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The Ġāyat al-ḥakīm (“the Aim of the Sage”), the Arab ancestor of the celebrated Picatrix on astral magic, includes a curious tenfold classification of the sciences, with five disciplines said to be compulsory “for the legislators” and five “for the philosopher”. This classification was once described by Hellmut Ritter and Martin Plessner as “ein Unikum in der umfangreichen Einteilungsliteratur”. This paper is a survey of medieval texts concerned with a tenfold classification of the sciences, ranging from a wide collection of sources including the world chronicles of Agapius and Girgīs al-Makīn, the Ādāb al-falāsifa, the Sindbādnāma, the Pseudo-Avicennian alchemical De anima, and Roger Bacon’s edition of the Secretum Secretorum. It appears from this survey that the Ādāb al-falāsifa certainly played a crucial role in the transmission of these traditions, but that other texts, in particular amongst the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica, may have been influential as well. Regarding the ultimate origin of this material we are reduced to mere speculations, although various elements invite us to consider Middle Persian literature as a more plausible formative stage than Greek literature in the conception of tenfold classifications of knowledge.

In 86 BC Sulla sacked Athens. The siege left deep marks in the cityscape and in the literary sources. This article traces a diachronic development in the ancient reception of the sack of Athens in Greek literature, from the first century BC through the second century AD. In earlier authors the siege is presented primarily in a military context, while in later authors the emphasis shifts onto Sulla’s destruction of cultural capital. His treatment of Athens comes to be understood as irrational and excessive. I argue that this latter depiction is an anchoring device that roots the new perception of the city during the Empire in the Republican past. In the first two centuries AD Athens increasingly came to be seen as the symbol of Greek culture. Plutarch and Pausanias react to this growing Athenocentrism by retrojecting an image of Athens as cultural symbol onto the first century BC.

Arguably, the most famous myth told about Persephone is her abduction and marriage to Hades. The story clearly articulates the strong connection between marriage and death, and this episode became significant in both literature and religious practice in the wider classical Greek world. Reference to the story of Persephone’s abduction came to be used as a shorthand for evoking this connection, particularly in myth. This paper discusses two particular ways in which Persephone’s narrative was used in marriage and death. I examine the pre-marriage offerings to Persephone at Lokroi Epizephyrioi, in southern Italy, and the tradition of Athenian girls who died unmarried being buried as brides. These cultic instances frame a discussion of Brides of Hades, particularly in tragedy. Overall, I conclude that these girls do not attempt to replace Persephone, but rather to imitate her: they ‘play the role’ of Persephone at various stages of her own abduction and marriage story.

In Greek Literature the characteristics of swans are used as a metaphor for a variety of human values. Their colour, their bravery and their singing are the three main characteristics we usually find in Greek texts as synonyms for beauty, courage and musical dexterity. In this paper, I try to go a step further, to explore whether it is possible to discover how ancient writers imagined the κύκνειον ᾆσµα might have sounded. I analyse the type of sound the relevant texts represent as their singing and even the use of their bodies as instruments in certain texts. I then show how ancient writers illustrated the swan song, the κύκνειον ᾆσµα, in musical contexts beyond the image of swans as animals capable of singing their dirge of death.

The substantial corpus of Jewish literature surviving in Greek shows that some Jews appropriated Greek literature and philosophy in highly sophisticated ways. This article argues that Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees are examples of a Jewish paideia, a Jewish cultural literacy in Greek. This Jewish paideia was indebted to the language, literary forms, and philosophy of Hellas, but was set apart by endorsing the Torah as its foundation text. The difference between Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees is not in their appropriation of Greek paideia but rather in how they endorse the Greek Torah in relation to the ideals of Greek paideia. The Letter of Aristeas invokes the ideals of Greek paideia to substantiate a Jewish paideia while 2 Maccabees places Jewish ideals in competition with those of Athens. Both works, however, articulate a Jewish paideia.

This study highlights features of the Letter of Aristeas that reveal how that story conceives of the royal translation project. It will apply the concept of ‘auxiliary texts’ developed by Markus Dubischar based on the conversation theory of Paul Grice in order to show that Aristeas understands the Hebrew Pentateuch as a failing text. It will be shown that because Aristeas both respects the traditions and teachings contained within the Pentateuch, and recognizes the failure of the text outside of a particular context, it sees the translation as necessary for the Pentateuch’s survival. The study will compare the statements related in prologues from Graeco-Roman ‘auxiliary texts’ to statements in the Letter of Aristeas to underline the ways how the Greek translation of the Hebrew text is simultaneously conceived of as a correction of the problems inherent in the Hebrew text tradition, and is not attempting to entirely replace that tradition.

In this collected volume fourteen experts in the fields of Classics and Ancient History study the textual strategies used by Herodotus and Livy when recounting the disastrous battles at Thermopylae and Cannae. Literary, linguistic and historical approaches are used (often in combination) in order to enhance and enrich the interpretation of the accounts, which for obvious reasons confronted the authors with a special challenge. Chapters drawing a comparison with other battle narratives and with other genres help to establish genre-specific elements in ancient historiography, and draw attention to the particular techniques employed by Herodotus and Livy in their war narratives.

This collective volume arises from a Wellcome-funded conference held at the University of Warwick in 2014 about the “new” Galen discovered in 2005 in a Greek manuscript, De indolentia. In the wake of the latest English translation published by Vivian Nutton in 2013, this book offers a multi-disciplinary approach to the new text, discussing in turn issues around Galen’s literary production, his medical and philosophical contribution to the theme of avoiding distress (ἀλυπία), controversial topics in Roman history such as the Antonine plague and the reign of Commodus, and finally the reception of the text in the Islamic world. Gathering eleven contributions by recognised specialists of Galen, Greek literature and Roman history, it revisits the new text extensively. See Less

In recent research, a number of scholars have questioned the classification of paratactic καί in the nt Gospels as a syntactic Semitism. As a review of all available evidence demonstrates, however, the strong dominance of paratactic καί in the Gospel of Mark has close analogies in the lxx but is unparalleled in ancient original Greek literature. This conclusion can be supplemented by additional evidence which has so far not been taken into account: The very high frequency of paragraph introducing καί in the Second Gospel has many parallels in the Greek ot but is without analogy in original Greek texts. Because of its exceptional frequency on sentence and pericope level, it is still correct to classify paratactic καί in Mark’s Gospel as a syntactic Semitism, albeit a secondary one.

The genitive ἧς at Iliad 5.265 is sometimes considered due to attractio relativi. Alternatively it is taken as a partitive or ablatival genitive, or emended. The question matters for Greek linguistic chronology because uncontroversial attractio relativi is not found until the fifth century BC. This paper addresses the question via a fresh examination of the syntax and sense of lines 265-269. The linguistically most plausible views are: (i) we should not understand εἰσίν with τῆς γάρ τοι γενεῆς, nor punctuate strongly after 267; (ii) ἧς should stand, and is a partitive genitive; (iii) οὕνεκα means ‘because’. The resulting interpretation implies that Zeus accessed some pre-existing stock of horses, otherwise unknown to Greek literature. For many scholars this is a fatal objection to ἧς as a partitive genitive, with some concluding that ἧς is due to attractio relativi or corrupt, and others that ἧς is an ‘ablatival genitive’ (a suggestion that does not solve the perceived problem). This paper defends the partitive genitive analysis on the grounds that Homeric audiences could easily have imagined Zeus getting the horses from some pre-existing stock. Parallels support the plausibility of this background assumption. We do not have a Homeric instance of attractio relativi.

This article investigates the prefatory material in 2 Maccabees (2:19-32; 15:38-39) in order to reveal the motivation and attitude of the epitomator of 2 Maccabees toward the text he is adapting. The article argues that the concept of auxiliary texts, recognized in Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic texts by classicist Markus Dubischar, is the lens through which to properly understand the preface and therefore the scribe’s motivation for textual adaptation. The article further employs these conclusions to question whether other texts from the Judean milieu might also be best understood in this category.

Albert Rijksbaron is internationally known as one of the leading scholars of the Ancient Greek language, whose work has exerted a strong and lasting influence on the scholarly debate concerning many aspects of Greek linguistics. This volume brings together twenty of his papers, two of which have been translated into English and some which are not easily accessible elsewhere. The selection represents the full range of Rijksbaron’s research, including papers on central topics in Greek linguistics such as tense-aspect, mood, voice, particles, negation, the article, questions, discourse analysis, as well as on the views of ancient grammarians and modern commentators. As a whole, the volume shows how much linguistic analysis can contribute to our understanding of Greek literary texts.

The aim of the paper is to examine socio-cultural assumptions behind the perception of epigraphic writing among the pepaideumenoi of the empire in the second century CE, and, relatedly, to outline the ideologies of Greek epigraphic writtenness through close readings of select key passages from authors of the Second Sophistic. In the first section, the paper investigates attitudes to epigraphic writing in Pollux’ Onomasticon (especially 5.149-50) and discusses the apparent accentuation of ancientness and (un)readability of inscriptions. In the second part, the argument addresses issues of epigraphic literacy, elite monumentalization and political prestige by zeroing in on a passage from Arrian’s Periplous and dissecting the spectrum of meanings implied in Greek adjective eusēmos. The third section examines the ideological force of graffitism which sources of second century CE cast as the socio-cultural antipode of high epigraphy; the focus is now on the epithet asēmos.

The words of Jesus to Peter in Mark 8:33c are widely translated along the lines of “You are not thinking the way God thinks, but the way people think.” The translation wholly obscures this idiom that was very common in Greek literature, and erroneously relocates the thrust of Jesus’ rebuke from Peter’s relationship to Jesus, to Peter’s understanding of the messianic task. Examination of the evidence of Classical and Koine Greek usage of this construction furnishes ample support for the alternative translation, “you are not on the side of God but the side of people,” a translation better suited to what follows in Mark 8:34-38.

This article aims at re-assessing the proverb which hints at Stesichorus’ τρία (ἔπη/μέρη) and takes ignorance of them as a symbol of indisputable ἀμουσία. Phrasing and meaning of the proverb are discussed; based on the different explanations given in the manuscript testimonia and on the elements implied by the proverb itself, I then argue that the proverb had multiple meanings from the beginning. The survival of the proverb also provides clues to the diachronic fortune of the poetic persona under Stesichorus’ name and to the awareness of the triadic responsion over time.

The phrase λεπτὸν καί τι μελιχρὸν ἔπος in Hedylus 5 Gow–Page has been read as engaging with Callimachean esthetic language, though its precise significance has been debated. This paper argues that Hedylus’ engagement with Callimachean esthetic imagery and language is best understood by juxtaposing Hedylus 4 and 5 Gow–Page. The structure of the former, on a gold rhyton dedicated to Arsinoe Zephyritis, pointedly treats two Egyptian deities—one miniature, the other colossal—in language evocative of poetic composition, and does so in a way that effaces the bright oppositions between large and small in the prologue to Callimachus’ Aetia. At the same time, the poem identifies sounds made by wine with sounds made by water, and thus sheds light on Hedylus’ treatment of wine as a source of poetic inspiration in both epigrams. Far from being a rebuttal of Callimachean values, these poems appropriate and adapt his esthetic imagery and language to the genre of epigram.

This article offers a non-exhaustive survey of translation activities for texts, secular and religious, from Greek into Syriac and, to a lesser extent, Georgian, Armenian, and other languages. Some remarks on theoretical and historical considerations surrounding these activities precede the survey itself. Comments on agenda and desiderata conclude the article.

There are two versions of Aristotle’s will. One of them is found in Diogenes Laertios’ account of Aristotle in his Lives of the Philosophers, the second one is preserved (only) in an Arabic translation as a part of Ptolemy’s biography of Aristotle. A comparison of these two versions shows that the Arabic translation is a faithful rendering of a lost Greek version. This Greek version, furthermore, is not based on that preserved in Diogenes Laertios, but is rather an independent second version, whose function inter alia was to support the case of Aristotle’s son Nikomachos within inheritance disputes.

One of a series addressing different countries, this article presents a ‘Top Ten’ choice of books about Greece plus forty or so supplementary titles. ‘Greece’ is conceptualized as including not only the modern nation state but also the broader Greek oikoumene spanning 5000 years of history. Continuities through history are emphasized to avoid a polarized perspective of ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ Greece. The books selected cover: history, myth and folklore, biography, fiction, poetry, art, travel, society and environment, philosophy, and current affairs. Together they convey not only the distinctiveness and complexity of Greek civilization but also its perennial international significance.

This article focuses on the presentation of retaliatory violence in Athenian tragedy. It suggests that such tit-for-tat violence is characterized as problematic from the earliest Greek literature onwards, but also stresses the continuing importance of anger, honour, and revenge in classical Athenian attitudes to punishment and justice. With these continuities in mind, it analyses the new process by which punishment and justice were achieved in Athens, and argues that the Athenians’ emphasis on the authority of their laws is central to understanding tragedy’s portrayal of personalized vengeance and the chaos that ensues from it. Though (for reasons of space) it focuses on only a selection of plays in detail (A.Eu., S.El., E.El.,Or.), the article adduces further examples to show that the same socio-historical developments are central to the portrayal of retaliatory violence throughout the genre, and ends by considering how tragedy, in depicting revenge as problematic, offers a more positive alternative to such violence which does justice to the emotional and social needs of its audience.

Herewith we present an interdisciplinary study of the metrical funerary inscription from the third century CE (CIG 3272; Peek GV 1166). This emotional Greek epitaph reports the short life (from birth to death) of the 4 year old Lucius Minicius Anthimianus. This is the first detailed study since the dissertation by Klitsch (1976). The inscription presents an ideal case for a truly interdisciplinary study of the patient-history, in that its interpretation involves the study of Greek literature and linguistics, epigraphy, social and religious history, and ancient medicine. It also offers ample opportunity to show the contradictions inherent in proposing retrospective diagnosis, without neglecting the relevant information modern medicine has to offer for the interpretation of this case history. We argue that Lucius' father was most probably a physician, that the text of the inscription stems from expert knowledge of ancient medicine and that the traditional retrospective diagnosis of this case, tuberculosis, is an untenable hypothesis.

Dreams are used figuratively throughout Greek literature to refer to something fleeting and/or unreal. In Plato, this metaphorical language is specifically used to describe an epistemological distinction: the one who has false knowledge or opinion is said to be dreaming while the one who has true knowledge is said to be awake. These figures are also central to Philo of Alexandria’s philosophical language in De somniis 1-2 and De Iosepho. Although scholars have documented these epistemological metaphors in Plato and related treatments of the concept of sleep in Heraclitus, it has not been discussed in any detail in relation to Philo’s treatment of Joseph in these two treatises. In De somniis 1-2, Philo primarily emphasizes his role as a dreamer and thus one incapable of true knowledge. In De Iosepho, Joseph is a dream interpreter who is not only awake but also capable of interpreting the figurative dream of life to which most people are subject. Although some scholars have considered these treatises contradictory in terms of their treatments of Joseph, an analysis of Philo’s figurative use of sleep and dreaming reveals that they are a part of a coherent exegetical framework.

In Greek literature from antiquity, there is a set of terms formed from verbs of origination or generation and prefixed with ατο-, which are represented primarily in three types of literature prior to the fifth century: in the surviving fragments from Numenius, in apologetic histories which incorporate oracular statements about first gods, and in the reports about and examples of Sethian literature. By considering the range of transliterated words in the Coptic Untitled Treatise based upon ατο- prefixed generative terms from Greek, we can discern several of the traditions that underlie this text’s multiple, often competing, narratives about the structure and population of the divine world. Many of those traditions are also recorded in apologetic histories, and comparison with these shows that the Untitled Treatise is an example of a different mode of historical writing, one which is preservationist rather than explicitly persuasive.

The notion of delayed generational punishment, or ancestral fault, has a long history in Greek literature. The identification of its earliest attestations in the Archaic period is contested, especially its presence in Homeric poetry. This paper aims to show that delayed generational punishment does indeed appear in Homer, where it is, however, confined to one context: the great oath of exôleia of Iliad 3.298-301 and 4.155-65. The institutional and ritual context of the generational oath is essential to understanding this earliest Greek attestation of ancestral fault, and making sense of the idea’s larger significance for narrative perspective, divine justice, and temporal order in the Homeric epic.

Philo's manner of quoting and referring to Greek poets has never been systematically investigated. This article shows how Philo often quotes Homer, but also Hesiod, Solon, Pindaros and Theognis. He knows the poets as well any Greek writer. In most cases, Philo quotes the verses exactly as we have them from other sources, preserving all the dialectic peculiarities. However, he may correct the quotation theologically, make a mistake or drop a line, and sometimes he might have learned a text that differed from ours. He often cleverly gives the words a new sense and makes them speak for his own view, following the manner of the Stoics. Philo's works allow us a glimpse the learned circles of the Alexandrian Jews. Philo had memorized poets in gymnasium. He hardly lost the contact to them after his early years, but allowed them to entertain him and his friends during his lifetime.

A literary strand of narratives about Saul in 1 Samuel emerged in a process of rewriting Israelite-Judean history. 1 Sam 26* and a number of other episodes (1 Sam 10:8; 10:17-27; 13:7a-13a; 14:24-46; parts of 1 Sam 9; 1 Sam 16:1-13; 16:14-23; 17*; 1 Sam 28*, 31*; 2 Sam 1*) present the first Israelite king as a figure that was informed by Greek tragic heroism. More specifically, the themes and the formation of the characters in the story of David's nocturnal intrusion in 1 Samuel 26 are set side by side with the post-classical drama Rhesus. 1 Sam 26 is understood as a narrative comment on Saul's destiny in prophetic tradition. Saul's tragic heroism is described with skl “to act foolishly” 1 Sam 26:21b. Also, Qohelet's royal travesty in Eccl 1:12-2:26 alludes to this notion of Saul as a tragic king who acts foolishly (skl). He is contrasted with his glorious opponent David who succeeds (śkl) in all his endeavours.

In the New Testament there are quotations from pagan texts which are normally explained as a sign of Paul and Luke's acquaintance with Greek literature. A more accurate examination of the relevant texts shows, however, that each of these quotations makes more sense if considered against the background of early Jewish practice. The connection with pagan literature serves at the same time as an intertextual reference to Jewish polemics against paganism. This conclusion confirms once more the well-known thesis of M. Hengel, namely that there is no direct dependence of early Christianity on non-Jewish thought.

The meaning of έαν μη in Gal. 2:16 went unquestioned until James Dunn challenged the traditional understanding of 2:16a, that justification is by faith, not by works of the law. If έαν μη can only indicate an exception to an entire statement as Dunn assumes, then Gal. 2:16a must say that people can be justified by works of the law as long as they have faith, a statement Paul reverses in the latter part of the verse. This essay seeks to supply what has been missing in the argument for the traditional position: the grammatical proof that έαν μη does not have to take exception to an entire statement.

The phrase "ten archen" in Jn 8:25 is unique in the NT and has caused much debate in interpretation, because in Gr. lit. it usually occurs as (a) "[from] the beginning" and (b) idiomatically "to begin with", "at all". The unique reading "eipon umin" Papyrus Bodmer II (P 66 ) gives the sense: "I told you from the beginning". However, this reading is probably not original, so the pursuit must continue. An investigation into c. 5.000 occurrences in Greek lit. of all times indicates that here we have a temporal use of the idiomatic adverbial accusative "ten archen" = "from the beginning". Taking into account the conjunction "kai" as well as the position of the expression, Jn 8:25 should be translated: - "Who are you?" - "[I am] From the beginning! - precisely what I have been saying (speaking) to you".

Since the Greek word magos (a loan-word from Old Persian magu-) is semantically polyvalent, interpretations of the role and the literary function of the magi in Matthew’s narrative on the birth of Jesus and the Star of Bethlehem have tended to be very different. The important role of the Star of Bethlehem in Matthew chapter two has led many scholars to assume that the magi must appear in this story because they were widely known as experts in astrology. Knowledge of astrology, however, is not commonly attributed to the magi in Greek literature; this is the case independent of the question of whether the magi were seen as Zoroastrian priests or as practitioners of what has been called, after them, the art of ‘magic’. In the absence of convincing arguments for an astrological role of the magi, both in historical reality and in the Greek literary imagination, this chapter argues that the role of the magi in Matthew’s story must be interpreted in the light of their connection with kingship. This was a connection they had both in historical reality and in the imagined Persian courts of authoritative Greek authors.

In the passage Exod. xxii 20-26 the poor man cries to God after he had been mal-treated by a powerful creditor. In response God acts as an avenger against that evil individual. The article first clarifies the background to such violent acts by proprietors in Ancient Near Eastern Laws, and the response to it in the laws of Deuteronomy xxiv. The curse and revenge are then explained in the light of parallel practices from ancient Greek literature, mainly from the Oddesey. Curse practices meant to restore justice are explored on the basis of Greek binding spells and of the corpus of Greek literary curses. The image of the Mesopotamian god "ama" as an avenging god is analyzed according to the famous Babylonian "ama" hymn and to that god's epitheta. Finally, examples of Hebrew curse literature are highlighted in the Book of Job and in Psalm cix.

Building on the work of Scheid and Svenbro (Craft of Zeus, 1996) regarding the political significance of weaving in Greek literature, this essay attempts to proffer the Odyssey’s political teaching through an interpretation of Penelope’s wily weaving of the burial shroud for the former king, Laertes. Homeric scholars have often noted the multiple oddities surrounding the shroud; few critics have noted the peculiarity of the dethroned Laertes. In spite of recent attempts by scholars such as Halverson, ‘The Succession Issue in the Odyssey’ (1986), to discredit political interpretations of the Odyssey as well as Homer’s understanding of kingship, I contend that Homer is presenting the institution in a state of transition. The shroud for Laertes will thus provide an interpretive key for narrating both the change of office enacted by Odysseus’ rule and the new political order formed at the end of the Odyssey.

This article examines and evaluates important interpretations of the εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν prepositional series in Rom. 1:17. It evaluates these interpretations in light of four criteria: (1) Is the interpretation consistent with usage of the construction in ancient Greek texts? (2) Does the interpretation address a theme of Romans that is prominent enough to account for its inclusion in the programmatic statement? (3) Is the interpretation consistent with Paul's normal modes of expression? (4) Is the interpretation compatible with the Hab. 2:4 citation? These criteria raise serious doubts about several well-established interpretations and suggest that scholars should more seriously consider the interpretation of Chrysostom and other Greek fathers.

Die hier anzuzeigende Geschichte des politischen Denkens im antiken Griechenland und Rom gehort in den grossangelegten Plan der Cambridger Universitaitspresse, die Tradition der europaischen politischen Ideen in einer Reihe darzustellen. Mit dem Band History of Greek and Roman Political Thought liegt nunmehr, nach den BBanden zum Mittelalter und zur friihen Neuzeit,' eine kontinuierliche Geschichte des politischen Denkens Europas vor, soweit es zwischen dem archaischen Griechenland und dem Ende der fruhen Neuzeit (A.D. 1700) in Erscheinung getreten ist. In seiner Anlage unterscheidet sich der Band von den schon vorliegenden Teilen der Reihe dadurch, dass er, seinem erklarten Ziel nach, weniger eine Geschichte der Ideen als der Denker prasentieren will (<

The article aims at utilising some further Greek parallels for an interpretation of the Song of Songs. Cant. ii 15 serves as starting point for the enterprise. Next to the fairly well known and often discussed parallels from Sappho and Theocritus, for the .rst time evidence from Greek vases and from the Anthologia Palatina is discussed. Rather than postulating any literary inuences between Greek texts and the Song of Songs we regard the study as an investigation into the (Eastern) Mediterranean cultural milieu to which the biblical and Greek texts belong. However, if Song of Songs can indeed be dated to the Hellenistic period, such inuences and possible dependencies seem not impossible.

An attempt is made to summarize and synthesize new and old evidence regarding the religious heritage among peoples speaking Indo-European languages in pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Eurasia. Initial stress is put on the methodological, theoretical and ideological problems of such an undertaking. The rest of the paper discusses how the transmission of heritage was conceptualized (with examples from Vedic and Greek literature), to what extent we are able to discern the outlines of an Indo-European pantheon, the possibility of tracing the realizations of hereditary, mythical motifs in the oldest Indo-European literatures, and the prospects for a comparative Indo-European ritualistics.

Simon Slings's Plato: Clitophon' has an introduction of 234 pages, a new text with facing translation (pp. 240-59), 72 pages of commentary (in a smaller font), two short appendixes, bibliography and indexes. It is a fuller treatment than this tiny text has ever received, and probably will ever receive; some might say that it also fuller than the Clitophon deserves, but if they did, they might well change their mind after inspecting the volume itself, which covers a multiplicity of issues whether grammatical, syntactical, historical, philosophical, or more generally interpretative in meticulous detail, providing a mass of material that will benefit (or at any rate interest) anyone working on the Platonic corpus and/or fourth century Greek literature. The Commentary in Plato: Clitophon is not quite, as its dust-jacket claims, 'the first ever to be published in English': the volume as a whole is stiil, as Slings says, recognizable as A Commentary on the Platonic Clitophon, his doctoral dissertation, privately published in 1981 (he generously sent me my copy years ago, in response to a letter out of the blue). One of the major differences is obvious from the change of title: '... I now feel that the grounds for my doubts [about the authenticity of the Clitophon] are rather weak, and I have no compunction in presenting this revised version as Plato: Clitophon' (pp. x-xi).2 But Slings is at

Periodization plays a crucial role in our perception and understanding of the past. Modern histories of Greek literature are traditionally organized by distinguishing an archaic, a classical, a Hellenistic and an Imperial period. The earliest scholar known to us who explicitly states that character of Greek literature fundamentally changed after the death of Alexander is Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Dionysius is most important representative of Greek Atticism and classicism at the end of the first century BCE in Rome. This chapter compares between Dionysius and Longinus, which can contribute to our understanding of Greek classicism in the Roman world and the different forms that it could adopt. Both authors were active in a Roman context, and both addressed their Greek essays to Roman patrons. The chapter focuses on the classical past of Greece and its literary achievements, Greek criticism contributed to the construction of Greek cultural identity in the Roman Empire. Keywords: Alexander; classicism; Dionysius; Greek literature; Hellenistic; Longinus; Periodization; Roman context

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the book Flavian Poetry and Its Greek Past . The book originates from an international conference held in Delphi, Greece, the omphalos of the earth, in the summer of 2012. The book first offers a discussion of the role of sleeplessness in Flavian literature in general, and especially the Flavian epicists. It then deals with the Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica , its Greek sources, namely Apollonius primarily, but also other important intertexts, heretofore left in the margin of Valerian criticism. The book also contains contributions to Statius' epic poems and the poet's engagement with Greek literature, from Homer to the Greek tragedians. It covers Silius Italicus' Punica and the poet's relationship with the Greek literary past. Finally, the book examines the Greek roots of Martial's epigrammatic poetry. Keywords: Flavian poetry; Greek literature; Italy; Martial's epigrammatic poetry

Greek literature and legal practice exhibit a reluctance, bordering on refusal, to deem the Olympian gods as fit judges, either of themselves or of humans. Although there is an occasional word of praise, the gods are routinely portrayed as preoccupied with advancing their own interests, and notably petulant over perceived slights to themselves. In Aeschylus’ mythical account of the creation of Athens’ first court, Athena declares herself incapable of judging the defendant, a mere mortal, without human jurors to help her. Respectable divine agents of justice are almost always figured as abstractions (“Themis” or the spirits in Hesiod), named, not portrayed with any specificity, devoid of personality — not to speak of judges who have decided a specific case in a specific way.Perhaps reflecting this ambivalence about the quality of divine judging, Athenian courts were conceived of as predominantly mortal affairs. To be sure, traces of divine participation can be seen, for example, in the use of oaths and the process of juror selection. But despite the ubiquity of religious symbols and rituals in Athenian life, Athenian jurors did not, for the most part, seek the assistance of the divine or draw legitimacy from the involvement of the gods in their decisions.This pessimistic view of the gods as judges is not merely a byproduct of anthropomorphism, for the Greeks imagined the gods not merely as flawed humans, but as lacking the seriousness mortals acquired precisely as a consequence of their impending death.