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Statement of purpose

This paper will lay out the terminological system used to distinguish between concrete and abstract nouns in Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome of Herodian’s Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας (‘On prosody in general’), and show that this system is fundamentally different from those found in other Greek grammatical texts.

Previous literature

The “Third Continent” has long been a controversial territory for classicists, particularly in the debates following Martin Bernal’s Black Athena monographs (e.g. Bernal 1987-2006, Lefkowitz 1996). However, for all the recent work on colonial classics (e.g. Bradley 2010, Stephens and Vasunia 2010, Vasunia 2013) and classics Africana (e.g. Greenwood 2010, McConnell 2013), the role of antiquity in shaping Maghrebian discourses remains an underexplored topic.

The Einaudi edition of Pliny’s Natural History, volume 1 is prefaced with an essay by Italo Calvino entitled “Il cielo, l’uomo, l’elefante” in which Calvino characterizes Pliny’s science as one which oscillates between the desire to find fundamental harmony in the universe and a recognition of the extraordinary and the unique (Calvino, 45). It also characterizes Pliny himself as both a poet-philosopher and a neurotic collector of data (Calvino, 43).

The last act of Seneca’s Phaedra (1154-280) has raised many concerns among scholars regarding its consistency, and particularly its performability [Coffey-Mayer 1990, Zwierlein 1966]. Some scenes, such as Phaedra’s suicide or the transportation of Hippolytus’ dismembered body onto stage, have been criticized as artistically inaccurate and incoherent. Considered a rhetorical exercise and strongly criticized, this part of the play (more than others) has been labelled as unperformable [Zwierlein 1966]. Following the path traced by some scholars [e.g.

Archaeological finds at the sanctuary of Magna Mater and Isis in Mainz (Roman Mogontiacum) have significantly contributed to our understanding of cursing in the Roman Empire since the site’s discovery in 1999. To date, thirty-four curse tablets from the sanctuary have been documented and catalogued (Blänsdorf 2012). Scholarship has only recently begun to investigate the ways in which these tablets inform our understanding of religious practices in the Germanic provinces (Haase 2004, Blänsdorf 2010, Gordon 2013).

Seneca knew Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura well. Quotations from DRN appear at a number of moments in Seneca’s prose works (e.g. Ep. 106.8, Ep. 110.6, de Tranq. 2.14), and certain scenes from his tragedies clearly recall Lucretius’ work (the plague of Oedipus, the second choral ode of Troades). Lucretius offers Seneca a rival exemplum of a philosopher-poet, but from a competing philosophical school.

This paper addresses the history of poetic engagements with Sappho in the 20^th century, and the mediating relationship that these engagements have assumed towards the disciplinary practice of classics. Specifically, I argue that the aesthetic valorization of Sappho in her capacity as fragmentary author occurred through the canonizaton of modernist aesthetics in the mid-20^th century.

Dimitrios Moschos, a Greek intellectual from Sparta who lived in Renaissance Italy, wrote a comedy in prose entitled Neaira, published it in Italy around 1475/8 (Bouboulides 1966 and 1977), and dedicated it to the Duke of Mantova, Gonzaga, to whose circle he probably belonged (Geanakoplos 1962: 77 and 124). According to Andreas Moustoxidis (1845: 402-03), the first editor, as far as we know, of Neiara in 1845, the play contributed greatly to the revival of dramatic productions (mainly comedies) in the regions of Mantua and Florence in the 15^th century.

This paper will discuss representations of Roman private religious practice and domestic ritual in contemporary screen narratives, in order to address a correlation between characterizations of Roman religion in popular culture and in classical scholarship. Mid-twentieth-century ‘sword-and-sandal’ films projected the visually magnificent and imposing Roman state religion as emblematic of Rome’s systematic persecution of Jewish and Christian protagonists.

In this paper, I consider the flourishing of Greek ‘book-label’ epigram, a sub-type of the genre first attested in the early 3^rd Century BCE, which - as the designation suggests - take the form of blurb-like laudations of poets, purportedly affixed to book-rolls containing their works.