Bryn Mawr Classical Review

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

This Festschrift for the 75th birthday of William Musgrave Calder III (b. 1932) is not the first to honor the distinguished American scholar.¹ The number of editors and of the contributors (35) and the wide range of subject matter "attest to the honorandus' impact on the field of classics for more than forty years", in the words of the back cover: all in all, a sign of the friendship and consideration for a man who devoted himself to reception studies, the history of the classical scholarship (with well-known attention to Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff), and to a passionate and long-lasting academic activity. The papers mostly concern the history of classical philology, but also "Greek tragedy, Greek philosophy, Greek and Roman literature, late Latin epistolography, textual criticism, art history, Latin in the German educational system, Roman history, ancient forgery, Renaissance astrology, as well as the first translation and commentary of the Vatican Paradoxographer in English".

After the Preface of Stephen M. Trzaskoma (pp. xi-xiii), Robert Ackerman treats James G. Frazer, investigating the historical context of his scholarship and his relationship with the "herald" of Cambridge Ritualists, William Robertson Smith (who recruited Frazer for the staff of the Encyclopedia Britannica). Apart from anecdotal information, the most interesting thoughts are about Frazer's role in de-allegorizing mythography and developing the comparative method. RA underlines Frazer's dislike of theorization and his rationalistic approach to myth, which prevented him from fully embracing Robertson Smith's and Jane Harrison's approach.

Michael S. Armstrong presents William Abbott Oldfather's reply to a toast to "Tolerance" at the annual initiation dinner of Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (April 13, 1915). Despite the political inclination of Oldfather (a well-known Germanophile), "the speech is resolutely apolitical [...], it is also not a contribution to Classical scholarship. But as a biographical document it is of some interest" (p. 17).

Stephen Bay publishes a selection of marginalia in Perry's personal copy of Bücheler's fourth edition of the Satyricon (1904). Perry acquired Bücheler's edition four years before he wrote his Princeton doctoral dissertation on Lucian: i.e., we are facing the first step in Perry's interest in the ancient novel. These marginalia are mere notes, maybe outlines of a future commentary.

Charles Rowan Beye produces a sensitive reading of Verg. Aen. 9 in comparison with Il. 10, underlining the stylistic and narrative topics of the book.

Maximilian Braun argues that in Aesch.Pers. 211-214 the εὐθύναι are presented as depending not on the Areopagus but on the demos.

Bernhard Breuing gives interesting data and considerations about the teaching of Latin in contemporary Germany. Although Latin is currently optional in secondary schools, enrollment is increasing. However, the number (and qualifications) of the teachers does not match this need. BB suggests some future guidelines: more attention to the sources, thematic readings, knowledge of full works, study of literary translations, centrality of translation theories.

Ward Briggs and Susan Ford Wiltshire publish their interview of Meyer Reinhold (1909-2002) about his youthful scholarship at the American Academy at Rome.

Caroline Buckler proposes a new interpretation of the Sophilos dinos fragment, "depicting the chariot race from the funeral games for Patroklos in Book 23 of the Iliad" (Beazley, ABV 39.16, 681), which "is not simply or even principally a synoptic narrative, but first and foremost a kinetic narrative" (p. 115); in order to depict the race from beginning to end, Sophilos invented a two-sided grandstand, marking starting and finish point of the race.

Next contribution is Luciano Canfora's Papiri falsi (pp. 119-122), a short, vivid introduction to his case against the authenticity of the so-called Artemidorus papyrus. This paper was written before the editio princeps (C. Gallazzi, B. Kramer, S. Settis, Il papiro di Artemidoro, Milano 2008) as well as before his first three books on the topic (see e.g. L. C. (ed.), Il papiro di Artemidoro , Roma-Bari 2008). Since 2007, the complexity of the question has grown exponentially.²

Mortimer Chambers casts light on Jacoby's strenuous efforts in editing the Fragmente der griechischen Historiker before and after World War II, presenting his correspondence with "a much less well-known Gymnasium teacher in Freiburg im Breisgau", Friederich Gisinger, who was engaged by Jacoby for the never-accomplished FGrHist, Part V (Greek historical geography). From Gisinger's Nachlass in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, MC gives specimina of 25 letters (1926-1958). Of particular interest is a letter of Jacoby (Oxford, 01.07.1953) refusing to lecture in Freiburg, his first University (see particularly his project about "das archaische und klassische Sparta", in the wake of a never-delivered lecture "Die Erfindung Lykurgs", against the Nazification of the lawgiver).

Dirk Uwe Hansen broadens the classical parallels for a famous distich of Goethe (Venezianische Epigramme, 40 Knaben liebt' ich wohl auch, doch lieber sind mir die Mädchen; / hab' ich als Mädchen sie satt, dient sie als Knabe mir noch): not only Marc. Arg. AP 5.116 and Mart. 9.67, 11.104, but also AP 12 (the so-called "Stratons Mousa Paidike").222-228, a Zyklus that DUH wants to assemble. The connection between Goethe's epigramm and AP 12.222-228 seems not to be substantial; apart from the irresistible Hinterseite, Strato does not appreciate the variatio beloved by his colleague.

With Stephan Heilen's paper about Fracastoro's Syphil. 1.219-246 we come to Renaissance Latin poetry. After a digression about contemporary astrological knowledge, SH introduces us to the composition of the poem and to the astrological background of the medical theme (the precedent for Fracastoro is the plague of 1348 during the planetary conjunction Saturn-Mars in Aquarius). The concilium deorum allegorized the conjunction Saturn-Jupiter-Mars in Crab, credited to be the reason for the pathogenesis (at least, he acknowledged the sexual transmission of syphilis in 1534).

The paper of Martin Hose is one of the most interesting. First, he deals with the theoretical distinction between fiction and falsification, then with the problem of defining what really was the so entitled Καινὴ ἱστορία of Ptolemaeus Chennos (I-II AD). In 1967 K.-H. Tomberg challenged the view that this work was a collection of "gelehrte Lüge" and included the Καινὴ ἱστορία in the Imperial tradition of mythology handbooks. MH follows this suggestion, identifying the Roman Imperial courts and their lust for incredible stories as responsible for the change of status of Ptolemaeus' work: from collection of res gestae to florilegium of res fictae or fabulosae.

Howard Jacobson highlights in the 'Virgilian' De laudibus I 653ff. and III 171-187 of Dracontius two "reminiscenses" of Aen. 2.657 (the myth of the Phoenix).

Charles Kahn studies the personification of sub-rational parts of the soul in Plato and outlines the development of the concept from Homer to Plato via Heraclitus and Democritus.

Paul T. Keyser argues that Sophocles anticipated modern psychiatry in "painting such a precise portrait of the pre-suicidal mind" with his famous "deception speech" (p. 221): ambiguity, not deception, characterizes the speech.

Robert Kirstein puts a recently discovered letter from Wilamowitz to Paton in the context of the homerische Frage. The addressee of Wilamowitz's letter -- dated 7 February 1894 and found in 1996 by RK in a bookshop-bazar in Istanbul old town, "fest eingebunden in ein Exemplar von Wilamowitzs' 1884 erschienen >Homerischen Untersuchungen<" (p. 223) -- is the friend and Scottish colleague W.R. Paton (Teubner editor of Plutarch and outstanding epigraphist in Cos.

Helmut Loeffler, anticipating his Fehlentscheidungen bei Herodot (Tübingen 2008), aims to "look at decision processes that end unsuccesfully in the Histories from the perspectives of the social sciences".

Jaap Mansfeld proposes to correct with διὰ παντός Parmen. fr. 1.3 D.-K. πάντ' ἄστη (D.-K. believed that this was the reading of Sextus' ms. N, Laur.pl. 85.19, where in fact A.H. Coxon, CQ XVIII/1, 1968, 69 read πάντ' ἄτη; the other mss. readings are incorrect m. c.).³

Ralph Mathisen's paper is a very well-informed anthropological review of the sexual habits of laity and clerics in Late and Post-Roman Gaul.

Markus Mülke points out ancient awareness of the difficulties of the first steps of manuscript tradition. Galen. XVIII 2.778 Kühn speaks of the errors of the πρῶτος βιβλιογράφος and the mention of a primus scriptor often occurs in Christian Latin literature.

Lee T. Pearcy runs in detail through the first period of classical performances in American college theatres, particularly at the University of Pennsylvania, where Iphigenia in Tauris (1903) followed the Acharnians (1886), but with no particular success. (In Iphigenia appeared the young Ezra Pound, in "a great blonde wig" and heaving "his massive breasts in ecstasies of extreme emotion" [p. 334]).

Joe Park Poe supposes that Hor. (Ars poet. 278-280) found in Neoptolemus of Parium the information of the Aeschylean invention of the cothurnus.

John Ramsey discusses the communis opinio on the morning hours before Caesar's assassination that the senatus gathered at 6 a.m. (mane literally meant) but that Caesar arrived only at 11. He argues that sunrise meetings of the senatus were exceptional (not the case of the agenda of that day), while "courts typically began the day (Martial 4.8.2)" at the hora tertia, after the salutatio (p. 360). Shifting the hour of the meeting to 9 a.m. removes some inconsistencies in the sources.⁴

Burkhard Reis goes back to the origin of the different partition of chapters in Arist. EN, noticeable in current Anglo-Saxon vs. European (especially German) translations and editions. Generally, this division is believed to derive respectively from the edition of K. Zell (I-II, Heidelbergae 1820 = A) and I. Bekker (I-II, Berolini 1831 = B). BR shows that Latin and vulgar translations adopted A since the ed. Parisiensis of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1497), while B is found for the first time in the ed. Basileensis of Th. Zwinger (1566-1582).⁵

Dirk Rohmann finds two exceptions to the "striking aesthetic principle of death scenes" (p. 380) in Prudentius' Psychomachia. In the allegorical death scene of the Worship of Ancient Cults (vv. 21-39) as well as in that of the dismembered Heresy (vv. 719-725), the author uses "historical allusion", and not "aesthetic principle" (p. 383).

Danuta Shanzer extends her own studies about the sexual in Gregorius of Tours and the Letters of Avitus of Vienne to later Latin epistolography. The data compilation is intended as initial stage of the research and regards a selection of 46 letters, with the exclusion of some "of the too familiar Jerome" (see Appendix, pp. 411-414).

R. Scott Smith objects to the editors' conservative approach concerning Hyg. Fab. 7 and 8 (Antiope's myth). The peculiarities of Fab. 7 vs. the "Euripidean" 8 and other versions derive not from an inept compiler but from textual corruption. The double labor disappears when we explain and correct Hyg. 7.3 cui [scil. Antiopae] postquam partus instabat effugit ex vinculis Iovis voluntate in montem Cithaeronem; cumque partus premeret et quaereret ubi pareret eqs. with comm. Cornuti ad Pers. Sat. 1.77.5 instante poena Antiopae Iuppiter pulchritudine seductus et ardore concubitus eam a vinculis liberavit et impregnavit eqs., Moreover, Prop. 3.15 seems to offer the reason for Antiope's flight to Mt. Cithaeron in Hyg. 7 (because only there she will find her unique assistance, the sons Amphion and Zethus).⁶

Jon Solomon presents a history of Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur and of its dramatizations (a milestone both for the commercial exploitation of the book and for copyright laws), thus introducing a theme just now becoming topical again.

Jacob Stern offers the first English translation and a commentary of Paradoxographus Vaticanus after the critical edition of Alessandro Giannini (Mediolani 1965). The introduction (pp. 437-444) offers a well informed survey of genre and of ms. tradition. JS does not produce a critical text, despite the many instances of disagreement with Giannini, and confines to the commentary the discussion of the potiores readings of that part of V (i.e. D) discovered by J.J. Keaney (CP 74, 1979, 156f.). The commentary is a specimen of learned essentiality.⁷

David Traill broaches the vexata quaestio about discovery and contents of Schliemann Treasure L. Against the late M. Korfmann, DT is inclined to date it closer to 1500 than to 2500 BC, considering the presence of iron, axes and "lenses". Because of the uncertainty of Schliemann's report, it is also possible to suppose that Treasure L was found at Troy VI.

S.M. Trzaskoma offers some conjectures in Longus (1.4.3, 3.5.4, 3.13.1).⁸

John Vaio shows the incompleteness of Aesop. Fab. 16c Chambry, and argues that the editor need not emend it, except when required by the rules of the Byzantine dodecasyllable: see e.g. vv. 24, 26.⁹

Rogier L. van der Wal gives a profile of the late Siem Slings.

Gavin Weaire combs over the numerous corrections of Cic. Fam. 5.12.5, proposing transitu for the corrupt redituque (cuius studium in legendo non erectum Themistocli fuga redituque retinetur). The word "would subtly suggest the Greek politician's ultimate defection to Persia".

This reviewer has the lucky chance to give final judgement, simply by citing one of the co-editors (Trzaskoma, p. xi): "A Festschrift is a curious thing in many respects . . . As books they tend to have less coherence than many others; they can lack a single intellectual orientation or a common subject, or show even in more basic ways that they are products of multiple minds. This is, if we may say so, just as it should be. This volume has above all as its purpose to celebrate our friendship . . . with Bill Calder on the occasion of his 75th birthday".

Table of Contents

1.   See M. Mülke (Ed.), Wilamowitz und kein Ende. Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Kolloquium Fondation Hardt, 9. bis 13. September 2002. William M. Calder III zum 70. Geburtstag von Freunden und Schülern, Hildesheim 2003 and biobibliography. In neither Festschrift do we find any bibliography of the honorandus.
2.   See most recently R. Janko, CR 59.2 (2009) 403-410; B. Bravo, Artemidoro di Efeso geografo e retore. Per la costituzione e l'interpretazione del testo del Papiro di Artemidoro, ZPE 170 (2009) 43-63 and I. Pajón Leyra, Ξιφίας in the Artemidorus Papyrus, ibid., 64.
3.   F. Condello ("Eikasmós" XI, 2000, 462-471: 462) defended ἄστη with a very interesting parallel, Orph. fr. 47.3 K. (now PEG155.3 F ἄστεα [II 1149f. Bernabé, ap. Procl. in Plat. Tim. II 48 Diehl (vv. 1-3), where mss. I Q have ἄστρα]).
4.   Not all the senatus met but only a part of the conspirators (Dio Cass. 44.16.2); at the same time, their chiefs were attending to the toga virilis ceremony of Cassius' son (Plut. Brut. 14.4), while Caesar with the haruspex Spurinna had to call at the house of Cn. Dom. Calvinus (Val. Max. 8.11.2), before reaching the Campus Martius (and his destiny).
5.   BR (p. 375 n. 21) notices that R.A. Gauthier and J.Y. Jolif have discovered the truth (cf. Aristote. L'éthique à Nicomaque, I, Louvain-Paris 1958, 82* n. 245, but this footnote 245 does not appear in the 2nd and last ed. of Gauthier alone [I-III, ibid. 1970]).
6.   But if we follow his proposal, the insertion of ubi partum olim exposuerat after effugit ... in montem Cithaeronem (p. 420; "cui postquam poena instaret ... <ubi olim partum exposuerat>, p. 422), but before cumque partus premeret et quaereret ubi pareret eqs., seems difficult (have we to seclude these last words?). Secondly, if postquam [scil. Antiopae] partus instabat is, as RSS shows, synonymous with cumque partus premeret, the second expression could be an emphatic repetition, required after effugit ex vinculis Iovis voluntate in montem Cithaeronem and preparing cum [...] quaereret ubi pareret eqs.. Finally, may Hyg. 7.5's silence about Antiope "between her sons' birth and Dirce's death" be simply one of the many occasions where material has clearly dropped out (p. 420 n. 13, with examples)? Two misprints: p. 417 l. 3 from bottom read premeret; p. 422 l. 3 from bottom: exposuerat.
7.   See ad 43 (p. 460), where the way JS looks at the transmitted τεσσαρεσκαιδέκατος (i.e. τεσσαρεσδεκαταῖος, "on the fourteenth of the month", p. 448) is very convincing: Alexander the Great was notoriously twenty, not fourteen (so Giannini, wrongly), when Philip died; here the point is that coronation and victory at Granicus happened both in the fourth day respectively of the second and third decade of the month: a sacred day for Alexander.
8.   At 3.5.4 he correctly reads τὸ μὲν οὖν μεταξὺ σταδίων ἦν πλέον δέκα κτλ. instead of the transmitted τὸ μὲν οὖν μεταξὺ σταδίων ἦν οὐ πλέον δέκα, κτλ..
9.   For a bibliography after P. Maas (p. 484 n. 5), see L. Sarriu, Ritmo, metro, poesia e stile. Alcune considerazioni sul dodecasillabo di Michele Psello, MG 6 (2006) 171 n. 1.