Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Maxime Pierre, Carmen: étude d'une catégorie sonore romaine. Collection d'études anciennes. Série latine, 79​. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2016. Pp. 336. ISBN 9782251328942. €45.00 (pb).

Reviewed by John Henderson, jgh1000@cam.ac.uk

Version at BMCR home site

This thesis-book clinches a richly furnished 2008 Paris PhD (with Florence Dupont). I shall decoct. Pierre will study, not the word, but the difference of carmen within its family nexus. He delivers a historically and text-agenda sensitive re-examination of the appearances of the cluster around carmen-cano and finds/pursues a clearly etched and argued account of shift between early and Augustan Latin usage. This is a crowded topic, but sharp observations emerge from this fresh look at the familial loci classici involved. A methodology proem (pp.9-19) announces an intracultural ('emic') approach, resisting pressure from 'original sense', 'etymology', and tendentious 'OLD-style' mapping by tabulation determinations, but staking out interferences from, and interactions with, Greek in the various forms of calquing, bilingualism, and parallel/reciprocal morphing between discourses and genres.

Pierre himself, however, begins from the outset with classic 'etic' parti pris in the nexus of *canmen—'carmen et canere sont absolument indissociables'—complete with in-/con-vocation of the 'famille indo-européenne', thus abjuring as 'tout bonnement fantaisiste' carmen-carpere/carere, and therefore representing carere lanam...ex quo carminari of Varro LL7.54-Isidore E1.39.4 as creative intervention, and while noting 'carminari («enchanter»)' as 'assez tardive', passing over 'carmino, To card; to produce by carding' (OLD: Varro, Plin.HN), pp.10-11, esp. nn3-4. It will prove crucial for the argument that (to put it so!) OLD 'carmen 4 The cry or song of birds' and '5/5 Instrumental music' shall come first, and there be no hint whatever of textual weaving— of writing— in there at, or (what amounts to the same thing) near, 'the beginning/s'. A better start would be to mess with any clean 'etic-emic' polarization, and join Varro's gang, namely the whole lot of us…— interventionists; but (nb) this way Romans are attributed acceptance of self-realizing utterance, not us.

Chap. 1 'Une musique?' (pp.22-55) addresses the supposed core of the carmen-cano clan as bird and stringed/wind instrument noise, extended to humans, and thereafter metaphorizing them as human-ish vocality. Pierre cues therein a pragmatic force, i.e. affective sounds requiring no external authorization but systemically bestowing authority. This project, then, lies athwart the grand theory battleground of…— let's just say there's no Derrida in the bibliography, just one reference in a footnote, p.148 n48. (The oddity of French Latinity's limited inc. More below, just a little.) Trumpets [seek to] order; flute and lyre seal ritual prayer, birds and cicadas send signals. Greek melos confines instruments to tool status and ôdê is for human or bird language, yet the psychagogic efficacities packaged in nomoi exert performative influence upon Latin (modus, numeri…) that will intensify from Republic to Empire. This is presented as if there ever were a Latin that was not already confected with Greek, in a now, surely, passé - as if before plurilingualism - version of The Beginning/s of [the institution/purgation of] Latin… — that other critical abyss. For finale, how to mesh/clash carmen with cantus? Fixed (vehicle) vs variable (performance), as per Lucr.5.1380? (pp.50-4).

Chap. 2 'Justice' (pp.57-110) celebrates institutional speech activation, first treating to caustic revision the 12 Tables as interpretations thereof, their supposed connections with the curse tablet tradition/s, and carmen stories in legal con/texts, along with their scholarship: (i) the main loci in Cic. and Hor.Serm./Epp. read 'verse' back into the Tables, but see Plin.HN.28.17-18, Sen.NQ4.7.2-3; (ii) the defixiones never use carmen-cano, and they only appear at the end of the Republic when the poets after Virg.E8 import epôidê from Hellenistic poetry in the gloss carmen, now playing between poem and incantation in a 'poetic fiction'; (iii) injurious smear stories always did blur spells with poems: their utterance powers them. Next, in the Philosophica (De Or.1, Leg.2) Cicero uses carmen of the teacher's/professor's lessons and presents juridical formulae as if spell-binding; in Orationes it applies tendentiously to issues featuring efficacious speech fantasized as automatically settling dispute (Mur.), as if posting a vote already puts it in force (Leg.Ag.2) of a tyrant's decrees (Rab Perd.). Here, carmen comes tendentiously to take over from and displace its [supposed] antecedent ius, now broadened to encompass way beyond utterance-at/as/in-law. Finally, Livy countenances a - deplored - myth of archaic justice beyond appeal/disputation and hosts many a process of ordaining laws and of oath- taking moments in priestly, military and conspiracy scenarios, with carmen as, not a fixed category of law but the term to capture the performativity dimension of the formulaic.

Chap. 3 'Liturgie' (pp.111-164) explodes an Edenic-atavistic carmen displaced by precatio while exposing ongoing semantic realignment/invention. In Cato carmina were spells, not prayers 'communicating with' gods, but the Salian/Arval (non-)carmina were prayers, not poems—until Varro back-projected a Greek-style story of originary religion (cf. Hor.Epp.2.1.86-89)—only they were performative stomp, read-out unaccompanied hocus, 'working over' gods, not asking for cooperation. The Roman 'hymn' was riddled with archaizing myth from the start—would-be primordial choroi in (Varro's) carmen saeculare for Proserpina and Festus' Juno Regina fest (LL6.94, Fest.446.30L.), with carmen canere of girls singing-and-dancing away the imported humnos (Liv.27.37.7-14, 31.12.9-10). So to the extravaganza of the Augustan carmen saeculare montage, mongrelizing placation-by-force-of-utterance or -by-ambient-context-of-utterance spiced with preces and uota, in-and-as (now designated) carmen, as mirrored in the hymn-and-chorus show of Virgil's fantasised Salian performance (A8.280-305), where pre-Rome is always already at root a—post-Arcadian—Greek invention. Still more intricately, Pierre detects an Augustan shift in which hymnus and preces hybridize, before carmen is commandeered (by Plin.HN) to cover any praying whatever, sacrificial, medical, younameit, by virtue of the common pragmatic efficacity underlying their previously registered heterogeneities: cue review of enigmatic carmen precationis (Liv.39.15.1), euocatio/deuotio formulae, carmen magnetized by Augustan poetry's magoi and this novel usage retrojected to 'the origins'; of cano glossing Hellenistic aidô in quasi-priestly cult ritual, esp. à la Medea's carmina, her perverted prayer freak-out (her flying hair, her herbal-verbal muttering schtick) or her clone the re-conceived Ovidian Circe's, or the carmina-uenena of the Triumviral-Augustan poets' witches and their adapted performance of epôidai-homoeopathics-direct palpation of gods, or the absurdist fusion of preces and carmina by Lucan's Erichtho. Furthest out, though, is Plin. HN28.10, coming close to explicitly sponsoring the power of formulaic utterance in prayer as working by utterance, not by striking a pact with gods.

Chap. 4 'Paroles des dieux' (pp.165-196) digs into carmen-cano of the ?self-authorizing? massaging/messaging by figures such as Carmenta, in uaticinatio contexts such as diuinatio (<=> mantikê) or vatic reference to the whole epic crew of musical aoidoi (<=> manteis) Homer, Proteus, Nereus, etc. What powers oracles? Prophecies? Fate powers a Sibyl's utterances, the Parcae are doing it for themselves, cursing and text(ualiz)ing away in their similarly ineluctable, scriptible, ways, while a Sphinx by contrast riddles as if couching law, netting us in her either/or régime. Here Pierre's survey tries to weave into the tape-recording extras from his extended polythetic family: father Cato's medicaremen for his son, doctors and sages, all powered by Tradition's eternal auto-motion; similarly with the guru Seneca's memorable maxims, clarion verses trumpeting verse precepts called carmina, and sliding carmina into 'sententious verses' (EM33.6 etc). So there arrives the book's thesis: as the Republic became Late, under influence from aidein 'song' and 'divination' lost opposition and fused, à la grecque, and carmen-cano came to spell verse-music (pp.194-5).

Chaps. 5 'Poètes sous la République' and 6 'Poètes sous Auguste' now stake out this proposed trajectory, adding (text- productive) poeta to those voice-specialists, priest, jurist, and co., and therewith complexifying the writing/speech metaphorics/conceptualizations that (this bit's me) power literature. Pierre demonstrates consistently that Great Authors make a difference with the versions of carmina they authorize. So Varro creates an archaic culture of poems, Salian, Numa's, and—to instal Latin Muses before the mousai can arrive—his confected *Casmena nexus, oneiric Ennian Fauni shoehorned into uates signed-up-as-primal-poets, and Saturnians fantasised as lost 'verse', at home in the culture of Catonian 'lays' at banquets, spooky Pythagorean precepts, and boy-singers of the carmina ueterum. On and back to the (historical and mythical) Roman stage's performance culture of cantica- cantores, vocal with or without music, <=> its writer-poetae; and, where Ennius self-billed as (unstagey) epic poeta against Greek aidô-ôidê, Lucilius and Varro will bag the tags poeta-poema-uersus for their work, excluding cano-carmen. With Catullus and Lucretius carmen = poetry finally arrives, melding the written unsung hymn, the poem text presented as if a(n oral, choral, etc) performance, to inflect and affect a welter of Greek terms/notions. Now Lucretius claims carmen for the didactic epic's pronunciamentos, for a book's volume, and the aoidos has pupated into poeta-scriptor.

Horace, Propertius, Virgil dominate a convergent—?unificatory?—Augustan carmen. In Hor. = generalized melos, choral in CS, ego elsewhere, and debuts as of satire, and iambos; in Prop. chorus- Musa etc are genre-blind, usually elegiac-lyric, it covers all Virgil's works. They are caught up in the retrojective archaism already explored, featuring a new-fangled Varronian uates-cum-mantis valorized as inspirational priestly transmitter of authority (esp. Hor.Epp.2.1.21-7, 86-9, 156-60 etc, pp.274-6). carmen now moves into the Palatine library, along with (what Pierre argues is the pivotal-lead model) the libri Sibyllini reformés, but come out to play the authority-saturated audiences recitationes by invitation, amid deprecation of a cantor's delivery expertise and valuation of Greek poets at Rome as writerly aoidoi-poetae. Pierre recognizes two big anomalies: [reportedly] sung-and-capered production of the Eclogues (E5.72-3, cantabunt...'; cf. Ov.Tr.2.518-9) and the unicum C.S. By now Pierre has shown how eg OLD carmen 1-3 have faked up an immanent core of meaning centred on the word-family's arrival at its Augustan floruit and the aetiological fictions cooked up by Republican Rome and the would-be definitive settlement of the discourse of (scripted) poetic enunciation by the classic 'imperial' Authors, appropriating mythic-mystificatory powers to seal the deal. Just read them out...

A precise 'Conclusion' (pp.295-99) elicits-theorizes the circuitry of Carmen—a 'situational' rather than 'semantic' polysemy from pragmatics, working on/with a nexus of apparently emic instances of self-ordaining illocution. Overlaid on this [claimed] 'native' base is transformative glossing-riffing on the Greek family of 'song-ing' as verse-enunciation that eventually-eventfully agglomerated the 'nebulous sense' of an underlying recurrent property across the wide field of carmen-ôidê.

As noted, this project is Latin heartland. Pierre was blessed with Michèle Lowrie for external, in time for her to in-text salient references and acknowledgments in her then readied-for-press opus magnum, Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome (2009: esp. pp. 329-30), which delivers magisterially on (?commands!?) very many of the topics and loci, but within the full ambit of contemporary (Anglo-French) critical theory. More, the nexus of song- ritual-speech-act-culture in the history, in our histories, of the Beginning/s of Latin/Latin Literature, has been thoroughly thrashed over (think Tom Habinek, think Denis Feeney...), and incisive analysis such as Lowrie's brilliant synthesis in BMCR 2006.04.34 rather defangs Pierre's efficacity, at any rate in Anglophonia. Nevertheless Carmen produces a welter of sharp insights and I have found it an instructive pleasure to read.

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S. P. Vleeming, Demotic Graffiti and Other Short Texts Gathered from many Publications (Short Texts III 1201-2350). Studia Demotica, 12. Leuven; Paris; Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2015. Pp. lxxiv, 595; 1 p. of plates. ISBN 9789042931879. €92.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Eugene Cruz-Uribe, Northern Arizona University (eugene.cruz-uribe@nau.edu)

Version at BMCR home site

The third volume of the Short Texts series of Prof. Vleeming consists of miscellaneous items that the author has collected under the general heading of graffiti. The author does modify that in the title and on page 335 by noting that certain inscriptions on objects "may not have been strictly speaking graffiti." This volume is the third of his "Short Texts" series, the previous volumes having been reviewed quite favorably in the BMCR.

The volume is organized in a relatively straightforward manner. Chapters 1-9 present graffiti starting in the south and divided into a series of chapters for each of the regions and sub-regions of Nubia, the Oases, Upper, Middle, and Lower Egypt. Chapter 10 consists of inscriptions found on a variety of objects such as coins, hieratic papyri, hieratic linen pieces, stelae, sculptors' models and plaques, scribal palettes and writing tables, vases and amphora, other miscellaneous pieces and additions. For each inscription Vleeming assigns a convenient number beginning with 1201 and ending with 2350 (volume I of the series had #1-277 and volume II had #278-1200). Each entry normally consists of the location of the 'graffito' geographically, with a bibliographic reference (see 'Editions and Discussions', xx-xlv) though journal articles are listed only by journal name, volume, year, and page. The author's name is sometimes listed in front of the journal (e.g., #1914) and sometimes at the end of the entry heading (e.g., #1915). One must infer that in the cases where an author and monograph are listed (e.g., #2091) with an additional name following the entry that the latter name must have provided, in some manner, a suggested reading. No article titles are listed. Pages lxix through lxxiv contain corrections to entries found in Short Texts volumes I and II.

The strength of this volume resides like any collection of texts in providing a convenient vehicle for bibliographic information on a large number of texts published in a myriad of journals and books. Vleeming is to be congratulated for spending the extensive amount of time to compile this information and for making certain suggested new readings in the manner he followed in the Berichtigungsliste (A. Den Brinker, B. Muhs and S. Vleeming, A Berichtigungslisteof Demotic Documents, 3 vols., Leuven, 2005-2013).

However, this reviewer sees some shortcomings with this volume and its approach. The author limited the number of texts to be included in this volume by deliberately not including graffiti and other short texts found in no fewer than nine major publications (listed on p. vi). In addition, Vleeming notes that some texts were not included (such as those coming from North Saqqara) as they were being worked on and thus he "did not want to impede work on these collections" (p. vii). He then makes certain comments about Demotic graffiti at Philae noting that "the mass of graffiti is so great, the number of texts unworthy of recording is also significant" (p. 22). In some ways that reflects almost word for word some of Griffith's comments about the Philae graffiti eighty years ago. Is it not our duty as Demotists to record everything that we can find from ancient Egypt and then make a determination on how we can use all of that material to better understand the world of ancient Egypt? For those scholars who work in the field we can understand the author not wanting to encroach on another's active research. But it is important to be aware of the many other projects currently underway (and the author was able to do this for some graffiti from several preliminary reports, e.g., #1835-1843).

Since the field of Demotic studies lacks an online database of texts, if one is to make a compilation of 'graffiti', then it is incumbent on the scholar to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Since that appears to be the manner the author followed in his Short Texts I and II, I am disappointed that he excluded from this volume many hundreds of short texts.

For example, with text #2346 (pp. 500-2) he notes material from the tomb of Psametik in Saqqara (just north of the Unas pyramid). The material was discovered in the burial chamber of the tomb and was first partially recorded by Alexandre Barsanti and published in ASAE 1 (1900), 181ff. Barsanti notes that these texts come from the east, south, and west walls and he details twenty-seven different texts. Vleeming rearranges these texts without comment and lists them in order of what seems to be a commonality of the initial words and the ascending order of numbers. What he does not note is that Barsanti's number 1 is one of the few examples of a Demotic inscription in situ written vertically rather horizontally which makes it worthy of significant discussion. Vleeming says these texts "seem to be building notes, whose exact purport is not clear." I was fortunate to have worked with the late Prof. Adel Farid several years before his tragic death on the initial field work to record the texts in the tomb of Psametik (and reported on at the SSEA conference the following year). I hope to finish that field work in the near future, but I am able to comment that the Demotic graffiti from this tomb appear to be records of work done in the tomb to carve the hieroglyphic inscriptions. We initially thought that the dated graffiti marked work finished up to that date as they have sequential dates and many were written at the top of columns of hieroglyphs.

A similar example would be the work of Adel Kilany, "Marks of the quarry workers at the Unfinished Obelisk Quarry, Aswan, Egypt: Preliminary report," in P. Jockey, ed., Interdisciplinary studies on Mediterranean ancient marbles and stones. Proceedings of the VIIIth International conference of the Association for the Study of Marble and Other Stones used in Antiquity (ASMOSIA), (Aix-en-Provence, 2006), 547-565, who worked at the granite quarries in Aswan. His work has uncovered a series of Demotic graffiti, again quarry-worker marks.

Thus, this reviewer is both excited and disappointed in the results of this volume. It is my hope that the author continues his Short Text series and includes in subsequent volumes those items not found in this one.

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Neil Bernstein, Seneca: Hercules furens. Companions to Greek and Roman tragedy. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Pp. xv, 151. ISBN 9781474254922. $88.00.

Reviewed by Aikaterini Tsoka, Athens (a_tsoka@hotmail.com)

Version at BMCR home site

This volume is the fourth of the Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy to deal with a tragedy by Seneca. The aim of this book is to scrutinize the artistry and the literary qualities of Seneca's drama through a careful examination of the theme, structure, and style of Seneca's Hercules furens. The titles of Seneca's plays such as Hercules furens reveal that Seneca has not just taken on Greek myth but also classic Greek tragedies. Yet while Seneca displays an evident and important intertextual awareness of his Greek models, his works are clearly more than mere translation or imitation. While all the plays invoke similar systems of imagery and dwell obsessively on the corrupting power of passion, they also reflect a continuous effort to experiment, to create deeply individual, thought-provoking, and challenging drama, exhibiting originality and creativity in both theme and structure. Seneca's Hercules furens, as Bernstein puts it in his illuminating analysis and discussion in this volume, allows evil to triumph, but it also explores the ironies of victimhood, guilt, the role of fate in suffering, and the operation of classic Roman virtues, courage and duty, in the face of tyranny.

The book consists of five short but rich chapters. The opening chapter (Chapter 1) provides what I see as a fitting introduction to the reading of Hercules furens. It presents briefly the background of the myth and the action of the play, and thus provides a context for the discussion of the basic aspects of Senecan drama, the object of a long series of specialized studies published over the last two decades. ¹ The chapter is thorough and precise and the emphasis is put on things Roman in terms of plot, props, formats, and settings, which are presented in detail in the subsequent chapters.

One of the major themes (Chapter 2) of Hercules furens is that it begins by staging the process of its own construction. Contrary to the modern criticism regarding Hercules' responsibility for the crime committed against his children and wife, Bernstein gives emphasis to the role of Juno: A superhuman character, Juno, with all her metadramatic resonances, provides the impetus which sets in motion the dramatic action and offers the creative momentum that underlies the tragedy as a whole. At the same time, in Seneca's radical reinterpretation of Greek myth, none of the traditional heroes measures up to any respectable standard, Stoic or otherwise. Seneca is neither lecturing here on Stoic virtue nor denouncing vice. Commentary is unnecessary, for the failure of heroic and honorable conduct in Senecan drama is everywhere apparent. According to Bernstein, Seneca's artistic presentations must speak for themselves, leaving the audience to assess the nature of his characters and the quality and value of their acts.

Seneca's Hercules furens exhibits a continuous, even obsessive confrontation with its models, since it cannot escape from a largely predetermined series of events. At the same time, it is very much concerned with issues such as legitimacy, identity, and differential instability encompassing courage, violence, and suicide.²

Taking the analysis one step further, Bernstein brings in Chapter 3 the miscellaneous representations of Hercules to the fore, tracing the different variants of the myth in Greek and Latin literature available to Seneca from antiquity to his own time. As in Euripides' play, Seneca's protagonist will return victorious from the Underworld, only to be driven mad and kill his wife and children. Coming to his senses, he considers suicide before finally going into exile with Theseus, trapped in a living Hell. But while Euripides' play challenges the audience to make sense of the nature of divinity itself, with Hera engineering an attack on the innocent and conspicuously rational Hercules half way through the play, Seneca moves his Juno front and center (Hercules furens 1-4). This Hercules is the architect of his own downfall in a way which makes the protagonist's own behavior, not simply Juno's, the central problem of the play. Seneca's Hercules furens does not merely re-frame the master text of Augustan age, Virgil's Aeneid, within a Neronian tragic prism. In evoking and then exploding Virgilian virtus, Seneca's tragedy may not be so much distorting the Aeneid as revealing some of the problems of human experience illuminating the nature of furor and the operation of power, impotence, delusion, and guilt already in that epic. The dramatist's piling of crime on crime merely explicates the power dynamics already inherent in Augustan Rome's foundational epic. ³ In Bernstein's account, the literary features of Hercules furens should be viewed with the same eye for detail as a Horatian ode or a book of the Aeneid, and Seneca' s skill as a poet shines through in each line. The intertextuality is a main aspect of his poetics, as it grants his language additional resonance that colors not only Seneca's text but also the Augustan originals as he interprets their works in a tragic context.

While Chapter 3 analyses Seneca's play against its Augustan counterparts, Chapter 4 sees Hercules furens as a Roman drama even though Bernstein does not explain tragedy's obsessive concern with power and the abuse of power or the related strand of criticism that seeks to place these dramas within the larger philosophical, but also the social and political, context. Whether strictly political or not, Senecan tragedy certainly creates in its mythological drama contexts, settings, and language that are distinctively Roman. ⁴ That Roman color is part of a deeper system of resemblance between the world of the plays and contemporary Rome. However tempting it is to see the tragedies as acts of political defiance, doctrinaire assumptions about the intentions behind Seneca's depiction of power in the tragedies, or attempts to break any supposedly pre-programmed code, are bound to fail. Senecan dramaturgy is too dense, challenging and polysemous to be pinned down in such a fashion. Bernstein approaches the still remaining questions of the nature and latent issues of Hercules furens in an open-minded way: he explains Seneca's dramatic language as a medium for doing moral and political philosophy but also as an inherently dialectical and hybrid genre that allows him to intertwine and contrast voices, positions, and reactions and to put debate and interrogation on display. He thus attempts to keep both readerships in mind: not to take knowledge of the ancient world for granted, but at the same time not to presume knowledge of the workings of the stage and the deciphering of a dramatic script. Bernstein makes use of his own consistent translations in his frequent quotations from the text to illustrate his points; all events are dated, persons are identified, and technical terms are explained, providing readers with interesting insights.

Chapter 5, finally, looks at key episodes in the fate of the script, roughly from the point when it re-emerged from the Dark Ages. The primary focus in this section is on the often acknowledged impact of Senecan drama on the theatre of the early Italian Renaissance, moving from there onwards to France and England. Bernstein also discusses modern versions, playwrights, and film-makers, with their often insightful, self-reflective manner of turning linear narrative into living drama. Both plays and movies offer eloquent witness to the continuing engagement with the Hercules myth in literature and theatre. Bernstein emphasizes the moral message carried by each of Hercules' modern adaptations, ending by illuminating the figure Hercules as represented in the 21st century. And we can expect the process to continue, as each new generation finds points of traction with this.

Hercules furens proves to be a peculiar blend of rhetorical, mannerist, philosophical, and psychological drama. Bernstein's treatment of the drama is framed with more general reflections on the nature of tragic poetry gleaned both from other Senecan tragedies and from his prose work. The goal of the author is definitely not to superimpose on the play a normative explanation that would forcibly orient interpretation, but to claim that the tragedies' own self-reflexive statements on the nature of poetry afford readers considerable latitude in their own exegetical explorations.

The book has a comprehensive bibliography, an index, and a useful guide to "Further Reading" containing the most recent bibliography to Seneca. This study may prove of interest, not only as an introductory guide to students of theatre and of Roman political and cultural history, but to all interested in specific topics such as the societal interplay of writing, spectacle, ideology, performance, and power. I believe also that its reading will enhance the understanding not just of ancient drama, but also of its post-classical revival.

---

Notes:

1.   Boyle, A.J. (1997), Tragic Seneca: An Essay in the Theatrical Tradition, London; Harrison, G. W.M. (2000), Seneca in Performance, London.
2.   For Seneca's intertextual practices see Trinacty, Ch. (2014), Senecan Tragedy and the Reception of Augustan Poetry, Oxford.
3.   Schiesaro, A. (2003) The Passions in Play: Thyestes and the Dynamics of Senecan Drama, Cambridge, pg. 208.
4.   Walter, S. (1975), Interpretationen zum Römischen in Senecas Tragödien, Zürich.

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Maaike Groot, Livestock for Sale: Animal Husbandry in a Roman Frontier Zone: The Case Study of the 'Civitas Batavorum'. Amsterdam Archaeological Studies, 24. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016. Pp. vii, 254. ISBN 9789462980808. $124.00.

Reviewed by Carolyn Willekes, Mount Royal University (cwillekes@mtroyal.ca)

Version at BMCR home site

The work under review is part of an important branch of scholarship focusing on zooarchaeology in the ancient world. This field is receiving a growing amount of attention by scholars, however there is still often a disconnect between zooarchaeological data and more traditional approaches to studying the past. Groot shows how we can use zooarchaeology as a tool for identifying sociocultural and economic changes, and moreover, possible reasons for these developments. She studies how self-sufficient rural communities during the period of Roman occupation (12BC-AD 350) in the Civitas Batavorum (the Lower Rhine in the Dutch River area) responded to demand for agrarian products and further, the impact these demands had on agrarian strategies. The aim of the study is to use zooarchaeological data to find evidence for interactions between farmers and the consumers in both and urban and military context, in particular how these interactions led to developments in animal husbandry with regards to production and market consumption. To address these questions, Groot uses data related to species proportions, age and sex, skeletal elements, butchery, biometrics, and archaeobotany for the four primary domestic mammals: cattle, sheep/goats, horses, and pigs. The book is organized into eight thematic chapters that create a comprehensive analysis of the study data, creating a very coherent and readable piece of work.

Chapter One (Introduction) provides a systematic breakdown of the purpose and methods and gives a short synopsis of the topographical development of the Dutch River Area, as well as a short chronological description of the region in the Roman period; both of these components are helpful in familiarizing the reader with the region and its historical context. We are also given a clear and general overview of basic food production and supply. Finally, Groot provides a brief explanation of the evolution of a market economy.

Chapter Two (Archaeological Sites) details the selection criteria used to choose the 72 sites for the study. The author had two primary requirements: the presence of animal bones and data reports for these bones. The sites fall into one of four categories: rural, military, urban, and temple, with the rural sites further subdivided into villa sites. Thus, the sites occupy a variety of contexts and provide a relatively clear distinction between producer sites and consumer sites. The producer site is always a rural context, while the consumer sites are identified as military, urban, and temple. Groot is quick to acknowledge that the classification of a site is not always clear-cut and further, that some of the sites used in the study were difficult to categorize and the choice depended on availability of data. The study categorizes 46 sites as rural, 11 as military, 6 as urban-military, 4 as urban, and 5 as temple. Thus, the majority of the study sites belong to a rural context as producer sites (64%), with the remaining 36% belonging to the consumer category, of which the majority have a military context (65%).

In Chapter Three (Zoological Background), Groot discusses the zooarchaeological components of the study—species proportions, age and sex, skeletal elements, butchery, and biometrical analysis—in a manner that is relevant for both specialists as well as those who might be new to zooarchaeological study. Chapter Four (Methods) deals with how the methodological approaches apply to the data, region, or species in question and the potential pitfalls of each element.

Chapter Five (Rural Settlements: Animal Husbandry and Consumption) focuses on the rural production and exploitation of animals. She begins by providing an outline of farming practices in the Late Iron Age, which serves as a backdrop for understanding the evolution of agriculture during the Roman period with its shift from an agrarian subsistence economy to a market economy. When it comes to examining the evidence at hand the author clearly follows the methodological approaches outlined in the previous chapter. She concisely addresses the data from these rural sites, particularly concerning the changes in species proportions, the exploitation of each study species within the rural context and how this changes over time, and finally how the biometrical analysis of each species is indicative of changes in size throughout the Roman period. Chapter Six (Consumers: Urban, Military and Temple Sites) examines the patterns of animal consumption and exploitation in a non-rural context following a layout similar to the previous chapter.

Chapter Seven (Interaction between Producers and Consumers) aims to create a more comprehensive picture of animal production, consumption, and the relation between the two in the Dutch River Area. The detailed discussion at the end of the chapter is very useful for putting together this bigger picture, and moreover, how animal husbandry and exploitation practices changed from the Early to Late Roman periods as well as possible reasons for these shifts, which primarily seem to be connected to the establishment of Roman garrisons in the region. This placed a greater demand on the farmers for primary and secondary animal products, which in turn influenced the what animals were being raised. For example, the period of early Roman occupation sees an increase in sheep numbers. Groot suggests that this could be on account of their faster reproductive rate (in comparison to cattle), allowing enough surplus meat to fill a rapidly expanding market, while also meeting an increased demand for wool. This period likewise sees a size increase in cattle, which the author indicates could be related to the spread of imported cattle.

The final chapter (Final Thoughts) sums up Groot's analysis of the data. She concludes that the introduction of Roman garrisons to the region had an immediate impact on the local agrarian economy. Not only did it influence the purpose of agriculture- supplying a market economy vs. a smaller subsistence economy, there was also a need to produce a substantially greater quantity of meat and animal products. The local response was to specialize: instead of farms practicing a form of subsistence mixed agriculture, they focused on producing specific products- wool, horses, etc. Farming methods also reflect these changes with more emphasis placed on intensive arable farming, which in turn affected the use of large livestock like cattle- they were needed for traction as well as food. An increase in horse breeding and size reflects the demand for cavalry mounts. Groot's study of the Roman Dutch River Area thus provides an excellent example of how rural communities can adapt to socio-cultural and economic changes.

Groot's well-written volume is illustrated throughout with diagrams and charts. She regularly points out any data irregularities, whether from a scarcity of physical remains, or a marked unevenness in species representations, while also providing possible reasons for the occurrences. Most significantly Groot shows how zooarchaeological data can contribute to a broader understanding of daily life by showing how this data can be used to reflect changes in animal husbandry, food supply, demand, and population (both size and demographic). For example, she uses analysis of butchery marks to explain where the animals are being slaughtered and by whom—more extensive butchery in towns where animals are intensively exploited to maximize potential food supply. Changes in butchery marks at rural sites corresponds with the arrival of the Romans, suggesting that military butchers introduced new techniques and new tools, with cleavers only appearing in the Middle Roman period. An increase in animal size suggests crossbreeding with imported livestock from elsewhere in the Roman world, indicating a growing trade network. With this book Groot shows clearly how we can use zooarchaeological data to look at socio-cultural and economic patterns. Food and secondary animal products were a necessity for life and as Groot indicates throughout this volume, changes in animal production practices are indicative of socio-cultural shifts. Herein lies the value of this work: it shows the many ways researchers can use zooarchaeological data, a source that has been relatively unexploited in Classical scholarship. One of the most impressive aspects of this volume is its usefulness for both specialists and non-specialists: it is written in a manner that is clear and succinct. This volume is a valuable addition to the growing body of zooarchaeological literature, while it also contributes to a better understanding of agriculture, economics, and life of the northern frontier of the Roman empire.

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Margaret Malamud, African Americans and the Classics: Antiquity, Abolition and Activism. Library of classical studies, 12. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 2016. Pp. xiii, 290. ISBN 9781784534950. $99.00.

Reviewed by Ronald Charles, Saint Francis Xavier University (rcharles@stfx.ca)

Version at BMCR home site

This book is an important contribution to the study of classical reception and the place of Classics in American history. The short introduction to the volume is helpful in laying down Malamud's central argument and purpose: to demonstrate the role that knowledge of the Classics played in the fight for social and economic emancipation of blacks in American history. The author shows how classical texts, tropes, and images were used to keep blacks in slavery, and how many African Americans studied the ancient languages and classical texts to speak back, to write back, and to challenge deeply seated injustices and prejudices against them.

The first chapter ("Fighting for Classics") presents a fascinating history and analysis of "why free African Americans wanted a classical education and the battles they fought to acquire one from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century" (5). The fight for the opportunity of receiving a classical education by African Americans was engaged on two fronts: first, to disprove the ridiculous idea held by many (e.g., David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, and the infamous nineteenth-century American senator John C. Calhoun) of the intellectual inferiority of blacks as incapable of learning ancient languages; second, to acquire the necessary knowledge of Latin, Greek, and ancient history to be admitted to colleges, seminaries, and professional schools. Without the Classics one's future was in jeopardy, and fighting to have a classical education became a constant struggle many African Americans felt they needed to engage in. An exemplary figure who defied these misconceptions was William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1956), a former slave, who became a brilliant philologist. Scarborough was the first black member of the American Philological Association (now called Society for Classical Studies), as well as the Modern Language Association (17)."¹ The author could have made that clearer instead of stating he was "one of the first African American members of the American Philological Association" (17).

This chapter is filled with stories of perseverance of various African Americans determined to have a classical education in order to advance in their lives, in spite of the rejection and ridicule to which they were subjected. The description of James McCune Smith is very moving: "He graduated with honours from the African Free School and went to work as an apprentice to a blacksmith to earn a living, working six days a week, studying Latin and Greek in the evenings and all day Sunday. His friend Henry Highland Garnet vividly described him as 'at a forge with the bellows in one hand and a Latin grammar in the other'" (25). He went to the University of Glasgow in 1832, where he earned his B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). The chapter is fascinating in highlighting the differences and discussions regarding education among black leaders of the nineteenth century: Booker T. Washington, for example, advocated for technical/manual skills as readiness for available jobs, whereas Scarborough, Du Bois, and many others argued that a classical education was relevant for all, regardless of race and social class.

Chapter 2 ("Figuring Classical Resistance") demonstrates how classical imagery, figures, metaphors, and rhetoric were used by various groups to conceptualize the place of African Americans in the broader landscape of American history. The chapter delves into the story of the Amistad (the African slave-trading ship that was seized off Long Island in 1839), to illustrate how resistance in the classical past was used to advocate for the rights of these slaves to return to Sierra Leone, where they had been kidnapped and sold by Spanish slavers. The Northern abolitionists used classical heroes as models of resistance to tyranny, and they regarded Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué), who was the leader of the slaves, as a modern hero willing to die for his liberty. The portrait of Pieh shows him wearing a traditional Mende dress—"a white cloth draped his body leaving his right arm and shoulder bare, while in one hand he holds a spear, a symbol of leadership" (55). Malamud should have been more careful in concurring with a comment made by Marcus Rediker that the painting might evoke the African leader as wearing a toga. Romans did not reveal naked shoulders, and the idea that "the white toga suggested that Cinqué's willingness to fight to the death for liberty" (55) is not accurate.² Furthermore, the author indicates that Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803), who was instrumental as a leader in the fight of Haiti against imperial powers, was viewed as an African Spartacus and an inspiration to many African Americans in their fight for freedom and equality. Malamud is correct to note the important role Toussaint played in the Haitian revolution. I question, however, the qualification that Haiti's successful revolution was "the first successful slave revolt on the French colony of Saint- Domingue" (59). It is important to point out that the Haitian revolution was, and remains, the most successful slave revolution in history, and the first abolition of slavery in an important slave society. And L'Ouverture won, whereas Spartacus failed.

Malamud shows, convincingly, how whites celebrated model heroes of antiquity and claimed them as models for themselves, and how love of freedom was a white prerogative not applicable to black slaves. Proponents of slavery conceived traits like courage and manliness far differently from blacks and abolitionists who used images episodes, and figures from the classical past in their fight for emancipation. The rest of the chapter touches on the celebration and support of the modern Greek revolution by many white Americans; on identification of the model of Greek beauty as an aesthetic ideal; and on the use of Greek and Roman rhetoric by both supporters of slavery and abolitionists to argue their cases. Among the most effective users of rhetoric to achieve abolition, of course, was the former slave and orator par excellence, Frederick Douglass, who achieved great prominence as an African American leader.

Chapter 3 ("Ancient and Modern Slavery") analyzes the ways in which references to ancient slavery played a role in the debates over the place of slavery in antebellum America. On the one hand, pro-slavery advocates argued that Greece and Rome flourished because free citizens could use their time to think, to participate in politics, to enjoy art, and to do productive work, instead of engaging in menial and repetitive labor deemed worthy of slaves. On the other hand, the abolitionists and black intellectuals argued that the ancient civilizations declined and died because of slavery, which clouded the humanity of the ancients. The chapter ends by showing how political figures in contemporary America still have to deal with references to antiquity and its legacy. As Malamud states, "References to Antiquity in debates over slavery and politics remain fiercely contested; their meaning shifts in accordance with the ideological and political concerns of their producers" (146). This fascinating chapter illuminates the fraught use and abuse of the classical past in contemporary political debates and monuments.³

Chapter 4 ("Constructing History") explores how African Americans confronted the racialized picture of their past: first, by claiming the ancient Egyptians as ancestors and second, by reworking images and tropes of the past to voice their struggles, past and present. On the one hand, the Egyptian pyramids, testify to the greatness of an ancient African civilization and connects racially modern Africans to ancient Egyptians (159-165). Such connections show that the claims of African racial inferiority cannot hold. On the other hand, the "return to Egypt" was also seen as problematic by many African Americans. Egypt epitomizes the land of slavery, and Pharaoh the despot is akin to white slaveholders. Two Egypts were then envisaged: the Egypt of powerful black rulers with a great civilization, and the Egypt of Hebrew bondage, which symbolized African slaves longing to go to Canaan. Sojourner Truth's biographical anecdote (1797-1883) exemplifies this latter understanding: "when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind, I wasn't going to keep nothing of Egypt on me" (166). African Americans also negotiated the past by deconstructing and reframing figures of the ancient world. Cleopatra, for example, is represented as a black African woman; themes from ancient mythologies are used to speak about issues confronted by contemporary African Americans. African-American intellectuals and artists of the early twentieth century began to be interested in modern Africa, and in the history of Africa beyond the mythical Egypt or Ethiopia. African Americans sought to understand themselves not solely from a Western, European frame, but from the larger canvas of African and global history.

The book ends with an "Afterword" that reflects on the trajectory of African Americans and the classical world, especially in African American Classical reception in the twentieth and early twenty-first century. In novels, plays, sculptures, and even movies, the author shows how various African Americans have engaged with the classical texts. The point of these different works is not to place blackness in Graeco-Roman Antiquity but to meditate and navigate as human beings what Classics and classicism could look like beyond color in a "'De-Segregated Republic of Letters'" (199).

In conclusion, I have a few corrections, which should in no way undervalue the scholarly contribution of this volume. The author could have pointed out on page 10 that we have no proof that Calhoun ever said that "learning Greek inducted one into the heart of Western civilization." Under the picture of W.S. Scarborough on page 18, fig. 1.3, the author puts "ca. 1913." It is not 1913 but closer to 1908 when Scarborough became president of Wilberforce University (1908-1920). The author should have been more careful about her use of a certain "P.S. Twister" on page 48, who allegedly was a journalist with the Chicago Conservator. "Twister" is not a real person. It was a penname for a "press bureau" in Washington DC. Harrison J. Pinkett (1882-1960) was one of the journalists of the bureau. I have noticed only a few typos: On page 57, at the bottom of the page, one should read: "a Philadelphia abolitionist newspaper, exposing the real reason why the painting was not shown," instead of "…exposing the real reason the painting why…" On page 205, note 27, the name of William Sanders Scarborough is misspelled. On page 216, note 23, the "u" is missing in the name of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

In spite of these few editorial infelicities, this book is a fascinating read and will be of interest to anyone interested in classical studies, classical reception, African American history, and the history of race relations in the United States of America. The book is well written, and the research is solid. It should be noted, however, that this book is a stepping-stone to the many scholarly investigations that still need to be done.

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Notes:

1.   See Michele Valerie Ronnick, whose contribution to Classics has brought to light the essential and rare works of Scarborough: The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship, edited, introduced and annotated (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005) and The Works of William Sanders Scarborough: Black Classicist and Race Leader, edited, introduced, annotated (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
2.   The author misidentifies the dress as a Roman toga instead of a Mende ceremonial dress. She agrees with Rediker's comment that "viewers of the painting might see the African leader as wearing a toga, like a virtuous Roman republican citizen, or as Moses, staff in hand, having led his compatriots back to the Promised land." See Marcus Rediker, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (New York: Viking, 2012), 174-5.
3.   For an additional perspective see J. Albert Harrill, "The Use of the New Testament in the American Slave Controversy: A Case History in the Hermeneutical Tension between Biblical Interpretation and Christian Moral Debate," in Religion and American Culture 10 (2000): 149-86.

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