Greek and Latin Literature

"Besides numerous significant works concerning the fields of both natural and humanistic disciplines written by the famous Renaissance scholar Faustus Vrančić, there is also a less well-known manuscript, Illyrica historia, fragmenta ex variis Historicis, cum Latinis, tum Graecis, hinc inde collecta a Fausto Verancio Siceno, Episcopo Chanadiensi. This article deals with precisely that unfinished compilation of fragments from the works of Greek and Roman authors. A detailed analysis of quotations included in this manuscript shows Vrančić’s good knowledge of the Greek and Roman literary corpus, and places him among the supremely learned persons of his times. The Illyrica historia presents Faustus Vrančić as an versatile Renaissance scholar and thinker. This work of his fully meets the criteria of quality of the contemporary historiography of his age, but today does not have a great scholarly value. However, the sources quoted in this compilation of fragments testify not only to the level of preservation and accessibility of particular works, but also to the interest of Vrančić himself, who by this work represented himself as a versatile Renaissance scholar. Besides the all mention above, this manuscript is valuable also because it contains quotations from some today less well-known and less often used works.
 
Keywords
historiography, Dalmatia, Šibenik, cultural history, humanism
"

Review-essay of translations of Horace: The Essential Horace: Odes, Epodes, Satires, and Epistles, translated by Burton Raffel, with a Foreword and an After- word by W. R. Johnson (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983).

The Complete Works of Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), translated in the meters of the originals with notes by Charles E. Passage (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983).

These essays on late antiquity traverse a territory in which Christian and pagan imagery and practices compete, coexist, and intermingle. The iconography of the most significant late antique ceramic, African Red Slip Ware, is an important and relatively unexploited vehicle for documenting the diversity and interpenetration of late antique cultures. Literary texts and art in other media, particularly mosaics, provide imagery that complement and enhance the messages of the ceramics. Popular entertainments, pagan cults, mythic heroes, beasts, monsters, and biblical visions are themes dealt with on the patrician and popular levels. With interpretive supplements from these diverse realms, it is possible to achieve greater insight into the life, attitudes, and thought of Late Antiquity.

Tipo di tesi Tesi di dottorato di ricerca
Autore BENELLI, LUCA
URN etd-12092013-172526
Titolo SAPPHOSTUDIEN ZU AUSGEWÄHLTEN FRAGMENTEN
Settore scientifico disciplinare L-FIL-LET/02
Corso di studi DISCIPLINE UMANISTICHE
Commissione tutor Prof. Hammerstaedt, Jürgen
relatore Prof. Medda, Enrico
Parole chiave
Frammenti
Fragmente / Saffo
Sappho
Data inizio appello 15/01/2014;
Disponibilità completa
Riassunto analitico Commento filologico dettagliato ad una serie di frammenti di Saffo, con nuove proposte testuali.

Complete book, free, but under copyright and not to be sold. 200 idioms from DBG (Caesar's De Bello Gallico) are presented along with the original Latin context and the translation of that passage. This book can be used at all levels of Latin instruction as an inexpensive additional textbook or as a device for testing and expanding one's understanding of the language. It serves as an excellent refresher for former Latin students. Published at Academia.edu, February 8, 2021. It has also been incorporated as an appendix to Caesar Phrasebook, available at https://www.amazon.com/Caesar-Phrasebook-Claude-Pavur-ebook/dp/B00GT0ZOO2/ . The Kindle format puts each contextualized idiom on its own page, with the translation immediately available with a button press or page swipe.

Though separated in time and space, different cultures and countries, Arun Kolatkar and T.S. Eliot echo an ideological attitude thereby resulting in a similar basic conflict and mood in their respective poems Jejuri and The Wasteland.  The poets display a range of avante garde trends in their poems like surrealism and dadaism thus breaking new grounds in poetic traditions. A close structural analysis of the poems also reveals other striking similarities between Eliot and Kolatkar. While T.S. Eliot's (1888-1965) 'The Wasteland' is a hallmark of Modernist poetry and the most important poem of 20th century, Arun Kolatkar's(1932-2004) 'Jejuri' is considered to be the quintessence of the Modernist movement in India, thus, defining the nature of poetry which is yet to come. This paper takes the ideological echoes as the vantage point to compare the two great poets of their respective nations. The poetic style reinforces the themes of the two poems. Therefore the paper will also ruminate upon the image echoes and other similar stylistic features used by the poets in dealing with the dominant theme.

L'articolo tratta della genesi e della diffusione del testo agiografico anonimo noto come "Actus Silvestri", il quale rovescia la memoria storica del battesimo ariano di Costantino attribuendo al vescovo di Roma, Silvestro I, la conversione dell'imperatore. Il testo ha una vicenda testuale molto complicata, che recepisce nuclei leggendari medio-orientali, pur collocandoli in un contesto inequivocabilmente romano.

This paper studies the treatment of the Sibyl and Virgil in a speech attributed to Constantine the Great. Scholars generally focus on the role played by one or the other of these two figures in that writing. To do justice to the economy of the work, it seems necessary to keep them together. As a result, the Sibyl and Virgil serve as pagan counterparts to the witnesses of Moses and Daniel about the divinity of the Crucified. A prophetess initially attached to Apollinian oracular centers, the Sibyl becomes a prophetess of the one Christian God. That is illustrated by the famous acrostic poem Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour Cross that she is said to have uttered. As for Virgil, it is through the exegesis of the Fourth Eclogue, of which several verses are glossed and translated into Greek, that he is also Christianised.


Cet article étudie le traitement réservé à la Sibylle et à Virgile dans un discours attribué à l’empereur Constantin. La recherche s’interroge habituellement sur le rôle et la place de l’une ou l’autre des deux figures dans cet écrit. Pour rendre justice à l’économie de l’œuvre, il semble préférable de les tenir ensemble. Il en ressort que la Sibylle et Virgile servent de contreparties païennes aux témoignages de Moïse et Daniel sur la divinité du Crucifié. De prophétesse rattachée à des centres oraculaires apolliniens, la Sibylle devient prophétesse du seul vrai Dieu des chrétiens, ce qu’illustre le célèbre acrostiche Jésus Christ Fils de Dieu Sauveur Croix qu’elle aurait prononcé. Quant à Virgile, c’est par l’exégèse de la Quatrième Églogue, dont plusieurs vers sont glosés et traduits en grec, qu’il est lui aussi christianisé.

The paper is devoted to one ostracon from Masada. It offers a new interpretation of the name that was part of the so-called “Lots” and suggests that it derives from Greek. This reading positions the ostracon as part of a large group of names that comprised the onomasticon of Judaea during the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods: the nicknames and, more notably, the masqueraded nicknames. Moreover, the paper further reflects on the physiognomic aspect of the nickname under discussion in the context of the “physiognomic consciousness” of the period. Such nicknames formed statutory markers, both in Judaea and Rome, most notably amongst the elite circles. In addition, they were most popular in military institutions and even more so among close militia groups, in particular during periods of crisis such as the days leading up to and during the revolt. The paper suggests that these extreme conditions served as a catalyst and were conducive to the large number of nicknames uncovered at Masada.
Finally, archeological data, revised and updated through advanced testing and dating methods, has not provided a clear-cut answer. Although most scholars believe that the Bar Kokhba Revolt did not spread to the Galilee, there are others who consider this to be a realistic scenario. In this article, I focus on the latter point of view, and seek to present a comprehensive review of the data, accumulated from a wide range of studies, in support of this theory. I also provide possible interpretations of references to places in the Galilee linked to the revolt, as echoed in the literature of the Talmudic sages. In addition, I review archeological findings from the Galilee, albeit scarce, that relate to this period. Above all, I focus on new evidence emerging from studies undertaken of the Galilee hiding complexes that provides a valuable, comparative perspective in relation to the Judean hiding complexes that have been dated to the time of the revolt. With respect to these hiding complexes, there is value in further examination of their geographical distribution across the Galilee, as well as an analysis of archeological findings unearthed there. For example, recent excavations undertaken in two ancient settlements in the Galilee have uncovered evidence pointing to the period of the revolt. This further research may shed significant light on the Galilee’s part; even if the Galilee may not have taken part in this event, hiding complexes were prepared for the possibility it would, like in the Judea region.

This paper explores the selection process of the Roman equestrian officials in the second century AD with the question, What roles did personal relationships and specific skills play?
Among all the high equestrian offices, the post ab epistulis provides a valuable case study because of its constant proximity to the person of the emperor and because of its tasks, since the officials ab epistulis had to find the best form by which to communicate what the emperor said. Scholars up to now have argued that these officials were required to possess literary skills. By analyzing all the ab epistulis known between the reign of Hadrian and the age of the Severan dynasty, the paper argues that, in selecting the directors of this office, personal relationships appear to be more relevant than the specific skills the officials were in possession of.

F. Gazzano, Cicerone e le 'fabulae' di Erodoto, in Heorté. Studi in onore di Michele R. Cataudella in occasione del suo 80° compleanno
a cura di Ilenia Achilli, Giuseppe Mariotta, Salvo Micciché e Anna Maria Seminara, Roma Edizioni Quasar 2022, pp. 215-242.

For the interpretation of mythological subjects In the Roman funerary art the author systematically applies the analysis of the Key of Dreams by Artemidorus of Daldis, Greek author of the Antonine period. The funerary art was studied before by F. Cumont and A.D. Nock, and they both discussed also some dreams chosen from the manual of Artemidorus. The comparison of the principles of the analysis of dreams (mental images) with the principles that we encounter in the iconography gives interesting results. This approach has never previously been attempted. To support his argument, the author studies not only numerous decorated sarcophagi but also a series of funerary inscriptions.

There are certain invariants of heroic poetry, elements that define it essentially: the theme – a narrative about “extraordinary deeds”, famous, adventurous topics, in the style of “traditional heroic mythology” (Marino) – and the idealized typology so that the epic hero usually occurs like
a sum of the virtues appreciated by the community which assumes him. Very likely influenced by the Mesopotamian one from the beginning of the second millennia B.C., the Homeric epic exerts its influence further in time and cultural geography, over the Latin one from the end of the 1st century B.C. and, via the Aeneid, over the Germanic epic from the Middle Ages. Through Virgil, Homer’s  self -confessed  competitor,  there  could  be  clarified  an  issue  of  the  European  literary history: how did the transition from the “heroic song” of the Germanic tribes –“lost, as long as it was not recorded in writing” (Curtius) –, to the Anglo-Saxon heroic epic or the Medieval German one (mittelhochdeutsch) occur? The Aeneid
appears to be, according to Heusler and Curtius, the missing link between the epic tradition of Mediterranean Antiquity and the Germanic Medieval
heroic epic. (The latter, the product of a culture that, by its “barbarian” roots, had the inspiration of  and  ability  to  assimilate,  from  the  defeated  Rome,  the  classic  inheritance  of  Greek -Latin humanism).  The  literary  heredity  that  unites  Homer,  Virgil  and  the  Germanic  epic  on  the background  of  Mesopotamian  loans,  provides  yet  another  very  interesting  example  of (inter)cultural intermediation and continuity in the Eurasian space, within a historical interval of almost four millennia –from Gilgamesh’s legendary rule in Uruk and its literary echoes to the
Germanic heroic epic from the Middle Ages.

Nel contributo si rintracciano e si analizzano i prodromi, la genesi e le forme dell'esiziale contrapposizione sofoclea tra Aiace e Atena, prestandosi particolare attenzione alle conseguenze di tale conflitto sull'evento capitale della tragedia, il suicidio dell'eroe.

Das spannungsreiche Verhältnis zwischen "patroni" und "clientes" hat in den letzten Jahren zunehmend das Interesse der Forschung geweckt. Die literarische Darstellung dieser Spannung ist Thema des vorliegenden Buches. Eine zentrale Rolle spielt hierbei die Untersuchung von Plautus’ "Menaechmi" sowie von verschiedenen Texten der Kaiserzeit, allen voran Horaz, Martial und Juvenal. Der Verfasser präsentiert die Ergebnisse seiner Forschung und gewährt interessante Einblicke in die verschiedenen Facetten dieser Problematik bei den entsprechenden Autoren. Ob es sich um einfache Römer, ausländische Neuankömmlinge oder Dichter auf der Suche nach Muße handelt: Die diversen Sprecher dieser Texte kontrastieren ethische Maximen wie Freundschaft, innere Freiheit oder Standesbewusstsein mit dem Problem der ständigen Abhängigkeit des Klienten aus humorvoll-kritischer Perspektive. Daraus ergibt sich ein literarisches Panorama des dekadenten römischen Patronage-Systems.

Wichtige Rezensionen:
- BMCR 2020.04.42 (John Godwin)
- AnzAW 73/3 2020 (Angela Ganter)
- Gnomon 93/3 2021 (Sandra Citroni Marchetti)
- CR 71/2 2021 (Brian S. Hook)

As a contribution to the archaeological research on polychromy, this study analyses the written sources on the colouration of ancient sculpture. It addresses all types of materials, from clay to chryselephantine works. The texts refer not only to techniques of representation and conservation procedures, but in particular to the artists‘ intentions behind colouration and the meaning attributed to it by the ancient viewer.
(more on https://reichert-verlag.de/en/9783954904273_die_farbigkeit_der_antiken_skulptur-detail )

This paper can be downloaded for free - Articolo liberamente scaricabile

This paper compares a number of epigrams from the Garland of Philip and their likely models in the Garland of Meleager. By such a comparison, this work aims to stress the common features in the Philippan variations, which in turn would represent stylistic trends of the second Garland, namely: 1) the avoidance of suspense, by revealing the theme of a poem from its beginning; 2) the use of standard expressions, possibly felt as sub-generic hallmarks; 3) the reduction in the number of enjambments and the overall tendency towards a rigorous distribution of the themes in every line or couplet; 4) the relevant role played by the words, which the model and the imitation share; 5) the lexical refinement, a frequent feature but less prominent than commonly believed. By trying to shed light on these stylistic trends of Philippan variations, this paper wants to offer an argument against the view of Philippan poetry as merely imitative.

Euripides’ interest in religious phenomena and particularly in Dionysism provides the major link between the poet and the New Musicians. In fact, far from embodying the final collapse of the religious impulse, New Music constitutes a revival of the Dionysian element at a time when it had
come close to extinction. This religious mood is expressed through lush imagery, florid diction, verbal repetition, avant-garde musical effects and a constant self-referentiality, i.e. the metadiscursive description of song, music and dance that emphasizes the ode’s own performative dimension.
The imagery of Dionysiac performance is characteristic of Euripides’ later choral odes and returns particularly in Helen’ second stasimon, generally considered the most irrelevant ode in Greek Tragedy and viewed as being influenced by the New Music’s alleged irrelevance and empty
aestheticism. Helen’s second stasimon, which may be considered one of the greatest examples of ‘choral self-referentiality’, foregrounds its own connections with the mimetic program of the New Music and
its emphasis on the emancipation of feelings. Euripides refers repeatedly to musical instruments (vv. 1308, 1346-51, 1362), attributes of the cults (1359-62), movements (1364-5), ecstatic cries (1344) and ceremonies (1365). Far from performing a purely aesthetic function, the systematic evocation of cult, music and dance instead ‘resolves’ the stasimon: indeed, it is the sound of cymbals and tympana – connected to the cults of both Cybele and Dionysus – that makes the goddess smile and that
alleviates her grief. Cybele will not get her daughter back, but after what may be considered an exhortation to worship Dionysus, she smiles. The only consolation, the poet seems to suggest, has nothing to do with reason, but may be found in the irruptive experience of ecstatic cults, in music and
in the transformative power of dance that provide emotional release.
My aim is to show that Euripides’ deep interest in contemporary musical innovations is connected to his interest in the irrational that made him the most tragic of the poets. Focusing on the musical aspect of the stasimon, I will examine how Euripides conveys a sense of the irrational through
a new type of song that liberates music’s power to excite and disorient through its colours, ornament and dizzying wildness. Just as the New Musicians present themselves as the preservers of cultic tradition, Euripides, far from suppressing Dionysus as Nietzsche claimed, deserves to rank as the most Dionysiac and in some ways as the most religious of the three tragedians.

المؤتمر الدولى الخامس
(الكلمة والصورة فى الحضارات القديمة )
THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
(THE WORD AND IMAGE IN ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS)
خلال 29 إلى 31 مارس 2014
29 - 31 March 2014
دار الضيافة - جامعة عين شمس
مركز الدراسات البردية والنقوش بالتعاون مع قسم حضارة أوربية قديمة

The study examines some Etruscan urns, one Apulian oinochoe and a Roman sarcophagus illustrating a peculiar account of Agamemnon’s and Aigisthos’ murder. Subsequently, the difficult issue of identifying some of the characters represented therein is considered, also relying on the comparison with the fragments of Pacuvius’ Dulorestes.
For full text:  http://aevumantiquum.vitaepensiero.it/

La conferenza ha avuto lo scopo di fornire una panoramica sul rapporto fra cane e uomo nella società greco-romana, con particolare riguardo alle attenzioni riservate dai padroni ai propri animali da compagnia, testimoniate anche dalle attestazioni epigrafiche, archeologiche e archeozoologiche.

The Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (BEEC) focuses on the history of early Christianity, covering texts, authors, ideas, and their reception. The BEEC aims both to provide a critical review of the methods used in Early Christian Studies and also to update the history of scholarship. The BEEC addresses a range of traditions, including iconographic, martyrological, ecclesiastical, and Christological traditions, as well as cultic phenomena, such as the veneration of saints. The history of the transmission of texts and the reception of early Christian writers are also addressed. The BEEC focuses on early Christianity from a historical perspective in order to uncover the lasting legacy of the authors and texts until the present day. Its content is intended to bridge the gap between the fields of New Testament studies and patristics, covering the whole period of early Christianity up to 600 CE. Once the online version is completed the encyclopedia will become available in print in 6 volumes.

The intertextual links between Lucan’s and Tacitus’ impressive ekphraseis of certain imagined northern groves have been recognised for a long time and discussed as evidence for the literary connections between different genres in the Late Julio-Claudian and Flavian contexts. Yet a hitherto unexplored aspect of these fascinating and rich passages is the emotional charge that is clearly present in each of them, though subtly manipulated by the writers to serve their more particular points in each context. Holy groves were also a longstanding part of the Roman religion, but during the troubled mid-first century CE, the sacred sites of northern peoples – located at least in the realms of imagination in wooded surroundings – the groves of Gauls (in the case of Lucan) and those among the Germani and Britons (in Tacitus) tend to emerge as compellingly (and perhaps compulsively) elaborated loci horridi.
Reading the Lucanic (Bell. civ. 3.399-425) and Tacitean (Germ. 39; Ann. 1.61; 14.30) passages on Gallic and Germanic holy groves and bringing them into conversation not only with other relevant passages by the same authors but also with the modern theories of the ‘history of emotions’, I hope to cast new light on the role that natural loci horridi of the northern ritual space played in shaping Roman collective anxieties. These, I will argue, had much to do with the imperial power’s anxieties about the loyalties of their northern subjects and ostensible allies, as well as about the capacity of certain types of imagined landscapes to symbolise atavistic religion and resistance to Roman domination. ‘Fear’ is certainly one of the emotions evoked by these landscapes, but I hope to show that this blanket category covers a remarkable emotional range in these passages.

In view of the forthcoming exhibition Nero: The Man Behind the Myth (The British Museum, 27 May 2021– 24 Oct 2021; https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/nero-man-behind-myth), I thought that it might be appropriate to upload a review of a book on Nero.  This briefest review of 25 years ago had suggested a way ahead, which seems to correspond to the interest of the present exhibition.

in: Translation and Transmission. Collection of Articles, J. Hämeen-Anttila & I. Lindstedt (eds.). Series: The Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East 3, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 139-79.

Based on the workshop ‘Translation and Transmission in the Eastern Mediterranean , 500 B.C. – 1500 A.D.’, held on 25 September 2015 at the Finnish Institute in Rome.