Greco-Roman martial epic poetry, from Homer and Virgil to Neronian and Flavian epic, is obsessed with the treatment of dead bodies. Sometimes corpses take centre-stage in grand funerals; sometimes, disturbingly, they are objects of physical violence or malign neglect. In this book - the first full-length examination of corpse mistreatment in epic - Andrew M. McClellan explores the motif of post mortem abuse in Greco-Roman epic, especially the Latin poems of early imperial Rome: Lucan's Bellum ciuile, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Thebaid, and Silius' Punica. He counters the pervasive tendency to view epic violence from the perspective of the abuser by shifting the focus to the object of abuse. In signalling the corpse as a critical 'character' and not simply a by-product of war, he offers a fundamental re-evaluation of violence and warfare in Latin epic, and through close study of intertextualities indicates the distinctive features of each author's treatment of the dead.
In August 2015, the sixteenth International Congress for Neo-Latin Studies was held in Vienna, Austria. The proceedings in this volume, sixty-five individual and five plenary papers, have been collect
In this book, Bill Gladhill studies one of the most versatile concepts in Roman society, the ritual event that concluded an alliance, a foedus (ritual alliance). Foedus signifies the bonds between nations, men, men and women, friends, humans and gods, gods and goddesses, and the mass of matter that gives shape to the universe. From private and civic life to cosmology, Roman authors, time and time again, utilized the idea of ritual alliance to construct their narratives about Rome. To put it succinctly, Roman civilization in its broadest terms was conditioned on ritual alliance. Yet, lurking behind every Roman relationship, in the shadows of Roman social and international relations, in the dark recesses of cosmic law, were the breakdown and violation of ritual alliance and the release of social pollution. Rethinking Roman Alliance investigates Roman culture and society through the lens of foedus and its consequences.
This book re-examines the most traditional area of classical scholarship, offering critical assessments of the current state of the field, its methods and controversies, and its prospects for the future in a digital environment. Each stage of the editorial process is examined, from gathering and evaluating manuscript evidence to constructing the text and critical apparatus, with particular attention given to areas of dispute, such as the role of conjecture. The importance of subjective factors at every point is highlighted. An Appendix offers practical guidance in reading a critical apparatus. The discussion is framed in a way that is accessible to non-specialists, with all Latin texts translated. The book will be useful both to classicists who are not textual critics and to non-classicists interested in issues of editing.
This book re-examines the most traditional area of classical scholarship, offering critical assessments of the current state of the field, its methods and controversies, and its prospects for the future in a digital environment. Each stage of the editorial process is examined, from gathering and evaluating manuscript evidence to constructing the text and critical apparatus, with particular attention given to areas of dispute, such as the role of conjecture. The importance of subjective factors at every point is highlighted. An Appendix offers practical guidance in reading a critical apparatus. The discussion is framed in a way that is accessible to non-specialists, with all Latin texts translated. The book will be useful both to classicists who are not textual critics and to non-classicists interested in issues of editing.
At first sight, the idea of variety may seem too diffuse, obvious, or nebulous for deeper scrutiny, but modern usage masks the richness of the long history of the term. This book examines the meaning,
This volume contains the papers of the colloquium Protohistory of the Text, which took place on 28 and 29 November 2013 at the Universitat de Barcelona. Each paper is devoted to the transmission of a
Tenney Frank (1876–1939) was a renowned classicist and scholar of the ancient world. Originally published in 1930, this book grew out of a series of lectures given by Frank which attempted to 'visualize a few of the early Roman writers in their response to the desires and demands of their own environment'. An introductory preface and textual notes are also included. This is a highly readable book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in the culture and society of Ancient Rome.
Challenging ideas about the declining social role and impact of literature in Late Antiquity, Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD demonstrates how Greek and Latin literature of the fourth
This is the first book to study the impact of invective poetics associated with early Greek iambic poetry on Roman imperial authors and audiences. It demonstrates how authors as varied as Ovid and Gregory Nazianzen wove recognizable elements of the iambic tradition (e.g. meter, motifs, or poetic biographies) into other literary forms (e.g. elegy, oratorical prose, anthologies of fables), and it shows that the humorous, scurrilous, efficacious aggression of Archilochus continued to facilitate negotiations of power and social relations long after Horace's Epodes. The eclectic approach encompasses Greek and Latin, prose and poetry, and exploratory interludes appended to each chapter help to open four centuries of later classical literature to wider debates about the function, propriety and value of the lowest and most debated poetic form from archaic Greece. Each chapter presents a unique variation on how these imperial authors became Archilochus – however briefly and to whatever end.
Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World traces the enduring history and wide-ranging cultural influence of Neo-Latin. Featuring original contributions by a host of distinguished international sch
Though the wonders of ancient Roman culture continue to attract interest across the disciplines, it is difficult to find a lively, accessible collection of the full range of the era's literature in En
Though the wonders of ancient Roman culture continue to attract interest across the disciplines, it is difficult to find a lively, accessible collection of the full range of the era's literature in En
This cutting-edge collection of essays offers provocative studies of ancient history, literature, gender identifications and roles, and subsequent interpretations of the republican and imperial Roman
