2018.05.52

Fabio Guidetti (ed.), Poesia delle stelle tra antichità e medioevo. Seminari e convegni, 46. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2016. Pp. 412. ISBN 9788876425844. €28.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Julieta Cardigni, Universidad de Buenos Aires- CONICET (jcardigni@conicet.gov.ar)

Version at BMCR home site

[Se incluye una lista de autores y títulos al final de la reseña]

El presente volumen reúne gran parte de las colaboraciones presentadas en el Congreso Internacional "Poesia delle stelle tra antichitá e medioevo", realizado en la Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa el 30 y 31 de octubre de 2013. La reunión científica –organizada por Anna Santoni y Fabio Guidetti— es la segunda en el marco de las Giornate del Gruppo di ricerca sui Manoscritti astronomici illustrati. Mientras que la primera edición estuvo dedicada al análisis del manuscrito Vat. gr. 1087 (actas publicadas como Antiche stelle a Bizanzio. Il codice Vat. Gr. 1087), en esta ocasión se buscó un tema más general: el encuentro entre poesía y astronomía en el mundo Antiguo.

Precedidos por un conciso y claro Prólogo a cargo de Fabio Guidetti ("Presentazione"), los estudios que componen el volumen abordan el mundo grecorromano a partir del interés particular que los poetas mostraron por el cielo y su descripción. Dos contribuciones –la primera y la última— lidian con la periferia del mundo clásico, encarando el Egipto faraónico y la Siria medieval. En este marco, lo más notable es la gran variedad de géneros literarios que comprende el corpus estudiado por los diferentes autores: poesía épica y lírica, literatura filosófica, comentarios eruditos. Asimismo, el libro ofrece a su lector un arco temporal de estudio que va desde la época arcaica hasta la época la medieval. Este hecho no sólo demuestra el interés constante del mundo clásico por los fenómenos celestes, sino que también sitúa al volumen en un lugar representativo en el marco de los estudios sobre el tema.

En el primer capítulo, por Daniele Salvoldi, está dedicado a los astros en la poesía egipcia antigua, y en él se analizan algunos textos de la literatura egipcia en los que la Astronomía tiene un rol de importancia: los Textos de las Pirámides y los Textos de los Sarcófagos, el Himno a Osiris (Museo del Louvre, Département des Antiquités égyptiennes, inv. C286), el Libro de los muertos, el Texto dramático de Abidos y tres ejemplos de lírica amorosa (P. Chester Beatty 1, O. Cair. 25218, O. Nash 12). A través del recorrido por este corpus textual, que es la vez fundacional y variado, se comprueba la profunda conexión existente entre el culto funerario egipcio y la teología solar y estelar, relación que se mantiene firme a lo largo de épocas y estamentos sociales diversos.

El capítulo de Filippomaria Pontani, " 'Vaghe stelle del'Orsa'…", retoma una original interpretación del escolio ε272k de la edición de Odisea hecha por el autor (2015), conservado en el ms. Laur. 32.12 del cretense Antonio Damilas, e inédito hasta ese momento. La nota se refiere a los versos 272-275 del texto homérico (con un inconfundible signe de renvoi), en que el cielo nocturno es descrito tal como lo ve Odiseo, y que ha suscitado gran cantidad de comentarios eruditos acerca de la naturaleza de las constelaciones aludidas, y acerca de si se rata de un cielo otoñal o primaveral. El escolio en cuestión aporta una interpretación a este pasaje "de acuerdo con la Astronomía de Palamedes y las digresiones de la Sibila" De manera clara y ordenada, el autor analiza las diferentes posibilidades de interpretación del escolio y propone convincentemente que se trata de una cita poética, cuya restitución textual y métrica, así como su atribución autorial, permanecen aún inciertas.

El capítulo 3 escrito por Davide Amendola,, , analiza los problemas textuales del Περί τῆς Νεστορίδος, monografía de Asclepíades de Mirlea (F4 Pagani), dedicada a las dificultades interpretativas generadas por la descripción de la copa de Néstor. Por medio de un procedimiento alegórico a través del cual los elementos constitutivos del recipiente son asimilados a cada uno de los componentes de la esfera celeste, Asclepíades (retomado por Ateneo en su Banquete, 11. 78 [489c-e]) puede comparar el cuerpo de la copa con el cielo, y las "πελειάδες" (palomas) con las Pléyades, asociación inexistente en el texto homérico. De manera minuciosa, el autor aborda los problemas exegéticos y textuales del pasaje para explicar este curioso movimiento hermenéutico de Asclepíades.

En "Gli inverni delle Pleiadi", de Mariela Menchelli, se analiza el léxico astronómico presente en el diálogo tardío atribuido a Platón Axíoco –y también en Alción, más sucintamente— en el contexto de la Academia helenística; ambos diálogos que dedican atención a los fenómenos celestes. Mediante un completo proceso de análisis, que incluye el tratamiento de problemas y variantes textuales, y la relación intertextual con otras obras (como el texto de Arato), Menchelli lleva adelante el propósito planteado, sin dejar de lado la especificidad del texto en cada caso. El capítulo cuenta además con un mérito extra, ya que provee un esquema del diálogo Axíoco, en el cual se detallan sus contenidos y características.

Ya en el mundo latino, la siguiente contribución, de Silvia Ottaviano,lidia con la Aratea de Cicerón, comenzando con el fragmento A Ioue Musarum primordia. Ottaviano repone una breve historia de este íncipit, que expresa la relación entre poesía y estrellas, antes de encarar el análisis concreto de los fragmentos seleccionados. A continuación, se realiza un análisis exhaustivo de los fragmentos ciceronianos –tomados de De natura deorum, donde se concentra la mayoría— en comparación con el original de Arato, análisis que no solo abarca aspectos estilísticos y expresivos de la traducción ciceroniana, sino que además no descuida la impronta filológica, considerando variantes textuales, y aludiendo asimismo a recursos intertextuales para ponderar lectiones y construcciones de sentido.

El volumen avanza con una segunda contribución sobre la Aratea ciceroniana, a cargo de Daniele Pellacani, centradaen este caso en la descripción de Ofiuco (frgg. 14-15 Soubiran). Luego de notar la eliminación de numerosos versos del original de Arato en los fragmentos transmitidos por De natura deorum, el estudio procede a una comparación y análisis de la traducción ciceroniana. La comparación textual es reforzada por las alusiones iconográficas (que remiten al apéndice "Illustrazione", al final del libro), y ayudan a concluir que en Cicerón resulta obvia la intención de acuñar, sobre el modelo griego, un léxico astronómico que contara al mismo tiempo con cierto vuelo poético, y de 'animar' las constelaciones por medio de la introducción del elemento narrativo, intentando superar el estatismo presente en el modelo.

La Aratea, pero esta vez de Germánico, es objeto del capítulo siguiente, escrito por Anna Santoni. La autora encara el estudio de los aspectos mitológicos de la obra, restringiendo el análisis a la presentación de tres casos: Engonasis, las Osas y el Auriga. Germánico otorga gran detalle y lucimiento a las figuras mitológicas, mostrando mayor interés en los mitos y demostrando que probablemente contaba con bastante información para la composición, incluyendo imágenes ilustradas. Al final se incluye un cuadro comparativo entre la mitología celeste presente en Arato y en Germánico, muy explicativo y útil para la comprensión del tema. El capítulo aborda, en profundidad y con solidez, una obra poco estudiada en general.

Arato continúa siendo el eje de las reflexiones en el capítulo siguiente, donde el Cristiano Castelletti rastrea su influencia en textos de Apolonio, Virgilio, Valerio Flaco y Estacio. Como explica el autor, para Arato las constelaciones son concebidas como un complejo sistema de signos situados en el cielo por la voluntad de Zeus y para el beneficio de los seres humanos. Asimismo, Arato percibe estos signos como verdaderas letras que trazan un escrito en el espacio celeste. Esta metáfora de la escritura, constante en la obra de Arato, apunta a la idea de una 'legibilidad' de la naturaleza. Así, sobre esta idea de que Arato considera las constelaciones como 'escritos celestes', se analizan las technopaegnia, en particular los acrósticos y otros juegos de palabras en su obra y en la de los autores mencionados, que heredan sus prácticas. La hipótesis central es que la 'escritura celeste' cumple una función central en la construcción de sentido. Mediante este interesante estudio, el autor aboga por dejar de considerar estos recursos meros e inocentes juegos de palabras, y por darles el estatus de herramientas compositivas y hermenéuticas que nos ayuden a acercarnos a los textos antiguos.

El capítulo siguiente, por Fabio Guidetti, se centra en Astronomica de Manilio, y en la teología del Principado como elemento fundamental para su interpretación. En su explicación de las posibles interpretaciones para el origen de la Vía Láctea y su luminosidad, Manilio adhiere a aquella propuesta por Cicerón en el Somnium Scipionis. De acuerdo con ella, este espacio es aquel al que retornan los grandes hombres del pasado que, transformados en astros, inundan el cielo con el esplendor de su brillo. Sigue a esto una larga enumeración de personajes míticos e históricos, que concluye con la celebración de la dinastía imperial (en particular la agustea). A través de su análisis de este episodio, y con un fuerte anclaje en el estudio de las variantes textuales, el autor propone una constitución textual propia del pasaje, que muestra con mayor claridad el objetivo maniliano de poner en relación la vida terrena y la celeste, y las concepciones astronómicas, teológicas y políticas.

En "Avieno, Arato e i Catesterismi", Emanuele Berti analiza la última traducción latina de los Fenómenos de Arato, que se caracteriza por proponer una versión ampliada y enriquecida por fábulas de catesterismos que acompañan la presentación de las constelaciones. El estudio de la inserción de las fábulas mitológicas constituye un terreno particularmente apto para dilucidar las estrategias poético-compositivas de Avieno, y su relación con los modelos a los que recurre (Arato, Germánico). La inclusión de un cuadro comparativo de los episodios mitológicos insertos para cada constelación por Arato, Germánico y Avieno completa esta valiosa contribución.

El siguiente capítulo, a cargo de Luca Ruggeri, está dedicado al Περί Καταρχῶν, poema hexamétrico atribuido a Máximo de Éfeso, preceptor del Emperador Juliano. En este marco, el autor busca señalar algunas cuestiones básicas que ayuden a realizar un estudio sistemático del lugar que la obra ocupa en la historia del hexámetro griego. Esta tarea se realiza de manera meticulosa y ordenada, contribuyendo sin duda al propósito planteado.

También dedicado a Máximo, el penúltimo capítulo, de Nicola Zito, lidia con los elementos de astrología y mitología presentes en el poema. El estudio se aboca a tres pasajes con la intención de demostrar que, en función de asignarle a la obra un sentido más profundo y completo, es necesaria una nueva edición que contemple otras variantes y propuestas textuales. El texto ha sido transmitido por un único manuscrito medieval (Laur. Plut. 28.27, siglo IX, L) y fue editado en 1877 por Arthur Ludwich. A partir de una nueva valoración el manuscrito, y respaldado por los elementos expuestos en este apartado, el autor justifica la propuesta de su nueva edición (Zito 2016).

El cierre del libro está conformado por un breve capítulo dedicado al mundo sirio, escrito por Simone I. M. Pratelli, tomando el Liber causae causarum (Libro de la causa de todas las causas) anónimo y escrito probablemente en el siglo IX, que aborda el significado teológico y filosófico de la creación. El capítulo es una sistemática y concisa descripción de la obra a partir del quinto tratado de los siete que sobreviven, dedicado al retrato del cielo, de los cuerpos celestes y de los eclipses.

Poesia delle stelle es un libro bien articulado sobre el eje de la astronomía y las percepciones literarias que de ella tenían los antiguos; al mismo tiempo, resulta variado en cuanto a fuentes y métodos de análisis. El volumen mantiene de manera constante la impronta filológica, logrando sin embargo una fluida y dinámica proyección del estudio textual al ámbito del análisis retórico-litarario. La inclusión de la bibliografía –nutrida y actualizada— al final de cada capítulo facilita enormemente la consulta; y el Apéndice de "Illustrazione" completa el panorama celeste desde las Artes plásticas. Se trata de una edición cuidada tanto en la corrección como en lo estético, y sin duda una herramienta sólida para acercarse no sólo al tema, sino también a los textos del corpus propuesto.

Autores y títulos (en orden alfabético)

Amendola, Davide, "Lo σφαιρικός λόγος del Περί τῆς Νεστορίδος di Asclepiade di Mirlea (F 4 Pagani): problemi testuali e interpretativi"
Berti, Emanuele, "Avieno, Arato e i Catasterismi"
Castelletti, Cristiano, "Nel solco di Arato: lasciare il segno scrivendo con le stelle. Esempi da Apollonio, Virgilio, Valerio Flaco e Stazio"
Guidetti, Fabio, "Manilio e la teologia del Principato. Per l' interpretazione di Astronomica 1. 798-804"
Menchelli, Mariella, "Gli inverni delle Pleiadi: lessico astronomico nel λόγος ουράνιος dell' Asiocco e nell'Accademia ellenistica"
Ottaviano, Silvia, "A Ioue Musarum Primordia I frammenti degli Aratea di Cicerone"
Pontani, Filippomaria, "Vaghe stelle delle Orsa. Un nuovo frammento di lirica corale?"
Pellacani, Daniele, "La descrizione dell' Ofiuco negli Aratea di Cicerone (fragg.14-15 Soubiran)"
Pratelli, Simone I. M., Il cielo e il firmamento sopra di noi. Astronomia, fede e ragione nel siríaco Libro dela causa di ogni causa"
Ruggeri, Luca, "Osservazioni sulla metrica del Περί Καταρχῶν di Massimo"
Salvoldi, Daniele, "Su di me allarga le tue ali come le Stelle Imperiture"
Santoni, Anna, "Aspetti della mitologia celeste negli Aratea di Germanico: a proposito di Engonasi, Orse, Auriga"
Zito, Nicola, "Filologia, mitologia e astrologia nel Περί Καταρχῶν di Massimo"

2018.05.51

Thomas Russell, Byzantium and the Bosporus: A Historical Study, from the Seventh Century BC until the Foundation of Constantinople. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xvii, 290. ISBN 9780198790525. $120.00.

Reviewed by Paul Kimball, Bilkent University (pkimball@bilkent.edu.tr)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

The book under review is a revision of the author's 2013 Oxford D.Phil. thesis and exhibits many of the virtues and few of the flaws one would expect from a revised dissertation. Russell's attention is mostly focused on the fifth to third centuries BCE, although he also treats Byzantium in the Roman period and discusses the late antique sources for the foundation of the city, notably the sixth-century Patria of Hesychius of Miletus, which would otherwise fall outside the time frame suggested by the title.

Chapter One has two purposes. The first is to describe the geography of the Bosporus as well as the seasonal and long-term conditions that prevailed in antiquity and indeed up to the present day. Eschewing appeals to naive environmental determinism, Russell examines how the confluence of variable currents and winds constrained passage through the strait. As a result of these factors ships frequently gathered in convoys at certain points to wait for better sailing, especially at the northern inlet at Hieron on the Asian shore (mod. Anadolu Kavağı) overlooked by the sanctuary of Zeus Ourios. Russell's second purpose is to consider how the Byzantines appropriated the features of the Bosporus in terms of their own ideologies and identities by overlaying the landscape with self-serving narratives, especially those of Io and the Argonauts. He ends this section with an examination of Byzantium's earliest coins, featuring a cow in motion above a dolphin. Offering a hypothesis he has published elsewhere,¹ Russell argues that these coin-types may not just refer generally to the crossing of Io imagined to give the Bosporus its name, but refer to the local toponyms of "Delphinus" and "Bous" known from Polybius and Dionysius of Byzantium's Anaplous Bosporou and can be best explained in the context of Byzantium and Chalcedon's competing claims over priority as the point of Io's departure and landing respectively. He suggests that this rivalry may have been exacerbated by Athenian retrenchment at the end of the fifth century when Byzantium began to both mint its first coins and establish itself as mistress of the strait.

Chapter Two starts by examining the efforts of several strongmen to capitalize on the challenges facing Bosporus shipping. Russell sifts our rather recalcitrant sources regarding the activities of Histiaeus of Miletus during the Ionian Revolt and of Pausanias after Plataea, endeavoring to tease out more or less probable conclusions about their aims and methods. This pattern of predation becomes more evident from the end of the fifth century with the occupation of Byzantium (twice) by the Spartan Clearchus and Philip of Macedon's seizure of the fleet at Hieron in 340. Russell cogently observes that whatever the details of their actions, their subsequent infamy as would-be tyrants and hybristai demonstrates the perils of any attempt by an individual to interfere with trade through the strait without an effective strategy of legitimization. Legitimization through the monopolization of violence, Russell asserts, is what differentiated the Athenian control of the Bosporus under the aegis of the Delian League. He first considers Byzantium's conspicuous position on the Athenian tribute lists, noting its extraordinarily high assessments compared to its peers. Russell dismisses the explanation of these figures as a straightforward index of prosperity resulting from the supposed Black Sea grain trade. Instead, he adopts Gabrielsen's thesis that Byzantium was purposefully selected by the Athenians to serve as the linchpin of its centralization of control over the Bosporus. This leads to a discussion of the dekate tax on shipping imposed in 409 by Alcibiades, to be levied at Chrysopolis (mod. Üsküdar), likely a revival of the tax previously collected at Byzantium from the 430s but interrupted by the revolt of Byzantium against Athens in 411. As Gabrielsen theorized and as Russell accepts, it is possible that that the extremely high rate of taxation implied might have included the escorting of allied ships through and from the strait under the protection of the Athenian navy, as coordinated from Byzantium. Russell also evaluates, with considerable caution, the evidence suggesting the development of something like an imperial bureaucratic system to oversee these activities.

Chapter Three examines Hellenistic Byzantium's unique position as a guarantor of passage through the Bosporus after the eclipse of Athenian seapower, and in the face of mounting exactions by the Galatians of Tylis from ca. 280-220 BCE. The sums occasionally demanded of Byzantium reached, as Russell notes, four times the city's highest assessment under the Delian League, and apparently resulted in the Byzantines reimposing the dekate as a toll on shipping, a crisis response which nevertheless violated Byzantium's presumed forbearance from profiting directly from passage through the Bosporus. The adoption of this measure led in 220 BCE to the Rhodians making war in retaliation for this breach of faith. Up to that point Byzantium seems to have derived indirect revenues from its management of the strait thanks to two interrelated developments discussed by Russell at length: first, the extension of its peraea on the southern shore of the Propontis during the third century and, second, its establishment of a "controlled-currency" regime over its territory with the collaboration of Chalcedon. Seyrig first proposed this arrangement, primarily on the basis of a local hoard that may have been interred during the Byzantine-Rhodian conflict. Tetradrachms on the Athenian weight standard appear to have been countermarked for use or exchanged for the local currency on a lower "Phoenician" weight standard, enabling the Byzantines to profit from the difference in lieu of collecting direct tolls. If this system was in fact operational, Russell notes that other currency monopolies are only known under the Ptolemies and Attalid Pergamon, who could back up their systems with force, whereas on the Bosporus it may have been the lack of alternative routes through the strait that allowed for what he terms a "perfect storm" of circumstances leading to and encouraging its implementation. Russell also entertains the possibility that the Ptolemies themselves financed this system as an element in their larger regional entanglements, and that the eventual withdrawal of their support around 240 BCE could explain Byzantium's need to fall back on the dekate.

In chapter Four, "The Bounty of the Bosporus," Russell seeks to clarify the impressionistic picture drawn by the literary sources of the Byzantine fishing industry's contribution to the local economy and state revenues. Using statistical accounts of the Bosporus's productivity from early-20th-century Istanbul, and comparative archaeological findings from Roman fishing and processing sites in the vicinity of Gibraltar, Russell argues that Byzantium, much like Cadiz, could have benefited greatly from the enormous numbers of migratory fish (especially tunny and mackerel) passing between the Black Sea and the Aegean, whose seasonal rhythms are so well known to the denizens of Istanbul's meyhanes even today. Having determined its piscatorial potential, Russell then goes on to treat the evidence from epigraphy and Dionysius's Anaplous for the presence of onshore infrastructure for netting and processing fish along the strait, comparable to those known from the western Mediterranean. It would seem that these migratory patterns did in fact allow the Byzantine state to extract significant revenues from the leasing of these fishing facilities, over which it exercised a monopoly.

In the following chapters, Russell details Byzantium's ongoing construction of identity, first by surveying what we know of Byzantium's relations with its Thracian subjects and the possibilities for their incorporation in the life of the city and its citizen body. This leads to a discussion of local cults, festivals, and calendar, which shows little in the way of Thracian practices but speaks to Byzantine self-promotion as a Greek settlement on the edge of Hellenic space. In the final chapter, "Explaining Byzantium," he turns to the problem of Byzantium's foundation as recounted in its various foundation narratives and suggested by the structure and nomenclature of its civic organization and offices. While conceding a significant share in shaping the city's institutions to Megara, Russell quite reasonably views colonization as an incremental, contributive process rather than a moment of individual or state initiative. He interprets practices such as the continued use of the idiosyncratic beta like those used at Megara and Corinth less as a conservative artifact held over from its Megarian colonists than as a means of preserving the memory of Byzantium's founder(s) and a self-conscious effort to display these links to a contemporary audience. Russell takes pains to point out that these connections and the various narratives underlying them were thus "good to think with," both for the Byzantines and for those seeking to rule them. For example, noting the honors paid to the Spartan Pausanias as second founder of Byzantium, Russell follows up on a hypothesis of Lehmann-Haupt that the Serpent Column from the tripod commemorating the victory at Plataea was erected the in hippodrome by Constantine to join himself as a third and final ktistes with Byzas and Pausanias. But the Serpent Column is the sole survivor of a group of Delphic tripods attested as standing on the euripos,² and it's hard to see how such specific associations could have been gleaned by any spectators, if indeed such a message was intended at all. More convincing is Russell's speculation in Chapter One (p. 47) that the transit of Hadrian through the region in 117/118 CE may have fostered linkages between myth and topography made by local elites engaging with the Roman establishment. The problem of Byzantine identity and self-representation then serves as an effective frame for the work as a whole.

The afterword echoes the introduction by calling attention to the value of regional and problem-oriented history, and offers some interesting signposts in the direction of future research, e.g., civic identity, topography, and self-fashioning; currency regimes and the complexities of the ancient economy; the responsiveness of imperial decision-making to local conditions. The value of Russell's work lies in his comprehensive treatment of the relevant evidence and the scrutiny he pays to the scholarly arguments surrounding it. His most original contributions offer nuance to existing debates or otherwise theorize about their implications. This volume will doubtless be of interest to scholars in a wide range of fields: Mediterranean studies and the history of maritime communities, urbanism in the Black Sea region, Athenian imperialism, Greek and non-Greek relations, numismatics and economic history, narratives of colonization and foundation, and even the reception of the voyage of the Argo, to say nothing of those especially concerned with the long-term development of Byzantium and its later history as an imperial capital.

---

Notes:

1.   "The Land of Inachus – Byzantium's early coinage and two Bosporus toponyms", ZPE 180 (2012) 133-138.

2.   Sarah Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge, 2004), p. 227.

2018.05.50

Alejandro G. Sinner, La ceca de Ilduro. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2017. Pp. 189. ISBN 9781784917234. £30.00.

Reviewed by Robert Knapp, University of California, Berkeley (rcknapp@berkeley.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Sinner's book is a fine contribution to the understanding of Iberian coinage and the role it can play in our understanding of larger historical and societal issues. Because its influence may be limited by the fact that it is written in Spanish, I have included a fair amount of summary as well as critique as I review his work.

Chapter 1: Historiography of a mint. Sinner carefully recapitulates the contributions and (numerous) errors that came with the study of Iberian coinage from the sixteenth century on. It was not until the nineteenth that any real progress was made in understanding the Iberian inscriptions on local coins. Even then, readings varied wildly, as did the location of cities and towns unattested in Greco-Roman sources such as Ilduro, the subject of this volume. Celestino Pujol i Camps (in 1887) made some fundamental breakthroughs, but old errors died hard and even the great epigrapher and numismatist Emil Hübner did little to further the understanding of Ilduro's mint. But at least virtually all the types of the coinage had been discovered and documented by then. Much more progress was made in the twentieth century. Joan Ribas i Bertrán first identified a newly discovered (1916) Iberian oppidum (a native, fortified settlement) at Burriac, in the vicinity of Mataró on the Catalan coast, as the most probable location for the mint, instead of the previously favored location in the area of Valencia far to the south. Jürgen Untermann confirmed both the name of the city found on the coins (Ilduro) and, on the basis of site finds, the location of the mint at Burriac.¹ Finally, in the progression of scholarly effort, Leandre Villaronga's important work on types and metrology established the basic chronological outline for three issues of coins from Ilduro. Villaronga also saw that there were two closely related mints, both of which he called Ilturo, in Burriac and Mataró (to use their modern place names). In giving an account of the history of study of the Ilduro mint, Sinner offers an insightful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of his predecessors and sets the stage for his own advances in the study of the mint.

Chapter 2: Location of the mint. By the late twentieth century the names of the towns found on Iberian coinage had been deciphered reasonably well. Sometimes these or similar sounding names could be found in surviving Greek or Roman texts. But just as often, the readings were misleading or there were no obvious correlations between the Iberian names found on the coins and names from Greco-Roman literary sources or inscriptions. In the case of Ilduro, the lack of a Greco-Roman equivalent as well as no comparanda among known native tribal names made the mint's location especially problematic, as Sinner outlines well in chapter 1. After a brief summary of well-known facts in general about the minting of coins, Sinner notes that the main issue to be resolved is whether the mint was located at the Iberian site up the hill at Burriac or at the late-Republican settlement lower down the valley to the southwest at Cabrera. There is clear evidence of metallurgical processing at the Can Rodon de l'Hort (Cabrera) and at the site of Cabrera there as elsewhere lead/tin objects were obtained, melted down, and used not only to make the piping used in the local bath complex, but also as part of the process to create the required copper-lead-tin combination that occurs in the Ilduro coinage. Cabrera as the site of the mint seems certain. From an Iberian settlement at Burriac to a coeval late-Republican, heavily Italic-influenced town at Cabrera, then to a completely new, firmly 'Roman' establishment seven kilometers away at modern Mataró, the coinage of Cabrera provides evidence of the political and cultural progression during the period ca. 150-75 BCE.

Chapter 3: The legend on the coinage. The difficulties of the Iberian language affect the reading of the settlement's name. Sinner makes the case for –ildur rather than –iltur based on the generally recognized equivalence of 'ildur' with 'town' and the suffix 'o' meaning 'in the'. The various legends, spelling out Ilduro, use differing forms of Iberian letters, and the known development of these forms can then be used to place the Ilduro issues in chronological order and to date them.

Chapter 4: Typology. The interpretation of coin typology is always an interesting process. In the case of Iberia, our extensive lack of knowledge about the culture, important symbols, and political organization leaves room for a range of opinions about the meaning of what appears on Iberian coins. In the case of Ilduro, the main obverse and reverse types—a bare or laureate male head facing right and a horseman with lance charging right—mimic a typology common in a wide range of Iberian local coinages, a typology itself probably derived from types appearing on coins used to pay Iberian mercenaries in their foreign service, especially in Sicily. Other less frequent types carry iconography that is similarly generic and so unlikely to be of special importance to Ilduro. In fact, Sinner points out that the types in general bear a great resemblance to those of Kese (Tarragona), a leading town of and one of the most prolific producers of coins in the area. Therefore, whether the types had any particular meaning to the minters at Ilduro other than the simple, 'this is a coin so it needs an image of a head on the obverse and the value and where it was minted on the reverse', remains a mystery. ² The identity of the head relies on nothing more than analogies from other ancient coins (a god? Hercules? a city founder?), while the relationship of the iconography of the rider to that of the head, if there is one, is uncertain. Many of the coins also carry a secondary symbol on the obverse. For example, some of the largest denomination have a boar as a secondary image. Sinner rightly rejects the almost irresistible temptation to attempt to relate similar minor design elements among and within mints to political units or social relationships, although he does succumb once when he relates the change from an un-cloaked rider to one with chlamys as an indication of a change of municipal status (p. 56). Traveling minters or designers account for the similarities among mints and completely unknown vagaries account for many minor detail changes. The only likely exception is that the addition of the secondary symbol of a human ear behind the obverse head consistently marks the latest issues of the mint.

Chapter 6: Technical aspects of production. Sinner carefully describes the methodology he uses to determine the composition of the coins. His conclusions regarding the coins analyzed are interesting: the composition of Ilduro's coins fit well within the established norms not only of nearby issues, but also of Iberian bronze coinage generally. Rounding out the chapter is a careful study of the orientation of the obverse to reverse die as the coins were struck. While some mints in the ancient world clearly worked hard to keep the same orientation between the obverse and reverse dies (usually 0° or 180°), coin after coin, in other cases mint officials just did not care. Useful histograms and careful analysis of Ilduro's coins indicates that there was no such concern at Ilduro. In fact, as Sinner notes, the variability of composition, weight, and die orientation point to mintings that were not controlled in any serious way by any authority beyond the local rulers of the town.

Chapter 7: Metrology and denominations. Numismatists are in the habit of focusing on coin weight to determine both value and function of coins. Sinner pursues this aspect of Ilduro's coinage with great care. The umbrella theory of Iberian coin weights is that they should decrease in weight as time goes by. This theory is well grounded in the behavior of silver issues. But Sinner shows that this is not the case with Ilduro's bronze issues (there is no silver coinage). Ilduro and other Iberian towns seem to issue coins weighted according to unknowable internal decisions rather than any lock-step attempt to keep their coinage in sync with Roman or any other weight standards. As Sinner notes, the diameter of a coin combined with systematic type differentiations is the most obvious way to tell its value to a user. He points to a few asses that are 'squished out' around the perimeter of the edge of the dies. This shows that the intent of the minter was a particular diameter, not weight. When, either by carelessness or not, a blank of too great a volume was struck, the metal was forced out beyond the intended diameter. But the diameter of the struck image, not the weight, was the goal.

Chapter 8: Production and volume of issues. Sinner considers the latest statistical and methodological possibilities for calculating how many coins Ilduro struck during the approximately 75 years of the mint's production. These are all very uncertain, not to say unreliable in any larger sense, but the attempt needs to be made, and Sinner brings all the necessary evidence to bear. Assessing the number of dies and applying common estimates of coins struck per die, Sinner calculates (p. 93) that perhaps, on average, one-third of a talent per year in value was minted during the 50 or so years of most activity. This is not much, but, as Sinner repeatedly points out, the purpose of small change was to facilitate exchange, not to be a store of wealth. Among the minting towns of the area, Ilduro stands about in the middle regarding the size of its coin issues.

Chapter 9: Circulation of Ilduro coinage. Sinner relies on the established fact that bronze coinage circulates locally much more than at a distance. His study of the finds perfectly fits this model of local circulation. His contribution is to use the coinage to assert with strong evidence that there were pathways of communication between coastal Cataluña and the interior toward Ausa (Vic) that have been heretofore unknown or undervalued. An interesting conclusion is that the coinage was inspired by interaction with Italian-based commercial activity that was used to using bronze coinage (p. 102). The fact that coins follow commerce is well illustrated by the coincidence of a decline in wine-containing amphorae from Ebusus (Ibiza) in Ilduro and the disappearance of Ilduro's coins in finds from Ebusus (p. 106).

Chapter 10: Chronology of the Ilduro coinage. While hoards help to define the mint's chronology, the mint of Ilduro offers an almost unique opportunity to use archaeological evidence to sequence the issues. As such, Ilduro's coinage is an excellent example of how archaeology and numismatics can interact to elucidate each other. Sinner teases out a very convincing chronology using his experience as an excavator at Cabrera.

Sinner's catalog of Ilduro's coins is impressively complete—he has ferreted out examples from a very wide range of excavations, collections and publications. The information on each coin in clear and complete, with die links indicated where possible. The images of coins here, as throughout the book, are very good.

There is a brief but very good English summary of the book's main points at the end of the volume. Production is admirably free of typographical errors. Maps and illustrations are exceptionally clear and useful.

Sinner has taken a relatively obscure Iberian mint and created an admirable account that at once shows the importance of archaeological discoveries to numismatics, and of numismatics to the evolution of economy and society in Roman- dominated Cataluña.

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Notes:

1.   Jürgen Untermann, Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum. Bd.1, Die Münzlegenden . Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1975.
2.   Whatever the exact reason to chose a type, at Ilduro the largest coin (usually referred to as an as) has the horse and rider noted above along with the name of the city on the reverse, the half as also has the horse and rider on the obverse, the one third as has two dolphins, the quarter as has Pegasus, and the sixth as has a single dolphin.

2018.05.49

Alessandro Capone (ed.), Cristiani, Ebrei e pagani: il dibattito sulla Sacra Scrittura tra III e VI secolo = Christians, Jews and Heathens: The Debate on the Holy Scripture between the Third and Sixth Century. Judaïsme ancien et origines du christianisme, 12​. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. Pp. 276. ISBN 9782503575568. €90,00 (pb).

Reviewed by Geert Lernout, University of Antwerp (geert.lernout@uantwerpen.be)

Version at BMCR home site

Publisher's Preview
[Authors and titles are listed at end of the review.]

Like so many volumes these days, this book is one of the outputs of a large collaborative project, this time on pagan-Jewish-Christian polemics and homiletics in the Latin fourth to sixth centuries.¹ The topic is timely in the context of the renewed interest in Late Antiquity in general and in pagan-Christian polemics in particular.²

There are nine essays written in Italian, French, and English, more or less haphazardly distributed over three sections, "Contraddizioni bibliche e cultura pagana," "Esegesi e polemica: Celso e Macario di Magnesia," and "Ebrei, pagani e sacre scritture." Sébastien Morlet, a specialist in Greek patristics, opens the collection with a discussion of the role of Scripture in anti-Christian polemic, from Celsus to Julian the Apostate, emphasizing those that focus on the absurdity of Christian myths and on their discordance within the Scriptures (διαφωνία). In Celsus's attack on Christianity, scriptural contradictions play a minor role compared to the fact that they are absurd or have been stolen from other traditions, however the contradictions seem to have become increasingly important in the polemical literature. Morlet places these attacks of Christian texts in the Greek context of the use of διαφωνία in philosophical polemics and in that of the philological criticism of Homer.

Claudio Moreschini tries to reconstruct the North-African culture in the period by looking at four instances of pagan-Christian debate as witnessed in Augustine's correspondence: the amicable exchanges with Longinus; the replies to the critique of church and Scripture in the correspondence with Deogratias and its relationship with Porphyry's work; the exchange of letters with the pagan Volusianus and their mutual friend Marcellinus; and finally Augustine's reading of local boy Apuleius and of Apollonius of Tyana. In all these exchanges the discussions are said to remain "calm and objective, an example for all kinds of polemics" (49).

In the third essay Alessandro Capone, an editor of Jerome's homilies on the psalms, studies a number of sections in the saint's Tractatus in psalmos, addressing objections that seem to find their origin in Porphyry's philosophical critique of Christianity, but that turn out to be much older. Capone concludes that by the time of Jerome, the biblical criticism of Celsus and Porphyry had lost most of its bite.

Emanuela Saponaro opens the second division of the book with a return to the earlier period by means of a detailed and thorough look at the polemical strategies of Celsus regarding Jesus, God the Father, the Christians themselves, and finally the Jews and their own books.

Paolo di Giorgi contributes an essay on the figure of Peter and Paul in the polemical writings of Julian and in the work of the anonymous critic who is attacked by Macarius of Magnesia in his defense of Christianity. Earlier scholars have commented on the similarities between these two attacks, supposing a common source. In their treatment of Paul and Peter, di Giorgi also finds differences, with Julian showing more depth in his biblical critique. The two pagan writers do agree in their opinion that Paul, with all his rhetorical skills, is the more dangerous of the two.

Antonio Cataldo tackles the complex roles of the law, sin, and grace in Rom 5:20 that had already interested Origen in his commentary on Paul's letter to the Romans and that the anonymous antagonist of Macarius made much of by reading the verse out of context. Yet the context itself was not unambiguous and it touches on Paul's relationship with Jewish Law (and of Christianity with Judaism)—a relationship that can only be described by the useful phrase "it's complicated." This discussion is not helped by a careful survey of all the church fathers who wrote about the conundrum, but it is strange that Cataldo seems to assume that the difficulty has been solved in an interpretation that "we" all share.

The third and final division opens with Patrick Andrist's essay on the role of Origen's Contra Celsum in the instrumentalisation of anti-Jewish polemic. Central to this type of polemic are the testimonia—the sections of the Jewish scriptures that, for Christian authors, conclusively proved that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised messiah. This reading practice had roots in the earliest forms of the new religion, including the gospels and of the Acts of the Apostles. Exegetical proof from this form of "prophecy" seems to have been considered a reliable polemical weapon, implying almost automatically Jewish obstinacy in not recognizing the meaning of their own Torah. Christological interpretations of what became crucial Old Testament/Torah texts played an important role in the anti-Jewish comments of church fathers like Tertullian.

Giancarlo Rinaldi, author of the ground-breaking La Bibbia dei pagani, is a most appropriate person to give a survey of the childhood gospels found in Matthew and Luke, as well as the many apocryphal versions. These narratives were instrumental in the development of the devotion to Mary, but were also used by Jewish and pagan authors in their anti-Christian polemics (what the author calls the difference between "integrare" and "confutare"). One example is the conflicting genealogies of Joseph in Luke and Matthew, internal contradictions that pagan critics of Christianity such as the emperor Julian loved to point out. Because we know that there must have been a "divorce" between Christians and Jews, Rinaldi assumes that, like all divorces, it cannot have been "né indolore né troppo silenzioso" (190) and he looks at the infamous Toledot Yeshu and the two Talmuds. The conclusions of this most thorough of the essays in the collection remain tentative.

In the final contribution, Michael Ryzhik looks at the rhetoric of repetition in Bereshit [Genesis] Rabbah. This is an extremely technical essay about the role of the word atmaha in the different editions of this text, and probably an interesting contribution to Jewish studies (more specifically the interpretation of Torah) but without any discernable connection to the topic of this book.

Cristiani, Ebrei e pagani has a bilingual title and contributions in three languages, but it is a pity that the editors have decided to translate the word "pagani" in the title with the term "heathens." The term "pagans" is difficult and problematic enough to describe Greek and Roman religious practices (always in contrast to Jewish and Christian), but at least the term in English doesn't have the negative charge of the word heathen. ³ The editing in this volume is not always consistent; sometimes Greek and Latin passages are translated, but not always. Most of the time the English translations are adequate but not always idiomatic: expressions such as "the Prince of the Apostles" and "the Vicar of Christ" are less evident for English readers (Peter or Paul?) and especially the English of Ryzhik's essay could have benefited from a few more rounds of revision.

Authors and titles

Prima Parte. Contraddizioni bibliche e cultura pagana
La discordance (διαφωνία) des Écritures dans la polémique antichrétienne de l'Antiquité, Sébastien Morlet
Pagani e Cristiani nell'Africa del quinto secolo: Agostino e i suoi corrispondenti, Claudio Moreschini
Sezioni antiporfiriane nei Tractatus geronimiani, Alessandro Capone
Seconda Parte. Esegesi e polemica: Celso e Macario di Magnesia
Les Saintes Écritures chez Celse : lexique et stratégies polémiques, Emanuela Saponaro
The figures of Peter and Paul from Julian to the anonymous polemicist in Macarius of Magnesia's Apocriticus, Paolo De Giorgi
"So that sin might abound" (Rm 5, 20) in Macarius Magnes' Apocriticus, Antonio Cataldo
Terza Parte. Ebrei, pagani e sacre scritture
Instrumentalisation de la polémique antijudaïque dans les apologies envers les gentils (s. II-IV). Le rôle pivot du Contre Celse d'Origène ?, Patrick Andrist
Vangeli dell'infanzia di pagani e guide, Giancarlo Rinaldi
Rhetoric means and strategies in the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, Michael Ryzhik

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Notes:

1.   For more details on the project, see Marcello Marin. "Dell'intreccio fra polemica e omiletica nell'Occidente latino (IV–VI secolo)," in Forme della polemica nell'omiletica latina di IV–VI secolo. Convegno internazionale di Studi, Foggia 11–13 settembre 2013, eds. Marcello Marin and Francesca Maria Catarinella. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, 11–15.
2.   See in particular John Granger Cook's two books on the pagan interpretation of Old and New Testament and Giancarlo Grinaldi's two volumes on La Bibbia dei pagani.
3.   In his Between Pagans and Christians, Christopher Jones has devoted an entire chapter to the words used by Christians to describe their non-Jewish adversaries and he remains hesitant about the term, but the word pagan seems to much more neutral than the loaded term "heathen." See BMCR 2014.07.42.

2018.05.48

David Wheeler-Reed, Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the early Christians. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2017. Pp. xxi, 177. ISBN 9780300227727. $45.00.

Reviewed by Caroline Musgrove, University of Cambridge (cjm211@cam.ac.uk)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

According to David Wheeler-Reed in this engaging and ambitious book, Michel Foucault "was essentially right" (xv). The author is referring not to Foucault's influential History of Sexuality, but to a remark he made in a lecture in New York in 1980: "so called Christian morality is nothing more than a piece of pagan ethics inserted into Christianity" (xiv). This claim reverberates through both the modern and ancient sections of the present book, echoing its central argument: that when modern institutions boast of their 'Judeo- Christian values' and accompanying notions of 'traditional marriage', they are actually referring to historical contingencies that look a lot more like Augustus' marriage legislation than anything recognisably biblical or early Christian. In fact, what the Pauline New Testament did for the ancient world was to "normalize singleness and celibacy" (xviii), instituting a cultural trend that would dominate in the early Christian world down to the fourth century CE. This way of thinking might not surprise the scholar of early Christianity, but the author is quite right to suggest it is a view of history that has proven far less enduring in the modern imagination, even among those institutions that lay claim to biblical and historical expertise.

Regulating Sex is aimed at a broad and interdisciplinary audience, somewhat at odds with its sober scholarly title. Written in a flowing, almost conversational, style, its central appeal is in its bold attempt to stake a place for academic history in the thorny modern debates surrounding sex, marriage and procreation. "Every history of the past", the author often repeats, "is also a history of the present" (102). Wheeler-Reed is refreshingly willing to reveal what most academic historians obscure: the motivation that brings him to his subject – in this instance, his Catholicism. Rather than making it in any way partial, this transparency adds an urgency and authenticity to the book that strikes the present reader as being uncommon in academic writing, and one of the book's foremost strengths. Part of his emphasis therefore becomes tracing points of change and confluence across time and space, a perspective that encourages him to portray Christian approaches to sex as fundamentally similar to those of the Classical world. On this basis he enters into dialogue with recent work by Kathy Gaca and Kyle Harper, challenging their assumption that Christianity was fundamentally unique. But curiously, he is not as critical of the 'newness' and ubiquity of Christian asceticism as perhaps he should be – a position on which there is a well-developed school of thought, from the classic studies of Joëlle Beaucamp and Judith Evans Grubbs, to the more recent approaches to the family and household of Kate Cooper and Kristina Sessa.

Wheeler-Reed's approach throughout is supported by a sophisticated engagement with contemporary theory. Although there is a nod to multiple thinkers in the introduction, the most crucial for Wheeler-Reed's argument emerges as Louis Pierre Althusser, whose "ideological state apparatus" (xii) becomes the basis for the author's approach to ancient and modern discourses of family and procreation. Ideology, Wheeler-Reed explains, functions more subtly than coercive forms of state regulation. It has its roots in various cultural, religious and social institutions, and is pervasive because it invites the individual to be complicit in their own submission, masking itself in a discourse of the natural and self-evident. We meet this type of ideology repeatedly throughout the book: disseminated by the ancient lawmaker and philosopher, the Jewish thinker, the early Christian writer, and even the modern day American institution. In fact, the timelessness of the notion bolsters Wheeler-Reed's comparative approach, holding together an ambitious scope that might otherwise have fallen prey to the label of "totalizing" history the author so roundly rejects (105).

Regulating Sex takes Augustus' marriage legislation as its starting point in chapter 1, where the laws are placed in conversation with the Stoic Musonius Rufus, the physician Galen, and Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon. The lex Iulia legislation of 18 BCE, and the lex Papia Poppea of 9 CE, are presented as an attempt to codify the family morality of the glorious past, which had been threatened by the tumult of the civil wars. The laws function as "an ideological state apparatus", intended to "regulate gender by linking citizenship to reproduction" (xviii). But in effect, the purpose of the laws was "economic and political": the need to control the production of Roman sons to feed the state (14). With the attendant consequence of reinforcing class stratification, penalising celibacy and keeping "women in their place" (9), it is argued, the legislation had very little to do with family morality. This chapter occasionally simplifies complex scholarly debate. Wheeler-Reed insists that Musonius Rufus was in direct conversation with Augustus' marriage legislation (15), even where the evidence he offers seems subtler, and when he turns to Galen he relies heavily on the now controversial one-sex model of Thomas Laqueur. Although none of this necessarily invalidates his argument, more acknowledgement of the complexity of the evidence would have been welcome. The present reader would also like to have seen a brief consideration of the Christian emperors and their reception of Augustus' law, which might have served to bridge the gap between the classical and Christian authors.

In chapter 2, the author shows that many of the approaches to the family we encounter in Augustus' marriage legislation were part of a much "broader cultural pattern found throughout the Mediterranean world" (40). In fact, it is claimed that most of the sexual ethics of the Second Temple period were in keeping with Greco-Roman expectations. Wheeler-Reed calls this ideology among the Jews "Procreationism" (xix): a discourse which springs from the biblical imperative of Gen 1:28 that humankind "be fruitful and multiply", subjugating sexual desire to the faculty of reproduction. Building his case upon the Book of Tobit, Philo and Josephus, among others, the author shows that Jewish attitudes to sex were rooted in the household and in marriage, and emphasised heteronormativity and the submission of women. But it would be a mistake, he cautions, to assume there is any truly "normative Jewish sexual ethic" (xix) in this period; as with all ancient cultures, it is impossible to tell how far the average Jewish believer internalised the official sexual ethic of their faith, a sensibly cautious position which is not so readily applied in later chapters to the Christian evidence. Wheeler-Reed, then, returns to his larger question: can we locate common 'Judeo-Christian' attitudes towards the family in the ancient evidence?

It is a question he answers most persuasively in his third chapter, which takes the writings of Paul as its main focus. The New Testament, Wheeler-Reed says, is pervaded by two very different ideologies of sex and marriage, in tension throughout the early Christian period: what the author effectively calls "profamily" and "antifamily". Yet, he explains, "many modern Christians … seem unwilling to acknowledge the impasse these two ideologies created" (64). Moving in a chronological fashion through the Pauline epistles, and taking the authentic letters as his starting point, the author demonstrates that Paul's approach unanimously favoured celibacy. Marriage is seen as a prophylaxis against sexual immorality, and Paul grants it no essential virtue of its own – not even in a procreative sense. Of course, Wheeler-Reed suggests, it is highly unlikely Paul understood he was creating "an entire theology of marriage" in his surviving letters (65), which were themselves pervaded by a sense of the imminent second-coming of Christ. It was only in letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, and in the later Pastoral Epistles, that a competing, profamily ideology resurfaced. Possibly written by disciples or critics of Paul, this new ideology sought to soften his stronger statements on the family, re-establishing marriage as a central Christian institution, with the household and procreation at its centre. As time passed, he concludes compellingly, these ideologies would reoccur in repeated cycles of power and resistance, belying any modern notion that a single narrative of 'traditional family values' can be found in the writings of the New Testament.

Chapter 4 explores what became of these "profamily" and "antifamily" ideologies in the first four centuries of the early Church. By the second century, Wheeler-Reed explains, Christians had to adapt to a world to which the impending apocalypse had not come, making necessary a reconciliation with society and its norms. Yet by the fourth century, the antifamily ideology had once again gained prominence, and would prove the more influential, especially with the monastic movement and the aftermath of Pope Siricius' condemnation of Jovinian. In Tatian, Wheeler-Reed finds an author who most closely followed the authentic Paul, while in Clement of Alexandria, marriage becomes the prophylactic grace that guards against desire. With Cassian, the author perceives the final victory of chastity and the monastic movement – part of a fundamental break with Jewish 'Procreationism' and everything it represented. In fact, Wheeler-Reed argues, the early Church fathers repeatedly attempted to distance themselves from Jewish attitudes to sex and marriage, once again implying that any modern ideology rooted in common 'Judeo-Christian' values cannot be representative of this early period. Rather, when an early Christian author like Jovinian did emerge to claim celibacy and marriage were equal, he was promptly declared a heretic – strong proof, Wheeler-Reed suggests, that popular understandings of the early church have profoundly missed the asceticism that defined its sexual ethic. Again, the argument here is compelling, if not occasionally oversimplified, on which more in a moment.

By the time the author confronts modern-day America in chapter 5, he has already laid the groundwork of his central argument: that the 'traditional family values' touted by many American institutions have more in common with Augustus' marriage legislation than they do with anything authentically 'Judeo-Christian'. Not that he sees any "logical, linear development" between the ancient and modern worlds; his interest has been in "contingencies – the accidents of history" (104). Intending to probe the ideological alliance between marriage and procreation further, the author promises "to unmask modern forms of power that use Christianity in the service of policing modern society" (105). In the writing of Anne Wilson and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Wheeler-Reed exposes a one-sided approach to scripture, which glosses over the tension between the profamily and antifamily discourses of the New Testament. In a brief excursion into the landmark Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges, Wheeler-Reed demonstrates that rooting procreation in the 'naturalness' of conjugal marriage helps to uphold heteronormativity. But it is in Patrick Fagan, the director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, that Wheeler-Reed unearths an overt statement of why some American institutions have internalised the good of conjugal marriage. For Fagan, marriage creates social stability, providing a space in which children learn the market values of a Capitalist economy. Conjugal marriage, on this view, is a 'state apparatus' akin to Augustus', one as underpinned by economic and political concerns as the marriage legislation itself.

Regulating Sex is a timely book, which seeks to bring history to bear on urgent contemporary questions. The author's attempt to hold modern institutions to account for their unexamined biases is refreshing and exciting, but the present reader cannot help but wonder if some of this excitement is based on occasional oversimplification. Wheeler-Reed's "profamily" and "antifamily" categories offer an impressive synthesis of early Christian approaches to sex and marriage, but they also somewhat over-categorize trends that were more permeable and complex. Ascetic imagery commonly borrowed elements of the household, family and even sexuality, while many of the celibate saints of the early Christian centuries were, in fact, married. Early Christians themselves were not beyond linking sexual morality with the good of the polis in the way that modern institutions do: the sermons of John Chrysostom offer fitting example. And it might also be asked how the argument would accommodate the complex Augustine of Hippo, who is conspicuously excluded on chronological grounds. Finally, the book contains some minor errors. There is a misquotation of Kate Cooper on p. 37 ('ancient' rather than 'ancients'), and Karlfried Forehlich is out of place in the bibliography. But none of this should detract from what the author has achieved here. It is a book that demands to be noticed far beyond its specialised field, and the present reader heartily hopes that it is.

2018.05.47

Álvaro M. Moreno Leoni, Entre Roma y el mundo griego. Memoria, autorrepresentation y didáctica del poder en las Historias de Polibio. Studia Nº 8. Córdoba: Editorial Brujas, 2017. Pp. 324. ISBN 9789875918177. $22.00.

Reviewed by Eugene Teytelbaum (eugteit@yahoo.com)

Version at BMCR home site

Polybius's Histories are unanimously viewed by classical scholars as a basic historical source that describes Roman imperialism and the relations between Greece and Rome. Yet monographs about the Polybian view of Rome and the Romans began to appear only recently. While many have examined Polybius's complex attitudes towards Rome and the Romans in either cultural (e.g., C. Champion) or political (e.g., D. W. Baronowski) terms separately,¹ Moreno Leoni demonstrates how Polybius applied Greek cultural terms for explanation of Roman policy.

The book consists of an introduction, five chapters, conclusion, and two indexes (nominum and locorum).

In Chapter I, "The Greek cultural framework of the Histories", the author argues that Polybius is a Greek historian who used his Hellenistic Greek cultural code on the nature of the relationship between hegemony and autonomy to explain the new Roman world (52–56). Young members of Greek communities were the main target audience of the work, but the Roman public could take advantage of it as well. Despite being "barbarians," the Romans were a sophisticated and "civilized" people, whose history could be analyzed according to the intellectual tools of Hellenism (77–87). Polybius attempted to "reconstruct" the drama of the historical moment with the primary didactic aim of training Greek and Roman political elites by providing practical examples for action in their increasingly complex world.

Chapter II, "Achaean Μemory, Identity, and Policy", convincingly demonstrates that Polybius was fundamentally an Achaean politician who embodied a specific social habitus (94). In his account of the Achaean historical past (the Achaica) Polybius develops two central topics: the lasting war against tyrants and the parallel liberation and unification of the Peloponnese by the Achaeans. The historian presents the historical process of Achaean expansion and imperialism as unproblematic and in the end accepted enthusiastically by the inhabitants of the whole Peloponnese (95–113). The Achaean League was thus an autonomous polity capable of expanding in a fair way and of being, at the same time, a loyal ally of the Romans.

In Chapter III, "Τhe Achaeans: between Macedon and Rome", the author places Polybius's views on Achaean policy in a broader historical context. From the 3rd century BCE to the consolidation of Roman hegemony after 168 BCE, the Achaean League was linked to the great Mediterranean powers within an interstate system. Moreno Leoni shows that Polybius appealed to a political language embedded in the dynamic of hegemony/autonomy in order to present Achaean autonomy in the most honorable way possible (136–142; 147–164). In Polybius's eyes the Achaean leaders Aratus and Aristaenus were models for young Greek leaders. At the same time the model demonstrated the importance attributed to παρρησία, or "freedom of speech" (175), which was considered a main tool in Greek leaders' hands for establishing a sincere dialogue as allies with the new hegemonic power and for defending their own areas of autonomy.

Chapter IV, "The Aetolians: between irrationality and irresponsible autonomy", examines Polybius's understanding of the Aetolian League. Polybius's Aetolians are a people ruled by excess of pride and arrogance, which drives them to the final disastrous fight against Rome. The Aetolian anger (ὀργή), which Polybius stresses as the main cause of Rome's war with Antiochus (18.39.1–2), marks the Aetolian provocation as the irresponsible act of a political elite in a middle-level polity (197–208). The Aetolians are made to provide a valuable lesson on Roman rule. Moreno Leoni particularly highlights the narrative sequence of the problems arising during the abortive Aetolian deditio in fidem before M'. Acilius Glabrio, which shows the clear difference between Roman and Greek understandings of fides and πίστις.

Chapter V, "Τwo models of hegemony: Rome in the conquest of Italy, Carthage in the Libyan rebellion", compares Roman and Carthaginian political domination over conquered territories. The author investigates Polybius's understanding and rationalization of the experience of Roman hegemony over Italy (2.14–35) by reference to the Hellenistic king as a defender of the Greeks against barbarism (237) and argues that in Polybius's eyes Rome acted on behalf of its Italian allies during the Celtic wars as an ideal Hellenistic kingdom, as a hegemon able to provide protection and keep the barbarians beyond the borders. By depicting the Romans in this way Polybius was able to contrast Rome to other contemporary Hellenistic superpowers.

For Moreno Leoni the point of Polybius's narrative of the war of the Carthaginians against their mercenaries and their Libyan subjects (1.65–88) was to contrast the Carthaginians with Rome; contrast is also the aim of his description of the actions of Philip V in Book 5. Both narratives offer concrete historical examples that provide implicit lessons on power, allowing Polybius's readers to assess the course of Roman hegemony in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. The author believes that Polybius used the ἐμφύλιος πόλεμος in Africa, the Celtic Wars, and the μεταβολή of Philip to offer warnings for the benefit of Roman leaders (258–265).

A concluding chapter, in addition to summarizing the main arguments, makes some important points about Polybius as an independent thinker. Polybius seems to have embarked on his intellectual project with a realistic assessment of the drastic reduction in the autonomy of the Hellenistic polities. But at the same time he had certain idealistic expectations regarding the future, both that the Romans would avoid an immoral exercise of power and that a new generation of Greek leaders would resort to dialogue and mutual understanding as a safer political path.

Moreno Leoni's study contains a lengthy bibliography and a helpful index of cited passages. Polybian scholars will find little to criticize in this book. All we can recommend is that in future research a next step might be a full analysis of the Achaean historian's views on other Hellenistic diplomatic institutions such as φιλία and συμμαχία in comparison with Roman norms, and on Roman dealing with the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms.² This monograph is a fine piece of sustained argumentation, remarkable synthesis, and admirable scholarship.

---

Notes:

1.   C. Champion, Cultural Politics in the Histories of Polybius. (Berkeley, 2004); D. W. Baronowski, Polybius and Roman Imperialism. (London, 2011).
2.   The fact that historian was aware of differences in political norms is shown in his descriptions of the negotiations between Seleucid and Roman ambassadors during the Syrian war (21.14–15). Also noteworthy is the episode from Polybius's life when he helped the Seleucid prince Demetrius to escape from Rome (31.12, 19–23). On this case see J. Briscoe, "Eastern Policy and Senatorial Politics," Historia 18 (1969) 56–68; A. M. Eckstein, Moral Visions in the Histories of Polybius. (Berkeley, 1995),100─103.

2018.05.46

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi, 293. ISBN 9780198777274. $99.00.

Reviewed by Richard Gamauf, Universität Wien (richard.gamauf@univie.ac.at)

Version at BMCR home site

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Das Buch behandelt zwei Themen: die theoretischen Debatten der Antike über die Legitimität der Sklaverei als Institution und die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Asketentum, Ablehnung der Sklaverei und sozialer Ungerechtigkeit, die die Reichtum weniger auf Kosten der Armut vieler zuließ (VII). Ramelli wertet dazu unterschiedliche literarische Quellen aus: griechische und römische Schriftsteller aller Genres ebenso wie jüdische und rabbinische Autoren. Ihr Hauptaugenmerk liegt allerdings auf frühchristlichen und patristischen Quellen und deren Verhältnis zu älteren Denktraditionen. Neben dem, was über Sklaverei gedacht und gelehrt wurde, zeigt sie in Einzelfällen zudem, wie die jeweilige Haltung zur Sklaverei und die Praxis des Autors oder seines Umfeldes mit einander korrelierten (VII). Ihre zentrale These ist, dass einige jüdische, christliche und gelegentlich bereits schon pagane Anhänger asketischer Ideale nicht nur übertriebene Grausamkeit oder Missbrauch von Sklaven verurteilten, sondern die Sklaverei als solche ablehnten, da diese mit grundlegenden Prinzipien der sozialen Gerechtigkeit unvereinbar war (IX).

Die Einleitung (1-25) behandelt methodische Fragen und präzisiert den Untersuchungsgegenstand: Ramelli will vorführen, dass die Kritik am Sklavenbesitz bei einigen christlichen Autoren nicht aus deren Eigentumsfeindlichkeit resultierte, sondern die Zurückweisung der Sklaverei als Institution galt (9-10). Als ersten Vertreter dieser Tradition sieht sie einen namenlosen christlichen Autor an, der die als Sextii Sententiae überlieferte Kompilation aus stoischen, zynischen, platonischen und pythagoreischen Ideen im 2. Jh. zusammenstellte (14-19). Sie schreibt ihm die Überzeugung zu, dass Sklaven zu besitzen deswegen falsch gewesen wäre, weil Sklaverei die ungerechtfertigte Unterdrückung von Mitmenschen bedeutete. Ramelli steht bei ihrer Beweisführung vor einem zentralen methodischen Problem: Wenn ein Anhänger asketischer Ideen auch den Besitz von Sklaven ablehnte, hätte sie weiters zu zeigen, dass dies nicht aus der Ablehnung jedes Eigentums (damit auch des Eigentums an Sklaven als Sachen) resultierte, sondern von diesem die Sklaverei als nicht rechtfertigbares Herrschaftsverhältnis über Menschen verurteilt wurde. Das gestatten die für die These in Anspruch genommenen Äußerungen in den Sextii Sententiae aber genauso wenig wie die später dafür herangezogenen Belege einiger anderer Autoren. Dieser Einwand trifft nicht nur den Umgang mit den Sextii Sententiae, sondern in gleicher Weise weitere Teile der Argumentation: Wenn die von Ramelli vermutete Motivation des Autors aus den zitierten Passagen nicht unmittelbar hervortritt, unterstellt sie diesem, dass aufgrund seiner Hinwendung zu einem asketischen Lebensstil bei ihm auch seine moralische Gegnerschaft zur Sklaverei naheliege (17-19). (Hier – wie an weiteren Stellen des Buches – beruht die Argumentation vornehmlich auf dem wiederholt verwendeten Verb „suggest".) Zwar schließt der Wortlaut der angeführten Passagen diese Motivlage nicht aus, sie lässt sich bei unvoreingenommener Lektüre jedoch nicht direkt ableiten. So wie die Autorin bei den Sextii Sententiae aus asketischen Ideen die Gegnerschaft zur Sklaverei erschließt, nimmt sie dann später genauso Kritik an der Sklaverei zum Indikator für asketische Bestrebungen (28). Diese zirkuläre und methodisch fragwürdige Argumentationsweise wiederholt sich immer wieder. (Ohne Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit: 62, 65, 69, 71, 74, 91, 127, 218, 222, 225, 231.)

Das erste und längste Kapitel des Buches (26-76) präsentiert das weite Panorama des antiken Denkens zur Sklaverei seit den attischen Dramatikern. Nach Vorstellung dessen, was von Sokrates und bei Plato zur Sklaverei überliefert ist, folgt mit Aristoteles der (bis ins 19. Jahrhundert noch) wirkmächtigste Theoretiker der Sklaverei: Sein Konstrukt der „Sklaven von Natur" legitimierte die Sklaverei und immunisierte sie zugleich gegen moralische Kritik: Wen die Natur zum Sklaven prädestiniert hatte, dessen Versklavung konnte nicht angefochten werden, da für ihn Unfreiheit die angemessene/vorbestimmte Lebensweise war und folglich ihm und zugleich der ganzen politischen Gemeinschaft zum Vorteil gereichte. Die Idee der „Sklaven von Natur" bleibt zentraler Referenzpunkt in Ramellis Diskussion der späteren Auffassungen. Eine andere einflussreiche und ebenfalls die kritische Haltung zur Sklaverei ausschließende Denktradition entstand, indem der Akzent nicht auf die Sklaverei als soziale Tatsache (legal slavery) gesetzt wurde, sondern auf die geistig-seelische Freiheit bzw. Unfreiheit (moral slavery). Zyniker und Epikureer, vor allem aber die Stoiker, stellten auf die nicht vom rechtlichen Status als Freier oder Sklave abhängige innere, moralische Freiheit ab. Damit war für Kritik, Gegnerschaft oder gar die Forderung nach Abschaffung der Sklaverei kein Platz, da Freiheit oder Unfreiheit eines Menschen nicht mit seiner sozialen/rechtlichen Position korrelierten, sondern allein seiner geistig-seelischen Haltung entsprangen. Stoiker forderten zwar, Sklaven mit Anstand zu behandeln, das aber nicht, um damit ein moralisches Unrecht an ihnen zu mildern, sondern weil der Sklavenhalter/dominus so seinen freien Charakter bewies. Die Erkenntnis, dass Sklaven auch Menschen waren, als Anlass zu deren Freilassung zu nehmen, konnte nur einem betrunkenen Parvenü wie Trimalchio (Petron. 71) in den Mund gelegt werden; der prominenteste Vertreter dieser Sichtweise, der Stoiker Seneca, verzichtete deswegen keineswegs auf seine Sklaven. Unter den Stoikern stellte einzig Dio Chrysostomos die Sklaverei explizit in Frage (74-76). Leider fällt die Behandlung des Denkens der römischen Juristen und damit zugleich der Position des römischen Staates, unter dessen Regime die christlichen Autoren ihre Ideen zur Sklaverei entwickelten, nicht nur aus rechtshistorischer Sicht zu knapp aus. Sie wird anhand von nur zwei Belegen und in einem Absatz resümiert (75). Die Juristen gingen im Unterschied zu Aristoteles von einer natürlichen Freiheit aus, aber sie fragten nicht nach der Legitimation der Sklaverei, sondern erklärten ihre historische Genese pragmatisch daraus, dass nach Ende des „goldenen Zeitalters/Urzustandes" Kriege üblich geworden wären, und Sklaven/servi durch Versklavung immerhin vor dem Tod bewahrt (servare) worden wären. Das mag den juristisch gebildeten Augustinus (gest. 430) beeinflusst haben (Kapitel 4, 152-171), der ebenfalls die Freiheit als natürlich voraussetzte, Sklaverei aber als Konsequenz des Sündenfalls anerkannte (152-159). Im Ergebnis stimmte er mit den Juristen überein: Sklaverei war gerecht und durfte darum (in dieser Welt) gar nicht beseitigt werden (154).

In „Arroganz und Gier" (86) erblickten dagegen die jüdischen Sekten der Essener und Therapeuten die Gründe für Sklaverei und den Verlust der natürlichen Freiheit (82-92). Deren Anhänger zogen, anders als die Stoiker und der diesen folgende Philo von Alexandria (94-95), bemerkenswerterweise sogar die Konsequenz, selbst keine Sklaven zu halten. Darin blieben diese Gruppen in der Antike singulär (100). Unter dem Einfluss ihrer Ablehnung der Sklaverei stand nach Ramelli noch das Denken von Gregor von Nyssa (88).

Kapitel 2 (101-120) gilt den Positionen im frühen Christentum. Die zahlreichen Passagen des Neuen Testaments (Gal 3,28; 1Kor 12,13; Kol 3,11), auf deren Basis eine grundsätzliche Infragestellung der Sklaverei möglich gewesen wäre, wurden von den Kirchenvätern nicht aufgegriffen. (Ebenso wenig stellten sie die Geschlechterordnung wegen der Worte Jesu in Gal 3,28 zur Disposition). Paulus (und die pseudo-paulinischen Briefe) sahen die einzig relevante Form der Sklaverei auf spiritueller Ebene und verlangten von Sklaven in dieser Welt Gehorsam gegenüber ihren Herren (110-111). Der Kolosserbrief betrachtete dagegen die Sklaverei (und die Rangordnung der Geschlechter) wie schon Aristoteles wieder als naturgegeben. Bei der für Paulus erwogenen Motivlage (113-115) wäre zu berücksichtigen, dass die ersten Christen noch mit dem unmittelbaren Weltende rechneten und für sie so weniger Anlass bestand, die bestehende Ordnung in Frage zu stellen; so konnten auch Christen noch Sklaven haben (121-122).

Der Haltung der Kirchenväter zu Sklaverei, sozialer Gerechtigkeit und Asketentum widmet sich das 3. Kapitel (121-151). Diese bestanden wie schon die Stoiker auf Mäßigung bei der Behandlung von Sklaven. Sie stellten damit an die Gläubigen keine über das, was das römische Recht bereits allen Reichsbewohnern vorschrieb (Gai. 1,52), hinausgehenden moralischen Ansprüche. Ansonsten variierten sie nur bereits bekannte Topoi. Clemens von Alexandria (gest. 215) betonte die Gleichheit unter den Christen, forderte jedoch nicht die Abschaffung der Sklaverei. Seine Kritik an Reichtum endete bei der Ermunterung zur Wohltätigkeit (128). Radikaler war die gleichzeitige, vom Gnostiker Epiphanes theologisch entwickelte Eigentumskritik, die Reichtum mit Diebstahl gleichsetzte (128-129). Nach der Lehre von Bardesanes von Edessa (gest. 222) kommt Ramelli zu den durch ihn beeinflussten apokryphen Thomasakten (135-140). Diese traten der Haltung von Sklaven vehement entgegen, weil Menschen nicht wie Tiere behandelt werden sollten. Ramelli identifiziert in ihnen asketische Tendenzen, aber keine explizite Aufforderung zum Verzicht auf Eigentum oder Sklaven (138-139). Lactantius (gest. ca. 320) und Ambrosius (gest. 397) stellten wiederum die spirituell-moralische Freiheit in den Vordergrund und ließen den status quo unangetastet (147-151). Revolutionärer war dagegen die Anweisung bei Johannes Chrysostomos (gest. 407), die Herren sollten ihren Sklaven ein Handwerk zur Erlangung der Selbsterhaltungsfähigkeit beibringen lassen und sie dann freilassen. Immerhin den Besitz von zumindest einem Sklaven erlaubte auch er sogar Priestern (165- 171).

In den Kapiteln 5 und 6 (172-211) behandelt die Autorin die Ablehnung der Sklaverei durch Gregor von Nyssa (gest. nach 394). Dieser predigte für Freilassungen, weil nach dem Ebenbilde Gottes geschaffene Menschen nicht anderen Menschen gehören könnten, sondern ausschließlich nur Gott. Sklaverei betrachtete er als in sich böse und nur als Einflüsterung des Teufels erklärlich. Ramelli hält zu Recht fest, dass das bei ihm nicht bloß Rhetorik, sondern philosophisch-theologisch stringent entwickelte Argumente waren (188). Geprägt war Gregors Haltung durch Asketinnen in seiner Familie: Mutter und Schwester ließen ihre Sklaven frei und lebten mit ihnen in asketischer Klostergemeinschaft. Gregor von Nyssa erscheint damit als schärfster Gegner von Wucher und Sklaverei im frühen Christentum (203, 212): Er hielt Reichtum ohne Ungerechtigkeit und Sünde für unmöglich und Sklaverei ohne ungerechte/sündige Unterdrückung für undenkbar. Für ihn entsprach es der Gerechtigkeit, mit der Ablehnung der Sklaverei die Forderung nach Freilassung zu verbinden (197). Protagonist im 7. Kapitel (212-231) ist sein weniger radikaler Zeitgenosse Gregor von Nazianz (gest. 390): Auch bei ihm hatte Sklaverei keinen Platz in Gottes Plan; ob er sie deswegen selbst ablehnte, lässt Ramelli offen (216). Jedenfalls gestand er Christen (wie sich selbst) einen beschränkten Sklavenbesitz zu. Abschließend fassen die Conclusions (232-253) die Quellenaussagen, deren Ausdeutung durch die Autorin und ihre manchmal zu stark nur auf der eigenen These beruhende Beweisführung nochmals zusammen.

Das Buch bietet jedenfalls eine in ihrer Breite und Tiefe faszinierende Zusammenschau der antiken Positionen zur Sklaverei und zur Kritik am Eigentum und verdient allein deswegen Aufmerksamkeit. Niemand sollte eines dieser Themen zukünftig behandeln, ohne auf es zurückzugreifen. Man wird auch das antike Denken zur Sklaverei in allen seinen Verästelungen nirgends kompakter oder vollständiger dargestellt finden als in diesem Werk. Ramelli bezieht auch zahlreiche Autoren ein, deren Aussagen zu diesem Thema sonst übersehen werden. Besonders geglückt sind ihr die Ausführungen zu den patristischen Autoritäten, die mit theologisch- philosophischen Argumenten gegen Aristoteles' Rechtfertigung der Sklaverei argumentierten und zugleich eine Kritik an gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheit entwickelten, die auf Rousseau und sozialistische Autoren des 19. Jh. vorausweist. Ramelli überblickt dieses umfangreiche Quellencorpus souverän und kann jede noch so dünne Verbindungslinie zwischen patristischen Positionen nachzeichnen.

Störend fallen Redundanzen auf, die den Eindruck erwecken, Argumente würden wiederholt, um sie so überzeugender zu machen. Oft hätte die Darstellung von weniger Enthusiasmus für die Überzeugungskraft der Ausgangsthese profitiert. Der Wert des Buches wäre nicht geringer, hätte sich die Autorin gelegentlich auf die inhaltliche Analyse ihrer Quellen beschränkt, statt jenseits der Texte die unausgesprochenen Motive der Verfasser erforschen zu wollen und dabei zum Beweis für ihre Ausgangsthese mit dem Zirkelschluss von der Eigentumskritik auf die Ablehnung der Sklaverei und umgekehrt zu operieren.

Quellenzitate erfolgen grundsätzlich auf Englisch, bei kurzen Passagen auch im Original. Typographische Fehler sind kaum aufgefallen (Bucknell für Buckland, 80); Bradley (122 Fn. 11) sagt an der zitierten Stelle etwas anderes. Manche Aussage darf man nicht auf die juristische Goldwage legen, wie etwa den Satz über die Aufnahme von Sklaven in Klöstern (22): „ … the ʻofficial' Church had to intervene repeatedly to curb those ascetics' revolutionary practice of freeing slaves against their masters' will when they entered monastic life". Freilassungen/manumissiones waren gegen den Willen des Herrn natürlich unmöglich. Ob die Autorin mit Recht insinuiert, in einem „demokratisch" verfassten Römischen Reich hätte man sich eher zur Abschaffung der Sklaverei gefunden (2), entzieht sich der Überprüfung.

2018.05.45

Andrew Zissos (ed.), A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome. Blackwell companions to the ancient world. Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. Pp. xxi, 602. ISBN 9781444336009. $195.00.

Reviewed by Lorenza Bennardo, University of Toronto (lorenza.bennardo@utoronto.ca)

Version at BMCR home site

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

Due to their historical and cultural density, the 27 years between 69 C.E. and Domitian's assassination (96 C.E.) have claimed increasing scholarly attention in recent decades. However, precisely because the dynasty founded by Vespasian only ruled for a relatively short period, the very concept of a clearly defined (and clearly definable) "Flavian age" can be legitimately questioned. The volume edited by Zissos successfully demonstrates not only that the idea of a "Flavian age" is historically and culturally viable, but also that this age represents a crucial phase in the longer continuum of the early imperial history of Rome. Moreover, while it is true that our knowledge of Flavian Rome mainly derives from contemporary literary sources, this companion has the merit of moving beyond the focus on Flavian literature to "examine the Flavian age in a broader and more inclusive sense" (p. 2). Overall, the volume provides us with the economic, political, religious and cultural coordinates of a complex multicultural world, where the negotiation of racial identities plays an important role and where a new balance in the relationship between center and periphery begins to emerge.

The various aspects of Flavian Rome investigated in the book are thematically grouped into six sections (see the Table of Contents below). The number of chapters in each section varies, but their uniform length and structure maintains a balance between the topics represented. Repetitiveness is unavoidable in a series of contributions that focus on a limited timespan through a limited number of sources. However, the perspectives of the contributors vary significantly, lending versatility to the volume as it shifts from historical to cultural and literary issues, and as it alternates between a more research-oriented focus and a more didactic pace. Some practical editorial choices facilitate the reading of this book. A "Conclusion" at the end of (almost) every chapter not only summarizes the discussion but also provides suggestions for further research. The choice to append notes and bibliography to each chapter makes the volume, an elegantly crafted but heavy tome, very manageable. The section devoted to "Further Reading," following each chapter's bibliography, would have been an ideal place for providing effective introductions to essential critical literature: this space, however, is fruitfully used only in a few cases. The volume is otherwise a very approachable tool for non-specialist readers, containing "Appendixes" ¹ and a detailed "Glossary of Terms and Expressions" at the end.

Part I ("Preliminary") consists of a single chapter by Hurlet. It addresses the literary, epigraphic, numismatic, iconographic and archaeological evidence available for the Roman history of the period 69-96 C.E. While establishing from the outset the primary role of literary sources for the understanding of the Flavian age, Hurlet's survey discusses the period as an epoch of conservative political discourse and conservative policies for the consolidation of Rome. In such a reading, Hurlet elaborates and expands on Zissos' presentation of the Flavian era as a "custodial age" (p. 9, in the introduction to the volume).

Vervaet's chapter on "The Remarkable Rise of the Flavians," opening Part II ("Dynasty") focuses on how Vespasian started a dynasty from a rather obscure family background. After examining the profile of Vespasian's entourage in 69 C.E. and discussing the emperor's reforms of the senatorial and equestrian orders, Vervaet shows how Vespasian fulfilled "Caesar's and Claudius' vision of a new, truly imperial aristocracy" (p. 57). Overall, Vervaet's reconstruction of the circumstances that led to Vespasian's "historic usurpation" (p. 57) provides a background for Nicols' famous assessment ² of the "centennial legacy" left by the Flavian regime: according to Nicols, the men who contributed to Vespasian's accession and then formed the Flavians' establishment, together with their descendants, "dominated the Roman imperial government, first as advisers, then as emperors, until the death of Commodus in 192." ³

Vervaet's contribution is followed by three chapters (by Nicols, Murison, and Galimberti), each dedicated to one emperor of the Flavian house. Three more chapters (by Tuck, Wood, and Gallia) then discuss the various ways in which the Flavians legitimized and reinforced their imperial authority in Rome (by recasting their public image, by redesigning Rome, and by redefining the emperor's relationship with the Senate). While creating some redundancy, the biographical approach reflects a relatively recent scholarly interest in biographies of the Roman Emperors ⁴ and, in the context of the volume, appropriately prefaces the following discussion on the construction of Flavian authority.

Part III ("Empire") considers the economic (Launaro) and military (Dart) policies enacted during the Flavian age, while Flavian Judea (Brighton) and Flavian Britain (Gambash) provide case studies for investigating the role of the provinces in the developing empire. The growing importance of the provinces is a major thematic focus in this section and informs the discussion of more general questions. For example, Launaro shows that the economic policies of the Flavians secured a solid tax-generated budget, ensured peaceful conditions and confidence among imperial subjects, and ultimately succeeded in creating healthier provinces. Vespasian's famous zeal in exacting provincial tributes is an instance of such a success: despite gaining him a negative reputation among many of his contemporaries, Vespasian's policies actually contributed to increase the levels of trade and exchange, and thus the flow of money directed to the provinces themselves. While Launaro does not fail to acknowledge the costs of the economic rule of the Flavians in terms of collective and individual liberties, coercive attitudes by the government's officials, and social inequality, he also demonstrates that healthier provinces allowed Italy to enjoy its economic privileges and granted stability to the whole empire.

Pogorzelski's chapter on "Centers and Peripheries" provides a stimulating discussion of the various ways in which Flavian culture challenges Roman centrism. Pogorzelski argues that, from the reading of authors such as Silius and Josephus, a "Flavian geographical ideology" emerges in which the concepts of center and periphery shift, and even change places, according to the authors' subjective perspective. Surrounded as it is by historical analyses, this chapter is somehow unexpected, but its odd positioning adds emphasis to the discussion of multicultural dynamics, shifting boundaries and "globalization" in the Flavian world that it contains.

The focus on issues such as foreignness and racial discourse in the Roman Empire continues in Part IV ("Society and Culture") with the chapter authored by Parker. Through a close reading of literary texts, Parker argues for the "integrative capacity" of Roman imperial society. Interestingly, as showed by Parker's discussion of "the human landscape of Statius' Silvae", one way to achieve such an integration is to "positively" play down ethnic differences in exceptional foreigners who are also examples of upward social mobility (p. 287): both the slave-boy Glaucias in Silv. 2.1, and Septimius Severus in Silv. 4.5 are praised for their merits, while their racial diversity is silenced or denied.

With a rather different focus, Blake looks into the literary production of Martial and Pliny the Elder for defining contemporary concepts of aesthetic pleasure. In her reading, the aesthetic pleasure originating from ordinary things becomes the key to understanding literary products and material artifacts from the Flavian world. While integral to Vespasianic values of practicality and italicity, this "aesthetics of everyday" nonetheless provides opportunities for displaying luxury and personal power. The limited time frame of the Flavian age affects to some extent the thoroughness of Blake's argument; however, her analysis demonstrates the productiveness of interdisciplinary readings that consider material evidence alongside the literary sources.

Part V concentrates on "Literature" from the Flavian Age. The first three chapters deal with more canonical literary genres and topics (epic and history, occasional poetry, authorial voice in prose literature). The last two chapters, on the other hand, take on the difficult task of assessing topics for which the evidence is scarce or even lost. In the first of the two chapters, Dewar provides us with a careful and pleasantly written survey of those authors and texts that are lost to us except for their names and titles (or, in some cases, fragments). In the second contribution, after acknowledging that "Flavian Greek Literature" is a volatile concept due to the lack of a securely dated corpus, Kemezis demonstrates that Greek intellectuals of the Flavian age experienced the same changing relationship to the emperors (supportive first, then hostile) as their Latin contemporaries did. Analyzing Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch's rhetoric on power, moreover, Kemezis argues that the two authors display "the new rhetoric of an aristocracy in transition" (p. 460), whose members saw political participation as a dialectic between success at the imperial center and honor in their home cities. Kemezis then convincingly argues that the emergence of this "new voice" in the last part of the 1st century C.E. is not a coincidence, but it is connected to the new political, geographical and cultural conditions created in the Roman empire by the dynastic change.

Finally, Part VI of the volume, on "Reception," dedicates three chapters, all authored by Zissos, to, respectively, the impression made by the Flavian world on later ages; the unique impact of Pompeii's destruction on the modern imagination; and the "Reception of Flavian Literature."

Coming 15 years after Boyle and Dominik's volume on Flavian Rome ⁵, a diverse collection of essays that addressed some of the more intriguing features of the age, the companion edited by Zissos systematizes our knowledge of the Flavian period. The volume offers a more unified approach that proceeds from history to literature, and that achieves a comprehensive presentation of the subject matter. While one wonders whether the systematic approach suggests an increasingly "custodial" attitude in Flavian scholarship, there seems to be little doubt that the volume will enrich the understanding of the Flavian age for both specialist and non-specialist readers.

Authors and titles

Part I – Preliminary
1 Sources and Evidence, Frédéric Hurlet

Part II – Dynasty
2 The Remarkable Rise of the Flavians, Frederik Juliaan Vervaet
3 The Emperor Vespasian, John Nicols
4 The Emperor Titus, Charles Leslie Murison
5 The Emperor Domitian, Alessandro Galimberti
6 Imperial Image-Making, Steven L. Tuck
7 Public Images of the Flavian Dynasty: Sculpture and Coinage
8 Remaking Rome, Andrew B. Gallia
9 The Flavians and the Senate, Loránd Dészpa

Part III – Empire
10 The Economic Impact of Flavian Rule, Alessandro Launaro
11 Frontiers, Security, and Military Policy, Christopher J. Dart
12 Centers and Peripheries, Randall Pogorzelski
13 Flavian Judea, Mark A. Brighton
14 Flavian Britain, Gil Gambash

Part IV – Societies and Culture
15 Foreigners and Flavians: Prejudices and Engagements, Grant Parker
16 Women in Flavian Rome, Laura K. Van Abbema
17 Education in the Flavian Age, Yun Lee Too
18 Flavian Pompeii: Restoration and Renewal, Eleanor Winsor Leach
19 The Aesthetics of the Everyday in Flavian Art and Literature, Sarah H. Blake
20 Flavian Spectacle: Paradox and Wonder, Helen Lovatt
21 Literary Culture, Antony Augoustakis

Part V – Literature
22 Epic Poetry: Historicizing the Flavian Epics, Neil W. Bernstein
23 Epigram and Occasional Poetry: Social Life and Values in Martial's Epigrams and Statius' Silvae , William J. Dominik
24 Latin Prose Literature: Author and Authority in the Prefaces of Pliny and Quintilian, Paul Roche
25 Flavian Greek Literature, Adam Kemezis
26 Lost Literature, Michael Dewar

Part VI – Reception
27 The Flavian Legacy, Andrew Zissos
28 Vesuvius and Pompeii, Andrew Zissos
29 Reception of Flavian Literature, Andrew Zissos

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Notes:

1.   1. Chronology; 2. Demographic and Other Estimates; 3. Flavian Legionary Disposition; 4. Lex de Imperio Vespasiani.
2.   J. Nicols, Vespasian and the Partes Flavianae, (Wiesbaden 1978).
3.   Nicols 1978, 99.
4.   Famous examples of this interest for Flavian Emperors are Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian. (London; New York, 1992); B. Levick, Vespasian. (London: Routledge Press, 1999).
5.   See A.J. Boyle and W.J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image and Text, (Leiden; Boston, 2003).