Ancient History; Archaeology > Likes and Comments

(3/25/2019 Note: I have just modified the title for this topic from "Ancient Greek History" to "Ancient History" in order to accommodate interesting and potentially relevant [even if somewhat remotely relevant] accounts of other ancient cultures and civilizations.)

In understanding Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek philosophers, it is helpful to have some knowledge of the history, including religious history, of ancient Greece. This does not mean that one has to accept the historicist position that all philosophers are the products or mouthpieces of their times. To the contrary, the study of historical background helps us understand how a particular philosopher may have articulated a point of view in a manner that may have been more palatable to a particular age than an unvarnished presentation of that philosopher's views. One can even say that this was the great lesson that Plato learned from the execution of Socrates. See, for example, my review of Arthur M. Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost Art of Esoteric Writing.

The following books may be of assistance in understanding ancient Greek history and religion. Please feel free to add others of which you are aware and/or to comment on the following or other books.

M. Rostovtzeff, Greece, trans. J. D. Duff (New York: Galaxy, 1963). I read this book in the fall of 1965 in conjunction with a course on the History of Western Civilization at the University of Chicago. It provides much important information about ancient Greece.

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome, trans. Willard Small (Garden City: Anchor, 1955). This classic study was first published in French in 1864. I purchased the present edition on November 16, 1968, but have never found time to read it. I hope to do so sometime within the next couple of years. It was highly recommended by Leo Strauss.

Jacob Burckhardt, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, trans. Sheila Stern, ed. Oswyn Murray (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). I have wanted to read this important work for a long time but have never gotten around to it. As I understand it, Burckhardt's approach is somewhat controversial, but I gather that this book is worth reading, notwithstanding the fact that it evidently takes an interpretative slant with which the reader may or may not agree.

William J. Broad, The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets (New York: Penguin, 2006). I read this interesting book in 2007. The following Amazon quote from a Scientific American review explains the premise: "The Oracle of Delphi, human mistress of the god Apollo, had the power to communicate his prophecies and advice. Accounts from the time describe how she breathed in vapors rising from the temple floor before communing with the god. But modern scholars have long discounted these reports. Broad, a writer at the New York Times, tells the story of scientists who worked from subtle clues scattered through the ancient literature and the landforms near Delphi to uncover evidence that explains the oracle's powers. They discovered that the vapors actually existed—they were petrochemical fumes that contained a hallucinogenic gas, which rose through cracks in the earth into the oracle's chamber. A fascinating account in its own right, the story also allows Broad to weave in the modern debate between science and religion."

John V. A. Fine, The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983). I have had this book on my shelf since 1997 but have not yet read it. The text is 683 pages, and the print is rather small. It appears to be a very thorough history. It is not available on Kindle, and the small print may prevent my reading it from cover to cover.

A professor of philosophy of law and theory of institutions at the University of Athens has just posted on Academia.edu a very interesting draft of a speech he will give at an international conference in August 2016: Aristides N. Hatzis, "The Illiberal Democracy of Ancient Athens." This is an informative account of ancient Athenian democracy that I highly recommend. Here are a couple of significant excerpts:

"Athens was a democracy, but not a liberal democracy. Athenians discovered the majority rule but not individual rights. Furthermore, one can hardly characterize Athenian government a rule of law. Because in a rule of law, as Aristotle later defined it, law is above men, even majorities: 'And the rule of the law, it is argued, is preferable to that of any individual. On the same principle, even if it be better for certain individuals to govern, they should be made only guardians and ministers of the law.' (Aristot. Pol. 3.1287a). In Ancient Athens, the people, the Demos, hoi polloi, were politically dominant and nothing was there to restrain them. There was no Constitution, laws could be annulled or nullified by a temporary majority, there were no checks and balances. Athens was an illiberal democracy." (p. 3)

"Athens was never a rule of law. Individual rights were not recognized. It was an illiberal democracy. Benjamin Constant was right when he stressed the differences with modern democracies. Nevertheless, Athens was not just another democracy. Athenian democratic institutions were sophisticated and the atmosphere of freedom pervasive. We cannot but discern in political and legal texts, like that of Aeschines or Plato, that Athenian intellectuals longed for more." (p. 10)

Professor Hatzis states that he will develop one or more formal papers out of this speech.

I note that Hatzis has advanced law degrees from the University of Chicago Law School and that his specialty is Law and Economics. Although I do not agree with the Law and Economics approach, his lecture on Athenian democracy appears to be sui generis and not part of an overall Law and Economics methodology or ideology.

Professor Edward Harris of the University of Edinburgh has also posted a book chapter he wrote on a similar subject: "The Flawed Origins of Ancient Greek Democracy". This essay is somewhat more technical than the Hatzis lecture, but it contains some valuable information and analysis.

James Madison would have understood, and approved, these two accounts of Athenian democracy and the differences between ancient Greek democracy and modern liberal democracies with constitutional restraints on majoritarian tyranny. See, for example, Federalist nos. 10, 38, and 63.

I can contribute one title:
The Greeks and the Irrational by E.R. Dodds.

It's somewhat dry but Dodds presents his topic with authority. The multi-faceted survey of the everyday habits of the Greeks is tightly knitted together; with voluminous footnotes. Dodds speaks about the Greek attitudes towards dreaming and the subconscious; accidents, disasters, and healing; good luck vs bad luck; omens and soothsayers; insanity and supernatural possession; and everything else that today we consider part of 'the irrational' side of life.

The oracle at Delphi is touched upon in many chapters; as well as the operation of philosophical schools. What I found interesting was the rivalry between 'soothsayers' vs philosophers; who somewhat vied with each other both for publicity and public esteem.

Feliks wrote: "I can contribute one title:
The Greeks and the Irrational by E.R. Dodds.

It's somewhat dry but Dodds presents his topic with authority. The multi-faceted survey of the everyday habit..."

Thanks, Feliks. I've now put this book, of which I was previously unaware, on my "To Read" list.

Alan wrote: "Professor Edward Harris of the University of Edinburgh has also posted a book chapter he wrote on a similar subject: "The Flawed Origins of Ancient Greek Democracy". This essay is somewhat more technical than the Hatzis lecture, but it contains some valuable information and analysis."

Professor Edward M. Harris has also posted a scholarly and well-referenced essay entitled The Athenian View of an Athenian Trial on Academia.edu. This lengthy study, which I have not yet carefully read, is based on an extensive and intensive analysis of ancient Athenian primary sources.

Harris is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh. Many of his other publications on ancient Greek history can be accessed on his Academia.edu profile page. See also his books Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens: Essays on Law, Society, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens (University of Oxford, 2013), both of which I have put on my "To Read" list. Other books by Harris are listed on his Goodreads book list page.

p.s. Any interest in Greek literature, folklore, ethnography, myth tropes? That kind of thing? Does that count as relevant history or culture?

Feliks wrote: "p.s. Any interest in Greek literature, folklore, ethnography, myth tropes? That kind of thing? Does that count as relevant history or culture?"

I think that this is probably all relevant to the historical background of ancient Greek political philosophy and ethics. For example, Plato's dialogues are full of references to Greek myths, literature, and so forth. And these sources are sometimes themselves sources of reflections on political or ethical philosophy. All of this is part of the circumstantial background out of which more formal Greek philosophy arose. One can argue (I think correctly) that, pace Nietzsche, Greek philosophy as understood by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle transcended the poetic background, and Plato's criticism in the Republic of the myths certainly makes that claim while at the same time proffering its own myths. But, as I indicated in the above post 1, to understand Plato, for example, one must understand the cultural context that he took into account in writing his dialogues. This is even clear in the letters attributed to Plato. These are full of allusions to Greek religion and mythology. If Plato himself wrote these letters (and he probably wrote at least some of them), the conclusion is unmistakable that these religious references were exoteric. Plato certainly did not believe in the absurd religious mythology that was part of the received Greek culture, as is clear from a careful reading of the Republic and other dialogues. But he disguised his intent in order to avoid the fate of Socrates.

However, our discussions of such matters should not get into purely literary issues. That kind of thing belongs in a group (if it exists) on ancient Greek literature/drama, not in the present group on political philosophy and ethics. Aesthetics as such is not the focus of this group. It may be in itself an interesting study, but insofar as it is not within the subject matter of this group, it does not belong here.

Fair enough. Very even-handed policy.

How would it be for me to suggest one or two careful items and simply delete the post if they don't seem related closely enough?

Feliks wrote: "Fair enough. Very even-handed policy.

How would it be for me to suggest one or two careful items and simply delete the post if they don't seem related closely enough?"

OK, Feliks, I'm not a dictator!!! Go ahead.

Great! Much obliged! Okay, well one of the titles which came to mind when re-reading the initial posts in the thread was the work of Northrop Frye. If I were to exclude all other suggestions from the inter-related fields of semiotics, ethnography, and philology (all of which can be deployed to great utility on Greek studies) I would stand by my enthusiasm for Northrop Frye.

Frye is a very widely-recognized name in literary criticism; and you can certainly look up his bio for yourselves. What I want to specifically do here is recommend the third essay in his famous publication called 'Four Essays'.

It's relatively short; and perhaps easy for you to get your hands on. Despite Four Essays as a whole deploying some terminology used exclusively by Frye--and despite all four essays relying on each other somewhat--you could certainly pick up just Essay III and get a tremendous amount of reward from it as a standalone discourse. It is very lucid and accessible. The focus is on mythic literature.

I hadn't been enjoying the essays up until that point but this section was dazzling. With great skill, Frye shows how the Greek (1) division of the knowledges as well as their grasp of (2) human cognitive processes determined the arrangement of all their arts.

In the Greek perspective, the organization of human thought is mirrored in the organization of the world--and all of this is subsequently reflected in the organization of their artistic products.

Aristotle is drawn upon heavily by Frye in all this, and that's why I recommend the essay. It's a penetrating evaluation of Aristotle --the kind I'd been looking for all my life--but never found anywhere else. You can really see this thinker in a new and brilliant light.

Of course, most of the essay traces Aristotlean influence down throughout western literature; but Frye sure knows his Greek history--and he constantly returns to discussion of the source of these elegant structures-- in their first incarnation in the Hellenistic era.

The point of the essay--as with the other three--is to show how this hidden framework underpins vast reams of the written word around us. But its really a crash course in Greek thought as a whole.

Alan wrote: "Plato certainly did not believe in the absurd religious mythology that was part of the received Greek culture, ..."

I agree with this heartily. You'll find this talked about at great length, in the book by Dodds. I was fascinated by Dodd's talk of Plato as an individual man and citizen in a volatile society; a figure with a distinctive personality who thus--at turns--became a target for suspicion, for calumny from rivals; etc.

Aha! I think I can safely cite this too, for Greek religion:
The Golden Bough by the great Frazier. (Sir James George Frazier). Although the book ranges all over world cultures; (this is partly why it is so famous; because it is an encyclopedia of world religion) the initial motif explored is that of the Greeks and their bloodthirsty pre-classical ritual practices. You can selectively read just the chapters on Greece and find much to chew on.

Feliks wrote: "Great! Much obliged! Okay, well one of the titles which came to mind when re-reading the initial posts in the thread was the work of Northrop Frye. If I were to exclude all other suggestions from t..."

Thank you, Feliks. I've now put this book on my "To Read" list. For those who may be interested in it, the full title is Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays.

Feliks wrote: "Aha! I think I can safely cite this too, for Greek religion:
The Golden Bough by the great Frazier. (Sir James George Frazier). Although the book ranges all over world cultures; (this..."

Thanks again. I've now downloaded a free Kindle version of The Golden Bough. There are other free Kindle versions as well as Kindle versions that cost money, but (from what I have seen of them so far) they do not seem to be superior to the free one that I downloaded. As always, the question of hyperlinked footnotes is an issue in these old books that have been adapted for Kindle. It appears that, in this Kindle edition, one can click a hyperlink to a footnote and then use the new "page flip" feature to get back to the original place, but I haven't yet examined this possibility in depth.

Alan wrote: "Plato certainly did not believe in the absurd religious mythology that was part of the received Greek culture..."

A convenient term which Dodds coins to refer to this 'handed down body of practices and traditions' (and refer to it succinctly in a way in which everyone knows what he means) is this: 'inherited conglomerate'.

The 'inherited conglomerate' of pre-Socratic Greece (all the myths, local gods, epic heroic narratives, epic spoken poetry, the theater, the rituals).

Efficient phrase!

Feliks wrote: "A convenient term which Dodds coins to refer to this 'handed down body of practices and traditions' (and refer to it succinctly in a way in which everyone knows what he means) is this: 'inherited conglomerate'.

The 'inherited conglomerate' of pre-Socratic Greece (all the myths, local gods, epic heroic narratives, epic spoken poetry, the theater, the rituals)."

Thanks. I'll have to read this book. As you probably are aware, the critique by Plato's Socrates (Republic 377d ff.) of much of received Greek literature, especially of Hesiod and Homer, is not merely an aesthetic judgment; he was radically taking issue with the received theology on the ground that it portrayed the gods as being unethical and unjust. The works by Hesiod and Homer were, as I understand it, considered to be scripture. It's a wonder that Plato didn't suffer the same fate as Socrates as a result of criticizing the conventional understanding of religion.

The Dodds book, is simply a quiet and subdued work of nuts'n'bolts academia which typically come my way. Characteristic of the hum-drum titles I often seek out. It is not glossy nor fantastic scholarship. It will probably not be overwhelming or dynamic to you. Many of the books you routinely mention in your impeccable posts are much more impressive.

Nevertheless, I admired the 'solidity' of the presentation in this book--the numerous and much-buttressed cross-references--and I feel that you, with your admirable aim of knowing Plato/Socrates/Aristotle as fully as possible--you may quite relish this concise little tome. It is not earth-shattering by any measure--but Dodds fully exhumes his subject matter, and he is clearly a pro. He knows what he is about and he does not fuss around. He pinpoints his topic and nails it, in the manner of all good scholars. When he is finished, he simply wraps up his remarks and leaves the stage. It is a pleasant read for this alone; the succinctness and the economy of speech. I am sure you appreciate this as much as I do.

Let me know when you begin delving into it. I feel you will have a lot to comment upon.

Feliks wrote: "The Dodds book, is simply a quiet and subdued work of nuts'n'bolts academia which typically come my way. Characteristic of the hum-drum titles I often seek out. It is not glossy nor fantastic schol..."

Thanks, Feliks. Your recommendation is well stated and convincing. It sounds like my kind of book. I have downloaded it to my Kindle Fire reader (I'm running out of space in my house for physical books), and I've begun reading it.

Alan wrote: "Feliks wrote: "Aha! I think I can safely cite this too, for Greek religion:
The Golden Bough by the great Frazier. (Sir James George Frazier). Although the book ranges all over world ..."
Be careful of the Golden Bough. Brilliant and ideology shattering in it's time it hasn't aged well as an anthropological text. It's more right than wrong only when compared to what came prior. But it is a brilliant, luxurious read.

With regard to political notions of democracy in Athens I continually find that it is readers and practitioners in the US who are most inclined to the "ideal democracy" fallacy with regard to Athenian democracy in the 5th C. Re. Hatzis, argument.
I suspect this is because of the yearning for a politically ideal state which is embedded in the US constitution. Please note that I did not use the word "Democratic" because I do not believe the word successfully describes the US founders intentions (another argument - lets move on).
For those of us bought up within the British and European systems there has always been a profound recognition that Athenian democracy during the exemplary 5th C was atypical. References to democracy outside that period tend to be referred to as either "formative" or "limited".
So, we are left with an argument about an extraordinarily short period of history that supposedly stands as an epitome. A period which encloses the Peloponnesian war! A period of extraordinary turmoil that is totally unrepresentative in the longer run of things.
To argue that this period (as do so many US academics pro and con) is representative of Athenian democracy is the same as arguing that the US democracy is best represented by the years 1861 -1864 when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.
US academics have been tricked by an assumption that their own viewpoint, formed by the quite erroneous assumptions of the founding fathers about Athenian democracy, are valid view points.
To find someone like Hatzis expounding what seems like the most boring common sense just shows those of us outside the US how much the "founding fathers" argument has entrenched a form of fallacious thinking about the history of democracy. Don't get me started for instance on Locke!

So, I have exposed my position. Blast away gentlemen!

I agree with both your points Gerard. Yes, 'Golden Bough' was always flawed even from the start. Frazier was eloquent and impassioned but not quite the scholar he might have been had he been born in a later year. I figured Alan would discover all the modern academic criticism of Frazier as soon as he started exploring the book's reputation.

And yes, Athenian democracy was certainly never perfect. I concur.

Feliks wrote: "The Dodds book, is simply a quiet and subdued work of nuts'n'bolts academia which typically come my way. Characteristic of the hum-drum titles I often seek out. .."

I would certainly second Feliks's recommendation of Dodds's book. I don't consider it hum-drum at all, however. It is a very serious, controversial, and important book which has had a major impact on subsequent scholarship. Written as much in reaction to the horrors of the Second World War as an attempt to figure out how and what the mass of men thought in classical Greece (and now, as suggested in its last chapter). Written during the war at about the same time as Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism.

Other magna opera that should be mentioned in the same breath as The Greeks and the Irrational on my shelf include Psyche by Erwin Rohde and, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Jaynes's The Origins of Consciousness in the the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Rohde was a contemporary and associate of Nietzsche. Dodds's book is very much a reflection and reaction to Rohde, it seems to me.

Jaynes is a special case. He really believed that the Homeric heroes heard the voices of the gods (and that we don't anymore.) A bookseller friend of mine once told me that "Jaynes's book is like a game of 'pick up sticks.' He throws down all manner of crazy ideas, but by the end of the book he has picked them all up again." I actually made it to the end of this book, but I can't say that I agree with my friend. More with Ned Block's devastating critique. But these books are not so much about political philosophy. More about "What is it like to be a Greek?"

:^)

Well stated! Perhaps I meant that it just seems 'hum drum' in this age of Harry Potter and Batman...

Indeed there is a 'seriousness' about this text we're talking about. Its coming back to me the more we discuss it. I very much look forward to Alan's appraisal.

Just as in the same way we agree that Athenian democracy was flawed; Dodds set out to show that the modern world grossly over-idolizes the high period of Athens' culture to a far-fetched and inordinate degree; and he set out to show that their society actually held plenty of detritus and idiosyncracy in very generous proportions, comparable to that of society in our own day.

This hews close to an assertion Alan made a few posts ago; when we were talking about 'what Plato would think if he could visit us now'.

This is turning into a nifty discussion, I had no idea more than just one person (myself) had ever even heard of ER Dodds. Ha

Randal wrote (post 22): "Jaynes is a special case. He really believed that the Homeric heroes heard the voices of the gods (and that we don't anymore.)"

Hold on, Zeus is on the line!

Seriously, I've started to read Dodds's book. It is certainly quite a scholarly achievement. He often speculates, but he tells the reader up front when it is speculation. His discussions of the irrational aspects of Greek religion and culture and how such notions are probably connected with larger Indo-European and primitive ways of thinking help explain and contextualize the centuries before the Sophists and Socrates. This book is showing me that much of human culture has been even more irrational than I thought it was (and I have always been pessimistic in this regard). It's all rather depressing, but then we have a few bright lights throughout history, pointing to a more rational, enlightened approach. I'll be especially interested in Dodds's thematic discussion of the Classical Era, Plato, and so forth near the end of his book.

As always I learn so much from you all......I have not read deeply as you all have in this area though I am fascinated by the general topic of Athenian democracy and its meaning. Through various readings the blinders came of of my idealized vision of it though not my profound appreciation for its unique existence in its time. To Felkis' point about understanding the influence of culture, etc on its political development and reality, I gained important insight from Joan B Connelly's "The Parthenon Enigma", which details the rather strong, maybe central role religion played in Athenian life.
Great to see Randell back in the saddle. Missed his always erudite comments on these topics.
Best wishes for a good end of summer to all.

Feliks requested that a topic on Derrida be opened, though I can no longer find his post making that request. Before realizing that Feliks apparently deleted that post, I opened a new topic on Derrida here. Please review my initial post in that topic before posting additional comments.

August 24, 2022 Note: I later deleted the Derrida topic, since the posts therein were far outside the scope of the present Goodreads group.

Charles wrote: "I gained important insight from Joan B Connelly's "The Parthenon Enigma", which details the rather strong, maybe central role religion played in Athenian life."

Thanks, Charles, for the book recommendation. It looks quite interesting, and I have added it to my "to read" list.

E. R. Dodds states at note 20 (Kindle loc. 3916-17) to chapter 6 of his book The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkely: University of California Press, 1951) that "Euripides is described as a noted collector of books (Athen. 3A; cf. Eur. fr. 369 on the pleasures of reading, and At. Ran. 943)." We know that Plato, Aristotle, and many others "published" books during antiquity. I have always wondered how such books were prepared and circulated. We know, of course, that printing as such did not exist. Plato's dialogues were doubtless made available to members of the Academy in some sort of library. But I've also read that many writings were also more widely available. Does someone know how this was done? Did professional scribes copy such books in longhand? Were such books sold for money? Wouldn't it have been very expensive for someone like Euripides to be "a noted collector of books," as Dodds states?

Update on Dodds: I'm now reading the chapter on the classical period. Finally, some Reason and Light! I haven't yet reached the chapter on Plato. However, I'm guessing that Plato included some myths and religious references in his dialogues in an effort to reform "the Inherited Conglomerate" of received religion into something more compatible with rationalism. This would be consistent, I believe, with Strauss's interpretation of Plato, wherein the doctrine of the Ideas was intended as a philosophic-religious concept to replace the Greek mythology. (Plato may thus have anticipated Machiavelli and Nietzsche as the creator of a new intellectual order, though, of course, Plato's brilliant creation was later co-opted and transformed by Christian neo-Platonism in a way that Plato would not have approved.) I'll soon see whether Dodds arrives at similar conclusions.

I think your guess as to what the 'Plato chapter' contains is right. I read this book five months ago but your surmise sounds correct. (p.s. I relish having turned you on to this title, the material is so obviously to your taste).

I myself really enjoyed the high calibre of Dodd's academia during the read. He has such a calm, confident voice as he explains each point; and he does not chase hares or stray off down detours or very much. In the edition I read, after each chapter comes a succeeding notes section of its own, (rather than creating a massive 'endnotes' section at the last eighth of the book). Just a beautiful feat of organization.

As for the state of books during the Greek civilization? I believe these would have been clay plates inscribed with a stylus. The most authoritative reference on the history of printing is Elizabeth Eisenstein's 'The Printing Press as an Agent of Change'. I'm staring at the spine of the book right now as I type.

I could look up the Greeks for you when I get a moment--although I doubt they were given a chapter of their own--I recall that she mentions them only in passing. According to her, scrolls came with the Romans; and MS (manuscripts) arrived in the Byzantine/Romanesque era (if memory serves me here, could very easily be wrong).

Marshall McLuhan also covers the topic; 'Typographic Man ', but Eisenstein is really the most detailed. She barges down the door and takes names. Phenomenal.

Feliks wrote: "I think your guess as to what the 'Plato chapter' contains is right. I read this book five months ago but your surmise sounds correct. (p.s. I relish having turned you on to this title, the materia..."

Thanks, Feliks. I've just added Eisenstein's book to my "to read" list.

I read McLuhan in the 1960s. I was not impressed, especially considering how his work was co-opted by the psychedelic counterculture. See my remarks on pages 4-5 of an August 1967 essay entitled "Hippies and Pioneers".

Fair enough. I've got no stake in McLuhan; you can bash him all you wish in my presence. :p

Eisenstein meanwhile, gives one of the best surveys of European history I've ever experienced. A powerhouse. Beware that it is a very lengthy book, though.

p.s. skimming Eisenstein on my lunch break I'm reminded that Greek clay would have been transcribed by the Arabs onto parchment (probably via the Ptolemy's library at Alexandria) and thence made their way back into Europe much later as MS translated by monks (13 & 14 c.) They were translated yet again during the renaissance when it finally came time to print them mechanically. Cardinal Bessarion and Aldus Manutius are two men who were involved with this latter effort.

This is my rough paraphrase of 1,000 years of history anyway, as I munch a sausage-and-egg sammich.

Reference cited in passing, by Eisenstein: 'The Pseudo-Aristotlean Questions', Rose & Drake. Deals with the movement away from Aristotle to Catholicism; and questions of accuracy in the Renaissance printings.

Feliks wrote: "p.s. skimming Eisenstein on my lunch break I'm reminded that Greek clay would have been transcribed by the Arabs onto parchment (probably via the Ptolemy's library at Alexandria) and thence made th..."

Interesting. Thank you. But I was especially interested in how these "books" were prepared and circulated in fifth-and fourth-century BCE Athens. In what form, for example, was Euripides's book collection, and how did he acquire it? I have also read (don't remember where right now) that other books were available and read somewhat widely during this era. Does anyone know how that happened? It doesn't seem like clay tablets would do the trick, though perhaps that's how it was, in fact, done.

Charles wrote: "Great to see Randell back in the saddle. Missed his always erudite comments on these topics.
Best wishes for a good end of summer to all. ..."

Aw shucks, Charles. My comments are not always erudite. My wife (and several others) would testify to that. Alan knows that I have been traveling a lot this summer and busy with some professional work. Also re-reading Hannah Arendt in hopes of finishing a summary of her work with the aim to justify why I have admired it so much. Of which I hope to say more soon.

Cheers,

Randal

Alan wrote: "But I was especially interested in how these "books" were prepared and circulated in fifth-and fourth-century BCE Athens. In what form, for example, was Euripides's book collection, and how did he acquire it?..."

Alan,

This question really bugged me. I hadn't thought to ask the question before, either. I looked through a series of books on my shelf that I thought would surely contain the answer: Kitto's The Greeks and Poiesis, Finley's Economy and Society in Ancient Greece and The Ancient Economy, Hopper's The Early Greeks and Stanford's The Sound of Greek. No references to the type of writing materials except for the "tablets" of Linear A and B which were also the central story of The Mycenaean World by Chadwick. But this is the wrong period, too early. I was determined NOT to resort to the internet! But after this frustrating experience I did so . . . . and came up with nothing either!

At last I resorted to The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Second Edition) where, under the title "Books, Greek and Latin," I found the following:

“There is ample evidence not only of the use of writing in the Near East long before the earliest Greek literature, but also of the use of Greek in Crete and on the mainland for writing on clay tablets in the Bronze Age. But there is as yet no evidence that writing at this time was used for literary purposes in Greek, nor do we know what material was used later when the Homeric and Hesiodic works were written down. We may assume that that it was some form of skin; its use was widespread throughout antiquity and Herodotus (5,58) records that the Ionians, at a time when papyrus was unavailable, had long used skins. The antiquity of this practice is implied by the use among the Ionians of διϕθέρά for a papyrus roll, just as βιβλος suggests that papyrus was first imported into Greece from the Phoenician town of Byblos. Thus while the Iliad may first have been recorded on skin, for Herodotus, papyrus was and had been for long the normal writing-material.”

Let’s hear it for those dons at Oxford.

Cheers,

Randal

Randal wrote: "Alan wrote: "But I was especially interested in how these "books" were prepared and circulated in fifth-and fourth-century BCE Athens. In what form, for example, was Euripides's book collection, an..."

Thanks, Randal, for your research and comments. Herodotus (ca. 484-ca. 425 BCE) was slightly older than Socrates. If papyrus was available to Herodotus, it must have been available to Plato and Aristotle as well. I have seen a reference to a clay tablet being used for, I think, Plato's Laws, which evidently was considered to be a draft. (I don't now recall exactly where I saw that, but it's in one of the books I have on Plato.) Perhaps he drafted it in clay, and then finalized it on papyrus. But clay seems to me to be a problematic medium for long works such as the Laws. I have difficulty picturing how that would work.

I gather, from reading various scholars, that written books were somewhat widely available in fifth- and fourth-century Athens, but it seems to be difficult to pin down the precise form and distribution method. There must be a book, somewhere out there, that discusses this in the context of classical-era Athens. I'll keep my eyes open for such a book and, additionally, for any other scholarly discussion on this subject that I might find. If I find anything further, I'll report it in this topic.

I'm glad you're finally back at home and with your library after your extended domestic and international travels. My wife and I enjoyed meeting you during your day in Pittsburgh. We just spent a week in Ontario, including seeing plays by Shakespeare and Moliere at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and a comedy by W. S. Gilbert (Engaged) at the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake. The Canadians seem to be very nice people. They appear to be a bit apprehensive, however, that a Trump victory in November might result in a mass exodus of many of us Americans to their homeland. We said nothing to discourage their concern!

Alan

Alan wrote: "I have seen a reference to a clay tablet being used for, I think, Plato's Laws, which evidently was considered to be a draft. (I don't now recall exactly where I saw that, but it's in one of the books I have on Plato.)"

My memory was not 100% accurate. Here is what I read: "there is an ancient report that Laws was left unedited in a wax impression only. . . . Diogenes Laertius 3.37 reports that Philip of Opus transcribed the Laws from wax tablets. Some later commentators have thus supposed that Plato was working on the dialogue until his death in 347, or even that Philip composed the Laws and the Epinomis on the basis of Plato's notes." Catherine H. Zuckert, Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 51 and 51n2.

Diogenes Laertius 3.37 wrote: "Some say that Philippus of Opus copied out the Laws, which were left upon waxen tablets, and it is said that he was the author of the Epinomis." Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. 1, trans. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 311. I'm not sure how accurate this translation is. The Greek ( Perseus) is: ἔνιοί τε φασὶν ὅτιΦίλιππος ὁ Ὀπούντιος τοὺς Νόμους αὐτοῦ μετέγραψεν ὄντας ἐν κηρῷ.τούτου δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἐπινομίδα φασὶν εἶναι. If we have any Greek-language scholars in this group, perhaps they can evaluate the translation for us.

Addendum to my preceding post: The Wikipedia article for Philip of Opus is here. Obviously there is a lot of hearsay involved in this story, and it is impossible to know how accurate it is.

I've now found the answer to my question posed in post 29 and succeeding posts: the answer is in chapter 7 (including the appendix thereto) of Karl Popper's book In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years. The bottom line is that papyrus book production (including the sale of books to the public) occurred in Athens during the classical era. Popper cites a passage in Plato's Apology of Socrates in support of his conclusion. I'll provide more details tomorrow, since it's approaching midnight here.

I've always intended to read Popper but have not ever gotten around to it. Accordingly, I will be summarizing his findings regarding this particular matter without now addressing his philosophical views more generally.

In "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" (Robert Graves' novels based on events in Rome from Augustus through Claudius), Claudius used a parchment-like material that might have been papyrus. It was rolled up and stored in what appeared to be leather tubes. I'm referring to the BBC production, and you know how obsessed with accuracy they are!

I think it was the final episode when Claudius tossed his autobiography helter-skelter in amongst other dusty writings, reasoning that his nephew Nero and his wicked niece would be less likely to find and destroy it if he left it in plain sight.

Mimi wrote: "In "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" (Robert Graves' novels based on events in Rome from Augustus through Claudius), Claudius used a parchment-like material that might have been papyrus. It was ..."

The Brits have done it again!

It was a wonderful series, though they took some liberties with the actual history of Claudius. However, they had a precedent for so reworking history: Shakespeare. The dramatic presentation was probably more profound than the actual history. If I recall correctly, Aristotle made a similar point in his Poetics. Although dramatic and literary productions are entitled to such "poetic license," I do object when historians purporting to provide factually accurate history do so. And I've found a lot of the latter in my study of historical writings.

Alan wrote: " Perhaps he drafted it in clay, and then finalized it on papyrus. But clay seems to me to be a problematic medium for long works such as the Laws. I have difficulty picturing how that would work...."

Alan,

I have seen the references to wax tablets. It seems that these were used in schools (to save papyrus?) I gather that the use of clay was probably over after the Mycenaean Age. One of my references remarks that the clay tablets from Crete wouldn't have survived unless they had been burned in the fires that devastated the temples and palaces which were burned and ransacked.

Alan wrote: "Diogenes Laertius 3.37 reports that Philip of Opus transcribed the Laws from wax tablets."

Love DL! He is often dismissed as a fabulist, but what tales he told!

Alan wrote: "I've always intended to read Popper but have not ever gotten around to it. "

I have read a LOT of Popper. Several times I subscribed and participated in a Popper email forum, Critical Cafe . I had to put it onto scam (spam) mail, since most of the participants were dogmatic libertarians, with whom I no longer wanted to engage.

Popper has a dominant position in philosophy of science in the twentieth century based on his attack on the logical positivist position of "verficationism". He has been influential in converting many in the "social sciences" who don't know much about the rest of his philosophy to this approach, outlined in Popper's best book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Mark Blaug, for example, became infatuated with Popper and converted to his "falsificationist" meme. Blaug was also very sympathetic to the Austrian school in economics.

Popper was an Austrian who was a good friend of Hayek's. His antagonistic encounter with Wittgenstein is beautifully represented in Wittgenstein's Poker. His big book on politics is The Open Society and its Enemies. I have only read the first volume, on Plato, which I find to be a near-total slander of Plato. Levinson wrote a 600 page rebuttal, In Defense of Plato. The second volume of Open Society and its Enemies, attacking Hegel and Marx, I haven't had the stomach for.

Popper was a dogmatic believer in bivalence. I have addressed that here and here. As I have said in these posts, I am not so sure.

Popper is often mentioned among the "five most important philosophers of the twentieth century." I would place him quite a bit lower in rank. He knew some Greek. The German speakers of Popper's generation did get a good education, whatever use they put it to.

Cheers,

Randal

Randal wrote: "I have read a LOT of Popper."

Thank you, Randal, for your knowledgeable comment and the links to your essays regarding Popper. I am still reading Popper's chapter on book creation and marketing in ancient Athens. I'll post a summary of it in this topic sometime later today (hopefully before my dental appointment this afternoon!). As I indicated above, I won't comment on Popper's philosophical views, since I have not yet read any of his writings other than this chapter, which purports to be factual in nature.

I seem to recall that Hans-Georg Gadamer is a philosophical enemy of Karl Popper....Gadamer objects to logic being applied to the human condition or the social sciences. Something like that.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I discovered last evening a discussion of ancient Athenian book production and marketing in chapter 7 ("Books and Thoughts: Europe's First Publication") of Karl Popper's In Search of a Better World: Letters and Essays from Thirty Years, trans. Laura J. Bennett and Melitta Mew (London: Routledge, 1996), Kindle edition. Page references in the following are to the Kindle edition, which follows the pagination of the paperback edition.

Popper's chapter 7 includes two lectures he gave on this subject on November 2, 1982 and May 24, 1989, with additional comments in 1992. Although he has a bibliographic section, the chapter does not contain scholarly footnotes. He seems to base his factual conclusions and interpretation on a few ancient sources, including a passage from Plato's Apology of Socrates discussed below and a reference in Cicero. He does indicate, however, that his factual statements are based also on additional research that he does not specifically identify.

Popper states:

"Homer’s epics had existed for about three hundred years. But they were collected and for the first time written down, and offered for sale to the public, around the year 550 BC. They had been well known as a whole only to professional reciters, the Homerids, the Homeric rhapsodists. Reproduced in many handwritten copies by literate slaves, on papyrus imported from Egypt, they were sold to the public. This was the first publication of a book. It happened in Athens, and as tradition has it, on the initiative of the ruler of Athens, the tyrant Pisistratus [died 528/7 BCE]." (100-1). "[A]s we know from Cicero, [Pisistratus] organized the writing down of the works of Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey, which previously seem to have existed only in the form of an oral tradition." (109).

"At the time of Pisistratus and of the first publication of Homer (550 BC), and from this time on, considerable amounts of papyrus were imported into Athens from Egypt. (Egyptian exports of papyrus had been since the eleventh century BC a carefully controlled monopoly of the Pharaohs. This is how Egyptologists learnt about these exports.)" (115).

Popper further states (101):

"In Athens, with the advent of the first European book, the first European book market came into being. Everybody read Homer, whose works became the first primer and the first bible of Europe. Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and other poets followed. Athenians learnt to read (for a long time, all reading meant reading aloud) and to write, especially prepared speeches and letters, and Athens became a democracy. Books were written, and eager Athenians rushed to buy them. Already by the year 466 BC there followed, apparently in a large edition, the first scientific publication: Anaxagoras’ great work On Nature. . . . We know that copies of the book were sold off cheaply in Athens, sixty-seven years after it was first published; yet it survived for a thousand years. It was, I conjecture, the first book written with the intention of having it published.

"Some thirty-seven years after Anaxagoras’ On Nature, the great historical work of Herodotus was published in Athens, accompanied by a public recitation of a part of it by the author himself."

Popper cites Plato's Apology of Socrates 26d-e, in which Socrates reportedly stated in his defense speech before the Athenian jury (399 BCE) that the books of Anaxagoras (ca. 510-ca. 428 BCE) could sometimes be bought in the orchestra for a drachma. One scholar has observed: "Young men in training to be military officers were allotted one drachma per day for their rations. For common soldiers the ration was 4 obols (6 obols equal one drachma). The food dole for poor disabled citizens unable to work was 2 obols per day, which would probably have provided a minimal subsistence. So one drachma for a book is a quite small amount of money. (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 42.3, 49.4.) [¶] The 'orchestra' was apparently an area of the market place where books were sold. (Burnet's note on 26e1)." Thomas G. West, Plato's "Apology of Socrates": An Interpretation, with a New Translation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979), 58n68.

Popper drew some conclusions from the facts he was able to glean:

"The passage [Apology of Socrates 26d-e] implies that there was a flourishing book market in Athens in the year 399 BC, a market, at any rate, where old books (like Anaxagoras’ book On Nature) were regularly sold, and where they could be bought very cheaply. Eupolis, the great master of the old comedy, even speaks [in a fragment cited by Pollux, Onomastkon IX, 47; cf. VII, 211] of a book market fifty years earlier. Now, when could such a market have arisen and how could it have arisen? It was clear: only after Pisistratus had the works of Homer written down." (110).

"Slowly, the whole significance of this event dawned on me: the picture began to unfold. Before Homer had been written down, there were books, but no popular books freely for sale at a market: books were, even where they existed, a great rarity, not commercially copied and distributed, but (like the book written by Heraclitus) kept in a holy place, under the surveillance of priests. But we know that in Athens Homer quickly became popular: everybody read Homer, most knew him by heart, or at least passages of Homer by heart. Homer was the first public entertainment ever! And this was the case mainly in Athens, as we can learn again from Plato, who in his Republic complains about the dangerous entertainment, while in his Laws he satirizes Sparta and Crete for their lack of literary interest: in Sparta, he indicates, Homer’s name was known – just known; and in Crete, he indicates, Homer had hardly been heard of. The great success of Homer in Athens led to something like commercial book publishing: books, we know, were dictated to groups of literate slaves, who wrote them down on papyrus; the sheets were collected in scrolls or ‘books’, and they were sold in the market, at a place called the ‘Orchestra’." (110).

"For many centuries after the first publication of Homer, written material, including books, was usually read aloud. Letters were so read (as emerges from Isocrates), and the reading was not always adequate. Speeches were classified into those prepared by writing and those that were produced extempore: for the first type Isocrates is one of the main authorities; for the second, Alcidamas. (Cf. also Plato’s Phaedrus.) Books were read aloud, or even publicly recited (as in the case of the publication of Herodotus). All these were called logoi. St Augustine was deeply impressed when, nine hundred years after the first publication of Homer, he first saw St Ambrose reading silently. It prevented him, he explains, from asking St Ambrose for help in his religious perplexities. (See Book VI of the Confessions.)" (115).

"I was too old when I started these researches into the beginning of a book market in Athens and, with it, the beginning of publishing and of ‘literature’, to do more than scratch the surface of a whole range of problems. . . . I believe that there is much work to be done; and I hope that the hypotheses I have been able to propose here may provoke some classical scholars both to criticism and to further developments." (116).

So, perhaps Popper is saying, in his conclusion, "Falsify me, if you can!"

Feliks wrote: "I seem to recall that Hans-Georg Gadamer is a philosophical enemy of Karl Popper....Gadamer objects to logic being applied to the human condition or the social sciences. Something like that."

Feliks,

Sounds right, but I have not read that specifically. Gadamer is in the Hegel-Husserl-Heidegger line which Popper opposed forcefully. As I mentioned above, I haven't read the second volume of The Open Society and It's Enemies. That might be the place to look for a Popper attack on Gadamer.

Gadamer wrote a good deal about the Greeks. Translated into English: The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy, Plato's Dialectical Ethics and Dialogue and Dialectic. Gadamer emphasizes the continuity from Plato to Aristotle. He is probably best known for his writings on "hermeneutics." Reason in the Age of Science rests on my shelves. Also Truth and Method, his magnum opus, unread by me. Hegel's Dialectic is good. I briefly discuss his views on Plato's theory of ideas in a longer piece on that subject on my blog here.

Being in the Hegel line, Gadamer has an appreciation for contradiction (dialectics) that enraged Popper. I put Gadamer above Popper, btw, in that ranking of 20th century philosophers!

Cheers,

Randal

I have not yet read Gadamer. I am aware of (but also have not yet read) chapter 3 ("Gadamer's Path: From Heidegger to Plato") of Catherine H. Zuckert, Postmodern Platos: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

According to the Index of her book, Catherine Zuckert mentions Karl Popper once, in her chapter on Gadamer: "Rather than justify a totalitarian regime, as Karl Popper later argued, Gadamer thought that the Republic demonstrated the necessity of founding political community on a continuous and open inquiry. Having shown that the educational scheme Socrates sketches should not be taken literally as a proposal for political reform, he concluded that it does not represent 'authoritative instruction based on an ideal organization at all; rather it lives from questioning alone.'" Postmodern Platos, 83 (endnote omitted). This is similar to Leo Strauss's interpretation of the Republic. However, it does not explain the totalitarianism of Plato's Laws. I have not yet reached the section in Strauss's book on the Laws discussing the Athenian Stranger's proposal for an essentially totalitarian system.

I'm currently reading the Gelven A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Revised Edition. Although I'm sure we won't necessarily delve into Heidegger again, I will note anything that emerges with regard to Plato. Gelven has already made salient points on the relationship and I'm only on page 28. For example, he points out that Heidegger begins his whole exploration with a quote from Plato; and explains why that is.

Alan wrote: "As I mentioned in earlier posts, I discovered last evening a discussion of ancient Athenian book production and marketing in chapter 7 ("Books and Thoughts: Europe's First Publication") of Karl Pop..."

Very interesting. The Greeks, in addition to so many other contributions, were the first to mass-produce books as well! I seem to remember a scene in "I, Claudius" where a roomful of slaves were writing down a dictation.