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• Macrobe sur les vertus des esclaves.: Analyse du chapitre 11 des Saturnales I.

  157–175

  Orsolya Tóth

  Views:

  69

  The late antique writer, Macrobius, is of the opinion that virtues can be found in slaves as much as in free men. The author explains his view in his main work, the Saturnalia (I. 11). The aim of this paper is – through the analysis of the passage mentioned above – the examination of precisely what kind of virtues Macrobius attributes to slaves, the context in which these virtues appear, and finally the factors which could have influenced the author while he was writing his text in praise of slaves.

• The Question of Life and Death by Cicero and Macrobius

  31–41

  Orsolya Tóth

  Views:

  127

  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.

• Das Bildprogramm der Meleager-Platte aus dem Seuso-Schatz

  135–147

  Tamás Gesztelyi

  Views:

  124

  There are eight distinct love stories on the Meleager plate of the Seuso treasure. In four of them hunting plays an important role. The main theme of the depicted stories is allprevailing love, the emotion that is the motivating force in human life. An ancillary theme of the stories is hunting, which can be interpreted in a concrete as well as a figurative sense. Hunting is an aristocratic pleasure but at the same time it represents the exercise of virtues, too, in which even females can participate, cf. the scenes with Helene and Atalante. Although there is no need to look for a topical event to feature the motif of love, it is tempting to determine the contemporary function of the treasure as a wedding gift. We are inclined to believe that Seuso, the well-off owner of the treasure, must have been given this unique silver tableware as a wedding gift some time around the beginning of the 5th century.

• The enactment of moderation in Plato's "Charmides"

  5–34

  Gerald A. Press

  Views:

  145

  Plato’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.