Redness as Perceived through the Eyes of the Romans

The article is an attempt to revise the long-established belief in the alabaster-white exterior shape of Roman antiquity, which in fact turns out to be full of colours that bring life to its image. The authors implement this intention by indicating how intensely the colour red was present in the reality described by classical Latin authors – contrary to the accusation that one of the participants of the discussion on this subject in Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights (Gell. Noc. Att. 2.26) makes of the alleged poverty regarding various shades of red in Latin terminology. The material presented contradicts the opinion expressed in Gellius’ text, and at the same time makes us realise how colourful and lively the world that emerges from the literary works of the classical Roman period was. In comparison with it, the reality witnessed by the literature of the Christian era – this parallel is what the authors of the article focus on, concluding their deliberations – in which red becomes almost exclusively a sign of shame, turns out to be ascetically sterile and depressingly colourless.

CZYM JEST MUNICYPIUM I CZYM SIĘ RÓŻNI OD KOLONII ORAZ KIM SĄ OBYWATELE MUNICYPIUM AULUS. GELLIUS, ‘NOCE ATTYCKIE’ 16,13 TEKST - TŁUMACZENIE - KOMENTARZ

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Miscellaneous Mastery: Reading Clement of Alexandria

The aim of this learned and enterprising book is to elucidate the structure and intention of Clement's Stromateis by comparing it with pagan texts from the first and second centuries of our era which belong, as we might now say, to the same genre. This term, which is chaperoned by quotation marks on p. 15, has proved itself heuristically indispensable, but has no closer equivalent in ancient Greek than genos, which is as likely to denote the style or metre of a work as its place in a critical taxonomy. Strict conventions governed versification and the composition of speeches for given occasions, but it is we who have all but invented the epyllion and coined our own names for the novel, the autobiography and the didactic poem. While Heath proposes on p. 138 to render Stromateis as ‘layout’, ‘miscellany’ is the term that is now most commonly applied to this and other ancient texts whose amorphous character seems to resist taxonomy. As Heath observes, however (p. 24), there are all too many specimens of Greek and Latin writing which are in some sense miscellaneous: she might have quoted the thesis of her namesake, Malcolm Heath, that abrupt transitions, divagations and surprises were not aberrations from the classical norm, but calculated devices to heighten the pleasure or whet the interest of the reader, both in poetry and in prose. The culture of ubiquitous imitation was also a culture of unceasing improvisation, and both practices are amply illustrated in Heath's comparison of the Stromateis with four books from the second century to which it bears an obvious resemblance: the Natural history of Pliny the Elder, the Convivial questions of Plutarch, the Attic nights of Aulus Gellius and the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus.

Self-Education and Late-Learners in The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius

<p>This thesis was motivated by expressions of self-education during the early Roman Empire, an unusual topic that has never before been studied in detail. The elite cultural perspective nearly always ensured that Latin authors presented the topos of self-education as a case of social embarrassment or status dissonance that needed to be resolved, with these so-called autodidacts characterised as intellectual arrivistes. But the material remains written by self-educated men and women are expressed in more personal terms, complicating any simple definition and hinting at another side. The first half of this thesis builds a theory of self-education by outlining the social structures that contributed to the phenomenon and by investigating the means and the motivation likely for the successful and practical-minded autodidact. This framework is influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, whose work on culture, class, and education integrated similar concerns within a theory of habitus. As with other alternatives to the conventional upbringing of the educated classes, attempts at self-education were inevitable but ultimately futile. An autodidact by definition missed out on the manners, gestures, and morals that came with the formal education and daily inculcation supplied by the traditional Roman household. In most instances it is unlikely that education could ever have contributed to social mobility. The latter half of this thesis treats Gellius's Attic Nights as a case study of self-education on two levels. A self-consciously recherche miscellany, the Nights at once encourages respectable gentlemen to improve themselves with a short-cut to culture, yet also humiliates any socially marginal figures attempting to educate themselves. This process reproduces the social order by undermining the integrity of any rivals to the elite cultural model while at the same time lionising the author and members of his circle as intellectual 'vigilantes'.</p>

Self-Education and Late-Learners in The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius

<p>This thesis was motivated by expressions of self-education during the early Roman Empire, an unusual topic that has never before been studied in detail. The elite cultural perspective nearly always ensured that Latin authors presented the topos of self-education as a case of social embarrassment or status dissonance that needed to be resolved, with these so-called autodidacts characterised as intellectual arrivistes. But the material remains written by self-educated men and women are expressed in more personal terms, complicating any simple definition and hinting at another side. The first half of this thesis builds a theory of self-education by outlining the social structures that contributed to the phenomenon and by investigating the means and the motivation likely for the successful and practical-minded autodidact. This framework is influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, whose work on culture, class, and education integrated similar concerns within a theory of habitus. As with other alternatives to the conventional upbringing of the educated classes, attempts at self-education were inevitable but ultimately futile. An autodidact by definition missed out on the manners, gestures, and morals that came with the formal education and daily inculcation supplied by the traditional Roman household. In most instances it is unlikely that education could ever have contributed to social mobility. The latter half of this thesis treats Gellius's Attic Nights as a case study of self-education on two levels. A self-consciously recherche miscellany, the Nights at once encourages respectable gentlemen to improve themselves with a short-cut to culture, yet also humiliates any socially marginal figures attempting to educate themselves. This process reproduces the social order by undermining the integrity of any rivals to the elite cultural model while at the same time lionising the author and members of his circle as intellectual 'vigilantes'.</p>

Gellius and Gallus on the Limits of Regret

Aulus Gellius reports a set of criticisms of Cicero raised by Asinius Gallus. The criticisms include the claim that Cicero uses the notion of regret (paenitentia) incorrectly by implying that regret may be an appropriate response to something not voluntarily performed or chosen. This claim is assessed in the light both of the general picture of ancient accounts of regret assembled so far and also in the light of R. Jay Wallace’s recent account of the limits of regret and the relationship between regret and affirmation. This returns to the discussion of what a virtuous person may and may not regret.

W JAKIM WIEKU, Z JAKIEJ RODZINY I WEDŁUG JAKIEGO RYTUAŁU DZIEWICA WESTALSKA JEST ZABIERANA PRZEZ PRZEWODNICZĄCEGO KOLEGIUM PONTYFIKÓW. AULUS GELLIUS, ‘NOCE ATTyCKIE’ 1,12 TEKST – TŁUMACZENIE – KOMENTARZ

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Platonic tradition and Early Modern theory of epidemics

Most of the studies on the history of medicine, pay special attention to how the plague epidemics in 14th–16th centuries had changed the medical theory and practice. In the medical discourse, those epidemics helped to shape the “epistemology of particulars (particularia)” which contrast with the scholastic epistemology dealing with the search of universal causes. Marsilio Ficino, one of the most influential natural philosophers of the Renaissance, combines scholastic medicine and philosophy of ancient authors in order to develop his theory of epidemics in the treatises Consilio contra la pestilentia and De vita. He identifies the external and internal causes of plague and describes ways to combat the disease. The external cause is the constellations of planets which cause putrid exhalation in certain territories that is an example of conventional scholastic epistemology dealing with mass diseases. The internal cause is identified with the inability of the body to resist the disease “from within”. The main focus of my paper is the argument that, according to Ficino, philosophers have a special ability to resist disease “from within”. The figure of Socrates and his ability to withstand the Plague of Athens allows Ficino to formulate a new take on epidemics which falls within the scope of “epistemology of particulars”. From the historical point of view, the novelty of my approach comes from the fact that I trace the source of Ficino’s knowledge about Socrates’ disease resistance ability to Noct. Att. 2.1. of Aulus Gellius. Ficino’s natural philosophy suggests that a philosopher from their very birth is “by nature” predisposed to philosophical contemplation, therefore the realization of their vital destination through multiple sympathetic connections affects all levels of the universe. Ficino’s doctrine has a social and political dimension since a philosopher (i.e. a platonist), attracting positive astral influences, levels the effect of negative “heavenly” causes of mass diseases and thus benefits all people around him. Thus, the practice of philosophy (i.e. Platonism in Ficino’s interpretation) during epidemics is not simply a form of leisure time or private activity for a philosopher but a form of concern for public health. The paper also offers a commented Russian translation of chapters 1–2, with the Proem, of Ficino’s treatise Consilio contra la pestilentia.

Notes on the history of ancient classicism

The article discusses the genesis of classicism in the Antiquity. At first, we give a brief retrospective review of the concept of “classic” until to the Renaissance, then the emergence on this concept in Aulus Gellius and Cicero. Further, we present a retrospective history of the classical tendency on the example of the disputes between Asians and Atticists, neoterics and lovers of old poetry, and in the ancient attitude towards the plastic arts. Hereafter the article focuses on the Hellenistic poets and philologists and, finally, we trace the origin of the classical tendency in the classical age – particularly, the creation of lists of «selected writers», the development of artistic canons and the relationship between classicism in arts and the pursuit of the old and «good» mores.