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Showing papers in "The Classical Journal in 2018"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the authors suggests that women's hair becomes an index to the socioeconomic realities of urban self-fashioning as well as a locus of anxiety about Rome's increasing reliance on imported labor and consumer goods.
Abstract: This paper suggests some far-reaching symbolic implications for women's hair in Latin love elegy. Hairdressing, hairdressers and hair loss provided a metaphorical vehicle by which Tibullus (1.8), Propertius (2.18), and above all Ovid (Ars Amatoria 3; Amores 1.11–12, 2.7–8, 1.7, and 1.14) interrogate the power relationships that underpin Roman society: between master and slave, women and men, Rome and her provinces. In my analysis, elegiac hair becomes an index to the socioeconomic realities of urban self-fashioning as well as a locus of anxiety about Rome's increasing reliance on imported labor and consumer goods.

14 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a series of links to the last verses of the Eclogues and Georgics characterizes A. 12.945-52 as a covert sphragis that reflects on Vergil's corpus.
Abstract: A series of links to the last verses of the Eclogues and Georgics characterizes A. 12.945–52 as a covert sphragis that reflects on Vergil's corpus. Through their description of Pallas' baldric, focus on Aeneas' relationship with Pallas and allusion to Eclogue 1, the epic's final lines continue the modes of closural reflection established by Ecl. 10.70–7 and G. 4.559–66. In doing so, they mark grief as a central emotion of the Aeneid and render distance and death a point of conclusion for Vergil's earlier works as well. This perspective emphasizes the tension between the necessity of Aeneas' last action and the emotional toll it entails, at the same time as it calls attention to the opposition between the frailty of human bonds and the courage of those who attempt to form them in all of Vergil's writings.

6 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined Plutarch's prefatory self-display in light of his instructions in the essay On Inoffensive Self-Praise, and argued that Platarch's unusual self-exposure in the Demosthenes-Cicero prologue constitutes an intriguing rhetorical device that Plautarch employs to enhance his authority as a narrator and researcher and develop and establish his readers' complicity.
Abstract: This paper approaches Plutarch's prologue to the Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero (Dem. 1–3) from a novel perspective, seeking to examine Plutarch's prefatory self-display in light of his instructions in the essay On Inoffensive Self-Praise. It argues that Plutarch's unusual prefatory self-exposure in the Demosthenes–Cicero prologue constitutes an intriguing rhetorical device that Plutarch employs to enhance his authority as a narrator and researcher and develop and establish his readers' complicity. It also suggests that Plutarch's proemial self-portrait serves as a provocative reflection on significant aspects of the character of the two protagonists of the book, Demosthenes and Cicero, and their world, thus modelling Plutarch as a possible example for the reader to follow and emulate. The discussion proposes a new way in which Plutarch employs synkrisis in the Lives: it shows that Plutarch offers himself as part of the syncretic material of his biographies, as another “mirror” into which the readers gaze and thus reflect better on the character of the two men and on their own lives.

3 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the way in which this fifth-century pictorial technique becomes a distinctive metaphor that addresses complex ontological and epistemological problems, namely the notion of antithesis and the so-called "compresense" of opposites (enantia) in the world of Doxa, as well as the relationship between Forms and physical particulars.
Abstract: Contrary to the traditional interpretation of Plato's attitude towards painting as derogatory, it has recently been rightly argued that its treatment in the Platonic corpus is too complicated to be dismissed as simply negative. In this paper I focus on Plato's references to “shadow painting” in the Phaedo and the Republic and investigate the way in which this fifth-century pictorial technique becomes a distinctive metaphor that addresses complex ontological and epistemological problems, namely the notion of antithesis and the so-called “compresense” of opposites (enantia) in the world of Doxa, as well as the relationship between Forms and physical particulars.

3 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Hieron of Xenophon as discussed by the authors dwells on his personal finances and mistrust in the loyalty of others, which spoil his security and happiness, and these problems are exemplified and exacerbated by his reliance on a mercenary bodyguard.
Abstract: All of Xenophon’s works contemplate the nature of leadership, but the Hieron is unique in how rigorously it engages with the problem of the leader’s self-interest. Hieron dwells on his personal finances and mistrust in the loyalty of others, which spoil his security and happiness. These problems are exemplified and exacerbated by his reliance on a mercenary bodyguard. Xenophon’s choice of Simonides as Hieron’s interlocutor can be explained through Simonides’ reputation for self-interest, parallel to that of the bodyguard and of Hieron himself. Simonides’ traditional characterization as one who combined avarice with wisdom renders him a sympathetic and useful advisor.

2 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The category of Olympian sound in the Theogony and the Catalogue of Women embraces two sharply contrasting elements, one of which closely resembles a species of non-Olympian sound as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The category of Olympian sound in the Theogony and the Catalogue of Women embraces two sharply contrasting elements, one of which closely resembles a species of non-Olympian sound. The Olympian Muses' sweet songs contrast with the non-musical, disorderly noise of Olympian Zeus' thunderbolt; and the sound of the thunderbolt—a weapon forged by the monstrous Cyclopes—resembles the disorderly din created by opponents of Zeus such as the Titans, Typhoeus and Salmoneus.

1 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the visual dynamics in the social life of Rome through the approach shown by Horace in Epistles 1: from his first letter, the poet programmatically declares himself “watched enough,” dramatizing his claim for independence through a visual motif.
Abstract: In ancient Rome, city-life unfolded in a spectacular exchange of social gazes. My paper focuses on the visual dynamics in the social life of Rome through the approach shown by Horace in Epistles 1: from his first letter, the poet programmatically declares himself “watched enough,” dramatizing his claim for independence through a visual motif. I demonstrate that Horace shows a heightened sensitivity to the visual experience: on the one hand, he lays bare the disturbing role that visual ties play in city life; on the other hand, he himself relies on visual interactions in redefining his social role and, above all, his relationship with Maecenas.

1 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine Nicander's description of the mating habits of the viper as an example of how his biological information and his literary engagement with earlier Greek poetry influence each another.
Abstract: This article examines Nicander's description of the mating habits of the viper as an example of how his biological information and his literary engagement with earlier Greek poetry influence each another. Nicander claims that female vipers kill their mates during copulation, and are then in turn killed by their babies during childbirth, “avenging” their father's death. I trace the intertexts that shape the passage from Herodotus to Aeschylus to Lycophron. Allusions to these authors allow Nicander to draw parallels between the violent reproductive cycle of vipers and literary succession of Hellenistic poets engaging with Classical authors of the past.

1 citations