This volume is a collection of papers which were intended for a conference to celebrate P.J. Rhodes’ 80th birthday, due to be held in Coimbra in September 2020. Because of the pandemic, the conference could not proceed as planned; instead, an online meeting was held in June 2021, where the contributions were presented to Rhodes. Very sadly, Rhodes passed away in October of that year, before the volume was published. It is, however, a fitting memorial to the honorand, reflecting the wonderful breadth of his research, the depth of his influence on classical scholarship and the esteem in which he was held globally by his students, collaborators and colleagues.
The volume begins with a brief but poignant tribute to Rhodes by John Davies. The rest of the book is divided into four sections, each covering an area of Rhodes’ work. The essays within each section are extraordinarily varied. There are virtually no links between pieces (if you try to read the book cover-to-cover, the leaps between disparate subjects become a little disorientating) but any reader will find at least one piece in each section (perhaps several) which interests them. The contributions are invariably thorough, frequently thought-provoking and occasionally outstanding. Each essay comes with its own bibliography (often extensive), and while a few presuppose considerable knowledge of their field, others are excellent introductions to the topics they address.
In Part One (‘History and Biography’), I particularly enjoyed Antonis Tsakmakis’ piece, ‘Ionians in the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia: The Battle of Ephesus (Hell. Oxy. 1–3)’. Tsakmakis subtly compares Xenophon’s account of the Battle of Ephesus (409 BCE) with the Oxyrhynchus historian’s. He shows how Xenophon ascribes the result to the incompetence of the Athenian general Thrasyllus, but the Oxyrhynchus historian instead highlights the qualities of the Ephesian commanders. Tsakmakis places Xenophon’s account in a tradition of Ionian military competency being questioned, even ridiculed, within Greek historiography, before suggesting that the Oxyrhynchus historian’s different approach might be another reason to identify him as Theopompus of Chios (himself an Ionian). Another highlight in this section was Amanda Ledesma Pascal’s piece about Thucydides’ perplexing digression on Alcmaeon, ‘Reading Thucydides’ Mythological Stories: Alcmaeon in The Peloponnesian War’. In that fascinating passage (2.102.5–6), Thucydides tells the tale of how Alcmaeon, cursed for killing his mother, found unpolluted land on which to settle by locating an island created through alluvial deposition since his mother died. Ledesma Pascal puts this passage in the context of contemporary scientific discussion and Thucydides’ religious scepticism, with profitable results. There is much more to say about the literary role of the digression: the fluidity of boundaries between land and sea is a rich theme in Thucydides, and Alcmaeon’s tale is also a poignant reflection on the possibility of hope for an exile after conflict. But as a piece of intellectual history, Ledesma Pascal’s piece makes good progress with a tricky passage.
Part Two (‘Law’) features several stimulating papers. I was especially interested by Ália Rodrigues’ thoughtful piece, ‘The Search for Consistency in Legal Narratives: The Case of the “Good Lawgiver”’, which advertises itself as a survey of depictions of the νομοθέτης (‘lawgiver’) in fourth-century legal narratives, but actually covers much more: it comments on Plato’s, Xenophon’s and Aristotle’s depictions of the figure, while adding some interesting parallels with modern literature on legislative intent. Inevitably, even in this admirably thorough piece, there are some gaps. Rodrigues’ discussion of the good lawgiver in Plato’s thought, for instance, would have been much enriched by considering its examples from the later part of the Republic alongside Thrasymachus’ more circumspect account of the νομοθέτης in book 1. Thrasymachus’ narrative about lawgivers and their intentions hints at a possible alternative story to the one Rodrigues tells, and points to another set of modern comparanda. But the piece deals impressively with a rich topic in a short space.
Part Three (‘Politics’) ranges widely, from an illuminating discussion of coded language (Roger Brock, ‘The Oligarchic Ideal in Ancient Greece’) to a study of border politics through the lens of fifth-century Tanagra (Lynette Mitchell, ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Studies in Greek Border Politics’). Like many pieces in the volume, Mitchell’s essay examines a broad topic through a focused case study and makes some quite deep reflections on border identities in the ancient Greek world. In Part Four (‘Epigraphy’), the essay by Rhodes’ long-term collaborator Robin Osborne (‘Epigraphy’s Very Own History’) is of particular interest. It bridges two themes: the preference for variation over standardized expression in Greek inscriptions, and the ways that inscriptions can be economical with the truth. It too offers, in a different way to Mitchell’s essay, illuminating observations on a wider topic (here, the nature of inscriptions as evidence) from a discussion of specifics. Pieces such as these two, I think, are the clearest examples of the strength of the volume as a whole, which reflects in turn a great gift of its honorand. It fully embraces the unique details of the ancient world, in all their strangeness; but it also shows how each strange detail fits within a wider story, in which that world starts to come alive.
