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OUSEION
JOURNAL OF THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
REVUE DE LA SOCIETE CANADIENNE DES ETUDES CLASSIQUES
anciennementlformerly Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views
XLVIII - Series III, VolA, 2004 No.2 ISSN 1496-9343

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MOUSEION
Journal of the Classical Association of Canada
Revue de la Societe canadienne des etudes dassiques
XLVIII - Series III, Vol. 4, 2004
ARTICLES
No.2
Liz Warman. Hope in a Jar I07
Eugenio Amato, Une nouvelle allusion aSimonide chez Chorikios
de Gaza
Jacqueline Clarke. "Goodbye to All That": Propertius'magnum iter
between Elegies 3.16 and3.21 127
Stephen Brunet, Female and DwarfGladiators 145
Pascale Hummel. En qUt?te d'un reel1inguistique, ou 1a construction
des 1angues anciennes par 1a tradition phi1010gique 171
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENOUS
Claude Calame, Myth and History in Ancient Greece: The Symbolic
Creation ofa Colony. Translated by Daniel W. Berman (Noel
Robertson) 191
Samuel Shirley, trans., Herodotus: On the War for Greek Freedom.
Selections from the Histories (Steven J. Willett) 194
Gerard J. Pendrick, ed., Antiphon the Sophist: The Fragments
(Brad Levett) 198
Jenny March, ed., Sophocles: Electra: Leona MacLeod, Oolos and
Dike in Sophokles' Elektra (Martin Cropp) 202
Angela Hobbs, Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the
Impersonal Good (John P. Harris) 207
Ruby Blondell. The Play ofCharacter in Plato's Dialogues
(Harold Tarrant) 212
Malcolm K. Brown. The "Narratives" ofKonon. Text, Translation
and Commentary of the Diegeseis (Rory B. Egan) 217
Susan Treggiari. Roman Social History (Helene Leclerc) 224
Roy K. Gibson, ed., Ovid. Ars Arnatoria, Book 3 (Peter E. Knox) 226
S. Phillippo, Silent Witness: Racine's Non-Verbal Annotations of
Euripides (Gerald Sandy) 229

Editorial Correspondents/Conseil consultatif: Janick Auberger. Universite
du Quebec a Montreal: Patrick Baker. Universite Laval; Barbara
Weiden Boyd. Bowdoin College; Robert Fowler. University of Bristol;
John Geyssen. University of New Brunwsick; Mark Golden. University
of Winnipeg; Paola Pinotti. Universita di Bologna; James Rives. York
University; c.J. Simpson. Wilfrid Laurier University
REMERCIEMENTS/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Pour l'aide financiere qU'ils ont accordee a la revue nous tenons a
remercier / For their financial assistance we wish to thank:
Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada / Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Dean of Arts. Memorial University of Newfoundland
Dean of Arts. University of Manitoba
University of Manitoba Centre for Hellenic Civilization
Brock University
Dalhousie University
University of New Brunswick
University of Victoria
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.
through the Publication Assistance Program (PAP). toward our mailing
costs.
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Mouseion aims to be a distinctively comprehensive Canadian journal of
Classical Studies. publishing articles and reviews in both French and
English. One issue annually is normally devoted to archaeological topics.
including field reports. finds analysis. and the history of art in antiquity.
The other two issues welcome work in all areas of interest to
scholars; this includes both traditional and innovative research in philology.
history. philosophy. pedagogy. and reception studies. as well as
original work in and translations into Greek and Latin.
Mouseion se presente comme un periodique canadien d'etudes classiques
polyvalent. publiant des articles et comptes rendus en fran

ABSTRACfS/RESUMES
HOPE IN AJAR
LIZ WARMAN
Dans Les Travaux et les fours d'Hesiode, EATTIc, ['incertitude par rapport it
l'avenir, est Ie seul mal it ne pas s'echapper de la jarre de Pandore. La liberation
des maux genere des conditions de precarite, qui sont necessaires it
l'epanouissement d'EATTic. Alors que les autres maux parcourent librement Ie
monde, EAlTlc, comme Pandore, prefere rester a la maison en compagnie de
l'homme, un mal aimable que l'homme embrasse. Puisqu'elles promettent
toutes deux l'abondance, dIes incitent a la paresse. C'est pourquoi EAlTic
represente un danger pour l'homme, don't la seule chance de succes dans Ie
cosmos voulu par Zeus passe par un travail incessant.
UNE NOUVELLE ALLUSION A SIMONIDE CHEZ CHORIKIOS DE GAZA
EUGENIO AMATO
Choricius of Gaza, Apologia mimorum p. 344.4-8 Foerster-Richtsteig, seems to
reflect a passage of Simonides (fr. 93 Page). However, an examination of the
context allows the suggestion that this late author is not alluding to Simonides
directly but rather through Plato's imitation.
"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT":
PROPERTIUS' MAGNUM ITER BETWEEN 3.16 AND 3.21
JACQUELINE CLARKE
Cet article traite de la fa

que ces poemes sont organises strategiquement pour mener au grand voyage
(magnum iter) de Properce (3.21) vers l'erudite Athenes.
FEMALE AND OWARF GLADIATORS
STEPHEN BRUNET
Les historiens ont longtemps admis que les empereurs romains faisaient combattre
des femmes gladiateurs contre des nains pour produire une etrange
parodie des combats de l'arene. Or. un nouvel examen des temoignages au sujet
des gladiatrices indique que ces paires de combattants n'ont jamais existe. En
realite. les femmes gladiateurs et venatores n'etaient pas un element commun
des jeux. La raison pour laquelle ces guerrieres ont frappe l'esprit de leurs contemporains
a mal ete comprise. En effet. ce n'etait pas leur inaptitude amusante
que l'on appreciait chez elles. mais leur talent a faire preuve de valeur guerriere
alors qu'on les en considerait incapables.
EN QUETE D'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE. OU LA CONSTRUCTION
DES LANGUES ANCIENNES PAR LA TRADITION PHILOLOGIQUE
PASCALE HUMMEL
Philology constitutes a major part of the history of the tradition, just as the tradition
is substantially defined by its philological character. Philology and the
tradition-and both together. through the philological tradition-assure the
transmission of previously constituted knowledges, at the same time as they
interrogate all their details. The structural discrepancy that diachrony introduces
constitutes languages that have become ancient (i.e.. dead) as objects. This
study analyzes how philological reality (by nature epistemological and historiographical)
takes account of the linguistic reality of the languages in question.
and defines the nature of this reality.

Mouseion, Series III. Vol. 4 (2004) 107-119
©2004 Mouseion
HOPE IN A JAR 1
LIZ WARMAN
The significance of the EATTic in the TT180c of Hesiod's Pandora story has
been the subject of protracted and inconclusive scholarly debate. The
Pandora narrative as a whole has often been thought deficient in coherence.
West, editor of the standard text of the Works and Days,2 finds
two stories inadequately blended, the first in which Pandora herself is
the evil promised as punishment for the theft of fire, the second in
which the jar is the source of all evils. He calls the final product"an unusually
clear instance of the way narrative inconsistencies arise as old
stories are retold. "3 Nagy. on the other hand, finds the Works and Days
to be characterized by "cohesiveness and precision," and calls for "rigorous
internal analysis"4 on the part of Hesiod's readers to demonstrate
that coherence. I believe that such an analysis should at least be attempted
before West's judgement against Hesiod's mastery of his material
is accepted.
I will argue for a general definition of EAlTic as emotion-tinged uncertainty
about the future. and discuss possible translations of EAlTlc as
well as Greek authors' evaluations of it. I will then follow the path taken
by Vernant,5 whose reading of the Pandora story has been lauded as
"completely persuasive."6 While I subscribe in the main to Vernant's
interpretation and offer support for several of his conclusions, I will
sometimes diverge from him and offer correctives to certain of his
, This title is borrowed from Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, who himself
unwittingly borrowed Hesiod's image of delusive promise when he called
his cosmetics "hope in a jar" (Peiss [r998] 200).
2 West (1978) is the text cited throughout this essay. unless otherwise noted.
3 West (lg66) 307. The second-century A.D. version of the story found in
Babrius (58) is held up by many as a model of coherence. In it, a man with no
self-control opens a jar full of good things given to men by Zeus. Most of the
goods fly out and are lost. Only EAnle remains in the jar. The inference is obvious:
good hope is preserved to help men face a dreadful world. With admiration
for Babrius' lucidity goes the conviction that his story "more closely reflects
the original sense of the myth than does the version forced upon posterity
by Hesiod" (Panofsky [1956] 6; d. Cow [r914] 106; Rudhardt [1986]235)·
4 Nagy (19go) 80. 82.
5 Vernant (lg81). id. (1989).
6 Clay (2003) 10 1.
107

II2 LIZ WARMAN
within the context of early Greek literature. uncontroversiaVo In the
Theogony. Hesiod's race of women resembles drone-bees who stay inside
the beehive (EVToc8E IlEVOVTEC. 598). EAlTlc. figured as a woman in a
house. is associated in its immediate context with Pandora. the first
woman ever made. 2'
As Pandora is taken to wife by heedless Epimetheus. so. as Hesiod's
image implies. EAlTlc is admitted into Epimetheus' house. EAlTlc. like a
bride. lives with a man. becomes part of his household. Diseases. by
contrast. wander the world freely of their own devices (atJTOllaTol. Op.
103). completely beyond a householder's ken. 22 What Hesiod means. according
to Dover. is that man is the overseer of his own EATIIc, but at the
mercy of diseases. 2J This overstates the control men have over EATIlc.
Diseases, EAlTlc and Pandora are all divine gifts and therefore cannot be
avoided. They are part and parcel of the human condition. But whereas
diseases are known evils, never willingly accepted. EAlTlc is, like Pandora.
an evil that men will embrace (KaKov all

HOPE INA JAR II3
less undeniably bad thing. a delusive "hope. "24
Interpreters who have missed the Pandora-EATTic analogy have supposed
Hesiod's €ATTic to be a good thing. Moschopulus infers that Zeus
punishes men by leaving EATTic in the jar "so as to leave them no trace of
encouragement" (we I-lllOE Ixvoe TTapal-lveiae a\JTole EeXeElv. ad Op. 96).
For West. EATTIc is an "antidote to present ills." but one permitted to
men by Zeus. 25 Picard explains the presence of good EATTIe in a jar otherwise
full of ills as Hesiod's incomplete reduction of the two (sid TTieOl
of Zeus in 11. 24.527 to a single nieoe with mixed contents. Hesiodic pessimism
leads to an attempt to suppress the jar of goods altogether.
"mais il se trahit. en y laissant l'Esperance."26 Recently. Lauriola has
proposed that the jar's mixed good and bad contents make it a match for
the fallen world itsel£.2 7 But any reading that entails an unhomogeneous
mixture in the jar is. as Fink has noted...nicht logischer. "28
That homogeneity must be maintained is strongly suggested by the
contents of actual storage nieOl. which held, for example. only grain.
only oil. only wine. 29 Accordingly. the jars on the threshold of heaven
from which Zeus dispenses changes to men's fortunes store goods separate
from ills (11. 24.529-30). No post-Hesiodic version of our story
makes the contents of the jar a mixture of goods and ills. 3D Philodemus
(On Piety 51.4) reports the fall of men through the escape into the world
of ills from a jar containing only ills. while Macedonius (AP IO.7r) and
Babrius (58) depict the fall as the flight of goods from jars containing
only goods. EATTIe in the Pandora story must be regarded as an ill remaining
in a jar that once contained it and other illsY
24 Emphasis here is on the visual aspect of womanly EAnlc. But Pucci (1977)
105 implies another link between Pandora and EAnlc: "The discourse of Elpis is
without grounds and far from truth. tending towards emptiness and vanity."
Pandora also lies (Op. 78).
25 West (1978) 169.
26 Picard (1932) 54.
27 Lauriola (2000) 12-13.
28 Fink (1958) 70.
29 For the use of ni801 as storage jars on MBA Crete see Cullen and Keller
(1990) 190-191; for their use in LBA Macedonia see Wardle (1987) 317-318,328­
329: for their use in Dark Age Boeotia see McDonald (1983) 37-40.
3D Panofsky (1956) 7.
3' A recent interpretation by Beall (1990) 227-230 preserves homogeneity.
but at too great a cost. Beall urges us to relinquish the idea that the jar ever contained
any ills. Goods flew out when Pandora opened it. and EAnlc is a good to
combat ever-present ills. Beall thus overlooks the flight of diseases from the jar
which Hesiod elaborates in detail.

HOPE INA JAR II7
must teach her to have "careful ways" (neea KESVcl. Op. 699). Thus the
inherently evil ways the woman inherits from Pandora (Op. 67. 78) are
ameliorated and she is. as far as possible. redeemedY In other wordsand
this is hardly surprising within the context of our poem-a man
has to work on his wife just as he must work the fields. So also. we may
infer. a right-minded man will "work on" his essentially evil EAlTlc. Its
trap will be evaded only if a man maintains a wary attitude towards its
beautiful promise and keeps on working. Working through adversarial
EAlTlc. then. is a portion of fallen men's toiL
Hesiodic EAlTlc is inextricably bound to the earth. The lTieoe in which
it resides would have been set deeply into the ground, in effect burying
EAlTlc in the soiL EAlTlc comes into men's world together with the need to
work the earth hard. The earth. changed by an angry Zeus from endlessly
fruitful to fruit-concealing. is the home of EAlTic. EAlTlc presents a
heartwarming vision of future riches to be won from the earth. a vision
that must remind men of a lost age of plenty and ease. of nearness to
godhood. Men nowadays inhabit a fragment of Zeus' cosmos whose
beauty is delusive. whose promise is made and then withheld. whose
"hope" seems to be a resource but is. in fact. an obstacle to success. 43
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
TORONTO. ON MS5 2E8
REFERENCES
Beall. E.F. 1990. "The contents of Hesiod's Pandora jar." Hermes I IT 227-230.
Broccia. G. 1958. "Pandora. il pithos e la elpis." PP 13: 296-309.
Carson. A. 1990. "Putting her in her place: Women. dirt. and desire." in O.M.
Halperin. J.J. Winkler. F.r. Zeitlin. eds.. Before Sexuality: The Construction of
Erotic Experience in the Ancient World. Princeton. 135-169.
Clay. J.5. 2003. Hesiod's Cosmos. Cambridge.
Cohen. O. 1989. "Seclusion. separation. and the status of women in Classical
Athens," Greece and Rome36: 3-15.
Cullen. T., O.R. Keller. 1990. "The Greek pithos through time: Multiple functions
and diverse imagery," in W.O. Kingery, ed. The Changing Roles of Ceramics
in Society 26.000 B.P. to the Present. Westerville, OH. 183-2°9.
42 Cf. Zeitlin (1996) 71. The need to train one's wife is a topic addressed again
by Ischomachus in Xenophon's Oeconomicus. For discussion of this wifely education
and its implications for the Greek view(s) of women. see Murnaghan
(1988); Pomeroy (1984) and (1989).
43 I would like to dedicate this essay to my Greek class of 200213. with thanks
and love.

IIB LIZ WARMAN
Dover, K.J. 1966. "Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium," fHS86: 41-50.
Evelyn-White, H.G., ed. and trans. 1919. Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and
Homerica. Cambridge, MA/London.
Fink, G. 1958. Pandora und Epimetheus: Mythologische Studien. Diss. Erlangen.
Frazer, J.G., trans. and comm. 1898. Pausanias' Description of Greece, n. London.
Gow, A.S.F. 1914. "Elpis and Pandora in Hesiod's Works and Days," in E.C
Quiggan, ed. Essays and Studies Presented to William Ridgeway. Cambridge.
99-109.
Hubbard, T.K. 2001. '''New Simonides' or old Semonides? Second thoughts on
POxy 3965 fro 26," in D. Boedeker, D. Sider, eds. The New Simonides: Contexts
ofPraise and Desire. Oxford. 226-23 I.
Kahn, CH. 1979. The Artand Thought ofHeraclitus. Cambridge.
Krafft, F. 1963. Vergleichende Untersuchungen zu Homer und Hesiod. Hypomnemata
6. G6ttingen.
Lauriola, R. 2000. '''EAlTis e la giara di Pandora (hes. Op. 90-104): 11 bene e il
male nella vita dell'uomo," Maia 52: 9-18.
Leinieks, V. 1984. "'EAlT1S in Hesiod, Works and Days 96," Philologus 128: 1-8.
Loraux, N. 1978. "Sur la race des femmes et quelques-unes de ses tribus," Arethusa
I I: 43-87.
Mazon, P., ed. and comm. 1914. Hesiode: Les Travaux et les fours. Paris.
McDonald, W.A. et al., eds. 1983. Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece
III: Dark Age and Byzantine Occupations. Minneapolis.
McLaughlin, J.D. 1981. "Who is Hesiod's Pandora?," Maia 33: 17-18.
Murnaghan, S. 1988. "How a woman can be more like a man: The dialogue between
Ischomachus and his wife in Xenophon's Oeconomicus," AfP 15: 9-22.
Nagy, G. 1990. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca.
Paley, F.A., ed. and comm. 1883. The Epics ofHesiod. London.
Panofsky, D. and E. 1956. Pandora's Box: The Changing Aspect of a Mythical
Symbol. New York.
Peiss, K. 1998. Hope in a far: The Making of America's Beauty Culture. New
York.
Pertusi. A., ed. 1955. SchoJia Vetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies. Milan.
Picard, C 1932. "Le peche de Pandora," L'Acropole T 39-57.
Pomeroy, S.B. 1984. "The Persian King and the Queen Bee," AfAH9: 98-108.
__. 1989. "Slavery in the Greek domestic economy in the light of Xenophon's
Oeconomicus," Index IT 11-18.
Pucci. P. 1977. Hesiod and the Language ofPoetry. Baltimore.
Rudhardt, J. 1986. "Pandora, Hesiode et les femmes," MH43: 231-246.
Verdenius, W.J. 1971. "A hopeless line in Hesiod Works and Days 96," Mnemosyne24:
225-231.
Vernant, J-P. 1981. "The myth of Prometheus in Hesiod" (trans. J. Lloyd), in R.L.
Gordon, ed. Myth. Religion and Society. Cambridge. 43-56.
__.1989. "At man's table: Hesiod's foundation myth of sacrifice" (trans. P.
Wissing), in M. Detienne, J-P. Vernant, eds. The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among
the Greeks. Chicago. 21-86.

HOPEINA JAR JIg
Waltz. P. 1910. "A propos de l'elpis hesiodique," REG 23: 49-57.
Wardle. K.A. 1987. "Excavations at Assiros Toumba 1986: A preliminary report."
ABSA 82: 313-329.
Weizsacker, P. 1897-1902. "Pandora," in W.H. Roscher. ed, Ausfiihrliches Lexicon
der griechischen und romischen Mythologie, III. Leipzig. 1520-1530.
West. M.L.. ed. and comm. 1966. Hesiod: Theogony. Oxford.
__' ed. and comm. 1978. Hesiod: Works and Days. Oxford.
Zeitlin, F.I. 1996. Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature.
Chicago/London.

UNE NOUVELLE ALLUSIONIi SIMONIDE 123
au A6yoc. Ie rheteur ecrit :
01 CVIlIlOXOUVTEC tmOTTTOVC TTPCcYIlOCI AOyOlC Ti) IlEV yAwTTlJ TOU
TTOplOVTOC q>EpOVCI KOCIlOV, T4> OE TpOTTI+> OI0130Anv, OET OE IlnTE TTlV
aOIKOV tmOVOIOV EVAo13ETceOl IlnTE 13ICcsEc801 TTlV OAn8EIOV' TO IlEV
yap OTTi8ovov, TO OE YEIlEI OEIAioc. WV OVOETEpOV oTIlOl PrlTOpl
TTpETTEIV.
Les discours qui soutiennent des faits suspects apportent la gloire a la
langue de rorateur.la calomnie pour son attitude. Mais il faut eviter a
la fois de craindre Ie sou}J

Mouseion. Series III, Vol. 4 (2004) 127-143
©2004 Mouseion
"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT": PROPERTIUS' MAGNUM ITER
BETWEEN ELEGIES 3. 16 AND 3.21'
JACQUELINE CLARKE
Propertius' third book of elegies is a very interesting study because
within it he makes the transition from writing almost exclusively on
love to elegies on other themes. Hubbard observes that the book deserves
a lengthy and complete analysis because it is one of the rare
ancient books in which we can see a poet discontent with what has
brought him success and striving for a new manner. 2
By examining
this work we gain insight into Propertius' attempts to adapt the poetic
form of elegy to meet external and internal pressures and trace his
evolution as a poet.
As many critics have observed, from the very outset the book has a
different feel to iP In the first two books of elegies Propertius' mistress
Cynthia dominates the initial poems. In I. I Cynthia prima corne
as the first words and in 2. I Propertius claims that it is his mistress
rather than the Muse Calliope who inspires him (3-4). The opening of
Book 3, however, is quite different. Propertius neither addresses Cynthia
nor talks about her but summons the shades of Callimachus and
Philetas (I). With his call upon Greek models. Propertius signals that
there will be a departure from personal love elegy, for. as Hubbard
observes, love elegy did not choose to represent itself as the result of a
successful plundering expedition from Greece. 4 When a few lines later
I This article was first delivered as a paper at the Department of Greek and
Roman Studies at the University of Calgary, Alberta in November 2003. I am
grateful for the feedback I received on my paper on that occasion. especially from
Professor Peter Toohey who made a number of helpful suggestions. My thanks
also to Professor Butrica for his comments on my article.
2 M. Hubbard. Propertius (London 1974) 92. All quotations from Propertius are
from Barber'socr edition (1960).
3 H.E. Butler and E.A. Barber, The Elegies ofPropertius (Oxford 1933) xii; ].L.
Marr, "Structure and sense in Propertius III." Mnemosyne21 (1978) 266.
4 "Whether because the Greek genre. the epigram. that elegy derived from was
so minor or because of the poets' consciousness that Roman elegy as it had developed
did not owe its form to any Greek poet. love elegy did not chose to represent
itself as the result of a successful plundering expedition" (Hubbard [above. n.
2]69). }.L. Butrica argues that the type of learned Hellenistic elegy. exemplified by
Callimachus, to which Propertius aspires is almost directly antithetical to Roman
love elegy: "The Amores of Propertius; Unity and structure in Books 2-4."
127

I28 JACQUELINE CLARKE
he makes the claim that he is the first to write on Italian subjects in
Greek style (4) he echoes Horace who makes a similar claim in Carm.
3.30.5 Once again the implication is that Propertius intends to move
away from the quintessentially Roman world of the love elegists.
But Propertius' departure is by no means sudden or abrupt. In the
second poem he makes a return (redeamus. I) to the customary round
of love elegy. Indeed poems with Cynthia or love as their main theme
constitute at least one half to two thirds of the book (for instance. elegies
2. 5. 6. 8. 10. IS. 16. 19. 20. 24. 25). These are interspersed with a
curious collection of elegies. some on or to political personages such as
Caesar (4) or Maecenas (9). some on women (13. 14), and some "hybrid"
poems such as elegy II. which begins like a love poem but turns
into a political poem on the fall of Cleopatra. It has often been observed
that this book has an experimental or investigatory air and
Marl' comments that Propertius experiments with hybrid forms to a
degree not found elsewhere in Augustan poetry.6
The book is thus somewhat of a "mixed bag." but for it to be successful
as an entity. the two concluding elegies where Propertius dismisses
Cynthia in sarcastic and biting tones should appear a logical
consequence of what has gone before. In these two final poems Propertius
discards his puella by telling her that her beauty no longer has a
hold upon him (24.1-2). announcing that her tears will not move him
in the slightest (25.5) and envisaging the lonely and decrepit old age
that will descend upon her once her charms have faded (25.11-16).
This should not come as a surprise to the reader; there need to be enough
clues in the previous elegies for the reader to be able to accept
this dismissal and. in company with Propertius. move away from Cynthia.
Propertius has to be able to bring the reader with him in his
great journey towards Book 4. 7
ICS21 (1996) 101. 138. Even rB. Debrohun. Roman Propertius and the Reinvention
ofElegy (Ann Arbor 2003). who is of the opinion that Callimachus had a significant
influence on the love elegies of Propertius' first three books (2). admits that
in Book 4 Propertius turns to a more direct engagement with the Greek poet (8).
5 princeps Aeolium carmen ad ltalos / deduxisse modos. "I am the first to
have adapted Aeolian Song to Italian verse" (13-14).
6 Marl' (above. n. 3) 267.
7 Scholars debate exactly what Propertius sets out to achieve in Book 4 and
how he fulfils his role as a Roman Callimachus. R.J. Baker thinks that it was the
aetiological elegies of Book 4. inspired by Callimachus' Aetia. that gave Propertius
the scope to explore nobler themes: "The military motif in Propertius." Latomus
27 (1968) 348. Butrica (above. n. 4) 107 basically agrees with this view. suggesting
that in Book 4 Propertius tries to realize his aspirations of becoming a
Roman Callimachus by imitating his Aetia while resisting Cynthia's persistent

"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT" 129
This is the major question of this article. How does Propertius indicate
his gradual disengagement from Cynthia and effect the transition
to other forms of poetry?8 How is the reader made aware of the evolution
of his poetic intent? This article will argue that the transition is
effected largely between elegies 3.16 and 3.21.
If the love elegies before this group are examined. there is very
little indication that Propertius intends to discard Cynthia. The poems
to and about his puella are the standard fare encountered in Books I
and 2: a poem celebrating his love for Cynthia and her beauty in
elegy 2. fights and reconciliations in elegies 6 and 8. a poem celebrating
Cynthia's birthday in elegy 10. It is only perhaps at elegy 5 that
the reader is given a hint that there may come some closure to the
endless cycle of their relationship. Propertius suggests that, while it
was appropriate in his youth for him to worship Helicon and twine
spring roses round his brow. in his old age he will turn to the study of
natural philosophy (23-4). Here then he poses a question that most love
poets eventually had to deal with: what happens to the lover and his
mistress when they begin to age? But even this poem is to some extent
based on stock materiaI,9 and Propertius' avowed intention to turn to
influence. Hubbard (above. n. 2) 121. on the other hand. argues that a Roman Aetia
was not a particularly novel enterprise and that the influence that Callimachus
exerted on Propertius was more to do with style and perspective; J.P. Sullivan
adopts a similar line. arguing that it was an ironical use of language and a detached.
humorous viewpoint that constituted Propertius' greatest debt to Callimachus
(Propertius: A Critical Introduction [Cambridge/New York 1976] [47).
Most recently. Debrohun (above. n. 4) 27 argues that what Propertius produces is
not pure patriotic elegy but a sort of hybrid discourse between the competing
values of Roma and amor but she modifies this view with the qualification that
Roma tends to dominate most of the elegies

130 JACQUELINE CLARKE
philosophy should not be taken with a great deal of seriousness. It is
not until elegy 17 that he first professes a wish for escape from love. JO
It is between 3.16 and 3.21, therefore, that Propertius' struggle to
free himself from both Cynthia and love poetry becomes most evident."
These two poems are strategically placed within the collection. Indeed,
in several respects they could be said to mirror one another in
reverse. The first describes a journey Propertius makes to Tibur ter
wards his mistress (2), the second a journey he will make to Athens
away from his mistress (I). In the first Propertius states that his union
with his mistress will enable his death (21 -2); in the second he claims
that his separation from his mistress will ensure that his death is not
disgraceful (34). Most significantly the first describes a journey within
Italy, the second one to Greece. The setting of these two poems is part
of the interesting balance between Greek and Roman in Book 3: for
instance elegy 13 castigates the behaviour of Roman women. while
elegy 14 praises the behaviour of Spartan women. In addition the fact
that Propertius associates his departure from his mistress with a journey
to Greece echoes his call upon Greek models at the beginning of
the book and symbolises his move from the introspective Roman
10 E. Courtney. "The structure of Propertius Book 3," Phoenix 24 (1970) 48. Hubbard
(above, n. 2) 114 suggests that it is in elegy 9 that Propertius first indicates
that he will abandon love poetry for a Roman Aetia. But scholars such as Baker
(above. n. 7) 334 argue that this is just another recusatio and that Propertius' intention
to change his poetic style is made conditional upon the unlikelihood of
Maecenas giving up his career. Indeed the poem is too ambiguously phrased and
too vague in expression to be viewed as a clear declaration to break from love
poetry.
II Previous scholarship does not seem to have treated these six poems as a
group. although Man (above. n. 3) 266 does group elegies 16-20 together as
"poems on various themes," and A. Woolley includes them as part of a larger
grouping from 14-22: "The structure of Propertius Book IlL" BICS 14 (1967) 80. The
tendency is to treat 3.21 (a journey to Athens) with 3.22 (a return to Rome), and it
is true that these poems have themes in common that will be dealt with at the end
of this paper. But. as will be demonstrated. 3.21 also has many themes in common
with 3.16 and can be viewed as an answer to the dilemmas set forth in that poem.
Furthermore, as we will see, the four elegies that come between this pair have
verbal and thematic links with one another. encouraging the reader to think of
them as a group and read them in a linear progression. See H. Jacobson. "Structure
and meaning in Propertius Book III," ICS I (1976) 160. who argues that the
structure of Book 3 is mainly a linear one in which the meaning of any individual
poem is defined and developed by the poem or poems which immediately follow.
Butrica (above, n. 4) g8 supports a linear reading with the argument that this is
virtually demanded by the form of the ancient bookroll.

"GOODBYE TO ALL THA T" 13 1
world of love elegy outwards to Greece for fresh inspiration from
Greek learning.
It comes as no surprise that Propertius represents this as a journey.
for. as several scholars have observed. the topos of the journey is
strong in Book 3. 12
In 7. for instance. Paetus' drowning is described as
a mortis iter. a journey towards death (2). In ro. the celebration of
Cynthia's birthday is defined as a journey (natalis iter. 32). But it is
between elegies 3.16 and 3.21 that the journey motif reaches its climax.
All these poems have references of some sort to journeys. journeys of
many different types. There are journeys through time and space.
journeys in Africa. Italy and Greece. journeys through death and beyond
it. As Propertius himself observes at the beginning of elegy 2 I.
the journey he will make is a magnum iter indeed.
Each of these poems from 3.16 to 3.21 will now be examined for the
stages in the progress of this journey. Within this group of poems
there is an interesting mixture of references to Propertius' monobiblos
and Horace's Odes. In many of these elegies Propertius deliberately
echoes the situations and motifs of elegies in his monobiblos; it is as
though he revisits his former passion in order to farewell it. At the
same time. by paying tribute. even in ironic tones. to Horace's Odes.
Propertius suggests the widening of his outlook.
Elegy 16 is where the journey begins. The poem begins in typical
love elegy fashion in the middle of the night with a letter that comes
from Propertius' mistress summoning him to visit her in the fashionable
resort town of Tibur:
Nox media. et dominae mihi venit epistula nostrae:
Tibure me missa iussit adesse mora.
Midnight. and a letter has come to me from my mistress.
bidding me to be present at Tibur without delay.
(1-2)
Propertius allays his fears about travelling on the night-time roads by
reminding himself that the lover is protected by his love wherever he
goes.
nec tamen est quisquam. sacros qui laedat amantis:
Scironis media sic licet ire via.
Yet there is none would hurt protected lovers:
they can travel even in the middle of Sciron's road.
(lI-I2)
IZ M.C}. Putnam. "Propertius' third book: Patterns of cohesion." Arethusa 13
(1980) 107. The journey motif throughout Book 3 was also the subject of a conference
paper delivered by P. Lee-Stecum at the 2001 Australian Society for Classical
Studies Conference, University of Adelaide.

132 JACQUELINE CLARKE
Like the love elegies that corne before it in Book 3. this is based on a
stock idea. I3 The concept also occurs in Hor. Carm. 1.22. in which Horace.
wandering beyond the boundaries of his Sabine farm. is saved
from a potential wolf attack by the fact that he is singing of his beloved.
14 Both Propertius and Horace. therefore. claim that lovers are
protected; within this claim. however. lies the implication that for lovers
the external world is a dangerous place. To Horace anything outside
the boundaries of his Sabine farm constitutes a threat (an idea that
also occurs in his Carm. 1.17). while Propertius' extravagant claims of
protection in his poem ring a little hollow in the light of his attitude to
the external world in his monobiblos. In his first book Propertius displays
a state of mind cornmon in love poetry. Love is often bound up
with a sense of place; the poet is usually restricted or restricts himself
and his mistress to a particular locality. usually Rome and its environs.
Attempts by him or his mistress to move outside this environment constitute
a threat to the relationship. In 1.6 Propertius rejects an invitation
by Tullus (who will reappear in 3.22) to make a journey to learned
Athens (doctae Athenae) and the wealth of Asia on the grounds that he
will not be able to endure Cynthia's distress (13-18). In I.II Cynthia's
absence in the notorious watering place of Baiae has Propertius worrying
about the strength of her fidelity (27-8). In particular Elegy 3. I 6
recalls 1.17 (and. to some extent. 1.18) where a premature and unsuccessful
attempt on Propertius' part to run away from Cynthia results
in his isolation in a hostile and desolate environment.
There are several intriguing parallels between 3.16 and I.17 that
suggest that Propertius means the reader consciously to recall the
earlier elegy. In both elegies Propertius envisages how he will be
commemorated after death by the attentions of his mistress; it is his
association with his mistress that makes his death celebrated and his
life worthwhile (1.17.21-4. 3.16.23-4). Even more interesting is the
way in which Propertius picks up a word from the final line of I. I 7
and repeats it with a twist in this poem. This is the participle mansuetus.
from the verb mansuescere. to tame or civilize. In 1.17 Propertius
applies it to the shores to which he will return after his isolation from
Cynthia (mansuetis litoribus. 28). At 3.16.10 he applies the adjective to
Cynthia's very hands. recalling how he was once rejected by her for
13 See R.G.M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard. A Commentary on Horace. Odes Book I
(Oxford 1970) 263.
14 namque me silva lupus in Sabina. / dum meam canto Lalagen et ultra /
terminum curis vagor expeditis. / fugit inermem. "For as I was singing of my
Lalage and wandering beyond the boundaries of my farm in the Sabine woods.
unarmed and free from care. there fled from me a wolf" (9-12).

"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT" 133
an entire year and proclaiming in me mansuetas non habet ilIa manus.
"against me that woman doesn't have civilized hands."J5 Thus. as in
1.17. Cynthia's withdrawal of her favours results in Propertius' isolation
from civilization and everything that is good in life: withdrawal
from her implies a separation from fame. human warmth and his creative
impulse as a poet.
Thus in 3.16 the reader encounters a scenario not very far removed
from 1.17. where his mistress. poetry and civilization are inextricably
entwined in Propertius' mind. How does he disengage himself from
this state of mind and bring himself and the reader to 3.2 I where
separation from Cynthia does not result in a desolate environment and
an ignoble death?
Between these two poems Propertius has placed four elegies: a
poem to Bacchus. a consolatio and two love elegies. Each of these elegies
has a verbal or thematic link to the preceding one. suggesting that
they should be read as a sequence: in 3.18 there is a reference to Bacchus
(5-6). linking it with 3.17. the hymn to Bacchus. in 3.19 the allusion
to Minos. the judge of the dead (27-8). connects it with 3.18. the
consolatio. and in 3.20 an allusion to a voyage to Africa (4) echoes a
reference to the straits of the Syrtes in the previous poem (7). It is
noteworthy that the love elegies come last in this sequence. Propertius
firstly moves the reader away from the confined and introspective
world of love elegy to the external world and then revisits his relationship
in the light of these outward journeys.
In the two elegies set in the external world (3.17 and 3.18) the balance
of Greek and Roman themes is continued with the first. the poem
to Bacchus. having a Greek setting and the second. the consolatio for
Marcellus. a Roman one. In the first (3.17) Propertius appeals to the
god of wine to help free him from the tyranny of his love (6). the first
time that he professes a wish for escape from love. He speaks of his
love as a fire ablaze within his bones. a curse that only death or wine
will heal (9-10). He promises that if Bacchus cures him he will devote
himself to the god and sing of Bacchus and his legends (13-14. 21-8).
Finally he draws a parallel between his new-found poetic voice and
that of the lyric poet Pindar (39-40).
The journey motif is reiterated in this poem with Propertius' appeal
to Bacchus to give him prosperous sails (da mihi ... vela secunda, 2).
The direction that Propertius travels in this case is towards Horace's
15 Propertius employs only one other instance of this word in his poetry. at
1.9.12. where he describes elegy in opposition to epic: carmina mansuetus levia
quaerit Amor. "civilized Love seeks smooth songs." In this instance as well.
civilization and love are directly linked to Propertius' productivity as a poet.

134 JACQUELINE CLARKE
Odes and the world of Greek lyric poetry. This elegy appears to be a
deliberate echo of Horace Carm. 3.25. where Horace makes an appeal
to Bacchus to enable him to write poetry on political themes'6; Horace
intends to set the eternal glory of great Caesar among the stars and in
the council of Jupiter (3-6). This divine inspiration is important because.
as Horace himself states. he is attempting something completely
new in the history of Roman poetry:
dicam insigne recens adhuc
indictum ore alio
I shall sing something fresh and famous.
never spoken by another mouth
As Williams comments. "this type of poetry was virtually an invention
of Augustan poetry. "'7
It could be argued that Propertius. with this deliberate echo of Horace.
is teasing the reader by implying that he will take a similar political
direction with his work. If this is the case. then the reader's expectations
are not met, for Propertius does not continue the elegy in this
direction but travels rather to the world of Greek mythology and Pindar.
who often included such myths in his poems. 18 But it is interesting
that his claim of inspiration from Pindar anticipates Horace's tribute to
Pindar in his Fourth Book of Odes (4.2.1), for the image of poet as
priest goes back to Pindar. 19 Propertius thus lays claim to a similar
16 Hubbard (above. n. 2) 72 also draws a parallel with the other Bacchic poem
Carm. 2.19. but I agree with J.F. Millar. "Propertius' Hymn to Bacchus and contemporary
poetry." AJPh 112 (1991) 78. that the resemblances to this ode may be
due to nothing more than the conventional literary treatment of the god. Carm.
3.25. on the other hand. has specific verbal similarities to elegy 3.11' see Millar 78.
80.
'7 G. Williams. The Third Book of Horace's Odes (Oxford 1969) 31. In Book 4.
Propertius in his role as a Roman Callimachus once again makes an appeal to
Bacchus (1.62-4).
18 Miller (above.n. 16) 79 agrees with this but further suggests that the elegy
also contains deliberate echoes of Tibullus (81-2) that help to anchor the text in
the elegiac tradition. If this is the case (and Millar admits the verbal echoes are
rather slight). then it is another way of teasing the reader; the elegy has a foot
firmly planted in both worlds leaving the reader uncertain as to which direction
Propertius will take. As Millar comments. "He turns to Tibullus and Horace for
new ideas for his poetic experiment. but in each case ultimately distances himself
from his fellow poets" (86). See Butrica (above. n. 4) 140. who is also of the view
that Propertius' apparent uncertainty of direction in Book 3 is deliberate.
19 Hubbard (above. n. 2) 75. J.K. Newman. Augustan Propertius: The Recapitulation
ofa Genre (Hildesheim 1997) 263 cites the opening of the second Dithyramb
(Sn.-M·74)·

"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT" 135
vatic stance for his achievements. 2o and the fact that Pindar's literary
output included dirges leads naturally into the next elegy.
In 17 Propertius asserted that only death or wine could free him
from the tyranny of love: from experimenting with wine in 17 he
moves on to death in 18. But Propertius does not here. as he does so
often in other poems. envisage his own death. Instead this elegy is a
consolatio or epikedion for Marcellus. Augustus' possible successor.
who died at Baiae. the fashionable watering place on the Bay of Naples.
By following the Horatian-inspired elegy 17 with a poem that is in
fact devoted to a member of the Augustan gens. it seems that Propertius
is again teasing the reader about the direction he will take. But the
elegy does not, on the whole. devote much space to eulogising the Augustan
gens and its achievements. On the contrary. Propertius rather
focuses on the futility of Marcellus' genus and his connection with the
house of Caesar in the face of the all-consuming fires of death:
quid genus aut virtus aut optima profuit illi
mater. et amplexum Caesaris esse focos?
aut modo tarn pleno fluitantia vela theatro.
et per maternas omnia gesta manus?
occidit. et rnisero steterat vicesimus annus.
How did he benefit from his birth or courage or
His mother's excellence or his union with the house of Caesar
Or the waving awnings of a theatre. recently full.
And all the things his mother's care contrived?
He is dead, his twentieth year the appointed term for him. poor
wretch!
(II-IS)
While it is the case that such lamentations are not untypical in a cansolatio.
21 the true bleakness and negativity of this picture becomes clear
when one compares the lament for Marcellus in Aeneid 6. There. at
least, Virgil devotes more space to eulogising Marcellus' potential in a
series of future statements and unfulfilled conditions. 22 Here any sug-
20 It is at this point in the poem that the echoes of Hor. Carm.3.25 are most
pronounced: haec ego non humili referam memoranda eoturno. "I will recount
such things which are worthy to be recorded in no humble style" in Propertius
3.17.39 echoes Horace's nil parvum aut humili modo. "nothing small or in humble
manner" at 3.25.17. This suggests that this is the real point of the poem. even if. as
Millar (above. n. 16) 79 observes. Propertius' pledge of a Pindaric offering is
somewhat of a fantasy.
21 See P. Fedeli. Praperzio: IJ Libra Terzo delle Elegie (Bari 1985) 553. Compare
Hor. Carm. 1.24.5-12.
22 neepuer Iliaea quisquam de gente Latinos / in tantum spe tollet avos. nee
Romula quondam / ullo se tantum tellus iaetabit alumno ... non Wi se quisquam
impune tuJisset /obvius armato. seu cum pedes iret in hostem. / seu spumantis

136 JACQUELINE CLARKE
gestion of greatness is undercut in the very first line by the phrase
quid ... profuit.
With his elaborate description of Baiae at the beginning of this
elegy. Propertius means the reader to recall the description of Baiae at
the beginning of elegy I I of his monobiblos. the poem where he represents
the place as a threat to the relationship between himself and
Cynthia. 23 The link is an intriguing one. Baiae has fulfilled its threatening
potential in a way different from that anticipated; rather than
sever Cynthia's fidelity. it has cut short t e life of a noble youth.
Barsby comments that "whereas previously as a lover he [Propertius]
had cursed Baiae for its threat to Cynthia's loyalty, now as a poet of
higher pretensions he curses it as a bringer of death to Augustus' protegee.
"24 Notwithstanding this. the link between these two poems helps
to create the suggestion that Propertius is also mourning the anticipated
ending of his union with Cynthia. Indeed. Falkner argues that
readers would initially presume from the opening description that
they were reading another love elegy about Cynthia and only corne to
the realization that it was a consolatio at 9-1025: another instance of
Propertius teasing the reader about his ultimate direction. The melancholy
tone of the elegy. with its message that beauty. power and
wealth will inevitably succumb to death (27-8). highlights the pettiness
of the world of the courtesan where such concerns are all-important.
The journey motif is taken up at the end of the poem where Propertius
envisages the passage of Marcellus' soul into heaven "far from the
paths of men by the road that Claudius the victor of the Sicilian earth
and Caesar trod" (quo Siculae victor telluris Claudius et quo / Caesar.
equi foderet calcaribus armos. "No youth of Italian race shall raise / his Latin
forefathers so high with his promise. nor shall Romulus' land ever / vaunt so
much in any of her offspring ... against him while armed none would have advanced
/ unscathed. whether he would meet the enemy on foot / or dig his spurs
into the flanks of his foaming horse" (875-'7.879-81).
23 As T.M. Falkner. "Myth. setting and immortality in Propertius 3.18." q 73
(1977) 13 points out. the references to Misenus (]) a d Hercules (4) and the erotic
overtones of clausus and ludit (I) would recall the earlier elegy.
24 Barsby (above. n. 8) 136. See also Falkner (above. n. 23) 14.
25 Falkner (above. n. 23) 13. As he observes. 3.18 is the only poem in Book 3 in
which there is no immediately visible connection with the subject of amor. Cynthia
or the writing of love poetry. Of course. as far as the ancients were concerned.
elegy originated as funeral song: G. Luck. The Latin Love Elegy (London
1969) 26. Thus. by placing a funereal elegy at this point in the book Propertius is in
effect taking it back to its roots. The interesting mixture of epikedion and love
elegy has a precedent in Catullus 68, in which a place (Troy) is employed in a
similar fashion to link a lament for Catullus' deceased brother with his struggle
to come to terms with the imperfections of his relationship with Lesbia.

"GOODBYE TO ALL THAT" 137
ab humana cessit in astra via. 33-4). This journey of death with its
sense of separation and transcendence heralds the metamorphosis of
Propertius' poetic output. Its final phrases ab humana via ... in astra.
"from the human pathway into the stars." may contain an echo of
Horace Carm. I.1. where in his role of vates he envisages himself as
separated from the common throng (secernunt populo. 32). striking
the stars with his upraised head (sublimi {eriam sidera vertice.36).
It is with the sense of detachment created by these two outward
journeys that Propertius revisits his relationship with Cynthia in 3.19
and 3.20. In the past. commentators voiced doubts about whether these
two poems. particularly 3.20. referred to Cynthia. and suggested that
another woman was being addressed. 26 More recent scholarship has
taken the view that the poems are to Cynthia. and this is the position
taken by this article. for they lose much of their point if they refer to
another woman. One of the main aims of this section of Book 3 is for
Propertius to disengage himself and the reader from Cynthia. As we
will see. these two poems playa crucial role in this process of separation.
So what is the purpose of 19. a fairly conventional and somewhat
uninspiring poem? There is a point to it. and an interesting one. In this
elegy Propertius claims that women's lust is far stronger than that of
men:
Obicitur totiens a te mihi nostra libido:
crede rnihi. vobis imperat ista magis.
Often you reproach me with men's lust:
Believe me. that passion rather rules you women.
(1-2)
He then proceeds to give a series of mythological exempla. all of which
relate to the power of lust over women. In previous poems the power
balance in the relationship has been very much on Cynthia's side: in
16. for instance. Propertius claimed that he was more afraid of Cynthia's
tears than any midnight foe (8) and in 17 he represents his love
as a fire ablaze within his bones (9). There is no hint of that attitude
here; instead. this elegy represents the poet's attempt to turn the tables
on their relationship. placing the burden of lust squarely on Cynthia's
shoulders. The exemplum that concludes this poem. the story of Scylla
who is drowned by the lover for whom she commits treason (2r-6). is
designed to show the sort of fearful punishment that can lie in wait for
lustful and unrestrained women such as Cynthia. The final picture of
Minos. judge of the dead (27-8). suggests the more judgemental and
26 See further under the discussion of 3.20.

138 JACQUELINE CLARKE
active role that Propertius has now assumed in his relationship with
Cynthia. 27
The journey motif is not especially conspicuous in this poem. but
Propertius does compare Cynthia's uncontrollable nature to a journey
over rough seas:
et placidurn Syrtes porturn et bona litora nautis
praebeat hospitio saeva Malea suo.
quam possit vestros quisquam reprehendere cursus
et rabidae stirnulos frangere nequitiae.
Sooner shall the Syrtes offer a calm haven and savage Malea
Give pleasant shores with a kindly welcome to sailors.
Than any man shall be able to check you in your course
Or shatter the goads of your savage wantonness.
(7-10)
The motif is then elaborated at the end of the poem with the picture of
Scylla's body being dragged through the sea (26). While this metaphor
is by no means unusual (Horace. for instance. employs it of Pyrrha at
Carm. 1.5.5-12). the allusion that Propertius makes to the dangerous
straits of the Syrtes (7), a sandbank off the North African coast. is interesting.
for he will revisit this image in the penultimate elegy of this
book. In 3.24 Propertius indicates that he has done with Cynthia forever
by making a statement to the effect that he has crossed the Syrtes
and cast his anchor: traiectae Syrtes. ancora iacta mihi est (16). This is
another link that ties this elegy more closely to the Cynthia cycle.
The second love poem. 20. begins with a departure from Cynthia.
In ironic fashion it is not Propertius who is leaving Cynthia but another
of her lovers who is setting out for Africa (1-4). picking up the
reference to the Syrtes in the previous poem. But Propertius himself
does not leave Cynthia in this elegy: far from it. for the poem apparently
describes a reconciliation with her. Barsby points out that this
poem has echoes of elegy 8 in the monobiblos in which Cynthia. on the
point of departing with another lover. is persuaded to stay and resume
her affair with Propertius. 28 In both cases the reconciliation is
described in such glowing terms that it recalls the very start of their
affair.
This is the last true love elegy of the book and is particularly in-
27 In view of the fact that Cynthia's real name wa allegedly Hostia. it is possible
that there is a play on the word hoste in line 28 (victor erat quamvis, aequus
in hoste fuit. "though he was victor. yet he was fair to his foe"). Propertius assumes
the role of a just and deserving victor over his conquered enemy. Cynthia
(hoste).
28 ].A. Barsby, "Propertius III 20." Mnemosyne28 (1975) 31.

"GOODBYE TO ALL THA T" I39
triguing, for here Propertius revisits the early stages of his relationship
with Cynthia when there is scarcely a stain upon it. 2 ') Indeed, the
language that Propertius employs of their relationship suggests freshness
and renewal: the night of love is described as though it is the first
(nox mihi prima venit, "the first night of love has come for me," 13), a
new contract is written to seal the new love (15-16). The position of this
poem, so close to the final separation, has puzzled some commentators
to the extent that they feel the mistress referred to cannot be Cynthia.
Camps, for instance, thinks that if Propertius had intended the mistress
to be Cynthia and the placement of this poem to produce an
ironic effect he would have exploited it more definitely.3 0 Several
scholars have convincingly refuted this view. As we will see. there is
plenty of irony in the circumstances and language of this poem and. as
Barsby comments. if it is to Cynthia then the poem gains an extra dimension.3'
Nevertheless there may be a level at which the poem is intended
to be deliberately ambiguous. The reader is left guessing as to
whether the poem describes a reconciliation with an old mistress or a
move to a new one. On one level it doesn't really matter. for, given
the conventions of love elegy. the reader should be aware that. new or
old, the relationship once established will inevitably change and decay.
Thus the placement of this poem, next to Propertius' departure for
Athens in 21 and the bitter repudiations of 23 and 24. is designed to
undercut the sense of joy and the protestations of fidelity that are associated
with this first night of love. 32 Quite a lot of space in the poem is
devoted to describing the contract that will guard the renewed love
against the destructive powers of lust; following immediately after
elegy 19 where women's lust breaks all bounds. the reader must be
aware that this contract is doomed to be broken. Significantly there are
several references to cycles of time in this poem. Propertius appeals to
the moon to lengthen its progress and the sun to shorten its course so
the first night of love is prolonged:
nox mihi prima venit! primae date tempora noctis!
longius in primo. Luna, morare toro.
2') Some commentators. for instance Butler and Barber. have divided this elegy
into two. but I agree with Baker's arguments (above. n. 7,338-339) that it is better
to read the elegy as a single poem where a reconciliation is described as though it
is a new love.
30 W.A. Camps. Propertius. Elegies, Book III (Cambridge 1966) 147. Likewise
Butler and Barber (above, n. 3) 312.
3 1 Barsby (above. n. 28) 36. See also R.J. Baker, "Propertius' lost bona," AJPh 90
(1969); G. Williams, Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford 1968) 417.
3 2 See also Baker (above. n. 31) 333-334: Barsby (above, n. 28) 38.

140 JACQUELINE CLARKE
tu quoque. qui aestivos spatiosius exigis ignes.
Phoebe. moraturae contrahe lucis iter.
The first night of love is coming for me. Give me the length of the
first night.
Moon. linger longer than accustomed over our first union.
You too. Phoebus. who draw out your summer fires too long.
shorten the course of your lingering light.
(I3-14. 1I- 12)
Later he refers to the hours that will be drawn out in conversation and
lovemaking (19-20). But both Propertius and the reader are all too
aware that any attempt to stay time must be doomed to failure. Time
has also been represented as a type of journey in this book. 3J and the
message that emerges from these poems is that journeys inevitably go
on.
Finally we come to the first words of 3.21. the magnum iter which
Propertius will make to Athens to separate himself from his mistress.
The poem describes a journey Propertius will undertake but in a sense
he has already made it. Although at the start of the poem he devotes
some lines to describing the hold that his mistress has over him, his
farewell to her a few lines later is quick and easy.34 He has brought
himself and the reader to the mental state where separation is inevitable
and can be effected with little effort.
Thus, unlike the attempts Propertius has made in the monobiblos,
this separation from Cynthia does not result in his isolation from
civilization but in a journey towards Athens, centre of culture and
learning. The first line shows us the difference:
magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas.
I am compelled to set forth on a mighty journey to learned Athens.
Propertius employs the passive cogor that occurs frequently in his
monobiblos in relation to the servitude of love. At 1.1.8. for instance,
he is compelled to keep adverse gods because of Cynthia's hardheartedness.
at 1.7.7-8 he is compelled to serve his sorrow and bemoan
his harsh lot in life and at I.I8.30 his estrangement from his
mistress means that he is compelled to listen alone to shrill-voiced sea
birds. But in 3.21 he is no longer compelled by love but driven towards
learning (doctas), suggesting his move towards Greek models
33 See Putnam (above. n. 12) WI on the journey of time in 3.10. Cynthia's birthday
elegy: "This happy temporal round. a purely symbolic 'journey: extends
from the reddening sun to the fall of night and a final prayer."
34 Hubbard (above. n. 2) 9 remarks upon what she perceives as a lack of seriousness
in this poem. Its glibness reflects the fact that Propertius has already
brought himself to the state where he can separate himself easily from Cynthia.

"GOODBYE TO ALL THA T"
such as Callimachus. 35
It has been observed that this is the first poem in Book 3 in which
Cynthia is actually named. and that Propertius only calls Cynthia by
name when he is ready to say goodbye to her. 36 Her name occurs at
line 9. and its placement is significant. for it is surrounded by the
words mutatis ... terris. Once again Propertius links Cynthia with
Rome and its environs: changing lands will sever their relationship.
this time for good. Also of significance is the following line. where
Propertius states that once Cynthia is absent from his eyes. love will be
far from his soul: quantum oculis. animo tam procul ibit amor. The
word oculis recalls the very first line of the monobiblos: Cynthia
prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis. "Cynthia first ensnared me with
her eyes. "37 This emphasis on eyes is in keeping with the highly visual
nature of Propertius' poetry. and prepares the reader for the extended
visual metaphor of the journey that follows.
Much as Catullus did in his dismissal of Lesbia at poem II. Propertius
envisages the journey as a means of creating a mental distance
between himself and his mistress. At elegy I.17.25-8 he unfurled his
sails to come back to Rome. love and society; here he hoists his sails to
farewell it:
Romanae turres et vos valeatis. amici.
qualiscumque mihi tuque. puella. vale!
You towers of Rome and you my friends. farewell.
And you. my love. whatever you have been to me. farewell!
(15-16)
The towers of Rome. Propertius' friends and Cynthia are dismissed in
a single couplet. 38 and Propertius then undergoes a sea-change. de-
35 It is true that Callimachus is nowhere mentioned in this poem and the journey
is towards Athens rather than Alexandria. On the other hand. as RF.
Thomas points out in "Callimachus back in Rome." in M.A. Harder et aJ.. OOs..
Callimachus (Groningen 1993) 208. intertextuality and allusion and the crossing
of genre boundaries were a vital part of Callimachean poetics. Athens. as the
source of so many different genres of literature as well as the visual arts functions
as a suitable destination for a student of Callimachus. Fedeli (above. n. 21)
620 takes a somewhat different view. arguing that it is mainly Menander (given
the epithet doctus) who symbolizes Hellenistic refinement. It is interesting. as he
points out. that doctus is also applied to Epicurus; the word is thus used three
times in this poem.
3 6 For instance. Camps (above. n. 30) 15I; Williams (above. n. 31) 417·
37 Compare also 2.15.12 and 2.15.23 for the close relationship between love and
the eyes in Propertius.
3 8 Sullivan (above. n. 7) II6 comments on Propertius' habit of addressing his
friends in his elegies. especially in his monobiblos; he attributes this to the influ-

"GOODBYE TO ALL THA T" I43
of separation for the reader. enabling Cynthia to be dismissed with a
few choice words in the final two elegies of the book. His poetry has
taken a meandering route. keeping the reader guessing about his
ultimate destination: he ventures into the worlds of Greek lyric. sepulchral
elegy. back to his own monobiblos and outwards to the Carmina
of his contemporary Horace. All the time his poetry has continued to
evolve in a new direction. away from the close social world of lovers.
friends and enemies. When Propertius returns to Rome in the elegy
following 3.21. or rather welcomes the soldier Tullus back to it from
his travels in the monobiblos. it is a very different Rome that he comes
to. In glowing. patriotic terms he praises the glories of Rome. contrasting
it favourably with the wonders of other lands in a manner reminiscent
of the passages at the end of Georgics 2 and the start of Odes
1.7. In a sense. the world has been turned on its head from the previous
elegy: Courtney comments that the Greek world that seemed so
appealing to Propertius is now a land of monsters. while Italy has become
attractiveY This is a Rome made strong by the sword and pietas
(19-22). one fit for heroes to contract legitimate marriages and beget
children (39-42); there is no place for Cynthia in this Rome. 43 It is this
Rome that Propertius will celebrate in his first elegy of Book 4.
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES
UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
AUSTRALIA 5005
42 Courtney (above. n. 10) 52.
43 It is worth noting that Putnam (above. n. 12) sees this Rome as something of
a compromise between Imperial Rome and the elegists' Rome: see further Putnam
106. It is possible that there is a degree of irony in this poem: it is interesting
that Propertius devotes much more space to castigating Greece than praising
Rome and that his descriptions of the gods and heroes of Greek mythology
(29-36) have a certain lightness and frivolity to them. While this playfulness may
merely be in imitation of Callimachus (see Thomas [above, n. 351 208) it may also
be meant to suggest that neither the old Greece nor the new Rome should be taken
entirely seriously. [ do not, however, agree with Jacobson's view (above. n. I I,
170) that Tullus' return to Rome in this poem symbolizes a rejection of Propertius'
plan to abandon love elegy. Even if the Rome to which Tullus returns is
viewed with a certain ironic light. it is a very different Rome from the one that
nurtured Propertius' and Cynthia's love affair.

Mouseion, Series III, Vol. 4 (2004) 145-170
16>2004 Mouseion
FEMALE AND DWARF GLADIATORS
STEPHEN BRUNET
While female gladiators hold nearly as much fascination for modern
scholars as they did for the Romans, the motivation and rationale for
having women fight in the arena have not been fully appreciated. I
Symptomatic of this lack of understanding is the long-standing and often
repeated idea that female gladiators were matched against dwarf
gladiators as part of the search for unusual spectacles to please Roman
audiences. What this study will first show is that no grounds exist for
believing that women ever fought dwarfs in the arena. In turn, the uncritical
acceptance of this belief by so many scholars indicates the need
for a complete review of the evidence with a view to establishing when
and under what conditions women actually fought in the arena. The
second part of this study provides such a review, showing in particular
that matches between female gladiators or hunts involving women
were fairly rare. As such. the Romans would have found female gladiators
and women venatores to be interesting in and of themselves.
Moreover. spectacles in which women fought each other or wild animals
were attractive to the Romans because they provided an opportunity
to see individuals who would not normally be considered capable
of bravery demonstrate their valor as warriors. Thus, to the Roman
way of thinking, matching female gladiators with dwarfs or having
them participate in other bizarre spectacles was neither necessary nor
desirable.
DID WOMEN FIGHT DWARFS IN THE ARENA?
The belief that Domitian matched female gladiators against dwarf
gladiators at least once. if not more often, during his reign has a long
I I would like to thank my colleagues Richard Clairmont, R. Scott Smith, and
Stephen Trzaskoma for their willingness to comment on multiple drafts of this
article. Alexis Young of Wilfrid Laurier University kindly pointed out the reference
to Kathleen Coleman's article on the female gladiators from Halicarnassus.
The two readers for Mouseion and the editors, James Butrica and Mark
Joyal. also provided many useful observations and corrections that, I hope.
helped to clarify my arguments greatly. Research funding was provided by the
Dean's Office of the College of Liberal Arts and the Center for Humanities at
the University of New Hampshire.
145

STEPHEN BRUNET
history.2 On the basis of the evidence of Stat. Silv. 1.6 and Dio 67.8,
Navarre stated unequivocally that Domitian was responsible for making
women fight dwarfs in the arena. 3 Essentially the same statement
can be found in Wiedemann's study of the gladiatorial games, although
for support he cites Suet. Dom. 4.1 and Mart. Sp. 68. 4 In his commentary
on Dio. Murison interprets the evidence of 67.8. as Navarre had done,
on the basis of two of Martial's epigrams. 1.43 and 14.213. 5 The assumption
that Dio 67.8 proves that women fought dwarfs reappears in Gunderson's
exploration of the gender issues raised by the Roman games
and in the recent treatment of female gladiators by Schafer. 6 Admittedly,
some scholars, such as Ville, have understood these passages in a
different way, but their views are apparent only from remarks they
make in passing about Stat. Silv. 1.6 or Dio 67.8.7 Nowhere have they or
any other scholar openly challenged the belief that the Roman games
featured matches between women and dwarfs.
In all. then. proponents of the view that women were matched
against dwarfs have based their position on a total of six passages:
Mart. Sp. 6B. 1.43. 14.213: Dio 67.8: Stat. Silv. 1.6: and Suet. Dom. 4.1. 8 It is
2 The notion that dwarfs faced off against women in the arena has also been
played up as an acknowledged fact in a recent television documentary: "Gladiators,"
part 4 of Warrior Challenge. Channel Thirteen/WNET New York: Educational
Broadcasting Corporation (originally broadcast May 27, 2003). A gladiatorial
combat between barbarian women of no particular ethnicity and pygmies
from Africa (actually black dwarfs) also figures prominently in Cecil B. de­
Mille's 1932 film The Sign ofthe Cross.
3 O. Navarre, in C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, eds., Dictionnaire des antiquites
grecques et romaines (PARIS 1877-1919) S.v. Nanus.
4 T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London 1992) 112, 125 n. 45.
5 C. Murison, Rebellion and Reconstruction. Galba to Domitian: An Historical
Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History, Books 64-67 (A.D. 68-96)
(Atlanta 1999) 239. Murison, however, correctly understood that Stat. Silv. 1.6
refers only to the appearance of women and dwarfs in the same show, not to a
contest between the two types of gladiators.
6 E. Gunderson, "The ideology of the arena," ClAnt IS (1996) 143; D. Schafer,
"Frauen in del' Arena," in H. Bellen and H. Heinen, eds., Fiinfzig Jahre Forschungen
zur antiken Sklaverei der Mainzer Akademie: 1950-2000. Miscellanea
zumJubili:ium (Stuttgart 2001) 245-246.
7 The list of those who seem to believe that wome did not fight dwarfs includes
L. Friedlander, M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton Libri (LeipZig 1886)
on 1.43 (his opinion is not clear in Sittengeschichte Roms, II [Leipzig lO
1921-23]
53); G. Ville, La gladiature en Occident des origines a la mort de Domitien.
BEFAR 245 (Rome 1981) 152; and D. Briquet "Les femmes gladiateurs: Examen
du dossier," Ktema 17 (1992) 49.
B No scholar seems to have cited Petro 45.7 in this connection. although the
passage does mention a gladiatorial show involving both women and, if the text

FEMALE AND DWARF GLADIATORS 147
especially telling that these scholars regularly cite these sources without
any comment or discussion. The assumption seems to be that their interpretation
is unproblematic and does not need to be examined. Yet
when these passages are in fact subjected to careful analysis. the most
that can be asserted is that women and dwarfs were a noteworthy feature
of Domitian's games and that they may have occasionally appeared
during the same spectacle. They never. however. appeared in the arena
at the same time. The misconception that female and dwarf gladiators
were matched against each other has arisen essentially because scholars
have pushed the evidence further than it will go.
Easiest to deal with are those references that clearly mention either
women or dwarfs but not both. A good example is Sp. 68 in which Martial
argued for the remarkable nature of Titus' games on the grounds
that women were now capable of deeds similar to those for which Hercules
had been celebrated in the past. notably his killing of the Nemean
lion. 9 The event that triggered Martial's praise is described by Dio. who
noted that Titus employed women to kill animals during the extravagant
games held at the inauguration of the Colosseum (66.25.2). Probably
to be read with Sp. 68 is Sp. 6. which also seems to have celebrated
the feminine valor displayed during these games. In this epigram Martial
observed that while in the past only Mars had served Titus. now
Venus did as well. Weinreich persuasively argued that Venus here symbolized
the women who fought in the arena during Titus' show. IO
Less
convincing is his idea that these women were dressed to resemble representations
of armed Aphrodite or Venus. While Venus or Aphrodite
was often shown holding or standing near a shield or other weapons.
images of this goddess actually armed and in a fighting pose were not
common and it is unlikely that the audience would have understood the
reference if Titus intended to draw on the tradition of Venus as a war-
is emended. dwarfs. Yet this passage. like the six discussed here. cannot be taken
to show that women fought dwarfs in the arena; see below. 11.1 in the list of evidence
for female gladiators.
9 Friedlander in his edition of Martial's epigrams ([above. n. 7] 51. 135-137)
argued that some of the poems in Sp. probably referred to Domitian's games as
well as to Titus' show. His arguments have been disproved by Ville (above. n. 7)
147-148. and in any case they were not directed at the two epigrams discussed
here. I follow Shackleton Bailey's text of the last line haec iam feminea vidimus
acta manu. The other proposed readings likewise indicate that Martial believed
that the actions of the female venatores were remarkable and to be praised.
10 O. Weinreich. Studien zu Martial: Literarhistorische und reJigionsgeschichtliche
Untersuchungen. Tiibinger Beitrage zur Altertumswissenschaft 4
(Stuttgart 1928) 34-36.

STEPHEN BRUNET
rior goddess."
Weinreich's suggestion does raise the thought that these women
were made to resemble Venus in another way. that is in being completely
bare-breasted when they fought or at least during the procession
that marked the beginning of the spectacle. The image of a halfclothed
Venus in a military context would have been familiar to the
Roman audience from Titus' own coins. which were struck late in
Vespasian's reign and again not long before Titus dedicated the Colosseum."
The reverse of these issues shows Venus from the back with
drapery only covering her thighs and holding a helmet in her right
hand and a spear in her left. Moreover. even if the audience failed to
make the connection between these bare-breasted gladiators and Venus.
this costume would have served another important purpose. The audience
would have been left with no doubts about the gender of these venatores.
13 Yet leaving aside speculations about how these women were
dressed. the important thing here is that no element in either epigram
can be connected to any use of dwarfs. These poems were concerned
exclusively with the appearance of women in the arena.
The same holds true for Suetonius' comment that Domitian held
hunts and gladiatorial contests. some of whic took place at night and
some of which included not just men but also women: [edidit] nam venationes
gladiatoresque et noctibus ad lychnuchos. nec virorum modo
pugnas. sed et feminarum (4.1). Again. nothing in this passage can be
taken to refer to dwarfs. Moreover. Suetonius was particularly interested
in innovations that showed the emperor supporting (or undermining)
the social order and. as in this passage. revealed the lengths to
which the emperor would go to stage special shows to conciliate the
people. '4 Thus Suetonius was not likely to have overlooked contests.
such as the pairing of women and dwarfs. that were far more novel and
much more likely to amaze a Roman audience than games held at night
or those in which only female gladiators appeared.
" For the distinction between the depictions of Aphrodite/Venus with
weapons (often those of Ares after she had conquered him in love) and images
of her as a war-like goddess. see J. Flemberg. "The transformations of the
armed Aphrodite," in B. Berggreen and N. Marinatos. eds.. Greece & Gender
(Bergen 1995) 109-122. On images of armed Aphrodite. see LIMCII.I. esp. 36.
12 RIC205 (Titus under Vespasian). 9 (Titus).
13 The use of costuming to reveal the gender and the bravery of female
gladiators and venatores is discussed below in the last section.
14 On Suetonius' interest in the social and political effect of an emperor's actions
regarding the games. see K. Bradley, "The significance of the spectacula in
Suetonius' Caesares." RSA I I (1981) 129-137: A. Wallace-Hadrill. Suetonius: The
Scholar and His Caesars (New Haven 1984) 124-128. 162. 164. 180.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS 149
Unlike Sp. 6 and 6B. which were written specifically to commemorate
the games given to inaugurate the Colosseum. the two epigrams of
Martial cited by Murison. 1.43 and 14.213. cannot be connected to any
specific spectacle. and their effectiveness depends on his audience's general
knowledge of how dwarfs were used in the Roman games. 15 In 1.43
Martial complains that his host had served such a small boar for dinner
that an unarmed dwarf could have killed it. The impression that Martial
was specifically referring to dwarfs who fought as venatores is reinforced
by his claim that. as retribution for his shabby dinner. the host
himself should have to face a boar in the arena. The second epigram
14.213 was intended to be inscribed on a small shield to be given as a
gift. Martial joked that the recipient would find it to be a parma (a very
small shield), but for a dwarf it would serve as a scutum (a large
shield).16 The epigram clearly assumes that dwarfs used shields. either
when they fought as gladiators or as venatores. Most important here.
though. is the fact that nothing in these two epigrams has any connection
with the use of women in the arena. Martial was thinking exclusively
of the dwarfs he and his audience had seen perform in the arena
at one time or another.
In contrast to Martial and Suetonius. Stat. Silv. 1.6 deals with a case
in which women and dwarfs appeared in the same spectacle. The poem.
in fact. constitutes our best evidence for the fascination that these two
types of entertainers held for the Romans. While not intended as an historical
account. this poem actually provides a chronicle of a very elaborate
festival staged by Domitian in connection with the Saturnalia. 17 The
poem records the gifts of food and various entertainments that made up
the festival from the beginning of the celebration at dawn (9) until well
into the night when Statius could no longer keep himself awake (96-97).
As one of the central events. female gladiators appeared some time be-
15 1.43 may conceivably have been inspired by a particular festival but I am
not convinced that the Charidemus mentioned in 14 was a genuine person. contra
M. Citroni. ed.. M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton liber primus (Florence
1975) 144·
16 The epigram represented a very pointed criticism of Domitian and his interference
in the normal operation of the games. The parma was traditionally
used by the Thracians. described here as the gladiators who normally lost. They
tended to lose during Domitian's reign because he was an ardent supporter of
their traditional opponents. the murmillones. who used the scutum; see
Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms'o 11.75-76 (on this epigram and g.68); Ville
(above. n. 7) 444-445·
17 For the date of this festival. which does not affect the argument here. see
H. Frere. ed.. Stace. Silves Tome I (Livres I-III) (Paris 2
1961) 46 n. 1; Ville (above.
n·7) 152 - 154.

ISO STEPHEN BRUNET
fore nightfall and fought with such virtue and spirit that the audience
thought it was watching a battle involving Amazons (51-56). It is possible
that the women were armed with shield and spear and had one
breast uncovered to reinforce the audience's impression that it was
watching real Amazons fight. 18 As Statius makes very clear (n.b. 57 hie=
"at this point"). the performance of these women was followed by an
entirely separate performance in which a large number of dwarfs participated
(57-64). Scholars have often assumed that these dwarfs, like
the women. fought as gladiators. 19 I have recently argued. however. that
these dwarfs appeared solely as boxers. 2o They first put on a display of
their athletic skill by fighting each other. They next participated in a recreation
of the geranomachy in which they took on the role of pygmies
and fought it out hand-to-beak with cranes to the amusement of Mars.
Virtus. and. presumably. the entire audience. Matching dwarf boxers
against women. who not only outweighed them but were probably
armed like Amazons. would have been nonsensical. Moreover. to judge
from Statius' reference to the laughter provoked by the actions of the
dwarfs. the purpose of this part of the show was to provide some lighthearted
relief from the preceding bloody display of the female gladiators.
Statius' account is thus sufficiently detailed for us to conclude that.
while Domitian certainly made good use of women and dwarfs in this
show. they did not appear in the arena at the same time. and their roles
as entertainers were quite different.
Like Statius, Dio connected Domitian closely with the use of dwarfs
and women in spectacles. The reference comes in a passage in which he
first dealt with the celebrations for Domitian's Dacian victory but then
digressed to comment on the special features of Domitian's other
games. 21
As his last remark in that passage. Dio notes that Domitian often
gave games at night and that there were occasions when he matched
dwarfs and women: lTOAAeXKIC DE Kal TOlle aywvac VUKTWp ElTOIEI, Kal
ECTIV OTE Kal veXvovc Kal yvvalKac cvve[3aA E (67.8.4). Except for the
mention of dwarfs, Dio's comment matches very closely Suetonius' remark
that Domitian held nighttime spectacles and spectacles involving
18 The use of costuming is discussed below in the last section.
19 This view goes back to G. Lafaye. Quelques otes sur les Silvae de Stace.
premier livre (Paris 1896) 72-73. It is accepted by. among others. Navarre
(above. n. 3); Friedlander. Sittengeschichte Roms'o 11.53; and Ville (above. n. 7)
152.
20 For the prevalence of dwarf boxers in the Roman world and the role they
played in Domitian's Saturnalia. see S. Brunet. "Dwarf athletes in the Roman
Empire:' AHB 17 (2003) 17-32.
21 On the structure of this passage. see Ville (abov . n. 7) 151.

STEPHEN BRUNET
dwarfs fight separately in the arena. Neither his statement nor the evidence
of the other authors can be taken to support the idea that women
fought dwarfs in the arena.
The willingness of so many scholars to accept that matches between
women and dwarfs took place. even though the evidence does not bear
this belief out. can be traced in part to the unargued assumption that
female gladiators were simply novelties and had no serious role in the
Roman games. On this view. the Romans enjoyed female gladiators because
they. like dwarfs. were not real gladiators. and so whenever
women fought each other or. even more. when they fought dwarfs.
their parodies of regular gladiatorial contests were highly amusing to
the Romans. So. to quote Gunderson. "on the principle that pairings
match opponents of equivalent worth. women are best matched against
men who are mockeries of real men. "25 A related view connects the
supposed novelty of female gladiators with the continual search by emperors
for bizarre spectacles to please the Roman people. It would thus
only have been a matter of time before some emperor thought of
matching women and dwarfs to produce an even more novel and curious
show than the instances when they had performed separately.
Schafer clearly comes out in favor of this view in her discussion of female
and dwarf gladiators: "Das ist in enge Zusammenhang mit del'
kaiserzeitlichen Entwicklung zu immer raffinierteren und moglichst
auBergewohnlichen Darbietungen zu verstehen. die im Rahmen kaiserlicher
liberalitas gezielt zur Befriedigung des Volkes eingesetzt wurden."26
The fact. however. that women were never paired against
dwarfs suggests that we should reevaluate the assumption that the female
gladiators were valued simply because they were curiosities and
oddities. In particular. the evidence for female gladiators should be examined
carefully to see if some significant principle underlay the use of
women in the arena and limited their appearances to certain conditions
or venues.
THE EVIDENCE FOR FEMALE GLADIATORS AND VENA TORES
The list below includes all known evidence. both literary and artistic.
for women appearing in the arena as gladiators or venatores. The list
has been divided into I. Historical references to women in the arena. II.
Fictional accounts of women who appeared in the arena or played at
being gladiators. III. Legal measures involving women and the arena.
and IV. Representations in art of female gladiat rs. Particular attention
25 Gunderson (above. n. 6) 143.
26 Schafer (above. n. 6) 246.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS 153
has been paid to any details that affect our assessment of whether female
gladiators were a common phenomenon or are helpful in understanding
why the Romans thought it was worthwhile to have women
fight in the arena.
The six passages regarding women in the arena discussed in the previous
section are listed here but only with a brief description since all of
them have been covered in detail above. Not included are those cases in
which women were not given a true opportunity to show their skills as
fighters. Under this heading come the stories of female criminals who
were condemned ad bestias without a chance to resist (e.g. Mart. Sp. 5:
Apul. Met. 10.23) and the ten women who were displayed in Aurelian's
triumph as though they were Amazons (SHA Aurel. 34.1). They had
fought like men on the side of the Goths. but there is no indication that
they were required to demonstrate their prowess as fighters in front of
a Roman audience. I have also left out the venatio given at Puteoli by
Nero's freedman Patrobius in which only Ethiopians-men. women.
and children-took part (D.C. 63.3.1).27 This spectacle does not have
much to do with the Romans' interest in seeing women fight in the
arena. Instead it belongs to the long tradition of bringing native peoples
to Rome so that the Romans could see them hunt their native animals. 28
Finally, Schafer has located several inscriptions mentioning female
slaves with names that were typical of gladiators. 29 Their close association
with the arena. e.g. as spouses of gladiators. is also suggestive of
the possibility that they themselves were gladiators. There is no clear
indication. however. that these women ever fought in the arena and so
these inscriptions have not been listed here.
27 Dio does not specifically call the spectacle a venatio, but the nature of the
festival is made clear by the fact that Tiridates. in whose honor the games were
held. took a hand in shooting some of the animals.
28 This tradition includes Sulla's use of hunters from Mauritania to kill IOO
lions (Plu. Sullo 5.1; Sen. Dial. 10.13.6; Plin. Nat. 8.53) and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus'
use of Ethiopians to hunt Numidian bears (Plin. Nat. 8.131, with Ville
[above. n. 7] go).
29 Schafer (above. n. 6) 257-260. As she realizes, these women could have had
other roles in the gladiatorial schools beside being fighters (e.g. as musicians)
that would have brought them into contact with male gladiators and made them
good candidates for becoming their spouses. To the degree that Juvenal's diatribes
reflect reality. Sat. 6.265-77 represents a clear statement that these
women did not normally fight as gladiators. He argues that the matrons of Roman
society look rather silly practicing gladiatorial tactics when any woman
belonging to a gladiator school Uudia) and the wife of Asylus (presumably a
gladiator) would never be seen in gladiatorial equipment or practicing stabbing
the practice stump.

[54 STEPHEN BRUNET
I. Historical References (listed chronologically: all dates are A.D.)
I. The report in Dio (61.17.3-4) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.32.3) that Nero
induced women of the highest rank to debase themselves in the arena. It
is not clear if their disgrace took the form of performing as gladiators.
fighting as venatores. or both. Tacitus does not address the point. and
while fighting as gladiators and hunting animals are both included in
Dio's list of the many shows in which upper-class men and women performed.
it would have been helpful if he ha been more explicit about
whether women took part in all the entertainments staged by Nero. Dio
and Tacitus are also not as clear as we might like regarding how Nero
obtained the participation of noblewomen. and they even seem at first
to be somewhat at odds on this question. 30 Dio notes that some of the
men and women who publicly disgraced themselves did so unwillingly.
while the participation of others was voluntary (61.17.3). Tacitus opts
for the view that coercion. albeit of a very su tie form. was the principle
that underlay the participation in Nero's games by members of the
upper class. This is not apparent from 15.32.3. where he says nothing
about the process by which noblewomen were led to appear in the
arena. But in 14.14.6 he notes that Nero induced various members of the
equestrian order to contract their services as gladiators (operas arenae
promittere) by the offer of huge rewards and then comments that they
really had no choice in the matter since such rewards were tantamount
to an order when they came from as powerful a person as Nero. In the
end Dio probably would have agreed with Tacitus' assessment that free
choice was largely an illusion in an environment where the emperor
was desperate to cloak his own desire to perform publicly by making
others do the same. Particularly telling is his description of how many
members of the Roman nobility desperately practiced whatever theatrical
art they could so that they had some form of entertainment to offer
Nero when asked and could in this way avoid eing assigned to sing in
his choruses (61.19.2-3). We are thus left to wonder if the same situation
obtained for many or all of the women who. according to Dio. fought in
the arena voluntarily. On the surface their participation may have been
voluntary since Nero did not have to order them to perform. but in a
true sense they would never have performed publicly of their own accord.
The most important disagreement between the two authors. however.
is over the date of Nero's misdeed. Dio co nects it with the games
given in 59 upon Agrippina's death, while Tacitus attributes it to 63. Yet
there are good reasons to think that this discrepancy arose because
30 On the means used by various emperors to have members of the senatorial
and equestrian orders appear in their games. see Ville (above. n. 7) 261.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS I55
Tacitus believed that 62 marked the point when Nero went from good
to bad. so that he manipulated his account of Nero's obsession with performing
in public to match this date. 31 One hint that Tacitus' account is
not to be trusted is that Ville had difficulties in identifying the specific
games at which Tacitus claimed Nero made women performY In addition.
Tacitus' manipulation becomes apparent if we compare his account
of Nero's actions in 59 regarding the games (14.14) with his account of
Nero's actions in 63 (15.32). In 14.14 Tacitus discusses how Nero first
considered performing publicly and therefore forced men of noble
birth to perform in public as a way of masking his own infamy. This is
clearly the same incident mentioned by Dio in his account of Nero's activities
in 59 (61.17). Both authors attribute the same motive to Nero,
and both also mention that the group required to perform included the
scions of famous families. 33 In 15.32 Tacitus returns to the topic of
Nero's public performances. and to pick up the thread of his previous
theme he repeats the claim that Nero forced people of noble birth to
perform as gladiators. However. to make it appear that Nero's infatuation
with the games was now out of control. he noted that the number
of people disgraced was greater than in the past and included noblewomen.
Because of the way in which he tried to tailor his account to fit
his conception of how Nero's reign took a turn for the worse in 62. Tacitus
ended up duplicating the occasions on which Nero forced people of
noble birth to perform publicly and in the process moved the report
about women being forced to be gladiators from 59 to 63. Therefore. we
should trust Dio's testimony that Nero forced noblewomen to perform
in the arena on only one occasion during his reign. that is, at the massive
festival held after Agrippina's death in 59.
Both authors. however. did agree on one thing: it was the status of
3 1 On the debate among ancient historians whether 59 or 62 marked the
turning-point in Nero's reign. see M. Griffin. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics
(Oxford 1976) Appendix C3. Ville (above. n. 7) 263 n. 73 follows Tacitus in believing
that Nero forced women to fight in the arena in 63. But since he rejects
the evidence of Dio he comes to essentially the same conclusion as presented
here. namely that there was only one occasion when Nero made upper-class
women become gladiators.
32 Ville (above. n. 7) 140. 163 n. 51. Another sign that Tacitus was manipulating
the evidence is that he seems to have moved the detail that noblewomen
were forced to take on the role of actors. along with men of the same social
class. from 14.14. where it belongs. to 14.15 in order to play up the debauchery
promoted by Nero's interest in the theater.
33 Each author. of course. follows his own style. For example. Tacitus highlights
the extent of Nero's misdeed by pointedly refusing to mention the scions
by name: Dio lists their names.

STEPHEN BRUNET
the women involved that made Nero's actions reprehensible. 34 As Dio
clearly puts it, women (and men) of high rank were made to perform
like people of the lowest position in society.35 Dio and Tacitus do not
seem to have any objection to the practice of women fighting in the
arena so long as it did not involve women of elite status.
2. The three references discussed above-Mart. Sp. 6 and 6B, D.C.
66.25.2-that deal with Titus' use of female venatores in the games celebrating
the inauguration of the Colosseum. Of interest here is the fact,
specifically mentioned by Dio, that Titus did not use women of high social
status and hence was praised (or. in Dio's case. not censured) for
this practice. Also important is the possibility that they were dressed
like Venus, which would have made their gender clear to the audience.
3. The three accounts discussed above-Suet. Dom. 4.1, Stat. Silv. 1.6.
D.C. 67.8.4-that testify to Domitian's use of women for his shows. As
argued above. none of these sources can be taken to mean that women
were matched against dwarfs. In fact, Statius' account makes it clear
that they fought separately during the show Domitian gave to celebrate
the Saturnalia. Statius only describes one occasion when women fought
as gladiators. and the other two authors are vague about exactly how
often Domitian used women in his shows, although they both felt the
appearance of women was a noteworthy feature of his games. 36 Neither
Dio nor Suetonius. however. felt that their appearance was to be censured.
while Statius actually praised the display of military skill shown
by the female gladiators, an effect that was robably highlighted by
their being dressed as Amazons.
4. A late second-century inscription honoring a magistrate for being
the first person since the founding of Rome to offer the people of Ostia
a gladiatorial show involving women: qrJi primus [omniu]m ab Vrbe
condita ludos cum/[. .. ]or et muliere$ [a]c:;i ferrum dedit. 37 No exact par-
34 Briquel (above. n. 7) 50 rightly observes that the contrast between the rebuke
that Nero earned for his use of upper-class women and the praise that
Titus received for his use of women of relatively low status is striking.
35 R. Newbold, "Cassius Dio and the games," AC 44 (1975) esp. 591, 595,597,
notes that the status of participants in games was an issue which greatly interested
Dio and which he consistently made a point of recording.
3 6 Ville (above, n. 7) 151 argues that the last part of D.C. 67.8 deals with
Domitian's general activities regarding the games and not Dio's ostensible subject,
the spectacle marking Domitian's Dacian victory. Hence Dio's comment
about female and dwarf gladiators cannot be localized to any particular game
or games.
37 M. Cebeillac-Gervasoni and F. Zevi, "Revisions et nouveautes pour trois
inscriptions d'Ostie," MEFRA 88 (1976) 612-620 = AEpigr(I977) 153.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS 157
aIle! exists for the expression ad ferrum dedit. and it has been taken to
mean that the women were sentenced to die in the arena. 38 A comparison
with similar expressions. though. makes it more likely that these
women fought as gladiators. Coleman notes that the use of the term
mulieres (in contrast to feminas) implies that they were not of high social
status. 39 The magistrate seems to have provided some other kind of
entertainment in addition to these female gladiators. but unfortunately
only the last two letters of this section (-or) are preserved. No restoration
has been suggested for this missing section. but "dwarfs" (e.g.
nanos. pumiJiones) does not seem to be an option given the letters that
remain.
II. Fictional Accounts
1. Echion's description in Petronius of games that, in contrast to a recent.
rather shabby show. were going to be a crowd-pleaser in part because
a woman was scheduled to fight as an essedarius (45.7). The name
essedarius implies that this type of gladiator fought from a chariot. but
it is in fact very difficult to determine what special armor or combat
technique distinguished the essedarius from other types of gladiators. 4u
What is germane here is that the essedarius was a fairly rare type of
gladiator and that we have no other reference to a woman who fought
in this fashion. In addition to this essedarius. the show was going to include.
if the manuscript reading is accepted. some performers termed
Manii (Jam Manios aliquot habet et mulierem essedariam et dispensatorem
Glyconis). The meaning of the term is unclear. and basing his decision
on Stat. Silv. 1.6. Scheffer proposed that Manios should be
emended to nanos. Scheffer's emendation. however. has not won the
day. in part because it seems that Manius did have a definite meaning.
even if we cannot recover it. For example. Persius seems to connect the
name Manius with the expression "born of the earth. "4' Various entries
in Festus on Manias meaning "figurines" or "spirits used to scare children"
and on Manius meaning "famous men" or "deformed men" have
been cited in attempts to explain the term. 42 We should not be surprised.
38 See K. Coleman, "Missio at Halicarnassus," HSCP 100 (2000) 498. who herself
feels that the women were gladiators.
39 Coleman (above. n. 38) 498.
40 On the nature of the essedarius. see n. 59 below.
4 1 6.55-60 with W. Kissel. ed.. Auks Persius FJaccus, Satiren (Heidelberg
1990) 839·
4 2 Festus, p. II4, II5. 128. 129 (Lindsay); see also J. Pirie and W.M. Lindsay.
eds.. Glossaria Latina iussu Academiae Britannicae edita IV: Placidus. Festus
(Paris 1930) 255-256 (on Festus p. 114). For an example of the attempt to interpret
Petronius in the light of Festus, see C. Pellegrino. ed .. Petronii Arbitri Sa-

STEPHEN BRUNET
in fact, if Manius was an obscure term and therefore unfamiliar to
many Romans. Echion's other comments in the same passage reveal him
to be a fan of gladiatorial shows and well versed in the arcane terminology
of the arena. It is unlikely then that Petronius' imaginary spectacle
included both dwarfs and female gladiators. Yet even if we were to accept
Scheffer's emendation, the text cann t be taken to mean that
Petronius envisioned the dwarfs being matched against the woman
scheduled to fight as an essedarius.
2. Juvenal's conclusion that the natural order of the world had been
overturned because a woman named Mevia was in the habit of killing
Tuscan boars and holding spears in her right hand with her breast uncovered
(1.22-23). Juvenal's example of a Roman matron gone wild cannot
be traced to any particular incident. Juvenal certainly envisaged this
woman being costumed like an Amazon. as may have been the women
who participated in Domitian's Saturnalia. Those women. however,
fought as gladiators, while Mevia appeared as a venator. Also unprovable
is Ville's proposal that Juvenal had directly modeled Mevia on
the women who appeared in the arena during the reign of Nero. 43 Ville
may be right, but we possess no evidence that Nero required these
women to adopt the bare-breasted costume that made Mevia's performance
so distinctive. Nor do we know if these women even fought
venatores. Given what little Dio and Tacitus say on the subject. it is
equally likely that they performed as gladiators. Finally, Dio (66.25.2) is
quite clear that the status of the female venatores in Titus' games was
not particularly high, and so Titus' use of female gladiators was unlikely
to have sparked Juvenal's indignation. Yet, while we may not be
able to trace the events that inspired Juvenal's Amazonian huntress, we
can say with some certainty that Juvenal did not believe that Roman matrons
appeared in the arena on a regular basis. One must keep in mind
that all of Juvenal's statements in this section are characterized by extreme
hyperbole. Thus. in Juvenal's opinion, it was as unlikely that a
woman like Mevia would become a venator as that a eunuch would
marry or the lowly Crispinus rise to a position of wealth (1.22-29). Of
course. such aberrations happened. but they were rare and extreme
events.
3· Juvenal's complaint that Roman matrons practice wrestling and play
at being gladiators, going through their gladiatorial training in full armor
and a heavy helmet (6.246-267). Unlike 1.22-23. Sat. 6 is not concerned
with women who appeared in the arena. Juvenal, in fact. consid-
tyricon(RomeI975)on45·7.
43 Ville (above. n. 7) 259 n. 69. 263.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS I59
ered it a remote possibility that any of these matrons would actually
become gladiators. Admittedly. he does wonder if their devotion to
their training might be due to a desire to perform in public. but this
question functions as a rhetorical ploy. The sense that he had to search
for this explanation and the hesitant way he introduces it (nisi quod)
implies that he did not believe it was particularly plausible. In the end
the reader is led to ask what in fact lay at the heart of these women's
obsession with gladiators if it was not a desire to become one. The real
issue in Juvenal's opinion was that the simple desire to act like a gladiator
signaled a transgression by women on masculine territory and masculine
roles. particularly sexual roles. The thrust of his attack comes out
in 252-254 in which he first asks whether a woman who loves force and
violence (vires) could be chaste. and then asserts that. given a woman's
greater sexual pleasure. no woman would want to be a man. Courtney
rightly saw that the vires exhibited by gladiators in 253 harked back to
the gladiator's ferrum in Il2 ("the sword is what they love") and ultimately
to the diatribe in 103-13 on Roman women who pursue gladiators
as lovers. 44 Moreover. that women's desire for sex lay at the heart
of their interest in gladiators is revealed by the terms Juvenal used to
describe the most attractive feature of gladiators: ferrum in 112. clearly
a phallic image. and vires in 253. a broad hint at a gladiator's sexual potency
and possibly even a reference to his sexual organs. 45 In effect. Juvenal's
complaint was that Roman matrons had come to love things that
properly only men should love. and instead of being chaste they had
learned to be aggressive like gladiators, especially in the realm of sex. 46
44 E. Courtney. A Commentary on the Satires of juvenal (London 1980) ad
loe.
45 J. Adams. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore 1982) does not specifically
list ferrum as a synonym for penis but does give a whole range of similar
terms drawn from weaponry (19-22). On the use of vires for male sexual potency
and sexual organs. see Lewis and Short. s.v. vis B3 (missed in the OLD
except in the sense of the testicles cut off in the taurobolium. s.v. vis 20C). Ovid
also plays with the idea that vires is something a man has but a woman wants:
see S. Wheeler. "Changing names: The miracle of Iphis in Ovid's Metamorphoses9,"
Phoenix 51 (1997) 194-199.
46 S. Braund. "Juvenal-Misogynist or misogamist?" JRS 82 (1992) 71-86. has
persuasively argued that Sat. 6 was not intended as a general attack on women.
The poem is concerned exclusively with how the lack of pudicitia on the part of
Roman matrons led to adultery and made a mockery of marriage. While Braund
demonstrated that the issue of adultery underlay nearly every section of the
poem. she overlooked the diatribe against women playing at being gladiators.
even though these matrons' abandonment of pudor is prominently mentioned
at 252. She also observed that. in keeping with his wildly indignant persona,
Juvenal's arguments tended to be far-fetched and even incoherent. This should
cause us to wonder how many Roman matrons ever sweated and grunted while

160 STEPHEN BRUNET
Juvenal was not alone is his view that the devotion shown by some
women to the physical training normally pursued by men was a symptom
that the proper sexual order of the world had been disturbed. Both
Seneca (Ep. 95.20-21) and Martial (7.67) connected the aggressive sexual
behavior of some women to their devotion to physical training. Where
these authors differed from Juvenal is that they focused on women who
practiced Greek athletics. Juvenal chose to concentrate on women who
practiced gladiatorial combat, though he did briefly mention the interest
shown by Roman matrons in wrestling. Yet Seneca and Martial
clearly agreed with Juvenal that the pursuit of sex by these physically
active women usurped the role of men. So Martial makes fun of a lesbian
athlete who takes a very dominant role in her relationships by
sexually attacking (pedicat. dolat) both boys and girls out of a lust that
exceeds what one would expect of an aroused husband. Moreover. the
reversal of sexual roles is especially apparent from the fact that this
woman rejects certain sexual practices because she felt they were not
manly (virile). Seneca talks of women competing against men in traditional
male activities like sex. heavy drinking. and wrestling. with the
result that these women ended with gout a d other traditional male
diseases because they had given up their feminine role (feminam exuerant).
Again their lust challenges that of a husband and is described by
Seneca as being contrary to their nature. which is to be passive (pati
natae). To the degree that these attacks might strike a chord with some
Romans. these noblewomen's interest in athletics and gladiators had the
potential for provoking anxiety about who were the truly aggressive
and powerful members of Roman society. On the other hand. Seneca
and Martial did not think that these women were planning on actually
competing publicly as athletes any more than Juvenal in Sat. 6 believed
Roman matrons intended to perform in the arena. When it came to respectable
women. it was outside the stadium and the arena. in the
training grounds and the barracks. that their fixation with athletics and
gladiators created troubles.
III. Legal Measures
I. The notice in Athenaeus of a man whose will reqUired that the most
beautiful female slaves in his household fight as gladiators. although in
the end this provision was not implemented because the people forbade
it as being contrary to law (4.154a). Athenaeus' source was supposedly
Nicolaus of Damascus. which would place this event some time during
the late Republic or early Empire. But the lack of context-Did this
happen at Rome? How could the people abrogate a private will?-sug-
practicing in full gladiatorial equipment.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS 161
gests that the story was apocryphal. If some law did allow such a will to
be abrogated, Schafer plausibly supposes that it would have been a
sumptuary law involving funeral displays and would not have had anything
specifically to do with gladiators. 47 The most the story can tell us
for certain is that Athenaeus did not find it inconceivable that women
might fight as gladiators.
2. The Senatus Consultum of AD. 19 from Larinum forbidding the appearance
on stage of members of the senatorial and equestrian orders
and their participation in certain activities concerning gladiatorial combat,4
8 Because of gaps in the text and the uncertainty about the sense of
certain technical terms, it is not clear whether these activities included
fighting as a gladiator or venator. becoming an employee in a gladiatorial
ludus, or both. 49 Whatever these activities were, the SC contemplated
that women of the upper classes might potentially engage in
them. The SC does not, on the other hand, prove that the appearance of
elite women in the arena or in the gladiatorial schools was a common
problem or even that such a violation of the customs of Roman society
had ever occurred. In an attempt at legal inclusiveness the SC simply
listed the many possible relationships to a senator or knight-grandson,
granddaughter. son, daughter. etc.-that could be subject to the provisions;
it did not single out women for any special notice. It should also
be noted that no objection was raised to women per se becoming gladiators
or their assistants, only to the possibility that elite women might
47 Schafer (above. n. 6) 264.
4 8 AE 1978 145. This document, which was inscribed on a bronze tablet found
at Larinum, has occasioned considerable comment. In particular, see B. Levick,
"The Senatus Consultum from Larinum," JRS 73 (1983) 97-II5: W. Lebek.
"Standeswiirde und Berufsverbot unter Tiberius: Das SC der Tabula Larinas."
ZPE 81 (1990) 37-96. and "Das SC der Tabula Larinas: Rittermusterung und andere
Probleme," ZPE 85 (1991) 41-70 (corrections in ZPE 87 [1991) 156): T.
McGinn, "The SC from Larinum and the repression of adultery at Rome," ZPE
93 (1992) 273-295; M. Buonocore, Epigrafia anfiteatrale dell'occidente romano
Ill. Regiones Italiae II-V, Sicilia. Sardinia et Corsica (Rome 1992) 18-26 no. 2. I
have not seen N. Stelluti. Epigrafi eli Larino e della bassa Frentania II. Appendix.
Stueli suI senatus consultum eli Larino (Campobasso 1997). which is supposed to
contain a review of all proposed readings.
49 The unusual expressions in 9-10 (auctoramentove ro[garet ut ?in harena
depugna]ret aut ut pinnas gladiatorum raperet aut rudem tolleret aliove quod
dus rei simile min[istraretD can. but need not. be interpreted as referring to
employment as an assistant in a gladiatorial establishment or in the games
themselves. See Levick (above. n. 47) 102, whose text is given here. On the other
hand. the language of 5 (in scaenam ludumv[e proelirentD and 18-19 (auctorare
se opera[sve suas ?ad harenam scaenamve .. .]s locare) more likely refers to
someone actually becoming a gladiator.

162 STEPHEN BRUNET
debase themselves in such a fashion.
3. The report that Hadrian banned the sale of a slave or a maidservant
to a pimp and a lanista unless the owner gave a reason for doing so
(SHA Hadr. 18.8--9). Some scholars have taken this to mean that male
slaves were not to be sold to the gladiatorial schools and female slaves
were not to be sold into prostitution, Le., the provision had nothing to
do with female gladiators. so Yet even if Hadrian's measure did limit the
sale of women to lanistae, this does not tell us much. We can already
presume that female gladiators came from the same source as male
gladiators: sometimes from volunteers (or those an emperor had forced
to volunteer), especially when dealing with gladiators from the upper
classes. but most often by some sort of purchase. We still do not know if
it was common for private individuals to sell members of their household,
either male or female. to the gladiatorial schools or whether virtually
all gladiators were purchased directly from the slave markets.
Schiifer does make the valid point that even if an owner did sell a female
slave to a gladiator school. she is not likely to have actually become a
gladiator. The majority of such women woul' have been physically unsuited
for fighting in armor, and the arena had many occupations besides
fighting as a gladiator or venator. such as performing as a musician,
that regularly employed women.5'
4. Some scholars would include here Dio's report that Septimius
Severus banned performances by women (75.16.1). The ban was not
prompted by Severus' objection to having women perform but to the
fact that the contestants had caused noblewomen to be slandered, although
exactly how this happened is not clear. Dio's report is somewhat
garbled, and it is possible that the ban involved women appearing in the
arena. since Dio uses the word \lOVO\laXElv. The contest. though. seems
to have been a gymnastic competition-the contestants are clearly
named as athletes-and Severus' action was m re likely aimed at keeping
women from competing as athletes. 52
50 See Schafer (above. n. 6) 264-265. who reviews different ways scholars
have interpreted the language of this provision. On the history of provisions
limiting the sale of female slaves into prostitution. see T. McGinn. Prostitution.
Sexuality. and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford 1998) ch. 8. esp. 294 (other evidence
for Hadrian's interest in the limitation of such sales) and 305 n. 81 (the
reference in SHA). For provisions limiting the right of masters to force their
slaves (with no specific mention of women) to fight as venatores. see Digesta
18·I.42.48.8.I I.l-2.
5' Schafer (above. n. 6) 260-262. 265.
52 So Ville (above. n. 7) 264 n. 75.

IV. Artistic Evidence
FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIA TORS
I. We also possess some very limited artistic evidence for female
gladiators. The one undisputed depiction of female gladiators is the
much-illustrated relief from Halicarnassus showing the gladiators
Amazon and Akhillia. 53 The inscription indicates that they had been
granted a missio in their combat (CllTEAV8Tlcav). They are shown facing
each other and. to the degree we can tell (the figure on the right has suffered
damage). they were both armed with shields. greaves. swords,
and manicae to protect their sword arms. Since the figure on the right.
presumably Akhillia. fought left-handed. she wore her manica on her
left arm with her greave on her right leg and held her shield on the
right side. The breasts of both gladiators. or at least the right breast of
the figure on the left. were not covered. As well. they are not shown
wearing helmets. which has led several scholars to claim that they in
fact never wore helmets during their match. 54 Underlying this claim is
the presumption that they did not need helmets since they were simply
playing at being gladiators in a parody of their male counterparts. Certainly
not wearing helmets during a match would have constituted a
major variation from standard practice since. of the major types of
gladiators. only the retiarius fought without a helmet. 55 It would also
have marked Amazon and Akhillia as being quite different from the
female gladiators described by ]uvenaI. who made a point of wearing
helmets. along with full armor. in their attempt at verisimilitude (6.252.
262). Yet. as it turns out. their helmets are present. but the artist chose
to put them behind them at each end of the platform on which they
stand. As Coleman has shown. this was an artistic device to indicate
that. in what was a very rare ending to a gladiatorial match. the two
women had fought to a draw (stantes missae).5 6 Moreover, they were
able to accomplish this distinction under somewhat difficult circumstances
since matches between right- and left-handed gladiators were
considered especially challenging. 57 The artist. then. was not treating
53 See e.g. Coleman (above. n. 38) fig. I; E. Kohne, C. Ewigleben, and R. Jackson.
eds.. Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome
(Berkeley 2000) fig. 137.
54 L. Robert, Les gladiateurs dans l'Orient grec (Paris 1940) 188-189: Briquel
(above, n. 7) 52; Gunderson (above. n. 6) 143·
55 Coleman (above. n. 38) 491 has located one description in Lucian (Tox. 60)
of a gladiator who did not wear a helmet. As she points out, however, he was a
foolish amateur, and his example shows that in standard practice all gladiators
except retiarii wore helmets.
56 Coleman (above, n. 38) esp. 493-495.
57 On left-handed gladiators. see Robert (n. 54 above) 70-72; K. Coleman...A

STEPHEN BRUNET
them as mockeries of real gladiators but wanted to show that they had
the skill and determination to obtain a distinction that any male gladiator
would have been glad to have earned.
2. The other possible artistic representation of female gladiators is a
funerary relief from Maastricht showing a victorious gladiator facing a
defeated gladiator. both of them wearing the same type of helmet and
using identical round shields and short swords. The suggestion that
these figures were women was made by Wiedemann,58 but he did not
give any reasons for his interpretation. and the published photographs
provide no grounds for thinking that the figures represent women.
Much more plausible is Junkelmann's proposal that the two gladiators
were essedarii. 59 This does not necessarily I' Ie out that they were also
women. but this kind of detail is not likely to have escaped Junkelmann's
notice given the amount of study he has devoted to analyzing
artistic representations involving the gladiatorial games. But even
granted that Wiedemann was correct, the Maastricht relief and the
Halicarnassus relief would confirm what we learn from the literary
sources: the standard practice concerning female gladiators was to
match them against other women. not against dwarfs or. for that matter.
against men of any type.
OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
One implication to be drawn from the above list is that Nero's reign
was not the first time that female gladiators had appeared in the arena.
So while Dio and Tacitus considered it reprehensible that Nero forced
noblewomen to fight in the arena, they did not consider it unusual for
women of other social classes to fight as gladiators. Petronius (presuming
a Neronian date for the Cena Trimalchionis) also gives the impression
that female gladiators were not an entirely new feature in the
time of Nero. The ultimate treat for the aficionado Echion was not the
chance to see a regular female gladiator-that was something he seems
to have already seen-but a woman who was going to fight as an esse-
left-handed gladiator at Pompeii." ZPE 114 (1996) 194--196.
58 Wiedemann (above, n. 4) 53 n. 117,112, fig. II. Elsewhere (38-39) he seems
to think these gladiators were men, suggesting that the defeated gladiator in this
relief was shown with his knees together and legs turned in because this effeminate
pose marked his inferiority.
59 M. Junkelmann, Das Spiel mit dem Tod: So kampften Roms Gladiatoren
(Mainz am Rhein 2000) fig. 178. Junkeimann discusses the evidence for the nature
of the essedarius on Il6-Il9. The most famous example of this type of
gladiator is the woman who is scheduled to fight as an essedarius in Petronius'
imaginary festival (see above, II. I in the list of evidence for female gladiators).

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS [65
darius. one of the more unusual types of gladiators. How much before
the reign of Nero women first fought in the arena cannot be determined
with complete certainty. The Senatus Consultum of A.D. 19 contemplates
that women might become gladiators but does not prove that any
had actually done so. The need for regulations could easily have been
triggered by young men who had joined gladiatorial schools. while
women were included simply for the sake of comprehensiveness. Because
of the lack of details in Athenaeus' report. it is hard to trust the
evidence of Nicolaus of Damascus that female slaves could be forced to
fight as gladiators in the late Republic or early Empire. The two sources
strongly hint but do not prove that by the time of Augustus a Roman
audience had already witnessed fights involving female gladiators or
venatores.
The rarity of female gladiators is testified by the fact that. out of the
massive number of vases. reliefs. lamps and other artworks that draw
their subject matter from the world of gladiatorial combat. we possess
only one artistic representation clearly depicting female gladiators. 60
Moreover. the inscription from Ostia mentioned above indicates that as
late as the second century A.D. female gladiators had never appeared
before in a city that was moderately large and relatively close to Rome.
Finally. we should not be deceived by the large number of authors who
refer to female gladiators. The number of occasions when we can be
certain that women actually appeared in the games at Rome is quite
small: once during the reign of Nero (assuming that Dio and Tacitus
refer to the same event), once under Titus (granted that Mart. Sp. 6 and
68 concern the same event). and once under Domitian (Stat. Silv. 1.6). It
should also be noted that on only two of these occasions. under Nero
and under Domitian. did women fight as actual gladiators. Titus seems
to have employed women exclusively as venatores. Likewise. we know
of only two sites other than Rome at which we can be certain female
gladiators appeared: Ostia (the inscription discussed above) and Hali-
60 The rarity of female gladiators in Roman society undercuts M. Vesley's
argument ("Gladiatorial training for girls in the Collegia Iuvenum of the Roman
Empire." EMC 42 [1998] 85-93) that some girls of elite families received gladiatorial
training in the collegia iuvenum and then decided to become actual gladiators.
His evidence that girls became full members of the collegia iuvenum is
open to debate. but this is not the place to dispute that issue. More problematic
are his assertions that (I) the collegia iuvenum "were the training grounds for
male nobles who wished to appear in the arena" (a claim that needs but receives
no justification) and (2) that since female gladiators were a common feature of
Roman life (a view that does not stand up to close examination. as demonstrated
here). they must have received their training somewhere. e.g. in the collegia
iuvenum.

166 STEPHEN BRUNET
carnassus or some nearby site (the relief showing Amazon and Akhillia).
Another noticeable feature is that women were seemingly not required
to participate in any of the elaborate spectacles. such as naumachiae
or Domitian's re-creation of the geranomachy. which became
increasingly popular in the early empire. The only special staging was
the use of some costuming to make them resemble Venus (Titus' show
according to the interpretation given above) or more often as Amazons
(for certain in the Halicarnassus relief, probably in the Saturnalia of
Domitian. and implied as the typical dress of a female venator in Juv.
1.22-23).6, It made sense that female gladiators and venatores would
wear such costumes. The effect of including women in munera would
have been lost if audiences did not recognize that they were in fact
watching women. But this may have been difficult to achieve when
women were dressed in full armor. In this connection it is important to
remember that. except for not wearing breastplates. the two gladiators
on the Halicarnassus relief were fully armed. including having their
heads covered by helmets. It was only their imitation of the tradition
that Amazons fought bare breasted. along with their having names that
were appropriate for female warriors, which identified their gender 62
Having female gladiators dress as Amazons was also connected with
the major motivation for employing women as gladiators. Contrary to
what has often been assumed by many scholars. women did not play at
being gladiators in an amusing burlesque of their male counterparts.
Rather. their combats represented a serious undertaking in that they
allowed women to demonstrate the courage n rmally expected only of
men. Wiedemann captures this aspect of women gladiators well: "Paradoxically.
the very fact that women were not expected to share male
virtues enabled a female gladiator to symbolize that virtus as an abstract
quality. ,,63 Ancient authors are very explicit about the outstanding
6' The Roman interest in Amazons is apparent from at least two other incidents.
When he began his campaign against Vindex. one of the first things Nero
did was to arm his concubines like Amazons (Suet. Nero 44.1). In his triumph to
celebrate his Dacian victory Aurelian claimed that the women who had fought
on the side of the Goths were Amazons and displayed them in his triumph as
such without actually having them fight (SHA Aurel. 34.1).
62 Their names were probably made known to the audience either by being
announced by a praeco or being written on tabulae. On announcements to the
audience. see Ville (above, n. 7) 274 n. 100.375-376; Junkelmann (above. n. 59)
133-134. fig. 10-13.204.207.
63 Wiedemann (above. n. 4) 112. Women were used in other contexts as examples
of the fortitude that one should imitate. In Dial. 6.16 Seneca describes in
some detail the strong-minded reaction of famous women from Roman history
as a way of demonstrating the path that anyone should follow when faced by a

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS r67
martial valor shown by women gladiators. Martial makes much in Sp.
6B about how wonderful it was to see women performing feats normally
typical only of great men like Hercules. Likewise. in Silv. 1.6 Statius
expresses his amazement at the daring shown by the female gladiators
who appeared in Domitian's Saturnalia. Going against the norms of
their gender. they engaged in battles typical of men (pugnas viriles
53-54) and fought like Amazons. who traditionally were the only
women able to match men in bravery on the battlefield. On Coleman's
analysis. the artist who made the relief from Halicarnassus had specifically
chosen as his subject the particular moment in the careers of these
two gladiators when they had shown the greatest skill and determination
as fighters. Given that the motivation for employing women to
fight in the arena was to see them as exemplars of courage and military
ability. it would have made sense to have them wear costumes of a particular
type. Seeing female gladiators not so much as women but as reincarnations
of the famous female warriors of mythology would have
focused the audience's attention on their martial valor.
It should also be noted that this list includes no additional sources
that can be taken as indicating that women actually fought dwarfs. The
one source not discussed in the first section of the paper that might
have mentioned dwarfs is Petronius. Yet even if one accepts Scheffer's
probably unnecessary emendation of nanos for Manios. Petronius in no
way indicates that the woman essedarius of Echion's dream show was
going to fight these figures. This survey then strengthens the conclusion
reached in the first section of the paper. namely that. while Domitian
made good use in his spectacles of both women and dwarfs. no justification
exists for the claim that Dornitian (or any other emperor) went so
far as to pit one against the other. Odd as it may seem. Domitian should
be seen as a traditionalist in his use of women in his games. As noted
above. female gladiators had been a part of the Roman games from before
the time of Nero. and Domitian essentially followed the lead of
emperors like Titus. who had already discovered that an emperor
would be praised for providing the Romans with the chance to see
women fighting bravely.6 4
To modern thinking. it is rather surprising that some emperor. faced
with the challenge of finding a novel way to entertain the Roman peo-
personal disaster.
64 This was not the only occasion in which Domitian's spectacles were inspired
by elements of Titus' games. See Brunet (above. n. 20) 31. where I argue
that the display of fighting cranes at the inaugural games for the Colosseum
gave Domitian the idea for the re-creation of the geranomachy recorded in Stat.
Silv. 1.6.57-64.

168 STEPHEN BRUNET
pIe. did not decide to break with tradition and arrange for female
gladiators to fight dwarfs. Yet there were two reasons why such
matches would not have made sense to the Romans. First, female gladiators
continued to be sufficiently unusual and interesting in themselves
that there was no need for them to be matched against dwarfs or,
equally well, to participate in a specially arranged show like a naumachia.
Because of their rarity, they would have been a "hit" in themselves
without the addition of any unusual staging. Second, it was standard
practice in staging gladiatorial contests to match gladiators of
equal abilities. and by violating this practice any attempt to make
women fight dwarfs would have also undercut the principle that female
gladiators should function as exemplars of virtue. 65 Not only would
these two opponents have appeared ridiculous standing next to each
other, most female gladiators would have had a distinct advantage over
their dwarf opponents in weight. in reach, and often even in mobility. A
fight between two such unevenly matched contestants would have
ended quickly, with the result that the female gladiators would have lost
the opportunity to show if they could really fight bravely. In a similar
fashion, if we take our lead from Juvenal, the animal a woman would
normally fight was likewise chosen with an eye to ensuring that the
contest would not be too easy or too hard. In 1.22-23 Juvenal takes it as
typical that a female venator would be matched against a boar. Unlike a
lion or another equally large animal. a woman might be expected to kill
a boar by herself. but doing so represented a fairly dangerous enterprise
and one that would have revealed her skill and courage.
If nothing worthwhile could have been learned from matching
women and dwarfs, the same was true for contests between female and
male gladiators except that in this case the women would have been the
ones at a consistent disadvantage. The result still would have been unacceptable
in that neither opponent would normally have been able to
demonstrate any real skill with weapons or any spirit and fortitude.
This partially explains why, to judge from the list of evidence for female
gladiators. no Roman ever seems to have arranged for women to fight
men. In addition. by not giving female gladiators any opportunity to
prove that they could beat men at their own game, the Romans avoided
a potential source of social turmoil. If instances in which women simply
trained as gladiators could raise issues about gender roles, as evidenced
by Juv. Sat. 6, then having women actually fight men would have made
65 Seneca (Dial. 1.3.4) claims that gladiators themselves disliked unequal
matches because they deprived them of the opportunity for glory. [Quint.] DecJ.
maio 9.6 also indicates that Romans thought gladiators should be equally
matched.

FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS 169
female gladiators a substantial challenge to the social order. In the end.
for female gladiators to have a substantial role in the games. they
needed to fight opponents that presented a realistic and substantial
challenge. No other real choices presented themselves except certain
animals and other women.
It is now clear why no Roman expressed any contempt or ridicule
for the practice per se of having women fight in the arena. In fact. the
general attitude is one of acceptance and even approval. The objections
raised to the appearance in the arena of women from the equestrian
and senatorial classes do not count here since they arose from the high
social status of the participants. not the use per se of women as gladiators.
The complaints we hear in Tacitus. Dio. and Juv. Sat. I about upper-class
women becoming gladiators or venatores represent fairly
typical reactions to the transgressions by anyone of the rules regarding
who could perform publicly.66 Yet provided that emperors avoided the
problems engendered by allowing or requiring noblewomen to appear
in the arena. female gladiators provided a very visible and striking lesson
that military bravery and fortitude were within the grasp of any
Roman. In this role they functioned to affirm values essential to Roman
society and they thereby affirmed that the gladiatorial games had a
greater purpose than simply entertaining the Roman populace. 67 Martial
and Statius are therefore likely to have reflected the opinions of
many Romans when they greatly praised Titus and Domitian for arranging
for women to provide such notable demonstrations of virtue.
So if we pay close heed to what the Romans said and did not say
66 On the infamia that attached to certain Romans from appearing as public
performers. see Friedlander. Sittengeschichte Roms 'o II 19-21 (he lists many of
the pertinent references in ancient authors); Ville (above, n. 7) esp. 255-262,
267-27°,339-343: Levick (above, n. 48) 108-110; Wiedemann (above, n. 4) 26-30:
P. Plass. The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and Political Suicide
(Madison 1995) 74-75; C. Edwards, "Unspeakable professions: Public performance
and prostitution in ancient Rome," in J. Hallett and M. Skinner. eds., Roman
Sexualities (Princeton 1997) 66-95·
67 The reasons why the Romans valued gladiatorial games cannot be considered
here in any detail. Yet some ancient authors-e.g. Plin. Pan. 33, Tac. Ann.
12.56.2, and Lib. Or. 64,60-clearly felt that it was inspiring to watch people
fight and die bravely, especially if they were not normally considered capable of
virtus. On the moral value of watching gladiators, see further Ville (above, n. 7)
455-456; M. Wistrand. "Violence and entertainment in Seneca the Younger,"
Eranos 88 (1990) 39-42: Wiedemann (above, n. 4) 35-40; P. Cagniart, "The philosopher
and the gladiator," CW 93 (1999-2000) 607-618. See also the review
articles by S. Brown, "Explaining the arena: Did the Romans 'need' gladiators?,"
JRA 8 (1995) 376-384: D. Kyle, "Rethinking the Roman arena: Gladiators. sorrows,
and games," AHB 11.2-3 (1997) 94-97·

170
STEPHEN BRUNET
about the use of women in the arena. we should avoid treating female
gladiators and venatores as some form of burlesque. which derived its
humor from the inability of these women to fight like their male counterparts.
Rather. these female warriors exercised a great attraction on
the Roman imagination specifically because of their ability to fight
bravely. Moreover. the Romans were careful about how they employed
women in the arena. They were never matched against dwarfs or
against other men in order to ensure that they would have a chance to
demonstrate their courage and skill. It was recognized that the only appropriate
opponents were either other women or animals. Finally. because
the Romans were interested in female gladiators for the same reason
they were attracted to gladiatorial contests in general. namely
because they felt there was something to be learned from such matches.
female gladiators should be seen as constituting an integral component
of the Roman games.
CLASSICS PROGRAM
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DURHAM. NH 03824

EN QUETE D'UNREEL LINGUIST/QUE /73
l'epoque homerique. dont les anciens, presque autant que les modernes.
eussent ete bien en peine de dire au reste ce qu'elle etait ; Lysias n'est
pas l'orateur-type du siecle classique ; Sophocle n'est pas Ie dramaturge
du siecle de Pericles. En tout cas. pas seulement et certainement pas de
la maniere dont l'entend l'historiographie moderne.
Les anciens. lorsqu'ils entreprirent d'organiser leur propre passe, ne
pensaient pas en termes de chronologie mais avant tout de genres
litteraires. C'est ainsi que prirent forme des ensembles et des sousensembles.
organises notamment par genres: l'epopee. la tragedie, Ie
lyrisme, l'histoire. la prose oratoire, etc. Les auteurs existaient comparativement
a l'interieur de ces ensembles-lao lIs existaient individuellement
et collectivement. lIs existaient surtout collectivement, dans
Ie sens OU leur ceuvre etait fondamentalement liee a la vie de la cite;
Homere et Hesiode racontent Ie passe mythique de la Grece ; Herodote
et Thucydide plongent dans ce qui ne s'appelle pas encore l'histoire ;
Eschyle, Sophocle et Euripide emeuvent et font pleurer en evoquant les
malheurs des hommes a travers les heros de la legende nationale ;
Aristophane et Menandre tendent un miroir comique aux hommes de
leur temps et de leur cite; Pindare et Bacchylide chantent pour leurs
contemporains les exploits des vainqueurs aux jeux ; Demosthene et
Isocrate ecrivent et parlent au nom de la cite. etc. Aucun ne fait ceuvre
seulement pour soi. Certes Sappho chante ses tourments, Isocrate
mentionne des episodes de sa vie personnelle, Platon s'inscrit explicitement
dans la filiation de Socrate et met en scene des contemporains. etc.,
mais cette manifestation de la subjectivite est peu de chose - et jamais
determinante - au regard de la mission collective dont tous se sentent
investis.
C'est avec precaution par consequent que Ie terme tradition doit etre
applique a - c'est-a-dire a l'interieur de - l'antiquite, grecque du
moins. Le mot peut etre entendu de deux fa

174
PASCALE HUMMEL
voit egalement la naissance, pour ainsi dire fficielle et institutionnelle.
de la philologie.
La curiosite linguistique se rencontre. plus ou moins explicitement,
tout au long de l'histoire litteraire de la Grece. La conscience linguistique
que les auteurs eux-memes manifestent procede avant tout d'une
sensibilite empirique sans pretention scientifique. La pratique etymologique
par exemple, Ie plus souvent fantaisiste. releve en quelque sorte
de l'affabulation poetique. Aucun auteur ne peut etre dit alors
philologue. et les considerations de Platon sur la langue, par exemple,
ressortissent avant tout a la philosophie du langage et non a la
grammaire ou a la philologie. Les mots sont etudies en passant. a
l'occasion de tel developpement ou argument. Ils ne sont pas Ie but ou
l'objet exc!usif de l'attention. La naissance de la philologie a l'epoque
hellenistique ou alexandrine realise plusieurs tournants.
La philologie alexandrine, pour faire court, constitue Ie passe en
antiquite c!assique : die fonde la tradition par un acte de prise en charge
epistemique et realise sa traduction institutionnelle par Ie choix symbolique
d'un lieu devolu a la pratique d'une science nouvelle. Cette
philologie hellenistique. avant toute autre chose. place la langue au
centre de l'attention. Elle prend acte de la distance chronologique, et
surtout culturelle, qui s'est insinuee progressivement entre la synchronie
de la koine dont elle participe et la Grece globalement dite
classique. Les philologues alexandrins - scholiastes, commentateurs,
grammairiens, exegetes - ne font aucun cas du temps ou de la
chronologie. Les ceuvres de l'antiquite classique leur parviennent non
pas tout a fait en bloc, mais comme un ensemble coherent sans relief
chronologique. Le travail d'exegese auquel ils se livrent porte avant tout
sur la langue et Ie sens cache qu'ils se pI' posent de devoiler. La
philologie prend acte de l'eloignement progressif des ceuvres par
rapport au monde qui les a forgees. Cette distance realise un decollement
(comme on dirait un decollement de la retine) des mots par
rapport aux referents. La constitution du passe en antiquite n'est autre
peut-etre que ce decollement semiologique entre signifiant et referent.
La philologie travaille a combler la lacune nee de ce decollement en
quelque sorte schizophrenique, c'est-a-dire qui engendre une perte de
contact avec la realite. Le commentaire philologique porte sur Ie signifie
et Ie referent perdus a travers cet eloignement du monde OU ils sont nes.
II vient combler ce que Ie signifiant, Ie contexte, ou tout autre element
n'eclaire plus suffisamment. Il manifeste aussi parfois. d'une maniere
qui peut surprendre. une ignorance propre au seul exegete et que ne
partage meme pas necessairement Ie lecteur moderne. A mesure qu'un
monde s'eloigne, la perte qui en decoule apparait de deux ordres: a la
fois phenomenaIe et noumenale. La realite materielle, politique, sociale

EN QUETE D'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE 175
qui constitue son enveloppe phenomenaIe disparait peu a peu ; elle
s'evapore dans Ie Hou des ruines et des devastations. La realite noumenale
du sens s'estompe aussi correlativement; sous l'ecroulement des
signifiants les signifies deviennent fragiles et perdent leurs etais. La
tache de la philologie consiste precisement a suppleer Ie sens perdu, a
retisser Ie lien entre les trois angles du triangle signifiant-signifiereferent.
La philologie prend acte, d'une part, de la perte d'une realite
donnee et, d'autre part, de la perte de contact avec cette realite ; elle
travaille a la reconstitution du reel estompe, gauchi ou perdu. Elle y
travaille par Ie biais de la langue, ecume phenomenale ou fant6me
noumenal de la realite disparue. Elle y travaille, d'une maniere
inauguree par les Alexandrins eux-memes. sur Ie mode du ressassement
perenne. Les philologues alexandrins realisent l'exhaussement de
l'antiquite (grecque en l'occurrence) au rang d'antiquite classique, c'esta-dire
de totalite close et achevee, canonique et inaugurale. La philologie
alexandrine materialise !'idee de tradition en constituant l'antiquite en
objet parfait et complet. La reification du passe est la condition de
possibilite de son etude, c'est-a-dire de sa prise en charge epistemique
par des temps nouveaux que definit sans doute l'idee de modernite. Le
terme certes est difficile et infiniment complexe ; il n'est pas evidemment
Ie simple antonyme du mot antiquite. La modernite definit surtout
et avant tout une forme nouvelle - ou, plus justement encore, l'emergence
de - la subjectivite. La philologie se caracterise par la constitution
en objet de l'antiquite classique; la reification des reuvres de
l'esprit est sa raison d'etre et sa fonction. Elle peut etre dite moderne
dans la mesure OU elle est constitutive d'une subjectivite par
reverberation de l'objet. La philologie constitue un sujet en objet. en
meme temps que son objet la constitue sujet.
La limite de la philologie, si l'on peut dire. reside dans sa nature
fondamentalement dependante. La subjectivite dont dIe est porteuse est
toujours seconde, secondaire, voire parasite. La philologie des premiers
temps porte exclusivement sur la langue, c'est-a-dire sur la realite
verbale des textes et, par simple ricochet, sur la realite materielle,
historique et humaine que les mots denotent. Les premiers philologues
scrutent un monde evanoui a travers la surface phenomenale des mots.
lIs interrogent sans fin les textes qui composent pour eux Ie grand texte
de l'antiquite devenue classique. Leur logique est circulaire et tautologique,
fondamentalement autoreferentielle surtout. L'exegese, si elle
ne peut echapper au statut d'excroissance, renvoie toujours et avant
tout au texte premier. Tout ramene en permanence a la lettre du textesource,
dont la philologie propose en quelque sorte d'interpreter
l'esprit. La philologie se construit a !'interieur du vide ou du silence
introduit par Ie temps. Elle a pour fonction de donner de la voix a des

EN QUETE D'UNREEL LINGUISTIQUE 177
que, tout comme Eratosthene - qui fut Ie premier a revendiquer ee
surnom - il fut repute pour ses connaissanees nombreuses et variees.
Dans le Tableau des progres de la science grammaticale (1796), F.
Thurot souligne que les grammairiens anciens joignaient a la eonnaissance
approfondie de la langue une eonnaissance relativement
etendue sur un grand nombre d'autres sujets ayant avec elle des
rapports plus ou moins eloignes. Chez les Latins, explique-t-il, Ie maitre
de grammaire etait charge de donner a ses eleves les premiers elements
de la rhetorique ou de l'art oratoire, comme l'observe Quintilien. qui
reproche aux rheteurs latins d'avoir neglige leur profession en donnant
lieu a une usurpation que les rheteurs grecs n'avaient jamais eonnue.
Un grammairien. ehez les anciens, etait donc veritablement un litterateur
philosophe: aussi Ie distinguait-on du simple grammatiste, charge
specialement de donner aux enfants la connaissance des lettres. et de
leur enseigner la classification des parties oratoires 2.
A Rome done, pour reprendre la jolie formule de S. Reinaeh, il y
avait tout a faire, une litterature et une langue litteraire. a quoi on
pourrait ajouter : et une science aussi. La philologie ne naquit pas a
Rome. et la grammaire non plus. Les Romains, au sens Ie plus neutre du
terme. sont des heritiers: leur tache en la matiere fut autre que eelle de
leurs devanciers. Les Romains eonstruisirent leur identite par reference
aux Crees. sur la base de la tradition hellenique qui les preeedait. Les
grammairiens romains s'appuyerent sur une base theorique et
methodique deja existante, mais leur situation fut en quelque sorte
compliquee par la force de la tradition grecque et la neeessite de suivre
Ie modele existant. meme dans les cas OU la structure du latin exigeait
une approche differente.
Avec les Latins et la langue latine, la philologie devient bilingue. A
!'idee de la tradition eomme relais. continuite historique. transmission
des acquis d'une epoque a la suivante, s'ajoute avec Rome l'idee de
traduction. La philologie romaine est la transposition. voire la traduction.
de la philologie grecque. Le decalage historique entre les deux
cultures represente en l'occurrenee un element non negligeable. Les
deux histoires ne sont pas synchrones: l'histoire romaine prolonge
l'histoire grecque et lui fa

PASCALE HUMMEL
chronologie. Ce n'est qu'une fois depasse Ie stade de la litterature latine
elle-meme. a la fin de l'antiquite, que la philologie latine prend en
charge synthetiquement l'ensemble des textes grecs et latins legues par
l'antiquite classique dans sa totalite. Les scholiastes et exegetes latins
commentent les ceuvres latines, de la meme maniere - sous une forme
toutefois plus elaboree et developpee - que les scholiastes grecs
prenaient en charge les ceuvres grecques de leur propre tradition
linguistique. Les commentateurs latins etudient plus volontiers les
macrostructures (c'est-a-dire la syntaxe et le style). quand les Grecs
s'attachaient aux microstructures (a savoir principalement Ie lexique).
Cette remarque s'applique avant tout aux textes pris comme un tissu
coherent de sens, que les philologues s'emploient a decoder. Les mots et
les structures de la langue sont presents dans les textes d'une maniere
pour ainsi dire implicite.
Le savoir relatif a la langue. grecque d'abord. latine ensuite, se
construit parallelement a l'etude des ceuvres qui en sont l'expression.
Ce savoir grammatical ne precede pas les ceuvres: il en decoule.
Aristophane de Byzance. par exemple. en meme temps qu'il commente
les poemes homeriques. en inventorie Ie vocabulaire, d'ou il tire
notamment un lexique, dont il ne reste presque rien. En l'absence de
traces et de preuves pour l'antiquite reculee, sauf dans Ie domaine
asiatique, la forme que prit la grammaire aux commencements de la
Grece est purement conjecturale : Ie travail des philologues alexandrins
prolonge de toute evidence une tradition immemoriale. indirectement
attestee par Homere. d'une etude de la langue principalement correlee a
la pratique pedagogique. et ce longtemps sous une forme essentiellement
orale. La philologie, comme l'illustrent originellement les scholies.
satisfait fondamentalement un besoin d'inte.lligibilite personnel et
collectif. ainsi que l'imperatif pedagogique de l'explication et de la
transmission. En definitive. Ie philologue ancien ne vise pas une
construction holistique ou originale du passe qui lui parvient a travers
les textes. Sa tache est plus immediate et pragmatique : il commente des
textes, qu'il explique a des eleves ou consulte simplement a des fins
personnelles. Certes Ie Musee d'Alexandrie apparait comme un centre
de conservation et d'etude entierement devolu a l'etude du passe. Mais
rien dans les realisations ecrites des philologues ne releve d'une mise en
forme theorique ou sommative du legs antique. Leur tache est celie du
bibliothecaire-philologue et non du theoricien, du commentateur et non
de l'historien. Les textes sont Ie but autant que le materiau : la philologie
trouve pour ainsi dire en eux sa verite immanente. Les grammairiens
alexandrins, qui travaillaient a amender les textes classiques. etaient
guides par Ie souci de conserver intact Ie patrimoine spirituel de leurs
aines. La finalite principale de la grammaire etait l'exegese des poetes.

EN QUETE D'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE I79
ou l'etude de la prosodie et des figures de rhetorique tenait une place
essentielle. Meme si. des les premiers temps de la science philologique.
les savants manifesterent de la curiosite pour la question de l'origine.
les recherches dans ce domaine resterent vaines ou leurs conclusions
sans effet aussi longtemps que les grammairiens se limiterent a. l'etude
d'un seul idiome ou de leur seule langue maternelle.
Le reel du philologue ancien est d'abord et tout entier textuel ; Ie reel
du gramrnairien est un produit derive: la connaissance de la langue
decoule de l'etude des textes, c'est-a.-dire de la langue en contexte. La
philologie est premiere, la grammaire seconde ; et, par commodite de
langage, Ie mot philologie finit par englober les deux. De la periode
romaine de la philologie on peut dire qu'elle fut plus grammaticale que
philologique, en tout cas que les Latins approfondirent la dimension
grammaticale de la philologie en lui conferant une autonomie
epistemologique. Autrement dit, l'enchainement des etapes peut se
resumer ainsi : (I) commentaire exegetique et grammatical des textes.
(2) constitution paralleIe d'un savoir grammatical proprement dit. (3)
autonomisation de ce savoir grammatical. Dire que la grammaire
derive de la philologie serait inexact; tout aussi juste (ou inexact) serait
de dire que la philologie derive de la grammaire. Le partage des acquis
d'une part et la transmission des connaissances requise par la pedagogie
d'autre part montrent la maniere dont grammaire et philologie meIent,
voire confondent. leur trajectoire tout au long de l'histoire de la
tradition. Privilegier un versant plutot qu'un autre est en definitive une
simple question de point de vue: soit 1'0n considere, en quelque sorte
pour elle-meme, l'appropriation des CEuvres par Ie commentaire
perpetuel 3 , OU se succedent au fil du temps les mains de plusieurs
generations de scholiastes et de philologues. soit I'on s'interesse au
contenu de l'exegese et a. son caractere grammatical. D'un cote Ie paratexte
exegetique, de l'autre l'hypertexte. en quelque sorte, des elements
de connaissance constitues en savoir autonome, a. savoir par exemple
l'organisation des lemmes et des gJossai en lexique. La double demarche
de la deduction et de l'induction rend compte de cette construction ou
reconstruction d'un reellinguistique par la philologie : en expliquant, Ie
philologue deconstruit ; en organisant la matiere de son explication. il
construit. L'intelligence du philologue-grammairien est empathique:
elle se moule sur Ie texte a. comprendre : l'intelligence du grammairienphilologue
est analytique-synthetique. En alliant deconstruction et
reconstruction, la philologie propose la construction originale d'un reel
linguistique. Elle s'exerce dans Ie va-et-vient entre Ie modele a. com-
3 Commentaries - Kommentare. ed. G. W. Most, Gottingen. Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht. 1999.

180 PASCALE HUMMEL
prendre et Ie paradigme a edifier. Pour Ie dire encore autrement. la
philologie procede se10n l'axe syntagmatique. la grammaire selon l'axe
paradigmatique. La seconde recueille les efforts de la premiere. a
laquelle eUe est etroitement melee.
Abstraction faite des Indiens. les createurs de la grammaire sont les
Grecs. Leur pratique. fondee sur la distinction entre correction et
incorrection. se definit par une orientation normative. ou la simple
observation objective se trouve supplantee par la volonte de mettre en
accord. dans la mesure du possible. les donnees du langage avec la
logique. dans Ie but de les verser dans des moules susceptibles d'etre
appris et enseignes. Le savoir grammatical antique est un savoir
flexible. ouvert. se pliant aux exigences de renseignement. et ou les
innovations se melent aux remanences conservatrices et aux conceptions
obsoletes. Comme Ie remarque P. Swiggers. Histoire de la
pensee linguistique. Analyse du langage et nHlexion linguistique dans la
culture occidentale, de J'antiquite au XIX siecJe (Paris. Presses
universitaires de France. 1997).l'emergence d'une technographie grammaticale
dans l'antiquite grecque est la premiere etape dans l'histoire de
la pensee linguistique occidentale. Le passage des acquis de la philologie
grecque dans la philologie latine est un evenement aussi bien
linguistique qu'historique. La transposition, et surtout l'adaptation. du
modele epistemique grec se heurte au fonctionnement propre de la
langue latine. La philologie latine herite de la philologie grecque. la
grammaire latine de la grammaire grecque. Dit ainsi. l'ecueil est
manifeste. QueUe realite passe de la philologie grecque a la grammaire
latine. de la grammaire grecque a la philologie latine? S'agit-il d'une
realite epistemique. linguistique ou historique? des trois a la fois. ou
d'aucune d'entre e1les? La philologie. en prenant en charge Ie legs ecrit
de l'antiquite classique. assume successivement les fonctions de paratexte
et de metalangage. Lorsqu'elle commente la philologie est paratexte:
10rsqu'eUe organise la matiere et la transcende par un discours
theorique. la philologie est metalangage.
Le Moyen age a sa fa

EN QUETE D'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE IBI
l'enseignement elementaire varient peu depuis l'epoque de Quintilien.
Le gout de la compilation erudite fait negliger de se reporter aux
sources. L'absence de contact direct avec les chefs-d'reuvre classiques, Ie
defaut de perspective, Ie manque de sens historique sont les signes les
plus patents de la deperdition: les meilleurs esprits ne s'y peuvent
soustraire: ils reflechissent, non sur les textes, mais sur les commentaires
qu'ils commentent aleur tour; de commentaire en commentaire,
la pensee ainsi s'affadit et degenere 4.
Avec Priscien, l'antiquite entre definitivement dans l'epoque
medievale; Ie haut Moyen age est d'abord marque en Occident par un
mouvement de synthese, faisant suite a l'epoque d'experimentation
consecutive au transfert de la technographie grecque. La contribution
d'Isidore de Seville, tenu pour Ie mediateur privilegie du savoir antique.
est determinante: dans ses Etymologiae, il combine considerations
methodologiques et explications etymologiques, qui, dans I' optique
medievale, conduisent ensemble ala connaissance de la vraie nature des
choses. La grammaire carolingienne se caracterise par une double
reflexion: d'abord sur Ie corpus. ensuite sur la methode. Dans la
pratique, la grammaire d'Alcuin et ceUes des autres grammairiens
carolingiens se cantonnent aux cadres de la grammaire antique, sans
forger de notions nouvelles ni renouveler Ie dispositif de la grammaire.
La grammaire. qui dans l'antiquite est un art preparatoire a !'instruction
du rheteur ou a l'activite specialisee du philologue-commentateur,
reste integree, tout au long du Moyen age. a une education plus
generale, ou la maitrise de la langue ecrite joue un role central:
l'insertion de la grammaire dans Ie trivium permet d'envisager la
grammaire comme une science. ayant pour objet les categories
grammaticales (du latin) et preparant aux principales disciplines
universitaires.
Le Moyen age occidental voit l'essentiel de l'enseignement a travers
une orientation logique. Aux XIII" et XI ye siecles. les deux exercices
fondamentaux sont: d'une part. rexpositio. par lequel Ie maitre
commente un texte, avant tout les reuvres d'Aristote et particulierement
ses traites de logique, mettant en lumiere les arguments sur lesquels
l'auteur appuie sa these, avant d'etudier ces arguments eux-memes, les
decomposant, les divisant, remontant ainsi jusqu'a leurs elements
derniers: d'autre part.la disputatio. OU Ie texte etudie devient l'occasion
d'une discussion, Ie maitre choisissant une proposition de l'auteur.
examinant les arguments en sa faveur, y indus ceux auxquels l'auteur
n'avait pas songe. Un tel enseignement se soucie peu de la forme et de
4 P. Courcelle. Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe a Cassiodore.
Paris. editions de Boccard. 1943.

EN QUETE V'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE I83
du cadre theorique herite de la grammaire grecque. L'essentiel du
travail philologique consiste en une activite de transmission. it la fois
par la copie des manuscrits et par la reconquete en quelque sorte
humaniste du terrain cede it la barbarie. Les philologues, si ce terme
convient, du Moyen age sont les copistes, les maitres de grammaire et
de rhetorique, et les missionnaires voues it l'evangelisation des esprits.
Tout se passe comme si la philologie ne pouvait exister separement des
taches modestes auxquelles l'epoque par necessite la cantonne. La
realite du moment est celle de la sauvegarde, it laquelle ne se superpose
aucun artefact epistemologique, sinon celui de la speculation logique.
Autrement dit, la langue ancienne (grecque ou latine) ne semble pas.
pour Ie Moyen age occidental. jouir d'une existence independante des
textes qui l'incarnent.
L'Orient byzantin presente un visage quelque peu different. Les
philologues byzantins perpetuent la tradition exegetique de l'antiquite,
sans la moindre innovation toutefois, dans Ie fond comme dans la
forme. Beaucoup de leurs remarques semblent droit issues des scholies
antiques. Les realisations monumentales des encyclopedies et des lexiques
(la Souda, Photius, par exemple) ou, plus modestement, les traites
ressortissant it la technographie grammaticale (relatifs notamment aux
dialectes. a l'accentuation ou autres) en imposent pour ainsi dire par Ie
caractere relativement acheve du propos et de la mise en forme. De
pres toutefois, les choses sont moins impressionnantes. Les sommes de
la philologie byzantine sont Ie creuset OU toute la science grammaticale
d'avant se trouve recueillie, voire deversee. Le savoir, en meme temps
que Ie savoir-faire, de l'antiquite grecque se prolonge it Byzance sans
grande nouveaute, sinon sous la forme d'une volonte encyclopedique de
totaliser les acquis de la philologie classique, en les accumulant dans des
syntheses qui sont autant de reservoirs informes de connaissances mal
organisees. Pour Ie Moyen age occidental. la realite linguistique de
l'antiquite est principalement latine et textuelle; Ie grec est Ie parent
pauvre de la tradition occidentale. Pour la philologie byzantine, la
realite linguistique de l'antiquite est substantiellement grecque et
significativement encyclopedique. Aucun des deux versants de la
tradition medievale n'apporte un element nouveau it la construction
aposteriorique ou retrospective des langues anciennes. La philologie
medievale confirme l'idee d'une persistance tautologique du modele
originel. et atteste, presque paradoxalement, la dependance epistemologique
de la philologie par rapport it son objet. Toute science certes est
constitutivement soumise it son objet: dans Ie cas de la philologie, la
soumission est forte et revet une forme presque structurelle. L'objet de
la philologie est la langue, sa methode la langue, son moyen et sa fin
encore la langue. La tautologie est par consequent de nature linguis-

PASCALE HUMMEL
tique : la philologie est une *logologie : elle a pour objet son propre
outil, la langue. Sa realite serait ainsi solipsiste, la langue par dIe
n'ayant d'autre sujet-objet qu'elle-meme. et la philologie trouvant son
sens et sa finalite dans Ie commentaire perpetuel du dit et du deja
commente.
Apres Ie Moyen age. l'histoire de la philologie prend un tour plus
offensivement novateur. Le xvf siecle apparait comme un tournant
dans l'histoire de la grammaire: c'est alors que natt la linguistique
moderne. La grammaire logico-pedagogique des grammairiens grecs se
trouve reprise a l'epoque moderne, notamment par la France des XVI e
- XVIf siecles 6. L'epoque de la Renaissance se signale aussi par
l'elargissement de l'horizon linguistique, et ce sous deux formes: (a)
!'inventaire des langues et des specimens susceptibles de les illustrer. (b)
la description grammaticale et lexicaIe des diverses langues. Th.
Biblioander. Commentarius de ratione communi omnium linguarum et
litterarum (1548). et C. Gesner, Mithridates (1555). par exemple, y
ajoutent une reflexion sur les causes de la diversite des langues. dans Ie
temps et dans l'espace: ils relient les changements linguistiques a une
necessite pratique ou a une adoption volontaire. Si les grammaires de la
Renaissance n'ont plus Ie but de dresser a la dispute. ni de parler des
modi significandi et des questions ex qua vi. les ouvrages n'en portent
pas moins encore l'empreinte de l'esprit scolastique 7. Tandis que
plusieurs auteurs posent une distinction entre la grammatica methodica
et horistica ou recherche des regles. et la grammatica exegetica sive
enarrativa et historica ou explication des textes. Ie sens attribue aux
etudes grammaticales cOIncide encore avec !'ideal des anciens. En 1540.
la definition de la grammaire par L. Gauricus (Grammatica est ratio &
scientia recte loquendi. siue recta latini eloquii disciplina) 8 atteste son
attachement a la tradition, et la filiation de la grammaire avec la
rhetorique. Les theoriciens font la distinction entre grammaire methodique
et grammaire exegetique. manifestant ainsi leur attachement a la
perennite des deux orientations pratiques caracterisant la philologie
depuis l'antiquite.
6 W. von Wartburg. Problemes et methodes de la Jinguistique. trad. de
l'allemand par P. Maillard, Paris. Presses universitaires de France. 1963; G.
Snyders. La pedagogie en France aux XVlf et XVIJf siecles. Paris. Presses
universitaires de France. 1964.
7 L. Kukenheim. Contributions a l'histoire de la grammaire grecque.latine et
hebrai'que arepoque de la Renaissance. Leiden. E. J. Brill. 1951.
8 L. Gauricus. Libellus isagogicus. quo duce perdiscent pueri juvenesque
senesque horis tercentum dogmata grammatice. Roma. Per B. Cartularium
Perusinum. 1540.

EN QUETE D'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE 185
Pour l'epoque moderne, comme Ie rappelle S. Reinach dans
l'ouvrage deja cite. l'histoire de la philologie distingue communement
quatre periodes. symbolisees par quatre grands noms: (1) periode
italienne ou !'imitation: Petrarque: (2) periode fran

186 PASCALE HUMMEL
epistemologique accompagne le deplacement du reel envisage. La
construction de l'antiquite comme un ensemble organique induit une
modification du construit. Au reel linguistique. qui representa
longtemps la matiere presque exclusive de l'activite philologique,
s'ajouterent progressivement d'autres formes de reel, depla

ENQUETE D'UN REEL LINGUISTIQUE
Sans la critique. dit F. Schleiermacher, Ie monument philologique est
edifie sur du sable. et la science philologique releverait du pur
dilettantisme. A. Boeckh parle du cerde vicieux auquel n'echappe pas la
critique philologique: pour expliquer un texte, il faut Ie lire sous une
certaine forme. et pour Ie lire sous cette forme et l'y laisser. il faut
pouvoir l'expliquer et Ie comprendre 10 : de lao chez bien des savants. la
tendance a corriger ou a supprimer les passages qu'ils ne comprennent
pas. Quelques-uns, trop soucieux d'esthetique (P. H. Peerlkamp, K.
Lehrs. A. Nauck). se forgeant a priori une idee des qualites litteraires de
tel ecrivain. suppriment cornme apocryphe tout ce qui ne repond pas a
!'ideal qu'ils ont reve: une ecole opposee. dite ecole conservatrice.
voudrait attribuer aux copistes une sorte d'infaillibilite. La demangeaison
du nouveau. Ie pruritus emendandi. comme l'appelle S. Reinach.
arme beaucoup de philologues contre les textes generalement re

EN QUETE D'UN REEL LINGUIST/QUE 189
Les philologues anciens ne theorisent jamais la finalite de leur pratique;
ils conservent, expliquent, commentent par raison pratique plus que
theorique. Leur demarche procede de !'immanence pragmatique. Leur
verite est dans l'adaequatio intellectus et rei. au sens Ie plus litteral du
terme. c'est-a-dire dans l'ajustement en que1que sorte empathique de
leur intelligence au texte a expliquer. Les philologues modernes theorisent
de plus en plus leur pratique. Le discours sur la philologie. ses fins
et ses moyens. commence veritablement a la Renaissance. lorsque
l'antiquite est suffisamment depassee, pour ainsi dire. en tant qu'epoque
achevee. Du point de vue de la philologie. Ie Moyen age, occidental
surtout. n'entreprit jamais de prendre en charge l'antiquite cornme une
anteriorite close et significative en soi : il se contenta de la prolonger et
surtout d'en sauvegarder. tant bien que mal. les acquis. Autrernent dit.
l'antiquite n'avait pas pour Ie Moyen age la perfection d'une entelechie.
Cest a l'epoque rnoderne qu'il appartient veritablement de constituer
pour ainsi dire en principe et en realite l'antiquite. des lors erigee au
statut de canonique et de classique. Et plus l'antiquite. sous les doigts
des modernes. prit forme comme un ensemble organique. plus la
science philologique s'eloignait de la seule litteralite des textes pour
s'ouvrir a toutes les formes de vestiges. A l'immanence textuelle de la
lettre s'ajouta par postulat theorique la transcendance d'une construction
philosophique, voire ideologique. proposant Ie depassement de la
lettre vcrs !'idee de tradition.
Apartir de la Renaissance, la philologie se developpa peu a peu dans
deux directions nullement exclusives l'une de l'autre: l'exegese des
textes. telle qU'elle etait pratiquee depuis l'epoque grecque. et la
construction theorique. metahistorique. voire axiologique. de l'antiquite
comme une realite conceptuelle. Dans ce double sens. la philologie peut
etre dite metalangage, d'une part parce qu'elle tisse un paratexte ou
rnetatexte veritablement textue1 autour du texte-source qu'elle prend
pour objet. d'autre part parce qu'elle elabore un discours theorique
faisant de l'antiquite dans sa totalite un objet-en-soi. La philologie se
developpe en que1que sorte par scissiparite, voire fission nucleaire : a
!'isomorphisme structure1 de la philologie grecque. OU Ie comrnente et Ie
commentaire sont unis par une rnerne langue. se substituent peu a peu
diverses sortes d·heteromorphisme. A la langue unique. Ie grec, s'ajoute
a partir de la periode romaine la deuxieme langue ancienne.le latin: au
travail du commentaire s'ajoute peu a peu l'activite de traduction. La
sphere greco-Iatine se prolonge tout au long du Moyen age. sous la
forme bifide Occident latin vs Orient byzantin. Si chaque moitie connait
l'autre. ce n'est qu'apres Ie Moyen age toutefois que l'antiquite se
trouve veritablernent envisagee comme une totalite bilingue et non
comrne Ie simple agregat de deux entites linguistiquernent distinctes. La

19°
PASCALE HUMMEL
premiere longue etape est constituee par l'enchainement philologie
grecque, philologie latine, philologie medievale, philologie byzantine; la
deuxieme etape est celie de la modernite, qui commence avec la
Renaissance, c'est-a-dire de la constitution de l'antiquite en modele
classique et canonique, globalement hausse au rang d'objet admirable et
imitable; la troisieme etape est celle de l'Altertumswissenschaft,
melange de positivisme scientifique et d'idealisme anhistorique. La
construction de l'antiquite classique par la philologie est faite d'une
succession d'ajustements perceptifs et cognitifs, ou l'objet « antiquite»
se trouve soumis a diverses formes d'appropriation epistemique. La
phi101ogie incarne Ie paradoxe d'une science qui, tout en tenant compte
du facteur chronologique, se definit avant tout par 1a persistance
iterative dans Ie meme, melant de la sorte chronicite et ipseite. Elle
travaille a la rencontre ininterrompue de la synchronie et de la diachronie.
Le reel qu'elle construit, en meme temps qu'i\ est tenu a
distance comme un objet historique, echappe d'autre part a l'histoire en
raison de la valeur perenne de son classicisme. La philologie est
anhistorique, et d'une certaine maniere meme anti-teleologique, puisque
sa fin se trouve toujours deja a son debut. L'antiquite de chaque synchronie
post-antique - renaissante, moderne, allemande, etc. - est
l'avatar d'une realite constamment reconstruite, dont la verite se situe a
l'intersection de l'objectivite et de la subjectivite. Sa seule realite
veritablement et indiscutablement reelle est celle des textes et de la
langue, dont la materialite linguistique en quelque sorte garantit un
ancrage ideal a la fois dans la lettre et dans l'esprit.
PARIS

BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
CLAUDE CALAME. Myth and History in Ancient Greece: The
Symbolic Creation of a Colony. Translated by Daniel W.
Berman. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
2003· Pp. xvii + 178. US $39.50; £26·95. ISBN 0-691-11458-7.
Daniel Berman's English translation follows the French original of 1996
with the promptitude which we have come to expect for any work of
structuralist cultural anthropology. And Claude Calame. though based
in Lausanne rather than Paris. is perhaps the most prolific structuralist
at work today. Along with other studies of Greek literature. he has applied
his own kind of "semionarrative" analysis. inspired by the folktale
system of A.J. Greimas. to a growing range of texts. Genealogies and
local histories. chiefly those of Pausanias. are treated in various articles-"Spartan
genealogies" of 1987 was included in my survey of new
work at EMC 10 (1991) 69: the life of Theseus is treated in a book: and
the foundation stories of Cyrene in a series of articles now superseded
by the book before us. for Cyrene is the "colony" of the title. The French
original was widely and warmly greeted in French- and Italianlanguage
journals. But Calame makes for "difficult reading." as P.
Vidal-Naquet avowed in his preface to the Theseus book. For readers
more at home in English. Myth and History gives a fully representative
sample.
The book is divided into three parts. with extensive notes at the end.
There is a theoretical introduction (1-34). a treatment of the foundation
stories (35-1I3). and a coda on the meaning of muthos in Strabo. Porphyry
and Plato (114-119). which adds nothing and should have been
integrated with the account of muthos in the introduction. where Strabo
and Plato also appear.
Calame begins by showing that myth. mythology. and related categories
are of modern origin. that other peoples have other ideas of
story-telling. and that in Greek literature the term muthos is often tendentious.
sometimes strangely so. This has been better done in any
number of recent books. Nor does it follow. as Calame supposes. that
such categories have no point. so that we are forced back on structural
analysis. I do not know whether it is by inadvertence or by some exqui-

192 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
site self-deprecating irony that Calame insistently labels all the old assumptions
as "European." even as "European academic." to indicate
how useless they are (11-12. four times)-a d then identifies his own
approach as "deliberately European or Western and academic" (23).
We are briefly informed of local varieties of story-telling in New
Guinea. Burundi-Rwanda and the Himalayas which defy "European
categories." Of course they do. Except that in New Guinea. beside the
river Sepik. where Calame attended a staged recitation. the current
pidgin includes stori and sagi. But in general. in the wider prospect
which Calame does not even hint at. the oral traditions of Asia and Africa
and South America are a vast and still expanding galaxy which will
put every conceivable category to the test.
Calame's survey of mQthos in Greek literature occupies most of the
introduction (12-27), and would be even longer if the coda were integrated.
It does not advance the argument. Having dismissed myth as a
modern category. Calame hardly needs to show that it is unwarranted
by Greek usage. But he returns at intervals to the modern meaning. so
as to dissociate it from the Greeks as well. In Aristophanes. "telling stories"
is not the same thing for a hick father and a hip son (Wasps
I 174-1207). Calame accordingly devotes a page to paraphrasing "the
exchange between the sensible enemy of Cleon and the ridiculous heliast.
his friend" (sic). and discovers "perhaps the most paradoxical use of
the term mQthos in the Classical age." The several instances. though
widely ranging and contrasting, "have nothing to do with the history of
the gods or heroes!" The exclamation point is his. one of many.
Calame finally expounds his own semionarrative analysis (27-34).
The structures behind "discourse production" perate at three ascending
levels of abstraction. of which the second is by far the most elaborate
and distinctive. The "discursive structures" of the first level are
simply the particular place and time, Cyrene and its founding in the
past. with all the natural features and human activities pertaining to
both. This much hardly counts as structuralism. The"deep semionarrative
structures" of the third level are a few semantic clusters called "isotopies"
arising from the structures of the second level. but often forming
contradictions. and therefore close to ordinary structuralism. It is
the "semionarrative surface structures" of the second level that effectively
organize the production. and in name a. d substance much resemble
the narrative grammar of Greimas. though simple people might
be reminded simply of plot and character. These structures make up a
"canonical schema" consisting of four sequential phases called manipulation,
competence. performance and sanction.. and of four "actantial/actorial
positions" called Sender. Subject. Anti-subject and Predicate.
The schema is reinforced by semantic isotopies. to be subsumed in

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 193
the contradictions of the third level.
In the rest of the book. except for the coda. Calame analyzes Pindar's
Pythians 4. 5. and 9 and the relevant parts of Herodotus. Book 4. Callimachus'
Hymn to Apollo. and Apollonius' Argonautica. Book 4. The
canonical schema. however. is only partially and intermittently applied.
so that the introduction and the demonstration do not fit together properly.
The schema seems clearest with respect to Pythian 9 (67-74. 78-79).
Here the manipulation phase starts. as it should. from a "lack." Apollo's
love for the nymph Cyrene. which prompts Chiron as Sender to advise
Apollo as Subject. In the performance and competence phases. Apollo
transports Cyrene to Libya and marries her. In the sanction phase. their
son Aristaeus is born. Alexidemus and Telesicrates. two "homologous
figures." go through similar phases: Iolaus. though only glanced at by
Pindar. does so too. A matrimonial isotopy is in play (no commentator
has ever missed this). and also a cultural one. the transition from savagery-hunting
on Mount Pelion-to husbandry. And yet. says Calame.
this is not at all the contrast between nature and culture which "the
most recent interpreters. clearly influenced by Levi-Strauss. have affirmed
.... We should mistrust the binary logic too often applied by anthropologists
without nuance" (74). I cannot find the objection spelled
out. Perhaps it is that cereal agriculture would represent a further advance.
With the founding proper. as related in the other odes and authors.
it is easy to see that a lack often leads to manipulation. and that persons
like Euphemus or Battus go through four phases. and that Apollo is repeatedly
the Sender. But Pythian 4 and Herodotus pose obvious complications
for any narrative analysis. Pindar in addressing Arcesilaus
adopts an unusual form and manner. and Herodotus strings several
stories together. For Calame. however. each literary work is an "enunciation."
a "discourse production." displaying its own structures
throughout. and there can be no question of simply distinguishing between
what Pindar borrowed and what he added. or between different
sources in Herodotus. Before ever applying the canonical schema. Calame
explains-under such headings as "performative self-reference
and temporal location" and "narrative and figurative temporality"-how
"a 'textual time' is constructed through ... symbolic process"
(37-43). In Pythian 4 there are "five distinct temporal planes" (43-48).
Structures multiply vertiginously.
The isotopies are mentioned most. Some are called "animal." "vegetal."
"mineral." or "musical." "political." "rural/urban." Some are like
old-fashioned symbolism. and are embroidered with far-fetched com-

194 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
parisons. Euphemus' clod is a "fertility sy bol" that contributes to a
"hospitality" isotopy and a couple of others. It should have gone down
to Hades at Taenarum, like Hades' bride Core, like piglets at the Thesmophoria,
and since it didn't, the result is "no Calligeneia, no 'Beautiful
Birth'," no "process of agricultural growth" for Libya (56). It also
stands for "autochthony" in a vegetal isotopy and is paralleled by the
Athenian myths of Cecrops and of Ericht onius and by the Theban
myth of Oedipus ploughing his mother's furrow (56-59). In Pythian 5,
says Calame, Oedipus is evoked by the Theban Aegeidae, who introduce
"a matrilineal legitimacy" in place of the illegitimacy that goes with
Euphemus' Lemnian sojourn in Pythian 4 (81--82). I found myself teased
by vain expectation of another smack at Levi-Strauss.
This will suffice as a sampling of Calame's new structuralism. In restricting
himself to half a dozen texts on a single subject, Calame has
heightened to a rare degree the objection to any structuralism of language
or culture, that it is anti-historical. If stJ'Uctures have formed this
or that narrative of Cyrene's founding, they must have operated first
on all the interested people at Sparta and Thera and Cyrene. Now, it
happens that in just these stories there is an obvious element-it can be
suspected in many Greek stories-that may well be due to structures
resisting historical change and for that reason all the more discernible
and verifiable. It is ritual. Everyone knows that the great Dorian festival
Carneia is behind, at the least, certain striking details: it is the occasion
of Pythian 5, and the festival ceremony is cited as attesting the
story. A structural explanation of Greek ritual has been attempted in
different ways by Burkert and by Detienne and Vernant. Though the
results so far may be questioned, we can still hope. With semionarrative
analysis we cannot.
NOEL ROBERTSON
VICfORIA, B.C. and
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
BROCK UNIVERSITY
ST. CATHARINES, ON L2S 3A1
SAMUEL SHIRLEY, trans. Herodotus. On the War for Greek
Freedom: Selections from the Histories, Edited, with introduction
and notes, by James Romm. Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Co, Inc.. 2003, Pp. xxvii + 201. US $29.95. ISBN 0­
87220-668-8 (cloth); US $7.95. ISBN 0-87220-667-X (paper),
This new translation of Herodotus, like Walter Blanco's Norton edition,

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 195
is an abridgement intended primarily for the undergraduate classroom.
I It follows eight other complete translations since the middle of
the nineteenth century: Henry Cary (1849). Canon George Rawlinson
(1858-60). G.c. Macaulay (1890). A.c. Godley (1920). }. Enoch Powell
(1949). Aubrey de Selincourt (1954). David Grene (1989) and Robin Waterfield
(1998). Cary. Rawlinson. Godley. de Selincourt (lightly revised
with notes by John Marincola in 2003). Grene and Waterfield are all in
print. Among these six. Cary's version is still the most consistently accurate.
economical and deft in tracking the Greek syntax. The defunct
Macaulay provides a slightly more exact translation. but he has the bad
habit. like Rawlinson. of imposing archaic vocabulary. biblical diction
and th-pronouns on Herodotus. Cary wisely-and surprisingly for his
age-chose to use plain. unadorned English without the biblicalese that
ruins so much of the dialogue in both Rawlinson and Macaulay. Until
Robert Strassler's forthcoming Landmark Herodotus appears with its
newly commissioned translation. we have two abridged and six complete
translations of wildly varying styles and accuracy from which to
choose for our students. 2
James Romm provides a cursory 13-page general introduction
touching on the scope of the Histories. the Persians. the Greeks. the
author. the Histories in their time and the editorial practice behind the
abridgement. This is followed by a chronological chart of parallel
events in Greece. Egypt and the Near East and five clear maps. which
do not unfortunately include either Marathon or Plataea. If the book
runs into another edition. they ought to be added. The translation itself
"is intended to highlight the main story line of the Histories. though in
doing so it eclipses a great number of other subjects Herodotus addresses
in the text. The same can be said of the excerpts themselves:
They have been chosen so as to give a reduced version of the text's central
thread. with only a passing glance at its many tangents, digressions.
and subplots" (xviii). Annotations to the translation are in the form of
sparse footnotes. Romm adds a brief "Historical Epilogue" that sketches
events from 479 to the rise of Alexander. A six-page glossary of "Main
Characters and Places" and a five-page index of proper names end the
volume.
I Walter Blanco. trans.. Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. ed.. Herodotus: The Histories.
New Translation. Selections. Backgrounds. Commentaries (New York
1992).
2 For those who would like to see just how wildly styles and accuracy vary
among the complete translations. please consult my detailed review "Catching
Xerxes' tears in English: The styles of Herodotean translation," Arion Third
Series 8.l (2000) ll9-l43. or the shorter treatment in "Recent trends in classical
prose translation," Syllecta Classica l3 (2002) 238-243.

196 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Romm credits James Shirley with "Most of the passages presented
here." but adds rather misleadingly that "Several passages were also
added by the editor. in his own translation. to those prepared by the
translator" (xviii). In fact. Romm translated all the following chapters:
1.102-02. [34-35.215-16; all of Book II; 111.17-33. 65.106-16; IV·46. 133-36;
V.2-3. 37-38. 49. 78. 124-26; VII·5-11. 36. 47-52. 101 ; VIII.49-58. 98.140-42;
IX.41-58. 89. 106 and II5-22. This is nearly 20 percent of the total 187
pages in the translation proper. Romm's translations increase in frequency
and size toward the end. which might suggest that Shirley was
unable for some reason to complete the task.
Whatever the explanation. Romm's own work does not clash with
Shirley·s. and there is virtually no stylistic gap between the two.
The puffs on the back of the book claim that Shirley's translation is
"elegant." "fresh" and "contemporary." I wo Id discount the assertion
of elegance. The translation is. however. "fresh" and "contemporary" in
the sense of offering students straightforward. accurate English whose
simplicity makes little attempt to capture the Greek of an historian
whom even Plutarch. despite his animosity in The Malice of Herodotus.
called a ypaqllKoc avi]p: "The man's an artist. his story pleasant. and
grace and power and vivacity fill the narrative: he tells his tale like a
Homer. not knowledgeably. but sweetly and fluently" (Mor. 8748). The
artist with all his grace. power and vivacity is no more in Shirley's
prose than in Blanco's or Waterfield's. None of the currently available
translations comes even remotely close to suggesting the full range of
Herodotus' style. though Grene gives the best approximation of the
Homeric strain with its power and vivacity. Shirley's own translations
of Spinoza. now assembled in the mammoth Spinoza: Complete Works. 3
are a magnificent accomplishment. but here he sets himself a lower bar:
to impart an undemanding. fluid pace to his English by subtly condensing.
shortening or paraphrasing the Greek without actually distorting
it. This strategy is mostly innocuous and makes the edition very useful
for high school or undergraduate classes. but no one should pretend it
does any more than enhance readability for' a generation of nonreaders.
A good example of his approach is the famous opening sentence.
a proem to the whole work. which unr lIs like a long musical
phrase to its Homeric climax and trails off to a pause before the narrative
begins. Here is how Shirley translates it: "Herodotus of Halicarnassus
here gives the results of his researches. so that the events of human
history may not fade with time and the notable achievements both of
Greeks and of foreigners may not lack their due fame; and. among
3 Samuel Shirley. trans.. Michael L. Morgan. ed.. Spinoza: Complete Works
(Indianapolis/Cambridge MA 2002).

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 197
other things. to show why these peoples came to make war on one another."
For contrast here is my own literal translation. which follows
Herodotus' clause rhythm more precisely: "Herodotus of Halicarnassus
here sets forth the results of his investigations. that the actions performed
by men may not fade over time. nor the great and wonderful
deeds. which both the Greeks and barbarians have displayed. lack renown.
and. along with all other relevant matters. the cause that drove
them to wage war on each other." Herodotus has not written his history
to preserve the "events of human history" but the "actions performed
by men." He intends to recount the "great and wonderful
deeds" which both Greeks and barbarians have displayed. not merely
the "notable achievements" of Greeks and foreigners. (Throughout the
book that offensive word "barbarian" and its cognates have been replaced
with "foreigner" and its cognates except for a single neglected
instance of "barbarians" I found on 95.) Finally. he does not break the
sentence at its end with a strong stop in order to resume more smoothly
with an epexegetical verb (the interpolated "to show"). but strains the
syntax sharply by adding a final paratactic clause that is best taken as
explanatory of iCTOpillC ("investigations") at the start of the sentence.
That final clause in a baldly faithful translation runs as follows: "both
the other relevant matters and the reason through which they waged
war on each other." I tried to suggest the syntactical strain in my
translation above without being too painfully exact. All in all. Shirley is
smooth and painless with more of the Herodotean rhythm in his English
than Blanco. who chopped Herodotus-as he did Thucydides in his
complete Norton translation-into a mess of short. declarative sentences
that almost make de Selincourt look elegant.
This edition would have benefited from a larger range of explanatory
notes. a more thorough historical introduction and a brief bibliography
for further reading-not to mention the missing maps for Marathon
and Plataea. The relatively thin support material will require any
teacher using it to fill in a lot of historical. social and cultural gaps. One
hopes. therefore. that Hackett will eventually publish a complete Herodotus
with adequate commentaries and maps to match their superb
Thucydides.
The low price of Herodotus: On the War for Greek Freedom in paper
makes it suitable for survey courses in Greek history or the Greco­
Persian wars where there is no need for a complete translation. The
choice of abridgements then is between Blanco or Shirley-Romm. The
decision hinges on (a) the quality of translation and (b) the scope of the
background material and commentaries. Blanco is deficient in the first
despite giving us more of the Histories. but far larger in the second. I
myself would choose the cheaper Shirley-Romm edition for the simple

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
ticular P.Oxy. 3647 (which has invalidated some previous textual conjectures)
and the new text of Diogenes of Oenoanda, as well as new passages
pertaining to Antiphon's quadrature of the circle, his buried-bed
argument, and his activity as a dream-interpreter. For the papyri he
suggests a few new supplements and assesses the various restorations.
These supplements are not listed. but I note the following: F44(a)II.5.
F44(a)llI.25. F44(a)IlI.29. F44(a)VI.30, and 44(b)ll,r. These are generally
sound. if minor in import. The translations are serviceable and accurate.
The commentary is excellent. Pendrick is extremely well-versed in
the history of the scholarship. He is always careful to trace an argument
back to its earliest proponent and to discuss the major accounts in the
history of a problem. Moreover, he typically gives (often quite detailed)
critical assessments of this past scholarship rather than bare citations.
The result is that the commentary is fully successful in its task of
quickly and efficiently orientating its reader within any given issue.
Pendrick is also careful to explain matters of context when necessary, as
seen in his fine discussion (276-285) on the beginning of the second book
of Aristotle's Physics where we find our most important reference to
Antiphon's argument about the buried bed. Here Pendrick is careful to
explicate Aristotle's own views, as well as the philosopher's purposes in
citing Antiphon, before attempting to extract Antiphon's own argument.
freed of Aristotelian concepts and terminology, Another good
example is his discussion of Hermogenes' principles of stylistic criticism
in relation to his judgment of Antiphon as a writer (230-233). Finally.
the commentary is also good on matters of the text. and Pendrick is
careful to explain and discuss different readings or translations of a
vexed passage before presenting his own position.
I have two substantive points to make by way of disagreement and
criticism. First. a certain judicious conservatism in matters of interpretation
is the hallmark of a good editor. Moreover, there can be little
doubt that the fragments of the Presocratics and the Sophists have produced
in the history of scholarship a number of speculative theories
that go beyond what the evidence will bear. And indeed. an obvious
subtext of Pendrick's book is that the fragments of Antiphon have been
over-interpreted (d. 259: "In the circumstances. the attempts ... to relate
the fragment [Fro] to the doctrines of the Eleatics. Empedocles,
Anaxagoras. Protagoras. etc. seem even more dubious than usual").
This said. I still found the book at times to be overly reductive. Time and
again the reader is told that the connections scholars have detected between
Antiphon and his predecessors and contemporaries are unsupported
or fanciful (Untersteiner. perhaps not surprisingly, comes in for
particular criticism. e.g. at 56-57. 248. 317, etc.). Pendrick more often

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 201
relates Antiphon's thought to general Greek beliefs and values (e.g.
43-45.326.401-402.409-410). Antiphon's use of conventional wisdom is
certainly noteworthy. but to view him predominantly in this way might
suggest a certain banality in his thought. More importantly. it presents
him as rather disconnected from the specific cultural context of his
times. Yet everything we know of the Sophists suggests that intellectual
exchange was central to the phenomenon. albeit often in the form of
intellectual competition (consider Xenophon's depiction of the conflict
between Antiphon and Socrates). However, I make these comments to
note a difference in interpretive stance rather than to criticize Pendrick
in his role as commentator. for he is extremely scrupulous in recounting
the major interpretations presented by past scholars-all the more
so given that he often disagrees with them.
Secondly. the commentary engages less with the fragments of the
Sophists than one might expect or desire. This could be a result of the
point just made about Pendrick's generally conservative approach. but
in fact he is quite good in giving references to the works of the
Presocratics as well as others, such as the medical writers. Yet the
Sophists themselves are referred to less often than they might be. Furthermore.
this lack at times impinges upon matters of judgment and
interpretation. For instance. in his commentary on T6. which relates the
fascinating anecdote about Antiphon setting up shop in Corinth and
practicing the oral TEXVT) O:AvTTiac which he is said to have discovered.
Pendrick (241-242) cites Altwegg's reference to the boast of Plato's Gorgias
that a rhetorician can more effectively persuade a patient to accept
treatment than a doctor can (Grg. 456b). The reference is relevant. but
of greater value are the words of Gorgias himself in the famous third
argument about the persuasive power of logos in the Encomium of
Helen. In section 8. one of logos' powers is to remove pain (AVTTT)V
O:

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 205
doing not only good to one's friends but harm to one's enemies" (9: for
a recent critique of this assumption see G. Herman, PCPhS 46 [2000]
7-27). and to verify this cites Medea (as if Medea's excellent revenge did
not involve the murder of her own innocent children). Blundell's Helping
Friends and Harming Enemies (though Blundell's theme is the
problematization of the HFHE code) and Burnett's Revenge in Attic and
Later Tragedy (which actually describes Electra. memorably if questionably.
as "a reification of paradox and disorder" and "a loud, selfchosen.
androgynous spinster-demon"). In the same vein. March seems
content to suggest that Sophocles could. and did. choose simply to adopt
"the Fury-free account of the Odyssey" (18) and to bypass, rather than
present any dialectical contrast with. Aeschylus' and Euripides' constructions
of the return of Orestes and the matricide (7-8).
That the play's ambivalences command attention is well explained in
the introduction to Leona MacLeod's book. which originated as a Dalhousie
University doctoral thesis. As MacLeod shows, both those interpretations
which see in the playa process of justice and deliverance and
those which see it as devaluing or at least problematizing this process
have tended to exclude a middle ground in which the play might be seen
as asserting both the justice of the vengeance and tyrannicide and the
morally negative (aischron) aspects of the means by which they are
achieved. In MacLeod's view. this tension between end and means exists
but is resolved on grounds that are essentially political: the release and
restoration of Orestes and Electra involve not just personal retribution
but the release of Argos from tyranny and the restoration of civic order.
Orestes' use of dolos and Electra's transgression of the norms of
female behaviour are both to some degree shameful by normal standards.
but their shamefulness is a necessary part of the course of action
each must undertake in their extreme. and tragic. circumstances. In a
detailed reading of the play MacLeod traces how this tension is delineated
and resolved. and suggests in particular how the political aspects
of Orestes' and Electra's conduct are to be recognized and evaluated.
On this account Orestes' report of his instructions from Apollo (E1.
36-7) points not only to the (unheroic) use of dolos but to the need for
Orestes to avoid bringing military force. Polynices-like. against his own
community. The chorus represents the oppressed community and accepts
Electra's commitment to communal values. This commitment. as
MacLeod persuasively argues. is an expression of cW

206 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
comparisons drawn between Electra and Clytemnestra thus serve not
to put them on the same level but to indicate their fundamental ethical
differences, and the false messenger-speech clinches the contrast-and
so, Macleod suggests, has a central function in the play's ethical
scheme-by making an explicit comparison between Clytemnestra's
satisfaction at her own son's death and Electra's grief and her despairing
(but soon to be answered) appeal to Nemesis for the punishment of
Clytemnestra's hybris (E1. 79z, 794). The revenge action, then, is consistently
presented as just, but it remains irreducibly tainted by being also
an act of kin-murder, and more especially of matricide: hence the play's
low-key ending, which celebrates the restoration of the royal house and
of law and order (as Orestes' final words emphasize), but also advertises
the ugliness of the process through Electra's expressions of hatred
for her dying mother and Aegisthus' insistence on the family's selfdestructive
history. The expectations of personal glory which Electra
and Orestes have previously held (he from the whole vengeance process,
she from her "heroic" scheme to kill Aegisthus) have by this point
evaporated.
There are details here with which one might disagree: I am not sure,
for instance, that Electra's rejection of Chrysothemis' evidence for Orestes'
return needs to be attributed to intellectual blindness and connected
with a lack of self-awareness regarding the implications of revenge
(139-40). But Macleod's interpretation is on the whole
persuasive in showing how Electra's conduct, can be understood as both
wrong in normal terms but right as a res onse to the uniquely and
tragically distorted situation in which she finds herself. This interpretation
can usefully be compared with Helene Foley's recent analysis in
anthropological terms (Female Acts in Greek Tragedy [Princeton zoo 1]
145-171), which sees Electra as compelled to transgress in order to fulfil
the expected role of a woman in a vendetta-that is, to pursue it
through words and even to attempt to pursue it through action when
male action can no longer be expected. Bot interpretations rightly see
the playas commenting on the problems of achieving justice in a society
where communal justice either does not exist or has failed; and as Foley
says (170), the play may well have been in part a response to contemporary
political disruptions at Athens and els where. This only increases
one's regret that we can do so little to relate Sophocles' works precisely
to the context of political events and political thought within which they
were composed.
MARTIN CROPP
DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
CALGARY, AB TzN IN4

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 2°7
ANGELA HOBBS. Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and
the Impersonal Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000. Pp. xvii + 280. ISBN 0-521-41733-3.
As the subtitle of Angela Hobbs's challenging and ultimately rewarding
book implies, the author sets out to examine the somewhat problematic
role that andreia ("courage" or "manliness") plays within the Platonic
dialogues. primarily the Republic. Given the Republic's argument that
the human psuche is comprised of the rational (the logistikon), the appetitive
(the epithumetikon) and the spirited (the thumoeides. or the
thumos), one of Hobbs's main tenets is that this tripartite division is not
simply ad hoc. as some critics have claimed. but is essential to the Republic's
fundamental question of how one should live one's life. Hobbs
argues that the Republic's response to this central ethical question must
be based upon a proper understanding of human psychology, itself best
accounted for in terms of a tripartite division of the psuche. rather than
a bipartite one (rational v. non-rational) as given. for example. in the
Phaedo. And in order to defend the essential role of the thumos within
this tripartite schema. Hobbs must in turn examine the complex relationship
that exists between the thumos and andreia.
In Chapter One. "The puzzle of Plato's thumos," Hobbs acknowledges
that Plato's thumos, although based in part upon the Homeric one
(defined as "an essentially limitless life-force" [260]), is far more complex
and appears to include at least the following (3):
anger, aggression and courage: self-disgust and shame; a sense of justice.
indignation and the desire for revenge; obedience to the political
authorities though not necessarily to one's father: a longing for honour.
glory and worldly success: some interest in the arts but a fear of
intellectualism: a preference for war over peace and increasing meanness
over money.
In the preliminary survey of the relevant books of the Republic, Hobbs
notes that andreia cannot exist without thumos (9). Yet, whereas the
Homeric thumos may arguably have been sufficient for andreia in the
case of the Homeric hero. for Plato's more broadly defined conception.
mere possession of thumos is not. In other words, the task of Hobbs's
project may in part be encapsulated by asking what are the necessary
and sufficient conditions for the possession of andreia. Hobbs sees as a
"major development in Plato's thinking" his acknowledgement that the
thumos is "crucial for the exercise of andreia" (9). That knowledge and
thumos are minimally required for the constitution of andreia is now
clear, but their precise admixture remains to be seen. Hobbs next examines
in greater detail the thumoeidic aspect of the human psuche. in
particular, the tricky question of precisely how to control its "necessary

208 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
aggressiveness." and finds an answer to this question in the educational
programme of Books 2 and 3. where the training of the thumos in the
individual finds its counterpart in the training of the Guardians in the
state. Education. that is. mousike. coupled with the proper physical
training. should aim at fashioning a well-tempered thumos. since without
such training. the thumos cannot possibly be reason's ally. There is
thus the distinct possibility that an uneducated thumos may attempt to
dominate utterly the psuche as a whole. Hobbs neatly phrases this very
real danger as follows: "In other words. the thumos of humans is not
born uneducable. though it may become so" (26). The belief that the
human thumos is congenitally educable is one of the cornerstones of
Hobbs's reading of Platonic ethical psychology. since it thus allows for
the possibility of imitating socially approved role models. Although
Books 2 and 3 of the Republic are sharply critical of such role models.
Hobbs suggests a more nuanced reading of their function within the
Platonic educational programme. In short. she (30-31) concludes that.
the essence of the human thumos is the need to believe that one counts
for something. and that central to this need will be a tendency to form
an ideal image of oneself in accordance with one's conception of the
fine and the noble .... The thumos will thus lead to a tendency to take
some hero as a role model. to be emulated either generally or in detail:
if one wishes for social recognition then it makes sense to conform to
those models which already receive it.
This question of what. if any. are appropriate role models to be imitated
is the main topic of Chapter 2. "Thumos. andreia and the ethics of
flourishing." Hobbs's interest in role models within the Platonic corpus
stems from her 1991 Cambridge Ph.D. thesis. Homeric Role Models and
the Platonic Psychology. Hobbs believes that Plato is correct in giving
role models a central place in his ethics. arguing that they appeal to the
non-rational elements. and so are especially useful in the early training
of the thumos. and further. that such emulation serves to give a life
shape and structure. Hobbs even more boldly suggests that role models
are still useful even after reason has reached maturity. since simultaneous
training of reason and the emotions is not necessarily incompatible.
and further. that such models also can appeal to the intellect. But there
is a catch in emulating society's heroes. as Hobbs astutely notes: since
the thumos arguably has a tendency to em ate well-established cultural
heroes. how can it be freed from such a self-replicating system? Hobbs
sees this as a ticklish challenge to Plato's larger project of social engineering.
A secondary question connected with the use of such role models
is that of their gender. This problem becomes especially acute. according
to Hobbs. when it concerns the virtue of andreia: is it to be
understood as the genderless "courage," or as the gendered "manli-

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 209
ness"? In other words. is the connotation of "manliness" essential or
contingent? There is the further problem of whether Plato sees the goal
of philosophy as the attainment of a "humanly." rather than manly.
ideal. or instead a divine one that ultimately eclipses any notion of humanity
at all. It is not the least of the virtues of Hobbs's book that for
every difficult question posed. there arise ever more challenging ones.
Chapters 3 and 4 (on the Laches and Protagoras respectively) deal
with Plato's preliminary attempts at overhauling the notion of andreia.
Hobbs correctly notes that at Republic 430b a definition of andreia appears
that is in fact a combination of the second and third definitions of
andreia offered in the Laches. In other words. the Laches furnishes the
ingredients for the reader to infer that knowledge and thumos are necessary
(if perhaps still not sufficient) conditions for andreia. As Charles
Kahn remarks. however. this particular reading was first made by Bonitz
in 1871 and echoed in subsequent commentators.' It is admirable
that Hobbs comes to this same conclusion. but acknowledgement of her
predecessors would have been appropriate. As for the Protagoras.
Hobbs believes that its definition of andreia ("wisdom concerning what
things are and are not to be feared") represents a significant advance
over that given in the Laches, in that a supporting theory of the unity of
values is supplied. Hobbs concludes. however. that both dialogues ultimately
fail in their quest for a satisfactory account of the virtues since
they both lack "a more complex account of psychic structure and motivation"
(135) which. of course. is precisely what the Republic supplies
with its tripartition of the psuche.
In Chapter 5. "Why should I be good? Callicles. Thrasymachus and
the egoist challenge." Hobbs sees Callicles. Thrasymachus and. as we
shall see later. Alcibiades (ch. 9) all as representatives of the "ungoverned
thumos." In particular, Hobbs believes that the Platonic thumos-as
manifested in these three thumoeidic types-is. to some extent.
"a living repository of Homeric values" (141 n. 14). A further challenge
that Hobbs sees Plato exploring in the Gorgias is the attempt to establish
as role model the philosopher. Socrates in particular. in contradistinction
to the alluring figure of Callicles. This challenge is met in part
through a fundamental reworking of the notion of andreia. which for
Callicles is predominantly governed by the Homeric thumos and as
such is inextricably entwined with a gendered "manliness." as opposed
to a genderless "courage" as espoused by Socrates. Plato's task then becomes
that of divesting andreia of any necessary connection with
"manliness" without thereby repelling would-be philosophers (pre-
, C.H. Kahn. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary
Form (Cambridge 1996) 167-168.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
sumably male) who might find an emasculated andreia as a less than
enticing feature of their purported philosophic role model. And in order
to do so. the Homerically-inclined thumos must consequently be
replaced by the Platonic one. A further problem is generated through
the apparently ambivalent stance Plato takes on whether the ultimate
goal of philosophy is the idea of an ungendered humanity or the very
transcendence of humanity itself through n attempt at assimilating
oneself to the divine. Once again. Hobbs believes that the Gorgias is
simply unable to answer such questions because it lacks the more complex
tripartite psychology of the Republic and. in particular. its handling
of the thumos.
Chapter 6. "Heroes and role models: the Apology. Hippias Major
and Hippias Minor." briefly sketches the problems Plato faces in trying
to replace the traditional Homeric heroes a nd popular role models of
contemporary Athens with a Socrates who would seem at first blush to
be their very antipode. Hobbs argues that Socrates' various appeals to
Achilles in the Apology are not straightforward comparisons of one
hero with another. but themselves contain implicit criticisms of the use
of Achilles as an appropriate role model. Even Socrates' seemingly perverse
claim in the Hippias Minor that 0 ysseus is at least Achilles'
equal in heroism is not without its problems. Although it could be argued
that there are similarities between Odysseus and Socrates. particularly
in their ability to endure hardships. the character of Odysseus
cannot be used as role model simpliciter.
Chapter 7. "The threat of Achilles." examines the more full-blooded
critique of Achilles as role model in the Republic. Hobbs sees Achilles as
the paradigm of the untutored thumos utterly failing to obey reason
and so serving as a kind of anti-role model that must be replaced by
Plato's brave new role model: the philosopher. In order to effect such a
radically altered conception of heroism. Ho bs believes that Plato must
divorce it from the essentially tragic world-view as embodied by Achilles.
To do so. Plato has to reject the idea that one must make a "tragic"
choice between the noble and the personally beneficial. sever any and all
links between andreia and tragedy. and carefully circumscribe the link
between andreia and war so that the potential violence of the thumos is
minimized. Hobbs is careful to acknowledge that such a programme is
not explicitly formulated as a direct response to Achilles. but appeals to
the principle of simplicity for her particular reading.
Chapter 8. "Plato's response: the valuable as one." argues that a solution
to the replacement of Achilles as role model may ultimately be
found in the full-blown Theory of Forms as set out in the Republic.
Hobbs proposes an admittedly radical reading that sees the Form of the
Good as being identical (in reference) to the Form of Beauty. The educa-

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 2II
tional programme espoused in the Republic of steeping children in
beautiful things necessarily entails the instilling of sensitivity to, and
ultimately rational reception of, goodness. In other words, the goal is
the attainment of psychic health and harmony. Thus the thumos becomes
the natural ally of reason since, although the two are aiming at
different objectives in sense, in reference these objectives are one and
the same. As for the notion of andreia, it now virtually overlaps with
s6phrosune, and so has been radically transformed from its paradigmatic
manifestation in the character of Achilles. Hobbs further claims
that andreia now entails a properly trained thumos obedient to the dictates
of reason and consequently freed from any untempered aggression
that had been overly stimulated by excessive emphasis upon war as
its only sphere of action. Andreia can now exist as readily in the agora
as on the battlefield. What' is more, the mystery of precisely how the
thumos and andreia relate is resolved by seeing that Platonic andreia
controls the thumos by giving it new and more appropriate goals to
focus on. Hobbs ends this chapter with an examination of the problematic
appropriation of andreia in terms of philosophic courage. Hobbs
concludes that Plato never resolves the tension inherent within the masculine
connotations of andreia and remains deliberately ambivalent so
as not to alienate his contemporary and almost wholly male audience.
Chapter 9...Alcibiades' revenge: thumos in the Symposium." acknowledges
a core problem signaled earlier: given the inherently conservative
and self-replicating nature of a role-model society such as that
of contemporary Athens. a Catch-22 looms in that. in order to train the
thumos properly, one needs Philosopher-Rulers. But one cannot have
Philosopher-Rulers until the educational system required to create them
is in place. In the absence of such an ideal society. we are given. so
Hobbs argues, a depiction of the dangers that the choice of a role model
like Alcibiades would pose. Hobbs argues that he. like Callicles. Thrasymachus.
and Achilles. represents the tendencies of the thumos unhampered
by reason and the concomitant potential to cause enormous
harm to itself and society at large. Hobbs provides a nice overview of
his thumoeidic tendencies as portrayed in the primary sources. but
might have balanced her argument with citation of some of the secondary
literature on the figure of Alcibiades. 2
According to Hobbs's
reading. Alcibiades functions within the Symposium, as does Achilles
within the Republic, as an anti-role model: a powerfully alluring, yet
2 E.g. W.M. Ellis, Alcibiades (London 1989); D. Gribble. Alcibiades and Athens:
A Study in Literary Presentation (Oxford 1999); J. Hatzfeld. Alcibiade:
Etude sur l'histoire d'Athenes a la fin du v" siecle (Paris2 1951); J. de Romilly.
Alcibiade. ou les dangers de l'ambition (Paris 1995).

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 213
Plato without reference to the literary and dramatic vehicles by which
he seeks to have us think through the issues. Even so. doctrinal approaches
to Plato have a long modern history. while literary and dramatic
approaches are only just acquiring the discipline needed to
achieve the required level of persuasiveness. There are books which
take several times the length of a dialogue in order to say little more of
value than an attentive reading of the dialogue would offer. losing in
the meantime the immediacy and attractiveness of the original. and
straying unnecessarily into speculative intertextual by-ways where the
exacting reader never needs to go. While passages in the current book
fail to persuade me of their accuracy or relevance. it is overall a substantial
contribution towards giving discipline to the study of the literary
Plato. and hence it can make a greater impact on the study of Plato
the philosopher.
In the opening chapter on "Drama and dialogue" the author. though
giving most attention to the didactic Socrates and the Eleatic Visitor
who will at some point oust him. takes a rather strong line against the
idea of finding Platonic "spokesmen" within the dialogues (18). and emphasizes
Plato's non-authoritarian manner (39). She sees the historical
contexts as a means of relating the questions to real life (48). and the
dialogue form itself "as an assertion of human plurality" (49). I should
take this further. since the separate situations in which the speakers are
embodied necessarily gives them different perspectives on issues under
discussion. something that cannot have escaped an age in which Protagoras'
influence was so deeply felt. Dialogue is required to overcome
any perspective that is tied to the individual.
In Chapter 2. "Dialogue and the imitation of character." I was impressed
by the first section. which discusses character by taking the
components of ethos. dianoia. and personality separately. There is a
section on the Platonic Socrates. which gives more emphasis than I
should to matters of physiognomony. and strangely uses the picture of
Socrates' students in Clouds as somehow relevant to Socrates (71). As an
admirer of Socrates. Plato had no choice but to draw a sharp distinction
between his superficial ugliness and his inward attractiveness. and
hence to highlight the difference between appearance and reality beyond
what had been seen in Homer or Archilochus (73). But this distinction
is nicely linked with the idea of the serio-comic (72). The chapter's
final section deals (tentatively and at excessive length. 80-112) with mimetic
pedagogy. certainly an important topic in Greek education. but of
debatable importance for understanding Plato. "Socrates." it emerges. is
a character whom we might try to imitate. emulating his philosophical
powers, but there are limits to the desirability of such imitation. In the

214 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
end Plato's true audience will remain detached and critical. while "Socrates"
can scarcely fail to remain inimitably unique.
We now move on to four chapters devoted to specific dialogues.
Hippias Minor. Republic. Theaetetus. and the sequence Sophist­
Statesman. It may seem a strange choice given the title of the work.
since it omits the most character-rich dialogues. including Protagoras.
Gorgias. Euthydemus. and Symposium. But it is appropriate to the real
contribution of this book. moving from a time when Plato fearlessly
imitated all kinds of characters and represe ted Socrates without censorship
of his elenctic image. towards a time of sanitized characters devoid
of personality (though not of character). Republic and Theaetetus
are works that seem to offer some philosophic reasons for this movement.
I may be talking developmentally. but Blondell. while seemingly
happy to assume a fairly traditional order of the dialogues. holds antidevelopmentalist
views. at least insofar as they are "attempting to recover
Plato's own intellectual and/or psychological biography. in other
words trying to capture his personal ethos" (1 I I).
There are more respectable strands of developmentalism that see the
argument moving forward. with confusion receding and successive degrees
of clarity replacing it. Such clarity in the mouth of a Platonic protagonist
is virtually a guarantee of clarity on the author's part. While
the converse is not necessary. those who wish to argue that any persistent
confusion in "Socrates" is not Plato's own should explain why it is
being employed. Literary developmentalism is employed in this book.
and this development is taking place for mainly philosophic and pedagogic
reasons. One should not shy from the thesis that Plato's thought
and literary approach developed. The real -enemies are inflexible theories
of development built on one side of the evidence. usually coupled
with the postulation of the author's spokespersons and the failure to see
how different purposes and different audiences require different communicativestrategies.
The literary development postulated here involves Plato becoming
dissatisfied at Socrates' failure to improve the Athenians. frequently
making them fiercer. leading to "reconsideration of the elenctic Sokrates"
(125-127). The examination of Hippias Minor concludes that "[ilf
Plato intended to provoke criticism of Sokr-ates in this dialogue. he has
succeeded." One might have mentioned that it must have been such
criticism that necessitated the writing of Euthydemus. with its nonelenctic
Socrates shadow-boxing the Eristics. Even that Socrates. however.
failed to satisfy some (the "Isocrates" figure and even Crito himself.
305a). and the dialogue that most clearly observes the inadequacies
of the elenctic Socrates. even while acknowledging his protreptic value.
is the Clitophon. Whether or not Plato wrote it himself. it is so relevant

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 2I5
to Blondell's themes that I cannot understand its non-appearance in the
indices.
Instead we get an account of the implications of Republic II-Ill's
criticisms of Horner's mixed style, involving direct speech as well as
narration. for Book I itself (228-245. especially 238). Consciousness of
the need for a performer to mimic bad characters in a drama seemed at
first to be answered by the detached vehicle of a controlling narration.
but in Book X we move beyond this to appreciate the detrimental effect
that any portrayal of bad character can have on a non-performing audience.
No more Platonic characters would behave badly: and soon even
the individualized quirks of personality will go. making the dramatic
rendering of a dialogue unnecessary. Slaves can do the reading. Idealized
teachers are matched with idealized interlocutors, beginning with
"the benign elenctic Sokrates" and Theaetetus. his "perfect interlocutor"
(260), and leading on to the striking use of an unnamed protagonist in
the Sophist (well discussed at 3 r8-32o). The two idealized interlocutors
in the Sophist-Statesman sequence both resemble Socrates in interesting
ways while displaying some differences (330: d. the young Socrates of
Parmenides). Blondell thinks that Theaetetus is an ideal to which Young
Socrates only approaches (331). but I see the former as an ideal type for
abstract theory. and the latter for social philosophy: Plato never has
Theaetetus discuss personal, political, or debating ethics.
The other development that is taking place is the move away from a
naturally elenctic teacher (however idealized) to an authoritarian one.
who nevertheless engages in question and answer debate that is responsive
"to the specific needs of the listener." The authoritarian stance goes
along with the transcendence of the particular point of view that Plato's
earlier speakers had been characterized by. "The visitor's world-view
transcends other cultural divisions as well [as racel. including class and
gender" (362). Thus the Visitor can never have the particularities that
we always associate with Socrates. who "literally embodies individuality
in mind. physique, personality, mode of inquiry and pedagogy"
(392). Nevertheless Socrates "is retained in order to give his tacit approval
of the visitor and what he stands for. including Plato's decision
to broaden the range of dominant speakers" (394).
This book is extremely usefuL and needs to be pursued further. It
begins to explain, in more plausible ways than metaphysical deve1opmentalism.
some key changes that we associate with the putative "late"
period. Let me conclude with a table of my own.

216 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
DIALOGUE
Republic
Parmenides
Tht.-Sph.-Plt.
Phaedrus
BEGINNING
Book I: narrated. high
drama. full spectrum of
real characters. elenctic
Part A: narrated. characterized.
sanitized elenctic. a
dramatic experience for
the interlocutor
Thaetetus: direct dialogue.
speakers idealized but individualized.
sanitized elenctic
method. a dramatic
experience for the interlocutor
Early: direct dialogue. real
characters involved in debate.
competitive atmosphere
aimed at refutation
of Lysias' thesis
ENDING
Books II-X: narrated. less
drama. idealized but individuated
characters. didactic
Part B: direct dialogue.
without characterization.
without drama. didactic
Sophist-Politicus: direct dialogue.
with little characterization
and idealized speakers.
without drama. didactic
Late: direct dialogue. idealized
or tempered (but still
r a1) characters now less
involved in the debate. didactic
Three dialogues and a "trilogy" (as it became) begin with what one
might legitimately call a protreptic phase. which seeks to involve the
audience in a debate that is developing and which proceeds competitively
and with a view to the unsettling of a thesis that needed questioning.
They go on to a new stage where the interlocutors, in most
cases chosen at random. show no deep-seated need to avoid any particular
conclusions or to find the right answers, where they and the
protagonist are idealized or show little individuated character at all.
and where the protagonist proceeds in a didactic fashion while continuing
to use question and answer methods. The protreptic-didactic
division, though showing variations. persists. This makes the Clitophon
a text that cannot be ignored. That it speaks to us in the hiatus-avoiding
manner of Sophist-Statesman is of considerable interest.
HAROLD TARRANT
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE
NSW 2308
AUSTRALIA

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 219
of Photios. ") Full examination of Photios' excerpting methods would
weigh the papyrus Althaimenes against the papyrus Aeneas to yield a
messier conclusion. but Brown does not even mention the latter in his
Introduction. A further schizoid symptom is that the Althaimenes papyrus
is not mentioned at all at the relevant place in the commentary.
The section on "Language and Style" has limited value. Despite appropriate
caveats about our having Konon only through Photios.
Brown comments on none-too-remarkable points of. purportedly Kononic.
morphology. orthography and syntax. Some comments are otiose
at best. such as those on perceived irregularities in usage of the genitive
absolute. I. at any rate. can see nothing remarkable when .. a genitive
absolute occurs instead of a circumstantial participle or subordinate
clause." Neither purported instance of a genitive absolute having "subject
or object identical with the subject or object of the main verb" illustrates
quite that. One of them. moreover. is a misquotation that conflates
segments of two separate sentences.
A brief survey of the textual and editorial history of Photios and Kanon
closes the Introduction and ushers in the text. translation and commentary.
which I shall now consider seriatim. albeit with some inevitable
blurring of categories. References to the text will be by Diegesis and
Brown's line number.
Konon's work figures prominently in the editorial history of the
Bibliotheca. for it was in preparing a projected edition of Konon and
other Photian mythographers for Teubner's Mythographi Graeci that
E. Martini found that only two mss. (Marcianus gr. 450 and 451. designated
A and M) have independent value. This determination underlies
Jacoby's Konon in FGrH and Henry's Bude Bibliotheca (Konon is in Vol.
3. 1962). Brown collated A and M again. from facsimiles. As might be
expected, the exercise yielded few new readings. There are occasions
when Brown apparently saw something different from what Henry or
Jacoby did. If some of these are attributable to misprints or other flaws
in Jacoby's work. others bespeak a greater confidence or acuity than
does Henry's occasional" ut vid." The papyrus aside. there is. as Harder
noted. a sense in which there is no real text of Konon. just Photios' adaptation
thereof. Brown intermittently recognizes some of the implications
for the would-be editor of Konon but without indicating that they
translate into any general editorial principle or policy which would differentiate
him from. say. Henry who had the less elusive goal of editing
Photios. Brown's implicit assumption that he is editing. translating and
commenting upon the text of Konon frequently bars him from grammatical
and lexical possibilities afforded by the graecitas of the centuries
between Konon and Photios.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Text and apparatus show errors of inadvertence. I note. for instance.
Ti lTElllTTT] at 5.1. where other editors have Ti E' and Brown records no
variant. and KaTO (for KaTCx) at 35.10. The ap aratus at 3.21 et25 omits
an attribution to M. At 19.9 "eallo8Tjv AM" seems superfluous since
there is no variant or emendation here. At ro.1 the apparatus records
"BoTlalol AM" without attributing the text's BOTTlalo!. In attributions
to Jacoby the apparatus makes no distinction between readings in his
text and queried suggestions in his apparatus. Twice. moreover. attributions
to Jacoby can not be confirmed by his text or apparatus in FGrH.
Are these false references. or did Jacoby make the suggestions elsewhere?
In general, the lack of any key to references in the apparatus
makes it difficult to pursue a reference. even by consulting the apparatus
of other editions.
Of some thirty-five readings found in neither A nor M only one derives
from (unspecified) recentiores. The majority are supplements.
athetizings or other emendations by earlier editors. Of the dozen or so
inherited supplements. few address obviously corrupt or unintelligible
readings. Most are in the nature of glosses. which (however congenial
to the phantom of Konon's text) might be better left to the commentary.
I notice only three entirely unprecedente readings. Emending 'Av­
8EIlovdac to 'Av8EIlOVVTOC to avoid alleged confusion of Macedonian
Anthemous with Mesopotamian Anthemollsia. Brown overlooks the
inherent plausibility. attested actuality and Hoefer's explicit suggestion
(1890) of 'Av8EIlOVCIOC as toponymic for ·Av8Ellovc. In 41 Brown supplements
the title TIEAacyioEc. a feminine adjective. with

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
imprecise. Rendering 8pia!-l[3ov as "contumely" at 31.5 gives it an otherwise
undocumented sense while foregoing the entirely appropriate
and amply attested (albeit not by LSJ) "revelation," "disclosure." Why
"Didymoi" at 33.21 for what is consistently and correctly "Didyma" in
the commentary? The phrase "colonized in passing" parlays awkward
Greek (36.6-7) into more awkward Englis . At 37.II the sequence
"Europe, whence the myth of Europa has come to the Greeks" conceals
the true antecedent of the Greek relative, At 37.18 the logic of the narrative
favours something like "were losing" over "were defeated" for
!iTTwVTal. Is "aulas" a helpful rendering of aVAOV at 38.10 even in default
of any precise English term for the instrument? At 40.12 EKOIJcIOV
suggests something less passive than "acquiescence." The context favours
"founders" or "colonists" over Bl'own's "inhabitants" for
oiKJiTopacat 41.13.
Paradoxically perhaps, a Commentary on this minor work is a demanding
undertaking, in effect fifty different projects, each with its
unique mix of literary, linguistic, mythic, historical and religious ingredients.
Brown braves the tangles with inco sistent success. Sometimes
he allows his researches to lead him to observations in excess of what is
helpful or relevant. While commenting on the foundation legend of
Olynthus, for example, he expatiates on the city's Classical and Hellenistic
history and archaeology. Though foundation legends are usually
retro-fictions explicable by later history, Brown draws no connection
here and none is self-evident. Elsewhere the notes on Sithon and Pallene
contain a disquisition on chariot warfare in the Iliad, although Konon's
story has nothing to do with chariots or with the Iliad. Here Parthenius'
version of the story is a tenuous link, for it has a chariot race, though no
discernible connection to the Iliad. At other times Brown conspicuously
neglects the relevant. His treatment of Olynthian history contrasts with
that of the Rhodian legend featuring a founder named Althaimenes, an
obvious retrojection of the historical Althaimenids, on whom, however,
Brown has not a word. In at least one instance marginally relevant material
is introduced while more obviously pertinent data are neglected.
Noting Konon's anomalous and toponymically inappropriate localizing
of the story of Heracles and Syleus' daughter beneath Pelion in Thessaly,
Brown overlooks the possibility (br ached by others) that the
story is conflated with its doublet (Heracks and Amyntor's daughter)
localized, precisely, near Pelion in Thessaly. He diverges instead to
more tenuous analogies between the stories of Heracles and Syleus's
daughter and Demophon and Phyllis.
The Commentary also has puzzling linguistic or stylistic entries such
as that at 6.8-g. "Casaubon proposed ETI l-laAAOV for MSS hrl !-laAAOV.
Although a Greek of Imperial age [sic] would have written ETI !-laAAOV

BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 223
rather than the Herodotean eTTllJaAAov (1.94.5.3.104.3.4.181.4). we cannot
discount the possibility that Konon's source used the Ionicism consciously."
The first among several problems with this sequence is that it
does not indicate where. or why. Casaubon made his proposition. Although
Herodotus uses eTTI lJaAAov it is not particularly "Herodotean."
Why does Brown think it an Ionicism? Why would a Greek of the Imperial
period not use a locution attested in numerous non-Ionic passages
from Plato through late Byzantine times? At 18.9-10 Brown says that
"According to LSI S.v. [EKl-lEIAiccw] the word was used solely by writers
of the first and second centuries A.D." More accurately. LSI only cite
instances from those centuries while other lexicographical resources
show copious instances from other periods. But what is the point of the
prevaricating observation in the first place?
Brown sometimes fails to maintain precise control of his data. On
5.35 some of his words-"Ancient writers were apparently fascinated
by reports of curious distributional anomalies among the cicadas"echo
those of I.C Beavis (Insects and Other Invertebrates in Classical
Antiquity [1988] 97)-"The subject of curious distributional anomalies
among cicadas evidently held a certain fascination for the ancients."
Beavis. though. an authority of whom Brown's readers ought to be
made aware. is nowhere named. Brown can echo his own words too. as
he does on 138 where the information on the location of CVAEOC TTEOiov
is repeated within seven lines. although without its geographically significant
typo "Argolis" (for "Argilos"). There is a seeming contradiction
in citing an inscription (ca. 207 B.C) documenting a Thessalian foundation
for Magnesia on the Meander and then saying. on the same page.
that either Konon or Strabo is the earliest source for a Thessalian connection
with Magnesia. On a related point: why is he confident. without
suggesting purpose or motive. that Plato invented the Cretan city of
Magnesia?
Notes on the Island of Achilles increase the confusion already present
in the ancient documentation. It does not help that Brown shows no
awareness of the recent spate of publications on the islands sacred to
Achilles in the Black Sea. The physical reality of at least two such islands
undercuts Brown's assumption that Konon. who does not name the island.
refers to Leuke. Although Brown refers in one note to both Leuke
and Berezan island. in another he seems to suggest that the Island of
Achilles had no real existence: "The White Island ... probably had its
origin in Hesiod. who wrote that the Trojan and Theban heroes were
translated to the Islands of the Blessed." There is a legitimate analogy
here. possibly even a causal connection in one direction or the other. but
Hesiod does not mention the White Island. which is a concrete geographic
entity. unlike the Hesiodic islands.

224 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES ENDUS
A so-called Index Verborum is not what we conventionally understand
by that term. but rather a listing of some. but not all. Greek words
and phrases discussed in the commentary. most but not all of which occur
in the text of Konon. Despite uncertain criteria of selection it is
much superior to both the Index Locorum and the General Index. The
former makes no attempt to list any of the cited inscriptions in Greek.
including linear B. and in Near Eastern languages. A random two-way
check reveals a very high rate of inaccuracy. Four notes (on 14.2-3.25.1,
34.7-9 and 46.7-9) cite a total of 54 Greek or Latin passages. of which
only 14 appear in the Index Locorum. For four authors (Ephoros.
Sophocles. Thucydides. Virgil) 8 out of 48 citations in the index are erroneous.
The General Index suffers from arbitrariness and/or inadvertence.
Why is one character indexed while another from the same sentence
is not (e.g. Agamemnon but not lphigeneia at Z6.13-15)? Why
index Dionysos Melanaigis. who is expunged from the text. but not Dionysos
Melanthides. who is retained? An entire paragraph on 26.13-15
escapes both general index and Index Locorum. Further examples
would be tedious. The bibliography. much less error-ridden. is limited
to monographs except for a couple of anomalous entries from serials.
Much labour has gone into this instant landmark in Kononic studies
which. despite the vitiating elements on which this review concentrates.
will have its value as a resource and stimulus. Although Brown makes
the customary claim to responsibility for all errors. there are other parties
with some responsibility to the scholarly consumer of this expensive
book. The title-page lists a roster of eminent editors for Saur's Beitrage
zur Altertumskunde. Do they actually edit? Publication was
financially abetted by the Fonds fur Altertumswissenschaft. Zurich.
What scholarly standards guide its beneficence?
RORYB. EGAN
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA
WINN1PEG. MB R3T 2M8
SUSAN TREGGIARI. Roman Social History. Classical Foundations.
London/New York: Routledge. 2002. Pp. 170. $23.95
(pb). ISBN 0-415-19521-7 (hb); 0-415-19522 (pb).
Voici un petit livre qui devrait figurer dans tous les plans de cours en
histoire romaine au niveau du Ie" cycle universitaire. Parseme de
conseils pratiques sur la methode 11 employer. les etapes 11 suivre et les

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 225
dangers a eviter. ce texte sera fort utile aux etudiants qui s'interessent
non seulement a l'histoire sociale. mais a l'histoire romaine en general.
Cet ouvrage est en fait un guide pour etudiants dans lequel une
specialiste reconnue dans Ie domaine demontre clairement la demarche
qu'elle emprunte pour mener abien ses propres recherches.
Apres avoir defini les notions de base (temps. lieu. histoire romaine),
Treggiari recapitule les developpements recents en histoire sociale. Suit
une tres interessante discussion sur les sources OU l'auteur resume ce
que tout etudiant devrait savoir a ce sujet. Treggiari ne se contente pas
seulement d'enumerer leurs genres (litteraire. juridique. archeologique.
epigraphique. papyrologique), elle explique Ie processus pour trouver
ces sources. demontre la maniere de les employer. tout en soulignant les
dangers qu'elles representent.
Ce livre se demarque des autres par les exemples bien concrets que
donne l'auteure. Ainsi, pour illustrer les divergences des sources litteraires.
dIe presente dans l'ordre chronologique les textes anciens relatifs
a un des evenements les plus connus de l'Antiquite. l'assassinat de
Cesar. Elle explique encore plus clairement ses propos et sa demarche a
l'aide de deux etudes de cas: Tullia. la fiUe de Ciceron. et Ie caractere
« sacre » de la maison romaine. Elle offre genereusement en appendice.
pour Ie premier. la liste des sources et. pour Ie second. une bibliographie
partielle.
Le texte se termine sur une section presentant differents outils de
recherche que ron pourrait intituler « pour aller plus loin» : des discussions
avec des specialistes aux reunions de societes savantes. des
encyclopedies et recueils bibliographiques aux moyens de communications
electroniques. en passant par les periodiques. journaux. livres de
references etc. Pour aider retudiant dans sa lecture. rauteur offre
d'ailleurs un petit lexique et un index dont la presence. quoique
etonnante dans un livre si bref. est fort appreciee. Un autre point fort
de ce livre est la bibliographie OU dIe recense les titres les plus importants
en histoire sociaIe romaine. Notons cependant que. s'adressant a
un public etudiant anglophone. la tres grande majorite des ouvrages
cites sont ecrits en anglais.
La seule faiblesse que nous pouvons relever est la section du livre qui
resume trop brievement la societe romaine. Rappelons que Ie but de
Treggiari n'etait pas d'ecrire un manuel. Cependant ce court passage ne
peut que nous faire esperer que l'auteure s'attaquera un jour a la
redaction d'un veritable manuel d'histoire sociaIe romaine pour remplacer
Ie Garnsey et Saller (L 'empire romain. economie, societe. culture.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 227
tractive and plausible. Other departures from Kenney's text are less
appealing. Gibson's only emendation. est for sit at 146. is unnecessary.
while I am unpersuaded that the obelus can be removed at 629. At 213
mittatur should be retained. At 575 the contrast is rhetorically more
effective if we retain at; but at 241 et. not Heinsius' ut, is wanted (d.
OLD s.v. 15a). At 377 Gibson introduces parenthesis. which does not
rescue the vapid rhetorical question: read with Burman (and Goold)
tabulaeque nouae. and note that indeed accusations of cheating do tend
to accompany the big gambling losses that lead to bankruptcy. At 439
the introduction of parenthesis is relatively innocuous. but the reference
to Priam here is still doubtful and the force of uix certainly suggests
an allusion rather to Cassandra. as in Goold's edition. Note that it
would have been a kindness to Madvig's legacy to have passed over his
Priamei. which introduces a synizesis entirely anomalous in Ovid. I am
sympathetic to his attempt to rescue 655-6, generally regarded as interpolated.
but his defence focuses on the sense of the couplet and does
nothing to dispel the doubts imposed by the lexical anomalies in the
lines. At 192 Gibson rightly hesitates over the force of the pluperfect:
perhaps we should read erit and see in the apostrophe a reference to a
subsequent stage of the myth? At 295 quaedam is still in search of an
explanation, and Goold's "more radical solution" (quaerunt) is still appealing.
Finally. at 726 Gibson prints Wakefield's mulcet for pulsat of
the paradosis. This can scarcely be right and can hardly explain the consensus
of the MSS: perhaps read palpat. which is also confused with pulsat
at Stat. Theb. 1.55.
The Introduction of 46 pages is concise and workmanlike. Gibson
deals with the content and structure of the book and locates it within the
literary and social contexts of the didactic tradition and Augustan culture.
His generalizations are well grounded in his discussions in the
notes. For example his long note on 89ff. is well coordinated with the
observations on the male reader of Ars 3 on 35-36. This extends also to
less extensive discussion in the notes. as in the briefer treatment of modus
and decor at 305-6. which ties in nicely with Gibson's introductory
comments on 34. Gibson deals efficiently with the date of composition of
the book and the transmission of the text. The latter in particular is not
the object of independent investigation in this commentary. and more
extensive treatment is not called for.
The commentary offers a great deal of useful information on the extraordinarily
wide range of topics introduced in Ovid's discourse on the
seduction of men. Several of the more discursive notes are informative
beyond the immediate purpose of construing the text. Particularly helpful
were the discussions of recitation (329-48). board games (353ff.),
writing tablets (617ff.), myth in elegy (683ff.). apostrophe (713ff.), and

228 BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
erotic art (769-808). The note on poetic lama is also interesting (405-32).
but Gibson is too quick to write off the possibility that Ovid is referring
to a real decline in Augustus' interest in patronizing poetry. He may be
closer to the mark when he suggests (on 387ff.) that Augustus might not
have been attuned to eulogy in the "playful Hellenistic style." Some
readers will be a bit more sceptical than Gibson in finding allusions to
earlier literature. We have grown accustomed to the observation that
any occurrence of arma at or near the beginning of a book or poem
must be a reference to the Aeneid. as Gibson duly notes on I. But when
at 77-8 we are told that "Ovid is referring particularly to Tib. 1.4.35f....
one might ask how so. since the context is altogether different and the
lexical resemblances are slight. Likewise. it is hard to see how interpretation
is assisted at 128 by positing Horace as an intertext. The parallels
to the Georgics and didactic in general. adduced by Gibson on 149-52.
are apt. but it hardly seems the case that these are specific allusions
rather than the common stock of the genre. It would be possible to multiply
the examples where Gibson sees intertexts and I see texts. but prevailing
tastes at present tend to err on the side of seeing allusion always.
coincidence never. On lexical matters Gibson most often defers to other
authorities with frequent. salutary reference to McKeown. But this
sometimes leads him astray. At 226. for instance. he refers to Palmer on
Her. 6.156 for temporal abo a precarious instance of the usage. There are
a few too many notes like the following (on 13) for my taste: "Oeclides is
very rare in Latin (see Bomer on Met. 8.317)." If the point is relevant.
then it is worth saying just why it would be worth the reader's while to
scurry after a copy of Bomer.
A good commentary tends to elicit marginalia. Herewith a few examples
from my own:
1 The elision of dem may be harsh. but Gibson's point about the resulting ambiguity
depends upon a scarcely creditable view of its pronunciation, on which see
J. Soubiran. L'Elision dans la poesie latine (1966) 55-91.
19-20 Gibson's remark that "Her story [sc. Alces is'] is not otherwise mentioned
by the elegists" is a bit odd with Pont. 3.1.105-6 cited in the following note. Cf..
in addition. Trist. 2.403. 5.5.55-56. Prop. 2.6.23-4.
63 The reference is not to the adynaton of reversing the course of rivers. associated
with witchcraft. but to the passage of time and Heraclitus' celebrated saying
that you would never step twice into the same river (PI. erat. 402a).
95 The sense of non expedit is not "it is not advantageous," but"it doesn't suit
me." as examples at TLL S.v. 1614.33ff. show.
111-12 Gibson's translation. "Doubtless-a beautiful wife-you would have approached
Ajax," is not only awkward. it is wrong. since it both misconstrues the
meaning of ornata and misses the predicative force: "you would corne dressed
up."
206 Gibson repeats the old misunderstanding of TVT66v at Call. fro 1.5 as an epi-

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 229
thet of ElTOC; d. A. Cameron. Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton 1995)
355-356.
284 Gibson remains perplexed here ("What exactly does the line mean?"). but
summos dentes ima labella tegant is advice to hide your bad teeth by extending
the tips of your lips to the points of your teeth.
387 umbras is not an imitation of Prop. 4.8.75ff.: it substitutes for the metrically
impossible accusative porticus.
401 posuisset does not mean "depicted." but "exhibited"; if Apelles had never
displayed his painting anywhere, it would figuratively have stayed beneath the
waves.
495 Gibson makes heavy weather of Ovid's advice to erase the lover's message.
Not only might the handwriting give them away. but the content might eliminate
the element of deniability.
On 525-554 it might have been worth mentioning Ovid's own experience in the
law as influencing the inclusion of lawyers among the list of potential lovers.
585 Gibson is perhaps too adamant in letting the syntax rule out a double entendre
in conueniunt.
687 purpureos is not "purple." but "rosy" (GLDs.v. 3a).
Gibson has produced an excellent work of scholarship. at once
learned and sympathetic to its subject. The price tag may be a deterrent
and the aesthetics of the production are not entirely pleasing (this Cambridge
"orange" is blue beneath the covers), but serious. and not so serious,
readers of Ovid should keep a copy handy.
PETER E. KNox
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER
BOULDER. CO 80309
S. PHILLIPPO. Silent Witness: Racine's Non-Verbal Annotations
ofEuripides. Research Monographs in French Studies.
No. 14. Oxford: Legenda: European Humanities Research
Centre of the University of Oxford. 2003. Pp. 214 + xv. ISBN
1466-8157·
Orphaned at a young age. Jean Racine (1639-1699) was sent to the Jansenist
school at Port-Royal des Champs. Unlike Shakespeare. to rephrase
Ben Jonson, he acquired more than "small Greeke." At the Jansenist
Petites Ecoles he was instructed in ancient Greek for at least three
years (1655-1658) by Claude Lance1ot. who. as Racine's son was to relate.
caught him on two occasions reading Heliodorus' ancient Greek
novel. The Ethiopian Story. which he consigned to flames. The future
playwright was unperturbed when Lancelot seized a third copy. for he

23°
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
had memorized it by then. Memorization was an integral part of the
curriculum at the Jansenist school: "Cette seconde lec;on consiste ... a
dire par C

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 231
reasonably. There is the inevitable issue of possible multiple sources.
both classical and contemporary. as. for instance. when in Racine's Andromaque
Pyrrus says of Andromaque. "Sans parents. sans amis. sans
espoir que sur moL" Was Racine influenced by a similar passage in the
play L'Eunuque by his friend La Fontaine. or was he influenced by Andromache's
statement to Hector in the Iliad (6.413. and 429-430)? Phillippo
argues on the basis of the verbal and non-verbal markings in
Racine's extant copy of the Iliad for Racine's "peculiar concentration of
interest ... on the Hector, Andromache and Astyanax episode" (5). Another
issue that Phillipo must confront is whether the non-verbal
markings were made by Racine himself or whether they are the legacy
of a previous owner of the volumes or were made by subsequent readers.
Here. too. she adopts a reasonable approach. arguing that the media
used for the markings-brown-black ink. grey pencil and red pencil-are
consistent with the media used in the verbal notes in Racine's
handwriting (10-13).
"So: what do the annotations tell us about overall patterns of interest
in Racine's reading of Euripides?" (53). This, of course. is the crucial
issue. Lancelot. the chief Hellenist at Racine's school. accorded a place to
Euripides because he was "remply de belles sentences." Even without
Lancelofs endorsement it would not be surprising for a classically educated
literary figure of the seventeenth century to focus on sententious
matter. Predictably. then, "between a third and a sixth of the passages
highlighted appear to be marked out for their sententious content" (53).
She also sets out in chapter 2 ("Racine as Reader: Patterns of Interest")
the concentrations of markings of passages that are notable for their
"Rhetoric. Language and Scholarship," "Stagecraft," "Dramatic Narrative"
and "Character and Emotion." this last focal point attracting the
largest share of Racine's attention in the form of well over 300 markings.
Racine's scholarship. for instance. can be seen in the one illustration
in the monograph. which also serves as the frontispiece. where he
has supplied the missing TOVCCE in the Stephanus edition; but this. of
course. is not non-verbal annotation. and Phillippo does not allow herself
to be sidetracked from her subject.
The Introduction and the first two chapters set out the context for
the more systematic exploration of the relationship between the markings
in the two Greek editions of Euripides and the plays of Racine that
to some degree use Euripides as a source. There are in fact two degrees
of relationship: (I) the less obvious links between Racine's corpus and
the annotations of the plays of Euripides not directly adapted (chapter
3); and (2) Racine's markings of Euripidean plays that served directly as
sources (Phoenissae. Iphigenia in Aulis and Hippolytus: chapter 4).
Phillippo does not make any extravagant claims for the interpreta-

232 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
tive value of the markings. her assertions regularly being softened with
an appropriate "seems" or "appears"; and she concedes that certain
mysteries will probably never be resolve. Why, for instance, has
Racine left scarcely any record in the form of markings of his reading
of the Euripidean plays that served as his sources for Andromaque.
Iphigenie and Iphigenie en Tauride? Conversely, Euripides' Hippolytus
attracted the largest amount of marking. Both the Aldine and the
Stephanus editions are marked, and even the ancient scholia and Caspar
Stiblinus' commentary contained in the latter edition are marked. Phillippo's
analysis shows that the markings are fuller while Phaedra is
part of the action (lines 170-731 in Euripides); they thus corroborate
Racine's greater interest in the eponymous character of his Phedre than
in that of Euripides' Hippolytus.
The monograph is rounded out with a 28-page chapter of conclusions
and an appendix of the Euripidean passages marked by Racine.
GERALD SANDY
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS. NEAR EASTERN AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
VANCOUVER, BC V6T IWS