Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Those who will read this interesting but somewhat puzzling book might well wonder to what extent its title¹ tallies with its contents, mainly a paraphrasis of Thucydides' book eight, which includes a number of discussions not only or even mainly pertaining to the part played by individuals in history. The general introduction (p. 1-18), an abridged version of a 2003 paper ("Geschichte und Kontingenz. Einleitende Überlegungen für eine Thukydideslektüre"), first discusses, so to speak sub specie aeternitatis, the nature of history as what happens, the factors and actors which make history, the part played in it by contingency, and the nature, aim and utility of history as the writing of what happens. This introduction, which may be called philosophical or epistemological, seems to me to be a clear and clever piece of empirical or analytical thinking, but it raises some issues : one may miss more awareness of the various meanings of the word history and of the relativity and historical dependency of any conception of history both as the framework within which an individual or a group lives and as its transformation into writing. A subsequent section of the book shortly sets the birth of history in the context of Greek culture and thought. It is not original but prudent and says nothing which can arouse controversy. However it raises an issue concerning the whole book : for whom is it meant ? The foreword mentions the "nachdenkliche Leser".

The bulk of the book is a paraphrasis of book eight interspersed not only with translations from the Greek (fortunately produced in italics but unfortunately not always fully indicating the divisions of the text first introduced by E. Fr. Poppo and generally observed after him), but also with Heitsch's short remarks and longer discussions. The explanatory paraphrasis is divided into three parts (8.1-28 : the events of autumn 413 till autumn 412 ; 8.29-60 : the events of winter 412/411 and 8.61-109 : the events of summer 411), each of which is followed by a useful "Rückblick" which however does not avoid mere repetition of elements contained in the preceding analysis. Heitsch's observations are mixed with straightforward paraphrasis in such a way that one must read Thucydides if one wants to be sure what belongs to whom. This may not be misleading for hardcore specialists of Thucydides, who may anyway need no such paraphrasis, but it may prove so for those readers whom Heitsch addresses with information such as the following : "Agathon, (den der Leser vielleicht aus Platons Symposion kennt)" (p. 114), "Sestos (an der Westküste des Hellesponts)" (p. 157). Heitsch seems to justify his explanatory paraphrasis thus (p. 17-18) :

"Thukydides verweist den Leser auf seine Erzählung und damit auf die von ihm rekonstruierte Geschichte, lässt ihn mit ihr allein. Und tatsächlich sind denn auch seine Einblicke in die Natur der Geschichte von uns heute m. E. nur durch eine deskriptive Analyse seiner Erzählung wiederzuerkennen."

I cannot help thinking "Deskriptive Analyse" is somewhat euphemistic. That must not make one blind to the merits of what is not mere paraphrasis but elucidation of what (no small amount !) is implicit and unclear in Thucydides' text. Scholars will be especially grateful to Heitsch for the longer discussions embedded in the paraphrasis, but they may well regret that this embedding prevented the author from thoroughly discussing the issues and exposing and refuting contrary views. The generally light footnotes are neither uninteresting nor unimportant but they are no compensation. The use of secondary literature is limited, and readers who are neither hardcore specialists nor uninterested in these matters will too rarely be spared the effort to check if Heitsch is exposing an original view or one that has already been stated (compare p. 93, on the tautology of 8.58.2, with Andrewes 1981, p. 140² and see below on the second and third Spartan-Persian treaties). Though one may not be fully happy with Heitsch's use of the paraphrasis, this reviewer, after reading Thucydides' Greek, was somewhat relieved to read Heitsch's almost always clearer German. But it must be acknowledged that only the original text can provide the intellectual enjoyment and excitement that is traditionally associated with Thucydides at his best. Thus Heitsch's analysis of 8.65-66, which focuses on the missing information in Thucydides' report, does not make it look like what Andrewes 1981 (p. 164) thinks it is, "one of Thucydides' most powerful pieces of political description".

Heitsch provides stimulating views or discussions which may be useful even if they are sometimes problematic : thus (p. 58 n. 55) on the Daric stater (surprisingly little money, as is acknowledged) Tissaphernes gives for each prisoner of Iasos (8.28.4). Heitsch rebukes the view that Thucydides intends his (Greek) readers to understand that Tissaphernes dupes the Spartans. In that case, he argues, Thucydides would have indicated the amount in Greek currency (twenty silver Attic drachmai). The objection seems to me to be futile, because Thucydides probably expected his readers to know the worth of the στατὴρ Δαρεικός, abridged Δαρεικός, a phrase and word well enough attested in Greek literature and inscriptions (Hultsch, Metrologie, p. 485 ; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, IV.1, p. 75 n. 2 ; see also M. Alram, Encyclopaedia Iranica online, s. v. Daric, with more recent bibliography). Heitsch's second objection is better : the low price results from "an arrangement with Tisaphernes about the booty, out of which the Spartans had in other respects done very well" (Andrewes 1981, p. 69).

He further argues (p. 63-64) that, since we cannot think Thucydides was unaware that the second Spartan-Persian treaty (8.37) was less advantageous to the Spartans than the first (18), something must be wrong with 8.36-37 as they stand, for the second treaty (8.37) is, Heitsch argues, supposed by Thucydides (8.36.2) to be more advantageous to the Spartans.³ But Thucydides only says that the Spartans, considering the first treaty not to be advantageous enough, wanted another one. This does not imply that he thought the second treaty was more advantageous to the Spartans than the first (the second treaty is, I believe, actually more advantageous to the Spartans, but that is not my point). Heitsch builds on this premise the view (inter alia) that 8.37 may be due to the posthumous editor of book eight. He holds (p. 91-92 n. 101, cf. 95-96) the same view on the third treaty, 8.58, with which, he argues, neither 8.57 nor 8.59 tally. He helpfully stresses that this treaty does not explicitly say the fleet will come, but does it follow from this being only implied that 8.58 doesn't tally with 8.57 and 8.59 ? Heitsch's views on 8.37 and 8.58 are to be found (differently and forcibly but, I believe, hardly more successfully argued) in Schwartz 1919, p. 72-75, which neither Heitsch nor Hornblower 2008 mention.

I venture to doubt Heitsch's postulate of Thucydides' awareness (p. 64) : even if one could consider book eight as an opus limatum, one could not expect of any ancient historian, even Thucydides, what is expected of modern historians. His standards of political and strategical thinking were or may have been as different from ours as his standards of accuracy. Furthermore Heitsch seems to be inconsistent, for he himself more than once notes or hints that Thucydides' analysis may be insufficient. Thus, like Andrewes 1981 (p. 95, attributing the idea to D. Lewis, who retracted it), he thinks (pp. 74 ff) that Alcibiades was never threatened with death by the Peloponnesians, contrary to what Thucydides explicitly says (8.45.1). Heitsch thinks this threat is Alcibiades' invention and he quite ingeniously speculates on his strategy. But if Thucydides was so easily misled by Alcibiades or his circle, what are we to think of his critical faculty, and how can we be sure he was aware that the second Spartan-Persian treaty was (if it was) less advantageous to the Spartans than the first ? Another case (if one follows Heitsch's analysis) is the well-known chapter (8.87) in which Thucydides exposes various explanations, including his own, of why Tissaphernes did not bring the Phoenician fleet to the Peloponnesians. Heitsch (p. 95) accepts the view originally broached in Lewis 1958 that the fleet was kept in store for an upheaval in Egypt. He then proceeds to explain why Tissaphernes did not tell the real reason for not bringing the fleet (the satrap, Heitsch suggests, did not want to display the weakness of the kingdom). After Herbse 1989 (here not quoted by Heitsch), Hornblower 2008, p. 1004-1005, effectively challenges Lewis' hypothesis and thinks one has to conclude that Thucydides' view is both pondered and correct. Should we go further than Thucydides himself and hold him to be right when he himself is not sure ? It might be no bad thing if modern scholars gave more thought to their notion of Thucydides' reliability and excellence as an historian and to the way they use it to corroborate their own views on what he does, would or should have said.

Other challenging, if speculative, discussions (outside those pertaining to Alcibiades) are, for instance, p. 80-82, on how Thucydides' judgement in 8.46.5, which tallies with the complaint he attributes to the Peloponnesian soldiers at Miletus (8.78), may have been influenced by a source favourable to Alcibiades or Alcibiades himself ; p. 103-108 on 8.65-66 as being "der angemessene Ersatz für das, was der Leser hier eigentlich erwartet" and one of the many signs that book eight is unfinished ; p. 141 on Thucydides' failure to state what the Four Hundred's embassies were empowered to grant to the Spartans ; p. 152-154 on Theramenes' future attitude to Antiphon and what Thucydides would have said about it (a characteristically speculative but entertaining piece of writing). However stimulating Heitsch's discussions may be, they raise methodological issues. He says in the foreword that he is not primarily interested in the question of the extent to which book eight is unfinished (contrast p. 148 n. 186, "dass das 8. Buch nicht überall jene Form hat, in der Thukydides selbst es hätte veröffentlichen wollen, davon bin ich mit Andrewes und anderen überzeugt" ; p. 132 n. 150 ; p. 172 n. 221), but this question proves essential to many of his discussions. His attitude towards this problem does not seem to me consistent, for he occasionally (p. V-VI, 173) considers facts which he might have attributed to the book's unfinished state as due to other factors, e. g. Thucydides' strategy towards his reader or his unavoidable failure to "impose upon events a logical pattern which they did not possess" (Adcock 1963, quoted p. VI), a failure which is supposed to account for the dullness of 7-44. This case illustrates a recurrent problem in the understanding and interpretation of book eight, since the same facts may be viewed quite differently according as one considers the book partly a posthumous editor's juxtaposition of more or less finished passages (for such a case, see Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica book eight with the notes of my edition) or as an in fieri whole entirely operated by the author himself (I do not imply that these alternative views are always mutually exclusive). Another methodological issue, already pointed to above, is what the word history means when one asks such a question as "welche Möglichkeiten hätte die Geschichte noch bereit gehalten, wenn beide, die Oligarchen in Athen und Alkibiades als Stratege der Flotte auf Samos, in wohlverstandenem Interesse Athens auf dem Boden einer Realpolitik rechtzeitig zueinander gefunden hätten ?" (p. 141-142). Heitsch often speaks of the part played by chance and opportunity, especially missed opportunities, in history. This seems to be one of the keys of Heitsch's book, as one is aware when one reaches its very end and conclusion : "Was man von der Minute ausgeschlagen, gibt keine Ewigkeit zurück" (p. 174, see also p. 107). These words illustrate a personal aspect of the book written by a veteran scholar (born 1928), whose attitude to history seems to be somewhat disenchanted and pessimistic. This feeling, which Heitsch thinks was also Thucydides', may well have influenced the way the former views the part played by individuals in history and especially Alcibiades' part.⁴

The reader who expects a thorough study of the part played by individuals in history as far as book eight is concerned will be disappointed, though Heitsch has something to say about Agis, Antiphon, Theramenes, Tissaphernes and a lot about Alcibiades, which is dispersed and might better have been gathered in a monograph or paper on this much discussed personality (Heitsch's references to the literature on the subject are too few). The following passages illustrate his attitude to this fascinating but controversial man : "so einfach wie genial" (p. 79, about Alcibiades' argumentation, such as stated in 8.46 ; "genial" p. 169 about the man himself), "der wechselnden Interessenlage des ungewöhnlichen Mannes" (p. 76 n. 76), "gibt Thukydides ein ungeschminktes Bild von der egozentrischen Haltung dieses aussergewöhnlichen Mannes" (p. 127), "egozentrisch" (p. 169, about the man himself). Alcibiades is one "den sein Ingenium aber auch befähigte, Situationen realistisch einzuschätzen, Konzeptionen zu entwickeln, entschlossen zu handeln und gegebenenfalls auch sein eigenes Leben mutig einzusetzen" (p. 173). But history was not favourable to what may seem to be in Heitsch's somewhat romantic view a kind of unfortunate great man. It is (almost unavoidably) not always clear what in Heitsch's portraiture of Alcibiades belongs to reality, what to Thucydides and his informants, what to Heitsch himself. He may well show a bias towards Alcibiades when he challenges (p. 135) Thucydides' view (8.88) that, when he promised the Athenians at Samos to spare no effort to avoid Tissaphernes' bringing the Phoenician fleet to the Peloponnesians, Alcibiades had known ὡς εἰκός for some time (ἐκ πλέονος, "seit längerem" Heitsch) Tissaphernes' intention not to bring the fleet. Thucydides' view is in keeping with 8.46.1, where Alcibiades is said to advise Tissaphernes to maintain a kind of balance between the two sides through not bringing the fleet and other resources to the Peloponnesians. Thucydides' view in 8.88 is very logical if one remembers 8.46.1, so that I am inclined to take ὡς εἰκός (on which Heitsch doesn't comment) as meaning as was natural (so Westlake 1969), as is logical, almost as expected, rather than as was probable (so Andrewes 1981, p. 293, 456 ; Hornblower 2008, p. 1007, comparing 8.46.5, but there we have at least as far as can be conjectured from his actions and the passage is about Tissaphernes, which makes no small difference, for Thucydides could be informed of Alcibiades' thoughts more easily than of Tissaphernes'). On the other hand one could argue that, if 8.46.1 and 8.88 belong to different strata of composition, we are not entitled to interpret the latter in the light of the former. Certainly, Alcibiades emerges as a much more cynical figure if we follow Thucydides in 8.88, but we should resist idealization. If we do, we may be more prepared to understand why history, to speak like Heitsch, was not there when the unreliable and cynical man knocked at the door and we may avoid exaggerating the responsibility of chance, history or those who were not able to seize the opportunity Alcibiades supposedly might have offered them.

The translations from the Greek are accurate, except seemingly in 8.58.6 (p. 92), where textual criticism and accuracy in translation have a bearing on historical analysis (see Hornblower 2008, p. 930-931) : ἐφ' ἑαυτοῖς (the transmitted and commonly accepted text, which I suppose Heitsch translates) cannot mean auf eigene Kosten. Weil 1972 conjectures ἀφ' ἑαυτῶν, which he translates "à leurs propres frais", but, unless I am mistaken, ἐφ' ἑαυτῶν would be better Thucydidean Greek (cf. 8.8.1, translated "par leurs propres moyens" by Weil himself !, and 8.63.4). Heitsch, who refers his reader to no edition, rarely quotes and more rarely discusses the Greek ; where he does (p. 42 n. 39 ; p. 83 n. 87 ; p. 85 n. 92 ; p. 107 n. 110 ; p. 121 n. 138), his notes are far from being always satisfactory. The confusing note on p. 42 about 8.23.5 is (I believe) both wildly speculative and wide off the mark : "die Unsicherheit des Textes könnte irgendwie mit der Tatsache zusammenhängen, dass Thukydides hier nicht voll informiert ist und -- vermutlich -- eine endgültige Darstellung auf später verschob". On p. 146 n. 183 Heitsch notes that Thucydides in 8.96.5 summarizes what he says at greater length in 1.70, but, if one carefully examines the structure of the sentence in 8.96.5, it appears problematic enough for one to consider Krüger 1861's view that part of it is interpolated. Of course one may argue that the problematic construction betrays the unfinished state of book eight. On p. 157 Heitsch speaks of Mindaros' 86 ships (8.103.1) and, after others, rightly remarks that they should be 87 : "73 + 16 - 2 (die nach 103,2 bei der Verfolgung verloren gingen)". There would be no problem if 3 instead of 2 were read in 8.103.2. Now 3 is the number indicated by Diodorus 13.39.1, whose testimony is generally discarded because "it would be unwise to take this as based on different and better evidence than that available to Thucydides" (Hornblower 2008, p. 1047, referring to Busolt ; 88 is a mistake for 86 in Hornblower's note). But does the transmitted text offer us the evidence available to Thucydides ? I am not sure it is wise to discard Diodorus' testimony here and/or the change of 2 into 3 proposed by Stahl 1883, who suggests, as a less plausible alternative, that the ship may have disappeared in the tempest mentioned in 8.99. In his foreword Heitsch might have warned his reader of the textual uncertainties with which book eight teems.

Those who are not scholars may read Heitsch's book with enjoyment or profit. Specialists might miss a more scholarly approach than the descriptive analysis or explanatory paraphrasis offered by the author. His approach raises other issues, mentioned above. However this book can be commended to scholars for the stimulating remarks and discussions embedded in the paraphrasis. One constantly feels its author is conversant with Thucydides' work, manner and thought. The personal aspect of the book, which in a way expresses the disenchanted view of a veteran scholar on history (with a few hints at contemporary history, p. 82 ⁵, p. 105 ; p. 112 n. 117), commands respect. There is a short bibliography and an index personarum. The book is not free from misprints, but they are harmless.

Notes:

1. Cf. E. Heitsch, Geschichte und Situationen bei Thukydides, Stuttgart/Leipzig, 1996.

2. Full references of works quoted in this review are available in previous standard commentaries and/or in S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides. Volume III : Books 5.25-8.109, Oxford, 2008.

3. Cf. E. Heitsch, Der Vertrag des Therimenes. Von den Schwierigkeiten einer Thukydides-Interpretation, Hermes, 134, 2006, p. 26-43.

4. "Ich denke, es war auch in den Augen des Historikers ein Unglück, dass zwischen ihm [Alcibiades] und den Oligarchen eine Verständigung, für die es in einem bestimmten Augenblick politische Möglichkeiten wohl gegeben hätte, nicht zustandegekommen, offenbar gar nicht versucht worden ist" (p. 173-174).

5. "Dass die Masse es hinterher besser weiss, ist eine bekannte Erscheinung". (read complete article)

In the latter half of the fourth century the monk Jovinian became the center of a bitter ecclesiastical controversy regarding the relative value of asceticism, particularly sexual renunciation. Jovinian's principal opponents were Pope Siricius, Ambrose, and Jerome, the latter publishing a particularly vicious attack against Jovinian in two books. Although condemned as a heretic for his views at synods in Rome and Milan in 393, the controversy surrounding Jovinian and his views continued, drawing Pelagius, Augustine and other writers into its orbit, writers who would seek to temper Jerome's harsh critique of the condemned 'heretic'. David Hunter's monograph is the only full-scale treatment of Jovinian in English, providing a comprehensive investigation and analysis of Jovinian and his opponents, the background to their debates, and the late Roman social context in which rival versions of orthodoxy and heresy clashed.

Hunter divides his book into three parts: the first part, 'Jovinian and his World', comprises two chapters. The first chapter is an exercise in 'Reconstructing Jovinian': as Jovinian's own writings have perished (the lamentable result of his condemnation as a heretic), it is necessary to sift through the writings of his opponents in an attempt to piece together Jovinian's authentic views. Although the most important source for this critical enterprise is Jerome's extensive refutation of Jovinian, Hunter begins with an examination of Pope Siricius and Ambrose on chronological grounds: the earliest mention of Jovinian is found in Siricius' letter reporting the condemnation of Jovinian by a Roman synod, while Ambrose writes that Jovinian had fled to Milan following his condemnation in Rome, thereby indicating that the synod in Milan followed the synod in Rome. However, when Jerome published his attack on Jovinian in the spring of 393 he did not mention either synod, although he did refer to Jovinian's condemnation in Rome in a letter regarding the reception of his work the following year. That Jerome does not mention Jovinian's condemnation by the Roman and Milanese clergy indicates to Hunter that the synods took place at roughly the same time as Jerome was writing, that is, the spring of 393 (earlier scholarship had suggested a date of 390 for Jovinian's condemnation). Having established the chronology of the controversy, Hunter moves on to an exposition and analysis of the central 'four propositions' of Jovinian as reported by Jerome, whose refutation of Jovinian provides many direct quotations from his opponent. The four propositions are as follows (p. 26):

1. Virgins, widows, and married women, once they have been washed in Christ, are of the same merit, if they do not differ in other works. 2. Those who have been born again in baptism with full faith cannot be overthrown by the devil. 3. There is no difference between abstinence from food and receiving it with thanksgiving. 4. There is one reward in the kingdom of heaven for all who have preserved their baptism.

Hunter's discussion of these four propositions underlines the 'sacramental and ecclesial foundation' of Jovinian's criticism of contemporary asceticism and sexual renunciation. In these four propositions ascetic merit is displaced by the common gift of salvation to which all Christians have access through the sacrament of baptism. A common baptism, rather than degrees of ascetic performance, therefore exerted decisive influence on Jovinian's conception of salvation. It was this emphasis on the equality of all the baptized, and its concomitant rejection of an ascetically-determined hierarchy, that Jovinian's opponents found so objectionable.

Hunter's second chapter, 'Jovinian and Christian Rome', examines the more public and social aspects of Jovinian's critique of asceticism within the context of late-fourth century Rome. This chapter begins with a survey of fourth-century criticisms of asceticism and monasticism, noting that as the fourth century neared its close the monastic rejection of marriage posed problems to pagans and Christians alike. Hunter describes the manner in which sexual renunciation necessarily entailed a rejection of the aristocratic elite's social values; even aristocratic Christians would look askance on the celibate as a threat to 'the continued vitality of civic life'. Hunter demonstrates the way this 'novelty' of asceticism, however, was adopted by the Roman aristocratic elite in a process of 'assimilation and accommodation' that would allow ascetic behaviour and ascetic piety to serve specifically Roman principles and values, resulting in a situation in which asceticism and aristocratic culture each shaped the other (e.g., the well-known wealthy 'ascetics' who had renounced marriage or embraced virginity while continuing to live as only those who owned extensive properties and numerous servants could).

The second part of the book, 'Jovinian, Heresy and Asceticism', begins with a chapter devoted to the background of the Jovinianist controversy, surveying Christian traditions of asceticism and heresy in the first three centuries, beginning with Jesus and Paul, and continuing with the Pastoral Epistles, Irenaeus, Tatian, and Clement of Alexandria. Noteworthy is the manner in which Hunter demonstrates that by the end of the second century, largely as a result of the influence of writers like Irenaeus and Clement, Christian 'orthodoxy' was inseparable from a rejection of radical encratite ideals (encratite theology taught that sexuality originated as a result of the introduction of sin into the world and was never a part of God's original creation: the rejection of sex thus supported the quest to regain 'the pristine purity of paradise') and the acceptance of marriage. And yet Hunter traces the manner in which this second-century settlement would be largely overthrown by the third-century writers Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen, who introduced key features of encratite theology into their own treatments of marriage and sexuality, and who exerted significant influence on figures such as Ambrose and Jerome. The result was three streams of tradition: radical encratism completely rejected sexual activity, while moderate encratism allowed marriage and sexual intercourse even as their value was severely limited, and those following in the tradition of the Pastoral Epistles, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria rejected radical encratism as a heresy, maintaining that sex and marriage were both fundamental to a Christian understanding of creation and redemption. The second chapter of this section examines the relationship between encratite theology and heresiology in the fourth century, paying particular attention to the actual spread of Manichaean Christianity and the manner in which 'Manichaean' had become a stock accusation in the heresy-hunter's arsenal, as well as the works of the prominent heresiologists Epiphanius of Salamis and Filastrius of Brescia. The chapter concludes with an examination of Ambrosiaster's treatise 'On the Sin of Adam and Eve', which, along with the writings of Epiphanius and Filastrius, served to indicate the extent to which questions of the body, sex, marriage and original sin were still disputed in the fourth century, while also figuring prominently in accusations of heresy against the promoters of ascetic piety. In this regard Hunter makes it plain that Jovinian would have been promoting his own critique of ascetic piety within an established and recognizable heresiological tradition, a tradition which rejected the radical encratite assertion 'that sex was a symptom of original sin'. The final chapter takes up the question of 'Mary Ever-Virgin': Jovinian had called Ambrose a Manichaean for defending Mary's virginitas in partu (the doctrine that Mary's virginity remained physically intact even in the act of giving birth to Jesus), indicating again to Hunter something of Jovinian's anti-heretical concerns in disputing questions of ascetic piety. Hunter traces the development of this doctrine, demonstrating the extent to which biblical apocrypha, such as the Odes of Solomon and the Ascension of Isaiah, but above all the Protevangelium of James, provided the basis for subsequent doctrine regarding Mary's perpetual virginity. Hunter also nicely connects the themes in these texts to classic radical encratism, so that Mary becomes the perfect fulfillment and model of the encratite ideal. And while the doctrine of Mary's virginitas in partu did not have widespread support in the first three centuries of Christian tradition (appearing mainly in the apocryphal works mentioned above and being criticized by Tertullian and Origen, who wished to emphasize the fully human character of Jesus' birth), it had certainly begun to feature prominently in Ambrose. Hunter's analysis shows that Ambrose had made Mary's virginity a pervasive feature of his soteriology and ecclesiology, so that virginity became the model for humanity's redemption from sin and stood atop a hierarchy of ascetic merit. This hierarchy of ascetic merit, with virginity at the top, was sure to conflict with Jovinian's claim that by baptism all Christians share a common ecclesial holiness.

The final section of Hunter's book, 'Jovinian and his Opponents', begins with a chapter examining the critiques that Siricius, Ambrose and Jerome leveled against Jovinian. From Hunter's investigation it emerges that each of these three writers had their own unique reasons for rejecting Jovinian's four propositions: Siricius was mainly interested in bolstering clerical authority and enforcing the discipline of clerical celibacy, and while Ambrose shared this concern he also demonstrated a particular interest in female virginity, and Hunter suggests that Jovinian's views may have threatened the prominent authority of a bishop active 'in the recruitment, veiling, and supervision of consecrated virgins'. Finally, Jerome, unlike Siricius or Ambrose, was interested not simply in the sexual renunciation of clergy following their ordination, but rather in promoting the prestige of the monk-priest: Siricius was reluctant to accept monks immediately to the episcopate (preferring instead the usual progression through the clerical cursus honorum), while Jerome felt that the bishop's easy acceptance of many married men into the clergy already demonstrated a level of laxity unbefitting the ordained ministry. As a result, Jerome's ruthless attack on Jovinian was interpreted by many as of its first readers as a scandalous treatment of marriage, if not quasi-heretical. The response to Jerome's repudiation of Jovinian forms the subject of Hunter's final chapter, in which he traces the development of a mediating position between Jovinian and Jerome in the following decade. Figuring prominently here are Pelagius and Augustine. Interestingly, while Pelagius departs from Jerome by rejecting the radical encratite notion that sex is somehow bound up with sin and the Fall, he nevertheless explicitly opposes Jovinian on the matter of an ascetic hierarchy, promoting the view that virginity, sexual continence and marriage all merit different rewards in heaven. Augustine, on the other hand, in his two small treatises De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate (Hunter follows Hombert in dating both to 404 rather than 401) introduced a new element into the discussion of a hierarchy of ascetic merits. While agreeing that celibacy was superior to marriage (against Jovinian), and yet insisting that marriage was indeed something good (against Jerome), Augustine destabilized the utility of a sexually focused ascetic hierarchy by positing the existence of virtues superior to sexual renunciation, such as readiness for martyrdom.

Hunter's study of the Jovinianist controversy is an admirable contribution to the study of late antique Roman society. Contemporary scholarship has developed quite an elaborate literature on asceticism and sexual renunciation in late antiquity, as well as on the development of orthodoxy and heresy. Hunter's monograph provides invaluable--indeed, required--reading on both counts. While past scholarship on Jovinian tended to wear its prejudices on its sleeves, Hunter's treatment moves beyond the partisan readings that characterized previous treatments by Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars and provides a nuanced, balanced and comprehensive treatment of Jovinian's background, opponents, and legacy, while also providing the definitive exposition and analysis of Jovinian's own theological and heresiological aims. In doing so Hunter has not only advanced our understanding of 'Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy in Ancient Christianity'; he has also provided us with a wonderful example of what the best scholarship in late antique Christianity ought to look like. (read complete article)

Table of Contents

The Cambridge history of Greek and Roman warfare covers Archaic and Classical Greece, the Hellenistic period and also the Roman Republic until around 100 BC (Volume Two deals with the Late Republic and Imperial period till Late Antiquity) and contains fifteen chapters by various contributors. Apart from the three introductory chapters in the present volume all other parts of Greek and Roman Warfare are structured the same way: international relations, military forces, war, battle, warfare and the state, and war and society. The military forces and battle chapters are sometimes divided into an A and B portion dealing with the forces/battles on land and at sea respectively. The book is very comprehensive and a welcome starting point in approaching ancient military studies. The editors as well as the authors can be congratulated on their efforts in producing this important reference work.

This handbook aims to be a comprehensive overview of war in antiquity encompassing new research and recent discoveries, and therefore offers a refreshing contrast to earlier standard works by Delbrück or Kromayer and Veith, for example.¹ It is not intended to be a narrative account of numerous wars and battles but rather "a thematic analysis of the main aspects of warfare in the ancient world" (XV). Yet it is teeming with numerous fascinating details that can only be touched upon in the following summary.

The first introductory chapter by Victor Davis Hanson discusses the modern scholarship on ancient warfare, primarily from the 19th-century to the present (pp. 3-21). "The Paradox of War" is the subtitle of Simon Hornblower's interesting chapter on warfare in ancient literature (pp. 22-53). He investigates the paradox that the ancient writers profess a dislike of war while being fascinated by it and that the prominence of war is in disproportion to its frequency and practical significance. Hornblower examines the historical reality and the trustworthiness of ancient historiography on war. The reconstruction of ancient warfare is the theme of Michael Whitby's contribution (pp. 54-81).

Part I is on "Archaic and Classical Greece". Jonathan M. Hall's chapter (pp. 85-107) provides an introduction to the agonistic age and covers the mechanics of international relations, supracivic leagues and amphictyonies, and hegemonic alliances. It closes with a summary of the new world order after the Peloponnesian War. Peter Hunt (pp. 108-146) outlines the various types of military forces the Greeks employed and their hierarchy: hoplites and their armoury, cavalry -- which played a minor role in southern Greece in this era -- peltasts, archers, slingers, and the navy. In further sections he explains military units and officers, training, and the manpower of Greek armies (citizens, metics, slaves, mercenaries, and elite units). Chapter 6 (pp. 147-185) by Peter Krentz takes a look at the organisational side of warfare from the call to arms (or oars), supplies, timing of campaigns, the departure of troops, their encampment, the defenders options, looting and ravaging, combat, epiteichismos (i.e., constructing fortresses in enemy territory), the fate of the defeated, and the return home. Everett Wheeler gives a thorough analysis of land battles (chapter 7 A: pp. 186-223), beginning with an introduction "defining the battlefield of debate", in which he makes a critical assessment of past and present scholarship on the emergence of the phalanx in the seventh century BC and ancient perception of Greek infantry superiority against outsiders. Wheeler continues by explaining the development of the phalanx, the mechanics of hoplite combat and the emergence of generalship after the Persian Wars. This is followed by an equally stimulating contribution by Barry Strauss (chapter 7 B: pp. 223-247), who covers the history of Greek warships, the hard training and the various naval operations in which triremes could be employed, and on the development and experience of siege warfare. Chapter 8 (pp. 248-272) by Vincent Gabrielsen concerns warfare and the state in Archaic and Classical Greece. The focus lies here on the producers of violence and the profits of war, where he singles out centralisation, finance, imperial revenue, and war in Athens in the century before the death of Alexander. In the following chapter (pp. 273-299) Hans van Wees deals with the impact of warfare on Greek society. He cites Sparta as an exception in terms of extreme dedication--in the rest of Greece military standards were rather low--, and he points out that the demands of war did not dictate the daily routine of the people or shape their social and political structures, but "it was the demand of social, political and economic life which shaped warfare" (p. 273). In three sections he investigates the leisure class, competitiveness and pleonexia (greed), and society and politics.

Part II on the Hellenistic World and the Roman Republic starts with Richard Billows's chapter on international relations (pp. 303-324), where he examines the different relationship patterns of this period: Hellenistic states between each other as well as with cities, and the relations between cities. The two last sections concern early Rome and its contact with the Hellenistic world. A very detailed summary on the land forces by Nicholas Sekunda in chapter 11 A (pp. 325-356) follows. Sekunda discusses the changes in military demography and military tactics during the times of Philip and Alexander, particularly the Macedonian phalanx and focuses on the same aspects under the successors of Alexander, with additional coverage on units such as thureophoroi (infantry more suited for smaller Greek armies), mercenaries, cavalry, and exotic troop types. The latter includes cuirassed infantry, scythed chariots, and elephants.

Part III is on the confrontation with Rome and the resulting changes in Greek and Roman armies. One significant change occurred after Pydna, when Hellenistic armies abandoned the phalanx and began equipping their infantries in "Roman style", a process that increased in the following century. The naval forces are treated by Philip de Souza (chapter 11 B, pp. 357-367) in three sections: the development of the polyremes, shipbuilding, and manpower in the Hellenistic kingdoms, Rome and Carthage.

The chapter on war for this period is by Jonathan P. Roth (pp. 368-398), who pays attention to the changes in strategy, logistics (food supplies), and campaign mechanics. The latter involved the new aspect of professional and mercenary troops no longer being dispersed after a campaign season, as was typical for citizen armies. The concluding paragraph discusses the human costs of war on a larger scale and how it affected military personnel and civilians. Battles (chapter 13, pp. 399-460) are shared by Philip Sabin (land battles) and Philip de Souza (naval battles and sieges). Sabin provides a joint thematic analysis in order to point out the differences and similarities in Hellenistic and Roman armies of the Middle Republic. In addition, he pays attention to the changes in battles which had become larger and far more complex as in the preceding era. He takes two perspectives: first "the grand tactical level" = the general's battle (deployment, command, manoeuvre, outcomes) and second "the tactical level" = the soldier's battle (exotic weapons, cavalry, infantry). A concluding part is on the question of determinants of success. De Souza assesses the tactics, the Roman employment of the entering bridge (corvus), casualties (usually very high for rowers), catapults on board ships, access control of ports by naval forces and surprise attacks, and presents an extensive summary of sieges with all the aspects and challenges involved. The chapter on "warfare and the state" by John Serrati (pp. 461-497) is split in equal parts between the Hellenistic world and Rome. The author presents a chronological overview with a special focus on Hellenistic imperialism and the financial dimension in Roman military activities. The book's last chapter by J.E. Lendon, (pp. 498-516), is on war and society. He contrasts "military excellence as craft" in the Hellenistic world to "military excellence as virtue" among the Romans and examines the consequences for each side.

This is followed by a chronological timeline from the Late Bronze Age down to 101 BC, a glossary of Greek and Latin terms, a list of ancient authors, a source and general index, and an extensive bibliography.

Volume One of Greek and Roman Warfare is an accomplished handbook reflecting the current state of research on this subject. It leaves the narrow focus of earlier reference works and studies, which have focused largely on textual analysis, topographical studies and recent experience or individual events. It also attempts a closer look at what actually might have happened to soldiers and troop units in "the generic 'face of battle'" (pp. 401-402), an approach prompted by Keegan's important study.² The economic aspects of war as well as military expenses are touched upon in some of the chapters. Not all details are covered, e. g., the financial gifts Roman soldiers received when partaking in the triumphal parade of their general is not mentioned here. This tradition served as a precedent for later more costly developments in the Late Republic. The bibliography contains most of the relevant works and will guide students and scholars alike to further reading. Several of the German titles cited contain spelling and grammatical errors, however.³ Greek and Roman Warfare includes several maps (pp. xviii-xxx), illustrations and photos which highlight some of the points made by the contributors. These quibbles notwithstanding, this book is an extremely interesting and stimulating read. Most of the military facts assembled and discussed here are embedded in the works of the ancient writers, while other information is gleaned from archaeological data and occasionally from subsequent modern experiment. Thus many finer points of ancient military organisation or engagement (be it hoplite combat or naval manoeuvres) might escape notice on a casual reading of Thucydides, Xenophon or others. This main analysis -- common to all contributions here -- is the major strength of this book.

Introduction: the historiography of ancient warfare:
1. The modern historiography of ancient warfare. Victor Davis Hanson
2. Warfare in ancient literature: the paradox of war. Simon Hornblower
3. Reconstructing ancient warfare. Michael Whitby
Part I. Archaic and Classical Greece:
4. International relations. Jonathan Hall
5. Military forces. Peter Hunt
6. War. Peter Krentz
7. Battle.
(1) Land battles. Everett Wheeler
(2) Naval battles and sieges. Barry Strauss
8. Warfare and the state. Vincent Gabrielsen
9. War and society. Hans van Wees
Part II. The Hellenistic World and the Roman Republic:
10. International relations. Richard Billows
11. Military forces. Nicholas V. Sekunda
12. War. Jonathan Roth
13. Battle.
(1) Land battles. Philip Sabin
(2) Naval battles and sieges. Philip de Souza
14. Warfare and the state. John Serrata
15. War and society. J. E. Lendon
Chronological table
Glossary
List of ancient authors.

Notes

1. J. Kromayer, G. Veith, Heerwesen und Kriegsführung der Griechen und Römer (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft IV.3.2). Munich 1928; H. Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, vol. I, 3rd edn., Berlin 1962.

2. John Keegan, The Face of Battle, New York 1976.

3. Sion-Jenkis is not Sion-Jenkins. This error even crept into the notes. (read complete article)

This detailed and copiously illustrated study offers a complete technical and stylistic analysis of one of the best-known metal vessels discovered in Greece. The bronze krater decorated with a Dionysiac scene stands almost a meter high and was discovered in an intact late fourth-century tomb at Derveni. While the book is focused on the interpretation of one bronze vessel, readers will also be treated to chapters concerning the manufacture of bronze vessels in Greece, Macedonian elite burial practices, Dionysos and funerary imagery of the Classical period. B.-S.'s goal is, "to place the Derveni krater in historical perspective, exploring its importance to the study of ancient Greek art in general and ancient Greek metalwork in particular." (p. xiii) She accomplishes that goal through her meticulous study of a truly expansive array of evidence: coins, bronze handle fragments, scientific analysis, clay impressions of metalwork, South Italian metal vessels, iconography and myth. Barely a page passes without an illustration: 168 black-and-white figures in the text and 32 color plates at the end. A stack of bookmarks will come in handy to mark both the black-and-white and color images and the endnotes while reading the text, as the author points the reader to fine points captured in the figures and the plates. In the opinion of this reviewer, the study will stand as the definitive analysis of the Derveni krater and serve as an important contribution to the study of Classical Dionysiac iconography.

The book is divided into three sections: the first two chapters describe the excavation history of the Derveni tombs and the use of metal vessels in Macedonian society. The second part of the book is a traditional shape study of volute krater shape and the details of its manufacture, in both clay and metal versions. In the third section, B.-S. examines the complex and intriguing iconography of the vessel.

Chapter 1 (Metal Vessels in Macedonian History) sets out the social contexts in which Macedonians used metal sympotic ware, particularly in burial settings. The array of silver and bronze drinking equipment discovered in the Derveni tombs in 1962 gave archaeologists their first real hint that metal vessels enjoyed a wider use than previously suspected, and since then the inventory of excavated bronze and silver vessels has increased substantially. B.-S. summarizes that evidence here. Macedonians used some containers, such as the Derveni krater, to hold the remains of the dead. Other pouring vessels such as oinochoai, open containers such as situlai, ladles and many cup types were invested regularly in tombs as part of Macedonian elite funeral rites. Despite these new finds, the Derveni krater remains the only known example of a metal vessel so elaborately embellished with relief frieze and figural attachments.

Chapter 2 (The Derveni Tombs) describes the Derveni tomb group which consisted of five cist-tombs and a pit-grave.¹ Tomb B, which held the Derveni krater, also contained forty-three vessels and other sympotic accoutrements, divided almost equally between bronze and silver, were interred in Tomb B. Elements of parade armor and horse trappings also accompanied the dead. The krater held the cremated remains of an adult male (35 to 50 years old) and a female whose age could not be established. Tomb B was the richest of the graves found at Derveni, but all the burials had goods of similar character, perhaps suggestive of a family grouping, but at the very least, "there can be little question that they were members of the Macedonian elite." (27)

In Chapter 3 (The Derveni Krater), B.-S. turns to the second part of the book, a close study of the vessel and its manufacture. The krater is dominated by the figural repoussé frieze that spreads across the body of the vessel: a young Dionysos sits with one arm over his head and his right leg resting on the lap of Ariadne on side A. Five maenads and a Silenos sport across Side B; the final figure in the frieze is a bearded man in hunting costume, but with his right foot bare. Pairs of animals, sometimes a singleton, are positioned below the main scene, and the neck is decorated with more animals--felines, deer, a griffin and a stag--added in appliquéé. Bronze statuettes are fastened to the shoulder of the krater and the handles are ornately decorated with masks of underworld deities.

An inscription in Thessalian script inlaid on the mouth of the Derveni krater states that it is a, "krater of Astioun, son of Anaxagoras from Larissa." Whether the occupant of the krater was Astioun himself or a descendent remains an open question. B.-S. discusses the Macedonian predilection for heirlooms as grave goods throughout her analysis of the krater, since this habit has important ramifications for establishing the date of the vessel. B.-S. identifies the occupant of Derveni Tomb B was a high-ranking cavalryman who had moved to Lete by the mid-fourth century, quite possibly a veteran who served with Alexander the Great.

Chapter 4 (Precursors to the Derveni Krater) and Chapter 5 (Elaborated Volute Kraters of the Late 5th and Early 4th Centuries) discuss the volute krater and its typological development. Seven complete bronze volute kraters, only two of which have a secure provenience -- one from Derveni Tomb A and one from a shaft grave in Agrigento -- are identified by B.-S. as belonging to a group that dates to the late fifth century. The Derveni Krater itself belongs to the next generation of bronze volute kraters, a form that developed fully in the fourth century when luxury goods were again in wide circulation.

In the course of her research, B.-S. investigates the famous "pottery" workshop scene on the Caputi Hydria and re-identifies it as a metalworking shop creating the recently-introduced volute krater form and other metal vessels. The brushes wielded by male and female workers are not for painting, but instead, B.-S. argues, for the patination of bronze vessels. (66-68) This is but one of several examples in which B.-S.'s careful study of the Derveni krater allows her to illuminate other aspects of Greek artistic production. Examples such as this help to locate this single artifact firmly within the wider cultural and historical context and make this study valuable to any reader interested in Classical art.

Chapter 6 (Relief Friezes, Further Elaboration, Floral Ornament, and Workshops) serves as a transition from the discussion of the form of the volute krater to its embellishment. Here, B.-S.'s careful description of the manufacturing techniques required to make the relief frieze is complemented very well by the exceptional photos of the exterior and interior of the vessel. She estimates that it took "five or six artisans, working together, more than 18 months to produce." (103) Although a specific workshop cannot be identified, B.-S. assigns the krater to a southern Greek workshop and argues that it was a special commission that carried an important religious message to the owner.

Chapter 7 (The Major Repoussé Frieze) tackles the main decoration on the vessel: the frieze of ten figures that represent Dionysos, Ariadne and a retinue of Dionysiac followers, including a hunter, whom B.-S. identifies as Pentheus. The overtones of mystery cult or initiation ritual are carefully set out by B.-S., and she persuasively argues for an emphasis on the dangerous power of Dionysos. (156) Each figure is described and placed within its iconographic context. The long analysis of the maenads on the frieze and their analogues in red-figure pottery and Neo-Attic reliefs offers B.-S. the opportunity to present a master class of art historical interpretation. Her descriptions encouraged this reviewer to see details of pose and clothing missed even through study of the close-up illustrations. For example, in reference to the exhausted maenad who collapses into the lap of her companion, B.-S. writes that, "Her feet, previously in a dance step, have lost all intention, and while she still gains some support from the right one, the heel of her left foot is raised off the ground and turned slightly inward without purpose, as if weakening at the ankle." (134) Such a sensitive and thoughtful description demonstrates the value that a true understanding of style can bring to iconographic interpretation.

Chapter 8 (Animal Friezes, Volute Masks, and Cast Shoulder Figures) demonstrates that even the seemingly adjunct decoration of the krater plays an important role in connecting the imagery to the religious themes established by the main frieze. Animal combats carried chthonic overtones in South Italian art and B.-S. links their presence on the Derveni krater with the future death of Pentheus. (161-163) The bronze statuettes depict sleepy and ecstatic maenads and a Silenos, all suffering the consequences of their ritual frenzy, and a young Dionysos, the only figure who is awake. Underworld deities appear as masks in the volute handles, suggesting to B.-S. that there may be implied, "a relationship between such Dionysiac activity, which is shown on the frieze itself, and the promise of an afterlife." (175)

Chapter 9 (The Uses and Workshop Origin of the Derveni Krater) concludes the study. B.-S. proposes that the figures on the frieze replicated a lost fifth-century monument on display in Athens. The detailed comparison that she draws between the style of the figures on the Derveni krater and Neo-Attic relief figures makes her argument entirely convincing to this reviewer. As for the function of this extraordinary vessel, B.-S. moves into the religious sphere, specifically the realm of mystery initiations, so closely connected with Dionysos. This suggestion must remain speculative, but the imagery resonates with ideas of mystic rites that may have carried Orphic connotations.

Studies of luxury goods--either through literary descriptions or realia like the Derveni krater--in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have reminded us that Greeks enjoyed, traded and recycled gold, silver and bronze goods on a greater scale than the archaeological record suggests. ² Macedonian, Thracian and Scythian tombs preserve some valuables--and more will likely be discovered--but it has proven difficult to fully integrate these goods used by barbarians into traditional mainland Greek art and life. B.-S.'s study situates the Derveni Krater squarely within the artistic bounds of Classical Athens. This book will be valuable for any student or scholar interested in the Classical iconography of Dionysos, and it provides an especially cogent discussion of maenad iconography presented in Classical and Neo-Classical art. Future investigations of connections between southern and northern Greece will now be able to refer to this study for key evidence of such cultural links.

In sum, The Derveni Krater offers a significant contribution to the study of Classical Greek art. Those interested in bronze and metalwork production will find a thorough discussion of the history of Greek metal vessels and a new typology of the bronze volute krater type. In her analysis of metalworking in Classical Greece, B.-S. collects preserved handles and attachments, gathering this diverse--and understudied--material in one location. The range of media analyzed in this study reminds us of the complete integration of figural themes and motifs in both the so-called major and minor arts.

Notes:

1. The Derveni Tombs have been fully published by P. Themelis and I. Touratsglou, Οι τάπηοι του Δερβενίου (Athens, 1997). One of the tombs, Tomb A, contained fragments of the Derveni papyrus scroll with an Orphic text, studied by Gabor Betegh, The Derveni Papryus (Cambridge, 2004)[reviewed BMCR 2005.01.27] and published with commentary by Theokritos Kouremenos, George M. Parássoglou and Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou, eds., The Derveni Papyrus (Florence, 2006) [reviewed BMCR 2006.10.29].

2. For example, Margaret C. Miller, Athens and Persian in the Fifth Century B.C.: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge, 1997) Leslie Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece (Princeton, 1999); Kenneth D.S. Lapatin, Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 2001). (read complete article)

Papers on Special Techniques in Athenian Vases brings together nineteen papers associated with a June 2006 conference at the Getty Villa, which accompanied the important exhibition "The Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athenian Vases." A glance at the table of contents (see below for authors and titles) reveals the collection's diverse scope, with essays devoted to issues of execution, iconography, influence, and trade. The authors, too, represent a diverse gathering of scholars, scientists, and ceramicists. This conference volume, like others recently published or in preparation, demonstrates the vitality of Greek ceramic studies; far from languishing in an ever-shifting scholarly world, the study of Athenian vases benefits from new technologies, approaches, and points of view.

The two essays opening the volume, by Beth Cohen ("The Colors of Clay: Combining Special Techniques on Athenian Vases") and Brian Sparkes ("Why Special Techniques?") acquaint the reader with the special techniques under scrutiny--outline drawing, coral red, Six's technique, white ground, added- or extruded-clay relief elements, gilding, plastic vases and vases with plastic additions--and the larger questions surrounding them. Cohen, the curator of the Colors of Clay exhibition, asserts as she did in the original exhibition catalogue that study of technique has traditionally been overlooked in favor of figural decoration, while stressing that one cannot truly be understood without the other. She uses key vases from the exhibition to explore the juxtaposition of special techniques in a single vessel. Sparkes, like Cohen, lauds the innovation of Athenian artisans when it came to special techniques, while speculating about the impetus of some craftsmen to "go further." He introduces considerations of consumers and trade further explored by other authors in the volume.

Herman A. G. Brijder's essay on Six's technique ("Six's Technique and Etruscan Bucchero") discusses previous scholarship by Jan Six and Emilie Haspels, then moves to further observations. Because some of the vessels using Six's technique copy Etruscan bucchero prototypes in their shape, Brijder wonders if there is a visual connection as well. He notes the contrast of light and dark produced with the relief work on some Etruscan bucchero and speculates whether the earliest versions of Six's technique were intended to echo it. He also notes that the technique seems to have been more highly regarded in Etruria than Attica, especially with sympotic shapes.

Annie Verbanck-Piérard considers the use of special techniques in a specific archaeological context, the Athenian Akropolis ("The Colors of the Akropolis: Special Techniques for Athena"). Piérard states at the outset that her study was limited to the German publication of the Akropolis material (Graef-Langlotz) rather than firsthand examination, and she explains the methodological problems involved with such a limitation. Even so, she found that all the special techniques considered in the Colors of Clay exhibition are represented in the Akropolis material, and her essay leads the reader through different examples. She suggests that ceramic offerings which exhibit a particular quality of techne would have been suitable for Athena in her guise as Ergane.

Two iconographically themed essays examine the depiction of women on special-technique vases: Jenifer Neils, "'Women Are White: White Ground and the Attic Funeral," and Claire Lyons, "Objects of Affection: Genre and Gender on Some Athenian Vases." Neils argues for a symbiotic relationship between the development of the Attic lekythos as a shape, the evolution of white ground as a technique, and the association of both with women and the funeral. She further highlights the possible role of women as patrons of vase-painters with regards to lekythoi and white-ground vases generally, by virtue of their role as caretakers of the dead. Lyons uses a case-study approach: she examines four vases from the Colors of Clay exhibition that depict "exemplary" women (mythological figures, nude women, foreigners) and considers issues of identity. She notes that special techniques such as white ground or gilding could emphasize a vessel's didactic message by highlighting what she calls "telling attributes."

A series of papers on technique and execution succeed these iconographic studies. Two essays are concerned with so-called coral-red gloss, the uncommon but striking technique employed from the 530s for approximately a century by select painters and workshops. Historically there has been much debate about the production of coral-red, namely how the color was produced during firing. Jeffrey Maish ("Observations and Theories on the Technical Development of Coral-red Gloss") compares the appearance of coral-red gloss to misfires and mis-slips in black-gloss vessels. He argues that an attraction to the red color produced during such firing mishaps may have inspired the creation of techniques to replicate and control it.

An essay by four scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute ("A Preliminary Investigation of Coral-red Glosses Found on Attic Greek Pottery") presents initial results of testing done on thirteen fragments/vessels containing coral-red and black gloss, using an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). The tests uncovered two different kinds of coral-red gloss: one whose chemical composition is similar to the black gloss, and another that exhibits heightened calcium and magnesium content (abbreviated HCM coral red, as opposed to LCM coral red). These findings may be the result of two different clays and may explain why scholars cannot settle on a single technique for creating coral red. The remainder of the essay considers the LCM coral-red gloss as compared to black; based on tests that reveal differences in composition between the two, the authors propose that two separate firings must have been used to create the black gloss/LCM coral-red vessels. "Ferrous and Ferric: A Review of Scientific Research on the Iron in Attic Greek Glazes" by Richard Newman follows this paper and similarly discusses the usage of SEM technologies in analyzing ancient glazes, as well as TEM, or transmission electron microscopy; his focus is the black gloss and its iron content. It is interesting to note that even with new technologies allowing a different view into ancient processes, many fundamentals remain unexplained. One can hope continued research will provide more answers.

A paper by Eleni Aloupi-Soutis ("Recovery and Revival of Attic Vase-Decoration Techniques: What Can They Offer Archaeological Research?") and another by Lisa Kahn and John C. Wissinger ("Re-creating and Firing a Greek Kiln") bring the debate into the practical sphere, as these authors have attempted to replicate the decoration and firing of ancient vessels. Aloupi-Soutis' paper builds on work done by the THETIS Authentics Ltd. laboratory and workshop, in collaboration with the Greek Archaeological Service, as they produced full-scale reproductions of archaeological finds. She discusses the production of black gloss, coral-red gloss, and the question of multiple firings; some of her conclusions mesh well with those found by the scientists in the previous papers. The research of Kahn and Wissinger builds on that of Joseph Veach Noble but departs from it as they recreated an ancient Greek kiln (Noble and his collaborators used electric kilns). Their experiments reveal aspects of the ancient process that Noble would not have encountered and provide significant insight.

Papers by Joan Mertens ("The Colors of Psiax") and Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter ("Clay, Gold, and Craft: Special Techniques in Three Vases by The Eretria Painter and Their Apotheosis in Xenophantos") mark forays into more traditional scholarship by emphasizing a single artistic personality. In addition to introducing Psiax's work in special techniques, Mertens reminds the reader that the creation of the red-figure technique (and other technical experiments) is roughly contemporary with the emergence of Greek drama. She suggests that the innovations of Thespis and "the introduction of the actor" may have influenced Exekias, Psiax, and other painters of the day. Lezzi-Hafter focuses on three key vessels by the Eretria Painter that each employ multiple special techniques. Like Psiax a century before, the Eretria Painter was an innovator, for whom special techniques were a means to enhance artistry and narrative. The essay continues with an in-depth analysis of the squat lekythos potted by Xenophantos in the Hermitage; Lezzi-Hafter attributes this piece and its painter to the same workshop of the Eretria Painter and Aison.

Plastic vases as a form of special technique are highlighted in two papers. Susanne Ebbinghaus ("Of Rams, Women, and Orientals: A Brief History of Attic Plastic Vases") reviews the development of this form with a specific eye toward Near Eastern connections and influences. Dyfri Williams ("Some Thoughts on the Potters and Painters of Plastic Vases Before Sotades") examines the early history of plastic vases and considers the potters, painters, and workshops who specialized in them.

The remaining papers in the volume tackle issues of trade and distribution of vases with special techniques; issues of trade and distribution in general have received increasing attention in recent years. Athena Tsingarida's essay ("Color for a Market? Special Techniques and Distribution Patterns in Late Archaic and Early Classical Greece") considers the distribution of three techniques: Six's technique, coral red, and white ground, laying particular emphasis on phiale and cup shapes. Helpful tables and maps show, for example, a strong Attic market for phialai in Six's technique with less common distribution elsewhere. Coral-red phialai and cups, while maintaining the strongest market in Attica, have a much wider distribution across the Greek world, especially in the Late Archaic period. In the Early Classical period, white-ground cups and phialai seem to take their place, although here again the local Attic market is paramount. It is worth noting the challenges of discussing distribution of vases in these terms, either by Tsingarida or anyone else: so many vases have unrecorded provenances, yielding an incomplete corpus, and when provenances are known, sometimes the samples are small. Does the presence of one or two vases at a given site show export specifically to that site, or were they brought by a stranger passing through? Even so, the questions raised by Tsingarida and the other authors in this volume are important and should be considered.

Martine Denoyelle ("Athenian Vases in Special Techniques in Magna Graecia and Sicily, and Their Influence on Local Production") turns to the Greek colonies of Italy in her analysis of trade patterns. White-ground lekythoi and plastic vases, she explains, are the only special-technique vases found in any notable numbers in these areas and raise questions about relationships between Greek colonials and their Italic neighbors. Denoyelle uses a case-study rather a statistical approach, so maps and tables such as found in Tsingarda's essay are absent; some readers may wish for more numbers and hard data.

Italy remains the focus in the essay by Bodil Bundgaard Rasmussen ("Special Vases in Etruria: First- or Secondhand?"), in which she revisits some of the most contentious questions in the study of Athenian vase painting and applies them to special-technique vessels found in Etruscan tombs, namely, a) were there special commissions in the Kerameikos; and b) were vases found in Etruria intended specifically for foreign viewers, or were they geared toward an Athenian audience, later traveling to Italy through secondhand trade? Rasmussen's essay suffers the most in the collection from the required word-count limit: the issues she confronts are simply too large and complex to be dealt with effectively in this space. They are worth re-raising though; it has been well over thirty years since the publication of T.B.L. Webster's controversial Potter and Patron in Classical Athens, and the issue of secondhand trade still has not been resolved. Admittedly, it may never be.

Finally, Friederike Fless takes the question of trade--and taste--to the edges of the Greek world ("Taste at the Periphery of the Greek World: The Iberian Peninsula and the Black Sea"). She begins her discussion by turning the term "special techniques" on its head, pointing out that a certain technique may only be "special" from an Athenian perspective. As case studies for discussing the reception and perception of Attic wares abroad, Fless focuses on red-figure kraters found in Iberia and the so-called Kerch vases discovered at sites around the Black Sea, especially pelikai found in burials. She convincingly describes the process by which customers abroad selected and adapted Attic vessels for their use--and by which Athenian painters and potters responded to the demand--as evolutionary and forged over time.

Papers on Special Techniques in Athenian Vases is a significant contribution to our growing understanding of these specific kinds of vessels, as well as to our understanding of Greek vases generally. Many of the questions and methodologies introduced here can be equally developed with the more pervasive techniques of red and black figure. As one might expect from a Getty Museum publication, the production value of the volume is high, with a clean layout and clear illustrations. Typographical errors are minimal. A single caveat: the reader would be wise to have a copy of the Colors of Clay catalogue at hand, as not all illustrations of exhibition vases are duplicated.

Table of Contents:

Kenneth Lapatin, Introduction

Beth Cohen, The Colors of Clay: Combining Special Techniques on Athenian Vases

Brian A. Sparkes, Why Special Techniques?

Herman A. G. Brijder, Six's Technique and Etruscan Bucchero

Annie Verbanck-Piérard, The Colors of the Akropolis: Special Techniques for Athena

Jenifer Neils, 'Women are White': White Ground and the Attic Funeral

Claire L. Lyons, Objects of Affection: Genre and Gender on Some Athenian Vases

Jeffrey P. Maish, Observations and Theories on the Technical Development of Coral-Red Gloss

M.S. Walton, E. Doehne, K. Trentelman, and G. Chiari, A Preliminary Investigation of Coral-Red Glosses Found on Attic Greek Pottery

Richard Newman, Ferrous and Ferric: A Review of Scientific Research on the Iron in Attic Greek Glazes

Eleni Aloupi-Soutis, Recovery and Revival of Attic Vase-Decoration Techniques; What Can They Offer Archaeological Research?

Lisa C. Kahn and John C. Wissinger, Re-creating and Firing a Greek Kiln

Joan R. Mertens, The Colors of Psiax

Susanne Ebbinghaus, Of Rams, Women, and Orientals: A Brief History of Attic Plastic Vases

Dyfri Williams, Some Thoughts on the Potters and Painters of Plastic Vases Before Sotades

Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter, Clay, Gold, and Craft: Special Techniques in Three Vases by The Eretria Painter and Their Apotheosis in Xenophantos

Athena Tsingarida, Color for a Market? Special Techniques and Distribution Patterns in Late Archaic and Early Classical Greece

Martine Denoyelle, Athenian Vases in Special Techniques in Magna Graecia and Sicily, and Their Influence on Local Production

Bodil Bundgaard Rasmussen, Special Vases in Etruria: First- or Secondhand?

Friederike Fless, Taste at the Periphery of the Greek World: The Iberian Peninsula and the Black Sea (read complete article)

The last time I saw T. R. S. Broughton was in the public library of Keene Valley, NY in 1989 or 1990. He spoke of his last scholarly project (not mentioned in the present volume, which was completed a few years earlier), Candidates Defeated in Roman Elections: Some Ancient Roman "Also-rans", published in 1991 when Broughton was 91. It struck him as both useful and funny: to collect the losers after a lifetime of compiling lists of the winners has its ironic side. I also took out of the library a book about the Flexner family (closely associated with Bryn Mawr, where Broughton spent most of his academic career) which he had just returned--and in which, in a neat hand, he had corrected typographical errors in the few Greek quotations.

The attention to detail and the somewhat distanced and modest (while at the same time deeply serious) attitude towards his own scholarly accomplishments seem to me typical of Broughton; one also always had a strong sense of his physical presence. When I saw him in Keene Valley, he generally was dressed for the mountains, in a checked wool shirt. His massive head, his broad shoulders, and his barrel chest made him seem, even as he neared the age of 90, a mountain man as much as a scholar. The other immediate impression one had--which was certainly true when I first met him, when I was an undergraduate and he was a member of the outside Visiting Committee to the Harvard Classics Department, and was even more true when I saw him in the audience at the APA the first time I ever gave a talk in public--was of a kindness and decency as solid as the man himself. Before I first met him, my advisor told me that Broughton was the nicest and most honorable person in the profession. He was right. Broughton was a very good man and a very great scholar, and the two attributes seemed inseparable.

The same sense of solid worth (dignitas, in Roman terms) that Broughton projected in person is immediately evident in the work for which he will always be known, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, first published in 1951-52 and corrected and revised until the Supplement published in 1986. I bought my own copy when I was a sophomore, and although it is more than 20 years since I last taught Roman history, the two thick green volumes of the original publication are never far from my desk and (as now) usually on it. While it is not a book I can claim to have read through from cover to cover, by now there are not that many pages I haven't opened at some point. MRR (to give it its universal abbreviation) is probably the most useable (as well as one of the most useful) works of reference ever created to aid the study of antiquity: lucid, patient, extraordinarily thorough and impeccably learned. Above all, the book is designed to be helpful, in organization as in typography, and it is designed also to teach. One can start anywhere--with an office, a person, a date--and follow the threads that Broughton wove into the work to find out more and more about the political and administrative structures of the Roman republic. And when one realizes that Broughton accomplished this phenomenal task with only one assistant who worked on only one small portion of the book (not including, of course, the many scholars, colleagues and students who offered suggestions and corrections) over more than forty years in the pre-computer and pre-database era, one feels--or at least I feel--a certain embarrassment at the limits of one's own diligence, learning, or Sitzfleisch. 'Enduring' is the word that comes to mind, describing in several senses both the man and his work.

What is presented in the volume under review is not another set of addenda to MRR, but Broughton's own res gestae, a set of autobiographical chapters that Broughton's family induced him to write when he was in his late 80s (he died at 93 in 1993). Like many such family-induced memoirs (and several of my own relatives have tried it), it is selective, has some bees in its bonnet, and is rarely introspective. Broughton emphasizes much more where he went than what he did there, and while he recounts his scholarly activities and accomplishments, he has very little to say about his scholarly choices or methods. Unlike most similar memoirs, however, it displays Broughton's uncanny and almost perfect memory: he can remember how he got from one small town in Turkey to another in the 1930s, even if he is not very detailed about the Roman remains that he saw when he got there. Parts of the book are fascinating, particularly (to me) the account of Broughton's boyhood on an Ontario farm and his descriptions of his work with Tenney Frank at Johns Hopkins (a wonderful description of their competitive farming stories--Frank won by telling of the rattlesnake he forked into a hay wagon in his native Kansas) and of his first travels in Europe. The account of his boyhood explains a great deal about him, as well as being a singularly evocative description of the hard life of rural Ontario in the early twentieth century; in many ways it reminded me of the opening chapters of Robertson Davies' Fifth Business, a much more negative account of the same world. The extraordinary demands and sheer physical effort of farming without modern equipment; the constant poverty; the close awareness of terrain and topography all helped transform the Ontario farm boy into the scholar of Roman administration. Broughton was proud of his agricultural background, deeply attached to the family farm, and made a point of returning to Ontario for the harvest for many years. Both his physical stamina and his eye for terrain came from his childhood.

Those qualities, moreover, are apparent in the longest narrative sections of his autobiography, the accounts of his travels in Europe, Africa, and Turkey. His first great expedition, from June 1927 to January 1928 was to give him the background and to collect evidence for his dissertation on the Romanization of the province of Africa. Landing in Scotland and discovering the cost of travel (he had almost no money), he bought a second-hand bicycle in Edinburgh and pedaled his way, flat tires, accidents, and all, as far as Rome. He luckily did not decide to bicycle to Sicily and North Africa, using slightly more conventional means of transport; but one can well imagine him attempting to pedal over Aetna or through the desert and not complaining about the impossibility of the task. So too his later trips, to Turkey in the 1930s and to Spain in the 1950s: Broughton accomplished vast distances and incredible feats of endurance, inspecting sites and gathering evidence, but his writing rarely gives one the sense either of the excitement or of the discoveries that he clearly was making almost every day. What he gives, more often than not, is his itinerary through small towns and remote places, with some notice of what ruins he saw or what the countryside was like. What he does not give is any clear sense of why he went where he did, what he learned, and how it fit into some larger pattern of discovery or scholarly development. All too often--and again, it is not uncharacteristic of the genre--we get lists without much analysis of things done and places seen (and in later sections, of children brought up, students trained, offices held, and honors received). It is not as laconic as the entries in the "Index of Careers" in MRR, but the author of this autobiography is not very different from the author of MRR.

The Autobiography is simply too laconic. Some of that clearly arises from the circumstances in which it was composed, some of it is a matter of Broughton's own lapidary reticence. But hints emerge of a much more complicated man lurking within the author of MRR. Over and over, despite his hair-raising physical adventures, the scholar Broughton seems to progress by chance and caution rather than a deliberate sense of direction. He rejects a dissertation topic on ancient criticisms of Virgil because it seems too difficult for a beginner.¹ He seems to fall into a fellowship at Johns Hopkins (interrupted by a grueling year trying to maintain the farm after his father's death) and under the influence of Tenney Frank. The outside world impinges, but Broughton seems barely to register the great events of his time: he is aware of the rise of Fascism and Nazism, but seems faintly puzzled at the hostile silence that greets him on an Italian train when he makes a joke about going to Rome to see Mussolini, and while he is well aware of the dictatorship of Franco, it does not stop him from making extensive travels in Spain. The upheavals of Europe appear largely as obstacles to his (and others') planned researches on the Romanization of the provinces of the Empire. And, although his older colleague Lily Ross Taylor took a leave from Bryn Mawr to work for the OSS, Broughton, unlike almost everyone I have known of his generation, stayed at his job, edited TAPA and worked on MRR.² In reading this account, I find it hard not to compare the authors of the two most important works on Roman republican history in the twentieth century, Broughton and Syme. Broughton's goal in MRR is pure scholarship, objective and disengaged. Roman Revolution is its opposite; and while I consult MRR frequently, there are chapters of RR I reread for the sheer power of Syme's argument and prose.

Broughton's apparent lack of engagement with the public world is a part of what made MRR possible; but the Autobiography suggests a professional context as well. Broughton's career as a Roman historian was very much under the influence of Tenney Frank: his dissertation on the Romanization of North Africa and his contribution on Asia to Frank's Economic Survey of the Roman Empire were part of a line of research that has, in the past century, been extraordinarily fruitful. Frank, although his work seems dated now, was a pioneer in this, as in his book on Roman Imperialism, and it remained an interest of Broughton's throughout his life. In part, as he says, it was the upheavals of Europe, making first-hand research impossible, that changed his approach; but it is also very clear that Broughton's bitter disappointment at not being appointed by Johns Hopkins to succeed Frank had a large effect. Broughton was rejected for the Hopkins chair in 1939; in the same year his student and collaborator Marcia Patterson began to work with him on what was to become MRR. A certain resentment at being passed over--perhaps because Broughton, certainly in hindsight, was a far greater scholar than Henry Rowell, who was appointed Frank's successor--pervades much of Broughton's writing about his career. He lists offices and honors; fair enough. But he also records jobs that he was not offered and seems constantly to have yearned to teach in a large university (he did move in 1964 to Chapel Hill as Paddison Professor), somehow not seeming to realize that it was the extraordinary grouping of scholars in Roman history and literature at Bryn Mawr, notably Lily Ross Taylor and Agnes Michels, that in fact provides the background to the composition of MRR. It is not something he would have been likely to do anywhere else in the United States in the 1940s.

The Autobiography at times seems to portray a smaller man than Broughton really was, and that is unfortunate. The present volume, however, contains some correctives. One is the fine and moving introduction and poem by Broughton's son Alan (a poet and emeritus professor of English at the University of Vermont); he reads his father through the book that he (and I) wish Broughton had written--the expansive, generous, ironic scholar whom many, many people knew and admired. It is also made up for by Broughton himself in what is printed here as an appendix, a talk about Lily Ross Taylor and the study of Roman history in the United States that Broughton gave in 1970, not long after her death. It is there one gets a sense of Broughton's scope and of his acute awareness of the contexts in which he wrote; it is only there that one sees the more positive and scholarly reasons that led him to MRR, the desire to test the limits and value of the other new direction in Roman history, prosopography. That kind of history--through personalities, families, and factions--was inimical to the social and economic history championed by Tenney Frank, but Broughton was open enough to see its value, and while questioning its more extreme manifestations (as, for instance, in Scullard's work on early Roman politics) he ultimately provided the single most valuable tool for its proponents.

There is much in Broughton's Autobiography, as the description on the cover says, for students of many areas: not just the development of Roman history in the twentieth century, but Canadian social history and the history of the institutions with which Broughton was connected. And in that sense, one is glad that it was published. Corey Brennan and his students have put in much effort in identifying names (I suspect there is much in the index for students of Ontario prosopography) and correcting trivial mis-rememberings of names or facts. But even in what they have attempted, their work leaves something to be desired. Aside from minor errors in modern prosopography (the wrong first name is given for Calvin Plimpton, president of Amherst College from 1960 to 1971) and idiocies (does one really need an entry for "Ivy League" or the Isle of Innisfree?) in the index, there is one huge gap that Broughton himself would never have forgiven: there is not a single map. Broughton himself always insisted on having maps available in his seminars; without the aid of Google Maps, I could not have made any sense of the descriptions of Broughton's early life in Ontario, and there is nary a reader, certainly not this one, who can follow his peregrinations in Turkey and North Africa without cartographic assistance. In terms of clarity of presentation and plain good sense, Professor Broughton still has a lot to teach his editors; frustrating as they at times are, Broughton's memoirs and his memory deserved better.³

Notes:

1. I note in passing that Broughton's instincts for Latin philology seem to have been excellent: he is the only scholar I know who expresses great admiration for A. J. Bell, his teacher in Latin and comparative philology at Toronto. Bell's The Latin Dual and Poetic Diction (Oxford 1923) is hardly ever cited in modern scholarship and is admittedly eccentric, but is still very much worth reading.

2. Broughton was over 40 when the United States entered the war, but Taylor was 55. One assumes that a sense of obligation to his institution, his students, and his family are part of the explanation, but I still find it striking. The only clearly political comment I can find in the book is Broughton's statement that he would have been hard put to sign California's anti-communist loyalty oath in 1949 (130)--but he turned the job down in 1948 for different reasons.

3. I am grateful to Philip Stadter for his comments on a draft of this review. (read complete article)

This book is based on a doctoral dissertation presented in 2005 at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. The main purpose is to discuss Plotinus' doctrine of "that which depends on us," both in light of the previous scholarship and of the philosophical tradition preceding Plotinus. The study divides itself into three major sections: the previous scholarship on this topic in Plotinus (chap. 2), the ancient tradition (from Aristotle to the Middle Platonists) (chap. 3-5), and the reconsideration of Plotinus' doctrine (chap. 6). The end result is not altogether satisfying. We get the impression that the subject under examination, as far as Plotinus is concerned, cannot sustain a whole doctoral thesis and that the examination of the tradition has been grafted on to obtain a more substantial work. The section on the Middle Platonists occupies nearly as much space with its 50 pages as does the section on Plotinus (76 pages). The dissatisfaction grows as we virtually race through the various figures of the tradition: Aristotle, Aspasius, an Anonymous, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Chrysippus, Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch, Alcinous, Ps.-Plutarch, Nemesius, Calcidius, Apuleius and Maximus of Tyre. This survey is conducted at too fast a pace to be really useful and it is rarely mentioned or used in the final chapter on the reassessment of Plotinus' doctrine.

The investigation starts on a good basis. Eliasson (E. hereafter) considers that the first philosophical use of the notion of what depends on us appears in Aristotle. This usage is unsystematic and closer to common usage. Chrysippus will make a more technical use of the notion and it becomes in itself a point of debate and a subject of study. Subsequently the notion mingles more and more with associated topics such as destiny, providence and free will. This fact still has repercussions today. As E. explains, the modern interpretations fail to distinguish these notions and often take them as synonymous. The literature on that which depends on us is thus to be found in studies devoted to free will, providence and so on.

In an attempt at systematization, E. tries to group the modern scholarship on these themes into five categories: the freedom interpretation, the free choice interpretation, the free will interpretation, the free action interpretation and the self-determination interpretation. It is useful to map the various solutions adopted by modern commentators, but we must be cautious, since a single scholar can be put in several categories.¹ It remains to be decided if these categorizations do justice to the scholars thus classified. E. draws two conclusions from this preliminary study. First, Plotinus extends the notion of what depends on us by applying it to the Intellect and to the One. But, secondly, he also narrows it. Where the Aristotelian notion was inclusive--the action depends on us if it originates from the agent, no matter how it originates--Plotinus, according to E., restricts its applicability to the knowledgeable actions of virtuous agents.

We then begin our journey through three traditions: Aristotelian, Stoic and Middle Platonic. In his analysis, E. is keen on imposing a distinction of his own making: the inclusive versus the exclusive notion of what depends on us. The inclusive notion applies when the agent performs an action, even though this action is not prompted by a rational agency. The exclusive notion applies when the agent acts according to a rational agency. This distinction does not fit every philosopher. Aristotle, for example, can be said to use both notions (p. 60). Each philosopher under examination is more or less fitted into one of these categories: Aspasius (inclusive), Alexander (exclusive), Chrysippus (exclusive), and so on. The survey, as we said before, is fast-paced, dry and superficial at times. A scholar already familiar with this topic will not gain much. We may also question the necessity of discussing Musonius, who makes a single reference to what depends on us, or Marcus Aurelius, who devotes a single page to the notion and whose interpretation can be summed up as "much like Epictetus", or Philo, who uses the expression three times but proposes no theory on the subject. In some of these cases, E. seems to extract much from a text that says very little.

Plotinus' doctrine of what depends on us comes back again in chapter 6. Attention is focused on this notion outside Enneads VI, 8 (39), namely in: III, 1 (3); I, 4 (46) and III, 2 (47). It is not clear that these passages say enough about what is up to us to warrant such extensive examination. E.'s verdict on III, 1 (3) is that the doctrine is unclear. In I, 4 (46), Plotinus explains that if someone is not happy being a war-slave, it is up to him to depart, i.e. commit suicide. E. once again goes beyond the text. This casual use of what depends on us, in my opinion, does not deserve the complicated analysis that E. provides: "The point then, seems to be that in this setting, non-wise agents come as close as they can towards acting in the way the wise man acts" (p. 181). The single occurrence in I, 4 (46) is not that informative. E. likewise overanalyses the single occurrence found in III, 2 (47). He admits that the doctrine here is "not made explicit" (p. 183) and he uses expressions which show a high degree of conjecture, such as "if we extract a condition". He goes well beyond caution when he concludes that it "seems safe to say" that all these treatises could have contained in their title the expression "on that which depends on us". These treatises, with their one and only occurrence of the expression, could have been ignored, in the same way that E. ignored the only occurrence found in On numbers, VI, 6 (34). When concluding chapter 6, E. cannot go beyond saying that these treatises "tend to" promote an exclusive use of the notion, since all occurrences do not concur to an exclusive notion (p. 186). Thus, the question is problematic (p. 186-187). Even if E., in his concluding chapter, gets more confident in his accomplishment: "His [i.e. Plotinus] notion of ἐφ' ἡμῖν outside Ennead VI.8 clearly tends towards an exclusive notion" (p. 219), we believe that there is just not enough evidence in Plotinus to warrant such a conclusion.

When we read about Plotinus' doctrine on what depends on us, the main focus is always on treatise 39, On the free will of the One. This treatise is the only one which contains a detailed analysis of the notion. E. is then bound to emphasize the doctrine presented in VI, 8 (39).² The introduction notice and several notes of this French translation are devoted to what depends on us in Plotinus. E. roughly follows the progression of Plotinus' doctrine in each chapter of VI, 8 (39). The notion of what depends on us is successively applied to the individual soul, the Intellect and the One. According to E., Plotinus dismisses the inclusive notion when he refutes Aristotle. The Plotinian doctrine is even more exclusive than tradition would grant: not only is rationality required for an activity to depend on us, but we must also have a normative knowledge of what we should or should not do (p. 195). What depends on us belongs to wish (βούλησις), when this wish is placed in right reason and rational knowledge. This is, in the human soul, the self-determined principle derived from Intellect. Plotinus "gives a condition demanding that the agent (i) is virtuous, (ii) thus thinks and contemplates, regarding e.g. what one ought to do, and (iii) when acting, is not concerned with the outer consequences of the actions, but with the inner perfection of the soul" (p. 206). As for the Intellect, it is by its own wishes and for its own good that it is turned toward itself. Its activity and its aim are the same and it depends on no other. Finally, it is almost impossible to apply the notion of what depends on us to the One. This is the general theme of the impossibility of describing the One by means of language. But on a more positive note, Plotinus recognizes that the One is master of itself, since its own being depends on itself.

The overall conclusion of the investigation is that Plotinus holds an extremely exclusive notion of what depends on us. He goes far beyond what is traditionally conceived as an exclusive notion, i.e. linked to rationality. Plotinus' innovation would be the self-directedness of the activity when something depends on us. This is true at the level of the individual soul, the Intellect and the One. No similar doctrine can be found in the tradition.

The book closes with an extensive bibliography and an index locorum. The bibliography is alphabetical and presents no subdivision between editions of Plotinus' treatises, translations and studies on specific themes. An index of modern authors would have been welcome.

As alluring as they sounded, the premises of this book did not hold their promises. Even though the erudition is undeniable, the author seemed trapped in a subject that could have sustained a long and rich article but not a whole book.

Notes:

1. This is clearly the case of G. Leroux, who can be found in many of these categories: Leroux, G. Plotin. Traité sur la liberté et la volonté de l'Un [Ennéade VI, 9 (39)]. Introduction, texte grec, traduction et commentaire. Paris: Vrin, 1990.

2. The major modern translation of and commentary on this treatise is the one published in 1990 by G. Leroux. His manuscript probably being already with the publisher, E. could not benefit from the most recent annotated translation on VI, 8 (39) by L. Lavaud in the Garnier Flammarion series In Plotin. Traités 38-41, traductions sous la direction de L. Brisson et J.-F. Pradeau. Paris: Flammarion, 2007. (read complete article)