Ever since its discovery in 1962, the Derveni papyrus has fascinated scholars from a variety of fields – R. Janko called it ‘the most important text relating to early Greek literature, science, religion and philosophy to have come to light since the Renaissance’ (BMCR 2006.10.29). A surprise discovery of ancient, richly equipped tombs at Derveni, not far from Thessaloniki, Greece, led to the no less surprising find of a half-burned papyrus roll of impressive age (mid fourth century bce; one of the oldest Greek papyri we have) containing a probably late fifth-century bce text of by no means less surprising content: a treatise by an unknown author who submits an Orphic poem to a physical allegoresis. Understandably, the Derveni papyrus received no small amount of scholarly attention before and also after the editio princeps was published in 2006 (T. Kouremenos, G.M. Parássoglou, K. Tsantsanoglou, The Derveni Papyrus). Two monographs (G. Betegh, The Derveni Papyrus [2004] and V. Piano, Il Papiro di Derveni tra religione e filosofia [2016]) and two edited volumes (A. Laks and G.W. Most, Studies on the Derveni Papyrus [1997] and I. Papadopoulou and L. Muellner, Poetry as Initiation [2014]) on the Derveni papyrus have appeared, the edited volume under review being the third.
Despite the lively scholarly debate around the Derveni papyrus, crucial questions remain unanswered or much disputed. Especially contested issues are: the text and content of the early columns (i.e. coll. I–VII in KPT [2006], coll. 39–47 in Janko and M. Kotwick, Der Papyrus von Derveni [2017] or coll. -2–VII in Piano, L'inizio del papiro di Derveni [forthcoming]), as recently proposed reconstructions differ widely; the question of authorship or the author's intellectual provenance; the text's overall philosophical affiliation (e.g. Presocratic vs Stoic); and, even more broadly, the social, religious and intellectual context of the Derveni treatise.
Santamaría's volume results from a conference held at the University of Salamanca in May 2012 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the papyrus’ discovery (with the addition of the pieces by R.G. Edmonds III and C. Ferella). The contributions span a variety of topics, and several engage with aspects of the questions stated above. They are grouped into five ‘parts’, preceded by a succinct, clearly articulated introduction and complemented by a bibliography of the Derveni papyrus (covering 1997–2018 and thereby continuing the bibliography by M.S. Funghi, in Laks and Most [1997], pp. 175–85) and detailed indexes.
Part 1 consists of a contribution by R.T. Macfarlane and G. Del Mastro. It informs about the past, present and recommended future conditions of the conservation of the papyrus. Drawing from comparisons with other carbonised papyri and the digital imaging work conducted at Brigham Young University (whose Ancient Textual Imaging Group photographed the papyrus in 2006), the authors offer a list of steps to improve the conservation of the Derveni papyrus.
Part 2 looks at the highly fragmentary early columns. Piano's contribution focuses on column III, specifically lines 4–9. Piano questions Janko's identification of a kollesis in fragment G6 (whether a kollesis is present here has important ramifications for the reconstruction of the early columns). She argues that the ink remains speak against the presence of a kollesis and concludes that it is ‘virtually impossible to provide an indubitable interpretation of ink traces that are so minuscule, and preserved on so small and worn-out a support’ (p. 21). Regarding the column's content and interpretation, her analysis focuses on lines 4–5. From here Piano draws wide-reaching conclusions about the daimonology of the Derveni author (henceforth ‘DA’, as in the volume). Specifically, Piano defends her reading of [οὐ μ]έ̣τ̣ε̣ι̣σ̣ι̣ ‘does not pursue’ in line 5 and with it sees a tripartite pattern in the DA's ‘daimonological conception’, consisting of Dike, daimones (‘daimons’) and human beings.
C. Megino Rodríguez also investigates the DA's view on daimones and connects it with the debate on the DA's relation to Stoic philosophy. The suggestion that there are close affinities between the Derveni treatise and Stoic ideas goes back to F. Jourdan, Le Papyrus de Derveni (2003). F. Casadesús and L. Brisson argued, on various occasions, for Stoic authorship of the Derveni papyrus, but G. Betegh, Rhizai 1 (2007), 133–52, has convincingly refuted this hypothesis. Megino Rodríguez asks whether the DA's conception of ‘daimons’ could be added to the list of possible Stoic parallels. Comparing his reconstruction of the DA's conception of ‘daimons’ with ‘daimons’ in early Stoicism, Megino Rodríguez affirms a similarity between the two. He therefore suggests calling the DA ‘Pre-Stoic’ (pp. 42–3). Given the fragmentary state of the evidence both of the early columns of the papyrus and on early Stoic daimonology, it seems doubtful that more than general parallels can be identified with any certainty.
Part 3 looks at the Orphic poem that the DA quotes and interprets. Santamaría offers a systematic examination of the parallels between the Derveni poem and Hesiod's Theogony. To what extent does the DA adopt and adapt motifs from Hesiod? For instance, the idea that Zeus, the last god, becomes the first, after swallowing and then recreating everything, is in nuce already present in Hesiod: Zeus becomes the first born, when all earlier siblings are reborn in opposite sequence by being regurgitated from their father Cronos. The DA radicalises the idea by making Zeus incorporate the entire world. By comparing single verses and phrases, Santamaría yields remarkable insights into how the author of the Derveni poem worked against the backdrop of Hesiod's Theogony. The Derveni poem comes to the fore as an innovative, even bold text.
Parallels between the Orphic poem and the poetry of Parmenides and Empedocles have been recognised and studied. Ferella joins the debate and argues that the term μουνογενές that Parmenides uses in fr. 8.4 DK (as restored from Simplicius) to describe what-is echoes the phrase αὐτὸς δ’ ἄρα μοῦ̣νος ἔγεντο (OF 12) in the Derveni poem. In agreement with previous scholars, Ferella takes Zeus’ ingestion of the world as an image of Orphic monism and Orphic contribution to the so-called ‘one-many-problem’ (being many while remaining one). Ferella suggests that by calling what-is μουνογενές Parmenides refers to this Orphic background and that the term means neither ‘only begotten’ (μόνος +γίγνεσθαι), as it does in Hesiod, Th. 426, nor ‘belonging to only one kind’ (μόνος +γένος), but rather ‘being the only one’ (μόνος +γίγνεσθαι+ intentional echo of Orphic αὐτὸς δ’ ἄρα μοῦ̣νος ἔγεντο). According to Ferella, μουνογενές means ‘all-enclosing’ in the sense of ‘being one’ without excluding a plurality.
Part 4 deals with the DA's interpretation of the Orphic poem. Edmonds examines the presence of allegory in the Derveni papyrus and the theogony of Hieronymus, and argues that neither belongs to a Stoic context, but rather to sophistic and peripatetic contexts respectively. As in his 2013 study (from which parts of the chapter are drawn), Edmonds argues that the DA uses allegory not in order to purport a certain religious or physical doctrine, but in order to attract clients ‘within the competitive marketplace of his times’ (p. 79). The Derveni treatise is an epideixis of the DA's ability to interpret rituals and texts. Edmonds's reading is radical. For him the DA uses allegoresis not to defend any doctrine or theory, but simply to show off his expertise. Even though the observation that the DA ‘never seems to make a systematic exposition of either his cosmological theories or his religious ideas’ (p. 89) carries little weight given the fragmentary state of the papyrus, Edmonds's perspective on the text clearly offers a crucial contribution to the discussion about the DA's identity.
S. Ranzato, like Ferella, contributes to the debate about the relation between the Derveni papyrus and the philosophical poetry of Parmenides and Empedocles. In the main, she identifies two similarities: the DA's description of the Orphic poem as expressing ‘lawful things in riddles’ to a select audience (col. VII) also fits the writings of Parmenides and Empedocles; and the Derveni papyrus offers, similar to Parmenides and Empedocles, a ‘new terminology of physical inquiry within a traditional theogonic framework’ (p. 102).
A. Bernabé turns to the relation between the Orphic poem and the cosmogony that the DA derives from it, a topic that (as Bernabé highlights) has received considerable attention. This chapter covers a lot of ground in a short space. Bernabé intends to show not only that the ‘chronological order’ of the ‘theogonic episodes’ and the ‘chronological order’ of the ‘cosmogonic phases’ can (in the main) be reconstructed from the text, but also that they correlate. The effort to align mythical and physical phases is fruitful for illuminating several passages, because the two often run parallel. However, one may question whether they do so tout court. Put differently, given the liberties that the DA takes in his interpretations, a strict parallelism between mythical and physical phases may strain the evidence. For instance, ‘Cronus’ on the physical level seems to not always precede ‘Zeus’, as the collisions among particles (represented by Cronus, col. XIV.2–4) occur only after the creation of the sun (represented by Zeus, col. IX.1–10). Yet, Bernabé has a counterargument to this objection. He proposes a new understanding of how the sun is created in the Derveni cosmology. According to this new understanding (pp. 112–13), the sun is created during ‘Cronus’ rule’ rather than ‘Zeus’ rule’. Bernabé's paper is dense in argumentation and rich in thought-provoking ideas.
The fifth and final part consists of two papers treating col. XX and coll. XIV and XXI respectively. A.I. Jiménez San Cristobal looks at column XX, where the DA seems to interrupt his commentary for the purpose of making some critical remarks on initiatory rites commonly practised in his time. Previous scholars termed col. XX a ‘digression’, but Jiménez San Cristobal emphatically argues against this view. For her col. XX needs to be connected with ‘the rites of the first six columns’ (p. 129). Such a connection is reasonable and welcome, yet its precise nature is difficult to determine given the fragmentary state of these columns. Jiménez San Cristobal makes the interesting suggestion that the rites mentioned in the early columns and those in col. XX may be linked to different episodes of the myth of Dionysus.
M. Tortorelli Ghidini looks at the names ‘Aphrodite Urania’ and ‘Uranus Euphronides’ that appear in the Orphic poem. The epithet ‘Urania’ links Aphrodite to Uranus not just in the myth, but, as Tortorelli Ghidini suggests, also in the cosmology that the DA derives from the myth. She suggests that Aphrodite's ‘unifying’ effect on the cosmos (XXI.7–10) is directly linked to the ‘delimiting’ effect that is ascribed – yet only according to a supplemented reading (see ὁρ̣[ίζω]ν KPT or ὁρ̣[ίζετα]ι̣ Piano, cf. however, ὁρ[ᾶσθα]ι Janko 2017) to Uranus in col. XIV.12. This is a quite speculative, but interesting suggestion.
In sum, the volume is a welcome addition to the lively scholarship on the Derveni papyrus. Santamaría can be congratulated for bringing together a set of diverse viewpoints on several of the mysteries that the Derveni papyrus offers.
