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• Natur – Geschichte – Schreibung - Die Grenzsituation der Naturalis Historia von Plinius dem Älteren

  77–95.

  Ágnes Darab

  Views:

  224

  According to the preface, Pliny’s Natural History belongs to the genre of historia, of which subject is the nature. At the same time, the preface offers other genre classifications as well: encyclios paideia, thaesaurus. Pliny himself points out the novelty of his work: Libros naturalis historiae […] novicium opus (praef. 1.). Regarding Pliny’s peculiar concept of nature, in terms of the genre and literary history, Natural History can be interpreted as a borderline case.

• Sopra l’institutio philosophica di Vitruvio: l’apporto concettuale e pratico della filosofia nel De architectura

  173–185.

  Tiziano Ottobrini

  Views:

  65

  The essay aims to point out organically the contribution of philosophical sources within Vitruvius’ De architectura; both the explicit and implicit references to Greek philosophy will be taken into account, showing not only the two philosophical fields involved in the treatise (physics and ethics) but also, for the first time, the relationship between them: the moral improvement of man is parallel to the better knowledge of nature and both are the basis for the full exercise of the architect’s ars.

• Consonantal Degemination in Latin Inscriptions of the Roman Empire:: A Dialectological and Sociolinguistic Perspective

  165-178

  Silvia Tantimonaco

  Views:

  240

  In this paper, a survey is conducted on the phenomenon of consonantal degemination through the corpus of epigraphic materials. The aim of this research is to understand the nature of this phenomenon and its possible implications in the field of dialectological studies.

• Catullan Labyrinths in Vergilian Ecphrasis

  73–99.

  Péter Somfai

  Views:

  61

  This study aims to investigate the intertextual connections of the labyrinth passage of Catullus 64 and the ecphraseis of Book 6 and 8 of Vergil’s Aeneid. The ecphrastic nature of these passages provides an opportunity to analyze the relations of these texts by taking the phenomenon of intermediality into consideration. In addition, my objective is to examine the role of ecphraseis within the narratives of Catullus 64 and the Aeneid, and to analyze how the poetic and thematic dimensions of the depicted artworks extend to the framing texts, which can thus be interpreted as peculiar labyrinths, that of a textual kind. Bearing in mind that ecphraseis can provide an interpretative framework for their wider context, it may be of critical significance that the labyrinth gets evoked in those books of the Aeneid that focus on Roman history in close connection with Augustan ideology.

• Tutela mulierum: The Institution of Guardianship over full Aged Women in the Late Roman Republic and Early Principate

  57–78

  Mária Szabó

  Views:

  345

  The purpose of this study is to examine the social and legal opportunities of the Roman women through the tutela mulierum in the late Republic and early Principate. The base of the disquisition is a remark in Gaius’ Institutes, which says that full aged women, in spite of being legally under guardianship, administer their own property. The examined sources show relevant social changes, which resulted in the guardians’ sanction becoming merely formal, yet indispensable condition for concluding certain transactions. Therefore the reason for retaining guardianship may be associated with the nature of these transactions. Women, who did often run enterprises on their own, did not have the authority to conclude the transactions of archaic law, based on the so-called „words of creation”, until the legislative reforms of the 4th century AD.

• The Two Metamorphoses in Horace’s Second Roman Ode

  45–56.

  Attila Ferenczi

  Views:

  202

  It has always been a much-debated question how the two final stanzas of Horace’s Second Roman Ode fit to what came before in this poem. This paper will venture to place the apparent anomaly of these two verses within a new context emphasizing the strong and traditional connection between the constitution of the Roman State and the pax deorum. The second section of the poem (verses 5-6) portrays the workings of virtus as something incompatible with the usual ways and protocols of the late Republican political procedure in Rome. The all-changing power can be regarded as an inevitable consequence of the nature of the virtus, but at the same time, it can cause religious anxiety from somebody seeing and understanding this transformation. The last two verses about a religious panic do not contrast with the poem's previous passages but represent a new voice in the political discourse.

• Escribiendo una defixio: los textos de maldición a través de sus soportes

  79–93

  Celia Sánchez Natalías

  Views:

  186

  The aim of this paper is to analyze binding curse tablets found in the Latin West from a material perspective, in order to rethink their multifaceted nature, since sometimes – but not always – defixiones are inscribed pieces of lead.

• Hoc nemus ... habitat deus (Verg. Aen. 8, 351-352). : Presence des dieux dans la campagne virgilienne: qui sont les di agrestes?

  73–82

  Charles Guittard

  Views:

  200

  In 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.

• Pelops: The Emergence of a Mythical Personality From Folktale, Ritual and Geography

  5–18.

  András Patay-Horváth

  Views:

  294

  Heroes were generally imagined by the ancient Greeks as historical personalities from a distant past who were remembered even centuries later and whose deeds became legendary. Although this concept is occasionally found even today, it is much more probable and indeed it is generally agreed that mythical heroes were not created in this way, but myths somehow evolved from/in tandem with rituals and/or as aetiological tales. On the other hand, the close connections between folktales and myths were always acknowledged, even if the nature of their relationship remains controversial. In this paper, the mythical biography of Pelops is discussed because I think it offers an instructive case-study illustrating the complexities involved. All the episodes of Pelops’ myths follow distinct folktale patterns and each of them was most probably inspired by different factors such as geography (strange rock formations around Mount Sipylos), popular etymology (the name of the Peloponnese) and ritual (some special cult practices in early Iron Age Olympia). The episodes of the hero’s life (childhood, marriage, kingship) were only loosely connected to each other and they were not amalgamated into a coherent biography until the end of the 19th century.

• The Question of Life and Death by Cicero and Macrobius

  31–41

  Orsolya Tóth

  Views:

  190

  To Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis Macrobius prepared a Neoplatonic commentary in Late Antiquity. On the grounds of these two works and Cicero’s other political or philosophical writings and letters this study seeks an answer to the question what similarities and differences can be demonstrated between the two authors’ way of thinking as regards the nature of the virtues, the issue of vita activa and vita contemplativa, the meaning of life and the necessity of voluntary death.

• The Carmen de viribus herbarum (GDRK 64): Between Magical Pharmacology and Homeric Didactic

  129–142.

  Floris Overduin

  Views:

  328

  This paper aims to assess the nature of magic and medicine in the extant fragment of the little-known Carmen de viribus herbarum (fr. 64 Heitsch), an anonymous didactic poem of considerable length (216 hexameters have been transmitted) from the third century CE. The Carmen, a poem concerned with the curative powers of some fifteen different plants, is an evident descendant of the didactic pharmacological verse tradition of Nicander of Colophon and the like, yet its method of composition, reusing large chunks of Homeric lines, is remarkable. What sets the Carmen apart from the tradition of didactic pharmacology, moreover, is its fascination with magic, a factor virtually absent from the Nicandrean legacy. Next to pharmacological knowledge it repeatedly discusses effective plants against ghosts, apparitions, and witches.

• Honesty, Shame, Courage: Reconsidering the Socratic Elenchus

  197-206

  Giulia Fiore

  Views:

  328

  The elenchus (gr. ἔλεγχος, literally “argument of disproof”, “refutation”, “cross-examining”) is the core of the Socratic method represented by Plato in his early dialogues. This enquiring technique, employed by Socrates to question his interlocutors about the nature or definition of ethical concepts, is the object of a never-ending scholarly debate, concerning especially its primary purpose: is it a positive method, leading to knowledge, or is it rather a negative method, aiming exclusively at refuting the interlocutor’s belief? This paper, through the analysis of some key passages in Plato’s early dialogues, focuses on the structural features of the elenchus in order to understand how the elenctic refutation is developed, why Socrates chooses a dialectical method often ending in aporia, and whether the Socratic method can be considered, not merely an instrument aiming at the recognition of one’s ignorance, but primarily a positive search for knowledge.

• Camilla and the Dresses

  119–132.

  Attila Ferenczi

  Views:

  53

  This article aims to create a context around a single line of the Aeneid. The narrator's statement narrating Camilla's death (femineo predae et spoliorum ardebat amore 11,782) is traditionally understood as prejudiced against women and does not quite fit with the earlier portrayal of Camilla's figure. The paper will argue that, on the one hand, the interpretation of the line is not as clear-cut as it may seem at first sight, and on the other hand, that the motivation attributed to Camilla by this statement contains an element that is quite unique in the Aeneid, and is characterised by ambivalence of values rather than by a clear rejection of her morality. The analysis tries to interpret the whole sentence through the nature of the spoils (praeda) mentioned in the sentence. By comparing Camilla's appearance and the clothing of her opponents in battle, it seeks to formulate connections between the different characters in the story.