Artemidorus and the Panopticism of Urban Life: The Social Worlds of Non-Elites
By Geoffrey Harmsworth, Columbia University
The Oneirocritica of Artemidorus, an early 3rd century CE manual of oneiromancy, is unrivalled among literary sources for its potential to reveal the social worlds, anxieties, and aspirations of urban non-elites in the Roman world [Pack; Pomeroy; Weber; Chandezon]. This sociological approach is possible because Artemidorus is strikingly opposed to psycho-analytic approaches to dreams; instead, the dreamer’s essentialized position within larger social structures (free/enslaved, rich/poor, young/old etc.) determines how dream elements should be read [Price; Thonemann].
Sirens Bind: Siren-Song as Binding Spell in the Odyssey, Plato’s Cratylus, Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and a Roman Curse Tablet from the 1st Century C.E.
By Catherine Saterson, Yale University
A comparison of the Sirens of the Odyssey, Plato’s Cratylus, Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and TheDeMa517, a curse tablet buried along Rome’s Via Ostiensis in the 1st century C.E. (Bevilacqua & Colacicchi 2009, 303; Urbanová 2017, 72), reveals siren-song as an archetypal binding spell within both the literary discourse and practice of “magic” in Greco-Roman antiquity.
Plato, Magoi, and Lived Religion in Fourth-Century Athens: A View from Attic Curse Tablets
By Christopher Atkins, Yale University
Plato’s dialogues have been mined many times over for the roles of theology and religion therein. A particular point of focus has been the language and imagery of the Eleusinian Mysteries, notably in the Symposium, and “Orphic” rites, especially in the Phaedo (recent scholarship includes Betegh 2022; Nightingale 2021; Edmonds 2017). For instance, Nightingale 2021 focuses on Plato’s narration of the “story of the soul” and emphasizes his adaptations and modifications of Eleusinian stages of initiation and Orphic notions of purification.
Dismembered According to the Rigor of Harmony: A Structuralist Reading of Zosimos' Visions
By Devin Lawson, Bryn Mawr College
For a text about a practical alchemical procedure, Zosimos of Panopolis’ Visions abounds in violent and bizarre imagery: a man is harmonically dismembered, people are boiled alive, and the dismembered bits of a snake are used to create a step for a temple. In this paper, I use the text’s internal structure to examine the relationship between this imagery and the practical and spiritual alchemical processes they are meant to represent.