Ancient Receptions of Classical Literature

Plutarch, in both his literary activities and his role as a priest at Delphi, exemplifies the desire to preserve and revivify Greek cultural heritage that characterizes Imperial Greek literature. At the same time, however, Plutarch expresses in his works a deep skepticism of those individuals who aspire to revive the political past of Greece.

My paper showcases some of the research carried out under the aegis of the major research project Living Poets: A New Approach to Ancient Poetry, which aims “to develop a new approach to classical poetry, based on how listeners and readers imagined the Greek and Roman poets.” Within that broad remit I focus on how Archilochos (and hence his poetry) was imagined when he became a Parian symbol.

It is well known that Hellenistic poets, among them Posidippus of Pella, took Herodotus’ Histories as a point of departure for literary exercises (Bing; Gutzwiller; Priestley). Another aspect of the Hellenistic reception of Herodotus has received less attention: the deployment of portraits of individuals associated with the Persian Wars either to amplify Herodotus’ account or to address its perceived omissions.

Since 1898 the affinities between Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus and Ciceronian dialogue on oratory, De Oratore, Brutus or Orator, have been taken for granted (See Gudeman, Güngerich, Hass-von Reitzenstein, Leo, Syme). By 1993 T.J. Luce could state blankly that “since Cicero was Tacitus’ model for a dialogue by historical personages on an oratorical topic, a Ciceronian style was clearly appropriate, if not obligatory” (11). Indeed, Tacitus’ work is a dialogue on oratory and indeed it displays many Ciceronian features.