19 1 τι Hecker 2 = II. 6.146 (τοιήδε S) 3 μην Hermann 20 3 τυτθόν e.g. Parsons 4 όπίσ]ω e.g. Pars... more 19 1 τι Hecker 2 = II. 6.146 (τοιήδε S) 3 μην Hermann 20 3 τυτθόν e.g. Parsons 4 όπίσ]ω e.g. Parsons fin. o[ vel ε[ 5 εχε[ι Π εχη Stob. πολυηράτου Wil. 8 ούδ'Stob. οϋθ'Hartung 9 νηπίοισι vel νηπίοις Stob. (correxerat Camerarius) 10 βιοτοι' Π (coniecerat Cam.) βιότου Stob. 13 vel παλα[ιγενέος West παλα[ιοτέρων Parsons 14 εκφυγ' "Ομηρος Parsons ρήμα δέ πάν]. .. εκφυγ' δ μή ν[όμιμον Parsons 15 ϋ]παρ e.g. Parsons πανδαμάτωρ West, sed ν non legendum 18 ων Translation: 19 The man from Chios said one thing best: "As is the generation of leaves, so is the generation of men." Few men hearing this take it to heart. For in each man there is hope which grows in the heart of the young. 20 ... for a short time ... abide ... As long as a mortal has the desirable bloom of youth with a light spirit he thinks many unaccomplished deeds. For he has no expectation that he will grow old or die, nor when healthy does he think about illness. Fools are they whose thoughts are thus! Nor do they know that the time of youth and life is short for mortals. But you,
Philodemus occasionally fashioned a persona for himself in his epigrams that differs from that of... more Philodemus occasionally fashioned a persona for himself in his epigrams that differs from that of the serious voice he uses in his prose treatises, in that his poetic self often falls short of the aims set by his prosaic self. This essay looks closely at two of these epigrams in order to show both how they accord with Philodemus' Per‹ parrhs¤aw, and how the particular technique of speaking frankly therein derives from poetic and Platonic models.
Horace. It is time, therefore, to take stock of the scholarship of the last 110 years, and to off... more Horace. It is time, therefore, to take stock of the scholarship of the last 110 years, and to offer a new text and commentary of this poet. Mindful of all the flaws which doubtless remain, and remain mine alone, I would nonetheless like to thank the many people who have removed even more, or who have provided access to materials:
Although Greek poets rarely describe nature for its own sake,' they shared with their audiences a... more Although Greek poets rarely describe nature for its own sake,' they shared with their audiences an intimate acquaintance with the land, sea, and sky around them. Among other things, and this is my present concern, they along with other Greeks developed a keen sense of imminent changes in the weather thanks to their ability to "read" the world around them. In time, prose treatises were written that collected if not ail then many of these slgns. The earllest of these treatises still extant ls the Theophrastean work De signis, which in its current form is probably an abbreviated work of Theophrastus• treatise with this same title. Theophrastus' original was probably based on Aristotle, which was also abbreviated by Eudoxus as part of his work on the heavens that served as the prose source for Aratus, so that Aratus, like De signis (which henceforth refers only to the preserved abridgement), derives from Aristotle, the former indirectly via Eudoxus, the latter directly,' although without external evidence it is easy to get the impression that Aratus derives from De signis, so closely does he read like a versification of the text we have. (And for the purposes of this article it would not mat ter if this were the case.) Aratus, however, like Nicander and many another Greek didactic poet, merely translated a prose treatise into verse.' Earlier didactic poets did no such thing, but rather wrote in verse what they themselves observed at first hand or had reasoned out for themselves knew:. in primis Hesiod, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Cleostratus.
The authenticity of the Hippias Major is disputed. Neither clearly genuine nor clearly spurious, ... more The authenticity of the Hippias Major is disputed. Neither clearly genuine nor clearly spurious, hidden under a cloud of doubt, it has suffered from a neglect that far surpasses that of the other minor but undeniably genuine dialogues. My aim here is not to go into the many arguments for and against authenticity, 1 but to show, within a modest scope, how the Hippias Major makes sense as an early expression of Plato's views on aesthetic principles. 2 This piece, therefore, may be considered, at least by those sympathetic to it, an indirect argument for its genuineness. In form, the Hippias Major is what Richard Robinson has called a whatis-x dialogue, that is, one of the dialogues that, however it starts, soon finds itself investigating the matter under discussion in the form of a question that asks what is such and such; for example, piety, as in the Euthyphro. These are usually ethical subjects: Sophrosyne (roughly, soundness of mind) in the Charmides, friendship in the Lysis, bravery in the Laches, and so on. If we except the Theaetetus, where the x is knowledge, and which, unlike the other dialogues of this sort, is a late dialogue, the Hippias Major is the only dialogue where the x is-at least at first glance-only partially ethical. This alone should make us suspicious of any attempt to extract from the dialogue a theory of aesthetics which ignores ethics and morality. Nevertheless, this is what I intend to do. How dangerous it is to ignore the ethical question I can indicate by saying something about the x of this dialogue. In Greek it is to kalon, 3 which is usually translated as 'beauty', and indeed the adjective whence it is derived can mean 'beautiful', but it just as commonly can refer to usefulness and mean 'good, of fine quality' (to quote Liddell-Scott-Jones's Greek-English Lexicon), or refer to someone's 'noble' or 'honourable' moral qualities: three rather distinct areas of usage, all of which can be found in Greek as early as Homer. For example, Achilles is the most kalos, the most beautiful, warrior at Troy. And clothes, armour and buildings are also beautiful. But harbours, winds and wine are kalos in respect to use. In the moral sphere, kalos appears in a somewhat limited set of phrases in Homer; it appears nevertheless, and is certainly common enough thereafter.
, 2016). 3 Interloquor is an ancient calque from διαλέγομαι; hence, one should avoid phrases like... more , 2016). 3 Interloquor is an ancient calque from διαλέγομαι; hence, one should avoid phrases like "Socrates and his interlocutors," as if they are two distinct sets. Driving a wedge between Socrates and those with whom he converses falsifies the essential Socratic notion of a common search for the truth. Note the title of John Beversluis, Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). "S. and his fellow interlocutors" is OK but I prefer the obsolete word "dialogist," which keeps everybody on the same footing.
Working with Greek Poetic Fragments Edited by Margarita Alexandrou, Chris Carey, and Giovan Battista D’Alessio
Although Western philosophy developed directly and admittedly from the writings of Plato, Aristot... more Although Western philosophy developed directly and admittedly from the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and (thanks largely to Lucretius) Epicurus, 1 these magnificent synthesizers owe much to their predecessors, the Presocraticsor Preplatonics, if you will 2who laid so much of the bedrock of philosophical and scientific reasoning. Existence, incorporeality, timelessness, and the social contract are but a few of the notions invented by these Early Greek Thinkers (as Gomperz termed them). Unfortunately, the texts of their works survived only into the Byzantine period, if even that late, and then only in few copies to be found only in the libraries of the Ι am grateful to Jean-Claude Picot and Stephen Menn for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank Abigail Buglass, Richard Janko, Mirjam Kotwick, Giuliana Leone, and Christian Vassallo for showing me work in advance of publication. The text was further improved by the editors of this volume. *This title alludes to James Joyce's frequent allusions to Giambattista Vico and his "ricorso" theory of periodic historical renewal (ordo: order; vi ricordo: [Italian] I remember you; viri cordο: heart of a man (and "I record"); Ordovician: a geologic period (Ordovician rocks are found near Joyce's Dublin)). Joyce seems to have recognized Empedocles as a precursor to Vico when he refers to the latter's "cyclewheeling history" at Finnegans Wake 186.2; and he names him in the "Oxen of the Sun" episode of Ulysses: "There may be, it is true, some questions which science cannot answerat presentsuch as the first problem submitted by Mr Leopold Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth of males?"
A study of a Corinthian aryballos on which is painted a line of hexameter verse that complements ... more A study of a Corinthian aryballos on which is painted a line of hexameter verse that complements its images of an aulos player and a boy leading a small company of dancers.
This is a most welcome addition to the scholarship on the epigrams attributed to Simonides, "ligh... more This is a most welcome addition to the scholarship on the epigrams attributed to Simonides, "lightly reworked" from Petrovic's Heidelberg doctoral dissertation. Whereas Luigi Bravi in his recent book has concentrated on more literary matters 1 , Petrovic has set out to comment only on those epigrams that are either extant (in the usual fragmentary way) on stones (his nos. 1-7) 2 or reported by at least one literary source, presumably on the basis of autopsy, to have been recorded from a stone (Pe 8-15), most but far from all of them being ascribed by at least one literary source to Simonides. One exception is Pe 4 = Sim. 20a-b FGE, two epigrams on the Athenians who died fighting the Persians, which no extant literary source ascribes to this poet, and which Petrovic himself thinks not truly his ("the association of the poem with the name of Simonides remains at present on very weak legs," p.177); see further, below. The latter group is not included by the fastidious Hansen in his Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, but Petrovic has the right to his more generous criterion, which produces a collection of epigrams rich in historical matter, since only two do not concern historical events or at least persons of great interest to a historian: a private dedication on a Herm (Pe 2) and an athletic victory monument (Pe 15). What this does do, however, is raise the question of why he stopped with these two. Any epigram one thinks reasonably ascribed to Simonides by any literary source, usually but not always the Greek Anthology, could just as readily be included. To mention only a few with a historical context, see 2, 5, 7-8, 10, 12 FGE, not one of which in my opinion can be denied to Simonides on objective grounds. There some few elegiac couplets under the name of Simonides that may well have been excerpted from elegies (such as 18 FGE), but this still leaves many that look like inscribed poems without any sure sign of being a later, literary, composition in this style; on the fascinating subject of "fictional" epigrams see Petrovic's account on pp. 19-24, reviewing the work of Bing, Baumbach, and others, where he rightly points out that the eighth-century epigram exclaiming "I am the cup of Nestor…" (454 CEG) is fictional, although this is not we normally mean by this word in this context. (One could also point out that many claims found in authentic public inscriptions contain questionable statements designed for political and/or patriotic reasons.
19 1 τι Hecker 2 = II. 6.146 (τοιήδε S) 3 μην Hermann 20 3 τυτθόν e.g. Parsons 4 όπίσ]ω e.g. Pars... more 19 1 τι Hecker 2 = II. 6.146 (τοιήδε S) 3 μην Hermann 20 3 τυτθόν e.g. Parsons 4 όπίσ]ω e.g. Parsons fin. o[ vel ε[ 5 εχε[ι Π εχη Stob. πολυηράτου Wil. 8 ούδ'Stob. οϋθ'Hartung 9 νηπίοισι vel νηπίοις Stob. (correxerat Camerarius) 10 βιοτοι' Π (coniecerat Cam.) βιότου Stob. 13 vel παλα[ιγενέος West παλα[ιοτέρων Parsons 14 εκφυγ' "Ομηρος Parsons ρήμα δέ πάν]. .. εκφυγ' δ μή ν[όμιμον Parsons 15 ϋ]παρ e.g. Parsons πανδαμάτωρ West, sed ν non legendum 18 ων Translation: 19 The man from Chios said one thing best: "As is the generation of leaves, so is the generation of men." Few men hearing this take it to heart. For in each man there is hope which grows in the heart of the young. 20 ... for a short time ... abide ... As long as a mortal has the desirable bloom of youth with a light spirit he thinks many unaccomplished deeds. For he has no expectation that he will grow old or die, nor when healthy does he think about illness. Fools are they whose thoughts are thus! Nor do they know that the time of youth and life is short for mortals. But you,
Philodemus occasionally fashioned a persona for himself in his epigrams that differs from that of... more Philodemus occasionally fashioned a persona for himself in his epigrams that differs from that of the serious voice he uses in his prose treatises, in that his poetic self often falls short of the aims set by his prosaic self. This essay looks closely at two of these epigrams in order to show both how they accord with Philodemus' Per‹ parrhs¤aw, and how the particular technique of speaking frankly therein derives from poetic and Platonic models.
Horace. It is time, therefore, to take stock of the scholarship of the last 110 years, and to off... more Horace. It is time, therefore, to take stock of the scholarship of the last 110 years, and to offer a new text and commentary of this poet. Mindful of all the flaws which doubtless remain, and remain mine alone, I would nonetheless like to thank the many people who have removed even more, or who have provided access to materials:
Although Greek poets rarely describe nature for its own sake,' they shared with their audiences a... more Although Greek poets rarely describe nature for its own sake,' they shared with their audiences an intimate acquaintance with the land, sea, and sky around them. Among other things, and this is my present concern, they along with other Greeks developed a keen sense of imminent changes in the weather thanks to their ability to "read" the world around them. In time, prose treatises were written that collected if not ail then many of these slgns. The earllest of these treatises still extant ls the Theophrastean work De signis, which in its current form is probably an abbreviated work of Theophrastus• treatise with this same title. Theophrastus' original was probably based on Aristotle, which was also abbreviated by Eudoxus as part of his work on the heavens that served as the prose source for Aratus, so that Aratus, like De signis (which henceforth refers only to the preserved abridgement), derives from Aristotle, the former indirectly via Eudoxus, the latter directly,' although without external evidence it is easy to get the impression that Aratus derives from De signis, so closely does he read like a versification of the text we have. (And for the purposes of this article it would not mat ter if this were the case.) Aratus, however, like Nicander and many another Greek didactic poet, merely translated a prose treatise into verse.' Earlier didactic poets did no such thing, but rather wrote in verse what they themselves observed at first hand or had reasoned out for themselves knew:. in primis Hesiod, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Cleostratus.
The authenticity of the Hippias Major is disputed. Neither clearly genuine nor clearly spurious, ... more The authenticity of the Hippias Major is disputed. Neither clearly genuine nor clearly spurious, hidden under a cloud of doubt, it has suffered from a neglect that far surpasses that of the other minor but undeniably genuine dialogues. My aim here is not to go into the many arguments for and against authenticity, 1 but to show, within a modest scope, how the Hippias Major makes sense as an early expression of Plato's views on aesthetic principles. 2 This piece, therefore, may be considered, at least by those sympathetic to it, an indirect argument for its genuineness. In form, the Hippias Major is what Richard Robinson has called a whatis-x dialogue, that is, one of the dialogues that, however it starts, soon finds itself investigating the matter under discussion in the form of a question that asks what is such and such; for example, piety, as in the Euthyphro. These are usually ethical subjects: Sophrosyne (roughly, soundness of mind) in the Charmides, friendship in the Lysis, bravery in the Laches, and so on. If we except the Theaetetus, where the x is knowledge, and which, unlike the other dialogues of this sort, is a late dialogue, the Hippias Major is the only dialogue where the x is-at least at first glance-only partially ethical. This alone should make us suspicious of any attempt to extract from the dialogue a theory of aesthetics which ignores ethics and morality. Nevertheless, this is what I intend to do. How dangerous it is to ignore the ethical question I can indicate by saying something about the x of this dialogue. In Greek it is to kalon, 3 which is usually translated as 'beauty', and indeed the adjective whence it is derived can mean 'beautiful', but it just as commonly can refer to usefulness and mean 'good, of fine quality' (to quote Liddell-Scott-Jones's Greek-English Lexicon), or refer to someone's 'noble' or 'honourable' moral qualities: three rather distinct areas of usage, all of which can be found in Greek as early as Homer. For example, Achilles is the most kalos, the most beautiful, warrior at Troy. And clothes, armour and buildings are also beautiful. But harbours, winds and wine are kalos in respect to use. In the moral sphere, kalos appears in a somewhat limited set of phrases in Homer; it appears nevertheless, and is certainly common enough thereafter.
, 2016). 3 Interloquor is an ancient calque from διαλέγομαι; hence, one should avoid phrases like... more , 2016). 3 Interloquor is an ancient calque from διαλέγομαι; hence, one should avoid phrases like "Socrates and his interlocutors," as if they are two distinct sets. Driving a wedge between Socrates and those with whom he converses falsifies the essential Socratic notion of a common search for the truth. Note the title of John Beversluis, Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). "S. and his fellow interlocutors" is OK but I prefer the obsolete word "dialogist," which keeps everybody on the same footing.
Working with Greek Poetic Fragments Edited by Margarita Alexandrou, Chris Carey, and Giovan Battista D’Alessio
Although Western philosophy developed directly and admittedly from the writings of Plato, Aristot... more Although Western philosophy developed directly and admittedly from the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and (thanks largely to Lucretius) Epicurus, 1 these magnificent synthesizers owe much to their predecessors, the Presocraticsor Preplatonics, if you will 2who laid so much of the bedrock of philosophical and scientific reasoning. Existence, incorporeality, timelessness, and the social contract are but a few of the notions invented by these Early Greek Thinkers (as Gomperz termed them). Unfortunately, the texts of their works survived only into the Byzantine period, if even that late, and then only in few copies to be found only in the libraries of the Ι am grateful to Jean-Claude Picot and Stephen Menn for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank Abigail Buglass, Richard Janko, Mirjam Kotwick, Giuliana Leone, and Christian Vassallo for showing me work in advance of publication. The text was further improved by the editors of this volume. *This title alludes to James Joyce's frequent allusions to Giambattista Vico and his "ricorso" theory of periodic historical renewal (ordo: order; vi ricordo: [Italian] I remember you; viri cordο: heart of a man (and "I record"); Ordovician: a geologic period (Ordovician rocks are found near Joyce's Dublin)). Joyce seems to have recognized Empedocles as a precursor to Vico when he refers to the latter's "cyclewheeling history" at Finnegans Wake 186.2; and he names him in the "Oxen of the Sun" episode of Ulysses: "There may be, it is true, some questions which science cannot answerat presentsuch as the first problem submitted by Mr Leopold Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth of males?"
A study of a Corinthian aryballos on which is painted a line of hexameter verse that complements ... more A study of a Corinthian aryballos on which is painted a line of hexameter verse that complements its images of an aulos player and a boy leading a small company of dancers.
This is a most welcome addition to the scholarship on the epigrams attributed to Simonides, "ligh... more This is a most welcome addition to the scholarship on the epigrams attributed to Simonides, "lightly reworked" from Petrovic's Heidelberg doctoral dissertation. Whereas Luigi Bravi in his recent book has concentrated on more literary matters 1 , Petrovic has set out to comment only on those epigrams that are either extant (in the usual fragmentary way) on stones (his nos. 1-7) 2 or reported by at least one literary source, presumably on the basis of autopsy, to have been recorded from a stone (Pe 8-15), most but far from all of them being ascribed by at least one literary source to Simonides. One exception is Pe 4 = Sim. 20a-b FGE, two epigrams on the Athenians who died fighting the Persians, which no extant literary source ascribes to this poet, and which Petrovic himself thinks not truly his ("the association of the poem with the name of Simonides remains at present on very weak legs," p.177); see further, below. The latter group is not included by the fastidious Hansen in his Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, but Petrovic has the right to his more generous criterion, which produces a collection of epigrams rich in historical matter, since only two do not concern historical events or at least persons of great interest to a historian: a private dedication on a Herm (Pe 2) and an athletic victory monument (Pe 15). What this does do, however, is raise the question of why he stopped with these two. Any epigram one thinks reasonably ascribed to Simonides by any literary source, usually but not always the Greek Anthology, could just as readily be included. To mention only a few with a historical context, see 2, 5, 7-8, 10, 12 FGE, not one of which in my opinion can be denied to Simonides on objective grounds. There some few elegiac couplets under the name of Simonides that may well have been excerpted from elegies (such as 18 FGE), but this still leaves many that look like inscribed poems without any sure sign of being a later, literary, composition in this style; on the fascinating subject of "fictional" epigrams see Petrovic's account on pp. 19-24, reviewing the work of Bing, Baumbach, and others, where he rightly points out that the eighth-century epigram exclaiming "I am the cup of Nestor…" (454 CEG) is fictional, although this is not we normally mean by this word in this context. (One could also point out that many claims found in authentic public inscriptions contain questionable statements designed for political and/or patriotic reasons.
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