Showing papers in "Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in 1973"

The Manipulation of Theme and Action in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata

Abstract: T LOOSE plot-structure of Athenian Old Comedy has often baffled, perplexed and irritated historians of Greek literature. Measured against an Aristotelian ideal of unified plot, the unfortunate comic dramatist is pictured as struggling in the darkness with only limited success towards the light of Menandrian perfection. Lysistrata, however, has received a better press: qualified praise for a generally consistent and logically developed plot. But even here voices deploring certain inconsistencies of dramatic logic are raised in criticism. One could set aside such lapses in Old Comedy merely as characteristic of the genre. But by asking why they are admitted the critic may better understand Aristophanes' technique in this play, especially as regards the manipulation of its central themes. We begin with the prologue. Lysistrata announces the women's sex strike at lines 120-24. Wives will refuse to sleep with their husbands, and the latter in extreme desperation will agree to anything, even peace. The strike (Plan A) is to be carried out at home and presupposes the presence there of both husband and wife for its success.1 But some thirty lines earlier we were told with considerable emphasis that husbands and wives have long been separated by the war (99-104). The Spartan Lampito's husband, for example, is almost never home (105f). It is not merely that the exposition of plan A conflicts with the historical reality of 411 B.C., nor that an Aristophanic comedy based on that plan occasionally alludes to a reality in conflict with its own dramatic scheme.2 Rather the poet goes out of his way to depict a sad

Imperial Commissioners in Achaia

Abstract: E GROAC'S excellent studies, Die romischen Reichsbeamten von Achaia bis auf Diokletian (Vienna 1939) and Die Reichsbeamten • von Achaia in spiitromischer Zeit (Diss. Pannonicae, SER. 1,14 [1946]), which are cited as Achaia 1 and II, have made the provincial administration a much easier field for investigation. We build on that platform and bring occasionally a different point of view by consideration of new or marginal evidence. Here we shall try to look at one part of the duties of imperial commissioners! through the contrast afforded by an Athenian institution of the Principate, the epimelete of the city, an institution on which the writer's ideas after long confusion have only recently crystalized. The province of Achaia was the creation of Augustus himself. There is only one delimitation of the area he assigned to it, namely Strabo 17.3.25: ef3oof1:ryJl 8' 'AxataJl fLEXPL B€TTaAtac Kat AlTOAwv Kat 'AKapveXvwv Kat TLJlWJI 'H7rELPWTLKWJI l.()VWJI oca Tfj MaKEoovtCf 7rPOCWptCTO. The text is corrupt, as G. W. Bowersock, RhMus 108 (1965) 277-89, demonstrated, who pointed out that fLEXPL should mean 'up to but not including'. One might add that also the article before the name MaKEoovtCf (not previously mentioned) arouses suspicion. A secondary change. The text should, I think, be emended to read ef300fLTJJI 0' 'AxataJl fLEXPL

Critical Stereotypes and the Poetry of Sappho

Abstract: RITICISM OF CREATIVE ART seems curiously dependent on biog­ raphy.I It appears difficult to separate an artist's life from his work, or to regard literature or music or paintings primarily as public statements. Since the act of creation is assumed fundamen­ tally to be an emotional response, the artist is viewed as an active participant in the world he has created. In the case of male writers, the assumption seems always to be that the artist, whether Catullus, Brahms or Goya, uses the full range of his intellectual powers to come to terms with his problems. It is understood that the methods and the problems vary considerably from artist to artist. But in the case of female artists, the assumptions on which criticism is based tend to be more narrowly defined: (1) Any creative woman is a 'deviant', that is, women who have a satisfactory emotional life (home, family and husband) do not need additional creative outlets. The assumption behind this assump­ tion is that 'deviance' in the case of women results from being de­ prived of men-in other words, women artists tend to be (a) old maids or (b) lesbians, either overt female homosexuals or somehow 'mas­ culine'. (2) Because women poets are emotionally disturbed, their poems are psychological outpourings, i.e. not intellectual but ingenuous, artless, con­ cerned with their inner emotional lives. As a result, criticism of two such different poets as Sappho and Emily Dickinson can sound remarkably alike. Dr John Cody's recent analysis of Emily Dickinson's poem "I had been hungry all the Years" provides a vivid illustration of the special criticism applied to female artists. I prefer to begin with Emily Dickinson rather than with Sappho, because Dickinson wrote in English (which I understand better than I do Greek), and because the facts of her life are relatively well documented: she was a recluse, un­ married, wore white, wrote in the bedroom of her house in Amherst

Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of Oenoanda, New Fragment 7

Abstract: O F THE EIGHTEEN new fragments of Diogenes which Martin Ferguson Smith has discovered in Oenoanda, the most difficult and perhaps the most interesting is New Fragment 7.1 Two of its three columns are very nearly complete (see PLATE 1) but its argument is hard to make out. Smith first thought that the subject of the stone was cosmogony and the role of chance in the formation of a world. He was brought to this interpretation by the word TVfLTrClVOV in col. ii line 12 and two letters of col. iii line 7, which he restored as i.\[lKWV] 'whirls'. Both the 8lV'T} and the descriptive term TVfLTrClVO~,8~c (or StCKO~tS~C) played a role in the cosmogony and cosmology of early atomism, and TO ClVTOfLClTOV and TVX'T}, the subjects of the end of the new fragment, figure as the critical terms of Aristotle's discussion of the cosmogony of Democritus.2 But what makes this story unclear is, as Smith saw,3 the lack of a discoverable masculine singular subject for the verbs from col. ii line 1 to col. iii line 8. (The text of the new fragment is reproduced below with some important revisions.) The identification of the ClVTOV of col. ii line 2 must have been clear from col. i, but only the edge of this column has been preserved to a depth of six letters at most. The discovery of the precise subject that underwent the violent and seemingly painful events narrated in columns ii and iii is essential to an understanding of the new fragment, and Smith is quite fair in admitting that without it the whole fragment remains obscure. What is it that is being gulped down and belched up again, lacerated, skinned and nearly completely flayed?

Rotuli : Liturgy Rolls and Formal Documents

Abstract: I N a recent number of this journal I raised a question to which I knew no answer.1 The question was how should one explain the format of Greek liturgy rolls. As rolls they may be thought of as survivals of the ancient book roll, but this easy explanation will not stand up to critical consideration, since liturgy rolls are written transversa charta (i.e., with their lines of writing at right angles to the long axis of the roll) in direct contrast to the practice for book rolls, and they are frequently opisthographic. Meanwhile this question has also been raised and studied by G. Cavallo, whose concern is primarily focused on the Exultet rolls.2 He reviews the possible references to rotuli and rightly stresses (p.218f) the importance of a letter of Pope Zacharias (741-52) to Saint Boniface wherein, in response to a request for guidance on the question of the number of places in the mass at which the sign of the cross should be made, the pope says, Hin rotulo ... per signa sanctae crucis quantae fieri debeant, infiximus.\" He concludes, after examining the evidence for Greek usage, that the Italian rolls, including that of Ravenna, are modelled on Greek prototypes, that the illustrated Exultet rolls are of Beneventan origin, and that the tenth century is a hypothetically plausible time for the development of these latter. My approach to the problem is a somewhat different one. Regardless of the earliest date at which we can find satisfactory evidence of the use of the rotulus form for the liturgy, what could have suggested this apparent departure from the familiar form of the book roll or from that of the codex? The answer is, I now think, a simple one. The model taken for the format of liturgy rolls was not literary but documentary. If one considers the question in the abstract, the prayers

The Date of Pherekydes of Athens

Abstract: I N HIS ARTICLE on Pherekydes the Athenian, Felix Jacoby discussed, amongst other matters, the problem of the historian's date. l Since Pherekydes in his Historiai or Genealogiai was largely concerned with heroic pedigrees, the fragments make few allusions to contemporary events; but Jacoby argued a case for assigning Pherekydes to the time of Miltiades, father of the great Kimon. The purpose of this essay is to show that a later date for the historian's literary activity is preferable, because he fits well into a Kimonian context. Jacoby paid particular attention to two fragments, FGrHist 3 F 146 and 3 F 2.2 The first refers to the family and deme Daidalidai: rr Mrrr/,OVL t\" ,.. 'E B' , 'T,I..\" A ,~, ',1..,.,. < ~ \\ OE TCfJ pEX EWC Kat .I.'f'tV0Tl YtVETaL LJawal\\OC, a'f' OV 0 0TJ!-'OC Kal\\ELTat LlaLSaAt8aL 'AB~VTJCL\" (schol. Soph. OC 472). These words led Jacoby to claim (Abh. 116) that 508/7 was the terminus post quem of Pherekydes' work, but the mere mention of the deme does not show the fragment to have been written after the reforms of Kleisthenes: Daidalidai could have been a 8fj!-,oc long before that year, and Wilamowitz in criticizing Jacoby robustly asserted that it was.3 Fragment 2 is the famous pedigree of the Philaidai from Aias to Miltiades the oikist.

Photius at Work: Evidence from the Text of the Bibliotheca

Abstract: S PROBLEMS are connected with the genesis of photius' Bibliotheca. In particular, the date and place of composition have been much discussed, and the main object of that discussion has been to identify the diplomatic mission to the Arabs in which Photius took part. According to what he himself states in the letter of dedication to his brother Tarasius which precedes the text of the Bibliotheca, his setting out on that mission was the chief stimulus for the composition of this huge work. But Photius' own words in the same letter have been the starting point also for the discussion of another question, which will be the subject of the present article: did Photius, as he himself alleges, compose from memory ? In this journal, Nigel G. Wilson recently published a judicious examination of the different theories regarding the external circumstances of composition.1 When he arrives at the composition proper (\"the author's method\"), he deliberately takes up a somewhat provocative position: HIt is not usual to take seriously his [seil. Photius'] assertion that he worked from memory. Instead, the Bibliotheea is thought to be the revised and expanded version of notes made during many years of reading. Doubtless he did have notes of this kind, but I think his claim may be substantially true; in other words, I would suppose that his notes were very brief and he relied on his memory for the most part.\" In support of this view, Wilson adduces other instances of astonishing feats of memory, from Eustathius to Lord Macaulay.2 Now, my intention is neither to discuss whether the alleged analogies are relevant at all to a work of this particular kind (a learned compilation of about 270 different works of literature), nor to give voice only to a

Battus in Theocritus’ Fourth Idyll

Abstract: T FOURTH Idyll of Theocritus was once, with the fifth, described as "poetically on a lower plane than T:s other bucolic Idylls and the conversations which they contain."! Until recently, the poem has seldom seemed to have any purpose other than to reproduce with considerable realism the rustic speech of two south Italian herdsmen; many scholars would still agree that Theocritus quite simply "a condense dans ce court dialogue comme la substance de toutes les idees familieres aux deux patres."2 We have also been told that "the content of the poem is as simple as possible."3 The goatherd Battus meets his friend Corydon, who is tending Aegon's cows (1-4). They discuss Aegon's Olympic pretensions (5-11) and the condition of the herd (12-28). While Idyll 4 has no song, Corydon mentions several composers and sings the first line of a song to show that he is capable of making good use of Aegon's syrinx (29-37). Battus, reminded of a lost love, Amaryllis, laments her and is consoled by Corydon (38-43). Both men then turn their attention back to the herd, which must be driven out of the olive shoots (44-49), and Battus is pricked by a thorn while watching a heifer (50-57). The poem closes with an earthy discussion of Aegon's father and his current love interest (58-63). As has been generally recognized, the apparent simplicity of the poem does not preclude a sharp contrast between the personalities of the two herdsmen, particularly in lines 12-31:

Curse and Dream in Aeschylus’ Septem

Abstract: F A DECADE now all those who have studied Aeschylus' Septem have worked, in larger or smaller degree, under the influence of Kurt von Fritz. In a chapter of his Antike und mod erne Tragodie,l he reviewed the literature of the play, praising Patzer's announcement that it was a tragedy of blindness,2 dismissing Wolff's early The ban ga te assignments as \"eine typische Philologeninterpretation,\"3 and presumably destroying forever the old notion that Eteocles' death was a form of sacrifice. According to von Fritz, Eteocles had no expectation of saving his city, and his action in going to meet his brother was a flawed one, chosen by the poet as an example of a fated crime that was dictated to the principal by the workings of his own character. The uncomprehended Curse was taken over from Patzer,4 and Solmsen's earlier emphasis upon the force of the Fury was welcomed,5 but von Fritz himself was chiefly interested in the necessities that he found to be at work within the ethos of Eteocles. There seems to be a general agreement now that Septem is, just as Kitto long ago said it was,6 the first tragedy of character, and recent critics have for the most part concerned themselves with the hamartia of the king. Eteocles has been accused of discourtesy and impiety, of cynicism and self-seeking ambition, and lately slurs have even been cast upon his military ability.7 The second episode is no longer said to

An Early Source of the Alexander Romance

Abstract: M of the fanciful material from the Hellenistic period on Alexander the Great was gathered together in the Alexander Romance, a conglomerate work made up of disparate sources.1 The Romance enjoyed great popularity throughout the Middle Ages. Its wide circulation proved to be its textual undoing, for it was handled and mishandled so often before it reached the eleventh century (the date of A, the earliest of numerous and variegated MSS) that the original wording and, in some cases, contents can only be approximated. Yet most of the internal contradictions and chronological confusion found in the Romance cannot be blamed on the mediaeval scribes but stem from the original nature of the work. It was never a simple, uniform book but a jumble of once separate works on Alexander, all of a popular, imaginative nature, awkwardly pieced together

On the New Pergamene Lex Sacra

Abstract: M ICHAEL WORRLE has recently published, among the inscriptions from the shrine of Asclepios in Pergamus, the remains of a code governing the ceremonies to be performed before the consultation in the dormitory.1 The text is known from the fragments of two copies dated by their letter forms to the second century of our era, while the code itself is of an undetermined earlier date. The text has been carefully established by the editor, but in his commentary many ritual items have not been fully clarified and explained. I shall try to contribute something further to the understanding of the document.

The Death of Heraclitus

Abstract: R there has been a revival of interest in a theory, originally put forward by A. Gladisch,l about one ancient account of the death of Heraclitus. According to Neanthes of Cyzicus2 Heraclitus, suffering from dropsy, attempted to cure himself by covering his body with manure and lying out in the sun to dry, but he was made unrecognizable by the dung covering and was finally eaten by dogs. Gladisch and others have seen in this anecdote a veiled allusion to a certain Zoroastrian ritual, described in the Videvdat (8.37f), in which a man who has come into contact with a corpse which has not been devoured by scavengers is supposed to rid himself of the polluting demon, Nasu the Druj, by lying on the ground, covering himself with bull's urine, and having some dogs brought to the scene. The fact that we find both in Neanthes' tale and in this ritual the use of bovine excreta, exposure of a man's body in the sun, and the intervention of dogs has seemed to some scholars too remarkable to be coincidental. Gladisch and, following him, F. M. Cleve3 have seen in Neanthes' anecdote an indication that Heraclitus might have ordered a Zoroastrian funeral for himself. M. L. West,4 more cautiously and subtly, has suggested that the story of the manure treatment and the dogs could have originated as an inference from some allusion Heraclitus may have made to the purification ritual in a part of his work now lost, perhaps in connection with his sneer (fr.86 Marcovich=B 5 D/K) at people who attempt to rid themselves of blood pollution by spilling more blood. There are, however, various reasons for dismissing these theories on the origin of the story as improbable and for adhering to the view that the story is largely the product of illogical deductions from sayings of Heraclitus still extant.s

Alphabetization in Harpocration’s Lexicon

Abstract: I N HIS VALUABLE Contributions,! Professor Daly has shown that the principle of first-letter alphabetization in arranging lists only became systematically used in Alexandrian times, and it is only in the second century that there is a tendency toward the use of absolute alphabetization: the two extant works which show the latter are Galen's Interpretation of Hippocratic Glosses and Harpocration's Lexicon of the Ten Orators. Daly thought that the alphabetized order of the first was imposed by the author,2 and that the order of the second is due to a later, Byzantine revision. Since KUhn's text is of little value in this area, the truth about Galen will have to await the new edition in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum. It is, however, interesting to note that the two scholars who worked most closely with this text earlier were of contrary opinion about the degree of its alphabetization: Ilberg3 suspected that the true order was represented by the first-letter alphabetization of Marcianus Gr. 269, while Helmreich4 used the principle of more rigid alphabetization to make a series of correct (and verifiably so) emendations. Doubtless Helmreich's assumption will turn out to be closer to the truth. For Harpocration the situation is somewhat more complicated than is reflected in Daly's discussion. It is clear that the author of the Lexicon adopted (though not slavishly) absolute alphabetization as his major principle of organization: it is also clear that there are series of lemmata in which this principle was not fully carried out and clear as well that the alphabetic order was disturbed in the course of the

Woman Hates Soldier : A Structural Approach to New Comedy

Abstract: M ENANDER is the beginning of the long line of social comedies which runs through Plautus, Terence, Shakespeare, Goldoni, Moliere, Sheridan, Pinero, Belasco, Milne, Lonsdale, Eliot and beyond, with many others whose names I do not knowthe comedy which held the English stage in my youth: middle to upper class households well equipped with butlers, maids and nurses, in which after surmounting a number of obstacles true love found its way. This is Menander's interest for students of comparative literature.I Until 1907 Menander was known only from something like 1,000 quotations in ancient authors, seldom more than five lines long and mostly much shorter, and from the adaptations of four plays by plautus and four plays by Terence. In 1907 a papyrus text was published which contained rather over half of Menander's Arbitrants and rather over a third of The Samian Woman and The Girl Loses her Locks (Perikeiromene). From that time on Egypt has produced more and more papyri of Menander, including the first virtually complete play Grumpy (or Dyskolos). The play which I shall discuss now, Woman Hates Soldier (Misoumenos), is in a thoroughly unsatisfactory state. The sources are seven papyri, fourteen quotations in ancient authors, and a picture of the last act on a mosaic, which helps very little. The papyri preserve (1) the opening 13 lines, (2) about 75 lines, very badly preserved, of the second act, (3) 328 lines, very badly preserved but in places reinforced by three other copies, of the third and fourth acts, (4) then after a gap of 160 lines, the last 50 lines of the play. We have something like half