Metamorphosis – between Science and Literature - 20 November 2008University of BolognaDipartimento di Filologia Classica e Medioevale, via Zamboni 32, I-40126 BolognaTazuko van Berkel, The Hunter TransformedUniv. Leiden: T.A.van.Berkel@let.leidenuniv.nlAbstract: Xenophon’s report of Socrates’ encounter with Theodote (Mem.
III.xi) offers us a bizarre depiction of a philosopher beating a
courtesan in the art of seduction. This episode represents a
metamorphosis of a recurring theme in Socratic literature: Socrates,
the hunter, changing places with his prey, ending up as the object of
desire (e.g. Plato’s Symposium and Charmides).In
this paper I will argue that underneath its humorous surface, this role
reversal represents a destabilization of traditional Athenian values,
involving erotics, reciprocal exchange and the ideologically loaded
active/passive division of roles in both. By remodelling and twisting
traditional understandings of reciprocity, Socrates is appropriating
the discourse of philia as a paradigm for philosophical dialectics. As
such, Socratic philosophy is defined in opposition to the trade of the
sophist, who turns out to be a man-hunter in disguise (cf. Xen. Cyn. XIII.9), engaged in the self-debasing passive conduct characteristic of the prostitute (cf. Xen. Mem. I.vi).Bibliography: R.G. Edmonds III, Socrates the beautiful: role reversal and midwifery in Plato’s Symposium, TAPhA CXXX (2000) 261-285.S. Goldhill, The seductions of the gaze: Socrates and his girlfriends, in P. Cartledge, P.C. Millett & S. von Reden (eds.), Kosmos: essays in order, conflict and community in classical Athens, Cambridge 1998, 105-124.L. Kurke, Inventing the hetaira: sex, politics, and discursive conflict in Archaic Greece, ClAnt XVI (1997) 106-154.M. Narcy, La meilleure amie de Socrate. Xénophon, Mémorables, III 11, EPh (2004) 213-234.A. Reece, Drama, narrative, and Socratic erôs in Plato’s Charmides, Interpretation XXVI 1998, 65-76.Brian Moss, Myth in Nicander’s TheriacaUniv. Oxford: brian.moss@exeter.ox.ac.ukAbstract: At first glance, Nicander’s Theriaca
is a scientific text, and a rather dry one at that. Yet beyond
the zoological, botanical and medical information that it contains,
there is a poem of much literary interest. Nicander’s
descriptions of ferocious animals, gruesome symptoms and questionable
cures are interspersed with mythological aetia and Alexandrian
elements. In the tension between science and art, Nicander
develops a dynamic style that incorporates a range of literary
techniques. The first part of this paper will examine the means
through which Nicander integrates myth into his work while maintaining
a scientific tone. The second part will look more closely at
three passages in the Theriaca that demonstrate the various ways in
which Nicander establishes his poetic voice through the adaptation of
myth and through allusion to other authors. These passages are:
the birth of poisonous creatures from the Titans and the story of
Orion, Artemis and the scorpion (Ther. 8-20); Helen, the Blood-letter and the death of Canobus (Ther. 309-319); and the Dipsas and the aetion of why snakes have eternal youth while humans grow old and die (Ther. 343-358).Bibliography:J.J. Clauss, Theriaca: Nicander’s Poem of the Earth, SIFC IV (2006), 160-182.A.S.F. Gow - A.F. Scholfield, Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments, Cambridge 1953.J.-M. Jacques,. Oeuvres / Nicandre, Paris 2002.T.C.W. Stinton, ‘Si Credere Dignum Est’: Some Expressions of Disbelief in Euripides and Others, in Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy, Oxford 1990, 236-264.Silvia
Porres Caballero - Zoa Alonso Fernández, From myth to simulacra:
maenadic metamorphosis. Part 1: Greece; Part 2: RomeUniv. Madrid: silviaporrescaballero@gmail.com - zoa.alonso@filol.ucm.esAbstract:
This work is structured throughout two interventions depending on the
time and context our topic is studied. Nevertheless, both of them will
analyze the external and internal changes of the women under the
influence of dionysiac cult, that is to say, their metamorphosis into
maenads.The
first part of the study (Silvia Porres Caballero) tries to examine the
interferences and influences of the mythic maenadism in the religious
rituals whom Greek woman perform in Archaic and Classical periods. This
paper attempts too to verify into which extent women’s imitation is a
true and felt act, representative of the own rite. This part studies
too how women turn maenads and which elements take part in their
metamorphosis, like vine, music, dance and lights.On
the other hand, the second section (Zoa Alonso Fernández) attempts to
look at the development of the women’s attitude in a Roman context,
observing that the simulacra of the rituals is every time less original
and more intentioned, probably the more important difference between
Greek and Roman maenads. From the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus to Messalina’s parties, the concept of “maenadic metamorphosis” looses most of its religious weight.However,
the aim of both papers is to recognize the repercussion of the Maenad’s
manner as a literary and artistic convention, the external
characteristics of the metamorphosis and the reminiscences of the
original Bacchants, Dionysus’ companions, in the real women, stressing
on the differences between the two frameworks.It
would be shown a corpus of selected texts which points out the most
representative attitudes, actions and customs of mythical bacchants and
Greek and Roman women.Texts:
1. Greece: Adespota 1038; Alcaeus fr. 129. LP; Alcman fr. 56 Page;
Anacreon 204 Gent; Demosthenes On the Crown 258-260; Diod.Sic. 4.3-4;
Euripides Bacchae (passim); Funerary inscription in elegiacs for
Alkmeionis (Henrichs HSCP 82(1978): 148); IMagn. 215(a); LSAM 48; Paus.
10.4.3; 3.20.4; Plut. Def. orac. 14, 417 C; Plut. Mul. Virt. 13 (249
EF); Plut. Q. Rom. 112, 281A2.
Rome: Acc. trag. 249; Aug. epist. 17,4; Catull. 63, 64; D.H. 2,19,2;
Firm. err. 6,5; Liv. 39,8-39,15; Naev. trag. 32; Ov. fast. 6, 505; Tac.
ann. 11, 31.Bibliography:C. Acker, Dionysos en Transe: Le voix des Femmes, Paris 2002. A. Bélis, Musique et transe dans le cortège Dionysiaque, Cahiers du GITA 4 (1988) 10-29.J. Bremmer, Greek maenadism reconsidered, ZPE LV (1984) 267-286.A. Bruhl, Liber Pater: origine et expansion du culte dionysiaque à Rome et dans le monde romain, Paris 1966.W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, Oxford 1985 (trad. esp. aumentada: La religión griega, Madrid 2007). M. Daraki, Dionysos et la déesse terre, Paris 1994 (trad. Esp.: Dioniso y la diosa Tierra, Madrid 2005).M.H. Delavaud-Roux, Danse et Transe, Cahiers du GITA 4 (1988) pp. 31-53.M.H. Delavaud-Roux, Les danses Dionysiaques en Grece Antique, Provence 1995. F. Díez Platas, Las
ninfas en la literatura y en
el arte de la Grecia Arcaica, Thesis, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2002.E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the irrational, London 1951. L. R. Farnell, The Cult of the Greek States, I-V, Oxford 1896-1909, (III 1907; V 1909). J. A. Festugière, Études de religion grecque et hellenistique, Paris 1972. P. Grimal, Les jardins Romains, Paris 1969.A. Henrichs, Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina, HSCP CXXXII (1978) 121-160.H. Jeanmaire, Dionysos, Paris 1951.A.I. Jiménez San Cristóbal, Rituales órficos, Thesis, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2002 (ed. in CDRom 2005).L. Jones, (ed.), Encyclopaedia of religion, Detroit 2005. K. Kerényi, Dionysos, Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, Princeton 1976 (trad. esp.: Dioniso. Raíz de la vida indestructible, Barcelona 1998. R.S. Kraemer, (ed.), Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World, A sourcebook, Oxford 2004.R. S. Kraemer, Ecstasy and possession. The attraction of women to the cult of Dionysos, HThR LXXII (1979) 55-80.I. Lada-Richards, Initiating Dionysus: ritual and theatre in Aristophanesʹ frogs, Oxford 1999.L. Lawler, The Maenads: A contribution to the Study of the Dance in the Ancient Greece, MAAR IV (1927) 69-112.M.P. Nilsson, The Bacchic Mysteries of the Roman Age, HThR XLVI (1953) 175-202.Osborne, R. , The Ecstasy and the Tragedy: Varieties of Religious Experience in Art, Darma, and Society, in: C. Pelling (ed.), Greek tragedy and the Historian, Oxford 1997, 187-211. W. F. Otto, Dionysos. Mythos und Kultus, Tübingen 1965 (trad. esp. Dioniso: mito y culto, Madrid 1997).J.M. Pailler, Bacchanalia: la répression de 186 av. J.-C. à Rome et en Italie : vestiges, images, tradition, Roma 1988.G.A. Privitera, Dioniso in Omero e nella poesia greca arcaica, Roma 1970. G. Ricciardelli, Mito e performance nelle associazioni dionisiache, in M. Tortorelli Ghidini, A. Storchi Marino, A. Visconti (eds.), Tra Orfeo e Pitagora. Atti dei seminari napoletani 1996-1998, Napoli 2000, 265- 283.C.E. Schultz, Women’s Religious Activity in the Roman Republic, The University of North Carolina Press 200).R. Turcan, The cults of the Roman Empire, Cambridge 1996.R. Turcan, Liturgies de l'initiation bacchique à l'époque romaine. Documentation littéraire, inscrite et figurée, Paris 2004.L.-A. Touchette, The Dancing Maenad Reliefs. Continuity and Change in Roman Copies, London 1995.Krzysztof Bielawski, Zeus and the torches: between literature and religion. Some remarks on the Berlin Paian 6870.Univ. Cracow: bielawsk@homini.com.pl)Abstract:
So called Berlin Papyrus nr 6870 contains a fragmentary preserved paian
to Apollo with musical notation. Last two lines of this paian give a
striking picture of Zeus carrying torches for [probably] Apollo.
What is the rôle of Zeus in the hymn for Apollo? In what sense Zeus can
hold a torch for Apollo? What kind of religious tradition does this
picture recall? In this typical paian we find an unusual combination of
religious typology, which evokes oldest religious traditions of
vegetative, agrarian cults. In this paper I would like to expose the
content of the text without supplementation, to consider possible ways
of supplementation and – especially – to propose some explanations for
the problem of Zeus and Apollo, mentioned above, taking into account a
possible metamorphosis of religious imagination about gods.Martina Vanikova, Metamorphosis of Odyssey: versification of the Livius's translationUniv. Prague: oink@centrum.cz Abstract: In the 3rd century B.C. Livius Andronicus translated the Homer’s Odyssey and thereby created the first Latin epic poem. His translation was quite innovative, especially in the used versification. The metric scheme of the so-called Saturnian verse (the metric scheme used by Livius for the translation of Odyssey,
by Naevius for the epic poem Bellum Poenicum, probably also for many
inscriptions etc.) has not been satisfactory solved until now, although
it has evoked as many papers as there are extant lines. The existing
theories have more or less evident shortcomings and neither
quantitative nor accentual, neither isosyllabic nor syncretic notions
are generally accepted (e.g. Kloss 1993 – the quantitative notion,
Moredo 2003 – the accentual scheme based on the presumption of the
initial accent in Latin). Nevertheless the opinion prevails that the
prosody of the Saturnian verse is accentual, however the concrete
metric scheme is again the matter of discussion. This
solution proposed is based firstly on the fact that Latin, a language
with dynamic accent, naturally follows an accentual rather than a
quantitative prosody and secondly on the presumption that at that time
the accent in Latin was based on the (ante)penultimate law. The
possible licences in the versification of the translations of the
quantitative hexameter can be better understood on the base of the
circumstantial analysis of the hexameters translated to Czech, i.e. to
the language with the similar prosodic qualities as Latin. The following metric scheme can be observed from the particular analysis of each preserved line of the literary Saturnian:Odusia:
x:x(x) /x:x(x) /x:x(x) /x:x(x) /x:x(x)/x:x,with
the tendency to:
x:x(x) /x:xx
/x:x(x) /x:x(x)
/x:x /x:x.Bellum Poenicum:
x:x(x)/x:x(x) /x:x(x)
/x:x(x) /x:x(x) /x:x,with
the tendency to:
x:x(x) /x:xx /x:x(x)
/x:x(x) /x:x /x:x,
[[where
x: stands for a thesis created by an accented syllable (seldom by the
syllable with the secondary stress or a long syllable creating the
thesis), x, resp. xx stands for an arsis created by an unaccented
syllable, resp. two.]]
As
a result, the metric scheme of the literary Saturnian verses can be
regarded as an accentual imitation of the Greek quantitative hexameter.Charles B. Watson, Continuity and Change: Metamorphosis in Cicero’s Pro CaelioUniv. Oxford: charles.watson@classics.ox.ac.ukAbstract:
A general notion prevailed in Rome that one’s innate character remained
static over time. Roman rhetorical theory, aware of this popular
concept, urged prosecutors to demonstrate that the defendant’s alleged
crime was not an aberration but rather one instance of wrongdoing
within a life of evil deeds and moral depravity (De Inv.
2.32–7). A gaudy, pretentious upstart, a litigious prosecutor, and a
promiscuous paramour: M. Caelius Rufus would have been an easy target
for any prosecutor. Cicero has to combat this notion of fixity of
character when he delivers the final speech at Caelius’ defence. To
explain the future promise inherent in Caelius’ youthful exuberance, he
looks to examples of metamorphosis in the natural world. C. deploys an
extended metaphor of plant imagery to introduce the idea that an
innately good character can have different physical manifestations over
the life of an individual. This short paper will look at the centrality
of this metaphor of botanical metamorphosis to C.’s defence strategy
and its ‘roots’ in Aristotelian philosophy.Bibliography:C. G., Contreras, La juventud romana en el Pro Caelio de Cicerón, EClás XLII (2000) 27-49.E. Fantham, Ciceronian conciliare and Aristotelian ethos, Phoenix XXVII (1973) 262–275.C.J. Gill, The Question of Character Development: Plutarch and Tacitus, CQ XXXIII (1983) 469–87.M. Leigh, The Pro Caelio and Comedy, CPh XCIX (2004) 300–335.J. May, Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos, Chapel Hill, 1988.R. Moran, Artifice and Persuasion: The Work of the Metaphor in Rhetoric, in A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Berkeley 1996, 385–98.C. Pelling (ed.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature, Oxford 1990.A. Riggsby, The Rhetoric of Character in the Roman Courts, in J. Powell - J. Paterson (eds.). Cicero the Advocate, Oxford 2004, 167– 85.Laura Buchholz, Disappearance, continuity or metamorphosis? The lot oracles in imperial ItalyUniv. Helsinki: laura.buchholz@helsinki.fiAbstract: According to Cicero (div.
2.87), the lot oracles of Italy were vanishing during the late
republic. This claim does not seem to be totally correct, since we have
several mentions of operating lot oracles also from the following
centuries. Cicero’s comment seems rather to refer to a crisis of the
oracular sanctuaries at a time when independent diviners became more
and more popular. In my paper, I shall map the changes and continuities
following this crisis in oracular practices (e.g. drawing lots, forms
of the answers, oracular personnel) through comparison of the sources
from the republican and imperial periods. The most radical changes seem
to have begun only in the second century AD.Texts: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum I² 2173-2189; XI 1129; Cic. div. 2.85–87; Suet. Tib. 14.3; 63,1; Cal. 43,1; Dom. 15,2; 15.6; Plin. epist. 8,8; Hist. Aug. Hadr. 2,8–9; Alb. 5,3–4; Alex. 4,6; Alex. 14,5; Claud. 10,4–6; quatt. tyr. 3,4.Bibliography (** = most important)J. Champeaux, Sors oraculi. Les oracles en Italie sous la république et l'empire, MEFRA CII (1990) 271–302.J. Champeaux, ”Sorts” et divination inspirée. Pour une préhistoire des oracles italiques, MEFRA CII (1990), 801–828.C. Grottanelli, Sorte unica pro casibus pluribus enotata: Literary Texts and Lot Inscriptions as Sources for Ancient Kleromancy, in S. I. Johnston – P. T. Struck (ed.): Mantikê: Studies in Ancient Divination, Leiden – Boston 2005, 129–146.R. Hamilton, Fatal Texts: The Sortes Vergilianae, CML XIII (1993) 309–336.P.B. Katz, The Sortes Vergilianae: Fact and Fiction, CML XIV (1994) 245–258. ** Y. de Kisch, Les Sortes Vergilianae dans l'Histoire Auguste, MEFRA 82 (1970), 321–362.** W.E. Klingshirn, Inventing the sortilegus: lot divination and cultural identity in Italy, Rome, and the provinces, in C. E. Schultz – P. B. Harvey, jr. (ed.): Religion in Republican Italy, Cambridge 2006, 137–161.Mark Heerink, Death and resurrection: Ovid’s metamorphosis of Vergil’s plagueUniv. Leiden: M.A.J.Heerink@let.leidenuniv.nlAbstract: The contact between Lucretius’ account of the human plague of Athens, which ends his De rerum natura, and Vergil’s description of the Noric cattle plague, which rounds off the third book of his Georgics,
has received an enormous amount of scholarly attention (e.g. Harrison
1979, West 1979 and Farrell 1991, ch. 3). In this paper I will focus on
Ovid’s rather neglected description of a mythological plague, which
ravaged the animals and humans of Aegina (Met. 7.523ff.), and argue that Ovid presents a metamorphosis of the plague accounts of his poetic predecessors. I
will argue that Ovid has not only combined Lucretius’ human and
Vergil’s animal plague, but has also reworked Vergil’s larger
structural and thematic concerns. Clare 1995 has discerned a thematic
link between Vergil’s plague account and the end of Georgics 4, the
Aristaeus epyllion. He shows that the pessimistic ending of Georgics
3, where nobody is able to stop the plague or find a cure, is not the
end of the story, as Aristaeus succeeds in resurrecting his bees, which
died from disease, a book later. I will show that Ovid, in the
description of the plague and the subsequent resurrection of the
population of Aegina, has adapted this thematic link to the poetical
agenda of his Metamorphoses.Bibliography:R.J. Clare, Chiron, Melampus and Tisiphone: myth and meaning in Virgil’s plague of Noricum, Hermathena CLVIII (1995) 95-108.J. Farrell, Virgil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic, Oxford 1991.E.L. Harrison, The Noric cattle plague and Virgil’s third Georgic, PLLS II (1979): 1-65.R.F. Thomas, Virgil: Georgics, vol. 2, Cambridge 1988.D. West, Two plagues: Virgil, Georgics 3.478-566 and Lucretius 6.1090-1286, in D. West-T. Woodman (eds.), Creative Imitation and Latin Literature, Cambridge 1979, 71-88.Karine
Descoings, Metamorphoses of desire and elegy in Ovid’s work: from the
ciceronian uoluntas to the ovidian cupido and desiderium.Univ. Paris IV: kdescoings@aol.comAbstract:
Our paper will examine desire’s metamorphoses in Ovidian poetry and the
following metamorphosis of elegy. Many scholars, and in particular
Mario Labate, have pointed out the original use of the recusatio’s
topic in the liminar elegies of the Amores : unlike his predecessors,
Ovid doesn’t pretend to be unable to write epic poetry. Indeed, he’ll
compose an epic poem twenty years later: his poetic ingenium doesn’t
seem to have strict boundaries and he doesn’t think that elegiac
writing has to be his exclusive choice. In fact, in Amores, I, 1, the poet makes Cupido, «Desire», responsible for his beginnings in elegiac poetry and, in Amores,
III, 1, he tells us about his coming upon with the two figures of Elegy
and Tragedy, in a scene which is obviously related to the myth of
Hercules at the crossroad. This last hint induces to get back to
Cicero’s De officiis whose
reference to Hercules’ story takes place in a similar context since
he’s dealing with the larger issue of choosing a way of life and a
career. The orator demonstrates that this decision must be determined
by four criterions : our universal nature of rational creatures, our
singular nature (ingenium), the circumstances of life and, lastly, our
will (uoluntas or iudicium) which is perhaps the main criterion. We
assume that Ovid read Cicero’s De officiis and that Cupido
in the first elegy of the Amores was a figure of the ciceronian
uoluntas, with all the aesthetic and generic transformations involved
in this transposition. This
«intertextual» metamorphosis will be followed by another «intratextual»
one. At fifty years, Ovid was exiled by August. On the boat which
carries him away from home to reach the last borders of the civilized
world, the exile thinks about his poetic future. How to write elegiac
poetry, poetry of love and desire, when you’re old and banished for
having written immoral books? He refuses to give up and to conform his
writings to August’s desires. He prefers to choose an other way, and to
convert the genre of elegy by conforming its soul, the desire, to the
rhetoric and ethic principle of prepon/decorum. When Cupido appears in
the exile’s dreams, he’s unrecognizable : exhausted, mourning, he
reflects the old and abandoned poet’s feelings. In the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, Ovid will sing his desiderium,
the last mask of desire in his work. This «nostalgic desire» from then
on will long for ethical matters such as his homeland, wife, friends
and poetic talent. To summarize, we may say that desire perfectly fits with the theory of metempsychosis expounded by Pythagoras in the Metamorphoses, XV, 165 & 169-172: Omnia
mutantur, nihil interit ; (…)/ Vtque nouis facilis signatur cera
figuris / nec manet ut fuerat nec formas seruat easdem, / sed tamen
ipsa eadem est ; / animam sic semper eandem / esse, sed in uarias doceo
migrare figuras. Texts: Cicero, Orator, 70-74; Cicero, De officiis, I, 93-151; Horace, De arte poetica, 38 ; 40 ; 161-175 ; 306-322. Carmina, I, 24, 1-2 & IV, 5; Ovid, Amores, I, 1; I, 9, 1-4; II, 1; II, 10, 35-38; III, 1; Ovid, Remedia amoris, 441-486; Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, 60-236; Ovid, Fasti, IV, 3-10; Ovid, Tristia, I, 1; II, 313-357; III, 7; IV, 1; IV, 8; V, 1; Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, I, 2, 55-56 ; III, 3 ; III, 8. Bibliography: G. B. Conte, L’amore senza elegia. I Rimedi contro l’amore e la logica di un genere, in Generi e lettori, Lucrezio, l’elegia d’amore, l’enciclopedia di Plinio, Milano 1991, 53-94. C. Cyr-Fréchet, Poétique et érotique dans l’élégie d’amour ovidienne, Amores, Heroides, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, PhD, Université Paris XII-Val de Marne 2004.H. B. Evans, Publica carmina, Ovid’s books from exile, Lincoln - London 1983.E. Fantham, Roman Elegy: Problems of self-definition, and redirection, in E. A. Schmidt (éd.), L’histoire littéraire immanente dans la poésie latine, Vandoeuvres-Genève 2001.M. Labate, L’arte di farsi amare, Modelli culturali e progetto didascalico nell’elegia ovidiana, Pisa 1984. M. Labate, Elegia triste ed elegia lieta : un caso di riconversione letteraria, MD 19 (1987) 91-129. M. Labate, Μετάϐασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος· La poétique de l’élégie et la carrière poétique d’Ovide, in J. Fabre-Serris - A. Deremetz (éds.), Élégie et épopée dans la poésie ovidienne, Villeneuve d’Ascq 1999, 127-143.B. R. Nagle, The poetics of exile, Program and Polemic in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto of Ovide, Bruxelles 1980.G. P. Rosati, La boiterie de Mademoiselle Élégie : un pied volé et ensuite retrouvé, in J. Fabre-Serris - A. Deremetz (éds.), Élégie et épopée dans la poésie ovidienne, Villeneuve d’Ascq 1999, 147-163.G. P. Rosati, Elegy after the Elegists : from opposition to assent, Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar XII (2005) 133-150.A. Videau-Delibes, Les Tristes d’Ovide et l’élégie romaine, une poétique de la rupture, Paris 1991. Anna Maria Wasyl, Maximianus: the Metamorphosis of the Elegiac Lover and the Metamorphoses of the Erotic Elegy in Late AntiquityUniv. Cracow: anna.wasyl@uj.edu.plAbstract:
It can hardly be questioned that the very essence of late antique
poetry is the constant exploitation, interpretation and
reinterpretation of the ‘classical’ tradition. The writers for whom the
only Empire that will last is the Empire of a Sign – Latin willingly
adopt ‘ancient’ means of expression, genres, themes, topoi, apparently
not considering themselves “prisoners of the past”. On the contrary,
they do not shrink from revising the masters of old, reading them over
with their non-classical eyes and reusing, if not recycling, their
works.It
is remarkable that among the genres rediscovered by the late antique
poets one can find the Augustan elegy, a form which, as it might seem,
had fallen into disuse in the imperial literature. The present paper
will focus, precisely, on the elegiac oeuvre of Maximianus Etruscus, a
mysterious Latin poet of the sixth century A.D. Through a close
analysis of single passages (prevailingly of the so-called ‘elegy I’)
it will be shown how the late antique author defines himself as an
elegiac poet, a heir to the tradition of the Golden era of Latin
writing, at the same time shifting paradigms established by Augustan
‘classici’. Thus, what will be emphasized is, on the one hand, the
intertextual dimension of Maximianus’s text, on the other hand – the
problem of mixing of genres, fundamental for our understanding not only
of this particular oeuvre, but also of the late antique poetry and
poetics in general. Maximianus’s protagonist, an elegiac lover
transformed into a tremulus senex pitying over his long lost youth,
epitomizes the metamorphoses of the genre as such, in the Roman
tradition always oscillating between mournful and somewhat lighter
tones, but also the transformations of the ‘old’, pagan values and
attitudes in the ‘new’ Christian era. Besides, the truly metamorphic
nature of Maximianus’s poetry is best revealed by the fact that for the
medieval readers he soon became an ethicus, an auctor worth reading for
the moral content of his work.Texts: Maximianus, Elegy I; Accessus Maximiani (ed. R. B. C. Huygens)Comparative context: Ovid, the exilic oeuvre, in part.: Tristia III 11; Tristia III 2; ex Ponto I 10; Horace: Epist. I 18; Sat. I 1, 62-72; A.P. 169-174Editions,
Translations, Commentaries and Concordances:W. G. Schneider, Die elegischen verse von Maximian: eine letze widerrede gegen die neue christliche zeit, Wiesbaden 2003.D. Guardalben, Massimiano. Elegie della vecchiaia, Firenze 1993.T. Agozzino, Massimiano. Elegie, Bologna 1970.R. Webster, The Elegies of Maximianus, Princeton 1900.F. Spaltenstein, Commentaire des Élégies de Maximien, Rome 1983.
Bibliography:
F.E. Consolino Franca Ela, Massimiano e le sorti dell’elegia latina, in M. L. Silvestre - M. Squillante (eds.), Mutatio rerum: letteratura, filosofia, scienza tra tardo antico e altomedioevo. Atti del convegno di studi (Napoli, 25-26 nov. 1996), Napoli 1997, 363-400.A. Fo, Una lettura del corpus massimianeo, AMArc VIII (1986-1987), 91-128 A. Fo, Significato, tecniche e valore della raccolta elegiaca di Massimiano, Hermes CXV (1987) 348-371.A. Fo, Il problema della struttura della raccolta elegiaca di Massimiano, BStudLat XVI (1986) 9-21.R.B.C. Huygens, Accessus
ad auctores. Bernard d'Utrecht. Conrad d'Hirsau. Dialogus super
auctores. Edition critique entièrement revue et augmentée, Leiden 1970.R. B. C. Huygens, Accessus ad Auctores, Bruxelles 1954.R. Leotta, Uno stilema massimianeo, GIF XLI (1989) 81-84. R. Leotta, Un anonimo imitatore di Massimiano, GIF XVI (1985) 91-106.S. Mariotti, Scritti medievali e umanistici, Roma 19942..W. Schetter, Studien zur Überlieferung und Kritik des Elegikers Maximian, Wiesbaden, 1970.J. Szövérffy, Maximianus a satirist?, HSPh LXXII (1967-68) 351-367.Aleksandra Klęczar, Hellenistic Scholarship and the Greek Jewish Literature of the Second Temple PeriodUniv. Cracow: aleksandra.kleczar@uj.edu.plAbstract:
In my paper I am examining three Hellenistic Jewish writers: the epic
poets Theodotus and Philo the Elder as well as Demetrius the
Chronographer, whose works have been fragmentally preserved in Book IX
of Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica. The
context for the analysis is provided by the scholarly and scientific
practices of Hellenistic literature. I will be looking into the
elements of philosophical discourse as well as aetiology present in the
poetic fragments and analysing the chronographical tradition of
Hellenism as presented by the extant fragments of Demetrius. The focus
of the analysis will be the placing of the fragmentarily preserved
works of Jewish authors within the broader Hellenistic context.Antonia Rísquez, The Metamorphosis of Ancient Science in a Medieval Encyclopaedia: the Clauis SapientiaeUniv. Madrid: risqueztoni@gmail.comAbstract:
In this paper I analyse ancient science in medieval encyclopaedia in
two different aspects: on the one hand, the problem of the
encyclopaedic genre and its evolution, in particular in the Clauis
Sapientiae. On the other hand, the "metamorphosis" of ancient science
is one of the most important processes for the development of European
science, in particular in 12th and 13th translations. I intend to
combine the analysis of the encyclopaedic movement and the study of
translations, focusing on the Clauis Sapientiae as an example of
transmission of ancient science.Ivan Prchlík, Differences between the First and the Second Edition of Justinian’s Code and What Do We Know about ThemUniv. Prague: iulianus@o2active.czAbstract: Justinian’s Code
was published twice, in two slightly different editions, of which,
however, only the second one is known to us. In spite of it, we can
make some opinion about the differences between the first and the
second edition, thanks to one of the Oxyrhynchus papyri,
namely no. 1814, on which a small fragment of the text of the first
edition is preserved. The text of this papyrus contains a short part of
the index of the Code with the titles of rubrics and the inscriptions
of laws. In my current interest is the first rubric preserved on the
papyrus, this is I 11 of the second edition, De paganis, sacrificiis et
templis. In the extant second edition this rubric contains ten laws,
the last two without the names of emperors. Formerly it was supposed
that these two laws are Justinian’s, but this papyrus (according to its
editors, Grenfell and Hunt and some other scholars) seems to prove that
the first one is of Anastasius. My ambition is to show that it is not
necessary and rather less probable than the former ascription to
Justinian. There is, vice versa, one law which was excluded from the
extant second edition, and we know about its existence only thanks to
this papyrus. Also this law was, however, ascribed by Grenfell and Hunt
to Constantius in my opinion wrongly. If these suggestions are correct
and we are to try to detect a nature of differences between the first
and the second edition of the Code, it seems that one of them was that
the second edition was more anti-pagan.Texts: Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1814Bibliography:The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XV, edited by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, London 1922.J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire. From Theodosius I. to the Death of Justinian, London 1923.A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602. A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey, Oxford 1964.I. Rochow, Zu einigen oppositionellen religiösen Strömungen, in F. Winkelmann, H. Köpstein, H. Ditten, I. Rochow, Byzanz im 7. Jahrhundert. Untersuchungen zur Herausbildung des Feudalismus, Berlin 1978.K. L. Noethlichs, Heidenverfolgung“, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, XIII, Stuttgart 1986, 1149-1190.J. Gaudemet, La législation anti-païenne de Constantin à Justinien, CrSt XI (1990).