- 120 Goldwin Smith Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
Michael Fontaine
Cornell University, Classics, Faculty Member
Preview: tinyurl.com/OvidBreakup Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse’s death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid... more
Preview: tinyurl.com/OvidBreakup
Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse’s death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid thought so. Having become famous for teaching the art of seduction in The Art of Love, he then wrote Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris), which presents thirty-eight frank and witty strategies for coping with unrequited love, falling out of love, ending a relationship, and healing a broken heart. How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid’s lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction and the original Latin on facing pages.
Ovid’s advice—which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology—ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre. Some advice is conventional—such as staying busy, not spending time alone, and avoiding places associated with an ex. Some is off-color, such as having sex until you’re sick of it. And some is simply and delightfully weird—such as becoming a lawyer and not eating arugula.
Whether his advice is good or bad, entertaining or outrageous, How to Get Over a Breakup reveals an Ovid who sounds startlingly modern.
Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse’s death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid thought so. Having become famous for teaching the art of seduction in The Art of Love, he then wrote Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris), which presents thirty-eight frank and witty strategies for coping with unrequited love, falling out of love, ending a relationship, and healing a broken heart. How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid’s lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction and the original Latin on facing pages.
Ovid’s advice—which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology—ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre. Some advice is conventional—such as staying busy, not spending time alone, and avoiding places associated with an ex. Some is off-color, such as having sex until you’re sick of it. And some is simply and delightfully weird—such as becoming a lawyer and not eating arugula.
Whether his advice is good or bad, entertaining or outrageous, How to Get Over a Breakup reveals an Ovid who sounds startlingly modern.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Classics, Latin Literature, Censorship, Personal Relationships, and 13 moreMarriage & Family Therapy, Stoicism, Marriage and Divorce, Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Love, Lucretius, Grief (Psychology), Ovid (Classics), Augustus, Self-help, Romance, Romantic love, and Love and Relationships
In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a... more
In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation speech—not for others, as had always been done, but for himself. And it worked. Cicero’s Consolation was something new in literature, equal parts philosophy and motivational speech. Drawing on the full range of Greek philosophy and Roman history, Cicero convinced himself that death and loss are part of life, and that if others have survived them, we can, too; resilience, endurance, and fortitude are the way forward.
Lost in antiquity, Cicero’s Consolation was recreated in the Renaissance from hints in Cicero’s other writings and the Greek and Latin consolatory tradition. The resulting masterpiece—translated here for the first time in 250 years—is infused throughout with Cicero’s thought and spirit.
Complete with the original Latin on facing pages and an inviting introduction, Michael Fontaine’s engaging translation makes this searching exploration of grief available to readers once again.
Lost in antiquity, Cicero’s Consolation was recreated in the Renaissance from hints in Cicero’s other writings and the Greek and Latin consolatory tradition. The resulting masterpiece—translated here for the first time in 250 years—is infused throughout with Cicero’s thought and spirit.
Complete with the original Latin on facing pages and an inviting introduction, Michael Fontaine’s engaging translation makes this searching exploration of grief available to readers once again.
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Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome’s greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one... more
Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome’s greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity’s funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him “the stand-up Consul.” How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero’s essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian. The result is a timeless practical guide to how a well-timed joke can win over any audience.
As powerful as jokes can be, they are also hugely risky. The line between a witty joke and an offensive one isn’t always clear. Cross it and you’ll look like a clown, or worse. Here, Cicero and Quintilian explore every aspect of telling jokes―while avoiding costly mistakes. Presenting the sections on humor in Cicero’s On the Ideal Orator and Quintilian’s The Education of the Orator, complete with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Tell a Joke examines the risks and rewards of humor and analyzes basic types that readers can use to write their own jokes.
Filled with insight, wit, and examples, including more than a few lawyer jokes, How to Tell a Joke will appeal to anyone interested in humor or the art of public speaking.
As powerful as jokes can be, they are also hugely risky. The line between a witty joke and an offensive one isn’t always clear. Cross it and you’ll look like a clown, or worse. Here, Cicero and Quintilian explore every aspect of telling jokes―while avoiding costly mistakes. Presenting the sections on humor in Cicero’s On the Ideal Orator and Quintilian’s The Education of the Orator, complete with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Tell a Joke examines the risks and rewards of humor and analyzes basic types that readers can use to write their own jokes.
Filled with insight, wit, and examples, including more than a few lawyer jokes, How to Tell a Joke will appeal to anyone interested in humor or the art of public speaking.
Research Interests: Criminal Law, Philosophy, Classics, Latin Literature, Rhetoric, and 8 moreHumor, Laughter, Culture, Public Speaking, Cicero, Quintilian, Jokes, and Ancient Rome
In 1530, amid the ferment of the Reformation, the strangest poem in all of Latin literature appeared. Written by one John Placentius, it consists of 248 verses in which every word begins with the letter p. The poem—titled Pugna... more
In 1530, amid the ferment of the Reformation, the strangest poem in all of Latin literature appeared. Written by one John Placentius, it consists of 248 verses in which every word begins with the letter p. The poem—titled Pugna Porcorum—is a satirical epic telling of a conflict between the corrupt hogs, who are hogging all the privileges, and the disgruntled piglets, who want in on them. It devolves into open war.
In The Pig War, Michael Fontaine offers the first critical Latin text and the first translation of the Pugna into any language, and original illustrations by David Beck bring the timeless fairytale of privilege and oppression to life. In an afterword, Fontaine established the poem's true authorship and explores its possible influence on Orwell’s Animal Farm.
All proceeds from the sale of the book go to benefit student scholarships, with a directive to promote diversity, access and inclusion at the Paideia Institute.
In The Pig War, Michael Fontaine offers the first critical Latin text and the first translation of the Pugna into any language, and original illustrations by David Beck bring the timeless fairytale of privilege and oppression to life. In an afterword, Fontaine established the poem's true authorship and explores its possible influence on Orwell’s Animal Farm.
All proceeds from the sale of the book go to benefit student scholarships, with a directive to promote diversity, access and inclusion at the Paideia Institute.
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Is there an art to drinking alcohol? Can drinking ever be a virtue? The Renaissance humanist and neoclassical poet Vincent Obsopoeus (ca. 1498–1539) thought so. In the winelands of sixteenth-century Germany, he witnessed the birth of a... more
Is there an art to drinking alcohol? Can drinking ever be a virtue? The Renaissance humanist and neoclassical poet Vincent Obsopoeus (ca. 1498–1539) thought so. In the winelands of sixteenth-century Germany, he witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (De Arte Bibendi) (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus’s text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.
Arguing that moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, and that drinking can be a virtue if it is done with rules and limits, Obsopoeus teaches us how to manage our drinking, how to win friends at social gatherings, and how to give a proper toast. But he also says that drinking to excess on occasion is okay—and he even tells us how to win drinking games, citing extensive personal experience.
Complete with the original Latin on facing pages, this sparkling work is as intoxicating today as when it was first published.
Arguing that moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, and that drinking can be a virtue if it is done with rules and limits, Obsopoeus teaches us how to manage our drinking, how to win friends at social gatherings, and how to give a proper toast. But he also says that drinking to excess on occasion is okay—and he even tells us how to win drinking games, citing extensive personal experience.
Complete with the original Latin on facing pages, this sparkling work is as intoxicating today as when it was first published.
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Joannes Burmeister of Lüneburg (1576-1638) was among the greatest Neo-Latin poets of the German Baroque. His masterpieces, now mostly lost, are Christian ‘inversions’ of the classical Roman comedies of Plautus. With only minimal changes... more
Joannes Burmeister of Lüneburg (1576-1638) was among the greatest Neo-Latin poets of the German Baroque. His masterpieces, now mostly lost, are Christian ‘inversions’ of the classical Roman comedies of Plautus. With only minimal changes in language and none in meter, each transforms Plautus’ pagan plays into comedies based on biblical themes. Singular Renaissance curiosities in their day, they have since been entirely forgotten. This volume offers the first critical edition of the newly discovered Aulularia (1629), which exists in a sole copy, and the fragments of Mater-Virgo (1621), which adapts Plautus’ Amphitryo to show the Nativity of Jesus. The introduction offers reconstructions of Susanna (based on Casina) and Asinaria (1625), his two lost or unpublished inversions of Plautus. It also provides the only biography of Burmeister based on archival sources, along with discussions of his inimitable Latinity and the perilous context of war and witch burning in which he wrote. Scholars of early modern literature will take special interest in the poetic German plot summaries (also translated), while students of the Thirty Years War or the Holy Roman Empire will want to add Burmeister's contemporary view of military abuses to those later expressed in Grimmelshausen's Simplicius Simplicissimus.
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In recent decades literary approaches to drama have multiplied: new historical, intertextual, political, performative and metatheatrical, socio-linguistic, gender-driven, transgenre-driven. New information has been amassed, sometimes by... more
In recent decades literary approaches to drama have multiplied: new historical, intertextual, political, performative and metatheatrical, socio-linguistic, gender-driven, transgenre-driven. New information has been amassed, sometimes by re-examination of extant literary texts and material artifacts, at other times from new discoveries from the fields of archaeology, epigraphy, art history, and literary studies. The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From the birth of comedy in Greece to its end in Rome, from the Hellenistic diffusion of performances after the death of Menander to its artistic, scholarly, and literary receptions in the later Roman Empire, no topic is neglected. 41 essays spread across Greek Comedy, Roman Comedy, and the transmission and reception of Ancient comedy by an international team of experts offer cutting-edge guides through the immense terrain of the field, while an expert introduction surveys the major trends and shifts in scholarly study of comedy from the 1960s to today. The Handbook includes two detailed appendices that provide invaluable research tools for both scholars and students. The result offers Hellenists an excellent overview of the earliest reception and creative reuse of Greek New Comedy, Latinists a broad perspective of the evolution of Roman Comedy, and scholars and students of classics an excellent resource and tipping point for future interdisciplinary research.
"Plautus, Rome's earliest extant poet, was acclaimed by ancient critics above all for his mastery of language and his felicitous jokes; and yet in modern times relatively little attention has been devoted to elucidating these elements... more
"Plautus, Rome's earliest extant poet, was acclaimed by ancient critics above all for his mastery of language and his felicitous jokes; and yet in modern times relatively little attention has been devoted to elucidating these elements fully. In Funny Words in Plautine Comedy, Michael Fontaine reassesses some of the premises and nature of Plautus' comedies. Mixing textual and literary criticism, Fontaine argues that many of Plautus' jokes and puns were misunderstood already in antiquity, and that with them the names and identities of some familiar characters were misconceived. Central to his study are issues of Plautine language, style, psychology, coherence of characterization, and irony. By examining the comedian's tendency to make up and misuse words, Fontaine sheds new light on the close connection between Greek and Roman comedy. Considerable attention is also paid to Plautus' audience and to the visual elements in his plays. The result is a reappraisal that will challenge many received views of Plautus, positioning him as a poet writing in the Hellenistic tradition for a knowledgeable and sophisticated audience. All quotations from Latin, Greek, and other foreign languages are translated. Extensive indices, including a "pundex," facilitate ease of reference among the many jokes and plays on words discussed in the text.
Reviews: American Journal of Philology 132.3 (2011), 510-3 (A. Sharrock); Ancient History Bulletin Online Reviews 1 (2011), 67-70 (W. Stockert); BMCR (J. Tatum); Gnomon 83.8 (2011), 692-5 (Jo. Henderson); Greece and Rome 58.1 (2011) 116-117 (R. Langlands); Journal of Roman Studies 101 (2011), 9-14 (S. Goldberg); New England Classical Journal 37.4 (2010), 296-8 (D. Christenson)"""
Reviews: American Journal of Philology 132.3 (2011), 510-3 (A. Sharrock); Ancient History Bulletin Online Reviews 1 (2011), 67-70 (W. Stockert); BMCR (J. Tatum); Gnomon 83.8 (2011), 692-5 (Jo. Henderson); Greece and Rome 58.1 (2011) 116-117 (R. Langlands); Journal of Roman Studies 101 (2011), 9-14 (S. Goldberg); New England Classical Journal 37.4 (2010), 296-8 (D. Christenson)"""
This is a blog post for Princeton University Press summarizing all 38 strategies Ovid offers for coping with unrequited love in the Remedia Amoris (Remedies for Love), and setting them in a contemporary context. Link:... more
This is a blog post for Princeton University Press summarizing all 38 strategies Ovid offers for coping with unrequited love in the Remedia Amoris (Remedies for Love), and setting them in a contemporary context. Link: https://tinyurl.com/Ovids38
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Those hoping to see the Roman world’s remaining wonders generally know where to look. Pompeii and the Colosseum are squarely on the beaten track, and so are other marvels scattered around Britain, Europe, and Turkey. More adventurous... more
Those hoping to see the Roman world’s remaining wonders generally know where to look. Pompeii and the Colosseum are squarely on the beaten track, and so are other marvels scattered around Britain, Europe, and Turkey. More adventurous types might journey to Baalbek in Lebanon or Leptis Magna in Libya. Few, however, make it to Algeria. But we recently did, and there we saw some of the world’s greatest – and least visited – Roman ruins.
It was an exceptional visit, unlike any either of us had ever undertaken. This photo essay shares a few Classics-inflected impressions from a week on the road: https://antigonejournal.com/2024/06/roman-algeria/
It was an exceptional visit, unlike any either of us had ever undertaken. This photo essay shares a few Classics-inflected impressions from a week on the road: https://antigonejournal.com/2024/06/roman-algeria/
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The elevator inscription in the Vatican is legendary among Latinists. Until recently, I thought it was the only Latin elevator inscription around — a unicorn, a collectible. Not so, as I recently discovered. And in digging around for... more
The elevator inscription in the Vatican is legendary among Latinists. Until recently, I thought it was the only Latin elevator inscription around — a unicorn, a collectible. Not so, as I recently discovered. And in digging around for more, I found out a couple fascinating things.
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Five hundred years ago, a German wine enthusiast wrote a treatise called "The Art of Drinking." The author, Vincent Obsopoeus, presents a total system-complete with special tricks, hacks, and algorithms-for enjoying the fruit of the vine... more
Five hundred years ago, a German wine enthusiast wrote a treatise called "The Art of Drinking." The author, Vincent Obsopoeus, presents a total system-complete with special tricks, hacks, and algorithms-for enjoying the fruit of the vine sustainably and with discrimination. And he knew what he was talking about. In his time, Obsopoeus witnessed the birth of binge drinking as a socially and professionally acceptable behavior. He lived near an important wine region, and in those days per capita consumption was six times what it is today. The allowance in hospitals-for patient and doctor alike-was an astonishing seven liters a day. Worse, binge culture was taking over college and work life. Obsopoeus wrote his book, in part, to try to put a stop to it. The key to lasting dignity and sobriety, he insists, is not total abstinence, but moderation. For centuries Obsopoeus' book was banned, and eventually, it was forgotten. I recently rediscovered the Latin text while combing through hundreds of dusty tomes, and the advice it offers couldn't be timelier for our current moment when we're suddenly all stuck at home. For example, says Obsopoeus, home beats going out because it spares you the drama to be found in bars-the buzzkills, the snubbing, the snitting, the beer tears and the fights.
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A few weeks ago, the Business Roundtable released an important new statement that redefines the purpose of corporations for today’s world. In this series of blog postings, Cornell University Classics Professor Mike Fontaine and Devin... more
A few weeks ago, the Business Roundtable released an important new statement that redefines the purpose of corporations for today’s world. In this series of blog postings, Cornell University Classics Professor Mike Fontaine and Devin Bigoness, Executive Director for Customized Executive Education programs at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, apply insights from the classics to problems faced by leaders today. In this second posting, we go back to Cicero's treatise On Duties to discuss the classical and modern duty of a company.
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Twitter has become a modern-day blood sport. Seneca, who saw similar spectacles in ancient Rome, can show us a way forward. The translation used here is that of Ancient Rome: An Anthology of Sources, by R. Scott Smith and Christopher... more
Twitter has become a modern-day blood sport. Seneca, who saw similar spectacles in ancient Rome, can show us a way forward.
The translation used here is that of Ancient Rome: An Anthology of Sources, by R. Scott Smith and Christopher Francese (Hackett 2014), slightly adapted. I recommend this excellent sourcebook to anyone interested in learning more about ancient Rome.
The translation used here is that of Ancient Rome: An Anthology of Sources, by R. Scott Smith and Christopher Francese (Hackett 2014), slightly adapted. I recommend this excellent sourcebook to anyone interested in learning more about ancient Rome.
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Do characters in Roman comedy ever allude to famous paintings without saying so? The evidence suggests they do. In this case study, I maintain that a scene in Plautus' comedy Curculio (or Gorgylio) parodies a lost painting by Apelles, a... more
Do characters in Roman comedy ever allude to famous paintings without saying so? The evidence suggests they do. In this case study, I maintain that a scene in Plautus' comedy Curculio (or Gorgylio) parodies a lost painting by Apelles, a painting that was once kept on display in Epidauros.
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Why do people do bad things? In this paper, I argue that Plautus’ stage comedy Captivi (“The Prisoners”) was written to answer that question. The play suggests that evil is social and situational in origin. Accordingly, I make two main... more
Why do people do bad things? In this paper, I argue that Plautus’ stage comedy Captivi (“The Prisoners”) was written to answer that question. The play suggests that evil is social and situational in origin. Accordingly, I make two main points:
First, Captivi is the world’s first exploration of dehumanization in prison contexts. It replicates the conditions of a psychological “obedience study.” And, since the play dates to c. 200 BCE, it anticipates the most famous such study, the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, by roughly 2,150 years.
Second, the title refers to all the characters in the drama, not just the war captives. It signifies that everyone is “caught” up as a prisoner in this System—that is, the social nexus of war prisons and slavery, which converts soldiers into slaves.
First, Captivi is the world’s first exploration of dehumanization in prison contexts. It replicates the conditions of a psychological “obedience study.” And, since the play dates to c. 200 BCE, it anticipates the most famous such study, the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, by roughly 2,150 years.
Second, the title refers to all the characters in the drama, not just the war captives. It signifies that everyone is “caught” up as a prisoner in this System—that is, the social nexus of war prisons and slavery, which converts soldiers into slaves.
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In 1583, against all odds, the text of Cicero's lost Consolation sensationally resurfaced in Venice. Or did it? Four centuries after the polemics petered out, a computer program analyzed the style and concluded that it was “probably” not... more
In 1583, against all odds, the text of Cicero's lost Consolation sensationally resurfaced in Venice. Or did it? Four centuries after the polemics petered out, a computer program analyzed the style and concluded that it was “probably” not authentic. The computer was right. I was able to prove it definitively last year, and what I discovered in the process was startling. Here’s the story.
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It’s widely believed that the Latin phrase Sic semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) originates in one of two stories from ancient Rome, both of them connected with a freedom-lover named Brutus. That's wrong. Strange as it sounds, the... more
It’s widely believed that the Latin phrase Sic semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) originates in one of two stories from ancient Rome, both of them connected with a freedom-lover named Brutus. That's wrong. Strange as it sounds, the source is Homer's Odyssey -- specifically, a single line quoted in ancient Rome, and recontextualized by two Founders of the United States.
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This magazine article discovers an ingenious Renaissance allusion to Lucian's essay "Slander: A Warning," an allusion calculated to troll the author's enemies. Profusely illustrated, it includes six rare images of a lost fresco by... more
This magazine article discovers an ingenious Renaissance allusion to Lucian's essay "Slander: A Warning," an allusion calculated to troll the author's enemies. Profusely illustrated, it includes six rare images of a lost fresco by Albrecht Dürer. Other classical or Renaissance artists and writers discussed include Sandro Botticelli, Apelles, Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Lucian, Michelangelo, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Dürer, Vincent Obsopoeus, and Friedrich Spee.
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The present co-authored paper is divided into two main sections: The first section in Arabic is by Magda El-Nowieemy, under the title of "Why Latin?" It is a briefly considered introductory piece that deals with two points: -What does... more
The present co-authored paper is divided into two main sections: The first section in Arabic is by Magda El-Nowieemy, under the title of "Why Latin?" It is a briefly considered introductory piece that deals with two points:
-What does Latin mean for the Arab World?
- What does Latin mean for the West?
The second section of the paper in English is by Michael Fontaine, under the title of "That is Latin". It is a review of Reginaldus Thomas Foster and Daniel Patricius McCarthy. 2016. Ossa Latinitatis Sola Ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque (The Mere Bones of Latin According to the Thought and System of Reginald). The Catholic University of America Press.
-What does Latin mean for the Arab World?
- What does Latin mean for the West?
The second section of the paper in English is by Michael Fontaine, under the title of "That is Latin". It is a review of Reginaldus Thomas Foster and Daniel Patricius McCarthy. 2016. Ossa Latinitatis Sola Ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque (The Mere Bones of Latin According to the Thought and System of Reginald). The Catholic University of America Press.
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The world's first psychosurgery was performed 500 years ago today. No one remembers it was all a joke.
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Ovid was not exiled; the evidence is massively against it. This is not a new idea, but it is a deeply unpopular, even heretical one. In this paper, I suggest reasons why scholars resist it, and I plead for a new understanding of what the... more
Ovid was not exiled; the evidence is massively against it. This is not a new idea, but it is a deeply unpopular, even heretical one. In this paper, I suggest reasons why scholars resist it, and I plead for a new understanding of what the "exile" poetry is.
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The following essay is adapted from the afterword to The Pig War, which is published today. It establishes the authorship of the poem and explores its possible influence on George Orwell's Animal Farm. Click the link to go to the essay... more
The following essay is adapted from the afterword to The Pig War, which is published today. It establishes the authorship of the poem and explores its possible influence on George Orwell's Animal Farm. Click the link to go to the essay online.
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Translated by Mr. Bailiang Ma (马百亮 译)
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After the death of Erasmus, Joachim Camerarius was the most famous scholar in Renaissance Europe. In this paper I figure out why, late one night, he suddenly began believing in witches and witchcraft.
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Readers of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, a Greek tragedy of 458 BC, routinely assert or assume that the hero, Orestes, kills his mother at the behest of the god Apollo. The work of the American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) shows... more
Readers of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, a Greek tragedy of 458 BC, routinely assert or assume that the hero, Orestes, kills his mother at the behest of the god Apollo. The work of the American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) shows us why we ought not make that assumption. It thus sets the tragedy in an entirely new light and, if set alongside the evidence of Plautus’ The Menaechmus Brothers, entails important consequences for the history of (paranoid) schizophrenia in Western society.
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Lucius, the narrator of Apuleius' Golden Ass, meets the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. This observation suggests (1) that schizophrenia is not a recent disease, as historians of psychiatry assert, but that—whatever its origin and... more
Lucius, the narrator of Apuleius' Golden Ass, meets the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. This observation suggests (1) that schizophrenia is not a recent disease, as historians of psychiatry assert, but that—whatever its origin and nature—it is at least ancient and probably eternal. It also suggests (2) that Lucius is an unreliable narrator of the novel because he believes his own delusions even more sincerely than most readers do. This paper begins with a caveat that it represents no more than a thought experiment in progress. It draws together ideas I have developed piecemeal over many years of thinking about Apuleius' Golden Ass in the light of J. J. Winkler's ideas about the novel's unreliable narrator. Winkler (1985) attributed the novel's unreliable narrator to Apuleius' experimentation with a kind of narrative akin to modern detective fiction. In this paper, I would like to suggest a different reason. As I
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Review essay of Mary Beard, SPQR.
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Roman poets and readers seem to have taken it for granted that our preoccupations determine and affect the words we utter in moments of extreme emotion. By noticing how those words resemble other words, therefore, we can sometimes decode... more
Roman poets and readers seem to have taken it for granted that our preoccupations determine and affect the words we utter in moments of extreme emotion. By noticing how those words resemble other words, therefore, we can sometimes decode or glimpse an anguished speaker’s private thoughts. This is the conclusion suggested by several puns in the poetry of Virgil, Lucretius, and Catullus, puns that are better explained by a psycholinguistic than a psychoanalytic (Freudian) model. Since they appear in correct, ordinary speech—in contrast to Freudian slips, in which the pun results from a speech error—I call them ‘Freudian bullseyes.’
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This paper supplements my Funny Words in Plautine Comedy (2010) by reinterpreting two famous “Plautine elements in Plautus.” Part one (on Amphitryo 303-7) argues that the pun on Quintus (the name) and quattuor, “four,” translates a pun in... more
This paper supplements my Funny Words in Plautine Comedy (2010) by reinterpreting two famous “Plautine elements in Plautus.” Part one (on Amphitryo 303-7) argues that the pun on Quintus (the name) and quattuor, “four,” translates a pun in the Greek model on Pentheus and tettaras, “four.” Part two (on Captivi 84) argues that rurant “they are in the countryside,” should be rorant, “they are glistening,” sc. unguento, “with after-bath oil.” The examples suggest Plautus’ genius lay as much or more in inspired translation as it does in his “originality.”
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After the holocaust there was nowhere to go. It was too dangerous to stay, so the survivors banded together and set sail for another continent, to their God-given ancestral homeland of long ago. But they got there only to find that other... more
After the holocaust there was nowhere to go. It was too dangerous to stay, so the survivors banded together and set sail for another continent, to their God-given ancestral homeland of long ago. But they got there only to find that other people were already living in it, and the natives weren’t about to surrender or quit their land just because a bunch of ragtag refugees have come along claiming divine title to it. War, terrorism, and atrocities follow.
This is the story of Virgil's Aeneid.
This is the story of Virgil's Aeneid.
Research Interests: Classics, Latin Literature, Roman History, Jewish Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, and 13 moreMiddle East Studies, Race and Ethnicity, Israel/Palestine, Colonialism, Fantasy Literature, Second World War, Holocaust Studies, Vergil, Aeneid, Israel and Zionism, Arthur Koestler, Ancient Rome, and Virgil
This paper makes three main points. 1, A lost Neo-Latin comedy by the German poet Joannes Burmeister, titled Susanna, exposes many features of the biblical Susanna story that point to an origin in Greek New Comedy. 2, Daniel's puns... more
This paper makes three main points.
1, A lost Neo-Latin comedy by the German poet Joannes Burmeister, titled Susanna, exposes many features of the biblical Susanna story that point to an origin in Greek New Comedy.
2, Daniel's puns at the climax of the biblical story are newly shown to be double entendres alluding, as in Plautus' Miles Gloriosus, to punitive castration.
3, It is argued that Nicholas of Damascus is the likeliest author of the biblical account of Susanna.
1, A lost Neo-Latin comedy by the German poet Joannes Burmeister, titled Susanna, exposes many features of the biblical Susanna story that point to an origin in Greek New Comedy.
2, Daniel's puns at the climax of the biblical story are newly shown to be double entendres alluding, as in Plautus' Miles Gloriosus, to punitive castration.
3, It is argued that Nicholas of Damascus is the likeliest author of the biblical account of Susanna.
Research Interests:
Plautus’ Roman comedy Menaechmi (The Two Menaechmuses) of c. 200 BC anticipates in fictional form the famous Rosenhan experiment of 1973, a landmark critique of psychiatric diagnosis. An analysis of the scenes of feigned madness and... more
Plautus’ Roman comedy Menaechmi (The Two Menaechmuses) of c. 200 BC anticipates in fictional form the famous Rosenhan experiment of 1973, a landmark critique of psychiatric diagnosis. An analysis of the scenes of feigned madness and psychiatric examination suggests that the play (and the earlier Greek play from which it was adapted) offers two related ethical reflections, one on the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, the other on the validity of the entire medical model of insanity—that is, of the popular notion and political truth that mental illness is a (bodily) disease “like any other.” This essay is offered as a contribution to the interpretation of the play as well as to the history of psychiatry.
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I presented the following comparison of the philosophic psychiatry of Thomas Szasz to the psychiatric philosophy of Epicurus in May 2014 at the 167th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New York City. Because Szasz... more
I presented the following comparison of the philosophic psychiatry of Thomas Szasz to the psychiatric philosophy of Epicurus in May 2014 at the 167th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New York City. Because Szasz had died late in 2012 I assumed it would be merely one of several retrospectives of his thought and influence. In the event, mine was the only paper to mention him, and the circumstances afforded me for presenting it proved challenging. I was assigned to the last slot on the last of the five-day conference, to a session titled “Topics of Interest Rarely Presented.” (The first presentation discussed psychiatric patients’ self-assessments of body weight, while the third dealt with psychiatric morbidity among Bangladeshi women in rural and slum populations.) The audience was predictably small, but the paper was quite a hit among them. It has continued to garner favorable remarks in private circulation. Since the second anniversary of Szasz’ death on September 8 is now approaching, it seems a suitable occasion to publish it to a wider audience.
http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/08/religious-psychiatric-atheism-success-epicurus-failure-thomas-szasz/
http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/08/religious-psychiatric-atheism-success-epicurus-failure-thomas-szasz/
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Research Interests:
This chapter discusses the twenty-one Roman comedies of T. Maccius Plautus in the light of two predominantly competing modern paradigms, here called the "Saturnalian" and the "Hellenistic." Following a conventional list of Plautus's... more
This chapter discusses the twenty-one Roman comedies of T. Maccius Plautus in the light of two predominantly competing modern paradigms, here called the "Saturnalian" and the "Hellenistic." Following a conventional list of Plautus's titles, Greek models, and date or festival occasions where known, discussion turns to the nature of Latin comoedia, which is not merely an adaptation (vorsio, "version") of Greek New Comedy but a highly musical adaptation of it across languages. Parallel texts of Menander (Dis Exapaton, an anonymous fragment) and Plautus (Bacchides, Pseudolus) illustrate the extent and effects of Plautus's alterations. The chapter concludes with a sketch of the genesis, axioms, and assumptions underpinning the contemporary "War of the Paradigms" that divides those scholars who envision Plautus as working within the Hellenistic tradition of Greek comedy from those who imagine him largely indifferent to it. Sample texts trace the origin of the split to minor verbal ambiguities.
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This chapter discusses the six Roman comedies of Terence (P. Terentius Afer) in modern understanding. After a critical examination of his “Menandrianism” and traditional ascription high in the canon of Latin literature, the titles, Greek... more
This chapter discusses the six Roman comedies of Terence (P. Terentius Afer) in modern understanding. After a critical examination of his “Menandrianism” and traditional ascription high in the canon of Latin literature, the titles, Greek models, and festival occasions of Terence’s complete output are listed. Discussion then turns to intertextuality. Seemingly “neoteric” allusions to the works of Plautus, Livius Andronicus, and Ennius are linked to the avant-garde Greek poetics of Alexandria via the poetry of Ennius, who died three years before Terence’s debut. With an eye to the academic context of Hellenistic education, it is argued, Terence posed as the Roman Menander to complement Ennius’s recent pose as the Roman Homer. In uniting Menander’s reflection of life with the Alexandrian literary reflexivity so esteemed by Rome’s succeeding generations of Latin poets, Terence emerges as a pivotal figure in the history of Latin literature.
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In the prologue to his Eunuchus (a reworking of Menander’s Eunouchos), Terence acknowledges that he has retrofitted in two characters -- the parasite and the soldier -- from Menander’s Kolax, a separate comedy. Relying on recent... more
In the prologue to his Eunuchus (a reworking of Menander’s Eunouchos), Terence acknowledges that he has retrofitted in two characters -- the parasite and the soldier -- from Menander’s Kolax, a separate comedy. Relying on recent theorization of poetic memory consolidated by Stephen Hinds’ Allusion and Intertext (Cambridge, 1998), in this paper I discuss three passages that feature these two characters (Eunuchus 244-253, 419-429, and 799-801). I contend that in them Terence’s characters are self-consciously encoding reflections on the problematics of poetic memory inherent in the genre of Roman Comedy. In my view, Terence aims to explore creative appropriation and its rhetoric of primacy and coming after that had been recently pioneered by Ennius in his Annals and that would later be repeatedly cultivated by the Neoteric and Augustan poets, especially Ovid. But unlike these later poets, I argue, Terence’s experiment failed, and in conclusion I suggest several reasons why. An appendix discusses the difference between a parasitus colax and a parasitus edax.
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The jokes in Plautus’ Pseudylus 31-37 are newly interpreted through close attention to several verbal ambiguities (animus, citare, ex/in cera).
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Research Interests:
The paper discusses the substantial fragments (c. 100 Latin verses + c. 150 German verses) of Joannes Burmeister's Mater-Virgo (The Virgin Mother) in light of the newly discovered Aulularia. A fascinating and weird text, and one we can... more
The paper discusses the substantial fragments (c. 100 Latin verses + c. 150 German verses) of Joannes Burmeister's Mater-Virgo (The Virgin Mother) in light of the newly discovered Aulularia. A fascinating and weird text, and one we can now say much more about.
This was my working paper for the Mousa Paizei conference in April 2011. I've completely written it for publication. A preprint of the published version is now up elsewhere on this page.
The attached paper is the oral introduction I used for the paper 'Who's Out There?' that I gave at the 2011 APA. That paper can be found in the talks section of this website. I don't plan to publish that paper (or this intro) separately,... more
The attached paper is the oral introduction I used for the paper 'Who's Out There?' that I gave at the 2011 APA. That paper can be found in the talks section of this website. I don't plan to publish that paper (or this intro) separately, but per a request I'll leave them up here for a while.
Published in The Humanist, January/February 2015
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Published in The Humanist, January/February 2015. Since the author has published a Spanish translation of his book, I offer readers a translation of my review as well. I should emphasize that this is simply a translation of my review... more
Published in The Humanist, January/February 2015.
Since the author has published a Spanish translation of his book, I offer readers a translation of my review as well. I should emphasize that this is simply a translation of my review of the English version, not the Spanish one, which I have not seen. I thank Mrs. Xiomara Gomez for helping me improve my translation.
Desde el autor ha publicado una traducción al español de su libro, ofrezco a los lectores una traducción de mi reseña también. Debo enfatizar que esto es simplemente una traducción de mi crítica de la versión en Inglés, no el español, que no he visto. Doy las gracias a la señora Xiomara Gómez por ayudarme a mejorar mi traducción.
Since the author has published a Spanish translation of his book, I offer readers a translation of my review as well. I should emphasize that this is simply a translation of my review of the English version, not the Spanish one, which I have not seen. I thank Mrs. Xiomara Gomez for helping me improve my translation.
Desde el autor ha publicado una traducción al español de su libro, ofrezco a los lectores una traducción de mi reseña también. Debo enfatizar que esto es simplemente una traducción de mi crítica de la versión en Inglés, no el español, que no he visto. Doy las gracias a la señora Xiomara Gómez por ayudarme a mejorar mi traducción.
Research Interests: Religion, Psychology, Philosophy, Atheism, Humanism, and 3 moreEpicureanism, Self-help, and Thomas Szasz
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2014.10.44. Co-authored by Richard Fontaine, Center for a New American Security (Washington, D.C.)
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A free webinar for business leaders, executives, and professionals of all backgrounds. We'll spend the hour looking at five case studies in Cicero's treatise On Duties. From them we'll discuss ways to apply his lessons to today’s world,... more
A free webinar for business leaders, executives, and professionals of all backgrounds. We'll spend the hour looking at five case studies in Cicero's treatise On Duties. From them we'll discuss ways to apply his lessons to today’s world, and we'll learn strategies for making tough decisions and getting others to support them. Time and date: Thursday, October 24, 2019, 1pm EDT at https://www.ecornell.com/keynotes/overview/K102419/
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Ovid was never exiled; the evidence is massively against it. The suggestion that his exile is merely a metaphor is not new, but it is a deeply unpopular, even heretical one. In this paper, I offer new arguments to explain why scholars... more
Ovid was never exiled; the evidence is massively against it. The suggestion that his exile is merely a metaphor is not new, but it is a deeply unpopular, even heretical one. In this paper, I offer new arguments to explain why scholars resist it, and I advocate a new understanding of what the “exile” poetry is. Comparative evidence comes from the Book of Jonah, Homer's Odyssey, Juvenal's Satires, and fake Holocaust memoirs.
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The Roman Enlightenment is synonymous with the birth of Latin literature in 240 BC. Because the only texts to survive complete from its earliest period, however, are the 27 stage comedies of Plautus (254-184 BC) and Terence (194/84-160... more
The Roman Enlightenment is synonymous with the birth of Latin literature in 240 BC. Because the only texts to survive complete from its earliest period, however, are the 27 stage comedies of Plautus (254-184 BC) and Terence (194/84-160 BC), it is impossible to contextualize the audiences that came to watch them. In this paper I argue that audiences of Roman comedy knew of some literary activities at the Great Library of Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC). Drawing on Vitruvius and fragmentary Greek poetry, I suggest that Plautus’ The Braggart Soldier and Terence’s The Eunuch allude to (1) Ptolemy’s wedding to his sister, (2) the imprisonment of the poet Sotades, and (3) the appointment of Aristophanes of Byzantium as Head Librarian c. 194 BC. If I am right, we will have to abandon a famous myth about the history of free speech in Rome—and rewrite the history of Alexandria’s cultural influence on Rome.
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Plautus’ Gorgylio is set in Epidaurus, a city famed in antiquity for the sanctuary of Asclepius, or Asclepieion, that attracted pilgrims and patients from around the Greek world. In my view, this backdrop forms the basis of many unnoticed... more
Plautus’ Gorgylio is set in Epidaurus, a city famed in antiquity for the sanctuary of Asclepius, or Asclepieion, that attracted pilgrims and patients from around the Greek world. In my view, this backdrop forms the basis of many unnoticed jokes in the play about disease, disability, deformity, diagnosis, and treatment. Taken together, they reveal several surprises about Roman attitudes toward illness and healing in the time of Plautus (fl. 210-184 BC), as well as some new connections between Roman and Greek Comedy.
Research Interests:
The Roman Enlightenment is synonymous with the birth of Latin literature in 240 BC. Because the only texts to survive complete from its earliest period, however, are the 27 stage comedies of Plautus (254-184 BC) and Terence (194/84-160... more
The Roman Enlightenment is synonymous with the birth of Latin literature in 240 BC. Because the only texts to survive complete from its earliest period, however, are the 27 stage comedies of Plautus (254-184 BC) and Terence (194/84-160 BC), it is impossible to contextualize the audiences that came to watch them. Paradoxically, therefore, Rome’s “Enlightenment” is now dominated by darkness!
In this talk, I argue that those audiences knew of some literary activities at the Great Library of Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC). Drawing on Vitruvius and fragmentary Greek poetry, I suggest that Plautus’ The Braggart Soldier and Terence’s The Eunuch allude to (1) Ptolemy’s wedding to his sister, (2) the imprisonment of the poet Sotades, and (3) the appointment of Aristophanes of Byzantium as Head Librarian c. 194 BC. If I am right, we will have to abandon a famous myth about the history of free speech in Rome, as well as rewrite the history of Alexandria’s cultural influence on Rome in the middle republic.
In this talk, I argue that those audiences knew of some literary activities at the Great Library of Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC). Drawing on Vitruvius and fragmentary Greek poetry, I suggest that Plautus’ The Braggart Soldier and Terence’s The Eunuch allude to (1) Ptolemy’s wedding to his sister, (2) the imprisonment of the poet Sotades, and (3) the appointment of Aristophanes of Byzantium as Head Librarian c. 194 BC. If I am right, we will have to abandon a famous myth about the history of free speech in Rome, as well as rewrite the history of Alexandria’s cultural influence on Rome in the middle republic.
Research Interests:
Some think morbus hepatiarius is a real diagnosis and that it means "liver disease" (from ἧπαρ, liver). Others think it is a joke diagnosis and that it means "pâté disease" (from ἡπάτιον,pâté ). I say it is a humorous... more
Some think morbus hepatiarius is a real diagnosis and that it means "liver disease" (from ἧπαρ, liver).
Others think it is a joke diagnosis and that it means "pâté disease" (from ἡπάτιον,pâté ).
I say it is a humorous diagnosis and that it means "hepatus-fish disease" (from ἥπατος, a fish that has no pyloric caeca).
Parallels from Greek and Plautine comedy support this interpretation, which emerges as only one of several medical jokes alluding to the Asclepieion, or medical complex, of Epidaurus, where the play is set.
Others think it is a joke diagnosis and that it means "pâté disease" (from ἡπάτιον,pâté ).
I say it is a humorous diagnosis and that it means "hepatus-fish disease" (from ἥπατος, a fish that has no pyloric caeca).
Parallels from Greek and Plautine comedy support this interpretation, which emerges as only one of several medical jokes alluding to the Asclepieion, or medical complex, of Epidaurus, where the play is set.
Research Interests:
My statement to accompany the roundtable discussion "
Vox populo: The Risks and Rewards of Public Scholarship" at the upcoming Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in San Francisco (January 2016)
Vox populo: The Risks and Rewards of Public Scholarship" at the upcoming Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in San Francisco (January 2016)
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Research Interests:
Lucius, the narrator of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, meets the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. This realization suggests (1) that schizophrenia is not a recent disease, as historians of psychiatry assert, but that—whatever its origin and... more
Lucius, the narrator of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, meets the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. This realization suggests (1) that schizophrenia is not a recent disease, as historians of psychiatry assert, but that—whatever its origin and nature—it is at least ancient and probably eternal. It also suggests (2) that Lucius is an unreliable narrator of the novel *because* he believes his own delusions even more sincerely than most readers do.
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Research Interests:
The Josef Martin Lecture (also the keynote address of the NeoLatina conference on Camerarius Polyhistor, Wuerzburg, Germany)
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Virgil's Aeneid is shot through with puns, but what do they mean? If they aren't funny, if they aren't etymological glosses, and if we reject psychoanalytic explanations, how can we explain them? I offer a new model to show how... more
Virgil's Aeneid is shot through with puns, but what do they mean? If they aren't funny, if they aren't etymological glosses, and if we reject psychoanalytic explanations, how can we explain them? I offer a new model to show how classical Latin authors believed guilty thoughts spill over into and determine ordinary language, and what that means for Latin literature generally.
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"Un giorno nel 1621, un poeta laureato del Sacro Romano Impero di nome Giovanni Burmeister (1576-1638) ha avuto un momento di eureka. Colpito da coincidenze tra la Casina di Plauto e il racconto biblico di Susanna e dei vecchioni,... more
"Un giorno nel 1621, un poeta laureato del Sacro Romano Impero di nome Giovanni Burmeister (1576-1638) ha avuto un momento di eureka. Colpito da coincidenze tra la Casina di Plauto e il racconto biblico di Susanna e dei vecchioni, cominciò a scrivere una commedia Neo-latina basata riga per riga sulla favola Plautina. Così facendo, a mio avviso, e senza saperlo, ha invertito il processo stesso che ha generato la storia biblica.
In questo lavoro, io sostengo che Susanna non si basa sulla parola di Dio, ma su una commedia greca della Nea. L’autore più probabile è Difilo di Sinope (342-291 a.C.), contemporaneo di Menandro e autore dell’ originale greco delle Casina e Rudens Plautine. A mio avviso, quindi, la storia di Susanna è analoga ad una commedia romana: cioè, un adattamento di una commedia della Nea, ma ad una ellenistico-ebraica, piuttosto che ellenistico-romana, impostazione."
In questo lavoro, io sostengo che Susanna non si basa sulla parola di Dio, ma su una commedia greca della Nea. L’autore più probabile è Difilo di Sinope (342-291 a.C.), contemporaneo di Menandro e autore dell’ originale greco delle Casina e Rudens Plautine. A mio avviso, quindi, la storia di Susanna è analoga ad una commedia romana: cioè, un adattamento di una commedia della Nea, ma ad una ellenistico-ebraica, piuttosto che ellenistico-romana, impostazione."
Research Interests:
Plautus’ Roman comedy Menaechmi (The Two Menaechmuses) of c. 200 BC anticipates in fictional form the famous Rosenhan experiment of 1973, a landmark critique of psychiatric diagnosis. An analysis of the scenes of feigned madness and... more
Plautus’ Roman comedy Menaechmi (The Two Menaechmuses) of c. 200 BC anticipates in fictional form the famous Rosenhan experiment of 1973, a landmark critique of psychiatric diagnosis. An analysis of the scenes of feigned madness and psychiatric examination suggests that the play (and the earlier Greek play from which it was adapted) offers two related ethical reflections, one on the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, the other on the validity of the entire medical model of insanity—that is, of the popular notion and political truth that mental illness is a (bodily) disease “like any other.” This talk is offered as a contribution to the interpretation of the play as well as to the history of psychiatry.
Research Interests:
In 271 BC the Greek philosopher Epicurus (340-271 BC) died. The scientific-materialist and theologically atheist philosophy that he had preached, Epicureanism, continued to flourish and grow in his school ("The Garden") in Athens. It soon... more
In 271 BC the Greek philosopher Epicurus (340-271 BC) died. The scientific-materialist and theologically atheist philosophy that he had preached, Epicureanism, continued to flourish and grow in his school ("The Garden") in Athens. It soon spread throughout the Roman Empire, especially among the upper classes. When Christianity replaced Rome as Europe's dominant power, it faded away, but the Renaissance rediscovery of the Epicurean poetry of Lucretius (c. 99-c.55 BC) gave a massive impetus to the Enlightenment. The doctrine subsequently aided the replacement of religious (Christian) values with secular (atheist) ones in Western society.
In September 2012 the Hungarian-American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) died. His death was met with a brief obituary in the New York Times, but little more. The psychiatrically atheist philosophy that he had preached for over half a century has never flourished. Though he suggested and advocated many, he cannot be credited with implementing any psychiatric, social, political, or legal reforms, save perhaps deinstitutionalization. His philosophy, and especially his chief claim that mental illness is not a medical disease, has not spread throughout the world; rather, it is psychiatry that has flourished and grown worldwide, and has spread throughout all classes in the West.
Both Szasz and Epicurus preached freedom. Epicurus sought to free men from the fear of death. Szasz sought to free men from coercive psychiatry. Why was Epicureanism so successful, while Szaszianism is such a failure?
This paper offers a comparative study of Epicureanism and Szaszianism and points out many unnoticed similarities in the two philosophies. It concludes that Szaszianism was a two-pronged approach whose aims were quite different from each other. Epicurus sought to abolish men's private fear of (unhappy) life after death. Like him, Szasz attacked the private belief that mental illness has a psychochemical or physiological, rather than social, origin. Unlike Epicurus, who advocated complete withdrawal from political life (and made no effort to combat institutionalized religion), Szasz was highly political, and made every effort to combat institutional psychiatry. It is easy to see that public Szaszianism has been a failure – and deservedly so, many would say. But because we cannot, as a rule, tell how many atheists there are in the pews of a church-whether they are theological or psychiatric atheists, and whether the pews are in church or worldwide-it is far from clear now, in 2013, just how far private Szaszianism has spread, and whether it will simply fade away or someday enjoy a revival.
In September 2012 the Hungarian-American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) died. His death was met with a brief obituary in the New York Times, but little more. The psychiatrically atheist philosophy that he had preached for over half a century has never flourished. Though he suggested and advocated many, he cannot be credited with implementing any psychiatric, social, political, or legal reforms, save perhaps deinstitutionalization. His philosophy, and especially his chief claim that mental illness is not a medical disease, has not spread throughout the world; rather, it is psychiatry that has flourished and grown worldwide, and has spread throughout all classes in the West.
Both Szasz and Epicurus preached freedom. Epicurus sought to free men from the fear of death. Szasz sought to free men from coercive psychiatry. Why was Epicureanism so successful, while Szaszianism is such a failure?
This paper offers a comparative study of Epicureanism and Szaszianism and points out many unnoticed similarities in the two philosophies. It concludes that Szaszianism was a two-pronged approach whose aims were quite different from each other. Epicurus sought to abolish men's private fear of (unhappy) life after death. Like him, Szasz attacked the private belief that mental illness has a psychochemical or physiological, rather than social, origin. Unlike Epicurus, who advocated complete withdrawal from political life (and made no effort to combat institutionalized religion), Szasz was highly political, and made every effort to combat institutional psychiatry. It is easy to see that public Szaszianism has been a failure – and deservedly so, many would say. But because we cannot, as a rule, tell how many atheists there are in the pews of a church-whether they are theological or psychiatric atheists, and whether the pews are in church or worldwide-it is far from clear now, in 2013, just how far private Szaszianism has spread, and whether it will simply fade away or someday enjoy a revival.
Research Interests:
One day in 1621, a poet laureate of the Holy Roman Empire named John Burmeister (1576-1635) had a eureka moment. Struck by coincidences between Plautus’ Casina and the biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders, he began to write a Neo-Latin... more
One day in 1621, a poet laureate of the Holy Roman Empire named John Burmeister (1576-1635) had a eureka moment. Struck by coincidences between Plautus’ Casina and the biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders, he began to write a Neo-Latin comedy based line by line on Plautus’ play. In so doing, I suggest, he unwittingly reversed the very process that generated the story itself.
In this paper, I argue that Susanna is based not on the word of God, but on a lost Greek New Comedy. The likeliest author is Diphilus of Sinope (342-291 BC), Menander’s contemporary and author of the Greek original of Plautus’ Casina, although Nicholas of Damascus—friend of Herod the Great and biographer of the emperor Augustus—is another possibility. Either way, in my view Susanna is analogous to a Roman Comedy: that is, an adaptation of a Greek New Comedy, but to a Hellenistic-Jewish rather than Hellenistic-Roman setting.
Susanna survives in about ten variants in multiple languages (Pennacchietti). The famous version is the longer of two Greek accounts. Although attributed to one Theodotion (2nd c. AD) and later translated by Jerome for the Vulgate, it dates to the first century BC (Collins). In it, two lecherous elders peep on a beautiful Jewish woman bathing in her husband’s garden and are filled with lust. They approach and offer her the Hobson’s choice of sleeping with them or being falsely accused of adultery. Refusing, Susanna is seized, tried, and sentenced to death. Suddenly, however, a young Daniel steps forth to cross-examine the elders. Catching them in a contradiction and exposing it through two puns that only work in Greek, the sentence is reversed. The elders are executed, and Susanna saved.
Theodotion’s Susanna includes many structural features and extra details not found in the other versions. According to Goodman, Barton, and Muddiman (120; cf. Kellenberger), “Most scholars suppose that Theodotion supplements the OG either on the basis of oral tradition, through redactional activity, or through using a Semitic source.” Others look to the Greek novel (Leisering). I think all four views are wrong.
In my view, all the supplements are precisely paralleled in Diphilus’ brand of Greek New Comedy as known from fragments and Plautus’ adaptations (Casina, Rudens, Vidularia; also Amphitryo [Webster]). Other parallels are found in late Euripidean tragedies (Orestes, Alkmene) that influenced Diphilus.
For example, in Theodotion we find a unified time (two days) and place (a single large house in Alexandria with an attached garden), a limited number of speaking characters, and an omniscient prologue. These are all standard features of comedy, and the prologue is structurally identical to that in Plautus’ Rudens, a play whose peripeteia involves witnesses and testimony. Many details—the participation of ancillae, a bathing scene, a lunch, a boisterous irruption into the garden, and gratuitous puns—are paralleled by the exangelos speech of an ancilla in Plautus’ Casina—a play that involves a lecherous elder in competition for a mute young woman, as well as an arbitration. Many other parallels in Euripides and New Comedy will be discussed.
References
Astorga, J. A. “The Art of Diphilus: A Study of Verbal Humor in New Comedy.” Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1990.
Collins, John J. 1993. Daniel: Hermeneia, a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Minneapolis.
Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina C. W. 2011. “Susanna and her Sisters. The Virtuous Lady Motif in Sacred Tradition and its Representation in Art, Secular Writing and Popular Narrative.” In Marilia P. Futre Pinheiro, Stephen J. Harrison (eds.), Fictional Traces : Receptions of the Ancient Novel. Volume 2. Groningen.
Goodman, Martin, John Barton, and John Muddiman. 2012. The Apocrypha (The Oxford Bible Commentary). New York and Oxford.
Kellenberger, Edgar. 2010. “Schriftliche und mündliche Weitergabe in der griechischen Susanna-Erzählung.” In Melvin K. H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Helsinki.
Leisering, Christina. 2008. Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten. Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Geschlechterkonstruktionen der Septuaginta- und Theodotionfassung von Dan 13 und ihren intertextuellen Bezügen. Münster.
Moore, Carey A. 1977. Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries). Garden City.
Pennacchietti, Fabrizio. 2006. Three Mirrors for two Biblical Ladies. Susanna and the Queen of Sheba in the Eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Piscataway, New Jersey. Gorgias Press.
Webster, T. B. L. 1970. Studies in Later Greek Comedy. Manchester.
In this paper, I argue that Susanna is based not on the word of God, but on a lost Greek New Comedy. The likeliest author is Diphilus of Sinope (342-291 BC), Menander’s contemporary and author of the Greek original of Plautus’ Casina, although Nicholas of Damascus—friend of Herod the Great and biographer of the emperor Augustus—is another possibility. Either way, in my view Susanna is analogous to a Roman Comedy: that is, an adaptation of a Greek New Comedy, but to a Hellenistic-Jewish rather than Hellenistic-Roman setting.
Susanna survives in about ten variants in multiple languages (Pennacchietti). The famous version is the longer of two Greek accounts. Although attributed to one Theodotion (2nd c. AD) and later translated by Jerome for the Vulgate, it dates to the first century BC (Collins). In it, two lecherous elders peep on a beautiful Jewish woman bathing in her husband’s garden and are filled with lust. They approach and offer her the Hobson’s choice of sleeping with them or being falsely accused of adultery. Refusing, Susanna is seized, tried, and sentenced to death. Suddenly, however, a young Daniel steps forth to cross-examine the elders. Catching them in a contradiction and exposing it through two puns that only work in Greek, the sentence is reversed. The elders are executed, and Susanna saved.
Theodotion’s Susanna includes many structural features and extra details not found in the other versions. According to Goodman, Barton, and Muddiman (120; cf. Kellenberger), “Most scholars suppose that Theodotion supplements the OG either on the basis of oral tradition, through redactional activity, or through using a Semitic source.” Others look to the Greek novel (Leisering). I think all four views are wrong.
In my view, all the supplements are precisely paralleled in Diphilus’ brand of Greek New Comedy as known from fragments and Plautus’ adaptations (Casina, Rudens, Vidularia; also Amphitryo [Webster]). Other parallels are found in late Euripidean tragedies (Orestes, Alkmene) that influenced Diphilus.
For example, in Theodotion we find a unified time (two days) and place (a single large house in Alexandria with an attached garden), a limited number of speaking characters, and an omniscient prologue. These are all standard features of comedy, and the prologue is structurally identical to that in Plautus’ Rudens, a play whose peripeteia involves witnesses and testimony. Many details—the participation of ancillae, a bathing scene, a lunch, a boisterous irruption into the garden, and gratuitous puns—are paralleled by the exangelos speech of an ancilla in Plautus’ Casina—a play that involves a lecherous elder in competition for a mute young woman, as well as an arbitration. Many other parallels in Euripides and New Comedy will be discussed.
References
Astorga, J. A. “The Art of Diphilus: A Study of Verbal Humor in New Comedy.” Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1990.
Collins, John J. 1993. Daniel: Hermeneia, a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Minneapolis.
Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina C. W. 2011. “Susanna and her Sisters. The Virtuous Lady Motif in Sacred Tradition and its Representation in Art, Secular Writing and Popular Narrative.” In Marilia P. Futre Pinheiro, Stephen J. Harrison (eds.), Fictional Traces : Receptions of the Ancient Novel. Volume 2. Groningen.
Goodman, Martin, John Barton, and John Muddiman. 2012. The Apocrypha (The Oxford Bible Commentary). New York and Oxford.
Kellenberger, Edgar. 2010. “Schriftliche und mündliche Weitergabe in der griechischen Susanna-Erzählung.” In Melvin K. H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Helsinki.
Leisering, Christina. 2008. Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten. Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Geschlechterkonstruktionen der Septuaginta- und Theodotionfassung von Dan 13 und ihren intertextuellen Bezügen. Münster.
Moore, Carey A. 1977. Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries). Garden City.
Pennacchietti, Fabrizio. 2006. Three Mirrors for two Biblical Ladies. Susanna and the Queen of Sheba in the Eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Piscataway, New Jersey. Gorgias Press.
Webster, T. B. L. 1970. Studies in Later Greek Comedy. Manchester.
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One day in 1621, a poet laureate of the Holy Roman Empire named John Burmeister (1576-1635) had a eureka moment. Struck by coincidences between Plautus’ Casina and the biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders, he began to write a Neo-Latin... more
One day in 1621, a poet laureate of the Holy Roman Empire named John Burmeister (1576-1635) had a eureka moment. Struck by coincidences between Plautus’ Casina and the biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders, he began to write a Neo-Latin comedy based line by line on Plautus’ play. In so doing, I suggest, he unwittingly reversed the very process that generated the story itself.
In this paper, I argue that Susanna is based not on the word of God, but on a lost Greek New Comedy. The likeliest author is Diphilus of Sinope (342-291 BC), Menander’s contemporary and author of the Greek original of Plautus’ Casina, although Nicholas of Damascus—friend of Herod the Great and biographer of the emperor Augustus—is another possibility. Either way, in my view Susanna is analogous to a Roman Comedy: that is, an adaptation of a Greek New Comedy, but to a Hellenistic-Jewish rather than Hellenistic-Roman setting.
Susanna survives in about ten variants in multiple languages (Pennacchietti). The famous version is the longer of two Greek accounts. Although attributed to one Theodotion (2nd c. AD) and later translated by Jerome for the Vulgate, it dates to the first century BC (Collins). In it, two lecherous elders peep on a beautiful Jewish woman bathing in her husband’s garden and are filled with lust. They approach and offer her the Hobson’s choice of sleeping with them or being falsely accused of adultery. Refusing, Susanna is seized, tried, and sentenced to death. Suddenly, however, a young Daniel steps forth to cross-examine the elders. Catching them in a contradiction and exposing it through two puns that only work in Greek, the sentence is reversed. The elders are executed, and Susanna saved.
Theodotion’s Susanna includes many structural features and extra details not found in the other versions. According to Goodman, Barton, and Muddiman (120; cf. Kellenberger), “Most scholars suppose that Theodotion supplements the OG either on the basis of oral tradition, through redactional activity, or through using a Semitic source.” Others look to the Greek novel (Leisering). I think all four views are wrong.
In my view, all the supplements are precisely paralleled in Diphilus’ brand of Greek New Comedy as known from fragments and Plautus’ adaptations (Casina, Rudens, Vidularia; also Amphitryo [Webster]). Other parallels are found in late Euripidean tragedies (Orestes, Alkmene) that influenced Diphilus.
For example, in Theodotion we find a unified time (two days) and place (a single large house in Alexandria with an attached garden), a limited number of speaking characters, and an omniscient prologue. These are all standard features of comedy, and the prologue is structurally identical to that in Plautus’ Rudens, a play whose peripeteia involves witnesses and testimony. Many details—the participation of ancillae, a bathing scene, a lunch, a boisterous irruption into the garden, and gratuitous puns—are paralleled by the exangelos speech of an ancilla in Plautus’ Casina—a play that involves a lecherous elder in competition for a mute young woman, as well as an arbitration. Many other parallels in Euripides and New Comedy will be discussed.
References
Astorga, J. A. “The Art of Diphilus: A Study of Verbal Humor in New Comedy.” Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1990.
Collins, John J. 1993. Daniel: Hermeneia, a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Minneapolis.
Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina C. W. 2011. “Susanna and her Sisters. The Virtuous Lady Motif in Sacred Tradition and its Representation in Art, Secular Writing and Popular Narrative.” In Marilia P. Futre Pinheiro, Stephen J. Harrison (eds.), Fictional Traces : Receptions of the Ancient Novel. Volume 2. Groningen.
Goodman, Martin, John Barton, and John Muddiman. 2012. The Apocrypha (The Oxford Bible Commentary). New York and Oxford.
Kellenberger, Edgar. 2010. “Schriftliche und mündliche Weitergabe in der griechischen Susanna-Erzählung.” In Melvin K. H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Helsinki.
Leisering, Christina. 2008. Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten. Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Geschlechterkonstruktionen der Septuaginta- und Theodotionfassung von Dan 13 und ihren intertextuellen Bezügen. Münster.
Moore, Carey A. 1977. Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries). Garden City.
Pennacchietti, Fabrizio. 2006. Three Mirrors for two Biblical Ladies. Susanna and the Queen of Sheba in the Eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Piscataway, New Jersey. Gorgias Press.
Webster, T. B. L. 1970. Studies in Later Greek Comedy. Manchester.
In this paper, I argue that Susanna is based not on the word of God, but on a lost Greek New Comedy. The likeliest author is Diphilus of Sinope (342-291 BC), Menander’s contemporary and author of the Greek original of Plautus’ Casina, although Nicholas of Damascus—friend of Herod the Great and biographer of the emperor Augustus—is another possibility. Either way, in my view Susanna is analogous to a Roman Comedy: that is, an adaptation of a Greek New Comedy, but to a Hellenistic-Jewish rather than Hellenistic-Roman setting.
Susanna survives in about ten variants in multiple languages (Pennacchietti). The famous version is the longer of two Greek accounts. Although attributed to one Theodotion (2nd c. AD) and later translated by Jerome for the Vulgate, it dates to the first century BC (Collins). In it, two lecherous elders peep on a beautiful Jewish woman bathing in her husband’s garden and are filled with lust. They approach and offer her the Hobson’s choice of sleeping with them or being falsely accused of adultery. Refusing, Susanna is seized, tried, and sentenced to death. Suddenly, however, a young Daniel steps forth to cross-examine the elders. Catching them in a contradiction and exposing it through two puns that only work in Greek, the sentence is reversed. The elders are executed, and Susanna saved.
Theodotion’s Susanna includes many structural features and extra details not found in the other versions. According to Goodman, Barton, and Muddiman (120; cf. Kellenberger), “Most scholars suppose that Theodotion supplements the OG either on the basis of oral tradition, through redactional activity, or through using a Semitic source.” Others look to the Greek novel (Leisering). I think all four views are wrong.
In my view, all the supplements are precisely paralleled in Diphilus’ brand of Greek New Comedy as known from fragments and Plautus’ adaptations (Casina, Rudens, Vidularia; also Amphitryo [Webster]). Other parallels are found in late Euripidean tragedies (Orestes, Alkmene) that influenced Diphilus.
For example, in Theodotion we find a unified time (two days) and place (a single large house in Alexandria with an attached garden), a limited number of speaking characters, and an omniscient prologue. These are all standard features of comedy, and the prologue is structurally identical to that in Plautus’ Rudens, a play whose peripeteia involves witnesses and testimony. Many details—the participation of ancillae, a bathing scene, a lunch, a boisterous irruption into the garden, and gratuitous puns—are paralleled by the exangelos speech of an ancilla in Plautus’ Casina—a play that involves a lecherous elder in competition for a mute young woman, as well as an arbitration. Many other parallels in Euripides and New Comedy will be discussed.
References
Astorga, J. A. “The Art of Diphilus: A Study of Verbal Humor in New Comedy.” Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1990.
Collins, John J. 1993. Daniel: Hermeneia, a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Minneapolis.
Doufikar-Aerts, Faustina C. W. 2011. “Susanna and her Sisters. The Virtuous Lady Motif in Sacred Tradition and its Representation in Art, Secular Writing and Popular Narrative.” In Marilia P. Futre Pinheiro, Stephen J. Harrison (eds.), Fictional Traces : Receptions of the Ancient Novel. Volume 2. Groningen.
Goodman, Martin, John Barton, and John Muddiman. 2012. The Apocrypha (The Oxford Bible Commentary). New York and Oxford.
Kellenberger, Edgar. 2010. “Schriftliche und mündliche Weitergabe in der griechischen Susanna-Erzählung.” In Melvin K. H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Helsinki.
Leisering, Christina. 2008. Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten. Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Geschlechterkonstruktionen der Septuaginta- und Theodotionfassung von Dan 13 und ihren intertextuellen Bezügen. Münster.
Moore, Carey A. 1977. Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries). Garden City.
Pennacchietti, Fabrizio. 2006. Three Mirrors for two Biblical Ladies. Susanna and the Queen of Sheba in the Eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Piscataway, New Jersey. Gorgias Press.
Webster, T. B. L. 1970. Studies in Later Greek Comedy. Manchester.
Attached is the handout; on the "Papers" section of this page I've put up a revised preprint of the talk.
This meeting (actually from 1:30-4:30, not 1-5 as listed) is a workshop/seminar on the audience of Roman comedy. Since our papers are supposed to be read in advance, feel free to print out a copy and bring it with you.
This talk presents work in progress and will respond to the performance from the night before.
The talk, soon to be published in written form, is mostly on the scenes in Terence's Eunuchus that feature the parasite and soldier (taken over from Menander's Kolax). The theme is exploring poetic memory, appropriation, intertextuality,... more
The talk, soon to be published in written form, is mostly on the scenes in Terence's Eunuchus that feature the parasite and soldier (taken over from Menander's Kolax). The theme is exploring poetic memory, appropriation, intertextuality, and authorial intention in the unique situation in which Terence finds himself, viz. of creating allusive dynamics with comedies written by Naevius and Plautus where he had not intended them. The title of the talk is itself an allusion to Stephen Hinds' 1998 CUP book Allusion and Intertext: dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry, on which I rely heavily in the talk.
Attached is the handout I used for the paper. The title means "Like Father, Like Daughter: some ambiguities in the Persa," and the talk focused on different verbal ambiguities and their uses in the play. The paper will appear around... more
Attached is the handout I used for the paper. The title means "Like Father, Like Daughter: some ambiguities in the Persa," and the talk focused on different verbal ambiguities and their uses in the play. The paper will appear around this time next year in the annual volume of proceedings.
I've now uploaded a copy of my working paper (14 pp.) to the 'papers' section of the website.
A letter reflecting on "The Celebration of the Life and Work of Thomas Szasz," sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry at Upstate Medical University August 8, 2014. Text by Michael Fontaine, introduced by Jeffrey Schaler. Primarily... more
A letter reflecting on "The Celebration of the Life and Work of Thomas Szasz," sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry at Upstate Medical University August 8, 2014. Text by Michael Fontaine, introduced by Jeffrey Schaler. Primarily hosted on http://www.szasz.com/.
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(Here is version 3.0, updated 8/27/2017) This is an interim report, commissioned by a colleague working on the history of medicine, on the idea that Hep! Hep! originates as an acronym of the Crusader-Latin phrase Hierosolyma est... more
(Here is version 3.0, updated 8/27/2017)
This is an interim report, commissioned by a colleague working on the history of medicine, on the idea that Hep! Hep! originates as an acronym of the Crusader-Latin phrase Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is Lost or Destroyed).
I'd be grateful for any comments, corrections, or counter-evidence! (This is a working paper only.)
This is an interim report, commissioned by a colleague working on the history of medicine, on the idea that Hep! Hep! originates as an acronym of the Crusader-Latin phrase Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is Lost or Destroyed).
I'd be grateful for any comments, corrections, or counter-evidence! (This is a working paper only.)
Research Interests:
I present new information about the transmission of Plautus' comedies from antiquity to the Early Modern period. It comes from two letters I found in German libraries in 2017. Though further research is warranted, the first suggests... more
I present new information about the transmission of Plautus' comedies from antiquity to the Early Modern period. It comes from two letters I found in German libraries in 2017. Though further research is warranted, the first suggests Camerarius got the Decurtatus manuscript (MS C) from the Hassenstein Library in Bohemia in 1548 or 1549. The second helps us understand why he hardly ever used it. Epigraph: Et mihi Erasmiaco liceat re ludere more; seria materia est, Musa iocosa levet.
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This bibliography, compiled by Francesca LaPasta, goes with her National Geographic map of the voyages of Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid.
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The " barbarian poet " of Plautus' Miles Gloriosus 211-212 is not Gnaeus Naevius but Sotades "the obscene" (κίναιδος, kinaidos, cinaedus) of Maroneia, a poet imprisoned in Ptolemaic Alexandria for lèse-majesté. In classic " Alexandrian "... more
The " barbarian poet " of Plautus' Miles Gloriosus 211-212 is not Gnaeus Naevius but Sotades "the obscene" (κίναιδος, kinaidos, cinaedus) of Maroneia, a poet imprisoned in Ptolemaic Alexandria for lèse-majesté. In classic " Alexandrian " style, Plautus uses obscene double entendre, which is the hallmark of Sotades' own poetics, to make the allusion unmistakable. That allusion suggests cultural contacts between Rome and Ptolemaic Alexandria began two centuries earlier than scholars now believe. It also suggests a reassessment is in order of Rome's commitment to free speech for artists and comedians under the republic.
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Plautus' Gorgylio is set in Epidaurus, a city famed for the sanctuary of Asclepius in it that once attracted pilgrims and patients from around the Greek world. This setting provides the backdrop for many unnoticed jokes and ambiguities in... more
Plautus' Gorgylio is set in Epidaurus, a city famed for the sanctuary of Asclepius in it that once attracted pilgrims and patients from around the Greek world. This setting provides the backdrop for many unnoticed jokes and ambiguities in the play about disease, disability, deformity, diagnosis, and treatment. Taken together, they reveal some surprises about Roman attitudes toward illness and healing in the time of Plautus (fl. 210-184 BC), as well as several new connections between Roman and Greek Comedy.
Research Interests: Religion, Classics, Greek Comedy, Humor, Roman Comedy, and 3 moreAncient Medicine, Medicine, and Ambiguity
On a new translation of Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods by Quintus Curtius.
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On a new translation of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations by Quintus Curtius.
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"In sum, Plautus: Casina is an exceptional and extraordinary book. It exceeds my high hopes. I recommend it warmly to every teacher, student, library, and director interested in teaching, reading, or staging Plautus’ play."
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Dr. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) was one of the greatest thinkers and prose stylists of the last 100 years. Enough time has passed since he died that we can start to take stock of his legacy. This important new collection of essays by former... more
Dr. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) was one of the greatest thinkers and prose stylists of the last 100 years. Enough time has passed since he died that we can start to take stock of his legacy. This important new collection of essays by former colleagues, psychiatrists, philosophers, and legal experts does just that.
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"Plautus and the English Renaissance of Comedy is a masterpiece."
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Face front, true believers! This incredible new book brings to a modern audience much more than the “satirical defense of Latin and Neo-Latin literature” its title promises. In unearthing Jacob Balde’s Expeditio Polemico-Poetica, Eckard... more
Face front, true believers! This incredible new book brings to a modern audience much more than the “satirical defense of Latin and Neo-Latin literature” its title promises. In unearthing Jacob Balde’s Expeditio Polemico-Poetica, Eckard Lefèvre has done nothing less than rediscover the first Golden Age crossover story ever written. It prefigures the Justice League/Justice Society team-ups that American kids couldn’t get enough of a few decades ago, only instead of crime fighters or mutants, its superheroes are Latin poets. Amazingly, this story was published in 1664 and not 1964, the heyday of those crossovers, and if you like comic books, you are going to love it.
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What are chronograms? Like anagrams, they’re a trick of the trade in Baroque Latin, the time period of the Northern Renaissance. Here's how they work.
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Sure, you can find anagrams in classical Latin. But they’re rare, and most of the time we can’t even tell if they’re deliberate. If you want seriously good anagrams, you need to go Baroque, baby.
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Draw a picture of the climactic scene in Aeneid 12 where Aeneas hits Turnus with a spear and wins the duel. Give yourself three minutes — time it! — to complete the task. Then, be surprised at what you got wrong.
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In twenty years of talking about Virgil’s Aeneid it’s hit me that most people don’t get the weirdest thing about it. What I mean is, it takes place in a time warp
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You’ve probably heard Virgil died before he finished writing the Aeneid. That might be true but it’s not true the way most people assume, and there’s a way to prove it.
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In this series of blog postings, Cornell University Classics Professor Mike Fontaine and Devin Bigoness, Executive Director for Custom Executive Education at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, apply insights from the classics to... more
In this series of blog postings, Cornell University Classics Professor Mike Fontaine and Devin Bigoness, Executive Director for Custom Executive Education at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, apply insights from the classics to problems faced by leaders today. When most people think about business takeaways they look to unicorn companies (Amazon, Facebook) or modern day business role models (Richard Branson, Elon Musk), but we see great value in looking back to ancient wisdom for insights into the modern world. In this first posting we draw lessons from the trial of Socrates, the most famous philosopher in world history and, we think, the perfect place to start on our journey.
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Here's a new translation of miniature epic embedded in Silius Italicus' The Second Punic War (epic7.157–211). It tells the legendary origin of the most famous wine in the ancient world, Falernian. Feel free to use or share in classrooms... more
Here's a new translation of miniature epic embedded in Silius Italicus' The Second Punic War (epic7.157–211). It tells the legendary origin of the most famous wine in the ancient world, Falernian. Feel free to use or share in classrooms and beyond.