Lampas - Volume 50, Issue 2, 2017

The present contribution, the first panel of a diptych, discusses a claim put forward by George G.M. James in his book Stolen Legacy (1954). According to James, the Macedonian king Alexander III in association with the philosopher Aristotle plundered the Royal Library at Alexandria – a crucial episode in what Afrocentric thinkers consider the theft of African philosophy by the Greeks. The article presents and analyses the evidence for the founding of Alexandria, for Aristotle’s whereabouts during Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire, and for the establishment of the Alexandrian library. James’ contention turns out to be unsupported by any evidence. In addition, it is at odds with the results of historical research into events of the late fourth and early third century BCE relevant to the matter at hand. The alleged theft must have taken place in a city not yet founded, by a philosopher with an alibi, and in an institution that would not be established until at least a quarter of a century after the death of the Macedonian conqueror. Afrocentric responses to such criticisms will be discussed in a sequel to this contribution, published elsewhere in this issue of Lampas.

In the present article, a sequel to a contribution published elsewhere in this issue of Lampas, I discuss afrocentric attempts to amend James’ story of the plundering of the Royal Library at Alexandria by Alexander and Aristotle. The aim of these attempts is to salvage from its critics the fiction of a palpable theft of Egyptian wisdom by the Greeks. Rakote, the original Egyptian settlement on the location of the city founded by Alexander, is substituted for Alexandria, a temple library for the Ptolemaic institute, and Callisthenes for Aristotle. While James’ apologists pretend that they are defending the main thesis of Stolen Legacy, they are actually coming up with a new story to replace James’ untenable invention. The amended story may look superficially less implausible than the original one, it still is an unfounded contention, unsupported by any evidence, and hard to combine with what we know about Alexander’s policies in Egypt and elsewhere. Rather than rescuing James’ ‘hypothesis’ from its critics, the amendments demonstrate the indispensability of fiction for afrocentric discourse.

Among the numerous graffiti found at Pompeii, there are a number of metrical texts, either quotations from famous ancient poets such as Virgil, or lines from unknown sources. Both categories offer interesting reading for classicists. Poetical texts from Pompeii may also be profitably used in teaching Latin.

This article presents the rhetorical exercise as a valuable addition to the didactic toolbox of teachers. First, the rise of rhetoric as an educational system is traced throughout antiquity, starting from Plato’s objections against rhetoric. In addition, I discuss the nature and philosophical acceptability of rhetoric by considering Aristotle, Isocrates and Quintilian. Second, I offer an analysis of the didactic value of rhetoric, drawing from ancient as well as modern sources. It is argued that rhetoric is didactically effective. It helps students to develop sound arguments and think critically, and it provides a simple and easily applicable method for everyday use in the classroom. Finally, a rhetorical exercise, historically situated in Livy’s description of the abolition of the Bacchanalia, is described. This serves as an example of how rhetorical exercises can be used to intellectually challenge students and help them understand ancient texts more thoroughly.

In this article I note a change of approach among historians of ancient philosophy with regard to the Roman philosophers Cicero and Seneca. Today they are not just studied as sources for earlier thinkers but as independent authors who pursue an agenda of their own within their Roman context. After a few observations on the viability of the notion of ‘Roman philosophy’. I discuss a number of recent publications that may provide useful background information in reading the texts by Cicero and Seneca concerned with the happy life that have been selected for the national examination in 2018.