Heraclitus' Fragments

, . , , , , ,
by Evangelos N. Roussos
Review by: C. J. Emlyn-Jones
The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1974), pp. 38-39
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/709859 .
Accessed: 20/02/2015 14:25
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to The Classical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:25:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

38

of Apollonius as we presently know the poem'. By the same grotesque token,

the relevance of the capture of Troy to the Odyssey as we know the poem need
not be doubted either.
At i. 979 the Parisian scholiast, instead of reporting a piece of ancient evidence, overtly makes his own surmise (EoLKE), which is of course wrong because
it clashes with Apollonius' words at i. 969: yet Levin devotes two pages to
dismissing the scholiast's nonsense (pp. 95-7). Levin, following Dumezil,
accuses Apollonius of failing to say why the Lemniades were 'gueries' (p. 63) of
their 8vaocatla: Levin and Dumezil have misunderstood both Apollonius and
the scholiast. The latter says that Aphrodite, in order to punish the Lemniades,
cast upon them a 8vuoul'a whose purpose was to make them repellent to their
husbands (ro~ dav8pdaccrv);
served
Apollonius, in his turn, says that the
its retributory purpose in that it caused the Lemniades to turn8vaooola
to murder 'to
EOJEM
their own ruin', E7atLvV7EP~s (i. 616: cf. schol. Od. iv. 672 ErtaLvY7p
-- Od.
Once the retribution had been exacted by Aphrodite (cf.
7L
aOe).
KaKi.
iii. 195 E7TUaLvEps drIe~oTEV),there was evidently no need for the goddess to
make the 8vaoatda last any longer and to make the Lemniades repellent to any
fresh bedfellows, all the more so as she wanted Lemnos to be repopulated
(i. 850 ff.).
Conclusion: this book is a pure waste of paper.
GIUSEPPE GIANGRANDE
Birkbeck
of London
College,University

HERACLITUS'

FRAGMENTS

N. Roussos: 1HpdKtEL70oT, T!
AE
aXoAa,
/LETrdopaarl,

EVANGELOS
KICEqEVO,

Athens:

Caravia,

197?. Paper.

,LpTVpIES,

A2TOur7Tr/OpJara.
HpOAEyOpLEVa,
,O

Ka

7Tr'aKES.

Pp. 96,

IN this new edition of Heraclitus the author is clearly concerned not with
adding to the texts and commentaries available to specialists-at the present

time a dubious undertaking--but with providing a non-specialist Greek public

with an opportunity to read Heraclitus with a minimum of exegesis. Discussion
of major problems of text and interpretation has been deliberately omitted,
and the reader who wishes to delve deeper is referred to a select bibliography.
To say that this procedure is entirely satisfactory from a scholarly point of view
would be going too far; however, it does have the advantage of attaining the

professedaim of the author--to allow Heraclitus to speak for himself.Necessary

background information is provided in an excellent introduction; of particular

interest is the author's discussion of the popular origins of some elements in
Heraclitus' language and style, in which Roussos clearly owes much to the
recent publications of some of his compatriots.

The author confineshis attention to genuine fragments (although he includes

the spurious D.-K. B 126a without explanation). The fragments are renumbered (with ConspectusNumerorum giving cross-referenceto and from DielsKranz) and divided into three sections under the headings

1
Ao'yos,0 KdtUpOs,

These divisions, and the fragmentsassigned to each, correspondroughly

'Adhcs.

with those of Marcovich in his recent edition. The text has been assembled

from the critical editions of Diels-Kranz, Walzer, Kirk, and Marcovich, with

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:25:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

39
mention of textual variants only in the most important cases. This arrangement has obvious advantages, but one feels the lack of explanation in difficult
cases, and especially where the author has made conjectures of his own, e.g.
in fr. 46 (D.-K. B 126). A translation into modern Greek has been
PvXPpv
provided facing the text, in which the author has succeeded well in his intention of matching the succinctness and vigour of the original. There are,
however, a few lapses from complete fidelity, especiallyin fr. 62 (D.-K. B 84a)
where the insertion of Kalin the translationof pEralfdAAovadvaravemrat
lessensthe
impact and significantly alters the meaning of the original, and in fr. 24
will hardly do for 7i- fvv 7TdvrOwv.
The
(D.-K. B I I4), where ar7 KOLVw
Kpp~Lo
the
is
underneath
located
short
and
text,
commentary,
mainly explanatory,
but there are also extensive biographical notes on all ancient historical and
mythological figures mentioned in the fragments. Interesting parallels illustrating the influence of Heraclitus on contemporary, later, and in some cases
modern Greek literatureare provided. There is also a usefulword-index and an
index locorum. However, the general reader will miss badly explanations of
fragments whose meaning is ambiguous or obscure, e.g. frs. 14, 31, 38, 49
(D.-K. B 86, 7, 13, 99) ; or of key fragmentswhose carefulinterpretation,in the
face of later distortion, is vital for understanding, e.g. fr. 4I (D.-K. B 12), the
notorious 'River fragment', where the author quotes the relevant Platonic
evidence without comment.
Roussos' handling of the testimonia is the least satisfactoryaspect of the book,
and is likely to mislead a reader unfamiliar with the intricacies of the subject,
since the testimonia (with one or two important omissionsfrom Aristotle) are
set out in full in a separate section, and entirely without comment. Apart from
a few general remarks in the introduction there is nothing to indicate the
relative value of the various testimonia for an understandingof Heraclitus, and
far too much space is given in notes and testimonia to the Pseudo-Heraclitean
letters (quoted in full, and two of them twice!) and the Hippocratic De Victu.
As a consequence, on fundamental questions, e.g. the nature of the AO'yos
and
its relation to the concrete world of the opposites and to man, the reader is
given very little guidance in the necessary separation of Heraclitean from
Platonic, Stoic, and even Christian doctrines, to which the thought of Heraclitus was at various times assimilated. These basic shortcomingsdetract from
the merit of what is, in many other respects, a useful book.
St. David's UniversityCollege,Lampeter

HERODOTUS'

CONCEPT

C. J. EMLYN-JONES

OF HISTORY

W. FORNARA: Herodotus: an interpretativeessay. Pp.

x+98,
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
I971. Cloth, Ji 75IN this slim volume Fornara seeks to answer the question of how Herodotus
came to write his History. It is correctly entitled an 'essay', because it is not in
any way a comprehensive attack on this extremely difficult problem. But that
being understood, it is a lively and well-written essay with much that is interesting and stimulating, and it makesvery enjoyable reading whether one agrees
with his interpretation or not.
CHARLES

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:25:47 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions