Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Giusto Picone, Lucia Beltrami, Licinia Ricottilli (ed.), Benefattori e beneficati: la relazione asimmetrica nel de beneficiis di Seneca. Letteratura classica, 35. Palermo: G. B. Palumbo Editore, 2009. Pp. 429. ISBN 9788860170729. €32.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Martin Degand, Aspirant F.R.S. - FNRS, Université Catholique de Louvain (martin.degand@uclouvain.be)

Version at BMCR home site

[Les auteurs et les titres sont énumérés à la fin du compte-rendu.]

Cet ouvrage collectif rassemble pas moins de seize contributions. Elles résultent de recherches menées au sein de trois universités (Palerme, Sienne et Vérone), financées par deux projets nationaux consécutifs (2004-2006 et 2007- 2009) et consacrées à l'étude du De beneficiis de Sénèque. Une première version de ces textes avait déjà été exposée lors d'un séminaire à Marsala en 2006. L'ensemble des travaux menés dans le cadre de ce séminaire se subdivise en deux sessions. D'une part, il s'agissait de réaliser un commentaire du premier livre du De beneficiis dont les résultats paraîtront dans la même collection que le présent ouvrage. D'autre part, des recherches individuelles sur des thématiques plus spécifiques du traité ont été abordées et celles-ci constituent la matière des articles contenus dans ce livre. L'objectif annoncé par les éditeurs est double. D'une côté, y a la volonté de développer des outils d'analyse des dynamiques du traité pour permettre une meilleure compréhension du domaine complexe du beneficium. De l'autre, il s'agit de conjuguer une approche philologique traditionnelle à d'autres perspectives plus originales. Le programme décrit dans la préface est séduisant, cependant il est à regretter que celle-ci ne présente pas de façon succincte les articles en établissant des liens entre eux.

Le premier article, signé par D. Averna, porte sur la notion de fortuna dans le traité de Sénèque. Plus particulièrement, elle examine le réseau d'oppositions sémantiques dans lequel s'inscrit ce terme marqué par une polysémie importante dans la prose de Sénèque. Ainsi, celui-ci est envisagé à la lumière des relations qu'il entretient notamment avec des notions telles que uirtus, beneficium ou encore sapientia, uoluntas en passant par memoria et superbia. L'analyse s'accompagne de nombreuses observations stylistiques.

E. Calabrese s'intéresse ensuite à une approche pragmatico-relationnelle des rapports père-fils dans la Phèdre de Sénèque. Elle met ainsi en évidence l'absence de communication et de rencontre entre Hippolyte et Thésée au retour des enfers de ce dernier. La thématique oblative est y envisagée sous l'angle de la réciprocité négative à l'œuvre dans les relations étudiées. À travers l'établissement d'un lien entre un emploi pervers du don et l'absence de communication, E. Calabrese relève la volonté de Sénèque d'envoyer à son public un message positif inverse quant à une saine relation père-fils.

Une présentation de l'Essai sur le don de Marcel Mauss (L'Année Sociologique 1923-1924). constitue l'objet de l'article de M. Carosso. À travers un exposé de plusieurs clés de lecture, ce texte richement documenté propose la synthèse des travaux réalisés ces dernières décennies sur la base de l'ouvrage de M. Mauss. Une large place est réservée à l'analyse de M. Godelier mais également à d'autres chercheurs essentiellement français. Sont ainsi abordées des thématiques aussi classiques en anthropologie que le kula, le potlatch ou encore la situation oblative au Japon.

E. Dalle Vedove aborde la question de la présence et du rôle du dédicataire, Aebutius Liberalis, dans le De beneficiis. L'analyse de l'interaction entre Sénèque et ce dernier se fonde notamment sur les théories de la pragmatique de la communication. La seconde partie de l'article propose une comparaison avec les préfaces à l'œuvre de Sénèque l'Ancien, dédiée à ses trois fils. Des similitudes apparaissent au niveau de la manière dont un échange s'établit entre l'auteur et ses dédicataires.

Percevant le don comme un acte de communication, A. De Caro analyse celui-ci grâce à des grilles de lecture issues de ce domaine. Il mobilise ainsi des travaux aussi divers que ceux de J. Godbout (dimension sociale et relationnelle du don), E. Goffman (construction de l'identité dans les interactions), de R. Sennett (thématique du respect) et de P. Ricœur et A. Honneth (reconnaissance réciproque et partage de valeurs et de symboles). Fondé sur les deux premiers livres du traité, cet article propose une vision du don entre inégaux comme reconnaissance (acte de reconnaître).

Le rôle joué par le temps dans les livres I-II de l'œuvre fait l'objet de l'article d'E. Ducci. L'incidence du facteur temporel est d'abord mise en exergue dans la relation donateur/donataire et ensuite à la faveur de la distinction beneficium/feneratio. L'auteur démontre par après l'inversion du rapport cause/effet dans le traité (approche finaliste et non instrumentaliste du don). Le thème de la répétition du don (en lien avec la memoria) est également abordé. Enfin, une nouvelle perspective temporelle (modification dans la perception du passé par rapport au temps présent) est mise en évidence dans le texte de Sénèque.

La contribution suivante réunit en réalité deux textes. D'une part, G.M. Facchini s'intéresse aux objets donnés à travers une approche d'artefacts de l'art somptuaire à l'époque impériale. Son propos est illustré par trois images en fin d'article. D'autre part, C. Moratello décrit un récipient en forme de petite colombe qui semble avoir constitué la matière d'un don (cet article aurait peut-être davantage que le premier mérité une illustration). Les articles sont très succincts bien que les liens entre l'archéologie et le De beneficiis requièrent sans doute une analyse plus approfondie (étude du motif des trois Grâces, par exemple).

M. Lentano, pour sa part, examine un exemplum du traité de Sénèque. Celui-ci a trait à la relation entre César et son fils adoptif et pose la question : Brutus aurait-il dû accepter la vie sauve octroyée par César ? (II, 20). De là, M. Lentano reconstruit la pensée politique de Sénèque et aborde également des thématiques propres au traité telles que le beneficium et la gratia. De façon plus générale, les rapports entre Brutus et César y sont évoqués sous l'angle de la question des beneficia et des notions de parenté dans la société romaine.

P. Li Causi porte son attention sur le recours de Sénèque à la sermocinatio (mise en dialogue à travers le recours à un interlocuteur imaginaire) et analyse son rôle dans le De beneficiis. Tantôt celle-ci lui offre un repoussoir contre lequel il prend appui afin de développer son idée. Tantôt, la position de l'adversarius fictus est exposée, sans être rejetée, pour compléter un panorama de points de vue simultanément acceptés (perspectives dites « binoculaires »). Cette seconde fonction permet à Sénèque de proposer une voie alternative au stoïcisme traditionnel, fondée sur l'intentionnalité, plus en phase avec les réalités quotidiennes.

La notion de beneficium et l'éthique oblative de Sénèque sont ensuite envisagées par M. Lo Piccolo à la lumière de la Consolation à Polybe (notamment quant au rôle joué par la mémoire). Elle éclaire également le concept de beneficium grâce à celui de clementia qui constitue une forme de ce dernier. Cette réflexion se fonde notamment sur une analyse du Plaidoyer pour Marcellus de Cicéron.

Dans la droite ligne de l'article d'A. De Caro, R. R. Marchese mobilise à son tour des réflexions de R. Senett en vue d'analyser la relation inégale entre bienfaiteur et bénéficiaire. L'attention est portée avant tout sur les origines de l'ingratitude et sur les erreurs qui conduisent à une pratique dysfonctionnelle du beneficium. La problématique est abordée à la faveur de thématiques telles que celles de l'autorité, des processus de rébellion, de la dépendance et des rapports de force et de pouvoir. À travers le concept d'autonomie, envisagée de façon réciproque mais différenciée, R.R. Marchese note comment Sénèque désire promouvoir des rapports fondés sur le respect de l'autre et de sa dignité personnelle.

L'article de R. Marino se penche sur la question du refus dans le traité de Sénèque et, plus particulièrement, sur les signes, relevant tant du verbal que du non verbal, qui le manifestent. Le refus est envisagé dans son rapport avec la volonté, dont rend compte la manière de donner. À travers le motif du refus, s'insinuent également les problématiques de l'exclusion, de la dignité et de l'identité dans la relation à l'autre. Le propos est parfois diffus et les nombreuses et diverses références gagneraient à être davantage explicitées et exploitées.

Reprenant une question abordée dans un de ses précédents articles (difficilement accessible),¹ G. Picone analyse un exemplum du De beneficiis qui met en scène Alexandre le Grand (I, 13). À travers la comparaison qui y est établie entre Hercule et ce dernier, il relève comment Sénèque fait part de son point de vue sur le gouvernement et la politique. Derrière l'exemple, un message est clairement adressé à l'empereur sous la forme d'une assimilation : Alexandre (tyrannus) et Hercule (optimus princeps). Une explication est également fournie quant à la référence au serpent figurant dans l'extrait.

Recourant également à la pragmatique de la communication, R. Raccanelli étudie les dynamiques paradoxales initiées par Sénèque afin de modifier les perspectives sur les échanges interactionnels qui, pratiqués tels quels, aboutissent à une relation dysfonctionnelle. Sa contribution vise essentiellement à la recherche d'une théorie de l'interaction et l'étude de la proposition d'un changement thérapeutique de la relation qui se dessinent dans le De beneficiis. Dans une première partie, elle expose des fondements théoriques en recourant à des auteurs très divers (Bateson, Watzlawick ou encore Goffman). Dans une seconde partie, elle les applique au traité en se concentrant sur l'introduction et la conclusion de celui-ci, tout en demeurant consciente des limites d'une telle approche.

G. Raspanti propose un rapprochement entre le De obitu Theodosii d'Ambroise et le De clementia de Sénèque. Il observe tout d'abord la présence et l'organisation du concept de clementia dans l'oraison funèbre du Père de l'Église. Une attention particulière est réservée à l'excursus sur l'inventio crucis. Ensuite, il vérifie l'existence d'un dialogue intertextuel entre Ambroise et Sénèque (tantôt positif, tantôt négatif), tout en tenant compte de la distance culturelle qui les sépare. Son propos se clôture par un exposé du contexte historique et politique dans lequel prend place le texte d'Ambroise, ce qui permet de rendre compte des raisons de la présence de la clementia dans le traité et du recours à l'œuvre de Sénèque.

Enfin, L. Ricottilli s'intéresse aux représentations gestuelles dans les deux premiers livres du De beneficiis. Se fondant également sur la pragmatique de la communication, elle en présente d'abord certaines idées fondamentales (exposées également dans l'article de R. Raccanelli). Elle étudie ensuite les recommandations de Sénèque concernant la communication non verbale (informations gestuelles et paralinguistiques) qui accompagne le don. Sont examinées tant les modalités positives que négatives du côté du donateur et du donataire. Selon L. Ricottilli, Sénèque vise par ce biais à favoriser une relation symétrique ou pseudo-symétrique entre les agents.

Au terme de cette présentation des articles contenus dans cet ouvrage, plusieurs observations doivent encore être formulées. Au niveau formel, il aurait sans doute été souhaitable que tous les articles se réfèrent à une seule édition scientifique du traité de Sénèque (à tout le moins, il est nécessaire qu'une édition du texte soit mentionnée). En effet, à plusieurs reprises, le texte latin est cité fautivement dans quelques articles. Une relecture plus attentive aurait sans doute permis de corriger ces fautes de transcription ainsi que quelques autres. Un index des passages cités aurait également été commode en fin d'ouvrage. Il est également à noter que, bien que l'ouvrage porte un copyright de 2009, il n'a été disponible qu'à partir du début de l'année 2011. Au niveau du contenu, l'objectif de développer une méthodologie à la fois traditionnelle et originale semble effectivement rencontré. En témoigne notamment la large place accordée à la confrontation du texte de Sénèque avec des théories plus contemporaines (au premier rang desquelles figure la pragmatique de la communication). Si quelques contributions sont moins pertinentes (notamment en raison de leur manque de correspondance avec le sujet annoncé), d'autres cependant suscitent un réel intérêt et témoignent d'une riche documentation et d'une érudition stimulante. En dépit de plusieurs défauts formels, cet ouvrage constitue une contribution appréciable dont nous attendons avec impatience les ouvrages afférents, annoncés dans la préface.

Table des matières

Préface, pp. 7-8.
AVERNA Daniela, "Fortuna nel de beneficiis di Seneca", pp. 9-24.
CALABRESE Evita, "Il dono e la relazione pardre-figlio nella Fedradi Seneca", pp. 25-45.
CAROSSO Marinella, "Le relazioni di dono. Chiavi di lettura recenti di un classico dell'antropologia", pp. 47-95.
DALLE VEDOVE Eva, "Aspetti della presenza del dedicatario nel de beneficiis di Seneca e raffronto con le prefazioni di Seneca Padre", pp. 97-120.
DE CARO Antonio, "Voluntas luceat. Riconoscimento e riconoscenza nel beneficium,", pp. 121-158.
DUCCI Elena, "La rivalutazione del tempo nel de beneficiis. Analisi tematica dei libri I-II", pp. 159-172.
FACCHINI Giuliana Maria, MORATELLO Cinzia, "Donum-munus: dalle fonti letterarie alla documentazione archeologica. Alcuni esempi nell'arte suntuaria di età romana", pp. 173-183.
LENTANO Mario, "Come uccidere un padre (della patria): Seneca e l'ingratitudine di Bruto", pp. 185-209.
LI CAUSI Pietro, "Una mediazione conflittuale per una pratica della teoria. Dinamiche e funzioni dell'interlocutore immaginario in alcuni loci del de beneficiis di Seneca", pp. 211-231.
LO PICCOLO Maria, "Dentro e fuori il de beneficiis. Notazioni sui temi del beneficium e della clementia in Seneca e in Cicerone", pp. 233-244.
MARCHESE Rosa Rita, "Dignità e diseguaglianza. Il rispetto nella relazione fra benefattori e beneficati", pp. 245- 271.
MARINO Rosanna, "Lo 'stigma' dell'estraneità: il beneficium tra volontà e virtù", pp. 273-288.
PICONE Giusto, "Ercole e il serpente. Figure di ricordo, modelli mitici, modelli etici nel de beneficiis di Seneca", pp. 289-302.
RACCANELLI Renata, "Cambiare il dono: per una pragmatica delle relazioni nel de beneficiis senecano", pp. 303-356.
RASPANTI Giacomo, "Il de obitu Theodosii di Ambrogio e l'ideale senecano della clementia principis", pp. 357-398.
RICOTTILLI Licinia, "Aspetti della rappresentazione gestuale nel de beneficiis", pp. 399-429.

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Notes:

1.   Picone (G.), "Ercole e Alessandro. Sen. De ben. 1.13", in Pan 7 (1981), pp. 135-144.

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Marco Rizzi (ed.), Hadrian and the Christians. Millennium-Studien = Millennium studies Bd. 30. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010. Pp. vi, 186. ISBN 9783110224702. $98.00.

Reviewed by Benjamin Garstad, MacEwan University (garstadb@macewan.ca)

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The papers in this volume have been collected with the laudably sensible, but regrettably rare, purpose of testing an hypothesis. As the editor puts it in his introduction, the "cultural effervescence" of Hadrian's reign and the contemporaneous diffusion and institutionalization of Christianity are to be examined "in order to figure out whether any specific factor within this broader context eased or accelerated the affirmation of Christianity in the Second century Roman world." It is suggested that Hadrian's reconfiguration of the Roman Empire as a polity which tolerated or even encouraged a plethora of distinct ethnic, local, cultural, religious, and philosophical identities in the interest of fostering "direct loyalty to the emperor" (rather than the institutions of Republican government or the apparatus of imperial control) opened up a space in which the Christians could engage in "self-definition and external self- definition." This thesis is pursued by directing an often narrow spotlight on various aspects of Hadrian's reign.

Rizzi expands upon his introduction and lays the groundwork for the rest of the volume in his, the first, paper, which shares a title with the volume as a whole. He presents Hadrian as promoting the civic elites throughout the Empire, with their various cultures and relations with the emperor, at the expense of the Roman senatorial class. As part of this effort Hadrian legitimized the 'philosophical way of life', which had been suspect amongst the Roman aristocracy, but was an important part of the identity of the civic elite in the Greek East, as well as a means of approach to its members. It was in this context that the Christians began to present themselves as both a distinct ethnos and a philosophical school, alongside of and in competition with the other recognized schools. The apologists of the second century, then, present Christianity as a deserving member of the elite culture patronized by the emperor, but this presentation created strains in a Church that had an as yet uncertain relation to both philosophy and the elites.

Elena Calandra presents the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli as the deliberately orchestrated backdrop to a self-conscious display of power in "Villa Adriana scenario del potere". She indicates that the architectural sources of the Villa are to be found not only in the palaces of the Hellenistic kings with their elaborate ideologies of royal magnificence, but also in structures associated with the ruler cult of the Roman emperors, especially the Traianeum Hadrian built to honour his adopted father and his own library at Athens. She also traces the three phases of construction at Tivoli from the restrained conservatism of the first phase (118-121) to the elaboration of a novel and eclectic imperial ideology following Hadrian's tour of the Empire in the second (125-128) and finally to an articulation of the emperor's concern to link himself with a soteriological cult through the person of Antinous in the third phase (133/134). If the reign of Hadrian afforded the Christians an opportunity for self-presentation, the Villa at Tivoli as described by Calandra is a testament to Hadrian's own effort at self-presentation, an autobiographical artifact of the first importance.

Marco Galli continues the theme of Hadrian's self-presentation in his paper, "La paideia di Adriano: alcune osservazioni sulla valenza politica del culto eroico". Recent scholarship, as well as popular presentations, have offered a robust and martial image of a 'Roman' Hadrian in contrast to the traditionally prevalent image of a peaceful, philhellene image of Graeculus Hadrian. Galli insists that this contrast is too simplistic and that paideia itself is the key to unlocking the complex but well-rounded image that Hadrian wished to project. Hadrian presented himself as a strong man, a conqueror, and even a hero in the mould of Heracles, Alexander, and Antinous, a hero of his own making, in ways that could only be read within the context of a literate paideia. In making his point, Galli reminds us that it is also simplistic to view paideia as purely cerebral and intellectual, when it was in fact central to the operations and interrelations of the local civic elites, whom Hadrian co- opted into the running of the Empire.

I must confess that after several rereadings I still find Alessandro Galimberti's "Hadrian, Eleusis, and the beginnings of Christian apologetics" confusing and unconvincing. There is a thorough presentation of the background of Hadrian's relations to foreign cults, the Jews, and the Christians before the problem at hand is finally set before the reader. Galimberti demonstrates that there is a connection in our sources between Hadrian's observance of the Eleusinian rites, a persecution of the Christians, and the presentation of the apologies of Quadratus and Aristides to the emperor. So far so good, though the nature of the connection remains vague. Galimberti goes on to suggest that the date for these linked events should be shifted from 124/5, which coincides with Hadrian's rescript to Minucius Fundanus (a document if not favourable to the Christians, then at least unfavourable to their accusers), to 131/2 and the persecution of the Christians identified with the massacres perpetrated by Bar Kochba and his Jewish rebels. I will restrict my criticism to two points. Although Galimberti states emphatically that it is, I do not see any reason why 124/5 should be precluded as at least a viable alternative. The link which our texts, Jerome's De viris illustribus 19-20 and Epistula 70,4, seem to present between events is that Hadrian's celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries offered an occasion to their enemies to persecute the Christians. While we can imagine the pagan enemies of the Church interpreting Hadrian's practice of pagan rites as an endorsement of their position and tacit permission to extirpate deviants, it is hard to imagine Jewish zealots seeing the Roman emperor's activities at Eleusis as anything more than a matter of indifference in their relations with the Christians.

Giovanni Battista Bazzana's contribution, "The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Hadrian's Religious Policy", uses a detailed philological investigation of several disparate texts to clarify Hadrian's policy in regard to the Jews. The epitome of Dio Cassius in Xiphilinus indicates that the Jewish revolt was started by anger at the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the foundation of a temple to Zeus on the Temple Mount, and the Historia Augusta asserts that it was caused by the Jewish insistence on circumcision. Bazzana draws on the evidence of the Epistle of Barnabas and Rabbinic literature to tease a coherent and plausible picture from these texts. Bazzana suggests that Hadrian, far from proceeding in ignorance or even setting out to instigate a Jewish uprising, was acting according to a benign policy consistent with his broader approach to the religions of the empire, in which the bestowal of the status of colony on Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple were acts of euergetism intended to integrate the Jews of Palestine more fully into the Empire and the discouragement of circumcision was meant to alleviate Jewish distinctiveness. If Hadrian was unwary, it was inasmuch as he offered these gestures to a Jewish population increasingly polarized between a willingness to accommodate itself to the wider world and an intransigent insistence upon peculiarity which entertained no negotiation or compromise.

The next paper, another by Alessandro Galimberti, "The pseudo-Hadrianic Epistle in the Historia Augusta and Hadrian's religious policy", attempts to rehabilitate a letter attributed to Hadrian in a notoriously unreliable source. Galimberti's reading of the brief text is careful, revealing, and presents a real challenge to anyone who would blithely ascribe the letter and all of its references to the fourth century. Ultimately, however, I'm not sure that Galimberti has succeeded in proving much more than that the author writing under the name of Flavius Vopiscus had a creditably good working knowledge of the reign of Hadrian. If Galimberti would like to see the epistle used as a source contemporary with Hadrian, since he grants that it is a pastiche with late antique interpolations, it might have been helpful if he had explicitly separated the wheat from the chaff.

The unwelcome consequences of taking the evidence of the Historia Augusta at face value are demonstrated by the next paper. In "Serapis, Boukoloi and Christians from Hadrian to Marcus Aurelius" Livia Capponi propounds an extraordinary thesis: that Serapis was worshipped by the Christians of Egypt in the second and third century. Her evidence is tenuous, ambiguous and erroneous by turns. The mere presence of a copy of the Septuagint in the library of the Serapeum would not, to my mind, elicit from Jews and Christians veneration of the god whose temple housed the library, and there is no suggestion in Minucius Felix's Octavius that Caecilius is a representative of "lower-class Christians" and not the pagan majority. From this proposition Capponi moves on to others just as dubious. The Boukoloi as worshippers of Serapis are to be associated with the Christian supporters of the usurper Avidius Cassius; no matter that Cassius made his bid for power after suppressing the revolt of the Boukoloi, the Egyptian desperadoes are still instrumental in his rising. Here I think she mistakes unsurprisingly similar phenomena produced by the same historical situation for phenomena that were related in intention or in perception. Capponi's suggestion ultimately involves a complete inversion of our understanding of some of the critical events in the history of Egyptian Christianity. Rather than a growing number of Christians eager for a chance to extirpate the shrines and idols of paganism being held in check by Roman authorities committed to pluralism and toleration, we are to imagine the mobs and the bishop of Alexandria himself incited to the destruction of the Serapeum in 391, against their idiosyncratic but time-honoured customs and traditions, by a central government intent on the "normalisation" of Christianity throughout the Empire. Daring, but not defensible.

Marco Rizzi promises to substantiate the interpretations of Hadrian's religious policy offered in this volume with material from Christian apologetic literature in his concluding essay, but the result is much more like a few random notes on the texts in question. He deals with the most difficult text, the Apology of Aristides, first, though basing an argument on a work which requires reconstruction in the first place may have been imprudent. I remain unconvinced that Aristides' racial genealogy of religion can be reconstructed as three-part ("polytheists," Jews, and Christians) rather than four-part (Barbarians, Greeks, Jews, and Christians) in order to correspond with the designation of the Christians as a tertium genus. Rizzi is much more persuasive when he proposes that the presumably fictional setting of Justin's Dialogue with Trypho at the outbreak of the Bar Kochba revolt is particularly significant in making the Dialogue a response to the religious pluralism of Hadrian's reign and suggesting that Christianity, rather than Judaism, has the potential to achieve the goal of religious universalism the Emperor was striving toward. Finally, Rizzi draws parallels between the rhetoric of civic prestige and the references to cities in the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch to suggest that the idea of a monarchic episcopate grew up alongside Trajan and Hadrian's concept of a monarchic Empire; but Ignatius' model of ecclesiastical order seems to leave little room for the "cultural, religious, and ethnical diversities" which Rizzi takes to characterize the ideal polity of these emperors.

One final point is perhaps worth making. Although most of it is in English, I doubt that this volume passed under the eye of a native English speaker at any point in the editorial process. This is a sad oversight, especially when it might so easily have been remedied. The occasional unintended assault on the English language might be forgiven, but the accumulation of infelicities and errors in grammar, diction, idiom, and usage seriously detracts from the content of the papers.

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Sandra Peterson, Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xvi, 293. ISBN 9780521190619. $90.00.

Reviewed by J. Angelo Corlett and Kimberly Unger, San Diego State University (acorlett@mail.sdsu.edu; kunger@rohan.sdsu.edu)

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This 9-chapter book addresses the putative puzzle of why Plato's Socrates seems to differ from dialogue to dialogue. Why does Socrates at times profess ignorance and at other times seem to strongly assert claims? While the dominant tradition holds both that the Socrates of Plato's dialogues is Plato's instrument for expressing Plato's own views and that Plato's views develop throughout the dialogues (a position Peterson refers to as "Plato-centric"), Peterson offers an "interlocutor-centered hypothesis" according to which Socrates, who says he knows nothing great, is consistently examining the views of interlocutors throughout most of the dialogues of Plato,¹ and argues that there is inadequate evidence to suggest that Socrates, as depicted by Plato, ever held the views, doctrines or theories so often ascribed to him by the dominant tradition of Plato scholarship (xvi). Many scholars of Plato seem to have too hastily concluded that the differences between the philosophical examination in some dialogues (such as the Apology) and that in others (such as the Phaedo and the Republic) reflects the development of "Plato's thought" between those dialogues.

Peterson argues that despite differences in Socratic philosophical style among Plato's works "the Socrates in any of Plato's dialogues is examining his interlocutor and so engaging in the central component of the complex activity, philosophizing"(4). She assumes with Gregory Vlastos and other mouthpiece interpreters that Plato's Socrates has a special status as the best available clue to whatever Plato's own views happen to be (5), and approvingly cites Vlastos's view that Plato's "overriding concern is always the philosophy" (15). She also assumes that Plato had philosophical views and that the character Socrates does indeed convey convictions of Plato's (233). But Peterson does not think that such doctrines are "big" or substantive. Peterson also observes that the dialectic of the aporetic dialogues fails to reveal a Socrates who sets forth his own views. Moreover, Plato is a capable reasoner and is thus unlikely to hold positions that are refuted in the dialogues (11). Based on these observations, she is skeptical of the mouthpiece interpretation's attempt to ascribe to Plato all manner of doctrines or theories that can be found in the mouth of Socrates. Instead, she argues, what we find in the mouth of Socrates are not his own (or Plato's) convictions, but rather the views of the interlocutors Socrates is examining (15).

Peterson's take on the philosophical commitments of Plato's Socrates "reduce to few": Socrates' claim to ignorance; his abhorrence of philosophical arrogance, which is so great that when he is called "wise" he takes this as slanderous, (19-24) as it implies that Socrates makes the worst error possible of not being thoughtful and is hence in a position to do the worst possible harm to others (33-36); and his "method" of philosophical examination (15, 233). The Socrates of Apology 23b is cognizant that he is not wise (42), and this includes the understanding that he "knows nothing big" (43). Peterson refers to this as Socrates' general agnosticism about substantive matters (53). To be sure, whatever Socrates seems to know is something "small," nonsubstantive (55), or rather general: for instance, that we ought to care about how to live our lives well and that we ought to continue to examine ourselves (57, 261) as the unexamined life, says Plato's Socrates, is not worth living. While "Socrates knows a few things, ... his knowing them is consistent with his not knowing anything big" (58).

Peterson devotes Chapter 3 to the concern that the Socrates of the corpus of Plato's dialogues is significantly different than the Socrates presented in the Apology. Her answer to this concern is that Socrates is the same throughout all of Plato's dialogues, thereby rebutting Gilbert Ryle's famous statement to the contrary. Ryle made the comment that the digression in the Theaetetus is "quite pointless."². While there is plenty of informative analysis and argument throughout the Theaetetus' discussion of the nature of human knowledge,³ in Ryle's view the digression lacks such qualities altogether. Peterson, however, is convinced that the digression fails to demonstrate that there is enough change in Socrates throughout Plato's dialogues to justify a developmentalist thesis.

Nor does the strangeness of various views articulated by Socrates in the Republic imply that there is a development of Socrates' views throughout Plato's dialogues. Peterson devotes Chapters 4-5 to this problem, arguing that what we find on the lips of Socrates are not his own views, but those of others. What is clear to the non- question-begging interpreter of Plato's works is that in such passages we find the same Socrates as we find in the Apology, one who examines others and finds that their professed wisdom is nowhere to be found.

Another piece of alleged evidence in favor of the received (mouthpiece) interpretation of Plato's dialogues is Socrates' discussion and apparent embracing of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo. Peterson devotes Chapter 6 to showing that Socrates does not straightforwardly subscribe to the words placed in his mouth, arguing that the fact that Socrates discusses a topic fails to show that he embraces what he says about it. The Socrates of the Apology, Peterson states, is still alive in the other dialogues such as the Phaedo. It is Socrates who examines others for the sake of making himself and others better for the rest of their lives (16). Socrates begins where his interlocutors are, philosophically. He then leads them through a critical examination of what they believe, allowing the honest among them to eventually grasp for themselves what is problematic regarding their positions, positions that affect their lives in such important ways (195).

Peterson continues the same theme in Chapter 7, wherein she argues that various interlocutors' conceptions of the nature and function of philosophy belong to those interlocutors, not to Socrates. Here the focus is on Plato's Euthydemus, the Rival Lovers, and the Sophist. All in all, she reasons that there is no evidence to show that the Socrates presented in these dialogues on the topic of the nature and function of philosophy would dissuade the reasonable person from seeing that Socrates is the same in these contexts as he is in the Apology (215).

In Chapters 8 and 9, Peterson presents a more general argument for the claim that Socrates remains the same throughout Plato's corpus of writings: "The totality of the dialogues featuring Socrates show that Plato thought that philosophizing as Socrates claims it in the Apology was the best practice in which to spend one's life" (250). That is, Peterson's cautious view is "at least as likely as the alternative hypothesis that Socrates speaks doctrine of a developing Plato" (216). This view of Peterson's has important implications for the views that the adherents of the mouthpiece interpretation continually attribute to Plato. For it is a denial that their interpretive method is justified by not only the very dialogical form in which Plato composed almost all of his works, but a denial that the very content of the Platonic corpus justifies the ascriptions of a theory of forms, a theory of mimetic art, a doctrine of the immortality of the soul, etc. to Plato as if he were writing treatises.

According to Peterson, throughout Plato's corpus of writings we find a consistent method of Socratic philosophizing: Socrates discloses to his interlocutors what they believe or allows them to reveal their beliefs, and critically examines their beliefs. What we have, argues Peterson, is not Vlastos' and other mouthpiece interpreters' Plato-centric writings, but rather interlocutor-centered ones. For "certain views commonly taken to be doctrines of Plato's we have only reason to believe that they attach to Socrates' interlocutors. We do not have reason to attach the views to Socrates" (217). Thus the apparently doctrinal or theoretical Socrates, states Peterson, turns out to be the examining Socrates (218-9). So it is simply false that there is a development of doctrines within Plato's writings such that he or even Socrates matures from the early to the middle to the late dialogues, as developmentalist mouthpiece interpreters so often assert.

As if her exegesis of various passages of many of Plato's dialogues were not sufficient to prove her thesis, Peterson points to a stark unappealing general implication in the approach of Vlastos, Charles Kahn and many others, namely, that it denies that in composing his later dialogues Plato took seriously the message of the Delphic oracle of which Socrates speaks so passionately in the Apology, namely, "that no human being was wiser than Socrates" (221). And while Kahn resorts to rather imaginative questioning of why Plato might have abandoned the Socratic mission (222), Peterson provides plausible answers to the making of such alleged "creativity," (223) including the explanation that "It would be worthy of Plato's creativity for him to spend his writing career depicting discussions of widely different kinds with widely various kinds of people to further subject to examination Socrates' minimal but central conviction of the Apology that he failed to know the greatest things" (223-4).

Peterson also asks of mouthpiece interpreters why Plato wrote dialogues in which he is never a character (230). That Plato wanted to avoid self-promotion is not an adequate answer to this important question. More than avoiding self- promotion, Plato wanted to disappear from his writings ("As Socrates disappears into his conversations with his interlocutors Plato disappears into his writing" (235)). They were for the most part about Socrates and his method of critically examining the views of others (231, 234).

Peterson's marvelous book has provided much valuable insight concerning various passages about some of the alleged doctrines of Plato, and about Socrates' purpose in doing philosophy. And her argument addresses very well a central underlying matter in studying Plato: the Platonic Question. While most mouthpiece interpreters seemingly want to disregard this problem or end up providing poor reasons for their own methodological approach to Plato's corpus,⁴ Peterson has shed plausible new light on the issue. She might have been more direct in discussing the implications of her arguments for the Platonic Question, as there appear to be some passages in her otherwise fine book wherein her words belie a possible confusion. One example is where Peterson believes "that Plato had philosophical views" and that the character Socrates conveys "convictions of Plato's" (233). On the other hand, she seems to hold that ascribing this or that theory or doctrine to Plato is misplaced (see her statement about the alleged Theory of Forms on p. 254). It is unclear whether her assumption that Socrates was Plato's mouthpiece is meant to distance her from mouthpiece interpreters who typically do more than assume such, or whether she considers herself to be a mouthpiece interpreter of sorts. Evidence against the latter interpretation of her words is found in her stark rejection of the "Plato says" fallacy that is rampant in the writings of mouthpiece interpreters: "Most strictly speaking the phrase 'what Plato says…' must amount to 'what Socrates and others say…'" (255); a point also made by unequivocal anti-mouthpiece interpreters of Plato.⁵ Some clarity along these lines could have improved an already excellent study of Socrates and Plato. In the end, Peterson's work provides important additional internal textual evidence in favor of the anti-mouthpiece interpretation of Plato's oeuvre, an approach to Plato that has been expressed and defended without apology in recent years.⁶

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Notes:

1.   Sandra Peterson, Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. xv.
2.   Gilbert Ryle, Plato's Progress (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 158.
3.   In fact, some have seen the remainder of the dialogue as the strong precursor of what has later become known as the "Gettier problem," even though it is questionable that E. Gettier added anything new and philosophically interesting to what ought to be known as the "Socratic problem of knowledge." For Gettier's statement of the "Gettier problem," see E. Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis 23 (1963): 121-3.
4.   J. Angelo Corlett, Interpreting Plato's Dialogues (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2005), Chapter 2.
5.   John M. Cooper, "Introduction" in John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson, Editors, Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), pp. xviii-xxv; Corlett, Interpreting Plato's Dialogues, pp. 84-85, 90, 93, and 97; J. J. Mulhern, "Two Interpretive Fallacies," Systematics, 9 (1971), 168-172.
6.   See Cooper, "Introduction," pp. xviii-xxv; Corlett, Interpreting Plato's Dialogues, Chapter 3.

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Enrique Hülsz Piccone (ed.), Nuevos ensayos sobre Heráclito. Actas del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum. Ciudad de México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2009. Pp. 460. ISBN 9786070212055.

Reviewed by Stavros Kouloumentas, University of Patras (skouloumentas@gmail.com)

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This volume is a collection of papers, most of them written in English and Spanish, which were originally presented at the Segundo Symposium Heracliteum held in Mexico City in June 2006.¹ It is prefaced by Enrique Hülsz Piccone, the organiser of the colloquium, and consists of sixteen studies differing widely in length, topic and approach. Although the studies are not divided into thematic sections, the editor has arranged them in a meaningful order. The volume is remarkably free from typographical errors, but neither indices nor abstracts are provided.

The first paper is an extensive study by Serge Mouraviev which surveys his long-standing efforts to collect, divide into groups, and interpret the available sources concerning Heraclitus. Students and scholars who may have difficulty in accessing his multi-volume and steadily growing Heraclitea, as well as in studying a vast number of heterogeneous texts that cover the entire period from Epicharmus to Petrarch, would benefit greatly from the abridged edition offered here.² Mouraviev supplies us with a full, albeit highly conjectural, reconstruction of Heraclitus' book accompanied by a bilingual translation, some figures and a brief commentary.

The following three papers are less ambitious in scope but equally interesting. Daniel Graham expounds Heraclitus' theory of knowledge in the light of the famous pronouncement that "all things are in flux". According to Graham, the striking images given by Heraclitus encourage his perceptive readers to discover the complex structure of reality through a process of induction comparable to what Aristotle calls argument by example in his Organon. Given that all things undergo balanced transformations, "[k]nowledge consists of the ability to comprehend the enduring pattern superimposed upon the changes, and to grasp the changes as integral to the constancy" (p. 90). Thomas Robinson is concerned with the most debated issue in Heraclitean scholarship: the meaning of the term logos. After setting out his hermeneutical assumptions and noting the standard translations of logos in several fragments where its meaning seems clear, Robinson focuses on a set of less straightforward fragments. He proposes that the most appropriate translation of logos is "account", and defends his choice by examining the context of each fragment, rejecting alternative translations, and trying to offer a coherent interpretation of Heraclitus' system. Of particular interest is the suggestion that the function of to sophon, the rational and all-pervading manifestation of the account referred to by Heraclitus, is comparable to the role assigned to the world-soul in the Timaeus. In another well-documented paper, Alberto Bernabé classifies and analyses the various types of polar expressions employed by Heraclitus, drawing illuminating parallels with other archaic thinkers.

Several contributors to the volume under review are interested in the interaction between Heraclitus and the prominent representatives of epic and lyric poetry, as well as his censure of and influence on contemporary thinkers. More specifically, Herbert Granger explains why Heraclitus groups Homer and Archilochus together, and explores some aspects of their work that might have been criticized by Heraclitus. Although we can only conjecture about the reasons that prompted Heraclitus to castigate Archilochus, since his exact words are lost, we possess a Heraclitean saying about Homer's deception by children (fr. 56) and a report that Heraclitus called Homer "astronomer" (fr. 105). ³ These references seem to be a safe starting point for understanding the attack of Heraclitus on Homer, but Granger pays little attention to them. Carl Huffman's scope is to examine the charges made against Pythagoras in fr. 129 in order to specify the subject matter of his teaching.⁴ A detailed inspection of the meaning of historiē and syggraphē in the fifth and fourth century B.C. shows that Pythagoras was not engaged in natural science, as it is commonly thought, but that he produced a collection of the views of others which were formulated in a concise way and provided a moral code for his followers (the so-called symbola). In fact, Huffman could further support his thesis by citing some Pythagorean maxims indicating plagiarism: for example, the assertion that a rainbow is the reflected splendour of the sun (Ael. 4.17) recalls Anaximenes' meteorology (Aët. 3.5.10), and the prohibition against urinating while facing the sun (Iamb. Protr. 21) is also attested in Hesiod (Op. 727). Other relevant papers include: Francesc Casadesús Bordoy on the use of epic vocabulary in Heraclitus' fragments dealing with war and post-mortem heroizing; Omar Álvarez Salas on the impact of the doctrine of flux on Epicharmus; a critical appraisal of Graham's thesis that Parmenides responded to Heraclitus by Arnold Hermann;⁵ and Enrique Hülsz Piccone on the reception of Heraclitus in Cratylus and Theaetetus.

Other scholars concentrate on a specific fragment or doctrine of Heraclitus, following different methods of interpreting his sayings. Beatriz Bossi, for instance, investigates fr. 62 by discussing a number of possible interpretations, while Aryeh Finkelberg argues against the standard view that Heraclitus is an exponent of cosmological stability. Finkelberg suggests that the fiery god creates the world out of himself and destroys it in a cyclical pattern. Seen from this perspective, "god handles the created things like pieces on draughts-board, making them fight in accordance with certain rules" (p. 334). Livio Rossetti is interested in finding inconsistencies within Heraclitus' system. In Rossetti's view, Heraclitus was the first to suggest a universal norm applicable to all aspects of reality, that is the unity of opposites, but he did not realize that the application of this norm undermines his own system, since he makes several assertions without considering them as a part of a balanced pair (e.g. Heraclitus' insight as opposed to the ignorance of most people).

The editors of Presocratic fragments should take into account the brilliant study of Gábor Betegh who reassesses the textual problems surrounding fr. 45 and accordingly proposes a novel interpretation based on the new evidence. Likewise, the next contribution offers a good example of how a perplexing saying of Heraclitus can be deciphered in a satisfactory manner, provided one places it in the appropriate context and considers the preoccupations and interests of the thinker who quotes it. Catherine Osborne starts with a thorough overview of the best-known references of Aristotle to Heraclitus, then she expounds the common threads of some strange sayings of Heraclitus that Aristotle cites in various places, and finally she sheds light on the obscurities of fr. 7, as well as its interconnection with the texts in question.

While the opening study of Mouraviev offers a tentative reconstruction of Heraclitus' book, the last contribution examines its traces in post-Aristotelian authors. David Sider demonstrates that Simplicius, the richest and most reliable source for many Presocratics, did not possess an original copy of Heraclitus' book but used Aristotle in the few cases where he cites Heraclitus' sayings. In fact, the majority of authors who transmit genuine quotations are not related to the Theophrastean doxographic tradition, and they probably drew from a selection of the most fascinating fragments of Heraclitus, which puts emphasis on epistemology and physics rather than on politics and theology. However, Sider notes that it is difficult to establish with certainty when the abridged collection replaced the original copy of Heraclitus' book and who was the last author to have consulted the latter source.

It turns out that those who want to trace the transmission of Heraclitus' fragments, let alone decode their hidden meaning, undertake a copious task. However, they now have a good companion which supplies them with a number of wide-ranging and thought-provoking studies. We hope that the papers presented in the next Symposium Heracliteum will also be published afterwards and maintain the same high quality.

Table of contents

Presentación
Serge N. Mouraviev, Le livre d'Héraclite 2 500 ans après. L'état actuel de sa reconstruction
Daniel W. Graham, Representation and knowledge in a world of change
Thomas M. Robinson, Heraclitus and logos – again
Alberto Bernabé, Expresiones polares en Heráclito
Francesc Casadesús Bordoy, La transposición del vocabulario épico en el pensamiento filosófico de Heráclito
Herbert Granger, Heraclitus B 42: On Homer and Archilochus
Carl Huffman, La crítica de Heráclito a la investigación de Pitágoras en el fragmento 129
Omar D. Álvarez Salas, La 'teoria del flujo' de Heráclito a Epicarmo
Arnold Hermann, Parmenides versus Heraclitus?
Beatriz Bossi, Acerca del significado del fragmento B 62 (DK) de Heráclito
Aryeh Finkelberg, The cosmic cycle, a playing child, and the rules of the game
Livio Rossetti, Polymathia e unità del sapere in Eraclito: alle origini di una anomalia
Enrique Hülsz Piccone, Flujo y lógos. La imagen de Heráclito en el Cratilo y el Teeteto de Platón
Gábor Betegh, The limits of the soul: Heraclitus B 45 DK. Its text and interpretation
Catherine Osborne, "If all things were to turn to smoke, it'd be the nostrils would tell them apart", or Heraclitus on the pleasures of smoking
David Sider, The fate of Heraclitus' book in Later Antiquity

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Notes:

1.   The papers from the first colloquium on Heraclitus are published by L. Rossetti (ed.), Atti del Symposium Heracliteum 1981, vols. I-II (Rome, 1983-4).
2.   The edition of Mouraviev will consist of about twenty volumes, when completed, and it is divided into five parts: Prolegomena, Traditio, Recensio (subdivided into Memoria, Placita, Fragmenta and Fontes), Refectio and Indices. Ten volumes have been published so far (Sankt Augustin, 1999-2008).
3.   The numberings of Heraclitus' fragments are those of H. Diels (ed.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vols. I-III, 6th edition, revised by W. Kranz (Berlin, 1951-2).
4.   The English version of Huffman's paper can be found in B. Inwood (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XXXV: 19-47 (Oxford, 2008).
5.   See D. W. Graham, "Heraclitus and Parmenides" in V. Caston and D. W. Graham (eds.), Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos: 27-44 (Aldershot, 2002).

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William W. Fortenbaugh, Theophrastus of Eresus, Commentary 6.1: Sources on Ethics (with contribution on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas). Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. xi, 879. ISBN 9789004194229. $278.00.

Reviewed by Robert Mayhew, Seton Hall University (robert.mayhew@shu.edu)

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A watershed in the study of Theophrastus was the publication in 1992 of the two-volume collection of his 'fragments': W.W. Fortenbaugh et al. (eds.), Theophrastus of Eresus, Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought & Influence (Leiden: Brill). The inside flap of the dust-cover promised nine volumes of commentaries on these texts to follow: 1. Life; 2. Logic; 3. Physics; 4. Metaphysics, Theology, Mathematics, Psychology; 5. Human Physiology, Living Creatures, Botany; 6. Ethics, Religion; 7. Politics; 8. Rhetoric, Poetics; 9. Music, Miscellaneous, Indexes. These volumes have been appearing ever since, at irregular intervals, and with some variations on the original plan, beginning with Robert Sharples' commentary on the biological texts.¹ The volume under review, covering texts nos. 436-579, is the most recent in this series.²

For those who know the details of Fortenbaugh's scholarly work on Theophrastus (and especially his practical philosophy), it should be noted that this commentary on the ethical texts is not a revision and translation of Fortenbaugh's earlier work on the same subject (as he explains in the preface, pp. ix-x).³ For one thing, the present book is much longer. It is also quite different in format from the only other volume in this series with which I have a great deal of familiarity: the one by Sharples mentioned in the previous paragraph. Whereas Sharples' (very useful) volume on the biological texts consists of a five-page introduction and 210 pages of commentary, Fortenbaugh's —weighing in at nearly 900 pages—consists of the following 'chapters' (so-called): I. Introduction (pp. 1-7); II. The Sources (pp. 9-120); III. Titles of Books (pp. 121-234); IV. The Texts (pp. 235-737); V. Summary (pp. 739-49); VI. Bibliography of Modern Literature (pp. 751-67); VII. Indices to the Titles and Texts (pp. 769-803); VIII. Indices to the Commentary (pp. 805-74); IX. Corrigenda and Addenda in the Text-Translation Volumes (pp. 875-79). ⁴

I cannot, in a brief review, do justice to this massive and magisterial piece of scholarship. What I shall do instead is briefly describe the content of 'chapters' II & IV, and then indicate how one might best make use of this work.

One drawback of any collection of 'fragments' that aims to be comprehensive (rather than selective), especially one not accompanied by a commentary, is that a reader is often at a loss as to just what value any particular text has. Most scholars of ancient philosophy will have some familiarity with, and estimate of, sources like Athenaeus and Diogenes Laertius; but what should one think when encountering a Theophrastean text the source of which is Libanius or St. Jerome (not to mention al-Fārābī or Bartholomew of Bruges)? The second chapter of the book under review is a superb mini-encyclopedia (in effect) of the sources for Theophrastus on ethics. It begins with a table of contents for the chapter, in which the material is divided as follows: 1. Authors Including Pseudonymi and Anonymi Arranged Chronologically (by far the lengthiest section); 2. Greek, Latin and Italian Anthologies, Gnomologies and Other Collections; 3. Lexicographers; 4. Scholia; 5. Catalogue of Books; 6. Arabic Sources.⁵ To give one indication of the importance of this chapter, Text 486 (from Jerome, Against Jovinian 1.47-8) is supposed to contain a very long quote from "a little golden book On Marriage by Theophrastus." It is an unexpectedly harsh attack on the institution of marriage (for wise men, at any rate) and on women, one which St. Jerome uses as pagan ammunition in defense of his own (early Christian) views on the subject. It would be unwise either to accept or reject this material without argument.⁶ So what to make of it? In the relevant entry (pp. 78-82), Fortenbaugh argues that Jerome did not have first-hand knowledge of a Theophrastean work called On Marriage and that the text is contaminated—but perhaps not "so contaminated that it offers no clue as to what Theophrastus may have written in some lost work" (p. 81).

The account of Jerome as a source should of course be read in conjunction with Fortenbaugh's commentary on Text 486 and related texts, in ch. IV (pp. 408-18). (Moving back and forth between chs. II and IV, and between this book and the 1992 volume, should be standard practice when using this commentary.) Here are the contents of ch. IV (the bulk of the work), which mirrors the contents of the 1992 collection: 1. Writings on Ethics;⁷ 2. Emotions; 3. Virtue and Vice; 4. Education, Exhortation and Censure; 5. Happiness; 6. The Wise Man and Marriage; 7. Fortune and Goods and Evils Outside the Soul; 8. Fate, Nature and the Death of Callisthenes; 9. Wealth; 10. Kindness, Honor and Vengeance; 11. Justice; 12. Natural Relationship; 13. Friendship; 14. Flattery; 15. Pleasure; 16. Eros; 17. Wine. Each section reads very much like an essay on its subject, reflecting the breadth and depth of the author's understanding of this material and the secondary literature on it.⁸ The sections each begin with a broad summary of the subject and Theophrastus' views on it, followed by individual accounts of each of the relevant texts (or in some cases, a set of texts). Each subsection usefully begins with a list of secondary literature on the text under consideration. Although Fortenbaugh discusses philological and even codicological issues where necessary, the primary focus is on Theophrastus' ideas—and the extent to which they can be drawn from the sources (that seem to) contain them.⁹

I suspect that—reviewers aside—few readers will open the book and read it from cover to cover. How one approaches the book will instead depend on one's scholarly interests. For instance, in the case of scholars of Theophrastus, this volume should of course be a constant companion while working on the ethical texts. For scholars of Aristotle's ethics who are interested (and they should be) in the ethical thought of his immediate successor, I recommend first reading the brief but excellent summary at the end of the volume (pp. 739-49), before turning to sections 2. (Emotions), 3. (Virtue and Vice), and 5. (Happiness), with the relevant material from the 1992 text and translation volume. Then they should go wherever their particular interests lead (e.g., to section 13. Friendship).

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Notes:

1.   Theophrastus of Eresus, Commentary Volume 5: Sources on Biology (Human Physiology, Living Creatures, Botany: Texts 328-435) (Leiden: Brill, 1994).
2.   The idea of having one volume devoted to ethics and religion has been abandoned, hence the '6.1' in the title. As Fortenbaugh explains (p. 1), there will be a separate commentary (vol. 6.2) by Stefan Schorn on the texts on religion (nos. 580-88).
3.   W. W. Fortenbaugh, Quellen zur Ethik Theophrasts (Amsterdam: Grüner, 1984).
4.   The difference in length between these two volumes cannot be explained by the amount of material they comment on, as they both cover around 150 pages in the second volume of the Text-Translation collection: Sharples, pp. 106-253 (Texts 328-435); Fortenbaugh, pp. 254-399 (Texts 436-579).
5.   As the cover of the book includes the comment "with contribution on the Arabic material by Dimitri Gutas," I assume that (the bulk of) this last section is the work of Gutas. As for al-Fārābī, he "is a source for our purposes in this volume only inadvertently, due to a scribal error" (p. 118).
6.   Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 62-4, is an example of the former.
7.   Chapter III deals with the titles of Theophrastus' works on ethics. The first section of ch. IV ('Writings on Ethics') focuses on one text (no. #437, from Athenaeus), and concerns "historical matter and style or mode of expression" (p. 235). I think this section might have worked better at the end of Chapter III.
8.   The commentary also reflects Fortenbaugh's conviction that the subjects under consideration are (in most cases, at least) of perennial importance (not mere historical curiosities), and that Peripatetic philosophy has something valuable to contribute to the discussion of these issues. (I hope I have not mischaracterized the author here.) Further, although Fortenbaugh's style, especially at the opening of each section, might come across to some as unusual for a scholarly commentary, I found it charming (and evidence of a Peripatetic concern for endoxa). For example, the section on Emotions begins: "Most people, almost all, would agree that the emotions are central to our lives" (245). And here is the opening to the section on The Wise Man and Marriage: "Marriage has taken something of a beating in the last half-century" (408). One last example, from Fortune and Goods and Evils outside the Soul: "Most of us think that personal happiness depends partly, even in large part, on an individual's character" (418).
9.   I should add that in ch. IV, Fortenbaugh discusses two "new" ethical texts: Bartholomew of Bruges, Questions Concerning Aristotle's book on Household Management (19.ix.7-12 Heylbut) (Text 486.5, see pp. 415-18); and, a scholium on Euripides' Hippolytus 265 (Text 738.5, see pp. 316-19). They are "new" in the sense that they were not included in the original 1992 text and translation volume. The ".5" indicates that Fortenbaugh believes Text 486.5 should be placed between Texts 486 and 487, and Text 738.5 between Texts 738 and 739.

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