Comets (JT) Ramsey A Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 BC to AD 400.

522                Bactria, in particular the irrigation system, had been put in place before the Hellenistic period and were continued by the Greeks, who used the older technology and left local authorities in place to carry out the work. Salles considers the role of the Arabian peninsula in Seleucid trade and, interestingly, sees an Indian rather than Arabian origin for the incense received from the Persian Gulf and a military rather than commercial purpose for the Arabian ‘Alexander’ coinage. Schmid deals with the generally good relationship between the Nabataeans and the Seleucids, less troubled than that with the Ptolemies, because of lack of competition for the Arabian long-distance trade. Zayadine concentrates on the Tobiad estate in Trans-Jordan. The topic of Seleucid colonisation deserved more attention than in the article of Duprey Gopaul on Seleucid Syria, since the new city foundations had a considerable economic impact everywhere. Whether there was any signiμcant forced migration of populations is to be questioned. The two conferences and resulting book, for which the organisers, editors and Topoi are to be congratulated, provide an excellent overall picture of the Seleucid empire, which, as Descat puts it in his closing remarks, e¶ectively destroys all ideas of its feebleness. What is now required is further research that will improve our understanding of its strength. G.G. APERGHIS [email protected] University College London COMETS R ( J. T. ) A Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400. (Syllecta Classica 17.) Pp. iv + 242, ills. Iowa: University of Iowa, 2006. Paper. No ISBN. doi:10.1017/S0009840X08000978 In this catalogue, R. presents the comets, the possible comets and the non-comets which appeared between 500 B.C. and 400 A.D. The book begins with an introduction in which R. presents and discusses the sources on which he draws in compiling his catalogue. The most recent are also the most important: Gundel (W. Gundel. ‘Kometen’, RE 11.1 [1921], 1143–93) and Barrett (A.A. Barrett, ‘Observations of Comets in Greek and Roman Sources before A.D. 410’, Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 72 [1978], 81–106). There are two main di¶erences between these and R.’s book: μrst, R. presents 73 numbered celestial objects – 51 (possible) comets and 22 non-comets – whereas Gundel treats 62 and Barrett 65; and secondly, he adds more than 80 Greek and Latin texts and their translations. Additional sources, as becomes obvious when one reads his work, are Ho Peng Yoke (‘Ancient and Medieval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources’, Vistas in Astronomy 6 [1962], 127–230) and many personal communications to the author from a number of scholars. In his Introduction, R. comments on the European and non-European terminology for comets and their translation. After the Introduction there is a tabular summary in which the reader can μnd the (possible) comets and non-comets along with the dates of their appearances, non-European and European evidence, record number, name and/or historical event, divergences from previous catalogues and possible eyewitnesses. This summary is very The Classical Review vol. 58 no. 2 © The Classical Association 2008; all rights reserved Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich, on 10 Jan 2019 at 08:36:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X08000978                523 helpful. The Introduction would have been even more useful if R. had included here the numismatic evidence that he mentions in the main catalogue. The main catalogue presents the comets, possible comets and non-comets listed chronologically. The details of non-comets are presented in Appendix I, to which the reader is directed by references in the main text, in entries numbered consecutively from 1a to 21a. The comets (33 out of 51) and possible comets (18 out of 51), constituting the main catalogue, are numbered consecutively. For each comet entry R. provides a short summary of historical context, estimated maximum magnitude, maximum length of tail, likely month, date(s) of the full moon, indication of the time of year and a summary of any relevant evidence from China, Korea and Babylonia. The reader is given the opportunity to browse the original Greek and Latin sources on which the author draws, together with R.’s own thorough translations into English. Certain symbols are adopted. For example, an eyeball placed in front of a source indicates that its author was a contemporary witness. The symbol of a comet alone means that the object was deμnitely a comet, while the symbol together with a question mark means that it was only possibly a comet. The volume ends with an index locorum which enables the reader to μnd the comets and their terminology in the ancient texts, a short index of the numismatic evidence and a bibliography. The addition of a general index would have made the book more user-friendly. One of the merits of the book is that it includes non-textual numismatic evidence together with pictures of the coins depicting three comets: Caesar’s comet of 44 B.C. (pp. 114–17), Mithridates’ comet I of 135 B.C. (pp. 86–8) and one comet of uncertain date (Appendix II, p. 215). Further research would be needed to complete the picture of all the available numismatic evidence and also to bring to the fore possible depictions of comets in other archaeological sources, such as globes and frescoes. This method of marrying textual evidence with material culture can provide further insight and make arguments stronger. To his credit, R. presents not only his own views and research, but also an up-to-date account of the work of other scholars, mainly on the classiμcation and dating of the comets. However, some readers could beneμt from an overview of ancient astronomical knowledge, especially that on comets. This would have made clearer the author’s reason for allocating each celestial object into whichever category of the three he has chosen. According to R., the most decisive criterion for accepting a celestial object as a comet is its mention in the Chinese reports, since he believes these to be the most reliable sources. Given the crucial character of these reports, it would be interesting to explore their nature, context and reliability in more depth. R. very carefully indicates when a source is a subset of the text on which it is based, stating that ‘in this way there can be no risk of supposing that these further sources are likely to have anything new or di¶erent to tell us about the sighting’ (p. 7). In my view, this is not a particularly solid argument, since the authors of these secondary sources could have had access to other texts not known to us today. Furthermore, in some cases historical assumptions are stretched. For instance, R. suggests that the eyewitness whom Seneca reports for object 17 of 147 B.C. was Hipparchus, who was active in that period and whose account reached Seneca possibly via Posidonius (pp. 81, 85). That is certainly possible, but it calls for validation through further evidence. My last point concerns merely the organisation and the format of the catalogue. A clearer layout and a better balance between the information in the main body, in the footnotes and in the appendices would proμt the volume signiμcantly. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich, on 10 Jan 2019 at 08:36:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X08000978 524                Despite these shortcomings, R.’s catalogue is certainly a useful tool for astronomers, classicists, historians and historians of science who want to further their knowledge of comets in antiquity. STAMATINA MASTORAKOU [email protected] New York THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON P     ( R . ) , G      ( M. ) (ed., trans.) The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. (Translated Texts for Historians 45.) In three volumes. Pp. xxxvi + 989, maps. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007. Paper, £45. ISBN: 978-1-84631-100-0. doi:10.1017/S0009840X0800098X The importance of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon as a historical source was emphasised in a provocative seminar paper which the late Geo¶rey de Ste Croix gave in a number of universities over the course of many years and which I heard in Oxford in 1983 and several years later in Toronto. The version of the paper which de Ste Croix left at his death in 2000 has now been published ‘with additions by Michael Whitby’ in his Christian Persecution, Martyrdom and Orthodoxy, edited by Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter (Oxford, 2006), pp. 255–320. Their importance has recently received emphasis in Fergus Millar’s A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (Berkeley, CA and London, 2006), which draws on them constantly. Hence all who study the Roman Empire in the μfth century will give the warmest of welcomes to the English translation by Richard Price, which is clear and reliable. It will without doubt be used even by those scholars who (like the reviewer) can read the Greek and Latin originals in Eduard Schwartz’s magisterial Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, but who balk at purchasing them for their personal libraries. The title pages of the three volumes proclaim ‘Translated with introduction and notes by Richard Price and Michael Gaddis’. But this does not appear to be a joint e¶ort where labour has been equally shared. According to the preface to the μrst volume (1.ix), G. has written the general introduction (1.1–85) except for the theological section (1.56–75), and the second of two appendices (3.193–203). The translation is described as ‘the work of Richard Price on the basis of a μrst draft of the greater part of the text’ by G., but there must be a considerable doubt about how helpful this preliminary draft was, given the extent to which G.’s book, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ. Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2005), relies on Victorian translations of the ecclesiastical historians of the μfth century, even when they lead him into serious error (see JTS, n.s. 57 [2006], 720–5). P. has in the past published excellent English translations of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Cyril of Scythopolis on the monks of Syria and Palestine, and he is here solely responsible for the introductions, commentaries and footnotes to each section of text, the glossary and the indexes. P. is an excellent Greek scholar well versed in patristic theology, and he has again demonstrated his ability to translate accurately and ·uently. He generously acknowledges the help of Michael Whitby, Claudia Rapp, Fergus Millar and Mary Whitby, and the collective labours of the translator and those who commented on his The Classical Review vol. 58 no. 2 © The Classical Association 2008; all rights reserved Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich, on 10 Jan 2019 at 08:36:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X08000978