Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Arthur Stanley Pease

Reviewed work(s):
Storia del pitagorismo nel mondo romano (dalle origini alla fine della repubblica) by
Leonardo Ferrero
Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Apr., 1957), pp. 116-118
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/266597
Accessed: 13/04/2010 09:24

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116 BOOK REVIEWS
IIpaaoxoupi8gS, al' T'i):cpXXouc:
OvaXaj Jou :eVTY]X0VTOC 7tOsa)V
aLOav?T' ?
i'XVEa
'OcaiLV6
a7rT6[veOaVL
OCaTupL8ov
Laoxpox6pxcov, xTX.
"Filles des boulingrins, qui, comme par des
vergers aux belles feuilles, marchez au pas
familier de vos cinquante pieds, vous
attachant aux satyreaux a longues queues
(enroulant vos rondes le long des petales
d'aulx, de laitues et d'odorants persils)."
The translator glosses "satyreaux a longues
queues" as "singes d'Asie fort mignons,
connus en Gr6ce surtout a la suite de l'expe-
dition d'Alexandre le Grand, les riches
Atheniens s'etant empresses d'en placer dans
leurs jardins" (p. 170, n. 3). Whether rich
Athenians actually kept monkeys in their
gardens seems questionable; no ancient
authority is cited. But even if such were the
case, it would be surprising to find the
animals mentioned here. Strattis' fantasy,
reminiscent of Aristophanes and of Alice in
Wonderland, describes caterpillars crawling
over various garden plants. Monkeys are out
of place in the context, and caterpillars
would hardly attach themselves to these
creatures as they do to plants. One would
expect the long-tailed satyridia to be some
sort of plant, and this is what they are. The
noun is a diminutive of craropLov (a variety
of orchid; the long stalk of the plant explains
the comic poet's adjective); see Ps. Dios-
curides lMat. med. 3. 126: oTruplov- o. 8i
Op/t.v, ... 0o 87t3 p7LOt'l^0ov 7] pLtc7LCOaX0,
6,pL.ov, 'PCoaloi vp[ tlouy[LaUptxou[?.
RICHARD T. BRUERE
University of Chicago
Storia del pitagorismo nel mondo romano
(dalle origini alla fine della repubblica).
By LEONARDO FERRERO. ("Universita
di Torino, Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia,
Fondazione Parini-Chirio.) Turin, 1955.
Pp. 452. L. 2500.
A learned book, relying much on works
of Delatte, Rostagni, Carcopino, and Cu-
mont, but with much of the author's own
thought, fusing together various detailed
treatments. Recognizing that later sym-
6. The editor's ingenious emendation of the repetitious
_.oSoiv of the vulgate (H(-)ACIN>nIOAOIN).
bolism and syncretism with other sects -
Orphic, Academic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and
Neoplatonic - have distorted many histor-
ic facts about Pythagoras, the author,
who is already known for works upon
Lucretius, Cicero's Republic, and Horace,
attempts to disengage the more essential
characteristics of earlier Pythagorean be-
lief, such as scientific and mathematical
studies (e.g., the monad, odd and even,
harmony, the Great Year), combined with
its mystical and symbolic side (eschatolo-
gy, metempsychosis, and various taboos)
and bound together in a tightly organized
esoteric group, or state within a state,
tested by initiatory practices, such as
three-year silence, united in obedience to
its head and his dogmas (aurcxS pax),and
tending to political action supporting an
aristocratic hegemony in the state. In its
most active periods this organization was
much like some later ecclesiastical struc-
tures.
Ferrero's first chapter tells what we
know of the founder, of his life and in-
fluence in the cities of Magna Graecia, and
of the extension of his doctrines to the
more aristocratic cities of Greece, such as
Thebes and Phlius (but not to the more
democratic Athens), and to the Orient,
where his activities become confused by
o0 3k tradition with those of Moses, and his
beliefs with those of the Egyptians, the
Pharisees, and particularly the Essenes-
the Dead Sea Rolls are not yet considered
but it would seem that interesting and
perhaps valid comparisons might here be
made. The Hermetic writers, Mazdeism,
and the allegorical methods of Philo also
receive attention. In the other direction
Pythagoreanism reaches, by way of Taren-
tum and of the Etruscans, to Rome itself
and even to the Druids in Gaul.
The contributions of Archytas in math-
ematics and the doctrine of the mean,
and his Tarentine "democracy," with its
alliance of an enlightened tyrant with a
paternalistic aristocracy, are then dis-
cussed, and the part played by Livius An-
dronicus, Ennius, and, later, Pacuvius, in
bringing the South Italian culture to Rome.
 BOOK REVIEWS
An anachronistic legendary connection of
Numa with Pythagoras was perhaps
strengthened by Pythagorean influences
on Numa's fundamentally Italic legislation
in matters of authority, immortality, and
moral sanctions. Appius Claudius was
thought by Ciceroto have been a Pythago-
rean, and Ferrero finds him not outside
such influences.
The second main section of the work
deals with the Pythagorizing Roman nobil-
ity, and is built around certain key figures,
such as Scipio Africanus. Comparable to
Appius Claudius, Scipio's appearance in
Cicero's Somnium Scipionis is like an ini-
tiatory revelation, and his silent medita-
tion in the temple of Jupiter and his
mystical concept of life opened the door
to the use of his figure for political propa-
ganda. Cato vigorously opposed this and
Lucilius' slighting reference to metem-
psychosis and taboos upon beans is in the
Augustan age imitated by Horace.
Later than the time of Scipio Roman
Pythagoreanism, lacking any political
leadership, emphasized erudition and sci-
ence rather than statesmanship, leaving to
the Stoics the conservation of the mos
maiorum. In Nigidius Figulus, an esoteric
and a polymath, the sect found a restorer
of the old Croton discipline of the fifth
century, but one who was himself largely
concernedwith divination, horoscopes, and
magic. The Sestii, to whom our author
gives considerable attention, seem to have
been primarily Stoic, but with Pythago-
rean traces, and a similar statement might
be made of the polymath Posidonius, who,
accordingto Ferrero,derived fromPythago-
rean sources his interest in mantic, the
doctrine of sympathy, and belief in the
separation of soul from body during sleep.
In the Nigidian cult the members met in
the house of the leader, read Pythagorean
and Orphic books, and received dogmatic
instruction from the leader (ocUo;S,gya),
which (though our author does not say so)
might suggest the practices of the orthodox
Roman college of the Arval Brothers.
Sallust, the author of Empedoclea,Ferre-
ro identifies with the historian, whose in-
117
terest in immortality and whose pessi-
mistic views of the populace are inter-
preted as proofs of this connection. Varro
and Cicero, though familiar with the
doctrines of this school, were not actually
adherents, though Varro's interest in
arithmology-seen in the numerical divi-
sion of some of his works into hebdomads
and decads-recalls the ideas of Pythago-
ras himself. Cicero's Somnium Scipionis is
admitted to be largely Platonic in interest,
yet shows some indebtedness to Pythago-
reanism.
When the Sestii had withdrawn into
abstruse studies and rejected overtures
from Caesar, the school suffered an eclipse,
from lack of any scholarch. Stoicism per-
mitted wider and more tolerant syncre-
tism, while Pythagoreanism was esoteric,
exclusive, and secret, with little remaining
from its early beliefs save a vague eschato-
logical myth and the idea of astral immor-
tality, the vividness of the earlier Hades
being now abandoned.
Thus may be briefly summarized the
chief points of this interesting book, which
treats many facts already recognized but
makes at not a few points new combina-
tions of ideas. If at times the author de-
tects the presence of his quarry in places
where other hunters would be slow to
tread, he can generally justify his keen
search. The most serious criticisms likely
to be made will be, I think, at those points
at which Pythagoreanism is closely paral-
leled by or actually fused with other sects,
especially Orphic and Stoic. That he does
not extend his study to later centuries may
be regretted by some, but perhaps such a
sequel may be in reserve. He properly
calls to our attention that Neopythago-
reanism is a modern, not an ancient term,
and the limitation of his book comes at a
natural break in the historic development
of the sect.
A foreign reviewer should not, perhaps,
dwell unduly upon matters of linguistic
style, yet one notices the fondness of the
author for certain words (e.g., atteggiamen-
to), his unusually large proportion of
abstract words, and also a passion for
 118 BOOK REVIEWS
hyphenated adjectives, which may be
illustrated on page 379: "Dal pitagorismo
astrologico-esoterico di Nigidio a quello
erudito-aritmologico di Varrone, da quello
nostalgico e programmaticamente pratico-
politico di Cicerone a quello etico-indi-
vidualistico dei Sesti, e tutta una gamma
di sfumature, "etc. To his list of corrigenda
should be added: pages 33 and 106 Epi-
monide (for Epinomide); 53 Cambridge's
Ancient History; 74 greec; 102 LOBECH;
123 for n. 9 read n. 93; 126 Snniti (Sanniti);
202 Quartierly; 217 brassyca; 222, n. 206
for XXIX r. XXXIX; 231 several mis-
spellings; 301 GEFFEKEN; 319, n. 273
for XXX r. XXXV; 346 memae (meae);
361 for Vat. 6, 9 r. Vat. 3, 9( ?); 364 ingi-
diana (nigidiana); GODENOUGH; phylos-
ophy; 365 for n. 50 r. n. 509; 373 for 543
r. 534; 376, n. 552 sab (sub); and other
cases too numerous to mention, but mostly
not deceptive.
ARTHUR STANLEY PEASE
Harvard University
Griechisches etymologisches Worterbuch. By
HJALMAR FRISK. Lieferung 3 (oauc-yol-
p6?).Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universi-
tatsverlag, 1955. Pp. 193-288.
There are 384 words, with derivatives,
listed in the 96 pages of Frisk's third part.
Nearly one third of them, 122, are dismissed,
in the end, as having no known or certain
etymology; 56 more are reckoned as bor-
rowed words, and another nine as pre-
Greek; 29 are said to be "expressive," ono-
matopoetic, baby-formations or otherwise
not strictly linguistic (i.e., conventional
symbols). Thus less than half of the total
number of items of vocabulary have ac-
ceptable or known etymologies, that con-
nect them with Indo-European sources.
The whole of letter B is contained in this
part (293 items) with the end of A and the
beginning of r (together 91 items). Greek P
initially represents not only the rare Indo-
European b, but alsogqu-and (before r or 1) m,
and thus is more frequent in that position
than IE b itself. The rarity of IE b- cannot,
therefore, be the sole explanation of the
low percentage of IE etymologies. English
now has a percentage of Germanic etymolo-
gies under 50%. If we knew nothing of non-
Germanic sources before the most recent
period of English, we should be at a loss
again and again. Of the 122 items in Frisk's
Part 3 that are left without discoverable
source nearly all may be believed to be non-
Indo-European. But since our knowledge
of non-Indo-European languages of remote
date, other than of Semitic and Hamitic, is
meager, most of these non-IE items can-
not be traced to any specific source. Even
among the non-Greek items, not all are
non-IE, but at least one IE source ("Illyr-
ian") is, I think, invoked too often. No
Illyrian stream flowed into Greek as freely
as the Syrian Orontes into Latin. Nor, when
Frisk has pronounced against conjecture,
is it wise to spend much time or paper
listing differences of opinion. Only rarely
can it be possible to say anything that he
may not have considered and silently re-
jected. Here are a few of the rarities.
In Homer's on the face of it a
a6x''L6OL,
tautology, there is some room for doubt
whether we have not a Lydian paoyC
"quickly" or "near"; cf. Hipponax 92. 1
(Knox), and in the plural paox-re, an
imitation of Pckaxe.The "verb" pcxcx has
no other forms, and the "imperative" is
used merely as an interjection. The identity
of Skt. gdcchati in formation would weigh
more on the other side if it were itself less
restricted; Tocharish forms said to have
-sk- are also uncertain.
The ascription of (BaxxaptS to Lydian by
schol. Aesch. Pers. 42, to Gaulish by Dios-
corides, perhaps means merely Asia Minor
(Galatian?); Baccara is Raetic as well as
"gallus" in Martial (11. 74) but wears the
Gaulish gausapina (idem 6. 59), and the
modern Italian baccara is only northern
(Verona). Finally, "Keltic" nard (valerian)
is also called baccaris; cf. DAG, II, 205.
Skepticism about the old association
of BiaXavoand aCxxco(Curtius, revived by
Specht) seems to me unjustified; for glans
also is related, and uolare. In fact saxa