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Teaching the classics to provincials - Teresa Morgan, LITERATE EDUCATION IN THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN WORLDS (Cambridge University Press 1998). Pp. xviii + 364. ISBN 0 521 58466 3. $64.95.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

Ann Ellis Hanson*
Affiliation:
Department of Classics, Yale University, New Haven

Abstract

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Type
Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of Roman Archaeology L.L.C. 2002

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References

1 Marrou's first Paris edition appeared in 1948, and 5 revised and augmented editions followed; the third Paris edition, translated by Lamb, G. under the title A history of education in antiquity, appeared in 1956 Google Scholar. For Marrou's attention to papyri and, in particular, to Guéraud, O. and Jouguet, P., Un livre d'écolier du IIIe siècle avant J.-C. (Cairo 1938)Google Scholar, see his Part 2, chapt. 6, “Primary education”

2 Bonner, S. F., Education in ancient Rome (Berkeley 1977) 17-71, 175-76, 179 Google Scholar.

3 Writing, teachers, and students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta 1996)Google Scholar; pp. 175-284 contain a catalogue of school texts, grouped according to type and ascending complexity, from “letters of the alphabet” through “notebooks”. Thus, the Ptolemaic school book is no. 379 in Cribiore's catalogue, the wax tablet no. 383, and the wooden board no. 385; there are 31 additional notebooks in the catalogue.

The number of school texts continues to increase; the most important recent publication is the 4th-c. book of acacia wood consisting of 8 tablets and their covers and containing Isocrates Ad Demonicum, Ad Nicoclem, and Nicocles. Short hypotheseis accompany the first two orations and simple scholia appear in the margins of the first tablet ( Worp, K. A. and Rijksbaron, A., The Kellis Isocrates codex [Oxford 1997]Google Scholar). These characteristics, as well as the mediocre quality of the handwriting, the numerous orthographic errors, and the simplistic nature of the Hilfsmittel, prompt the editors to consider the book the possession of a local schoolmaster of Kellis in the Dakhleh Oasis.

4 Papyri provide evidence on women teachers and female pupils in Egypt, few in number and largely from the upper reaches of urban society: see Cribiore, R., Gymnastics of the mind (Princeton 2001) 74101 Google Scholar.

5 The dominance of Homer papyri over other authors constantly increases: see, e.g., Apthorp, M. J. in ZPE 137 (2001) 220 Google Scholar; modern assessments of what counts as a school text also differ: cf. Cribiore, R., “Literary school exercises,” ZPE 116 (1997) 5360 Google Scholar.

6 Cribiore (supra n.4) 214 points out that the morphological tables avoid athematic verbs, concentrating instead on the contracts, with a view toward also helping students in their day-to-day production of correct Greek.

7 P. Bour. I = 393 Cribiore.

8 Bodleian Greek Inscription 3019, published by Parsons, P. in ZPE 6 (1970) 133–49Google Scholar, where the only evidence available on provenance points to the Large Oasis, perhaps near Hibis.

9 Thus Cribiore (supra n.4) 228. Morgan's differences with Cribiore are most pronounced with regard to rhetorical exercises on papyrus, as indicated, for example, on the former's p. 201 and n.45.1 urge those concerned with papyri of rhetorical content to consult as well Cribiore (supra n.4) 220-44, for she has both paléographie acumen and familiarity with educational materials at all levels.

10 Pp. 75-78, 85; the notebooks are Pap. Fior. XXII 28-29 (= 391 Cribiore) and 30-31 (= 392).

11 For Socrates' family relationships and career, see Zaccaria, S. Strassi, “Prosopografia e incarichi amministrativi a Karanis nel II sec. d.C. Proposte interpretative,” ZPE 85 (1991) 245–62Google Scholar; for identification of his hand and his library see van Minnen, P., “House-to-house enquiries: an interdisciplinary approach to Roman Karanis,’ ZPE 100 (1994) 237–46Google Scholar. van Minnen, ibid 241, calculates Socrates' adult career as extending from A.D. 135 to 171/72; cf. also Strassi Zaccaria, ibid. 260-61. Strassi Zaccaria surveys documents from Karanis located in many different collections; van Minnen concentrates on those excavated or purchased on the site during the excavations by the University of Michigan. Not all documents and letters from Socrates' house (B17) have been published, and there may be more to learn.

12 For their mother, Sempronia Gemella, see P.Mich. III 169, the birth certificate for the twins that was found in house B7, with remarks by Strassi Zaccaria ibid. 258-59, and van Minnen, ibid. 241-42. The couple did not marry, for such a union would have deprived the twins of their Roman citizenship, and thus far no certain traces of Gemella have been found in Socrates' house B17. Socrates also seems to have had a daughter; her mother is unknown.

13 P.Mich, inv. 4711a (unpublished).

14 P.Mich, inv. 4733 verso, ed. prin. by Gronewald, M. in ZPE 66 (1986) 113 Google Scholar; copied on the back of a document from the reign of Domitian and so a copy made for private use, rather than the book trade. The hand which writes the Menander is squarish, irregular, and of mixed style; the editor assigns a date in the early 2nd c. A.D. The two fragments contain portions of Act III and IV, but additional fragments, recovered from Socrates' house, have also come to light (P.Mich. inv. 4801g, 4807, and portions of 4733; unpublished).

15 P.Mich, inv. 4800 recto, ed. prin. by Musurillo, H. in JRS 47 (1957) 185–90Google Scholar. The hand is small, neat, and upright, of mixed style; some characters extend conspicuously below the line; the editor assigns a date in the reign of Hadrian. As with other items from the Acta, the text concerns injustices presumably committed in Alexandria against Alexandrians; although the text is too fragmentary for translation, there are references to Jewish-Greek relations in the city, attacks by soldiers on young boys, and a woman pleads for her life or that of her son. Gaius Vibius Maximus, prefect of Egypt between 103 and 107, may be the Maxi[mus] mentioned in the first fragment.

16 P.Mich, inv. 4693 (unpublished).

17 P.Mich, inv. 4761C, ed. prin. by Gronewald, M. in ZPE 15 (1974) 105–16Google Scholar = Lloyd-Jones, H. and Parsons, P. (edd.), Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin 1983) no. 276(b), 188–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The hand writes large, round, carefully articulated letters, decorated by serifs and finials; the first editor assigned a date early in the 2nd c. A.D. Only portions of 10 lines of poetry survive, but the degree of lectional aids is high — 10 accents, 3 apostrophes to mark elision, and 3 high dots to articulate sense. There are also at least 5 corrections, with offending letters cancelled by a diagonal stroke.

18 The clandestine rummaging explains why some papyri involving Socrates found their way through antiquities dealers into other collections besides those of Michigan and the Cairo Museum.

19 Name, patronym, papponym, matronym.

20 Youtie, H. C., “Callimachus in the tax rolls,’ in Samuel, D. H. (ed.), Proc. 12th Int. Cong. Papyrology 1968 (Toronto 1970) 545–51Google Scholar, reprinted in Scriptiunculae 2 (Amsterdam 1973) 1035–41Google Scholar. See also van Minnen, (supra n.ll) 245.

21 As Youtie pointed out, άνδίκτηϲ may mean either “mouse trap” or a “a specific part of a mouse trap”, for Hesychius glosses άνδίκτηϲ with τὸ άναριπτόμενον τῆс μνάγραс ξύλον, “the wooden piece in the trap that springs up”, and the Etymologicum Magnum 102.10, again citing much of Callimachus' line, allows both meanings, “mouse trap” and “tongue of the trap”

22 To be sure, the Callimachus was found in House B2, but there is no necessary reason to assume, as van Minnen does ( ZPE 100 [1994] 246 Google Scholar), that Socrates was the one who borrowed it from his neighbor. It seems marginally possible that someone in B2 borrowed it from the old man and neglected to return it when he died.

23 Cf. Cribiore (supra n.4) 191 (on the appearance in identifiable student copies of apostrophe, breathings, marks of quantity, and high dots for emphatic punctuation); 197-202, for Menander and Callimachus among authors whom students read; and 193, for the difficulties in identifying copies used by mature students, since they were reading the same books that circulated among an educated public.

24 Nutton, V., “Galen ad multos annos,” Dynamis 15 (1995) 2539 Google Scholar.

25 For this and other biographical information, see in particular De ordine librorum proprioriim 4 (II 88 Müller)Google Scholar and De iibris propriis 11 and 17 (II 116 and 124 Müller)Google Scholar.

26 For references see, e.g., von Staden, H., “Science as text, science as history: Galen on metaphor,” in van der Eijk, P. J. et al. (edd.), Ancient medicine in its socio-cultural context (Amsterdam-Atlanta 1995) 499518 Google Scholar, and Edlow, R. B., Galen on language and ambiguity: an English translation of Galen's “De captionibus (On Fallacies)” (Leiden 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See, e.g., H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, “Galen and his patients,” in van der Eijk ibid. 83-99. Although Galen was prone to name-dropping when Roman grandees were involved, he also named a young patient, Diodorus the grammaticus, who experienced seizures when he went for extended periods without food while teaching some all-absorbing literary point ( De venae sectione adversus Erasistratum 9, XI 242 Kühn)Google Scholar; his second discussion of this case neglected to name Diodiorus, but the diagnosis (a weak stomach) and treatment (wine-soaked bread at the third or fourth hour) are the same. The activities that brought on the seizures were expanded to whenever he taught or thought very vigorously, or went without eating, or got angry” (De locis affectis 5.6, VIII 340 Kühn)Google Scholar.

28 Mansfeld, J., Prolegomena to the study of a text (Leiden 1994) 117–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 See the episode described in the opening of De libris propriis 1 (XIX 9 Kühn)Google Scholar, and, for the philologus of that episode, Hanson, A. E., “Galen: author and critic,” in Most, G. W. (ed.), Editing texts/Texte edieren (Aporemata II, Göttingen 1998) 2253 Google Scholar.

30 In the treatises preserved in Greek, Galen quotes from most books of the Iliad (omitted seem to be books 7-8,12,21-23), while only about 11 books of the Odyssey feature, but the topic requires further study.

31 So also Nutton, V., Galeni de praecognitione (Berlin 1979) 188–89Google Scholar. DeLacy, P. H., “Galen and the Greek poets,” GRBS 7 (1966) 259–66Google Scholar, suggested that in De placitis Hippocratis et Piatonis Galen borrowed the passages from the poets out of Chrysippus' text. This may be true for De plac. III 2.2-3.2 (I 176-82 DeLacy)Google Scholar, where Galen lambasted Chrysippus for uselessly summoning poets as witnesses as to where in the body the ruling power of the soul resided. When at De plac. III 3.8-9 (1186 DeLacy) Galen quoted the entirety of Od. 20.5-22, however, as a clear account of the interior struggle between reason and passion in a man of good sense, one senses that Homer's words were deeply embedded in his mind.

32 References to Galen's quotations of gnomai are found in Nutton, ibid. 156. For Euripides see, e.g., Alcestis 1079-80 at De plac. III 6.38 and Ale. 1085 in IV 7.11; Medea 108-10 at De plac. III 4.23-26 and Med. 1078-79 at De plac. III 3.26 and IV 6.19; Hippolytus 780 at In Hippocratis aphorismos commentarli VII, XVIIIA 147 Kühn Google Scholar; Hecuba 569 at In Hippocratis prognosticum commentarla III (XVIIIB 7 Kühn)Google Scholar; Orestes 563 at De numero its modis prolapso auos Hippocrates non vidit, XVIII A 384 Kühn Google Scholar. For passages from now-lost plays of Euripides, see Nauck frag. 282 (Autolykos) at Adhortatio ad artes addiscendas 10, 13 Google Scholar; frags. 821 (Phrixos) and 964 at De plac. IV 7.9; 764 (Hypsipyle) at In Hippocratis librum de articulis commentarli, XVIIIA 519 Kühn Google Scholar; frags. 340 (Diktys) and 665 (Stheneboia) at De plac. IV 6.30.