A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Agora

402 PHOENIX or the like; nevertheless, her basic account of a difference between the unstructured and structured things is sound. In her essay onNous (192-205), Curd explains that inAnaxagoras thispower has two functions:it is intellect with cognitiveability,and itsets inmotion therotationthat separates things from the primordial mixture. And indeed, because Nous acts intelligently it assures that "the resultinguniverse is intelligible"(194). Curd interprets Nous as "nonmaterial," in contrast to the stuffs that are totally mixed with each other (200). It has knowledgeprobablyby a kind of "directapprehension"of the world (204). Curd gives a helpful account of this cosmic agency that avoids some extreme interpretations of it. She briefly discusses theroleof Nous in livingthings"as a ruling,organizing,and discerning component" (202). One would like to hear more about the relation between Nous and soul (are theyidentical?coextensive?),and also therelationbetween Nous in livingthingsand cosmic Nous (does my Nous give me access to cosmic powers of knowledge and control? does cosmic Nous intervene in nature now, either by itself of through its animate agents?). Of course on these subjects we have little information from the texts. Inher final essay,"AnaxagoreanScience" (206-234), Curd rightly gives Anaxagoras his due as the first to explain eclipses correctly and to recognize and discuss meteorites (233). She gives an attractive new account ofAnaxagoras' puzzling discussion of a separation that would occur similarly "elsewhere" (B4a): the cosmic vortex motion produces our world, with the earth at the centre. But it also can produce eddies at the periphery, where other worlds can form with phenomena similar to those of our own world (212-222). Curd has put together an excellent edition of Anaxagoras, translating all the texts and supplementing them with valuable commentary and illuminating essays. This is the work to consult to learnabout thephilosopher and his theory.It is theonlybook thatdoes justice to the range of Anaxagoras' interests, and it provides probably the most coherent interpretation yet of his difficult theories. Brigham Young University Daniel W. Graham A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Agora: Ancient Greek and Roman Humour. By R. Drew Griffith and Robert B. Marks. Kingston, Ontario: Legacy Books. 2007. Pp. ii,234. Marks reveals in his afterword that this book is intended as a textbook. In such a book we would hope forthefollowing:a thoroughselectionof examples,commentarytohelp make those examples easier to understand, theoretical perspectives on humor in general and ancient humor in particular, and some pointers to other work on the subject. Griffith and Marks make valuable contributions in each of these areas, but their idiosyncratic approach causes themtoaccomplish much less thanthey might have. Griffithand Marks have broughttogether awide rangeof examplesof ancienthumor. In addition to many quotations, sometimes extensive, from ancient texts, they include a number of illustrations of humorous art, and they supplement their Greek and Roman examples with briefdiscussionsofhumor inEgypt, Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, and the early Middle Ages. It is particularly rewarding to find translations from lesser-known works such as the Byzantine Philogelos. Nevertheless, both the selection and the organization of the examples leave much to be desired. Because the same texts are often used to demonstrate different points, there BOOKREV1EWS/COMPTES RENDUS 403 is a great deal of unnecessary repetition. Some genres, such as mime and New Comedy, are almost entirely ignored. Most exasperating isGriffith and Marks's response to Roman humor.One comes awayfromthisbookwith the impressionthatalmost theonlyhumor from Rome is in Petronius, Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, and a few poems of Catullus. Roman comedy and satire, Cicero and Quintilian's discussions of wit, and Pompeian graffiti are absent or nearly absent. And Griffith and Marks's attempt to distinguish Greek literature from Roman on the grounds that the former was largely oral and the latter largely written ignores completely the existence of hellenistic literature. GriffithandMarks add briefdiscussions tomost of the passages cited. Much of this commentary is helpful. Too often, however, their analyses obfuscate. Griffith and Marks, for example, seem to take Clouds as an accurate presentation of Socrates; and one wonders how anyreaderofFrogs could find Dionysus "a right-thinking everyman"(172). Trimalchio,who barelyknowsEncolpius, isdescribedashis sidekick. GriffithandMarks begin theirbook with a reviewof variousmodern theoriesof laughter, using ancient texts as examples of

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