CLASSICAL JOURNAL最新文献

{"title":"Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity by Georgia Frank (review)","authors":"Dennis Trout","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a914593","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a914593","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138988349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Simonides Lyricus: Essays on the 'Other' Classical Choral Lyric Poet ed. by Peter Agócs and Lucia Prauscello (review)","authors":"Ruth Scodel","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a914592","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a914592","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139012952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lycurgus' Extreme Wisdom: Competing Views of the Lawgiver in Plato and Xenophon","authors":"Susan O. Shapiro","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a914587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a914587","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:As part of the ongoing reassessment of Xenophon's philosophical works, scholars have taken a renewed interest in the relationship between Xenophon and Plato, who occasionally criticize one another's works. Although ancient commentators assumed that the two men must have been rivals, a closer look at each one's comments on the other's work reveals that their criticisms were more philosophical than personal. After discussing two examples in which Plato and Xenophon criticize one another's works, in this paper I suggest that an unusual comment made by Xenophon about Lycurgus, the legendary Spartan lawgiver, is an oblique but critical reference to a statement in Plato's Symposium about Lycurgus' wisdom.","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139019990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Roman Domestic Medical Practice in Central Italy: From the Middle Republic to the Early Empire by Jane Draycott (review)","authors":"Gabriel A. F. Silva","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909270","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Roman Domestic Medical Practice in Central Italy: From the Middle Republic to the Early Empire by Jane Draycott Gabriel A. F. Silva Roman Domestic Medical Practice in Central Italy: From the Middle Republic to the Early Empire. By Jane Draycott. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xiv + 202. Hardback, $140.00. ISBN: 978–1-4724–3396–1. With this book, Jane Draycott offers, as the title makes clear, a concise, but very welcome analysis on Roman domestic medicine. Scholars of ancient medicine are used to a very generous bibliography regarding medical practices and theories, especially from Hippocrates and Galen, but Draycott’s monograph focuses on non-professional medicine, on the medical practices and knowledge which people would have at the time under study. The study is divided into four chapters, dealing with different types of domestic medical practices and concepts. After the introduction (1–21), where Draycott states the main goals (10–13), and the structure of the book (16–17), highlighting the use of many kinds of sources, namely archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence, the first chapter (“Health in the Roman Republic and Principate,” 22–47) attempts to give a definition of health in the ancient world, based not only on Roman authors (Cato or Varro, for example), but also on Greek physicians, notably Hippocrates. The second chapter (“The Roman House and Garden,” 48–93) deals with the importance of the location of a Roman house for good health, taking as sources especially Roman technical prose writers; particular emphasis is given to the garden and its salutary meaning. The third chapter (“The Roman [End Page 123] Household,” 94–130) offers an insight on the different members of the household and their roles in protecting their own and others’ health, and on the relation between the household and its domestic gods. The last chapter (“The Transmission of Medical Knowledge,” 131–153) deals with the transmission of medical information through literature, namely that of encyclopedists like Celsus or Pliny the Elder, and potentially also through libraries, oral transmission and personal knowledge acquired throughout one’s life. Draycott’s study is of particular importance since it deals with ancient medicine and medical practices and theories not in the way we might be used to, since scholarship tends (understandably) to focus on the analysis of professional theories and ideas, taken from the writings of official medical writers, such as Hippocrates and Galen. Draycott directs her attention to writers (both prose and verse) whom readers would not necessarily associate with medicine or medical practices. Names like Cato, Varro, Vitruvius, Columella, Seneca and Pliny the Younger and their works appear throughout the book as conveyers of health and domestic medical knowledge, particularly relating to the concepts of “regimen” and “healthcare” (as explored in the first chapter). Another key feature of this book is th","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135759961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Αρχαίοι μύθοι στη νεοελληνική δραματουργία. Τρωικός κύκλος–Θηβαϊκός κύκλος by Athanasios Blessios (review)","authors":"Stella Alexiou","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909271","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Αρχαίοι μύθοι στη νεοελληνική δραματουργία. Τρωικός κύκλος–Θηβαϊκός κύκλος by Athanasios Blessios Stella Alexiou Αρχαίοι μύθοι στη νεοελληνική δραματουργία. Τρωικός κύκλος–Θηβαϊκός κύκλος. By ATHANASIOS BLESSIOS. Athens, GR: Grigoris, 2020. Pp. 504. Hardback, € 28.00. ISBN: 978–960–612–311–5. For literature and theatre scholars, the book entitled Αρχαίοι μύθοι στη νεοελληνική δραματουργία. Τρωικός κύκλος–Θηβαϊκός κύκλος. Ο μύθος των Λαμβακιδών is a valuable guide to making full use of the myth as a decisive tool in modern Greek dramaturgy. The scientific activity of Athanasios Blessios, Professor of Theatre Studies, is well-known from his personal bibliography. He has published a great volume of articles on modern Greek dramaturgy, as well as various monographs in this specific field of research. In his latest scientific work, Athanasios Blessios uses strong narrative dynamics to map the perception of ancient Greek myths of epic and tragedy in modern Greek dramaturgy from the 19th to the 21st century. The book is well-structured and comprises meaningful and in-depth analysis. It is divided into two parts: the first part explores the Trojan cycle, namely the myth of Helen, of Achilles, of Philoctetes and of Odysseus, whereas the fifth chapter assesses the presence and use of the myth of other–primarily Trojan–heroes in Greek dramaturgy. The second part provides a comprehensive overview of the use of the Theban cycle, widely known through the myth of the Labdacids. More specifically, the first chapter comprises three categories of plays, where the predominant figure is that of Oedipus in relation to his father, Laius, and to other heroes, while the case of Chrysippus constitutes a distinct category, as this specific myth has been used by Dimitris Dimitriadis in his play Χρύσιππος (2008). The second chapter presents plays where the leading characters are Oedipus and Jocasta, while the third chapter focuses on Antigone, the most admired heroine in modern and contemporary dramaturgy compared to the other heroes and heroines of the Theban cycle, as implied by her predominance in the titles of relevant plays, but it is also reflected into other characters, namely Ismene, Creon and Haemon. The fourth chapter looks into the plays Αντιγόνη και Πολυνείκης (1977), by Costas Socratous, Πάροδος Θηβών (1994), by Iakovos Kambanelis, and Τειρεσίας (1964–1971), by Yannis Ritsos, that differ from the plays discussed in the other chapters due to their distinct theme, which is, however, essentially associated with the other thematic sections of the book. In this critical review, I would like to highlight the valuable and interesting inventory of plays (1870–2019) related to Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, a section that–as Blessios points out–is the most popular among the sections [End Page 125] of the Odysseus myth in modern Greek dramaturgy. As two of the above-mentioned works are plays by Cypriot writers, Blessios’ study incorporates texts from the Cyprio","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135760305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Non Fit Morte Miser: Pompey The Great as Aristotelian Tragic Hero in Lucan’s Bellum Civile .","authors":"Joseph Diproperzio","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909264","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Pompey’s character in Lucan’s Bellum Civile provokes the same emotions as the tragic hero. Like an Aristotelian tragic hero, Pompey is condemned by fate but also exhibits certain defects which lead to his defeat and murder. Lucan focuses on the flaws of indecision and ambition which contribute to the general’s fall from his illustrious position. Although Pompey is intellectually and morally imperfect after the Battle of Pharsalus, he shows signs of improvement in both respects. At his assassination, moreover, Pompey accepts his place within fate, faces death magnanimously, and carries on the resistance against Caesar even after death.","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135760290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War by Obert Bernard Mlambo (review)","authors":"Jo-Marie Claassen","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909269","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War by Obert Bernard Mlambo Jo-Marie Claassen Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War. By Obert Bernard Mlambo. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. Pp. xxvi + 246. Hardcover, $103.50. ISBN: 978–1-3502–9185–0. Should military veterans be rewarded with land, and, if so, where? These questions are of particular importance within an agrarian (pre-industrial) economy. The author of this book is from Zimbabwe. He here attempts a comparison between military veterans as agents of land expropriation as he experienced it at first hand in his own country and similar activities in late Republican Rome. His explicit intention is to clarify readers’ understanding of ancient forces in play under various Roman generals such as Sulla, Julius Caesar and Octavian by illuminating similarities and differences with his own lived reality, at times citing the experiences of his own sister and father during the War of Liberation in Zimbabwe and its aftermath, also quoting copiously from the writings of African contemporaries. A variety of ancient sources is consulted, including, among others, Vergil, Appius and Dio Cassius. Mlambo’s exposition is well founded on theory and extremely persuasive. He starts by arguing for the validity of such a comparative approach, quoting a variety modern approaches, even some aspects of feminist theory. Using these as points of departure, Mlambo looks at points of similarity (and some, remarkably few, differences) between the many land expropriations perpetrated by Roman generals to reward veterans’ loyalty or to ensure their continued fealty to their leaders and a similar process in his native country under Robert Mugabe. In the latter case, a sense of entitlement and bitterness against the white farmers, who from the 1890s onwards had taken their ancestors’ lands, fuelled the violent expropriation of (mostly) agricultural [End Page 120] land by Zimbabwean veterans. In many cases the latter dispossessed even fellow-Africans working on white-owned farms, causing new hardship in the country. In the first of eight chapters, Mlambo discusses the theoretical underpinnings of his approach, including thorough exploration of the concept of masculinity as a factor in veterans’ world-view, which involved both natural biology and culture. He also explains his own application of “practice theory” and his use of ancient sources. He cites Appian for a definition of war veterans as “those who fought on behalf of another” (30). Veterans were clients and instruments of the elite of both societies, who used both their clients’ bodies and their desire for land in order to achieve their own ends. Chapter 2 draws a detailed comparison between ancient Rome and modern Zimbabwe, with emphasis on both differences and similarities in the concept of “war veteran” in the two societies, the role of colonization ","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135760306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome by Tom Geue (review)","authors":"Kathleen Burt","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909268","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome by Tom Geue Kathleen Burt Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome. By Tom Geue. Cambridge, MA and London, UK: Harvard University Press, 2019. Pp. i-xii + 364. Hardback, $48.00. ISBN: 978–0-67–498820–0. Author Unknown takes as its central premise the idea that unknown, un-named or otherwise unclear authors and subjects have considerably more meaning and power in ancient texts than most philologists and literary scholars have historically wanted to admit. The author uses readings of several texts notorious for ambiguity or uncertainty of authorial attribution, audience or subject definition, to demonstrate various ways in which the obscuring or omission of names and labels can actually create meaning. The book consists of an introduction, three sections, each with a brief introduction of their own and containing two to three chapters (totaling eight main chapters), a conclusion, acknowledgements, notes, references, a general index and an index locorum. The introduction, subtitled “Literature Unmastered,” argues for the utility of key terms such as “anonymity” and “authority” that inform the central approach. It also offers an overview of the rest of the book, explaining the three thematic sections, and how the various chapters and authors examined therein contribute to the theme under which it is placed and to the overall thesis. The introduction concludes with some explanation of the overall style and approach, noting, “This is a risky book. I don’t expect it to win over many readers. But I hope it will continue the important work of shepherding these texts more into the mainstream of a community… that had often not known what to do with them, apart from exercise a scholarly mastery over them and work to put them in their place[1]” (25). While the author is clear about focusing largely on a close-reading strategy, he also acknowledges risks that come with engaging exclusively with the literary text (21) when there is basis in previous scholarship, a hazard he mitigates with the twenty-page long references section. Thematic section one, “The Power of the Name,” addresses the “politics of anonymity from various angles” (22). Chapter 1 examines the Res Gestae of Augustus, alongside works of Suetonius, to argue that Augustus strategically includes and excludes names to bolster his own imperial authority, while Suetonius includes the power of using names but also makes use of universal nameless knowledge to similar effect. Chapter 2 takes a similar idea but applies it to Ovid’s Ibis and how both text and author use anonymity against their victims. Chapter 3 continues with the examination of antonomasia in the Octavia and how the erasure of names results in multiple possibilities for the author, main character, context, date and audience; the “everyman” possibilities of the effect of removing names creates “a true play of the Unknown” (114). [End Page 118] The second thre","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135759953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East by Jason M. Schlude (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909266","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135760297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Augustus, Tiberius, and the Prediction of the Accession of Galba","authors":"David Woods","doi":"10.1353/tcj.2023.a909265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2023.a909265","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Suetonius records that Augustus had predicted to the child Galba that he would taste imperial power, while Tacitus and Dio attribute a similar address to Tiberius. In this article I argue that Augustus addressed Galba as Suetonius claims, but that he did not intend his words to be understood in the way that they were, as a prediction that Galba would rise to the throne. I also argue that Tiberius was quoting Augustus when he addressed Galba in similar fashion, and that he did so to signify his belief that he had fulfilled the alleged ominous significance of Augustus’ words to him by his recent promotion of him.","PeriodicalId":35668,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135760298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}