As far as the early epigraphic material is concerned, the thrill of the Methone excavations is that they brought to light so much new material but at the same time they seem to confirm many earlier scholarly insights and interpretations. Among other things, as the editors of the Methone volume rightly observe, the new finds confirm the importance of convivial inscriptions at the earliest attested stage of the Greek alphabetization. It is time, then, to ask some general questions about the manner such texts were supposedly to be used at symposia. In particular, I will focus on the fact that so many among the earliest Greek vase-inscriptions are first-person utterances ranging from short ownership statements to elaborate poetic compositions. I will try to show that, to account for the relative frequency of the first-person early vase-inscriptions, we
The paper focuses on Herodotus' authorial self-representation, and on the problem of the intellectual tradition and genre(s) behind the Histories. The main assumption is that the opening sections of the work are a natural place to present its subject and principles to the public. Despite and beyond the notoriously loose grammatical structure of the first sentence, this paper offers a formal analysis of the whole 'extended preface' (incipit through 1.5.4), a carefully organized large-scale 'pedimental composition'. A detailed examination of this structure yields the following results: (1) the stories about the abductions of women form an ironic attack against a peculiar model of causality of some contemporary Greek poets and writers, whose pragmatic outlook deprives the world of its ethico-religious dimension.(2) Conversely, Herodotus himself propounds a symbolic view of the world and seeks a monistic principle encompassing the past and the whole range of human experience. He ultimately finds it in the idea of the 'cycle of human affairs'. This idea is the carefully stated subject of the Histories. (3) Although he belongs to the agonistic and display-oriented intellectual world of the sophistic era, Herodotus poses as a 'sage' capable of penetrating the whole variety of 'all things'. Thus, he refers his reader to the tradition of wisdom literature. (4) Not unlike Thucydides, Herodotus' research into the greatest military conflict thus far forms in his view the best possible paradigmatic diagnosis of the human condition -much better than that of his fellow wise men (poets, philosophers, etc.) because based on the firm ground of verifiable historical data. (5) Although Herodotus is intent upon seeing the world from the standpoint of a single organizing principle, one of the most salient features of the Histories is the notion of the 'marvellous' (thomaston), which clearly elicits the pragmatic or factual attitude of the thinkers he dislikes. Many problems we experience when interpreting this author are due to the tension between the two attitudes. (6) This inherent breach in Herodotus' mind should be seen as a result not of a development or evolution of his work and thought, but of the contemporary debate between two diametrically opposed types of knowledge, viz. between the exponents of polvmathie, or Vielwisserei, and those of sophie, or 'wisdom'. Herodotus' contemporaries active in the field of arkhaiologia (including mythography, genealogy, etc.) andperiegesis (geography, ethnography, etc.) were widely considered 'polymaths'. Herodotus' ambition to apply the monistic (and symbolic) bent of wisdom literature to the subject-matter dominated thus far by the 'pluralistic' (and pragmatic) way of thinking was at least partly responsible for this discontinuity in his thought, but also accounts for the originality of the Histories.
The goal of this paper is to offer a new interpretation of a crucial passage of Hesiod’s “Theogony”, the episode of the mischievous division of the carcass of an ox by Prometheus in Mekone. There is a striking incongruity in the scene featuring Zeus deceived by, and enraged at, Prometheus’ trick but at the same time fully aware beforehand of the Titan’s deceit. In the eyes of Hesiod’s contemporaries, the confrontation between the two divinities owed much to an underlying experience of deceitful political struggles fought in public by prominent political leaders. Despite his foreknowledge, Zeus cannot help choosing, in the presence of the crowds in Mekone, the pile of the gleaming fat that pretends his royal ‘part of honor’. On this interpretation, one can subscribe to a brilliant emendation of this difficult passage (ll. 538–541) by the 17th-century scholar François Guyet – against its diverse emendations and interpretations by later editors of Hesiod.
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