scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers in "Classical World in 2013"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors show how puns, etymological plays, semantic multivalence, figures of speech, and metrical effects imply trenchant sarcasm in Catullus 114 and 115.
Abstract: Catullus 114 and 115 slyly subvert surface praise of Mamurra’s Firmian estate and suggest numerous criticisms of the owner. I show how puns, etymological plays, semantic multivalence, figures of speech, and metrical effects imply trenchant sarcasm. The word modo , linking the profligacy of the man with the questionable merits of his estate, prepares for the transformation of Mentula to the common noun mentula in an ironic twist on the function of the phallus in priapic poetry. These epigrams look back to poems 43 and 44: Mentula’s aggressiveness toward Catullus is now repaid, with this adversary silenced forever in the text.

18 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the Iliad, defeated foes plead for mercy on six occasions as mentioned in this paper, but these appeals are all unsuccessful, and many modern scholars believe this lack of quarter indicates that the protracted Trojan War grew more brutal over time.
Abstract: In the Iliad , defeated foes plead for mercy on six occasions. Since these appeals are all unsuccessful, many modern scholars believe this lack of quarter indicates that the protracted Trojan War grew more brutal over time. Nowhere, however, does the text suggest a preexisting custom of mercy that has lapsed, or that the refusal to spare a surrendering enemy was ever considered unethical. Rather, the scenes of battlefield supplication have a literary function and serve to characterize the supplicated warriors, since the decision to grant or refuse mercy was at the whim of the victor.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the Consola- tion of Philosophy as discussed by the authors, Boethius regarded the activity of writing the Consolatio- fication of philosophy as a form of self-examination designed to help him coming to terms with his change of fortune.
Abstract: AbstrA ct: Boethius regarded the activity of writing the Consola- tion of Philosophy as a form of self-examination designed to help him coming to terms with his change of fortune. The depiction of character Boethius allows the author to examine the part of him that was overwhelmed by despair; the description of Lady Philoso- phy permits Boethius to scrutinize the part of him that maintained detachment from his tragedy. The dialogue between the characters and the consolatory strategies described in the texts are the literary devices through which Boethius (I) plays out his internal struggle and (II) investigates how to restore his happiness.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the link between ancient Greek prostitutes and the textile industry, specifically through the women's association with braiding frames, spinning, and wool-baskets, as they are portrayed in Attic vase-painting.
Abstract: This paper examines the link between ancient Greek prostitutes and the textile industry, specifically through the women’s association with braiding frames, spinning, and wool-baskets, as they are portrayed in Attic vase-painting. The argument presented is twofold: one, prostitutes from all ranks were involved in the textile industry and were thus depicted working wool in vase-painting; and two, Aphrodite, the prostitutes’ patron deity, was also linked with textiles through the representations of her headdress, gestures of spinning, and her embroidered chest ornament on Attic pottery.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Cicero develops and idealizes a novel concept of otium involving both civic stability and the opportunity for dignified activity and achievement through private leisure, conspicuously locating the interlocutors of his dialogues in such a condition as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: From 63 forward Cicero develops and idealizes a novel concept of otium involving both civic stability and the opportunity for dignified activity and achievement through private leisure, conspicuously locating the interlocutors of his dialogues in such a condition. He regularly contrasts this otium with his own, despite the fact that his interlocutors also lived in periods of civil strife and were unlikely to have experienced their private otium any differently. Ultimately, by representing the stability of this condition over several generations and even implicating himself in it in certain dialogues, Cicero naturalizes the fiction of his otium , implying a transcendent, transtemporal political stability in Rome.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Parallels allow us to connect many passages in Isocrates to dialogues of Hippias, Antisthenes, and Plato as discussed by the authors, and they formulate the constructs "story register" and "rhetorical register" for the wavelengths of communication that Isocrates locates in fiction.
Abstract: Parallels allow us to connect many passages in Isocrates to dialogues of Hippias, Antisthenes, and Plato. Although Isocrates articulates a conception of fiction, he treats views voiced by characters in dialogues as the authors '. He also uses fictional elements (e.g. in Or. 3, 12, 15) to express his own views. From Isocrates and Plato I formulate the constructs "story register" and "rhetorical register" for the wavelengths of communication that Isocrates locates in fiction. His treatment presupposes that he and his intended readership understood dialogues as assertoric works. It also indicates that Plato's more literary dialogues circulated more widely than is sometimes supposed.

7 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Velleius Paterculus spent many years as soldier and senator before writing his brief history in honor of Marcus Vinicius as discussed by the authors, and his history reveals tensions between the public attitudes of Velleius the senator and the opposing convictions of a former soldier.
Abstract: Velleius Paterculus spent many years as soldier and senator before writing his brief history in honor of Marcus Vinicius. In this paper, I suggest that his history reveals tensions between the public attitudes of Velleius the senator and the opposing convictions of Velleius the former soldier. While the senator dutifully praises the peace brought about by Augustus and Tiberius, the soldier continues to distrust peace, and to consider war the proper business of a Roman. This leads Velleius to undermine his praise of Augustan and Tiberian virtues, when he finds them inappropriate to actual or potential foreign enemies.

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In contrast with the traditional grammar/translation method of Latin instruction, the Natural Method relies almost entirely on the use of spoken Latin in the classroom, generally to the exclusion of the vernacular as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In contrast with the traditional grammar/translation method of Latin instruction, the Natural Method relies almost entirely on the use of spoken Latin in the classroom, generally to the exclusion of the vernacular. This article examines the origins of the method in late nineteenth-century Europe, the theories that prompted the method, and early attempts to implement the method in the classroom. Special attention is given to W. H. D. Rouse, who is generally credited with first applying the method to Latin teaching. The article concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of the Natural Method as a means of Latin instruction.

5 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Pindar manipulated the primeval landscape, the ancient man-made monuments and the mythological heritage of Olympia as mentioned in this paper, and composes myths that revolve around the origins of Olympia, linking ancient and contemporary practice to reinforce the importance of the present moment's ideological rela- tionship to the past.
Abstract: Olympia provided Pindar with material that he could use in his narratives of praise, and Pindar manipulated the primeval landscape, the ancient man-made monuments, and the mythological heritage of Olympia. Whether using Alpheios, the hill of Kronos, the Pelopion, or the ash altar of Zeus, Pindar weaves rich connec- tions between the heritage-laden physical landscape of Olympia and his patrons, so that his patrons can bolster their social status. Sim- ilarly, Pindar composes myths that revolve around the origins of Olympia, astutely connecting ancient and contemporary practice to reinforce the importance of the present moment's ideological rela- tionship to the past.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The classical reception model is based on a process of reappropriation and redefinition to assert or challenge continuity with a privileged past as mentioned in this paper, which is similar to the classical tradition model.
Abstract: Great Books core curriculum courses play a role in defining the relationship between past and present for undergraduate students. Two competing approaches to constructing this relationship are described, namely classical tradition and classical reception . The classical tradition model is based on the idea of Greco-Roman influence on Western civilization. The classical reception model is based on a process of reappropriation and redefinition to assert or challenge continuity with a privileged past. Examples including Vergil's Aeneid , Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice , and Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red demonstrate how teachers can implement a classical reception approach in the classical civilization classroom.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors identifies an unnoticed allusion in Pliny Epistle 9.36 to the story of Demosthenes' cave, and explicates how that allusion responds in specific terms to the passage in Quintilian (Pliny's teacher) in which the story story of the cave is told.
Abstract: This note identifies an unnoticed allusion in Pliny Epistle 9.36 to the story of Demosthenes’ cave, and explicates how that allusion responds in specific terms to the passage in Quintilian (Pliny’s teacher) in which the story of the cave is told; the upshot is a reading of Pliny’s letter as an allusive and dialogic text of considerable sophistication.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The 300 Spartans (1962) as discussed by the authors is an Italian peplum story that was adapted as a Hollywood epic in Greece, with the goal of propagating notions of national identity, memory, and pride.
Abstract: The paper investigates the artistic, economic, and so- ciopolitical context of The 300 Spartans (1962), from its conception as an Italian peplum to its realization as a Hollywood epic filmed in Greece. I argue that the classical past is recreated on screen in ways that violate the historical record and becomes a vehicle whereby gender hierarchies are reproduced and morality is preached to the viewers. I conclude by showing how the revival of ancient Sparta on film is informed by important events in post-Civil War Greek history and is deployed to propagate notions of national identity, memory, and pride.

Journal ArticleDOI
Abstract: This paper argues that the Coen Brothers' 2010 version of True Grit makes innovations to the original novel by Charles Por- tis that evoke the Greek myth of the descent to the underworld, or catabasis. Mattie Ross, a fourteen-year-old girl on mission to fi her father's murderer, embarks on a quest that ends with her falling into a snake pit after she kills the culprit. The experience can be likened to a heroic quest, especially in the context of coming-of- age myth and ritual. I submit that this mytheme is combined with echoes of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, a very particular version of the catabatic mythology that is frequently associated with girls' puberty and marriage.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The New Ventures in Classics Pedagogy: The Challenge of Teaching about Rape workshop as discussed by the authors was designed to follow up on a roundtable discussion about teaching Rape in Classical Literature at the previous year's APA meeting.
Abstract: The three papers published here were originally presented in the context of a workshop at the 2010 APA meeting in Anaheim, California entitled “New Ventures in Classics Pedagogy: The Challenge of Teaching about Rape.” The workshop, organized by Kathy L. Gaca and Lillian Doherty, was designed to follow up on a roundtable discussion about “Teaching Rape in Classical Literature” at the previous year’s APA meeting, which drew an unusually large number of participants. The papers published below were collected and edited by Lillian Doherty (University of Maryland, College Park). They offer an overview of the pedagogical and ethical issues classicists face in teaching about rape, they suggest a variety of classroom strategies, and they describe several very specific case studies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wilson et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that Wealth is blind in the Wealth of Oedipus at Colonus and that the blind man as leader image from the end of the Colonus scene encourages the audience to misidentify the old blind character as a leader rather than Wealth.
Abstract: The opening scene of Aristophanes’ Wealth, by appropriating and concretizing the “blind man as leader” image from the end of Oedipus at Colonus, encourages its audience to misidentify the old blind character as Oedipus rather than Wealth. Wealth uses other references to Sophocles’ handling of Oedipus and Phineus to engage with Sophoclean themes of disease, healing, and redemption. Furthermore, both Wealth and Oedipus at Colonus end with the once-diseased figure reestablished as a benefactor to Athens. Recognizing this appropriation of Sophoclean material in Wealth further enhances our understanding of the relationship between comedy and tragedy in the early fourth century. The conceit that Wealth is blind dates back at least to the complaints of Hipponax in the sixth century b.c.e.1 The attempt to cure his blindness, though, occurs for the first time in extant literature in Aristophanes’ Wealth, produced in 388 b.c.e.2 This paper argues that Aristophanes’ innovative treatment of Wealth’s blindness in the extant Wealth echoes 1 Hipponax fr. 36 West. Quotations of Aristophanes are from N. G. Wilson, Aristophanis Fabulae (Oxford 2007); for Sophocles, I have used H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford 1990). All translations are my own. 2 See A. H. Sommerstein, The Comedies of Aristophanes: Vol. 11, Wealth (Warminster 2001) 5–8 on earlier treatments of Wealth. He traces two strands in depictions of Wealth before 388: “Wealth-the-blind,” a dispenser of curses about whom authors complained; and “Wealth the cornucopia-holding son of Demeter,” best known from cult, and the figure upon which the Titans who form the chorus of Cratinus’ Ploutoi are loosely based. Known comedies titled Wealth(s) that preceded the Wealth of 388 include Epicharmus, Elpis or Ploutos (PCG frr. 31–34); Cratinus, Ploutoi (PCG frr. 171–177); Aristophanes, Ploutos (of 408, PCG frr. 458–459); Archippus, Ploutos (PCG frr. 37–40). A Ploutos attested for Nicostratus (PCG fr. 23) postdates the extant Wealth. These fragments give no indication of the healing of a blind Wealth, nor do they even suggest whether Wealth was a central character. See also P. Sfyroeras, “What Wealth Has to Do With Dionysus: From Economy to Poetics in Aristophanes’ Plutus,” GRBS 36 (1995) 233–35, on the two aspects of Wealth (blind and unhelpful vs. seeing and benevolent) depicted in the literary tradition.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In Ad Atticum 2.16, Cicero speaks of a great controversy between Theophrastus and Dicaearchus as discussed by the authors, which was the creation of Cicero.
Abstract: In Ad Atticum 2.16, Cicero speaks of a great controversy between Theophrastus and Dicaearchus. Consideration of context (literary and political) makes clear that the controversy is the creation of Cicero.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the image of Alexander the Great created by Polybius and reinvestigated the Polybian themes con- cerning the Macedonian in his analysis of the subject's life.
Abstract: This study discusses the image of Alexander the Great created by Polybius and reinvestigates the Polybian themes con- cerning the Macedonian. Richard Billows suggested that there are fi ve Polybian themes found in his analysis of Alexander. Yet our current assumptions about the scope of Polybius' portrayal and his own conclusions require reconsideration. In fact, Polybius' favor- able comparison of Rome's accomplishments to those of Alexander emerges as a possible sixth theme. This article examines these six Polybian themes, while demonstrating that Polybius does not dis- associate his text completely from an apologetic tone and offers a generally positive opinion of Alexander the Great.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Pausanias may have had a unique approach to the Iliad and Odyssey as discussed by the authors, which is consistent with examples from elsewhere in the Periegesis. However, it is fundamentally different from the approach other Roman-era Greek writers and other Greek historians and geographers.
Abstract: Pausanias’ debunking of the necklace of Eriphyle at Amathus at Pausanias 9.41.2–5 provides evidence about one of the key elements of his writing style: his use of the Homeric epics. Pausanias rests virtually his entire argument about the necklace on a single line of the Odyssey , despite the existence of more developed alternatives. This confidence in the exact wording of Homer is consistent with examples from elsewhere in the Periegesis . However, it is fundamentally different from the approach other Roman-era Greek writers and other Greek historians and geographers. Pausanias may therefore have had a unique approach to the Iliad and Odyssey.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors provide a critical overview of the current scholarly debate regarding ancient notions of selfhood and personal identity, focusing on the ideas of two of the most prominent contributors to this debate, Christopher Gill and Richard Sorabji.
Abstract: This article provides a critical overview of the current scholarly debate regarding ancient notions of selfhood and personal identity. It does so by focusing on the ideas of two of the most prominent contributors to this debate, Christopher Gill and Richard Sorabji. The views of these two scholars appear to be in direct opposition: while Gill claims that there is a fundamental difference between ancient and modern conceptions of personality (he identifies these as “objective-participant” and “subjective-individualist”), Sorabji, on the other hand, stresses continuity and identifies a number of central recurring elements of selfhood. Through an analysis of several relevant examples from ancient literature and philosophy (Cicero on the theory of personae , Epictetus’ concept of prohaeresis , the motives of Medea in Euripides’ play), it is argued that the two positions are not as contradictory as they may at first appear. Instead, the readings point toward a synthesis in which central elements of both perspectives are combined.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A bilingual cacemphaton in Martial 3.44 allows the author to blur the categories of chaste and obscene language, furnishing a moment of ribald humor in a section of book 3 that Martial claims is free from Latin obscenity as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A bilingual cacemphaton in Martial 3.44 allows the author to blur the categories of chaste and obscene language, furnishing a moment of ribald humor in a section of book 3 that Martial claims is free from Latin obscenity. The cacemphaton recasts an unusual reference to a scorpion as a more familiar socio-sexual threat: the σκῶρ-πέος of a pedicator . It risks charging the epigram's mundane activities with erotic significance and contributes to a nexus of sexual, culinary, and literary imagery in the short cycle of poems against poetaster Ligurinus (3.44, 45, 50), suggesting why his verses give no pleasure and how they corrupt food and ruin meals.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Statius, Siluae 2.1 represents Melior's relationship with the boy Glaucias as both paternal and erotic, at once commemorating the man's love for his recently deceased alumnus and giving voice to anxiety that some readers, for a variety of reasons, may have felt about the profoundly intimate relationship he enjoyed with his slave and deliciae as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Statius, Siluae 2.1 represents Melior’s relationship with the boy Glaucias as both paternal and erotic, at once commemorating the man’s love for his recently deceased alumnus and giving voice to anxiety that some readers, for a variety of reasons, may have felt about the profoundly intimate relationship he enjoyed with his slave and deliciae . Statius subtly likens their relationship to treatment of slave boys that Domitianic moral legislation innovatively rendered illicit, problematizing masters’ removal of child slaves from their parents’ care for sexual use. Siluae , book 2 in fact contains a number of consolatory poems that raise questions about the treatment of slaves.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors defend the reading mimum in the death scene of Suetonius' Life of the emperor Augustus, supported by the evidence of the biographer's manuscript tradition, a similar passage in Cicero, and the parallel report by the historian Dio.
Abstract: This paper defends the reading mimum in the death scene of Suetonius’ Life of the emperor Augustus. This reading is supported by the evidence of the biographer’s manuscript tradition, a similar passage in Cicero, and the parallel report by the historian Dio.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors used the first book of Ovid's Amores to explore the rhythms created by the relationship between quantitative meter and word-accents in Latin elegiac poetry, revealing a single basic rhythm underlying the whole of each hexameter and pentameter line.
Abstract: This paper uses the first book of Ovid’s Amores to explore the rhythms created by the relationship between quantitative meter and word-accents in Latin elegiac poetry. The first part explains how my analysis of the word-accents in relation to the quantitative meter reveals a single basic rhythm underlying the whole of each hexameter and pentameter line. The second part of this paper gives some examples of how attention to this pattern and its variations can be applied practically to illuminate additional layers of meaning in Ovid’s poetry.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a hybrid approach to Ancient Greek that combines online tutorial exercises with flexible face-to-face meetings and assessment within the Blackboard Course Management System is described, which enables students to continue their Greek studies at any time during their academic career without being constrained by a rigid three-semester rotation.
Abstract: This article describes a hybrid approach to Ancient Greek that combines online tutorial exercises with fl exible face-to-face meetings and as- sessment within the Blackboard Course Management System. The goal of this system is to enable the Classics program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to offer its three-course beginning Greek sequence concurrently so that students begin in any semester, work independently online while receiving any necessary help in a tutorial environment from the professor or a peer tutor, and continue their Greek studies at any time during their academic career without being constrained by a rigid three-semester rotation.

Journal ArticleDOI