Eriugena (review)

442 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:3 JULY 199o (chap. 9). Along with the discussion of political philosophy, we are given a rather conventional analysis of the society for which Cicero was writing: the decaying aristocracy of the late Roman Republic. The author describes the gradual transformation from a condition of heterogeneity within the ruling class---senators, landed gentry, publicani all performing their separate tasks---to one of the homogeneity of an undifferentiated mass, and thence to a final state of fragmentation of temporarily aligned interest groups and rampant social individualism (cf. 38, 77, 21o-12). Here a terrible irony emerges: Cicero's own political doctrines (for example, his idea of psychological personae unique to the individual [85]) offered to his society a rationale for the very individualism that was tearing it apart. His cure, in other words, was itself a symptom of the disease (213). Despite its virtues, the book has glaring weaknesses. I can make little sense of the progression of thought in the presentation of the demographics of Italy in Cicero's time (15f.). Estimating a total population in Roman Italy of five million at the outbreak of the Second Punic War and a total population of six million (with four million citizens) at the end of the first century B.c., the author infers a fivefold increase in the number of citizens in Cicero's time following the Social War (15)- The missing details in this statistical non sequitur are difficult to find; we are simply referred to chapter 1 of Keith Hopkins's Conquerorsand Slaves. Such casual reference to one hundred pages of dense argument and statistics is unhelpful. Further, the dates of the First Punic War are 264-z41 B.C.,not 262--~4Z B.C.04). Tiberius Gracchus was tribune in 133 B.C.,not 13e B.C.(35)- For rustzcasand subrusticas (97) read rust/cus and subrusticus. Read regna for regni (128); congregebantur for congrebantur (131); loquentemfor loquentura(133); collectus for collactus 049); locupletes for locuples 067); senatus consultura ultimum for senatus comultus ultirnum (17o); and honestum otium for honestam otiurn(198). The genitive plural of homines is hominum, not the bizarre hominorum, which appears repeatedly on pp. 13839 . Such errors can be more than mere annoyances. Reference to Roman civil law as/ex civilis (72 et passim) rather than ius civile makes obscure one of the most basic of all Roman legal distinctions, that between/ex and zu~.(See the opening of Gaius's Institutes for details.) The University of California Press really ought to be ashamed of the poor proofreading that this volume received. In sum, much can be learned from this book about the social and political thought of Cicero. However, it must be used with caution. ROBERTJ. RABEL Umversity of Kentucky John J. O'Meara. Eriugena. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. viii + 237. $65.oo. The thought ofJohn Eriugena (or Scotus---both terms mean "of Ireland") is now being studied with increasing attention. Critical editions of his Latin works are being published along with translations into English and French. This very readable new book, BOOK REVIEWS 443 by a professor of Latin in Dublin, is the best study in English of the writings and thought of this important early medieval philosopher. The historical information on intellectual conditions in Ireland and France in the ninth century is very helpful indeed in situating John Eriugena in his context. (Surely the term "eighth century" on p. 9 is a mistake for "ninth century.") The translation made by John Eriugena from Greek into Latin of the writings of pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is his most widely read work, and exercised enormous influence on philosophy and theology throughout the Middle Ages. This translation made available a whole universe of Neo-Platonic philosophy to the Latin West, and the prestige of the supposed immediate disciple of St. Paul assured the work vast circulation and respect. O'Meara gives an excellent account of the value, and limitations, of Eriugena's translations , so important at a time when most philosophers did not know Greek. Whatever may be their defects in detail, Eriugena's translations give a literal picture of the...