Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Jean-Marc Narbonne, Martin Achard, Lorenzo Ferroni, Plotin. Oeuvres complètes, Tome 1, volume I: Introduction; Traité 1 (I 6), Sur le beau. Collection des Universités de France. Série grecque, 482. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012. Pp. cccxxix, 72. ISBN 9782251005669. €55.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Gerard O'Daly, University of London (gerard.odaly@orange.fr)

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This is the first volume of the new Budé Plotinus, which will replace the edition of Émile Bréhier (1924-38), still in print. Bréhier's text is inadequate and long superseded, though the introduction and the essays preceding individual treatises are still valuable, as is the thematic index. Several scholars will collaborate on the new project: the chief editor, Jean-Marc Narbonne, is a well-known Plotinian with several publications to his credit.¹ The new edition begins with an extended general introduction of 286 pages, and includes the text and translation, with introduction and notes, of the influential treatise 1 (I 6), On the Beautiful. This edition thus follows the increasing trend of ordering the treatises chronologically, rather than following the systematic Enneads order imposed, often brutally, by Plotinus' follower and earliest known editor Porphyry.

Porphyry's Life of Plotinus (4-6, 24-6) provides the chronological information and explains the motivation of his systematic ordering. The Life has been researched with massive thoroughness by teams of French scholars under J. Pépin's direction, to which the section of the general introduction on Plotinus' life (xi-xxxv) is inevitably indebted.² Narbonne rightly draws attention to Porphyry's self-presentation as a catalyst of debates and controversies, originating in his views or those of the Athenian milieu of Longinus from which he comes, once he joins Plotinus' circle (Life 13, 15-18, 20). Narbonne's sensitivity to the dynamics of Plotinus' thought leads him to propose a nuanced view of his development through the three phases of his career, as presented by Porphyry. The development thesis is presented in general terms, leaving room for the detailed analysis to follow in the commentaries on the individual treatises. Thus, in the first, pre-Porphyry period, the emergence of the characteristic post-Numenius concept of the One transcending Intellect – a concept facilitated by a metaphysical interpretation of the first three hypotheses of Plato's Parmenides – is discernible (xxxv-xlix). Narbonne's account considers the recent identification of a metaphysical interpretation of the first two hypotheses of the Parmenides in third-century Gnostic tractates, but is sceptical about its influence upon Plotinus. This is an informed position, for Narbonne has published research on Plotinus' engagement with the Gnostics.³ And, as he acknowledges here, even if there is no compelling reason to find the origins of the Plotinian One in Gnostic circles, this recent Gnostic scholarship expands our understanding of the environment in which interpretations of the Parmenides developed, and that environment is enriched if the anonymous Commentary on the Parmenides is Middle Platonic rather than Porphyrian.⁴ One might add that, whatever the influence of earlier Parmenides interpretations on Plotinus, his analytical development of the arguments about the necessity and nature of the One is uniquely his own.

The second phase of Plotinus' development coincides with the six years that Porphyry spent in his circle. Narbonne presents this period as one in which Plotinus defends the Hellenic nature of his thought against suggestions that it is quasi-Gnostic, as well as the Platonic orthodoxy (contra Aristotle) of his views (xlix-lix). This leads to adjustments and clarification of his positions on matter and evil, and an optimistic view of the human condition, stressing differences with the Gnostics. It is also the period of the great expositions of his doctrines on being, the soul, contemplation, and intellectual beauty. The final period, in the last years of his life, is one of consolidation of his views, especially on the nature of evil and on providence (lix-lx). Narbonne's survey of these three periods is persuasive, helpful, and undogmatic: the style of commentators on the individual treatises will not be cramped. And throughout all sections of the introduction he and his collaborators provide generous and judiciously chosen references to modern discussions.

In the next section of the introduction (lxi-xc) a survey of Plotinus' system is provided (with sections on general metaphysical principles; One, Intellect, Soul; matter and body; etc.): there are copious references to passages in the treatises. Narbonne acknowledges the inspiration of the synthetic presentations of Plotinus' thought by Theiler and Schywzer.⁵ His approach is closer to Theiler's survey, with differences in the arrangement of the material, and it is of briefer scope (30 pages to Theiler's 70). Theiler's version is more discursive, with the text pointing to individual or small groups of passages; Narbonne makes the reader search among several references. But his survey is well- ordered and helpful. It is followed by a short section (xci-xcv) listing thirty themes – without claiming that the list is exhaustive – where one may speak of Plotinus' originality (Narbonne points out that Plotinus in 10 (V 1), 8, 11 claims that not everything has been fully revealed in earlier thought), with references back to the numbered paragraphs of the survey. And in practice there is much that is novel in his philosophy – such as the range of his claims about the One, the concept of emanation, the discovery of the unconscious and of self-consciousness, the theory of the self – as well as (or, perhaps, above all) in its general tenor. Once again, this section of the introduction is finely nuanced and well considered.

Next follows a section whose inclusion Narbonne, in his preface (ix-x), feels the need to justify. Over 150 pages (xcvii-ccl) are devoted to the history of the terms hupostasis and taxis and some related terms (such as seira) in Greek Neoplatonism. Of these, only 17 pages deal with Plotinus and Porphyry. It is pointed out that modern scholarly references to the three metaphysical realities as 'hypostases' are not based on any extensive use by Plotinus or Porphyry of the term hupostasis to refer to 'level of reality'. In both philosophers the term commonly means 'existent' or 'existence', and Plotinus uses phusis or arkhê or ta theia (or simply tauta ta tria) to refer to the three realities. This is common knowledge among Plotinians, but Narbonne's discussion argues persuasively that Plotinus would have been content for his 'three' to be called hypostases, on the basis of his use of the term in 33 (II 9), 6, 1-2, and the plausible assumption that he accepted the title of 10 (V 1), reported by Porphyry as among those of the early treatises which, though given by others, had 'prevailed' (Life 4, 16-19). Narbonne rightly stresses that the use of hupostasis as a philosophical technical term by Alexander of Aphrodisias is likely to have influenced its adoption by Plotinus.

But is the extended survey of later Neoplatonic usage of hupostasis and related terms justified in this introduction? The principal focus is on Iamblichus. Narbonne admittedly develops his observations on the latter's replacement of hupostasis by other terms into a full discussion of much of Iamblichus' system, and this has its value, not least in showing what post-Plotinian Neoplatonism became. But, while one must acknowledge the diligence and skill shown here, an exposé of such length seems out of place in an introduction to Plotinus. It would have been preferable to have provided a more detailed survey of Plotinus' thought, or to have included sections on his philosophical vocabulary, or (in an edition which proposes to discuss textual problems in some detail: see below) to have provided an even tentative account of features of his Greek style (not everybody will be able to work through Schwyzer's compressed survey), or to have given some general indication of the influence of his readings of earlier philosophers, from the Presocratics to Peripatetics and Stoics, or of the commentaries mentioned by Porphyry in Life 14. Such information, even if it consists of little more than an overview of the scholarly state of play on particular topics, might well be expected in a Budé edition, which, though it will undoubtedly be used by specialists, will surely also be consulted by occasional readers of Plotinus.

Tucked into this section are some illuminating pages (ccxli-ccxlv) on the genre and literary form of Plotinus' treatises. Narbonne argues persuasively that to identify them as belonging to the genre of the philosophical diatribe is inadequate. Some of them fit this description, but others are analytical essays of some complexity and varying length. Narbonne proposes that these are instances of the 'dissertation philosophique', premeditated and carefully constructed literary works, as Porphyry testifies (Life 8, 7-12).

There is a clear and well-informed survey of the textual tradition of Plotinus by L. Ferroni (ccli-cclxxxiii), which includes a full discussion of the possible evidence for a pre-Porphyrian edition of the treatises. Ferroni's sensible conclusion is that we have no evidence that such an extended edition existed, or any traces of its use by Eusebius or others. There follows a brief account of earlier editions, due praise for the epoch-making editions of Henry and Schwyzer (H.-S.¹ and H.-S.²), and a programmatic declaration of the editorial policy for the new Budé, which is to be warmly welcomed.⁶ Based on the collations of H.-S., it will nonetheless provide an independently established text and apparatus, and the notes accompanying individual treatises will pay due attention to textual and linguistic issues. One can only agree that this is the right approach: H.-S.² contains several changes of mind, and Schwyzer continued to rethink details of the text even after the publication of H.-S. ², which should not be treated as if it were, in every instance, a definitive, unchangeable text.⁷

That brings us to the second part of the volume, the edition of treatise 1 (I 6). The text and apparatus criticus have been established by L. Ferroni (who also includes an apparatus of sources and one of testimonia), while Narbonne, together with M. Achard, is responsible for the introduction, translation, and the 47 pages of notes. The text follows for the most part H.-S.², but the notes offer welcome detailed discussions of the issues, even where this is the case (for instance, p. 2 n. 8 on 1, 34; p. 6 n. 6 on 4, 7; p. 13 n. 2 on 8, 10). In a few places the text departs from H.-S.², and here again the discussions are illuminating and persuasive (p. 4 n. 14 on 3, 3, where Kirchhoff's correction is followed; p. 5 n. 8 on 3, 17 where, with Harder and others, kratêsei is taken as a noun; p. 12 n. 2 on 7, 34, where H.-S.¹ is preferred). At 7, 14 Roussos' insertion of ouk, accepted by the addenda to H.-S.² (OCT III, p. 306), is included and justified (p. 11 n. 7). These discussions prove the value of the editorial insistence on notes that are philological as well as philosophical. It would have been helpful if, at least in these textual discussions, the chapter and line numbers were given (as above) at the beginning of the note. As it is, following Budé practice, the note references are in the translation and the user who is merely consulting a passage has to search the facing Greek for the relevant text.

The high standard of the general introduction is maintained in the introduction to the treatise and the discussions of philosophical issues in the notes. In the former, Plotinus' debt to Plato's Symposium and Phaedo is discussed (with a useful list of references to the arts and the artistic process in several of Plato's dialogues, ccci), but so are differences from Plato, with parallels noted in third century Gnostic tractates (cccvi, cccxxv) and Philo of Alexandria (cccxiii). There is an excellent examination of the identification of the Beautiful with the highest principle, here the Good, in the final chapters of the treatise, with brief discussion of Plotinus' later assertions, especially the problematic treatise 32 (V 5), 12 (cccxxii-cccxxvi). The translation reads fluently: francophone readers, who now have three recent translations to choose from, can best identify their favourite.⁸ Last not least, the volume is carefully produced.

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Notes:

1.   Notably Plotin: Traité 25 (II 5), Paris, 1988 (repr. 2002) and La métaphysique de Plotin, Paris, 1994.
2.   Porphyre, La vie de Plotin, I (L. Brisson, M.-O. Goulet-Cazé et al.), Paris, 1982; II (L. Brisson, J.-L. Cherlonneix et al.), Paris, 1992.
3.   Several of his essays are collected in Plotinus in Dialogue with the Gnostics, Leiden/Boston, 2011.
4.   Wide-ranging essays in J. D. Turner and K. Corrigan (edd.), Plato's Parmenides and its Heritage, 2 vols., Atlanta, 2010.
5.   W. Theiler, 'Überblick über Plotins Philosophie und Lehrweise', in Plotins Schriften, VI, Hamburg, 1971, pp. 101-75; H.-R. Schwyzer, 'Plotinos', RE 21 (1951), 471-592, 1276, and RE Suppl. 15 (1978), 311-28 (also published separately, Munich, 1978).
6.   P. Henry and H.-R. Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, I-III: Paris/Bruxelles/Leiden, 1951-73 (= H.-S. ¹); Oxford (OCT), 1964-82 (= H.-S.²).
7.   H.-R. Schwyzer, 'Corrigenda ad Plotini textum', Museum Helveticum 44 (1987), 191-210.
8.   The other translations: L. Brisson and J.-F. Pradeau (edd.), Plotin: Traités 1-6, Paris, 2002 (treatise 1, translated with introduction and notes by J. Laurent, pp. 55-92); A.-L. Darras-Worms, Plotin: Traité 1 (I 6), Paris, 2007.

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Paul J. Du Plessis, Letting and Hiring in Roman Legal Thought: 27 BCE-284 CE. Mnemosyne Supplements. History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, 340. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012. Pp. xvi, 213. ISBN 9789004219595. $140.00.

Reviewed by Jean-Jacques Aubert, Université de Neuchâtel (Jean-Jacques.Aubert@unine.ch)

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Paul Du Plessis's latest book consists in a thorough review of classical Roman jurists' opinions on the contract of locatio conductio (especially Digest 19.2 and Codex Iustinianus 4.65), triggered by recent studies by Susan Martin (1989),¹ Dennis Kehoe (1997),² and Roberto Fiori (1999).³ Du Plessis's contribution aims at studying various types of letting and hiring in their social and, to some extent, economic settings rather than focusing narrowly on legal rules. Thus Du Plessis contends (p. 5) that approaching Roman law in a pragmatic rather than dogmatic way yields results that can explain some of the idiosyncrasies of Roman jurisprudence collected in the Digest. Consequently the book focuses on legal thought while paying special attention to the legal practice evidenced by documents written and preserved on papyri and tablets. As a matter of fact, little attention is paid to papyrological evidence (e.g. pp. 70, 84, n. 104, 91, n. 133), and only slightly more to epigraphic material.

The chosen chronological framework (27 BCE – 284 CE) might be questioned as both termini post quem and ante quem are meaningless. The bulk of the evidence, both legal and documentary, is dated to the late Republic and early Empire, and reflects classical Roman law and legal practice. However, the consensual, synallagmatic contract of letting and hiring was created in the context of the formulary procedure sometimes during the third or second century BCE (p. 9, n. 3), even though no extant evidence goes back to that time. In the same way, the Tetrarchy changed nothing either to the system or to the practice it reflects or generates, and both the juristic and epigraphic evidence thins out one or two generations earlier.

The introduction (pp. 1-8) surveys the most significant contributions on the subject during the 20^th century, in several modern languages. The author shows a good command of the bibliography, but is somewhat elliptic on the specifics of earlier scholarship about locatio conductio. Unlike his predecessors, the author eschews discussing the manifold object of letting and hiring, but plans to examine the ideas underlying the legal concepts governing it. In general, his analysis of the mechanics of the contract is accurate, sophisticated and convincing.

The first chapter (pp. 9-51) examines the terminology, history, and structure of the contract of locatio conductio, before turning to the contractual process, i.e. the role of the parties with regard to the psychological element giving rise to the obligation (consensus vs. voluntas), the rights of using (uti) and enjoying (frui) the object of the contract, and the rent/salary (merces) to be paid as counterpart, as well as the nature and kind of litigation the contract could lead to, and the circumstances surrounding or causing it. The author renounces the threefold division of modern legal thought (locatio conductio rei/operarum/operis faciendi) for the twofold division between res and operae retained by R. Fiori (1999). In the same way, the basic concepts of "risk" and "liability" are abandoned in favor of a "macro-narrative" defining the history of these concepts to be integrated in the "micro-narrative" detailing them (pp. 25-26). The point is to test the macro-narrative against the textual evidence provided by the jurisprudence, to trace the development of liability through dolus (pp. 27-32) or culpa (pp. 32-38), the flexibility of which defines the development of risk (periculum, vis maior, casus, vitium) (pp. 38-51).

Chapter 2 (pp. 53-120) discusses a variety of contracts bearing on both opus and operae, following R. Fiori's contention that the distinction between the two is "foreign to Roman legal thought". While Du Plessis does not explain how the distinction can be ignored, since merces is being paid respectively and alternatively either by the locator or conductor (p. 54), he identifies specific features of the contract of letting and hiring defined by the category of contract: the kind that involves the transformation of the property of one of the parties, such as the job of fullers and tailors (pp. 55-67), the hiring of apprentices (pp. 67-70), the work of goldsmiths and engravers (pp. 70-74), construction work (pp. 74-81); the kind that involves moving the property of one of the parties, such as carriage by land (pp. 82-84) or by water (pp. 84-92); the kinds traditionally labeled artes liberales ("not a Roman category", p. 192), such as the trade of medical doctors (pp. 96-98), land- surveyors and architects (pp. 99-100), attorneys (pp. 100-101), and teachers and philosophers (pp. 102-103), ending with less respectable hired positions, such as scribes (pp. 104-105), actors (pp. 105-106), gladiators (106- 110), and miners (pp.110-113), and the letting of the operae of slaves and freedmen outside of the familia as a commercial strategy (pp. 116-120). The list is not intended to be comprehensive, but adequately reflects the state of the evidence. I would question some arguments from silence (p. 56, on the likeliness of verbal contracts for lack of preserved written evidence), a few unwarranted assumptions (pp. 58-59, 83-84, 89, 102), some imprudent conclusion (p. 82, about the compared economic significance of water- and land-transport, and its alleged impact on classical jurisprudence), but the demonstration is acceptable and the overall picture quite cogent.

The third and last chapter (pp. 121-189) deals with the letting and hiring of a thing (res), first movable property, such as storage jars (pp. 125-127), scales (pp. 127-128), vehicles and vessels (pp. 128-131), and slaves and animals (pp. 131-135); then immovable property, either in a rural setting, such as ager (pp. 137-142), fundus (pp. 142-146), praedium (pp. 146-147), and villa (pp. 147-148); or in an urban setting, such as cenaculum (pp. 153-154), insula (pp. 155-170), domus (pp. 170-171), taberna (pp. 171-172), balneum (pp. 172-173), and horreum (pp. 173-189). The selection of the types of facilities and the different emphasis given to each of them are dictated by the examples used by classical jurists or in the inscriptional evidence (Pompeian tablets of the Sulpicii and other, mostly isolated texts). There is no doubt in my mind that Du Plessis is right in identifying some of these facilities (agri, fundi; insulae, and horrea) as the most likely settings to have been leased out in the early imperial period. The coincidence between the jurists' doctrine and the extant documentary evidence is not accidental. I am not totally convinced of the relevance of dismissing the traditional (modern) concepts of "object" and "content" of the obligation (p. 121), even though Du Plessis may be right in contending that Roman legal practitioners would rather have thought in terms of rights and duties of the respective parties to the contract. Again, the arrangement chosen by the author implies a desire to renounce a systematic or dogmatic approach to the law of contract; instead, it allows for the isolation and identification of specific problems and solutions attached to various types of contracts of letting and hiring. Little pearls emerge now and then, such as the analysis of the legal problems caused by the practice of subletting (pp. 156-170). Summoning evidence from the papyri would have probably shed more light on the practicality of the jurists' opinions.

A short conclusion (pp. 191-193) offers a summary of the content.

Du Plessis conveniently cites the original Latin texts in footnotes and usually provides translations borrowed (p. xv) from Watson's edition (1985)⁴ for the Digest, Blume (1920-1971/2009)⁵ on-line for the Justinianic Code, Jones (2006)⁶ for the Pompeian archive of the Sulpicii, or from Monro (1891)⁷ for title 19.2 of the Digest. As some of these translations are occasionally problematic or somewhat obsolete, I wish the author had provided his own translations, which he does at times (pp. 22-23, 177, skipping the diacritical signs in the first paragraph! and 187, idem for the last paragraph!). The volume ends with a rich, up-to-date, multilingual bibliography (pp. 195-206), a list of texts cited (pp. 207-210, mostly legal, with a few literary sources and three inscriptions, with no reference to the Sulpicii archive or the Dacian or Lusitanian tablets), and an index of mostly Latin legal vocabulary (pp. 211-213).

Last: the whole book is marred by numerous spelling mistakes and typos that make the Latin citations sometimes difficult to read and to use. For the price of the volumes published in this series, the publisher should have provided adequate copy-editing. This serious and quite readable book certainly deserved it.

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Notes:

1.   Susan D. Martins, The Roman Jurists and the Organisation of Private Building in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Brussels: Latomus, 1989).
2.   Dennis P. Kehoe, Investment, Profit and Tenancy: The Roman Jurists and the Roman Agrarian Economy (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997), as well as his previous books based on Latin inscriptions from Roman Africa and Greek papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt as evidence for rural tenancy.
3.   Roberto Fiori, La definizione della 'locatio conductio': giurisprudenza romana e tradizione romanistica (Naples: Jovene, 1999).
4.   Alan Watson (ed.), The Digest of Justinian (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), revised ed. in 1998, reprinted in 2009.
5.   F. H. Blume, Annotated Justinian Code (http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/blume&justinian/) (Unpublished: 1920-1971/2009), 2^nd ed. by T. Kearley (University of Wyoming).
6.   David Jones, The Bankers of Puteoli. Finance, Trade and Industry in the Roman World (Stroud: Tempus, 2006).
7.   C. H. Monro, Digest XIX.2. Locati conducti, translated with notes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891).

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Edward T. Jeremiah, The Emergence of Reflexivity in Greek Language and Thought: From Homer to Plato and Beyond. Philosophia antiqua, 129. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012. Pp. xvi, 300. ISBN 9789004221956. $151.00.

Reviewed by Christopher Moore, Penn State University (crm21@psu.edu)

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I enjoyed myself heartily reading this book about the evolving grammatical objects for self-directed actions. The author asks himself: whence arose the Greek reflexive pronouns? After all, PIE already had the middle reflexive, perfectly suited for commonly self-directed actions, such as washing. He answers himself: it came from a pattern of identifying surprisingly co-referential pronouns with the intensifier αὐτός, and having that mark eventually stick. It would be common to note that I knew some guy, and common as well to note that I knew how many sheep I had, but it would be rather less common to note that I was trying, just the other day, to know me. Not my thumos in particular, or my psyche, or my phrên: just plain old simple me. Indeed, this unfamiliar object of knowledge—the same as the "I" doing the knowing—might slip by unheard unless I appended, as a confirming "[sic]," an αὐτόν, a "-self." With post-Homeric social and political change toward independence, privatization, and self-policing, people had increasing occasion to think about or act on themselves as unified agents, owners, and consciences. As they talked more frequently about themselves as "themselves," Greek grammar codified this system of reflexivity. By the early fifth century a Greek could say that people in general should try to know themselves (γινώσκειν ἑωυτούς, Heracl. fr. 116 DK).

This grammaticization had pros and cons for philosophically-minded Greek speakers. On the upside, Greek speakers gained new ways to think about humanity. In the process of encoding the grammatical U-turn, Greek posited the person as a transcendental subject. Each of us is, or ought to consider ourselves to be, a "self" (ὁ αὐτός, the word nominalizing the reflexive used first in Aristotle and the Platonic Alcibiades I): not mere agglomerations of psychic organs, body parts, and tendencies; not even a subject-independent ψυχή; but a unity to be discovered, accounted for, and perfected. On the downside, Greek speakers had to face up to some new paradoxes. How can the active agent, the doer, and the passive recipient, the one which is done to, coincide? Can I be a single "me" simply by saying so, by interpellating myself? Does unification cause someone (me?) to be responsible for everything done under the aegis of the "I"?

Jeremiah believes that social changes caused language changes. He acknowledges, however, that the causal force might in fact have gone in the other direction. Getting this clear, he says, would require a cross-cultural survey. Indeed, it is hard to see how a history of Greek consciousness could give a precise account of causal direction, given the obvious feedback effects between new ways of talking and new social arrangements. Actually, Jeremiah appears only secondarily committed to his functionalist linguistics, the thesis that the way people actively use their language explains the way their language develops. His book has a broader hypothesis: there is a history of subjectivity; our attitudes have changed, over generations, about what sort of thing each of us is; and this development manifests itself in our common grammatical structures. Jeremiah wants to recuperate something of Snell's idea that the Homeric hero thought about himself differently than the Athenian tragic hero did. Jeremiah does not want exactly to say that the archaic man had no sense of self; rather, according to Jeremiah, the archaic man lacked a purpose to refer often enough to an overall self in the surprising contexts (of cognition, control, monitoring, for example) in which later Greek used the heavily marked reflexive pronoun.

Jeremiah also wants to modify Christopher Gill's claims about Greek ideas of the self. Gill distinguishes the "subjective-individualist" from the "objective-participant approach," and judges the latter view—concerned with the public rationality at the heart of personal development—typical of the Classical philosophers. Jeremiah believes that he has shown that a burgeoning concern with interiorizing reflexivity means that the Greeks had, in fact, an underappreciated strand of the "subjective-individualist" attitude. But this belief needs to be tempered by an appreciation of the task to which philosophers put reflection and reflexivity. In the case of Socrates and Plato, as much as for Aristotle and Kant, talk of the 'self' as a direct object of one's cognitive attitudes allowed and even urged appraisal of one's reasons for action as much as it provided a definition of one's palintropic nature. In other words, reflexivity and unification of the "self" may have had as much an outward-directed as an inward-directed force.

The remainder of this review identifies the main research topics of The Emergence of Reflexivity. It is worth pausing, however, to announce the book's considerable formal successes. Jeremiah writes with a powerful, appealing, and rich prose-style. He discusses practically every interesting use of the reflexive through Plato (minus the historians and orators), supplying the reader with endless texts for analysis. He presents a wide range of disciplines—comparative and historical linguistics, moral psychology, contemporary philosophy, Greek philology—in a lucid and informative way. He has a knack for clear signposting, repeating his thesis in its full form in the Abstract, the Introduction, and the Conclusion, as well as in partial forms throughout the book. In summary, for its sensitivity to the historically-bound phenomenon of self-reference, its judicious selection of apposite texts, and enlivening discussion of canonical philosophical questions in a sharply informed communicative and cultural context, I anticipate returning often to this book (when, of course, not returning, as I ought, to myself!).

The "Introduction" (1-10) starts helpfully by setting out the close correspondence between Greek αὐτός and English "self." We need not fret about translating too anachronistically. Both terms apparently developed in similar ways. It does leave one to wonder whether the modernity of ancient Greeks with robust reflexivity prefigures, or enables, or merely mirrors, the supposed modernity of our past several centuries. Fortunately, Jeremiah does not over-worry this theme. He states his main goal: to connect philosophy and grammar, through attention to the "reflexive meme," against the background development of the Greek's concrete ethical situation. He also states his main hypothesis: "a large shift in reflexive strategy will correlate with a shift in the idea of self."

Chapter 1, "Thought and Language" (11-41), elaborates on Jeremiah's neo-Snellian approach. The self is constructed through the use of reflexive cognitive attitudes. Jeremiah could have paid more attention to the details of those cognitive attitudes themselves. One wonders how much the attitude itself specifies its object, even if the object is not a reflexive one:

I know you
I recognize you
I think about you
I theorize about you

The cognitive attitude the speaker cites seems itself to modify, or construct, or at least constrain, the meaning of the "you." Presumably this meaning could come to influence how the addressee thinks about himself or herself, irrespective of any use of the reflexive. Even within a single cognitive attitude, there are various sorts of thing that can be, for example, known.

I know you
I know your character
I know about you
I know who you really are

Thoughts about, and perhaps eventually the constitution of, personhood seems not to depend solely on reflexivity, but instead on our joint understanding of the kinds of things one might know, or think, or have some other epistemic, emotional, or social attitude about. None of this, to be sure, tells against the importance of thinking about reflexivity itself. "Greeks themselves are, by expanding their use of the pronominal reflexive, exploring new concepts of unexpected, emphatic reflexivity that also, in certain contexts, generate complex models of self-relation and express a subject marked by increased reflexive agency."

Chapter 2, on Homer (43-66), provides a lens into a period before complex reflexives. The reflexive is a special case of emphasis. Autos is an exclusionary intensifier for external differentiation. It also delimits, for example, human agency from that for which the gods are partially responsible. Homer, in his relatively few uses of reflexives, uses them to pick out the body, not a unified self designated by ψυχή; at most he names a particular psychic organ as the verb's proper object. I wonder how the development of autos and psuchê maps onto that of φίλος, another self-oriented word with a provocatively confusing history.

Chapter 3, "Early Lyric, Iambus and Elegy" (67-82), focuses on the period that "must have been the crucible for the complex reflexive." Here, Jeremiah finds the first use of a reflexive pronoun referring to oneself "psychologically." He translates Sappho's fr. 26 LP: ἔμ᾽ αὔτᾳ τοῦτ᾽ ἔγων σύνοιδα as: "I know this with myself" or "I am conscious of this." (Ch. 5, "Conscience and the reflexivisation of σύνοιδα" [127-137], is an excursus on Sappho's idea of "knowing with oneself," and thereby on the internal structure of a person who can play witness to her own attitudes and actions. One of the interpretative puzzles concerns the split between an ethical sense of "potential self- reproach" and a phenomenological sense of "self-awareness.")

With Chapter 4, "The Presocratics" (83-125), Jeremiah enters philosophical terrain. Heraclitus represents the soul as intrinsically reflexive. Parmenides and Anaxagoras develop a new language for ontology: the being that is "in-itself." Antiphon the Sophist thematizes the concept of self-maintenance and self-advantage. Democritus grounds moral obligations in shame before one's inalienable self. Physicists and metaphysicians begin to theorize the self-moving or self-sufficient archê. Retrojected into this period are the reflexive-rife Sayings of the Seven Sages. A sensible three pages on the Delphic injunction to "know oneself" are weakened slightly by its reliance on Eliza Wilkins' claim that the γνῶθι σαυτόν first meant "know your measure"; her evidence came largely from fourth- century sources and selective use of late-fifth century tragedy. Without that anachronism Jeremiah would not have been forced to claim that "Plato appears to radically reinterpret the dictum as know your soul"; it is possible that Heraclitus, and other contemporaries or even predecessors, could have initiated that reading (as Jeremiah even admits later in his analysis). Throughout this chapter Jeremiah aims to provide socio-economic background consistent with atomization of the population. A valuable comparison would have been with Richard Seaford's Money and the Early Greek Mind, which treats a most ubiquitous experience—buying, earning, and saving— as a key source for abstracting one's labor and effects, and thus oneself, from the world of the concrete particular. From this perspective, fungibility as much as reflexivity does the existential work.

Chapter 5, as already mentioned, discusses conscience. Chapter 6, "Tragedy and Comedy" (139-193), exceedingly rich in theme and example, has nevertheless a primary direction: both tragedians and comedians of the fifth century deployed the dramatic potential of self-reflexivity, usually to show the risks and consequences that such inner awareness and responsibility cause. Blame no longer rests only with others, gods, or fate; aesthetically-appealing narrative effects come from characters discovering and struggling with blame inside themselves.

The seventh chapter, on Plato (195-260), is in effect a study of the pervasiveness of reflexivity in the dialogues. Plato fans may love the fresh and synoptic approach, seeing metaphysical, ethical, dialogical, and psychological issues in a common frame; or they may find a little too much going on at once. I think I am in the first group. Anyway, Aristotle's claim that for Socrates, the Delphic "know yourself" thrust him into all his puzzles and searches, does seem vindicated here.

The conclusion (261-268) observes provocatively that in Greek philosophy reflexive things get the highest ontological or value position: the self-justifying good, the self-affirming hypothesis, the in-itself in ontology, and self-knowledge/self-care/autonomy/doing the things of oneself

This book has been excellently edited and produced, and ends with a robust bibliography, index locorum, and subject and name index.

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Barbara Weiden Boyd, Vergil's Aeneid: Selected Readings from Books 1, 2, 4, and 6 (Clyde Pharr's Classic, Fully Revised and Updated for Contemporary Readers). Mundelein, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2012. Pp. xxxiv, 164. ISBN 9780865167643. $37.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Laura Brooke Rich, University of Texas at Austin (laurabrich@utexas.edu)

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Boyd's edition of selections from Books 1, 2, 4, and 6 of Vergil's Aeneid is designed for high school or undergraduate use, and the 923 lines covered by this book reflect the most recent requirements for the Advanced Placement Latin exam. While instructors and students preparing for the Advanced Placement exam will surely appreciate a commentary based on the Advanced Placement syllabus, other instructors will find Boyd's book useful as a textbook for advanced high school students or intermediate undergraduates. The Latin is divided into neatly labeled sections, so instructors and readers can easily skip around if need be.

The book follows the design of Pharr's classic, user-friendly commentary,¹ as have Boyd's earlier editions of Aeneid commentaries, ² with vocabulary and notes on the same page as the text. This style of text and commentary has proven popular over the last century, and Boyd's contribution is certainly a boon to the newest generation of Latin students. The book includes an introduction to Vergil and the Aeneid, a helpful commentary, a selected bibliography, an appendix on dactylic hexameter, an appendix of rhetoric devices, and a vocabulary.

The introduction to the text will be familiar to readers of Boyd's 2003 update to Pharr; it is largely unchanged. She provides background information on Vergil and the Aeneid, giving students a historical, political, and literary context for the work. She avoids overwhelming her audience with citations to scholarship, but is nonetheless careful to mention scholarly issues. For example, on Callimachus' influence on the Aeneid: "scholars have long puzzled over how Vergil was able to find some compromise between the apparent polar opposites of epic and Alexandrianism, and how that compromise is articulated in the Aeneid." She offers an explanation and invites readers to look for clues to form their own opinions. Boyd reaches both extremes of her target audience: the bolded key words and timeline of events will be especially appreciated by less experienced readers, and a brief bibliography (on the topics covered by the introduction) will be useful for students who wish to know more.

The text itself follows Mynors' 1969 OCT, with the minor changes of capitalizing the first letter of sentences and changing third declension accusative plurals from –is to –es. As Boyd explains, these changes seem appropriate for an intermediate audience. Similarly, she has changed the consonantal 'u' to 'v', and uses consonantal 'i.' Boyd continues Pharr's methods of italicizing unglossed words in the text; this mixture of Roman and italic fonts may be helpful to some and distracting to others. Macrons appear in the text and in the vocabulary; students learning to scan will appreciate this, and teachers hoping to challenge their students to scan without aid may not.

The vocabulary attending the text has been updated from Pharr's definitions. Some archaic definitions have been removed: modern students will be glad, for instance, that glaeba (1.531) is no longer defined as "soil, clod, glebe," as it was by Pharr, but the more comprehensible "a lump of earth, clod" provided by Boyd. Her definitions are both full and specific to context.

The commentary features occasional plot synopses, boxed off from the main part of the commentary, to give a brief overview of the story and new characters. In her notes, Boyd is careful to provide historical and literary background for beginning and intermediate readers. For instance, at 1.92, she explains that Greeks and Romans prayed with their palms up, hence duplices palmas. At 1.12, she discusses the "curious" use of urbs antiqua fuit, noting that Carthage is ancient to us and to Vergil's contemporaries, but was not yet founded at the fall of Troy. She stops short, however, of commenting on why Vergil may have chosen to frame the story this way. Boyd notes in her preface that she intends to leave her commentary "open and suggestive," so perhaps this is an opportunity for classroom discussion. Other interesting opportunities for discussion include her notes on the theme of anger in the Aeneid and the Iliad (1.11), etymology of Dido's name (4.211), or the use of the future tense at 6.847ff. A teacher using this text will find many such occasions for thoughtful discussion, but independent readers could benefit from more thorough notes in these places.

Boyd is extremely helpful in identifying rhetorical devices, and she frequently discusses the significance of the device. In Ilioneus' speech, for example, she identifies and explains the implications of several rhetorical devices: she notes that the hyperbaton "suggests the lofty aspiration of his speech" (1.522-3) and that he uses tricolon and alliteration to emphasize the most important parts of his speech. Less often, she simply notes the device and leaves the student to test her own knowledge by determining its significance (e.g. the combination of anaphora and tricolon crescens at 4.307-8 is noted but not discussed).

Boyd is generally thorough in her explanations of syntax. Often she provides a reordering of the Latin, or she supplies syncopated syllables or elided words, so that even intermediate readers can read the Latin independently, without resorting to a translation. Boyd notes that she provides alternate interpretations of certain constructions so that students learn "their instincts are often right when they are puzzled by the ambiguity of a particular construction." This confusion allows a reader to understand the text as a Roman audience might have, without the artificiality of syntactic constructions, but with a choice of constructions and their attendant meanings. At times, however, she does not explain constructions as thoroughly as an intermediate reader might need: the infinitival direct objects at 1.66 and 1.522-3, for instance, have no citation to the grammatical appendix and no real explanation, although the objective infinitive is listed in Pharr's appendix (260). Elsewhere, there are references to the Greek middle (1.561, 2.210, 2.219, 2.221, 2.227, etc.) that would likely flummox an intermediate reader; the citation in the grammatical appendix (309) is not entirely helpful. These issues are few and far between.

Throughout the commentary, explanations of syntax refer students to Pharr's grammatical appendix (at least at the beginning; the references disappear once the function of syntax has appeared many times and the reader has, presumably, learned the construction). Pharr's grammatical appendix, however, does not appear in this text. Whenever a reader needs to consult the grammatical appendix, she must consult the 85-page file on the Bolchazy-Carducci website. Pharr's appendix is unchanged, although it has received a bit of a facelift, matching the style of Boyd's book and making it a bit easier to read. Removing the appendix from the text allows for a smaller, more easily handled, and presumably cheaper book, but it may make for a cumbersome reading experience. While some readers may prefer to consult the appendix on a mobile device in one hand while reading the printed text in the other, many others (myself included) will miss the printed version at the back of the book. This, to my taste, is the biggest flaw of the book.³

At the end of the book, Boyd has included an up-to-date and almost entirely Anglophone bibliography on the Aeneid; a brief appendix on meter (revised from Pharr's); a helpful list of rhetorical devices, their definitions, and examples of them in the Aeneid; and a glossary. The vocabulary includes all the italicized words from the text, without the confusing organization of Pharr's "word lists" designed for vocabulary drills. She does, fortunately, include Pharr's handy pull-out vocabulary sheet.

With her latest edition of selections from the Aeneid, Boyd has provided her intermediate reading audience with another accessible, extremely useful text and commentary. I recommend it in particular as an excellent resource for Advanced Placement teachers and students, with the caveat of the separate grammatical appendix. Intermediate undergraduates may be able to read the entire book in one course, and the reward of such an accomplishment makes the book an attractive option for an undergraduate audience as well. For readers seeking a broader selection of the Aeneid in a more affordable option, Boyd's 2003 edition shares many of the benefits of the book under review.

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Notes:

1.   Pharr, Clyde. 1930. Vergil's Aeneid: Books I-VI. Boston, MA: D.C. Heath and Company.
2.   Boyd, Barbara Weiden. 2003. Vergil's Aeneid: Selections from Books 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, and 12. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci. Boyd, Barbara Weiden. 2006. Vergil's Aeneid 8 and 11: Italy and Rome. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci. (See BMCR 2007.01.24.)
3.   The book is very well edited. I found just one typo: an incomplete bolding in the definition of adeo on page 5.

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Burkhard Fehr, Becoming Good Democrats and Wives: Civil Education and Female Socialization on the Parthenon Frieze. Hephaistos. Kritische Zeitschrift zu Theorie und Praxis der Archäologie und angrenzender Gebiete / New approaches to classical archaeology and related fields. Berlin; Münster; Wien; Zürich; London: Lit Verlag, 2011. Pp. xv, 179. ISBN 9783643999009. €59.90.

Reviewed by Astrid Möller, Seminar für Alte Geschichte, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Astrid.Moeller@geschichte.uni-freiburg.de )

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In this book, Burkhard Fehr presents his research and interpretations about the Parthenon frieze. According to him, the Parthenon, and especially its frieze, represent the first comprehensive discourse on democracy known to us. He argues that the long pictorial narrative of the frieze illuminates the guiding principles of democratic practice, the significance Athenian citizens attributed to their democratic constitution, and the close connection between oikos and polis. The core of his arguments is already clearly expressed in the title of his book, that the frieze's imagery depicts the education of Athenian boys and girls to become good democrats and wives. The other sculptural parts, even the Parthenos statue itself, are being read under the same notion of demonstrating the strength of Athenian democracy based on its nomoi.

For ancient historians, the book first of all provides a detailed introduction of how to read this marvellous piece of Classical art in Athens. Although Fehr follows his main argument closely through the whole book, he provides a wealth of information on the Parthenon in general, giving alternative interpretations in the text and in well- documented footnotes. In following an iconological approach, Fehr tries to unearth the meaning of each image with help from literary evidence, most of it in this case unfortunately later than the Parthenon, as he acknowledges. How Fehr reads the images in their socio-political context in democratic Athens is convincing. On the other hand, however, the question of whether the Athenians used their most important temple to Athena for something coming close to political propaganda unrelated to veneration of their city goddess remains to be discussed. Yet, Fehr's argument is thought-provoking, even if one does not follow him in all its details.

Fehr summarizes earlier interpretations of the Frieze, which have usually read it as connected to the festival of the Great Panathenaia. He maintains that these interpretations are flawed in that the relief cannot be seen as an 'objective' documentation of the Panathenaic procession in general or even that of a specific date as figures and details differ from the written sources. Even the central scene, typically taken as representing the offering of the Panathenaic peplos, remains open to discussion. Fehr's interpretation consequently takes another direction and connects the imagery on the Parthenon with the socio-political order of the Athenian polis and not with her most important festival.

From the start, Fehr explains his methodology of reading ancient images as "exemplifications of patterns of action" related to ethic values and social status (a method coming close to Erwin Panofsky's third level of interpreting art, iconology). As a person's ethos (character) was described by ancient authors as referring to patterns of action either harmonizing with or contradicting generally accepted values, so the ancient viewer was able to perceive statues or figures on vases as embodiments of such comprehensive patterns of action. Within a narrative scene, several schemata could be linked together in order to signify such patterns contrasting with or complementing each other. Thus, an important aspect of narrative representations in Greek art of the Classical period was the reference to comprehensive value-related patterns of action by means of pictorial codes.

Starting the tour from the west front, the ancient viewer watched the preparations for the cavalcade. Associated with Athenian democracy, the scenes on that side can be read as depictions of the dokimasia, the regular inspection of the horses of those young men who were enlisted in the cavalry. Problems arising from this reading, Fehr admits, are that written evidence is considerably later and whether we actually deal with a representation of the Athenian cavalry, since almost no weapons are shown and only very few helmets. By the fact that the riders are all dressed in different manners, Fehr believes that the cavalry cannot have been the main subject. According to him, it was rather the exemplification of a fundamental socio-political pattern of action, the principle of checking qualifications and abilities on its various occasions. The figures known as 'watchers' consequently represent the public supervision of the social and political life of the democratic polis.

Accordingly, the rider formations on the northern and southern frieze would illustrate two aspects of democratic egalitarian participation in disciplined collective actions: In the north, the countless number of equals stands for an organized crowd acting as a whole, following the model of the democratic demos. In the south, it is the subdivision of this gathering into equalized groups. The four-horse chariots following the cavalcades on both the north and south frieze are interpreted by Fehr as allusions to the Athenian apobates contest exemplifying friendship to the ancient viewer. Set into a socio-political context, both the cavalry and the apobates contest are read as instruments of civic education. The overtly sacral procession on foot is seen by Fehr as a demonstration of self- control by the newly qualified young citizens and the Athenian maidens. They display arête (skill) and sophrosyne (self-control).

Coming to the east frieze, to its left and right side, the several male standing figures usually identified as the ten phyle-heroes are seen to behave in two different patterns of action: dialogues on the left, an individual speaking to a group on the right. Fehr succeeds in reconciling the interpretation as heroes with that of democratic citizens communicating in that the heroes have committed themselves during their lifetime in an exemplary and just way to the needs of the polis while after their death they are enjoying well-earned leisure, their happy rest enabling them to concentrate on thinking and discussing.

Next comes the central scene and here Fehr diverges entirely from older interpretations. According to him, we see an Athenian family, the father clad as a priest who shows the handling of his civic himation to his son, the wife and two daughters carrying trays with wool on their heads, all preparing for a cultic ceremony. This scene basically displays a model Athenian family, parents dedicated to the education of their children, the future of the polis. This scene being flanked by two groups of parthenoi marching at the head of the right and left branch of the pedestrian procession, is supposed to show that marriage and oikos are the final destinations for Athenian parthenoi. According to Fehr, the fundamental message of the whole frieze is centred on the interdependence of polis and oikos, whereby on the east frieze, the female side of the oikos is emphasized: mother and daughters are virtually at the centre, the women's way into the oikos with all stages of female socialization organized around it.

In between the parthenoi and the oikos is the assembly of Olympians divided into two groups. The six gods on the right symbolize certain traditional patterns of action such as nomoi regulating social and political life. The left half of the assembly celebrates the divine charis essential for the fertility of women, fields, and herds. The immortals display an easy communication according to rules of freedom, thus offering the Athenian democrats a model by which they could justify their own behaviour in social life.

Apart from the frieze, Fehr integrates all sculptural decoration into his interpretation. The Parthenos statue in the cella is seen in her role as teacher of young women. The scene on the statue base representing the Pandora myth is taken by Fehr as Pandora being the first woman taught by Athena how to work and how to spin colourful fabrics. The sandals of the Parthenos were adorned with a battle scene between Lapiths and centaurs, representing the mythical paradigm of how to defend reputable women against rapists. As brides were given a pair of sandals before the wedding, the Parthenos's sandals would have been a strong symbol for the protection of the future wife. In interpreting the Parthenos's Nike, Fehr gives emphasis to the female aspects of Nike as bringing presents in wedding scenes. The Amazonomachy on the shield is read as a paradigm of what happens to women who refuse to accept the institution of the oikos and its rules. The Gigantomachy on the inside of the shield can possibly be explained as Gaia representing a woman revolting against the divine universal order and being punished by the killing of her children.

The west pediment with the conflict of Poseidon and Athena being solved via a legal process is supposed to represent the demonstration of Athens as a polis based on nomoi. For his interpretation of the east pediment, Fehr draws on his 2004 publication, where he argued that the Olympian deities represented a flourishing community whose permanent existence is sustained by the birth of glorious descendants, worthy of their parents. Fehr considers this an analogy to the Athenian civic community portrayed in the west pediment and on the frieze. The 92 metopes depicting dramatic mythical battles (east: Olympians fighting the Giants; west: Athenians defending themselves against the Amazons) are related to the laws governing the human and the divine world like the scenes on the pediments above. The north and south metopes (south: Lapiths battling the Centaurs; north: Greeks destroying Troy), like the east frieze, comment on the oikos: the scenes on the metopes represent the safeguarding of the oikos, the east frieze the socialization of the young maidens destined for marriage and motherhood.

In chapter eight, Fehr concentrates on the qualifications required of a citizen in democratic Athens; first the education, then the citizenship law of Pericles. According to Fehr's interpretation, the completion of the Parthenon's sculptural decoration as well as the erection of the colossal statue in its cella are the first instances in which a Greek polis initiated monuments that addressed the role and function of the citizens' women explicitly and programmatically as an issue of extraordinary importance. Fehr, however, is cautious in seeing the citizenship law as the only explanation of this phenomenon. He assumes that there had been more discussion among the Athenians about the rigid assigning of an increasing role to women. To my mind, if one follows Fehr's interpretation of the Parthenon as being a monument giving emphasis to the role and purpose of women for preserving the polis by raising children and being good wives in augmenting the oikos (the latter was much featured by Xenophon in his Oikonomikos up to two generations later), then Pericles' citizenship law cannot be underestimated. In regulating that Athenian citizenship depended on both the father and mother being Athenian citizens, the importance of Athenian wives increased. If one can accept that both education to citizenship for both gender as well as the oikos as the fundamental element of the polis are central themes on the main temple of the city goddess, then there is something to be said for Fehr's reading. But this is exactly what makes one wonder: Can it be true that the Parthenon is so entirely oriented towards the political order, without any association with the Panathenaic festival although the Parthenon was the destination of the procession?

Fehr has produced a book full of thought-provoking arguments. Ample illustrations (drawings and mostly older photographs, whose quality is not excellent, but appropriate) and full annotations make them easy to follow. Fehr has made a good case for reading ancient Greek visual art in a socio-political context.

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