bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Aidōs
Authors: Cairns Douglas L
Published: November 2023

This is the first study in English to examine across the range of Greek literature one of the most crucial terms in Greek ethical and social discourse, aidos. Commonly rendered ̀shamé, ̀modestý, or ̀respect́, aidos is also notoriously one of the most elusive and difficult Greek words to translate. In this book Dr Cairns discusses the nature and application of aidos and other relevant terms in a number of authors, with particular emphasis on their manifestations in epic, tragedy, and philosophy. He shows that the essence of the concept is to be found in its relationship with Greek values of honour, in which context it can recognize and respond to the honour of both the self and others. It thus involves both self- and other-regarding behaviour, competitive and co-operative values. Despite this crucial relationship with systems of honour, however, the possession of aidos at no stage rules out the sort of commitment to internalized standards or ideals which we might associate with conscience.
First-Person Fictions: Pindar’s Poetic ‘I’
Authors: Lefkowitz Mary R
Published: November 2023

This collection of essays, written over a period of almost thirty years, deals with one problem: who is the `I' in the odes of the most celebrated ancient Greek poet, Pindar? Since antiquity, the complex and allusive language of the first-person statements has provoked many different answers. Professor Lefkowitz describes the function and nature of Pindar's `I'-statements and proposes a controversial solution that would cause some histories of Greek literature to be rewritten. Rather than accept the view that the identity of the speaker could be subject to instant and unannounced change, she proposes that the voice of the victory odes is the poet himself, in his most professional persona. Professor Lefkowitz also refutes the traditional belief that the odes were sung by a chorus. She shows that in most, if not all cases, they were sung as solos and that Pindar was continuing the tradition established by the Homeric bards.
The First Person in Pindar
Authors: Lefkowitz Mary R
Published: November 2023

The victory ode is a curious and somewhat paradoxical form of art. As we know it, from the extant works of Pindar and Bacchylides, it appears to be in the tradition of the songs of the bards and the lyric poets, that is, an address by a single poet to his audience. For example, in the opening lines of Pindar’s Second Olympian Ode (‘Hymns that rule the lyre I which god, which hero, which man shall we sing?’) the ‘we’ is clearly Pindar, since the invocation to ‘hymns’ and the first person verb ‘we shall sing’ indicate that the speaker is concerned with the composition of song, in other words, that he is a poet. But 0. 2 and most of Pindar’s other odes were not presented (or so scholars have always assumed) by the poet himself, as were the songs of the Homeric bards, but by choruses, like the dithyramb and the choral odes of tragedy.
Pindar’s Lives
Authors: Lefkowitz Mary R
Published: November 2023

The average man has great difficulty in dealing with ideologies; he needs concrete personifications…It is here, and not merely in curiosity and sensationalism, that the origin of the public’s interest in the person of the artist lies. This interest, moreover, cannot be satisfied with the usually dull facts of the artist’s external life, for his personality is inquired into, not for human or psychological reasons, but in order that he be made the concrete representation of his world. In this, also, the public completes the process of artistic selfcreation that the artist alone cannot achieve and would not if he could. (Rank (1959), 217-18.)
The Poet as Athlete
Authors: Lefkowitz Mary R
Published: November 2023

The subject of the greatest surviving lyric poetry is not love nor death but athletic games. That we have manuscripts only of Pindar’s Victory Odes is a result of a selection made by schoolmasters in late antiquity, but we are lucky to have victory odes rather than hymns or dithyrambs or paeans, because unlike most other Greek public poetry they are written for and about contemporary men, rather than gods or the great heroes of the past. As such they tell us something about the values of aristocratic society, that is, why the games were thought so important that, as Pindar puts it, ‘the victor has sweet fair weather for the rest of his life on account of the contests [he has won]’ (0. i. 97-9); or, in more practical terms, ‘[the victor) would be more honourable for his fellow citizens to look on, and he would get a highly visible front seat ,:t the games, and he would get his provisions from the public storehouse, and a gift from his city that he could put in a treasury’ (Xenophanes 21 B 2. 6-9, i. 128 D-K).
Pliny the writer
Authors: Healy John F
Published: November 2023

The deterioration in the political situation during the first century AD inevitably had far-reaching consequences on the content and character of the literature of the period. This resulted from opposition to imperial rule, the basis of which apparently lay in a sentimentalized view of the Republic, and in a concept less philosophical than political, namely that government should be in the hands of the best men, or best man, which, of course, meant the old oligarchy— naturally led by the dissidents themselves. Their Republican heroes were the Younger Cato,1 Marcus Brutus,2 and Gaius Cassius.
Physics
Authors: Healy John F
Published: November 2023

Physics is the branch of science concerned with the properties of matter and energy and the relationships between them. It is based on mathematics and, traditionally, includes optics, electricity, magnetism, acoustics, heat, and mechanics.
Minerals
Authors: Healy John F
Published: November 2023

In this chapter the minerals treated, or referred to, by Pliny are arranged in alphabetical order.

adamas The term adamas has a long pedigree, being indiscriminately used in the ancient world to describe any unusually hard substance, whether mineral, or metal—for example, iron, corundum, lodestone, and diamonds.
Extravagance
Authors: Hutchinson G O
Published: November 2023

Extravagance is a vital aspect of the high poetry in our period which readers arc particularly unwilling to enjoy or accept; it is important for an appreciation of the whole literature. It is also centrally related to our special themes of greatness and reality. It well merits its own chapter. We shall again spend the first half of the chapter on high poetry, where the matter is of special importance, and then turn to consider some other writers: again the matter illuminates both genre and individuality. In looking at the high poetry, and at Seneca’s prose, we shall concentrate on extravagance in physical description; it is a type that readers seem to find particularly disconcerting, and the concentration will enable us to see differences among the authors more clearly. On other writers we shall broaden our scope. We shall begin, however, with a word on ancient critics, who have greatly affected modern responses to lavishness and hyperbole in this literature; we shall for once allow ourselves some mention of Greeks.
Seleukos’ Acquisition.
Authors: Grainger. John D
Published: November 2023

When Seleukos Nikator’s army occupied Syria in 301 BC, it was only the latest in a long series of such armies. In the last hundred years, Syria had been repeatedly traversed by military forces, both hostile and friendly, though the difference between the two was probably not clear to the suffering peasantry. And before that, the land had been ruled by a succession of alien governors sent from ever more distant imperial capitals, first Assur, then Babylon, then Persepolis. None of these governors or rulers or military commanders had shown any interest in Syria itself or the Syrians themselves, except as a source of taxes and provisions. This was true, also, of the Macedonians, the latest alien conquerors, who had ruled since Alexander’s conquest in 333, but these, for the first time in four centuries, had shown some interest in taking measures to increase the resources of Syria; this process was to culminate in Seleukos’ spectacular series of urban foundations, soon after he arrived.
The Cities and the Villages
Authors: Grainger. John D
Published: November 2023

The central event in the urban history of Syria was Seleukos l’s decision in 301 or 300 to establish a series of ten cities in the land. Before that, there were a small number of urban centres in Syria; after his reign several other sites developed into cities; but Seleukos’ work was crucial.
Critics and Champions
Authors: Stockton David
Published: November 2023

A. H. M. Jones began his essay on ‘The Athenian Democracy and its Critics’ with the observation that ‘It is curious that in the abundant literature produced in the greatest democracy of Greece there is no statement of democratic political theory’; and he went on to list among its critics the ‘Old Oligarch’, Socrates, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. Aristotle ‘is the most judicial in his attitude, and states the pros and cons, but his ideal was a widely based oligarchy’.
General Introduction
Authors: Dasen Véronique
Published: November 2023

Every society produces minorities, which may be ethnic, linguistic, social, religious, or physical. While most types of minorities may change, physical anomalies, especially congenital, have occurred with similar frequency throughout human history. In ancient Egypt and Greece physical beauty, defined in terms of proportion, was highly admired, even to excess. What happened to those who conformed neither to these ‘ideal proportions’ nor to norms of human appearance? Were they rejected as beings outside the world of creation, who disturbed the established order and should be killed or hidden? Were they objects of curiosity and derision? Or were they associated with higher powers and integrated within the socio-religious system of the community? How did the ancients explain the causes of congenital physical defects? This book examines the case of dwarfism.
Palaeopathology
Authors: Dasen Véronique
Published: November 2023

The diagnosis of a disturbance of development can be established principally by inspection of the spine, the long bones, and the skull, including an examination of the pituitary cavity, which may show an enlargement due to a tumour. This diagnosis is often prevented by incomplete human remains which can easily mislead; for example, fragmentary remains of children might be mistaken for those of proportionate dwarfs. Similarities between different conditions, such as those included in the short-limbed category, may not allow an accurate diagnosis, but only a statement of a range of possible disorders.
Iconographic Conventions
Authors: Dasen Véronique
Published: November 2023

In Egyptian art the rendering of the human body conformed to a rigid system of conventions which remained largely unchanged throughout the dynastic period. The normal human figure has ideal proportions, fixed in a canon applied through guidelines or squared grids. The body has two relatively equal parts,1 and is divided by six horizontal guidelines in the Old Kingdom, eighteen squares to the hair line from the Middle Kingdom on, and twenty-one to the eyeline from the twenty-fifth dynasty onwards.2 Robins has demonstrated that this canon closely follows natural proportions, which were characterized by long distal segments in the limbs, as in Blacks. These proportions may be emphasized; she notes that in some figures ‘the combined height of the femur and the tibia occupies more than half the body height, which is a greater proportion than in real life’.
Human Dwarfs
Authors: Dasen Véronique
Published: November 2023

Our information on the position of short-statured people in daily life is based essentially upon iconography. Most representations come from funerary monuments—tomb reliefs and stelae, sarcophagi, statuary—which were meant to recreate for the deceased the conditions of his daily life on earth. Few depictions have been found in settlements (statuary) and cult contexts (temple reliefs, votive stelae, and figure vases).
Physical Minorities
Authors: Dasen Véronique
Published: November 2023

How was a short-statured person accepted in Greek communities? Did a dwarf child receive the same education as a normal child? Once adult, did he possess and exert the same rights as his contemporaries? Could he be elected to a magistracy? If severely crippled did he benefit from private or public assistance? No dwarf is mentioned in the sources describing Greek laws and customs. Information on the Greek attitude towards physical deviance must, as was the case for Egypt, be sought in secondary sources, such as accounts of the exposure of abnormal children and of legal provisions for the disabled.
S: Skeletal Remains
Authors: Dasen Véronique
Published: November 2023

Skull, clavicles, vertebrae, upper limbs (ulnae, radius). Formerly London, Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Present location unknown. E. W. A. H. Jones, J. of Anat. 66 (1932), 569-73 (achondroplasia); G. Brunton, Mostagedda and the Tasian Culture (London, 1937), 42 (‘Upper part of a male dwarf’); A. Bley er, Ann. Med. Hist. 2 (1940), 306 (achondroplasia); Ortner/Putschar, Pathological Conditions, 331.
Roman Nature
Authors: Beagon Mary
Published: November 2023

Pliny̓s Natural History has too often been regarded as simply a quarry for quaint stories-a view which has tended to overshadow its overall structure and purpose. Dr Beagon redresses the balance and illuminates the Natural History as the work of an author with an identifiable mode of thinking and a coherent attitude towards his clearly-stated theme, Nature. Taking its cue from Pliny, the book examines his cosmology and in particular his portrayal of the relationship between Nature and the creation he considered her greatest, Man. Author and work are also placed in their wider literary and historical context. Pliny himself emerges no longer as a faceless compiler, but as a character with a valuable contribution to make to an understanding of intellectual attitudes in the first century AD. A more typical Roman than most of the intellectual authors studied today, he can offer a much more accurate picture of the Roman in his `natural' setting.
Introduction
Authors: Beagon Mary
Published: November 2023

‘He possessed an acute intellect, an amazing devotion to study, and an immense capacity for doing without sleep’ (acre ingenium, incredibile studium, summa vigilantia). Pliny the Younger recalls in a letter (Ep. 3. 5. 8) how his uncle, besides long periods of study during the day, used also to work for at least half the night. He would then fit in a pre-dawn visit to the emperor Vespasian before beginning his other official duties. Even long periods of relaxation were only apparent; books were read and notes taken while bathing. eating, and resting. While travelling he always read, with a secretary constantly by his side to take notes. Walking, he admonished his nephew, was a waste of time. Compared with him, other men seemed enslaved to sleep and idleness. It comes as something of a relief to read that he was on occasion liable to drop off to sleep for short periods while working (Ep. 3. 5. 9). This picture of relentless activity complements Pliny the Eider’s own words in the preface to the Historia Naturalis: ‘life is being awake’ (vita vigilia est, pref. 19). It is therefore somewhat ironic that we should remember Pliny for the manner of his death, while commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum, in the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD 79. Yet it is understandable. His nephew’s vivid description of those last days was written with the intention of firing the imagination of posterity.
Man and the Gods
Authors: Beagon Mary
Published: November 2023

The only form of deity acceptable to Pliny is divina Natura, the spirit of the universe, an all-embracing unity. Traditional ideas of a multiplicity of gods and goddesses as in the Olympic pantheon are merely examples of imbecillitas humana (2. 14). The diversity of religious ideas only obscures the search for God (2. 22). Some men slavishly worship monstra with externa sacra, while others believe in nothing at all (2. 21). Some invent a deity between these two concepts, Fortuna; others again adopt the fatalism of astrology. Pliny concludes that ‘naturae potentia … est quod deum vocemus’ (2. 27).
Man and the Animals
Authors: Beagon Mary
Published: November 2023

So far, the discussion of Pliny’s thought has centred on man and the powers that are greater than man. Man has been portrayed contemplating the divine cosmos in approved Stoic fashion, ‘leaving the ground and fixing the mind’s eye upon questions about the nature of God and … the principle which governs the universe’ (Sen. De Brev. Vit. 19. 1-2). The uniqueness of the conception of the Natural History becomes more apparent only when Pliny turns his attention back to earth, to the forms of life generally considered to be lower than man. Even in the Natural Questions, the work nearest in scope and subject-matter to the HN, Seneca, who says at the beginning that study of terrestrial creation is one-third of the study of the universe (NQ 2. 1), discusses only large-scale cosmic phenomena and their relation to man. Only once is any mention made of the relationship between man and the animals and that is a gloomy prediction of the great flood, ‘the extinction of both man and the wild beasts whose minds and manners man will by this time share’ (NQ 3. 30. 7). The transition of man into beast reflects the extremity of the situation. Seneca normally emphasized the differences between men and animals rather than the similarities. A gulf between man and beast is characteristic of the concentration in Late Stoic thought upon man and his aspirations. This emphasis in turn took to extremes a teleological bias, an idea that the parts of nature subserved some purpose, which is recognizable in earlier ancient thought on animals: man is supreme; the animals and the rest of nature exist solely for his convenience.
The Problem of the Text of the Old Testament Before Jerome
Authors: Kamesar Adam
Published: November 2023

As for as we know, the first Christian scholar to concern himself in a serious fashion, vith the text of the Old Testament was Origen. His major achievement in this respect was the so-called Hexapla, a multi-columned Bible which included the Hebrew text (according to the traditional view in both Hebrew letters and in Greek transcription), the version of the LXX, the newer translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion (= the recentiores), and certain lesser known versions of some biblical books.1 He also put together what appears to have been a critical edition of the LXX, which included critical signs in use among Alexandrian grammarians such as the obelus and the asterisk. This edition is generally designated as the Hexaplaric (recension of the) LXX, although whether it constituted the LXX column of the Hexapla or a separate work is not certain.
Jerome and the Problem of the Text of the Old ’Testarnent
Authors: Kamesar Adam
Published: November 2023

Jerome began the study of Hebre,Y at an early point in his career. Living the life of a hermit in the desert of Chalcis during approximately the years 375-7, he began learning Hebrew from a Jewish convert to Christianity. His continuing ,vork in the language is attested by his remarks in the preface to the translation of the Chronicon of Eusebius, a work which he produced in Constantinoplc around 380. But it was during his stay in Rome (c.382-5) that Jerome seems to have consolidated his knowledge of Bebrew and began propagating his position concerning the importance of the Hebrew text for biblical study. This is most evident from the letters which he wrote during this period.
Jerome and his Greek Exegetical Sources
Authors: Kamesar Adam
Published: November 2023

In his attempt to understand and interpret the Hebrew text, Jerome employed three kinds of sources: Jewish and especially Christian Greek exegetical writings, the recentiores, and rabbinic teachers. He seems to acknowledge this in Ep. 37, which he wrote to Marcella in approximately 385. In this letter, he refuses to lend his star pupil a commentary on the Song of Songs by Reticius of Autun, on the grounds that it contains too many errors. He points in particular to the wild misinterpretations of certain Hebrew terms, and attributes them to the author’s failure to consult the proper sources: ‘Did he not have Origen’s ten volumes [of commentary], did he not have the other translators [i..e. the recentiores], did he not have Jewish consultants ... ?’ (Ep. 37. 3). In reproaching the procedure of Reticius, Jerome outlines what he considers the most important lines of approach in interpreting the Hebrew text.
Xenophon: Kanan of Aphelia
Authors: Rutherford Ian
Published: November 2023

In this chapter I survey some of the views about Xenophontic style that were circulated in the early Empire. There are five stages. Dionysius includes Xenophon twice in his reading list in Peri Mimeseos, both as a historian and as a philosopher. That in itself is interesting, and symptomatic of the uncertainty felt by early critics about how to classify Xenophon. Even this two-way classification leaves out some works, of course: the Kunegetikos, for example, a popular work later on.
Animals, 1 The Ritual Theory
Authors: Forbes Irving P M C
Published: November 2023

It is the stories of transformation into large mammals that have most frequently prompted religious explanations, for several reasons. First, most of them appear early and have therefore been seen as belonging to the more primitive stage of Greek mythology. Secondly, most of them are not actiological in form and therefore cannot be explained as animal just-so stories. Thirdly, in most of them the gods play a central role as characters and often have an intimate connection with the human heroes: Io, Callisto, and Taygete are all loved by Zeus, and Actaeon is Zeus' rival in love. Fourthly, the animals of the transformations have a close connection with the gods of the stories as their sacred animals: Io is a cow, the sacred animal of Hera; Callisto, Taygete, and Actaeon are bears and deer, the sacred animals of Artemis.
Stones
Authors: Forbes Irving P M C
Published: November 2023

There are a number of obvious common features in the stories of petrification. First, their character is dominated by the lifelessness of stones. Trees are animate only in a limited sense and, like stones, tend to be memorials rather than continuations of the human being, but whereas trees are living and positive memorials stones tend to be more often grim reminders or warnings.1 Secondly, petrification permanently fixes an object in a place; these stories, unlike most of the others we have been considering, concern particular landmarks and objects, and being petrified is sometimes described in terms of being rooted to the ground.2 Thirdly, as in the tree stories, the gods, or otherworldly figures of some sort, play a crucial part; but whereas transformation into a tree is normally worked by the love or pity of a god petrification is normally a punishment for their enemies. Any discussion of these stories must take account of these features.
Sex Changes
Authors: Forbes Irving P M C
Published: November 2023

There are only a few stories of sex change, but these are generally agreed to be some of the most striking and imaginative of all Greek myths. The two most popular stories tell how Caine’s changed from a woman to an invulnerable man and how Tiresias changed his sex twice before becoming a seer. There is also a cult action at Plaistow describing how a girl was brought up disguised as a boy, Leucippus, and then transformed as she was about to be discovered. Any attempt to interpret these myths must go beyond the stories themselves and explore their background. Literal and metaphorical sex change seems to have been a subject of considerable imaginative interest in the ancient world and had some importance in ancient religion. Attempts have been made to link these stories with a number of phenomena and beliefs. Writers of natural history and historians report some real sex changes: these almost invariably tell of the appearance of male genitals on what was apparently a woman. Such cases, like the births of bisexual babies, were treated as striking portents: Pliny says that hermaphrodites were regarded as prodigies, and Diodorus tells how at Rome and Athens such people were burnt alive. The superstitious fears surrounding bisexuality are vividly expressed in a story recounted in Phlegon.
The Shape-Shifters
Authors: Forbes Irving P M C
Published: November 2023

The stories of the shape-shifters, Proteus, Nereus, Meris, Nemesis, Thetis, Periclymenus, Dionysos, and Mestra are quite different from any of the transformation stories we have considered so far. The defining feature of this class of heroes is that they undergo a whole series of transformations rather than a single one. Further, unlike the changes of most human beings these are self-willed and temporary; unlike those of the gods they have strong suggestions of magic.
The Song of Ares and Aphrodite: On the Relationship between the Odyssey and the Iliad
Authors: Burkert Walter
Published: November 2023

On the issue of the ‘Homeric question ‘, since we still have one opinion against another, one hypothesis against its counterpart, without the slightest hope of reaching an agreement, it might seem pointless to want to add a new little stone to the mountain of literature. In spite of the common desire which should unite unitarians and analysts-interpretation of individual parts with a correct view of the whole--we have still got no further than missing each othees point. It is evident that in these controversies one fundamental uncertainty emerges again and again, i.e. which categories of understanding, which criteria, are appropriate for the subject matter; and the reason for this in tum is the complete isolation in which Homeric epic, at least the Iliad, presents itself to us. We know nothing about its poet and we ultimately know the world in which it originated only through its own testimony. Consequently, we can obtain those criteria and categories which are the basis of any interpretation only from the poem itself, or bring them in from outside without any proper legitimization. The greatest care must be taken to avoid the accusation of a circular argument or a petitio principii. And yet we are faced with this basic difficulty to its full extent only as far as the Iliad is concerned. Perhaps people overlook at times that we are in a far better position concerning the Odyssey.
The Land Category System and its Development
Authors: Rowlandson Jane
Published: November 2023

When Ptolemy son of Lagos established himself in Egypt after Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC, he encountered a relatively sophisticated administrative machinery for tapping the predominantly agricultural wealth of the country, which had evolved during more than two thousand years of Pharaonic rule and subsequently been modified during the Persian rule of Egypt. All agricultural land was categorized according to the terms under which Pharaoh had conceded it to the individual possessors in return for regular revenues in kind; a prime duty of the bureaucracy of royal officials was to keep meticulous written records of these revenues, as well as actually to collect them. Rather than attempt to dismantle this complex but lucrative system, Ptolemy and his successors introduced modifications to suit the new needs of Egypt as a Hellenistic kingdom. Thus individual landholders in Ptolemaic Egypt continued to have their rights to the land articulated by an all-embracing system of land classification which, with its tripartite division into royal domain, temple estates, and land conceded to soldiers and officials, bears some resemblance to that which had prevailed in Pharaonic times.
The Landowners and their Properties
Authors: Rowlandson Jane
Published: November 2023

This chapter discusses, first, the identity of Oxyrhynchite landowners and their place in the social structure, and second, the physical location and spread of their landholdings. It naturally focuses primarily on holdings of private land; but, as we saw in the previous chapter, public land sometimes formed part of what were essentially private landholdings, and therefore is also included in the discussion where appropriate.
Introduction
Authors: Parker Robert
Published: November 2023

Anyone who has sampled a few of the most commonly read Greek texts will have encountered pollution. In tragedy, the plague at the opening of the Oedipus Tyrannus is caused by it, it precipitates Creon’s repentance in the Antigone, while Orestes in the Oresteia, although he is driven to the matricide by the fear of one pollution, is seized by another after performing it. In history, it plays, perhaps, a larger part than any other religious motif in the austere Thucydides. A Greek state in the fifth century, we learn from him, might attribute a natural disaster to a pollution it had incurred, and he shows us the Athenians expelling the Delians from their island to ensure the purity of this religious centre. In the fourth century, Aeschines could envisage Demosthenes as the ‘demon who pollutes all Greece’, and brings it to misfortune. A glance at evidence of a different kind, inscriptions regulating cult, shows how the concern for purity affected the individual in his everyday religious practice. The threat of pollution is, it seems, the dominating concern of the Superstitious Man of Theophrastus.
Cicero on Epicurean Pleasures
Authors: Stokes Michael C
Published: November 2023

Cicero’s version and critique of Epicurus’ ethics in the De Finibus offer in some respects the fullest consecutive account extant from antiquity. Their proper assessment is accordingly important for the study both of Cicero and of Epicurus. A decade ago, in The Greeks on Pleasure, J.C. B. Gosling and C. C. W. Taylor put a balanced but on the whole low valuation on Cicero’s interpretation in De Finibus 1-2 of Epicurus’ views on pleasure.1 ‘Cicero,’ wrote Gosling and Taylor, ‘is clearly unsympathetic to Epicurus, and while he obviously finds it difficult to make consistent sense of him, he is not predisposed to try too hard.’ This is in addition to their thunderous ‘None of this shows careful attention to the original texts or the refinements of argument.’ But the Oxford scholars balance this harsh judgement by pointing out fairly that Cicero ‘is not ignorant of Epicurus. Often he more or less translates independently attested fragments . . .’. Indeed they may go too far in this direction, for their assertion that ‘the passage on the role of perception [De Finibus r. 30-1] ... shows acquaintance with the literature’ makes no overt allowance for the genuine possibility that this acquaintance was second-hand.
Cicero on Self-Love and Love of Humanity in De Finibus 3
Authors: Wright M R
Published: November 2023

(As soon as a living creature is born-for this should be our starting-point --it has an attachment to itself and commends itself to self-preservation and to loving its own condition and whatever preserves that condition, but sets itself against death and whatever obviously contributes to death. The Stoics demonstrate this as follows: before pleasure or pain affects them, infants reach out for what is health-giving and reject the opposite-and this would not happen unless they loved their own condition and feared its destruction. But it would be impossible for them to reach out for anything unless they had awareness of themselves, and so had self-love. Consequently the primary instinct should be recognized as derived from self-love.)
The Ciceronian Aristocracy and its Properties
Authors: Rawson Elizabeth
Published: November 2023

Much of the information about the real property of the Roman aristocracy in the Late Republic has already been carefully collected and listed. This chapter does not aim at any sort of completeness; it attempts to make some points, hitherto insufficiently stressed or entirely neglected, about the attitudes which the senatorial class held to its estates, what types of property it preferred (or was permitted) to invest in, and how it assisted its dependants to invest; with the little that can be said about prices and their variations, and about dealers in real property. From the corpus of Cicero’s letters* we get an impression of the Roman upper class as not only deeply concerned with real property, its main form of investment, but indeed feverishly engaged in property deals. This impression may not be wholly misleading, in spite of the fact that Cicero and his brother Quintus were, for most of the period covered by the letters, rising in the social and economic scale, and thus particularly pro.ne to buying or considering buying property.
L. Cornelius Sisenna and the Early First Century BC
Authors: Rawson Elizabeth
Published: November 2023

The most important historical work in Latin that was actually written in the first half of the first century BC was L. Cornelius Sisenna’s history of the War of the Allies and the Civil Wars which followed it, up to Sulla’s dictatorship or conceivably dcath-the most important one that was not written being of course Cicero’s. Sallust praised Sisenna’s work highly in the Jugurtha, though complaining that it was not sufficiently frank about Sulla, and his own lost histories began, very probably, where Sisenna’s left off. Varro’s logistoricus on the writing of history, of which, alas, only a brief and unenlightening fragment remains, bore Sisenna’s name. Cicero twice admitted that Sisenna’s was easily- ‘facile’ -the best piece of historical writing existing in Latin in his time, though he thought that it had serious shortcomings; he had of course an axe to grind, since he was toying with the idea of himself providing a historical masterpiece to set beside those of the Greeks (and, if he had chosen the contemporary history that Atticus apparently urged upon him, one may speculate that he would probably, like Sallust, have started where Sisenna stopped).
The Antiquarian Tradition: Spoils and Representations of Foreign Armour*
Authors: Rawson Elizabeth
Published: November 2023

The Roman tradition about the Early and Middle Republic is extremely complex. There is the role of oral tradition; the limitations of which we begin better to understand. I am not myself a great believer in the tabulae dealbatae kept by the pontifices, at least as a major component of the accounts we have. As soon as histories began to be written, an awareness of what was expected of this Greek genre must have had a deforming effect; and in some hands, of course, historiography came to resort to extremes of artificial elaboration and even invention. But vestiges of the past survived all round the Romans, in institutions and customs, in works of art and other objects, to some extent in documents. If the Romans wanted to try to reconstruct their past, the material lay to hand, and Greek scholars had shown ways of exploiting it. I want to take a single example that may suggest what was, or could have been done.
‘Pagan’ and ‘Christian’ Marriage
Authors: Grubbs Judith Evans
Published: November 2023

It has been said that Constantine’s Christianity is most evident in his laws on marriage and the family. But this presupposes not only that Constantine, even in the first decade of his reign, was aware of what Christian teachings on marriage and the family were, but that there was in fact a solid and well-defined ‘Christian’ policy on marriage and family at the beginning of the fourth century. This second point seems generally to be taken for granted, yet it is certainly open to question.
The Repeal of the Augustan Penalties on Celibacy
Authors: Grubbs Judith Evans
Published: November 2023

The financial aspects of marriage, especially those involving dowry, donation, and inheritance, had always been of great interest to classical jurists and the upper-class elite for whom they wrote, and particularly in the first half of his reign, Constantine devoted much attention to matters involving the transfer of property within families. A book of this scope cannot treat in detail all of his laws relating to inheritance and gifts, but a comprehensive list is provided in Appendix 1. This chapter focuses on one law that was to have far-reaching consequences for the development of marriage and sexuality in late antiquity and the medieval period: the constitution of 320 abolishing the Augustan penalties for celibacy.
Conquest, 225-193 BC
Authors: Grainger John D
Published: November 2023

After two generations of peace for most of Phoenicia, warfare returned to the area in the 220s, and continued on and off for thirty years, resulting in the replacement of Ptolemaic rule by that of the Seleukid kings. Suitably enough, the political problems began in the Seleukid part of Phoenicia, Arados and its peraia.

There is no reason to believe that Seleukos II had been pleased to have had to concede part of his authority to the city of Arados in 242 or thereabouts.1 Yet, once conceded, the deal they had made kept Arados quiet and loyal throughout the long series of wars which the king had to wage to recover his heritage. Then, even when he was more or less free of pressing problems elsewhere, the basic strategic position of Arados remained the same: it was an island, at some distance from the shore, bordering on hostile (Ptolemaic) territory; thus any pressure from Seleukos could be met by an Aradian rebellion. Yet Arados clearly did not seriously wish to rebel; there had been plenty of opportunities for that in the past half century.
Autonomy And Independence, 129-64 BC
Authors: Grainger John D
Published: November 2023

In 130 BC Antiochos VII, having reduced his inheritance to order in Syria and Palestine, set off eastwards to recover that which had been lost. He was defeated and killed in the campaign which followed, and most of his army with him. The Parthian king had released Antiochos’ brother Demetrios II during the war, hoping to provoke trouble in Antiochos’ rear. Demetrios reassumed the kingship, but soon had to face rebellion and usurpation fomented from Egypt. Civil war became endemic in the remaining Seleukid lands for nearly ten years from I 29 BC.
The Provincial On The Provinces
Authors: Griffin Miriam T
Published: November 2023

As a Spaniard and a Stoic, Seneca had two good reasons for being interested in the Empire and subjects of Rome. Spain was the oldest of Rome’s major provinces; Stoicism preached commitment to human society and had boasted among its adherents many champions of just rule over the provinces. Against such a background, the paucity and poverty of Seneca’s thoughts on the subject stand out all too clearly. Worse still, even these thoughts, as will appear, played little part in the foreign policy and provincial administration of his years of influence.
Seneca On Slavery
Authors: Griffin Miriam T
Published: November 2023

Seneca pleaded a powerful case for the humane treatment of slaves. He was not the first philosopher to discuss in detail the proper relations of master and slave: he himself refers to the standard topic de usu servorum that, among the Stoics, was included, along with advice on the treatment of wives and children, in their casuistical discussions of justice. These discussions are lost, but, as will appear, they probably did not contain suggestions as practical or attitudes as positive as we find in Seneca’s lengthy treatments of the problem. For Seneca does not merely condemn cruelty. He asks that slaves be regarded as individuals with different moral capacities, as potential friends whose relations with the master are based on love or respect rather than fear, generosity on one side being matched by loyalty on the other. The slave should find in the home, not only a master, but a society with responsibilities, honours, and a sense of community.
Rhetoric and Euripides Agones
Authors: Lloyd Michael
Published: November 2023

Euripides’ agones evoke the lawcourts not only in their structure but also in their style. The opposing set speeches which are characteristic of the agon are often, although by no means always, composed in a rhetorically sophisticated and self-conscious manner. This serves further to identify the agon as a distinct dramatic form, since this rhetorical style is much more common in the agon than in other parts of the play, and the manner that a character adopts in the agon is sometimes strikingly at variance with his or her manner elsewhere (e.g. Hippolytus in Hippolytus, Hecuba in Troades). Different views have been taken of the influence of rhetoric on Euripides, and some discussion of this topic is necessary if the style and function of his agones is to be understood.
Early Agones: Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Andromache
Authors: Lloyd Michael
Published: November 2023

The agon in Euripides has been discussed so far in this book largely in terms of features which the agones in different plays have in common. It is now time to investigate more closely the relationship of the various agones to the individual plays of which they are parts. Four comparatively early agones can conveniently be treated together from this point of view: those in Alcestis, Medea, and Hippolytus, and the agon between Hermione and Andromache in Andromache. These scenes all involve two persons rather than the three usually involved in later agones, and the opponents in all four cases are closely related to each other. In Alcestis, a son prosecutes his father and concludes by rejecting him, while in Hippolytus father prosecutes son and concludes by sending him to his death. In Medea, a wife confronts her faithless husband, while in Andromache a wife attacks her husband’s concubine. There are parallels in the dramatic contexts of the agones in Alcestis and Medea as well as an interesting contrast of style, while there are many points of similarity between the agones of Hippolytus and Andromache as an innocent defendant uses rhetorical expertise in the futile attempt to convince an irratio.
Political Debates: Heraclidae, Supplices, Phoenissae
Authors: Lloyd Michael
Published: November 2023

The agones in Heraclidea, Supplices, and Phoenissae form a distinct group, with more features in common with each other than with any of Euripides’ other agones. In the first place, there is no obscurity about the relation of the agon to the action in any of these three plays. Demophon, Theseus, and Eteocles are confronted with strongly worded demands which are backed up by the threat of force; their rejection of these demands leads directly to armed conflict. The failure of debate to achieve reconciliation is itself an important theme in these three plays, since there is still the possibility of agreement when the agones begin. Elsewhere in Euripides, the agon tends to be detached even from the possibility of influencing the action.
Spartan Policy and Strategy in the Archidamian War
Authors: Brunt P A
Published: November 2023

The avowed aim of the Spartans in 431 was to liberate the subjects of Athens (2.8.4; cf. 1.139.2);but, according to Thucydides, their truest motive for making war was the growth of Athenian power and the fear it inspired which forced them to fight (1.23.6), and the Spartans voted for war in 432 ‘not so much persuaded by the speeches of their allies as because they were afraid that the Athenians would acquire greater power, for they saw that the larger part of Greece was already subject to them’ (1.88). Thucydides indeed held that the Spartans were normally reluctant to enter on wars, ‘unless they were forced into them’, a condition that in his view was now fulfilled; they at last resolved to check the Athenians when ‘their power was patently growing and when they were striking at the Spartan confederacy’ (1.118).
Christians and the Holy Places
Authors: Taylor Joan E
Published: November 2023

The origins of Christian holy places in Palestine and the beginnings of Christian pilgrimage to these sites have seemed obscure. From a detailed examination of the literature and archaeology pertaining to specific sites and the region in general, the present author finds no evidence that Christians of any kind venerated 'holy places' before the fourth century. It appears that scholarly Christians had visited certain Biblical sites out of historical and exegetical concerns, but that these sites were not considered holy, or the visitors as 'pilgrims'. Instead, the origins of Christian pilgrimage and holy places rest with the emperor Constantine, who established four basilicas in Palestine c. 325-30 and provided two imperial matrons, Helena and Eutropia, as examples of a new kind of pious pilgrim. Pilgrimage to intrinsically sacred shrines had been a pagan practice, which was grafted on to Christianity. Many Jewish, Samaritan, and pagan sites were thereafter appropriated by the church and turned into Christian holy places. This process helped to destroy the widespread paganism of Palestine and mark the country as a 'holy land'. Very few sites are genuine, the most important being the cave (not Garden) of Gethsemane, in which Jesus was probably arrested.
Jewish-Christians in Palestine?
Authors: Taylor Joan E
Published: November 2023

IN this chapter, we will explore the question of who the Jewish Christians were (and who they were not) and also look at literary and archaeological evidence that might testify to their presence in Palestine and Syria in the Roman and Byzantine periods. If the Bagatti-Testa hypothesis has Jewish-Christians as the conservators of holy places, does the evidence for this hypothetical group stand up to cross-examination? ‘Jewish-Christianity’ and ‘Judaeo-Christianity’ are synonymous terms used in modern scholarship to refer to a supposed religious phenomenon which spans the period from the very beginnings of Christianity to some time in the fifth century, when it is perceived to be extinct. Jewish-Christians are generally understood to have been marginalized, accepted neither by church nor by synagogue, because they intended to be both Jewish and Christian at one and the same time. One of the reasons why it has been possible for the Bagatti-Testa school to develop the hypothesis that early Jewish-Christians preserved and venerated many important Christian holy sites is the climate of uncertainty that has surrounded studies of Jewish Christianity.
Golgotha
Authors: Taylor Joan E
Published: November 2023

WE will consider here the suggestion by the Bagatti-Testa school that Jewish-Christians employed an artificial cave in the side of the Rock of Calvary and venerated the Tomb of Christ before Hadrian built a temple of Venus on the site. The fundamental question, however, is whether some of the area under the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is to be identified with Golgotha of the New Testament. Christian tradition holds that this is indeed the case, and that the church of Jerusalem handed on the fact, so that when Constantine decided to build a basilica on the site, the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, was able to direct the builders to precisely the right spot.
Caves and Tombs
Authors: Taylor Joan E
Published: November 2023

A DISCUSSION about a particular cave on the Mount of Olives glorified by the emperor Constantine leads on to consideration of the many caves which, according to the titles of one of Testa’s articles upon the subject, are alleged to be ‘grotte die misteri’ belonging to early Jewish-Christians. The Bagatti-Testa school believes that Jewish-Christians utilized ‘mystic grottos’ or ‘caves of light’ in which they enacted sacred mysteries. Constantine’s glorification of three caves was, then, somehow in keeping with the fact that Jewish-Christians had employed these; Eusebius’ language, when speaking of these three ‘mystic caves’ (Laud. Const. ix. 16-17) is indebted to Jewish-Christian terminology. This argument can be countered by looking at the phenomenon of the Byzantine use of caves in general.