bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Do reductions in brain N‐acetylaspartate levels contribute to the etiology of some neuropsychiatric disorders?
Authors: Ariyannur Prasanth S. , Arun Peethambaran , Barry Erin S. , Andrews‐Shigaki Brian , Bosomtwi Asamoah , Tang Haiying , Selwyn Reed , Grunberg Neil E. , Moffett John R. , Namboodiri Aryan M.A.
Published: April 2013

N‐acetylaspartate (NAA) is recognized as a noninvasive diagnostic neuronal marker for a host of neuropsychiatric disorders using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Numerous correlative clinical studies have found significant decreases in NAA levels in specific neuronal systems in an array of neuropsychiatric and substance‐abuse disorders. We have recently identified the methamphetamine‐induced neuronal protein known as “shati” as the NAA biosynthetic enzyme (aspartate N‐acetyltransferase [Asp‐NAT]; gene Nat8l). We have generated an Nat8l transgenic knockout mouse line to study the functions of NAA in the nervous system. We were unable to breed homozygous Nat8l knockout mice successfully for study and so used the heterozygous mice (Nat8l+/−) for initial characterization. MRS analysis of the Nat8l+/− mice indicated significant reductions in NAA in cortex (−38%) and hypothalamus (−29%) compared with wild‐type controls, which was confirmed using HPLC (−29% in forebrain). The level of the neuromodulator N‐acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG), which is synthesized from NAA, was decreased by 12% in forebrain as shown by HPLC. Behavioral analyses of the heterozygous animals indicated normal behavior in most respects but reduced vertical activity in open‐field tests compared with age‐ and sex‐matched wild‐type mice of the same strain. Nat8l+/− mice also showed atypical locomotor responses to methamphetamine administration, suggesting that NAA is involved in modulating the hyperactivity effect of methamphetamine. These observations add to accumulating evidence suggesting that NAA has specific regulatory functional roles in mesolimbic and prefrontal neuronal pathways either directly or indirectly through impact on NAAG synthesis.© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Optimization of the cultivation conditions for mushroom production with European wild strains of Agaricus subrufescens and Brazilian cultivars
Authors: Llarena‐Hernández Carlos R , Largeteau Michèle L , Ferrer Nathalie , Regnault‐Roger Catherine , Savoie Jean‐Michel
Published: April 2013

BACKGROUND

The almond mushroom Agaricus subrufescens (formerly Agaricus blazei or Agaricus brasiliensis) is cultivated at commercial level in Brazil and some Asian countries on local substrates and casing mixtures. Despite its tropical origin, A. subrufescens might be a seasonal option for mushroom growers in western countries, where some wild strains have been isolated. For this purpose, cultivation conditions were developed starting from the substrate and casing mixture commonly used for commercial production of the button mushroom Agaricus bisporus in France.

RESULTS

The commercial compost, based on wheat straw and horse manure, used for A. bisporus and the casing mixture (peat and limestone) supplemented with fine sand proved efficient to grow A. subrufescens. Increasing the depth of the casing layer improved significantly the yield and time to fruiting. Daily variations in temperature did not markedly modify the yield. Significantly higher mushroom biomass was obtained with three wild European strains compared with three Brazilian cultivars. The very productive wild strain CA438‐A gave mushrooms of size and dry matter content comparable to those of a cultivar.

CONCLUSION

Commercial production of A. subrufescens can be developed in western countries on the wheat straw‐based substrate commonly used for A. bisporus in these regions, by a simple modification of the casing mixture and maintaining the incubation temperature throughout the crop, which is expected to save energy during summer. Good yields were obtained cultivating European strains under optimised parameters. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry
Complete NMR assignment of retinal and its related compounds
Authors: Wang Kui‐Wu , Wang Shi‐Wei , Du Qi‐Zhen
Published: April 2013

Complete and unambiguous 1H and 13C NMR chemical shift assignments for all‐trans‐retinal, 13‐cis‐retinal, 11‐cis‐retinal and 9‐cis‐retinal (1–4) have been established by means of two‐dimensional COSY, HSQC, HMBC and NOESY spectroscopic experiments. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dihydrogen bond and X–H…σ interaction as sub‐classes of hydrogen bond
Authors: Grabowski Sławomir J.
Published: April 2013

Dihydrogen bond (DHB) and X–H…σ interaction are discussed and compared here. Both interactions possess numerous characteristics of the hydrogen bond (HB). The Natural Bond Orbitals method results show that σ → σ* is the most important interaction connected with the electron charge transfer from the Lewis base to the Lewis acid for the DHB as well as for the X–H…σ HB. However, there are distinct differences between these interactions, and this is evident from the analysis based on the Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules as well as from the decomposition of the energy of interaction. The X–H…π interaction is also discussed here since it possesses few characteristics typical for the X–H…σ interaction and not for the DHB. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The crystal structure of an octapeptide repeat of the Prion protein in complex with a Fab fragment of the POM2 antibody
Authors: Swayampakula Mridula , Baral Pravas Kumar , Aguzzi Adriano , Kav Nat N. V. , James Michael N. G.
Published: April 2013

Prion diseases are progressive, infectious neurodegenerative disorders caused primarily by the misfolding of the cellular prion protein (PrPc) into an insoluble, protease‐resistant, aggregated isoform termed PrPsc. In native conditions, PrPc has a structured C‐terminal domain and a highly flexible N‐terminal domain. A part of this N‐terminal domain consists of 4–5 repeats of an unusual glycine‐rich, eight amino acids long peptide known as the octapeptide repeat (OR) domain. In this article, we successfully report the first crystal structure of an OR of PrPc bound to the Fab fragment of the POM2 antibody. The structure was solved at a resolution of 2.3 Å by molecular replacement. Although several studies have previously predicted a β‐turn‐like structure of the unbound ORs, our structure shows an extended conformation of the OR when bound to a molecule of the POM2 Fab indicating that the bound Fab disrupts any putative native β turn conformation of the ORs. Encouraging results from several recent studies have shown that administering small molecule ligands or antibodies targeting the OR domain of PrP result in arresting the progress of peripheral prion infections both in ex vivo and in in vivo models. This makes the structural study of the interactions of POM2 Fab with the OR domain very important as it would help us to design smaller and tighter binding OR ligands.
Surface‐activated chemical ionization‐electrospray ionization mass spectrometry combined with two‐dimensional serial chromatography is a powerful tool for drug stability studies
Authors: Conti Matteo , Motta Roberto , Puggioli Cristina , Brambilla Paolo
Published: April 2013

RATIONALE

Drug stability is an important quality‐control issue for pharmaceutical and clinical practices. Among the analytical techniques that address this issue, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) can be very useful, especially when assessing the quality of liquid formulations, because it is intrinsically sensitive, selective, and a rapid analytical technique. However, LC/MS suffers from technical drawbacks, e.g., matrix effects, and the production of in‐source degradation products, which can limit its usefulness.

METHODS

To overcome the aforementioned drawbacks associated with LC/MS, we introduce an innovative approach (2D‐LC/SACI‐ESI‐MS/MS) that incorporates two‐dimensional liquid chromatography (2D‐LC) in conjunction with an MS system consisting of a surface‐activated chemical ionization‐electrospray ionization chamber (SACI‐ESI), an ion trap MS analyzer, and tandem mass spectrometry.

RESULTS

To validate our 2D‐LC/SACI‐ESI‐MS/MS system stability studies were performed on the computerized tomography contrast agents, iohexol, iodixanol, iopamidol, iomeprol, iopromide, and iobitridol, either alone or in binary combination. The matrix effects, in‐source analyte degradation, and analytical performance were compared with those obtained using a one‐dimensional LC/MS configuration. The accuracy coefficient of variance (CV) = 1–4%, and degradation (loss of water and other chemical moieties) was greatly reduced, attesting to the usefulness of this system for drug stability measurements.

CONCLUSIONS

Our new approach improves the performance (sensitivity, accuracy, and signal stability) of LC/MS instrumentation for drug stability measurements by reducing signal suppression effects and in‐source chemical reactions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Lower friction and higher wear resistance of fluorine‐incorporated amorphous carbon films
Authors: Cui Jinfeng , Qiang Li , Zhang Bin , Yang Tao , Zhang Junyan
Published: April 2013

Plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition was employed to fabricate hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a‐C:H) films and fluorine‐doped hydrogenated amorphous (a‐C:H:F) carbon films. For comparison purpose, the a‐C:H films were treated with CF4 plasma. The bonding structure and tribological behavior of the films were investigated. The results indicate that the F presented mainly in the forms of C–F3, C–F and C–F2 groups in both the a‐C:H:F film and the surface CF4 plasma processed hydrogenated amorphous carbon (F‐P‐a‐C:H) films. Moreover, the a‐C:H:F films, because of the transformation of sp3 to sp2, possess a lower friction coefficient than that of the F‐P‐a‐C:H films. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Multivariate meta‐analysis of mixed outcomes: a Bayesian approach
Authors: Bujkiewicz Sylwia , Thompson John R. , Sutton Alex J. , Cooper Nicola J. , Harrison Mark J. , Symmons Deborah P.M. , Abrams Keith R.
Published: April 2013

Multivariate random effects meta‐analysis (MRMA) is an appropriate way for synthesizing data from studies reporting multiple correlated outcomes. In a Bayesian framework, it has great potential for integrating evidence from a variety of sources. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian model for MRMA of mixed outcomes, which extends previously developed bivariate models to the trivariate case and also allows for combination of multiple outcomes that are both continuous and binary. We have constructed informative prior distributions for the correlations by using external evidence. Prior distributions for the within‐study correlations were constructed by employing external individual patent data and using a double bootstrap method to obtain the correlations between mixed outcomes. The between‐study model of MRMA was parameterized in the form of a product of a series of univariate conditional normal distributions. This allowed us to place explicit prior distributions on the between‐study correlations, which were constructed using external summary data. Traditionally, independent ‘vague’ prior distributions are placed on all parameters of the model. In contrast to this approach, we constructed prior distributions for the between‐study model parameters in a way that takes into account the inter‐relationship between them. This is a flexible method that can be extended to incorporate mixed outcomes other than continuous and binary and beyond the trivariate case. We have applied this model to a motivating example in rheumatoid arthritis with the aim of incorporating all available evidence in the synthesis and potentially reducing uncertainty around the estimate of interest. © 2013 The Authors. Statistics inMedicine Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Geminin Restrains Mesendodermal Fate Acquisition of Embryonic Stem Cells and is Associated with Antagonism of Wnt Signaling and Enhanced Polycomb-Mediated Repression
Authors: Caronna Elizabeth A. , Patterson Ethan S. , Hummert Pamela M. , Kroll Kristen L.
Published: April 2013

Embryonic cells use both growth factor signaling and cell intrinsic transcriptional and epigenetic regulation to acquire early cell fates. Underlying mechanisms that integrate these cues are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the role of Geminin, a nucleoprotein that interacts with both transcription factors and epigenetic regulatory complexes, during fate acquisition of mouse embryonic stem cells. In order to determine Geminin's role in mesendoderm formation, a process which occurs during embryonic gastrulation, we selectively over-expressed or knocked down Geminin in an in vitro model of differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells. We found that Geminin antagonizes mesendodermal fate acquisition, while these cells instead maintain elevated expression of genes associated with pluripotency of embryonic stem cells. During mesendodermal fate acquisition, Geminin knockdown promotes Wnt signaling, while Bmp, Fgf, and Nodal signaling are not affected. Moreover, we showed that Geminin facilitates the repression of mesendodermal genes that are regulated by the Polycomb repressor complex. Geminin directly binds several of these genes, while Geminin knockdown in mesendodermal cells reduces Polycomb repressor complex occupancy at these loci and increases trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 4, which correlates with active gene expression. Together, these results indicate that Geminin is required to restrain mesendodermal fate acquisition of early embryonic cells and that this is associated with both decreased Wnt signaling and enhanced Polycomb repressor complex retention at mesendodermal genes.
High expression of a neutral endo-β-glucanase gene from Humicola insolens in Trichoderma reesei
Authors: Gu Bintao , Xia Liming
Published: April 2013

The neutral endo-β-glucanase gene cel5A from Humicola insolens was cloned and connected with the cellobiohydrolase 1 promoter from Trichoderma reesei to construct a recombinant plasmid pCB-hEG with the hygromycin B resistance marker. The plasmid was introduced into conidia of T. reesei using the Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation method. Eight transformants were obtained on screening plates with sodium carboxymethyl cellulose as the sole carbon source. Stable integration of the cel5A gene into the chromosomal DNA of T. reesei was confirmed by PCR. An obvious protein band (approximately 52 kDa) was detected by SDS-PAGE from fermentation broth, which showed that the cel5A gene in recombinant T. reesei successfully fulfilled efficient expression and extracellular secretion. After 96 h shaking-flask fermentation, the endo-β-glucanase activity at pH 6.5 from recombinant T. reesei reached 3,068 U/ml, which was 11 times higher than that of the host strain. In a 2 m3 fermenter, the endo-β-glucanase activity could be further increased to 8,012 U/ml after 96 h fermentation. The results showed a good prospect for application of neutral endo-β-glucanase in the textile industry.
Young Women’s Dynamic Family Size Preferences in the Context of Transitioning Fertility
Authors: Yeatman Sara , Sennott Christie , Culpepper Steven
Published: April 2013

Dynamic theories of family size preferences posit that they are not a fixed and stable goal but rather are akin to a moving target that changes within individuals over time. Nonetheless, in high-fertility contexts, changes in family size preferences tend to be attributed to low construct validity and measurement error instead of genuine revisions in preferences. To address the appropriateness of this incongruity, the present study examines evidence for the sequential model of fertility among a sample of young Malawian women living in a context of transitioning fertility. Using eight waves of closely spaced data and fixed-effects models, we find that these women frequently change their reported family size preferences and that these changes are often associated with changes in their relationship and reproductive circumstances. The predictability of change gives credence to the argument that ideal family size is a meaningful construct, even in this higher-fertility setting. Changes are not equally predictable across all women, however, and gamma regression results demonstrate that women for whom reproduction is a more distant goal change their fertility preferences in less-predictable ways.
Disturbance in uniformly13C-labelled DHA metabolism in elderly human subjects carrying the apoE ε4 allele
Authors: Chouinard-Watkins R. , Rioux-Perreault C. , Fortier M. , Tremblay-Mercier J. , Zhang Y. , Lawrence P. , Vohl M. C. , Perron P. , Lorrain D. , Brenna J. T. , Cunnane S. C. , Plourde M.
Published: April 2013

Carrying the apoE ε4 allele (E4+) is the most important genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease. Unlike non-carriers (E4 − ), E4+ seem not to be protected against Alzheimer's disease when consuming fish. We hypothesised that this may be linked to a disturbance inn-3 DHA metabolism in E4+. The aim of the present study was to evaluate [13C]DHA metabolism over 28 d in E4+v.E4 − . A total of forty participants (twenty-six women and fourteen men) received a single oral dose of 40 mg [13C]DHA, and its metabolism was monitored in blood and breath over 28 d. Of the participants, six were E4+ and thirty-four were E4 − . In E4+, mean plasma [13C]DHA was 31 % lower than that in E4 − , and cumulative β-oxidation of [13C]DHA was higher than that in E4 −  1–28 d post-dose (P≤ 0·05). A genotype × time interaction was detected for cumulative β-oxidation of [13C]DHA (P≤ 0·01). The whole-body half-life of [13C]DHA was 77 % lower in E4+ compared with E4 −  (P≤ 0·01). In E4+ and E4 − , the percentage dose of [13C]DHA recovered/h as13CO2correlated with [13C]DHA concentration in plasma, but the slope of linear regression was 117 % steeper in E4+ compared with E4 −  (P≤ 0·05). These results indicate that DHA metabolism is disturbed in E4+, and may help explain why there is no association between DHA levels in plasma and cognition in E4+. However, whether E4+ disturbs the metabolism of13C-labelled fatty acids other than DHA cannot be deduced from the present study.
Creating Jewish Space: German-Jewish Schools in Moravia
Authors: Rozenblit Marsha L.
Published: April 2013

In 1911 malt factory owner Ignatz Briess of Olmütz/Olomouc wrote a memoir to explain the nature of Jewish life in small town Moravia before the Revolution of 1848 to his children and grandchildren. He related that he had attended a German-JewishTrivialschule, a German-language elementary school run by the Jewish community for Jewish children, in his home town of Prerau/Přerov in the late 1830s and early 1840s. At the school, the children had two to three hours of German subjects every morning; and at the end of every year, the state school inspector, a local priest, examined them on their studies. At the same time, Briess learned Hebrew, Bible, and Talmud in thecheder, the traditional Jewish school, for seven more hours every day. Thecheder, he remarked, was just like those inHalbasien, that is, Galicia, or Eastern Europe. Despite his reference to Karl Emil Franzos's negative evaluation of Galician Jewish life, Briess described the chaotic conditions in thechederpositively and with considerable warmth. His father, a grain dealer and manager of a noble estate who had studied at the famous Pressburg yeshiva in Hungary and who read Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, and Kant in his spare time, made sure that his son received a thorough Jewish education. The memoir, a nostalgic evocation of a vanished world, describes a Jewish community that was deeply pious, enmeshed in the world of Jewish religious tradition yet also influenced by secular, German-language culture, much of it expressed in Jewish terms. At his bar mitzvah in 1846, Briess gave adroschoh(a traditional learned discourse) for which the traditional rabbi helped him prepare, and a “German sermon,” on which he worked with hisTrivialschuleteacher.
The Age of Heroes in Historiography: The Example of Prince Eugene of Savoy
Authors: Šimetin Šegvić Filip , Branđolica Tomislav
Published: April 2013

Almost every national historiography has at one time or another emphasized a certain era dominated by the alleged extraordinary feats of particular individuals. Modern nationalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often sought support for their founding myths in their histories, exploiting imagery of heroic eras and their heroes for the needs of the present. The work of historians played an integral part of this mythmaking process. The German wordHeldenzeitalter[Age of Heroes] is a concept with exactly such strong historiographical dimension. The term is not precise. It has variously been used to denote the mythic era of German sagas, the time of theVölkerwanderungen[migrations of peoples], and the Ostrogoth king Theodoric (sixth century). The same concept of an “age of heroes” is also fundamental to understanding Austrian historiography. This age constitutes a basic element of the Austrian national idea, and as with the other applications of the term “Age of Heroes,” the Austrian version, which was largely a nineteenth-century historiographical construct, was also fed by epics and poetry and myth making. The ruling Habsburg dynasty also actively supported the design of an Austrian Age of Heroes, at whose center could be found the figure of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736).
Remains of a Picnic: Post-Transition Hungary and Its Austro-Hungarian Past
Authors: Dornbach Márton
Published: April 2013

It is difficult to imagine how collective memory might function without the watershed dates that structure our stories about the past. Almost by definition, however, such familiar milestones fail to capture the complex dynamics of the transition from one era to the next. A case in point is the dismantling of the Iron Curtain. As the anniversary commemorations of 2009 showed, this development came to be epitomized by the tearing down of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. One does not need to doubt the importance of this event to see that its sheer symbolic weight tends to obscure the intricacies of the Eastern European transition process. More often than not, accounts that foreground this turning point marginalize some sixty million Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks who embarked on the transition process well ahead of the citizens of East Germany.
Going to the dogs / Grattius <&> the Augustan subject
Authors: Henderson John
Published: April 2013

1. It's no use. There is no hope, not a dog's chance. Whatever I write in this essay, who will go root out Grattius' poemThe World of Hunting to Hounds? No course-teacher will track him down, whether as Augustan writer or as didactic poet. Big books about Latin Literature have to be perfectly inclusive works of reference if they are to spare him a sop, and even then he'll barely get a sniff (of précis) in the paragraph he is allotted. Ancient writers leave him without a trace: only the exceptional circumstances of exile had whining Ovid lump him – in 28th place – into his exhaustively comprehensive catalogue of contemporary writers, meant to figure collectively that non-event ‘The Action at Rome minus Naso’, in the last of hisLetters from Pontus(4.16.34: our sole testimonium). So he has never been needed for writing about any other author.
Magic, wonder and Scientific Explanation in Apollonius,Argonautica4.1638–93
Authors: Powers Nathan
Published: April 2013

The last serious challenge faced by the Argonauts in Book 4 of Apollonius is Talos, a gigantic creature of bronze who keeps them from making a sorely needed landing on Crete. Exhausted from several days of uninterrupted rowing, Jason and his heroes despair of circumventing the brute. Medea, however, has a plan. With an extraordinary mental effort, she concentrates an immense rage in her face and eyes; this anger magically befuddles the giant, causing him to lose balance, scrape his ankle (the one vulnerable spot on his brazen body), and topple to his death. This is the final act of witchery performed by Medea in theArgonautica, and it is qualitatively different from her previous feats. Medea abandons the box of drugs and potions that have up to this point facilitated her magic, and casts a spell by ‘setting her mind to evil’ (θ∈μένη δὲ κακὸν νόον, 1669); the spell's effects are immediate and devastating. The reader is left with a vivid impression of Medea as a powerful sorceress, with magical capacities not necessarily expected in the shy young enchantress of Book 3. The Talos episode thus plays an important role within the epic as a whole, by gesturing to the larger story beyond it (best known to us, as to Apollonius, from Euripides'Medea) and to the yet more terrible powers Medea will reveal in time.
TheGeorgics, the Mysteries and the Muses at Rome
Authors: Hardie Alex
Published: April 2013

In a paper published nearly fifty years ago, Piero Scazzoso traced what he took to be a pattern of mystery allusions in theGeorgics. Reflections of telestic initiation and allied concepts of resurrection and salvation were then identified in the Orpheus and Aristaeus episodes in Book 4. Later studies in this area focused variously on the first proem, on Eleusinian references in the ‘farmer'sarma’ (1.162–8), on the role of Proserpina, and on the ‘mystic’ beatitudes at the end of the second book. Most recently, Llewelyn Morgan has offered an analysis of the relevance of mystery cult to understanding Vergil's conception of the physical universe and its underlying principles, again with particular reference to the fourth book.

With the benefit of this considerable body of work, we are well placed to ask whether Roman readers' understanding of the poem could have been enriched by acquaintance with telestic concepts and procedures. Christine Perkell detected the ‘primacy of mystery’ in the tension between the poet's didacticpraeceptaand his aspiration to god given knowledge, a reading which might encourage more extended enquiry into the revelatory character of theGeorgics.
Of dogs and men: Archilochos, archaeology and the Greek settlement of Thasos
Authors: Owen Sara
Published: April 2013

This article involves a case-study of one of the most generally accepted literary accounts of a Greek settlement abroad – the Greek colonisation of Thasos. Here, according to the generally accepted account, we have an eye-witness, Archilochos, son of theoikist, who actually settled on Thasos not during the first Greek settlement but during a subsequent wave of settlers. He didn't like it much – he calls it ‘thrice-wretched’ (228W), the settlers were the dregs of Greece (102W), the island looked like the back of an ass (21W), it wasn't pretty like Sybaris in Italy (22W), and the Thracians were described as ‘dogs’ (93aW). Fighting between Greeks and Thracians is portrayed (5W).

The archaeological evidence for the first period of Greek settlement on Thasos is scarce, but what there is has been marshalled in support of this literary model. Archaeology's main role has been to be used in chronological disputes. The orthodoxy dates the Parian colonisation to 680 BC, arguing that the Delphic oracle concerning the foundation of Thasos has Archilochos' father asoikist.The subject-matter of several of the poems has allowed Archilochos' poetry to be dated to 650 BC, and therefore the colonisation of Thasos to a generation before. Pouilloux (1964), indeed, has used the archaeological evidence from a house in the lowest levels of Thasos town to argue for this early date for the Parian settlement, seeing the ‘Thracian’ (and distinctly un-Cycladic) character of many of the finds as indicative of a certain amount of interaction between Parians and Thracians in the first generation of the colony.
Lucretiana
Authors: Watt W.S.
Published: April 2013

1.192–3 huc accedit uti sine certis imbribus anni

laetificos nequeat fetus summittere tellus

Does anni go with fetus (rather than, as everybody seems to take it, with imbribus; ‘fixed rain-showers in the year’, Bailey)? TLL 6.638.60f. adduces Sisenna, Hist. 100 fetum omnem … eius anni; Columella 10.256f. uersicoloribus anni / fetibus; Pliny 12.83 annuo fetu (for annus itself in the sense of anni fetus see OLD 8). Certis will then mean ‘reliable’, ‘assured’.
Minoanisation
Authors: Broodbank Cyprian
Published: April 2013

‘Minoanisation’ is by common consent a fundamental element of Bronze Age Aegean cultural dynamics. It is a modern term of sometimes deceptive convenience for a heterogeneous range of ancient material culture traits and practices that indicate the adoption in places beyond Crete, through whatever means, of ways of doing things that originated directly or indirectly within that island. Examples include artefact styles and consumption, cooking habits, writing, weight systems, weaving, wall-paintings, design and use of built space, burial practices and ritual action. At a general level, Minoanisation is manifestly important, and related in some way to the expansion on Crete of complex palatial polities during the early to mid-second millennium BC. There the consensus ends. The interpretation of every other aspect of the phenomenon, or rather phenomena, remains locked in deep-seated controversy, notably concerning the potential implications for understanding of the nature of social, economic and political relations between Crete and its neighbours.
How to be a good symposiast and other lessons from Xenophon'sSymposium
Authors: Hobden Fiona
Published: April 2013

Xenophon'sSymposiumlies at a confluence between two trends in modern scholarship. On the one hand, its author and his writings have recently attracted a resurgence in interest and credibility. No longer is Xenophon regarded as merely a ‘literary dilettante’, a dull, unimaginative and ultimately incompetent philosopher, or a conservative gentleman of the British old school. He is rather a political radical, an innovator in literary form, and the defender of a ‘trendy and shocking philosopher’. In this vein, hisSymposiumhas been rescued from condemnation as a poor imitation of Plato's dialogue of the same name. No modern reader of Xenophon's work would go so far as Eunapius in declaring its writer to be ‘the only man out of all the philosophers to adorn philosophy in word and deed’. Yet, as Huss's comprehensive commentary has shown, theSymposiumis much more than the product of an amateur philosopher and writer. It is a work of considerable complexity which draws on a variety of literary influences beyond Plato'sSymposium, mixing seriousness with jest in order to explore, among other issues, beauty and desire.
Hiatus in Vergil and in Horace'sOdes
Authors: Trappes-Lomax John
Published: April 2013

Our discussion will be primarily concerned with hiatus and prosodic hiatus in Vergil; emendations will be proposed atE. 3.6;A. 4.235; 7.226; it will also be suggested that some of the hiatus-free readings to be found in Carolingian and later MSS deserve consideration. Emendations will also be proposed at Horace,Odes1.28.24; 3.6.10. In order to evaluate Vergilian innovation and Vergilian influence, we will need to give some brief account both of his predecessors and of the other Augustan poets.

Vergil's immediate predecessors

Comedy of course has its own rules, and a full discussion would be irrelevant; however it will be seen that some aspects of comic versification can be used to illustrate later practice. The fragmentary Latin poets are also excluded; what little we have of them has been exposed not only to the ordinary accidents of transcription but also to accidental misquotation; it is thus hardly possible to draw any certain conclusions.
Alcman 58 and Simonides 37
Authors: Easterling P. E.
Published: April 2013

ALCMAN 58 (D. L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci) = 38 Bergk; 36 Diehl.

It is not Aphrodite, but wild Eros plays like a boy (or ‘like the boy he is’), coming down over the tips of the galingale flowers: don't touch them!

There are no serious textual variants; Bentley's παῖς looks a certain supplement. The context in which the fragment is quoted (Hephaestion 13. 6, p. 42 Consbr.) is a discussion of the cretic; the lines are cited as a metrical example, without reference to their meaning.

Meineke's comment on the passage was sensus non plane liquet, but it is tempting to go further, because this is the earliest extant reference to Eros at play, an idea that was to be interestingly influential in later poetry.
Discordant Muses
Authors: Barchiesi Alessandro
Published: April 2013

Quaeritis undeis a good opening for a book of theFasti(5.1). The question and answer form here exemplified is basic to the poem, even if in the classic Callimachean form from which Ovid draws his inspiration it is the poet who asks the questions – and this in fact happens with the exhortationdicitein line 7. But thisquaeritis undehas also, I believe, an allusive value: it opens another book of elegiac poetry, Propertius' second book, where it is the more remarkable as an opening in that as far as we know it is the earliest example of a direct address to the reader in Roman poetry.

The purpose of this allusion becomes clear if we take a wider look at the two contexts. In the first elegy of his second book Propertius inserts a celebrated negation of theMusenweihe:

non haec Calliope, non haec mihi cantat Apollo (2.1.3)

while Ovid, on the contrary, is just about to consult Calliope and her sisters. The allusion offers other points of interest if we consider the subsequent development of Propertius' poetics.
A note on the structure of the pieces numbered 1–25 in Propertius Book 2
Authors: Camps W. A.
Published: April 2013

This note offers an answer to the problem of apparent disorder in Book 2 of Propertius by disclosing a principle of order that underlies it. The observations that follow tend to confirm the internal unity of some elegies, to indicate the divisions to be perceived at some points between one elegy and the next, and to suggest the probability or otherwise of some conjectured transpositions. They may also aid interpretation by suggesting what movement within an elegy was intended by the poet to be felt.

The area of observation has been restricted to Elegies 1–25 because it is possible to show that within that area an identifiable principle of composition has been applied consistently. It cannot be assumed without further consideration that a principle found to be applicable within the defined area is applicable outside it, even in this book, still less in the other books of the Elegies.
Be alert (your country needs lerts): Horace,Satires1.9
Authors: Henderson John
Published: April 2013

Who is that man with the handshake? Don't you know …

He is an onlooker, a heartless type,

Whose hobby is giving everyone else the lie.

Laudatur et alget. The Fifties had faith: ‘This satire is nowadays the most popular of all and still read in many classical sixth forms where one otherwise shuns theSermones.’ The Sixtiesknew: ‘This poem … will always be a general favourite’; yes, I bear witness, who lent an ear to the L. A. Moritz track for J.A.C.T.'s showcase ofLatinitasback in the golden age of vinyl (I still do:ego uero oppono ∣ auriculam, 76f.). (…) The Ninetieswonder. ‘Perhaps the most straightforward and immediately appealing of the ten poems, and perhaps the most delicious example of Horace's brand of ironic humour.’
Livy's Preface
Authors: Moles John
Published: April 2013

Few of the many treatments of this famous preface seem to recognise the need for close reading of the text. The present paper sets out to remedy this deficiency in the hope of achieving three main aims: (1) to demonstrate the coherence and power of Livy's argument, as well as the subtlety of its exposition and the richness of its language; (2) to resolve certain specific problems; (3) to further the continuing debate on important general questions in ancient historiography.

Facturusne operae pretium sim si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim nee satis scio nec, si sciam, dicere ausim, (2) quippe qui cum ueterem turn uolgatam esse rem uideam, dum noui semper scriptores aut in rebus certius aliquid allaturos se aut scribendi arte rudem uetustatem superaturos credunt.
The Palingenesis of De rerum natura
Authors: Schiesaro Alessandro
Published: April 2013

1. If I had to sum up as concisely as I possibly can the subject matter of this paper, I would probably say that it was originally stimulated by the attempt to understand how Lucretius articulated his didactic plot. What is the plot of a poem that presents itself as analysing nothing less than ‘the nature of things’? It is safe to assume as a starting-point that a didactic poem which intends to revolutionize each and every principle of perception and evaluation of reality cannot remain unaffected by the theoretical views it tries to prove, and that the persuasive impact of those theories on the reader will inevitably be strengthened or weakened by the way the text situates itself in respect to those theories: the poem itself will be the most effective or the most damning example of its own theories.
Strategies of tension (Ovid, Heroides 4)
Authors: Casali Sergio
Published: April 2013

For Stefania

The Amazon's son

Two things distinguish Phaedra's from the other letters in Ovid's Heroides. In the first place, Phaedra's is not a letter without consequences. On the contrary, it will have a decisive effect on the addressee. But above all, Phaedra's letter is important just as a letter. The very fact of Phaedra's writing a letter touches a fundamental point in the story, and a controversial one. In the Heroides problems of communication are important in themselves, but, after the gratuitous letters by Penelope, Phyllis and Briseis, this is the first (and it will remain the only one) in which the complication always caused by an epistolary intrusion into the body of the story is superimposed on a pre-existent problem. Phaedra's declaration of her love to Hippolytus is a crucial point, a turning-point for the various tragic treatments of the history. Ovid adds problem to problem.
The role of language in Greek ethnicities
Authors: Hall Jonathan M.
Published: April 2013

The subject of ethnic identity in antiquity has a long-established – if somewhat dubious – pedigree. From as early as the end of the eighteenth century, scholars such as Friedrich von Schlegel were applying themselves to the art, customs and political forms which were thought to characterise GreekStämmesuch as the Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians and Athenians. It was the nineteenth century, however, which witnessed a more systematic treatment of ancient ethnicity, as scholarly intuitions were subjected to the rigorous interrogation that was demanded by the newly-established discipline ofAltertumswissenschaft. Typical of the new breed of professional scholars was Karl Otfried Müller, who devoted himself to analysing theVolksgeistof groups such as the Etruscans, the Minyans and – most famously – the Dorians.
Introductory poems in Propertius: 1.1 and 2.12
Authors: Lyne R. O. A. M.
Published: April 2013

I wish to argue primarily that Propertius 2.12 introduced the poet's original third book, ‘Book 2b’, (Section III). On the way I examine Propertius' use of his various addressees (Section I), and I discuss strategies in his indisputably introductory poem 1.1 (Section II). Similarities of strategy discernible in 2.12 head my argument that 2.12 was like 1.1 an introductory poem. The question of addressees in introductory poems raises the topic of Propertius' social status and his relations to great men, and this is briefly surveyed.
Plato's movingLogos
Authors: Pender E. E.
Published: April 2013

Words move, music moves

Only in time; but that which is only living

Can only die.

Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still.

T.S. Eliot,Four quartets(Burnt Norton V)

The poet gives voice to the action of words as they reach out to attain expression. He observes the dangers inherent in this effort: words can break, can become simply unintelligible. Such broken words can no longer function within the fixed constraints of grammar and thus ‘will not stay in place, | Will not stay still’. A.J. Greimas inStructural semanticsdefined an ‘actantial’ model of language:

If we recall that functions in traditional syntax are but roles played by words – the subject being ‘the one who performs the action’, the object ‘the one who suffers it’ – then according to such a conception, the proposition as a whole becomes a spectacle to whichhomo loquenstreats himself.
Epictetus as Socratic mentor
Authors: Long A.A.
Published: April 2013

In Tom Wolfe's most recent novel,A Man In Full, a young Californian, down on his luck, converts a macho sixty-year old tycoon, facing financial ruin, to Stoicism. The young man, Conrad, has miraculously escaped from the Santa Rita gaol as a result of an earthquake. Shortly before, he had discovered Epictetus in a book calledThe Stoics, a book he had been sent mistakenly in place of a riveting thriller by his favourite author with the title,The Stoics' Game. He rapidly comes across this passage: ‘I [Zeus] gave you a portion of our divinity, a spark from our own fire, the power to act and not to act, the will to get and the will to avoid. If you pay heed to this, you will not groan, you will blame no man, you will flatter none’ (p. 398). Conrad is hooked. An innocent among a bunch of hideous felons, he asks himself: ‘What would Epictetus have done with this bunch? Whatcouldhe have done? How could you apply his lessons two thousand years later, in this grimy gray pod, this pigsty full of beasts who grunted about mother-fuckin this and mother-fuckin that?’ (p. 410). Conrad memorises chunks of Epictetus. He refers a series of challenges to Zeus, overcomes a thug twice his size, and radiates Stoic strength. At the end, hired as a male nurse in Atlanta for the massive but now ailing Croker, the about-to-be ruined tycoon, Conrad tells Croker about the Stoic Zeus and Epictetus. Croker was on the point of clinching a deal that would have saved him from bankruptcy at the cost of compromising his Georgian sense of honour. Instead, he gives a press conference, disavows all interest in wealth, parrots Epictetus to the bemused Atlanta elite, and walks away from everything that had previously defined his life. At the end we learn that he has become a highly successful televangelist, with a programme called ‘The Stoic's Hour’.
Two Conjectures
Authors: Lee A. G.
Published: April 2013

The inhabitants of Tomi are angry with Ovid because he has so often expressed his hatred of their country. The poet defends himself by saying that it is only the country, not its inhabitants, that he detests. Do not they themselves complain about the unpleasantness of their surroundings? Did not Hesiod complain about Ascra, his own birth-place?

esset perpetuo sua quam uitabilis Ascraausa est agricolae Musa docere senis.

Strictly speaking Hesiod did not say that Ascra was ‘always to be avoided’, though this is a natural inference from his words in Erga, 639–40:

νἀσσατο δ᾿ ἄγχ᾿ Ἑλικῶνος ὀιӡυρῇ ἐνὶ κώμῃ”Ασκρῃ, χεῖμα κακῇ, θέρει ἀργαλέῃ, οὐδέ ποτ᾿ ἐσθλῇ.

The variants offered by the dett., miserabilis, mirabilis, mutabilis, point to the conclusion that the archetype was here difficult to make out. I suspect that the original was uitiabilis, the word here having the force of uitiosa. Lucretius (VI, 1231) has aerumnabile in the sense of aerumnosum; cf. the use of perniciabilis and lacrimabilis.
The Magi in Pliny
Authors: Jones W. H. S.
Published: April 2013

In neither Lewis and Short nor the old Forcellini is there a single reference under ‘Magus’ to Pliny, and yet the word occurs in the Natural History about one hundred times; this work in fact is one of our primary authorities for Magism.

The story of the Magi has been dealt with ably in Pauly and Hastings, and there is an interesting note by A. D. Nock in The Beginnings of Christianity (Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake), pt. I, pp. 164–88. The writer thinks that Apion was Pliny's authority. The Magi were originally a local tribe of the Medes, but later they grew to be a priestly caste, as did the tribe of Levi among the Hebrews. The Magian religion appears to have been introduced among the Persians by Cyrus. It contained much priestcraft and esoteric knowledge, but whether in these early times fraudulent ‘magic’ took part in it is a matter of dispute. Herodotus speaks of Magian incantations, but a fragment of Aristotle declares that Magism was innocent of wizardry. The honourable priesthood of the Magi, however, began from the first to give a name to dishonest deceit and quackery.
The Second Capture of Sestos
Authors: Woodhead A. G.
Published: April 2013

In the ninth chapter of his Life of Cimon, Plutarch tells how Cimon, appointed to allot the spoils from Sestos and Byzantium, set the prisoners on one side, and the material booty on the other. The allies, invited to choose between the two, chose the latter as being much the more attractive in value, and Cimon's division was laughed at as ridiculous. But later, when the ransom money for the prisoners came in, the tables were turned, and the Athenians, thanks to Cimon's device, were seen to have had the best of the bargain after all.

This story, which is repeated by Polyaenus, originally came from Ion of Chios, who said that Cimon himself told it to him at a dinner-party, and that he (Cimon) thought it one of the cleverest things he had ever done. The prisoners and booty, which he was allotting, came from Sestos and Byzantium. Now the information from Herodotus and Thucydides is that Sestos was besieged at the end of 479; when it fell is another problem to which I shall return. Byzantium was certainly captured in the summer of 478. But the commander at Sestos, when the Athenians were the backbone of the Hellenic forces (the Spartans having sailed home), was Xanthippus, the father of Pericles: while the commander at the siege of Byzantium was the Spartan Pausanias, the victor of Plataea. Subsequently Pausanias himself, as a refugee from Sparta, seized Byzantium and had to be driven out of it again by the Athenians in 477. On this occasion the Athenian forces, made up of the contingents of the new Delian Confederation, were commanded by Cimon. Are we to understand from this passage of Plutarch that, on this same campaign, Cimon also captured Sestos, and that Sestos had, like Byzantium, fallen into the hands of Pausanias since its original liberation?
Unconscious Iterations
Authors: Jones W. H. S.
Published: April 2013

I often write a letter or paragraph, and on revision throw my MS. away in disgust and vexation. Some word, perhaps one of my ‘pet’ words and nearly always a trivial one, has occurred in possibly three out of four sentences. On the first occasion my conscious mind chose the word intentionally; on the other occasions my unconscious mind thrust the word into places where my conscious mind would have rejected it.

Some years ago I began to be on the watch for similar phenomena in Greek and Latin authors. The thought occurs at once that unconscious repetitions would be revised by the writer, and so would leave no trace in our extant MSS. But the fact remains that there are such traces. Fifty years ago many of them were collected and commented on by A. B. Cook in the article mentioned above, but his passages and mine have nothing in common, nor are his conclusions quite the same as mine.