Latin Literature

The deconstruction of ethnic identities has shattered how we understand the social landscape of the ancient Mediterranean. As cleansing as this deconstruction has been, it has left a gap in our ability to analyse social entities at an intermediate scale between households and states. In this context, the concept of communities emerges as a productive framework. Communities are social entities that are enacted through interactions and presuppose a sense of commonality, cohesion and belonging that attenuates internal social differentiation. This perspective invites archaeologists to explore complex social dynamics through a lens that can be applied to the material record, and this session hopes for papers that combine theoretical rigour with empirical analysis.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, different forms of communities – e.g. ritual communities or communities of practice – and their relationships with other entities such as families, groups or the state. Papers may explore how “practices of affiliation” (W.H. Isbell), such as drawing cultural boundaries, referring to a common past, and sharing experiences from everyday encounters to festive events, fostered communities. Similarly, the role of emotions and the senses, for example in feasts and funerals, but also the significance of space and place, provide rich avenues for exploration. Other themes include community cohesion, resilience or transformation in scenarios of intercultural contact, as well as moments when community identity and membership were contested from within the community, but papers could also challenge humanist notions by exploring “more-than-human communities” (O.J.T. Harris) that bring together people, animals and things.

Far from the Rule of St Benedict (RB) representing a contrasting tradition to that of supposed 'Celtic monasticism' or the 'Celtic church', in fact the earliest evidence of the use of RB *anywhere* is in the writings of the Irish abbot Columbanus in the late sixth century. Within a few years of his death in 615, most of his monks were using RB as part of their monastic guidance. The monks of Hebridean island of Iona were also familiar with the cult of Benedict and with his Rule by the late seventh century, and treated it as as authority in their own view of how monastic life should be organised.

Si espongono le consuete fonti classiche del custode infernale e se ne allegano di nuove. Per una suggestione in particolare si fa riferimento al concetto di "semantics of conflation" mutuato da uno studio di Marianne Hopman sulla mitografia dei poeti classici, e già adottato per spiegare il rapporto tra il Gerione dantesco e la Scilla virgiliana. Si analizzano le più antiche illustrazioni del Cerbero dantesco, sottolineando gli scarti degli illustratori dalla tradizione iconografica greco-romana.

The Phaethon episode emphasizes the claim to divinity and failed divinization, and so it can be read as an anti-apotheosis: there is a purification, an epitaph that mimics the titulus and the elogium of the deified characters' statues in the Forum of Augustus, a declaration of Phaethon's fault with the language of apotheosis, and an allusion to the constellation that he did not become. Like Caesar, Phaethon has become a stella; as in Caesar's passage, the poet refers to his anima; like Caesar's apotheosis, his anti-apotheosis occurs in Italian territory; in both passages, the sun ceases to appear. The contrast of the two episodes in the first and the last book, the first of which also has an echo (the Icarus episode) in the central part of the Metamorphoses, thus seems deliberately sought by the representation. Finally, while the anti-apotheosis is one further example in the first two books of the dynamics of chaos, normally triggered by a fault, the apotheosis structurally recovers the dynamics of cosmos.

When explaining allegorically a biblical passage which mentions animals, plants or minerals, Gregory the Great usually uses his knowledge of natural history to elaborate the allegory. In this article I explore Gregory’s sources and parallels in this regard, focusing on other Church Fathers on the one hand, and on ancient pagan authors (mainly naturalists) on the other. Augustine, Jerome, Eucherius, Servius and the Physiologus are valued as direct sources, but it is evident that Gregory had at his disposal other sources which have not been preserved, perhaps lost catalogs or treatises, perhaps oral sources.

Resumen La présence du mythe d'Apollon et d'Admète chez Tibulle, comme exemplum du lieu commun du servitium amoris, montre que la mythologie n'est pas absente de son oeuvre, comme il s' ensuit des endroits ici allegués, mais le traitement spécial de la ...

The anonymous Expositio totius mundi and its abridged and revised version, the Totius mundi descriptio, reproducing a geographical text (about 360 CE) translated from Greek, are difficult to date and very problematic for lexicographers, as shown by numerous examples from the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, especially in its first volumes. The discussion on certain hapax legómena accepted among its entries (in particular calopetta, to be corrected in calopecta, and alethinus) helps to introduce some of the most interesting philological problems in the Expositio, e.g. concerning the reading alicem at § 47, in view of a new edition.

Defining Renaissance Humanism has been problematic for many researchers. This paper hopes to provide a basic understanding of this concept by identifying and explaining its key characteristics. Individuals essential to Renaissance Humanism including Roman scholars and historians, religious theologians,, and prominent Renaissance humanists are deeply integrated into the paper's findings.

This is an abstract of a conference paper intended to be read at Bibliotheca Alexandrina (The Alexandria Centre for Hellenistic Studies), 8-10 April, 2011, on: "Alexandria and the Hellenistic World: New Finds and Interpretations."
The Conference did not take place due to the current events in Egypt at the time (2011).

Discover the language that shaped the foundation of Western civilisation with our Introduction to Classical Latin course in Sydney! Designed for beginners and enthusiasts alike, this course provides a comprehensive introduction to the influential language of Ancient Rome. Learning Latin offers numerous benefits, both practical and intellectual, making it a valuable pursuit for individuals of all interests and backgrounds. Latin remains a cornerstone of Western intellectual history, serving as the language of Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil, among others. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin served as the common language of diplomacy, science and scholarship in Europe until the 18th Century. As such, Latin heavily influenced the development of modern Romance languages like Italian and French, and continues to influence English vocabulary, particularly in medical and legal fields. By learning Latin, individuals can engage with a rich tapestry of global heritage and better understand the interconnectedness of human societies throughout history.

The contribution examines Giovanni Pascoli's careful analysis of Catullus' c. 95 in the anthology Lyra. Going beyond the horizon of the young students for whom the work is intended, the commentary is an all-round philological operation, aiming as much at a global exegesis as at focusing on minute details inherent in the meaning and textual reconstruction in the strict sense, non infrequently making learned and original choices.

The article aims to analyse an intertextual link in the ambiguous use of faveo between Tib. 2.1.1 and Prop. 4.6.1, both elegies classifiable as 'mimetic' hymns and both 'thresholds' of the respective two books of elegies. It is intended to show how Tibullus, inspiring Propertius in this, understood the implicit resources of a verb like faveo in the context of 'mimetic' fiction, with which the officiating poet can simultaneously address the imaginary participants of the religious ceremony and the actual readers of the poem. The aim is to show how this Tibullian use of faveo, suggested by the poeta-sacerdos mimesis, not only instilled in Propertius, also in the role of officiant, the need to enfranchise a sequence such as favete linguis from its formular rigidity, but illustrated the expressive potential of the verb in the incipit position of an elegy as a source of metapoetic reflection, being able to subtly express an ambivalence suitable for defining an angle of privileged sharing between poet and readers, carved out at crucial points in Tibullus' second book and Propertius' fourth in which precisely faveo can make itself the bearer of a message transcended from the literal plane.

Diogenes of Oenoanda, although much appreciated by scholars, has rarely been viewed as an innovative thinker. 1 This assessment fits a general trend in modern scholarship, in harmony with Cicero's criticism of the Pythagoreans-"ipse dixit" (DND I.10)-and the Epicureans-"ista [praecepta]…quasi dictata redduntur" (DND I. 72)-to see the Epicurean tradition as a long line of fundamentalists who may have renewed the literary presentation of the master's ideas, like

This paper focuses on Petrarch and Boccaccio as readers of Pliny the Elder's Naturalis historia, with peculiar attention to MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Latin 6802. The essay is included in the Catalogue of the exhibition "Il catalogo del Mondo: Plinio il Vecchio e la storia della Natura. Como, 3 maggio-31 agosto 2024" (ed. by G. Adornato).

Resumen. El artículo trata de determinar el grado de conocimiento del griego que tuvo Lebrija. Tras el estudio de sus citas en griego, su transcripción de palabras griegas y sus glosas a términos griegos, se concluye que Lebrija no llegó a saber la lengua griega, pero sí tuvo un amplio vocabulario de palabras griegas, aprendidas tanto en los autores latinos como en las traducciones de obras técnicas de los tratadistas helénicos.

Valerio Flaco adopta la tradicional concepción que dictaba cómo la decadencia política y moral comenzó desde que el ser humano violó la sacralidad del mar; sin embargo, el poeta comunica subrepticiamente que la irrupción de una nave en los caminos oceánicos constituye una reivindicación y que dicha decadencia en realidad significa la guerra civil como instrumento de la alternancia del poder. Es a la luz de este subtexto que su epopeya construye una paradoja que oscila entre los roles disruptivo y promotor de aquel instrumento que los simboliza, la nave Argo. Esta mítica navegación se encuentra en el corazón de esta discusión, y las implicaciones programáticas de lo que el poema encierra en su primer libro invitan al lector a reflexionar sobre el verdadero significado de la pretendida desacralización oceánica, la alternancia de los imperios en el poder y el origen de la discordia civil.

[Typescript—please cite by the published version in Helios 50 (2023) 17-49.] The apotheoses in Augustan poetry, which range from tropes of a leader's fame reaching the stars to full-blown catasterisms, participate in a Roman appropriation, contestation, and management of Hellenistic monarchical discourse that is as old as Rome's claims to inherit global rule from the East. The present paper studies texts from Ennius to Lucan, with the greatest attention given to Virgil's, Horace's, and Ovid's transculturations of Ptolemaic encomium for the new Caesarean dynasts. As Roman leaders approximate Hellenistic rulers, Latin encomium stages an assimilation between poet and leader, both engaged in a contest over authenticity that depends on a closer imitation/emulation of Hellenism. In consequence, legitimating tropes of teleology and singular merit, resolved into poetic discourse, undergo the destabilizing polyphony native to intertextuality and interculturalism.

[Typescript—please cite by the published version in Helios 50 (2023) 17-49.] The apotheoses in Augustan poetry, which range from tropes of a leader's fame reaching the stars to full-blown catasterisms, participate in a Roman appropriation, contestation, and management of Hellenistic monarchical discourse that is as old as Rome's claims to inherit global rule from the East. The present paper studies texts from Ennius to Lucan, with the greatest attention given to Virgil's, Horace's, and Ovid's transculturations of Ptolemaic encomium for the new Caesarean dynasts. As Roman leaders approximate Hellenistic rulers, Latin encomium stages an assimilation between poet and leader, both engaged in a contest over authenticity that depends on a closer imitation/emulation of Hellenism. In consequence, legitimating tropes of teleology and singular merit, resolved into poetic discourse, undergo the destabilizing polyphony native to intertextuality and interculturalism.

Issue 3 of Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures explores the theme of the rediscovery and canonization of the Roman classics in medieval Western European literary culture, beginning in the eleventh century and reaching a wide impact on literary and intellectual life in the twelfth century. It is headed by an article by Birger Munk Olsen whose immense and comprehensive work of cataloguing and analyzing the entire record of manuscripts containing Roman classics copied before 1200 is nearing completion ( L‘etude des auteurs classiques aux XIe et XIIe siecles , 5 vols). Within our journal’s scope of medieval European literature we have found it both rewarding and fitting to take Munk Olsen’s work as a prism for what is a striking literary phenomenon across most geographies and chronologies of medieval Europe: the engagement with the pre-Christian classics. The catalogue and the synthesis by Munk Olsen put many kinds of new studies on a firm footing. In this issue of In...

In this article I intent to go through the Epicurean thought and the role it plays in the concrete life of man. In this endeavour, I shall use some of Epicurus' maxims, and also The Poem of Nature, written by Lucretius, and thought up in the spirit of Epicureism. The idea from which the entire argument grows is sustained by the pragmatic role that Epicurus cultivates in respect to life. In fact, this is the same way that his very philosophy looks like. Another issue to be discussed here deals with the way in which Greek philosophy is brought into man's factual space by Epicureism. To conclude, we shall see the limits to which Stoicism and Epicureism merge, and which is the belt separating the two conceptions.

Focused on the tale of Niobe, Auson. 'Epigr.' 58 Green seems to comprise allusions to Ovid’s «Metamorphoses» and contains sophisticated literary features also attested in epigraphic sources; the extent to which these stylistic devices are exemplified in the poem led Rudolf Peiper in 1886 to include the composition in the section of Ausonius’ «Epitaphia» rather than in the section of his «Epigrammata». The purpose of this article is to shed new light on the stereotypical characteristics of Niobe’s lament in the poem, to discuss the rhetorical strategies of the discourse of the heroine, and to explore the literariness of the epigram, which, through its exploitation of diπerent literary genres, can be interpreted as a refined example of the afterlife of Augustan poetry in Late Antiquity.

Spanish translation with introduction and commentary to Claudian's "De consulatu Stilichonis" (Claud. c. mai. 21-24).

Claudiano (activo 395–404) es uno de los poetas más influyentes y fascinantes de la tardía Antigüedad. De origen griego alejandrino, cantó oficialmente para la corte y el senado en Italia en latín durante un momento crucial de la historia de Roma, tras la división factual del imperio en 395 y antes del saqueo de la Urbe a manos de Alarico en 410. La élite romana ve en él la síntesis de Virgilio y Homero; incluso intelectuales como san Agustín admiran la fuerza de sus versos. Tras su misteriosa desaparición, Claudiano se convirtió en modelo para las siguientes generaciones de poetas que cantaron mientras el imperio seguía transformándose y dejaba de existir como tal. Su fama como poeta épico, panegírico y de refinadas composiciones menores, perduró hasta bien entrado el siglo XVIII.
El consulado de Estilicón representó el culmen de la carrera de Claudiano. Cantado en Milán y Roma a inicios del año 400, celebra en tonos épicos y panegíricos la nominación como cónsul del entonces poderoso general Flavio Estilicón. Tras la inesperada muerte de Teodosio, su yerno Estilicón queda a cargo del nuevo augusto de Roma, el niño Honorio. Tendrá que enfrentar un imperio dividido y amenazado interna y externamente: los godos de Alarico, intrigas de la corte de Constantinopla, revueltas en África, a lo largo del Rin y del Danubio; amén de una corte y una sociedad cada vez más suspicaz hacia la presencia de personas de etnias diferentes, como, en parte, Estilicón mismo. Claudiano despliega un potente aparato épico para transmitir un mensaje festivo y esperanzador. La espada de Damocles caerá finalmente sobre todos, pero esto aún no lo saben nuestras páginas…

The source of Geoffrey’s De gestis Britonum – Deeds of the Britons (DGB, c.1136) has been one of the great mysteries of early medieval history. Geoffrey describing his source as “the very old book in the British tongue” that had come ex Britannia,  given to him by Archdeacon Walter of Oxford. This chapter examines and builds upon the work of David Burchmore’s presentation and translation of the First Variant Version of the DGB. Long considered to be just an abridged version of the DGB, Burchmore claims it makes more sense for it to be seen as the source, possibly written by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. In this chapter I compare the First Variant version with the DGB, starting first by introducing the subject, then discussing Geoffrey of Monmouth and those involved at the time, then continue by discussing Burchmore’s findings and notes and building upon these. More in depth examination comes at the point that Ambrosius, Merlin and Arthur are introduced showing the major differences between the Variant and the DGB.

This chapter "traces the role of dance in the practice and conceptualization of political action in ancient Greece and Rome, including official deployments of dance in the service of specific agendas, as well as spontaneous choreographies of the social body... the concept of "politics" enables (the) author to engage with a distinctive discourse within Dance and Performance Studies." (from the Introduction to the volume, written by the editors Z. Alonso Fernández & S. Olsen)