Showing papers in "Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in 1992"

Syriac Evidence for the Roman-Persian War of 421-422

Abstract: TUDY OF ROME'S RELATIONS with her eastern neighbors makes a number of special demands. Not only the mate­ rial evidence but also the literary sources, written in various languages, require special expertise on a broad front. Some ten years ago K. G. Holum offered a good example of the multi­ lateral approach. Relying on numismatic material and Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Arabic sources, he succeeded in giving a new analysis of the causes, course, and consequences of the Persian war that broke out shortly after the accession of the Sassanid Vahram (=Bahram or Varahran) V Gor (421-438) in the reign of Theodosius II (408-450).1 With some justification, Holum did not refer to Syriac sources: accounts in Syriac historiography of this short, violent war depend almost wholly on Greek sources, the works of Socrates and Theodoret. But there are at least three Syriac texts that are pertinent to topics Holum discusses. They will be treated here (I-III), along with a review of the formal accounts of the war in Syriac historiography (IV). I According to Holum, Theodosius' sister Pulcheria, whose influence was paramount at the time, initiated the war of 421-422 as a crusade. Inspired by her wish to gain a victory for Christ and the emperor, her government broke with the policy of the praefectus praetorio per Orientem Anthemius, who until 414 had promoted tolerance for the fire cult wi thin the Empire and maintained good relations with Vahram's father, Yazdgard I

Apollodorus of Damascus and the Poliorcetica

Abstract: P. H. Blyth X OLLODORUS OF DAMASCUS is a notable figure in the annals of Roman architecture. 1 As the chief engineer in Trajan's Dacian Wars, he was responsible for the great bridge over the Danube and wrote a description of it.2 After the war he turned to civil engineering and architecture. He was certainly responsible for Trajan's Forum, and has been credited with the erection of the Column 3 and with the design of the Pantheon. 4 As he seems to have expressed himself freely and with an impatience of amateurs-which under Hadrian is said to have cost him first his position and then his life 5-his written works might be expected to be interesting. His description of the bridge has not survived, but the Byzantine corpus of poliorcetic works includes an item, the DOAlOPKTlHKCx i:K H0V 'ArroAAo8ffipou (hereafter Poliorcetica), that contains material

Greek Myths for Athenian Rituals: Religion and Politics in Aeschylus’ Eumenides and Sophocles’ Oedipus Coloneus

Abstract: Andre Lardinois THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS have seen a renewed interest in the variety of local traditions in Greek religion, and studies on the religious practices of different parts of early Greece are appearing in record numbers.l For as Walter Burkert emphasizes, "each tribe, each locality and each city has its own tenaciously-defended tradition."2 At the same time, scholars have given serious attention to Panhellenism, a phenomenon that, since the eighth century B.C., had helped to obscure the variety in regional beliefs. The Greek poets, beginning with Homer and Hesiod, worked around local traditions and created

Stage and Actors in Plato’s Symposium

Abstract: K PLATONIC DIALOGUES, the Symposium has always enjoyed the widest appeal. It contains no difficult or tedious argumentation; it is not about intellectual problems; it seems easily comprehensible to all readers. It proceeds swiftly, with dramatic force and poetic persuasiveness, and holds the reader captive and enthralled. Lofty thoughts and entertaining tales follow one other and intermingle; irony and good-natured humor provide comic relief. Courtesy and easy manners characterize its participants as members of a civilized, educated society, into which each appears introduced as a welcome guest, and to which each reader would be flattered to belong. The Symposium is perhaps the one long and important Greek text that contains nothing forbidding, strange, remote, or alien to us. No other Greek text can be appreciated so immediately as a great piece of literary art; its timelessness is not claimed by tradition but is personally experienced at each reading; its poetic power shines forth always fresh; no dust of millenia has gathered, no patina has to be removed: it is made of pure, solid, and imperishable gold. Yet it does overwhelm us. What has been wrought by a master craftsman has as much grandeur as intimacy, as much beauty as vitality, filled with grace and charm; and it lets us contemplate what we all know as the center of our existence: love. The shock that some may feel at hearing love discussed as love between men can easily be overcome. The praises of love quickly appear to raise it to a level that transcends the attractions of the sexes; rather than passionate feelings between two unique individuals, love seems to be absolute, a natural force and a divine gift. But when we approach the text more closely and begin to ponder the meaning of each sentence, each paragraph, the construction of the whole and its 'message', everything that appeared so easy and simple reveals difficulties, complexities, questions, problems-and thus the Symposium has inspired a veritable library of exegesis and interpretation.

From Kottabos to War in Aristophanes’ Acharnians

Abstract: ~r THE CENTER of a much-discussed speech in Acharnians (524-29), Aristophanes makes Dicaeopolis present the following aetiology of the Peloponnesian War: certain young Athenians, who were J.l(81)o01(o't'tu~ol-drunk from playing kottabos at a symposium-went to Megara and stole a whore named Simaitha. Then in turn the Megarians, whom Dicaeopolis describes as 7t£

Watching a Lawsuit: A New Curse Tablet from Southern Russia

Abstract: D AVID R. JORDAN has recently published with ample commentary a curse tablet said to have been found in \"southern Russia.\"l In relation to a lawsuit an unknown person curses his opponents, as well as those who \"are their supporting speakers/advocates\" (acrol cruvTlYOpOVcrl aU'WlC;) and those who \"observe\" (nupu'tTlpoucrt). The defixio probably dates to the late fourth or early third century B.C. The expression acrol nupa'tTlPoucrl is unique in curse tablets mentioning lawsuits 2 and is moreover unknown in legal documents. The editor is cautious and rightly points out that a nupu'tTl PTl'tllC; \"was someone whose presence, like that of the opponent's cruvllYoP0C;, in a possibly fourthor early third-century lawcourt north of the Black Sea was thought to be worth cursing.\" This paper, drawing on some parallels for the role of the public at trials, aims to show that the nupu'tTl PTl'tu [ were persons brought by the litigant to the court in order to influence the judges with their reactions or merely with their presence. The word napu'tTl PTl'tllC; is not attested as a legal terminus tcchnicus, nor does it occur in court orations or legal documents to describe an institution, a magistrate, or the ordinary participants in a trial (i. e., /lap'tup£c;. cruvTnOpOt. cruClKOl. EVOPKOl. ClKUcr'tUi, KU'tllYOPOt. etc.). In the Attic orators nupuTllPElV preserves its literal meaning, i.e., \"watch, observe, look on\" (Sc. a lawsuit), without judicial implications.3 Aeschines, for instance, in the only attestation of the word in a

After the Big Bang: Eruptive Activity in the Caldera of Greco-Roman Thera

Abstract: ALAEA AND NEA KAMENI, the two volcanic domes now vis­ ible in the caldera of Thera (Santorini) are vivid reminders that the immense Bronze Age eruption entombing Akro­ tiri did not mark the end of volcanic activity on the island. Almost immediately) at least in geological terms) the fragmented landmass began to rebuild itself) mainly by means of intermit­ tent eruptions of lava that have today created a massive submarine volcanic edifice manifested on the surface of the caldera by the two Kamenis. 1 According to a wide variety of ancient sources) at least two of these subaerial eruptions took place in Greco-Roman antiquity. The problem facing historians and geologists is to determine not only when these events occurred) but also whether or not they have any relationship to the modern Kameni islands. On this latter problem) even after three international congresses on Thera) there is little consensus: some) following FouquC)2 believe that only one landmass thrown up by volcanic activity in antiquity still exists) though they disagree on which volcanic event is responsible; others) following the lead of Philippson,3 argue that none of the 'islands' created in the caldera in Greco­ Roman times exist today. As a result, the 'birthdate' of Palaea Kameni, the older of the two (Nea Kameni emerged in 1707) has been placed as early as 198/197 R.C. and as late as A.D. 1573.

An Orpheus among the Animals at Dumbarton Oaks

Abstract: F TRANSITIONS between given historical periods come some of the more problematic cases of meaning in the visual arts, where the precise significance of a subject can shift with changes in iconographic detail, the audience, or the specific context within which the subject is understood. A textile from Egypt in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks (PLATE 1) offers such a case, though it has received scant attention.1 The traditional periodic designations of 'Early Christian', 'Byzantine', or 'Coptic', which might be applied to this textile, lose something of their convenience here because they indicate a more precise and certain religious intention on the part of the creator and the consumer of the object than the complex conditions of surviving pagan and developing Christian traditions and our imperfect modern understanding of them would seem to warrant. The subject here is not an uncommon one in works of visual art from Late Antiquity: Orpheus charming a gathering of animals with his song. A possible Christian interpretation of Orpheus generally, and by extension this old pagan subject in particular has been much discussed. 2 But the Christian interpretations

Philological Notes on the Crossbow and Related Missile Weapons

Abstract: Nicole Petrin To CLARIFY SOME PROBLEMS related to the early history of the crossbow, this paper assembles some philological material on missile weapons from Late Antiquity (in particular Ammianus and Vegetius) to ca 1100. These problems arise from the tendency of modern interpretations of ancient technical documents to ascribe a fixed value to technical vocabulary by defining it either in the abstract or on the basis of documents from different periods or cultures; the context is then adjusted to fit a preconceived notion of a term instead of inferring its precise value at a particular point in time from a given context. To show how misleading this procedure is, in modern English a 'gun' is a portable firearm, but a 'gunner' is an artilleryman. The latter reflects the earliest uses of the English gonne: "A siege engine that casts missiles; ballista, mangonel, trebuchet; also, a ram.» The meaning of gonne evolved along with technology and came to mean various kinds of artillery pieces in Elizabethan times. 1 If only fragmentary documentation survived from the past thousand years, it might be easy to confuse 'gunners' and 'gunmen' (that is, military men and gangsters); and if the researcher were misled by lexical uniformity, he might seek identity between heavy artillery on ramparts and pearl-handled guns in night tables, and he would then feel called upon to account for inexplicably large night tables. For examples from Late Antiquity, Souter's definition of tragularius, "a soldier who shoots a TRAGULA (javelin),» is incorrect, since it rests on Veg. 2.15: tragularii, qui ad manuballistas vel arcuballistas dirigebant sagittas."2 However illogical it might seem, a tragularius shoots not tragulae but arrows. We find the same slackness in translations of ancient authors: Rolfe translates Amm. Marc. 16.2.5, Et nequa interveniat mora, adhibi-

The Happy Farmer: A Student Composition from Roman Egypt

Abstract: Raffaella Cribiore THANKS TO ROBERT KASTER'S recent study of grammarians in late antiquity,l we now have a better understanding of how these "guardians of language" lived, of their place in society, their social relations, and their economic circumstances. Despite his limited mobility, the grammarian emerges as a formidable custos of language and tradition, entrusted with providing a firm base of continuity in a changing world. Language, its conventions, and the texts of the traditional poets were endlessly scrutinized to illustrate and confirm the grammarian's rules. Because the profession was bound by tradition and convention, a grammarian's classroom would not have differed much from one part of the empire to another. Yet little in the literary sources actually tells what went on in his classes. For this we must turn to the surviving school exercises. These texts have in the past received only marginal attention. As soon as a literary passage was identified as a student's schoolroom exercise, its value as a witness for a given text was held suspect because of its provenance. When the exercise brought to light a student's effort at original composition, it was treated with even greater disregard. But the composition on the tablet presented here can claim at least the merit of shedding some light on ancient educational practices. These ten lines, concerning the life of a hardworking but happy farmer, show something of the percolation of ideas and motifs from a higher level of education to the grammarian's classroom; and the cross-shaped signs drawn at the end of each line offer an opportuni ty for examining the different methods of writing verse in the schools.