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WOMEN AND RULERSHIP IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

does not prove anything about the word’s gender, and that is because it is a misquotation. Cicero (Tusc. 2.36) wrote ipse labor quasi callum quoddam obducit dolori, ‘work itself provides a certain insensitivity to pain’, treating callum as neuter, and other grammarians used this quotation as an example of use of the word (attested in both genders) as neuter. Previous editors have therefore emended the text; for example, Keil (Grammatici Latini V.575.3) says Callum generis neutri, ut Cicero ‘ipse labor callum obduxit’, ‘Callum is neuter, as Cicero says ipse labor callum obduxit.’ These previous editors are no doubt right about what was originally in the grammatical tradition on which the author of this text drew, but S.Y. (pp. 141–2) makes a solid case that the corruption/confusion does not post-date the composition of this text: the author wrote ‘masculine’ rather than ‘neuter’. As these examples suggest, S.Y.’s detailed commentary (419 pages, discussing a text of 44 pages including generous apparatus) is invaluable; it offers the only thorough study of this work ever undertaken. The introduction (76 pages; in Italian, like the commentary) is also excellent, being much clearer and more helpful than anything previously written on this work. Whether the edition will be much used is more doubtful; I am not sure that the scholarly world is quite ready for such a novel approach, though perhaps soon we will be. A translation is not provided, presumably because, since the meaning of entries is often genuinely doubtful, discussing their meaning in the commentary instead of offering a translation allows for more nuanced interpretations. Despite the justice of that argument, the lack of a translation makes the contrast between Keil’s easily intelligible text and S.Y.’s Merovingian Latin even starker. But the difficulties are far from insuperable, because S.Y.’s Italian is very clear, well written and to the point.