Abstract:Theocritus's Idyll 2(c. 280–60 B.C.E.) is the finest surviving example of what the Greeks called mime, a short spoken play for one to four actors that was probably performed without props. This article addresses the performativity of Idyll 2 through a scholarly exegesis based on a research project that set out to investigate how this monologue could be successfully performed on the modern stage and how it might first have been performed in Alexandria over two millennia ago. The authors of this article, the dramaturge and research assistant, respectively, concentrate on what such an intensive process could reveal about the ancient Greek magic contained in the text and the representation of the sorceress Simaitha.
{"title":"Performing Theocritus's Pharmakeutria: Revealing Hellenistic Witchcraft","authors":"Marguerite Johnson, Nicole Kimball","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Theocritus's Idyll 2(c. 280–60 B.C.E.) is the finest surviving example of what the Greeks called mime, a short spoken play for one to four actors that was probably performed without props. This article addresses the performativity of Idyll 2 through a scholarly exegesis based on a research project that set out to investigate how this monologue could be successfully performed on the modern stage and how it might first have been performed in Alexandria over two millennia ago. The authors of this article, the dramaturge and research assistant, respectively, concentrate on what such an intensive process could reveal about the ancient Greek magic contained in the text and the representation of the sorceress Simaitha.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"163 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46658653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Rutilius Namatianus's poem De Reditu Suo, written around AD 418, is especially famous for its gloomy and almost "romantic" depictions of ruins and nocturnal landscapes. However, at a deeper level of reading, it thematizes an anxiety towards the ideas of origin, fatherhood/fatherland, and language that is systematically explored in this paper from different theoretical perspectives, most notably Lacanian psychoanalysis. This new insight into the underlying fears and hopes conveyed (and often silenced) by the poem allows a new interpretation of the piece in its entirety, which should ultimately be considered as a reaction to the collapse of classical logocentrism.
{"title":"In the Name-of-the-Father: Rutilius Namatianus and the Collapse of Classical Logocentrism","authors":"J. Hernández Lobato","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Rutilius Namatianus's poem De Reditu Suo, written around AD 418, is especially famous for its gloomy and almost \"romantic\" depictions of ruins and nocturnal landscapes. However, at a deeper level of reading, it thematizes an anxiety towards the ideas of origin, fatherhood/fatherland, and language that is systematically explored in this paper from different theoretical perspectives, most notably Lacanian psychoanalysis. This new insight into the underlying fears and hopes conveyed (and often silenced) by the poem allows a new interpretation of the piece in its entirety, which should ultimately be considered as a reaction to the collapse of classical logocentrism.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"321 - 359"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47718208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article considers how stories of origin change under the growing influence of Christianity in late antiquity. The analysis starts from the different claims on origin made in the four canonical Gospels, on the one hand, and the developed theory of origin in Augustine's Confessions, on the other, where the question of "where do I come from?" is entwined with reflections on the history of the soul, the nature of time, the functioning of memory, and an exegesis of the multiform interpretations of the book of Genesis, the foundational story of origin for the religious tradition which he is helping to create. This recognition of the extensive discourse of origins taking shape in late antiquity provides a frame for the central analysis of Nonnus's Dionysiaca and its extraordinary stories of the origin of Beroe (Beirut), where stories of beginnings multiply and swirl with a Dionysiac transformative confusion. The article explores how Nonnus contributes a specific and complex vision of the rich incoherence of the discourse of origin in late antiquity, in and against arguments about temporality based on the debates about the authority of the Nicene creed.
{"title":"Beginning with God: Theology and Origins in Nonnus","authors":"Simon Goldhill","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article considers how stories of origin change under the growing influence of Christianity in late antiquity. The analysis starts from the different claims on origin made in the four canonical Gospels, on the one hand, and the developed theory of origin in Augustine's Confessions, on the other, where the question of \"where do I come from?\" is entwined with reflections on the history of the soul, the nature of time, the functioning of memory, and an exegesis of the multiform interpretations of the book of Genesis, the foundational story of origin for the religious tradition which he is helping to create. This recognition of the extensive discourse of origins taking shape in late antiquity provides a frame for the central analysis of Nonnus's Dionysiaca and its extraordinary stories of the origin of Beroe (Beirut), where stories of beginnings multiply and swirl with a Dionysiac transformative confusion. The article explores how Nonnus contributes a specific and complex vision of the rich incoherence of the discourse of origin in late antiquity, in and against arguments about temporality based on the debates about the authority of the Nicene creed.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"455 - 471"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44523524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:For Christian writers of late antiquity, the bible is a kind of writing machine that is also a divine body. Drawing lightly on the theories of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Kittler, I will unpack this enigmatic proposal by considering how a Latin letter, Nisi tanti seminis, imagines and performs writing as such by engaging a series of biblically-derived objects: chest, jug, lamp, textile. More than "mere" metaphors, these objects have something to say about the agency of writing qua medium. As we shall see, writing produces the writer, as much as the other way round. Writing is, moreover, revealed to be at once mechanical and revelatory, repetitious, and generative, primordial and of the moment—in short, quintessentially performative.
摘要：对于古代晚期的基督教作家来说，圣经是一种书写机器，也是一个神圣的身体。根据雅克·德里达和弗里德里希·基特勒的理论，我将通过思考拉丁字母Nisi tanti seminis是如何通过使用一系列圣经衍生的物体来想象和执行写作的，来解开这个神秘的提议：箱子、罐子、灯、织物。这些对象不仅仅是“纯粹的”隐喻，还有一些关于写作作为媒介的作用。正如我们将要看到的那样，写作产生了作家，反之亦然。此外，写作被揭示为同时具有机械性和启示性、重复性和生成性、原始性和当下性——简而言之，是典型的表演性。
{"title":"The Bible as Writing Machine: Reflections on a Late Ancient Theory of Literature","authors":"V. Burrus","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:For Christian writers of late antiquity, the bible is a kind of writing machine that is also a divine body. Drawing lightly on the theories of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Kittler, I will unpack this enigmatic proposal by considering how a Latin letter, Nisi tanti seminis, imagines and performs writing as such by engaging a series of biblically-derived objects: chest, jug, lamp, textile. More than \"mere\" metaphors, these objects have something to say about the agency of writing qua medium. As we shall see, writing produces the writer, as much as the other way round. Writing is, moreover, revealed to be at once mechanical and revelatory, repetitious, and generative, primordial and of the moment—in short, quintessentially performative.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"473 - 486"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46768601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Late antique panegyrists often raise up their laudandi by casting a shadow on Homer and his (mainly Iliadic) heroes. This paper traces the history of an increasingly irreverent attitude towards Greece's foundational poet and his heroes within panegyric compositions and asks what motivates this flamboyant rejection. The impact of a Christian mode of exemplarity is incontestable, but cannot wholly account for this development. Christian encomia which engage the Hebrew Bible for their synkriseis generally shy away from undercutting the venerable biblical exempla. My suggestion is that the "aggressive" attitude towards Iliadic exempla in classicizing panegyric is bound up with the position of the Iliad as the didactic text par excellence and as a central, yet deeply problematic, text in debates around ideal rulership.
{"title":"\"All The Famous Deeds of Achilles Are Yours\": Homeric Exemplarity in Late Antique Panegyric","authors":"Fotini Hadjittofi","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Late antique panegyrists often raise up their laudandi by casting a shadow on Homer and his (mainly Iliadic) heroes. This paper traces the history of an increasingly irreverent attitude towards Greece's foundational poet and his heroes within panegyric compositions and asks what motivates this flamboyant rejection. The impact of a Christian mode of exemplarity is incontestable, but cannot wholly account for this development. Christian encomia which engage the Hebrew Bible for their synkriseis generally shy away from undercutting the venerable biblical exempla. My suggestion is that the \"aggressive\" attitude towards Iliadic exempla in classicizing panegyric is bound up with the position of the Iliad as the didactic text par excellence and as a central, yet deeply problematic, text in debates around ideal rulership.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"291 - 320"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49019728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This essay examines three references to the Alexandrian critic-librarians Zenodotus and Aristarchus in the writings of Ausonius of Bordeaux: Professores 13, Epistle 10, and the preface to the Ludus Septem Sapientum. Through these references to the origins of Hellenistic bookish erudition, Ausonius defines his literary etiquette—his process of writing, circulating, and evaluating poetry—as an ongoing, albeit anachronistic, continuation of the classical past, defined by his coterie's encyclopedism and knowledge ordering. The reading advanced here offers a holistic approach to Ausonius's corpus, calling into question scholarly strategies that rely on dissecting his poetry into serious and ludic types.
{"title":"Expunging Originality: Alexandrian Critics in Late Antique Gaul","authors":"Brian P. Sowers","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay examines three references to the Alexandrian critic-librarians Zenodotus and Aristarchus in the writings of Ausonius of Bordeaux: Professores 13, Epistle 10, and the preface to the Ludus Septem Sapientum. Through these references to the origins of Hellenistic bookish erudition, Ausonius defines his literary etiquette—his process of writing, circulating, and evaluating poetry—as an ongoing, albeit anachronistic, continuation of the classical past, defined by his coterie's encyclopedism and knowledge ordering. The reading advanced here offers a holistic approach to Ausonius's corpus, calling into question scholarly strategies that rely on dissecting his poetry into serious and ludic types.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"361 - 378"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41583020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In the opening piece of his poetic corpus (Carm. 1), the 5th century Gallo-Roman poet Sidonius Apollinaris presents the reader with an archetypical situation: after Jupiter has been established as king of the universe by Natura, various gods and demi-gods offer various kinds of praise to their new master. The peculiarity of these expressions of praise, however, is that they do not consist of words but of sounds produced by musical instruments, as well as by applause, feet, and, in the very middle of the poem, even a hinnitus. I argue that this poem emphasizes "origins" at different levels: it is the first poem in the entire collection, and it works as a praefatio to the following poem, a panegyric to the emperor Anthemius, but I will also argue that this poem invokes nothing less than the original violent process of giving significance to sounds. But Jupiter's "semantic" abuse acquires a subversive value when considered in its own textual environment; this poem suggests in an exemplary way the violent and repressive substance of imperial panegyric.
{"title":"Origins and Original Moments in Late Greek and Latin Texts","authors":"Marco Formisano, Cristiana Sogno","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In the opening piece of his poetic corpus (Carm. 1), the 5th century Gallo-Roman poet Sidonius Apollinaris presents the reader with an archetypical situation: after Jupiter has been established as king of the universe by Natura, various gods and demi-gods offer various kinds of praise to their new master. The peculiarity of these expressions of praise, however, is that they do not consist of words but of sounds produced by musical instruments, as well as by applause, feet, and, in the very middle of the poem, even a hinnitus. I argue that this poem emphasizes \"origins\" at different levels: it is the first poem in the entire collection, and it works as a praefatio to the following poem, a panegyric to the emperor Anthemius, but I will also argue that this poem invokes nothing less than the original violent process of giving significance to sounds. But Jupiter's \"semantic\" abuse acquires a subversive value when considered in its own textual environment; this poem suggests in an exemplary way the violent and repressive substance of imperial panegyric.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"269 - 273"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44523441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Greek epic has a notoriously ambiguous relationship to authorship, with composers from Homer to Nonnus finding covert, creative ways to construct their identities in relation to their models, origins, or sources. In this essay, I look at three Greek works from the imperial period: Quintus's Posthomerica, Triphiodorus's Sack of Troy, and Colluthus's Abduction of Helen. These poems display a highly paradoxical approach to literary origins. They maintain a hyper-close relationship to Homer, adopting his language, style, and Trojan subject. And yet they also include signals which disavow these Homerizing claims: philological quirks, contemporary references, and later literary allusions. By focusing not, as is usual for recent imperial epic scholarship, on these poems' programmatic openings, but rather on their highly complicated ends, I argue that they all put forth an alternative mode of response to originality and canonicity. Opening up Homer's poems as they close their own, they continue the epic canon in a non-linear fashion: returning to its deep, foundational past, and also treating it as inherently open and unfinished—ripe for correction, expansion, and ultimately re-embodiment.
{"title":"Beginning at the End in Imperial Greek Epic","authors":"E. Greensmith","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Greek epic has a notoriously ambiguous relationship to authorship, with composers from Homer to Nonnus finding covert, creative ways to construct their identities in relation to their models, origins, or sources. In this essay, I look at three Greek works from the imperial period: Quintus's Posthomerica, Triphiodorus's Sack of Troy, and Colluthus's Abduction of Helen. These poems display a highly paradoxical approach to literary origins. They maintain a hyper-close relationship to Homer, adopting his language, style, and Trojan subject. And yet they also include signals which disavow these Homerizing claims: philological quirks, contemporary references, and later literary allusions. By focusing not, as is usual for recent imperial epic scholarship, on these poems' programmatic openings, but rather on their highly complicated ends, I argue that they all put forth an alternative mode of response to originality and canonicity. Opening up Homer's poems as they close their own, they continue the epic canon in a non-linear fashion: returning to its deep, foundational past, and also treating it as inherently open and unfinished—ripe for correction, expansion, and ultimately re-embodiment.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"379 - 397"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47083361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:As a study of relationality in Ausonius's Mosella, this paper explores how the poet figures the river as a powerful connective force linking together times, spaces, humans, animals, and supernatural creatures. The many interconnected relationships mediated by the river reveal insights into how Ausonius constructs meaning in a way that does not rely on intertextual engagement with earlier authors.
{"title":"Alluvium and Interlude: The Dynamics of Relationality in Ausonius's Mosella","authors":"Del A. Maticic","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:As a study of relationality in Ausonius's Mosella, this paper explores how the poet figures the river as a powerful connective force linking together times, spaces, humans, animals, and supernatural creatures. The many interconnected relationships mediated by the river reveal insights into how Ausonius constructs meaning in a way that does not rely on intertextual engagement with earlier authors.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"399 - 423"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45655544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In the opening piece of his poetic corpus (Carm. 1), the 5th century Gallo-Roman poet Sidonius Apollinaris presents the reader with an archetypical situation: after Jupiter has been established as king of the universe by Natura, various gods and demi-gods offer various kinds of praise to their new master. The peculiarity of these expressions of praise, however, is that they do not consist of words but of sounds produced by musical instruments, as well as by applause, feet, and, in the very middle of the poem, even a hinnitus. I argue that this poem emphasizes "origins" at different levels: it is the first poem in the entire collection, and it works as a praefatio to the following poem, a panegyric to the emperor Anthemius, but I will also argue that this poem invokes nothing less than the original violent process of giving significance to sounds. But Jupiter's "semantic" abuse acquires a subversive value when considered in its own textual environment; this poem suggests in an exemplary way the violent and repressive substance of imperial panegyric.
{"title":"The King Listens: Origins, Noises, and Panegyric in Sidonius Apollinaris' Carmen 1","authors":"Marco Formisano","doi":"10.1353/are.2021.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2021.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In the opening piece of his poetic corpus (Carm. 1), the 5th century Gallo-Roman poet Sidonius Apollinaris presents the reader with an archetypical situation: after Jupiter has been established as king of the universe by Natura, various gods and demi-gods offer various kinds of praise to their new master. The peculiarity of these expressions of praise, however, is that they do not consist of words but of sounds produced by musical instruments, as well as by applause, feet, and, in the very middle of the poem, even a hinnitus. I argue that this poem emphasizes \"origins\" at different levels: it is the first poem in the entire collection, and it works as a praefatio to the following poem, a panegyric to the emperor Anthemius, but I will also argue that this poem invokes nothing less than the original violent process of giving significance to sounds. But Jupiter's \"semantic\" abuse acquires a subversive value when considered in its own textual environment; this poem suggests in an exemplary way the violent and repressive substance of imperial panegyric.","PeriodicalId":44750,"journal":{"name":"ARETHUSA","volume":"54 1","pages":"275 - 290"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41703631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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