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owner-bmcr-l | 3 Jan 2005 17:19
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BMCR 2005.01.01, BMCR Books Received (December)

BMCR Books Received (December).
-------------------------------

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 do NOT reply to this message.) 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.

*Alexandridis, Annetta, and Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, Archa+ologie der
Photographie. Bilder aus der Photothek der Antikensammlung Berlin.
Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 2004. Pp. 218. EUR 34.80. ISBN
3-8053-3329-3.

*Borgeaud, Philippe, Mother of the Gods. From Cybele to the Virgin
Mary. Originally published as La Me\re des dieux: De Cybele a\ la
Vierge Marie (1996). Translated by Lysa Hochroth. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2004. Pp. 186. $49.95. ISBN 0-8018-7985-X.

*Budin, Stephanie Lynn, The Ancient Greeks. New Perspectives.
ABC-CLIO's Understanding Ancient Civilizations. Santa Barbara, CA:
ABC-CLIO, 2004. Pp. 467. ISBN 1-57607-814-0.

*Camporeale, Giovannangelo,  The Etruscans Outside Etruria. Los
Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004. Pp. 317; ills. 240. $49.95. ISBN
0-89236-767-9.

*Candau Moro/n, Jose/ María, Francisco Javier Gonza/lez Ponce, and
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owner-bmcr-l | 11 Jan 2005 19:39
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BMCR 2005.01.04, William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes

William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus.  Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2004.  Pp. 371; pls. 18.  ISBN
0-820-3734-8.  $85.00.

Reviewed by S. A. Stephens, Stanford University
(susan.stephens <at> stanford.edu)
Word count:  2013 words
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This is a lavishly produced book on the subject of ancient book
production. It launches the author's ambitious study of the ancient
Greek book in roll form, which he calls "voluminology" to distinguish
it from study of the book in codex form or codicology. In Bookrolls and
Scribes we get the evidentiary base upon which he plans to build in
future work (p. 4). The bulk of the study consists of the data,
presented in charts and tables, in combination with Johnson's
discussion of selection criteria, controls, analysis, and inferences.
Its main interest, as he acknowledges, will be to specialists and to
those wishing for an accurate database on which to test their own
hypotheses about ancient book production. This book is not particularly
easy to read, but for the persistent reader there is much to be learned
about the earliest forms of Greek books to which we have access.

The book consists of a preface, introduction, and two chapters (pp.
3-230) + three appendices (pp. 231-339), glossary, bibliography, list
of papyri, index, and plates. The preface on terminology, conventions,
and sigla is essential for the reader to understand the charts, tables,
and appended arguments, and the illustration of the anatomy of the book
roll facing this preface provides visual reinforcement of the terms,
though oddly no. 9 (the kollêma or papyrus sheet) was not labeled.
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owner-bmcr-l | 11 Jan 2005 19:39
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BMCR 2005.01.05, Amanda Kolson Hurley, Catullus

Amanda Kolson Hurley, Catullus.  London:  Bristol Classical Press,
2004.  Pp. 158.  ISBN 1-85399-669-6.  $20.00.

Reviewed by
Christopher Nappa, University of Minnesota (cnappa <at> umn.edu)
Word count:  898 words
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One of the surprising things about Catullan scholarship, given the
nearly universal prominence of Catullus in Latin curricula, is that it
has been hard to find introductions to the poet that are at once
reliable and readable. Amanda Kolson Hurley's introduction goes a long
way toward filling that gap, and for its intended audience it is a
definite success. The book is part of Bristol Classical Press's
Ancients in Action series; the intended audience of the series, and
thus of Hurley's book, is, according to the series description on the
back cover, "the modern general reader." The books are designed to
introduce important ancient figures -- including, so far, Catullus,
Lucretius, Ovid, Horace, Spartacus, and Cleopatra -- and to cover "the
essentials of each subject's life, works, and significance for later
western civilisation."

The book consists of an introduction, conclusion, and seven chapters.
The first of these, "Between Myth and History: The Life of Catullus,"
is a useful summary of what we know and think we know about the life of
Catullus. Hurley does a good job of pointing out where our evidence is
unreliable while still acknowledging that the life of Catullus as
reconstructed in the nineteenth century has taken on a life of its own
and has to be reckoned with even though it may not, in every respect,
be accurate.
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owner-bmcr-l | 11 Jan 2005 19:12
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BMCR 2005.01.02, Graham Zanker, Modes of Viewing

Graham Zanker, Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art.
Madison, WI:  University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.  Pp. xiv, 223.  ISBN
0-299-19450-7.  $39.95.

Reviewed by James Clauss, University of Washington
(jjc <at> u.washington.edu)
Word count:  2073 words
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When I began to investigate the world of Hellenistic poetry in graduate
school, I eventually turned to Apollonius' Argonautica. While working
on the description of Jason's cloak in Book 1, I was especially struck
by the image of Aphrodite looking at her reflection in Ares' shield. At
that very time, there happened to be an exposition of the finds
discovered at Vergina in San Francisco, which included a cameo bearing
a portrait of Aphrodite looking at her reflection in a shield. I have
been intrigued by the intersection between Hellenistic poetry and art
ever since. While other scholars have offered book-length studies on
this topic, such as Webster's Hellenistic Poetry and Art, Onian's Art
and Thought in the Hellenistic World, and Fowler's The Hellenistic
Aesthetic, what distinguishes Zanker's contribution is his close, and
in particular intertextual, reading of Hellenistic poetry as a
constructive parallel for viewing contemporary art.

In the first chapter, "Aims, Approaches, and Samples," Zanker discusses
how the exploration of literary "ekphraseis" can benefit our
understanding of artistic representations. (1) They provide a verbal
response to viewing that the monuments are incapable of giving us; (2)
Greek rhetorical teachers regarded such passages as means of teaching
students how to view art; (3) like the monuments, these descriptions
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owner-bmcr-l | 11 Jan 2005 19:14
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BMCR 2005.01.03, Swaddling/Prag, Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa.

Judith Swaddling, John Prag, Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa. The Story of an
Etruscan Noblewoman. The British Museum Occasional Paper Number 100.
London:  The British Museum, 2002.  Pp. vi, 69; color pls. 11.  ISBN
0-86159-100-3.  $36.00 (pb).

Contributors:  Janet Ambers, A. Barlow, M. Barlow, Marshall Joseph
Becker, A. Brodrick, Birgitte Ginge, Louise Joyner, John D. Lilley,
R.A.H. Neave, A.J.N.W. (John) Prag, J. Quinton, Tom Rasmussen, R.W.
Stoddart, Judith Swaddling, D.K. Whittaker

Reviewed by Jean MacIntosh Turfa, University of Pennsylvania Museum
(jturfa <at> sas.upenn,edu)
Word count:  2679 words
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In 1886, an Etruscan polychrome terracotta sarcophagus was excavated in
a small chamber tomb at Poggio Cantarello, 4 km west of Chiusi. Inside
it when it arrived at the British Museum was the near-complete skeleton
of the lady for whom it was inscribed: Seianti Hanunia, wife of Tlesna.
This slim but intensive volume provides a wealth of information on a
single Etruscan woman who lived sometime between 250 and 150 BC. (Paper
"8. Radiocarbon Analysis of the Skeleton," by Janet Ambers, p. 39,
gives a date between 210 and 40 BC.) A coin found in the sarcophagus of
a kinswoman, Larthia Seianti (below) has sometimes been dated c. 150
BC, but Swaddling and Ginge (pp. 6, 14) caution against assuming this
as the date of death of either woman.[[1]]

Rasmussen's forward (p. v) indicates that sarcophagus and skeleton
constitute departure points for examination of many topics of current
interest: Etruscan art and technology, health and society, the regional
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owner-bmcr-l | 12 Jan 2005 16:38
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BMCR 2005.01.07, Carolyn L. Connor, Women of Byzantium

Carolyn L. Connor, Women of Byzantium.  New Haven:  Yale University
Press, 2004.  Pp. xvii, 396.  ISBN 0-300-09957-6.  $45.00.

Reviewed by Stavroula Constantinou, University of Cyprus
(konstans <at> ucy.ac.cy)
Word count:  1956 words
-------------------------------

As Carolyn Connor (hereafter C) rightly states in the introduction of
her new book reviewed here, "everyone has a story" (p. xi).
Nevertheless, it was as late as the end of the nineteenth century when
scholars and philosophers of the West started realising that women also
have stories. As for Byzantinists, they came to realise much later that
Byzantine culture cannot be fully understood without studying Byzantine
women. It is in the last three decades and particularly from the
nineties onwards that Byzantinists started showing a growing interest
in women's studies, as the lengthy and expanding online
(http://www.doaks.org/WomeninByzantium.html)  bibliography on Byzantine
Women edited by Alice-Mary Talbot attests.[[1]] Despite the abundance
of studies on Byzantine women, these women have not yet been studied
thoroughly, therefore C's book is to be warmly welcomed.

Written for a broad readership, C's accessible and informative book is
the first study which explores many of the roles and activities of
Byzantine women over centuries of Byzantine history. That C aims to
reach a wider audience is admirable. Byzantine civilisation in general
and Byzantine women in particular should be accessible not only to
Byzantinists, but also to other readers who are interested in learning
about Byzantium and the situation of Byzantine women.
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owner-bmcr-l | 12 Jan 2005 16:38
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BMCR 2005.01.06, Whitaker, A Journey into Platonic Politics

Albert Keith Whitaker, A Journey into Platonic Politics: Plato's Laws.
Lanham, MD:  University Press of America, 2004.  Pp. 254.  ISBN
0-7618-2689-0.  $39.00.

Reviewed by Richard Joines, Auburn University (joinere <at> auburn.edu)
Word count:  1508 words
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Whitaker's fine book-by-book commentary on Plato's Laws is pitched less
to classicists than to those who seek to use ancient thought to
critique modern rationality -- those strains of philosophizing deriving
from Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, Joseph de Maistre, Eric Vogelin, Allan
Bloom, Leon Kass, and their students and their students' students. It
is a book intended to be useful specifically to American students of
political science or "neo-conservative" political philosophy. In his
work as an editor and translator for Focus Publishing, Whitaker has
established his bona fides as a classicist, but in this volume he is a
pedagogical guide who leads students on a journey that aims to show
them the need to overcome the "misguided" iconoclasm of modernity and
to teach them how to repair our "intellectual and moral home" (vii)
using a Platonist religiosity instead of mere critical reason.

Drawing perhaps as much on American constitutional and moral
controversies as on the classical aspects of the Laws, Whitaker hopes
to make "God" central to the conversation about the best way to govern.
It is this aspect of his book I will focus on, to the exclusion of many
other noteworthy aspects of more interest to those of a political or
philosophical bent than a classical one.

Whitaker's commentary on the journey of the Athenian Stranger, the
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owner-bmcr-l | 14 Jan 2005 17:06
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BMCR 2005.01.09, Stuttgarter elektronische Studienbibel

Christof Hardmeier, et al., Stuttgarter elektronische Studienbibel.
CD-Rom for Windows. System requirements: PC minimum Pentium II, 300
MHz; 128 MB RAM, 500 MB virtual RAM. Hard disk space: 60-400 MB. Screen
resolution: 1024 x 768 recommended. Windows 98, 98SE, ME, NT 4.0 (SP3),
200.  Stuttgart:  Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004.  ISBN
3-438-01963-9.  EUR 240.00.

Reviewed by Catherine Conybeare, Bryn Mawr College (cconybea <at> brynmawr.edu)

(with the assistance of Catherine Barrett, Patti Blaha, Molaika Canas, 
Jennifer Gamble, and Katheryn Whitcomb)

Word count:  1569 words
-------------------------------

Whenever I use an electronic research tool, I become all too aware of
my e-limits. The questions which I pose to it always seem circumscribed
by my own failure of imagination: I expect it to give the same answers
as I would get from working with printed texts -- only faster. But on
the edge of my e-limits, I am asking what is the real range of this
resource? Must one use it within conventional textual parameters, or
are there new possibilities in the electronic medium?

Accordingly, while testing the range of the Stuttgart Electronic Study
Bible [SESB], I assembled a team of students to help me.[[1]] All are
senior undergraduates or first-year MA students; their areas of
expertise are Classics or Religious Studies or both. All are proficient
in one or more of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; they have very varied
levels of experience with electronic research tools.
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owner-bmcr-l | 14 Jan 2005 17:07
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BMCR 2005.01.11, Josephine Balmer, Catullus.

Josephine Balmer, Catullus. Poems of Love and Hate.  Northumberland:
Bloodaxe Books, 2004.  Pp. 159.  ISBN 1-85224-645-6.  $23.95.

Reviewed by Daniel H. Garrison, Northwestern University
(d-garrison <at> northwestern.edu)
Word count:  812 words
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Josephine Balmer (henceforth B.), a freelance writer and translator,
has published translations of Sappho (1992) and Classical Women Poets
(1996). In 2004, Bloodaxe Books offered two more volumes: Chasing
Catullus: Poems, Translations, & Transgressions, simultaneously with
the volume under review. The collection of B's own poems took its title
from one of the poems in the collection, most of it (like much poetry)
inspired by other poetry, chiefly from the ancient world. In that
volume, she describes herself as "overwriting the past like a
palimpsest." The versions of Catullus in Poems of Love and Hate can
likewise be read as poems inspired by Catullus and can best be judged
as translations if we allow the translator a degree of autonomy. This
allowance must be made for any translation: with the present volume,
the reader will need to exercise the usual forbearance.

For this collection B. has selected the shorter poems. She omits more
than a thousand lines of "the longer mythological and ritual verse"
including his two great masterpieces, the story of Attis (63) and the
epyllion about the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (64). Also set aside
are the Hymn to Diana (34), both marriage hymns (61-62), the "Lock of
Berenice" adapted from Callimachus (66), and all but the opening 40
lines of poem 68, whose personal narrative is autobiographical in its
presentation. These poems are promised in a later volume. Poems of Love
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owner-bmcr-l | 14 Jan 2005 17:02
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BMCR 2005.01.08, Response to BMCR 2004.12.33 by Holford-Strevens

Holford-Strevens on Elsner on Leach.   Response to BMCR 2004.12.33

Response by Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford University Press
(leofranc.holford-strevens <at> oup.com)
-------------------------------

Jas' Elsner writes, in his review of E.W. Leach, The Social Life of
Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples (Cambridge, 2004):

"The one sustained attempt to build a social picture out of pictorial
subject matter has been in the study of Roman sex, fundamentally
indebted to Kenneth Dover's explorations of Greek homosexuality from
the evidential base of what was depicted on vases. If this is the
model, one might argue that Leach has been wise to keep away: the
post-Dover study of ancient sexuality, quite apart from the fundamental
methodological problems involved in inevitable presentism, has insisted
on a remarkably literalist interpretation of images so as to argue that
what they show is what people did. It may indeed be that what is shown
today in what the British coyly call 'top shelf magazines' (top shelf
being where Newsagents display them) does indeed reflect some people's
actual practices, but of what socially meaningful group? And how does
what is depicted in such publications relate to the activities of the
majority (or even to their desires)? Likewise, when Greek pots or the
cubicles where people left their clothes in Roman baths show scenes of
pretty well every imaginable sexual activity (or perhaps my imagination
is excessively limited here), we need at least a careful argument to
show that this has anything to do with reality. The assumption that
such imagery betrays actual practice, or is a positive and celebratory
affirmation of contemporary mores, smacks of wishful thinking."
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