2011.01.41

Alfred Breitenbach (ed.), Kommentar zu den Pseudo-Seneca-Epigrammen der Anthologia Vossiana. Anthologiarum Latinarum parerga 2. Hildesheim: Weidmann, 2009. Pp. x, 653. ISBN 9783615003666. €128.00.

Reviewed by Rita Degl'Innocenti Pierini, Università degli Studi di Firenze (rpierini@unifi.it)

Version at BMCR home site

Il commento di Breitenbach esce a due anni dalla pubblicazione sempre in Germania di un buon commento della stessa raccolta, curato da J. Dingel (si veda quanto osservavo in GFA 12, 2009 http://gfa.gbv.de/z/2009). Il ritardo di questa mia recensione è imputabile in parte al fatto che, pur constando il commento di Breitenbach di 653 pagine, dal Vorwort si evince che sarebbe stato seguito da una monografia, con il testo, la traduzione e l'inquadramento degli epigrammi: mi sembrava indispensabile prenderne visione (Die Pseudo-Seneca-Epigramme der Anthologia Vossiana: ein Gedichtbuch aus der mittleren Kaiserzeit, Spudasmata Bd. 132. Hildesheim; Zürich; New York 2010. ix, 270 p.). A consolidare il rinnovato interesse per questa silloge, si nota anche l'uscita del quinto volume senecano della collezione Utet (Torino 2009, diffuso nella primavera 2010), dove Anna Maria Ferrero cura testo, traduzione, note, con ampia e documentata Introduzione.

Il compito del recensore si presenta complesso, dato che ci troviamo di fronte ad un commento monumentale, ben strutturato nelle sue articolazioni, ottimamente documentato nell'apparato bibliografico e ricco di osservazioni sempre chiaramente elaborate: quindi ogni mia valutazione successiva dovrà essere letta alla luce di questo giudizio estremamente positivo sulla validità e la ricchezza del materiale prodotto in un volume destinato a fare testo. Le problematiche e i dubbi dipendono a mio parere dalla complessità stessa dei testi commentati, giacché il corpus costituisce un nucleo importante dell'Anthologia Latina, formatasi a Cartagine fra il V ed il VI sec., destinata poi, passando in Occidente, a frantumarsi in numerosi florilegi. Stabilire un criterio coerente per pubblicare questi testi di varia epoca e natura ha sempre costituito una preoccupazione per gli editori: gli studiosi più recenti decidono di pubblicare secondo le antologie presentate dai singoli codici, quindi per esempio il Vossianus è edito nella recente edizione curata nel 2001 da Zurli, che Breitenbach riproduce nel suo commento. Il problema della paternità senecana non può essere evidentemente risolto sulla base dei manoscritti, ma si presuppongono quindi, come sembra naturale per un'antologia, testi di origine varia e forse di epoca diversa, avvicinatesi nel tempo per vicissitudini non facilmente ricostruibili. Anch'io nei miei studi di qualche anno fa mi sono ispirata alla linea interpretativa prodotta dagli studi di Tandoi e Timpanaro, valutando caso per caso, cercando di dimostrare, se non l'autenticità, almeno l'antichità di alcuni di questi componimenti, studiandoli in relazione al clima culturale della tarda età giulio-claudia o dell'inizio dell'età flavia: questo metodo appare alla base anche dell'edizione della Ferrero cui accennavo prima.

Innovativa si presenta la recente ipotesi di Holzberg, che sostiene che gli epigrammi possono "essere paragonati nella loro totalità a un liber carminum romano" e l'unico autore, che si fingerebbe Seneca modellandosi sulla persona di Ovidio esule, presupporrebbe Marziale e si collocherebbe quindi non anteriormente al primo terzo del II secolo d.C. La successione dei testi rispecchierebbe uno schema biografico di Seneca, ma mi pare che abbia ragione Dingel a mostrare scetticismo: la tesi del gioco letterario, per avere consistenza e credibilità, dovrebbe appoggiarsi almeno su noti dati biografici, presenti in una vita antica dell'autore, sulla quale il falsario costruirebbe il suo libro poetico. Poco coerenti con una scansione e collocazione biografica dei testi mi sembrano sia i componimenti erotici sia quelli sulle guerre civili, come del resto anche l'elegia sulla spes e gli epigrammi dedicati a temi storici diffusi nella coeva scuola di retorica.

Breitenbach con questo monumentale commento, che, per la ricchezza di documentazione e per l'accuratezza editoriale, diventerà sicuramente, e non a torto, testo di riferimento nei prossimi anni, sembra decisamente presupporre un unico autore del secondo secolo. A mio parere la dimostrazione di un'unità d'autore è ancora doverosa per un insieme di testi tramandati in un'antologia. Delle 613 pagine del volume solo 16 sono dedicate ad un' 'Introduzione' di carattere generale, dove al paragrafo 3, pp. 12-14, si ipotizza con qualche esempio, per la verità non dirimente, come verisimile una dipendenza da Marziale (un ulteriore caso, per fare un solo esempio, è segnalato a p. 502, dove si parla di 'autore' degli epigrammi senecani), ma anche da Silio Italico, Giovenale e Floro (nel volume del 2010 Breitenbach sviluppa un'ipotesi relativa a Floro). Forzando talvolta i nessi tra i componimenti con raccordi molto ricercati, ma di difficile dimostrazione (vd. per es. p. 310 e ss.), Breitenbach sembra escludere del tutto che ci possa essere un nucleo senecano e nell'Introduzione non riporta le testimonianze antiche che accreditano Seneca come autore di epigrammi e non menziona, se ho ben visto, i testi di carattere epigrammatico dell'Apocolocyntosis. Questi continuano a sembrarmi elementi importanti nel valutare la complessa questione della paternità degli epigrammi: si tratterà di indagare caso per caso la minore o maggiore probabilità che i componimenti siano del filosofo, o che siano attribuibili ad un imitatore più o meno vicino nel tempo, attenendosi comunque a dei criteri di probabilità, che sono stati costantemente invocati nel giudicare la letteratura pseudoepigrafa (ritengo ancora valido metodologicamente A. Ronconi, 'Introduzione alla letteratura pseudoepigrafa', in Tra filologia e linguistica, Roma 1968, 233-264).

Dopo una breve Einleitung che è articolata in sei punti (1. 'Anthologia Latina, Anthologia Vossiana und Seneca-Epigramme'; 2. 'Struktur'; 3. 'Bezüge zu anderen Autoren'; 4. 'Metrik, Sprache und Stil'; 5. 'Abfassungszeit und Autorschaft'; 6. 'Zur Überlieferung und zur Benutzung des Kommentars'), Breitenbach commenta gli epigrammi, pubblicando il testo dell'Anthologia Vossiana stabilito da Zurli, senza riprodurne l'apparato critico, ma discutendolo criticamente e talvolta non adottandolo (molti problemi risultano approfonditi nel volume successivo), facendo seguire ogni componimento da utilissimi riferimenti bibliografici sintetici, divisi in sezioni ben articolate, che rimandano alla bibliografia pubblicata per esteso alle pp. 614–636. Il commento puntuale è sempre preceduto da un'introduzione articolata in sezioni diverse a seconda della tematica: qui si trovano anche importanti analisi che servono a raccordare tra loro epigrammi affini, confronti con gli autori latini e, cosa molto importante, con gli epigrammi greci. Mi limito ad un solo esempio: molto interessante è l'introduzione agli epigrammi 2 e 3 sulla Corsica (pp. 26-29), dove con efficace sintesi si individuano le strutture allocutive e di preghiera presenti nel corpus, nonché la presenza di motivi sepolcrali e il rapporto con il modello ovidiano. Qualche volta una certa sovrabbondanza del commento può rischiare di allontanare il lettore dalle questioni principali: per fare un esempio, trovo prolissa alle pp. 336-338 la discussione testuale relativa a tumidis... papillis/capillis.

Mi limito a qualche nota marginale:

1: questo epigramma così 'senecano' per la concezione del tempo e così stoico per l'ekpyrosis meritava qualche ulteriore confronto senecano: v. 5 per pulcherrima utile citare epist. 90, 42; v. 6, oltre a Sen. Marc. 26, 6, che già proponevo in un mio studio¹ avrei evidenziato un espediente stilistico caro a Seneca prosatore, l'uso pregnante di suus accentuato dalla posizione distaccata nel verso, che implica la compattezza stoica del cosmo. La sentenza dell'ultimo distico è tipicamente senecana e conferma quanto autorevolmente scrive in generale Traina (Lo stile 'drammatico' del filosofo Seneca, Bologna 19874, 35): "la mano di Marziale diede forma metrica alle sententiae senecane". Il fatto che un libro fondamentale sullo stile di Seneca manchi nella bibliografia, insieme ad altri contributi come quelli di A. Setaioli (in particolare penso a Facundus Seneca, Bologna 2000), conferma l'impressione che il commento di Breitenbach tenda ad allontanare i componimenti dall'ambiente degli Annei.

2: p. 26 s. non mi sembra rilevante il confronto proposto con Teognide, perché il poeta greco invoca Cirno nelle sue poesie, mentre Seneca invoca la Corsica, il cui nome greco era Cyrnos: non basta a suffragarlo la probabile presenza di Teognide fra i modelli di Ovidio esule.

5: sul tema caro alla scuola di retorica e alla propaganda antitirannica dell'esecrazione dei re persiani (vd. anche l'epigramma 35), la presenza di Erodoto come fonte è quasi certa in Seneca filosofo, come mi sembra dimostri bene per altre vicende A. Setaioli, 'Episodi erodotei nella narrazione senecana', in Seneca e i Greci, Bologna 1988, 485-503. Utile per il tema anche il contributo di M. Frassoni, 'Serse e l'Ellesponto: da Eschilo (Pers. 745-50) ed Erodoto (VII 35) a Giovenale (X 173-187)', in O. Vox (ed.), Memoria di testi teatrali antichi, Lecce 2006, 105-152.

6: a proposito del 'nemico' in Ovidio esule (vd. il commento a p. 55 s.), mi permetto di rimandare a quanto ho scritto anche in 'Le tentazioni giambiche del poeta elegiaco' (Ovidio esule e i suoi nemici, del 2003, poi con qualche aggiornamento in Il parto dell'orsa, Bologna 2008, 79-101); le considerazioni lì svolte si possono estendere anche ad un epigramma come questo, nel cui testo tormentato non accetterei il tradito occisum iugulum, che è molto duro, ma opterei piuttosto per la tradizionale correzione in occisi.

9: su quest'epigramma rivolto a Crispo (e anche su 38) si può aggiungere alla bibliografia G. W. Mallory Harrison, 'Claudian Castores: Seneca and Crispus', in S. N. Byrne-E.P. Cuevas (ed.), Veritatis amicitiaeque causa. Essays in honor of Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark, Wauconda 1999, 113-128, che si pronuncia per la senecanità dei componimenti.

10: per la difesa di apex in questo contesto (vd. p. 103), addurrei come paralleli utili per definire il valore di 'capo', Cic. Cato 60; Hor. carm. 1, 24, 14; 3, 21, 20; Stat. silv. 5, 2, 47.

12: per la definizione di Viriato come Lusitanus... latro non attribuirei eccessiva importanza a Floro, citato sia a p. 135 che 141, ma mi sembra utile aggiungere che per Seneca in ben. 1, 13, 3 latro era il vesanus adulescens e cioè Alessandro. Su questo epigramma, mi permetto di rimandare alle più ampie considerazioni svolte in un mio articolo in corso di stampa su Paideia 2010.

14: Breitenbach mette giustamente in luce (p. 155) che il componimento presenta qualche analogia col discorso di Pitagora in Ovidio met. 15; importanti considerazioni sul tema della fine delle città in Ovidio (e non solo) in M. Labate, 'Città morte, città future: un tema della poesia augustea', Maia 43, 1991, 167-184. Sui sepulcra urbium e quindi degli oppidum cadavera un primo noto esempio è nella lettera consolatoria di Servio Sulpicio Rufo a Cicerone fam. 4, 5, 4.

15+15a: in questi difficili componimenti forse qualche ulteriore elemento di valutazione potrebbe essere ricavato da considerazioni sul tema della lapidazione, che si somma a quello ovidiano dei veleni dell'invidia. Per una rassegna di passi è ancora utile A. S. Pease, 'Stoning among the Greeks and the Romans', TAPhA 38, 1907, 5-18.

18: all'ampia bibliografia andrebbero aggiunte le importanti considerazioni di F. Citti, 'Spes dulce malum. Seneca e la speranza', in Colloquio su Seneca, Trento 2004, 35-64; inoltre a p. 187 nella sezione L integrare anche Mattiacci 2008, citato in bibliografia.

22: anche qui da integrare a p. 308 con Mattiacci 2008, che offre significativi confronti di poesia elegiaca.

24: il componimento, che presenta importanti analogie con Marziale (che io continuo a credere almeno qui posteriore a questo testo), è dedicato ad una fanciulla chiamata Arethusa, che Breitenbach sostiene dipendere direttamente da Ovidio met. 5 (vd. p. 330 ss.), mentre a me sembra da chiamare in causa Properzio 4, 3, giacché anche la Galla di 42 appare nome properziano, che evoca la casta e dolente sposa di Postumo celebrata in 3, 12. Si tratta di esempi coerenti, perché entrambi riferiti al tema dell'eros coniugale e della castità femminile: l'autore degli epigrammi sembra utilizzare nomi di spose fedeli properziane per donne del tutto opposte sul piano morale.

Mi sono limitata in breve a qualche piccolo esempio:² è impossibile dare conto delle numerose osservazioni che un così ampio e ricco commento ancora suggerirebbe e dei cospicui contributi esegetici che produce. La materia è complessa per la complessità stessa della questione attributiva, da cui è difficile prescindere: certamente il lavoro di scavo di Breitenbach offrirà un'utile base di discussione non solo per gli epigrammi 'senecani', ma per tutta la produzione epigrammatica di età imperiale.

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Notes:

1.   Tra filosofia e poesia, Bologna 1999, 123 ss.
2.   Segnalo qualche raro refuso: p. 131 ultimo capoverso, corrige Polyb. 2,4-3, 1 in Helv.; p. 175 corr. lucidità in ludicità; p. 473 ss. tutti i titoli correnti dell'epigr. 39 corr. formasa in formosa; p. 501 corr. garullitas in garrulitas.

2011.01.40

Susanne Carlsson, Hellenistic Democracies: Freedom, Independence and Political Procedure in Some East Greek City-States. Historia Einzelschriften 206. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010. Pp. 372. ISBN 9783515092654. €66.00.

Reviewed by Eric Robinson, Indiana University (ewr@indiana.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

[Table of contents is listed at the end of the review.]

Carlsson's Hellenistic Democracies is an extraordinarily useful study. A lightly revised version of her Uppsala dissertation, the book tackles the issue of the nature of Hellenistic democracies, primarily through an examination of the inscriptions of four city-states: Iasos, Kalymna, Kos, and Miletos.¹ In one long, four-part chapter Carlsson examines what can be gleaned about the public organization, officials, and decision-making of each polis based primarily on analysis of a wide selection of its inscribed decrees from the Classical to the Late Roman periods. Following the same schema for each of the four city-states, Carlsson produces and scrutinizes a large amount of data about governing structures and procedures. Some of the material considered, such as the public organizations (tribes, demes, etc.) rarely matter for assessment of the nature of the democracy and seem to be noted mainly for comprehensiveness. But many other emergent factors do matter, including the numbers of officials and boards (a great many), terms of office (sometimes as brief as six months), the frequency of assembly meetings (when determinable, once per month plus special sessions), how often individuals moved decrees (fewer over time), whether amendments to bouleutic proposals in the assembly are attested (in several cases), and the appearance and context of terms such as autonomia, eleutheria, and demokratia in the decrees.

Carlsson wisely does not make too much of any one indicator. To try to argue that democratic government flourished or failed to flourish solely on the basis of, for example, a multiplicity of official boards, or the appearance of the term demokratia, would not be very persuasive. Instead, evidence accumulates slowly but steadily and on a very broad front for the book's overall conclusion: down to roughly the mid-second century BC the decrees of each of these four city-states show active, independent democratic governments at work. Thus Carlsson infers that democracy in the Hellenistic period, while not exactly like its forerunner in the Classical era, continued in vibrant fashion longer than scholars used to be willing to credit. This conclusion is in line with other recent work in the field. In particular it seems to pick up and develop threads from Rhodes's and Lewis's Decrees of the Greek States.

Carlsson does not grasp at every available straw to make her case. For example, she does not make much of the so-called "demos decrees" of Kos, claimed by Sherwin-White in Ancient Kos to be proposals directly to the assembly by individuals, bypassing the council, and thus radically democratic. Carlsson reasons (with Rhodes) that the absence of an enactment formula in four of the five documents leaves open the possibility that the council had been involved after all. She further explains how even if the council was avoided, such may not indicate a greater degree of democracy. And she hypothesizes that some of the decrees could have been local, deme decrees, which would explain the failure to mention a council.

Carlsson is aware of the limitations of her evidence. Epigraphic documents by their nature do not normally provide the political context for the decisions reached and procedures used. Thus, what may appear to be an openly democratic process could have been engineered by a cadre of local elites or coerced by an overbearing regional power. A deficit of testimony from literary histories exacerbates the problem. Similarly, what look like constitutionally significant changes in procedure over time could reflect nothing more than a change in epigraphic habit. Carlsson admits that she prefers to take the documents literally, and makes no apology for doing so beyond acknowledging the possibility of more skeptical interpretations. This is reasonable. For one thing, she has numbers on her side: with hundreds of decrees from these four city-states distributed across multiple centuries, the possibility that this or that individual decree was "fixed" makes little difference, and the burden of proof would seem to fall squarely on those who would see shadow oligarchies and dominating hegemons pulling the strings in all these cities decade after decade. Carlsson can also point to one instance where a known loss of independence resulted in discernable epigraphic changes: after Kalymna was incorporated as a deme of Kos at the end of the third century BC, the number of Kalymnian decrees falls precipitously and the council and prostatai disappear from the record, among other notable changes. This is a convincing point to make. Further examples of the immediate epigraphic impact of non-democratic or subjugated regimes (if they could be found, presumably from other Hellenistic city-states) would have helped Carlsson justify her literal interpretations, though producing such would have pulled her beyond the scope of her four chosen cases.

The case studies of Iasos, Kalymna, Kos, and Miletos form the heart of Carlsson's work, but there is more — perhaps too much more. Six chapters precede the central case studies in an extended prolegomenon covering in broad strokes such themes as democracy ancient vs. modern, autonomy and sovereignty ancient and modern, uses of the words autonomia and eleutheria in Hellenistic inscriptions, hegemonic power and interstate relations generally in Greece, and constitutional study through inscriptions. Though occasionally enlightening with respect to each subtopic, these surveys do not tie themselves closely enough to the book's overall argument. Only the last of them seems essential: there Carlsson explains succinctly the formulas and contents of Greek decrees and the kinds of questions she will be asking of them in the case studies that immediately follow. The prior chapters, however, read almost as filler. One understands why they are there: Carlsson seeks to assess the whole picture of democratic freedom and independence in Hellenistic Greece and argue for their persistence. Such a broad topic would seem to invite a consideration of what democracy is, from a variety of theoretical perspectives, as well as the challenge to city-state autonomy and independence posed by hegemonic powers like the Hellenistic kingdoms and, eventually, the Romans. But the neutrality of Carlsson's approach frustrates: it is often difficult to know what conclusions relevant to Hellenistic democracy she would draw and where the book's argument is heading,² and this goes on for almost 150 pages. The scholarly objectivity is laudable; the sense of aimlessness is not.

The book has an excellent set of appendices. One lists in chronological order all of the decrees used for the case studies, complete with collection references, the enactment and motion formulae used, the proposers, titles of officials mentioned, and a summary of the main contents. A second appendix collects and describes the titles and functions of all of the officials appearing in the documents studied. A third notes and briefly discusses all of the occurrences of the word demokratia in Hellenistic inscriptions. (Carlsson argues in the book that the use of this term and other key words like autonomy and freedom generally show them to have been thought of as desirable — and, importantly, normal — conditions for many Hellenistic city-states.) The book also includes a general index and an index locorum covering both literary and epigraphic sources.

A few minor errors of presentation and representation can be pointed out.³

Collecting and analyzing all of the documents that Carlsson has was no simple task, and she has done it in a way that is logical, meaningful, and convenient for future researchers. Her surveys of wider issues of hegemony and autonomy in the Hellenistic period, if not as well focused, nevertheless add to the value of the volume. In all, the book may well become the standard guide to issues relating to democracy, freedom, and independence among Hellenistic cites, especially as concerns eastern Greece.

Table of Contents

1. Setting and Sources

2. Democracy Then and Now

3. Autonomy and Sovereignty

4. Autonomia in Practice

5. International Relations

6. Constitutional Studies

7. Modes of Government – The Cases
7.1 Iasos
7.2 Kalymna
7.3 Kos
7.4 Miletos with Didyma
7.5 Hellenistic Democracies – Iasos, Kalymna, Kos, and Miletos

8. Epilogue

Appendix A: Chronological table of decrees
Appendix B: Titles of Greek officials
Appendix C: Demokratia in Hellenistic inscriptions

Bibliography

Index locorum
General index

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Notes:

1.   It is remarkable that Carlsson's is the second book in two years devoted to this subject, focusing on some of the same city-states, adopting a similar overall thesis, and appearing in the same monograph series as Volker Grieb's Hellenistische Demokratie. Readers may find the BMCR review of Grieb's book at 2008.12.27.
2.   There are exceptions. Chapter 5's discussion of international relations and city-state independence, for example, occasionally makes clear what one ought to conclude from the evidence, as with the wall-building in four cities in the late fourth century (pp. 118-9).
3.   In one of her references to my study The First Democracies Carlsson innocently misrepresents my meaning: at p. 26 she writes as if I endorsed the various claims for pre-Greek democracy, whereas in reality I voiced skepticism about them. On pages 7 and 24 the note on transliteration and other conventions is needlessly repeated. On p. 215 the italics machine has gone crazy and taken over several lines of text.

2011.01.39

Mehmet-Ali Ataç, The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xx, 278. ISBN 9780521517904. $99.00.

Reviewed by L. R. Siddall, The University of London (luis.siddall@gmail.com)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

This book is derived from a doctoral thesis submitted in 2003 at Harvard University under the supervision of Irene J. Winter. In the opening sentence of the prologue Mehmet-Ali Ataç summarizes his distinctive approach in The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art: "This study is as much about ancient Mesopotamian philosophy as it is about ancient Mesopotamian art" (p. xvii). Through a series of examinations of Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs, Ataç aims to show that meaning was conveyed in Neo-Assyrian palatial art through semantic and semiotic systems. He attempts to develop a method of iconographic analysis that concentrates on these systems combined with assessments of the philosophical background of Assyrian art. His approach stands in contrast to the more conventional investigations into the sociopolitical meanings of the art. It also leads him to another thesis: that the art of the Neo-Assyrian palaces was part of the wider intellectual endeavors of the Assyrian court, which saw a collaboration of scholars and master craftsmen who were responsible for their design and execution. To develop his thesis, Ataç brings together the study of the palatial art with relevant textual sources (largely the Assyrian royal inscriptions and literary works). At times cross-cultural evidence (mainly Egyptian, Indic and Greek) is also taken into account. The result is a work that presents a number of interesting and original ideas. The book is well illustrated with 130 black and white photographs and line drawings.

Ataç's method of analysis comprises four parameters (pp. 12-13). The first is "proximity", which looks at the arrangement of figures in relation to each other. The second is "analogy", which examines the consistent correlations between the depictions of humans and animals. The third and fourth, "liminality" and "decorum," are more theoretical. Liminality is the state of a figure when it is in a transitional or marginal phase (between life and death, human and animal, etc.), while decorum refers to the manner in which figures are depicted in relation to their nature, ontology, and with other figures.

The study is divided into three parts with each devoted to a particular aspect of the royal art: the ontology of humans and animals, kingship and priesthood in the art of Ashurnasirpal II, and the semantics of sages and "Mischwesen." It should be noted that these divisions do not represent three independent analyses of Neo-Assyrian art, but rather each part builds on the previous chapters and in turn further elucidate the earlier discussions. This is certainly the case with Part I. The reviewer had a better appreciation of some of the arguments advanced in Part I after reading the second and third parts of the book.

Part I comprises five chapters and examines the ontological relationships between humans and animals in the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs. Each chapter generally covers the reliefs from one particular reign: Ashurnasirpal II (pp. 14-38), Tiglath-pileser III (pp. 39-49), Sargon II (pp. 50-60), Sennacherib (pp. 61-69) and Ashurbanipal (pp. 70-80). Throughout these five chapters, Ataç makes a series of observations on patterns of the arrangement of humans and animals and the rendering of their respective anatomical features. While he demonstrates that there was variety in the representation of creatures during different reigns, there were also particular consistencies which go beyond geometric organizational principles and reveal an understanding on the part of the Assyrian artists of the ontological relationship between humans, animals and, in Ashurbanipal's reliefs, vegetation. A significant conclusion drawn from Part I is the contrast between the king's and the elite's contact with animals and non-exposure of their anatomy, and those of other humans, who were often depicted with animals and with body parts exposed. There is also a division in the relations between humans and animals for it seems that the Assyrian artists tended to depict, through proximity and analogy, a close relationship between everyday people (including deportees and the dead) and herbivores, while the king and elites rarely encounter animals, and when they do it is usually in the context of ritual slaughter or the royal hunt of lions.

Part II forms an excellent contribution to the study of the art of Ashurnasipal II. Ataç examines the reliefs that purport to the two main aspects of Assyrian kingship: the military-political (regnum) and the priestly (sacerdotium). Scholars have long recognized that the Assyrian kings depicted themselves as warriors and priests.¹ However, Ataç conducts a far closer assessment of those motifs here than in previous attempts. In the course of the five chapters that make up this part of the book, Ataç analyses the iconography of the royal figure and his association with the people, genii and animals around him, and finds that there are three different representations of Ashurnasirpal: the priestly ruler, the military-political ruler and the "mixta persona", the latter being a combination of the priestly and military-political. The priestly figure and those with him are often adorned with waistbands and bracelets, bear herbivore protomes on their appendages, and are shown in scenes with herbivores, especially bulls. Conversely, the military-political figure bears a sword, and often has lion protomes (pp. 92-108). The recognition of the emblematic aspect of the art enables Ataç to elucidate the covert messages in other depictions of the royal figure, such as the "Sacred Tree" slab from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, in which the images of Ashurnasirpal and genii flank the sacred tree (fig. 31). Ataç shows that it is not a mirror image, as is often assumed, but rather a depiction of the two major aspects of kingship represented in one frieze, divided by the sacred tree (pp. 125-129).

Part III, "The Semantics of Sages and Mischwesen in Neo-Assyrian Art and Thought," as the title suggests looks at the mystical figures in the palace reliefs. Ataç uses the term Mischwesen for the images of the apkallu (divine sages) and the rebel gods of Tiamat's army in the myth Enuma Elish who were part animal and part human in form (hence "mixed beings" or "hybrids"). Again, Ataç departs from the common typological approach to these figures and concentrates on the semantic and semiotic aspects of their presence in Neo-Assyrian art. In this part of the book, the discussion turns to the textual material and mythology more than in other parts. It is through the integration of text and art that Ataç develops his theory of the role of the intellectual elite in the palatial art. For Ataç, the mythical figures' function went beyond the apotropaic, but also represented a link between the contemporary age and the distant antediluvian period. That link was largely manifest on the one hand in the contemporary scholarly experts (the ummānu) who were the co-creators of the royal art and the upholders of traditional knowledge, and on the other hand in the artistic depictions of the apkallu, who represent the knowledge of the antediluvian age, and the rebel gods who were agents of "initiatic knowledge" and the netherworld (pp. 151-183). Thus, the artists and scribes created a self-referential motif that lasted throughout the imperial period.

The reviewer has a minor quibble regarding a underlying theme present throughout the book, but not directly addressed to the extent that one may expect: the role the court scholars played in regulating the royal image. We know little about who was responsible for the artistic and literary productions of the kingdoms of the ancient Near East. Was the king or the scribe responsible for the content of the royal inscriptions? One may glean from this book that Ataç is in favour of the idea that the court scholars played a significant role in the artistic-literary production of Assyria. However, a more direct treatment of this point would have been interesting.

There is much in this book that ancient and art historians will find of interest. While not everyone will be convinced by all the arguments presented in this work, the method of analyzing Assyrian art in the light of the wide body of textual sources and comparative mythology is most welcome. This reviewer found the second part the most convincing and Part III rather thought provoking. All in all, this book reveals a new method of analyzing Neo-Assyrian art.

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Notes:

1.   See for example P. Albenda, "Expressions of Kingship in Assyrian Art," Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 2 (1969), pp. 41-52; and J. E. Reade, "Ideology and Propaganda in Assyrian Art," in M. T. Larsen (ed.), Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1979), pp. 329-343.

2011.01.38

Henry Dyson, Prolepsis and Ennoia in the Early Stoa. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. xxxiii, 265. ISBN 9783110212280. $99.95.

Reviewed by Scott Rubarth, Rollins College (srubarth@rollins.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

Henry Dyson's Prolepsis and Ennoia in the Early Stoa is a careful and thorough analysis of the theory of natural conceptions in Stoicism. The book examines the scholarly debate regarding the nature and function of preconception (πρόληψις), common conception (κοινὴ ἔννοια), and natural conception (φυσικὴ ἔννοια) and presents a novel theory of how these terms and mental entities operate in the Stoic theory of cognition. In the process of sorting out the fine distinctions in Stoic technical terminology and navigating a complex debate in the secondary literature, Dyson manages to unpack, analyze, and piece together again a whole host of related historical and philosophical issues in Stoic epistemology, psychology, metaphysics, action theory, logic, and philosophy of language. In short, this study is an example of how what seems to be a narrow philological problem can produce significant conclusions beyond the scope of the original problem by means of detailed, careful, and, in this case, nearly exhaustive analysis.

The author begins by asking, does the Stoic account of conceptual and intellectual development, as Cicero and Epictetus tell the story, represent a rationalist Academic distortion of the more empiricist early Stoic theory, or do they fairly represent a consistent Stoic doctrine beginning in the early Stoa? To answer this question Dyson takes the reader on a long and convoluted journey through, as far as I can tell, all the relevant texts and nearly every scholarly interpretations remotely dealing with conceptual development.

In the first chapter, Dyson seeks to establish the theoretical unity of πρόλεψις, κοινὴ ἔννοια, and φυσικὴ ἔννοια. In order to do this, he must first establish whether these three terms are technical or generic terms and if the terms represent different kinds of conceptions. Sandbach and others, representing the orthodox reading of πρόλεψις, argue that προλήψεις and common conceptions differ in meaning and scope. Dyson attempts to refute Sandbach's orthodox view and concludes that all three are "interchangeable terms referring to a single underlying doctrine in the early Stoa" (p. 1).

The second chapter, "Common Conceptions as Criteria of Truth," examines how προλήψεις and common conceptions are able to operate as criteria of truth. As in the former chapter, Dyson spends most of the chapter recounting and dismantling the major interpretations in the secondary literature. Gould, Frede, and Todd offer models of how προλήψεις function in the evaluation of sensory experience.¹ While Dyson rejects the claim that προλήψεις are criteria for sensible presentations, he acknowledges that they do "form part of a background set of beliefs and conceptions that dispose the perceiver to react to presentations in certain ways" (p. 28). Next he turns to non-sensible presentations. Here Alexander of Aphrodisias' De Mixtione becomes the focus of the argument. Todd's interpretation (1973), which distinguishes between προλήψεις and natural conceptions on the one hand, and common conceptions on the other, becomes the foil to Dyson's central claim. The debate seems to center on the question, do common conceptions rest on conscious inferences? (p. 43) Dyson argues that they do not. Instead, common conceptions function unconsciously to structure experience conceptually (p. 54). In addition, epistemologically common conceptions, along with natural conceptions and προλήψεις, are naturally occurring and universal notions which "correspond to real divisions in the world" (p. 46) which in turn can be articulated in proofs. This correspondence claim, however, is not elaborated at this point and will require Dyson to explain how correspondence is possible given the problematic ontological status that the Stoics attribute to the ἐννοήματα.

The third chapter attempts to place the theory in the broader context of the development of rationality. First, Dyson seeks to secure the claim that common conceptions are tacit forms of belief universal to all human beings insofar as they are rational. Here Dyson's strong identity claim from chapter one is qualified. Πρόληψις and common conception no longer seem to be "interchangeable terms", since common conceptions are not identical with all προλήψεις but only with articulated προλήψεις (p. 50). Hence neither the sense nor the extension of the terms appears to be identical or interchangeable.

Identifying προλήψεις and natural conceptions as tacit beliefs creates a number of problems. How can one have a belief that one is unaware of? The answer lies in the distinction between articulated and unarticulated conceptions. On Dyson's model, an articulated common conception shares the same propositional content as its unarticulated counterpart in the πρόληψις or natural conception. Through cognitive development and the scrutiny of dialectic this content is accessed and utilized both in the development of knowledge and in action theory. These two stages in the development of reason are compared to the transition from sense-perception to memory and experience. Moreover, despite being unarticulated, the πρόληψις is still "psychologically functional" (p. 60), and insofar as all humans have potential access to this content, the πρόληψις is therefore also called "common."

Dyson also makes the claim that προλήψεις can be criteria of truth since they are true and we can know that they are true because providential Nature would not have formed them otherwise. If this was the Stoic position it is hard to imagine that this escaped the notice of critics. For such a criterion seems to beg the question. For a criterion of truth (unlike an axiom) need not and probably should not be a true proposition. This assumption could use more discussion. The idea of the transparency and veracity of nature stands in contrast to the more traditional Heraclitean maxim that nature loves to hide.

Chapter three concludes with a set of interim conclusions which help transition the reader to the next chapter by introducing the problem of universals through the claim that Chrysippus used the doctrine of πρόληψις to solve Meno's Paradox.

In chapter four, Dyson finally turns to a problem that has been lurking in the background of the former discussions: How do the προλήψεις serve as criteria of truth for universal claims given the nominalist ontology of the Stoics? If there are no forms (immanent or transcendent), what are the conceptions conceptions of? What is the intentional object of a πρόληψις or common conception? The Stoics, in fact, are fully aware of the problem and offer a solution: the ἐννόημα. The ἐννοήματα, like the φαντάσματα, (intentional objects of thoughts about non-existing entities like centaurs) have problematic ontological status. Dyson suggests that the ἐννόημα may be "a generic mental image produced by association" (p. 91). But this is surely wrong. The generic mental image produced by association would be the ἐννοία itself. Suggesting that ἐννόημα is a mental image instead of a logical entity removes the ontological problem recognized by the Stoics and creates a redundant mental event. Dyson makes a similar claim about the intentional object of memory. He states that "memory takes as its intentional object the mental image of a particular object." (p. 91) Instead, I would argue that the intentional object of the memory is the past event itself, which no longer exists. That is what the memory is about and that is why memory is logically interesting.

Fortunately Dyson subsequently distances himself from this account and instead, drawing on Chrysippus' rejection of Cleanthes' literal/pictorial view of φαντασία, argues for a linguistic turn in the development of the Stoic theory of concept formation. Dyson suggests that Chrysippus handles ἐννοήματα by developing a theory that reduces or analyses conceptions in terms of either descriptions or definitions based on syntactical relations. In short, a universal can be explained in terms of an indefinite conditional proposition.

Next Dyson examines how the πρόληψις and common conception function in Chrysippus's moral psychology and dialectic. He argues that προλήψεις are formed through perceptual experience and adds that the content "is formed by conditionally linking together the appellative that names a certain kind with other appellatives that can be applied to an object falling under that kind" (p. 133). Such is the foundation of tacit knowledge. The primary job of the πρόληψις, over and above its criterial role, is "to make connections between present presentations and general beliefs and conceptions" (p. 110). Dyson returns to the question of the structure of the πρόληψις and re-examines the two most promising alternatives: description and definition. Both are presented as conditionals and both offer a model for applying appellatives. Dyson argues that the definitional account is the correct interpretation and that the application of the definitional condition of the πρόληψις normally occurs at the tacit level. He then explains the role of πρόληψις in demonstration and dialectic by contrasting human reasoning and the more limited correlate in animals.

In the final chapter, Dyson returns to the question of where to align the Stoics in terms of rationalism and empiricism. Dyson supports a version of rationalism or nativism, at least in terms of justification. While the Stoic theory of concept-formation is clearly empirical, he holds that if we distinguish psychological empiricism from epistemological empiricism, one could argue that Stoic dialectic draws on a priori principles giving them a limited claim to rationalism.

The final chapter is followed by a valuable set of tables and appendices. The appendices are a wonderful addition to the book, especially given the dense and detailed nature of the argument proper. Each appendix presents both the primary text in Greek or Latin (albeit without a critical apparatus) followed by a translation. The eight appendices are organized chronologically and thematically. The book concludes with a bibliography and an index locorum. There are, however, no subject or author indices.

Henry Dyson's Prolepsis and Ennoia in the Early Stoa is a careful, rigorous, and philosophically productive analysis of the problem of conceptual development in Stoic philosophy. It is also a difficult and dense book most suitable to graduate students and specialists. The work assumes a knowledge of Greek and Latin as well as a general understanding of the major doctrines and sources for Stoicism. The erudite approach, however, means that the book is able to engage the philosophical and philological debate at a far deeper and detailed level than more accessible works in the field. The book is valuable both for its own impressive solution to the problem as well as its ability to unpack and narrate the twists and turns of the complex and extensive secondary literature. There is one significant and unnecessary flaw to the book. The work is absolutely riddled with typographical errors of all sorts. I counted roughly one hundred errors not including footnotes or appendices. This was a regular distraction in an otherwise very careful piece of scholarship. Yet despite this mild irritant, the work merits a careful reading and signifies an important philosophical and philological contribution to the field.

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Notes:

1.   Gould, J. B. The Philosophy of Chrysippus, Philosophia Antiqua. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970; Frede, Michael. "The Stoic Conception of Reason." In Hellenistic Philosophy, 50-63. Athens: International Center for Greek Philosophy and Culture, 1994; Todd, Robert B. "The Stoic Common Notions: A Re-Examination and Reinterpretation." Symbolae Osloenses 48 (1973): 47-75.

2011.01.37

Andrew S. Mason, Plato. Ancient Philosophies. Durham: Acumen, 2010. Pp. viii, 224. ISBN 9781844651740. £14.99 (pb).

Reviewed by Eleni Kaklamanou, Trinity College Dublin (kaklamae@tcd.ie)

Version at BMCR home site

Andrew Mason's clear and engaging introduction to Plato's thought is part of Acumen's Ancient Philosophies series. The book, in the spirit of the series, aims to produce a volume suitable for senior undergraduates, graduate students and a wider audience with an interest in philosophy, presuming no prior knowledge of the topic under discussion. In principle, an introduction on Plato could be organised in a variety of ways. One might have chapters on individual dialogues, especially on the central ones such as the Republic, the Phaedrus, the Timaeus; alternatively one might choose to have chapters on the main topics. Mason has, I believe, taken into consideration the target audience in choosing the second option, although on occasion an individual dialogue does serve as the focus of a particular chapter. For example, in the chapter in which he discusses Plato's views on God and nature, the analysis is concentrated on the Timaeus.

Mason's firm belief is that practical concerns and metaphysical vision are inextricably tied in Plato's system. In accordance with this general thesis, the choice of chapters is divided between Plato the metaphysician (Theory of Forms, Knowledge) and Plato the practical philosopher (Politics, Ethics). A chapter on the role of the soul in the Platonic system serves to link these two philosophical themes. In addition to the chapter on God and nature, there is one on aesthetics. Although there are certain obvious omissions, as Mason himself notices, the choice of topics is the most likely to give the best overall view of Plato's thought. The treatment of each topic accomplishes what should be its primary purpose, turning readers towards Plato with a clear approach, an emphasis on the argument, a set of various perspectives and a willingness to face the problems and raise questions for further exploration. Mason avoids bringing up too many interpretive possibilities that, I think, could easily be too arduous for the readers to consider. He carefully incorporates views of major scholars in the field, such as Crombie or Morrow with the aim of explaining a thesis or arguing against a "traditional" reading.¹

On a small note of criticism, it would be helpful, considering that the book is, in part, geared toward readers "with no previous knowledge" of Plato's thought, if Mason had explained what Stephanus pages are, and the practice of citing them when referencing Plato. A short endnote to this effect would suffice. On the same note, unexplained references such Cic. Acad. or Aristox. Elem. Harm presuppose familiarity on behalf of the reader with the standard abbreviations of various works. A list of abbreviations at the beginning or end of the book would be of much use. These small flaws do not prevent the book from being an excellent introduction to Plato's thought, and it should be recommended as one of the first readings for both students of philosophy and those who wish to engage with Plato.

Following a preliminary discussion on Plato's life (time, place and work) and the scope and limitations of the book, Mason starts his exposition with a brief, informative chapter on the Socratic question and the development of Plato's ideas. Regarding the latter, the author expresses his disagreement with the view, predominantly advocated by G.E.L. Owen (1953),² that there is a radical shift between Plato's central and later works, constituted primarily by the abandonment of the Theory of Forms (25). The core of the account is that Plato's thought was by no means static and it did not develop in a linear way. The treatment of the soul in the various dialogues is one of the most salient examples of this. It is further observed that the "dialogue form means that Plato need not commit himself to all the views that his chief speakers express, even if he clearly intends to present them favourably" (26). Although this view might be a matter of debate, this seems a sensible line to take in an introductory work, considering the multifaceted nature of Plato's thought. It will, I suspect, prevent much gnashing of teeth from students who attempt, for instance, to find a coherent conception of the division of the soul throughout the various dialogues.

The exposition of Plato the metaphysician begins appropriately with a chapter on the Theory of Forms. Forms are described as universals "which have a real and objective existence that we can discover; this is parallel to what we would now call a realist theory of universals" (29). The strategy of making reference to contemporary views is carefully chosen and proves to be profitable not only in Mason's attempt to explain the role of Forms, but also in his explanation of other aspects of Plato's philosophy. For example, when he deals with "the third man argument" and more specifically with the issue of the standard measures, he refers to Wittgenstein's and Kripke's views, with which students of philosophy at all levels should be familiar (56).

In the chapter on knowledge, Mason is eager to emphasize the connection between Forms and knowledge, avoiding focusing solely on the Theaetetus and the proposed definitions of knowledge therein. On the question "Can only Forms be known?" Mason is keen to highlight the connection between Forms and action. One of the biggest achievements of this chapter is the clear and careful way he approaches the theory of recollection, considering how extraordinary a contemporary student of philosophy would find it. Mason cites Meno, Phaedo and Phaedrus, highlighting the fact that the theory of recollection is formulated in each of the dialogues differently, and in the context of a different problematic each time. It is clear that Mason doesn't necessary look for a single theory of recollection. The chapter on the Soul could well be prescribed as a mandatory reading for anyone embarking on the study of Plato. His presentation of the soul and its peculiar characteristics (self-motion, immortality, division) is very lucid and engagingly shows why each element is important to Plato. Once again, Mason does not argue that Plato had a single unchanging theory of the soul. At the same time, the problems of the divided soul, and especially the issue of mental conflict, are probed by the author. For example, he says "when we act rationally, our reason is in control; when we act irrationally it is overcome by one of the other elements. There seems no place for an act by which we decide between the rational and irrational aims. In what part of the soul might that decision be located?" (116).

It is notoriously difficult to write about Plato's political thought without falling into controversies of interpretation, especially regarding its seemingly authoritarian nature. Mason however, produces a chapter which is articulate, clear and illuminating. His presentation of the Republic and the comment that Plato sees the Kallipolis as a "genuine ideal", will prevent, I suspect, much of the undergraduate confusion regarding Plato's motives for writing the work. Although the chapter is primarily on the Republic, it also extends to consider the political works of the later phase of Plato's career, the Statesman and the Laws. The chapter on ethics confirms Mason's assertion in the introduction to the book that Plato's philosophy is a seamless web. Politics and ethics go hand in hand. The focus, as one would expect, is on topics such as justice, virtue, goodness, happiness of the individual in the Republic.

The chapter on God and nature is a real achievement. Mason manages to introduce the Platonic God in the most effective way by answering the question "Why does Plato believe in God?" and by focusing on the differences between Plato's God and the God of theism. For example, Plato's God is not omnipotent. Mason refers to Timaeus 48a, where "we are told that (divine) intelligence persuaded (material) necessity to guide most of the things that come to be towards the best, and at many places that good results were achieved as far as possible (167). The discussion of the problems of disorder and necessity are paradigmatic of Mason's willingness to deal with difficult topics without getting bogged down by issues of interpretation. Although the chapter focuses on the Timaeus, there is also a brief section on the cosmology in the Laws. The concluding chapter is on Plato's aesthetics, something students often find outrageous and awkward. Mason places it within the educational framework of the Republic. The section on imitation is particularly successful in presenting some quite elementary points, while also avoiding any hint of condescension.

Mason offers a very useful guide to further reading, with an updated bibliography for the individual dialogues as well as on the specific areas of Plato's thought. The use of endnotes is quite limited and they only appear when absolutely needed, which helps the reader to follow the flow of the writing and makes the page as neat as the exposition. Further, the references given in the endnotes are comprehensive–well beyond what one might expect in an introductory work such as this. I take this to be another indication of Mason's refusal to underestimate his readers. Mason at the beginning of the books states that nothing can replace a reading of Plato's dialogues; he is right, but his book is a very good supplement.

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Notes:

1.   I.M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines 2 vols (London, 1962); G. Morrow, "Necessity and Persuasion in the Timaeus", Philosophical Review, 1950147-64. Reprinted in R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato's Metaphysics (London, 1965), pp. 421-37.
2.   G.E.L. Owen, "The Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues", CQ 3 (1953), 79-95.

2011.01.36

Valentina Belfiore, Il liber linteus di Zagabria: testualità e contenuto. Biblioteca di "Studi Etruschi" 50. Pisa/Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2010. Pp. 244. ISBN 9788862271943. €295.00 (pb).

Reviewed by L. Bouke van der Meer, Leiden University (l.b.van.der.meer@arch.leidenuniv.nl)

Version at BMCR home site

Valentina Belfiore's carefully edited book, dedicated to the Linen Book of Zagreb (henceforth LL), is an important contribution to our understanding of the longest extant Etruscan text, which is preserved on the remains of a linen book, now well-conserved and horizontally exhibited under glass in a special room of the splendid Archaeological Museum of Zagreb. Her approach can be characterized as a primarily linguistic and philological. It summarizes more than a century's research on words, lexemes (lexical units; roots), strings of words and strophes.

The book consists of an Introduction; Chapter 1: discovery and reconstruction of the text; Ch.2: the text; Ch. 3: palaeography, date and graphic variants; Ch. 4: origin and interpretation of the manuscript; Ch. 5: analysis and comment; and Ch. 6: conclusive considerations. The bibliography is almost up to date. The 'terminological' index of the LL refers to all columns (pages) where a certain lexeme is mentioned, and the index of quoted lexemes refers to the discussion in the main text, with italicized page numbers for the most important comments.

Chapter 1 tells us that a Slovene ex-functionary of the Royal Hungarian Chancery at Vienna, Mihail Barić, bought a mummy in Egypt in 1848 or 1849. The text on its linen wrappings was recognized as Etruscan by an Egyptologist, J. Krall, in 1891. It appears that a linen book, probably used as book-scroll, was nicely cut into 11 bands bearing written, inked texts, which originally formed five long strips. Three long strips are missing, one with text and two without, the latter above and under the text. The book, originally measuring c. 340 x 44.4 cm, has 12 text columns and a small empty cover. The text, to be read from right to left apart from some retrograde letters, contains c. 1300 lexemes, which can be reduced to c. 500 different words or roots. Belfiore sketches the history of the book's reconstruction and of technical research until 1985, when the linen was restored by the Abegg Foundation Berne at Riggisberg (Switzerland).

In Chapter 2, the text of the LL is presented in the most objective way: in fact, only words which are clearly visible. Dots under characters indicate uncertainty of reading. In the margin are alternative readings and restorations suggested by scholars from 1901 onwards. The main difference with the text in H. Rix (ed.), Etruskische Texte. Editio minor (Tübingen 1991), pp. 1-8 is that that many completions, based on parallel texts or repeated formulas in different columns (e.g. column IV and IX), are not integrated in Belfiore's text, which makes getting an overall picture more difficult. The author has discovered errors in the text of Rix and others, e.g. lustras instead of lustres, unum instead of unuch.

In Chapter 3, Belfiore, using A. Maggiani's palaeographic research, dates the LL from the end of the third to the second century BC. For Maggiani the terminus ante quem is c. 150 BC (p. 49, n. 4). The text is written by one and the same hand. Based on letter forms and graphic variants the scribe would have done his job in north Etruria, in an area adjacent to a region with a non-Etruscan (Italic) language.

In Chapter 4 the author explains that the linen book may already have been transported to Egypt, for example to Alexandria, in the last centuries BC. She characterizes the LL as a ritual calendar. As for the understanding of rituals she follows K. Olzscha, who hypothesized a successive invocatio (invocation), placatio (propitiation), oblatio (offering), postulatio (questioning), and acceptatio (acceptation by a god). Aisna may be the Etruscan word for (a) ritual (see p. 136).

Chapter 5 (pp. 65-196) is the core of the book, the text analysis. Each paragraph deals with one column; only columns I and II, and columns VIII and IX are taken together. It should be recalled, however, that columns usually do not coincide with one specific month. For each lexeme Belfiore repeats the interpretation of many scholars, from 1892 onwards, adding her own preference, her new interpretation, leaving something open or confessing a non liquet. Once a word or string is dealt with, it is not repeated. Unfortunately Belfiore often refers to a comment far later in the chapter. A positive point is that large pieces of text, sometimes strophes, are commented upon, word by word, although there is rarely an evaluation of one column or a long passage. Belfiore offers few translations of her own, but she does give some new, convincing interpretations. For example pethereni probably means 'again; anew' (p. 164).

In Chapter 6 Belfiore concludes that the text is both liturgical and prescriptive. She rightly states that bilinguistic research has its limits. No Etruscan word string is completely identical to a text on one of the seven, probably contemporary, Umbrian Tabulae Iguvinae, the Bronze Tables of Gubbio. The author presumes that the ritual year of the LL had twelve months, although only two names of months can be identified with certainty: Etr. acale means 'in June' and Etr. celi 'in September'. As for the production place of the LL and its text Belfiore remains in dubio. If the words methlumeric enas (see below) do not refer to the name of a city but rather mean 'and for the city of whomsoever', as proposed by E. Benelli, the LL was destined to be used in different cities. If, however, the words unialti ursmnal ('in (the area of) Uni/Iuno of the gens Orsminnia') in column XII.10 refer to a sanctuary in Chiusi, as A. Maggiani suggests, the text may have been written and used there. It should be noticed, however, that the name Urs(u)mna(s) also occurs elsewhere in Etruria. In addition, there are far more pointers to Perugia than to Chiusi. Belfiore's statement that 'her analysis raises more questions than could be answered' is true. Inscriptions from future excavations will hopefully shed light upon many unsolved problems.

Because the LL text and Belfiore's comment are very complicated, readers should know (academic) Italian, Greek, Latin, Umbrian and German. Many translations are in those languages. In view of the terminological jargon (e.g. pertinentive, injunctive) one has to use H. Rix' grammar of Etruscan in M. Cristofani (ed.), Die Etrusker (Stuttgart 1985), pp. 210-238 or R. E. Wallace, Zikh Rasna: A Manual of the Etruscan Language and Inscriptions (Ann Arbor/New York 2008). Belfiore presumes that readers already know words like acil, farthan, hamphi- the meaning of which are certain (p. 13, n. 4). These words are under-evaluated in her analysis. For example, farthan means 'procreator' (Latin genius). So the question arises whether farthan is one and the same father of the main gods, aiser seu, flere in crapsti and flere nethunsl, or refers to three different fathers.

Belfiore does not state which methods she uses. Countless, however, are her references to the Iguvine Tables. What she calls a bilinguistic comparison between Etruscan and Umbrian ritual texts is in fact a bicultural approach. Indeed, there are translations of Umbrian texts, but they are different because of interpretive problems.¹ The LL text may show Umbrian influences if we compare Etr. crap (cf. flere in crapsti: 'the numen that is in (the area of) crap') with the Umbrian adjective Grabovius, epithet of three gods who were worshipped outside the city gates of Gubbio. It looks very likely that the Etruscan lexeme cletram is identical to Umbrian kletram (accusative of kletra). It may mean 'litter'. More often loan words in Etruscan are accusatives without declension. Nevertheless Belfiore, unfortunately, due to her over-interpretation of two misspelled words, cntram and cltral, divides cletram into a demonstrative pronoun cle- and a flexible, non-existent suffix in postposition (-tram) (p. 92). As cletram, however, is followed by the plural or adjective srenchve, locative of *srenchva, which means 'images' or 'decorated', the locative suffix would have been -tre (< * -trai). Interestingly, only the main gods, mentioned above, are associated with cletram.

It is understandable that Belfiore pays, in a meticulous and eloquent way, much tribute to ideas of former scholars, especially of K. Olzscha, but the consequence is that the text is very redundant. She mentions too many superfluous, out-of-date, fantastic interpretations. To give an example: nowadays, it is almost certain that *thuc(h) - means 'house' or 'room'. Therefore Pallottino's comparison with Gr. Thuios is incorrect and need not be repeated (pp. 154-155). In addition, many commentators writing before 1991 did not or could not know the almost correct version of the whole LL text as offered by H. Rix.

The evaluation of religious aspects is not exhaustive. A frequent formula reads: sacnicleri cilthl spureri methlumeric enas ('for the sacnica of the citadel, for the city community and for the city of ena'). Belfiore analyses all lexemes with the root sac- concluding that it means 'sacred'. Rix translates sacnica with 'priesthood; fraternity' and others with 'sanctuary'. Belfiore neither accepts nor rejects these options. As e.g. *hanipalusca in a well-known inscription means 'people of Hannibal', the first option is most likely. In addition, the Iguvine Table III.23 mentions a ritual 'for brethren' (fratrusper). Belfiore holds that aiser ('gods') and tin in sarle ('Tin who (is) in the tenth') are celestial and that flere in crapsti and nethuns are Underworld-gods (p. 195). However, column V.10 mentions eiser sic seuc ('gods both si and seu') and V.19-20 thesan tins thesan eiseras seus, which may be translated as 'Aurora of Tin/Day(light) (and) Aurora of the seu gods (consequently gods of the darkness)'. So we may conclude that the eiser si are positive, light-deities and the eiser seu negative, night-deities. Because many words have a funerary connotation, the question remains whether the calendar was only used at funerary occasions. Olzscha's hypothetical sequence of rites is not evaluated in the conclusion. From the analytical chapter, however, it appears that the imperativetrin ('speak!') is an invocation and sin ('accept!') an invitation to accept. What was offered to a deity (oblatio) depended on his or her function (p. 194).

Another problem is Belfiore's analysis of words which mention realia. For example, following G. Colonna's hypothesis she interprets the word thapna as derived from Gr. dapane, which means '(prestigious) expense' (p. 172). Thapna, however, is usually a name on dishes, cups, chalices and bowls so that it indicates only its form or function but not its price. When Greek vase names are used in Etruscan (e.g. Etr. ulpaia from Gr. olpa), real names but no abstract concepts are loaned. Following many scholars Belfiore translates one of the offerings, fase, with 'food', 'bread' or 'flour'. This is impossible, as an askos from Spina (p. 177 n. 5) bears the vase name fasena. So it was obviously destined for a liquid, probably oil, but not for food.

To conclude. Belfiore has written a thorough book, which should be studied ad fundum. It would have been more readable if she had focused only on serious research of the past few decades. A positive point is that there are very few printing errors. There are, however, inconsistencies. E.g. the numeral huth means 6 on p. 60 and 4 on p. 183. The non-Greek, Tyrrhenian or Pelasgan place name Hyttenia (Greek Tetrapolis ('Four-city') in Attica), however, points to the latter option. Thesan means 'morning' (passim) but 'day' on p. 149. Belfiore's book should be consulted in combination with another, very recent, illustrated book on the LL, which pays more attention to methodological, archaeological, cultural, and religious aspects.² A comparison between the two books with their many congruencies, differences and mistakes will show that linguists and archaeologists should cooperate to a greater extent in order to understand Etruscan texts.

---

Notes:

1.  . See now M. Weiss, Language and Ritual in Sabellic Italy. The Ritual Complex of the Third and Fourth Tabulae Iguvinae. Leiden/Boston, 2010.
2.  . L.B. van der Meer, Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis. The Linen Book of Zagreb. A Comment on the Longest Etruscan Text (Monographs on Antiquity, 4). Louvain/Dudley, MA, 2007. It was reviewed by Dr. Jean MacIntosh Turfa, BMCR 2008.05.37.

2011.01.35

Agnès Bérenger, Éric Perrin-Saminadayar (ed.), Les entrées royales et impériales: histoire, représentation et diffusion d'une cérémonie publique, de l'Orient ancien à Byzance. de l'archéologie à l'histoire. Paris: De Boccard, 2009. Pp. 292. ISBN 9782701802572. €27.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Matthew P. Canepa, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (mpcanepa@umn.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Les entrées royales et impériales publishes the proceedings of a 2005 seminar held at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, on the topic of royal entrances. The volume includes sixteen articles with an introduction and conclusion. The editors divide the volume into four thematic, semi-chronological sections, which make it clear that classical antiquity forms the volume's center of gravity. The first group of essays under the heading "L'influence orientale: de l'Égypte pharaonique aux royaumes hellénistiques," presents three essays that survey Pharoanic Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Achaemenid Persia. The second section, "Des royaumes hellénistiques à l'empire romain: préparation et retoumbées d'un événement," collects four essays that, by and large, concentrate on the Roman empire with some consideration of the Hellenistic world. The third section, "Au croisement des influences: diffusion et recuperation d'un ceremonial," focuses on Late Antiquity, broadly defined (ca. 150-ca.700 CE) and contains several essays on a subject that has received quite a bit of previous attention in scholarship on Late Antiquity: the Roman imperial adventus. The final section, "Représentations et postérité: la réélaboration de l'événement," groups four multifarious essays that deal with Byzantine Constantinople, Late Antique panegyric, an entry into the city of Rome by Nero, and imperial ritual in 18th century China. The chapters vary in quality and length, with some offering substantial global overviews, others offering very brief considerations, and still others offering more in-depth and richly footnotes studies.

The volume's introduction offers a brief overview of the literature on the topic and describes the purpose of the volume, which is to offer a survey of some of the most important points in history and encourage a global synthesis on certain problems. The introduction identifies the goal of three topic groupings: 1) to identify elements of royal ceremonial and study them diachronically, intending to track the development of certain forms throughout the ages, 2) consider the individual performance of ceremonies, and 3) to study the nature of the power of ceremonies that transcends each individual culture. In reality, these goals are only addressed in a few of the essays, although such a framing in the introduction invites the reader to consider these questions, and their worth, themselves.

Pierre Tallet's essay, "Apparations et déplacements du roi à l'époque pharaonique," provides an overview of the sources on public ceremonial in Pharoanic Egypt of a sort that, if it was in English, it would be very useful to assign to an undergraduate Near Eastern archaeology or civilizations course. Pascal Butterlin's "Entrées royales en méopotamie: les limites d'une démarche," offers a more substantial survey of public ceremonial in ancient Mesopotamia, concentrating especially on the Old Babylonian period, Mari and Neo-Assyria. The author relies primarily on cuneiform textual evidence, which he puts into dialogue, where possible, with archaeological evidence. Pierre Briant offers a short essay, "Entrées royales et mises en scène du pouvoir dans l'empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques," that samples (mainly classical) textual sources on Achaemenid royal entries, with some attention paid to those of Alexander the Great. It reviews some of the same sources and observations dealt with in more detail in his magnum opus, From Cyrus to Alexander (English edition: I.B.Tauris, 2002).

Éric Perrin-Saminadayar's substantial essay, "La préparation des entrées royales et impériales dans les cités de l'orient hellénophone, d'Alexandre le grand aux Sévères," opens the next grouping of essays. Reflecting the editors' goal for the volume, it concentrates on a single geographical area and tracks continuities and changes diachronically. Perrin investigates both the relationship of new performances of such ceremonies to previous civic or royal traditions and the relationship of local power bases and the dominant power. It provides an excellent study of how cities reconfigured this ritual to negotiate with a shifting array of rulers and power structures. In "L'entrée par la mer dans l'antiquité," Rudolph Haensch, surveys textual sources on maritime entrances of sovereigns. Haensch offers a broad survey but concentrates particularly on the late Ptolemaic empire and Roman Republic. He concludes that the Hellenistic kingdoms and Athenian empire held such maritime displays in higher esteem compared to the Romans because of the greater importance that naval power held for them. Jakob Munk Højte's "Roman Imperial Portrait Statues and the Emperor on the Move," derives from the author's 2005 doctoral research in which he collected all known statue bases from Augustus to Commodus (ca. 2300) to understand their geographical and chronological distribution as well as the circumstances or imperial deeds that might have motivated their dedication. In this essay he considers the connection between imperial visits and the erection of portrait statues. In specific he asks if imperial journeys were commemorated with certain types of monuments and if certain cities were more likely to erect statues compared to others. He concludes that statues were erected not for travel connected to military operations but longer stays and could be completed much later than the actual visit. Helmut Halfmann, "Les cités du monde romain, bénéficiares de la visite impériale," offers a short essay that points out the connection between imperial visits and munificence given for public works in cities visited.

Agnès Bérenger opens the next thematic grouping, which concentrates on the imperial adventus. In her essay, "L'adventus des gouverneurs de province," Bérenger studies the gubernatorial entrance and its relationship with imperial entrances concentrating primarily on literary and papyrological sources. In "L'adventus consulaire pendant l'Antiquité tardive," Ralph W. Mathisen surveys the textual, numismatic and visual sources on the consular adventus. He asks to what extent did they differ from the imperial adventus. He concludes that they offered a complex event where the senatorial elite was able to, momentarily, provisionally and in a controlled manner, pretend to be the equal of the emperor. "Adventus et Salutatio" by Christophe Badel investigates the relationship between the adventus and the ceremony of greeting, the salutatio, in Late Antiquity. He first tracks its development, noting that under the early empire it took place at the city walls but in the late empire it was took place in the palace. He tracks the changes that took place in the gestures of greeting and concludes by noting the contrast between the function of the two, where the former demonstrated the emperor's humanitas and the later took place as an epiphanic event. "Introitus infaustus. L'adventus des usurpateurs- trois examples: Galba, Vitellius, Septime Sévère," by Egon Flaig studies the adventus in the context of considering the notion of imperial legitimacy versus acceptance, tracking the use of the adventus as a primary means of bolstering their rule and connecting with the people in three usurpations. Mikaël Nichanian's "L'adventus médiéval à Constantinople: continuité romaine et rupture sociale aux VII-IX siècles, offers a brief chapter on the adventus from the Iconoclastic through Middle Byzantine era, largely surveying the secondary literature.

Sandrine Lerou offers an important and in-depth study of the imperial entrance under the Comnenian dynasty, drawing primarily from literary evidence. Her essay, "Les entrées à Constantinople à l'époque des empereurs Comnènes," tracks ceremonies that departed from or incorporated aspects of the ancient ritual in new ritual creations that responded to the social, political and religious realities of the day. In the tradition of Sabine MacCormack's early study, Bernadette Puech's "Discours pour une entrée manqué," deals with Roman panegryic and its relationship to the adventus. Gilles Sauron's essay, "Néron, retour de Grèce," studies a passage in Suetonius' "Life of Nero," which details a Greek-inspired ritual entry into the city of Rome which Nero enacted upon his return from Greece within the context of Roman historiography and rhetoric. Luca Gabbiani's long essay, "Les déplacements impériaux dans la Chine du XVIIIe siècle: dimensions rituelles et politi ques," departs from the previous essays and offers a point of comparison with China under the Qing. The author implies that there are points of fundamental difference between China and the "manière occidentale," which, in this reviewer's opinion are only partially true. Gabbiani characterizes the 'Occident' as having a need for power to be made visible through repetitive, structured, public ceremonies, and offers the Chinese emperor's 'invisibility' as an alternative strategy. This is a common trope that is often repeated in such cross-cultural studies; however, a quick review of the Late Antique and Byzantine evidence demonstrates that the late Roman imperial court made equal use of the invisibility of the emperor to underscore his power and divinity (as did that of Persia). In fact one is struck by their incredible similarity despite differences in space, time and culture. Mireille Corbier's conclusion summarizes the basic arguments of each essay but does not offer much in the way of a final analysis that would tie the essays together.

All in all, this is a respectable collection of essays that offers a broad introduction to ancient ceremonial. In addition, given its price, the volume might be useful as introductory materials for undergraduates in a Francophone university. If one is not motivated to buy the entire volume, some of the essays will be worth accessing through interlibrary loan, depending on one's own area of interest. In this regard, the editors' introduction and the essays of Perrin-Saminadayar, Højte, Badel, and Lerou are particularly important.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Agnès Bérenger, Eric Perrin-Saminadayar, "Entrée," 5-10.
Pierre Tallet, "Apparations et déplacements du roi à l'époque pharaonique," 12-24.
Pascal Butterlin, "Entrées royales en méopotamie: les limites d'une démarche," 26-46.
Pierre Briant, "Entrées royales et mises en scène du pouvoir dans l'empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques," 47-64.
Éric Perrin-Saminadayar, "La préparation des entrées royales et impériales dans les cités de l'orient hellénophone, d'Alexandre le grand aux Sévères," 67-90.
Rudolph Haensch, "L'entrée par la mer dans l'antiquité," 91-99.
Jakob Munk Højte, "Roman Imperial Portrait Statues and the Emperor on the Move," 102-10.
Helmut Halfmann, "Les cités du monde romain, bénéficiares de la visite impériale," 111-19.
Agnès Bérenger, "L'adventus des gouverneurs de province," 125-38.
Ralph W. Mathisen, "L'adventus consulaire pendant l'Antiquité tardive, 139-56.
Christophe Badel, "adventus et salutatio," 157-75.
Egon Flaig, "Introitus infaustus. L'adventus des usurpateurs- trois examples: Galba, Vitellius, Septime Sévère," 177-85.
Mikaël Nichanian, "L'adventus médiéval à Constantinople: continuité romaine et rupture sociale aux VII-IX siècles," 187-95
Sandrine Lerou, "Les entrées à Constantinople à l'époque des empereurs Comnènes," 221-26.
Bernadette Puech, "Discours pour une entrée manqué," 227-43.
Gilles Sauron, "Néron, retour de Grèce," 245-54.
Luca Gabbiani, "Les déplacements impériaux dans la Chine du XVIIIe siècle: dimensions rituelles et politiques," 255-82
Mireille Corbier, "Conclusions," 283-290.

2011.01.34

Michael C. J. Putnam (trans.), Jacopo Sannazaro: Latin Poetry. I Tatti Renaissance Library 38. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Pp. xxv, 562. ISBN 9780674034068. $29.95.

Reviewed by Dennis Looney, University of Pittsburgh (looney@pitt.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

Michael Putnam has given us a splendid version of Jacopo Sannazaro's Latin poetry with text and facing-page translation in the I Tatti series of Renaissance works in Neo-Latin. The volume includes all of Sannazaro's Latin poetry with a prose translation faithful to the original in good, readable English: De partu Virginis libri III, De morte Christi lamentatio, Eclogae piscatoriae, Fragmentum (fragment of an eclogue), Salices, Elegiarum libri III, Epigrammatum libri III. The impressive scholarly apparatus accompanying the translation includes an introduction on the life and works of the poet; a brief note on the editions that are the basis for the texts; copious reading notes; two appendices (one on the sources for Sannazaro's depiction of Christ's triumph, the other on his use of Vergil's Messianic Eclogue); a bibliography (divided into subsections that include editions, translations, and secondary criticism); and a very detailed index (thirty-five pages long, two columns per page).

Ralph Nash earlier published versions of some of these same poems, though not all of them, and not always with the Latin text. In his Arcadia and Piscatorial Eclogues (1966) he gives the Latin for the latter poems in a facing-page prose translation (Arcadia is in Italian), but in The Major Latin Poems of Jacopo Sannazaro (1996) he does not provide the Latin text. He does not give the complete collection of epigrams, nor does he offer substantive commentary on any of the poems. Nash's lifelong engagement with Sannazaro enabled him to produce fine versions that introduced an earlier generation of readers to the poet's most important works in Latin and the vernacular. But Nash's work on Sannazaro's Latin verse has now been surpassed by Putnam's I Tatti volume, which is the only complete version of the Latin poems with accompanying translation. Moreover, Putnam's introduction and commentary are superb guides to the craft underlying Sannazaro's elaborate allusive poetry.

The introduction briefly describes the career of Sannazaro (1458-1530), who lived in Naples under the protection of the Aragonese royal family. From 1501 to 1505 he followed Federico of Aragon into exile in France but was quick to return to Naples when the king died in Tours. A member of Pontano's academy in Naples from the beginning of his career, Sannazaro became the leader of this center of humanistic activity in Naples in 1525. Recognized as one of the most accomplished Neo-Latin poets of Renaissance Italy, in his own lifetime Sannazaro was already noted for his carefully crafted poetry, whether at the level of the individual verse, the single poem, or the collection of poems. His comment at the end of the prologue to Arcadia provides insight into his practice as a writer: "Che certo egli è meglio il poco terreno ben coltivare, che'l molto lasciare per mal governo miseramente imboschire." (For surely it is a better thing to till a small field well, than to let the large piece wretchedly grow wild through ill government. [Trans. Nash, 1966, p. 30]). In that spirit he crafted poems superb in their Latinity, marked by allusive poetics that subtly point to his favorite sources, including Vergil, Ovid, Lucretius, Statius, and Lucan, as well as Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Martial. The influence of Theocritus, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1495, works its way into the Latin too, as does the Bible . In fact, Sannazaro is recognized as not only a great Neo-Latinist but also as an eloquent adherent to Christian humanism. The poems on the birth and death of Christ owe as much to Vergilian poetry as to any other source and show his skill at blending the world of Christian Europe with that of the pre-Christian Mediterranean.

Putnam is judicious in his intelligent and extensive commentary on the poetry (pp. 379-522). His identification of each poem's most important sources can sometimes open up to general comments about the way Sannazaro reads a given classical poet or the way in which a specific poet writes. He identifies the meter of each composition, reminding us that Sannazaro enjoyed experimenting with verse. Where necessary, Putnam provides a bit of historical background and cultural information on a given poem. He glosses the less common geographical, mythological, and historical proper nouns. But nowhere does he heavy-handedly force an interpretation on the reader.

As Putnam points out, the primary model for Sannazaro's poetic career is the Vergilian progression from eclogue to didactic to epic. And in the fullness of the volume's notes, Putnam shows the many ways in which the Neapolitan poet cites and rings changes on his main classical source. The most striking alteration may be found in his piscatorial eclogues, which stand out for the translocation of the shepherds from the Arcadian meadows of Vergilian pastoral to the beaches and islands of the Mediterranean around the Bay of Naples. Posillipo, Procida, Ischia, Capri and such places are the new points of reference. The shepherds, now morphed into fishermen, discuss the conventional topics of pastoral eclogue—love, song, loss—while tending to their fishing nets, lines, hooks, and boats. Ariosto recognizes precisely this innovative feature of Sannazaro's adaptation of Vergilian bucolic poetry when he salutes him among his literary friends at the end of Orlando Furioso: "he is the man I so much desire to see, Jacopo Sannazaro, who makes the Muses leave the mountains and dwell on the sands" (46.17.6-8). Sannazaro himself claims primacy in this new kind of pastoral in an elegy: "quandoquidem salsas descendi ego primus ad undas" (el. 3.2.57). Putnam does note in passing (p. xxv) that Sannazaro may have found a model for this sort of transposition in Theocritus, Idyll 21.

The Mediterranean seascape is everywhere in Sannazaro's verse, not only in the innovative eclogues. For example, when the Archangel Gabriel approaches the frightened Virgin Mary in the short epic De partu Virginis, she is compared to a girl on the seashore: "just as when a barefoot maiden, the fresh pride of her happy mother, is engrossed with the harvesting of pearl-oysters on tiny Micon or, should it chance, on craggy Seriphos. Noticing a full-sailed ship gain the shore nearby, she grows fearful and dares not now raise her dress or hurry herself on a course of safety to her comrades, but trembling she grows speechless, and stands fast with her gaze mesmerized. The vessel, laden with the goods of Arabia and the rich gifts of the Canopus, portends no war for humankind, but with innocent equipage shimmers on the ambient sea" (II: 125-34). As can happen in Vergilian epic, the simile takes on a life of its own. First, Mary is compared to a girl hunting oysters, and then the reader is invited to imagine her fear at seeing a large ship sail nearby. Her fear subsides when she realizes it is a ship of trade, not war. Sannazaro's Neapolitan readers lived in a vibrant Mediterranean port where ships sailed in and out all day long; at a time when war with the Turks was brewing it must have become a regular occurrence to scrutinize the purpose of a ship whose provenance was from lands under Moslem control. A simile, then, with added point and urgency that conjures up a globalized Mediterranean world in which the threat of war was real. The Christian world that Sannazaro so skillfully superimposed on that of the ancient Mediterranean would be forced to change radically in the coming decades in response to the presence of non-Christian culture to the east and south.

Some of the poems suggest that Sannazaro was moving in a stimulating world of intellectual controversy at or near the center of academic and courtly life. For example, in two epigrams he takes on no less an opponent than Angelo Poliziano, punning on one of the Latin forms of his name, Pulicianus, to liken him to a flea for a mistaken interpretation of Catullus (Epigrams (I.61.1-2), poems that Putnam appropriately labels "virulent" (p. xx). But the humanist scholar could praise others for their readings of Catullus, as he commends his maestro, Giovanni Pontano, for an emendation of the Latin poet's text (Epigrams (I.13). There is a wide range of short occasional poems, including epigrams to his Aragonese patrons; to popes (for and against); on Cesare Borgia; on humanist peers like Bartolomeo Platina; and on Venice, another maritime city he loved.

Putnam's Sannazaro is a very fine book, equally handsome and excellent, that should open the eyes of many readers in generations to come. One typo (the exception that makes the case?): DPV for DMV at page 370. The translator-commentator, a superb humanist scholar in his own right, has tilled this field well indeed.

2011.01.33

Tim Rood, American Anabasis: Xenophon and the Idea of America from the Mexican War to Iraq. London: Duckworth, 2010. Pp. x, 292. ISBN 9780715636848. $37.50.

Reviewed by John David Lewis, Duke University (john.d.lewis@duke.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

The power and importance of Xenophon's Anabasis in the development of American military culture and national identity is the theme of Tim Rood's American Anabasis. Three great military movements in American history—the drive into Baghdad (2003), Alexander Doniphan's march into Mexico (1846), and William T. Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864/5)—provide the settings for the book's three parts, and become the points of focus for the use and abuse of Xenophon by participants and commentators. As a study of the reception of Xenophon's text, American Anabasis is chock-full of historical information, a gold mine of references to Xenophon that draws on literary interpretations as well as first-hand accounts to show how Xenophon's text shaped people's views of these events and of themselves.

American Anabasis begins in 2003 with the Americans in Iraq, moving then back in time to the mid- twentieth century (Part I, "Xenophon and America" with two chapters), before leaping back further to American forays into Mexico in the 1840s (Part II, "The March of Destiny," five chapters), then turning forward to the American Civil War and its aftermath in the 1860s and later (Part III, "The War Between the States," two chapters). A conclusion returns us to the twentieth century. During this journey out and back—the "journey" is a leitmotif throughout—Rood adopts an explicitly "restricted focus on anabasis as an emblem of American expansion." This stance continuously betrays his own "imperialistic" view of this history. But at every step he provides his readers with a rich context of historical material on which to anchor his interpretations, stamped with the ever-present image of Xenophon the commander and the writer.

Our journey begins in Chapter 1, "Dubya Anabasis: Xenophon and the Iraq War,"¹ with the "Anabasis Project," a covert plan to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein, and with depictions of the "march" into Baghdad. The problems raised by attempts to compare American soldiers with Greek mercenaries—in books such as The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the First Marine Division²—start with the fact that there was little marching on the road to Baghdad. But American Anabasis here reveals a certain underlying imprecision of its own, for Rood's claim that "the allure of classical antiquity" was used "to give authority to the American imperial project" raises the question of what exactly was "imperial" about overthrowing a bloody, aggressive despot in order to turn a country over to citizen self-rule. Repeated references to "American imperialism" fail either to define "imperialism," or to adequately contrast it with the ancient use of Greek mercenaries to support one claimant to a dynastic despotism over another.

The depth and breadth of Rood's treatment—and its limits—are revealed in Chapter 2, "Look Homeward: The Idea of America," which delves into literary works of the mid-20th century. Special emphasis and the greatest space is given to the first draft of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel," originally titled O Lost.³ Wolfe's many evocations of Xenophon's Anabasis did not make it through the ruthless editing required for final publication, but the theme of homecoming still rings, in terms that juxtapose the ancient Greek and modern American experiences across a continent. The American prairie in the 19th century is visualized as the sea, and ancient sea travel is juxtaposed with wagon travel across the American frontier, a theme that, we are told, resonates with the sound of train whistles that haunt the text. By the 19th century, Rood asserts, Xenophon had become a schoolboy text dedicated to the promotion of continental expansion, a path that continued in the next century, and that culminates in an "American journey" in which President Obama "sought to reaffirm the greatness of the American nation after the grave damage inflicted by the Bush presidency." (p.29) Those in agreement with these allusions may see the connections, but others may wonder whether such political stances really belong here.

Part II, Chapters 3 through 7, the meat of the book, take us to the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. Rood skillfully shifts his focus through these chapters, from how the march into Mexico by American commander Alexander Doniphan with his band of Missouri volunteers was described by later literary sources (Chapter 3, "The American Xenophon: Doniphan in Mexico"), to first-hand accounts by participants (Chapter 4, "East and West: Promised Lands"), to images of Spartan warriors juxtaposed with American soldiers (Chapter 5, "Spartan Courage: The Culture of Militarism"), into the democratic actions of Greek and American fighters (Chapter 6, "A Wandering Democracy: Freedom on the March"), and reaching an apex with a comparison between American views of Indians and Iraqi Kurds (Chapter 7, "The Savage State: Kurds and Indians").

Perhaps the "wandering democracy" of Chapter 6 can illustrate the kinds of comparisons that Rood makes; a review of this length cannot possibly reach them all. We read of how American soldiers selected their officers and debated their next move—similar to Xenophon's mobile ekklesia but also how senior officers (Doniphan and Clearchus) manipulated such debates to obtain the desired results. The question of homecoming rises—do we stay in a foreign land, wondered the Americans?—an option never seriously considered by the Greeks. What was the ultimate goal of each march, and did the soldiers or their leaders really know that goal? What was the moral purpose of each expedition, and was an elevated purpose undercut by personal looting? Were American paid volunteers really that similar to Greek mercenaries? And, in Chapter 7, what (if any) real similarities were found in the portrayals of Mesopotamians, Mexicans, and Kurds by American commentators, and how did Greek and American conclusions about the "savage state" of these nations resound with ideology and policy in these widely separated times?

An "Intermezzo" that compares the brash, risk-taking Colonel and presidential candidate John Charles Frémont with Xenophon bridges us from the Mexican War to the far more sanguinary Civil War. Frémont is blessed (or saddled) with the attributes of Xenophon and his Ten Thousand: a strident risk-taker marching through hostile lands, taking on bold adventures and rising almost to the top of American leadership, a writer of note to be set beside Xenophon himself.

Chapter 8, "Advance and Retreat: Sherman in Georgia," takes on one of the most audacious marches in world military history: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's "March to the Sea" from Atlanta to Savannah in 1864. Press reports of the march—and Rood cites many—swung between praise for its breathtaking success and denigration of it as a desperate retreat from the Confederate armies to the north—in both cases setting it side by side with Xenophon's own march. The Greek word anabaino (the root of anabasis) has been twisted from its original meaning of "mount" a ship or a horse and "march up" from the sea, to an ambiguous range of meanings between "embark" and "return." We are invited—again—to think about what Xenophon's and Sherman's marches really were, and to consider how they influenced both the formation of classical Greek identity, and the more fully centralized national identity of the American nation as it emerged from its only internal war.

Moving now forward in time, to "The Brutal Romance of War: Reconstruction and Beyond," (Chapter 9), Rood turns to the use and abuse of Xenophon in the decades after the Civil War, leading into the 20th century. The hell of war, Rood maintains, was often described with the language of the picturesque, a recurrent leitmotif that is here embodied in a book-length 1896 poem The March to the Sea by Union soldier Samuel Byers.⁴ The title draws from a song he wrote while a prisoner of the Confederates in South Carolina, and may be directly reminiscent of Xenophon's Anabasis. Similarly, the Indian chief who led the tribe the Nez Percés in flight from American forces was known as "the modern Xenophon"—for his heroism of course, not for his Greek virtues. Here the savage is equated with the civilized, another motif of the book, which places American troops into an uncomfortable position indeed.

In the end, both sides in the Civil War, now unified politically but needing deeper reconciliation, used their views of Xenophon to support their respective evaluations of Sherman, thus elevating the importance of both marches in American intellectual life. Southern apologists, for instance, decried the burning of homes (and the city of Columbia) with the support of Xenophon's Cyropaideia, while ignoring Xenophon's claim to have openly stated an order to burn a town in the Anabasis. One contrast with Sherman is with his denial of any orders to burn Columbia, which shows his reservations about such actions—reservations that were lacking in Xenophon's account. Xenophon himself (in the Cyropaideia) becomes a weapon to be wielded against Xenophon (in the Anabasis), in which the logic of a moral treatise during peace has been subordinated to the logic of war. Xenophon, Rood reminds us, was used in contrary ways because he himself embraces contrary ways, as the situation demands—and as the literary and ideological purposes of his readers continue to demand.

A Conclusion, "Anabasis Investments," purports to bring out private responses to the Anabasis, in order to tie the themes of American Anabasis together, although the majority of sources remain books and films. Readings over decades by Kermit Roosevelt and his father President Theodore Roosevelt, and by a later soldier in Iraq, lead to Rood's conclusion that Xenophon has been used "to project an image of American power abroad—an image of democratic forces bringing the light of freedom to benighted lands." This greater use of Xenophon to promote military virtue, claims Rood, has come at the expense of a declining interest in civic virtue, and with a sharper concern for Greece over Rome.

Rood has abided by the limits he sets to his own study; many areas of American history have been left out or shortened. Xenophon was also used in descriptions of the Czech march into Siberia, the post-World War I German revival, and the expansion of Russia in the 19th century. Rood tempts us to explore these elsewhere. In the study of the American reception of Xenophon, Rood is clear that the danger of over-simplification is great; synchronic and diachronic differences, as well as differences of genre and purpose, must be respected. The Nez Percés flight, as well as the movement of the Cheyenne in 1878, were both cast as Xenophontic, along with the expeditions of Doniphan and Sherman, as was, in the 1979 film The Warriors, the flight of a New York gang from the Bronx to Coney Island. In the hands of writers, Xenophon is nothing if not adaptable to a broad range of scenarios.

This book is extensively researched and annotated; every page has references to Xenophon in American letters, literature and film, and much will be eye-opening to those readers, like this reviewer, who are not experts in American history. It is a vital source for the reception of Greek thought into American culture. 227 pages of text are followed by thirty-nine pages of endnotes, a six page select bibliography (which does not list all of the sources cited in the endnotes), and an eighteen-page index.

In contrast to the treatment of Doniphan in Mexico, Rood's accounts of Sherman's march, the Civil War Reconstruction, and the Iraq War are short, but he provides an abundance of material on the Mexican War for readers to use in evaluating other conflicts. The book's uneven examinations may be a virtue, in that Doniphan's movement through Mexico will be far less known to readers than the US Civil War, and in that the antebellum period is more important to the formation of the American nation than many may realize. Readers may not agree that the American anabasis will end with Cy Twombly's paintings, or that misreadings will end with "the age of Bush." It is, however, the "transfer of cultural authority and imperial power from Greece to Rome and ultimately to the United States" that constitutes, for Rood, the "key myth of the West." This is, in the end, the wider theme which this book aims to illuminate, and this theme will stand or fall, for individual readers, on whether they accept this myth as progress or decline—as a march up or down—or whether they see it as a myth at all.

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Notes:

1.   "Dubya Anabasis" is the title of a prose poem by Richard Peabody, in T. Swift, 100 Poets against the War, at http://www.nthposition.com/100poets0.pdf.
2.   F.J. West and R.L. Smith (New York: 2003).
3.   T. Wolfe, O Lost: A Story of a Buried Life ed. A. and M.J. Bruccoli (Columbia, SC, 2000).
4.   S. Beyers, "The March to the Sea," in Poems of S. H. M. Byers: Including The Happy Isles; The March To The Sea And Other Poems (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2008).