SCS Blog Author Page
Posts by Kathleen Coleman
|
Blog: Nondum Arabes Seresque Rogant: Classics Looks EastOctober 16, 2016 By Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University This paper was delivered as part of "The Future of Classical Education: A Dialogue," a panel organized by the SCS Program Committee at the 147th annual meeting of the SCS in San Francisco, January 8, 2016. The fourth book of the Siluae opens with a poem to mark the inauguration of Domitian’s seventeenth consulship in 95 CE. This is too important an occasion for a mere mortal to commemorate. So Statius gives the microphone to the god Janus, who hogs the discourse for more than half the poem (27 lines out of a total of 47). Among many other tributes, the god opens by addressing the emperor as magne parens mundi and declaring that Rome has longed to see him permanently gracing Janus’ own month of January; he imagines Minerva herself weaving Domitian’s consular toga; he invokes the help of Roma and Vetustas in reviewing all the precedents for such a glittering incumbent of the consulship Read more … |