Classics on the Fourth Floor

Prof. Vasilka Tapkova-Zaimova

2011-06-11T14:41:00.002+02:00

A Biography with a Commentary

This text is written mainly on the basis of an interview with prof. Tapkova-Zaimova, conducted by Zoia Hristova-Dimitrova in December 2007. The interview is published in Bulgarian on the websites of the Association for the Development of the University Classical Education http://aduce.org/new_page_25.htm and the Department of Classics, http://kkf.proclassics.org/history02.php University in Sofia. The quotations in the main text, given in italics, are from the interview. Also, the biographical notes, published in the volumes, dedicated to her 60-th, 70th, and 80th anniversary, have been considered. Some corrections and additions have been made by prof. Tapkova-Zaimova herself during our meetings in the end of October 2010.
The commentaries with smaller letters are providing the necessary explanations in respect of the mentioned events, and also references to some important publications.

I. Origin and family

Vasilka Tapkova was born on the 7th of August 1924 in Sofia, in teachers’ family.
The ancestors of her father had lived in Thessaloniki. Her grandfather Dimitar Tapkov had founded in 1874 the Bulgarian school in Lerin (today Florina, Greece) and had taught there. Since 1882 he had been a teacher in Prilep, and later moved to Thessaloniki, where lived with his family till the end of his life.
The family of his parents had been Catholic (uniatic) and he himself had demanded to be buried in the Catholic cemetery of Thessaloniki. His second wife Vasilka Mircheva, from Prilep (the grand-mother of Prof. Tapkova) had been Orthodox. Five children had been born in this marriage – three boys (one of them had been Cyril, the father of Prof. Tapkova) and two girls.

The establishment and the functioning of the school in Lerin was similar to the ones of other Bulgarian schools in this region, which then was beyond the boundaries of the state. All of them were launched, supported and supervised by the Bulgarian Exarcheia (established in 1870). The situation of the Bulgarians in Macedonia in the last years before the Liberation was connected directly with the activity of the Exarcheia.
The literature, devoted to the Bulgarian-Greek Church conflict and the separation of the Bulgarian Church from the Patriarchy in Constantinople is enormous. See mostly Бурмов, Т. Българо-гръцката църковна разпря/Burmov, T. The Bulgarian-Greek Church Quarrel; Снегаров, История на съвременните православни църкви/Snegarov, History of the Contemporary Orthodox Churches. On the activity of the Exarcheia before the Liberation see Маркова, Българската екзархия 1870-1879/Markova, The Bulgarian Exarcheia; История на България, БАН, т. 6/History of Bulgaria, publ. by BAS (the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), vol. VI.
There are 20 letters by Dimitar Tapkov, written in the period 1874-1876, published by prof. Tapkova herself and her daughter Raya Zaimova under the title За един български учител в Лерин през 70- те години на миналия век/In respect of a Bulgarian Teacher in Lerin in the 70-ies of the past century. See also the memoires of Kuzman Shapkarev, who had taught in Macedonia in this period. Материали за историята на възражданието българщината в Македония от 1854 до 1884 год./Materials for the History of the Bulgarian Revival in Macedonia from 1854 till 1884.

Cyril Dimitriev Tapkov (1885-1941) had studied classical philology in the University La Sapienza in Rome. After his graduation he had taught Latin and French in the Bulgarian school in Syar (nowadays Serres, Greece) and in Bitola till 1913. After the occupation of Thessaloniki during the Second Balkan War (called also the Inter-allies War), he had been forced to escape with his brother in Italy and after that they moved to Sofia.
In Sofia he had taught Latin in the state First Male and First Maiden’s gymnasia, and later in the private French college. Till 1935 he had worked as a translator and secretary in the commission for the reparations (paid by Bulgaria to the winners of the First World War).
Her mother Donka Boshnakova (1893-1983) had lived since childhood in Sofia and the families of her parents are from Stara Zagora and Gorna Oryahovitsa. She had received her university degree in political sciences in Brussels. In Bulgaria she had taught mathematics in the Second Maiden gymnasium and in the French language schools.
Her brother Dimitar Tapkov, born in 1929, is a composer, and professor for decades in the Musical Academy in Sofia. He had been a director of the Opera in Sofia.

In respect of the situation of the Bulgarians in Macedonia after the Liberation and the activity of the Exarcheia, which competed the activities of Serbia, Greece, Constantinople and the uniatic mission till 1913 see Георгиев, Трифонов. История на българите в документи, т. ІІ/Georgiev, Trifonov. History of the Bulgarians in Documents, vol. II.История на България, БАН, т. 7/History of Bulgaria, BAS, vol. VII ; Св. Елдъров. Католиците в България 1878-1989/ Sv. Eldurov, The Catholics in Bulgaria 1878-1898. On the Macedonian question and the developments till the end of the Inter-allies war see П. Милюков (1859-1943). Живата истина/P. Milyukov, The Vivid Truth; Уил Мънро. България и нейните хора/Will Munro, Bulgaria and its People; Данев, Стоян (1858-1949). Мемоари/Danev, Stoyan. Memoires.
On the organization of the pre-gymnasium and gymnasium education in Bulgaria immediately after the Liberation see mostly Дринов, Марин (1838-1906). Съчинения, т. ІІІ/Drinov, Marin, Writings, vol. III.
Almost all the teachers in the classical languages in the gymnasia before 1925, when the first classical philologists have graduated from the Sofia University, had received their education, similarly to Cyril Dimitriev Tapkov, in foreign universities. Famous among them are Ivan Brožka (1853-1927; he is the author of the first Latin-Bulgarian dictionary, with co-author Delidelvov); Perikli Chilev (1864-1925, who late becomes teacher of the king Boris III and prince Cyril), D. Delidelvov (teacher of Al. Balabanov in First male gymnasium.)
For them and the teaching manuals, used then see Геров, Б. Из историята на класическото образование в България от Освобождението до днес/Gerov, B. From the history of the Classical Education in Bulgaria from the Liberation till the present day. Бешевлиев, В. (1900-1992) Погледъ върху историята на класическите студии в нашите земи./Beshevliev, V. A Glance on the History of the classical studies in our lands.
The education in the first classical gymnasium in Sofia (1894-1899) is described in the memories of Ал. Балабанов. И аз на тоя свят/Alexander Balabanov. Me also on this world .
Very detailed information about the family of Prof. Tapkova’s father is given in the still unpublished manuscript, prepared by her and her daughter: Тапкова-Заимова, Василка и Заимова, Рая. Историята на една учителска фамилия в Македония / Tapkova-Zaimova, Vasilka and Zaimova, Raya. The History of a Teacher’s Family in Macedonia.

II. Secondary education

According to Vasilka Tapkova one part of the Bulgarian intelligentsia in Thessaloniki had preferred to send abroad their children to study in Italian higher education institutions. It should be added, that the majority of them have used as a major foreign language French. Her father had been a teacher in French, and for her, for her daughter and for her grandchildren the French language has always been the second language after the Bulgarian.
The beginning of her gymnasium education coincides with the reform, undertaken in 1937, when the middle variant of semi-classical secondary studies had been left behind, and the only the forms of “classical” and/or “real” classes had remained. She has been enrolled in the classical department of the French college, where both of the two old languages had been studied profoundly.
- By this time, she says, the classical gymnasia were established everywhere. The instruction in the college has been lead in French, and the classical and modern languages, including Russian, were studied with the usages of French textbooks/manuals. The matriculation exams (called “matura”) have been two – in French and Bulgarian. Vasilka Tapkova has finished the French catholic college in 1943 and has become a student in Sofia University, in specialty classical philology.

General information about the secondary (pro-gymnasium and gymnasium) education in Bulgaria till 1944 is given in Попов, Пиронкова. Образователната система в България/Popov, Pironkova. The educational system in Bulgaria. See also Колев, В. и др. Летопис на просветното министерство 1879-1995/Chronicle of the educational ministry 1879-1995 .The situation in Sofia is depicted by Минко Гечев in Образованието в София (1878-1944)/Minko Gechev. The education in Sofia (1878-1944). See also the general considerations on the gymnasium education by Ivan Georgov (1862-1935) in his writing On the reform in our gymnasia/Ив. Георгов. За реформата на нашите гимназии. The instruction in French in Bulgaria even before the liberation is discussed in История на България, БАН, т .6/History of Bulgaria, BAS, v. 6. Boris Gerov has written about the teaching of Latin and more exactly about the teaching aid-materials in his Из историята на класическото образование в България от Освобождението до днес/From the history of the Classical Education in Bulgaria from the Liberation till the present day. In his book Познайте ги по делата им/ You will know them by their deeds, Ivan Venedikov (1916-1997) tells about the instruction in the classical class of the First male gymnasium, where he has been enrolled in 1929.
Among the teachers in the inter-wars period very popular are the names of Christo Kodov (1901-1982), Iordan Bratkov (1901-1986), Mladen Tonev (1902-1940), Georgi Batakliev (1910-1994), Alexander Milev (1904-1980), Russka Gandeva (1911-2001), Makaryi Portalski (1915-1979), Mihail Voynov (1905 - 1985).

III. Higher education

1. Professors and colleagues

At the time, when Vasilka Tapkova becomes a student, there are four habilitated professors in the specialty (Alexander Balabanov, D. Dechev, V. Beshevliev and Vladimir Georgiev) and two assistant-professors (B. Gerov, G. Mihailov). She mentions several colleague-students: Todor Sarafov, who later becomes associate professor in Latin in the department; Konstantin Kostakev, who later works as a teacher in a gymnasium; Magdalina Stancheva, who later becomes an archaeologist and specialist in the ancient history of Sofia; and Slavka Slavova - a future actress. Two years before the beginning of her studies, Al. Nichev had been enrolled as a student.
Many times in her interview she stresses on the high quality of the teaching in the department classical philology. However, the professors have differed in respect of character and style of instruction. What she is telling is confirmed by numerous other evidences.
Alexander Balabanov who had been lecturing in Greek literature, had never literary read his lectures and he had been very fond of provoking disputations with the students. Frequently he had invited them to walks and restaurant-dinners, by which the conversations had been even more relaxed. Sometimes, at these gatherings extra the auditoria, the students could meet scholars, writers and intellectuals, with whom Balabanov had been at friendly terms. In her interview Vasilka Tapkova mentions the art-theoretician Protich, and the archaeologists Venedikov and Dzhambov, who later becomes director of the Archaeological Museum in Plovdiv.
The rest of the professors had preferred to communicate with the students only in the auditorium. Dimitar Dechev and Vladimir Gueorgiev had taught respectively Latin literature and historical grammar of the Latin language. Their courses had been ordered and systematic. Beshevliev, who then had had a course in Alexandrian poetry, had been especially demanding from the more negligent students.
Boris Gerov had lead seminars, on which Latin authors, especially Horace was read and the text and the verses had been analyzed in detail. Georgi Mihailov had been a very inspiring lecturer. Speaking about him she says, that he has been more connected with the French school, whereas the other majority of the professors had been relying on the German researches.
- Otherwise all of them, she adds, knew French, German and English, I mean only their inclinations.
The specialty classical philology, divided into departments in Greek and Latin philology is created with a decision of the Academic council in the beginning of the year 1921/1922. First regular professors are Alexander Balabanov and Dimitar Dechev (1877-1958). But in fact, since the establishment of the University in 1888, there were number of courses in the classical languages, literature and history, delivered in the Historic-philological Faculty. The professors were: Nikola Mihailovski (1818-1892) in Greek language for the first three semesters and after him, till 1898 – Marko Balabanov (1837-1921). Gavril Katsarov (1874-1958) has been associate professor in ancient history since 1900. Bogdan Filov (1883-1945) becomes associate professor in archeology in 1911. Balabanov himself is habilitated as early as 1909, and in 1914 is published the volume with his lectures, entitled Класическа литература/The Classical Literature.
The best sources for the biographies of the first professors in the classical antiquities are: Алманах на Софийския Университет до 1928, съставен от Ив. Георгов, Алманах на Софийския Университет "Св. Климент Охридски" 1888-1939, А-Я и Алманах на Софийския Университет "Св. Климент Охридски" 1939-1988/The Almanac of Sofia University, edited by Ivan Georgov; Almanac of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky” 1888-1939, A-Z, and Almanac of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky” 1939-1988.
Detailed information about the foundation of the specialty, the activity of the scholars, working on antiquity and the University in general is to be found in Арнаудов, М. (1878-1978), История на Софийския Университет „Св. Климент Охридски” през първото му полустолетие 1888-1939 /M. Arnaudov. History of SU “St. Kliment Ohridsky” in its first half of a century 1888-1939.
Memoirs about the specialty and its professors are published: by Ivan Venedikov in Познайте ги по делата им/ You will know them by their deeds;Boris Gerov has published memories about Dimiter Dechev in Спомени за Софийския университет/ Memories about SU; in the same book Velizar Velkov writes about the specialty in general; also Emil Georgiev, although he had studied in another department; Dimitar Angelov (1917-1996), who had studied classical philology as a minor specialty, also writes about the professors in Спомени..
In the introduction of the autobiographical book by Alexander Balabanov И аз на тоя свят/Me also on this world, T. Borov (1901-1992) has written: “Balabanov was one of the most popular persons all over Bulgaria and the most famous professor in the University». Indeed, the memories, the references and the texts on him in general are probably more, than on all the other scholars of the antiquities in Bulgaria, taken together. Balabanov had never interfered in politics, but had been very active in the literary and cultural life.
There is the monography “Alexander Balabanov” by Anastasiya Purvanova (published by the Macedonian cultural institute in 1994); several special essays by Todor Borov, the largest of which (45 pages) is published in Живот с книги/Life with Books; the collection Александър Балабанов и Симеон Радев в спомените на съвременниците си/ Alexander Balabanov and Simeon Radev in the Memoirs of their Contemporaries, where several authors have written on him: Elin Pelin (1877-1949), Simeon Radev (1879-1967), Alexander Bozhinov (1878-1968), Dimitar Mihalchev (1880-1967), Konstantin Gulubov (1892-1980), Georgi Mihailov (1916-1991), Ivan Bogdanov (1910-1992), Boris Delchev (1910-1987), Christo Radevski (1903-1996), Velizar Velkov (1928-1993), and others. He is also depicted by Georgi Markov in “Memories on Sofia University”. It is worth taking into consideration the impressions of Cyril Christov (1875-1944) in Време и съвременници/Time and Contemporaries, not forgetting however, that Cyril Christov is extremely reluctant to praise anyone at all.

2. During the War

The regular academic process in Sofia had been possible in Sofia till the end of 1943. The first bombing of the English-American aviation over the city occurred on the 15th of November. Even more destructive had been the attacks in 1944, especially on the 10th of January, the 29th and the 30th of March.
Vasilka Tapkova had been evacuated with her mother, her brother (five years younger than her), the one of the grand-mothers and the family of her uncle in Dragoman, where they have remained till October. However, she had taken with her the Greek dictionary and the anthology “Alexandrian poetry ”, compiled by Beshevliev, saying about it:
- I have eaten it up with the hard-cover.
In Dragoman she had had enough free time and then she had improved her knowledge of Russian and German (by reading books, to which she had had access) and even she had had the chance to pass the regular (“lecturer’s”) exam in German, with Zhana Nikolova-Galabova as an examiner, who also had been evacuated in Dragoman. Initially she had intended to take the exam in French, but in order to pass it she had to travel to Sliven and her mother had advised her not to do it.
- How is that? You are going to travel from Dragoman through all these roads, under the bombs, heading to Sliven? There is no way!
When they had returned to Sofia, they found their house on “Tsar Assen” str. destroyed, and the neighboring house, which had belonged to their grandmother, only with punctured roof. But the furniture and the piano had survived (65 years later, during the interview, she has shown the interviewer Zoia the same chairs, that had been preserved despite the bombing).
While the reconstruction of the house was going on, they had been sheltered in the house of the other grandmother, on “Gurgulyat” str. There, of course, they had not been accommodated quite comfortable.
- All of us had slept on one sofa – my mother, me and my brother.
The greatest inconveniences in the every day life were connected with the destroyed houses.
- Literally we have remained in the street.
Food had been distributed on coupons as late as 1950. On this occasion she speaks of the friendly relations in the specialty.
- The father of Rayna Kabaivanska (the famous Bulgarian opera diva) was head of the commission for the nutrition of the population. Balabanov was familiar with him and went to him to beg for some additional coupon, and so, that’s how we were feasting, in the seminar room upstairs (on the last floor of the building – note of the transl.) with some sausages and bread.
I would add, that the tradition of these collegiate parties in the auditoria-offices of the specialty, in the attic of the building, which had began in these years (the central building had been consecrated in 1934, but some specialties have used it earlier), turned out to be very vivid. During the 80-es and the 90-es the soul of the company of this parallel academic life was Krassimir Banev (1940-1995), who was aware that it is his duty to keep alive the Balabanov’s spirit in the specialty. So, in the beginning of the 90-ies I was present to a party in the so-called Columbarium – the last floor of the Rectorate building, on which the offices of the classicists are situated, where Vasilka Tapkova had studied. At this party in the early 90-ies Venedikov himself was present – the author of the memories about the classical education during the 30-ies. During Banev’s time the parties were held either in the Columbarium - the attic, or, in the opposite place, in “The Egg” – the university restaurant, which has no windows, because it is situated in the basement. The crises after 1989 have created living conditions, similar in a way to the ones after the war. After that the colleagues have gathered around Anna Nikolova, and after her retirement in 2004, they are initiated – even till the present day – by doctoral students and bachelors, but mainly by these, who have graduated the NGDEK – The National Gymnasium for Classical Languages and Cultures.
On the participation of Bulgaria in the war in 1943-1944 and especially on the situation in Sofia see: the documents, published in България – своенравният съюзник на Третия райх/ Bulgaria – the Recalcitrant Ally of the Third Reich. Detailed evidence for the effect of the bombings are to be found in the Diary of Bogdan Filov/ Богдан Филов. Дневник,. Personal impressions could be read in K. Katsarov - 60 години живяна история/60 years of History. The consequences of the bombings for the University are described in: През годините на военни изпитания/During the years of the military hardships, in History of Sofia University, published in 1988. In Спомени за Софийския университет/Memoires of Sofia University could be found impressions by the professors M. Genovski, T. Taschev, P. Slavov, Svet. Ivanchev, D. Karanov, V. Vulchanov, A. Bunkov.

3. Before the work in the BAS. De-fascisation and reform in the education. The situation in the University and the specialty
Vasilka Tapkova many times stresses the collegiate atmosphere and the tolerance among the classical philologists. During the “purge” one professor in the department had been fired – V. Beshevliev. She mentions also the expel of the historian Ivan Duichev, with whom they later have worked together in BAS and of the geographer Dimitar Yaranov, with whom they have been neighbors for a while in “Gurgulyat” str. Beshevliev and Duichev, and Yaranov as well, have been accused in chauvinism and declared pro-fascist views.
- … because he (Beshevliev) and Duichev have done research in Macedonia, but they have been sent there, to study the Bulgarian antiquities there. And according to the accusation their writings have turned out to be “ pro-fascist”! Nothing!
From the students in the specialty one has been expelled – the one was Slavka Slavova, because of the phrase:
- I have been a member of the Brannik-organization and I am proud of that.
(Brannik was a youth organization, created with a special legislative act in 1940. After 1944 it has been forbidden and condemned as the Bulgarian counterpart of Hitleruegend - note of the transl.)
When the interviewer Zoia Hristova-Dimitrova remarks that this seems to her quite a negligible “sin” she replies:
- Ah, for that reason… there were much more insignificant reasons for expulsion.
However, all these are tiny and miniscule, compared with the events in the Faculty of History and many other places.
- The people who were (in the Department of Classics) belonged to a generation with good upbringing. They couldn’t change themselves, as had happened in the Faculty of history. There was a real horror!
The movement for the de-fascisation and the removal of the enemies among the professors and the students came mostly from the students’ circles. In the specialties, including Classical philology there were groups of activists, mainly members and sympathizers of the communist party and the People’s Front. Vasilka Tapkova mentions Al. Nichev.
- He was an utmost communist, he was studying two years in advance of me. He was already finishing his university studies, but he was commanding the parade. However, as a person he was a good man.
Her tone in general in the reference for him is benevolent.

***

When she had been a student in the third year of her study (in the academic 1945-1946) the news was spread that the classical languages will be removed from the secondary education. She had joined a students’ initiative – petition against this reform. She mentions that in the department of French philology the colleagues had not supported it eagerly, but the Director of the Alliance Française – George Hateau, who had lectured in the university as well, had signed it.
During her study, the ideological disciplines still have not been introduced as obligatory (History of the BCP etc.). However, later, she had been obliged to pass exams in these disciplines, when she already had the position of a researcher in the BAS.
- When I was a student, for example, still the study of Marxism and Leninism was not obligatory. Still, the study of the History of the Bulgarian Communist Party was not obligatory. All these, imposed later, were not studied by me, when I was a student. We were suppressed to death later, when I was already in the Institute. Then we were forced to pass exams in Marxism and Leninism, then we were forced to attend courses in the History of the BCP”.

The educational reform in the period 1944-1949 and the repressions against the university teaching faculty are described in the detailed research, published by Vessela Chichovska The Politics against the Educational Tradition/Весела Чичовска, Политиката срещу просветната традиция. Numerous valuable documents are published again by her and Vera Mutaphchieva in Съдът срещу историците/ The Court against the Historians. On these topics see also Национализираният университет/The nationalized university by R. Donkov/Р. Донков in the volume Университетът, and the relevant chapter in Sofia University. The first 120 years. The point of view of the ruling party in this period is exposed in История на Софийския Университет от 1988/History of Sofia University, 1988.
Some of the texts, written by V. Beshevliev and Ivan Duichev, that might have served as a pretext for their dismissal, are published in the journal “Prometheus” between 1941 and 1943.
Alexander Nichev really had published texts, in which the historical materialism evidently is taken as the philosophical basis of the historic and literary research. See his article Методологически въпроси в областта на античната литература. Methodological questions in the field of ancient literature в сп. “Септември”, 1950/ in the journal “September”, 1950, and the reaction to it by Balabanov, described by Ivan Bogdanov in Александър Балабанов и Симеон Радев в спомените на съвременниците/Alexander Balabanov and Simeon Radev in the Memories of their Contemporaries. Also История на класическата литература, History of the Classical Literature, 1949, written by Nichev and B. Gerov. Nichev is also the author of the relevant part, dedicated to the antiquity, in the handbook in literature for the secondary schools, which had been reprinted many times during the 60-ies and the 70-ies. There are all the necessary references to Marx and Engels, and some of the most significant Marxist-Leninist phraseology-staff.
Studies, which bear signs of the compromise with the power, had been published by other professors in the specialty as well. G. Mihailov is author of the Класовата борба на остров Лесбос VІІ-VІ в./Class struggle on the island Lesbos VII-VI c.,1950, and later Rousska Gandeva publishes За прогресивната идейност в Еврипидовата “Медея”, 1959/On the Progressive Ideas in the Euripide’s “Medea”.

III. Professional development till 1989. Family.

1. In the Institute for Bulgarian history
Soon after the graduation from the university Vasilka Tapkova begins to work as an assistant-researcher in the BAS – in the Institute for Bulgarian history. She says, by this time this has been the Commission for the publication of sources. But she hadn’t intended to work precisely in this area, because the structure of the BAS with its numerous institutions has been something new. The classical philologist, who had graduated from the university before the reform in 1947, could hope to be employed as a teacher in the classical languages in a gymnasium, or as a teacher in a modern language, especially if (s)he had obtained as a “minor” study second specialty in some western or Russian philology. In order to be allowed to teach, and this obligation has been kept later as well, one had had to pass through training practice in some gymnasium. When Vasilka Tapkova had went to the Third Male gymnasium (on “Pirotska’’ str.), where she had been assigned to practice, it had turned out, that her tutor would be a person, personally involved in the dismissal of her father from work in the beginning of the 40-ies.
- All of a sudden it turns out, that I receive as a patron somebody, who once upon a time had been a communist, but after that had flattered Filov and had become a protégé of Filov …So, I went to the Third Male gymnasium and I see: the person, who had sent the message to my father, now is supposed to become a tutor of mine!... So, I don’t know whether that person recognized me or not, but when we, the applicants for the pedagogical practice went there, we were told by him: ‘’Today we are not going to work together and tomorrow we are not going to work together, because we, the fighters against fascism, have an important meeting!’’
That’s why she had given up the pedagogical practice and after hearing that there is a competitive exam for an assistant in the Institute for Bulgarian history, she applied for the position and had the best result among 22 other applicants.
- See what comes sometimes out of despair!’’
The examining committee had been presided by Ivan Snegarov, and also the archeologist D. Dimitrov had taken part. The applicants had to translate a text by St. Basil the Great.
- It was funny, because my name is Vasilka and we had to translate St. Vassiliy/Basil the Great. That’s why I was lucky!
After the competition she had met the future archeologist Maria Chichikova, who had informed her about the very positive reference for her exam-results from Dimitar Dimitrov.
So, she had received the order for the appointment in the BAS, but almost immediately she had received the message that as a beneficiary of state stipend she is obliged to work on a ‘’destination’’. Despite of the lack of pedagogical practice, she has been assigned to work as a teacher in Bossilegrad.
- And do you know what was still there? Real horror. They were still fighting there. I was to be cast there.

***
In the Institute their duties were to translate and comment Greek sources for the Bulgarian history. In their group the classical philologists Genoveva Tsankova and Strashimir Lishev had been included, as well, and the person in charge had been Mihail Voynov.
- It was a very meticulous work.
Firstly, they had typed the Greek texts in columns, after that they had cut them with scissors and besides they pasted the columns with the Bulgarian translation. Beneath the commentary had been added. After that Boyan Mirchev was employed as a typist.
- He was from the family of the famous Mirchevs, the scholars in the Slavonic studies. Because he had worked as a journalist in ‘’Zora’’, and consequently – persecuted for that, he was not allowed to have any other work, except the one of a typist. He was intelligent person, and although he didn’t know Greek, he was typing punctually in Bulgarian. Without mistakes.
In the commission, which had supervised their work, Beshevliev and Gerov had been included, and the Bulgarian text had been corrected by Stoyan Romanski.

***
In the period till 1963 Vasilka Tapkova-Zaimova has attended conferences, scholarly meetings and working visits in Krakow (1959), in Dubrovnik for research on sources (1963) and Leningrad (1963). She has been a secretary of the Organization Committee of the VIth Conference of the Organization for the study of the classical antiquity “Eirene” (held in Plovdiv, in 1962). In 1963 she has specialized for three months in the Moscow Institute for history.
***
In 1950 Vasilka Tapkova marries the linguist (specialist in Bulgarian language) Yordan Zaimov (1921-1987). They have two children: Velislav Zaimov, born in 1951, who is a composer and professor in the Musical Academy; and Raya Zaimova, born in 1957, senior associate researcher (equal to a professor) in the Institute for Balkan studies, a specialist in the French-Ottoman cultural relations.
For the structure of the BAS and the inner composition of the separate institutes, including the Institute for history, see Ралева, О., Пейчева, Р. БАН след 9.IX.1944 /BAS after the 9. IX 1944. For the events after 1944, the restructuring and the enlargement of the Academy see История на БАН 1869-1969/History of BAS 1869-1969. The new structure is enacted by the special Act for the BAS from 1947. After the arrest of Bogdan Filov in April 1945 for a president of the Academy has been elected Dimitar Mihalchev. In January the same year for a regular member has been elected Todor Pavlov – he is the first Marxist-member of the presidium of BAS.
He becomes president in 1947 and is re-elected by the General assembly in 1948 and 1956, remaining a president till 1962.
In the beginning of 1958 the BAS has 8 Sections, 4 of which are humanitarian and they comprise the separate institutes. The Institute for Bulgarian history is included in the subsection History and Pedagogy. By this time there are 88 academicians and member-correspondents and 372 scientific or scholarly researchers. Among the academicians are Sp. Kazandzhiev, D. Mihalchev, G. Katzarov, A. Protich, Ivan Snegarov. V. Beshevliev and D. Dimitrov are member-correspondents.
By that time director of the Institute for Bulgarian history is Dimitar Kossev. There are 5 Commissions for the publication of sources in the section of archeography and bibliography of Bulgarian history: for the publication of Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Turkish and Hebrew sources. Vasilka Tapkova works in the Commission for the publication of the Greek and Latin sources. In the volume БАН след 9. ІХ. 1944/ BAS after 9. IX. 1944 among the senior researchers are mentioned D. Angelov and Ivan Duichev, whereas M. Voynov with the other publishers of sources, is included among the junior researchers.
The first 6 volumes Гръцките извори за българската история/The Greek sources for the Bulgarian history, are published between 1954-1965. Among the translators are mentioned also Dimitar Dechev, Velizar Velkov, Lyubomir Yonchev, Petar Tivchev. The publishing of the Greek and the Latin sources continues later, and the last – for the time being – 32th volume. Some of them can be seen on the web: http://www.kroraina.com/N1/. Prof. Tapkova-Zaimova has taken part in the preparation of 11 of the Greek and 2 of the Latin volumes.
Many details about her researches till 1963 are given in the book: Василка Тъпкова-Заимова. Биобиблиография. Велико Търново, 1985.

2. Members of the BCP and non-members in the BAS. The ideologization. The dossier files of Vasilka Tapkova-Zaimova and Yordan Zaimov
Vasilka Tapkova has worked in the Institute for Bulgarian history till 1963.
- There was the opinion: “ They are not going to be allowed to become senior researchers”, because the editing and the publishing of sources was not reckoned (by them) to be a proper scholarly work.
Mihail Voynov is mentioned several times in the interview with explicit respect and cordiality.
- If somebody is to be pointed at as my teacher – this is Voynov.
He had advised her and the other younger colleagues to concentrate their work only on the sources, in order not to be forced to publish ideological texts. Many years after that Prof. Georgi Bakalov has told her: “Only in your writings there are no such passages”.
However, by doing this, they have sentenced themselves to a lack of publications. A book or article in history without the Marxist and the Leninist phraseology could hardly appear in the 50-ies and the early 60-ies. That’s why she had accepted the invitation of Nikolai Todorov and Vladimir Georgiev to move to the brand new Institute for Balkan studies, in the section for the history of Byzantium and the Balkan people.
- I gave this name to it.
However, they couldn’t appoint her as a scientific secretary, which would be equal to a deputy director, because such a position could be obtained only by a member of the Party. Her husband Yordan Zaimov had also abstained from becoming a member of the Party.
- So, also, one day Nikolai (Todorov) came and told me: ‘’Well, we don’t have a deputy director, and the scholarly secretary has to be a Party-member, as well”. So, Vladimir Georgiev told me: ‘’Let’s accept you and your husband as Party-members’’. So, we were both proposed, but we rejected. I have already told you, that Nikolai (Todorov) was a good man, he was a Party-member, doing the necessary party-deeds, but he didn’t torture the people. He never raised the topic again.
**

To the question of Zoia whether the Party-secretaries in the organizations had been external people, Vasilka Tapkova replies that they have been researchers and scholars like all the rest. As her story confirms, it depended on the person to accept or to reject the proposal to become a member, and nevertheless in the latter case to remain on the same working position. But to occupy a leading prestigious position without being a Party member, for a very long time had not been possible. However, Yordan Zaimov had become a deputy director of the Unified Center in Linguistics in 1986 – one year before his death.
The relations between the Party-members and the non-members on the working place could be very stressful. The Party-members could have easy access to the leading persons in charge in the BAS and this had created options for intrigues and pressure. Thus, Mihail Voynov had been dismissed and for a certain period had to earn his living as a carpenter.
- A carpenter! Well, although fired from the institute, didn’t he have allowance for some other job?
- No, no, he didn’t. So, he made the shelter for the hens of a neighbour.
Obviously everyone, who had not become a Party-member could be pressed, especially if one had made the impression of an uncompromising person.
- And we heard what slanders were made against us; they went to the Head-department of the academy in order to report that we are unfit for this job, that we should be expelled, we should be fired, and so.
Still, the non-members could rely on the support of some high-ranked colleagues-Party-members, who had respected them for their professionalism or simply had tried to act according to justice. Vasilka Tapkova says good words for Todor Pavlov, who had restored Mihail Voynov to his earlier appointment. Also she mentions quite positively Nikolai Todorov, who had never demanded any demonstrative ideology in the publications. There are no generalities in the interview about the Party and the ideology, nor the advantages and the shortcomings of the regime are discussed.
Vasilka Tapkova and Yordan Zaimov had had prolific files.
- The dossier file of my husband consisted of 145 pages.
She had read them and even had taken copies of some pages, which later had sent to their authors. Some of them had not been “slanders” from special informers, but mere so-called characteristics (something as a regular reference), written by Party-secretary, intended for administrative and Party usage, but probably they had been used by the State Security, as well. They had been written regularly.
- So, was there a report every year?
- Aha!
Vasilka Tapkova distinguishes an “early” and “late” part in her dossier-file. In the early part there had been reports about her meetings with French citizens in the Embassy of France, especially with the director of the French college in Plovdiv – Father Oson – who had been held under the suspicion that he is an agent of a foreign service. However, later it had become clear that she is visiting the Embassy, because she gave lessons in Latin to the daughter of the ambassador. However, this contact of her had not been quite safe.
- If I’ve been ‘’included’’ in the Catholics’ case, I was endangered to be sent to a camp. So, you know, in 1952 several Catholics were shot. And because of the fact that I have graduated from the French college, they write in my file that in the Embassy I am regularly meeting the Director of the French college in Plovdiv: “she met with him today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow”…
Her husband, likewise her father before 1944, has been followed by the secret services in connection with his beliefs mainly on the Macedonian question.
In respect of the pressure, exercised by the Party on the historians, working in the field of the study of antiquity and the middle ages see again, Съдът срещу историците/ The Court against the Historians op. cit., and also the autobiography of Georgi Bakalov in the volume, dedicated to his 60-th anniversary. On the other point of view see the memoires of D. Angelov.

3. Other appointments and teaching till 1989

In the Institute for Balkan studies it has been much easier for her. The section History of Byzantium and the Balkan people had been initially directed by Beshevliev and after his retirement – by Vasilka Tapkova.
- Then they didn’t demand from us to write accordingly to Marxism, because Nikolai Todorov was an extremely intelligent man.
So, she was given then the opportunity not only to publish sources and to translate, but also to write texts of her own. She has remained in the Institute till 1989, when she has retired. She has began to teach in 70-ies (1970-ies) in the Academy for the Arts.
- I was teaching medieval history, but in the Department of Theory of Arts. This was a position, previously held by (Alexander) Fol, who has left it, because then began his career (literary: they have begun to pull him higher). So after him, the position was proposed to me.
She becomes professor in 1973 (as part-time appointment) and keeps lecturing in the Academy till 1993.

***

In the period 1964-1973 she attends conferences, scholarly meetings and working visits in Athens, Berlin, Bucharest, Brno, Venice, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Moscow, Paris, Strassburg, Hamburg, Schwerin, and many Bulgarian towns. She delivers lectures in Bucurrest (1966) and Paris (1972). She and her husband receive the state honour “Cyril and Methodius” for the book Битолски надпис на Иван Владислав /The Bitola inscription of Ivan Vladislav. In 1973 she becomes senior associate researcher of first degree in BAS, which corresponds to the rank of university professor.
Since 1975 she is a part-time lecturer in the University of Veliko Turnovo. Between 1974 and 1984 she participates in conferences and scholarly meetings in Ankara, Athens, Belgrade, Berlin, Birmingham, Budapest, Bucharest, Brno, Vienna, Greifswald, Dumbarton Oaks, Kiev, Krajova, London, Moscow, Muehlhausen, Paris, Prague, Rome, Thessaloniki, Strasbourg, and many places in Bulgaria. She has delivered lectures in the University of Cologne (1984). She has been since 1979 a vice president of Association Internationale des Etudes du Sud-Est Europeen – AIESEE.

On the activity of Nikolai Todorov see his Дневник/Diary. On the scholarly and public activity see the volume, collecting his articles ant interviews Самотният пешеходец/The Lonely Pedestrian. About him and the circle of intellectuals, close to the BCP and Lyudmila Zhivkova see Н. Неделчев. Тоталитарни идеологии в историята/N. Nedelchev, Totalitarian Ideologies in History; Ив. Еленков. Културният фронт/Ivan Elenkov, The Cultural Front; Хр. Христов. Тодор Живков. Биография/Hristo Hristov. Todor Zhivkov. Biography.
For her scholarly work till 1984 see again Василка Тъпкова-Заимова. Биобиблиография. Велико Търново, 1985.

IV. After the retirement

In 1993 she receives proposal to resume work, but this time in the Section of history in the Institute for Cyril-and-Methodius studies in the BAS and works there till 2003. But also she has been lecturing in several universities: in Sofia and in Plovdiv (2000-2002), Blagoevgrad South-West University (1992-1996), and mostly in the University in Veliko Turnovo (from the end of the 70-ies). Till 2001 she has been a member of the Leading committee of the Union of the scientists in Bulgaria. She has lectured also in this period in Athens, Munich, Thessaloniki, Yoannina.
In 2003 she becomes doctor honoris causa of the university in Bucharest, and in 2004 she eceives the same honour from the University in VelikoTurnovo.

***

I am personally acquainted with Prof. Tapkova-Zaimova from the autumn of 1993, when for a very short time I was an assistant of her in the course Byzantine literature and culture in the specialty Modern Greek philology in University of Sofia. Since then we have had three longer conversations on her biography: in July 2001 on a cocktail reception in the Embassy of France; in July 2007 in a cafe after the promotion of the dissertation of Yanko Dimitrov, whose work was reviewed by her and me (later Yanko became husband of the interviewer Zoia Hristova); and finally, in the last week of October, 2010 at her home on “Praga blvd” in Sofia, when we discussed this biographical paper.

***

Translation from Bulgarian - Dimka Guicheva-Gocheva

Classical Studies in Bulgaria 1959-1979. The situation by 1979

2010-07-20T12:32:00.003+03:00

I. Classicists and scholars, whose researches were related to Classics (who is who)
in memoriam
Todor GERASIMOV (1974)
Head of Section for Epigraphy and Numismatics at the Archeological Institute (since 1964).
retired (1968)
Co-author of Thracian Art (1973).
Makarij Portalski (1979)
retired (1976)
Co-author of Latin Grammar (1961)
Translation of Quintilian`s Institutio Oratoria (1982)

1. Professional profiles and main institutions classicists work in
a. Sofia University
(The main source for the CVs is Алманах на Софийския Университет "Климент Охридски" 1939-1988, А-Я. SU Press, 1988)
- Department of Classical philology
G. Mihailov – professor (1964).
(Or 1963 - Димитър Веселинов. Летописна книга на ФКНФ 1888-1965. SU Press, 2008)
Editor of Greek Inscriptions Discovered in Bulgaria (in Latin), t. III-IV. 590 p. + 329 pl. and 348 p. + 86 pl. (1961-1966). Author of The Thracians. 320 p. (1972).
Translations of Plato`s Dialogues (1979, selected).
Courses: Greek Syntax; Historical Grammar and History of Greek Language; Greek Epigraphy; History of Greek Culture.
Al. Nichev - professor (1963). D-r of the Moscow State University (1972).
Author of: The Tragic Guilt in Sophocles` Oedipus the King (in French). 108 p. (1962); Sofronij`s Translation of Aesop`s Fables. 122 p. (1963). Aleko Konstantinov. 326 p. (1964). The Riddle of the Tragic Catharsis in Aristotle (in French). 254 p. (1970).
Translations of: Plautus` Menaechmi and The Pot of Gold (1966), Miles Gloriosus (1978); Aeschylus, all plays (1967); Aristotle`s Poetics (1967); Lucian`s Dialogues (selected) (1971); Seneca`s Oedipus (1977); Euripides` Electra and Bacchae (1977); Aristophanes` The Assemblywomen and Ploutos (1978); Menander`s Dyskolos (1978); Terence`s The Brothers (1978)
Courses: History of Ancient Literature; Greek Literature; Modern Greek Grammar
K. Vlahov – associate professor (1967) and professor (1973).
Author of The Thracian Personal Names. 138 p. (1976). Articles on the Thracian language (650-700 p. in Bulgarian and German) (1963-1979)
Courses: Phonetics and Morphology of the Greek Language; Syntax of the Greek Language; Thracian Language
T. Sarafov - associate professor (1973).
Author of: The Literary Views of Apuleius. 48 p. (1966); The Thracian satres (sic!). 70 p. (1973); Transcription and Pronuntiation of Latin and Greek Personal Names in Bulgarian. 23 p. (1979). Articles on Thracian language and history (30 p. in Bulgarian and French) (1970-1978).
Translation of Aesop's Fables (1967).
Zorka POPOVA (b. 1921 in Razgrad). Graduated from the Sofia University, Classical philology (1944). Teacher in Latin language (1961).
Author of articles on the influence of Tibullus, Catullus, Horace and Propertius on the Latin epigraphic inscriptions (200-250 p.) (1967-1980)
Courses: Morphology of the Latin Language; Phonetics of the Latin Language; History of the Latin Language
Anna B. NIKOLOVA (b. 1939 in Sofia). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1962). Assistant (1968). PhD (1975) with Chronology of Seneca`s De Ira and De Clementia.
Courses:
Bogdan BOGDANOV (b. 1940 in Sofia). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1963). Assistant (1969). PhD (1976) with The Euripides` Two-parts Tragedies and the Question of the Description of the World-view Problematics of the Attic Tragedy.
Author of: From Homer to Euripides. Essays on Greek Literature. 192 p. (1971); Homer`s Epic. 127 p. (1976); Hellenistic Literature. 199 p. (1979).
Translations of: Theophrastus` Characters (1968); Plutarch`s Lives (1969, selected); Greek Novels (1975, selected); Plato`s Dialogues (1979, selected)
Courses: Introduction in the Classical philology (since 1979)
N. GEORGIEVA (b. 1947 in Elin Pelin, near Sofia). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1971). Assistant (1979).
8 teachers (5 men 3 women): 4 Greek scholars (3 literature-culture, 1 language), 4 Latin (2 literature and culture, 2 language)
- other Departments and Faculties
V. Velkov – associate professor (1961) and professor (1970) at the Department of Old and Medieval History. Head of Section for Epigraphy and Numismatics at the Archeological Institute (1972-1989).
Author of: Slavery in Thrace and Moesia in Antiquity. 154 p. (1967); Cities and Thrace and Dacia in Late Antiquity (in English). 308 p. (1977). Roman Cities in Bulgaria (in English). 300 p. (1979);
Co-author of Thracians in Greco-Roman Egypt (in French). 118 p. (1977)
Courses: History of Ancient World (since 1961);
R. Radev – associate professor (1969) and professor (1977) at the Department of Philosophy. D-r of the Philosophical Sciences (1976).
Author of: Materialistic Principles in Aristotle`s Philosophy of Knowledge. 156 p. (1961). Through the History of Arab Philosophy. 164 p. (1966). Hellenistic Philosophy. 312 p. (1973). Epicurus. Life and Work. 168 p. (1976).
Courses: History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
Alexander FOL (b. 1933 in Sofia). Graduated from the Sofia University, History (1957). Assistant (1963). PhD (1966) with The Thracians in Italy and in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire. Associate professor (1972) and professor (1974) at the Department of Old and Medieval History.
Author of: Political History of Thracians until the end of V c. BC. 216 p. (1972)
Co-author of: Epaminondas. 111 p. (1967); Thracian Military Art. 127 p. (1969). Thracians in Greco-Roman Egypt (in French). 118 p. (1977); Thrace and the Thracians (in English). 160 p. (1977).
Courses: History of Ancient Greece (from 1972); Thracian Sources (from 1972); Thracology (since 1979)
Margarita TACHEVA (b. 1936 in Shumen). PhD (1969) with The Migrants of Asia Minor Syria and Egypt in the Economic and Cultural Life of Moesia Inferior and Thrace I-III c. Chief Assistant (1974). Associate professor (1976) at the Department of Old and Medieval History.
Author of Ancient Thrace and the South-East of Europe (in Russian). 88 p. (1976).
Courses: History of Ancient World (1975-1979); Thracology (1979)
Krasimir BANEV (b. 1940). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (196…). Assistant in Methods of Teaching Classical Language (Department of Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages) (around 1970).
Dimitar POPOV (b. 1950). Graduated from the Sofia University, history (1973). PhD (1977) with Political and Religious Aspects of the King`s Institution by the Thracians. Assistant (1978) at the Department of Old and Medieval History.
Petar DELEV (b. 1951 in Sofia). Graduated from the Sofia University, history (1977). Assistant (1979) at the Department of Old and Medieval History.
7 teachers (6 men 1 woman): 4 historians, 1 archeologist-epigraphist, 1 philologist-methodologist, 1 philosopher

b. outside the University
- other universities (Tarnovo, Plovdiv, Medical academy in Sofia… no inf. yet)
* Theological Academy
Al. Milev - senior teacher in classical languages at the University (1964). Retired (1969). Professor (1970-1980).
Co-author of Latin Grammar (1961)
Translations of: Aristophanes` Clouds (1962), Homer`s Iliad (in cooperation) (1969); The Greek Lives of St Kliment Ohridski (1961); Plato`s Republic (1974
- Academy of Sciences
* Archeological Institute
Teofil IVANOV (b…). Graduated from Sofia University, classical philology. Head of Section for Ancient Archeology (1965-1982).
* Institute for Bulgarian History
(Edited Greek Sources for Bulgarian History (v. I-VI) until 1965)
G. TSANKOVA (b…) - junior researcher (senior since…)
S. LISHEV (b…) - junior researcher…(senior since…)
* Institute for Balkan Studies
Vasilka Tapkova-Zaimova - researcher at section Byzantium and the Balkan Peoples (since 1964)
* Thracology Institute
- elsewhere in academic and cultural institutions
* museums
Iv. Venedikov - senior researcher at the Archeological Institute (since 1962). Senior researcher (1973-1978) at the Thracology institute. Director of the section of Ancient archeology at the National Historical Museum (1973-1986).
Co-author of Thracian Art (1973).
6 classicists (4 men 2 woman): 2 archeologists, 2 philologists-editors, 1 philologist-historian, 1 Greek and Latin teacher and translator
- gymnasiums (the NGDEK)
Dimitar BOJADZHIEV (b. 1949). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1973). Teacher of Latin language. PhD (1979)
Ivan GENOV (b. 1956). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1979). Teacher of Greek language (since 1979)
Dorotei GETOV (b. 195…). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (197…). Teacher of Greek language (since 1978)
Maria KOSTOVA (b. 1948). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1971). Teacher of Latin language (1978-1982)
Judith PHILIPOVA (b. 195…). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (197…). Teacher of Latin language since 1978
Ognyan RADEV (b. 1955 in Varna). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (1979). Teacher of Greek language and Ancient Culture (since 1979)
Rumen STEFANOV (b. 195…). Graduated from the Sofia University, classical philology (197…). Teacher of Greek language (since 1978)
7 teachers (5 men 2 women); 3 Greek language, 1 Greek language and culture, 3 Latin language
- no position in educational (academic, etc.) institution (or no information about)
G. Batakliev - Translations of: Apuleius` The Golden Ass (1964, in cooperation); Homer`s Odyssey (1971); Ovid's Metamorphoses (1974);
P. Radev - Translation of Apuleius` The Golden Ass (1964, in cooperation)
M. Markov - Translations of: Sallust`s Conspiracy of Catiline and Jugurthine War; Livy's History of Rome, I (1978); Aristotle`s On the Soul (1979).
Borislav GEORGIEV - Translation of Ancient Lyric (1970, selected)
Nikolina BAKARDZIEVA - Translation of Pliny`s the Younger Letters (1979)
Milko MIRCHEV - Translation of Thucydides` History of the Peloponnesian War (1979).
6 classicists (mostly known as translators) (5 men 1 woman): 2 from Greek, 3 from Latin, 1 both;
- left educational (academic, cultural) institution (fired, retired)
Y. Bratkov, retired (1967).
Co-author of Latin Grammar (1961)
B. Gerov, retired (1969).
Investigations on West-Thracian Lands in Roman Times. Parts I-IV. 540 p. (1960-1969)
D. P. Dimitrov, retired (1971).
Bulgaria – Land of Ancient Civilizations (in English) (57 p., 1961)
V. Beshevliev, retired (1972).
Head of Section for Epigraphy and Numismatics at the Archeological Institute (until 1964). Since 1964 senior researcher at the Institute for Balkan Studies.
Proto-Bulgarian Inscriptions (in German, 382 p., 1963; in Bulgarian, 1979). Late Greek and Late Latin Inscriptions from Bulgaria (in German, 235 p., 1964)
Vl. Georgiev, retired (1974).
Bulgarian Etymology and Onomastics (180 p., 1960). The Vocal System in the Development of the Slavic Languages (128 p., 1964)
Specialized courses: Contemporary Linguistics (1965-1974)
Hr. Danov, retired (1975)
Ancient Thrace (1968), 471 p. The Thracians (1979), 183 p.
R. Gandeva, retired (1978)
Senior teacher (1962). Associate professor (1969) and professor (1974).
Author of articles on Horace (200-250 p. in Bulgarian, German and Latin) (1963-1978).
Co-author of Latin Grammar (1961)
Courses: Morphology of Latin Language; Latin Syntax; History of Roman Literature
M. Vojnov (?) – at least until the end of 50s in the Institute for Bulgarian History
8 classicists (7 men 1 woman): 1 historian, 1 archeologist, I linguist, 2 philologists-epigraphists, 1 philologist-methodologist, 1 Latin literature teacher, 1 editor

2. Overview – 42 classicists (active and retired)
a. age
- old (over 60) - 14
- middle-aged (over 35) – 20 (?)
- young (under 35) - 8
b. gender, family, native region, place (city) they are based – 32 men, 10 women
Almost all work at Sofia.
c. professional field/educational degree/position
- philology (literature/culture, language/linguistic studies, edition of sources) – 12 (7 lit., 5 language)
- history and archeology, epigraphy - 10
- language teaching and translation – 17
- Greek, Latin studies (where clear distinction is possible) – 22 (11 Greek, 12 Latin)
- in educational institutions – 23 (7 secondary, 16 higher)
- outside educational/academic/cultural institution – 13
d. academic awards
e. administrative positions in academic institutions
Hr. Danov - Head of the Department of Ancient and Medieval History (1960-1975)
Al. Nichev - Head of the Department of Classical philology (1970-1978); Dean of the Faculty of Western Philologies (1970-1972)
V. Velkov – Head of the Department of Ancient and Medieval History (from 1979).
Al. Fol – Director of the Thracology Institute at the Academy (from 1972); Head of the Department of Thracology at the University (from 1979);
f. social and political activities and consequences of them
- social activities. Awards
- works, probably politically motivated (related to the political situation)
Hr. Danov – Critical Review of the Bourgeois Historiography on Antiquity in Bulgaria until September 9, 1944. 66 p. (1964). R. Radev – Criticism of Neothomism. 424 p. (1970); Neothomism – the “Modern” Philosophy of Catholicism. 67 p. (1976)
- political activities
* members of the Communist party
R. Radev (1962), Al. Fol (1966)
* high party and state positions (government, state administration, cultural institutions)
Al. Fol – Deputy President of the Committee of Culture (1974-1977);
Minister of People`s Education (1979-1986)
* state awards, titles
Vl. Georgiev – Hero of Socialist Labour (1969), Dimitrov Prize (1969), People`s Scientist (1971)
B. Gerov – Red Flag of Labour (1963), 25 Years People`s Power (1969)
Y. Bratkov – Active Fighter against Fascism and Capitalism (1966); Cyril and Methodius I degree (1971); People`s Republic of Bulgaria I degree (1972); Hero of Socialist Labour (1978)
Hr. Danov – Honoured Scientist (1978)
M. Portalski – Cyril and Methodius I degree (1976)
- penalties

II. Fields and directions of study

1. Production
a. researches (fields)
- epigraphy and source editing (Greek, Latin, Proto-Bulgarian, Byzantine) – Mihailov, Gerov, Beshevliev, Vojnov, Tapkova-Zaimova
- contemporary Bulgaria`s lands in antiquity (monuments of Roman and Greek presence, other peoples except Thracians) – Danov, Mihailov, Gerov, Beshevliev, Velkov, Tacheva, Dimitrov
- thracology (material culture, art, written sources, political history, religious cult, language) – Georgiev, Danov, Mihailov, Gerasimov, Venedikov, Velkov, Vlahov, Fol, Popov
- literature, theory (Greek tragedy, Aristotle`s views on literature) – Nichev, Bogdanov
- literature, history (history of Greek and Latin literature, Greek and Roman poetry) – Gandeva, Sarafov, Popova, Bogdanov, Nikolova
- philosophy (Greek materialism, Aristotle`s tradition in Middle Ages, Hellenistic philosophy) – R. Radev
- cultural studies (Greek, Thracian, mythology) – Mihailov, Velkov, Fol, Bogdanov, Popov
b. translations
- Greek authors (Homer, Aeschylus, selected works by Euripides and Aristophanes, selected lyric, Thucydides, Aristotle (Poetics, on the Soul), Plato (early dialogues), selected works by Plutarch and Lucian) novels – Milev, Batakliev, Nichev, B. Georgiev, Mirchev, Markov, Mihailov, Bogdanov
- Roman authors (selected drama, Sallust, Livy (book I), selected lyric, Ovid, Pliny the Younger, Apuleius) – Nichev, Batakliev, Bakardzhieva, Markov, Radev

2. Teaching
a. courses
b. manuals, handbooks

3. General tendencies

III. The classical studies and classical education in general

1. Institutions
a. secondary education
- The NGDEK (15)
The National Gymnasium for Ancient Languages and Cultures was opened in the autumn of 1977. First year 99 pupils were enrolled (32 boys, 67 girls) (Иван Еленков. Неосъщественият "Национален научно-методически център за подготовка усъвършенстване на кадри по древни езици и култури" в контекста на неосъществените проекти на Людмила Живкова. Paper, read on the conference in memory of prof. Dimitar Bojadzhiev, SU, 13-14 of November, 2009). From then every year about 80 pupils were enrolled with, if possible, an equal number of boys and girls.
In the program, which remains almost unchanged until today, were included as classical languages Latin, Greek and Old Bulgarian. The first year the pupils learned only Latin (4 hours for week); the second Greek was added (4 hours); the third they had Old Bulgarian too (2 hours). All these languages were studied as compulsory disciplines.
The discipline of History was taught mainly by university teachers (In the first years Ancient History (1st year, Greece, Rome, Thrace) was taught by D. Popov (then young assistant, now professor at the Sofia University) and K. Yordanov (researcher at the Thracology institute, now professor at the NBU); Medieval History, with special stress to Byzantine and Bulgarian relationships (2 year) – by G. Bakalov and P. Angelov, now both professors at the Sofia University. Modern Western History (3 year) – by R. Donkov and R. Guenov, now professors at the Sofia University too). Ancient Classical Culture and Medieval Bulgarian Culture were taught as separated disciplines. There were also courses in Ancient (including the ancient East), Medieval and Renaissance art.
At the fourth year began the Lyceum-degree (It was called so in the following years. According to the actual regulations Gymnasium education is completed at he end of the 3d year. At the following 2 years the pupils acquire the specialised Lyceum education (see http://www.ngdek.com/training.html). At this degree disciplines as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology were no more studied. At their place began the specialized education, where at the beginning the pupils could choose between two “profiles” - Old Bulgarian Philology (Старобългаристика) and Sanskrit language.
b. higher education (Sofia University)
The situation in the Department of Classical philology and in other Departments and Faculties –exams, curricula, number of enrolled and graduated students.
c. elsewhere
d. theological schools
- secondary
- higher (Sofia University)

2. Contacts between scholars and publishing
a. internal
- congresses, conferences etc.
- associations
- periodicals
b. external
- membership in foreign academic organizations. Awards
G. Mihailov – Corresponding Member of: British Academy of Sciences (1972); French Academie des Inscriptions at Belles-Lettres (1979); Member and President of the International Association for Greek and Latin Epigraphy (since its founding, 1972)
K. Vlahov – Member of the Committee for Classic Studies in the Socialist Countries “Eirene”.
V. Velkov - Member of: Austrian Archeological Institute (1972); German Archeological Institute (1972)
- meetings with academicians from abroad
* congresses, conferences etc.
* lectures (courses) of foreign scholars in Bulgaria
* lectures (courses) of Bulgarian scholars abroad
G. Mihailov – Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton (1977/1978)
Hr. Danov – Courses and lectures at Paris (Sorbonne) and Oxford (1974)
- publishing in other languages
* languages
* publishing houses, periodicals

3. Ideology of the classical studies
a. debates about Classics (in academic circles, media, the view of state and Party elite)
b. histories of classical studies (in Bulgaria and generally)
- general surveys, bibliographies etc.
B. Gerov – The Classical philology in Bulgaria (in German). 5 p. (1960)
G. Mihailov – The Epigraphy in Bulgaria (in French). 6 p. (1971)
- memoirs

IV. Education and studies in general

1. Institutions for education and research
(statistics)
Financing of science: 0.5% of GNP (1960), 1.2% (1965), 2,44 (1974)

a. primary and secondary education
(statistics)
3060 basic schools (I-VII class); 144 gymnasiums (VIII-XI class), 172 full secondary schools (I-XI class); 219 technicums; - 158 004 pupils and 8021 teachers in the high degree (VIII-XI class), 90 778 pupils and 4999 teachers in the technicums (1960/1961)
2812 basic schools; 137 gymnasiums, 127 full secondary schools; 246 technicums, 184 СПТУ; 9 art schools - 102 795 pupils and 6242 teachers in the high degree; 151 017 pupils and 8793 teachers in the technicums, 68 163 pupils and 4836 teachers in СПТУ; 2174 pupils and 434 teachers in the art schools (1969/1970)
- general
At the beginning of the 60s appear the “secondary professional-technical schools” (средни професионално-технически училища, СПТУ). Since 1964 mathematical gymnasiums are opened and since 1968 – sport schools.
The secondary education is obligatory for all (Constitution of 1971, art…). The obligatory basic education (and the pre-school education as well) is organized and secured by the regional and municipal people`s councils. They can select and appoint the teachers in the kindergartens and basic schools. They are responsible for the material conditions in these schools (Regulations for the tasks and functions of the regional and municipal people`s councils, 1969).
Since the beginning of the 70-ties the term of education in the high degree of the secondary polytechnic schools and the technicums becomes 3 years.
Since 1979 – “unified secondary polytechnic school”, USPS (единно средно политехтичесщо училище, ЕСПУ) with two degrees (10+2 years). In the second degree is given a certain professional preparation and the pupils participate in the production (manufacture) system.
- humanities

b. higher education
(statistics)
22 schools of higher education, 61 444 students, 100 000 university graduates (1961/1962).
26 schools of higher education (end of the 60s), 84 467 students (1965/1966) – 103 per 10 000. 70% - in technical, economic and agricultural schools. 160 000 university graduates. 2 000 subjects taught.
25 schools of higher education, 1 Academy for Social Sciences and Civil Administration, 6 High Military Schools, 1 Theological Academy (1975/1976).
Unified Centre for Mathematics and Mechanics (since 1971, created with an order of the Council of Ministers from December 30, 1970). The scholars of the Academy begin to read lectures at the universities and to be elected for members of University Departments (since 1972). Common Plans for Scientific Research of SU and the Academy (since 1973). The procedures of conferring academic and scholarly titles and degrees are performed by the specialized scientific councils at the unified centers (since 1972).
- Sofia University
(statistics)
Nearly 16 000 students in all educational forms (regular, corresponding) (1965), 15 000 (1971-1975), 11 000 (1979)
7 020 Bulgarian and 191 foreign students graduated (1972-1975).
836 regular staff (120 professors, 150 associate professors, 405 assistants, 161 lecturers). 269 part-time staff (27 professors, 15 associate professors). 261 PhD, 41 Doctor of Sciences. Average age – 43.5 years. 758 men, 347 women (mid-70s).
Every year (by the end of the 60s) the University academic staff publishes more than 1000 works (20% abroad).
In the period 1972-1975 387 university manuals and handbooks are published.

* general
Evening education (since 1961).
Scientific and Research Sector (Научно-изследователски сектор, НИС) – a form of “connection of the scientific work with economic problems and social practice” (since the beginning of the 60s; stopped after 1971/72, restored 1978).
The Faculty of Biology, Geology and Geography is divided into Faculty of Biology (specialties biology (8 Departments) and biochemistry with microbiology (3 Departments)) and Faculty of Geology and Geography (1962-1963). In 1963 the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics is separated into three new faculties – Mathematics (with 7 Departments until 1969; later – Mathematics and Mechanics), Physics (8 Departments), Chemistry (7 Departments). Department of Library Studies, Bibliography and Scientific Information (1968).
During the 60s 30% of the staff in the Faculty of Physics obtained their PhD (Candidate) degrees in USSR, 25% made long-period postdoctoral studies there.
Special meeting of the Academic Council of SU (July 1, 1966). Criteria for promotion (a “Candidate” and “Doctor of Sciences” degree is necessary for obtaining the titles of “associate professor” and “professor”).
Student scientific circles, connected with the Departments – 68 with 1019 participants (1960), 88 with 1380 participants (1971); student constructor bureaus at the Faculties of Mathematics and Physics.
Discussions of the Academic Council on the rights of the University in granting scholarly degrees and titles (1971-1972).
In the 9 Unified Centers (since 1972) is included 90% of the “scientific potential of SU”.
Plan for cooperation with the Moskow State University (1973).
From the beginning of the academic 1978/1979 is started the teaching according to new curricula (elaborated in the Departments and approved by the Faculty Councils and the Academic Council).
Rectors: Dimitar Kosev (1962-1968); Pantalei Zarev (1968-1972); Blagovest Sendov (1973-1979); Ilcho Dimitrov (1979-1981).
* humanities
The Department of Modern General History is divided into two parts: Early Modern and Modern General History and, on the other hand, Old and Medieval History (1964). A Department of Psychology is constituted (1964). Arabian Philology (1964). The Faculty of Philology is divided into two: Faculty of Slavic Philology and Faculty of Western Philology (1965). Departments in the Faculty of Western Philology: English, Roman (French and Italian), Spanish (since 1961), German, Classical, Eastern Languages , Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages. At the Faculty of Slavic Philology: Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian; Department of Journalism (separated from the Faculty of Slavic Philology in 1974, after becomes Faculty); Department of General and Indo-European Linguistics and Department of Theory of Literature (196…).
The Faculty of Philosophy and History is divided into the Faculty of History and Faculty of Philosophy (1972). Faculty of Education and Faculty of Primary and Pre-school Education are created (mid-70s).
Council for Post-Graduate Qualification, presided by a vice-Rector (1971). Center of Qualification of Teachers (1975, branch of SU).

- other universities and schools of higher education
* general
Institute for Foreign Students (1963). School of Higher Education at the Ministry of the Interior (…), Central Trade Union School.
Veliko Turnovo University “Cyril and Methodius” (since…). Higher Pedagogical Institute in Turnovo. Higher Pedagogical Institute in Shumen.
* humanities
c. elsewhere
- Academy of Sciences
* general
* humanities
In April 1972 with a decision of the Council of Ministers is created the United Centre for Study of History and Training of Specialists (Единен център за наука и подготовка на кадри по история) along with another 8 Centers for Science and Training of Specialists with Higher Education (Центрове за наука и подготовка на кадри с висше образование). The Center of History includes the Institute of History, the Institute for Balkan Studies, the Institute of Archeology, the Ethnographic Institute and the Thracology Institute – all of them parts of the Academy. With the same decision is created a separated Faculty of History in the Sofia University.
* Institutes:
The Institute for Bulgarian History is renamed in the early 60-ies in Institute for History.
The Thracology Institute was founded as a new part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with a decision of the Council of Ministers from 12.05.1972. His director from the beginning and until 1992 was Prof. Al. Fol.
- associations
d. financing
e. different events (projects, discussions) in (or concerning) the institutions for education and research (fields and way of research and study)
T. Zhivkov criticize the old position of the Party about the existence of a separate Macedonian nation (March 1963)

2. Educational and study policy
a. internal
- legislation
The education is based on the achievements of contemporary science and Marxist-Leninist ideology (Constitution of 1971, art…)
Act for Scholarly Degrees and Titles (197…)
- discussions and decisions of Government and Party leadership
Decree of the CC of the BCP and the Council of Ministers for “Further Development of Bulgarian Science and Increasing of its Role in the Socialist Conctruction” (1960).
The Political Bureau of the CC took decision “for improving the teaching and study of ideological subjects in schools of higher education” (January 1966) (История на Софийския Университет. SU Press, 1988. p. 320)
Decision of IX Congress of BCP for “introduction of computing technologies in different branches of people`s economy” (1966).
Discussion of “the problems of the reform and further development of education” on the Plenum of the CC of the BCP (July 30-31, 1969)(!) (About the significance of the Plenum for the higher education see University of Sofia “St Kliment Ohridski”. The first 120 years. “St Kliment Ohridski” UP, 2008. p. 191-195. According to Popov and Pironkova (Николай Попов, Мария Пиронкова. Образователната система в България. С., 2007) the decisions are labeled “basic principles of the reform of educational system in PR of Bulgaria” (p. 72). At the same place they say that “the educational system after the Act of 1959 is ruled not through laws, but through party documents – decisions of the Plenums of CC of BCP” (p. 72, 74 ))
Plenum of the CC of the BCP on the “problems of science and higher education” (September 1971).
Decree 153 of the Council of Ministers (April 21, 1972) on the integration of science and higher education.
Plenum of the CC of the BCP on the scholarly Unified Centres (the integration of SU and the Academy) (1972) (!)
Decision of the PB of the CC and of the Bureau of the Council of Ministers (July 11, 1978 - the term of education at the universities becomes 5 years) and November 11, 1978 (the nomenclature and the characteristics of the university specialties are approbated) (See Университетът. SU Press, 1999. p. 315).
On a session of the Presidency of the Committee of Culture on 30 May 1978, presided by L. Zhivkova, is adopted the proposed with a reporting paper by the first vice-President of the Committee Prof. d-r Al. Fol “Structure of the National Scientific and Methodic Center for Training and Qualification of Cadres for Ancient Languages and Cultures ”(!) (Central State Archive (ЦДА), ф. 405, оп. 9, а. е. 206, л. 1-17. Report and decision of the session of the Presidency of the CC, 30 May 1978 г. Cited in Еленков. Неосъщественият…)
Plenum of the CC of the BCP (July 1979), where are adopted “Thesises for Development of the Educational Work in PR of Bulgaria” (For a comment see Попов, Пиронкова, p. 72-76. Also Университетът, p. 315).

- coordinating and controlling structures, different from the Ministry of Education
Every year 1/5 of the High Attestation Commission members are newly elected (University of Sofia…, p. 176).
The State Committee of Science and Technical Progress (end of 1962).
“Science and Education” section of the CC of the BCP.
9 Unified Centres (10 faculties of SU and 32 institutes, 13 laboratories and 2 independent sections of the Academy) (Университетът, p. 305). Not the University, but the specialized scientific counsels of the Unified Centre already have the authority to award university degrees (since 1972).
Committee of Culture (L. Zhivkova (the first Chairperson of the Committee) had around her a group of intellectuals, most of whom occupied important positions at state institutions, responsible for the education and the cultural politics in Bulgaria. It seems, that especially influential for the decisions concerning classical education was prof. Fol. For the activity of the circle regarding the general cultural policy some information could be found at the book of Iv. Elenkov Културният фронт… 2009).
- Ministry of Education (autonomy in decision-taking, individual role of some ministers )
Ministers: G. Ganev (1962-1968); St Vasilev (1968-1973); N. Stanev (1973-1977); D. Valcheva (1977-1979); Al. Fol (1979-1986)
- “movements”, awards
Movement for “Technical and Scientific Creation of the Youth” (since the second half of the 60s).
Introduction of the system of summer and autumn brigades in help of the agriculture (since the end of the 60s).
Dimitrov Prize – new regulations. The financial part – 60 000 lv. (5 times the average annual salary) (1960).

- instruments of promoting the Party`s ideology in the education (higher)
* ideological subjects (specialties, departments), schools
(statistics)
From 250 members of the staff, teaching ideological subjects at SU, 9 were professors, 27 associate professors, 1 doctor of Sciences, 65 PhD (148 with no degree)
The subject Scientific Communism is introduced in Sofia University (since 1962 or 1966?).
In 1959/1960 the Department of Foundations of Marxism-Leninism is transformed into the Department of History of the Communist Party of the USSR (in 1967 – Department of Scientific Communism). Department of History of USSR (…?)
Scientific Communism, Philosophy, Political Economy, History of the BCP became obligatory for all schools of higher education. History of the Communist Party of the USSR – obligatory for the students of History in SU, in Higher Pedagogical Institute in Turnovo, in the Political Faculty of the Military Academy “G.S. Rakovski” (since 1966).
In May 1974 the Rector Council adopts program for teaching of ideological disciplines until 1980.
Faculty for Preparation of Lecturers and Propagandists (SU, 1976). Laboratory for Investigation of Personality Development of Students and of Communist Upbringing of Young People (SU, 1976). University Methodical Center for Ideological Sciences (1979?).
Evening Party University (at SU) with four Faculties: Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, Actual Problems of Marxism and Leninism, Political Economy, Aesthetics (70s?).
Higher Party School (…?).
* Communist Party structures
Conference of the Party Committee of the University with theme: “The Class and Party Approach in the Selection, Promotion and Upbringing of the Cadres” (April, 1968)
Plenum of the PC of the University (March 1975) declares measures for raising the methodological qualification of the teachers in the ideological disciplines.
- conflicts and repressions, concerning (higher) educational and studies
Zh. Zhelev (the future President of the Republic) is expelled from the Party for criticizing Lenin`s definition of matter (1965). Sanctions against the assistants of philosophy Ivan Slavov and Asen Ignatov (1968).
Three students in history are sentenced to prison for protesting against the military actions in Czechoslovakia (1968)
Prof. R. Likova is prohibited temporarily from teaching because of positive review about works of a dissident writer (G. Markov) (April 1972 with a decision of the Academic Council).

b. external
- events
Summer Seminar for Bulgarian Language and Literature for Foreign Scholars of Bulgarian and Slavic Studies (since 1963).
First Regional Congress on Balkan Studies in Sofia (August 26-September 1, 1966 ) (T. Zhivkov, R. Maellot - Director General of UNESCO were present) (intention of promoting Bulgaria as centre of the studies on the region)

3. Ideology of the education
a. researches on education (published in the period)
b. principles and aims of education (constitution, laws, Party documents)

V. Political situation

1. Political system
Bulgaria is a socialist state of the people from towns and villages led by the working class. The BCP is the guiding force (Constitution of 1971, art…). The system is called “developed socialism”.
a. legislation
Constitution, adopted on May 18, 1971.
b. discussions and decisions of Government and Party leadership
Plenum of the CC on ideological issues (spring 1962). VIII (November 1962), IX (1966), X (April 1971), XI congress of BCP (March-April 1976)
c. structure
d. principles

2. Governments

3. Party leadership

4. State policy
a. internal
b. external
The cooperation and mutual assistance with USSR is guiding principle of external policy (Constitution of 1971, preamble)

5. Events (projects, discussions), which probably influenced the state policy and the political system
a. internal
Unsuccessful preparation of coup d'etat against T. Zhivkov (1965)
b. external
Berlin (1958-1962) and Caribbean (October 1962) crises. L. Brezhnev becomes leader of USSR after Khrushchev (1964). China`s first nuclear weapon`s test on October 16, 1964. Events in Czechoslovakia (March-August 1968)

VІ. Geopolitical and geo-historical debates

- in the 60s and early 70s the possibility of joining USSR was not excluded
- ethnicity of the population in medieval Bulgaria; status of the lands of contemporary Bulgaria at the time of first invasion (VII c.)

VII. Religious situation

1. Bulgarian Orthodox Church

On 25 July 1971 the Metropolitan of Lovech Maxim is elected for Patriarch of Bulgaria (eparchies, parishes)
2. other Christian denominations
Status of Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant societies
3. other religions
Muslims and Jews
4. Events (projects, discussions), which probably influenced the religious situation
At the third assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in India in 1961 the BOCh was accepted as a member (BOCh left the organization in 1998).

Addendum

Detailed CVs of alive classicists
CV (until end-seventies) of the classicists, scholars and public figures, who influenced directly or indirectly the classical studies. With book-titles and terms in the original language.

***

This text was discussed at the Focus Group Fellow Seminar Classical education and classical studies in Bulgaria - The period of 1959-1979
at Collegium Budapest - June 3, 2010

Classical Studies in Bulgaria 1945-1995: Methodological Questions

2010-06-28T13:20:00.003+03:00

І . Starting conditions (February 1938 - December 1943)

(According to the amendments of the Education Act from 11.02. 1938 the gymnasiums could be only classical and “real” (to have classical and “real” sections, without the form of semi-classical).
In December 1943 began the first heavy air-raids of American and British aviation against Sofia)

Department of Classical Philology at Sofia University - 2 professors (Greek and Latin philology), 1 extraordinary professor and 1 assoc. professor, and 2 assistants (Greek and Latin philology) (15-20 students for year); maybe part-time lecturers for languages
Other Departments - 2 professors (1 full, 1 associate) in ancient history, 2 professors (1 full, 1 associate) in classical archeology
SU - 7 faculties, 306 teaching staff, 5 184 students (1938)
5 schools of higher education, about 10 000 students (1939). 8 schools of higher education
with 25 180 enrolled students in 1944/1945
1 assoc. prof. in ancient history in the Bulgarian University at Scopje.
(All 5 full professors were graduates of German universities (Leipzig, Jena, Freiburg, Gottingen); the docents and assistants graduated (with 1 exception) in Sofia)
Researchers in museums (number?); teachers in secondary education (several decades – in the classical sections of the gymnasiums)
26 full secondary schools (gymnasiums) – 11 male (real and classical), 6 female, 9 pedagogical (5 male, 4 female) (1906/1907); 40 full secondary schools (1911/1912; On 9 Sept. 1944 - 135 full secondary schools (14 in Sofia).
Association of the Friends of Classical Culture in Bulgaria (since 1930)
Journal for classical culture “Prometheus” (1937-1943, 6 booklets yearly)

Translations of ancient authors (titles) - 1879-1918 – 129 (3.3 for year); 1919-1944 – 157 (6,3 for year)

Population of Bulgaria - 3 154 375 (1887), 7 029 349 (1946)

II. Development

1. 1944-1959

Department of Classical Philology – 8 persons teaching staff (1 woman)
Other Departments - 5 persons teaching staff at least (0 women)
ideological subjects (specialties, departments), schools (since 1948 – official ideologisation of higher education)
SU – 10 faculties, 5-years term of study; 6 806 students (5 014 regular, the other - correspondent) (1954/1955)
Academy of Sciences with Institutes for Archeology, Bulgarian History – 8 researches with classical background at least (2 w)
no classics in secondary education (private foreign schools are closed; since 1950 - gymnasiums with teaching of Russian, English, French and German languages)

Political assessment of all University teaching staff. On 3 November 1944 the Bill for lustration of persons, accused for fascist activity, is published. It provided administrative (definitive or temporary) firing for persons, whose fascist activity is proved.
30 academics lost positions (6 from the Faculty of History and Philology) permanently, 27 temporarily (Nov. 22, 1944 – Jan. 1945); 80 academics from all higher education institutions and 495 teachers from the lower schools were fired. Altogether 1378 students expelled (beginning 1949); almost 500 expelled in autumn 1956 - their students rights were restored in 1957-1958.
5 professors, ministers during the War, were sentenced to death (2 of them in absentia)

Education, based on Marxism-Leninism (Bill of H.Ed., 1947).

Population - 7 613 709 (1956)

Translations of ancient authors (titles) - 16 (1,1 for year)

2. 1959-1979

Department of Classical Philology – 8 persons teaching staff (3 w)
Other Departments - 7 persons teaching staff at least (1 w)
SU - 836 permanent teaching staff (120 professors, 150 associate professors, 405 assistants, 161 lecturers) and 269 part-time staff (3 times more than 1938).
Average age – 43.5 years; 758 men, 347 w (mid-70s.)
25 schools of higher education + 1 Academy for Social Sciences and Civil Administration, 6 High Military Schools, 1 Theological Academy (1975/1976) (3 times more than 1943)
Academy of Sciences with Institutes for Archeology, Bulgarian History, Balkan studies, Thracology – 5 researches at least (2 w)

gymnasiums (the NGDEK) - 7 teachers at least (2 w)
The National Gymnasium for Ancient Languages and Cultures was opened in the autumn of 1977 (admission of around 80 pupils (40b/40g) for year, 90% finish successfully)
137 gymnasiums, 127 full secondary schools (different from the gymnasiums); 246 technicums, 184 СПТУ; 9 art schools (1969/1970) (5 times more than 1943)

“The education is based on the achievements of contemporary science and Marxist-Leninist ideology” (Constitution of 1971)
Plenums with Decrees and Decisions of the CC of the BCP for “Development of the Education and Science”.
250 from the 1105 teachers in SU teach ideological subjects

Translations of ancient authors (titles) - 25 (1,3 for year)

Population - 8 727 771 (1975)
(Between 1887 and 1975 the population was increasing with nearly 62 000 for year)

3. 1979-1995

Department of Classical Philology – 12 persons teaching staff (7 w)
Other Departments - 8 persons teaching staff at least (3 w)
other universities - 3 persons teaching staff at least (2 w)
Academy of Sciences with Institutes for Archeology, Balkan studies, Thracology, Philosophy, Cyril and Methodius` Studies - 5 researches at least (4 w)
30 schools of higher education with 14 409 teachers and 101 507 students (1985/1986) (10 times more students than 1939); 31 611 scientists and teaching staff
SU - 15 561 students (10% of them foreign); 1627 teaching staff (37 % associate professors and professors) (1988). 23 233 students (18 360 financed by the state). 1295 foreign students from 48 countries (end of 1995)
gymnasiums (the NGDEK) - 13 teachers at least (8 w)

Reduction in the teaching load of the staff by 30% (decree of the Government, end of 1984).
Abolition of the ideological subjects (Marxism, Scientific Communism, History of the BCP, Political Economy – December, 1989)
Bill for the autonomy of the universities (January 1990)
Students declare the elections from July 11, 1990 “not fair” and occupy the central building of the University (until July 9). Second occupation (Nov. 5 – Dec. 17, 1990). Third occupation (Nov. 1993 – March 1994).

Translations of ancient authors (titles) - 62 (44 before 1989 – 4,4 for year; 18 after – 3.0 for year)

Population - 8 992 000 (1989) – 28% increase from 1946; 8 384 700 in 1995 and 7 563 710 in 2010 (16 % decrease from 1989)
Around 800 000 emigrated between 1990 and 2005; 53.4 % of the new-born children in 2009 were born out of wedlock (in comparison with 12,4 % in 1990)
(it is possible to conclude that Bulgaria as a whole did not benefit from the change in 1989)

Conclusions:

* Continuous growing of number of permanent work-places for classicists in SU and appearance of jobs in the Academy and other universities (from 11 in 1943 to 28 in 1995) (numbers are approximate)
* Abolishment of classical education in secondary schools in the mid-1940s; restoration after 30 years (Sofia-based)
* Abrupt break of classical researches after WW II; very slow growing until 1977; fast development until 1989; considerable retardation after that (number of translations as criterion).
* Feminisation of higher classical education and studies (seems irreversible) (The increase of the women`s share in all academic/research staff with classical background goes like that: 0% (1943), 14% (1959), 30% (1979), 57% (1995); only in the Dept. of Classical philology at SU - 64% (2010)
* Open (officially introduced and regulated by state) marxist-leninist ideologisation of humanities during 42 years (1947-1989). It is unclear how to judge the negative and positive effects on the education and society.
* Dramatic increase of the number of secondary and higher educational institutions, teaching staff, students – 200-900% (3-10 times) between 1939 and 1989.
* Severe demographic and social crisis after 1989. After an increase of population with nearly 30 % for 40 years, there is decrease with nearly 15 % for 20 years (and continues to decrease).

III. The question of basic premises and limitations in conceiving what happened

1. Limitations

a. typical for the collegium of classicists

- limited experience in historical research (especially in modern/recent history) (Methods; working in archives, interviewing people)
- limited or no experience in political debates (also: widespread lack of articulated and reasonably founded personal political convictions (different from usual patriotic, cosmopolitan, leftist or rightists feelings)
- unsufficient orientation in the problems of modern history and of contemporary social and political situation

b. other

- decrease of number of people, having personal experience of the period (inevitable) (personal experience hinders gross ideologisation of historical events)

2. Premises

a. about classical studies

- the situation of classical studies all over the world

i. autonomy of classics
(Are classics a autonomous discipline like psychology or linguistics? Or they are a temporally/geographically and culturally confined section of history like “medieval studies”? Or helping and technical discipline in the way archival science is? Or a sine qua non like anesthesiology for surgery? That are questions about the place of classics in the system of humanities)

ii. “classics” is West-European discipline.
(No concept of classics (not to speak about Roman classics) in Byzantium. Classics began as a Latin-based study of pre-Christian literature. They gave ground for a secular (religiously independent) humanitarian education, unknown in Orthodox East before XVIII c.)
The role of German conception for classics. “Full classics”. The completely educated classicist – “a perfect European”
(German neo-humanists of the XIX c. lived in a non-catholic and non-Romance language society. They saw classics as fundamental European humanitarian education based equally on Latin (Roman) and Greek pre-Christian traditions and regarded this education as potentially normative for all humanity. In this way they were preparing the image of Germany as a possible cultural and political unifier of the West and the East of Europe, following the example of the bilingual and Greek-educated Empire of ancient Rome and pretending, with much better chances for success, for global leadership. Despite the greatness of this project, it had little to tell to the public in countries like Bulgaria, whose ambitions were incomparably smaller; and where this model of Classics was introduced from abroad, together with the whole system of University higher education. Unexpectedly, the German model found a ground in the old and vital concern of Orthodox Bulgaria to stay at almost equal ecclesiastical distance between Roman Catholics and the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople).

iii. decline of Europe as basis of states-superpowers. Classics in the age of post-colonialism
(Classics with their eurocentrism are now excluded as possible ground for global humanitarian education. In USA the classical languages were far less popular than in Europe even before WW I. After WW II classics are already a discipline of local (strictly academic, maybe commercial) interest, analogical to Egyptology, Mesopotamian Studies, Aztec and Maya studies, Comparative Mythology, Astrology, History of Magic and Superstition, Extraterrestrial Intellect and others. Although having their place in academic curricula, classics are conceived by the broader public more and more as a kind of innocent private hobby. Even academics are not far from such an estimation of the role of their discipline. Hence the unhealthy atmosphere in some departments, characterized with an attitude to the work what I call with regret “infantilisation of classical studies”)

b. (former) communist countries

- different local (cultural, geopolitical etc.) context in the countries under investigation

i. old differences
(linguistic: Slavic-other; geopolitical: west-oriented/dominated – Russia-oriented/dominated; religious: catholic-protestant-orthodox)

ii. how can they be politically together?
Today Central, East- and South-East Europe is a constellation of national states emerged in the last 200 years as result of the rivalry of central Europe/west Europe/USA versus Russia. This rivalry contributed to the successive disintegration (sometimes to the appearance as well) of several large states as: Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungary, Germany (temporary), Soviet Union, Yugoslavia.
Europe, after being temporary divided in Moskow-controlled and USA-controlled areas (that is the so-called communist period, 1945-1989) developed geopolitically after 1989 as a USA-supported (or controlled) federation (EU). In the time to come this project depends almost entirely on the steadiness of USA world-leading role.

- how to discuss communism?

i. possibility of moral judgement. (Principle of right moral judgement- “look first at yourself”)
(It is preferable for the historian to condemn rather ideas/attitudes than persons. There are people, who were adult in the considered times, but speak so as if they had lived somewhere else. The younger, who blame the conformism of their fathers without seeing anything wrong today and around themselves, could be suspected in conformism as well)

ii. past and contemporary communism
(The opinion that the communism as a political practice already belongs to the past, became widespread after 1989. That is true only for the Soviet version of communism. In fact, nearly 20% of world population lives today in communist states (because of the PR of China, a communist state and candidate for world-leadership), meanwhile the population of USA and EU together does not exceed 12% of world population)

iii. alternatives of communism. Conceiving contemporaneity
(How to name the contemporary political regime in the former soviet-communist countries, and moreover, in Europe and the “West”? The word “democracy” covers fundamental differences. Do we have one and the same regime in Kosovo, Czech Republic and Russia? How similar are the political systems of Switzerland, Bulgaria, EU and USA?)

c. more general

- the question of historical truth

i. necessity of a general view to history and human nature
(Even if somebody had passed much of his/her life in a communist country he cannot evaluate this reality without conception of today`s political and ideological situation. Everybody would have preferred the better accounts/explanations than the worse. But “better” - when said about a statement - means “true”. The proposal for gathering many different accounts/explanations and just leaving them to exist together is satisfactory only in case we are not interested in truth.
The communism is a global secular movement, relying on the imposed material equality and demanding abstention from unnecessary consummation. It pretended to have understood the principles of human life (biological, social and spiritual) and hopes to offer security for the majority and justice for all.
Many people, including honest scientists and intellectuals believe in these dogmas because of the “technological fallacy”. They suppose that if man is able to control a machine, more powerful than him, he should be able control himself too. If humanity is able to construct radio, airplane, rockets, atomic bomb, it should be able to construct a just society as well)

- the Evil

**

This text was discussed at the Conference
Gnothi Seauthon - Classics and Communism
The History of the Studies on Antiquity in the Context
of the Local Classical Tradition of the Socialist
Countries (1944/45-1989/90).
supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation
Collegium Budapest - June 24-26, 2010

Classical Heritage and Classical Education in Bulgaria

2009-12-12T12:59:00.006+02:00

Reasons for the Development of the Classical Studies in the past 150 years

1. Geographical and Political Conditions for the Classical Studies

Diplomatic contacts between Bulgarian rulers and the East Roman Empire had been established around the middle of the VII-th century, before the settlement of the Bulgarians to the south of the Danube. The attitude of the Empire to the Bulgarians of khan Asparuh after the year 680 AD is similar to its attitude to the Goths, who had settled in Thrace 300 years earlier – during the reign of the emperor Valent. In the same pattern as the Goths prior to them, the Bulgarians are converted into the Christianity and translate the Scripture and the liturgical books in a language, different from Latin and Greek. In the year 800, during the pagan ruler of Bulgaria khan Krum, the city of Serdica is included in the boundaries of the state.
The boundaries of the present day Bulgarian state are settled at a distance shorter than 200 km from then Constantinople and less than 100 km – from the North Coast of the Aegean Sea. Sofia yet, as the ancient Serdica is renamed since the XIVth century, is still situated on the main road, which connects Constantinople (Istanbul) and the East with the cities of Western Europe.

2. Ancient monuments in the Bulgarian lands

Monuments from the religion, the everyday life and the art of the Thracians had been discovered and till the present day continue to appear on the territory of the contemporary Bulgarian state and mainly to the South of Stara Planina (Haemus mountain). The most remarkable among them are the tombs (of the rulers), with their decoration (wall paintings, sculpture) and different objects for everyday and ritual application. Very few inscriptions in a Thracian language have survived and their decoding is quite uncertain.
The archeological findings with Greek and Graeco-Roman origin are extremely abundant. Among them, the epigraphic texts posses the greatest importance for the classical philology, and the majority of them are from the Hellenistic and the Roman epoch.

3. The Christianity as state religion

Soon after the middle of the IXth century, during the reign of Boris the First, the Christianity becomes state religion of Bulgaria. Before that, Boris has maintained for several years correspondence both with the Episcope of Rome (The Pope Nikolai the First) and Constantinople (Patriarch Photius). Finally, the Patriarchy of Constantinople is preferred and it becomes the Church-mother of the Bulgarian Church. One of the main reasons, which had led the prince (kniaz) Boris-Michael to this choice, had been the possibility for gaining independence for the Bulgarian Church, similar to the independence of the other Eastern Patriarchies, an independence never to be offered by the Roman Bishop.
But in the communication with Byzantium the impediments had been inescapable, as well. The reason is that the Bulgarian state then had been not only politically independent, but also territorially too close to Constantinople. The establishment of an independent Bulgarian Church, governed by a principal, who on his part could ordain Bishops among other people, would help this country to become a Christian empire, analogous to and competitive with Byzantium. Several centuries after that Russia had transformed into such an empire, but it hasn’t been a rival to Byzantium.

4. The translations from Greek to Slavonic

However, since the reign of Boris-Michael onwards Bulgaria remains connected with the Orthodox East. Boris succeeds to manage the already existing conditions for liturgical service in Slavonic language. Only one decade before his baptism the brothers Cyril and Method, born in Thessalonica, elaborate an alphabet for Slavonic language and make translations of the liturgical texts of an utmost necessity. After the unsuccessful end of their mission to Moravia some of their disciples are welcomed in Bulgaria and are put in charge of the governance of the educational centers in the both ends of the country – Pliska and Ohrid. The aim is to assure the liturgy in Slavonic all over the country and the empowering of the Slavonic language as a competitor of the Greek.

(I’m keeping your attention on these events, because without some knowledge about them it is impossible to understand the way in which the classical antiquity is regarded in Bulgaria till the present day)

The politics of Boris have been continued by his son Simeon and his grandson Peter. So, for less than 100 years the dialect of the South Slavs becomes the official one and the only one of the Bulgarian state and Church.
During this period a part of the ancient literary heritage, preserved in Byzantium, is transmitted by translations in Bulgaria. This activity is interrupted during the XI and XII centuries, but after that is resumed again during the XIII and XIV centuries. Thus testimonies about the ancient history appear in Bulgarian through the chronicles beginning with Malalas (VI c.) till Manasses (XII c.), separate writings – The Jewish War by Joseph, the Novel about Alexander, and also through numerous lives of the saints; testimonies about the mythology (the Troyan parable, inserted in the chronicle of Manasses); the philosophy of nature (The Hexaemeron by John Exarchus, based on the Greek Hexaemera, mostly on the one, written by St. Basil the Great); the rhetorics (the Poetical figures by George Choiroboscus). Another source for the antiquity are the translations of the works of the early fathers of the Church (Athanasius the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom).

5. The Ottoman rule XV-XVIII century

The bigger part of this literature is forgotten or entirely lost during the first centuries of the Ottoman invasion. The Bulgarian Church, which regained its independence in 1235 year, joins again the patriarchy in Constantinople, which is a condition for the limitation of the liturgical services in Slavonic.
The possibilities for a Christian and Mundane education are almost the same all over the East, with the exception of Russia. On the territory of Bulgaria and in the other parts of the Orthodox East as well no universities are established. The printing of books penetrates slowly.
(the first book printed in Bulgarian appears relatively early – in 1519, in Venice. But till 1801 the overall number of the known printed books in Bulgarian is only 91)
The Bulgarians preserve the language and the liturgy mostly in the monasteries which are small but numerous. They have primary schools in them – by the end of the XVIII century they are no less than 100.

6.

Since the beginning of the XIX century, the national education starts its development. An impulse for this undoubtedly is received by the autonomy and the independence of the neighboring countries – Greece, Serbia, Romania, in some of which there are already universities. In the first half of the century the first Mundane manuals in Bulgarian for the primary education appear and the first secondary mundane schools with teaching/instruction in Bulgarian are founded (Gabrovo, 1835). The number of the Bulgarian books multiplies, although almost all of them are printed beyond the boundaries of contemporary Bulgaria (Constantinople, Thessalonica, Smyrna, Bucharest, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna). The first publishing house for Bulgarian books on the territory of contemporary Bulgaria appears in the 60s in Ruse.
But translations from the works of ancient authors are seldom published. Between 1801 and 1878 the number of the books printed in Bulgarian is approximately 1800; but no more than 15 from them contain translations from ancient authors.

The middle of the XIX century is the time of the Bulgarian-Greek ecclesiastic conflict, well-known in the Orthodox world, and the subsequent separation of the Bulgarian Church from the Constantinople Patriarchate.
This conflict and the establishment of the Bulgarian Uniat Church (which will be mentioned in a while), are made possible after the announcement of the edict for religious tolerance of the Sultan Abdul Medzhid from 1856, known as Hati Humayun.
The Bulgarian Autocephaly, although recognized by some local Orthodox churches, remains unaccepted by Constantinople till 1945. This conflict impedes enormously the Bulgarian-Greek relations, which have always been tensed, and probably cooperates for the limitation of the interest to the Greek antiquity. On the other hand the instruction and education in Latin before the Liberation unavoidably is perceived by the Bulgarians as connected with the activity of the Roman-Catholic Church, which is activated noticeably after the middle the XIX century and leads to the establishment of the Uniat Church (1861). However then the majority of the Bulgarians, being Orthodox, have negative attitude to the Unia and to Catholicism in general. This might have impeded the spread of the Latin language education, especially before the Liberation.

7.

The specialized classical education in Bulgaria appears with the creation of the independent Bulgarian principality. (The Classical gymnasium opens doors on the 7th of January 1879. In a report written by the headmaster of the school it is noted especially that The Latin language is a new subject, which never had been taught in Bulgaria so far).
In 1888 a State University is created – the present day Sofia University. The teaching of classical languages and philology is done initially in the Faculty of History and Philology. In 1921 the specialty Classical philology is opened with two departments – in Greek and Latin Philology. Since then till the Second World War a number of students, varying from 10 to 15 receive yearly their instruction there.
We can judge the intensity of the classical studies during this period on the basis of the number of the published translations. For approximately 60 years – from the Liberation till 1947 - almost 300 publications appear with Bulgarian translations of ancient authors. This number includes not only the separate publications, but also the ones in anthologies and periodicals.

8.

In the first years after the Second World War the changes are significant. The teaching of the classical languages in the secondary schools is put to an end. The University itself is in a difficult situation. The contacts with the western universities are interrupted. The teaching obligations of the professors are doubled and the demand for permanent physical presence on the working place is introduced. The new-coming scholarly literature is drastically reduced or its incoming is stopped altogether.
One of the results from all these is the fact, that for the period from 1947 till 1955 there are only two new publications with translations from a classical language (these are the Antigone by Sophocles and the De rerum natura by Lucretius).
The Department in Classical philology is kept under the title Institute for classical philology. By the way, several years after that the traditional division of the university in faculties is restored. There is a Party organization created in the department, but there are no purges of teaching faculty in an active age.
Since 1956 there are attempts for the return to the classical education and studies. The number of the translations gradually increases and for the last 12 years (of the socialist period from 1978 till 1989) it is several times bigger than the number for the period of the previous 30 years (from 1956 till 1977 – 21 publications, from 1978 till 1989 – 51 publications). This is an increase in a proportion 5.5 compared to the period 1947-1977.
After 1989 there is already decline in the number – the translations between 1990 and 2001 are 31. In the same time it should be noted that the production from 1977 till 1989 (which gives 4.3 publications per year) is lesser than the one for the 60 years from 1878 till 1947 ( approximately 5 per year).
However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that a great number of the translations, published before 1947 are translations of parts of the texts, not of the entire works. After 1956 full translations of the classical authors began to appear:
all the works or almost the entirety of the works of the epics were translated (for the first time Hesiod and new translation of Homer);
the Greek drama (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander); the Greek classical historiography (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon); the Roman poetry from the time of August (Vergil, Horace, Ovidius); some Roman historians (Caesar, Sallust, Suetonius). Also – Plato in 4 volumes, Quintilian, Greek and Roman novels.
(After 1989 full translations of Polybios and Pausanius were added to them, the majority of the letters and the treatises of Seneca, a fifth volume of Plato and many of the treatises of Aristotle, which were not translated till then. Out of print are the first 6 volumes of the translation of Livius).
A full edition of the Greek epigraphic monuments, found on the territory of the country was made, and an edition of some of the Latin inscriptions.
The classical education gained a lot from the creation of a National Gymnasium for ancient languages and cultures (1977). Since then between 80 and 90 pupils are enrolled yearly, who study there intensively Latin (for 5 years) and Greek (for 4 years).
Also, in the 70-ties the Institute for Thracian studies was created as a branch of BAS. There is also a separate Archeological institute with a museum (AIM) and there is a section in Classical archeology.
The classical languages nowadays are studied in almost all humanitarian faculties of the SU, and also in the universities of Turnovo, Plovdiv and Blagoevgrad.

***

An abridged version of this text was read at the Conference
Gnothi seauton! Classics and Communism. The History of the Studies on Antiquity in the Context of the Local Classical Traditions in Socialst Countries 1944/45-1989/90
Warsaw, 5-6 Dec. 2009

Josephus Flavius and the Eastern Borders of Roman Europe

2008-09-23T20:43:00.001+02:00

І. Pompey and the Jewish Sabbath

The 63 B.C. the famous Roman general Pompey took by force the city of Jerusalem and entered the Holy of the Holies in the Temple: which, as everybody then knew, was not permitted not only to pagans as Pompey himself, but to anybody – except of the High Priest once in the year. Pompey won easily one or two battles against a Judean army, but was stopped by the mighty wall around this part of Jerusalem, where was the Temple. According to most historians of the time – including the best informed among them, Josephus – Pompey was helped by the condition, that the Jews did not fight in the day of Sabbath.
Josephus tells us about this in the following way:
And indeed it was a hard thing to fill up that valley, by reason of its immense depth, especially as the Jews used all the means possible to repel them from their superior situation; nor had the Romans succeeded in their endeavours, had not Pompey taken notice of the seventh day, on which the Jews abstain from all sorts of work on a religious account and raised his bank, but restrained his soldiers from fighting on those days; for the Jews only acted defensively on Sabbath days. But as soon as Pompey had filled up the valley, he erected high towers upon the bank, and brought those engines, which they had fetched from Tyre near to the wall, and tried to batter it down… but the towers on this side of the city made very great resistance, and were indeed extraordinary both for largeness and magnificence (Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews, I, 7, 3)
Besides, Pompey had been amazed by the perseverance and imperturbability, with which the Jewish priests had performed the worship service, although they had been directly attacked. Even when they had been beaten to death, they hadn’t ceased to execute the demanded sacred deeds with the greatest punctuality, precisely in the same manner, in which they would have done it in peaceful time.
Josephus says the following:
Now here it was that, upon the many hardships which the Romans underwent, Pompey could not but admire not only at the other instances of the Jews' fortitude, but especially that they did not at all intermit their religious services, even when they were encompassed with darts on all sides; for, as if the city were in full peace, their daily sacrifices and purifications, and every branch of their religious worship, was still performed to God with the utmost exactness. Nor indeed when the temple was actually taken, and they were every day slain about the altar, did they leave off the instances of their Divine worship that were appointed by their law; for it was in the third month of the siege before the Romans could even with great difficulty overthrow one of the towers, and get into the temple (Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews, I, 7, 4).
The Jews had become famous with this way of self-sacrifice centuries before that. So, one of the Macedonian rulers of Egypt had taken Jerusalem in the beginning of the third century B.C., taking advantage, like Pompey, of the Sabbath.
Now it came to pass, that when Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, came into this city with his army, that these men, in observing this mad custom of theirs, instead of guarding the city, suffered their country to submit itself to a bitter lord; and their law was openly proved to have commanded a foolish practice. This accident taught all other men but the Jews to disregard such dreams as these were, and not to follow the like idle suggestions delivered as a law, when, in such uncertainty of human reasonings, they are at a loss what they should do (Agatharchides, a pagan historian cited by Josephus in Against Apion, I, 22).

ІІ. Jerusalem and the boundaries of pagan Europe

Pompey had captured Jerusalem, but treated the population mercifully and did not sack the treasures in the Temple. 133 years later Titus not only had conquered the town, but also burnt the Temple and murdered the majority of its population. Half a century after that Hadrian built at this place a huge pagan temple and even changed the name of the city – he called it Elia. This had never happened to any of the cities, with which Rome had conflicts. Carthago, one hundred years after its demolition, had been rebuilt by the Romans themselves – and with the same name. It is obvious, that Jerusalem had been considered as an irreconcilable enemy – a city, which cannot be associated, but only deleted.
These events might serve as the basis of reflection on the question: where are the boundaries of Roman Europe. The expansion of Rome, as well as of the Hellenistic kingdoms, governed by the successors of Alexander, was marked by the acceptance of its deities. Imperial Rome was there, where was erected the statues of her emperors. The Jews probably never would rebelled – neither against the emperorors nor before them against Hellenistic kings as Antioch the IV – if the state of the conquerors had not menaced their divine service. But it had been inevitable the pagan state to be a threat, because the Roman religion, especially after the deification of the emperors from Caesar onwards, is a cult to the Roman state, and the Jews refused to serve other gods besides their Lord. So, thus, this conflict, which at first glance seems to be “only religious”, turns out to be a political one, as well. Because, the essence of the worship of the Roman deities is the welfare of the state, and therefore the one, who refuses to worship them, opposes the state. According to the Jews, however, a state should exist in order to protect the divine service; and a state, which cannot secure the service to the one God, is useless. That’s why the Romans as statesmen inevitably will persecute a worship, which rejects their deities, and the Jews will reject a state, which imposes to them a cult, incompatible with their worship.
After the demolition of the Temple in front of the Roman state emerges a problem, in a certain degree similar to the previous one – the problem with the Christians. From the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan is evident that the Christians had been persecuted mainly as a political community, although they hadn’t perceived themselves like that. The reason had been the same – the refusal to participate in the state cult. Thus the emperor had been confronted by people, who despite of the fact that they are Roman citizens, actually live in the empire as its opponents – because they do not obey and refuse to obey the orders of the state, in the cases when these commands refer to a matter of faith.
How this conflict could be resolved? Either the state had to give up its own cult, or the Christians to be exterminated – as believers or physically. The first had happened and so the Roman state had disappeared as pagan state. Thus, the policy of the emperors – external and internal – of imposing the state cult forcibly had been in vain; the cult had disappeared.

ІІІ. Pope Benedict XVI on the spiritual situation of our times

Recently, (10 days ago in Paris) pope Benedict XVI, made the following public statement:
The word 'idol' comes from the Greek and means 'image,' 'figure,' 'representation,' but also 'ghost,' 'phantom,' 'vain appearance.' An idol is a delusion, for it turns its worshipper away from reality and places him in the kingdom of mere appearances."
"Now," the Pope asked, "is this not a temptation in our own day - the only one we can act upon effectively? The temptation to idolize a past that no longer exists, forgetting its shortcomings; the temptation to idolize a future which does not yet exist, in the belief that, by his efforts alone, man can bring about the kingdom of eternal joy on earth!" In the same way, "have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even for knowledge, diverted man from his true destiny?" (Pope: Shun the worship of modern idols http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13794)
On my part, personally, without being a Roman Catholic, I could agree with the words of the pope. The European Union does not have any clear politics on the question of the religion. It is considered, that religion is just “one of the many problems” and maybe not the most important one, and moreover, that it is “a personal matter of everybody”.
However, it is possible religion to abide in a place, where it is imperceptible for the majority of the people. The head of the Catholic Church already says that today the attitude of the people to the market is in fact a religious attitude. The supreme values are the welfare, conceived as the satisfaction of all kinds of desires in one’s personal life and the equity in front of the law.
But the same values had been the pride of Rome, as well. Its deities had been the deities of the well-being and success. The myths narrate that they are creatures, who try to satisfy their own bodily desires and striving for power and honour. Today the boundaries of Europe again reach to the limit, from where on the satisfaction of various desires in one’s personal life is not a supreme value. Beyond this limit, however, occur changes in the public life, as well.

***

The aim of this text is to pay attention to the indifference of the European leaders towards the question of religion in the European union. In fact, there is an implicit hostility against the view, which claims that the goods of this world are temporary and therefore insignificant. The example of the Roman Empire shows that neither the welfare, nor the violence could resist a faith, which points to the supreme good as external from this world.
Contemporary Europe, deprived from a religion of its own, will be left open to the increasing pressure from Islam – and this will be not so much external, as internal pressure. This may lead to violence, probably exerted by xenophobic groups in the beginning, but tolerated by some governments. Then this might lead to the break of the union. Then the leadership will be taken either by professed neo-pagans, similar to the Italian and German rulers 70 years ago, either by countries, whose rulers will be the first to declare, that the state exist for the sake of the religion.

Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews

2008-07-31T21:39:00.003+03:00

Antiquities of the Jews, XI, 8.1 - XII, 1.1

1. ABOUT this time it was that Philip, king of Macedon, was treacherously assaulted and slain at Egae by Pausanias, the son of Cerastes, who was derived from the family of Oreste, and his son Alexander succeeded him in the kingdom; who, passing over the Hellespont, overcame the generals of Darius's army in a battle fought at Granicum. So he marched over Lydia, and subdued Ionia, and overran Caria, and fell upon the places of Pamphylia, as has been related elsewhere...
3. About this time it was that Darius heard how Alexander had passed over the Hellespont, and had beaten his lieutenants in the battle at Granicum, and was proceeding further; whereupon he gathered together an army of horse and foot, and determined that he would meet the Macedonians before they should assault and conquer all Asia. So he passed over the river Euphrates, and came over Taurus, the Cilician mountain, and at Issus of Cilicia he waited for the enemy, as ready there to give him battle. Upon which Sanballat was glad that Darius was come down; and told Manasseh that he would suddenly perform his promises to him, and this as soon as ever Darius should come back, after he had beaten his enemies; for not he only, but all those that were in Asia also, were persuaded that the Macedonians would not so much as come to a battle with the Persians, on account of their multitude. But the event proved otherwise than they expected; for the king joined battle with the Macedonians, and was beaten, and lost a great part of his army. His mother also, and his wife and children, were taken captives, and he fled into Persia. So Alexander came into Syria, and took Damascus; and when he had obtained Sidon, he besieged Tyre, when he sent all epistle to the Jewish high priest, to send him some auxiliaries, and to supply his army with provisions; and that what presents he formerly sent to Darius, he would now send to him, and choose the friendship of the Macedonians, and that he should never repent of so doing.

1. NOW when Alexander, king of Macedon, had put an end to the dominion of the Persians, and had settled the affairs in Judea after the forementioned manner, he ended his life. And as his government fell among many, Antigonus obtained Asia, Seleucus Babylon; and of the other nations which were there, Lysimachus governed the Hellespont, and Cassander possessed Macedonia; as did Ptolemy the son of Lagus seize upon Egypt. And while these princes ambitiously strove one against another, every one for his own principality, it came to pass that there were continual wars, and those lasting wars too; and the cities were sufferers, and lost a great many of their inhabitants in these times of distress, insomuch that all Syria, by the means of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, underwent the reverse of that denomination of Savior, which he then had. He also seized upon Jerusalem, and for that end made use of deceit and treachery; for as he came into the city on a sabbath day, as if he would offer sacrifices he, without any trouble, gained the city, while the Jews did not oppose him, for they did not suspect him to be their enemy; and he gained it thus, because they were free from suspicion of him, and because on that day they were at rest and quietness; and when he had gained it, he ruled over it in a cruel manner. Nay, Agatharchides of Cnidus, who wrote the acts of Alexander's successors, reproaches us with superstition, as if we, by it, had lost our liberty; where he says thus: "There is a nation called the nation of the Jews, who inhabit a city strong and great, named Jerusalem. These men took no care, but let it come into the hands of Ptolemy, as not willing to take arms, and thereby they submitted to be under a hard master, by reason of their unseasonable superstition." This is what Agatharchides relates of our nation.

Иосиф Флавий. Иудейскиe древности. Перевод Г.Г. Генкеля. "Крон-пресс", 1996. Репринт от Санкт-Петербург, 1900.
http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/JOSEPHUS.HTM

The Maccabees 1

2008-07-21T15:06:00.003+03:00

The First Book of the Maccabees

1:1-48
ΚΑΙ ἐγένετο μετὰ τὸ πατάξαι ᾿Αλέξανδρον τὸν Φιλίππου τὸν Μακεδόνα, ὃς ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τῆς γῆς Χεττειείμ, καὶ ἐπάταξε τὸν Δαρεῖον βασιλέα Περσῶν καὶ Μήδων καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ᾿ αὐτοῦ πρότερος ἐπὶ τὴν ῾Ελλάδα. 2 καὶ συνεστήσατο πολέμους πολλοὺς καὶ ἐκράτησεν ὀχυρωμάτων πολλῶν καὶ ἔσφαξε βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς· 3 καὶ διῆλθεν ἕως ἄκρων τῆς γῆς καὶ ἔλαβε σκῦλα πλήθους ἐθνῶν. καὶ ἡσύχασεν ἡ γῆ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὑψώθη, καὶ ἐπήρθη ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ. 4 καὶ συνήγαγε δύναμιν ἰσχυρὰν σφόδρα καὶ ἦρξε χωρῶν καὶ ἐθνῶν καὶ τυράννων, καὶ ἐγένοντο αὐτῷ εἰς φόρον. 5 καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὴν κοίτην καὶ ἔγνω ὅτι ἀποθνήσκει. 6 καὶ ἐκάλεσε τοὺς παῖδας αὐτοῦ τοὺς ἐνδόξους τοὺς συντρόφους αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ νεότητος καὶ διεῖλεν αὐτοῖς τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ ἔτι ζῶντος αὐτοῦ. 7 καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ᾿Αλέξανδρος ἔτη δώδεκα καὶ ἀπέθανε. 8 καὶ ἐπεκράτησαν οἱ παῖδες αὐτοῦ ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ τόπῳ αὐτοῦ. 9 καὶ ἐπέθεντο πάντες διαδήματα μετὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὸν καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτῶν ὀπίσω αὐτῶν ἔτη πολλὰ καὶ ἐπλήθυναν κακὰ ἐν τῇ γῇ. 10 καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἐξ αὐτῶν ρίζα ἁμαρτωλὸς ᾿Αντίοχος ᾿Επιφανής, υἱὸς ᾿Αντιόχου βασιλέως, ὃς ἦν ὅμηρα ἐν τῇ Ρώμῃ· καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἐν ἔτει ἑκατοστῷ καὶ τριακοστῷ καὶ ἑβδόμῳ βασιλείας ῾Ελλήνων.
13 καὶ προεθυμήθησάν τινες ἀπὸ τοῦ λαοῦ, καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα, καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν ποιῆσαι τὰ δικαιώματα τῶν ἐθνῶν. 14 καὶ ᾠκοδόμησαν γυμνάσιον ἐν ῾Ιεροσολύμοις κατὰ τὰ νόμιμα τῶν ἐθνῶν 15 καὶ ἐποίησαν ἑαυτοῖς ἀκροβυστίας καὶ ἀπέστησαν ἀπὸ διαθήκης ἁγίας καὶ ἐζευγίσθησαν τοῖς ἔθνεσι καὶ ἐπράθησαν τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρόν.
47 καὶ οἰκοδομῆσαι βωμοὺς καὶ τεμένη καὶ εἰδωλεῖα καὶ θύειν ὕεια καὶ κτήνη κοινὰ 48 καὶ ἀφιέναι τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτῶν ἀπεριτμήτους, βδελύξαι τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν ἐν παντὶ ἀκαθάρτῳ καὶ βεβηλώσει...

6:1-2
ΚΑΙ ὁ βασιλεὺς ᾿Αντίοχος διεπορεύετο τὰς ἐπάνω χώρας καὶ ἤκουσεν ὅτι ἐστὶν ᾿Ελυμαΐς ἐν τῇ Περσίδι πόλις ἔνδοξος πλούτῳ ἀργυρίῳ τε καὶ χρυσίῳ· 2 καὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τὸ ἐν αὐτῇ πλούσιον σφόδρα, καὶ ἐκεῖ καλύμματα χρυσᾶ καὶ θώρακες καὶ ὅπλα, ἃ κατέλιπεν ἐκεῖ ᾿Αλέξανδρος ὁ Φιλίππου βασιλεὺς ὁ Μακεδών, ὃς ἐβασίλευσε πρῶτος ἐν τοῖς ῞Ελλησι.

7:1
ΕΤΟΥΣ ἑνὸς καὶ πεντηκοστοῦ καὶ ἑκατοστοῦ ἐξῆλθε Δημήτριος ὁ τοῦ Σελεύκου ἐκ Ρώμης καὶ ἀνέβη σὺν ἀνδράσιν ὀλίγοις εἰς πόλιν παραθαλασσίαν καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἐκεῖ.

8:1-19
ΚΑΙ ἤκουσεν ᾿Ιούδας τὸ ὄνομα τῶν Ρωμαίων, ὅτι εἰσὶ δυνατοὶ ἰσχύϊ καὶ αὐτοὶ εὐδοκοῦσιν ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς προστιθεμένοις αὐτοῖς, καὶ ὅσοι ἂν προσέλθωσιν αὐτοῖς, ἱστῶσιν αὐτοῖς φιλίαν, 2 καὶ ὅτι εἰσὶ δυνατοὶ ἰσχύϊ. καὶ διηγήσαντο αὐτῷ τοὺς πολέμους αὐτῶν καὶ τὰς ἀνδραγαθίας, ἃς ποιοῦσιν ἐν τοῖς Γαλάταις, καὶ ὅτι κατεκράτησαν αὐτῶν καὶ ἤγαγον αὐτοὺς ὑπὸ φόρον, 3 καὶ ὅσα ἐποίησαν ἐν χώρᾳ ῾Ισπανίας τοῦ κατακρατῆσαι τῶν μετάλλων τοῦ ἀργυρίου καὶ τοῦ χρυσίου τοῦ ἐκεῖ· 4 καὶ κατεκράτησαν τοῦ τόπου παντὸς τῇ βουλῇ αὐτῶν καὶ τῇ μακροθυμίᾳ, καὶ ὁ τόπος ἦν μακρὰν ἀπέχων ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν σφόδρα, καὶ τῶν βασιλέων τῶν ἐπελθόντων ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς ἀπ᾿ ἄκρου τῆς γῆς ἕως συνέτριψαν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐπάταξαν ἐν αὐτοῖς πληγὴν μεγάλην, καὶ οἱ ἐπίλοιποι διδόασιν αὐτοῖς φόρον κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτόν· 5 καὶ τὸν Φίλιππον καὶ τὸν Περσέα Κιτιέων βασιλέα καὶ τοὺς ἐπῃρμένους ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς συνέτριψαν αὐτοὺς ἐν πολέμῳ καὶ κατεκράτησαν αὐτῶν· 6 καὶ ᾿Αντίοχον τὸν μέγαν βασιλέα τῆς ᾿Ασίας τὸν πορευθέντα ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς εἰς πόλεμον ἔχοντα ἑκατὸν εἴκοσιν ἐλέφαντας καὶ ἵππον καὶ ἅρματα καὶ δύναμιν πολλὴν σφόδρα, καὶ συνετρίβη ὑπ᾿ αὐτῶν, 7 καὶ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν ζῶντα καὶ ἔστησαν αὐτοῖς διδόναι αὐτόν τε καὶ τοὺς βασιλεύοντας μετ᾿ αὐτὸν φόρον μέγαν καὶ διδόναι ὅμηρα καὶ διαστολὴν 8 καὶ χώραν τὴν ᾿Ινδικὴν καὶ Μηδίαν καὶ Λυδίαν καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν καλλίστων χωρῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ λαβόντες αὐτὰς παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἔδωκαν αὐτὰς Εὐμένει τῷ βασιλεῖ· 9 καὶ ὅτι οἱ ἐκ τῆς ῾Ελλάδος ἐβουλεύσαντο ἐλθεῖν καὶ ἐξᾶραι αὐτούς, 10 καὶ ἐγνώσθη ὁ λόγος αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἀπέστειλαν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς στρατηγὸν ἕνα καὶ ἐπολέμησαν πρὸς αὐτούς, καὶ ἔπεσον ἐξ αὐτῶν τραυματίαι πολλοί, καὶ ᾐχμαλώτευσαν τὰς γυναῖκας αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ τέκνα αὐτῶν καὶ ἐπρονόμευσαν αὐτοὺς καὶ κατεκράτησαν τῆς γῆς αὐτῶν καὶ καθεῖλον τὰ ὀχυρώματα αὐτῶν καὶ κατεδουλώσαντο αὐτοὺς ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης· 11 καὶ τὰς ἐπιλοίπους βασιλείας καὶ τὰς νήσους, ὅσοι ποτὲ ἀντέστησαν αὐτοῖς, κατέφθειραν καὶ ἐδούλωσαν αὐτούς, 12 μετὰ δὲ τῶν φίλων αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ἐπαναπαυομένων αὐτοῖς συνετήρησαν φιλίαν· καὶ κατεκράτησαν τῶν βασιλειῶν τῶν ἐγγὺς καὶ τῶν μακράν, καὶ ὅσοι ἤκουον τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῶν, ἐφοβοῦντο ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν. 13 ὅσοις δ᾿ ἂν βούλωνται βοηθεῖν καὶ βασιλεύειν, βασιλεύουσιν· οὓς δ᾿ ἂν βούλωνται, μεθιστῶσι· καὶ ὑψώθησαν σφόδρα. 14 καὶ ἐν πᾶσι τούτοις οὐκ ἐπέθετο οὐδεὶς αὐτῶν διάδημα καὶ οὐ περιεβάλοντο πορφύραν ὥστε ἁδρυνθῆναι ἐν αὐτῇ· 15 καὶ βουλευτήριον ἐποίησαν ἑαυτοῖς, καὶ καθ᾿ ἡμέραν ἐβουλεύοντο τριακόσιοι καὶ εἴκοσι βουλευόμενοι διαπαντὸς περὶ τοῦ πλήθους τοῦ εὐκοσμεῖν αὐτούς· 16 καὶ πιστεύουσιν ἑνὶ ἀνθρώπῳ τὴν ἀρχὴν αὐτῶν κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν καὶ κυριεύειν πάσης τῆς γῆς αὐτῶν, καὶ πάντες ἀκούουσι τοῦ ἑνός, καὶ οὐκ ἔστι φθόνος οὐδὲ ζῆλος ἐν αὐτοῖς. 17 καὶ ἐπέλεξεν ᾿Ιούδας τὸν Εὐπόλεμον υἱὸν ᾿Ιωάννου τοῦ ᾿Ακκὼς καὶ ᾿Ιάσονα υἱὸν ᾿Ελεαζάρου καὶ ἀπέστειλεν αὐτοὺς εἰς Ρώμην στῆσαι αὐτοῖς φιλίαν καὶ συμμαχίαν 18 καὶ τοῦ ἆραι τὸν ζυγὸν ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν, ὅτι εἶδον τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν ῾Ελλήνων καταδουλουμένους τὸν ᾿Ισραὴλ δουλείᾳ. 19 καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν εἰς Ρώμην, καὶ ἡ ὁδὸς πολλὴ σφόδρα, καὶ εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὸ βουλευτήριον καὶ ἀπεκρίθησαν καὶ εἶπον·

10:1,48-56
ΚΑΙ ἐν ἔτει ἑξηκοστῷ καὶ ἑκατοστῷ ἀνέβη ᾿Αλέξανδρος ὁ τοῦ ᾿Αντιόχου ὁ ᾿Επιφανὴς καὶ κατελάβετο Πτολεμαΐδα, καὶ ἐπεδέξαντο αὐτόν, καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἐκεῖ. 2 καὶ ἤκουσε Δημήτριος ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ συνήγαγε δυνάμεις πολλὰς σφόδρα καὶ ἐξῆλθεν εἰς συνάντησιν αὐτῷ εἰς πόλεμον.
48 Καὶ συνήγαγεν ᾿Αλέξανδρος ὁ βασιλεὺς δυνάμεις μεγάλας καὶ παρενέβαλεν ἐξεναντίας Δημητρίου. 49 καὶ συνῆψαν πόλεμον οἱ δύο βασιλεῖς, καὶ ἔφυγεν ἡ παρεμβολὴ Δημητρίου, καὶ ἐδίωξεν αὐτὸν ὁ ᾿Αλέξανδρος καὶ ἴσχυσεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτούς. 50 καὶ ἐστερέωσε τὸν πόλεμον σφόδρα, ἕως ἔδυ ὁ ἥλιος, καὶ ἔπεσεν ὁ Δημήτριος ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ. 51 καὶ ἀπέστειλεν ᾿Αλέξανδρος πρὸς Πτολεμαῖον βασιλέα Αἰγύπτου πρέσβεις κατὰ τοὺς λόγους τούτους λέγων· 52 «᾿Επεὶ ἀνέστρεψα εἰς γῆν βασιλείας μου καὶ ἐκάθισα ἐπὶ θρόνου πατέρων μου καὶ ἐκράτησα τῆς ἀρχῆς, καὶ συνέτριψα τὸν Δημήτριον καὶ ἐπεκράτησα τῆς χώρας ἡμῶν 53 καὶ συνῆψα πρὸς αὐτὸν μάχην, καὶ συνετρίβη αὐτὸς καὶ ἡ παρεμβολὴ αὐτοῦ ὑφ᾿ ἡμῶν, καὶ ἐκαθίσαμεν ἐπὶ θρόνου βασιλείας αὐτοῦ· 54 καὶ νῦν στήσωμεν πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς φιλίαν, καὶ νῦν δός μοι τὴν θυγατέρα σου εἰς γυναῖκα, καὶ ἐπιγαμβρεύσω σοι καὶ δώσω σοι δόματα καὶ αὐτῇ ἄξιά σου». 55 Καὶ ἀπεκρίθη Πτολεμαῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς λέγων· «᾿Αγαθὴ ἡμέρα, ἐν ᾗ ἀνέστρεψας εἰς γῆν πατέρων σου καὶ ἐκάθισας ἐπὶ θρόνου βασιλείας αὐτῶν. 56 καὶ νῦν ποιήσω σοι ἃ ἔγραψας, ἀλλ᾿ ἀπάντησον εἰς Πτολεμαΐδα, ὅπως ἴδωμεν ἀλλήλους, καὶ ἐπιγαμβρεύσω σοι, καθὼς εἴρηκας».

11:12-19
12 καὶ ἀφελόμενος αὐτοῦ τὴν θυγατέρα ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν τῷ Δημητρίῳ καὶ ἠλλοτριώθη τῷ ᾿Αλεξάνδρῳ καὶ ἐφάνη ἡ ἔχθρα αὐτῶν. 13 καὶ εἰσῆλθε Πτολεμαῖος εἰς ᾿Αντιόχειαν καὶ περιέθετο τὸ διάδημα τῆς ᾿Ασίας· καὶ περιέθετο δύο διαδήματα περὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ, τὸ τῆς ᾿Ασίας καὶ Αἰγύπτου. 14 ᾿Αλέξανδρος δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς ἦν ἐν Κιλικίᾳ κατὰ τοὺς καιροὺς ἐκείνους, ὅτι ἀπεστάτουν οἱ ἀπὸ τῶν τόπων ἐκείνων. 15 καὶ ἤκουσεν ᾿Αλέξανδρος καὶ ἦλθεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν πολέμῳ. καὶ ἐξήγαγε Πτολεμαῖος τὴν δύναμιν καὶ ἀπήντησεν αὐτῷ ἐν χειρὶ ἰσχυρᾷ καὶ ἐτροπώσατο αὐτόν. 16 καὶ ἔφυγεν ᾿Αλέξανδρος εἰς τὴν ᾿Αραβίαν τοῦ σκεπασθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐκεῖ. ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς Πτολεμαῖος ὑψώθη. 17 καὶ ἀφεῖλε Ζαβδιὴλ ὁ ῎Αραψ τὴν κεφαλὴν ᾿Αλεξάνδρου καὶ ἀπέστειλε τῷ Πτολεμαίῳ. 18 καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς Πτολεμαῖος ἀπέθανεν ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ, καὶ οἱ ὄντες ἐν τοῖς ὀχυρώμασιν ἀπώλοντο ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὀχυρώμασι. 19 καὶ ἐβασίλευσε Δημήτριος ἔτους ἑβδόμου καὶ ἑξηκοστοῦ καὶ ἑκατοστοῦ.

12:5-22
5 Καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἀντίγραφον τῶν ἐπιστολῶν ὧν ἔγραψεν ᾿Ιωνάθαν τοῖς Σπαρτιάταις· 6 «᾿Ιωνάθαν ἀρχιερεὺς καὶ ἡ γερουσία τοῦ ἔθνους καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς καὶ ὁ λοιπὸς δῆμος τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων Σπαρτιάταις τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς χαίρειν. 7 ἔτι πρότερον ἀπεστάλησαν ἐπιστολαὶ πρὸς ᾿Ονίαν τὸν ἀρχιερέα παρὰ Δαρείου τοῦ βασιλεύοντος ἐν ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐστὲ ἀδελφοὶ ἡμῶν, ὡς τὸ ἀντίγραφον ὑπόκειται. 8 καὶ ἐπεδέξατο ᾿Ονίας τὸν ἄνδρα τὸν ἀπεσταλμένον ἐνδόξως καὶ ἔλαβε τὰς ἐπιστολάς, ἐν αἷς διεσαφεῖτο περὶ συμμαχίας καὶ φιλίας.
19 Καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἀντίγραφον τῶν ἐπιστολῶν, ὧν ἀπέστειλαν ᾿Ονίᾳ· 20 «῎Αρειος βασιλεὺς Σπαρτιατῶν ᾿Ονίᾳ ἱερεῖ μεγάλῳ χαίρειν. 21 εὑρέθη ἐν γραφῇ περί τε τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν καὶ ᾿Ιουδαίων, ὅτι εἰσὶν ἀδελφοὶ καὶ ὅτι εἰσὶν ἐκ γένους ῾Αβραάμ. 22 καὶ νῦν ἀφ᾿ οὗ ἔγνωμεν ταῦτα, καλῶς ποιήσετε γράφοντες ἡμῖν περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης ὑμῶν...

13:31-42
31 ῾Ο δὲ Τρύφων ἐπορεύετο δόλῳ μετὰ ᾿Αντιόχου τοῦ βασιλέως τοῦ νεωτέρου καὶ ἀπέκτεινεν αὐτὸν 32 καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ᾿ αὐτοῦ καὶ περιέθετο διάδημα τῆς ᾿Ασίας καὶ ἐποίησε πληγὴν μεγάλην ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. 33 καὶ ᾠκοδόμησε Σίμων τὰ ὀχυρώματα τῆς ᾿Ιουδαίας, καὶ περιετείχισε πύργοις ὑψηλοῖς καὶ τείχεσι μεγάλοις καὶ πύλαις καὶ μοχλοῖς καὶ ἔθετο βρώματα ἐν τοῖς ὀχυρώμασι. 34 καὶ ἐπέλεξε Σίμων ἄνδρας καὶ ἀπέστειλε πρὸς Δημήτριον τὸν βασιλέα τοῦ ποιῆσαι ἄφεσιν τῇ χώρᾳ, ὅτι πᾶσαι αἱ πράξεις Τρύφωνος ἦσαν ἁρπαγαί. 35 καὶ ἀπέστειλεν αὐτῷ Δημήτριος ὁ βασιλεὺς κατὰ τοὺς λόγους τούτους καὶ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ καὶ ἔγραψεν αὐτῷ ἐπιστολὴν
41 ἔτους ἑβδομηκοστοῦ καὶ ἑκατοστοῦ ᾔρθη ὁ ζυγὸς τῶν ἐθνῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ, 42 καὶ ἤρξατο ὁ λαὸς ᾿Ισραὴλ γράφειν ἐν ταῖς συγγραφαῖς καὶ συναλλάγμασιν ἔτους πρώτου ἐπὶ Σίμωνος ἀρχιερέως μεγάλου καὶ στρατηγοῦ καὶ ἡγουμένου ᾿Ιουδαίων.

14:16-20
16 Καὶ ἠκούσθη ἐν Ρώμῃ, ὅτι ἀπέθανεν ᾿Ιωνάθαν, καὶ ἕως Σπάρτης, καὶ ἐλυπήθησαν σφόδρα. 17 ὡς δὲ ἤκουσαν, ὅτι Σίμων ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ γέγονεν ἀντ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀρχιερεὺς καὶ ἐπικρατεῖ τῆς χώρας καὶ τῶν πόλεων τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ, 18 ἔγραψαν πρὸς αὐτὸν δέλτοις χαλκαῖς τοῦ ἀνανεώσασθαι πρὸς αὐτὸν φιλίαν καὶ τὴν συμμαχίαν, ἣν ἔστησαν πρὸς ᾿Ιούδαν καὶ ᾿Ιωνάθαν τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ. 19 καὶ ἀνεγνώσθησαν ἐνώπιον τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἐν ῾Ιερουσαλήμ. 20 καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἀντίγραφον τῶν ἐπιστολῶν, ὧν ἀπέστειλαν οἱ Σπαρτιάται· «Σπαρτιατῶν ἄρχοντες καὶ ἡ πόλις Σίμωνι ἱερεῖ μεγάλῳ καὶ τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις καὶ τοῖς ἱερεῦσι καὶ τῷ λοιπῷ δήμῳ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων ἀδελφοῖς χαίρειν.

15:15-24
15 Καὶ ἦλθε Νουμήνιος καὶ οἱ παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐκ Ρώμης ἔχοντες ἐπιστολὰς τοῖς βασιλεῦσι καὶ ταῖς χώραις, ἐν αἷς ἐγέγραπτο τάδε· 16 «Λεύκιος ὕπατος Ρωμαίων Πτολεμαίῳ βασιλεῖ χαίρειν. 17 οἱ πρεσβευταὶ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων ἦλθον πρὸς ἡμᾶς, φίλοι ἡμῶν καὶ σύμμαχοι, ἀνανεούμενοι τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς φιλίαν καὶ συμμαχίαν, ἀπεσταλμένοι ἀπὸ Σίμωνος τοῦ ἀρχιερέως καὶ τοῦ δήμου τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων· 18 ἤνεγκαν δὲ ἀσπίδα χρυσῆν ἀπὸ μνῶν χιλίων. 19 ἤρεσεν οὖν ἡμῖν γράψαι τοῖς βασιλεῦσι καὶ ταῖς χώραις ὅπως μὴ ἐκζητήσωσιν αὐτοῖς κακὰ καὶ μὴ πολεμήσωσιν αὐτοὺς καὶ τὰς πόλεις αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν χώραν αὐτῶν καὶ ἵνα μὴ συμμαχήσωσι τοῖς πολεμοῦσιν αὐτούς. 20 ἔδοξε δὲ ἡμῖν δέξασθαι τὴν ἀσπίδα παρ᾿ αὐτῶν. 21 εἴ τινες οὖν λοιμοὶ διαπεφεύγασιν ἐκ τῆς χώρας αὐτῶν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, παράδοτε αὐτοὺς Σίμωνι τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ, ὅπως ἐκδικήσῃ ἐν αὐτοῖς κατὰ τὸν νόμον αὐτῶν». 22 Καὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ἔγραψε Δημητρίῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ καὶ ᾿Αττάλῳ, ᾿Αριαράθῃ καὶ ᾿Αρσάκῃ 23 καὶ εἰς πάσας τὰς χώρας καὶ Σαμψάμῃ καὶ Σπαρτιάταις καὶ εἰς Δῆλον καὶ Μύνδον καὶ Σικυῶνα καὶ εἰς τὴν Καρίαν καὶ εἰς Σάμον καὶ εἰς τὴν Παμφυλίαν καὶ εἰς τὴν Λυκίαν καὶ εἰς ῾Αλικαρνασσὸν καὶ εἰς Ρόδον καὶ εἰς Φασηλίδα καὶ εἰς Κῶ καὶ εἰς Σίδην καὶ εἰς ῎Αραδον καὶ εἰς Γόρτυναν καὶ Κνίδον καὶ Κύπρον καὶ Κυρήνην. 24 τὸ δὲ ἀντίγραφον αὐτῶν ἔγραψαν Σίμωνι τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ.

http://st-takla.org/pub_Deuterocanon/Deuterocanon-Apocrypha_El-Asfar_El-Kanoneya_El-Tanya__8-First-of-Maccabees.html
http://www.apostoliki-diakonia.gr/bible/bible.asp?contents=old_testament/contents_MakkavaionA.asp&main=makkavaionA&file=21.8.htm

to be mentioned

2008-07-15T22:26:00.002+03:00

1. The Apology of Aristides
2. A Plea for the Christians by Athenagoras the Athenian
3. Justin Martyr
4. Tatian. Address to the Greeks
5. Hermias the Philosopher
6. Theophilus of Antioch
7. Hippolytus of Rome. The Refutation of all Heresies
8. Clement of Alexandria
9. Gregory Thaumaturgus
10. Origen
11. Eusebios of Caesarea. Praeparatio and Historia
12. Theodoret of Cyrus
13. Gregory of Nyssa

...

ascetics, desert Fathers

...

14. Patriarch Photius... and the orthodox authors until the Fall of Constantinople

...

Annex -
the Bulgarian orthodox authors: 9th-19th cent.

Bibliography

2008-07-15T22:18:00.002+03:00

I. Books

1. Sources
a. Originals
Saint Basil. Aux jeunes gens. Texte etabli et traduit par F. Boulenger. "Les belles lettres", 1965.
b. Translations
Василий Велики. Шестоднев и други беседи. Превод Росен Тенев. "Народна култура", 1999.
Беседа 22. К юношамъ о том, как пользоваться языческими сочиненiями. В: Творения Василiя Великаго. Ч.ІV. Москва, 1993 (1846).
Григорий Богослов. Слово 5. Второе обличительное на царя Иулиана. В: Григорий Богослов. Собрание творений. Т. І. "Харвест"-"Аст", 2000.
Йоан Златоуст. Към враждуващите против тези, които привличат към монашески живот. В: Св. Иоан Златоуст. Творения. Славянобългарски манастир "Св. Вмчк Георги Зограф", Света гора, Атон. 2007

2. Secondary

II. Sites

1. Sources
a. Originals
Basilii Magni Sermo de legendis libris gentilium, sive Ad adolescentes. Quomodo possint ex gentilium libris fructum capere. PG 31, 564-590
Clementis Alexandrini Philosophorum apud Graecos successio. PG 8, 758-768
Gregorii Nazianzeni Contra Julianum imperatorem II. PG 35, 663-719
Iohannis Chrysostomi Adversus Oppugnatores Eorum Qui Monasticam Vita Inducunt. PG 47, 319-386

b. Translations
- St Basil
http://www.ellopos.com/study/default.asp?h=http://www.ccel.org/p/pearse/morefathers/basil_litterature01.htm
- Clement of Alexandria
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.iv.i.xiv.html
- St Gregory
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_nazianzen_3_oration5.htm

2. Secondary
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm)

Gregory Nazianzen, Invective II Against Julian

2008-07-15T14:48:00.004+03:00

Contra Julianum imperatorem II (PG 35, 663-719)

Pagan Historians; Mythology and Oracles

5. What will those gentlemen say of these events-they who are wise, as this world goes, and make a fine show of their own cause, smoothing down their flowing beard and trailing before our eyes that elegant philosophic mantle! Reply to me for thyself, thou writer of long discourses, that dost compose incredible stories and gapest up at the skies, telling lies about things celestial, and weaving out of the movements of the stars, people's nativities and predictions of the future! Tell me of those stars of thine, the Ariadne's Crown, the Berenice's Hair, the lascivious Swan, the violent Bull! or, if thou pleasest, tell me of thine Ophiuchus, or of thy Capricorn, or of thy Lion, or all the rest that thou hast discovered for a bad end and made them into gods in constellations! Where dost thou find this cycle in thy science, where the Star that of old moved towards Bethlehem out of the East, that leader and introducer of thy own Wise Men! I, too, have something to tell from the heavens: that Star declared the presence of Christ: this Crown is that of the victory of Christ!

8... None of these things does he seem to have considered when he engaged without reflection in his schemes: and whilst his Romans were still convulsed and ill-disposed towards him on account of the persecution, to covet a stranger's empire and to be a Salmoneus, making thunder out of a drum, having his eyes fixed upon the Trajans and Hadrians of former times, (persons whose caution was no less admirable than their bravery,) he did not think of the Carus,8 and the Valerian who paid the penalty of their inconsiderate rashness ("not to insult misfortune," as the tragedian says) in the territories of Persians, and were destroyed in the middle of their success.

11. For a man, one of no little consideration amongst the Persians, following the example of. that Zopyrus employed by Cyrus in the case of Babylon, on the pretence that he had had some quarrel, or rather a very great one and for a very great cause, with his king, and, on that account very hostile to the Persian cause, and well disposed towards the Romans, thus addresses the emperor: "Sire, what means all this, why do you take such rotten measures in so important a matter?

13. Up to this point, such is the universal account; but thenceforward, one and the same story is not told by all, but different accounts are reported and made up by different people, both of those present at the battle, and those not present; for some say that he was hit by a dart from the Persians, when engaged in a disorderly skirmish, as he was running hither and thither in his consternation; and the same fate befell him as it did to Cyrus, son of Parysatis, who went up with the Ten Thousand against his brother Artaxerxes, and by fighting inconsiderately threw away the victory through his rashness. Others, however, tell some such story as this respecting his end: that he had gone up upon a lofty hill to take a view of his army and ascertain how much was left him for carrying on the war; and that when he saw the number considerable and superior to his expectation, he exclaimed, "What a dreadful thing if we shall bring back all these fellows to the land of the Eomans!" as though he begrudged them a safe return. Whereupon one of his officers, being indignant and not able to repress his rage, ran him through the bowels, without caring for his own life. Others tell that the deed was done by a barbarian jester, such as follow the camp, "for the purpose of driving away ill humour and for amusing the men when they are drinking." This tale about the jester is borrowed from Lampridius, who gives it as one of the many current respecting the death of Alexander Severus. The "Historia Augusta," a recent compilation, was then in everybody's hands. At any rate, he receives a wound truly seasonable (or mortal) and salutary for the whole world, and by a single cut from his slaughterer he pays the penalty for the many entrails of victims to which he had trusted (to his own destruction); but what surprises me, is how the vain man that fancied he learnt the future from that means, knew nothing of the wound about to be inflicted on his own entrails! The concluding reflection is for once very appropriate: the liver of the victim was the approved means for reading the Future, and it was precisely in that organ that the arch-diviner received the fatal thrust.

15... So they agreed to these terms, so disgraceful, and so unworthy of the hand of Romans, to sum up the whole in one word; of the blame of which convention if anyone acquits the late and charges the present emperor, he is, in my opinion, but an ignorant critic of what has happened, for the crop is not due to the reaper, but to its sower, nor the conflagration to him that is unable to extinguish it, but to the incendiary. And the remark of Herodotus about the tyranny at Samos may be appropriately quoted, "that Histiaeus stitched the shoe, but Aristagoras put it on," meaning him that had received the succession from the man who had first gotten it.

20. What shall I say of his revisals and alterations of sentences, frequently changed and upset at midnight, like the tides? For my fine fellow thought proper to play the judge, making everything his own out of vanity. But perhaps by blaming him for very trifling things I shall be thought to disparage very important matters through others inconsiderable; nevertheless, it must be owned that such conduct is not deserving of the Elysian Fields, nor of the glory of a Rhadamanthus in the next world, a lot which those of the same fraternity and set claim for him. One thing in his conduct I have to admire. Many of his former companions and acquaintances, principally from the schools in Asia, he summoned to him with all haste, as though about to do wonderful things for them, as he excited them to hope when they remembered his fine promises. |103 But when they were arrived, 'twas the saying, "the deceits of counters and the illusions of dreams," for some he befooled in one way, some in another, for there were whom he entertained at table, and drank to, with much bawling out of "My friend," and after all sent them about their business disappointed, not knowing whom to blame the most-him for the deception, or themselves for their credulity.

31... No more shall gluttonous and sinful demons have dominion; no more shall the creature be dishonoured under pretence of honour, being worshipped in the place of God! Throw down thy Triptolemuses, and thy Eleusis, and thy foolish Dragons: shame thyself of the books of thine oracular Orpheus: accept the gift of the season that covers thy nakedness; and if these things be but fables and fictions, I will reveal to thee the mysteries of Night!

32. No more does the Oak speak; no more does the Cauldron give oracles; no more is the Pythia filled with I know what, save lies and nonsense. Again the Castalian Fount has been silenced and is silent, and becomes no |longer an oracular stream, but an object of ridicule: again a voiceless statue is Apollo: again is Daphne a shrub bewailed in fable: again is thy Bacchus a catamite, with a train of drunkards tied to his tail, as well as thy grand mystery, the Phallus; and a god abandoning himself to the beautiful Prosymnus: again Semele is struck with lightning: again Vulcan is lame (though quick to catch an adulterer), and a god grimed with soot, although a famous artificer, and the Thersites of Olympus: again Mars is a prisoner for adultery, with all his terrors, and frights, and tumults, and gets wounded through his audacity: again Venus is one, formerly a harlot, to her shame, and the procuress of shameful copulations: again Minerva is a maid, and yet brings forth a dragon: again Hercules is mad, or rather has ceased to be mad: again out of lasciviousness and impurity, Jove, teacher, and sovereign of the gods, turns himself into all sorts of things; and though able to draw up all the gods together with all living things, is himself drawn down by none: again Jupiter's tomb is shown in Crete. If I see thy god of gain, thy god of speech, thy president of games, I close my eyes and run past thy god out of shame for the exhibition: thou mayest, for ought I care, adore the tension of his-speech (shall I call it), and his money-bag. One thing alone of them all is respectable-namely, the honours paid amongst the Egyptians to the Nile by the catamite, also those to Isis, and the gods of Mendes and the Apis bulls, and the other things thou dost sculpture or paint, composite and monstrous creatures, thy ludicrous Pan, thy Priapus, thy Hermaphroditus; and the gods who castrate themselves, or tear themselves to pieces. These subjects, however, I will leave to the stage, and to those |113 who decorate them with pomps and ceremonies, and I will conclude my discourse with an exhortation.

38. I pass over the inspired, and our own denouncements, and the punishments that, according to us, are in store in the world to come: turn, pray, to thine own stories that are accepted, not by the poets only, but also by people who were philosophers; I mean thy Pyriphlegethons, Cocyti, and Acherons, wherewith they punish wickedness, Tantalus, Tityos, Ixion. Julian, your king of this fraternity, shall be reckoned amongst these-nay, at the head of them all, according to my calculation and definition-though he be not tormented with thirst whilst up to his chin in a lake; nor fearing (as Tragedy pleases) the rock overhanging his head, continually pushed away, continually rolling back; nor revolving along with the whizzing wheel; nor torn by vultures in his liver, never coming to an end, always renewed-whether all this be truth, or fable foreshowing the truth |in fictions-but we shall see with what, and what sort of torture he will be punished, and how much more severely than all the rest-if, indeed, punishments and retributions be adjudged according to the measure of offences.

39. Here is "a keepsake for thee in return for a kick,"28 thou best and wisest of men! (to address thee in thy own words); this do we offer thee, we that were excluded from the use of words, according to thy mighty and wonderful legislation; thou seest that we were not destined to be silenced for ever, or be condemned to speechlessness by thy decrees, but to utter a free voice demonstrative of thy folly. For neither is there any means of holding-in the cataracts of Nile, which tumble down from Ethiopia upon Egypt, nor yet the solar beam, even though it may be veiled for a little space by the snowfall, nor to tie the tongue of Christians from exposing to ridicule thy religion. These words Basil and Gregory send thee, "those opponents and counterworkers of thy scheme," as thou wast wont to call them and persuade others to do the same-doing us honour by what thou didst threaten us with, and moving us all the more to piety-persons who being well known for their life, discourse, and mutual affection, and whom thou wast acquainted with ever since our common residence in Greece, thou didst treat with the honour the Cyclops paid Ulysses; thou didst keep us in reserve as the last victims for the persecution, and didst probably design as a thankoffering for victory to thy own demons (a great and splendid one, in truth!) in case we should get thee back returning triumphant from Persia; or else them didst hope, in thy infatuation, to drag us along with thee into the same abyss as thyself!

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_nazianzen_3_oration5.htm

Clement of Alexandria, the Stromata

2008-07-10T15:56:00.005+03:00

Philosophorum apud Graecos successio (PG 8, 758-768)

XIV. Succession of Philosophers in Greece

The Greeks say, that after Orpheus and Linus, and the most ancient of the poets that appeared among them, the seven, called wise, were the first that were admired for their wisdom. Of whom four were of Asia—Thales of Miletus, and Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, and Cleobulus of Lindos; and two of Europe, Solon the Athenian, and Chilon the Lacedæmonian; and the seventh, some say, was Periander of Corinth; others, Anacharsis the Scythian; others, Epimenides the Cretan, whom Paul knew as a Greek prophet, whom he mentions in the Epistle to Titus, where he speaks thus: “One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. And this witness is true.” You see how even to the prophets of the Greeks he attributes something of the truth, and is not ashamed, when discoursing for the edification of some and the shaming of others, to make use of Greek poems. Accordingly to the Corinthians (for this is not the only instance), while discoursing on the resurrection of the dead, he makes use of a tragic Iambic line, when he said, “What advantageth it me if the dead are not raised? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Be not deceived; evil communications corrupt good manners.” Others have enumerated Acusilaus the Argive among the seven wise men; and others, Pherecydes of Syros. And Plato substitutes Myso the Chenian for Periander, whom he deemed unworthy of wisdom, on account of his having reigned as a tyrant. That the wise men among the Greeks flourished after the age of Moses, will, a little after, be shown. But the style of philosophy among them, as Hebraic and enigmatical, is now to be considered. They adopted brevity, as suited for exhortation, and most useful. Even Plato says, that of old this mode was purposely in vogue among all the Greeks, especially the Lacedæmonians and Cretans, who enjoyed the best laws.

The expression, “Know thyself,” some supposed to be Chilon’s. But Chamæleon, in his book About the Gods, ascribes it to Thales; Aristotle to the Pythian. It may be an injunction to the pursuit of knowledge. For it is not possible to know the parts without the essence of the whole; and one must study the genesis of the universe, that thereby we may be able to learn the nature of man. Again, to Chilon the Lacedæmonian they attribute, “Let nothing be too much.” Strato, in his book Of Inventions, ascribes the apophthegm to Stratodemus of Tegea. Didymus assigns it to Solon; as also to Cleobulus the saying, “A middle course is best.” And the expression, “Come under a pledge, and mischief is at hand,” Cleomenes says, in his book Concerning Hesiod, was uttered before by Homer in the lines:
Wretched pledges, for the wretched, to be pledged
(Odyss., viii. 351)
The Aristotelians judge it to be Chilon’s; but Didymus says the advice was that of Thales. Then, next in order, the saying, “All men are bad,” or, “The most of men are bad” (for the same apophthegm is expressed in two ways), Sotades the Byzantian says that it was Bias’s. And the aphorism, “Practice conquers everything,” Μελέτη πάντα καθαιρεῖ. they will have it to be Periander’s; and likewise the advice, “Know the opportunity,” to have been a saying of Pittacus. Solon made laws for the Athenians, Pittacus for the Mitylenians. And at a late date, Pythagoras, the pupil of Pherecydes, first called himself a philosopher. Accordingly, after the fore-mentioned three men, there were three schools of philosophy, named after the places where they lived: the Italic from Pythagoras, the Ionic from Thales, the Eleatic from Xenophanes. Pythagoras was a Samian, the son of Mnesarchus, as Hippobotus says: according to Aristoxenus, in his life of Pythagoras and Aristarchus and Theopompus, he was a Tuscan; and according to Neanthes, a Syrian or a Tyrian. So that Pythagoras was, according to the most, of barbarian extraction. Thales, too, as Leander and Herodotus relate, was a Phœnician; as some suppose, a Milesian. He alone seems to have met the prophets of the Egyptians. But no one is described as his teacher, nor is any one mentioned as the teacher of Pherecydes of Syros, who had Pythagoras as his pupil. But the Italic philosophy, that of Pythagoras, grew old in Metapontum in Italy. Anaximander of Miletus, the son of Praxiades, succeeded Thales; and was himself succeeded by Anaximenes of Miletus, the son of Eurustratus; after whom came Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ, the son of Hegesibulus. He transferred his school from Ionia to Athens. He was succeeded by Archelaus, whose pupil Socrates was.
From these turned aside, the stone-mason; Talker about laws; the enchanter of the Greeks
says Timon in his Satirical Poems, on account of his quitting physics for ethics. Antisthenes, after being a pupil of Socrates, introduced the Cynic philosophy; and Plato withdrew to the Academy. Aristotle, after studying philosophy under Plato, withdrew to the Lyceum, and founded the Peripatetic sect. He was succeeded by Theophrastus, who was succeeded by Strato, and he by Lycon, then Critolaus, and then Diodorus. Speusippus was the successor of Plato; his successor was Xenocrates; and the successor of the latter, Polemo. And the disciples of Polemo were Crates and Crantor, in whom the old Academy founded by Plato ceased. Arcesilaus was the associate of Crantor; from whom, down to Hegesilaus, the Middle Academy flourished. Then Carneades succeeded Hegesilaus, and others came in succession. The disciple of Crates was Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic sect. He was succeeded by Cleanthes; and the latter by Chrysippus, and others after him. Xenophanes of Colophon was the founder of the Eleatic school, who, Timæus says, lived in the time of Hiero, lord of Sicily, and Epicharmus the poet; and Apollodorus says that he was born in the fortieth Olympiad, and reached to the times of Darius and Cyrus. Parmenides, accordingly, was the disciple of Xenophanes, and Zeno of him; then came Leucippus, and then Democritus. Disciples of Democritus were Protagoras of Abdera, and Metrodorus of Chios, whose pupil was Diogenes of Smyrna; and his again Anaxarchus, and his Pyrrho, and his Nausiphanes. Some say that Epicurus was a scholar of his.

Such, in an epitome, is the succession of the philosophers among the Greeks. The periods of the originators of their philosophy are now to be specified successively, in order that, by comparison, we may show that the Hebrew philosophy was older by many generations.
It has been said of Xenophanes that he was the founder of the Eleatic philosophy. And Eudemus, in the Astrological Histories, says that Thales foretold the eclipse of the sun, which took place at the time that the Medians and the Lydians fought, in the reign of Cyaxares the father of Astyages over the Medes, and of Alyattus the son of Crœsus over the Lydians. Herodotus in his first book agrees with him. The date is about the fiftieth Olympiad. Pythagoras is ascertained to have lived in the days of Polycrates the tyrant, about the sixty-second Olympiad. Mnesiphilus is described as a follower of Solon, and was a contemporary of Themistocles. Solon therefore flourished about the forty-sixth Olympiad. For Heraclitus, the son of Bauso, persuaded Melancomas the tyrant to abdicate his sovereignty. He despised the invitation of king Darius to visit the Persians.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.iv.i.xiv.html

St John Chrysostom Vita monastica

2008-07-02T14:47:00.007+03:00

Adversus Oppugnatores Eorum Qui Monasticam Vita Inducunt (PG 47, 319-386)

1. ...336-337;
Audi (apud Platonem) quid ad Socratem loquatur Crito: tuae sane sunt meae pecuniae, ut quidem reor, satis multae... intulit pecuniam ingentem Simmias Thebanus; paratus est Cebes quoque... sic ut nihil tibi in Thessalia desit.
339
Quid vero praeceptor eius Socrates? Quanto is Archelao fuit illustrior?

2. ...337
Quantum pecuniarum Alexandrum Diogeni daturum fuisse putas, si quidem ille voluisset accipere?
339
Sinopensis autem (Diogenes) alius philosophus tanto et his et allis innumeris regibus opulentior fuit, etsi pannis laceris vestitus... ut Alexander Philippi Macedo... ubi illum vidit... ad eum pergeret ac rogaret ullane re indigeret...

3. ...339
de Dionysio forte audisti Siciliae tyranno, itemque de Platone, Aristonis filio... ille in deliciis degebat.. hic autem in Academiae horto versabatur.. vilissimam imponens mensam illo omli vano splendore vacuus.

4. ...340
apud Athenienses Aristides, quem civitas sepelivit, Alcibiade, qui opibus, orationis vi... nobilitate ceterisque omnibus praestabat, tatnto clarior erat, quanto vili aliquo puerulo philosophus mirabilis.

5. ...340
apud Thebanus Epaminondas, in concionem vocatus, cum propterea eo se conferre non posset, quod vestem lavandam curaret, nec aliam haberet qua indueretur, omnibus tamen ducibus... praestantior erat.

Saint Basil on the study of pagan literature

2008-06-24T13:19:00.025+03:00

Sermo de legendis libris gentilium, sive Ad adolescentes. Quomodo possint ex gentilium libris fructum capere. PG 31, 564-590

Cites:
1. Hesiod,
Works and Days, 293-297;
οὗτος μὲν πανάριστος, ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσει,
φρασσάμενος, τά κ᾽ ἔπειτα καὶ ἐς τέλος ἦισιν ἀμείνω·
ἐσθλὸς δ᾽ αὖ καὶ κεῖνος, ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται·
ὃς δέ κε μήτ᾽ αὐτὸς νοέηι μήτ᾽ ἄλλου ἀκούων
ἐν θυμῶι βάλληται, ὁ δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἀχρήιος ἀνήρ.

(...566 - apud eos qui ab Hesiodo laudantur secundum locum obtinebitis)

287-292
τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδόν ἐστιν ἑλέσθαι
ῥηιδίως· λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει·
τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν
ἀθάνατοι· μακρὸς δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν
καὶ τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον· ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται,
ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.
360-362
εἰ γάρ κεν καὶ σμικρὸν ἐπὶ σμικρῶι καταθεῖο
καὶ θαμὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἔρδοις, τάχα κεν μέγα καὶ τὸ γένοιτο.
ὃς δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἐόντι φέρει, ὃ δ᾽ ἀλέξεται αἴθοπα λιμόν·

2. Plutarch,
Solonis vita, 3
ὅτι δ' αὑτὸν ἐν τῇ τῶν πενήτων μερίδι μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ τῶν πλουσίων ἔταττε, δῆλόν ἐστιν ἐκ τούτων·
πολλοὶ γὰρ πλουτεῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται·
ἀλλ' ἡμεῖς αὐτοῖς οὐ διαμειψόμεθα
τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον· ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί,
χρήματα δ' ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.

(...574 - unde et Solon mihi videtur illud ad divites dicere)

Periclis vita, 5;
λοιδορούμενος γοῦν ποτε καὶ κακῶς ἀκούων ὑπό τινος τῶν βδελυρῶν καὶ ἀκολάστων ὅλην ἡμέραν ὑπέμεινε σιωπῇ κατ' ἀγοράν, ἅμα τι τῶν ἐπειγόντων καταπραττόμενος· ἑσπέρας δ' ἀπῄει κοσμίως οἴκαδε παρακολουθοῦντος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πάσῃ χρωμένου βλασφημίᾳ πρὸς αὐτόν. ὡς δ' ἔμελλεν εἰσιέναι σκότους ὄντος ἤδη, προσέταξέ τινι τῶν οἰκετῶν φῶς λαβόντι παραπέμψαι καὶ καταστῆσαι πρὸς τὴν οἰκίαν τὸν ἄνθρωπον.

De liberis educandis, 10
Τό γε μὴν ἀόργητον ἀνδρός ἐστι σοφοῦ. Σωκράτης μὲν γάρ, λακτίσαντος αὐτὸν νεανίσκου θρασέος μάλα καὶ βδελυροῦ, τοὺς ἀμφ’ αὑτὸν ὁρῶν ἀγανακτοῦντας καὶ σφαδᾴζοντας ὡς καὶ διώκειν αὐτὸν ἐθέλειν, “ἆρ’,” ἔφησε, “καὶ εἴ μ’ ὄνος ἐλάκτισεν, ἀντιλακτίσαι τοῦτον ἠξιώσατ’ ἄν;” οὐ μὴν ἐκεῖνός γε παντελῶς κατεπροίξατο, πάντων δ’ αὐτὸν ὀνειδιζόντων καὶ λακτιστὴν ἀποκαλούντων ἀπήγξατο.

(...575 - percutiebat quidam Sophronisci filium Socratem in ipsam faciem...)

De cohibenda ira, 14
ὥσπερ Εὐκλείδης τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐκ διαφορᾶς εἰπόντος "ἀπολοίμην, εἰ μή σε τιμωρησαίμην" "ἐγὼ δέ" φήσας "ἀπολοίμην, εἰ μή σε πείσαιμι" διέτρεψε παραχρῆμα καὶ μετέθηκε.

(...575 - quidam Euclidi Megarensi iratus, mortem ei minitatus est...)

Alexandri vita, 21
...ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ οὐκ ἐν στρατοπέδῳ πολεμίων, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἱεροῖς καὶ ἁγίοις φυλαττομένας παρθενῶσιν, ἀπόρρητον ἔχειν καὶ ἀόρατον ἑτέροις δίαιταν. καίτοι λέγεταί γε τὴν Δαρείου γυναῖκα πολὺ πασῶν τῶν βασιλίδων εὐπρεπεστάτην γενέσθαι, καθάπερ καὶ αὐτὸς Δαρεῖος ἀνδρῶν κάλλιστος καὶ μέγιστος, τὰς δὲ παῖδας ἐοικέναι τοῖς γονεῦσιν. ἀλλ’ Ἀλέξανδρος ὡς ἔοικε τοῦ νικᾶν τοὺς πολεμίους τὸ κρατεῖν ἑαυτοῦ βασιλικώτερον ἡγούμενος, οὔτε τούτων ἔθιγεν, οὔτ’ ἄλλην ἔγνω γυναῖκα πρὸ γάμου πλὴν Βαρσίνης.

(...578 - Alexandri factum, qui cum filias Darii captivas haberet...)

3. Homer,
Od. XII, 39-...
Σειρῆνας μὲν πρῶτον ἀφίξεαι, αἵ ῥά τε πάντας
ἀνθρώπους θέλγουσιν, ὅτις σφεας εἰσαφίκηται.

VI, 135
ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς κούρηισιν ἐυπλοκάμοισιν ἔμελλε
μίξεσθαι, γυμνός περ ἐών· χρειὼ γὰρ ἵκανε.

(...571 - ubi Cephallenorum ducem e naufragio nudum servatum exhibuit... cum virtus vestium loco eum exornaret)

X, 493-495;
ψυχῆι χρησομένους Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο,
μάντηος ἀλαοῦ, τοῦ τε φρένες ἔμπεδοί εἰσι·
τῶι καὶ τεθνηῶτι νόον πόρε Περσεφόνεια,
οἴωι πεπνῦσθαι, τοὶ δὲ σκιαὶ ἀίσσουσιν.

4. Plato,
Res publica, 361a
οὕτω καὶ ὁ ἄδικος ἐπιχειρῶν ὀρθῶς τοῖς ἀδικήμασιν λανθανέτω, εἰ μέλλει σφόδρα ἄδικος εἶναι. τὸν ἁλισκόμενον δὲ φαῦλον ἡγητέον· ἐσχάτη γὰρ ἀδικία δοκεῖν δίκαιον εἶναι μὴ ὄντα. δοτέον οὖν τῷ τελέως ἀδίκῳ τὴν τελεωτάτην ἀδικίαν...

(...575 - hic est extremus injustitiae terminus, si qua fides Platoni habenda est...)

365c
πρόθυρα μὲν καὶ σχῆμα κύκλωι περὶ ἐμαυτὸν σκιαγραφίαν ἀρετῆς περιγραπτέον, τὴν δὲ τοῦ σοφωτάτου Ἀρχιλόχου ἀλώπεκα ἑλκτέον ἐξόπισθεν κερδαλέαν καὶ ποικίλην. «Ἀλλὰ γάρ, φησί τις, οὐ ῥάιδιον ἀεὶ λανθάνειν κακὸν ὄντα.» Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄλλο οὐδὲν εὐπετές, φήσομεν, τῶν μεγάλων·

(...587 - Archilochi vulpeculae astutiam versutiamque aemulabimur...)

498b
μειράκια μὲν ὄντα καὶ παῖδας μειρακιώδη παιδείαν καὶ φιλοσοφίαν μεταχειρίζεσθαι, τῶν τε σωμάτων, ἐν ᾧ βλαστάνει τε καὶ ἀνδροῦται, εὖ μάλα ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, ὑπηρεσίαν φιλοσοφίᾳ κτωμένους· προϊούσης δὲ τῆς ἡλικίας, ἐν ᾗ ἡ ψυχὴ τελεοῦσθαι ἄρχεται, ἐπιτείνειν τὰ ἐκείνης γυμνάσια·

(...583 - tantum ei [corpori] indulgendum est, in quantum, inquit Plato, philosophiae inservit... )

Euthydemus, 288b
Fearing that there would be high words, I again endeavoured to soothe
Ctesippus, and said to him: To you, Ctesippus, I must repeat what I said
before to Cleinias - that you do not understand the ways of these
philosophers from abroad. They are not serious, but, like the Egyptian
wizard, Proteus, they take different forms and deceive us by their
enchantments: and let us, like Menelaus, refuse to let them go until they
show themselves to us in earnest.
(kai egô phobêtheis mê loidoria genêtai, palin katepraunon ton Ktêsippon kai eipon: ô Ktêsippe, kai nundê ha pros Kleinian elegon, kai pros se tauta tauta legô, hoti ou gignôskeis tôn xenôn tên sophian hoti thaumasia estin. all' ouk etheleton hêmin epideixasthai spoudazonte, alla ton Prôtea mimeisthon ton Aiguption sophistên goêteuonte hêmas)

(...587 - ab Aegyptio illo sophista aliquid differre dicemus...)

5. Prodicus
(in Xenophontis Memorabilia, 2.1.21-34)
καὶ Πρόδικος δὲ ὁ σοφὸς ἐν τῶι συγγράμματι τῶι περὶ Ἡρακλέους, ὅπερ δὴ καὶ πλείστοις ἐπιδείκνυται, ὡσαύτως περὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀποφαίνεται, ὧδέ πως λέγων, ὅσα ἐγὼ μέμνημαι. φησὶ γὰρ Ἡρακλέα, ἐπεὶ ἐκ παίδων εἰς ἥβην ὡρμᾶτο, ἐν ἧι οἱ νέοι ἤδη αὐτοκράτορες γιγνόμενοι δηλοῦσιν εἴτε τὴν δι᾽ ἀρετῆς ὁδὸν τρέψονται ἐπὶ τὸν βίον εἴτε τὴν διὰ κακίας, ἐξελθόντα εἰς ἡσυχίαν καθῆσθαι ἀποροῦντα ποτέραν τῶν ὁδῶν τράπηται·

(...574 - quin et Ceus sophista Prodicus... ad Herculem juvenem... mulieres duas accessisse...)

6. Dio Chrysostomus,
251
When Diogenes of Sinope was exiled from that place, he came to Greece and used to divide his time between Corinth and Athens. And he said he was following the practice of the Persian king. For that monarch spent the winters in Babylon and Susa, or occasionally in Bactra, which are the warmest parts of Asia, and the summers in Median Ecbatana, where the air is always very cool and the summer is like the winter in the region of Babylon. So he too, he said, changed his residence according to the seasons of year.

(...586 - qui [Diogenes] pronuntiavit se rege magno divitiorem...)

7. Diogenes Laertius,
I,88 (Bias)
ἐφόδιον ἀπὸ νεότητος εἰς γῆρας ἀναλάμβανε σοφίαν· βεβαιότερον γὰρ
τοῦτο τῶν ἄλλων κτημάτων.

(...587 - Bias igitur filio ad Aegyptios abeunti...)

8. Herodotus,
I,163
ἀπικόμενοι δὲ ἐς τὸν Ταρτησσὸν προσφιλέες ἐγένοντο τῷ βασιλέι τῶν Ταρτησσίων, τῷ οὔνομα μὲν ἦν, Ἀργανθώνιος, ἐτυράννευσε δὲ Ταρτησσοῦ ὀγδώκοντα ἔτεα, ἐβίωσε δὲ πάντα εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατόν. [3] τούτῳ δὴ τῷ ἀνδρὶ προσφιλέες οἱ Φωκαιέες οὕτω δή τι ἐγένοντο ὡς τὰ μὲν πρῶτα σφέας ἐκλιπόντας Ἰωνίην ἐκέλευε τῆς ἑωυτοῦ χώρης οἰκῆσαι ὅκου βούλονται·

(...587 - si quispiam proferat in medium senectam Tithoni, sive Arganthonii...)

9. Theognis,
1155-1156

(...586 - in his etiam Theognide magistro utendum est, qui dicit: "Non amo divitias etc.")

10.

(...586 - Phidias et Polycletus, qourum alter Eleis Jovem, alter Argivis Junonem fecit...)

The homily (xxii) on the study of pagan literature. The latter was edited by Fremion (Paris, 1819, with French translation), Sommer (Paris, 1894), Bach (Münster, 1900), and Maloney (New York, 1901).
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm)

Василий Велики. Шестоднев и други беседи. Превод Росен Тенев. "Народна култура", 1999.
Беседа 22. К юношамъ о том, как пользоваться языческими сочиненiями. В: Творения Василiя Великаго. Ч.ІV. Москва, 1993 (1846).
Saint Basil. Aux jeunes gens. Texte etabli et traduit par F. Boulenger. "Les belles lettres", 1965.

Graeco-Roman Antiquity in the Writings of the Orthodox Fathers

2008-06-24T10:54:00.004+03:00

1 text for week
at least 30 authors until Holy Spirit 2009

Reading the Bible

2008-06-01T19:19:00.011+03:00

I. ΓΕΝΕΣΙΣ - ΡΟΥΘ (236 kεφ.)
- 50
1. ΓΕΝΕΣΙΣ (50)
- 137
2. ΕΞΟΔΟΣ (40)
3. ΛΕΥΙΤΙΚΟΝ (27)
4. ΑΡΙΘΜΟΙ (36)
5. ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΝΟΜΙΟΝ (34)
- 49
6. ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΝΑΥΗ (24)
7. ΚΡΙΤΑΙ (21)
8. ΡΟΥΘ (4)

II. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Α' - ΕΣΘΗΡ (228 kεφ.)
- 167
1. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Α' (31)
2. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Β' (24)
3. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Γ' (22)
4. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ' (25)
5. ΠΑΡΑΛΕΙΠΟΜΕΝΩΝ Α' (29)
6. ΠΑΡΑΛΕΙΠΟΜΕΝΩΝ Β' (36)
- 71
7. ΕΣΔΡΑΣ Α' (10)
8. ΝΕΕΜΙΑΣ (13)
9. ΕΣΔΡΑΣ Β' (9)
10. ΤΩΒΙΤ (13)
11. ΙΟΥΔΙΘ (16)
12. ΕΣΘΗΡ (10)

III. ΙΩΒ - ΒΑΡΟΥΧ (442 kεφ.)
- 192
1. ΙΩΒ (42)
2. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ (150)
- 121
3. ΠΑΡΟΙΜΙΑΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ (31)
4. ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΑΣΤΗΣ (12)
5. ΑΣΜΑ ΑΣΜΑΤΩΝ (8)
6. ΣΟΦΙΑ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ (19)
7. ΣΟΦΙΑ ΣΕΙΡΑΧ (51)
- 129
8. ΗΣΑΪΑΣ (66)
9. ΙΕΡΕΜΙΑΣ (52)
10. ΘΡΗΝΟΙ ΙΕΡΕΜΙΟΥ (5)
11. ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΙΕΡΕΜΙΟΥ (1)
12. ΒΑΡΟΥΧ (5)

IV. ΙΕΖΕΚΙΗΛ - ΕΣΔΡΑΣ Γ' (183 kεφ.)
- 62
1. ΙΕΖΕΚΙΗΛ (48)
2. ΔΑΝΙΗΛ (14)
- 66
3. ΩΣΗΕ (14)
4. ΙΩΗΛ (3)
5. ΑΜΩΣ (9)
6. ΟΒΔΙΟΥ (1)
7. ΙΩΝΑΣ (4)
8. ΜΙΧΑΙΑΣ (7)
9. ΝΑΟΥΜ (3)
10. ΑΜΒΑΚΟΥΜ (3)
11. ΣΟΦΟΝΙΑΣ (3)
12. ΑΓΓΑΙΟΣ (2)
13. ΖΑΧΑΡΙΑΣ (14)
14. ΜΑΛΑΧΙΑΣ (4)
- 54
15. ΜΑΚΚΑΒΑΙΩΝ Α' (16)
16. ΜΑΚΚΑΒΑΙΩΝ Β' (15)
17. ΜΑΚΚΑΒΑΙΩΝ Γ' (7)
18. ΕΣΔΡΑΣ Γ' (16)

V. Καινή Διαθήκη (260 kεφ.)
- 89
1. Κατά Ματθαίον (28)
2. Κατά Μάρκον (16)
3, Κατά Λουκάν (24)
4. Κατά Ιωάννην (21)
- 28
5. Πράξεις Αποστόλων (28)
- 121
6. Προς Ρωμαίους (16)
7. Προς Κορινθίους Α' (16)
8. Προς Κορινθίους Β' (13)
9. Προς Γαλάτας (6)
10. Προς Εφεσίους (6)
11. Προς Φιλιππησίους (4)
12. Προς Κολοσσαείς (4)
13. Προς Θεσσαλονικείς Α' (5)
14. Προς Θεσσαλονικείς Β' (3)
15. Προς Τιμόθεον Α' (6)
16. Προς Τιμόθεον B' (4)
17. Προς Τίτον (3)
18. Προς Φιλήμονα (1)
19. Προς Εβραίους (13)
20. Επιστολή Ιακώβου (5)
21. Επιστολή Πέτρου Α΄(5)
22. Επιστολή Πέτρου B' (3)
23. Επιστολή Ιωάννου Α΄ (5)
24. Επιστολή Ιωάννου B' (1)
25. Επιστολή Ιωάννου Γ' (1)
26. Επιστολή Ιούδα (1)
- 22
27. Αποκάλυψις Ιωάννου (22)

The Theatre

2008-03-04T21:34:00.008+02:00

The National Theater "Ivan Vazov" is something like a second emblem of Sofia. It was built in the period from 1905 till 1906 for the Duchy of Bulgaria by Ferdinand Fellner & Hermann Helmer. Opened 16 Jan 1907 with Dobri Christov's "Festive Ouverture", Ivan Vazov's scenic prologue "The Fame of Art" and Act V of Vasil Drumev's drama "Ivanko".

The 'Ivan Vazov' Theatre comprises of 1021 seats. The stage house was destroyed by a fire on 10 February, 1923 ( the auditorium was also damaged because the iron curtain did not work properly). In the period 1923-1928 a newly constructed stage house and a slightly altered auditorium was built by Martin Duelfer.

From 1972 till 1976 the stage house and exterior of the theatre were renovated to the original plans by Ivan Tomov and Lilija Toteva ( the auditorium was altered again, with only slight references to the 1906 original). The theatre was named in honour of the Bulgarian author, Ivan Mincov Vazov (1850-1921).

The National Theatre in the city park is a model of Baroque architecture. Along the facade of this majestic building, six columns with beautiful capitals support a large triangular pediment, decorated with mythological high reliefs. To the sides two towers rise up, topped by sculptures of the Goddess Nike.The red, white and gold neo-classical National Theatre 'Ivan Vazov' in Sofia is surrounded by loads of alleys, and is situated amid a pool and fountains and filled with sidewalk cafes.

(http://en.journey.bg/bulgaria/bulgaria.php?guide=800)

House of Gendovich

2008-03-03T21:34:00.003+02:00

The seven-storey house of Baron Gendovich, one of the first high-rise buildings in the city, was completed in 1914

(Wikipedia)

Eagle`s Bridge

2008-03-03T17:14:00.005+02:00

After entering Sofia from the East side by Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd (you use that boulevard also when you arrive at the airport), Eagle’s Bridge is the first crossing you have to stop at.
There are beautiful bronze bas-reliefs at the bottom end of the columns, on the top of which the proud birds are situated.
This place is the beginning of the perfect center. You will be thoroughly inspected by 4 bronze eagles with threateningly outspread wings at the four ends of the bridge when passing by it.
Exactly those statues give the name of the bridge – Eagle’s Bridge. Those are its symbols and ‘keepers’.

The bridge is built in 1891. It is a symbol of freedom because at that place for the first time in 1888 the prisoners from Diarbekir are welcomed (in that Turkish town figures from the Bulgarian National Freedom Movement of the 19th century have been sent in exile).
The architect of Eagle’s Bridge is Vatzlav Prosek. Beneath the juncture are the waters of Perlovska River. They pass through the whole city.

Ali Grigorova
(http://www.sofiabulgariatravel.com/eagles-bridge-sofia.html)

The Greeks in history

2008-01-31T13:26:00.000+02:00

Weber had already stressed in “Agrarverhaeltnisse im Altertum” that this was the fundamental difference between the Occidental (Graeco-Roman) world and Oriental world (ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Israel)… The citizen-state as a self-organizing military body developed in the coastal civilization of the Graeco-Roman world, because there the aristocracies had access to the gains made from commerce and thus could reduce the kingdom to a merely military leadership... Later they had to accept the political participation of the bulk of the citizenry who, as hoplites, provided most of the military. Priests were always mere functionaries of the community: they could claim no independent authority in political questions.
In the civilizations at the banks of great rivers, the necessity of river regulation and irrigation strengthened the primordial kingdoms and nurtured the development of a centralized bureaucracy subject to a monarch with an indisputable monopoly in political, military, and economic power. The monarch could rely on the support of a privileged priesthood. On this basis there later emerged what Weber described as “authoritarian liturgical state”. In the end this authoritarian liturgical state, especially as it has been created in Ptolemaic Egypt, came to dominate the later Roman Empire.
In his view commune building depends on the ability of the members to unite in a ritual community that he calls Verbruederung (confraternity) a community based on artificially-created and free-willed mutual ties, not in consanguinity. This meant that the community depended on the equal rights (in principle at least) of all its members, solidarity against non-members, connubium and a common cult symbolically expressed in communal cult-meals.
The notion of Verbruederung explains the fundamental difference between Occidental and Oriental city-dwellers and their different potential for commune-building; it also allows Weber to accentuate an important distinction between European Antiquity and Middle Ages.
In pre-Christian Antiquity… confraternity materialized in the union of heads of sibs that originally constituted the city-state by means of synoikismos (the real housing-together in an urban center or the constitution of a singular political center for hitherto separate communitites). The patrician clan, however, tried to preserve their ritual exclusivity with respect to the plebeians, an exclusivity abolished only after prolonged struggles… According to Weber, the ancient city-states failed to reach the intensity of confraternity that was later achieved in the medieval commune… In the European Middle Ageds confraternity possessed a positive religious basis, since all the members already belonged to the same church, as symbolized in the community of the Eucharist. (Of course, this inevitably implied the outsider-status of the Jews)…
In “Die Stadt” he makes the famous distinction between the ancient homo politicus and the medieval homo oeconomicus:
Whereas in Antiquity the hoplite army and its training, and thus military interests, increasingly came to constitute the pivot of all urban organization, in the Middle Ages most burgher privileges began with the limitation of the burgher’s military duties to garrison service. The economic interests of the medieval townsman lay in peaceful gain through commerce and the trade, and this was most pronouncedly so for the lower strata of the urban citizenry…

Weber followed a long tradition of criticism that held Graeco-Roman Antiquity responsible for cultivating the omnipotence of the state and preventing economical progress. This tradition goes back to the Scottish and French Enlightenment. It then was taken up in the French postrevolutionary debate (in reaction to the cult of Antiquity fostered by the Jacobins). In 1819 Benjamin Constant summarized and sharpened it in his famous essay on the distinction between the freedom of the ancients and that of the moderns. Finally, the tradition was developed in greater historical detail by late-nineteenth-century authors such as N.D. Fustel de Coulanges and Jacob Burckhardt.

Wilfried Nippel

***

Wilfried Nippel. Homo politicus and Homo Oeconomicus: the European Citizen According to Max Weber. In: Anthony Pagden ed. The Idea of Europe. From Antiquity to the European Union. Cambridge UP, 2002.

Books

2008-01-31T11:31:00.000+02:00

Ewen Bowie. Lyric and Elegiac Poetry. In: J. Boardman, J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford UP, 1986-1991

Alan Bowman. Recolonising Egypt. In: T.P Wiseman ed. Classics in Progress. Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford UP, 2002-2006.

Peter Burian. Myth and muthos:the shaping of tragic plot. In: P.E. Easterling ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge UP, 1997-2004.

Paul Cartledge. Greek civilization and slavery. In: T.P Wiseman ed. Classics in Progress. Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford UP, 2002-2006.

Thomas Cole. The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. The John Hopkins UP, 1991-1995.

Michael Dewar. Culture wars: Latin literature from the second century to the end of the classical era. In: Oliver Taplin ed. Literature of the Roman World. Oxford UP, 2000-2001.

G.R.F. Ferrari. Platonic Love. In: Richard Kraut ed. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge UP, 1992-2005

John Miles Foley. Epic as a genre. In: Robert Fowler ed. The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Cambridge UP, 2004-2007.

Hans-Georg Gadamer. A Century of Philosophy. A Conversation with Riccardo Dottori. Transl. by Rod Coltman with Sigrid Koepke. Continuum, 2003.

Edith Hall. The Sociology of Athenian tragedy. In: P.E. Easterling ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge UP, 1997-2004.

David Hahm. Polybius' applied political theory. In: Andre Laks and Malcolm Schofield ed. Justice and Generosity. Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy. Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium Hellenisticum. Cambridge UP, 1995.

Sally C. Humphreys. The Strangeness of Gods. Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion. Oxford UP, 2004.

Richard Jenkyns. Silver Latin Poetry and the Latin Novel. In: J. Boardman. J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of the Roman World. Oxford UP, 1991.

George. B. Kerferd. The nomos-physis controversy; The theory of society. In: G.B. Kerferd. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge UP, 1981-1999.

Matthew Leigh. Primitivism and power: The beginnings of Latin literature. In: Oliver Taplin ed. Literature of the Roman World. Oxford UP, 2000-2001

Peter Levi. Greek Drama. In: J. Boardman, J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford UP, 1986-1991.

Alasdair MacIntyre. Postscript to Plato; Aristotle's 'Ethics'; Postscript to Greek ethics. In: A Short History of Ethics. A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric Age to the twentieth century. Routledge 1967-2006.

Oswin Murray. Greek Historians. In: J. Boardman, J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford UP, 1986-1991.

Andrea W. Nightingale. The rhetoric of philosophic "freedom"; The politics of panhellenism. In: Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy. Cambridge UP, 2004-2006.

Wilfried Nippel. Homo politicus and Homo Oeconomicus: the European Citizen According to Max Weber. In: Anthony Pagden ed. The Idea of Europe. From Antiquity to the European Union. Cambridge UP, 2002.

Simon Price. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge UP, 1999-2005.

Jacqueline de Romilly. The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992-2002.

Christopher Rowe. Plato. In: David Sedley ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy. Cambridge UP 2003-2004.

Oliver Taplin. The spring of the Muses: Homer and related poetry. In: Oliver Taplin ed. Literature in the Greek World. Oxford UP, 2000-2001.

Greek politicians and public figures

2008-01-30T16:38:00.000+02:00

When I began research, in 1957, the two most original and stimulating scholars working on Ancient Greece were Moses Finley and Jean-Pierre Vernant. It was their example that led me into anthropology; both, but especially Finley, led me to see anthropology as concerned with the criticism of culturally shaped categories and presuppositions…

The posthumous honours granted to Lycurgus in 307/6, when the city was freed from Demetrios' rule, form a fitting end to this somewhat ambivalent career. His descendants were granted perpetual dining rights in the Prytaneion.
In the archaic period the grant of lifelong dining rights in the Prytaneion - mainly, probably, to victors in major events at the Panhellenic games - meant a permanent seat at the centre of power in the city. After the fall of the Peisistratid tyranny the honour was awarded - partly, perhaps, in sympathy with the growth of a more critical attitude towards the honours heaped on successful athletes, partly as a snub to the Alkmaionidai - to the senior representatives of the families of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who had assassinated Peisistratos' son Hipparchos. The next Athenian to be awarded lifelong sitesis was Cleon, in the enthusiasm which followed his capture of the Spartan force on Sphacteria in 425. A similar grant was made to Iphicrates after the peace with Sparta in 371. In the period after Chaeronea, two divergent conceptions of the role of grants of perpetual sitesis seem to have coexisted in implicit contradiction. Grants to Demades in c. 335… and the comic poet Philippides of Kephale in 283/2 seem to extend to citizens who have played an important role as intermediaries between Athens and Macedonian rulers the honours which were being granted to non-Athenians for performing the same functions. Yet the posthumous hereditary honours granted to Lycurgus and (in 280/79) to Demosthenes indicate a different view: those who dine in the Prytaneion are seen as representing glorious moments in the city's past, players in a perpetual historical pageant. Less than twenty years after his death, Lycurgus had become a museum piece, a figure almost as remote as Harmodios and Aristogeiton - two other Athenian aristocrats whose lives ended in irony…
In 1985 I saw an analogy between Lycurgus and Margaret Thatcher in that both combined a patriotic and ostensibly democratic rhetoric with undemocratic practice (in the British case, dismantling the welfare state), and both seemed to be clinging in their patriotism to an outdated conception of their states as Great Powers… Demosthenes political speeches can be read in a Thucydidean light; he presents himself as having to argue a relatively unpopular political programme before voters who are either reluctant to support military action or still convinced that the major danger to Athens was Persia rather than Macedon. The hectoring tone, however, seems closer to that of Thucydides' Cleon than his Pericles; perhaps hearers did not find a significant difference between Demosthenes' harangues and the moralizing rhetoric of Lycurgus. Did Lycurgus indeed see himself as following in Demosthenes' footsteps?... Asking questions about what we want from our own politicians and how we would like to be constructed as citizens may be a way of formulating new questions about Athens.

S. C. Humphreys

***

Sally C. Humphreys. The Strangeness of Gods. Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion. Oxford UP, 2004.

Greeks and others

2008-01-29T18:38:00.000+02:00

It hardly needs saying that the Greeks had earlier fitted Egyptian 'historical' events into their own chronological narrative scheme, which accomodated, for example, Solon's visits to Egypt, where he heard about Atlantis. But early in the Ptolemaic period an internal Egyptian chronological 'narrative' was constructed, was used by classical historians such as Diodorus, and is still used, as is too rarely explicitly stated, as the basis of the modern chronology of dynastic Egypt. This was created in the third century BC in the ambience of the Ptolemaic court by an Egyptian priest of Isis, Manetho of Sebennytos (in the Delta), writing in Greek, who alone 'represents a complete and systematic version of the Egyptian tradition' (G.P. Verbrugghe and J.M Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho. Michigan, 1996).
Egyptian history was thus recaptured or re-invented within a classicising historiographical framework possibly with the encouragement, if not instruction, of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the monarch who founded that factory of classical scholarship, the Alexandrian Museum.
The history and culture of one civilization were described and explained in the language of another. It is hardly necessary to labour the striking parallels: the work of Berossus, the Letter of Aristeas, the Septuagint. Manetho, of course, uses earlier Egyptian source material but, as far as I am aware, none of this is self-reflexive or historiographically conscious; that is, it never asks itself whether what it is saying is correct or plausible. The key difference is that Manetho and his material become part of a historiographical tradition, in which he debates with and criticises Herodotus and is in turn criticized by Josephus.

Alan Bowman

***

Alan Bowman. Recolonising Egypt. In: T.P Wiseman ed. Classics in Progress. Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford UP, 2002-2006.

Greek society

2008-01-29T17:28:00.000+02:00

One way of re-posing the question 'Was Greek civilisation based on slavery?' is to ask what Greek civilisation would have been like without it...
Looking forward, to the world of semi-realistic Utopia, no matter how hard they tried to view things otherwise, the Greeks could not quite envisage a slaveless future. The only alternative to slave labour that they could imagine was a world of automatic life, in which the necessities were constantly available without human labour, on tap as it were, and craft goods were produced or moved by automation (Arist. Politics, 1253b).
The inescapable inference is that the Greeks could conceive of no practical alternative for slavery. That is especially clear from the work of Aristotle… The proverb he quoted 'No leisure for slaves' (1334a) was at one level a statement of fact; more significantly, leisure (schole) was what distinguished the truly free man (eleutheros) and the truly 'liberal' lifestyle (eleutherios).
Moses Finley, as we have seen, did not give a direct, unequivocal answer to his own question ['Was Greek civilization based on slave labour?' (1959)]. The nearest he came to it, with consciously appropriate imagery, was this: 'If we could emancipate ourselves from the despotism of extraneous moral, intellectual and political pressures, we would conclude, without hesitation, that slavery was a basic element of Greek civilization.' If we could... Granted that we cannot, should we even try?
I would like to end by returning to my starting point, morality, and by quoting some wise words of Keith Bradley which I entirely endorse:
'The kinds of impact on slaves made by the traffic in human merchandise that I have posited are symptomatic of what in contemporary affairs we should now call violation of fundamental human rights. If the current sensitivity to that concept sharpens perception and understanding of the past, then that to my mind marks a true historical advance. It does not follow that what is admirable from the past is any the less admirable; it simply means, that the price of the admirable - an incalculable degree of human misery and suffering - is given its full historical due…'
To put the same point emblematically: 1959 was the year not only of Finley's epoch-making article but also of the death of Billie Holiday. Both, it seems to me, have a place within the study and understanding of ancient Greek slavery. They remind us, rather uncomfortably, just how deeply the whole western tradition of freedom is implicated, at its source and in the ever flowing current, with a history of unfreedom.

Paul Cartledge

***

Αndocides in 400 BC was defending himself against accusations of being involved in the mutilation [of the herms, 415 BC] and of thus having turned informer to save his own skin. He had opposed the mutilation, which took place while he was incapacitated by injury. Only one herm in the city escaped mutilation, that near his house, which the conspirators had expected him to mutilate. Apparently, on his return to Athens from exile in 403, he had instituted proceedings for impiety against someone for mutilating a herm belonging to his own family. This ploy to clear his own name disgusted his prosecutor in 400, who argued that it showed contempt for the gods. Andocides' own speech and that of the prosecution concur in their condemnation of the impious nature of the crime.
The profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries came to light immediately before the Sicilian expedition set off. It was alleged that Alcibiades and others had celebrated the Mysteries in at least five private houses in the presence of non-initiates… The prosecution of 400 stressed that the rite was performed by the wrong person and that in imitation of the rites sacred things were revealed to the uninitiated (Lysias 6.51). This celebration was even more shocking than the mutilation of the herms and challenged one of Athens' central religious rites. So sensitive was the matter that the assembly in 415 to which news of the profanation was brought was cleared of non-initiated before matters could proceed and Andocides' jury in 400 again consisted only of Eleusinian initiates…
Those implicated in the scandal, including Andocides, were the subject of an awesome curse by male and female priests. Andocides himself was excluded by a special decree of 415 from the Athenian Agora and the sanctuaries. He thus wandered the Greek world for thirteen years until his return in 402. At his trial in 400 Andocides denied that he had acted impiously or had turned informer, especially not of his own father. He also argued that the exile decree of 415 was no longer valid because of subsequent constitutional changes. He stressed his performance of religious functions for the state since his return in 402 and argued that his safe passage over the seas in the years of exile demonstrated that the gods did not seek his death. Conversely, the prosecution argued for the continuing validity of the exile decree, expressed horror at the impious nature of his advising the counsel on religious matters and the possibility of his being appointed magistrate in charge of the Mysteries, and claimed that he had been preserved from the sea specifically to stand trial in Athens. But the central event which had brought about the trial was Andocides' alleged participation in the Mysteries while still debarred. The prosecution argued for the absolute necessity pf punishing impiety: the gods were capable of punishing impiety themselves, but the jury should here act as agents of the gods. Andocides evaded the issue of his alleged participation in the Mysteries, obfuscated the events of 415 and appealed successfully for leniency. But he entirely agreed with the prosecution that those actually guilty of impiety deserved death (I.30)

Simon Price

***

Paul Cartledge. Greek civilization and slavery. In: T.P Wiseman ed. Classics in Progress. Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford UP, 2002-2006.

Simon Price. Religions of the Ancient Greeks. Cambridge UP, 1999-2005.

Aristotle

2008-01-29T14:15:00.000+02:00

In the most general term, banausoi is the label for people who earn their living by plying a "craft" that involves the use of the hands. Banausos, however, is not merely a descriptive term, since it invariably marks a person as mercantile and servile. Thus Aristotle places the "banausic" arts in the category of "wealthgetting that involves exchange" and identifies them as a form of "labour for hire". In text from the classical period, the word banausia and its cognate is virtually monopolized by Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle; this language is never used in oratory or comedy (whose authors tend to reflect democratic sentiments).
First of all, aristocratic writers use the term to define a group of people as "by nature" inferior and unfit for participation in politics.

Nay, in ancient times, and among some nations the artisan class (banausoi) were slaves or foreigners, and therefore the majority of them are so now. The best form of state will not admit them to citizenship; but if they are admitted, then our definition of the virtue of a citizen will not apply to every citizen nor to every free man as such, but only to those who are freed from necessary services. The necessary people are either slaves who minister to the wants of individuals, or mechanics and laborers who are the servants of the community (Aristotle, Politics, III,5 - Jowett).

Xenophon too, claims that banausoi should not participate in politics, since they lack the leisure required for participating in civic affairs in a responsible and beneficial manner:

A good suggestion, Critobulus, for the base mechanic (banausic) arts, so called, have got a bad name; and what is more, are held in ill repute by civilised communities, and not unreasonably… Hand in hand with physical enervation follows enfeeblement of soul: while the demand which these base mechanic arts makes on the time of those employed in them leaves them no leisure to devote to the claims of friendship and the state. How can such folk be other than sorry friends and ill defenders of the fatherland? So much so that in some states, especially those reputed to be warlike, no citizen is allowed to exercise any mechanical craft at all (Oec. IV,2 - Dakyns).

Clearly then, banausia is a loaded and highly derogatory term. Note in particular Aristotle's claim that many banausoi were nouveaux riches, i.e. wealthy members of non-aristocratic class (Politics, III,5)… A passage in Nicomachean Ethics offers clear evidence of this point:

The man who goes to excess and is vulgar (banausos) exceeds, as has been said, by spending beyond what is right. For on small objects of expenditure he spends much and displays a tasteless showiness; e.g. he gives a club dinner on the scale of a wedding banquet, and when he provides the chorus for a comedy he brings them on to the stage in purple, as they do at Megara. And all such things he will do not for honour's sake but to show off his wealth, and because he thinks he is admired for these things, and where he ought to spend much he spends little and where little, much (NE IV,2 - Ross).

In this period, then, we find a rhetoric and ideology which set the "truly free" individual in opposition to men who were free in a merely legal and civic sense. The free or "liberal" man, in short, is leisured, educated, independent, and "truly" fit for rule, whereas the "banausic" or "illiberal" individual is slavish, servile, wage-earning, uneducated and unfit for rule…
I have discussed this ideological and political program because it provides the context for the fourth-century discussions of the "free" activity of theoria.

Andrea Nightingale

***

Different activities, different pleasures; which activities then? The activities of the good man... What is best in us is reason and the characteristic activity of reason is theoria, that speculative reasoning which deals with unchanging truths. Such speculation can be a continuous and pleasant - it is, Aristotle says brusquely, "the pleasantest" - form of activity. It is a self-sufficient occupation...
Thus, surprisingly, the end of human life is metaphysical contemplation of truth. External goods are necessary only to a limited extent, and the wealth required is only moderate. Thus the whole of human life reaches its highest point in the activity of a speculative philosopher with a reasonable income. The banality of the conclusion could not be more apparent. Why then it is reached? One clue is in Aristotle’s concept of self-sufficiency…
Aristotle’s audience, then, is explicitly a small leisured minority. We are no longer faced with a telos for human life as such, but with a telos for one kind of life which presupposes a certain kind of hierarchical social order and which presupposes also a view of the universe in which the realm of timeless truth is metaphysically superior to the human world of change and sense experience and ordinary rationality. All Aristotle’s conceptual brilliance in the course of the argument declines at the end to an apology for this extraordinarily parochial form of human existence...
In fact, Aristotle is much more of a quietist in relation to political activity. Provided only that there is a room for the contemplative elite, the Nicomachean Ethics does not provide for a condemnation or an endorsement of any social structure… In fact, by his own practice as the tutor of the young Alexander, and by his advocacy of the life of contemplation, Aristotle, as Kelsen pointed out, sided with the powers, which were about to destroy the polis as a political entity. For the exaltation of the contemplative life is an exaltation of it as a form of life for those men who have hitherto composed the political elite. It provides a rationale for their withdrawal to the status of citizen, “good citizens” in Aristotle’s sense, but not rulers… As Kelsen puts it, “the glorification of the contemplative life, which has renounced all activity and more especially all political activity, has at all times constituted a typical element of political morality set up by the ideologies of absolute monarchy. For the essential tendency of this form of state consists in excluding the subjects from all share in public affairs” (International Journal of Ethics, XLVIII, 1).

Alasdair MacIntyre

***

Andrea W. Nightingale. The rhetoric of philosophic "freedom". In: Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy. Cambridge UP, 2004-2006.

Alasdair MacIntyre. Aristotle's 'Ethics'; Postscript to Greek ethics. In: A Short History of Ethics. A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric Age to the twentieth century. Routledge 1967-2006.

Elegiac, iambic and melic poetry

2008-01-29T13:59:00.000+02:00

Only of hexameter poetry have we examples earlier than 700 BC. But many genres first known to us from the seventh century were certainly thriving long before – that century gives us our first elegiac, iambic, and melic poetry because by then writing was spreading so that the works of celebrated poets could be recorded as those of their predecessors could not. Of our genres only elegiac significantly exploited those formulaic phrases which both aided the composition and recitation of epic and contributed to its oral preservation. Furthermore much of our poetry was composed with particular audiences and occasions in view, so that incentives to preserve it orally were fewer.
Also different from epic is the prominence given to the personality of the poet or singer. The first person becomes the focus of attention and ‘I’ (occasionally ‘we’) tell of ‘my’ loves, grieves, hates, and adventures. This has sometimes misled scholars into seeing the seventh century as an efflorescence of individualism. Not only, however, did such poetry exist earlier, but the ‘I’ of a poem cannot unquestioningly be referred to the person of the singer or poet. As traditional folk-songs and modern popular songs show, ‘I’ songs can be sung with feeling by many other than their composers. Rarely do we take such statements as autobiographical; sometimes indeed no composer is known. Hence we should hesitate to use fragments of such poets as Archilochus to ascribe strident self-assertion or to reconstruct biography.
Three more preliminaries. First, although what survives is ascribed to a few dozen figures, the genres exemplified, and many conventional themes and approaches, will have been attempted by hundreds over the Greek world. Most of our poetry was not, like epic, the virtuosos’s preserve, but was designed for occasions were amateurs contributed. This is clearest in the tradition about after-dinner singing at Athens: a myrtle branch circulated, and with it the obligation to sing…
Second, relative importance of text and accompaniment. Melic and elegiac poetry was sung, usually accompanied respectively on the lyre and the aulos (an oboe-like wind instrument). For no song can we reconstruct the vocal or instrumental line, and indeed we have only a rudimentary understanding of what it might have been like. In many songs music may have contributed more to initial impact than text, in many more it was an integral part of the effect. Doubtless the texts selected for copying and transmission were those whose words were of greater moment than music: but never forget that, even reading these poems aloud, we gain access only to part of their intended effect, and before impugning deficiency of thought or skill, ponder whether modern song-writers would gladly be judged on ‘lyrics’ alone.
Third, the work of almost all these poets has survived only in shattered fragments, preserved by later quotation or on papyri recovered from Graeco-Roman Egypt. We have a few dozen elegiac poems arguably complete, but of melic poets other than Pindar and Bacchylides only half a dozen complete songs remain.

Ewen Bowie

Ewen Bowie. Lyric and Elegiac Poetry. In: J. Boardman, J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford UP, 1986-1991

Novel. The Metamorphoses

2008-01-29T00:27:00.000+02:00

Apuleius was born at Madaurus in the province of Africa around 123 and was active at the second half of the century. Several works from his hand survive, including the Apologia, his self-defence on a charge of gaining his wife's love by the use of magic; but his fame rests above all on his novel the Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass. This is based on a Greek tale, Lucius, or The Ass, possibly written by Lucian, of which an abridged version is still extant. Comparison with the Greek story serves to demonstrate how brilliantly Apuleius enlarged and adapted his model. The Golden Ass is in eleven books and is told in first person. After nearly three books of amorous and humorous incidents the narrator, as a consequence of an experiment with magic which goes wrong, finds himself transformed into a donkey; and the rest of the work consists of a series of picaresque adventures which befall the hero in his animal form, interrupted by a large number of other tales recounted by various of the characters who figure in the main narrative. The longest of these, the tale of Cupid and Psyche, occupies about a fifth of the entire work.
Finally, after a vision of the goddess Isis, the narrator Lucius is restored to his human shape. The last scenes of the novel provide one of the most remarkable accounts of religious experience to come down from classical paganism. It has often been thoght that we see here the influence of Christian spirituality; on this supposition Apuleius was fighting Christianity but doing his best to steal the rival religion's clothes. The last book also presents the interpreter of Apuleius with his most teasing problem; no entirely satisfactory explanation has yet been given, and perhaps none is possible. How are we to reconcile the tone of the conclusion, with Lucius as an adept of the goddess, vowed to celibacy and simplicity of life, with the huge gusto with which the rest of the story is told? Lucius repeatedly tells us that he is 'inquisitive', or 'a thirster after novelty'; for this inquisitiveness he is punished and ultimatedly redeemed, but until the last book the whole atmosphere and style of the narrative encourages us to rejoice and share in this thirst for adventure and experience... And entertainment is what we get, though often of a grotesque sort. Sex and magic, comedy and horror, elegant romance and coarse bawdy are blended into an intoxicating mixture;

Richard Jenkyns

***

Sex sells, as any publisher knows. That much was true in the second century too, though it seems a little magic and a lot of learning could be usefully added to the mix. Known formally as The Metamorphoses this is the only Latin novel to survive complete from the antiquity, and a remarkable piece of work it is…
So poor Lucius in his grotesque inhuman form is subjected to a series of misadventures that take him from one end of Greece to the other, and see him repeatedly stolen, sold, beaten, humiliated, owned by all kind of even more unpleasant characters and threatened by all kinds of even more unpleasant deaths, before eventually being scheduled for a performance in the arena in Corinth. His role is intended to be a central one, fitting to his, as is were, assets: he is to copulate with a woman condemned to death, and thus provide the instrument of her execution.
What was the purpose of such a scandalous composition? Apuleius himself explains in the prologue:
Now, in this Milesian style, I shall string various tales together for you, and caress your kindy ears with pleasurable murmurings…
Such tales got their name from Aristeides of Miletos, who, in about 100 BC, wrote a collection of saucy stories translated into Latin soon after by Sisenna. These originals have long sinse vanished, but their disreputable nature is commemorated in Plutarch's story that copies were found in the baggage of Roman officers (Life of Crassus)…
The question of the level of education that Apuleius expected in his readers is almost as important as the fun he provided them. The Metamorphoses is a work of the Roman literature that, as so often, is more than it pretends to be. It takes the form of a pseudo-biography, and in the last book Lucius, having finally found some roses while on his way to perform his terrible duties in the arena at Corinth, has resumed his human shape. What follows is an account, less racy but no less remarkable, of the hero's spiritual salvation through initiation into the mysteries of the goddess Isis. Those of contemporaries who knew about Apuleius' other interests might not have been all that surprised after all: he was also the author of a number of treatises on philosophy, such as On Plato and his Teaching and On Socrates' God. And of the very heart of the novel is a long tale that can hardly be called 'Milesian' at all, though it does share all kinds of elements with folk-tales from many cultures. It is told by an old crone to cheer up a pretty girl (obligatory in ancient novels, as in most modern ones) who has been kidnapped by a group of wicked bandits (obligatory in ancient novels though optional in modern ones). In this tale, a princess with the by no means insignificant name of 'Psyche' is offered up in sacrificial marriage to a mysterious monster whose identity she is sworn not to try to discover...
The tale is plainly a Platonic allegory of sorts, and, although scholars argue about its exact meaning, the experience of Psyche surely mirror and predict those of Lucius. Like Psyche, he is made to undergo a number of thoroughly dehumanizing trials to punish him for his impious curiosity, and like Psyche, too, he is eventually saved, not by his own merits, but by the intervention of a divine being whose power is matched only by her benevolence.

Michael Dewar

***

Richard Jenkyns. Silver Latin Poetry and the Latin Novel. In: J. Boardman. J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of the Roman World. Oxford UP, 1991.

Michael Dewar. Culture wars: Latin literature from the second century to the end of the classical era. In: Oliver Taplin ed. Literature of the Roman World. Oxford UP, 2000-2001.

Orators, Sophists, Plato

2008-01-29T00:20:00.000+02:00

Yet it is in philosophical texts that we first hear of this discipline; and the word rhetoric itself bears every clear indication of being a Platonic invention. There is no trace of it in Greek before the point in the Gorgias (449a) where the famous Sophist - after hesitation and (possibly) a certain amount of prompting from Socrates - decides to call the art he teaches the "rhetorly" - that is, rhetor's or "speaker's" - "art" (rhetorike techne)... Even in the next generation the orator and educator Isocrates (c. 436-338 BC), usually credited with the creation of on of the two major "traditions" in ancient rhetorical theory, never uses the word - nor does any other Attic orator. Down to the end of the fourth century, all occurrences are, with a single exception, confined to Plato and Aristotle... It fell to them... to establish the basic categories and definitions that, here as everywhere, were to remain authoritative throughout antiquity and beyond...
Rhetoric is the "artificer of persuasion" (Plato in the Gorgias 453a) or the "influencing and swaying of the mind (psychagogia) through words" (Phaedrus 261a). More cautiously, it is the "capacity for seeing how to be as persuasive as subject and situation will permit" (Aristotle in the Rhetoric 1355b25)... The conviction that persuasion produces may be true or false, but it ranks as belief, not knowledge - hence the Platonic distinction (Gorgias 454-55) between persuasion and teaching, and Aristotle's insistence (1356-57) that rhetoric is called for in situations where rigorous, conclusive demonstration is either unavailable, or incapable of being taken in by an audience.

Thomas Cole

***

The very existence of panhellenic festivals testifies to the fact that the Greeks perceived themselves as members of a single religious group… This vision of Greek unity and kinship - which formed the very core of the politics of panhellenism - was in fact regularly promoted by the rhetorical speeches composed for these festivals (for example Gorgias' Olympicus and Pythicus and Lysias' Olympicus…). As Isocrates says in the Panegyricus:

Those who founded the great festivals are rightly praised for handling down a custom whereby, proclaiming a truce and resolving our existing quarrels, we come together in one place; then, as we perform our prayers and sacrifices in common, we recall the kinship that exists between us and are made to feel more friendly towards each other in the future (43).

To be sure, Isocrates articulates an idealizing portrait of panhellenism... As we have seen, Greek religious practices never completely transcended politics. In fact, individuals from different cities often competed at these festivals in contest that pitted one city against another. As Cartledge suggests "[athletic] competition at Olympia was a paramilitary exercise", where the competitors "channeled their competitive aggression into action that only just stayed this side of outright martial violence". Not surprisingly, political tensions ran high at panhellenic gatherings, especially when individuals at these festivals came from cities that were at war with each other. An example of political hostility at an Olympian festival is recounted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus:

In his Panegyric, the orator [Lysias] summoned the Greeks to expel Dionysius of Syracuse from power and free Sicily, and to start the hostilities at once by plundering the ruler's tent with its adornments of gold, purple finery and many other riches… For the tyrant of Syracuse had sent theoroi to attend festival and offer sacrifice to the god. Their arrival at the sanctuary had been staged on an impressive and lavish scale to enhance the dynast's prestige among the Greeks (Lysias, 29).

Andrea Nightingale

***

Who were these men whom we still, even today, refer to as 'the Sophists'?
The meaning of the term 'Sophist' was in principle relatively wide. It could be applied to anyone thoroughly qualified to exercise his profession, be he a diviner or a poet. In this sense, the term was sometimes applied to men such as Plato or Socrates. But it soon came to denote in particular the group of men who are the subject of this book and it remained associated with the kind of teaching that they provided. It was a result of the reactions provoked by this teaching that the word, as used by Plato and Aristotle, acquired the derogatory undertones that it still has today.
Much later on, notwithstanding, a group of teachers keen to draw inspiration from their example also adopted their name: this was the 'Second Sophistic', under the Roman Empire…
They emerged in many different parts of Greece at about the same time; and they all taught for a while in Athens. It is in Athens, only, that we come across them and learn of them.
The greatest of them were Protagoras, who came from Abdera, in northern Greece, on the borders of Thrace; Gorgias, who was from Sicily; Prodicus, from the small island of Ceos; Hippias from Elis, in the Peloponnese; and Thrasymachus, from Chalcedon, in Asia Minor. Others are known just as names and hardly count. Among all these foreigners there were only two men who were natives of Athens, Antiphon and Critias, and neither - certainly not Critias - appears to have been a professional itinerant teacher. There were certainly other Sophists such as the two brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, whom Plato brings to life in his very comical dialogue named after the former…
The only Sophists we really know anything about are the ones in that first group, whose teaching and writing, quite apart from their performance as professionals, made them figure-heads.

Jacqueline de Romilly

***

By far the greater part of the first book of The Republic is devoted to expounding and critisizing the views of the sophist Trasymachus... It has never been doubted, that the opening statement by Trasymachus represents the position actually held by him as a historical person...
When he first enters the discussion Thrasymachus says that Justice is the interest of the stronger and superior... Forced to choose between two positions, that justice consists in obeying the laws, and that justice consists in seeking the interest of the rulers, Thrasymachus refuses to accept the first...and argues that true rulers never make mistakes as to their interests, even though actual rulers do on occasion make mistakes as to their own interests...
This leads on to Thrasymachus' long speech in which he provides the second and the more extended statement of his position. He now states that justice consists in pursuing another's good... Injustice on the other hand consists in seeking one's own good, and so for the ruler the interest of the stronger who is himself, and for the ruled the interest of the weaker, who are themselves, namely the ruled...
Thrasymachus claims two things... First the just ruled are foolish in seeking the interest of the ruler and the just ruler is foolish in seeking the interest of the ruled. A sensible and wise man seeks only his own interest... Secondly it is injustice which is the true virtue for man since it is by pursuing injustice that men achieve arete and so eudaimonia, since it is by this path alone that they fulfil their needs...
Thrasymachus has raised the question why should I restrict the pursuit of my own interests for the sake of others, and, ever since, this has been one of the central questions in ethics... Plato... proceeds by an analysis of the structure and functioning of the individual human soul, to argue that the source of what is right is indeed not a heteronomous prescription, but autonomous because it is a prescription arising from within our own natures.

Gеorge B. Kerferd

The only positive indications that we have concerning Protagoras' view about nature of human societies are to be found in the myth put into his mouth in the Protagoras 320c onwards, of which I have already made considerable use in earlier chapters...
The first men to be born lived a life that was disorderly and beastlike... Gradually, with need as a teacher, the arts were discovered as well as the things that were useful. This was possible, because man was well endowed by nature, and was further assisted by his hands, his power of speech and his shrewdness of intelligence...
According to the myth of Protagoras, when men did 'come together' the result was continued acts of injustice between them, all because they lacked the techne of living together in a city, the art of politics, which meant that they soon scattered again. So Zeus sent Hermes to give men aidos and dike to be ordering principles of cities and bonds drawing people together in friendship... Earlier in the myth, skills in the various arts and crafts had been distributed among them by the activity of Prometheus in their defence, not the same crafts to all men, but different crafts to different people. The present distribution arranged by Zeus is on a different basis in that aidos and dike are to be given to all men, and all men are to share in them...
First does Protagoras mean, as has often been asserted, that all men possess aidos and dike by nature? It seems clear that the powers of animals are regarded as possessed by nature. It is possible that the skill in crafts is also possessed by human beings. It is given to mankind before they began their life on this earth, and it is to men what the powers are to animals. But aidos and dike are in a different position - they are something acquired after man has been living in the world.
Secondly it is important to realise that it is not the view of Protagoras that all men are to be regarded as sharing equally in aidos and dike... So it is perfectly possible for a man to act unjustly in any particular case. But social expectations differ in the cases of justice and of the special skills. In the case of the latter no one individual is expected necessarily to possess any share of his own, and when he lacks the skill he is expected to admit is. But in the first case he necessarily does possess a share, and so has the capacity of acting justly in the particular case in question, whatever it may be. So when he fails, there is a social expectation that he will endeavour to conceal his failure by claiming that in fact he has been acting justly...
The importance of this doctrine of Protagoras in the history of political thought can hardly be exaggerated. For Protagoras has produced for the first time in human history a theoretical basis for participatory democracy. All men through the educational process of living in families and in societies acquire some degree of political and moral insight. This insight can be improved by various formal programmes in schools and under particular teachers and also by the operation of laws deliberately devised by the polis in order to supplement the earlier education of its citizens...
But in moral and political questions it is not the case that all opinions and all pieces of advice are of equal value... Thus an ideal Protagorean society is not ultimately egalitarian - it is to be guided by those with the most wisdom on each and any occasion. Will such people be somehow separatedly identifiable and so constitute a ruling elite of wise advisers who can provide what is known as 'a led democracy'? This has sometimes been said.

Gеorge B. Kerferd

***

Dottori: Then one can persuade someone of the true without being able to prove it?
Gadamer: Of course. And this does not mean that the proof would be meaningless or that the point is not to prove something. Rhetoric, of course, implies that one wants to persuade someone of one takes to be true - this is also rhetoric, and this is what we are constantly doing. It's inherent in our speaking with one another and in our mutual understanding.
D.: On the other hand, I think rhetoric for Gorgias consisted in the sheer desire to persuade and in nothing else, thus disregarding the problem of truth. That is to say, that Aristotle, in the first book of his Rhetoric, says that we are not dealing here with the true, but only with the eikos, the "veri-similar", and that rhetoric teaches to us how to defend ourselves; for it is unworthy for a human being to be able to defend himself only with the body and not with speech.
G.: No - that wouldn't hold for the Gorgias who is handled with such great respect in Plato. Now, Prodicus and Protagoras - whom we consider to be precursors of Nietzsche rather than Rorty - they're different. Gorgias, who was a highly gifted man and whose reputation was apparently enormous because he had such enormous eloquence, is respected and praised by Plato because he is reputed to be honest. But, just as we misunderstand Gorgias, we also misunderstand the true sense of Platonic-Aristotelian rhetoric because we remain trapped in a false estimation of rhetoric that we have dragged alone with us through the intervening centuries in which the schools of rhetoric have dominated. The rhetoric that we can call the art of speech or persuasion does not, as we have believed for centuries, consist in a body of rules according to whose application and adherence we can achieve victory over our opponent or our partner in public debates or simply in conversation with one another. The art of speech or persuasion consist, rather, in the innate ability - which we cal also, of course, develop and perfect - of being able to actually communicate with others and even persuade them of the true without being able to prove it (assuming that we are no longer able to). It's really a matter of our actually being able to speak to others, and this means that we must appeal to their emotions and their passions (this is why the second book of Aristotle's Rhetoric deals with the passions of the human soul), but not in order to deceive others or to profit by it personally, but, instead, to allow what is true to appear and to reveal what we ourselves are persuaded by and what, otherwise (through the usual methods of proof) could not appear as such. This is why Aristotle calls the domain of rhetoric eikos - for it is a question of a truth that could not appear only in our speech and that otherwise would not be manifest as such…
We can now conclude that he philosopher and the Sophist are not to be distinguished sheerly by their argumentation. The mode of arguing is the same, and the difference consist only in the fact that, in the one case, we seek only what is just, and we want to convince the other that it is also what is true; in the other case, we seek only that which appears to us to be more advantageous and more useful. And, in this case, perhaps we also try to make our own advantage appear to be what is just. as long as it can appear (according to the eikos, thus apparently) to be such a thing.

Hans-Georg Gadamer

***

The important things we know for sure about the author of the works collected under the name 'Plato' are roughly these: that he was born in the early 420s BC to a wealthy father by the name of Ariston (his mother's name is in some doubt); that he had a close relationship, at least on a intellectual level, with Socrates; that he spent the larger part of his life in Athens, without interference from the authoritites, despite the profoundly anti-democratic nature of his extensive political writings; that he founded a philosophical 'school', the Academy, which was to survive as an institution for research and reflection, and for teching; that from 367 until his death, he had Aristotle with him in the Academy; and that he died in 347.
However elusive Plato may be, and have been, from a biographer's point of view, there is no doubting the difference he made, as a single individual, to the history of philosophy. Even Stoicism, the great rival of Platonism in the early days of both, can be detected rifling Platonic dialogues to provide material for its own systematic constructions.

Christopher Rowe

***

The speakers of the first group (Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus) draw a fundamental distinction between a good and a bad variety of love, while those of the second group do not. This development comes to a head with Diotima's teaching that love in any of its manifestations is directed towards good.
Pausanias draw the obvious contrast with lovers who are more concerned with the body than the soul, and who therefore do not take virtue into account. Phaedrus does not; but the contrast is implicit in his claim to know of no greater good for a young boy than a "decent" or "worthy" lover.
Aristophanes announces a break with Pausanias and Еryximachus's scheme of things… The break is to see love not sundered into good and bad, but as a single aspiration, common to all and directed (despite differences of sexual orientation) at the same generic object - wholeness…
Agathon failed to see that love's nature is to seek the good, rather than to possess it; but it turns out, that he was not wrong to claim that love is praiseworthy in its very nature; for to seek the good is praiseworthy. And this is to reinstate the message of Aristophanes'tale: that love is above all a search for what has been lost.
Diotima returns to the topic of specific love. Specific love is in fact not, as Socrates (and Agathon) suppose, love of the beautiful, but rather "of begetting and giving birth in the beautiful". In the specific case beauty takes the role of midwife to generation, prompting those fertile in body, both animal and human, to engender offspring who can renew their line and (for humans) keep their name alive, while those men who are more fertile in soul than body will be inspired by a boy who combines bodily beauty and beauty of character to give birth to fine discourse about civic virtue with a view to his education. At the level of Lesser Mysteries she describes the ultimate good - the goal of generic love, toward which all human actions are directed - as "immortal virtue and the glorious fame that follows". The "love of honor" is the highest human aspiration here. But when introducing the topic of generic love, Diotima has prepared us to accept the "love of wisdom" as one of its manifestations; and in the Greater Mysteries it will be philosophy that leads us to the ultimate goal.
The philosophic initiate begins, then, at level lower than that attained by the honor lover in the Lesser Mysteries (whom he will overtake in due course). His starting point is higher than the level of the fertile merely in body, however; for their love engenders human offspring, whereas his produces discourse… We next find him having come to prize beauty of soul over beauty of body. We are not told how he made the transition, but only that these are stages along the way that he "must" visit if he is to achieve the highest goal… Compelled, in his role as mentor, to consider beauty of activities and laws, he comes to a conclusion about it that is independent of his educative purpose (just as he spent more thought on bodily beauty in general than was necessary for the purpose of seduction). The lover will think the beauty of bodies a thing of no importance...
At the next stage of his development, accordingly, he is not attached to an individual, but is attracted rather by the beauty of knowledge in its various forms, which causes him to give birth once again to beautiful discourse - now the discourse of philosophy.
His (of Alcibiades) is the version on a heroic scale of the danger that Apollodorus, hawking memberships to the Socratic fan club, had illustrated in the prologue on the level of farce: Instead of loving wisdom he falls in love with the wisdom lover - exactly the danger that Diotima attempts to exclude from her ladder of love by banishing individual from the centre of attention when the rung of philosophy has been reached.

G.R.F. Ferrari

***

In the Republic the role of ordinary people in the state corresponds to that of appetite in the soul… In the Laws the positive development of desirable habits and traits takes the place of this restraint. The common people are encouraged to live in accordance to virtue and both education and the laws are to nurture them in this way of life. But when they live in accordance with the precepts of virtue, it is because they have been conditioned into and habituated to such a way of life, and not because they understand the point of it. That understanding is still restricted to the rulers. This emerges most clearly in discussion of the question of the existence of the gods or god… In the Republic explicit references to the divine are sporadic… In the Laws, however, the existence of the divine has become the cornerstone of morals and politics… The divine is important in the Laws because it is identified with law; to be obedient before the law is to be obedient before god…
But the rulers are to be men who have “toiled to acquire complete confidence in the existence of the gods” by intellectual effort… Suppose, however, that a member of the ruling group comes to think that he has found a flaw in the required proof – what then? Plato gives a clear answer in Book XII. If this doubter keeps his doubts to himself, then well and good. But if he insists on disseminating them, then the Nocturnal Council, the supreme authority in the hierarchy of Magnesia, will condemn him to death. The absence of Socrates from the dialogue is underlined by this episode… But it is also clear that Plato’s political philosophy is not merely only justifiable if, but is only intelligible if, some theory of values as residing in a transcendent realm to which there can be access only for an intellectually trained elite can be shown to be plausible. This is the connection between the nonpolitical vision of the Symposium and the entirely political vision of the Laws. But what is the turn in Plato’s thought which transformed Socrates from hero into potential victim?

Alasdair MacIntyre

***

Thomas Cole. The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. The John Hopkins UP, 1991-1995.

Andrea W. Nightingale. The politics of panhellenism. In: Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy. Cambridge UP, 2004-2006.

Jacqueline de Romilly. The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992-2002.

George. B. Kerferd. The nomos-physis controversy; The theory of society. In: G.B. Kerferd. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge UP, 1981-1999.

Hans-Georg Gadamer. A Century of Philosophy. A Conversation with Riccardo Dottori. Transl. by Rod Coltman with Sigrid Koepke. Continuum, 2003.

Christopher Rowe. Plato. In: David Sedley ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy. Cambridge UP 2003-2004.

G.R.F. Ferrari. Platonic Love. In: Richard Kraut ed. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge UP, 1992-2005

Alasdair MacIntyre. Postscript to Plato. In: A Short History of Ethics. A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric Age to the twentieth century. Routledge 1967-2006.

The Historians

2008-01-28T23:45:00.000+02:00

Herodotus' work is the earliest Greek book in prose to have survived intact; it is some 600 pages or nine 'books' long…
The ultimate justification of the work is the account of the conflict between Greece and Persia, culminating in the Great Expedition of Xerxes to Greece in 480 BC described in the last three books: it is the story of how an army of (allegedly) one and three-quarter million men and a navy of 1 200 ships was defeated by the fragmented force of the Greeks, who in no battle could muster more than 40 000 men and 378 ships; a fleet from Herodotus' city had fought on the Persian side, and one of his earliest memories was perhaps of the setting out and return of that fateful expedition; he grew up in a Ionia suffering the joys and pains of its liberation and then subjection by the victorious Athenian navy. For the generation of Herodotus the epic achievements of their fathers had created the world in which they lived, as the return of the exiles from Babylon had created the world of Ezra.
The central theme of this conflict requires Herodotus to go back to its origins: 'who was the first in actual facts to harm the Greeks'. So the work begins with the earlier struggles between the Ionian Greeks and the kingdom of Lydia, before passing on to the origin of Persian power and the story of Cyrus the Great, and then the further conquests of the Persians, in Egypt and North Africa, and around the Black Sea, until we see that the conflict was inevitable.
Like Hecataeus, Herodotus was a traveler… The result is rather a total picture of the known world, in which the geography, customs, beliefs and monuments of each people are at least as important as their often tenuous relationships to the war. It is which gives added depth to Herodotus' account, and makes it both a great work of art and a convincing history of a conflict not just between two peoples but between two types of society, The Mediterranean egalitarian city-state and the oriental despotisms of the Middle East. It also makes Herodotus more modern than any other ancient historian in his approach to the ideal of total history.
Herodotus' openness to other cultures indeed caused him to be called a 'barbarophile'. It reflects in part an older Ionian view from an age of exploration, reinforced perhaps by the traditions of Herodotus' own community of Halicarnassus, which was a mixed Greek and Carian city. But these attitudes have been systematized under the influence of the new sophistic interest in the relationship between culture and nature, nomos and physis…
The two aspects of the work in one sense reflect the two main literary influences on it, Homer and the world of war and conflict, Hecataeus and the world of peace and understanding. He seems to have begun as an expert on foreign cultures, a traveling sophist who lectured on the marvels of the world; only later did he arrange his researches around a unifying theme… His travels included Egypt and Cyrene in North Africa, Tyre in Phoenicia, Mesopotamia as far as Babylon, the Black Sea and the Crimea, and the north Aegean, apart from the main cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and ultimately (though this has left little if any trace in the Histories) south Italy where he settled…
At Delphi a different type of tradition was available, a series of stories told by the priests and related to the monuments and offerings at the shrine. These stories contain many folk-tale motifs and have a strong moral tone: the hero moves from prosperity to misfortune as a victim of divine envy - the ethical teaching is not aristocratic but belongs to the shrine of a god whose temple carried the mottoes, 'Know yourself' and 'Nothing too much'. The same types of story pattern are dominant in Ionia: Herodotus history of his home area is far less 'historical' and far less political than his account of mainland Greece.
Just as behind Homer there lies a long tradition of oral poetry sung by professional bards, so behind Herodotus there lies an Ionian tradition of storytelling of which he himself was the last and greatest master.

Oswin Murray

***

Polybius' History book VI contains the most complete text of Hellenistic Greek political theory that has survived from Antiquity and the only extended example of applied political theory. Polybius, an Achaean statesman turned historian, developed a political theory not to justify a political position, advocate an ideal constitution, or speculate on the nature of law, justice, political authority, or the relation of man to the state, but for the practical purpose of explaining an predicting historical events.
Polybius explicitly tells us that the sixth book of his History was intended to serve two functions: (1) to explain Rome's rise to power, specifically, 'how and by what type of constitution nearly the whole of the inhabited world, in less than 53 years, was overpowered and brought under one rule, that of the Romans'; and (2) to enable astute readers to make intelligent, informed political decisions in a world dominated by Rome, and in the particular case of political leaders, to govern in such a way as to upgrade and perfect the constitutions of their several states...
Polybius makes no pretence that his theory is completely original. He openly acknowledges that Plato and other philosophers 'discussed the subject at length and in precise detail'... His theory appears to have been drawn from three established Greek traditions: (1) the classification and comparison of the value of various constitutions, traceable back at least ti Herodotus and continuing in Plato, Aristotle, and later Peripatetics; (2) the theory of constitutional change, discussed by Plato, Aristotle and later Peripatetics; and (3) the origin of human society, speculatively reconstructed by many philosophers, including Protagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus as well as later Peripatetics and Epicureans.

David Hahm

***

Oswin Murray. Greek Historians. In: J. Boardman, J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford UP, 1986-1991.

David Hahm. Polybius' applied political theory. In: Andre Laks and Malcolm Schofield ed. Justice and Generosity. Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy. Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium Hellenisticum. Cambridge UP, 1995.

Drama. Tragedy, Comedy

2008-01-28T21:24:00.000+02:00

Traditionally, the criticism of tragedy has assumed that there is (or should be) something that can be called a 'true' tragic plot. The most widely accepted master narrative is an integral part of the Aristotelian tradition that for centuries dominated tragic criticism and is still surpisingly resilient today. This schema emphasises hamartia, generally understood as the 'tragic flaw' of overweening pride, and its punishment. The tragic hero, although caught in circumstances beyond his ken and control, is finally to be understood as destroyed by the gods (or fate) because of his own failings. Even cursory examination of the plots of the extant tragedies will suggest some obvious ways in which this schema is inadequate and even irrelevant...It has at any rate created an situation in which the small corpus of surviving Greek tragedy has been further subdivided, leaving only a tiny group universally recognised as 'true' tragedies. The rest are treated as failed attempts at tragedy, relegated to mixed genres invented ad hoc, or left to specialists.
'Conflict' has been a central term in criticism of tragedy only since Hegel's Vorlesungen uber die Aesthetik of the 1820s, surprisingly, since from our perspective it is in many ways the crucial one...
In speaking of story patterns, I am not claiming to isolate a set of master plots to which all the narrative forms of tragedy can be referred; I am simply highlighting particular forms used repeatedly by the tragic poets in shaping their plots... The commonest of these story patterns are those I shall refer to as retribution, sacrifice, supplication, rescue and return-recognition.

Peter Burian

***

Yet despite tragedy’s ethnic plurality, and its interest in heroes and communities spread over vast distances across the known world, the Athenian focus, the ‘Athenocentrism’ of tragedy is manifested in several ways. Many plays include explicit panegyrics of Athens, for example in Aeschylus’Persians (231-45) and Sophocles’Oedipus at Colonus (668-719); the women of Troy, about to be sent off to slavery in Greece, hope that their destination is Athens (Trojan Women, 208-209). Secondly, even plays, with no obvious Athenian focus often include an aition, an explanation through myth, of the origins of an Athenian custom (Iphigenia among the Taurians, 1459-69). Thirdly, the tragedians used communities other than Athens as sites for ethnic self-definition; the barbarian world often functions in the tragic imagination as the home of vices (for example, Persian despotism, Thracian lawlessness, eastern effeminacy and cowardice) conceived as correlatives to the idealised Athenian democratic virtues of freedom of speech, equality before the law, and masculine courage. Nearer home it can also be helpful to see other Greek cities, especially Thebes, as imagined communities whose negative characteristics are partly determined by their deviation from the Athenians’ own positive self-representations...
Fourthly, a subspecies of tragedy emerged enacting transparently ‘patriotic’ myths, concerned with the early mythical history of Athens and Attica, and stressing such vital components of the Athenians’ identity as their claim to autochthony. The repertoire included Euripides’ Suppliant Women, Ion, and his Erechtheus, of which considerable fragments survive...
Even in plays set in Athenian territory, the Athenian characters always interact with representatives of other city-states. Some plots seek to display the superiority of Athenian democratic culture over other cities, especially Thebes or Argos, and imply that Athens is entitled to the imperial role of ‘moral policeman’ in Greece. In Euripides’ Suppliant Women Theseus, the mythical founder of the Athenian democracy, is portrayed as a pious and egalitarian constitutional monarch of a democracy (352-353). He takes action against the despotic Thebans to impose ‘the common law of Hellas’ protecting the rights of the dead.
The Athenocentrism of tragedy is revealed when myths involving heroes from other cities are manipulated to serve Athenian interests. Until the sixth century Athens had enshrined little of its own local mythology in poetry and art; it had no hero equal in status to Heracles, Achilles, Orestes, Agamemnon, or Oedipus. There was an attempt in the late sixth and fifth centuries to develop a nexus of myths around the Athenian king Theseus, who appears in several tragedies; but the Argive, Theban, and other non-Athenian heroes from the old epic cycle, while remaining central to tragedy, are often appropriated to the Athenian past, in each case conferring on the city some special advantage.

Edith Hall

***

The main surviving mass of ancient Greek comedy begins only with Aristophanes, who was born within a few years of the mid fifth century, long after the great tragedians and too late to tell us much about the riotous early days of the comic chorus, before the state took it over… In his early plays traditional Athenian comedy, the Old Style, as it came to be called, had already reached its full development; it has, as Aristotle remarked of tragedy, ‘attained its nature’. The chorus was all-important, and the revelation of its dress and dances and music… was central to the competition.
The comic theatre in the fifth century was directly political in a way that tragedy was not; its jokes had a bite and were often meant to be taken seriously. Aristophanes used his chorus at a certain moment in the play to address the audience directly; sometimes the chorus itself, the Birds or Clouds or Wasps or Frogs or whatever, seems to be speaking to us, sometimes the poet himself speaks through them…All the same, real Athenians could be parodied by name ot only thinly disguised, and plays could even be named after them. We know that politicians resented this, which is hardly surprising, but there is no evidence that they ever managed to stamp it out under the fifth-century democracy…
The greatest comic poet we know much about before Aristophanes is Cratinus. They overlapped; young Aristophanes attacked old Cratinus as a drunk who had given up poetry… The nearest contemporaries to Aristophanes in his working lifetime were Eupolis, who started producing comedies in 429 BC and died young in the course of the war, by drowning at sea, and a comic poet called Plato, younger than either of them, at work from about 410 to some time after 390… In the course of his career, Aristophanes spans the first two of the three phases or styles of Greek comedy. We must leave Epicharmus in Sicily out of account; Sicily and Athens in his day were separate planets. But starting in the twenties with vigorous and farcical burlesque, intermingled with savage onslaughts on politicians, he moved through the sadder, and in places more solemn, schemes of comedies such as the Frogs (405 BC) to the revival of comedy after the fall of Athens…
The essential plot of the Frogs is the descent of Dionysus, a god with many human weaknesses, to the underworld, mocked by the Frogs as he learns to row in Charon’s boat; he is searching for a great tragic poet, and chooses between Aeschylus and Euripides by a contest in which they destroy one anther’s lines with parody and mockery…
Of the plays we have, the very first is like a bucket of cold water in the face. It not only sounds, it trumpets the great themes of comic poetry: sex, life on the farm, the good old days, the nightmare of politics, the oddities of religion, the strange manners of the town. It is called the Acharnians (425 BC). The Knights, in the next year, adds to the old mixture some stern moralizing, some furious invective and some lyrical patriotic politics…
His early comedies were political, his latest began to be social. In the second phase of Athenian comedy, to which Aristophanes is virtually our only witness, the chorus withered away to some musical interludes, plots knitted together into coherence, and a kind of realism took over… His Wealth (388 BC) reflects only the transition. What was coming was comedy as the modern world has known it, beginning with Menander.

Peter Levi

***

Plautus frequently parades the fact that his drama is adapted from an original in Greek New Comedy. In doing so he positively embraces the implication that he has debased his model by stating that he has translated it into barbarian. The criticisms of the Greek-speaking snob are not deflected, they are made part of the comic experience…
It is not easy to account for the popularity of Greek mythological tragedy in the early years of the Roman theatre. In comedy, it is possible to analyze the process of adaptation involved in the presentation of Greek New Comedy at Rome. It is clear, for instance, that nobody attempted to Romanize the exuberant fantasies or contemporary political humour of Aristophanes, and the other masters of fifth-century Old Comedy. Rather, the pieces which won such favour with Roman audiences were those which adapted the domestic, bourgeois New Comedy of late fourth- and early third-century authors such as Menander, Diphilos and Philemon.
Some ancient critics praised Menander in particular for his naturalism, for the mirror which he held to life. When he presented an Athenian youth on the stage he wore clothes which had been subject to some degree of stylization but which were not dissimilar to those typical of his class in the world outside the theatre. In a Roman palliate comedy (named after the pallium - Greek-style cloak, to designate the Greek origins of the genre, contrasted with partly Roman 'togate' comedy), every time a character refers to 'my pallium' he is also drawing attention to his theatrical costume, to the marker of the burlesque national identity which he has embraced. Plautus veritably proclaims the Greekness of his comic world, even to the extent of having his characters make comments about Romans as barbarians...
The poets and chorus of Greek Old Comedy frequently step out of their roles and address the theatrical audience directly on issues of dramatic technique, rivalry between authors and the competition between the plays on show, but they do so in the formal section of the drama known as the parabasis. Menandrean New Comedy features a range of divine prologue-speakers who address the audience directly and sketch out the plot of the drama to follow; characters in Menander occasionally recount some off-stage incident to the audience and address them as 'Gentlemen'. Terence in turn will adopt the prologues of Menander, but eliminate all expository content in favour of literary criticism and polemic against competitors. None of these writers, however, comes close to the intense interaction between actor and audience which typifies Plautine comedy.

Matthew Leigh

***

Peter Burian. Myth and muthos:the shaping of tragic plot. In: P.E. Easterling ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge UP, 1997-2004.

Edith Hall. The Sociology of Athenian tragedy. In: P.E. Easterling ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge UP, 1997-2004.

Peter Levi. Greek Drama. In: J. Boardman, J. Griffin, O. Murray ed. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford UP, 1986-1991.

Matthew Leigh. Primitivism and power: The beginnings of Latin literature. In: Oliver Taplin ed. Literature of the Roman World. Oxford UP, 2000-2001

Epic. 'Homer'. Hesiod

2008-01-28T21:15:00.000+02:00

‘Epic’ is of course an invented concept, a Western imposition on the natural heterogeneity of long narrative forms from cultures around the world. Stemming ultimately from ancient Greek epos, which spans the field from ‘word’ to ‘tale’ in Homer, and the popular term epopoiia (‘verse composition’), ancient Greek epic has been described as a genre in some depth since Aristotle; once canonized, it became a literary tool of unquestioned usefulness and applicability worldwide, primarily on the cultural and ideological strength of its Greco-Roman origins.
Like all genre labels, ‘epic’ can help focus our vision, creating categories that facilitate comparison and contrast as well as filling in a background against which individual tales can be understood. In that sense it can function as an effective organizing principle, and generic identity can certainly serve as a tool for effective reading. But, as already adumbrated, neither ‘the epic’ nor any other genre is an archetype. The nation and individuals who produce ‘epics’ have no uniform code of generic requirements; indeed, even their internal systems of nomenclature for various kinds of verbal art prove radically divergent... and in applying this concept and label uncritically to long narrative forms from other cultures we run the risk of unintentionally colonizing their verbal art...

Relatively few epics are smaller in extent than the Homeric poems – Beowulf at 3 182 lines and the hundred-odd medieval French chansons de geste at about the same or lesser length are examples – but many are far longer. A more dependable characteristic of epic across cultures is the often-cited feature of ‘omnibus genre’, that is, the extent to which the epic absorbs or is in conversation with other poetic genres in the cultural repertoire. Critics have identified prayers, laments, proverbs, catalogues and inset stories within the Iliad and Odyssey...

The presence of formulas, such as ‘swift-footed Achilles’ or ‘wine-dark sea’, has often been cited as an indication of the Homeric poems’ debt to an ancient Greek oral tradition, as the recurrence of typical scenes like Arming the Hero or Feasting... When Andromache pleads with Hector in Iliad 6 to remain inside Troy with her and Astyanax, her use of traditional scene of Lament – customarily a vehicle for actually mourning the dead – suggests the inevitability of her husband’s demise. The Return story pattern of the Odyssey, mirrored in a host of Indo-European epic traditions, accounts for the order and sequence of the poem, for Penelope’s trademark intransigence, and for the closure of the poem after XXIII, 296...
Homeric epic has drawn definition from other stylistic features as well, very prominently from its prologues, catalogues and similes. The Iliad begins with an appeal to the Muse and a sketch of the mythic background to the action that follows, and the Odyssey starts similarly, with particular attention to Odysseus strivings and an exhortation to the Muse to ‘speak also to us’. Correspondingly, The Siri Epic begins with an extensive series of invocations, while South Slavic songs also make use of pripjevi, or prologues, to start up the narrative action.

National character – the epic as a charter of group identity, myth in the service of indigenous social history – is an aspect of many scholars’ concept of the genre. The Iliad glorifies the Achaean achievement in battle and the Odyssey memorializes the post-Troy return to one’s homeland with all the dangers and challenges such a journey and homecoming pose... The ‘epic ethos’ reaches far beyond its most immediate context, and well beyond where document-based history can go: the Kalevala has long fuelled the emergence of the Finns as an individual nation, as well as the discipline of folk-lore studies and the music of Sibelius.
National characters and group identity are often encoded in heroic actions, with a central focus on martial achievement, but there are other sorts of epic vehicles as well. The heroism in the Iliad – the acts of war and winning of kleos on the battlefield, irrespective of whether one lives or dies - is not entirely coincident with heroism in the Odyssey, which consists of winning survival, return and re-establishment of the social order.

John Miles Foley

***

...the straight truth is that we can say next to nothing for certain about the original circumstances of production of our two poems, neither about their audience nor their author nor their context of communication. For a start, they come from a time well before any kind of firm external historical record...
'Homer' never in any way declares who he is, where he comes from, or who he is making poetry for. Even if he did, we would have to treat the declaration with care - it need not be literally true - but he has covered his own tracks so completely that this question does not arise. More than in almost any other poetry, the craftsman suppresses his own presence, and effaces his own identity.

Achilles is uncompromising, overt in his feelings, unhesitatingly ready to die in order to make good his failings: Odysseus, the great survivor, is subtle, always ready to temporize, to disguise, and to lie...
The archetypal anitypes go far beyond the two heroes. The Iliad tells directly of only a few crucial days out of the whole Trojan War; and it is almost entirely set, claustrophobically almost, at Troy. At the same time, the poem extends understanding towards a wide range of characters, and to both sides in the war. While the Odyssey narrates only a small number of days directly - those leading up to Odysseus' return and revenge on Ithake - it covers, by means of flashbacks, a wide spread of places, including the varied story-worlds of Odysseus' adventures. And his adventures (and those of Menelaos) are spread over some ten years. Yet, for all its range of time and place, the Odyssey is centred on one man and his close associates in a way quite different from the multiplicity of the Iliad.
The Odyssey is fundamentally a crime-and-punishment story: the good and the likeable triumph, and the wicked are in the end brought low. It all moves towards reunion and the establishment of a stable and peaceful society, even though that is not fully acheved by the end of the poem (the eventuality is profesied). The Odyssey's overall direction is from suffering and disruption towards restoration and the united family. The Iliad, on the other hand, is not evidently a story of right and wrong; it tells of a world in which all suffer, and where the suffering is not apportioned by deserving. The finest people and the finest relationships - Achilles, Patroklos, Hektor, Andromache, Priam - are destroyed. The best gets wasted; anger and conflict rule human life. The prosperous and civilized city of Troy is to go up in flames; and by no means all of leading Achaians will get home - and even fewer will enjoy the fruits of victorious peace. Two quite different views of the human condition, then, and yet somehow a pair, like non-identical twins.

Oliver Taplin

***

The Theogony, in about 1 000 lines, covers the origin and the genealogies of some 300 gods (many in lists of course) and it all leads up towards the establishment of Zeus as supreme divine ruler. The shorter Works and Days is a kind of discursive collection of wise advice, especially about good husbandry; it tells what a man should do to fit into the natural and moral order of the world. Unlike any other early hexameter poetry, W&D is addressed to fellow contemporaries, mostly to Hesiod's layabout brother Perses, and partly to the local lords whom he accuses of corruption.
Although so different in tone and subject from Homer, Hesiod's poems are in the same hexameter metre, and in a pretty similar style and diction. There has been much dispute over which cane the first, but it may well be that the two poets were contemporaries, or at least their lives may have overlapped. Homer almost certainly came though, from the other side of the Aegean Sea, from the middle part of the Asia Minor coast known as Ionia, near its border with the more northern part known as Aiolis. Even so, it is not impossible that they both participated in the same poetic occasions sometimes. The ancient Greeks certainly liked to believe that they did, and stories about a great 'Contest' between them grew up early, probably within a few generations of their own day. This sets up a kind of contest within the whole nature of poetry: the story-teller of glamorous champions versus the font of homely wisdom…
It was surely Hesiod himself who established the Muses, traditionally from Mount Olympos far to the north, on his local mountain, Helikon. He even seems to have coined, in his Theogony, their canonical nine names…
Hesiod performed his poetry then (or made out that he preformed) at a big public occasion which attracted visitors and competitors. Competition can be good, he claims elsewhere (W&D 25-6). So a picture begins to take shape of poets who travel, and whose venues include big public occasions where they can compete to win attention, prestige, and reward.
In W&D Hesiod casts himself as a grim old bugger, tough, without illusions, worn down by hard labour, pessimistic (174-177). But this does not mean that Hesiod's audience listened to him in order to get depressed. What does his poetry offer them, then? Explicitly: vivid wisdom, mythical and religiouy lore, and glorification of the gods, above all of Zeus. But there is an important passage in the Theogony which brings out a further, key reason for audiences to give time to this special form of discourse, poetry. Hesiod is talking of the behaviour and blessings of a good basileus (lord), and emphasizing the importance to him of the poet: (97-103).

Oliver Taplin

***

John Miles Foley. Epic as a genre. In: Robert Fowler ed. The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Cambridge UP, 2004-2007.

Oliver Taplin. The spring of the Muses: Homer and related poetry. In: Oliver Taplin ed. Literature in the Greek World. Oxford UP, 2000-2001.

The Epic. Homer, "Odyssey"

2007-12-18T16:25:00.000+02:00

Lecture from 25 of October, Thursday

I. The Theme of "Odyssey" ("What about" is the Poem). What Part of the Myth uses Homer

1. Moments of the myth (or legend) of the Trojan war
2. The theme of "Odyssey"

II. Plot and Composition of "Odyssey"

1. "Iliad"'s plot
2. "Odyssey"'s plot
3. Composition of the poem

III. Odysseus' Adventures

IV. The Heroes from Troja Return Home. The Common Plot of "Iliad" and "Odyssey"

The Epic. Homer, "Iliad"

2007-12-14T15:21:00.000+02:00

Lecture from 18 of October, Thursday

I. Homer and the events of the Trojan war

1. Sources and data concerning the author of "Iliad" and "Odyssey"
2. Sources and date for the war the Trojan legend tells us about
a. Time of the Trojan war
b. Possible reasons for the war. Its range
c. Who were the Trojans

II. Epic Poetry

1. Formal characteristics of epic
2. Typical content of an epic poem
3. Trojan cycle

III. "Iliad"

1. Summary of the poem
2. Ways of retardation
3. Poetical language

Literature in English (available in the web):
Trojan War
http://ancient-anatolia.blogspot.com/2006/09/trojan-war.html
Trojan War (with illustrations)
http://greece.exteen.com/20070929/trojan-war
The Rise of the Greek Epic. by Gilbert Murray. Oxford, 1907
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=91351652#

Introduction to the Study of Ancient Greek Literature

2007-12-12T21:30:00.000+02:00

I. About the work during the semester

II. List of the Lectures

A. Poetry
1. Homer. "Iliad"
2. Homer. "Odyssey"
3. Hesiod. "Theogony". "Works and Days"
4. Classical Lyric. Pindar
5. Hellenistic Lyric. The Poetry of Hellenism.
6. Tragedy
7. Comedy
8. New Comedy

B. Prose
9. History. Herodotus and Thycidides
10. Rhetoric. Demosthenes
11. The Philosophical Dialogue. Plato
12. The Novel

III. Reading List (in translation)

IV. The Ancient Greek Literature - a Survey

Literature in English (available in the web):
Classical and Hellenistic Greece
http://hleefish.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!1pTDlhMOIJB3vzh2cIwdysyQ!716.entry
A History of Ancient Greek Literature. by Gilbert Murray.
http://www.questia.com/library/book/a-history-of-ancient-greek-literature-by-gilbert-murray.jsp

Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

2007-11-19T10:20:00.000+02:00

(continues from October, 28)

A year later the Department of Classics considered the creation of another Master’s – in Byzantine studies. At first glance it seemed, that the designers have drawn the moral from the experience of the specialty so far. Firstly, the project has been initiated by professors in two specialties – classical and modern Greek philology (the second was created in the beginning of the 90-ies, and is administratively ruled by the Department of Classics). Moreover, the programme had to be run with the cooperation of the Theological Faculty, which had restored its status of a faculty in the University in the beginning of the 90-ies. Previously it had been separated as an independent HEI, called “Spiritual academy” (sic!). Besides, since the very beginning the designers of the programme had invited for elaboration of the conception colleagues from a third faculty – the Philosophical one. Some authoritative retired professors-historians had agreed to participate as well.
The programme was supposed to include in comparatively equal proportions philological, linguistic, historical, theological, philosophical and practical linguistic disciplines. Thus the problem with the enrollment of the master-students seemed to be solved, because for the programme could opt bachelors in theology, classical and modern Greek philology, as well as historians and philosophers. In fact there were no limitations. The candidate could be a humanitarian or other and (s)he was expected merely to possess a diploma for a completed higher education. It was presumed that the number of the optional classes will exceed the number of the obligatory disciplines, and that the professors will be invited from the University and from other places as well. All that encouraged the designers of the programme (I was among them) to believe in the future of the project.
This programme not only didn’t start, but even did not reach a discussion at the Faculty council; what means that the team didn’t manage to formulate a proposal. The initiators of the programme from our Department could not reach an agreement with the partners of the Theological faculty on two kinds of questions.
1. Who will take the administrative and the financial responsibility for the project? Who is going to administer the students and to do the administrative services, connected with their enrollments, fees, exams, marks of the exams etc?
2. How to be solved the problem with the academic persons, who teach similar material (authors, themes)? No one was prepared for that, because there was no concurrence and competition in the previous system, as has been already mentioned. Every professor had his/her secured field in the frames of one’s community, and the different communities (separated even administratively) did not communicate at all. And not only that. The people in them did not know each other personally and often have not heard their names.

Maybe this system for research and education could reach perfection, if only it were possible in one whole state to exist one and only one specialist in each scholar, scientific or educational topic. A “specialist” means a person, who is authorized by the government to speak and write on this topic. I mention “by the government” on purpose. The truth is that till the present day the certificate for the doctoral, the associate professor’s and the professor’s title, is issued by a special institution, entirely independent from the universities, but dependent from the prime minister (because he appoints its president). The ideal situation - every one to know one’s own and no one to know the other’s - had not been achieved during the XX century not because of lack of political will. Simply there is not terrestrial force and reason, which could define and limit once and forever the topics for a scholar enquiry and for a discussion whatsoever. An ancient philosopher would say, that this is due to the eternal and insurmountable chaos in the sublunary part of the universe; or to the inseparability of the primordial ideas themselves. These facts are mentioned by Plato and Aristotle; but even earlier other Greek thinkers had pointed them out and were sorry about them.

3. The curriculum of the Master’s programme Ancient culture and literature

The next year, simultaneously with the of the reform of the curricula, which had to be fit to the European credit transfer system, the collegium of the classicists decided to propose to the faculty a new master’s programme, entitled “Ancient culture and literature”. This is precisely the programme, whose development I have decided to sketch for you today. In the beginning the conception was based on the following conclusions, derived on the already acquired experience.

(to be continued)

(the restaurant "By the Witches" - Shipka str., five minutes on foot from the University)

The Palace of the Knights of Rhodes

2007-11-05T21:56:00.000+02:00

The paper* proposes to the readers some impressions from the architecture of the medieval Palace of the Knights of St. John, called also “Palace of the Grand Master”. The text is divided into four chapters, entitled:
1. About the Architecture
2. 2. The Palace of Rhodes
3. 3. The Second Message.
4. 4. The Restorers.
The initial suggestion of the paper is: the architecture of the medieval fortification buildings, together with its practical purposes, evokes some feelings (or emotional dispositions). It is supposed that these feelings could be contradictory.
On the one hand, the dweller or the newcomer (nowadays the visitor) could be struck by the unusual highness and thickness of the walls, the narrowness of the passages and the windows, the lack of some elementary (from the modern point of view) safety and comfort measures; therefore he/she could be pushed to negative sentiments like fear, anxiety, feeling of dependence or helplessness.
On the other hand these severe conditions could evoke in the dweller (here we are thinking firstly about the medieval knights as Christian soldiers) other dispositions – bravery, military discipline, readiness for self-sacrifice or even for martyrdom.
At the last chapter some speculations are proposed about the way this ambiguity of feelings in front of a architectural work could be put in the context of the fascist world-view (the Palace was thoroughly restored by the Italian government of the island at the beginning of the Second World War) and therefore how a modern ideology could use the characteristics of a traditional art for its own purposes.

*the paper is published in:
Mediaevalia Christiana, 1: Power - Image - Imagining. 2005, Iztok-Zapad Publishing House

(Thomas Cole, The Architect's Dream. 1840. Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio)
From Web Gallery of Art - http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/cole/architec.html

Herodotus and the Parts of the World

2007-11-01T15:41:00.000+02:00

II. Egypt*

The paper deals with Herodotus' description of Egypt in the second book of the “History”. The Greek view of the Egypt’s civilization, and, more specifically, how the Greeks were impressed by Egypt and how they conceived the Egyptian impact to their own civilization is the main topic discussed. Next, suggestions are made Egypt as a productive object of western cultural imagination and as a symbol of the eastern civilization model with its positive and negative aspects.

The paper is divided into the following chapters:

1. The Description of Egypt and the Meaning of the Word “History”
2. Egypt and the Greeks
3. Plato and Egypt

*the paper is published in:
ORIENTALIA. A Journal for the East. 2005, 2. New Bulgarian University

(Charles Gleyre, Egyptian Temple, 1840. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, English - "Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre")

Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

2007-10-28T17:45:00.001+02:00

(continues from June, 11)

1. Prevented all the optional disciplines. The student hasn’t to opt for anything because this could lead him/her only to mistakes, and could also create the feeling that the collegium is not certain what precisely is to be studied by someone, in order to acquire learning in the given field.
2. Special priority received the practical work with the language. In this work the superiority of the professor is out of doubt, because no one, who has studied a language for 2-4 years could compare with somebody, who had taught it for 10-30 years, especially if the language is a dead one. (That’s why the first methodological crisis in the specialty classical philology broke in the year, when the first graduates of the gymnasium were enrolled in the specialty; some of them dealt with the languages quite decently, and the professors so far had experience only with beginners).
3. The non-linguistic disciplines, such as history of literature, had to be presented in very general courses, in order to create the feeling for entirety and thoroughness (it must be so, when an authority is teaching), and the successful passing of the exam had to make him/her sure in the knowledge of “these things”.
4. The syllabuses and the curriculum in general were meant to remain untouched. Besides the evident convenience for the teaching person, this created the impression that there isn’t anything else to be fancied in the given field.
5. Not to encourage elder students – say, no older than 30 years. (For the regular doctoral study, the so-called aspirantura, it was explicitly legislatively forbidden students older than 30 years to be given scholarships). Students, who have studied something different earlier or studied something else at the moment, were not to be encouraged. The real reason was that the greater life experience could create questions, which might burden the professor. The mere opportunity to compare the specialties and the professors was already something undesirable. This embarrassment caused by the older students and the students with different background was explained in the following manner: we don’t need such people, because they do not have the chance to become good specialists, since they haven’t started on time. They have wasted their time or they are wasting their time now.
6. Not to invite professors from other specialties. That is intrinsically connected with the lack of optional classes and is engendered by the principle of the authority; the authority does not tolerate either addition or comparison. No need to mention about foreign lecturers. In short, the contacts between the separated specialties and the universities, even within Bulgaria, had to be kept to a minimum. However, if some professor went for a while in a foreign university, it didn’t damage his/her authority, because usually no one was informed what (s)he has done there.
I am convinced, that these claims of mine would be confirmed by almost 100% of the students, who have studied classical philology in the past 20 years, and maybe by the older ones. At the same time many of them would say that the education they have received is not bad. And this is really so. Because, besides the fact that the mere object of the classical education is the common cultural heritage of the West (and thence of the world), the concrete teaching in the SU possessed its own character and style, due to its decades-long tradition. However, it was evident that the interest towards it is vanishing, and it was not only the collegium’s fault, but it is also a consequence of the greater change, which affected all the assets of our live – in Bulgaria and in the rest of the East European countries.
The task of the people, who had to design the future master’s programmes, was to change the mere character of the academic work. Let’s see what they have undertaken.

2. Two unsuccessful attempts

A. The Master’s programme in Classical languages

Prior to the discussion of the programme, which is the topic of this presentation, I am going to narrate (in brief) about two attempts, which preceded its creation. That will help me to draw your attention to some difficulties, which are accompanying the fulfillment of such an educational project. If not surmounted on time, most certainly they lead to its failure.
As I have mentioned above, one of the first reformative initiatives of the specialty was the elaboration of the Master’s programme, called Classical languages. The contents of this programme corresponded well to the name. It included three semesters of practical work on Greek and Latin. There were additional disciplines as epigraphic, paleography, historical grammar, morphology and syntax of each of them, comparative linguistics of the roman languages and some more specialized courses. The ratio between the obligatory and the optional courses was 50:50. The reasons for all that are still evident. The specialty had at its disposal the necessary teaching staff, in order to secure the launching of the programme and of each discipline. There wasn’t any need of change in the way of working. The programme was meant to offer to the students the study of texts, not read during the bachelor’s (that’s easy because the classical literature is quantitatively inexhaustible) and new contents of the theoretic courses. This certainly meant that the professors would be given the opportunity to make presentations of parts of their writings (which will be a prove that thus the education really turns out to be “for more advanced”.)
The idea for such a project was grounded on the already mentioned prejudice that the higher education exists in order to produce specialists. A specialist is the one, who knows something exhaustively: say, the one, who knows the names of all authors, who have written on a certain topic and is familiar with all their publications. At the same time he has to master perfectly some skill (for example, to be able to read without difficulty and dictionary ancient texts from all genres, because (s)he has read already everything and knows all Greek and Latin words). In short, the notion of a specialist in these academic spheres coincided with the notion of an authority.
No candidates appeared for this programme either in the first, or in the following years. It is not difficult to explain this lack of interest: in order to participate, they should have become bachelors in the same faculty (because there is no other place in Bulgaria, where such an education is offered). But these students were reluctant to study classical philology any more. Moreover, there were between 1 and 4 students who graduated from the department yearly (exactly as nowadays). At the same time only Master’s programmes, which have enrolled at least six candidates (exceptionally five) were permitted to start.

B. The Master’s programme in Byzantine studies

(Sofia University central building. North entrance to the courtyard)

Demosthenes and the Unity of the Greeks II

2007-10-15T19:25:00.000+02:00

Philip II

(continues from Friday, April 27)

III. The failure of Athens

Demosthenes himself seems to hold the opinion that Athens is already decaying as political and military force and therefore doesn't possess good potential for struggle against Macedonia. Besides, the mood in the different speeches is different: prior to the entrance of Philip in Phocis and even before the capture of Olynthus, Philip seems threatening, but still fightable. But after his march to the south of Thermopylae it becomes clear, that the capacities of Athenians to confront him are suspicious, and, what is worse, that the peace seems hardly negotiable.
It already clear that Philip doesn't want a lasting peace with anybody, whereas the Greek states, including the Athenians, have deluded themselves that he is offering them peace. That’s why the mood from the First Philippics onwards becomes more pessimistic, although Demosthenes keeps on speaking about the necessity of resistance and points to the proper measures to be undertaken. However, his attention splits: on the one side he speaks about the coordinate actions between the cities and the organization of the resistance, but on the other he is more frequently ruminating on the topic: “Why this happened?”
A step aside. Today Europe is not threatened either by an over-ambitious conqueror as Philip, or even by the Islamist terrorism, but rather by the fear, that “the things are not going as earlier”. Indeed, it is slightly believable that peoples will become richer and richer, and this will go on endlessly. Always comes a moment, when their wealth and even their culture begin to raise the interest of the neighbors. Then comes the time to act. And Europe really acts through its present day leaders, but some of the effects lead to undesirable changes (people do not merely get richer; sometimes other things happen) and the discontent appears. It is this discontent, caused by the fear, that is the real enemy of Europe today. And due to the fact that today it seems quite strong, the politicians and the troubled citizens, just like Demosthenes, ask themselves both the questions: not only “What is to be done?” but also “Why it happened like that?” And if the asking of the latter question becomes more and more frequent, this will be a sign that the situation worsens.
Demosthenes sees the following causes for the weakness of Athens. First of all, paradoxically, the democracy with its procedures impedes the necessary reaction of the state in critical circumstances. Unlike the Athenian politicians, Philip of Macedon takes all the decisions by himself: he commands the army, he presides the negotiations (if not he in person, the messengers lead them instead of him; these people would never dare to work in favour of another Macedonian, opponent to Philip); he allocates the money and is unaccountable to anyone. No one can sue against him; no one can interrupt him after speaking for a certain time at the assembly; his proposals are not subjected to a vote, because he is not making proposals, he just commands. All this still does not mean that Demosthenes is complaining of the democracy. But he says, that there are moments, when the city should behave as one, and not only the city, but also all Greeks. If this does not happen, the democracy the independence itself, which cause such delays in the communal decision-making, will be destroyed.
The second problem is the corruption. There are Athenian politicians, Demosthenes says, who are simply working for Philip; the are paid, or at least something is promised to them, or they are just hoping to gain power over the city, after the loss of its independence. However, no one can prove their guiltiness indisputably and condemn them. And the people do not worry about their deeds, because they, unlike Demosthenes, assure the citizens, that everything is in order, that the city is powerful enough, and Philip is harmless; or even that he is already an ally.
And finally, the mere laziness of the Athenians is a problem and it is caused by the irresponsible redistribution of the money of the state. The Athenians are accustomed to many feasts, and moreover they are visited by many foreigners. The mere presence of the Athenian people as audience at these feasts is paid by the state treasury and no one can offer these money to be spent on something else – for example on shipbuilding. Shortly, the Athenians are convinced that they live better than the rest of the Greeks and they are reluctant to be deprived from this social acquisition. That’s why they think the situation is not that serious, as described by Demosthenes. Such a city seems sentenced to loose its political significance and precisely this had happened. In the centuries that followed the polises had made several attempts to gain independence – either from Macedonia, or from Rome – but Athens didn’t take part in these developments, and the center of resistance had moved to the south - to Corinth and the Peloponnesian cities.

IV. The unity of the Greeks

/follows/

(Philip II of Macedon: victory medal (niketerion) struck in Tarsus, c. 2nd BCE. Cabinet des Médailles, Paris. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, English - "Demosthenes")

The Historical Novel III

2007-10-07T21:59:00.000+02:00

Apollonius Rhodius in Modern Literature: the Interpretation of Robert Graves

1. The unsuccessful First Version

In the postscript to his novel “The Golden Fleece” Graves tells us the following:

“When he recited the poem or a part of it in the Muses` Hall, he was met with a storm of hissing, caterwauling and a storm of plates for writing. He went away relatively safe and sound, but was afraid of a public persecution, because his rival, the court poet Callimachus declared him a “abominable ibis”; and he decided to leave Alexandria for a time. After several years he returned and recited publicly the revised version which got ovations even from his former enemies; so that after the position of a curator of the Library was vacated, king Ptolemy naturally appointed him as the next curator (1).
The original version is not preserved, but its defect hardly was a lack of sonority and fascination. More probably, relying on the support of the Alexandrian women, Apollonius revealed in his epic too honestly the humiliations of Zeus by the Moon Goddess: what provoked the anger of their husbands.”

And a little after:

“The mysteries that were added to the ordinary Greek rites from the classical epoch, were nothing other than revelation of ancient religious secrets to people, who weren’t expected to divulge them in order to cause a public scandal; and in these mysteries the object of worship was the Goddess Mother… I believe, that the chief error of Apollonius was that he recited in a public hall a version of the Golden Fleece’s tale, based upon ancient sources; and that this version sounded to the initiated as a desecration of their most deeply cherished religious beliefs”(2).

2. The version of Graves

The novel of Graves, although captivating and written with a good sense of humour, contains at some places his view on the “real history” of the Greek Gods, expressed in a simple, straightforward and rather too prosaic way. These passages do not look like parts of a book of fiction. In them he declares, that the old, non-Achaean (and moreover non-Indo-European) population of Thessaly, and even of all Greece, named “pelasgoi” worshiped one supreme female deity – the “Triple Goddess” (or the “White Goddess”) – in different persons and named her with different names. The first (and the more peaceful) Greeks, coming from North – the Ionians and the Aeolians (called Minyans as well) – joined this matriarchal cult.
But the Achaeans, who invaded the peninsula several centuries later, imposed by force the cult to the God - Father and Warrior. They reformed (in a council at Olympia, convoked especially for this purpose) the local religion, created the classic pantheon with six gods and six goddesses, proclaimed the Goddess sister and obedient wife of Zeus and began to pursue the people who persisted in their adherence to the old religion.

Otherwise the novel gives us a detailed account of the expedition, where virtually all sources for the Argonauts have been taken into consideration. Graves mentions them in the postscript. Except Apollonius, we have the versions of Pindar, Apollodorus, Diodorus of Sicily and Valerius Flaccus - all of whom, although in different style and length, present the full story. Some separate episodes are poetically adapted by Euripides in the famous tragedy; there are Theocritus and Ovid too; lastly, the scarce (but important, regarding its early age) information, given by Herodotus. Of course, there are a number of sources of minor importance.
There is a passage in the postscript, concerning the temporal standpoint of the teller, on which I would like to draw your attention. On the p. 511 Graves says:

“I render the story of Argonauts in the form of a historical tale; and every author of history must clearly express his point of view in the time. In this case it would be inappropriate to tell it in the style of the XIII cent. B.C – this would mean to write using poetic pictograms. It would be equally inadequate to write it from a present day position, because then I would have been compelled to render the dialogues in an unsuitably contemporary style; besides, that would have hindered me to believe sincerely the story.
The only plausible decision was to depict the events from the viewpoint of an epoch, when the faith in the legend was still alive, but preserving the necessary critical objectivity; and with a clear, but, on the same time, serious literary expression. This is the reason for using in some places phrases like “till the present day”, and ”today”. The last page will suggest to the historians, that “today” means “no later than 146 B.C.”, when Lucius Mummius sacks Corinthos. This is the year, when Argo, put in the temple of Poseidon, disappears for ever – maybe reduced to a heap of splinters by the drunken Roman soldiers.”

What the Graves’ reader could add, is that the story seems to be told by somebody, who knows who are the “real” ones among the Greek Gods, although prefers to represent priests, clairvoyants and believing-in-gods heroes rather than the gods themselves. And their “real” relations are the ones Graves sees as a historian of mythology, a poet and perhaps a psychologist. The main point is the superiority of the female Goddess, whose power over the mankind is usurped by her rebellious son; but usurped not without her condescending consent.

3. “The White Goddess” as aesthetic and history-of-culture manifesto

The information I got about Graves when working on this paper, made me suppose that the “The White Goddess” is his most popular non-poetic and non-fictional text.
I’ll say several words about this book not only because the theory, presented in it, practically coincides with the views of the teller in the “Golden Fleece”, but also because - as Graves himself tells us - the very idea of this long essay was born in the process of the work on the novel. This explains why the two books appear in a relatively short time: the first edition of the “Fleece” is in 1944, and this of the “Goddess” – in1948. In a concluding note, written for the edition from 1960 he tells the following:

“I am often asked how I took to write the "White Goddess". The history is as follows.
In 1944 in a village in Devonshire, when I fled from the present day by working on a historical novel of the Argonauts, my work suddenly was interrupted. An obsessing idea forced me to get involved in the study of a subject I still didn’t know and didn’t understand. I stopped to trace on the vast military map of the Black Sea (and with the help of mythographs) the course of the Argonauts ship, who sailed from the Bosporus to Baku and back. Instead, I was thinking about the mysterious Battle of the Trees, which occurred in ancient Britain, and all night I couldn’t find peace; and the next day too, so that my pen barely followed my thoughts. For three weeks I wrote a book in 70 thousand words...
I’m not a mystic and I always avoided involvement in witchcraft, spiritualistic séances and yoga exercises; I never listened to predictions, didn’t believe in automatic writing and so on. I live a simple peasant kind of life in the circle of my family and of a large number of mentally healthy and intelligent friends. I do not belong to any religious cult or secret society or philosophical sect, and I also don’t trust my historic intuition, if it couldn’t be verified by the facts.
But working on the book on the Argonauts, I discovered that the White Goddess of mount Pelion becomes more and more important for my narrative... I, who suddenly fell under the power of the European White Goddess, wrote about her totems in the context of the Argonauts’ story and plunged in the ancient secrets of her cult Wales, Ireland and all over the world.
When, immediately after the war, I returned to Majorca, I started working again on the book which I already called "The White Goddess ", and wrote in more details about the Holy King as a divine victim of the Moon Goddess, keeping in mind that every poet, who honours his Muse, should somehow die for his Goddess whom he worships - just like the King died...” (3)

4. Graves and the new Western spirituality

These facts I drew your attention on, give us reason to admit, that the story of the Golden Fleece whose largest version we owe to Apollonius, influenced the views of R. Graves as a poet and as a historian, and at the same time was artistically worked out by him on the ground of these same views. It seems, that the Graves’ “Fleece” is expected to be read as the “real story” of the Argonauts, told from the viewpoint of an enlightened but at the same time initiated Greek author from the last centuries B.C.
Besides, “The Golden Fleece” is produced according to a conception for the ancient mythology and the western religion, which, as Graves suggests, is founded largely on the mythological researches of J.G. Frazer. They both belong to a tradition in the European humanities, whose representatives do not regard themselves as Christians, reject the Eurocentrism and work for the cultural emancipation of the East and in general of the non-Western world from the European (or Euro-American) domination. Lastly, they are people who oppose the spirit of the classical European academism and try to reconsider the role of the university in the Western societies and its claim to dominate the education and even the spiritual life of the West.
This tradition include and is supported by many influential non-academic intellectuals, among whom I would prefer to mention the English and American followers of Mme H. Blavatsky; a little earlier, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in Germany; and from the XVIII century – Voltaire.

The new that Graves is offering us, is that he writes a lot of poetry and thinks about himself mainly as a poet; that, secondly, in difference to Blavatsky, he doesn’t pretend for possessing any exceptional spiritual abilities; and thirdly, what seems to me very important, he lived two terrible wars. Maybe exactly this experience gave him strong reason to doubt the alleged superiority of Western civilization and the truth of its main religion. But nevertheless he expresses a kind of religious hope. At the end of his conclusion to the “White Goddess” from 1960 he writes:

“The idea of a Creating Goddess was rejected by the Christian theologians almost two thousand years ago, and by the Jewish theologians even earlier. Most scientists, caring for their social comfort, worship God; but nevertheless I do not understand why a belief in the creation of the universe by a God-Father seems to them more scientific than the belief in the creation of this artificial system by a Goddess-Mother...
Since the source of creative power in poetry is not the scientific education, but the inspiration (no matter what the scientists would say), then why not name as its source the Lunar Muse, since in Europe this is the oldest and most common term defining the source of inspiration? According to the ancient tradition, the White Goddess appears through human beings – that could be a priestess, a prophetess, a queen mother. No poet, dedicated to the Muse, thinks about the Muse herself, but always thinks about the woman, in whom the Goddess at least partially is incarnated; just like an Apollonian poet is unable to perform properly his function, if he doesn’t live under the power of a monarchy or quasi-monarchy. But the poet, who really worships the Muse, is capable to distinguish between the Goddess as the supreme incarnation of power, glory, wisdom and female love from one hand, and the ordinary woman, whom the Goddess makes Her representative for a month, a year, seven years or perhaps more – from another hand. The Goddess is eternal, and perhaps he will know Her again through another woman.
Prophets like Moses, John the Baptist or Mohammed, speaking in the name of the male deity, say: "So said God!" I am not a prophet of the White Goddess and I’ll never venture to utter: "So said Goddess!" But since poetry came to the world, the poets, who worship the Muse, usually speak with love: "In all the universe there is nobody above the Triple Goddess!"”

5. A reader’s impression

At a certain place Graves says, that a poet might be evaluated as such, taking into consideration the degree in which he is familiar with the Goddess and is able to depict “Her and Her island”. And adds: “Shakespeare had known her and had been afraid of her”. As a reader of Graves I would dare to share, that even before the acquaintance with this book, I already was convinced that he is obsessed by a painful fear of the presence of a kind of woman. She is a woman, longing for power, who establishes a relationship with an influential man, dominates him and weaves intrigues against everybody else, hoping to rule through him. She does not love him, but uses him and is always ready to sacrifice him and to look for another, who would fit for the same purpose. Livia in “I, Claudius” is like that, Theodora and Antonina in “Count Velisarius” are like that, Ino, in the very beginning of the “Fleece” is like that. They are images of a woman, who exerts over the man the power, given to her from the Goddess and thus revenges for the subjugation, imposed on her by force and counter-naturally in the epoch of the old Achaeans. She is not a personification of the Muse, but of Hecate. Graves was afraid of this woman.

(1) Graves freely retells the two short Vitae Apollonii, published in the edition of the Scholia (C. Wendel, Berlin, 1935). There we find no mention about hissing, caterwauling or plate throwing, but the rest is exact – the anonymous authors indeed say, that the Apollonius work at first was met negatively, but the second version was applauded. (Zlatnoto runo. Pohodat na argonavtite, p. 504-505. See note 2)

(2) During the work on this paper I was using the Bulgarian translation of the “Fleece” – Robert Greivs. Zlatnoto runo. Pohodat na argonavtite. Translation Irina Vaseva. Fakel, 1993. The reverse translation to English is mine, N.G.

(3) This text, together with the full Russian translation of the “White Goddess” is available at http://www.druids.celtica.ru/page.php?pagename=greivs. Russian translation by L. Volodarskaja. The reverse English translation is mine.

*this paper was read at the International Conference "The Argonautica and World Culture" - Tbilisi, Georgia, 1-5 October 2007). I would like to express my gratitude to professor Irine Darchia from the Institute of Classical, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the the Tbilisi State University, for inviting me to this conference.

The Historical Novel II

2007-09-24T13:38:00.000+02:00

Feuchtwanger`s “The Jewish War”
(handout)

I. Josephus Flavius and the Jewish War

1.

He was born Joseph ben Mattathias in Jerusalem in 37 CE, a few years after the time of Jesus, during the time of the Roman occupation of the Jewish homeland. In his early twenties he was sent to Rome to negotiate the release of several priests held hostage by Emperor Nero. When he returned home after completing his mission he found the nation beginning a revolution against the Romans.
Despite his foreboding that the cause was hopeless, he was drafted into becoming commander of the revolutionary forces in Galilee, where he spent more time controlling internal factions than fighting the Roman army. When the city of Jotapata he was defending fell to the Roman general Vespasian, Joseph and his supporters hid in a cave and entered into a suicide pact, which Joseph oddly survived.
Taken prisoner by Vespasian, Joseph presented himself as a prophet. Noting that the war had been propelled by an ancient oracle that foretold a world ruler would arise from Judaea, Joseph asserted that this referred to Vespasian, who was destined to become Emperor of Rome. Intrigued, Vespasian spared his life. When this prophecy came true, and Vespasian became Emperor, he rewarded Joseph handsomely, freeing him from his chains and eventually adopting him into his family, the Flavians. Joseph thus became Flavius Joseph.
During the remainder of the war, Joseph assisted the Roman commander Titus, Vespasian's son, with understanding the Jewish nation and in negotiating with the revolutionaries. Called a traitor, he was unable to persuade the defenders of Jerusalem to surrender to the Roman siege, and instead became a witness to the destruction of the city and the Holy Temple.
Living at the Flavian court in Rome, Josephus undertook to write a history of the war he had witnessed. He first wrote in his native language of Aramaic, then with assistance translated it into Greek (the most-used language of the Empire). It was published a few years after the end of the war, in about 78 CE.

2.

6 CE Archalaeus, Ethnarch of Judea, is deposed. Judea ceases to be governed by Jews and becomes a Roman province under Procurator Coponius. Census and taxes imposed.
41 Caligula assassinated. Claudius becomes emperor with the aid of Agrippa, grandson of Herod. Claudius bestows kingship of Judea and other lands on Agrippa.
44 Agrippa I dies. Judea again comes under the rule of a Roman procurator (Fadus).
50 Some Jewish lands assigned to kingship of Agrippa II.
54 and after. Jewish revolutionary activity heats up. "Sicarii" terrorists kill High Priest Jonathan. Felix uses force and executions to suppress revolt. Would-be prophets stir up the people; the "Egyptian," a Messianic figure, gains followers, many of whom are killed by Felix's army.
59 Festus becomes Procurator. Paul presents his case to Festus and Agrippa II, then is sent to Rome to appeal to the Emperor.
59-62 Festus continues to battle Sicarii. Clashes between Jews and Greeks in Caesarea.
65 Florus becomes Procurator. HIs abuses of power cause the sedition to gain followers. Violence breaks out in Caesarea and spreads to Jerusalem.
66, Summer. Jewish War begins. Sacrifices for the Emperor are halted in the Temple. Masada is seized by the Zealots. The Roman garrison at the Antonia Fortress is captured. The High Priest is slain by the rebels.
July 67 Jotapata falls after a six-week siege. Joseph captured. Claims that the Messianic prophecies that began the war actually applied to Vespasian, who therefore was destined to become Emperor. Vespasian, charmed, retains Joseph as hostage and interpreter.
July 69 Vespasian's legions proclaim him Emperor. Joseph`s prophecy having come true, he is freed. He takes Vespasian's family name of Flavius and marries a captive.
70, May 1. Titus encamps outside Jerusalem, beginning the siege. Joseph attempts to persuade the leaders of the revolt to surrender, but fails.
70, Tenth of Av (August 30). The Temple of Jerusalem is destroyed. Jerusalem is taken by Titus. The War effectively ends.

(Josephus Flavius Home Page)

II. Feuchtwanger, his Literary Work and his Views on the Historical Novel

1.

Lion Feuchtwanger (pseudonym: J.L. Wetcheek) (7 July 1884 - 21 December 1958) was a German-Jewish novelist who was imprisoned in a French internment camp in Les Milles and later escaped to Los Angeles with the help of his wife, Marta.
Background
Feuchtwanger was born in Munich in 1884, and raised in a Jewish household. He studied literature and philosophy in the universities in Munich and Berlin.
Early career and persecution
Lion served in the Germany Army during World War I. He soon became a figure in the literary world and was already well-known in 1925 when his first popular novel, Jud Süß, appeared. He also published Erfolg (m. "Success"), which was a thinly veiled criticism at the Nazi Party and Hitler. While he was on a speaking tour of America, in Washington, D.C., he was a guest of honor at a dinner hosted by then German ambassador Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron. That same day (January 30, 1933) Hitler was appointed Chancellor, and the next day, Prittwitz resigned from the diplomatic corps and called Feuchtwanger and recommended not to return home.
Feuchtwanger and his wife did not return to Germany, moving instead to Southern France, settling in Sanary sur Mer. His works were included among those burned during the May 10, 1933 book burnings held across Germany.
In 1936, still in Sanary, he wrote The Pretender (Der falsche Nero), in which he compared the Roman upstart Terentius Maximus, who had claimed to be Nero, with Hitler.
Imprisonment and escape
When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Feuchtwanger was captured and imprisoned in an internment camp, Les Milles (Camp des Milles). He escaped Les Milles with the help of his wife Marta,Varian Fry, an American journalist who helped refugees escape from occupied France, and Hiram (Harry) Bingham IV, US Vice Consul in Marseilles. Feuchtwanger eventually received asylum in the United States, settled in Pacific Palisades, California in 1941, and continued to write there until his death in 1958.

· The Josephus Trilogy -- about Flavius Josephus beginning in the year 60 in Rome
o Der jüdische Krieg (Josephus), 1932
o Die Söhne (The Jews of Rome), 1935
o Der Tag wird kommen (Das gelobte Land, The day will come, Josephus and the Emperor), 1942

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

In Germany, paperback editions of Feuchtwanger's novels have sold close to a million copies from the late seventies to the present day. His Frankfurt publisher asserts that "In my thirty years of experience as an editor, I have never seen a renaissance comparable to that of Feuchtwanger."
No such popularity has attended Feuchtwanger in the United States, where he remains largely unknown, except among cognoscenti of modern German literature. This reader unfamiliarity most likely stems from the fact that Feuchtwanger was anathema to American Cold Warriors of the late 1940s and the 1950s. In 1937, in the midst of the vicious "show trials" of falsely accused army officers, Feuchtwanger had made a visit to Moscow, in which he was granted an interview with Stalin, based upon Feuchtwanger’s already apparent sympathy with socialism. His report on the experience warmly praised Stalin and his program. He never formally recanted that naïve attitude... Feuchtwanger believed in egalitarianism, and hated the fascism that had done so much evil to him and his people. But he was hardly a cheerleader of the Communist cause.
(from Jim Bloom`s “Lion Feuchtwanger and his Josephus Trilogy”)

2.

One topic that has deeply moved me as long as I can remember is the conflict between nationalism and internationalism in the heart of a single individual. If I were to tackle this theme in the form of a contemporary novel, I fear my presentation might be overshadowed and contaminated by personal grudges and resentment. I chose therefore to transplant this conflict into the soul of a man, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who, it appeared to me, had experienced it in the same way as so many do today, with the difference that he did so 1860 years ago.
I hope I have retained the peace of mind to judge things fairly; still I believe I can do a convincing job of depicting the persons who - 1870 years ago - put the torch to various central buildings in Nero's Rome, poor, foolish implements of the feudalists and militarists of their day that they were, and indeed do a more convincing job of it than I could of describing the people who two years ago set fire to the Reichstag in Berlin - poor, foolish tools that they were of the feudalists and militarists of our own era.
I have written both contemporary novels and historical ones. After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones. It never occurred to me to write about history for its own sake... Other writers may place their conceptions at a greater spatial distance, perhaps in some exotic locale, in order to set them off with greater clarity; I for the same purpose have removed mine to a certain distance in time: that is the only difference.
I have always made an effort to render every detail of my reality with the greatest accuracy; but I have never paid attention to whether my presentation of historical facts was an exact one. Indeed, I have often altered evidence which I knew to be documented if it appeared to interfere with my intended effect. Contrary to the scientist, the author of historical novels has the right to choose a lie that enhances illusion over a reality that distracts from it.
I cannot imagine that a serious novelist, when working with historical subject matter, could ever regard historical facts as anything other than a means of achieving distance, as a metaphor, in order to render his own feelings, his own era, his own philosophy, and himself as accurately as possible.
(L. Feuchtwanger, "Vom Sinn des historischen Romans," 1935, Das Neue Tage-Buch.
Translated by John Ahouse)

III. The Feuchtwanger `s “Jewish War”, the Jews and the “Who-is-a-Human-Being” Question

1. Vespasian and Johanan ben Zakkai. Do the non-Jews possess a soul?

Marshall came very close to the tiny theologian, touched his shoulder and asked :
- But this does not contradict the fact that you do not feel us to be true people?
Iohanan still not opening his eyes, argued quietly, as if from afar :
- On the Feast of the Tabernacles, we do sacrificed 70 bulls for non-Jews.
…
- What are the seven precepts? – asked the Roman.
Yohanan raised his eyebrows, his blue eyes clear and very young, and looked directly into the grey eyes of Vespasian.
- One is positive and six are negative - he said. - Individuals must do justice, not deny God, not worship idols, not kill, not steal, not betray his husband/wife and not abuse animals.
Vespasian thought a little and said with regret :
- Well, then I have little chance to receive the holy spirit

2. The Actor Demetrius and his people

- Oh, my very good Jews - he [Demetrius] continued. - They shout against me where they can. In the synagogue they are cursing me just for the fact that I do not disregard a gift given me by God, and scare their children with me. But when they have some problem, then they come to me and they fill my ears with their requests. Then Demetrius Libanius is good enough.
- Lord, - said the young Antony Marull – yes, the Jews always complain, as everyone knows.
- I ask! - suddenly stood up and screamed the actor. - I ask you not to offend the Jews in my house! I am a Jew.

3. Joseph – experienced but impure
a.
I am priest from the first sequence - said Joseph.
- Damn these Jewish people, they are too pretentious, appealed to Caenis Vespasian. - Some of us may be touched her, this doesn`t mean that she is losing her taste. And yet, Emperor Nero and I myself, we married divorced women, isn`t so, Caenis?
- I come from rabbis - said Joseph very slowly. - My family goes back to King David ..

b.
When Joseph Ben Mattathias, according to the will of Berenike, went to her, she made a defending gesture of the hand and exclaimed :
- Do not come closer! Stand there! Between you and me there must be seven steps.
Joseph became pale when she stepped back as if he was leprous.

(Translation Google)

* this is a handout for a lecture, held at the Third Contact Session (August 2007) of the three-year "Contextualizing Classics" project of the Sofia University and the HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (Open Society Institute, Budapest).

The Historical Novel I

2007-09-23T23:15:00.000+02:00

Gustave Flaubert's 'The Temptation of St. Anthony'
(Contents)

I. St. Anthony and the Vita Antonii by St. Athanasius of Alexandria

1. The “Life of Anthony”

The chief source of information on St. Anthony is a Greek Life attributed to St. Athanasius, to be found in any edition of his works… here it will suffice to say that now it is received with practical unanimity by scholars as a substantially historical record, and as a probably authentic work of St. Athanasius.

(Catholic Encyclopedia - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01553d.htm)

Introduction to “Vita S. Antoni”

(Written between 356 and 362)
The Life of St. Antony is included in the present collection partly on account of the important influence it has exercised upon the development of the ascetic life in the Church, partly and more especially on the ground of its strong claim to rank as a work of Athanasius… As it is, the question being still in dispute, although the balance of qualified opinion is on the side of the Athanasian authorship, it is well that the reader should have the work before him and judge for himself... Monasticism, with all its good and evil, is a great outgrowth of human life and instinct, a great fact in the history of the Christian religion…

(Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xvi.ii.ii.html)

2. Contents of the “Life”

§§5, 6. Early conflicts with the devil. §7. Details of his life at this time (271–285?)
§§8–10. His life in the tombs, and combats with demons there. §11. He goes to the desert and overcomes temptations on the way.
§46. How he sought martyrdom at Alexandria during the Persecution (311).
§§70, 71. How he visited Alexandria, and healed and converted many, and how Athanasius escorted him from the city.
§§72–79. How he reasoned with divers Greeks and philosophers at the ‘outer’ mountain.
§80. How he confuted the philosophers by healing certain vexed with demons. §81. How the Emperors wrote to Antony, and of his answer.
§§89, 90. How, when now 105 years old, he counselled the monks, and gave advice concerning burial.
(by Ph. Shaff, ibidem)

II. Flaubert and his 'Temptation of St Anthony'

1. About Flaubert
Life
The disease of Flaubert
Voyages
In Egypt
(Gustave Flaubert: Plan of the Site - http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jb.guinot/pages/A7401.html)

2. “The Temptation”- general information
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (French La Tentation de Saint Antoine) is a book which Gustave Flaubert spent practically his whole life fitfully working on, in three versions he completed in 1849, 1856 (extracts published at the same time) and 1872 before publishing the final version in 1874. It is written in the form of a play script. It details one night in the life of Anthony the Great where Anthony is faced with great temptations, and it was inspired by the painting, which he saw at the Balbi Palace in Genoa.

Characters
The following is a list of major characters and does not include characters such as the gods or the prophets. A complete list of characters can be found in the glossary of the Random House edition (Olds, 195-233).
· Saint Anthony: The protagonist. He is tempted by many characters and objects to stray from his belief that isolation is the truest form of worship.
· Ammonaria: One of his sister's friends, Anthony is drawn into a battle between his desire for her and his desire to remain holy before God in his isolation. He is distraught that he cannot control his body.
· King Nebuchadnezzar
· The Queen of Sheba: Tempts Anthony with riches, trying to evoke lust.
· Hilarion: Also known as Lucifer. Once Anthony's student, now he tries to tempt him away from his chosen lifestyle by creating doubt and eventually morphs into Science.
· Lust and Death: Lust appears as a young woman; Death, an old woman. They try to convince Anthony to give in to his desires and commit suicide.
References
· Flaubert, Gustave, and Michael Foucault (introduction), Lafcadio Hearn (tr), and Marshall Olds (glossary). The Temptation of Saint Anthony. New York: Random House, 1992.
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptation_of_Saint_Anthony

2. Contents of the play
Contents II
8. A Holy Saint
9. The Temptation of Love and Power
10. The Disciple Hilarion
11. The Fiery Trial
12. All Gods, All Religions
13. The Mystery of Space
14. The Himera and the Sphynx
(Simon P. Magee publ., Chicago, Ill. Copyright 1904 by M. Walter Dunn
http://www.archive.org/details/TheTemptationOfStAntonyOrARevelationOfTheSoul
ftp://ia300207.us.archive.org/2/items/TheTemptationOfStAntonyOrARevelationOfTheSoul/OTIFF/)

III. Flaubert`s interpretation of some places from the “Life”

1. The devil
But the devil, who hates and envies what is good, could not endure to see such a resolution in a youth, but endeavoured to carry out against him what he had been wont to effect against others. First of all he tried to lead him away from the discipline, whispering to him the remembrance of his wealth, care for his sister, claims of kindred, love of money, love of glory, the various pleasures of the table and the other relaxations of life, and at last the difficulty of virtue and the labour of it; he suggested also the infirmity of the body and the length of the time. In a word he raised in his mind a great dust of debate, wishing to debar him from his settled purpose.
(Vita, 5 - English translation by Ph. Shaff, ibidem )

2. The chief temptations

A. Diversity of the world. Curiosity

And the devil, unhappy wight, one night even took upon him the shape of a woman and imitated all her acts simply to beguile Antony.

(Vita, 5)

- travels (monologue)
And this turning back is nought else but to feel regret, and to be once more worldly-minded. But fear not to hear of virtue, nor be astonished at the name. For it is not far from us, nor is it without ourselves, but it is within us, and is easy if only we are willing. That they may get knowledge, the Greeks live abroad and cross the sea, but we have no need to depart from home for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, nor to cross the sea for the sake of virtue. For the Lord aforetime hath said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”
(Vita, 20)

- reasoning (vision, dialogue)
In a word he (the devil) raised in his mind a great dust of debate, wishing to debar him from his settled purpose.

(Vita, 5)

…But see! you still do not believe and are seeking for arguments. We however make our proof “not in the persuasive words of Greek wisdom as our teacher has it, but we persuade by the faith which manifestly precedes argumentative proof…

(Vita, 80)

B. Vanity (vision, description of Anthony`s meeting with the Emperor)

And the fame of Antony came even unto kings. For Constantine Augustus, and his sons Constantius and Constans the Augusti wrote letters to him… And so he was unwilling to receive the letters, saying that he did not know how to write an answer to such things. But being urged by the monks because the emperors were Christians, and lest they should take offence on the ground that they had been spurned, he consented that they should be read, and wrote an answer approving them because they worshipped Christ…

(Vita, 81)

3. The face of devil (description of the devil, dialogue in vision)
Once some one knocked at the door of my cell, and going forth I saw one who seemed of great size and tall. Then when I enquired, “Who art thou?” he said, “I am Satan.” Then when I said, “Why art thou here?”…
But he having heard the Saviour’s name, and not being able to bear the burning from it, vanished.’

(Vita, 41)

Alors une grande ombre, plus subtile qu'une ombre naturelle, et que d'autres ombres festonnent le long de ses bords, se marque sur la terre.
C'est le Diable, accoudé contre le toit de la cabane et portant sous ses deux ailes, comme une chauve-souris gigantesque qui allaiterait ses petits, - les sept Péchés capitaux, dont les têtes grimaçantes se laissent entrevoir confusément.
Antoine, les yeux toujours fermés, jouit de son inaction ; et il étale ses membres sur la natte.

“The Temptation”, ch. II

(Historical annotations to Flaubert's 'Temptation of St Anthony')
c360: Athanasius writes Life of Antony
335: Athanasius banished ; 332: Athanasius charged with murdering Arsenius ; 326: Athanasius elected bishop
c312-356: Anthony lives in cave on Al-Qalzam/Kolzim/Colzim mountain ;
c310-c395: Didymus
c307: inspired by Anthony, Hilarion retreats to Gaza for 50 years ;
c295-373: Athanasius of Alexandria ; c291-c371: Hilarion
285-337: Constantine
c285-c305: Anthony lives alone on Mount Pispir ; c270: Anthony gives away wealth, lives in tomb for 15 years
c234-347? Paul the Hermit
(Jorn Barger August 2002)
http://www.robotwisdom.com/flaubert/antoine/history.html

* this is a handout for a lecture, held at the Third Contact Session (August 2007) of the three-year "Contextualizing Classics" project of the Sofia University and the HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (Open Society Institute, Budapest).

Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

2007-06-11T22:38:00.000+03:00

(continues from May, 21)

The department could include a new member in the staff once in three years at the maximum (and it is the same at the moment). Then, what were meant to do for example the 15 students, who have meanwhile graduated? The number of the enrolled students fluctuated between 30 and 50. In short, could anyone see much sense in the study of classical philology, provided that the education, offered in it, is essentially addressed to one student out of 40?
These problems looked precisely like that in the year, when the first project for a master’s programme was elaborated. It was called “Classical languages”. Obviously, the intention was to continue the perfection of the young people, who have started to learn these languages 9 years ago. Let’s say that meanwhile they haven’t noticed any significant change neither in the methods, nor in the proposed material. They knew, that in the master’s programme they are going to meet the same professors, whom they have already met in the bachelor’s. Then why continue this activity for three more semesters? It is pointless to mention the professional and the financial difficulties, which would inevitably impede even the one out of the forty, who finally might become a member of the regular teaching academics.
It’s no wonder, that during the 90-ies the students were reluctant to enter even in the bachelor’s; and if by chance they entered it, subsequently they were not very eager to remain. Thus the specialty survived several years of crisis, and in order to find at least some students, additional exams have been provided for the candidates, who have failed on the regular exam. As if they have become more suitable within the week between the regular and additional exam! Of course, the crisis was explained predominantly with the societal transition in general: the time will pass and, let’s hope, the things will be settled, and then we are going to have students again.
At the same time in the specialty a new understanding began to shape out. This was a new vision of the classical and humanitarian education in general. Although on the cost of the insufficient familiarity with the interpretations, it should be propagated for a majority of learners, instead of the previous limitation to the minority of specialists. Here it should be pointed out, that since lot’s of time the University and the Department were unable to provide for the academic staff the access to these interpretations: it was considered that it is their own business how to find it – comparable to, say, whence they should buy a washing machine.
The classical philologists should seek candidates for the master’s and even for the bachelor’s in other places, and not only in the specialty or in the Gymnasium for ancient languages and cultures. This opinion led to a result in 2000, when, for the first time since 1982, students were enrolled in the Department, who had passed exams in languages different from Greek and Latin. Surprisingly for the colleagues, some of the beginners quickly left behind the rest of the students, who had whole 5 years of study in the classical Gymnasium. It turned out, that the desire to be well educated could lead to greater achievements, than simply the passive presence at school and in the university, regardless of their duration. This could serve as an argument for the fulfillment of another idea for the master’s studies.

C. Some words about the humanitarian education in Bulgaria

It is worth seeing how it happens so, that a small quantity of inexplicit, but firm convictions may shape an educational programme, including its details. Here are two such convictions, which had great force for the period I’m talking about.
1. The professor is an unquestionable authority, because (s)he knows thoroughly all the things that the student is supposed to know.
2. In order to be well educated the student has to reproduce simply what the professor had said and to acquire his/her level of technical skills (if the character of the specialty presupposes them). In order to achieve these aims what matters is not the interest in the studied matter, but rather the discipline.

These explain why the curricula (I have in mind here mainly the philological ones, but what I am going to say pertains to a great degree to others, as well) were composed in a way, that:

(to be continued)

POIЕSIS

2007-06-04T12:38:00.000+03:00

POIЕSIS.
Classical and contemporary attempts at
the theory of ancient Greek literature

Vol. І.
Aristotle and Hegel

Preface .......................7
Preface to volume І............8

Aristotle’s literary theory...15

І. Aristotle’s idea of literature
1. The question of terms
2. Distinctions between literature and other activities
3. The aim of the literary work

ІІ. The tasks of literary theory
1. The idea of literary science
2. The structure of Aristotle’s “Poetics"
3. The tasks of the literary theory

ІІІ. Classification of literary types
1. Means of imitation
2. Quality of the imitated
3. Way of imitation

ІV. Aesthetic categories
1. The tragic and its discrimination from other aesthetic categories
2. The comic and the ugly
3. The beautiful

V. Rules for composing a literary work
1. Plot
2. Characters
3. Thought and speech
4. Musical and visible part
5. Drawing up the rules for composing a tragedy out of its definition

VІ. Aristotle’s view of the history of literature
1. Literature and human nature
2. The history of literature as a process of distinguishing between types
3. The documented history of literature: the role of poetic talent
4. The aim of the history of literature

VІІ. “Poetics” and the principles of Aristotle’s philosophy
1. The question of definition
2. The literary work as an outcome of the four causae
3. Literature as an instrument of cognition
4. Literature and the development of virtues

The view of literature in Hegel’s “Aesthetics”... 63

І. The structure of “Aesthetics”
1. Artistically beautiful or the ideal
2. Specific forms of the artistically beautiful
A. Symbolic artistic form
B. Classical artistic form
C. Romantic artistic form
3. The arts
A. Architecture
B. Sculpture
C. Romantic arts

ІІ. Greek art and the concept of the classical
1. Greek art and the classic ideal
A. Correspondence between content and form
B. Self-contained form and repose
C. Degree of individualization
2. The classical temple
3. Sculpture
A. Sculpture between architecture and romantic arts
B. Universality and individuality in sculpture
4. The classic in Greek poetry
A. Epic narrative
B. Lyric poetry
C. Drama

ІІІ. Hegel’s understanding of literature
1. The meaning of the term “poetry”
A. Poetry and the other arts
B. Devices in poetry
2. Poetry and prose
A. Poetic and prosaic world view
B. Poetry and the prosaic types
3. Concept, notion, literary work
A. Concept
B. Notion
C. Literary work
4. The poet’s involvement
A. Imagination, objectiveness, originality
B. The classical artist
C. The poet in lyric poetry

ІV. Literary types
1. Epic narrative
A. Epic types and the genuine epopee
B. Characteristics of the genuine epopee
C. The Greek epic narrative juxtaposed with that of other nationalities
2. Lyric poetry
A. Lyric content and form
B. Degree of spiritual development presupposing the development of lyric poetry
C. Types of lyric poetry
D. Historical development of poetry
3. Drama
A. The principle of dramatic poetry
B. The principle of tragedy and comedy
C. The relation of a dramatic work to its audience
D. Ancient and modern dramatic poetry

V. Literature in the history of the spirit
1. Hegel’s philosophy of history
A. The principle of development
B. The geographical factor
C. Subdivision of world history. The East and Europe
2. Literature and history
A. Art in the history of the spirit
B. Literature in the history of art
3. The history of literature
A. Epic narrative
B. Lyric poetry
C. Drama

VІ. Hegel’s contribution to Aristotle’s literary theory
1. The idea of history
A. Terminology
B. Literature and other activities
C. Aim in the literary work
2. Tasks of literary theory
A. The idea of literary science
B. The structure of the literary treatise
C. Tasks of literary theory
3. Classification of literary types
A. Hegel’s criterion for identifying the basic types
B. Classification of subtypes
4. Aesthetic categories
A. The beautiful
B. Specific forms of the beautiful
C. The tragic and the comic
5. Rules for composing a literary work
A. Foundations of a work of art
B. Action
C. Characters
D. Linguistic expression
E. Staging
6. The question of the history of literature
A. Literature and human nature
B. Discriminating the types and the aim of literature
C. Poetic gift

After Hegel. The potential of Marxist cultural studies. A. F. Lossev...219

І. From the history of the concept of culture
1. The necessity for clarifying the concept of culture
A. The point of view of the present research
B. The concept of culture
2. A few words on the ancient and Christian counterparts of the contemporary view of culture
A. “The contemporary view”
B. Antiquity
C. Culture from the Christian point of view
3. Culture as a stage of man’s perfection
A. Attempts at overcoming the dualism between the “spiritual” and the “secular” concept of man
B. The progressist and the essentialist view of culture in Hegel
4. Culture as a specific feature of human existence
A. The anthropological view of culture
B. Hegel and the anthropological view
5. Culture and literature
A. Literature as a product, sign or element of culture
B. Literature – an exponent of Weltanschauung and a performer of functions

ІІ. “The History of Ancient Aesthetics” as Marxist research……236
1. A. F. Lossev and the Marxist philosophy of history
A. A. F. Lossev’s influence in Bulgaria
B. Lossev as a Marxist
2. Culture from the point of view of the general principles of Marxism
A. The Marxist principle
B. The Marxist view of culture
3. Primitive and slave-owning formations. The question of ancient slavery
A. Primitive formation
B. Slave-owning formation
4. Lossev’s theses on ancient culture
A. Lossev’s understanding of “culture”
B. Antiquity as cosmologism
C. Antiquity as fatalism
5. Literature within the framework of ancient culture
A. Ancient literature as an outcome of the meeting of tribal heritage and the slave-owning principle
B. Ancient literature and Lossev’s “Theses”
C. Homer’s theses
6. Lossev and Hegel
A. The historical concept and the idea of culture
B. Culture as Weltsanschauung
C. Culture and literature

Excursus

How to polemize with the classics. “The open society” of Karl Popper...263

I.Criticism of Platonism
1. Historicism and the fight against change. Plato’s predecessors
2. Socratism and Platonism
3. Thucydides` typology

II. Aristotle as Hegel’s predecessor
1. Anti-equalitarianism and racialism
2. The mean as an “extreme in virtue”
3. Essentialism

II. Criticism of Hegelianism
1. The biological metaphor and the philosophy of identity
2. The nationalistic ideology and the principle of leadership
3. The historical factor in the formation of culture

III. Criticism of Marxism
1. Hegel’s heredity
2. Economic determinism
3. “The better, the worse”, or on the activities of the Communist party
4. The advantages of democratic interventionism
5. Marxism and culture

IV. The open society as a project for social activity
1. The idea of an open society
2. The fight against the open society
3. Rationalism as a moral choice

Al. Nichev on Aristotle’s literary theory...317

І. The mystery of the tragic catharsis
1. Plato and Aristotle
2. The burden of compassion

ІІ. The classical philologist as a literary scholar
1. The function of literature
2. Interpreting the ancient literary text
3. Interpreting the ancient philosophical text

ІІІ. “The mystery” as a moral allegory and an esoteric treatise
1. The problem of religion
2. Science and esoterics

What is ancient Greek literature..........339

І. The idea of literature
1. On definition
2. Criteria for distinguishing between the types of literature
3. Theoretical literature
4. “Historical” literature
5. Rhetorical literature
6. Fiction…

ІІ. Ancient Greek literature
1. The language
2. The culture
3. Two views on ancient Greek literature

Bibliography and abbreviations............357

Herodotus and the Parts of the World

2007-05-28T23:39:00.000+03:00

I. The Reign of Darius*

The paper focuses on the supposed cultural differences between the Greeks and the barbarians (represented mostly by the Persian empire), as seen by Herodotus. The observations are limited on the material of books III-VI, where the reader is told about the unsuccessful Ionian revolt and the first Persian war against the European Greeks, which had ended with the battle at Marathon. The main point of the essay is the specific Greek way of political expansion, and its possible parallels with the contemporary European model.
The paper is divided into the following chapters.
1. Persia and the Greeks. The clash.
2. The Parts of the World.
3. The Unity of the Greeks. The Greeks as a Maritime People. The Role of the Oracle at Delphi.
4. The Greek Fear in front of Persia.
5. Monarchy and Democracy. The Greek Understanding of the Freedom.

*the paper is published in:
ORIENTALIA. A Journal for the East. 2005, 1. New Bulgarian University

Building a Masters Programme: Difficulties and Challenges

2007-05-21T22:04:00.000+03:00

1. The prerequisites *

A. Changes in the legislature

The academic system, which educates the students in three degrees – bachelor’s, master’s and doctor’s – is relatively new in Bulgaria. Until the change of the political system in 1989, and even several years after that, the students (I have in mind the students from the humanitarian specialties) underwent an incessant five-years-long education and graduated with a diploma for completed higher education and with the allowance to work as teachers (or exercise other profession). Receiving the diploma they acquired a professional qualification – say, philologist (or historian, or lawyer and so on). After that the diploma-bearer-specialist could apply in a competition for a governmental scholarship, then called aspirantska, and to become an aspirant, which means doctoral student. Several years later, if (s)he has managed to write and defend the Doctoral thesis, (s)he received a degree, called “candidate of science”. Later this degree was equalized to the present day “doctor”. Subsequently (s)he could write a second dissertation, this time without supervision and to acquire a higher scientific degree, called “doctor of sciences”, which was a necessary but not sufficient condition for becoming a “professor”. So, the then system had three degrees as well, but the difference was that the researcher needed much more years for work and had to pass two difficult procedures, in order to be named “doctor”.
This system, which was the result of the harmonization of the Bulgarian educational legislature with the Soviet one, is almost untouched today. In 1999 the changes in the Higher education act introduced the degrees bachelor and master, which haven’t existed before; the degree “candidate” has been converted into doctoral one, and “doctor of sciences” still exists today. Probably this degree will survive another 10 or 15 years – until the colleagues, who had troubled themselves with this procedure, remain influential in the academic, and in the political spheres as well. However, now it seems like a mechanical repetition of the first doctoral degree, it does not change the salary considerably, and it will be evaded more and more by the candidates for this title, because the changes in the Act allow them to become professors without it. Eventually it might disappear.
So, in 1999 the initially monolith five-years-long education has been divided into two degrees (bachelor’s and master’s) with special amendments in the Act. These engendered the requirement the specialties to provide new curricula, and they did so. Thus, the specialty classical philology, in which we are interested in, began to offer masters’ programmes, addressed mainly to students enrolled in the University after 1996. The programmes became accessible in 1999, which means one year before the graduation of these students. But in this year the programmes did not start, because there weren’t candidates. This was not strange, because at this time all the graduates in Bulgaria hold a degree, equal to the master’s. This was the more important reason for the lack of candidates; but it seems to me, that other reasons were there as well. I am going to discuss them further.

B. The situation in the specialty Classical philology

Actually, the shift from the one-degree to the two-degrees-system of the graduate education was not so sharp, as I have sketched it so far. Since this change was anticipated even in the beginning of the 90-ties, at least some of the universities reacted earlier, and some specialties, among which our specialty as well, started offering a basic division of the education in the beginning of the five-years period. So, the students studied three years according to the former curriculum and after that they entered a two-years specialization, chosen in conformity with their interest. In Classical philology the specializations were three: Greek studies (Grecistika), Latin studies (Latinistika) and History and Archeology, for which most probably some of the departments in the faculty of history has contributed. It was assumed, that every student has greater interest for one of the two antiquities – the Greek and the Latin, including their medieval corollaries. At the other hand, some of them are maybe exhausted by the preoccupation with language and literature, and are eager to learn more about the political history and the material culture. Hence, let’s give them an opportunity to specialize within the five-years course itself.
The educational conviction, founding this strategy was the following. The university is a place for the pursuit of elitist knowledge and for the creation of elitist professional scholars. “Elitist”, however means “highly specialized”, which in the realm of the ancient researches means: handling perfectly the classical languages (or better, language), but reading much more interpretations and commentaries, than original ancient sources, because a specialist is a person, who is familiar with everything, written by his/her colleagues all over the world on a certain topic. Consequently, the students, graduating from a secondary school, in which they have already followed five-years systematic learning of Greek and Latin, but in which they have studied other matters as well, were meant to undergo a basic three-years long university course in classical philology, and then to begin their specialization. The best were expected to continue as doctoral students, and some of them could hope to become regular academic staff in the specialty. There was an opportunity for them to find jobs as teachers in the classical lyceum, from which they have graduated, but it was not esteemed as so good, for the same reason. Because a teacher in a gymnasium is preoccupied with teaching and moreover (s)he has to stick to the manuals, in which the content of his discipline is treated in a general and simplified manner. That’s why (s)he could hardly become an elitist scholar.
All this strategy, however, had little to do with the reality, at least in Bulgaria, because it could not answer to the frequently posed question: what happens with the majority of the students, who graduate the specialty?

(follows in Monday, June 11)

* this is the full version of a lecture, held at the First Contact Session of the three-year "Contextualizing Classics" project of the Sofia University and the HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (Open Society Institute, Budapest).
For further information see: http://www.proclassics.org/

Writing and Erudition in XXI century

2007-05-14T21:27:00.000+03:00

1. From the history of the written word

The culture to which we belong shows a considerable interest in the preservation of the memories of the past. This interest had been stated directly for the first time by Herodotus. It should be noted that his “History” is the most voluminous unified text, created by the Greeks in the classical epoch. The beginning of it says explicitly:

“These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds.” (Herodotus, I, 1. Translated by G. Rawlinson)

Since then the Greeks and the inheritors of their culture had made considerable efforts in order to continue the deed of Herodotus. It could be said, that they had developed a whole technology of the reminiscence. In the beginning they had written down what had happened, but also what might happen, creating thus the forms of the word, which we nowadays call history and literature.

“It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen - what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular. By the universal I mean how a person of a certain type on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the names she attaches to the personages. The particular is - for example - what Alcibiades did or suffered” (Aristotle, Poetics, 9. Translated by S.H. Butcher).

They had added to that the records of the circumstances and the conditions in which things could happen and even of “what are” these things, which had created the scientific and the philosophical genres of the word.
Later on simultaneously with the production of new and new records antiquity had guided its concerns to the preservation of the available texts (and thus appeared the libraries and the philology) and – what is even more respectable – antiquity had guided its cares to make the access to them easier. Thanks to that, in the first centuries CE the traditional scroll had been replaced by the codex, because the codex had a very important advantage – it had been most suitable to unfold. In the Middle Ages the large square letters /majusculus/ by and by had been replaced by the small rounded letters /minusculus/; so the lines in each page could be much more in number and the writing down – much faster. In the Renaissance the paper became thinner and the separate volumes gathered much more text. The publishing of books became mundane; the market dealing with books and the total prints had increased. However, all that had been no more than an approach to the ancient way of propagation of the written word. The main problem, connected with the prolonged handwork on each separate copy of the book remained unsolved. It is evident, that the discovery of the print press led really to a great change: suddenly it had appeared, that the books could be many in number and cheap. Nobody had to copy with months one and the same book; nobody had to dictate to copyists, but the books could be propagated in a few hours in an unseen total print. In the next 500 years nothing considerable had happened again: the development relied – as before – on a paper of greater quality and on smaller letters.
The invention of Gutenberg has led to an unknown and incredible by that time propagation of the documents of the past. The memories of the deeds and the thoughts of the ancestors begot much more and much richer libraries. In the private houses appeared special places for the books: that was something, which had been of a great rarity in the times before. The need of the inconvenient and expensive travelling of the individual to the educational center had vanished: not only because the centers increased in number, but also because man already had enough means for his association to the word inheritance. Then appeared another problem that had been familiar to the antiquity, but that became serious only in the 15-th century, when the book wealth suddenly increased. At once appeared enormous quantities of new texts of a very low value. These were books of less importance: books-ephemera, deprived of the spring of their own culture; books-weeds, that had grown up thanks to the deed of Gutenberg, but they had strived to replace the old valuable texts, because of which the printing press itself had been invented. Their existence became a hindrance to the good education, and it did not disappear. On the contrary, by and by it became much more difficult to overcome it. How to help the one, who wishes to get really acquainted with one’s own culture – that means, to be “reminded” of what is essential of it – and that’s why he relies on the accessibility of the written word, but precisely because of this accessibility he gets quite another thing? The market and the libraries had been full of very quickly made similarities of literature; of very superficial retellings and compilations of the good historical texts (very often these were retellings of other retellings and compilations); also, very prolonged references of strictly made but aimless collections of facts; also, writings, containing senseless statements and untested or simply fancied evidences; and at last, clumsy, short-witted or incomprehensible sequences of words which claimed to be philosophy. The memory of what really had happened never reached these people, lost in the book jungle: instead of that their brains had been overloaded by words without clear content, and from them remained only several phrases, used with an ease. The education got by these texts resembled to the furniture of a house, the owners of which can afford themselves only cheap furniture from the common shops. When these houses are new, they suppress with the lack of taste of their keepers and with their overburdeness; but the bad furniture is very soon worn out and a feeling of blunt, negligence and poverty appears at once.
Let see what happened after that. Now, 500 years after Gutenberg we possess another device of preservation of the word – it is the computer record. The first and the most obvious result of that is the sharp increase of the volume of the information which is in the physical space around us. The whole ancient Greek literature from Homer to Proclus could be gathered in one CD – this object with its package is smaller, compared with the smallest edition of Herodotus, that could be produced with the means of the traditional editing. Thanks to the CD records all of the well-known literary monuments, belonging to all earth civilizations, could be placed in a modest library shelf. But there is something more. The virtual library of Internet gives freedom to the reader and deprives him from the duty even to bye books, recorded on CD. Today everyone could read Herodotus in the original language, in which he had written or translations of it on the screen of one’s personal computer without possessing no record whatsoever of the text. All the reader needs is an Internet connection that could be acquired by everyone. The free access to the whole word inheritance of the world is already secured.

2. The problem of the erudition

All this happened very quickly and as if astonishing easily – from the point of view of the one who remembers how many efforts and means it has taken to get one or another book. It seems, that everyone, who today wishes to use the written monuments of the past is no longer in isolation. One even does not need the knowledge of different languages, which has been inevitable until late and took a lot of time, because today almost all important texts are translated into English. That’s the way in which the modern man is released from the fragmentary and ideological selection of the texts, forced by the milieu where one got one’s education before. At the same time, the problem of every free and mundane society, where the monopoly on the creation of the word does not exist, remains the same. Who will explain what is useful to be read or whether it is useful to read anything at all? Does it make no difference in what way exactly the people in the XXI century will get their education?
From the point of view of the philologist (I use this word in the broadest sense; something like “specialist in word education’) the advantage of the present-day situation is in the fact, that it secures good conditions for a conscious choice.

(follows)

The Ancient Hermetism

2007-05-07T13:51:00.000+03:00

1. Intentions of the research

This study has several concerns.
First, it gives a detailed description of the texts of the ancient hermetism (chapter I).
Secondly, it tries to comment on the testimonies, given by the ancient authors about the legend of Hermes Trismegistus and about the literature, ascribed to this mythical figure (chapter II);
Then it presents - as clearly and systematically as possible in the case of such difficult texts - the basic characteristics of the hermetic doctrine (chapter III);
Fourthly, it makes a brief survey of the academic studies on hermetism, with special emphasis on the discussion of the first half of this century, commenced with the famous ”Poimandres” by Reitzenstein, and its evolution after the discovery of the new writings at Nag Hammadi (chapter IV);
Fifthly, it informs the reader about the phenomenon of the so-called ”technical hermetism”, and about the history of the hermetic tradition among the Arabs and in the Renaissance (chapter V).
Special attention is paid to the attempt to construct a ”theory of the hermetic gnosticism.” The hypothesis of the chapter VI is as follows. There exist some basic models of the mythical thought, which underlie the majority of the mythological ”sacred histories”. It is important, that the most original and influential among the hermetic texts, the CH I, does present to its readers such a sacred history. Not only Hellenistic hermetism, but also many of the Gnostic systems of the same period (2nd-3rd CE), as well as Plato and the Orphics, needless to mention for the Judeo-Christian mythological tradition, are deeply occupied with the construction of a sacred history.
On the basis of hermetic and gnostic mythological material I try to demonstrate, that in the kernel of the sacred history myths there is a small number of pre-narrative notions. In most cases these notions are connected with the well-known (and very typical of the ancient mode of grasping the reality) dichotomy between the unchanging, unmovable, eternal on the one hand and the changeable, movable, ephemeral on the other hand. According to our hypothesis, every sacred history of gnostic type is a single realisation of the mentioned basic models, which exist as results of some simple relations between the two ”principles”.

2. Detailed summary

In the introduction there is a short explanation of the terms ”hermetism” and ”hermeticism”, in accordance with the definition of A. Faivre (Hermetism. Encyclopaedia of Religion. ed. M. Eliade, Chicago, 1986). Then it follows a presentation of the legend of Hermes and its writings in the way it was probably known after the 1st C.E. (I,1-2). The greater part of the first chapter is dedicated to a detailed description of the arguments of all religious and philosophical hermetic writings, preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic and Armenian. These texts are known to the specialists as Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, Stobaei Hermetica, Fragmenta Hermetica, Nag Hammadi Hermetica, Definitiones Hermetis ad Asclepium and Fragmenta Vindobonensia (I, 3).
The second chapter is devoted to the testimonies of the ancient authors about hermetism. Firstly, the knowledge of the classical authors (up to the 1st B.C.) of the Egyptian god Thot-Hermes is discussed. The references of Herodotus, Plato and Cicero are cited (II, 1). After that there are comments on the testimonies of some Christian apologists like Athenagoras, Tertullian and Lactantius, and also on the information we find in pagan writers like Zosimus and Iamblichus. This part ends with a presentation of the testimonies in the works of St. Augustine and St. Cyril of Alexandria. We may conclude, that the opinion of the Christian authors in respect of Hermes is at least twofold. Some of them (Lactantius, Cyril) admire Hermes as the ”first philosopher”, and perceive him as a real Egyptian prophet of Christ.
Others, especially Augustine, critisize him for his interest in magic and astrology, and ascribe his prophetic abilities to his contact with impure demonic powers. As to the pagan authorities, they see in him the greatest personification of the old and glorious Egyptian wisdom and, naturally, the inventor of philosophy and of all worldly and occult sciences and arts (II, 2). The last paragraph is a brief survey of the Byzantine testimonies. Most interesting are the references of Psellus, who, as far as we know, is the first European reader of Hermes after the disappearance of the writings by the middle of the 6th CE.
The third chapter tries to make a systematic presentation of the hermetic doctrine. The observation (made by Bousset some 80 years ago), that in hermetism can be found two almost antithetical world-views, is accepted without objection. On this ground a comparison is made between the conceptions of the creator, the world and the soul in the ”optimistic” treatises and in the ”pessimistic” ones (III, 1-3).
The theme of the fourth chapter is the history of the studies on hermetism from the beginning of this century. The interest of philologists and historians of philosophy and religion is directed to the following problems. Was there in the late antiquity something like a hermetic church, or hermetic school of philosophy, or hermetism was only a kind of sophisticated religious literature, addressed to educated people? Where are to be sought the origins of religious and philosophical dogma of the hermetists? How to deal with the firmly established (since Bousset and Scott) distinctions between the different trends in hermetism, such as the ”technical” and the ”learned” one, and the ”optimistic” and ”pessimistic” one? The work of every scholar in this field is oriented to some of these problems and suggests one of the possible solutions. So, for example, R. Reitzenstein seeks to demonstrate the connection between hermetism and the Egyptian, or, in a later study, the Iranian mythological traditions. In his learned “Die Hellenistische Mysterienreligionen” he posits the hermetic ideas in the context of the very complicated religious life of that period. He is also the first 20th-century editor of hermetic texts. The evolution of hermetic studies after him can be seen as a series of attempts to develop his work and to examine his hypotheses (IV, 1).
So some scholars like Scott and more recently Mahe, are concerned chiefly with the editing and commenting on the extant texts. Others, like Heinrici, Dodd and Grese, are interested in the detailed study of the textual parallels between the hermetic treatises and the Bible. In the third place there are historians of the religious literature (Striker, Derchain) who are interested in the possibility to prove the ”Egyptian hypothesis” of the origin of the hermetism. A special attention is paid to the work of A.-J. Festugiere, a highly learned and undoubtedly the most productive author in the field of the academic studies on hermetism. He was interested, just like Reitzenstein, in all the aspects of this phenomenon. It can be said, that while the German scholar simply poses the questions, Festugiere gives a full and abundantly supported answer to them. The results of his life-long studies on the subject can be summarized as follows. Firstly, Festugiere says, there was no such thing as hermetic church, although it may be supposed, that some kind of schools of hermetic philosophy existed in the big cities of the Roman Empire.

(follows)