In the great kingdoms of ancient Mesopotamia, the king’s power was often evoked by means of lion symbolism. This has led scholars to conclude that lion motifs, and especially that of the lion-slaying hero, in early Greek art and literature were cultural borrowings from the more populous and urbanised civilisations to the east. Yet it is also notable that the Greek tradition, at least from the time of the Homeric poems, tended to problematise the ethics of the leonine man. This (...) article explores the function of lion imagery in narratives of elite masculinity in western Asia and early Greece respectively. It will argue that Greek myth and epic reflect on and problematise any potential equation between lions and kingly prestige, power and masculinity, instead drawing attention to the savagery and social isolation of the lion-like man-of-power, and his difficulty in conforming to the expectations of civilised society. (shrink)

Okeanos is at once a mythological figure and a philosophical concept appearing in many ancient accounts of the world. A frequent object of allegoresis, his cosmological role and his name posed an enigma to Homer’s readers, especially those with a rationalizing bent. This paper proposes that the paradoxical representation of Okeanos as a primordial generative power and a geographical limit may be explained by the influence of etymological speculation, which was a popular heuristic method used by Greek intellectuals from the (...) archaic period throughout antiquity. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo intentaremos poner en evidencia un singular enfoque sobre la pólis ateniense ofrecido por Protágoras en el diálogo platónico que lleva su nombre. Dicho enfoque, soslayado por los intérpretes, hace hincapié en la dimensión visual de la praxis política de los ciudadanos y es coherente con los posicionamientos ontológicos que emergen de los fragmentos del sofista.

It is perhaps time to revivify our other name in Greek: phos. For although the Greeks named us anthrôpos, they also called us phos. And the Greeks used the word phos because we are like light. Indeed, our way of being light-like is illuminating, which illuminates being and the truth of being, so that it can be thought and said, imagined, and sensed—especially insofar as we are this illumination. Thus, it is time to reclaim phos as our name and so (...) rethink what it means to illuminate, whether we light up everything that is, as well as ourselves, or not. (shrink)

Philoxenus of Cythera's dithyramb, Cyclops or Galatea, was a poem famous in antiquity as the source for the story of Polyphemus' love for the sea-nymph Galatea. The exact date of composition is uncertain, but the poem must pre-date 388 B.C., when it was parodied by Aristophanes in the parodos of Plutus , and probably, as we shall see below, post-dates 406, the point at which Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse . The Aristophanic parody of the work may well point (...) to a recent performance in Athens, perhaps the first, and it is hard to identify any more significant reason for mentioning the poem. Previous accounts of the poem have concentrated on two main points, its supposed satirical purpose, and the possibly dramatic nature of its performance, but there has been no attempt to consider these two points in relation to each other, or to assess in detail the value of the source-material. I argue that although there is some evidence to support the satirical reading of the poem, the main value of this tradition is that it reveals Philoxenus' comic treatment of his subject, and that while the Galatea motif has previously been considered the essential element in this comic treatment, it was probably a small part of the plot, perhaps only briefly alluded to. Finally I provide reasons for doubting the prevalent view that the performance included dramatic elements. (shrink)

‘Ein vÖllig unverständliches Wortspiel’, said Friedlander. There have been many attempts to solve the riddle. The older commentators, following Domizio Calderini, offered a fantastic solution: Athenagoras was a doctor specializing in leprosy : ‘porro ducta uxore coepit lingere cunnum…unde factus est olficius, hoc est olfacit cunnum’! H. C. Schnur emended to Olbius : Albius Athenagoras , by marrying a rich wife, became Olbius. This explanation deprives the name ‘Albius’ of any point; nor is it particularly witty to say that Albius (...) married money. The most popular solution points to the biblical γ εμι τ Ἄλφα κα τ 'Σ [sc. πρτος κα σ×ατος] it can be shown with some plausibility that the expression was known to the Romans of Martial's time – and to Martial's phrases ‘alpha paenulatorum’ and ‘beta togatorum’ . Before marriage Athenagoras was A in his house; now he is last, in other words, henpecked. ‘Paenulatorum’ and ‘togatorum’, however, give ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ a context which plain Alphius and Olphius do not possess. Moreover, in all the other passages which scholars quote in support of the A–Σ hypothesis,9 a letter of the alphabet becomes a byname for an individual, and is not incorporated in another name, as would be the case with Alphius and Σlphius. The presence of two names points to an etymological, not alphabetical, jeu des mots. (shrink)

Summary This paper concentrates on the literary sources of the battle of Delion and reopens the debate on the relevance of Euripides’ Supplices for the narrative of this event. Thucydides is read with a particular focus on the speech of Pagondas, which can be understood through the current reconstruction of the history of Boiotia in the latter half of the fifth century BCE. Finally, Diodorus is considered as a useful source for a few pieces of information on the aftermath of (...) the battle that have previously been disregarded. (shrink)

ναξ and βασιλες are the two most important titles applied to the top stratum of Homeric aristocracy., usually translated as ′lord′ or ′master′, and βασιλες, usually translated as ′king′, often apply to the same individuals, and can at times appear to be very close in meaning, allowing translators to render ναξ as ′king′ and βασιλες as ′lord′. There are, however, significant differences between the two. As Lexikon des friihgriechischen Epos now conveniently summarizes for us, avat; can be divine or human, (...) can be a master of a state, of gods, of men, of animals, or of his household, and can be used as an address in the vocative, whereas fiaoiXevs is only applied to humans in Homer, often in a political context, and is never used in the vocative. (shrink)

Los alástores (ἀλάστορες) en la Grecia Antigua eran unas divinidades encargadas de vengar los crímenes cruentos. El propósito de este trabajo es revisar las hipótesis etimológicas propuestas, recoger la información ritual que les copete y aportar un análisis novedoso desde la sintaxis y la semántica para establecer cuál era la consideración que los griegos daban a estos seres.

The word euboulia, which means excellence in counsel or sound judgement, occurs in only three places in the authentic writings of Plato. The sophist Protagoras makes euboulia the focus of his whole enterprise : What I teach a person is good judgement about his own affairs — how best he may manage his own household; and about the affairs of the city — how he may be most able to handle the business of the city both in action and in (...) speech. Thrasymachus, too, thinks well of euboulia. Invited by Socrates to call injustice kakoetheia ’, i.e. as simple-mindedness), he declines the sophistry and says : ‘No, I call it good judgement’. But Plato finds little occasion to introduce the concept in developing his own ethical and political philosophy. The one place where he mentions euboulia is in his defence of the thesis that his ideal city possesses the four cardinal virtues. He begins with wisdom, and justifies the ascription of wisdom to the city on the ground that it has euboulia — which he goes on to identify with the knowledge required by the guardians: ‘with this a person does not deliberate on behalf of any of the elements in the city, but for the whole city itself — how it may best have dealings with itself and with the other cities’ . It is normally rather dangerous to draw an inference from the absence or rarity of a word to the absence or rarity of the idea expressed by the word. (shrink)

En este trabajo defenderé que los erísticos del Eutidemo se dedican a la sofística tal como esta es definida en el Sofista. Propondré que en tanto la quinta y la séptima definición se sirven del concepto de ἀντιλογικός, ambas son capaces de capturar el componente dialéctico y refutativo de la práctica erística. Preferiré indentificarlos con la séptima no sólo porque constituye la definición final del sofista, sino también porque esta incluye entre sus determinaciones el empleo engañoso de tal forma de (...) argumentación, rasgo que se ajusta más a la erística que el cobro de dinero, elemento principal de la quinta. (shrink)

En la historia de la filosofía, las referencias a la tragedia y los motivos trágicos configuran un ámbito de pensamiento. En la filosofía moderna, tras los estudios de Goethe, Schlegel, Schiller, Hegel, Hölderlin, Schopenhauer o Nietzsche, se instauró una “filosofía trágica”, y un “sentido trágico” como principio explicativo de la “trágica experiencia política moderna”. Inscrito en el registro de una filosofía de “lo trágico”, el presente texto propone un estudio genealógico de la relación entre tragedia y democracia griega, mediante el (...) examen de la categoría de stásis. (shrink)

The focus of this essay is on Xenophanes’ criticism of anthropomorphic representation of the gods, famously sounding like a declaration of war against a constituent part of the Greek religion, and adopting terms and a tone that are unequalled amongst “pre-Socratic” authors for their directness and explicitness. While the main features of Xenophanes’ polemic are well known thanks to some of the most studied fragments of the pre-Socratic tradition, a different line of enquiry from the usual one is attempted by (...) considering the multi-layered background of the religious beliefs revolving around the idea that the gods have human form as outlined in the tradition of epic poetry or represented in cult statues: in the light of this consideration Xenophanes’ text can take on some new characteristics. In the second part of the article, emphasis is put on the importance of the correlation Xenophanes established between the issue of the appearance of the gods and that of the certainty of knowledge, in terms that have exerted tremendous influence on later thought, most notably on Plato in the Timaeus. (shrink)

The ancient Greek philosophical discourse harbors an anthropology radically discontinuous with the framework of modernity. Rather than emphasizing the tension between the individual and community, and far from understanding the political on the ground of instinctual sacrifice, Greek thought illuminates the interdependence of ethics and politics, and situates the human being in a cosmos in which the human is neither central nor prominent. In particular the reflection of philia, most notably in Plato and Aristotle, calls for the exploration of human (...) potentiality with outstanding vigor and visionary audacity. (shrink)

Plato’s division of goods performed by Glaucon in the Republic involves three kinds of goods: the first kind would be desirable for their own sake; the second, desirable in themselves and in their consequences, and the third kind, only desirable in their consequences. The problem to understand it is thus presented: in which of these kinds is justice observed, and which one provides happiness to men. According to Socrates, justice should be placed on the second kind of good if men (...) want to be happy. However, it is not in this way that the many hold justice, for they include it in the third kind. Having this difference under perspective, Glaucon defends this point of view, willing afterwards to listen to Socrates’ refutation of his argument and the defence of justice as being a good desirable in themselves and their consequences. The aim of our work is to present an interpretation that can justly adapt to what Glaucon understands as 'in themselves' and as a 'consequence' of the goods in this division. (shrink)

La interpretación de la tragedia griega en el pensamiento político de Hegel servirá para pensar las nuevas oposiciones que surgen tras la incorporación de la burguesía como elemento social, la que rompe con el modelo político desarrollado por los teóricos políticos modernos. Asumiendo esta necesidad de la época, lo que se pretende mostrar es, primero, la incorporación de la diferencia política al interior de la polis, realizado por el universo griego ; para luego mostrar la necesidad de esta diferencia para (...) superar las oposiciones que se presentan al interior de la comunidad política, con fin a señalar la importancia que tienen tales elementos en lo que será la exposición de la eticidad en la Filosofía política madura de Hegel. (shrink)

This paper is a comparative study based on the linguistic evidence in Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric Greek, aimed at reconstructing the space-time cognitive models used in the Proto-Indo-European language in a diachronic perspective. While it has been widely recognized that ancient Indo-European languages construed earlier events as in front of later ones, as predicted in the Time-Reference-Point mapping, it is less clear how in the same languages the passage took place from this ‘archaic’ Time-RP model or non-deictic sequence, in which (...) future events are behind or follow the past ones in a temporal sequence, to the more recent ‘post-archaic’ Ego-RP model that is found only from the classical period onwards, in which the future is located in front and the past in back of a deictic observer. Data from the Rigveda and the Homeric poems show that an Ego-RP mapping with an ego-perspective frame of reference could not have existed yet at an early Indo-European stage. In particular, spatial terms of front and behind turn out to be used with reference not only to temporal events, but also to east and west respectively, thus presupposing the existence of an absolute field-based FoR which the temporal sequence is metaphorically related to. Specifically, sequence is relative position on a path appears to be motivated by what has been called day orientation frame, in which the different positions of the sun during the day motivate the mapping of front onto ‘earlier’ and behind onto ‘later’, without involving ego’s ‘now’. These findings suggest that early Indo-European still had not made use of spatio-temporal deixis based on the tense-related ego-perspective FoR found in modern languages. (shrink)

Dealing with fragmentary texts is an unavoidable task for anyone working on the Greco-Roman world with the awareness that only a tiny portion of the texts produced in antiquity has survived the perilous process of transmission. Since the Renaissance, generations of scholars have painstakingly collected and sifted quotations, paraphrases and allusions in later authors and grammatical sources, laying the foundation for our knowledge of large parts of that lost world. More recently a spectacular increase was made possible by the papyrological (...) discoveries. Even so, after centuries of explorations in this field, the evidence provided by the indirect sources and, in particular, by the still partly unpublished troves of medieval lexicographical excerpts and compilations is far from having been exhaustively exploited. (shrink)

At Argonautica 4.12–13, Medea, frightened and on the point of fleeing her home, 2 is compared to a young deer.

In Demosthenes’ speechOn the False Embassy(Oration 19), we read an obelized infinitive at §231, †εὐθενεῖσθαι†, ‘to be flourishing’, in an imaginary dialogue designed to captivate and persuade the judges through its striking antitheses and dramatic tone:— τί οὖν μετὰ ταῦτα.