Showing papers in "Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in 1982"

The Date of the ‘Anastasian Long Wall’ in Thrace

Abstract: T HE PANEGYRIC of Procopius of Caesarea on the building activities of the emperor Justinian has had a powerful and lasting impact, doubtless far greater than its author ever anticipated. We are still blinded by the scale and extent of Justinian's program. More significant, however, is the uncomfortable fact that, although perfectly aware of the encomiastic nature of the work, we are in no position to measure properly the extent of the author's exaggeration and misrepresentation. While it is suspected that much of the building for which Justinian is given credit in the Buildings should more correctly be assigned to his immediate predecessors, this is nearly always impossible to prove since the Buildings itself remains the solitary source for most of the construction and reconstruction of the age. l What is now emerging, however, is a fuller picture of the building activity of the emperor Anastasius, whose reign covered almost the entire three decades prior to the elevation of Justin I in 518, the year which Procopius marks as beginning the reign of Justinian.2 For example, while many inscriptions from buildings along the lower Danube have been recovered bearing the date of Anastasius, those of Justinian are few and far between despite the comprehensive impression created by Procopius.3 Generally speaking, not counting the statements of Procopius of Gaza (Pan. 15-20) and Priscian (Pan. 184-85) on Anastasius' constructions, this emperor's achievement suffers by comparison with Justinian precisely because he had no Procopius to report minutely on the full range of his buildings. Yet

Aspects of Rhetoric and Form in Greek Hymns

Abstract: T HIS ARTICLE will explore certain formal and rhetorical features in the corpus of Greek hymns-in both poetry and prose. The word 'rhetorical' is used in the broad sense to include both generic and stylistic commonplaces, and the word 'hymn' is also used in the larger sense of any sustained address to divinity, whether a separate entity (as in the Homeric Hymns, or those of Callimachus, Theocritus, Aristides, etc.) or embedded in longer works. I focus on three aspects of Greek hymns which make rhetorical demands on the hymnist and which demonstrate the continuity of the entire tradition. These include (1) finding the apX-rl, (2) establishing xaplS, and (3) elements of the request. Although some of the topoi in these categories enter the tradition only in the Hellenistic period or later, most make their appearance in our earliest authors, and the later hymns often help to clarify procedures only adumbrated in the earlier ones. Of particular value for illuminating certain features of earlier hymns is the treatise of Menander the Rhetor TIepL L, ..U,V(JWKOV. 1

Two Observations on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata

Abstract: I T IS COMMONLY BELIEVED that Lysistrata is a comedy with a serious message, the most usual formulation being that the heroine is an entirely serious character. As examples of this approach to the play one may cite from Gilbert Murray's characterisation of Lysistrata the words \"she is fully in earnest\" and from a recent essay by Jeffrey Henderson the view \"Lysistrata will always, except for the purposes of climax, emphasis or shrewd generalship, speak like the highminded leader she is.\" In a previous work Henderson had said that Lysistrata is \"undeniably heroic and a/ways serious-minded\" (my italics), while correctly noting that there are some jokes in her lines. l In this paper I should like to argue that both the words of the heroine and the context in which comedies were produced invite a different judgement. Although there are in my opinion a few passages which may have been intended to strike a serious note, their effect is swamped by a pervasive hilarity. Some other scholars have already noted that the military situation was still very difficult for Athens in the first half of the year 411, and that consequently there would have been little point in encouraging the public to hope for a satisfactory peace treaty with an enemy still very much in the ascendant.2 While accepting this argument as reasonable in the light of the evidence available to us, I should like to strengthen the case by considering three facts which have not been given due weight in previous discussions. These facts all concern the effect that Lysistrata may be assumed to have created with the original audience. I believe that the Athenian public will have found her far too amusing to be taken seriously. Their reasons can be summed up as follows: Lysistrata's part is played by a man, it is played before an audience consisting

Hoplomachia and Greek Dances in Arms

Abstract: W ARFARE AND DANCING were often associated by the Greeks.1 Already in Homer we find Hector's assertion that he knows how to dance for Ares in a fixed fight, and Meriones is distinguished as a dancer.2 According to Socrates (Ath. 628F) the best dancers are likewise the best in war, and Lucian (Salt. 14) claims that in Thessaly fighters in the forefront were called 7TPOOpX'YJO"TIjpec;. Dio Chrysostom (2.60-61) even recommends to Trajan pyrrhic dancing for military training. Other sources associate the hoplomachia with dancing. Lucius Tarraeus, in discussing the five categories of practical arts, cites among other things dancing, wrestling, and hoplomachia.3 Lucian (Salt. 10, 21) claims that Spartan youths dance after engaging in hoplomachia, and that the Idaean Dactyls insisted the young Ares must master dancing before they would teach him the hoplomachia. In Galen's view a gymnastes was the best teacher of exercises for dancing, hoplomachia, pancration, and wrestling.4 Although these references prove only that both hoplomachia and dancing were seen as forms of physical exercise, several scholars believe that hoplomachia was a dance or that the hoplomachoi taught dancing.5 This confusion derives from the alleged associations of the origins of hoplomachia and the profession of the hoplomachoi with the Mantinean armed dance. In this paper I hope to show that the hoplomachia was not a dance and that the Mantinean dance has been misinterpreted. The topic of dances in arms naturally leads to the broader questions of the value of such dances for military training and of the relationship between dances and military tactics.

Phthonos and Parphasis : The Argument of Nemean 8.19-34

Abstract: 1 E. L. Bundy, Studia Pindarica I (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1962) 40. The text of Pindar used throughout is that of H. Maehler (Leipzig 1971). 2 According to the great majority of commentators, from the scholia onward, Pindar is concerned here with the introduction into traditional stories of original elements that, precisely because they depart from the standard account, are likely to be seized upon by the ill-disposed as a pretext for captious criticism. Those who take veapa as looking forward to the Ajax story are notably unable to agree on what can safely be labeled 'new' in Pindar's version~ c/ F. Mezger, Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig 1880) 328~ J. B. Bury, The Nemean Odes of Pindar (London/New York 1890) 147: A. M. Fennell, Pindar: The Nemean and Isthmian Odes2 (Cambridge 1899) 103~ C. Gaspar, Essai de chronologie pindarique (Brussels 1900) 43: L. R. Farnell, The Works of Pindar I (London 1932) 215-16~ N. O. Brown, \"Pindar, Sophocles, and the Thirty Years' Peace,\" TAPA 82 (1951) 15: J. Finley, Pindar and Aeschylus (Cambridge [Mass.] 1955) 155. C. M. Bowra, Pindar (Oxford 1962) 344, even concludes, as it were in desperation, that Pindar in fact has nothing new to say and is merely \"making excuses for telling an old story again.\" Others follow the scholia (32a [III 143 DrachmannD in referring veapa backward to Cinyras: L. Dissen in A. Boeckh, Pindari Carmina II (Leipzig 1821) 445: W. Christ, Pindari Carmina (Leipzig 1896) 295: F. Arnaldi, Sfrut-

Wedding at Noon in Pindar’s Ninth Pythian

Abstract: T IS NOTHING NEW in saying that Pindar's Ninth Pythian is full of love and marriage. Nor in wondering why. Many commentators have noted an erotic emphasis in the poem, many have speculated about its significance.1 No consensus has been reached on what love and marriage are doing here. This is an epinician ode for a young Cyrenaean named Telesikrates, victor as hoplitodromos in 474 B.C. Yet its mythological exempla treat mainly of brides and weddings. We may explain this with biographical fantasies about the victor and his marriage-plans,2 but considerations of economy incline us to look for sense within the poem first. We may begin by observing how much of Pindar's imagery and conception in this poem derive directly from the ancient Greek wedding ceremony. Pindar makes deliberate and pointed reference to specific parts of the wedding rite, and his intention, I would argue, is encomiastic. He conveys a certain notion of the value of marriage in human life in order to reflect upon the value of athletic endeavour. He proceeds by setting up an analogy between the telos of marriage in a female life and the telos of athletic victory in a man's life. His use of the language, the imagery, and the action of the wedding ceremony furnish us with clues for interpreting this analogy and for understanding the erotic element in the Ninth Pythian. By examining three aspects of the wedding rite that he draws upon in this poem, we may consider what the analogy between marriage and victory means for Pindar. The first stage of the ancient wedding ritual was the ceremony of betrothal, at which the bride's father and the bridegroom (or the bridegroom's father) initially contracted to unite their two houses and ownership of the bride was transferred from the one to the other. The betrothal was generally called the EW71 or E"YyV71O'"L~ (the 'hand-

The Organization of the Gortyn Law Code

Abstract: I T IS GENERALLY MAINTAINED that the great inscription of laws at Gortyn1 is not a code in the strict sense of a comprehensive and systematic body of laws but is simply a collection of laws on various subjects rather haphazardly conjoined-a satura legum, as the editors of JJG (p.441) call it. Nevertheless, the collection is arguably a code in the more general sense of an authoritative publication of laws;2 as I hope to show, moreover, we find in this Great Code (as it is often called) a certain organization of provisions into main sections devoted to various subjects and subsections within these. I agree with most scholars that the legislation of the Code is for the most part earlier than this particular publication,3 and I shall suggest that the historical process by which laws were originally inscribed separately and then reinscribed on the Great Code accounts for and is revealed in this organization. My case will be based on the punctuation of the inscription by means of asyndeton and gaps of one or two letter spaces. This method of punctuation is a relatively late (fifth-century) development in Gortynian inscriptions, and nowhere else is it used so extensively. In the earliest period the primary mark of punctuation is a vertical line dividing words and groups of words~ occasionally a special Iigo (t>

The Rebuilding and Redecoration of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople: A Reconsideration

Abstract: A NY MATERIAL REMAINS of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople are now inaccessibly buried under the eighteenth-century Fetih Mosque. l Despite the fact that this great church no longer exists, it continues to concern art and architectural historians for a number of good reasons. After Saint Sophia, the Holy Apostles was the most important church in the capital of the Byzantine Empire, not only because of its size and dedication, but also because of its function as the burial place of the emperors from the fourth to the eleventh century. Furthermore, along with monuments like the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Holy Apostles was one of the most influential buildings of the Middle Ages, providing the model for numerous foundations with Apostolic dedications. Finally, associated with the Holy Apostles is a relatively rich cache of literary sources, including several mediaeval ekphrases or descriptions. These texts have not merely aroused academic interest~ because of their impressionistic form they have also stimulated scholarly imagination. It is not the object of this note to review the various reconstructions of the Holy Apostles that have been put forward. Rather it is simply a reconsideration of the post-ninthcentury phases of rebuilding and of redecoration that have been postulated by Professor Richard Krautheimer and Professor Ernst Kitzinger respectively.2 These hypotheses deserve close attention as they have considerably influenced the contemporary historiography of Byzantine art.

Tyrants and Demagogues in Tragic Interpolation

Abstract: T HE SUBJECT of ancient interpolation in tragedy is one on which disagreement is nearly impossible to avoid and for obvious reasons. The interpolator is often no more than a century or two removed from the period of the work he is enlarging and frequently has a good grasp of the elements of tragic style. It is presumably his intention in most cases to remain undetected, and he apparently succeeded in this intention with an audience of Greek speakers some of whom possessed an acute sense of literary style. 1 At times his work is sloppy, and modern scholars are unanimous in deletion. At other times, decision is not easy: are the anomalies the result of corruption, of ordinary carelessness in the poet, or of a later hand deliberately expanding the work? Certainty in many cases is not to be had but only varying degrees of suspicion based on the number and gravity of the linguistic regularities the suspected lines are alleged to violate and the logic of the passage with and without them. The present study examines a number of passages in Euripides, all but one hitherto unsuspected, where lexical, grammatical, and stylistic regularities are violated and which, I argue, adversely affect the logic of the context in which they stand. Before proceeding to these, however, I will briefly examine several other passages previously diagnosed as interpolations, passages which share a subject-matter with those I will come to later. My reasons for doing this are twofold. First, some of the passages I propose to delete are extensive discourses-too extensive and too discursive, it might be argued, for them to be interpolations into otherwise undisturbed scenes. (The interpolation of whole scenes, such as the end of the Septem, is obviously quite another matter.) If, however, it can be shown that

The Mekone Scene in the Theogony : Prometheus as Prankster

Abstract: A N INTERESTING CRUX of Hesiodic scholarship has been the interpretation of the banquet scene at Mekone (Theogony 535ft). One of its problematic points is Prometheus' division of the sacrificial ox into two unequal and deceptive portions and the subsequent distribution of these portions: K ' , rf", (J '(J , '''(J 535 at yap O'T EKPWOll'TO EOt "Yl'TOt 'T all PW7TOt MYlKc:.Wn, nh' E7TEt'Ta f..l,Eyall {30Vll 7TpOCPPOllt (Jv~ ~, "(J"'" 'I; ,J.' ua(TCTaf..l,Elloe; 7TpOV Y1KE, awe; llOOll E,",a7Ta'PUTKwll. 'T~ f..l,Ell yap (TapKae; 'TE Kai EYKa'Ta 7Twlla aYl~ Ell Ptll~ Ka'TE(JYlKE Ka'AvtjJae; ya(T'Tpi {3OEiYl,

Aristotle as Lyric Poet: The Hermias Poem

Abstract: H ERMIAS, TYRANT OF AT ARNEUS, companion of Platonists, father-in-Iaw of Aristotle, must have been an exceptional figure. I In the last century Grote wrote thus of him: "Though partially disabled by accidental injury in childhood,2 Hermeias was a man of singular energy and ability, and had conquered for himself [his] dominion. But what contributed most to his celebrity is, that he was the attached friend and admirer of Aristotle, who passed three years with him at Atarneus, after the death of Plato in 348-347 B.C., and who has commemorated his merits in a noble ode. By treachery and false promises, Mentor seduced Hermeias into an interview, seized his person, and employed his signet ring to send counterfeit orders whereby he became master of Atarneus and all the remaining places held by Hermeias. Thus, by successful perfidy, Mentor reduced the most vigorous of the independent chiefs of the Asiatic coast."3 The sequel to this 'successful perfidy' of Mentor is known: Hermias was taken to the Persian king at Susa, there interrogated under torture without breaking, and put to death. Some vivid details from these last days of Hermias, unknown to Grote, came to light with the publication of the Berlin papyrus containing substantial portions of Didymus' commentary on the Philippics of Demosthenes. Here one may read of Hermias' courage and steadfastness under interrogation, which so impressed the king that he was contemplating releasing him until Bagoas and Mentor, because of jealousy and fear, persuaded him to think better of it. Then, the most memorable detail

The Date of the First Pythiad—Again

Abstract: M OST HISTORIANS have long agreed that the first in the regular series of Pythian festivals celebrated every four years at Delphi took place in 58211. Now H. C. Bennett and more recently S. G. Miller have argued that we should instead follow Pausanias in dating the first Pythiad to 586/5, because the Pindaric scholiasts, they maintain, reckon Pythiads from that year. 1 The debate is an old one, but it has important implications for our understanding of the sequence of events at the time of the First Sacred War. Bennett and Miller have rightly criticized the excessive claims that have been made for some of the evidence; and Miller, in particular, has offered some important new insights into the problem. The argument in favor of 58211 nevertheless remains the stronger case. It needs to be presented once again, both to take these new objections into account and to elucidate the tradition that has given rise to the debate.

Plutarch and the Sublime Hymn of Ofellius Laetus

Abstract: The Athenian inscription has generally been dated to the third century A.D., although Dittenberger had assigned it to the first.2 Now on the basis of the letter forms of the stone at Ephesus Nolle has established that this inscription must be dated to the first century of the Empire and accordingly that Dittenberger's date for the Athenian text was correct. The Ephesian text has therefore given us precious new evidence-not only Laetus' nomen gentile but his date and his role as a Platonic philosopher. 1. and L. Robert have supplemented Nolle's conclusions with illuminating remarks on Laetus' 8€OAOyia as well as an interpretation of Philostratus Vito Apol. 4.21 (Bull.epig. 1981, 481). The revelation that Laetus was a Platonic philosopher at last resolves some of Wilamowitz's uncertainty: \"Nescio carmina interpreter

Euripides Phoenissae 1-2 and Sophocles Electra 1—Again

Abstract: D R HASLAM has the great merit of having called attention recently to the testimony of three papyri in which Euripides' Phoenissae begins only at line 3.1 Two papyri so present the beginning of the play. The third is of special importance, for it offers a hypothesis of Phoenissae which also suggests that the play began with line 3;2 it is further possible that the hypothesis is to be attributed to Dicaearchus. These are hard facts, and so it is understandable that Haslam has drawn the conclusion that Phoenissae 1-2 are unauthentic.3 He adduced also a scholion to line 1 (Schwartz I 245.2-5) containing an anecdote which implies the spuriousness of Phoenissae 1-2 and also of Sophocles Electra 1. In both passages the lines in question may seem redundant and could be omitted without damage to the context. The ancients already considered that the plays of Euripides and Sophocles had lines interpolated by actors, and modern scholars have often agreed.4 As for Electra 1, Haslam observed that in four other plays of Sophocles, where a person is likewise addressed at the beginning, the apostrophe is always a short one. This is true, but we must not forget that in two plays (Ajax and OT) superiors (Athena or Oedipus) address inferiors. In Oedipus Coloneus Oedipus is only a beggar and therefore addresses his daughter very simply: TeKvov TVc!>'AOV yepOVTOC;. At Antigone 1 Antigone addresses an equal, her sister. In Electra, however, an inferior (the paedagogue) addresses a superior (Orestes) who is the offspring of a renowned race and who at the end of the play will appear to be a victor. In Phi/oetetes two equals appear: but one of them (Odysseus) needs the cooperation of the other (Neoptolemus), and therefore addresses him in a respectful way

The Heorte of Heortology

Abstract: M OST HEORTOLOGICAL STUDIES, including my own,l treat as 'festivals' religious activities as diverse as the Arrephoria, the Panathenaia, and occasionally even simple sacrifices to deities of the state cult. But such 'festivals' often differed markedly from one another in ritual, ambience, purpose, and in the number and role of the participants. It is time, I think, to direct attention to the Greek terminology for these religious activities and to consider whether 'festival' is the appropriate designation for all of them. In particular I wish to investigate the special character and form of religious activities which the Athenians2 called heortai. We must first distinguish between heorte and thysia.3 There was a thysia, a sacrifice, of some type in each heorte, but each thysia was not a heorte. And there is no evidence to indicate that if a thysia was part of state cult, i.e. if it was financed by the state or performed by state officials, it was therefore a heorte. A thysia might be very large, as that to Zeus Soter in 334/3, the skins of the victims of which were sold for 1050 drachmae,4 but this alone should not induce us to label

John Lascaris and Harpocration

Abstract: I N 1491 AND 1492, Lascaris made two} trips to Greece to acquire manuscripts for Lorenzo de' Medici. Among the manuscripts so acquired was a lexicon to the orators which is agreed to be that written by Harpocration. Although many of Lacaris' manuscripts have been more or less plausibly identified, this one has not, and efforts to that end have been hesitant. Five pieces of documentary evidence are relevant. (a) An inventory of books in Lorenzo's library before. Lascaris' trips.2 This contains (fol. 35v) a @e08Wpov 1Tepi ,.,/T1VOJV Kai 'Ap1ToKpaTwJV, which matches exactly the contents of Laur. 55.14 (see infra). (b) A list of desiderata, induding (fol. 9v) a AegtKOV TWV Aegewv TWV ~ I \" 'I \\ I 3 • ueKa P'T1TOpWV, ov\"'wv. (c) A letter to Demetrius Chalcondyles written on the first trip while Lascaris was in Constantinople waiting for passage to Crete. He writes that he had purchased eight MSS. in his travels through Acarnania and Thessaly.4 One was purchased directly, and he had copies made of the others, including a AegtKOV (J\"'T1/-WVTtKOV TWV 8eKa P'T1TOpWV. (d) A list of books acquired on the trip before Lascaris reached Constantinople. On fol. 59v there is included EV TOtS' T01) Tpt/3oAwv KVPWV a'T1fJ.-'T1TpWV5 a AegtKOV TWV Aegewv TWV 8eKa P'T1TOPWV KaTa (J\"TOtXetOv. (e) The text6 in Latin of a contract for the sale of books between Lascaris and Nicolaus Jacobus de Sena signed on 3 April 1492 in Candia: no lexicon to the orators is included in the book-list. In the attempt to identify this codex, several MSS. have come under more or less serious consideration. Piccolomini, who did not

Perikles’ Wife: Chronological Calculations

Abstract: The thrice-married woman at Plutarch Per. 24 probably divorced Hipponicus to marry Pericles ca. 455 and bore their son Xanthippus in the following year.