In the 150 years since Schöll's seminal work, the Prytaneion Decree has been studied frequently. Of the groups of honourees mentioned in the decree, the agonistic victors have received the least attention. Most scholars have simply attributed them, without further discussion, to the sphere of war or to the sphere of religion. In this article, athletics is understood as a sphere of action with its own logic: the passages on athletes in the decree are examined in (...) detail and situated within the debate in classical Athens about whether victors of the Panhellenic Games should be honoured by the polis and to what extent. The strange duplication in the decree, which first regulates honours for agonistic victors in general and, in a second paragraph, honours for hippic victors, is related to some texts that viewed hippic victories more critically than gymnic ones. A precise dating of the decree is not possible, but there were several events in the fifth century that might have created the desire among Athenians for a general regulation of sitêsis for athletes. (shrink)

War-orphans from Thasos: a new fragment of the « Agathoi Decree » (ca 360-350 B. C). A new fragment of the « Agathoi Decree » is here published (J. POUILLOUX, Recherches sur Thasos I, 141), which contains arrangements for the public funerals of citizens killed in war. The twenty-two new lines contain three additional clauses. The city guarantees the maintenance of war-orphans through a daily allowance, provided that they are genuinely needy. The sons of metics will receive a (...) fixed grant of 17,5 staters. A third, unspecified, category (the sons of nothoi? freedmen?) are entitled to certain privileges, specified in an earlier decree. The decree is to be published near the prytaneion. The document reveals, among other things, the existence of a board of prytaneis. It also allows for a reexamination of monetary questions, in particular the denominations of the new currency system introduced in Thasos in the early fourth century B.C. The whole decree is strongly influenced by the Athenian model. It was probably adopted in exceptionally grave military circumstances, very likely the Datos/Krenides war of 360-356 B.C. (shrink)

Our information about the Athenian politician Syrakosios is entirely derived from Ar. Birds 1297 and the scholia thereon. Syrakosios here figures among a long list of Athenians who are said to be nicknamed after various birds:δοκε δ κα ψήισμα τεθεικέναι μ κωμδεσθαι νομαστί τινα, ς Φρύνιχος ν Μονοτρόπ ησί [fr. 26 Kock]· “ψρ' χοι Συρακόσιον. πιανς γρ ατ κα μέγα τύχοι. είλετο γρ κωμδεν ος πεθύμουν.” διπικρότερον ατ προσέρονται, ς λάλ δ τν “ κίτταν” παρέθηκεν.

Hugo Grotius’s Philosophorum sententiae de fato et de eo quod in nostra est potestate has, so far, received little scholarly attention, even though it provides us with an interesting insight into Grotius’s philosophical interests. This text, published posthumously in 1648 by Grotius’s wife, Maria van Reigensberg, contains translations of texts from various philosophers on the question of fate. The aim of this article is to 1) place the debate on fate, in which Grotius was actively involved throughout all his life (...) and career, in the wider context of the theological and philosophical debates on free will and divine foreknowledge; 2) acknowledge the importance played by Grotius’s psf, a gnomological collection of philosophical sources ranging from Pythagorean philosophers to early patristic authors all providing different, although converging arguments in favor of the existence of free will; and 3) suggest that debates on fate are distinctively linked by Grotius with those on the importance of law and punishment as a guarantee of order. This “legalistic” interpretation of fate ultimately allows Grotius to reconcile divine decrees with human liberty. (shrink)

Professor Rhodes, with Professor Lewis, has collected the evidence for decrees through which the states of the ancient Greek world were governed, and uses the evidence to study the decision-making procedures and the extent to which the citizens were actively involved.

The manuscript of Andocides' speechOn the Mysteriescontains a series of documentary inserts culminating in the decrees of Patroclides, Tisamenus and Demophantus. These decrees seem to fit their historical context and they are presented at length, with at least a few of the formalities that we would expect to find in the official record. Modern commentators have relied upon them as substantially genuine, allowing for the usual errors in transmission, but now their authenticity is contested. A close reading by Mirko Canevaro (...) and Edward Harris rejects all three of these documents as products of feckless ‘forgery’. Alan Sommerstein responded with a strong defence of Demophantus' decree, and Mogens Hansen has recently defended Patroclides' decree and Tisamenus' as well. On many points the defenders are persuasive, but the sceptics make a good case, and so it seems reasonable to reconsider how these documents took shape. (shrink)

Revisionists and traditionalists appeal to Acts 15, welcoming the Gentiles, for analogies directing the church's response to homosexual persons. John Perry has analyzed the major positions. He faults revisionists for inadequate attention to the Jerusalem Decree and faults one traditionalist for using the Decree literally rather than through analogy. I argue that analogical use of the Decree must supplement rather than displace the plain sense. The Decree has been neglected due to assumptions that Paul opposed it, (...) that it expired, or because Gentiles wanted non-kosher meat. I argue that Paul continued to observe the Torah and supported the Decree, that it has not expired, and that Gentile desire for non-kosher meat is not a firm obstacle. Affirming the plain sense of the Decree, I develop the analogy from Acts 15 to homosexual persons. (shrink)

W. Matthews Grant has argued that it is possible to reconcile a strong theory of God’s causal sovereignty with libertarian freedom by denying that God causes the acts of free creatures by means of some factor intrinsic to Himself. Grant argues that the accounts on which God causes those actions of His creatures in virtue of His decrees cannot be libertarian. I will argue that two classical theories of grace, despite holding that God causes creaturely acts in virtue of a (...) divine decree or intention, remain libertarian in just the same sense Grant’s account is. I controversially propose that this is true even of Banezian theories of grace, on which God causes free actions directly. Instead, I suggest that we can characterize what it is for a theory to be theological determinist according to a distinction proposed by Eleonore Stump. (shrink)

This famous decree, which is the earliest Athenian decree preserved on stone, is printed e.g. by Hiller in IG. i. no. i, and with a materially different text by Tod in SGHI. no. II. A small new fragment was published in Hesperia, vii. 264. Restorations continue to differ widely and fundamentally. In Hesperia, x. 301–7, Meritt has discussed recent suggestions, and has submitted his own text on p. 307; on p. 305 is a drawing by Raubitschek of the (...) whole monument on the basis of Meritt's text. (shrink)

On December 5, 1963, at the end of the second session of the Second Vatican Council, a "Decree on means of public notice" was signed together with the Constitution on the Holy Liturgy. This was the first of the nine decrees issued by the Council, which expressed the views of the entire Ecumenical Church, which represented at the Council more than 2500 bishops, experts and theologians who participated in the General Assembly. Almost half of the Fathers of the Council (...) were pastors of European dioceses. There were also 379 African bishops, 300 bishops from Asia and almost a thousand from the United States at the Council. All of them - the heirs of the College of the Apostles - saw humanity entering into a new phase of dialogue through the media, and wanted to answer the question of whether the Church could use them for their development and proclamation of the Gospel. (shrink)

This famous decree, which is the earliest Athenian decree preserved on stone, is printed e.g. by Hiller in IG. i. no. i, and with a materially different text by Tod in SGHI. no. II. A small new fragment was published in Hesperia, vii. 264. Restorations continue to differ widely and fundamentally. In Hesperia, x. 301–7, Meritt has discussed recent suggestions, and has submitted his own text on p. 307; on p. 305 is a drawing by Raubitschek of the (...) whole monument on the basis of Meritt's text. (shrink)

The decree of Themistocles, discovered by M. H. Jameson and first published by him in 1960 has given rise to an intense debate centring on the question of the decree's authenticity. This debate has focused to an important extent on supposed archaisms or anachronisms in the text. If a word appears to be used in an ‘archaic’ manner, i.e., in this instance, one peculiar to the early fifth century, it may be an indication of the inscription's authenticity. Conversely, (...) a word employed in a manner proper to a later time may be an indication of the decree's actual period of origination. Thus an early and influential commentator, D. M. Lewis, argued for the decree's authenticity asserting: ‘I see no reason to suspect a forgery. There are too many traces of official and archaic language.’. (shrink)

A much-discussed fragment of Phrynichos’ comedy Monotropos, together with the comments of the scholiast on Aristophanes who preserves it, have often been taken to indicate that at some point before the production of the play, in spring 414 B.C., the Athenian politician Syrakosios moved a decree that restricted the right of comic playwrights to satirize individual Athenians. The relevant passage reads as follows.

The Phaselis decree is our chief piece of evidence for the manner in which the Athenians regulated civil-suits arising between themselves and the allies in the mid-fifth century. It reads as follows.

In the Nadiia Volik article «The Five decrees of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which impacted on the processes of Greek Catholic Church formation in Canada » the main documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which were aimed to the regulating the activities of the Greek Catholic clergy in emigration, specifically in Canada have been analyzed by the author.

Levada, William Cardinal; Ladaria, Luis F The supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls. As such, throughout its history, the Church has always found the pastoral and juridical means to care for the good of the faithful. With the Apostolic Construction Anglicanorum coetibus, promulgated on 4 November 2009, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, provided for the establishment of Personal Ordinariates through which Anglican faithful may enter, even in a corporate manner, into full communion with the Catholic (...) Church. On that same date, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published Complementary Norms relating to such Ordinariates. In conformity with what is established in Art, I and 1 and 2 of the Apostolic Coinstitution Anglicanorum coetibus, having received requests from a considerable number of Anglican faithful, and having consulted with the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (shrink)

During the seventeenth century, disputes over middle knowledge centered on the following question: does God know contingent states of affairs before He decrees to bring them about (the Jesuit view); or, conversely, does He know them after He has decreed which states of affairs He will bring about (the Dominican view)? This article intends to cast some light on Leibniz’s view of this question. Of central importance here is the notion of a possible decree (designed both to ground contingency (...) and to explain God’s knowledge). Despite his apparent proximity to the Dominican view, Leibniz maintained the prevolitional nature of God’s knowledge of contingent states of affairs. In order to establish this point, Leibniz’s view is compared to some little known developments in the theory of middle knowledge. (shrink)

It has become necessary to enter any discussion of the date of the Kallias decrees, IG i3.52, armed with apologies and justifications merely for bringing up the matter again; such is the result not so much of the quantity of articles and chapters written on the subject as of the belief that the orthodox date, 434/3, has been proved, despite reliance on circumstantial evidence and some forceful objections levied against it.1 Indeed, that the case is considered closed can find no (...) better reflection than the assignment of the date 434/3 in IG i3 without even a question mark. (shrink)

The series of decrees concerning Methone throws welcome light on Athenian foreign policy and the imperialism of Pericles' successors. Here is historical evidence of the highest quality. Are we using it as fully and accurately as we should? This paper is written in the belief that we are being hampered by unsound presuppositions. Chronologically the second decree is our main fixed point. It was passed in the first prytany of 426/5 B.C. The third and fourth decrees followed in the (...) next two archon-years. They can be ignored in this discussion, since one is hopelessly mutilated and the other is missing from the stone as it stands now. The real problem rises over the first decree. What is its date? It used commonly to be put in 428/7 B.C. until West argued powerfully for January/February 429/8 B.C. His view won considerable support, but the editors of The Athenian Tribute Lists have since succeeded in establishing the summer of 430 B.C. as the orthodox dating. Now those who accept this should recognize that it creates an awkwardly long gap between the first and second decrees. By the first decree Methone was permitted to pay the quota alone, instead of its full tribute, and was promised separate, favourable treatment of its arrears in return for continued loyalty. (shrink)

Nous publions une inscription connue à Délos depuis le début des années 1990, à la suite de travaux menés par l’École française d’Athènes dans la zone du Portique des Naxiens. La pierre, mise au jour par Alexandre Farnoux, et connue des spécialistes d’épigraphie délienne, est restée inédite jusqu’à ce jour, malgré des mentions ponctuelles dans la bibliographie. Le décret pour Apollônidès de Chersonèsos rejoint le corpus des décrets de la cité indépendante et réactive la question des relations entre Délos et (...) les cités du Pont-Euxin, déjà bien représentées dans le paysage des honneurs déliens. (shrink)

It has become necessary to enter any discussion of the date of the Kallias decrees, IG i3.52, armed with apologies and justifications merely for bringing up the matter again; such is the result not so much of the quantity of articles and chapters written on the subject as of the belief that the orthodox date, 434/3, has been proved, despite reliance on circumstantial evidence and some forceful objections levied against it.1 Indeed, that the case is considered closed can find no (...) better reflection than the assignment of the date 434/3 in IG i3 without even a question mark. (shrink)

Eines der wichtigsten Probleme in der Leibniz-Arnauld-Korrespondenz betrifft Gottes Freiheit, individuelle Substanzen nach seinem Willen zu erschaffen. Arnauld äußert sich besorgt darüber, daß Leibniz 'Theorie der vollständigen Begriffe in dieser Hinsicht keinen Raum für Gottes Freiheit zu lassen scheint. Ich behaupte, daß Leibniz Arnauld eine zweigeteilte Antwort anbietet, deren zweiter Zweig bislang unterschätzt worden ist. Ich werde zeigen, daß Leibniz' Unterscheidung zwischen primären und sekundären Entscheidungen Gottes von wesentlicher Bedeutung ist für den zweiten Zweig seiner Antwort an Arnauld. Außerdem kann (...) diese Unterscheidung helfen, Leibniz' Lehre von der unendlichen Analyse zu verstehen und zudem verdeutlichen, inwiefern nach Leibniz' Ansicht Gott nun in der Lage ist, individuelle Substanzen begrifflich getrennt voneinander zu betrachten - was eine Schwierigkeit zu sein scheint, wenn von der Theorie vollständiger Begriffe ausgegangen wird. (shrink)

Deux décrets instituant des honneurs divins pour Septime Sévère et sa famille ont été progressivement reconstitués à partir de fragments trouvés sur l’Acropole ou dans les fouilles de l’Agora. Malgré leur état fragmentaire, ces deux textes athéniens republiés par Simone Follet sous une forme plus complète sont parmi les témoignages les plus significatifs que nous ayons sur le culte des empereurs en Grèce. Ces attestations épigraphiques reflètent la tendance grecque de placer l’empereur régnant au centre de la vénération (bien que (...) les Divi ainsi que les autres membres de la famille impériale, déifiés ou non, aient été inclus dans le groupe des Sebastoi). À un niveau plus général, un autre élément non moins significatif qui ressort des deux décrets est le rôle prépondérant de Julia Domna (le second décret ne s’adresse qu’à elle) qui reflète l’importance et la position prestigieuse occupée par cette impératrice, qui n’apparaît pas par hasard mentionnée sur de nombreuses inscriptions et monnaies. Sa présence aux côtés de Septime Sévère et de ses fils reflète également l’importance du concept de famille dans la propagande impériale sévérienne. (shrink)

In 1904, Ellen Richards introduced “euthenics.” By 1912, Lewellys Barker, director of medicine and physician-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, would tell the _New York Times_ that the “task of eugenics” and the “task of euthenics” was the “Task for the Nation.” Alongside the emergence of hereditarian eugenics, where fate was firmly rooted in heredity, this article places euthenics into the same Progressive Era demands for the scientific management over environmental issues like life and labor, health and hygiene, sewage and sanitation. (...) I argue that euthenics not only heralded women as leaders in the quest for what Richards and eugenicists termed “racial improvement,” but also aimed to make reforms through environmental and educational changes rather than hereditary interventions. Seeking to recuperate the figure of Ellen Richards in the history of science, I place Richards and her euthenics more into the debate over eugenics rather than over the emergence of home economics. Building on the work of Donald Opitz, Staffan Bergwik, and Brigette Van Tiggelen, this article shows, first, how Richards’ career threads the needle between the home and the laboratory as sites of science making, not as separate spheres but as overlapping realms, and helps recover how domestic concerns shaped the focus of the life sciences. Second, this article shows how euthenics shaped eugenics by looking at the writings of American eugenicists Charles Davenport, Paul Popenoe, and David Starr Jordan. Third, the article describes how euthenics took root in new academic departments of domestic science, home economics, and departments child welfare and family life in the 1920 and 1930s, most notably the department of euthenics at the Kansas State Agricultural College from 1926 and the Institute of Euthenics at Vassar College after 1923. (shrink)

There is a tendency to prune the record of restrictions on the freedom of thought and expression in fifth-century Athens. K. J. Dover has demonstrated that many of the stories of attacks on intellectuals rest on little more than flimsy speculation. Similarly there has been a reluctance to accept the historicity of the several restrictions on comedy recorded by scholiasts. Thus, for example, H. B. Mattingly has expressed doubts about Morychides' decree, and S. Halliwell has rejected Antimachus' decree (...) as a fiction and has adopted an agnostic attitude towards Syracosius' decree. But one cannot sweep all the references aside as fallacious inferences. This short paper looks first at the evidence that Cleon initiated a legal action against Aristophanes after the production of the The Babylonians, in the light of what the Old Oligarch wrote about curbs on comedians. Secondly, the historicity of Syracosius' decree will be tested by an attempt to define its nature and purpose in its political context. This exercise will show that circumstantial evidence adduced against the historicity of the decree has no compelling force. (shrink)

Evangelista Torricelli is perhaps best known for being the most gifted of Galileo’s pupils, and for his works based on indivisibles, especially his stunning cubature of an infinite hyperboloid. Scattered among Torricelli’s writings, we find numerous traces of the philosophy of mathematics underlying his mathematical practice. Though virtually neglected by historians and philosophers alike, these traces reveal that Torricelli’s mathematical practice was informed by an original philosophy of mathematics. The latter was dashed with strains of Thomistic metaphysics and theology. Torricelli’s (...) philosophy of mathematics emphasized mathematical constructs as human-made beings of reason, yet mathematical truths as divine decrees, which upon being discovered by the mathematician ‘appropriate eternity’. In this paper, I reconstruct Torricelli’s philosophy of mathematics—which I label radical mathematical Thomism—placing it in the context of Thomistic patterns of thought.Keywords: Evangelista Torricelli; Thomism; Eternity; Indivisibles; Proportions. (shrink)

Is there or is there not a reference here to the Megarian Decree? Opinions have differed and no doubt will continue to do so. However, considerable authority has recently been thrown behind the proposition that the matter can be decided on purely linguistic grounds, that merely as a matter of use of Greek the passage cannot contain a reference to the Megarian Decree. This seems, on investigation, to be false, and since confusion appears to persist in the books (...) about the interpretation of Thucydides' text a short discussion may perhaps be of value. (shrink)

Athenian officials in the fifth century maintained careful records of treasure owned by their gods, and of the expenditures and receipts of sacred moneys and dedications. These records are conventionally divided into two main types: ‘inventories’ or annual lists of the treasure located in a particular repository, and ‘accounts’ or documents recording the receipts and expenditures of sacred treasuries over a given period. A few documents seem to combine both these elements, and have been called ‘accounts-inventories’ In a well-known example, (...) Athena's treasurers maintained records of valuable items located in three cellae of the building moderns call the Parthenon. Moreover, they published their records of these items in three separate series of inscriptions, one each dedicated to the pronaos, the hekatompedos and the parthenon; these records are conventionally referred to as the ‘inventories’ of Athena's treasure and are extant from 434/3. (shrink)

Athenian officials in the fifth century maintained careful records of treasure owned by their gods, and of the expenditures and receipts of sacred moneys and dedications. These records are conventionally divided into two main types: ‘inventories’ or annual lists of the treasure located in a particular repository, and ‘accounts’ or documents recording the receipts and expenditures of sacred treasuries over a given period. A few documents seem to combine both these elements, and have been called ‘accounts-inventories’ In a well-known example, (...) Athena's treasurers maintained records of valuable items located in three cellae of the building moderns call the Parthenon. Moreover, they published their records of these items in three separate series of inscriptions, one each dedicated to the pronaos, the hekatompedos and the parthenon; these records are conventionally referred to as the ‘inventories’ of Athena's treasure and are extant from 434/3. (shrink)