2009.01.07

Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides: revised and expanded edition; with a new introduction, three supplemental essays, and an essay by Gregory Vlastos (originally published 1970). Las Vegas: Parmenides Pub., 2008. Pp. lix, 408. ISBN 9781930972117. . $42.00 (pb).
Reviewed by Marina N. Volf, Novosibirsk State University, Russia. (wolfmn@yandex.ru)

Alexander Mourelatos's book The Route of Parmenides does not require any special introduction since it has become a classic in Parmenides studies. Now, thanks to "Parmenides Publishing", we have both a new reprint of this remarkable book and an opportunity to look at it from new angles.

The Route, being already part of philosophical history, has a history of its own. This explains its structure with a new preface and afterword written for this edition and its overall composition. The book has three parts with nine chapters, four appendixes and detailed explanatory notes. The first part is a new edition of The Route originally published in 1970. As Mourelatos explains, "the revisions ... are modest: mostly corrections of misprints; altering or adjusting some misleading formulations; editing some egregiously dated phrases;... and the like" (p. xi).

The Route starts with a detailed and informative table of contents which allows easy navigation around the book. In the preface entitled Returning to Elea: Preface and Afterword to the Revised and Expanded Edition of "The Route of Parmenides" Mourelatos recounts the history of his studying the Parmenidean poem and writing The Route, starting with a critical discussion of the main ideas of his dissertation on Parmenides written in 1963. Then he recounts the problems raised in The Route and the initial feedback just after its publication (1963-1968). He also considers transformation of some of his points of view expressed in the 1970s. Finally, Mourelatos discusses the prospects of the conception stated in The Routes of 2008. It is a very intimate section of the book in which we get to know Mourelatos as a scholar and a person.

As we can see from the preface (and, to some extent, from the dedication of the book to Wilfrid Sellars, the first supervisor of Mourelatos), the combination of a strict analytical approach with classics methodology isn't accidental in Mourelatos's work. He was able not only to successfully integrate the methodology of classics studies and analytic philosophy which might seem incommensurable but also pass on this new approach to his followers.

The genre of review doesn't allow mentioning all aspects and relations between the terms, concepts, and their meaning which follow from the analysis of the Greek text of the poem. Each reader has to do this work and estimate the importance of Mourelatos's contribution to this field on their own. We are able to offer only brief remarks and a general conclusion on the content of the book.

Parmenides wrote not a philosophical treatise but a poem in hexameters. And it is evident to Mourelatos that before analyzing Parmenides as a philosopher we must put him in the contextual background of classical texts of Homer, Hesiod etc. This could give us "a key toward understanding the syntax and semantics,... the precise sense of his metaphors and images, and the wider context of his mythical allusions" (p. 1). This is the point of the first chapter "Epic Form" in which Mourelatos analyzes composition, vocabulary, and epic phraseology and points out some exact parallels with Homer (Iliad, Odyssey and Homeric Hymns) and a number of other parallels similar to Homeric formulae. Mourelatos also points out a number of epic motifs in the poem and focuses on the The-Journey motif present both in Odyssey and in Parmenides. Parmenides's hexameter is specifically analyzed in Appendix I.

In the second chapter "Cognitive Quest and the Route" special attention is given to fragments B2.3 and B2.5. Mourelatos thinks that, since 1960s, the interpreters of the poem have come to a consensus about this fragment on three points: 1) ἐστι and εἶναι have an existential force; 2) the absence of the subject for these verb-forms; 3) these verb forms are not "impersonal" (p. 47). The criticism of Mourelatos is directed against the existential force of ἐστι. The interpretations of the subjectless ἐστι is stated more extensively in Appendix II.

Mourelatos formulates his objection analyzing different meanings of the verb ἐστι. First of all, it was a "veridical use of 'is'" formulated by Charles Kahn: ("εἶναι when used without predicates does not mean 'to exist' but 'to be so', 'to be the case', 'to be true'" (p. 48)). Secondly, he considers G. Calogero's point of view who argues that "ἐστι represents no more than the form of "judgment" or "affirmation"" (p. 51). In the logical sense it means that we don't have any proposition but just a sentence frame. Calogero's position that "only positive propositions are possible" is vulnerable as is vulnerable, according to Mourelatos, any other interpretation "based on an initial confusion of copulative and existential predication" (p. 54). Further, Mourelatos discusses 'speculative' predication. According to him, Parmenidean predication must answer the question "What is it?", and thus mean "rather for a complete exposure of, and insight into, the identity of a thing to such an extent and in such a manner that no further questions with respect to that thing need or may arise" (p. 57) and "the subject fully explains itself, and in terms of itself. Predication so understood is at once analysis, explication, and explanation" (Ibid.). Interpretation like this deals with "reality" and is quite available for the Parmenidean doctrine.

Next, Mourelatos considers the notions φύσις and ἀλήθεια. In his opinion, the latter is more suitable for the Parmenidean doctrine. If the philosophy of Parmenides was a cognitive quest, then its aim was inquiry into the ἀλήθεια not the φύσις which was the aim of the previous philosophy. It also confirms etymology of the word: "ἀ (privative) + ληθ + noun-suffix: the denial of a state or condition of λανθάνειν, "to escape notice, detection"" (p. 64), i.e. non-latency. Thus it is the route from "the proximate but "latent" to the transcendent but "non-latent" identity of things" (p. 67). Although Mourelatos concludes that it was better to translate this word as "truth" and it was a warranted and common translation, his arguments show that ἀλήθεια and τὸ ἐόν were equivalent in Parmenides and he uses these words in the sense of "the real" and "reality". He also discusses the use of the words δίζησις and νοεῖν as more suitable for speculative predication. "The routes presented by the goddess are open to mind (νοῆσαι in its quest (δίζησις) for reality (ἀλήθεια)" (p. 70).

Finally, the last argument for the rejection of the existential force of the verb "is" is the translation of "ὅπως ἔστιν" (p. 70-71). Usually, it was translated as "that it is" and it was typical for the existential reading. Mourelatos suggests the translation "how it is" and this variant takes us from mere designation of the existence ("X exists") to the predicational force of the statement ("X is Y" or "X is really F").

In the third chapter "The Vagueness of What-Is-Not" Mourelatos shows why "the rejection of the negative route is not a rejection of negative predication in general" (p. 75) and "it is rather a rejection of negative attributes in answer to speculative, cosmological questions" (Ibid.). Mourelatos considers "what-is-not" from the position of literary analysis (p. 75-78), logical analysis (p. 78-80) and shows that entities which can be invoked in answers to the speculative question about reality cannot be opposites because if one of them counts as ἐόν, "the other is no more than the indefiniteness of empty, unbounded, range" (p. 80). Then, Mourelatos analyzes the weaknesses of other translations of B8.54 different from his own, and the problems related to the interpretation of the Parmenidean doctrine as monism or dualism. Mourelatos offers his own translation of B8.54 about two perceptible forms, "one of which it is not right to name" and gives a detailed proof of this variant (p. 81-85).

In Chapter 4 "Signposts" Mourelatos examines B8. His purpose is to show that all signs of "what-is" were included in the proof of the positive route of "Truth" and they were "programmatic announcement" and proofs for each sign. If the motion along the true route is possible only due to special marks -- signposts or milestones in some sense, so what are these marks? Parmenides used in B8 two types of arguments: the indirect proof (which is the same as the reduction to absurdity) and the diagnosis of infinite regress. The first proof is "Ungenerable" (p. 96-111). The proof has three stages and seven hypotheses (p. 99). Exploring the structure of first stage, Mourelatos reconstructs and presents a detailed scheme of the whole proof. The important point which he substantiates is: "there are a number of uses of "is" which are correctly understood as tenseless", i.e. truth contained in such is-assertions is necessary like in the assertion "seven is a prime number" (p. 103-104). If we add "was and will be" to these assertions they will become meaningless. "The domain of tenseless propositions is the domain of necessary truths, and so it includes definitions, classificatory truths, and logical entailments" (p. 104). If ἐστι is tenseless, then these assertions must possess the characteristics of speculative predication; they must be be assertions about reality. Mourelatos argues that Parmenides not only realized tenselessness of the ἐστι, but intentionally included this construction in his proof and it was probably in contrast to B8.5 and B30 of Heraclitus and to a number of the epic formulae (p. 105-107). The second proof which Mourelatos examines in this chapter was "Indivisible".

In the fifth chapter "The Bounds of Reality" Mourelatos continues examining the arguments, notably the third proof "Immobile". First of all, he pays attention to the analysis of the verb κινέω and concludes that the meaning of this verb is not "locomotion" but rather "egress" (= self-alienation) (p. 119). Next he discusses the proof of "Complete" (B8.32-33 and B-38.42-49), shows that here that we are dealing with a valid proof and demonstrates its logical structure (p. 125). This passage contains four definitions of a sphere, "unusual, but perfectly valid" (p. 127). Mourelatos shows that "the comparison with a sphere becomes an argument for the completeness of what-is" (p. 128) and argues that Parmenides "does not say that it is a sphere" (p. 124). "Metaphor... is the appropriate concept" (p. 124). At the end of the chapter Mourelatos again raises the question about Parmenidean monism or dualism (as a special case of pluralism) and is in favor of monism, but such that is "compatible with numerical plurality", i.e. "that it is "one", ... unique as an individual of cosmic scale" (p. 133).

In the sixth chapter "Persuasion and Fidelity" Mourelatos analyzes "the family of πειθ-words" (p. 136) in Greek from Hesiod where they first occur. These words have, according to Mourelatos, "varying but logically distinct aspects of the relationship of agreeable commitment" or "persuasion-compliance" relationship (p. 139). Mourelatos counted six such aspects (p. 139-140). His diagram "The logic of πείθειν" on p. 143 clearly shows the relationship between these aspects. Then he begins the analysis of πείθειν in Parmenides in order to demonstrate the logical relation between πίστις and δόξα. The route of positive predication is the "course of Persuasion" and the man following this course is "sensitive to the πειθώ which the goddess Πειθώ herself has bestowed on the real" (p. 160). Mourelatos argues that the divinity or goddess who leads Kouros on the route of truth and who controls the reality of what-is has four faces or hypostases: Constraint (Ἀνάγκη) Fate (Μοῖρα), Justice (Δίκη) and Persuasion (Πειθώ) (p. 160). To avoid misunderstanding Mourelatos emphasizes that "this analysis of πειθ-words in Parmenides serves primarily to articulate a speculative metaphor. The only reality for Parmenides' metaphysics is the what-is. In none of her four faces or hypostases is the goddess an element of the ontology. The four faces of the polymorph deity are aspects of the modality of necessity that controls what-is..." (p. 161). The many-faced deity guaranteed the reality of what-is, so if we forgot our commitments we'd find ourselves on a route of doxa and start wandering (p. 163).

In the seventh chapter "Mind's Commitment to Reality" Mourelatos analyzes the most difficult fragment of Parmenides -- B8.34. In the beginning of the chapter he discusses the function of νοεῖν in Parmenides: noting that this is, first of all, epistemic terms, not psychological ones. "To know" or "to understand" is a more suitable translation for this term but Mourelatos prefers a more familiar variant -- "to think". Then he provides a detailed analysis of a number of difficulties in reading and translating B8.34-38 and proposes his own interpretation by reduction of the fragment to a logical structure of six steps, which resulted in this statement: "So ἐόν is not only a possible but a necessary object of mind" (p. 175). But Mourelatos asserts that even though we speak about the "necessary" relationship between mind and reality, it is incorrect to think that necessity attaches to what-is. Reality does not exist alongside the mind; men should reach it through challenging argument. Mourelatos clarifies his interpretation by some parallels with logical atomism (pp. 177-178) and ancient parallels with Plato and Heraclitus (pp. 178-180).

The next question of this chapter was a question of reading ὀνόμασται in B8.38ff. Mourelatos clarifies the logic of the Greek concept of "naming" or "calling" (p. 183) and draws the conclusion: "Parmenides is telling us: No matter what it is that mortals say, they must say it with reference to what-is" (p. 185). He also draws here on the parallel with Empedocles B8-9.

The next chapter "Doxa as Acceptance" is devoted to examining the meaning of δοκ-words in Greek and in the Parmenidean poem. So, the δοκ-words are synonyms of φαιν-words, but φαιν-words have phenomenological sense while the δοκ-words -- criteriological. Therefore, doxa isn't "appearance" or "opinion"; it is "acceptance" and men have some criteria to accept it. Further in the chapter Mourelatos discusses the sense of χρῆν in B1.31-32, proposes his variant of translation of this fragment and its philosophical significance.

In the next chapter "Deceptive Words" Mourelatos analyzes "amphilogy" or "equivocation", "ambiguity" -- those words used by mortals. He emphasizes that the goddess, characterizing doxa, used the same deceptive words as the mortals but put some irony into them (p. 228). The analysis of 8.53 shows that the irony was put by Parmenides into the grammatical stricture of statement. There is ambiguity in B8.60, too.

There are many illustrative tables in this chapter. First, is the extensive table "Verbal and Conceptual Contrasts between "Doxa" and "Truth"" (pp. 232-234). The phrases and words of doxa are compared to denials in truth (p. 232). Mourelatos presents the seventeen paired ideas in opposition (p. 234). Another table is "Ambiguity in the Attributes of the Contraries" (pp. 242-243) which provides analysis of the notions Light and Night with their positive and negative associations. The third table "One-Many Contrariety of the Attributes of Lights and Night" (p. 245) presents the multiple meanings of those attributes. The last table is "Similarities-with-a-Difference between "Doxa" and "Truth"" (pp. 248-249). All the passages in the left doxa column show verbal resemblance with passages from the right truth column (p. 248). And, finally, the conclusion that the poem style and the speculative use of ambiguity, paradoxes and irony reminds us of the dialogic practice of Socrates or early aporetic dialogues of Plato (p. 263) looks quite convincing.

There are four appendixes at the end of the first part. Some of them I've already mentioned. Appendix II seems to be very interesting because here Mourelatos examines "logically possible constructions of a bare (subjectless and predicateless) ἐστι or "is"" (p. 269). Mourelatos considers six distinct patterns, analyzes them in detail and exemplifies, when possible, those interpretations which correspond to each of the six examples. Appendix IV contains the fragments of Parmenides's Greek text of the poem. Supplementary List of Works Cited in Part I ends the first part.

The second part is entitled Three Supplemental Essays. This part continues and concludes the position stated in The Route. The first essay "Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Naïve Metaphysics of Things" goes on to discuss the question about the opposites raised in Chapter Nine of The Route. Mourelatos introduces the concept Naïve Metaphysics of Things (NMT) and defines NMT as "metaphysics of opposed and cognate characters-powers, in three postulates or requirements: (a) thinghood; (b) equality of status and independence; (c) recognition of affinities and polarities" (p. 303). The author concludes that Heraclitus and Parmenides would have had distinct reactions to NMT, but they would have unmistakably recognized the NMT language-game as "paradigm of the world view of "mortals"" (p. 306).

Mourelatos discusses some texts of Hesiod and Anaximander in which the world's view as NMT is reflected to the best advantage, although Anaximander's text was a philosophical text. These texts are clearly contrasted with the doctrines of Heraclitus and Parmenides, but these philosophers were also in contrast to each other. Heraclitus was an anti-realist, and Parmenides was an extreme realist. "Doxa" is a perfect model of NMT" (p. 324). After Mourelatos's arguments it is impossible to speak about Doxa without its connection with Truth, so we shouldn't understand the negative route as mere rejection of one of the opposites. The negative route is "totally uninformative". Mourelatos argues that from this point of view the Heraclitean logos became a very important notion and is connected to the doctrines of these two philosophers. The world, according to this conception, is not to be understood as world of things, a mixture, or thinghood, but "the world we reach through language", "a conceptual or logos-textured world... articulated in logical space" (p. 328).

The next essay "Determinancy and Indeterminancy, Being and Non-Being in the Fragments of Parmenides" continues the theme of Chapter Two and Appendix II discussing the copulative, existential or veridical sense esti in B2. Mourelatos considered that "Parmenides' subjectless esti in B2 is best understood as (syntactically) a bare copula, with both its subject and its predicate complement deliberately suppressed" (p. 334). He analyzes arguments justifying this construction and discusses the meaning of negative predication in Parmenides. Next, he examines a variety of α-negative adjectival and nominal compounds in the poem, and notes the similarity of these constructions with Greek poetry, drama and rhetoric, pointing out that they were a commonplace in Greek literature. Finally, he discusses the contrast between Truth and Doxa.

In the third essay of this part "Some Alternatives in Interpreting Parmenides" Mourelatos formulates four brief theses which, in the 1960s and 1970s, formed a consensus in interpreting Parmenides in English language scholarship. He defines the content of these theses as "Standard Interpretation" (SI) and points out that the prototype of SI was Owen's famous article "Eleatic Question" (1960). According to Mourelatos, SI has some advantages but a weak methodology. He formulates five theses pointing out these weak positions of SI (pp. 354-355). Then Mourelatos discusses his interpretation and those points in which it differs from SI, and very briefly repeats the basic statements of The Route.

The third part includes the previously unpublished essay of Gregory Vlastos ""Names" of Being in Parmenides". In this essay, G. Vlastos discussed B8.38-41, notably variants of reading πάντ' ὄνομ(α) ἔσται or πάντ' ὀνόμασται, as "names" or "have been named" and after discussing both variants argues for the second one. Vlastos's position is close to Mourelatos's point of view recounted in Chapter Seven. This essay supplements Mourelatos's commentary about the significance of this reading. Mourelatos also discusses why Vlastos never published this text although it was known that he had sent a draft of the essay to many scholars.

The book ends with detailed Indexes including references to Parmenides's fragments, other ancient texts, Greek words previously discussed, and names.

This paperback edition is attractive-looking, is of excellent printing quality and has a nice design. I found only one misprint on p. 208.

The book is of importance for all interested in Presocratic philosophy, not only Parmenides and Heraclitus, their doctrines and notions but also for later ancient philosophy and classics as well. It can also be used by students as a great didactic manual for early Greek philosophy. The book contains a great amount of Greek etymology, accurate, original and well-founded translations, and some discussion of secondary literature. All this remains topical now in spite of almost forty years since the first edition. For those familiar with the first edition this one is also of an exceptional interest because, in addition to the main text, the reader gets extended commentary in the preface and the last two parts of book, and has an opportunity to trace both the transformations of the main theses of the book and their prospects. (read complete article)

2009.01.06

Pauliina Remes, Plotinus on Self: The Philosophy of the 'We'. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. ix, 287. ISBN 9780521867290. $95.00.
Reviewed by Giannis Stamatellos, New York College, Athens and Doukas School (gstamap@yahoo.com)

Table of Contents

During the last thirty years of scholarship considerable attention has been paid to Plotinus' theory of the self. The first complete monograph derives from G. O. Daly's influential study Plotinus' Philosophy of the Self (published in 1973) and, so far, a considerable number of studies have been published on Plotinus' conception of selfhood, with more recently the work of Richard Sorabji Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life and Death (Oxford, 2006). Remes' book aims to offer a new, complete and multi-angled study on Plotinus' philosophy of the self 'not just for students and scholars of Neoplatonism but also for readers interested in self and/or ancient philosophy in general, but who may be unacquainted with the subtleties of the heavy metaphysics of Plotinus' (p. 18).

Ancient philosophers constantly declared the importance of self-knowledge and self-reflection. From the Presocratic and the Socratic exhortation to 'know yourself', to the Stoic psychology of the self, the concept of selfhood underlies not only the self-reflective nature of psyche but also the perceptible and cognitive relation of ourselves to the others. Plotinus develops the concept of selfhood in different philosophical matters. Initially he notably prefers the plural 'we' in place of a singular 'I' and poses, as Remes correctly states (p. 9), the central philosophical aporia: 'Who are we?' (Ennead VI.4.14.16). This question highlights the distinction between the terms 'person' and 'self'; whereas 'person' is a term related to the body, preferences and responsibilities, the term 'self' is more directly related to human soul.

Plotinus envisions psyche as having an amphibious nature (Ennead IV.8.4); the human soul has a 'double life' and a 'double nature' participating in both the intelligible and the perceptible realms (Ennead IV.8.8.11-13). It occupies a 'middle rank' at the boundary between the higher intelligible world of the Forms and the lower corporeal nature of the perceptible reality (Ennead IV.8.7.5). Plotinus' famous metaphor of the soul is that of a 'double city, one above and one composed of the lower elements set in order by the powers above' (Ennead IV.4.17.30 ff.). On this basis, Remes maintains that Plotinus conceptualises two notions of the self: the higher rational self and the lower corporeal self. Whereas the former marks soul's goodness, knowledge and intelligence, the latter signifies imperfection and opinion. The author supports the position that, for Plotinus, there is unsubstantiated connection between the higher self and the faculties and capacities of the embodied self such as that of sense-perception and phantasia. Remes correctly states that 'through its share of these capacities, the lower part does tend towards a rational organization even if it does not succeed in expressing this tendency. The inner self is the spring of the self-conscious and deliberative life of the composite. The rational or intellectual dimension dominates the whole picture, but the bodily dimension is not neglected' (p. 256).

Remes' monograph on Plotinus' philosophy of self is divided in two main parts. After an informative introduction on the aims and the objectives of the book, the first part investigates the internal nature of selfhood with regard to the ontological relationship between higher-intelligible self and the lower-embodied self; the self as conscious center of awareness; self-knowledge and self-thinking as integral capacities of selfhood. The second part investigates the interrelated structure of the self between the perceptible world and the intelligible world with special reference to the limits of the self, self-determination, self-control and self-constitution. The book is also supplemented by an index locorum.

Particularly, in the first chapter Remes focuses on Plotinus' ontology of selfhood. The author correctly places this discussion within the framework of Plotinus' metaphysics of being and the anthropology of psyche. Plotinus' metaphysics entails a kind of anthropology of the selves based on the ontological distinction between eternal universals and temporal particulars. Whereas eternal entities persist in the stable identity and unity of the intelligible forms, temporal beings exist in the temporal flux and continuity of becoming. On this basis, Remes maintains two kinds of selves: (1) the higher selves related to the pure eternal life of the intelligible being and (2) the composite soul-body selves related to the fluidity of temporal becoming. For Remes, 'Plotinus seems to think that an entity in time is stretched across episodes in analogy with the way an entity in matter has spatial parts' (p. 13). However, Plotinus is careful to discriminate between temporal and spatial existences. For instance, in Ennead III.7 Plotinus criticises previous theories of time due to their association of chronos with physical motion, bodily change or spatial properties. For Plotinus temporal motion and spatial movements must be distinguished: since motion occurs in time, time cannot be identified with something occurring in it (III.7.8.45-47). Spatial movement can stop or be interrupted, but temporal motion cannot (III.7.8.6-8).

Within the framework, the first chapter is further divided in two parts. The first part (pp. 32-59) exposes Plotinus' metaphysical discrimination between being and becoming, eternity and time. Remes correctly highlights the ontological relationship between eternal beings and temporal particulars by stressing their diverse metaphysical unity, identity and persistence throughout the hypostases of being. The author appropriately maintains that Plotinus' metaphysics and ontology is an essential prerequisite for understanding his philosophy of self and the possibility and structure of self-knowledge (p. 55 ff.). In the second part (pp. 59-91), Remes focuses on human individuals and individuality in relation to Plotinus' notion of self. The discussion is based on two extremes (p. 60 ff.): on the one hand, there is an argument that human individuality justifies, in metaphysical terms, the existence of forms of individuals and, on the other hand, that the 'fall' of the soul from the higher realms of existence causes a deficient temporal existence of individuality. On this Remes offers an enlightening discussion on Plotinus' understanding of the Platonic forms and their metaphysical connection to soul-forms, logoi and individuality. The author concludes that an embodied self is a deficient entity due to disunited psychic individuality compared to higher self that persists in the perfect unity and stability of Intellect.

Remes frequently speaks of 'embodied selves' or 'embodied souls'; however, it has to be mentioned, that Plotinus usually describes psyche to animate or illuminate perceptible bodies through logos (IV.3.10): soul is not conceived as present in the body but the body as present in the soul. Therefore, for Plotinus, it is more appropriate to speak of 'ensouled bodies' rather than 'embodied souls' (IV.3.22-23). Following this rationale a questions must be posed: is it 'we', as Remes maintains, that find ourselves as composite and embodied individuals (p. 85), or is it 'we' that recognize ourselves as intelligible ensouled beings?

In the second chapter, Remes focuses on Plotinus' analysis of awareness and consciousness as centers of the self. This chapter is divided into two parts by offering two different perspectives of selfhood related to 'body' and 'mind'. The first part (pp. 96-110) exposes 'bodily self-awareness' (sunaisthêsis) with special reference to the concepts of 'immediacy' as the directness of the way knowledge is gained by the self; 'unity' of the experiencing subject and 'ownness' of experience at a first-personal level. In this part Remes correctly highlights and properly justifies the Stoic influence in Plotinus' conception of bodily proprioception. The second part (pp. 110-124) focuses on the inquiry of personal identity as mental connectedness with special reference to the relationship between memory and consciousness related to the temporal self; the problem of double-selfhood between personal identity and the inner self is also discussed. For Remes, self-awareness characterizes all levels of selfhood, and on this basis a metaphysical connection between the higher self and the lower self could be established.

In the third chapter, Remes investigates Plotinus' reflections on rational self and its knowledge of itself. For the author the higher self and the animated self are interrelated through an innate exercise of reason, consciousness and self-reflection. The embodied self is able through self-knowledge and reasoning to actualize intellection and to integrate itself to the higher reality of the Forms. Through this process human psyche realizes unity and coherence beyond multiplicity and plurality. The dianoia leads the soul to awareness of its own intelligible capacities and ascends through self-knowledge to reason to the higher reality of nous. On this issue, Remes correctly notes that Plotinus foreshadows Edmund Husserl's view of the self as being subject and object of the world simultaneously: "Plotinus demands that true self-knowledge ought to reveal the self not just qua the object, but qua the subject of thinking. There is an aspect of subjectivity that persistently flees the objectifying gaze" (p. 15).

Chapter four opens Remes' section on the construction of selfhood between the world and the ideal. In this chapter, Remes focuses on the ways and faculties through which selfhood is realized in real life with special reference to self-determination, self-control and self-constitution as 'acts' of the self that relate to human freedom and emotions. Through these 'acts' the self realizes its ideal core and integrates with its supreme intelligible origins. On this basis, chapter 5 is an exposition of the role of the self as moral agent. Remes discusses Plotinus' ethics of disinterested interest in connection to virtue and moral action. Finally, in chapter 6, the author offers a discussion on the limits of the self. Remes describes the experience of self beyond the search for knowledge but the identification with the supreme unity of the One.

In conclusion, Remes' monograph is a well-structured and informative study on Plotinus' philosophy of self. The author uses in an enlightening and scholarly way both primary and secondary sources, deriving from ancient and modern inquiries about the self, on Plotinus' theory of selfhood. Remes' most important contribution is that places Plotinus' theory of the self within the Western philosophical tradition and reestablishes the importance of the Neoplatonist in the history of ideas. The author appropriately shows that Plotinus' psychology on the reflective nature of selfhood opens a new direction in the ancient philosophical speculation of the self, but also foreshadows eminent philosophical figures of later philosophical tradition such as Saint Augustine, Renê Descartes, John Locke and Edmund Husserl. (read complete article)

2009.01.05

Guido Avezzù, Paolo Scattolin (edd.), I classici greci e i loro commentatori. Dai papiri ai marginalia rinascimentali. Atti del convegno Rovereto, 20ottobre 2006. Memorie, ser. II, vol. X. Rovereto: Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati, 2006. Pp. 246.
Reviewed by Saulo Delle Donne, Università del Salento (saulo.delledonne@ateneo.unile.it)

[Libraries can acquire this book for free. Information at the end of the review.]

Il volume raccoglie gli Atti del convegno, di cui mutua il titolo, tenutosi a Rovereto nell'ottobre 2006 presso l'Accademia degli Agiati. Se è sempre difficile dare conto, in modo sintetico e senza troppi 'sacrifici', dei contenuti di un libro, questa difficoltà è ben maggiore qualora il libro - come in questo caso - sia una miscellanea. Si può qui, però, almeno cercare di dare un'idea di ognuno dei contributi che lo compongono e provare, così, a far cogliere, assieme alla complessità e all'indubbio fascino del tema affrontato, anche il taglio e il valore complessivo del libro medesimo. Come si avrà modo di intravedere, infatti, il convegno roveretano è stato di certo una preziosa occasione per discutere della scoliografia antica o, più in generale, di quel patrimonio esegetico-interpretativo "in margine ai testi antichi" che si è concretizzato nei corpora scoliastici medievali, ma anche in commenti autonomi, parafrasi, lessici ed etymologica, richiamando per altro l'attenzione dei filologi moderni fin da epoca umanistica. E a Rovereto, accanto a studiosi noti da tempo per aver praticato questi argomenti (F. Montana, F. Montanari, R. Tosi), sono intervenuti anche dottorandi e dottori di ricerca (D. Cufalo, A. Martano, G. Merro, M. Taufer, V. Turra, G. Ucciardello), o giovani studiosi già affermati (F. M. Pontani), alcuni dei quali, per altro, nelle more della curatela di questi Atti, hanno anche pubblicato ulteriori contributi.¹

Nell'intervento di F. Montanari ("Glossario, parafrasi, edizione commentata nei papiri", pp. 9-15) spicca la nuova definizione di 'edizione commentata' in sostituzione di quella di 'edizione a lemmi continui'. Essa è legata ad una tipologia libraria ed esegetica che era già nel noto P. Lille callimacheo, ma che ora è testimoniata anche dal P. Fay. 3 della fine del I sec. d.C., contenente i Topica di Aristotele. In questo papiro, il testo aristotelico è presente per intero, ma diviso in porzioni; ad ognuna di queste segue--collocata in eisthesis--la relativa esegesi e tale esegesi è una parafrasi, ma occasionalmente presenta anche elementi aggiuntivi di spiegazione e segnalazioni di punti difficili. Insomma, non si tratta in senso proprio né di uno hypomnema né di una parafrasi né di un glossario. E se si tiene conto che il papiro precede di quasi due secoli la grande stagione dei sistematici commentari aristotelici di Alessandro di Afrodisia, si potrebbe pensare che questo tipo 'speciale' possa (ma non a forza) anticipare e preparare a più grandi e completi commenti, quali appunto, nel caso di Aristotele, quelli di Alessandro.

F. Montana ("L'anello mancante: l'esegesi ad Aristofane tra l'antichità e Bisanzio", pp. 17-34) affronta il complesso quanto annoso problema dell'origine della scoliografia. A tal fine egli sceglie di soffermarsi, sia da un punto di vista tipologico che di storia del testo, sulla testimonianza dei papiri di Aristofane e non tutti i papiri, ma proprio quei papiri che si collocano in età tardo-antica (tra IV e V secolo), provengono da codices (e non da volumina) e conservano diverse note marginali spesso in continuità con gli scoli medievali: BKT IX 5 (= Aristophanes 6 CLGP) ~ Sch. vet. Aristoph. Equ. v. 580c; P.Oxy. 1371(= Aristophanes 13 CLGP) ~ Sch. vet. Aristoph. Nub. 2a; P. Acad.inv.3 d + Bodl. Ms. gr. class. f.72 (= Aristophanes 5 CLPG) ~ Sch. vet. Aristoph. Equ. 84b; MPER N.S. I 34 + P.Vindob. G. 29833 C verso, rr. 6-9 + P. Duke inv. 643 recto (= Aristophanes 17+18 CLGP) ~ Sch. vet. ad Aristoph. Pax 466.

Dal punto di vista della storia del testo, diversi sono i papiri aristofanei che presentano note in continuità (letterale o di contenuto) con le corrispondenti note degli scholia medievali, ma tali coincidenze si hanno solo per alcune note dei papiri (e non per tutte) e, nel caso di quelle di contenuto, il papiro offre di norma una versione più accorciata e sintetica. Evidentemente, papiri e manoscritti medievali usavano fonti comuni, ma in modo autonomo l'uno dall'altro. Ma al riguardo si può dire anche qualcosa di più."I frequenti casi di contiguità trovano spiegazione nella derivazione da fonti comuni perdute in forma di hypomnemata. In base alla testimonianza delle sottoscrizioni presenti nel Marc. gr. 474 a Nuvole, Pace e Uccelli (...) e fino a prova contraria, non possiamo escludere che queste fonti siano oggi l'anello mancante della catena tradizionale che lega l'antichità all'età foziana: hypomnemata tardo-antichi, estremi eredi della lunga stagione iniziata nell'Alessandria tolemaica, a loro volta ampiamente rimaneggiati e stratificati nel corso del tempo, ancora circolanti in epoca avanzata (...) come scritti di autore e non anonimi, destino non insolito delle opere erudite" (p. 26).

Dal punto di vista tipologico, infine, significativi sono i casi, ad es., dei P. Oxy 1317 e BKT IX 5: essi presentano numerose note, ma tali note sono vergate da mani differenti (almeno due nel primo e quattro nel secondo caso), spesso sono solo semplici notae personae o note glossografiche che non trovano corrispondenza negli scholia medievali, e, infine, si dislocano sui margini quasi stratificandosi. Insomma, quello dei papiri anche tardo-antichi "è un modo di operare che si colloca a metà tra la prassi di apporre episodicamente delle note estraendole da una fonte o creandole al bisogno...e la tessitura di contributi sistematicamente tratti da una selezionata rosa di modelli esegetici, che caratterizza gli scoli medievali. Nella sostanza, il peculiare procedimento scoliastico della compilazione di fonti esegetiche diverse, attuato in modo unitario e sistematico, risulta estraneo agli annotatori dei papiri aristofanei conservati. Questa diversità, che sarebbe riduttivo intendere in termini meramente quantitativi (...) costituisce il principale elemento di discontinuità fra il tipo rappresentato dalle note dei papiri e gli scoli e impedisce di negare (...) la differenza (novità) dell'impresa redazionale di epoca mediobizantina" (p. 30).

Il P. Genova II 52 del III d.C., contenente un elenco di lemmi di un lessico (i relativi interpretamenta sono perduti), il P. Berol. inv. 9965 del III-II a.C. (MP3 2121.01 = LDAB 7028), tra i più antichi lessici su papiro, ed il P. Oxy. 2637 (MP3 1943.3 = LDAB 4820), dagli editori definito 'Commentary on choral lyric', ma fornito anche di elementi glossografici, interessano direttamente G. Ucciardello ("Esegesi linguistica, glosse ed interpretamenta tra hypomnemata e lessici. Materiali e spunti di riflessione", pp. 35-83). L'A. vorrebbe offrire un "piccolo inventario di problemi (vecchi e nuovi) relativi ai più antichi lessici papiracei ed ai rapporti tra esegesi linguistica negli hypomnemata su papiro, l'altro grande prodotto dell'erudizione antica, e lessicografia tout court" (p. 36). Il suo intervento, pero, è tutt'altro che 'un piccolo inventario'. Sia del P. Berol. inv. 9965 che del P. Oxy. 2637 offre un'edizione critica con apparato testuale, includendo per il primo un ampio apparato di fonti e per il secondo specifiche note di commento. Non manca, poi, di correggere o completare le informazioni e le osservazioni precedentemente fatte da editori o studiosi (per il P. Genova II 52 quanto affermato da Klaas Worp² e per il P. Oxy. 2637 le tesi di K. McNamee).³ Offre un'ampia serie di note anche di storia delle fonti. Così, per il P. Berol. inv. 9965, si deve qui segnalare almeno che le due spiegazioni βλοσυρός: μιαρός e βλοσυρός: μιαρόν potrebbero essere un'esegesi autoschediastica di Aesch. Eum. 167, autore poco studiato (per quel che si sa) nel III a.C. e dal lessicografo di questo papiro per la prima volta excerptato. Notevole anche che questo papiro attesti, tra i suoi lemmi, hapax assoluti (βλύδιον, βουρειόνες da considerare forse poeticismi o termini della lingua parlata. Notevoli ancora le voces Athenienses tratte da Aristofane o dalla commedia antica in genere o forse da lessici specifici, attici o relativi alla commedia: βεμβικίζει: στρέφει, βλάξ: μῶρος: Ἀθηναῖοι, βλειμάζει: βαστάσει: Ἀθηναῖοι (nell' Appendice l'A. offre anche un primo studio sulla terminologia antica per queste voces sulla base di Ateneo, Esichio e Frinico). Infine, nel caso del P. Oxy. 2637, si sofferma a ripercorrere le vie dell'esegesi attorno al lemma αὔχα, fatta inclusione anche della più diffusa forma verbale αὐχεῖν/χαυκᾶσθαι, individuando 8 passi utili, tratti da autori antichi come Pindaro (Pind. Ol. IX 38) e Licurgo (περὶ τῶν μαντεὶων fr. 1 Conomis), che di questa storia sono all'origine, ma anche da etimologici, da vari lessici generali o ai retori (dall'Antiatticista al Lex. Rhet. di Bekker, al Suida) ed anche dall'inedito Lex. Rhet. Vaticanum (cod. Vat. gr. 7 del 1310) noto anche come Lessico di Giorgio Francopulo (fr. 71 dell'edizione dall'A. in corso di preparazione), che è l'unico a proporre un'attribuzione della dottrina circa l'esegesi di αὐχεῖν con καὐχᾶσθαι, attribuzione ad un Eudemo retore nel secondo libro di un suo περὶ ῥητορικῶν ἀφορμῶν.

Oggetto dello studio di A. Martano ("L'esegesi antica allo Scudo di Eracle nell'Etymologicum Genuinum e Gudianum", pp. 85-119) è la tradizione indiretta relativa all'esegesi in margine allo Scutum di Esiodo, in particolare quella attestata nell'Etym. Genuinum, nell'Etym. Magnum e nell'Etym. Gudianum. Forte delle moderne edizioni di questi lessici e della consultazione diretta dei due mss. A (Vat. gr. 1818) e B (Laur. S. Marci 304) dell'Et. Genuinum, individua numerosi casi in più di accordo tra gli scoli e questi etymologyca rispetto alla lista proposta da C. F. Russo.⁴ Si tratta in ordine: di ben 11 casi di accordo tra scoli ed Etym. Genuinum (Sch. vv. 20 e 30; v. 79; v. 122; v. 134; v. 181; v. 223; vv. 287+288+289; v. 291; v. 348; v. 387; v. 397); di un 1 caso di parziale corrispondenza sempre con l'Etym. Genuinum (Sch. v. 301); di almeno 5 casi in più di accordo sempre con il Genuinum, ma - cosa trascurata del tutto da Russo - questa volta a livello già di lemma (Sch. v. 70; 192; 208; 224; ed anche, ma meno probabilmente, al v. 293). Di questi casi l'A. offre, poi, una dettagliata analisi, giungendo ad una conclusione articolata in 10 punti, tra i quali segnalo:

1) verisimilmente derivano recta via dal corpus scoliastico anche le voci il cui lemma è una parola attestata da Esiodo, ma la cui successiva spiegazione non cita né Esiodo né lo Scutum;

2) il compilatore dei lessici interviene poco e, quando lo fa, ricorre di solito ad un σημαίνει, limitandosi a varianti sinonimiche o di tipo glossa;

3) il commento utilizzato dagli Etymologica doveva già essere di tipo marginale, evidentemente della prima metà del IX sec., e fornito oltre che di scoli anche di glosse;

4) questo commento, però, non si può avvicinare a nessuno di quelli che leggiamo oggi nei codici, tranne per il dato generico che esso pare simile ai commenti che ce lo conservano nella forma più antica, ragion per cui occorre pensare piuttosto alla presenza di un archetipo comune, probabilmente coevo alla redazione degli Etymologica medesimi;

5) quanto alla constitutio textus dello Scutum il commento utilizzato dal Genuinum "va (...) tenuto in considerazione pari ai codici R2WFVBLZ Λ e X, nonché, laddove necessari, anche a Q e R3" (p. 117).

Grazie all'esperienza ecdotica maturata con la nuova edizione degli Scholia Graeca in Platonem (Roma 2007), D. Cufalo ("Platone e i suoi commentatori", pp. 121-137) a proposito degli scoli di contenuto filosofico-interpretativo 'in margine' a Platone evidenzia: "è palese, per i corrispondenti dialoghi, la derivazione dai commenti di Proclo a Parmenide ed Alcibiade I, di Hermias a Fedro, di Olimpiodoro a Fedone, Alcibiade I e Gorgia, ma reperiamo una manciata di scoli filosofici, pur di ignote origini, anche in margine a Sofista (nrr. 2, 5, 7), Eutidemo (nr. 40 e forse anche 1), Protagora(nrr. 8, 9, 23, 31, 36 e parte del 35), Menone (nr. 12, 14-23, 25-28, 32-34), Ippia Maggiore (nrr. 16, 20-23), e, in una misura ben più significativa, a Teeteto e, di nuovo, Gorgia" (p.123). Per questi ultimi scoli di ignote origini Mettauer⁵ pensò a Proclo come fonte, visto che proprio Proclo era citato in Theaet. 38, ma si potrebbe fare anche il nome di Olimpiodoro, visto che sono presenti frequenti citazioni di Omero e che Olimpiodoro amò molto citare questo autore e pare possa aver commentato anche il Teeteto ed il Sofista.

Che i commentari platonici tardo-antichi fossero, però, a disposizione a Bisanzio all'inizio del IX--come suggeriva già Westerink--⁶ è evidente per via dei legami che si possono individuare tra i commentari di Hermias o di Proclo ed i manoscritti della celebre 'Collezione Filosofica'. Il cod. Marc. gr. 196 di Olimpiodoro, che appartiene a questa collezione, inizia infatti a commentare il testo platonico proprio dallo stesso punto in cui cominciano gli scoli. Evidentemente utilizzano lo stesso commentario. Questo non significa che lo utilizzino nello stesso manoscritto testimone di esso, giacché--per quanto valga un argumentum ex silentio--gli scoli non utilizzano mai i commentari di Damascio, che invece nel ms. marciano in questione sono presenti.

Per quanto riguarda, poi, gli scoli filologico-grammaticali, l'A. ritiene "che furono trascritti in un momento successivo a quelli filosofici e solo in una parte della tradizione" (p. 125). Però, anche per questi scoli--di nuovo sulla base del Marc. gr. 196--si deve ammettere una stretta connessione con la 'collezione filosofica'. Nel detto ms., infatti, compare un gran numero di glosse dello stesso tipo di questi scoli, glosse che, quindi, hanno poco a che fare con gli interessi dei commentari di un Olimpiodoro o di Damascio, ma sono piuttosto frutto della consultazione di lessici, raccolte, glossari, enciclopedie. E in una ventina di casi queste glosse del Marc. gr. 196 coincidono con quelle degli scholia vetera a Platone. In un caso (Sch. Ol. in Plat. Gorg. 158.25-26 nel ms. Marc. gr. 196 = Sch. vet. in Plat. Gorg. 314) tra i due corpora compare un passo identico ed anche corrotto allo stesso modo. Non si può, però, pensare alla derivazione l'uno dall'altro. Numerosi sono, infatti, anche i casi in cui, invece, il redattore degli scoli filologico-grammaticali presenti nel ms. di Olimpiodoro redige i suoi scoli in modo differente da quanto fa il redattore degli stessi scoli in margine a Platone (Sch. Ol. in Plat. Gorg. 88.27-32 vs. Sch. vet. in Plat. Phaedr. 22 circa l'etimologia di Areopago; Sch. Ol. in Plat. Alc. 43.11 vs. Sch. vet. in Plat. Alc. I 6 circa l'efebia in Atene; Sch. Ol. in Plat. Phaed. 11.12.2 vs. Sch. vet. in Plat. Resp. 10.606c circa la βωμολοχὶα.

G. Merro ("L'esegesi antica al Reso", pp. 139-150), richiamando l'attenzione su scoli come quelli ai vv. 5, 540 e 528, avanza l'ipotesi che in epoca antica sia esistito un commentario specifico al Reso di Euripide. Questi scoli, infatti, presentano una prassi espositiva particolare: ad una pars destruens a danno delle opinioni di Cratete di Mallo segue una pars construens a favore delle opinioni di Aristarco o del suo allievo Parmenisco. Evidentemente, allora, qualcuno - un commentatore appunto - deve essersi preoccupato di raccogliere questo materiale e organizzarne l'esposizione. E si può anzi ipotizzare che questo commentatore sia proprio il citato Parmenisco. La conferma di ciò viene da ulteriori scoli quali in specifico--dopo quelli già segnalati da Breithaupt--⁷ lo scolio al v. 523 che riporta l'esegesi di Parmenisco alla forma avverbiale προταινί che è attestata solo nel Reso, e lo scolio al v. 342, in cui si riportano in modo anonimo le notizie genealogiche su Adrastea, notizie che, come sappiamo da Igino, provenivano da Parmenisco.

Questo primo commentario al Reso, però, deve aver subíto, a sua volta, un'opera di consultazione e citazione. Lo indica chiaramente lo stato redazionale dello scolio al v. 528, in cui è una voce anonima a riportare, condividendola, la tesi di Parmenisco. Il commentario di Parmenisco, quindi, deve essere stato ampiamente utilizzato da parte di un secondo commentatore. E per quest'ultimo diversi elementi farebbero pensare--contra Wilamowitz e più di recente A. Burlando--⁸ proprio a Didimo Calcentero.

V. Turra ("Sul valore di alcune categorie critiche negli Scholia vetera al Filottete", pp. 151-171) innanzitutto redige un'ampia classificazione sia delle tipologie di commento (dalla critica letteraria alle notizie erudite, dalle segnalazioni di metafore alle notazioni di psicologia dei personaggi, dalla correptio in iato ai casi di ἀφαίρεσις intesa però come caduta del Σ all'interno di parola) sia delle formule od espressioni tecniche (da γράφε o γράφεται a λέγει o βούλεται λέγειν éo εἴπεῖν, da ὁ δὲ νοῦς a κεχίασται) presenti nel corpus esegetico al Filottete di Sofocle (ved. anche la raccolta nell'Appendice, pp. 164-167). Dopo di che, si sofferma sul caso dello scolio a Aesch. Phil. 1116, che spiega il verso πότμος σε δαιμόνων. Si tratterebbe di un conglomerato di più sezioni di esegesi o--che è lo stesso--di più scoli, in particolare tre:

a) il primo spiega solo il v. 1116 e con un λείπει ipotizza l'omissione di un ἐκ prima di δαιμόνων, mentre con un γάρ introduce la spiegazione in chiaro;

b) il secondo coinvolge anche i versi successivi e pensa alla costruzione ἀπὸ κοινοῦ del verbo ἔσχεν presente al v. 1118, facendo, quindi, subito seguire la costruzione semplificata del testo sofocleo tramite la formula τὸ δὲ ἑξῆς qui usata non per legare--come più comune--due scoli o due parti di scolio, ma per introdurre la parafrasi successiva;

c) il terzo infine con un ὁ δὲ νοῦς introduce una parafrasi dell'intero brano a restituire più il 'senso' che non la 'lettera' del testo.

L'attenzione di R. Tosi ("Note ad alcuni scoli ad Aristofane (Eur. fr. 588a K.)", pp. 173-180) si sofferma sul fr. 588a Kannicht del Palamede di Euripide quale tradito dallo Sch. vet. in Aristoph. Thesmoph. 771, scolio conservato solo nel noto cod. Ravennate 429 (in sigla R), codex unicus per le Tesmoforiazuse. Lo scolio, in base al suo dettato testuale completo (e non quello parziale adottato da Kannicht!), si articola in due parti distinte: nella prima dice che Palamede fa scrivere al fratello Eace la notizia della propria morte sulle navi (εἰς τὰς ναῦς) nella speranza che esse prima o poi giungano al padre Nauplio (ἔλθωσιν εἰς τὸν ναύπλιον τόν πατέρα αὐτοῦ) come portate da sole (φερόμεναι ἑαυταῖς) la seconda, invece, riferisce che Eace scrive la notizia su numerose pale di remo (πολλαῖς πλάταις), per poi lasciarle andare per mare (ἀφίησιν εἰς θάλασσαν), di modo che almeno una capiti nelle mani di Nauplio (προπεσεῖν). Di queste due notizie, è da preferire la prima, perchè è logicamente più sensata e perchè è più coerente con il contesto aristofaneo in cui il Parente, catturato dalle donne, pensa di chiamare in soccorso Euripide, lasciandosi dietro qua e là delle tavolette (ἀγάλματα) come un novello Palamede. Constata questa duplice articolazione dello scolio, se ne può, però, anche intravedere la genesi. "La prima parte non può che essere vista come il frutto di un processo di questo genere: una tendenza banalizzante portò a sostituire πολλαῖς πλάταις con un generico εἰς τὰς ναῦς [e siccome εἰς τὰς ναῦς sono parole del testo aristofaneo, la loro sostituzione costituisce un'eccezione al principio secondo cui il 'nucleo' della citazione testuale di partenza è al riparo da cambiamenti nel corso di ulteriore tradizione!], il fatto che Nauplio si imbattesse in almeno una di esse in un vago ἔλθωσιν εἰς τὸ ναύπλιον (lo scoliasta precisa che questo personaggio era il padre di Palamede, perché, forse, si rivolgeva a studenti); il testo che ne risultò, in cui si aveva anche un sibillino φερόμεναι ἑαυταῖς, dovette ad un certo punto indurre un fruitore nell'insana tentazione di intepretare i 'remi' come sineddoche delle navi, e riscrivere quindi l'episodio in modo del tutto diverso. Un ultimo scoliasta (quello di R o un suo predecessore), volendo dar vita a un commento ad Aristofane che sussumesse tutte le precedenti interpretazioni, riprese entrambe e le accostò, reputando che fossero radicalmente differenti, e non sapendo ovviamente più quale delle due fosse l'esatta" (pp. 175-176).

M. Taufer ("Marginalia eschilei di Jean Dorat. Otto emendamenti all'Orestea, pp. 181-199) si occupa di alcuni passi dell'Orestea eschilea, sui quali potrebbe essere intervenuto Jean Dorat, latinamente noto come Ioannes Auratus. L'A. non se ne era occupato nella sua precedente monografia,⁹ perché esse compaiono anonime sui margini di 10 copie dell'Eschilo edito da Vettori ed Estienne nel 1557, ovvero:

1-3) Universiteitsbibl. di Leida = 756 D 21 annotata dallo Scaligero; 756 D 22 annotata da Portus; 756 D 23, annotata da Bourdelot;

4-5) Cambridge Univ. Library = Adv. B 3. 3 annotata da Casaubon; Adv. C. 25. 5 con emendamenti anonimi ma ascritti a Dorat stesso, Portus o Casaubon;

6-7) British Library = 832.k.26 apografo dei marginalia di Emeric Bigot; 11705.d.2 con note di varia provenienza;

8-9) Bodleian Library = Auct. S. 6.16 con note di varia provenienza; MS. Rawl. G 190 con note di varia provenienza;

10) National Art Library di Londra = Dyce coll. M 4to 113 annotata da tre mani diverse.

Oggi, però, l'A. ritiene che esse possano attribuirsi a Dorat con una buona dose di attendibilità, sulla base di attribuzioni già fatte da Hermann (edizione del 1852) o West (1998) oppure di attribuzioni che qui vengon fatte per la prima volta. I casi in questione sono:

1) Aesch. Ag. 134 οἴκω Σ Ω - ῳ T: οἴκτῳ Aur[atus], Scal[iger];

2) Aesch. Ag. 963 δειμάτων codd.: δ'εἰμάτων Aur[atus], Cant[erus];

3) Aesch. Ag. 1165 δυσαγγεῖ codd.: δυσαλγεῖ Aur[atus], Cant[erus];

4) Aesch. Ag. 1362 κτείνοντες codd.: τείνοντες Aur[atus], Cant[erus];

5) Aesch. Ag. 1511 παρέξει edd.: προσβαίνων codd., προβαίνων Aur[atus], Cant[erus];

6) Aesch. Ag. 1511 ἐν πυροῖς codd.: ἐμπύροισι Aur[atus], Cant[erus];

7) Aesch. Ag. 1018-1020 versus non Oresti (sicut M), sed Coro trib. Aur[atus], Cant[erus];

8) Aesch. Ag. 311 ἅμα codd.: ἁμά Aur[atus], Cant[erus].

F. M. Pontani ("Gli scoli omerici e il senso del mondo. Storie e progetti da Faesch a Valckenaer, da Villoison e Tychsen a oggi", pp. 201--233), infine, ripercorre le tappe che hanno condotto alle edizioni del corpus degli scholia all'Iliade e all'Odissea e che rendono urgente sostituire quella degli scoli odissiaci di Dindorf, a dimostrare la cui insufficienza l'A., in chiusa ed in un'Appendice, discute il testo degli scoli ad α 346-352.

In questa storia, prima di Villoison, si possono individuare almeno due fasi distinte: la prima giunge fino a quasi tutto il XVII sec., la seconda dal secondo quarto del XVII sec. arriva fino al Villoison. Nella prima fase, si registrano quasi esclusivamente editori del testo omerico, i quali per altro si vantano sempre di aver usato manoscritti assai preziosi (Antonio Franchini, Henri Estienne, Hubert von Giffen). Solo Konrad Hornei scelse di dedicare le sue cure a scoli omerici, stampando gli Scholia Townleyana (scholia T) del solo libro IX dell'Iliade. Però, si registrarono anche alcune notevoli ricerche erudite: il De vita et scriptis Porphyrii di Lucas Holste, la Dissertatio inauguralis de fato scriptorum Homeri per omnia saecula di Johann Rudoplh Wettstein, che dà notizia degli odierni Amstelod. 338 e Paris. Gr. 2682 e di un terzo codice, che gli venne segnalato da Sebastian Faesch (forse nell'ottobre del 1678), codice particolarmente prezioso e che è da identificare o con il celebre Venetus A o con il Venetus B, scoperti quindi ben prima del Villoison; la Historia critica Homeri di Ludolf Kuester (Francofurti ad Viadrum 1696), prima importante summa delle conoscenze su Omero, anche se, per i manoscritti, riprende le notizie già in Wettstein.

Nella seconda fase si dà finalmente attenzione anche ai corpora scoliastici, ma questo viene fatto in maniera disordinata ed episodica. Dopo la pubblicazione a cura di Barnes nel 1711 degli Scholia D all'Iliade e degli Scholia V all'Odissea si registrano: l'edizione degli scoli al primo libro dell'Iliade dal Venetus B ad opera di Bongiovanni; l'edizione a cura di L. C. Valckernaer degli scoli al canto X dell'Iliade dal Leid. Voss. Gr. 64, nella quale per altro compare anche un'importante introduzione metodologica su natura e limiti di glosse interlineari, parafrasi e scholia, con attenzione al ruolo degli excerpta di Porfirio e alla dinamica di stratificazione; l'edizione a cura di C. F. Matthei degli scoli al libro XXIII dell'Iliade dal Mosq. Synod. 75. Nello stesso tempo viene sperimentato un layout tipografico del tutto nuovo da E. Wassenbergh, allievo di Valckenaer: il testo greco (secondo l'editio princeps di Calcondila del 1488) è posto sulla pagina a sinistra in alto; a fronte sull'altra pagina, sempre in alto, compare la parafrasi greca tratta dal cod. Amstedol. 3888, in calce, su entrambe le pagine, è posta la fitta serie degli scoli tratti da sei fonti differenti (Scholia D dell'editio romana del 1517, scoli del Venetus B editi dal Bongiovanni, i commentari di Eustazio; il cod. Leid. Voss. Gr. 64; il codice citato Amstelod. 388; il cod. Lips. Gr. 32).

Rispetto a questo pur lungo passato, però, è solo con Villoison che inizia "l'età d'oro degli studi omerici in Europa" (p. 213). Egli, infatti, scopre il Venetus A attorno al luglio del 1779, subito ne pianifica un'edizione che si realizza--come noto--nel 1788 in cui dà alle stampe gli scoli del Venetus A, del Venetus B e del Lips. Gr. 32. Tuttavia l'edizione presentava, da una parte, una lunga quasi sovraccarica introduzione in cui la storia del testo e dell'erudizione omerica antica affogava in un eccesso di dettagli e di erudizione, e, dall'altra, l'omissione della questione dei rapporti tra le collezioni di scoli. A queste due lacune diedero risposta poco dopo, rispettivamente, F. August Wolf (Prolegomena ad Homerum) e T. C. Tychsen (rec. all'edizione di Villoison del 1788 in Bibliothek der alten Litteratur und Kunst 5, 1789, pp. 26-55, recensione importantissima, ma presto caduta in oblio) che già divide i corpora scoliastici in due classi, l'una facente capo al Venetus A, e l'altra al Venetus B, battezzando lui per primo gli scoli della seconda classe come "scoli esegetici".

In questa lunga storia degli studi omerici del tutto minima l'attenzione per l'Odissea. Si ebbero, sì, ben tre edizioni di scoli, ma furono solo edizioni 'locali', cioè da singoli codici: l'edizione viennese a cura di Alter (a. 1794); quella londinese di Porson (a. 1800); quella ambrosiana di Angelo Mai (a. 1819). La svolta editoriale fu segnata solo dall'edizione "sinottica internazionale" curata da Philipp Buttman nel 1821, poi soppiantata da quella di Dindorf nel 1855, ancora oggi corrente. Questa edizione mise a frutto l'edizione di Buttman e l'aumentò con gli scoli editi da codici di Amburgo a cura di Preller (a. 1839) e con gli scoli in codici Harleiani editi da Cramer (a. 1841). Una possibile spiegazione di questo ritardo nei confronti dell'Odissea è molto probabilmente in un senso di limitazione e di mancanza di entusiasmo che si dovette sentire per la mancanza di un codice di pari importanza quale il Venetus A, come già lamentava Villoison alla fine dei suoi Prolegomena.

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Notes

1. Il volume raccoglie anche il contributo di A. Martano, il suo intervento, però, non fu possibile inserirlo nel programma del Convegno. Tra i contributi successivi, ved. ad es.: Scholia graeca in Platonem, edidit D. Cufalo, vol. I. scholia ad dialogos tetralogiarum I-VII continens, Roma 2007; Scholia graeca in Odysseam, edidit F. Pontani, vol. I. Scholia ad libros α-β, Roma 2007.

2. K. A. Worp, "P. Genova II 52: a link with Hesychius?", ZPE 156, 2006, pp. 185-193.

3. K. McNamee, Marginalia and Commentaries in Greek Literary Papyri, Durham 1977.

4. Hesiodi Scutum, testo critico e commento con traduzione e indici a cura di C. F. Russo, Firenze 1965.

5. T. Mettauer, De Platonis scholiorum fontibus, Turici 1880.

6. L. G. Westerink, Das Rätsel des untergründigen Neuplatonismus, in ΦΙΛΟΦΡΟΝΗΜΑ. Von Textktitik bis Humanismusforschung. Festschrift für Martin Sicherl zum 75. Geburtstag, Padeborn-München-Wien-Zürich 1990, pp. 105-123.

7. M. Breithaupt, De Parmenisco grammatico, Berlin 1915.

8. U. v. Wilamowitz, De Rhesi scholiis disputatiuncula Griphiswaldiae 1877 (=Kleine Schriften, I, Berlin 1935); A. Burlando, Reso: i problemi, la scena, Genova 1997.

9. M. Taufer, Jean Dorat editore e interprete di Eschilo, Amsterdam 2005. (read complete article)

2009.01.04

Antonino Grillone (ed., comm.), Blossi Aem. Draconti. Orestis Tragoedia. Introduzione, testo critico e commento. Invigilata Lucernis 33. Bari: Edipuglia, 2008. Pp. 221. ISBN 9788872285237. €30.00 (pb).
Georg Luck, Johns Hopkins University (ghbluck@jhu.edu)

Professor Grillone is an authority on Dracontius, and the Bibliography (pp. 165-70) lists no less than twenty-six of his own publications dealing in one way or another with the poet who lived in the 5th century AD and this particular work of his, a kind of epyllion in 974 hexameters, covering the plot of Aeschylus' Oresteia with some additional episodes.

The text is preserved anonymously in two MSS, the Bernensis Bongarsianus 45, s. IX (= B) and the Ambrosianus O 74 sup., s. XV (=A). About twenty lines (see p. 20, n.7) are found in four Florilegia (s. XIII-XIV).

The first to draw attention to the work was J. R. (not J. B.) Sinner de Ballaigues (1730-1787), the Librarian of the Bibliotheca Bernensis at the time, a contemporary and friend of Albrecht von Haller. In his Catalogus of the Latin MSS. now in the Burgerbibliothek (Bern, 1760, pp. 507-8) he transcribed vv. 1-2 and 752-70, making two evident emendations (754 uatis for satis [B] or sortis [A] and 756 necet, necet for net necet [B] or necet nec [A].

The whole story of this text, as it went through the hands of a succession of editors, is fascinating and represents, in my opinion, a minor triumph in the history of classical scholarship. Grillone, of course, is familiar with all of its phases, but the story itself is told memorably by J. Bouquet and E. Wolff, in the introduction (pp. 8-9) of their Budé Edition (Paris 1995).

C. W. Müller (1857), the first editor of the (still anonymous) work, declared that, because of its language and style, it could not possibly belong to the classical age. The next, editor, J. Mähly (1866), a colleague of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacob Burckhardt at the University of Basel, placed the poem in the late 5th or early 6th century, but thought, on the basis of the prayer at the very end (vv. 963-74) that the author must have been a Greek writing in Latin.

Only a year later, C. Schenkl published a new edition. He was even more precise. Having compared the text with works of Luxorius and Corippus, he opted for an author who lived in Africa around 600. Then came Cardinal Angelo Mai who published in 1871 the Orestis Tragoedia, along with another epyllion, De Raptu Helenae, ascribed to Dracontius, and declared that both works must have one and the same author.

When F. von Duhn (1873) edited Dracontius' Carmina Minora for the Teubner series, he was able to demonstrate even more conclusively the close stylistic relationship between the work and ten pieces attributed to the poet, including De Raptu Helenae, Hylas Medea.

Next in line was R. Peiper (1875) who collected, in his edition, a large number of parallels between the work and poems transmitted under the name of Dracontius. His results were further substantiated by B. Westhoff (1889), K. Rossberg (1878; 1880), R. Barwinski (1887-1890), C. Giarratano (1906), F. Vollmer (1905; 1914), among others.

Today, no one seems to have any doubts that Dracontius is, indeed, the author of this work, but we should remember the intensive labor of several generations of scholars that led to this conclusion. It also becomes evident that the establishment of the text is the work of a succession of very able textual critics. Grillone offers a useful survey of the contributions made by previous scholars and by himself (pp. 38-41). Obviously, his name appears in the app. crit. and the commentary quite often and he makes it easier for the reader to identify his own ideas by various typographical devices (see the explanation on p. 50).

The two main MSS. whose relationship to each other is not yet fully understood, offer a very inferior text. It has become readable thanks to a great many conjectures, some of them made by little-known scholars, such as A. Rothmaler (1865) and K. Rossberg (1878-1880). (From my work on Ovid's Tristia, I remember one of Rothmaler's emendations in that work, and Rossberg anticipated some of Housman's best ideas in Propertius).

To give an idea of the kind of paradosis they had to work with, I will only cite two examples. In v. 396 B offers nulla stipulauerat aures, and A happens to have the correct reading, perhaps by conjecture: nullas tuba uerberet aures confirmed by Lucan 7, 24-5. In v. 665, missing in A, B has quidque dolent iuualenes which Rothmaler emended to quisque dolent iuuenes. In classical Latin prose this would be uterque iuuenis dolet, as Bouquet explains (n. 462).

A. E. Housman, looking at vv. 462-70 found the passage "so maltreated by editors and yet so easy to correct" that he appended a few conjectures to his article on "Astrology in Dracontius" (CP 812-3), even though the lines have nothing to do with astrology. His emendations are, indeed, so striking that one is surprised to find them neither in Grillone nor in Bouquet, and they deserve to be listed here:

467 uincere rectum est (A) : uincere tecta (B) : uinceret Hector; (Housman) // 468 remanes erepta (A) : remanes et rapta (B) : remaneret rapta (Housman) // 469 laborastis (A) : laboratis (B) : laborasti (Housman). He also noted that si in 467 and 468 means utinam, and the editors should have taken the hint.

I do not find it easy to add new emendations to those already made, even though problems in the text remain. A few suggestions: 236 read, perhaps instat for stat; 457 read, perhaps, post for per (cf. Ovid, Met.. 14, 158 where post taedia longa laborum has become per taedia l. l.. in a few witnesses); 640 read probably subito ; 669 read perhaps subitos for subito (loss of -s before speret); 713 read probably coruscans for coruscus (A: -is B).

Grillone's text is clearly the result of many years of intensive work. Even where one disagrees, one should always consult his notes and see how he arrived at his conclusions. I do not think that the unmetrical egit in 191 can be defended. On the other hand, he is right in adopting Martis (L. Müller for mortis B A) in 699. His book is indispensable for anyone who is interested in Dracontius and in late Latin poetry in general. (read complete article)

2009.01.03

Jeremy M. Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity. Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Pp. 254. ISBN 9780812240924. $59.95.
Reviewed by Heidi Marx-Wolf, University of California at Santa Barbara (hmarxwolf@umail.ucsb.edu)

In Christianity, Empire and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity, Jeremy M. Schott makes an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of the construction of Christian identity in the late third and early fourth centuries, a discussion that focuses, in large part, on the role that the polemical, apologetic, and historical writings of key Christian intellectuals played in the formation of this identity. Schott's stated aim is to focus on a specific moment in time, namely the Great Persecution and the reign of Constantine, because, he argues, this was a period of intense polemical exchange between Christians and "pagans," a conflict that "proved instrumental in the production of Christian identity and, in turn, the construction of a specifically Christian imperial ideology" (5). Schott eschews from the outset any static or essentializing understandings of the terms Christian, "pagan," monotheism and polytheism. (I myself put the term "pagan" between quotation marks because of its pejorative connotations and the fact that the individuals who are denoted as such by Schott would not have used this name for themselves.) Instead of using the foregoing terms in any fixed way, he aims to investigate processes of identity formation which, according to the post-colonial literature that informs his approach, is a process of constant negotiation and renegotiation. This theoretical approach proves helpful as Schott traces the process by which Christians moved from a subjugated minority within a "pagan" empire to, if not oppressors under Constantine, at least imperialists of a certain stripe, colonizing as they did the centers and instruments of power and knowledge. The strength of this book is that it clearly plots the ways in which Christian imperial ideology grew out of earlier imperial discourses, in particular those of a number of late Roman philosophers. In this respect, Schott's book depicts Christian intellectuals using the instruments and discourses of empire first to challenge and subvert the prevailing political order and its ideological producers and adherents, and subsequently to co-opt empire for Christianity post-Milvian bridge. Indeed, as Schott masterfully demonstrates, "on both sides of the Constantinian divide. . .the need to conquer, restrain, and supervise ta ethne, 'peoples,' remained the central ideological basis for imperial rule of the Mediterranean" (13). For the most part, Schott is successful in what he sets out to do, and I have few substantive criticisms to offer.

In Chapter One, Schott moves earlier in time to explore what he sees as the roots of the kind of universalizing discourses that are at the center of the book. By investigating the works of such early imperial intellectuals as Posidonius, Cornutus, Plutarch and Numenius, Schott demonstrates that many thinkers in the second century worked comparatively across the disciplines of ethnography, universal history, and figurative interpretation in order to read the sacred texts, iconographies, and ritual practices of ethnic others. Ultimately, these endeavors constituted an attempt to recover a lost wisdom. The corollary of this perspective was that the more ancient a source, the closer it was to the truth. This led to the construction of ethnogenetic accounts that located groups of people chronologically in relation to each other, a chronology that translated into varying degrees of proximity to an Ur-philosophy. The main goal of these thinkers, then, was to "distill a universal philosophy that transcended ethnic and cultural specificity" (11). Schott goes further to demonstrate that this sort of project was an intellectual correlate to the way Roman imperial administration conquered peoples and territory. Indeed, he very convincingly argues that imperial expansion, the fact of empire, was a necessary condition for the flowering of such discourses. And in spite of the ability of empire to create a new polity for its inhabitants, one that supposedly subsumed local identity to a more universal one, the intellectual syncretism that flowered under Roman imperial administration did not necessarily lead to or even intend the erasure of difference. In the case of the universalizing discourses of these Stoics and Platonists, despite their attempts to highlight points of comparison, their final portrayals of various ethnic groups within the empire were not isometric. Rather, in all cases, as Schott demonstrates through careful textual analysis, a Greek center was always revealed and difference reiterated. Schott then traces the methods, philosophical techniques, and impulses characteristic of these thinkers into early apologetic writings of Christians such as Justin Martyr and Tatian. Some of these techniques can be traced through Jewish participants in the Hellenistic "war of books" such as Philo, and they include euhemerism (demythologizing other groups' deities), and chronographical arguments for the greater antiquity of key Hebrew holy men such as Moses. By demonstrating that these early apologists adopted discursive modes that were both made possible by the fact of empire and served to affirm the political reality of imperial conquest and rule, Schott lays the groundwork for his later chapters that trace the trajectory of this philosophical mimicry into the founding discourses of Christian imperialism. Chapter One ends with a discussion of Celsus' On the True Doctrine in which Schott argues that Celsus was involved in debunking the meta-narrative of the early apologists in which they claimed that Christianity was the Ur-theology, the ecumenical "ancient doctrine."

In Chapter Two, Schott turns to Porphyry, the third-century Platonist and biographer of Plotinus, who was also engaged in anti-Christian polemic, particularly in the period immediately prior to the inception of Diocletian's persecution. Although it is not vital to Schott's argument that Porphyry was the anonymous Hellene in Lactantius's account who attended Diocletian's Nicomedian court with Hierocles to offer speeches that in the end helped to provide the rationale for persecution, he does seem to be convinced that Porphyry was in fact the Hellene in question. Schott's appendix clearly lays out the evidence for this position marshaled by a number of scholars to date such as Elizabeth Digeser and Richard Goulet. Using Porphyrian fragments from Augustine's City of God in which the Bishop of Hippo purported that Porphyry sought a via universalis but failed to ever find one, Schott very cleverly places this fragment within the lineage of universal discourses he is tracing. He writes, "By admitting that the universal way of salvation is not found in any one particular group. . .Porphyry implies that the via universalis is only discernible when one's pursuit of philosophy is sufficiently ecumenical" (57). This fragment has bedeviled scholars for some time, and Schott's explanation goes a long way to making sense of Porphyry's philosophical project despite Augustine's obvious aim to muddy the waters. Schott also constellates Porphyry's On Abstinence from Animals as part of the philosopher's cross-cultural project. Indeed, he demonstrates quite clearly that this project is one perspective from which scholars can investigate most of Porphyry's non-polemical writings. But he also claims that, like Plutarch and other second-century Greek intellectuals before him, Porphyry's treatment is not isometric, and his engagement with "barbarian wisdom" is thoroughly Greek-centered. Schott follows up on this point by discussing the way in which participation in Greek paideia was the way for Porphyry to make the journey from province (in this case Tyre) to metropolis (i.e. Rome). His vantage point as a universalizing philosopher allowed Porphyry to engage in an anti-Christian polemic which, Schott rightly points out, was received by its targets as one of the most dangerous and venomous. Where Schott makes his contribution to the ongoing multi-nodal debate over Against the Christians is by tracing out Porphyry's ecumenical logic even in this polemic. The main bone of contention for Porphyry, as Schott sees it, was Christian attempts to pass off a culturally-specific tradition as an ecumenical and universal wisdom, an Ur-theology. "Christians, who by their own admission claimed to possess a universal philosophy, based on a set of barbarian texts from the edges of the Greco-Roman world, were disrupting Porphyry's carefully constructed hierarchical world" (71). Schott is very good at depicting the kinds of issues and concerns that would have led a philosopher like Porphyry to enter the fray of late third-century anti-Christian polemicizing and perhaps even to marshal reasons to proceed with oppressive measures. Whether or not he actually participated in the deliberations at Nicomedia, we may never be able to definitively prove.

Chapter Three reads Lactantius's Divine Institutes as a response to Porphyry's polemics. In this chapter, Schott does three things. First, he shows how Lactantius imitated Porphyry's hermeneutical approach to sacred texts, in particular oracles, in order to establish Christianity as a universal philosophy. Then Schott demonstrates that Lactantius was also engaged in crafting a history of religions. This history posited an aboriginal true religion, an Ur-monotheism, that had declined and devolved into a multiplicity of false religions. And he excavates this true religion out of his "pagan" sources. Schott also demonstrates the way in which Lactantius tied this discourse to the language of imperial geography. In the end, Lactantius argues that all traditional religions are really forms of ancestor worship and asserts a set of theological principals that are authentic because they transcend these cultural differences. Finally, Schott discusses the changes Lactantius made to the Divine Institutes after the rise of Constantine to power, changes which lent a "new, imperial timbre to his historical geography" (12).

In Chapter Four, Schott argues that the Lactantian ideology of empire and traditional apologetic topoi were taken up by Constantine in his speeches and letters and expressed in political actions that served to establish the difference between "pagan" and "Christian." Schott's reading of both Constantine's rhetoric and specific actions, such as Christian monumental building and measures that have been interpreted by some scholars as anti-"pagan", is compelling and innovative. For instance, he sees Constantine's clearing of traditional cult sites for Christian colonization as a "metonymic performance" of his universalizing mission. The difference between "Christian" and "pagan" produced by Constantinian ideology and rule was, according to Schott, one that both could and needed to be reiterated by subsequent emperors. In general, Schott's argument in this chapter is interesting and represents a new take on some of the Constantinian sources. In the end, however, it may not sufficiently countenance the very thing it is trying to establish, namely that Christian identity is in the process of being formed. Schott's explanation may not leave sufficient flexibility in Constantine's understanding of his religious affiliation to account for many of the emperor's actions such as the toleration of imperial cult, the construction of Constantinople and the gathering of "pagan" cultic icons in that city. Furthermore, while we are on the topic of Constantinople, Schott neglects to tell us what he means by "Rome" in the time of Constantine although he asserts that the emperor's reign "did not erase the classic distinctions between Rome and her provinces upon which Roman imperialism had been based for centuries" (133). My concern here anticipates a larger criticism I have of the book which I will raise later in the review. I believe that what Schott means is that Constantine, like Lactantius, associates the "provincial" with the "barbarian," culturally-specific practices of "pagan" cult. However, the geographic and political de-centering of the empire in this period should somehow be accounted for in Schott's analysis.

In the case of his discussion of both Lactantius and Constantine, Schott departs from the conclusions of scholars such as Elizabeth Digeser and Harold Drake who have argued that these two figures were attempting to establish common cause between Christians and other monotheistically-inclined individuals. For Schott, this apparently conciliatory stance actually reveals a developing rhetoric of Christian empire built upon the same philosophical lines of reasoning and the same imperial motivations, namely the need to conquer, restrain, and supervise ta ethne. The consensus theory of Lactantius is one more instantiation of a discourse that, despite appearances, establishes an asymmetrical relationship between center and periphery. By challenging the picture of both Lactantius and Constantine as consensus builders around monotheism, Schott highlights the way in which this theological position, namely ecumenism, ties into imperial ideologies with concrete political consequences.

Schott's final chapter concerns Eusebius's massive diptych, the Preparation for the Gospel and the Demonstration of the Gospel. Schott aptly shows just how thoroughly this work is a polemical response to and counterattack on Porphyry. Schott reveals that Eusebius's "complex intertext," which indeed it is, "dismantles and manipulates Porphyrian exegesis to resituate Greek philosophical practice as merely another native barbarism" (137). Here Schott is particularly strong as he adds a new and challenging perspective to an ongoing discussion about the way Eusebius constructs Christian identity in these two works. Schott disagrees with Aaron Johnson who recently argued that Eusebius was involved in constructing Christianity as a new ethnos. Instead, Schott argues that for Eusebius, Christianity's superiority lay in its transcendence of historically and geographically bound peoples. Schott also addresses Eusebius's efforts to wed the inception of Christianity with the beginning of imperial rule and demonstrates the way in which Eusebius's characterization of this association changed over time from the view that the empire was propitious for the spread of Christianity to the view that "empire and church proceed in lockstep" such that imperial conquest and conversion were two prongs of the same "offensive against native error and barbarism" (157).

In an elegant epilogue, Schott draws important parallels between the rhetorical and apologetic discourses under investigation in his book and theories about the history of religion that inform modern theoretical approaches. He also focuses on the way in which Lactantian, Constantinian, and Eusebian ways of thinking about religion were re-deployed when Europeans began to encounter new ethne in their colonization of the Americas, bringing home very poignantly the rhetorical potential of these discourses for the imperial projects of the early modern period.

As I mentioned earlier, I have but few criticisms of Schott's project. My main concern is that Schott never clearly defines a set of terms which he regularly uses in the course of his post-colonial reading of his sources. These terms include "Rome," "her provinces," "Roman," "barbarian," "center," and "periphery." Schott appears to take a somewhat static view of these terms both culturally and politically. By this I mean that Schott's "Rome" appears to be the Rome of the early empire, but he neglects to take into account the changing political realities in the third century that made the empire a very different animal than it was during its first two centuries. A few examples suffice to make my point. First, Caracalla's decree of 212 CE granting universal citizenship surely changed what it meant to be Roman, an inhabitant of the empire, and the meaning of citizenship itself. Second, by the late third century, emperors had not come from the city of Rome for quite some time, and the city itself and its history and traditions no longer stood for the empire in the ways it had in earlier epochs. This de-centering necessarily had profound consequences for the questions and trends Schott is focused on. This oversight creates a couple of problems for Schott. For instance, in Chapter One, although Schott recognizes the fact that the philosophers he uses as examples are not themselves from the center and seeks to finesse this issue by attributing the ease with which such provincial elites gained access to the metropolis to the tendency of Roman imperialism to annex and assimilate these elites, he does not explain why Greeks (or Greek-speaking Syrians in the case of Numenius) might be producing discourses that, as Schott argues, reinforce the superiority of Greek-ness over other forms of "barbarity" while at the same time elucidating sameness. In other words, Schott has not really spoken to the question of the place of non-Roman intellectuals in relation to Rome. And there is a sense in which one cannot clearly identify Greek-ness with Roman-ness in the discourses of the philosophers he uses as examples. In fact, there very well may be something subversive about the maneuvers of these intellectuals. Indeed, if we place them next to the anti-Greek polemic of a Roman such as Juvenal, they may also turn out to be apologetic in some way. Schott is certainly on point when he asserts that empire is the condition for such Hellenocentric discourses, but more care needs to be taken about both the historical realities of Roman imperialism and Roman identity over time. This criticism in no way calls into question the importance of Schott's basic argument and key insights. However, his book would have been made all the more compelling for taking account of which Rome he had in mind as well as changing political realities on the ground for the period he is investigating.

The other main difficulty I have with the way Schott structures his overall argument is that, although he traces the roots of the universalizing discourses at the heart of his study to the second century, he neglects to consider third-century intellectual, cultural and political trends. The decision to ignore much of the third century has a number of important consequences. First, it leads him, in a number of places, to use the label "barbarian" to stand for Christian. Although I recognize that he is primarily following his sources here, there is no reciprocal recognition of the way in which many third-century Christian intellectuals would have also thought of themselves as Hellenes and heirs to the Greek philosophical patrimony. In other words, there are moments when one is not sure that "barbarian" versus Greek is not being taken by Schott as a reified sort of distinction. Furthermore, part of the reason why Schott's portrayal dwells on the conflict and polemical exchanges between Christians and non-Christians is, I believe, because he does not consider the nature of intellectual activity among and between philosophical schools and associations in the third century. Schott claims that third-century writers such as Clement and Origen continued to "offer challenges to the privilege of Greek philosophy throughout the third century" (51). But we might as easily say that these thinkers made contributions to Greek philosophy itself. This is likely the way Origen was seen by many of his contemporaries given the fact that his lessons were often attended by both Christians and non-Christians, and that he was called to Syria by the mother of Alexander Severus, Julia Mammea, to instruct her in philosophy. Recent scholarship has shown that the third century was actually a period of intense exchange across rather permeable and ill-defined religious boundaries between Christians and non-Christians. And in many cases, religious affiliation may not have been the primary identity category that determined the positions intellectuals took on specific issues. Pier Franco Beatrice, an author whose work Schott references often, has even argued that Porphyry studied with Origen because Porphyry saw him as a part of the Ammonian lineage, frequenting Origen's lectures in Palestine even before visiting Longinus in Athens and Plotinus in Rome. And although Schott acknowledges this flexibility in identity between Jews and Christians, relying for this point on the work of Daniel Boyarin, the lines between Christian and "pagan" seem to be far more clearly delineated and calcified for Schott. In other words, Schott's singular focus on conflict and hostile polemic may, in the end, over-determine what he finds in his sources at certain junctures. These criticisms in no way downplay the significance of "pagan" polemic for Christians during and after Diocletian's persecution, but they do suggest a more nuanced approach than the conflict model that seems to inform much of Schott's study.

Overall, Schott's book is a well-reasoned, careful work that sheds new light on a number of areas in late antique studies: the formation of Christian and "pagan" identity, the nature of apologetic and its relation to traditional philosophical discourses, the changing rhetoric of empire, to name but a few. He offers close, innovative readings of texts, readings which yield interesting and important insights on some very vexed and difficult questions in the history of religion. (read complete article)

2009.01.02

Simon Swain, Stephen Harrison and Jas Elsner (edds.), Severan Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. 569. ISBN 9780521859820. $160.00.
Reviewed by Tom Hawkins, Ohio State University, hawkins.312@osu.edu

Table of Contents

This volume honors the career of Ewen Bowie, and it succeeds mightily in this goal. The twenty-six contributions composed by members of what Simon Swain terms "the Bowie clan" (p. 1) are of uniformly high quality, and I have already recommended several chapters to graduate students and colleagues. I will offer a few overarching comments before briefly treating each chapter in turn.

My only major frustration with Severan Culture is that, as a whole, it offers little sense of its motivations or intentions and thus leaves one to wonder what to make of Severan culture. Imperial dynasties make easy mileage markers for our interests in periodization, but not all dynasties cause equally deep tectonic shifts. Alexander and Caesar gave us wholly new worlds to digest, but can we say the same of the Severan dynasty? Were the cultural changes equally profound at the appearance and the disappearance of the Severans? Does the use of dynastic periodization gloss over important stories of continuity between dynasties or change within a single dynasty? And is "culture" adequately represented in the volume's three section headings (the first of which is obviously problematic as a subdivision of culture): "Literature and Culture," "Art and Architecture," and "Religion and Philosophy"? We get no clear answers to such questions or explanations of the volume's contours in the introduction. In the last two pages of that section Swain does touch on several critical points, such as the Severans as the first non-Italic dynasty to rule the empire, the importance of Caracalla's citizenship policy, the continued growth of Christianity, etc., but some readers might feel that the twenty-five preceding pages, in which Swain summarizes and discusses the papers to come, could have been compressed in order to provide space for a more general and theoretical foundation for this collection.

Moving to the positive, it may well be that the greatest honor Severan Culture pays to Bowie is the way in which his students and colleagues have built upon his seminal work on the Second Sophistic (though we should not forget that he has also made important contributions to many other areas of classical scholarship). The bulk of Bowie's bibliography does not consist of studies of art, architecture and religion, and yet this volume includes ample testimony to the ways in which his teaching, mentorship, and research have influenced students of these fields. This influence is also demonstrated in impressive fashion in the preface, in which Stephen Harrison teams with Swain to provide a narrative overview of Bowie's career, a list of his students (a task that requires eight pages!), and a virtually complete bibliography.

In addition to the preface and introduction (already mentioned) and the individual chapters (discussed below), Severan Culture also features two enjoyable curiosities. The first is the cover, which seems to depict a hunter aiming his bow at two copulating wild boars. Some readers will recognize this as part of a larger hunting scene which decorates a manuscript of ps.-Oppian's Cynegetica (the Codex Marcianus Graecus 479), but others might be unsure what to make of this image. I do hope that whoever cropped the scene in this way is not surprised at our enjoyment of it. (I surveyed several colleagues' responses to the cover to ensure that I was not simply being sophomoric with all this, but everyone immediately saw the same basic narrative, though an extremely close look will reveal that the rear boar is, in reality, keeping his hooves to himself.) The second item, found on page xix, is a letter from Philostratus to Longinus in praise of Bowie. The letter appears in Greek without preface or explanation, but the Table of Contents hints that this previously unknown sophistic text may have been "discovered" by Donald Russell.

Aside from these two pleasant oddities, the volume is a well-produced collection, though its high price will certainly discourage many from purchasing it. There are copious images in the second section of the book, a comprehensive bibliography, and a full index. Only twice was I distracted by editing errors (once on p. 413 where "and" ought to be something like "as a" and again on p. 457 where an extraneous "not" undermines the author's point.)

I will now move to brief overviews of the book's twenty-six chapters, which are all innovative, informative, and deserving of individual comment, though my sketches here must remain extremely brief.

Ch. 1: Tim Whitmarsh's chapter, "Prose literature and the Severan dynasty," surveys some large trends in Severan prose literature. For example, Whitmarsh argues against a strong imperial influence on literary production; he demonstrates how the notion of Hellenism was greatly contested because of the growing role of Christianity, through thinking about cultures outside the empire (as with Philostratus' account of Apollonius' trip to India), and as a result of debates within the Hellenic world; and he notes the Severan penchant for "large-scale, synthetic works that attempt to capture and define intellectual traditions" (p. 50). As always, his comments are acute, and into what could have been a dry overview he intersperses such gems as a succinct warning about certain interpretive pitfalls (pp. 37-8) and comments on "the aesthetics of disorder" in texts such as Aelian's Varied History and Clement's Stromateis (p. 46).

Ch. 2: Harry Sidebottom offers a guided tour of literary representations of the past in "Severan historiography: evidence, patterns, and arguments." On the Latin side of things there is not much to be said (though Sidebottom does address some of the underlying reasons for the non-existence of Latin historiography), but Greek historiography was flourishing, especially in Sidebottom's flexible understanding of historiography, which allows him to include in his discussion a wide range of texts, many of which eschew the tone and style of their classical historiographical predecessors. Indeed, Sidebottom lists no fewer than ten sub-genres (e.g. various forms of biography, ethnography, and historical fiction) that all approach and re-present the past in significantly different modes. As with so many of the best arguments in this volume, Sidebottom shows that the story of Severan historiography is one of creative re-configurations of received traditions.

Ch. 3: John Ma's "The worlds of Nestor the poet" takes us on an amazing journey in search of Nestor, a poet who wrote a lipogrammatic Iliad (i.e. each book was composed without a single instance of the book's letter-number -- thus, no alphas in Book 1, no betas in Book 2, etc.). This fascinating chapter combines a marshalling of scattered fragmentary evidence, savvy analysis of this evidence, and a rare example of the role of scholarly intuition in crafting an argument. The silhouette of Nestor that emerges is of a Hellenistic-style poet in the vein of Nicander and Parthenius whose career reminds us not to forget the role of poetry even in this prose-dominated era (a point that Bowie himself has forcefully made).

Ch. 4: Severan poetry is again the focus in Gideon Nisbet's "Sex lives of the sophists: epigrams by Philostratus and Fronto," which unwinds a delightful string of puns and allusions in epigrams by these two authors more famous from work in other genres. Although Severan epigrams are less plentiful than their Antonine predecessors, Nisbet shows that the genre had lost none of its elegance, complexity, and wit. More than this, he demonstrates how these two sophists reinvented epigram "as an important tool of sophistic self-fashioning" (123).

Ch. 5: A final contribution to our view of Severan poetry in Greek comes in Mary Whitby's "The Cynegetica attributed to Oppian." As with Ma's work on Nestor, Whitby alerts us to the Alexandrian aspects of ps.-Oppian's poetry (e.g. his four-book poem may be "more pointedly parallel to the four books of Callimachus' Aetia than are the five of Oppian's Halieutica" (p. 126)), and it is from this perspective that she liberates ps.-Oppian somewhat from the shadow of Oppian himself. Her reappraisal works well (including such stylistic matters as the influence of the Hellenistic epyllion and contextual points, such as her suggestion that the poem may have been linked to Julia Domna's visit to the East in 215), and the Cynegetica emerges as a much more interesting text thanks to Whitby's analysis.

Ch. 6: Jason König starts from a paradox in his "Greek athletics in the Severan period: literary views": Philostratus claims to have written his Gymnasticus in response to a decline in athletic standards, but athletics was a boom industry under the Severan emperors. König plausibly suggests that the real issue was what Philostratus saw as a decline in the specifically Hellenic quality of the athletes, training regimens, and competitions. Athletics had gotten away from its roots. In building his case, König moves beyond the Gymnasticus and shows how the world of sport had changed in taste and style from the Antonine era.

Ch. 7: Judith Mossman follows Whitby in focusing on an allegedly pseudonymous text in her "Heracles, Prometheus, and the play of genres in [Lucian]'s Amores." Fans of Mossman's work on Greek tragedy and Plutarch will not be disappointed here. She opens up the text by excavating a network of allusions to a huge range of traditional genres (as well as the not-so-traditional novel). She places particular emphasis on characters, such as the two in her title, who are familiar from a variety of genres, and it is the resulting ambiguity of generic allusions that propels the text and Mossman's argument well above any mechanistic rut of one-to-one associations. Of particular importance is her demonstration of the way in which allusions to Greek comedy force us to re-evaluate the serious tone of the text's central debate between champions of homosexual and heterosexual expressions of eros.

Ch. 8: The shortest chapter of the volume begins from a scene in Heliodorus and quickly explodes into an argument of very general application. Glen Most's "Allegory and narrative in Heliodorus" shows how a given allegorical mode can drive the contour of the narrative. His comments on the difference between allegory, which "tells a story of restoration," and metaphor, which is "in fact the language of exile" (p. 164) and his brief discussion of the similar narrative trajectories of Neoplatonic allegory and the Greek novels make this a richly rewarding essay.

Ch. 9: Philip Hardie kicks off a series of three Latin-centered papers with his "Polyphony or Babel? Hosidius Geta's Medea and the poetics of the cento." Geta's poem takes lines of Virgilian epic and weaves them into a tragedy that tells the story of Medea. Hardie focuses on Geta's poem as an extreme test case for intertextual theory, since "the cento is an epiphenomenon of a canonicity that defines itself as the very opposite of the carnivalesque dialogicity of Bakhtin, or the anti-authoritarian intertextuality of Kristeva" (p. 170). In every line we hear Virgil's words and Geta's reorganization of them, fragments of the story of Aeneas re-orchestrated to tell the story of Medea. Hardie's insightful arguments conclude with the delicious possibility (which Hardie himself cautions against accepting too hastily) that this Medea is actually by Ovidius Geta, i.e. that Ovid, in exile at Getan Tomis, constructed a new Medea from a dismembered Virgilian text in the very location where he claims (in Tristia 1.3) she had dismembered her brother.

Ch. 10: Jonathon Powell's "Unfair to Caecilius? Ciceronian dialogue techniques in Minucius Felix" parallels Hardie's chapter in examining classical influences on a Severan text. In this case, Powell sees two fragmentary Ciceronian dialogues, the Hortensius and book 3 of De re publica as key to understanding Minucius' intentionally bland (according to Powell) dialogue Octavius. An appreciation of these models suggests that Minucius' literary form was "deliberately adopted to give an impression of civilized and impartial debate and to divert attention from the author's parti pris while archly acknowledging it" (p. 187).

Ch. 11: "Cyprian's Ad Donatum" by Michael Winterbottom also addresses certain Ciceronian influences, but this is closer to the beginning than the end of his argument. He goes on to discuss the role of Calpurnius' first eclogue, which, like Cyprian's piece, moves from "intimations of religion...to the consolations of religion" (p. 193) and Cyprian's careful strategy of rhetorical dissimulation. Cyprian rejects overly artful eloquence in place of a strong and lucid case for Christianity, but his declamation "at times mounts to the rostra he rejects" (p. 197). Winterbottom shows that even when it appears that Cyprian is breaking his own stylistic rule this is never actually the case, because for Cyprian the Christian message is by definition always strong, simple and clear.

Ch. 12: Zahra Newby introduces the second section of the volume (Art and Architecture) with her "Art at the crossroads? Themes and styles in Severan art," and like the papers by Whitmarsh and Edwards which lead off their respective sections, Newby's contribution does an excellent job of broadly orienting the reader to major issues and themes in preparation for the more narrowly-focused essays to come. Her examinations of state reliefs, portraits and funerary art lead to the conclusion that we might expect from her title: "Whether one sees Severan art as the last great expression of classical art or as the herald of Late Antiquity depends primarily on where one looks" (p. 249).

Ch. 13: Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis' "Landscape, transformation, and divine epiphany" argues that the mixture of perspectives in the portrayal of landscapes in Severan art "imitates both the experience of movement and travel...and epiphany..." (p. 254). Her thesis elegantly combines an appreciation of mystic modes of viewing and sensitivity to the prominent role of travel and pilgrimage in this period. In her final case study, dealing with a mosaic from Cos depicting the arrival of Asclepius, she shows the flexibility of her model in incorporating a divine figure as the dynamic mover in something of a reverse pilgrimage narrative.

Ch. 14: In "Urban development in the Severan empire" Andrew Wilson adds two elements to his enlightening survey of urban building programs across the empire that make his chapter stand out. First, he is virtually alone in looking in any detail at how issues of Severan culture would play out in the later third century. For example, he shows how Lepcis Magna's annual donation of olive oil in gratitude for Severus' benefactions became a dire burden after the imperial treasury took over land once owned by the local elite (pp. 306-07). Second (and here he has somewhat more company), he is alert to moments when our evidence may conceal what we might today call an abuse of power, as in his suggestion that some North African building projects may be the result of coerced euergetism.

Ch. 15: In "Metaphor and identity in Severan architecture: the Septizodium at Rome between 'reality' and 'fantasy'" Edmund Thomas presents a thorough re-reading of the Septizodium and a re-contextualization of it in terms of its regionalist symbolism. Working through all available evidence (including post-antique sketches of the building, which was demolished only in 1588), Thomas argues that this monument must have been quite a bit longer than most scholars have supposed. This elongation, in turn, spurs a reconsideration of the building's function and its relationship to its immediate surroundings. Thomas moves quite effectively from architectural minutiae to much broader matters as he notes that the septizodium was a specifically North African form introduced into Rome by a North African emperor.

Ch. 16: After receiving mention in the preceding chapters, the Severan Marble Plan takes center stage in Jennifer Trimble's "Visibility and viewing on the Severan Marble Plan." This 1:240 scale map of Rome, which featured an amazing level of detail down to the level of noting the location of individual doorways, was placed 4 m. above the floor on an inner wall of the Templum Pacis and stretched up to a height of 17 m. How could a viewer see any of it!? Trimble answers this question and more in assessing the map's impact on a viewer. The map boasts a vast amount of knowledge and, because of its placement, also impedes even a well-informed viewer from accessing any but a tiny portion of that knowledge. The emperor, with his unequaled resources, is the sole "ideal viewer" of this map and the rest of us are left to feel over-awed. One chilling implication of Trimble's thesis suggests that Roman viewers found themselves in a symbolic panopticon with the emperor's omniscient gaze bearing down on them and reaching into the seemingly inaccessible recesses of their private lives.

Ch. 17: Alison Cooley discusses the "creative emulation" of Rome's first emperor in "Septimius Severus: the Augustan emperor." Her overall argument can be summed up in her statement that Severus "strengthened his own legitimacy as ruler by calling to mind the first princeps, who, like him, had emerged from civil wars as founder of a new dynasty" (p. 385). She gathers support for this thesis from a broad range of evidence including such issues as the manner in which both new rulers related to their predecessors, Severus' use of Augustus' timetable (rather than that of Claudius and Domitian) for celebrating the ludi saeculares, his sponsorship of urban building projects in Rome, his claim to have restored the Republic, and even various points of overlap between the careers of Julia Domna and Livia.

Ch. 18: With the first contribution to the volume's final section (Religion and Philosophy), Mark Edwards has put together an outstanding overview of Severan Christianity (also the two-word title for his chapter). In addition to being so clear and readable that it could be assigned to advanced undergraduates, it offers succinct distillations and commentary on many of the recent debates in the field. For example, he highlights some of the problems with recent sociological approaches to the dynamics of conversion to Christianity (pp. 402-03) and gives three tenets that were endorsed by all Gnostic sects, a category which has proven increasingly difficult to delimit (p. 412).

Ch. 19: The relationship between charity and piety is treated by Richard Finn, who uses literary analysis to make a doctrinal point in "Almsgiving for the pure of heart: continuity and change in early Christian teaching." Finn shows that Origen, in his treatment of these topics, is clearly engaging with the Shepherd of Hermas and the Book of James (the former receiving more attention in Finn's paper). Yet even as Origen recuperates language and themes from these earlier works he provides a new balance point for the old "faith vs. works" debate. For the author of the Shepherd, purity of heart is within our grasp and almsgiving marks our attainment of that goal; for Origen, purity is more distant and almsgiving is neither the primary marker of nor vehicle toward purity.

Ch. 20: Catherine Conybeare's outstanding reading of Tertullian's Ad uxorem in "Tertullian on flesh, spirit, and wives" brings to light a subtle doctrinal point with potentially major social ramifications. She interrogates the relationship between spirit and flesh in this text and comes to the surprising but compelling conclusion that Ad uxorem has more to do with control than it does with marriage. The spirit's need to control the flesh is paralleled by the husband's need to control the wife. Many of Conybeare's excellent points can be summed up in her hypothetical rethinking of Tertullian's letter to his wife: "For the conserva to write back to her husband, to advise him on how to comport himself in her absence, is simply unimaginable: from where would she derive the authority? How could the flesh lead the spirit?" (pp. 437-38).

Ch. 21: Be sure to make it to the end of Joseph Geiger's "Sophists and Rabbis: Jews and their past in the Severan age," which highlights many parallels between these two categories of wise men. It is in the last paragraph that his most challenging point emerges: that the Jewish tradition for primarily literary (rather than, say, political) reasons was obsessively focused on the historical era covered by the Bible to the virtual exclusion of other epochs. The Bible provided the perfect and complete canon, and therefore the focus of Rabbinic scholarship had no reason to dwell on post-Biblical eras. (Edwards makes a similar point on p. 417 about Origen: he engaged with pagan philosophy in order to refute it, after which "all books but the Bible may be closed again.") Geiger sets up the parallel with the sophists, but leaves us to sort out for ourselves whether or not the same argument could apply. Did sophists spend so much energy looking at issues from classical Athens as a result of a heavily Athenocentric literary canon?

Ch. 22: In "Trouble in Snake Town" (the catchiest title of the bunch) Ian Rutherford reads an oracle from Phrygian Hierapolis dealing with plague. The snake of his title turns out to be a Hierapolitan dragon killed by Apollo, perhaps recalled in a regularized ritual. He teases out a religious relationship between Hierapolis and Claros, "a manifesto setting out a sort of blueprint for how to achieve a reconciliation between Clarian and local traditions" (p. 457). Many of Rutherford's suggestions are necessarily speculative, but his interpretive decisions are always well reasoned and sensible.

Ch. 23: Because few magical papyri can confidently be dated to the Severan era, Daniel Ogden is forced to treat the discussions and conceptions of magic (rather than its actual practice) in "Magic in the Severan period." In addition to demonstrating how varied opinions about magic could be, Ogden looks closely at Philostratus' portrayal of Apollonius of Tyana, whose powers typically derived from supportive gods, but who also exhibited enough supernatural power to keep his audience guessing.

Ch. 24: Michael Trapp turns to the state of intellectual pursuits in "Philosophy, scholarship, and the world of learning in the Severan period." He shows that there was a significant amount of continuity with the pre-Severan era in terms of the availability of financial support for such activities. After fleshing out what was going on in the most prominent and traditional intellectual disciplines, Trapp concludes his chapter by briefly sketching the role of Christianity, which was just coming onto the intellectual radar of the Mediterranean world, noting that pagan intellectuals of this period show few signs of concern about this new movement's "appropriation of Greek scholarly tradition" (p. 487).

Ch. 25: George Boys-Stones presents a savvy and important argument in "Human autonomy and divine revelation in Origen." This piece is complex (a virtual necessity when dealing with Origen) and richly rewarding in showing that for Origen 1) history proves the Bible to be the true font of revelation, 2) revelation reveals the world to be God's contingency plan for dealing with creation's fallen state, and 3) reason allows us to put this all together and to recognize that our limited rational capacity needs supplementing via revelation.

Ch. 26: The volume concludes with Christopher Taylor's "Socrates under the Severans," which effectively shows that Christian and pagan writers responded differently to the figure of Socrates. The former tended to be concerned with doctrinal/metaphysical issues, such as the meaning of Socrates' daimonion as either a proof of his proto-Christian status or his deep idolatry. For pagan writers, however, Socrates appears as paradigmatic of all philosophers and is lauded or teased according to a given author's take on the social location of philosophy, rather than for any particular dogmatic position. (read complete article)