The Double Entendre of Paul’s Trade as σκηνοποιός (Acts 18:3)

The word σκηνοποιός (Acts 18:3), a hapax legomenon, has been the subject of intense scrutiny because it may disclose the socio-economic nature of Paul’s trade. However, attempts to reconstruct historically his trade have not confidently identified its accurate historical reference. Since this difficulty derives from Luke’s choice of vocabulary—he uses a word that is very rare in the canon of Greco-Roman literature—this study attends to the word’s rhetorical setting that may explain Luke’s lexical choice. This choice would enhance the word’s symbolic value although weakening its referential value. Σκηνοποιός is plausibly an instance of Lukan etymological wordplay that draws on the continued symbolism of σκηνή in Luke-Acts—a term that captures Luke’s restoration eschatology.

Quintilian as a Literary Critic

This chapter is devoted to the study of the Institutio oratoria as a complex space in which Quintilian, in addition to developing an education manual, a rhetorical treatise, and an essay on the orator’s moral duties and obligations, also includes theoretical reflections on literary criticism as well as analysis and assessments of specific literary works. In this sense, this chapter studies Quintilian as a literary critic. From a general and theoretical point of view, it reviews the relations established within the framework of the Institutio oratoria between literary criticism and poetarum enarratio, or exegesis of poetic texts, which should be practised by grammar students before continuing to the study of rhetoric. This review forces us to reconsider the question of the interdependence that exists between grammar and rhetoric as classical sciences of discourse. From an applicative and practical perspective, the chapter stresses the importance of Book 10 for a better knowledge of the literary critical analyses and evaluations that Quintilian makes of the most important works and authors of Greek and Roman literature, always in relation to its usefulness for the orator’s training through the exercise of reading and on the basis of the principle of imitation of literary models, which not only include poetic texts, but also historical, philosophical, and rhetorical texts. Finally, the chapter reviews the theory of Attic, Asianic, and Rhodian styles in Quintilian’s thinking and his defence of the one which, even defined by hybridization, best adapts itself to the pragmatic-communicative requirements of the rhetorical fact.

Non est mea pigra senectus: Old Women and Folk Medicine in Greco-roman Literature

This paper will examine the old-woman healer figure through Greco-Roman literary sources. First, I will discuss briefly the social reputation of old women in comparison with senex and the creation of a negative stereotype around them. After that, I will focus on the triple relation between woman, old age, and medicine in order to show the reputation of old women as skilled healers. Finally, I will analyse the use of different treatments close to magic, like enchantments and purifications, and the healings of some specific illnesses, such as love, to conclude with a brief overview of the political and social attitude towards them.

THE LATEST FOREIGN RESEARCH ON HYPERBOREA (2010-2020)

Статья посвящается анализу ряда исследований, касающихся мифологемы Гипербореи и появившихся в зарубежной научной литературе в последнее десятилетие (2010-2020 гг.) В России тема Гипербореи до известной степени дискредитирована интересом к ней многочисленных эзотериков и националистов; в зарубежных изданиях интерес к данной теме, однако, не затухает. Норвежский филолог П. Сандин вскрывает культурно-политическую подоплеку древних концепций географической принадлежности Гипербореи, в т. ч. Пиндара, намеренно сделавшего из гиперборейцев своего рода «антискифов». Плодом кропотливой работы Сандина стал подробнейший каталог гиперборейцев, упомянутых в античной литературе от Пиндара и Геродота до византийских грамматиков и историков. Польский историк Я. Хохоровски на основании археологических материалов делает предположение, что «гипербореями» делосцы называли народы, жившие с северной стороны Карпат, в бассейне Вислы и Варты. Белградские ученые А. Палавестра и М. Милосавлевич демонстрируют, как легко может стать политически ангажированной любая версия географической принадлежности Гипербореи. Делают они это на примерах М. Васича, отождествившего Гиперборею с открытой им древнейшей цивилизацией Винча, М. Будимира, узнавшего в гипербореях славян, и Д. Гарашанина, локализовавшего Гиперборею в Подунавье. Итальянский религиовед М. Интровинье вскрывает эзотерические основания костариканского национализма, обращающегося к гипербореанской метафорике для обоснования исключительности своей нации. Дж. Арнольд (Варшава) анализирует концепцию Гипербореи в творчестве основоположника традиционализма Р. Генона. Л. Уэбб (Гётеборг) исследует способы бытования мифов о Туле и Гиперборее в римской литературе от Катулла до Сидония Аполлинария. The article is devoted to the analysis of a number of studies concerning the myth of Hyperborea that appeared in foreign scientific literature in the last decade (2010-2020). In Russia, the topic of Hyperborea is to a certain extent discredited by the interest of numerous esotericists and nationalists; in foreign publications, however interest in this topic does not fade. The Norwegian philologist P. Sandin reveals the cultural and political background of the ancient concepts of the geographical affiliation of Hyperborea, for example, that of Pindar, who deliberately made a kind of «anti-Scythians» out of the Hyperboreans. The fruit of Sandin's painstaking work was a detailed catalog of the Hyperboreans mentioned in ancient literature from Pindar and Herodotus to Byzantine grammarians and historians. The Polish historian J. Chokhorowski, on the basis of archaeological materials, makes the assumption that the Delians called the peoples who lived on the northern side of the Carpathians, in the basin of the Vistula and Warta, «Hyperboreans». Belgrade scientists A. Palavestra and M. Milosavlevich demonstrate how easily any version of the geographical affiliation of Hyperborea can become politically engaged. They do this on the examples of M. Vasich, who identified Hyperborea with the discovered by him ancient civilization of Vinch; M. Budimir, who recognized the Slavs in Hyperborea; D. Garashanin, who placed Hyperborea in the Danube. The Italian religious scholar M. Introvigne reveals the esoteric foundations of Costa Rican nationalism, which turns to the Hyperborean metaphor to substantiate the exclusiveness of his nation. J. Arnold (Warsaw) analyzes the concept of Hyperborea in the works of the founder of traditionalism R. Guénon. L. Webb (Gothenburg) explores the ways in which the myths of Thule and Hyperborea were used in Roman literature from Catullus to Sidonius Apollinarius.

The Solitary Sphere in the Age of Virgil

The Solitary Sphere in the Age of Virgil uses an enriched tripartite model of Roman culture—touching not only the public and the private, but also the solitary—in order to present a new interpretation of Latin literature and of the historical causes of this third sphere’s relative invisibility in scholarship. By connecting Cosmos and Imperium to the Individual, the solitary sphere was not so much a way of avoiding politics as a political education in itself. As reimagined by literature in this age, this sphere was an essential space for the formation of the new Roman citizen of the Augustan revolution, and was behind many of the notable features of the literary revolution of Virgil’s age: the expansion of the possibilities of the book of poetry, the birth of the literary cursus, new coordinations of cosmology and politics within strictly organized schemes, the attraction of first-person genres, and the subjective style. Through close readings of Cicero’s late works and the oeuvres of Virgil, Horace, and Propertius and the works of other authors in the age of Virgil, The Solitary Sphere thus presents a radical reinterpretation of classical Roman literature, and contributes to the study of premodern culture more generally, especially for traditions that have taken antiquity as too fixed a point in their own literary, religious, and cultural histories.