Showing papers in "Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in 1977"

Evidence for the Hun Invasion of Thrace in A.D. 422

Abstract: T HISTORY of the Hun invasions of the Danubian and Balkan provinces of the Roman empire is still not as clear as one would like. We are better informed about the major and most destructive raids of 441, 442 and 447, but even here universal agreement has never been achieved. Still, it was the severe impact of these large-scale and effective incursions in the 440's that overshadowed and blotted out the memory of previous, less destructive ones. It is known, for example, that the Huns broke into Thrace and caused havoc in 422, but little has ever been said about it. The latest discussion of the invasion concludes thus: \"Nowhere in the history of the Huns is the one-sidedness of our sources more manifest. Hun bands skirmished with Roman soldiers almost at the gates of Constantinople. Yet no word about it appears in the detailed ecclesiastical histories, no allusion in the vast theological literature of the time.\"l This statement is not entirely correct. There is far more evidence for the Hun invasion of Thrace than has been realised, and it is time these pieces of evidence were fitted together to elucidate the course and consequence of the invasion.

Plutarch and the Fate of Antalkidas

Abstract: ~TALKIDAS was the leading Spartan ambassador of the fourth century B.C., an urbane man who quickly learned his way around the Persian court and who played a central role in Greek diplomacy during the Spartan hegemony. His success in negotiating the King's Peace of 387/6--0ften called the Peace of Antalkidas-is well known. Yet his later career is somewhat less certain, and the date of his death is disputed. According to the communis opinio Antalkidas committed suicide in 367/6 after his failure to dissuade King Artaxerxes from supporting Pelopidas and the Thebans in their efforts to sponsor a Common Peace.1 Alternative views are few. D. J. Mosley has suggested that Antalkidas fell out of Persian favor and committed suicide sometime around 370 B.C.2 K. J. Beloch denied that Antalkidas participated in the negotiations of 367 and claimed that he died later.3 Recently, G. L. Cawkwell has maintained that Antalkidas was active at the Persian court as late as 361.4 The ancient testimony on the question comes from Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes 22.6-7: aXP£ /-Ltll 0011 €'TT'PWT€V€V ~ }Jmt.pT7] , ~'1I01l

How Did the Athenian Ecclesia Vote

Abstract: I I N CLASSICAL ATHENS two kinds of voting were employed: the assembly voted by a show of hands and the popular court by ballot. The vote by ballot is known in every detail thanks to the account given by Aristotle in the Constitution of Athens 68-69 and to the discovery of several bronze psephoi of the classical period. The cheirotonia, however, is described neither by Aristotle nor by any other contemporary author and, although in this case archaeological evidence seems to be ruled out, it is in fact the excavations of the Pnyx which constitute the basis of the two most recent discussions of the subject by A. L. Boegehold and E. S. Staveley.l In discussing the Athenian voting procedure we are once more faced with the curious fact that the working of the people's court is abundantly attested, whereas the ecclesia is shrouded in mystery because of the silence of our sources.

Thucydides’ Plataean Debate

Abstract: T DIONYSIUS of Halicarnassus (On Thucydides 42) no speech of Thucydides was finer than the Plataeans' in Book III. But that debate has commanded little attention in writing from modern scholars apart from the detailed observations of commentators. This paper tries to show how the speakers' rhetorical arguments and their tragic pathos or passion contribute to the historian's profound enquiry into the behaviour of men at war. In conclusion, it recapitulates by means of a comparison with the speeches concerning the Mytilenean revolt.

Price in ‘Sales on Delivery’

Abstract: E the more curious types of document found in the papyri of Ptolemaic, Roman and especially Byzantine Egypt is the contract whereby a party acknowledges receipt of money as the price for goods to be delivered later. Scholars have generally adopted terms like 'sale on delivery', 'sale with deferred delivery' or 'advance sale' to describe this type of text.1 Such terminology, however, is not very descriptive of these documents, for their language and terminology is closely similar to that of loan contracts, not of sales, and indeed some scholars have called them loans. Over the years there has been a considerable amount of discussion of the nature and function of the transactions recorded in such texts. The most recent contribution to this debate is an article by Zola M. Packman, in which she argues a novel and ingenious hypothesis. 2 Thanks partly to a newly published text (BGU XIII 2332), however, it appears to me possible not only to demonstrate that her theory is incorrect but to reexamine the whole problem fruitfully. The arguments presented by Packman center around fourthcentury examples of the loan in cash with repayment in kind, in particular the Aurelia Tetoueis documents in the Columbia collection;3 as the new text is also of the same period, I will focus my discussion also on this century. But there is in fact comparatively little change through the centuries in this type of document. I begin with a

Two Speeches by Eusebius

Abstract: S OMB MANUSCRIPTS of Eusebius' Life of Constantine contain not only the four books of the Life and Constantine's Speech to the Assembly of the Saints but also two speeches which are conventionally known by a single title as Laus Constantini, Laudes Constantini, De laudibus Constantini, or the \"Tricennial Oration,\" and which all editors of Eusebius so far have published as a Single work. l That the two speeches are in fact separate compositions ought to be clear, and some obvious differences between the first ten chapters in the traditional numeration and the last eight were stated long ago.2 Nevertheless, some scholars still continue to treat the whole as a single speech,3 so that it will be necessary to preface a discussion of the dates of the two speeches by restating the decisive arguments for dividing the text into two halves. Both external attestation and internal criteria point to two separate and distinct works. First, all three primary manuscripts have traces of a break between chapters 10 and 11, and the most reliable of them explicitly marks the two parts as bearing distinct titles (vi~., \"TpuXoKovTaETTfPLK6C\" and \"jlacLAtK6e\" respectively).' Second, each part constitutes a logical and stylistic unity, which differs from the other in tone and purpose.s The first ten chapters are a panegyric addressed to Constantine in his presence (1.1), with a formal preface and an easily recognisable conclusion (10.7).6 The last eight chapters, in contrast, read like a sermon on a solemn occasion: they justify Constantine's building of churches, particularly his building of the Church of

The Purpose and Unity of Plutarch’s De genio Socratis

Abstract: O OF PLUTARCH'S persistent concerns is the relationship between philosophy and politics, between thought and action: how can a statesman or a general be guided by those who have thought deeply about politics or war; how can a thinker, a philosopher, use in his theoretical works the vast experience of the man of affairs?l One way is by the close association of a philosopher and a statesman-the association, for example, between Pericles and Anaxagoras (Pericles 4.4-6.4). Anaxagoras enhanced the value men placed on Pericles' character. By associating with the philosopher, Pericles acquired a serious mind and an impressive way of speaking. He was not prone to emotional outbursts or to superstitious behavior since Anaxagoras' doctrines of physical science removed his ignorance and inexperience, and so on. Further examples are Sphaerus and Cleomenes (Cleomenes 2) and Aristotle and Alexander (Alexander 8). In the case of less exalted mortals who do not have day-by-day association with philosophers, philosophical reason (logos) must affect practice some other way. De genio Socratis is devoted in general to explaining just how reason, which in true Platonic fashion is eternal and spiritual, can modify practice in human life and affairs, and to showing the metaphysical basis for spiritual guidance. Plutarch wishes to show how such guidance works and how the gap between thinker and doer can be bridged. 2 I shall argue that Plutarch's specific aim in this essay was to explain how one makes choices in a given situation and how these choices may be actively guided by daimones, beneficent higher powers. In the course of his discussion, Plutarch explains what

The Vatican Fragments of Greek Political Theory

Abstract: W ALY published in Studi e Testi 104 (1943) two folia (A and B) of a palimpsest (Vat.gr. 2306) and called the underly• ing work, after the subject of B, Fragmentum Vaticanum de eligendis magistratibus. It seems to have come from a lost work of Theophrastus, in fact his Laws, and to presuppose familiarity with Aristotle's Politics and Constitutions. Aly's edition contained text, diplomatic transcript, Latin translation, commentary and some photographs. Since Aly's (reviewed by R. P. Oliver, CP 45 [1950] 117-19), the chief studies are those of F. Sbordone, \"Le pergamene vaticane 'De eligendis magistratibus',\" ParPass 3 (1948) 269-90; J. J. Keaney, \"Theophrastus on Greek Judicial Procedure,\" TAPA 104 (1974) 179-94; and J. J. Keaney and A. Szegedy-Maszak [hereafter, K/Sz], \"Theophrastus' De Eligendis Magistratibus: Vat. Gr. 2306, Fragment B,\" TAPA 106 (1976) 227-40.1 The work has an extraordinary interest, as Aly pointed out and R. P. Oliver emphasized, not only for students of Greek institutions but for those of Roman as well. The cursus honorum, the trial in two phases, the senatorial commissions with members of differentiated

Trans-Isthmian Walls in the Age of Justinian

Abstract: I N De Aedificiis 4.2.27-28,1 Procopius speaks in detail of the implementation of Justinian's defense plan for central Greece in the 550's, conceived and enacted in response to deteriorating conditions in the Balkans.2 Justinian restored the defenses at Thermopylae and the fortifications of walled cities, such as Athens, above the Isthmus.3 Realizing the vulnerability of the unwalled cities of the Peloponnesus and the time required to fortify each separately, the emperor decided to block access to southern Greece by fortifying the Isthmus itself with a wall. In this regard, Procopius states that this decision was necessary because \"a great extent of the old wall had already collapsed there.\" This restored wall, long known as the Hexamilion or Justinian's Wall, can be seen in ruins at several locations throughout Corinthia. It has been correctly associated with Aed. 4.2.27-28 and has received considerable mention in modern accounts.4 The earlier trans-Isthmian wall has not. At BP 2.4.11,5 Procopius implies that this 'old wall' was in existence

The Sixty Martyrs of Jerusalem

Abstract: C 303, a tenth or eleventh-century manuscript of Palestinian provenance now in Paris, includes Lives of Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian saints. Amongst the Lives is a Passio in Greek of sixty Roman officers said to have been put to death in Palestine in the reign of Leo lIP The text states that the work was translated from Syriac at the prompting of a monk called John. who had read the original, as he himself remarks (CVptCTt av€yvwv, ch.12). The name of the translator is not given. Nor are we told the name of the original author. According to the Passio (ch.3) the Arab calif Suleiman son of Abdulmalik invaded Romania with a mighty army (the literal rendering of his name as EoA0l-uJJV <> TOV 'AVUKT08ovAov is consistent with the claim of the Passio to be a translation into Greek). The army of the calif was opposed by the emperor Leo III (here is a confusion with one of the Saracen generals then called Suleiman, since the emperor Leo and the calif Suleiman never faced each other in battle).2 Leo surrounded the invader with water diverted from springs near and far (ch.4):3 Suleiman is not said in the Passio to have commanded a navy

The Siege of Nora: A Source Conflict

Abstract: I N THE SPRING of 319 B.C. Eumenes of Cardia was defeated by Antigonus I Monophthalmus on the plains of Cappadocia and retreated into the fortress of Nora, a small citadel in the northern part of the Taurus Mountains.1 While there is general agreement in the sources concerning the course of events leading to Eumenes' entry into Nora, this is not the case with regard to his withdrawal from this site. A conflict exists in the sources despite the modern tendency to disregard it. Diodorus Siculus (18.50.1-2 and 53.5) states that Antigonus, who, after the death of the regent Antipater in 319, began to aspire to the supreme power, offered Eumenes an alliance and freedom in 318. In consequence, continues Diodorus, Eumenes swore an oath of loyalty to Antigonus and was released. This subordination remained in effect until Eumenes received letters from the new regent in Macedonia,

How Often Did the Ecclesia Meet

Abstract: T HE SUBJECT of this article is two interrelated problems: the number of ecclesiai held by the Athenians during a year and the meaning of the term €KKA'YJcla cVYKA'YJ7"oc.l The accepted view seems to be that the Athenians in the fourth century B.C., and possibly in the second half of the fifth century as well, held forty ordinary meetings of the assembly every year, viZ' four meetings every prytany; but in addition to the ordinary sessions extraordinary meetings could always be summoned whenever a crisis demanded rapid action or whenever the people decided to call a special meeting and reserve it for the discussion of one important problem. Of the four ordinary meetings held every prytany, one was the principal meeting (€KKA'YJda Kvp{a), the other three meetings were labelled €KKA'YJclat vop.tP.Ot or Wptcp.'vat, whereas the technical term for an extraordinary meeting was €KKA'YJc/a cVYKA'YJ7"oc.2 This view is usually bound up with the assumption that the ecclesia was the true sovereign and that no restriction could be imposed on the people's freedom of assembly. Two important objections can be raised against this view: (a) in Aeschines' and Demosthenes' speeches On the Embassy two crucial