2019.02.55

Alfons Reckermann (ed.), Überzeugen Rhetorik und politische Ethik in der Antike. Blaue Reihe. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2018. Pp. 396. ISBN 9783787334377. €24,90.

Reviewed by Frédérique Woerther, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (frederique.woerther@cnrs.fr)

Version at BMCR home site

Ce livre se propose de considérer la façon dont la rhétorique ancienne a contribué à façonner la conscience identitaire de la Polis, ainsi que son éthique politique. Contrairement à ce que le titre Überzeugen pourrait laisser imaginer à première vue, le terme de "rhétorique" est donc pris ici dans son sens le plus large de "discours persuasif", et ne fait jamais référence à sa valeur technique, ni théorique.

Convaincu que le discours persuasif est le seul capable de créer un ordre juridique en surmontant l'état naturel de violence – bref, de créer une "éthique rhétorique" qui redéfinit la politique démocratique –, Reckermann examine les fondements éthiques des formes d'organisation politique que les citoyens expérimentèrent et à laquelles ils collaborèrent entre 600 et 450 av. J.-C., dépassant guerres civiles et tyrannies pour établir la Polis, substituant à la domination aristocratique des meilleurs la domination du peuple, dans un cadre où le débat public constituait le noyau vital de la cité.

Après une introduction (p. 9-20), le livre se compose de trois sections distinctes et clairement découpées (p. 21-46; p. 47-126; p. 127-229) et d'un développement conclusif (p. 231-244). Il s'achève sur une liste des abréviations employées (p. 245-246), d'une bibliographie (p. 247-260), de l'ensemble des notes, toutes reportées en fin d'ouvrage (p. 261-333), et d'un index des noms (p. 335-342).

Le livre se divise en trois grandes sections. La première section (I. Das Problem. Von der Stasis zur Polis), suscitée par les réflexions de Christian Meier (Die Entstehung des Politischen bei den Griechen [1980], et Die politische Kunst der griechischen Tragödie [1988]) éclaire, à partir de l'exemple de l'Orestie d'Eschyle, la façon dont l'ordre social, reposant sur des convictions communes et réalisé de manière collaborative, dépasse l'état initial de "sauvagerie". Pour l'auteur, l'Orestie est en effet le texte fondamental qui permet d'approcher ce qu'il entend par "éthique de la Polis fondée rhétoriquement" ("die rhetorisch fundierte Polis-Ethik"): on ne se se libère pas du monde de la violence en substituant simplement le droit à la vengeance, mais surtout en absorbant les conséquences de ce passage au moyen de discours pleins de douceur et d'une action politique qui débouche sur une bienveillance mutuelle entre les parties.

Dans la deuxième section (II. Die konzeptionnellen Grundlagen der rhetorisch fundierten Polis-Ethik), l'auteur analyse les fondements conceptuels d'une éthique qui déplace le pouvoir divin de la persuasion, tel qu'il est présenté dans l'Athènes d'Eschyle, en direction d'une voix humaine, envisagée, dans le cadre de la Polis, comme un moyen rhétorique de résoudre les problèmes. Cette éthique est parfaitement représentée chez Isocrate, qui lui donne un fondement philosophique en combinant la thèse de Gorgias sur la toute puissance du Logos avec l'anthropologie sophistique, qui envisage la faiblesse comme inhérente à la nature de l'homme et considère comme technique le passage de l'état naturel (status naturalis) à l'état politique (statuts civilis). Isocrate peut ainsi élargir, développer et dépasser la proposition de Xénophon, qui faisait dépendre l'amitié et le bon gouvernement politique du discours persuasif. Dans la plupart de ses discours en effet, Isocrate définit le Logos comme le meilleur facteur de constitution du corps social qui soit, et affirme que c'est dans la puissance effective du discours prudent que réside la source de tous les biens. En dépassant le simple cadre de la cité d'Athènes puisqu'elles valent pour toutes les communautés politiques, les propositions d'Isocrate accèdent ainsi à l'horizon intellectuel d'une théorie philosophique de la politique.

La troisième et dernière section (II. Realisierungsprobleme – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen rhetorisch fundierter Politik) porte, comme son titre l'indique, sur les possibilités de réalisation et l'élargissement conceptuel de l'éthique de la Polis fondée rhétoriquement. Reckermann s'appuie, pour ce faire, sur la figure des quatre grands hommes politiques d'Athènes cités par Isocrate: Solon, Clisthène, Thémistocle, et Périclès, et analyse leurs réalisations à partir de sources diverses: Hérodote (Clisthène, Thémistocle), Thucydide (Thémistocle, Périclès) et Aristote (Solon, Clisthène). Dans ce cadre, Solon est ainsi présenté comme la forme lyrique originelle de la rhétorique politique, qui ne devait pas se contenter de mettre un terme aux guerres civiles, mais surtout éveiller chez les citoyens la conscience qu'eux seuls portent la responsabilité de leur vivre ensemble. Et Clisthène, par exemple, a su éviter les germes d'une guerre civile en instituant l'isegorie, laquelle veille à ce toute action soit précédée de discussions menées par les citoyens dans le cadre d'une cité dont la constitution est isonome.

L'organisation claire des chapitres et leur articulation lumineuse, la finesse et la rigueur des analyses menées à partir de sources nombreuses mais néanmoins toujours citées avec précision font de ce livre une lecture à la fois aisée, stimulante, et qui force l'admiration, en renouvelant les perspectives sur les rapports entre éthique et rhétorique, considérés dans le cadre de la philosophie politique.

2019.02.54

Stefan Baumann, Schatzkammern: Ihre Dekoration und Raumkonzeption in ägyptischen Tempeln der griechisch-römischen Zeit. Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion, Band 19. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018. Pp. xvi, 886. ISBN 9783447109758. €198,00. ISBN 9783447197335. ebook.

Reviewed by Filip Coppens, Czech Institute of Egyptology; Charles University (Filip.Coppens@ff.cuni.cz)

Version at BMCR home site

Publisher's Preview

The nineteenth volume in the series Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion is dedicated to an in-depth study of the so-called treasuries ("Schatzkammer", "trésor") that one encounters in several Egyptian temples dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. The author, Stefan Baumann, has taken, very wisely, a holistic approach to the topic, in order to gain a very detailed insight into the nature of this type of chamber. By taking into account the location, the architectural features, the decorative patterns applied to the walls of the treasury as well as its contents and the role and purpose of these chambers in the temple cult, he is able to provide, for the very first time, a detailed presentation of the important function these rooms performed within temples of this era.

After a general introduction to the topic, the first chapter sets the treasuries in a larger historical context and provides a general overview of their occurrence in pre-Ptolemaic times. Baumann briefly mentions their appearance in the profane sphere already from the time of the Old Kingdom onwards (e.g. in residences, military fortresses, individual houses as well as cemeteries) and focuses mainly on treasuries in the temple context – as an independent building near the temple, or as a designated chamber within the temple. The overview of the still existing pre-Ptolemaic structures and related inscriptions show that the vast majority of the remaining evidence dates to the New Kingdom,¹ and that most independent treasury buildings and chambers integrated within a temple are located either in the Theban region (i.e. Karnak as well as the temples on the West Bank) or at Abydos. These chambers clearly influenced the outlook of their counterparts in temples of Ptolemaic and Roman times.

In the second chapter, Baumann provides an overview and analysis of five Egyptian designations commonly in use to refer to treasuries in Ptolemaic and Roman temples: pr-ḥḏ ('silver-house'), st-nfrt ('perfect seat/chamber'), wḏȝ ('storeroom'), 'bȝ-ḏfȝw ('chamber of food provisions') and ḥwt-ḏfȝw ('mansion of food provisions'). The chapter also offers general information and a description of the seventeen treasuries that have been identified so far, based on inscriptions: the chambers are located in nine temples, with the Repit temple of Athribis, the Horus temple of Edfu, the Hathor temple of Dendara and the Isis temple of Philae containing from two up to four treasuries within their walls. It is interesting to note that the construction and decoration patterns of all chambers, except that of the Isis temple at el-Qal'a, date exclusively to the Ptolemaic era.

In the third and by far largest chapter of the volume (pp. 69–751), the author presents in great detail the decorative program (text and image) of all treasuries. The author chooses to organize the material by individual and distinct architectural components (i.e. doorways, bandeaux, soubassement (base or plinth), walls, friezes and ceiling), instead of presenting each individual treasury separately one after the other, which is to be commended. It allows the reader to observe immediately any (dis)similarities in text and decorative arrangement between specific architectural elements of the various treasuries. For each architectural component, Bauman provides a comprehensive analysis of the decorative program as well as a transliteration, translation and commentary of all inscriptions. The accompanying figures clearly position scene and text within the treasury and enable one to orientate oneself effortlessly in the decorative pattern of each individual chamber.

The most elaborate part of the chapter focuses on the processions located on the soubassement. In temples of the Ptolemaic and Roman era, the lowermost area of a temple wall more often than not contained long processions of offering bearers providing the main deities of the temple with a series of products, such as the annual yield of the fields or the produce of specific (mountainous/foreign) regions, but also aspects of the Nile inundation. At first sight, these processions might give the impression of being merely repetitive, monotonously duplicating one offering bearer after another. However, the texts associated with each figure contain vital information, almost of an encyclopaedic nature, on the land of Egypt and the surrounding regions. In the case of the treasuries, the processions consist of offering bearers depicted with the dw-hieroglyph (representing a mountain) on the head and vessels or trays in the hands, which contain the produce of mountainous regions and/or quarries. These regions are located partly within Egypt, but mainly abroad, from Nubia and Punt in the south to Cyprus and Central Anatolia (Hatti) in the north. In his study of these particular processions, Baumann not only provides an analysis of the evidence from the treasuries themselves, but also discusses all other processions involving the produce of mountainous regions, including those that appear in Ptolemaic and Roman temples outside the treasuries, and New Kingdom precursors. The author also investigates the general structure and organisation of the processions, both from an iconographic and a textual point of view, and compares them with other mineral lists located outside the treasuries and dating to all periods of ancient Egyptian history.

One outstanding contribution of the entire volume is undoubtedly Baumann's attempt to identify and analyse all 46 toponyms and 37 minerals (i.e. precious stones, metals, pigments etc.) mentioned in these processions. In doing so, the study breaks through the bounds of the treasury chamber itself and provides fundamental information on mountainous regions as well as minerals known to the Egyptians at that time. This part of the study will undoubtedly prove to be of great use for scholars working on any topic related to the temples of this era, but also on the subjects of geography, mineralogy and trade – to name but a few.

Following the very elaborate study of the processions on the soubassements, the third chapter concludes with an exhaustive presentation and analysis of the ritual scenes depicted on the treasury walls. Next to the transliteration, translation and commentary of the inscriptions, Baumann also discusses the decorative program of each individual treasury. His research clearly reveals that, despite intrusions of the local/regional theology in the decorative scheme (and function) of each individual chamber, each treasury contains a number of recurring characteristic components, general concepts (e.g. dominion over foreign territories and Egypt, and the provision of nourishment and adornments) and deities (e.g. Geb, Min and Ptah) that evidently superseded the individual temple.

In the fifth and final chapter, Baumann discusses the architectural layout and position of the treasuries in the temples of this era, distinguishing three general types according to their location (i.e. a: in the very core of the temple, near the sanctuary; b: as a room positioned to the side of the hypostyle hall; and c: in the temple pylon). The author also points out the close relation that can be observed between the treasury and nearby rooms in the temple: between the treasury, the chamber of linen and the complex of the wabet-chapel and open court in the core of the temple,² as well as between the treasury and the crypts (as the actual storage place of the precious products and goods in the innermost part of the temple). A similar architectural and functional relation can be observed between the treasury located near the hypostyle hall (as the storage place for cultic equipment, amulets and minerals) and a room providing access to the temple for (food) offerings during the daily cult. The author's final analysis manifestly demonstrates that the treasury's location within the temple and its relation to the other chambers in its immediate vicinity evidently had an impact on the exact function a specific treasury fulfilled.

At the very end of the volume, one finds an extensive bibliography, wide-ranging indices, detailed plans of all temples containing a treasury, figures with all processions of mountainous regions/quarries, and maps indicating these regions within Egypt and surrounding territories.

In conclusion, the study is extremely well researched, with a close eye for detail, and is appropriately positioned within its larger historical context as well as in the context of previous research. Information is presented throughout the volume in a very lucid manner, making it easy for the reader to follow the argumentation and train of thought of the author. Text and footnotes contain an absolute minimum of misspellings, which do not detract from the overall quality of the study or interfere with the communication of ideas. Overall, Stefan Baumann's study will be for many years to come the standard work on any aspect of treasuries in ancient Egyptian temples, and not only for the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. In addition, the volume not only provides important information on the general organisation and workings of an Egyptian temple in this period, but also contains a trove of information on ancient Egyptian geographical and mineralogical knowledge.

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Notes:

1.   To the author's overview of the šn' or storeroom located in Old Kingdom pyramid temples, one should still add the information provided in the papyrus archives from Raneferef's pyramid complex at Abusir. The designations pr- šn', prw- šn' and rȝ-S šn'w occur almost a dozen times in the archive, which provides information on the goods stored in the rooms (e.g. barley, wheat, dried fruits and cloth). See P. Posener-Kriéger, M. Verner & H. Vymazalová, The Pyramid Complex of Raneferef. The Papyrus Archive, (Abusir X), (Prague 2006), pp. 343–344 and plates 8C, 9F, 43B, 45-46Ac, 62, 63Ae, 63Ah, 64D, 66Ac and 86E. In general on the šn'a in the Old Kingdom, see also T. Savelieva, "Houses šn'w in the Old Kingdom Temple Economy considered in the Light of the Abusir Papyri", in E. Kormysheva, (ed.), Ancient Egypt and Kush: In Memoriam Mikhail A. Korostovtsev, (Moscow 1993), pp. 335-345.
2.   In this perspective one could also add the presence of a staircase leading to the roof of the temple, regularly located in the immediate vicinity of (or accessed via) these specific chambers, as illustrated by plates 12, 13, 14 and 19 in Baumann's study.

2019.02.53

Joseph A. Howley, Aulus Gellius and Roman Reading Culture: Text, Presence and Imperial Knowledge in the 'Noctes Atticae'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. x, 282. ISBN 9781316510124. £75.00.

Reviewed by Stuart R. Thomson, Christ's Hospital, UK (srt@christs-hospital.org.uk)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

Since Leofranc Holford-Strevens' magisterial Aulus Gellius in 1988 and its 2003 revised edition,¹ there have been a number of excellent monographs on this complex Antonine excerpter and raconteur. 2009 in particular was a vintage year, which saw the publication both of the marvelously idiosyncratic Nox Philologiae of Erik Gunderson (University of Wisconsin Press, reviewed BMCR 2009.11.30) and Wytse Keulen's politically-focused Gellius the Satirist (Brill; reviewed BMCR 2009.05.13). There is much that is interesting and new in Howley's offering, but an overall assessment must be frank in admitting that this 2018 publication adds very little to the richness of what was available in 2009.

The book is divided into 5 chapters, along with a relatively brief introduction and conclusion. The introduction makes clear that the approach the book takes is primarily concerned with the literary value of the NA itself: its narrative frames and method of presenting text as itself an intellectual project, rather than seeing it merely as a repository of fragments. Howley's aim is to show that the NA is both a more sophisticated text than has been recognised, and therefore also a more significant text in the history of Western intellectual culture (ix).

Chapter 1, the most interesting and valuable in the book, introduces Howley's key thematic idea, that of intellectual inlecebra ('enticement' or 'seduction') as a core of Gellius' intellectual programme, initially by comparing it to Plutarch's concept of polypragmosyne, but the allure of reading recurs as a thread throughout Howley's analysis (e.g. 218-20, 257). Reading and writing (following Gellius) should involve managing one's one own sensual attraction to books and their contents, as well as interrogating the desires and purposes of the authors of those texts. Thus, the disorder of the work (especially the scattered autobiographical fragments) "both models and engages the reader in the project of self-scrutiny that is … an essential part of the NA's unifying project for its reader" (48). An interesting analysis of the relationship between the NA's chapter headings and the actual texts, with the parallel of Epictetus' Discourses as a comparandum, illustrates the kind of self-scrutiny the text requires: the gap between what is advertised and what is given implicitly engages the reader who wants to mine the text, as an encyclopedia, in self-scrutiny and examination of their own desires for reading.

Chapter 2 interrogates Gellius' writing about reading, and compares it to models offered by Plutarch, Quintilian, and Pliny the Elder. Howley sees the latter in particular as a foil against which Gellius reacts and defines himself; he expands on this criticism and competition in chapter 3 ('Gellius on Pliny: Fashioning the Miscellanist and his Readerly Lifestyle'). Chapter 4 examines the NA's engagement with the tradition of secondary literature (commentaries, other miscellanistic works, but also the consulting of experts as narratively presented), in large part through close reading of passages that engage with the scholarly output of Tullius Tiro.

Howley starts chapter 5 ('Favorinus, Fiction, and Dialogue at the Limits of Expertise') by examining the role of different generic frameworks, dialogue and fable, in the NA: his exploration of the use of fictionality does interesting work placing the NA contextually with the classical traditions of these modes of writing, and this section is one of the most illuminating and promising of the volume. It is a shame that it is relatively short, and too much of it is simply summary and description of comparable dialogue (e.g. the whole of Lucian's Philopseudes is re-told at 215-216). Further questions are prompted by the start made here: how Gellius might be implicated in the fate of dialogue later in antiquity (as debated by Simon Goldhill and Averil Cameron, amongst others²) but also about how 'dialogic' (in a Bakhtinian sense) we can consider a text like the NA to be. Some exploration of these would have deepened this chapter (especially given Howley's explicit aim to push Gellius more centrally into the history of Western reading), but the argument is nonetheless rich and provocative.

The remainder of the chapter builds on this by arguing that Gellius entices his readers to scrutinise and interrogate authority figures, either in their written works, or in literal dialogue. Here, the key figure under discussion is Favorinus. Both through modelling and representing the process of critiquing and questioning authority figures (even those who are valorized, like Favorinus), Gellius encourages an active and critical intellectual approach. Overall, however, it is difficult to read the book as a cohesive argument; perhaps necessarily for anything that deals with Gellius—reading or writing in a straight line is antithetical to the subject matter, so to speak—but I found some aspects more than necessarily difficult. First, Howley tries to insert his interpretation of Gellius into broader lines of literary or historical enquiry, but often this actually appears as a superficial summary of limited secondary literature, with nothing added apart from juxtaposing this summary with readings from Gellius, to which it seems at a distinct disconnect. To take an example, at 102-111, Howley gives a quick overview of the history of reading from antiquity to the nineteenth century, which leaps straight to Augustine, and then to the mediaeval period; several pages then compare Gellius to reading in the nineteenth century, and another several pages compare Gellius to the multi-media era and blogging: no references to the text of the NA are made in these pages, and no references are made back to these comparisons. It is useful to have a summary of the main lines of scholarship, but there is no real argument here. More could be added to give depth and nuance to this contextualising (e.g. the experience of Jewish and Christian dialogue, miscellany and commentary); if Howley wants to place the NA in a lineage of Western styles of reading while giving a reading that is rich with Gellius' own time and place, skipping from the NA to Augustine to the middle ages misses out some vital parts of the story.

Secondly, the majority of Howley's argument is built around close, detailed reading of specific programmatic passages: an overwhelming proportion of these, however, are already well-mined. What earlier discussions may lack in length, they make up for in succinctness and clarity. For instance, Howley's reading of Gellius' presentation of Pliny is very similar to Gunderson 181-5; the same key passages are mined: NA 3.16 (200-1 page numbers in Howley), 9.4 (115-20 and 123-34), 9.16 (128), 10.12 (29-30, 135-40), and passing reference to 16.6 (116). Significant insights are echoed: e.g. the unexpectedness of sed redeo ad Plinium (136-7), or the meta-literary significance of the ending of 9.4 (134). Howley's discussion is lengthier and more convoluted, but not really different. Similarly, the section on Tiro (174 and following) is anticipated by Gunderson 186-193. Whilst Howley attempts to distance himself from Gunderson's approach (69), which he sees as insufficiently historically situated, this seems to make little difference to the actual interpretations of the NA, and how we and its original audience read or ought to read it.

For another example, Howley's treatment of Gellius' relationship with Favorinus adds little to Holford-Strevens' detailed chapter on this topic. The same ground is also covered by Gunderson (171-2), who adds the more post-modern lit-crit aspects present in Howley's reading: the implicit limitations on authority and the way that Gellius self-consciously plays with voicing Favorinus, both strategies which encourage (self-)reflective reading practices. There is no suggestion of anything academically untoward—the diligent reader can follow Howley's footnotes to these sources—merely a lack of something distinctively new.

Lastly, on style: if any single concern lies at the heart of the NA, it must be words; their correct usages, definitions, and roles in every aspect of life; spoken, written, and read. Writing a book on the NA, then, invites close examination of the use of language; one might also argue more generally that the humanistic disciplines claim at least some of their authoritative status on the basis of effective use of words: making arguments is an exercise in language. On this level, in its use of language, I find the volume under review wanting, to a degree that noticeably impairs its overall quality. There are sporadic attempts at Gunderson's allusive excesses, without the heart or success of Gunderson's full- throated idiosyncrasy. Thus on 5-6, in swift succession the NA is compared to a Wunderkammer, 'dark matter', China Mieville's The City and the City, the contemporary miscellanies of John Hodgman, and the putative discovery in two thousand years' time of the totality of YouTube in 2015. The point to all of them is that we should pay attention to framing narratives and treat the NA itself as an object of study, not merely a medium for preserving fragments. This is surely a point that needs no such over-the-top elaboration (particularly considering it is the basis of both Keulen and Gunderson's work). Playful interweaving of frames and contexts is part and parcel of Gunderson's style, and integral to his whole reading/writing of Gellius: in the present work, it comes across as belaboured and shallow. These kinds of otiose comparisons occur at regular intervals, and the rather wordy attempts to explain how such Zeitgeisty references are relevant render the point at hand more rather than less confused. Other stylistic infelicities make the process of reading jarring: we are told that Gellius' 'understanding of reading is a precise blend' of philosophical and rhetorical approaches (110), but I had to spend time puzzling over what was meant by the use of the word 'precise'; how would it differ from an ad hoc blend? The language used here is just not clearly thought through. These are only a handful of the passages that forcibly struck my attention; further examples abound. It is a shame that in the editing process there was not more care taken to produce a more readable manuscript: much of what I have noted here adds nothing to the argument and by obfuscation rather detracts from it.³

Overall, although this is not the book that I would recommend on Aulus Gellius, there are avenues of exploration it opens up which are well worth the specialist's time, and will also bring Aulus Gellius quite rightly into the ken of those interested in the history of reading, and the traditions of fictionality and dialogue. There is a great deal of parallel material that sets Gellius firmly within his own context, but also diachronically within a history of Western reading; the NA's use of narrative is carefully placed within an ancient tradition and brought to the fore as an important technique for understanding the programme set out for its readers; the key theme of inlecebra is an interesting and valuable thread to follow through the NA. There are undoubtedly other gems to be found scattered throughout the book: criticism regarding some of the rough in which they are embedded should not obscure the fact that there are diamonds, too.

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Notes:

1.   Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and his Achievement (Oxford, 2003).
2.   E.g. Goldhill (ed.), The End of Dialogue in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009); Averil Cameron, Dialoguing in Late Antiquity (Harvard, 2014).
3.   Otherwise, this is a well-edited volume, with the following the only typographical errors I noted: 32 n.25: discrimins for discriminis; 42 and 51: the style of headings and subheadings is inconsistently applied; 62: 'that brought his to the passage', should presumably read 'him' or 'his attention'; 101 n.112: 'pieces collected in 1999' should (I presume) read 'pieces collected in Cavallo and Chartier (1999)'; 142: 'allows the reader to…develop… attentiveness to both what he reads and herself': switching between assumed male and female readers is generally fine, but within a single sentence is disconcerting; 148 n.70 there is a parenthesis missing; 165: 'dsecribing'; 170 'state' should read 'statue'; 205 'well-tread' should be 'well-trodden'; 249: 'the Cato's strategy'.

2019.02.52

Gabriele Pedullà, Machiavelli in Tumult: The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xviii, 284. ISBN 9781107177277. $99.99.

Reviewed by Daniel Kapust, University of Wisconsin-Madison (djkapust@wisc.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview

Gabriele Pedullà's Machiavelli in Tumult: The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism (translated and shortened from the 2011 Italian work of the same name)¹ is a remarkable scholarly achievement. Displaying vast erudition of classical and early modern thought, along with a deep mastery of scholarship on Machiavelli from a number of disciplines, Pedullà seeks to redirect how we read Machiavelli, and how we read his place in the history of political thought. Pedullà places conflict—Machiavelli's embrace of it, the humanists' aversion to it, and the distinctiveness of Machiavelli's "conflictualism" from other forms of conflictualism—at the center of his project. Focusing on Machiavellli's Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy, Pedullà treats a number of themes central to Machiavelli scholarship: the nature of his republicanism, his attitude toward empire, the place of conflict in his thought. In addition, Pedullà seeks to overcome what he terms the "great divide" between political theorists, who can engage in the "superimposition of the present onto the past," and historians, who most appreciate "intellectual difference." Machiavelli's relevance for the present is precisely a function of their not being readily assimilable to various forms of thinking about conflict and participation that took root following the French Revolution or the literary output of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Indeed, precisely because the Discourses are "far more complex than they are generally presented to be," and Machiavelli himself is so deeply engaged in debates with his contemporaries and his predecessors, it is "their bewildering otherness" that makes the Discourses so important (9).

The book consists of 7 chapters. The first, "Concordia Parvae Res Crescunt: The Humanistic Backdrop," addresses the aversion to social conflict and the desire for social unity—drawn to a large degree from Sallust—among humanist writers; Chapter 2, "'A Necessary Inconvenience': The Demystification of Political Concord," grapples with what Pedullà terms Machiavelli's "political classicism' (31). In Machiavelli's reading of Rome's past, the tribunes are rehabilitated, the Gracchi reexamined, and tumults are "inevitable" (48), as the humors constitutive of political life can never be put in equilibrium. The Discourses—and the Prince—are, in light of Machiavelli's political classicism, deeply anti-aristocratic works seeking to "restore popular power by means of 'extraordinary modes'" (83).

"Fear and Virtue: The Rebuttal to Humanistic Pedagogy," the third chapter, demonstrates that Machiavelli's embrace of the importance of the metus hostilis is a deeply anti-humanistic move, with the inhibiting functions of fear replacing the humanist aspiration to inculcate virtue through education. Machiavelli thus displays a "complete lack of faith in moral improvement through philosophy" (99), relying on the presence of either an internal or external enemy to foster obedience to the law. Chapter 4, "'The Guard of Liberty': The Rejection of Aristotelian Balance," centers on Machiavelli's use of the phrase "guard of liberty" and the complex theoretical moves that it entails, enabling Machiavelli to bring the rich/poor binary into his constitutional theory, highlighting the fact that "there are checks but not balance: conflict is always omnipresent" (124). This position is so original—and so deeply anti-Aristotelian, not to mention far removed from the humanistic consensus—that Machiavelli's contemporary, Francesco Guicciardini, could not grasp its import. Nor does Machiavelli's embrace of the rich/poor binary—and the conflict it entails—mean that he is a populist in any simple way: while he is assuredly anti-aristocratic, there is, for Machiavelli, no romanticized abstraction of "the people," as "men's attitudes evolve in tandem with shifts in power relations" (142). A member of "the people" could, depending on changes in wealth or status, become as rapacious as any member of the social or political elite.

Chapter 5, "'Giving the Foreigners Citizenship': An Expansive Republicanism" centers on Machiavelli's approach to citizenship and military capacity, and shows that the "choice between conquest and concord presented in Disc. 1.6 is really no choice at all" (164). Precisely, though, because Rome had an expansive citizenship that, in turn, allowed it to be militarily successful, Rome was able to secure its own liberty through its "military strength" (171). Pedullà's Machiavelli is clearly an imperialist, but his imperialism serves liberty, and especially popular liberty. Chapter 6, "Dionysius' Reappearance: The Classical Roots of Modern Conflictualism," shows that in spite of Machiavelli's clear knowledge of a wide range of classical writers (including, of course, Livy, but especially Polybius), the one writer whose work sheds the most light on Machiavelli's distinctiveness is Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Indeed, the most striking features of Machiavelli's thought—his defense of the dictatorship, the popular and conflictual nature of his republicanism, his embrace of expansion and tumult—are to be found first in Dionysius in passages with unmistakable echoes in Machiavelli's Discourses. Thus, "every time the Discourses diverge from Polybius on an institutional issue…they concur instead with Dionysius" (203-204). That his influence on Machiavelli has been "unnoticed for so long" (213) is a function, in no small part, of Dionysius' "poor reputation" following the 18^th century (213). ' The final chapter—"Remembering Conflict: Machiavelli's Legacy"—seeks to rewrite the history of political thought, or at least how many tend to schematize it, beginning with Machiavelli's innovative place between Aristotelianism and Hobbism, and then turning to his place prior to the French Revolution, following the French Revolution to the year 2000, and then in contemporary political theory and philosophy. Machiavelli is, for Pedullà, a sort of third way between "Hegelian-Marxist" and "liberal-republican" ways of thinking about social conflict (251), and the key contemporary lesson of Machiavelli is that "republics are destined for ruin as soon as their citizens cease devising new 'modes' and institutions in the defense of freedom (256-257). The lesson for those living in states marked by the rise of right populism and attacks on various dimensions of liberalism—domestic and international—is clear: "without the constant exercise of political imagination, 'free life' cannot resist the unexpected stains that each republic will inevitably face" (258).

It would be difficult, in the space of a review, to provide more than a cursory summary of a work of such breadth, depth, and cross-disciplinary engagement, and I hope to have done it at least some justice. Before raising a few criticisms, I should note that as a political theorist, I found Pedullà's emphasis on Machiavelli's underlying conflictualism, the distinctiveness of Machiavelli's conflictualism, and the centrality of conflict in making sense of Machiavelli's radicalism, to be persuasive. As a scholar interested in classical reception, I consider the chapter on Dionysius to be nothing short of a paradigm shift in making sense of Machiavelli's relationship both to antiquity and to his contemporaries.

But a review should not be entirely praise, and Pedullà's book did leave me with unanswered questions. As Pedullà notes, following its initial printing in 1480, the Antiquities went through at least 20 editions by the end of the 17^th century, and "one finds traces of the Antiquities everywhere, for there is virtually no worthy humanist who did not cite him at least once" (186). Indeed, "for roughly three and a half centuries educated European elites looked upon Dionysius as a first-rate author and a model" (214). Nor was Machiavelli's interest in and use of Dionysius lost to his contemporaries: Pedullà argues, based on a passage from Donato Gionatti's Republica fiorentina, that "those who had known [Machiavelli] well had no trouble tracing the intellectual genealogy of" the Discourses to Dionysius (216). Pedullà's case here strikes me as persuasive. But it also raised questions. To put things somewhat crudely, did Machiavelli become the radical he was because he read Dionysius, or perhaps because he read him in a certain way? If that is the case, I wonder why Dionysius did not have the same effect on other Florentines, given that Pedullà's Machiavelli is something of a sui generis figure in 16^th-century Florence. Or was Machiavelli a radical all along (or at least mostly radical), and Dionysius is simply a key source for Machiavelli?

Related to this question: Pedullà argues that when Machiavelli departs from Polybius in his institutional analysis, he does so because he adheres to Dionysius. If this is the case (and I found the argument persuasive), we may ask just how original Machiavelli—and his conflictualism—really is. To be sure, Pedullà notes that "the assessment of conflicts in the Discourses is far more radical" than what we find in Dionysius, and that Machiavelli embraces "conflict as natural" in a way that Dionysius does not (197). (Pedullà suggests that this has to do, at least in part, with Machiavelli's embrace of the "Hippocratic metaphor" of bodily humors and the need to vent them). While such an approach certainly "respects intellectual difference" (9), it seems to me to leave us less with a Machiavelli whose Discourses exhibit "bewildering otherness" (9) than a Machiavelli who is a sort of hybrid of Dionysius' historiography and the Hippocratic medical tradition.

If it is the case, though, that Machiavelli is an example of "bewildering otherness," I would like to have read a bit more about what Pedullà takes to be "the conclusive lesson of Machiavelli's classicism" (258) for our political moment. Here, Pedullà expresses some sympathy with John McCormick's proposal to add a tribunate to the American constitutional system,² but McCormick's approach is, as Pedullà notes early in the book, deeply institutional (5), and as such would seem to depart from what Pedullà describes as Machiavelli's own rejection of equilibrium and to be rooted less in Machiavelli's being radically other than deeply recognizable to a 21^st-century audience.

These criticisms aside, Machiavelli in Tumult is a remarkable work, and one that is sure to profoundly shape the study of Machiavelli, early modern thought more broadly, and the history of political thought in general, along with studies of classical reception.

---

Notes:

1.   Gabriele Pedullà. Machiavelli in tumult: conquista, cittadinanza e conflitto nei "Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio". Rome: Bulzoni. 2011.
2.   John P. McCormick. Machiavellian Democracy . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2011.

2019.02.51

Alice König, Christopher Whitton (ed.), Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, AD 96-138. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xv, 473. ISBN 9781108420594. £105.00.

Reviewed by Phoebe Garrett, Australian National University (phoebe.garrett@anu.edu.au)

Version at BMCR home site

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

As the subtitle tells us, this book is about 'interactions' rather than intertextuality (but there is a lot of intertextuality in it); those interactions are mainly Latin-Latin. Intertextuality, with its allusions and references, is familiar to us already but interactivity is new: 'Interactivity might be thought of as a superset of which intertextuality is a part' (p. 21), which allows us to bring in the 'fuzzier' echoes and allusions between the lines of our texts, as well as the strictly intertextual 'allusions' and 'references.' To my knowledge this is a new turn in scholarship apart from a few pieces, mainly by people who contribute to this book. The introduction justifies the periodisation (Nerjanic (p. 37) and nerjadrianic (4, with apologies!)) and indicates that the whole long timeframe is meant (but erring away from 'flattening out' the time period). This is an age that is crying out for attention to its literature and literary environment. Readers will not find here a handbook to the age; the coverage is not (and not intended to be) comprehensive. We have a first blow at establishing a methodology for literary interactions ('thought experiments') rather than a final word. The eighteen contributors are especially interested in Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Martial, Juvenal, with smatterings of Plutarch and Suetonius. There is in fact such a strong flavour of Pliny the Younger throughout the book that (as we learn in the introduction, p. 18) a title such as 'The Age of Pliny' was suggested (and, it seems, preferred by John Henderson who refers to the book in that way in his Envoi (p. 423, 425).) The paradigm for 'interaction' is set by a reading of Pliny's Epistle 9.19, in which Pliny puts together in the same room, as it were, some of the 'characters' of this 2018 volume, making them speak to each other about reading, writing, and gloria.

According to the introduction, the book is arranged not quite chronologically (although each section is chronological). Common themes throughout the book include overlap rather than chronological sequence of our main players (and ever-present, the uncertainty around who is responding to whom) and the double 'caesura' of 96/98: remembering and forgetting (esp. Rimell; Langlands; Geue), exemplarity (esp. Langlands, Lavan). To my mind the most interesting parts of the book are the chapters that go 'beyond intertextuality' and put our literary personalities in the same room together (e.g. Roller, Gibson) or put those literary personalities in the same cultural environment if not necessarily together (e.g. Uden, Buckley). Gibson's chapter is particularly remarkable for offering a creative way to demonstrate the crossovers between Pliny and Plutarch. His original 'dialogue' between the two gets them in the same room as each other, as classicists would like to imagine really happened, by combining texts from Pliny, Plutarch, and Tacitus. It is fun, but it is not just for fun: it is proposed as a new methodology for 'engaging the imagination and the intellect in otherwise conceptually difficult or aesthetically challenging subject areas.' (p. 418) I would certainly like to see where this methodology can go. Uden's contribution takes three different works on education of children ([Plut.] De liberis educandis, Quint. Institutio Oratoria and Juvenal's fourteenth satire) and proposes that they have in common 'concerns about regulating Greco-Roman cultural interaction' (p. 386). It is one of the only contributions that considers a work in Greek. The interaction is intertextual between the two Latin works, but between the three works interactive in commenting on similar things, being in a similar cultural environment and mindset, rather than responding directly to each other. Langlands' very interesting and useful chapter proposes that we consider certain 'floating anecdotes' (reported by Suetonius and Tacitus) as exempla for a new era. The story she uses appears in both Suetonius (Otho 10) and Tacitus (Hist. 3.54) but is applied to different emperors, and she argues that it is useful to look at this anecdote 'intertextually' but also 'extratextually' with regard to versions that exist out there in the world rather than on the page. Both authors make it clear that this story comes from oral tradition, and it might be that the two authors are interacting with each other and (at least Tacitus) is interacting with the version that he knows is being told in the oral tradition, a version that applies to Otho, not Vitellius.

In particular I applaud the cohesiveness of the book: most of the chapters refer in some way to other chapters or at least the work of the other contributors. It is clear that this book has been put together as a team effort rather than a compilation of individual chapters on a theme, a virtue worth noticing. The editors have been careful and successful in curating a group of chapters that, appropriately, 'interact' with each other nicely. While the editors' introduction specifically states that the chapters could be read in any order, and I agree, the overall sense is of a cohesive (and coherent!) whole that reads well cover to cover. I enjoyed the glimpses of individual authors' discernible character, which shine through in many of the papers. We have here a number of interesting and productive ways to approach the authors, especially the prose authors, of this period, and I for one will find new ways to make them speak to each other. I think it is a book that will be well used and cited.

The book has been nicely produced with only a few typographical errors. An unfortunate printing error has caused a problem in my copy with vertical strokes. At least one item (unhappily, the first I looked up!) is missing from the bibliography.

Table of Contents

Alice König and Christopher Whitton, Introduction
Part 1: Bridging divides: literary interactions from Quintilian to Juvenal
1. Christopher Whitton, Quintilian, Pliny, Tacitus
2. Victoria Rimell, I will survive (you): Martial and Tacitus on regime change
3. Emma Buckley, Flavian epic and Trajanic historiography: speaking into the silence
4. William Fitzgerald, Pliny and Martial: Dupes and non-dupes in the early empire
5. Rhiannon Ash, Paradoxography and Marvels in post-Domitianic literature: 'An extraordinary affair, even in the hearing!'
6. Paul Roche, Pliny and Suetonius on giving and returning imperial power
7. Gavin Kelly, From Martial to Juvenal (Epigrams 12.18)

Part 2: Interactions on and off the page
8. Matthew Roller, Amicable and hostile exchange in the culture of recitation
9. Sigrid Mratschek, Images of Domitius Apollinaris in Pliny and Martial: Intertextual discourses as aspects of self-definition and differentiation
10. Alice König, Reading Frontinus in Martial's Epigrams
11. Jill Harries, Saturninus the Helmsman, Pliny and Friends: Legal and literary letter collections
12. Myles Lavan, Pliny Epistles 10 and imperial correspondence: the empire of letters
13. Ruth Morello, Traditional exempla and Nerva's new modernity: Making Fabricius take the cash
14. Rebecca Langlands, Extratextuality: Literary interactions with oral culture and exemplary ethics

Part 3: Into the Silence
15. Ilaria Marchesi, The Regulus connection: Displacing Lucan between Martial and Pliny
16. Tom Geue, Forgetting the Juvenalien in our midst: Literary amnesia in the Satires
17. James Uden, Childhood education and the boundaries of interaction: [Plutarch], Quintilian, Juvenal
18. Roy Gibson, Pliny and Plutarch's practical ethics: A newly rediscovered dialogue
John Henderson, ENVOI/VENIO

2019.02.50

Doris Meyer, Céline Urlacher-Becht (ed.), La rhétorique du « petit » dans l'épigramme grecque et latine: actes du colloque de Strasbourg (26-27 mai 2015). Etudes d'archéologie et d'histoire ancienne. Paris: Éditions de Boccard, 2017. Pp. 343. ISBN 9782701805238. €39,00 (pb).

Reviewed by Taylor Coughlan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (tscoughl@umbc.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Preview
[The Table of Contents is listed below.]

Smallness is a big topic in this edited volume, which derives from a conference with the same title held in Strasbourg in May of 2015. The publication of the conference brings together 19 contributions that examine the topic of smallness (and its antithesis) in epigram, both Greek and Latin, from the third century BCE to late antiquity. This "approche globale" (11), which the editors highlight in their introduction, is a strength of the volume as it brings authors writing in different languages from varied temporal periods and geographic locales into conversation. Given its importance to the definition of the genre, smallness is an ideal theme through which to explore "les éléments de continuité et de rupture" (11) in this generic tradition, and though not every chapter is equally successful, the editors should nevertheless be applauded for producing a volume that will provide a model for future comparative work in the genre.

Following a general introduction in which the editors underscore the centrality of the "petit" to the definition and aesthetic sensibilities of the genre and then provide a synthetic summary of the contributions, the volume divides itself into three, roughly equal sections organized by period (Hellenistic, imperial, and late antique). Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review. The volume concludes with an up-to-date bibliography and helpful index locorum.

The papers collected in the first part of the volume approach the concept of smallness in both quantitative and qualitative terms, but are generally united by an interest in smallness—physical size or social standing—as a metapoetic reflection of an increasingly influential aesthetic that privileges the small, humble, and refined. Thus the shadow of Callimachus looms large over these papers (and generally throughout the volume)—perhaps too much so in certain instances. Doris Meyer, one of the volume's editors, opens the section with a chapter on the "discours quantitatif" in Posidippus and Callimachus, whose surviving epigrams, she argues, demonstrate two different approaches to smallness. Meyer observes that Posidippus artfully juxtaposes (and integrates) the small and large, particularly in his epigrams on stones and statues, whereas Callimachus champions brevity as a defining aesthetic of epigram. Though primarily synthetic, Meyer's paper ably provides the conceptual background for the papers that follow.

Next are a trio of papers on Leonidas of Tarentum and his poems on subjects from the lower social classes. Christophe Cusset casts his critical eye over Leonidas' epigrams on fishermen, contributing some sensitive and novel treatments of Leonidean diction, meter, and style (some more convincing than others. e.g. the metrical crux in AP 6.4.1 [εὐκαμπές ἄγκιστρον, – – ⏑ ] as an intentional metapoetic marker of the poem's "torsion" of its humble content and poetic language), which ultimately reinforce our appreciation of Leonidas' adept play with the tensions between the poetic refinement of his language and the humble character of the subject matter it describes. Fittingly for a collection on literary epigrams, the papers of Évelyn Prioux and Claire-Emmanuelle Nardone are companion pieces, both interested in demonstrating the influence of Callimachus' Hecale on Leonidas' aesthetic program. Prioux lays out the case: Callimachus and Leonidas share certain resemblances in diction, subject matter, and themes, although a recognized lack of chronological clarity hinders reading Leonidas' epigrams as directly borrowing from and engaging with the Hecale. Organizing her contribution around a close reading of HE 33=AP 7.736, in which the voice of the speaker advises someone to give up a life of wandering for stable poverty as exemplified by simple foodstuffs, Nardone argues that here Leonidas uses these same (and additional) Callimachean intertexts to declare the introduction of humble themes (e.g. the λιτὴ…φυστή, "simple cake", which the addressee will have to eat) into epigram, as Callimachus similarly innovated in epic.

The final two contributions in the section return to issues of size. Expanding on the theme of her 2013 monograph,¹ Flore Kimmel-Clauzet explores the language of big and small in epitaphs for poets, where the literary greatness of the deceased is paradoxically contrasted with a focus on the meagerness of their memorial. Antje Kolde surveys the nineteen epitaphs for "small" animals—insects and birds—discussing their relationship to the conventions of epitaphs for humans. She offers some stylistic observations on those epitaphs written in Doric (the rationale for this particular choice is not made clear), and concludes with (yet another) metapoetic explanation for their composition.

The second section of the volume consists of seven chapters that examine the theme of smallness in imperial Greek and Latin epigram, sometimes in isolation and other times productively in conversation. Francesco Pellicio illuminates Philip's professed predilection for ὀλιγοστιχίη (poems of "few verses"), drawing attention to the fact that Philip's Garland (what we have of it) contains a much larger percentage of poems in three (56.7%) and four (17%) distichs when compared to the distribution in Meleager (26.3 and 13.7%, respectively) where epigrams in two distichs predominate (41.8% compared to 19.4% in Philip). In a similar fashion to his slimmed down proem (14 lines to Meleager's 52), Philip's standardization of the length of the poems (even if they are longer on average) in his collection is another way that the poet engages with and refines his editorial model. Lucia Floridi explores the "demetaphorization" of potent literary (read Callimachean) terms like λεπτός and μικρός in satirical epigrams on very thin or short figures by Lucillius and Nicarchus, who, in making the metaphorical literal, reappropriate the Alexandrian rhetoric of smallness for the purpose of blame. Floridi's focus on an anti-Alexandrian response to the "petit" offers a refreshing mental palate cleanser, and the contribution continues her fine work on the language and style of imperial satirical epigram. Alfredo Mario Morelli offers a comparative study of the development of "rhétorique du petit" in Latin and Greek satiric epigram. While sharing a common origin, unsurprisingly the two traditions become independent in their sensibilities, as Morelli demonstrates through a study of the joke of the small farm, which is especially prominent in Latin satirical epigram but practically unattested in its Greek counterpart. Loosely connected to the first, the second half of the article explores the sexualized language of smallness, primarily related to the mentula, in Catullus and Martial. Callimachus is again the centerpiece of analysis in Annemarie Ambühl's study of Greek gift epigrams addressed to emperors or members of the imperial family in which the poets characterized the size of the gift or the exchange itself in terms that evoke the Alexandrian poet. As sometimes happens in studies of this sort, not every parallel adduced is equally convincing, and the chapter will be primarily of value to scholars working on individual epigrams treated by Ambühl.

The next pair of chapters tackle Martial. First, Catherine Notter, in a fittingly brief contribution, ably examines the overlap in terminology the Latin poet uses for the brevitas of his epigrams and the miniaturization particularly associated with the codex. Next, Sara Sparagna focuses on the "multiforme e prismatico contrasto 'grande'…e 'piccolo'"(179) in Book XII in which Martial confronts the present of his small-town existence in Spain where he is beset with ennui and writer's block with his big-city past among the literati in Rome. Sparagna's reading of the geographic and temporal dimensions in Book XII is rich and dense, but in short she argues that Martial seeks in his final book of epigrams to integrate the small (Spain) with the large (Rome) through the image of the literary fama awaiting his Spanish composition back in Rome. Greek and Latin epigram are placed into dialogue in the section's concluding chapter. Francesca Romana Nocchi compares two small corpora of epigrams on small private baths and highlights a development in the topos: the anonymous Greek epigrams from the Greek Anthology focus on their object's refined qualities through allusions to the Graces, whose number is a perfect fit for the baths, while in the late antique Latin epigrams, such as those by Naucellius from Epigrammata Bobiensia, the small baths are emblematic of an elite Roman's triumph over nature and separation from the commons.

Romana Nocchi's discussion of the Naucellius epigrams acts as a bridge to the final section of the volume, with contributions on the works of Ausonius, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Eugene of Toledo among others. In her study of the prefatory epistle and first two poems of Ausonius' incomplete Bissula, Silvia Mattiacci explores how the poet constructs a programmatic discourse for his tenuem…libellum (Biss. 2.1) through a complex of allusions, drawing not only on the usual suspects—Catullus and Martial—but also on other "genres mineurs", such as Roman comedy (e.g. in Biss. 1), with the poet casting Paulus, his addressee, in the role of the Phormion to his senex amator). While this article will be primarily of interest to scholars of Ausonius, it also serves as an accessible and observant introduction to the poetics of this interesting collection. The next two contributions explore associations between epigrammatic poetry, otium, and an aristocratic ethos in the letters of Symmachus and Sidonius Apollinaris. In correspondence with his father and the poet Naucellius, Symmachus articulates, so argues Camille Bonnan-Garçon, a defense of epigram not only on stylistic grounds (it shares a brevitas with epistolography) but also because the composition and exchange of epigrams (both reliant on otium) are part of and thus support aristocratic behavior. Marie-France Guipponi-Gineste surveys some of the rhetoric Sidonius Apollinaris deploys when writing to others about his improvisational or sympotic poetry and draws particular attention to how Sidonius depreciates these types of compositions while simultaneously underscoring the importance of the convivium to aristocratic social bonds. Both contributions nicely illuminate the late antique reception and development of aesthetic and cultural practices known to most classical scholars from Cicero, Catullus, Pliny, and Martial. In a second study of Sidonius, the rhetoric of nugatory poetics is the focus of Luciana Furbetta's bipartite article. In the first part, Furbetta argues that Sidonius' conception of "la petitesse" is significantly informed by Pliny, though this reviewer was not entirely convinced that Sidonius was as closely imitating Pliny as the author suggests. In the second part, she demonstrates Sidonius' engagement with neoteric watchwords with an analysis of Carm. 8, a poem in praise of Priscus, in which the poet balances self-deprecation with panegyric. Étienne Wolff surveys the Latin Anthology. This diverse collection of authors and topics share an interest in the epigrammatic topos of smallness—be it the scale or form of the poem (e.g. the serpentine distichs), brevity of expression, quotidian subject matter, or poetic modesty—which leads Wolff to ask in his conclusion if the editor of the anthology selected these epigrams precisely as a "contrepoint aux grands genres" (275). The volume ends, just as it began, with a contribution by one of the editors, an organizational decision that underscores the editorial commitment to a holistic approach to ancient epigram. Céline Urlacher-Becht examines the monodistic and monostichic poems by Eugene of Toledo, which are a notable feature of his corpus. She lucidly demonstrates that Eugene's composition of such short epigrams has a primarily didactic, rather than ludic, purpose; such short poems can aid readers in memorizing religious and profane information, such as the days of the creation or features of a parrot, as well as secular or religious aphorisms. The function-focused, educational epigrams of Eugene are a fitting counterpoint to the Callimachean aesthetic with which the volume began, and so highlights the variety and development of the genre and theme.

As is true with most edited collections of conference proceedings, few will read this volume cover-to-cover, and despite the emphasis the editors have placed on providing their readership with a cohesive approach to the topic of smallness in Greek and Latin epigram, the dialogue between chapters and sections is uneven, though a few chapters adeptly build upon one another's arguments (e.g. Floridi and Morelli; Guipponi-Gineste and Furbetta). Nevertheless, many individual chapters will be of great value to students and scholars and the volume as a whole will serve as model for future scholarship to consider aesthetic and intellectual trends in epigram across periods and languages—no small feat.

Table of Contents

Abréviations, 9
Introduction (Doris Meyer et Céline Urlacher-Becht), 11-18
I. La rhétorique du « petit » dans l'épigramme hellénistique: entre esthétique et éthique
1. Rhétorique du « petit » et « discours quantitatif » dans les épigrammes de Posidippe et de Callimaque (Doris Meyer), 21-36
2. Léonidas, poète de l'humilité. L'exemple des pêcheurs (Christophe Cusset), 37-44
3. Léonidas et l'Hécalè de Callimaque (Évelyne Prioux), 45-58
4. Pour une lecture métapoétique de l'épigramme AP VII, 736 (= 33 HE) de Léonidas de Tarente (Claire-Emmanuelle Nardone), 59-67
5. La rhétorique du « petit » dans les épigrammes funéraires des grands poètes grecs (Flore Kimmel-Clauzet), 68-86
6. De la mort de petits animaux (Antje Kolde), 87-97
II. Canonisation, différenciation et évolutions du « petit » entre Grèce et Rome
1. Alla ricerca della brevità : l'ὀλιγοστιχίη nella Corona di Filippo (Francesco Pelliccio), 101-112
2. La rhétorique du « petit » dans les épigrammes satiriques grecques de Lucillius et Nicarque (Lucia Floridi), 113-130
3. Entre le « petit » et le « ridicule ». Pour une histoire comparée de l'épigramme satirique grecque et latine (Alfredo Mario Morelli), 131-147
4. De petits poètes et de grands empereurs : poétique et panégyrique du « petit » dans l'épigramme grecque de l'époque impériale (Annemarie Ambühl), 148-160
5. L'usage du vocabulaire du « petit » à propos de la matérialité du livre d'épigrammes dans l'œuvre de Martial (Catherine Notter), 161-170
6. La dinamica del "grande" e del "piccolo" nel XII libro degli epigrammi di Marziale (Sara Sparagna), 171-184
7. Balneolum breue sum: le topos des thermes privés à mi-chemin entre les évocations mythologiques et une dimension plus intime (Francesca Romana Nocchi), 185-201
III. Contextes et enjeux du « petit » dans la latinité tardive
1. Le tenuis libellus pour Bissula d'Ausone : rhétorique du « petit » et de l' « improvisation » pour un cycle de vers compromettants (Silvia Mattiacci), 205-222
2. Quare elaboratam solci filo accipe cantilenam. La place de l'épigramme dans la correspondance de Symmaque, une rhétorique de défense de ce « petit » genre ? (Camille Bonnan-Garçon), 223-234
3. Le lusus poétique à la lumière du conuiuium et autres formes d'otium dans les poèmes de la correspondance de Sidoine Apollinaire (Marie-France Guipponi-Gineste), 235-250
4. La rhétorique du « petit » dans les épigrammes de Sidoine Apollinaire : stratégies littéraires et enjeux politiques (Luciana Furbetta), 251-266
5. Le thème de la petitesse dans les recueils épigrammatiques inclus dans l'Anthologie latine (Étienne Wolff), 267-275
6. Vt multa breuiter paruo sermone perorem… : les usages du distichon et du monostichon chez Eugène de Tolède (Céline Urlacher-Becht), 276-297
Bibliographie, 299-330
Index locorum, 331-343

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Notes:

1.   Kimmel-Clauzet, F. 2013. Morts, tombeaux et cultes des poètes grecs. Bordeaux.

2019.02.49

Matthias Steinhart (ed.), Griechische Inschriften als Zeugnisse der Kulturgeschichte: Griechisch-deutsch. Sammlung Tusculum. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. Pp. 188. ISBN 9783110553246. €27,99.

Reviewed by Benedikt Eckhardt, University of Edinburgh (beckhard@ed.ac.uk)

Version at BMCR home site

This nicely produced and affordable volume contains 64 inscriptions from the Archaic period to late antiquity, and one Greek inscription (no. 65) from the Renaissance. Following an introduction that brings together valuable information on the development of Greek alphabets and scripts as well as literary sources on the reception of inscriptions, Steinhart groups the material into five sections: Early beginnings (no. 1–3), Archaic period (no. 4–21), Classical period (22–37), Hellenism (38–52), Roman imperial era and late antiquity (53–64). Almost a third of the inscriptions assembled thus predate 500 BCE. The unusual focus proves to be fruitful for two reasons. First, most early inscriptions are very short, which fits the format of the book well: the longest inscription included is no. 60 with 16 lines of text, and most others are no longer than 5 lines. Second, early inscriptions also show more variety in terms of alphabets and direction of writing, features that receive much attention in both the introduction and the commentary. The aesthetic and technical dimensions of Greek writing are important to Steinhart, which is why he provides the reader with drawings of almost all inscriptions assembled. While drawings can sometimes obscure textual problems, they are better-suited than photographs for communicating the variety of letter forms and inscribed objects to a wider audience. This is all the more important since Steinhart draws on a very diverse set of data. His inscriptions come from vases, tools, mosaics, reliefs and even spoons (no. 57).

The most important criterion for judging an edition is the texts and translations. The latter are reliable,¹ but sometimes difficult to read. While Steinhart does not hesitate to simplify things occasionally via modernizing language (e.g., no. 35, l. 3 "war Regisseur" for ἐδίδασκε), he deliberately stays very close to the arrangement of the original Greek text. His success in preserving the word order is often remarkable. It leads to German that is at times poetic, at other times rather convoluted and hard to follow even for native speakers.² The obvious advantage is that readers with little knowledge of Greek can immediately find the original wording. The disadvantage is that even simple grammatical structures now appear much more complicated than they would have to ancient readers. As for the presentation of the Greek texts, Steinhart's decision not to use hyphens at line breaks is difficult to understand, especially with a view to a broader readership with little knowledge of Greek.³ The lack of line numbers is not really problematic given that most of the inscriptions are very short. More important is the rather high number of missing accents, especially in the early sections, where epsilon with circumflex seems to have posed unsolvable problems to the typesetter.⁴ Other errors, mostly of accentuation, could also have been avoided.⁵

The commentary is short and to the point. It regularly draws attention to the connection between images, materiality and texts, and it does not lack a laconic humor (e.g., p. 105 on no. 45). Steinhart often points to contexts that are not immediately obvious, but shed important light on the inscription (e.g., p. 41 on the use of different alphabets, p. 57 on an unusual religious expectation). He sometimes points to continuities that go well beyond the item under consideration (e.g., p. 97, citing a much later Christian inscription that uses a Hellenistic apotropaic formula). Steinhart thus makes a lot out of the limited space available, although there is generally no room left for comments on how the texts given in his edition are actually created. To be sure, one might not want to bother the broader readership envisaged here with too many epigraphic minutiae, but curiosity about the subject could well have been raised through occasional glimpses at its methodological toolkit. On the very few occasions where Steinhart does discuss a reading or reconstruction, the result is not quite convincing. For the much-discussed line 1 of Nestor's cup (no. 2), the commentary limits the possibilities to "there is" and "there was" a cup ("es gibt"; "es gab"). It does not explain what either of these options would look like in Greek, and one of the most common solutions ("I am" the cup) is not mentioned, although the text is given as ε[.?.]ι. The commentary on no. 12 (IG XIV 1) discusses the possible meanings of a word (κεπικλῆς) that is not found in the Greek text given here (but is found in IG). Perhaps a more ambitious version of the commentary was cut down in the process of writing?

Finally, the choice of texts. There will not be two scholars in the world who would pick the same 64 Greek inscriptions from the whole of antiquity for any given selection. Greek drinking culture receives a lot of attention, partly due to the emphasis placed on early inscriptions. Greek religion is slightly less prominent than one might expect, but we do find a request from Dodona (no. 43), an Orphic gold-leaf (no. 47), a hair-sacrifice (no. 50) and a few more. Economic and legal topics are not absent (e.g., no. 29, a list of prices, or no. 39, the sale of a house), and the same is of course true for sepulchral inscriptions. While all of this is easily justifiable and the commentary remains illuminating throughout, one might still have expected a bit more clarity about Steinhart's overall project. There is nothing in the introduction on the definition of "cultural history", the relationship of inscriptions to that history, or in fact about the aims of this collection (except the remark on p. 5 that thematical and geographical variety was one selection criterion). Potential readers will have their own assumptions about what inscriptions and cultural history have to do with each other, and the texts included do indeed offer a wide variety of perspectives. In general, the book's title is to be taken more seriously than at least this reviewer expected. Greek inscriptions are not presented as "sources" (Quellen) for cultural history, but as "testimonies". This approach allows for the inclusion of several inscriptions that cannot be said to be very interesting as such, but give occasion to bring into the picture prominent representatives of "Greek culture". Thus we find (no. 23) the cup of Simon the shoemaker (the whole text: Σίμωνος), which the commentary does not hesitate to connect with Socrates (hence the heading: "the philosophical shoemaker"), or the cup of Phidias (no. 27). The inscriptions themselves are in these cases reduced to mere illustrations of the lives and works of great men; one may wonder about the implicit definition of "culture". A related question concerns a number of items that elucidate Greek art – again a commendable thing in itself, but one that leads away from the inscriptions themselves. The 3D-effect on the Hephaistion mosaic from Pergamon (no. 46) is fascinating (although perhaps not so much in the simplistic drawing provided here), but it is not the inscription (Ἡφαιστίων ἐποίει) that matters; the same is true for a cup from Anthedon that shows Euripidean scenes and names the protagonists (no. 52). A more "constructive" approach (what can we do with inscriptions?) could sometimes have been employed, but there is no doubt that many readers will appreciate the effort to introduce traditional hallmarks of "Greek culture".

Steinhart has brought together an interesting collection of inscriptions illuminating many aspects of life in antiquity, and turned it into a highly readable book. Both the Greek and the German texts need some corrections for possible future editions, and the underlying notion of "Kulturgeschichte" is not quite clear. Occasionally, an antiquarian or anecdotal approach limits the book's use as an orientation about epigraphy as a discipline. For a potential first contact with inscriptions, it nevertheless can be recommended.

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Notes:

1.   But in no. 42 (Ι. Priene 315), an error seems to have occurred since the German makes no sense ("Für eine Bürgschaft bewache ich nicht / Nichts nichts" for …οὐ φυλάσσω οὐθενὶ οὐθέν, "nothing for anyone").
2.   E.g., no. 63: "Kleandror, / der auch Menir, / (der Sohn) des Kallistratos, / Anführer der Jugendschar, / als Patronom war / Gorgippos, (Sohn) des Gorgippos, / nachdem er im Moa gesiegt hat, / der Artemis / Borsea weiht er (dies)".
3.  There are cases where untrained readers may try to construe the end of a word after a line break as a new word, especially because Steinhart has generally made sure that there is an exact match between the beginnings of lines in Greek and German. E.g. no. 4, ll. 2–3: Hὸς δ' ἄν με κλέφσ/ει θυφλος ἔσται; no. 61, ll. 6–7: Μαρίωνος λύδοι/ο πατρὸς ...
4.   Accents are missing in no. 2 (l. 2 κενον), 4 (l. 3 θυφλος), 5 (αὐτο), 10 (l. 1 ἀδικεται, l. 7 and 8 εναι), 14 (l. 1 σεμα), 15 (l. 1 στεθι, l. 2 σεμα), 22 (l. 4 ἀει{ν}δειν), 25 (l. 1 περιιδεν), 28 (Πυθοκλ[ες]), 34 (l. 5 δε λαβεν).
5.   Νο. 1: The drawing clearly shows κάλμιν instead of κλμιν. Νο. 2: l. 2 ποτέρι[ον] instead of ποτερί[ον]. No. 10: in l. 5, μυθεόμενος should be followed by a colon, not a full stop. No. 17: l. 1 Νικάνδρη instead of Νίκανδρη. No. 22: l. 2 ἀμφὶ instead of ἀμφἰ. No. 39: l. 9 ἑκτπρωτ instead of ἐκτπρωτ. Νο. 53: l. 3-4 ἀνυγήσεται instead of ἀνυγησέται. No. 55: l. 1 Πίε instead of Πιέ. No. 64: l. 4 θεὸς instead of θέος.

2019.02.48

Thibaud Lanfranchi (ed.), Autour de la notion de 'sacer'. Rome: Publications de l'École française de Rome, 2018. Pp. 295. ISBN 9782728312887. €27,00.

Reviewed by Jean-Claude Lacam, Université Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne (jean-claude.lacam@univ-paris1.fr)

Version at BMCR home site

[The Table of contents is listed below.]

Cette publication est issue d'une journée d'étude organisée à l'École française de Rome en 2014, dans le cadre du programme Italia Picta, consacré aux interactions entre Rome et ses voisins entre le VI^e et le III^e s. av. J.-C. La notion de sacer, présente en de nombreuses cultures péninsulaires, est apparue particulièrement appropriée pour aborder ces relations, encore bien souvent envisagées à travers un prisme romano-centré. Un tel concept reste de surcroît encombré d'interprétations fallacieuses, de «surdéterminations anthropologiques» issues de tout un courant historiographique évolutionniste, tel qu'en témoigne l'ouvrage d'H. Fugier, (Recherches sur l'expression du sacré dans la langue latine, Paris, 1955). C'est en la replaçant dans son contexte italien et en la soumettant à l'exégèse linguistique, archéologique et historique que ces huit contributions essaient d'éclairer cette notion, placée à la croisée du religieux, du politique et du juridique.

La première étude consiste en un vaste panorama, proposé par Danièle Dehouve, de l'évolution des concepts de «sacré» dans le domaine de l'anthropologie et des sciences sociales. L'auteur commence par rappeler comment, chez les fondateurs de l'École sociologique française, la notion indo-européenne de «sacré» s'est vue rapprochée du tabou polynésien, deux concepts qui, selon E. Durkheim, distinguaient le sacré du profane, le pur de l'impur. À la suite des travaux de W. W. Fowler (1911), une double acception a été attribuée à sacer: «contraire au profane» et «saint ou maudit». L'avènement du structuralisme lévi-straussien a fait voler en éclats la notion de «sacré», le religieux n'étant plus considéré que comme un moyen de régulation au service de la classification sociale. Il y aurait eu, enfin, un retour du «sacré» en tant que «rouage social» chez des philosophes comme R. Girard et G. Agamben: Danièle Dehouve se démarque des théories du premier en pointant la succession des états, impur et pur, du bouc émissaire, à laquelle elle oppose la coexistence et la simultanéité de ces composantes du sacré; elle fait grief au second d'avoir fait disparaître le sacer du champ religieux pour le cantonner à la sphère juridico-politique. Enfin, l'auteur se réjouit qu'il soit désormais possible de reprendre ce dossier en pratiquant un comparatisme éclairé, nourri par des analyses à la fois lexicologiques et sociologiques.

Dans l'étude suivante, Valentina Belfiore propose de reconstruire le concept étrusque de « sacré » à partir des termes les mieux attestés, en particulier dans le Liber linteus. Après avoir rappelé les distinctions sémantiques entre sacer, sanctus et religiosus, l'auteur examine les termes sacni /sacni[š]a, tuϑina / tuϑineś, etera et aisia – autant de vocables qui révèlent une extrême spécialisation lexicale : la langue distingue ainsi entre «ce qui est rituellement consacré» (sacni) et «ce qui appartient au dieu» (aisia). En dépit de quelques longueurs (comme l'analyse des charges religieuses), cette contribution permet de comprendre qu'il n'existe pas en étrusque un unique correspondant sémantique de sacer.

La contribution d'Emmanuel Dupraz porte sur deux termes des Tables Eugubines, sakra et sakref. L'un des mérites de cette étude est d'avoir rejeté un comparatisme facile qui aurait consisté à attribuer hypothétiquement à ces deux mots ombriens une valeur sémantique identique à celle de leurs équivalents latins (sacer et sācris), mais d'avoir tenté de la définir par une analyse de leurs emplois en contexte. L'auteur en déduit que sakref assume non seulement la signification «propre à être sacrifié», mais encore «qui n'est plus dans ses premiers jours de vie mais encore dans sa première année», pouvant même, sous sa forme substantivée, désigner un porcelet, considéré comme particulièrement apte au sacrifice. L'analyse de toutes les occurrences amène E. Dupraz à supposer également que sakra et sakref, dans certains emplois (lorsqu'ils se rapportent aux récipients cultuels), reçoivent une valeur métonymique, signifiant respectivement «employé à un moment où les victimes sont devenues sakra» (c'est-à-dire ont été transmises à la divinité) et «employé pour des victimes sakref». Outre quelques longueurs (sur le sens précis de mots associés à sakra / sakref), l'on peut regretter que les étapes du sacrifice ombrien aient été désignées par des termes trop romano- centrés (lustratio, piaculum…).

Toujours en Ombrie, Giovanna Rocca étudie quatre inscriptions (des IV^e-I^er s. av. J.-C.) où figure le mot sacer. La première figure sur quatre lamelles de bronze retrouvées au sanctuaire de Cupra à Colfiorito; il s'agit d'une inscription «parlante», dans laquelle l'objet déclare être un sacrum rattaché à la déesse Cupra. La deuxième, gravée sur un cippe de Foligno, reprend la même formulation à l'égard d'une divinité inédite, Supunna, en laquelle l'auteur propose de voir une déesse protégeant les espaces annexes du sanctuaire, où se déroulait la «cuisine» du sacrifice. Les deux dernières proviennent de la région d'Assise: l'une appartenait sans doute à un autel mentionné dans le texte et qualifié de sacr[-?-], en lien avec la divinité Arentei; l'autre, «parlante», rappelle son caractère «sacré», en rapport avec sa présence au sein d'un ager lui-même consacré. Cette contribution, qui aurait mérité une conclusion, éclaire finalement assez peu le concept de sacer, accordant plus d'importance à l'exégèse des termes qui l'entourent.

C'est vers la langue osque que se tourne Olivier de Cazanove, en interrogeant le lexème sakaraklúm, mentionné sur le cippe d'Abella, à propos d'un accord passé entre cette cité et Nola au sujet d'un lieu de culte d'Hercule. Après avoir localisé ce sanctuaire à l'intersection de l'axe joignant les deux cités et de la frontière de leurs territoires, l'étude dresse un panorama des différentes traductions proposées pour sakaraklúm: «temple» (T. Mommsen, E. Vetter), puis «sanctuaire» à partir de 1960 où s'est imposée l'interprétation d'E. Pulgram mais dont O. de Cazanove souligne les limites car les différents espaces constituant le «sanctuaire» ne sont pas tous sacrés et peuvent donc difficilement être englobés par «sakaraklúm». Enfin, l'auteur explore le couple de mots sakaraklúm / fíísnú et invite à revenir sur la distinction traditionnelle entre ces termes: ils pourraient désigner respectivement non pas le «sanctuaire» et le «temple» mais renvoyer tous deux à la même réalité, celle du «temple», désigné sans doute selon deux perspectives différentes. Un appendice d'E. Dupraz fournit quelques pistes étymologiques sur sakaraklúm, sans apporter d'éclaircissement décisif.

Dans une étude très juridique, Elena Tassi Scandone analyse les concepts de sacer et sanctus, dans une perspective diachronique, rendue nécessaire par le constant effort du droit romain pour adapter de tels concepts aux mutations sociales. Sanctus revêt ainsi trois acceptions successives: il désigne à l'origine ce qui a obtenu l'augurium des dieux, signification qui s'applique en particulier aux murs de la cité, érigés sur le sillon fondateur; sanctus revêt ensuite le sens de «protégé des atteintes humaines [par la divinité]» ; il renvoie enfin à «ce à quoi on ne peut porter atteinte impunément» et se rattache donc à une sanction inscrite dans la loi. Sanctus et sacer («ce qui est consacré aux dieux») sont donc deux catégories différentes, non exclusives l'une de l'autre. Elena Tassi Scandone définit enfin le rapport entre ces deux concepts et celui de religiosus, terme qui s'applique à des actes contraires à la volonté des dieux ou à des lieux dans lesquels il est interdit d'accomplir de telles actions. Les mots sanctus, sacer et religiosus caractérisent donc êtres, lieux ou choses tantôt l'un à l'exclusion des autres, tantôt conjointement, comme c'est le cas du fulguritum, lieu frappé par la foudre que l'on peut dire tout à la fois saint, sacré, et religieux. Cette contribution rend parfaitement compte de la difficulté à saisir l'articulation entre ces concepts, qui peut paraître contradictoire dès lors que l'on s'en tient à une approche synchronique.

Dans une étude essentiellement tournée vers la Rome royale, Roberto Fiori, en reprenant méticuleusement les textes juridiques et littéraires antiques, démonte efficacement la théorie profondément enracinée depuis le XIX^e siècle, qui affirme l'obligatoire mise à mort de l'homo sacer. Tout en revenant sur les notions d'impietas et d'exsecratio, mais aussi sur la distinction entre le ius humanum et le ius diuinum, il démontre combien la société archaïque, comme l'a allégué toute une historiographie évolutionniste et positiviste, n'était pas le temps de l'«irrazionalità», où de tels fautifs devaient être remis aux dieux sous forme sacrificielle ou être nécessairement tués. La comparaison avec d'autres réalités indo-européennes, l'analyse de cas concrets (Tarquin le Superbe, Coriolan, le décemvir Appius Claudius), l'examen des vocables homo malus, improbus, intestabilis, en révélant la grande variété des sanctions encourues par les citoyens, permettent de prouver l'existence d'une structure complexe de la société romaine archaïque, au sein de laquelle l'homo sacer représentait finalement le «grado zero» de la citoyenneté.

Yann Berthelet, enfin, revient sur la définition de l'homo sacer et plus particulièrement sur le cas des consecrationes capitis effectuées par les tribuns de la plèbe en réponse à une atteinte à leur sacrosanctitas. L'argumentation développée vise à dénoncer l'absence de fondement de la comparaison, souvent proposée par les commentateurs modernes, entre l'individu sacer et la victime sacrificielle. À l'inverse de la seconde, le premier n'était pas «immolé», c'est-à-dire mis à mort rituellement, et si son élimination était possible, elle ne présentait aucunement un caractère obligatoire. L'auteur propose donc plutôt, de manière pertinente, de rapprocher l'homo sacer du deditus, coupable d'impiété pour avoir transgressé les accords sacrés internationaux. Dans les deux cas, l'impie était rejeté de la communauté civique et livré aux dieux: ceux-ci, alors, n'étaient plus considérés comme des citoyens supérieurs, mais envisagés dans leur dimension «supra-civique», et c'est à eux que revenait le choix de prendre ou non possession de lui par la mort.

Audrey Bertrand revient, en conclusion, sur l'efficacité de la démarche comparatiste qui est au cœur de ces contributions et qui a permis, sinon d'éclairer complètement le concept de sacer, du moins d'en saisir les infimes et infinies variations d'un peuple à l'autre, d'une période à une autre.

À l'évidence, cet ouvrage, par son approche pluridisciplinaire et sa dimension péninsulaire, enrichit notablement notre compréhension du «sacré» - cette notion inhérente aux sociétés de l'Italie centro-méridionale des VI^e-III^e s. av. J.-C. L'on peut néanmoins regretter qu'en dépit de l'affirmation ambitieuse en introduction «de conférer à ce volume [...] une importante orientation italique», les pages concernées par les cultures étrusques et osco-ombriennes restent minoritaires (92 contre 126 pour le monde romain). Bien d'autres documents italiques auraient pu être efficacement mobilisés: l'analyse des termes sakarater et sakahíter présents dans la Table d'Agnone, mais aussi de sakrasias et sakrannas gravés sur les iúvilas de Capoue auraient ainsi pu compléter cette quête exégétique des réalités religieuses de la péninsule, qui, comme le reconnaissent les auteurs, est loin d'être achevée.

Table des matières

Thibaud Lanfranchi, Introduction, 7-16
Chapitre 1: Danièle Dehouve, Sacer et sacré. Notion emic et catégorie anthropologique, 17-38
Chapitre 2: Valentina Belfiore, La nozione di sacer in etrusco : dai riti del liber linteus a ritroso, 39-60
Chapitre 3: Emmanuel Dupraz, Les correspondants de sacer dans les Tables Eugubines, 61-92
Chapitre 4: Giovanna Rocca, Sacer nelle iscrizioni umbre, 93-114
Chapitre 5: Olivier de Cazanove, Le sacré en partage. Sakaraklúm, temple ou sanctuaire sur le cippe d'Abella ?, 115-132
Chapitre 6: Elena Tassi Scandone, Sacer e sanctus : quali rapporti ?, 133-170
Chapitre 7: Roberto Fiori, La condizione di homo sacer e la struttura sociale di Roma arcaica, 171-228
Chapitre 8: Y. Berthelet, Homo sacer, consecratio et destinatio dis, 229-240
Audrey Bertrand, Conclusion, 241-250
Bibliographie, p. 251-278
Index auctorum et locorum antiquorum, 279-290
Index nominum et rerum notabilium, 291-298
Table des matières, 299

2019.02.47

Klaus Fittschen, Johannes Bergemann (ed.), Katalog der Skulpturen der Sammlung Wallmoden. Göttinger Studien zur Mediterranen Archäologie, Bd 6​. München​: Biering & Brinkmann Verlag, 2015. Pp. 336. ISBN 9783930609611. €148.00.

Reviewed by Martin Dorka Moreno, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen​ (martin.dorkamoreno@klassarch.uni-tuebingen.de)

Version at BMCR home site

Table of Contents

In 1979 the Archaeological Institute of the University of Göttingen, Germany, presented an exhibition of selected pieces, predominantly sculpture, from the Wallmoden Sammlung, a collection that was started in the second half of the 18th century by Johann Ludwig of Wallmoden-Gimborn, son of King George II of Britain and his mistress Amalie of Wallmoden. ¹ The collection, which is the oldest private collection of antiquities in Germany, was transferred from Hannover to Göttingen, where it is still housed today as part of the University collections. ² The aim of the 1979 exhibition was to present objects of ancient art hitherto mostly unknown to the public. In the small catalogue that accompanied the exhibition, Klaus Fittschen promised that an extensive study on the collection was in the works. ³ The volume under review, co-edited by Fittschen and Johannes Bergemann, honors this pledge and delivers—even if 30 years later—a splendid book, that may very well serve as an example for future publications that aim to make private art collections accessible to scholars and the general public.

The book consists of three major parts. An 'Introduction' (pp. 15–35) divided into several propaedeutic essays, the actual 'Catalogue' that forms the core of the text (pp. 38–176), and a useful 'Appendix' (pp. 177–188). The 'Introduction' includes a detailed biography of Wallmoden, an extensive history of the collection that carefully reconstructs his habits of acquisitions, and a survey of previous scholarship on the collection and its objects. The catalogue entries (see below) are by Fittschen, Bergemann, Daniel Graepler, Joachim Raeder, Frederike Sinn, and Christiane Vorster. The artworks are illustrated on 130 plates with over 500 figures of excellent quality and detail. Lastly, a useful 'Appendix' gives an index of items in other collections that serve as comparanda, some pertinent documents and other correspondence, and concordances to publications that have dealt with the Wallmoden Collection (e. g., the 1979 catalogue mentioned above).

Fittschen's 'Introduction' serves as a thorough and densely referenced preface for the catalogue, critically assessing relevant issues. Since the Wallmoden family archive was destroyed in WW II many aspects of the collection like its growth and former size are uncertain. Unfortunately, these uncertainties extend to the archaeological contexts and provenances of some pieces, for example a head of Artemis (on a modern bust) of the so-called Colonna type (Cat. No. 5; Pl. 22.23 a–b). The simple but challenging task here was to reveal any lack of information as explicitly as possible in order to provide a solid basis for further inquiries about the material. Fittschen, who is responsible for all the essays that make up the 'Introduction', scrupulously faced that task. Readers interested in the cultural context and development of an 18^th-century art collection will be richly rewarded by this part of the book.

As for the 'Catalogue': the entries—almost all of them are written by Fittschen—follow approximately a single pattern, but the authors were allowed to emphasize different aspects, which results in some formal diversity but only a slight difference in quality. ⁴ Overall they are well written, well researched, and contain excellent observations. The first part of the catalogue, on ancient sculptures, is subdivided into four categories: 'gods and heroes', genre figures and decorative sculpture', 'portraits', and 'funerary monuments'. The second, third, and fourth part of the catalogue comprise modern sculptures after ancient prototypes, some of which have been damaged in WW II (Cat. Nr. 57–89). Lastly, parts five to seven are devoted to glyptic art works, stone and clay vessels. As for the latter, the extent of Wallmoden's collection can only very tentatively be reconstructed from scarce evidence since no vessels are part of the collection today. Fittschen has to argue from older documentation alone (p. 176). The glyptic art works and stone vessels share a similar fate: they were either sold by Wallmoden himself or are lost today and thus only survive in drawings (pp. 172–173), or have come to be incorporated into other collections (p. 174). The so-called 'Cameo Wallmoden', or 'Caligula-Cameo', for example, is mentioned by Johann J. Winckelmann to have been acquired by Wallmoden in 1766. ⁵ It has been lost since the end of the 18^th century, but survives in one drawing (p. 173, Fig. 45), a couple of plaster casts (Pl. 125 e–f), and a glass paste. Fittschen convincingly argues that the identification of the portrait as Caligula is wrong since it rests, in turn, on the false identification of a sculptured portrait type as the Roman emperor known in several replicas. The latter is tentatively identified by Fittschen as Agrippa Postumus ("in any case it is Augustan") while the portrait of the 'Cameo Wallmoden' according to Fittschen might be a Julio-Claudian prince, or Augustus himself (p. 172). Gradually leaving behind the assessment of the 'Cameo Wallmoden' as an ancient artefact, Fittschen devotes the rest of his catalogue entry to various important but to some extent illusive questions, such as: Is the artist's signature preserved in an inscription on one of the Cameo's plaster casts (Pl. 125 e–f) that reads "Dioskurides" a modern forgery? And, if so, was Wallmoden aware of it when he purchased it in 1766? The discussion does not result in palpable results, Fittschen himself remains sceptical about various aspects, but it highlights the complexity of the evidence and background information (or lack thereof) for some objects of the Wallmoden Sammlung, and private collections in general, that are bought of the market and held in possession for only a short period of time only to be sold again. Such objects acquire individual but complex biographies that become equally complex fields of scholarly inquiry.

Let us return to the sculptures. Among the first group of the sculptures preserved from antiquity, among the 'gods and heroes', are an under life-sized group of Perseus and Andromeda (Cat. No. 1), a head of Apollo (Cat. No. 4), a head of Artemis of the so-called Colonna type (Cat. No. 5), a statuette of Athena (Cat. No. 6), a statuette of Attis (Cat. No. 7), a statuette of Dionysos (Cat. No. 8), and a statuette of Pan seated on a rock (Cat. No. 15). The group of 'genre figures and decorative sculptures' consists of, inter alia, a statue of a naked youth (Cat. No. 19) and various herms, such as one of an Archaistic Dionysos (Cat. No. 21), a Hermes (Cat. No. 23), and a Silenus (Cat. No. 24). All of them are Roman in date. To this illustrious group add thirteen Roman portraits. Five of them are Imperial portraits: of Titus, Antoninus Pius, Commodus, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla (Cat. Nos. 25–29). The remaining eight are private portraits from Iulio-Claudian to Gallienic times (Cat. Nos. 30–38). Lastly, among the 'funerary monuments', all Roman in date, we encounter a series of five marble urns, and one marble altar (Cat. Nos. 39–42; No. 43). This array that forms the inventory of the Wallmoden Sammlung as it is composed today, is supplemented by the parts two to four of the catalogue which mainly consist of the aforementioned modern sculptures after ancient prototypes. In what is to follow I will focus on the ancient sculptures. My comments here, however, can only be selective.

Among the pieces of great relevance—which are given longer entries—is the under life-sized sculpture group of Perseus and Andromeda (Cat. No. 1), the statuette of Athena (Cat. No. 6), and the statuette of Dionysos (Cat. No. 8).

The Wallmoden group of Perseus and Andromeda (Cat. No. 1) is, in fact, the best preserved Roman copy of the subject in sculpture: Perseus, having freed Andromeda from the rock to which she was chained, is helping her down to safe ground. The composition, which presents the two interacting figures in frontal view, allows a late Hellenistic date for the original (p. 43). Since the earliest preserved examples of the subject in painting can be dated almost to the same time (p. 40), Vorster suggests that the question of which came first—the sculpted or the painted version—is of little significance. Instead, she shifts her attention to a useful discussion on how the same subject was conceived and used in different media and settings across time and space (p. 43). The statuette of Athena (Cat. No. 6) is discussed by Raeder within a detailed account of the extant replicas of the Athena of the Woburn type (pp. 56–57) to which the statuette in the Wallmoden collection is added. The type is convincingly traced back to a Late Classical original. Refreshingly, Raeder considers how the various replicas relate to each other formally and how terms like "Konzeptfigur", "Darstellungstypus", and "Prototypus" are used in current scholarship on the practice of Roman copying. The statuette of Dionysos (Cat. No. 8), discussed by Graepler, is a case in point for precisely the same reason. It shows the god standing upright looking slightly to the right. Both arms are modern restorations, including the grapes and the cup that have been added to the hands as attributes. The list of no fewer than 26 works formally related to the Wallmoden statuette (pp. 60–61) is used by Graepler to describe the range of similarities and differences at play here and to challenge traditional conceptions about the concepts of "type", "replica", and so forth, a tendency that is prevalent in recent studies on Roman sculpture. ⁶ Some of the 26 listed versions of the Wallmoden Dionysos cannot, as Graepler states, be identified as replicas in the strictest sense of the of the term. Their relations demonstrate a certain flexibility of forms, and it is precisely this interplay of similarities and differences that needs to be accounted for in both our descriptions and classifications. Graepler rather parenthetically introduces the term "Schema" (p. 59) to group the respective works together. The term seems fitting, but, as of yet, still warrants a proper methodological foundation. Unfortunately, the discussion stops before it actually begins, but, like Raeder's (and Vorster's), Graepler's entry is very thought-provoking, and can very well serve as a point of reference for studies on Roman sculpture that critically assess the formal relations between a given set of copies and their respective relation to a certain archetype, "Vorbild", or "Urbild". In their broader perspective on the material the mentioned entries refreshingly go beyond the usual scope of a collection's catalogue by emphatically integrating the works of art into current scholarly debates.

This tendency is not present in all of the entries, but this can hardly be a point of criticism. The portrait of Titus (Cat. No. 25) is vividly presented by Fittschen as a case study for a reworked portrait. It can be convincingly shown to have been a recut from a portrait of Nero. The private portrait of a woman (Cat. No. 34), early Severan in date, is credibly freed from the suspicion of being a modern forgery. And the marble urn (Cat. No. 39) commissioned by a C. Pompeius Apollonius for his son C. Pompeius Fructus who died at the age of ten (see the inscription on p. 112) is re-contextualized to have been part of a funerary monument near the Via Appia.

€ 148 is expensive, but the book's quality in content and layout, especially the over 500 figures, which are all in color and of supreme quality, justifies the cost: the volume deserves acquisition by art historical and archaeological departments of academic institutions. The authors have not limited themselves to merely compiling a catalog. Instead, they have produced a splendid volume that integrates the collection's items into current scholarly debates and presents us with numerous other multifaceted approaches and information about the art works. At the same time the entries do justice to the object's modern biographies. Lastly, the propaedeutic essays paint a vivid picture of the history of an 18^th-century antiquities collection. For the scholarly community it will hardly come as a surprise that when Fittschen finally delivers a book that is based on a 30-year project, he himself and the contributing authors meet a high standard.

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Notes:

1.   In fact, George II never recognized Johann Ludwig as his son, who was, instead officially considered a son of Adam Gottlieb of Wallmoden and Amalie: cf. pp. 15–17 of the book under review.
2.   The collection in Göttingen comprises 44 Roman sculptures, busts, and reliefs as well as 12 modern sculptures after ancient originals.
3.   Boehringer, Christof, Döhl, Hartmut, Fittschen, Klaus, Müller, Ulrike (edd.). Die Skulpturen der Sammlung Wallmoden. Ausstellung zum Gedenken an Christian Gottlob Heyne (1792–1812). Göttingen: Archäologisches Institut der Universität Göttingen, 1979.
4.   In some cases, the stylistic analysis, which is necessarily the primary method used to date the relevant works, too strongly blends stylistic similarities with similarities in motif. In my opinion, the latter are best avoided in any stylistic assessment. A motif per se can hardly serve as strong evidence that the art works in question are contemporary. The relevant criterion is rather how a given motif comes into effect. Obviously, no stylistic analysis can do without the description of motifs, but in order to reach tangible results it is necessary to distinguish sharply between the motif itself and how this motif is formulated. See, rather contradictory in this regard (although it does ultimately not affect the proposed date) Bergemann's entry Cat. No. 3, in this volume pp 47–48.
5.   Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2006, p. 765.
6.   See, for example: Gazda, Elaine. The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and from the Present to Classical Antiquity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002, 300 p.