This article aims to put Latin impersonal passive into the context of covert categories, specifically pluractionality. I try to reanalyse six passages from the Roman grammatical texts, mostly compiled in Heinrich Keil’s Grammatici Latini, in which the meaning of Latin impersonal passives is considered. There are two groups of evidence. The first one (passages from Diomedes, Priscian, and frg. Bobiense de verbo) presents the impersonal passive as a linguistic strategy that shifts focus from an agent to a situation, while the second one (Diomedes and two excerpts of Servius’ commentaries on Virgil) concentrates upon the number of agents. In the last case, a verbal action is considered to be a collective one involving many people, and therefore, in my opinion, falls into the category of pluractionality. Being a diverse phenomenon, the term pluractionality includes participant plurality, which is realised either in a subject or in an object depending on whether the verb is intransitive or transitive. Intransitivity of the Latin impersonal passive forms, as it seems, may imply agent plurality rather than subject plurality, since impersonal passive constructions are subjectless. Furthermore, in my opinion, the evidence provided by Latin grammarians demonstrates a contraposition of the 1 st person singular, 1 st person plural and 3rd person singular passive forms
The piece deals with the interpretation of Prop. 2. 8. 21–24. These verses seem to be problematic and illogical over the years. In the poem, the speaker, deserted by his beloved Cynthia, imagines himself dead and then describes the heroine’s reaction to this disastrous event. Propertius thinks that she will be happy about his death and defile his grave. Then he suddenly turns to Haemon, who commits suicide in despair of the Antigone’s death, and after that threatens Cynthia to kill her. Firstly, it is incorrect to compare the righteous Antigone with the unfaithful Cynthia. Secondly, the decision to kill the beloved is inept. Some scholars transpose the verses in order to avoid the incoherence. Others try to interpret the passage, leaving the lines in their initial order, but they usually think that Propertius compares himself with Haemon and Cynthia with Antigone. The author of the article reconsiders gender roles in this comparison and suggests a new interpretation. There are also some examples from the Catullan and Propertian poetry, which show that the gender-inverted comparisons are widely used in ancient literature and especially in Roman love poetry of the 1st century B. C., in which they, probably, are part of a new literary strategy.
Several ancient authors tell a puzzling story of treason to murder Alexander the Great by presenting him with poison or poisonous water carried in a curious vessel — a hoof of a horse, a mule, or an ass. Porphyry of Tyre, citing Kallimachos and Philo the Paradoxographer, gives us a reason to believe that the mention of hoof-made vessels was a misinterpretation of hornmade chalices, or put otherwise, drinking horns. Presuming that the vessel in question indeed was a drinking horn, we are left with an unusual image — Alexander the Great perished after drinking the poisonous water from the horn of a hornless animal. We can look into the development of this legend and propose its origins by examining mutual features of two distinct traditions — the Greek legend of the river Styx and its lethal streams and the Indo-Iranian tradition of several miraculous features of a unicorn’s horn, attested in Iranian, Indian, and Greek sources. After the survey of relevant sources, we see that the horn from Philo’s story represented a legendary present of Indian rulers intended to save Alexander the Great from harm. Various layers of misapprehension transformed the legendary gift into a device contracted to harm him. This way, the author demonstrates two points: 1) that the story told by Porphyry in Styg. 375F is a part of an Indo-Iranian tradition about unicorns and their miraculous features; and 2) that the legend of Alexander’s poisoning represents a transformed and misinterpreted story of Alexander’s grandest gift.
This paper is an overview — in it I take a critical look at works that have come out in recent years about Antiphon. My primary focus is on four books: two scholarly works on Antiphon, one by Annie Hourcade and another by Michael Gagarin, an edition of the fragments of Antiphon’s treatises with a detailed commentary by Gerard Pendrick, and, finally, a new edition of Antiphon’s speeches prepared by Mervin Dilts and David Murphy. There is still a dispute among scholars about the authorship of the Corpus Antiphonteum. Some (the separatists) consider that there were separate authors for the speeches, on the one hand, and for the treatises, on the other — Antiphon the orator and Antiphon the sophist, respectively. Others (the unitarians) insist that there was a single author for both the speeches and the treatises. In the 19 th and the first half of the 20 th centuries, the separatists had the upper hand, but the situation slowly began to change, and now most scholars — rightly so in my opinion — argue for a single authorship. The separatists are compelled to divide the biographical testimonies of Antiphon between the orator and the sophist. But in the case of a single Antiphon, it turns out there is more than a little information about that person. In this paper, I present a review of scholarly opinion about evidence according to which Antiphon invented τέχνη ἀλυπίας and opened a psychotherapeutic clinic, where he tried to help his patients using verbal therapy. Some scholars call the tradition of the clinic into question. The separatists attribute any evidence about it to Antiphon the sophist. Like other scholars, I uphold the credibility of the clinic. I also take a look at the image of Antiphon presented by Xenophon (Mem. 1, 6.). Many scholars consider Xenophon’s story to be fictitious or reject it outright. The separatists believe that Xenophon calls Antiphon a sophist in the very first sentence of the sixth chapter in order to distinguish him from his namesake, Antiphon the orator. I think Xenophon’s goal is different. Socrates, in conversation with Antiphon during their second meeting, which Xenophon describes later on in the same chapter, likens sophists to πόρνοι (Mem. 1. 6. 13). Obviously, Xenophon calls Antiphon a sophist because he intends that the shameful implications of this comparison be applied first and foremost to him. Hourcade and Gagarin want to show that the author of the treatises and the speeches was one and the same person. Even though Pendrick is a separatist, the parallels he draws between the fragments of the treatises and individual passages in the speeches also, I think, favor the idea of a single Antiphon. I conclude that, thanks to the work of these scholars, Antiphon has, although not yet fully, been put back together again
The article revisits Aristophanes’ Daitales fr. 233 which is often taken as (the only) evidence of Homeric glosses being drilled by Athenian youth as part of their school education in 5th c. BC. The author discusses in detail the context of Aristophanic citation in Galen’s work, the state of the text of the fragment and its modern interpretations. In fact, nothing in the text itself directly suggests that learning glosses was part of the traditional school education in Athens. On the contrary, it can be argued that Aristophanes presented glosses as linguistic innovations and intellectuals studying them as sophists. The parallels between Daitales and Clouds, as well as Plato’s Kratylos and other fifth-century texts must be taken into account when interpreting the dialogue between the Father and his Son in fr. 233. As a conclusion, the author suggests that the characters of Daitales should be interpreted differently: the Old Man in this episode of the play is not opposing the sophistic teachings, but rather using these in his argument as an instrument to demonstrate the Licentious Son his ignorance. The latter is apparently not a follower of the sophists and defends himself with his more practical knowledge of legal terms
The article deals with a passage from the prologue of Aristophanes’ Acharnians, vv. 30–31. Close reading of the passage and analyzing each verb of the series in vv. 30–31 shows that the entire series of verbs in Acharnians 30–31 describes Dikaiopolis’ suffering and constitutes the culmination of the woes listed in his monologue. This last and greatest of his woes cannot be mere annoyance at having come first to the Pnyx and not knowing how to kill time. στένω must mean a lament tragic in tone, and κέχηνα intensifies this vocal lament though adding a comic bathos. σκορδινῶμαι does not refer here to drowsy stretching as it is usually interpreted by scholars but to convulsions of rage and despair. πέρδομαι indicates acuteness and intensity of Dikaiopolis’ disappointment; the relationship between σκορδινῶμαι and πέρδομαι is similar to that between στένω and κέχηνα, where the second verb emphasizes and marks the culmination of the first (“I’m moaning so much that my mouth is open wide” and “I’m convulsed to the point of farting”). παρατίλλομαι must mean “to tear out the hair on one’s head”, a gesture that is obviously a sign of sorrow and despair. The verbs γράφω and λογίζομαι describe Dikaiopolis writing out and assessing his debts sitting in the assembly place. The lines that follow are tightly connected to 30–31 and explain the reason for the protagonist’s despair: Dikaiopolis dreams of the countryside and hates the city, but due to the war cannot return to the country (32–33); his hatred of the city is further explained by the enormous expenses city life entails.
The paper deals with the embryological teaching of Empedocles, the ancient Greek philosopher from Acragas, who lived in the 5 th century BC. The article is focused on the mechanisms by which children inherit their parents’ features in the doctrine of Empedocles. The available fragments and evidence on the teachings of early Greek philosophers often provide distorted and sometimes contradictory information. This paper attempts to carefully analyze all the evidence regarding inheritance mechanisms and bring it into an agreement with each other without resorting to abandoning some of the fragments. The most extensive information is provided to us by Censorinus, the 3rd century Roman writer, who in 238 AD wrote the treatise De die natali to congratulate his patron Caerelius on his 49th birthday. The article comments in detail on the testimony of Censorinus (De die natali, 6. 6 = 31 A 81 DK) concerning Empedocles’ views on the inheritance of parental traits by children, as well as the contradictory messages by Aetius (Aët. 5. 11. 1 = A 81) and Aristotle (De gen. an. I, 18, 723a23; IV, 1, 764a1f.; 765a 8 = 31 A 81 DK). The analysis conducted by Erna Lesky in her famous monograph of 1950 was expanded and supplemented in this article. In addition, the study takes into account the evidence of cases where children do not resemble their parents. Empedocles justifies these cases by popular superstitions, which were widespread in Europe up to the 20th century.
In 2015, Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker, while excavating the so-called “Tomb of a warrior with a griffin”, discovered an agate seal with an extraordinarily detailed depiction of a combat scene. It shows a warrior armed with a sword only, bending over his adversary’s shield, grabbing him by the crest of his helmet and using it as leverage to render him absolutely powerless. The article studies the image on the Pylos combat agate as a reflection of an early epic narrative. It is shown that the account of the combat between Menelaus and Paris in the Iliad (3. 369–376) is an elaboration on a traditional epic narrative that was preserved in the text of the Iliad as a rudimentary motif (following Th. Zelinsky’s terminology). The comparison of this narrative with the Pylos combat agate allows us to comment the Homeric episode in a new way, insofar as it preserves the description of the type of helmet that was in use in the 16th–15th centuries BCE. This helmet would have permitted the adversary to turn the helmeted warrior’s head in the way that is depicted on the Pylos combat agate. It is noteworthy that the Homeric account begins with “were it not for…”, negating the version of events that was the basis of the earlier epic narrative. As a result, we are able to reconstruct several fragments of the heroic epos going back to early Mycenaean times, unsurprisingly connected (as already surmised by Ruijgh) with Peloponnesus of the 17th–15th centuries BCE.
The following analysis concerns Pliny’s excursus on mazzard (sweet cherry) cultivation in Rome in the Book 15 of the Historia naturalis. Pliny links their introduction and spread to the conquests of the Roman army under the command of illustrious general and bon vivant L. Licinius Lucullus. The confrontation of Pliny’s narrative with other sources, as well as with the findings of contemporary researchers, indicate that Lucullus could not have been the first discoverer of the mazzard and the chronological information Pliny gives should be treated with special caution. Most relevantly, Athenaeus of Naucratis invoked the same tradition, according to which Lucullus was also the author of the name of the mazzard (Greek κεράσια, Latin cerasia), to mock the tendency of the Romans to attribute Greek achievements to themselves. Pliny’s embellished argument, however, aligns perfectly with his Romanocentric and imperialist world picture. As an eminent historian, naturalist and official of the Roman Empire, he used certain passages in his immense encyclopaedia as a departure point to present idealistically the successes of the Roman army and its culture-forming role. In this context, Pliny’s description of the discovery and spread of mazzard cultivation serves as another illustration of the genius of the Romans and the power of their empire
The present paper is the first attempt at a bio-bibliography of Jan Luňák (1847–1935), the peripatetic classicist who roamed the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian empires before founding the classical seminar at the University of Ljubljana, in 1919, in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians. Luňák studied in Prague and Leipzig and then moved to St Petersburg to earn his master’s in classical philology from Dorpat (now Tartu) and his doctorate in Greek literature from Kazan. In 1890 he became extraordinarius in Moscow, and in 1892 ordinarius in Odessa, from where he retired in 1907. Known primarily for his Quaestiones Sapphicae, he was forced to launch a second career in 1919, after World War I and then the October Revolution permanently separated him from his family and deprived him of his pension. He served as contractual professor of classical philology in Ljubljana until 1930 when he finally returned to Prague. Based on both published and archival material, the paper provides a historical context for his academic career (which had its roots in the Russian Philological Seminary in Leipzig, where Luňák was recommended by Friedrich Ritschl). It thus attempts to understand the somewhat disparate aspects of his complex scholarly itinerary. Apart from providing his comprehensive bibliography, the study hopes to serve as a stimulus for other primary sources to surface in the future
В статье анализируется период в истории кафедры классической филологии Ленинградского университета с 1938 по 1946 гг., за исключением военного времени (1942– 1944 гг.), когда кафедра находилась в эвакуации в Саратове. Привлечена делопроизводственная документация из архивных фондов (Центральный государственный архив г. Санкт-Петербурга и Объединенный архив СПбГУ) и мемуарные свидетельства (главным образом О. М. Фрейденберг). Анализ учебного плана кафедры, введенного в 1938 г., позволил сделать вывод о комплексной историко-филологической подготовке студентов отделения, уходящей корнями еще в дореволюционное время. Установлено, что политика заведующей кафедрой О. М. Фрейденберг по продвижению молодых кадров на кафедру (с передачей им учебных курсов, не всегда рационально обоснованной, на основном отделении) способствовала созданию конфликтной ситуации, которая вылилась в публичное обсуждение в мае 1946 г. на ученом совете возглавляемого ею подразделения. Это заседание не следует относить к разряду идеологических кампаний: оно имело под собой основание в виде профессиональных разногласий. Скандальность же защит Б. Л. Галеркиной и Н. В. Вулих была обусловлена не столько личностными мотивами, сколько научными различиями во взглядах на задачи классической филологии между О. М. Фрейденберг и представителями «старой» школы. Сами же диссертации оказались наспех выполненными, причиной чему явилась материальная сторона
В статье рассматривается история преподавания классических языков в первые годы с момента образования Главных народных училищ в Российской империи в правление Екатерины II. В качестве примера берется Тобольское Главное народное училище в период с 1789 по 1810 г., в которое были направлены выпускники Учительской семинарии Санкт-Петербурга. Дана характеристика реформы среднего образования при Екатерине II, краткая информация о реформах классического образования в XIX в. и их вопло - щении в Западной Сибири. Также анализируются учебники, переведенные с австрийских и заново написанные для Главных народных училищ. Подробно рассматривается Устав народных училищ в части практических и методических рекомендаций учителю иностранных языков (латинский и немецкий). Приводится анализ методических принципов учебника по латинскому языку Я. А. Коменского, адаптированного для преподавания латыни в Главных народных училищах. Рассматриваются основные тематические блоки и методические особенности подачи материала, приводятся примеры текстов учебника. Публикация ставит перед собой цель рассмотреть истоки развития российского классического образования как общественного института с точки зрения практического воплощения и методического анализа, а также произвести обзор организационных составляющих преподавания в Тобольском Главном народном училище. Исследуются конкретно-исторические условия работы учителей, особенности преподавания древних языков в сибирской столице. Материал свидетельствует о далеко не безупречном характере воплощения образовательных реформ 1780-х гг. в условиях Сибири. В то же время нельзя не признать, что реформы заложили необходимую основу для формирования систематического среднего образования в России и переходу к системе классических гимназий, имеющих связь и преемство с университетами европейской части России, что положительно сказалось на культурном и экономическом развитии Западной Сибири в XIX — начале XX в