Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Greek prose fiction of the imperial period offers instructors a delightful selection of texts for intermediate and advanced undergraduates, but only a few works of the age, such as Lucian's True History, have had any great presence in the classroom. The Greek romances have suffered from this neglect, a situation only exacerbated by a lack of commentaries. Longus has perhaps fared best of all, but until recently this was a slight distinction--we had only Lowe's brutally bowdlerized school commentary. Even that was better than the complete lack of commentaries on Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, Achilles Tatius, or Heliodorus. For Longus we thankfully now have Morgan's excellent Aris and Phillips (though like all its series companions it is not geared toward providing consistent help for reading the Greek) and Byrne and Cueva's student edition (non vidi), both from 2004. It is a shame that we have had to wait until 2009 for anything at all on Chariton, "an undeservedly neglected novelist, and a writer of good Greek," in the words of Simon Slings. Now with the publication of Prince's new Bryn Mawr Commentary on the first book of Callirhoe instructors will have all the more reason to think of choosing a romance as reading for their students. Even if the commentary has deficiencies, some of them serious, it is an inexpensive and handy way to get an engaging text into an intermediate class with notes geared toward students who will often grope their way through what more experienced readers of Greek find straightforward.

After a short but enthusiastically appreciative introduction, Prince gives us a clean, modern text of Book 1. It is based on Reardon's fine recent Teubner edition, though he sensibly follows Goold's Loeb text here and there to avoid most of the lacunae and irremediably corrupt passages marked in the former.¹ Very occasionally he chooses a reading or emendation favored by neither Reardon nor Goold (e.g., Beck's ἐτάκημεν at 1.2.3), but this is a volume intended for undergraduates, not a critical scholarly edition, so we need not overly concern ourselves with these instances.² Misprints disproportionately torment beginners, and the text here is mercifully free of them.³

Elementary commentaries of this nature have in my mind one overarching goal: to increase significantly the speed at which relatively inexperienced undergraduates can make their way through a Greek text with confidence. They do so mostly by providing vocabulary, parsing unusual forms, and explaining idiomatic or particularly difficult passages, and the volume under review is no exception. I will confess up front that such commentaries often make me wonder whether there is a method to their madness. Is there some reason, for instance, that in 1.13.5 ἔπαυλις is glossed but just below in 1.13.7 προκαταλαμβάνω, the appropriate meaning of which is not to be found in any lexicon to which students have regular access, is passed over in silence even though it will come again shortly in 1.14.4 in a slightly different construction (cf. Lessico dei Romanzieri Greci s.v., where these instances of the verb are defined as "assicurarsi la prelazione" and "impegnare in un contratto" respectively)? In terms of annotation, is there a pedagogical purpose behind telling students that ὀφθῇ is "aor. pass. subj." without person or number and that ἀπῄει is "3rd sing. impf." without voice or mood but that δός is "2nd sing. aor. imper. act."?

This sort of thing, however, is a problem common to the format, and it may not be as troublesome to students as it is to a reviewer. The real key is accuracy, and unfortunately there is inconsistency in this regard. The vast majority of the information is correct and on the whole students with this commentary at hand will make their way through the text more quickly than they would without it. Helpful hints about forms and lexical information abound. ⁴ With enough frequency to be bothersome, however, Prince sometimes fails to give a properly contextualized gloss or identifying information. The ἔπαυλις I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, for instance, is not merely "quarters, lodgings" in Chariton but, as frequently in later Greek, specifically a country house or villa. This is hardly an isolated instance.⁵ So yes, all of the glosses and identifications will cut down on the brutally slow business of students' having to look absolutely everything up for themselves, but some of that time is stolen back by every inaccuracy and, what may be more problematic, student confidence is undermined. On p. 36 when we read that ἄξιοί εἰσι is an impersonal construction, we disagree and move on. We instantly recognize a simple typographical slip further down on the same page when we are told κατανεύσαντος comes from κατανοέω. And later, still on the same page, we pass over the gloss of εἰδυῖα as a present participle, knowing what Prince meant. We have these reactions, but the most careful of our students are not likely to. And even the most easygoing instructors are probably going to balk at the bottom of that same page when they find that adverbial αὐτοῦ in a citation of Homer is supposed to be an emphatic adjective in agreement with a feminine singular pronoun or that students are given no more help with epic λύτο than the note that it comes from ἔλυτο, which, even if it were an attested form, is of no help at all. Most pages do not have quite so many problems, but some others do.

Similar difficulties extend to syntax. On p. 35 we are told that μὴ ὑβρισθῶμεν is a prohibitory subjunctive and the reference to the appropriate section in Smyth is given, but it is hard to see how this can be anything but a negative purpose clause. Throughout, several of the explanations given for the use of μή in place of οὐ fail to account for Chariton's first-century usage, upon which Smyth was not based.⁶ Students will in my experience rarely stumble in their translations in such places, much less even notice that Chariton "ought" to have used οὐ in a given place, but I think it is worth pointing out and explaining such an occurrence as correctly and unobtrusively as possible. On a related note, other features which are not unusual for late Greek are passed over without comment (e.g., ἵνα introducing a result clause, the third-person reflexive standing for the first-person, or the active of λέγω taking an infinitive in indirect statement). These will not necessarily cause difficulties (it is a rare student in second or third year Greek who remembers all the rules for indirect statement), but one should have a policy in a commentary about when and how to broach such subjects. Perhaps a short description of some of the major features of Chariton's language could have been included in the introduction.

The upshot is that there are problems throughout the 24 pages of notes, though they are not evenly distributed or uniformly serious. I have detailed many of them in the notes below. They are not overwhelming, but they are unfortunate and too numerous. As Tyche would have it, I have been teaching Callirhoe to a group of third- and fourth-year students this term. In the end, if this commentary had been available to me I would likely have assigned it, warts and all. The errors and slips cannot entirely efface the good aspects of the work Prince has done. I am certainly pleased to see Chariton get a little attention and pleased to see that it will now be easier to teach him in Greek. However, instructors will want to look this commentary over carefully before deciding whether in its current form it will suit their needs and the needs of their students. I also hope that an improved edition will be possible down the road. We have a nice basis for a good student commentary here, and it would not take so very much to bring it to fruition.

1.   Prince does, however, leave Reardon's <...>γενει at 1.1.6 instead of adopting Cobet's [τῇ εὐ]γενεί[ᾳ] with Goold and others, leaving his assurance in the commentary that the genitive absolute "makes sense in its own right" at odds with the text students have in front of them.
2.   The one exception is 1.11.5, where, following Reiske, we either need ὅπου...ὁρμίσαι or ὅποι...ὁρμῆσαι, but not Prince's mixed ὅποι...ὁρμίσαι. One curiosity: Prince adopts Blake's δεινοτέραν at 1.8.1 but then goes ahead and brackets it for deletion anyway.
3.   I noted a few stray accents and a missing period after θαλάσσης at 1.14.7 (Prince's line 47), only the latter being likely to cause any trouble. There is a slightly higher rate of typographical errors in the notes.
4.   Forms are very occasionally misidentified: p. 45 "indicative" has slipped into the identification of ῥηθείσης; p. 48 ἀνερρίφθω is a perfect mid./pass. imperative not aorist passive and ἑωράκατε is plural, not singular.
5.   Examples: on p. 34 there is no hint given as to the existence of the idiom φέρεσθαι τὰ δεύτερα when τὰ δεύτερα is glossed, τέως cannot mean "meanwhile" here, and no explanation for the middle of πολιτεύω is offered; p. 35 τυγχάνω here means "obtain, succeed in getting," not "happen upon"; p. 36 the specific connection of μνηστεύω to marriage could be mentioned and ἑρμηνεύω means "describe, put into words," here not "interpret, explain"; p. 37 ἐκπνέω often implies "breathe one's last, expire" and is usually so taken here; p. 41 (where we have more than the usual number of these sorts of problems) ἅπτω means "undertake" here, not "fasten, fix upon" and we probably need λοιπόν in the sense "next, now" and στωμύλος in its positive sense of "suave." The noun ἅβρα is not the adjective ἁβρός. It would help to have some mention of the force of the middle in ἀπάγcεσθαι. ἀλύω means "hang out," not "wander, roam" here. These sorts of problems occur throughout the commentary, not on that page alone. On p. 46 ἐνταφίων refers not to generic "funerary honors" but to physical grave goods. On p. 47 πειρατήριον is a pirate crew, not a pirate's nest. On p. 50 ἐπιτάσσω can mean "place behind," but here it means "give orders," its usual meaning. On p. 53 ἀξιόω means "demand, ask" not merely "consider worthy, right" and μεγάλη Ἀσία is not "modern Asia Minor" but the Asian continent proper. Almost all of these are to be found in LSJ.
6.   There are several examples of syntactical misdirection, hardly limited to late usage or the unusual. On p. 39 ἀνδρὶ...ἱκανῷ is not a dative of association, but dative after ἐγχειρίζω; on p. 41 ἀκούσῃ is indeed "middle in form but active in meaning," but sending students to Smyth 540, which discusses contracted "Doric futures," seems a cruel way to repay their diligence when they will want 805-806; p. 46 the romantic interpretation of ἀδύνατον ἑαυτῷ τὴν σωτηρίαν as "it was impossible for him to save himself" based on Polycharmus' thinking of Chaireas "as an extension of himself" goes too far--it means nothing more than that it was impossible for him to save Chaireas; p. 46 νυμφικὴν ἐσθῆτα is not an accusative of respect, especially not of the kind in Smyth 1601.b; see instead 1604: "Not to be confused with the accusative of respect is the accusative after...the passives of 1632"; in 1632, one will find the passive of verbs of clothing with the accusative; p. 47 τὸ...γεγονέναι is identified as an articular infinitive, but it is translated as if it were τὸ γεγονός; the subject is, rather, the substantive τὸ δοκοῦν and the infinitive follows that participle; p. 49 ἀναμιμνήσκω is not a middle deponent, ἀναπνοαῖς is not a dative of respect, but dative after the prefix of ἐγγενομένης, and I do not believe that ἐγειρομένης is a genitive absolute but a genitive limiting αἴσθησιν; p. 52-3 the use of μή is said to belong to the category of "emphatic declaration" described at Smyth 2723, but Smyth there makes it clear that such constructions implicitly "involve a wish that the utterance may hold good" and this example does not pass that test (nor that of preceding the main verb).

With the progressive ageing of Western post-industrial societies, scholarship in recent decades has discovered a renewed interest in the related, but separate themes of old age and death and the ways in which they are culturally constructed.¹ It is within that context and building upon this work that Marilena Amerise (henceforth A.) has written an intriguing book concerned with St. Jerome's representation of old age and death as he writes of others and re-fashions his own self-representation over the years. Here, as perhaps nowhere else, we have the unique opportunity to perceive the melding of two separate cultural traditions concerning ageing -- Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian -- towards the close of Antiquity. Within a brief and engaging book, A. sets forth the evidence and examines the ways in which Jerome chose between and often united the contrasting cultural traditions to which he was heir. The overall inattention of Classicists to Jerome's use of this material² makes A.'s investigation all the more welcome and timely, and her premature death, which occurred as this review was being written, the more regrettable.

The work opens with a concise introduction that sets forth in clear and sophisticated manner the main lines of argumentation. There follow six chapters dedicated to specific subjects and building upon one another to illustrate how Jerome embodies both the Late Antique continuation of certain lines of Classical thought and the rupture with the past that was provoked by Christianity in its radical redefinition of life and death. A brief conclusion reviews A.'s findings concerning the construction of old age in Late Antiquity and Jerome's specific contribution to that set of images and commonplaces. A. leaves readers with a clear vision of how Jerome, at least in this instance, successfully negotiated the divide separating Christ from Cicero.

In Chapter 1, A. reviews the evidence for the chronology of Jerome's life. There are surprises lurking for those who thought that this extremely prolific and self-reflective author had dates that were well established. The traditional view, unfortunately defended by J.N.D. Kelly in his authoritative biography,³ reveals itself to be very poorly rooted in the evidence. Hence, in accordance with the modern authorities followed by A., it seems preferable to deduct nearly two decades from the saint's life, attributing to him an age of some seventy years at the moment of death. In the course of her cursory review of the evidence and modern discussions, A. mistakenly cites the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine as the work of Sulpicius Severus (p. 16 n. 6), but that does not damage the essence of her argument. More disquieting, rather, is A.'s inability to abide by the very dates that she initially posits for Jerome's life (AD 347-420).⁴

In Chapter 2, A. reviews the evidence for the correspondence of Jerome. Voluminous though this is, it represents but a fraction of what he produced over the course of a lifetime. As was typical in Classical Antiquity, Jerome's published correspondence was chosen with an eye to style as well as subject-matter. That fact means that we must be alert to literary topoi and citations when using his letters as evidence for how Jerome and contemporaries viewed old age. Epistolography was a recognised literary genre, with its own rules and characteristics.⁵ Both the individual qualities of Jerome's letters and the circumstances under which he composed them are evocatively, albeit succinctly, described by A. Consequently, the public nature of these letters is rendered more apparent, a consideration of no little import to the historian who would use them in order to understand how Christians -- and Jerome in particular -- conceived of old age upon the basis of their dual heritage coming from the Graeco-Roman and Jewish worlds. There emerges the view of an extraordinary mixture of pagan form with Christian content. On the other hand, A. also uses these letters to reflect upon the historical figure of Jerome, stressing how these letters' immediacy reveals their author's complex character. The saint paradoxically emerges as quarrelsome and yet in clear need of communicating with his contemporaries.

In Chapter 3, A. examines the various chronological sub-divisions posited by the ancient Greeks and Romans for human existence. But she opens this chapter by remarking the emphasis that Christian thinkers placed upon the irrelevance of age to spiritual development. Although the idea had already been foreshadowed by pagan thinkers, Christians significantly advanced the notion that biological age and spiritual maturity were separate from one another. Asceticism, in particular, put youth and adult upon the same level, though this revolutionary equality was subverted by the creation of monastic structures that instead attributed importance to age and experience. To enable readers to appreciate properly the revolutionary nature of aetas spiritalis, A. of necessity enters into a review of the Graeco-Roman temporal subdivisions of life. Her review of the ancient evidence and modern discussions is a veritable tour de force. Various schemata and differences between the Greek and Roman world are set forth clearly and in ample detail. This is important because Jerome had no simple, univocal tradition upon which to draw in his depiction of old age. Developing the work of E. Eyben and taking into account the "revisionist" chronology of Jerome's life, A. uses Jerome's talk of himself to illustrate the author's variation between schemata. Of particular interest is Jerome's seeming penchant for describing himself as a senex. On the basis of the saint's biography, A. (p. 39) is able to assert that Jerome already dares to describe himself as a senex at the age of merely 39 (Epist. 84.3). Moreover, Jerome is shown to refer regularly to himself at age 47 as a senex, thereby communicating the problems that life had visited upon him as well as implicitly laying claim to the authority that was commonly attributed to the elderly. However, with the passing of the years, the physical problems that accompany old age occupy the stage and crowd out the ideal image of old age that had been conducive to authority.

In Chapter 4, A. situates Jerome's literary treatment of old age against the Classical backdrop of treatises dedicated to the subject. The charges levelled against old age and its contrasting virtues are reviewed. Naturally, Cicero's treatise Cato Maior de Senectute receives extended treatment since it survives entire and happens to be mentioned more than once by Jerome. On the other hand, A. aptly points out that the Christian vision of old age as an aetas spiritalis was the reason for the lack of a corresponding Christian literature dedicated to this topic. Yet Jerome did provide extended reflection upon old age in the introduction to his letter to Nepotianus, which was a treatise on priesthood (Epist. 52). There Vergilian verse is used to oppose youth and age and to express the theory of humours as regards ageing. Forgetfulness and physical fragility figure amongst the evils of old age. But Jerome, with his Christian perspective, shows that the benefits of this period of life outweigh its possible disadvantages. In the letter praising Paul of Concordia (Epist. 10), Jerome praises that ascetic for his qualities as a senex-puer,⁶ and in the preface to a letter to Paulinus of Nola (Epist. 58) Jerome touches upon the vigour that is the possession of youth and the wisdom that comes with age and can be seen in people's white hair. In yet another letter (Epist. 140), Jerome provides extensive commentary upon Psalm 89. A. well remarks that Jerome appears to distinguish between two different stages of old age. Whereas the first is marked by the culmination of wisdom, the second is noteworthy for the physical ailments that precede death. The Classical tradition of treatises περὶ γήρως is reconciled with that of the Christian notion of aetas spiritalis. In that same letter, Jerome stresses that it is the Christian awareness of death's inevitability that ought to lead to wisdom and spiritual salvation. Classical philosophy in the end has served the purposes of Christian teaching.

In Chapter 5, A. discusses the evidence for diet and hygiene as regards the elderly and as it appears in the letters of Jerome. She opens with the far from banal observation that old age seems to have been viewed by the ancients as a disease, with a corresponding regime aimed at its cure. Wine, for example, was recommended by physicians for the elderly, to generate bodily warmth. Jerome situates himself within this tradition, but cites biblical examples against the abuse of wine. Similarly, cooked foods were believed to cause bodily heat and promote libidinous desires, but for the elderly, by definition lacking in bodily warmth, the prohibition might be cautiously lifted. Jerome advises some of his correspondents against fasting excessively, providing them with a detailed medical listing of the problems that might ensue. Lastly, as regards bathing, Jerome proposes that a person should be so ashamed of his or her own nudity as to avoid bathing, and lauds those virgins of God in Egypt who had never been to the baths. However, even here his opposition is not altogether monolithic nor intransigent. Bathing might have a salutary effect upon the body of the ill, and Jerome's praises of Paula admit as much: she had never bathed except when her health was at risk (Epist. 108.15).

In Chapter 6, A. focusses upon Jerome's conception of death and the relationship that there existed for the saint between old age and life's end. Ten letters of consolation are examined for what they show about how Jerome dealt with the conclusion of earthly life. These letters are considered in chronological order, on the assumption that Jerome's thought would have changed over time as he himself came ever closer to his own mortal end. Eight of these ten letters deal with individuals who had died premature deaths. Consequently, Jerome is preoccupied with consoling friends and family for the untimely death of people who were struck down in their prime. Four motifs are highlighted by A.: death as the end of earthly exile; death as a law common to all humanity; premature death as a sign of divine favour; and the inscrutability of divine plans. These motifs are characteristically a mixture of the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian heritage that belonged to Jerome and his contemporaries. Jerome warns against excessive display of grief for the dead and likens death to dormitio. Indeed, his accounts of individual deaths are stylized and conform to the model already provided by hagiographical literature: the passing from this world to the hereafter is a sweet, painless occurrence.

In a brief conclusion, A. reviews her findings. She emphasizes the rhetorical uses to which Jerome puts the inherently ambiguous concept of old age and the fundamental antithesis of puer-senex to which she has dedicated much space.

All things considered, A. has touched upon a theme of no little relevance to the present and she has dealt with the subject in a legible and lively manner. However, various queries and observations arise from a reading of her work. These have substantive implications both for A.'s interpretation of the texts upon which she focuses and for the contemporary practice of historiography.

Suggestive though it is, the antithesis of puer-senex that A. posits seems overdrawn. If we take the trouble to examine the text of Cicero's Cato Maior de Senectute 37-38, we find the eponymous protagonist of this dialogue praising Appius Claudius Caecus for having been an "old man" (senex) who to a certain degree behaved as though he were a "youth" (adulescens); there is no mention here whatsoever of "child" or "boy" (puer).

At the beginning of the letter in which he laments the death of his "pupil" Nepotianus, Jerome lists previous writers who had dealt with the theme of the loss of loved ones, explicitly affirming that he had read the work of Crantor that inspired Cicero's letter to himself at the death of Tullia (Epist. 60.5). Scepticism is salutary, and not often enough exercised. However, citation of modern discussions would have considerably bolstered A.'s case when she asserts that Jerome probably knew Crantor's treatise through that of Cicero (p. 102 n.9)⁷ as would reference to Rufinus of Aquileia, who called Jerome's bluff when the latter claimed to have read the works of Pythagoras (Apol. c. Hier. 2.7). Indeed, Jerome's posturing as a learned ecclesiastic can shed light upon his claims to authority on the basis of his old age.

As regards excessive grief for the dead and Jerome's comparison of death to sleep, one might have wished for somewhat further exploration of these themes. In the first instance, significant work has been done upon the Classical threnody and its survival into modern Greek culture, e.g. that of M. Alexiou and her students.⁸ In the second instance, something might have been done -- however briefly -- with the epigraphic evidence for κοιμητήριον and similar words.⁹ There is a world of difference in outlook between νεκρόπολις and κοιμητήριον, even if the material culture may not reflect the linguistic reality with such clear-cut definition.

Lastly, alas, the editor failed to do his or her job properly. Errors in the Latin texts appear with alarming frequency (e.g. pp. 60, 63, 64, 66); copy-editing by the publisher should have removed these blemishes, which are not to be expected from an institution such as the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum. The editor might also have pushed the author to cite more frequently in the original language, in her footnotes, those choice bits of evidence that she paraphrases within her text. Moreover, since A. wrote a work dedicated to a detailed study of the epistles of Jerome, an index locorum for that author would have been just as useful as that provided for biblical citations (p. 139). Lastly, the editor might reconsider certain rules, such as the inane repetition of an entire citation or the use of authors' initials even after the first reference in the notes, e.g. p. 30 nn. 3-5 all have "C. Gnilka" and p. 79 nn. 133-134 both read "Verg., Georg. III, 67". In short, citation guidelines urgently need to be updated and streamlined whereas citations require far greater care than shown in this book. In attending to these matters, the publishing house will provide a great service both for readers and for promising authors, as was the case here.

These observations and queries, however, do nothing to diminish the fine accomplishment of A. in drawing our attention to an interesting body of material, with its associated questions, and the way in which one of the foremost Christian intellectuals of Late Antiquity dealt with a problem that is particularly relevant to today's world. Indeed, as the post-modern world seeks to deal afresh with the phenomenon of ageing and the ethical problems posed by advances in medicine, it is opportune to reflect upon what Christianity made of the Classical tradition regarding old age and death. A.'s work constitutes a useful and stimulating contribution to an emerging scholarly debate focussed upon these issues, showing once again the enduring importance of ancient philosophical thought.

1.   T.G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore 2003); K. Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome (New York 2003); M. Harlow and R. Laurence, edd., Age and Ageing in the Roman Empire, JRA Suppl. 65 (Portsmouth 2007). For earlier bibliography, readers are referred to W. Suder, Geras: old age in Greco-Roman antiquity. A Classified Bibliography (Wroclaw 1991).
2.   Witness the absence of any reference whatsoever to Jerome from the full and illuminating account of the Nachleben of Cicero's Cato Maior de Senectute that P. Wuilleumier provides in the introduction to his CUF edition of the text: P. Wuilleumier, Cicéron : Caton l'ancien (Paris1969³) pp. 58-60.
3.   J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London 1975) pp. 337-339.
4.   A. writes that Jerome began his studies at Rome towards 340 (p. 17). Either this is a typographical error for 360 or the trace of an earlier version that relied upon the chronology to be found in J.N.D. Kelly and previous authors. Subsequently, in flat contradiction of Jerome's purported birth in 347, A. writes that the saint was "quarantenne" in 385 (p. 21). Despite the ambiguity inherent in the Italian word, which might mean either precisely age 40 or more generally the decade of the 40's, A. is self-contradictory: by her own reckoning Jerome should have been 37 or 38 years old. Finally, A. asserts -- more than once -- that Jerome passed away in 419 (pp. 22, 23), in direct contradiction of her previous assertion. There is no excuse for the editor's failing to remark this chaos.
5.   Since historiographical narratives (e.g. Caesar's commentarii and philosophical treatises (e.g. Epicurus to Menoeceus on the subject of happiness) are couched in the form of letters or at least described as letters by ancient readers, "genre" seems to the reviewer to be the wrong term to apply. Perhaps literary "form" would be more precise.
6.   This is doubtful. A. is on more certain ground when she recognizes that Jewish thought as expressed in the Old Testament viewed old age as a sign of divine favour, when it was not viewed as an affliction (as in the case of Psalm 89).
7.   The man who had a self-accusatory dream in which he was labelled as Ciceronianus rather than Christianus had indubitably read Cicero's work on the death of Tullia. But it might seem an exercise in hypercriticism to doubt Jerome when he explicitly claims to have read a Greek author, especially in view of his background and interests until one consults Scourfield's commentary upon this letter, (J.H.D. Scourfield, Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (Oxford 1993) pp. 19 and 115), Kelly's biography of Jerome ( op. cit. pp. 13-14 and 16-17), or Courcelle's extensive treatment of Latin authors and Greek literature in Late Antiquity ( P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecs en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore (BEFAR 159, Paris 1943) pp. 53-55).
8.   M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, revised by D. Yatromanolakis and P. Roilos. Cambridge 2002. It might be remarked in passing that application of the terms "threnodist" and "threnody" to Jerome and his writings upon the recently deceased is one of the few objectionable elements in the highly readable and well documented survey provided by S. Rebenich, Jerome (London 2002).
9.   For a detailed philological analysis of the epigraphic and literary evidence, see E. Rebillard, "κοιμητηριον et COEMETERIUM: tombe, tombe sainte, nécropole," MEFRA 105 (1993) 975-1001.

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

This book gathers the papers given at the conference "Experience of Empires--Responses from the Provinces" held at the Finnish Institute of Athens in June 2006. It was part of a project of comparing pre-modern Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean area, in order to investigate common lines or interpretation models for the topic ('Tributary Empires Compared: Romans, Mughals and Ottomans in the Pre-Industrial World from Antiquity till the Transition to Modernity').

Forsén and Salmeri in their introduction ('Ideology and Practice of Empire') question at length the relevance of some recent concepts like that of "globalisation" to the "territorial" empires of the ancient world, in particular the Roman Empire, for which they suggest adopting "with all due caution, the notion of mondialisation, based on fluxes and movements, and which is commonly referred to the last part of nineteenth century, which saw the beginnings of economic internationalisation" and emphasize as its outward characteristics the permeability of borders and administrative fluidity. They stress also that the case studies in this volume, which explore how the people in "provincial" societies respond to the action of the "imperial" government and how the inhabitants related to every change of "imperial" rule, deal mainly with areas of the Eastern Mediterranean--Anatolia, Crete, Greece--starting from the Persian to the last century of the Ottoman Empire. Some papers relate to more general issues such as 'Empire and collective mentality' or 'Empires and migration trends'. They admit also that "much of the study of the provincial responses to imperial government still concentrates on the élite, while the impact of Empire on the lower strata of the population is more difficult to grasp" (so that it must be borne in mind that in most cases the focus in the papers here is on élites than the "ordinary" population).

V. Gabrielsen ('Provincial Challenges to the Imperial Centre in Achaemenid and Seleucid Asia Minor') treats the empires of Asia Minor from 550 to around 63 B.C. and contrasts the empires of the Achaemenids, of Alexander and of the Seleucids with the Athenian Empire, contemporary and rival of the Achaemenids. According to Gabrielsen's reconstruction the Achaemenid Empire is a good example, in the author''s words, of 'Empire-as-integration' which moved after Alexander towards an 'Empire-as-disintegration'. Gabrielsen discusses also how problematic it is to consider the satrapy in "provincial" terms and identifies other actors (some of them above and others below the satrapy-level) that must be taken into consideration in the relationships between centre and periphery. To them he adds vassal kings, dynasts, cities, 'temple-states' and ethne. Gabrielsen draws a concentric and complex imperial system built on an empire-wide hierarchy of relationships between bases of power and the imperial centre, which gave rise to both versatility and fluidity in the administrative action. Revolts and uprisings too are treated as means of shaping the empires in terms of integration and disintegration, like the action and role of ruling relatives which involves an analysis of what Grabrielsen calls an 'Empire-as-family'.

C. Brélaz ('Maintaining Order and Exercising Justice in the Roman Provinces of Asia Minor') resumes a topic already developed in his book 'La sécurité publique en Asie Mineure sous le Principat (Ier--IIIe s. ap. J.-C.). Institutions municipales et institutions impériales dans l'Orient Romain' (Basel 2005). Particular attention is devoted to the splitting of responsibilities between local jurisdiction and imperial power and the extent of the local autonomy is emphasized except in military sovereignity and in matters of supreme jurisdiction such as capital punishment and the court of appeal.

With S. Faroqhi's paper ('Local Elites and Government Intervention in the Province of Anadolu') the reader moves to the Ottoman Empire from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, with a study on a particular way of interaction between the central authorities and local élites in the managing of the province. Faroqhi scrutinizes the role of the pious foundations and local charities (financing mosques, schools or dervish lodges) that some of the administrators sent by the central government established in the provincial towns of Anadolu. It is in this context that Faroqhi investigates the strategy of the local élites in keeping alive the privileges of most of the more relevant foundations and so finding a way of interaction between upper (state)- and lower (local)-level nobility.

Three essays are on Roman, Byzantine-Venetian and Ottoman Crete, respectively written by A. Chaniotis ('What Difference Did Rome Make? The Cretans and the Roman Empire'), M. Georgopoulou ('Crete between the Byzantine and Venetian Empires') and A. Anastasopoulos ('Centre-Periphery Relations: Crete in the Eighteenth Century').

Chaniotis shows that the coming of Rome was a substantial turning point in the history of Crete and that the new rule put an end to the political fragmentation of the island and thus gave a new orientation of the Cretan economy and society, integrating them into a unified Mediterranean system. Chaniotis reads the effects of the main changes in terms of economic, social and cultural complexity, nevertheless underlining that all this was not introduced or invented but simply changed in character and enhanced by the Romans.

Rather different was the situation under the Venetian Empire when the island became a colony, not a province, of the ruling power. Cultural and political forms were then imported from Venice to Crete, but often in a very peculiar way when reused in different political situations. As an example Georgopoulou traces the history of the origins and development of the church of St. Mark and its platea as it was re-created (but not copied nor imitated) in Candia/Herakleion.

Crete was ruled by Venice until the middle of the seventeenth century when it was taken by the Turks. Anastasopoulos argues that the passage from the control of an aristocratic Catholic republic to that of a monarchic Muslim empire meant that the island was politically linked anew to the eastern Mediterranean. The changes in the profile of the island's population, the emergence of Muslim communities created mainly by conversion rather than immigration, the process of formation of the local élite and the relations between centre and periphery are seen mostly in the field of administration and taxation.

The last part of the volume deals with more general topics, with four papers given by G. Salmeri ('Empire and Collective Mentality: The Transformation of Eutaxia from the Fifth Century BC to the Second Century AD'), J. Haldon ('Provincial Elites, Central Authorities: Problems in Fiscal and Military Management in the Byzantine State'), B. Forsén ('Empires and Migrational Trends: The Case of Roman and Ottoman Greece') and I. Arnaoutoglou (''Dia doxan ekeinon kai kleos tou ethnous'. The Philomousos Society of Athens and Antiquities').

Salmeri shows how Roman Empire introduced transformations and innovations into the sphere of collective mentality. He studies the development of the word "eutaxia" from the fifth century B.C. to the second A.D.: from the military sphere and the ideal of civic responsibility it moves to the meaning of discipline and good conduct of life in terms of individual behaviour, till it passed as a key word in the political debate in the cities of Asia Minor in the first half of the second century A.D. to express the need for law and order on the part of local notables so becoming an ideological support to preserve their acquired privileges.

Haldon carries out an analysis (mainly based on his chapter 'Social élites, wealth and power' in 'A Social History of Byzantium' of the structural contraints which determined the patterns of evolution of the Byzantine state from Late Roman to Byzantine forms. The stress is on the relations, tensions and competitions between the imperial court, the aristocracies, the cities and the provincial and urban élites of the empire concerning the distribution of resources and also the management of the system of taxation.

Forsén looks in depth at the migrational trends in Greece under the Roman and Ottoman Empires. Similarities between the two regimes can be seen in the foundation of colonies, compulsive urbanisation, large-scale forced population relocations and deportations. The creation of tax or trade incentives and larger market advantages then facilitated voluntary movement. The ultimate aim of the paper is to develop a model for gaining a better understanding of the effects created by comparable actions in pre-modern empires.

In the final contribution Arnaoutoglou focuses on the history and activities of the Philomousos Society, founded in Athens in 1813 by members not only of the Athenian élite, but also many of the local Greek communities, Britain and other European countries, with the task of saving and conserving antiquities for the education of younger generations of Greeks. It is a fine piece of scholarship on the life of a cultural institution between the last years of the Ottoman rule and the first of the new Greek national state.

After all this is a quite interesting book but unfortunately a bit disappointing both for the very small number of somewhat disconnected case studies, and in part also for their choice, which appears sometimes offhand. The final impression is that it is a useful collection of papers but that most of the topics promised by the (very ambitious) title of the book remain here untouched.

Table of Contents:

Björn Forsén and Giovanni Salmeri, Ideology and Practice of Empire (pp. 1-13)

Vincent Gabrielsen, Provincial Challenges to the Imperial Centre in Achaemenid and Seleucid Asia Minor (pp. 15-44)

Cédric Brélaz, Maintaining Order and Exercising Justice in the Roman Provinces of Asia Minor (pp. 45-64)

Suraiya Faroqhi, Local Elites and Government Intervention in the Province of Anadolu (pp. 65-81)

Angelos Chaniotis, What Difference Did Rome Make? The Cretans and the Roman Empire (pp. 83-105)

Maria Georgopoulou, Crete between the Byzantine and Venetian Empires (pp. 107-122)

Antonis Anastasopoulos, Centre-Periphery Relations: Crete in the Eighteenth Century (pp. 123-136)

Giovanni Salmeri, Empire and Collective Mentality: The Transformation of eutaxia from the Fifth Century BC to the Second Century AD (pp. 137-155)

John Haldon, Provincial Elites, Central Authorities: Problems in Fiscal and Military Management in the Byzantine State (pp. 157-185)

Björn Forsén, Empires and Migrational Trends: The Case of Roman and Ottoman Greece (pp. 187-200)

Ilias Arnaoutoglou, 'Dia doxan ekeinon kai kleos tou ethnous'. The Philomousos Society of Athens and Antiquities (pp. 201-214)

This work is in some ways the culmination of Wiseman's thoughts over the past twenty years or so about early Roman history. As is well known, he is something of a leader of the "skeptical" school of thought about early Rome. Indeed, in this book, Wiseman articulates arguments that most of our surviving material is so compromised by anachronistic material, having been recorded centuries after the fact, that only pieces of early Roman society and history can be gleaned from it. This is a position for which I admit I have a great deal of sympathy. The book is a collection of 18 essays. Most have appeared in other places since 1995, but four and a half are entirely new (see chapter list below). Wiseman has done some editing to those published previously, mostly reflecting new positions put forward in response to his articles, and these additions appear in the footnotes. The book is well illustrated (54 illustrations and drawings) and well edited.¹ And, though the work relies heavily on evidence from our textual tradition, by necessity Wiseman also draws on a variety of material evidence.

Chapter 1, one of the new chapters, begins with a survey of the first samples of writing from early Rome. Wiseman then asks how much of early Roman history, potentially going back to the Bronze Age, was accurately remembered (p. 8). He shows that ancient writers could be wrong in their interpretation of early written documents with their older scripts and unfamiliar dialects. He also points out that no real evidence exists to show that there was a sack of Rome by Gauls in the early fourth century BC, which was an explanation for the "loss" of early documents put forward by the ancients themselves and which is often used by modern scholars for the same purpose. He then summarizes the situation as he sees it: there was little documentary evidence from Rome before the 300s BC; what there was could be understood only with difficulty; and writers in the late Republic felt free to ignore it when they were interested in telling a "great moral story of triumph and tragedy" (p. 15). He starts here an attack upon Andrea Carandini--continued in Chapter 16 on Carandini's "discovery" of the "House of Tarquin"-- whom Wiseman sees as typifying a credulous school of thought that would accept even the historicity of Romulus and Remus and other elements of what must have been part of an oral tradition. Wiseman also disputes the idea that Roman religious ritual, usually seen as highly conservative, must impart factual information about early Rome in a reliable manner. As a counterexample, he analyzes the cult of Anna Perenna, which seems to have changed entirely between the times of Ovid and Martial, noting that even archaeology would seem to confirm this change (pp. 18-22, continued on 77-78).

The remaining chapters revolve around three basic arguments telegraphed in Chapter 1. First, that one can gather information about Rome from its religious cults and festivals, without relying on them to be unchanging from earlier periods, by close examination of the (material and textual) sources. Second, it was through native and imported theatrical performance (indeed, Wiseman sees all Roman dramatic performance as a hybrid of these) that Rome passed on its cultural memory, and that this was drawn upon by our written sources at a later time when information about early Rome was needed to fill gaps of knowledge. And, finally, Roman historical writers drew as much upon Rome's own poetic tradition (dramatic and otherwise) as upon Greek history and historiography.

Chapters 4, 6, 8, and 10 (all previously published) are representatives of the first group, attempting to recover information about early (or later) Rome from sources on religion and festivals. In Chapter 4, on the Lupercalia. Wiseman suggests that, like the cult of Anna Perenna, the festival changed over time, a fact that would go some way toward explaining the contradictory nature of our sources. To him it was a originally a fertility cult (with attendant sexually-charged scenes reenacted as part of the yearly festival) that transformed itself partly into a war cult in the late fourth century BC with the rise of the importance of the Roman cavalry. It was also influenced by knowledge of the Athenian cult of Pan, whose cave was near the Temple of Nike on the approach to the Acropolis--just as the Lupercal was near the Temple of Victory on the Clivus Victoriae on the way up the Palatine. In Chapter 6 Wiseman speculates on the origin of a ritual on the Kalends of April whereby women bared themselves to men to encourage reproduction. He believes the cult might be influenced by Greece once again, possibly as early as the sixth century BC. In fact, he champions Zevi's suggestion that Tarquinius Priscus, as the son of Demaratus of Corinth, may have brought Greek cultic ideas and festivals with him.² Wiseman goes so far as to suggest that the Romans even installed "sacred prostitutes" as part of a cult of Venus in imitation of the supposed one of Aphrodite at Corinth. Here, it is disappointing that he does not note recent (and for his purposes relevant) discussion about ancient ritual prostitution that casts doubt upon its very existence.³ In Chapter 10, Wiseman tries to discern what games were given to Hercules, as seems to be indicated on the coins of M. Volteius (Crawford #385) and two late Republican inscriptions. The latter suggest that they were local games (pagani) rather than ones celebrated by the whole people (ludi). Wiseman suggests that they were originally ludi set up by Sulla to honor the god he believed his protector. The games were demoted, Wiseman argues, perhaps around 70-67 BC when Sulla was more or less repudiated, to local games. Finally, in this group, I would include Chapter 8, where Wiseman tackles the problem of the foundation dates of various other Roman ludi, showing (rightly, I think) that our sources are more contradictory than has sometimes been admitted, since all are compromised by legends, pseudo-history, and competing family traditions.

Wiseman's chapters on the Romans' getting their traditions about early Rome from drama (mainly chapters 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13) are the most interesting part of this book. He explores this idea from a number of angles. In Chapter 5, he proposes that festivals like the Liberalia contained many varied dramatic performances. Most interesting here is his use of the "Praenestine" cistae--with their images of satyrs, silenuses, Marsyas, nymphs, and actors and actresses--arguing that they represent a wide variety of dramatic performances from both Italic and Greek traditions (and certainly not to be narrowly circumscribed in set generic bounds, as he argues convincingly in Chapters 11 and 13). Indeed, it is in a Greek tradition that Wiseman sees the origin of the Liberalia, a festival of free speech in some ways modeled on the Athenian festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus, which he believes was established after the explusion of the Peisistratids. In Chapter 9, in a discussion of the Floralia, he argues that this festival regularly involved performances that contained aetiological legends for places and monuments of Rome and that were filled with moral exempla. He points out that the single legend of the siege of Rome by Lars Porsenna offered three such stories, those of Cocles, Scaevola, and Cloelia; Wiseman proceeds to describe how these legends could have been "staged" originally. In Chapter 7 (a new chapter), he argues that the story of Numa's summoning Jupiter contains elements suggesting that it was a staged comedy: Numa consulted Picus and Faunus,, who helped him bring Jupiter literally down to Earth; Jupiter was at first angry but then amused at the ingenuity of Numa; and so the talismanic shield of the Salii fell to earth to reward Rome. In Chapter 12, in addition to titles of some "historical" plays, Wiseman discusses and example that might have presented fairly recent events in the form of a dramatic performance. He argues that the "Octavia" was one such play, asserting that it was not a part of a "phantom genre" of "recitation plays," as long proposed, but rather a play intended for a public audience. He even likes the suggestion that the work dates to just after Nero's death, to the short reign of Galba (June 68 to January 69), in which it could now be put forward as were perhaps other dramatic works about the Julio-Claudians.⁴

The remaining chapters place Roman historiography within the context of the pervasive influence of dramatic performance, other kinds of poetry, and Greek history and historiography. Chapter 2 (a new chapter) discusses Livy's fascination with verses sung by soldiers and others on various occasions (esp. triumphs). Wiseman thinks they are elements taken directly by Livy (or his sources) from historical plays (pp. 34ff.). In Chapter 3, he talks about the possibility that Ennius and even earlier poets (vates) had an impact on popular knowledge of early Rome (and so on later histories of the period; pp. 237ff. have more on this). He likes the idea that poetry like Ennius' was meant to be read at festivals. Fauni and vates were prophetic poets, too, and Ennius' title, "Annales," perhaps is connected to the idea that these early prophet-poets often predicted the end of Roman power among other significant events (in Chapter 15, Wiseman also suggests that the title of the "Annales Pontificum" comes from Ennius' work). In Chapter 15, Wiseman also discusses how historians determined what was appropriate for history vs. what was fit for poetry. For example, for Varro it seems to have been when the events took place, but Livy avoided any material that involved divine intervention/interaction. In this, Livy seems to have been exceptional and fighting against accepted practice. In Chapter 14, in my opinion one of the best in the book, Wiseman discusses evidence of Rome's familiarity with the Greek world from the earliest periods on. He argues against older ideas that Rome only "discovered" Greek culture at later periods (à la Horace) or through the agency of Etruscans. He looks at the earliest physical artifacts, literary evidence, and inscriptions. He points out that the Greeks considered Rome a Greek city from very early on: in the fourth century BC this is claimed by Heracleides of Pontus, and then also by Aristotle, who claimed that Rome was founded by Achaeans from Troy. Wiseman also emphasizes the obvious, long noted parallels that exist between early Roman history and Greek (esp. Athenian) history of the same periods (pp. 234ff.). E.g., the attack of Porsenna to restore Tarquin is reflected in that of the Spartans to restore Hippias, the exile of Collatinus parallels the ostracism of Hipparchus, the exile of Coriolanus is similar to that of Themistocles, and, of course, the events surrounding the explusion of the Tarquins are reflected in those concerning the Peisistratids. One could note many, many others, and Wiseman goes into more in Chapter 17, particularly those concerning L. Brutus. Wiseman believes that some Romans had read Atthidographers quite early on (perhaps Cleidemus), and that this influenced the main outlines of "Roman history," which were coming into focus ca. 300 BC. I would also suggest that many of these parallels with Greek history could have come from the kinds of stage performances that Wiseman believes influenced Roman historical traditions: it seems possible that some of those involved in the dramas were Greeks or knew Greek history, and so they "adapted" the events of Greek history to a Roman context--not unlike the ways in which Plautus and Terence were adapting Menander's plots for their plays. Chapter 18 closes the book with a discussion of the first year of the Republic, which has five consuls listed in the records. Wiseman believes that the canonical tradition harmonized what were separate stories about how the Republic began in its first year, and when combined with the three stories about Roman heroism from Year Two that led to Porsenna breaking off his siege of Rome, they glorify six families. He argues that the stories all date from periods when those families were most prominent, and he does something similar for those families connected with the seven kings of Rome. As noted, I believe that Wiseman's ideas are compelling, and make the most sense of the origin of our sources' rather large amount of information for early Rome. Dramatic performance recreating "historical" events and personalities on a regular basis, Greek historical traditions, and competing family sources and propaganda--all had their role to play in inventing early Roman history. Otherwise, we have to accept that this information was preserved almost solely in a highly unreliable oral tradition and perhaps through some written records that aren't extant for the most part and may never have existed to begin with. For those who would doubt the capacity of a society to create (or, rather, regularly to recreate) a tradition for itself, I would suggest reading Michael Flower's important article about the "invention of tradition" in Classical and Hellenistic Sparta, an invention that employs techniques and ideas developed by historians of later periods.⁵ I see no reason why one can't apply the "invention of tradition" theory to early Rome. As both Wiseman and Flower point out, we may lose some of what we thought we knew about these societies, but at least we'll be gaining vital information about how the ancients themselves conceived of their past and present. More importantly, we won't be kidding ourselves anymore about what we "know" about their history. This said, there are some flaws in this book and in Wiseman's methods. Given the book's nature, visible "seams" result from stitching together previously published articles with some new material under common theses. For example, there is a large amount of repetition of elements of the arguments presented (e.g., the Senate's refusal to recognize the Floralia is noted several times). Also, his main thesis, that the evidence is flimsy and so has to be "teased out," can lead him into building his arguments with some suppositions that are rather hard to accept. This is particularly so given the inadequacy of our sources of early Rome--which is, of course, one of the primary theses of the book. For example, on p. 72, Wiseman accepts Polybius' account (6.25.3-4) of how the early Roman cavalry was armed (covered only in loin-cloths!), when this suits his purposes. And, on p. 76, he implies that Ovid (Met. 15.627) has accurately recorded one of the symptoms of a disease from 290s BC, again when this fits his argument. One can't help thinking that this kind of inconsistency would have been weeded out if the book were not in the main an assembly of previously published material.

These observations, however, do not seriously challenge the fact that this is an important book, and that scholars dealing with early Rome will have to grapple with its basic arguments, even if they don't agree with them. As far as I'm concerned, the proverbial ball is now in the court of those who believe in the basic truth about the tradition of early Rome.

Chapter List: those with an asterisk (*) are new or partially new chapters

1.   I found only two typos: on p. 75, the Battle of Sentinum was in 295, not 205 BC; and on p. 159, Valerius Antias wrote in the middle of the first century BC, not AD.
2.   F. Zevi, "Demarato e I re 'corinzi' di Roma," in A. Storchi Marino (ed.), L'incidenza dell'antico: Studi in memoria di Ettore Lepore, I (Naples 1995) 291-314.
3.   See, e.g., articles in C. Faraone and L. McClure (edd.), Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World (Madison, WI 2006), and now S. Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity (Cambridge 2008).
4.   As proposed by P. Kragelund, Prophecy, Populism, and Propaganda in the "Octavia" (Copenhagen 1982) 38-54, and T. Barnes, "The Date of the Octavia" MH 39 (1982) 215-17.
5.   M. Flower, "The Invention of Tradition in Classical and Hellenistic Sparta" in A. Powell and S. Hodkinson (edd.), Sparta: Beyond the Mirage (Oakville CT 2002) 191-218.

Preview

Hobbes' translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey are published as Volumes 24 and 25 in the grand project of the Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes. Completed in the last years of Hobbes' life when, as he himself says in his prefatory essay, he had "nothing else to do" (xcix), the translations have remained on the periphery of Hobbes scholarship, and they have not proved too inspiring for literary scholars either. As the meagre reception of the work and the absence of modern editions show, readers seem to have happily assented to Pope's often-quoted verdict: "His [Hobbes'] poetry [in the translations], as well as Ogilby's, is too mean for criticism."¹ Eric Nelson's new edition of the text presents a challenge to this received consensus: in the extended General Introduction and throughout the notes to the text he argues systematically and persuasively that the translations represent Hobbes' attempt to reinterpret the Homeric epics in accordance with his political philosophy, i.e. that "Hobbes's Iliads and Odysses of Homer are a continuation of Leviathan by other means" (xxii).² Nelson's stance thus involves a thorough reappraisal of many significant, yet hitherto often neglected or condemned features of the text (e.g. anachronisms, instances of indebtedness to other translations, etc.), as a result of which the two elegantly presented volumes will not only become the definitive edition of Hobbes' Homer for many years to come, but will hopefully also enter the wider discourse about early modern translations of the classics.

The rather poor reception history of the work has been thought to be anticipated by Hobbes himself whose already-quoted explanation for his project ("Why then did I write it? Because I had nothing else to do" (xcix)) -- together with his reason for omitting commentary from the volumes ("But why without Annotations? Because I had no hope to do it better than it is already done by Mr. Ogilby" (xcix)) -- have usually been taken to intimate the translator's excuse for the quality of his text. However, as Nelson points out in the 'Introduction' section of the General Introduction, the available evidence (a piece of which is published by him for the first time) suggests quite the contrary. Hobbes is far from self-demeaning in these lines: the reference to Ogilby is ironic, while the statement about the lack of other tasks is not so much a conventional expression of otium as an actual reflection of Hobbes' difficult public position towards the end of his life. Virtually bereft of other ways to publish, the elderly Hobbes chose the Homeric epics to "teach the precepts of his philosophy" (xxi), and to correct what he had seen as dangerous in the early modern reception of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The background against which Hobbes' Homer came to existence is outlined in the 'Composition and Sources' section where, besides establishing the time of composition and identifying the Greek text Hobbes was probably using, Nelson enumerates the several Latin "cribs" and English interpretations the translator must have consulted in his work. This attempt to contextualize Hobbes' rendering also informs much of Nelson's commentary, and all through the volumes prompts the reconsideration of the translation's position among late-16th- and 17th-century English interpretations of Homer. Reading Hobbes' text more closely than before (i.e. when his version had been regarded as little more than a vague and rather unfortunate echo of Ogilby's) this and the following sections of Nelson's General Introduction (and later also his notes) reveal an intricate range of possible influences, but also mark where the translator had significantly departed from his predecessors. For example, Nelson convincingly points out Hobbes' slight yet significant indebtedness to Arthur Hall's 1581 Tenne Bookes of Homers Iliades (turned into English from Hugues Salel's French), the "black sheep" of Elizabethan translations, which has rarely entered the scholarly discourse for more than outright ridicule of its awkward language, its royalist bias, or its rank anachronisms. The survey of possible influences, however, goes beyond mere source-hunting as Nelson in this section draws attention to how Hobbes' choice of rhyming verse may be interpreted in the wider context of 17th-century literature, and especially in contrast to Milton's project in Paradise Lost to recover "ancient liberty [. . . ] to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing."³

In the last two sections of the General Introduction ('Hobbes on Epic Poetry'; 'The Translations'), Nelson goes on to elaborate in detail on how Hobbes' special theory about heroic poetry and his actual interpretation of the Homeric epics differ from those of his contemporaries and predecessors. Setting the 1675 "Essay Concerning the Vertues of an Heroic Poem" in the context of Hobbes' oeuvre, Nelson shows that the translator's insistence on "discretion" as the chief epic virtue reflects his lifelong mistrust of rhetoric, and is consistent with his attempt to narrow the gap between philosophy and poetry. In practice, the Hobbesian idea of epic discretion finds expression primarily in the "decorous representation of heroes" (xxxviii), and would ultimately serve a didactic and political purpose: in Hobbes' commonwealth, just as in Plato's, no abuse of authority is tolerable. It might seem strange, therefore, that Hobbes chose the frequently "indiscreet" Homeric epics to elaborate this idea of discretion; however, as Nelson suggests, the translator's strictures should be interpreted in relation to his own work. In other words, Hobbes' purpose was not simply to deliver the contents of his source text in English, but rather to create a new, discreet epic by neutralizing the dangerous political implications of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This radical reinterpretation of Homer is at the same time an open attack on what Nelson calls the Homeros Sophos tradition, i.e. the allegorical-Neoplatonic interpretive strain that had since antiquity provided the means to explain away whatever might have been considered indiscreet in Homer, and had to an overwhelming extent determined early modern conceptions of the Homeric epics, most notably perhaps in Chapman's translations. Rejecting the idea of a divinely-inspired, prophetic Homer whose "wisdom" was occassionally forced by interpreters to align with Christian beliefs, Hobbes tries to purge the Iliad and the Odyssey of all traces of indiscretion. This is most apparent in scenes featuring or reflecting on rhetoric, but is also quite striking in the consistent presentation of Agamemnon, and even in less conspicuous aspects of the text such as the use of "low" words in connection with bards featured in the epics ("fiddlers" according to Hobbes), or the layout of the frontispiece of the 1677 edition.

After the thorough General Introduction, Nelson briefly explains his editorial policy in the Textual Introduction, and povides a general Bibliography for consultation in which, given the previous state of scholarship, studies dealing with Hobbes' Homer are not more than a handful. The prefatory material ends with Hobbes' 1675 "Essay" and Wallim's "discreet" biography of Homer based on pseudo-Herodotus (originally prefaced to the translations). The actual text of Hobbes' Homer faithfully preserves all the peculiarities of the first editions -- except for the indentation of alternate lines, instead of which the complete text is left-aligned --, and is accompanied by textual notes to mark the relatively few, and only occasionally significant variant readings (deriving from the different editions which appeared within Hobbes' own lifetime). The text is reproduced in a large, conveniently readable font, and is generally faultless, although I have counted a number of typos, e.g. "fight" for "sight" (Iliad VIII. 496); "tkae" for "take" (Iliad XIX.10); "broughtyou" (Odyssey VII. 280).⁴ The same goes for the various Greek quotations in the introduction and the commentary where there are only a few missing or misplaced accents or breathings, e.g. εἰαμενῇ for εἱαμενῇ (xcviii n. 22); χαραξας for χαράξας (xcix n. 25), etc.

As for the commentary, part of Nelson's notes gloss difficult or unusual words or expressions, offer explanations for characters and places, or identify obvious mistranslations, omissions or anachronisms. As Hobbes' Homer sometimes features words like "charre" (chariot) "cracking" (boasting), or "bait" (stop for a meal), etc., the need for explanatory glosses is evident, and there are only minor inconsistencies: e.g. "rost" is glossed in the Iliad (VIII. 490), but is not in the Odyssey (XVII. 148), neither is "Penelope her heart" (i.e. Penelope's heart in Odyssey XVII. 142), although similar expressions, like "Telemachus his side" (Odyssey XV. 200), usually are. The notes providing information about the cultural, mythological, or geographical background are noticeably (and understandably) less consistent than the glosses, and occasionally one encounters strange solutions, e.g. "Tydides" is used by Hobbes for Diomedes several times in Book V of the Iliad (and all throughout the epic), yet is noted only once (V. 723 -- not the first occasion the name crops up); "Boreas" is extensively glossed in the Odyssey, but never in the Iliad, etc. Similarly, Nelson notes that Hobbes uses the anachronistic expression "Devil" in Odyssey XI. 55 and 572 for the Greek δαίμων (in the Greek XI. 61 and 587, respectively), and also in Odyssey XVII. 460 ("like any Devil") where it stands for μελαίνῃ κηρὶ ἔοικε (XVII. 500 in the Greek), but he does not comment on the presence of the term in Zeus' impatient address to Hera (Iliad IV. 25; in the Greek δαιμονίη, IV. 31), or in Aeolus' bewildered question to Odysseus (Odyssey X. 65: "Some Devil crost you"; in the Greek τίς τοι κακὸς ἔχραε δαίμων; X. 64).

Nonetheless, these are only minor reservations, especially since the most extensive and most important part of Nelson's commentary is in the notes dealing with Hobbes' special reading -- very often misreading -- of the source text. Drawing on the Greek original as well as quoting liberally from the "competing" English and Latin sources (Chapman, Sponde, etc.), Nelson's notes highlight even in unexpected places how Hobbes' idea of discretion works in practice. On a very general level this is apparent in the translator's constant efforts to alleviate the dire conflict at the heart of the Iliad, and to promote the idea of "discretion" as a decisive character trait of heroes in the Odyssey -- the term and its variant forms standing as equivalents for Greek expressions ranging from πινυτός (IV. 212; in the Greek IV. 211), through ἐσθλός (VII. 63; in the Greek VII. 73), to φρεσὶν ᾕσιν ἀρηρώς (X. 520; in the Greek X. 553) --,⁵ but the effects of Hobbes' project are also discernible in such details as, for example, the reservation of the term "king" for Agamemnon, or the translation of Homeric ἀγορή as "Parliament" (e.g. in Iliad VIII. 444; VIII. 489 in the Greek). One could perhaps wish for further reflection on how Hobbes' occasional rendering of repeated lines or passages identically (or with slight changes) relates to the practice of other early modern translators, but the absence of such information does on no account challenge the fact that the commentary aptly complements the General Introduction by following up several aspects of the translation closely. Nelson's notes will undoubtedly be instrumental in all further critical evaluations of Hobbes' Homer.

At the end of the General Introduction Nelson wryly reminds us that Hobbes' version had quickly lost its appeal: already for late-17th-century readers the translator "had made Homer so discreet that there was no longer any reason to read him" (lxxvi). True, the translations have not been able to stand the test of time, and the emphasis on "discretion" is only one of the reasons why the first look into Hobbes' Homer has for the majority of readers quickly proved to be the last; one could also mention the drab verse, Hobbes' tendency to abridge the narrative, or the omission of several similes (which already Pope had remarked). Yet Nelson's edition throws new light on the text and makes us rethink the translation's critical heritage. This of course does not mean that Hobbes' Homer will suddenly be allotted the same significance and attention as the great historical versions (Chapman's or Pope's translations) have duly received, but Nelson's elucidation of Hobbes' peculiar interpretation certainly rescues the text from oblivion, and provides new reasons to read the "discreet Homer", new perspectives both for Hobbes scholars and literary historians interested in early modern translations. In the long run, furthermore, the consideration of Hobbes' Homer could also prove fruitful in the wider context of English and comparative literary studies: it is enough to think of Milton's very different, but equally radical revaluation of the classics in Paradise Lost, or even Spenser's "Letter of the Authors" according to which Homer in the Iliad "hath ensampled a good governour" in the person of Agamemnon,⁶ to see that Hobbes' discreet version is not without interesting constrasts and parallels.

1.   Maynard Mack, ed., The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope vol. 7 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 21 2.
2.   Nelson credits this turn of phrase to Quentin Skinner.
3.   John Milton, Paradise Lost, Barbara Lewalski, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 10.
4.   Unless otherwise indicated, book and line numbers of the Iliad and the Odyssey refer to Hobbes' translation.
5.   Hobbes also uses the term in negative contexts, e.g. in Alcinous' indirect reproof of Nausicaa, an instance Nelson does not note: "'Twas in my Child an indiscretion" (Odyssey VII. 279); the Greek expression is ἐναίσιμον οὐκ ἐνόησε (VII. 299).
6.   Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott, ed. Edmund Spenser's Poetry (New York: Norton, 1992), 1. Spenser does not mention Achilles.

Actores de Dionysus (aod) formado en 1993 y dedicado a la interpretación del drama clásico, se ha convertido en el principal exponente de la tragedia griega en el teatro contemporáneo y en la educación. Desde sus primeras producciones--dos DVDs, un audiobook sobre Medea y una extensa serie de pre-performances publicadas en su revista Dionysus, de donde se extrae la selección presente en este libro--el grupo se destaca por difundir la tragedia griega a nuevas y más amplias audiencias. En este caso, el pequenño volumen editado por Alan Beale (director por diez años de "aod" y editor de un primer video "Handbook to Face of Tragedy") contiene conversaciones sobre cinco tragedias euripídeas: Bacantes, Medea, Hipólito, Electra y Troyanas. En la introducción el editor señala las características singulares del teatro de Dioniso en Atenas y las modernas adaptaciones de algunas piezas por "aod", como Bacantes en el 2000 y Medea en el 2001. Señala asimismo que "Actors of Dionysus took their name from the Greek guilds of itinerant actors which formed in the third century BC. They have metamorphosed into aod as they have developed their distinctive style" (pág. 2).

El lector puede dar una nueva mirada a cada una de las tragedias que aquí se analizan de acuerdo con la interesante perspectiva trazada por los críticos, quienes exhiben un estilo ágil y dinámico, sin perder por ello el rigor filológico que sustenta cada una de las apreciaciones. Las tragedias se estudian a partir de un aspecto puntual que ha interesado al autor y que contribuye a la comprensión global de la obra; dichos aspectos trascienden lo literario incursionando en otras disciplinas tales como la sociología, la religión o el género. Teniendo en cuenta la recepción de esta edición, es decir, siendo el destinatario un público general, no erudito, cada una de las conversaciones está convenientemente precedida por una breve reseña mitológica que sirve como ayuda para la correcta determinación de los personajes y de la cronología de los hechos que forman parte de la trama trágica.

Bacantes ocupa la primera parte. J.Griffin, A. Garvie y A. Sommerstein apuntan algunas cuestiones poco tratadas en general por la crítica. J.Griffin resalta la figura de Dioniso en el Himno tradicionalmente atribuido a Homero y analiza cuidadosamente las cualidades del dios que resultan las mismas que se manifiestan en la primera parte de la pieza trágica. Con el mismo objetivo- esto es poner en paralelo la obra euripídea con la descripción del dios que ofrece la tradición, el autor señala la participación de Dioniso en Ilíada (6,130-140) y en Teócrito (Id.26), demostrando luego cómo las asociaciones de Dioniso con elementos ligados a la barbarie opacan poco a poco, en la obra trágica, las simpatías del lector hacia su figura.

A.Garvie denomina a Bacantes "la obra de las paradojas" y realiza un recorrido minucioso de todas ellas: un dios nacido de Zeus y Semele que lleva su culto de Asia a Grecia; un nuevo culto religioso inadecuadamente defendido por Tiresias; la entrada de un coro cuyo canto refiere a una religión oriental, pero con la forma de un tradicional himno griego; un dios que proclama benevolencia sólo para sus seguidores, pero que también reclama adoración del hombre común sin tener en consideración género o edad; una religión extática que requiere moderación y buen sentido a los que la practican y, finalmente, el placer prometido que se torna sufrimiento y crueldad. A. Sommerstein, en tanto, deteniéndose en la intervención de la parodos, en su condena hacia Penteo y en su alabanza a Tiresias, analiza la actitud de los tebanos hacial el culto nuevo: Tiresias, Penteo y Cadmo, como también la polis en su conjunto, son observados en relación con sus diferentes posiciones hacia Dioniso y su religión.

Los tres autores - no obstante la singularidad de su enfoque y la peculiaridad propia de cada estilo-- confluyen en una cuestión común: el tono de placer que promete un dios sereno, casi afeminado, se torna hacia el final de la obra en dolor, ruina y sufrimiento. En este contexto paradójico, los que detentan el poder se vuelven en realidad víctimas de una peligrosa "secta", el grupo familiar se violenta al extremo con crímenes horrendos y exilios prolongados, mientras que el pueblo tebano debe acoger el culto oriental de un dios ligado a la barbarie, al poder embriagador del vino que libera a los hombres de la visión racional de la polis, de sus reglas y restricciones, aboliendo todas las distinciones. Dioniso y su religión resultan a la vez hermosos y terribles (pág. 14).

Medea, en la segunda parte de la obra, es analizada por J. March, R. Janko y R. Jenkyns. J. March revisa las muertes de los hijos (probables o finalmente consumadas) en las obras euripídeas (Ion, Bacantes, Troyanas) para concluir en un análisis del final de Medea en el que la madre, matándolos voluntariamente, mata una parte de sí misma. Estrechamente ligada a a la figura controversial de Medea y su acto final, R. Janko, luego de una rápida mirada por las versiones épicas del mito, analiza la "manipulación" de la simpatía de Medea hacia los demás personajes, de Medea hacia los espectadores, de Eurípides hacia los lectores. El último ensayo profundiza la personalidad del personaje trágico, su mente "dividida" que fluctúa entre razonamientos opuestos. De esta forma, en la opinión de R. Jenkyns, el dramaturgo explora psicológicamente--lo que era común en tiempos de Eurípides- la división entre razón, voluntad y deseo.

La tercera parte del volumen se centra en Hipólito. En primer lugar, R.Seaford responde al interrogante que se plantea como el punto nodal de la pieza trágica, esto es, el verdadero significado del rechazo del sexo por parte de Hipólito. Sus reflexiones-- que ahondan en las cuestiones del celibato en la cultura griega, en la figura liminar de Artemis y en la importancia crucial de la reproducción en la ciudad estado-- trascienden de esta forma lo literario abordando cuestiones estrechamente ligadas a la religión, la política, el género y la sociología. En sentido inverso, K. Dover estudia la figura de Afrodita en el drama y los diferentes sentidos de "eros" en el léxico griego, proponiendo también un tipo de análisis en el que sobresale la operatividad de la diosa en aspectos que van más allá de lo meramente religioso.

C. Carey y J. Griffin se ocupan de Electra. Lo hacen examinado las versiones anteriores del mito y el tratamiento que los predecesores de Eurípides dieron a la figura de Electra y Orestes. Según C.Carey, las innovaciones aportadas por el dramaturgo contribuyen al suspenso y a la orientación ética de los personajes (se trata según el autor de un cambio en la localización tanto social como psíquica) y de la obra considerada como un todo; J. Griffin, en tanto, puntualizando las diferencias a partir del mito homérico, señala que Eurípides introduce en la segunda mitad del siglo V dos cuestiones fundamentales: el pseudo matrimonio de Electra y las consecuencias de la larga ausencia de Orestes, hechos que confieren singularidad a la obra .

El volumen se cierra con dos estudios sobre Troyanas. En el primero de ellos C.McCallum-Barry analiza la obra desde la perspectiva del derrumbe de un mundo masculino a partir del sufrimiento femenino. Las relaciones personales, la esfera familiar, el matrimonio son examinados así desde los personajes / mujeres que experimentan la desintegración de su ciudad, sus normas, sus valores, tema tan reiterado en el drama euripídeo. R. Rutherford, en tanto, focaliza su análisis en la figura de Casandra y su significación en la época en que la obra es concebida: las escenas cantadas y habladas, con sus discursos estrechamente ligados al pesamiento sofista, resultan una "deliberada distorsión de las condiciones genéricas", según la opinión de la autora (pág.133).

La obra contiene además un apéndice en donde se consignan las producciones de "aod" separadas por año y mes y un apartado que contiene bibliografía específica sobre tragedia, sobre Eurípides en particular, ediciones de las obras tratadas, audiobooks y DVDs.

La originalidad de estas "conversaciones" reside no sólo en los aspectos culturales tratados que incorporan nuevas perspectivas de estudio a la tragedia griega, sino también en la informalidad de los estilos de cada uno de los autores que logra de este modo que el lector pueda "oir" con atención y placer a Eurípides.

[Table of contents at the end of the review.]

Not too many decades ago, teachers of philosophy at European and American universities could safely presume that their students had some familiarity with Greek and Latin and that a number of them had studied those languages for many years at school. That situation changed in the latter half of the twentieth century. Today, an overwhelming majority of those who enter the universities, including philosophy students, have met with hardly any Latin at all and even less Greek in their preparatory schools. The elementary courses in philosophy seem to attract more students than before, and students with diversified backgrounds and with various reasons for studying philosophy. Increasing numbers of students are, of course, welcome to the departments; the diversity of their previous education and plans for the future are often stimulating elements of this present situation. Even teachers of an older generation, who were accustomed to scribbling the blackboard full with quotations in Greek and Latin, mostly adapted themselves easily to the new conditions and would not want to reintroduce those regulations that, at some universities, forbade students to enroll in philosophy without evidence of a classical education. With the present-day liberal access rules their departments attract a considerable number of interested students. Arguably, our times are good for philosophy.

Yet there seems to arise on occasion, both among teachers and among students, a suspicion that a classical education would not be amiss if you want to study philosophy. In particular, some knowledge of Greek is often felt to be a desideratum, and there is a demand for books that could provide an easier access to that language than a full beginner's course of the sort offered by the classics departments. One tool for providing such help is dictionaries or glossaries specializing in Greek philosophical terminology, like those by Peters and Urmson.¹ These mainly give explanations only of individual words or phrases, and substantives and adjectives dominate in them. Greek philosophical texts contain much more, and if you aspire to understand how a Greek philosophical text functions as a whole--including its exploitation of the rich Greek verb system--you need a book that treats not only vocabulary but also morphology and syntax, and in addition to that offers some of the practical training that is a prerequisite for being able to interpret a Greek sentence without stumbling around in a jungle of lexicon entries and paragraphs of grammar. The most ambitious attempt to provide such a tool that I know of is Beetham's Learning Greek with Plato.² This is meant to be not only an introduction to the writings of one of the leading philosophers in their original linguistic form but also to give the students a basic linguistic training that prepares them for the study of other Greek texts as well.

The book under review here, Alfred Dunshirn's Griechisch für das Philosophiestudium, positions itself midway between a mere lexical aid and a full beginner's course in Greek.³ According to his preface, Dunshirn aims "at offering those interested the chance to read a few short quotations from Greek philosophers in their original form and to obtain some information concerning their context" (p. 5). Dunshirn has a degree in classical philology and is active in the Philosophy Department of the University of Vienna. The book is intended for courses in Greek for post-graduate philosophy students; it is based on Dunshirn's experience as a teacher in those courses. The book is written with students in mind who have no previous knowledge of Greek. They are supposed to have a rudimentary knowledge of Latin grammatical terminology but not of the Latin language in itself, for when Latin words, e.g. concordantia, testimonium and fragmentum (p. 25), appear in the text, they are accompanied by German translations. The school grammar of Bornemann and Risch⁴ is recommended for supplementing the grammatical contents of the book.

The structure of the book appears clearly from Dunshirn's detailed table of contents, which is reproduced below. Chapter B includes the usual preliminaries of a beginner's book in Greek: alphabet, writing and printing conventions, conventional pronunciation, etc. Dunshirn devotes rather more space to historical matters, e.g., the prehistory of the alphabet, than is common in comparable books, but his account of pronunciation and spelling rules, including accents, is less extensive than usual. A short section, with exercises, about conventions of transcription contains information that is not often included in books of this sort but is certainly useful to the inexperienced. Since, at most European universities, the students are expected to use textbooks in languages other than their own, they will come across a number of differing conventions for transcribing Greek words. For that reason it is important that they become aware of the fact that these conventions are simply conventions. This introductory section also includes some basic grammatical information, viz., paradigms of the article, indicative present of λέγω, εἰμί and its participle ὤν, supplemented with a rather lengthy discussion on the meaning of "to be", which reveals Dunshirn's ambition to focus on what is philosophically relevant.

Other linguistic matters are treated in chapter C "Texte". This is of course the weightiest part of the book. It is divided into three sections, each of them devoted to a particular philosopher or group of philosophers (pre-Socratics, Socrates/Plato, Aristotle). The only later text appearing in the book is a passage from Plotinus (Enneads 5.1), quoted with its German translation in section C.I.1, Exkurs b (pp. 26-27) in order to illustrate how the fragments of the pre-Socratics have been preserved by citations in later texts. Information of that technical character is also provided in the introduction to the sub-sections of ch. C. This is a considerable merit of the book, since students not previously acquainted with the conventions that classical philologists follow when quoting the ancient writers will be confused by references to "Parmenides (or even "Parm.") 28 B3 D.-K.", "Pl. R. 515a4", or the like. These introductory sections also list, with comments, standard editions of the Greek texts and recommended translations. On pp. 28-32 you find a similarly informative account of how the entries are structured in Passow's and Liddell and Scott's lexica (and warnings not to put too much confidence in dictionaries). This is also useful help to inexperienced students. The same applies to the complete lists of the preserved writings of Plato and Aristotle; they serve as handy introductions to these two important text corpora.

The texts appearing in the book are chosen for their philosophical content, but the principles of selection are not clear. All the passages quoted in the book have the merit of being original texts; none of them has been reconstituted by the author, e.g., for the purpose of illustrating a certain grammatical phenomenon. On the other hand, many of the texts seem to me to be too complicated for beginners. Section C.I, e.g., starts with the Parmenides' saying τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι, which allows several different interpretations (as Dunshirn makes clear in his commentary). Then follows the Plotinus passage mentioned above, which would not be commonly recommended to beginners as easy reading. The third specimen is Heraclitus frg. 1 D.-K., with a genitive absolute that is left unexplained in the commentary (the syntax is treated only on p. 134 in a totally different context). Evidently, the Greek passages were chosen not to illustrate linguistic phenomena but for their philosophical content; thus the Parmenides fragment that appears at the beginning of the first text chapter gives Dunshirn reason to continue the discussion on the meaning of "to be" that he had started in the last section of the preceding, introductory chapter.

Further, the texts quoted decide what grammatical phenomena are to be treated and in what order. Normally, an elementary course book of Greek is structured as a step-by-step introduction to Greek grammar. You start with the most common or simplest paradigms--say, λόγος and the present tense of λέγω--and for each chapter you chose texts that illustrate the grammatical phenomena introduced in it. Dunshirn works the opposite way. The primary purpose of each section of his book is to introduce his students to a particular philosopher or one of his writings. He first chooses a short passage serving that purpose, and on the basis of the selected text he then decides what paragraphs of grammar are to be treated together with it. His section on the Euthyphro may serve as an illustration of his method. The text chosen for discussion is the introductory dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro, divided into two portions (2a1-6 + b1-9). In the accompanying commentary the following grammatical phenomena are presented (and in this order): the interrogative pronoun τίς, comparison of adjectives, active perfect (exemplified with the paradigm of γέγονα), declension of φημί (indicative present), middle-passive perfect (paradigm: γέγραμμαι), middle future (γνώσομαι). This grammatical information occurs in short paragraphs interspersed in Dunshirn's commentary on the contents of the text. In fact, only a small portion of the book consists of Greek text. For instance, in the forty-seven pages of the Socrates/Plato section you find only about 90 full lines of original Greek.

Dunshirn's book is intended for classroom teaching. Although translations of all the Greek texts and solutions to the exercises are provided in appendices (ch. D-E), it can hardly be used by an autodidact since too many linguistic complexities are left unexplained in the commentaries. After following a course based on the book, the students will not be fully prepared for reading Greek texts on their own. But that is not Dunshirn's intention. He is quite aware that more training is needed. As an aid to further studies he offers an extended bibliography of course books, dictionaries, grammars, commentaries and diverse manuals in German, English, French, Italian, and Latin,⁵ and much relevant literature is referred to in the copious footnotes, too.

Succinct as they are, the commentaries on grammatical matters are correct and up-to-date. Dunshirn wisely follows Bornemann and Risch's grammar, which is now widely used in German-speaking parts of Europe and which surpasses many similar handbooks current elsewhere. For instance, Dunshirn's account of verbal aspect, a mystery to speakers of German, English or the Scandinavian languages, is decidedly more in accordance with both contemporary linguistic theory and with actual Greek usage than the corresponding paragraphs in the recently published Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek.⁶ The proof-reading was done with great care. The book is practically free from those misspellings and misplaced accents, all too frequent in comparable manuals, that mislead the beginner and annoy the expert.⁷ The layout is spacious and designed in a way that makes it easy for the reader to follow the argument with its frequent transitions from one subject to another.

Since philosophy is not my specialty, I do not comment on that part of the book, but I find no reason to doubt that Dunshirn is as good at Greek philosophy as at Greek grammar. All in all, the book seems to fulfill the promise that Dunshirn gives in his preface. Also, since it provides so much information of a technical character, it will be helpful to students who are to use such tools for text analysis in their future studies. Used with discretion by a committed teacher it is likely to inspire students to take their studies of Greek to a higher level.

CONTENTS

1.   F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms. A Historical Lexicon. New York University Press, 1967; J.O. Urmson, The Greek Philosophical Vocabulary. London: Duckworth, 1990. Both have been reprinted repeatedly and are still available.
2.   Frank Beetham, Learning Greek with Plato: A Beginner's Course in Classical Greek. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007. ISBN 987-1-904675-56-3 (review: BMCR 2007.09.50).
3.   Francis H. Fobes, Philosophical Greek. An Introduction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957 is the only Anglophone predecessor of Dunshirn known to me. I am aware of two comparable books from Scandinavia, one of them written by myself and both aiming at providing more general knowledge of Greek than Dunshirn's but less ambitious than Fobes' (Sten Ebbesen, Filosofgraesk. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1982; Jerker Blomqvist, Grekiska för filosofer. Lund: Department of Classics, 1997), and there may exist others elsewhere.
4.   Eduard Bornemann, Griechische Grammatik. Unter Mitwirkung von Ernst Risch. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: Diesterweg, 1978 (reprinted repeatedly).
5.   The only things I miss there are the TLG and Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Paris, 1968-1980.
6.   James Morwood, Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek. Oxford University Press 2001.
7.   I have spotted only three incorrect accents, p. 131, n. 124 (read σῶφρον), p. 154 (ἄν τις), and p. 169 (νέος). On p. 124 the phrase from which the term ἐντελέχεια is supposed to have been derived must be written ἐντελῶς ἔχειν.