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The Letters of St. Isidore of Seville by Gordon B. Ford; St.
Isidore
Review by: P. G. WalshThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 22,
No. 2 (Jun., 1972), pp. 279-280Published by: Cambridge University
Presson behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/708429.
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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 279ARNO SEEL: Laus Pisonis:
Text,tbersetzung, Kommentar. (Erlan-gen diss.) Pp. [viii] + 2 I1.
Erlangen:privately printed, [1969]. Paper.THE transmitted text of
L.P. 254-5 reads asfollows:
... nos humilis domus et sincera parentumsed tenuis fortuna sua
caligine celat.Something is clearly wrong; and if, as it isthe main
aim of Seel's thesis to establish,the poet was Lucan, a negative is
required.To read non (Beck) for nos is easy andeconomical; but is
the result Latin? Seelquotes Ullman's observation that it 'makesan
awkward sentence' (this in my view is aconsiderable
understatement), but does notanswer it; and his translation is a
loose para-phrase of the line: 'Kein niedriges Haus istmir eigen
und ich stamme von recht-schaffenen Eltern.' A chain is as strong
as itsweakest link; Seel's case for Lucan's author-ship is
seriously impaired, if indeed it is notdisabled outright, by his
failure to deal withthis point--or rather his failure to appre-hend
that there is a point to be dealt with,for exact latinity is
evidently not his forte, aswitness his rendering of insigni
praestringitimagine uisus (ioi) by 'er verschliesst seinGesicht mit
einem ganz besonderen Aus-druck'. Attempts to ascribe the poem to
aknown author are probably futile; but tokeep the ball rolling I
will throw in anapparently unnoticed argument for Cal-purnius
Siculus, the predilection of bothpoets for the 'golden' line and
its variants: inL.P. see especially the constellation at vw.
70(abAB), 71 (abBA), 73 (abAB).
Peterhouse,Cambridge E. J. KENNEY
PIERRE BOYANCt: I~tudes sur l'human-isme cicironien. (Collection
Latomus,121.) Pp. 352. Brussels: Latomus,1970. Paper, 6oo B.
fr.REPRINTED papers by the Director of theFrench School at Rome.
(i) Le problkme deCic6ron: Les portraits de Cic6ron:
Lacorrespondance de Cic6ron (L'Inf. Litt.,1958); (ii) Travaux
recents sur Cic6ron,1939-58 (Actesdu CongrdsBud , I96o);
(iii)Cic6ron contre Cic6ron (R.E.A., i949); (iv)Cic6ron et la vie
contemplative (LatomusI967); (v) 'Cum dignitate otium'
(R.E.A.,1948); (vi) Sur Cic6ron et I'histoire (Brutus41-43)
(R.E.A., 1940); (vii) Ciceron et
l'empire romain en Sicilie (Kokalos,1964-5) ;(viii) Cic6ron et
C6sar (Bulletin de l'Ass.Buds, 1959); (ix) Les probl'mes du
Derepublica L'Inf. Litt., 1964); (x) Cic6ron etson aeuvre
philosophique (R.E.L., 1936);(xi) Le platonisme a Rome-Platon
etCic6ron (Actesdu CongrasBud , i953); (xii)Trois citations de
Platon chez Cic6ron(Hommagesa Marcel Renard, 1969); (xiii)Ciceron
et le 'Premier Alcibiade' (R.E.L.,I964); (xiv) Sur le songe de
Scipion (26-28)(L'Ant. Class., 1942); (xv) Cic6ron et lessemailles
d'ames du Timete De Leg. i. 24)(Romanitas,1961); (xvi) Les preuves
stoi-ciennes de l'existence des dieux (De N.D., ii)(Hermes, I962);
L'apotheose de Tullia(R.E.A., I944); (xviii) La rdponse
del'humanisme cicronien (Miscellanea oaquiemde Carvalho, 962).
GORDON B. FORD: The Letters ofSt. Isidore of Seville. Second
edition.Pp. 69. Amsterdam: Hackert, 1970.Cloth, fl. I6.THIS revised
edition of the fourteen lettersattributed to Isidore consists of a
two-pageIntroduction followed by text and facingtranslation without
annotation. The Intro-duction states that four of the
fourteenletters are considered spurious; as Mr. Fordseems to agree,
how can they 'includetwelve by Isidore himself' ?The text printed
of the first thirteen lettersis that of the P.L. (Ar6valo), yet, as
Fordnotes, Lindsay edited seven of them in hisO.C.T. of the
Etymologiae, nd Gundlach aneighth in the M.G.H. Lindsay's text is
notinvariably an improvement, but the versionprinted here could
have been improved inabout forty places by incorporating
hiscorrections and superior readings. There is anumber of misprints
in the other letters, themost important confundite or confundere
t4. 5, and eumdemor eandem t 7. 4.The translation of the difficult
epistolarystyle raises acute problems which Forddoes not attempt to
solve, preferring amot-d-motversion which is frequently
in-comprehensible, and which ranges fromliteral accuracy to the
most frightful mis-translation. Some renderings in the
pre-dominantly liturgical Letter I would raisewan smiles at Keble
or Heythrop, wherethe punctuation of the Latin at 1. 8 wouldbe
instantly improved. The translation at4. 6 has wholly lost its way.
At 7. 6, 'law'is the Law of the O.T., and 7. 7-8 has
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8/13/2019 The Letters of St. Isidore of Seville
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280 THE CLASSICAL REVIEWother errors. 8. I prints Verecundum,
uttranslates as if lower case. 8. 2 takes all thepunch out of the
argument for papalprimacy by translating pontificatus s
'priest-hood'. 10. 4 contains two obvious errors,I2. 4 seems to
miss the reference to theFeeding of the Five Thousand, and in
thesame letter 7-8 is mostly awry, 9-Io hasfurther mistakes, and
lucrerisn 13 does notmean 'mourn'.It is difficult to imagine who
couldbenefit from this edition, since the Intro-duction is so
jejune, the text outdated, thetranslation unreliable, and the
annotationnon-existent.University f Glasgow P. G. WALSH
T. B. L. WEBSTER: Greek TheatreProduction.econd edition. Pp.
xvii+214; 24 plates. London: Methuen,1970. Cloth, ?2"25.THISuseful
book (firstpublished in 1956 andreviewed by me in C.R. lxxi [1957],
III f.)now appears in a second edition whichcontains four pages of
Addenda and Cor-rigenda. Webster now thinks that theperformance of
a satyr-play by Pratinas atwhich the wooden seats collapsed is
likelierto have taken place in front of the oldtemple of Dionysus
than in the Agora; seeBulletinof theJohn RylandsLibrary, 2
(196o),495 f.; he now regards the assumption thatthe Periclean
theatre had wings as 'pureconjecture'; and following G. M.
Sifakis,Studies n theHistoryof HellenisticDrama, 128,he thinks the
Lycurgan theatre must havebeen rebuilt before 292 B.c. A. M.
Dale,CollectedPapers, Io6 f., he thinks has 'shownconvincingly that
all the plays of Aristo-phanes are better played with a single
door';but see K. J. Dover, Proc. Cambridge hilo-logicalSociety,no.
192 (1966), 6 f., an articlewhich Webster ought certainly to
havementioned.ChristChurch,Oxford H. LLOYD-JONES
JOHN FERGUSON: Socrates: a sourcebook. Pp. xii+335. Macmillan
(forthe Open University Press), 1970.Cloth, ?2 (paper,
41Pp).PROFESSORERGUSONays that he wishes to
present 'the main source material aboutSocrates' (p. xi), but it
is unclear by whom orfor what he expects the material to be
used.The first half of his book contains extractsfrom Diogenes
Laertius, Plato, Xenophon,Old Comedy, and Aristotle, which would
beuseful to a student with a philosophical orhistorical interest in
Socrates, but the lasthundred and fifty pages are given to
laterwriters, from whom such a student wouldglean hardly anything
to his purpose.Perhaps Ferguson's real aim in this part is
tointroduce readers to authors seldom read,such as Numenius,
Orosius, and Theo-phylact, and he is using referencesto
Socratesonly as a principle of selection. Some of thepassages,
however, are too short to berevealing and many are repetitions.
Thusthe mot 'Some people live to eat; I eat tolive' appears no less
than five times. Butwhatever his intention Ferguson might
havecarried it out more professionally. We arenot told whose texts
are being translated,the references are sometimes inaccurate,and
the translations contain mistakes. Aparticular puzzle about the
plan of the bookis the prominence given to Libanius: hereceives
more space than Xenophon,Aristophanes, and Aristotle put
together.Ferguson confesses his book was compiledin a hurry:
perhaps if he could not spendmore time on it he should not have
attemp-ted it at all, for as it stands it is rambling indesign and
unreliable in retail.Of early writers Plato receives by far themost
attention. Of Ferguson's extracts fromthe Platonic corpus some,
like the Apology,Crito,and Phaedoare obvious choices, some,like the
whole of AlcibiadesI, less obvious,and some surprising. Among the
last isParmenides130-5, which Ferguson himselfdeclares to be not
Socratic. On the otherhand passagesare omitted which might havebeen
thought grist to his mill, such as theconversation with Anytus in
the Meno.AfterPlato Aristophanes comes off best, with somelong
quotations from the Clouds.Xenophonis not well treated. Ferguson
had an oppor-tunity to present a number of passageswhich are of
interest to the historian ofphilosophy but often neglected, for
instanceMemorabilia iii. 8. 2-7, iii. Io, iv. 6.Instead he quotes
Hegel's sneer at Xeno-phon's Socrates (p. I) and passages
whichsupport it. Aristotle too might have beengiven more space: his
references to Socratesare not so many or prolix that Ferguson
needhave been selective. As for Aeschines ofSphettus he is not
included among the earlysources at all but put between Porphyry
andProclus.
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