City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 41) by Edward J. Watts

Abstract

212 PHOENIX l'historien de l'épopée de Corippe, la Johannide (181-191). L'œuvre doit plus à Virgile et à Homère qu'aux réalités des campagnes menées par le général byzantin au cours des années 540 en Afrique et en offre un récit très déformé. On s'étonne du fait que l'auteur semble ignorer la dernière édition du poème (F. R. D. Goodyear et J. Diggle, Cambridge, 1970) ainsi que le livre récent de V. Zarini (Paris, 2003) sur le sujet. L'absence de la nouveËe traduction française de J.-C. Didderen (avec notes et introduction de C. Teurfs, Paris, 2007) s'explique par sa parution très récente. La dernière contribution est fournie par Antoni Bobrowski qui prend pour sujet le récit de la guerre de Troie de Dictys de Crète (193-210). Il discute en détail de la production de ces faux récits et de leur popularité auprès des auteurs byzantins : Jean Malalas fut le premier à se servir de Dictys comme source pour la guerre de Troie. Ce livre renferme plusieurs contributions d'un grand mérite et témoigne de la popularité de la période chez nos collègues polonais. Certes, on aurait pu corriger les épreuves avec plus d'attention. Comme trop souvent dans les actes d'un colloque, aucune tentative n'a été faite pour faire ressortir les thèmes communs aux contributions. Pourtant, malgré ces critiques, on espère que le volume attirera l'attention de tous ceux qui s'intéressent à l'historiographie de l'Antiquité tardive. Université d'Ottawa Geoffrey Greatrex City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. By Edward J. Watts. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 41). 2006. Pp. xii, 288. In this volume, a revised version of a 2002 Yale thesis, Edward Watts brings to life the last centuries of the two most renowned centres of higher education in the late antique world, Athens and Alexandria, in the first book-length synthesis on the topic. Watts's approach is original and goes beyond previous studies of the subject:1 he not only focuses on developments concerning the schools themselves but also places them in a distinctively local, urban context. The first chapter places the specific topic of this book in the broader picture of higher education in late antiquity, with Watts arguing that there was no empire-wide hostility on the part of Christians against classical education [paideia). On the contrary, upper class Christians and non-Christians alike shared and cherished the traditional educational system, although they perceived the religious elements of paideia differently, leading to conflicts that were not determined by ecclesiastical or imperial policy but by local events. By discussing the cases of Athens and Alexandria, Watts successfully argues for a dynamic interaction between city and school throughout the rest of the book. In Chapter Two, Watts describes the Athenian schools in the second to fourth centuries a.d. The sources give us a fascinating insight into several aspects of these schools, such as the different chairs in rhetoric and philosophy that existed (and the procedure for filling them), the recruitment of students by professors, and the financial benefits the latter enjoyed. Watts shows that economical factors favoured the increasingly powerful political position occupied by Athenian professors in this period, which remained unshaken by the Herulian invasion of 267. The wealth and influence of the teachers resulted in frequent 1 For example, A. Cameron, "The Last Days of the Academy at Athens," PCPS 195 (1969) 7-29. BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 213 conflicts among them in the fourth century which had to be kept in check by the imperial authorities. Another factor that came to play a role in the fourth century was Christianity, as illustrated by the case of the Christian rhetorician Prohaeresius, the subject of Chapter Three, who was opposed by several of his colleagues but who nonetheless managed to retain this position for a long time because of imperial support. In Chapter Four, Watts looks at the fifth-century...