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When elephants weap.: Plin., Nat. 8, 20-21
75–88Views:83The literature of classical antiquity has lost much of its attraction, and the circle of its possible readers has been narrowed significantly. Even in literary criticism that reaches beyond classical philology, its position has dwindled to a source of motifs, topics, archetypes, and we clearly lack such interpretations as would present ancient literature from an angle that would appeal to the readers of our age. This paper is devoted to an analysis of the 20th and the 21st chapters of the zoological part (book 8) of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia. Through a comparative interpretation that is attentive to the cultural-medial aspects of the textual locus, the essay provides a paradigm for uncovering the meaning – which would appeal to readers in the 21st century – in ancient texts with the help of different methodological perspectives, in this case the simultaneous application of narratological and comparative approaches.
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On the Manuscript(s) of Lazius’ Description of Transylvania
309-323Views:96The upsurge of cosmographical and geographical literature can be seen in humanist circles from the 14th century onwards. Beside chorography, the encomium of towns and cities was also a popular genre; some elements of ethnography, natural, economic and political geography were also built into the histography. A century later, this tendency reached Hungary and the social aspiration to presentation of the country appeared in Hungary too. Owing to these factors, chorography of Hungary was written by Miklós Oláh; humanist historians (for instance Antonio Bonfini) also incorporeted geographical digression into their work. Not only descriptions of Hungary, but some geographical descriptions of Transilvania were made in the second half of the 16th century; one of these was written by a 16 th century Viennese humanist polyhistor, Wolfgang Lazius. The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of the three textual variants of the manuscript of the Transylvania-description by Lazius, to explore their relationship to each other, and to establish their order of composition.
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Die Haut des Satyrs: Marsyas und Apollo
39–51Views:111The essay proceeds from the observation that out of the surviving literature of antiquity only one poet, Ovid pays significant attention to the tragic fate of Marsyas. Both the Fasti and the Metamorphoses relate the tale. The narrative in Metamorphoses only focuses on the naturalistic description of the punishment, the flaying of Marsyas. The interpretation of this account within even wider contexts leads to the proposition that Marsyas’s tale is the self-reflection of the elegiac poet Ovid, and as such it becomes a key narrative within Metamorphoses.
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Some Points to the Explanation of the Concept of οὐσία θεοῦ in the Hermetic Literature
29–43Views:32The philosophical problem how the essence of God can be defined and what this substance, if it can be called a substance at all, might be like is present in several treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum and in some philosophical and theological texts of late antiquity. In my essay I try to find the correct interpretation of the idiom οὐσία θεοῦ in the Hermetic texts with the help of some parallel writings from Jamblich and Sallustius. After the explanation of the relevant texts I conclude that the term οὐσία is used only to the cosmic gods, not to the first principle, and it has the function to connect the absolute transcendent first cause to the material world through the cosmic gods. The main source of this conception is the platonic tradition, as it can be seen not only from the similarity of the content, but from the similar use of the philosophical terms.
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Überlegungen zum vermeintlichen Aufenthalt von Galla Placidia im Diokletianpalast in Split
141–154Views:39This paper has two objectives. Firstly, based on Philostorgius' (HE XII,13) claims that the army of Theodosius II crossed Pannonia and Illyricum during the campaign in 424. against the usurper John. This unusually long route to Dalmatia will be examined and considered. In the scientific literature, information can sometimes be found that Galla Placidia had sojourned in the palace of the former Roman Emperor Diocletian in Split during the winter of 424/425. These data lead to the second goal of this paper, namely, to examine possible evidence for such an assertion.
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Ancient cases of congenital disorders and their social causes
57–69Views:43More than 79 cases of children born with congenital defects are known from Greek and Roman literature. Although it is extremely difficult if not impossible to identify a single potential cause for it, attempts at explanation are already found in ancient writers. With the help of modern teratological science many teratogenous causes can partly be identified. Some of the most probable factors among these were the same as today: malnutrition, viruses, alcohol, vitamin deficiencies etc., but lead poisoning has to be taken also into account as a principal cause.
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Non est mea pigra senectus: Old Women and Folk Medicine in Greco-roman Literature
83–94.Views:141This paper will examine the old-woman healer figure through Greco-Roman literary sources. First, I will discuss briefly the social reputation of old women in comparison with senex and the creation of a negative stereotype around them. After that, I will focus on the triple relation between woman, old age, and medicine in order to show the reputation of old women as skilled healers. Finally, I will analyse the use of different treatments close to magic, like enchantments and purifications, and the healings of some specific illnesses, such as love, to conclude with a brief overview of the political and social attitude towards them.
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Phaedras Brief an Hippolytus: Ovids Brief (Her. 4) in der römischen bildenden Kunst
59–75Views:83Euripides has Paedra write a letter to Theseus in which she accuses Hippolytus of raping her. In the Heroides, Ovid has Phaedra write a letter to Hippolytus which describes her burning love for the young man. In Roman visual arts the story is usually depicted as a nurse handing over a letter to Hippolytus, which he declines. It seems obvious to identify this letter with the one composed by Ovid, i.e., it is this letter that found its way into the visual arts. The contents of the love letter gradually overshadowed the tragic outcome of the story: they represented endless spousal love in sepulchral art.
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Ennodius und Martial
195–205Views:65Magnus Felix Ennodius, the bishop of Ticinum (modern Pavia), died in 521. He has left letters, poems, oratorical pieces, saints’ lives and controversial literature. Ennodius’ writings were composed for specific audiences on particular occasions. His Latinity is very literate, syntactically complex, and difficult to understand. He cultivates the short literary forms: letters, panegyrics, declamatory themes (dictiones), short poems, epithalamium, epigrams, epitaphs, hymns. In the preface of his epithalamium for Maximus, he displays the essential qualities of spring with Martial’s vocabulary. This fact directed my attention to the relation of Ennodius to Martial. Comparing Ennodius’s epigrams with Martial’s, I realized that in his epigrams Ennodius imitated Martial both in topics and expressions.
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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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Velleius Paterculus and the Roman Senate at the Beginning of the Principate
259-269Views:140The “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.
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Henrik Finály and Roman Dacia: The Contributions of a 19th Century Hungarian Po-Lymath to the Development of Roman Provincial Archaeology in Transylvania
43-62.Views:156By any standards Henrik Finály was a true polymath, his overarching interests ranging from mathematics to classical studies, modern linguistics and literature, economics, medieval studies and archaeology. Although he was among the first Hungarian antiquarians to pursue systematic scholarly investigations of Roman Dacia, his contribution in this field has been unfairly downgraded in the intervening years, and his name almost erased from the research history of the province. The main goal of the paper is to provide a comprehensive insight into, and a critical overview of the early stages of Roman Dacia studies through the work of Henrik Finály in the social, political and cultural context of 19th century Transylvania.
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Some notes on the literature on ancient didactic poetry
261–280Views:119The student of ancient didactic poetry has to face a complex web of modern findings and opinions about the genre. This paper attempts to present a few prominent studies from some specific points of view, such as the ways in which they describe the genre (with categorizations and sets of criteria) and in which they delineate ancient views on the genre. The levels of a historical approach and self-awareness in these studies are also examined.
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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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Jungfrauen in Waffen: Camilla Virgo, Iuturna Virago
13-36.Views:197The paper starts with the analysis of the ambiguous figure of the “Italic Amazon” Camilla in the Aeneis. Two main factors are analysed, the role of the spear in the life of this “armed virgin” and her relations with natural surroundings, especially with rivers like the Amasenus and with lakes and marshes generally. Both prove to be fateful. The second factor is also noticeable with the other armed virgin of the Aeneis, Iuturna, who emerges as an upgraded and contrasting parallel to Camilla. Iuturna virago shows similarities with another famous virago of Latin literature, the Paluda virago of Ennius, and this gives an opportunity to evoke other women of the Roman tradition in connection with rivers and marshes, a phenomenon which proves to be a suitable topic for future exanimation.
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Commune sepulcrum: The ‘Catullan’ Memory of Troy in Vergil’s Aeneid
247–260Views:146In Roman literature, Troy appears as a locus memoriae on several occasions. As a locus memoriae is an image of a location’s past state, it inevitably recalls that past state’s absence in the present. Troy as a literary locus memoriae recalls its own present absence, that it is only a ruin, or – according to Lucan – even less than a ruin. In this context, a literary phenomenon, i. e. the depiction of Troy being the equivalent of the absence of/or the grief for the loss of something or somebody can later be traced in the Roman poetry. Catullus, mourning his brother’s death at Troy, calls the city the common grave (commune sepulcrum) of Asia and Europe in his carmen 68. Regarding Troy, several complex allusions can be noticed in Vergil’s Aeneid recalling both Catullus 68 and 101, the two poems that are in both thematic and intertextual connection with each other. The purpose of the present study is to examine – by means of analysing the above mentioned intertexts – what kind of special locus memoriae Troy becomes in the Aeneid. This will be of crucial importance to observe the way Troy later appears in Lucan’s Bellum Civile.
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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 enactment of moderation in Plato's "Charmides"
5–34Views:113Plato’s dialogues are as much literary dramas as philosophical inquiries. In light of the scope and development of σωφροσύνη and the carefully crafted historical resonances of the dialogue’s dramatic date and cast of characters, it is argued here that σωφροσύνη is a foundational virtue, best understood as moderation, moderating one’s behavior, rather than on a par with other virtues. The Charmides is non-dogmatic, rather than skeptical or aporetic, and essentially political rather than ethical or epistemological, as often assumed. Rather than asserting any simple, propositional account of moderation, it enacts a complex moral and political view of moderation that unifies many strands of the term’s meanings in Greek through the persons and words of its characters and operating as much through the reader’s, imagination, and emotions as through reason and purely logical argument.