 Sunday, March 14, 2004
JOURNAL: Classical Antiquity 22.2 (October 2003)
Classical Antiquity represents 'another' type of journal I would like to cover -- the journal that doesn't have articles online but does have abstracts of some sort. You can order individual articles from the publishers or even the whole journal. The problem with these journals, however, is that for some reason they aren't picked up by Google and so all this potential quality information (and publicity) goes by the wayside. Below represents the format I'd like to cover these sorts of things with ... I don't know if publishers will disapprove, though:
Classical Antiquity 22.2 (October 2003)
A. Brian Bosworth, Plus ça change.... Ancient Historians and their Sources
This article addresses the problem of veracity in ancient historiography. It contests some recent views that the criteria of truth in historical writing were comparable to the standards of forensic rhetoric. Against this I contend that the historians of antiquity did follow their sources with commendable fidelity, superimposing a layer of comment but not adding independent material. To illustrate the point I examine the techniques of the Alexander historian, Q. Curtius Rufus, comparing his treatment of events with a range of other sources that reflect the same tradition. The results can be paralleled in early modern historiography, in the dispute between J. G. Droysen and K. W. Krüger on the character of Callisthenes of Olynthus. Both operate with the same material, but give it different "spins" according to their political perspectives. There is error and hyperbole, but no deliberate fiction. © Regents of the University of California
Request the article ...
Katarzyna Hagemajer Allen, Intercultural Exchanges in Fourth-Century Attic Decrees
Focusing on the analysis of Athens' relations with both Greeks and non-Greeks as recorded in extant fourth-century decrees, this paper challenges the applicability of the notion of Greek/barbarian antithesis to the interpretation of formal diplomatic exchanges between Athens and the non-Greek states. A comparison of the types of decrees and honors reveals a remarkable uniformity in the forms of Athens' foreign relations irrespective of the ethnicity of honorands. The distribution of honors among individuals and groups of recipients within single decrees further demonstrates that the Athenian honorific system typically elevated individuals over communities they represented, suggesting that political differences between Athens and nonGreek states did not adversely influence the methods of exchanges between them. Apart from the provisions contained in the decrees, this paper also considers their function within the city as monuments that attest to the important place of philobarbaric discourse and practice in fourth-century Athens. © Regents of the University of California
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Steven Johnstone, Women, Property, and Surveillance in Classical Athens
While it is sometimes thought that free Athenian women were hemmed in by surveillance within the oikos, this article argues that the obstacle that impeded them when they attempted to control property was that they were excluded from the impersonal and formal systems of surveillance of male citizens. Athenian public life, lived in the view of others, dramatically extended the agency of those within it. While women could compensate for their legal incapacities by cultivating the personal trust of men, this required them to treat some of the people closest to them instrumentally, thus transforming their affectionate relationships. © Regents of the University of California
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Charles King, The Organization of Roman Religious Beliefs
This study will focus on the differences in the way that Roman Paganism and Christianity organize systems of beliefs. It rejects the theory that "beliefs" have no place in the Roman religion, but stresses the differences between Christian orthodoxy, in which mandatory dogmas define group identity, and the essentially polythetic nature of Roman religious organization, in which incompatible beliefs could exist simultaneously in the community without conflict. In explaining how such beliefs could coexist in Rome, the study emphasizes three main conceptual mechanisms: (1) polymorphism, the idea that gods could have multiple identities with incompatible attributes, (2) orthopraxy, the focus upon standardized ritual rather than standardized belief, and (3) pietas, the Roman ideal of reciprocal obligation, which was flexible enough to allow Romans to maintain relationships simultaneously with multiple gods at varying levels of personal commitment. © Regents of the University of California
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James B. Rives, Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime
In this paper I reconsider the Roman law on magic through an examination of three key "moments": the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis; the trial of Apuleius as known from his Apology; and a passage from The Opinions of Paulus. I argue that the Roman law on magic grounded in the Lex Cornelia gradually shifted from a focus on harmful and uncanny actions to a concern with religious deviance. This shift was already underway at the time of Apuleius' trial, if only on an ad hoc basis, and was firmly established in the formal discourse of Roman law by ca. 300 CE, the date of The Opinions of Paulus. I argue for the importance of retaining "magic" as a heuristic category, since it is the only term fluid enough to function as an inclusive rubric for this shifting set of concerns. © Regents of the University of California
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6:40:00 PM  
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JOURNAL: Scholia 11 (2002)
One of the things I wanted to do when I started this blog was to draw folks' attention to the large number of Classical journals that are available online for the browsing (and hopefully there will be more). March Break has given me the chance to get my lists of same organized, and so below I present the Table of Contents for the above-mentioned journal ... in Scholia's case, to access the articles you have to go to the journal homepage and select each page ...
Chorus, Metatheatre, and Menander, Dyskolos 427-41
Marshall, C. W.
Who is the Demosthenes at the End of Demosthenes 56, Against Dionysodorus? An Exercise in Methodology
Worthington, Ian
The Urbanitas of Catullus 6
Fuqua, Charles
Transformation and Abandonment: Defining the Immigrant Experience in Two Vergilian Metamorphoses
Papaioannou, Sophia
Superbia in Vergil's Aeneid: Who's Haughty and Who's Not?
Christenson, David
The Morio in Martial's Epigrams, with Emphasis on 12.93
Garmaise, Michael
From Pompey to Plymouth: The Personification of Africa in the Art of Europe
Maritz, J. A.
Orfeo e la scimmia 'musicista' in un Mosaico di Sousse (Louvre, inv. MNC 1145; cat. Ma 1798)
Bajoni, Maria Grazia
Some Observations on the Vulgar Latin Verb Plico
Smutny, Robert J.
George Samuel Sale and Other Stories
Barsby, J. A.
REVIEW ARTICLES
Ecclesiastical Politics in the Fourth Century
Timothy D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire
Basson, André F.
The Literature of the World Englished
Peter France (ed.), The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation
Claassen, Jo-Marie
Enlightened Imperialism or Oppression?
Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire
Stevenson, Tom
There are also a pile of reviews available.
6:14:57 PM
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CHATTER: Homeric Hockey
The New York Times -- well-known, of course, for its coverage of sports -- in the wake of the Todd Bertuzzi incident has an editorial claiming thus:
HOCKEY has always been the most Homeric and Old Testament-like of sports - the only one with its own code of vengeance and retribution, where eye-for-eye justice is meted out by large, short-tempered men hired expressly for that purpose. (And the only sport, except perhaps for professional wrestling, that supports a lively black market in videotapes of people pounding each other in the head.)
A great deal of hockey fighting is ritualistic, with more chest-bumping and uniform-grabbing than actual punch-throwing. Every now and then, however, the ritual displays erupt into genuine and sometimes horrific violence, as happened in Vancouver last Monday during a game between the Canucks and the Colorado Avalanche.
A couple of items worth noting (keeping in mind I live in Canada and hockey is, well, part of my psyche): videotapes of hockey fights do not have to circulate on the black market. One can purchase them at Walmart or rent them from Blockbuster -- such items form(ed) a large part of Don Cherry's income. Heck, you don't even have to leave your computer but can just go to Hockeyfights.com ... you can even vote on whether you think it was a good fight or not. And of course, it's morally superior to watch someone hurl a five ounce sphere at someone's head or kidneys.
That said ... I'm still not sure what's 'homeric' about hockey.
12:40:40 PM
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CHATTER: Parthenon/Elgin Marbles
The decision of the Greek government might have thrown a spanner into the works of the Marbles Reunited campaign ... here's a sort of overview excerpt from a piece in the Star Tribune which goes over old territory:
The marbles spark rich debate among cultural property scholars. John Henry Merryman, a Stanford Law School professor who published a book about the case, argues against applying current principles retroactively.
"If the law were then the way it is today, then what was done then would be illegal. But that's not the case. If they say, 'We should reapply today's standards,' that's an argument that legally doesn't have a lot of force," he said.
But David Rudenstine, dean of Cardozo law school in New York City, researched the subject in the 1990s, and said he found Merryman and previous scholars overlooked crucial details. According to Rudenstine, the British Parliament tampered with evidence in preparing an 1816 report to make Elgin's acquisition look more legitimate. "They committed fraud," he said.
But the organizers of Marbles Reunited set aside historic arguments over ownership, and focused instead on arranging a "long-term loan" to Greece.
The group's proposal would put the sculptures on display indefinitely at the new Acropolis Museum, which is under construction near the Parthenon.
Driving the renewed efforts is a sense that public opinion may be shifting in favor of repatriation.
"The age in which many objects were removed was the age of colonization," said Cambridge scholar Jeanette Greenfield. "The mind-set of the world has altered."
The British Museum remains staunchly opposed to relinquishing control of the sculptures. About half of its 5 million visitors a year stop to see the exhibit in a 1930s gallery especially built for them, according to the museum. (Advocates for the return say their surveys found only one in five visitors see the marbles in London.)
In defending its stake, the museum points out "the British Museum Trustees' title to the objects is entirely secure under any European legal system. The Trustees' duty is to hold the objects so as to secure maximum public benefit."
The museum also claims that it is a better steward of the art than Greece, whose remaining store of Parthenon sculptures have been exposed to harsh weather conditions or stored out of the public's eye.
"The Parthenon Marbles have been central to the Museum's collections, and to its purpose, for almost two hundred years. Only here can the worldwide significance of the sculptures be fully grasped," Neil Mac Gregor, the museum's director, said last month.
But the museum explicitly avoids stating what many Britons hold true: Restoring the marbles to the Parthenon would be a slippery slope in Great Britain, where much public art owes its provenance to colonial-age collectors.
"Such a move would be an unwelcome precedent," one opponent famously stated in a House of Lords debate in 1997. "If we started to return works of art to other countries, there would not be much left in our museums and galleries." [more]
So if there's no special museum being built (see below) -- which is an integral part of MR's proposal -- the proposal must be dead or at least in serious need of alteration. Perhaps ironically, though, the new Greek government's concern for the protection of antiquities might end up playing in their favour ... as often in this particular saga, we'll have to wait and see.
12:30:09 PM
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THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY
pridie idus martias
- Festival of Mars (day 14)
- Equirria -- essentially a horse-racing festival which was part of the Festival of Mars, it gave the cavalry an opportunity to 'loosen up' the horses for the upcoming campaign season
- 222 A.D. -- Severus Alexander is given the title Augustus
11:54:01 AM
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BULLETIN BOARD UPDATE
March Break has given me the opportunity to finally update the Bulletin Board areas. Some deadlines are soon approaching (I think one or two have passed), but FWIW:
Jobs:
Mediterannean Centre for Arts and Sciences (MCAS), Sicily: assorted jobs
Queen's University (Kingston): Generalist (three year)
Eastern Mediterranean University (Cyprus): Generalist (term?)
UMissouri-Columbia: Roman Art and Archaeology (one year almost)
Xavier U (Cinncinnati): Generalist (one year)
Concordia: Generalist (one year)
YorkU: Hellenist (one year)
UFlorida: Generalist (one year)
Yale Center for International Area Studies: Associate Research Scholar (one year renewable)
ASCSA: Production / Manuscript Editor
UTennesee: Generalist (one year)
USydney: Greek Historian (tenure track?)
UOregon: Generalist (2 one-year replacements)
Access the jobs page ...
Access the APA jobs listings for February ...
On the Classical Events page:
CONF: LATE ANTIQUE ARCHAEOLOGY 2004 -OBJECTS IN CONTEXT, OBJECTS IN USE- THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
CONF: STATES OF COMPLEXITY: Perspectives on Sociopolitical Development in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean
CFP: Foreign Relations and Diplomacy in the Ancient World: Egypt, Greece, Near East
CFP: SLAVE SYSTEMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN
CONF: THE OATH IN GREEK SOCIETY
CFP/CONF: Classical Association of Canada Annual Congress
CFP: What Sounds Good?: The Aesthetic and the "Authentic" in the Pronunciation of Ancient Greek and Latin
CFP: "From Myth to Magus: Hermes in the Western Tradition"
CFP: THE ETHICS OF COLLECTING AND COMMUNICATING THE NEAR EASTERN PAST
CFP: ANCIENT STUDIES/NEW TECHNOLOGY III
CFP: Humans and Animals in Antiquity: Boundaries and Transgressions
CFP: Aegyptus et Pannonia Symposium III: Diversity and Similarity in Egyptian Religions
CFP: AGING, OLD AGE AND DEATH PASSAGES FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES II
Access the Classical Events page ...
On the Miscellaneous Announcements page:
LEARN LATIN THIS SUMMER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA!
8-WEEK INTENSIVE LATIN AND GREEK SUMMER SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK, IRELAND
The American Academy in Rome: Summer Program in Archaeology
The 22nd Annual C.A.N.E. Summer Institute
Access the Miscellaneous Announcements page ...
Of course, y'all can send me announcements for posting here if you like ... I might miss them in my daily scans of the lists.
11:48:37 AM
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CHATTER: Greek Tragedy Watch
A piece on the Illinois Senate race includes the following:
And in the way of the best reality television--which is really just Greek tragedy with commercial sponsors--this race rivets with its view of how fortunes change, how alliances shift, how people conspire to bring themselves down.
So now Survivor is Greek tragedy? Big Brother? My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fiance? I think not ...
11:31:23 AM
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AWOTV: On TV Today
3.00 p.m. |HINT| Attila: Scourge of God
Bloodthirsty barbarian or benevolent ruler? Our profile portrays
Attila the Hun as he really was: shrewd, tough, and at times even
thoughtful. A man who, through intelligence and sheer force of
character, forged a loose confederation of nomadic tribes into the
most fearsome military machine of its time.
4.00 p.m. |HINT| Ivan the Terrible: Might and Madness
The life of the bloodthirsty first Tsar of Russia. Ivan killed his
own son and had several of his wives murdered.
9.00 p.m. |DISCC and DISCU| Colosseum: A Gladiator's Story
Revealing the true life of a gladiator in all its grit and glory,
this spectacular dramatized documentary reveals the truth about the
events that took place inside the arena.
10.00 p.m. |DISCC and DISCU| True Gladiators
The remains of the largest gladiator graveyard ever discovered have
been excavated outside the city walls of Ephesus, offering new
insight into the Roman Empire's bloody sport; find out how gladiators
lived, trained, fought and died.
HINT = History International
DISCC = Discovery Channel (Canada)
DISCU = Discovery Channel (US)
10:24:33 AM
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