360 T H E C L A S S I CA L R E V I E W

he wonders, ‘libertas for whom?’ (p. 302 on 58.12.4). In the appearance of pseudo-Drusus,
he adduces modern parallels, including sightings of Martin Mormann, Lord Lucan and
Elvis (pp. 340–1 on 58.25.1).
M.’s Dio adopts ‘the persona of the critical historian, reporting a range of views, while
delivering his own judgement’ (p. 116). Although Tiberius drives the narrative, the historian
also records moments where elites transgress the expectations of their social class (e.g.
57.14.3), and takes an interest in high-status senatorial objects like the skimpodia (p. 229
on 57.17.6). As a possible sufferer of gout, he is attentive to those afflicted (p. 228 on
57.17.4), and he has an interest in trivial details (57.13.2; 58.19.2). Speeches and folkloric
anecdotes provide opportunities for Dio to draw out broader themes (cf. p. 320 on 58.19.3–
4; p. 256 on 57.21.5–7 [Xiph.]). Yet, the historian can also lump too many events together,
leaving an impression of sloppiness, confusion and possible historical mistakes (e.g. p. 331
on 58.21.4).
Dio’s focus on the emperor means that his account is fundamentally different from
Tacitus. Where possible, M. introduces each year with a chart comparing the two historians.
Dio espouses similar themes as Tacitus, but rarely deviates from res internae and does not
have Tacitus’ extended dramatic scenes. His account of affairs in Parthia in AD 35 is so
condensed as to be ‘barely intelligible’ (p. 342). In his impressionistic representation of
the aftermath of Sejanus’ execution Dio is ‘the anti-Tacitus’ (p. 306 on 58.14.1–16.7).
Book 58 culminates in an ‘anticlimactic anodyne obituary’ of Tiberius, and Dio artfully
closes with the name of Gaius, the subject of the next book (p. 352 on 58.28.5).
In four appendices M. continues his discussions of Dio’s literary career, the chronology
of August–October AD 14, the two meetings of the senate in September of AD 14 and the
family of Tiberius. The events of AD 14 return to the central historical inquiry at the
opening of Book 57: why Tiberius delayed in accepting the principate. The volume
ends with an extensive bibliography and indexes. It is difficult to imagine anything missing
from this commentary, which is sure to become standard.

Brandeis University CAITLIN GILLESPIE

cgillespie@brandeis.edu

ASPECTS OF OPPIAN’S HALIEUTICA

K N E E B O N E ( E . ) Oppian’s Halieutica. Charting a Didactic Epic.
Pp. xii + 455. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Cased,
£90, US$120. ISBN: 978-1-108-84083-5.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X21001219

Anton Maria Salvini, the highly successful translator of Oppian’s Halieutica (1728), wrote
in the dedication note addressed to Prince Eugene of Savoy: ‘[Oppian’s] style is florid and
smooth, yet dense and firm. There is some fuzziness and rawness in the poem, but after a
bit of effort you come out onto a beautiful plain where – so to speak – the poetic steeds
rejoice. So let the reader not be afraid’ (my translation). The recipient of K.’s book
must be prepared for a similar reading experience.
Generally, it offers a literary analysis of the Halieutica, a major didactic poem written
in the age of the Antonines. In this book K. develops some ideas and thoughts presented by
her in several other pieces devoted to the Halieutica; incidentally, I do not understand what
the reason is behind a striking self-omission in the bibliography, where her important

The Classical Review 71.2 360–362 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
on behalf of The Classical Association
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 T H E C L A S S I CA L R E V I E W 361
article published in Ramus 37 (2008), setting new directions in the studies of imperial
didactic epic art, is not mentioned. Here she has decided to elaborate first of all upon
the issues concerning the literary effect of the creative confrontation of different epic
models in Oppian’s piscatorial hexameters as well as upon the imperial context of the
Oppianic representation of the relationship between human and animal life.
The book consists of four main parts. In Part 1, ‘Didactic Epic’, K. raises the important
and broad issue of the nature of the ‘didacticism’ of ancient poetry. She shows that the
commonly held view of the primarily educational aim of the didactic genre must be redefined
by modifying some key functional parameters of this epic category. The incorporation of
pleasurable elements into the texture of didactic poems has fundamental consequences for
defining this subgenre. The chapter includes an analysis of several passages of the
Halieutica and shows in a number of ways that the imperial epoch allowed these aspects
of didactic epic to flourish. This part of the book contains a rich account of ancient didactic
epic, wonderfully detailed and well documented. The same can be said about the sections of
this part, the heart of which is the dynamics of intertextuality in Oppian. They provide a new
perspective on the sophistication of the author of the Halieutica in situating his work within a
tradition of (as K. says, p. 86) ‘reflecting on epistemological issues relating to the scope
of one’s subject matter’. The material presented in this section clearly points to the
self-consciousness of Oppian, who rewrites themes (e.g. of ease and toil, knowledge, and
concealment) occurring in the works of earlier didactic poets.
The main objective of Part 2, ‘Morality at Sea’, is to show – in the three studies,
devoted respectively to the concepts of guile, greed and lust as presented in Oppian’s
poem – how heroic epic models are used in the Halieutica to expand the didactic paradigm.
One can say that the Halieutica is treated by K. as an example of generic confluence
(however, she does not define the poem in this way, nor does she use the term ‘generic
enrichment’ proposed by S. Harrison [2007] with reference to the phenomenon of the
inclusion into a literary genre of elements belonging to another generic model). This
chapter of the book provides lively and often insightful readings of selected passages of
Oppian’s poem, which are sophisticated revitalisations of Homeric topoi. Adapted for a
new marine environment, they acquire fresh strength and, operating between the literal
and the literary, become tools for the critical assessment of human emotions and desires.
Part 3, ‘Humans and Animals’, furthers this trajectory. K. examines the many-sided
anthropomorphism, which is the fundamental concept of presenting the close relationship
between human and non-human animals in the Halieutica. A wealth of material emphasising
a constant similarity between sea-creatures and humans (above all in the ethical and erotic
spheres) is subtly scholarly and at the same time delightfully presented. The culmination
of this highly revealing book, which on no page desists from keeping the reader interested
in what the author has to say next, is Part 4: ‘The World is a Sea’, where it is not so
much the brilliant analyses of the narratives concerning catching stupendous sea-monsters
that impress the reader already accustomed to such erudite disquisitions, supported by
carefully balanced arguments, but rather how K. deals with the problem of the relationship
between the Halieutica and Oppian’s contemporary world. K.’s treatment of the poem as
Oppian’s contribution to discussions of the importance of concord, justice and peace, popular
in interpretative debates of his time, as well as a work evoking the idea of the limitations of
human knowledge and power, which, in turn, is closely related to Oppian’s vision of the
Roman empire under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, is convincing and brings a fresh
perspective to our understanding of the Halieutica. Although some passages discussed in this
part of the book have recently received different, not groundless, as it seems, interpretations
(see e.g. my paper on imperial fishing in the vivarium, Hal. 1.56–72, Sem. Rom. 9 [2020]),

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 362 T H E C L A S S I CA L R E V I E W

all of them fit into the same current trend of a broader research field concerned with imperial
Greek literature and culture.
Although K. notes that ‘“literary” approaches to the Halieutica are still in their infancy’
(p. 9), the book is supplemented by a long list of works cited (pp. 412–49; while the
majority of the several hundred listed items directly pertain to problems examined within
the book, some are very loosely related to its topic). Nevertheless, I would expect an author
so well versed in literature on the Halieutica to include pieces such as A. Abritta’s article
on the rhythmic coherence in Oppian’s hexameter (An. Filol. Clás. 29 [2016]), which
examines interesting aspects of the dialogue with the Hellenistic tradition, and
E. Kurek’s instructive article on large sea-creatures (Scripta Classica 7 [2010]), to mention
only two.
An attentive reader of this review may be waiting for an explanation of what lies behind
my reference to Salvini’s expression ‘some fuzziness and rawness’ in K.’s book, which is
by any standard worth recommending. I note two (perhaps minor) deficiencies. First,
although she does not seem to share the opinion, expressed by some, about la mort de
l’auteur and devotes a bit of attention to the poet’s biographical tradition (which she
finds ‘interesting in its own right’, p. 5), in a book focused on the poem she could go
further in interpreting certain details (e.g. the motif of the generosity of the emperor
who gave the poet one gold coin for each line, recurring later as a means of propaganda
in Sozomen’s The Ecclesiastical History) that might highlight and make more acute
what she writes about ‘the imaginative richness’ of the poem that ‘impressed readers
from antiquity onwards’ (p. 7). Secondly, it may be hard for non-Greek readers to share
K.’s enthusiasm for this splendid poem, marked with aesthetic refinement, including
rhythmical aspects and those connected with word order, when they have a prose
translation (which always has its own rules) before their eyes.
Oppian’s poem, smelling, as T. Bekker-Nielsen (Ancient History Matters [2002], p. 30)
elegantly said, of the desk, not of the deck, has received – thanks to K.’s book – an
appropriate, valuable study. It meticulously charts the contours of didactic epic in a new
way and will provoke further research on the field of Greek poetry of the imperial Age.

Adam Mickiewicz University KRYSTYNA BARTOL

krbartol@amu.edu.pl

MISCELLANISM
H E A T H ( J . M . F . ) Clement of Alexandria and the Shaping of Christian
Literary Practice. Miscellany and the Transformation of Greco-Roman
Writing. Pp. viii + 428. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Cased, £75, US$99.99. ISBN: 978-1-108-84342-3.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X21001207

This book explores the context and function of Clement’s ‘miscellanism’, a literary
practice exhibited in his Stromateis. The topic has occupied Clementine scholarship for
over a century. The most thorough examination to date is A. Méhat’s magisterial Étude
sur les ‘Stromates’ de Clément d’Alexandrie (1966). Méhat (pp. 99–106) distinguishes
three domains of miscellanist literature: history (including chronologies and catalogues),
grammar (language and literature) and philosophy. In his view, works bearing the most
obvious semblance to Stromateis (Gellius’ Attic Nights, Pliny’s Natural History,

The Classical Review 71.2 362–364 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
on behalf of The Classical Association
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