Aēr in Homer has rarely been discussed; the few studies that do exist focus on the word's semantics and scope of reference. This article proposes that we focus instead on how aēr works and what aēr does, both to characters within the Iliad and the Odyssey and, especially, for the poet responsible for composing them. First, I argue that aēr offers the poet a stratagem for navigating complex narrative demands and that it is best understood primarily in terms of the (...) phenomenological effects it produces on Homeric characters. Next, I consider the implications of this argument for discussions of Homeric things and objects, particularly those influenced by New Materialism. Finally, I explore the consequences of this argument for our understanding of the Presocratic thinker most associated with aēr, Anaximenes. (shrink)

De Constantia Sapientis 17.1 contains two animal-based insults, the interpretation of which has heretofore proven controversial because of the difficulties in pinpointing the exact nature/identity of comparandum and comparatum. An adequate appreciation of the passage requires assessing the function of these contumeliae within Seneca's philosophical strategy. Their ontological vacuity reflects the imaginative status of the two animals selected to construct the jibes. Thus, one should resist rage, not only on account of this passion being self-damaging but also because imagination is (...) a faulty cognitive process. (shrink)

This article investigates the presence of Amazonian imagery in Statius' Achilleid. It begins by uncovering intertexts to Aeneid 1 in the arrival of Ulysses and Diomedes on Scyros ( Ach. 1.726–58), which create a layer of erotic tension that is vital for the interpretation of the ensuing simile comparing Achilles, Deidamia, and Lycomedes' daughters with Amazons ( Ach. 1.758–60). A comprehensive analysis of the simile allows a re-examination of Statius' echoes to the portrayals of Hippolyte and Theseus in Thebaid 12, (...) and draws attention to previously unnoticed parallels with Virgil's Aeneid. The final section of the article examines the broader context of the Amazon simile, eliciting intertextual points of contact with Ovid's Metamorphoses 7 and Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica 5, emphasising in particular the importance of the underlying recruitment theme. Statius' deployment of Amazonian imagery in the Achilleid is seen to be intrinsically tied to the poem's gender fluidity, and the poet's innovative narrative technique. (shrink)

A reader's enjoyment of Odes 3.6 and Epodes 7 and 16 is deepened by an awareness of the interplay between two relationships in Horace's poetry: the relationship of the speaker within the poem to an internal audience; and the interpretive relationship between the reader and the unstable persona of the implied author, Horace. The Archilochean authorial persona of Horace's Epodes and the Alcaic authorial persona of Horace's Odes work together to create a pseudo-autobiography of his life as a movement through (...) genres and through Roman historical time. This pseudo-autobiography functions in the reader's mind as a tool for interpretation. (shrink)

Assumptions about the tirocinium fori are based on claims by Joachim Marquardt that it was a form of training for young elite Romans at about the age of 16, that it lasted for one year, and that it consisted of mentorship by a distinguished elder. Though there is little evidence to support these claims, the theory of a tirocinium fori continues to influence discussions of oratory in the age of Cicero, where it gives a false picture of the process by (...) which aspiring young orators made the transition from the school of rhetoric to practice in the courts. (shrink)

Abstract:In many of his works, Seneca puts a philosophical premium on the ability to see through the deceptive appearances of words and things, identifying the hidden truths that underlie these appearances. In this paper, I turn to a passage that casts doubt upon the efficacy of this interpretive method: Seneca's excursus on flattery in the preface to Book 4a of the Natural Questions. Seneca locates in flattery a pleasure that listeners cannot eradicate by exposing its insincerity. By undermining a hermeneutic (...) practice at the heart of many of his therapeutic methods, Seneca draws out, and invites us to dwell within, a contradiction in his system of thought. Furthermore, in his transition from his discussion of flattery to the scientific content of Nat. 4a, Seneca suggests an alternative approach to treacherous pleasures, which locates therapeutic potential not in the ability to look beyond appearances, but in the "surface-level" experiences of distraction and amazement. (shrink)

Abstract:In the prologue to the Rhetorica ad Herennium Book 4, the author boldly departs from tradition and explains that he will create his own examples, rather than drawing from poets and orators. This methodological discussion portrays itself as an exemplum and hence carries a meta-literary and mimetic dimension. In particular, this prologue anticipates and illustrates the precept propounded in Book 4; its fine style and rhythm amount to a defense of rhetoric itself; and this defense must be considered in the (...) political and cultural context of the time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Commentary on Augustine City of God, Books 1–5 by Gillian ClarkJames J. O'DonnellCommentary on Augustine City of God, Books 1–5. By Gillian Clark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xii + 281. ISBN: 978-0-19-887007-4.Pierre Bayard's masterful How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read offers soothing balm for readers in the daunting presence of Augustine's City of God. Weighing in at a third of a million words, Augustine's (...) magnum opus et arduum,1 offers a Moby-Dick and a half of verbiage spread out over twenty-two books. I make the claim, nervously and looking about for intelligent contradiction, that it is the longest work of sustained and coherent argument to survive from Greco-Roman antiquity. Other behemoths are compilations in the main of one kind or another, but this one has a structure and a linear direction and was tightly enough written that a theme opened in the second book with a promise of returning with later treatment is in fact picked up in the nineteenth book written perhaps a dozen years later.Those who really will read, or at least read in, Civ. benefit from all the help they can get. There are good translations (English alone in my lifetime by McCracken et al. in Loeb, Bettenson, Dyson, and Babcock) but none provides more than a minimalist annotation. Francophone readers have been better served since 1960 by the five volume edition with more ample annotation in the Bibliothèque Augustinienne of G. Bardy et al., and it is the standard point of entrance to serious study for scholars. That work has many strengths but the limitations of arising from a devout tradition of scholarship and of coming before the efflorescence in late antique and Augustinian studies through which we have lived.More help is now at hand in the form of the volume under review and its promise of more to come. Gillian Clark is known and admired among Augustinian scholars for many works, not least the earlier exercise in commentary of her Cambridge "green and yellow"2 edition of Confessions 1–4 (1995). The present work began as an ambitious multi-author collaborative project that proved unwieldy (see the present volume, pp. 31–32) and results in this first installment of [End Page 179] a series now in Clark's hands exclusively, drawing on her strengths as a classical historian specializing in late antiquity and patristics. Four additional volumes are anticipated, ideally on two-year intervals. The task requires multiple competences: at least, the history of the fourth and fifth centuries, the history and presence of ancient philosophy, the history of Christian reception and interpretation of scripture, and the reception of classical literature in late antiquity. It is a work that soars with no middle flight.As commentary on a behemoth, the commentary begins with the virtue of concision. At a rough calculation, commentary here runs at about half again the length of the text under review, producing volumes that can be usefully read alongside Augustine without swamping either Augustine or the reader in an ocean of erudition and detail. After an introduction that is as much to the whole work as to books 1–5, the book is organized strictly by lemmata to passages commented. The lemmata are all in Latin to facilitate use by readers of various editions and translations, with references given by book/chapter and page/line to the standard CCSL 1955 reprinting of the edition of Dombart-Kalb (itself originally a Teubner of 1928).3The focus of the annotation is on the work as historical artifact, well situated in both the moment and controversies of writing and in the apparatus of learning that Augustine brought to his work. Inevitably this includes welcome discussion of argument, rhetoric, and strategy (the very short discussion of how Augustine wrote on pp. 9–12 is remarkably insightful), but readers will welcome the lucid guidance offered to how the text made sense in Aug.'s own time, to what he was evidently reading as he wrote, and to the range of historical realia that make up his argument. Commentary on later... (shrink)

Abstract:This paper examines the historiographic controversies and disagreements surrounding the figure of Septimius Severus and highlighted by Herodian in his Roman History as a means of investigating the development of history writing during and in the aftermath of that emperor's reign. Herodian cites Severus' transition to power and reign as a locus for historical and historiographical controversy and debate, and a comparison of Herodian with other Severan writers allows for an examination of Herodian's competitive relationship with his older historiographic peers (...) and of the innovative aspects of his work that set it apart from others. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper explores the poetic interplay between the poet and angry goddess Juno, the two metacharacters in the Aeneid, that is central to the composition of Vergil's epic poem. In addition to the conflicting characterization that links both figures with the epic as well as elegiac genres, their agonistic relationship evokes a typically elegiac discourse between the poet-lover and his dura puella that is known to play a role in his poetic language. The power dynamics of elegy that Vergil has (...) reproduced in the subtext of the Aeneid closely associate Juno's metapoetic role with the process of creating a new Roman epic. In fact, Juno is unveiled as a dominant figure within the poetic discourse who not only animates the poet's talent but essentially shapes his poetic project and allies it with the masculine genre of the epic. (shrink)

Abstract:This article examines the citation context of fragments from the Epic Cycle in scholia in order to re-assess its ancient reception. In contrast to negative comments like Callimachus', literary criticism in practice demonstrates that the Cycle held great authority among readers and critics. In the Homeric scholia, commentators vigorously debated whether Cyclical epics should aid in the interpretation of Homer. In the scholia to Pindar and Euripides, the Cycle was used to explicate and even to emend the text. For Hellenistic (...) poets like Lycophron, critics' presentation of the Cycle in scholia offered a generative model for continuing the Trojan War myth in dialogue with Homer. (shrink)