Flavian Literature and its Readers

In this paper I argue that Pliny creates a dialog with Lucretius’ poetry through allusion to his programmatic wormwood simile. Significant similarities between Pliny the Elder’s Historia Naturalis and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura have been recognized (Wallace-Hadrill, 1990; Conte, 1994), and both writers shape their style to mirror their concept of nature (Carey, 2003). However, it has not been supposed that Pliny actively engaged with the work of Lucretius.

What does the Argo have to do with Achilles?

Due to the resurgence of interest in aesthetics, scholars now appreciate the sophisticated ways aesthetic experience is drawn upon in Greco-Roman literature (Telò 2020, Martindale 2004, Bartsch 1997). A major focus of such criticism has been how ancient literature evokes the sublime (Lagière 2018, Porter 2016, Day 2013). While this focus is understandable, numerous other aesthetic sensibilities were important to ancient audiences. In this paper, I argue for the importance of bathos in Early Imperial Latin literature with a focus on Statius’ poetry. The paper is divided into two parts.

Religion in Martial’s apologia pro opere suo

         When Achilles dons women’s clothing on the island of Scyros, his new embodiment and habitus call into question his internal self-identity as a man. Habitus, embodiment, and self-identity have a complicated interrelationship (Philo LS 28P; Gill; Gleason; Corbeill). By adopting a new habitus, has Achilles’ placed his masculinity at risk?