Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xxxvi, 452; 63 p. of plates. ISBN 9780521891271. $29.99 (pb).

Reviewed by Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, University College Dublin (Christina.haywood@ucd.ie)

Version at BMCR home site

[Table of Contents is listed below.]

This volume (henceforth the Companion) is a comprehensive survey of the archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age intended as an introduction for university students and other interested scholars. The survey covers the period from ca. 3000 BC (the Early Bronze Age) to ca. 1100 BC, the conventional date for the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean. The primary geographical areas covered are Crete, the Greek mainland and the Aegean islands. The 15 chapters, three of which are split into two sub-chapters, are authored by 18 leading scholars in the period. The authors and chapter titles appear under 'Contents' at the end of the review.

The chapters are presented chronologically: three chapters (2-4, 85 pages) cover the Early Bronze Age, roughly 3000-2000 BC; five chapters (5-9, 124 pages) cover the palatial periods of Minoan Crete, roughly 2000-1400 BC; and six chapters ( 10-15, 185 pages) cover the period of the Mycenaean civilization of mainland Greece, but also incorporate earlier developments in the Middle Bronze Age, spanning the period roughly 2000-1100 BC. The material is discussed under a variety of chapter titles, some with the focus on one period in a single geographical area, for example Ch. 2: 'The Early Bronze Age in Greece' and Ch. 3: 'The Early Bronze Age in the Cyclades', some with a thematic focus on major societal or political developments of a given period, for example Ch. 5A: 'Formation of the Palaces' (on Crete), and some have a clearly thematic title, for example Ch 9: 'Minoan Trade', Ch. 11: 'Mycenaean Art and Architecture' .There is the occasional unevenness in the way the material is distributed across the chapters. The Middle Bronze Age, for example, does not appear as a stand-alone period, but has been subsumed under the discussion of the 'Formation of the Palaces' for Crete (Ch. 5A) and, with regard to the mainland, under 'Early Mycenaean Greece' (Ch. 10). Neither is there an exact mirroring of the titles of the thematic chapters on Minoan Crete with the thematic chapters on Mycenaean Greece. For instance, what is 'Material Culture of Neopalatial Greece' for Crete, is 'Mycenaean Art and Architecture' for Greece. This organization outlined above, justified though it may be given the increasing fuzziness of the old labels and the blurring of the traditional boundaries, should not normally be deserving of criticism, but the lack of consistency may make it difficult for a beginner to navigate through this book..

Praise goes to the editor, Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, for an excellent introductory chapter (Ch.1: 'Background, Sources and Methods'), which gives a clear and succinct explanation of the chronological intricacies of the period, and includes useful, clear chronological tables and maps. The excellent Table of Contents lists not only the main chapters, but also the numerous subsections. There is ample use of cross-referencing within and across chapters. .

The authors have pitched their chapters at a suitable level of thoroughness and at approximately the same level of difficulty, so as to make this a comprehensive, cohesive and well-balanced textbook. There is an overall clarity in the discussion, a consistent, suitably in-depth treatment of many categories of material, and an absence of unnecessary jargon. At the same time there is an avoidance of oversimplification: major questions in Aegean prehistory are highlighted (for example, the differences between the way that the chronological period following the Neopalatial period on Crete has been labeled and viewed), and the material is presented in an appropriately nuanced way. The contributors have their individual approach to their topics, and although some of the chapters deal with the material in a more comprehensive and/or innovative way, there is remarkable compatibility between the contributions. Theoretical approaches are on the whole kept at bay, or are suitably incorporated in the narrative, for example Chapter 3, 'The Early Bronze Age in the Cyclades'. In Chapter 5B,'Protopalatial Crete': 'The Material Culture', however, the focus on skeuomorphism, micro-, meso-, and macro-scale ways of interpreting the material culture, using paradigms from Crete , obscures the evidence and deprives the reader of valuable facts.

In terms of the auxiliary and supporting material, there is a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography at two levels: a more topic-specific bibliography appears under 'Suggestions for Further Reading' and 'Notes' at the end of the chapters, and a 'Select Bibliography' is placed at the end. The index is good, and comprehensive insofar as place- names and sites are concerned, but less consistently inclusive in the case of subjects (for example, I could find 'ostrich-eggs' and 'fibulae', but not 'tumuli' or 'ox-hide ingots'). There is a short, but useful Glossary. The illustrations, consisting of drawings, plans and black-and-white photos are on the whole good, although quite a few lack scales, or any other means of assessing the size. It is a shame that, cover apart, and presumably due to budgetary constraints, none of the photos are in color in a book about what is arguably an extraordinarily colorful age.

This volume will replace many of its predecessors aiming at the same audience. Of the comparable monographs of the last decade, O. Dickinson's The Aegean Bronze Age (CUP, 1994) is a rather factual survey of the material; despite the excellent scholarship behind it, it fails to inspire the reader of today. As an aid to the student, the Companion compares favorably with J. B. Rutter's excellent online The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean in 28 lessons. Published more recently than the Companion, the large multi-authored volume The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (OUP, 2010) is a rather different book; the contents overlap (so do three of the authors), but the latter presents itself mainly as a reference book not as an alternative to the Companion.

The Companion is an ambitious project, mainly because of the complexity of the material it contains and the thoroughness with which it is treated. This becomes more evident when the volume is compared with other 'thinner' volumes of the series (in terms of the number of chapters, pages and authors, but also content), for example with The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece (ed. H.A. Shapiro, 2007). We have to be thankful to the high standards of collaboration between the authors, and to some highly intelligent editorial work, for the success of this book, which will certainly remain prescribed reading for students of Aegean archaeology. It offers the added bonus of presenting the Aegean Bronze Age as an exciting period for study, in a way that has not been achieved since the seminal, but naturally grossly out-of-date survey: Greece in the Bronze Age (1964, 1972) by Emily D. T. Vermeule, one of the two scholars to whom this volume is dedicated (the other is Mabel L. Lang). A last comment: the reader of the Companion, will find minimal evidence of Homeric analogies in this volume. Not a criticism, of course, but a liberating experience.

Table of Contents

1. Background, sources, and methods. Cynthia Shelmerdine
2. The early bronze age in Greece. Daniel Pullen
3. The Early Bronze Age in the Cyclades. Cyprian Broodbank
4. Early Prepalatial Crete. David Wilson
5. Protopalatial Crete:
a. Formation of the Palaces. Sturt W. Manning
b. The Material Culture. Carl Knappett
6. The Material Culture of Neopalatial Crete. John Younger and Paul Rehak
7. Minoan Culture: Religion, Burial Customs, Administration. John Younger and Paul Rehak
8. Minoan Crete and the Aegean Islands. Jack L. Davis
9. Minoan Trade. Philip P. Betancourt
10. Early Mycenaean Greece. James Clinton Wright
11. Mycenaean Art and Architecture. Janice L. Crowley
12. Mycenaean States:
a. Economy and Administration. Cynthia W. Shelmerdine and John Bennet
b. LM II-IIIB. Laura Preston
13. Burial Customs:
a. Death and the Mycenaeans. William Cavanagh
b. Mycenaean Religion. Thomas G. Palaima
14. Mycenaean Greece, the Aegean and Beyond. Christopher Mee
15. Decline, Destruction, Aftermath. Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy
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Dana LaCourse Munteanu, Emotion, Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011. Pp. viii, 269. ISBN 9780715638958. $80.00.

Reviewed by Donald Lateiner, Ohio Wesleyan University (dglatein@owu.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

Collecting an introduction and eleven authors' ten essays, each with its own bibliography, this volume evolved from a 2008 conference in Liverpool. Nine essays discuss literary expressions of emotion while the other (Prioux) compares surviving visual representations with ecphraseis of emotion in ancient art-descriptive texts. The editor reasonably claims that genres influence the selection of emotions (e.g., more grief in tragedy and elegy) and that "genres can impose idiosyncratic modes of presentation on descriptions of emotions" (2). These generic conventions limit the kinds of emotions and gender the modes of expression. For example, Konstan and Dutsch point out that women in Greek New Comedy are not in a position to show anger, while dowered wives of Roman comedy often do— regardless of what happened on the via Cornelia, Labicana, or Asinaria. Some authors approach the irresolvable issue of whether surviving literary and visual examples faithfully re-present contemporary life. Internal audiences who laugh, take offense, or show surprise provide us with reasonable horizons of contemporary expectation.

How Greeks and Romans constructed their emotional expressions differently from each other and from other Mediterranean cultures remains a difficult question beneath the surface. They too had multiple styles and sub- cultures, such as elite/commoner, civilized/barbarian, young/old, urban/rural, Roman/Egyptian. To take a minimal example of problems of ancient interrelatedness from an important but absent genre, prose fiction, which emotion do Apuleius' Venus and Heliodoros' heroine Charikleia convey when they scratch their cheeks near the ear, a gendered and/or ethnic gesture (Metam. 6.9.1, Aith. 2.8.1)? Less puzzlingly, Juvenal notes (Sat. 1.166-8) that angry auditors might redden in the face, sweat, and weep (uncontrollable displays of affect, or "leakage").

Emotion—an indispensable but murky concept—often reveals itself (intentionally or not) by affect, for example, facial expressions, gestures, and bodily postures (or, indeed, a lack of the same, e.g., the ultra-stoical Stoic, Cato Minor in Lucan). Emotions, however, are easier to recognize than to define, although a basic entry might run thus: an affective state of consciousness, often accompanied by physiological changes, such as joy, sorrow, fear, and hate. Authors writing on emotions generate both longer and skimpier lists. Even a short list always includes Sadness and Joy, Disgust and Trust, Anger and Fear, Anticipation and Surprise. Aristotle offers a non-congruent list of eleven pathe (passions? emotions?); see Nic. Eth. 1105b 20-3, cf. de anima 403a, or the ambitious study of David Konstan 2006: The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks. Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature. Seriatim, here we find the following essays:

Douglas Cairns ("Veiling Grief on the Tragic Stage") lucidly discusses the veil's manipulation of tragic grief, starting (naturally) from Aristophanes' critique of Aiskhylos placed in the mouth of Euripides. He elegantly describes veiling as "concealment on display" (16) and points out its utility for permitting descriptions of unseemly tears that could not anyway be seen on a stage populated by masks. The veil worn by tragic females (and, more rarely, and markedly, by males) provides a synecdoche for weeping, silence, wailing, and ritual mourning, in general. Further, a veil physically separates the individual from his/her group, hostile or compassionate. The "visual cut-off ...creates a personal space" and visibly enacts "psychological interiority" by an ostentatious display of mourning (19-20). Whether recounted about tear-hiding Odysseus marooned on Phaiakia or weepy Phaidon in Sokrates' execution chamber (or affect-controlled Sokrates himself there), veiling displays "social dramaturgy" that makes emotion visible. Like breast-beating or turning away (proxemic orientation), mourners' face-veiling is an ephemeral distinction, leaving no sign after performance, unlike the more enduring self-mutilations of hair-cutting, hair-tearing, or cheek scratching. These latter, self-mutilating mourning displays of the living take time to heal and more clearly anticipate the corpse's permanent damage. The final "veiling" of the entire body in a funeral shroud disappears the deceased into the further "garment of earth" or into a mist or cloud at the hands of Death (Il. 5.696, 6.464, Eur. Hipp. 250-1, Pind. Nem. 11.13-16, cf. Cairns' n. 43 noting verbs such as krupto, kalupto).

Jessica Wissman ("Cowardice and Gender in the Iliad and Greek Tragedy") compares "the rhetoric of cowardice" in epic and tragic verse. Wissman's note 10 usefully provides hero Idomeneus' detailed description for Meriones of cowards' self-betraying self-presentation (Il. 13.279-83).The heroic code implies, per contra, the "unheroic code," for which, in different ways, Paris and Thersites are paradigms. Society's weapon against an individual's revelation or display of cowardice is shame. Anxiety about feeling shame, an emotion magnified by humiliation, insult, and abusive exhortations, as well as by self-condemnation (guilt), knows no gender boundaries. While Agamemnon tries to spread it around, accusing his men of womanishness in the Epipolesis, several other Homeric characters also equate cowardice with feminine weakness (physical and moral, even mental). Noteworthy courage, however, characterizes epic and tragic women, for example, besieged Penelope, friendless Medea, or Sophocles' Electra filling "the heroic vacuum" in Aigisthos' Argos before Orestes' return. Indeed Euripides' Electra, here a sour farmer's wife, spurs on her brother, a hesitant, unheroic dawdler (43, citing Eur. El. 982- 4). She effectively "play[s] this card" suggesting to her brother that he could be perceived as a "wuss" or weakling. Threats of mocked reputation and disgrace imputed to cowardice, however, do not display "emotion" but orchestrate a guilt-trip designed to motivate someone to action (cf. p. 44, e.g., Aithra strong-arming her son Theseus, Eur. Suppl. 314-25).

Dorota Dutsch and David Konstan ("Women's Emotions in New Comedy") helpfully consider New Comedy—the genre closest to everyday behavior and idioms (57). They believe that pity and shame gain little attention, although the latter seems to ooze from Moschion in Samia. They look at anger and indignation to see how they grid onto the Attic spectrum of power and rank. "The right to be angry was among the defining characteristics of adult male citizens in classical Athens" provides an arresting thesis. Women can still be angry at the disempowered, such as slaves, but the women of Attic New Comedy must often content themselves with expressing modulated irritation and upset. When they bring a large dowry, though, Aristotle (EN 1161a1-3) acknowledges that such rich women have unusual elbowroom and sometimes sharp elbows. The authors point out how angry Menander's men are, especially old men in Samia, suffering as they often do under Perikeiromene's tutelary goddess, Agnoia—or Lady Ignorance. The authors also analyze Latin comedy and find stronger women there, such as Dorippa, the tight-fisted wife (uxor dotata) who angrily blurts out "I wish I had been born a man" (792-3). Courtesans (meretrices) are somewhat empowered by their outsider status and sexual magnetism, e.g. self-employed Thais in Terence's Eunuch. Roman women certainly had to endure a fierce legal double-standard of sexual morality, but the brutal Plautus (71) enjoys "the spectacle of the irate matron who humiliates her husband." This dramatic freedom displaying women's assumed liberties had "no support in the Roman law on adultery" (77; cf. Asinaria finale). Dana Munteanu, the editor, contributes "Comic Emotions": Old Comedy's shamelessness and New Comedy's moderated emotions. She also considers in an excursus the "shamelessness" of tragic women and the rare emotion named in comic texts: envy (phthonos). She examines Greek New Comedy and Roman through the distorting lenses of Roman critics, Cicero, Quintilian, and Gellius, none of whom seems inclined to laugh. Quintilian seeks moral guidance in the theater and endorses the evolving transformation of comic characters' staged emotions "from wild to mild" presentations (104). No wonder Plautus is not this stiff Roman critic's favorite comedian. This analysis seems more concerned with later ethical criticism of emotions publicly displayed than of the emotions that the comic dramatists portray (e.g., anger, fear, lust).

Laurel Fulkerson dissects "Helen as Vixen, Helen as Victim," discussing multiforms of sexy Helen in Homer, Euripides, Gorgias, and Ovid. Helen's self-awareness and position are opaque in most texts, although Ovid's character in the Heroides provides an exception. The bibliographic swamp in which Helen remains mired arises from a self- generated difficulty, because the Homeric Ur-Helen blames herself before anyone else can do so (119). "Siding with the resistance" provides another strategy that "leave[s] obscure her agency." "Her [Iliadic] performance of remorse" mutates into Euripidean claims of innocence [Helen] or self-interest [Troades], and, in Ovid [Her. 17], a deniable request from the coy seductress that groveling, lovesick Paris abduct her from Sparta.

Evelyne Prioux engagingly crosses the bright line separating verbal and visual expressions of emotion in "Emotions in Ecphrasis and Art Criticism." She raises good methodological questions concerning literary testimonia for ancient works of art (Elder Pliny and Philostratus, Greek Anthology) that puzzle us, when we possess the works themselves. Similarly, the critic Winckelmann admired the restraint of feeling in the Laocoon group, not its emotionalism, its baroque expressivity (136). Prioux discusses thin archaic smiles, the classical gods and humans portrayed with emotional self-restraint (by contrast to the non-human, pained centaurs at Olympia), and the Hellenistic "emotional outburst" of representation (13 illustrations). She affirms that Classical art shows pathos through formulaic postures rather than by facial expressions. A hand resting on one's head can be read as overwhelming pain, however calm the facial expression (of, e.g., the "Sciarra" Amazon, Copenhagen). The codified bodily schemata she mentions also are found in drama, to judge by texts and vases illustrating dramatic productions. "There is no strict correspondence between a gesture or posture and a given meaning" (142), and the images cannot be interpreted "in the light of 'realism.'" Otherwise put, we should not grid later conventions for representing emotion onto the ancients. Prioux then examines how ancient writers describe attempts to present ethe and pathe in images. Xenophon (Mem. 3.10) represents Socrates with the sculptor Parrhasios conversing about the showing of emotions. (The valuable Appendices on 163-5, including references to agalmatophilia, B.3b, "seduction by statues," will confuse readers until Appendix B is corrected to "Emotions and characters in Sculpture [not Painting, as earlier for A].) Polygnotos was praised (e.g., Pliny NH 35.58) for his pioneering enhancements such as showing characters "with varied [facial] expressions." This thorough paper offers important insights into ancient representations of emotion and the reactions of consumers and critics.

Anna McCullough explores conjugal Love and Grief (of widowers) in "One Wife, One Love," "key values" (182) in Statius' Silvae. Roman manliness and legalized randiness finds unexpected "renegotiation" in the stifling "diminished political agency" prevalent in imperial, esp. Domitian's, Rome. The Republican univira ideal of chaste civic womanhood finds itself transformed into expectations of chaste Flavian elite males, at least in Statius' elegies, even after the death of wives in their second marriages. Beyond the oft expressed concordia, when death did them part, husbands are celebrated for losing their "self-restraint and grieve without limit." The womanish associations of "hysterical grieving" crippled republican Cato and Cicero's expression of misery, but ideals of masculinity were now "renegotiated." The men's floodgates for tears were demolished, and emotional display replaced political expression in newly circumscribed Domitianic political spaces. Men now may weep their fill, glut themselves on tears, because Emperor and Censor Domitian has restored familial Pietas to the earth (5.2.91). Thus, Abascantus is encouraged to lament openly for his deceased legitimate wife—a proper tribute.

Peter Anderson's contribution ("Absit Malignus Interpres") concerns Martial's "apologetic" Preface regarding which negative emotions he may arouse in his audiences. Humor provides an effective weapon in rousing victims to emotional reactions. Martial's disingenuous claim of harmlessness should obviate anger and pre-empt desire for vengeance. He further argues that men of sound views won't much care what other Romans think (200). Anderson supports Martial's position with texts of Cicero and Seneca, the former producing an oratorical theory of inappropriate kinds of jokes (de off. 1.99-104), the latter, a Stoic, asserting that the wise man cannot be harmed by such, so Cicero's rhetorical concern is rendered moot. Otherwise offensive verse should not be censured, if the epigrammatist is a cultured Roman, and potentially angry readers have been warned to busy themselves elsewhere (1 pref. 6-8).

Margaret Graver discusses a brief passage in Lucan De Bello Civili 2.326-91, in which durus Cato remarries Marcia, mother of his three children by their previous marriage. Viewed either as Stoic icon and voice of the young poet, or ironized stiff and unemotional prig rising above false sentiments like marital affection, impassive Cato expresses no affection for his old/new bride Marcia, who has just recently (only in Lucan) lost her second husband Hortensius. His only emotions arise from grief for the state, as if it were his child. Graver tells us that his flat affect, inside (no gaudia) and outside (no blush, sigh, tear), conflicts with true Stoic tenets (230). He is not an exemplar but a freak, and Marcia is no different. Is Lucan making mischief, calling Rome Cato's real wife (2.388: urbi maritus, cf. here p. 235), or is he destabilizing the admired Stoic virtues, or is he just incoherent—are these choices, indeed, mutually exclusive? We might note that Lucan's heap of negatives and the desirable things absent from the typical happy wedding (including ribaldry) descend from Ovid's inauspicious wedding of Eurydice and the many present absences in Somnus' cave, and ascends later to the drunken hag's description of Psyche's funeral wedding pomp in Apuleius' longest inset tale.

Zara Torlone's "Engendering Reception" warily considers Joseph Brodsky's "Dido and Aeneas" as a rejection of epic glorification. Rather, the twenty-nine verse poem, written in 1969 and presented here in transliteration and translation, requires a "palimpsestic reading" of Roman myth woven into Brodsky's experiences in Soviet Russia. But is this queen Vergil's Dido or Ovid's? Both Augustan Didos show a "love bordering on pathological obsession," but Ovid's world-view precludes a patriotic Aeneas, dutifully directed by forces beyond his control. Brodsky counterpoints Ovid's presentation of the heroine's point of view by describing the male's desertion through the abandoner's weird thoughts: "her love was just a fish." In Brodsky's poem, the queen is as mute as one, while "the great man" pursues his higher cause, his destiny made manifest. She becomes dead as a Dido.

The circumstances of editions of conference papers impede full coverage of their announced topic, while monographs can exhibit a suitably narrow focus. Consider David Konstan's book on Pity Transformed (2001); William Harris' Restraining Rage (2001), a diachronic study of one emotion and its ideology; and Peter Toohey's Melancholy, Love, and Time (2004) surveying the slippery complex of depression, malaise, boredom, and ennui (noted, introduction: 9 n.1). Despite valuable individual contributions, ancient emotions and genres are here inadequately defined and discussed. This reader found few pages addressing prose authors: only Gorgias and a pinch of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca Minor. One cannot expect consideration of all emotions and all genres, but this absence—in a book on genre—of many relevant genres of prose (history, ethnography, oratory, philosophy, and especially fiction) disappoints students of ancient feelings.

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Lara Nicolini, Ad (L)usum lectoris: etimologia e giochi di parole in Apuleio. Testi e manuali per l'insegnamento universitario del latino, 117. Bologna: Pàtron editore, 2011. Pp. 220. ISBN 9788855531085. €18.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Vincent Hunink, Radboud University Nijmegen (v.hunink@let.ru.nl)

Version at BMCR home site

Readers of Apuleius have often noted the marked inclination of the author for stylistic peculiarities. Among these, linguistic plays, particularly puns involving Latin words and names, stand out as a typical feature of his prose writings. Not only do his rhetorical texts such as the Apology and Florida show many examples of such verbal play, but much can also be found in his famous novel Metamorphoses.

Many academic authors on Apuleius indeed draw their readers' attention to puns and verbal play. For instance, the well known Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius allot a relatively large amount of space to such detailed stylistic observations. This goes particularly for volumes published most recently, such as the final volume, on Cupid and Psyche (4,28-35; 5,1 - 6,24) which appeared in 2004.

Lara Nicolini has now published a monograph on etymologizing puns in Apuleius, which provides a useful overview of the field and contains valuable discussions of many individual places in Apuleius. Although few people will read Nicolini's book from beginning to end, it will be a useful tool for researchers of Apuleius' ever intriguing prose.

In her first chapter (pp. 13-37), Nicolini deals with the theme of ancient etymology as a whole. The author also draws attention to Apuleius' special interest in language. Her subtitle 'un' attenzione "non naturale" alla lingua' (p.31) suggests that Apuleius, although being a non native speaker of Latin, is fascinated by the possibilities of his acquired language.

The largest part of the book (pp.39-174) then turns to individual passages of Apuleius, analyzed along various lines. The following categories are used to group the collected material into separate sections: (1) etymological figures, polyptoton, and paronomasia; (2) ambiguity (double entendre); (3) 'hypersemantization' (that is, lexical choices where the sense seems to be made uncommonly 'dense'); (4) 'taking things by the letter' (that is, ambiguities due to literal understanding of common phrases and proverbial turns); (5) revived metaphors; (6) hapax legomena and semantic innovations. Finally, the subject of hapaxes is then given some added paragraphs, on a special case in Met. 6,19, on hapaxes based on Greek words, on what may be called 'semantic hapaxes' (existing words used once in a thoroughly reworked sense). Finally, some cases are discussed where the innovation seems to have a syntactic component.

An appendix on the verb divorto (pp.175-180), bibliography (with a certain preference for publications in Italian) and four indexes (pp.193-220) conclude the volume. Its format is convenient and its modest price will not deter libraries or private scholars.

It is impossible to discuss everything in this book, as literally hundreds of places in Apuleius' works are analyzed in some detail. A majority of the chapters in the Met. have an entry in the index locorum and many of them are dealt with under two or more of the six headings mentioned above.

To give an impression of the work done by Nicolini and, to some extent, allow for debate, I will discuss the passages referring to the first chapters of book 11 of the Met., chosen because a new, literary commentary on Met. 11 is very much a desideratum.¹

The first place in Met. 11 to be mentioned is 11,1,2 nec tantum pecuina et ferina uerum inanima (diuino eius ... nutu uegetari). Nicolini (p.36 note 70) regards this inanima as a 'criptato ... ragionamento etimologico': pecuina and ferina vary on the common word animalia, which is left unmentioned here but emerges, in a way, in inanima now taken in its primary sense of 'lifeless'. This seems a fine and helpful remark.

A phrase from the same sentence in 11,1,2 diuino eius luminis numinisque nutu is given as an example of category (1). The sound play between luminis and numinis, combined with the etymological connection between numinis and nutu strikes the eye of every intelligent reader, one would say, unlike the previous observation, which is more recherché.

The 'normal' use of emergo with separative ablative in 11,1,1 emergentem fluctibus is adduced in the same paragraph (p.55) as evidence against F's reading emersi me (transitive, with accusative) in 1,2,2. There is no pun in 11,1,1 involved here.²

The next entry in the index locorum refers to 11,1 at p.165. This appears to be a typo, for p.165 does not mention 11,1 but contains a brief mention of 11,11 (not listed in the index). Errors do occur, of course, but in a book such as this, they can easily cause problems.

The next relevant items discussed for their own sake (rather than as parallel texts)³ are 11,2,2 triformi facie (of Proserpina) and 11,25,1 humani generi sospitatrix. Unfortunately, both cases involve typos again: the first is listed in the index as discussed on p.141, which must be p.142. The second is actually quoted and indexed as '11,2' rather than as 11,25.⁴ (The former is relatively easy to solve for the average reader, but the second one creates a problem for anyone who has a digital text at his or her disposal.) As to the interpretation, Nicolini takes both as Apuleian coinages on the basis of Greek examples (TRIMORPHOS and ANDROSOOTEIRA), the former following the example of i.a. Horace, Carmina 1,27,23. Nicolini takes some time to make the point that Apuleius is actually doing something new here, and the whole point seems oversubtle. Sospitatrix is actually used first by Apuleius, but more than once and so technically not a hapax.

More correctly, 11,3,3 elocutilis (in the rather redundant phrase elocutilis eloquentiae) is said to be an absolute hapax (p. 131). The adjective is said to have been coined after the model of the archaism dapsilis, only two words earlier in the sentence (in the likewise redundant nexus dapsilis copia. The richly laden double combination, as Nicolini rightly argues, surely conveys something of the sublimely divine eloquence with which Lucius aspires to be gifted by Isis. All of this seems fine, although here too, even a beginning reader of the Latin might have picked up the hint: the words as they stand actually form one phrase: dapsilem copiam elocutilis facundiae.

Two expressions in close proximity are given as examples of lexical innovation and enallage: Arabiae felicia germina in 11,4,3 and fluctuantes Cyprii in 11,5,2 (both on p. 169). In the former case, there may be a small pun on Arabia Felix, the ancient name for Yemen, which seems a good observation. In the latter example the adjective transposes a quality of the island to its inhabitants (p. 169). Here again, the point appears rather obvious.

Next I skip a number of references and a few points relevant to the end of book 11. On p.114-5 there is an excellent note about the expression inter sacrum ego et saxum positus cruciabar in 11,28,2. The words normally refer to the dire position of a victim 'between the altar and the sacrificial knife', that is 'in a tight corner' (OLD s.v. sacrum 1c). The funny thing here, as Nicolini rightly observes, is that Lucius is not in a really painful position at all; he merely has to wait between two successive initiations in the rites of Isis and Osiris. Additionally, the phrase is taken literally by Apuleius, since Lucius actually is between a sacrum in the normal, plain sense of 'cult' and something else.

One wonders whether saxum would not equally hide some sort of pun here. Could Apuleius perhaps allude to the asine dentes saxei that Lucius has lost only shortly before, 11,13,5; cf. also 10,22,1; or the hostile saxa which are thrown at him (still as an ass) and his companions in 8,17,4?

The final chapter of book 11 of the Met. (11,30) is given five entries. One of them does not involve a pun itself (p.158 note 496) and three of them concern the nexus inanimae castimoniae 11,30,1, an exquisite turn for '(religious, penitential) abstaining from meat' with another instance of special use of inanimus (cf. the first example in 11,1, discussed above). At p.36, note 70, the phrase is quoted as a parallel, and at p.74 it is said to be opposed to pecuina et ferina. Here again something seems to have gone wrong. Nicolini appears to confuse 11,1 and 11,30 (where the words pecuina et ferina do not occur). Correct, again, is the reference on p.165. Finally, at p.127 Nicolini defends a conjecture ibidem serebat by Oudendorp for F's text deseruiebat in 11,30,4, commonly corrected to exciebat or exciuerat. As Nicolini suggests, this could count as yet another example of her subcategory (5) of 'revived metaphors'.

Here I am less inclined to follow Nicolini. Accepting old or new emendations because they fit a specific category of puns seems hazardous to me. In many other instances it struck me that the author puts perfectly acceptable manuscript readings into question to produce new illustrations of the kind of puns she focuses on. I would advocate defending manuscript readings and making sense of them as they are, rather than changing the text.⁵

This short survey of places at both the beginning and the end of book 11 shows some typical features of Nicolini's monograph. It can sometimes be seen as making much of what seems fairly obvious or natural, or of trying to adapt the Latin text to make it fit a certain type of pun. Furthermore, I was disturbed to find more than just the odd typo in the index, particularly in a book such as this, which is bound to be consulted for special places rather than systematically read. On the other hand, many attractive ideas, both great and small, certainly merit the attention of scholars and will be able to inspire further interpretation.

One can only hope that this book with its firm grasp of Apuleian language and style, based on good philological research, will be used by scholars studying texts by the great man from Madauros. It may prove particularly useful to future commentators as a source of interpretative ideas and points of discussion.

[For a response to this review by Nicolini, please see BMCR 2012.01.03.]

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Notes:

1.   I refrain from discussing passages from the Apology and the Florida, on which I have written commentaries (Gieben: Amsterdam 1997 and 2001; not included in Nicolini's bibliography).
2.   With the recent commentator on Met. 1, Wytse Keulen, (2007,99-100), I would be inclined rather to defend F in 1,2,1 and read emersi [me] or emersi in. The problem is not relevant for the interpretation of 11,1,1, which as such seems unproblematic.
3.   Thus I leave aside cases like 11,2,1 exordium in its normal sense 'beginning', adduced (p.124) to explain a more complex pun in 5,16,5 exordio sermonis huius, and similar places of minor interest.
4.   In the present review, references to the Met. are given, as is fairly common, with three numbers (book, paragraph, and subparagraph), e.g. 11,25,1 rather than 11,25. Unfortunately, Nicolini consistently quotes places with just two numbers. This makes consulting her book unduly troublesome.
5.   My own 'conservative' stand in textual matters may be an obstacle to properly appraise Nicolini's efforts here. By contrast, textual critics fond of coming up with new emendations to ancient Latin texts are bound to like Nicolini's various proposals to change the accepted text, resulting in new puns.

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Richard Alston, Efrossini Spentzou, Reflections of Romanity: Discourses of Subjectivity in Imperial Rome. Classical Memories/Modern Identities. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011. Pp. xv, 247. ISBN 9780814211496. $59.95.

Reviewed by Eric Dodson-Robinson, West Chester University (EDodson@wcupa.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

[Table of Contents at the End of the Review] I had looked forward to reading this book in the expectation of encountering a new argument about ancient conceptions of the self somewhat more theoretically adventurous than Christopher Gill's works. While the piece as a whole does not achieve the coherence of Gill's or of other major studies pertaining to the ancient self,¹ the book is thought-provoking, and chapters three and six are notable essays. Reflections of Romanity reads texts of diverse genres from the early empire alongside modern works of critical theory (8). These exploratory readings "circle around issues of selfhood and identity" (9). Most of the ancient passages the authors discuss are from Pliny, Lucan, and Statius, although Seneca and Tacitus are there as well, and Silius receives brief but illuminating attention. Alston and Spentzou organize the work into five essays, an epilogue, and an introduction. In the introduction, the authors describe their approach as "often impressionistic, and always personal" (9). They briefly justify a Lacanian critical stance, but the role that Lacan plays throughout the rest of the work varies. While chapter three interweaves the Lacanian theoretical framing with insightful interpretation of multiple ancient texts in a developed argument, some of the chapters (especially five) have only a tenuous linkage with the Lacanian model. The central essays consider textual representations of the self under the following categories: the self in solitude; the self in conflict with emotion; the relationship between self and spouse; history, memory, and the self; and the self in relation to empire. This is a logical structure with an expanding concentric progression. The book would have benefitted, though, from tighter connection of ideas overall, especially within chapters. The introduction foregrounds Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. In a compelling narrative, the authors disavow Foucault's approach to selfhood. With references to Foucault's major works, Alston and Spentzou describe their rationale for rejecting Foucauldian models of subjectivity (10-17). Instead, the authors turn toward Lacanian theory because it offers a less historically contingent model of selfhood. Although Alston and Spentzou claim to consistently "invoke the Lacanian model" (18), the engagement with Lacanian theory, which is superficial in the introduction, is sporadic throughout the rest of the volume. The authors' relation of the Lacanian self to the social order or "symbolic economy" here owes considerably more to Slavoj Žižek than their single footnote (19 n.47) would indicate.

In chapter two, the authors argue that Pliny's and Lucan's writings indicate a more profound separation from the social system than Senecan withdrawal, and that these ancient discourses parallel modern texts of alienation. The chapter begins with a description of the system of amicitia and its discontents (30-37). During the early empire, the system allowed for a social mobility that blurred class boundaries and distinctions between public and private. In addition, deception for the sake of gain affected both political system and social order. Descriptions of Pliny's house and landscaping reflect the assertion of self as independent of and dominant over even the natural order. The authors suggest that Pliny portrays himself as a hero who triumphs over nature, and they then transition quickly to the character of Caesar in Lucan's Pharsalia. Lucan's Caesar is a complete and systematic upheaval in the Roman social order, an absolute. Thus, the authors argue, he is "a manifestation of the sublime" (56). Several block quotations pertaining to the abject and the sublime follow, with almost no analysis and weak connection to Lucan. The chapter concludes with a comparison of Lucan's Caesar to the Nietzschean Übermensch.

Chapter three argues that while Seneca and Pliny perpetuate a dehumanizing hierarchy in their attitudes toward emotion, in Statius, love and grief dissolve boundaries to establish emotional connection between self and others. Taken as a whole, the chapter is well argued and developed, and it connects meaningfully with Lacanian theory both directly and via Kristeva. The most compelling arguments focus on the Thebaid with reference to the Lacanian Real, a psychic register beyond language that can disrupt social order. In Statius, ethical connection with another can be a force for disrupting dehumanizing social structures.

Chapter four, which is not as successful as the preceding chapter in integrating interpretation with theory, focuses on the conjugal relationship as a nexus between private and public. The authors argue that problematic conjugal relationships in Statius, Lucan, and Pliny reflect "an ethical individualism embedded in respect for the other" (112). The first section summarizes Argia's conjugal relation with Polynices in the Thebaid. The next offers a similar treatment of Cato's barren relation to Marcia in contrast with Pompey's effusive love for Cornelia in the Pharsalia. The authors then turn to Pliny's relations with his wife and her family as an example of the socially embedded nature of Roman marriage in the early empire. The preceding treatments combine liberal plot summary with interpretation. The authors then invoke modern theoretical narratives that resonate with the "tension between individuals and social codes" (132). Lacan receives only a passing mention. The authors spend more time discussing Jean-Luc Nancy's argument about singularity as a quality resulting from continuous negotiation with plurality. In the Thebaid and Pharsalia, love motivates ethical judgments and connection with others, whereas Pliny's descriptions of the conjugal relation maintain his dominant role and foreclose Calpurnia's singularity.

The core of the fifth chapter, which unfortunately is sandwiched between a long summary of Pliny's letters and a contrived conclusion, has something interesting to say about early empire attitudes toward the past. Following the summary of select letters by Pliny, the authors argue that Pliny sees a "modified moral continuity" (152) between republic and empire that enables his identification with Cicero. In contrast, Tacitus's perspective on history posits a disjunction with the republican past, while Lucan finds strength to resist in the collective memory of this past. The Thebaid depicts the possibility of an escape from the past: a world in which freedom from the deterministic power of memories empowers the transformation of identity. Yet history prevails over this mirage. The authors then reread the Thebaid's fatalism through Gilles Deleuze in terms of the triumph of Chronos over Aion: Chronos being time as a bounded and constraining social construct, Aion being time as an eternal continuity. The authors might have concluded the chapter with this interesting interpretation, but instead they make a superficial gesture at connecting their arguments to Lacan through Badiou. This is a jarring transition, and dropping Lacan's name in the conclusion, when the authors make no use of Lacanian theories throughout this chapter, merely emphasizes the lack of authentic coherence.

The sixth chapter argues that the state does not create the symbolic economy, but that individuals have a psychological need to associate the nation with the symbolic economy. The authors read Silius's Punica as a narrative in which the typical binaries such as barbarian/Roman and villain/hero break down. Silius describes Hannibal in terms that resonate both with Aeneas and with Turnus. The characterization of Hannibal raises the possibility that barbarian values have been incorporated within Rome, and that true Roman values exist only in the past or outside the empire's power. Tacitus's ethnographical descriptions reveal similar complexities in Roman thinking about (Roman?) barbarians. The extended interpretation of Calgacus's rebellion is nuanced and compelling. The authors conclude that the ancient texts explore a third space that is neither barbarian nor committed to Rome. A brief epilogue concludes that it is emotional connection at the individual level that resists history and empire, and that "the ethical community could only be found in the disengagement from society" (230).

Reflections of Romanity is more a pastiche combining excellent and less successful pieces than a focused argument. In addition to contributing at least two interesting and theoretically informed essays about imperial literature, the book unveils several suggestive ideas and connections that others might choose to pursue in greater depth: in this it succeeds in one of its stated goals. If the project as a whole is not as tightly connected as other works pertaining to the ancient self, it is partly because Alston and Spentzou set themselves such a challenging labor in treating ancient textual evidence from multiple genres in juxtaposition with diverse modern theorists. Despite the book's flaws, there are stimulating ideas here that await further exploration.

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Foreword
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Introduction. Talking to Strangers: Classical Readings and the Modern Self 1
Chapter 2 Home Alone: Terror and Power 27
Chapter 3 Death and Love: Rationality and Passion 65
Chapter 4 Private Partners and Family Dramas 107
Chapter 5 Living with the Past: Tradition, Invention, and History 141
Chapter 6 Imperial Dreams: Being Roman in a World Empire 193
Chapter 7 Epilogue 225
Bibliography 231
Index 241

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Notes:

1.   For example: Gill, Christopher. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Bartsch, Shadi, and David Wray, eds. 2009. Seneca and the Self. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press; Bartsch, Shadi. 2006. The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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BMCR Books Received (December 2011).

Version at BMCR home site

This is a list of books received by BMCR during the previous month; it does include books on offer for review but not books still available for review. You will find the updated list of books available for review at http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/booksavailable.html.

Acerbi, Fabio (ed., trans., comm.). Diofanto, De polygonis numeris. Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione italiana e commento. Mathematic graeca antiqua, 1. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2011. 245 p. € 74.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862274128.

Agut-Labordère, Damien and Michel Chauveau (edd., trans.). Héros, magiciens et sages oubliés de l'Égypte ancienne: une anthologie de la littérature en égyptien démotique. La roue à livres, 60. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. 346 p. €23.00 (pb). ISBN 9782251339610.

Allmand, Christopher. The De re militari of Vegetius: the reception, transmission and legacy of a Roman text in the Middle Ages. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xii, 399 p. $99.00. ISBN 9781107000278.

Aston, Emma. Mixanthrôpoi: animal-human hybrid deities in Greek religion. Kernos. Supplément, 25. Liège: Centre International d'Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 2011. 383 p. € 40.00 (pb). ISBN 9782960071788.

Bernabé, Alberto. Platón y el orfismo: diálogos entre religión y filosofía. Referencias de religión. Madrid: Abada Editores, 2011. 397 p. € 25.00 (pb). ISBN 9788415289104.

Blösel, Wolfgang and Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp (edd.). Von der militia equestris zur militia urbana: Prominenzrollen und Karrierefelder im antiken Rom. Beiträge einer Internationalen Tagung vom 16. bis 18. Mai 2008 an der Universität zu Köln. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2011. 237 p. € 46.00. ISBN 9783515096867.

Carey, Christopher. Trials from classical Athens. Second edition (first published 1997). Routledge sourcebooks for the ancient world. London; New York: Routledge, 2012. xii, 288 p. $39.95 (pb). ISBN 9780415618090.

Cawkwell, George. Cyrene to Chaeronea: selected essays on ancient Greek history. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xi, 485 p. $150.00. ISBN 9780199593286.

Dana, Madalina. Culture et mobilité dans le Pont-Euxin. Scripta antiqua, 37. Bordeaux: Éditions Ausonius, 2011. 608 p. € 25.00 (pb). ISBN 97823561304952.

de Melo, Wolfgang (ed., trans.). Plautus, Volume III: The merchant; The braggart soldier; The ghost; The Persian. Loeb classical library, 163. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2011. x, 569 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996823.

De Stefani, Claudio (ed.). Galeni, De differentiis febrium libri duo arabice conversi. Altera, 1. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2011. 103 p. € 34.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862273787.

English, Mary C. and Georgia L. Irby. A little Latin reader. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xvii, 187 p. $15.95 (pb). ISBN 9780199846221.

Freed, Joann. Bringing Carthage home: the excavations of Nathan Davis, 1856-1859. University of British Columbia studies in the ancient world, 2. Oxford; Oakville, CT: Oxbow Books for the Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, University of British Columbia, 2011. 264 p. $96.00. ISBN 9781842179925.

Freeman, Philip. Oh my gods: a modern retelling of Greek and Roman myths. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. xx, 348 p. $27.00. ISBN 9781451609974.

Gauthier, Philippe. Études d'histoire et d'institutions grecques: choix d'écrits (édité et indexé par Denis Rousset). École pratique des hautes études, sciences historiques et philologiques - III. Hautes études du monde gréco-romain, 47. Genève: Librairie Droz, 2011. viii, 755 p. $120.00. ISBN 9782600013642.

Georgiou, Giorgos, Jennifer M. Webb and David Frankel. Psematismenos-Trelloukkas: an Early Bronze Age cemetery in Cyprus. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 2011. xxiv, 372 p.p. ISBN 9789963364534.

Gildenhard, Ingo (ed., trans., comm.). Cicero, Against Verres, 2.1.53-86: Latin text with introduction, study questions, commentary and English translation. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2011. xiv, 193 p. £ 14.95 (pb). ISBN 9781906924539.

Girgenti, Giuseppe and Giuseppe Muscolino (edd., trans., comm.). Porfirio: La filosogia rivelata dagli oracoli. Con tutti i frammenti di magia, stregoneria, teosofia e teurgia. Il pensiero occiedentale. Milano: Bompiani, 2011. ccxix, 732 p. € 30.00. ISBN 9788845269240.

Goukowsky, Paul (ed., trans.). Appien: Histoire romaine. Tome V. Livre IX, Le Livre Illyrien. Fragments du Livre Macédonien. Collection des universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. 209 p. € 45.00 (pb). ISBN 9782251005683.

Guillaumin, Jean-Baptiste (ed., trans.). Martianus Capella: Les noces de Philologie et de Mercure.Tome IX. Livre IX, L'Harmonie. Collection des universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. cxxviii, 309 p. € 63.00 (pb). ISBN 9782251014616.

Insoll, Timothy (ed.). The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of ritual and religion. Oxford handbooks. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xxvi, 1108 p. $150.00. ISBN 9780199232444.

Johnston, Ian and G. H. R. Horsley (edd., trans.). Galen: Method of medicine. Volume I, Books 1-4. Loeb classical library, 516. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2011. clvii, 461 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996526.

Johnston, Ian and G. H. R. Horsley (edd., trans.). Galen: Method of medicine. Volume II, Books 5-9. Loeb classical library 517. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2011. xxv, 541 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996793.

Johnston, Ian and G. H. R. Horsley (edd., trans.). Galen: Method of medicine. Volume III, Books 10-14. Loeb classical library, 518. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2011. xxiv, 567 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996809.

Korneeva, Tatiana. Alter et ipse: identità e duplicità nel sistema dei personaggi della Tebaide di Stazio. Testi e studi di cultura classica, 52. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2011. 243 p. € 22.00 (pb). ISBN 9788846730824.

Kupreeva, Inna (trans.). Philoponus: On Aristotle Meteorology 1.1-3. Ancient commentators on Aristotle. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011. vi, 138 p. $90.00. ISBN 9780715636763.

Lachenaud, Guy and Marianne Coudry (edd., trans., comm.). Dion Cassius: Histoire romaine. Livres 38, 39 & 40. Collection des universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. cv, 234 p. € 53.00 (pb). ISBN 9782251005676.

Lagacherie, Odile and Pierre-Louis Malosse (edd.). Libanios, le premier humaniste: études en hommage à Bernard Schouler (Actes du colloque de Montpellier, 18-20 mars 2010). Cardo, 9. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2011. viii, 242 p. € 25.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862743174.

Lundgreen, Christoph. Regelkonflikte in der römischen Republik: Geltung und Gewichtung von Normen in politischen Entscheidungsprozessen. Historia Einzelschriften, 221. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2011. 375 p. € 68.00. ISBN 9783515099011.

Malick-Prunier, Sophie. Le corps féminin dans la poésie latine tardive. Études anciennes. Série latine, 73. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. 319 p. € 45.00 (pb). ISBN 9782251328874.

Mandile, Roberto. Tra mirabilia e miracoli: paesaggio e natura nella poesia latina tardoantica. Il Filarete, 273. Milano: LED - Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto, 2011. 271 p. € 30.50 (pb). ISBN 9788879164924.

Massie, Alban. Peuple prophétique et nation témoin: le peuple juif dans le Contra Faustum manichaeum de saint Augustin. Collection des Études Augustiniennes. Série Antiquité, 191. Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 2011. 666 p. € 46.00 (pb). ISBN 9782851212481.

Mayhew, Robert (ed., trans.). Aristotle, Volume XV: Problems, Books 1-19. Loeb classical library, 316. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press., 2011. xxxiii, 581 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996557.

Mayhew, Robert and David C. Mirhady (edd., trans.). Aristotle, Volume XVI: Problems, Books 20-28; Rhetoric to Alexander. Loeb classical library, 317. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2011. viii, 656 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996564.

McElduff, Siobhán and Enrica Sciarrino (edd.). Complicating the history of western translation: the ancient Mediterrannean in perspective. Manchester; Kinderhook, NY: St. Jerome Publishing, 2011. 229 p. £ 25.00 (pb). ISBN 9781905763306.

Mueller, Ian (trans.). Simplicius: On Aristotle On the heavens 1.3-4. Ancient commentators on Aristotle. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011. vii, 223 p. $90.00. ISBN 9780715640630.

Olivieri, Oretta. Miti e culti tebani nella poesia di Pindaro. Filologia e critica, 89. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2011. 244 p. € 76.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862274388.

Paton, W. R., F. W. Walbank and Christian Habicht (trans., rev.). Polybius: The histories. Vol. IV, Books 9-15 (revised edition). Loeb classical library, 159. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2011. 631 p. $24.00. ISBN 9780674996595.

Pedley, John Griffiths. The life and work of Francis Willey Kelsey: archaeology, antiquity, and the arts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012. xi, 468 p. $75.00. ISBN 9780472118021.

Pelling, Christopher (ed., trans., comm.). Plutarch Caesar: translated with introduction and commentary. Clarendon ancient history series. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xix, 519 p. $55.00 (pb). ISBN 9780199608355.

Pérez-Jean, Brigitte (ed.). Les Dialectiques de l'ascèse. Recontres, 18. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2011. 425 p. € 47.00 (pb). ISBN 9782812403071.

Pernot, Laurent (ed.). La rhétorique des arts. Actes du colloque tenu au Collège de France sous la présidence de Marc Fumaroli, de l'Académie française. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011. x, 228 p. € 20.00 (pb). ISBN 9782130584971.

Pirenne-Delforge, Vinciane and Francesca Prescendi (edd.). "Nourrir les dieux?": sacrifice et représentation du divin. Actes de la VIe rencontre du Groupe de recherche européen "Figura, représentation du divin dans les sociétés grecque et romaine" (Université de Liège, 23-24 octobre 2009). Kernos. Supplément, 26. Liège: Centre International d'Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 2011. 214 p. € 30.00 (pb). ISBN 9782960071795.

Quiroga Puertas, Alberto J. (ed.). ιερα και λογοι: Estudios de literatura y de religion en la Antigüedad Tardía. Zaragoza: Libros Pórtico, 2011. 423 p. € 35.00 (pb). ISBN 9788479560911.

Ruffini, Giovanni Roberto. A prosopography of Byzantine Aphrodito. American studies in papyrology, 50. Durham, NC: American Society of Papyrologists, 2011. xiii, 634 p. $84.99. ISBN 9780979975820.

Schiavone, Aldo. The invention of law in the West (translated by Jeremy Carden and Antony Shugaar; first published in Italian, 2005). Cambridge, MA; London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012. viii, 624 p. $49.95. ISBN 9780674047334.

Schmeling, Gareth. A commentary on The Satyrica of Petronius. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xlix, 681 p. $185.00. ISBN 9780199567713.

Schnurbusch, Dirk. Convivium: Form und Bedeutung aristokratischer Geselligkeit in der römischen Antike. Historia Einzelschriften, 219. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2011. 314 p. € 62.00. ISBN 9783515098601.

Servi, Katerina. The Acropolis: the Acropolis Museum. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 2011. 167 p. $36.00 (pb). ISBN 9789602134528.

Shayegan, M. Rahim. Arsacids and Sasanians: political ideology in post-Hellenistic and late antique Persia. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xxix, 539 p. $110.00. ISBN 9780521766418.

Spevak, Olga (ed., trans., comm.). Isidore de Séville: Étymologies. Livre XIV, De terra. Auteurs latins du moyen âge, 22. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2011. lxv, 208 p. € 45.00 (pb). ISBN 9782251336480.

Timotin, Andrei. La démonologie platonicienne: histoire de la notion de daimôn de Platon aux derniers néoplatoniciens. Philosophia antiqua, 128. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012. x, 404 p. $192.00. ISBN 9789004218109.

Trevett, Jeremy (trans.). Demosthenes, Speeches 1-17. The oratory of classical Greece 14. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011. xxxii, 318 p. $24.95 (pb). ISBN 9780292729094.

Tulli, Mauro (ed.). L'autore pensoso: un seminario per Graziano Arrighetti sulla coscienza letteraria dei Greci. Ricerche di filologia classica, 6. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2011. 224 p. € 95.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862272063.

Ullucci, Daniel C. The Christian rejection of animal sacrifice. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. x, 227 p. $74.00. ISBN 9780199791705.

Urso, Gianpaolo (ed.). Dicere laudes: elogio, comunicazione, creazione del consenso. Atti del convegno internazionale, Cividale del Friuli, 23-25 settembre 2010. I convegni della Fondazione Niccolò Canussio, 10. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2011. 399 p. € 22.00 (pb). ISBN 9788846730855.

Valente, Marcello (ed., trans., comm.). [Aristotele]: Economici. Introduzione, testo rivisto, traduzione e commento. Fonti e studi di Storia Antica, 13. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2011. 343 p. € 25.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862743099.

Verga, Flaminia. Persistenze ed evoluzione del popolamento in area centro-italica in età antica: il caso del vicus di Nersae. Mediterranea. Supplemento, 7. Pisa; Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2011. 99 p. € 195.00 (pb). ISBN 9788862274012.

On Offer from the Press for Review:

Brilliant, Richard and Dale Kinney (edd.). Reuse value: spolia and appropriation in art and architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine. Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. 268 p. $119.95. ISBN 9781409424222.

Caldwell, Dorigen and Lesley Caldwell (edd.). Rome: continuing encounters between past and present. Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. 282 p. $119.95. ISBN 9781409417620.

Kunze, Max (ed.). Klassizismus in Deutschland und Italien: Die Sammlung Wolfgang von Wangenheim. Katalog einer Ausstellung im Winckelmann-Museum vom 16. Juli bis 28. Kataloge des Winckelmann-Museums. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011. 96 p. € 30.00. ISBN 9783447065907.

Lössl, Josef and John W. Watt (edd.). Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in late antiquity: the Alexandrian commentary tradition between Rome and Baghdad. Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. 343 p. $134.95. ISBN 9781409410072.

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