with
Corcyra,
Potidaea
would
the
not
provoke the Spartans, and that if they did, the war could be won in
one
or
two
strategy
campaigning
showed
poor
seasons
-
three at
understanding
of
the outside.
human
His
psychology,
mention a questionable grasp of hygienic principles.
not
war
to
When he died in
the city in which he had created such unsanitary living conditions,
he bequeathed to the unfortunate Athenians an enervating war against
a tireless enemy whom he had badly underestimated.
the
Athenians
were
in
considerable
Understandably,
disagreement
as
prosecute the war that Pericles had left behind him.
disagreements,
and
this
relation,
however,
despite
the
the
they
how
to
held out for a quarter of a century,
treacherous
self-seeking
to
Despite their
defection
Alcibiades.
of
For
Pericles'
all
the
blueblooded
efforts
of
98
BOOK REVI (:,\"5 i COMPTES RENDUS
aristocrats with Spartan leanings, the democracy held out until finally
the fleet was betrayed from within at Aegospotami.
Even after this
betrayal, however, the democrats at Athens enforced in the city the
first
recorded
amnesty
in
history
and
held
themselves
back
from
prosecuting the treacherous 01 igarchs.
For
wartime
ready
Rawl ings,
Athens.
acceptance
understand,
however,
and
that
of
given
there
view
is
Thucydides '
Rawlings'
Rawlings'
otherwise
only
one
picture
obvious
invidious aristocratic prejudices.
that
is
legitimate
Thucydides'.
I
of
find
Athens
awareness
of
view
of
Rawlings'
hard
to
Thucydides'
I t must be acknowledged, however,
careful
study
of
the
text
is
enormously
illuminating insofar as he focuses on explaining just how Thucydides
sought to impress his views on his readers and to keep them from
considering
alternate
interpretations.
Rawl ings
is
particularly
sensitive in documenting the way in which Thucydides measured the
revolts of Lesbos and of Chios against one another, contrasting the
Athenians' efficacy in handling the first revolt with their incapacity
in the face of the second and stressing the superior Spartan response
to the second revolt; he is acute also in arguing that Thucydides had
written his account of Book 3 with the events of Book 8 in mind,
laying
particular
stress
on
the
opportunities
missed
by
Alcidas
"because they were taken fifteen years later, at a similar point in the
second war, by Alcibiades" (197).
Rawlings is right to call attention
to Thucydides' atypically venomous treatment of Alcidas in Book 3, a
treatment which
includes the rather unusual insertion at 3.30-31
of
one direct and one indirect speech that offered advice not taken. and
later of an additional indirect speech (at 3.32) designed to underline
"Alcidas'
useless,
in
fact,
counterproductive
cruelty"
(197).
Rawl ings argues convincingly that these speeches were written from
the perspective of Alcibiades' exploits in 412 and were calculated to
highlight Alcibiades' crucial importance to Sparta in the second war.
Rawlings is also quite persuasive in his analysis of Thucydides'
handling of the Corcyraean alliance in its opposition to the expedition
against Sicily.
In both cases,
assembly,
"the
but
emphasis
of course,
is
totally
the decision lay with the
different,
indeed
it
is
~9
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
reversed," for Thucydides "wanted to contrast the Athens of 412 with
the Athens of 433.
The latter was, in Thucydides' view, a great and
unified city under the wise and strong guidance of a capable leader,"
whereas in 415 lithe situation was different.
Athens was a changed
city ... Athens' political leadership was split among men more on a level
with one another, each vying for control.
appealed to the masses....
To win control, these men
The results were devastating....
What
better way to introduce these themes than a full-scale presentation of
the bitter debate in the Athenian assembly of 415?'1 (74-76)
What
masterful
better way,
task of writing
readers
indeed?
Rawlings'
closely
argued
book
is a
study of the manner in which Thucydides approached
to
illuminate
see
this
the
about the great war of his day
so as to
persuade
the
Rawlings
seeks
war
aspect
his
of
way.
Insofar
Thucydides '
craft,
as
his
book
is
a
to
vitally
important contribution to our understanding of Thucydides ' History.
Where the book falls short is in its assumption that what Thucydides
so artfully
elaborated
reality.
purveys
schema
For
this
to
of
readers
one
man
assumption,
of his
but
History
rather
which
is
some
underlies
not
the
carefully
kind
of
objective
his
entire
book,
Rawlings offers no evidence.
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY
JENNIFER TOLBERT ROBERTS
PETER KRENTZ.
The Thirty at Athens.
Ithaca, London:
Cornell
University Press, 1982.
Pp. 164, 3 maps, 3 figures, 2 tables.
Cloth, U.S. $17.50.
There is a real need for a good new study of the government of
the Thirty Tyrants, either by themselves or in the lai ger Co,H",Xl vI
the
oligarchic
should
like
to
opposition
be
able
to
to
democracy
report
that
in
the
fifth-century
work
under
Athens.
review
will
satisfy this need, but the best I can hope for it is that by having
addressed the subject and put forward some original new solutions it
will stimulate fresh interest and therebv generate the desired study.
100
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
My
major objections
to
this
book
are
the
lack
of sense of
proportion in its presentation and the excessive desire of the author
for
originality.
quantitative,
The
lack
of
proportion
so that one has
is
both
qual itative
and
to wonder whether the author has
decided for whom he is writing and about what.
For example, of the
130 pages of text (excluding the appendix) less than half is about the
Thirty, the rest being about the "before" and "a fter."
little to say about the Thirty?
Is there so
On the other hand one aspect of the
"before" that really deserves inclusion is a treatment of the oligarchic
movement in Athens before the Thirty.
This, however, is relegated
to the Introduction and is treated so briefly and superficially that it
would hardly satisfy an undergraduate.
Oligarchic thinking before
the "Revolution of the 400", is represented by an odd assortment of
quotations,
some
disappointing
to
of
which
find
that
clearly
old
postdate
chestnut,
that
coup.
Megabyzos'
It
is
speech
in
Herodotos 3.81, quoted at length as "a brief summary of oligarchic
theory"
II
that
"it
is
difficult
to
better ... "
(22).
As
for
the
Revolution of the 400", it is motivated, perpetrated and replaced by
the 5000 (Krentz is a traditionalist here) in the space of four pages,
even though Krentz himself admits later (p
the earlier
course
revolution ... must
taken
by
the
have
Thirty."
had
56) that lithe events of
a direct
Antiphon,
for
influence
example,
the
is
not
mentioned in the book.
By
contrast,
chapter
(" Peace
Negotiations
after
Aegospotami") is, strictly speaking, irrelevant to the subject of the
book, all 15 pages of it.
Scholars one thousand years from now will
undoubtedly consider it an interpolation by a pro-Theramenean, for
its sole purpose appears to be a forum
for airing
Krentz·s most
original solution to the problem of Theramenes ' having spent more
than three months out of Athens negotiating a worse settlement than
the Spartans had originally offered.
In
response to the malicious
interpretation of his motives espoused by Lysias and Xenophon, that
he was trying to reduce the Athenians to such a point of starvation
that they would accept any terms, Krentz suggests that Theramenes
was trying to prevent the Athenians from surrendering.
So long as
101
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
he was away they would have to hold out.
of course~
The death of Darius,
He
What was he waiting for?
foresaw,
what
we know
from
hindsight, that the competition between Kyros and Artaxerxes and the
restoration of the influence of Tissaphernes would lead to a change in
relations between Persia and Sparta, and he thought that this, or the
possibility of this,
terms.
In
gamble
the
failed.
might enable the Athenians to bargain for better
event,
Darius
Besides
the
held
fact
out
that
too
the
long
and
reasons
Theramenes '
for
the
break
between Sparta and Persia are more complex than K rentz suggests, it
is
incredible
that
none
of
Theramenes'
supporters
should
have
brought forward this excellent defence of his actions, especially when
their lives depended on it.
This is creative writing not history.1
I shall pass over Krentz's original approach to the headings of
some
inscriptions,
since
this
is
already
well
known
and
has
been
criticised by others, but cannot leave unmentioned his contribution to
the source-criticism of the Athenaion Politeia.
This is set out in the
Appendix and is the basis of his favourable treatment of the Thirty
throughout the book.
Krentz wants to accept Aristotle's account, or
rather Aristotle's chronology, especially the timing of the request for
a Spartan
garrison.
Unfortunately,
probably a witness of the events,
is generally preferred.
Xenophon,
a contemporary
has a different chronology,
and
which
Krentz sets out to justify his preference for
1Another example of Krentzian originality concerns the 3000.
In the
context of Krentz's theory (chap. 3) that the Thirty were trying to
remake Athens lion the model of an idealized Sparta 'l ("idealized"
because who wants kings or helots 7 ), the Thirty represent the
Cerousia, those excluded from the franchise were to be the Perioeci,
but how to explain the 3000 7 Answer:
they "chose the number 3000
since that was the approximate number of full Spartiates in 404. II
But, even if we disregard the methodological weaknesses of such
calculation, it strikes me as strange that the Laconophile Athenians
should choose to imitate the Spartans in decl ine rather than in their
prime.
Furthermore, following this line of argument, are we to
hypothesise a Spartiate strength of 5000 in 411/10 and a traditional ist
wing amongst the Athenian oligarchs that eventually triumphed by
cataloguing 9000? But this is absurd.
10L
BOOK REVIEiVS/COMPTES RENDUS
Aristotle by seeking to show that his source too was a contemporary
of
the
events,
and
one
who
is
commonly
bel ieved
to
be
a more
accurate historian than Xenophon, namely the author of the Hellenika
Oxyrhynchia
events,
lP).
Of course,
we do not have piS version of these
but we do have Diodoros, whose use of P (via Ephoros) for
the period 410-396 is accepted by most.
But, while Diodoros agrees
with Aristotle on somp. points, he disagrees on several others, so that
the idea that they were using a common source does not jump out and
hit you in the eye.
argues
that
Krentz has an ingenious solution for this.
wherever
Diodoros
and
Aristotle
agree
they
He
have
a
common source, P, and wherever they disagree Diodoros' source was
Xenophon.
time,
was
Ephoros,
stupid
who has been blamed
enough
to
try
to
accounts as those of Xenophon and P.
for worse things in his
conflate
two
such
confl icting
Fortunately for Ephoros it can
be demonstrated from the passages that we can check, on the battles
of Notion and Sardis, that this was definitely not his practice, and I
am
not convinced
Thirty.
P.
that he changed
his ways
in his account of the
Even less persuasive are the arguments for Aristotle's use of
Readers will be well advised to stick with the more conservative
source-criticism
of
P.
J.
Rhodes
in
his
new
commentary
on
the
A tilena ion Pol i teia .
The Conclusion
recently,
speculates
to
this
book,
like too many
what might have
events been otherwise than it was.
happened
that
had
I
the
have
read
course
of
This sort of speculation belongs
in an historical novel.
In
sum,
this
book
is
likely
to
promote
those who are familiar with the period,
strong
reactions
from
but the non-specialist is in
danger of being taken in hook, line and sinker.
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
PHILLIP HARDING
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
103
JAKOB
SEIBERT.
Das
Zeitalter der
Diadochen.
Ertrage der
Forschung,
Band
185.
Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftl iche
Buchgesellschaft, 1983.
Pp. xvi + 272.
Paperback.
Members' price
DM 34,90.
ISBN 3-534-04657-9.
Meant to be a companion to, and in many respects a continuation
of,
Bd.
10
of
this
series,
the
most
recent
of
J.
Seibert's
Forschungsberichte will elicit many of the same comments found in the
mixed reviews of the Alexander volume
(see P.
Goukowsky,
REG 87
[1974] 425-428, and R. D. Milns, JHS 95 [1975] 249-250, cited on p.
xv;
to
knows
which
this
"muhsam,
add
and,
E.
in
Badian,
his
Gnomon
"Vorwort",
46
[1974]
condemns
517-518).
both
entsagungsreich und wenig befriedigend",
the
p.
Seibert
genre
xv)
(as
and
its
critics.
The
subject-matter
is
divided
into
six
main
sections:
I.
"Die
Quellen" (1-69; J. Hornblower, Hieronymus of Cardia [Oxford, 1981).
cited on p. 8, appeared too late for discussion); II. "Chronologie der
Diadochenzeit"
282
(70-81;
is rejected
320
[on p.
B.C.
167)
Diadochengeschichte 323-281
bleme
der
v.
Diadochenzeit"
Diadochenzeit"
(191-238;
the
figures
principal
is
accepted
III.
Chr."
(82-167);
(168-190);
V.
more accurately,
of
for Triparadeisos,
for Kurupedion);
the
age);
but
"Der Verlauf der
"Zentrale
Pro-
"Prosopographie
IV.
der
a survey of Iiteratu re on
and
VI.
"Weitere
Literatur"
(239-252; a catch-all category that reduces many important works to
the
status
under
800
separate
of miscellanea).
The
scholars;
not
works
I
cited.
divide his material,
did
But,
he will
index
contains
venture
whatever
to
the
count
criteria
not please everyone.
names
of just
the
number
of
Seibert
employs
to
It must be said,
however, that the distribution of citations is arbitrary and often out
of all
proportion
to
the
significance
of the
works.
I
note
a
few
oddities, errors and omissions.
I n section VI many useful, rlajor, works are I isted without
comment, sometimes, as in the case of N.G.L. Hammond, Epirus
(Oxford, 1967), under the wrong heading (p. 249, s.v. "Elis"~
Bengtson, Herrschergestalten des Hellenismus (Munich:-1975), is cited
for Ptolemilios, Sohn des Lagos, Seleukos I., Demetrios Pol iorketes
and Pyrrhos, but not for Arsinoe II., Ptolemaios II. and Antigonos
10lj
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Gonatas, though all have chapters devoted to them.
Unknown to
Seibert
are
A.S.
Bradford1s
continuation
of
P.
Poralla,
Prosopographie der Lakedaimonier, (Breslau, 1913) (A Prosopography
of the Lacedaemonians,
[Munich,
1977]), and
Ino MichaelidouNicolaou,
Prosopography
of
Ptolemaic
Cyprus
(Studies
in
Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 44 Goteborg, 1976]); M. Launey1s
prosopography in vol. 2 of Recherches sur les armees hellenistiques
(Paris, 1950) could usefully be added to the literature on p. 191.
Although Seibert claims to write sine ira et studio (p. xv), he
devotes an unduly long paragraph (208-209) to E. M. Anson's
dissertation (Eumenes of Cardia [Diss. University of Virginia, 1975]),
which he finds for the most part llunergiebig" and " ohne eingehende
Kritik und Analyse."
Anson is said seldom to express views that
differ from those of other scholars and to suffer from "Unkenntnis
der Arbeiten von J. Kromayer-E. Kahnes ... und von P. Briant. .. "
(208).
Despite these alleged shortcomings, another eleven and
one-half lines are accorded to the conclusions of this work, which is
cited not fewer than fifteen times (1, 14, 21, 26, 37, 43, 48, 53,
78-79,107,111,113,208-209; on p. 113 Anson is chastised for
failing to note that GRBS 18 [1977] 251-256, derives from the
dissertation).
By cont~W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and
India is cited once; Antigonos Gonatas four times; M. Rostovtzeff,
SEFmw twice; G. T. Griffith, The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World
twice; and there are many similar examples.
I would add, in fairness
to Anson, that he ably demolishes (Historia 30 [1981] 117-120) R. A.
Lock's theory about liThe Origins of the Argyraspids", Historia 26
(1977) 373-378; ~' Seibert p. 240.
--In the discussion of Alexander's testament (105-106), G. Bauer
should be adde.:l to those who support Reitzenstein against Ausfeld;
and F. Pfister, Deutsche Literaturzeitung 82 (1961) 893, does not
give "Z us timmung" to Merkelbach (1954), but rather suggests a date
of 318-316 for the forgery, following (without acknowledgement) Tarn,
JHS 41 (1921) 21, n.8.
The Alexander-Sarcophagus, more appropriate to the age of the
Diadochoi, is discussed in Bd. 10, pp. 58-61, with notes.
To the
literature on p. 64, add E. T. Newell, Miscellanea Numismatica:
Cyrene to India, ANS NNM, no. 82 (1938).
Finally, it is necessarily the case that a work of this sort is out
of date as soon as it appears.
Seibert has attempted to be complete
up to 1978, and in some cases to 1981 (F. E. Peters. The Harvest of
Hellenism [New York, 1970] is omitted, though other books of similar
scope are included; missing too are J. Briscoe, liThe Antigonids and
the Greek States", in I mperial ism in the Ancient World [Cambridge,
1978] and R. M. Errington, "An Inscription from Beroea and the
alleged Co-rule of Demetrius 11", in Ancient Macedonia, vol. 2
[Thessaloniki,
1977], pp.
115-122).
And,
unfortunately,
many
interesting works have appeared too late for inclusion, some of them
more accessible published versions of dissertations cited in the book
8001< REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
105
(Gullath, p. 248; Heisserer, p. 222; Schober, p. 237).
I can find no
specific reference in the text or the index to Ai Khanoum or its
founder, Kineas (but see the brief notice in Bd. 10, p. 145).
Omissions in a work of this size are inevitable, but the
are remarkably few, none of them serious enough to detract from the
value
of
the
work.
Professor
Seibert
has
produced
a
useful
bibliographic aid, one which only he or someone of his learning and
dil igence
can,
and
I
hope
will,
supplement
in
the
future.
How
important it will be as flein Stuck Wissenschaftsgeschichte ll (p. xvi), I
leave to those who care about such things to decide.
CAlGARY/FREIBURG I. BR.
WALDEMAR HECKEL
K. STIEWE AND N. HOlZBERG (edd.) Polybios.
Wege der Forschung,
Band 347.
Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftllche Buchgesellschaft,
1982. Pp. xx + 448. Cloth, OM 62. ISBN 3-534-05685-X.
Historians have on the whole done well in the Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft's series Wege der Forschung.
Herter's
Thucydides,
individual Livy
massive
and
similarly,
in
Marg's Herodotus and
latin,
Burck's
highly
(much of it his own work) and Poschl's Tacitus, are
and
still
standard
works
distinguished
and
expert
authors
of
or
700
pulled
pages:
800
together
extracts, most of which will never lose their value;
their
articles
and
and though the
volumes are now aging, all but one have at least been re-issued with
updated bibliographies.
on
Herodotus
(We must hope that a second volume, at least
and Thucydides,
where
so much
new
work
has been
done, will some day follow.)
This
book
Entrusted
compare
with
none at all
Polybius
would
be odd
to a scholar
as
those
who
edited
(to my knowledge)
a
source,
dogged by misfortune.
in
(Stiewe)
it
was
that company,
who
the
has
four
never
volumes
by
any
standards.
done any
cited
work
above,
to
and
on Polybius or any author who used
(according
to
Stiewe's
introduction)
Negotiations about the contents and printing
106
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES REND US
rights were protracted.
(One imagines that the publishers and
of the authors objected to the format of the proposed volume:
further below.)
new post was followed by his protracted illness in 1979.
the
see
After this, a II10ng delay" when the editor went to a
publishers
made
him
call
in
an
assistant
By 1980,
(Holzberg),
known
chiefly as a young papyrologist. but clearly willing to work hard in
remote fields.
He bears no responsibility for the selection, which he
loyally tries to explain in his own introduction - this Stiewe, on his
own admission (p. VII), "could not have written" - and he has added
a short bibl iography for the years 1970-80, supplementing (somewhat
inadequately,
splendid
especially
critical
since
bibliography
it
is
a mere
for 1950-70
list)
Domenico
in AN RW
1.2
Musti's
and
(1972)
extending over the whole field of Polybian studies, from editions and
commentaries to books and essays on all relevant issues.
The
principles
of the
series of misfortunes.
selection
First,
were clearly
fixed
before
the
Stiewe planned a selection "nicht aus
der Sicht eines Historikers, sondern aus der Sicht eines Philologen."
(As is known, there is no English equivalent for this last term.)
allows
style,
technique,
Entstehungsgeschichte.
structure
It
and
organization, method of work, use of sources, credibility. philosophy.
ar,d a good deal else.
Only discussion of the actual events treated is
omitted.
the
confined
Presumably
to
this.
"Sicht
des
Most Historiker on
Historikers"
this
is,
for
Stiewe,
Continent would
regard
most of this book as within their sphere of interest.
There were other considerations. irrelevant to scholarship.
aimed
at
a balance among
writing
in different languages(
~).
He
The
result is that a trite apologia for Roman imperialism by M. Gigante is
included, which it would have been kinder to Italian scholarship to
ignore -
had not Stiewe's self-imposed time-limits made it impossible
for
to
him
Similarly.
use more
a
woolly
recent and
essay
on
very
Tyche
much
by
A.
better
I tal ian
Roveri
gains
works.
(and
107
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
presumably loses) nothing by translation into kindred German. 1
no doubt in order to represent the Low Countries,
And
since no article
was to hand. there is a review by M. Gelzer of a published Louvain
seminar paper on Polybius l historical method.
of
its
object
Schriften
-
too
trivial
to
characterizes
"anyone who knows
have
been
the book of 250
Polybius from
The review -
included
in
pages by
his own
in view
Gelzer's
reading
Kleine
remarking
will
that
hardly
find
anything illuminating here."
So
much
Stiewe1s
articles
more
for
the
conscientious
results
of
insistence
in German and English;
that
ought
conspicuously
to
upset
have
the
linguistic
on
this
though
been
balance.
balance.
did
not
Fortunately,
keep
it no doubt
included,
but
would
There
five
by
are
three (plus a short extract and two reviews) by Gelzer.
all but one (noted above)
Walbank's.
37
(1943)
Walbank,
out
major
kept out some
have
too
Walbank
and
Of Gelzer's,
are available in his Kleine Schriften.
Of
the essay on "Polybius on the Roman Constitution" in CQ
-
here pp.
79-113 -
is largely
superseded
by Brink and
"The Construction of the Sixth Book of Polybius ll ,
ibid. 48
(1954) - here pp. 211-258; one might add that although this article
was worth including, much of it is itself now outdated by the chapter
on
"The
Sixth
Book"
in
Walbank's
Sather
volume
Polybius
(1972).
Thus the reader will not be really enlightened either on Polybius or
on the development of Walbankls thinking.
How seriously Stiewe had
read any of this material is another question.
This brings us, finally, to the principal oddity of this collection.
As
Stiewe,
appeared
almost
after
1960
proudly,
is
announces,
included.
This
practically
does
not
nothing
prevent
him
that
from
1A
specimen of the conclusion will suffice:
"Tyche ist '\icht
ausserhalb des Menschen als Hindernis und unuberwindliche Schranke
innerhalb ihrer Grenzen ....
In Wirklichkeit ist sie die Grenze des
Heute, an der sich verstandesmassige und moralische Uberwindung
eine hahere und kraftigere Moral im Denken und Handeln des Morgen
aufrichtet. II
(Anyone wishing to translate this into English so as to
elucidate it for the reviewer is asked to communicate with him.)
108
l300K REVI E\',fS/ COMPTES RENDUS
clair.1ing,
in
the preceding sentence,
that he hopes the
wil!
VOIl.H'le
present " an adequate picture of the variety of Polybian studies l not
(Jus
der
sixties.
saw
Sicht
the
eines
Historikers,
of
coul'se]
down
to
the
middle
I n testing this claim we ought to remember, ~., that 1964
l<
publ ication
Polybe and
A.
of both
a~thcrs
although both
P.
Roveri's Studi
Pedech's
su
La
Polibio -
Methode
historique de
neither mentioned here,
are represented by earl ier trivia.
But why, in a volume dated 1982, a terminus even in the " middle
sixties"?
Stiewe alleges reasons:
was advanced mainly by articles,
monographs,
This,
whi Ie before 1960 Polybian research
since 1960 it has been mainly by
whereas articles now merely
treat
individual
problems.
he claims,
"permitted"
led him with "logical necessity" to consider himself
2
select only few contributions after 1960.
We can
to
briefly assess this claim by looking at the four (out of twenty-three)
such items that he has in fact included:
one is a review, admittedly
of an important book; but the other three deal entirely with Book 12
and only
one
of them
Polybius",
J RS 52
miscellany
of
(Walbank's
[1962))
notes
by
is
well-known
important.
Walbank
from
essay
on
"Polemic
(One of the others
a
Festschrift,
including
in
is a
an
interesting - but surely not really weighty - note on "polybius on the
Lotus.")
Stiewe's
proclaimed
practice
principles.
extracts from major works:
work of thirty)
does
Nor,
not
of course,
seem
to
harmonize
with
his
is he averse from including
witness the snippet (three pages from a
from Gelzer's "0ber die Arbeitsweise des Polybios" -
he could quite well have included suitable extracts from monographs,
which
(not
in
the
field
of
Polybian
scholarship
admittedly of major importance in scholarship.
alone)
are
now
To make this fact an
argument for excluding them is, to say the least, deliberate paradox,
unsuitable for a volume of this kind.
It
is difficult to understand
2Since I do not wish to appear to misrepresent him. I must quote the
key
sentence
(p.
VIII):
"Daher
ergi:lb
sich
mit
logischer
Notwendigkeit, dass ich aus der Zeit nach 1960 nur noch wenige
Beitrage fur den hier vorgelegten Band auswahlen durfte. II
109
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
why
a volume
in
this series was entrusted by
the
publishers
to a
scholar who employs such logic and such methods.
It is even more difficult,
selection
(see
the
comments
especially
on
in
the
light of his actual
some of Walbank1s
essays
selected,
above), to avoid the suspicion that the odd terminus can be far more
easily
explained.
areas
was
By
beginning
certainly,
1960,
that
vast
Classical
overproduction
scholarship
that
has
in
made
all
it
difficult for anyone, by now, to keep up with basic reading even in a
limited number of special fields.
It
looks as if Stiewe had more or
less kept up with reading on Polybius (or done it when asked to edit
this volume) during the time when there was not too much of it, but
had given up in or soon after 1960.
We cannot help contrasting a
scholar I ike Musti who, had he not been I tal ian, would certainly have
been a far more obvious choice for this volume.
Stiewe's
virtue
of
avoiding
nationalism
does
But it seems that
not
extend
to
the
Wissenschaftl iche Buchgesellschaft as publ ishers of this series.
In any case,
been
volume.
an
inability to keep up with the reading would have
irreproachable if it had
It is not -
acceptable
reason
for
volume,
intended
to
this
Polybius,
led
to
his
refusing
to undertake the
however it may be disguised and rationalized producing
illustrate
a misconceived
Vvege
der
collection.
Forschung
For
concerning
stops twenty years before its date of publication - as we
have seen, because of the very fact that most of the really important
work has been done since.
Finally:
where
what
knowledge
use
of
is
English
it?
is
In
German-speaking
universities,
de
facto
better
not
much
than
knowledge of German is here, it wil! be very useful to have some of
Walbank's work translated; though a collection of all his articles (or a
major selection)
still.
and
one in the original
there
nothing
(Come to think of it:
is
Engl ish?)
little of use
in
this
else would
have been
far
more useful
would it not be equally useful to have
But for the
volume.
Engl ish-speaking
It has
the
limited
scholar
merit of
making accessible four or five articles that may be difficult to find:
outstanding
among
them
M.
Treu's
"Biographie
und
Historie
bei
Polybios" from a Festschrift of 1954 for A. Klotz, which few of us will
11{)
BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS
have seen;
Klotz's
one might aud
own
"Die
inaccessible journal
well
have
articles,
<:;nd
been
:)erhaps not quite on the same level -
Arbeitsweise
La
left
des
Nouvelle Clio
buried
in
Polybios"
(5
from
the
[1953]);
dignified
the
obscurity.
Most
however, are from three or four major journals,
German
and,
as
we
have
seen,
found if' his Kleine Schriften.
Gelzer's
work
rather
rest might as
of
the
in English
will
be
readily
To the English-speaking student, of
course, the use is even more limited; for the Buchgesellschaft insists
on having everything
in this series published
in German,
whatever
the original language, even though a large number of its members are
in
fact
English-speaking
students.
these
It
members
is probably
or
their
and
teach
thousands
of
English-speaking
no overstatement to predict that none of
students
will
in
fact
buy
this
volume,
provided he has a chance of looking at it - or at a serious review of
it - first.
We must hope that for Wege der Forschung this will turn out to
be an isolated Irrweg.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
E. BADIAN
MICHAEL L. BARRE.
The God-List in the Treaty between Hannibal
and Philip V of Macedonia:
A Study in Light of the Ancient Near
Eastern Treaty Tradition. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1983. Pp. 220. Cloth, U.S. $22.50.
The primary aim of this
(Johns
Hopkins,
Hannibal/Philip V
against
Rome.
book,
is
1978),
to
treaty of 215
Previous
studies
a revised
elucidate
B.C ..
doctoral
the
an alliance which
by classicists
dissertation
god-list
in
the
was aimed
have concluded
that
the Greek text of this treaty, copied by Polybius and preserved in a
Byzantine manuscript
translation
of
the
(Vaticanus
original
Urbinas Graecus 102),
Punic
version.
This
is a literal
study,
by
an
oriental ist, examines this text by comparing it to ancient Near Eastern
treaties known from cuneiform documents and alphabetic inscriptions.
111
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES REND US
After
an
Introduction
(I)
and
review
of
previous
discussions
(II), a comparison with both Greek and Ancient Near Eastern treaties
(III)
is
followed
by
a detailed
names in the treaty (IV),
The
conclusions
(V)
are
commentary on
the
individual
divine
including an analysis of specific phrases.
followed
by
a
series
of 17
useful
charts
(Appendix I), outlining the various god-lists in ancient Near Eastern
treaties.
The
individual
last
deities
of
in
these
the
is
a
"Table
of
Hannibal/Phil ip
Equivalences"
V
god-I ist
of
and
the
their
Carthaginian, Tyrian and Ugaritic counterparts.
Appendix
II
deals
with
the
question
of
foreign
gods
in
Mesopotamian treaties, and is followed by a bibl iog raphy and indexes
of divine names, ancient texts and terms cited.
reproduction
of
the
typographical
errors
typescript
(on
p.
26,
is
The photol7lechanical
excellent,
Gen.
14:19
with
reads
only
minor
~, not ~
wClyn! )
Barre provides a balanced and amply annotated discussion of the
individual deities in the list of divine witnesses.
The main difficulty
in the past has been the identification of these Punic deities in Greek
dress with their West-Semitic proto-types.
By assembling comparative
evidence from both legal and mythological texts from the ancient Near
East, the author has been able to shed light on structural elements in
the text as well as on the identity of the individual deities listed in
the treaty.
and
H is conclusions wi II be of great value to both classicists
oriental ists
Phoenicio-Punic
interested
and
in
Graeco-Roman
the
interaction
civilizations
in
between
the
the
Western
Mediterranean.
In
his
I~-Iuch-debated
analysis of the
connection
and Astarte, Barre concludes that the former is Hera
is
the
Daimon
relationship
Karchedonion.
is very close,
distinct goddesses (p. 60).
we
are
dealing
with
two
Whi Ie
noting
that
the
between
Tanit
and the latter
Tanit-Astarte
he proposes that in the treaty
they are
It is more likely, to this reviewer,
manifestations
of
a
single
deity,
that
Tanit-
Astarte, as she is called in the Sarepta inscription (p. 59), and that
the Daimon of the Carthaginians is but an epithet of Tanit-Astarte.
The comparison with the Bronze Age Ugaritic CAnat-CAstart is quite
112
800K REVIEWS/COr,,1PTES RENDUS
appropriate, for in text RS 24.244 from Ugarit (p. 169, n. 165) these
two deities are
treated
as a single entity
conflation like the later Atargatis
with
a single abode,
« CAstart-CAnat)
a
of Graeco-Roman
Syria.
The
etymology
~ "Baal
of
proposed
Malaca l'
,
by
with
Barre
the
for
Bacal-Malage
Phoenician
conceivable grammatically but most unlikely.
gentilic
< *Bacal
suffix,
is
Barre himself (p. 186 n.
473) knows of no such construction among the various types of divine
names.
Indeed, in Phoenician divine names containing a geographical
name as the second element, the latter is always without the gentilic
suffix (see p. 165, n. 97 for examples).
Albright (1968), in a work
cited elsewhere by Barre, suggested that the name Baal-malage "has
certainly been misread ... " and proposed the reading Baal-madge 'Lord
of Fishing (Fishery)'.
The latter would make good sense here, as he
is identified with Triton of the treaty.
The author concludes that the Hannibal/Philip V treaty, viewed
in light of the Ancient Near Eastern treaty tradition, perpetuated a
noticeable
conservative
therefore rightly
rejects
trend
in
legal/religious
Picard's theory
dynastic deities of the Barcides.
that
formulations.
these gods were
He
the
Barre has succeeded in illuminating
the Punic god-list, and providing us with a most welcome contribution
to the study of official treaty pantheons.
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
ROBERT R. STIEGLITZ
In 1926 Mikhail Rostovtzeff declared Aristides' speech To Rome
" a masterpiece of thoughtful and sound political analysis" (Social and
Economic History of the Roman Empire 2 [1957], 130); Sir Ronald Syme
has recently given the opinion that, "It is a farrago of commonplaces,
it contributes little to the understanding - and its credit may be on
113
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
the wane"
("Greeks
Stephen J.
would
invading
Brademas,
seem
to
Sr.,
falsify
the
Roman
Lecture
at
least
Government",
[1982],
the
16).
third
of
The Seventh
The present book
Syme's
judgements.
I ntended as the introduction to a further volume which is to contain a
Greek
text,
German
translation
and
notes,
it
has
three
chapters,
respectively on the urbanization of the Roman empire, on Aristides,
and on the speech.
Klein's
undertaking
Rostovtzeff.
is
To mention
introduction
and
fundamental
thus
only
translation
edition
and
the
latest
books,
of L.
this
A.
in
Stella
commentary
a
has
line
inspired
included
J.
(1940),
(1953) ,
the
H.
J.
and
to
the
'realistic'
view
of
Syme
observations such as the following
(p.
will
not
Oliver's
Bleicken's
monograph on the legal and political background (1966).
lean
by
Italian
Those who
sympathize
152, n. 62:
with
my translation):
"It is also significant how often Aristides in the course of his speech
praises the Romans as the rulers of the whole earth....
be
no
question
but
that
the
author
is
thereby
There can
answering
those
Romans who urged new wars with the argument that the Roman claim
to universality
Perhaps
no
(Universaliti:itsanspruch)
compromise
with
the
had not yet been
other
view
was
realized".
possible.
Klein
could, however, have done more to establ ish the literary and personal
context, and not just the political and social one:
could have asked how original
in this instance he
was the idea of world domination,
or
how likely Roman statesmen were to be interested in the opinions of a
Greek rhetor some twenty-five years old.
been
admirably
(though
not
mendacity).
translated
created
all
will
The
by
D.
for
agree
treatises
A.
Velleius
that
of
Russell
This kind of setting
Paterculus
Velleius
I'Menander",
and
N.
G.
is
by
J.
A.
thereby
recently
Wilson,
has
Woodman
absolved
reedited
give
a
no
of
and
less
instructive insight into the <llmost cynical manipulations of fact which
Greek rhetoric permitted.
Perhaps
Klein
intends
to
leave
this
kind of discussion
for the
second volume, but even so he gives the impression of being more at
home
in
modern
surprising
to
theorizing
find
nothing
than
on
in
the
the ancient
speech
To
texts
the
(though
King
later
it
is
than
114
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
A sentence such as the following does not augur well for the
1966).
projected
translation:
ability ... Clctually
designating
to
himself
t1Since
surpass
as
Aristides
discerns
Demosthenes.
0UOLAE.U<; ypa<pwvll
(p.
he
in
feels
99:
my
himself
the
justified
in
translation).
Even if this were Greek. it would have nothing to do with Aristides l
self-esteem:
in
the
passage cited
(28.
139 Keil).
he
imagines
his
critic placed in the position of the traitor Pausanias in Thucydides
--rC{l ~U(}LAE.L TC{l ypa<povTL, 'i-LllOf. XPLJaou XUL a.PYLJPOU ounav"J
and blaming
XE.xwAua8w' (Thuc. 1. 129. 3).
Yet this book has definite merits.
he
is
usually
sound;
and
his
second
Klein is rarely original. but
chapter
introduction to Aristides currently avai lable.
is
the
best
general
Rostovtzeff would have
been pleased.
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY. PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
C. P. JONES
P. MURGATROYD (introd.)
Ovid with Love:
Selections
Amatoria I and II.
Oxford text. commentary. vocabulary.
Bolchazy. 1982. Paper.
I SB N 0-86516-040-6.
from Ars
Chicago:
The book is paperbound and comes complete with a fat red and
white Cupid on the cover. clumsily struggling to fit the arrow on his
bow.
The print is too small in the introduction and text. passable in
the notes.
The price is not indicated and one sincerely hopes that it
is low.
The introduction has a standard biography of Ovid in which the
commentator manages to avoid a discussion of the Ilerrorll
(the key
debate in all Ovid courses) by calling it a mystery and by throwing
in.
as a bonus.
doubt.
At
only one
Ilpopular theoryll.
his own
favourite.
no
So much for democracy in the classroom.
p.
3
Murgatroyd
says
that
the
Augustan
poets
were
" c haracterized by scholarship. cleverness. painstaking care and high
technical
skill"
and.
while
their
doctrina
produced
"elegant
and
115
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES REND US
professional poetryll, it also had its drawbacks as we can see in lithe
difficulty and obscurity of Propertius ll .
All this triteness is probably
the result of a traditional upbringing in the firm belief that not only
literature
ought
to
be
neatly
divided
into
genres,
but
also
poets
living in the same period should
be packaged together and given a
What is the meaning of the tag IIAugustan poets ll ? The above
label.
description,
apart
from
the
confession
of
the
author's
inadequacy
before Propertius, could apply to anybody at any time.
There
are,
however,
one
or
two
interesting
and
suggestive
At p. 8 he sees in ~.
points in this otherwise drab introduction.
1.453 hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi a reminiscence
of Virgil Aen. VI 128 f. sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad
auras/ hoc opus,
hic labor est.
At p.
9,
the emphasis on the mock
didactic element allows the reader to find a humorous rationale for the
Iist of contents,
recapitulation,
conclusion,
not to mention analogies
from other occupations, etc.
The text,
mostly in small fragments,
occupying 21 pages.
vocabulary 20 pages.
page
of
think,
commentary.
how
to
consists of only 770 lines
The commentary stretches for 147 pages and the
Practically every word has an average of half a
The
interpret,
reader
when
to
is
told
smi Ie,
very
where
carefully
to
what
guffaw.
to
This
mollycoddling leads only to a total lack of interest on the part of the
reader.
on
his
Even a below-average beginner ought to be free to struggle
own
and
come
to
an
interpretation,
right
or
wrong.
The
function of the instructor is to correct him.
The commentator states in his preface that, as the Ars can be
enjoyed on several levels, his own edition would IIbridge a number of
those levels ll . As we have seen, it obviously does not. He also adds
that the beginner should read only the first paragraphs of each note
containing II resume, grammar, references, ~. II, that is the essentials
at any
level,
and
leave
sophisticated student.
the
second
part
of
the
note
to
the
more
This is in order to separate the processes of
comprehension and literary criticism.
But, while the information contained at the beginning of the note
is quite adequate, it is the literary criticism in the second part that
116
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
There is no denying that the Ars i~
leaves a lot to be desired.
humorous
humour,
work,
jests
. T,t;::Ulstic,
and
an
ought
to
excellent
be
one
pointed
at
out
literary and textual references.
that.
and
Therefore,
analysed
But,
along
briefly,
wit,
with
Freud has
taught us that humour can be analysed scientifically and provided us
with technical terms for at least a dozen categories of jokes, puns,
al ius ions ,
indirect representations,
double-entendre,
etc.
I am not
suggesting a strict adherence to the Freudian doctrine of humour but
a
certain
amount
commentator.
of
scholarly
detatchment
on
the
part
of
the
His humorous additions are not called for and create a
~.
situation of parody of a parody of a parody:
p.
98,
Bk.
I,
line 206 (= AA 1.306) nec dubito quin se stulta decere putet, stulta
I, lines 453-4 (= ~
translated as "the stupid cow"; on p. 143, Bk.
1.721-2)
the
statement
that
"the
implication
is
that
if the
reader
follows Ovid's recommendation, he too could get even a tetrica puella
into bed";
p.
final
(demens)
word
194,
Bk.
in
II,
line 281
(= AA 2.591)
the digression
cheekily
the remark "the
dilates
on
Vulcan's
stupidity".
The title, moreover, Ovid With Love, the dedication of this book
uxori carissimae (meae),
p.
1 of the introduction where the Ars is
called "Latin Kama Sutra or Perfumed Garden" inspire the reader with
an acute nostalgia for the real thing.
After all, Ovid is subtler than
that~
McG I LL UN IVERSITY
PAOLA VALERI-TOMASZUK
ALAN
WARDMAN.
Religion and Statecraft among
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
Cloth, U.S. $20.00.
ISBN 0-8018-2770-1 .
. The
principal
concern
of
this
book
is
to
the Romans.
Pp. vi + 217.
illustrate
the
fundamental connection between Roman religion and Roman political life
in the period from the mid-Republic to the late fourth century A.D.
The author seeks to explain Rome's conversion "from civic polytheism
117
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
professed by oligarchs and their subjects to a universalist religion set
in a form of absolute rule ll (pp. iv-v), his method being to focus on
changes in the three components of '!civic polytheism ll identified:
Roman
ideas
of the
relationship
between
community
and
gods,
the
functions of temples and other religious buildings, and the nature of
priesthoods, both pagan and Christian.
The label II c ivic polytheism ll
itself IIdenotes the cult of gods or deities who are the guardians of
the
society
which
gives
them
worship
and
who
may
also
be
functionaries in a wider order of things ll (p. 2); its IIsupreme task ll
(p.
3)
is
to
secure
the
favour of Rome and
its
gods'
cooperation
collective,
for
the
protection
public enterprises.
The
and
book's
chief value lies in its forceful critique of several received ideas about
the
historical
important
development
respects
writers on
the
of
Wardman
subject,
Roman
religion,
been
anticipated
has
notably
J.H.W.G.
though
by
in
other
Liebeschuetz
some
recent
(Continuity
and Change in Roman Rei igion [Oxford, 1979]) and Ramsey MacMullen
(Paganism in the Roman Empire [New Haven and London, 1981]).
chief defect is its author's style:
the
structure
of
individual
theorizing abstruse.
chapters
to press on
is
loose
and
disjointed,
the
Many readers are thus likely to leave the book
in exasperation after only a few
enough
Its
Wardman writes enervating prose;
to
the end
pages,
there
but for
those with
stamina
is certainly stimulation to be
found.
Wardman describes the IIgrammarll
his
Introduction
proceeds,
more
(Gods,
or
less
Temples,
(p.
chronologically,
between political developments and
v) of civic polytheism in
Priests)
and
to
Roman
over
five
demonstrate
chapters
the
linkage
religious practices.
Many
of the topics introduced and discussed are predictable - rei igion as a
reinforcement
the
politics
of
of
imperialistic
the
late
expansion,
Republic,
manipulation
Augustus!
of
reli9ious
religior;
policy,
!n
;-he
arrival of cults from the East,
the conversion of Constantine,
revivals in the fourth century;
but the rationale through which they
are
but
interpreted
is
anything
summary points might indicate.
religious development,
i.e.
conventional,
Fi rst,
a view
that
a linear,
belief ii'
as
::he
pagan
following
prog ressive vie'!·: OT
,:;
particular
deity
11&
800K REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
begins, reaches a climax, dissipates and is then superseded by belief
in a new god.
rejected
IS
oolytheism expected
900s,
c pantheon
an
in
favour of the view that
essential
compatibility
among
Roman civic
a plurality of
in a constant state of flux and insatiable growth
which allowed for fashions in divine taste but required total eclipse of
none of its
members.
Secondly,
the
emotion~1
religion. which did not lack
purpose of traditional
Roman
appeal, was to help people live
better lives; but because it lacked autonomy, traditional religion could
not be divorced from the corporate life of the state and its political
fortun~s
and was obliged to incorporate more and more manifestations
of the divine in order to ensure Rome's continued public success.
Thirdly,
therefore,
the
cults
of Cybele,
should not be regarded as substitutes
their complements.
Fourthly,
Isis,
Mithras and
for traditional
so on
forms but as
Constantine1s adoption of Christianity
was controlled, as was the introduction of many cults, by the need
for a new victory god in a particular political situation and did not
demand
immediate
rejection
of
the
pagan
pantheon.
Constantine,
however, had no way of foreseeing that the new cult would develop
an independence untypical of its predecessors, or that it would create
a priesthood whose members' power was suddenly distinct from their
individual political positions.
Fifthly, Roman civic polytheism, under
no threat from Greek philosophy,
with the expansion of empire,
had
however,
its origins in locality cults;
and not least through
the
specific medium of the imperial cult, a process of religious diffusion
opened
the
traditional
way
for
the
universalism
of
Christianity.
underpinning so unique to the new beliefs;
forgettable
Thus
the
system ultimately failed because it lacked the theoretical
practices
and
rites,
with
little
it was
by
" a collection of
way
of
rational
explanation to guide the visitor or even the citizen through the maze.
Its capacity for absorbing
cult provided
new gods and its increased diversity of
for the faithful a range of emotional certainties,
but
accounts of its practice were theoretically feeble" (p. 174).
The book is thus revisionist in character, but its impact would
hav(- been greater were it not for Wardman's recent competitors.
His
basic subject-matter is that of Liebeschuetz, who deals especially well
119
BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS
with
religious
importance
manipulation
to
say
on
and
temple
religions under the Empire;
offering,
H.
H.
Republic
(London,
emotionalism
in
divination;
functions,
and,
Scullard1s
though
Festivals
allows
1981),
traditional
Roman
MacMullen
locality
has
cults
much
and
a much more conventional
and
Ceremonies
something
religion
of the
(at
to
least)
emerge.
Roman
of
the
Moreover,
although Wardman can be interesting as an exponent of critique,
the
details of his own theories are not always convincingly presented.
argue
for
a
specifically
basis of the Turia
and
to
speak
of
female
inscription
"popular
of
Eastern
religious
consciousness
To
on
the
sole
is a questionable procedure
(p.
39),
enthusiasm",
"popular
emotion II
ct.
definite mood among the people" (pp. 51, 52, 65;
and
"a
p. 69) can be,
without evidence or refinement, little more than bland assertion.
To
construct motives behind the building activities of Augustus for which
there is no real support is to indulge in over-rationalization (p. 70),
and to emphasize the universality of early Christianity is to downplay
the extent of divisiveness
it
141-2);
also
anachronistic
Christian
Wayne
term
ritual
A.
leads,
in
the early
incidentally,
"Church
(p.
would
141)
Meeks,
The
and
First
Christian
to
State".
be
The
better
Urban
communities
sustained
use
novel
understood
Christians
(pp.
of
the
element
in
if read
with
Haven
and
(New
London, 1983), 140-163, and any assessment of Constantine must now
reckon
with
T.
D.
Barnes1s
Mass. and London, 1981).
the
fourth
century,
to
Constantine and
Eusebius
(Cambridge,
Surprisingly, Wardman omits reference, on
John
Matthews,
Western
Aristocracies
and
Imperial Court, A.D. 364-425 (Oxford, 1975).
Examples of this
broad
issues
course,
as
on
sort could
which
be
to comment.
Polybius observed,
multiplied,
First,
vitally
but
Roman
connected
there are also
religion
with
the
was,
of
corporate
life of the Roman people; but how, one might ask, is what is usually
termed " pr ivate religion" to be accommodated by the concept of " c ivic
polytheism"?
classical
religions
practise
Wardman
antiquity
that
cui t
is
are
which
the
is
unequivocal:
conviction
independent
has
some
of
liThe
that
the
do
of
not
have
that
they
only
authorization II ;
so,
lithe
community,
collective
starting-point
individuals
120
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RHJDUS
distinction between public and private was present, but not in a way
that is familiar to us ll (p. 171).
Admittedly the link between public
(£!.
and private was close
Scullard, ~ . , 17), but it is difficult
to see how the objects of individuals ' devotions always formed part of
a
rei igion
that
II was
not
something
to
be
pursued
values and objectives of the state II (p. 170).
a
highly
individualistic
element
in
the
apart
from
the
There is, for instance,
prayers
prescribed
for
the
farmer by Cato (~. 139-141), and Catullus' stylized prayer to Diana
(.s;;.. 34) combines, in more complex fashion, individualistic and public
pet-ccptions
of
the
deity.
Prdyers
for
personal
were not necessarily antagonistic to public
but
pr.ayers
MacMullen,
for
op.
release
cit.,
51)
slavery
or
perhaps could
from
be,
health
and
beauty
l'values and objectives ll ,
relief
from
taxes
(~.
while curses
(£!.
~
8748, 8749, 8753) reveal a side of personal rei igion among 1I0rdinaryll
people which, though of no interest to Wardman, hardly conforms with
The whole notion of II c ivic polytheism ll therefore
his generalizations.
needs a less
restrictive definition,
one
that,
without
foisting
antiquity a modern distinction between publ ic and private,
more
fully
to
the
complexities
of
Roman
religious
upon
will cater
experience
and
embrace a greater range of evidence than Wardman admits.
Secondly, the treatment of the IIfailure ll of civic polytheism and
the IItriumph ll of Christianity is hampered by one of the received
opinions - expressed in the very terminology of failure and triumph Wardman
is
so
anxious
to
avoid
elsewhere.
Within
his
chosen
framework of time (approximately 200 B. C. - A. D. 400), Wardman can
show how religion functioned in the creation of empire, in the change
from 01 igarchy to autocracy. and in the maintenance of autocracy; as
noted al ready, he does not neglect the emotional content of traditional
religion.
But,
incongruously,
throughout the book he writes as if
Christianity
the
had to replace the traditional polytheistic system, as if
;lfailure ll of the latter were inevitable.
Disregarding and
implicitly minimizing the force of chronology, the author says little of
the successful, positive nature of Roman religion, which maintained an
intense vitality
immense
span
for
at
of time
least five centuries,
and
to
demands
Meet
the
various
was able over that
and
challenges
121
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
made
upon
simplistic,
same
kind
another
it
by
changing
and jaded,
of
historical
context.
historical
conditions.
As
a
result
the
metaphors of failure and triumph produce the
distortion
Furthermore,
as
those
whi Ie
the
of
decline
social
and
reasons
fall
in
Wardman
advances to explain the "triumph" are sensible enough (though surely
Mithraism,
and
perhaps
other
cults
too,
had
the
same
degree
of
mobility as Christianity; pp. 133-4), more attention needs to be given
to
the
danger
ethical
of
and
personal
"Christianizing"
content
history
of
is
Christianity
resisted)
if
(even
the
as
change is to be properly appreciated;
as MacMullen has noted
£i.!.,
promise
136),
"no
worshiper as
pagan
cult
he knew and
held
out
of
felt himself to be.
the
process
afterlife
of
(~
for
the
in
the
Resurrection
flesh was thus a truth proclaimed to the decisive advantage of the
Church" .
Wardman's
book
is
one
of
a
growing
number
of
works
by
English-speaking scholars which show a heightened sensitivity to the
social
roles and
functions of Roman
religion
and
which are able to
achieve a perspective less controlled than has often been the case in
the
past
by
the
strength
of
the
Judaeo-Christian
tradition.
Awareness of the gains to be made from the social sciences
keen.
the
is also
The time may therefore be ripe for a synthesis which evokes
diversity
and
complexity
of
rei igious
experience
in
the
Roman
world, both across time and space and, most importantly, across the
whole
range
of
society.
The
model
might
be
provided
by
Keith
Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971), a work on
early modern England which suggests a multiplicity of approaches to
the religious life of antiquity.
But Wardman's book is only a step on
the path towards an achievement of that scale, of more value for its
questioning of assumptions th<:m for anything else.
UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA
K. R. BRADLEY
122
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
WI lLlAM L. MacDONALD.
The Architecture of the Roman Empire, I:
An I ntroductory Study.
Revised Edition.
New Haven and london:
Yale University Press, 1982.
Pp. xxi + 225; 10 figures, 135 plates.
Cloth, U.S. $37.50, ISBN 0-300-02818-0.
Paperback, U.S. $12.95,
ISBN 0-300-02819-9.
This updated
version
of MacDonald1s study of imperial vaulted
design will be received as happily today as on its first appearance in
That almost nothing in the first edition has required alteration
1965.
or even qualification is a tribute to the author's earlier industry and
original ity.
H is chapters on four of the most remarkable structures
in the imperial capital -
the Palaces of Nero and Domitian,
Trajan's
Markets, and the Pantheon - are unexceptionable in the acuteness of
their observations and in their stimulating analysis of the buildings '
pol itical, social, and architectural significance.
The
revisions
are
brought up to date,
text.
The
latter
more
modest:
the
bibliography
has
been
and a Supplement added as Chapter I X of the
combines
two
disparate
subjects:
a
survey
of
publications on vaulted design that have appeared in the intervening
seventeen
years
(184-190);
and
a brief analysis
(190-199)
first
of
what constitutes "classical" architecture and, more specifically, of the
twenty-five basic elements of design
that "can
reveal
the historical
anatomy of Roman imperial architecture in a general but accurate way"
(197) .
This
diversity"
of
essay
Roman
provides
a
design
and
useful
synthesis
establishes
a
of
wider
the
"artistic
architectural
context for the author's detailed study of vaulting.
While these additions and
revisions
have not made the original
version obsolete, they are by themselves worth the modest cost of the
new paperback edition, which might prove the most attractive feature
of this re-issue.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
JOHN W. HUMPHREY
POEMS/ POEf\lES
The Green Eye of the Yellow God
THERE'S A ONE-EYED yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
He was known as "Mad Carew" by the subs of Khatmandu,
He was better than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshiped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.
He had loved her all along, with the passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.
He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day, as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.
On the night before the dance Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars;
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.
He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temples dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept all through the day,
And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.
He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket, saying, "That's from Mad Carew, II
And she found the little green eye of the god.
She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn't take the stone, and Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.
When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hastened to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.
His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through,
The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew
'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God. II
123
124
POEMS/ POEMES
There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
J. Milton Hayes
ICave
x6:vva~ov'
sive
De Passione F,:Jnniae Shannon Elegidarion
STAT DEVS effigies in montibus aurea luscus,
Bactra super; sub idem stat brevis astu lapis.
hic sua CERRITI colit haud solanda sepulchrum,
aureolo semper despiciente deo.
Cerrito dederat praefectum audacia nomen:
nomine vir melior (sed tacuere) dato.
scurra quidem, tamen ut prope divum miles adoret.
nec non cui faveat filia sola ducis.
hanc, ut erat validus, iamdudum ardebat ab imo;
quin amor, haud dubium, mutuus esset, erato
ilia bis ad denos paene unum adiecerat annum:
natalem choreis concelebrare parant.
scripserat hic, ecquid de se pro munere vellet;
mane exercentern convenit ilia suos,
dimissisque viro lascivius "Aut nihil" inquit
"aut decus aureoli detur ocellus eri ~ II
ultima nox aderat. defixum nempe putares:
mutum inter calices lusit amica cohors.
nec solitum risit solusque in tempora sedit,
deinde sub arcani prodiit astra pol i.
ante diem rediit scissis tunicaque sagoque;
tempora mananti fossa cruore rubent.
haud mora consuitur decimamque edormit in horam,
assidet et lecto filia fida ducis.
somnus habet finem:
tunicam rogat ille remittant;
ipsa refert: grates annuit ille suas,
ril"1arique iubens "Tibi dat Cerritus habendum
hoc" ait, atque oculum repperit ilia dei.
125
POEMS/ POEMES
increpuit miserum (mos est, mihi crede, puellis),
quamvis uda novo lumina rore tepent,
sed lapidem renuit, solusque relinquitur ille
gemmaque quae capitis summa pericla fuit.
iam fervent choreae placidi sub sidere Cancri,
ad latus aegroti cum memor ilia volat;
dum plateam transit, surrepit leniter aures
per tenebras tripudi dulcibus aura modis.
ianua tota patet, radiisque argentea lustrat
luna locum; fallax sub pede terra natat.
pectore Cerriti culter male turpis inhaeret:
sic deus ereptas au reus ultus opes.
est deus effigies in montibus aurea luscus,
Bactra super; sub idem est parvulus astu lapis.
hie sua CERRITI fovet insolabilis urnam,
aeternum au reolo despiciente deo.
A.A.R.H.
ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES
BROCK UNIVERSITY ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRACTICUM IN CYPRUS:
4 JULY - 14 AUGUST, 1984
The six week archaeological practicum trains students in the
techniques and
procedures of excavation as
practiced
in
the
Mediterranean area today.
The Practicum is a fourth year course,
CLAS/VISA 475.
The twelfth session of the Practicum will be held at
the Aceramic Neolithic Settlement site of Kalavasos - Tenta near
Limassol (Larnaca District) in Southern Cyprus.
The Excavation is
directed by Prof. Ian A. Todd of the Department of Classical and
Oriental Studies at Brandeis University.
For further details and an
application form write to:
Professor David W. Rupp, Department of
Classics,
B rock University, St.
Catharines, Ontario
US 3A 1
CANADA.
126
ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES
CAC/SCEC 1983
TRANSLAT ION
COMPETITION
IN
LATIN-ENGLISH/FRENCH
SIGHT
National Prizes
First
Second
Third
Michele Urquhart
Justin Bur
Christine Baker
University of Guelph
University of Toronto
University of Victoria
Western Provinces
Daryl Penner
Ontario
Quebec & the
Maritimes
Maud Burnett
University of British
Columbia
University of Toronto
Frederick Bouter
Acadia University
Area Prize Winners
Honourable Mentions
Mary Ellen Oel
Rafael Newman
Michael Chase
Lindsey Martin
University
University
University
University
of
of
of
of
Calgary
Toronto
Victoria
British Columbia
The organiser was Dr. Robert Fowler (University of Waterloo) and the
judge was Dr. Alan D. Booth (Brock University), who commented as
follows on the entrants l translations of Varro, De re rustica 3.1.1-5:
IIMany entries fell short of offering a fluent translation.
The
first sentence was often rendered clumsi Iy.
It is less surprising that
the clause nam in hoc nunc denique est ut dici possit, non cum
Ennius scripsit perplexed most.
Again, the sense of quod tempus si
referas ad illud principium eluded many, as did that of nec mirum,
quod. . . .
On points of vocabulary, difficulties were found with
~W~I~~' the~ti~i!;~;~' ~h~~:ad ~n r~t~~Ssh~~g iexvelti~fe'com~~;~ncoen :~~
promise.
II
INSTITUT CANADIEN DE LA
GRECE, 1-30 JU I LLET 1984.
MEDITERRANEE:
COURS
DIETE
EN
Ce cours est organise, en collaboration avec III nstitut canadien
dlarcheologie
Athenes,
I'intention des etudiants, des enseignants
et de tous ceux qui desirent mieux connaitre les origines de notre
civilisation.
Les participants recevront lors de leur inscription une
courte liste bibliographiquc.
Le Guide bleu de Grece (Hachette)
servira de manuel.
Les etudiants desireux dlobtenir les six credits
a
a
ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES
127
a
attaches
ce cours devront choisir entre un expose oral
des
sites au programme ou la redaction d'une dissertation (40 points). En
outre, ils subiront un examen ecrit (60 points)
la fin du sejour en
Grece.
a
Itineraire:
Attique (Athenes, Eleutheres, Aigosthenes, Amphiareion,
Rhamnonte,
B rauron,
Marathon,
Sounion,
Thoricos,
Eleusis) ,
Megaride (Perachora, Nisee), Egine, Peloponnese (Corinthe, Nemee,
Stymphale, Mycenes, Argos,
Tirynthe, Epidaure, Lerne, Tegee,
Sparte, Mistra, Messene, Coryphasion, Pylos, Olympie, Bassae),
Grece centrClle (Dodone, Meteores, Delphes, Thebes, Gla), Crete
(Cnossos,
Heraclion,
Gortyne,
Phaistos,
Aghia Triadha,
Mallia,
Gournia) .
Professeur:
S. Van
Universlte d'Ottawa.
de
Maele,
Departement
d'Etudes
anciennes,
Cout:
Can. $1295. Cette somme comprend les transports en G rece
(bus prive et bateau), Ie logement, Ie petit-dejeuner, I'instruction,
I'entree aux sites et musees, ('adhesion
I'lnstitut canadien de la
Mediterranee. Sont exclus Ie transport Canada-A thenes, les repas du
midi et du soir, pourboires et boissons, porteurs, les livres et les
frais d'inscription pour ceux qui desirent obtenir les six credits.
a
Date Limite Pour L'lnscription:
1er mai 1984; accompagne d'un
acompte de $200.00.
N.B.:
L1lnstitut canadien de la Mediterranee se
reserve Ie droit d'annuler ou de modifier Ie programme sans preavis.
Tout remboursement apres cette date limite pourra se faire seulement
si un rempla<;ant peut etre trouve.
Dans ce cas, 10% du cout seront
retenus pour frais d'administration.
Tout etudiant qui s'inscrit est
avise de prendre une assurance-annulation pour voyages forfaitaires
aupres de son agence de voyage.
Pour obtenir de plus amples renseignements et des formulaires
d'lnscription, veui lIez contacter Martine Gadbois, I nstitut canadien de
la Mediterranee, 541, Promenade Sussex, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6Z6,
Tel. (613) 238-2207.
CANADIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL
STUDY TOUR IN GREECE
INSTITUTE
AT
ATHENS:
SUMMER
"Topography and Monuments of Ancient Greece", 4-31 July,
1984.
Tour Leader:
Professor J.A.S. Evans (University of British
Columbia).
The course is open
to university undergraduates,
graduate students, and teachers Majoring in or teaching Classics,
Ancient History, Archaeology, Art History or Anthropology.
A
fourth-year Classics or Fine Arts year credit (CLAS/VISA 400) is
C1vailable on a Letter of Permission from Brock University.
128
ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES
For brochure and application form write to:
Professor David W.
Rupp, Chairman, CAIA Summer Session Committee, Department of
Classics, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, CANADA
US
3A1.
APPLICATION DEADLINE:
10 April 1984
UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD SCHOOL IN S.
ITALY:
CLASSICS 475 - PRACTICAL METHODS IN CLASSICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
The ar~haeological area of Roccagloriosa in Western Lucania, with
impressive remains of the fourth/third centuries B. C., is situated ca.
30 miles SE of Paestum on a plateau overlooking a broad sweep of the
Tyrrhenran coast
Excavations in the late 70's, carried out on behalf
of the Italian Department of Antiquities, have explored the massive
fortification wall, enclosing the upper part of the settlement, and
uncovered a major undisturbed burial ground which provides, with its
rich gr,:lVe goods, a vivid picture of the degree of hellenization of the
Lucanians.
Recent work undertaken by the Department of Classics of the
University of Alberta, and made possible by the financial support of
SSH RCC, has focussed on the systematic exploration of the settlement
areas in order to gather information on different aspects of the
organization of the native community in the period immediately
preceding the Romanization of the region.
Continuation of work for next summer will entail excavations in
the two major habitation areas, respectively inside and outside the
fortification wall, partially explored in the course of the 1982 and
1983 seasons. The summer school programme, arranged in conjunction
with the die; . .viII offer students an introduction to the techniques of
field arcnaeology and is organized as a six-week course in the months
of June and July.
Participants will be trained in a range of
archaeological skills which will include field survey, excavation of
archaeological layers, recovery of faunal and botanical remains,
techniques of conservation, processing and recording of finds. These
different aspects of field archaeology will be taught by members of
the excavation staff.
Students are expected to work at the site six
hours a day, generally from Monday to Friday. Weekend trips will be
arranged to places of historical and archaeological interest, including
Cumae, Naples, Pompeii. Paestum. Sybaris and Metapontum.
Inexoensive accomodation will be arranged for the participants in
the villaqe of [,occaq;orlosa. For further details please write to:
Dr. M. Gual ticri, lJepartment of Classics, University of Alberta,
Edmonton. Alberta, CANADA
T6G 2E5.
ANNOUNCEMENTS/ANNONCES
CAESAREA ANCIENT HARBOR EXCAVATION PROJECT,
FOR VOLUNTEERS
129
1984:
CALL
The Caesarea Ancient Harbor Excavation Project (CAHEP), a
cooperative venture of the Center for Maritime Studies at the
University of Haifa, the University of Victoria, the University of
Colorado at
Boulder,
and
the
University of Maryland,
seeks
volunteers for its sixth season of underwater excavation in the harbor
of Caesarea Maritima in Israel during the summer of 1984. Volunteers
will participate in one of two three-week programmes.
These are
designed to provide an introduction to all aspects of the underwater
archaeology of submerged coastal sites and to the history and
archaeology of Caesarea Maritima, the capital of Roman and Byzantine
Palestine, and its magnificent harbor complex known in antiquity as
Sebastos.
As a major port in the eastern Mediterranean for over 1,000
years, Sebastos affords an extraordinary laboratory for scholars and
students interested in Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, and
Crusader civilizations.
The first five seasons of excavation have
produced unique information concerning the sophisticated design and
construction techniques used in the harbor, and have recovered
remarkably well preserved pottery,
metal
work,
coins,
wooden
artifacts, and a Roman shipwreck.
The 1984 season will also see the
opening of several trenches on land, and participants will be able to
gain
experience
with
land
excavation
after
completing
their
underwater work for the day.
Individuals are also encouraged to
assist the archaeological staff in the cataloguing and conservation of
artifacts.
Volunteers, who must have a recognized SCUBA certificate
before beginning participation in the programme, pay their own
transportation costs plus a fee to cover room and board and
expedition expenses.
Part of this fee may be tax deductible.
Help
will be available in arranging the cheapest possible air fare to Israel.
University credit can be arranged with either the University of
Victoria or the University of Haifa.
If there is sufficient interest, an
optional Red Sea diving trip wi II be organized at the end of each
session.
Schedule:
Session I, 20 May 8 June
Session II, 10 June - 29 June
For further information and application forms, write or call:
Dr. John P. Oleson, Chairman, Department of Classics, University of
Victoria, P. O. Box 1700, Victoria, B.C.
V8W 2Y2, Telephone (604)
721-8515.
Also Needed:
DRAFTSMAN, to draw pottery and small finds.
Travel
and subsistence provided, 19 May - 16 July.
Contact Dr. Oleson at
above address.
130
NOTE:
BOOKS RECEIVED/ L1VRES RECUS
Livres recenses ne sont pas inclus ici-bas. / Books reviewed
are not included here.
~~nRuL;e:~~'A~trba;:Ud~~ d~oMi~di~;:~~~~~~ ;l\rch~~~~;~~,S~~~k~t_b:~~
23.
Gothenburg:
Paul Astroms forlag,
figures.
Paper, ISBN 9186098-11-X.
1983.
Pp.
x
+
360,
52
BERS, Victor.
Greek Poetic Syntax in the Classical Age.
Yale
Classical Monog raphs, 5.
New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1984.
Pp.240. Cloth, U.S. $20.00, ISBN 0-300-02812-1.
BALL, Robert J. (ed.).
The Classical Papers of Gilbert Highet.
New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983. Pp. xvi + 381.
Cloth,
U.S. $35.00, ISBN 0-231-05104-2.
POLIAKOFF, Michael.
Studies in the Terminology of the Greek
Combat Sports.
Beitrage fur klassischen Philologie,
Heft 146.
Konigstein/Ts. : Verlag Anton Hain, 1982.
Pp. x + 202, 25 plates.
Paper, ISBN 3-445-02266-6.
ROSEN, Stanley.
Plato's Sophist: The Drama of Original and I~.
New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1983.
Pp. x + 341.
Cloth,
ISBN 0-300-02964-0.
Stephen V.
IG 11 2 2336:
Contributors of First Fruits for
Beitrage
fur
klassischen
Philologie,
Heft
139.
KonigsteinTFs.:
Verlag Anton Hain, 1982.
Pp. 244, 24 figures.
Paper, ISBN 3-445-02231-3.
TRACY,
~~hais.
NEW EDITIONS/NOUVELLES EDITIONS
BURKERT, Walter.
Homo Necans:
The Anthropology of Ancient
Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, translated Into Engl ish by Peter
B lng.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:
University of California
Press, 1983. Pp. xxvi + 330, 9 halftones. Cloth, U.S. $24.95, ISBN
0-520-03650-6.
LLOYD-JONES,
Hugh.
The Justice of Zeus.
Sather Classical
Lectures,
41.
Berkeley,
Los Angeles,
London:
University of
California Press. Second Edition (with a new Epi logue and Addenda),
1983. Pp. xviii + 266. Paper, U.S. $8.95, ISBN 0-520-04688-9.
NILSSON, Martin P.
The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mytholoay.
Sather Classical Lectures, 8.
I ntroduction and Bibl iography by Emily
Vermeule.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:
University of California
Press. First Paperback Edition, 1972, reissued 1983. Pp. xvi + 262.
Paper, U.S. $7.95, ISBN 0-520-05073-8.
131
To the friends of
EDITH MARY WIGHTMAN
McMaster
University
has
established
a
memorial
fund
in
commemoration of their fellow member of the university community.
The fund will be used to complete her work in progress at the time of
her death on 17 December 1983.
This includes two volumes, both
multi-specialist efforts under her direction, Excavations at Roman
~~:~r:gc~'ns~~~e~i~~ ~~~I~XS ;~i~~~y~f 1~:t7h-8~~lu~e~·. John w.
Hayes has
Donations to the memorial fund will be gratefully accepted in
Canadian, British or USA monies, and receipts will be issued. Please
make cheques payable to:
EDITH MARY WIGHTMAN MEMORIAL
FUND, and send to one of the following addresses:
M. Zack, 0 i rector
Development Office
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Hamilton, Ontario
Canada
L8S 4L9
Friends of McMaster, Inc.
cI 0 Austrian Lance
& Stewart
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U.S.A.
10112
John W. Wightman
10 Ann St.
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
EH4 1PJ
Friends who would like to be notified of
encouraged to send their names and addresses to:
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L8S 4L9
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are