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Greek Wisdom - II

La sapienza greca, ii. Epimenide, Ferecide, Talete, Anassimandro, Anassimene, Onomacrito byGiorgio ColliReview by: Jonathan BarnesThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1979), pp. 242-243Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3063188.

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEWHE CLASSICAL REVIEWiora of K. both by the addition of texts whose Orphic colouring has been sus-pected but not universally accepted and by tracing old Orphic ideas in latersources. Nobody will object to this, especially since the Derveni Papyrus taughtus how old much later attested concepts can be. To include Ibycus frg.285 PMG(4 A 1), however, just because the silver egg of the Molione resembles the sil-very world egg of a late cosmogony (4 B 72 b 2), is far-fetched: but it is, to befair, the only text so grossly out of place. There are, on the other hand, strangeomissions. No mention of Herodotos' hints at a secret myth of Dionysos, com-parable to that of Osiris, which have been explained by Gilbert Murray,6no textof Xenocrates' Orphic interpretation of PI. Phd. 62 c or of either Ion of Chiosor Herodoros of Heracleia, the first to propose alternative authors to Orphicwritings, and - most detrimental - no text of the Derveni Papyrus with thefragments of the oldest Orphic book we possess,7 considerably more importantfor our understanding of early Orphic poetry than the much disputed goldleaves.

A further, less fundamental but still unfortunate oversight concerns the con-stitution of the texts. Usually, C. relies on the newest editions and keeps clear ofemendations of his own (the few examples of his own skill make one feel nothingbut gratitude for this epoche). But in the case of Philodemus' de pietate, C.'sacquaintance with the work of A. Henrichs would have considerably improvedtwo of his three quotations of Musaios and added a fourth.8 Furthermore,Henrichs (in an article of 1975, so perhaps after C. finished his edition) restored(in 4 B 18) the Dp [sptKOt] s authorities for the myth of Dionysos' sparagmos,thus procuring the earliest instance but one for the existence of 'OpotKo.9These criticisms may seem harsh, but they are necessary. Through a combina-tion of misguided theorizing, missing critical alertness, and a tendency to pre-tended rather than real thoroughness, C. destroys his few good starting-pointswhich could lead to an edition superior to DK. If continued in the same manner,his ambitious undertaking may already be regarded as a failure. This would beregrettable: though still unsurpassed, DK is not unsurpassable.Zurich FRITZ GRAF

IIGIORGIO COLLI: La sapienza greca, ii. Epimenide, Ferecide, Talete,Anassimandro,Anassimene, Onomacrito. Pp. 356. Milan:Adelphi,1978. L. 32,000.La sapienza greca offers us 'an exhaustive documentation of what is customarilycalled Presocratic philosophy'. Volume ii deals with Epimenides, Pherecydes,the three Milesians, and Onomacritus; and it contains a section on Theophrastus.The texts are faced by a translation, preceded by a brief Introduction, and fol-6In J. E. Harrison, Tbemis (Cambridge2, 1927), pp. 342 f.7Partly published in Deltion 19 (1964), 17-25. ZPE 1 (1967), 21-32. To be exact, C. men-tions the papyrus once, in the apparatus of 4 A 71 ( ).8 A. Henrichs, GRBS 13 (1972), 67-98; the new text is Phil. piet. 963.9Id., Cron. Erc. 5 (1975), 35: hitherto, the earliest reference was K.frg.70 (? third cent.A.D.). Even earlier is a fifth-century (?) graffito from Olbia, Vest. Drev. Ist. 1978: 1. 87 f.,brought to my knowledge by W. Burkert: it is scratched into a plaque of bone, of enigmaticuse: could it be the token of a religious community?

iora of K. both by the addition of texts whose Orphic colouring has been sus-pected but not universally accepted and by tracing old Orphic ideas in latersources. Nobody will object to this, especially since the Derveni Papyrus taughtus how old much later attested concepts can be. To include Ibycus frg.285 PMG(4 A 1), however, just because the silver egg of the Molione resembles the sil-very world egg of a late cosmogony (4 B 72 b 2), is far-fetched: but it is, to befair, the only text so grossly out of place. There are, on the other hand, strangeomissions. No mention of Herodotos' hints at a secret myth of Dionysos, com-parable to that of Osiris, which have been explained by Gilbert Murray,6no textof Xenocrates' Orphic interpretation of PI. Phd. 62 c or of either Ion of Chiosor Herodoros of Heracleia, the first to propose alternative authors to Orphicwritings, and - most detrimental - no text of the Derveni Papyrus with thefragments of the oldest Orphic book we possess,7 considerably more importantfor our understanding of early Orphic poetry than the much disputed goldleaves.

A further, less fundamental but still unfortunate oversight concerns the con-stitution of the texts. Usually, C. relies on the newest editions and keeps clear ofemendations of his own (the few examples of his own skill make one feel nothingbut gratitude for this epoche). But in the case of Philodemus' de pietate, C.'sacquaintance with the work of A. Henrichs would have considerably improvedtwo of his three quotations of Musaios and added a fourth.8 Furthermore,Henrichs (in an article of 1975, so perhaps after C. finished his edition) restored(in 4 B 18) the Dp [sptKOt] s authorities for the myth of Dionysos' sparagmos,thus procuring the earliest instance but one for the existence of 'OpotKo.9These criticisms may seem harsh, but they are necessary. Through a combina-tion of misguided theorizing, missing critical alertness, and a tendency to pre-tended rather than real thoroughness, C. destroys his few good starting-pointswhich could lead to an edition superior to DK. If continued in the same manner,his ambitious undertaking may already be regarded as a failure. This would beregrettable: though still unsurpassed, DK is not unsurpassable.Zurich FRITZ GRAF

IIGIORGIO COLLI: La sapienza greca, ii. Epimenide, Ferecide, Talete,Anassimandro,Anassimene, Onomacrito. Pp. 356. Milan:Adelphi,1978. L. 32,000.La sapienza greca offers us 'an exhaustive documentation of what is customarilycalled Presocratic philosophy'. Volume ii deals with Epimenides, Pherecydes,the three Milesians, and Onomacritus; and it contains a section on Theophrastus.The texts are faced by a translation, preceded by a brief Introduction, and fol-6In J. E. Harrison, Tbemis (Cambridge2, 1927), pp. 342 f.7Partly published in Deltion 19 (1964), 17-25. ZPE 1 (1967), 21-32. To be exact, C. men-tions the papyrus once, in the apparatus of 4 A 71 ( ).8 A. Henrichs, GRBS 13 (1972), 67-98; the new text is Phil. piet. 963.9Id., Cron. Erc. 5 (1975), 35: hitherto, the earliest reference was K.frg.70 (? third cent.A.D.). Even earlier is a fifth-century (?) graffito from Olbia, Vest. Drev. Ist. 1978: 1. 87 f.,brought to my knowledge by W. Burkert: it is scratched into a plaque of bone, of enigmaticuse: could it be the token of a religious community?

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEWHE CLASSICAL REVIEWlowed by notes, bibliography, and indexes. The volume is elegantly printed andbeautifully produced.Scholars who contemplate lavishing their lire on Greek wisdom will be pri-marily interested in the Greek texts. The passages in each section are dividedinto two groups, A and B: the division is not, as in Diels-Kranz, betweentestimonia and fragments, but rather between more and less reliable reports.Each text is provided with a lucid apparatus criticus, a list of loci similes, and aset of bibliographical references.Let Anaximander serve as an example. Here Colli prints twelve texts notfound in DK, and he omits seven texts which DK print. The twelve newcomers,of which ten are from Aristotle, are of little value and could well have beenmentioned as loci similes; of the seven exiles, A 14 (Aetius) and A 15 (Phys203b 15-25) will be generally lamented, and I miss A 17a, A 29 (Aetius), andA 2 (Suda). On the other hand, [B 7] = C = FGrH 9 F 3 is nothing to do withour man.

Colli's documentation is far from exhaustive: there are, for example, fifteenpassages in Simplicius in Phys which he ignores; and of those he should surelyhave printed at least 149.9-28, 150. 18-25, 465.5-22, and 479.32-480.5. Wecertainly want in Cael 615. 7-14 too. And why is in Cael 615.13-18 = [B 11]f =A 17 bowdlerized?

On the whole, Colli's text offers few novelties. But I am not convinced thatKELatUs necessary in [B 41 = A 26; E77KOUrrT5 for rTrevrT7KOaTT in [B 6] = A 1is impossible (cf. [B 22] = A 11, [B 13] = A 5; and see Jacoby, ApollodorsChronik, pp. 189-92); and the MS r6trom ... &aepdoSetcin [B 22] = A 11 ishardly intelligible.

[B 1] replaces A 9 and comes from Colli's new version of Theophrastus. Thatedition - first published in 1948 in Phusis Kruptesthai Philei - purports to printthe surviving fragments of Book I of the bVcalKcovAoat. Unfortunately, thefragments in question all come not from the (bA but from the Physics (seeSteinmetz, Die Physik des Theophrastos, which Colli has not read); and thatdestroys the foundation of Colli's edifice. As for [B 1] = TH [PHD 2], that isconstituted by Simplicius, in Phys 24.13-25 + ib 27.11-23 + Alexander, in Met31.7-14. Colli is, I think, right to chop in Phys 24.13-25.7 (= fr. 2 Usener-Diels) into three pieces; but 27.11 cannot follow 24.25, and there is no goodreason to tack in Met 31.7 on to in Phys 27.23.There are flaws in La sapienza: if in many respects it betters DK, it shouldnot - and at L. 32,000 a volume it will not - replace that stalwart old warhorse.BalliolCollege,Oxford JONATHANBARNES

THE LATER PLATOW. K. C. GUTHRIE:A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. V: TheLater Plato and the Academy. Pp. xvi + 5 39. Cambridge: UniversityPress, 1978. ?17-50.This volume completes the study of Plato begun in Vol. iv, carrying it on toinclude a last chapter on Plato's associates in the Academy. Thus Vols. iv and vform a fairly self-contained book, and now that it is published in its entiretyone can appreciate the service Professor Guthrie has done for students of Plato.

lowed by notes, bibliography, and indexes. The volume is elegantly printed andbeautifully produced.Scholars who contemplate lavishing their lire on Greek wisdom will be pri-marily interested in the Greek texts. The passages in each section are dividedinto two groups, A and B: the division is not, as in Diels-Kranz, betweentestimonia and fragments, but rather between more and less reliable reports.Each text is provided with a lucid apparatus criticus, a list of loci similes, and aset of bibliographical references.Let Anaximander serve as an example. Here Colli prints twelve texts notfound in DK, and he omits seven texts which DK print. The twelve newcomers,of which ten are from Aristotle, are of little value and could well have beenmentioned as loci similes; of the seven exiles, A 14 (Aetius) and A 15 (Phys203b 15-25) will be generally lamented, and I miss A 17a, A 29 (Aetius), andA 2 (Suda). On the other hand, [B 7] = C = FGrH 9 F 3 is nothing to do withour man.

Colli's documentation is far from exhaustive: there are, for example, fifteenpassages in Simplicius in Phys which he ignores; and of those he should surelyhave printed at least 149.9-28, 150. 18-25, 465.5-22, and 479.32-480.5. Wecertainly want in Cael 615. 7-14 too. And why is in Cael 615.13-18 = [B 11]f =A 17 bowdlerized?

On the whole, Colli's text offers few novelties. But I am not convinced thatKELatUs necessary in [B 41 = A 26; E77KOUrrT5 for rTrevrT7KOaTT in [B 6] = A 1is impossible (cf. [B 22] = A 11, [B 13] = A 5; and see Jacoby, ApollodorsChronik, pp. 189-92); and the MS r6trom ... &aepdoSetcin [B 22] = A 11 ishardly intelligible.

[B 1] replaces A 9 and comes from Colli's new version of Theophrastus. Thatedition - first published in 1948 in Phusis Kruptesthai Philei - purports to printthe surviving fragments of Book I of the bVcalKcovAoat. Unfortunately, thefragments in question all come not from the (bA but from the Physics (seeSteinmetz, Die Physik des Theophrastos, which Colli has not read); and thatdestroys the foundation of Colli's edifice. As for [B 1] = TH [PHD 2], that isconstituted by Simplicius, in Phys 24.13-25 + ib 27.11-23 + Alexander, in Met31.7-14. Colli is, I think, right to chop in Phys 24.13-25.7 (= fr. 2 Usener-Diels) into three pieces; but 27.11 cannot follow 24.25, and there is no goodreason to tack in Met 31.7 on to in Phys 27.23.There are flaws in La sapienza: if in many respects it betters DK, it shouldnot - and at L. 32,000 a volume it will not - replace that stalwart old warhorse.BalliolCollege,Oxford JONATHANBARNES

THE LATER PLATOW. K. C. GUTHRIE:A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. V: TheLater Plato and the Academy. Pp. xvi + 5 39. Cambridge: UniversityPress, 1978. ?17-50.This volume completes the study of Plato begun in Vol. iv, carrying it on toinclude a last chapter on Plato's associates in the Academy. Thus Vols. iv and vform a fairly self-contained book, and now that it is published in its entiretyone can appreciate the service Professor Guthrie has done for students of Plato.

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