Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Books by Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. Wine and Ecstasy in Plato: A Metaphor of Sorts and its Early Reception. New York: SUNY. 9798855804850

In this book I explore metaphors about wine consumption in Plato, seeking to determine the cultur... more In this book I explore metaphors about wine consumption in Plato, seeking to determine the cultural influences that enabled the metaphor of Socratic inebriation, its parameters, and its civic implications. I also trace the reception of the metaphor among Plato’s heirs to the mid of the Roman Imperial period, outlining its persistent dynamic and its transformations. By engaging with the distinct categories of inebriation and drunkenness, I retrace the radical dichotomy in Greek culture between a negative evaluation of drunkenness as falling away from reason and losing self-control and the parallel development of a positive construal of inebriation as a way of altering human consciousness and transcending the limitations of human reason.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. and Parry, K. (eds). 2023. Later Platonists and their Heirs Among Christians, Jews and Muslims. Leiden: Brill.

Brill, 2020

These papers explore the literature of Byzantine liturgical communities and provide a window into... more These papers explore the literature of Byzantine liturgical communities and provide a window into lived Christianity in this period. The liturgical performance of Christian hymns and sermons creatively engaged the faithful in biblical exegesis, invited them to experience theology in song, and shaped their identity. These sacred stories, affective scripts and salvific songs were the literature of a liturgical community – hymns and sermons were heard, and in some cases sung, by lay and monastic Christians throughout the life of Byzantium. In the field of Byzantine studies there is a growing appreciation of the importance of liturgical texts for understanding the many facets of Byzantine Christianity: we are in the midst of a liturgical turn. This book is a timely contribution to the emerging scholarship, illuminating the intersection between liturgical hymns, homiletics and hermeneutics.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2016. rpr. 2019. In the Garden of the Gods: Models of Kingship from the Sumerians to the Seleucids. London and New York: Routledge.

Examining the evolution of kingship in the Ancient Near East from the time of the Sumerians to th... more Examining the evolution of kingship in the Ancient Near East from the time of the Sumerians to the rise of the Seleucids in Babylon, this book argues that the Sumerian emphasis on the divine favour that the fertility goddess and the Sun god bestowed upon the king should be understood metaphorically from the start and that these metaphors survived in later historical periods, through popular literature including
the Epic of Gilgameš and the Enuma Eliš. The author’s research shows that from the earliest times Near Eastern kings and their scribes adapted these metaphors to promote royal legitimacy in accordance with legendary exempla that highlighted the role of the king as the establisher of order and civilization. As another Gilgameš and, later, as a pious servant of Marduk, the king renewed divine favour for his subjects, enabling them to share the ‘Garden of the Gods’. Seleucus and Antiochus found these cultural ideas, as they had evolved in the first millennium BCE, extremely useful in their efforts to establish their dynasty at Babylon. Far from playing down cultural differences, the book considers the ideological agendas of ancient Near Eastern empires as having been shaped mainly by class — rather than race-minded
elites.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2005, rpr 2013. Eros and Ritual in Ancient Literature: Singing of Atalanta, Daphnis and Orpheus. Gorgias Press Dissertation Series, New Jersey, USA.

Articles/Chapters by Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. “Revelry and Reverie in Plato and Early Christian Thinkers: Platonic Metaphors of Ecstasy in Clement of Alexandria and Pseudo-Macarius”, in L. Diaconu and A. Jugănaru (eds), The Soul’s Communion with God in Western and Byzantine Christianity, Bucarest, 43-74.

Cet article s’intéresse aux métaphores platoniciennes de l’extase dans les oeuvres de Clément d’A... more Cet article s’intéresse aux métaphores platoniciennes de l’extase
dans les oeuvres de Clément d’Alexandrie et de Pseudo-Macaire. Il analyse
comment ces penseurs chrétiens ont réinterprété les concepts de
« baccheia » et de « theoria » pour décrire l’acte d’appropriation d’un état
de conscience modifié par la philosophie et le progrès spirituel, dont la
cible est le Royaume céleste. En s’appuyant sur des textes platoniciens et
leurs adaptations chrétiennes, l’article montre aussi comment ces
métaphores ont contribué à la tradition ascétique chrétienne

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. “Georgics 4: Vergil on the Rites of Poetry and Philosophy at the Dawn of a New Era”, in L. Panoussi and W. Hutton (eds), Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Greece and Rome, Trends in Classics 16, Berlin: DeGruyter, tbc.

The chapter offers a new reading of Bugonia in Georgics 4 guided by Vergil’s preoccupation with d... more The chapter offers a new reading of Bugonia in Georgics 4 guided by Vergil’s preoccupation with defending poetry over philosophy as the appropriate genre of discourse to debate civic virtue under Augustus. The most current interpretation contrasts Aristaeus and Augustus as proponents of progress and a source of optimism for the future with Orpheus and Vergil as overemotional poets thriving on fruitless sorrow.
Nonetheless, Aristaeus and Orpheus have similar profiles as theologians, poets, and hierophants, especially considering the fusion of traditions regarding Aristaeus and Aristeas of Proconnesus, documented by Cicero (Verr. 2.4.127–128). Such poet-theologians preserved knowledge about the agricultural basis of civic virtue, instituted during the Golden Age, and conveyed it to later poets (Hesiod, Aratus) and philosophers (Plato). While Cicero, drawing on Plato, insists on the philosophical origins of civic virtue, Vergil upholds the primacy of poetry and ritual in negotiating progress in times of crisis. Both Orpheus and Aristaeus’ portraits in the Bugonia
exemplify Vergil’s argument.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. “Sexual Indulgence in Musonius Rufus”, in J. Sellars and L. Gloyn (eds), Brill’s Companion to Musonius Rufus, Leiden: Brill, Chapter 12.

I argue that our understanding of Musonius’ contribution to Stoic sexual ethics must be additiona... more I argue that our understanding of Musonius’ contribution to Stoic sexual ethics must be additionally informed by the compelling criticism early Stoics received for using ambiguous language to explain the Stoic nature of love and the erotic profile of the Stoic philosopher. This trend, originating with Plato, entailed the risk of generating confusion among the audiences since philosophers appeared to rely systematically on the world of the senses despite purporting to despise it. The matter was thrust into the heart of a persisting debate between Plato’s successors and the Stoics who proposed the concept of kataleptike phantasia (cognitive impression) as a dependable guide to truth – a concept thoroughly informed by figurative language. In my view, Musonius employs metaphorical language aware of its caveats to refine the meaning of key metaphors about moral virtue: thus, in essay 12 he rejects sexual pleasure as truphē (excess, luxury) and (later in the text) as ἡδονὴ, further qualified as conceited (ψιλὴ, 12.86.7) and shameful (αἰσχρὰ, 12.88.25), in acknowledgment of its deep-rooted negative connotations which render it unsuitable to express philosophical fervour. Consistent in his rejection of luxury across his lectures, Musonius also avoids using the terms eros or philia which had informed contested Stoic descriptions of the fellowship that develops between teachers of philosophy and their students. The argument, already advanced by Cicero whose authority on Musonius (and Seneca) is pervasive, is echoed by thinkers such as Plutarch and later, Galen.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2026. “Plato on Euripides and Baccheia as a Metaphor of Higher Cognition”, in R. Güreman, M. Bonazzi et al. (eds), Theoria as Cognition in Plato, Leiden: Brill, tbc.

This chapter examines Plato’s use of the sympotic culture of his time to coin a metaphor about ge... more This chapter examines Plato’s use of the sympotic culture of his time to coin a metaphor about genuine philosophical inspiration, exemplified by Socrates, and its paramount civic benefits. Although it was Aristotle who formulated an early theory of metaphor, Plato’s ubiquitous use of metaphors to defend Socratic inebriation as a mind-altering, though fundamentally sober experience, points to a set of implicit theoretical principles that have found fuller expression in modern analytic philosophy through cognitive phenomenology. “Structural or conceptual metaphors”, introduced by Lakoff and Johnson, find effortless application in Plato’s dialogues, especially the Symposium, the Phaedrus, and the Phaedo where Socrates is portrayed as an inspired follower of Dionysus. The key argument of the chapter is that Plato draws on Euripides’ normative representation of Dionysian ecstasy in the Bacchae to convince his readers of Socrates’ superior mental state while rejecting inauthentic forms of ecstasy. Furthermore, Plato recommends Socratic inebriation as a model of civic ethos that the citizens of Magnesia ought to aspire to; detailed in the Laws, Plato explains how education in correct sympotic attitude produces sound-mindedness/sōphrosynē. Thus, Plato is using wine and drunkenness to defend the cognitive expansion that engaging with philosophy can achieve both for individuals and states.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2026. “Puppets of Fear on the Stage of the Ideal City: Imbibing Civic Transformation in Plato’s Republic and the Laws”, in I. Worthington and P. Gontijo Leite (eds), Fearmongering in Greek and Roman Literature and Beyond, London: Routledge, tbc

This chapter explores the intellectual and historical milieu of Plato’s discussion of fear in the... more This chapter explores the intellectual and historical milieu of Plato’s discussion of fear in the Republic and the Laws. Plato associates fear with poetry and public performances in honour of Dionysus in the Republic, warning it undermines the guardians’ ability to protect the Kallipolis. In the Laws, Dionysus, the god who incites fear and manic inspiration (791a–b), oversees Magnesia’s education program; here, wine and Bacchic revelry are employed as a kind of fear pharmakon that fosters civic sōphrosynē. Thus, in the Laws, Plato applies the cognitive transformation of the manic, drunklike philosopher, detailed in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, across Magnesia’s citizenry. Furthermore, through the metaphor of the puppets (644d7ff.), Plato stages his own performance, leading the citizens through fear and pity to sōphrosynē and justice, in response to his criticism of Homer (Republic 599d–e; Laws 858e) that his poetry did not improve the legislation of any city.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2026. “Music and Theoretic Awakening from Plato to Augustine”, in K. Parry, K. Cunio, and D. Rickles (eds), Harmony of the Spheres, London: Bloomsbury, tbc

The paper summarizes the arguments about Pythagoras’ harmony of the spheres’ theory and its influ... more The paper summarizes the arguments about Pythagoras’ harmony of the spheres’ theory and its influence on Plato and Platonic authors, from pagan thinkers to the early Christian Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria in the East and Augustine in the West. While keen on the mathematical cum musical speculation about the origins of the world, Plato is decidedly focused on its moral implications. For Plato, this speculation is useful to the point that it illustrates the analogy between the human soul, the state, and the universe. Thus, in the Republic and more explicitly in the Laws, Plato discusses musical education as a way of disseminating philosophical insight to the citizenry and training them in the most important civic virtue of sōphrosynē (moderation). Only through sōphrosynē can the citizens of the ideal state attune to the divine principle that ordered the cosmos, thus fulfilling their goal of becoming godlike. The paper then explores the reception of these ideas in Neoplatonic writers, like Plotinus, and their adaptation in Christianity. Here, the role of Clement of Alexandria in propagating the identification of the Pythagorean One and the Platonic Good with God is stressed. Then, I turn my attention to the West where Ambrose introduces Augustine to hymn singing influenced by Neoplatonic views about the anagogic power of music. While Augustine was frustrated by his experience of Neoplatonic spiritualism, his writings on music reveal a little discussed but firm appreciation of the power of music in distinctly Platonic terms.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. “Plato’s Metaphors of Ideal Citizenship and their Reception”, in E. Anagnostou-Laoutides, G. Steiris (eds), Long Platonism: The Routes of Plato’s Reception to the Italian Renaissance, Berlin: DeGruyter, tbc

This chapter explores two key metaphors employed by Plato to articulate the transformation of con... more This chapter explores two key metaphors employed by Plato to articulate the transformation of consciousness experienced by those engaging with philosophy, and their reception by Philo of Alexandria and then early Christian authors like Clement of Alexandria in the second century and pseudo-Macarius in the fourth. The metaphors of gazing (theōria) and participating in Bacchic revelry (baccheia) are used by Plato both in the Republic and the Laws to highlight the expansion of the philosophizing mind and its rapprochement with the divine as paramount civic duty of the ruling elites of Kallipolis and Magnesia. While in the Kallipolis Plato focuses on the education of the philosopher-kings and the guardian class, in Magnesia all citizens are expected to nurture the virtue of moderation, or sōphrosynē, that entails the principles of philosophical engagement. Plato’s emphasis on moderation as a key civic virtue that enables the citizenry to participate in philosophical ecstasy to the ability of each, was powerfully adapted by the Jewish thinker Philo who presented Moses as an ecstatic philosopher-king. While in deep contemplation and Bacchic elation, Jewish sages establish communion with God and join His Heavenly city; the motif impressed Christian thinkers like Clement of Alexandria who discussed meditation and moderation in Christian terms as ways, predicated on faith, of gaining access to Heavenly Jerusalem. Plato’s metaphors were re-employed with renewed zest by pseudo-Macarius, a Syrian reader of Clement and influential ascetic writer, who defended the benefits of claiming citizenship in God over worldly citizenship. His Homilies provide a little-explored but fruitful avenue for the reception of Platonic language in fourth-century Christianity.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. “Plato’s Nectar: Entranced Poet-Philosophers and the Making of New Jerusalem in Quattrocento Florence”, in E. Anagnostou-Laoutides, G. Steiris (eds), Long Platonism: The Routes of Plato’s Reception to the Italian Renaissance, Berlin: DeGruyter, tbc

This chapter examines Plato’s use of nectar, rather than wine, in the Symposium and the Phaedrus ... more This chapter examines Plato’s use of nectar, rather than wine, in the Symposium and the Phaedrus as a symbol of gaining access to divine realities through philosophical contemplation and its reception from antiquity to the Latin Middle Ages. First, attention is paid to the cultural associations of nectar which inform Plato’s metaphor allowing him to defend the ecstatic nature of inspiration. Then, I examine the reception of Plato’s references to nectar by Neoplatonist thinkers like Plotinus and Proclus who appreciate nectar as a pathway to exceeding the spatial and time limits of consciousness to achieve a union with the timeless One. At the same time, Hermias draws on the metaphor to reaccommodate divinely inspired poetry as a means of approximating the divine. Subsequent readers working (or perceived as working) in the Platonic tradition, including pagans like Cicero and Vergil, and Christians, like Origen and Ambrose, pave the way for Petrarch and Dante to put forward a profound appreciation of poetry as the purest way of engaging in philosophical and/or theological enquiry. Finally, I examine the profile of the charismatic poeta-theologus as it undergoes a powerful revamp in the hands of quattrocento Christian intellectuals like Landino and Ficino who insist that nectareous poetry is the only means of conveying us to Heavenly Jerusalem, a vision in stark contrast with Savonarola’s emphasis on punitive and bitter-tasting severity as the way of averting divine wrath. Thus, Plato’s nectar is transformed in quattrocento Florence into a defence of poetic and intellectual pleasure in the ideal Christian city.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. Crisis of Leadership in the Eastern Roman Empire. Hermathena double Special Issue.

The Papers: A Tapestry of Crises The issue begins with the contribution of Philip Bosman (Stellen... more The Papers: A Tapestry of Crises
The issue begins with the contribution of Philip Bosman (Stellenbosch University), on consolidation strategies in Julian. Aware of the expectations of the empire’s cultured elites, Julian advocates his legitimacy by presenting himself as a philosophically aware pepaideumenos. The way Julian came to power made it important to distinguish his rule from the direction taken by his dynasty; thus, in the Letter to Themistius he positions himself in court factions, while in the invented myth of the Oration against Heracleius he legitimises his rule by claiming divine backing and mustering support for his reforms.
Next, Phoebe Garrett (Australian National University) examines the selection criteria for a Caesar in Julian’s Caesares. Julian’s satire begins with a list of the emperors which nevertheless has some surprising inclusions and exclusions. The usual explanation for Julian’s selection—good emperors versus bad—does not hold up. Instead, Garrett suggests that Julian is guided in his selections by his dislike of dynastic succession, a point made more salient when it comes to emperors we would call ‘usurpers’. Accordingly, Julian’s Caesares should be understood as a literary catalogue less focused on accuracy than entertaining its readers.
The escalation in conflict between Rome and Iran following the Sasanian Persian overthrow of the Parthians in the 220s saw Roman imperial leadership challenged in significant ways across the third and fourth centuries. The third paper, by Peter Edwell (Macquarie University), discusses the accessions of Philip I and Jovian and crises in imperial succession and the war with Sasanian Persia. The deaths of Gordian III in 244 and Julian in 363 while on campaign in Persia sparked succession crises. Nevertheless, on their return to Roman territory Philip I and Jovian, the respective successors of Gordian and Julian, made claims of victory over the Persians. Using a comparative perspective, Edwell analyses the mechanisms that Philip and Jovian employed to promote stories of success over the Persians to internal populations, why they chose to do so, and the extent to which they were successful.
When the Sassanian dynasty (c.224–651) eventually fell to the forces of Islam, a different kind of crisis erupted: since Sassanian kings cast their rule as a continuation of Iranian sacred history, their demise forced the “Zoroastrian” priesthood to develop an apocalyptic of restoration, one that associated the rule of the Arabs with the millennial disasters of Zoroastrian apocalyptic. In his article Writing History in the Post-Apocalypse, Matt O’Farrell (Macquarie University) argues that another response can be recovered from later Zoroastrian literature: the reconstruction of the Sasanian period in an idealised light. Within a late medieval communication between the Zoroastrian communities of Iran and India we find a New Persian poem detailing the affair of the “heretic” Mazdak and king Kavad I (r.488–496 and 499–531). Here a heroic priestly figure and a pious prince save the king, and the empire, from an immoral grifter. The slant of this episode is echoed in a similarly ahistorical set piece involving the Sasanian court: the trial of the prophet Mani under Bahram I (r.271–274) as portrayed in the Perso-Arabic historical tradition. Both episodes suggest that the priests and scribes of the dwindling Zoroastrian community dealt with Sasanian history by emphasising their own role in it. Thus, the idea of Sasanian “orthodoxy” was largely built up in the late Sasanian and post-Sasanian period as a response to internal and external challenges to priestly legitimacy. Next, Ashley Bacchi (Starr King School for the Ministry of the Graduate Theological Union) diverts our attention to Christian apocalyptic traditions and the pseudepigraphal corpus of the Sibylline Oracles. Her article, Harbingers of Crisis: Greed, Exploitation, and Inequality in Book 8 of the Sibylline Oracles, introduces powerful imagery of political resistance in the context of which abuses of empire are condemned and interpreted as signs of the doom that awaits unjust systems, complete with visions of divinely sanctioned justice and retribution. In Book 8 of the Sibylline Oracles, greed, exploitation, and inequality are presented as the roots of all crises. Greed spreads like a disease, impacting everyone from the microcosm of the family to the macrocosm of the empire. Like the much earlier book 3, book 8 offers insight into how timeless issues of social justice were framed within the Jewish prophetic landscape of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
The espousal of the Sibylline Oracles by the Christians and the way pagan authors utilized the merging of pagan and Judaeo-Christian traditions to widen their appeal is the focus of the sixth article. In Celestial Signs, Seers, and Sibyls: Claudian’s Eutropius and the Fourth-Century Poetics of Hate Speech, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides (Macquarie University) and Michael B. Charles (Southern Cross University) examine Claudian’s portrayal of Eutropius, the eunuch consul of emperor Arcadius, as a dira, a monstrous omen that anticipates the final division of the Roman empire. According to traditional Roman superstitions, intersex births were portents of civil unrest. Equally, the presence of intersex people or eunuchs in imperial courts, especially when accompanied by rumours about emperors enjoying sexual affairs with such individuals, were condemned as a symptom of failed leadership and a sign of looming disaster. Furthermore, Eutropius’ effeminacy and old age allows Claudian to imagine him as a pseudo-prophet, a motif common in the Sibylline books but also the Revelation and the New Testament. Thus, Claudian seamlessly combines pagan and Christian apocalyptic imagery in line with Constantine’s ‘Christianisation’ of the pagan Sibyl.
Christian apocalyptic beliefs are also the focus of Bronwen Neil’s (Macquarie University) article, Antichrists of the Fourth Century? Apocalyptic Responses to Crisis in Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Homily 15. Jerusalem played a key role in apocalyptic expectations for both Christians and Jews in the mid-fourth century. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Homily 15 dealt with these expectations in the context of an earthquake that threatened to destroy the holy city. By comparing this homily with contemporary apocalyptic texts of other genres, Neil reveals how scriptures were being reinterpreted to cope with the transition to a newly Christian empire and other changing circumstances for eastern Roman citizens and Jews in the turbulent mid-fourth century. She argues that the discussion of Antichrist in Cyril of Jerusalem’s Homily 15 refers specifically to the emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363), with specific reference to his attempt to rebuild the Jewish temple. If that is the case, then the homily is an important witness to developing attitudes to the apocalypse in the fourth century and provides useful background to the apocalyptic traditions that developed in the seventh.
Next, we move further east with Natasha Parnian (Macquarie University) and her article A World in Crisis: Reconstructing Identity in Late Antique Armenia. The adoption of Christianity and the development of the Armenian script in 405 dictated a new narrative focus for the Armenian intellectuals of Late Antiquity. Parnian explores the changes in historiographical writing in the Armenian literary sphere from the fifth to the eighth centuries amidst the sustained Sasanian-Byzantine wars and ecclesiastical disputes. Such dramatic events spurred an urgent attempt to reconstruct a distinct Christian identity. Armenian writers synthesised their ancient heritage in the face of a nascent Christianity and conceived of new political alliances with the Shahanshahs as they negotiated their position in a changing world.
In the ninth article, entitled All the Generalissimo’s Men? Delegating military authority in the Western Roman Empire, Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele (Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies) explores the powerful office of the military commanders known as generalissimos in the West. The significance of the fifth-century western Roman magistri utriusque militiae has long been recognized. Men such as Stilicho or Aëtius achieved positions of secular authority that often threatened to marginalise even the emperors they were serving. Yet throughout this era, no ‘generalissimo’ could tackle by himself the many crises plaguing the Hesperium Regnum. This article investigates the priorities of western magistri militum, both in terms of dealing with usurpation, revolts and invasions, the areas to which they were more likely to send subordinates to wage war in their stead, but also attempts by emperors to curb their powers.
In the next article, Hugh Elton (Trent University) explores the Basiliscus crisis (475–476) in the reign of Zeno. In Constantinople in early 475, Basiliscus seized imperial power from Zeno. Elton analyses the varying descriptions of Basiliscus’ seizure of power in the primary sources (especially John of Antioch, Candidus, Malalas, and The Life of Daniel the Stylite) in terms of disputes within the imperial family and within the army. He also discusses how our sources tended to focus on individuals, and that these character descriptions evolved over time, and finally suggests that this character-based focus is more appropriate for describing fast-moving political crises than daily government.
The issue concludes with two papers studying antithetical phenomena of religious extremism, in the East and the West respectively. Hence, in ‘Fools for Christ’ in Byzantium: Religious Extremism as a Response to Socio-Political Crisis, Vassilis Adrahtas (University of Western Sydney and New South Wales University) examines the period 500–1000 in Byzantium, which opens and closes with a monumental biography of a ‘fool for Christ:’ St Symeon in sixth-centu...

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2024. “Plato”, in C.J. Nederman and G. Bogiaris (eds), Research Handbook on the History of Political Thought, Cheltenham, UK/ Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 278–289.

Plato’s inquiry into the normative underpinnings of political organization remains at the heart o... more Plato’s inquiry into the normative underpinnings of political organization remains at the heart of the European philosophical tradition which, as Whitehead famously remarked (1985, 39), “consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” However, his model of the Callipolis, as outlined in the Republic (Stevens 2011), and of Magnesia, as detailed in the Laws (Prauscello 2014), have been criticized as utopias (Laks 1991; Lane 1999) that promote dangerous ideas about community shared property (cf. Garnsey 2007), while endorsing class divisions, eugenics, and strict censorship (Popper 1957; cf. Vlastos 1977; Saunders 1992; Brown 1998). In my view, we ought to reassess Plato’s political thought acutely aware of two facts: first, his frightful experience of the failing Athenian Democracy, exposed in Plato’s earlier dialogues, notably the Apology and Crito which focus on the need to obey the laws, an exemplar Socrates upheld to his detriment (Benson 1998; Bobonich 2019, 312-321); second, Plato’s voice has been for centuries construed through his disciples, notably Aristotle (Zuckert 2009; Bloom 1991): while the Aristotelian emphasis on historical (rather than aspirational) polities presents an exceptional opportunity to observe contemporary objections to Platonic ideas (Cherry 2018), it can mislead us to the assumption that Plato’s civic model(s) lack(s) historicity. My inevitably sketchy analysis of Plato’s politics in this chapter focuses on the Republic, which represents the philosopher’s middle maturity, before considering the Statesman and the Laws, which belong to his late dialogues. My overall approach supports the unitary theory (Lewis 1998), according to which Plato’s political thought displays consistency across his dialogues, versus the developmental approach which insists on identifying discrepancies in his political views (Klosko 2006). Furthermore, I am keen to recognize the dramatic aspects of Plato’s dialectic method which aims to educate his audience in recognizing not just true knowledge but importantly the phenomenology of their errors (Klein 1965; cf. Manoff 2020), thus moving away from Vlastos’ analytic approach (1978) which systematically overlooks Plato’s penchant for literary expression. Following from these opening observations, I structure my examination of the Platonic dialogues mentioned above around three main themes: the challenge of turning political theory into political practice; the conflict between individual and collective interests in a polity; and finally, Plato’s use of rhetoric to engage his fellow-citizens intellectually, thereby aspiring to affect their cognitive horizon. For Plato, political change is pendant to the review of certain, fundamental concepts that underpin the way people decide their priorities in life; the purpose of challenging the mainstream understanding of these concepts through his dialectics is to achieve a new consciousness, individual and collective.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2024. “Platonism/ Metaphors of Citizenship and Transcendence in the Platonic and Christian Traditions”, in C.J. Nederman and G. Bogiaris (eds), Research Handbook on the History of Political Thought, Cheltenham, UK/ Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 76–88.

The impact of Platonism on theorizing and articulating the Christian dogma, whether Plato was rec... more The impact of Platonism on theorizing and articulating the Christian dogma, whether Plato was received as a pagan proponent of Christianity or the epitome of pagan fallacy, has been far-reaching and currently enjoying a resurgence of interest (see indicatively, Rist 1964 and 1985; O’Daly 2001; Dillon 2012; Sabo 2015; Miroshnikov 2018; Pavlos et al. 2019; Burns 2020; Hampton and Kenney 2021; Verheyden et al. 2022; Anagnostou-Laoutides and Parry 2020 and 2023). Despite risking a misperception of congruence, early Christian theologians, keen to revamp the intellectual pedigree of Christianity, engaged thoroughly with the prevalent Greek and Jewish traditions of the Hellenistic period, “an age of kings, political and philosophical, temporal and spiritual” (Long 2006, 10). In accordance with Alexander’s claims to divinity, the proximity of kings to God was debated in contemporary philosophical treatises (Goodenough 1928) and kings posed as embodiments of the divine law that rules the universe (Chesnut 1978). Plato’s philosopher king remained influential, although Aristotle regarded heroic virtue (not philosophy) as the key quality of the ideal king (EN 1145a153-30; Vander Waerdt 1985). By producing an edition and commentary of Plato’s dialogues (Schironi 2005), Aristophanes of Byzantium transplanted the centre of Platonic study from Athens to Alexandria, a city that claims a special role in the development of both Platonism (Niehoff 2010, 35) and Christianity (Pearson 1986 and 1997).
Philo of Alexandria, a member of the city’s large Jewish Diaspora, adopted Platonic allegory to harmonize scripture with philosophy (Novak 2019, 107-139; Ramelli 2011), cementing Platonism as the lingua franca of Alexandrian intellectuals. Between the second century BCE and CE, following Philo’s example, philosophers such as Antiochus of Ascalon (Dillon 1996, 78-9, 114–135), Eudorus (Bonazzi 2007a/b), and Numenius (Dillon 1996, 366-379), also adopted Plato’s penchant for allegory and his apophatic descriptions of god. Numenius explained Plato’s Demiurge, the Divine Craftsman of the universe (Tim. 28a6), as the second God in charge of the world and subject to the first God, whom he called the Father and the Intellect (fr. 21, des Places 1973, 60). While the first God is totally transcendent (Gaston 2009, 575), Numenius’ second God is divided: out “of his concern for the world” the lower aspect of the second God becomes the Third God (Dillon 1996, 374). The concept, perceived as anticipating Christian trinitarianism, appealed greatly to Christian Apologists (Edwards 2000, 160) who identified the Son of God with the Logos of the Father (His wisdom or incarnate utterance; Dillon 1989), and so with Numenius’ second God. Numenius’ doctrines, including our ascent to the first God through a mystical vision, influenced Ammonius Saccas (Stuck 2004, 102-103) who was born into a Christian family (Ramelli 2009; Dillon 1996, 381-383). Ammonius appreciated Platonic allegory (Stuck 2004, 102-103) and so did his students, including Plotinus (Dillon 1996, 366, 372) and Origen, likely to be identified with the namesake Christian theologian (Ramelli 2017, 7-8). Origen, who was also a student of Clement of Alexandria, compared Plato’s tendency to hide the truth from the many to the approach of Paul and the evangelists to divine revelation (CC 6.6).
In this milieu of cultural fermentation students of Plato and the Bible employed the metaphors of baccheia (drunken revelry) and theoria (contemplation) to debate their experiences of God and His kingdom and define its relationship to its earthly counterparts. Here, after offering an overview of Plato’s role in the development of these metaphors, mainly in his Middle dialogues (the Symposium, the Phaedrus and the Phaedo) but also the later Laws, I trace their employment by Christian theologians. In the East, baccheia and theoria are employed as major exegetical tools, underpinning the Christian mystical theology, while in the West they convey the civic duty of Christian philosophers, expected to bolster the divine mission of the emperor.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2023. "Female agents of Hell, Stoic luxury, and failing leaders: Erictho, Tisiphone, and the female gaze in Lucan, Statius, Dante, and Boccaccio," Classical Receptions Journal 21: https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clad021

The Underworld imagery developed by Lucan (BC 6.507–830), Statius (Th. 4.345–645), Valerius Flacc... more The Underworld imagery developed by Lucan (BC 6.507–830), Statius (Th. 4.345–645), Valerius Flaccus (Arg. 1.827–50), and Silius Italicus (Pun. 2 and 13) to reprove Rome’s power-hungry leaders, accused of the death of thousands in civil war battles, excited the imagination of Christian writers such as Lactantius, Ausonius, Jerome, and the Spanish Presbyter Iuvencus. The article explores the investment of this imagery with the Stoic notion of excess (luxury) and its impact on defining the Christian concept of sin as received and further developed by Dante and Boccaccio. So far, scholarly discussion has tended to focus on the Homeric overcoat of pietas and its opposite furor, which under the influence of Posidonius (135–51 BCE), came to be associated with traditional Roman virtues. Instead, I here focus on Erictho (Lucan) and Tisiphone (Statius) as symbols of sinful temptation and effeminizing excess (luxury), typically gripping its victims through the eyes. In response to these infernal female figures, Dante and Boccaccio attributed epic proportions to ethical life, turning it into a canvas on which they debated the Christian moral code of their times. The gendered principles underpinning sinful excess in both pagan and Christian authors are discussed, alongside the role of poetry in counter-proposing the figures of Piety and Clemency.

The anchor has been one of the most puzzling Seleukid symbols, introduced by the dynasty’s founde... more The anchor has been one of the most puzzling Seleukid symbols, introduced by the dynasty’s founder, Seleukos I. Historical sources of the Roman era refer to it in connection with certain oracles and divine omens designed to confirm Seleukos’ Apolline ancestry and his preordained rise to the throne. A less mythological explanation refers to Seleukos’ time as Ptolemy’s admiral: according to this interpretation, Seleukos’ naval victories during this time inspired him to employ the anchor as symbol of his naval superiority. After reviewing the extant textual and numismatic evidence, and summarizing the scholarly arguments on the issues arising from them, I explore an additional cultural paradigm regarding the Babylonian god Marduk and his safe mooring of the ship of state, celebrated during his New Year festival. Following Marduk’s divine example, earthly kings, including Nebuchadnezzar II whom the Seleukids admired, were able to halt the ships of their enemies and claim divinely sanctioned victories. In my view, this paradigm accords with Seleukos’ conciliatory cultural policies designed to appeal to both his Greek and non-Greek subjects, especially since the ship of state metaphor was ubiquitous in the Greek culture but also popular, as the evidence indicates, in Babylon and Kilikia, a region largely exposed to the cultural influence of Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian period. The concept of safe anchoring was amply promoted in Near Eastern royal inscriptions and advocated in the magnificent state boats which decorated the temples of Marduk and Nabû in Babylon and Borsippa. Seleukos and his son Antiochos I were known to have participated there in local cultic activities. Thus, Near Eastern lore about Marduk’s ship of state likely encouraged Seleukos’ choice of the anchor as a symbol of his royal legitimacy, a symbol employed more systematically after his final victory against Antigonos in 301 BCE.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2023. “Lust in Lions and Lovers: Hunting for Civic Virtue in Vergil, Propertius, and early Greek Elegy,” in A. Keith and M. Myers (eds), Vergil’s Elegy and Elegists’ Vergil: Gender and Genre, Toronto: Toronto University Press, 106-124.

The chapter expands on Dunkle’s discussion of Aeneas as a hunter by paying attention to similes o... more The chapter expands on Dunkle’s discussion of Aeneas as a hunter by paying attention to similes of hunting warriors as wild animals in the
Aeneid. I draw on Roman, mainly Propertian, as well as Greek elegiac and lyric poetry, to argue that Vergil associates the animalistic fury of hunting tyrants with the emotional exaggeration of elegiac mistresses, notably Dido and Camilla, destined to be killed as hunted prey. Thus, Vergil stages a battle of genders as much as a battle of genres.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. Wine and Ecstasy in Plato: A Metaphor of Sorts and its Early Reception. New York: SUNY. 9798855804850

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. and Parry, K. (eds). 2023. Later Platonists and their Heirs Among Christians, Jews and Muslims. Leiden: Brill.

Brill, 2020

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2016. rpr. 2019. In the Garden of the Gods: Models of Kingship from the Sumerians to the Seleucids. London and New York: Routledge.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2005, rpr 2013. Eros and Ritual in Ancient Literature: Singing of Atalanta, Daphnis and Orpheus. Gorgias Press Dissertation Series, New Jersey, USA.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. “Sexual Indulgence in Musonius Rufus”, in J. Sellars and L. Gloyn (eds), Brill’s Companion to Musonius Rufus, Leiden: Brill, Chapter 12.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2026. “Plato on Euripides and Baccheia as a Metaphor of Higher Cognition”, in R. Güreman, M. Bonazzi et al. (eds), Theoria as Cognition in Plato, Leiden: Brill, tbc.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2026. “Music and Theoretic Awakening from Plato to Augustine”, in K. Parry, K. Cunio, and D. Rickles (eds), Harmony of the Spheres, London: Bloomsbury, tbc

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2025. Crisis of Leadership in the Eastern Roman Empire. Hermathena double Special Issue.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2024. “Plato”, in C.J. Nederman and G. Bogiaris (eds), Research Handbook on the History of Political Thought, Cheltenham, UK/ Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 278–289.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2023. “Man before God: Silence and Altered States of Consciousness in the Phaedo and Clement of Alexandria,” in E. Anagnostou-Laoutides and K. Parry (eds), Later Platonists and their Heirs among Christians, Jews and Muslims, Leiden: Brill, 25-60.

The paper discusses the nature of meditative silence in Plato and its reception by Plotinus, the ... more The paper discusses the nature of meditative silence in Plato and its reception by Plotinus, the so-called father of Neoplatonism, as well as Clement of Alexandria, a very influential even if often overlooked early Christian father.

This article explores the sexual aesthetics of Cavafy’s poetry from a literary perspective; it dr... more This article explores the sexual aesthetics of Cavafy’s poetry from a literary perspective; it draws attention to two crucial but largely overlooked models which are instructive vis-à-vis Cavafy’s appreciation of the role of sex in literature beyond his personal sexual orientation. First, I argue that Cavafy reworks the motif of militant Eros, found amply in Straton’s anthology of epigrams known as the Musa paidike (which survives mainly in book 12 of the Greek Anthology), by glossing it with a distinctive Roman elegy twist. Cavafy interweaves the themes of militia and servitium amoris, so typical of Latin elegy and reinterprets servitium amoris as dutiful, determined service in the name of sensual pleasure rather than inevitable enslavement to the force of erotic passion which the poet cannot resist. Roman elegiac poets, especially Propertius, with whom Cavafy was thoroughly familiar, are typically understood to have employed the motif to convey the crushing weight of their amorous affliction and their inability to break free from their unworthy object of affection. This turn occurs characteristically in Cavafy’s prose poem The Regiment of Pleasure (or of the Senses, as often translated). The mature language of the poem has led Savidis to date it between 1894 and 1897; during this early period Cavafy embraced the model of the Parnassiens while also being influenced by the movement of symbolism. Savidis’ dating of the poem is also supported by the fact that Cavafy reworks numerous motifs introduced here in his later poems, dated from 1904 to 1917, as I will point out in my analysis of the Regiment. Second, I wish to explain the Regiment as Cavafy’s response to Baudelaire’s rejection of the avant garde in his Mon coeur mis à nu (My heart laid bare). Baudelaire composed the poem in Paris in the early 1860s, shortly before his death, and it was published posthumously in 1877. Although Cavafy’s appreciation and creative competition with Baudelaire has been thoroughly acknowledged in the bibliography, to my knowledge, this connection has not been identified to date. My reading of the Regiment and its models aims to review Cavafy’s sexual aesthetics which I perceive as homoerotic but not exclusively homosexual; thus, I ought to make a few methodological distinctions prior to my analysis of the poem.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2021. “The God of Tahpanhes and his Sicilian Counterpart,” in G. Shepherd (ed.), South Italy, Sicily and the Mediterranean: Cultural Interactions, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Series, 105-122.

Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. 2022. “Flexing Mythologies in Babylon and Antioch-on-the-Orontes: Divine Champions and their Aquatic Enemies under the Early Seleukids,” in E. Anagnostou-Laoutides and St. Pfeiffer (eds), Culture and Ideology under the Seleucids: Unframing a Dynasty, Berlin: DeGruyter.

The article argues that in the second half of the Aeneid Vergil debates different forms of violen... more The article argues that in the second half of the Aeneid Vergil debates different forms of violence drawing on Greek tragic plays. It maintains that episodes of rage/mania, inspired by Euripides’ Bacchae (bk 7: Amata; bk4: Dido) and Heracles (bk 8: Cacus) but also, by Aeschylus’ Eumenides (bk 8: Cacus), are designed to illustrate the downfall of tyrannical Turnus. In this context, his comparison to a lion (Aen. 10.454-6) evokes the bestial aspects of Bacchic frenzy, further identifying him with Pentheus. At the same time, Vergil introduces motifs of violence (and mercy) inspired by Aeschylus’ less discussed Suppliant Women (bks 7 and 12). Although Vergil’s adaptation of tragic motifs has been widely discussed in scholarship for some time, the interplay of Euripidean and Aeschylean modes of violence in the second half of the Aeneid and their contribution to the issues of mercy and revenge that dominate the end of the epic have not been fully appreciated. Here, I argue that Vergil eventually accepts Aeschylus’ mode of violence, according to which Turnus’ death is necessary for establishing a new order of things.

L'articolo sostiene che nella seconda metà dell'Eneide Virgilio rappresenta varie forme di violenza ispirandosi a modelli tragici greci. Episodi di collera/mania, ricavati dalle Bacchae (Amata, libro 7) e dall'Heracles (Caco, libro 8) di Euripide, ma anche dalle Eumenides di Eschilo (Caco, libro 8), anticipano la rovina di Turno, dovuta al suo carattere tirannico. In questo contesto, il suo accostamento a un leone (Aen. 10.454-6) sottolinea gli aspetti bestiali del furore bacchico e contribuisce a identificarlo con Penteo. Allo stesso tempo Virgilio introduce temi di violenza (e di clemenza) ispirati alle meno indagate Supplici di Eschilo (libri 7 e 12). Benché l'adattamento virgiliano di motivi tragici sia stato ampiamente discusso nella critica, l'intreccio di modelli ricavati da Euripide e da Eschilo per la rappresentazione della violenza nella seconda parte dell'Eneide e il suo contributo alla comprensione dei problemi riguardanti la clemenza e la vendetta che dominano nel finale del poema non è stato pienamente valutato. Qui sostengo che in conclusione Virgilio accoglie l'atteggiamento eschileo nei confronti della violenza, in base al quale la morte di Turno è necessaria per dar vita a rinnovato ordine del mondo.

Theōria as Cure for Impiety and Atheism in Plato’s Laws and Clement of Alexandria

Religions, Jun 14, 2024

Platonism

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Jun 13, 2024

Plato

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Jun 13, 2024

Sexual ethics and unnatural vice: from Zeno and Musonius Rufus to Augustine and Aquinas

Man before God: Music and Silence as Induction to Altered States of Consciousness from Plato to Clement of Alexandria

BRILL eBooks, Dec 19, 2022

Flexing Mythologies in Babylon and Antioch-on-the-Orontes: Divine Champions and their Aquatic Enemies under the Early Seleukids

De Gruyter eBooks, Jan 19, 2022

The Metaphor of Prometheus in Blumenberg

Academia letters, Apr 27, 2021

The Eye of the Soul in Plato and Pseudo-Macarius: Alexandrian Theology and the Roots of Hesychasm

BRILL eBooks, Nov 3, 2020

Eros and the poetics of violence in Plato and Apollonius

Drinking and Discourse in Plato

Méthexis, Mar 15, 2021

The article argues that in the Symposium, but also the Phaedrus and the Protagoras, Plato instruc... more The article argues that in the Symposium, but also the Phaedrus and the Protagoras, Plato instructs us on the correct way of engaging in discourse by adducing examples from the activities of drinking and singing (/performing poetry). By presenting Socrates as grappling with the use of wine, rhetoric and poetry, almost failing at times, but always able to recollect himself and identify the faults in his methods (as well as of others), Plato recognizes the difficulties of the process, while acknowledging Socrates’ extraordinary intellect.

Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy

EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste eBooks, 2016

Vergil's alleged interest in Plato is stressed in the numerous accounts of his life (the Vitae) w... more Vergil's alleged interest in Plato is stressed in the numerous accounts of his life (the Vitae) which were in circulation already since antiquity, but became especially popular from the ninth century 1 , when medieval thinkers, inspired by Plato's model of the poetprophet (i.e. Ion 533d-534e; Apol.22c; Leg.4.719c; Men.99d; Ph.85b), embraced the conflation of poetry and philosophy 2 . In the same vein, under the influence of Neopla-

A broad-ranging volume like this one, whose sources stretch from Byzantine Greek and Latin to Heb... more A broad-ranging volume like this one, whose sources stretch from Byzantine Greek and Latin to Hebrew, Arabic and Armenian, requires expert linguistic help along the way. We particularly thank Natalie Mylonas for her help with the Hebrew in Chapter 6, Nicholas Matheou for his aid with reading the Armenian cited in Chapter 8, and Aydogan Karz for his correction of transcribed Arabic names in Chapter 10. Various colleagues gave generously of their time to read and comment on the draft chapters. Each chapter has been anonymously peer-reviewed. We thank the members of the editorial board of Byzantina Australiensia for their helpful suggestions, and editorial assistants Kosta Simic and Sandra Sewell for proofreading. Our colleagues at Brill, Marjolein van Zuylen and Loes Schouten, brought the volume safely through the publication process with their careful oversight.

Introduction Un-Framing Seleukid Ideology

De Gruyter eBooks, Jan 19, 2022

Sócrates el sátiro sobrio y la posición de Platón respecto a la risa

Heracles and Dumuzi: the Soteriological aspects of kingship under the Seleucids

Some political thought relevant to this statue of Zeus at Olympia

Polemical poetry in late antiquity: the rise of a eunuch-consul in Book 1 of Claudian's In Eutropium

Acta Classica, 2021

Eros and Ritual in Ancient Literature: Singing of Atalanta, Daphnis and Orpheus

Page 1. Page 2. GORGIAS DISSERTATIONS 11 CLASSICS Volume 3 Page 3. Eros and Ritual in Ancient Lit... more Page 1. Page 2. GORGIAS DISSERTATIONS 11 CLASSICS Volume 3 Page 3. Eros and Ritual in Ancient Literature Singing of Atalanta, Daphnis and Orpheus Page 4. Page 5. Eros and Ritual in Ancient Literature Singing of Atalanta ...

Claude Calame, Myth and History in Ancient Greece. The Symbolic Creation of a Colony

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2004