Truth and Lies

The study of gnômai (Lat. sententiae) in the Greek novel received its greatest impetus from Morales. She first focused on the “intratextual” functions of these proverbs to show that they are integral to their framing narratives (2000) and then continued to identify subtle and effective uses of gnômai by Achilles Tatius in particular (2004). This paper investigates the rich application of gnômai by another novelist, Heliodorus, and especially his construction through gnômai of an authorial voice that is powerful yet impersonal.

This paper presents a close reading an episode in Polybius’ Histories (8.15-21) that considers the role of pistis (trust, or an indication of trustworthiness) in an act of delegation to an untrustworthy subordinate. The episode in question is a rollocking tale of ancient espionage.

About the only scholarly consensus on Ep. 58 of Seneca’s Epistulae Morales is that it is perplexing. This paper concerns one prominent nexus of questions: What is Seneca’s attitude towards the Platonic ideas recounted here? Does he ascribe to them? Or merely use them for his Stoic purposes? Scholars have argued that Seneca adopts a Stoicized Platonism in Ep. 58 (e.g. Donini [1979]) or a Platonized Stoicism (e.g. Setaioli [1988], Sedley [2005]).

The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre is a late antique Latin romance of many layers. Originally a work of Greek prose fiction, Apollonius was translated into Latin during the High Roman Empire (Kortekaas 2004). In the fifth and sixth centuries, two Christian editors refashioned the text once more by adding direct quotations of and allusions to the Vulgate (Garbugino 2014). Their version is the earliest we have, and therefore represents a bricolage of pagan and Christian themes: a text in which characters can both visit the temple of Diana at Ephesus (c.

Scholars have long understood the Thaumasia of the fourth-century historian Theopompos of Chios either as an entertaining amalgam of stories or as a mere rhetorical exercise. This paper argues that the Thaumasia or “Marvels” (BNJ F 64a—F 76) is not only a rhetorical masterpiece, but also makes a significant argument that illuminates the larger project of the fifty-eight book Philippika, of which the Thaumasia is a crucial part.

John Kaminiates’ Sack of Thessaloniki is a text surrounded by controversy. It purports to be Kaminiates’ tenth-century eye-witness historical account of the sack of the city by an Arab fleet in 904 CE, but almost every element of this self-presentation was strongly attacked by Kazhdan (1978), who argued that it was not by Kaminiates, who did not exist at all, and further maintained that it was not written in the tenth century and therefore was neither an eye-witness account nor of particular historical value.