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Showing papers in "Antiquity in 1980"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The recent radar mapping discovery of widely distributed patterns of intensive agriculture in the southern Maya lowlands provides new perspectives on classic Mayan civilization as mentioned in this paper, where the largest sites of Maya civilization are located on the edges of swamps.
Abstract: The recent radar mapping discovery of widely distributed patterns of intensive agriculture in the southern Maya lowlands provides new perspectives on classic Maya civilization Swamps seem to have been drained, modified, and intensively cultivated in a large number of zones The largest sites of Maya civilization are located on the edges of swamps By combining radar data with topographic information, it is possible to suggest the reasons for the choice of urban locations With the addition of patterns elicited from rank-ordering of Maya cities, it is also possible to suggest more accurate means of defining Classic period Maya polities

67 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the letters of Ausonius with a view to elucidating their individual aims, the general conventions of their correspondence, and his relations with such men as Symmachus, Petronius Probus and Paulinus of Nola.
Abstract: This article examines the letters of Ausonius - those correctly so called - with a view to elucidating their individual aims, the general conventions of Ausonius' correspondence, and his relations with such men as Symmachus, Petronius Probus and Paulinus of Nola and less well-known friends. Attention is paid to the interpretation of various obscure passages and to the artistry, structure and wit of the poems.

37 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The discovery and study of two underwater bronze age sites in the past few years have thus changed the whole complexion of British maritime archaeology as discussed by the authors, and indicate a few of their implications for Bronze Age studies.
Abstract: Since the mid-1960s, significant advances have been made in the techniques and organization of archaeological research in British waters. However, the sites discovered and explored during the first decade of such work have dated without exception to the centuries after 1500 AD. The results from investigations such as those on the Mary Rose of 1545 (Rule, 1978) or the wrecks of the Spanish Armada (Martin, 1975) have clearly demonstrated the potential of such sites to shed light on periods and topics for which documentary sources are also available; nevertheless, the full archaeological significance of this new area of research remained unrealized through being limited to the post-medieval period. The discovery and study of two underwater bronze age sites in the past few years have thus changed the whole complexion of British maritime archaeology. The purpose of this note is to provide a brief interim account of the sites involved, and indicate a few of their implications for Bronze Age studies.

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with Cicero's arguments in the Pro Roscio concerning the real identity of those behind the murder of Roscius the father and with the part played by Chrysogonus.
Abstract: This article deals with Cicero's arguments in the Pro Roscio concerning the real identity of those behind the murder of Roscius the father and with the part played by Chrysogonus. As a result it suggests the speech was not as important either politically or for the acquittal of Roscius as is sometimes thought and that as historical evidence it needs more careful handling than it is sometimes given. It also supports the view that the speech required no great courage to make.

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: MacKie, the foremost Scottish scholar to address himself in recent years to the study of brochs, has said, with characteristic firmness, that "brochs are among the most striking of all the prehistoric monuments of Europe" as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: MacKie, the foremost Scottish scholar to address himself in recent years to the study of brochs, has said, with characteristic firmness, that ‘brochs are among the most striking of all the prehistoric monuments of Europe’ (1975, 72). Certainly this is so, and ever since the first real awakening of interest in Scottish antiquities around the midnineteenth century the broch has always been felt to be Scotland’s archaeological show-piece. Yet, close on a hundred years after Alexander Rhind set the ball rolling with his excavations at the broch of Kettleburn, Wick, Sir Lindsay Scott was forced to admit that ‘No ancient sites have been more excavated than those of the broch and, unfortunately, none with less result’ (1947, 3). In the 30 odd years since Scott, the full excavation reports of only three brochs have appeared. With this consideration it is perhaps less surprising to see so little space devoted to brochs in Cunliffe’s recent major review of the British Iron Age (1974a, 219–22; 2nd ed. 1978, 235–8) and their total omission from British prehistory (1974b) is marginally less startling; such summary treatment is a result of a dearth of the right kind of information, which itself derives from the whole approach to brochs throughout most of the history of Scottish archaeology.

20 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A convincing case has now been made out for linking [the cursus, avenues, alignments, henges and circles] with a remarkable store of engineering, mathematical and astronomical knowledge as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A convincing case has now been made out for linking [the cursus, avenues, alignments, henges and circles] with a remarkable store of engineering, mathematical and astronomical knowledge’ (Burgess, 1974, 195) … it is fantastic to imagine that the ill-clad inhabitants of these boreal isles should shiver night long in rain and gale, peering through the driving mists to note eclipses and planetary movements in our oft-veiled skies’ (Childe, 1930, 164). Over the last decade many claims have been made that early prehistoric Britain was the focus of a scientifically learned society whose mathematical, geometrical and astronomical discoveries anticipated those of the Babylonians and Greeks, and some of whose megalithic observatories survive for us to examine.

17 citations


Journal ArticleDOI

14 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Cuello Project, a joint venture of the British Museum, the National Geographic Society and Rutgers University, has been used to investigate the processes that led to the Classic Maya florescence in the first millennium AD as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The formative period of Maya civilization has been the subject of recent attention, both in discussion (e.g. Adams, 1977) and in excavation; several projects have been established specifically to investigate the processes that led to the Classic Maya florescence in the first millennium AD. Among these has been the Cuello Project, a joint venture of the British Museum, the National Geographic Society and Rutgers University; this article summarizes the results of the third and final season of the project’s excavations at Cuello, Belize (Fig. I), which took place from January to March, 1980. The terminology for excavated features, structures etc. is detailed in Hammond (1978). The site was discovered during extensive surveys in 1973–4 (Hammond, 1974, Fig. I), and its potential for the study of the Preclassic or Formative period which preceded the rise of Classic Maya civilization led to a test excavation in 1975. The sequence of building levels and pottery preserved by the growth of Platform 34, a large flat construction with a small superincumbent pyramid (Str. 35) (PL. XXVI a ), lying to the southwest of the main part of the site (Donaghey, et al. , 1976, Fig. 2), showed that the uppermost floors on the platform had been laid in the Late Formative (conventionally 300 BC–AD 250 ), over structures of the Middle Formative (1000–300 BC). Below these were earlier deposits associated with pottery of pre-Middle Formative date which was assigned to the Early Formative (2000–1000 BC).

12 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Parker as mentioned in this paper pointed out that Mellaart may have made a mistake in the observation; the papyrus fragment in question is dated by indirect means and does not bear the name of the king in whose reign scholars have placed it.
Abstract: Mellaart is not the first, even in recent times, to query the Egyptian astronomical data, and in particular the reliability of the source for the Sothic date in Senusret 111’s reign which seems to offer the earliest independently fixed date in the Near East. In 1974, R. D. Long published an attack in the journal Orientalia, xLrIr, 261-74. This provoked a lengthy and careful response from the scholar whose name is most closely associated with the mathematical aspects of Egyptian calendars and chronology, R. A. Parker. This response provides a ready-made answer to Mellaart’s criticisms, and readers are referred to Parker’s paper for more detail (Parker, 1977). Mellaart makes two main points on this issue: the Egyptians may have made a mistake in the observation; the papyrus fragment in question is dated by indirect means and does not bear the name of the king in whose reign scholars have placed it.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The skin-boat theory has become almost an orthodoxy in Britain and Scandinavia as mentioned in this paper, thanks to the publicity given the experimental model by the BBC ‘Chronicle’ series and the enthusiastic advocacy of Bregger, Marstrander and Johnstone himself.
Abstract: In 1972 Paul Johnstone initiated a project to build and sail a hide-covered boat which would embody the theories of those Norwegian scholars—in particular Professor Sverre Marstrander—who have classified the boats of the Scandinavian Bronze Age with the Eskimo umiak and the Irish curragh. Thanks to the publicity given the experimental model by the BBC ‘Chronicle’ series and the enthusiastic advocacy of Bregger, Marstrander and Johnstone himself (‘Bronze age sea trial’, Antiquity, XLVI, 1972), the skin-boat theory has become almost an orthodoxy in Britain and Scandinavia. In fact, however, the reconstructed boat itself clearly demonstrated the awkwardness of translating into the medium of a hidecovered frame the boat designs of the bronze age rock art, which include several features utterly irreconcilable with the requirements and norms of skin-boat construction. For no type of boat before the age of photography has such a vast corpus of evidence been preserved as for the vessel that served the fishermen, traders and raiding parties of Scandinavia between 1200 and 600 BC (that is, the Bronze Age periods 111, IV and V). The boat is a favoured motif in thousands of rock carvings in southern Norway, Sweden, and the Baltic islands, and on at least 200 late bronze age razors from Denmark and North Germany.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a parallele des mythes de la cite de Megare et des rapports qui y unissaient centres politiques and lieux sacres (tombes heroiques surtout) nous eclaire sur le processus de formation de la polis du haut archaisme and, en particulier, sur le role qu'y joua l'apparition du culte des heros, soulignant le caractere cultuel de the cite grecque primitive and la place du mythe
Abstract: L'etude parallele des mythes de la cite de Megare et des rapports qui y unissaient centres politiques et lieux sacres (tombes heroiques surtout) nous eclaire sur le processus de formation de la polis du haut archaisme et, en particulier, sur le role qu'y joua l'apparition du culte des heros, soulignant le caractere cultuel de la cite grecque primitive et la place du mythe dans l'elaboration du premier langage politique.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The neck is a highly vulnerable target in infantry warfare throughout the whole millennium which spans the Late Bronze Age and the classical period as mentioned in this paper. And even lions get it in the neck: e.g.
Abstract: The heavy metal collar or neck-guard of the Dendra panoply (PL. XXXIIc; Verdelis, 1967; Astrom, 1977; also Catling, 1977; Cassola Guida, 1973,52ffr)a ises a simple question which may have important implications for the study of Greek warfare in the Late Bronze Age. Pictorial and verbal representations reveal the neck as a highly vulnerable target in infantry warfare throughout the whole millennium which spans the Late Bronze Age and the classical period. Mycenae’s Shaft Grave warriors of the sixteenth century are frequently shown either aiming sword-thrusts downwards at an enemy’s throat over the top of his body-shield or thrusting upwards at his neck with a lance (e.g. Karo, 1930, Pl. 24, nos, 35, 116, 241; pp. 59, 177, Figs. 14, 87; Lorimer, 1950, 140–4, Figs. 2, 5, 6, 8; Cassola Guida, 1973, pl. I, Figs. 2–5; Furtwangler & Loeschcke, 1886, Pl. E, 30; and even lions get it in the neck: e.g. Evans, 1921–36, IV (2), 575, Fig. 556). The very differently accoutred Mycenaeans of the late thirteenth-century Warrior Vase and Stele march with spears poised for a downward thrust into their enemies’ necks (Furtwangler & Loeschcke, 1886, PI. 43; EA, 1896, P1. I; Lorimer, 1950, Pls. 3.1a; 2.2; Cassola Guida, 1973, Pls. 32,1 and 2; Verdelis, 1967, Beil. 32,2; Astrom, 1977, P1. ‘31,2). And the seventh-century hoplites do exactly the same on the Chigi Vase (CVA, Italy, I, P1. I; ABSA, XLII, 1947, 81, Fig. 2; Snodgrass, 1964, PI. 36).

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a concern with archaeology which has lasted for half a century is described, and the author is grateful to have been present through a crucial period in its development.
Abstract: Looking back over a concern with archaeology which has lasted for half a century I am grateful to have been present through a crucial period in its development. There were few advantages in my earliest days. On my father’s side I come from a line of farmers, land appraisers, bailiffs and the like which I can trace back in some detail for nearly three hundred years, living for the most part in Northwest Essex; on my mother’s side my ancestors were North Wessex peasants and inn-keepers, with a probable admixture of Welsh cattle-drover blood at the end of the eighteenth century. Wantage and Abingdon were their local centres. All with the exception of one or two backsliders were strict Evangelicals, often wavering on the verge of Dissent, and none ever aspired to any higher standard of education than one who entered the Congregational ministry in 1827. Any known interest in learning or antiquity showed itself more among the Wessex peasants than the clod-hoppers of Essex. My maternal grandfather, who was a native of the Vale of White Horse, was personally known to me and was interested in the many relics of the past observable about him, an intelligent man but with little formal instruction.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse des evenements d'alors, si elle tient compte de la doctrine generale de la limitation des causes, conduit a elucider les motivations profondes des Spartiates.
Abstract: Entre 465 et 404, les Spartiates ont agi envers les Atheniens avec un opportunisme politique d'une rare intelligence. Les faits de cette periode - la portee n'en a pas ete suffisamment soulignee - montrent comment Sparte s'entendait a exploiter la moindre faiblesse d'Athenes, mais aussi a devenir prudente sitot qu'elle avait lieu d'apprehender une nette resistance de sa part. Son comportement n'etait pas different a l'endroit de certaines autres cites. L'attitude qu'elle prit en 431 resulta des difficultes que les Atheniens connaissaient avec Potidee et avec ses voisins. Une analyse des evenements d'alors, si elle tient compte de la doctrine generale de la limitation des causes, conduit a elucider les motivations profondes des Spartiates.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a nouvelle analysis de Olympiodore de Thebes, historien et poete, offre une nousvelle analyse de sa carriere, de ses fragments conserves, de son style particulier.
Abstract: Cet article consacre a Olympiodore de Thebes, historien et poete, offre une nouvelle analyse de sa carriere, de ses fragments conserves, de son style particulier. Il souligne le caractere abusif de la conception, propre a certains modernes, selon laquelle Olympiodore aurait ete une sorte d'espion de charme. Il definit son influence sur Philostorge, chroniqueur des affaires ecclesiastiques.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Mellaart's attempt to demonstrate a high chronology for Egypt and the Near East for the period of c. 4000-1500 BC will undoubtedly stimulate much discussion among historians and archaeologists.
Abstract: James Mellaart’s attempt to demonstrate a ‘high’ chronology for Egypt and the Near East for the period of c. 4000-1500 BC will undoubtedly stimulate much discussion among historians and archaeologists. He has forcefully pointed out various problems which have arisen in trying to reconcile the standard historical chronologies established between and within individual countries. It is probably true that some scholars have treated the so-called ‘middle’ chronology as if it was almost sacred, and certainly some individuals have ignored radiocarbon dates (especially calibrated dates) if they appeared to be in conflict with results obtained from traditional historical and archaeological sources. But neither these faults, nor others pointed out by the author, justify his own methods of trying to demolish the middle chronology in favour of a significantly higher one. Since elsewhere in this issue Barry Kemp is presenting a critical review of Mellaart’s Egyptian historical data, and has included some remarks on the Egyptian radiocarbon dates, I will restrict my own remarks here largely to the Palestinian radiocarbon materials, and will only comment on the Egyptian C14 dates as they pertain to Palestinian Early Bronze Age chronology.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The version best known to most English readers is derived from the translation of Genesis VI-VIII contained in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible and its subsequent revisions as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: One of the most widely-known narratives contained in Judaeo-Christian literature is that of ‘Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood’. The version best known to most English readers is derived from the translation of Genesis VI-VIII contained in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible and its subsequent revisions. According to this account, near the end of the Biblical Deluge, the Ark rested ‘upon the mountains of Ararat’. From this locality, according to the story, the ancestral stock of all terrestrial life, including mankind, left the Ark with the order that they ‘be fruitful and multiply upon the earth’. The Hebrew word which has been transliterated as Ararat in English texts may have been ultimately derived from an expression meaning ‘highlands’, and apparently referred to a region at the headwaters of the Tigris River which lay within the ancient boundaries of the Urartu of Assyrian records (Mellick, 1962).

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The pervasiveness of pre-Olympian abstractions such as Aidos, Tyche, Dike and Eusebeia permeates Sophocles' plays as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Divine and semi-divine beings permeate Sophocles' plays. The whole roster of Olympian deities is frequently named ; nameless theoi and daimones are often invoked by his characters ; the efficacy of oracles seems to be taken for granted. Of greater significance, however, are the pervasiveness of such pre-Olympian abstractions as Aidos, Tyche, Dike and Eusebeia ; all-revealing and all-nurturing Helios ; the awesome, but also reconciliatory power of the nether gods.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a map of the distribution of cart-inspired barrow-ditches in Europe, showing that the majority of them are in the south-east of the UK.
Abstract: reverted foot running into bow, but still remain as different as possible from true La T h e 111. A useful page of drawings (69, Fig. 25), of British mockspring and other spring-substitutes, well illustrates these among the insular features of them all. So the craftsmen who had worked for the ‘crouchers’ can seldom seem immigrants arriving with the culture. It is the burial-rite itself that seems novel, and with two further characters: burial with cart, and an enclosing barrow-ditch square. The carts, two-wheelers, were buried either whole, as at Pexton Moor and Cawthorn Camps, or dismantled, with the wheels laid sloping or flat, as in Mortimer’s Danes Graves example (Fig. 5 ) ; as Brewster’s at Garton Slack, already mentioned ; Greenwell’s at Beverley; and at Arras the three named the King’s Barrow, the Charioteer’s and the Lady’s (Fox’s name). These, and the other four surmised or dug before Brewster’s, are all well summarized; and the map of them (Fig. 6) leads to a second (Fig. 8), mapping the whole La T h e distribution of cart-graves in Europe. The comparisons thus afforded are amply discussedthough the King’s Barrow’s buried pair of horses has a match at Nanterre, not noticed p. 26: DBchelette pp. 1025, 1103. Similarly treated is the typically square-planned barrow-ditch. The enormous density of these within the Culture’s area, in the small and large cemeteries mostly, though a few appear singly, is entirely an air-photographic discovery, unguessed before 1959. Mr H. G. Ramm, of the Royal Commission’s office at York, commands the whole photographic corpus, with allies in Humberside; the remarkable map, Fig. 9, is based on his own of 1976, and his new book The Parisi invites a comparison with this one. Parisi were the people here in Roman times (Ptolemy), while Paris has her Parisii already in Caesar; neither proves that Paris had been the Yorkshire people’s startingpoint. Yet the name, whenever brought, should have a place among the Continental novelties. And that foursquare ditches were a primary one, was shown by Stead himself, in 1969 and 72 from the barrows at Cowlam, where he proved it at six out of nine of them, including Greenwell’s of 1877, which had the culture’s oldest known bracelet and brooch, hardly after 400 BC. The European square-barrow map (Fig. 10) fits partly at least with that of cart-graves, so the people who ‘arrived’ were from anyhow somewhere on the Continent. People of what sort? Stead can fancy almost any (his p. 93), but allows them no grounds for seeming ‘dominant’, and still less ‘rulers’. Yet the context he propounds for their moving from the Continent is martial: the historical Celtic migrations that terrorized Italy, and then assailed Delphi. Were they here, then, peaceable just because the graves, until the ‘stretcher’-grave period, were weaponless ? If ‘they need not have been numerically strong’, then whom were their novelties spread among? A prior population, though on this we are offered hardly anything ? Yet the north-south ‘croucher’ -rite is British, and the pots are older-British in their coarseness and their plain tub shapes. Can the novelties of rite have been combined with these traits without any kind of over-ruling dominance ? I would break ‘invasion’ down into a series of intrusions, on inhabitants persisting from the Bronze Age: the Staple Howe Hallstatt, the early Arras next, each cumulating over its precursor, and (I still think) finally some weapon-grave arrivals from the south-where the ‘stretcher’-rite is first La T b e 11, second century-to top the mixture up to what the Romans found. Anyhow, I call the book welcome as a big step forward. Garton Slack and Wetwang Slack wiI1 be next. But remember: this culture, up to Cleveland from the Humber, is unique for the Britain of its time, in having any huge quantity of foreign-inspired inhumation-graves. So, for his treatment here of all at present known of them (or nearly), Ian Stead must earn a vote of hearty thanks. C H R I S T O P H E R H A W K E S

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Lukis as discussed by the authors pointed out that the navel of the giant has been added to the penis, increasing the length of the latter by some 5 or 6 feet (1.5-1.8m).
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to a major change in the internal iconography of the Giant since it was first illustrated in 1764. If, as is highly probable, that illustration was substantially correct, the navel has in the meantime, through the vicissitudes of periods of neglect alternating with renovations from time to time, ceased to have a separate existence and has become added to the penis, increasing the length of the latter by some 5 or 6 feet (1.5-1.8m). If the change did not originate with the renovation of 1887 when the Giant was cleaned by order of General Pitt-Rivers, it was certainly perpetuated under his direction. Apart from a reference to ‘illustrious Stanengs and his Cangick Giants’ (Gibbons, c. 1670), which is most unlikely to refer to the Cerne Giant, the earliest known definite allusion to this hill-figure was made by Francis Wise (1742, 48), who refrained from describing it in detail because he considered it preferable to leave the task to the Reverend John Hutchins, then working on his History of Dorset (1774 and later editions). The earliest known illustration to date was in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1764 (FIG, I a), accompanying a letter addressed to the editor, ‘Silvanus Urban’, unsigned but apparently not by Hutchins, who had supplied slightly different measurements to William Stukeley in October the previous year (Lukis 1883, 129-33).

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A pottery figure from Spong Hill, North Elmham, Norfolk was discovered by the Scole Committee and the Norfolk Archaeological Unit in 1979 as discussed by the authors, and it was found in a densely occupied area of the cremation cemetery.
Abstract: Or perhaps more formally : A pottery figure from Spong Hill, North Elmham, Norfolk. Some of our readers may know of North Elmham, on the R. Wensum, as the seat of a pre-conquest bishopric. It also has, in recent years, produced quite a palatable dry white wine. Dr Catherine Hills, Assistant Lecturer in Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, is in the course of bestowing further renown upon North Elmham by her continuing excavation, under the aegis of the Scole Committee and the Norfolk Archaeological Unit, of the AngloSaxon cemetery at Spong Hill. As she explains here the 1979 season has come up with what must surely be a unique anthropomorphic pot lid. The thermoluminescence analysis below was prepared by M . J. Aitken and G . D. Bussell, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford, and Ann Wintle, Godwin Laboratory, Sub-department of Quaternary Research, Cambridge, and Dr Hills would like to express her appreciation to them. During the 1979 season of excavation at the pagan Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Norfolk, a pot lid in the form of a seated figure was discovered. Although it was found in a densely occupied area of the cremation cemetery it was not securely stratified since it lay broken in a rabbit hole amongst a series of burrows and urn diggers' pits to the south of a recent hedge line. Because of the rarity of the object and its lack of a secure context samples were taken for thermoluminescent dating to establish that it was indeed ancient, and not a nineteenth-century fake.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that Thom had made a serious error in identifying the site, and very probably made surveying errors, which vitiated part of his discussion of an important site.
Abstract: ‘A cairn supported at its edge by large stones may be removed. … The ring which is left looks like a stone circle.’ (Thom, 1967, 65). Professor A. Thom has surveyed a large number of archaeological sites (Thom, 1967; 1971). These surveys provide the basis from which he deduces the existence of the Megalithic Yard (MY), Megalithic Geometry and Megalithic Astronomy. In considering his evidence for these aspects of ‘megalithic science’ it is pertinent to enquire of each site: Does it date from the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age? Is it correctly identified? Do the stones occupy their original positions? Is the site plan accurate? Has the site already been discussed, or since discussed, in the archaeological literature? The example of Unival, discussed in detail later, shows that here Thom has made a serious error in identifying the site, and very probably made surveying errors. These errors vitiate part of his discussion of an important site. This mis-identification, and similar ones, could have been avoided if the archaeological literature had been consulted.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it was argued that Sophokles aimed in this play to present an allegorical comment on current trends in society, with a criticism of sophistic education and the ideals it inculcated, culminating in a reiteration of the traditional values it had undermined.
Abstract: In Philoktetes : Sophoklean Melodrama 1 it was argued that with Philoktetes Sophokles followed Euripides1 lead in writing a tragedy of less than complete seriousness. It is now further argued that Sophokles aimed in this play to present an allegorical comment on current trends in society, with a criticism of sophistic education and the ideals it inculcated, culminating in a reiteration of the traditional values it had undermined 2. The non-tragic tone is peculiarly suited to the content of the play : topicality of reference has little place in high tragedy, which is concerned with general truths behind particular situations ; melodrama, being less inwardly intense, can more readily look outwards to comment on contemporary issues. In previous attempts to set the play in its fifth century context, more stress has been laid on the political than on the social or intellectual milieu it reflects 3. But a scholiast seems to see a parallel between Odysseus and the sophists, in commenting on 99 (where Odysseus says that he, like Neoptolemos, had a ready hand in his youth, but that he now sees that words, not deeds, sway men) : ScascMet rouc xao' eavTOv prjropac o ttoltiiztjc . The word prjropac here is usually taken to refer to those who practised rhetoric demagogues and politicians but is more likely in a scholion (though it would not be so in a writer of the classical period) to refer to those who taught it sophists and rhetoricians. The grounds for drawing an analogy between the stage Odysseus and the real-life sophist are these : firstly, the terms used to portray the relationship between Odysseus and Neoptolemos imply it is one between master and pupil ; secondly, many of the values and attitudes of Odysseus are typically sophistic ; and, thirdly, the descriptive terms applied to Odysseus and his actions are of a type appropriate to the sophists.

Journal Article

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Polybe a ecrit un Traite de Tactique qui ne nous est pas parvenu as mentioned in this paper, en ce sens qu'il met en scene un general exemplaire pour Polybe : l'Hannibal de la premiere phase de la seconde guerre punique, celle qui mene de Sagonte a Cannes.
Abstract: Polybe a ecrit un Traite de Tactique qui ne nous est pas parvenu. Dans ses Histoires, il a montre, a maintes reprises, son interet pour l'art militaire. Si l'on tente de reconstituer ce Traite, il est clair que le livre III des Histoires a une importance capitale, en ce sens qu'il met en scene un general exemplaire pour Polybe : l'Hannibal de la premiere phase de la seconde guerre punique, celle qui mene de Sagonte a Cannes. Cette guerre eclair avait ete un modele de guerre totale, globale, digne de servir d'exemple aux futurs chefs d'Etat que l'historien voulait eduquer. Il s'agissait la d'une magistrale lecon d'histoire, depassant le simple enseignement militaire.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, this article used pronouns "I" and "me" to authenticate the "thousand ships" in the Catalogue of Ships in Homer, Iliad.
Abstract: The general rules for the presentation and authentication of scholarly theses are excellent but the quasi-absolute veto of the use of the first personal pronoun singular, especially in the nominative, can be ridiculous. Henri de Montherlant refused to use circumlocutions such as "the author of these pages" just to avoid "je" l. Actually, such a pronouncement as "Isocrates could not have written this" wherein "I" does not appear shows more selfconfidence or presumption than does "I find this phrase surprising in Isocrates" 2.Having stated this opinion, I shall use the pronouns "I" and "me" enough to describe two experiences I myself had 3. The editor of a classical journal once surprised me by asking me to authenticate the "thousand ships". I did not dare to suggest that he count them in the Catalogue of Ships in Homer, Iliad 2. Nor did I refer him to Walter Leaf or to Fraenkel's note on Aeschylus Agamemnon line 45 because so punctilious an editor might have objected that 1 1 86 is not 1 ,000 4. 1 therefore meekly cited Vergil, Aeneid 2.198 :

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TL;DR: Les premieres attestations de la revulsion (ἀντίσπασις ) and de la derivation (παροχέτeυσϵς), qui etaient encore utilisees naguere en therapeutique, se trouvent dans le Corpus hippocratique.
Abstract: Les premieres attestations de la revulsion (ἀντίσπασις ) et de la derivation (παροχέτeυσις), qui etaient encore utilisees naguere en therapeutique, se trouvent dans le Corpus hippocratique. Alors que le mot παροχέτeυσeς n'apparait que dans un groupe restreint de traites et n'y designe qu'un processus therapeutique, le terme ἀντίσπασις , repandu dans tout le Corpus, recouvre des processus naturels, pathogenes et therapeutiques, qui sont justifies par des theories physiologiques differentes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a wide range of different hillfort "systems" are indicated in the book-urban settlements in the Mittelgebirge in the first century BC (Altenburg bei Niedenstein), decentralized enclosed farmsteads in the Netherlands during the Roman Iron Age, centralized production centres, perhaps under a chieftain, in the fourth and fifth century Alamannic forts on the Rhine and Danube (Gelbe Burg, Runden Berg, Glauberg), and many others, which should form a study of contrast
Abstract: nature of early Germanic society. While he admits that on occasion free farmers might have grouped together to build a defence, for him the ‘Burg’ is a sign of nobility, but this idea is based on nonsense statements such as the evidence for industry on a defended site indicates it is a noble residence (PP. 155-6) ! The major reason for treating hillforts together as a class, as with all typological studies, is to classify them in chronological and functional terms, using both surface, excavation, and locational data (the latter is hardly touched upon in this volume), but too wide an area and time span can, and does in chapter IV, lead to the most banal of generalizations, for instance the statistics on size, siting, etc. More useful would be to accept that there is no such thing as ‘German society’ (or indeed ‘Celtic’), and so to study hillforts and their functions within their regional contexts without preconceived ethnic or social ideas. For instance, a wide range of different hillfort ‘systems’ are indicated in the book-urban settlements in the Mittelgebirge in the first century BC (Altenburg bei Niedenstein), decentralized enclosed farmsteads in the Netherlands during the Roman Iron Age, centralized production centres, perhaps under a chieftain, in the fourth and fifth century Alamannic forts on the Rhine and Danube (Gelbe Burg, Runden Berg, Glauberg), and many others, which should form a study of contrast rather than all be lumped together as Germanic. The theoretical approach to hillfort studies in the German school lags 3 0 years behind that of its British counterpart. J O H N C O L L I S