Compitum

Kyle Gervais, Statius: Thebaid 2, Oxford, 2017.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
432 pages
ISBN : 9780198744702
100 £

Composed towards the end of the first century CE, Statius' Thebaid relates the myth of the 'Seven against Thebes': the assault of the seven champions of Argos on the ancient city in a bid to oust Eteocles, son of Oedipus, from his throne in favour of his brother, Polynices. Book 2 presents several key events in the build-up to the Theban war: Eteocles' haunting by the ghost of his grandfather Laius, the ill-omened weddings of Polynices and his ally Tydeus to the princesses of Argos, and Tydeus' failed embassy to Eteocles, leading to his famed victory over a Theban ambush.

Anthony J. Boyle, Seneca: Thyestes, Oxford, 2017.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
720 pages
ISBN : 9780198744726
120 £

Although the myth of Atreus' gruesome vengeance on his brother, Thyestes, was embedded in Greek and Roman culture long before his time, Seneca's play is the only literary or dramatic account to have survived intact. Written probably in late Neronian Rome, Thyestes is now widely regarded as one of the tragedian's finest achievements and represents Seneca's most mature reflections on power and civilization, and on the tragic theatre itself. The play's impact on European literature and drama from antiquity to the present has been considerable; now much studied in universities and colleges, and regularly adapted and performed, it still contains much that speaks pointedly to our times: its focus on appetite, lust, violence, and horror; its preoccupation with rhetoric, morality, and power; its concern with the problematics of kinship, and with political, social, and religious institutions and their fragility and impotence; its dramatization of reason's failure, the triumph and cyclicity of evil, the determinism of history, the mastery of the world through mastery of the word; its theatricalized and godless universe.

Kit Morrell, Pompey, Cato and the Governance of the Roman Empire, Oxford, 2017.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
320 pages
ISBN : 9780198755142
£65.00

Provincial governance under the Roman republic has long been notorious for its corrupt officials and greedy tax-farmers, though this is far from being the whole story. This book challenges the traditional picture, contending that leading late republican citizens were more concerned about the problems of their empire than is generally recognized, and took effective steps to address them.
Attempts to improve provincial governance over the period 70-50 BC are examined in depth, with a particular focus on the contributions of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey) and the younger Marcus Porcius Cato. These efforts ranged well beyond the sanctions of the extortion law, encompassing show trials and model governors, and drawing on principles of moral philosophy. In 52-50 BC they culminated in a coordinated reform programme which combined far-sighted administrative change with a concerted attempt to transform the ethos of provincial governance: the union of what Cicero called 'Cato's policy' of ethical governance with Pompey's lex de provinciis, a law which transformed the very nature of provincial command.
Though more familiar as political opponents, Pompey and Cato were united in their interest in good governance and were capable of working alongside each other to effect positive change. This book demonstrates that it was their eventual collaboration, in the late 50s BC, that produced the republic's most significant programme of provincial reform. In the process, it offers a new perspective on these two key figures as well as an enriched understanding of provincial governance in the late Roman republic.

Source : Oxford University Press.

Jean-Marie Auwers, Régis Burnet et Didier Luciani (dir.), L'Antijudaïsme des Pères. Mythe et/ou réalité ?, Paris, 2017.

Éditeur : Beauchesne
Collection : Théologie Historique, n°125
ISBN : 9782701022314
42 euros

Des relations entre les juifs et chrétiens à l'époque patristique, on retient surtout les invectives des Pères contre l'endurcissement irréductible des enfants d'Israël – thème qui est développé, parfois de manière virulente, dans les très nombreux traités et homélies Contre les juifs. On a ainsi pu parler d'un antijudaïsme des Pères que certains n'ont pas hésité à considérer comme le berceau des antisémitismes modernes. Cinquante ans après la promulgation de Nostra Ætate, quel regard porter sur cet antijudaïsme ? Les recherches nouvelles sur la séparation du judaïsme et du christianisme n'imposent-elles pas de nuancer des classifications trop simplistes et de réinterpréter des affirmations souvent décontextualisées ? Pour autant, ces recherches doivent-elles nous conduire à disculper les premières générations chrétiennes et à affirmer qu'aucune hostilité n'exista jamais entre juifs et chrétiens ? Enfin, en quoi ces cinquante années de recherches sur les relations judéo-chrétiennes dans l'Antiquité peuvent-elles modifier notre vision et nous aider à vivre, dans une plus grande vérité, les relations judéo-chrétiennes aujourd'hui ?
Les articles qui suivent reprennent les interventions d'un colloque tenu à l'Université catholique de Louvain du 20 au 22 mai 2015 autour de ces interrogations. Ce colloque, tenu pour célébrer le cinquantenaire de Nostra Ætate, a été organisé en collaboration avec le Commission nationale belge pour les relations avec le judaïsme (CNCJ).

Laurence Cavalier, Marie-Claire Ferriès et Fabrice Delrieux (éd.), Auguste et l'Asie Mineure, Bordeaux, 2017.

Éditeur : Ausonius Éditions
Collection : Scripta antiqua
584 pages
ISBN : 9782356131836
30 €

«Si tu exiges deux fois l'impôt, alors donne-nous deux moissons». Cette répartie cinglante d'Hybréas de Mylasa à Antoine illustre l'image d'une Asie saignée à blanc par l'administration de la République romaine, ses publicains avides, ses magistrats cupides et surtout par les pressions des armées des guerres civiles. La péninsule anatolienne, sans payer un tribut aussi lourd que la Macédoine et l'Achaïe, a beaucoup souffert des conflits qui ont opposé les Républicains et les Césariens puis les Triumvirs. À l'inverse, le principat d'Auguste est souvent représenté comme une ère de paix et de prospérité, parce qu'il impose une tutelle stable, une administration réorganisée et un nouvel écrin à la vie civique. À l'occasion du bimillénaire de la mort d'Auguste, il apparaissait nécessaire de tenter un bilan de l'avancée dans travaux dans les diverses disciplines scientifiques pour mieux cerner la portée historique de ce «saeculum aureum» en Asie Mineure. À cette fin, il a été décidé de croiser sans cesse les points de vue : celui du prince qui désire asseoir son pouvoir dans une région longtemps dominée par ses adversaires vaincus et celui des provinciaux, attentifs à comprendre l'orientation que la politique de Rome est en train de prendre. Il nous est apparu également fructueux de confronter le regard que les historiens, les épigraphistes les archéologues et les numismates portaient sur le témoignage de leurs sources respectives.

Siegfried Wenzel, The Sermons of William Peraldus. An Appraisal, Turnhout, 2017.

Éditeur : Brepols
Collection : Sermo, 13
XII-219 pages
ISBN : 978-2-503-56798-3
75 €

The French Dominican William Peraldus or Guillaume Peyraut (died c. 1275), well known for his long summae on the vices and virtues, also produced several cycles of sermons, of which two deal with the Epistle and the Gospel readings for the Sundays of the Church year. This study analyzes the latter in some detail and argues that, rather than collecting sermons he had preached earlier, Peraldus wrote these sermons systematically for the use of other preachers. The Epistle sermons for the first Sunday in Advent and the Gospel sermons for the third Sunday in Advent are presented in their original Latin text together with an English translation in order to demonstrate how Peraldus dealt with the biblical text as well as his moral concerns and his literary style. The selected texts are then compared with several other major cycles produced in France in Peraldus's time. Like his summae on the vices and the virtues, Peraldus's sermons became very popular in medieval Europe, as is witnessed by selective copying and citations that can be seen in a number of instances primarily from the sermon literature of later medieval England. One aspect of this popularity is the adaptation of his material into a genuine sermon, as it can be found in the sermons attributed to Repingdon, of which one is here examined in detail.