headers
owner-bmcr-l | 1 Nov 2004 02:44
Picon

BMCR 2004.10.29, Askold I. Ivantchik, Kimmerier und Skythen.

Askold I. Ivantchik, Kimmerier und Skythen. Kulturhistorische und
chronologische Probleme der Archa+ologie der osteuropa+ischen Steppen
und Kaukasiens in vor- und fru+hskythischer Zeit. Steppenvo+lker
Eurasiens, 2.  Moskau:  Paleograph Press, 2001.  Pp. 324; pls. 135.
ISBN 5-89526-009-8.  EUR 75.80.  ISBN 3-8053-2977-6 (von Zabern).

Reviewed by Balbina Baebler, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen
(bbaebler <at> gmx.de)
Word count:  1610 words
-------------------------------

[The reviewer apologizes for the lateness of this review, for which she
alone is responsible.]

The present volume, the second in a new German-Russian series edited by
A. Ivantchik and H. Parzinger, the head of the "Eurasien-Abteilung" of
the German Archaeological Institute, will probably be of prime interest
for prehistorians and specialists in Near Eastern archaeology, but it
also contains much useful material for classical archaeologists or
philologists interested in Herodotus and Scythia. The Cimmerians, to
whom the book is devoted, are in many ways a most intriguing people. On
the one hand, they appear in many different sources: they are mentioned
already in the bible and in cuneiform texts; Homer knows their name;
Aristeas of Prokonnesos first locates them in the steppes on the
Northern shores of the Black Sea (in his Arimaspeia, around 550 BC);
and Herodotus (IV 11-13) provides some information concerning their
history. And yet they remain strangely elusive; although the Greeks
named the "Cimmerian Bosporos" after them, it is difficult to determine
where exactly they lived, all the more so because a clear definition of
what material culture is to be called "Cimmerian" is still lacking.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 1 Nov 2004 02:47
Picon

BMCR 2004.10.32, Peter Roth, Der Panathenaikos des Isokrates.

Peter Roth, Der Panathenaikos des Isokrates. U+bersetzung und
Kommentar. Beitra+ge zur Altertumskunde Bd. 196.  Mu+nchen & Leipzig:
K.G. Saur, 2003.  Pp. 310.  ISBN 3-598-77808-2.  EUR 86.00/sFr 148.00.

Reviewed by Tony Natoli, The University of Sydney (a.natoli <at> unsw.edu.au)
Word count:  2128 words
-------------------------------

Of all Isocrates' (Is.) discourses the Panathenaicus (P) provides the
greatest difficulty to the reader. Avowedly an encomium on Athens, it
bears little resemblance to other known encomia. And then there is the
lengthy dialogue scene, which not only seems to be awkwardly appended
to the discourse proper but appears to contradict the main thrust of
the argument by suggesting the need for a reassessment of the portrayal
of Sparta. The discourse itself is long and repeats (verbatim on
occasion) material from earlier discourses. For these reasons P has
generally not been received with favour by scholars. Blass famously
called it 'a chaotic pile of chaff in which the grains are rare
indeed'. After a brief survey of approaches taken by scholars from
Kyprianos in 1871 to the present, Roth (R.) rightly concludes that
there is a real need for a new interpretation of P which makes sense of
the discourse as a whole. The only commentary known to me is that of A.
Nucciotti (1935), which, with Norlin's Loeb edition, is a surprising
omission from R's bibliography.[[1]] R.'s book is the most
comprehensive study of P ever attempted and is an important addition to
the literature. The serious reader of Is. and Plato will appreciate
this book which, while it does not require a knowledge of Greek, fully
enters into the scholarly debate.

This is not a conventional commentary based on a Greek text. R's
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 1 Nov 2004 02:46
Picon

BMCR 2004.10.30, ALSO SEEN: Primum Legere, vols. 1-2

ALSO SEEN:

Eugenio Amato, Francesco D'Avino, Antonella Esposito (edd.), Primum 
Legere. Annuario della Delegazione della Valle del Sarno dell'A.I.C.C. 
vol. I. Salerno:  Helios editrice, 2002.  Pp. xviii, 330.  ISBN 
88-88123-06-7. EUR 32.00 (pb).

Contributors:  E. Amato, M. Citroni, F. Coccaro Andreou, M. I.
D'Autilia, F. De Martino, F. Donadi, P. Fedeli, E. Tortora, O. Vox, et
al.

Eugenio Amato, Guglielmo Caiazza, Antonella Esposito (edd.), Primum 
Legere. Annuario della Delegazione della Valle del Sarno dell'A.I.C.C. 
vol. II. Salerno:  Helios editrice, 2004.  Pp. xx, 316.  ISBN 
88-88123-08-3.

Contributors:  E. Amato, G. Caiazza, G. Chiarini, F. Coccaro Andreou,
M. I. D'Autilia, F. De Martino, F. Donadi, F. Salerno, A. Stramaglia,
A. Tessier, et al.

Reviewed by Giusy De Stefano, Cosenza (dstg <at> libero.it)
-------------------------------

These two volumes are the product of the yearly Activities of the young
Delegation in the Valley of Sarno (Salerno) of the A.I.C.C.
(Associazione Italiana di Cultura Classica), the title of which, Primum
Legere (henceforth PL), clearly recalls the aims pursued by the
Direction Board of the Delegation itself: to comply with the desire for
cultural and scientific growth of the younger generations by the public
reading of ancient texts.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 1 Nov 2004 02:47
Picon

BMCR 2004.10.31, Basson/Dominik (edd.), Literature, Art, History

A.F. Basson, W.J. Dominik, Literature, Art, History: Studies on
Classical Antiquity and Tradition. In Honour of W.J. Henderson.
Frankfurt am Main:  Peter Lang, 2003.  Pp. xi, 355.  ISBN
3-631-36837-2.  EUR 128.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Stephen Evans, University of Turku (ilias <at> sci.fi)
Word count:  3058 words
-------------------------------

This Festschrift is dedicated to Professor William Henderson, who from
1970 to 2000 was the leading figure in South African Classics and
earned the enduring respect and admiration of both colleagues and
students. He was himself a generalist so it is appropriate that the
thirty studies of varying length and quality in this volume treat a
sometimes bewilderingly wide variety of subjects on classical
antiquity, late antiquity and the middle ages. Most of the articles,
however, have in common 'the challenging of orthodoxies and the
presentation of fresh perspectives on the literature, art and history
of these periods'.

There are fifteen papers on Latin Literature, seven on Greek Literature
and eight on Art and Literature, representing a broad span of interests
and perspectives, written by scholars from universities all over the
world who have a connection with South Africa or who have delivered
papers there at some stage. Twenty-eight papers are in English, one in
Italian and one in German. Though this volume was originally planned as
an Einzelschrift of Scholia, for a number of reasons, the editors,
Professor A.F. Basson from the University at Buffalo (State University
of New York) and Professor W.J. Dominik from the University of Otago,
decided to publish it as a separate book. The editors, both of whom
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 3 Nov 2004 15:08
Picon

BMCR 2004.11.01, BMCR Books Received (October)

BMCR Books Received (October).
------------------------------

Titles marked by an asterisk are available for review. Qualified
volunteers should indicate their interest by a message to 
bmr <at> ccat.sas.upenn.edu (with their last name and requested author in the 
subject line). Please note that this is a new address. They should state 
their qualifications (both in the sense of degrees held and in the sense 
of experience in the field concerned) and explain any previous 
relationship with the author.

*Athanassakis, Apostolos N. (trans.), Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days,
Shield. Second Edition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
2004. Pp. 163. $18.95 (pb). ISBN 0-8018-7984-1.

*Athanassakis, Apostolos N. (trans.), The Homeric Poems. Second
Edition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Pp. 106.
$18.95 (pb). ISBN 0-8018-7983-3.

*Azoulay, Vincent, Xe/nophon et les gra^ces du pouvoir. De la charis au
charisme. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004. Pp. 511. EUR 28.00
(pb). ISBN 2-85944-509-9.

*Bagg, Robert (trans.), The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles. Introductions
and Notes by Robert Bagg and Mary Bagg. Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press, 2004. Pp. 304. $19.95 (pb). ISBN 1-55849-454-5.

*Baumbach, Jens David, The Significance of Votive Offerings in Selected
Hera Sanctuaries in the Peloponnese, Ionia, and Western Greece. BAR
International Series 1249. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2004. Pp. 212. L35.00
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 6 Nov 2004 04:01
Picon

BMCR 2004.11.02, R.D. Shackleton Bailey, Statius. Silvae.

R.D. Shackleton Bailey, Statius. Silvae. Loeb Classical Library, 206.
Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2003.  Pp. viii, 438.  ISBN
0-674-99604-6.  $21.50.

Reviewed by Paolo Asso, Kenyon College (assop <at> kenyon.edu)
Word count:  1743 words
-------------------------------

The present edition of the Silvae occupies the whole first volume of
D.R. Shackleton Bailey's (SB) three-volume edition of Statius.[[1]] The
press announces that SB's remaining two volumes containing the Thebaid
and the surviving fragment of the Achilleid will be available this
fall. SB's Statius is likely to become the most readily available
English translation of this difficult poet, most appropriately
characterized as a Greek poet writing in Latin.[[2]]

Unlike the Silvae, Statius' Thebaid was read and admired throughout the
Middle Ages. The Silvae remained unknown until they were unearthed at
Saint Gall by papal secretary Poggio Bracciolini in the period
1416-1418, while he accompanied the Roman Curia to the Council of
Constance on the homonymous lake (now Bodensee). This datum of
manuscript tradition is fundamental to our reading of Statius' Silvae
because all the extant manuscripts depend on a copy of the codex
discovered by Poggio. This copy, rediscovered in 1879 by Gustav Loewe
in the National Library in Madrid, is the very one produced for Poggio
by a German amanuensis hired for the occasion, a man whom, in a letter
from Constance to his friend Francesco Barbaro in Florence, Poggio
describes as ignorantissimus omnium viventium. This letter, published
over a century ago by A.C. Clark in The Classical Review 13 (1899) 125,
should be consulted by editors of Statius' Silvae as an important
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 6 Nov 2004 04:01
Picon

BMCR 2004.11.03, Michael Markovits, Die Orgel im Altertum

Michael Markovits, Die Orgel im Altertum.  Leiden:  Brill, 2003.  Pp.
xxiii, 783.  ISBN 90-04-12575-2.  $279.00.

Reviewed by Kai Brodersen, Universita+t Mannheim
(Kai.Brodersen <at> phil.uni-mannheim.de)
Word count:  1569 words
-------------------------------

The mechanical musical instrument of the organ in antiquity, which
looks like a small specialist field of enquiry, is the subject of a
monumental work by the Swiss scholar Michael Markovits. It covers the
centuries from 270 B.C. to A.D. 630 in a discussion of all available
evidence for ancient organs in literature, art and archaeology from the
Hellenistic, Roman, Jewish, early Byzantine, Syriac and late antique
occidental worlds, leading to the middle Byzantine and hence Islamic
cultures in the east and to Latin mediaeval culture in the west: a
truly comprehensive view of antiquity. The book is written in German,
so what follows tries to give the anglophone reader an idea of the wide
range of this massive work and to provide an adequate evaluation of the
work.

After a lucid and brief introduction, the book is organised in six
chapters. The first four discuss the evidence and what it can be used
for as well as the later tradition and the history of scholarship on
ancient organs, while the final two provide indexes, which make the
whole book as accessible as one can hope for in a handbook, and images
that complement the first chapters.

Chapter 1 on "The Sources" (pp. 7-368) discusses all available evidence
for organs in antiquity and presents it in a uniform format. For every
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 6 Nov 2004 21:17
Picon

BMCR 2004.11.05, Hurwit, The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles

Jeffrey M. Hurwit, The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles.  Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.  Pp. xxvi, 304; 144 figs., CD-Rom
with color plates.  ISBN 0-521-82040-5.  $75.00 (hb).  ISBN
0-521-52740-6.  $25.99 (pb).

Reviewed by Sheramy D. Bundrick, University of South Florida St.
Petersburg (bundrick <at> stpt.usf.edu)
Word count:  1528 words
-------------------------------

In 1999, Cambridge University Press published Jeffrey Hurwit's The
Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the
Neolithic Era to the Present (hereafter Hurwit 1999) to positive
reviews. Five years later, Hurwit and Cambridge UP have produced The
Acropolis in the Age of Pericles, a volume which, as its title
suggests, focuses primarily on the High Classical Acropolis. One might
well ask why the new book is needed so soon, but, as Hurwit himself
points out in the Preface, Acropolis studies are constantly on the
move. Even in the short time since Hurwit finished his earlier
manuscript (in 1997), much new material has appeared, and he takes full
advantage of the opportunity to update the earlier work.

The text begins with a chapter entitled "The Rock and the Goddess,"
which provides an apt introduction both to the topography of the
Acropolis and to the complexity of the goddess worshipped there.
Combining two chapters in the earlier book, this chapter will be
especially valuable for those readers unfamiliar with Athena's various
epithets and other mythology surrounding the Acropolis (e.g.,
students). Here as elsewhere, Hurwit takes complicated ideas and makes
them accessible.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 6 Nov 2004 21:16
Picon

BMCR 2004.11.04, Gail Fine, Plato on Knowledge and Forms.

Gail Fine, Plato on Knowledge and Forms. Selected Essays.  Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2003.  Pp. xii, 447.  ISBN 0-19-924558-4.  $99.00
(hb).  ISBN 0-19-924559-2.  $35.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Friedemann Buddensiek, Institut fu+r Philosophie,
Universita+t Erlangen (friedemann.buddensiek <at> gmx.net)
Word count:  3809 words
-------------------------------

Gail Fine's collection brings together fourteen previously published
essays which focus on two of the most central themes of Plato's
dialogues, namely knowledge and forms.[[1]] Generally speaking, the
first nine essays discuss problems of knowledge and focus on particular
dialogues, such as the Meno, the Republic or the Theaetetus, while the
final five essays discuss problems related to forms and proceed, in
principle, from a cross-reading of some of the dialogues as well as
from some critical remarks made by Aristotle on forms (see the list of
essays at the end of the review). The essays are tied together by a
comprehensive introductory essay.

To my mind, two of Fine's claims are particularly significant: first,
her view that Plato did not in fact subscribe to some of the
Two-Worlds-Theories traditionally attributed to him -- theories that
strictly separate forms and sensible particulars. Forms, though
separate in a certain way, are immanent in particulars as their
properties. They are separate insofar as they have the capacity for
independent existence. Second, and again against a traditional reading,
Fine suggests that knowledge may cross the line: there is knowledge not
only of forms (but also of particulars), and there is not only
knowledge of forms (but also mere belief).
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
owner-bmcr-l | 9 Nov 2004 04:06
Picon

BMCR 2004.11.07, Pietila+-Castre/n, et al. CVA Finalnd

Leena Pietila+-Castre/n, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Finland, fascicule
1. Societas Scientiarum Fennica.  Helsinki:  The Finnish Society of
Sciences and Letters, 2003.  Pp. 143; pls. 91, figs. 267.  ISBN
951-653-325-6. EUR 30.00.

Contributors:  Leena Pietila+-Castre/n, Ria Berg, Heini Parko,
Anne-Marie Pennonen, Tiina Tuukkanen, Hanne Wikstro+m and Nina
Ylikarjula

Reviewed by Michael M. Eisman, Temple University (m.eisman <at> temple.edu)
Word count:  1547 words
-------------------------------

The Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum was developed in the years following
World War I, with the first volumes appearing in 1922. The subsequent
82 years have seen the steady addition of volumes and gradual changes
in format. Nevertheless the aim of the Corpus remains the same: to
publish all of the painted Greek vases in the world. The founders also
recognized that some of the collections would want to include vessels
of other fabrics. A quick review of the existing volumes indicates that
these basic principles remain the same. The ideal fascicule should
provide the researcher with the next best experience to actually
examining the vases themselves, and these publications should be useful
for all sorts of research projects, including the investigation of new
questions that may arise in years to come. Photographs are the
essential component here, along with a text alerting the researcher to
items not easily discernable from those photographs. In more recent
years profile drawings or profiles of details have been considered
necessary. The text should be descriptive rather than interpretive, and
the bibliography while it need not be complete should give previous
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane