Late Sixth Century Research Articles

Virgil’s Ascanius: Imagining the Future in the Aeneid by Anne Rogerson

Reviewed by: Virgil’s Ascanius: Imagining the Future in the Aeneid by Anne Rogerson Patricia A. Johnston Anne Rogerson. Virgil’s Ascanius: Imagining the Future in the Aeneid. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. viii, 237. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-107-11539-2. Ascanius, argues Rogerson (1), the Aeneid’s smallest hero, not only represents the glories to come after the Aeneid; Vergil also “uses Ascanius to represent the manifold difficulties associated with looking forward beyond the present.” While this could appear to be a clear statement of the obvious, in fact Rogerson masterfully pursues the ambiguities in Vergil’s Ascanius, whom she compares with numerous other versions of this character. The picture of him as a small child “clinging to his father’s hand and following in his footsteps as he escapes” from Troy was the dominant one from the late-sixth century bce. Rogerson, after developing this picture, then explores the “ambiguity” implicit in this singular figure (although noting his multiple names even in Vergil), examining him as a symbol of “a contested future” that suggests “alternative visions” (11). Chapter 2 examines the myths around the sons (plural) of Aeneas: “Virgil has tidied up the family tree” (15). Homer’s Poseidon mentions several sons, as well as sisters, of Aeneas (Il. 20.307–308), as do Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 1.55.3) and Servius (ad Aen. 4.159). Rogerson also discusses the ambiguity between the names Ascanius and Iulus, and the implied conflicts between him and the son of Silvius, son of Lavinia. In chapter 3, “Ilus to Iulus,” she examines “how the Trojans are to leave enough of their Trojan-ness behind to become Roman” (37). Jupiter promises that Ascanius will rule the new city his father is about to found until the birth of Romulus and Remus, donec regina sacerdos/Marte gravis geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem (Aen. 1.273–274), “until a royal priestess of Trojan descent, pregnant by Mars, gives birth to twin progeny” (40): Rogerson here argues that the name Ilia edges Ascanius out of the line of succession. Chapter 4 examines the responses of Andromache (who associates him with her dead son Astyanax) and Dido; in the case of Dido, he becomes (through Cupid’s impersonation of him) “a further example of the destructive nature of substitutions and false imagines in the Aeneid” (72). [End Page 588] Chapters 5 and 6 examine his strength in the Trojan games, the frenzied reaction of the Trojan women to the fire of the ships, and the omens of fire with both Anchises (2.647–649) and Ascanius (2.679–684), as well as with Aeneas at 8.680–681 and 10.270–271, and the broader tradition of these omens. In the concluding chapter 10 Rogerson compares the roles of Ascanius and of Pallas, each of them embodying his father’s hope for the future (194). She elaborates numerous parallels between the two of them, concluding that the exact nature of the relationship between them is not clear: “While Ascanius is still seen as the future ruler in Italy, it is nonetheless Pallas who plays the active manly role in Aeneas’ imagined (if impossible) continuation of his son’s story” (201); “And standing as a symbol of hope for the future . . . he reminds us of the inexorable and . . . unknowable workings of fate” (203). Rogerson has done a fine job of defining and substantializing the figure of Ascanius in Vergil’s Aeneid. A study such as this also helps to define how Vergil worked with and brought together some rather obscure strands of Trojan/Roman history into his epic in a way that makes it so much more powerful than it might have been without this appealing child who comes to embody the Trojan/Roman hope for the future. Patricia A. Johnston Brandeis University Copyright © 2017 The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, Inc

Os agentes públicos e a fome nos primeiros séculos da Idade Média

Resumo A Alta Idade Média foi um período marcado por sucessivas crises alimentares. De acordo com um levantamento nas histórias, anais, crônicas, hagiografias etc., feito no início do século XX pelo historiador alemão Fritz Curschmann, há 68 menções a crises alimentares entre os anos 700 e 1100. No entanto, esses textos dizem mais sobre as reações à fome do que sobre as circunstâncias ou causas das mesmas. O objetivo deste artigo é analisar comparativamente as ações dos agentes públicos em face de situações de crise alimentar, tanto na Gália quanto na Itália, entre o final do século V e o final do século VI. Para tanto, utilizar-se-ão cartas de Cassiodoro († c.585) e de Sidônio Apolinário († 486), bem como as Histórias de Gregório de Tours († 594) e um poema de Venâncio Fortunato († c.609). A análise desses textos permite que se coloque em xeque a ideia da crise da autoridade pública com o advento dos reinos bárbaros.

On Early Thimbles: A Seventh-Century-AD Example from Punta Secca, Sicily, in Context

Summary A copper-alloy thimble was found in 2010 at Punta Secca, Sicily, in a sealed context datable by coins to the first quarter of the seventh century AD. It has generally been thought that thimbles did not reach the Mediterranean area until the ninth century AD, but at least nine metal examples are in fact attested at various places from contexts datable between the late sixth century and the early ninth. It is suggested that the increasing use of silk in clothing in the Byzantine Empire during the seventh century, probably accompanied by the use for the first time of steel needles which made the use of a finger protector imperative, explains the apparent introduction of thimbles at this time. No securely dated metal thimbles are known from sites of Roman date, except for one at Ephesus of c.AD 100. It is very tentatively suggested that this last example might represent an import from China, where thimbles (and steel needles) are attested from at least the third century BC onwards.

“Soldiers of Christ” from the Byzantine Perspective: Monks, Emperors, and Conflict in the Early Byzantine Empire

This article is an exploration of concept of monks as “soldiers of Christ” in Byzantine Anatolia during the late sixth and early seventh centuries CE. Through a case study of Theodore of Sykeon, this article will explore monks as agents of continuity in the Byzantine Anatolia of the late sixth and early seventh centuries through Theodore's conflicts with the emperors, imperial authorities, and the regional episcopal hierarchy. The conflicts Theodore had with various authority figures of his time were about helping them see the right path of supporting Catholic orthodoxy as the normative belief system of Byzantine society and integrating his rural community of Sykeon into the wider web of imperial and episcopal urban patronage. Thus, conflict in this context was a catalyst for social order and stability rather than a symptom of social collapse. This article also fits into the historiography of the holy man as local patron in Late Antiquity, suggesting an alternate interpretation of this phenomenon as first put forward in Peter Brown's seminal works on this subject.

Axial Breakthrough in Athens: Religious Topography and Transformation

Axial Age theory posits that there should be major transformations in Greece (as elsewhere) in the middle of the first millennium BCE. One could point to the creation of the world’s first democracy in Athens in the years around 508. Equally important, and not unrelated to the democracy, was a re-conceptualizing of the role of religion and worship in society, for which Athens provides especially striking archeological evidence. The physical setting for religious expression changed markedly around the end of the sixth century, especially at Athens. The Agora was filled with cults, temples, and shrines of gods and heroes, laid out along with the establishment of the democracy and adapted to the changing political and social needs of the community. Conversely, the Acropolis, which had been strictly the domain of the goddess Athena, takes on a more civic character in the late sixth century with a radical change in the nature of votives dedicated to her. Thus, in the Greek version of axial breakthrough, religion is not set aside or diluted, but put in the service of a new political order.

Tree Ring—Dated Glacial History for the First Millennium c.e., Casement Glacier and Adams Inlet, Glacier Bay, Alaska, U.S.A.

ABSTRACTCalendar dating of tree-ring series from 16 logs sampled near the margin of Casement Glacier combined with tree-ring dates on 36 detrital logs from Adams Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, show killing of trees by ice and lake sediments from the mid-sixth through mid-seventh centuries c.e. The dates from the land-terminating Casement Glacier show ice advance into a forest between 560 and 570 c.e. within a few kilometers of the 2011 retreating margin. Advance of the tidewater glacier in Muir Inlet blocked off Adams Inlet forming Lake Adams between 540 and 640 c.e. This glacier and lake history for Glacier Bay is consistent with other land-terminating ice expansions across the Gulf of Alaska that similarly show advance centered on 600 c.e., as well as other proxy records from lakes all suggesting cooling during this interval. The cooling closely follows a series of eruptions in the mid to late sixth century, which may have contributed to the cooling. Radiocarbon ages in Adams Inlet suggest that Lake Adams persisted through 880 cal. yr c.e. and drained by 1170 cal. yr c.e. Ice retreat and this lake drainage are broadly coincident with Medieval warming recognized along the Gulf of Alaska in dendroclimatic reconstructions. Shortly after this retreat, Little Ice Age readvance occurred with Casement Glacier coalescing with glaciers in Adams Inlet and the West Arm, subsequently filling all of Glacier Bay to its Holocene maximum by 1750 c.e.

Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Achaemenid Pasargadae and Persepolis, Iran

Architectural fragments of decorated walls, floors, and columns excavated by Ernst Herzfeld (1879–1948) at the archaeological sites of Persepolis and Pasargadae in Iran are housed in the Freer Study Collection at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (FSG), Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Technical studies of these painted earthen plasters and glazed brick fragments were undertaken to enhance our knowledge of materials and technology of Achaemenid Persia between the late sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Initial analysis was done on the surface of the fragments using non-invasive X-ray fluorescence with a portable instrument. Polished cross-sections were used to examine the layering stratigraphy of paints and glazes, and to undertake compositional analysis using scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Up to five layers of paint are present on the Pasargadae plaster, constituting the remnants of a geometric design. The plasters were bound with clay tempered with an organic material that has long since degraded, leaving small voids throughout. Pigments identified include Egyptian blue, malachite green, red ocher, and cinnabar red. The floor fragments from Persepolis were finished with a lime plaster and two layers of hematite-rich paint. The brick fragments from Persepolis were found to be composed of high-silica material similar to faience, which were decorated with alkaline glazes, including a yellow glazed colored with lead antimonate, gray glaze colored with magnesium and iron, and green glazed colored with copper. While the exact ages of the finishes are unknown, a similar technology was employed to decorate Achaemenid architecture in its principle Iranian cities. The variety of materials excavated by Herzfeld demonstrates the ability of Achaemenid artisans to work with multiple mediums to create a polychromatic finish including that of glazed tiles, earthen plaster tempered with gravel, earthen plaster tempered with organic matter, colored earths, pigmented paints and lime plasters. The layering of these materials can be seen and analyzed in cross-section although surface deterioration is often quite severe. The analysis of the compositional data on the architectural fragments inform their long-term preservation at the FSG as well as at the sites themselves.

Assembling the Austrasian Letters at Trier and Lorsch

This article is a reconsideration of the Epistulae Austrasicae. We critique the widespread notion that the constituent letters were compiled by a courtier in the late sixth century at Metz as a book of models for use in the Austrasian chancellery. We argue instead that a monk from the monastery of Lorsch assembled the letters in the early ninth century from individual exemplars and groupings that he found in archives at Trier. We conclude by outlining some implications of this rereading for the edition and interpretation of the letters as sources for the Merovingian period, and point out some avenues for future research on their reception in the Carolingian period.

Assessing Visigoth latinity in the late sixth century: The contribution of Reccared's letter to Gregory I

In the final years of the sixth century, the Gothic chieftain, Reccared, wrote a letter to Pope Gregory the Great - a letter that offers a unique insight into that generation of Visigoths who abandoned their native tongue, embraced Catholicism, and established the kingdom of Spain. The letter demonstrates that Reccared was reasonably fluent in Latin, although commentators have, for some centuries now, felt compelled to point out just how many mistakes the warlord made and how egregious these mistakes were. These errors are particularly troubling given that, at the Third Synod of Toledo conducted in 589, Reccared had purportedly addressed the assembly in perfect, even slightly archaised, Latin. This article compares Reccared's letter with a selection of other early Germanic literature, especially those elements of the corpus that seek to translate Greek or Latin predecessors, in order to contextualise his errors and to offer some opinions as to why those mistakes might have been made.

Pindare et l’économie numérique

Pindar and the Digital Economy. Recent interpretations of Pindar’s poems have highlighted their inclusion in the world of the elites in the late sixth and early fifth century BC. These interpretations have been favored by Pindar’s own insistence on social exchanges : charis is the ubiquitous word which characterizes them, and which appears also behind the metaphors of “ expenditure” (dapanè) and “ charge” (ponos). Thus Pindar himself encouraged modern interpreters to understand with socio-economic terms the values system that accompanies epinikion and that he broadcasts. But new economic theories can also bring new light to the socio-cultural phenomenon that is Pindar’s epinikion : redefining the concepts of “ good”, “ consumption” and “ market”, they help us to avoid the assimilation of the Pindaric expenditure to degradation, destruction and annihilation. The link made by Pindar between expenditure and glory takes on new meaning, which will not disappoint the advocates of information economy or of digital economy.

The Exiled Bishops of Constantinople from the Fourth to the Late Sixth Century

A number of cases of the bishops of Constantinople exiled over a period until as late as the close of the 6th century prove the fact that the rulers would always make an effort to remove the deposed bishops from the City, even though relocating the latter to specific destinations did not always have to be the case. In the 4th century, the bishops could withdraw to suburban districts or settle at their own estates, and it was not until the 5th century that depositions of the metropolitan bishops would involve, in principle, being deported to a specific place of exile. The purpose behind banishing a bishop from the City and putting him under supervision at a certain location was to prevent him from exerting any influence on the faithful in Constantinople. It should be also noted that sending a person into exile was a form of punishment, especially when the destination was a remote location exposed to harsh weather conditions or the threat of sudden incursions by bands of nomads or brigands. Results of an analysis of the accessibility of exile destinations provide substantial evidence for an overwhelming proportion of inland urban localities. Although many of such places would be located along or near various roads, they were generally situated far from the coast or the main routes to Constantinople.

Jean Chrysostome: Homélies sur la Résurrection, l’Ascension et la Pentecôte.Tome I. Edited by Nathalie Rambault.Euthèrios de Tyane: Protestation, Lettres.Text by E. Schwartz and M. Tetz. Introduction, translation, and notes by Joseph Paramelle with Louis Neyrand.

T hese two fine volumes illustrate both the variety of patristic literature and the scope of the distinguished series to which they belong. Dr Rambault presents here the first of two which are to contain the sermons of the Golden Mouth for the Easter liturgical cycle. In this volume we have On Easter (CPG 4408), Against drunkenness and on the Resurrection (CPG 4341), and as an appendix the spurious On Easter (CPG 4340) in its three varying manifestations. The succeeding volume (SC 562) is to contain the homilies On the Ascension and On Pentecost . The genuine On Easter (I repeat the editor’s information) is about double the normal length for the author and would have lasted 45 minutes as against his usual 25: a fact I have not tested out but will believe. Basically an eloquent exegesis of 2 Cor. 5:1–5 characteristic of the great preacher, it is, it is argued, a catechetical address in Lent, delivered at Antioch in an unknown year, the year 387 proposed by Montfaucon and equally learned later scholars, relying upon the supposed allusion to a previous and datable homily, being found a hypothesis too far. Manichaean opponents are, it is suggested, in the background and light is thrown on Easter in the church at Antioch. Surprisingly, I would think, scant justification of resurrection per se is given. The title Against drunkenness and on the Resurrection misleads: drunkenness is not a sin of which the congregation is accused; they are above that. Rather appeal is made to the true spiritual intoxification of faith. The spurious homily is convincingly affirmed as a composite of selected highlights from Chrysostom and others, made sometime between the late sixth and mid-eighth centuries, and drawing on florilegia. It is a clever compilation and has a grand ring to it. Some of the greatest scholars mistook it as genuine. How consoling are their errors for the rest of us! The editor has established the text, her translation is reliable, and her notes, if elementary for the most part, will perhaps be of some use, more elaborate being promised in the next volume.

A Preliminary Study of the Aqueduct of Reccopolis

Reccopolis was a new urban foundation of the late sixth century AD, built by King Liuvigild during the period of the Visigothic state formation. The city was equipped, alongside other facilities, with an aqueduct built ex novo in the Roman technique. This has only recently been studied. The construction of a new city and a new aqueduct indicates a great economic effort by the Visigothic ruler: the event was in itself also a grand act of propaganda in addition to its obvious functional purpose. The aqueduct is itself unmatched in public constructions of this period.

Leaping to conclusions: archaeology, gender and digital news media

In the autumn of 2013, a discovery was made in the Doganaccia necropolis close to the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia. A sepulchre was uncovered, mercifully and unusually unlooted. Inside were the remains of two individuals and a range of grave goods, allowing the tomb to be typologically dated to the late seventh or early sixth century BC. One of the individuals had been cremated, while the other was laid out in a supine position. Both were placed on funeral benches similar to those known from Etruscan tombs across the region (Steingräber 2009). This excavation was as unusual as it was spectacular—the equally vigorous efforts of nineteenth-century enthusiasts (Leighton 2004: 12) and twentieth-century tomb robbers (van Velzen 1999: 180) have left little of the Etruscan burial record undisturbed. Unsurprisingly, there was a great deal of media excitement over the burial, as its excavator, distinguished Etruscan scholar Alessandro Mandolesi, spoke with the press of his impressions of the remains and their relationship to the artefacts found in the tomb. Little of his exact words remain in the public sphere, but the impression he provided to the press was clear in the flurry of media reports that followed his statement. The ensuing media interest and archaeological developments present a number of serious issues for the practice of archaeology in an age in which digital media can magnify the impact of any major discovery. In addition, the interpretation put forward exposed the continued androcentrism inherent in many sub-disciplines of archaeology, which, 30 years on from Conkey and Spector's (1984) transformative publication, remain locked in deeply problematic interpretative patterns. This interpretation of the Tarquinia burial is emblematic of a far wider phenomenon, both within and beyond Italy, which has serious implications for future archaeological practice. This article unpicks both the media storm and interpretative paradigms that characterised this case study, and queries archaeological responsibility and visibility in an age of 24-hour news.

Elite Citizen Women and the Origins of the Hetaira in Classical Athens

Introduction If you open the Liddell-Scott-Jones dictionary to look up the word hetaira, you find the definition courtesan. The recognizable English word provides a reassuring sense of comprehension, a sense that is unfortunately false. Greek does not always translate easily into English and often readers are compelled to examine cultural, political, or socio-historical contexts for a word before making a decision on how to translate it. Some words, therefore, have extensive entries in our dictionaries. Words that denote women's social statuses, however, typically do not. Rather, LSJ, assuming that the social statuses of women are transparent and obvious, hides the complexities that surround the words applied to these women or how they are represented generally in image and text. When scholars see an image of a woman or read the name of a woman in a forum for public audiences, like comedy or oratory, they immediately make a series of assumptions about the woman's identity, including her social position, occupation, and legal status. In images, a woman is immediately deemed a prostitute, if nude, or if dressed but playing a flute, or if handed a change purse. (1) If pictured at a symposium, she is a hetaira. The term has a basic meaning of 'companion' (on analogy with hetairos) (2) and is almost always, except in limited cases, translated as courtesan. (3) Courtesan is itself a vague and culturally contingent word, especially in the nineteenth century when our lexicon was produced. According to LSJ, it is to be neither a common prostitute nor a married woman but something in between. How scholars have dealt with this ambiguity has varied, but interpretation has fallen strongly on the side of closer to prostitute than to and many scholars consider hetaira a synonym for prostitute, especially since they believe that only prostitutes attended symposia. (4) The ancient sources, however, tell a different story from the narrative driven by these lexical assumptions. The term hetaira was used in archaic and classical Athens to designate both a status and a set of behaviors. For example, there is evidence that the status of hetaira designated a woman who could not, for a variety of reasons, contract a formal marriage. This use of hetaira to designate marriageability occurs only in the fourth century. (5) In the late sixth century, in Athens and in some Ionian Greek poleis, I will argue that the word hetaira designates not a status but a person associated with a set of behaviors typical of the sympotic culture of the Greek elite. When scholars collapse these historically distinct uses of the term hetaira, they imagine a social world based on a strict wife-whore dichotomy. The mechanical application of this dichotomy has created basic misunderstandings of the position of some women, particularly noncitizen women, in classical Athens. The wife-whore dichotomy underlies many approaches to women in Athens and intersects with scholars' use of the language of respectability. They typically label a woman as disreputable if she is named in the courts, on the comic stage, or appears on a sympotic imaged. It is a short step to labeling her a prostitute, which then is assumed to exclude her from the category of wife and citizen. (6) Scholars identify this strong wife-whore dichotomy in a variety of ancient sources and claim that it is an unbreachable ideological barrier for the ancient Athenians. As Madeleine Henry writes, Erotic pleasure and legitimate marriage are classified into categories of thought ... which are firmly separated from one another. (7) This dichotomy exists in some of the language of Athenian orators and comedy. But not every woman in Athens was either a citizen wife or a foreign prostitute in reality (or even, I would argue, ideologically). Recent scholarship has questioned this dichotomy. (8) Unfortunately, these discussions have frequently started from the assumption that noncitizen women were mostly sexual laborers. …

Knowledge and Virtue in the Regula Pastoralis of Gregory the Great: The Development of Christian Argumentation for the Late Sixth Century

The Regula Pastoralis of Gregory the Great constructs a model of pastoral authority that stresses the importance of the pastor’s virtuous life to the success of his preaching: not only will his example be the strongest testimony to his belief, but his own understanding of the truth will be clearer if it is not obscured by his refusal to recognize his own vices. In adopting such an epistemology, in which virtue is the ground of knowledge, Gregory is participating in a centuries-long debate about the ultimate locus of authority in Christian discourse: what gives credibility to a claim? Such an epistemology by itself, however, does not provide any mechanism for resolving disagreements. Living in a period when the fragmentation of the Church into a number of national churches was a very real threat, Gregory created a model of argumentation that could contain controversy. He vested the ultimate authority in the hierarchy of church office, insisting that pride is corrupting and thereby circumscribing the knowledge claims that could be made on the basis of virtue.

Review of Lee, From Rome to Byzantium

Doug Lee is a veteran scholar who has already delivered major contributions to the studies of frontiers, warfare, and Christianity in Late Antiquity. For the multi-authored Edinburgh series, however, he probably drew the short straw. In merely 300 pages Lee is forced to cover two centuries from the death of Julian to the death of Justinian (AD 363-565). The late fourth century and early sixth century, respectively, are exceptionally well documented, at least according to the standards of ancient history, thanks to the rich histories of Ammianus Marcellinus and Procopius, the legal codes, and a plethora of chronicles, letters, panegyrics and other writings. There would have been rich pickings for at least two separate volumes. This is all the more remarkable when comparing this volume in this series with Clifford Ando's Imperial Rome AD 193-284, where equal space is given to one of the most poorly documented single centuries in Rome's history. Furthermore, the choice to start the final volume with the death of Julian is a rather unusual one as Lee himself concedes (p. xiii), given that the major turbulent changes setting both halves of the Empire on fundamentally different courses would only come to full fruition with the death of Theodosius I in 395 (a terminal point more widely used, as noticed in the aforementioned works of Bury, Cameron and Moorhead). Lee's choice to end the volume with the death of Justinian is certainly more orthodox, though it could have helped to take the volume up to the death of Heraclius (641) which saw the advent of Islam and the final eclipse of the Ancient World.

IV Justice and Law

The fifth century is the century of nomos, a concept difficult to translate, as it covers several different semantic fields. Usually nomos is rendered as ‘law’, but this is a reductive translation, since the term describes not just positive laws but also traditions, customs, and established practices. Besides, as Aristotle was to observe, the two meanings ‘law’ and ‘tradition’ are closely related: ‘For the law has no power to command obedience except that of habit, which can only be given by time’ (Politics, 1269a20). In short, nomos is anything which is assigned some value, any norm accepted by a group. From the late sixth century onwards, this term acquired a central place in the Greek world, becoming a privileged object of reflection for the sophists. The most significant element is its spread as a technical term for written law, particularly in Athenian democracy. Prior to this, it chiefly referred to customs and traditions. Yet its growing importance is not devoid of problematic aspects. The greater economic and political stability attained through the victorious wars against the Persians led to an increase in travel, cultural exchanges, and trade, which contributed to broadening the perspectives and knowledge of the Greeks. One of the most striking observations they made concerned the wide range of laws and traditions in force in the various cities and states: nomos is indeed a crucial value, as the law and tradition governing the life of a community; but it is in any case relative, as it varies from city to city. The acknowledgement of the relativity of nomos is a central theme in fifth-century literature, as may be inferred from some famous passages by Pindar, Herodotus, and Aeschylus. At first sight, the conclusions reached by these authors would appear to emphasize the capacity of nomos to impose itself: as a verse by Pindar states, nomos ‘is the king of all things’ (fr. 169a Snell-Mähler). Yet the ascertainment of the range of laws and traditions in existence could also lead to moral relativism and to the conclusion that there are no absolute, universal or objective values (Dissoi logoi, 90, 2.18 D.-K. = 40, 2.18 L.-M.).

A Database for Three Dioscoridean Illustrated Herbals

An image database was developed for three illustrated recensions of the non-illustrated manuscript of Dioscorides entitled Πɛρí ύλης ιατρικης (De Materia Medica in Latin; On Medical Matters in English) written in approximately Year 65: Juliana Anicia Codex (JAC) or Codex Vindobonensis produced in Year 512, Codex Neapolitanus (NAP) produced in the late sixth or early seventh century, and Morgan 652 (M652) produced between 927 and 985. The database that brings up images and accompanying records is searchable by herbal, common name in English and Greek (Roman alphabet), binomial (current and in source document), and botanical family. In addition, a Venn diagram of images in the three herbals permits a search for images that are common or unique among the three herbals. The database makes it possible to locate images in herbals written in Greek that are difficult to access and will be useful to horticulturists and herbal scholars. The database can be accessed at <http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/herbalimages>.

Clinical experience in late antiquity: Alexander of Tralles and the therapy of epilepsy.

Alexander of Tralles, writing in the late sixth century, combined his wide-ranging practical knowledge with earlier medical theories. This article shows how clinical experience is used in Alexander’s works by concentrating on his therapeutic advice on epilepsy and, in particular, on pharmacology and the group of so-called natural remedies. I argue that clinical testing is used not only for the introduction of new medicines but also as an instrument for checking the therapeutic effect of popular healing practices. On another level, this article discusses Alexander’s role as the author of a medical compendium; it suggests that by marking the cases of clinical testing with a set of recurrent expressions, Alexander leads his audience to reflect on his medical authority and personal contribution.