The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora by Kathleen M. Lynch

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 179 precisely with Ath. pol. 57 either. In his defense of the passage, Canevaro must weigh in on several issues, such as the roles of pollution and intentionality in Athenian homicide law, but he unquestioningly follows most commentators in assuming that feœgein refers to the penalty of exile rather than going on trial. Even so, he admits to not being able to explain every detail, which this reviewer found refreshingly candid. Dem. 24.149–151 offers a very lengthy version of the oath sworn by the Athenian judges, the so-called Heliastic oath. For convenience, Canevaro relies somewhat on Fränkel’s 1878 reconstruction of the oath1 and finds this version deficient both in lacking two clauses that are included by Fränkel and in including several that seem based either on Demosthenes’ argumentation elsewhere in the speech or on external sources. Previous scholars have argued for the exclusion of the same two clauses and the inclusion of some that Canevaro would exclude. On many of these issues he is probably right, but there seems to be an unjustified assumption that the judges’ oath never changed. And while Canevaro must limit himself to considerations of authenticity in the Demosthenic context, others will no doubt go on to explore more fully what such forgeries can reveal to us about hellenistic appropriations of Demosthenes’ works. This book is a formidable work of scholarship from a brilliant young scholar ably assisted by his doctoral advisor Edward Harris, who in fact is directly responsible for the analysis of the documents in Dem. 21 Against Meidias. The author reviews and illuminates innumerable issues that have been raised in the last two hundred years of scholarship (though a glance at Wentzel’s 1895 study of lexicography would not have gone amiss)2 and will no doubt prevent mistaken assumptions about the historical reliability of these legal documents for generations to come. Simon Fraser University David C. Mirhady The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora. By Kathleen M. Lynch. Princeton, New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Hesperia Supplement 46). 2011. Pp. xx, 377. This study catalogues and analyses the material deposited in a well in a house near the Athenian Agora. Well J 2:4 “is the first Agora well from the Late Archaic or Early Classical period for which all excavated material was saved, and thus presents an unusually complete view of an Athenian household assemblage” (1). This find offers a ripe opportunity for the kind of contextual study to which archaeology has turned in the last decades. This book demonstrates that a close and careful study of this kind may speak to questions of wide scope and great significance. After a brief introduction (Chapter One) setting out the study’s aims, Chapter Two establishes the archaeological context of the deposit. The well and house were built in the last quarter of the sixth century. Stratigraphic analysis reveals that the contents of the well consist of period of use deposits and then fill from a single depositional event 1 Max Fränkel, “Der attische Heliasteneid,” Hermes 13 (1878) 452–466. 2 G. Wentzel, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen Lexicographen,” Sitzungsberichte der Königlich-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 26 (1895) 477–487 = Lexica Graeca Minora, ed. H. Erbse (Hildesheim 1965) 1–11. 180 PHOENIX when the well was closed. It was filled soon after 479 as part of the clean-up after the Persian destruction. Comparative analysis of the shapes and decoration of the vessels confirms that the deposit represents a domestic assemblage. Although the location of the well and the pattern of deposition show that the assemblage belonged largely to a single house, some of the material in the fill must be extraneous. The quantitative analysis presented in Chapter Three establishes what should be included in the household assemblage. A contextual analysis of the deposit reveals what we have: the contents of the china cupboard of an Athenian household ca 480, which appears to have been, as best as we can tell, of middling status. This knowledge offers in turn to shed considerable light on the historical context...