Showing papers in "Classical World in 2008"
TL;DR: A better understanding is possible by taking the poet's narrative techniques seriously as mentioned in this paper, such as alternation between panoramic and scenic perspectives or common use of formulaic or type scenes, which help explain the "epic overextension" of battles by stringing together normal battles, corresponding to a familiar reality, and chaotic-fantastic flight and aristeia scenes, where gods and chariots are much more prominent than elsewhere.
Abstract: Homeric battle descriptions have long eluded satisfactory interpretation. Major problems include the mode of fighting, the role of commoners in battle, the extraordinary duration of battles lasting entire days, and the use of chariots. A better understanding is possible by taking the poet’s narrative techniques seriously (such as alternation between panoramic and scenic perspectives or common use of formulaic or type scenes). The latter, for example, help explain the “epic overextension” of battles by stringing together “normal battles,” corresponding to a familiar reality, and chaotic-fantastic flight and aristeia scenes, where gods and chariots are much more prominent than elsewhere.
19 citations
TL;DR: In the Neronian and Flavian periods, female gladiators were a definite presence in Rome whose participation paralleled that of men, though the scale of this presence in frequency and number is unknown as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Female gladiators were a definite presence in Rome whose participation paralleled that of men, though the scale of this presence in frequency and number is unknown. Senatus consultum decrees from A.D. 11 and 19 confidently mark the first appearance of this phenomenon. Later literary sources (including Martial, Cassius Dio, and Juvenal) expand the evidence, but often consist of mere sentences, giving little detail. The concentration of literary mentions in the Neronian and Flavian periods is explained by two factors: one, the intent to mark a games as splendid and lavish, and two, the intent to use this luxury context to comment on past emperors and moralize on Roman society.
13 citations
TL;DR: In Roman authors like Cicero and Quintilian language itself may be described as having an odor as discussed by the authors, which is interpreted as an example of how Romans could use all sense-perceptual data, including natural odors and artificial scents, to determine one's origins and position in a social hierarchy.
Abstract: In Roman authors like Cicero and Quintilian language itself may be described as having an odor. In its synaesthetic blending of senses, this image defies "linguistic" expectations but confirms the observation of sensorial anthropology that sense-perception varies across cultures. The image is thus interpretable as an example of how Romans could use all sense-perceptual data, including natural odors and artificial scents, to determine one's origins and position in a social hierarchy. In addition to complicating the definition of "language" in Roman antiquity, the image thus suggests understanding odors as "osmetic" or "osmemic," depending on their meaningfulness in a given cultural context.
12 citations
11 citations
TL;DR: This paper applied Grignon's typology of commensality to the full range of meal practices of Greco-Roman associations and found that various meals served as locations of social interaction and group self-definition while inscribing community boundaries.
Abstract: Applying Claude Grignon’s typology of commensality to the full range of meal practices of Greco-Roman associations provides insight into how various meals served as locations of social interaction and group self-definition while inscribing community boundaries. Literary, epigraphic, and papyrological evidence from these associations suggests that their meal practices were not limited to one particular type of commensality, as argued previously by John Donahue. Rather, a broad examination of the data demonstrates that associations undertook, at various times and places, segregative commensality, exceptional commensality, transgressive commensality, and, in some cases, “extra-domestic” commensality.
9 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the Boudica orations in Tacitus ( Ann. 14.35.1-2) and Cassius Dio (62.3-6) and argued that both authors present complex portrayals of Boudicas and seem at least partially capable of valorizing her complaints against Roman misrule.
Abstract: Some recent scholarship has argued that ancient Roman historians inevitably cast foreigners as inferior and thereby justified Roman imperialism and colonialism. This paper questions this position's validity through an examination of the Boudica orations in Tacitus ( Ann. 14.35.1-2) and Cassius Dio (62.3-6). It argues that both authors present complex portrayals of Boudica and seem at least partially capable of valorizing her complaints against Roman misrule.
7 citations
TL;DR: Despite differences in subject matter, plot construction, and character, the two Heracles plays may have a similarity in the conception of divine action (divine determinism) and in their formal structure.
Abstract: Despite differences in subject matter, plot construction, and character, the two Heracles plays may have a similarity in the conception of divine action (divine determinism) and in their formal structure. The hero suffers from an internal/internalized conflict between divine and human spheres. The unity of these coexistent spheres is broken by an outburst of the hero's own bestiality, which leads to the (temporary or permanent) reduction of his status. Nevertheless, his fall entails a personal victory which involves the painful realization of human limits.
7 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the literary and medical evidence that Catullus could have made a joke about sexually transmitting body odor and swollen feet and concluded that his audience would have appreciated such a joke.
Abstract: In Catull. 69 Rufus has a goat living in his armpits. In Catull. 71 a nameless man is part of a love triangle that has afflicted the two male participants with “the goat” and gout. Critics have been hesitant to suggest that Catullus could really be making a joke about sexually transmitting body odor and swollen feet. By examining the literary and medical evidence, I conclude that his audience would have appreciated such a joke. The identification of “the goat” and gout in 69 and 71 as venereal afflictions leads to a direct and funny reading, which fits the dominant pattern of Catullus’ slanderous epigrams.
7 citations
6 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigates several leading world historical periodization models, as well as the problematic translation of those models into content standards and standardized tests, in order to explore the problems and possibilities of how to place Greco-Roman history into world historical context in both teaching and scholarly publication.
Abstract: Increased influence of world historical models for periodization, state content standards for history, and assessment instruments such as the AP and SAT II all demonstrate that Greco-Roman historians must become more involved in the pedagogy of world history and in the production of scholarship to inform that teaching. This article investigates several leading world historical periodization models, as well as the problematic translation of those models into content standards and standardized tests, in order to explore the problems and possibilities of how to place Greco-Roman history into world historical context in both teaching and scholarly publication.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider questions raised by two historically coincident treatments of the Danaids: one in the narrative sequence central to Horace's Odes 3.11, another the deployment of Danaus' fifty daughters as intercolumnar ornaments surrounding the Palatine Temple of Apollo and represented by the three archaizing female herm-figures in nero antico now displayed in the palatine Antiquarium.
Abstract: This paper considers questions raised by two historically coincident treatments of the Danaids: one in the narrative sequence central to Horace’s Odes 3.11, another the deployment of Danaus’ fifty daughters as intercolumnar ornaments surrounding the Palatine Temple of Apollo and represented by the three archaizing female herm-figures in nero antico now displayed in the Palatine Antiquarium. Although not, as popularly believed, shown actively murdering their husbands, their grimly regimented appearance adumbrates punishment as water-bearers. Yet Horace’s Hypermestra, left complaining of her own punishment for “pious impietas ,” fares little better. Uneasy co-optation links paternal authority with political propaganda.
TL;DR: Lelli et al. as mentioned in this paper suggested that the bramble bush in Callimachus' fourth Iamb, which tries to make peace between the quarreling olive and laurel trees, stands in for callimachus himself (or his persona), and echoes the conciliatory posture that Hipponax adopts in the first Iamb.
Abstract: In this article, we suggest that the bramble bush (in Greek, batos) in Callimachus’ fourth Iamb, which tries to make peace between the quarreling olive and laurel trees, stands in for Callimachus himself (or his persona), and echoes the conciliatory posture that Hipponax adopts in the first Iamb. We propose further that the word batos is a pun on Battos, the name of Callimachus’ father (Callimachus refers to himself elsewhere as Battiades). Identifying the voice of Callimachus among the many speakers in his poems is a risky enterprise, as it is perhaps with any poet; and nowhere is this more true than in Callimachus’ Iambi, which are a potpourri of narrative styles, meters, and genres. Thus, in the first, apparently programmatic poem in the series, the reader might be tempted to associate the figure of Hipponax redivivus, who unexpectedly preaches moderation and humility to the assembled crowd of backbiting philologoi, with the persona of the poet. Yet Callimachus might rather be located in the audience, as one of the quarrelsome poets to whom this advice is addressed.1 Similarly, in the fourth Iamb, which many scholars see as concluding an initial series of four poems, all in scazons, within the larger set of thirteen,2 many scholars have identified Callimachus’ own persona with the speaker of the opening line, who condescendingly demands to know whether the “son of Charitades” (a certain Simus, according to the diegesis) imagines himself to be one of them—at the same level, that is, as the speaker and his rival, with whom, according to the diegesis, “the poet” has been quarreling. Within the ainos of the rivalry between the olive tree and the laurel that follows, and which is designed to point the moral of the frame story, critics have identified the poet with the olive, which is victorious in the competition. Kerkhecker3 has made the case, however, that the poet’s voice is dispersed in the poem: it is associated at the beginning, indeed, with the olive, but toward the end, it blends rather with that of the laurel. We quote from the penultimate page of his chapter on the fourth Iamb: Callimachus the speaker sees himself as the subtle olive. With Callimachus the author, things are more complicated. The correspondence between speaker and olive is not complete. In the end, it is not the olive, but the laurel who echoes the opening words of the poem when she turns on the bramble. Does this mean that the speaker “is” the laurel, after all? 47 1 See E. Lelli, “Critica e polemiche letterarie nei Giambi di Callimaco,” (Alessandria 2004) 21. 2 E.g., A. Kerkhecker, Callimachus’ Book of Iambi (Oxford 1999) 63, 83. 3 Kerkhecker (above, n.2) 115.
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TL;DR: In Sappho 1.10, Aphrodite's chariot is drawn by sparrows as mentioned in this paper and the sequence has the structure of a joke: two unremarkable items set up the hearer for a punch line.
Abstract: In Sappho 1.10 Aphrodite’s chariot is drawn by sparrows. Perhaps the best explanation of this choice of draft animal is Sappho’s distinctive compositional style, which characteristically employs unexpected word play and conceptually odd combinations. Moreover, Sappho elsewhere uses humorous hyperbole concerning incongruous size. The sequence has the structure of a joke: two unremarkable items set up the hearer for a punch line. Thus there is evidence that the poem is lighthearted humor, whatever else it may be.
TL;DR: In this article, Posidippus AB 8−10 constitutes an internal echo of the ring composition of the Lithika as a whole and it does so by reminding the reader from another perspective of the two interlocked major themes of the section, the beauty of works of art and royal power.
Abstract: Posidippus AB 8–10 constitutes an internal echo of the ring composition of the Lithika as a whole. It does so by reminding the reader from another perspective of the two interlocked major themes of the section, the beauty of works of art and royal power.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present two outstanding classical scholars who were forced to leave Germany after Hitler's seizure of power: Kurt von Fritz's dismissal took place in 1935, Ernst Kapp lost his position in 1937.
Abstract: This paper presents two outstanding classical scholars who were forced to leave Germany after Hitler's seizure of power: Kurt von Fritz's dismissal took place in 1935, Ernst Kapp lost his position in 1937. At this time, von Fritz already was appointed as Associate Professor at Columbia University. The focus of the paper will be a detailed reconstruction of Kapp's desperate efforts to get a position in the U.S. Apart from his dependency on relief organizations' financial aid, he fortunately could rely on the support of his former student and friend von Fritz, who helped him tirelessly to secure tenure and full professorship at Columbia in 1948.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on Elis and how regional concerns and the preservation of its own alliance influenced the history of the Peloponnesos and how Elean resistance to Sparta centered on the control over its dependent cities such as Lepreon.
Abstract: During the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. , Sparta infringed upon the local and regional autonomy of the Peloponnesians, and consequently, smaller coalitions such as the Elean League became fragmented and incorporated into the Peloponnesian League. The present paper focuses on Elis and how regional concerns and the preservation of its own alliance influenced the history of the Peloponnesos. In particular, Elean resistance to Sparta centered on the control over its dependent cities such as Lepreon, as Elis attempted to preserve the unity of its own regional alliance amidst the larger and more powerful polis of Sparta and its Peloponnesian League.
TL;DR: In this article, a reading of Catullus 38 that focuses on the figures named in it, Cornificius and Simonides, rather than the undefined distress of the poet is presented.
Abstract: This paper offers a reading of Catullus 38 that focuses on the figures named in it, Cornificius and Simonides, rather than the undefined distress of the poet. By focusing on these two poets, I suggest that the poem is not a request for consolatory verses from Cornificius in the vein of Simonides, but for some verses from his Glaucus , an epyllion. I argue that the so-called new Simonides reveals Simonides' appropriateness as a model for epic-like verses and suggest that the poetic endeavors of these poets overlap within the tradition of epyllion.