This article elucidates a disturbing enigma of Plato’s thought: the idea that the happiest homose... more This article elucidates a disturbing enigma of Plato’s thought: the idea that the happiest homosexual lovers are the ones that do not consummate their love. An analysis of the central speech of the Phaedrus (243e-257b) reveals that Plato expressed that idea in the form of the paradox of ‘madness restrained’. It is a love without sex because the soul of the philosophic lover, upon being reminded of the Form of Beauty by the sight of the beloved, is rationally possessed by the Form of Sôphrosunê (“Self-Restraint”), which induces, instead of bodily pleasure, the divine practice of care. In order to justify such altruistic abstinence, the dialogue disambiguates sôphrosunê in a series of agonistic speeches, and thus subtly illustrates how this ancient Greek value could be variously coopted in the field of erotics. I conclude that despite a prominent strand of interpretation, Plato’s rhetorical paradox amounts to not much more than a sublimation of repression, and that this view was probably well received by his aristocratic audience because it is opposed to the liberal, but decadent sexuality of the Athenian democratic ethos.
Translation into Spanish of Plato's dialogue on religion, accompanied with introduction, bibliogr... more Translation into Spanish of Plato's dialogue on religion, accompanied with introduction, bibliography, and footnotes. Plato's portrayal of Socrates' religious views makes intelligible the charge of impiety leveled against him by Athenian democracy. Service to wise, beneficent, unanimous gods has no precedents in Greek religion: the all too human gods of Greek mythology and cult have become essentially 'moral.' The seer Euthyphro is portrayed as an eccentric representative of Athenian popular religion: his humanitarianism for a low member of society lies in stark contrast to Socrates' aristocratic concern for filial piety.
Sōphrosynē is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, histo... more Sōphrosynē is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, history, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behavior. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasizes its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioral or emotional aspects. Drawing on linguistic, anthropological, and psychological studies of archaic Greek culture, I here propose a new etymological understanding of sōphrosynē that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behavior. I find support in the language of Homer and hitherto neglected evidence from personal names beginning in Sō-. I conclude that sōphrosynē is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioral achievement: namely, the verbal action of ‘saving the mind’. This prototype accounts for both the word’s meanings ‘sanity’ and ‘self-control’: the self-controlled person ‘saves her mind’ (action), whereas the sane person ‘has a safe mind’ (state). Each meaning represents, so to speak, different sides of the same linguistic coin.
The results of this investigation are far-reaching. By abandoning an intellectualist account of the Greek word sōphrosynē, we are in a better position to understand the idea or value denoted by it. The interpretation ‘soundness of mind’ is quite symptomatic of our own cultural distance: it seems to be dictated by a culture that gives preference to the cognitive or intellectual (‘mind’) and sees it as susceptible of health (‘soundness’). In other words, our common sense has freely assumed that the archaic Greeks shared the same model of the mind as we do. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that they located mental activity not in the head but in the chest: more specifically, in the lungs and the heart. This pulmo-cardiac theory of the mind is based on the observation that a variation in mental activity corresponds to a variation in respiration. Since breath moves briskly within those organs in moments of emotional unrest or cognitive indecision, it was identified with the thought-impulse of the thinking and feeling person. If so, the word sōphrosynē testifies to a holistic conception of human and animal consciousness, where body and mind are regarded as such an interdependent unity that ‘self-control’ entails a real psychosomatic achievement.
Society for Classical Studies, Hesperides Panel, Chicago, 2024
The anonymous poem Discurso en loor de la poesía (“Discourse in Praise of Poetry”) has cultural t... more The anonymous poem Discurso en loor de la poesía (“Discourse in Praise of Poetry”) has cultural transference at its core. First, the work was published as the prologue to Diego Mexía de Fernangil’s translation of Ovid’s Heroides (Sevilla, 1608). Second, though it praises the Spanish translator and does not preface Ovid’s poem, it transfers the anonymous female lyric voice from the margins to the center: like an Atlas of sorts, the heroic task of praise is set on “a woman’s spider-like shoulders” (“ombros de muger que son d’araña”, 54; cf. 608-9; Perilli 2004-2005; del Barco 2017). Third, the Discurso is said to be composed by “una señora principal d’este Reino”, a lady of the Spanish realm who was active in the Viceroyalty of Peru (“Testigo me serás, sagrada Lima”, 520; cf. 22: “Aquí, Ninfas d’el Sur, venid ligeras”). Probably, rather than a Peruvian criolla, she was a Spanish noble linked to Mexía’s Academia Antártica, and like its members, engaged in the transatlantic mission of culturally colonizing the new Spanish territory (Vinatea 2021). Accordingly, she claims that just as Mars gave the Spaniard “his sword to terrorize the pagans” (“su espada, porque el solo | fuesse espanto, i orror de los Paganos”), so Apollo gave him “his quill to fly from the ancient axis to our new pole” (“su pluma, para que bolara | d’el exe antiguo a nuestro nuevo Polo”, 469-74).
This sword-quill analogy is striking. I use it to argue that Latin poetry inspired in ‘La Anónima’ the idea that the poet, the heroic maker, eminently has a civilizing mission (Fernández 2017). As the god who gives the inspiration of poetry and builds the walls of culture, Apollo was said to be a translation of Christ in Spanish poetics-treatises (cf. 742-56). Most influential to the Discurso’s ideology was the treatise Cisne de Apolo (Carvallo 1602), through which Horatian poetics was filtered (Cornejo Polar 2000). Just as Horace claims to be the first Latin poet to transfer Aeolian song to Italian meters (princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos | deduxisse modos, C. 3.30.13-4), so ‘La Anónima’ professes to be the first woman to invoke the nymphs of the south (“la primera qu’os imploro”, 23): i.e. to transfer Latin poetry to the Spanish colony in Italian terza rima. Like Horace, she claims that the poet’s mission is to delight and to teach (“deleytar: i dotrinar”, 291; cf. A.P. 333: prodesse…aut delectare), and, as examples, she draws on the myths of Orpheus and Amphion to present divine music as a relocational force that tames “savage living” (271-9; cf. A.P. 391-401). Finally, just as Horace links Orpheus to Augustus when he conquers eastern peoples (C. 1.12.6-60), so she links the Roman poet laureate to the victor laureate who tames “bárbaras gentes” (325-330), thus legitimating the Crown and Church’s colonization of the southern pagans.
Rather than entailing an innocent Apollonian chain of transmission (31-6, 295-300; cf. C. 4.6.29-30), this Spanish laudatio absorbed the cultural agenda of the Augustan imperium, and, as such, testifies to the moral issues involved in Greco-Roman relocations.
Department of Classics and Ancient History / Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies of Australia (CCANESA), University of Sydney, 2021
[Expanded version of a paper delivered at the ASCS 2021]
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultura... more [Expanded version of a paper delivered at the ASCS 2021]
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, history, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behaviour. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasises its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioural or emotional aspects. In this paper, I propose a new etymological understanding of σωφροσύνη that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behaviour. I find support in the language of Homer and hitherto neglected evidence from personal names beginning in Σω-. I conclude that σωφροσύνη is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioural achievement: namely, the verbal action of ‘saving the mind’.
Australasian Society for Classical Studies, online, 2021
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, and phil... more Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behavior. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasizes its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioral or emotional aspects. In this paper, I offer a new etymological understanding of σωφροσύνη that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behavior. I show that σωφροσύνη is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioral achievement (‘self-control’).
I base my argument on the way compounds were understood by Greek speakers. Σώφρων is an example of a bahuvrīhi compound, in which the first member is an adjective (σῶς) and the second one a noun (φρήν). Since bahuvrīhis are typically construed as possessive compounds, σώφρων is taken to mean ‘(s)he who has a sound mind.’ However, not all bahuvrīhis were understood in antiquity as possessives. Some were understood as verbal compounds. Such is the case of the bahuvrīhis in φιλο-, where the first member was felt as a verbal element. If so, the same process might have affected the bahuvrīhis in σω-: e.g. σώφρων ‘to whom the mind is safe’ > ‘saving the mind.’ This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of personal names in Σω-. Finally, ancient etymologies support the thesis that σωφροσύνη was understood verbally (Pl. Cra. 411e-412a; Aristot. EN 6.1140b11-12). Rather than mere antiquarianism, etymology becomes a useful tool for the semantic reconstruction of this elusive Greek value.
Plato’s Charmides, set in 429 B.C., is a dialogue between Socrates, the future democratic partisa... more Plato’s Charmides, set in 429 B.C., is a dialogue between Socrates, the future democratic partisan Chaerephon and two future oligarchic politicians, Critias and Charmides, both relatives of Plato. The fact that Plato has combined in the same scenario the full spectrum of political ideologies strongly intimates that for him political history presented different shades of grey, rather than a simple dichotomy of black and white. However, scholars like Popper (1945), Davies (1971), Rhodes (1981), or Krentz (1982), have considered Socrates and his associates, particularly Plato, as partisans of an aristocratic ideology surreptitiously opposed to popular democratic tendencies. Such a scholarly view has caused a serious misrepresentation of Plato’s views on Critias. It wrongly suggests that Plato’s purpose in the Charmides is to defend Critias, remembered for being an extremist leader of the oligarchy of Thirty that violently ruled Athens after the Peloponnesian War (404 - 403 B.C.). Even if granted that Plato had a grudge against the restored democracy for putting Socrates to death, it does not follow that he wished to save his relative Critias from the democrats’ damnatio memoriae.
I contend that, on the contrary, Plato’s Charmides should be read as a critical examination of the claims made by oligarchic ideologies against democracy. First, I analyze two passages from Plato’s Apology and the pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter, and conclude that they offer compelling evidence of Socrates’ and Plato’s disapproval of the oligarchy of the Thirty. Next, I discuss four arguments that show how Plato’s criticism actually agrees with other contemporaneous accounts of the Thirty. I conclude that there are no grounds for assuming with Dušanić (2000) or Tuozzo (2011) that Plato had a “fairly positive” view of Critias. Finally, I examine Plato’s characterization of Critias in the Charmides, and conclude that he is far from being portrayed as an ideal interlocutor. I find external support for this conclusion in the pseudo-Platonic Eryxias, a dialogue that replicates the strategy of the Charmides: to criticize Critias’ claim that the aristocracy has a monopoly of knowledge. Rather than supporting a failure of an ideology, Plato draws for his readers an important lesson from history.
Slideshow for the class “Cultures and Ideas: Heroes and Heroism” at Santa Clara University, Sprin... more Slideshow for the class “Cultures and Ideas: Heroes and Heroism” at Santa Clara University, Spring 2022.
This article elucidates a disturbing enigma of Plato’s thought: the idea that the happiest homose... more This article elucidates a disturbing enigma of Plato’s thought: the idea that the happiest homosexual lovers are the ones that do not consummate their love. An analysis of the central speech of the Phaedrus (243e-257b) reveals that Plato expressed that idea in the form of the paradox of ‘madness restrained’. It is a love without sex because the soul of the philosophic lover, upon being reminded of the Form of Beauty by the sight of the beloved, is rationally possessed by the Form of Sôphrosunê (“Self-Restraint”), which induces, instead of bodily pleasure, the divine practice of care. In order to justify such altruistic abstinence, the dialogue disambiguates sôphrosunê in a series of agonistic speeches, and thus subtly illustrates how this ancient Greek value could be variously coopted in the field of erotics. I conclude that despite a prominent strand of interpretation, Plato’s rhetorical paradox amounts to not much more than a sublimation of repression, and that this view was probably well received by his aristocratic audience because it is opposed to the liberal, but decadent sexuality of the Athenian democratic ethos.
Translation into Spanish of Plato's dialogue on religion, accompanied with introduction, bibliogr... more Translation into Spanish of Plato's dialogue on religion, accompanied with introduction, bibliography, and footnotes. Plato's portrayal of Socrates' religious views makes intelligible the charge of impiety leveled against him by Athenian democracy. Service to wise, beneficent, unanimous gods has no precedents in Greek religion: the all too human gods of Greek mythology and cult have become essentially 'moral.' The seer Euthyphro is portrayed as an eccentric representative of Athenian popular religion: his humanitarianism for a low member of society lies in stark contrast to Socrates' aristocratic concern for filial piety.
Sōphrosynē is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, histo... more Sōphrosynē is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, history, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behavior. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasizes its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioral or emotional aspects. Drawing on linguistic, anthropological, and psychological studies of archaic Greek culture, I here propose a new etymological understanding of sōphrosynē that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behavior. I find support in the language of Homer and hitherto neglected evidence from personal names beginning in Sō-. I conclude that sōphrosynē is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioral achievement: namely, the verbal action of ‘saving the mind’. This prototype accounts for both the word’s meanings ‘sanity’ and ‘self-control’: the self-controlled person ‘saves her mind’ (action), whereas the sane person ‘has a safe mind’ (state). Each meaning represents, so to speak, different sides of the same linguistic coin.
The results of this investigation are far-reaching. By abandoning an intellectualist account of the Greek word sōphrosynē, we are in a better position to understand the idea or value denoted by it. The interpretation ‘soundness of mind’ is quite symptomatic of our own cultural distance: it seems to be dictated by a culture that gives preference to the cognitive or intellectual (‘mind’) and sees it as susceptible of health (‘soundness’). In other words, our common sense has freely assumed that the archaic Greeks shared the same model of the mind as we do. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that they located mental activity not in the head but in the chest: more specifically, in the lungs and the heart. This pulmo-cardiac theory of the mind is based on the observation that a variation in mental activity corresponds to a variation in respiration. Since breath moves briskly within those organs in moments of emotional unrest or cognitive indecision, it was identified with the thought-impulse of the thinking and feeling person. If so, the word sōphrosynē testifies to a holistic conception of human and animal consciousness, where body and mind are regarded as such an interdependent unity that ‘self-control’ entails a real psychosomatic achievement.
Society for Classical Studies, Hesperides Panel, Chicago, 2024
The anonymous poem Discurso en loor de la poesía (“Discourse in Praise of Poetry”) has cultural t... more The anonymous poem Discurso en loor de la poesía (“Discourse in Praise of Poetry”) has cultural transference at its core. First, the work was published as the prologue to Diego Mexía de Fernangil’s translation of Ovid’s Heroides (Sevilla, 1608). Second, though it praises the Spanish translator and does not preface Ovid’s poem, it transfers the anonymous female lyric voice from the margins to the center: like an Atlas of sorts, the heroic task of praise is set on “a woman’s spider-like shoulders” (“ombros de muger que son d’araña”, 54; cf. 608-9; Perilli 2004-2005; del Barco 2017). Third, the Discurso is said to be composed by “una señora principal d’este Reino”, a lady of the Spanish realm who was active in the Viceroyalty of Peru (“Testigo me serás, sagrada Lima”, 520; cf. 22: “Aquí, Ninfas d’el Sur, venid ligeras”). Probably, rather than a Peruvian criolla, she was a Spanish noble linked to Mexía’s Academia Antártica, and like its members, engaged in the transatlantic mission of culturally colonizing the new Spanish territory (Vinatea 2021). Accordingly, she claims that just as Mars gave the Spaniard “his sword to terrorize the pagans” (“su espada, porque el solo | fuesse espanto, i orror de los Paganos”), so Apollo gave him “his quill to fly from the ancient axis to our new pole” (“su pluma, para que bolara | d’el exe antiguo a nuestro nuevo Polo”, 469-74).
This sword-quill analogy is striking. I use it to argue that Latin poetry inspired in ‘La Anónima’ the idea that the poet, the heroic maker, eminently has a civilizing mission (Fernández 2017). As the god who gives the inspiration of poetry and builds the walls of culture, Apollo was said to be a translation of Christ in Spanish poetics-treatises (cf. 742-56). Most influential to the Discurso’s ideology was the treatise Cisne de Apolo (Carvallo 1602), through which Horatian poetics was filtered (Cornejo Polar 2000). Just as Horace claims to be the first Latin poet to transfer Aeolian song to Italian meters (princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos | deduxisse modos, C. 3.30.13-4), so ‘La Anónima’ professes to be the first woman to invoke the nymphs of the south (“la primera qu’os imploro”, 23): i.e. to transfer Latin poetry to the Spanish colony in Italian terza rima. Like Horace, she claims that the poet’s mission is to delight and to teach (“deleytar: i dotrinar”, 291; cf. A.P. 333: prodesse…aut delectare), and, as examples, she draws on the myths of Orpheus and Amphion to present divine music as a relocational force that tames “savage living” (271-9; cf. A.P. 391-401). Finally, just as Horace links Orpheus to Augustus when he conquers eastern peoples (C. 1.12.6-60), so she links the Roman poet laureate to the victor laureate who tames “bárbaras gentes” (325-330), thus legitimating the Crown and Church’s colonization of the southern pagans.
Rather than entailing an innocent Apollonian chain of transmission (31-6, 295-300; cf. C. 4.6.29-30), this Spanish laudatio absorbed the cultural agenda of the Augustan imperium, and, as such, testifies to the moral issues involved in Greco-Roman relocations.
Department of Classics and Ancient History / Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies of Australia (CCANESA), University of Sydney, 2021
[Expanded version of a paper delivered at the ASCS 2021]
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultura... more [Expanded version of a paper delivered at the ASCS 2021]
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, history, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behaviour. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasises its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioural or emotional aspects. In this paper, I propose a new etymological understanding of σωφροσύνη that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behaviour. I find support in the language of Homer and hitherto neglected evidence from personal names beginning in Σω-. I conclude that σωφροσύνη is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioural achievement: namely, the verbal action of ‘saving the mind’.
Australasian Society for Classical Studies, online, 2021
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, and phil... more Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behavior. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasizes its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioral or emotional aspects. In this paper, I offer a new etymological understanding of σωφροσύνη that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behavior. I show that σωφροσύνη is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioral achievement (‘self-control’).
I base my argument on the way compounds were understood by Greek speakers. Σώφρων is an example of a bahuvrīhi compound, in which the first member is an adjective (σῶς) and the second one a noun (φρήν). Since bahuvrīhis are typically construed as possessive compounds, σώφρων is taken to mean ‘(s)he who has a sound mind.’ However, not all bahuvrīhis were understood in antiquity as possessives. Some were understood as verbal compounds. Such is the case of the bahuvrīhis in φιλο-, where the first member was felt as a verbal element. If so, the same process might have affected the bahuvrīhis in σω-: e.g. σώφρων ‘to whom the mind is safe’ > ‘saving the mind.’ This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of personal names in Σω-. Finally, ancient etymologies support the thesis that σωφροσύνη was understood verbally (Pl. Cra. 411e-412a; Aristot. EN 6.1140b11-12). Rather than mere antiquarianism, etymology becomes a useful tool for the semantic reconstruction of this elusive Greek value.
Plato’s Charmides, set in 429 B.C., is a dialogue between Socrates, the future democratic partisa... more Plato’s Charmides, set in 429 B.C., is a dialogue between Socrates, the future democratic partisan Chaerephon and two future oligarchic politicians, Critias and Charmides, both relatives of Plato. The fact that Plato has combined in the same scenario the full spectrum of political ideologies strongly intimates that for him political history presented different shades of grey, rather than a simple dichotomy of black and white. However, scholars like Popper (1945), Davies (1971), Rhodes (1981), or Krentz (1982), have considered Socrates and his associates, particularly Plato, as partisans of an aristocratic ideology surreptitiously opposed to popular democratic tendencies. Such a scholarly view has caused a serious misrepresentation of Plato’s views on Critias. It wrongly suggests that Plato’s purpose in the Charmides is to defend Critias, remembered for being an extremist leader of the oligarchy of Thirty that violently ruled Athens after the Peloponnesian War (404 - 403 B.C.). Even if granted that Plato had a grudge against the restored democracy for putting Socrates to death, it does not follow that he wished to save his relative Critias from the democrats’ damnatio memoriae.
I contend that, on the contrary, Plato’s Charmides should be read as a critical examination of the claims made by oligarchic ideologies against democracy. First, I analyze two passages from Plato’s Apology and the pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter, and conclude that they offer compelling evidence of Socrates’ and Plato’s disapproval of the oligarchy of the Thirty. Next, I discuss four arguments that show how Plato’s criticism actually agrees with other contemporaneous accounts of the Thirty. I conclude that there are no grounds for assuming with Dušanić (2000) or Tuozzo (2011) that Plato had a “fairly positive” view of Critias. Finally, I examine Plato’s characterization of Critias in the Charmides, and conclude that he is far from being portrayed as an ideal interlocutor. I find external support for this conclusion in the pseudo-Platonic Eryxias, a dialogue that replicates the strategy of the Charmides: to criticize Critias’ claim that the aristocracy has a monopoly of knowledge. Rather than supporting a failure of an ideology, Plato draws for his readers an important lesson from history.
Slideshow for the class “Cultures and Ideas: Heroes and Heroism” at Santa Clara University, Sprin... more Slideshow for the class “Cultures and Ideas: Heroes and Heroism” at Santa Clara University, Spring 2022.
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The results of this investigation are far-reaching. By abandoning an intellectualist account of the Greek word sōphrosynē, we are in a better position to understand the idea or value denoted by it. The interpretation ‘soundness of mind’ is quite symptomatic of our own cultural distance: it seems to be dictated by a culture that gives preference to the cognitive or intellectual (‘mind’) and sees it as susceptible of health (‘soundness’). In other words, our common sense has freely assumed that the archaic Greeks shared the same model of the mind as we do. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that they located mental activity not in the head but in the chest: more specifically, in the lungs and the heart. This pulmo-cardiac theory of the mind is based on the observation that a variation in mental activity corresponds to a variation in respiration. Since breath moves briskly within those organs in moments of emotional unrest or cognitive indecision, it was identified with the thought-impulse of the thinking and feeling person. If so, the word sōphrosynē testifies to a holistic conception of human and animal consciousness, where body and mind are regarded as such an interdependent unity that ‘self-control’ entails a real psychosomatic achievement.
This sword-quill analogy is striking. I use it to argue that Latin poetry inspired in ‘La Anónima’ the idea that the poet, the heroic maker, eminently has a civilizing mission (Fernández 2017). As the god who gives the inspiration of poetry and builds the walls of culture, Apollo was said to be a translation of Christ in Spanish poetics-treatises (cf. 742-56). Most influential to the Discurso’s ideology was the treatise Cisne de Apolo (Carvallo 1602), through which Horatian poetics was filtered (Cornejo Polar 2000). Just as Horace claims to be the first Latin poet to transfer Aeolian song to Italian meters (princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos | deduxisse modos, C. 3.30.13-4), so ‘La Anónima’ professes to be the first woman to invoke the nymphs of the south (“la primera qu’os imploro”, 23): i.e. to transfer Latin poetry to the Spanish colony in Italian terza rima. Like Horace, she claims that the poet’s mission is to delight and to teach (“deleytar: i dotrinar”, 291; cf. A.P. 333: prodesse…aut delectare), and, as examples, she draws on the myths of Orpheus and Amphion to present divine music as a relocational force that tames “savage living” (271-9; cf. A.P. 391-401). Finally, just as Horace links Orpheus to Augustus when he conquers eastern peoples (C. 1.12.6-60), so she links the Roman poet laureate to the victor laureate who tames “bárbaras gentes” (325-330), thus legitimating the Crown and Church’s colonization of the southern pagans.
Rather than entailing an innocent Apollonian chain of transmission (31-6, 295-300; cf. C. 4.6.29-30), this Spanish laudatio absorbed the cultural agenda of the Augustan imperium, and, as such, testifies to the moral issues involved in Greco-Roman relocations.
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, history, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behaviour. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasises its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioural or emotional aspects. In this paper, I propose a new etymological understanding of σωφροσύνη that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behaviour. I find support in the language of Homer and hitherto neglected evidence from personal names beginning in Σω-. I conclude that σωφροσύνη is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioural achievement: namely, the verbal action of ‘saving the mind’.
I base my argument on the way compounds were understood by Greek speakers. Σώφρων is an example of a bahuvrīhi compound, in which the first member is an adjective (σῶς) and the second one a noun (φρήν). Since bahuvrīhis are typically construed as possessive compounds, σώφρων is taken to mean ‘(s)he who has a sound mind.’ However, not all bahuvrīhis were understood in antiquity as possessives. Some were understood as verbal compounds. Such is the case of the bahuvrīhis in φιλο-, where the first member was felt as a verbal element. If so, the same process might have affected the bahuvrīhis in σω-: e.g. σώφρων ‘to whom the mind is safe’ > ‘saving the mind.’ This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of personal names in Σω-. Finally, ancient etymologies support the thesis that σωφροσύνη was understood verbally (Pl. Cra. 411e-412a; Aristot. EN 6.1140b11-12). Rather than mere antiquarianism, etymology becomes a useful tool for the semantic reconstruction of this elusive Greek value.
I contend that, on the contrary, Plato’s Charmides should be read as a critical examination of the claims made by oligarchic ideologies against democracy. First, I analyze two passages from Plato’s Apology and the pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter, and conclude that they offer compelling evidence of Socrates’ and Plato’s disapproval of the oligarchy of the Thirty. Next, I discuss four arguments that show how Plato’s criticism actually agrees with other contemporaneous accounts of the Thirty. I conclude that there are no grounds for assuming with Dušanić (2000) or Tuozzo (2011) that Plato had a “fairly positive” view of Critias. Finally, I examine Plato’s characterization of Critias in the Charmides, and conclude that he is far from being portrayed as an ideal interlocutor. I find external support for this conclusion in the pseudo-Platonic Eryxias, a dialogue that replicates the strategy of the Charmides: to criticize Critias’ claim that the aristocracy has a monopoly of knowledge. Rather than supporting a failure of an ideology, Plato draws for his readers an important lesson from history.
The results of this investigation are far-reaching. By abandoning an intellectualist account of the Greek word sōphrosynē, we are in a better position to understand the idea or value denoted by it. The interpretation ‘soundness of mind’ is quite symptomatic of our own cultural distance: it seems to be dictated by a culture that gives preference to the cognitive or intellectual (‘mind’) and sees it as susceptible of health (‘soundness’). In other words, our common sense has freely assumed that the archaic Greeks shared the same model of the mind as we do. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that they located mental activity not in the head but in the chest: more specifically, in the lungs and the heart. This pulmo-cardiac theory of the mind is based on the observation that a variation in mental activity corresponds to a variation in respiration. Since breath moves briskly within those organs in moments of emotional unrest or cognitive indecision, it was identified with the thought-impulse of the thinking and feeling person. If so, the word sōphrosynē testifies to a holistic conception of human and animal consciousness, where body and mind are regarded as such an interdependent unity that ‘self-control’ entails a real psychosomatic achievement.
This sword-quill analogy is striking. I use it to argue that Latin poetry inspired in ‘La Anónima’ the idea that the poet, the heroic maker, eminently has a civilizing mission (Fernández 2017). As the god who gives the inspiration of poetry and builds the walls of culture, Apollo was said to be a translation of Christ in Spanish poetics-treatises (cf. 742-56). Most influential to the Discurso’s ideology was the treatise Cisne de Apolo (Carvallo 1602), through which Horatian poetics was filtered (Cornejo Polar 2000). Just as Horace claims to be the first Latin poet to transfer Aeolian song to Italian meters (princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos | deduxisse modos, C. 3.30.13-4), so ‘La Anónima’ professes to be the first woman to invoke the nymphs of the south (“la primera qu’os imploro”, 23): i.e. to transfer Latin poetry to the Spanish colony in Italian terza rima. Like Horace, she claims that the poet’s mission is to delight and to teach (“deleytar: i dotrinar”, 291; cf. A.P. 333: prodesse…aut delectare), and, as examples, she draws on the myths of Orpheus and Amphion to present divine music as a relocational force that tames “savage living” (271-9; cf. A.P. 391-401). Finally, just as Horace links Orpheus to Augustus when he conquers eastern peoples (C. 1.12.6-60), so she links the Roman poet laureate to the victor laureate who tames “bárbaras gentes” (325-330), thus legitimating the Crown and Church’s colonization of the southern pagans.
Rather than entailing an innocent Apollonian chain of transmission (31-6, 295-300; cf. C. 4.6.29-30), this Spanish laudatio absorbed the cultural agenda of the Augustan imperium, and, as such, testifies to the moral issues involved in Greco-Roman relocations.
Σωφροσύνη is a word with deep cultural significance. Genres as diverse as epic, tragedy, history, and philosophy speak about it as an ideal of human behaviour. Yet, the traditional etymology (‘soundness of mind’) overemphasises its cognitive or intellectual aspects, at the expense of its behavioural or emotional aspects. In this paper, I propose a new etymological understanding of σωφροσύνη that also accounts for its ancient association with emotions and behaviour. I find support in the language of Homer and hitherto neglected evidence from personal names beginning in Σω-. I conclude that σωφροσύνη is best explained not as a normal cognitive state (‘sanity’), but as a cognitive-behavioural achievement: namely, the verbal action of ‘saving the mind’.
I base my argument on the way compounds were understood by Greek speakers. Σώφρων is an example of a bahuvrīhi compound, in which the first member is an adjective (σῶς) and the second one a noun (φρήν). Since bahuvrīhis are typically construed as possessive compounds, σώφρων is taken to mean ‘(s)he who has a sound mind.’ However, not all bahuvrīhis were understood in antiquity as possessives. Some were understood as verbal compounds. Such is the case of the bahuvrīhis in φιλο-, where the first member was felt as a verbal element. If so, the same process might have affected the bahuvrīhis in σω-: e.g. σώφρων ‘to whom the mind is safe’ > ‘saving the mind.’ This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of personal names in Σω-. Finally, ancient etymologies support the thesis that σωφροσύνη was understood verbally (Pl. Cra. 411e-412a; Aristot. EN 6.1140b11-12). Rather than mere antiquarianism, etymology becomes a useful tool for the semantic reconstruction of this elusive Greek value.
I contend that, on the contrary, Plato’s Charmides should be read as a critical examination of the claims made by oligarchic ideologies against democracy. First, I analyze two passages from Plato’s Apology and the pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter, and conclude that they offer compelling evidence of Socrates’ and Plato’s disapproval of the oligarchy of the Thirty. Next, I discuss four arguments that show how Plato’s criticism actually agrees with other contemporaneous accounts of the Thirty. I conclude that there are no grounds for assuming with Dušanić (2000) or Tuozzo (2011) that Plato had a “fairly positive” view of Critias. Finally, I examine Plato’s characterization of Critias in the Charmides, and conclude that he is far from being portrayed as an ideal interlocutor. I find external support for this conclusion in the pseudo-Platonic Eryxias, a dialogue that replicates the strategy of the Charmides: to criticize Critias’ claim that the aristocracy has a monopoly of knowledge. Rather than supporting a failure of an ideology, Plato draws for his readers an important lesson from history.