Thomas Biggs
University of St Andrews, Classics, Faculty Member
- The University of Georgia, Classics, Faculty MemberRutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Classics, UndergraduateYale University, Classics, Graduate Studentadd
- Classics, Poetics, Roman Epic, First Punic War, Vergil, Cultural Memory, and 44 moreNaevius, Ennius, Naval History, Lucan, Ancient Historiography, Republican Rome, Polybius, Numismatics, Cicero, Latin Literature, Servius, Aeneid, ancient commentaries on Vergil, Models for the Aeneid, Greek Epic, Epic poetry, Memory Studies, Roman Myth, Latin Epic, Flavian Literature, Neronian Literature, Augustan Poetry, Livius Andronicus, Roman Historiography, Silius Italicus, Augustus, Virgil, Homeric epic, Homeric poetry, Civil Wars (Roman Republic), Latin poetry, Narratology, Ecopoetics, Latin Language and Literature, Intertextuality, Classical philology, Classical Reception Studies, Literary Theory and Criticism, Literary Theory, Catullus, Propertius, Genre Theory and the Classics, Roman Drama, and Roman North Africa (Archaeology)edit
Research Interests:
This volume explores journeys across time and space in Greek and Latin literature, taking as its starting point the paradigm of travel offered by the epic genre. The epic journey is central to the dynamics of classical literature,... more
This volume explores journeys across time and space in Greek and Latin literature, taking as its starting point the paradigm of travel offered by the epic genre. The epic journey is central to the dynamics of classical literature, offering a powerful lens through which characters, authors, and readers experience their real and imaginary worlds. The journey informs questions of identity formation, narrative development, historical emplotment, and constructions of heroism - topics that move through and beyond the story itself. The act of moving to and from 'home' - both a fixed point of spatial orientation and a transportable set of cultural values - thus represents a physical journey and an intellectual process. In exploring its many manifestations, the chapters in this collection reconceive the centrality of the epic journey across a wide variety of genres and historical contexts, from Homer to the moon.
At Livy 22.14, M. Minucius Rufus’ speech against Q. Fabius Maximus exhibits differing interpretations of Latin pastoral’s effects. While the Livian narrator highlights the presence of war in Campania, a region of otium, Minucius focuses... more
At Livy 22.14, M. Minucius Rufus’ speech against Q. Fabius Maximus exhibits differing interpretations of Latin pastoral’s effects. While the Livian narrator highlights the presence of war in Campania, a region of otium, Minucius focuses on Fabius’ idyllic, pastoral retreat from martial duties. The emphasis placed on otium and amoenitas throughout the passage gestures to a fictional world that ultimately remains unrealized. Attempts by Minucius to cast Fabius as a pastoral figure at odds with his legacy in Latin epic and historiography fall short. In the end, pastoral poetic features actually undermine Minucius’ understanding of Fabian delay (cunctatio).
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Research Interests:
Chapter in Loar, M., MacDonald, C., & Padilla Peralta D. (2018). Rome, empire of plunder: The dynamics of cultural appropriation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Corrected from first printing in Miltsios, N. & Tamiolaki, M. (2018). Polybius and His Legacy. Trends in Classics Supplementary Volume 60. Berlin.
Chapter in 2019 volume, Campania in the Flavian Poetic Imagination
Edited by ANTONY AUGOUSTAKIS and R. JOY LITTLEWOOD. Oxford University Press.
Edited by ANTONY AUGOUSTAKIS and R. JOY LITTLEWOOD. Oxford University Press.
Research Interests:
(Please email for a draft of this article, biggs@uga.edu) Abstract: At Bellum Civile 1.403–404, Lucan makes a subtle reference to Varro of Atax. Through this metapoetic gesture, he suggests that Varro's Argonautae and Bellum Sequanicum... more
(Please email for a draft of this article, biggs@uga.edu) Abstract:
At Bellum Civile 1.403–404, Lucan makes a subtle reference to Varro of Atax. Through this metapoetic gesture, he suggests that Varro's Argonautae and Bellum Sequanicum are topics abandoned in favor of the civil war the Bellum Civile is bold enough to depict. This article first discusses the philological evidence for recognizing the reference and the implications of seeing Varro and the Argonautae in Lucan's poem. The second section focuses on the idea of Varro's Bellum Sequanicum and the distinctive dynamic of departure found in Bellum Civile 1's catalog. In particular, it suggests that the movement of Roman troops from Germany and Gaul into Italy represents the movement from textual Bella Gallica and Sequanica to Bellum Civile. The qualities of ferocity and gentleness are also shown to play important roles in the metapoetics of the epic. Keywords Lucan – Bellum Civile – Varro of Atax – metapoetics – Caesar – Latin epic
At Bellum Civile 1.403–404, Lucan makes a subtle reference to Varro of Atax. Through this metapoetic gesture, he suggests that Varro's Argonautae and Bellum Sequanicum are topics abandoned in favor of the civil war the Bellum Civile is bold enough to depict. This article first discusses the philological evidence for recognizing the reference and the implications of seeing Varro and the Argonautae in Lucan's poem. The second section focuses on the idea of Varro's Bellum Sequanicum and the distinctive dynamic of departure found in Bellum Civile 1's catalog. In particular, it suggests that the movement of Roman troops from Germany and Gaul into Italy represents the movement from textual Bella Gallica and Sequanica to Bellum Civile. The qualities of ferocity and gentleness are also shown to play important roles in the metapoetics of the epic. Keywords Lucan – Bellum Civile – Varro of Atax – metapoetics – Caesar – Latin epic
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Uncorrected proofs for chapter forthcoming in "The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography" edited by Stefano Rebeggiani; Matthew Loar; Sarah Murray. Cambridge University Press.
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Ennius and the Architecture of the Annales by Jackie Elliott, and: The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition by Jay Fisher, and: Shaggy Crowns: Ennius’ Annales and Virgil’s Aeneid by Nora Goldschmidt (review)
Research Interests:
Flavian Campania. International Conference. Napoli - Università degli Studi di Napoli, Federico II / Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Italy. September 19, 2015.
Carthage and Rome. Princeton University, September 14, 2015.