The Classical Review MARCH 1887. EDITORIAL. THE general aim of the promoters of THE CLASSICAL REVIEW has been already explained in a Prospectus which has been widely circulated; but it may be well in our first number briefly to recapitulate what was there stated as to the scope of the Review, and to point more directly to the results which we hope may follow from its establishment. As regards its subject-matter, the Review will deal with all that concerns the language, life, and literature of Greece and Rome down to the year 800 A.D. in the case of the Western, and the year 1453 A.D. in the case of the Eastern Empire, as well as with the history of classical scholarship up to the present time. Oriental languages and history, and general or comparative philology, will be included only in so far as they are directly related to the languages and history of Greece and Rome. But the Review will embrace all that is written in Greek and Latin down to the dates above mentioned, without regard to the distinction commonly made between sacred and profane literature. It is evident that it will be necessary to define our subject still further if it is to be brought within reasonable compass, so as to admit of thorough treatment in the pages of THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. This limitation we hope to gain, in the first place, by taking as our starting point and chief concern the interpretation of the ancient texts. We do not propose to deal with Philosophy, or Law Theology, or in the abstract, but with their literary basis. Thus Theology, so far, as it enters into our plan, will be not speculative or systematic, but mainly critical or exegetical. Another limitation will arise out of our manner of treating the subject. Our aim is not so much to provide original matter as to supply an index and chronicle of all that is being done in the field of Classical Antiquity as above defined. It is thought that a publication based on these lines will supply a real want which has long been felt in this country. Whereas in Germany there are more than twenty periodicals devoted to the exclusive study of Classical Antiquity, some of them coming out as often as once a week, English scholarship has produced up to the present time no single periodical of frequent or even regular issue which devotes itself to the different requirements of classical students. For notes and news of classical and archæological interest, as well as for reviews of classical books, scholars have had to depend almost entirely on the journals of general literature, in which only a very limited space could be allotted to any special department. We hope then to make THE CLASSICAL REVIEW a critical record of the work of the year, so far as regards English publications, by noticing within three months of their NO. I. VOL. I. B appearance, all that are not unmistakable cram-books or of a merely elementary character; and in regard to foreign publications, by independent notices of the more important books, and by short summaries of the various philological, archæological, and theological reviews so far as they fall within the province marked out; attention will also be called to articles or paragraphs of interest to classical scholars which may be found in other publications. In regard to unprinted matter, information will be given by Correspondence from our own and from foreign universities, by Reports of Exploration and Discovery, and in other ways. A further use of the Review will be to serve as a receptacle for notes and queries and adversaria of any kind. It constantly happens that a scholar in the course of his studies makes an emendation or strikes out a new interpretation of a disputed passage, or lights upon an interesting illustration, or discovers inaccuracies in some work of authority; yet nothing comes of his discoveries because he does not know where to send them. We hope that THE CLASSICAL REVIEW may become the natural depositary of such fragments of knowledge, each perhaps apparently unimportant in itself, but in the aggregate capable of leading to results of great interest and value. At present there is perhaps no country which produces so large an annual crop of scholars, with so small a comparative result in the shape of permanent contributions to classical learning, as our own. Again, we shall hope, at least until our pages are fully occupied in the ways above described, to insert short original articles, which will usually be of a less elaborate kind than those which are admitted in the existing philological journals. Such articles will from time to time be especially adapted to the requirements of younger scholars. To sum up briefly the benefits we anticipate from the establishment of THE CLASSICAL REVIEW, if we succeed in carrying out the above programme: they are first, that writers will no longer work in the dark, as they have too often done in former times, but will at any rate have an opportunity of ascertaining what is being done abroad, and will also have the satisfaction of knowing that their own work will be tested by competent critics within a reasonable period of time; secondly, that schoolmasters and others interested in education will learn what books to recommend to their pupils, and may perhaps gather hints as to improved methods of teaching from our foreign correspondence; thirdly, we hope to turn wasted power to account by inducing some who are at present unproductive scholars to take a more active part in promoting the advancement of learning; fourthly, perhaps it is not too much to hope that some who have been prejudiced against classical education may chance to cast their eye on these pages and discover that to classical scholars at any rate 'Classics' means something more than writing verses in a dead language, though even for that much-decried accomplishment we think there is something to be said, and indeed propose to give occasional specimens of it in our columns. Lastly, we hope that THE CLASSICAL REVIEW may be used as an organ of intercommunication between scholars in all parts of the world, and thus foster the feeling that all are engaged in a common work, and enable each to profit by the experience of others. It must, of course, take time before the ideal of a Classical Review here shadowed forth can approach to realization. But the editors believe that it is perfectly capable of being realized, and that in proportion as it is so, it will tend very greatly to improve the condition of classical learning in England. 3 The Classical Review. MYRON'S PRISTAE. THE sculptor Myron is credited by Pliny 1 works in bronze, among which are figures of pristae. By a misunderstanding these pristae were long considered to be sea-monsters. It is now held that they could have been nothing else than 'sawyers of wood,' and since the notion of a number of disconnected figures in the attitude of sawyers is contrary to modern views about Greek sculpture of the higher order, recourse has been had to the reasonable idea of a group of two sawyers at work. It would be easy to conceive such a group in bas-relief, if that were admissible, as it is not; for Myron is only known to have worked in the round. But a group of sawyers, executed in the round, would present a spectacle for which there is nothing to prepare us among the remains of Greek sculpture. The saw and the piece of wood are elements in the design which cannot be reconciled with the principles of Greek statuary; and yet they are necessary elements. As the matter now stands, it is admitted that the pristae were a group of sawyers, but as yet no copy, or other trace of them than in Pliny, has been found.2 6 Believing that the strict interpretation of pristae as sawyers lands us in an impossible group, I propose to argue that this word may have been applied also to a game in which the process of sawing was imitated in some measure. There is in the British Museum a painted vase 3 of the red figure style, on which are seen two satyrs playing at a game like our see-saw,' with this differenceimportant for a group in the round-that each is within arm's reach of the other. The one, in fact, holds the other firmly by the wrists, with the intention of pulling him over, and thus upsetting the balance of the plank, near the centre of which they are both placed, the one opposite to the other. They do not stand on the plank, but have sunk, each on his knees, with the heels 1 Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 57. E. Petersen, Arch. Zeit. 1865, p. 91. 3 Vase Cat. No. 996; engraved in Bullet. de l'Acad. de Bruxelles, xii. pt. i. p. 289. For an example of see-saw,' practised in the modern manner, see a Greek vase in Gerhard's Aut. Bildwerke, pl. 53, or Panofka's Bilder antiken Lebens, pl. 18, fig. 3. raised, so that the only hold they have on it is where their knees rest. The plank is placed horizontally on a pivot raised a little from the ground. Such a group would suit admirably for sculpture in the round. The plank being short and placed at no distance up from the ground, would range with the top of the pedestal and present no incongruity. The keen excitement of the contest would bring out a display of action and expression such as would have commended itself to Myron, with his love of closely observing nature in her commoner forms. While then it is clear that the Greeks had not only a game answering to our‘ see-saw but also a variety of it very suitable for a group of sculpture, it remains to be proved that the word pristae was applied to it as well as to actual sawyers. If that could be done, the difficulty in this case would be much reduced, if not altogether removed. Aristo phanes, Achar. 36, plays on the words piw and πρίων. The speaker says that his demos did not know the word 'buy'; his demos produced everything itself; there was no piov, no 'see-sawing,' as I suppose. Upon this the scholiast remarks, τοῦτο παιδιὰ καλεῖται· ἀπὸ γὰρ τοῦ πρίω ῥήματος ὄνομα τοῦ πρίων. If he merely means 'This is what is called a pun,' then, being not much the wiser for that, we must look elsewhere for a definition of πρίων. Hesychius gives it as an equivalent of ayopáčov, while the scholiast to Achar. 625 has ἀγοράζων as ἐν ἀγορᾷ διατρίβειν. Ιἱ ἀγοράζων contained the sense of being pulled at by rival traders in the market, the word #piwv may readily have come to be used with the same signification, since the working of a saw by two persons presented so obvious an analogy. To this I am inclined to add the proverb ȧyopà Keркúжшv, because on one of the archaic metopes from Selinus we see Herakles carrying over his shoulder the two Kerkopes bound by the knees to a plank, and presenting just the appearance of the two satyrs on our vase, turned upside down. I would have liked to take the raidia of the scholiast in its ordinary sense of a game and suppose him to say from the verb πрiш is the name of πрíwv, the game.' If that In another passage, Wasps, 694, Aristophanes seems to refer to an actual group of sawyers. is right, the persons playing at this game would naturally be called pristae, and we should be free to take Pliny's word as applicable to Myron either in the sense of actual sawyers, or of a group of two figures playing at a game, as on our vase. These figures may have been satyrs, as on the vase, or boys in ordinary life. A known group by Myron consisted of Athene and a satyr. But boys or satyrs would have made an equally admirable subject for him. I may note that Suidas gives mрiobels as equivalent to deoμevbeis, citing Soph. Ajax, 1019 (Lobeck), while Hesychius gives πpíovas = χερῶν τοὺς δεσμούς, from which it appears that the signification of being bound' or 'fettered' had been superadded to the signification of sawing.' It is conceivable that the use of piwv for a game as practised on our vase may have helped to bring about this new meaning. But these are questions on which I venture with all diffidence. It has been suggested that the game in question may have been called πεταυρισμός, a plank being πέταυρα, πέταυρον οι πέντευρον. But the metaphor of a πεταυρισμὸς τῆς τύχης would seem to suit better the ordinary game of 'see-saw' as practised on a vase already referred to (in note 3), than the vase of which I have been speaking more particularly. A. S. MURRAY. ON SOME POLITICAL TERMS EMPLOYED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE title of this paper is vague, and needs definition. By 'political terms' I do not mean titles of magistrates and other officials mentioned in the New Testament; although to the student of Greek antiquities these afford an interesting field of inquiry, in which a good deal remains to be done.1 My object will rather resemble that of the late Dr. Field in part iii. of his Otium Norvicens, a book which its learned author issued privately, but which deserves to be more widely published; for no student of Scripture can read it without profit and delight. I have often wished to do with Greek inscriptions, what Dr. Field has done with later Greek literature, viz. employ their diction and phraseology to illustrate New Testament idioms. It is certain that they would repay the search. Thus in addition to the instances of the phrase aπodoxês aέios cited by Field on 1 Tim. i. 15, we may quote the following from an Ephesian inscription now at Oxford: Τίτου Αἰλίου | Πρίσκου, ἀνδρὸς δοκιματάτου, καὶ | πάσης τιμῆς καὶ ἀποδοχῆς ἀξίου (Baillie, Fasc. Inscr. Gr. No. 2; see Waddington, Fastes, p. 225). Other examples of the same phrase may be found in the Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, ii. 628 fin. (1st century B.C.); Keil, Sylloge Inscriptionum Boot. xxxi. 14; Corpus Inscr. Gr. 2349 b, compare 3524, line 29; also in the well-known decree in honour of Menas at Sestos, about B.C. 120 (Dittenberger, Sylloge, No. 246, lines 13-14): 1 It is only quite lately that we have been able to define the precise functions and status of the 'townclerk' at Ephesus (yраμμатeùs тоv dnμov, see Menadier, Qua condicione Ephesii usi sint, etc. Berlin, 1880, p. 78), of the 'Aoiapxai (see Marquardt, Römische Alterthümer, iv. p. 374), and of the oikovóμos Tns TÓXEWS at Corinth (Rom. xvi. 23; see Menadier, ibid. p. 77). τῆς καλλίστης ἀποδοχῆς ἀξιούμενος παρ' αὐτῷ. Βασιλεύοντος βασιλέως Τιβε : ν Π (1) Δ(ρ)ούσου ἀφείημι ἐπὶ τῆς πρ[ο]- 5 10 15 2 The manumitted slave is pledged only to one obligation, that of diligent attendance at the synagogue worship. It was not uncommon in Greek deeds of manumission to make certain conditions (see Foucart, Sur l'Affranchissement des Esclaves). Similarly in C.I.G. 2114 b, we read in the same connection: θωπείας [καὶ προσκαρτ]ερήσεις. In the abundance of the materials at our command, it becomes necessary to limit in some way the scope of our inquiry. It is proposed therefore, in this paper, to adduce epigraphical illustration only of those words and phrases which the sacred writers have adopted from Greek political life. Even when thus restricted, our subject is wide enough; for the range of political interests in Greece was almost co-extensive with the life of the people. A free Greek was nothing if not a woλirns, and it is remarkable how copious was the vocabulary of Greek politics, how many ordinary words were (so to speak) minted afresh to be employed in the currency of public life. πόλις. I begin with roles, noting that what Athens was as a Tóλis, such in its degree was every free Hellenic city. The whole of Greece proper, and the islands and shores of the Mediterranean, teemed with separate civic centres, each with its xúpa or territory, many being the 'mother cities' of colonies, many having subject-cities under tribute, and each governed by its own citizens, the privileged possessors of its civic franchise. Now to the Jew of Palestine and of the Dispersion Jerusalem was all that his roλis was to a Greek, and much more. Nor would it be difficult to trace in detail a striking analogy between a Greek wolis and the position of Jerusalem as the centre of national and religious interests. The nationality of the Jew was marked by his right to partake in certain sacra, and this right depended upon blood-relationship, and these sacra had their centre in Zion. In all this the resemblance to a Greek róλis and its roλîra is obvious at a glance. But I doubt whether it has received the attention it deserves. Even Bishop Lightfoot considers that the Apostolic conception of the Heavenly City with its spiritual franchise was connected, not with the municipal life of Greece, but rather with the cosmopolitan ideas of Stoicism then in the air. He speaks of 'the age of the Seleucids and Ptolemies' as a time when the old national barriers had been overthrown, and petty states with all their interests and ambitions had crumbled into the dust.' But however far we may allow this to be true, the fact remains that under Alexander and his successors (we are not here concerned with the Roman Empire), the life of the people was essentially municipal still. And the origin of the New Testament idea of the Heavenly City should be traced (it appears to me), directly to the Hebrew associations of Jerusalem, as clothed in the language and blended with the sentiments of old Greek citizenship. I should point in proof of this to the Epistle to the Hebrews and to the Apocalypse, in both of which the figure of a Heavenly Canaan is replaced by the figure of a heavenly róλes with a heavenly franchise, and this as a development from purely Hebrew ideas. It was different with St. Augustine. He may well have owed something to Stoicism: but his Civitas Dei was of course suggested by the Empire and Franchise of Rome, though not without perpetual reference to the heavenly citizenship as set forth in the New Testament. In Ephesians ii. 12 foll. Jewish and Greek ideas are curiously blended in describing the previous exclusion and present admission of the Gentile to the franchise of the Church: ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς πολιτείας τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ καὶ ξένοι—thus far all is entirely Greek. The next idea is quite Jewish(ξένοι) τῶν διαθηκῶν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, κ.τ.λ. the two next verses the μεσότοιχον τοῦ payμoù appears to allude to the balustrade which barred the Gentiles from entering the Inner Temple. Then again follow Greek civic terms: ἄρα οὖν οὐκέτι ἐστὲ ξένοι καὶ πάροικοι, ἀλλά ἐστε συμπολῖται τῶν ἁγίων and these again are merged in Hebrew ideas of the Church as the family and the temple of God. Elsewhere in the New Testament these ideas are reversed: the citizen of Zion is a stranger in the world. 1 Pet. ii. 11 : ὡς παροίκους καὶ παρεπιδήμους τὴν ἀναστροφὴν ὑμῶν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἔχοντες καλήν. So ibid. i. 17 : ἐν φόβῳ τὸν τῆς παροικίας ὑμῶν χρόνον ἀναστράφητε. And i. 1 : παρεπιδήμοις. Heb. xi. 13 : ὅτι ξένοι καὶ παρεπίδημοί εἰσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς . . . ἡτοίμασε γὰρ αὐτοῖς πόλιν. (Cp. ibid. 9 : παρῴκησεν εἰς γῆν τῆς ἐπαγ γελίας ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν.) πάροικος, ξένος, κ.τ.λ. Here let me note that πάροικοι, παρεπίδημοι, ξένοι, and ἀναστροφή are each of them terms which recall facts of Greek public life. We are familiar with the μέτοικοι, οι ξένοι μέτοικοι, 1 The δρύφρακτος λίθινος of Josephus, B.J. τ. 5, § 2. διὰ τούτου προϊόντων ἐπὶ τὸ δεύτερον ἱερὸν δρύφρακτος περιβέβλητο λίθινος, τρίπηχυς μὲν ὕψος, πάνυ δὲ χαριέντως διειργασμένος. ἐν αὐτῷ δ ̓ εἱστήκεσαν ἐξ ἴσου διαστήματος στῆλαι τὸν τῆς ἁγνείας προσημαίνουσαι νόμον, αἱ μὲν Ἑλληνικοῖς αἱ δὲ Ῥωμαϊκοῖς γράμμασι, μὴ δεῖν ἀλλόφυλον ἐντὸς τοῦ ἁγίου παριέναι· τὸ γὰρ δεύτερον ἱερὸν ἅγιον ἐκαλεῖτο. One of these inscriptions has been discovered, and was published by M. Ch. Clermont-Ganneau (Une Stéle du Temple de Jerusalem), Revue Arch. 1872, p. 214. |