Scholia Reviews ns 6 (1997) 20.

Hubert Cancik & Helmuth Schneider (edd.), Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopaedie der Antike in 15 Baenden und 1 Registerband. Band I, A - Ari. Stuttgart & Weimar: Metzler Verlag, 1996. Pp. 1154. ISBN 3-476-01471-1. DM268.00.

Bernhard Kytzler
University of Natal, Durban

Der Neue Pauly enjoys a noble ancestry. The first volume of the Real- Encyclopaedie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft appeared, edited by August Pauly, in 1839, 8 years after the death of Hegel and 7 after that of Goethe. When Pauly died in 1845, Christian Waltz and Wilhelm Teuffel completed the work in 1852. It then comprised 6 volumes; its second edition, started between 1861 and 1866, was never finished: the explosion of knowledge had set in. In 1890 Georg Wissowa started a new edition, conceived on a broader scale, and expected to be complete in approximately 10 years. Its first volume came out in 1894, but the last not until 1978, to be finally followed by an index volume in 1980. No less than 84 thick, impressive volumes span approximately 3 meters on the shelf and 3 millennia in chronology. Since the work took almost 3 generations to complete, the work as a whole is extremely uneven: here, Apollo and Zeus do not sit in the same Olympus. Hence the need for an update.

The ME/GA BIBLI/ON costs you something between a half and a full year of your salary. Considerably less expensive is Der Kleine Pauly, once again in 6 volumes. It partly contains no more than summaries of the mega edition, partly valuable new information. Produced between the years 1964 and 1975, it has been available in a pocket book edition since 1979. In addition, a microfiche edition of the 84 volumes has been on the market, since 1991. And now, l00 years after the beginning of the mega encyclopedia, comes, as the latest offspring of this admirable family tree Der Neue Pauly. What, then, is 'new' about it?

First, its size; the new edition is planned to comprise 12 volumes and to be rounded out by 3 more, documenting the classical tradition ('Wirkungsgeschichte', 'Wissenschaftsgeschichte'). In other words: the new Pauly sits comfortably in the middle; it is about a fifth or sixth of the old big edition and two and a half times the size of the younger, small edition. Second, there will be an appendix dealing on the one hand with the influence of classical phenomena on later generations, and with the history of classical studies on the other. This is indeed the most important addition to the traditional encyclopedia; a fascinating new field will open up. The first volume of this section is scheduled to appear next year. Evidently, the 'classische Alterthumswissenschaft' has given way to the 'Antike' in general. Perhaps in the next generation or edition it will be defined more precisely as 'Europaeische Antike', to separate it from the antiquities say of Latin America, China, or Africa. Third, also of no small importance and no minor merit: The panorama of the 12 volumes, compared to its predecessors, will be considerably larger. The publishers list 6 areas of expansion: The time frame will be brought down to about 800 AD; the Orient will be given more attention; Byzantine Studies will be included; verbal, visual and material sources will be equally used; philosophical definitions and concepts will be given more space; and the range of social and economical history as well as of aspects of daily life will be broadened. This is indeed a progressive programme -- how it will be implemented remains to be seen.

To judge from the first volume, i.e. from only one fifteenth of the whole enterprise, most of the promises of the programme have been kept. Thus, the door to biblical studies is opened; Adam, Abraham, Aaron are ushered in. Similarly, names of people and places in the orient are included, and Byzantium is well represented. The same holds true for the other enlargements mentioned above. Volume I is of course quite a representative one; it brings us Apollon and Aphrodite, Aischylos and Alexander, Aristophanes and Aristoteles, Akademeia and Antisemitismus, Altar and Ara Pacis. As it becomes German working ethos, 'Arbeit' is here taken very seriously. There are no less than 6 lemmata: Arbeit, Arbeitslieder, Arbeitslosigkeit, Arbeitsmarkt, Arbeitsvertrag, Arbeitszeit. Similarly, we find Anthropogeographie, Anthropogonie, Anthropologie, Anthropomorphismus. For refreshments, the table is well prepared: there is Aal (= eel), Apfel, Aprikose. For the classroom, there is Ablaut and Aktionsart (vowel gradation and verbal aspect), Adel, Aderlass and Almosen, also Abschlaege, Abklatsch (squeeze), Abschrift, Abkuerzungen; we further find Aesthetik and Aitiologie, Allegorese, Aphorismos and Anthologia as well as abortio, abortiva and Abtreibung. It is obvious, that ancient Latin and Greek and modern German terminology are strongly mixed; also that alpha+ iota is transcribed partly as a+e and partly as a+i. In all these lemmata, we are normally given thorough, in some cases brilliant articles.

We are, however, inevitably confronted with some shortcomings in the practical lay-out and the arrangements of the lemmata and of other entries. My main concern: The bibliographies regularly give the year, but not the place of a publication. The result is that your library will send you back your book requests because of incomplete information. Certainly, there are also inadequacies: e.g. for Accius we get almost 3 columns of text and almost a full column of bibliography: very much for the former, much too much for the latter. And certainly, there are deficiencies: for example, the (astonishingly long) article 'alphabet' does not mention Franz Dornseiff's work;[[1]] for the Teubner edition of Minucius Felix Octavius, the older edition of 1982 is quoted, not the revised second edition of 1992; for Anyte, G. Luck is not mentioned;[[2]] and the article on 'Akrostichon' does not mention that in Or. Sib. 8, 217 ff. there is a double acrostic, in that I)HSOU=S XRISTO/S UI(O/S QEOU= SWTH/R = gives us I)CHTHY/S.

A more marginal problem: the list of the approximately 350 contributors follows the alphabet of their surnames. This order brings about some confusion: if, for example, you look for S.A., you will have to go to A for Schafik Allam, and if for R.Z., to Z for Raimondo Zucca. Moreover, there is quite a number of explanations of these sigla missing in the index of authors; hopefully, they will be added in the following volume.

The overall plan prescribes the publication of 2 volumes per year, i.e. in 10 years' time the complete encyclopedia should be available. This quick pace is an understandable and laudable reaction against the misfortune of the big Pauly- Wissowa with its grossly overextended publication time and the resulting inadequacies and imbalances. However, 10 years is a very short time span for an edition of this magnitude; it might force contributors and editors into some rash production exercises. Certainly it will be better to have a standard work, which is expected to last for many decades, if not generations, to be completed a little later in a well balanced way than to have it done in a hurry with some flaws here and there. Even the new edition of the (still leading) commentary of Homer's epics by Ameis-Hentze, begun in 1995, is scheduled to be ready only by the year 2010; it thus comprises 15 years of work by a smaller team under Joachim Latacz's leadership.[[3]] It seems that here we have a somehow healthier time plan; again it remains to be seen whether or not it will be kept to by the contributors, the editor and the publisher. At any rate, the motto to be followed in such enterprises can only be 'quality over time' and not vice versa.

Finally a word on the lemmata 'Afrika' and 'Aegypten'. No less than 4 authors contribute to each of these articles. It might seem strange that, while 'Aegypten' (plus 'Aegyptisch' and 'Aegyptische Recht') covers 5 1/2 pages, 'Afrika' is discussed in only 4 pages. However, there should be no misunderstanding: 'Afrika' here designates both the continent and the Roman province, treated in section 1 and 3 of the article, while section 2 is on religion and 4 on 'vandalisch-byzantinisch- islamische Zeit', covering the period 429 to 734. I find especially fascinating the beginning of 'Afrika' with its 2 parts 'Begriffsgeschichte' and 'Entdeckungsgeschichte', where the long process of developing a realistic concept of Africa and also the various expeditions of explorations to the continent are clearly outlined. Interestingly enough, the concept of the continent Africa could only be developed once it had become more or less similar to the Greek concept of 'Libye', i.e. at the earliest during the second half of the third century B.C., with reference to the territory under Carthage's rule in North Africa. Only via this partial designation was the full meaning for the whole continent conceived. In literature, however, it was in the time of Homer (see Od. 4. 83-90), about a century before the Greeks colonised the Kyrenaika, that rulers in Egypt used the title 'Prince of the Rbw/Lbw' and thus handed on to the Greeks the name coined by Berbers.

Both 'Afrika' and 'Aegypten' are accompanied by 2 maps: in the first case, both maps are showing no more than North Africa, one between 146 B.C and 395 A.D., the other in the time from the fifth to the eighth century; as for Egypt, there is a very useful map on its economy from the fourth to the second century B.C. (not used in the text!) and another about its administration from the first century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. The presentation on Egypt will be rounded out by later articles on 'Bewaesserung', 'Koptisch' and 'Ptolemaios' for history, on 'Hieratisch' and 'Hieroglyphen' for language, and on 'Demotisches Recht' for law; for Afrika, the only further reference is to Augustinus. Clearly this is methodologically uneven and needs more attention in the volumes to come. Furthermore, there are no pointers to entries such as Africitas in Latin language and literature or to the controversial topic of the 'Black Athena' discussion. As modern as 'Der Neue Pauly' might be, there are obviously still some corners which deserve more light thrown on them as they receive here in volume one.

All in all, the 2 chief editors Hubert Cancik (Tuebingen) and Hellmuth Schneider (Kassel) with their 23 subject editors have done a great job. They have started to create a marvellous, distinctly modern encyclopedia on a newly defined old field. There can be no doubt that all special as well as general libraries will provide a copy of it for their users. And I also trust that not a few private buyers will acquire this helpful and useful work; it is certainly excellent value for your money, and since payments will be spread out over many years to come, they will not hurt anyone's purse too much.

As a corollary, an astonishing piece of news: Have you got a lexicon which explains 'Apopudobalia'? You have not? Nor have I; in fact, nobody has. However, on top of column 895 we learn that this is an ancient sport, a forerunner of today's soccer, which miraculously survived in the British islands from where it spread anew across the world in the 19th century. Strange information? Why, there are even two studies on it cited in the bibliography. Who possibly wrote on a non- existing word? In antiquity, we learn, such lumina as Achilleus Taktikos fr. 3 (not in LSJ) and Ps.- Cicero De Viris Illustribus (not in TLL); in modern times, two researchers by the not so well known (but telling) names of Pila (grundlegend) and Pedes. Got it? I think this is wonderful. Amidst the ocean of German Gelehrsamkeit this enchanting island of humanistic hilarity, this gem of interdisciplinary iocosa: a playful fraud with enough clue to take off its disguise; and an attack against the menacing modern mania of Fussball. Fantastico! Bravi, Bravissimi! Keep the good work going!

NOTES

[[1]] F. Dornseiff, Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie (Leipzig 1925, reprint Leipzig 1985).

[[2]] G. Luck, 'Die Dichterinnen der griechischen Anthologie',MH 11 (1954) 170-187.

[[3]] J. Latacz, 'Der neue Ameis-Hentze', Wuerzburger Jahrbuecher 21 (1996-97) 1 ff.