CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935507
Nevim Borçin
{"title":"Searching for the Divine in Plato and Aristotle: Philosophical Theoria and Traditional Practice by Julie K. Ward (review)","authors":"Nevim Borçin","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935507","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Searching for the Divine in Plato and Aristotle: Philosophical Theoria and Traditional Practice</em> by Julie K. Ward <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Nevim Borçin </li> </ul> Julie K. Ward. <em>Searching for the Divine in Plato and Aristotle: Philosophical <span>Theoria</span> and Traditional Practice</em>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. v, 208. € 99.99 ISBN 978-1-316-51941-7. <p>In this book, Julie K. Ward examines the concept of <em>theoria</em> within both philosophical and what she terms the ‘traditional’ frameworks. Her primary objective is to enhance the ongoing philosophical discussion surrounding Plato and Aristotle’s accounts of <em>theoria</em> by situating them within the context of the earlier practice of traditional <em>theoria</em>. By understanding the cultural ground from which these philosophical accounts spring, Ward rightly asserts that her work enables a deeper and more sustained critical analysis of both philosophers’ theories than what is found in current scholarship. <strong>[End Page 452]</strong></p> <p>The book features a well-structured introduction followed by six chapters and a concluding section summarizing the key points of the debate. Chapter 1 discusses the activities that comprise traditional <em>theoria</em>, giving precedence to <em>theoria</em> as festival attendance. It also introduces the family of terms relating to <em>theoria</em> and the notion of <em>theoria</em> as philosophical thinking. Chapter 2 explores the traditional usage of <em>theoria</em> in greater depth, referring to writers such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides, and briefly, Plato. This examination reveals that the traditional concept of <em>theoria</em> involves traveling to festivals and shrines to observe something sacred or highly significant, and these features persist through the philosophical development of the notion.</p> <p>Chapter 3 examines Plato’s treatment of both traditional and philosophical <em>theoria</em>. Ward contends that Plato stands at a crossroad between the traditional idea of <em>theoria</em> and his conception of it as abstract thinking. She insightfully demonstrates how Plato effectively contrasts traditional <em>theoria</em> with philosophical thinking in several dialogues, including the <em>Republic</em>, <em>Symposium</em>, <em>Phaedo</em>, <em>Crito</em>, and <em>Laws</em>. Chapter 4 focuses on Aristotle’s perspective. Ward argues that Aristotle preserves Plato’s understanding of <em>theoria</em> as philosophical intellection, an activity involving the apprehension of forms, but unlike Plato, does not use traditional <em>theoria</em> to define his account. In this chapter, to elucidate the leisurely nature of theoretical activity in Aristotle’s philosophy, Ward contrasts this activity, valued for its intrinsic worth, with act","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216044","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935506
Conor Trainor
{"title":"Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica (North-East Libya) by Ahmed M. A. Buzaian (review)","authors":"Conor Trainor","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935506","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica (North-East Libya)</em> by Ahmed M. A. Buzaian <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Conor Trainor </li> </ul> Ahmed M. A. Buzaian. <em>Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica (North-East Libya)</em>. Open Access Monograph 3. London: British Institute for Libyan and North African Studies, 2022. Pp. 176. $55.00. ISBN 9781915808004. Open access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/63736. <p><em>Publishers are invited to submit new books to be reviewed to Professor Lawrence Kowerski, Classics Program, Hunter College, 695 Park Ave., New York, NY 10065; email: lawrence.kowerski@hunter.cuny.edu</em>.</p> <p><em>Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica</em> sets out to challenge the widely held interpretation that this region of north-east Libya (half of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica) experienced a significant economic decline from the third century AD onward. The interpretation of economic decline has been established through ancient historical accounts relating to social unrest and a major regional earthquake. Ahmed Buzaian challenges this narrative by arguing convincingly that archaeological evidence can provide a different perspective.</p> <p>This book is an impressive piece of work which has grown out of the PhD research of Buzaian at the University of Leicester. The archaeological data presented in the book largely comes from Buzaian’s survey of a 30,000km<sup>2</sup> area. The survey was focused primarily on identifying and recording the remains of pressing and milling facilities and equipment across a region that roughly spans from modern day Benghazi to Tobruk, and into the elevated hinterlands to the south in Libya. During the survey, Buzaian identified 104 production-related sites, with over 250 examples of pressing and milling installations. The scope and scale of this study transforms our previous understanding of this region, and the wealth of data presented raises some important questions around the economic relationships between urban centers and rural hinterlands.</p> <p>There is not scope in this review to provide an in-depth summary, so I will highlight a few key areas in which this book makes a particularly substantial contribution to scholarship. Most obviously, it redefines the economic topography of Cyrenaica – at least in a sectoral and material sense. The focus on oil production across this region provides extremely valuable data relating to population sustainability, economic output, and the role of wider exchange networks in establishing production trends. The study also presents a picture of regional production with reference to pressing and extraction technologies specifically. This will be significant to those studying ancient oil and/or wine production, who tend to be reliant on","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216046","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935504
Judith P. Hallett
{"title":"Gail Smith","authors":"Judith P. Hallett","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935504","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Gail Smith <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Judith P. Hallett </li> </ul> <p>Non solum hoc ipso die, sed etiam in aeternum posterum tempus, obitum doleamus, celebremus vitam collegae praestantissimae, quae, non sine magno labore,<sup>9</sup> fecit ut et haec universitas magnanima illustrisque, haec urbs excelsa concorsque<sup>10</sup> multo munificiores praeclarioresque factae sint.<sup>11</sup> Est tamen adepta gradum Baccalaureae Artium apud Universitatem voluptatibus diei carpentis faventem,<sup>12</sup> in civitate libertatis rerumque secundarum;<sup>13</sup> tunc, transgressa flumen Rhenum patriae nostrae,14 gradus Magistrae Artium apud universitatem lumen in divino lumine visituram<sup>15</sup> et Doctorisque Philosophiae apud universitatem exhortantem ut <strong>[End Page 446]</strong> perstaret et praestaret.<sup>16</sup> Ipsa praestitit laboribus explicandae comoediae Plautinae de asperis aerumnis servorum captivorumque, comediae olim ut optimae omnium fabularum scaenicarum laudatae: laborans ut prima interpres originis Africanae, et prima docta femina, opus eius modi experta.<sup>17</sup> Ipsa praestitit laboribus aestivis docendae linguae Latinae, et, in hac universitate, docendis illustrandisque et litteris antiquitatis Graecae Romanaeque, et feminarum Africanarum in lingua ultimorum Britannorum.<sup>18</sup> Ipsa praestitit laboribus augentibus facultates discipulorum diversorum, in compluribus ramis eruditionis, fulciens, administrans, locupletans, colens aequitatem et iustitiam omnibus. Vixit, et quem dedit cursum fortuna peregit.<sup>19</sup> Honoremus Gail Smith, beatae memoriae.</p> <p>Not only on this day itself, but also in everlasting time to come, let us mourn the passing, let us celebrate the life of a most distinguished colleague, who, not without great effort, has made both this hospitable and famous university, and a soaring, strong city devoted to unity, become much more bountiful and renowned. She received her BA degree, however, in New Jersey, at Montclair State University; she then earned an MA from Columbia University and a PhD from New York University, both across the Hudson. She herself has excelled by publishing a commentary on Plautus’ <em>Captivi</em>, as the first scholar and first woman scholar of African ancestry, to illuminate this second century BCE Roman play, which treats the painful sufferings of slaves and military captives. She herself has excelled by her efforts teaching for the City University of New York Summer Latin Institute, and for the Brooklyn College Classics and Africana Studies Departments. And she herself has excelled as founding director of the CUNY Pipeline program, and director of the Office of Educational Opportunity at the CUNY Graduate Center, winning external <strong>[End Page 447]</strong> grants for more than $11.5 million to empower students in all arts and sci","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216041","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935500
Kieran McGroarty
{"title":"Supposititious Children and Athenian Civic Identity","authors":"Kieran McGroarty","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935500","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935500","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Supposititious children may be defined as children smuggled into households and then presented as legitimate off-spring. This article considers the sources that refer to such children in the Classical and Hellenistic periods at Athens. It explores the underlying concern of the male citizen that these children might be enrolled in the citizen population. It explains that this anxiety was tied to the possible contamination of their imagined pure bloodlines, a contamination they believed threatened the legitimate operation of the social, cultural, and political mechanisms of the city.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216042","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935501
Laura M. Banducci
{"title":"Cato the Elder and the \"Theoretical Farmers\" of 18th- and 19th-century Britain","authors":"Laura M. Banducci","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935501","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cato the Elder’s <i>De agricultura</i>, the first farming manual in Latin, inspired a genre of farming manuals and didactic texts; yet Cato’s real-life participation in farming and the accuracy of his knowledge has been called into question. Centuries later, we see the rise in agricultural writing among British gentlemen of the 18th and 19th centuries; here wealthy landowners wrote detailed instructions about menial labor. This paper explores the emergence of the farming genre among elite authors in these two contexts and considers how it reflects the tensions of two nascent empires.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216040","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935502
Christine L. Johnston, Chelsea A.M. Gardner
{"title":"Digital Media and Online Resources in Ancient Mediterranean Teaching","authors":"Christine L. Johnston, Chelsea A.M. Gardner","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935502","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article presents a state-of-the-field assessment of the use of digital resources and tools in ancient Mediterranean studies teaching. This includes a presentation of the results of a recent survey focusing on pedagogical practices and multimedia use among ancient Mediterranean studies professionals and an overview of the benefits and challenges of incorporating rich-format media and digital resources into learner-centered curricula. The article also provides a summary of methodological approaches that can enhance learning retention and promote authentic and deep learning, with the goal of empowering students to think critically about the ancient past and their modern world.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216043","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-08-20DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a935499
William Brockliss
{"title":"Fat and Large Bodies in Homeric Poetry: Iros and Penelope","authors":"William Brockliss","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a935499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a935499","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Unlike the fat body of Iros, παχύς bodies in Homeric poetry are powerful, attractive, and consistent with a non-gender- specific conception of the erotic. In <i>Odyssey</i> 18, Iros’ bulk belies his lack of strength, but Odysseus’ large frame, elsewhere described as παχύς, both promises and delivers effective action. A threat of castration distances Iros from the erotic; Odysseus enjoys sexual intimacy with several characters. Penelope exercises seductive charms over the suitors in book 18, shortly after being described as παχύς; the description of her “παχύς hand” at 21.6 suggests both bulk and strength.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142216039","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-05-24DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a928924
Roman M. Frolov
{"title":"Lucan and Republican Promagistrates","authors":"Roman M. Frolov","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a928924","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a928924","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper argues that Lucan’s use of the word <i>privatus</i> to refer to the proconsuls Caesar and Pompeius corresponds to the republican formal definition of promagistrates as <i>privati</i> vis-à-vis <i>magistratus</i> (the existence of such a definition is, however, a subject of modern debate). Additionally, Lucan uses the label <i>privatus</i> to highlight Caesar and Pompeius’ unusually proactive role in the sphere <i>domi</i>, outside their sphere of competence. Building on this analysis, it becomes possible to better appreciate Lucan’s distortions in his representation of Caesar as a proconsul.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141152101","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-05-24DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a928927
Micah Myers
{"title":"The Folds of Olympus: Mountains in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture by Jason König (review)","authors":"Micah Myers","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a928927","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a928927","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Folds of Olympus: Mountains in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture</em> by Jason König <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Micah Myers </li> </ul> Jason König. <em>The Folds of Olympus: Mountains in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture</em>. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. Pp. xxx, 444. $45.00. ISBN 9780691201290. <p>Jason König’s monograph casts new emphasis on the role of mountains in ancient Mediterranean literature, art, and lived experience, from archaic Greece to early Christian contexts. König’s wide-ranging book, part of an even broader project on mountains funded by the Leverhulme Trust,<sup>1</sup> offers something for many readers, including Classicists interested in landscape, geography, and ecocriticism, as well as scholars from the cross-disciplinary field of “mountain studies.” It is also an embodied text, sprinkled with descriptions of the author’s own hikes up various peaks, especially in Greece. König views these mountain treks as having helped him understand his subject. He also expresses hope that his ascents will encourage others to follow the same scholarly and mountainous paths.</p> <p>The book is divided into four thematic sections. The first looks at mountains as places of divine-human interface. Chapter 1 reviews archaeological and textual evidence for summit altars, convincingly demonstrating the importance of mountains as places of worship around the Mediterranean. The next three chapters turn to literary sources: archaic Greek hexameter poetry (chapter 2); Pausanias (chapter 3); and biblical and early Christian pilgrimage traditions, from Exodus to Egeria (chapter 4). König’s discussion highlights that mountains feature repeatedly as spaces where humans and gods engage through religious ritual and divine epiphany, whether in the poetic present or the mythological or biblical past.</p> <p>In the second section, “Mountain Vision,” König returns to an argument put forward in the preface: that his book challenges the notion found in earlier mountain studies scholarship that only in the late eighteenth century did mountains come to be “appreciated as places of beauty and sublimity” (xx). Chapter 5 surveys examples of mountains described as beautiful and sublime from across classical literature, including Aeschylus, [Longinus] <em>On the Sublime</em>, and Lucretius. Chapter 6 focuses on volcanoes, particularly Mount Etna, as awe-inspiring objects of vision in sources ranging from Pindar to the Pseudo-Vergilian <em>Aetna</em>. Chapter 7, one of the strongest, considers mountains in Greek and Roman art. König argues that miniaturizing mountains or representing them as a rock or rock pile is not a matter of indifference. To the contrary, mountains were: “crowded with symbolic and narrative associations; it would have taken only a cursory representation of the summit to acti","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141152062","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}
CLASSICAL WORLDPub Date : 2024-05-24DOI: 10.1353/clw.2024.a928926
Isabella Image
{"title":"\"Hard to find another woman like her\": Constantine's Empress Fausta","authors":"Isabella Image","doi":"10.1353/clw.2024.a928926","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2024.a928926","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Discussion of the Empress Fausta, wife of Constantine, has in the past concentrated largely on theories about her death. This article follows current trends on Late Antique empresses by examining the clues about her life and activities. It demonstrates her role in helping Constantine assert his imperial legitimacy, and suggests an involvement in church affairs and patronage of buildings. In all, she had more visibility in the public sphere than she is often credited with.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46369,"journal":{"name":"CLASSICAL WORLD","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141152096","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}