This collection of papers, delivered in 2012 in Leiden, marks the seventh publication of the Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values, a series which has, for more than a decade, focused on the various value systems active in antiquity and their socio-cultural contexts. In examining uses of the past in the past, the volume seeks to add a temporal dimension to the work of past colloquia, and although the volume is not immune from the issues that plague all conference proceedings, with chapters of varying quality and adherence to the theme, it more than lives up to the benchmark set by its predecessors in the series.
The editors open with an introduction that frames the scope of the collection, acclimatising the reader to the multiple approaches to antiquity taken by both the ancients themselves and scholars thereof and explicating the volume's focus on those pasts that are ‘understood to be distant, separate, singular, or special’ (p. 4). The eighteen papers that follow are then organised around distinct discursive practices used to ascribe value to those pasts, an arrangement that is designed to prevent the volume from becoming unwieldy, but at times seems forced. The chapters themselves rarely overlap in content, however, and cross-reference each other in ways that highlight connections between otherwise distinct topics, lending a sense of unity to the volume.
Beginning broadly, the first section discusses ways in which the ancient past could be associated with peoples or places. Pushing against positivist views of the Pelasgians and Leleges, McInerney argues that the two groups served as touchstones for the development of Greek identity, bridging the gap between the present and mythical past and allowing ancient authors to articulate contemporary socio-political tensions in historical terms. Moving forward, Leemreize explores the positive reception of the Egyptian past in the city of Rome, focusing in particular on the admiration for Egypt in imperial literature; the emulation of Egyptian monuments, most notably the pyramids, in order to elevate Rome's achievements; and the incorporation of ancient material, such as obelisks, into the fabric of the city. Farrell then turns his attention outside the city to the suburbium, which he shows to be a space defined by its antiquity vis-à-vis Rome and thus allowing access, through travel, to depths of the past that are inaccessible within the city proper.
The next three chapters direct the reader towards material objects which mediate between past and present. Miles begins by examining burnt temples as both a literary trope and as material markers within the Greek landscape, arguing that in both cases, the preservation and recollection of remains was deliberately undertaken so as to recall Persian aggression, in order to bind communities together and spur civic duty. Reiterman then shifts our attention towards smaller, individualised engagements with the past in her study of keimêlia, ownable artefacts of the past that were ‘curated’ in antiquity, with complex biographies and webs of associations that could be used to mobilise the past for more personal aims, as, for instance, when used in child burials. Bassi concludes the section with a theoretical piece examining the embedding of the past into physical objects in Herodotus' historical narrative, focusing in particular on those of Croesus' votive offerings that were said still to exist in the author's time.
The third section moves from the discourse of material to that of individuals, with chapters centred on persons thought to manifest values from the past. Taking on the long held interpretation of Sophocles' Ajax as an anachronistic figure juxtaposed with Odysseus, Murnaghan argues that the hero was instead only made to appear archaic through the play's political, religious and poetic contexts. In the next chapter, Kraus explores how Tacitus' minor works, with their different generic modes, engaged with a multi-layered past, with special focus on the Agricola and how this interweaving of past–present–future was used to elevate the piece's eponymous subject. Leach, meanwhile, argues that manipulations and additions to the story of Marcus Atilius Regulus made by the likes of Cicero, Livy and Horace were responsible for transforming what had previously been an ambiguous figure into a hero epitomising republican ideals.
Continuing with the theme of exemplarity, the following chapters revolve around historical exempla that instead act as foils from which to differentiate past and present. Gillespie begins by examining the figure of Agrippina the Younger, who in public portrayed herself within the Julio-Claudian tradition, by which women showed themselves as models of virtue, but in the Tacitean account, used historical exempla inappropriately to advance her position, thereby becoming a negative exemplum for future imperial women. In an engaging essay focusing on the use of exempla in Domitianic panegyric, Cordes analyses how the poetry of Statius and Martial inscribed itself into a discourse about valuing the past by invoking historical figures in a way that shows their inferiority to the current emperor and era. Grethlein concludes with a discussion of another genre with a unique way of using exempla, Athenian forensic and symbouleutic oratory, wherein examples from the more recent past were preferred to the more distant because of their greater familiarity with the audience, relevance to the present and trustworthiness.
The fifth group of papers moves towards examining the valuing of the past by literary historians, both ancient and modern. To explain where Dionysius of Halicarnassus located the ‘archaic’ in his periodisation of Greek literature, Kim traces the author's uses of the word ἀρχαῖος which, he shows, should be translated as ‘classical’ when used in his overarching historical scheme, but when used in discussions of individual genres, refers instead to qualities that appear old-fashioned, suggesting that the ‘archaic’ is to be found within classical literature itself. De Jonge continues the discussion of Dionysius by juxtaposing his narrative with that of Longinus, showing that while both used the same allegories for the decline in Greek literature after the classical period, only the former envisioned a productive role for contemporary Rome in its renewal. Turning to poetry, de Vos examines Sappho's role as a literary model for later female poets, arguing, however, that the idea of all female poets belonging to a distinct group with a distinct poetic tradition was primarily the product of male poets and critics of the Hellenistic period. Nethercut then explores how Lucretius engaged with the past through the lens of Ennian poetic historiography whilst simultaneously rejecting his conception of that past, employing numerous historical exempla in ways that undermine their historical importance and show that the past does not affect the present.
The final section turns towards two more explicit ways of valuing and interpreting the past. Howley begins by examining how Aulus Gellius directed his readers' attention to the processes of transmission mediating between past and present, encouraging them to value not only the past itself, but also those who communicate it. Ramelli, finally, shows how Stoics and Neoplatonists used allegorical interpretation in order to access philosophical truths hidden within ancient texts and thereby integrate those texts, and their associated pasts, into their respective philosophical systems.
The papers thus not only showcase the multifarious nature of ancient engagement with the past, but also the ways in which those engagements communicate with one another. It is unfortunate that so few chapters also communicate with broader memory studies discourses, but even so, the volume will prove just as relevant to students of memory as it will to those studying the content of the case studies. The volume as a whole is well produced with few typographical errors. Each chapter has its own bibliography alongside the overall index locorum and general index. The cost of ownership, especially high given the paucity of figures, may make the volume inaccessible to non-specialists, but the editors have none the less produced a welcome addition to the Penn-Leiden series and a valuable contribution to the study of memory in the ancient world.
