Catalogue Technique in Dionysius Periegetes

Ramus ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 11-31
Author(s):  
J.L. Lightfoot
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
First Century ◽  
General Context ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Textual Tradition ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Hellenistic Poetry

Dionysios gehört zu den interessantesten Problemen der griechischen Literaturgeschichte.Knaack (1905) 916.34f.Within the general context of increasing interest in Greek literature in the Roman period, interest in Dionysius the Periegete is certainly on the rise. Our knowledge of his extensive textual tradition is still expanding, and further editions are under way; the ideologies that structure his work have been explored in a series of publications by Christian Jacob (1990, 1991); and the welcome increase in the volume of publications over the last five years or so includes a collection of essays which is especially geared to one of my themes in this essay, Dionysius' relations with Hellenistic poetry and poets. Yet there are some basic aspects of his poetics that remain un-, or under-, studied. At the heart of the matter, I suggest, are two major backgrounds that need to be explored further.The first is the reception of Hellenistic poetry in the imperial period. Dionysius is a neo-Hellenistic poet. Indeed, he is so convincing a neo-Hellenistic poet that a critic as astute as Tycho Mommsen placed him in the first century BCE on the basis of a whole array of stylistic and metrical and other sorts of linguistic criteria. Dionysius' true date has been known for a century and a quarter; but we are really none the wiser about what it was that gave rise to this extraordinarily competent and convincing Hellenistic imitation. It is not only that he imitates Apollonius, Callimachus, Nicander, Aratus and others in purple passages of his own, but that so many of his techniques of composition and allusion, and—as this paper will demonstrate—his formal evocation of certain styles of writing, are thoroughly Hellenistic. So the first thing that is needed is an exploration of the various ways in which imperial writers respond to the masters of the high Hellenistic period, and their successors: is Dionysius a representative of a special and distinctive strain in imperial poetics, or is he a particular instance of something more multiform and complex?

sexuality, textual representation of

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn B. Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Love Elegy ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Hellenistic Poetry ◽  
City State

The basic dominance-submission model of sexual relations, involving a hierarchical distinction between the active and passive roles, was the same in Greek and Roman cultures and remained unchanged throughout classical antiquity. However, we find subtle modifications reflected in the literary tradition from the Homeric age to imperial Rome. In Homer and Hesiod, heterosexual relations are the only recognized form of sexual congress, and consensual sex is mutually pleasurable. Forced sex, in the form of abduction and rape, also occurs in epic narrative. Pederasty became a literary theme in Greek lyric poetry of the archaic age. In classical Athens, discourses of sexuality were tied to political ideology, because self-control was a civic virtue enabling the free adult male householder to manage his estate correctly and serve the city-state in war and peace. Tragedy illustrates the dire impact of unbridled erōs, while comedy mocks those who trespass against moderation or violate gender norms, and forensic oratory seeks to disqualify such offenders from participating in government. Philosophical schools disagreed over the proper place of erōs in a virtuous life. While pederastic relations dominated discussions of love in philosophic works, romantic affairs between men and women received greater attention in Hellenistic poetry, in keeping with an increased emphasis on shared pleasure and reciprocal emotional satisfaction. During the late Republic and the Augustan age, Roman authors incorporated erotic motifs from archaic lyric and Hellenistic epigram into their own first-person love poems. The genre of love elegy, in which the poet-lover professes himself enslaved to a harsh mistress, became widely popular during Augustus’ reign but disappeared shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, Lucretius’ didactic epic On the Nature of Things, and Vergil’s Aeneid, a heroic account of the founding of Rome, both treat erotic obsession as destructive. In the Imperial period, elite anxieties were displaced onto concerns about gender deviance on the part of males and females alike: the figures of the cinaedus and the tribas were castigated in moralizing poetry, especially satire and satiric epigram. Roman novels focused upon the sexual escapades of marginal displaced types. Under Roman rule, on the other hand, Greek literature saw a new flowering in the Second Sophistic movement. While pederasty remained a favorite subject, hotly championed against heterosexual relations in prose treatises, the Greek novel explored a new model of heterosexuality in which premarital chastity and mutual fidelity appear to anticipate later Christian values.

scholarly journals APPIAN THE ARTIST: RHYTHMIC PROSE AND ITS LITERARY IMPLICATIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 788-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.O. Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
First Job

If we had no idea which parts of Greek literature in a certain period were poetry or prose, we would regard it as our first job to find out. How much of the Greek prose of the Imperial period is rhythmic has excited less attention; and yet the question should greatly affect both our reading of specific texts and our understanding of the whole literary scene. By ‘rhythmic’ prose, this article means only prose that follows the Hellenistic system of rhythm started, it is said, by Hegesias, and adopted by Cicero and by many Latin writers of the Imperial period. Estimates of how much Greek Imperial prose is rhythmic have long varied drastically. Some experts suggest that all or much artistic Greek prose in the period is rhythmic, others that what little there is fades out after the first century a.d., as part of the victory of Atticism. There has been fairly little substantial work on rhythmic prose in the first three centuries a.d. for over fifty years (more on accentual prose from the fourth). The object of this article is to investigate a large part of one author's work thoroughly, and to establish that that part is rhythmic. It will also aim to show how that conclusion should greatly affect our whole conception of the author as a writer, and our reading of his every sentence.

New evidence of metallurgical production during the Ptolemaic period in the ancient harbor of Berenike (Eastern Desert) in Egypt

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Oller Guzmán
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Desert ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Metallurgical Furnace ◽  
Metallurgical Production ◽  
First Results ◽  
Southwestern Area ◽  
Productive Structure ◽  
New Evidence

This paper tries to explain the first results obtained on trench 102, located on the southwestern area of the ancient harbour of Berenike. Chronologically the trench runs from the Late Hellenistic to Roman Period, showing different uses of this area during Antiquity. Some of the data recovered are quite interesting in order to understand the evolution of this scarcely known area of Berenike’s harbor. The identification of a metallurgical furnace related to the Late Hellenistic Period is especially remarkable, as it provides some insights about the structure of this zone under the last Ptolemaic rulers. So, the main objective of the paper is to offer new data about the productive structure of this site during the Ptolemaic period with special focus on the metallurgical production.

A Riddling Recipe?

Mnemosyne ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-615
Author(s):  
Floris Overduin
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Tone Of Voice ◽  
Detailed Interpretation

AbstractThis article provides a detailed interpretation and suggests a literary background for the brief (26 verses) elegiac recipe against colic (SH690), written by Philo of Tarsus in the first centuryAD. Although on one level it is a serious pharmacological prescription, on another level it is also a literary piece, concerned with a marked tone of voice, Homeric play, and general display ofpaideia. Particularly its play of substituting certain ingredients with mythological riddles is striking. Its appeal to both doctors and men of culture fits the intellectual pattern of the culture of the Second Sophistic. As a poetic hybrid it also plays on different genres inherited from the previous Hellenistic era. Moreover, it constitutes a telling example of the late subgenre of elegiac pharmacology, in an era in which elegiac had all but vanished from Greek literature.

scholarly journals The Kosmētai Portraits in Third Century Athens. Recutting, Style, Context and Patronage

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 139-167
Author(s):  
Marina Prusac
Keyword(s):  
Building Material ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Public Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Written Sources

Portraits of a group of thirty kosmētai, public philosophy teachers in Athens, were found among the fill in the Valerian Wall by the Roman Agora in Athens in 1861. From the Hellenistic period onwards, the kosmētai had taught the philosophy or Aristotle, though, with time, the teaching became more varied. In the first century AD, the number of students had a peak of three hundred a year. In the third century, when the portraits were buried in the Valerian Wall, the number of students had decreased, much as it had in other pedagogic institutions. The activity of the kosmētai ended about AD 280 when the Valerian Wall was built. The dating of the Valerian Wall is based on coins with the portrait of emperor Probus (AD 276-282), which have been found among the building debris. What we know about the kosmētai from the written sources leads to several questions, such as why the kosmētai portraits were used as building material at a time when the identity of the sitters could sill be remembered. Why were some of the portraits recut into those of other individuals shortly before they were put into the wall? Some of the kosmētai portraits were produced recut and discarded during the span of a few decades. This paper discusses the portraits of the kosmētai and their significance in Roman Athens and explores questions related to the disposal of them, as well as to context, style, workshop, and patronage.

scholarly journals A Celtic Cult and Two Sites in Roman Galatia

1910 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. C. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Sacrifice

Eleven years ago I contributed to the Journal an account of exploration in Galatia, and in summarizing the evidence which it supplied as to the civilization of Galatia, I pointed out that the Celtic conquerors assimilated the culture of the conquered Phrygians without seriously modifying its character. And more particularly in the religious sphere I observed that the evidence indicated that the religion prevailing in the Imperial period was ‘purely Phrygian: there is no trace of any Celtic cult…The new settlers perforce adopted the native cultus: for it was always necessary to “know the manner of the god of the land” (2 Kings, xvii. 26). Doubtless they identified their gods with the Phrygian, and did not keep up any separate cult: otherwise it would be incredible that no trace of it should have remained.’A similar view was expressed in the following year by Sir W. M. Ramsay. ‘Few traces,’ he says, ‘of the old Gaulish religion can be detected in Galatia. It would be difficult to mention any except the sacrifice of captives, which was practised as late as B.C. 160, and presumably the rites at Drynemeton. It is hardly probable that the Gaulish religion was wholly disused or forgotten in the last century B.C. But certainly almost all the references—unfortunately very few—to Galatic religion point to the rapid adoption of the ancient and impressive cult of Cybele… The Galatians may perhaps have modified to some degree the character of the Phrygian ritual by their own nature and customs, as both the Phryges and the Greeks did. But we have no evidence on this point.’ His survey ends with the observation that in the inscriptions of the Roman period no allusion is made to any religion except that of the old Phrygian gods and that of the Emperors.

Did the Ancients Care When their Children Died?

1988 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Golden
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Correct Answer ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Imperial Period

Did the ancients care when their children died? The question is blunt, but not straightforward. How are we to define ‘care’? Whose children – anyone's, family members', one's own? Any thorough answer must be correspondingly complex, taking into account variables of many different kinds. So, for example, it has been argued that mothers cared for their children more than fathers, that very young children were missed less than older ones, that urban and servile populations tended to commemorate young children with gravestones more than others, that variations in burial practices among Greek communities may ‘suggest varying degrees of affection on the part of the parents’, that care for children increased in the later fifth century in Athens or in the Hellenistic period in Greece or in the later Republic or the Imperial period at Rome. In this paper, I make no claim to the nuanced and sophisticated presentation these difficulties demand; I will present evidence from various genres, referring to diverse places and times, concerning children from a range of ages. My aim is modest: to consider two arguments that have been applied to this subject. My question has been raised several times within the last few years, each time by first-rate scholars, and these have given what I think is clearly the correct answer. Yet that answer has not been expressed as firmly as it might be; and in giving it some have raised an issue which needs clarification. Let these be my excuses for opening the question again.

A Survey of Lyric Genres in Hellenistic Poetry: the Hymn. Transformation, Adaptation, Experimentation

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
SILVIA BARBANTANI
Keyword(s):  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
The People ◽  
Hellenistic Poetry

The paper is the first part of S. Barbantani’s contribution Lyric for the Rulers, Lyric for the People: The Transformation of Some Lyric Subgenres in Hellenistic Poetry, in E. Sistakou (ed.), Hellenistic Lyricism: Traditions and Transformations of a Literary Mode (Trends in Classics 9, 2), Berlin - Boston 2017, 339-399 (which discusses encomiastic lyric, epinikion in Callimachus, Posidippus and inscriptional epigram, literary epithalamia, threnoi and epikedeia, poems in stichic lyric meters, Carmina popularia, anthologies for symposiastic use and mimes). This contribution analyses how some of the main lyric genres, developed in archaic and classical Greek poetry, underwent transformation in the Hellenistic period, following social, political and cultural changes. The paper specifically explores lyric poetry produced ‘for the gods’ (hymns, esp. paeans, preserved on stone and on papyrus).

The Origin of Romano-British Glass Bangles: Forgotten Artefacts from the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age

Britannia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 7-52
Author(s):  
Tatiana Ivleva
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
First Century ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Cultural Processes

AbstractThis article reviews the emergence and development of Romano-British glass bangles in southern Britain by providing a fresh analysis of finds that also considers recent theoretical and historical advances in interpreting the transition from the late Iron Age to the Roman period. By analysing the emergence of bangles in terms of technological and stylistic transfer, it suggests that the technology used in their production and their visual elements have continental lineage. It also situates bangles amid indigenous developments in bodily adornments in southern Britain before a.d. 43. By reconnecting British bangles with their continental European counterparts and contextualising them within political, social and cultural processes in south-western England during the late pre-Roman Iron Age, the article argues that the emergence of bangles in Britain did not occur in a vacuum after the Claudian invasion in a.d. 43 but formed an integral part of globalising networks of cross-Channel trade and connections with the European mainland in the early first century a.d.

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