Compitum

Keith Sidwell, Aristophanes the democrat: the politics of satirical comedy during the Peloponnesian War, Cambridge - New York, 2009.

Éditeur : Cambridge University Press
XV-407 pages
ISBN : 9780521519984
99 $

This book provides a new interpretation of the nature of Old Comedy and its place at the heart of Athenian democratic politics. Professor Sidwell argues that Aristophanes and his rivals belonged to opposing political groups, each with their own political agenda. Through disguised caricature and parody of their rivals' work, the poets expressed and fuelled the political conflict between their factions. Professor Sidwell rereads the principal texts of Aristophanes and the fragmented remains of the work of his rivals in the light of his arguments for the political foundations of the genre.



Table des matières:

Detail of illustration viii

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xii

List of abbreviations xiv

PART I SETTING THE STAGE 1

1 Getting to grips with the politics of Old Comedy 3

2 Metacomedy and politics 31

3 Metacomedy and caricature 45

PART II THE POETS' WAR 105

4 Acharnians: Parabasis versus play 107

5 Metacomedy, caricature and politics from Knights to Peace 155

6 Metacomedy, caricature and politics from Autolycus to Frogs 217

Conclusions and consequences 299

PART III APPENDICES 303

Appendix 1 The view from the theatron 305

Appendix 2 Metacomedy and caricature in the surviving fourth-century plays of Aristophanes 337

Appendix 3 Timeline and proposed relationships between comedies 341

Appendix 4 The date of Eupolis' Taxiarchoi 346

Appendix 5 Clouds 868–73 and τραυλίζω 349

Appendix 6 Michael Vickers on Strepsiades and Pericles 350

Bibliography 352

Index 363

Index Locorum 382

Index of Modern Scholars 406


Source : Fabula

L.A. Swift, The Hidden Chorus. Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric, Oxford - New York, 2010.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
Collection : Oxford Classical Monographs
472 pages
ISBN : 978-0-19-957784-2
130 $

The Hidden Chorus investigates the relationship between the chorus of Greek tragedy and other types of choral song in Greek society. Choruses performed on a range of occasions in Greek culture, ranging from private weddings and funerals to large-scale religious festivals, yet the relationship between these everyday or 'ritual' choruses and the choruses of tragedy has never been systematically examined. L. A. Swift discusses choruses from five ritual genres: paian (religious songs of celebration or healing), epinikion (songs for athletic victors), partheneia (songs for the transitions of young girls), hymenaios (wedding song), and threnos (funerary song), and explores how these choral forms are evoked in tragedy. By examining the relationship between tragic and non-tragic choral song, she not only provides new insights into individual plays, but also enriches our understanding of the role poetry and song played in Greek life.

Source : Oxford University Press

Wolfgang Polleichtner, Emotional questions: Vergil, the emotions, and the transformation of epic poetry, Trier, 2009.

Éditeur : WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier
352 pages
ISBN : 9783868211894
35 €

This book brings together traditional approaches to the reception of the Homeric epic poems in Vergil's Aeneid, new advances in the field of Hellenistic poetry, as well as latest results from studies of emotions in antiquity. Using selected Vergilian passages that can be compared with a sufficient amount of relevant material from ancient poets and philosophers, this book attempts to reconstruct in greater detail what probably was Vergil's own understanding of what it meant to write epic poetry in his time.

Source : Fabula

Paolo Asso, A Commentary on Lucan, "De bello civili" IV. Introduction, Edition, and Translation, Berlin - New York, 2010.

Éditeur : De Gruyter
Collection : Texte und Kommentare
X-333 pages
ISBN : 978-3-11-020385-1
118,95 €

Book 4 of Lucan's epic contrasts Europe with Africa. At the battle of Lerida (Spain), a violent storm causes the local rivers to flood the plain between the two hills where the opposing armies are camped. Asso's commentary traces Lucan's reminiscences of early Greek tales of creation, when Chaos held the elements in indistinct confusion. This primordial broth sets the tone for the whole book. After the battle, the scene switches to the Adriatic shore of Illyricum (Albania), and finally to Africa, where the proto-mythical water of the beginning of the book cedes to the dryness of the desert. The narrative unfolds against the background of the War of the Elements. The Spanish deluge is replaced by the desiccated desolation of Africa. The commentary contrasts the representations of Rome with Africa and explores the significance of Africa as a space contaminated by evil, but which remains an integral part of Rome. Along with Lucan's other geographic and natural-scientific discussions, Africa's position as a part of the Roman world is painstakingly supported by astronomic and geographic erudition in Lucan's blending of scientific and mythological discourse. The poet is a visionary who supports his truth claims by means of scientific discourse.

Source : De Gruyter

K. Haegemans, Imperial Authority and Dissent The Roman Empire in AD 235-238, Leuven, 2010.

Éditeur : Peeters
Collection : Studia Hellenistica ; 47
LXIV-276 pages
ISBN : 978-90-429-2151-1
70 €

When Severus Alexander came to a brutal end in the spring of AD 235, his successor Maximinus certainly did not meet with the approval of all his subjects. Nil novi sub sole... After all, which Roman emperor was universally loved and admired? Yet few emperors received as bad a press as Maximinus and no other legitimate emperor was as bluntly dismissed by the senate.
In AD 238, a revolt that had been slumbering since Maximinus' accession flared up. African landowners chose the old proconsul of Africa Proconsularis, M. Antonius Gordianus, to lead their cause. The senate in Rome was quick to support the counter-emperor and played an important role in the ensuing events.

Andrew Cain, Noel Lenski (éd.), The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, Farnham, 2009.

Éditeur : Ashgate
486 pages
ISBN : 978-0-7546-6725-4
£ 65.00

Late Antiquity witnessed a dramatic recalibration in the economy of power, and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the realm of religion. The transformations that occurred in this pivotal era moved the ancient world into the Middle Ages and forever changed the way that religion was practiced. The twenty eight studies in this volume explore this shift using evidence ranging from Latin poetic texts, to Syriac letter collections, to the iconography of Roman churches and Merowingian mortuary goods. They range in chronology from the late third through the early seventh centuries AD and apply varied theories and approaches. All converge around the notion that religion is fundamentally a discourse of power and that power in Late Antiquity was especially charged with the force of religion.