This paper, based on characters such as Hephaestus or Typhon, defines the Greek mythical category of the "mother's son." It analyses the link between Ares and this type of character through the god's relationships with the female universe, and specifically with Hera, his mother, which help to determine the personality and attributes of the god of war, and his situation within the Olympian family. The

The tragedies of Euripides are composed of traditional mythological material, yet the characters in his tragedies question the validity of their own stories, including the involvement of gods and goddesses. Philosophy, historiography, and early mythography were rationalizing myths at the time when Euripides was composing tragedies. I present several scenes from his tragedies, which exemplify and parallel

This paper shows that Tacitus patterns his account of the civil war between Otho and Vitellius in Historiae 1–2 on Lucan's account of the conflict between Pompey and Caesar in the Bellum Civile. The characters involved, the setting of the decisive clash, and the sequence of events of the two conflicts are analogous. By emulating Lucan, Tacitus suggests that the civil war that he is recounting is the

In his first prologue, the first-century Latin poet Phaedrus promises that his fables offer a double dowry, laughter and life lessons. This article explores the central importance of laughter for Phaedrus, who defines his fables as jokes meant to inspire laughter and learning—but not anger. Laughter in the fables is a mark of intellectual superiority, a safe way to teach lessons (even for the powerless)

Current pedagogical models for ancient history/civilization courses treat women as a "tourist topic" (Mohanty 2003) as they are slotted into the course with little to no connection to the course of Greek/Roman history. Despite any intentions to diversify survey courses, tourist topics reinforce unquestioned binaries of power whereby (citizen) men act in ancient history while women (and others) are

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Editor's Report on Reviews and Books Received COVID-19 has greatly complicated all aspects of scholarly publishing, not least the process of receiving books for review and finding reviewers for them. As a result, in this issue, not only will there be no list of books received (as in CW 114.1), but there will also be no book reviews. We

This article introduces the readers to Crepereia Tryphaena, a poem by Giovanni Pascoli from 1893, written in Sapphic strophes. The archaeological discovery of a second-century sarcophagus of a young woman who was buried along with her wedding gifts forms the starting point for this poem. At the same time, Pascoli approaches the topic as a poeta senza storia: to him, childhood and youth are eternal

This article reads Ovid's Metamorphoses through the lens of its contemporary art of pantomime dancing. With a focus restricted to narratives of animalization, it argues that the dancer's exquisite bodily expressiveness has been coopted and recalibrated for the demands of the poetic medium, as Ovid's sequences of animal metamorphosis have amalgamated aesthetic strategies borrowed from the pantomime

In lieu of an abstract, here is the review's first paragraph: In this clearly written and thoroughly researched book, Pollard argues that ancient Greek tragedies influenced sixteenth-century theater significantly more than previously thought. Pollard offers evidence of their availability and popularity during the early modern period and includes several useful appendices listing sixteenth-century editions

In book 1 of his Periegesis Pausanias interprets Athenian history from the perspective of urban politics in the Greek East in the second century ce. He emphasizes the achievements of the aristocrats Theseus and Themistocles, downplays their misdeeds, and especially portrays them as victims of a capricious urban demos and the ambition of unscrupulous peers. He also shows a hostility towards classical

Latin textbooks formulate grammar rules in terms of spelling rather than processes of sound, giving the impression that verb conjugation is difficult and with much irregularity. This article suggests a consistent way to envision the essentially regular linking of a s tem to a t ense marker to a personal e nding (S-T-E). The “rules” are mostly well known but scattered across the pages of many different

This article presents data from the first Census Latinus (2009) and examines CL’s purpose, prospects, and relevance. The main goals of Census Latinus (CL) are to survey the people who are today using Latin and to investigate the circumstances in which Latin is deployed in contemporary life. CL2009 collected data on the number and age of Latin language users, on Latin users’ gender, country of origin

Long before the Harvard School, the earliest audiences of Vergil’s Aeneid were conditioned to hear “two voices” in the epic. Vergil’s Eclogues had already illustrated and evoked dialogic interpretations; the epic’s ekphrases, including the Trojan War frieze at Carthage, show the subjective nature of all aesthetic response; and the ancient vita tradition framed the text of the Aeneid, like Pallas’ baldric

In Plato’s Ion , Socrates’ cross-examination of the rhapsode Ion reveals that poetry—considered as an activity encompassing rhapsodic performers and poetry-makers—is not a technical field. Furthermore, the cross-examination shows that the identity of rhapsodes and poets, much like rhetoricians and sophists, is unstable and in perpetual transformation. Insofar as their identity cannot be attached to

The Periegesis of Dionysius of Alexandria has often been read as an idealized, literary geography. This paper argues instead for a political reading. The main north-south axis of Dionysius’ world runs through the Aegean Sea, connecting Alexandria, center of Hellenistic learning, to the Black Sea and its epic heritage. This creates not merely a Greek, but also a distinctly eastern, perspective on the

This paper examines the role that Plutarch allots to poetry within the philosophical education outlined in the De Audiendis Poetis . It demonstrates how Plutarch’s use of one Pindaric quotation across several books of the Moralia typifies the method of mixing philosophy with poetry that was advocated in the De Audiendis Poetis . The point of doing so, by Plutarch’s own reckoning, is to impart a pleasing

The present article examines the question of who was the first to have allegorically interpreted Homer. The fragmentary and indirect character of the extant testimonies on the beginnings of allegoresis makes it very difficult to adjudicate between the candidates Theagenes of Rhegium and Pherecydes of Syros. This paper argues that while the surviving testimonies suggest that Theagenes was the first

Jared Secord, "Julius Africanus, Origen, and the Politics of Intellectual Life under the Severans," Classical World 110.2 (2017), 211-235 [Uncorrected Proofs].

Herodotus presents several extended calculations that require converting from one measuring system to another and that exhibit similarities in their presentation and effect. Complex calculations figure early in the careers of kings, except for Herodotus’ measurement of the road to Sardis before the Athenian intervention. Herodotus’ use of the device resembles Solon’s calculation for Croesus—as a warning—and

This paper examines Xenophon’s destabilizing of gender polarities in his depiction in the Hellenica of Mania of Dardanus, a widow who rules on behalf of the satrap Pharnabazus in the Persian-controlled Troad. One of the historian’s strategies is to shift the attitudes of readers by modeling the response of an authoritative character within the text, and another is to evoke traditional stereotypes associated

Two contemporary texts in different languages, Plutarch’s Precepts and Tacitus’ Agricola , display remarkable commonalities in how they present elite political activity. Specifically, both texts idealize figures who do work for their communities that is useful but apparently lacks glory and requires subordination to superiors in the imperial hierarchy. The authors attempt to reconcile these activities

This article focuses on the ways that Aesopic and other fables about interactions between wild and domestic animals can be used to think through human social and political relations. In particular, three versions of a fable about dogs and wolves from the Roman imperial era (by Babrius, Phaedrus, and Avianus) illustrate different ways of conceptualizing liberty and its opposites: physical confinement

Representations of smell can serve as vehicles for value judgments about social status and cultural performance. Since smell crosses boundaries, the same representations can also expose the arbitrariness of standards of behavior. This essay focuses on examples from Catullus: mainly poems 13 and 97, which include his only uses of olfacere, and 69 and 71, which share an image of animal odor and are linked

This article examines the binarism Europe/Asia in Statius’ Achilleid as a means to understand the polarities of male/female, West/East, Greek/barbarian, and ultimately Roman/non-Roman. I demonstrate that Helen’s abduction by Paris and the discourse on the succession of empires in Statius’ poem reflect Thetis’ own transformation of Achilles into a woman. Through his cross-dressing and the impregnation

This essay reports on observations made and research conducted in an intermediate classical Greek class whose primary pedagogical focus was vocabulary acquisition in order to facilitate extensive reading. I draw upon second-language-acquisition (SLA) research, personal observations, and student feedback to inform my discussion. Some promising initial strategies, and their lackluster success, are considered

Museum archetypes and collecting in the ancient world brill, monica matais guest lecturer florida state university, museum archetypes and collecting in the ancient world, collecting and empires brepols, collecting and empires an historical and global, museum archetypes and collecting in the ancient world in, lea stirling university of manitoba faculty of arts, museum archetypes and collecting in the

Prior to Ovid’s Metamorphoses , Hermaphroditus was a popular subject of sculpture but never of extended mythological narrative. Statues make the discovery of the god’s identity a humorous and surprising focal point and encourage attention to the artistry that conveys the discover’s confusion. I read Ovid in the light of the sculptural tradition and argue that Ovid manipulates the readers’ responses

While the titles of imperial family members on Roman coins have been used to establish chronology, I argue that the specific titulature on the coins of Faustina II and Lucilla promotes their roles as the ties among three emperors. Though other scholars have commented on their basic roles, crucial evidence for how the Antonines promoted the roles of these women has been overlooked. By highlighting this

As cognitive structures that capture patterns of sensorimotor experience, image schemas and their metaphorical interpretations not only deliver meaning in Latin’s semantic system but also organize other forms of Roman symbolic representation. This paper builds on Maurizio Bettini’s analysis of Latin’s metaphorical expression of time in terms of linear spatial relations by tracing the structuring effects

In this paper, I argue that Propertius 4.9 connects the religious framework of the cults of Bona Dea and Ara Maxima with geographical distinctions between East and West. Hercules’ association with the West grants him a place in early Roman religion by situating his worship alongside that of the native Italian goddess Bona Dea. The poem, however, also connects Hercules with the East, thus complicating