Volume 161, Issue 2

In an article published in 1934 Albrecht Becker argued that the final third of chapter 13 of Aristotle’s De interpretatione (22b38–23a26) is not the work of Aristotle himself but a later interpolation. The aim of the present article is to show that the passage is not entirely spurious but contains an extended section (23a6–20) which, apart from its first, third, and final sentence (23a6–7, 11–13, 18–20), is to be regarded as genuine. Its remaining sentences cannot be dispensed with, since they are connected with 22b29–37 by a logically coherent line of thought, which is however interrupted by the interpolated text. They are, as it were, the proverbial baby which Becker in his attempt to purge the chapter of later accretions threw out with the bath water.

The article consists of an analysis of Chapter 28 of the Didaskalikos of Alcinous, a compendium of Platonic doctrine which, most probably, goes back to imperial Platonism or Middle Platonism. In this chapter Alcinous sets out the doctrine of the τέλος (or the end of life, the ethical ideal) through the formula ὁμοίωσις θεῷ (“assimilation to god”). Beginning from a reading of the chapter, various solutions are proposed to exegetical problems, which are still debated, concerning the significance of this formula within Platonic ethics of the imperial period. In particular, a careful study of the identity of the ἐπουράνιος θεός (“the god above the heavens”), towards whom, so Alcinous specifies, ὁμοίωσις should be directed, has produced new results compared to the existing scholarly tradition. The final part of the article treats another passage relevant to the reception of the doctrine, raising doubts about the traditional reading as concerns the nature of the θεωρητικὸς βίος, which will emerge as the most comprehensive idea of philosophical life, which cannot be reduced to the contemplative life alone.

Ael. NA 4.57 describes what Aristotle is supposed to have said about the effects of the bite of a water-snake (ὕδρος) on a human being. This chapter has generally been considered a fragment from a lost work of Aristotle on animals, though the possibility that it came from a lost medical work is in the present essay also suggested. In any case, by considering the content of NA 4.57 in the context of discussion by ancient Homeric scholars of the snake that bit Philoctetes – concerning what kind of snake it is, and what were the effects of its bite – this essay attempts to show that NA 4.57 may provide evidence for commentary by Aristotle, in his lost Homeric Puzzles , on Hom. Il . 2.721–725, the passage on Philoctetes in the Catalogue of Ships.

In many languages, a person can be addressed either in the second person singular or the second person plural: the former indicates familiarity and/or lack of respect, while the latter suggests distance and/or respect towards the addressee. While in Ancient Greek pronominal reference initially was not used as a ‘politeness strategy’, in the Post-classical period a T–V distinction did develop. In the Early Byzantine period, I argue, yet another pronominal usage developed: a person could also be addressed in the third person singular. This should be connected to the rise of abstract nominal forms of address, a process which can be dated to the fourth century AD.

This article offers a philological commentary on the ‘Calpurnia Cycle’ present within the letters composed by Pliny the Younger, concentrating particularly on the analysis of Ep. 7.5. The author behaves like a true elegiac lover and a loving husband, since the letters that he writes to his wife Calpurnia can be set in the context of the elegiac genre, given the lexicon and motifs present in them. Calpurnia is transformed into a scripta puella not in the sense of a metaphorical figure, but in the sense of ‘literary material’. The aim is to adapt the elegiac motifs to his declared intention of creating a positive image of his persona in the world and for posterity ( immortalitas ) through the Epistulae . Although Pliny presents himself as similis excluso amatori , albeit while innovatively setting the scene at midday, his interest is not in the typical elegiac conduct of militia or servitium amoris , which would run counter to his self-presentation as an active and politically engaged citizen; rather, his theme is the praise of the beloved and reflections upon his own importance as a poet.

By examining an obscure passage of Jerome’s Ep. 60, dedicated to the description of the death of the emperor Gratian, it is possible to identify an allusion to the Pseudo-Quintilianic Major Declamations , which has hitherto been overlooked, referring in particular to the trail of bloody prints that appears on the wall at the centre of Decl. mai. 1, “ Paries palmatus” .