The shift indicates that Orestes' return is a political act: 'he comes not only to retake his household from Aegisthus and Clytemnestra but also to reclaim the throne of Mycenae ... So, here, Orestes returns to the city the legitimate heir in order to rule not just the royal household but also the city - by implication, people by citizens' (p. 249). Finally, in Chapter Eleven, 'Orestes and the In-Laws' (pp. 275–330), Mark Griffith returns to Orestes in Aeschylus' Oresteia and Euripides' Orestes to 'analyze the complex network of familial obligations, age and gender dynamics, and reciprocal claims and counterclaims, within which Orestes, Electra, and Pylades find themselves caught' (p. 277). First, Griffith notes the twentiethcentury turn from considering tragedies in terms of individuals to considering them in terms of greater context including gender, race, economics, etc. (p. 278). Next, Griffith points out that in Aeschylus' earlier work (c.420 BC), the family of the Atreids is shattered, while in Euripides' later version, Orestes (480 BC), the family comes back. As such, Griffith suggests that the latter work 'explore(s) the ways in which more traditional issues are redeployed and demystified within this brilliantly conceived and intriguing masterpiece' (p. 279). Throughout the anthology, the authors return to such thinkers as Hegel, Freud and Kristeva and such concepts as uncanny, dialectic and antithesis, to make sense of these tragedies. In so doing, they show the vibrancy of the concept of tragedy, of these ancient texts, and of these more recent theoretical perspectives on them. I like the way the chapters are arranged with a theoretical or textual link from one to the next for expository continuity. At times, however, the analyses undermine their attempts to create fresh interpretations by setting up the kinds of dichotomies they seek to dismantle, for example, when Shepherdson pits Cultural Studies against pure literary interpretation. There is, as well, a tendency to use literary jargon that can be off-putting. Nonetheless, Bound by the City: Greek Tragedy, Sexual Difference, and the Reformation of the Polis will appeal to classicists, philologists and scholars of literary, feminist and psychoanalytic bents who have some background and interest in the Classical world and tragedy. Sara Newman29 KENT UNIVERSITY Voula Tsouna, The Ethics of Philodemus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. xiii + 350, $72.00, ISBN 978 0199292172 (pbk). As Tsouna notes, The Ethics of Philodemus fills a major gap in the literature (p. 2). Philodemus is a rich source of information about Epicurean ethics, often discussing at length matters only alluded to in our other evidence. This 50 BOOK REVIEWS 29 snewman@kent.edu BOOK REVIEWS 51 project 'facilitate(s) physical and conceptual access to these texts' (p. 5), and Tsouna's discussions offer much food for thought. In what follows, I note some organizational flaws and object to certain interpretive claims, but these criticisms should be understood against the background of an overall assessment of the book as fascinating and valuable. (High points include the chapters On Frank Speech and On Death.) Moreover, even if the criticisms below are cogent, there are mitigating factors. Tsouna's chosen task of explaining and synthesizing several fragmentary texts in a way accessible to those unfamiliar with them is exceedingly difficult. It is entirely understandable that there should be a few snags along the way. The book has two parts: an initial description of the structure of Philodemus' ethics (Chapters 1–4) and a series of readings of particular works (Chapters 5–10). Tsouna's claims about the structure of the theory frequently await defence in the detailed examinations of later chapters. The synoptic ambition of part one is admirable, but the delay between presentation and defence can be frustrating, particularly given the dearth of specific signposts early on. (In part two, Tsouna more regularly flags defences of earlier claims.) Sometimes, a single later section vindicates her earlier claims fully. At other times, evidence ends up scattered around the book and is nowhere fully unified. Some of the book's most interesting claims concern Philodemus' views about the emotions, human motivation and the role of imagination in therapy. Accordingly, most of this review focuses on those moral-psychological topics. First, according to Tsouna, Philodemus offers accounts of the emotions superior to those of other ancient authors 'to the extent that they have a robust theoretical grounding, consistently apply specific methodological principles, and yield an unusually rich and sophisticated understanding of their subject matters' (p. 32). She does not explain how other authors are less methodologically consistent or their theoretical grounds feebler. It sometimes seems that Tsouna prefers Philodemus' theories because they more closely resemble her own views than do Chrysippus', for example. In particular, Philodemus is a mild non-cognitivist about emotions (on his view, beliefs play a central causal role in emotions, and perhaps even partially constitute them (p. 42), but emotions are not just beliefs), and he develops the doctrine of 'bites', or affective states unavoidable even for the sage. Tsouna is at her best as she compares bites with Stoic first motions and eupatheiai. Her interpretation of Philodemus as a mild non-cognitivist is ultimately compelling but gets off to a rough start. She begins with On Arrogance, saying that 'the feeling of elation (cf. !"#$%!&'$#(&$% )(&(*+,-%.*+)(#-/!; X.31–2) that one may experience is distinct from the thoughts that cause it or those that cure it (cf. X.32–5)' (p. 36). Perhaps she means that sunaisthanesthai (in context) implies that the feeling is distinct from the thought; if X is perceived together with Y, X must be distinct from Y. Or perhaps Tsouna's paraphrase is innocuous for other reasons. Either way, a fuller translation, or more Greek text, would be better than paraphrase here. Next, she cites a passage from On Anger: 'Philodemus says that all emotions, including anger, are "consequent upon our own entertainment of false opinion" (pseudodox[an]: De ir. VI.14–15) ...' (p. 40). Is the passage from On Anger just about anger, which Tsouna then extends to other emotions, or does the text itself talk directly about all emotions? The former move would probably be convincing, but Tsouna should distinguish it from the latter, stronger kind of evidence and clarify what kind of evidence there is here. Further, upon what false opinions is anger consequent? If it is (for example) that great wealth is important for happiness, then my false opinion that your having stolen my money was a grave harm to me might be consequent upon the more general false opinion (cf. p. 34). So the claim that anger is consequent upon false opinion does not imply that anger is not itself a false opinion. Evidence presented much later dispels such worries (pp. 236–7, citing On Anger XLIX–L, where Philodemus seems to claim that believing one has been harmed is a necessary but not sufficient condition of anger), but the only forward reference is not specific (p. 43), and so the reader is left wondering for nearly two hundred pages. Still in the initial presentation of Philodemus' mild non-cognitivism, Tsouna says that 'the flatterer's anxiety, insecurity and frustration do not seem reducible to the empty beliefs on the grounds of which he is inclined to flatter; and the emotional intensity of the greedy property manager, which also appears in other vicious types, is an experiential rather than a cognitive feature' (p. 36). Are these claims grounded in the texts of On Flattery and On Property Management, or is Tsouna here reporting her own views about what is plausible, or extending from the evidence in On Arrogance and On Anger? More care is called for in distinguishing close paraphrase from loose paraphrase from speculation. Tsouna may have strong evidence internal to On Flattery and On Property Management, but she does not present it, and again the reader is left wondering. Second, Tsouna claims that Philodemus admits sources of human motivation other than one's own pleasure, and in particular that he allows for 'altruism' (pp. 125, 286), 'genuine concern for others' (pp. 261, 285–6), or 'disinterested' affection and care for others (pp. 30–1, 148). In light of Philodemus' Epicureanism, these claims require more clarification and defence than they receive. Tsouna suggests that Philodemus may be one of the timidiores mentioned by the Epicurean Torquatus in Cicero, De Fin. I.69. According to these anonymous invertebrates, one may come to care about another for that person's own sake after a long period of association, as one does with places or animals. There are problems with this attribution and Tsouna's use of it. She suggests that Philodemus could be the source of Cicero's account of Epicurean ethics (p. 14 n3), but Torquatus himself sides with Epicurus on this point (I.66), and anyway Tsouna takes back the suggestion (p. 14 n4). Moreover, even the timid Epicureans are quite modest; there is 52 BOOK REVIEWS BOOK REVIEWS 53 no thought here that people care about human beings generally for their own sake, and whatever such feelings they develop for fellow humans may also be had for familiar gymnasia and horses. Hardly the stuff of which robust altruism is made, one might think. Worse yet, the direct evidence does not suggest such a departure from Epicurus. In (On Choices and Avoidances) XXII, Philodemus says that 'because of not cutting short his lengthy life, he (sc. the sage) begins new activities and friendships ... and he is quite attentive to the majority of people - as many as he is able - and grateful to those who treat him well in hopes of both partaking of things with them, and in turn receiving some benefit from them'. Tsouna even quotes passages of On Death that tell directly against her view (while noting that they are poorly preserved), but concludes that Philodemus 'ought to have avoided' making such arguments. She then calls his treatment of fear for one's friends after one dies 'disappointing ... he misses an opportunity to articulate issues of altruism and concern for others in connection with these natural emotions' (pp. 286–7). But it seems more likely that Philodemus fails to hold such views than that he simply neglects to articulate them here. In the same passage, Tsouna claims that 'Philodemus' commitment to altruistic feelings of friendship and love is well attested in many places, as I have argued' (p. 286). Cross-references would be helpful. Perhaps Tsouna is referring to her treatment of On Gratitude (pp. 119–21), or to a passage in which she argues that Philodemus thinks that seeking an impartial perspective is therapeutic (pp. 79–81). But she is not explicit, and anyway neither section provides a strong reason to read Philodemus as an altruist. These claims about altruism exemplify a wider tendency to use surprising terminology. Tsouna invokes contrasts between morality and prudence (pp. 180, 214; cf. p. 297) and between normative and descriptive (p. 285; cf. 'impermissible' on p. 288), and she suggests that only an arrogant person fails to recognize the 'equality of persons as such' (Ch. 7, passim). This sounds awfully Kantian for an Epicurean, and it is unclear why we should not think that the arrogant person falsely thinks himself superior to all others to a greater extent than is possible, while the sage correctly thinks himself superior to most others just to the extent that he is (contrast Tsouna's objection to Philodemus' characterization of the sage on p. 151). Again, it would help to know why Tsouna thinks Philodemus is profitably interpreted using such conceptual apparatus. Third, Tsouna claims that Philodemus thinks we have a faculty of imagination distinct from reason, and that he exploits this feature of human psychology by 'setting-before-the-eyes' images of various harms that follow from emotions and vices (pp. 79, 87, 205 and 204–9 generally). Unless I miss the independent arguments, the main evidence for such a psychology is precisely Philodemus' use of setting-before-the-eyes. But it is not at all clear that the use of this technique commits Philodemus to a faculty of imagination distinct from reason, especially given that (i) Chrysippus endorsed such techniques too; (ii) there is no evidence of such an independent faculty in the best-preserved account of Epicurean psychology (Lucr. DRN IV); (iii) the Epicureans sometimes seem to assimilate thinking to imagining; and (iv) the direct targets of setting-before-the-eyes may be the false beliefs that produce the relevant emotions (p. 208, referencing On Anger VI). A final criticism: Tsouna's claims about the novelty of Philodemus' works sometimes overreach. Such claims are difficult to substantiate given the paucity of our evidence for earlier Epicureans. Even defending a claim that a Philodeman text is the first surviving Epicurean work to express a certain view requires more extensive argument than Tsouna undertakes. For example, one can make a plausible case that Epicurus was already committed to the existence of affective 'bites'. (He thinks there are three kinds of natural and necessary desires: those necessary for removal of bodily pain, those necessary for happiness, and those necessary for survival (Ep. Men. 127). Examples of the latter two kinds might be the desire for friends and the desire to remain alive (on the latter, see SV 38, DL X.119, and perhaps Ep. Men. 126). It is plausible to think that necessary desires are unavoidably painful when frustrated (KD 26, 29 with scholium). So, we should expect Epicurus to think there is an unavoidable bite when one's desire to survive, for example, is clearly going to be frustrated.) Sometimes it is unclear exactly what Tsouna thinks Philodemus' original contribution is, as in her discussion of the fourfold cure (pp. 19–20). At other times, she reads into the text more than is warranted. She suggests that Philodemus may have thought it possible to live virtuously without living pleasantly (p. 27; contrast Ep. Men. 132, KD 5). This idea stems from a passage in On Choices and Avoidances in which Philodemus says that living in accordance with various virtues is necessary in order to live pleasantly, but does not say that doing so is sufficient to live pleasantly. Even if 'the poor condition of the text' is not responsible for the missing sufficiency claim, an argument from silence does not warrant the tentative conclusion that this 'may indicate a tacit modification of Epicurus' doctrine' (p. 27). Philosophers need not express all their views on every occasion. In spite of these problems, Tsouna has written a fine book on important and challenging texts. I am grateful for the substantial benefits she has provided to scholars of Epicureanism. J. Clerk M.F. Shaw30 UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE 54 BOOK REVIEWS 30 jshaw15@utk.edu