Prior literature has demonstrated that religiosity is associated with a reduced acceptance of unethical business practices and financial reporting irregularities. On this premise, we examine whether religiosity, conceptualized as the degree of adherence to religious norms in the geographical area where a firm’s headquarters is located, has an impact on audit firms’ pricing decisions in the US. We measure the intensity of religiosity by the number of adherents relative to the total population in a county and demonstrate that increased religious (...) adherence operates as an institutionalized monitoring mechanism that decreases audit risk and audit costs, which is, in turn, reflected in reduced audit pricing. Additional tests suggest that the impact of religiosity on auditors’ pricing decisions is not differentiated by levels of auditor expertise but that audit fees are determined by an auditor’s relative location in a market sector and religious adherence. We conclude that religious adherence reduces the need for shareholders to bear the costs of monitoring agents, a finding which could be of importance for market participants and regulators. (shrink)

In her masterly article on this passge, Dr. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood goes most of the way towards solving two serious problems: the text of Lys. 645, where the vulgate makes the ‘bears’ more than ten years old, contrary to all other evidence; and the meaning of of A. Ag. 239 . She argues cogently that in Aeschylus means ‘shedding’ the saffron robe, as most editors including Fraenkel have thought, and not ‘letting her robes fall to the ground’ as Lloyd-Jones, followed by (...) Page, has argued. (shrink)

A long-misinterpreted Roman provincial coin shows a mythological scene in order to make a remarkable claim: that Iphigeneia, Orestes, and Pylades fled from the land of the Taurians to Philadelphia in Lydia , and there set up their stolen image, identified by the Philadelphians as their patron Artemis Anaitis. This Persianized goddess was generally depicted as an Anatolian image almost identical to the Artemis of Ephesos; it is the bond between the two goddesses that may be the immediate basis (...) of this coin's alliance with Ephesos, but the long-term intent may have been to form a voting bloc within the provincial association of cities. Philadelphia, though a relatively recent foundation, often allied itself with the oldest and greatest of Asia's cities and petitioned Roman emperors in order to raise its rank to rival that of its eminent neighbor Sardis. With this coin Philadelphia sought not only to gain allies, but, by grounding its history in the depth of mythological time, to advance itself among its rivals in Roman Asia. (shrink)

Anyone who seeks to add to the already vast pile of literature dealing with the I.A. must needs feel apologetic, especially if he is conscious that little of what he will say is new. Nevertheless this seems to be one of those occasions when it is necessary to restate old arguments. Recent contributors to the debate about the problems of the opening of the play either fail to realize what the problems are or else attempt to explain away valid criticisms (...) of the text with arguments that are methodologically suspect and parallels which will not hold water. (shrink)

In his discussion of Virgilian imitations of Lucretian phraseology Cyril Bailey examines the phenomenon of what he terms the ‘doublet’, that is, the procedure whereby Virgil imitates separate elements of a Lucretian phrase at different points in his own work. Take, for example, De Rerum Natura 1. 210–12: esse videlicet in terris primordia rerum, quae nos fecundas vertentes vomere glebas terraique solum subigentes cimus ad ortus.

The first half of Aiskhylos' "Agamemnon" presents three crimes of the House of Atreus: the sacrifice of Iphigeneia , the wasting of young Argive lives at Ilion and the treading of the materials as the victorious king reenters his palace . We argue that the sequential presentation of the crimes of the House, which are connected thematically, stylistically, and causally, radically redefines the nature of transgression within contemporary models of the polis community. Crime as defined in relationship to oikos (...) alone is displaced by crime as defined in relationship to both oikos and the broader polis community; transgression moves from an aristocratic to an isonomic context. This redefinition culminates in the "Carpet-Scene." We reread Agamemnon's nostos as a contest of epinikia. The king represents himself as victorious idiôtês, and Klutaimestra strives to figure him as returning tyrant. She succeeds in the stichomythia, where Agamemnon fails to recognize the crucial distinction between φθόνος and ζῆλος. Aristotle differentiates the terms at Rhet. 1387-88, where φθόνος is envy toward a social superior and ζῆλος the emotion one experiences in rivalry between equals; we document the development of the terms from the archaic period onwards, demonstrate that Aristotle's distinction is valid for the late archaic and classical periods, and suggest that it arose in an attempt to outline relationships of appropriate and inappropriate competition among fellow-citizens. Agamemnon's failure to recognize this important distinction betrays his misunderstanding of the dynamics of, and his agreement to walk on the materials is an offense against, isonomic community. The rearticulation of the nature of transgression completed by this crime of Agamemnon against the polis does fundamental ideological work for the rest of the Oresteia, offering an aetiology of the claims of the polis against the aristocratic oikos. (shrink)

Chryses' supplication of Agamemnon at the beginning of the Iliad is anomalous in three interconnected ways: neither the language nor the gestures is typical of supplications in the Iliad, and there is no mention of the family of the person supplicated. These apparent difficulties, however, allow Chryses' supplication to play its role in the economy of the narrative. In some ways Chryses' supplication matches Priam's supplication of Achilles, since in both incidents a father asks for the return of his child. (...) But in other ways Chryses' supplication does not match this or other typical supplications in the epic. Chryses' supplication is described by the narrator with the verb λίσσομαι but most of the uses of λίσσομαι occur in situations which are not strong supplications. In general, supplication is characterized by the verbs γουνοῦμαι and γουνάζομαι often coupled with the action of grasping the knees, but Chryses does not use submissive language and gestures. Chryses, like Achilles, can invoke divine aid when he is wronged. If Chryses' speech act had not been a supplication, the parallel with Priam's situation would be impossible, but if it had been typical, then the parallel with Agamemnon's treatment of Achilles would be impossible. Moreover, the lack of an appeal to familial pity may be interpreted as a subtle allusion to the story of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia at Aulis and as a comment on the characterization of both Chryses and Agamemnon; and the lack of the language or gestures of submission allows Achilles to interpret and to re-interpet this first event, to place himself in two different roles, the supplicant and the supplicated, as his own understanding of the events of the story grows and deepens. (shrink)

The understanding of the soul in the West has been profoundly shaped by Christianity, and its influence can be seen in certain assumptions often made about the soul: that, for example, if it does exist, it is separable from the body, free, immortal, and potentially pure. The ancient Greeks, however, conceived of the soul quite differently. In this ambitious new work, Michael Davis analyzes works by Homer, Herodotus, Euripides, Plato, and Aristotle to reveal how the ancient Greeks portrayed and understood (...) what he calls “the fully human soul.” Beginning with Homer’s _Iliad_, Davis lays out the tension within the soul of Achilles between immortality and life. He then turns to Aristotle’s _De Anima_ and _Nicomachean Ethics_ to explore the consequences of the problem of Achilles across the whole range of the soul’s activity. Moving to Herodotus and Euripides, Davis considers the former’s portrayal of the two extremes of culture—one rooted in stability and tradition, the other in freedom and motion—and explores how they mark the limits of character. Davis then shows how _Helen_ and _Iphigeneia among the Taurians_ serve to provide dramatic examples of Herodotus’s extreme cultures and their consequences for the soul. The book returns to philosophy in the final part, plumbing several Platonic dialogues—the _Republic_, _Cleitophon_, _Hipparchus_, _Phaedrus_, _Euthyphro_, and _Symposium_—to understand the soul’s imperfection in relation to law, justice, tyranny, eros, the gods, and philosophy itself. Davis concludes with Plato’s presentation of the soul of Socrates as self-aware and nontragic, even if it is necessarily alienated and divided against itself. _The Soul of the Greeks_ thus begins with the imperfect soul as it is manifested in Achilles’ heroic, but tragic, longing and concludes with its nontragic and fuller philosophic expression in the soul of Socrates. But, far from being a historical survey, it is instead a brilliant meditation on what lies at the heart of being human. (shrink)

This volume, the fourth in the Edinburgh Leventis Studies series, comprises a selection of papers from the conference held in Edinburgh March 2005 in conjunction with Professor Terry Penner's tenure of the A. G. Leventis Visiting Research Chair in Greek. It brings together contributions from leading Plato scholars from Britain, Europe and North America on a closely defined topic central to Plato's thought and to Ancient Philosophy--Plato's Form of the Good. The importance of the collection lies in the combination and (...) presentation in one place of a range of different approaches to the good in Plato's Republic, and different solutions to the problems posed and proposed by these approaches. The two central issues, which form an underlying thread throughout the collection, are: first whether Plato's Republic is centred on what is good for individual humans, or on some quasi-moral good; and secondly, what the Form of the Good is. Pursuing the Good goes beyond recent studies in the field, and will appeal to classicists and philosophers alike. To the advanced student, it represents a wide-ranging introduction to central issues of Plato's philosophy; for the academic it will provide stimulus through antithetical and controversial solutions to questions old and new. (shrink)

Michael Winterbottom , 39) criticizes Costa's edition of Seneca's Medea for failing to annotate sic fugere soleo . ‘Did Medea’, he asks, ‘habitually escape by chariot - or is this a coy allusion to Seneca's predecessors?’ Of course it is neither; sic fugere soleo means Medea was accustomed to flee by leaving dead bodies behind to encumber her enemies . According to. Seneca's usage, and that of Silver Latin rhetoric in general, once would be enough to establish such a ‘habit’, (...) for in that fairy-world wonders and horrors become, as Atreus says petulantly, immane…sed occupatum on repetition. At Troades 249 and 360 soleo is used of the virgin-sacrificing ‘habit’ of the Achaeans, i.e. the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which makes the sacrifice of Polyxena seem a good idea. (shrink)

Michael Winterbottom, 39) criticizes Costa's edition of Seneca's Medea for failing to annotate sic fugere soleo. ‘Did Medea’, he asks, ‘habitually escape by chariot - or is this a coy allusion to Seneca's predecessors?’ Of course it is neither; sic fugere soleo means Medea was accustomed to flee by leaving dead bodies behind to encumber her enemies. According to. Seneca's usage, and that of Silver Latin rhetoric in general, once would be enough to establish such a ‘habit’, for in that (...) fairy-world wonders and horrors become, as Atreus says petulantly, immane…sed occupatum on repetition. At Troades 249 and 360 soleo is used of the virgin-sacrificing ‘habit’ of the Achaeans, i.e. the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which makes the sacrifice of Polyxena seem a good idea. (shrink)

Aeschylus' account of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in the Agamemnon has elicited an extraordinarily wide range of interpretations–a critical response which, in its veryproductivity, may signal a central aspect of the description itself. While more recent explications have been profitably informed by research in cult and ritual, there remains, I would like to suggest, an important literary possibility which merits consideration, particularly in a text where so much has been shaped from a close and profound engagement with the Homeric (...) tradition. The description of the sacrifice is forcefully carried by enjambement from one stanza into another by the sheer weight, as it were, of the force that crushingly silences, βίαι χαλινν τ᾿ άναύδωι μνει . In the midst of much that is dark and difficult to construe, the composition yields a sudden effusion of colour, a striking trail of saffron. The sense of concealment, of a figure enveloped or enshrouded, which has been suggested by the phrase πέπλοισι περιπετή , opens on to an image of unfolding, the falling spread of a robe caught in itsflow towards the ground, κρόκου βαφάς δ ς πέδονχέουσα. (shrink)

Aeschylus' account of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in theAgamemnonhas elicited an extraordinarily wide range of interpretations–a critical response which, in its veryproductivity, may signal a central aspect of the description itself. While more recent explications have been profitably informed by research in cult and ritual, there remains, I would like to suggest, an important literary possibility which merits consideration, particularly in a text where so much has been shaped from a close and profound engagement with the Homeric tradition. The (...) description of the sacrifice is forcefully carried by enjambement from one stanza into another by the sheer weight, as it were, of the force that crushingly silences, βίαι χαλινὦν τ᾿ άναύδωι μ⋯νει. In the midst of much that is dark and difficult to construe, the composition yields a sudden effusion of colour, a striking trail of saffron. The sense of concealment, of a figure enveloped or enshrouded, which has been suggested by the phrase πέπλοισι περιπετή, opens on to an image of unfolding, the falling spread of a robe caught in itsflow towards the ground, κρόκου βαφάς δ ⋯ς πέδονχέουσα. (shrink)