OUSEION - Memorial University of Newfoundland DAI

MOUSE/ON
Journal of the Classical Association of Canada
Revue de la Societe canadienne des etudes classiques
XLVI - Series III, Vol. 2,2002 NO·3
ARTICLES
David Shive. "OJ.lT7POC aaaToc 299
Craig Cooper, Aristoxenos, TTEpi (3fcvv and Peripatetic Biography 307
H. Roisman. Alice and Penelope: Female Indignation in Eyes Wide
Shut and the Odyssey 34 I
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Sergio Ribichini. Maria Rocchi. Paolo Xella. eds., La questione
delle influenze vicino-orientali sulla religione greca
(Noel Robertson) 365
Stanley Lombardo. trans., Sappho. Poems and Fragments
(Bonnie Maclachlan) 373
Nino Luraghi. ed.. The Historian's Craft in the Age ofHerodotus
(James Allan Evans) 377
fohn Barsby. ed. and trans.. Terence (Benjamin Victor) 383
foan Booth and Guy Lee. Catullus to Ovid: Reading Latin
Love Elegy (Barbara Weiden Boyd) 388
David R. Slavitt. trans.. Propertius in Love: The Elegies
(Steven J. Willett) 392
Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in
Greek Literature (Kathryn Chew) 40I
::;raham Anderson, Fairytale in the Ancient World
(Steve Nimis) 404
H.A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of
Intolerance (Eric Fournier) 407
\1anfred Clauss. The Roman Cult ofMithras. The God and his
Mysteries (John Beck) 410
t\ndrew Calimach. Lovers' Legends: The Greek Gay Myths
(B. Verstraete) 413
:-I.H. Huxley. An Earlier Four-Word Elegaic Couplet 415
:ndex to Volume XLVI/Series III. Volume 2 417

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: Lea
Stirling. University of Manitoba
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
Societe des etudes classiques de l'ouest canadien / Classical Association
of the Canadian West
Dean of Arts. Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Brock University
University of Calgary
Concordia University
McGill University
Universite de Montreal
University of New Brunswick
University of Prince Edward Island
Trent University
University of Victoria
University of Waterloo
University of Western Ontario
Wilfrid Laurier University
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.
through the Publication Assistance Program (PAP). toward our mailing
costs.
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AVIS AUX AUTEURS
I. Les references aux reuvres modernes doivent etre formulees
comme Ie montrent les exemples suivants:
A.T. Tuilier. Etude comparee du texte et des scholies d·Euripide. Paris. 1972.
pp. 101-123 [non pas IOlff.]
P. Grimal. « Properce et Ia Iegende de Tarpeia ». REL. 30 (1952). pp. 32-33 [non
pas 32f.]
Dans les cas exceptionnels formuler selon les regles de l'edition la
plus recente de The Chicago Manual of Style.
Pour les titres de periodiques. utiliser les abreviations employees
dans L'Annee Philologique.
Citer comme suit ces reuvres de base:
V. Ehrenberg. REIIIA.2. 1373-1453
IG213 2
10826
aL4.789
TLL2. 44.193
2. Les references aux auteurs antiques doivent etre formulees comme
Ie montrent les exemples suivants:
Platon. Banquet. 17Sd. non pas PI. Smp. 17Sd3-4
Tacite. AnnaJes. 11.6. non pas Tac. Ann. 2.6.4
Plutarque. De sera numinis vindicta (ou De sera) 7-8. non pas Plu. Mor. SS3c-e
3. Priere de traduire toutes les citations du latin ou du grec. sauf les
mots simples et les locutions courtes.
4. Les manuscrits soumis a l'evaluation doivent etre en double interligne
avec d'amples marges. Une fois une communication acceptee.
l'auteur doit en fournir un resume de 100 mots environ. et Ie
materiel d'illustration-tableaux. diae;rammes. cartes-doit etre
soumis sous forme prete a Ia reproduction.
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6. L'auteur d'une communication rec;oit gratis 20 tires a part: l'auteur
d'une revue critique en rec;oit 10 gratis. On peut commander des
tires a part supplementaires a un cout modeste.

ALICE AND PENELOPE:
FEMALE INDIGNAnON IN EYES WIDE SHUT AND THE ODYSSEY
H.ROISMAN
Les femmes n'ont jamais aime qu'on les prenne pour acquises. pas plus dans
l'Antiquite que nos jours. Deux reuvres presentent. malgre leurs differences
d'epoque. de culture et de genre. un point de vue commun sur Ie couple. oil les
maris. quelque soient leurs motifs. considerent leurs epouses comme acquises :
L'Odyssee d'Homere et Ie film de Stanley Kubrick. Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Dans
les deux cas. les epouses. profondement offensees. se vengent en semant dans
l'esprit de leur conjoint Ie doute sur leurs exploits sexuels.

306 DAVIDSHNE
Presumably. aTTlC aTEp. "without destruction." glossed Ot/T' aaaTov.
"nor very destructive." and then replaced the aardvarkian adjective.
resulting in the reprobate OUT' aTTlC aTEp. "nor without destruction."
In this way corruption is at least plausibly explained. It should. moreover.
be noted that avaTOV (avaaTov). "non destructive." was Sophocles'
adjective of negative prefix (KaKwv avaToc DC 786. "free of
harm"). so that aaaTOV was left to be the intensive "very destructive"
just as later in Apollonius-and in Horner earlier.
THE CENTER FOR HELLENIC STUDIES
WASHINGTON. DC 20008

Mouseion. Series III. Vol. 2 (2002) 307-339
©2002 Mouseion
ARISTOXENOS. n EPI 13iwv AND PERIPATETIC BIOGRAPHY
CRAIG COOPER
An important work on the history of ancient biography. at least in
terms of the reaction it generated. was Leo' s Die griechisch-romische
Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form (Leipzig Ig01); most scholars
working on the subject have had to come to terms with his conclusions.
particularly his attempt to see the origins of biography in the Peripatos.
Beginning with an investigation of the literary form of Suetonius'
biographies. Leo reconstructed an entire history of the genre. based
on a distinction between a Plutarchean and Suetonian form of biography;
the former had its origin in the Peripatos. the latter in Alexandria.
The Plutarchean form of biography entailed a straightforward
chronological narrative of events to illustrate an individual's character
and was particularly well-suited to the lives of generals or statesmen.
The Suetonian form of biography. developed by Alexandrian grammarians.
which Leo labelled"grammatical." was simple. schematic and
as such formally resembled the systematic structure of other erudite
works on literary figures. Alexandrians. like Kallimachos. Satyros.
Hermippos. Leo's so-called "Halbperipatetiker" and Herakleides Lembos.
marked a transition from Peripatetic to grammatical biography.'
Ultimately. then. all biography in one form or another. in one way or
another. had its origin in the Peripatos. In this paper. I would like to
return to the problem of Peripatetic biography. particularly as it relates
to Aristoxenos. and to the thorny question of what constitutes biography.
First. however. I want to address the question of genre.
THE QUESTION OF GENRE
Leo envisaged a generic distinction between the two forms of biography
and attempted to subsume every form of biographical activity
under one or other of the generic forms. Hence Theopompos fell under
the Peripatetic rubric' and Suetonius fashioned his political biographies
along the lines of the "grammatical" bioi which were more
suited to the lives of literary figures. The need first to establish genres
J Herakleides' epitomes of Hermippos. Satyros and Sotion transformed these
highly elaborate literary biographies into biographies of a grammatical form.
"from books for the general public to a book for scholarly use"; see Leo (1901) 135·
, Or at least was influenced by the Peripatos; see Leo (1901) 110-112.
3°7

308 CRAIG COOPER
of ancient historical literature and second to categorize fragmentary
remains of that literature under these fixed genres was a concern of
early twentieth-century scholars. most evident in Jacoby's Die Fragmente
der griechischen Historiker. 3 The conceptional framework for
his collection was his notion that the genre of history developed in a
linear sequence from mythography to enthnography. through
chronography to contemporary history and onto horography.4 Each
author was arranged according to his place in this historical development
of the genre. Leo was simply part of the same phenomenon.
studying the development of a genre of historiography. namely biography.
according to its two literary forms and classifying the fragmentary
remains of all biographical works under these fixed categories.
In fact. Jacoby himself intended to gather the fragments of biographical
writers in FGrHist IV: originally biography was to be
treated with the history of literature and antiquarian literature with
horography.5 The plan changed and Jacoby eventually envisaged the
volume containing both antiquarian literature and biography. and
many modern scholars have seen a close connection between the two. 6
His outline of FGrHist IV of some 70 pages contained 24 rubrics under
which were listed various authors and titles of works. 7 But as G.
Schepens notes. several comments by Jacoby indicate that he was still
uneasy about the exact place to assign the history of literature in relation
to biography (somewhere between "Biographie" and "Sammlungen").8
and in the notes reproduced by Schepens there are indications
that Jacoby was at times uncertain how to classify particular works:
would they be better assigned to the genre of biography. or to literary-history.
music or "Sammelwerke"?9 This uncertainty about the
exact relationship between biography. antiquarian literature and literary
history. on the one hand. and where precisely or under what precise
genre to locate given works. on the other. is a problem that stems
not just from the fragmentary evidence which we are left to deal with
but also from the modern fixation with classifying various forms of
3 See especially Jacoby (1909) 80-122.
4 See Marincola (1999) 284-289.
5 Jacoby (1909) 61-62; d. Schepens (1997) 149.
6 Arrighetti (1977).
7 For a detail summary of the "Entwurf" and methodological problems facing
those undertaking the continuation of Jacoby's FGrHist. see Schepens (1997)
144-171.
8 Schepens (1997) 149.
9 Schepens (1997) 152-153.

ARISTOXENOS AND PERIPA TETIC BIOGRAPHY 309
historiography under precise genres. a problem that was not necessarily
felt by the ancient writers or their audience. lo
The difficulty with this approach. as recent scholars have pointed
out. is that the ancients may not have had a fixed or static conception of
genre. As J. Marincola notes. Jacoby's "teleological view" of the development
of genre prevented him from seeing historiography as a dynamic
and responsive form of writing that both looked back to and
innovated on earlier forms of literature." Moreover. modern categories
of historical literature may not always correspond to ancient categories
and what we may expect of a genre was not necessarily what an
ancient audience might have expected or demanded. 12 This meant that
a historian could include all kinds of material in his work. whether
ethnography. paradoxa or antiquarian material. l ) As Marincola notes
(307) Jacoby's category of "philologic-antiquarian" works is based on a
modern separation of philology and history which does not correspond
to ancient notions. Following Conte's approach to Latin poetry.14 with
its "empty slots" into which a subsequent writer of a genre can slip
and fill a gap in his genre. Marincola (300-30r) suggests a more flexible
notion of genre. which sees various forms of historiography in a
"constant state of flux of reaction and revision." Instead of a "generic
taxonomy" Marincola (30r-307) suggests five criteria in analysing historical
works: narrative/non-narrative. focalization. chronological limits.
chronological arrangement and subject matter. This may be a useful
point of departure for analysing another important category of
ancient historiography. bioi.
10 Schepens' observations about Neanthes ([1997] 159) are worth mentioning
here. The earliest know writer of nEpi Evo6l;wv Cxvopwv. Neanthes wrote a
number of types of historiographical works. a fact "which should inspire caution
against a tendency in modern literature to draw rather sharp dividing lines between
political and military historiography on the one hand and biography and
antiquarian literature on the other."
II Marincola (1999) 291, 299.
12 The ancients did recognize certain categories of historical writing such as
archaiologia which covered early history. including genealogies and foundations;
war monographs which may have been a sub-genre of "history of deeds";
local histories which were not necessarily always annalistic. though they could
be. like the Atthidographers; and finally universal histories. In all cases the emphasis
was not form or orientation but subject matter. On these categories and
this point see Marincola (1999) 293-294.
I) As Flower (1997) 153 notes. Theopompos' Philippika "is a composite of
every type of historical research that had come before." including genealogy.
ethnography. mythology. chronography and the war monograph.
14 Conte(1994) 116-1 IT

310
CRAIG COOPER
BIOI AS GENRE
That the bios was a recognizable category of historiography. perhaps
with its own conventions. at least in terms of subject matter. is suggested
by Plutarch's comment at the beginning of his Life of Alexander
that he is not writing historiai but bioi. I5 According to Plutarch
great deeds of war. as they are narrated by historians. reveal less of a
man's virtues or vices than a little event or off-hand remarks. Plutarch's
concern is character. and what he will include in his narrative
are insignificant details not mentioned by historians that reveal such
character. It may seem from these comments that bioi were defined by
the kind of content included. In this same passage Plutarch goes on to
compare himself to a painter who shapes his bios by paying attention
to the small details and leaving to others. namely historians. the great
contests. 16
Past scholars have taken Plutarch's remarks here as a programmatic
statement of Plutarch's general approach to the writing of biography
and have even regarded them as reflecting some broadly accepted
definition of the distinction between history and biography. 17
But as T. Duff has argued. I8 this programmatic statement belongs specifically
to the context of the Life of Alexander. as a means to distinguish
this particular life from other historiographical works on the
same theme. The distinction between history and political biography
and similar historiographical works. as Duff observes. was never
clearly drawn. 19 In fact. Plutarch himself seems to envision some of his
own lives as being closely related to history and in fact describes them
as historiai. 2O At the beginning of the Life of Demosthenes (2.1). Plutarch
remarks as follows:
15 "If I do not record all their most celebrated achievements or describe any of
them exhaustively, but merely summarize for the most part what they accomplished.
I ask my readers not to regard this as a fault. For we are not writing
historiai but bioi. and the truth is that the most brilliant exploits often tell us
nothing of the virtues or vices of the men who performed them while on the other
hand a chance remark or a joke may reveal far more of a man's character (ethos)
than the mere feat of winning battles in which thousands fall. or of marshaling
great armies. or laying siege to cities." (trans. I. Scott-Kilvert)
16 See Duff (1999) 17 for his discussion of this image.
17 Wardman (1971) 254.
18 Duff (1999) 15-21.
19 Duff (1999) 17.
20 For examples see Duff (1999) 21. On the close relationship of Plutarch's lives
to historiography see Wardman (1971) 257-261. (1974) 2-10, 154-161; d. Scardigli
(1995) 17. 21 -2.3.25.

ARISTOXENOS AND PERIPATETIC BIOGRAPHY 311
When a man has undertaken to compose a historia. the sources for
which are not easily available in his own country. or do not even exist
there. the case is quite different. Because most of his material must be
sought abroad or may be scattered among different owners. his first
concern must be to base himself upon a city which is famous. wellpopulated
and favourable to the arts. Here he may not only have access
to all kinds of books. but through hearsay and personal enquiry he may
succeed in uncovering the facts which often escape the chroniclers and
are preserved in more reliable form in human memory. and with these
advantages he can avoid the danger of publishing a work which is defective
in many or even the most essential details. (trans. I. Scott­
Kilvert)
I suspect that even though Plutarch had chosen to live in a small town.
this was precisely the kind of work he sought to compose. a historia
not deficient in details which had eluded other writers. Again the kind
of content is important and marks out the distinction between his form
of historiography and that of others. 21
Plutarch's comments in Life of Demosthenes recall his claim for the
Life of Nikias. 22 As in the Life of Alexander so here Plutarch simply
summarizes the most celebrated of Nikias' deeds, as they were narrated
by historians. Plutarch tells his reader that he could not neglect
deeds of Nikias which were narrated by Thucydides and Philistos. especially
when they cast light on Nikias' character, but he has only
treated them summarily to avoid the charge of negligence. Instead he
has attempted to collect together certain details "which have eluded
most writers altogether and have been mentioned haphazardly by
others. or are recorded in decrees or in ancient votive offerings." His
purpose. he says (Nik. 1.5). is not to "accumulate a useless historia but
to hand down whatever may serve to make my subject's character and
temperament better understood...
21 As Duff (1999) 17 notes. historia in the Alexander is used in the particular
sense of a large-scale history but elsewhere "could be used in a general sense to
mean any kind of narrative." or as Wardman (1974) 5 notes. in the sense of enquiry.
22 "There is a true parallel. I believe. between the lives of Nicias and Crassus.
and between the disasters of the Sicilian and the Parthian expeditions. However.
the first is a subject which Thucydides has already handled incomparably. surpassing
even his own high standards. not only in the pathos but in the brilliance
and variety of his narrative. So I must appeal to the reader not to think me as
vain as Timaeus. who flattered himself that he could outdo Thucydides in skill
and show up Philistus as a throughly uninspired and amateurish write1'.
There can be no question. of course. of passing over those of Nicias' actions
which Thucydides and Philistus have recorded, especially since they throw so
much light upon his character and disposition. which were so often obscured by
his great misfortunes. but here I have touched briefly on the essentials to avoid
the charge of negligence." (trans. I. Scott-Kilvert)

ARISTOXENOS AND PERIPA TETIC BIOGRAPHY 313
which is shaped by and revealed in his actions. 27 The consistency with
which Plutarch uses Peripatetic terms to describe his biographical
method and aims has led some scholars to conclude that Plutarch was
following a formalized Peripatetic theory of biography.28 Scholars are
no longer prepared to go that far. nor. in fact. are all bioi that have
come down to us so ethically oriented. This point can be easily illustrated
by comparing Plutarch's Demosthenes with the life of
Demosthenes in the Moralia (844b-848d). where one finds a complete
absence of ethical concerns.
Nor for that matter is the study of character the exclusive preserve
of bioi. On Plutarch's own admission. Thucydides and Philistos wrote
narratives that revealed character. Theopompos. according to ancient
critics like Dionysios of Halicarnassos (Pomp. 6.7). had the ability to
detect the motives of actors in history and reveal their apparent virtue
and undetected vice. 29 Motives most commonly attributed to his characters
are akrasia and philotimia. 30 and philotimia is a character trait
that Plutarch attributes to many heroes and illustrates in the narratives
of their lives. 31 But as far as we can tell. the ancients never regarded
the Philippika. which was a history centered on an individual and
whose very title might suggest biography. as anything but historyY
Perhaps it can be argued that Theopompos played an important role in
the development of biography. but that is a separate issue; what Theapompos
was up to was not biography as far as the ancients were concerned.
So subject matter alone is not enough to distinguish bioi from history.
Where the writer of bioi and the writer of historia parted company
were in the "larger elements of historical composition-speeches.
battles. geographical excursuses."33 Scale or size was the difference:
where historia described large battles. bioi included small events or'
abbreviated the account. where historia included speeches. bioi sayings.
34 where historia provided chronological development. bioi were
27 Leo (1901) 188: Hamilton (1999) xliv: Russell (1966) 144. (1995) 81-82. (1973)
105-106.
28 Dihle (1956) 63: d. Scardigli (1995) 10.
29 For a discussion of this famous evaluation see Shrimpton (1991) 21. and
Flower (1997) 170.
30 Flower (1997) 170-174: Shrirnpton (1991) 136-151.
3 1 Wardrnan (1974) 115-12.4: Russell (1973) 106.
3 2 Flower (1997) 149·
33 Russell (1966) 148. (1995) 87.
34 On small events and sayings as the biographer's counterpart to battles and
speeches see Wardrnan (1971) 254-256.

3 14
CRAIG COOPER
less concerned with chronological progression 35 but could include a
chronological outline. 36 marked by notable dates or synchronismsY
Epitornization thus seemed to be the hallmark of bioi and perhaps
helps make sense of Plutarch's apology. He simply summarized and
abbreviated. which was precisely what writers of bioi did. 38
What this also means is that as a category of historiography bioi
could overlap with and resemble various other forms of historiography.
whether history. literary-history or antiquarian research. It could
thus include all kinds of material but not on the same scale or in the
same detail as these other forms of historiography. Whether a biography
had a narrative structure or not was not important. Satyros' bios
of Euripides. for instance. was composed as a dialogue. In many respects
it formally resembles literary monographs of so-called periliterature
by Peripatetics like Chamaileon, employing the very same
methods of biographical inference based on the poets's writing. 39 Focus
on the individual, though an important criterion. was not exclusive
to bioi; histories too could centre on the individual and bioi could. it
seems. also be about nations or cities. as Dikaiarchos' nep\ TOO [3iov
Ti')c 'EAAaboc or as in Klearchos' nep\ [3iwv (more below). Chronological
arrangement was less important than perhaps the chronological
limits for defining bioi. The limit was obviously the life itself from its
beginning to its end: the writer of a bios of an individual would most
often begin with the birth of that individual and end with his death; in
the case of a city or nation. begin when it was founded and end when
it was destroyed. lost it independence or reached some other significant
end. But whether a bios always had to cover an individual's entire
35 On Plutarch's lack of concern for chronology or chronological development
see Russell (1966) 148. (1995) 87. (1973) 102-103.
36 Wardman (1971) 256.
37 See for instance FOxy 2438. which preserves a brief biography of Pindar,
with chronological statements based on chronographic lists; see Gallo (1g68) 16.
See also life of Aristotle in D.L. 5.1(}-1 I. On similar types of chronological signposts
in ps.-Plu. Vit. X. see Cooper (1992) 54-55.
38 See Geiger (1988) 249. who argues that Plutarch's innovation beyond Nepos
lay in part in the scale of his biographies.
39 On the close affinity between Satyros' biography and the problemataliterature
of the Peripatetics see Latte in Dihle (1956) 105 n. I; between it and the
peri-literature of Chamaeleon in particular see Momigliano (1993) 73. On the
character of peri-literature see Leo (1901) 104-106, 317-318. (1960a) 369. (1960c)
387-394: Pfeiffer (1g68) 217-218: Arrighetti (1964) 12-21. (1977) 31-49: Momigliano
(1993) 70 and n. 6. On the biographical method of Chamaeleon see Leo (l960a)
368-369. (l960c) 390: Arrighetti (1964) 22. 26. (1977) 31-49.

ARISTOXENOS AND PERIPATETIC BIOGRAPHY 3 IS
life from birth to death is not absolutely certain. 40 Certainly the shape
the bios took as it moved within the chronological limits of birth and
death would depend largely on the focus of the writer. Whether he
treated Demosthenes. for instance. as a literary or political figure
would determine what material of his life he wished to emphasize. In
the case of the former more emphasis could corne on his early education.
rhetorical training and literary production and thus resemble a
literary monograph or work on rhetoric: in the case of the latter. the
critical moments of his political career. as would be expected of a history.
but even these could be included in a literary biography which
sought to highlight-though not in the same way or in the same detail
as a political bios-the whole life from birth to death. There was really
no chronological system as in the case of histories. which arranged
their chronologies either along an annalistic pattern. or by magistrates
or by areasY A bios could include chronological signposts or synchronisms
which highlighted an important moment in the life. but the
chronology itself was of secondary importance. What was important
was linking that moment with another event of equal or greater significance
to emphasize the fame of that individualY
What. then. characterized bioi in antiquity as a separate form of
historiography distinct from other forms of historiography? It was a
brief account of a life from its beginning to end: in the case of a man's
life. from birth to death. Here we have not moved far. if at all. beyond
Momigliano's definition: "An account of a man's life from birth
to death. "43 As Momigliano points out, though. this definition "has the
advantage of excluding any discussion of how biography should be
written." Thus a bios could have a narrative structure. be schematically
arranged or set as a dialogue: so long as it remained an account
of a life. it could follow any form. include any kind of material. borrow
from various sources and thus resemble other forms of historiography.
the degree of similarity being dependent on the amount of ma-
4 0 Momigliano (1993) I I I-I 12 notes the possibility that Nicolaos of Damascus'
life of Augustus may have only been a partial biography down to 20 BCE.
covering the formative years of Augustus. In this he had good precedent in Xenophon's
Cyropacdia and books by Onesikritos and Marsyas on Alexander's education.
0. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1995) 64-65·
4 1 Marincola (1999) 305-306.
4 2 For instance. Lysias arrived in Athens in the archonship of Kallias, after
the Four Hundred had taken power and was banished. when the battle of Aigospotamoi
had taken place and the Thirty seized power (Mor. 835e). Isokrates died
in the archonship of Chairondos after hearing the news of Chaironeia (Mar.
837e).
43 Mamigliano (1993) I I.

316 CRAIG COOPER
terial included in the bios from another category of historiography.
Thus a work which we or even the author himself might not have regarded
as a real biography could have been regarded as a bios by
ancient readers.
THE QUESTION OF PERIPATETIC BIOGRAPHY
In his preface to De viris illustribus Jerome lists Peripatetics among
Suetonius' forerunners in biography: apud Graecos Hermippus Peripateticus.
Antigonus Carystius. Satyrus dactus vir. et omnium longe
doctissimus Aristoxenus musicus (Wehrli II. fro lOb). All except Antigonos
were in some way connected with the Peripatos. Both Hermippos
and Satyros are called Peripatetics. which may reflect not so much
an association with the Peripatos itself but the style of their bioi which
was in some way modelled on earlier Peripatetic writings. 44 Aristoxenos
was himself a student of Aristotle and was the first Peripatetic to
write monographs devoted to an individua1. 45 All this suggests. despite
what scholars say. that the Peripatos played an important role in shaping
Hellenistic biography.4 6
For Leo the true beginning of biographical activity started with the
Peripatetics. and it was this biographical activity which precisely characterized
the schoolY It is generally agreed that the Peripatetics
showed an interest in biography. but scholars are reluctant to believe
that the Peripatetics wrote genuine biographies. 48 So. for instance. G.
Arrighetti argues that it is difficult to reconcile a taste for partisan biographies
with the scientific research into the history of the arts and
sciences which the Peripatos promoted. 49 In the introduction to his edition
of Satryros' bios of Euripides. Arrighetti reexamines the whole
question of Peripatetic biography.5 0 He also attempts to define Satyros'
position in the history of ancient biography. Leo had placed Satyros.
whom he had regarded as "Halbperipatetiker." among those Kallimacheans
who had marked out the transition from Peripatetic to Alex-
44 Arrighetti (1964) 3; Leo (1901) 118; Heibges (1912) 845: Pfeiffer (1g68) 150-151;
Brink (1946) 11-12; but contrast West (1974) 279-287. Cf. Bollansee (1999a) 9-14.
45 'APXUTO 13ioc (Wehrli II !I9451. frs. 47-50); CWKpClTOVC 13ioc (frs. 51-60):
nMITwvoc 13ioc (frs. 61-68); TeAECTov 13ioc (fr. 117); nepl nv6oy6pov KOI TWV
yvwpillwv OUTOO (frs. 11-25); d. Arrighetti (1964) 12.
46 Momigliano (1993) 73-74.
47 Leo (1901) 99; d. Arrighetti (1964) 6.
4 8 See Momigliano (1993) 105- I 2I.
49 Arrighetti (1964) 6.
50 Arrighetti (1964) 12-20; d. Gallo (1967) 156-157.

3 I B
CRAIG COOPER
Polykrates and Harpagos. the Mede. It is clear from fro 16. which has
Pythagoras in Samos during the reign of Polykrates. that at least the
synchronism between Polykrates. Anakreon and Pythagoras in fro 12
goes back to Aristoxenos. 53 This synchronism first established by Aristoxenos
and elaborated by later biographers was introduced to account
for Pythagoras' travels. Hence the tyranny of Polykrates would justify
his travel to Italy. while his flight from tyranny was consistent with his
political activities among the Greek cities of Italy where he called for
general freedom (fr. 17).54 The tendentious nature of many of these
synchronisms can best be seen in the anecdote of Simichos. who is said
by Aristoxenos to have laid down his tyranny after hearing Pythagoras
(fr. 17). In a similar vein. the capture of Pythagoras by Kambyses
during his Egyptian campaign (fr. 12) helps account for Pythagoras'
journey to Babylon. where he was initiated into Persian rites.
Here he also met up with the Chaldaean Zaratas (fr. 13).
This concern for precise chronology may indicate that Aristoxenos
was equally concerned with relating the events of Pythagoras' life
from its beginning (birth) to its end (death). which by our definition
would make the nep\ nv8ay6pov a bios. As we have noted. Aristoxenos
went into Pythagoras' origins (fr. IIa). The precise length of each
transmigration is given at 216 years (fr. 12). no doubt to account for
Pythagoras' claim that he had once resided in the body of Euphorbos.
55 The length of his natural life is given at 82 years (fr. 12). His
departure from Samos is precisely dated to his fortieth year (fr.I6).
while Kylon's insurrection in Kroton against the Pythagoreans there is
explicitly said to have taken place in Pythagoras' old age (fr. 18). The
trouble in Kroton led to Pythagoras' withdrawal to Metapontion.
where Aristoxenos depicts the end of his life: we do not know whether
Aristoxenos went on to narrate the details of his death. but this seems
likely. since he had already included an account of the death of
Pherekydes and his burial by Pythagoras. his student (fr.I4).
Thus it would seem that Aristoxenos gave an account of Pythagoras'
life from birth to death. which we suggest constitutes a bios. The chronology
was arranged around Pythagoras' travels which took him far
and wide to Delphi. Babylon and finally to Italy. The accounts of his
travels allowed Aristoxenos to bring Pythagoras into contact with various
teachers. from whom he derived many of his own teachings. Thus
we find him in Babylon where he is instructed by Zaratas the Chal-
53 Wehrli II (1945) 50.
54 Wehrli II (1945) 51-52.
55 See Wehrli II (1945) 50 for his discussion on whether Pythagoras had two or
three such transmigrations.

ARISTOXENOS AND PERIPA TETIC BIOGRAPHY 321
warded a long life as a consequence of his Pythagorean practices. In
similar fashion. episodes in Pythagoras' life. such as his flight from
the tyrant Polykrates (fr. 16) or Simichos' relinquishing of tyranny (fr.
17). are intended to illustrate Pythagorean EAEu8Epla. In particular. fro
17. which describes his political activities promoting freedom among
the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. would aptly suit the kind of material
found in nEpl 13iwv. a type of work which scholars think does not
present actual biographies but types of lives that illustrated particular
virtues and vices. In the case of Xenophilos he is compared to Gorgias.
another philosopher famed for his longevity. who later was represented
by Klearchos in his n EPI 13iwv as an example of those who were
rewarded for virtue. It is to these works that we now turn for comparison.
nEpl13iwv
According to modern scholars. bios could denote either a biography of
an individual or a type of life ("Lebensform") where a particular lifestyle
("Lebensfiihrung") is represented. o, Arrighetti states that Leo
had observed that the title nEpl 13iwv did not presuppose the biographical
character of the work. since the word bios could denote
"vita" or "genre di vita." and that the double meaning of the word can
clearly be seen from the different titles nEpl 13iwv and Bioc TaU
oElva. 02 The problem is that Leo ([19oI] 96-99) never makes the distinction
as clearly or as forcefully as Arrighetti wants. nor did the ancients.
Bios, even when it came to mean the biography of a person.
continued to connote the "type of life" he had lived and as such always
had an ethical colouring. Some biographers, like Hermippos. perhaps
aware of the ambiguity. preferred. unlike Satyros and Sotion. the
more neutral flavoured nEpl TaU oElva. O ) What is clear. though. is that
Leo saw the birth of biography within the context of philosophy; philosophy
became the ars vivendi. ars vitae and what naturally flowed
from this. according to Leo (97). was a concern for the life of the individual.
In Leo's mind (99). the study of the individual. both in ethical
and biographical terms. gained prominence with the Peripatetics. o4
nEpi nveay6pov Kai TWV yvwPIl-lWV Q\1TOU or to nEpi TOU nveayoplKOv
r=>lov. This only emphasizes how much cross-over of material there was between
related types of Peripatetic works. The attribution to the former work seems to
be based on Gellius' wording in libra quem de Pythagora rdiquit.
01 Wehrli X (1959) [15.
02 Arrighetti (1964) 13.
03 Bollansee (I999b) 102.
04 "Durch Aristoteles und seine Schuler war die empirische Erforschung des

32 6
CRAIG COOPER
bouring city of Karbina: finally, they were punished through divine
intervention (fl'. 48). Each "life," it seems, has become so schematized
to fit an ethical pattern that motifs are readily transferred from one
life to the next. Hence the hybris of the Tarentines, the rape of the
women and children of Karbina, whom they had gathered into the
temple square, is precisely that of the Lydians (fl'. 43a) and of Dionysios
the younger (fl'. 47).8 4 The Lydians gathered the wives and
daughters of others to the place euphemistically called "Chastity,"
while Dionysios gathered the Locrian girls into a large hall.
The ethical pattern of Klearchos' nEp\ l3iwv with its accompanying
topoi repeats itself not only in the "lives" of cities and nations but also
of individuals. Hence Dionysios is represented committing the same
hybris as the Lydians and Tarentines, and despite a problem in the
text the admonishment which concludes fl'. 47 clearly connects truphe
with the hybrisof the tyrant: "And so, we should beware of so-called
luxury which is an overthrower of all lives and regard insolence as
destructive."85 His punishment-to serve as mendicant priest of Kybele-reminds
us of the punishment of the Lydians who were forced
to serve under a woman to reflect their effeminate behaviour,86 or
that of the Medes (fl'. 49) who after making eunuchs of their neighbours
were forced to bear the humiliation of watching the Persians
adopt their own practice of "Apple-bearing," as a punishment
(Tl\.lwp[a) but also as "a reminder into what depths of effeminacy the
luxury of the body-guards went" (Ti'je TWV 8opvq>OpOVVTWV Tpvq>i'je
de oeov TjA80v Cxvav8piae tJ'lTo\.lvTj\.la). Klearchos, or at least
Athenaios, concludes with an admonition similar to the one we find in
the case of Dionysios: "For so it seems, their immoderate and frivolous
luxury in their life can even turn men armed with spears into beggars.
,,87 That is to say the Medes through their excessive luxury had
become like the emasculated priests of Kybele, the mendicant CxyVp­
Tal. 88
Polykrates for his part imitated the effeminate practices of the
84 a. Wehrli III (1948)63.
85 Fr. 47: EUAa13TjTEOV ovv nlV KaAoullEVTjV Tpuq>rjV oveav TWV (3iwv
avaTponr,v alTllvTwv TE tOAE8plOV liyEie8alt nlV iJ13PIV.
86 After saying that Omphale was the first to begin the punishment.
Athenaios continues TO yap uno yvvalKoc apXEc801 u(3pli;;oIlEvoue CTlIlEiov ECTl
13iae, where (3ioe is substituted for 13iae by Capps.
87 Fr. 49: ovvaTOI yap, we EOIKEV, Ii napaKOIpoe Cilla Ka! llaTOIOe aUTwv
mp! TOV 13iov TpUq>r, Ka! TOlle Taie AOYXOIe Ka8wnAIellEvoue ayvpTae
anoq>aiVEIV.
88 Gulick 5 (1963)314n.a.

336 CRAIG COOPER
stability that comes to Italy and Sicily during the ascendancy of the Pythagoreans
are not due to political factors but to the reception of the
Pythagorean message which teaches that stasis and discord must by
every means be removed from city and home as a disease from the
body (fr. 17). The widespread insurrection that later arose against Pythagoras
and the other Pythagoreans is reduced by Aristoxenos to a
personal act of revenge carried out by Kylon. which the other states
look on with indifference. 114 According to Aristoxenos' account, Kylon
was rejected from Pythagorean society because of his violent and tyrannical
nature (fr. 18). and as such he forms the antithesis of Simichos
who freely embraced the Pythagorean ideal and laid aside tyranny. In
keeping with his philosophical ideals. as he did at Samos. Pythagoras
voluntarily withdrew to Metapontion long before the actual attack
upon Milon's house and not as a consequence of it. This characterization
of Pythagoras forces Aristoxenos to play down the tradition which
told of widespread insurrection against the Pythagoreans in several
cities of Italy (Plb. 2.39. Dik. fro 34). But on the whole Aristoxenos. like
Dikaiarchos. works within the framework of the tradition: as Wehrli
points out, it is historically possible. apart from the personal motivations
which Aristoxenos gives. that the insurrection of Kylon was preceded
by a long period of ineffectual opposition on the part of the Kylonians.
115 Aristoxenos has only reworked the tradition to emphasize a
particular aspect of Pythagoras' philosophical character. but that is
something that all biographers did and still do.
To deny. as Arrighetti has. that Aristoxenos wrote biography is. I
think. to ignore and prejudice what the ancients themselves regarded
as biography and. worse yet. to impose on them our own perceptions
of what makes biography. Biography. or at least certain kinds of biography.
were about types and about ethics. To say a writer had partisan
and ethical concerns should not mean that he did not and could not
write biography: even Plutarch had these concerns and chose. as Aristoxenos
before him. to rework or at least selectively retell history to
emphasize his perception of an individual's type and character. We
may. as Gomme,'16 regard Plutarch more as a moral essayist than a
biographer. but Plutarch certainly knew what he was up to in writing
bioi. and we can assume the same of Aristoxenos. His aim. as that of
Dikaiarchos or Klearchos. may have been philosophical instruction.
but what he produced. in the minds of ancient readers. were bioi, ac-
114 Wehrli II (r948) 52.
115 Wehrli II (1948) 52-53.
116 Gomme (1956) 54.

ARISTOXENOS AND PERIPA TETIC BIOGRAPHY 337
counts of lives from their beginning to their end. In this context J. 801lansee's
comments about Hermippos. an important Hellenistic biographer.
are salutary: "the concept of the faithful portrayal of a man's
life and times was entirely foreign to Hermippos. "117 There is much in
Hermippos' biography that would reflect more the work of an antiquarian
than a biographer. But as Bollansee rightly notes (186), the
problem is with us scholars who "have high expectations for. and
make great demands on, a genre which on the surface bears some obvious
similarity to its present-day counterpart ... but which in antiquity
unquestionably served entirely different purposes."
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
UNIVERSITY OF WINNIPEG
WINNIPEG. MB R,JB 2Eg
REFERENCES
Arrighetti. G. 1964: "Satiro. vita di Euripide," seo 13.
__. 197T "Fra erudizione e biografia." se026: 13---{)7.
Bollansee. J. I 999a. Hermippos of Symrna and his Biographcial Writings: A Reappraisal.
Leuven.
__. I 999b. HermmipposofSymrna.FGrHist. IV A3. Leiden.
Brink. K.O. 1946. "Callimachus and Aristotle: An inquiry into Callimachus'
npOI nPAzlANHN." CQ40: 11-12.
Burkert. W. 1972. Lore andScience in Ancient Pythagoreanism. Trans. E.L. Minai'
Jr. German Original 1962. Weisheit und Wissenschaft Studien zu Pythagoras.
Philolaos und Platon. Cambridge. MA.
Conte. G.B. 1994. Genres and Readers: Lucretius. Love Elegy. Pliny's Encyclopedia.
Trans. G. Most. Italian Original 1991. Generi e lettori: Lucrezio, J'eJegia
d'amore. J'enciclopedia di PJinio. Baltimore.
Cooper. C. 1992. The Development of the Biographical Tradition on the Athenian
Orators in the HeJJenistic Period. Diss. British Columbia.
Dihle. A. 1956. Studien zurgriechischen Biographie. AbhandJungen der Akademie
der Wissenschaften Gdttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse 37.
Dover. K.J. 1988. "Anecdotes, gossip and scandal." in The Greeks and their Legacy:
Collected Papers, Volume JI: Prose Literature, History, Society. Transmission.
Influence. Oxford.
Duff. T. 1999. Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice. Oxford.
Flower. M.A. 1994. Theopompus ofChios: History and Rhetoric in the Fourth Century
B.C Oxford.
Fortenbaugh, W.W. and Schiitmmpf. E.. eds. 2001. Dicaearchus of Messana: Text,
Translation and Discussion. Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humani-
117 Bollansee (1999a) 185.

ARiSTOXENOS AND PERIPATETIC BIOGRAPHY 339
Schiitrurnpf (20or) 237-254.
Scardigli. B, ed. 1995. Essays on Plutarch's Lives. OxfOl'd.
Schepens. G. 1997. "Jacoby's FGrHist: Problems, methods. prospects," in Most
(1997) 144-172.
Schiitrurnpf. E. 2001. "Dikaiarchs "ioc 'EAAaboc und die Philosophie des viel'ten
Jahrhunderts," in Fortenbaugh and Schiitrurnpf (2001) 255-277.
Shrimpton, G. 1991. Theopompus the Historian. Montreal/Kingston.
Ussher, RG. 1960. The Characters of Theophrastus. London; second edition with
addenda, London 1993.
Wardman, A. 1971. "Plutarch's methods in the Lives," CQ21: 254-261.
__. 1974. Plutarch's Lives. London.
Wehrli, F. 1944-1959. Die Schule des Aristotles, I-X. Basel.
West, S. 1974. "Satyrus: Peripatetic or Alexandrian?," GRBS 15: 279-287.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von. 1995. "Plutarch as biographel'," in Scardigli
(1995) 47-74·

Mouseion, Series III. Vol. 2 (2002) 341-364
©2002 Mouseion
ALICE AND PENELOPE:
FEMALE INDIGNATION IN EYES WIDE SHUT
AND THE ODYSSEY
H. ROISMAN
Wives do not like to be taken for granted. no more in ancient times
than today. As different as Homer's Odyssey and Stanley Kubrick's
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) are in medium. time. and culture. they share
certain similarities in their depiction of the marital relationship. Both
show husbands who. albeit for different reasons. take their wives for
granted and indignant wives who strike back by verbally challenging
their husband's sexuality. This essay starts with an analysis of the
modern movie Eyes Wide Shut and proceeds to analyze the pertinent
passages in the epic poem. the Odyssey.
The theme of feminine indignation that is pivotal in Eyes Wide Shut
is not present in Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story. the late nineteenthcentury
novella on which the film is based. Along with other changes.
which have been amply noted by other scholars, Stanley Kubrick and
Frederic Raphael added this theme to Schnitzler's story. Schnitzler's
story can be read as a tribute to his close friend Sigmund Freud,
whose dream theory the story both illustrates and qualifies. The story
conveys in fictional form the then novel idea that women, like men.
had forbidden and sometimes cruel and destructive sexual fantasies
and desires. but then. departing from Freud. suggests that these desires.
however strong and sweeping they might be. are not the core or
fulcrum of the marital relationship. Kubrick and Raphael adopt these
points in their entirety. At the distance of a century. however. neither
Freud's notion of the importance of sex to human psychology nor
Schnitzler's qualifications are quite as novel or interesting as they
were when Schnitzler first gave them literary expression. Kubrick
and Raphael thus had to find a somewhat different angle from which
to treat the story so as to make it more relevant to audiences at the end
of the twentieth century. Hence the theme of indignation.
Eyes Wide Shut also reduces the importance of the dream motif.
which is central to Schnitzler's story. The dream remains a vehicle for
the heroine. Alice. to express herself. but the long. elaborate, and
highly pictorial dream of her predecessor. Albertine. is substantially
shortened and simplified. and its sadistic content and murderous urges
considerably pared down in the film version. In place of the dream.
34 1

342 H. ROISMAN
the film emphasizes the indignation that the modern woman feels
when her husband takes her for granted and fails to credit her with a
vigorous and vital sexuality. and selfhood. of her own.
The characters of the main protagonists and the grounds for their
confrontation are set in the opening scenes of the film. as Bill and Alice
Harford (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) prepare to go to a ball at the
home of their friend Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack). Alice. in the en
suite bathroom and dressed in her evening gown. asks Bill how she
looks. Bill goes to the mirror to check his appearance and without looking
at Alice says: "Perfect."
Alice: Is my hair OK?
Bill: It's great.
Alice: You're not even looking at it.
Bill: (turns and looks at her adoringly)
It's beautiful.
(He kisses her affectionately on the cheek and leaves the bathroom).
You always look beautiful. (5)'
With this opening. Kubrick and Raphael introduce us to two beautiful.
self-absorbed individuals. both concerned with their own appearance.
who relate to one another with an easy if superficial familiarity.
which is not devoid of affection but patently lacking in the sexual
charge that might be expected from their obvious youth. wealth. s0phistication.
success. and good looks. Alice is shown as seeking reassurance
with a somewhat childish and needy persistence. Bill is shown
treating her as a prize trophy. as an unchangeable object that one need
not look at too closely. since it is always the same. Yet their exchange.
as laden with undercurrents as it is. is low-key and seemingly innocuous.
as such exchanges tend to be between husbands and wives who
essentially love one another and have learned to bear with each
other's shortcomings.
The flaws in their domestic orderliness are quickly developed in
the next few scenes. First the babysitter and then several people at the
Zieglers' party compliment Alice on her stunning appearance. The
spontaneity and enthusiasm of their comments (e.g.. the babysitter
exclaims. "Wow! You look amazing. Mrs. Harford.") underscore the
perfunctoriness of Bill's unseeing compliments and underline the degree
to which he takes his wife's beauty for granted. We are also
given a glimpse of Alice's hurt and annoyance. and of her difficulty in
expressing these feelings openly and directly. Rather than confront
Bill. she ignores. or pretends to ignore. both his inattention and his
, Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael. Eyes Wide Shut (screenplay. Warner
Books. 1999).

FEMALE INDIGNA nON 343
compliments. and escapes into the safety of her role as mother. Rather
than make a fuss as they are about to leave for the evening. she simply
asks her husband whether he has given the babysitter their phone
and pager numbers. and her young daughter whether she is ready
for bed. Nicole Kidman plays this scene with a frozen expression on
her face.
The tensions burst to the surface in the argument in the bedroom
scene the day after the ball. This scene is set against the background of
the Zieglers' ball and of the two scenes that follow it. showing the couple's
lovemaking and Bill's treatment of a woman patient in his clinic.
In the ball scenes. the audience is shown both husband and wife flirting
mildly with individuals who approach them. Alice with the suave
Sandor Szavost (Sky Dumont) and Bill with two young models. while
being intensely aware of one another's movements and remaining
faithful to each other. Yet while taking pains to show the couple's fidelity.
Kubrick and Raphael play on the potential for infidelity inherent
in the encounters with desirous and admiring strangers. They show
Bill and especially Alice interested in their partners of the evening;
show Ziegler. the host. with the call-girl Mandy in an upper room
while his guests. and wife. are downstairs; and have Alice's partner of
the evening. Sandor Szavost. cynically declare that marriage necessitates
deception and that women marry so as to be free to enjoy sex
with the men they really want. The lovemaking after the party has a
similarly double-edged quality. It assures the audience that Bill and
Alice have channeled whatever arousal they had felt at the party to
one another and that they still enjoy each other sexually. At the same
time. though. set in the couple's bedroom. it is presented as domestic
and relatively tame in comparison to the heightened. unconsummated.
and fantasy-charged eroticism of their encounters at the party. Then.
the antiseptic scenes with Bill and his patients the next day once again
show his behavior to be above reproach. without even a tinge of impropriety.
All in all. however. the libidinous ambience that had informed
the party casts its shadow over all of Bill's and Alice's subsequent
behavior. It suggests the longings and fantasies that lurk behind
our day-to-day conduct. moral and faithful as that may be. and it is
clearly behind the argument the next evening in the bedroom.
The bedroom scene opens with what could be a prelude to lovemaking-Alice
lying in bed in her underwear. Bill sitting next to her in
his boxer shorts. and the two of them sharing a joint-but this quickly
turns into an ugly and seemingly baseless fight. It is Alice who starts
the fight by asking who the girls were that Bill was at the party with.
crudely demanding whether he had sex with them. and accusing him
of "blatantly hitting on" them (40). Alice's motives in starting and pur-

344
H.ROISMAN
suing the fight are not made entirely clear. The script does not tell us
how much Alice genuinely suspected her husband's fidelity. how
much she was projecting onto him her own unfulfilled desires of the
night before. or how much she simply used the opportunity to get
back at him for his taking her so much for granted. All three motives
are plausible in the film. In any case. it soon becomes evident that her
aim is to attack his manhood in any way possible. whether by accusing
him of infidelity. male chauvinism and other lapses. or by making
him jealous.
At every step of the way. Bill falls prey to her aggressive and provocative
attacks. To her accusatory question. "And where did you disappear
to with them [the girls] for so long" (40). he responds first with
the half truth that he had gone upstairs to take care of a suddenly ailing
Ziegler. and then by asking Alice who her dancing partner had
been and what he had wanted. These responses spur Alice to further
attack. The fib. probably motivated by discretion (Bill had promised
Ziegler to keep the incident with Mandy to himself). is transparent.
since Alice had seen Ziegler looking healthy enough only a bit earlier
in the evening. and probably piqued her anger yet further. His questions
tell her that he is jealous. and incite her to keep chipping away at
the masculine complacency that is behind his taking her for granted.
Thus Alice replies that Szavost wanted sex "upstairs. then and there"
(41). How true this is the audience cannot know. They know that an
upstairs rendezvous was possible and they heard Szavost asking Alice
to accompany him to the Zieglers' art gallery and inviting her to go
out with him some other night. But they did not hear this explicit
proposition. The audience is thus left with the sense that Alice is either
stretching the truth to get back at her husband or. if not. that she has
selected this particular detail in order to hurt and unman him.
When her reply doesn't produce visible pain. she shifts tactics. Bill
downplays the importance of the reported proposition: "Is that all?" he
asks. Although these are angry and sarcastic words. Bill tries to make
the proposition seem innocuous. "I guess that's understandable." he
tells Alice. " ... because you are a very beautiful woman" (42). His response
reflects an effort to project self-confidence by making it seem
only natural that other men would desire his beautiful wife and by
avoiding any expression of concern that she might have been drawn to
the proposition or that she had acted or might act on it. Neither Alice
nor the audience knows yet whether this nonchalance is real or assumed.
In either case. his refusal to show jealousy apparently makes
Alice even angrier and more determined to get back at him.
Ignoring his praise of her beauty. much as she had earlier. and the
expression of trust in his statement. she disengages from his embrace.

FEMALE INDIGNA nON 345
gets up. and backs up toward the bathroom door, leaving him sitting
frustrated on the bed, as she twists his words in a feminist expression
of outrage. She asks whether because she is beautiful the only reason a
man would like to talk to her is because he would like to have sex with
her. "Is that what you're saying?" she asks defiantly (42). Bill had said
nothing of the sort. Nor is it clear whether Alice really believes that he
had. Her distortion serves several ends. It conveys her frustration that
her husband does not credit her as an individual with a mind of her
own and with things to say that will interest and attract men apart
from her looks. It strives to shame Bill for his sexual desire for her,
which he had been showing during the scene. by implying that the
only reason he wants her is for her looks. And, even as she draws
away from him. it projects onto him and other men her own suppressed
libidinous urges.
Bill. whether carried away by his desire, wishing to end the argument.
or simply obtuse, does not relate to her distortion or to the anger
and frustration that are behind it. Rather he tries to clarify his
statement, as though her chagrin was based on no more than a verbal
misunderstanding. "Well. I don't think it's quite that black and white,"
he tells her, "but I think we both know what men are like" (43). Not to
be placated by this stereotypic generalization, Alice promptly turns
the tables on him by commenting that on this basis she should conclude
that he wanted to have sex with the two models she saw him with (43).
With this assertion. Alice moves the argument from what Bill (and she)
might have done at the party to what he (and she) might have wanted
to do.
His response to her question evokes the same transition in her reply.
To his assertion that he is an exception to the rule because "I happen
to be in love with you and because we're married and because I
would never lie to you or hurt you," Alice retorts: "Do you realize
that what you're saying is that the only reason you wouldn't ... those
two models is out of consideration for me, not because you really
wouldn't want to?" (43). Her retort ignores his declaration of love for
her and of fidelity to his marital bonds and undervalues the merit of
reining in one's sexual urges out of consideration for a spouse one
loves and does not want to hurt. Rather it focuses on what he might
want to do: on the hidden and suppressed desires that had been highlighted
in the erotic atmosphere of the party scenes.
At issue for Alice, and driving her anger, is Bill's inability or unwillingness
to look beneath the surface of reality, for which he accounts
well enough by the sort of stereotypic and rational observations
to which he is prone. As Kubrick had apparently explained to Nicole
Kidman. when she pressed him to rectify the logical flaws in Alice's

346
H.ROISMAN
argumentation. Alice's thinking is irrational, in keeping with her being
stoned and angry. It is a reflection of her inner state. 2 Bill's thinking.
unlike Alice's. does not extend to the hidden and irrational forces
by which people are driven. himself and Alice included. Thus his rational
suggestion that they "just relax" and his rational observation that
the "pot is making you aggressive" only further enrage Alice. "No.
it's not the pot. it's you!" she protests. and goes on to try to explain
herself with enigmatic statements like ''I'm just trying to find out
where you're coming from" (44). Although on the surface these statements
are not very clear and seem to come out of nowhere. they suggest
that Alice is put out by her husband's emotional opacity-that she
would like him to be more aware of his deeper feelings. whether of
his jealousy or of the hidden desires that she pushes him to confess.
and to reveal more of them to her.
The more Bill tries to rectify their misunderstanding. the more Alice
dwells on it. She proceeds now to pry about Bill's feelings towards
his female patients and their feelings toward him. The focus of Alice's
questions is not so much on the desires and fantasies of her husband's
female patients as on his understanding. or lack of understanding. of
the women. The argument intensifies yet further when Bill confesses
that he doesn't know what his fema,le patients feel toward him and
then proceeds to state that women don't have the same sexual urges as
men: "Look women don't ... they basically don't think like that" (46).
This assertion leads Alice to stand up. provocatively point a finger
at her husband. pace up and down. and finally come close. or as close
as she will get. to stating what bothers her most about him. that as far
as he is concerned women care about one thing only: "... just about
security and commitment ... !" (46). Alice couches her objections to his
assumption that women do not have the kind of purely sexual desires
that men possess in generic terms: but her anger is not so much about
her husband's failure to grasp female sexuality as about his failure to
grasp. or even to consider. the depth. intensity. and richness of her
own sexual desires and fantasies.
Thus she swiftly brings the discussion from the level of generalization
on which it had been conducted till then down to the concrete: herself
and her husband. Bill provides the opportunity with his rational
account of their argument. As he puts it. she is stoned. has been trying
to pick a fight with him. and is now trying to make him jealous. This
perception is accurate as far as it goes. but one point of the film. and
the point that Alice is bent on making her husband realize. is that rea-
2 In an interview with Paul Joyce on July 12. 1999, appended to the DVD of the
movie.

FEMALE INDIGNAnON 347
son does not go far enough and that people's passions. however unreasonable.
exert a powerful influence. She thus directly challenges the
imperviousness to jealousy that Bill had thus far projected. along with
the masculine pride and possessiveness that underlie it. by telling him
of her desire for a naval officer whom she had glimpsed while she
was on vacation with her husband the previous summer.
Her account is preceded by the following exchange:
Alice: But you're not the jealous type. are you?
Bill: No. I'm not.
Alice: You've never been jealous about me. have you?
Bill: No. I haven·t.
Alice: And why haven't you ever been jealous about me?
Bill: Well. I don't know. Alice. Maybe because you're my wife.
maybe because you're the mother of my child and I know you
would never be unfaithful to me.
Alice: You are very. very sure of yourself. aren't you?
Bill: No. I'm sure of you. (47-48)
As Alice taunts Bill about his boasted lack of jealousy. suggesting by
her pointed and sarcastic questions that he is not as immune to that
emotion as he thinks. he once again reveals the shortsightedness and
complacency that aroused her indignation in the first place. He offers
two explanations of why he has never been jealous. The first. that she
is his wife and the mother of his child. shows his view of her as his
possession-as "my wife" and the mother of "my child"-as well as his
obviously erroneous assumption that wives and mothers are faithful
by virtue of their role. The second. that he "knows" she would not be
unfaithful, reinforces the first and. moreover, once again shows him
to take her utterly for granted. Just as he takes her beauty for granted
as something that is ever present and unchanging. so he takes her
sexuality for granted. as directed solely toward himself and satisfied
by him alone. It does not dawn on him that she might even want another
man. never mind actually have sex with him.
Strikingly. he never cites Alice's love for him or unwillingness to
lie to or hurt him as possible motives for her fidelity. though he
names these as motives for his fidelity to her. As he sees it. she is
faithful to him because she "belongs" to him and because this is how
wives are. His view of women accords nicely with his complacency and
with taking Alice for granted in the opening scene. Bill's notion that
her fidelity stems from "belonging" yet further fuels Alice's fury.
It is against this background that she relates with rising indignation
that during their previous summer vacation at Cape Cod. she had
been so infatuated with a naval officer she briefly saw there that ..... I
thought if he wanted me. even if it was for only one night. I was

H.ROISMAN
ready to give up everything ... Everything." (49). As in the case of
Sandor Szavost. neither the audience nor Bill can know whether or not
her story is true. But it clearly attains its ends. After all else has failed.
it finally undermines Bill's complacency. arouses his jealousy. and
forces him to confront Alice's inner reality-that is. the sexual longings
that he denied she had.
He leaves the house plunging into a quasi-sexual odyssey of his
own. during which he cannot stop fantasizing about his wife and the
other men. Bill's journey into the night does not put an immediate end
to Alice's indignation. but it paves the way to its resolution by raising
both his and Alice's sense of vulnerability and by making both of
them more open with and receptive to the other. Bill's vulnerability is
clear from his incessant. troubled fantasizing about Alice in the arms
of the naval officer. Alice's is apparent in the fact that although Bill
had left the house to attend a medical call. she is concerned enough
about his long delay in returning home to phone him to inquire about
his whereabouts. When Bill comes home at four o'clock in the morning
and wakes her out of the disturbing dream she is having. he finds her
in a softer. chastened mood.
The dream she relates is a continuation of her story about the naval
officer and. like that story. displays her sexuality and expresses her
anger at her husband and her wish to hurt him. In the dream. she
recounts. she made love to the naval officer and to many other men as
well. She also lets him know that her lovemaking was not directed
only at gratifying her sexual desires but also at humbling him by
again attacking his manhood: "And I knew you could see me in the
arms of all these men ... and I wanted to make fun of you. to laugh in
your face. And so I laughed as loud as I could ...." (I 14)·
Yet while the dream itself expresses her anger and desire to hurt
her husband. her telling of it is free of these motives. She recounts the
dream not at her own initiative but at Bill's prompting and without the
belligerency with which she had earlier told of her infatuation with
the naval officer. and even cries as she speaks. She presents herself
not only as sexually triumphant. but also as having been humiliated in
the dream. The naval officer. she confesses. had laughed at her when
she was naked and exposed: "he stared at me and then he just laughed
... he just laughed at me" (1I3). She also displays her need and affection
for the husband she had formerly rejected as she snuggles up to
him and envelops him in her arms as she tells the dream and again
when she finishes it. In short. her aim in telling the dream is not to
hurt her husband. but to share her feelings. Bill. for his part. constantly
prompts her to speak. thereby showing himself more attuned
to her inner world than he had been before the encounters that unset-

FEMALE INDIGNAnON 349
tIed his stereotypic assumptions about human sexuality.
Alice's indignation seems to have evaporated in the course of her
telling the dream. In the next scene in which she and Bill are together.
while Bill is still upset by her confession and troubled by fantasies of
her making love to the naval officer. the text tells us that "Alice gives
him a look full of love and affection" (133). By the end of the film
there is no trace of her initial anger. On the contrary. when Alice
finds the mask Bill had worn to the party he had attended the previous
night. she responds with a delicacy and obliqueness that seem
quite foreign to the directness and combativeness she had demonstrated
in the bedroom scene. Like her predecessor in Schnitlzer's
Dream Story. she simply places the mask on the pillow to let her husband
know that she knows. with no further reproach. Then. when BilL
humbled and upset. confesses his misadventures. she responds to his
account with "tearful silence." hiding her disappointment with him.
The film ends on a note both similar to and different from that on
which it had begun. The argument concluded. Bill and Alice return to
the domesticity evident in the opening scenes. At the end of their mutual
confession. Alice reminds Bill that their daughter will soon be
awake and that she's expecting them to take her Christmas shopping.
This domesticity. demonstrated by the next scene in which mother.
father and daughter go toy shopping together. is free of the tension
that had infused the earlier domesticity. and is not an escape route for
Alice. Instead. it returns Alice and Bill to their day-to-day lives as parents
and members of a family with responsibilities beyond themselves
and concerns beyond their sexual passions and leads to the restoration
of balance between the nighttime and daytime worlds.
With Helena out of earshot. the following conversation ensues:
Alice: Maybe. I think. we should be grateful ... grateful that we've
managed to survive through all of our adventures. whether they
were real or only a dream.
Bill (moving closer): Are you are you sure of that?
Alice: Am ... am I sure? Umm only ... only as sure as I am that
the reality of one night. let alone that of a whole life time. can
ever be the whole truth.
Bill: And no dream is ever just a dream. (164)
On the philosophical level. the point of the exchange is that the forbidden
and dangerous sexual desires that we all have. whether acted
on or only fantasized. are only one part of the relationship between a
man and a woman. It represents much the same qualification of
Freud's views of sexuality and theory of dreams as Schnitzler had
made in Dream Story. On the human leveL the conversation brings
husband and wife closer to one another. as Alice acknowledges the

35°
H.ROISMAN
importance of the rational and humdrum, against which she had previously
railed, and Bill acknowledges the importance of dreams, of the
irrational. which he had previously denied.
Alice's indignation thus ultimately leads to a reconciliation between
husband and wife, as both become more aware of their own weaknesses.
more accepting of the other, more ready to share their
thoughts and feelings with the other. The change is evident at the very
end of the film, when Alice reminds Bill in explicit language that they
should make love (165). Her proposition recalls the act of love-making
after the party. the night before the argument in the bedroom. But
like the domesticity at the end of the film. the sexuality is also different
from that at the beginning. In the earlier scene. Bill had made the
advances while Alice was receptive but relatively passive and unexpressive.
Here. in her proposition, she is energetic and active, as well
as lustful and coarse, a woman with a strong sexual appetite that stands
on its own apart from the desire for home and security. to which Bill
had earlier limited women's libido. Behind her ability to express her
sexuality in this way is Bill's acceptance of her as a full woman with
both desires and a mind of her own. as well as her own appreciation
for her husband's love and fidelity. which she had earlier scorned.
Penelope's indignation in the Odyssey is less obvious than Alice's.
Like Albertine in Schnitzler's Dream Story. Penelope expresses herself
obliquely and in soft tones, befitting the image she has cultivated
of the ever-so-devoted wife and also befitting her husband's temperament.
Odysseus, unlike Bill. is astute enough to pick up on his
wife's hints without her having to drive them horne by a loud, unseemly
confrontation, and is also not the type of man who would brook
such conduct. Penelope. for her part, is more self-aware. more selfrestrained.
and more circumspect than her modern counterpart. And
yet the indignation felt by the two women is quite similar in its expression.
making allowance of course for the different social expectations.
Penelope's indignation manifests itself in Book 23 in her protracted
refusal to recognize Odysseus as her husband after his twenty years
of wandering. It takes about two hundred lines. more than half the
book, from the time that the Nurse wakes her with the news of his
return and slaughter of the suitors before she calls him by his name
and runs to him. flings her arms around his neck, and kisses him. Up
until that point. she rejects the Nurse's claims and puts Odysseus to the
test.
Her refusal to recognize Odysseus promptly after the Nurse informs
her of his return does not immediately appear to be motivated

FEMALE INDIGNATION 35 1
by indignation. Indeed. the text provides two convincing motives. 3
The first is circumspection. Initially. when Eurykleia wakes her up
to tell her that Odysseus has returned and slaughtered the suitors,
Penelope dismisses the information out of hand, suggesting that the
elderly Nurse is deranged and expressing annoyance that she is "teasing
her with fantasies" and that she woke her up out of a "sweet
sleep." Introducing this account, Horner describes Penelope as periphr6n
(23.10). which is generally translated as "circumspect," but
which in Horner's Greek means somewhat more: "one who is able to
think her way around situations. "4 That is. the descriptor. as well as
virtually all of Penelope's words and actions. tells us that Penelope
knows how to respond to any situation. It tells us that Penelope may
not actually disbelieve the news, but that she is choosing to withhold
her assent to it for reasons of her own. Among other things. it may
simply be that it is her character to keep her emotions (that is her
great longing for her husband) in check and to avoid making hasty
judgments. It may be that she is stalling for time in which to consider
how to respond to her husband's sudden return. The fact that she is
just corning out of sleep. sleep from which she had been abruptly
awakened. when the Nurse tells her of Odysseus's return might reinforce
any inclination to keep a check on her emotions and to stall for
time. For the moment of waking is a time when one is most susceptible
to being carried away by one's longings and fantasies, and so must be
most on guard.
The text again describes Penelope as periphr6n some lines later following
Eurykleia's elaboration on her earlier account (23.80). In the
course of that elaboration, Eurykleia tells her that Odysseus had corne
back to the house as the stranger and beggar who had been making
his presence felt for the past two days and that he had revealed himself
to Telemachos, who had hidden his knowledge so as not to alert
the suitors. She also vividly describes the slaughter of the suitors and
Odysseus's glorious presence among the corpses and informs Penelope
that Odysseus had bid her to summon his wife. The new information
is meant to give body to her news. to convince Penelope that Odysseus
has, in fact. returned, and to evoke Odysseus's authority in summoning
her. In response. Penelope chides the Nurse that her account does
3 The following discussion is based on H.M. Roisman, "Penelope's indignation,"
TAPA 117 (lgB7) 59-68 and F. Ahl and H.M. Roisman. The Odyssey Re­
Formed (Ithaca 1996) 258ff., although with some modifications. and the relevant
bibliography. All the translations are by R. Lattimore. The Odyssey of Homer
(New York/Hagerstown/San Francisco/London 1965).
4 o. Ahl and Roisman (above. n. 3) 210,212,214.

354
H.ROISMAN
agreed to meet with him at the time and place of his own choosing: at
sunset and at the hearth, which, it may be noted, was not only the
place for supplicants but also the center of the household and the
rightful place of its master. Then. before they began their talk. she
jumped in to back him up when he berated and threatened one of the
female servants. never asking how a mere guest in her house. never
mind a beggar. dared to do that. In similar vein, she accepted without
raising an eyebrow his repeatedly addressing her as gynai. This is the
generic term for "woman," but can also be translated as "wife," and is
understood as meaning "wife" when a man says it to his wife. 7 When
not used to a wife. however, it is a form of address reserved for
young women or women of inferior social status. It would have been a
most presumptuous form of address by a stranger to someone of
Penelope's age and status. Yet Penelope accepted Odysseus's addressing
her as gynai without noting any rudeness or rejecting the relationship
it implied.
It is difficult to conceive of a woman of Penelope's rank. daughter
of a distinguished father and wife of a powerful and respected man.
accepting either such command or such address from a man she believed
to be a beggar. however distinguished his past. Indeed, Odysseus's
assumption of command and form of address could only have
added to other hints of his identity that Penelope must have had. A
major hint would have been his appearance. The beggar resembled
Odysseus. despite the passage of time. This is evident from the
Nurse's observation. Even before bathing Odysseus and discovering
the tell-tale scar on his foot. Eurykleia declares that although she had
seen many tired strangers in the palace. she has never seen anyone
who so "resembled Odysseus as you resemble him in form. voice. and
feet" (19.379-381). Penelope saw the same form, heard the same voice.
and saw the same shod feet. Then, although Odysseus prevented the
Nurse from telling Penelope about the scar on Odysseus's foot when
she first saw it. thereby confirming his identity, Penelope must have
heard the water splash in the bath when the Nurse dropped his foot
and seen her run to replace the water that had spilled. Surely. she
could draw her own conclusions.
Thus, by the time the Nurse wakes Penelope to inform her that
Odysseus has returned, Penelope already had good grounds for believing
her and even seems to have been subliminally aware herself
that her husband had come back. All that was left was to bring that
7 This is the address used by Paris for Helen: II. 4.4,38: Hector for Hecuba: II.
6441; Priam for Andromache: II. 4.300: Menelaus for Helen: Od. 4.148,266; Alcinous
to Arete: Od. 8.424: Poseidon to Tyro after he has seduced her: Od. 11.248.

FEMALE INDIGNAnON 355
awareness to the surface. Although. given the caution of her nature. it
would not have been out of character for Penelope to test her husband
just in case (after all. the matter is too important to allow even the
smallest room for error). other. unstated. motives seem also to have
corne into play. There are grounds for believing that her decision to
question Odysseus formally rather than promptly accept him as her
long-lost husband. as part of her apparently wants to do. sterns from
indignation that she cannot express in any other way.
The first clue to her indignation is in her question to the Nurse.
quoted above. after the Nurse told her that Telemachos had been apprized
of his father's identity earlier but withheld it so as to enable his
father to avenge the suitors (23.26-31). In other words. just before asking
this question Penelope had learned that her husband had taken
their son into his confidence but not herself and. in fact. that the two of
them had contrived to keep her in the dark. The reader knows that
Odysseus revealed himself to Telemachos because Athena had instructed
him to do so. But Penelope cannot know this. She may well
understand and accept that the restoration of order in her horne with
slaughter of the suitors is men's business. and she is careful enough to
concede that the fewer people involved in the planning. the better.
Nonetheless. one can also understand how Odysseus's behind-her-back
connivance with Telemachos might make her feel excluded and.
moreover. hurt that her husband does not trust her to keep his counsel.
These feelings would be exacerbated by her somewhat uneasy relationship
with Telemachos. who is drawn in the epic as a barely postadolescent
young man who bosses his mother around and suspects her
fidelity. The question is thus not an innocuous request for information
about how Odysseus managed the incredible feat. It probes whether
anyone else other than Telemachos was privy to his identity before she
was and. at the same time. signals her chagrin at having been distrusted
and excluded by the men in her family.
Her indignation can only have been deepened by the Nurse's disclosure
some lines later that she had seen the scar on Odysseus's foot
(23.73-9). This disclosure. offered as irrefutable proof of Odysseus's
identity. brings horne to Penelope the fact that Odysseus had also revealed
his identity to Eurykleia before he revealed it to her. and. furthermore.
enables her to deduce. from his conduct at their meeting at
the hearth the night before. that he had done so before. not after. he
massacred the suitors. and by design. After their talk the previous
evening. Penelope had suggested to him that he bathe and change his
clothing. and offered the services of a maid to help him. He refused
the change of clothes as "hateful" (19.357-58). but accepted the bath.
with the proviso that none of the maids in the house touch his foot.

FEMALE INDIGNAnON 359
the man before her is Odysseus. There must have been more to her
instructions than an effort to allay doubts that she no longer has.
Their covert purpose seems to have been to sting Odysseus by
pricking his masculine pride as a sexual partner and beloved husband.
exactly as Alice does. A few lines earlier. in telling Eurykleia to
prepare his bed outside the marital bedroom. Odysseus had in effect
told Penelope that he would not impose himself on her sexually if she
did not want him. In echoing his instructions. Penelope appears to be
suggesting (to one unfamiliar with the bed) that he can take the bridal
bed outside the chamber and have it for himself. if that is how he feels
about the matter. She too can do without him.
The instruction also implies that somewhere in the course of his absence
Penelope's wifely devotion and loyalty to him had abated. even
if she remained faithful. This implication is picked up in Odysseus's
hurt and angry suspicion that someone had cut through the olive
trunk and removed his bed from his bed chamber: "What you have
said. dear lady. has hurt my heart deeply. What man has put my bed
in another place? ... I do not know now. dear lady. whether my bed is
still in place. or if some man has cut underneath the stump of the
olive. and moved it elsewhere" (23.183-204). Such an act. spoiling his
devoted handiwork and removing his bed. had it occurred. would
have been a brutal desecration both of his labor and of the intimacies
of his marriage. even if Penelope had not initiated or consented to it.
By giving the order coolly and without comment. Penelope leaves
Odysseus to think that she must have at least accepted the terrible affront
without undue perturbation-in other words. that she had
stopped caring for him as a husband.
On the level of the trial of identity. Odysseus's revelation of his
knowledge of the bed provides Penelope with incontrovertible proof
of his identity and enables her finally to acknowledge him as her husband.
Her readiness to acknowledge him also has another source.
however: the success of her trick in upsetting Odysseus enough for
him to lose his composure. Equally important. what Penelope gathers
from the success of her rhetorical exercise in deception is not just confirmation
of Odysseus's identity. but. ironically. a sense that he trusts
her. For all of his shrewdness and cunning. it never occurs to Odysseus
that his wife would try to trick him. In other words. she obtains
evidence of the trust that Odysseus had withheld in not revealing himself
to her until he had killed all the suitors. This achieved. she acknowledges
and accepts Odysseus and her husband as one and the
same person and calls him by name for the first time.
Despite the kisses and the tears with which she now greets him.
however. she continues to reproach him in the lengthy speech that fol-

H.ROISMAN
lows. The speech opens with an apology for and explanation of her
failure to acknowledge him when he first asked that she do so:
Mrl\.lOI. '05UCCEV. CKUSEU. ElTEl T(l lTEp CxAAa \.laAICTa
av8pwTTwV TTETTVUCO' 6Eol 5' wTTasov O)·Suv.
oi vWl'v ayacavTo TTap' aAArlAolCI \.lEVOVTE
il13Tlc TapTTllVOl Kal Yrlpaoc ou56v iKEc6al.
aUTap \.In vvv \.l0l To5E XWEO \.lTlOE VE\.lECca.
OUVEKa c' OU TO TTpWTOV. ElTEllOOV. wO° ayaTTTlCa.
aiEl yap \.l01 8u\.loC EVI CTfj8ECCl

FEMALE INDIGNAnON
Her statement has two parts. The first is a reply to Odysseus's proposal
that they go to bed in order to refresh themselves with sleep.
The word he had used for bed. Jektron (23.254). denotes their marriage
bed. but does not have explicitly sexual connotations. Yet in her
reply Penelope uses the word eune. which implies not just the bed but
also the sexual activity that occurs there. In bringing the sexual act to
the fore in this way. she signals their full reconciliation as husband
and wife and makes amends for her earlier aloofness and denigration
of his masculinity. much as Alice had done in telling Bill that they
must make love. At the same time. however. in stating that "you" will
have your going to bed. she is not expressing any desire of her own.
but rather indicating that she understands that he wants sex now and
will comply whenever he is ready. The subtext of the statement. infused
by pique and resignation. is: I remain. as ever. your dutiful
wife. at your disposal.
The second part of her reply is a request that he let her know what
his impending trial is to be. Since she'll eventually find out anyway.
she'll be none the worse for knowing now. she says. This request contains
a clear rebuke of the secrecy in which he had cloaked his return.
as well as of his general tendency to secrecy. Corning as they are preparing
for bed. in both senses of the word. it tells him that she would
like him to treat her as his wife and consort. not only as a possession
and sexual object.
In both parts of the statement. she attributes Odysseus's actions to
the gods: the gods have brought him horne and the gods put it in his
mind to leave. With these attributions. she simultaneously excuses his
wanderings. which have caused her so much suffering. and lets him
know that she understands that he will do what he wants in any case
without asking or considering her and blame his conduct on the gods.
"I might as well comply with your wishes and you might as well tell
me what you're going to do next." her attributions imply. "since
there's no point in my withholding myself because you're leaving
again. and no point in your keeping secrets. since my knowing won't
bring you to change your plans."
She makes the same attribution. with a similar mix of resignation
and annoyance. some twenty lines later. after Odysseus. complying
with her request. tells her about his future wanderings and return
horne. and the gentle death that awaits him from the sea when he is an
old man. He implies in his account that all this is part of his destiny,
though he carefully avoids stating in so many words that the gods
compel him to undertake these new travels. As to what Penelope is to

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
SERGIO RIBICHINI. MARIA ROCCHI. PAOLO XELLA. eds. La
questione de1Je influenze vicino-orientali su1Ja religione
greca. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. 200 I. Pp.
44°·
Despite the title. the influence of the Near East on Greek religion is not
itself in question; it was fated. Rather. as the editors indicate in their
introduction. we may ask when and where and how and why each Near
Eastern practice or idea came to Greece. These proceedings of a conference
in Rome in May 1999 are concerned with such particular questions;
the authors are mostly experts who have dealt with the relevant material
before. In some other recent books. there has been an effort to sum
up and strike a balance. or to provocatively tilt it. especially for the period
at which our evidence begins. from the Late Bronze Age through
Greek Archaic. There is no such effort here. and indeed the papers are
so diverse and often so recondite that they do not readily admit of any
general conclusions. I shall suggest a couple. but at the last.
The 29 contributions-four of them have two or three authors
-average about IS pages: some have extensive notes and bibliography.
and a few have illustrations. Some argue a thesis. others survey a topic
that may be more or less familiar. Not every paper falls under the
heading of religion. broad as it is. Not every paper addresses east-west
influence or even mentions the Greeks. Let me describe each in turn. so
that it may find the readers it deserves.
(r) W. Burkert sets the stage with a survey of new material and a
sampling of results. He goes on to distinguish four "levels" of contact.
with further examples. some of which are challenging. The first level is
myth and epic. and themes such as the weather god fighting a dragon.
to which he reckons Heracles fighting the hydra. and which explains
why Heracles "became a figure of the Mediterranean kaine." "quasiindigenous"
in Lydia. incorporating "a properly Italic essence" among
Etruscans and Romans. The second. ritual practices such as burnt sacrifice.
Though much is unclear. sacrifices and other cult forms introduced
by the Hittites at Syrian Emar in ca. 1200 are "in a style. I would say.
almost Mycenaean." The third. the cross-identification of gods called

366 BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
syncretism, to which he reckons Astarte and Aphrodite. The fourth, the
propagation of cults by professional exponents. a "mission" if we adopt
the Christian term. to which he reckons. in the Archaic period, "the
followers of Meter. the metragyrtai."
(2) N. Kourou traces the "sacred tree" motif in art from its Near
Eastern beginnings through Minoan and Mycenaean to Greek Geometric.
Archaic and beyond. The motif ranges from cult scenes in which the
tree belongs to a sanctuary and is even the object of worship to a schematized
pictorial element. "the tree of life," which is perhaps a fertility
symbol, perhaps only a pleasing design. and includes such curious items
as coins of Gortyna in which "Europa" sits in a tree and. again from
Crete. a bronze plaque at Kato Syme in which a youth climbs a tree.
Kourou argues that in Greece. although the "Nature Goddess" or
"Great Goddess" had faded away. tree cult was still attached to several
Olympian deities such as Athena with her olive. and in particular that it
was promoted in sixth-century Athens by aristocrats harking back to
"Mycenaean tradition."
(3) M.R. Belgiorno. excavator of Pyrgos on Cyprus. starts from a
roughly carved ram's head found at this early copper-working site and
goes on to consider the religious significance of the ram and its relation
to metallurgy. She suggests that the practice of sifting riverine gold
with a fleece. attributed by Strabo to Colchis. originated rather along
the wadis of southern Egypt and Nubia. a famous source of gold. and
was advertised by the ram-god Ammon of Thebes and later transposed
to Zeus and the story of the Golden Fleece.
(4) "The study of the sky" as transmitted from Mesopotamia to
Greece is the stated topic for separate papers by G. Pettinato, S.M.
Chiodi and F. Adorno. Pettinato. an Assyriologist, gives an updated report
on several technical discoveries. on the origin of the zodiac, on the
different types of astrological prediction, and on Babylonian contacts
with India, Egypt and Greece. Chiodi and Adorno both discuss Plato's
interest in astronomy. and Adorno goes on to Philip of Opus and Eudoxus
as well.
(5) A. Panaino investigates the Great Year, an astronomical concept
beloved of ancient philosophers and moralists. just as he did in a recent
book. of which this is a very dense summary. He is chiefly interested in
the numerical values. and describes and explains some variations in
Greece. Babylon. Iran and India.
(6) S. Ribichini reviews the long and learned Greco-Roman tradition.
summed up by Pliny, of tracing "magic," invidiously meant, to the East.
to masters and schools who came west to impose on the credulous, and
sometimes to Greeks, including eminent pseudonyms, who went east to
be duped. and finds that it matches and confirms the pictures drawn by

BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
M.L. West of Magi expounding cosmology in Ionia. and by W. Burkert
of itinerant seers operating throughout early Greece.
(7) P. Borgeaud takes up "the Near-Eastern itineraries" of the
Mother of the Gods. to whom he devoted a recent book. and begins by
rejecting Bachofen's concept of a universal mother goddess, as he did in
another recent book. and by noting the variety of sovereign goddesses
right across the ancient world, from Europe to India. For the Mother
sensu stricto he thinks of a "diachronic" approach. which must rely. he
says. not on the story of Attis. as it appears at intervals in Greek and
Latin authors down to Arnobius. and on the seeming analogues in Hittite
and other myths. for those bizarre motifs circulated independently.
but rather on the ritual background. especially the eunuch priests. who
are constant from early Mesopotamia to the filial cult in Rome. Thereafter.
he turns to the evidence from Ptolemaic Egypt. where the Mother.
and in one or two cases effeminate attendants. are known from the
early third century onward. and addresses a question of nuance. He
accepts a recent argument that "Great Mother of the Gods." a title accorded
to Isis in the late second century. honours her as notional
mother of the reigning Ptolemy and his sister-wife. deities themselves:
at the same time he holds that the title also evoked the familiar Mother
of the Gods. a possibility resisted by the author of the argument: it
might then be regarded as a productive misunderstanding of the kind
studied by Marshall Sahlins.
(8) M. Rocchi asks whether the Greeks, in treating mountains as sacred
places. were influenced by the Near East. She then focusses on
Parnassus and recalls at length the many stories about Apollo's oracle
and some about Dionysus' revels and Deucalion's flood. but offers no
comparison with Near Eastern material.
(9) D. Musti interprets the cult of the Cabiri as a borrowing from
the East. probably from Asia Minor. where Priapus seems akin. but
carried west by the Phoenicians. who first described these ithyphallic
deities as kabir. "great." Scaliger's celebrated etymology. From the time
of Alexander. he says. the Greeks balked at such crudeness and at the
name associated with it. and often chose to speak of "Great Gods" in
their own tongue. as in the inscriptions of Samothrace.
(10) M. Mari in a related contribution reviews work of the past
twenty years or so on the excavated Samothracian sanctuary. where it
is now agreed that substantial building begins only with Philip of Macedon
and is continued by all three Macedonian dynasties of the Hellenistic
period. On the nature of the cult she refers to Musti (as he to her) but
also finds merit in recent studies advocating "the typically Greek horizon
of the masculine 'secret society'."

368 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
(11) V. Pirenne-Delforge investigates "the genesis of Greek Aphrodite."
a question left open in her recent book on the goddess. It was on
Crete. she says. in the Dark Age. that Aphrodite with her strong Near
Eastern component first joined the Greek pantheon. and did so because
she represented woman's new role in Greek society. She adduces the
epigraphic mentions of Aphrodite and Ares at several Cretan cities and
the cult of Aphrodite and Hermes at Kato Syme. and then turns to votive
figurines depicting naked women. Geometric through early Archaic.
many from Crete. In the interpretation of the figurines she acknowledges
a debt to an earlier study in which the pairing of woman
and warrior in Geometric art was taken as evidence of woman's new
role.
(12) P. Vannicelli calls attention to a distinct anomaly in Herodotus'
genealogy of the Heraclid kings of Lydia. Belus and Ninus. who provide
a link with Assyria near the beginning of the line. are two and three
generations later than Heracles. whereas in other accounts Belus is a
much earlier figure. father of Aegyptus and Danaus for instance. The
reason. he says. is that Heracles himself is central to Herodotus' whole
"chronological system." He does not reflect that the immediate reason
for making Heracles a Lydian ancestor is the story of Omphale. however
that arose.
(I3) C. Jourdain-Annequin and C. Bonnet in the longest paper of all
argue that Melqart god of Tyre. identified with Heracles throughout the
Mediterranean. was also the "model" for some of his stories and cults.
They point to early renderings. on Cyprus and Samos. of Heracles killing
the lion and wearing the lion skin. and insist on similarities with
Syrian art and. for example. the type of the smiting god. which indeed
are generally admitted. They point to sanctuary sites in southern Italy
where Heracles is found beside a goddess. mostly Hera. and liken this to
the Eastern pattern. probably including Melqart. of a lesser local deity
as paredros of a great goddess. Heracles. they infer. was brought to the
western Mediterranean and invested with the exploits of the Geryon
expedition because the Phoenicians had already brought Melqart.
(14) P. Marchetti. excavator of Argos. is here concerned with "Argive
religion." He cites Homer's account of Diomedes and outlines a
schematic topography of the Argolid and draws some large conclusions.
At Argos. he says. an original Indo-European element was gradually
transformed. over a long period extending from Mycenaean to Archaic.
by repeated borrowings from the East. He builds somewhat on
hypotheses already current. such as the one deriving the Seven against
Thebes from seven destructive demons in Babylonian magic. But he
varies them. as when he dates this borrowing not to the 'eighth century.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
as was essential to the original line of argument. but to the Mycenaean
period.
(IS) M.-F. Baslez undertakes to show how the cult associations of
Phoenicians and Syrians in Greek cities and on Delos kept many of their
native customs but did assimilate "in a cosmopolitan milieu" like Athens.
They perpetuated the age-old type of Semitic association called
marzeah; each group traced its origin not to any local founder but to
the goddess herself. Astarte or Atargatis. who was devoutly spoken of
as summoning the worshippers. appointing the priest. setting the rules.
even presiding at banquets. Baslez thinks of it as assimilation when the
Syrian Goddess is conflated with the Great Mother and honoured with
begging in the streets (as in Apuleius): at Athens she believes that the
begging was done not by galli but by women. conformably with earlier
Greek practice.
(16) A.M.G. Capomacchia looks at some Eastern landscapes in tragedy.
such as those traversed by 10 and Dionysus. Egypt as visited by
Menelaus. These and other Eastern motifs she regards as a means of
defining and controlling. almost of purifying. the actual contacts with
the East which came flooding in each day.
(17) C. Brillante holds that in heroic genealogy figures who come
from the Near East or Egypt are assigned a certain recurring role at the
cities where they appear. intermediate between primitive beginnings
and full development; he studies two of them. Danaus at Argos and
Cadmus at Thebes. Each brings both natural fertility and. by introducing
the custom of marriage. human increase. and is associated with the
cults of just those deities who combine both functions. notably Demeter
thesmophoros and. at Thebes. Aphrodite as well. Yet the royal line that
descends from each falters afterwards and must be renewed again. as
by Zeus' attentions to another princess. The case for similarity depends
on the accumulation of details which are often dubious. but Brillante
argues cautiously.
(18) P. Merlo and P. Xella find a genetic relationship between the
category of heroes in Greek religion and the obscure class of beings
called Rapiuma (rpum) in Ugaritic legend and ritual. themselves seemingly
cognate with the obscure Rephaim of the Bible. Quoting the texts.
Merlo interprets the Rapiuma more precisely as kings and warriors
exalted after death by a form of ritual so that they become "chthonic"
powers. to be invoked at festal banquets and honoured as if present.
and asked to protect cities and promote fertility and give oracles. and
imagined as warriors still. riding in chariots. Xella draws the comparison
with Greek heroes. emphasizing Brelich's synthetic classification of
heroic attributes. The Rapiuma. he believes. exemplify a kind of ancestor
worship once shared by Syro-Palestine and Mycenaean Greece: on

370 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
the one side it is heard of later only in the dismissive references of
Yahweh partisans. but in Greece it developed into the larger phenomenon
of hero worship-just as Rohde said: here he also calls on recent
studies which associate the first archaeological traces of hero cult with
the emerging city state.
(19) A.M. Cirio identifies the room filled with armour in Alcaeus fro
140 Voigt (= 357 Lobel-Page) as a hero shrine of tholos form where the
equipment was kept "under the protection" of the heroic ancestor of a
genos.
(20) W. Rbllig surveys descriptions of the dead and the underworld
in Sumerian and Akkadian works and in Greek poets. and finds many
resemblances and a few disparities. notably the drinking of blood in the
Odyssey. In a second part that is barely related to the first. he cautions
the unwary. especially Greek scholars. against the pitfalls that await
them in comparing Near Eastern and Greek literature. The former is
confined to special collections with a narrow readership and often a
restricted use. as in liturgy or scribal training: furthermore. the continuity
which we now seem to descry is illusory. for Sumerian poetry
mostly disappeared after the Old Babylonian period: so-called "classics"
and "translations" did not in truth exist to span the millennia. This
much is avowedly directed against M.L. West. An impressive warning.
Or is it? Rbllig himself in the first part of his paper supplies a counterinstance
which is not addressed in the second. A Sumerian poem about
Enkidu's journey to the underworld disappeared after the Old Babylonian
period. only to be reproduced in the last tablet of the Akkadian
Gilgamesh epic as known solely from Ashurbanipal's library. As to the
means by which material may have been transmitted from east to west.
Rbllig sounds another lowering note. now against W. Burkert. Only on
rare occasions. for official tasks in a given area. were priests or seers
summoned from one place to another: there was no class of itinerant
specialists who could have reached the Greek world.
(21) M.-C. Marin Ceballos examines the famous and long-lived sanctuary
of Melqart-Heracles at Cadiz for what it tells us of contacts between
Phoenicians and Greeks.
(22) G. Scandone Matthiae reviews the identifications that Herodotus
asserts between Egyptian and Greek gods. She finds them reasonable.
speaking as an Egyptologist: Herodotus. she says. learnt these lessons
well from the priestly informants whom he cites.
(23) I. Chirassi Colombo considers how Medea in Greek literature
embodies many strange features that were known or imagined to belong
to the East. and also how Pasolini in his film Medea recaptured
some of these features. She tells us that she is at work on a study of
myth in twentieth-century culture.

BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS 37 1
(24) V. Aravantinos. excavator of Thebes. puts the question-"now
that the entire city on almost every side has been subjected to probes
and soundings" and "numerous tracts lying at the centre of the inhabited
area have been minutely excavated"-whether the Eastern origin
ascribed to Cadmus is in any way borne out by the results. The answer
seems to be "no." Down to Late Helladic III Thebes had not more contact
with the East. perhaps rather less. than other parts of Greece.
There is no sign thereafter of any Phoenician (or Canaanite) settlement
or trading station. The cylinder seals of the palace "Treasury" maybe
came by trade. maybe by diplomatic exchange. but they were not heirlooms.
and the iconography and inscriptions meant nothing to the new
owners. Though the range of evidence and opinion which Arvantinos
rehearses is by now familiar. it is useful to have his own assessment.
(25) The successive offerings of E. Scafa and M. Alfe are given a joint
title suggesting that they will compare "temple organization" in Mycenaean
Greece and the Near East. It is not quite so. Scafa holds that the
Mycenaean tablets show a complex relationship between palace and
temples that needs to be explained in the light of such relationships in
the Near East. Alfe concentrates on a single tablet. PY In 829 (requisitioning
bronze for spear-heads). in which. she says. the several officials
can be recognized as definite grades of authority in palace and temple.
(26) P. Negri Scafa's subject may seem a large one. "aspects of the
female priesthood" in the Near East and Mycenaean Greece. She restricts
it. however. to eight terms occurring in lexical lists of the Old
Babylonian period and about the same number in the Mycenaean tablets.
(27) F. Pecchioli Daddi finds important thematic similarities between
the Hurrian-Hittite myths of the Kumarbi cycle and the Hattian-Hittite
myths of Illuyanka and Telipinu-the storm god confronted by a series
of monsters. the gods at large divided into two camps-and argues that
the former drew upon the latter. or rather upon "an ancient and extensive
Anatolian theogony" that was handed down orally at the great cult
centres to which the Hattian-Hittite myths are professedly attached. She
also. more briefly. conjectures that the Hittite scribes who were so interested
in these myths saw the struggle among the gods as parallel to
the struggle within the royal family during the Middle Hittite period.
for this too was bitter and prolonged but was at last decisively resolved.
Pecchioli Daddi does not touch on the Greeks. But perhaps Greek scholars
should be aware of a Hittitological hypothesis that opens up another
possible avenue for the transmission of the kingship-in-heaven story.
(28) A.M. Polvani discusses the theme of "the disappearing god."
Telipinu or another. in its many Hattian-Hittite occurrences. The narrative
changes and so does the ritual background. illustrating. as she re-

372 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
peatedly affirms. the close connexion of myth and ritual. The Greeks do
not come into this paper either.
(29) M. Giorgieri returns to the subject of the conference by comparing
certain practices of oath-taking among Hittites and
Greeks-melting waxen objects. pouring out liquids and also drinking
them. and. the most drastic. slaughtering animals. Whereas the last was
common among both Greeks and West Semites. it is absent from Hittite
usage as seen in many royal treaties. Yet there are two unusual cases. In
a Middle Hittite treaty with a land of western Anatolia. probably Arzawa.
we hear that a ewe is slaughtered. but nothing more. In a ritual
text of Luwian origin for preserving a household from plague. a hegoat
is slaughtered. and blood. heart and liver are offered raw to the
threatening deities. and cooked pieces to the witnessing ones: a form of
oath-taking has become a rite of exorcism. Giorgieri suggests that the
first case shows contact with the Greeks of Ahhiyawa. the second with
the Semites of Syria.
The papers then deal with many things and with different kinds.
which might be classified as ritual practices. literary themes and artistic
motifs. and substantial beliefs. Much of it the Greeks themselves associated
with the East-begging priests and sacred books. legendary figures
like Cadmus. Medea and Heracles. deities like Meter. Aphrodite and
Heracles again. Only some lesser items such as sacred trees and wax
dolls would have surprised them. In general. they acknowledged and
elaborated their indebtedness. Eastern power and refinement and resources
were as plain to them as to modern archaeologists and linguists.
But what is the truth of the matter? Some supposed borrowings have
lately been disproved by archaeology and decipherment; the things
were in Greece already. A striking fact: it usually goes unmentioned. as
in this book. To be sure. one does not expect to hear murmurs of caution
while the hunt is in full cry. Yet one misses some pertinent but sobering
evidence. The Linear B tablets were once to the fore in such discussion
but are no longer. They are limited but explicit testimony from
early Greece and Crete. They contain. not indeed cycles of myth and
legend. but the names of the gods Dionysus and Meter and of half-adozen
calendar months. Now the Greeks loved to say that both Dionysus
and Meter with their frenzied ritual came romping from the East;
modern scholars echoed this for a long time. and with Meter still do. As
to the calendar. M.P. Nilsson with his unique authority declared that it
was brought from Babylon to Delphi and disseminated in Greece by a
learned priesthood. Thus the tablets have exploded three principal borrowings.
It is true that in each case we only needed to look more closely
at existing evidence from the historical period. which amply proved

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 373
that Dionysus. Meter and the calendar were deep-rooted in Greece. Existing
evidence is also strong for Aphrodite. or rather. since that name
is secondary. for Aphro. the attested form which gives the spring
months Aphrios and Aprilis. Linear B tablets continue to be unearthed.
and some current theorizing is very much at risk.
Near Eastern influence must also be defined and measured in a
longer perspective. It is often remarked that geographically Greece is
part of the Near East: as if every day some new influence might wash
up on shore. But the history of human settlement is even more significant
than geography. It is now accepted that before the corning of the
Greeks a common stock of people. proto-Indo-European as it appears.
inhabited both the Greek peninsula and much of Anatolia. Greece was
then simply another Near Eastern country. in language and in culture.
Only with the Mycenaeans did it begin to be differentiated from rival
powers in Anatolia. In this perspective it is less easy to chart the westward
drift of customs and stories and beliefs.
NOEL ROBERTSON
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
BROCK UNIVERSITY
ST. CATHARINES. ON L2S 3A I
STANLEY LOMBARDO. trans. Sappho. Poems and Fragments.
Introduction by Pamela Gordon. Indianapolis/Cambridge:
Hackett Publishing Company Inc.. 2002. Pp. xxvii + 68. ISBN
87220-591-6 (paper).
This slim paperback volume of 73 translations of Sappho appeared in
2002 and. reasonably priced. promises to be as welcome as was Mary
Barnard's in 1962. Indeed. the market for Sappho appears insatiable at
the moment. and Lombardo's book is likely to sell well. We have been
well supplied with Lombardo's translations of Greek literature in recent
years. which include Parmenides and Empedocles (1982), Protagoras
(1992), Theogony/Works and Days (1993). the Iliad (I997) and
the Odyssey (2000).
Sappho's songs found an appreciative audience in Classical antiquity
because of their poetic quality. earning her the title of the Tenth Muse
or the female Horner. Because of the fragmentary state in which her
work has corne into our hands today we cannot assess the totality of its
literary merits. But it is precisely this tattered state of the text (preserved
for the most part on strips of papyrus or in brief citations by
other ancient authors) that is feeding the present Sapphic frenzy. This

374 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
phenomenon is identified in the introduction to this book written by
Lombardo's colleague at the University of Kansas. Pamela Gordon. We
live in a dis-integrated milieu. she argues; Lacan's body-in-pieces reflects
our reality. The aesthetic of the fractured whole has found a sympathetic
resonance among current interpreters of Sappho like Page du
Bois. who has clearly influenced both Gordon and Lombardo.
Gordon displays a healthy skepticism regarding the constructed biographies
of Sappho that have been all too ready to fill the vacuum in
our knowledge of Sappho's context. Lesbos in the fifth century B.C.E..
and recommends that we abandon the hope of reading the poems as any
kind of connected narrative. Her view that readers should consider
each fragment of Sappho existentially. as "an isolated note in a bottle."
is clearly shared by Lombardo. Taking David Campbell's Loeb edition
of Sappho's text (1982) Lombardo elects to work with it as if he had
"come across it published. perhaps in a contemporary poetry journal.
without any introduction or biographical note. as a set of two hundred
or so brief. numbered pieces" (xxvi). Despite our ignorance of the conditions
of composition and performance of Sappho's songs. it is nonetheless
somewhat disquieting to contemplate them as completely
deracinated.
Lombardo discusses in his Translator's Note (xxvi-xxvii) the organizing
principle he applied in selecting and ordering the translations.
This principle is the "rhythmic phrase"-that is. the rhythm of his English
phrases. since he claims to make no attempt to reflect Sappho's lyric
metres. For Lombardo. the gaps in the ancient text have left "beautiful
isolated limbs." inclining him to treat even some of the relatively intact
passages as if composed of fragments. From the only poem of Sappho's
to come down to us in its entirety (#1 in most editions. including this
one) Lombardo begins his translation with a stanza composed of these
limbs:
shimmering.
iridescent.
deathless Aphrodite.
child of Zeus. weaver of wiles.
This was taken from less than half of the original Greek four-line Sapphic
stanza. Typically. within this metrical unit the relationship of the
stanza to the overall content of the poem-in this case a petition to
Aphrodite and subsequent conversation with her-is intricate. The clusters
of sounds in the Greek that Sappho gathers within the structural
unit of the stanza. along with the counterpoint of sound. sense and metrical
structure. is essential for a full appreciation of the poem in the
original language. We owe the survival of #1, the only complete poem

BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS 375
we have of Sappho. to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who quotes it as a
complete poem because of the flow of words and its charm, its intricate
joinery of sound and sense. For him. the superiority of the poem derived
from the ways in which the limbs were arranged in an organic
unit. This is. of course. not simple to transmit in an English translation.
But it is not out of the question. Ann Carson, in her newly released
translation of the full collection of Sappho's text (If Not. Winter. Fragments
of sappho [New York 2002]), renders the first stanza with something
much closer to the original sound (a compilation of sibilants) and
structure:
Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind.
child of Zeus. who twists lures. I beg you
do not break with hard pains.
o lady. my heart.
On the other hand. in his # I I (94 Campbell), Lombardo respects the
structure imposed by the three-line stanzaic unit (glyconics) and still
succeeds in transmitting the power of the "isolated limbs." Consider his
fourth stanza:
And if you should not. I want
to remind you
of our moments of grace.
Lombardo's translations raise a fundamental question about the
rendering of ancient texts in a modern language for readers unfamiliar
with the original. At what point is the displacement of the original valid
for other considerations, such as a modern literary aesthetic? Matthew
Arnold, in his essay "On Translating Homer." makes some salient
points about the complex art of translation. He compares with this Coleridge's
words on the union of the human soul with the divine:
Whene'er the mist. which stands 'twixt God and thee.
Defecates to a pure transparency.
In the same way. says Arnold, there should be a union of the translator
with his original. which can only happen when the mist that stands between
them, the mist of alien modes of thinking, speaking, and feeling
"defecates to a pure transparency" and disappears.' Arnold isolates
four cardinal qualities he finds in the Homeric texts and evaluates
translations on the basis of these. One can strive to do this with the
complete texts of the Iliad and Odyssey. but can one do this with the
fragments of Sappho? I for one think that it is possible. The "isolated
I On Translating Homer. New Edition with Introduction & Notes (London
IgoS) 41-42.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
limbs," even without a fragmentary text, would be one such element.
and Lombardo does a good job of conveying in English the impact of
these singular images and phrases admired by ps.-Longinus in Sappho
31V (TO CxKpa), the crystalline elements in Sappho that caught the
imagination of the Imagists in the early nineteenth century. Worthy of
mention are Lombardo's "dim dead" for ocpavT)c of his #5 (Campbell
55.3), and "rainbow-dyed" for the TTOIKIAOC sandal-strap (Lombardo #12.
39 Campbell).
The application of Lombardo's principle of the "rhythmic phrase,"
that governed his selection and ordering of 73 of the surviving fragments,
is difficult to discern. Despite the cross-indexing with Campbell's
numbering found at the back of this book, some readers will find the
identification of the fragments a frustrating exercise. Classicists routinely
identify the fragments of Sappho by the numbering of Campbell
(virtually identical to those found in the Greek editions of Lobel/Page
[1955] and Eva Voigt [1971]). Greek poems were not given titles, and
consistent numbering can be an important reference point. This will not
be an issue for non-Classicists. of course. but the intended audience for
this book is not specified.
Lombardo's claim that he has based his translation upon Campbell's
Greek text is not borne out by his translations. This begins with the first
word of the first poem. Lombardo's "iridescent" does not convey the
meaning of Campbell's TTOIKIA08pov' , "with variegated throne." (Carson
preferred the manuscript variant TToIKlAo8pov ["variegated mind"]).
There are some other peculiarities in the translations. some more vitiated
than others. In Lombardo's #2 (21 Campbell) allcpl[3acKEI is rendered
by "eating all around." as if it were from all[3l[3ocKoIlOl, not a
version of allcpl[3alvw ("covers," in Campbell's translation). In his #7 (15
Campbell) Lombardo's "her desire." if it is translating Campbell's
TTo8E]VVOV, would be replacing the adjective "desirous" by a noun, a
choice which would be more appropriate for Voigt's TTo8E[. The "soiled
clothes" of Lombardo's #9 (7 Campbell) is puzzling as a rendition of
ayEpwxla. The adjective ayEpwxoc is a word glossed as "proud" by the
commentary found in Sappho 90V (col. III.12-13). This is the meaning
for the word in Aleaeus, Aleman and Archilochus. according to Eustathius
(see Alcaeus 402V). Lombardo's #10 is a rendering of 8V. but not
of Campbell. Lombardo's #17 (4 Campbell) renders an aorist participle
passive ]YXpok8EIC (xpo"tl;w. "touch the surface") with the puzzling
"close whistling." Seven lines that in Campbell continue the three
translated verses of Lombardo's #19 (63 Campbell. vv. 1-3) are omitted.
despite the fact that they contain some rich vocabulary: a8vpllaTa.
"playthings," "adornments" (v.8). and EATTlC BE 11' EXEI Iltl TTEBEXT)[v,
"hope is mine that I not share ... " (v. 5). These would appear to qualify

378
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Who were Herodotus' informants? Given that it was unlikely' that
Herodotus convoked a meeting in Cyrene or in Thera and asked them
to vote on their historical traditions, he must have identified knowledgeable
informants in these communities. Not only knowledgeable, but
accurate. When James Notopoulos from Trinity College (Hartford, CT)
travelled through Crete with a tape recorder after World War II and
collected oral poetry, he found a bard who recited a long poem telling
how the German commandant of Crete was kidnapped by the Cretan
underground during the German occupation. The incident did take
place, but the oral poet had added a romantic element and airbrushed
the British role out of the story. Historical accuracy is not a conspicuous
virtue in folk traditions. It occurs only when there are persons in the
community who value it.
So who told Herodotus what the traditions of their communities
were? I did not suggest that Herodotus was a griot. though Luraghi in
the book under review cites me as a "memorable example of the danger
of transposing elements of one culture into another" (12). But did he
find any informants analogous to the griots which Alex Haley found in
the Gambia? "Were the Greek and Persian logioi whose imaginary debate
opens the Histories specialists of this sort?" I demanded with a rhetorical
flourish. What men were qualified to answer Herodotus' questions?
What of the mnemones. hieromnemones. and epistatai: "remembrancers,"
"sacred remembrancers," and "keepers of archives," whom
Aristotle 2 considered necessary city officials? Were they nothing more
than mere registrars?
The paper provoked some lively discussion. I sent a copy of it to
Ernst Badian who made some valuable points, and another to Moses
Finley who replied, with kindness, that he wished he could agree with
me. He told me that Oswyn Murray and Arnaldo Momigliano had offered
a seminar in Oxford in 1977, and Murray made a not-dissimilar
hypothesis about Herodotus' oral informants. Momigliano had been
unimpressed. A mnemon was usually considered to be a registrar of
property. and Finley saw no reason to think differently. A Land Office
was not a School of Historical Studies.
My hypothesis clearly needed more thought. I sent off a copy to the
new journal of the Canadian Oral History Association. which duly pub-
I Unlikely. but not beyond the realm of possibility. When Jan Vansina was
doing research for his doctoral dissertation on the epichoric history of the Kuba
in the Congo. his informant was an official spokesman who first checked his
account with the leaders of he community: see "Comment: Tradition of genesis."
Journal ofAfrican History 15 (1974) 371-322.
2 Politics 1321b39.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 379
lished it. It occasionally appears now in bibliographies. usually preceded
by the words. "I have not read .... " An example appears in a
footnote in Oswyn Murray's "Herodotus and Oral History." his first of
two contributions to the book under review. The first draft was presented
in the seminar to which Finley referred. Yet I think now that
Finley was right. There was no class of professional memorialists in
archaic Greece which corresponds to those that exist (or existed) in sub­
Saharan Africa. On this point Nino Luraghi is strictly correct when he
writes (157). "If one reads in Herodotus only what he actually says. it is
completely clear that when he tells us which people are Jogioi he does
not have in mind professional remembrancers or some sort of masters
of memory. who store the community's knowledge about the past and
hand it over by word of mouth."
It should still be recognized that a mnemon or a hieromnemon might
be a valuable informant. It was probably a hieromnemon who described
for Herodotus (1.54) the rich gifts which Croesus sent to Delphi. and
votive offerings at shrines could have stories attached to them, explaining
their origins. Jan Vansina 3 labels this sort of tradition" iconatrophy."
But the hieromnemones were not the keepers of the collective
memory of a community. They kept track of temple treasures. and
incidentally. if they were not incurious characters. they remembered
something of their history and provenance.
That conclusion leaves us with the question unanswered: when
Herodotus cites epichoric tradition. what was his source? Luraghi's answer
is not entirely satisfactory, even though Murray accepts it in an
epilogue titled "Herodotus and oral history reconsidered." Nino Luraghi
suggests that he consulted logioi andres who were "learned. cultivated.
clever" men (158). They were non-professionals. But were these
logioi andres persons who were recognized by their peers as reliable
transmitters of the community's traditions? To put it another way. did
Herodotus consult them because they had established reputations as
repositories of local tradition? Or. alternatively. did Herodotus discover
them. by trial and error. and construct the community's traditions
himself out of what they told him? If the first alternative is true.
we have switched from professional remembrancers to nonprofessional
ones. but not much else has changed. If it is the second. we
are getting uncomfortably near to Detlev Fehling's hypothesis that the
local traditions which Herodotus cites are his own literary constructs.
In fact. Maurizio Giangiulio argues himself into a position very close to
Fehling's in the essay which he contributes to this volume. 4
3 Oral Tradition as History (London 1985) 44-45.
4 "Constructing the past: Colonial traditions and the writing of history: The

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Luraghi's own essay, "Local knowledge in Herodotus' Histories," is
an original attempt to deal with the problem, but though he presents a
number of brilliant insights, his conclusion is ultimately unsatisfactory.
He suggests that statements such as "the Spartans say" etc. should be
taken as metaphors: they simply present local tradition in the manner
that his audience expected. A modern analogy. I take it, would be a
CNN stringer reporting from Washington about some new initiative of
the Bush administration, and prefixing his report with the words, "Reliable
sources in Washington say ...... Thus the point is not that Herodotus'
sources were logioi andres, though, to be sure, they were. Rather it
is that Herodotus represents knowledge about the past as a collective of
the community without any specialization. Thus tags such as "the Spartans
say" or "the Samians say" prefacing gobbets of local knowledge
belong in the same category as "It is generally believed ......
However. though Aristotle does use logios with the connotation
"erudite." its prime meaning is simply "one who knows logoi." Logioi
were the persons recognized by their peers in the community as knowledgeable.
They might share the spotlight with aoidoi at festivals (Pindar
seems to suggest that they did S ), or they might relate their logoi in the
ancient Greek equivalents of kapheneia, but the point is that they had
acquired a reputation as masters of logoi. It is misleading to draw too
close an analogy between archaic Greece and the civilizations of sub­
Saharan Africa. On that point I myself erred. 6 There is no evidence for
professional memorialists in archaic Greece of the sort we find in parts
of Africa. A logios aner was not like the Yoruba baba elegun in the town
of Ketu in Nigeria. The baba elegun held an office that was hereditary in
one family, and he was expected to know the traditions of his community
by heart. Such officials were foreign to ancient Greek tradition, for
history was never a vital ingredient in the making of Greek ethnicity.
But neither can logioi be simply an erudite collective. Why? The first
reason is that Herodotus does seem to consider a trained memory a
commendable-but perhaps not necessary-attribute of a good logios.
That much seems clear from 2.77.1. where he reports that the Egyptians
case of Cyrene." See 13T "The point is that. when Herodotus reports local
knowledge. expliCitly attributing it to the locals, he is not stating how he actually
acquired his information, nor is he quoting his sources in any formal sense. I
would surmise that Herodotus is giving a sort of summary reference .... All this
surely implies a certain amount of guesswork and is even compatible with Fehling's
principle of 'the obvious source'."
5 P. 1.183: N. 6.31. 47-48. 75. Pindar's evidence deserves more attention than
the contributors to this volume have given it.
6 Herodotus. Explorer of the Past (Princeton 1991) 110-120.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 381
in the Nile Valley train their memories more than any men and therefore
are logiotatoi. Logioi andres were not professionals. but a little
quasi-professional training helped. and if the modifying adjective
reached the superlative degree. they were on the way to becoming unofficial
griots. These were not simply cultivated men of the upper class.
The second reason is that Herodotus gives us some hint about how he
identified the logioi andres in a community. The hints are most frequent
in the second book. but there is a good example at 3.55. where he refers
to an encounter with Archias. whom he met at Pitana in Lacedaemon.
Herodotus was researching the Lacedaemonian attack on Polycrates of
Samos. and he sought out Archias because his grandfather took part in
it. They shared the same name. which was an added reason for Archias
to preserve the memories that Herodotus wanted to tap. Archias qualified
as a logios. for he had a motive to remember a logos. and quite
likely more than one.
Then Herodotus. having interviewed Archias. integrated the story
he supplied into his own Samian logos. The final integration of the
source material was Herodotus' contribution. Thus. when Herodotus
introduces an epichoric tradition with words such as "The Spartans say
...... he means. "I know. because I've investigated the matter. that the
Spartans say .... "7
Ewen L. Bowie's contribution. "Poetic ancestors of historiography."
reminds us that before the Greeks wrote prose. they composed poetry.
and used it to transmit historical traditions. The Ionika of Herodotus'
relative. Panyassis, is a well-known example. but since what remains of
the Ionika is merely a title. we can make only conjectures about it. But in
1992, Peter Parsons published papyrus fragments (P.Oxy. 3965) of a
poem by Simonides on the battle of Plataea. The same papyrus roll had
fragments that appear to come from poems on Artemisium and Salamis.
These poems use subjects from historical times. like Herodotus'
Histories. But they are praise poetry. and they shed only this much light
on the historian's craft: poets as well as researchers who wrote prose
recognized the Persian Wars as raw material for their products.
One of the best essays in this collection is Robert L. Fowler's "Early
historie and literacy." which places Herodotus within the context of a
period when the habits of orality were giving way to the habits of literacy.
Fowler realizes that there was no sharp break. One problem which
is rarely asked nowadays. perhaps because an earlier generation of
scholars like Enoch Powell beat it to death. is how the Histories reached
their final form. It involved a transition from oral to written history.
7 Cf. Hdt. 1.5. where Herodotus cites his own authority for pointing to Croesus
as the first to injure the Greeks.

382 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
and I think that transition could never have been complete before the
development of the book trade. which allowed a history to be published
and sold in the orchestra of the Athenian agora and any other place
where there were book stalls. We also tend to forget that the normal
way to "write" history or any other work of literature was to dictate it
to a scribe. and the scribe was probably a slave. for calligraphy was a
banausic occupation. Ancient authors. apart from the prophet Jeremiah
(36.32). fail to acknowledge the services of their scribes. but if Origen.
six centuries after Herodotus. could have seven stenographers. seven
research assistants and an assortment of calligraphers. all of them purchased
from the slave markets. then I think we can allow Herodotus a
couple of scribes. If so. the Histories made the final transition from oral
to literate form only when Herodotus' slave inscribed the text his master
dictated onto a papyrus roll.
Wolfgang Blosel's "The Herodotean picture of Themistocles: A mirror
of fifth-century Athens." suffers from an excess of ingenuity. but it
does have the virtue of attempting to fit the characterization of Themistocles
to the mentalite of Athenian imperialism. Rosalind Thomas
("Herodotus' Histories and the floating gap") deals with the axiom of
oral transmission that memories stretch back three generations. and
then the memories go blank until the remote past. which is occupied by
founding legends. The immediate past is isolated from the mythological
past by a region of silence. For the most part Herodotus' field of research
falls within the past three generations. and so the floating gap is
at best a minor problem. But what seems remarkable to me is that
Herodotus can refer with confidence to events that occurred more than
three generations before his time. That may be evidence that Herodotus
did find useful written records. as Dionysius of Halicarnassus claims he
did. But we should proceed gingerly.
Of the remaining papers. I would single out Astrid Moller's "The
beginning of chronology: Hellanicus' Hiereiai." Moller looks for a
Greek paradigm for the annalistic pattern of history and finds none.
The ultimate source for this pattern must be the monarchies of the
East-and let us not forget Egypt-but it cannot have been a case of
simple borrowing. Greece. except for Sparta. did not have king-lists.
Yet something analogous to a king-list had to be found if the annalistic
pattern was to be imposed on oral tradition. and the list of the Argive
priestesses of Hera was particularly satisfactory. It stretched from the
contemporary period back into the age of myth: apparently it connected
Aeneas with the founding of Rome. Only later. when he wrote his Atthis.
did Hellanicus turn to the archon list and the reigns of Athenian
kings to structure his chronology.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Other papers are contributed by Roberto Nicolai ("Thucydides' Archaeology:
Between epic and oral traditions"). Hans-Joachim Gehrke
("Myth. history and collective identity: Uses of the past in ancient
Greece and beyond") and Alan Griffiths ("Kissing cousins: Some cases
of adjacent material in Herodotus"). Griffiths' perceptive paper contains
a dry comment on Fran

384 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
ne ista hercle magno iam conatu magnas nugas dixerit.
SOSTRATA ehem mi vir! CH ehem mea uxor! SO te ipsum quaero.
CH loquere quid velis.
SO primum hoc te oro, ne quid credas me advorsum edictum tuom
facere esse ausam. CH vin me istuc tibi. etsi incredibilest. credere?
credo. SY nescioquid peccati portat haec purgatio. 625
SO meministin me gl'avidam et mihi te maxumo opere edicere.
si puellam parerem. nolle tolli? CH scio quid feceris:
sustulisti. SY sic est factum: domina ego. erus damno auctus est.
SO minume: sed erat hic Corinthia anus haud impura: ei dedi
exponendam. CH 0 luppiter. tantam esse in animo inscitiam! 630
SO perii: quid ego feci? CH rogitas? SO si peccavi. mi Chreme.
insciens feci. CH id equidem ego. si tu neges. certo scio.
te inscientem atque imprudentem dicere ac facere omnia.
tot peccata in hac re ostendis. nam iam primum. si meum
imperium exsequi voluisses, interemptam oportuit. 635
non simulare mortem verbis. I'e ipsa spem vitae dare.
at id omitto. misericordia. animus maternus: sino.
quam bene vero abs te prospectumst quod voluisti cogita.
nempe anui illi prodita abs te filiast planissume,
per te vel uti quaestum faceret vel uti veniret palam. 640
credo. id cogitasti: "quidvis satis est dum vivat modo."
quid cum illis agas qui neque ius neque bonum atque aequom sciunt?
melius peius. prosit obsit. nil vident nisi quod lubet.
SYR (to Chremes) She wants you: find out why. She's rather distressed
and there must be a reason. I dread to think what it is.
CHR (to Syrus) What it is? Believe me. after a mighty effort. god knows
she'II produce some mighty nonsense.
50S (seeing Chremes) Oh hello. my dear husband!
CHR (to Sostrata) Oh hello, my dear wife!
50s I was looking for you.
CHR Say what you want.
50S (defensively) First I beg you not to believe that I have ventured to
do anything against your instructions.
CHR You want me to believe that. when it's unbelievable? (with a
shrug) I believe it.
SYR (aside) This self-justification means that she's been up to some mischief.
50S Do you remember I was pregnant and you gave strict instructions
that. if it was a girl. you didn't want it to be raised?
CHR I know what you did: you raised it.
SYR (aside) That's what she's done. which means another mistress for
me and another expense for the master.
50S No. I didn't. But there was an old Corinthian woman here, a respectable
woman. I gave the child to her to expose.
CHR By Jupiter, to think that anyone could be so naive!
50S Damn it! What have I done?
CHR Need you ask?
50S If I've done wrong. my dear Chremes. I did so unwittingly.
CHR I know perfectly well. even if you deny it. that you do and say
everything unwittingly-and unthinkingly. Anyone can see that you

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
acted wrongly here on several counts. First of all. if you'd really intended
to carry out my orders, the girl should have been done away
with: you shouldn't have pretended she was dead while in fact giving
her the hope of life. But I pass that by. It was pity. matemal feeling: I
accept that. But consider how little thought you took for the consequences
of your plan. The fact is. you put your daughter totally at the
mercy of the old woman, so that as far as you were concerned she
could earn her living on the streets or be sold on the open market. I
suppose you thought "Anything will do. so long as she lives." What can
you do with people who have no sense of justice or of what is I'ight and
proper? Better or worse. helpful or harmful. they can see nothing but
what they want to see.
Text At 626 Barsby has departed from the paradosis me esse gravidam-the
right choice, for esse is metrically difficult and the change
an easy one. Yet in 643 he prints Jubet with the later manuscripts
against Jubent of the codex Bembinus. Lubent is strikingly better. being
just the sort of archaism corrected away in later tradition. Why is
Barsby now commendably independent from the sources. now blindly
dependent on the worst of them? It is because some editors have already
suppressed esse at 626. but none. by a collective oversight. has yet
got round to reading Jubent at 643. though they have reported it. Barsby
plays follow the leader.
Translation 628: Sustulisti is difficult. because it denotes a formality peculiar to
the Roman world. To do better than "raised" would involve a long pel'iphrasis.
which translators are right to avoid.
Translation 631: "Damn it!" does not convey the tone of perii. which is hel'e pathetic.
It also makes Sostrata sound unfeminine.
Translation 638: The point of quod voluisti is that Sostrata acted on a whim.
Barsby has obscured it.
Translation 643: Barsby has not quite understood lubet (or lubent. as Terence
must have written): it means "they see nothing but their own desires."
There is a criticism to be made on line 619. too; it will be reserved for
later.
For comparison. I give the same passage as it appears in the two
other complete English Terences now in print. The first is by Betty
Radice':
SYRUS: It's you she wants. sir. Find out what it's about. Something's upset
her. and there must be a I'eason. I feel quite nervous.
CHREMES: Do you? She makes a lot of fuss about what she has to say. but
it's generally a lot of nonsense.
SOSTRATA: My dear Chremes-
CHREMES [sarcastically]: My dear wife.
SOSTRATA: I was looking for you.
2 The Comedies (Harmondsworth/Baltimore 1976).

386 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
CHREMES: Tell me what you want.
SOSTRATA: First of all. let me beg you to believe that I've never ventured
to act against your instructions.
CHREMES: If you want me to believe the incredible - all right. I will.
SYRUS [aside): She must have done something wrong. or she wouldn't
be making these excuses.
SOSTRATA: Do you remember that time when I was pregnant and you
gave me strict orders not to rear the child if it was a girl?
CHREMES: Then I know what you did; you brought it up.
SYRUS [aside]: Exactly; which means another mistress for me and a dead
loss for my master.
SOSTRATA: I did not. But there was a woman from Corinth living here.
quite a decent old thing. and I gave her the baby to expose.
CHREMES: Good God. the stupidity of the woman!
SOSTRATA: Oh dear. what have I done?
CHREMES: Can't you see?
SOSTRATA: If I did wrong. Chremes, I didn't mean to.
CHREMES: One thing I'm sure about. even if you deny it: there's never
any sense or meaning in anything you do. There are any number of
things wrong about this. In the first place. if you had really intended to
carry out my order you should have destroyed the child at once. instead
of pretending it was dead while in fact you were giving it a
chance to survive. But let that pass; it was pity, you'll say, a mother's
love; very well. Just think whether you made proper provision for carrying
out your intention! Why. you entirely abandoned your daughter
to that old woman. and for all you could do she might have made a
living out of the child or sold it into slavery. I suppose you thought
anything would do as long as it stayed alive. How can one deal with
people who have no conception of what is just or right or good? Better
or worse, gain or loss, they can see only what they want to see.
This is rather more fluid and idiomatic than Barsby. but at the cost of
some distance from the original syntax. For that reason it would be less
suitable for a bilingual edition. and that should be borne in mind when
Loeb translations are compared to others. Radice deals with 638 and
642-;3 about as Barsby does.
Now Palmer Bovie3:
SYRUS (TOCHREMES): It's you she wants.
See what she wants. She seems rather upset.
And not for nothing. I'm a little worried.
CHREMES: She took great pains to speak a lot of nonsense.
SOSTRATA (SeeingcHREMES): Oh. there. my husband.
CHREMES Oh yes. good wife.
SOSTRATA: You were
The very one I wanted.
3 Palmer Bovie. Constance Carrier and Douglass Parker. trans.. The Complete
Comedies of Terence (New Brunswick. NJ 1974). The passage reproduced
here was translated by Bovie.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
CHREMES: Do tell me
What you wanted to say.
SOSTRATA: I ask you. first.
Not to believe I dared do anything
Against your strict instructions.
CHREMES: You want me
To believe that of you. when there can be
No shadow of a doubt? Well. I believe you.
SYRUS (Aside): An apology like this implies some guilt.
SOSTRATA: You will remember once when I was pregnant
How strongly you insisted that if I
Gave birth to a girl you were unwilling
To acknowledge the child?
CHREMES: I know what you did:
You had the child and raised her.
SYRUS (Aside): So she did.
I've gained a lady boss. he's gained a loss.
SOSTRATA: Oh. not at all. There was a woman here
From Corinth. a trustworthy older woman.
I gave the child to her to be exposed.
CHREMES: Dear god. how could you have been so naive?
SOSTRATA: Too bad for me! What did I do?
CHREMES: You ask?
SOSTRATA: If I did something wrong. Chremes. I did it
Unintentionally. I'm sure of that.
CHREMES: What I'm sure of. even if you deny it.
Is that you speak and act very unwisely
In everthing you do. Just look. for instance.
At the great number of mistakes you made
In this affair. First. had you wanted to
Abide by my instruction. you should have
Let the child die. not say that she was dead
In words. but in reality extend
Hope for her life. I won't dwell on that. Granted.
There is mercy. there are maternal instincts.
But think how little thought you put into
The consequences! It's quite obvious
Your daughter was entrusted to that woman.
For all you cared. to make her life one day
As a courtesan. or to be sold off
As a slave on the market. And I suppose
You thought to yourself. "What matter. so long
As she is kept alive?" But. why have dealings
With people who know nothing of the law
And have no care for what is just and right?
Whether it's better. worse. advantageous
Or inexpedient. they have no regard
For anything but their own interests.
Though wearing the dress of the Muses. this version has. for all its pretentious
get-up. hardly more charm than the two in prose. Bovie has

388 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
also committed a serious inaccuracy at 621. mistaking the tense of dixedt.
At 631 "Too bad for me!" strikes quite the wrong tone. On the positive
side. Bovie has seen the sense of 638 and 643. and rendered 628 with
great felicity (''I've gained a lady boss. he's gained a loss").
One last observation. Translators tend to drive in the ruts left by
other translators. taking over much that is arbitrary or mistaken. In
that Barsby is no worse than the run of them. but no better either: all
three of the versions above. as well as the others I know. have the same
misrendering of videas quid velit at 619 (the phrase in fact means "beware
what she wants," the relevant parallel being Andria 919).
Time to add up the scorecard. Though Barsby has not printed a bad
text. he could with no effort. and only a little independent judgment.
have printed a better one. His English version holds its own among
competitors on all counts. and as an aid to those with Latin it surpasses
them. The introduction and notes are likewise well conceived for the
Loeb readership.
BENJAMIN VICTOR
CENTRE D'ETUDES CLASSIQUES
UNlVERSITE DE MONTREAL
MONTREAL. QC H3C 3J7
JOAN BOOTH and GUY LEE. Catullus to Ovid: Reading Latin
Love Elegy. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1995; second
edition (with Latin text), 1999. Pp. xlvi + 164. Paper, ISBN 1­
85399-606-8.
In 1995, Joan Booth and Guy Lee published (under the title Latin Love
Elegy) a collaborative project targeted primarily at a Latinless readership:
a collection of selected Roman love elegies in translation, accompanied
by an introduction to the genre as a whole and to each of the poets
representing it here (Catullus, Propertius. Tibullus, and Ovid), and
by a detailed running commentary on each poem. The volume now under
review is a second edition, with a new title. revised introduction,
updated bibliography, and-perhaps most important-the Latin text of
each of the poems, grouped together in a single section between the
general introduction and the individual sections on each poet. It should
be said at the outset, therefore, that the resulting book is somewhat unwieldy
from a user's point of view-I found myself relying on numerous
sticky notes. which had constantly to be repositioned, to find my
way back and forth from the Latin text of a given poem to its translation
and then to the commentary accompanying it, and vice versa. But

BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
before I develop the implications of presentation for the application and
utility of this book. let us look at its contents.
Both authors are well known in Latin poetry circles (Booth for her
solid scholarly contributions in the form of articles and commentaries
from the late 1970S onward. and Lee for his superb translations of much
Latin poetry. as well as for numerous scholarly publications spanning a
career of over 40 years). The distribution of labor in this book is therefore
reasonably predictable. as well as efficient: Booth has done all of
the introductory and commentary work. and has supplied the Tibullus
translations. while Lee is responsible for the translations of Catullus.
Propertius. and Ovid. The translations are both eminently readable and
very faithful to the Latin texts they represent. without being "literal"
(see the translators' credo. ix); only on a very few occasions does the
translation miss a beat. as e.g. at Propertius 3.3.23, alter remus aquas
alter tibi radat arenas. / tutus eds, "with one oar feather water. with
the other shore. / and you'll be safe." Notwithstanding Lee's avowedly
flexible approach to translation (ix). the introduction of the unusual
rowing metaphor here in the verb "feather" for radat seems not only
unnecessary but downright distracting; but such opacity is rare. The
audience for whom this book was originally conceived can therefore be
confident that the versions of the elegists they find here give them as
reliable an approach to the poems as possible without in fact reading
them in Latin. It is also the feature of the book about which. for reasons
of both space and my own interest, I shall have no more to say here.
This book's explicit intent is "to give some indication of the development
and variety of Latin love elegy as a whole and the characteristics
and range of its individual exponents" (viii; for the second edition this
intent has been restated, as "to represent the considerable range of socalled
personal Latin love elegy rather than Latin love elegy as a whole"
[vii; italics theirs]). In her lengthy introduction. Booth maintains this
focus, and thus produces a very coherent and informative essay on the
genealogy of Latin poetry by Latin poets about their Latin loves. Her
essay. unassuming though it is in many respects. heightened my awareness
of the lack of any really good comprehensive modern treatment in
English both of Latin elegy and of most of its individual practitioners-certainly
nothing has corne along to supplant Hubbard's Propertius
(1974) on my bookshelves, and while a number of monographs have
given adequate coverage to certain aspects of an individual poet's poetics
(e.g. Cairns [1979] on Tibullus' Alexandrianism and Lee-Stecum
[1998] on gendered discourse in his elegy: this reviewer on style and
tradition in Ovid's Amores [1997]). not since Lyne's The Latin Love Poets
(1980) has anyone attempted an overview that both is synthetic and
brings any really new perspective to bear on the poetry. Booth's obser-

390 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
vations regarding the affinities of elegy to comedy and mime (e.g.
xxiv-xxv. 116) and her frequent notice of possible connections between
Roman elegy and Hellenistic epigram (e.g. xxv-xxvi. 37. 139) are particularly
welcome. and deserve a longer look than is possible in the context
of this book. I am pleased to note. therefore. that Booth has begun
to promulgate her work in the latter area in other venues (see. e.g.. her
recent article on the Philodemean intertext of Propertius 1.3 in CQ 51
[2001]); it is to be hoped that her forthcoming Cambridge commentary
on Propertius' monobibJos will help to draw more attention to these
underexplored dimensions of the elegiac tradition.
Booth's introduction also includes brief discussions of Gallus.
Lygdamus. and Sulpicia. and of several fragments of what may be Hellenistic
love elegy (xxiii-xxiv). as well as of more standard topics like
metrical developments. Callimachean poetics. stock themes and characters.
the identities of the major elegiac pueJJae. and the poets' biographies.
Booth also introduces the concept of intertextuality into her discussion.
although her definition of this phenomenon has a definite intentionalist
color (xiv); here and even more so in her nod to "theory"
later in the essay (xliv-xlv) she betrays a certain discomfort with a perceived
need to be "trendy," the one unfortunate note marring this otherwise
likeable introduction. (This note is heard again on quite a few
occasions in the running commentaries. though most often it is relegated
to the footnotes; see, e.g.. xlv n. 144; 109 n. 50; 137 n. 26; 147 n. 58.)
Booth clearly wants to be inclusive. but also wants-and is surely entitled-to
present interpretations not always in keeping with the latest
scholarly fashion; she does not always succeed, however. in negotiating
the delicate balance between these two desires. and the resulting tone is
sometimes more defensive than it needs to be.
Now let us turn to the poems themselves. What almost goes without
saying. but is worth noting here. is the importance of the word "love"
in qualifying the poems chosen for this book: a broader definition of
elegy would entail the inclusion not only of poems like Catullus 65
(erotic. to be sure, but provoked first and foremost by his brother's
death). but of selections from Ovid's didactic and exilic poetry. Booth
and Lee's narrowing of focus. while raising some (unanswered) scholarly
questions about elegy as a genre (primum inter paria, the nature of
its development from a traditional and etymological association with
lament). gives the book a clear focus. and ensures that the poems selected
for inclusion have a natural affinity to each other and so create a
nice "package." This thematic focus also means that there are numerous
opportunities for readers to make cross-references from one poem and
one poet to another. at least some of which is helpfully encouraged by
the running commentary.

BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS 39 1
The included poems are: Catullus 72. 76. and 85: Propertius 1. I. 1.3.
2.13.3.3.3.24. and 4·7: Tibullus LI, 1.8. and 2.4: and Ovid. Amores 1. I.
1.2.2.7.2.8. and 3.2. Most of these poems require little justification for
their inclusion: and the simple fact that Catullus is included in the first
place is refreshing. as well as right. Nonetheless. I cannot help but miss
a few poems that seem at least to me definitive of the genre. like. e.g..
Propertius 1.18.2.7.2.16. Tibullus 1.3 (which also would complement
nicely Propertius 2.13). and Ovid. Amores 1.5 and 1.9 (and perhaps also
3.9. which would complement the selections from Tibullus as well as the
theme of an elegisfs death developed in Propertius 2.13). More representation
of the Propertian corpus generally would be preferable. particularly
given the size. and emotional range. of Books 2 and 3: and the
inclusion of Propertius 3.3 is downright odd given the book's selfdefined
parameters-this poem has very little to do with love. and a
great deal to do with writing poetry and with Callimachean aesthetics.
The most interesting and rewarding sections of this book are Booth's
discussions of the individual poems. She is a close and careful reader.
and manages to communicate a lively sense of engagement with each of
the poems. often noting that given passages are open to several interpretations
and that the scholars arrayed on the various sides of a debate
all have reasonably good reasons for being there (see. e.g.. 30. on Catullus'
appeal to the gods in 76.25-26). She also has a good eye for distinctive
features of a given poem's style and effectiveness. as in her
brief history of the intertextuality of wool-working scenes in ancient
poetry and their relevance to Cynthia's spinning in Propertius 1.3.41-42
(53), and in her discussion of the inversion of "typical" Tibullan style
and themes in Tibullus 2.4 (124). Her own style is frequently colloquial.
with the result that as I read I often wanted to respond with a different
perspective: but I suspect that this is at least partially her point, as she
most clearly suggests at the close of each of her discussions of the individual
poems. In these final paragraphs. Booth is wont to take the interpretive
package she has just neatly finished wrapping and open it up
anew. with a series of questions intended to make her reader turn back
to the poem once again and to reconsider the implications of the close
reading just ended. Her concluding comments on Ovid Amores 2.7 and
2.8 are typical (147):
Ovid's treatment of his chosen theme [i.e.. the triangular relationship
involving master. mistress. and slave] here. however. is entirely his
own. and of all his elegies these two are possibly the most devastatingly
revealing of his poetically unorthodox attitude to love. In itself. we are
told. "the drama implies more or more vivid things than a description
or analysis would ever tell" (Lyne [1980]271). What "things". though?
Things about Ovid? About men? About women? About you. the modern
reader? No ultimate response from either Corinna in Amores 2.7

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 393
petition gives this edition. unfortunately. greater scope to deceive innocent
readers. Before Slavitt. the only reliable if rather pedestrian translation
was that of Guy Lee. J Lee is now available in an inexpensive paperback
complete with an introduction by KO.A.M. Lyne and 69 pages
of helpful notes to enhance appreciation. It must be the translation of
choice until something better than Slavitt appears.
Before I undertake the disagreeable task of scrubbing out the graffiti.
let me briefly dispose of the book's scholarly pretensions. Matthew S.
Santirocco has written a 27-page Forward that tells us virtually nothing
about the poet (ix-xi). provides only a skeletal account of Roman elegy
and its themes (xi-xix). offers little more than potted remarks on the
poet's Callimachean poetics (xix-xxv). suggests the unAugustan political
preferences inherent in the choice of love as a way of life (xxv-xxx) and
finally closes with a sketch of Propertius' "bold reinvention" of himself
in Book IV as an aetiological poet (xxx-xxxvi). The absence of any historical
information about the poet. including his approximate dates and
birthplace. is equaled by the absence of any warning to the reader about
the severe textual corruption of the manuscript tradition. The chaos of
the text beyond the middle of Book II has a direct bearing on (a) the
structure of the books. (b) the internal transposition of couplets, (c) the
erroneous deletion or insertion of couplets. (d) the loss of verses or
even whole poems and (e) the fusion of separate elegies into single ones
that modern editors must then re-separate. More seriously. Slavitt does
not even bother to inform us which Latin text he used. though internal
evidence suggests he relied heavily on Goold's Loeb. But since the
translations are not line-for-line. the line numbering is no help to the
reader who might want (0 know how and how accurately the English
reflects the Latin text. The 34 pages of exiguous notes, presumably
added by Slavitt himself. afford only a minimalist annotation and are
quite inadequate for this complex, allusive poet. Finally. Santirocco is
disingenuous about the fidelity of the translations: "Throughout this
essay. when citing the translation I use Slavitt's line numeration rather
than that of the Latin text (which it approximates [emphasis added]); I
do this as a convenience to the reader but also to demonstrate that this
version. albeit free [emphasis added], will sustain interpretation" (xvi n.
r r). Slavitt's line numeration does not "approximate" that of the unnamed
Latin text and the versions are far from simply "free." They are,
however. sufficiently unfaithful to sustain the "essay."
In the remainder of this review I will first survey Slavitt's versification.
since poetic translations live or die by their metrical form. and
then examine his habit of depositing invented passages into Propertius
I Guy Lee. trans., Propertius: The Poems (Oxford 1994).

394 BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
like some translational cuckoo who expects the poet to raise his own
progeny. I close with a brief tour of the mistranslations that abound in
the book.
Slavitt renders the Latin elegiac couplet through a loose accentual
couplet with a 6:5 stress ratio between hexameter and pentameter. He
employed the same meter in his 1989 "translations" of Ovid's exile poetry.'
The accentual couplet has been a common meter for translations
of elegy since Gilbert Highet and Richmond Lattimore demonstrated its
versatility in their own work. But like all accentual meters in modern
English. it requires great control to maintain a clear sense of rhythmic
coherence. Lack of control leads to flabby, formless lines and a diminution
or outright loss of contrast between the hexameter and pentameter.
Slavitt strays back and forth across the border of control: while he generally
maintains the 6:5 stress distinction between hexameter and pentameter,
his taste for fatuous, verbose jargon often dissolves any
rhythmical contrast between them and his habitual recourse to enjambment
destroys couplet integrity. The result is a loss of concision
and point. especially in the pentameter. which for Propertius is not a
mere repetition of the hexameter but the rhythmical site for climax.
emphasis and aphoristic summary. As a very strict couplet artist. Propertius
rarely enjambs either the hexameter or the pentameter without a
clear rhetorical purpose. Elegy 1.9 contains a striking example of the
way he deploys enjambment for a specific emotional effect. Here is the
Latin followed by Slavitt's expansion. which starts erroneously on the
pentameter:
quid si non esset facilis tibi copia? nunc tu
insanus medio f1umine quaeris aquam. (15-16)
You've plenty of prompting, I think, for new compositionsotherwise
you'd be standing like Tantalus deep in a river
but unable to drink and therefore dying of thirst. (16-18)
The English version not only mistranslates the Latin. it begins with the
pentameter because Slavitt tends to bloat the English through paraphrase
and outright invention. Constant padding of the text naturally
prevents a line-for-line translation: it also helps obscure the couplet as a
rhythmical unit by forcing a reversal of the hexameter and pentameter.
Contrary to Santirocco's claim that the English numeration approximates
the Latin, Slavitt only occasionally equals it. He sometimes falls a
few lines short. but usually exceeds the text and pads more excessively
as he advances to Book IV. Here is a summary of his most serious bloat
given as a ratio of the Loeb Latin to the English: 1:8 (46:50),11.1 (78:90),
, David R. Siavitt. trans.. Ovid's Poetry ofExile (Baltimore 1989).

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 395
11.16 (S4:60). 11.4 (22:26), 11.9 (S2:60), 1I.13a (16:22), 11.14 (28:34), ILlS
(S4:S8). 11.16 (S6:68). 11.22a (42:46), 1I.2S (48:S2), 1I.26c (S8:66), III.2 (26:30),
III·3 (S2:62), IlLS (48:S8), 111.7 (7°78), 1I1.8a (36:44), III.8b (4:8), III.9 (60:68).
III.II (72:94), III. 12 (38:48), III.13 (66:88), III. IS (46:S6), III. 17 (42:S6), III.2S
(18:22), IV.I (= IV.I + IV.2. ISO:176), IV.3 (72:86), IV·4 (96:104), IV·S
(78:92), IV.6 (86:102), IV.7 (96:106), IV.8 (88:102), IV.9 (74:82) and IV.1O
(48:66). The combined results of enjambment, expansion and hexameterpentameter
reversal fatally obscure the poet's couplet artistry. I adduce
just two examples from 1.2 and LIS (note its alliterative pastiche) to
highlight the consequences:
Quid iuvat ornato procedere, vita. capillo
et tenuis Coa veste movere sinus,
aut quid Orontea crines perfundere murra,
teque peregrinis vendere muneribus.
naturaeque decus mercato perdere cuItu.
nec sinere in propriis membra nitere bonis?
crede mihi, non ulla tuaest medicina figurae:
nudus Amor formam non amat artificem. (1.2.1-6)
What good is it. promenading that way. your coiffeur amazing,
your couture an impressive shimmer of Cos
silk as your skirts swing this way and that? What good
are expensive Syrian attars you splash on yourself?
Fabrics, finery, foreign frippery. gold gewgaws ...
they only distract from your own real beauty. Naked,
Love most admires nakedness, beauty that's unembellished. (1-7).
quarum nulla tuos potuit convertere mores,
tu quoque uti fieres nobilis historia.
desine iam revocare tuis periuria verbis,
Cynthia, et oblitos parce movere deos;
audax ah nimium, nostro dolitura periclo,
si quid forte tibi durius inciderit!
alta prius retro labentur flumina ponto.
annus et inversas duxerit ante vices,
quam tua sub nostro mutetur pectore cura:
sis quodcumque voles, non aliena tamen. (I. 15.23-32)
Would the thought of these noble examples improve your behavior?
You decline the standard of legend, and nobility doesn't seem tempting.
but do not provoke the gods-or rub my nose
in the mess you've made. For pity's sake. think what you're doingand
think of me. for the pain you bring down on yourself
I shall feel as much. Sooner will rivers flow
uphill from the sea, sooner will seasons reverse
their orderly march through the year than shall my love for you
change. Be whatever you want, but not
somebody else's girl. . (22-31)

396 BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
Serious as the padded English and marred couplet structure may be.
Slavitt's propensity to drop wholly invented passages into Propertius
betrays an overt contempt not only for the poet but for the poetry itself.
Most of the inventions in Propertius as in his previous translations are
not needed to clarify difficult allusions or convoluted syntax: he introduces
them to deflate elevated tone (there is nothing he seems to hate
more than sublimity). subvert rhetoric. dilute emotional intensity with
comedy. insinuate pastiche and reduce every nuance of style to cheap
banter. Banter. often quite humorous in itself. is Slavitt's true metier.
Perhaps the most tasteless invention of the book is the idiomatic leer he
adds to 1.10. the elegy in which Propertius witnesses Gallus' night of
love from a nearby hiding place. He achieves the desired leer by rewriting
the first six lines of the elegy, lines whose rhetorical personifications
are really quite reticent, if not exactly chaste:
o iucunda quies. primo cum testis amori
affueram vestris conscius in lacrimis!
o noctem meminisse mihi iucunda voluptas.
o quotiens votis illa vocanda meis.
cum te complexa morientem. Galle, puella
vidimus et longa ducere verba mora' (I--Q)
What a party' That night-how earthily uneanhly-
I'll .'emember as long as I live: I watched you make love
as if from a great height, and your humping and pumping. gasping
and groaning seemed endea.-ing. The hour was late.
and I was half asleep. The blushing moon was setting.
but there you were, Gallus. my trusting fI'iend.
locked in emb.'ace with that girl. and as you moved. I was moved
by the way you let me share in your intimate please. (1-8 [8 = Latin 7))
At the far end of the spectrum from the tastelessness of I. 10 is the
ludicrous recasting of IV.8. one of the great comic masterpieces of Latin
literature, as a dream sequence narrated in real time to a psychiatrist
(the "Doctor"). The first two lines set the narrative in a dream frame:
"The damnedest dream last night, and literary. from Homer. / right
from the Odyssey's pages, but jumbled and gross." Siavitt's gift for
comedy, misplaced as it usually is, turns the elegy into a crude Saturday
Night Live performance full of slapstick and one-liners as Propertius
chatters away on the couch. Two examples will give the flavor: on
Phyllis and Teia ("with tits to die for"), "There two, I thought, would
make a diverting evening, / another couple of notches on the old gunfighter'S
barrel" (38-39): on his guilty discomfort with the party, "A
bare breast in my hand is so much meat. / I'm thinking about that snake
in that cave in Lanuvium's canyon / (I know, Doctor, I know), and I
hear this noise, / a racket out at the gate (What gate? I don't know.
There's a gate)" (54-57). Siavitt has the speaker address asides to the

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 397
"Doctor" at three points (I 1.46 and 56) in an attempt to sustain the fiction
of a therapy session, but the actual narrative is so animated and
dramatic it saps the fiction. Yet his nerve never fails him in mangling
dead poets. He actually defends IV.8 as a dream poem in a note on line
1 I (275): "The 'Doctor' is a translator's intrusion, justified. I trust. by the
cleft hill and the dangerous snake, both of which were. even before
Freud interpreted them for us, clear enough. This is, after all. a dream
poem." Most of the inventions, without this sort of inane justification.
oscillate between the tastelessness of 1.10 and the ludicrousness of IV.8.
In a parody of the Latin text at 11.17.1-6, Slavitt has Propertius flop
around an empty bed. fall off and bruise his backside:
Not laid. but rather stood-up. The rendezvous. not canceled,
is forgotten. ignored. It's a dl'eadful thing to do,
wicked as murder, which isn't so far-fetched perhaps. The idea
keeps coming back-I could throw myself from a cliff,
01' gulp down a dose of poison and bring an end to my torment.
this flopping around alone in a bed all night.
I reach out for her body and, with no one there. I fall
to the floor. bruising my pride along with my backside. (1-8).
He often seems to forget all about the Latin in his haste to scribble
over the text with slavittries. A good example among dozens is the introduction
to I1.22a:
Scis here mi multas pariter placuisse puellas.
scis mihi. Demophoon. multa venire mala.
nulla meis frustra lustrantur compita plantis;
o nimis exitio nata theatra meo.
sive aliqua in molli diducit candida gestu
bracchia. seu varios incinit ore modos!
interea nostri quaerunt sibi vulnus ocelli.
candida non tecto pectore si qua sedet,
sive vagi crines puris in frontibus errant.
Indica quos medio vertice gemma tenet. (1-10)
They're all fine, Demophoon. the dark and the fair. the plump
and the scrawny. leggy girls ... How can I choose?
But that's my trouble. I go outside for a walk and see
beauty on every side, at every corner.
to die for. And then at night. at the theater. an actress can move
her slender arm in a languidly liquid gesture
and my heart. I tell you, melts. Or she takes a breath to sing.
and my eyes bug right out of my sockets staring
at what I can see of the gorgeous mound of her bared breast.
Or she'll turn her head to the side so a lock of hair
will bounce against her forehead where she's wearing a glittering
jewel.
and I am delighted, stupefied with love. (1-12)

398 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Nearly all of this is concocted. but in the process of concoction he has
failed to see that the candida of 5 (= "actress") merely extends her
arm in a melting gesture or pours fourth varios ... modos from her
lips. but the candida of B is another beauty-sitting in the audience as
the poet makes clear-whose deshabille garment or errant coiffure
attracts the poet's gaze. It is of course possible that he really did understand
the Latin and simply wanted to reposition the bare breast so
it would slide into view as the actress, arm poised in the air, took a
breath to sing. More likely. however. it is simply the product of sloppiness
and haste. since both become more pronounced as he works
over the elegies from Books 11 to IV (in parallel with the increasing
bloat 1 have already listed). Other notable passages of fabrication.
complete with deflating banter. are found at I.Bb.35-36 ("For richer.
for poorer. / she's pledged allegiance to me and salutes the flag. ").
1.13.17-20 ("I saw, you will remember. with my own eyes, / amazed at
your technique in the clinches, your hands, their holds, / your quick
moves, and how you managed to score, / and then the triumphant
groans that 1 took as cheering."), II.15.IO-11 ("I roused myself and we
both acquitted ourselves / more splendidly than before and in several
novel positions."). 11.32.61-62 ("The flesh. my friend is a prison. /
from which no one has ever escaped alive. "), 11.33a.21-22 ("To stiffen
my resolve? / Once this is done. I'll show you stiff times three.").
11.34b53-54 (" A smaller canvas. a different. more intimate battlefield /
is what you want to express what you're feeling now." [advice to the
love-sick poet LynceusD. III. 1I.g-1 I ("That school experience keeps is
hard. / and if. in my youth. 1 was once like you. 1 have learned / as
you. too. may. if you will. and profit from my sad example") and
67-70 ("I saw in the great parade her float as it passed through the
streets: / on her pretty wrists she was wearing Romulus' chains. /
and higher up on her arms were the marks of the sacred serpent's /
venomous bite and drops of blood and poison" [an imaginary description
of the Cleopatra "float" in Augustus' triumph)). III.15.6-B ("I
learned the ways of love / from Lycinna. generous. sweet. who gave
me my first lessons / in how the body's equipment is meant to be
used.") and 49-51 ("as Dirce is dragged to her messy and ignominious
end / in a smear of blood that runs along the shingle. / and Zethus'
meadows are splotched in a similar red with flowers" [a bathetic embroidery
on Dirce's death)), III.lg.II-12 ("Think what Pasiphae did
with Daedalus' clever contraption / to fuck the Cretan bull"). IV.5.5-7
("What a baggage she was! What a piece of able and willing ass. / She
could have turned even chaste Hippolytus horny. / maddened with
lust. She could cloud men's minds, and women's too.") and IV.g.I-4
("Horace does it. and Virgil. and their ever so uplifting / accounts of

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 399
Hercules' great deeds of the past / are somehow supposed to suggest
the power of great Augustus. / but that involves a prettying up of the
story." [an expression of contempt for aetiological eulogies on Augustus]).
To the baggy versification. never-ending slang and rampant invention
we must add simple mistranslation. While some (as we have seen)
may be the result of liberties taken with the Latin. most suggest negligence.
His muddled rendering of the Latin in 1.17.25-28 is neither
simple invention nor simple inaccuracy. but a jumble of both:
at vos. aequoreae formosa Doride natae.
candida felici solvite vela choro:
si quando vestras labens Amor attigit undas.
mansuetis socio parcite litoribus. (25-28)
Instead. I have the mermaids. the daughters of beautiful Doris.
whom I invite to attend us. swimming about
our vessel: if ever Amor swooped like a vicious erne
to wound you, for your torments' sake. show mercy. (25-28)
A more obvious case of casual neglect for the Latin syntax occurs in
the last couplet of 1.18.31-32:
sed qualiscumque's, resonent mihi 'Cynthia' silvae.
nec deserta tuo nomine saxa vacent. (31-32)
But wherever you are back in town. you are also here,
for your name repeats. "Cynthia. Cynthia." echoes
the lonely rocks bounce back to a lonely sky. (32-34)
Slavitt commits the howler of having Cynthia's name reflexively repeat
itself because he's not bothered to notice that the subject of the subjunctive
verb resonent is silvae. The rest of the confusion in the passage
sterns from his ingrained lack of respect for the text. Sometimes. however.
mistranslation produces plain incoherence. incoherence that some
editor at the Press ought to have caught. In 1l.I.15-16. for example. the
pristine aphorism of the Latin couplet vanishes beneath Slavitfs syntactical
spray can:
seu quidquid fecit sivest quodcumque locuta.
maxima de nihilo nascitur historia. (15-16)
From whatever she's done and whatever she's said, I take my cue
and try to transcribe what she creates from the void. (17-18).
An even worse case of incoherence can be found at II. 13a.3-4:
hic me tam gracilis vetuit contemnere Musas.
iussit et Ascraeum sic habitare nemus. (3-4)
That tyrant's command is clear. that I not ignore the slender
Muses but make my home in Ascra's grove

400 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
where Hesiod lived and write. as he did. didactic verse [emphasis
addedj·(3-S)
The grove of the Muses on Mt. Helicon is called "Ascraean" because it
was there that Hesiod of Ascra received his inspiration from the Muses.
But Love has ordered him to tarry in the grove as an elegiac poet. not a
didactic poet. The notion that Propertius has dedicated himself to producing
didactic verse is risible. These four examples can stand as representative
of dozens more.
Among Siavitt's traits as a translator is his penchant for inserting
obscure vocabulary into his slangy English at all the wrong points. As a
result we stumble across such words as "demimondaine" (1.1.5). "peripeteia"
(I.I.I6). "titivated" (l.I.Ig), "pharmacopoeia" (1.5.5), "tralactician"
(1.13.20), "erne" (1.17.27), "spinto" (11.1.48), "droit de seigneur"
(11.16.38), "dapatical" (111.10.23). "maquillage" (111.13.8) and even Latin
with "toga praetexta" and "stoIa" (lV.11.39-40). If this stylistic tic had
any purpose. such as the esoteric vocabulary we find woven into Beckett's
novel More Pricks than Kicks, it might be forgiven. But there isn't
the slightest rationale for it in these elegies. The function of such words,
like the banter and colloquialisms, is to corrode the poet's own style and
facilitate a kind of hybrid that, one must assume with considerable generosity,
Siavitt believes can offer the modern reader a more accessible
route into the poetry than mere respect for the text and precision.
Siavitt has received so many negative reviews over the years that
one might almost call it a growth industry. But these rarely give the
reader a comprehensive view of the way he treats the poets who receive
his hybridizing treatment. I have, therefore, taken the time to
provide a more thorough examination of his practice in Propertius in
Love: The Elegies. The book has no future in classroom use. will mislead
the common reader and must surely be an embarrassment to the University
of California Press. If the Press chooses to keep the edition in
print. it should alter the main entry and subject headings on the copyright
information page. As it now stands, the main entry violates rule
21.10 of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules: parodies. paraphrases
and adaptations receive main entry under the heading for the parodist.
paraphraser or adaptor rather than the original author. Since Propertius
in Love: The Elegies is not a translation but a parodic rewording of
the Latin, both the main entry and the Library of Congress subject
heading ought to reflect that fact J :
J A good friend who teaches in the graduate school of library and information
science at a major university provided information on the AACR and the
proper main entry for Slavitt.

Slavitt. David R.. 1935-
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Propertius in love: the elegies I translated [i.e. written] by David R. Slavitt:
foreword by Matthew S. Santirocco.
p. em.
ISBN 0-520-22878-2 (acid-free paper)-ISBN 0-520-22879-2
(pbk. : acid-free paper)
I. Propertius. Sextus-Parodies. imitations. etc. l. Propertius. Sextus. Elegiae.
English. II. Title
STEVEN J. WILLETT
SHIZUOKA UNIVERSITY OF ART AND CULTURE
1794-1 NOGUCHI-CHO. HAMAMATSU CITY
JAPAN 430-8533
PATRICIA A. ROSENMEYER. Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The
Letter in Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 2001. Pp. X + 370. US $64.95. ISBN 0-521-80004-8.
With Ancient Epistolary Fictions Rosenmeyer delivers the first truckload
to fill in a noticeable chasm in scholarship: Greek literary epistolography.
Acknowledging the fuzzy line between reality and fiction even
in autobiographic letters that results from authorial posturing. Rosenmeyer
sensibly confines her study to letters in Greek literature whose
writers or recipients are invented. The strength of Rosenmeyer's study
lies in its scope-other scholars treat only one work. genre or period.
while Rosenmeyer's book ranges from Homer to beyond Philostratus.
Rosenmeyer has the rare privilege of introducing classicists to her subject.
the bulk of which might be less familiar; thus she elects not to cloud
her inquiry with a theoretical framework or socio-historical perspective.
Rather she attempts to capture the literary flavor of these various
letters by including frequent summaries and thematic analyses. In particular
she establishes herself as an apologist for the Second Sophistic
epistolographers. who have received short shrift from scholars, being
read more for the information they might provide about their period
than for any literary contribution they might make. This is a very useful
book. In addition to constructing her own interpretive guidelines.
Rosenmeyer also references the leading scholarship on each author or
period-much of the scholarship on the later material noticeably older.
Moreover. her organization and prose are admirably clear. which is
helpful for readers whose specific interests may not require them to
read the entire book.
40 1

402
BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS
A brief introduction discusses the earliest Greek references to letters.
their "invention" and ancient attitudes towards them. Next. Rosenmeyer
marks the story of Bellerophon with his graphic betrayal to Anteia's
father in Iliad 6 as programmatic for the context of fictive letters
in subsequent Greek literature: association with treachery. women and
friendship. Although she mildly overstates Anteia's role in the treacherous
letter's conception and there is much overlap among them. these
three themes nevertheless furnish a useful guide for further evaluation.
Not surprisingly. both historians utilize the letter's deceptive potential:
Herodotus' letters dramatize political intrigue and Thucydides' letters
provide documentary evidence. Rosenmeyer takes pains to argue that
Nicias' letter actually is a letter. when instead she might have relied
upon her own definition of "letter" as a substitution for speech in person
(20). Unlike his elder peers. Euripides exploits the letter's dramatic
potential. An increase in general literacy. Rosenmeyer suggests. accounts
for the letter's comfortable presence here. Singling out the three
plays whose plots pivot upon epistles (IT. IA and Hipp.). Rosenmeyer
explores how Euripides manipulates the letter's paradoxical nature
(privately created. yet publishable: materially inert. yet catalyzing). An
analysis of the temporal layers separating writer and reader inherent
within a letter seems gratuitous in the section on IT and would pertain
better to IA. Old Comedy lacks letters. and New Comedy's scanty remains
unfortunately prohibit its investigation. Hellenistic poetry however
abounds in a certain type of correspondence. the epistolary epigram
usually accompanying a gift. For closer scrutiny Rosenmeyer selects
a passage most suitable for her study. the story of Acontius and
Cydippe in Callimachus' Aitia. in which an apple inscribed with a love
oath doubles as both letter and present. As the poem's fragmentary
state complicates its analysis. Rosenmeyer adduces later adaptations
from Ovid and Aristaenetus. Noting the apple as an erotic signifier by
itself, Rosenmeyer teases out the subtle game of control between writer
and reader of the apple.
The "culture of writing" in the novels gives rise to a wide range of
epistolary purposes. Letters"provide a central impetus for movement
in the narrative" and often lie at the center of love triangles. Rosenmeyer's
solid treatment adds the epistolary voice to the novel's "dialogue
with other genres" but makes no attempt to situate the letter
within this broader generic context. In the Alexander Romance. itself
purportedly based upon lost collections of fictional correspondence. the
letter fluctuates with the emperor's whim-sometimes it provides information
and plot motivation. but it operates especially as a tool of
characterization. uniting a variegated work under a consistent authorial
voice. The pseudonymous letter collections (those in the name of ancient

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 4°3
celebrities. e.g. Socrates. Phalaris. Democritus. or Thernistocles) selfconsciously
and creatively play with the tension between fiction and
history. and achieve consistency of character. if not logical chronology.
Embracing this flaw. Rosenmeyer argues that the power of the epistolary
form lies in its flexibility-its power to stimulate its reader's
imagination and to replicate the non-linear workings of the human
mind. The unique epistolary novel Chion of HeracJea follows its
eponymous pseudo-historical protagonist through letters back horne
from his education under Plato to the eve of his assassination of the tyrant
Clearchus. Chion's letters form a coherent narrative: philosophical
musings blend with emotional intimacy to create a work that is at once
historical and fictional. private yet public. novelistic yet not romantic.
The erotic theme is resumed by the epistolographers of the Second
Sophistic. who eschew sustained character and plot development in favor
of exploring the lives and perspectives of ordinary people in
charming "miniatures." The innovations of these letters are their complete
"fabrication of authorial voice" and their sophistication in creating
believable portraits of stock character types: the parasite, the bumpkin.
the courtesan. A1ciphron's letters project the escapist desire of his (sophisticated)
reader back onto his characters. who voice aspirations to
change careers or move to the city. Rosenmeyer defends A1ciphron
against accusations of dullness and conventionality on the grounds that
his attention to form is an extension of his meticulous artistry, and that
this realism makes his corpus convincing and compelling. In other ways
inferior to Alciphron. Aelian engages his reader's imagination by employing
recurring characters. Philostratus. though perfectly capable of
novelistic composition. instead uses his love letters as a pretext to explore
all sorts of literary and sophistic topics. Like Alciphron, his goal is
not artistic unity but rhetorical play and exploration of generic limits:
Philostratus thus sacrifices narrative for novelty.
The second half of Ancient Epistolary Fictions is its showcase.
wherein Rosenmeyer's literary insights are best displayed. She intends
that this book will initiate dialogue about Greek literary epistolography.
especially its later authors, and to encourage further exploration of this
genre on its own terms. This pioneering book does much to recommend
the field to ambitious philologists. literary critics and social historians.
KATHRYN CHEW
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON, NJ 08544

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
polygenesis theory) but simply because they were there already. The
history of narrative is for him a continuous expansion and diffusion of a
limited number of tale types. and once he has discovered some basis for
influence or parallelism. his work is done. It is thus the theoretical parts
of the book, the methodological introduction and the concluding remarks
on folktale and society and on folktale and literature, where Anderson
is least satisfactory.
For example. in noting the resilience of folktale material. an important
theme in his book, Anderson states that "a genuine folktale, or
fairytale will maintain most of its structure. intrinsic logic and basic
identity for centuries or millennia on end" (19). Most of the ideas in this
sentence are very problematic. What makes folktale or fairytale
"genuine" and to what are such genuine tales opposed? literary elaborations?
Hollywood revisions? propaganda? The statement seems to take
for granted the existence of some kind of authentic storytelling that has
a certain "structure. intrinsic logic and basic identity." However. the
majority of the examples discussed display a dizzying diversity, and it is
very difficult to see any structure or intrinsic logic that could be specified
to exist in all of the Cinderella or Snow White versions that Anderson
discusses. Elsewhere the author uses expressions like "naturally
stable" (IS). "authentic" (16), "same basic material" (57), "original Urform"
(79). "skeleton of a story" (96). "basic framework" (IOI) in ways
that gloss over important issues of definition. In addition, Anderson
throughout the book refers to "elements" and "fragments" that are
symptomatic of a tale type, despite the loss of essential features. Moreover.
the idea that "genuine" narrative traditions are "stable" fOl'millennia
seems to imply-although this is never stated-a basic human nature
that is also stable for millennia. These are not issues that can simply
be avoided in a discussion of narrative traditions. Most symptomatic of
Anderson's interests is his dismissal of Propp's "morphology" of folktale
in favor of the more ample Aarne-Thompson classification system.
Whereas the former tends toward greater and greater abstraction. the
latter is more encyclopedic and allows for many connections and associations
to be made. In concluding that "the picture begins to emerge of
a shrinking and increasingly incestuous fairytale community where
everyone knows or is related to everybody else" (I70). Anderson is
simply rehearsing his own assumption for the whole work.
When it comes to particular analyses, there are certainly some connections
that are more convincing than others. To see Chariton's CalJirhoe
as a version of the"Innocent Slandered Maid" (AT Type 883) is not
too controversial: this is certainly a parallel to part of the story. But this
portion of the novel has been linked to specific examples of New Comedy.
a well-attested genre from which this and other novels often draw

406 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
elements of plot and character-in fact, Chariton several times quotes
Menander directly. It seems perverse to foreground a general connection
with a story "type" when a specific literary precedent exists that is
attested by direct citation. In the case of Xenophon of Ephesus, we might
expect that the explanation that he is adapting a Snow White folktale in
his Epheisan Tale would lead to a more sympathetic treatment of this
much-maligned novelist's plot structure: yet it turns out that he is just
as incompetent at this as everything else. The "elements" are there, but
irrationally distributed among the characters of the story. More unhelpful
yet, to my mind, is the association between Cinderella and the
novels of Longus and Heliodorus. In these two novels, in particular, it is
the literary texture that is so distinctive, something that can't simply be
attributed to an "expansion" or "elaboration" of a simpler story. The
three-sentence summary of Heliodorus' Ethiopian Tale on 147 makes it
sound like a Cinderella story. but no one who has read the novel will
recognize this summary as capturing anything essential about the
novel.
The work reads a little like a detective novel in which more and more
pieces of evidence are accumulated to reveal a massive plot. The gist of
that plot is that fairytales similar to the ones that have been told in
Europe since at least the Renaissance-Snow White. Cinderella. Little
Red Riding Hood-may have a much longer history going back beyond
classical antiquity. And indeed they may. It is reasonable that folk narrative
traditions are as old as language itself. although how "stable"
those traditions are is difficult to assess with the evidence that Anderson
adduces. It is not clear whether reading ancient literary narratives
in the light of modern folktale constructions will tell us much about
those old stories. Anderson's attempt to do so is a bold foray into an
enormous field. Despite the objections I have raised to his approach and
emphasis. I am impressed by the range of his reading and thinking on
this topic. Anderson is currently working on an anthology of ancient
fairytales which may provide a better basis for answering the questions
that this first effort raises.
STEVENIMIS
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
MIAMI UNIVERSITY
OXFORD. OH 45056

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 407
H.A. DRAKE. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of
Intolerance. Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University
Press. 2000. Pp. XX + 609. ISBN 0-8018-6218-3.
Comment expliquer Ie changement radical qui s'opere entre la persecution
de Diocletien, au debut du quatrieme siecle, et la convocation du
concile de Nicee, en 325, par Constantin? C'est a cette question historique
que Ie livre de Drake tente de repondre. Le resultat est une etude
globale de la question. pour laquelle Drake a fait appel a des concepts
modernes provenant des sciences politiques. de la sociologie et de
l'anthropologie. Cette analyse rafraichissante et detaillee est bien ancree
dans l'historiographie du sujet. Or. malgre certaines faiblesses mineures.
sans doute normales pour un texte d'une telle ampleur, cette etude
a Ie merite de prendre une position claire et de defendre une these originaIe
qui apporte une nouvelle interpretation au debat entourant la
question constantinienne.
Les objectifs de Drake sont nombreux. D'abord, il tente d'etablir un
Constantin beaucoup plus « politique », en laissant de cote autant que
possible la theologie, a l'instar de Peter Brown pour Augustin. I II considere
la foi de Constantin comme un fait acquis qui ne necessite aucune
remise en question (187). Le resultat de cette approche est une rehabilitation
politique de Constantin. De meme. comme Ie titre de l'ouvrage
l'indique implicitement, Drake tente de comprendre comment Ie
concept d'intolerance en est venu a etre assode avec Ie christianisme
puisque, pour lui. il est errone de considerer cette religion comme intrinsequement
intolerante. A cet egard. il conclut que les eveques ont
certainement contribue au processus de transformation du christianisme.
tout comme Ie bref regne de l'empereur Julien (361-3), qui aurait
cause une polarisation religieuse qui a detruit Ie consensus religieux
difficilement etabli par Constantin. Drake tente egalement de corriger
de nombreuses suppositions (selon lui) erronees, propagees par les historiens
depuis Gibbon, et tout particulierement Ie concept d'une
« revolution constantinienne » mis de l'avant par Barnes. 2 En effet. tout
au long de son etude, Drake insiste sur la longue duree. sur la continuite
avec Ie systeme imperial des deux premiers siecles plutot que sur les
differences. II va jusqu'a etablir un parallele entre les sources chretiennes
et pa'iennes au sujet de la « vision de 312» (184).
La these centrale de l'etude est la suivante : Drake interprete la politique
de Constantin envers Ie christianisme. et envers la religion en general.
comme etant la recherche d'un consensus: « his ability to create a
I Augustine ofHippo (Berkeley 1967).
2 T.O. Barnes. Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge. MA 1981).

408 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
stable consensus of Christians and pagans in favor of a religiously neutral
public space» (xv). Cest par ailleurs ce qui explique sa quete des
origines du phenomene d'intolerance, car si la pOlitique de Constantin
visait a l'etablissement d'un consensus global au plan religieux, cela
vient contredire la conception largement repandue selon laquelle la nature
du Christianisme etait fondamentalement intolerante. Cette recherche
constitue egalement l'aspect Ie plus original de cette interpretation,
puisque l'appui donne par Constantin a la religion chretienne est
habituellement presente comme uniquement reserve aux Chretiens
« orthodoxes ».
La principale objection pouvant etre soulevee envers l'interpretation
de Drake est l'anachronisme. 3 une critique serieuse pour un livre qui
depend autant d'analyses et de theories pOlitiques modernes. Drake luimeme
semble avoir ere au fait du danger, puisqu'il ecrit: « this is modern
terminology, used to help us understand the issue» (199). Le probleme
souleve par Barnes peut etre illustre en dressant une liste (non
exhaustive) des expressions utilisees par Drake tout au long de
l'ouvrage: « agendas )', « game with (many) players» (43), « rules of the
game» (44) ou d'autres compositions avec Ie mot « game» telles que
«game of empire », « club» (49), « wild cards» (69), « gridlock» (198),
« political hot potato» (217), « team players» (266), et ainsi de suite. Se
pourrait-il simplement que Drake est plus conscient de l'inevitable empreinte
de sa propre epoque sur son travail? Neanmoins, et meme si a
notre avis les critiques de Barnes sont nettement exagerees (e.g. Drake
« created a newall-American Constantine », ou encore que Ie livre de
Drake devrait etre traite « as a manifestation of American popular
culture »4), il est certainement discutable que des concepts utilises par la
science politique moderne peuvent etre appliques aux realites pOlitiques
fort differentes de I'Antiquite romaine.
D'autres critiques mineures peuvent etre soulevees. Aquelques reprises
dans Ie texte, l'argumentation de Drake fait explicitement reference
aux travaux d'historiens qui ne sont pas mentionnes dans les notes.
Ainsi, une allusion au concept de « comes divin » est faite a deux
reprises (184 et 379), sans toutefois renvoyer au fameux article d'Arthur
Darby Nock sur Ie sujet, bien que cette etude figure dans la bibliographie.
s De meme,lorsqu'un auteur ecrit que « there is no one solution on
which all scholars agree» (173), Ie lecteur interesse cherche une note qui
Ie guidera vel's une bibliographie sommaire, tout specialement si
30. T. D. Barnes, Phoenix 54.2000. p. 381-383.
4 Barnes, Phoenix 54,2000, p. 381.
sA. D. Nock, « The Emperor'sdivine comes»,jRS37.1947.P. 102-116.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 409
l'auteur lui-meme a deja publie un article a ce sujet et reprend alOI's certains
arguments developpes dans cette etude. 6
Un probleme mineur de structure vient egalement irriter Ie lecteur
lors de l'avant-dernier chapitre (ro, « The Fine Print »). La majeure partie
de ce chapitre est entierement devolue a une discussion methodologique
concernant l'utilisation d'Eusebe comme source historique.
N'aurait-il pas ete plus logique de traiter cette importante question des
Ie depart, a l'endroit OU de telles discussions sont normalement situees?
Le premier chapitre (

4IO BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
l'Empire? Si l'on considere un certain nombre de decisions douteuses.
du moins arbitraires. prises par Constantin. telles que l'assassinat de
Crispus, la creation d'une « Seconde Rome» sur l'ancien site de Byzance,
ou encore l'ouverture des hauts commandements militaires aux
peuples germaniques, il semble assez etrange de penseI' que l'empereur
ait eu besoin d'une quelconque forme de consensus avant de prendre
une decision. Peut-etre Drake applique-t-il ce concept uniquement a la
religion. analysee sous un angle politique qui considere la pOlitique religieuse
comme partie integrante de la politique au sens large. Mais envisagee
aussi cyniquement, la foi et la croyance en l'implication de(s)
Dieu(x) dans Ie monde disparait derriere la rationalisation moderne de
la devise de Drake que la politique est omnipresente. C'est ici que
l'accusation d'anachronisme de Barnes prend son sens Ie plus pl'Ofond.
puisqu'il semble que l'Antiquite est moins presente, dans Ie livre de
Drake, que la pensee rationnelle produite par la societe moderne de laquelle
il est issu. et selon laquelle l'acquisition du pouvoir constitue Ie
butultime.
Enfin. malgre les failles mineures presentees ici. l'etude de Drake
devrait dorenavant etre incluse dans la bibliographie de toute personne
serieusement interessee par Constantin. l'Antiquite tardive et les debuts
du monde chretien. Sa these originale fournit maintenant un interessant
contrepoids, une alternative necessaire a l'ouvrage de Barnes. qui avait
ete Ie centre d'attention de la question constantinienne depuis Ie debut
des annees 1980. Drake sera certainement Ie centre du debat pour Ie
prochain quart de siecle, si l'on suit Ie rythme etabli ces dernieres annees
dans les etudes constantiniennes. Finalement, la methodologie employee
soulevera sans aucun doute de nombreux debats et discussions.
qui ne peuvent que resulter en une reevaluation saine et salutaire de la
maniered'ecrirel'histoire.
ERIC FOURNIER
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
MCGILL UNIVERSITY
MONTREAL, QC H3A 2T7
MANFRED CLAUSS. The Roman Cult ofMithras. The God and
his Mysteries. Translated by Richard Gordon. New York:
Routledge, 200I. Pp. xxiv + 198. $37.95, US $24.95 (paper).
ISBN 0-415-92978-4.
The German original of this work was published in 1990. two years before
Clauss's outstanding catalogue and study of the 997 Mithraists

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 4II
known to us at that time (Cultores Mithrae: Die Anhangerschaft des
Mithras-Kultes). The latter is the more important and durable work:
but. of its nature. it scarcely requires translation. The former. as a comprehensive
study of the Mithras cult pitched at the level of the undergraduate
and general-interest reader. now aims to replace the translated
versions of Franz Cumont's Mysteries of Mithras (1903) and M.J.
Vermaseren's Mithras. the Secret God (1963. long out of print) in the
English-language market. It would deserve to succeed. were it not for a
massive deficiency in its methods.
Clauss. as he generously acknowledges (xv). was fortunate in his
translator. Richard Gordon. himself an accomplished and well-known
scholar of Mithraism. Unobtrusively. Gordon has added and corrected
much: for example. he introduces at an appropriate point (139) the important
membership list (album) discovered at Virunum/Klagenfurt
too late for the inclusion of its 98 names in either Cultores Mithrae or
Mithras: Kult und Mysterien. Gordon has also provided a bibliography
of "further reading" in English which covers not only the intervening
decade between the German original and the translation but also those
areas (see below) which Clauss disdains to cover.
In his preface. Clauss offers a twofold justification for his study. Too
much past scholarship. he claims. had been devoted first to "the issue of
Mithraism's supposed Persian or Iranian links" and secondly to "rather
unconvincing speculation about astrological issues" (xx). Clauss undertakes
to stick to the "facts." the facts being-the archaeological evidence
from "some 420 sites" ("about 1,000 inscriptions. and 700 depictions of
the bull-killing ... and in addition 400 monuments with other subjects"
[xxi]).
No one would quarrel with Clauss's insistence on the primacy of the
archaeological evidence of mithraea. inscriptions. and monuments in
reconstructing-as far as we ever can-the cult and its life. Moreover. I
would agree with Clauss. as a value judgement. that ritual and other
cult activities are more interesting than abstract theology. though not
that they are necessarily more readily recoverable from the data. I acknowledge.
too. that Clauss is a master of his craft. and that he explains
what is immediately explicable in the archaeological data skilfully and
persuasively. As a phenomenological description of the cult's archaeological
record. his study will not soon be surpassed.
Would that that were all there is to the historian's art. But it is not,
and especially not for the historian of religion. To describe and to arrange
the archaeological data. inferring what is either necessary in detail
(e.g.. an indisputable terminus post quem) or obvious in general
(e.g.. for Mithraism. the centrality of the shared meal both as mythic
event and cult practice). is the beginning of the story. not the end. In his

4[2 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
naive positivism. Clauss imagines that he has both eschewed "speculation"
and adduced all the relevant factual evidence. In fact. he has done
neither.
At this point youl' reviewer must declare himself one of the banished
astrological "speculators." so you may wish to take his protestations
with several grains of salt. My point. however. is not that Clauss has
failed to recognize a particular astral theology in the Mithraic mystel'ies.
but that he has failed to see that astrology functions as an idiom of
symbolic communication in the iconography of the monuments and the
design of mithraea ("medium." not "message"!). Astral symbolism did
not just find its way on to the monuments of Mithraism: it was deployed
there deliberately and learnedly. This is fact. not speculation: for the
probability that the astral symbols in the cult's principal icon. the
tauroctony. are as they are by unintended coincidence is negligible
(something in the order of three chances in one hundred million. I have
calculated). If youl' preference is for more traditional proof. you may
wish to consult Porphyry's explicit statement (De antra nympharum 6).
borne out in exquisite detail in the plan of the extant "Seven Spheres"
mithraeum at Ostia. that the archetypal mithraeum is designed as "an
image of the universe" and "equipped with appropriately positioned
cosmic symbols" in order to effect "initiation into a mystel'y of the
sours descent and return" (see. most recently. my article in ]RS 90
[2000) 145-180).
Of this aspect of the form and function of the mithraeum. because
our knowledge of it depends primarily on literary rather than archaeological
evidence. and because it involves "astrology." hence
"speculation." you will find nothing in Clauss. Ironically. though. Clauss
does provide. in Chapters 2 ("Religious perspectives in the Roman empire")
and 3 ("Mystery religions"). a succinct and well-drawn background
description of precisely the sort of late antique astral theology
and soteriology which he refuses to recognize in the very cult which is
his actual subject!
These are sins of omission. the exclusion of germane factual evidence.
For sins of commission. the inclusion of speculative interpretation.
one may look. for example. at Clauss's analysis (95-98) of the esoteric
deities Cautes and Cautopates. the twin clones of Mithras. one carrying
a raised torch and the other a lowered torch. The main
hermeneutic problem posed by this pair is that their positions on the
left and right sides of the tauroctony are interchangeable. Italian representations
generally have Cautes (raised torch) on the left and Cautopates
(lowered torch) on the right. Rhine and Danube reliefs vice versa.
In 1977 I set out some of the astronomical parameters for relating these
two principal compositional variants (journal of Mithraic Studies 2.

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 4 13
1-17). parameters which have the virtue of being non-esoteric. hence
the same for those inside the cult and those outside. and as knowable to
moderns as to ancients. These objective criteria Clauss ignores. reverting
instead to ad hoc-well. "speculation" is the appropriate term: if a
set of meanings can't be transferred from one situation to another, a
plausible new set can always be conjured up.
Because Clauss is an experienced and knowledgeable classicist. the
"meanings" which he generates for Mithraic symbols are almost always
plausible and worth advancing. It is method. specifically semiological
method. that is lacking. Rightly. Clauss emphasizes the dynamics of the
image and the symbol in the Mithraic mysteries (IS. 17). At the end of
the brief chapter (4) on "The nature of the evidence." Clauss makes a
powerful statement with which I would heartily agree: "The cult is an
example of the primacy of images in the ancient world. in ancient
thought. and of the power of the symbolic. of life lived beneath the suzerainty
of symbols." Amen to that: but tell me then. what is your semiology.
how do symbols "mean." how are they related one to another?
Explicit rules. not empirical common sense. furnish the answers.
ROCER BECK
ERINDALE COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
MISSISSAUGA. ON LSL IC6
ANDREW CALIMACH. Lovers' Legends: The Greek Gay
Myths. New Rochelle, NY: Haiduk Press, 2002. Pp. 179.
Numerous black and white illustrations. ISBN 0-9714686-0-
5·
This review is brief since Calimach's book does not pretend to be a
scholarly study. Indeed. it is better viewed as a piece of advocacy for
male same-sex love that draws on Greek roots. Allen Ginsberg's "Old
Love Story." a paean in rhyming couplets-an uncharacteristically traditional
verse form for him-to male homosexual love throughout the
ages. which is prefaced to the main text. signals as much. quite aside
from the author's own statements in the introduction entitled. "Beloved
charioteers." and in the following chapters. as well as an afterword by
Heather Elizabeth Peterson. whose credentials are not identified. The
author does not have a knowledge of the classical languages. and while
he expresses his indebtedness to modern scholarship. he refers to very
little of it explicitly. including in the bibliography. Indeed. only Bernard
Sergent's book on homosexuality in Greek myth is significantly ac-

414 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTESRENDUS
knowledged. This French scholar. of course. holds that the Greek paederasty
that we know of from the Archaic and Classical periods is a survival
from socio-religious rites. of ancient Indo-European origin. that
served to initiate adolescent boys into adulthood; and that these customs
and rituals left their imprint in some Greek myths. It is a theory that
has not won a wide acceptance.
Mr Calimach retells a number of these myths in his own words. and
interspersed between his versions are major excerpts from pseudo­
Lucian's Erotes. the well-known dialogue of the second century which
debates the respective virtues of heterosexuality and paederasty. with
paederasty adjudicated at the end to be superior. Unfortunately. the
author lets his imagination roam too loosely. Inventiveness is probably
justified in the retelling of "gay" myths where the surviving literary
tradition supplies only a bare record of names and events. as. for instance.
in the story of Laius and Chrysippus. But why. in the retelling of
the tale of Narcissus. which has its classical version in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
is the story of the nymph Echo's unhappy love for the young
man suppressed? Even more seriously. the retelling of the story of
Achilles and Patroclus unacceptably flattens and even distorts Homer:
the Iliad is far more than the love story of Achilles and Patroclus; Agamemnon
does not himself go into Achilles' tent to take Briseis away; and
Achilles and Patroclus do not sleep under the same blanket.
Calimach's work is useful in that it lists the extant literary versions
of each of the myths it retells. In addition. the provenance of the art
works-including many vase paintings-with which the book is lavishly
illustrated. is admirably catalogued. But. even as a purely literary exercise.
this book. in my judgment. fails.
B. VERSTRAETE
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
ACADIA UNIVERSITY
WOLFVILLE. NS BoP rXo

AN EARLIER FOUR-WORD ELEGAIC COUPLET
H.H. HUXLEY
Thanks to the kindness of Dr. M.D. Reeve. Emeritus Professor of Latin
at Cambridge University. I am able to quote a pentameter followed by
a hexameter which were perpetrated (no other word is appropriateD
by one Marcius Valerius Maximus who wrote a single work consisting
of a prologue and two eclogues. Here lines 16-I 7 of the first eclogue
are quoted. The date is the twelfth century.
Praetermiserunt commemorabilia.
Decantaverunt inconsumrnabiliora.
They omitted subjects worthy of mention
and sang of matters more imperishable.
Needless to say. inconsummabiliora makes no appearance in any Latin
dictionary!
H.H. HUXLEY.
ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE. CAMBRIDGE

MOUSEION
Index to Volume XLVI - Series III. Vol. 2. 2002
ARTICLES
Eugenio Amato. An Echo ofSappho in Favorinus? 39
Pierre Bonnechere. John M. Fossey. Ereneia. Eriniates? A Problem
in Pausanias I.44.5 203
Craig Cooper. Aristoxenos. TlEpi /3fwv and Peripatetic Biography 307
Cheryl Cox. Assuming the Master's Values: The Slave's Response to
Punishment and Neglect in Menander 23
N.F. Fedoseev. Les temoignages archeologiques sur une clerouquie
AthenienneaSinope I89
John M. Fossey. Pierre Bonnechere, Ereneia. Eriniates? A Problem
in Pausanias I.44.5 203
Eric Fournier. Les origines d'un atelier monetaire itinerant:
Reflexions apartir des cas de Tr'eves. Milan et Sirmium
(ITf- V" siecles) 245
Jane Francis. The Roman Crouching Aphrodite 21 I
Ben Gourley. Hector Williams. Gerald Schaus. Susan-Marie Cronkite
Price. Kathleen Donahue Sherwood. Yannis Lolos. Excavations at
Ancient Stymphalos. I999-2002 135
Yannis Lolos. Hector Williams. Gerald Schaus. Ben Gourley. Susan­
Marie Cronkite Price. Kathleen Donahue Sherwood, Excavations
at Ancient Stymphalos. I999-2002 135
Susan-Marie Cronkite Price. Hector Williams. Gerald Schaus. Ben
Gourley. Kathleen Donahue Sherwood. Yannis Lolos. Excavations
at Ancient Stymphalos. I999-2002 I35
H. Roisman. Alice and Penelope: Female Indignation in Eyes Wide
Shut and the Odyssey 34 I
L.J. Sanders. Callippus
Gerald Schaus. Hector Williams. Ben Gourley. Susan-Marie Cronkite
Price. Kathleen Donahue Sherwood. Yannis Lolos. Excavations at
Ancient Stymphalos. 1999-2002 135
Kathleen Donahue Sherwood. Hector Williams. Gerald Schaus. Ben
Gourley. Susan-Marie Cronkite Price. Yannis Lolos. Excavations
at Ancient Stymphalos. 1999-2002 135
David Shive. "OI-lTJPOC 'Ac:iaToc 299

418 INDEX TO VOLUMEXLVI-SERIESIII. VOL. II,2002
Richard Hope Simpson. The Mycenae Roads and Mycenaean
Charioffi 125
Hector Williams. Gerald Schaus. Ben Gourley. Susan-Marie Cronkite
Price. Kathleen Donahue Sherwood. Yannis Lolos. Excavations at
Ancient Stymphalos, 1999-2002 135
Martin M. Winkler. The Face of Tragedy: From Theatrical Mask to
Cinematic Close-Up 43
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
Graham Anderson, Fairytale in the Ancient World
(Steve Nimis) 404
Warwick Ball. Rome in the East: The Transformation ofan Empire
(D.F. Buck) 108
John Barsby. ed. and trans., Terence (Benjamin Victor) 383
D.L. Bomgardner. The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre
(Lea Stirling) 286
Joan Booth and Guy Lee. Catullus to Ovid: Reading Latin
Love Elegy (Barbara Weiden Boyd) 388
Laurence Bowkett. Stephen Hill, Diana and K.A. Wardle.
Classical Archaeologyin the Field: Approaches (Anne Foley) 268
Peter Brown. Augustine ofHippo: A Biography. A New Edition
with an Epilogue (Dennis Trout) I I I
Andrew Calimach. Lovers' Legends: The Greek Gay Myths
(B. Verstraete) 413
John M. Camp. The ArchaeologyofAthens (Gerald Schaus) 272
Manfred Clauss. The Roman Cult ofMithras. The God and his
Mysteries (John Beck) 410
Nicholas Denyer. ed.. Plato. Alcibiades (David J. Murphy) 86
H.A. Drake. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of
Intolerance (Eric Fournier) 407
Monica R. Gale. Lucretius and the Didactic Epic (Diana M. Walton) 103
Hans Rupprecht Goette. Athens, Attica and the Megarid. An
Archaeological Guide (Franco de Angelis) 275
Helen King. Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in
Ancient Greece (Tana J. Allen) 80
John T. Kirkby. Secret ofthe Muses Retold: Classical Influences on
Italian Authors ofthe Twentieth Century (Massimo Fusillo) I IS
M.J.T. Lewis. Surveying Instruments ofGreece and Rome
(John Peter Oleson) 282
Stanley Lombardo. trans.. Sappho. Poems and Fragments
(Bonnie Maclachlan) 373

INDEX TO VOLUME XL VI- SERIES III. VOL. 2. 2002 4 [9
Nino Luraghi. ed.. The Historian's Craft in the Age ofHerodotus
(James Allan Evans) 377
Carlo Natali. The Wisdom ofAristotle (Martha Husain) 90
J. Neils. The Parthenon Frieze (Julia L. Shear) 278
Michael Padgett. ed.. Roman Sculpture in the Art Museum,
Princeton University (Jane Francis) 293
David S. Potter. Literary Texts and the Roman Historian (Catherine
Rubincam) 93
Jonathan J. Price. Thucydides and Internal War
(Frances Skoczylas Pownall) 76
Sergio Ribichini. Maria Rocchi. Paolo Xella. eds.. La questione
deJJe infJuenze vicino-orientali suJJa religione greca
(Noel Robertson) 365
Patricia A. Rosenmeyer. Ancient Epistolary Fictions: The Letter in
Greek Literature (Kathryn Chew) 4°1
Lene Rubinstein. Litigation and Cooperation: Supporting Speakers
in the Courts ofClassical Athens (Craig Cooper) 71
D.R. Shackleton Bailey. ed. and trans.. Cicero: Letters to Friends;
D.R. Shackleton Bailey. ed. and trans.. Cicero: Letters to Quintus
and Brutus. Letter Fragments. Letter to Octavian. Invectives,
Handbook of Electioneering (A.H. Mamoojee) 97
David R. Slavitt. trans.. Propertius in Love: The Elegies
(Steven J. Willett) 392
J.T. Smith. Roman Villas: A Study in Social Structure
(Michele George) 290
James Whitley. The Archaeology ofAncient Greece
(David W. Rupp) 263
MISCELLANEA LA TINA
A. Daviault. Gratiarum Actio
H.H. Huxley. An Earlier Four-Word Elegaic Couplet 4[5
P. Murgatroyd. Prelude [24