Latin Literature

This thesis examines the Solomonic grimoire manuscripts between 1400-1800. Grimoires, as books of magic materials, claim an ancient lineage from the time of King Solomon of Israel.  Modern scholarship has attempted to argue either for or against such a claim, but has not adequately addressed the meanings of imagery and alphabetic symbols contained within each grimoire as an indicator of origin. Through comparisons of several manuscript collections, the basic geometric shapes of circles and squares, that repeatedly form the templates for several objects to be constructed by the magus, are here examined, their various scripts deciphered, and their purpose contextualized for the early modern magician and conjuror. This thesis suggests that the genre of the Solomonic grimoires, in manuscript or printed form, possibly originated only from the 16th-century works of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a conclusion based on use of the Malachim alphabet. Furthermore, the thesis questions grimoire use beyond library transcriptions, the existence of any practice related to them, and the possible origins of the scientific experiment.

The most original and shocking interpretation of Lucretius in the last 40 years.

Thomas Nail argues convincingly and systematically that Lucretius was not an atomist, but a thinker of kinetic flux. In doing so, he completely overthrows the interpretive foundations of modern scientific materialism, whose philosophical origins lie in the atomic reading of Lucretius' immensely influential book De Rerum Natura.

This means that Lucretius was not the revolutionary harbinger of modern science as Greenblatt and others have argued; he was its greatest victim. Nail re-reads De Rerum Natura to offer us a new Lucretius--a Lucretius for today.

Trata o texto de questões gerais e genéricas das Letras Latinas. Um manual de Literatura Latina cuja preocupação cronológica é deixada, parcialmente, de lado, para observar essencialmente gêneros letrados transhistoricamente, sem abrir mão, entretanto, do contexto e, naturalmente, da recepção coetânea aos textos, elementos importantes para o autor na compreensão dessas práticas letradas antigas, devido à distância que existe entre elas e nós, leitores modernos.

O compêndio obverva 11 gêneros literários, sigificativos em Roma, entre o século III a.C. e o século IV d.C., matiza diferenças e assinala semelhanças entre autores, apresentando mais do que informações acerca de autores, os seus próprios textos, comentados e anotados.

Iniciando pelo capítulo que apresenta o contexto dessas práticas letradas, o livro contém informações acerca da: Lírica (Horácio e Catulo), Elegia (Propércio, Ovídio e Tibulo)), Bucólica (Virgílio), Épica (Virgílio), Comédia (Plauto e Terêncio), Tragédia (Sêneca), Historiografia (Salústio, Tito Lívio e Tácito), Retórica (Cícero, A Herênio e Quintiliano), Oratória (Cícero), Poesia didática (Horácio e Ovídio) e Sátira (Horácio, Sêneca, Juvenal e Petrônio.

Acompanha ao livro, 2 DVDs, contendo 12 aulas de Literatura Latina, proferidas pelo Prof. Dr. Paulo Martins, da Universidade de São Paulo.

What did Greek speakers in the Roman empire do when they wanted to learn Latin? They used Latin-learning materials containing authentic, enjoyable vignettes about daily life in the ancient world – shopping, bank- ing, going to the baths, having fights, being scolded, making excuses – very much like the dialogues in some of today’s foreign-language textbooks. These stories provide priceless insight into daily life in the Roman empire, as well as into how Latin was learned at that period, and they were all written by Romans in Latin that was designed to be easy for beginners to understand. Learners also used special beginners’ versions of great Latin authors includ- ing Virgil and Cicero, and dictionaries, grammars, texts in Greek transliter- ation, etc. All these materials are now available for the first time to today’s students, in a book designed to complement modern textbooks and enrich the Latin-learning experience.

This article combines historical analysis with international-relations theory to contend that geopolitical developments around the Eastern Mediterranean in the middle third century BCE were indirectly responsible for the emergence of the Parthian state and a new international system of states in the ancient East. Since the death of Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Empire had ruled over much of the East; however, disastrous military conflicts at home and abroad in the West caused a sudden decline of Seleucid power in the 240s-
230s BCE. The troubles of the Seleucid state caused what political scientists call a power-transition crisis that damaged Seleucid hegemony over the East when the Seleucid satraps of Parthia and Bactria declared their independence. Moreover, the deleterious civil wars between Seleucid dynasts in the West and the rebellions of eastern satraps encouraged the nomadic Parni tribe from the Central Asian steppe (later known as the Parthians), who had been seeking a new homeland for decades, to invade northeastern Iran and establish a new kingdom. With the Parni’s successful conquest of Parthia and its immediate consequences, a new interstate system of tripolarity between the Seleucid Empire, Bactrian Kingdom, and the newly formed Parthian state emerged in the ancient East.

“I have mentioned that my first essay on editorial methodology concerned the number of branches in family trees, and my latest concerned editing with the aid of computer programmes. On these topics and many another, Paolo Trovato’s combative and richly instructive book leaves me far behind, and it is a privilege to have the opportunity of commending it” (from M.D. Reeve’s foreword)
"It is a didactic tool and at the same time a passionate and combative pamphlet; it speaks to students and colleagues at the same time and with the same stance" (Morato, French Studies) - Available in both a print edition and an e-book, the book is distributed  by major online retailers, such as  libreriauniversitaria.it and Amazon.

The study of the demographic characteristics of the first Mediterranean global network, the Roman Empire, is not an easy task. There are a lot of aspects to consider and an almost equal number of factors affecting them. In addition, the possible sources of information used to be incomplete and biased. Although methodology for conducting this kind of studies has evolved through time, allowing us to extract and to interpret the data in a better way, some aspects remain still obscure. [Contrib Sci

Four events have usually been blamed for the destruction of the Library: the Muslim conquest in 642; the decree of Theodosius in 391; the attack of Aurelian in the 3rd century AD; and Caesar’s conquest in 48 BC. Each one of these events is here carefully analysed according to ancient literary and epigraphic evidence in order to reach a conclusion about the orgin and causes of the destruction.

In his extant letters and speeches, Emperor Constantine often referred to God. However, these references were seldom theological elaborations on the concept of God. Instead, they were usually limited to the use of certain ambiguous titles of God. Accordingly, this article examines the emperor’s concept of God with the help of the so-called title-theology. Arguably, Constantine’s understanding of God developed from inclusive “pagan” henotheism to a qualified Christian monotheism, yet so that it retained the promise of accommodating various views of God. Vagueness in theological matters served the purpose of establishing the widest possible religious consensus in the Roman Empire. At the same time, this calculated vagueness also enabled different interpretations of Constantine’s theological utterances and perhaps contributed indirectly to the Trinitarian controversies within the Christian church. A comparison between Constantine’s concepts of God and that of Nicaea shows both a significant agreement and the existence of different underlying incentives.

Abstract
This article examines the longstanding rivalry of Rome and Parthia, which began as an unintended consequence of Crassus’ decisive defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE. It synthesizes the accounts and opinions of numerous Graeco-Roman writers from the Augustan Age to late antiquity in order to help illustrate the new and interconnected post-Carrhae world and its legacy. The rivalry of the Romans and Parthians became a primary focus of their foreign policies and drastically expanded their perceptions of the world in which they interacted. Even after the fall of the Parthians to the rebellious Sassanid Persians in the 220s CE, the Romans continued to find their three-century-long rivalry with the Parthians of interest and relevant to the changing world of late antiquity.

The essays presented in this volume aim at illustrating the scientific dimension of Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura, whose contents are normally examined from a literary point of view. The philological approach and the stylistic and historical acquisitions applied to a new kind of research result in an interdisciplinary survey which has favoured the contextualization of Lucretius within the history of scientific thought.

“This book is not a dusty compendium but a virtuoso performance. It is truly
outstanding on account of its comprehensive coverage of the field, the depth of
its analysis, the lucidity of its presentation, and the sheer sense of fun that is conveyed
by many of its pages […]. It deserves to be read by every textual scholar” (Dániel Kiss, Exemplaria Classica, 20, 2016).

“A new book came out last October that I think deserves the attention of NT text
critics, especially those working on all things stemmatic […]. Written with verve
but also with a thorough knowledge of the subject, it should serve beginning students
and seasoned scholars admirably” (Peter J. Gurry, http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.it/2015/6/).

“This volume is a didactic tool and at the same time a passionate and combative
pamphlet; it speaks to students and colleagues at the same time and with the
same stance” (Nicola Morato, French Studies, 2015).

“A scholar said that before entering into an edition, one should first read Maas and
Pasquali. This is a very good idea, but I think that Trovato’s book will do perhaps
equally well. There is a clear presentation of problems, illustrated by a wealth
of examples, there is fairness towards those who cherish another view, bringing
forward what is good in what is considered mistaken. This is scholarship on a high
level” (Bengt Alexanderson, Augustinianum, 2016)

A slightly extended version of the M.A. Thesis, Boğaziçi University, History Department, 2015.


The main concern of this study is to make a foreign policy analysis of the Ottomans, and to try demonstrating how policy-making might have affected the Ottoman take during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Under light of former studies and primary evidence, I will try to prove that there were concrete instances of Ottoman military intervention in the war. Second, I’ll try to answer why the Ottoman Empire should be regarded as a player on the scene of this continental political crisis, even though they remained largely non-participant, by pointing out to the psychological effect of the Ottoman power on the European states, relying on contemporary diplomatic reports. Lastly, I present the study of a primary source:  The final ambassadorial report of Paul Strassburg, the envoy of Swedish King Gustav II Adolph in Constantinople in 1632 and 1633, is translated from its original Latin transcription and evaluated in its historical setting.

Few concepts are as central to understanding the modern world as borders, and the now-thriving field of border studies has already produced a substantial literature analyzing their legal, ideological, geographical, and historical aspects. Such studies have hardly exhausted the subject’s conceptual fertility, however, as this pioneering collection on the aesthetics of borders demonstrates. Organized around six key ideas—ecology, imaginary, in/visibility, palimpsest, sovereignty and waiting—the interlocking essays collected here provide theoretical starting points for an aesthetic understanding of borders, developed in detail through interdisciplinary analyses of literature, audio-visual borderscapes, historical and contemporary ecologies, political culture, and migration.

In contemporary sociolinguistic research, religion as a correlate to linguistic variation tends to receive less attention than the four main variables class, age, gender, and ethnicity. The connection between language and religion is usually studied from the perspective of identity and language attitude. In Arabic studies, Christian varieties of the language are treated either within a dialectological framework, or as part of the study of Middle Arabic. As a result, it is not often clear to what extent they may indeed be regarded as varieties based on religion. In this paper, I compare the context and function of Christian Arabic with that of Christian Greek and Latin, which are said to have functioned as in-group varieties in the Roman empire. By comparing these cases I attempt to clarify the nature of Christian Arabic.

This dissertation argues that martial virtues and images of the soldier’s life represented an essential aspect of early Byzantine masculine ideology. It contends that in many of the visual and literary sources from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE, conceptualisations of the soldier’s life and the ideal manly life were often the same. By taking this stance, the dissertation challenges the view found in many recent studies on Late Roman masculinity that a Christian ideal of manliness based on extreme ascetic virtues and pacifism had superseded militarism and courage as the dominant component of hegemonic masculine ideology.

https://www.amazon.es/guerra-las-Galias-Julio-C%C3%A9sar/dp/841883966X/
               
Antología anotada y comentada del libro V de la Guerra de las Galias de Julio César realizada como Trabajo de Fin de Máster en el Máster de Profesor de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato y revisada y actualizada ahora con motivo de su publicación. Constituye una guía práctica y útil para la preparación de los exámenes de acceso a la universidad, pensada tanto para el uso del profesor en el aula como para el alumno autodidacta.
Se trata de una antología del libro V de la Guerra de las Galias, donde se recogen textos de dificultad similar a los aparecidos en la Selectividad en los últimos años, con una serie de anotaciones y comentarios pensados para facilitar su comprensión y traducción por parte del alumno, para hacer más atractivo y sencillo su estudio. Una introducción precede a los textos y sirve para contextualizar al autor, la obra, el género, la época y los hechos históricos.

General introduction to the epic genre in Rome. Translation with stylistic and philological commentary of Ennius’ Annales, vv. 34-50 Sk. (= 35-51 V., “The dream of Ilia”) and 175-79 Sk. (= 187-91 V. “the cutting of the forest”) and of Virgil's Aeneid, 4, 553-629; 6, 679-751; 10, 439-509; 12, 843-86.

Abstract

The earliest Christians—all of whom were Jews—spoke of the Holy Spirit as a feminine figure. The present article discusses the main proof texts, spanning the ‘Gospel according to the Hebrews’ to a number of testimonies from the second century. The ancient tradition was, in particular, kept alive in East and West Syria, up to and including the fourth century Makarios/Symeon, who even influenced ‘modern’ Protestants such as John Wesley and the Moravian leader Count von Zinzendorf. It is concluded that, in the image of the Holy Spirit as woman and mother, one may attain a better appreciation of the fullness of the Divine.

Questa proposta di Unità Didattica (UD) si concentra su un aspetto ben delimitato (e quindi più facile da gestire nella programmazione), ovvero la formazione del concetto di clemenza nel pensiero politico romano, attraverso l'orazione De Marcello di Cicerone e principalmente il De clementia di Seneca. La clemenza politica, sebbene legata dall'origine all'arbitrio di un monarca assoluto, non ha perso del tutto la sua ragion d'essere neppure nelle moderne società democratiche e parlamentari, il che consente di concludere l'UD con uno stimolante percorso di attualizzazione.

The colloquia are manuals written to help ancient Greeks and Romans get around in each other’s languages; they contain examples of how to conduct activities like shopping, banking, visiting friends, hosting parties, taking oaths, winning lawsuits, using the public baths, having fights, making excuses, and going to school. They thus offer a unique glimpse of daily life in the early Roman empire and are an important resource for understanding ancient culture. They have, however, been unjustly neglected because until now there were no modern editions of the texts, no translations into any modern language, and little understanding of what the colloquia are and where they come from. This book makes the colloquia accessible for the first time by combining a new edition, translation, and commentary with a ground-breaking, comprehensive study of their origins. It is clearly written and will interest students, non-specialists, and professional scholars alike.

“Emotion” is a contested term, with no agreed definition and a particular history of its own. Ancient historians can explore the historical contingency of analogous concepts in Greek and Latin both in the theories of the major philosophical schools and in a variety of ancient texts. But (ancient) emotion history is a burgeoning field in its own right, using a wider range of literary, non-literary, visual, and material evidence. Understanding emotion is an essential tool of the ancient historian’s art, just as emotion is a fundamental aspect of ancient historiography, both as a cause of historical events and as a fundamental aspect of the presentation and reception of historical narratives.

Did druids really exist? Did Celts perform human sacrifice? The aim of this paper is to scrutinise our sources on Celtic religion. We can see that our sources are not only unreliable, but they were also consciously used to manipulate the readers’ image of Celts. Rome’s long-standing fear of the Galli had made way for a fear of the druids by the 1st century A.D. The Romans were increasingly interested in the Celts/Galli in the 1st century B.C., catalysed by Caesar campaigning in Gaul and Britain. But despite first-hand knowledge, authors used obsolete topoi. The reasons for this changed through time and the ‘Celts’ became increasingly instrumentalised. This leads us to another important question: can we use these Graeco-Roman sources for the study of Celtic religion? Are the information on deities, rituals, priesthoods, re-incarnation and Pythagoreanism reliable? These are some of the questions addressed in this paper.

The consequences of Crassus' invasion of Mesopotamia in 54–53 BCE were unanticipated and unintended; however, his disastrous failure shocked the Roman world and suddenly established the Parthians as a serious rival to Rome. Moreover, the shame the Romans felt after the Battle of Carrhae was considerable. The battle scarred the Roman psyche and severely damaged the Roman ego. This study synthesizes and investigates what became a vicious and virulent Roman literary tradition of anti-Crassus propaganda, examining how numerous Roman writers over the course of numerous centuries used the dead and disgraced Crassus as a convenient scapegoat to help explain Rome's failure to dominate the East and subdue the Parthian rival. It demonstrates that these writers ignored the legitimate causes for the First Romano-Parthian War (56 BCE – 1 CE), which Crassus had inherited, and illustrates that the disaster at Carrhae became a popular moralizing lesson about the consequences of greed, impiety, and hubris.

Lucretius was the first philosopher of immanence. It is he and not Democritus or Epicurus who holds this title. If we want to understand the historical emergence of the concept of immanence, we should start by distinguishing its precursors in Greek atomism from its first complete incarnation in Lucretius. This way, we can see exactly what first defined and distinguished immanence from its past. Therefore in what follows I would like to make three, perhaps controversial, claims about the emergence of philosophical immanence. 1) Lucretius was not an atomist, 2) Greek atomism reintroduced transcendence, and 3) It is the primacy of motion in Lucretius that defines his philosophical immanence. Lucretius was not an atomist This thesis is as counterintuitive as it is straightforward. The first major difference between Lucretius and the earlier Greek atomists is precisely that—the atom. For Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus atoms are always in motion, but the atom itself remained fundamentally unchanged, indivisible, and thus internally static—even as it moved. Thus instead of positing discrete atoms as ontologically primary as both ancient Greek and later modern theories do, one of Lucretius's greatest novelties was to posit the movement or flow of matter as primary. Lucretius did not simply " translate Epicurus, " as the Greco-centric story goes; rather, he introduced the first immanent kinetic materialism in the West. For example, although the Latin word atomus (smallest particle) was available to Lucretius to use in his poem, he intentionally did not use it, nor did he use the Latin word particula or particle to describe matter. The English translations of " atom, " " particle, " and others have all been added to the text in translation based on a certain historical interpretation of it. The idea that Lucretius subscribed to a world of discrete particles called atoms is therefore both a projection of Epicureanism, who used the Greek word atomos, and a retroaction of modern scientific mechanism of the fifteenth century onto De Rerum Natura. Lucretius rejected entirely the notion that things emerged from discrete particles. To believe otherwise is to distort the original meanings of the Latin text as well as the absolutely enormous poetic apparatus he summoned to describe the flowing, swirling, folding, and weaving of the flux of matter. Although Lucretius rejected the term atomus, he remained absolutely true to one aspect of the original Greek meaning of the word, τομος (átomos, " indivisible "), from-(a-, " not ") + τέμνω (témnō, " I cut "). Being is not cut up into discrete particles, but is composed of continuous flows, folds, and weaves. Discrete " things " (rerum) are composed of corporeal flows (corpora) that move together (conflux) and fold over themselves (nexus) in a woven knot work (contextum). For Lucretius, things only emerge and have their being within and immanent to the flow and flux of matter in motion. Discreteness is an apparent product of continuous folded matter, uncut, undivided, and in motion and not the other way around.

Tesis doctoral presentada en la UNED el 28 de enero de 2016, dirigida por D. José María Lucas, sobre Lamia, Empusa, Gelo, Mormo, Aco, las estriges y las Manias. Un tribunal presidido por D. Fernando García Romero e integrado por D. Luis Alberto de Cuenca y D. Antonio Guzmán Guerra asignó a este trabajo la calificación de sobresaliente cum laude.