Notices of Books

NOTICES OF BOOKS. Genethliakon. CARL ROBERT zum 8. Miirz, 1910, tiberreicht von der Graeca Halensis. Berlin : Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1910. Pp. 246. 6 m. This is a series of studies on different subjects dedicated by friends and former pupils to Carl Robert on his attaining his sixtieth birthday. The first two, by Benedictus Niese and Georg Wissowa respectively, deal with ' three chapters in the history of Blis' and 'Naevius and the Metelli.' Both these historical inquiries are characterised by the employment of similar methods of criticism. Certain events, said to have taken place at a particular period, are held never to have taken place at that time, but to have been carried back from the history of a later day. Thus Niese believes that the stories of the repeated quarrels between Elis and Pisa have no historical foundation, except in the single instance of the years 365-4 B.C., when the Pisatae for a brief period formed a separate community, and in conjunction with the Arcadians carried out the Olympic games. Wissowa in ' Naevius and the Metelli' endeavours to show that the story of the poet's quarrel with that house is a figment derived from a later period. The line fato Metdli Romaejiunt consules is, he thinks, quite pointless in relation to the Metelli of Naevius' day. It would apply forcibly, however, to the period of the Gracchi, in which the Metelli were singularly prominent as holders of high office. The traditional reply, malum dabunt Metelli Naevio poetae, Wissowa attributes to Caesius Bassus in Nero's time, when it was composed as a model of a Saturnian line. It may be suggested that the above method of historical criticism (very popular at the present time) may be carried a little too far. It is true that the historian is frequently tempted to add to the glory of his country in early times, but is it true that there is an equal tendency to fabricate history when no such motive can be assigned ? The arguments of both Niese and Wissowa are ingenious, but hardly convincing. Bechtel subjects the names of persons as published by Frankel in the fourth volume of /. O. to a searching criticism. A fair number of errors, certain or probable, are pointed out, but they are perhaps scarcely serious enough (consideration being had to the magnitude of the work) to justify the rather severe tone of criticism employed. Bechtel's proposed corrections are, however, likely to win approval for the most part. Otto Kern discusses the origin of the collection of hymns comprehended under the title 'Opfpe'ois irpbs Movaaiov evrv^ws xpa> iraipt. These were apparently designed for the use of a body of mystae devoted to the service of Dionysos. The occurrence of the names of the goddess Hipta and of Dionysos Erikepaios both in these hymns and in inscriptions recently discovered in Asia Minor leads Kern to look to Asia Minor rather than to Egypt for their origin. The connexion between the later Orphism and magical inscriptions is rightly pointed out by Kern. There is no doubt that the Gnostic and magical inscriptions on metal foil are a continuation of the Orphic inscriptions on similar material. Karl Praechter deals at some length with the tendencies and schools of Neoplatonism. His classification differs materially from that of Zeller, who divided the Neoplatonists into three schools according to their order of progress, viz. the school of Plotinus, the Syrian school of Iamblichus, and the school of Athens, whose foremost representative was Proclus. H.S. VOL. XXX. B B 366 NOTICES OF BOOKS Praechter maintains that the system was founded by Plotinus and Porphyrius : that Iamblichus then developed the doctrines in a speculative and mystic direction ; the result being seen in two schools, the Syrian and the Athenian. A separate and distinctively religious tendency is manifested in the Pergamene school of Aidesios and Chrysanthios. Neoplatonism ends with the learned schools of Alexandria and the West,. of which Hypatia and Macrobius were representative. Neoplatonism undoubtedly derives much of its interest from the fact that it forms a kind of connecting link between Ancient Philosophy and Christianity. Eduard Meyer chooses for his study Hesiod's Works and Days, and in particular the part dealing with the Five Races of Mankind. In general it may be remarked that his interpretations do not differ greatly from those of the late Dr. Adam in his Religious Teachers of Greece. The central idea of the poem is, according to Meyer, ' the dignity of labour' : according to Adam ' Justice between man and man.' These views, it may be pointed out, are united in the Platonic conception of Justice as consisting in the doing by each man of the work nature intended him to do. These broodings over the relation of man to man (says Wissowa) lead the poet to take a wider view of the development of mankind in his description of the Five Ages. The gold and silver ages are a picture of decline in a race of ideal beings; the bronze and iron ages are a picture of a decline in morals accompanying an improvement in culture, a phenomenon noted by the poet from his own observation. The heroic age is interpolated between these two in order to suit the general belief in its existence ; it is also a ray of hope piercing the gloom of Hesiod's pessimism. Professor Meyer, as Professor Mair in his recent translation of Hesiod, emphasises the almost Hebraic spirit of religion pervading the poem. Ulrich Wilcken devotes an extremely interesting article to a fresh study of a Greek papyrus found by Prof. Potrie at Hawara in 1889. This was at first regarded by Prof. Sayce as a fragment of a lost history of Sicily, perhaps that of Timaeus. Dr. Wilcken, however, in that same year expressed the opinion that the fragment really formed part of a descriptive guide to Athens and the Peiraeus. This conclusion is amply confirmed by the present very ingenious study. Dr. Wilcken successfully distinguishes portions describing the Peiraeus (including the mention of an otherwise unknown sundial), Munichia (with a mention of ' the famous shrine of Artemis'), and the circuit of the Peiraeus wall, which is here said to measure ninety odd stades, whereas the Themistoclean wall described by Thucydides measured but sixty. Hence the wall described must be the wall of Konon. The MS. goes on to describe the Long Walls and the Phaleric wall (mentioning the hill Sikelia) and breaks off just at the beginning of an account of ' the town of Theseus.' It is probable that this guide was written at the beginning of the third century B.C., though the papyrus is to be dated at about 100 A.D. The name of the author must remain uncertain, though it is conceivably the work of Diodorus the Trfpiijyrjrijs. The concluding study by Benno Erdmann on the philosophy of Spinoza falls outside the scope of this Journal. Le Grand Palais de Constantinople et Le Livre des Ceremonies. By JEA> EBERSOLT. Avec un Avant-Propos de M. CHAELES DIEHL et un Plan de M. ADOLPHE THIEBS. In-octavo. Pp. xv + 237. Paris : Leroux, 1910. (Table des Matieres et Additions et Corrections not included in pagination.) Sainte Sophie de Constantinople: l5tu.de de Topographie d'apres les Ceremonies. By JEAN EBERSOLT. Avec un Plan. In-octavo. Pp. iv + 38 et Table des Matieres. Paris : Leroux, 1910. 4 fr. M. Ebersolt was charged by the Ministere de l'lnstruction publique in 1907-8 with a mission to carry out studies on the topography of the monuments of Constantinople. The works under review together with an Etude sur la Topographie et les Monuments de Constantinople, Paris, 1909, are the result, while a further book on the churches of Constantinople is also promised. The peculiar interest of M. Ebersolt's reconstruction of.

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