Volume 92, Issue 2 -

This paper analyses the purpose and the outcome of the civic scrutiny or diapsephismos conducted in Athens after the tyrants′ expulsion and referred to by the author of the “Athenian Constitution” ([Aristot.] Ath. pol. 13. 5). A long standing traditional view associated the diapsephismos with the purpose of ‘the aristocrats’ to purge the citizen rolls and to exclude as “impurely born” the newly enfranchised citizens who had come to share in the life of the polis under the tyranny. This paper aims to reject this communis opinio arguing that the diapsephismos was instead the instrument adopted in Cleisthenes′ reform in order to formally include those “who were not of pure descent” into the group of citizens and to enroll them into the ten territorial tribes. In this context I also stress that the traditional view of the diapsephismos as a purging of the citizen-registers is affected by the reconstruction preserved in the “Constitution of Athens”, a reconstruction suitable to the ideology of the Athenian democracy on citizenship in fifth and fourth centuries B. C. when the idea of the Athenians “pure by birth” was invented.

Based on the Greek and Latin terms for poverty and by means of modern definitions, it is analysed to what extent the philosophical works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca consider the poor and how they estimate them. One conclusion is that the approach of the four authors on the issue of poverty differs greatly from what has commonly been assumed by scholars for Greek and Latin sources of the pre-christian era.

This paper is a first approach to the sexuality of Alexander the Great, an aspect of his life that had always received less attention by the scholars. The analysis proposes the possible homosexuality of the conqueror at the light of the ancient sources.

This investigation starts with the role the elites of Greek cities played within the Attalid kingdom. The coordinates of the political sphere, which the Attalids created for the dependent cities, determined – in the long run – the position of the elites much less than the conditions in the cities themselves – relatively independently of whether the cities were dependent or not: In the course of the third and second century the urban democracies, formally shaped after the Attic model, were increasingly dominated by groups of rich fellow citizens. Their privileges, which were addressed directly from the middle of the 2nd century on were result of a long process, which was connected with the development of the institution structure. These pivileges justified a new self understanding of the elite, which aimed at a permanent influence for themselves and their family. Terms like the importance of the city and the region as well as the actual political conditions, which influenced the position of the elites, could start in different times, but they finally led to the same result, in the middle of the 2nd century. In the end, the Roman supremacy, which progressed region by region, caused a concentration: The elites succeeded on behalf of their city and own career on the administration level between their home region and the centre of the kingdom. This level almost ceased to exist with the beginning of the Roman rule since 133. Therefore, the elites lost the possibility to prove their abilities to succeed, because only few could establish permanent contact to the new representatives of the Roman hegemony.

This paper deals with the formation of a new mixed oligarchy in the Asia Minor poleis , reborn from the dramatic aftermath of the Mithridatic Wars. Local euergetai will be closely analysed, since they managed to survive the conflict and, eventually, played a relevant political role as patriotic saviours. The historical evidence shows that such euergetai were well connected with the Roman authorities, while devoting their diplomatic efforts towards an active defense of the privileges granted to their poleis during the first century B. C.

Diodorus Siculus (40,2) and Flavius Josephus (ant. Iud. 14,41–45) both give an account about three Jewish delegations, which met Pompey in Damascus in 63 B. C. E. in order to demand a decision in the conflict between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. According to both historians, one of these delegations argued against both candidates and requested the abolition of kingship in Judea, preferring a priestly government. The study initially shows that this request is without a real parallel in Jewish history in Hasmonean (and Herodian) times. It then tries to contextualize the genesis of an early report about the events in Damascus. This report is understood as a part of Pompey′s self-presentation. Thereafter the study analyzes the function of the report in both Diodorus and Josephus, taking into account their presumable historiographical concepts. Based on this approach, the historicity of the reported events is challenged.

The present paper first examines the structure of Seneca’s epist. 70 and the position of the Drusus Libo episode within this structure. Then, the various accounts concerning the lawsuit and the suicide of Drusus Libo are discussed; the common feature of all versions is the non-interference of the princeps Tiberius. Further, it is shown how Seneca makes selective use of the material probably available to him with the intention of presenting Drusus Libo as an example of successful suicide. Finally, a small alteration of the text is proposed, which shall render Seneca’s train of thought more intelligible.

Felix Jacoby completed his doctoral studies at the University of Berlin in 1900 with a mediocre grade of cum laude in the oral examination. This prevented him from pursuing his postdoctoral qualification (Habilitation) in Berlin; however, Wilamowitz interceded on his behalf and made it possible for him to obtain it in Breslau. The records pertaining to Jacoby‘s dissertation and oral examination, preserved in the archives of the Humboldt University Berlin, give us clues as to what led up to this disappointing outcome and shed new light on the professor-student relationship of Diels and Jacoby.

In the commemorative spirit of the “Gedenkfeier” this paper starts with reading a few passages from letters written by Felix Jacoby at the very end of his life. Among other things, the letters reveal his concern about the “fate of the Historians” after his death. The bulk of this paper focuses on the much debated structure of FGrH. Letters and documents preserved in Jacoby’s scientific Nachlass shed light on hitherto unknown stages in the history of this debate. Of momentous importance were two letters written in April 1917 by Eduard Meyer: they take issue with an alternative plan, which Jacoby had drafted in November 1915 in response to the criticisms which his proposal, published in Klio 1909, had provoked. This new plan, entitled “Plan einer Sammlung der Griechischen Historischen Tradition”, provided for a double edition of the fragmentary historians: one for quick and easy consultation arranged in alphabetic order, and one, in which all fragments would take their place within the historical tradition as a whole, presented according to different types of historical writing. Meyer convinced Jacoby to adopt a five-part topical arrangement, which prefigures the actual structure of FGrH in six parts (1923). The discarded alternative of 1915, together with Meyer’s letters, ended up in Jacoby’s private archive. However, as shown by the ever greater importance accorded in FGrH to collecting the anonymous tradition in “Anhänge”, Jacoby did not lay to rest his idea of supplementing the edition of the fragments proper with a presentation of the historical tradition to which they belong.

The inaugural lecture with which Alfred Heuß (1909–1995) presented himself as professor of Ancient History in Kiel in 1949 is here reproduced and commented. This lecture is the product of a vigorous mind; its ideas are still current when it comes to reflect on the “foundation and the authority of what today is generally known as the History of Antiquity”. According to Heuß, the general conception still draws on the model of successive world empires. The scientific opening of the Ancient Near East since the 19 th century did not alter this idea, although it bore the potential to recognise each structure in its own right. The unity of the Greco-Roman antiquity again cannot be declared on geographic grounds. It is rather inherent in the way “social conditions in their entirety” were characterised by “urban citizens” as well as by the cultural homogeneity of the Greco-Roman world. To Heuß, this antiquity was indispensable for Europe’s historical orientation.