Hellenistic Rulers Research Articles

Appunti su Memnone di Eraclea

The aim of this paper is to make a detailed picture of Memnon of Heracleia, whose historical work has reached us through Photius’ excerpta. After a general analysis of the work of which I analize the books and the stories they contain, I focus on two episodes of the work, the presumed Roman embassy sent to Alexander the Great and the creation of the Northern League, as well as on the figure of Amastris, basilissa of Heracleia. Leitmotif of these episodes, as well as Peri Heracleias, will be the polis of Heracleia, which, central player of the intricate policy of this period, will try to maintain her own autonomy and freedom against the expansionist aims of Hellenistic rulers.

The warrior queen

The Hellenistic kings’ mechanism for revealing divine power leaves no conceptual doubt, which is why it is generally accepted that the military deed, with time not necessarily an authentic one, was a major and even central element forming the basis of the cult of the ruler. The question, however, arises as to the framework within which a “military deed” could be performed in the context of the changing ontological status of women, and thus of female Hellenistic rulers. It should be considered that the concept of the military deed of female rulers as the basis of Hellenistic monarchical ideology was certainly not born on the battlefield, where queens basically did not appear. However, in spite of the lack of a military basis, the fighting female ruler is present in Hellenistic ideology. This situation begs the question of whether the armed deed, as in the case of male rulers, was at all necessary to associate the queens with war. Possibly it is a case of the reverse — maybe the military deed was a conseque...

Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller (review)

Reviewed by: Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller Carol J. King Duane W. Roller . Cleopatra: A Biography. Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2010 . Pp. x + 252 . US $24.95 . ISBN 9780195365535 . Cleopatra is one of the most significant female figures in recorded history. As heir to the Ptolemaic throne of Egypt in 51 bc, she was the wealthiest and most [End Page 395] powerful Hellenistic ruler of her day. Yet the legacy spawned by her attempts to hold onto both wealth and power in the increasingly Roman-controlled eastern Mediterranean overshadows her accomplishments as the last Ptolemaic ‘king and pharaoh.’ Male-dominated historiography, the victor’s point of view, and the visual and performing arts of the last 500 years have all contributed to the myth of Cleopatra (x, 1), a myth perpetuated in popular culture through film, historical fiction, and even literary biography. The “recension of the myth of Cleopatra” (6) is not the concern of Duane W. Roller’s Cleopatra: A Biography; rather, Roller proposes “to create a portrait of Cleopatra based solely on information from the ancient world” (x). As a corrective to the generally misunderstood and unfairly represented persona of this important historical figure (1), Roller’s book is a valuable contribution to Hellenistic scholarship. As part of the Oxford University Press series Women in Antiquity, Roller’s Cleopatra: A Biography takes a broad approach to ancient history and culture and gives equal attention to Cleopatra’s life and her historical times. The book generally follows chronological order. Chapters 1 and 2 cover, respectively, Cleopatra’s ancestry and her Ptolemaic heritage (particularly Ptolemaic involvement with Rome). Roller rightly gives due attention to historical context that is not only relevant to her but absolutely critical for understanding the significance of her reign (32). For example Ptolemy VIII’s visits to Rome in order to strengthen his political position, as well as his appreciation for the advantages of developing a close personal relationship with a prominent Roman, set precedents for Cleopatra VII (42). Chapter 3 covers Cleopatra’s youth and education. Here the focus is on the cultural context, mainly what is known about the Ptolemaic court, since a sheer lack of evidence frustrates any fuller account of Cleopatra’s early years. Speculation is minimal, kept to the realm of possibility given other facts. “[O]ne presumes that she could study at the Library and attend lectures at the Mouseion,” perhaps preferring those of physicians and pharmacologists (45). Roller pays serious attention to Cleopatra’s educational accomplishments, especially to Plutarch’s mention of seven languages—to which must be added her native Greek, Egyptian, and Latin—and to “the obscure notices” of her writing (50). In Cleopatra’s cultural milieu, “literary output was expected of someone in her position” (50). Roller argues that fragments of a work Cosmetics indicate more of a medical and pharmacological bent than a simple discussion of female adornment. He notes that Plutarch’s list of languages has a geographical progression, from south to northeast, of places historically associated with the Ptolemaic dynasty, which strongly suggests that Cleopatra acquired knowledge of these and likely other languages (Plutarch’s “many others as well”) for diplomatic purposes (48). The “unusually well educated” (43) Cleopatra was evidently less vulnerable [End Page 396] to potentially dangerous factions at court than her rival brother Ptolemy XIII, who was said to have had little education (51). The years 51 to 47 bc, when Cleopatra VII became queen of Egypt, first—significantly—jointly as consort to the younger Ptolemy XIII, are covered in Chapter 4. Roller claimsthat at the point when Caesar arrived in Alexandria in 48 bc, Cleopatra was “marginalized” (in exile) and “no one took her seriously” (60). Thus her swift reversal of circumstances to become sole ruler following the elimination of her brother during the Alexandrian War is indeed remarkable, the more so because it was largely her own doing, beginning with her most ingenious return from exile and self-presentation to Caesar. Roller’s earlier statement that this was one of a number of familiar episodes that “simply did not happen” (7) is somewhat misleading: the oft-called “carpet,” he here argues, was rather a bedsack, but...

A Shared Heritage of Grief: Iliad Papyrus 12 and Patroclus’ Funeral

In ancient performances of Homeric epic, speeches were a particularly effective locus for dramatic improvisation because, as Jasper Griffin has demonstrated, they are characterized by a sense of judgment and oftentimes by pathos that shades into self-pity (Griffin 1986). This paper suggests that Griffin’s findings may help us understand the variant readings of Iliad papyrus 12, which includes portions of Book 21-23. Variant readings tend to congregate in Iliad papyrus 12’s speeches and to increase the characteristics of judgment and pathos that Griffin identifies as already distinguishing Homeric speeches from narrative. Those who transmitted the Homeric corpus may have preserved or even formulated these readings because in some sense they viewed themselves as performers, and they were accustomed to observing performers of both drama and epic use speeches as an opportunity to seize the audience’s attention with intense, emotional language (Falkner 2008, Revermann 2006). In the case of the speeches connected with Patroclus’ funeral, the variants increase the aforementioned qualities and also strengthen the resemblance between Patroclus’ funeral and the contemporary practice of hero cult. Hero cult reached the peak of its popularity in the Hellenistic period, expanding to include not only Hellenistic rulers but also their subordinates. For example, the Macedonian Demetrius Poliorcetes was awarded a hero cult in Athens in 307/6 and several of his friends and associates received them in 302/1. As the trend continued, it became acceptable for a family to grant hero status to any of its members who had recently died (Mikalson 2006). The Iliad alludes to hero cult without actually depicting it, but nonetheless many aspects of hero cult are already present, such as lamentations, libations and offerings (Nagy 1999). The two speeches from Patroclus’ funeral that are preserved in Iliad papyrus 12 (23.156-165, 23.179-183) contain readings that tend to heighten the resemblance between the hero’s funeral and the rituals of Hellenistic hero cult. Such readings would make the passages more appealing to a Hellenistic audience and may have been preferred or even introduced because of such contemporary preferences. These non-vulgate readings include two plus verses that make reference to the shared meal (23.162a, 23.165a), which was a part of many hero cult ceremonies (Seaford 1994). Another plus verse emphasizes the idea that the dead man has died unjustly and requires revenge, also a common element of hero cult (23.183a, Seaford 1994). Additional variant readings continue to emphasize both the communal nature of the funeral celebration and the dramatic emotions aroused by it.The variant readings in Iliad papyrus 12 suggest that the transmission of Homer in this period was at times influenced by both the performative tradition of Homeric epic and contemporary cultural practices. The variants in this text, like those in earlier Homeric performances, tend to increase the emotional intensity of speeches; at the same time, these variants reflect an abiding interest in contemporary practices of hero cult.

Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic RulersRajakTessa Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers University of California PressBerkeley, CA, 2007, xiv, 363, £29.95ISBN 978-0-520-25084-0

Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic RulersRajakTessa <i>Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers</i> University of California PressBerkeley, CA, 2007, xiv, 363, £29.95ISBN 978-0-520-25084-0

The Development of Hellenistic Ruler Cult and Its Meaning

The Development of Hellenistic Ruler Cult and Its Meaning

&lt;i&gt;Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers&lt;/i&gt; (review)

Reviewed by: Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers Ljubica Jovanovic Tessa Rajak, Sarah Pearce, James Aitken, and Jennifer Dines (eds.). Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers. Hellenistic Culture and Society, 50. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. Pp. xiv, 363. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-520-25084-0. In opposition to the consistent practice of biblical scholars to treat the Greek Bible merely as an aid in correcting its Hebrew original, the contributors of this fine volume (Dines, Grabe, and van der Kooij) wholeheartedly embrace Elias Bickerman's half-century-old call to research the Septuagint in its own right and in its Hellenistic context. Traditionally, the Hellenistic Jewish literature in Greek that emerged around the time of the Septuagint under the names of Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha fell in the domain of biblical scholars, and not of classicists, whose expertise was challenged because of their insufficient grounding in Semitic languages. Now, however, bringing classical and biblical studies together has become a guiding principle of the "AHRC Parkes Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World Project," which in 2003 sponsored an international colloquium on "Representations of Hellenistic Kingship." In this volume, the project's editorial board collected sixteen conference papers which are not only well rooted in both Hellenistic history and Jewish literature, but also thoroughly and successfully committed to putting "the spotlight on both sides" (4). [End Page 121] Murray's excellent article on the role of philosophers in the Hellenistic royal houses, and Rowlandson's well-supported insights on the dynamics of the Ptolemaic court, set the scene for the topic of this volume: construction of Hellenistic rulers by Greek-speaking Jews. Instead of a standard discussion on dating and provenance, the remainder of the volume is animated by a comparative methodology based on the principle of "actualization" and "contemporization"—i.e., the "reading of the past in terms of the present" (3)—which opens up unlimited possibilities for research and yields refreshing results. Rajak's Jewish image of the "Angry Tyrant," Honigman's literary analysis of Aristeas, Evans' "Hellenistic interpreter," and van Henten's "Royal ideology," all testify to the versatility of this method. Even Alexander and Alexander's proposition that Greek Esther was a response to 3 Maccabees, although somewhat speculative, is a remarkable and innovative proposal. The greatest value of this volume is its pointing to new directions for future research based on the best of recent scholarship. Fowler's presupposition that Hellenistic influences last longer and have a wider reach than had previously been thought allows for the inclusion of the Parthians into the discussion. Gruen underlines that the search for historicity in Hellenistic literature really reveals more about the Jewish authors than it does about Hellenistic rulers, and Edwards goes one further by arguing for the greater use of archeology to offset the overreliance on literary sources in Hellenistic studies. Pearce calls for a careful reexamination of previous scholarship, even that of the rightly influential Bickerman. And, lastly, Fowler's "Kingship and Banditry" brings to the study of the Hellenistic past our modern-day experiences with freedom fighters and terrorism. The pity is that this collection of exceptionally fine articles is poorly edited. In the first place, the logic behind the structure and fourfold division of the book is never explained and seems arbitrary. Why Gruen's discussion of non-Greek biblical texts from the Persian period opens the section on "Rulers in Greek-Jewish Texts" is a case in point. Rajak's introduction could have offered some help, but here the attention she pays to each article varies greatly and is dictated by her narrative on the conference's overall concerns. Perhaps a standard introduction that explained the ordering of the articles and summarized them sequentially would have greatly helped the reader to use each of these essays independently. Luckily, the titles represent their contents well, a virtue frequently lacking in current academic writings. Moreover, the indexes are fraught with problems too many to enumerate here, and only a few examples must suffice. First, the references to Jeremiah jump indiscriminately between Hebrew and Greek numbering conventions. Secondly, Greek Esther, though cited (228), is not indexed. Third, a number of references in the...

Jewish perspectives on Hellenistic rulers

preface abbreviations Introduction: Tessa Rajak part one: theories and practices of hellenistic rulers 1. Philosophy and Monarchy in the Hellenistic World Oswyn Murray 2. The Character of Ptolemaic Aristocracy: Problems of Definition and Evidence Jane Rowlandson part two: rulers in greek-jewish texts 3. Persia through the Jewish Looking-Glass Erich Gruen 4. Ben Sira on Kings and Kingship Benjamin Wright 5. The Image of the Oriental Monarch in the Third Book of Maccabees Philip Alexander and Loveday Alexander 6. The Angry Tyrant Tessa Rajak 7. The Narrative Function of the King and the Library in the Letter of Aristeas Sylvie Honigman 8. Kingship and Banditry: The Parthian Empire and Its Western Subjects Richard Fowler part three: light from the septuagint translators? 9. Translating for Ptolemy: Patriotism and Politics in the Greek Pentateuch? Sarah Pearce 10. Poet and Critic: Royal Ideology and the Greek Translator of Proverbs James Aitken 11. The King's Good Servant? Loyalty, Subversion, and Greek Daniel Jennifer Dines 12. The Terminology of Government in the Septuagint--in Comparison with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Other Languages Lester Grabbe 13. The Court Function of the Interpreter in Genesis 42.23 and Early Greek Papyri Trevor Evans part four: ideologies of jewish rule 14. The Greek Bible and Jewish Concepts of Royal Priesthood and Priestly Monarchy Arie van der Kooij 15. Royal Ideology: 1 and 2 Maccabees and Egypt Jan Willem van Henten 16. Constructing Kings--from the Ptolemies to the Herodians: The Archaeological Evidence Douglas Edwards cumulative bibliography list of contributors indexes general ancient sources modern authors

Worshipping the emperor(s): a new temple of the imperial cult at Eretria and the ancient destruction of its statues

In Greece, as in the E Mediterranean as a whole, the ruler-cult was well established during the Hellenistic period, but whereas in the Attalid, Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms the same dynasty had ruled for centuries and the cult of the living ruler and the dynastic cult were stable institutions, the ruler-cult in Greece, though at first part of the Macedonian kingdom, was affected by the series of rulers of different dynasties who followed one another in rapid succession. This led to a large number of dedications for and offerings by Hellenistic rulers in Greece. Roman Republican leaders and figures were also subject to specific honours in Greece from an early stage. Compared to the excesses of rulers such as Demetrios Poliorcetes, the well-organized and at first rather modest cult for the Roman emperors must have seemed a distinct improvement. After the behaviour of previous Roman leaders the Greeks were probably relieved at Augustus's attitude towards cultic honours, and it is no surprise that the imperial cult was widely diffused in Greece, as literary sources and inscriptions show. Almost every city must have had one or more places for the worship of the emperors and their families, but archaeological evidence for the cult has remained rather slim and the only two attested Sebasteia or Kaisareia (at Gytheion and Messene) are known only from inscriptions. The Metroon at Olympia is the only specific building in which an imperial cult is attested on good archaeological evidence. Statues of an emperor and perhaps a personification of Roma found at Thessaloniki point to a Sebasteion there. Athens must have had more than one building where the emperor was worshipped. At Beroia a provincial sanctuary for the imperial cult of Macedonia has been posited. Yet even at the Roman colony of Corinth, the location of the temple for the imperial cult is far from clear, all of which underlines the interest of a building at Eretria which we identify with the municipal temple for the imperial cult.

The Galatian settlement in Asia Minor

Until very recently almost everything of substance that was known about the Galatians was derived from historical, more specifically Greek and Roman, sources. Modern perceptions of the Galatians have accordingly not only been one-sided, but have also depended on outsiders' views and representations of a complex culture. A stereotypical picture established itself in the modern literature, which itself was moulded by the preconceptions of ancient Greek observers. This view, which will also provide a chronological framework for an examination of Galatian culture, may be summarised broadly as follows: the Galatians were groups of Celticspeaking peoples who arrived on the borders of the Classical world, Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor, around 281 BC (see fig 1). Warlike, barbarous and set upon raiding and plunder, they attacked cities and sanctuaries in Greece, before crossing to Asia Minor where they conducted themselves in similar fashion until the various efforts of Hellenistic rulers forced them to settle in north central Anatolia, the region around Ankara (see fig 2).

Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (review)

172 SHOFAR Fal12000 Vol. 19, No.1 Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, by Erich S. Gruen. Hellenistic Culture and Society 30. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1998. 335 pp. $38.00. In Heritage and Hellenism, Erich Gruen applies his formidable expertise as a major historian of the Hellenistic world to the question of how Jews accommodated themselves to this world while at the same time reasserting their own cultural identity. The end result is a delightful treat that challenges a host of cherished assumptions and suggests a radical modification in the way scholars approach much ofthe evidence for ancient Judaism. The primary focus of the book is on Jewish writings composed in Greek in the Hellenistic period. The introduction boldly announces Gruen's rejection ofprevailing notions that these writings served the apologetic and propagandistic motives of a beleaguered minority trying to protect itselffrom loss of its identity in an alien world. Gruen's thesis is that these writings were produced instead by a self-confident Judaism to reaffirm its traditions and to supply itselfwith a means ofentertainment, amusement, and aggrandizement. Gruen argues that in the process of achieving these goals, the authors ofthese writings freely invented new material that would assistthem inreappropriating older Jewish traditions. Jewish adjustment to the Hellenistic world may be understood without the customarily assumed polarization between assimilation and adherence to tradition. Chapter 1 emphasizes that the Hasmoneans operated upon an assumption of compatibility between Judaism and Hellenism. The Maccabean revolt was directed against the policies ofthe Seleucid king and indigenous enemies in Palestine rather than against Hellenism. Chapter 2 makes the brilliant suggestion that Egyptian versions of the Exodus originally resulted from Jewish appropriations of Egyptian legends rather than antisemitic distortions of Jewish traditions. Jews used Egyptian stories "to establish the claims of Jews to a place of eminence in the history of Egypt" (p. 64). Chapter 3 shows how Jewish writers exploited both the positive and negative features of the biblical picture of Joseph. Joseph became a model for expressing the relationship of Jews to surrounding society not only through his wit, success, and superiority, but also through his condescension and arrogance. Chapters 4-7 arguably form the heart ofthe book. In Chapter 4 Gruen appears to want to give midrash its due by emphasizing that many Jewish writers fostered pride in Jewish traditionby expanding upon the Scriptures. But in chapters 5-6 he demonstrates that certain texts must be understood primarily as folklore rather than midrash. Artapanus and other Jewish writers surveyed in chapter 5 freely employed purely fictitious inventions even when telling stories somehow related to those found in the Scriptures. Gruen sees the "tales ofthe Tobiads" and other sources surveyed in Chapter 6 predominantly as folktales and works of fiction given verisimilitude through a historical framework. Book Reviews 173 The texts sampled in Chapters 5 and 6 displayed a robust sense ofnational identity by freely appropriating both Jewish and Gentile traditions to emphasize Jewish cultural superiority, unashamedly encouraging success within the framework of political subordination to Hellenistic rulers, poking fun at Gentile kings and Jewish heroes, and a variety of other ways. Few of these texts had much concern with apologetics or polemics against assimilation. In chapter 7 Gruen demonstrates that Jews could even usurp Greek forms to emphasize both Jewish superiority and a commitment to sharing in the common heritage of Greek culture. Chapter 8 closes Gruen's argument with a summation of his superbly clear main points. The book concludes with a bibliography and index of subjects. Gruen's argumentation is always provocative, usually compelling, and frequently breathtaking. Gruen provides a refreshing alternative to research that analyzes Jewish writings in Greek through the distorting lens of modem preoccupations with antisemitism , assimilation, and preservation oftraditional identity. Especially welcome is his emphasis on the need to understand many ofthese writings as creative works in their own right, free from the domination of exegetical, historiographic, or propagandistic motives. Persons who may quarrel with the degree to which Gruen has relativized these motives will fInd it diffIcult to dispute with the legitimacy ofthe exciting new paradigm that he offers. Even the details of Gruen's arguments often contribute nuggets...

Augustus, the Res Gestae and Hellenistic Theories of Apotheosis

The literary genre of the Res Gestae has always been a source of perplexity. Over a century ago Mommsen compared efforts to categorize it with attempts to pin a literary label upon Dante's Divina Commedia or Goethe's Faust. That did not prevent his arguing that the work was a ‘Rechenschaftsbericht’, a formal report of Augustus' achievements as princeps. Nowadays it can perhaps be accepted that the document has a multiplicity of models and many purposes, all of them propagandist in nature. However, the complexity of the work is even now insufficiently appreciated. It is, for instance, well accepted that world conquest is a primary and pervading theme, and Augustus' imperial ideology has been well documented and discussed in recent years. But world conquest suggests another theme, that of apotheosis. The two motifs are inextricably linked in Hellenistic literature after Alexander, and the linkage was inherited by Roman authors, not least by the poets of the Augustan age. As for Augustus himself, his propaganda owes much to the Hellenistic ruler cult. His victory issues after Actium show a startling similarity to the famous tetradrachms commemorating Demetrius Poliorcetes' naval triumph at Cypriot Salamis; he adopted the same pose, and assimilated himself to Neptune, just as Demetrius had recalled Poseidon. Augustus may have been directly influenced by Demetrius' issues. He was possibly aware of the divine honours which the Athenians had conferred upon Demetrius a few months before his victory, and made similar claims in his own right. But the relationship was probably more indirect — Augustus used motifs which had become familiar during the previous centuries, emphasizing simultaneously the protection of the gods and his own godlike status. Demetrius' issue helped inspire the general pattern of thought, but there was no direct imitation.

Augustus, the Res Gestae and Hellenistic Theories of Apotheosis

The literary genre of the Res Gestae has always been a source of perplexity. Over a century ago Mommsen compared efforts to categorize it with attempts to pin a literary label upon Dante's Divina Commedia or Goethe's Faust. That did not prevent his arguing that the work was a ‘Rechenschaftsbericht’, a formal report of Augustus' achievements as princeps. Nowadays it can perhaps be accepted that the document has a multiplicity of models and many purposes, all of them propagandist in nature. However, the complexity of the work is even now insufficiently appreciated. It is, for instance, well accepted that world conquest is a primary and pervading theme, and Augustus' imperial ideology has been well documented and discussed in recent years. But world conquest suggests another theme, that of apotheosis. The two motifs are inextricably linked in Hellenistic literature after Alexander, and the linkage was inherited by Roman authors, not least by the poets of the Augustan age. As for Augustus himself, his propaganda owes much to the Hellenistic ruler cult. His victory issues after Actium show a startling similarity to the famous tetradrachms commemorating Demetrius Poliorcetes' naval triumph at Cypriot Salamis; he adopted the same pose, and assimilated himself to Neptune, just as Demetrius had recalled Poseidon. Augustus may have been directly influenced by Demetrius' issues. He was possibly aware of the divine honours which the Athenians had conferred upon Demetrius a few months before his victory, and made similar claims in his own right. But the relationship was probably more indirect — Augustus used motifs which had become familiar during the previous centuries, emphasizing simultaneously the protection of the gods and his own godlike status. Demetrius' issue helped inspire the general pattern of thought, but there was no direct imitation.

The Hellenistic Rulers and their Poets

The Hellenistic Rulers and their Poets

Forced Circumcision and the Shifting Role of Gentiles in Hasmonean Ideology

One way in which ancient rulers proclaimed their power over war captives and slaves was to inscribe their bodies with a distinctive mark of ownership. For instance, according to Herodotus, the Persian king Xerxes ordered “royal marks” inscribed on Theban soldiers who had deserted to his side. To cite an example closer to the world of Judaism,3 Macc2.29 reports that the Hellenistic ruler Ptolemy Philopator ordered an ivy-leaf shaped “mark of Dionysus” branded onto Jews. Generally speaking, the mark of circumcision served a very different social role in antiquity, serving in many (though not all) contexts as a sign distinguishing Jews from others. There is reason to believe, however, that circumcision too could serve as a “rite of domination” marking Jewish power over Gentile bodies. Several sources refer briefly to incidents during the second and first centuries BCE when Jewish rulers forcibly circumcised Gentile peoples after subduing them in battle.

The hellenistic rulers and their poets. Silencing dangerous critics

The hellenistic rulers and their poets. Silencing dangerous critics

The Masculine Ideal of “the Race that Wears the Toga”

Naturalistic and expressive portraiture is considered one of the great achievements of Roman art. Yet such Roman honorific portraits as the Naples Claudius (fig. 1), its athletic nude body of heroic type surmounted by the jowly visage of the aging gourmand, will get a laugh from most audiences today. The comedy proceeds from an aesthetic disjunction, perceived since Winckelmann, between portrait head, conceived as Roman, and ideal body, conceived as Greek. Only this modern aesthetic, supported by the continuing prestige of Greek male nude statuary, allows assertions like that of R. R. R. Smith, that Roman nude portraits are a covert revenge of enslaved Greek sculptors on their barbarian masters.1 That Roman elite men could be commemorated to their own satisfaction in statues like the Claudius implies conceptions of ideal masculine bodies fundamentally different from our own. But later Body Beautiful ideologies are so naturalized in our aesthetic experience that most interpreters of the Roman heroic male nude take refuge in iconography. The nude body is merely an iconographic attribute of the individual really represented in the portrait head. It signifies a cultural position, such as espousal of Greek political or merely literary culture; or a role, such as Hellenistic ruler or divine autocrat; or it symbolizes a virtuous aspect of character.2 Such coherent and serious messages would preclude or supersede perception of aesthetic incoherence.

Le « portique de Tibère » à Aphrodisias : Problèmes d'identification et de fonction

The great columnated square called Portico of Tiberius, the wings and the central pool of which the archaeological mission of Aphrodisias is still excavating, has been erected from the reign of Tiberius until antonine times. It is a passageway connected with the north Agora, the Hadrians Baths on west side, the flavian basilica and the theatre on south side ; the monumental antonine propylon called Agora Gate closes the complex on the east side. The analysis of the garlands and heads frieze of the tiberian north portico reveals copies of famous statues heads : divinities related to \h&amp;paideia, classical athletes, and as set of hellenistic rulers portraits. That iconographie program reminds us of the sculptural decoration of the Villa dei Papyri great portico (Herculaneum). The portico of Tiberius, with its central pool surrounded by an open-air stadium, and the north wing sheltering a running track, can be identified as a xystos, sporting ground connected with a. palaestra, which has probably been replaced by the Hadrians Baths. Furthermore, an inscription dealing with later transformations in the « Diogenianon gymnasion » (probably related to the rebuilding of the west wing leading to the Hadrians Baths) confirms that the Baths and the Portico of Tiberius must be considered as a functional complex, a late-hellenistic type gymnasium : his original planning fits in closely with the vitruvian regulations.

Anatomy in Alexandria in the third century B.C.

The most striking advances in the knowledge of human anatomy and physiology that the world had ever known—or was to know until the seventeenth century A.D.—took place in Hellenistic Alexandria. The city was founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great. After the tatter's death in 323 B.C. and the subsequent dissolution of his empire, it became the capital of one of his generals, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, who established the Ptolemaic dynasty there. The first Ptolemy, subsequently named Soter (the Saviour), and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus (who succeeded him in 285 B.C.), became immensely enriched by their exploitation of Egypt and raised the city to a position of great wealth and magnificence. Anxious to enhance both their own reputation and the prestige of the kingdom, they sought to rival the cultural and scientific achievements not only of other Hellenistic rulers but even of Athens herself. Their patronage of the arts and sciences, coupled with their establishment of the Museum (an institute for literary studies and scientific research as well as a temple of the Muses), together with the Library, made the city the centre of Hellenistic culture. Philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, artists, poets and physicians were all encouraged to come and work there.

The Patriarchate of Alexandria: A Study in National Christianity

The history of the patriarchates in the conciliar period of church history offers interesting parallels to that of the kingdoms and republics which had occupied the same territory in Hellenistic days. Like the Seleucid Empire, Antioch began with a leading position, which it gradually lost by secessions and internal divisions. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem revolted from Antioch in the fifth century A.D. as the Jews had under the Maccabees seven centuries before, although for less serious reasons. As the Hellenistic rulers of Asia Minor and Greece gradually lost out to Macedon and Rome, so the ecclesiastical jurisdictions of the same area were ultimately absorbed in the Patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople. But the closest parallel of all is in Egypt. As the Ptolemies built their power on a closely knit and almost impregnable kingdom, from which they ventured forth to take their part in the high politics of the Hellenistic world, so the patriarchs of Alexandria, backed by the united support of the Egyptian Church, took a leading part in the affairs of the great church for two centuries. After generations of splendor, the ecclesiastical, like the civil dynasty, was subject to internal divisions and harassed by external interference, and ended its career in war and catastrophe. The major aspects of this story are a familiar topic in church history, but it may repay another survey from the special point of view of the relation of church and state in Egypt.