Ancient Science and PhilosophyEinleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft by A. Gercke; E. Norden; A. Rehm; K. Vogel; E.HoffmannReview by: A. J. D. PorteousThe Classical Review, Vol. 49, No. 5 (Nov., 1935), pp. 178-179Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/697133 .

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178 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

Herodotean stories. But the book moves at such a leisurely pace, it has so many translations of the Herodotean tales, and its references to non-Hero- dotean traditional literature are so few that it is perhaps meant for under- graduates and schoolboys. For them it would be a useful introduction to some of the literary aspects of Hero- dotus. But they should be warned that long after Herodotus tales were being born and growing up in Greece; and that Herodotus' choice and use of the stories

represents only one period and one attitude. And I think that they might expect some discussion of the aesthetic value of the stories in Herodotus' work -something which would answer the criticism expressed in Cicero de legibus I 3 and elaborated at the beginning of Reitzenstein's Hellenistische Wunder- erziihlungen. They might find, in fact, that the book was pleasant and useful, but incomplete.

GILBERT HIGHET. St. John's College, Oxford.

ANCIENT SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Einleitung in die A ltertumnswissenschaft, herausgegeben von A. Gercke und E. Norden. Vierte Auflage. II. Band, 5. Heft: Exakte Wissenschaften von A. REHM und K. VOGEL. Pp. 78. 6. Heft: Geschichte der Philosophie von A. GERCKE, bearbeitet von E. Hoff- mann. Pp. 118. Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1933 and 1932.

THESE two separately issued parts, which can also be procured bound up with Heft 4 (Wide-Nilsson's Griechische und Rimische Religion) as one half- volume, bring up to date Volume II of Gercke and Norden's well-known work. The revision is differently carried out in the two cases. Rehm's Exact Sciences, rewritten on the basis of Heiberg's original, is practically a new composition. His collaborator, Vogel, has written the sections on mathematics, optics and acoustics, which are inserted chronologically in their appropriate places. The special sciences (including medicine) are separately dealt with for the four main periods, Pre-Socratic, Attic, Hellenistic and Roman, each of which is prefaced by a general sketch of the historical and philosophical features of the epoch, serving as a basis for the subsequent detailed surveys. One cannot do justice in a short notice to the wealth of material and of biblio- graphical references, which render the book an invaluable aid to specialized research in this field. Of particular interest to philosophers are the discus- sion of the constitution of the Hippo- cratic Corpus, the references for Plato's mathematical speculations (to which

A. E. Taylor's Mind articles entitled Forms and Numbers and A. Dies' very recent solution of the ' Birth Number' of Rep. VIII, 546 should be added), and the careful account of the achievements of the Hellenistic mathematicians and astronomers.

In contrast, Gercke's original text of the History of Philosophy remains largely unchanged. To attempt more than minor additions and corrections, or the insertion of references to recent litera- ture, would have necessitated a com- plete rewriting, going far beyond the task which Hoffmann undertook of re- vising this classic text. Consequently he has retained the main lines of Gercke's individual treatment, while conscious that the latter's philosophical outlook has been somewhat outmoded by the researches of the last twenty-five years. One would, for example, gladly see the long section on the Sophists and So- cratics shortened, in exchange for fuller notices of the Vorsokratiker; few would now accept Gercke's systematization of Plato's teaching or his traditional view of the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools; while the work of Jaeger and his school has modified our idea of Aristotle's system. To remedy these defects as far as possible, Hoffmann has inserted here and there, in footnotes or small type, pregnant summaries of more modern views on crucial problems; though it would have been helpful to have his additions clearly designated in some way. Scarcely satisfactory to British eyes, familiar with the work of Burnet and others, is his contribution to

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 179

the Socratic problem, added, exception- ally, to the main text (pp. 32-3; cf. p. 24, n. 2), which rejects the Platonic Socrates, equally with other portraits, as a one-sided fiction, and traces the disturbing discrepancies in our tradi- tion to the strange, self-contradictory

personality of the Master (his c'roTrla) and the distinctive peculiarities of his teaching. It seems impossible to rest content with so sceptical a solution.

A. J. D. PORTEOUS.

University of Edinburgh.

TWO CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF PLATONISM.

HANS WILLMS : EIKfIN: Eine be- griffsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Platonismus. I.Teil: Philon von Alexandreia, mit einer Einleitung fiber Platon und die Zwischenzeit. Pp. vii + 121. Miinster: Aschendorff, 1935. Paper, M. 6.

PAUL HENRY, S.J.: Plotin et I'Occident: Firmicus Maternus, Marius Victorinus, Saint A ugustin et Macrobe. Pp. 291. Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lo- vaniense, 1934. Stiff paper, 18 belgas.

DR. WILLMS, who is a pupil of Karl Reinhardt, has set himself the task of tracing the 'Umwandlungen' to which the Platonic concept of imitation was subjected in the Hellenistic world. Such ' Begriffsgeschichte' can throw a par- ticularly penetrating light upon the welter of intermingling traditions, shift- ing emotional foci, and slowly changing habits of thought, whose collective re- sultant we call the mind of a period; and Dr. Willms keeps this wider pur- pose clearly in view. In the present instalment of his work, after briefly examining the usage of e~lcv and kin- dred terms in Plato and adding some interesting notes (which would bear expansion) on the modification of the Platonic doctrine under Aristotelian and Stoic influences, he turns to the oriental conception of a mediator, subordinate god or primal Man, who is e1KOv OeoU, and illustrates this from post-exilian Judaism, the Hermetica, and Pauline Christianity. The remainder of the book is concerned with the blending of these two traditions in Philo, for whom practically everything, spiritual as well as material, is an 'image' of something else. In his general view of Philo the author follows Brehier, steering a judi- cious middle course between the 'gre- cizing' interpretation of Leisegang and the extreme 'orientalism' of Reitzen-

stein's school; but he stresses the fact that Philo's world-picture is a genuine creation expressive of a new religious attitude, not simply an eclectic jumble of mutually inconsistent 'sources.' We are promised a continuation dealing with the significance of delKv in Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism.

The author of Plotin et l'Occident ex- presses a modest hope that it 'may perhaps serve as a foundation for the central chapter' of the still unwritten history of Neoplatonism in the Latin West. He has examined carefully the knowledge of Plotinus shown by the four authors named in the title, and the manner in which they use it, together with some passing references in other Latin writers. Rightly stressing the importance of actual citations or close paraphrases of identifiable passages in the Enneads, as against vague doctrinal affiliations, he has produced a sound and valuable piece of work, which pro- vides a needed corrective to various ill-grounded speculations recently put forward in this field. The following are the main conclusions reached:

(I) The account of Plotinus' death in Firmicus Maternus does not require us to postulate (with Oppermann) an otherwise unknown Vita Plotini by Eu- stochius: Firmicus used Porphyry's narrative and embroidered on it.

(2) An examination of the adversus A rium of Victorinus shows that, whether he translated the Enneads or not, he had certainly studied them closely and steeped himself in the technicalities of the Plotinian system.

(3) Augustine's statement in the de Beata Vita that he had 'read a very few of the essays of Plotinus' is vin- dicated against the contentions of Theiler, that he had read none, and of Nbrregaard and others, that he had

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