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Romulus et Rémus, Pierre et Paul: Du fratricide à la concorde fraternelle
171–178Views:65Ancient authors present the founding of Rome as done either by one conditor, Romulus, or by two conditores, Romulus and Remus. Use of singular or plural was not really significant, as everyone knew that the twin brothers had a different destiny and that Rome was founded, as such, by Romulus alone. But use of the plural conditores as founders of the city is common in Christian texts: it was a way for Christian authors to emphasize that from its very beginnings Rome was affected by crime of the most scandalous sort, Romulus killing his own brother. By contrast Christians could find in their own tradition a model of perfect brotherhood, or at least brotherhood in Christ, viz. Peter and Paul, who were the common founders of Roma Christiana. Peter and Paul were the figures that Christians could set against Romulus and Remus, as founders of the new Christian city.
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Contextualising Fregellae: Local Interests in a “Globalised” Mediterranean
207-225Views:107The article employs the Latin colony of Fregellae as a case study to overcome the communis opinio that colonial settlements were parva simulacra Urbis (Gell. XVI.13.9). In particular, the colony, initially founded by Rome in the context of the Second Samnite War, could move away from the Urbs and develop localised interests. Such interests could be explained through a dynamic contact between colonists and local populations, thus forming a variegated social landscape which did not necessarily display cultural similarity with Rome. Similarly, the cityscape could be employed to ascertain how certain colonies chose architectural solutions which took into account localised needs. It is in this context that the article will examine the alliance between Fregellae and Rome in light of the Second Punic War. Traditionally interpreted as a demonstration of blind loyalty, the article will put forth the idea that the colony could decide its alliances in view of potential benefits, which, in the case of Fregellae, were manifested in the economic and military advantages reaped in the eastern Mediterranean. Interestingly, these benefits affected the colony and, more specifically, its architectural facade, as seen in the building activity carried out in the period immediately after the endeavours in the East.
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Some preliminary remarks concerning sociolinguistic variation within the „Vulgar” Latin vowel system: as evidenced by the inscriptional data
97–112Views:145This paper aims to investigate whether a statistical analysis of linguistic data in inscriptions may serve for the study of sociolinguistic variation within the Latin Language. In particular, this study focuses on the quantitative vs. qualitative phonemic opposition within the vowel system of the so-called “Vulgar” Latin. In order to do so, we will study the relative frequency of the <ae>/<ē> and <ae>/<ĕ> graphemic oscillations in three different corpora of both synchronic and syntopic - but diaphasically and diastratically different - inscriptions from the city of Rome (cf. Mancini 2014). All the inscriptions considered in this sample date back from ca. 50 AD to ca. 250 AD (the last date referring to the “end” ofso-called Classical Latin according to Adamik 2015). Our results may point to the existence of a “disturbance” within the quantitative-based vowel system of Classical Latin, at least as far as some sub-standard varieties of the language are concerned.
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From Grief to Superbia: the Myth of Niobe in Greek and Roman Funerary Art
281-296Views:207The Greek myth of Niobe was known in the ancient world both by literary sources and visual representations. Both in Ancient Greece and in Ancient Rome, the myth was represented, alongside a variety forms of art, in funerary art, but in a different manner during each period of time. In Ancient Greece, the myth was represented on Apulian and South Italian vases, portraying the finale scene of the myth: Niobe’s petrification. In Ancient Rome, a shift is visible: the portrayal of the scene of the killing of Niobe’s children on sarcophagi reliefs. The aim of this paper is to follow the iconography of each culture and to understand the reason for the shift in representation, while comparing the two main media forms.
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Hoc nemus ... habitat deus (Verg. Aen. 8, 351-352). : Presence des dieux dans la campagne virgilienne: qui sont les di agrestes?
73–82Views:56In the pastoral landscapes of the Geogics (particularly in this poem’s opening invocation), in the Eclogues, and in some descriptions of the Aeneid, for example when Aeneas visits the site of Rome with Evander (Verg., A. VIII 306-368), gods are present in nature, in the wild space, in the fields ; and the Roman feels the presence of undefined divinities. The pastoral and agricultural themes include many gods of the countryside and of agricultural life; Virgil calls them agrestum praesentia numina (G. I 10). This paper will focus on such divinities as Faunus, Pan and Silvanus. Links have been established between these divinities by way of interpretatio, especially between Faunus and the Greek god Pan. Faunus is present in the religious calendar of Rome (Lupercalia); the worship of Silvanus is also well attested in the Roman world. The concept of di agrestes, well attested in Virgil’s works, helps us to define a special category of gods, living in a special area, between civilization and wild space. Some of these divinities combine human and animal features.
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The Transformation of the Vowel System in African Latin With a Focus on Vowel Mergers as Evidenced in Inscriptions and the Problem of the Dialectal Positioning of Roman Africa
9-25Views:178Present paper intends to explore the process of the transformation of the vowel system as evidenced in the pre-Christian and Christian inscriptions of the Roman provinces Africa Pro-consularis including Numidia and Mauretania Caesariensis. With the help of the LLDB-Database, the phonological profiles of the selected African provinces will be drawn and compared to those of six more territorial units, i.e. Sardinia, Hispania, Gallia, Dalmatia, the city of Rome and Bruttium et Lucania. Then the dialectal position of the selected African provinces will be described by various methods of phonological analysis regarding vocalism in both periods. It will be demonstrated how the selected African provinces did not form a homogeneous dialectological area. The vocalism of Latin in later Africa Proconsularis including Numidia turns out to be of the same type as of the later Latin in Sardinia, while the vocalism of the Latin in later Mauretania Caesariensis might have started to develop toward the eastern or Balkan type of vocalism. Regarding consonantism, especially the b-w merger, later Mauretania Caesariensis shows explicitly different trends from what we see in later Africa Proconsularis.
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King of Kings Ardashir I as Xerxes in the Late Antique Latin Sources
143-153Views:243The last ruler of the Severan dynasty, Emperor Severus Alexander had to face an entirely new threat in Mesopotamia, because in 224 AD the Parthian royal house of the Arsacids, which had ruled in the East for nearly half a millennium, was dethroned by the Neo-Persian Sasanian dynasty and the new rulers of Persia were extremely hostile to the Roman Empire. The vast majority of the late antique Latin sources (Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Jerome, Orosius, Cassiodorus, Iordanes) call the first Sasanian monarch, Ardashir I (reigned 224–241 AD), who was at war with Rome between 231 and 233 AD, Xerxes, although the Greek equivalent of the Middle Persian name Ardashir is Artaxerxes, as used by the Greek sources. In the Latin textual tradition we can find the correct Greek name of Ardashir only in the Historia Augusta. The paper seeks answers to the question of why Ardashir was usually called Xerxes by late antique Latin sources.
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La „saevitia” de Quintilius Varus: transformación de su imagen entre Velleius Paterculus y L. Annaeus Florus
79–90Views:39In Latin literature the image of Quintilius Varus underwent an evolution between Velleius Paterculus and Florus that to a large extent corresponded to the change of political circumstances within the Roman state. During the reign of Tiberius the “clades Variana” was devised as a means that helped justify to public opinion the changes in foreign policy. A century later, Annaeus Florus, who had lived through Trajan’s wars, described the “saevitia” of Varus and attacked the idea of expansion beyond the limes. This attitude provides further support for the case that is now made for his work’s “Hadrianic ideology”.
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The Destruction of the City: Loss in the Greek and Roman Memory
19-36Views:163The appearance of the ethnically “Other” naturally has an impact on a society’s own identity. It provokes the confirmation or rephrasing of identity. The loss and destruction caused by an ethnically “Other” group creates an especially deep conflict in the society’s self-definition. This paper focuses on such events and the collective memory concerning these, through the case study of the Persian sack in 490 BC and one hundred years later the Gallic siege of Rome.
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The transformation of the case system in African Latin as evidenced in inscriptions
13–36Views:190Present paper intends to explore the process of the transformation of the case system as evidenced in the inscriptions of the Roman provinces Africa Proconsularis and Numidia. First the peculiarities of the transformation of the case system in African Latin in the preChristian and Christian periods will be analysed. Then the African distributional patterns of case system changes will be compared to those of other regions of the Empire selected for the survey including Spain, Gaul (including Germany), Italy, Illyricum, and the city of Rome. Finally, the results of the present analysis, especially those regarding the dialectological positioning of Roman Africa, will be compared with the results of the investigation of Gaeng 1992 regarding the later, Christian period.
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Visigoths and Romans after 410
185–194Views:200In 410, the Roman Empire was shaken to its core after Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. The Barbarian attacks and the emergence of the usurpers created a severe crisis in the Western Roman Empire. The study of contemporary authors reveals that the crisis engendered a change in attitudes. For the Empire to be reconstructed, the traditional Roman, anti-barbarian attitude had to be changed, and living together and cooperating with the Goths was now a must. The change in attitude can be detected in Orosius’ work, a formerly anti-barbarian author who places Athaulf’s speech at Narbonne in the centre. The marriage of the Visigoth king with Galla Placidia (414), the Romanization of the Goths, their imperial service, and their new relationship with Romans as described in the speech is all a solid basis for a reestablishment of Goth-Roman relations and the creation of a new federal agreement, which actually took place in 418.
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Mithras, Neoplatonism and the stars
161–180Views:310The main ideas of this study (which is a continuation of my former article entitled “Mithras, Sol Invictus, and the Astral Philosophical Connections”) are the following: I. The dichotomy and differences between the two main groups of theories regarding the origins of the Roman mystery cult of Mithras, namely the school of the great Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, who considered Mithraism in the Roman world as an essentially Iranian cult adapted to the new cultural Hellenistic-Roman context, and the theory of the 19th century German scholar K. B. Stark (revived in the 1970s by academics like R. Beck, J. R. Hinnells, S. Insler, R. Gordon, and A. Bausani, who considered that the Roman cult of the solar god Mithras was a new mystery cult which was born in the Roman world because of the Hellenistic scientific discovery of the precession of the equinoxes.1 My conclusion is that the Roman cult of Mithras, fused with the cult of Sol Invictus (the Hellenistic-Roman cult of the Unvanquished Sun), has more things Iranian than the name of the central deity of this initiation-mystery cult (despite its undeniable Hellenistic-Roman and astrological-astronomical elements). II. The astral element as a potent religious component of the religious and philosophical mentality of the so-called “mystery religious and initiation cults” in the Roman Empire is seen in Roman Mithraism as a ladder for the journey of the soul through the astral spheres towards perfection or possibly towards liberation (these are modern interpretations, since we do not have any consistent Mithraic religious-liturgical text). III. The role of Neo-Platonist philosophy in the religious and philosophical landscape of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE of the Late Roman Empire and its possible relationship with the Roman cult of Mithras.
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The Comoedia Togata, a ‘Roman’ Literary Genre?
227-245Views:160This paper aims to shed fresh light on the Togata. By analysing the extant fragments, I will investigate if and in what sense it may be defined as a ‘Roman’ literary genre. I will focus on its ‘Roman-ness’, and I will highlight that it is a complex concept, without the ‘nationalistic’ connotations that one normally gives to the notion. I will demonstrate that the Togata is ‘Roman’ because it betrayed an attempt at creating a genre distinguished from the Palliata, and it had a widespread ‘Roman’ patina, with settings, names, and stereotypes which one would not find in other contemporary genres, in particular the Palliata. At the same time, I will also reflect on the fact that the Togata was a multifarious genre, with Latin, Italic, and Greek elements, and I will show that this was, paradoxically, another aspect of its ‘Roman-ness’.
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A Sardinien boundary dispute and agriculture
149–157Views:29In AD 69 the proconsul Helvius Agrippa had to settle a boundary dispute between two small Sardinian communities. One of them, the Galillenses, were permitted to produce the tablet pertaining to the matter from the imperial archive. The inscription fails to mention if the Galillenses had taken any action to get the tabula from Rome. Specialist literature does not give any viable explanation for this absence. The conclusion may thus be drawn that the reason for the Galillenses’ attempt to delay ‘handing over’ pertains to the anticipated yield of some kind of investment they had made. The article tries to prove that the Galillenses attempted postponing the deadline with the aim of saving crops awaiting harvest.
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A Preliminary Investigation on the / Graphemic Oscillation in Latin Inscriptions From Rome: The Relationship Between Vowel Alternations, Lexical Stress and Syllabic Structure
107-123Views:120This paper is aimed at supplementing the results obtained in Papini 2019. In particular, I will consider the position of the investigated <ae>/<ĕ> and <ae>/<ē> graphemic oscillations with respect to both 1) lexical stress (distinguishing between misspellings occurring in stressed and unstressed position) and 2) syllabic structure (i.e., open vs closed syllables). The aim of the present paper is to verify whether the relationship between the investigated spelling variations and these two variables might be regarded as simply due to chance.
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Epic meals: Who should read epic poetry in Rome?
195–201Views:119In this paper, the presence of food and dinners in connection with epic poetry in three different Juvenalian poems is discussed. The first is Satire 4 containing a mock-epic, the plot of which revolves around a giant turbot that is described with epic-style elements, and that is given to the emperor Domitian characterized by uncontrolled gluttony. The other two poems, Satires 5 and 11, both focusing on dinner parties, are in connection with the epic genre as well: while in the closing poem of Book 1, several epic connotations appear in the description of the gluttonous Virro’s extravagant dinner, in Satire 11, the enjoyment of epic poetry is praised and compared to an almost pornographic dance performance in a luxurious feast. Reading the three poems together, it might be proved from another aspect that we have to make a distinction between the Juvenalian evaluation of topics described using epic-style elements and the epic poetry itself.