Provoked by Tom Geue’s recent book Author Unknown (2019), this article argues that a close reading of Calpurnius Siculus’ fourth Eclogue provides significant information about how and where the poet expected his poem to be received by its audience. Read against Vitruvius’ description of painted porticos and Diomedes’ account of the ‘common kind’ of poetry, in which ‘the poet himself speaks and speaking characters are also introduced’, the text was evidently designed to be presented as a performance, probably in (...) the imperial property on the Palatine. (shrink)

Un invito a vedere nella vita e nelle opere di don Sturzo delle risposte alle difficoltà del mondo attuale, approfondendo le ragioni di un impegno cristiano per il recupero della dimensione etica dell’economia, della politica e delle istituzioni.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Valla Grammaticus, Agostino Steuco, and the Donation of ConstantineRonald K. DelphRecent studies dealing with Lorenzo Valla's treatise on the Donation of Constantine have provided us with a profound understanding of the revolutionary nature of this work. Scholars have rightly seen the De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione (1440) as one of Valla's earliest attempts to apply the principles of Quintilian's rhetoric to textual scholarship. Valla followed Quintilian (...) both in the structure of his arguments against the authenticity of the actions described in the Donation, as well as in the critical tools that he employed while attacking the language found in the text itself.1 In his use of philology and grammar as analytical tools and in his perception that historical development was reflected by changes in linguistic style and word meaning, Valla closely followed Quintilian.2 [End Page 55]The scholarly methodology employed in this work helped Valla lay the foundations for his radical reorientation of the ars rhetorica in which he established philology, grammar, and historical perspective as essential components of his textual scholarship. Using the principles of rhetoric that Quintilian laid out in his Institutio oratoria, Valla sought to broaden the scope of humanist critical activity and present humanists with several key elements with which to engage in linguistic and textual studies.3 The significance of what he had accomplished was clear to the Roman humanist. In December 1443 he boasted to Giovanni Aurispa that "I have never written anything more oratorical than my oration" on the Donation of Constantine.4 Valla here expressed his belief that his treatise had succeeded in incorporating the strictures and theories espoused in Quintilian's work into a viable humanist program of textual and linguistic scholarship.Valla's De Constantini donatione is of undeniable importance for understanding his early development as a humanist textual critic and language philosopher. But what has escaped most historians is the oration's problem of methodology, and the deficiencies of philology and grammar as tools of textual criticism in this work. To put it bluntly, scholars, while focusing on the promising innovations found there, have consistently ignored what by later standards would be considered the serious methodological flaws in Valla's treatise. The Vallian ars rhetorica as articulated in this work by no means presented a model from which later humanists would derive the foundations of modern textual criticism. By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, textual scholars had shown the inadequacies of the methodology Valla employed in this treatise. In fact the best humanist scholars of the period approached the task of textual criticism and manuscript emendation using procedures that were essentially at odds with the philological, grammatical critique used in this work.5While most modern historians have overlooked the scholarly shortcomings of Valla's treatise, the sixteenth century produced one critic who raised serious questions about the scholarship underlying the critique of the Donation. Twice in his lifetime, the Italian humanist Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) [End Page 56] published significant replies to Valla. First in his Pro religione christiana adversus Lutheranos (1530), and then in his Contra Laurentium Vallam de falso donatione Constantini libri duo (1547), Steuco raised substantial objections to a number of Valla's philological, grammatical, and historical arguments against the authenticity of the edict.6In each treatise Steuco's textual scholarship on the Donation formed part of a larger effort on his part to defend the cultic practices, institutions, and hierarchy of the late medieval church against the reformers. As he made clear in both works, he believed that Valla's attacks upon the papacy and Donation put him in league with Luther and Erasmus in undermining respect for the papacy in the early sixteenth century. While these two works recently have proved to be of great interest to historians of religion and reform in sixteenth-century Italy, I shall confine the present analysis to Steuco's scholarship on the Donation.Taking direct aim at Valla's philological and grammatical analysis of the language of the Donation, Steuco repeatedly characterized Valla as being nothing more than a "grammarian."7 Valla had blundered badly in his analysis, Steuco pointed out, by ignoring the first... (shrink)

Augustine’s De Magistro, an early work, is cast as a dialogue between himself and his bright son Adeodatus. It leads from a discussion whether teaching is effected through signs to the conclusion that words are not a route to knowledge, unless the soul is taught by God, the only teacher. Although Augustine is mainly concerned to develop his new theory of signification, the dialogue is set in the frame of traditional grammatical teaching, which had become standard in later Roman antiquity. (...) These elements of grammatical education make a good starting point for exploring what precisely was Augustine’s position within this system. Taking into consideration especially his definition of pronomen and the eight parts of speech we come to the conclusion that Augustine as a grammarian is dependent on Charisius and his teacher. (shrink)

This paper builds on existing scholarship concerning Vergil's Diomedes and his relationship to Aeneas in two ways: first, by stressing that the character of Diomedes presented a problem for Vergil, not just because he wounded Aeneas, Aphrodite, and Ares in Iliad 5, but also because he came to be an important figure in Italian myth; second, by focusing on numerous passages previously ignored in this context, including ones in which Diomedes significantly does not appear. In these ways, (...) I hope to show just how elaborate, and important, a process Vergil's rewriting of Diomedes is. (shrink)

In the Iliad the symbolic value of gifts as tokens of reciprocity is more important than their material value. This is exemplified in the encounters of Diomedes with Glaucus in book 6 and Achilles with Priam in 24. Glaucus readily agrees to offer a much more valuable gift than Diomedes, and the narratorial suggestion that Zeus took away Glaucus’ wits is not shaped as the report of a fact but captures the views or feelings of observers such as (...) members of the audience. Achilles agrees to release the body of Hector in exchange for gifts. As Glaucus and Diomedes seal their pact and renew the ancestral guest-friendship relationship with the exchange of gifts, so Achilles seals his pact with Priam and his earlier one with the dead Patroclus with the acceptance and promise of gifts respectively. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es observar el tratamiento que se ofrece en la Institutio Oratoria de Quintiliano y en las artes de Donato, Diomedes y Consencio, como también en el comentario de Pompeyo a la obra de Donato, de los ejemplos estándar de singularización de pluralia tantum: scala, scopa, quadriga. El análisis de la ambigüedad de los nombres tantum cobra relevancia desde que trasciende la mera discusión automatizada de un lugar común de las artes grammaticales, convirtiéndose en un (...) problema de descripción lingüística, al plantearse su coherencia para la descripción de toda la lengua. The purpose of this paper is the study of the treatment offered in Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, in the artes of Donatus, Diomedes and Consentius, and in Pompeius's commentary on the work of Donatus, of the standard examples regarding the use of pluralia tantum in singular: scala, scopa, quadriga. The analysis of the ambiguity of the pluralia and singularia tantum gains relevance as it transcends the mere automated discussion of a commonplace of the artes grammaticales, becoming a problem of linguistic description, when the issue of its coherence for the description of the entire language is raised. (shrink)

Scheherazade Or the Future of the English Novel John Carruthers Originally published in 1928 "A brilliant essay…" Daily Herald A survey of contemporary fiction in England and America lends to the conclusion that the literary and scientific influences of the last fifty years have combined to make the novel of today predominantly analytic. The author argues that it has therefore gained in psychological subtlety, but lost its form and how this may be regained is put forward in the conclusion. 90pp (...) Thamyris Or Is There a Future for Poetry? R C Trevelyan Originally published in 1925 "Learned, sensible and very well-written." New Statesman This volume examines the possibilities of development for modern poetry. 90pp Saxo Grammaticus First Aid for the Best-Seller Ernest Weekley Originally published in 1930 "A very shocking collection of vile phrases from contemporary writers." Daily News Authored by the philologist Ernest Weekley, this volume represents the original emergency grammar manual for time-pressed best-selling writers. 88pp Deucalion Or the Future of Literary Criticism Geoffrey West Originally published in 1930 This book discusses the true function of criticism and asks how modern criticism is performing it. 86pp. (shrink)

Plato's closing reference to the Iliad in the Sophist has been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship. The reference, a quotation from the confrontation between Glaucus and Diomedes in Book 6, forms part of a broader frame to the dialogue. The frame, with its recurring themes of identification and misidentification, helps us make better sense of the dialogue's final description of the sophist and its central concerns about the relationship between philosophy and sophistry. It also provides a revealing case study (...) of Plato's use of Homer as part of a broader strategy for undermining simple appeals to authority. (shrink)

When Odysseus and Diomede are about to set out on their adventure in the tenth Iliad, Meriones lends the former a noble κυνέη, the workmanship of which is carefully described.

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 194 - 220 This paper offers an interpretation of Anselm of Canterbury’s semantic doctrines in _De Grammatico_, paying special attention to five distinctions present in the dialogue: _dicitur in eo quod quale/dicitur in eo quod quid, esse ut in subiecto/esse non ut in subiecto, significare/appellare, significare ut unum/significare non ut unum_ and _significare per se/significare per aliud_. It elucidates the theoretical role of these distinctions, showing that they are introduced with different purposes and (...) that conflation between them must be avoided. Three specific features of this interpretation are the following: an analysis of the distinction between _significare_ and _appellare_ in relation to the orders of intellection and predication, an account of the difference between predication _in eo quod quid/in eo quod quale_ and essential and accidental predication, and an analysis of the thesis that ‘_grammaticus_’ not only signifies _per se qualitas_, but also _per se habere_. (shrink)

This passage concerns the bird-colony on the Diomedean islands, now called Tremiti, off Gargano in Italy; it is said to have been formed by the companions of Diomede, when they became birds. ‘They shall hunt fish-spawn with their beaks, dwelling in an island bearing their leader's name they shall fashion the streets for their close-packed nests with firm blows , on an earth-covered slope, tiered like a theatre, imitating Zethos’ . ‘They shall set out to hunt and return to the (...) hollow, together and at night. They shall flee all together from a crowd of barbarous men, but on the way home to their accustomed bivouacs they will take offscourings of bread and after-dinner fragments of barley-cake from the hand, provided they come from the pouches of Greek robes; they will murmur softly. in friendly fashion, sadly remembering, poor birds, their former way of life.’ In [Aristotle]'s account the birds dive-bomb the heads of barbarians. That passage does not describe shearwater but it may easily refer to other birds on the Tremiti. Evidently the observers did not drag the shearwater out of their burrows, which is the only way to be certain of their appearance. The Lockleys tell us of gulls marauding round the Skokholm colony. Black-headed gulls feed from the hand on the Embankment, and dive-bomb intruders near their eggs. (shrink)

La présente étude propose une lecture « à la verticale » des vers homériques composant l’Ὁμηρομαντεῖον du Papyrus de Londres 121, au-delà du mode d’emploi interactif selon lequel fonctionne ce texte. Outre le recours à un stock de vers homériques circulant de façon relativement autonome dans le monde érudit, l’étude des critères de sélection des vers composant ce passage révèle un effort conscient d’y reproduire les caractéristiques de la littérature oraculaire : caractère gnomique ou proverbial, obscurité, ton instructif et offensant, (...) etc. Tirés des discours des dieux ou de leurs élus, ces vers/oracles introduisent le questionneur dans une relation intime avec le divin tout en lui proposant des modèles de comportement moyennant les figures de Diomède ou d’Ulysse. Or, dans l’Oracle…, tout comme dans l’Iliade, Diomède paraît en quête d’un juste équilibre entre les maîtres du jeu, à savoir Athéna et Apollon. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to understand some meaningful aspects of the Socratic use of Iliad x 224 in Plato’s Protagoras and Symposium. In these dialogues the Homeric reference appears in different contexts, but Plato’s Socrates applies it in the same way and seems to indicate it as a relevant step for the implementation of the dialectic method. Socrates is not only provoking his interlocutor, but rather making a comparison between the dialogue’s scene and the context involving Diomedes (...) and Odysseus’ in Iliad x. Ultimately, the use of this reference shows that a dialogical interplay to achieve a common purpose is a precondition for the Socratic dialectic. This previous cooperation between Homeric characters is emphasized by Plato’s Socrates and is derived from a specific soul’s manifestation. (shrink)

This study examines the death of Achilles in ancient myth, focusing on the hero's imperfect invulnerability. It is concluded that this concept is of late origin, perhaps of the Hellenistic period. Early evidence about Achilles' infancy does not suggest that he was made invulnerable, and early evidence concerning his death apparently indicates that Achilles was wounded more than once. The story of Achilles' heel as we know it is therefore late, though it is demonstrable that certain themes and motifs of (...) earlier traditions about Achilles were preserved in later traditions. What caused the concept of Achilles' imperfect invulnerability to emerge, it is proposed, was the late story in which the hero is ambushed in the temple of Thymbraean Apollo. Certainly Achilles was wounded in the lower leg in early Greek myth. An explanation is needed if this does not reflect the story of his imperfect invulnerability, and the arguments of several scholars are surveyed. The theory that the "swift-footed" hero was first immobilized by a lower wound before being slain is ultimately favored, though it is suggested that invulnerable armor and poison may have played a role. A comparative approach to myth and ritual is employed, with attention given to evidence from various areas and ages in an effort to illuminate stories about the infancy and death of Achilles. The study also assesses two alleged reflections in the Iliad of Achilles' death, the death of Patroclus in Book 16 and the wounding of Diomedes in Book 11. The evidence in ancient art and literature about the death of Achilles is often obscure, but this exploration of continuity and innovation in myth about Achilles should assist our understanding of it. (shrink)

[Alfred Hitchcock's] film is called North by Northwest. I assume that nobody will swear from that fact alone that we have here an allusion to Hamlet's line that he is but mad north-northwest; even considering that Hamlet's line occurs as the players are about to enter and that North by Northwest is notable, even within the oeuvre of a director pervaded by images and thoughts of the theater and of theatricality, for its obsession with the idea of acting; and considering (...) that both the play and the film contain plays-within-the-play in both of which someone is killed, both being constructed to catch the conscience of the one for whose benefit they are put on. But there are plenty of further facts. The film opens with an ageless male identifying himself first of all as a son. He speaks of his efforts to keep the smell of liquor on his breath from the watchful nose of his mother, and he comes to the attention of his enemies because of an unresolved anxiety about getting a message to his mother, whereupon he is taken to a mansion in which his abductor has usurped another man's house and name and has, it turns out, cast his own sister as his wife. The abductor orders the son killed by forcing liquid into him. It is perhaps part of the picture that the usurper is eager to get to his dinner guests and that there is too much competitive or forced drinking of liquor. Nor, again, will anyone swear that it is significant that the abductor-usurper's henchmen are a pair of men with funny, if any, names and a single man who stands in a special relationship with the usurper and has a kind of sibling rivalry with the young woman that this son, our hero, will become attracted to and repelled by. These are shadowy matters, and it is too soon to speak of "allusions" or of any other very definite relation to a so-called source. But it seems clear to me that if one were convinced of Hamlet in the background of North by Northwest, say to the extent that one is convinced that Saxo Grammaticus' Danish History is in the background of Hamlet, then one would without a qualm take the name Leonard as a successor to the name Laertes.Stanley Cavell, professor of philosophy at Harvard University, is the author of Must We Mean What We Say?, The Senses of Walden, The World Viewed, The Claim of Reason, and Pursuits of Happiness. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "On Makajev On Bergman" and "A Reply to John Hollander". (shrink)

This article deals with Calchas’ prophecy and Diomedes’ and Ulysses’ interventions during the mustering of the Greeks at Aulis in Statius’ Achilleid. It will be argued that Calchas and Ulysses embody two different approaches to the generic tensions of the new epic which Statius’ poem represents. Calchas, the old uates of the Homeric tradition, seems unable to fully understand the ‘poetics of illusion’ enacted by Thetis and Achilles in disguise, as is clear from his vision. His point of view (...) is skilfully complemented by Ulysses, who turns out to be the true uates, as well as the perfect leader for Achilles’ rescue. As the only figure who can face the fluid and ambiguous reality of the poem and its literary dynamics as well, Ulysses also stands as a poetic voice himself; through his speech, Statius reflects upon the tensions of his epic and the poetic effort needed to channel the narrative from the peaceful setting of Scyros to the martial horizon of Troy. (shrink)

Editions of, translations of, and essays and commentaries on: Ancient Stoics (pp. 1-107), Apollodorus of Athens (pp. 111-217), Crates of Mallus (pp. 219-327), Palaephatus (pp. 329-365), authors De Incredibilibus (pp. 367-400), Conon (pp. 401-442), Cicero ND II-III (pp. 443-483), Cornutus (pp. 485-560), Heraclitus Grammaticus (pp. 561-669), Chaeremon (pp. 671-707), Ps. Plutarch, De Vita et Poesi Homeri (pp. 709-820), Plutarch, De Daedalis Plataeensibus (pp. 821-832); Cebetis Tabula (pp. 833-860), Philo of Byblus (pp. 861-896); Appendix: Derveni Papyrus (pp. 897-944).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Fighting Words:Turnus at Bay in the Latin Council (Aeneid 11.234–446)Elaine FanthamUntil the publication of Philip Hardie's important new discussion "Fame and Defamation in the Aeneid: The Council of Latins" (1998), Virgil's extended treatment of the Latin council had passed a generation of relative neglect—neglect all the more surprising because the debate occupies a quarter of the eleventh book.1 But then the book itself is generally treated as a lowering (...) of tension, a diversion of focus from the heroic business of male combat to an exchange of rhetoric and the ancillary exploits of the woman warrior Camilla. And despite his long– standing interest in Virgil's Iliad (e.g., 1984), K. W. Gransden's recent commentary on book 11 (1991) shows little interest in Virgil's sophisticated narrative technique.Virgil's writing in this book is no less serious than in its neighbors, and deserves further scrutiny. The Camilla narrative has begun to receive its due, but the rhetoric of the extended council, which includes Turnus' longest speech and the second longest formal speech in the Aeneid, has usually been passed over as alien to the concerns of epic.2This is certainly not Hardie's approach, though it is motivated in part by the same negative attitude toward rhetoric. For him the debate is primarily a starting point for a more far–reaching inquiry into the [End Page 259] ways in which Virgil uses the secondary narrative of speakers to project dissonant versions of events the audience has already experienced, and, by thus casting doubt on their credibility, extends a further shadow of doubt over the narrative enterprise. He states his aim as "to resituate the place of rhetoric within the Aeneid, with especial reference to the most elaborate and most formal exchanges between human actors in the poem. The focus of... discussion is not so much on the formal markers of a rhetorical manner, as on the relationship between the truth–functions of rhetoric and of a supposedly authoritative epic voice" (1998, 243).Now Hardie would probably accept a definition of rhetoric fairly close to "speech designed to persuade." But his reading of the episode shows a mistrust not simply of its most clearly dishonest speaker, but of the entire debate. He opens with Virgil's summary, Illi haec inter se dubiis de rebus agebant / certantes (445–46). Yet insofar as the sphere of rhetoric (as opposed to logic) is, as Aristotle declares, what is debatable, the uncertainty or insecurity of the Latins' circumstances hardly entitles Hardie to damn the entire council as "hot air... just so much rhetoric" (244). It seems that despite his magnificent understanding of epic, Hardie has no sympathy for rhetoric.3 For him "rhetoric" is only the abuse of eloquence. He equates it with public speeches invalidated by the speaker's misreading of circumstances, by distortion of the speaker's own experience,4 by misjudgment swayed by emotion,5 or by misrepresentation to deceive the audience—whereas the only error of several of these speakers is human ignorance of the divinely ordained consequences. Not only Latinus, "careful to provide the optimal conditions for a faithful account by the envoys," but the honest Venulus and right–minded Diomedes are discredited along with Drances, as if no valid speech were possible in a political context. [End Page 260]Hardie has many acute and rewarding comments on the debate, but his major critical contribution lies outside it, reaching even beyond the framework of the Aeneid. The more restricted approach I originally adopted toward the Latin debate, while composing earlier drafts of this essay, does not seem to have lost its usefulness: it is even possible that Hardie's long–sighted vision has produced a distortion that needs to be corrected by a study with a shorter focus. As in the subtle intertextual study by Burke (1978), my point of departure here is the effect of Drances' speech not only on the behavior of Turnus, but on the audience's or reader's reception of Turnus' reply and assessment of his character.6To start, then, let us briefly review the form and content of the council, paying special... (shrink)

Le plan canonique rigoureusement normé de la domus étrusco-romaine, attesté dans la plus grande partie de l’Italie, pour l’essentiel, du vie au ier siècle av. J.‑C., a connu un succès très limité en dehors de la péninsule, où de fortes traditions autochtones, grecques ou puniques, semblent en avoir entravé le développement. Le cas de Délos présente un intérêt particulier à cet égard, compte tenu de l’importance de la composante italique de sa population. L’étude des maisons d’habitation du site, ici envisagée (...) en fonction d’une approche strictement planimétrique, montre cependant, en dépit de quelques convergences, que le plan canonique n’y a jamais été véritablement adopté par les élites locales ; les édifices qui s’en rapprochent le plus sont actuellement interprétés comme des bâtiments commerciaux. En revanche, la « Maison de Fourni » présente une très grande similitude avec les villae construites à la même époque en Italie, en particulier la Villa de Diomède à Pompéi. (shrink)

When we read the Latin Grammarians' Rules of Prosody, we are puzzled now and then. One thing that puzzles us is their silence about the features of difference between Latin Prosody and Greek. They often seem to take it for granted that Virgil's Prosody is identical with Homer's. This point of view is perhaps not surprising, since these Grammatici often speak of Latin as a mere dialect of Greek . But it has its disadvantages. Every scholboy knows that moeniă Troiae (...) is as natural in Virgil as TєίεΧεă Τροίηs would be unnatural in Homer; and every school-manual of Latin Prosody confines its examples of a Mute and Liquid lengthening, not lengthening a preceding syllable to examples of a Mute and Liquid in the middle of a word. If it mentions Catullus' impotenti̅ freta, it calls this a Greek, not a Latin type. Not so the Grammatici. Diomede's examples of a short syllable before FR, FL are :ore fremebant talia flammato. (shrink)

This paper offers a new reading of Plato’sLachesthat examines the dialogue’s philosophical approach not only to courage but also to two literary texts that both formed and questioned traditional Athenian views of it: Homer and Thucydides. In the middle of Plato’sLaches, the eponymous character claims that the courageous man “should be willing to stay in formation, to defend himself against the enemy, and to refuse to run away.” Socrates responds by wondering whether a man can be courageous in retreat. He (...) cites Homer’s description of Aeneas’ horses that “know how to pursue and flee quickly this way and that”, a quotation that appears twice in theIliad: once at 5.222-3 when Aeneas refuses to retreat from the rampaging Diomedes and again at 8.106-8 when Diomedes retreats from Hector, despite their belief that to do so is cowardly. On the surface, it seems that the contexts of the Homeric line do not match Socrates’ argument. This paper will argue that Socrates’ apparent ‘miscue’ is both intentional and purposeful because it signals a correspondence between the Homeric scenes and Thucydides’ narrative of the Battle of Mantinea that invites criticism of Homer’s place in the value systems of contemporary Athens. Plato signals a philosophical reading of Homer’sIliadand of Thucydides’ description of the Battle of Mantinea, through which we are invited to evaluate not only the traditional model of Athenian education, embodied by the former, but also its application in fifth-century Athens, as revealed by the latter. This paper, therefore, demonstrates that the philosophical and literary strategies behind Plato’s decision to ‘misuse’ Homer reveal a disjunction between wisdom and manliness in the Athenian cultural tradition that philosophy aims to resolve. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recovering the Snorra Edda:On Playing Gods, Loki, and the Importance of HistoryMathias Moosbrugger (bio)Distinguamus ergo quam fidem debeamus historiae,quam fidem debeamus intellegentiae.—Augustinus, De vera religioneI.It might seem rather uncreative to those familiar with René Girard's thinking to deal with the story of the murder of Baldr as told in the Edda by Snorri Sturluson, one of the foremost representatives of the extraordinary poetic culture of medieval Iceland, from a (...) Girardian point of view. This is obviously because Girard himself has analyzed this story in detail in a chapter of his book The Scapegoat.1 Everything else could either be seen as an unnecessary addition to what has already been said—at most a contribution of interesting but in the end not substantial details—or a (perhaps hypercritical) objection to the mimetic theory as a whole from the viewpoint of another theoretical approach, in order to detect the heuristic or hermeneutical weaknesses of the mimetic theory. I do not intend to do either. Nevertheless, I will try to outline [End Page 105] a rereading of the Baldr-story that is quite different from and in some respects contrary to the interpretation suggested by Girard. I am, in fact, suggesting that, in order to understand the proper narrative structure and the inner hermeneutical dynamic of the story, it is fundamentally important to read it not solely paying attention to the phenomenological structure of the text, but in the first place attending to the historical context of its genesis. Luckily, this has been the object of historical research for many decades, and we are therefore provided with a solid fundament for the following considerations. I hope to show convincingly that only the application of historical research can enable us to reconstruct the actual essence of this story—something, by the way, that historical research itself has not yet been able to accomplish. Certainly, all this does not mean that we have to historicize the story itself, as, for example, Saxo Grammaticus did in his Gesta Danorum, but merely that we need to situate it—or rather, its author—in the proper historical context.2 And as the mimetic theory is not, as critics constantly claim, a quasi-totalitarian and mono-dimensional system that allows only one "dogmatic" interpretation of a story, it is possible to reinterpret texts already analyzed "formally correctly" by means of the mimetic theory without—I hope—becoming unfaithful to its main theoretical insights. By connecting a historical approach with the insights provided by mimetic theory, I intend to defend an author, Snorri Sturluson, who, I think, is greatly underestimated in Girard's interpretation of the Baldr-story (Girard does not even mention the author's name) and to recover the most profound hermeneutical value of his Edda, which has not yet been detected by historians. Snorri was a poetic genius, but it is not he who needs this defense; it is we who need it, because he is, as I want to show, an author with an incredible understanding of the socioanthropological powers that govern human society.II.It is useful to recapitulate Girard's interpretation in The Scapegoat; this requires in the first place a general overview of Snorri's Baldr-story itself.3 We all know the main elements of this story: Baldr, the best and most loved of all the gods, is, as dreams tell him, in danger of being killed. Odin, Baldr's father and the highest of all the gods, knows this and is also aware that this would be the beginning of the end of the world. So the Aesir prepare a strategy in order to prevent any such thing from happening: the goddess Frigg has all creatures take an oath that they will not do Baldr any harm—be it by fire, water, iron, metal, stones, earth, trees, diseases, animals, birds, poisons, or snakes. This [End Page 106] "all-in insurance" makes Baldr and his fellow gods slaphappy—in the truest sense of the word: assuming that nothing can ever hurt Baldr now, they stand around him and throw at him whatever comes to their minds or respectively their hands—and everything seems to... (shrink)

Καλλίμαχος τὸ κάθαρμα, τὸ παίγνιον, ὁ ξύλινος νοῦς,αἴτιος ὁ γράψας Αἴτια Καλλίμαχος.Callimachus [means] trash, trifle, wooden mind:the cause is the Callimachus who wroteCauses.This abusive epigram, probably composed in the first centuryc.e.by a certain Apollonius ‘Grammaticus’, has become famous on account of its false attribution to Apollonius of Rhodes and of its consequent identification as ‘evidence’ for the literary feud between Apollonius and Callimachus. Its literary features have attracted less interest. Cameron, for one, dismissed it, finding ‘no coherent literary thrust (...) to the polemic’. I argue here that this epigram in fact shows close engagement with the poetics of Callimachus and his language of literary self-definition. As we find in other anti-Callimachean epigrams, the author ofAnth. Pal.11.275 crafts his insults by appropriating and transforming several Callimachean terms of literary-aesthetic value, which he then directs back against their creator. (shrink)

A series of seven epigrams from the Anthologia Marciana (MS Marc. gr. 524) sheds light on the life of John IX Merkouropoulos, patriarch of Jerusalem in exile (1157-before 1166). The evidence that comes to light reveals traces of a monastic network connecting Jerusalem with Constantinople. According to the epigrams, John became a monk at Mar Saba - something further evinced by the double vita of St John of Damascus and Kosmas of Maiouma that he composed [BHG 395]. After staying at (...) the Koutsovendis monastery, he travelled to Constantinople, where Manuel I appointed him on the patriarchal see and also made him abbot of the monastery of St Diomedes/New Zion in Constantinople. Shortly before or after John’s departure from life, his disciple, the monk Clement, attempted to manifest that his spiritual father was a holy man. Thus, Clement had John’s portrait placed next to that of St James, the brother of God. John’s complex relationship with the Syropalestinian monastic tradition make his life and the survival of his memory an exceprional case study for understanduing the phenomenon of Holy Men in twelfth-century Constantinople. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Homeric Echoes in RhesusRobin Sparks BondWhen we think of Rhesus—if we do at all—we think of a play so structurally awkward, so dramatically unsatisfying, so inferior that it could not possibly be from the hand of Euripides.1 Our knowledge of the story's source—a selfcontained Iliadic episode (attractive for dramatic adaptation)—causes us to question the author's reasons for introducing new elements, such as Hector's contentious exchanges with the characters around (...) him and his apparent weakness as a leader. Our greatest difficulties with the play probably result from its episodic nature: first Dolon, then Rhesus, then Odysseus and Diomedes claim their time on the stage. So many seemingly discrete encounters detract from, or may even draw attention to the lack of, any sustained dramatic tension and most likely account for a second problematic feature—the absence of a clearly central hero. While Hector comes closest to filling this role, he fails to meet our expectations for a tragic hero of Athenian drama. His unchanging view of the circumstances around him and complete ignorance of what has happened, even at the end, leave us simply puzzled as to the author's interest or intent in putting these events on the stage.Albin Lesky has remarked on the play's "lifeless" quality: "no problems loom concerning the meaning of [the characters'] fate, nor are they convincing as human beings," 201. Other plays vaguely similar in structure or subject matter illuminate specific problems. Ajax, another drama in which a hero's death is the climax of the action, requires its characters to explore their predicament, to look forward to and then to confront the ramifications of a single deed. Oedipus Tyrannus, which [End Page 255] hardly falls short of Rhesus in the number of characters who take part in the unraveling process, is a highly effective example of a play in which the introduction of each character results in some type of forward movement in a progressive series of motivating questions (Who killed King Laius? Who was the robber? Who is Oedipus?). The process here is even more successful because of the surprising nature of the reversals which the various characters introduce. For instance, as Aristotle points out, "the man who comes to bring delight to Oedipus, and to rid him of his terror about his mother, does the opposite by revealing who Oedipus is."2 In effect, the initial (and all subsequent) reasons for the action and the development from one scene to the next are integrally linked. All this is, of course, well known. What we have not been so quick to perceive is its opposite, how Rhesus creates movement without necessity, and activity without realized implications, while its characters appear simply to act out a piece of epic oblivious to the real consequences of the events unfolding around them.If then Rhesus does not invite its audience to sympathize with the conscious suffering of its principal characters, we ought at least to feel compassion for the future hardship to which the play's ending points. It is not clear whether the audience is expected to know of the oracle about Rhesus, that if he should drink the water of the Scamander river he will become invincible.3 However, the outcome of the Trojan War is obvious, and Hector's enthusiasm for victory, which is constant throughout the play, seems to increase our awareness of his own inevitable doom. In fact, the play only concerns itself with enhancing the audience's anticipation of what they already know is going to happen, a quality which must result from the drama's adaptation of a Homeric source and which perhaps signals the author's interest in more than simply taking his plot from epic. Analysis of the nature of this anticipation and of Rhesus' reliance upon other Iliadic features reveals a guiding rationale behind much of its apparent quirkiness.The relationship between Rhesus and Iliad 10 has been explored by Bernard Fenik, who was primarily interested in explaining problems and [End Page 256] ambiguities in the Doloneia.4 He suggested that the play is based on a non-Iliadic version of the Rhesus story and... (shrink)