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Copyright of Lampas is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lampas is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lampas is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Lampas is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the fourth century, Christianity developed from a persecuted religion to the only official religion of the Roman Empire. Written sources suggest that this came at the expense of religious tolerance. Egypt and Syria play an important role in this narrative. In this article, I argue that the practice of religious life was much more nuanced than the writings suggest at first glance. This argument is illustrated by means of several case studies pertaining to Egypt and Syria during the third and fourth centuries, using traditional literary sources, papyri as well as remains of material culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘[Congenital eunuchs] form a third class of half men, in addition to hermaphrodites and eunuchs.’ In his Natural History, Pliny identifies (congenital) eunuchs and hermaphrodites as gender variables that are neither male nor female. These gender variables are heuristically called the third gender, which offers the opportunity for scholars to study gender variables that do not conform to a binary sex/gender system of male and female. These gender variables have always existed and various historical environments have discussed who and what they are and how to place them in society. As Pliny demonstrates, ancient Rome discussed the third gender as well. Unfortunately, these debates are generally overlooked by academia. Therefore, by means of an introduction to the third gender, this article examines medical and legal sources that discuss the perception and regulation of eunuchs and hermaphrodites as a third gender. In this article, I will argue that studying the third gender exposes (implicit) ideas and ontologies about the binary gender system and notions of masculinity and femininity. As a result, this article forms an important introductory historical perspective to modern gender debates about gender variables and the binary system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the many languages allegedly spoken by Cleopatra VII (Plutarch, Life of Antony 27.2-4) were part of a court ritual and should be understood in the context of imperial ideology and rhetoric. They can be read as a blueprint of Cleopatra’s (imagined) empire, a blueprint which consists of regions that were claimed by the Ptolemies more often: the Red Sea, Nubia, Egypt, Nabataea, and the Levant, with the addition of the former Seleucid Upper Satrapies, yet to be conquered by Mark Antony, which Cleopatra, because of her Seleucid ancestry, could claim as her inheritance. This rhetoric stands in a Near Eastern and Egyptian tradition of summing up the peoples that constitute the world empire, and emphasizing control over faraway lands. Another important conclusion to be drawn from Plutarch’s list of languages, is that African populations to the south of Egypt, too, featured prominently in Cleopatra’s imperial rhetoric – something that our Mediterranean-focused narrative sources, as well as most modern historians, are usually not very interested in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Acropolis of Athens enjoys a very wide popularity among scholars and the general public. Our understanding of the site depends on the application of names transmitted in ancient texts to extant structures. However, this is a difficult undertaking and the current interpretations of the topography of the Acropolis are beset with problems. The present article is a succinct rendering of two earlier articles in which the author challenges the conventional identifications of two buildings mentioned in ancient texts: a treasury called Parthenōn (normally identified with a part of the Great Temple of Athena) and a sanctuary called Erechtheion (normally identified with all or part of the Karyatid Temple). Whereas these buildings are normally discussed separately, they are here studied together for the first time. The author proposes to identify the Parthenōn treasury with the west part of the Karyatid Temple (conventionally known as the Erechtheion) on the north side of the Acropolis, in which the (Ancient) Temple of Athena Polias was also located. An alternative name for the Parthenōn treasury may have been Temple of Pandrosos. In turn, the Erechtheion was possibly located on the foundation in the middle of the Acropolis discovered by Wilhelm Dörpfeld in 1885. It may have been known in inscriptions as the Kekropion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, scholars have mainly studied the autobiographical practices of Flavius Josephus to recover the life and thought of this Jewish author. The controversial aspects of Josephus’ life story have resulted in a clear bias of some scholars against this Jewish historian and doubts about his motives for writing so elaborately about his past. The present article breaks with this trend by offering a literary analysis of Josephus’ self-presentation as author of, and literary character in, the Life, an autobiographical text which was originally appended to the Jewish Antiquities. First, I discuss the nature of character (ἦθος) in ancient rhetoric and its potential relevance for interpreting historiographical texts. Using this interpretive framework, I examine several key passages from the Life – in particular the apologetic digression addressed to Justus and the inhabitants of Tiberias – and interpret these in light of the literary relationship of the Life with the Antiquities and the claims to authority Josephus advances in that text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I take a look at two lyric poems: fragment 31 of Sappho and fragment 130B of Alcaeus. The first-person speakers in these two poems were commonly identified with their authors in antiquity. I argue that this was not the case when the poems were first performed on Lesbos. For the original audience these first-person speakers were general and would not necessarily have been identified with either Sappho or Alcaeus. Other people on Lesbos who performed these poems as songs could identify with them as well. It was only when the poems left the island and were reperformed in cities like Athens that the gap between first-person speaker and performer became so great that the question arose who the first-person speaker might have been. He or she was then identified with Sappho and Alcaeus, and the author, as the autobiographical subject of his or her poetry, was born. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the story of Iphidamas in Iliad 11, this article argues that the presentation of war in the Iliad and Odyssey is mostly negative, with strong emphasis on its many victims and the suffering and losses on both sides. Within this context, the idea of κλέος (‘fame’) is found mainly as a motivation to join the war or to engage in the fighting. The victims’ family and friends do not find comfort in it, as we can see very clearly in the cases of Patroklos and Hektor. Nor do the heroes themselves, confronted with a premature and often cruel death, find any comfort in the prospect of fame. Consequently, κλέος appears as a kind of illusion that tempts men to go to war, but in the end has nothing to offer them. Only later generations and people far removed from the actual events can enjoy the κλέα ἀνδρῶν. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Aeneid, the recurrent themes of 'construction' and 'destruction' (the topic of the Latin final exam of 2020) can be connected to generic roles. Dido, founder of Carthage, is presented progressively in elegiac terms, as is suggested by a number of echoes of Sapphic love poetry; as a character, she is guided primarily by personal motives. Dido's 'elegiac role' forebodes her own destruction and that of her city. Aeneas, on the other hand, needs to adhere to his epic role as founder of the new Trojan/Roman nation, in order to avert destruction and the repetition of Troy's fate. When during his stay in Carthage he starts to show signs of transforming into an elegiac lover, the gods intervene and put him back onto the epic track: the public interest should take precedence over personal feelings. This opposition between elegiac Dido and epic Aeneas may grant insight into Vergil's message for his contemporaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the rhetorical style of Augustus' Res Gestae. Ancient sources, including Suetonius (Life of Augustus 86), describe Augustus' style in terms of elegantia and temperantia. These qualities are indeed characteristic of the style of the emperor's private letters (of which some fragments survive) and the Res Gestae. Augustus' style was influenced by his great uncle Julius Caesar and his Greek teacher of rhetoric Apollodorus of Pergamon. There are striking parallels between the ancient descriptions of Augustus' style and the theories of style in Greek rhetorical treatises of Augustan Rome. In adopting a sober style, Augustus aimed at presenting himself with the authority of a moderate man, who was to be admired throughout the empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time the text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti was studied mainly as a political or historical document. Yet recent criticism has capitalized on its primary function, that of an inscription on bronze slabs adjoining the entrance of Augustus' Mausoleum on the Field of Mars in Rome. The present article continues the exploration of the text's functioning in that original position, interpreting it in the light of its monumental context and vice versa. In particular, the hypothesis that a bronze exemplar of the Augustus of Prima Porta was the statue that topped Augustus' Mausoleum is considered from this perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Roman poet Martial is famous for his humorous epigrams, which often poke fun at people or alleged wrongs in contemporary Rome. But there is much more to Martial, as an illustrative analysis of book 1 shows. Roughly half of the book appears to be devoted to themes that are not directly or obviously funny. There are, for instance, metaliterary poems, series of poems developing one theme in ever changing variations, poems hailing lofty ideals or reflecting funeral themes. Martial clearly strives after varietas at every level of his work. So readers do not do justice to him in singling out any specific category, such as the robust jokes for which he is best known. In the end, we may even read his ‘funny' epigrams in a serious manner and take his ‘serious' epigrams as forms of light-hearted play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the corpus of apocryphal Cynic letters those attributed to Diogenes stand out: they form the bulk of the letters and they are the most humorous. This corresponds with representations of him as a provocateur elsewhere in imperial Greek literature. This article focuses on the topic of sex in Diogenes' letters, and answers two main questions: first, whether the sexual humor of the letters is more risqué than what we find in the other sources; second, how this sexual humor contributes to the overall purpose of the apocryphal Diogenes letters. I suggest that even though in the letters euphemistic language persists, they treat the Diogenes anecdotes about sex in greater detail than anywhere else. The provocative, risqué humor contained in these anecdotes would serve to entice and entertain audiences in order to get them engaged in Cynic philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ovid's exile to Tomi has appealed to the imagination through the centuries and has even spawned a literary genre. The circumstances of this exile, however, are shrouded in mystery, and scholars have endlessly speculated on the possible reasons, which has everything to do with the fact that Ovid's own poetry is the only direct evidence for his exile. Since the beginning of the twentieth century some scholars have therefore argued that the exile was a poetic fiction. Due to the growing interest in Ovid's exile poetry in the last decades, and in particular the analysis of its literary aspects, the fiction theory has become topical again. In this contribution, I would like to study how we should read Ovid's exile poetry in this fictive scenario, and to see if this way of reading can produce meaningful interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the use of Sappho as model and ‘anchor' in two Hel- lenistic poets, Posidippus and Nossis, with a brief excursus on Catullus 51. Po- sidippus refers explicitly to Sappho three times in his epigrams. In all three in- stances he associates her with talk of or about women. Posidippus thus sees her primarily as a female poet and an authority on women. The same holds true for Nossis, but whereas Posidippus only appeals to Sappho's authority when he wish- es to speak about women, Nossis explicitly places herself in Sappho's tradition, as a woman and a literary daughter. Posidippus uses Sappho as an anchor to speak as a poet about women, while Nossis, in her surviving epigrams, uses her as an an- chor to speak as a woman poet, a subtle but significant difference. A brief analysis of Catullus 51 confirms this distinction, suggesting a gender difference in the way Sappho was used as anchor by male and female poets in antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an example of how to read Cicero's early speech in defence of Sextus Roscius junior according to the positional reading method. This reading method is based on a colometric reading of Latin texts and emphasizes the tension between the neutral word order and the word order that was chosen by the author. This tension is made visible for students and their teachers by a scheme that shows the fixed order of content positions in Latin sentences and offers a new perspective on the content of Latin texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I discuss recent trends and publications on Ovidian scholarship, focussing on Heroides 16 and 17, Metamorphoses 1.452-567, 3.131-252 and 8.611-724, and Tristia 4.10. These texts cross borders between elegy and epic. I argue that they can be seen as examples of Ovid as a versatile poet, who plays games with his predecessors, characters, readers, and himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a unique chapter of the classical tradition: the multilingual reception of the Organon of Aristotle during the early Middle Ages. In doing so, it fills two scholarly gaps. First, it focuses attention on the early Middle Ages as a crucial but neglected phase of the classical tradition, when ancient texts were studied in Latin, Greek and Arabic. Secondly, it elucidates the special case of the simultaneous reception of the Organon in these three language realms. In the eighth and ninth century, intellectuals living in cities as far apart as Aachen and Baghdad studied the Organon at the same time in Latin and Arabic, while in Constantinople it was read in the original Greek. No other classical text was read by such a geographically widespread audience. This article aims to explain how a classical corpus that is now only studied by specialists gained such popularity in both Europe and the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death of Priam by the hands of Achilles' son Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) is a popular episode in the Trojan tradition. Quintus of Smyrna's version invites a creative dialogue with Vergil's (Latin) Aeneid and Triphiodorus' (Greek) Sack of Ilion. All of these texts look back on Iliad 24 from varying perspectives, creating a complex interplay which Quintus thematizes in book 13 of his Greek epic sequel to Homer (Posthomerica, third century AD). A diptych of two scenes, in which old men are killed by Greek heroes, serves to juxtapose two possible interpretations of this situation – one underlining the cruelty of the sack of Troy, the other bewailing the misery of a long life – and presents the reader with a moral dilemma. Heroic ideology and the tragedy of mortality clash on a level more explicit than in the Iliad. Quintus' choices on an intertextual level thus enhance the overall narrative agenda of his own epic, on an intratextual level. This episode broaches a wide scope of narrative reflections, including the complex interaction of literary sources (mainly Homer reception), narrative composition and characterization, and themes such as heroism and pathos in war literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a reading of the Odyssey that places emphasis on the wrath of Poseidon as a factor in the structure of the poem's plot. Even though the god does not play a role as character in the second half of the poem, his wrath against Odysseus is apparent in the presence of the Suitors in Odysseus' house and in the problems resulting from their death. The inland journey that Odysseus has to undertake after the action of the poem ends is a direct consequence of the murder. This scenario, which revolves around revenge and leaves the poem's plot open-ended, is set against the folktale pattern of the ‘returning husband' in which the killing of the suitor(s) of the returning hero's wife is presented as a case of justice done which brings the plot to closure. The presence of both scenarios is studied in light of the Odyssey's ambition to transcend its folktale roots and present itself as heroic epic poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes Cicero's rhetorical use of character delineation in his Pro Roscio Amerino, and the consistency with which he employs this persuasive technique throughout the speech. It is argued that the resemblance of the structure of the text to the standard rhetorical rules is superficial: Cicero's strategies in this early speech are already in basic agreement with his mature descriptions in De Oratore. His reliance on non-rational argument cannot, however, be used to suggest that Roscius was guilty, and Cicero's version of events may well be true, even if this cannot be proven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Cicero defended Sextus Roscius the Younger against a charge of patricide, the orator not only had to deal with the murder charge but also with two complicating factors: after Sextus Roscius the Elder had been murdered, his name had been entered on the proscription lists and his property had been bought by Chrysogonus, the freedman and favourite of dictator Sulla. Although the proscription was formally not at issue in the trial, Cicero did make good use of it to secure Roscius' acquittal. Therefore, I argue that Cicero owes much of his success in this case to a consistently balanced combination of a formal plea to the jury and an informal plea to Chrysogonus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Book 3 of Virgil's Aeneid has always been evaluated quite negatively, and scholars have been surprised by the Homeric fantasy world that is presented. This article will present a metapoetical reading of Aeneid 3, explaining the striking nature of the book, which is interpreted as commenting on Virgil's relationship with Homeric epic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to show that modern linguistic approaches may be used in the analysis of characterization in Greek tragedy, specifically that of Euripides' version of Electra in the eponymous play. I analyse several of Electra's interactions with other characters in the play's early scenes, applying insights from linguistic politeness theory and conversation analysis, in order to show that Electra's linguistic ‘behaviour' is driven by her situation and her preoccupations. Her interactions with the Peasant and the Chorus are marked by consistent affection from all sides, but also by a fundamental inability to communicate effectively. In her long stichomythia with Orestes, disruptions of the conversational structure mark brief flares in Electra's language at moments where issues that particularly vex her are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temple-ekphrasis in Aeneid 1 should be interpreted in connection with its pendant, the song of Iopas at the end of the same book. Both passages together engage in an intricately cross-cut dialogue with the Demodocus-episode in the Odyssey and the ekphrasis of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad. When seen in this light, it appears that there is no reason to suppose, as many critics from Lessing onwards have done, that the Aeneid constructs an opposition between visual and literary art. On the contrary, the two passages show striking continuity, suggesting that human interpretation of artistic media is by necessity embedded in the present, while on the other hand the works of art themselves seem to contain extratemporal truth. The inevitable bias of human interpretation, however, should not be taken to reveal Virgilian reservations vis-à-vis the ‘truth' of ‘art', but simply underlines that at different stages in different places, the same things may carry different meanings. Thus Virgil, in his implicit poetics in Book 1, constructs a prefiguration of modern reception theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Horace was writing his Odes, love elegy was the genre very much en vogue in Rome. Horace's collection also contains love poems, which are quite unlike the excessively passionate poems of Propertius and Tibullus. This article examines to what extent Horace's Epicurean and moralistic Odes evoke and react to contemporary love elegy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to his ethnographical logoi, Herodotus' depiction of Persian autocracy is often labelled as highly biased. After the appearance of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978, Herodotus' approach to Persian rule was even generally considered an early example of orientalism, that is, the discourse by which colonial powers have constructed an image of ‘The East' as irrational, weak, feminine, and despotic, to function as a mirror for the enlightened, masculine, brave, and free ‘West'. In this article, I argue that to label Herodotus' depiction of Persian autocracy as a form of orientalism and to define the goals of the Histories largely in terms of legitimising Greek supremacy is to ignore important nuances and critical reflections. Instead, I propose, not, as some have done, to discard the concept of orientalism altogether, but rather to see the orientalising elements in the images of Persian autocracy as a narrative device, aimed to arrive at a better understanding of ‘why the Greeks and barbarians came into conflict with each other', which, in Herodotus' account, is connected with the ‘law', so amply illustrated in the Histories, which dictates that too much fortune ultimately leads to failure, crisis, and even the downfall of an empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the functions of classical references in contemporary political culture. It focuses on the various ways in which the Belgian politician and Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever makes use of Latin oneliners and historical parallels with ancient Rome in op-eds, speeches and interviews, and how they are received by the press and in political discussions. The use of classical references here is examined from the perspective of recent concepts from Classical Reception Studies, such as ‘banal reception' and ‘reflex'. It is argued that the references, how trivial they may seem at first sight, are a vital part of De Wever's overall tactics to frame political communication and spread a conservative political message: his alleged wish to safeguard what is called, after Edmund Burke, ‘the costly fabric of society'. Rather than stressing the Flemish nationalist agenda of his party, De Wever promotes himself by means of the classical reference and its connotations as the rebellious caretaker of a long-established European humanist tradition and as the embodiment of a neoconservative art of living, both of which are said to be threatened by left-wing cultural politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate about the Iraq War of 2003, both opponents and supporters of this war invoked the authority of the Athenian general and historian Thucydides to legitimize their point. This paper examines the use of quotes from Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War in opinion pieces that appeared in American newspapers before and during the Iraq War. An analysis of thirty such pieces shows which analogies between the Peloponnesian War and the Iraq War were the most popular (and which of those make the most sense). The paper explains why the ancient historian Thucydides is seen as a relevant political commentator for 21st century conflicts. It also shows the flexibility or, to put it less mildly, sloppiness with which Thucydides' work is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]