1,720,999 research outputs found
Venerari Contendere Adicere: Roman Emulation, Intergenerational Reciprocity, and the Ancient Idea of Progress
Full text linkOver the past few decades, the successful emergence of intertextuality, with its careful investigation of the dynamics of imitation, allusion, and emulation, has effectively challenged the Romantic notions of creativity and individual authorship. In the wide-open field left by the postmodern ‘death of the author’, however, the territory of culture as a network of patterns hiding behind the text has often been restricted within the boundaries of literary culture. In this paper, I will attempt to enlarge such a text-centred perspective by highlighting the often neglected connections between family education, intergenerational reciprocity, and aesthetic thought in Roman culture. Indeed, long before the 'neoteroi' started to seed their poems with ‘Alexandrian footnotes’, there existed at Rome a culturally embedded set of patterns providing concrete instructions on
how a Roman had to imitate his models and compete with them. As emblematically attested in aristocratic epitaphs, a young Roman was expected to consciously situate himself in the line of his 'genus', striving to imitate, and possibly to surpass, the virtues of his ancestors – the 'maiores' immortalized by the masks in the 'atria'. By reassessing Cicero’s, Seneca’s, and Quintilian’s approaches to 'aemulatio' and their underlying sociological backgrounds, I will point to several conceptual
traits which cross the boundaries between cultural and literary memory and shape the 'Bildung' of such learned writers as Horace: from the faith in the endlessly advancing progress of generations to the fear of reproducing ancestral vices, from the depiction of previous models as stimulatingly imperfect portraits to the creative manipulation of genealogical identities
Filodemo, Cicerone, Nepote: a proposito del contesto storico-culturale di Oec. Col. XXII.9-48
Full text linkUntil recently, Philodemus’ treatise On Household Management (Περὶ οἰκονομίας, PHerc. 1424) has been mainly used as a source for the reconstruction of early Epicurean economic thought (especially of Metrodorus’ writing Περὶ πλούτου). Over the past few years, however, scholars have called attention to Philodemus’ creative (yet philosophically orthodox) readaptation of Epicurean ethical and social theories to the needs of contemporary Roman society. Following this scholarly line, the present paper reassesses a passage from On Household Management (col. XXII.9–48) which has so far been interpreted as an unoriginal repetition of Metrodorus’ arguments, and situates it in the cultural context of the late Roman Republic. By comparing Philodemus’, Cicero’s, and Cornelius Nepos’ approaches to the issues of virtue, wealth, wisdom, and the ways of life, the paper confirms the dating of Περὶ οἰκονομίας to the period after 50 BCE – a dating which was first proposed
by Guglielmo Cavallo on merely paleographic grounds. Indeed, Philodemus’ claims about the value of practical and theoretical knowledge, his use of previous philosophical traditions (such as the Peripatos), and his choice of poignant historical exempla, all point to the work’s embeddedness within the late Republican debate on political engagement, biographical literature, and evergetism
Granting Epicurean Wisdom at Rome: Exchange and Reciprocity in Lucretius' Didactic (DRN 1.921-950)
No full textIn the first book of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius describes his didactic undertaking as a metaphorical process of gift exchange (1.50-53): the obscure and salvific precepts of Epicurean philosophy, skilfully arranged in hexameters, are said to be 'gifts' (dona) that the poet has prepared with loyal zeal (studio fideli). Such a suggestive depiction of Lucretius' relationship to the work's dedicatee, Gaius Memmius, seems to reflect a relevant functional pattern of De Rerum Natura as a coherent system of communication strategies, variously readapting social models and cultural traditions. The present paper employs the interpretative approach of gift theories – the thought-provoking theories elaborated by modern anthropologists in order to explain the structure of archaic societies – as a key to understand the poetics of Lucretius' didactic. Since K. Polanyi's and M. Finley's path-breaking studies, several surveys have pointed to the role of exchange practices in the Graeco-Roman world, remarking on the impact of pre-modern gift-giving patterns on ancient literature (e.g. Gill et al. 1998, Bowditch 2001, Coffee 2009, Satlow 2013). However, much more attention should be paid to the special case of Lucretius in light of the influence of two important backgrounds: the milieu of Roman society, in which patronage relationships and interpersonal transactions played a prominent role (Veyne 1976, Saller 1982), and the tradition of Epicurean communities, which conveyed their doctrinal teachings though a series of reciprocal bonds, ideally supported by a thorough reflection on giving, gratitude, and the transmission of knowledge. The present paper reassesses the evidence provided by Roman and Epicurean sources (especially Philodemus' treatises On Frank Criticism and On Gratitude, Epicurus' fragments, and Diogenes of Oenoanda's inscription) in order to further investigate Lucretius' rhetoric of persuasion
Carmelo Salemme: Contributi lucreziani. Bari: Cacucci 2020
No full textThis review article provides a critical overview of the papers collected in C. Salemme's 'Contributi lucreziani', offering a reassessment of, and new insighst on, some of the most important Lucretian passages discussed by Salemme
Review of M. Beretta, La rivoluzione culturale di Lucrezio. Filosofia e scienza nell'antica Roma (Rome: Carocci, 2015)
No full textBy reviewing Marco Beretta's recent book on Lucretius' "cultural revolution" and its intellectual foundations, the present article re-assesses several key issues of the current debate about the literary, philosophical, and scientific value of De Rerum Natura
Dreams, Texts, and Truths: Augustine on Hermeneutics and Oneirocriticism
No full textIn the Greek and Roman worlds, oneirocriticism is hermeneutics and presupposes an epistemology – these and other cognate fields of inquiry being involved in a continuous process of social, political, and religious change. The present paper explores the relationship between dreams and hermeneutics in a meaningful passage of Augustine’s twelve-book commentary On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram) – a work rightly considered the most important testimony to the Christian cosmology of antiquity and the Middle Ages – in which the greatest of the Latin Church Fathers establishes a parallel between the interpretation of dreams and that of sacred texts. By elucidating the cultural background of Augustine’s understanding of dream images as cognitive phenomena that underlie both crucial passages of the Bible and the common experience of humans – both the soul and the body, both natural and supernatural powers – this paper sheds new light upon Augustine’s reaction to the materialism and literalism of Tertullian and early Christian communities, his reception of the allegorical method of Origen and the Alexandrian school, and his mystical embracing of Neoplatonic theories of knowledge. Indeed, Augustine turns out to be perfectly aware of many Greco-Roman and early Christian debates on oneirology and hermeneutical methods, and while he fiercely warns against the belief that the revelation of the Bible can be superseded or contradicted by the individual revelations of dreams, he strives to put together an original paradigm of natural philosophy, cognitive psychology, and symbolic interpretation, in an attempt to give dreams a definite place in the order of things
Seneca and Stoic Apatheia: Ethics, Physics, and the History of Emotions
No full textThis volume situates itself at the intersection of two research areas which have yielded fruitful results over the past few decades: the investigation of Seneca’s reception of the Stoic tradition and the comparative study of the history of the emotions as culturally constructed phenomena. Modern handbooks agree in regarding impassiveness (apatheia) as the ultimate goal of the Stoic therapy of the emotions – as a distinguishing mark of the Stoic wise man, who, by acting rationally, extinguishes all emotions (pathe) except the ‘good’ ones (eupatheiai). Yet, although Seneca’s self-conscious adherence to Stoic philosophy and its doctrine on emotions is undisputable, no comprehensive study has ever been undertaken to assess the role of the notion of 'apatheia' in the Senecan corpus in light of its connections with individual and social ethics, the physical constitution of the mind and the world, and the therapeutic task of philosophical writing. The contributions gathered in the present volume, written by a team of international scholars with recognized expertise in the area, aim to fill this remarkable gap by offering a fresh and critical overview of all of Seneca’s works, both in prose and in verse
Disumano, troppo umano. La maschera del tiranno e l’antropologia dei filosofi (da Sofocle a Seneca)
Full text linkTyranny is often regarded as "a perennial problem" (Boesche 1996) on the basis of its ubiquitous presence in literature. Even more enduring is the problem of how to define human nature, its place in the environment, and its relationship to the divine – a core issue of philosophical anthropology (Pansera 2001, Honenberger 2015). In the present paper, I shall approach the literary construction of the tyrant figure in Greek and Roman tragedy from the holistic perspective of philosophical anthropology. I will focus on three well-known dramas (Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Antigone and Seneca’s Thyestes) which put great emphasis on the moral and cognitive status of tyrants as “exceptional” human types. I will try to show how Sophocles’ Oedipus and Creon and Seneca’s Atreus reflect in different ways the ancient philosophical discussion about the humanizing power of reason and language – a discussion that echoes but at the same time transforms the patterns of folkloric thought. Indeed, not only did a philosophical anthropology sensu proprio develop in the ancient world and refashion traditional mentalities, but Greek and Roman dramatists were also to able to provide a critical response to the models of philosophy. In the age of Presocratic rationalism and Sophistic relativism, Sophocles portrayed his tyrants as masters of speech (λόγος) and intelligence (γνώμη) who dared to challenge divine law but ultimately became inhuman because of their excessive confidence in human cognition. Similarly, though in the largely different context of imperial Rome, Seneca used the tyrant figure to describe the Stoic process of "inversion of reason" (διαστροφὴ τοῦ λόγου) and blamed the degradation of human life from the pursuit of wisdom to the self-conscious promotion of vice
Seneca on the Nature of Things: Moral Concerns and Theories of Matter in Natural Questions 6
No full textIt is generally recognized that Lucretius' treatment of earthquakes and pestilences (6.535-607; 1090-1286) exerted great influence on Book 6 of Seneca's Natural Questions. But while a large consensus exists that both authors tend to emphasize the moral value of scientific knowledge, further research is needed with respect to Seneca's “technical” re-use of Epicurean physics and meteorology. In the present paper, I shall address this issue in three stages. First, I will analyze the structure and intellectual goals of Seneca's “doxographic” review of seismological theories (6.5-20). Far from being a doxographic account sensu proprio, such a careful review constructs the inspiring image of an intergenerational community of inquirers engaged in a virtually neverending effort. Second, I will focus on the skilful assimilation of Lucretius' atomism in Seneca's account of post-earthquake plagues (6.27-28). The special interest of this aetiological sub-section lies in its creative manipulation of Lucretius' theories, for Seneca succeeds in readapting the Epicurean explanation of the origin of diseases and its typically atomistic consideration of matter to the Stoic view of physical elements. Third and last, I will suggest that the chapter immediately following the aetiology of plagues (6.29) entails a subtle allusion to the climate of the late Republic – if not to the fate of Lucretius himself
L'identità individuale: doppi e gemelli - L'identità collettiva: cittadino vs straniero
No full textThe article, which is part of a new 'encyclopaedic' assessment of ancient myth, offers a general overview of the socio-anthropological models underlying some of the most well-known Roman myths about twins, Doppelgänger, and foreigners
- …
