Greek Biography Research Articles

Refleksija starogrčke biografije u spisu Vita Basilii Konstantina VII. Porfirogeneta

The Vita Basilii, compiled by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–959) in honour of his grandfather Basil I (867–886), appears as the first laudatory biography in Byzantine literature glorifying the emperor’s life and deeds (βασιλικὸς λόγος). Previous research demonstrates that, in compiling the work, Porphyrogenitus used two types of ancient Greek biography, Isocrates’ encomium Euagoras and Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, as models. The research in this paper is based on the analysis and comparison of the structure and content of Plutarch’s Alexander, depicting the life and works of Alexander the Great, Isocrates’ Euagoras, dedicated to the Cypriot ruler of Salamis, and Porphyrogenitus’ account of Basil's life according to topoi specific to a basilikos logos (prologue, homeland, origin, birth, physical appearance, upbringing, character traits, achievements in war and peace, fortune, comparison to the previous reign, epilogue and concluding prayer). The aim is to determine in what way Plutarch’s and Isocrates’ models of biography influenced the Vita Bas., i.e., to what extent Porphyrogenitus imitated ancient templates and in which segments of the work he brings his own innovations.

Los dos polos de la biografía antigua y la hagiografía

Greek biography can be associated to two main poles: on one of them the syntagmatic axis, with succession, predominates; on the other, the paradigmatic axis, without succession. The first pole is related to historiography and has a method closer to ἱστορία; its best-known ideal type is the energetic or Peripatetic hagiography (Plutarch). The second pole is related to demonstrative rhetoric, its method is closer to antiquarianism and it appears in the analytic or Alexandrian biography (Suetonius). This contribution will suggest that in the usual hagiography this opposition is visible in a separated treatment of “life” and “deeds”, often summarized in the titles by Βίος καὶ πολιτεíα: the succession of facts, situated in time and space, as opposed to a timeless character, which reveals itself rather than becomes. To this aim, I will discuss the basic features of biography; describe F. Leo’s theory about classical biography; examine M. Bakhtin’s biographical chronotope, and his indebtedness with authors such as Leo or G. Misch; analyse some crucial features of hagiographical discourse and of its peculiar chronotope; and offer a brief conclusion.

Bios Philosophos. Philosophy in Ancient Greek Biography, edited by Bonazzi, M. and Schorn, S.

Bios Philosophos. Philosophy in Ancient Greek Biography, edited by Bonazzi, M. and Schorn, S.

The Art of Biography in Antiquity: A Review

This review article discusses Tomas Hägg’s final book, The Art of Biography in Antiquity, completed just before his death from cancer in 2011. Following on from his important The Novel in Antiquity (1983), this beautifully produced and comprehensive book seeks to introduce examples of Greek and Roman biography from 400 bc to ad 300, looking at its origins, Hellenistic examples, popular heroes, the gospels, Roman political biography, ethical biography (Plutarch) and later accounts of philosophers and holy men. While the book’s easy style is appreciated for the general reader, Hägg’s decision not to provide any theory of biography or its genre, or any overall historical thread unfortunately weakens its usefulness for more experienced readers. His decision to include the gospels makes it interesting for New Testament scholars, and this review responds to his criticisms of proponents of the biographical genre of the gospels such as Burridge and Frickenschmidt.

Der ‚dekadente‘ Feldherr

Abstract The portrayal of Caesar’s dalliance with Cleopatra in Lucan’s Bellum civile (book 10) exploits the motif of the general who, seduced by a foreign woman, forgets his responsabilities to his country. This motif occurs from Homer through the Greek and Latin epic tradition to Latin historiography and Greek biography. The lexicon for the concept of forgetting is a recurring Leitmotiv.1

From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (review)

190 Reviews Parergon 21.1 (2004) knots. Another useful source for the early seventh century is the Greek biography of Saint Gregory of Agrigento, written by a Greek monk in Rome, Leontios. By contrast, Mullet explains the very modern power of rhetoric with her interesting analyses of the speeches after the death of Princess Diana. She rightly concludes: ‘Rhetoric was not the canker in the cultural blood of the Byzantines; it was the cultural bloodstream itself.’ Equally unexpected is the icon framing Boris Yeltsin in Cormack’s stimulating essay. The editor and several contributors naturally refer to the seminal work On Issues by Hermogenes, although some were unaware of the excellent edition and translation by Malcolm Heath (Oxford, 1995), For the equally important third and fourth century commentators on his work, most quoted from the Rhetores Graeci of Walz or of Spengel, although the translation of Menander of Laodicea was mentioned by Angelov, Webb, Mullett and Maguire (D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, ed. & trans. of Menander Rhetor, On Epideictic, OUP, 1981). For English translations of Sopater, Syrianus and Marcellinus, see my forthcoming The Art of Public Speaking: Lectures on Greek Rhetoric (Mellen Press, New York, 2003/4). The less important treatise of Aphthonius on preliminary exercises was translated by Nadeau in 1952, and partly revised in Matsen, 1990, but all quotations in this collection came from Rabe (Teubner 1926). It remains to be said that there are enough first-rate essays in this book, some on rhetoric in general and some applying its laws to specific works of literature and art, to make it a valuable addition to this inadequately represented area of scholarship. It suggests that it was a very stimulating symposium. John R. C. Martyn School of Fine Arts, Classics and Archaeology University of Melbourne Karras, Ruth Mazo, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (The Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003; paper; pp. 246; RRP US$17.50; ISBN 0812218345. From Boys to Men offers a thoughtful and lucid introduction to concepts of masculinity available in the late Middle Ages in the north-western regions of Europe. Just as ‘recent scholarship in women’s history has chipped away at the idea of a monolithic medieval view of women’ (p. 2), Karras emphasises the nuances, varieties, oppositions and incompatibilities that are found not only Reviews 191 Parergon 21.1 (2004) between, but even within differing versions of medieval masculinity. While Karras argues that ‘the acquisition of masculinity in the European later Middle Ages was primarily a matter of proving oneself against others’ (p. 67), this desire to dominate was expressed very differently in divergent social milieux. This study considers three versions of medieval masculinity in their youthful, formative phases, thus focusing on ‘how men learned to be men’ (p. 3). Karras begins with the best known, and perhaps best studied, version of medieval masculinity: the knight. Physical violence was a key component of chivalric masculinity, and ‘even those who did not participate themselves in wars or tournaments were deeply affected by the chivalric ethos’ (p. 21). The ideal of military prowess ‘was in constant tension with another ideal, that of gentility and courtliness’, including the knight’s career as a lover (p. 25); thus, ‘women were one of the currencies in which the knight’s success was measured’(p. 51) by male peers. Karras also explores the homosocial bonds between knights, and the possibility of sexual relationships between ‘brothers-in-arms’. Social superiority was another fundamental feature of chivalric masculinity: ‘chivalry allowed one social group to see itself not only as an elite who followed a higher code, but also as the real men whose activity was indispensable to society’ (p. 24). However, Karras also notes that while the ideals of courtly literature were important to the self-image of the knightly class, aspects of late medieval knighthood deviated significantly from these ideals. For instance, the expense of the chivalric lifestyle was sometimes met by less than noble means, such as mercenary activities. The second version of masculinity to be considered is that of the student. Within the formative environment of the university, young men swapped weapons of steel for...

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity. Edited by Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau. Transformation of the Classical Heritage 31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xii + 288 pp. $50.00 cloth.

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity. Edited by Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau. Transformation of the Classical Heritage 31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xii + 288 pp. $50.00 cloth.

Plutarch and history: eighteen studies

The full-text of this book is not available in ORA. Citation: Pelling, C. B. R. (2002). Plutarch and history: eighteen studies. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth. Book contents: Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Plutarch's method of work in the Roman Lives; 2. Plutarch and Catiline; 3. The Apophthegmata Regum et Imperatorum and Plutarch's Roman Lives; 4. Plutarch's adaptation of his source-material; 5. Plutarch and Thucydides; 6. Truth and fiction in Plutarch's Lives; 7. 'Making myth look like history': Plutarch's Theseus-Romulus; 8. Dionysiac diagnostics: some hints of Dionysus in Plutarch's Lives; 9. Plutarch and Roman politics; 10. The moralism of Plutarch's Lives; 11. Plutarch's Caesar: a Caesar for the Caesars?; 12. 'You for me and me for you': narrator and narratee in Plutarch's Lives; 13. Aspects of Plutarch's characterization; 14. Childhood and personality in Greek biography; 15. Rhetoric, paideia, and psychology in Plutarch's Lives; 16. Synkrisis in Plutarch's Lives; 17. Is death the end? Closure in Plutarch's Lives; 18. The shaping of Coriolanus: Dionysius, Plutarch and Shakespeare; Bibliography; Index of names; Index of passages in other authors; Index of topics

Short Notices

Books reviewed:Richard Harries and Henry Mayr–Harting (eds), Christianity: Two Thousand YearsPeter Day, A Dictionary of Religious OrdersWilliam Lane Craig (ed), Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and GuideTranslated by Mark Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by their Students (Translated Texts for Historians).Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau (eds), Greek Biography and Panegyric In Late Antiquity (Transformation of the Classical Heritage, 31).Lesley Smith, Masters of the Sacred Page: Manuscripts of Theology in the Latin West to 1274John Bossy, Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy StoryKristen Poole, Radical Religion from Shakespeare to Milton: Figures of Nonconformity in Early Modern EnglandDonald J. Childs, From Philosophy to Poetry: T.S. Eliot's Study of Knowledge and Experience

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (review)

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (review)

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquit (review)

Tomas Hägg and Philip Rousseau, eds. Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity. With Christian Høgel. The Transformation of the Classical Heritage, 31. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. xii + 288 pp. Cloth, $50.

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (review)

Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (review)

Greek biography and panegyric in late antiquity

Greek biography and panegyric in late antiquity

The Demise of the Christian Writer and the Remaking of "Late Antiquity": From H.-I. Marrou's Saint Augustine (1938) to Peter Brown's Holy Man (1983)

The Demise of the Christian Writer and the Remaking of “Late Antiquity”: From H.-I. Marrou’s Saint Augustine (1938) to Peter Brown’s Holy Man (1983) Mark Vessey (bio) For Jacques Fontaine The Death and Works of Augustine “We must at all costs avoid doing the feeling for Late Antique men,” Peter Brown has written. 1 But our sympathy is never misspent. There was nothing left of Augustine now but his library. Possidius compiled a full list of his works; he thought that no man could ever read them all. All future biographers of Augustine come to feel something of what Possidius felt in that empty room: “Yet I think that those who gained most from him were those who had [End Page 377] been able actually to see and hear him as he spoke in Church, and, most of all, those who had some contact with the quality of his life among men.” 2 Possidius said nothing about an empty room. Before we can begin to feel what he may have felt there, it must be imagined for us by the historian. For us? Only, on a literal reading, if we number ourselves among those “future” or now present “biographers of Augustine.” The empty room may be no bigger, nor any more crowded, than it seemed at first. Yet those who read to the end of Augustine of Hippo: A Biography are likely to feel, for their part, that the author of that book did not mean the terms of his title to be too exclusive. Peter Brown, writes a medieval historian, “came to Ancient History through an unusual entrance, a small one: the life and thought of one man,” but concedes: “The man was rather exceptional.” Augustine’s primary distinction, suggests Alexander Murray, was to have been “the most prolific of extant writers in Latin.” 3 And he quotes the lines that once ran beneath his portrait in the library of Isidore of Seville: “He lies who says he has read all your works”—the sentiment less pointedly expressed by Possidius, who could have found it already in Jerome’s eulogy of iron-bellied Origen. 4 The story Peter Brown would tell of “Late Antiquity,” Murray infers, was framed initially in the interstices of Augustine’s unencompassable literary legacy, as if in the room vacated by Possidius. Given the importance of this disciplinary concept in current Anglo-American historical scholarship, it is an inference we may like to test. 5 [End Page 378] For all his reserves of fellow-feeling, the late twentieth-century author of Augustine of Hippo need have had little but texts in common with his early fifth-century counterpart. The subtitle was our guarantee of that. This new book would not be a saint’s life, not hagiography, in either the precritical sense of writing “inspired by religious devotion to the saints and intended to increase that devotion” (H. Delehaye) or the post-Bollandist, positivist one of sifting history from legend. Rather, it would be an instance of biography, a classical and modern genre of somewhat elastic boundaries. 6 For a writer who did not wish to be constrained by his subject, generic uncertainty conferred distinct advantages. Coming just four years after R. W. Southern’s Saint Anselm and His Biographer, itself the progenitor of several other “Oxford” books of saints, 7 the unsainted Augustine of Hippo simultaneously claimed the title of biography and, not incidentally, left the biographer’s role out of account. Like Possidius, Peter Brown would seek to convey “something of the course and quality of Augustine’s life.” His own character, as he first describes it, is that of “a historian of the declining Roman Empire.” 8 The balance between biography and history is carefully struck, and tilted towards the latter. In 1968, eight years before the series that would become The Making of Late Antiquity, the Carl Newell Jackson Classical Lectures at Harvard were delivered by Arnaldo Momigliano, of all classicists the one who has most directly influenced Peter Brown’s work. His theme was The Development of Greek Biography. 9 “When I was young,” Momigliano recalled, “scholars wrote history and gentlemen wrote biography. But [End Page 379...

The Development of Greek Biography

The Development of Greek Biography

Momigliano's Quest for the Person

In 1984 a group of English sociologists and historians of religion decided that the time was right to reprint and reconsider a lecture delivered by Mauss before the Royal Anthropological Institute in London not long before the outbreak of the Second World War. In this lecture Mauss outlined his celebrated concept of the person. Arnaldo Momigliano was invited by the organizing group to join them in reassessing Mauss's contribution. The subject obviously touched many nerves in Momigliano and evoked new reflections on some of the topics dearest to his heart. Among these were biography, autobiography, and the role of personality in history and scholarship. His contribution to the English group appeared in the volume, edited by M. Carrithers and others, under the title The Category of the Person. There Mornigliano addressed the theme, Marcel Mauss and the Quest for the Person in Greek Biography and Autobiography.1 In the same year as that book appeared a second article, bearing witness to Momigliano's involvement in this subject, appeared in the Rivista storica italiana under the title, Marcel Mauss e il problema della persona nella biografia greca.2 As so often with Momigliano in the grip of a consuming interest, he returned repeatedly to the subject of the person in the two years of his life that remained to him after the articles on Mauss in 1985. At that time he was working strenuously on studies of Roman religion, both for Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion and for the forthcoming volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History.3 It was obvious to all who knew him that Momigliano's long-standing interest

Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature

Christopher Gill: The character-personality distinction Stephen Halliwell: Traditional Greek conceptions of character Oliver Taplin: Agamemnon's role in the Iliad P. E. Easterling: Constructing character in Greek tragedy Simon Goldhill: Character and action, representation and reading: Greek tragedy and its critics Jasper Griffin: Characterization in Euripides: Hippolytus and Iphigenia in Aulis Michael Silk: The people of Aristophanes Lucinda Coventry: The role of interlocutor in Plato's dialogues: Theory and practice D. A. F. M. Russell: Ethos in oratory and rhetoric C. B. R. Pelling: Childhood and personality in Greek biography C. B. R. Pelling: Conclusion

The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History.

Preface 1. A category of the human mind: the notion of person the notion of self Marcel Mauss (translated by W.D. Halls) 2. The category of the person: a reading of Mauss's last essay N. J. Allen 3. Categories, concepts or predicaments? Remarks on Mauss's use of philosophical terminology Steven Collins 4. Marcel Mauss and the quest for the person in Greek biography and autobiography A. Momigliano 5. A modified view of our origins: the Christian beginnings of modern individualism Louis Dumont 6. Person and individual: some anthropological reflections J. S. La Fontaine 7. Self: public, provate. Some African representations Godfrey Lienhardt 8. Between the earth and heaven: conceptions of the self in China Mark Elvin 9. Purity and power among the Brahmans of Kashmir Alexis Sanderson 10. Of masks and men Martin Hollis 11. An alternative social history of the self Michael Carrithers 12 The person Charles Taylor Conclusion Steven Lukes Bibliography Index.

The Development of Greek Biography; Four Lectures

The Development of Greek Biography; Four Lectures

The Development of Greek Biography

Tracing the growth of ancient biography from the 5th century to the 1st century BC, Arnaldo Momigliano asks useful questions about the origins and development of Greek biography. By clarifying the social and intellectual implications of the fact that the Greeks kept biography and autobiography distinct from historiography, he contributes to an understanding of a basic dichotomy in the Western tradition of historical writing. This classic study is now reissued with the addition of Momigliano's essay Second Thoughts on Greek Biography.