Festschriften, even those published in honour of superlative scholars, too often become little more than repositories for indifferent scholarship. Not this time. The editors, whose exertions are acknowledged in nearly every chapter, have assembled 24 superb contributors, each of whom has furnished a fine essay focused closely on characterisation or on aspects of the intellectual environment of Graeco-Roman literature that influenced the figuration of character in ancient prose. A critical analysis of each paper is impossible here, but it may be useful to offer a summary description of the principal issues addressed by each contributor.
D. Gribble (Chapter 1) examines the pitfalls and payoffs of ‘image-risking’ in the context of the literary (and historical) symposium, a situation in which the combination of wine with an obligation to exhibit candour resulted in careful self-representations and their close assessment by others. E. Baragwanath (Chapter 2) underlines the importance in Herodotus not simply of the author's depictions of his subjects’ character but also his portrayal of their capacity for projecting their own and for interpreting one another's qualities, a technique she associates (loosely) with drama. Herodotus can also employ descriptions of achievements in extreme engineering as a device for illustrating their sponsor's character, especially any tendencies toward despotism, as K. Clarke (Chapter 3) points out. Being good in Herodotus, M. de Bakker (Chapter 4) demonstrates, runs a perhaps unexpected risk: men designated as agathos often, owing to their stubborn insistence on heroic ideals, perish gloriously but ineffectually; by contrast, men who can manage a bit of moral compromise frequently ‘alter the course of history in more lasting ways’ (p. 60). Texts as well as individuals can be characterised, and C. Dewald (Chapter 5) argues that, owing to its associations with deception, the term logoi, which Herodotus employs in denominating his Histories, brings along problematic implications for the historian's depiction of his own work. J. Marincola (Chapter 6), through a careful reading of the issues central to Plutarch's On the Malice of Herodotus, draws out the grounds on which ancient historians were deemed by readers to reveal their own characters when depicting past events and personalities.
Xenophon is a historian who characterises himself: T. Rood (Chapter 7) unravels how, in Book 3 of the Anabasis, Xenophon exploits themes from sophistic accounts of human development in order to shape an intelligible context for his success in rallying his desperate fellow Greeks. In a paper that can be read profitably in tandem with Baragwanath's, M. Flower (Chapter 8) isolates the literary techniques used by Xenophon in order to help his readers to grasp more about his subjects’ characters in the Hellenica than he is willing to express explicitly: this is achieved largely by way of their interactions with one another.
In his Demetrius, Plutarch lends subtlety to his protagonist's depiction through his carefully wrought descriptions of the king's wardrobe, as M. (Chapter 10) demonstrates. Further complexities in Plutarchan characterisation are adduced by P. Stadter (Chapter 11), who offers a detailed reading of the Aratus. The very idea of Plutarchan characterisation is queried by M. Fox (Chapter 12) who, uncovering multiple contradictions in the Numa, makes a case for finding in this king's figuration not so much a portrait of his character as a specimen of the ‘rhetoric of aetiology’, which presents the reader with alternative interpretative challenges. Returning to a more traditional approach, L. Fotheringham (Chapter 13), by way of a comparison of Plutarch's treatment of the trial of Milo with Dio's, suggests an important literary motive for the timid Cicero who appears in the Cicero, viz. a thematic connection with the notoriously unbellicose Demosthenes in the paired Life.
Whereas Xenophon, when writing about himself, turned to Greek intellectual history, Sulla, in his Memoirs, emphasised his interior spiritual life and his role as an agent of the gods in the salvation of Rome, aspects of the dictator's self-characterisation that H. Flower (Chapter 14) makes very clear, notwithstanding the fragmentary survival of the work. In contrast to Sulla and to so many memorable figures in ancient biography and history, Augustus often seems remarkably colourless, as M. Toher (Chapter 15) observes: possible exceptions, he argues, are the accounts of Nicolaus of Damascus and Appian. Intertextuality offers another means of characterisation, and A.J. Woodman (Chapter 17) offers a detailed analysis of the allusive techniques by means of which Tacitus, in his Annals, foregrounds the elusive quality of Germanicus’ true nature. Nero, too, can become unsimple in the Annals: A. demonstrates how, in the story of Nero's unsuccessful quest to recover Dido's gold, Tacitus introduces obstacles to any uniformly negative view of the emperor's conduct.
Turning to Suetonius, A.V. Zadorojnyi (Chapter 19) offers a preliminary investigation of the biographer's deployment of colours in his descriptions of the emperors as a method for marking their political domination. L. Pitcher (Chapter 20) explains how Appian's Syriaka, through its concentration on the reputation of Antiochus III, becomes an essay on the issues involved in interpreting historical greatness. Squeezing characterisation out of the Periochae of Livy is not an easy task, but D.S. Levene (Chapter 21) successfully illustrates how that work's treatment of leading individuals sometimes diverges in important ways from Livy's: Levene offers more than one interpretative model for accommodating this (partial) independence. T. Morgan (Chapter 24) argues that the New Testament, to a much stronger degree than is the case with Graeco-Roman exemplary texts, urges its readers to commit themselves to imitating the specific actions performed by its protagonists, that is, by Jesus and his Apostles.
Several chapters, although they do not address the issue of characterisation in any strict sense, are none the less very much worthwhile for their explication of the cultural or literary circumstances of characterisation. T. Duff (Chapter 9), in a useful paper on style, observes how Plutarch routinely foregrounds the actions of his subject by way of his syntax: background events, including moments of great historical significance, are often related to the reader in subordinated or participial clauses, while the action of the biographical subject is delivered through a finite verb, thus concentrating a reader's attention on his personal behaviour and its importance. E. Bowie (Chapter 16) supplies a vivid survey of imperial Athens’ robust society of sophists and their students. The implications of the notice of St Paul's two names at Acts 13:9, and its implications for the overall literary trajectory of Luke–Acts, is discussed by J. Williams (Chapter 22). S. Swain (Chapter 23), in an erudite paper, reviews imperial moralising on the nature of marriage and specifically on correct sexual deportment within marriage.
This is a book for specialists in ancient literature. Still, most chapters (not all) supply translations of any Greek or Latin that is cited. I found few typos, none of which stimulated perplexity (though an AD on p. 240 and another on p. 242 each required a second look).
In addition to its scholarship, this volume celebrates Chris Pelling in other ways: there is an opening epigram by L. Pitcher, a characteristically elegant and witty piece of pseudo-Plutarchan Greek (a dialogue on the topic of Chris Pelling) by D. Russell and a warm, personal appreciation of Pelling by T. The dustcover of this book cannot go unremarked: it features a still of Kenneth Williams’ Caesar from Carry on Cleo. The film is a favourite of Pelling's, unsurprisingly in view of its whimsical combination of things classical with things Shakespearean – and its hearty, happy and unpretentious sense of humour. One of this movie's best-known lines is: ‘Infamy! Infamy! This time they've really got it in for me!’ True of Williams's Caesar, yes, but never of Chris Pelling: Fame and Infamy is a volume teeming with admiration and affection, that does him honour in the best imaginable ways.
