{"title":"Secrets of the God Makers: Re-Thinking the Origins of Greco-Egyptian Alchemy","authors":"S. Grimes","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2018.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2018.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The earliest alchemical texts have an Egyptian provenance and date to the Roman period. Surprisingly little attention is given to the socio-cultural contexts of the craftsmen who produced them. This paper argues that alchemy originated in the Egyptian priesthood among temple metallurgists who were responsible for making cultic objects. Access to metallurgical recipes was restricted, but with the rise of trade guilds in the Roman period, craft secrets began to circulate more freely. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that these economic shifts are the best explanation for the emergence of alchemical texts in Roman Egypt.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126874484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes on the First Mithridatic War in Macedonia and Greece","authors":"A. Keaveney","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2018.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2018.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:With a good deal of source material available to us, it is possible to provide a reasonably full account of the First Mithridatic War in Macedonia and Greece. In consequence, a number of scholars have been able to furnish reliable narratives of the main features of the conflict. Nevertheless, there remain some areas about which there are misapprehensions and some problems remain unresolved. This paper is concerned with three of these issues: Sentius' governorship, the Thracian campaigns of Sulla, and the history of Macedonia between its loss to Rome after Sentius withdrew until its definitive recovery in the dictatorship of Sulla. My aim is twofold: to minutely examine these episodes with a view to understanding what actually happened and in so doing furnish a clearer view of their significance for the war as a whole.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"425 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122421801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tradition and Character: Helen's Divine Epithets in the Iliad","authors":"Catherine Rozier","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Three times in Iliad 3, Helen is called the daughter of Zeus, the only references in the poem to her parentage. This article examines the evidence about Helen's family from Hesiod and the Cypria, and argues for a traditional link between her ambiguous parentage and her role in the Trojan War. In the tradition, Helen is created by Zeus as a weapon to wipe out the heroes, and this instrumentality is more important than her genealogy. Although the Iliad makes no reference to this tradition, I show how our understanding of her Homeric character is informed and deepened by it.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123410211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Hippocratic Critical Days","authors":"James F. Patterson","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Critical Days is a late antique compilation of passages from four Hippocratic treatises. This is the first study to consider it seriously as an independent text. I conclude that Critical Days values practical considerations over theory and texts over clinical observation. Critical Days sheds light not only on late antique medicine but also on compilation as a literary activity.*","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"133 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117335135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Life in the Street, or Why Historians Should Read the Poets","authors":"T. P. Wiseman","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In order to counter modern historians' abstract conception of the populus Romanus, in this lecture I present some texts from the poets, from Lucilius to Juvenal, as illustrations of life in the streets of Rome, with some help from material remains in Pompeii and Herculaneum and the evidence, long neglected, of the urban 'gazette' known as acta populi. Ciceronian texts are also employed, to disprove the persistent but erroneous belief that the populus took no part in republican political life.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122047181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Characterization through the Use of Myth in Plautus' Menaechmi","authors":"K. Fletcher","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In Plautus' Menaechmi, the twin brothers' use of myth highlights their similarities and differences, and accords with previous observations about their characterization. They are the only two characters to regularly employ myth in the play, but do so with varying levels of skill. Menaechmus tries to escape from his daily routine and chooses myths that portray him as heroic; the ineptness of his choices portend his failure in evading his responsibilities. Sosicles, on the other hand, gets everything for free because he outsmarts everyone, a characteristic echoed by his clever choices of myths that put people in their place.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"15 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120911052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sound, Sense, and Sequence in Meleager and Catullus","authors":"Charles S. Campbell","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study addresses the old question of poem-arrangement in the Catullan corpus from a new angle. It looks to a close-predecessor of Catullus, the epigrammatist Meleager, and traces of his Garland preserved in the Anthologia Palatina (hereafter AP), for parallels of compositional and organizational technique. Examination of a pair of Meleagrean sequences (AP 7.195–6; 5.6–8) and individual Catullan poems (2; 70) shows Catullus carefully included key words and sounds from the sequences he imitated. Comparison of AP 6.300–303 and Catullus 12–14 shows Catullus also imitated Meleager's use of key words and sounds in the composition of sequences of poems.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116937956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
L. Edmunds, Janie F. Haywood, C. Pelling, S. Hornblower, E. Carney, A. Griffiths
{"title":"Intertextuality without Texts in Archaic Greek Verse and the Plan of Zeus","authors":"L. Edmunds, Janie F. Haywood, C. Pelling, S. Hornblower, E. Carney, A. Griffiths","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Correspondences between the proems of the Iliad and the Cypria as well as between them and other places in archaic hexameter verse raise the question, in the first place, of the conditions that made them possible. Three different models for these conditions are now in contention. One is the nexus of author, date, and work; a second is multiple parallel oral traditions; a third is a revived and revised neoanalytical one. This last model, with its idea of one poem alluding to another, serves well to explain the set of correspondences that are considered. It is not a matter, as in \"classical\" neoanalysis, of the one-way borrowing of large \"themes\" but of small-scale allusion, which is going on across epic and catalogue hexameter verse. This kind of allusion need not presuppose written texts and in fact is better explained as the product of mutually aware oral traditions. Thus intertextuality without texts.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132814989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Navel-Gazing in Naples?: The Painting Behind the \"Pompeii Philosophers\"","authors":"A. Griffiths","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0005","url":null,"abstract":"It is generally agreed that a mosaic in the Naples Museum represents a gaggle of philosophers in discussion; but their identity, and the location of the debate, are disputed. Two new arguments are here deployed to pin down the group as the Seven Sages, and the venue as Delphi.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123605215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"What Alkibiades Did and Suffered\" — But Not What He Looked Like: Physical Appearance in the Ancient Greek Historians","authors":"S. Hornblower","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2017.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2017.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Sociology teaches us that good looks and height confer advantages in the 'workplace'. Ancient Greek historians and poets usually show awareness of looks and dress, often in ethnographic contexts, but Thucydides does not, except in medical passages. He never tells us what anybody looked like, not even the sexually attractive Alkibiades, or the sick, emaciated Nikias near the end of his life. Explanations are offered for this reticence, which may be a deliberate reaction against other genres, or a clever way of leaving it to our imaginations. Growing interest in physiognomy may help to explain Hellenistic attention to physical appearance.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"461 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125810933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}