Whenever there are periods of crisis, change or transition, there is also the need for a foundation, a bridge into the past to legitimate and explain the present. This is not only true for our own times, but also for the age of antiquity. As a result, a growing number of scientific research has emerged, using different tools, of which aetiology is certainly a special one. Up until now research around the concept has mainly focused on narratives and authors from Hellenistic times and Augustan Rome. This collected volume aims to complement and expand these approaches by including other times of transition and by focusing on aetiology as a tool of thinking. The volume is based on a 2016 conference affiliated to the ‘Anchoring innovations’ project, for which the authors present two key findings: firstly, the close connection between innovation and aetiology, as ‘it casts an anchor into the vast sea of the past to select and identify an origin’ (p. 5). Secondly, aetiological thinking goes beyond the effort to learn something or legitimise an object, because it also contains essential aspects.
The volume is differentiated into three parts. Part 1, ‘Aetiological Thinking: Old & New, from Present to Past to Future’, sets the tone by giving an overview of different kinds of aetiological thinking. It starts with A. Harder's chapter ‘Anchoring Innovations through Aetiology’. Using a well-compiled Graeco-Roman source base containing Pindar, Euripides, Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Virgil and Ovid, she provides three ways of anchoring innovations through aetiologies: anchoring the present in the past, anchoring the future in the present and anchoring by means of recycling. All three can be made convincing by using authority construction (e.g. the gods) and intertextuality. Klooster, in ‘The Parallels between Aetiology and Prophecy in Ancient Literature. Hindsight as Foresight Makes Sense’, picks up the thread of anchoring innovations in the present through aetiologies, showing that it can also take the form of an ex eventu prophecy. Directly answering to the sentence ‘Hindsight as foresight makes no sense’ from W.H. Auden's poem ‘Secondary Epic’, she convincingly analyses the structural similarities between aetiologies and prophecies by using the story of Thera and the colonisation of Libya in Apollonius, Pindar and Herodotus among others as case studies. On the conceptual level, aetiology and prophecy are both regarded as ways of thinking about the connections between the past, the present and the future. Furthermore, they are both subject to the need to claim authority for their author as a means of a truth guarantee, that does not have to be factual or literal, but rather can be moral and symbolical/figurative.
Part 2, ‘Aetiology and Politics’, investigates the instrumentalisation of aetiologies and their use for communicating or anchoring innovations. It starts with the unusual but enlightening case of a performed or live aetiology. Using the example of Plautus’ Amphitruo, A. de March, in ‘Veterem atque antiquam rem novam ad vos proferam: a New Drama, a Surprised Audience, and a “Live Aetiology”. Performing the Origin of the Amphitruo’, is able to show that Plautus uses Mercury as a mouthpiece to present his work as innovative and traditional (which means anchored in Greek models) at the same time. These seemingly incompatible claims are part of the same persuasive strategy to legitimise this play while using an accepted authority to communicate it. A similar set of seemingly incompatible components is found in Propertius’ fourth book, where he leaves elegy to start a Callimachean aetiology. Contrary to the widespread assumption of considering them as opposites, A. Kirichenko, in ‘Callimachus Romanus. Propertius’ Love Elegy and the Aetiology of Empire’, convincingly shows that they are both part of the same poetic project, as Callimachean thinking is used as an anchor ‘to present the perpetual transformation of “elegiac” desire into imperial conquest … as a crucial mechanism of empire-building – as a kind of “aetiology” of empire’ (p. 95). S. de Beer, in ‘The Origins of Rome in the Renaissance. Revival & Reinvention, Rejection & Replacement’, analyses the usage of Roman aetiologies in the Renaissance. By focusing on the discussion of different Latin texts from specific political or religious contexts, she skilfully shows three ways of instrumentalising the Roman past in the legitimising discourse: while working with modes of referring, alluding and adopting of ancient literature and strategies, the authors operate the reinvention, the rejection (which is mostly used in a subversive way against the papal state or in order to make a translatio imperii possible) and the replacement of ancient Rome. What is striking is that in this process the type of link differs. In Rome the discourse focuses on the continuity of place, whereas outside Rome genealogical ties to Rome's origins are emphasised.
Part 3, ‘Aetiology in Myth and Science: from Religion to Research’, continues to broaden the view by focusing on criticism, othering and the impact of religion and science on aetiology. S. Gödde's ‘Resistance to Origins. Cult Foundation in the Myths of Dionysus, Apollo, and Demeter’ takes a different but refreshing spin on aetiologies: narratives about the resistance to the arrival and institution of a particular deity, namely the cult of Dionysus in Athens, Apollo's oracle in Delphi and the Eleusinian mysteries. They combine the exploration of the foundation with the questioning of the same in order to achieve a possible plethora of aims: to make the otherness of a cult acceptable, to underline the power of the divine or to open up the cult and its narratives for debate. S.E. McGrath, in ‘Beginning with Hermes: Promoting Hermeticism through Aetiology in Corpus Hermeticum 1’, picks up the thread of analysing aetiologies in cults (and the role of otherness) and skilfully shows the plurality of strategies when adapting Greek aetiology to different cultures. He does so by examining the cult of Hermes Trismegistus using aetiological motives in the Poimandres. Hermes is presented as the first inventor of Platonic thinking, thus revealing a competition with other intellectual traditions. At the same time, tropes from Genesis might have been used to make the cult acceptable for a Jewish audience (which ultimately failed). H. Koning's chapter, ‘The Aetiology of Myth’, again extends the view by analysing Palaephatus’ rationalisations of some of the best-known Greek myths. Even though he looks for origins as well, he does so, not by othering the mythical past, but by normalising it. The aetia are not supposed to bridge past and present, as the past is already linked to present experiences. By doing so, however, the aetiology loses some of its functions, as ‘there is little room for rejuvenation, shared identity, or sense of belonging’; the ‘past is so close to our present that it can tell us very little about ourselves’ (p. 180). The fact that this did not go off without criticism is shown by I. Kuin in ‘Patroclus was a Parasite. Lucian's Satirical Aitia’, where she uses Lucian's De parasito as a case study. While clearly being intended as a parody of the genre of encomium, it also ridicules the efforts of myth rationalisers, from Prodicus to Heraclitus to aetiologise aetiologies. Lucian thus draws a line between mythical and everyday causality, in which the myth can be true, even if unlikely. In combination with the preceding and the following chapter, the plurality of viewpoints and ways of dealing with aetiologies is demonstrated. In the last chapter, ‘Crossing Borders. Aetiological Overlap in Plutarch's Collections of Questions’, M. Meeusen shows that the criticism was not limited to satirical but was also vivid in scientific contexts. By using the Αἰτίαι φυσικαί as a case study, he reveals the importance of aetiological thinking in the works of Plutarch. On the basis of an analysis of intertextual dynamics and conceptual overlaps within Plutarch's works, the use of aetia shows ‘the openness and all-round applicability of many kinds of knowledge to different contexts – an intertextual dynamic that lies at the heart of Plutarch's πολυμάθεια project’ (p. 210).
The volume is well compiled, shedding light on many thought-provoking questions by simultaneously having a recognisable red thread linking the individual case studies. The concept of anchoring innovations through aetiology (even if not used verbatim in every essay) in combination with conceptualising aetiology as a tool of thinking succeeds in giving new insights into the world of references to and instrumentalisation of the past. Moreover, the source base is well chosen, combining the ‘usual suspects’ with new examples from a wide range of ancient literature. Some of the case studies seem to be rather short, but that does not have a negative effect, because it is necessary for an overview while simultaneously highlighting the need for broader research, which will certainly be stimulated by this volume.
