Introduction: Themes in Ancient Scholarship

Abstract

This volume is a collection of papers presented at ‘Ancient Scholarship: Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras’, a conference funded by the British Academy and held at the University of Glasgow, UK on 27–28 April 2017. The purpose of this conference was to investigate scholastic culture in the Hellenistic and Roman eras, with a particular focus on ancient book and material culture as well as scholarship beyond Greek authors and the Greek language. Although ancient scholarship is a burgeoning field of study, a majority of investigations have focused primarily (and sometimes exclusively) on Greek scholarship and do not readily engage with the literature and languages of other cultures.1 Such studies are valuable contributions, but they do not represent the breadth of scholastic activity undertaken in antiquity. Accordingly, one of the major contributions of this work is the inclusion of multiple perspectives and its contributors engage not only with elements of Greek scholastic culture, but also bring Greek ideas into conversation with developing Latin scholarship (see chapters by Dickey, Nicholls, Marshall) and the perspective of a minority culture (i.e., Jewish authors) (see chapters by Hezser, Adams). This multicultural perspective is an important next step in the discussion of ancient scholarship and this volume provides a starting point for future inquiries. In particular, the essays in this volume make important contributions and provide fresh insight into a few, specific areas. First, one of the fundamental aspects of this collection is the importance of book culture and the materiality of scholarship. Many works on ancient scholarship are limited to discussions of specific authors, texts, and ideas, but do not take into account the means by which scholarship is accomplished in ancient times. This singular focus is a clear oversight of the highly complex and interconnected nature of scholastic research. As a result, the importance of the intersection of text and scholar is highlighted in a number of chapters and is one of the theoretical underpinnings of this volume. This framework is evident in the chapter by Stephanie Roussou, ‘New Readings in the Text of Herodian’. Although Roussou provides fresh proposals for Herodian’s Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας (On Prosody in General), her discussion is not limited only to the text as reconstructed. Rather, Roussou also evaluates newly-discovered manuscripts and discusses what they mean for our understanding of Herodian, his work and its reception, and the scholastic environment in which he wrote and in which