2018.08.40

Kyle Gervais, Statius, Thebaid 2. Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. liv, 374. ISBN 9780198744702. £100.00.

Reviewed by Baruch Martínez Zepeda, Università di Roma "Tor Vergata" (baruch.martinez@hotmail.com)

Version at BMCR home site

[L'Autore della recensione si scusa per il ritardo nell'invio.]

Dopo l'uscita del commento di A. Augoustakis a Stat. Theb. 8 (BMCR 2017.03.32) nel 2016, gli studi staziani hanno visto l'anno immediatamente successivo una nuova opera, che è venuta a colmare un altro desideratum: il commento di Kyle Gervais a Theb. 2. Gervais si è mosso sulle tracce di H. M. Mulder, che nel lontano 1954 era stato l'ultimo a curare un commento a Theb. 2. Gervais è riuscito a offrire un commento notevolmente migliore, non solo incorporando con grande abilità tutti i numerosi progressi che—come ben si sa—si sono venuti maturando intensamente durante gli ultimi decenni negli studi sull'epica flavia, ma anche offrendo numerose proposte interpretative originali, in particolare nei campi della critica del testo e dell'intra- e intertestualità. Durante gli ultimi anni, Gervais ha dato numerosi contributi alla letteratura specializzata su Stazio nelle predette aree; questo commento è, dal canto suo, una rielaborazione della sua tesi dottorale, seguita da W. J. Dominik e J. Garthwaite e discussa nel 2013 all'Università di Otago.

L'introduzione (33 pagine) è divisa in quattro sezioni. La prima sezione è una biografia dell'autore. Nella seconda sezione Gervais illustra i criteri che ha adottato per fissare il proprio testo e offre una tabella con le differenze di lettura rispetto ad altre edizioni (Hall et al., Shackleton Bailey e Hill). La terza sezione, in maniera molto originale, si incentra sugli intratesti di Theb. 2, e cioè sui rapporti con Theb. 1, 3 e 8. L'ultima sezione, quella più lunga (come è anche rispecchiato nel maggior peso dato nel commento a quest'aspetto), è dedicata ai principali intertesti di Theb. 2: l'Eneide, le Metamorfosi, Lucano, Seneca tragico, le Argonautiche di Valerio Flacco, i Punica di Silio, e le Silve e l'Achilleide.

Abbiamo quindi i sigla utilizzati nell'edizione critica del testo, una tabella comparativa delle abbreviazioni impiegate da Gervais per i diversi codici e di quelle utilizzate da altri editori (Lesueur, Hill, Klotz, Garrod, Wilkins, Kohlmann, Mueller) per gli stessi codici. Di seguito c'è il testo latino con un apparato critico (entrambi formati da Gervais a partire dagli apparati primario, secondario e ortografico di Hall et al.), affiancato da una limpida traduzione in inglese. Degna di nota a questo riguardo è la ricchezza, non solo di lezioni, ma anche di congetture riportate nell'apparato critico, ben motivata da Gervais: "Statius' text is far from certain, as we know, and readers should always be confronted with the cumulative doubts of centuries of scholarship" (p. xxiii).

Il commentario, naturalmente, occupa la parte più ampia del lavoro (pp. 59-333). Infine abbiamo la bibliografia, un indice generale e un index locorum.

Nelle note di commento, Gervais non ha trascurato nessun aspetto del testo. Quanto all'esegesi, si veda, per esempio, la messa a punto sui possibili significati di 76-7 anhelum / proflabant … deum: Gervais dà giustamente per scontato che il deus sia Bacco (= vino) e non Somnus, senza accennare al dubbio di Barth in merito (anche se forse sarebbe valsa la pena di esplicitare, con Mulder, che con ciò Stazio varia il modello virgiliano di Aen. 9.326 toto proflabat pectore somnum), aggiungendo all'esegesi di Mulder (anhelum = anhelitum mouentem) la possibilità di intendere anhelum … deum = "anhelitum dei, i.e. 'the vapour of the god,'" con opportuni riscontri ciceroniani. È ricordata anche la spiegazione di Williams ("'The Breathless God', whose rites leave his followers short of breath"): "perhaps too clever." Quanto all'allusione a Aen. 9.326, correttamente individuata, si può notare che anche Theb. 10.320 (la morte dell'ubriaco Calpeto nel sonno) proflatu terrebat equos (citato da Gervais) presuppone, e ancor più chiaramente, lo stesso passo virgiliano.

Al verso 8, invece, "a kinsman's thrust had cut a sword clean through his life's breath, further than the hilt" (enfasi mia) non sembra un'adeguata traduzione di capulo … largius; la congettura capulo … longius di W. B. Anderson è ricordata in apparato, ma andrebbe discussa in nota, ed eventualmente promossa nel testo.

Anche i problemi di interpunctio vengono ampiamente discussi: si veda, per esempio, la nota a 102-3 (Laio a Eteocle) non somni tibi tempus, iners, qui nocte sub alta / germani secure iaces, '"it's not your time for sleep, sluggard lying in deep night, careless of your brother!"': Gervais legge iners come voc. e secure come equivalente a un nom., inteso come un predicativo con iaces. Ora, mentre è sicuro che non si debba leggere tempus iners, come facevano in genere gli edd. prima di O. Mueller, Electa Statiana, Berlin 1882, 16-17 (un suggerimento in tal senso era già in Barth, che tuttavia proponeva anche vari interventi sul testo), la punteggiatura di Mulder, che considera iners come un nom., non somni tibi tempus, iners qui nocte sub alta / germani secure iaces, è anche perfettamente possibile, e forse preferibile.

I problemi testuali sono discussi con efficacia. In un solo punto Gervais appone le cruces, e cioè a 251 innuptam †limine† adibant / Pallada. Gervais discute le varie proposte (forse limite di Baehrens, ricordata in apparato, avrebbe meritato una menzione anche nel commento, essendo stampata e difesa in nota da Shackleton Bailey ("by the road")), e lascia chiaramente trapelare la sua preferenza per l'ottima correzione Pallada di W. B. Anderson, CQ 18 (1924) 203-8, a 207: anche se non è chiarissimo quale dovrebbe essere la funzione di glossa da attribuirsi a limine (tanto che Anderson pensava anche che potesse essere semplicemente la voluta correzione di uno scriba infastidito dalla ripetizione di Pallada), si tratta in effetti della migliore proposta fin qui avanzata: si potrebbe anche pensare che il primo Pallada, del tutto superfluo quanto al senso, sia caduto per puro errore, e che un copista abbia successivamente cercato di sanare il testo con un riempitivo qualsiasi. Mulder ad loc. (non menzionato qui da Gervais) non vede perché il nome di Pallade dovrebbe essere enfaticamente ripetuto (e stampa limine come abl. di relazione), ma Gervais dice bene che "the name of the virgin warrior goddess, who recently was presented in an unsettlingly warlike aspect (236ff.), echoes ominously moments before her temple gives a portent of war to disrupt the wedding procession." Potrebbe essere che, nel ripetere Pallada … Pallada, Stazio avesse in mente la fine dell'Eneide, Pallas … Pallas (12.948)?

Gervais accoglie congetture nel testo in diciotto passi; in quattro di questi accoglie nel testo congetture proposte da lui stesso:

316-17 quis regis iniqui / praecipuum cultum Gervais: quis cultus iniqui / praecipuus ducis codd.: con il suo intervento, Gervais normalizza la costruzione del periodo, trasformando l'elemento di mezzo del tricolon in una infinitiva con l'acc. in discorso indiretto dipendente da notarat, e quindi parallela al primo e al terzo elemento. Il testo tràdito dai codd. non è impossibile, ma la soluzione di Gervais risolve in modo elegante un'indubbia difficoltà. Il regis iniqui originario si sarebbe corrotto, per qualche motivo invero non facile da immaginare, nell'ametrico ducis iniqui, e quindi un copista avrebbe ristabilito il metro alterando l'ordine delle parole.

473: Issione non partecipa mai alla caccia al cinghiale calidonio: vi partecipa suo figlio, Piritoo. Come già anticipato in Mnemosyne 66 (2013) 312-13, Gervais sostituisce stratum Ixiona con natum Ixione: alle spiegazioni sull'origine della corruttela avanzate da Gervais nell'articolo (stratum avrebbe sostituito natum attraverso satum (ma quale sarebbe l'origine di questo sinonimo ametrico?), oppure sarebbe Ixione ad essersi originariamente corrotto in Ixiona), si potrebbe aggiungere che forse stratum potrebbe essere una glossa che spiegava solo … linquens, penetrata poi nel testo.

685: la correzione di caligine plenum in caligine mersum è elegante: elimina la fastidiosa ripetizione di 682 sanguine plenus, e ripristina una fine di verso virgiliana, ripresa altre volte da Stazio e da Silio (cf. Gervais, CQ 65 (2015) 411-14, a 413-14).

693: gli edd. stampano in genere aeris, una delle varie lezioni dei codd.; la correzione aetheros di Gervais dà ragione dell'annotazione di "Lattanzio Placido": genetiuus Graecus est; i MSS di Lact. Plac. hanno il lemma aeros, che sarebbe un hapax assoluto, mentre il gen. aetheros è attestato in Stat. Theb. 3.525, Silu. 4.2.25 (cf. CQ 65 (2015) 414).

Anche gli altri passi in cui Gervais stampa congetture (vedi ai versi 5, 136, 183, 358, 492, 514, 535, 542, 559, 560, 594, 599, 610) sono opportunamente discussi nel commento; particolarmente difficile la situazione al verso 44, dove Gervais accetta expositus (Baehrens, Anderson) pro expositos dei codd. expositus sarebbe da intendere come predicativo con scandere: "not daring to lay itself open and mount the billows." Un passo complicato, come testimoniano le molte congetture ricordate in apparato (e non tutte discusse nel commento). La spiegazione (in latino) di Eden, che Gervais riporta nella nota a 43-7, è comunque ben lungi dall'essere chiarificatrice, e andrebbe a sua volta spiegata (anche perché Eden legge expositos). Il passo resta poco perspicuo, ma expositus sembra effettivamente una correzione necessaria.

Il difficile passo ai versi 185-7 è ampiamente illustrato: saeua nec Eleae gemerent certamina ualles, / Eumenidesque aliis aliae sub regibus, / et quae tu potior, Thebane, queri. Gervais ritiene che 185-6 possa essere in qualche modo interpretato, e traduce: "nor would the Elean valleys groan over cruel contests, nor other Furies under other kings, and things that you, Theban, can better lament"; ma l'ellissi del verbo (che, alla luce di fugerent (184) e gemerent, sarà da immaginare come essent, piuttosto che fuissent) è davvero intollerabile: sembrerebbe inevitabile, a prima lettura, sottintendere piuttosto gemerent; così del resto Barth e altri, e così sembrerebbe pure nella citata traduzione dello stesso Gervais (diversa è la traduzione di Shackleton Bailey che Gervais cita in nota: "nor had there been different Furies under different kings"). L'ipotesi di una lacuna dopo 184 (O. Mueller nella sua ed. del 1870, dopo i sospetti di F. Dübner in nota alla sua ed. del 1837 ("Vereor ne quid desit")) appare come la soluzione più convincente, e sarebbe stata da segnalare in apparato (Gervais accenna all'ipotesi di una lacuna solo nel commento: "SB … follows Dubner and others in suspecting a lacuna after 185"). Gervais esprime particolare apprezzamento per la soluzione di E. H. Alton, CQ 17 (1923) 175-86, a 178: nec Eleae gemerem certamina uallis / Eumenidesque aliis alias [o alias aliis] sub regibus, "I would not be bemoaning the cruel contests of Elis' vale and this or that Fury under this or that king." Alton si limitava a dire che "Tydeus had special reason to deplore the crimes of Elis"; Gervais sviluppa questo spunto brillantemente, ma forse con eccessiva sottigliezza, e senza risultare, alla fine, del tutto convincente. Lacuna dopo 184 o croci (con Hill) restano le soluzioni migliori.

Un'attenzione particolare meritano le ricche discussioni che Gervais dedica ai complessi meccanismi di allusione in Stazio, sia nella costruzione di interi episodi (vedi per esempio le note a 94-133, l'epifania di Laio), sia nell'elaborazione di formule (vedi per esempio le note a 15, 97-8 propexaque mento / canities, 214-15 laeto regalia coetu / atria complentur). A tale proposito, sono anche notevoli i molto dettagliati approfondimenti sulle scelte staziane dei nomi degli eroi, che rimandano ai loro "antenati" (vedi p. xxxiv n. 105).¹

Insomma, il commento di Gervais è non solo una guida sicura, affidabile e acuta all'interpretazione di Tebaide 2, ma anche una miniera di informazioni che ogni studioso non solo di Stazio, ma di epica classica in genere dovrà leggere.

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Notes:

1.   Vi sono alcuni refusi: p. 72: "cf. also 8.56 ferrea tergemino domuisset lumina somno," ma questo è il testo del verso 31 che si sta commentando; p. 96: suberbus Rhamnes: leggi superbus; p. 128: "Eden on Aen. 10, pp. 290-1": leggi "Harrison"; p. 162: 'uariae sermones; p. 207: "both are surrounded by arma, but Eteocles' are horrentes"; p. 277: "'lui benché serrato dai dardi, attendò…'": leggi "attende"; p. 335: "La vicanda"': leggi "La vicenda"; p. 342: il commento di Gransden a Aen. 8 è del 1976, non del 1967.

2018.08.39

Concetta Luna, Alain Philippe Segonds †, Proclus. Commentaire sur le "Parménide" de Platon. Tome VI, Livre VI. Collection des universités de France. Série grecque, 533​. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2017. Pp. cxv, 472. ISBN 9782251006130. €55,00 (pb).

Reviewed by Peter Lautner, Pázmány Péter Catholic University​ (lautner@btk.ppke.hu)

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The book contains a new critical edition of the sixth book of Proclus' commentary on the Parmenides with translation, introduction and ample annotations.

Book 6 of the commentary (1039.1-1134.1 in Cousin's edition) deals with the beginning of the first hypothesis (137c4-142a8). On Parmenides' account, if the One exists, we have to draw five negative conclusions; (i) the One is not many, (ii) it is not a whole and has no parts, (iii) it has no beginning, middle or end, (iv) it is infinite and (v) it has no shape. Luna's introduction gives a clear overview of the structure of Proclus' argument, ending with a table showing the attribution of the properties mentioned in Plato's dialogue of the One to divine classes. The textual notes divide into four sections, on the less significant variants in Σ (the hyparchetype of Greek mss.), on isolated readings in ms. A (Parisinus graecus 1810, a crucial manuscript), on readings in Moerbeke's Latin translation (13^th c.) that deviate from the Greek, and, finally, on the differences in the text in the Budé edition and the OCT (there are quite a few, approximately 385). The volume also contains two sets of scholia, one in Σ (in mss. AFRGP), the other, most interestingly, by Bessarion. They are most useful. Bessarion's notes have already been studied and partially, on Books 2 and 3, edited as well.¹ As for those on this book, they consist mostly of markers. To mention but one exception, he gives a figural presentation to the syllogistic argument that the One is not a whole and does not have parts (1104.21-30). Occasionally, the notes can also be funny; on reading 1075.23 ff., where Proclus arguing that higher hypostasis produces the lower one even without possessing the crucial quality of that (i.e. the One is not multiple, Intellect is not ensouled and soul is not extended), the anonymous scholiast, undoubtedly a devout Christian, has got nothing to add except for this: ἑλληνικὸς ὕθλος ταῦτα· Πρόκλε σοφώτατε.

The divergences from the OCT are due to different assessments about the relation of ms. A (Parisinus graecus 1810) to the other family of manuscripts descending from the hyparchetype Σ, and hence about the value of Moerbeke's translation. Sometimes, they give considerably divergent meanings. A few samples may be instructive. (1) In 1053.11, Luna gives σύστοιχος with Moerbeke's coelementale for στοιχειώδης in Σ. The preference is not very well argued for and may not fit the line of argument either. It says that enmattered form is a principle. It goes on, in Luna's reading, that, if enmattered form is correlated (corrélé), then matter is also a principle. In the preceding lines, however, we do not find any note on correlation. We have instead a list of principles with enmattered form being the last remnant (ὑπόλοιπον, 1053.6) of principles. In the list, enmattered form and matter are not at the same level and therefore cannot be correlated as members of a συστοιχία are. Instead, they constitute an ordered series. In this sense, enmattered form can rightly be called elementary. It is elementary, just as the matter is. Moerbeke's 'co-elementary' may get us closer, although it does not reflect the prior-posterior relations in the series. (2) In 1059.26 Σ gives us ἕν while Luna prefers ὄν. Her choice is based on Moerbeke's translation (ens). The text thus will say something different; with ὄν it says that if there is no intelligible entity, then what exists (τὸ ὄν) will be perceptible, whereas with ἕν it says that lack of intelligibles entails that the One (τὸ ἕν) is perceptible. The latter option is clearly absurd. Given the status of the soul, the former conclusion, that everything that exists is perceptible, may not follow. (3) In 1076.19 Luna prints μέγα, whereas both Σ and Moerbeke read μέλαν (nigrum). In a separate note (pp. 266-7, n. 1) she explains it by saying that just as λευκόν is contrasted with ἀχρώματον, ἀδιάστατον also requires an opposite. Thus, the text may say that nature is neither white nor big, but colourless and unextended. We cannot rule it out that it might be the case, but if we have in mind that colour is linked to surface, which implies extension, we do not need Luna's emendation. (4) In 1115.29 she writes οὐκ αὐτό, while both Σ and Moerbeke have οὐ καθ᾽ αὑτό (non secundum se). The passage connects the interpretation of 137d to the Platonic Second Letter (312e). It says that the first principle is beginning, middle, and end of other things, but it (or it in itself) cannot be divided into beginning, middle, and end. So far, the emendation has no obvious reason. Luna justifies it by saying that the point is not that the One does not divide by itself into beginning, middle, and end, but that it does not divide at all (369). To put it otherwise, when we are talking about such phases in respect of the One, we do not mean parts of the One, but the relations that things have towards the One. (5) In 1128.38 she writes ἐξῃρημένος, although both Σ and Moerbeke have ἐξῃρημένη (exaltata). The feminine refers to the ἀρχὴ πάντων (1128.36), the masculine to the νοητὸς νοῦς (1128.33) which is called the principle of all.

The editors have made use of the unpublished conjectures of L. G. Westerink as well.² On occasion, they prefer it both to Σ and to A (and Moerbeke). Two samples will suffice. In 1120.22, Luna follows Westerink's conjecture ἐννοήσας for γεννήσας in Σ and Moerbeke (generans). To keep close to the manuscript version, the OCT gives γεννητικήν which goes with αἰτίαν.³ Westerink's conjecture, just as the version in Σ and Moerbeke, refers to the person who is supposed to go up to the primary source of infinity and look at things from this perspective. As γεννήσας does not make much sense in the context, the emendation is justified. It has been accepted by Dillon, too, who writes 'cognizing'. In 1047.5 she reads ταὐτόν for the τοιοῦτον in both Σ and Moerbeke's text (tale). The choice is reasonable because we are working in the context of the Sophist and one line below we read ἡ τῶν νοητῶν ταὐτότης. The text thus would say that the single principle of knowledge, the One, is not the same in the way the sameness of the intelligible entities is, which is a sameness implying plurality. With τοιοῦτον we shall have a considerably weaker thesis.

Luna's translation is clear and runs well, and, except for one case, I have not found anything to disagree with. The notes are detailed. Some of them draws attention to Proclus' innovations; in the note to 1040.28 (175, n. 3) she mentions that the conclusion saying that the One is both the same and different does not figure in any of the nine hypotheses. It would be interesting to see why Proclus advanced the conclusion. One simple reason is that he wanted to exploit all the logical possibilities to show that it impossible for all the affirmative and negative propositions to be true of the One if we take it in only one sense. Moreover, the syllogistic structure of some of Proclus' arguments (e.g. 1099.9-14, 1104.23-30, 1125.13-25) has also been emphasized (307-8, 326-8, 400-1), although Proclus may have got some support for such procedure from the Parmenides itself, too (137d4-138a1). Some notes amount to short essays. There is a long discussion (pp. 220-26) of the identification of the 'philosopher from Rhodes' (1057.7) with Theodore of Asine (Saffrey)⁴ or with Thrasyllus the Platonist (Tarrant).⁵ She rejects both identifications, to my mind persuasively. Luna also points out (230-1, n. 7 to 1059.21-23) that the definition of the objects of hypotheses 6 and 9 comes from Plutarch of Athens who has already made a distinction between absolute not-being and not-being relative to something else. It leads to the conclusion that Syrianus' innovations, taken over by Proclus, concern the 2^nd and 3^rd hypotheses only. In all likelihood, the interpretation of the other hypotheses was established by Plutarch.

Proclus' long report (1106.2-1108.18) on those who felt the need to invest the One with some nature and specific character (ἰδιότης) has received considerable attention from many scholars. He mentions three groups, the first of them establishing the specific character by an analysis of the Intellect. They place νοότης ('intellectuality') above the Intellect as being simpler than that. In a way, it is a cause of intellection. Further down the line, they put νόημα as the most partless and closest to the One. Luna devotes a long series of notes to the whole section (330-8) and—rightly, as I see it—expresses reservation about the attribution of this view to Porphyry. The translation intellectification for νόημα (1106.11) is somewhat awkward especially given that the Greek term is widely used in ordinary context as well.⁶ Furthermore, just like the others referring to the same phenomenon (ἀγάθωμα, κάλλωμα, ταύτωμα and other neologisms mentioned in 1106.16) the term seems to refer to a product, not to thinking or intellection, which is more partless than either the thinking process or the thinker. An easy parallel could be κίνημα (1106.12) which is more partless than the mover itself. Dillon's 'thought' seems to be more appropriate.

Finally, on the method of ἀφαίρεσις in the discussion of the One (1107.22) Luna makes a careful distinction between ἀφαίρεσις and ἀπόφασις, a proper term for negation (346-7). To clarify the method, the reference to in Remp. I. 285.15-286.7 is particularly helpful. On the other hand, if we follow her in translating ἀφαίρεσις as exclusion, we might not pay attention to the usage which is most prevalent in the Euclid commentary, where the term is appropriately translated as abstraction. Still, it is a question whether Proclus had two slightly different methods, both called ἀφαίρεσις, or whether there is only one method.

The volume closes with four indices, of names, places, terms and passages quoted in the introduction or in the notes. It is a fine edition of a highly important text. ​

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Notes:

1.   See C. Macé, P. d'Hoine and C. Steel, ‛Bessarion lecteur du commentaire de Proclus sur le Parménide, avec une édition des ses scholies aux livres II et III', Byzantion 79 (2009), 241-79.
2.   They are used in the translation by G. R. Morrow and J. M. Dillon as well (Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987). On the conjectures, see also John Dillon's review of Concetta Luna and Alain-Philippe Segonds, Proclus. Commentaire sur le Parménide de Platon, vol.3 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011), in BMCR 2012.05.26.
3.   In the critical apparatus they refer to Theol. Plat. V.22, p. 81.21 S-W: see Carlos Steel and Leen van Campe (eds.), Procli In Platonis Parmenidem Commentaria vol. 3 (Oxford: OUP, 2009).
4.   H. D. Saffrey, 'Le "Philosophe de Rhodes" est-il Théodore d'Asiné? Sur un point obscur de l'histoire de l'exégèse néoplatonicienne du Parménide' in E. Lucchesi and H. D. Saffrey (eds.), Mémorial André-Jean Festugière. Antiquité païenne et chrétienne (Geneva: Patrick Cramer, 1984), 65-76; and 'Encore Théodore d'Asine sur le Parménide' in L. Jerphagon, D. Delattre and J. Lagrée (eds.), Ainsi parlaient les Anciens. In honorem Jean-Paul Dumont (Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1994), 283-9.
5.   H. Tarrant, Thrasyllan Platonism (Ithaca; London: Cornell UP, 1993).
6.   The LSJ gives Iliad 10.104 as one of its first occurrences. ​

2018.08.38

Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim J. Hartswick, Amina-Aïcha​ Malek (ed.), Gardens of the Roman Empire. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xxxvi, 617. ISBN 9780521821612. £220.00​.

Reviewed by Jane Draycott, University of Glasgow (Jane.Draycott@Glasgow.ac.uk)

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

The late Professor Wilhemina F. Jashemski (1910-2007) pioneered the interdisciplinary study of ancient Roman gardens, utilising ancient literary, documentary, archaeological, and archaeobotanical evidence over the course of some six decades, during which she investigated the gardens of Pompeii and Herculaneum, excavated sites around the Bay of Naples and in North Africa, and took the lead in publishing a series of comprehensive guides to various aspects of ancient Roman garden culture that are now, though still very useful for the information, discussion and analysis that they do contain, sadly rather out of date.¹ Gardens of the Roman Empire, her final scholarly endeavour, completed by her colleagues and published now, eleven years after her death in 2007, serves two purposes. The first is to update and build upon the fruits of Jashemski's original labours to establish a baseline for research on ancient Roman gardens going forward; the second is to serve as a memorial not just to Jashemski, but also to her husband Stanley Jashemski and a number of other long-time collaborators who died during the volume's protracted period of preparation, all of whom made significant contributions to the field of ancient garden studies as we know it today.

Like Jashemski's earlier opus The Gardens of Pompeii, Gardens of the Roman Empire is a two-volume work. It differs in how it presents its material, however, with the first volume taking the form of a collection of essays covering the ancient Roman garden from all angles in varying levels of detail (it is much broader in scope than previous monographs or edited collections on this subject), and the second, originally intended as a CD or DVD but eventually taking the form of extensive online resources that can be accessed on the Cambridge University Press website from August 2018 (see here). Consequently, it is only the first volume, the collection of essays, that is under review here. The volume was decades in the making, a process described and detailed in both the Acknowledgements and Introduction (jointly authored by Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim Hartswick, and Amina-Aïcha Malek), and perhaps unsurprisingly, given the many hands through which the project passed over the years, and the continuous development of the field of garden archaeology, it seems to have gone through numerous stages of development and separate incarnations. The final version is the result of extensive collaboration between Jashemski and a variety of different contributors over a long period of time. This accounts for the variety and a certain amount of unevenness from chapter to chapter.

Volume 1 is composed of three parts: The Main Types of Garden; The Experience of Gardens as Revealed by Literature and Arts; and Making the Garden. There is a degree of overlap between the sections, although the reappearance of specific subjects tends to be complementary rather than repetitive (e.g. the description of water features and their fundamental role in the ancient Roman garden in Part 1 and the discussion of the ancient Roman water supply in Part 3).

The first part proceeds methodically through the many different types of ancient Roman garden with the archaeological evidence privileged over other types (attention is paid to the latter in Part 2). The sheer diversity of ancient Roman gardens is frequently noted. It covers those found in private contexts such as the domus (Eric Morvillez), the villa (Kim J. Hartswick; Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis), the produce garden (Wilhelmina Jashemski), and the tomb (John Bodel). It also covers those found in public contexts such as the temple and the sacred grove (Maureen Carroll), the bath-house and the palaestra (Janet DeLaine), the gymnasium, the school and the schola (Maureen Carroll). Each chapter presents a general survey of the location in question punctuated with specific representative examples from around the empire. The chapters are of varying lengths, as there is considerably more evidence for some types of garden: hence the extreme length of the first chapter, which deals with the domus in considerable depth, and the eighth, which deals with the tomb, and the much richer discussion and analysis that is found in these places. Collectively, however, this section provides much more extensive and varied coverage of the ancient Roman garden than has been achieved previously, even in extended treatments on the subject.²

The second part presents five surveys of the different types of literary and artistic evidence for ancient Roman gardens. Two focus on literature, one Latin (K. Sara Myers), the other Greek (Anthony R. Littlewood), and they offer broadly chronological overviews of their subjects. Littlewood's coverage of gardens in Greek literature extends beyond the classical world to the Byzantine empire and the Geoponika in the tenth century, and in view of this it is a shame that Myers' coverage of gardens in Latin literature is much narrower, restricted to the canon.³ The other three chapters focus on different types of artistic evidence, frescoes in gardens and frescoes depicting gardens (Bettina Bergmann), mosaics (Amina-Aïcha Malek), and sculpture (Kim J. Hartswick). In one sense, this seems something of an arbitrary separation considering that all three media frequently worked together in coherent decorative schemes, but the approach taken in each chapter is to consider the deeper significance of that particular medium and how it was used to immerse the viewer (for example, Bergmann covers not just garden paintings but also those depicting beast hunts, while Malek covers not just mosaics with nature motifs but also those that depict the gods, but both argue persuasively for connections between them). With the exception of Littlewood's chapter on Greek literature, none of the subject coverage is comprehensive but rather presents edited highlights that encourage further investigation.⁴

The third part explores the physical components of the ancient garden and the process by which one was made, and it is here that the most new material and new approaches to ancient Roman gardens are present. Methodologies from other academic disciplines are utilised to elucidate the process of constructing a garden, since we lack the perspective of the ancient gardener (Kathryn L. Gleason and Michele A. Palmer), and recent advances in the understanding of ancient sanitation are utilised to assess the role of water and water technology in making an ancient garden viable (Gemma C. M. Jansen). Two more chapters recount the ways in which gardening was actually done, looking at the techniques and the plants involved (Wilhelmina F. Jashemski).⁵ This section, and the volume, concludes with a chapter proposing new perspectives that have been offered by the volume as a whole (Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim J. Hartswick, Amina-Aïcha Malek, and Michele A. Palmer).

The entire volume is lavishly illustrated, with hundreds of extremely high quality black-and-white and colour photographs, illustrations, and plans. It is an absolute pleasure to peruse.

While much of the volume does not offer anything new or innovative, it does scholars interested in ancient gardens a service in bringing together a huge amount of material, and it serves as a comprehensive update of Jashemski's scholarship, thereby finally superseding in many respects The Gardens of Pompeii, and providing a platform from which scholarship on ancient Roman gardens can continue to develop. Once the companion volume is available, its open access and constantly updated online resources will undoubtedly ensure its continuing relevance for years to come.

Authors and titles

Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim. J. Hartswich, and Amina- Aïcha Malek, 'Introduction'
Part 1: The Main Types of Garden
Eric Morvillez, 'The Garden in the Domus'
Kim J. Hartswich, 'The Roman Villa Garden'
Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, 'The Archaeology of Gardens in the Roman Empire'
Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, 'Produce Gardens'
Maureen Carroll, 'Temple Gardens and Sacred Groves'
Janet DeLaine, 'Gardens in Baths and Palaestras'
Maureen Carroll, 'Gardens in Gymnasia, Schools, and Scholae'
John Bodel, 'Roman Tomb Gardens'
Part 2: The Experience of Gardens as Revealed by Literature and Art
Anthony R. Littlewood, 'Greek Literary Evidence for Roman Gardens'
K. Sara Myers, 'Representations of Gardens in Roman Literature'
Bettina Bergmann, 'Frescoes in Roman Gardens'
Amina- Aïcha Malek, 'Mosaics and Nature in the Roman Domus'
Kim J. Hartswick, 'Sculpture in Ancient Roman Gardens'
Part 3: Making the Garden
Kathryn L. Gleason, 'Constructing the Ancient Roman Garden'
Gemma C. M. Jansen, 'Water and Water Technology in Roman Gardens'
Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, 'Gardening Practices and Techniques'
Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason, and Michael Herchenbach, 'Plants of the Roman Garden'
Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim J. Hartswick, Amina- Aïcha Malek, and Michele A. Palmer, 'Conclusions: New Perspectives on the Roman Garden'

---

Notes:

1.   Jashemski, W. F. (1979) The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius: Volume 1 (New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas Brothers); Jashemski, W. F. (1993) The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius: Volume 2 (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide Caratzas).
2.   See for example Farrar, L. (1998) Ancient Roman Gardens (Stroud: Sutton Publishing); Gleason, K. (ed.) A Cultural History of Gardens in Antiquity (London: Bloomsbury); Farrar, L. (2016) Gardens and Gardeners of the Ancient World: History, Myth and Archaeology (Oxford: Oxbow).
3.   That is not to say that Littlewood's contribution is particularly innovative in and of itself, see for example his other work on Byzantine garden culture such as Littlewood, A. R., Maguire, H., and Wolschke-Bulmahn, J. (edd.) (2002) Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks).
4.   See for example Bergmann's other publications on ancient Roman garden paintings, (2002) 'Art and Nature in the Villa at Oplontis', in McGinn, T. A. (ed.) Pompeian Brothels, Pompeii's Ancient History, Mirrors and Mysteries, Art and Nature at Oplontis & the Herculaneum "Basilica" (Portsmouth, RI: JRA Supplement 47), pp. 87‒121; (2008) 'Staging the Supernatural: Interior Gardens of Pompeian Houses', in Mattusch, C. C. (ed.) Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (New York, NY: Binocular), pp. 53–69; (2014) 'The Concept of the Boundary in the Roman Garden', in Coleman, K. (ed.) Le jardin dans l'Antiquité (Vandoeuvres: Fondation Hardt pour l'étude de l'antiquité classique), pp. 245-289.
5.   The second chapter follows the successful approach of Jashemski, W. F. and Meyer, F. G. (edd.) (2002) The Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ​

2018.08.37

J. A. Fernández Delgado, F. Pordomingo (ed.), La retórica escolar grieca y su influencia literaria. Edición a cargo de J. Ureña Bracero y L. Miguélez-Cavero. Aquilafuente, 232. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2017. Pp. 856. ISBN 9788490128022. €28,50.

Reviewed by Francesco Berardi, Università di Chieti-Pescara (f.berardi@unich.it)

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Dopo gli atti del Simposio organizzato all'Università di Salamanca (Escuela y Literatura en Grecia antigua, Cassino 2007), la bibliografia sui progymnasmata, gli esercizi scolastici finalizzati alla prima formazione retorica, si arricchisce di un nuovo e prezioso strumento di lavoro grazie al volume che J. Ureña e L. Miguélez Cavero hanno allestito raccogliendo i più significativi contributi scientifici di J. A. Fernández Delgado e F. Pordomingo.

Il libro riassume le principali direttrici lungo le quali si sono sviluppate negli ultimi anni le ricerche in questo particolare settore dell'insegnamento retorico: 1) lo studio della dottrina progimnasmatica anche in rapporto alla pratica declamatoria; 2) l'indagine papirologica ed epigrafica applicata ai numerosi reperti che restituiscono prontuari per la composizione, esempi di esercizi svolti, repertori di modelli, compiti eseguiti dagli studenti, per un lungo periodo di tempo (dal III sec. a.C. al VII d.C.); 3) l'approfondimento del riuso dei testi letterari in ambito scolastico come supporto agli esercizi grazie anche all'analisi di antologie e manuali; 4) la riflessione sull'influenza che i progymnasmata hanno avuto sulla scrittura letteraria con la relativa individuazione di tecniche e forme espressive mutuate dalla tecnografia. Ciascun indirizzo costituisce una sezione autonoma dell'ampio volume per la cui struttura gli editori hanno opportunamente pensato di non seguire l'ordine cronologico dei contributi, ma di preferire una solida organizzazione tematica.

Non è possibile in questo luogo rendere conto de singoli contributi, ma piuttosto pare opportuno sintetizzare i più significativi esiti delle ricerche ed evidenziare le diverse metodologie di indagine che potranno essere applicate ai futuri lavori sui progymnasmata con la promessa di interessanti risultati, evidenziando già da ora che questi interessano non solo l'ambito retorico degli esercizi scolastici, ma anche la storia della letteratura e dell'educazione nell'antica Grecia.

Sin dalle prime pagine si distingue la cura filologica per il materiale documentario, evidente nell'interesse per i molti papiri ed ostraka che restituiscono prontuari di composizione, repertori di modelli, esempi di esercizi. L'attenzione alle caratteristiche del supporto materiale si unisce alla contestualizzazione storica e alla valutazione della tradizione retorica e culturale così da fornire un'interpretazione a tutto tondo delle testimonianze. Gli autori deducono dalle caratteristiche della scrittura e dalle modalità di confezionamento del prodotto notizie preziose per capire la matrice scolastica, la finalità didattica e la circolazione dei testi, applicando un metodo di analisi che procede sicuro nel riconoscere le mani di studenti, maestri e amanti delle lettere, nell'individuare i livelli di riuso degli strumenti didattici (semplici esercizi di sillabazione o dettato, parafrasi di modelli classici, raccolte di brani per la rielaborazione scritta, più complesse redazioni di progymnasmata), nell'assegnare i diversi sussidi ai tre livelli in cui si distingueva la formazione scolastica (γραμματιστής, γραμματικός e ῥήτωρ). Il confronto, poi, con la tradizione letteraria e la dottrina retorica canonizzata nei successivi manuali di progymnasmata li aiuta a interpretare i testi dei papiri e degli ostraka, a vedervi la presenza di questo o quell'esercizio, apprezzando la continuità di una forma di insegnamento che per gli autori nasce con la prima sofistica e si diffonde nelle scuole ellenistiche mediante la pratica di pièces di composizione su favole, aneddoti, elogi, etopee, per poi strutturarsi in curriculum di studi nel I sec. d.C. Ne scaturisce una preziosa rassegna di gran parte del materiale documentario in lingua greca relativo ai progymnasmata e ad altri esercizi di scuola riconducibili alla propedeutica retorica dal III sec. a.C. al VII d.C., con la messa a punto di importanti testimonianze, come il P.Vogl. I 20 (in cui gli autori correggono la tradizione esegetica individuandovi anche la presenza di una thesis), gli antichi P.Vogl. III 123 (rassegna di argomenti per elogi) e P.Berol. 12318 (raccolta di sentenze), i PSI II 135 e PErl. 5 (parafrasi di testi letterari).

Notevole è il contributo nello studio della favola, dell'elogio, dell'etopea e, soprattutto, della parafrasi, perché gli studi riuniti nel volume forniscono un inventario esauriente dei sussidi scolastici senza limitarsi alla lettura di testi progimnasmatici, ma considerando anche i lavori di riscrittura di brani letterari. Interessante è, infatti, la sezione del libro dedicata allo studio dei classici presso le scuole antiche con una rassegna dei papiri contenenti materiale relativo alle due principali auctoritates, Omero ed Euripide: si tratta di brani dettati o trascritti da scolari, copie di maestri, passaggi scelti, antologie, esercizi più complessi di riscrittura, tra cui si segnalano il P.Cair. 65445 (Livre d'écolier), il P.Berol. 9774 (con il pastiche di versi omerici ed esiodei), i P.Hamb. II 136 e 137, le antologie scolastiche del P.Freib. 1b, e del P.Berol. inv. 9772-9773.

La cura per l'analisi filologica e la sensibilità verso la contestualizzazione storica caratterizzano anche l'indagine dei testi letterari alla ricerca di tracce di esercizi progimnasmatici. L'idea di poter individuare nei brani di prosa e poesia gli sviluppi di tipologie testuali apprese a scuola è suffragata dalla centralità che i progymnasmata assumono a giudizio dei due studiosi nel processo di formazione letteraria, non solo retorica, come ben evidenziato dalla pratica scolastica dove l'abitudine di elaborare gli esercizi partendo da modelli genera un dialogo tra insegnamento retorico ed educazione letteraria che viaggia in entrambe le direttrici: dall'analisi dei classici si ricavano i procedimenti di elaborazione delle varie forme testuali che, una volta fissati dalla dottrina retorica, sono appresi più facilmente dagli studenti i quali, usciti di scuola, li riusano per scrivere i testi. Quest'osmosi tra formazione retorica e letteratura presuppone competenze negli autori, ma anche nei lettori che devono apprezzare il gioco di rimaneggiamento dei meccanismi compositivi ripresi dai modelli letterari.

Su queste premesse J. A. Fernández Delgado e F. Pordomingo conducono le loro indagini prendendo a riferimento due autori in particolare, Plutarco ed Euripide, per mostrare da una parte quanto i progymnasmata abbiano influito sulla produzione letteraria sin dall'età sofistica e dall'altra quanto l'analisi retorica dei testi, attenta a individuare il fenomeno, permetta di reinterpretarli risolvendo alcuni problemi esegetici e gettando nuova luce sulle figure degli autori. Notevole è in tal senso la rivalutazione dei rapporti tra retorica e letteratura che scaturisce dall'analisi delle opere di Plutarco in cui Delgado vede il riuso di esercizi come l'etopea, l'aneddoto, la favola, la σύγκρισις, la thesis, mettendo in evidenza alcuni aspetti trascurati della sua ironia o spiegando la finalità di testi come il Grillo, il Banchetto dei Sette Sapienti, il De Iside et Osiride, il De garrulitate. Le tecniche di confutazione ed argomentazione spiegano, invece, l'agone tra Anfitrione e Lico nell'Eracle euripideo (vv. 140-235), mentre i meccanismi dell'elogio danno coerenza a tre stasimi dello stesso dramma (vv. 338-441; 637-700; 763-814), così come i procedimenti dell'ekphrasis garantiscono l'inserimento della descrizione dello scudo di Achille nell'azione drammatica dell'Elettra (vv. 452-486), dove ogni dettaglio anticipa simbolicamente snodi tematici dell'assassinio di Clitemestra.

L'interesse per l'ekphrasis è evidente anche nell'analisi di alcuni epigrammi di Posidippo (l'epigramma contenuto in PCair. 65445, di cui Pordomingo fornisce una convincente proposta di integrazione, e quello trasmesso dall'Antologia Planudea, AP XVI 275) o del romanzo di Longo, in cui la storia d'amore di Dafni e Cloe è scandita da una particolare tipologia descrittiva, l'ekphrasis delle stagioni. In tutte queste riletture dei testi letterari appare evidente l'intenzione dei due studiosi ad andare al di là dei semplici interessi retorici per trovare nei progymnasmata una chiave di esegesi testuale.

L'impianto generale, che si basa sulla centralità degli esercizi preliminari nel sistema educativo antico, è convincente e capace in molti casi di fornire suggestivi contributi critici per la lettura dei testi, per la valutazione della loro destinazione e circolazione, anche se è necessaria una precisazione a proposito di un limite del quale i due studiosi avvisano opportunamente il lettore: quando si prendono in considerazione testi antichi che precedono di molti secoli la fissazione della dottrina, sorgono dubbi se sia opportuno interpretare la condivisione di tecniche elocutive nel senso di un'influenza esercitata dalla teoria retorica sulla letteratura o piuttosto come l'esito di una riflessione a posteriori della manualistica, che fissa le caratteristiche dell'esercizio sulla base di brani letterari usati a modello. Né risulta decisiva la testimonianza dei papiri d'età ellenistica che per lo più raccolgono stralci di testi-modello o repertori di luoghi, pur organizzati secondo precise tipologie testuali. Manca, cioè, una riflessione teorica di cui, ahinoi, non si ha traccia nelle fonti se non dal I sec. d.C. quando, tuttavia, gli esercizi appaiono già strutturati in solidi impianti curricolari (Quintiliano e Teone).

La ricostruzione che scaturisce dalla attività di ricerca dei due studiosi e che ora è possibile cogliere integralmente grazie ai contributi raccolti in un unico volume, sembra sistemare con verosimiglianza molti tasselli della storia dei progymnasmata, suscitando perplessità solo in pochissimi casi: l'excursus sull'uso del termine ekphrasis nella dottrina retorica è inficiato dalla datazione dell'Ars rhetorica di Ps. Dionigi di Alicarnasso al I sec. a.C. e non al II-III d.C. (p. 527), mentre non convince del tutto l'equivalenza tra thesis pratica e quaestio finita (p. 816); sembra infatti più opportuno individuare in thesis la quaestio generalis, a prescindere dalla tipologia teorica o pratica, mentre la quaestio finita o causa è piuttosto l'ὑπόθεσις, come pare evincersi dalla lettura di Cic. part. 61-63; Quint. inst. 3, 5, 5-7; Theon 120, 18-19 Spengel = p. 82 Patillon.

Agli editori della raccolta va dunque il merito di aver allestito un bel volume che costituisce un utile strumento di lavoro sia per gli specialisti di retorica, che vi troveranno un aiuto alle indagini sui progymnasmata in lingua greca, sia per i filologi, che apprezzeranno gli apporti esegetici su autori come Plutarco, Euripide, Posidippo, Longo Sofista, Babrio, Eronda, sia, infine, per i papirologi, attratti dal repertorio delle fonti documentarie.

2018.08.36

Marek Winiarczyk, Diagoras of Melos: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism. Translated from Polish by Witold Zbirohowski-Kościa. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, 350. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. Pp. xviii, 224. ISBN 9783110443776. $126.00.

Reviewed by Tim Whitmarsh, University of Cambridge (tjgw100@cam.ac.uk)

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Marek Winiarczyk is a pioneer of the philological study of ancient atheism. Among his many publications on the subject are book-length studies of Euhemerus of Messene and Hellenistic utopias; Teubner editions of the fragments of and testimonia to Diagoras of Melos and Theodorus of Cyrene and the testimonia to Euhemerus; and fundamental articles on the definitional range of atheism in antiquity, and on Clitomachus' atheist catalogue.¹ His endeavours have single-handedly established ancient atheism as a subject of serious scholarship.²

In 1979–80, Winiarczyk published a two-part article 'Diagoras von Melos: Wahrheit und Legende', based on his Wroclaw PhD thesis of 1976. This article sought to show that Diagoras himself was not an atheist in any modern sense, and that the ἀποπυργίζοντες λόγοι (probably 'arguments that knock down towers' or 'barricading arguments') attributed to him in the later tradition were the result of a false ascription during the fourth century.³ Winiarczyk's intervention undermined the earlier consensus established by Felix Jacoby that Diagoras was a radical atheist who was exiled from Athens in the 430s; it has been accepted by a number of scholars.⁴ The present book seeks to buttress and expand upon that position.

Diagoras is the earliest ancient figure who is consistently associated in the sources with atheism. The evidence base is, however, extremely thin. In fact, the fullest and most suggestive testimonium comes in the 10^th-century lexicon, the Suda (δ 524):

Diagoras of Melos: he belongs to the atheists and disbelievers and impious. After the capture of Melos he resided in Athens. He disparaged the mysteries to the extent that he discouraged many from getting initiated. The Athenians therefore passed a decree against him, and inscribed on a bronze pillar a promise that anyone who killed him would receive a talent, and anyone who captured him two. This decree came about because of his impiety, since he revealed the mysteries to all, making them common property and belittling them, and putting off people who wanted to participate in them.

In a separate entry (δ 523) the Suda claims that he wrote the ἀποπυργίζοντες λόγοι 'as a retreat from and denial of belief in the gods', after a plagiarist had gone unpunished by the gods.

Prior to the Suda we have scattered sources, of which the most important are the following. From the fifth century there is only Aristophanes. In our surviving Clouds, Socrates is referred to as 'the Melian' (826–31), in connection with the claim that he does not believe in Zeus: this may (as a scholiast asserts) refer to Diagoras. This passage is thought to have originated in Clouds I, performed in 423 BCE. Birds 1072–4 (414 BCE) mentions a stele inscribed with a promise of rewards for killing Diagoras or bringing him to Athens; this is the source of the Suda's story mentioned above (there are also testimonies to the real existence of this decree in the now-fragmentary works of Melanthius (FGrH 326 F3) and Craterus (FGrH 342 F15)).⁵ From a little later we have (?ps.-)Lysias 6.17, where the prosecutor says that Andocides behaved more impiously than Diagoras of Melos, because whereas the latter 'committed verbal impiety against the sacred things and the festivals of another city (ἐκεῖνος μὲν γὰρ λόγῳ περὶ τὰ ἀλλότρια ἱερὰ καὶ ἑορτὰς ἠσέβει)', Andocides (who had been involved in the mutilation of the herms) had committed physical (ἔργῳ) impiety towards his own city. A little later we have two testimonia preserved in Philodemus' On Piety (first century BCE). Aristoxenus (fr. 45a Wehrli, fourth century BCE) defends Diagoras against an accusation of impiety, arguing that his words had been spoken in jest (ἔπαιξεν), and that his poetry demonstrates a conventional theism. Aristoxenus—or Philodemus—also suggests that Diagoras's 'playful' impiety may have been falsely attributed to him. Epicurus' On Nature (fourth or early third century BCE) includes Diagoras, along with Prodicus and Critias, among 'those who eliminate the divine from reality' (τοῖς τὸ θεῖον ἐκ τῶν ὄντων ἀναιροῦσιν: fr. 27.2 Arrighetti). In the first century BCE Diodorus Siculus comments that Diagoras was driven out of the city for impiety in 415/4 BCE (13.6.7).

From these scattered tesserae Winiarczyk reconstructs the following mosaic. Diagoras arrived in Athens in the 430s; failing to achieve any significant literary success, he nevertheless become known for criticism of the Eleusinian Mysteries. He left in the 420s and spent time in Mantinea, before returning to Athens in around 418. In the aftermath of the mutilation of the Herms and the parody of the Mysteries in 415/4 he fled the city, fearful that (given his reputation) he would be associated with the impiety of Alcibiades and company. The Athenians then charged him in absentia. This reputation for impiety paved the way for the false ascription to him of the ἀποπυργίζοντες λόγοι in the fourth century.

There is great wisdom and learning in Winiarczyk's book, which builds upon scholarship in eight languages published over three centuries and a comprehensive sweep of the sources. He is almost certainly correct in his reconstruction of the broad outline of Diagoras' curriculum vitae (including, importantly, the circumstances around his expulsion in 415/4). I agree that much of the late biographical information (e.g. anecdotes about him throwing wooden statues on the fire) is no more historically trustworthy than any of the comparable factoids we find in biographies of other ancient authors. Winiarczyk is probably right that the mysterious 'Phrygian logoi' were not Diagoran. Like him, I am yet to be convinced by Richard Janko's ingenious theory that Diagoras was the author of the Derveni papyrus.⁶

But I remain agnostic about atheism. So much turns on the particular construction and weight one chooses to place on what are, ultimately, a few exiguous comments supplied in passing by ancient authors whose real interest lies elsewhere. Winiarczyk claims at one point, 'I have shown that the atheistic book is apocryphal' (112); but in fact what he has shown is merely that triumphant arguments in favour of Diagoran authorship crumble when pressed hard. His only positive argument for non-atheism is the claim that since Diagoras was a poet, not a philosopher, we should not expect philosophical ideas from him (85)—a claim that seems to me both to underestimate ancient poets and to make too many assumptions about the contents of a work that is entirely lost.

Can the tesserae be rearranged so as to produce a different pattern? Aristophanes in 423 called Socrates 'Melian' in the context of a denial of the existence of Zeus. If we accept—as Winiarczyk does—that this is a reference to Diagoras, then that evidence is compatible with Epicurus' identification of Diagoras as one of 'those who eliminate the divine from reality'. By the time that Epicurus was writing, the atheistic book was (on any account, and on Aristoxenus' testimony) circulating under Diagoras' name. The Diagoran position that Aristophanes parodied in the 420s, then, looks to have been consistent with that articulated in the book. Is there any strong reason to doubt that Diagoras wrote it? Given that (on Winiarczyk's account, which is probably correct) Diagoras was not in Athens in 423, there must have been some reason for the currency of his ideas, and the existence of a book is a plausible explanation. There were certainly other 'atheistic' books in Athens in the 420s (e.g. Protagoras' On the gods), and the influence of atheistic ideas on popular culture (e.g. Aristophanes' Knights and Euripides' Bellerophon) is evident.⁷ The full truth is no doubt lost forever; but the evidence such as it is, it seems to me, can certainly be squared with the hypothesis of Diagoran atheism.

Aristoxenus (as mediated by Philodemus) is a centrally important witness, indeed ally, for Winiarczyk: it is his (Aristoxenus') apparent suspicion about the attribution of the atheistic book to Diagoras that underlies his (Winiarczyk's) entire theory. But there are also reasons to treat Philodemus/Aristoxenus with circumspection. Aristoxenus had strong links to Mantinea, where he resided for a while, and his comments on Diagoras come in the context of his Customs of the Mantineans. The Diagoran theist poetry that Aristoxenus cites has a Mantinean flavour: one poem is addressed to Nicodorus of that city, and reference is also made to an Encomium of Mantinea. It is far from improbable, then, that Aristoxenus was motivated by a desire to rescue the reputation of the most famous poet who honoured Mantinea by distancing him from atheistic opprobrium. Philodemus too has an agenda: his primary objective is to attack the Stoics, whom he presents as even worse than the notorious atheist Diagoras. Softening Diagoras' atheism was for Philodemus a rhetorical ploy, designed to paint the Stoics by contrast in a worse light (this is, in fact, exactly the same strategy adopted against Andocides by (ps.-)Lysias). Nor should we forget that Aristoxenus's suspiciousness is not necessarily well-founded: jobbing poets may be required to adopt certain forms of language to please patrons and cities, but these may not reflect their considered philosophical beliefs (cf. 75 n. 64).

But let me reiterate that nothing is remotely certain here. Ultimately, any reconstruction of Diagoras' thought is going to be, as Winiarczyk frankly admits, 'hypothetical' (vii). I greatly admire Winiarczyk's erudition and scholarship: this book is a masterful, indeed brilliant philological epideixis, and will be the foundation for all future research on Diagoras. But philology is not alchemy, and there is only so much that one can do with base evidentiary metals. Perhaps a different route for future research will be into the dynamics of the fashioning of the Diagoran legend in later centuries.

Winiarczyk is a lucid and careful writer, and a pleasure to read. Only once, on p. 25, did I find the argument over- compressed: the discussion of Philodemus and Aristoxenus and the value of Henrichs's reading τουθ᾽ ὑ[γι]ές ἐστ[ι]ν will be baffling to those who do not have the original text in front of them. The translation is fluent, though there are some slips and infelicities (e.g. 'The correlation between the two versions of Clouds was discussed in modern times', 10; 'Socrates is presented as s philosopher', 11; 'Athenian hostility against the Pellene', 16; 'lesson' (for philological 'reading'), 21 n. 69; 'A similar conclusion was made by …', 91; 'the rivalry … was well testified', 121; 'an atheistic book who had criticised', 129 etc).

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Notes:

1.   M. Winiarczyk, 'Der erste Atheistenkatalog des Kleitomachus', Philologus 120 (1976): 32-46; Diagorae Melii et Theodori Cyrenaei reliquiae (Leipzig: Teubner, 1981); 'Wer galt im Altertum als Atheist?', Philologus 128 (1984): 157–83 and 136 (1992): 306–10; Euhemerus Messenius, Reliquiae (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner, 1991); Die hellenistischen Utopien (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011); The Sacred History of Euhemerus of Messene (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013).
2.   Earlier studies such as those of A. Drachmann, Atheism in Pagan Antiquity (London: Gyldendal, 1922) and H. Ley, Geschichte der Aufklärung und des Atheismus, Band 1 (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1966) were vitiated by ideological agendas.
3.   'Diagoras von Melos: Wahrheit und Legende (Fortsetzung)', Eos 67 (1979): 191–213, 68 (1980): 51–75.
4.   See the scholars cited on p. 3; F. Jacoby, Diagoras ὁ ἄθεος (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1959).
5.   F. E. Romer additionally interprets the 'Melian famine' at Birds 186 as a reference to Diagoras' atheistic ideas: see 'Atheism, Impiety and the Limos Melios in Aristophanes' Birds', American Journal of Philology 115 (1994): 351–65.
6.   R. Janko, 'The Derveni Papyrus ("Diagoras of Melos, Apopyrgizontes Logoi?"): A New Translation', Classical Philology 96 (2001): 1–32.
7.   T. Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (New York: Knopf, 2015): 97–114. Elsewhere I explore the possibility that Bellerophon may preserve traces of Diagoras ('Diagoras, Bellerophon and the siege of Olympus', Journal of Hellenic Studies 136 (2016): 182–6).

2018.08.35

Lukas J. Dorfbauer (ed.), Fortunatianus Aquileiensis, Commentarii in Evangelia. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 103. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. Pp. vi, 286. ISBN 9783110469660. $114.99.

Reviewed by Justin Stover, University of Edinburgh (justin.stover@ed.ac.uk)

Version at BMCR home site

Table of Contents

They say the age of discovery has passed. It had a good run: five hundred years form the interval separating Petrarch and Boccacio from Angelo Cardinal Mai. At least for Latin texts of antiquity, very little remains to be found, without deciphering the carbonized rolls of Herculaneum.

That at any rate is the story implicit in every survey of Latin literature, the view baked into our histories of scholarship. This despite the troubling counterindications: it has not been forty years since a new work by Martianus Capella was discovered by De Nonno, not thirty years since a new section of Tiberius Claudius Donatus' commentary on Virgil was turned up by Marshall. Indeed, the last fifty years have been punctuated by the regular discovery of new sermons of Augustine, by Divjak, Dolbeau, and the trio Vindobonensis. The twentieth century saw the discovery of new philosophical works from late antiquity, by Klibansky and Schindel; new bucolic and elegiac poetry, by Lehmann and Garrod; new bits from Sallust, Ammianus, and Rutilius Namatianus, by Bischoff, Cappelletto, and Ferrari.¹

One of the discoverers is Lukas Dorfbauer. Examining a known, but unedited, anonymous Gospel commentary in a Carolingian manuscript from Cologne (Dombibliothek cod. 17), he found something surprising: not only was the commentary itself hardly Carolingian, but it matched perfectly with known references to the work of Fortunatian, bishop of Aquileia the mid-fourth century, both quotations of his work in patristic authors and excerpts found under his name in medieval florilegia.

Fortunatian's commentary on the Gospel achieved considerable notoriety—as early as the 370s, the young Jerome was importuning a correspondent to supply him with a copy, and he was known to Ambrose and Augustine as well. Like many other texts of antiquity—Christian or otherwise—Fortunatian's commentary was presumed lost. Until now, when, thanks to Dorfbauer, it emerges into light once more.

This book represents the culmination of years of work on his part on Fortunatian and presents the rest of the world with the opportunity to read for the first time the exegesis of the bishop of Aquileia, one of the very earliest exegetes writing in Latin.

It begins with three very short sections on the author and date of the work, and then a long and exhaustive treatment of the manuscripts. As it turns out, excerpts from the work transmitted entire in the Cologne manuscript circulated in other (primarily early medieval) manuscripts, and a very full account of them is provided. There follows a briefer treatment of the commentary's reception up through the Carolingian period. Several following sections consider the nature of the commentary, while the remainder of the introduction treats stylistic, grammatical and linguistic features of the text—which has more than its fair share of oddities, giving an evangelist, for example, the same name as the poet of the Bellum civile. Jerome made special note of Fortunatian's sermo rusticus (de vir. ill. 97); as it turns out, his judgment was impeccable. Scholars of proto-Romance and what used to called 'vulgar Latin' will find much here of interest. These hundred pages of preliminaries completed, there follows Dorfbauer's edition of the text itself. Few tasks in classical scholarship can be more daunting than producing the first edition of a text from a massively corrupt manuscript. Our texts—even our second-string pieces of Latin biblical exegesis—have benefitted from generations and generations of refinements, often starting before the age of print with contaminated but readable fifteenth-century Itali, stretching through multiple editions, sometimes with copious philological commentary, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and culminating usually in a rigorous modern edition in the nineteenth century. At every one of those stages, many of the little imperfections, corruptions and mistakes in the texts were identified and sanated, leaving the 'scientific' nineteenth-century editor of the text with a full roster of potential problems and solutions from which selection could be made. The editor of a text fresh from manuscript now has none of that. Under such circumstances, Dorfbauer has done a heroic job, extracting in a huge number of cases good sense from poorly transmitted, corrupt text. A solid ninety per cent of his emendations are undoubtedly correct; the remaining ten per cent should be carefully scrutinized by Fortunatian's next editor (as Dorfbauer himself admits in a lively note in the apparatus on p. 115). To his credit, Dorfbauer has frequent recourse to parallel passages in the text itself to justify intervention, as well as to other apposite texts, particularly the commentary on Matthew by Fortunatian's later fourth-century compatriot, Chromatius.

Dorfbauer has also decided to reproduce the whole paratextual apparatus, the incipits, explicits, and the like, of the Cologne manuscript as if they were original features of Fortunatian's composition—a bold and curious choice. We do not have much secure knowledge at all of the paratextual frames of Latin codices of the mid-fourth-century. That alone makes supposition difficult. But we do have good evidence for early medieval manuscripts, and the paratextual frame of Cologne manuscript looks a whole lot like those in other contemporary manuscripts. This is not to say the original had no such features, but we should not expect them to be transmitted with the same security as text. The most apropos comparand is the Mathesis of Fortunatian's older contemporary (and co-religionist) Firmicus. It is transmitted with capitulationes and almost certainly had an original capitulatio, but the transmitted form(s) cannot be original since the versions transmitted in the two branches of the manuscript tradition are incompatible with each other. So for the Gospel commentary, when we have a capitulatio headed by the charming nonsense INCIPIUNT SINGULA CAPITULA AD BREVE LECTIONEM QUEM VELIS CELERIUS INVENIAS (cf. p. 66 and 135), are we really to believe it came from Fortunatian's pen?

Five indices round out the volume, two of them (the index nominum and index verborum) analytical, offering substantial assistance to queries of all sorts. All of this is found in the solid and library-ready binding of the new CSEL volumes published by De Gruyter.

This book has much to offer. For Latin exegesis, it provides us a crucial new text to be read between Victorinus of Poetovium and Hilary of Poitiers. For the text of the Bible, it offers us a new witness to the vetus Latina. For the history of Latin literature, it offers us a new window into the literary world in the Roman Empire of the sons of Constantine. For linguistics, it offers us a wealth of non-standard grammatic features. For textual criticism, it offers us a fine and thought-provoking specimen of an editio princeps. Between all these areas, one may hope that this book finds readers. But even for scholars who cannot bring themselves to wade through a rather roughly written Gospel commentary by a provincial hierarch in one of the more obscure periods of Latin literary history, Dorfbauer's work may still hold some interest and value. It offers a powerful testament that our textual canon remains provisional and incomplete—that Latin manuscripts from the Middle Ages can still hold surprises.

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Notes:

1.   The history of discovery in the twentieth century has been amply covered by F. Dolbeau, "Découvertes récentes d'oevres latines inconnues (fin IIIe—début VIIe s.)" Sacris erudiri 38 (1998): 101-42.

2018.08.34

Richard Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques VII. D'Ulpien à Zoticus. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2018. Pp. 1472. ISBN 9782271090249. €95,00.

Reviewed by Cesare Sinatti, University of Durham (cesare.sinatti@durham.ac.uk)

Version at BMCR home site

Almost thirty years have passed since the first volume of the Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques was published, in 1989. Since then, the volumes have become a must-have for most scholars of ancient philosophy, and with slow but steady frequency started filling the shelves of personal as well as university libraries. The aim and scope of the project is ambitious, as its purpose is to include all figures from Graeco-Roman antiquity who could be considered philosophers. Well-established specialists have taken part in the project by writing entries for major and minor figures of ancient philosophy, presenting an exhaustive survey of their life and works, of the doxography and of the contemporary bibliography concerning them. With this seventh volume, the enterprise of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique coordinated and supervised by Richard Goulet has finally reached its conclusion, providing an indispensable tool for the study of ancient philosophy. Indeed, the last volume of the Dictionnaire not only adds to the previous volumes the last entries from Ulpian to Zoticus, but also comes with a series of supplementary entries, appendices and a useful set of statistics regarding ancient philosophers.

Some notable entries in this volume include Varro (94-133) by Goulet himself and Yves Lehmann; Virgil (136-147) by Régine Chambert; the Platonic scholarch Xenocrates (194-208) by Margherita Isnardi Parente; Xenophanes (211-219) by Dominique Arnould and Richard Goulet; Xenophon (227-290) by Louis-André Dorion and Jörn Lang; Zeno of Elea (346-63) by Richard Goulet and Daniel de Smet; Zeno of Citium (364-96) by Jean-Baptiste Gourinat and Jörn Lang. The largest entries introduce the philosopher, starting from an overview of the testimonies concerning them, including editions of their works, proceeding then with an examination of the sources of the material, a description of their life and iconography. Given the encyclopedic scope of the Dictionnaire, most entries seem to focus more on life and works rather than doctrines, supposedly aiming at providing facts rather than interpretations. When it comes to ancient philosophy, though, this does not always come easily, since presentation of the content of a philosophical work often results in an interpretation of it. For this reason, major philosophers are presented critically, alongside questions currently discussed by scholars, mostly leaving it to the reader to engage with them.

As we see from the presence of entries on Varro and Virgil, the criteria for inclusion in the Dictionnaire are rather wide and comprehend figures who are not conventionally considered philosophers. Goulet, before presenting the statistical studies of the Epimetrum, gives a definition of this criterion of selection himself: "L'essentiel nous paraissait qu'une personne ait été présentée comme philosophe ou philosophe d'une école particulière dans les sources anciennes, qu'elle ait écrit ou qu'on lui ait attribué des traités philosophiques, qu'elle ait exprimé des idées philosophiques incontestables ou qu'elle ait exprimé des idées à des élèves" (1177). The choice of authors, therefore, is justified by the fact that each of them showed interest in philosophy or wrote or was attributed some philosophical works. For instance, in the case of Virgil, Régine Chambert focuses on the philosophical aspects of his poetry, such as the Epicurean sensibility in the Bucolics and the Georgics, likely inherited from his teacher Siro.

The supplementary entries include fundamental additions to the previous volumes. Being completely exhaustive is difficult—if not impossible—when it comes to a work surveying the whole history of ancient philosophy, but one could nonetheless say that with these supplements the Dictionnaire aims at a higher degree of completeness. This is achieved by either supplementing previously written entries with new material, often resulting from new research, or by adding entirely new entries, as a result of an expanding conception of who the influential figures related to ancient philosophy are. A good example of the first case is the detailed account of the Divisiones Aristoteleae (pp. 461-7) by Tiziano Dorandi, providing an overview of the transmission of the text and a discussion of the questions surrounding its attribution to Aristotle. An example of the second category is the entry on Pythagoras spanning pp. 681-884 and including contributions by three scholars—only the first part of a massive work continued in Annexe II (pp. 1024-174). Costantinos Macris covers the figure of Pythagoras—his life, iconography, works and doctrines (pp. 681-850), while Katarzyna Proschenko describes the influence of his philosophy on gnomology (pp. 851-860) and, finally, Anna Izdebska discusses his diffusion in the Arab and Syrian tradition (pp. 861-84). Other examples of new entries are ones on Christian authors of recent interest in the field, such as Didymus of Alexandria (pp. 485-513) by Marco Zambon, and Gregory of Nyssa (pp. 534-70) by Matthieu Cassin, or on authors who are not strictly 'ancient', but who are nonetheless indispensable to understanding the transmission of ancient philosophy in following ages, such as Georgius Gemistos Pletho (pp. 667-77) by Brigitte Tambrun-Krasker. Some supplementary entries also discuss literary characters present in philosophical works such as Aigyptos of Alexandria (p. 456) from the dialogue Theophrastus by Aeneas of Gaza, or Timaeus of Locri (pp. 987-1009), the eponymous interlocutor of Plato's dialogue, whose historical existence is debated—as well as adding information on existing philosophers who have been used as literary characters, such as Simmias of Thebes (pp. 904- 33), appearing both in Plato's Phaedo and in Plutarch's De Genio Socratis.

In addition to these, the last volume of the Dictionnaire includes two appendices on ancient philosophical schools. The first (pp. 1019-24), by Marco di Branco, discusses rather briefly the Lyceum, the Stoa, the Epicurean Garden, and the school of Apamea; the second (pp. 1025-174), again by Costantinos Macris, covers extensively the whole history of ancient Pythagoreanism and its reception. The entry is conceived as a continuation of his supplementary entry on Pythagoras. The first part discusses everything from the customs of ancient Pythagorean communities to problems related to identifying a general Pythagorean identity, together with a discussion of the doctrines and works of ancient Pythagoreans. The second part focuses on the influence of Pythagoreanism on their contemporaries and on posterity, from philosophy to the arts, examining both Neopythagoreanism and the reception of Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This massive entry comes together with thoroughly updated bibliographical references on both Pythagorean philosophy and its diffusion, making it a useful tool for research into Pythagoras and his school.

After the annexes, an 'Epimetrum', offers the results of several statistical studies concerning ancient philosophy, accompanied by graphs. These studies include data on how many philosophers were present in each philosophical school in a given century, the distribution of female philosophers by school and century, and the division of philosophers by the region of their origin and region of activity. The Dictionnaire, in line with its being first and foremost a tool for research, does not seek to explain the data: we do not find any hypotheses to explain why, for instance, most female ancient philosophers were Pythagorean, or why most ancient philosophers came from Asia Minor. The interpretation of these data is left to the reader. The Epimetrum provides therefore both a solid base for future studies and an interesting set of questions to be solved.

Finally, the three indexes of names, headwords and texts are an essential tool for using the previous volumes, helping the reader to navigate the numerous entries and to quickly find specific information. The index of names, which is the largest of the three, indicates in bold the number of the entry, making it immediately clear where to trace it in the volumes—for instance, the entry of Zeno of Elea is signaled as "Z 19" in bold, which means it is the nineteenth entry at the letter Z, immediately traceable to the seventh volume—and also indicates in which entries the name is quoted and at what page. The headwords index features words present in works attributed to ancient philosophers, while the texts index lists the scholarly works, editions, commentaries, paraphrases, translations, etc., relating to each.

As the Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques is now complete, it can be said that the aim of producing an all- encompassing encyclopedia of ancient thought has been achieved: for the next decades, this seventh volume will help both scholars and non-scholars alike. If one feels like criticizing some lack in the bibliographies or their focus on scholars writing in Romance languages, or disagrees with the claims advanced on this or that philosopher, it must be remembered that such massive works are meant to strive for absolute completeness, but that reaching this completeness is always the task of future scholars. To these scholars, and to any attentive reader, the volumes of the Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques will doubtlessly provide new occasions for research and inquiry. If it is true, as Plato wrote in the Meno, that we would not be able to search for that of which we know nothing, thanks to resources such as the Dictionnaire, we may be rendered a little less ignorant—and a little more ready for our research.

2018.08.33

Colin Guthrie King, Roberto Lo Presti (ed.), Werner Jaeger: Wissenschaft, Bildung, Politik. Philologus Supplemente, 9. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. Pp. vii, 266. ISBN 9783110548037. €99,95.

Reviewed by Stephan Renker, Xi'an International Studies University (stephan.renker@gmail.com)

Version at BMCR home site

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

Vor exakt 25 Jahren widmete William Calder III¹ dem Leben und Forschen Werner Jaegers, eines der sowohl als Wissenschaftler als auch als Bildungspolitiker einflussreichsten Klassischen Philologen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, einen ersten Aufsatzband. Nun legen Colin King und Roberto Lo Presti erneut Beiträge internationaler Forscherinnen und Forscher vor, um—dem Titel ihres Bandes entsprechend—das wissenschaftliche und bildungspolitische Wirken Jaegers zu untersuchen. Dies soll nach Angabe der Herausgeber nicht unter der Prämisse einer „Denkmalpflege", sondern einer „prüfenden Bestandsaufnahme" (S. 4) geschehen. Präziser formuliert, ist das Ziel dieses Bandes, dessen Ursprünge in einer Berliner Konferenz aus dem Jahr 2013 liegen, die Untersuchung der Wirkung der philosophiehistorischen und bildungstheoretischen Arbeiten Werner Jaegers. Übergeordnet soll so die „Heldengeschichte" (Vorwort) der Wissenschaftsgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts einer Neuevaluation unterzogen werden.

Nach einer sehr knappen Einführung (S. 1–4), die zurecht mit Nachdruck auf den lesenswerten Aufsatz „Future Philology" von Sheldon Pollock hinweist, ² lassen sich die acht versammelten Aufsätze (sechs in deutscher, zwei in englischer Sprache) thematisch in zwei Blöcke aufteilen. Block eins bilden hierbei die ersten drei Aufsätze, welche Jaegers Denken und Wirken in dessen (ideen-)geschichtlichem Kontext verorten. Den grundlegenden Auftakt macht Manfred Landfester, dessen Beitrag (S. 5–50) eine konzise Kontextualisierung und Analyse der „Kulturkrisenstimmung" (S. 5) liefert, in welche hinein Werner Jaeger 1907 in Marburg sein Studium der Klassischen Philologie und Philosophie beginnt. Besonders aufschlussreich ist hier Landfesters Zusammenfassung des Konflikts zwischen den Anhängern Stefan Georges und denen des Historismus. Dieser Aufsatz bildet eine lohnende Lektüre für alle, die Orientierung in dem „Irrgarten der Weltanschauungen" (S. 12) zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts suchen.³ Chronologisch fortschreitend untersucht Wolfgang Rösler in seinem Aufsatz (S. 51–82) Jaegers umstrittene Beziehung zum rassischen Denken der Nationalsozialisten. Dabei positioniert sich Rösler kritisch zu einer früheren Arbeit Johannes Göttes⁴ insofern, als er Jaeger dem „ganz massiven Vorwurf" ausgesetzt sieht, eine „geistige Nähe zum Nationalsozialismus" (S. 57) eingegangen zu sein. Stefan Kipfs Untersuchung (S. 84–109) geht dem Einfluss von Werner Jaegers wirkmächtigstem und berühmtestem Werk Paideia auf den Latein- und Altgriechischunterricht in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland nach. Kipf kommt hierbei zu einer differenzierteren Betrachtung als Rösler, insofern er Jaegers Artikel Die Erziehung des politischen Menschen und die Antike (1933) mit Manfred Fuhrmann⁵ zunächst als Versuch wertet, „den Dritten Humanismus den Nationalsozialisten anzudienen" (S. 91). Schließlich nuanciert er diese Einschätzung aber, indem er in der Arbeit die Absicht auszumachen sucht, „einer durchaus realen Bedrohung [für den Humanismus] durch die Nationalsozialisten entgegenzuwirken" (S. 92). Diese drei ersten Aufsätze bilden einen anregenden und lesenswerten Einstieg in die geisteswissenschaftliche Umwelt, in der Jaeger sozialisiert wurde und die er selbst auch entscheidend prägen sollte.

Der zweite Block des Bandes nimmt anhand von Einzeluntersuchungen Werner Jaegers wissenschaftliches Werk im engeren Sinne in den Blick. Auch hier lässt sich eine chronologische Anordnung erkennen. So vergleicht Giuseppe Cambiano in einem ersten Schritt seines Aufsatzes (S. 111–137) Jaegers Interpretation der politischen Dimensionen vorsokratischen Denkens mit denen von Eduard Zeller, Paul Tannery, Theodor Gomperz und John Burnet. Anschließend kontrastiert er Jaegers Blick auf die Vorsokratiker vor seiner Emigration in die Vereinigten Staaten in der Paideia (1934) mit dem nach der Emigration in The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (1947). Auf diese Weise gelangt Cambiano zu einer Neuakzentuierung dahingehend, inwiefern Jaegers Auswanderung Veränderungen in Bezug auf seine Perspektive auf das vorsokratische Denken nach sich zog. Zeitlich voranschreitend spürt Dorothea Frede in ihrem Beitrag (S. 139–169) dem für Jaeger „Wesentlichen an Platons Philosophie" (S. 139) nach. Dies wird einerseits an den in Jaegers Paideia als für Platon in dessen Politeia zentral identifizierten Charakteristika, andererseits an Jaegers Ausführungen über den späten Platon in der Grundlegung herausgearbeitet. Mirjam Kotwicks Aufsatz (S. 171–208) wendet sich Jaegers Entwicklung als Herausgeber von Aristoteles' Metaphysik und seinen editorischen Prinzipien zu. Präziser gesprochen argumentiert sie, dass Jäger seine Theorie der Entwicklungsgeschichte der aristotelischen Gedanken auf den Text der Metaphysik überträgt. Roberto Lo Presti und Philip van der Eijk (S. 209–243) schlagen in ihrem Beitrag die Brücke von der Philosophie zur griechisch-römischen Medizin. Dabei gehen sie in einem ersten Schritt auf Jaegers Wirken als Leiter des Corpus Medicorum Graecorum ein und nehmen dessen Überlegungen zur griechischen Medizingeschichte in den Blick. In einem zweiten Schritt gehen sie der Bedeutung der Medizin im zweiten Band von Jaegers Paideia nach. Inhaltlich beschließt den Band Christoph Markschies mit einer Reevaluation der Beschäftigung Jaegers mit dem antiken Christentum. Dabei setzt sich Markschies (S. 245–258) von einer thematisch nahestehenden Arbeit Paul Keysers⁶ insofern ab, als er unter Heranziehung zusätzlicher Quellen auch die Wissenschaftsgeschichte des antiken Christentums im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert und Jaegers lebensanschauliche Selbstbeschreibung einer „Synthese aus der Frömmigkeit seiner Großeltern und der Rationalität seiner Eltern" (S. 246) als ex post konstruiert entlarvt. Ein Sach- (S. 259–261) und Namenregister (S. 263–266) runden die Publikation ab. Das Buch ist gründlich ediert und dank sauberem Druckbild und großem Format angenehm lesbar.

Naturgemäß werden nur wenige Experten diesen Band in Gänze lesen. Dafür sind besonders die Aufsätze im eben dargelegten zweiten Teil des Buches in zu großem Maße speziellen Einzeluntersuchungen gewidmet. Weniger stark gilt das für die ersten drei Beiträge. Ganz im Gegenteil sind diese für jeden Klassischen Philologen ein lohnender Anreiz, sich in noch größerem Maße der politischen, kulturellen und sozialen Bedingungen ihres Tuns bewusst zu machen. Speziell Manfred Landfesters Aufsatz liefert hier eine ausgezeichnete Orientierung im Dickicht der Glaubenssysteme gegen Ende des neunzehnten und zu Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, welche zwischen einer Orientierung der Klassischen Philologie an den Maximen einer Lebenswissenschaft, bzw. Bildungs- oder Weltanschauungswissenschaft und der von Nietzsche kritisierten „unendlichen und ziellosen Vermehrung von methodisch gesichertem Wissen" (S. 5) oszillieren.

Diesem Band sei besonders (aber keinesfalls ausschließlich) ob seiner ersten Hälfte ein breites Publikum insbesondere unter den Vertretern des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses gewünscht. Denn er gibt einerseits all jenen eine wertvolle Einführung an die Hand, die sich für das noch immer zu wenig erforschte Feld der Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Klassischen Philologie des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts interessieren. Andererseits bietet er denjenigen Orientierung, welche die gegenwärtige Situation der Klassischen Philologie mit ihren diversen Problemen aus historischer Sicht reflektiert verstehen lernen wollen.⁷ Und zuletzt zeigt er Optionsräume, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer notwendigen Diskussion dahingehend auf, wie sich ein verändertes Selbstverständnis der Klassischen Philologie künftig manifestieren und in welche inhaltlichen und methodischen Richtungen sich die Disziplin in Anbetracht bevorstehender globalpolitischer und technologischer Veränderungen aus einem historischen Bewusstsein heraus proaktiv verändern kann.⁸

Autoren und Titel

Vorwort, V
Colin Guthrie King, Einführung (1)
Manfred Landfester, Werner Jaegers Konzepte von Wissenschaft und Bildung als Ausdruck des Zeitgeistes (5)
Wolfgang Rösler, Werner Jaeger und der Nationalsozialismus (51)
Stefan Kipf, Paideia und die Folgen—Die Bedeutung des Dritten Humanismus für den altsprachlichen Unterricht nach 1945 (83)
Giuseppe Cambiano, Werner Jaeger and the Presocratics (111)
Dorothea Frede, Jaegers Platon (139)
Mirjam E. Kotwick, The Entwicklungsgeschichte of a Text: On Werner Jaeger's edition of Aristotle's Metaphysics (171)
Roberto Lo Presti und Philip van der Eijk, Werner Jaeger und die antike Medizin (209)
Christoph Markschies, Werner Jaegers Blicke auf das antike Christentum (245)
Sachregister (259)
Namenregister (263)

---

Notes:

1.   Calder, W. (Hg.), Werner Jaeger Reconsidered (Proceedings of the second Oldfather conference, held on the Campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 26–28, 1990), Atlanta 1992.
2.   Pollock, S.: „Future philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World", Critical Inquiry 35.4, 2009, 931–961.
3.   In den Fußnoten erwähnt, aber in Landfesters Bibliographie fehlend sind die beiden verwendeten und äußerst wichtigen Aufsätze Oexle, G.: „Krise des Historismus—Krise der Wirklichkeit. Eine Problemgeschichte der Moderne", in: Oexle, O.: Krise des Historismus—Krise der Wirklichkeit: Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literatur 1880–1932, Göttingen 2007, 11–116 sowie Böschenstein, B. / Egyptien, J. / Schefold, B. / Vitzthum, W.G.: Wissenschaftler im George-Kreis. Die Welt des Dichters und der Beruf der Wissenschaft, Berlin 2005.
4.   Götte, J., „Werner Jaeger (1888–1961)", Eikasmos 4, 1993, 217–228.
5.   Fuhrmann, M.: „Die humanistische Bildungstradition im Dritten Reich", Humanistische Bildung 8, 1984, 139–161.
6.   Keyser, P. T. „Werner Jaeger's Early Christianity and Greek Paideia, in: William Calder III (Hg.), Werner Jaeger Reconsidered (Proceedings of the second Oldfather conference, held on the Campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 26–28, 1990), Atlanta 1992, 83–105.
7.   Dazu jetzt auch Morley, N.: Classics. Why it matters, Cambridge 2018, 41–77.
8.   Zu diesem Gedanken siehe besonders das anregend kurze Kapitel „A Brief History of Lawns" in Harari, Y.N.: Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow, London 2017, 67–74.

2018.08.32

Hans-Albert Rupprecht, Andrea Jördens​ (ed.), Beiträge zur Juristischen Papyrologie. Kleine Schriften​. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017. Pp. xiii, 408. ISBN 9783515116848. €68.00.

Reviewed by Robert A. Kugler, Lewis & Clark College (kugler@lclark.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Publisher's Preview
[The Table of Contents is listed below.]

This collection of essays published by Hans-Albert Rupprecht between 1981 and 2016 is a testament to his singular significance to the small but important field of juristic papyrology. The brief introduction by Andrea Jördens, herself a leading papyrologist at Heidelberg, puts the significance of Rupprecht's work in proper perspective. Jördens notes that Rupprecht was appointed the successor to Emil Kießling in the Chair for Papyrology in the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Philipps-Universität Marburg in 1969, just a year after the beginning of a series of educational reforms at the gymnasium and university levels in Germany that effectively pushed legal history to the background (along with other specialized areas of humanistic and social scientific study that the German educational system had nurtured even as support for them declined in other European systems). As a result of those "reforms," by the time of Rupprecht's transition to emeritus status the systematic study of juristic papyrology was, apart from his work, all but unheard of in German universities. So, as Jördens tells it, Rupprecht is something of the "last of his kind" in German university (legal) education. For this reason alone, his considerable scholarly output has signal importance for those interested to understand something of the extremely complex legal world of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to which we have such abundant access in the papyrological record.

A reading of the collection of essays reminds one that Rupprecht's distinction comes not first from the fact that he stands so nearly alone among German papyrologists as a legal historian; rather it comes from the breadth and thoroughness of his scholarship, and the service it provides to those who would otherwise have little or no access to the world of juridical papyrology and the insights it offers on daily life in the ancient world from which those texts are drawn—which is to say nearly all of us who are interested to study that world. The breadth of his scholarship is evident in the structure of the volume. The thirty-two essays it reproduces are divided into eight categories that correspond to a range of subtopics in juristic papyrology—the "law of obligations," property law, family and inheritance law, contract law, the formation and character of legal documents, the law of delicts, and public law. A ninth section addresses features of two well-known and long-discussed lawsuits for which we have a relatively substantial documentary record. The index of primary texts is further testament to Rupprecht's thoroughness—it runs to thirty pages, listing the hundreds of documentary texts he has mastered in producing the scholarship gathered in the volume. More than a few of the essays assembled in the volume constitute the latest and best on the subjects addressed, treating in several instances topics left untouched since the early days of papyrology as a discipline. Virtually all of the essays provide a gold mine of references to any relevant documentary texts, providing an essential resource for researchers driven to these topics by their encounters with the documentary record. For these reasons, this volume should prove to be something of a reference work for future research, a topic I return to below.

The first three essays grouped under the heading "Papyrologie allgemein" (Papyrology in general) address the present state of juristic papyrology, the body of juridical papyri housed in the Papyrological Institute in Florence, and the important question of the range of, and relationships among the legal systems that served the largely Greek and Egyptian inhabitants of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. The first and last essays in this section are two of three in the volume most accessible to nonspecialists, and which are most likely to reward the uninitiated with immediately useful insight. Rupprecht's survey of the field in chapter 1 (first published in 2007) addresses major issues including the unity of Greek law, the origin of Greek law in Egypt, the influence of other ancient legal systems on law in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (e.g., Jewish law), the special cases of the relationships between Greek law and Roman law and the laws of Egypt, the use of the Justinian law in Egypt, and the notion of an independent, dogmatic structure of Greek law in Egypt (especially vis-à-vis the structure apparent in Roman law). With remarkable brevity, the essay comprehensively orients the reader to the state of the question on these key overarching topics in the study of the legal papyri. With equal brevity (that still provides an all-embracing perspective on the topic), the third essay documents and reaffirms the fairly broad consensus that the diverse bodies of law present in Egypt as a result of the Macedonian occupation (e.g., Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, and other normative systems) remained separate and distinct and were not melded into a single "Ptolemaic law" over time.

The second section contains the largest group of essays, seven in all. The essays address topics from the broad category of Schuldrecht, the "law of obligation" in contractual relationships. Two essays address "Vorkaufsrecht" in the papyri (the claim of right of purchase when a piece of jointly held property was for sale), three deal with the features of what one might call cautelary jurisprudence (the practice of forestalling legal difficulties through the use of things like bebaiosis-, noninterference, and eviction clauses in the relevant kinds of contracts), a sixth addresses "mixed type" contracts, and a seventh tackles the development of parachoresis, the transfer of title (and related legal maneuvers). Like most of those that follow in the remaining sections of the collection, these essays are highly technical—writing them required a command of the ancient documentary evidence and of a fairly specialized juristic vocabulary and conceptual world. As a consequence, the reader has to work hard to keep up; careful attention, a good legal dictionary, and frequent recourse to the primary texts Rupprecht discusses pay off richly.

The same double-edged admonition to readers holds true for virtually all of the essays in the remaining sections of the book. The third section contains five essays on a number of very technical topics associated with property law, among them the ananeosis (the extension of a contract's duration), antichresis (loans in exchange for the use of property or an object, or someone's labor), and various practices aimed at enforcing contracts and agreements and establishing restraint on alienation and warranty of title in mortgage law. The fourth section contains six essays on topics related to family and inheritance law, including the practice of requiring women to be represented by a kurios in legal matters, the norms for marriage contracts and related documentary practices, the phenomenon of mixing marriage contracts with stipulations regarding inheritance, spousal rights of inheritance, the obligations and norms relative to the care for the elderly in Greco-Roman Egypt, and the law regarding the inheritability of real property. The fifth section addresses topics related to contract law—the theme of surrogacy in its various forms in legal matters (especially in contracts) and the termination of contractual relationships in the area of leases. The sixth section addresses topics related to the formation and character of legal documents, "Urkundswesen," the formulaic praxis clause with special regard for its practical meaning and impact and the phenomenon of the six-witness document and its importance for registering a contract or related legal document. The seventh section incudes essays touching on the law of delicts and includes an invaluable overview of criminal acts and relevant legal remedies/responses in Ptolemaic-era texts, as well as what is now the standard treatment of the delict of hubris in Ptolemaic- and Roman-era law in Egypt. The eighth section takes up selected issues in two well-known lawsuits that give us insight on civil procedure in Roman Egypt, one involving a certain Drusilla (second century CE) and the other the first-century CE legal conflict between a certain Satabus and his adversary Nestnephis. And the final section offers three essays on "public law." The first is a text edition that provides the transcription, translation and discussion of P. Mon. III 71, a census document pertaining to the 159/160 CE census in Memphis, and the second discusses the complex legal means by which individuals sought to escape liturgy requirements. The final essay in this last section is the third of the trio of essays that are most accessible to readers without any background in juristic papyrology. As such, it constitutes a fitting conclusion to the volume. It addresses the question of the extent to which Egyptian law was taken into account by Roman officials in Egypt. Rupprecht concludes that Roman officials and administration recognized and applied Egyptian law and legal practice, as they did Greek law, and that they had no difficulty doing so out of respect for local circumstances.

It would be embarrassingly presumptuous of me to offer any kind of genuinely critical comments on the essays gathered in this volume, as I count myself among those who know just enough of the subfield of juristic papyrology to know how little I actually do know—especially in comparison with a master of the field such as Rupprecht. I do know enough, though, to say without reserve that working papyrologists and historians of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (especially those interested in social history) would be deeply remiss in failing to recognize the ways in which this book amounts to a critical resource for grappling with many of the themes and topics in juristic papyrology that come up in doing papyrology more generally and contemplating, researching, and writing about the history of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. For papyrologists, these essays will be an essential resource to consult in preparing editions of texts that employ the legal formulae, concepts, and processes Rupprecht treats, or that touch on the issues he addresses. For historians—which includes many who would identify themselves as papyrologists as well—the book's essays are a nearly inexhaustible source of guidance both to the technical conceptualities of juridical papyrology on a wide range of selected topics, as well as to the most important primary evidence related to those topics. In short, it is one of those rare "collected essays of scholar X" that really does belong on the shelves of all other scholars in his field.

Table of Contents

Vorwort vii
PAPYROLOGIE ALLGEMEIN
1. Zu Entwicklung, Stand und Aufgaben der juristischen Papyrologie 1
2. I papiri giuridici di Firenze 15
3. Griechen und Ägypter – Vielfalt des Rechtslebens nach den Papyri 25
SCHULDRECHT
4. Zum Vorkaufsrecht der Gemeinschafter nach den Papyri 33
5. Zu Voraussetzungen, Umfang und Herkunft des Vorkaufsrechts der Gemeinschafter nach den Papyri 39
6. Βεβαίωσις und Nichtangriffsklausel – Zur Funktion zweier Urkundsklauseln in den griechischen Papyri bis Diocletian 51
7. Die Eviktionshaftung in der Kautelarpraxis der graeco-aegyptischen Papyri 62
8. Die «Bebaiosis» – Zur Entwicklung und den räumlich-zeitlichen Varianten einer Urkundsklausel in den graeco-ägyptischen Papyri 75
9. Vertragliche Mischtypen in den Papyri 86
10. Rechtsübertragung in den Papyri – Zur Entwicklung von Parachoresis und Ekchoresis 95
SACHENRECHT
11. Die Ananeosis in den gräko-ägyptischen Papyri 119
12. Zur Antichrese in den griechischen Papyri bis Diokletian 127
13. Die dinglichen Sicherungsrechte nach der Praxis der Papyri – Eine Übersicht über den urkundlichen Befund 137
14. Zwangsvollstreckung und dingliche Sicherung in den Papyri der ptolemäischen und römischen Zeit 150
15. Veräußerungsverbot und Gewährleistung in pfandrechtlichen Geschäften 162
FAMILIEN- UND ERBRECHT
16. Zur Frage der Frauentutel im römischen Ägypten 173
17. Ehevertragliche Regelungen und urkundliche Praxis 181
18 Ehevertrag und Erbrecht 199
19. Zum Ehegattenerbrecht nach den Papyri 204
20. Die Sorge für die Älteren nach den Papyri 208
21. Die Vererblichkeit von Grund und Boden im ptolemäischen Ägypten 219
VERTRAGSRECHT
22. Die Systasis – eine besondere Gestaltung in der Praxis der Papyri 231
23. Die Beendigung von Vertragsverhältnissen. Überlegungen zur Rechtswirklichkeit anhand der Pacht 244
URKUNDSWESEN
24. Urkundsformular und Wirklichkeit. Bemerkungen zur praktischen Bedeutung einer Urkundsklausel 254
25. Sechs-Zeugenurkunde und Registrierung .. 266
DELIKTSRECHT
26. Straftaten und Rechtsschutz nach den griechischen Papyri der ptolemäischen Zeit 279
27. Hybris. Anmerkungen zu einem Delikt in den Papyri der ptolemäischen und römischen Zeit 290
PROZESSE
28. Ein Verfahren ohne Ende: Der Prozeß der Drusilla 297
29. Die Streitigkeiten zwischen Satabus und Nestnephis 307
ÖFFENTLICHES RECHT
30. Ein Münchner Papyrus zum Provinzial-Zensus 316
31. Rechtsmittel gegen die Bestellung zu Liturgien nach den Papyri 323
32. Τῶν Αἰγυπτίων νόμοι 336
Schriftenverzeichnis 346
Allgemeine Hinweise und zitierte Literatur 357
INDICES
Quellenindex 367
Griechische Papyri und Ostraka 367
Demotische Texte 394
Inschriften 395
Literarische Quellen, biblische Quellen 396
Römisches Recht 397
Sachindex 398
Griechische Termini 398
Deutsche und lateinische Termini 402

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