The Next Generation: Papers by Undergraduate Classics Students

In Julius Caesar’s Bellum Civile and the Composition of a New Reality, Ayelet Peer (2015:15) cites six instances in which Pompey and his forces move under cover of darkness to dastardly ends, remarking that these meetings carry “significant meaning.” Examining these six examples and many more throughout the Bellum Civile, this study will pick up where Peer left off in an attempt to ascertain how light imagery colors the depiction of Caesarian and Pompeian forces and why Julius Caesar as author would employ such a device while writing his work.

Phryne was undoubtedly one of the most famous courtesans in ancient Greek history because of both her famous beauty and her scandalous trial for impiety which was still being discussed centuries after it took place. Many authors record a version of this story: Though it looked like she was going to be charged with capital punishment, her beauty saved her when she showed her nude body to the judges. Nevertheless, the accounts of her trial disagree at critical points in the narrative, casting doubt on the historicity of this story.

Herodotus’ Histories is seen as a clear marker of the beginning of unified Greek identity (Hall 2002). Several cultural indicators, such as religion, bloodline, language and custom, inform a complex portrait of group identity formation (Hall 1997). Social identity theory has traditionally characterized this formation as a process of drawing sharp distinctions between groups, maximizing differences, in order to bolster one’s own social identity through an intentional distancing from the often derogatorily construed ‘Other’ (Tajfel & Turner 1979; Hartog 1988; Harrison 2002).

One important narrative ambiguity in the Odyssey is the question of Penelope's recognition of Odysseus. Exactly how and when Penelope recognizes her husband has been the subject of scholarly debate since Hellenistic times. One mainstream reading of this narrative controversy is the “gradual recognition” argument—in other words, that Penelope recognizes Odysseus gradually and by degrees, culminating in a moment of full recognition in Odyssey 23 (Emlyn-Jones, 2).

This paper examines the presence of criteria for a katabasis in Classical authors, focusing on Vergil's Aeneid, and relates them to Harry’s journey to the afterlife in Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Throughout Harry's descent, we see several elements strongly paralleling Classical tradition, but in the end, Rowling produces her own work entirely.

This paper focuses on counterfactual statements within the Pylos narrative, contained in Thucydides Book 4. Thucydides recounts a battle that took place around modern day Messenia for control over the island of Sphacteria. Thucydides is clearly very interested in the event, and considers it a turning point in the first phase of the war. There are two examples of counterfactual narratives within the text in question (4.1-45), one which corresponds to the Spartan point of view, while the other corresponds with the Athenian point of view.

In Statesman, Plato offers a critique of regimes based solely on law in favor of wise kingships (St. 293 ff.). This assessment is supported by a number of complaints, summarized collectively under a single broad claim: law, absent the corrective discretion of a political expert, is too simple to govern the complexities inherent in human affairs (Lane 1998). In particular, the dialogue notes that legislation will always be general rather than tailored to individual needs (St.

The poetry of Virgil famously inspires a plethora of antithetical interpretations. In particular, the Eclogues have instigated unending dispute about Virgil’s intentions in employing the pastoral mode and his opinion of the pastoral world itself. Does Virgil approve of the bucolic ideal, or does he denounce it? Scholars abound on both sides of the debate. In an effort to decipher Virgil's true understanding of the pastoral world and its poetry, in this paper I examine Virgil’s use of the quintessential pastoral trope: umbra.

Catullus 2 and 3 offer two of the most prominent appearances of the sparrow in Classical Greek and Latin literature. While poems about pets, and especially dead pets, were already popular in the Hellenistic period, Catullus was the first to introduce the sparrow to this genre (Hooper 162). Following the dedicatory poem to Cornelius Nepos, the passer poems also stand out as the first two in the Catullan corpus. The importance of these poems is suggested by Ovid’s deliberate imitation of Catullus 3 where Corinna watches her parrot pass away (Am.