Editorial

J. G. F. Powell, J. H. D. Scourfield
2005 The Classical Review  
For the first time since 2000, the number of items in an issue has topped 200; as usual, the multitude and range testify to the vitality of the discipline. Currently popular areas can be identified at a glance. In history and archaeology, regional studies are clearly very much a growth area: in this issue, for example, the reader will find reviews of publications on the Corinthian Gulf, northern Caria, Acarnania, the Veneto, western Calabria, central Spain,. Social and economic history are
more » ... g (pp. 249-58), as are studies of identity and political concepts (pp. 198-200, 202-9). Amid an average-sized haul of books on Greek drama, we find a scholar (J. Holzhausen, rev. J. Gibert) prepared to question the notion that revenge was always a positive value for the Greek audience (p. 25), and a 'remarkable' book on the image of Athens in tragedy (J. Grethlein, rev. A. Michelini, p. 33). We review two commentaries on books of the Aeneid by Nicholas Horsfall, and two volumes of the new Budé Lucian by Jean Bompaire. There are commentaries on Homer (one on the complete Iliad and one on Il. 2), and on works of Empedocles, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, fragments of Stesichorus and satyric drama, Philostratus, Dio of Prusa, Cicero, Horace, Ovid, Seneca, the Pervigilium Veneris, Lactantius, and Jerome. Jeremy Trevett ranks the first volume of M. R. Dilts's new OCT of Demosthenes as 'a fine achievement' (p. 52). Those who turn their attention to late Latin will learn from Roger Green (p. 163) that 'good commentaries on Juvencus are becoming more numerous'. Ancient philosophy continues to flourish: Plato, the Old Academy, Aristotle, Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, and Neoplatonists are all represented (pp. 53-72, 91-7). Works dealing with epigraphy in this issue are few but important: Rhodes and Osborne's Greek Historical Inscriptions (p. 315) will be on every Greek historian's shelf, and there are also major studies of the Lindian Chronicle (p. 319) and of Greek and Roman funerary inscriptions (p. 324). Late antiquity and early Christian history attract the now customary degree of attention (pp. 290-300). In particular, it is interesting to observe scholars working independently on the same or closely related topics. One may note, for example, a book aiming to recover the femininity of Ovid's heroines, which may be placed beside that of Effrosini Spentzou (reviewed in CR 54.2 [2004], 390-2); and whereas the last issue reviewed a work comparing Greek with Indian thought (CR 54.2 [2004], 420-3), this time the spotlight turns on comparison with China (G. Lloyd and N. Sivin, rev. C. H. Kahn, p. 183). In the present issue, we include reviews of a book on childhood in Greece and of another on childhood in Rome (pp. 211 and 300); two books on Roman popular culture, one more literary, the other more artistic, are juxtaposed (pp. 311-15); there are two books on the survival and reception of Greek tragedy (pp. 35-8); and a collection of essays on 'Ancient Anger' sits comfortably next to another on the 'Rivalrous Emotions' (pp. 178-82). Certain debates continue through several published works and, in time, may be able to be chronicled from the pages of CR: for example, reflection on commentary-writing, which came to the fore in CR 53.2 (2003), 472-4 and was given special prominence in CR 54.1 (2004), 5-12, continues here on pp. 169-71. A glance through our pages will reveal many collaborative volumes that started life as conferences, colloquia, symposia, and other scholarly gatherings. Conference volumes frequently come in for standard criticisms, and our reviewers often point to a
doi:10.1093/clrevj/bni001 fatcat:bxjmd4tqjbahlargrfutniotui