The paper focuses on the trajectory of involvement of the ancient Greek philosophers, up to Callisthenes and Clearchus, in the competition of the two greatest oracles, the Delphic and the Didymian (Branchidae), on the one hand, and in the ideology of colonization of the East, on the other. While the pre-Socratic Milesian philosophers were close to the Branchidae, Plato and Aristotle supported Delphi and the Delphic Apollo-Dionysian syncretism. I examine how theoriginal interpretation of the famous Delphic maxim 'Know Yourself (...) related to political issues, e.g. implementation of the Platonic and Aristotelian political Utopias, and how after Alexander this interpretation lost its value. I conclude that from the very dawn, philosophy has been neither the first nor the last comer to the stage of world affairs, but already is inside them, acting as a creative intermediary within such problem-producing domains as politics and religion. (shrink)

Manipulés par les puissances hégémoniques, les sanctuaires oraculaires auraient rendu des oracles intéressés, et du même coup ambigus pour laisser aux consultants toute la responsabilité de leurs erreurs d’interprétation. Un coup d’œil aux réponses conser­vées dans les sources contemporaines des faits suffit pour se convaincre du contraire. De plus, il existe une tradition méconnue qui contredit le topos de l’ambiguïté volontaire : la seconde consultation du même sanctuaire pour préciser un oracle rendu. On trouve d’abondants exemples, privés et publics, fictifs (...) et réels, sur tous les sujets possibles, de l’archaïsme à la période romaine, à Delphes, Didymes et Dodone, entre autres. Qui plus est, et même dans les cas légendaires ou rapportés longtemps après les faits, la seconde consultation n’est presque jamais la conséquence de l’ambiguïté de la première réponse.It is often argued that Greek oracular sanctuaries provided self-interested answers, and that they were manipulated by hegemonic States. Hence, those oracles would have been ambiguous in the responses they gave and would have left the responsibility for any wrong interpretation to the person consulting them. In fact, a quick look at the preserved oracular responses reported by contemporary sources proves the opposite. Furthermore, there is a little-known tradition, which contradicts the topos of intentional ambiguity, i.e. a second consultation in the same sanctuary in order to clarify the first response given by an oracle. Many examples, private and public, fictitious and real, on all possible topics, from the archaic to the Roman period, exist at Delphi, Didyma and Dodona, among other places. Even in the legendary cases, or in those reported long after the fact, the second consultation is almost never prompted by the ambiguity of the first answer. (shrink)

The Half-Life of Oracles speaks from a way-station between mortals and immortals, a place where the strangeness of daily life meets the intimacy of distant ages. These are poems in which the living and the dead play endless games of musical chairs, emperors and philosophers wage war against rivers, and dusty incantations for achieving immortality are reborn as pick-up lines. By turns tender and thundering, capable of calling the gods down from Olympus if necessary, The Half-Life of Oracles charts with (...) lucidity and intensity the cross-pollination of memory and myth. (shrink)

During the imperial and late antique period, various systems of lot divination spread in various regions of the Roman Empire. Notably, this custom appears to be particularly widespread in (Southern) Gaul, as revealed, among other things, by three lot books that are very likely to originate from this area, namely the Sortes Sangallenses, the Sortes Sanctorum and the Sortes Monacenses. The present paper focusses on the Sortes Sanctorum, a short divinatory text that includes 56 lots, all entirely preserved, dating from (...) the 5 th /6 th century. The first three sections, aiming at introducing the lots, dwell on the textual transmission, the form and structure of the oracle, and its relationship with the Greek models. The fourth and longest one investigates their language, focussing on the non-standard features and the relation between the type of language adopted and the social status of the clients. (shrink)

Orphei ad Musaeum -- Orphei hymni -- Procli Lycii philosophi hymni -- Magica dicta magorum ex Zoroastre.

It is, I think, generally believed that the last oracle delivered at Delphi was that given to Oreibasios announcing the inability of Apollo to prophesy there again. This oracle begins with the line: επατε τ βασιλϊ· χαμα πσε δαδαλος αλ and has been translated by Swinburne as The Last Oracle. Of it Myers wrote: ‘ the last fragment of Greek poetry which has moved the hearts of men, the last Greek hexameters which retain the ancient cadence, the majestic (...) melancholy flow.’ But there is evidence which suggests that this was, in fact, not the last prophetic utterance of the Pythian god, and no ancient authority implies that it was. (shrink)

This article compares and contrasts the representation of epiphany and inspired divination in Greek literature. Narrative provides a way to compare epiphanic and oracular tales, and to investigate the cognitive processes at their cores. Both oracular tales and epiphanic tales not only contain similar themes, topoi, and narrative structures, but also revolve around common problems of cognition and human knowledge of the supernatural. This suggests that oracular tales constitute a form of epiphanic tale. Cognitive analysis ultimately reveals that epiphanic (...) and oracular tales accentuate different aspects of the same challenges individuals face when trying to make sense of the supernatural. (shrink)

The story of Sosipatra of Pergamon (4th century C.E.) as told by her biographer, Eunapius of Sardis in his Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, is a remarkable tale. It is the story of an elite young girl from the area of Ephesus, who was educated by traveling spirits (daemons), and who grew up to lead her own philosophy school on the west coast of ancient Asia Minor. She was also a prophet of sorts, channeling divine messages to her students, (...) family, and friends, capable of mentally viewing events that were happening in other locations, and foretelling the future. This volume is the first sustained, book length, attempt to tell the story of this mysterious woman. It presents a rich contextualization of the brief, sketchy, and highly fictionalized portrait provided by Eunapius. (shrink)

Scholarly discussions of the live burials of Gauls and Greeks in the Forum Boarium in the mid- and late Republic replay the debate on Roman imperialism; those supporting the theory of “defensive” imperialism connect religious fears with military ones, while other scholars separate this ritual and the “enemy nations” involved in it from the actual enemies of current warfare in order to corroborate a more aggressive sense of Roman imperialism. After reviewing earlier interpretations and the problems of ancient evidence for (...) these Roman instances of “human sacrifice,” I propose a new reading based on a ritual parallel, a slightly earlier Greek oracle related to purification from avenging spirits. As burials of symbolic former enemies haunting Rome, the ritual suggests an insight into the experience of constant warfare and close-contact killing by citizen-soldiers in an aggressively imperialistic state. Especially with the disappearance of captive killings in the symbolic context of aristocratic burials and the emergence of Hellenistic epic to address elite glory, the live burials could have been critical in providing psychological closure to the once-soldiers back in Rome. Remarkably, the ritual offered an outlet in the religious realm for sentiments unwelcome in the Roman army: in the larger dynamic of the military and religious spheres, the strict world of military discipline was complemented by a religious realm that was much more open to external influence and innovation. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

By drawing on what the ancient Greeks understood by παράδεισος, and reviewing different conceptions of the biblical paradise as portrayed in the New Testament, the Old and New Testament Apocrypha, the Nag Hammadi Library, the Manichean literature, the Koran, and other mystical sources of Islam, this paper seeks to determine the nature of the ‘paradise’ mentioned in the Chaldean Oracles (frs. 107 and 165). Particular attention is paid to the Christianized reading by the Byzantine scholar Michael Psellus, who arranged (...) class='Hi'>Greek traditional themes, motives of Genesis concerning the Garden of Eden, the allegorical exegesis by Philo ofAlexandria, and Neoplatonic doctrines, all together in his Commentary of the Chaldean Oracles. (shrink)

This article tackles the significance of Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles in the light of the title given to it by its author. Firstly, it analyses the Greek title Περὶ τῆς ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας according to the new status ascribed to tradi­tional oracular texts. These have henceforth been considered as a source for the teaching of philosophical principles. Secondly, the treatise of Porphyry, which is claimed to derive from logia, is studied in the context of the debate over divine revelations (...) which opposed pagan and Christian polemists at the time. (shrink)

In the summer of 1486, Pico came into possession of what he regarded as the original Chaldean text of the Chaldean Oracles, whose Greek text thus came to appear to him as an incomplete and flawed translation. The now-lost purported original Chaldean Oracles were a back translation infused with kabbalistic elements produced by Flavius Mithridates. In his Conclusiones nongentae (Rome, 1486), however, Pico devoted to them fifteen conclusions. Through an overall analysis of these conclusions, the first part of the (...) article points out the kabbalistic themes and symbols that Pico descried in the original Chaldean Oracles. In the second part, an in-depth analysis of one of these conclusiones demonstrates that Pico’s reading of the oracle quoted therein implied that the Greek translator had missed the kabbalistic purport of the original. The article shows that Pico’s Conclusiones aimed at pointing out that the transmission of kabbalah to Zoroaster and from Zoroaster (although not without misinterpretations) to the Greek world – in other words, the existence of a divinely revealed prisca theologia transmitted through the ages – could be demonstrated on the basis of philological analysis and that, according to Pico, insofar as they provided a philological reconstruction of that science and its transmission, the Conclusiones should be reckoned as the culmination of the studia humanitatis. (shrink)

In his Republic Plato considers grasping the unity of mathematics as the ultimate goal of the mathematical studies in which the future philosopher-rulers must engage before they turn to philosophy. How the unity of mathematics is supposed to be understood is not explained, however. This book argues that Plato conceives of the unity of mathematics in terms of the mutually benefiting links between its branches, just as he conceives of the unity of the state outlined in the Republic in terms (...) of the common benefit for all citizens. Evidence for this view is provided by a discussion of his conception of astronomy as a propedeutic to philosophy, which can be best understood as hinting at a historically possible link between fourth-century-BC astronomy and solid geometry. The monograph also includes a detailed discussion of two well-known stories about Plato: not only he motivated Greek mathematicians to solve a difficult problem in solid geometry with his interpretation of a Delphic oracle given to the inhabitants of the island of Delos but he also posed the question which led to the development of the astronomical theory of homocentric spheres. It is argued that these stories are best understood as fictional episodes in Plato's life, constructed from passages in his works. (shrink)

THEORIA IN GREEK RELIGION What was the Greek for pilgrim? If there is no simple answer, the explanation is the great diversity of ancient pilgrimages and pilgrimage-related phenomena. People went to sanctuaries for all sorts of reasons: consulting oracles, attending festivals, making sacrifices, watching the Panhellenic games, or seeking a cure for illness; there were variations in the participants , and variations in the length of distance traversed to get to the sanctuary; finally, changes occurred in the shape (...) of pilgrimage over time: pilgrimage is not the same in the Hellenistic period as it is in the classical period, and pilgrimage in the Roman world is different again. If we limit our scope to state-pilgrimage and to the classical period, we find a special vocabulary for pilgrimage in the word θεωρός and its derivatives θεωρέω, θεωρία, and θεωρίς2. θεωρία is the normal term for state-pilgrimage, as we see in the famous introduction to Plato's Phaedo describing the Athenian pilgrimage to Delos. The corresponding term for a pilgrim is θεωρός, found first in Theognis , and frequently in the fifth century. The verb θεωρέω can mean ‘go on a pilgrimage to’, as in Thucydides' account of Ionian pilgrimage to the Delian festival . θεωρίς is the normal Attic term for a sacred ship used to convey sacred delegates to and from a sanctuary. One area where this family of words is never used is that of pilgrimage to healing sanctuaries; if we find any word used there, it is ἱκέτης, in later texts sometimes the neutral σνμϕοιτητής. (shrink)

Different translations of Plutarch's De Pythiae oraculis 404B reflect an interpretative difficulty not yet adequately thematized by exegetes. Plutarch's dialogues on the Delphic oracle describe two perspectives on mantic inspiration: possession prophecy, where the god takes over the prophetess as a passive apparatus, and stimulation prophecy, where the god incites the prophecy, but the prophetess delivers the oracle through her own faculties. Plutarch understands the Pythia at Delphi to exhibit stimulation prophecy, not possession. One of his metaphors for inspiration comes (...) from the theatre: the god ‘puts the oracle into the Pythia's mouth, like an actor speaking through the mask’ (De Pyth. or. 404B [Russell]). Some translators take the metaphor as describing possession prophecy (Goodwin), while others take it as stimulation prophecy (Babbitt)—in other words, it may describe the view Plutarch affirms or the view he rejects. This article assesses the two alternatives, concluding that the theatre metaphor describes possession prophecy. (shrink)

The paper discusses the new ‘Croesus’s dedication’ from Thebes. It argues that we should read this inscription independently from Herodotus text, and, thus, suggests a different restoration for lines 4–5 based on contemporary epigraphic forms. The article also examines why the shield of Croesus can cause marvel. It situates the epigram in the context of traditions about Croesus’s dedications in general, as well as traditions about other powerful objects. The power of the shield that Croesus has dedicated is not, I (...) argue, that of a talismanic object, in the sense that its viewing has the power to affect the attitudes of the worshippers. Such traditions seem to be late in Greek culture. The shield of Croesus in the epigram is instrumental in confirming the power of Apollo Ismenios and making the truthfulness of his oracle manifest. (shrink)

The book explores ancient interpretations and usages of the famous Delphic maxim “know yourself”. The primary emphasis is on Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman sources from the first four centuries CE. The individual contributions examine both direct quotations of the maxim as well as more distant echoes. Most of the sources included in the book have never previously been studied in any detail with a view to their use and interpretation of the Delphic maxim. Thus, the book contributes significantly to the (...) origin and different interpretations of the maxim in antiquity as well as to its reception history in ancient philosophical and theological discourses. The chapters of the book are linked to each other by numerous cross-references which makes it possible to compare the different views of the maxim with each other. It also helps readers to notice relationships and trajectories within the material. The explorations of the relevant sources are also set in the context of ongoing debates about the shape and nature of ancient conceptions of self and self-knowledge. The book thus demonstrates the wide variety of philosophical and theological approaches in that the injunction to know oneself could be viewed and how these interpretations provide windows into ancient discourses about self and self-knowledge. (shrink)

Prophecies and fate are heavily thematized throughout the God of War video game series. In the original trilogy, prophecies are given to Kratos, Zeus, Kronos, and others by a range of beings with purported foreknowledge including the Fates and Oracles In the Norse duology, the Norns, Giants, and others also provide prophecies. In line with the common trope of Greek tragedies, Kratos, Zeus, and Kronos’ actions, in trying to avoid their fates, created the very conditions by which those fates (...) came to pass. In the duology set within Norse mythology, the themes of prophecy and fate are also thematized. However, in these games, it is shown that prophecy can be overcome, and that fate is flexible. This chapter considers some of the historical solutions to the problem of prophecy within classical theism and evaluates their applicability in the God of War series. It will also be argued that the two sets of God of War games present different accounts for the way in which prophecy operates. More specifically, it will be shown that the Greek Trilogy uses prophecy to maintain a deterministic understanding of the universe. In contrast, the Norse Duology uses prophecy to maintain an indeterministic account of the universe. (shrink)

The following pages, which deal with the pre-history of the concept of history from Homer to Herodotus, first propose to decenter and historicize the Greek experience. After briefly presenting earlier and different experiences, they focus on three figures: the soothsayer, the bard, and the historian. Starting from a series of Mesopotamian oracles , they question the relations between divination and history, conceived as two, certainly different, sciences of the past, but which share the same intellectual space in the hands (...) of the same specialists. The Greek choices were different. Their historiography presupposes the epic, which played the role of a generative matrix. Herodotus wished to rival Homer; what he ultimately became was Herodotus. Writing dominates; prose replaces verse; the Muse, who sees and knows everything, is no longer around. So I would suggest understanding the emblematic word "historia" as a subsititute, which operates as an analogue of the omnivision of the Muse. But before that, Herodotean "invention"- the meeting of Odysseus and the bard Demodocus, where for the first time the fall of Troy is told-can be seen as the beginning, poetically speaking at least, of the category of history. (shrink)

The founder of Psychical Research, though he has not yet received the honour due to him, seems to have been King Croesus of Lydia, who reigned from 560 to 546 B.C. He carried out an interesting experiment, recorded in detail by Herodotus,2 to test the clairvoyant powers of a number of oracles. He sent embassies to seven oracles, six Greek and one Egyptian. They all started on the same day. On the hundredth day each embassy was instructed to ask (...) its oracle, “What is King Croesus, the son of Alyattes, now doing?” The answer was to be written down and brought back. The oracle of Delphi replied as follows, in hexameters, as its custom was: “I know the number of the sands and the measures of the sea. I understand the dumb, and I hear him who does not speak.” Then it went on: “There comes to my mind the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise, which is being cooked along with lamb's flesh in a brazen vessel; brass is spread beneath it, and with brass it is covered.” As a matter of fact, this answer was perfectly correct. Herodotus tells us that “having considered what would be the most difficult thing to discover and to imagine,” Croesus “cut up a tortoise and a lamb, and himself boiled them together in a brazen pot.” What happened afterwards illustrates the difficulties of this sort of investigation, difficulties which still perplex us to this day. Croesus argued, reasonably enough, that if the Delphic priestess had clairvoyant powers, she probably also had the precognitive powers, she probably also had the precognitive powers which she claimed to have. But when he consulted the oracle later about his forthcoming expedition against the Persians, he received two answers, one of which was ambiguous—“When Croesus crosses the Halys he shall destroy a great empire”—and the other correct, but too obscure to be easily interpreted. (shrink)

Whereas the Mediterranean has not submitted easily to strong theories, still it has inspired a certain kind of theorizing from the ground. The setting of the Mediterranean viewed from the land's edge gave the world theoria, which Greek etymology and usage associates with looking onto a scene with amazement, viewing drama, being sent as an emissary to consult the oracle, or traveling for the purposes of sightseeing. The present essay explores some connections between the Mediterranean and theoria. Following a (...) brief survey of how theoria functioned in antiquity, it studies the case of 20th-century Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos and American director and choreographer Eva Palmer - husband and wife - who sought to revive ancient ideas of theoria. They organized revivals of the Delphic Festivals in 1927 and 1930 as a prelude to re-establishing Delphi as a world center for people with a vision for the world. Their work rivaled that of the Olympic Revivals, except that the Delphic Revival was linked to a particular Mediterranean site and pursued the course of art, music, social thought, and especially tragedy together with athletics. A spectacular, imaginative, ambitious, but stillborn effort, it gives evidence of both the potential and limits of Mediterranean theoria. (shrink)

What made Socrates so special that he became the object of mockery, slander and hate? The answer in the Apology is expressed in the formula of the ‘Socratic pragma’. Plato claims that Socrates’ philosophical enterprise was a reaction to the Delphic oracle according to which no living Greek was wiser than Socrates. But does this really explain what it pretends to explain? The paper argues that this explanation tells us more about Plato’s philosophical approach than about this alleged turning (...) point in Socrates’ life. Our understanding of Socrates’ philosophical development should be based on other Platonic dialogues and the Old Comedy as well, for they inform us about the historical shift of philosophical interest from questions of physics to questions of ethics and political anthropology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 125.3 (2004) 456-459 [Access article in PDF] Jon D. Mikalson. Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. xiv + 269 pp. 5 maps. Cloth, $45. One should pay attention to the title of this book. It is not primarily intended as a study of religion in Herodotus, like Lachenaud (1978), Harrison (2000), and others, to whom Mikalson (...) gives due credit throughout, but rather as an exploration of Greek religious practices and attitudes in a specific historical context. Herodotus is, evidently, our main source and an especially illuminating one because, says Mikalson, his approach to religion is less bound to the conventions of a particular genre than that of epic poets, tragedians, or even, for different reasons, Thucydides, who tends to exclude religion from his account. At the same time, Herodotus' religious views are in great part not peculiar to him but probably shared by many of his contemporaries.On this last point Mikalson agrees with Harrison, as he also does when he maintains that scholars have frequently underestimated the importance of religion in Herodotus' history. Religious causes and motivations represent, to be sure, only one level of explanation among several others that Herodotus uses. But they are important, and the supplementary sources on the topic (especially the later authors Plutarch, Pausanias, and Diodorus Siculus) uncover no evidence that Herodotus exaggerated general Greek notions about the role of the gods in the Persian Wars or the number and prominence of cultic acts connected with these events.The book is composed of three chapters. Chapter 1 is entitled "A Religious account of the Persian Invasions." Chapter 2, "Greek Gods, Heroes and the Divine in the Persian Invasions," discusses the role of individual divine figures. With chapter 3, "Some Religious Beliefs and Attitudes of Herodotus," the focus shifts from Herodotus as a major source for Greek religion to Herodotus' own views about the gods and their cult. This approach continues in the Appendix, "Herodotus on the Origins of Greek Religion," which provides a welcome and lucid examination of the more scholarly side of Herodotus' religious thought.There is a considerable degree of overlap among the three chapters, and more space is devoted to summary and compilation than to analysis. The first and longest chapter (ninety-five pages, almost half the text of the book) is a history from the fall of the Pisistratids in Athens to the aftermath of the battle of Mycale that foregrounds all attested religious actions and events as well as the character utterances and authorial comments that mention the gods or the divine. It follows for the most part a chronological order (or, sometimes, the order of Herodotus' narrative), with an abundance of direct quotations and frequent spacing between paragraphs. The overall effect is somewhat fragmentary, and there is very little discussion of individual items. We would like to hear more, for example, about the earthquake of Delos, with Herodotus' extraordinary interpretation (and Thucydides' conflicting report), or the role of the Aeacidae, who were ineffectual allies of the Thebans against the Athenians in 506 but helped the Greek coalition at Salamis (22-23, 77, 129-30). [End Page 456]Neither does Mikalson impose a logical order on the string of events, although his occasional syntheses along the way touch upon a number of general points. Most importantly, he argues that Herodotus treats religion in two different ways: in popular/cultic terms or, less frequently, according to the literary conventions of epic or tragedy (45-47). The latter form of discourse includes words such as atasthalos, "rash" (which Herodotus notably uses in lieu of the popular term anosios, "impious," to describe Xerxes' whipping of the Hellespont), dreams and monstrous omens as signs of misfortunes (41-44), pious prayers that are normally answered (47-49), and oracles that always come true. Conversely, the rejection of the literary conventions of epic helps to account for the fact that in Herodotus and other prose authors, as in artistic representations of battles of the Persian wars, divine intervention may feature the occasional epiphany of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.1 (2002) 61-87 [Access article in PDF] (Un)Sympathetic Magic: A Study of Heroides 13 Laurel Fulkerson In the Ovidian Corpus, reading and writing are dangerous if not done with great care. Ovid's Laodamia, both hypersensitive and unlucky, is no exception: she shows herself to be an uncritical reader who misconstrues language in a fatal way. She is also a writer, and her carmen (Her. 13) (...) is the "wrong" kind of carmen. The letter that she writes to her husband, Protesilaus, is intended to encourage him to return from the Trojan War, but (along with some of her other behaviors) it precipitates a chain of events that is fraught with supernatural, perhaps even deadly, coincidences. Laodamia's suspicious nature leads her to create by her very words the situation she most fears. She is, ironically, a superstitious woman in a story full of events that serve only to increase her superstition. 1 Yet she herself contributes to these circumstances, most notably by creating a statue of her still-living husband and worshiping it. Because she loses control over her text, the multiple representations that Laodamia creates prove catastrophic for both Protesilaus and herself.This essay explores the literary use of erotic magic imagery in Ovid's Heroides 13 and suggests that the ambiguity of the word carmen ("poem, magic spell") seduces its protagonist into unwittingly replicating (and perhaps even causing) the death of her husband. The key to unlocking the magical referents of the poem lies in the wax imago 2 of Protesilaus and in Laodamia's account of her behavior during his absence. Commentators and critics have often marked her actions as peculiar, but few offer convincing interpretations, and the imago has received infrequent treatment. Most discussions of the poem to date treat isolated actions of Laodamia and therefore fail to make sense of the poem as a whole. [End Page 61] Sources and Background In Heroides 13, the newly wed Laodamia is writing to her husband Protesilaus, commander of the Thessalian ships sent to Troy. 3 Laodamia thinks that the ships are still at Aulis, awaiting a favorable wind, and Ovid offers no reason to doubt this, despite the fact that his heroines are often "incorrect" about specific details of their stories. 4 Laodamia worries about her husband's safety at war, repeatedly urging him to take care of himself and reminding him that her life depends on his. Readers with mythological and etymological knowledge know that she worries with good reason, because, as Laodamia herself notes, an oracle had stated that the first Greek to set foot on Trojan soil would die first (93-94). As a result none of the Greeks was willing to disembark once the ships arrived. 5 Protesilaus scoffed at the oracle and leapt from his boat; he was accordingly the first to die, and a hero cult was established for him in the Chersonesus, near his tomb.In their versions of the story, Eustathius and Hyginus concur with these elements of the tale but disagree on Laodamia's subsequent fate. According to Eustathius, the deceased Protesilaus (at either his request or Laodamia's) 6 is granted permission by Hades to appear to his wife and tell her of his fate. 7 When she hears the news, she kills herself. Eustathius says that she runs a sword through herself; other sources give different accounts of the means she chose, ranging from the sword and [End Page 62] hanging to immolation. 8 Hyginus tells the story twice: first, a brief mention of Laodamia's death, and then a more detailed version (secs. 103-4). The elaborated version serves our analysis better. In it, Laodamia creates a statue of him to fondle after she hears of Protesilaus' death. 9 A servant sees her "Protesilai simulacrum tenentem atque osculantem" ("holding and kissing the image of Protesilaus"), assumes she is committing adultery, and summons her father, who discovers the truth. He orders the statue to be burnt and Laodamia, "dolorem non sustinens" ("not able to bear the pain"), throws herself onto the pyre and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Tyrant’s Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient GreeceThomas ColeDeborah T. Steiner. The Tyrant’s Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. xiv + 279 pp. Cloth, price not stated.Literacy, as the author correctly points out in her introduction (5), tends to be seen nowadays as “a tool of cultural progress, of rational thought, of scientific analysis, a critical marker (...) that separates the developing from the developed world”; and so the spread of literacy in the Greek world of the Archaic and Classical periods is almost inevitably treated as an event that “heralds in a new rational, skeptical and objective approach,” leading to “advances... in logic, science and technology.” What follows this observation—by way of supplement or corrective to the communis opinio—is an attempt to show that for the Greeks themselves—insofar as their attitude can be documented down to the early fourth century B.C.—writing was something rather different: a multivalent and at times mysterious system of signifiers only partially differentiated from the nonalphabetic symbols and signs that preceded its introduction (chap. 1), a talismanic means of giving greater solemnity and efficacy to the contents of oaths, curses, prayers, and oracles (chap. 2), a frequent source of a “conservative and backward looking” vehicle (metaphor) for carrying on psychological and cosmological speculation (chap. 3), and a medium highly suspect as being the one preferred by tyrants, Greek or oriental, when communicating with their subjects or deputies (chap. 4) and by various types of subversives (conspiring oligarchs, religious fanatics, apolitical shunners of assembly and agora) when communicating among themselves (chap. 5).The attempt, though carried out with energy and imagination, strikes me as ultimately unsuccessful—inconclusive at best and at times dedicated to establishing theses which are refuted by the very evidence that has been assembled to support them. This is especially apparent in chapter 3, which suffers from a failure to allow for the existence of highly traditional modes of argumentation such as metaphor alongside the use of metaphorical vehicles in conjunction with highly “progressive” or revolutionary tenors. The habit of comparing perception, remembering, and forgetting to the inscribing, preservation, and erasure of texts on the wax tablets of the mind (100–5) is surely inseparable from the development both of an empiricist psychology and epistemology and of a materialistic view of the soul; and the atomist analogy between letters and the basic constituents of the cosmos (116–22) stands in equally close relationship to the concern of the scientist—be he ancient or modern—to draw distinctions between primary and secondary sensory qualities and to produce an accounting for the apparently qualitative differences between phenomena in ultimately quantitative terms.While not actually refuting the author’s theses, chapter 2 reveals the existence [End Page 145] of a fairly strong argumentum ex silentio against them. Its discussion is based almost entirely on inferences as to the attitudes whose existence might be posited to explain the frequency with which writing is used in certain contexts, and this frequency is, to my mind, more efficiently and plausibly accounted for as the result of nothing more mysterious than a general recognition of the superiority of written to verbal texts in situations where permanence, transportability, visibility, or reliability and authenticity are called for. We are still far from the skepticism, rationalism, and objectivity posited by the modern communis opinio, but much nearer to that than the obscurantism and authoritarianism of the alternative vision offered here. One would certainly not be surprised if, “as documents came to supplement and then to replace symbolic objects,” the former came to acquire some of the sacral character of the latter, and Steiner cites evidence (63 n. 8) to suggest that this actually occurred in medieval England. Parallels can also be cited from medieval Tibet, where monks sought to secure to themselves the spiritual benefits of Buddhist scriptures by wadding pages from the texts in question into small pellets and swallowing them; or even twentieth-century America, where college students seem to derive comparable reassurance from the photocopies of unread articles that line their bookshelves. But nothing in the evidence Steiner cites... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and SophistsMichael SvobodaPlato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists by Marina McCoy New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. vii + 212 pp. $74.00, hardcover.With her new book, Marina McCoy, an assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College, succeeds in opening up new lines of inquiry into Plato’s formative engagement(s) with rhetoric: first, by involving other Platonic dialogues in the ongoing interrogations (...) of the Gorgias and Phaedrus and, second, by patiently considering the implications of the different accounts of sophists and philosophers that result. These new investigations are aided by the diverse disciplinary voices with which Marina McCoy herself converses—works by classicists, critics, philosophers, political theorists, and rhetoricians, works taken from a wide range of journals. In her interpretation of the Gorgias, for example, one encounters the names one would expect from a thorough and up-to-date review of these different literatures: Arieti, Dodds, Fussi, Gordon, McComiskey, Nightingale, Saxonhouse, and Yunis. Thus, Plato scholars from both rhetoric and philosophy will find much of interest in this book.McCoy provides a clear overview of her project in her introduction (1–22). In separate readings of the Apology, Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist and Theaetetus, and Phaedrus, three interrelated claims are presented and developed: first, consistently distinguishing the philosopher from the sophist was a difficult challenge for Plato—and for the ancient Athenians; second, Plato’s conception of philosophy includes “important rhetorical dimensions,” and third, Plato ultimately differentiates the philosopher [End Page 191] from the sophist on the basis of character (3). To substantiate these claims, the dramatic and historical elements of Plato’s dialogues are interpreted in tandem with their explicit arguments. McCoy notes that the experience of reading the dialogues often reproduces the psychological tensions captured by them. In other words, Plato uses rhetorical techniques to cause his readers both to question philosophy and to engage in it as they do so (7). At the same time, McCoy recognizes that the terms of these discussions were hotly contested: “The Greek mindset at the time of Plato is one of passionate interest in the nature, power, and danger of logos : terms such as philosophia, rhetorike, sophist, and rhetor become part of the weaponry in the battle” (11). By attending to these elements in the seven dialogues examined in the following six chapters, McCoy seeks to show that philosophy is better defined as an interaction of souls than as a collection of analytical techniques, that the approach of Plato’s Socrates “relies more on phronesis and kairos than techne ” (15).These broad claims are immediately tested in the second chapter of the book, “Elements of Gorgianic Rhetoric and the Forensic Genre in Plato’s Apology ” (23–55). Here McCoy further develops two observations about the Apology. First, Socrates’ claims to the contrary, the Apology actually incorporates a number of elements common in forensic speeches at the time of his trial: a standard speech structure, arguments from probability ( eike ), and portrayal of character ( ethopoioa ) (26, 40). But perhaps more provocatively, second, in the Apology Plato seems to allude to Gorgias’ In Defense of Palamedes ; both speeches portray their speakers as public benefactors who cannot have committed the crimes of which they are accused but who nonetheless cannot defend themselves effectively under the conditions of their trial (32–39). When McCoy then calls our attention to the historical elements in the Apology —the life and death of Chaerophon, the role played in Athenian culture and politics by the oracle at Delphi, and the rules governing testimony—we must consider the possibility that Socrates may successfully be using rhetorical techniques, not to win his juror’s favor but to confuse and challenge them. Thrown off their moral balance, McCoy argues, his jurors might be led to question themselves. “Socrates’ risky choice to appeal to the oracle story forces each juror to make a choice: he must decide whether Socrates’ philosophical activity is a moral and even religious virtue” (51). In and through the Apology, Plato may be doing something very similar for his readers: “If Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen is a forensic piece disguised as [an] encomium, perhaps Plato’s Apology... (shrink)

« Falsifier la monnaie », réévaluer les valeurs : telle est la mission que l’oracle de Delphes aurait confiée à Diogène. Rapportée aux personnages du théâtre tragique, à Socrate ou encore à Antisthène, la subversion cynique permet de construire un concept de marginalité pour l’Antiquité grecque.

The following is excerpted from Sean Gurd’s translation of Euripides’ Hippolytus published with Uitgeverij this year. Though he was judged “most tragic” in the generation after his death, though more copies and fragments of his plays have survived than of any other tragedian, and though his Orestes became the most widely performed tragedy in Greco-Roman Antiquity, during his lifetime his success was only moderate, and to him his career may have felt more like a failure. He was regularly selected to (...) have his plays performed in the annual festival of Dionysus at Athens. But the plays were performed in a competition, and in the competitions he lost and lost, winning first place only five times in a career that spanned more than forty years. His corpus reads like the remains of a life spent trying to get a few things right and never being quite satisfied: scenes and schematized combinations of elements recur again and again, each time slightly changed. Hippolytus itself is an example: it contains two scenes in which a sick or dying character lies on a couch or a stretcher and is surrounded by silence and grief; he had experimented with such scenes in Alcestis, and would work with them again in Herakles and Orestes. Nor, judging from appearances, was he immune to the desire to score a hit, or to satisfy the audiences and the judges at the competition. Hippolytus is a rewrite of another Hippolytus, performed several years earlier, which scandalized the audience and certainly did not take first place. In that earlier Hippolytus (called by later writers Hippolytus Veiled), Euripides fashioned a Phaedra who was neither ashamed of loving her stepson nor incapable of taking steps to satisfy her desire. The forwardness of her approach to Hippolytus so outraged him that he covered his head with a robe (hence the play’s later title). Euripides liked to write energetic and self-confident women like this. He staged his Medea in 431, just three years before he revised Hippolytus, and in it the jilted title character murders her children in revenge for Jason’s new marriage to a more politically advantageous wife. Another flop: the play came in third of three. Evidently the judges did not like their women showing agency, especially when the consequences were transgressive. “The ornament of women,” wrote another great Athenian a little earlier, “is silence.”i Euripides’ Medea and his first Phaedra had other decorations. So three years after Medea crashed and burned and some time after the first Hippolytus suffered the same fate, he produced another Hippolytus play with a different setting and story. How could this one not have been a reaction to the failure of the first? “Second thoughts are always better,” he has one of his characters say, as though he were offering an apology for his first thoughts on the same story. In this new version, Phaedra is suicidally ashamed of her love, choosing to die rather than have it discovered, and willing to bring down her beloved Hippolytus in the service of the same end. Now it is Phaedra herself who covers her head in shock and horror at her desire. Only an intermediary, a slave of the house and an old crone with her fingers in all sorts of illicit pots, communicates Phaedra’s secret – against orders – and in consequence brings about the demise of two resolutely moral figures. It worked. For his tale of two well-born nobles with an unswerving commitment to moral action, destroyed by the meddling of a slave (and by the hostility of some particularly uncaring divinities), the judges crowned Euripides winner. It was the first time he had won, after almost thirty years of work. *** What Hippolytus wants more than anything else, as he protests with outrage just before leaving Trozen for the last time, is the benefit of due process – oaths, witnesses, an investigation that would reveal who really lusted after whom. Ironic, given that in the first Hippolytus, as far as we can make out, he did get a trial – but too late, and Theseus’ successful processing of Hippolytus failed to prevent his death. I cannot help hearing in the second Hippolytus’ complaints the anger of his authorial semblable who lost year after year by a process of judging that might have seemed brutal to him. Judges took no cognizance of how he worked, how long or hard or why; they just voted, and Euripides lost. But then I hear, in the fate of the first Hippolytus, an even grimmer commentary. Processed or not, we lose. We run aground. At the very least, this might cast a darker shadow on the business of watching or reading a play: in that twilight, things move too fast to make a fair assessment and, in any case, the reasonably high definition of what you see and hear belies the truth of indistinction, the multiplicities just below the surface. Watching is a constrained activity, a form of captivity, but reading is plastic. This translation was begun to supply the script for an audio version of the play, recorded in the spring of 2012, and here and there it sacrifices literalness for sayability and the voices and passions of the actors on that occasion. But it was finished to be read, and engineered to create a reading caught between the poles of specificity and non-specificity that the play itself conjures and relies on at its generative core. Thus two texts: the one clear, perhaps overprecise, respectably modern in its presentation, and the other ancient, a reasonable approximation of the classical reading process, and indistinct in vital ways. Like early modern dramatic texts, the exact provenance and original function of the scripts that have made it down to us are unknown. We do know that the ultimate survival of Hippolytus was thanks to its wide-spread use as a school text. But its relation to the first performance in 428 BCE is a matter only of speculation. Euripides presumably had a fair copy before production began; it was probably modified during rehearsals. The actors may have had copies, too (probably the young men who served in the chorus did not). The chor?gos, a wealthy Athenian who paid for the production, might have been presented with or just made sure to get his hands on a high-quality text, to commemorate the play’s success. Fans might have been able to buy copies. Any one of these sources might have provided the ultimate progenitor of our text. Several of them might have, in fact, if later editors compared and conflated traditions. The plays toured extensively in the Greek-speaking world, and were restaged as repertoire for centuries afterwards. In the process they were subjected to enough modifications by producers and actors that in the later fourth century the Athenian statesman Lycurgus had a law passed prohibiting performances at Athens from deviating from the official “city” text of the tragedies (which he had commissioned). It is unlikely that the city text was the last word; but it marks an important moment in Athens’ role in their dissemination, since after this the major sites of textual curatorship moved overseas, to Alexandria, Pergamum, Rome, Antioch, Constantinople. Any single text of any single play is thus no more than a moment of clarity and stability, crossed and subtended by multiple vectors of change, including that of textual flux (from Euripides’ first drafts to the latest printed text) and that of Euripides’ life work as a writer, in the light of which the Hippolytus is just one attempt to produce something exactly right, to win the prize or finally satisfy himself or prove to himself that all this longing for perfection was a waste of time. I am intrigued by the possibility that a single text might somehow serve as a lens onto this wider zone of indistinction, representing a small region clearly but nonetheless containing a blurred image of the whole, like a Leibnizian monad. After all, no text is a witness: it is, rather, a perception and a performance, and what every Hippolytus must perform is the awkward overlay of singular and plural, social practise and subliminal drive, that structures the tragedy. Modern critical editions can do this by juxtaposing a (relatively) clean and simple text with a textual apparatus reporting variants and theorizing the relationship between textual instantiations. A translation lacks the resolution to catch the fine variations which feed into the construction of an apparatus. But there are other means to hand. Guessing at the exact words of the original text is always just that – guessing – though Hippolytus is less problematic than plays like Iphigenia at Aulis. But we can make a pretty secure guess at what such a text looked like. Texts read by fifth-century readers were fundamentally different from what is presented in the best medieval MSS and printed in modern publications. The texts of Euripides’ time and for many centuries afterwards did not indicate word division with spaces (or by any other means) and were extremely sparing in punctuation, often avoiding it altogether. There was only one “case” of letters – what we call “capitals.” Musical sections were inscribed as though they were prose, without line endings to reflect their rhythm or their rhetorical structure. There was no indication of the speakers within a dramatic text, either. The earliest surviving dramatic texts, which come from over a century after Euripides’ death and a time which was much more elaborate and precise in its textual culture, indicated speaker-change with a little line or paragraphos below the line and a double-point [:] at its end. This convention almost certainly does not date back to Euripides’ own time; it may not even date to Lycurgus. In any case, such indications were understood to be readers’ marks: they did not have the same authority as the text and they were subject to readers’ revisions. At least ideationally, if not in concrete and distinguishable fact, a dramatic text was understood as containing no indication of speaker-change (and certainly none of who was saying what). The reader had to figure that out for him-/herself. The clear, legible, easy texts we are accustomed to reading are the fabrications of medieval and modern reading cultures. The first text, then, presents the translation as the text would have been in the mid-fourth century, perhaps decades after Euripides’ death. The second text processes Hippolytus, makes sense of it and makes it “readable.” That is: too distinct, dangerously so. It gets in your way, conjures fantoms, tries to make you see. Fragments of the Hippolytus Veiled, otherwise almost entirely lost, are juxtaposed with similar passages in the text – not to suggest a reconstruction, but a dialogue and a complex set of reassessments. I have not tried to represent the full variety of textual variants, but I have signalled where, for one reason or another, the text is soft and different editions propose excisions or changes. The two texts must be read together: you, reader, form the bridge between the distinctly seen and the indistinct invisible. You, in the end, will be its mask. *** illsandhateddiseaseswhatcanidoforyouwhatshouldinotdohereisthelightandthebrightairyoursickbedisnowout s idethehouseyoureverywordwastocomeherebutyouwillrushbacktoyourbedroomagainyoufadequicklyyoudelig htinnothingyoudislikewhatyouhaveyoulovewhatyoudontitsbettertobesickthantendthesickthefirstissimpleto the secondattachesheartspainandhandsworkeveryhumanlifeispainfulthereisnoendtotoildarknesshidesbehindclo udswhateverisdearerthanlifeweproveunhappyloversofwhatshineshereforlackofknowledgeofanotherlifethere isnoproofforthingsbeneaththeearthonlystoriessustainus liftmybodystraightenmyheadthebondsofmylimbsareloosenedtakemyhandsandmypalearmsthishatistooheavy formyheadtoweartakeitoffspreadmyhairovermyshoulders couragechilddonttossandturnsoviolentlyyouwillbearyoursicknessmoreeasilywithpeaceandanoblemindallmort alssuffer aiaiiwanttodrinkpurewaterfromadewyspringiwanttoliebackandrestunderthetreesinsomegrassymeadowchildw hycrydontsaythesethingsnearthecrowdhurlingwordsmountedonmadness sendmetothemountainiwillgototheforestwherebeastkillingdogspressthespotteddeergodsilongtoshouttothedo gstoshootthethessalianjavelinpastmyblondhairtoholdthebarbeddartinmyhandwhythisanxietychildwhatdoyouc areabouthuntingwhydoyoulustforflowingspringstheresahillwithwaterjustnexttothetowerwecangetyouadrinkt h ereartemismistressofthesaltlakeandthecoursethunderingwithhorseshoovesiwishiwereonyourplainsbreakings t uds whythrowthesefrenziedwordsaboutjustnowyouweresettingoutforthemountaintohuntandnowyoulongforhorses onthewavelesssand thesethingsneedanoracletotellwhichgodreinsyouinanddrivesyoufromyoursenseschild whathaveidonehowfarhaveibeendrivenfromgoodthoughtsiwascrazyiwascursedbysomepowerpheupheualasn ursecovermyheadagainimashamedofwhativesaidcovermeatearmovesdownfrommyeyeanditembarrassesm eithurtstostraightenourmindanditisterribletobeinsanebesttodiebeforeyoubecomelucidagain illcoveryoubutwhenwilldeathcovermeimoldivelearnedalotmortalsshoulddrinkoffriendshipmoderatelynotfrom th edeepestmarrowofthesoulamindslovecharmsshouldbeeasytoundoorthrustawayortiemoretightlyitisaverydiffic ultweightforonesoultolaborovertwopeopleasiamwrackedbypainforhertoomuchdisciplinecausesmoreharmthan pleasureandwarswithhealthipraisetoomuchlessthannothinginexcessandthewiseagreewithme *** Scene 1 Enter Phaedra and the Nurse; the former is recumbent on a couch while the latter bustles about her with gestures that might be those of a caregiver or a guard. NURSE Ills and hated diseases! What can I do for you? What should I not do? Here is the light, and the bright air; your sick bed is now outside the house. Your every word was to come here, but you will rush back to your bedroom again. You fade quickly. You delight in nothing. You dislike what you have. You love what you don’t. It’s better to be sick than tend the sick – the first is simple. To the second attaches heart’s pain and hand’s work. Every human life is painful. There is no end to toil. Darkness hides behind clouds whatever is dearer than life. We prove unhappy lovers of what shines here for lack of knowledge of another life. There is no proof for things beneath the earth. Only stories sustain us. PHAEDRA Lift my body, straighten my head: the bonds of my limbs are loosened. Take my hands and my pale arms. This hat is too heavy for my head to wear. Take it off, spread my hair over my shoulders. NURSE Courage, child; don’t toss and turn so violently. You will bear your sickness more easily with peace and a noble mind. All mortals suffer. PHAEDRA Aiai. I want to drink pure water from a dewy spring. I want to lie back and rest under the trees in some grassy meadow. NURSE Child, why cry? Don’t say these things near the crowd, hurling words mounted on madness. PHAEDRA Send me to the mountain. I will go to the forest where beast-killing dogs press the spotted deer. Gods! I long to shout to the dogs, to shoot the Thessalian javelin past my blond hair, to hold the barbed dart in my hand. NURSE Why this anxiety, child? What do you care about hunting? Why do you lust for flowing springs? There’s a hill with water just next to the tower; we can get you a drink there. PHAEDRA Artemis, mistress of the salt lake and the course thundering with horse’s hooves: I wish I were on your plains breaking studs! NURSE Why throw these frenzied words about? Just now you were setting out for the mountain to hunt – and now you long for horses on the waveless sand. These things need an oracle to tell which god reins you in and drives you from your senses, child. PHAEDRA What have I done? How far have I been driven from good thoughts? I was crazy, I was cursed by some power. Pheu pheu. Alas. Nurse, cover my head again. I’m ashamed of what I’ve said. Cover me – a tear moves down from my eye and it embarrasses me. It hurts to straighten your mind and it is terrible to be insane. Best to die before you become lucid again. NURSE I’ll cover you. But when will death cover me? I’m old; I’ve learned a lot. Mortals should drink of friendship moderately, not from the deepest marrow of the soul. A mind’s love-charms should be easy to undo, or thrust away, or tie more tightly. It is a very difficult weight for one soul to labor over two people, as I am wracked by pain for her. Too much discipline causes more harm than pleasure and wars with health. I praise “too much” less than “nothing in excess,” and the wise agree with me. ***. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Unmasking the Maxim: An Ancient Genre And Why It Matters Now W. ROBERT CONNOR We live surrounded by maxims, often without even noticing them. They are easily dismissed as platitudes, banalities or harmless clichés, but even in an age of big data and number crunching we put them to work almost every day. A Silicon Valley whiz kid says, Move Fast and Break Things. Investors try to Buy (...) Low and Sell High. Investigative reporters Follow the Money. Others Follow their Bliss. The lavish host thinks, The More the Merrier, while the Modernist architect is sure that Less is More. Captains of Industry whisper to themselves, Me First; captains of sinking ships shout, Women and Children First. Be Prepared was the Boy Scouts’ marching song, while the Proud Boys Stand Down and Stand By, awaiting their marching orders. Maxims are perhaps the smallest members in a large family of speech acts, which among the Greeks included proverbs, oracles, riddles, blessings, curses and lamentations. Not all of these continue in use, but maxims have found companions—mottos, mantras, advertising tag lines and jingles, slogans, political rallying cries, hashtags, three- or four-letter acronyms and 280 character tweets from the goddess Twitter. Familiarity, however, can breed contempt, or at least inattentiveness to the full range of their influence. Sometimes what sounds at first like empty verbiage turns into action. Bruce Lee adapted an old Taoist saying when he said, Be Water, and thereby provided what was for a while a surprisingly effective strategy for protesters in Hong Kong. arion 28.3 winter 2021 6 unmasking the maxim Maxims empower, for good or ill. In the hands of bigots or ideologues, they can turn deadly. Sic Semper Tyrannis shouted John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln. A manufacturer of assault rifles urged potential customers to Earn Your Man Card. How better to earn it than to obey 8chan, a web site favored by white nationalists, with its own maxim, Embrace Infamy. A devotee of the site did just that, perpetrating a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Maxims, then, should not be lightly dismissed. Since the ancient Greeks so relished maxims, they should surely be interrogated to help us better understand the power of these often underestimated speech acts. Before turning to the Greeks, however, the English word maxim needs a closer look. english “maxim” english borrowed maxim from a Latin phrase and boiled it down for everyday use. In Latin writings about logic, the expression maxima propositio, biggest proposition, denoted a statement that did not need to be proved, but could provide the basis for proof of other, lesser propositions. This phraseology goes back at least to Boethius in the sixth century of our era. It’s the equivalent of the generalizations that serve as the major premises in syllogistic logic. If this makes maxims sound like the axioms of geometry, that is historically right. The starting points of plane geometry are propositions that deserve to be accepted; even without proof that they are worthy of belief. That’s the meaning of the term axiōma. No one needs to prove that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Think about it; after a while it seems self-evident. It is worthy of assent. We might equally well call such an axiom a maxim; indeed, the earliest (1426) attested use of maxim in English is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as “an axiom; a self-evident proposition assumed as a premise in mathematical, or dialectical reasoning.” W. Robert Connor 7 This usage is now obsolete, but Thomas Jefferson understood the idea behind it, since he believed that there were such truths, waiting to be put to work in building a society where all people were equal and possess certain inalienable rights. He did not feel he had to prove these propositions; they were in his view self-evident. In using these ideas in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he was, in effect, transferring to politics what Euclid had done in geometry. It was a swift, strategic stroke on his part, for, since self-evident truths require no argument or explanation, they focus discussion not on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Who was Socrates? CORNELIA DE VOGEL I CONSIDERIT TO BE quite a privilege to be invited to speak of Socrates,1 not only because of the wonderful picture drawn by Plato of his master in what we call the Socratic dialogues, but perhaps mostly because there is a real challenge in the difference of opinion among modern scholars on the question of "Who was Socrates?" I have solid grounds for (...) being convinced that we can answer that question in a positive manner; that is, I think I can explain, first, that it is not true (as some modern scholars hold) that we are unable to grasp the historical reality that stands behind the name of Socrates; second, that there are a few modern interpretations of Socrates which are suggestive but false; third, that one and only one interpretation is well founded and correct. I think it is worthwhile to spend an hour considering these points. Socrates is one of those four famous Greek philosophers who did not leave any written works. The other three are: Pythagoras, who in Aristotle's day already seemed to disappear in the haze of a remote past; Pyrrho, the founder of the Sceptic School, and Carneades, that famous dialectician who was the head of the New Academy in the second century. On none of these so much as on Socrates have modern critics endeavored to demonstrate that he never existed? The most refined representative of the nineteenth-century style of criticism is O. Gigon, who modified Dupr6el's thesis insofar as he does not deny explicitly that there existed an Athenian called Socrates, and even that he may have been an important personality. But he does hold that we cannot know of what importance was Socrates. To prove his thesis Gigon deals first with the tradition about the indictment, the litigation and condemnation of Socrates; next with the story about the Delphic oracle and Socrates' calling to philosophy; then with his marriage and family life, and last, with his relation to the city of Athens. It is not too difficult to cite divergent and even contradictory information on all these points. As to Plato's dialogues, in which the philosopher Socrates is pictured--to the life, as it might seem to us--according to Gigon the historical value of t Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, May 25, 1962. ~E. Dupr6el, La ldgende de Socrate et les sources de Platon (Brux., 1921); O. Gigon, Sokrates (Bern, 1947; Samml. Dalp). (See my review in Mnemosyne [1950]; see also Phronesis [1955], I.) A. H. Chroust, Socrates, Man and Myth (London, 1957), adopts essentially Gigon's thesis. [14s] 144 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY these writings is by no means greater than that of any other of our sources. Why should they be more trustworthy? Because the image they present is beautiful? That would be a deceptive ground, for Plato may have invented freely, and we have good reason to believe he did. In fact, if anybody holds that we do not know anything for certain about Socrates, he must begin by disparaging Plato's testimony altogether. Next, he must deny that Aristotle said a word of truth about what was the proprium of Socrates as a philosopher, and in what Plato differed from him. Third, he must assert that there is a complete disagreement between Plato and Xenophon as to the personality of Socrates, not to mention the fifthcentury comedian Aristophanes (who, as a matter of fact, drew a fairly strange portrait of the philosopher). After having thus rejected the testimony of contemporaries and their direct successors, he may turn to the gossip of those later authors who have no authority at all: Aristoxenus, a furious anti-Socratic, who is cited by Plutarch as a classical instance of malignity; Diogenes Laertius, that late writer (3rd century A.D.) who tells us the strangest stories about all Greek philosophers; Athenaeus, Herodicus, Aelianus, and so on--and find there divergent and contradictory information about Socrates' life and behavior. Let us begin by stating that we must not follow this procedure. Moreover, let us state that it is not interesting to us that, while Plato and Xenophon say Socrates was married... (shrink)

The ancient centre of Pistiros, where archaeological excavations have been taking place since 1988, was founded in the 5th century BC in the Marica valley. The article examines the epigraphical evidence from this site and suggests some changes and clarifications in the reading of the text of the Vetren inscription, published in BCH 118 (1994) by the late professor V. Velkov and the author of this article. An analysis of the epigraphical evidence (4 inscriptions on stone and over 140 graffiti (...) on fragments of pottery) shows that in the 5th-4th centuries BC, representatives of various Greek poleis involved in trade lived there alongside the Thracians. The inhabitants of Pistiros worshipped different gods and heroes (Apollo, Kore [Persephone], Demeter, Zeus, Hera, the Mother of Gods, Heracles, Maron) and above all Dionysus, the supreme god of the Thracians (mentioned in the Vetren inscription). They had strong links with the oracle of Dionysus in the Rhodope mountains and were dependencies of the Thracian kings. Judging from the epigraphic, onomastic and archaeological evidence, the varied population of Pistiros was educated and used Greek in both official documents and everyday life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 413-414 [Access article in PDF] Katerina Ierodiakonou, editor. Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources. New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 309. Cloth, $55.00.Talking about, let alone writing on "Byzantine Philosophy" within the English-speaking philosophical community could cause embarrassment. It is only recently that this field has gained a few notable entries in philosophical works of reference (...) like the Routledge Encyclopedia or the Oxford Dictionary—but still it cannot make its way into the histories of medieval philosophy, not to mention the general histories of philosophy. Byzantine Philosophy aims at providing good reasons for changing that tendency and seeks to "persuade [us] that Byzantine Philosophy is worth investigating" (13).The book contains eleven articles, plus Ierodiakonou's introduction and Linos Benakis's review of the current research, read in part at a Conference held in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1997, but it is more than a mere collection of conference papers. Written both by well-established and younger scholars from diverse disciplines, the volume focuses on the explicit or implicit dialogue of Byzantine thinkers with ancient Greek philosophy, one of the two ingredients of Byzantine Philosophy (the other being patristic thought).Ierodiakonou in her introduction prefers to make a few—but penetrating—remarks on the nature of Byzantine Philosophy and its proper study. Her arguments are presented in a non-conclusive form and they are intended to serve as guidelines to further research. While a longer discussion of the issues involved would be welcome by the less-specialized reader, her choice seems reasonable as long as one thinks—rightly in my opinion—that it is premature to embark on general methodological suggestions about how to investigate Byzantine Philosophy, or believes that scrutinizing the texts themselves is a more promising approach at this relatively early stage of research (as perhaps always).With one exception, each article deals at length with a special issue spanning from metaphysics to political philosophy and concentrates on individual thinkers from the patristic era to the Renaissance; the absence of philosophical theology is surprising. Expectedly the presence of Aristotle can be traced in logic: in an eleventh-century humble handbook (thoroughly analyzed by Jonathan Barnes); in Psellos's Paraphrase on Aristotle's De Interpretationeand in the anti-logical movement in the fourteenth century (Ierodiakonou); as well as in John of Damascus's discussion of will (Michael Frede). On the Christian-neoplatonic tradition are founded a nominalistic position of Basil of Caesarea concerning the semantics of proper names (Paul Kalligas); a sixth-century treatise On Political Science (Dominic O'Meara); Psellos's conception of philosophy (John Duffy); and the peculiar case of Chaldaean Oracles and their commentators (Polymnia Athanassiadi). The last article on the Renaissance controversy between Plethon and Scholarios over the primacy of Plato or Aristotle (George Karamanolis) brings the volume appropriately to an end.That Platonism and Aristotelianism nearly monopolize the contributors' concerns is justified but this must not give the simplified impression that Byzantine Philosophy can be exclusively explained against this background. Other Greek philosophical traditions, such as Stoicism, are mentioned as well, and the fourteenth-century interest in skepticism is densely discussed (Börje Bydén on Metochites). The first essay is an informative outline of the Greek-Latin Philosophical Interaction (Sten Ebbesen), whose inclusion in the volume makes a similar survey of ancient Greek-Byzantine philosophical interaction more warranted.The contributors do not confine themselves to resolving specific problems of a Quellenforschung, by identifying parallel texts or recurring arguments in order to establish the obvious dependence of Byzantine thought on Greek Philosophy. In fact, as many articles show, it is the very analysis of patristic and Byzantine texts that makes us return to their ancient sources and also makes clear how this revisiting can deepen our understanding of the texts and the philosophical problems they are trying to present or to solve. When doing philosophy, Byzantine thinkers have ancient Greek concepts in their minds, and quite often have ancient texts in their hands. Now it is up to us to evaluate... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Some ObservationsD. J. ConacherIn several ways Trachiniae seems almost a textbook of Sophoclean tragedy, so many elements of plot, theme, and even formal structure does it have in common with one or another (sometimes with several other) of the playwright’s works. The deceptive quality of oracles and prophecies, 1 the equally illusory nature of human happiness, the alternation between the familiar, even the domestic (insofar as (...) class='Hi'>Greek tragedy can ever be “domestic”) and “the wild country”—the lonely, unknown, and sometimes feral areas of experience “out there”—, 2 even the curious, “diptych” structure of the play, involving the disappearance of a major tragic figure from the action: 3 all these features, so prominent in Trachiniae, are to be found in various other Sophoclean tragedies. Yet in all cases Sophocles uses what appear to be common features in different combinations and contexts to produce strikingly different tragic effects. It [End Page 21] should not surprise us, then, that Trachiniae, despite all these typically “Sophoclean” elements, 4 should turn out to be, if not the most baffling, at least among the most mysterious of his extant works.The key to the full appreciation and understanding of this tragedy lies, I think, in recognizing precisely how the poet interweaves these different elements of plot and theme to achieve, ultimately, a single tragic effect. Ironically, it is the constant alternation of human fortunes, apparent good fortune arising from ill and vice versa, which supplies the cohesive, “sequential” element to the plot. 5 Two essential thematic elements lie behind this alternation. One is the repeated misunderstanding of oracles and other prophetic utterances; the other is the repeated interaction between the protected, domestic sphere and the mysterious, natural (and sometimes magical) world, which threatens its existence. In the deployment of both these elements, the characterization of Deianira, the central figure though not the ultimate focus of this tragedy, is essential. It is through the gentle Deianira that Heracles is twice brought in contact with the savage “outside world” which leads ultimately to his undoing. Thus (as is usual in Sophocles) are the play’s prophecies fulfilled in unexpected and tragic ways. Thus, too, do the gods fulfill the destinies which they have planned through the unwitting cooperation of their pawns.Deianira sounds, as it were, the keynote of the play with her opening words in the Prologue:There is an ancient saying that one may not know the fate of any man, whether it be good or bad, until that man has died. But I, for my part, know, before I come to Hades’ house, that my lot is both grievous and unfortunate.(1–5) 6 [End Page 22]Deianira’s fear of life has begun (as she tells us in her Prologue account) in her maidenhood, with the courtship of the river-god Achelous. Here the three forms in which her monstrous suitor appears—first as a bull, then as a snake with shimmering coils, finally as a man with brow of ox and beard dripping with river’s springs—provide our introduction to the horrors of the untamed world. Heracles, a properly heroic suitor, appears to rescue her. It is significant, however, that the gentle heroine cannot bring herself to watch the struggle between the hero and Achelous, as she sits wrapped in terror lest her beauty should prove to be her bane (24–25). Thus, though threatened, Deianira remains untouched by—and ignorant of—the dangerous world outside.Deianira’s joy (18) at her rescue by Heracles is short-lived. As Heracles’ wife, and mother of his children, she is in constant fear for her absent husband (“each night dispelling last night’s terror with terror of its own,” 30–31) and these very fears are themselves fresh encounters, at one remove, with the savage world of Heracles’ labours. Her wandering husband, too (“like a tiller of a distant field, who sees it only when he sows and when he reaps,” 32–33), must himself seem like a visitor from a distant clime.The opening choral ode confirms the contrast between the world of the wandering Heracles and that of the waiting Deianira. Only the sun can tell... (shrink)

How are we to understand Solon's departure from Athens "for the sake of theôria" immediately after the introduction of his laws ? Previous accounts have taken theôria to mean "sightseeing," but the goal of Solon's departure-to avoid explaining or changing the laws-is guaranteed by certain religious features of theôria: the theôros plays the role of civic guardian and must not add to or subtract from an oracle he conveys to the city, and during the theôria the city itself must remain (...) pure and avoid disturbances. Solon adapts these features of theôria to establish his laws as a pseudo-oracular discourse, as a purification of the city, and as a permanent civic medium. The beginning of Solon's open-ended journey thus gives ideological finality to the laws at the middle of the city. This reading of Solon's theôria coheres with other instances of the creative adaptation of ritual in archaic Greek politics. It also develops our understanding of the discourse on theôria as regulating the laws that constitute the political sphere. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sophocles’s Enemy Sisters: Antigone and IsmeneWm. Blake Tyrrell (bio) and Larry J. BennettAt the core of the Oedipus myth, as Sophocles presents it, is the proposition that all masculine relationships are based on reciprocal acts of violence. Laius, taking his cue from the oracle, violently rejects Oedipus out of fear that his son will seize his throne and invade his conjugal bed. Oedipus, taking his cue from the oracle, (...) does away with Laius, violently rebuffs the sphinx, then takes their places—as king and “scourge of the city,” respectively. Again, Oedipus, taking his cue from the oracle, plots the death of that unknown figure who may be seeking to usurp his own position. Oedipus, Creon, and Tiresias, each taking his cue from the oracle, seek one another’s downfall.All these acts of violence gradually wear away the differences that exist not only in the same family but throughout the community.—René Girard, Violence and the SacredRené Girard does not include feminine relationships in his assessment of the Oedipus myth, yet the same redundancy that characterizes the males marks the females.1 Jocasta conjoins in one person multiple and redundant social roles: she is the mother and wife of the same person, for which she [End Page 1] hangs herself, leaving for Oedipus “many pains that a mother’s furies fulfilled” (Homer Odyssey 11.279–80). Her daughters, their father’s sisters, manifest kinship redundancy in two persons. Incest produces circularly, reverting to a sibling of the parent rather than moving forward with a descendant. The absence of linear progression from one generation to the next creates a sameness and equilibrium that thwart separation and individuality. Oedipus’s brothers/sons fail in their adult roles, because neither can overcome the other’s right to the throne of Thebes and the mastery of its royal household. They are enemy brothers locked in reciprocal violence.2 Antigone and Ismene have escaped notice not only as enemy sisters but even as products of the same incest. Audiences for Sophocles’s Antigone have viewed them as “normal” women and cooperated with his characters in emphasizing the differences between them. They have assumed from Antigone’s betrothal to Haemon and resistance to Creon that she is the elder, more mature sister.3 They tend to accept without question that Antigone engages in burial rituals with Polyneices’s corpse (241–58) and returns to it (442–35).4 Bernard M. W. Knox’s critically powerful concept of the “Sophoclean hero” has bolstered this view of Antigone while reducing Ismene to a foil, and abetted the tendency of modern producers of the play to cast an older or more famous actress in the role of Antigone.5 Naturalistic readings like that of C. M. Bowra—“seeing that Ismene is her only close relative in the world, Antigone is remarkably cold to her”6—have masked the source and hence the vehemence of Antigone’s fury.That the reciprocity of the violence between Ismene and Antigone has gone unnoticed is understandable in view of the familiarity of the conflict between their brothers. Males in Greek society pursued difference by striving to excel as aristoi (best) in competition for prestige, wealth, and power.7 Whenever Eteocles and Polyneices came together, each asserted a right to Oedipus’s household and throne that was equally matched, and violence ensued from the equilibrium. On the other hand, Greek women were not supposed to compete with one another for distinction. They wove wool for clothes, maintained the household, and cared for the children, the sick, and the dead, activities that required cooperation away from public view.8 Proximity to other women was the norm and desideratum. Moreover, lawgivers like Solon based their funeral legislation on the premise that every woman wanted to participate in mourning.9 For the sake of public tranquillity, legislators tried to limit the numbers of women participants by imposing restrictions according to degrees of kinship, for instance, to children of fifth cousins. In this context, women were interchangeable, and the places they held during birth, coming of age in wedding ceremonies, and death, [End Page 2] were open to more than one woman. Closeness and... (shrink)

All questions of thought lead back to philosophy. However, there remains a lack of clarity with regard to the preconditions of philosophy, especially the genesis of philosophy, that is, what is the first philosophical topic is not much clearer. It is often thought that philosophizing stems from being, or a state of existence, a legend from Greek philosophy. This paper attempts to reanalyze the precondition or the critical point of “how thinking is possible” by an archaeology of thought, so (...) as to pinpoint the first word that initiated human thought. The first thinking word must be a philosophical word. In examining historical conditions, oracle bone scripts and basic connectives in mathematical logic, this paper argues that human thought stemmed from negative words that are the first philosophical words. The trajectory is that negatives, upon entering the human lexicon, inspired the concept of possibility; only with various possibilities, consciousness begins to think freely, put forward issues worth being reflected and deliberated and provide different alternative answers. In short, the advent of the negative “no” marked the existence of the critical condition of thinking, i. e., thinking and philosophy started when the human being could say no, which is therefore the first term and the primary topic of philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato's Timaeus as Cultural IconGerard NaddafGretchen J. Reydams-Schils, editor. Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon. Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. Pp. xiv + 334. Cloth, $59.95. Paper, $29.95.This volume emanates from an international conference entitled "Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon" held at the University of Notre Dame in 2000. In the introduction, the editor and organizer, Gretchen Reydams-Schils (GRS), contends that the title is meant (...) to communicate the considerable influence of Plato's Timaeus on so many different intellectual traditions and asks "What could account for this philosophical and cultural status?" (1).There are thirteen essays by distinguished specialists in the field. For some reason, a number of the essays do not focus on the general theme of the volume and the question GRS raises, "what could account for this philosophical and cultural status?" is never directly, or even indirectly, addressed. In this short review, I will examine the essays in their order of appearance and make some general comments at the end.Mitchell Miller, in the opening essay, argues that the Timaeus must be understood as addressed to a nonphilosophical audience, although he endeavors to show how the philosophically minded could interpret the Timaeus in light of the god-given method, the longer way, of the Philebus (16c-17a). With this in mind, Miller shows that the constitution of the elements and animals in the Timaeus was in fact determined in light of this method. From this perspective, the Timaeus is addressed not only to a nonphilosophical audience—albeit chiefly to these—but also to a philosophical audience.Kenneth Sayre discusses a number of inconsistencies and incoherences in Plato's description/analysis of the Receptacle and concludes that it is nothing short of a "failed experiment." Personally, I find Plato's analysis rather helpful in a manner analogous to the famous similes he employs in the Republic to help us grasp the Form of the Good. Meanwhile, there is nothing in the essay, as with Miller's essay, to indicate why the Timaeus would constitute a cultural icon (unless as a paradigm for opacity and thus as a catalyst for allegorical interpretation, but again this is not Sayre's intent). [End Page 335]John Dillon, with whom the notion of the Timaeus as a cultural icon begins to emerge, emphasizes that most of the members of the Old Academy, including Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Cantor, maintained (contra Aristotle) that Plato did not hold that the universe was created. While it is true, as he notes, that they were in a better position to interpret the master, the fact remains that they all had different interpretations. There is thus a sense in which Dillon's analysis confirms Miller's position that Plato meant the Timaeus for two very different audiences.Carlos Lévy focuses on the difficulty that Cicero had in translating the Timaeus without reverting to Stoic concepts. He argues that a Latin reader, unfamiliar with the Greek, would assume that transcendence is nonexistent and that mind and matter, as with the Stoics, are one. However, Lévy remains silent on why Cicero would not allow Plato to speak for himself, given that this appears to be the norm with many of his other interlocutors. Moreover, it is difficult again to see why the Timaeus would constitute a "cultural icon."Luc Brisson presents the Timaeus in a radical new light. He shows the extent to which the Timaeus, or more precisely the highly exegetical Middle Platonist interpretation of the work, was the primary reference text for the influential Chaldean Oracles. This is an excellent example of the iconic status of the Timaeus, but it is worth noting that the Chaldean Oracles themselves and their doctrine of salvation may have been historically more influential than the Timaeus itself.David Runia's essay is also an excellent example of the iconic influence of Plato's Timaeus, but unlike Brisson, he focuses on a particular feature of the cosmogonical account rather than the entire treatise: how the Timaeus influenced the debate, including with regard to the opening verses of Genesis, on first principles and the doctrine of creation. Runia... (shrink)

It is the purpose of this paper to argue for a new interpretation of the Delphic response to Cleisthenes of Sicyon at Herodotus 5.67: the oracle's reference is to pharmakeia, the Greek ‘scapegoat’ ritual.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Five Poems DEBORAH WARREN Bugonia hic vero subitum dictu mirabile monstrum aspiciunt, liquefacta boum per viscera toto stridere apes utero et ruptis effervere costis. —Vergil, Georgics IV The covert’s dark, but Aristaeus sees —beyond it, in the oleandered meadow, walking to her wedding with her maids— Eurydice, as sweet as early windfall apples to the gods of the bitter dead. She runs, from shifting shade to sun to (...) shade until, in a shock of sudden sun, she sways, blinded, blundering into an adder’s kiss, and while the bridegroom waits by the bridal bed, she waits to be undressed by worms instead. But Aristaeus pays for the assault. The mead-gods visit on his apiaries wax-moth, mites, foulbrood and chalk-disease until an oracle orders a hekatomb: after nine days the myrtle-nymphs perform a miracle, and out of the carcases crawl fat new sun-furred drones to work the comb, a gift of the mead-gods who, with the poet, praise the teams of bright collaborating bees as little Romans—parvos Quirites. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 And what about Eurydice? The swarm goes humming on, a small Rome in a hive. The story’s not about Eurydice’s second chance, or whether she’ll survive. Eurydice’s a minor character; she’s only one girl, sui generis. Besides, no cattle-trick exists for her. The gods can let the apiaries thrive and armies—even empires—endure; one girl’s more complicated to replace. 44 five poems The Tithonus Club We can begin our visit with the Day Room where, in wheelchairs, some with canes or walkers, members sit: a fraternity so ancient that the confrères mostly ignore each other (club tradition). The dues are paid in decades; no one has an outstanding balance—Sir? Whoa, steady, there! Sit down... yes. Here’s your blanket. The badge of membership—the club regalia? Laminated ceremonial bracelets bear the motto Do Not Resuscitate (legend which, in practice, is seldom honored). Eleven-thirty, gentlemen; lunch is served, and now a little toast while the television mesmerizes the aides: Messieurs, your health! Deborah Warren 45 Aphrodite at the Old-Age Home —for Aphrodite Kalogeris “Honey,” the night nurse said to Aphrodite, “let me fix your bib. Look, Aphrodite! Here’s your juice and crackers, Aphrodite! “She doesn’t speak a blessed word of English,” the night nurse told us, “but she understands as good as if we spoke to her in Greek.” Aphrodite’s ears were as grotesque as the pore-coarse nose that bloomed across her face, but she heard her name: When Aphrodite rose and, beatific, dreamed across the room, traversing a happiness none of us could hear, she spoke a language older than herself but still her own—a dialect of beauty able to translate the fetid air. 46 five poems Climbing Etna We’d see the lava, nights, from the town square, as if the sun—an egg of fire—broke at dusk, threading its incandescent yolk down a mountain hanging in black air. Every night we’d scan the dark horizon looking for those streaks, and every night they took a while to find, however bright: Etna, it seemed, had spent the evening rising off the earth, to hover even higher, as if the mountain meant not to be found. And then, today, we ran the flows to ground, climbing up to the rolling burns of fire— closer, into the shimmering air and hiss that glanced up from the thick and red-flecked river —until our soles were smoking. But the lava sang, inside the mountain: Come, discover the fire’s origin and genesis; more—the heart of the world, in its enceinte of blind white heat. Seeing the lava course wasn’t enough, or watching the rock decant the sun; what brought us up here was the force— the hot loins—of a lightning god as dark as thunder; and, like Eve, like Semele, we wanted to approach. But there’s a spark, a jewel older than geology: stop shy of it—of finding the fire’s source, of closing in on what you shouldn’t see. Deborah Warren 47 Human Sucking strength... (shrink)

I demonstrate that Deleuze's identification of Aion as an empty form offers a fascinating model of temporality that prioritises variation. First, I suggest that Deleuze's identification of time as an empty form is supported by ancient Greek and Gnostic concepts of the relation of Aion and Chronos. From Plato, through Aristotle, to Plotinus the concept of time undergoes substantive revision, in the sense that temporal measurement becomes removed from the measurement of existent entities. This gradual untethering of time from (...) movement gives rise to the development of the concept of eternity as an ontologically comprehensive mode of time that is devoid of content. It is here, with Deleuze's reading of the Platonic cosmology, that we see the first hints of the suggestion that Aion is involved with ontogenesis. Eternity is characterised as: a temporal ‘all’ that is non-reducible to the determinacy implied by any particular temporally localised existent or temporal series ; that which tends towards a diversity of possible states of affairs. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects in the long history of Aion is that – in the ancient world – it was used in magical incantations. For the Gnostics and Oracles, Aion was a deity, and a potent one at that. From the Gnostic papyri, we get a vision of Aion as a force which enjoys eternal realisation. I suggest that the papyri conjure an image of Aion as a deity that is liberated from time, in the sense that it enjoys a neutrality with respect to the movements of any particular entity or group of entities – a form, in the most general sense of the term. Then, to clarify this mercurial aspect of an empty form of time, I elaborate on a complex analogy between Aion and Deleuze's concept of an ‘ideal game’ – an analogy that Deleuze specifies through reference to Fitzgerald and Borges. The claim is that Aion is an analogue of an ideal game in the sense that both share essential properties. Both Aion and the ideal game involve the multiplication of chance. Finally, I suggest that the differential aspects of Aion imply that it is pure variability; something which can be illustrated through a differential equation. These yield the suggestion that Aion enjoys realisation as an ontogenetic force. I further claim that ontogenetic forces may enjoy expression as the content of literature and mathematics. In concrete terms, temporality is involved in the creation of existent entities, which may be illustrated as various types of continuous multiplicity. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Life and Character Socrates in Aristophanes' Clouds Plato's Apology of Socrates Socratic Method Moral Psychology Education and Politics Irony Xenophon Conclusion Bibliography.