Volume: Volume 3, Issue 2

The aim of this article was to gather and evaluate all data concerning the East Adriatic coast from Pseudo-Aristotle's De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, and to find out, if possible, which sources the author of this work had used concerning the scoped territory. In De Mirabilibus the following areas are mentioned: the island of Palagruža (§ 79), upper Adriatic with Kvarner bay (§ 81, 105), south Velebit area (§ 104), and southern Illyria (§ 22, 128, 138). Pseudo-Aristotle rarely quotes his sources, but by comparison of his data with those from other ancient literally works, we can conclude that one of his main sources for East Adriatic was Theopompus of Chios.

In the 4th century B.C, Aristotle was to highlight the healing power of drama. He argued in the Poetics that drama has a therapeutic effect on the spectators, since it exposes them to a high level of emotional pressure, so much so that when the dramatic tension is resolved, the spectators eventually attain catharsis. His formulations were basically a reaction against Plato’s vehement attack on poetry. In the 20th century, Jacob L. Moreno, an Austrian-American psychiatrist, who is widely recognized as the founder of both psychodrama and sociodrama, realized the therapeutic effect of drama on his patients and was to use it as a means of treatment. Despite the fact that Aristotle and Moreno are separated by many centuries, their theories seem to converge as both stress the remedial influence of drama and its cathartic effect. Moreno, however, argued that there were differences between psychodramatic catharsis, on the one hand, and Aristotlean catharsis on the other, as the former drew on dramatic sources from the Near East. It is the aim of this paper to highlight how Aristotle and Moreno came to formulate their respective theories concerning catharsis, discussing the similarities and differences regarding their proposed catharses, and tracing Aristotlean echoes in Moreno’s theory.

One of the most astonishing tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia is the well-known Plimpton 322 Tablet. This tablet is a piece of clay recording fifteen rectangle triangles with integer number sides. It has been abundantly analysed and one of its most recent interpretations is that from Britton et al. (2011) who relate the Pythagorean triples with expert work of a scribe. They, also, assume the idea of covering the entire tablet with data including its reverse, which would include up to 23 rows with the corresponding triples. However, the only confirmed data are those of the obverse. Using the Joyce’s values for angles W of the corresponding triangles, in this paper, we consider that the triples can be visualized as gnomonic triangles (gnomons and their shadows at midday); then we suggest a new interpretation for the data appearing in the Tablet 322 of the Plimpton’s catalogue: they could represent a record of gnomonic locations of “boundary stones” (being W angles Latitudes) and consequently, they could be definitions of specific sites at the time of Sumerian world. The right triangles shown in the tablet could have been observed with a gnomon nearby cities like Terqa, Eshnunna, Akshak, Adab and Nippur in the northern part of Sumer, at the day of equinox around 4,000 years ago. Other cities to the north, outside this region, would be indicated by the other triples. If we assume that the origin of the Plimpton 322 tablet could be Larsa, a city nearby Uruk, then, we can suggest that a missing part of the broken tablet would include up to 70 mm of data (according to Britton et al.) of an additional column for the side (h) itself and a possible column for the place; at least two more rows: one for a triangle 875:1440:1685 at Latitude of Larsa and another corresponding a triangle 611:1020:1189 for Ur city. These last triples were found with a methodology based on the properties of Pythagorean triples of Plimpton 322 tablet and reported elsewhere: the h side must be a multiple of six.

The paper deals with the understanding of equality in the context of democracy in Plato’s philosophy. At first it clarifies kinds of equality which can be found in Plato’s dialogues especially Laws, Gorgias and Republic. Then it focuses on democracy – its origin and characteristics and it also analyses Plato’s criticism of democracy through equality. The paper concerns human nature, requirement for the rule of experts in relation to equality.