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• Velleius Paterculus and the Roman Senate at the Beginning of the Principate

  259-269

  Andrei Y. Markelov

  Views:

  267

  The “Roman history” by Velleius Paterculus is the sole historiographical work written by a contemporary of Augustus and Tiberius. The paper deals with representation of the Roman Senate of Velleius’ time in his work. I argue that in his compendium the historian reflected the ambivalent position of the Senate under the first two Roman Emperors. He depicts the institution as more passive in comparison with its description in the previous period and as depending on the Princeps. At the same time this Roman author characterizes the Senate as having maiestas, the notion which was not connected with this authority under the Republic. Assigning of maiestas to the Senate by Velleius reflects a deep change in the position of the curia due to decline of the popular assemblies’ significance at the beginning of the Principate.

• The early reception of the inconsistency between the two Palinurus episodes in Virgil’s Aeneid

  21–42.

  Dániel Kozák

  Views:

  70

  The paper investigates how ancient commentators and Roman poets recognized and reacted to the inconsistency between the two Palinurus episodes in Virgil’s Aeneid (5,833-871 and 6,337-383). First, I discuss how Servius and Tiberius Claudius Donatus, in their notes on 6,348, remove the inconsistency (regarding divine intervention) by assuming a punctuation different from the one adopted by all modern editors; however, while doing so, they both give rise to another inconsistency between Aeneas’ question and Palinurus’ answer. Second, I examine a passage from Statius’ biography of his father (Silvae 5,3,124–132), where the poet alludes to the Virgilian story apparently according to the version we read in Aeneid 6, but also creatively reproduces some elements of the Virgilian inconsistency. The last text discussed is Ovid’s Remedia amoris, where the poet recalls his vision of Amor Lethaeus at the temple of Venus Erycina; here again, elements of the Virgilian inconsistency are reproduced.

• La „saevitia” de Quintilius Varus: transformación de su imagen entre Velleius Paterculus y L. Annaeus Florus

  79–90

  Maria Giovanna González-Conde

  Views:

  102

  In 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”.