Volume 16, Issue 1

This paper analyses the particular composition of the last book of the Quaestiones Convivales and puts it in relation to the remaining eight books. The particularity of the 9th book can be seen at different levels. The prologue is the shortest one and has no educational goals in contrast to all preceding ones. There are more questions - 15 instead of 10 - and all of them belong to the same symposion. Accordingly there is a stable constellation of participants instead of a permanent changing of characters. In this particular structure the last book should be placed near to the classical symposia of Plato and Xenophon, while the first eight books have a strong proximity to the problemata literature. A close look at the content shows an interesting development: There is no friendly conversation at the beginning, but disconnected and chaotic discussions, so the symposiarch Ammonios and other participants like Plutarch have to apply all their knowledge on symposia to achieve a friendly atmosphere. There are no programmatic discourses on symposia but a display of all necessary skills. Therefore the last book of the Quaestiones Convivales can be seen as a last examination for the reader and an opportunity to polish his learned symposiac skills. The dramatic time of this last symposion is set in the young days of Plutarch, when he was a student in Athens. He is one of the young participants, his master Ammonios is the host.While Ammonios plays the role of an alter Socrates, Plutarch as his pupil acts as a symposiast-to-be. In this way Plutarch illustrates in this last book the first step of his path to knowledge and presents himself as a worthy successor of Ammonios in sympotic competence.

While a narratological reading of the Gospels is relatively well accepted, their characterisation as parts of the genre of ancient biography was much antagonised in former times. Although things have changed thanks to seminal monographs on the problem from the second half of the 20th century and to continuing work, some questions remain open. Therefore, a narratological comparison of Gospels with concrete representatives of the ancient bios could possibly help to clarify the relations between both. In what follows, the oldest Gospel is read simultaneously with Plutarch’s Biography of the Younger Cato. Three observations are made: a) The structures of the narratives of Cato and of Jesus match to a high degree. Both protagonists carry out certain duties while operating in public. In most instances, they achieve great successes. From a certain point on, however, they irrevocably approach failure and ruin. This structure of story seems to form the basis both of the Gospel and of the biography of Cato, written ca. three decades later. b) Obviously, both works narrate the life of a man, his exceptional character, his extraordinary operations in public and his non-natural violent dead. In Plutarch’s version, the Younger Cato fails in the end. At first sight, also Mark’s Jesus fails to accomplish his mission. By God’s action he is turned into the saviour of the faithful however. This claimed unsurpassed relevance of the story is contrasted with the laconism of the narration. c) Both narrations are composed out of both factual and fictional elements. Thus, readers cannot separate both elements precisely in every instance. Both stories are imagined worlds designed for the in narratology so called game of fiction. As can be learned in Plutarch, authors of stories like the Life of Cato or the Gospel of Mark guarantee a certain sense of responsibility in their work. Summed up, the narratological comparison has illustrated both the close affinity and the individual specifications of both narratives. It thus helps to clarify the position- fixing of the Early Christian literature within its Graeco-Roman context.

This paper analyses the conception of the speaker figures in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Graecae and Quaestiones Romanae and their relationship to each other and to the historical author. The analysis is based on the questions as to what extent it is actually possible to identify a conceived speaker figure in these seemingly note-like writings and if such speaker figure can be assumed to be a completely freely conceived character or is at least in some way related to the person of the historical author. The analysis of the Quaestiones Graecae reveals that the speaker in this treatise is conceived as a competent explainer of the Greek world. He is imbued with Greek culture, but shows no particular proximity to the author’s special interests and competencies. Only a reader who is deeply familiar with the author can discern his presence in some passages, which gives them access to a second level of understanding. The speaker of the Quaestiones Romanae, in contrast, is conceived as a conscientious researcher, who is interwoven with Greek culture and exercises restraint in addressing Roman issues. However, where Greek subjects are concerned, he can take a more pronounced position, thus exhibiting some proximity to the speaker of the Quaestiones Graecae. The analysis of such a passage makes evident that the speaker figures of the two treatises are identical and that their approach is essentially dependent on the subject contemplated. They can be considered as conceptions based on the historical author, whose presence, however, shines through in only some passages. This multi-layered speaker conception shows that both treatises are more thoroughly elaborated from a literary point of view and are more closely interconnected than often assumed by researchers.

This paper deals with one of Plutarch’s favourite subjects - the relation between human beings and animals. In order to gain new insight into this topic, a three-step approach is chosen: First, the paper investigates some of the essential ideas concerning animals (their soul, their emotions and intellectual capacities) to be found in Plutarch’s work and the vocabulary he employs. Secondly, the paper focuses on Plutarch’s unique style of writing and his skillful use of the Socratic method to guide his audience. Thirdly, Plutarch’s personal opinion will be analyzed. In the first part of this paper, Plutarch’s work serves as a lens to unfold the nature of contemporary discourses on the relation between man and animal (with broad agreement on some points and controversies about others) as well as the different notions associated with the terms theria and zoa. A special focus is placed on the ‘Gryllos’ (mor. 985 d-992 e). Plutarch’s treatise ‘Whether the creatures of the land or the creatures of the sea have more phronesis’ (mor. 959 b-985 c) is an important contribution to the field of animal ethics and the subject of the second part of this paper. The ingenious structure of said text illustrates Plutarch’s qualities as a writer and how carefully he employs maieutic methods to support his readers in developing their own point of view. The third part of this paper is devoted to passages from Plutarch’s oeuvre which illustrate his personal position in the debate on the relation between human beings and animals. He is clearly aware that life on earth is inextricably interwoven with acts of killing and destruction, yet he also believes that observing animals has some lessons to offer to mystery religions. Plutarch describes animals as ‘clearer mirrors to the divine’, thereby illustrating that he perceives creatures - whether tiny or large - as a unique chance to gain a better understanding of the miracle of life. In this capacity animals provide a way for human beings to improve their insight into the nature of the divine.

As the interpretation of Plutarch’s prooemium to the Parallel Lives of Sertorius and Eumenes shows, an author’s capacity of irony often lies in the eyes of the beholder: While most historians take for granted that this passage is meant to make fun of Plutarch’s contemporaries for drawing ridiculous conclusions from historical parallels like namesakes or similar external attributes, most translators fail to see its humorous undertone. It becomes clear, though, that it is possible to establish objective criteria for ironic speech in Plutarch that can be found in the prooemium as well, if one takes a closer look at ironic strategies in his polemical or colloquial writings. One of these is the ironic use of allusive names for dialogue partners or even the invention of characters bearing telling historical names. With this special ironic technique in mind one might even reconsider the authenticity of (Ps.‐)Plutarch’s Parallela Minora commonly termed spurious because of its cunning invention of fictitious sources on similar principles as those of the ironic Plutarch.

The ancient sources frequently mention heated debates during meetings of the Roman senate under the early empire. Such debates could become so intense they might even threaten to impede the Senate’s decision-making abilities. Nevertheless, senatorial debate in the curia was not necessarily dysfunctional: in fact, it had a crucial instrumental function. Potential dissent among members of the senate could be discussed and settled before voting began, taking it out of the decision-making process proper. The symbolic dimensions of senatorial altercationes were if possible even more important, because the existence of communicative dissent showed that discussions still happened in the curia: proof that the Senate was still a functioning political entity. A combined agent-centred and institutional-historical methodological approach allows us to track not only individual practices of dispute, competition, and raising one’s profile, but to perceive more clearly the impact and the function disputes had for the Senate’s debating culture as a whole.

This paper seeks to unveil the agency of widows in late antiquity beyond prevailing limits of asceticism and euergetism. Based on a Bourdieu’ian field-analysis this approach seeks to illustrate that some widows used their recently achieved liberty not for withdrawing from society, i.e. living an ascetic life among their peers, praying all night and day. They used their liberty to actively engage within this society, within the elite in particular, instead. In so doing, these (wealthy) widows constructed, contested, and negotiated power relations by appropriating and nuancing communication strategies of allegedly male domains of practice, i. e. the daily business of the household. These widows, strictly speaking, set up new power relations with which they started negotiating and maintaining, indeed creating new field positions, through which new interactions occurred that rendered her agency. An exemplary context in this respect is that of inheritance hunting in the widows’ households.

Taking up important observations made by L. A. García Moreno on King Chindasvinth’s involvement in the Monothelite crisis via connections to North Africa and to Rome, this article argues that a deep division within the Visigothic episcopate on the king’s policy should already be assumed for October 646, when Chindasvinth assembled the 7th Synod of Toledo. A new reading of the synod’s first canon, usually interpreted as a mere confirmation of Chindasvinth’s law on high treason of 641/2, proceeds from the observation that the synod’s decisions must be seen as a minory vote, given the fact that the synod was not attended by more than 30 bishops and several episcopal representatives, and that it lacked any attendance or support from the ecclesiastical provinces of Tarraconensis and Septimania. As is shown, fears were expressed at the synod somewhat shroudedly that numerous clerics of every rank could find a common cause with a foreign enemy beyond the frontiers and that, as a consequence, an infringement of the orthodox faith could result. This most likely referred to the clergy of Septimania and Aquitania, whose territories the Visigothic kingdom and the Frankish kingdom neighboured. This paper argues that Frankish Aquitania, being the south-western part of the Austrasian kingdom of the Merovingian king Sigibert III, never adopted the policy of Sigibert’s brother Clovis II, who assembled a synod of the episcopate of Neustria and Burgundy at Chalon-sur-Saône in support of Pope Martin’s condemnation of Monothelitism at the Lateran synod of 649. While it is not clear whether Sigibert prevented the Aquitanian clergy from attending the synod for religious reasons or for diplomatic considerations related to Constantinople, the division of both the Frankish and Visigothic episcopates over the issue of supporting the Lateran Council fostered a constellation in which treason could become a crime with strong religious overtones.

Study of the diplomacy between the Carolingians and the ʿAbbāsids has been hampered by the absence of any sources from the Caliphate commenting on their relationship. This paper identifies two variants of the Arabic Tiburtine Sibyl, apocalyptic prophecies composed by Syriac Christians in the early ninth century, that provide contemporary Arabic references to contact between Charlemagne and Hārūn al-Rashīd. In doing so, they shed new light on this diplomatic activity by indicating that it was considerably more important for the Caliph than normally appreciated. Combined with other references to the Franks in Arabic apocalyptic of the period, the evidence of these Sibyls suggests that Hārūn al-Rashīd accrued considerable prestige from his reception of Charlemagne’s envoys and the gifts that they brought with them.

Late antique Alexandria is much better known than the early Islamic city. To be fully appreciated, the transition must be contextualized against the full range of Afro-Eurasiatic commercial and intellectual life. The Alexandrian schools ‘harmonized’ Hippocrates and Galen, Plato and Aristotle. They also catalyzed Christian theology especially during the controversies before and after the Council of Chalcedon (451) that tore the Church apart and set the stage for the emergence of Islam. Alexandrian cultural dissemination down to the seventh century is here studied especially through evidence for the city’s libraries and book trade, together with the impact of its educational curriculum from Iran to Canterbury. After the Arab conquest, Alexandria turned into a frontier city and lost its economic and political role. But it became a city of the mind whose conceptual legacy fertilized not only Greek scholarship at Constantinople, but also Arabic science and philosophy thanks to the eighth- to ninth-century Baghdadi translation movement. Alexandria emanated occult energies too, thanks to the Pharos as variously misunderstood by Arabic writers, or the relics of its Christian saints, not least the Evangelist Mark, surreptitiously translated to Venice in 828-29. Study of the astral sciences too - astronomy but also astrology - was fertilized from Alexandria, as far afield as India and perhaps China as well as Syria, Baghdad and Constantinople. Egypt’s revival by the Fatimids, who founded Cairo in 961, had little impact on Alexandria until about the end of the eleventh century when, for a time, the city attracted Sunni scholars from as far away as Spain or Iran, while commerce benefited from the rise of the Italian merchant republics and the beginning of the Crusades. While the early caliphate had united a vast zone from Afghanistan to the Atlantic, the eleventh century saw a reemergence of late antique distinctions between the Iranian plateau, Syro-Mesopotamia, and the two Mediterranean basins. Alexandria was one of the points where these worlds intersected, though sub-Saharan Africa, to which it formally belonged, remained largely beyond its horizon until the twentieth century.