I. Papers
- Daniel W. Berman, "The Double Foundation of Boiotian Thebes"
The mythic tradition of the double foundation of Boiotian Thebes presents an anomaly that has not been sufficiently explored. Through analysis of early poetic material, writings of the mythographers, and archaeological evidence, this article argues that the two stories of foundation existed in parallel in the early Greek poetic tradition and represent two distinct contexts of composition, one Mycenaean and the other archaic. Only with prose mythographers and logographers such as Hekataios and Pherekydes were these stories chronologically and genealogically ordered. This ordering represents a permanent change in how the mythic material was and continues to be understood.
- James J. Helm, "Aeschylus' Genealogy of Morals"
I examine genealogical metaphors and related causal statements in the plays of Aeschylus, particularly the Oresteia, and demonstrate how, when taken together, they present a systematic view of ethical behavior and its consequences, necessary for a comprehensive understanding of Aeschylean thought. While Aeschylus' perspective falls firmly within the Solonian tradition of koros-hybris-atê, he adds piety—mortals' recognition of their common subordination to the divine, which encourages them to respect the human status of others—as an essential element for human behavior. Piety is an essential prerequisite for justness, particularly important for Aeschylus because of his identification of Zeus with justice.
- David Rosenbloom, "Ponêroi vs. Chrêstoi: The Ostracism of Hyperbolos and the Struggle for Hegemony in Athens after the Death of Perikles, Part I"
This paper is divided into two parts. Part I explains the last ostrakophoria as a struggle between leaders who enjoy cultural validation, labeled chrêstoi ("good," "noble," "useful," "genuine"), and those who lack such legitimation, labeled ponêroi ("bad," "vile," "useless," "inauthentic"). The ostrakophoria took place in 415 and its catalyst was Alkibiades' Olympic victory in 416, which prompted Hyperbolos, the quintessential ponêros, to move an ostrakophoria as "protector/leader of the people" to ostracize a symbolic tyrant, to cast suspicion upon chrêstoi as inimical to the demos, and to legitimate his own leadership and that of his faction. This ostrakophoria pit ponêroi against chrêstoi in the formers' bid to become a hegemonic class in Athenian society.
- Raymond Marks, "Of Kings, Crowns, and Boundary Stones: Cipus and the hasta Romuli in Metamorphoses 15"
This paper argues that Ovid uses the story of the hasta Romuli in Met. 15 to inform our reading of the Cipus story, to which it is juxtaposed. Specifically, the poet demonstrates that the challenge Cipus faces, namely, to avoid kingship, constitutes not a moral dilemma, as it is often understood, but an historical dilemma. That is, at issue for Ovid is not whether Cipus should or should not avoid being king, but whether he or anyone else at Rome can avoid the legacy of kingship that Romulus left to the city by his foundational act.
- Carole Newlands, "Statius and Ovid: Transforming the Landscape"
This paper examines Statius' depiction of landscape in comparison with Ovid's. Three landscapes that illustrate Statius' important and complex debt to Ovid are discussed: the sacred grove of Diana (Book 4), the Nemean grove (Books 4–6), and the river landscape of the Ismenos (Book 9). The analysis concludes that the landscapes of the Thebaid are disconnected from the gods and provide a vivid canvas on which Statius displays the spreading evil of a civil war that burst beyond the bounds of the warring parties. Humans are held accountable for the destruction of the state as much as for the loss of a paradise described in Ovidian terms as a locus amoenus.
- D. S. Levene, "Tacitus' Dialogus As Literary History"
The paper examines the conceptions of literary history found in Tacitus' Dialogus. It argues that the speeches in the work, despite being directly at variance with one another in other respects, develop between them with increasing sophistication a single account of literary history, with a complex interrelation of aesthetic and political factors. However, when one seeks to slot the Dialogus itself into that account, one finds that the form in which the work is written appears to challenge the very analysis that it has developed. The paper concludes by looking at the implications of this for the interpretation of the Dialogus.