Pub Date : 2024-05-08DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10254
Zhongxiao Wang
In this article, I aim to challenge previous interpretations of the phrase inscitia rei publicae ut alienae in Tacitus’ Histories 1.1.1, offering a new reading which has been overlooked in Tacitean scholarship. I argue that this phrase reflects Tacitus’ criticism of Augustan historians, who, in distancing themselves from the state, were no longer concerned with state affairs and abandoned historical writing. I trace parallels between Hist. 1.1.1 and Ann. 1.1.2, arguing that both texts refer synchronously to imperial historiography’s decline, which suggests that the inscitia rei publicae ut alienae emerged at the midpoint of Augustus’ reign. The rules that Augustus implemented to enforce the quorum for the senatorial assembly and the penalties imposed for absenteeism in 9 BC offer compelling evidence in support of this interpretation.
本文旨在对塔西佗《历史》1.1.1 中 "inscitia rei publicae ut alienae "这一短语的前人解释提出质疑,并提供一种被塔西佗学术研究忽视的新解读。我认为,这个短语反映了塔西佗对奥古斯都时期历史学家的批评,他们远离国家,不再关心国家事务,放弃了历史写作。我追溯了 Hist.1.1.1 和 Ann.1.1.2 之间的相似之处,认为这两段文字都同步提到了帝国史学的衰落,这表明 inscitia rei publicae ut alienae 出现在奥古斯都统治的中期。公元前 9 年,奥古斯都为执行元老院会议法定人数而实施的规则以及对缺席者的处罚为支持这一解释提供了有力的证据。
{"title":"The inscitia rei publicae ut alienae in the Preface to Tacitus’ Histories Revisited","authors":"Zhongxiao Wang","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10254","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, I aim to challenge previous interpretations of the phrase <em>inscitia rei publicae ut alienae</em> in Tacitus’ <em>Histories</em> 1.1.1, offering a new reading which has been overlooked in Tacitean scholarship. I argue that this phrase reflects Tacitus’ criticism of Augustan historians, who, in distancing themselves from the state, were no longer concerned with state affairs and abandoned historical writing. I trace parallels between <em>Hist</em>. 1.1.1 and <em>Ann</em>. 1.1.2, arguing that both texts refer synchronously to imperial historiography’s decline, which suggests that the <em>inscitia rei publicae ut alienae</em> emerged at the midpoint of Augustus’ reign. The rules that Augustus implemented to enforce the quorum for the senatorial assembly and the penalties imposed for absenteeism in 9 <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">BC</span> offer compelling evidence in support of this interpretation.</p>","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140925208","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}
Pub Date : 2024-05-08DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10248
Jaroslav Daneš
{"title":"The Surprising Proposal of the Chorus in Aeschylus’ Persians (795) to Reinvade Greece","authors":"Jaroslav Daneš","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10248","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141000209","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}
Pub Date : 2024-05-08DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10233
Alessandro Vatri
Emphasis is a ubiquitous notion in classical scholarship, but its vagueness has repeatedly been criticized (and its usefulness, consequently, questioned) by Greek linguists. This brief study seeks to identify (and secure) a place for this notion in the analytical toolbox for the description of Classical Greek by applying the strict but nuanced definition of emphasis in Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008) to the identification and classification of linguistic devices in the ancient language. In particular, this study argues for a distinction between emphasis as a rhetorical effect and emphasis as a communicative intention. In the former understanding, emphasis may be produced secondarily by a number of linguistic and rhetorical devices. Conversely, linguistic emphasis stricto sensu would only be conveyed by linguistic devices used primarily to intensify linguistic entities of any level (discourse acts, propositional contents, subacts).
{"title":"Pinpointing Linguistic Emphasis in Classical Greek","authors":"Alessandro Vatri","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10233","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Emphasis is a ubiquitous notion in classical scholarship, but its vagueness has repeatedly been criticized (and its usefulness, consequently, questioned) by Greek linguists. This brief study seeks to identify (and secure) a place for this notion in the analytical toolbox for the description of Classical Greek by applying the strict but nuanced definition of emphasis in Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008) to the identification and classification of linguistic devices in the ancient language. In particular, this study argues for a distinction between emphasis as a rhetorical effect and emphasis as a communicative intention. In the former understanding, emphasis may be produced secondarily by a number of linguistic and rhetorical devices. Conversely, linguistic emphasis stricto sensu would only be conveyed by linguistic devices used primarily to intensify linguistic entities of any level (discourse acts, propositional contents, subacts).","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141000137","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}
Pub Date : 2024-04-04DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10240
Iwona Słomak
This article aims to revise the editorial and interpretive tradition that regards Thy. 920-969 as a monody. Based on a systematic analysis of attribution differences in three selected plays by Seneca and, comparatively, in several other problematic places, it confirms earlier general findings: the A-branch of the MS tradition shows traces of conscious interpolation, while the codex Etruscus (E-branch) contains largely mechanical errors, which—in the case of Thy. 920-969—makes its attribution more plausible. The article further discusses the problematic passages of the ode that might have motivated interpolations, provides a critique of the interpretive assumptions supporting the A reading, and demonstrates that the attribution in the E-branch is correct in the light of the rules of Senecan poetics, as well as from the point of view of the internal logic of the text and the ethopoeia of the eponymous hero.
本文旨在修正将《诗经》920-969 视为单调的编辑和解释传统。920-969》是一部单曲。基于对塞内加所选三个剧本中的归属差异的系统分析,以及对其他几个存在问题的地方的比较,文章证实了之前的一般发现:MS 传统的 A 分支显示出有意识插补的痕迹,而 Etruscus 抄本(E 分支)则主要包含机械错误,这在 Thy.就 Thy.920-969 而言,这使其归属更为可信。文章进一步讨论了颂歌中可能导致插补的问题段落,对支持 A 读法的解释性假设进行了批判,并根据塞内卡诗学的规则,以及从文本的内在逻辑和同名英雄的伦理角度证明了 E 支本中的归属是正确的。
{"title":"Seneca’s Thyestes: Ode 920-969 as an Amoibaion","authors":"Iwona Słomak","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10240","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to revise the editorial and interpretive tradition that regards <jats:italic>Thy</jats:italic>. 920-969 as a monody. Based on a systematic analysis of attribution differences in three selected plays by Seneca and, comparatively, in several other problematic places, it confirms earlier general findings: the A-branch of the MS tradition shows traces of conscious interpolation, while the codex Etruscus (E-branch) contains largely mechanical errors, which—in the case of <jats:italic>Thy</jats:italic>. 920-969—makes its attribution more plausible. The article further discusses the problematic passages of the ode that might have motivated interpolations, provides a critique of the interpretive assumptions supporting the A reading, and demonstrates that the attribution in the E-branch is correct in the light of the rules of Senecan poetics, as well as from the point of view of the internal logic of the text and the ethopoeia of the eponymous hero.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140587687","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}
Pub Date : 2024-04-03DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10262
Jennifer Ferriss-Hill
Catullus poem 32 has traditionally been read as describing an afternoon assignation with a prostitute. The reinterpretation offered here reads the poem not as a one-off piece about a figure mentioned nowhere else in Catullus, but rather as a poem that connects with those in the Lesbia-cycle as well as with Catullus’ metapoetic project more broadly. Ipsitilla, I argue, acts as a Muse-like figure analogous to Lesbia, and the fututiones she prepares for Catullus at his request represent his neoteric poetry: erotic, clever, and about the process of writing.
{"title":"Catullus 32: Fututiones with Ipsitilla","authors":"Jennifer Ferriss-Hill","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10262","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Catullus poem 32 has traditionally been read as describing an afternoon assignation with a prostitute. The reinterpretation offered here reads the poem not as a one-off piece about a figure mentioned nowhere else in Catullus, but rather as a poem that connects with those in the Lesbia-cycle as well as with Catullus’ metapoetic project more broadly. Ipsitilla, I argue, acts as a Muse-like figure analogous to Lesbia, and the fututiones she prepares for Catullus at his request represent his neoteric poetry: erotic, clever, and about the process of writing.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140746774","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}
Pub Date : 2024-03-27DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10239
Loren D. Marsh
The meaning of the term mimesis when applied to artistic works in Aristotle’s Poetics is thought to be extrapolated from its dictionary definition of ‘imitation’. I argue that a key word in the single passage directly linking mimesis to imitation has been consistently misunderstood. A correct reading could indicate mimesis has a different definition in this particular text only indirectly related to its colloquial use. I conclude that mimesis in the Poetics may be a narrower technical term that refers to a particular kind of organization or arrangement of individual imitations within an artistic work.
{"title":"The Logic of Imitations","authors":"Loren D. Marsh","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10239","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The meaning of the term mimesis when applied to artistic works in Aristotle’s Poetics is thought to be extrapolated from its dictionary definition of ‘imitation’. I argue that a key word in the single passage directly linking mimesis to imitation has been consistently misunderstood. A correct reading could indicate mimesis has a different definition in this particular text only indirectly related to its colloquial use. I conclude that mimesis in the Poetics may be a narrower technical term that refers to a particular kind of organization or arrangement of individual imitations within an artistic work.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140375275","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}
Pub Date : 2024-03-27DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10263
Michael J. Taylor
{"title":"The Toga in Military Context","authors":"Michael J. Taylor","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10263","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140375530","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}
Pub Date : 2024-01-29DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10274
David Christenson
This review article of the Oxford Latin Syntax (Vols. I-II, 2015 and 2021) demonstrates how the communicative approach of Harm Pinkster’s monumental grammar complements recent revivals of oral, aural, and active Latin pedagogical methods. I conclude with examples of how Pinkster’s analysis of discourse may be applied to select passages (from Plautus’ Rudens, as a productive means of explicating dramaturgical and narratological matters there) in order to illustrate the OLS’s manifold potential for exploring discursive strategies of Latin texts generally.
{"title":"The Art of Communicative Grammar","authors":"David Christenson","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10274","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This review article of the <em>Oxford Latin Syntax</em> (Vols. I-II, 2015 and 2021) demonstrates how the communicative approach of Harm Pinkster’s monumental grammar complements recent revivals of oral, aural, and active Latin pedagogical methods. I conclude with examples of how Pinkster’s analysis of discourse may be applied to select passages (from Plautus’ Rudens, as a productive means of explicating dramaturgical and narratological matters there) in order to illustrate the OLS’s manifold potential for exploring discursive strategies of Latin texts generally.</p>","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139646508","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}
Pub Date : 2024-01-27DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10189
Joseph Zehner
The writings of both Hecataeus and Pherecydes focus on genealogies, but scholars have characterized their styles differently: Hecataeus is anti-traditional and idiosyncratic, while Pherecydes is an impartial recorder of myths. This contribution argues for a neglected side of each author: Hecataeus follows Homeric genealogical traditions, while Pherecydes constructed novel genealogies of his own. Both authors, then, used tradition to accommodate, or ‘anchor,’ their innovations in genealogical writing, a strategy which Herodotus, in turn, improves upon in his own use of genealogies.
{"title":"Anchoring Genealogy","authors":"Joseph Zehner","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10189","url":null,"abstract":"The writings of both Hecataeus and Pherecydes focus on genealogies, but scholars have characterized their styles differently: Hecataeus is anti-traditional and idiosyncratic, while Pherecydes is an impartial recorder of myths. This contribution argues for a neglected side of each author: Hecataeus follows Homeric genealogical traditions, while Pherecydes constructed novel genealogies of his own. Both authors, then, used tradition to accommodate, or ‘anchor,’ their innovations in genealogical writing, a strategy which Herodotus, in turn, improves upon in his own use of genealogies.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583249","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}