Jurgen R . Gatt | University of Malta (original) (raw)

Papers by Jurgen R . Gatt

Evidence and Proof in Ancient Greece, 2024

Gatt, J. (2024) “Knowing Witnesses” in Late Fifth-Century Prose. In: C. Carey, M. Edwards, B. Gri... more Gatt, J. (2024) “Knowing Witnesses” in Late Fifth-Century Prose. In: C. Carey, M. Edwards, B. Griffith-Williams (eds.) Evidence and Proof in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

'Jurgen Gatt's Chapter “Knowing Witnesses” in Late Fifth-Century Prose", explands the focus to examine judicial practice within a larger cultural and generic perspective. He discusses the judicial role of witnesses against the background of recent sociopolitical apporoaches to the pheneomenon, focusing specifically on the speeches of Antiphon in comparison with other (non-forensic) fifth century textual sources' (p. 5).

Cuerpos que envejecen. Vulnerabilidad, familias, dependencia y cuidados en la antigüedad, 2023

The process of human senescence appears to have excited little systematic thinking among ancient ... more The process of human senescence appears to have excited little systematic thinking among ancient Greek writers. 1 To be sure, old men and women feature in all genres of literature imaginable, 2 but their roles seem to be largely predetermined by tropes and stereotypes. 3 These archetypical 'old men' appear in tragic choruses as enervated figures, emotionally involved in action in which they cannot partake; or in Old Comedy, where they are included to be mocked and derided for their physical debility. The aged also play a role in Plato's Republic, were Cephalus reflects on his past life and the proximity of his death. In all these images, one basic, and often ambivalent, 4 idea remains, that of an individual past the physical prime of their life. The same attachment to trope is true for the depiction of children. 5 Both categories, indeed, share a fundamental feature; marginality: they are defined by contrast with a more primary category, adulthood. 6 This marginality, moreover, has been blamed for the relative neglect of ageing and the old in medical literature. 7 The primary concern of these authors, it is argued, was similar to that of the rest of the culture, oriented as it was to the free male citizenry of military age. Indeed, even the most charitable of Hippocrates's reviewers 8 only go so far as to credit 'him' with keen observations of disease patterns commoner in different age-groups, with a vague theory of diminishing 'vital heat', and with rather over-general dietary recommendations for the old. 9 The rest of what the Corpus has to say on the topic of ageing, it seems, we can also learn from the poets and the philosophers. We find, for example, the same diversity of systems dividing humans into 'age-categories', 10 as well as the very same systems themselves. Some Hippocratic authors, then, use a vigesimal system possibly pioneered by Pythagoras and also used by Herodotus, 11 as well as implied in some institutions. 12 Prognostics seems partial to the Solonian hebdomad and uses it with some 1 A 'side-line', according to Parkin (1998, 19). A possible reason for this is the relative scarcity of the elderly in pre-industrial societies (Finley, 1981, 157). 2 Parkin (1998, 22) attempts to quantify this diversity by looking at the provenance of the excepts chosen by Stobaeus. 3 These are the 'behavioural age distinctions' discussed by Nash (1978, 7-13). An excellent discussion of these various tropes exist in the literature.

Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic, 2024

Gatt J. R. (2024). Homertron: The Poet-Construct of Il. 2.489–490. In: S. Bär, A. Damouzi. Artifi... more Gatt J. R. (2024). Homertron: The Poet-Construct of Il. 2.489–490. In: S. Bär, A. Damouzi. Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic. Bloomsbury.

'The following chapter then turns to AI in the earliest archaic epic: Homer's Iliad. Jurgen R. Gatt offers a new interpretation of Homertron, the poet-contruct at Iliad 2.489-90, based on a reappraisal of its qualities and an emphasis on its cognitive abilities. This new interpetation takes into consideration a redefinition of what 'naming' involves, the very act which Homertron's intelligence fails to accomplish...' (p.4)

Sapiens ubique civis, 2021

The paper below focuses on the shadowy figure of the hypothetical witness found in two mock-foren... more The paper below focuses on the shadowy figure of the hypothetical witness found in two mock-forensic works of the late 5th century: Gorgias’ Defence of Palamedes and Antiphon’s First Tetralogy. I argue that these witnesses, who only exist within the εἰκός arguments found in these speeches, are consistently characterized in impersonal ways, as individuals with knowledge pertinent to the resolution of the case. The issue of their will is also broached, particularly in last rebuttal speech of the First Tetralogy. Though such witnesses, being logical figments, could never appear in court, their characterization sheds important light on the ancient Greek notion of ‘witnessing’. Indeed, the very ability of Gorgias and Antiphon to deploy such arguments shows that witnessing was, at least in this cases, not thought to be tied to the witness’s prestige or character which remain entirely undefined. Rather, their characterization of a ‘witness’ as an individual who knows and who is motivated t...

Acta Classica, 2021

The extant corpus of the Athenian logographer Antiphon is a richer source for the verb συνειδέναι... more The extant corpus of the Athenian logographer Antiphon is a richer source for the verb συνειδέναι than that of any other contemporary writer. Used self-reflexively in the expression 'I share knowledge with myself', συνειδέναι commonly marks an act of introspection of a guilty party. Sharing knowledge with another, on the other hand, is an activity that often distinguishes accomplices and co-conspirators. Both uses are to be found in Antiphon's works. Though this is also the case with contemporary authors whose use of this verb has been more thoroughly investigated, Antiphon's use of this verb is distinct in a number of ways. Antiphon more readily associates this verb with witnesses and this 'shared knowledge' is an obvious concern of the litigants. Moreover, the reflexive 'guilty self-knowledge' is characterized primarily as a dispositional attitude to be inferred from the observable actions of litigants. Both of these features, I argue, can be related to the rhetorical context of Antiphon's speeches.

Introduction to the Translations., 2023

Gatt, Jurgen R. “Introduction to the Translations.” In Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and t... more Gatt, Jurgen R. “Introduction to the Translations.” In Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and the Platonic Dialogue: With New Translations of the Helen, Palamedes, and On Not Being, edited by S. Montgomery Ewegen and Coleen P. Zoller, 11–52. Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa, 2022. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv36cj70n.6.

Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and the Platonic Dialogue: With New Translations of the Helen, Palamedes, and On Not Being, 2023

Introduction to the Translations Gorgias was born in the Ionian polis of Leontinoi, on the island... more Introduction to the Translations Gorgias was born in the Ionian polis of Leontinoi, on the island of Sicily, sometime between the first and the second Persian War (c. 485). 2 Little is known of his early life, though he is thought to have been tutored by Empedocles-he is also said to have seen him perform magic 3-and Gorgias clearly knew Parmenides's poem well when he wrote his On Not Being, (perhaps) sometime in the 440s. 4 Gorgias also knew Tisias of Syracuse, an important figure in early rhetoric, and is reported to have travelled with him on an embassy to Athens in 427 B.C.E. 5 The impression he left on the Athenian Assembly was deep, but no less deep was his effect on the Athenian intelligentsia, with Gorgias's influence being found in the works of Antiphon, Thucydides, and Isocrates, and in the fragments of Agathon. Yet, countless other orations must have been recited in his style, and in Thessaly-where Gorgias would eventually settleoratory became synonymous with his name. 6 His reception,

Stranger Things: Fantasy in Antiquity, 2021

Wonders have a special place in Herodotus’ Histories . We need only think of the lengthy digressi... more Wonders have a special place in Herodotus’ Histories . We need only think of the lengthy digression on the cause of the Nile’s flooding –it was the only river known to Herodotus to flood in summer– and on its unknown source somewhere beyond the land of the wizards, far to the West (Hdt. II. 5-34). Indeed, wonders great and small, natural and artificial, are among the most prominent subjects of Herodotean historie . In this, the traveler from Halicarnassus follows in the footsteps of the Ionian natural scientists and, especially, of the arch-rationalizer Hecataeus . Herodotus’ handling of these phenomena, however, does not only look back to the 6th-century . Like the author of On the Sacred Disease , who tackles another wonder , Herodotus borrows cutting-edge rhetorical tools that were being used in the assemblies and law-courts of his age . As I hope to show in the following discussion –which engages with two infamous examples of wonders in the Histories– Herodotus and the quasi-Herodotean Periander deploy and refer to arguments and tropes found in contemporary forensic literature. Moreover, they also purposefully re-enact the triangular logic of the law-courts to settle a disagreement between their sources, the one insisting on a rationalized account, the other on a miraculous version of the same events.

Ardet Amans: Essays in Honour of Horatio C. R. Vella., 2022

'In the next contribution, a well-known passage from Herodotus serves as a very engaging case-stu... more 'In the next contribution, a well-known passage from Herodotus serves as a very engaging case-study in Greek epistemology' (p. 10).

In: Serracino, C. (ed.) Ardet Amans: Essays in Honour of H.R.C Vella. Malta: MidSea Books.

Doctoral thesis, UCL (University College London)., Jun 28, 2020

Melita Classica VI (pp. 23-37), 2018

Carolo Benvenuti (1716-1797) was a Jesuit scholar, a professor of mathematics, physics, metaphysi... more Carolo Benvenuti (1716-1797) was a Jesuit scholar, a professor of mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and liturgy at the Collegio Romano, who published a series of monographs dealing primarily with mathematics and physics. He was a student of the prolific polymath Ruđer Bošković (1711-1781) who also thought mathematics at the Collegio from 1740 to 1750 and again from 1752 to 1760. 2 In 1751/2, when Bošković was involved in measuring the Rome-Rimini median, Benvenuti lectured mathematics in his place. In 1752, in his one-year tenure of the chair of physics at the Collegio during, Benvenuti introduced Newton into the Collegio, lecturing in accordance to Bošković's own views on force and matter. The unorthodox contents of these lectures was sufficient pretext for the General of the Society of Jesus to move against Benvenuti. This paper identifies two MSS at the National Library of Malta as containing the contents of these infamous lectures. This paper also contains a translation of the first chapter of Benvenuti's work On Logic.

Jurgen R. Gatt, 2017

Clytemnesta's 'beacon-speech' is a 31-verse long speech which catalogues the geographical sites o... more Clytemnesta's 'beacon-speech' is a 31-verse long speech which catalogues the geographical sites of a series of beacons, lit in sequence upon the capture of Troy, starting at Mt. Ida and ending on the roof of Atreus' palace in Argos. It represents the first substantial monologue delivered by Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' play. The following is a lemmatic commentary of Clytemnestra's speech, focusing mainly on the literary features of the passage, particularly aspects of symbolism which have not been noted in the magesterial commentaries of Fraekel, Denniston and Page, and others. I focus principally on the effects of the long journey on the beacon's fire and on the imporance of faithful transmission of the beacon's message from Troy to Argos.

Melita Classica II, 2016

This paper examines the Laches and, especially, the role of the interlocutors in the (positive) o... more This paper examines the Laches and, especially, the role of the interlocutors in the (positive) outcome of the elenchus in this dialogue.

Malta Medical Journal, Jun 10, 2011

ABSTRACT

CFPs by Jurgen R . Gatt

Malta Medical Journal

ABSTRACT

The 60th Anniversary of E.P. Thompson's hugely influential The Making of the English Working Clas... more The 60th Anniversary of E.P. Thompson's hugely influential The Making of the English Working Class provides the inspiration for this one-day conference at the University of Malta, organised in collaboration with the Works in Progress Seminar Series (WIPSS). The conference will take place on the 13th October, 2023. You can find the registration form and more details on the conference at:
https://www.um.edu.mt/events/historywork2023/

UPDATE: NEW DEADLINE 27 APRIL 2023

Evidence and Proof in Ancient Greece, 2024

Gatt, J. (2024) “Knowing Witnesses” in Late Fifth-Century Prose. In: C. Carey, M. Edwards, B. Gri... more Gatt, J. (2024) “Knowing Witnesses” in Late Fifth-Century Prose. In: C. Carey, M. Edwards, B. Griffith-Williams (eds.) Evidence and Proof in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

'Jurgen Gatt's Chapter “Knowing Witnesses” in Late Fifth-Century Prose", explands the focus to examine judicial practice within a larger cultural and generic perspective. He discusses the judicial role of witnesses against the background of recent sociopolitical apporoaches to the pheneomenon, focusing specifically on the speeches of Antiphon in comparison with other (non-forensic) fifth century textual sources' (p. 5).

Cuerpos que envejecen. Vulnerabilidad, familias, dependencia y cuidados en la antigüedad, 2023

The process of human senescence appears to have excited little systematic thinking among ancient ... more The process of human senescence appears to have excited little systematic thinking among ancient Greek writers. 1 To be sure, old men and women feature in all genres of literature imaginable, 2 but their roles seem to be largely predetermined by tropes and stereotypes. 3 These archetypical 'old men' appear in tragic choruses as enervated figures, emotionally involved in action in which they cannot partake; or in Old Comedy, where they are included to be mocked and derided for their physical debility. The aged also play a role in Plato's Republic, were Cephalus reflects on his past life and the proximity of his death. In all these images, one basic, and often ambivalent, 4 idea remains, that of an individual past the physical prime of their life. The same attachment to trope is true for the depiction of children. 5 Both categories, indeed, share a fundamental feature; marginality: they are defined by contrast with a more primary category, adulthood. 6 This marginality, moreover, has been blamed for the relative neglect of ageing and the old in medical literature. 7 The primary concern of these authors, it is argued, was similar to that of the rest of the culture, oriented as it was to the free male citizenry of military age. Indeed, even the most charitable of Hippocrates's reviewers 8 only go so far as to credit 'him' with keen observations of disease patterns commoner in different age-groups, with a vague theory of diminishing 'vital heat', and with rather over-general dietary recommendations for the old. 9 The rest of what the Corpus has to say on the topic of ageing, it seems, we can also learn from the poets and the philosophers. We find, for example, the same diversity of systems dividing humans into 'age-categories', 10 as well as the very same systems themselves. Some Hippocratic authors, then, use a vigesimal system possibly pioneered by Pythagoras and also used by Herodotus, 11 as well as implied in some institutions. 12 Prognostics seems partial to the Solonian hebdomad and uses it with some 1 A 'side-line', according to Parkin (1998, 19). A possible reason for this is the relative scarcity of the elderly in pre-industrial societies (Finley, 1981, 157). 2 Parkin (1998, 22) attempts to quantify this diversity by looking at the provenance of the excepts chosen by Stobaeus. 3 These are the 'behavioural age distinctions' discussed by Nash (1978, 7-13). An excellent discussion of these various tropes exist in the literature.

Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic, 2024

Gatt J. R. (2024). Homertron: The Poet-Construct of Il. 2.489–490. In: S. Bär, A. Damouzi. Artifi... more Gatt J. R. (2024). Homertron: The Poet-Construct of Il. 2.489–490. In: S. Bär, A. Damouzi. Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic. Bloomsbury.

'The following chapter then turns to AI in the earliest archaic epic: Homer's Iliad. Jurgen R. Gatt offers a new interpretation of Homertron, the poet-contruct at Iliad 2.489-90, based on a reappraisal of its qualities and an emphasis on its cognitive abilities. This new interpetation takes into consideration a redefinition of what 'naming' involves, the very act which Homertron's intelligence fails to accomplish...' (p.4)

Sapiens ubique civis, 2021

The paper below focuses on the shadowy figure of the hypothetical witness found in two mock-foren... more The paper below focuses on the shadowy figure of the hypothetical witness found in two mock-forensic works of the late 5th century: Gorgias’ Defence of Palamedes and Antiphon’s First Tetralogy. I argue that these witnesses, who only exist within the εἰκός arguments found in these speeches, are consistently characterized in impersonal ways, as individuals with knowledge pertinent to the resolution of the case. The issue of their will is also broached, particularly in last rebuttal speech of the First Tetralogy. Though such witnesses, being logical figments, could never appear in court, their characterization sheds important light on the ancient Greek notion of ‘witnessing’. Indeed, the very ability of Gorgias and Antiphon to deploy such arguments shows that witnessing was, at least in this cases, not thought to be tied to the witness’s prestige or character which remain entirely undefined. Rather, their characterization of a ‘witness’ as an individual who knows and who is motivated t...

Acta Classica, 2021

The extant corpus of the Athenian logographer Antiphon is a richer source for the verb συνειδέναι... more The extant corpus of the Athenian logographer Antiphon is a richer source for the verb συνειδέναι than that of any other contemporary writer. Used self-reflexively in the expression 'I share knowledge with myself', συνειδέναι commonly marks an act of introspection of a guilty party. Sharing knowledge with another, on the other hand, is an activity that often distinguishes accomplices and co-conspirators. Both uses are to be found in Antiphon's works. Though this is also the case with contemporary authors whose use of this verb has been more thoroughly investigated, Antiphon's use of this verb is distinct in a number of ways. Antiphon more readily associates this verb with witnesses and this 'shared knowledge' is an obvious concern of the litigants. Moreover, the reflexive 'guilty self-knowledge' is characterized primarily as a dispositional attitude to be inferred from the observable actions of litigants. Both of these features, I argue, can be related to the rhetorical context of Antiphon's speeches.

Introduction to the Translations., 2023

Gatt, Jurgen R. “Introduction to the Translations.” In Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and t... more Gatt, Jurgen R. “Introduction to the Translations.” In Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and the Platonic Dialogue: With New Translations of the Helen, Palamedes, and On Not Being, edited by S. Montgomery Ewegen and Coleen P. Zoller, 11–52. Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa, 2022. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv36cj70n.6.

Gorgias/Gorgias: The Sicilian Orator and the Platonic Dialogue: With New Translations of the Helen, Palamedes, and On Not Being, 2023

Introduction to the Translations Gorgias was born in the Ionian polis of Leontinoi, on the island... more Introduction to the Translations Gorgias was born in the Ionian polis of Leontinoi, on the island of Sicily, sometime between the first and the second Persian War (c. 485). 2 Little is known of his early life, though he is thought to have been tutored by Empedocles-he is also said to have seen him perform magic 3-and Gorgias clearly knew Parmenides's poem well when he wrote his On Not Being, (perhaps) sometime in the 440s. 4 Gorgias also knew Tisias of Syracuse, an important figure in early rhetoric, and is reported to have travelled with him on an embassy to Athens in 427 B.C.E. 5 The impression he left on the Athenian Assembly was deep, but no less deep was his effect on the Athenian intelligentsia, with Gorgias's influence being found in the works of Antiphon, Thucydides, and Isocrates, and in the fragments of Agathon. Yet, countless other orations must have been recited in his style, and in Thessaly-where Gorgias would eventually settleoratory became synonymous with his name. 6 His reception,

Stranger Things: Fantasy in Antiquity, 2021

Wonders have a special place in Herodotus’ Histories . We need only think of the lengthy digressi... more Wonders have a special place in Herodotus’ Histories . We need only think of the lengthy digression on the cause of the Nile’s flooding –it was the only river known to Herodotus to flood in summer– and on its unknown source somewhere beyond the land of the wizards, far to the West (Hdt. II. 5-34). Indeed, wonders great and small, natural and artificial, are among the most prominent subjects of Herodotean historie . In this, the traveler from Halicarnassus follows in the footsteps of the Ionian natural scientists and, especially, of the arch-rationalizer Hecataeus . Herodotus’ handling of these phenomena, however, does not only look back to the 6th-century . Like the author of On the Sacred Disease , who tackles another wonder , Herodotus borrows cutting-edge rhetorical tools that were being used in the assemblies and law-courts of his age . As I hope to show in the following discussion –which engages with two infamous examples of wonders in the Histories– Herodotus and the quasi-Herodotean Periander deploy and refer to arguments and tropes found in contemporary forensic literature. Moreover, they also purposefully re-enact the triangular logic of the law-courts to settle a disagreement between their sources, the one insisting on a rationalized account, the other on a miraculous version of the same events.

Ardet Amans: Essays in Honour of Horatio C. R. Vella., 2022

'In the next contribution, a well-known passage from Herodotus serves as a very engaging case-stu... more 'In the next contribution, a well-known passage from Herodotus serves as a very engaging case-study in Greek epistemology' (p. 10).

In: Serracino, C. (ed.) Ardet Amans: Essays in Honour of H.R.C Vella. Malta: MidSea Books.

Doctoral thesis, UCL (University College London)., Jun 28, 2020

Melita Classica VI (pp. 23-37), 2018

Carolo Benvenuti (1716-1797) was a Jesuit scholar, a professor of mathematics, physics, metaphysi... more Carolo Benvenuti (1716-1797) was a Jesuit scholar, a professor of mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and liturgy at the Collegio Romano, who published a series of monographs dealing primarily with mathematics and physics. He was a student of the prolific polymath Ruđer Bošković (1711-1781) who also thought mathematics at the Collegio from 1740 to 1750 and again from 1752 to 1760. 2 In 1751/2, when Bošković was involved in measuring the Rome-Rimini median, Benvenuti lectured mathematics in his place. In 1752, in his one-year tenure of the chair of physics at the Collegio during, Benvenuti introduced Newton into the Collegio, lecturing in accordance to Bošković's own views on force and matter. The unorthodox contents of these lectures was sufficient pretext for the General of the Society of Jesus to move against Benvenuti. This paper identifies two MSS at the National Library of Malta as containing the contents of these infamous lectures. This paper also contains a translation of the first chapter of Benvenuti's work On Logic.

Jurgen R. Gatt, 2017

Clytemnesta's 'beacon-speech' is a 31-verse long speech which catalogues the geographical sites o... more Clytemnesta's 'beacon-speech' is a 31-verse long speech which catalogues the geographical sites of a series of beacons, lit in sequence upon the capture of Troy, starting at Mt. Ida and ending on the roof of Atreus' palace in Argos. It represents the first substantial monologue delivered by Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' play. The following is a lemmatic commentary of Clytemnestra's speech, focusing mainly on the literary features of the passage, particularly aspects of symbolism which have not been noted in the magesterial commentaries of Fraekel, Denniston and Page, and others. I focus principally on the effects of the long journey on the beacon's fire and on the imporance of faithful transmission of the beacon's message from Troy to Argos.

Melita Classica II, 2016

This paper examines the Laches and, especially, the role of the interlocutors in the (positive) o... more This paper examines the Laches and, especially, the role of the interlocutors in the (positive) outcome of the elenchus in this dialogue.

Malta Medical Journal, Jun 10, 2011

ABSTRACT

Malta Medical Journal

ABSTRACT

The 60th Anniversary of E.P. Thompson's hugely influential The Making of the English Working Clas... more The 60th Anniversary of E.P. Thompson's hugely influential The Making of the English Working Class provides the inspiration for this one-day conference at the University of Malta, organised in collaboration with the Works in Progress Seminar Series (WIPSS). The conference will take place on the 13th October, 2023. You can find the registration form and more details on the conference at:
https://www.um.edu.mt/events/historywork2023/

UPDATE: NEW DEADLINE 27 APRIL 2023