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Showing papers in "Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in 1998"



Journal Article
TL;DR: The relationship between personal emotions and political and social factors is an essential component to the understanding of erotic and sexual relationships in the Greco-Roman world, as many significant and ground-breaking studies in recent years have demonstrated as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: T HE INTERPLAY between personal emotions and political and social factors is an essential component to the understanding of erotic and sexual relationships in the Greco-Roman world, as many significant and ground-breaking studies in recent years have demonstrated. This perspective has been employed in the interpretation of a broad range of ancient sources: legal texts, literary works, visual representations, and religious literature. Of this last type, religious literature, a particular sub-set, the so-called \"magical\" erotic spelh} for the

7 citations



Journal Article
TL;DR: Brooten as discussed by the authors claimed that some women sought the public recognition of marriage for their relationships in Greco-Roman antiquity and used four Greek texts: Lucian, Clement of, Lucian and Iamblichus.
Abstract: I T USED TO BE THOUGHT that love between women in GrecoRoman antiquity, though no doubt as common as at most other periods of human history, was a subject the surviving male writers of the times either did not notice or could not bring themselves to mention. But an important book by Bernadette Brooten has revealed that there is more evidence than most of us had supposed. Almost all of it hostile, to be sure, but evidence nonetheless. There can be no question that she has expanded the frontiers of the subject, and that female homoeroticism is at last a viable area for research.l But not content with bringing her subject into the mainstream of modern scholarly study, Brooten went further and claimed that some women sought the public recognition of marriage for their relationships. Notoriously, John Boswell made the same claim about gay men in Roman and mediaeval times in his SameSex Unions in Pre-modern Europe (1994). I have no intention of reopening that debate here, but it has to be said that his ancient evidence was particularly thin. At one point Brooten remarks casually that \"Iamblichus was one of several second-century authors to write about marriage between women\" (51). In fact her case rests essentially on four Greek texts: Lucian, Clement of

6 citations



Journal Article
TL;DR: In the second century A.D., Artemidoros collected a fair range of material from the dreams which his clients brought him for interpretation: dreams with incest shown directly, not deduced by psychoanalytical decoding.
Abstract: I N ONE OF SIGMUND FREUD'S favorite classical quotations, Iokaste tells Oidipous that \"many mortals in dreams have slept with their mothers. ttl Perhaps she was right. Much later, in the second century A.D., Artemidoros collected a fair range of material from the dreams which his clients brought him for interpretation: dreams with incest shown directly, not deduced by psychoanalytical decoding.2 The meanings, thought Artemidoros, varied widely according to the dreamer's circumstances and the details of the dream-for example, whether the dreamer's mother was alive or dead at the time of the dream, and what position they used. Such dreams might bode well or ill, and they are hardly ever about sex. Symbolic interpretation does much to take the shock out of them. As White suggests, \"since the forbidden impulse was not disguised

5 citations



Journal Article
TL;DR: In the early 1990s, Erich Gruen challenged some persistent cliches about the degeneration of the polis in the Hellenistic age: "Is it the case that the cities enjoyed only a sham autonomy, lacked independent authority, and carried no serious impact on the course of historical events? Could they no longer generate the enthusiasm, devotion, and civic pride that had once characterized the heyday of the classical polis?".
Abstract: I T IS AXIOMA TIC that the institution of the polis in the Hellenistic Age faced new challenges and crises, but the continuing vitality and adaptability of the polis in the face of the new monarchies of the era has been repeatedly demonstrated. Yet there still lingers a sense that the true era of the city-state was the Classical age, now over and done with. In the early 1990s, Erich Gruen challenged anew some of the still persistent cliches about the degeneration of the polis in the Hellenistic age: "Is it the case that the cities enjoyed only a sham autonomy, lacked independent authority, and carried no serious impact on the course of historical events? Could they no longer generate the enthusiasm, devotion, and civic pride that had once characterized the heyday of the classical polis?"! The tiny polis of Lebedos on the coast of Asia Minor offers little to answer the first of these questions. "Serious impact on the course of historical events" is not a phenomenon to be associated with this little state at any stage of its history. But what of the second question? A conventional interpretation of the vicissitudes of Lebedos's history would portray it as the anonymous and impotent victim of royal whims. But the evidence for Lebedos from the Hellenistic Age, sparsE' as it is, demonstrates that" enthusiasm, devotion, and civic pride" are

4 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: In the fourth book of the Histories of Ephorus, Strabo, introducing this passage, criticises the rationalized view employed by the historian in the myth of the founding of Delphi and attacks the half-hearted rationalization as merely a confusion of history with myth as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: T HE SCHEME of the thirty books of the Histories of Ephorus was an account of the world as a Greek of the fourth century knew it: it included the rise of the Greek states, their activities in the Mediterranean, and their relations with the neighbouring kingdoms Ephorus laid down the principle that the myths of a remote past were outside his province, because their truth was not ascertainable However, he chose to begin his work with what we call the Dorian Invasion, which was known to him by legend under the title "Return of the Heracleidae"l He recounts the mythical foundation of Delphi's oracle in the fourth book of his Histories (F 31) Strabo, introducing this passage of Ephorus, criticises the rationalized view employed by the historian in the myth of the founding of Delphi and attacks the half-hearted rationalization as merely a confusion of history with myth2 The approach of Ephorus is considered rationalistic or euhemeristic3 For Jacoby (ad F 31) Ephorus treats two traditions as interwined: on the one hand he puts Themis and Apollo together, and on the other through the rationalization of Python includes the struggle for the site of Delphi

4 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, Gamilscheg rendered this as "Katapulten nach beiden Seiten zu drehen" and put it into English as "revolving ballistae at both ends."
Abstract: THE MILITARY MANUAL (Strategikon) attributed to the emperor Maurice stipulated that the infantry contingents should be followed by a train of wagons, some of which were to transport artillery crews, carpenters, and metal workers, as well as ~aA.A.i(J'tpUl; £Ka'tEpro9Ev (J'tPE

4 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: The main sources of Photius' essays on the ten orators (codices 259-68) are [Plutarch] Lives of the Ten Orators and, for Demosthenes, Libanius' hypotheses as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The main sources of Photius’ essays on the ten orators (codices 259-68) are [Plutarch] Lives of the Ten Orators and, for Demosthenes, Libanius’ hypotheses. A residue of material remains which cannot be assigned to any extant source. It has been suggested that significant sections of this residue are derived, directly or indirectly, from Caecilius of Caleacte. This paper argues: (i) Photius’ unidentified source is an author who cited Caecilius, but who was also willing to comment on and criticise his opinions. Only those passages in which Caecilius is named (485b14-36, 489b13-15) can safely be included among his fragments. (ii) The later author who cited, commented on and criticised Caecilius was the third-century critic Cassius Longinus. (iii) We do not know how material from Longinus reached Photius, or with what degree of adaptation; and we cannot be sure to what extent Photius himself rearranged, abbreviated, paraphrased and added to this material.

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw attention to the crucial role of Christian themes such as the eucharist and the resurrection in the shaping and recreation of the ancient pagan Greek world in the Byzantine Greek novels.
Abstract: I N THE CHRISTIAN WORLD of Constantinople, in the twelfth century A.D., there was a revival of the ancient Greek novel, replete with pagan gods and pagan themes. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the crucial role of Christian themes such as the eucharist and the resurrection in the shaping and recreation of the ancient pagan Greek world in the Byzantine Greek novels. Traditionally scholars have focused on similarities to the ancient Greek novels in basic plot elements, narrative techniques, and the like. This has often resulted in a general dismissal of the twelfth-century Greek novels as imitative and unoriginal. 1 Yet a revision of this judgment has begun to take place. Scholars have noted that there are themes and imagery in these novels that would sound contemporary to many of their Byzantine readers, for example, ceremonial throne scenes and

Journal Article
TL;DR: Pausanias dates the wars to the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., a millennium before his own day, and portions his materials into two separate wars, basing his division on lines of the poet Tyrtaeus, who inspired the Spartans during the second war and reminded them of the glorious struggle of their grandsires in the previous war as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: W HEN PAUSANIAS reaches Messenia in his guide to Greece he inserts his most extended historical excursus, a narration of the wars by which the Spartans imposed helotry on the Messenians. Pausanias dates the wars to the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., a millennium before his own day, and portions his materials into two separate wars, basing his division on lines of the poet Tyrtaeus, who inspired the Spartans during the second war and reminded them of the glorious struggle of their grandsires in the previous war (Paus. 4.15.1-3). As his sources Pausanias names the prose work of Myron of Priene and the epic poem of Rhianus. He will use Myron for the first war and Rhianus for the second. Complications arise because Aristomenes, Rhianus' hero, appeared as a warrior also in Myron's tale. One or the other author must be incorrect. Pausanias decides the poet is more accurate than the prose writer, and condemns Myron for retailing false and untrustworthy material both in his Messenian work and his other writings (4.6.1-4). To this day Myron's reputation as a historian remains low. Writing in the early Hellenistic age about a period from which only legends survived, Myron has produced what Pearson! has