When Sounds Become Song: Thauma as a Response to Musical Transformations
By Amy Lather
In archaic and classical usage, thauma, "wonder", and its cognates are used to designate the overwhelming affective power of certain phenomena. And while thauma is most often cited as a response to visual experiences, there are several passages that link it specifically to music. In this paper I consider three passages in which such an encounter is described in detail in order to elucidate the ways in which music could evoke thauma.
Aristotle on Musical Emotions
By Juan Pablo Mira
Music affords a suitable “ambient” for the arousal of emotion and can change the appearance of and object, and so our belief towards that object. In this sense music acts as a catalyst for the appearance of emotions, imitating their physiological output, i.e. bodily motions and sounds. It can make us, like wine, readily vulnerable and apt to an emotional response changing our body; but the emotional response is about something different outside the music, i.e., a proper intentional object able to arouse emotions.
Is the Idea of “Musical Emotion” Present in Classical Antiquity?
By Andreas Kramarz
This paper will investigate to what degree the concepts related to “musical emotion,” a term coined by contemporary music psychology, can be traced in ancient classical music theory. As the debate among present-day philosophers of music and psychologists shows, the notion of “musical emotion” is not clearly defined, nor is there agreement on what role, if any, it plays in the musical experience.
Deserts Called Peace: Towards a New Roman Way of War
By Lawrence Tritle
Deserts Called Peace: Towards a New Roman Way of War
Insurgency and its Application in the Ancient World
By Lee L. Brice
“Insurgency and its Application in the Ancient World”
Unfulfilled Potential? The Skirmisher in Greek Warfare ca. 431-362 B.C.
By John Friend
Unfulfilled Potential? The Skirmisher in Greek Warfare ca. 431-362 B.C.
The Wolves of Attica: Xenophon and the Evolution of Cavalry in Asymmetric Warfare
By Frank S. Russell
The Wolves of Attica: Xenophon and the Evolution of Cavalry in Asymmetric Warfare
Pagan Vision and Christian Voice in Eudocia’s De martyrio sancti Cypriani
By Pavlos Avlamis
The empress Eudocia’s De martyrio sancti Cypriani is a curious and rare cultural artefact. It is a versification in Homeric hexameters and combination of various Christian hagiographical accounts on St Cyprian that was written by a pagan convert caught up in the culture wars of the 5th century CE about paideia.
Maronian Nectar: Nonnus, Homer and Vergil
By Tim Whitmarsh
In the first half of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, a substantial amount of space is given over to Dionysus’s charioteer, Maron. This paper considers why. The long-standing poetological significance of the chariot (Choerilus SH 317.4-5, Astydamas II TGrF 60 T2b, Callimachus, Aetia 1.25-8; Nünlist 1998, 255-64 for earlier examples) prompts the reader to explore the wider literary significance of this figure. What drives Nonnus’ Dionysus?
Circling Time: Aion in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca
By Emily Kneebone
Nonnus’ double-length epic the Dionysiaca presents itself as both mythically prior to, and chronologically posterior to, the poems of Homer. Nonnus’ narrative of the birth and exploits of Dionysus makes much of its narrative precedence to Homeric events, narrating the riverside battles of Achilles’ grandfather Aeacus, for instance, as a knowing ‘prefiguration’ of Achilles’ own quintessentially Iliadic performance (D. 22.384-9).