Showing papers in "Classical World in 2016"

Inglorius labor?: The Rhetoric of Glory and Utility in Plutarch's Precepts and Tacitus' Agricola

Abstract: Two contemporary texts in different languages, Plutarch’s Precepts and Tacitus’ Agricola , display remarkable commonalities in how they present elite political activity. Specifically, both texts idealize figures who do work for their communities that is useful but apparently lacks glory and requires subordination to superiors in the imperial hierarchy. The authors attempt to reconcile these activities with the traditional aristocratic ethic, while at the same time characterizing overt resistance to the hierarchy as useless display. This article will trace this rhetoric through both texts and place it in its immediate historical setting (alongside contemporary authors including Dio Chrysostom) and in the larger context of Roman imperial discourse.

Spatial Metaphors of Time in Roman Culture

Abstract: As cognitive structures that capture patterns of sensorimotor experience, image schemas and their metaphorical interpretations not only deliver meaning in Latin’s semantic system but also organize other forms of Roman symbolic representation. This paper builds on Maurizio Bettini’s analysis of Latin’s metaphorical expression of time in terms of linear spatial relations by tracing the structuring effects of these metaphors on other aspects of Roman social practice, including its artistic practice. As I argue, apart from their linguistic manifestations, these metaphors motivate the “axial” configurations of certain socially instituted genealogical representations as well as provide principles of organization for the construction and decoration of material objects.

From Statue to Story: Ovid's Metamorphosis of Hermaphroditus

Abstract: Prior to Ovid’s Metamorphoses , Hermaphroditus was a popular subject of sculpture but never of extended mythological narrative. Statues make the discovery of the god’s identity a humorous and surprising focal point and encourage attention to the artistry that conveys the discover’s confusion. I read Ovid in the light of the sculptural tradition and argue that Ovid manipulates the readers’ responses to create an experience parallel to the viewing of Hermaphroditus. Ovid ensures a surprise ending and encourages rewinding and examining the deception, replicating in text the experience of the visual encounter and changing Hermaphroditus from a static statue to a dynamic literary character.

Museum Archetypes and Collecting in the Ancient World ed. by Maia Wellington Gahtan and Donatella Pegazzano (review)

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The Face of the Emperor in Philo's Embassy to Gaius

Abstract: In this paper I will show how Philo shapes his narrative in the Embassy to Gaius to highlight the role of the emperor in rupturing traditional forms of political representation, which anticipates later assessments of the principate but is surprising in an author usually thought to be favorable to monarchy. Philo should therefore be considered an important witness to the evolving views of a pan-Mediterranean aristocracy on the changes wrought by the imposition of Roman imperial authority. In constructing his narrative, Philo exploits long-standing norms of physical comportment associated with oratory and engages with the art of physiognomy, which was then approaching the peak of its popularity, by heavily emphasizing the visual elements of the political situations he describes. In particular, Philo uses facial expressions and bodily movements as markers of status and sites of agonistic social interaction to show that the unprecedented power of the imperial position, combined with the malice of Gaius, rendered personal political appeals, including his own embassy, futile, thus furthering the exculpatory purpose of the treatise.

Smell and Sociocultural Value Judgment in Catullus

Abstract: Representations of smell can serve as vehicles for value judgments about social status and cultural performance. Since smell crosses boundaries, the same representations can also expose the arbitrariness of standards of behavior. This essay focuses on examples from Catullus: mainly poems 13 and 97, which include his only uses of olfacere, and 69 and 71, which share an image of animal odor and are linked to 97 by a theme of smell crossing boundaries between human and animal and between city and country; discussion of poem 6 introduces the study. In the context of more decorous representations offered by Cicero, these examples emphasize Catullus’ delight in transgressions as leading to sociocultural critique.

Chained Animals and Human Liberty

Abstract: This article focuses on the ways that Aesopic and other fables about interactions between wild and domestic animals can be used to think through human social and political relations. In particular, three versions of a fable about dogs and wolves from the Roman imperial era (by Babrius, Phaedrus, and Avianus) illustrate different ways of conceptualizing liberty and its opposites: physical confinement, restrictions on voluntary action, dependency, and enslavement to luxury. The article then connects these conceptions of freedom with the hierarchical social and political environment of the Roman Empire, and the retrospective construction of Roman republican libertas and classical Greek eleutheria .

A New Approach to Teaching Roman Art History

Abstract: This article describes an approach to teaching ancient Roman art using historical empathy and current world events to foster students’ engagement with, and learning about, both ancient Roman art and, more broadly, the power of art. This pedagogical approach can inspire richer understanding and increased motivation to learn, while offering possibilities for civic engagement. The suggestions may be helpful for secondary or college-level teachers of Roman art, and for classics teachers who incorporate ancient visual culture.

The Life and Death of Agamemnon's Scepter: The Imagery of Achilles (Iliad 1.234–239)

Abstract: This paper compares how Achilles constructs and deploys imagery of the scepter and of tree-felling in his oath at Iliad 1.234–239 with the way the Homeric narrator uses similar images elsewhere in the Homeric corpus. My reading of 1.234–239 against both 2.100–108 and 4.482–489 shows how Achilles subverts the conventional celebratory associations of this scepter and tree imagery. Ultimately the analysis demonstrates that the poet manipulates these conventional images to intensify the crisis between Achilles and Agamemnon in book 1 and reveals how these manipulations create radically different emotional effects in an audience knowledgeable of these conventions.

Barbarisms at the Gate: An Analysis of Some Perils in Active Latin Pedagogy

Abstract: Active Latin pedagogy (i.e., pedagogy which involves active speaking or writing in Latin) has garnered a great deal of interest over the past three decades. This article briefly discusses the recent history of this approach in the U.S. and the success it has had. It then presents an analysis of three general categories of error frequently arising in classrooms and communities using active Latin. Types of errors covered include (1) semantic shifts and misidentification of meanings in source material; (2) poorly formed neologisms; and (3) grammatical and syntactical solecisms. Finally, the reasons why and how practitioners of active Latin should be on guard against such errors are explored, and the author advocates some specific improvements in Latin pedagogy.

Rewriting Power: Zenobia, Aurelian, and the Historia Augusta

Abstract: The portrayal of Zenobia of Palmyra in the Historia Augusta must be regarded with suspicion as a faithful representation of historical events. When considered as a narrative, however, this episode becomes a discourse on the correlation of power, gender, and ethnicity. In a new reading of the Life of Aurelian ( HA 22–34), I argue that the construction of the episode’s plot as well as devices such as variable focalization and dramatic irony call attention to the nexus of power, gender, and cultural identity, and ultimately destabilize the assumption that power is Roman and masculine.

Gender and Ethnicity in Heliodorus' Aithiopika

Abstract: This essay examines gender and ethnicity as performative categories in the ancient Greek novel. In the Arsake episode of the Aithiopika , Heliodorus questions classical Greek stereotypes of male versus female and Greek versus non-Greek by demonstrating the fluidity of markers for these categories. Thus, characters can act more or less “manly” or “Greek,” depending on their immediate situations and regardless of actual gender or ethnic identity. I argue that the novel presents gender as the more fixed of the two categories, but that every character operates within a wide range of behaviors, often contradicting the reader’s expectations.

Achilles and the Poetics of Manhood: Re(de)fining Europe and Asia in Statius' Achilleid

Abstract: This article examines the binarism Europe/Asia in Statius’ Achilleid as a means to understand the polarities of male/female, West/East, Greek/barbarian, and ultimately Roman/non-Roman. I demonstrate that Helen’s abduction by Paris and the discourse on the succession of empires in Statius’ poem reflect Thetis’ own transformation of Achilles into a woman. Through his cross-dressing and the impregnation of Deidamia, marked in the text as a violent attack, Achilles comes of age on the liminally other island of Scyros by replicating Paris’ rapina . The “European” Achilles incorporates both the effeminate traits of the East and the warlike manliness of the West; he also ultimately embodies the “Asian” other , which he is destined to conquer.

Filiae Augustorum: The Ties That Bind in the Antonine Age

Abstract: While the titles of imperial family members on Roman coins have been used to establish chronology, I argue that the specific titulature on the coins of Faustina II and Lucilla promotes their roles as the ties among three emperors. Though other scholars have commented on their basic roles, crucial evidence for how the Antonines promoted the roles of these women has been overlooked. By highlighting this intentional language compared to coins of prior imperial women, I show that Faustina and Lucilla not only represented the continuing harmony of the empire during the Antonine Age but also legitimated the rule of their husbands.

Do As I Say and As I Do: Lessons on the Use of History for the Civic Statesman in Plutarch's Praecepta

Abstract: In the Praecepta , Plutarch uses historical anecdote to redefine the roles of Greek civic politikoi and emphasizes the need for statesmen to shun the factionalism that invites Roman intervention into Greek affairs. Furthermore, he explicitly condemns the careless use of history in the civic political arena and implicitly models the appropriate use of selective historical exempla throughout the essay. Plutarch’s selectivity is most striking when illustrating his directive to avoid factionalism. This interpretation adds insight into Plutarch’s moral and historical program and suggests that we ought to expect the same critical reader for this essay as we do for his Lives .

Panthea's Sisters: Negotiating East-West Polarities through Gender in Xenophon

Abstract: This paper examines Xenophon’s destabilizing of gender polarities in his depiction in the Hellenica of Mania of Dardanus, a widow who rules on behalf of the satrap Pharnabazus in the Persian-controlled Troad. One of the historian’s strategies is to shift the attitudes of readers by modeling the response of an authoritative character within the text, and another is to evoke traditional stereotypes associated with Eastern widow rulers, only to upturn them. I argue that Xenophon’s gender destabilization in the Eastern context goes hand in hand with his problematizing of the associated Greek binary conception of East/West.