Showing papers in "Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in 2013"

The Style, Method, and Programme of Xiphilinus' Epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman History

Abstract: Xiphilinus’ selections and omissions reveal a distinct authorial program, especially on issues of biography, kingship, and erudition that accord with vital concerns of other authors of the eleventh century.

Cosmic and Terrestrial Personifications in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca

Abstract: Analysis of the personifications of cosmic and topographical elements in the Dionysiaca shows how they both contribute to the cosmic and literary decor of the poem and generate a visual geography of the lands visited by Dionysus

Theodora, Aetius of Amida, and Procopius: Some Possible Connections

Abstract: Aetius’ gynecological Tetrab. Book 16, showing his detailed knowledge of con­traceptives, abortifacients, and surgical procedures, is consistent with the sparse testimony that he held a public position and may have been court doctor to Theodora and her entourage.

Plato’s Charmides as a Political Act: Apologetics and the Promotion of Ideology

Abstract: By showing that Critias and Socrates understood the same matters differently, Plato was able to treat seriously ideas that came to be associated with the Thirty and with Socrates while shielding himself from criticism.

Lamentation, History, and Female Authorship in Anna Komnene’s Alexiad

Abstract: Anna’s laments are grounded in a Greek tradition of female lamentation and reflect her deliberate decision to add a female voice along side the historian’s conventional dispassion.

Farmers into Sailors: Ship Maintenance, Greek Agriculture, and the Athenian Monopoly on Kean Ruddle ( IG II 2 1128)

Abstract: The Athenians’ strategic interest in Kean ruddle can be explained by the ancient belief, attested in the agricultural and medical writers and supported by the remains of Greek ships, that ruddle had protective properties against dry rot and woodborers.

The Discourse of Deception and Characterization in Attic Oratory

Abstract: The orators’ warnings about deception can be classified in terms of their targets and their vehemence, and this reveals the diverse strategies that they chose and the context and the respected limits of such accusations.

Evagrius and Gregory: Nazianzen or Nyssen? Cappadocian (and Origenian) Influence on Evagrius

Abstract: Gregory Nyssen rather than Nazianzen was a close friend of Evagrius and the likely source of his Origenism, and this supports a passage of Palladius reporting that it was Nyssen who ordained Evagrius.

A Citizen as a Slave of the State? Oligarchic Perceptions of Democracy in Xenophon

Abstract: Xenophon portrays the wealthy as evoking slavery as a metaphor for their subjection to liturgies in democratic Athens, and this implies an ideological commentary on the definition of freedom as living as one wishes.

The Public Payment of Magistrates in Fourth-Century Athens

Abstract: M. H. Hansen has long argued that the Athenian democracy did not give magistrates misthos (‘pay’) in the fourth century BC. This article questions his argument and makes the opposite case that fourth-century Athenians paid their officials with public funds as their forebears had certainly done from the late 430s. Hansen bases his argument on the silence of our ancient sources. In 411/10 the oligarchic regime of the Four Hundred made Athenian magistrates, excepting the 9 archons, amisthoi or unsalaried ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 29.5; cf. Thuc. 8.65.3, 67.3). If, after they were ousted, this form of remuneration was restored, it was once more taken away by the oligarchic regime of 405/4. For Hansen there is simply no evidence that the democracy in the following year, that is, immediately after its second restoration, or at any point in the fourth century started to pay all of its magistrates again. In his account of the Athenian constitution of the 320s Aristotle’s pupil noted the remuneration of only a fraction of the 329 arkhontes (‘magistrates’) which he got around to describing. They were the 9 archons, 5 overseas magistrates and 10 others who managed the new training program for ephebes (42.3; 62.2). On misthos, at least, Hansen thinks that this Constitution of the Athenians is not ‘ridiculously incomplete’ and is corroborated by the silence of the century’s inscriptions on misthophoria (‘receipt of pay’) for magistrates. Thus this treatise’s short list of salaried officials suggests that the Athenians never reversed what the oligarchs had done. For Hansen the democracy which they restored was more conservative than the fifth-century one. He concludes: ‘Considerable concessions were made to the oligarchic criticism of radical democracy and the principle ‘no misthos for archai’ may well have been one of those concessions.’ In almost all cases fourth-century magistrates may have no longer received misthos but Hansen argues that many of them still found other forms of compensation. Certainly the state gave some of its religious officials a share of sacrificed animals, produce from a sanctuary’s lands or free meals in the lead up to a festival. Hansen argues that magistrates also relied on their own initiative to get compensation: some demanded cash-gifts from those requiring their help, while others held onto public funds and used them privately for years. Generals too, he argues, pocketed large gifts from foreigners and most of the booty which they captured. Hansen holds that a magistrate’s taking of such benefits was common and was generally accepted by the dēmos (‘people’). But if his requests or acts went beyond ‘the accepted limits’, he could be prosecuted for taking bribes or misappropriating funds. In three of his treatises Isocrates discussed the money which Athenians apparently earned as magistrates (7.24-7; 12.145; 15.145-52). Hansen asserts that in two of these treatises Isocrates only had in mind these benefits which arkhontes secured independently, while in the third the reference is instead to pay for another form of political participation. The initial reception of Hansen’s argument about the lack of pay for postwar magistrates was actually mixed. P. J. Rhodes rejected it immediately. V. Gabrielsen published a critique of it as a book. Admittedly some did quickly back up Hansen but just as many did not. To this day ancient historians take different sides in this debate. Settling it one way or another is important for our understanding of the development of Athenian democracy. Hansen and others argue that the democracy which was restored for a second time in 404/3 curtailed the power of the dēmos. But E. M. Harris and J. Ober make the opposite case: the fourth-century democracy increased their power to change nomoi (‘laws’) and the jurisdiction of their law-courts. Certainly fifth-century Athenians were seriously committed to the poor’s participation in the law-courts and in politics. From the 450s they introduced different forms of public remuneration to make it easier for non-elite citizens to do so. In view of them the claim of Pericles that poverty was no barrier to political participation appears to be fully justified (Thuc. 2.37.1). Therefore the failure of fourth-century Athenians to restore misthos for magistrates would be a lessening of this commitment. It would indeed support the argument that the restored democracy was more conservative than its fifth-century predecessor. I believe there to be three reasons why Hansen’s argument must be called into question. The first reason is that the dēmos simply did not tolerate the misuse of an archonship for personal gain. This makes unlikely the common accepting of bribes and stealing of funds which Hansen proposes. The second reason is that poor Athenians served as magistrates. Citizens of this social class had to earn a living. Since many of the arkhai (‘magistracies’) which they filled were full time, they could not have done so unless they received compensation for lost earnings. This could come only as misthos from the state. The third reason is evidence. Hansen’s treatment of the treatise of Aristotle’s pupil is inconsistent. On public pay for magistrates he argues that it is not seriously incomplete. But, when it comes to their number, he argues just the opposite. Indeed Hansen himself puts beyond doubt that Athens of the 330s had twice as many magistrates than the 329 which Aristotle’s pupil mentioned. Much more serious is that we do in fact have evidence for the state’s payment of fourth-century officials and lack evidence for what we should see if Hansen were right. Thus we have no reason to doubt that misthos for magistrates was re-introduced at the same time as it was for councillors and jurors: immediately after the democracy’s second restoration in 404/3.

On the Founder of the Skripou Church: Literary Trends in the Milieu of Photius

Abstract: Leo’s dedicatory poem, inscribed in 873/4, with its classical allusions has affinities with the culture and circle of Photius, and so the author may be the protospatharios Leo addressed in Photius ep. 209.

The Erotic and Separation Spells of the Magical Papyri and the Defixiones

Abstract: An inventory of extant erotic and separation spells calls into question the view that the practitioners were almost always male and that the female victims were sexual innocents sought for marriage.

Geometric Mosaic Ornament at Khirbet el-Bediyeh, Jordan

Abstract: The excavated mosaics in the church, studied on a comparative basis, show a creative mixture of tradition and innovation in their varied geometric patterns.

Mary in the Protevangelium of James : A Jewish Woman in the Temple?

Abstract: The account of Mary’s presence in the temple shows the author’s knowledge of contemporary Jewish practices concerning women who had such access: accused adulteresses, the weavers of the curtains, and Nazirites

From Dialogos to Dialogue: The Use of the Term from Plato to the Second Century CE

Abstract: In Plato the verb διαλέγeσθαι is far more common than the noun, and both denote question-and-answer discussions; it was only in the Hellenistic period that διάλογος became a genre term, though its other meanings survived.

Theodore Prodromos’ Bion Prasis : A Reappraisal

Abstract: Prodromos’ dialogue is not so much an imitation of Lucian’s Sale of Lives but a new comic conversation, made up of classicizing references meaningful to the educated students of the twelfth century

Late Medieval Greek πάλιν: A Discourse Marker Signalling Topic Switch

Abstract: Linguistic criteria (semantic, syntactic, and prosodic) applied to the late medieval romances show that πάλιν can function as a discourse marker, which is consistent with modern dialectic evidence

Notes on Some Greek Magical Gems in New England

Abstract: Autopsy of several gems, published and unpublished, reveals ancient revisions of texts and new details about users and victims.

The Textual Sources for the Peloponnese, A.D. 582–959: Their Creative Engagement with Ancient Literature

Abstract: Both classical authors and contemporary political agendas have shaped several of the tenth-century accounts about the recent Peloponnesus, and this recommends that historians be cautious in exploiting their testimony.

Reconsidering Renaissance Greek Grammars through the Case of Chrysoloras’ Erotemata

Abstract: The diverse recensions of Chrysoloras’ Greek grammar, written and printed, reflect the differing needs of teachers and students in the 15 th century, and these contexts must be taken into account before an abstract ‘original’ version could be reconstructed.

Aristotle and Byzantine Iconoclasm

Abstract: The defense of icons shifted gradually from a theory of mimesis to Aristotelian symbolism; this reflected not a revival of learning but arguments developed in the debate itself and hinted at already by Constantine V and at the Council of 787.

Why John Chortasmenos Sent Diophantus to the Devil

Abstract: Paleographical and mathematical arguments establish that Chortasmenos’ invective against Diophantus for the difficulty of a problem refers not to problem 2.8, which triggered Fermat’s ‘last theorem’, but to the far more difficult 2.7.

The Reception of Xenophon in Byzantium: The Macedonian Period

Abstract: The awareness and use of Xenophon’s works in the Macedonian renaissance fluctuated, especially dependent on court patronage, and it was selective, especially favoring the Cyropaedia.

Hyperides and Epopteia : A New Fragment of the Defense of Phryne

Abstract: Two linked passages in Pollux about trials concerning the Eleusinian Mysteries are connected by their vocabulary to the surviving fragments of Hyperides’ Defense of Phryne and so can be added as a new testimony about that speech.

Muses of Lesbos or (Aeschylean) Muses of Pieria? Orpheus’ Head on a Fifth-century Hydria

Abstract: A hydria of ca. 440 B.C. which shows the Muses celebrating the inaugural consultation of Orpheus’ oracular head does not depict the Lesbian tradition about the head but one originally based in Pieria or Thrace and adopted by Aeschylus in his Bassarai .

How a Monk Ought to Relate to his Neighbor

Abstract: Several anecdotes in the Apophthegmata Patrum illustrate how the desert monks coped with the paradoxical situation of having to deal with other monks even while vowing to live alone.

Alcmanic Hexameters and Early Hexametric Poetry: Alcman’s Poetry in its Oral Context.

Abstract: The hexametric poems do not allude narrowly to Homer or epic but rather draw on the whole epic and lyric oral culture; their context and function may have been as prooemia to choral songs

On the Nature of Strato’s Humour: Another Look at Anth.Pal. 12.6

Abstract: The collocation of the contradictory qualities πρωκτός and χρυσός finds parallels in inscribed texts of praise and blame and reflects the social and emotional realities of Greek pederastic relationships.

Themistocles’ Exhortation before Salamis: On Herodotus 8.83

Abstract: Giving Themistocles’ speech at this important moment in brief oratio obliqua allowed Herodotus to speed his narrative, press his readers toward imagining the whole, and develop a complex characterization of Themistocles.

A new Testimony on the Platonist Gaius

Abstract: A comment of John Italos on Arist. De interpr. 7 refers to the view of “the philosopher Gaius” on contradictories, indicating that this Middle Platonist could still be consulted, either directly or indirectly, in the 11 th century.