EZRA AND NEHEMIAH. By Matthew W. Levering.Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids,MI: Brazos Press, 2007. Pp. 256. $29.99.

Levering extends his theological reading of the Chris-tian Scriptures with this volume on Ezra and Nehemiah. Hebegan the project with his first book, Christ’s Fulfillment ofTorah and Temple (2002), and continued it with M. Dauphi-nais in Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction tothe Bible (2005). He takes standard literary divisions ofeach book to witness to unifying theological themes of“holy land” (Ezra 1-6; Neh 1-6) and “holy people” (Ezra7-10; Neh 7-13). As a result, he constructs a non-supercessionalist reading of the books while simulta-neously maintaining a traditional Christological focusthrough a Christian typological appropriation in line withAugustine, Boethius, and Thomas Aquinas. The book wellfulfills the purpose of the series in an intellectually coher-ent and interesting way. It has much to teach even thoseopposed to such theological readings, although the bookmost likely will not persuade them. The book might findparticular use in classes within Christian theological edu-cation where the books of Ezra and Nehemiah find little, ifany, purpose except as appropriated through supercession-alist readings of Second Temple Judaism, often inherentwithin the standard theological backgrounds of thediscourse.

John W. WrightPoint Loma Nazarene University

THE INTERTEXTUALITY OF ZECAHARIAH 1-8. ByMichael R. Stead. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old TestamentStudies, 506. New York: T & T Clark, 2009. Pp. xiii + 312.$130.00.

This revised dissertation (University of Glouchester-shire in 2007) examines the ways in which Zechariah 1-8makes use of previously existing biblical texts, with aprimary focus on the use of prophetic texts. The authorutilizes an approach he terms “contextual intertextuality”in his search for allusions and echoes to other biblical pas-sages in Zechariah. He situates his methodology betweentraditional intertextual analysis, which is unconcernedwith questions of textual priority, and approaches such asinner-biblical exegesis. He claims that the sustained allu-sions and echoes of the former prophets (as well as ahandful of other biblical texts) should be read as a claim oftheir imminent fulfillment in the time of Zechariah, in con-trast to those who would treat Zechariah 1-8 as proto-apocalyptic or as envisioning a future messianic figure.Stead also argues that the meaning of the prophet is pre-sented as a dialogic truth where the message of the prophetcan only be understood when read against the backgroundof its various intertexts. Failure to attend carefully to theseprior texts makes the text less intelligible. The work is ofuse primarily to scholars concerned with the application ofliterary studies to prophetic literature and to those who

would argue for a transformation of the prophetic style inthe postexilic period.

Phillip ShermanMaryville College

Greece, Rome, Greco-Roman PeriodPLATO AND HESIOD. Edited by G. R. Boys-Stones andJ. H. Haubold. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.Pp. vi + 362. $99.00.

An entire volume dedicated to Plato’s reception ofHesiod would, in all likelihood, have been inconceivableuntil recently; it presupposes a conception of Hesiod as aserious thinker rather than a singing peasant, and a view ofPlato that sees his involvement with his predecessors, espe-cially the poets, as not merely dismissive but as a far moreopen and complex engagement, both playful and serious,that invokes, adapts, and modifies both the cosmogonic andethical dimensions of the poet who most closely shared hisconcerns. The present volume of fifteen papers stems from a2006 conference and is roughly divided between moregeneral discussions of the two authors’ interrelations andHesiodic elements in individual dialogues. In the latter half,as one might expect, Hesiod’s influence on Plato’s cosmog-onic thought focuses on the Timaeus, while both the Republicand the Politicus offer readings and manipulations of theHesiodic myth of the races. Rather more metaphorical is L.Kenaan’s interpretation of the Symposium’s Socrates andEros as reflexes of the seductive Pandora. In the first section,Haubold discovers in Hesiod’s trajectory from the Theogonyto the Works and Days a pattern for intellectual development.To be sure, whether Plato’s views of Hesiod developed orchanged in the course of the dialogues raises methodologicalquestions concerning Platonic chronology and context. Butwhat characterizes most of the contributions here is a refusalto simplify, instead allowing the relation between the twopoet/philosophers to be multiple and nuanced. It is preciselyin this lack of reductionism that the value of this stimulatingvolume lies.

Jenny Strauss ClayUniversity of Virginia

THE DEATH AND AFTERLIFE OF ACHILLES. ByJonathan S. Burgess. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Press, 2009. Pp. xvi + 184; illustrations, maps. $45.00.

In his 2001 book The Tradition of the Trojan War andthe Epic Cycle, Burgess argued that the Homeric poemspresuppose and draw on a vast body of traditional materialconcerning the Trojan War that comes down to us in thepost-Homeric poems of the Epic Cycle and in visualrepresentations from the Archaic period onward. His workthere offered a persuasive revision of classic neoanalysisthat does not rely on textually based Quellenforschung butacknowledges the fluid character of orally composed andtransmitted poetry and the variations in mythological tradi-

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tions. The present slender volume exemplifies and elabo-rates on the previous methodology by focusing on the themeof the death of Achilles, which has been at the center oftraditional neoanalysis and, in keeping with much recentHomeric criticism, shifts the perspective from productionand composition to audience reception. Burgess’s Introduc-tion sets out his basic methodology and offers an outline ofthe contents. The author recognizes the problems in trying todistill the different extant versions into an underlyingfabula, somewhat like trying to hold between one’s fingers aball of mercury that keeps changing shape and eluding one’sgrasp. Likewise, Burgess is aware of the inevitable circular-ity of using Homeric and post-Homeric material to extrapo-late a preexisting template. The first chapter examines thetraditions concerning the early life of Achilles; the maintheme that emerges from this investigation is the hero’smortality, which seems to be the underlying motif that bindstogether the numerous variants.

Jenny Strauss ClayUniversity of Virginia

HORACE: SATIRES AND EPISTLES. Edited by KirkFreudenburg. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 518. Cloth, $165.00;paper, $75.00.

Freudenburg’s selection of nineteen papers delivers onthis series’ goal of providing “a representative selection ofthe best and most influential articles” in the recent scholar-ship on an author. Horace’s hexameter poems, the Satiresand Epistles, make up roughly half of his corpus. Theycontain a real farrago of subject matter; what unites these“conversational” poems is their informal inquiry into basicethical questions and the serio-comic manner in which thosequestions are explored. In his introduction, Freudenburgprovides a succinct summary of major issues in the criticaldebate and a sense of the evolution of views over the pastfifty or so years. The oldest two pieces date to 1950 (Klingnerand La Penna), the three most recent to 2002 (Moles,Freudenburg, and Feeney). Five pieces appear in this volumefor the first time in English. Latin passages in all but onearticle are translated. The list of references at the end sup-plies a trustworthy guide for undergraduates and moreadvanced scholars. The trend in criticism has been towarddestablizing readings of the poems. Where Du Quesnay(1984) saw the first book of Satires as serving Octavian’spolitical ends, Henderson (1993) is more interested in therole of the audience/reader in authorizing the poet’s voice tospeak on issues. This is a useful collection for anyone inter-ested in Augustan Rome and the play between poetry andphilosophy.

John SvarlienTransylvania University

DIVINE TALK: RELIGIOUS ARGUMENTATION INDEMOSTHENES. By Gunther Martin. Oxford ClassicalMonographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.Pp. ix + 345. $125.00.

This detailed study explores religious argumentation inthe Demosthenic corpus and in a selection of other speechesin order to reveal how they further the speakers’ persuasivestrategies and where convention places limitations on theuse of such argumentation. All too often, scholars of religionmine Attic oratory for nuggets supporting the existence ofone or another tenet of “popular belief” without closelyexamining the context of the information or the role it servesin the speaker’s argument. Therefore, the appearance of astudy focusing on the contextual factors surrounding men-tions of gods, festivals, rites, oaths, and so forth is a welcomeaddition to the literature. Although Martin is more expert inmatters involving rhetoric than religion, and his ultimategoal is not to illuminate the fourth-century religious land-scape of Athens but to reach a deeper insight into the waythe orators functioned, he is often able to cast new light onfamiliar texts. For example, he provides a useful analysis ofthe comic sources for Demosthenes’ portrait of the youngAeschines as a mystery cult acolyte, warning against uncriti-cal acceptance of the account as an accurate depiction of aspecific cult. Clear principles for Martin’s choice of the non-Demosthenic speeches are not articulated, and the readermisses an overview of the corpus as a whole. Still, this is avaluable contribution to the sparse scholarship on thesubject and will be a welcome reading for specialists inGreek religion.

Jennifer LarsonKent State University

APOLLO, AUGUSTUS, AND THE POETS. By John F.Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp.xi + 408; illustrations. $113.00.

This ambitious and learned study, which won theAmerican Philological Association’s 2010 Goodwin Awardfor best book in Classics, shows how Augustus and the poetsof his age enhanced the position of Apollo in contemporarythought. Its seven chapters move somewhat chronologically,starting before Actium and ending with Ovid, but with the-matically related material of any decade discussed together.Miller discusses Apollo’s role in the Battle of Actium, thestory of Aeneas, the new age of Vergil’s Eclogue 4, and Hora-ce’s Carmen Saeculare, Augustan poetics, and Apollo’sPalatine Temple, topics treated by every Augustan poet, andin lesser-known Greek poems. Miller is a literary scholar,and this is mainly a study of poetry, with particular strengthin close reading and in intertextuality. But he also master-fully brings to bear evidence from coinage, monuments,inscriptions, biography, topography, and the study of Romanreligion. Building on a vast body of scholarship and incommand of more evidence than any previous scholar,Miller often rejects simple or reductive claims for morenuanced explanations and argues for sophisticatedapproaches to literary and iconographic ambiguity—forexample, “different readers will no doubt seize upon differ-ent relevant associations.” One place where I might see dif-ferent associations would be on Discordia at Aeneid 8.702,

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perhaps not linked solely to Augustus’s opponents, but alsoa subtle allusion to civil war. The book will be the standardtreatment of its topic and is a must for all scholars workingon Augustus, Latin poetry, and Roman religion.

James J. O’HaraThe University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

BRILL’S COMPANION TO HESIOD. Edited by FrancoMontanari, Antonios Rengakos, and Christos Tsagalis.Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009. Pp. ix + 430. $232.00.

This collection makes a notable contribution to Hesiodicscholarship, providing a comprehensive survey of the fieldin English by distinguished scholars. I. Rutherford providesan excellent account of Hesiod’s relation to the Near East,addressing, in particular, the question of transmission. P.Pucci on the Theogony and J. Strauss Clay on the Works andDays supply nuanced readings, Clay’s largely taken, as shenotes, from her 2003 Hesiod’s Cosmos. E. Cingano rounds outthe survey with a concise, informative, and extremely usefulaccount of the remaining corpus, summarizing both knowncontent and current opinions on authenticity. Attention thenmoves to Hesiodic poetics, with C. Tsagalis’s study of the useand conflation of generic identity, A. C. Cassio’s fascinatinglook at Hesiod’s prominently Ionic dialect (concluding thatHesiod out-Homers Homer), and Rengakos’s account of nar-rative technique in the Theogony and Catalogue of Women.The last five pieces look at reception, with E. Sistakoureevaluating Callimachus’s Hesiodic voice, R. Hunter exam-ining ancient views of Hesiod’s “middle” style, G. Nagylooking at how ancient texts picked up and transformed the“biographical” material of the Theogony and Works and Days,and Montanari looking at ancient Hesiodic scholarship.Finally, G. Rosati examines “Hesiod’s” multiple roles inLatin poetry, rounding out a volume useful both to graduatestudents beginning their study of Hesiod and to scholars.

Stephanie NelsonBoston University

HOMER’S WINGED WORDS: THE EVOLUTION OFEARLY GREEK EPIC DICTION IN THE LIGHT OFORAL THEORY. By Steve Reece. Mnemosyne Supple-ments, 313. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009. Pp. xi + 413; illustra-tions, maps. $241.00.

Reece examines a common linguistic phenomenon: theway lexical items may evolve from a misinterpretation ofword boundaries, e.g., the French naperon becomes theEnglish a naperon and develops into an apron or Gladys thecross-eyed bear from gladly the cross I bear. (The author pro-vides many additional amusing examples in his Appendi-ces.) Reece here focuses on Homeric words whose meaningsor etymologies are opaque or have alternative forms andargues that many arise from metanalysis (that is, misunder-standing of word divisions), not from misreadings of textualdivisions; rather, they took shape during a much earlierperiod of oral transmission, when word divisions were mis-heard or misunderstood in the course of oral performance.

The use of formulas (repeated phrases involving groups ofwords), a hallmark of oral composition, encouraged suchformations. The bulk of the book is made up of analyses of agreat many individual cases, each of which requires a some-what different approach, some more and some less specula-tive. Persuasive, for instance, is the discussion of apterosmuthos arising from a mis-division of the common epea pte-roenta. But some explanations are more problematic: theenigmatic “bridges of war” (ptolemoio gephuras) is not likelyderived from ptolemoio g’ephuras if, as Reece argues, itrefers to siegeworks, as Homer shows no knowledge of suchtechnology. Puzzles remain, and I still revel in “the non-milking time of night” (nuktos amolgoi, not discussed byReece). While the book can be read piecemeal, Reece buildsa solid and cumulative case for his thesis that poetry com-posed and experienced within an oral tradition is especiallyliable to certain kinds of verbal innovation, which in turnexplains the origins of some of the most notoriously obscureHomeric expressions.

Jenny Strauss ClayUniversity of Virginia

THE POETRY OF STATIUS. Edited by Johannes J. L.Smolenaars, Harm-Jan Van Dam, and Ruurd R. Nauta. Mne-mosyne Supplements, 306. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2008.Pp. x + 269. $147.00.

This collection of eleven essays by respected scholarsoffers interesting new readings of the works of the Flavianpoet P. Papinius Statius, mostly dealing with his epicThebaid, with others on the Silvae and textual reception. V.Berlincourt and van Dam reveal the lively interest in andemulation of Statius’s poetry (especially the Silvae) inseventeenth-century Europe. On the Silvae, K. Colemanargues that Statius’s omission of inscriptions suggests thatthe Silvae are to serve a similar function of memorialization,while Nauta picks up the theme of poetic self-presentation,offering a useful, if somewhat cursory, survey of most of thepoems and suggesting that Statius presents himself as apraise poet but also varies his persona to suit differentpatrons. M. Dewar discusses the architectural, political, andpoetic meanings of the colossal equestrian statue of Domi-tian described in Silvae 1.1. The six essays on the Thebaidform the core of the book and present the most illuminatingclose readings. Among these, B. Gibson (on battle narra-tives), P. Heslin (on Greek tragedy), and H. Smolenaars (ontragedy: Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca) all demonstrateStatius’s original and creative use of his multigeneric liter-ary models. G. Rosati masterfully explores the way in whichthe Thebald’s prologue and epilogue boldly link the legiti-macy of Statius’s own poetical succession with the legiti-macy of Domitian’s political power, revealing possibletensions between the two projects. The book should make avaluable contribution to the increasing appreciation of thecomplexity of Statius’s poetry.

K. Sara MyersUniversity of Virginia

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VERGIL’S GEORGICS. Edited by Katharina Volk. OxfordReadings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2008. Pp. v + 281. Cloth, $150; paper, $55.00.

This volume, a companion to “Oxford Readings” inVergil’s Eclogues (2008) (RSR 36 [2010]:223) and Aeneid(1990), is intended as an introduction to recent views on theGeorgics, Vergil’s didactic poem, ostensibly about agricul-ture, that stands, both chronologically and generically,between his early bucolic idylls and the epic he left unfin-ished at his death. Volk provides a succinct but wide-rangingsurvey, a full bibliography, and reprints of ten studies bynine scholars from the UK and the United States. Some ofthese have been revised slightly, but all are from the period1970-95, when, after relative neglect, the Georgics began togenerate a stream of scholarship that has not yet abated. Aswith Vergil’s other works, much of this has been either“ideological,” interpreting the Georgics in light of their his-torical (civil wars), political (end of the Roman Republic),and religious (“revival” of cults) contexts, or “literary,”viewing them in terms of their antecedents in Roman agri-cultural writing, earlier didactic poetry, and Greek Hellenis-tic poetry. Volk’s selections are well chosen not only toexemplify the two approaches but also to indicate how bothhave led to conclusions that are remarkably various andeven contradictory. For this reason, her book should serve asa useful guide to what many consider Vergil’s greatest butalso most enigmatic poem.

David MankinCornell University

ASKLEPIOS, MEDICINE, AND THE POLITICS OFHEALING IN FIFTH-CENTURY GREECE: BETWEENCRAFT AND CULT. By Bronwen L. Wickkiser. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. xiii + 178; illus-trations. $55.00.

This brief, well-written volume on the cult of Asklepiosis an extended essay in two parts. The first half questionstraditional scholarly views of the cult, such as the idea thatAsklepios competed with the emergent Hippocratic schoolfor patients and that Asklepios and the Hippocratic doctorsrepresent diametrically opposed views of medical treat-ment, the first based on “irrational” faith healing and thesecond on “rational” scientific methods. Instead, Wickkiserargues that Asklepios and the Hippocratic doctors func-tioned in a complementary fashion and that the tendency ofdoctors to reject chronic or fatal cases was a causal factor inthe rapid growth of Asklepios’s cult. The second half setsforth a provocative argument for a substantial civic role inthe importation to Athens of Asklepios’s cult, usually under-stood as a private cult established by Telemachos, donor ofan extant monument and inscription. Arguing against a too-rigid application of the public/private distinction, Wickkiserfinds in the location of the new shrine and in the timing ofAsklepios’s festivals evidence for state involvement. Sheconcludes with a suggestion that the establishment of Askl-epios in Athens during the Peace of Nikias was pertinent to

the Athenian war strategy. Although a more in-depth analy-sis of the available evidence (such as the precedent set bythe importation of the healing hero-god Herakles, whose cultsimilarly exploded in popularity during the previouscentury) would have benefited the volume, her argumentsconstitute a fresh and original contribution to the scholar-ship on Asklepios.

Jennifer LarsonKent State University

Christian OriginsLE MANUSCRIT B DE LA BIBLE (VATICANUSGRAECUS 1209): INTRODUCTION AU FAC-SIMILÉ, ACTES DU COLLOQUE DE GENÈVE (11JUIN 2001), CONTRIBUTIONS SUPPLÉMEN-TAIRES. Edited by Patrick Andrist. Histoire du textebiblique, 7. Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2009. Pp. 310;8 plates. €39.00.

In conjunction with the publication of a magnificentfacsimile edition of Codex Vaticanus (B) in 1999, a collo-quium celebrating the event was held in 2001. This veryuseful volume commemorates both events. Part 1 reprintsthe introduction (by Canart, Bogaert, and Pisano) to themanuscript that accompanied the publication of the 1999facsimile. Given the limited circulation of the facsimile, it isgood to have this valuable introduction more widely avail-able. Part 2 comprises the papers from the colloquium, byPisano (on the use of B during the fifteenth through nine-teenth centuries), Elliott (largely on Skeat’s view re theorigins of B), Bogaert (on B, Athanasius, and Alexandria),Amphoux (suggesting a Roman origin for B), and Aland (onthe significance of B for understanding the early transmis-sion of the NT text). Part 3 incorporates two supplements tothe conference papers: one by Payne and Canart (on whetherthe distigmai in the margins of B indicate the existence oftextual variants) and one by Andrist (additional thoughts onthe origins of B, the distigmai, and the pre-1475 location ofB). Several indices, a list, and a bibliography conclude thevolume. Overall, these excellent essays offer striking evi-dence of the ongoing discussion (and evident lack of consen-sus at present) concerning the origins, history, and textualsignificance of this remarkable codex.

Michael W. HolmesBethel University

MANUSCRIPTS, TEXTS, THEOLOGY: COLLECTEDPAPERS 1977-2007. By David C. Parker. ANTF 40. Berlin:De Gruyter, 2009. Pp. xii + 379. $140.00.

Parker, unquestionably at the front of the first rank ofNT textual critics today, is also one of the most entrepreneur-ial (witness his leadership of the Institute for Textual Schol-arship and Electronic Editing at Birmingham), and is also aleading figure, both in terms of practice and editorial theory,in the transition from a print to a digital textual environ-

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