The tribute of two maidens to the temple of Athena in Ilium was discontinued after the end of the ‘Phocian’ war. We have for this the evidence of the Epitome of Apollodorus 6. 22 χéων δ τν παρελӨντων μετ τν Φωκiκν πλεπoν κτiδας πασαντo πμoντεσ. In Tzetzes' commentary to Lycophron 1. 1141 the same piece of information is given on the authority of Timaeus, but Wilamowitz, among others, showed that Tzetzes arbitrarily transferred the name of Timaeus from the scholium on (...) 1. 1155.3 The information remains valuable without the adornment of an illustrious name. We know from a story of Aelian, which ‘Suidas’ partially preserved in many fragments, that the Locrians were compelled by the Delphic oracle to resume the interrupted practice and submitted the regulation of it to a King Antigonus, δ βασiλες ντγoνoς øεӨν o πρσταξεκλρ δiακρiӨναi This King Antigonus can hardly be identified with Antigonus Doson for two reasons which must, however, be admitted to be not absolutely cogent. First, the interval between interruption and resumption would be one of more than a century, whereas Aelian presupposes a shorter interval. Secondly, the ‘Lokrische Madcheninschrift’ made famous by A. Wilhelm, which is an evident terminus ante quern for the intervention of King Antigonus, can hardly be later than 230–220 B.C. Wilhelm, indeed, had suggested a date c. 270–240 B.C. His date has been affected by recent changes in Delphic chronology; but the balance of probability still favours a date nearer to 250 than to 200 B.C. Thus, the more natural alternative remains between Antigonus Monophthalmus and Antigonus Gonatas. Either agrees well with the interruption after the third Sacred War. (shrink)

I. The present paper was read as one of ‘Three Notes of Doubt and One of Despair’ at the Oxford Philological Society in June 1948. Generally speaking, there is nothing to be said in favour of publishing an article on a text one is admittedly unable to under-stand. But in this case it has seemed advisable to start a discussion. I am therefore grateful to my friend P. Fraser for having consented to communicate his thoughts on the matter in an (...) appendix to my note. We both hope that other scholars will be able to provide the satisfactory solution that has escaped us. Meanwhile we thank P. Maas, C. H. Roberts, and H. M. Last for their great help. (shrink)

J. M. C. Toynbee's study ‘Nero Artifex: the Apocolocyntosis Reconsidered’, C.Q. xxxvi, 1942, 83–93, has the double merit of questioning what had never been questioned—the dating of the Apocolocyntosis about A.D. 54–5—and of making many valuable observations on the importance of the Neronia of A.D. 60. But the attempt to transfer to these Neronia the Apocolocyntosis, the Carmina by Calpurnius, the second of the Carmina Einsiedlensia, and, to a certain extent also, Lucan's De Bello Civili, seems to me, if I (...) may anticipate my conclusions, entirely misleading. (shrink)

The impact on Momigliano of being an academic refugee of "the Bund" group at Oxford during the war was profound. It is this experience which turned him from the learned but orthodox Italian ancient historian into the European polymath, who took the whole classical tradition as his domain. A crucial turning-point for Momigliano was his decision to study the history of historiography. From 1951 Momigliano, as Professor of Ancient History at University College London, was a central figure (...) in historical studies. Three grand themes had matured in his mind during his middle period in England: the history of late antiquity, the history of historiography, and the origins of Rome. The first two were to have great impact on English classical scholarship. In 1965 there began a series of seminars at the Warburg Institute in which Momigliano played a significant role, and which focused particularly on the relationship between ancient history and anthropology and the attempt to write a history of Greek biography. In studying Momigliano's life in England, the distinctive quality of his literary style and the continuities in his approach to history become especially clear. (shrink)

This essay uses Arnaldo Momigliano's genealogy of antiquarianism and historiography to propose a new method for engaging the past. Momigliano traced antiquarianism from its advent in ancient Greece and later growth in Rome to its early modern efflorescence, its usurpation by history, and its transformation into anthropology and sociology in late modernity. Antiquarianism performed for Momigliano the work of excavating past archives while infusing historiographical inquiry with a much-needed dose of contingency. This essay aims to advance (...) our understanding of the mutual imbrications of antiquarian methods with modern conceptions of history, while also suggesting how antiquarianism can generate alternatives to historical inquiry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reconsiderations on History and Antiquarianism: Arnaldo Momigliano and the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century BritainMark Salber PhillipsQuando mia figlia era molto piccola si divertiva a entrare nel mio studio e a chiedermi con finta gravità: “Signore papà che cosa hai concluso?” La sua domanda mi è tornata in mente molte volte più tardi, e mi ritorna nella mente anche oggi. Concludere non è facile, in qualsiasi lingua. E io (...) per natura preferisco proporre problemi.—A. Momigliano, “Epilogo senza conclusione”The question is: can we save for ourselves and for our successors this immemorial tradition, this long-standing delight, of talking to past historians as if they were our senior colleagues?—A. Momigliano, “Polybius Between the English and the Turks”More than any other historian of this century, Arnaldo Momigliano shaped our understanding of the evolution of Western historiography from the ancient to the modern world. Fundamental to this continuity, as Momigliano saw it, was the revival in the Renaissance of the classical division of history into two distinct genres. The first (often called, without further qualification, “history”) is the narrative of public events organized in linear [End Page 297] and causal fashion; the second, antiquities, is a more diverse body of writing that neglects political narrative for philosophical, literary, topographical, and other concerns. After the Reformation antiquarianism took on new tasks in response to the religious controversies of the age, but it remained distinct from the narrative tradition. Only in the eighteenth century did a convergence begin that has finally been completed in the historical methods of our own time. 1This identification of the eighteenth century as the time when historical narrative and antiquarian research converged gives Momigliano’s views their particular interest to students of this period. His terms, however, are always far wider than any single century. In fact his argument constitutes a genealogy of modern historical method, since the merging of the two traditions—first witnessed in the erudite historiography of Edward Gibbon—was a precondition of modern practice. On these foundations, a modern historical discipline has grown up in which systematic research has become indivisible from the task of representing the past in narrative, with the consequence that the ancient separation of history and antiquities has at last been transcended.This essay is intended as a sketch of an alternative approach to the study of historical thought and writing in eighteenth-century Britain. In my view an essential point of departure is the interest of eighteenth-century writers in the structures and experiences of private life, their desire to explore the inward lives of individuals and the everyday life of societies. This revaluation of private life challenged the classical conception of history in fundamental ways, resulting in a fruitful tension between the social and sentimental interests of the age and its inherited view of history. At stake, in the very [End Page 298] broadest terms, was the need to find forms of historical narrative that met the needs of a commercial society and recognized the values and activities of a non-aristocratic audience.In the eighteenth century antiquarian erudition was far from the only genre bordering on the territory of political narrative. Conjectural history, religious history, history of manners, history of sciences and of literature, biography, memoir, and novel all defined themselves in relation to a traditional conception of history and claimed the attention of readers for their own rival narrative spaces. More particularly, these related genres ranged themselves against history’s strict identification with public life, with all the assumptions about audience, gender, and intellectual authority that accompanied the public domain. Without ever displacing the national narrative in the hierarchy of literatures, these other genres offered a variety of alternative histories whose common ground was their resistance to the assumed priority of politics. 2For a generation Momigliano’s dialectic of history and antiquarianism has served as an organizing principle for a good deal of teaching and writing on early modern historiography. 3 It is time, I believe, for a revaluation of this conceptual scheme. The wider consideration of genres I am urging would greatly enlarge the framework of discussion and give us a sharper sense of the interests of eighteenth-century historians and their... (shrink)

The concept of the person provides a convenient point of entry into a nexus of problems that much engaged Arnaldo Momigliano during his final three years. The closer one looks at Momigliano's papers on the person between 1985 and 1987, the more the disparate elements that he emphasized there can be seen to have a common core. Biography and autobiography, race and religion, traditional Judaism, and apocalyptic literature -which he introduced in the discussion of Judaism and biography (...) in the Graeco-Roman period - all point in one direction, that is to Momigliano himself. As he had suggested in his first paper on Marcel Mauss, the quest for the person led directly to a quest for self- knowledge as reflected in autobiographical texts. The presence of Momigliano's own person in his discussion of the person illustrates admirably the views that he expounded. The link that Momigliano forged between Judaism and biography , for example, represented simultaneously a sense that there was a parallel between rabbinic interpretations of personal character and Greek ones, and his own private preoccupations with Judaism. From biography and autobiography by way of the person Momigliano reached what was for him the ultimate person: himself. (shrink)

Unlike so many present-day historians, Momigliano did not proceed according to the absolute dogmas of a new program of historical scholarship, method, or perspective. Rather, his scholarly work grew organically from the connection between personal initiatives and existential forces. Momigliano's lifelong theme was the historical dimension of the contacts among cultures, religions, and civilization. He made no absolute claims for his own method. His scholarly works are briefly summarized, including: his concern with the problematic of Johann Gustav Droysen's (...) position and of Hellenism in general; his general review of the Italian investigations into Greek history and examination of the structure of the history of the Imperium Romanum; his activities during the years at Oxford; and his inaugural lecture as professor of ancient history at University College London in 1952, as well as the wide variety of individual studies which followed. Momigliano welcomed the worldwide expansion of scholarly work in his field, but saw more clearly and earlier than others the dangers that grew with the field. In his view, only the safeguarding of the historical foundations and precise knowledge of the history of historiography solidly based on them would ensure the continuation of historical scholarship. (shrink)