Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
Those of us who grope around in the mists of classical antiquity often come upon objects that remind us of the world we live in. There are analogies, always dangerous. There are many of the same words, or so it seems: arts, science, rhetoric, thesis, history, encyclopaedia. But they do not mean what we are used to. There are even historical continuities, but these also tend to be illusory.
1. See for example Hall, J., Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, 1974Google Scholar, s.v. Seven Liberal Arts; Colvin, H. M., The Canterbury Quadrangle: St John's College Oxford (Oxford, 1988), pp. 38–9Google Scholar.
2. H. I. Marrou, Histoire de I'Education dans l'Antiquité (available in E.T.) is the classic. For a statement of the problems involved, see Hadot, I., Arts Libéraux et Philosophie dans la pensée antique (Paris, 1984)Google Scholar, to which I am much indebted.
3. Text in Galeni scripta minora, i. ed. Marquardt, J., pp. 103–29Google Scholar.