{"title":"The-People-Who-Are-Men: Livy’s Book 7 Construction of the Populus Romanus","authors":"Jessie H. Clark","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2020.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2020.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines Livy’s deployment of women and gendered language in his second pentad, particularly Book 7, and suggests that Livy consciously explored how the shift from an aristocracy of birth towards one of merit reshaped expectations of men’s and women’s behavior. Livy increasingly constrains women’s roles and develops military service as key to Romans’ political education, whereby the proper development of Roman men is inseparable from their experience on campaign. Livy thus presents the expectations of gendered civic participation not as essential or obvious, but as something to be explained as part of the maturation of Rome’s fourth-century Republic.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114577721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Columella’s Prose Preface: A Paratextual Reading of De Re Rustica Book 10","authors":"Vic Austen","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2020.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2020.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper examines the prose preface to Columella’s De re rustica Book 10 as a ‘paratext’ to the verse book proper, and questions the impact of this framing strategy on our perception of the garden-as-text within the realm of agronomic literature. This analysis reveals two distinct, but interrelated, ways in which Columella frames Book 10: first, as a direct and important response to Virgil’s gardening excursus in the Georgics (4.116–48); and, second, as a small part-payment towards the completion of his own agricultural treatise. In order to explain this literary paradox, I propose Derrida’s concept of the supplement as a means of articulating the place of the hortus in the tension between Columella, his sources, and his attempt to create a new definitive agricultural treatise.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122306752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sexual Intercourse in Celsus’ De Medicina","authors":"Jeremy J. Swist","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2020.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2020.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper discusses the Roman medical writer Celsus’ evaluation of sexual intercourse and its impact on human health in his treatise De Medicina. Celsus departs from most Greek and Roman authors, medical and non-medical, in suggesting that sexual activity has no benefit to human health whatsoever, while in most circumstances it poses risks. In place of outright condemnation, however, Celsus negotiates within the social and legal contexts of Augustan and Julio-Claudian Rome, which not only aim to increase the birthrate among the aristocracy, but also value the personal libertas of free, male citizens, and thus Celsus discourages medical interventions to limit or prevent sexual activity.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129813815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Problematic Greek Miracle","authors":"R. Netz","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2020.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2020.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The thesis that something unique happened in ancient Greece determinative of later world history — the Greek Miracle — has become ideologically problematic. This essay argues that ancient Greek mathematics has a determinative place in global history and that its formation is a contingent consequence of the structural conditions of the Greek literary canon. Considering science as the emblem of Greek canonicity, however, clarifies the sense in which the Greek miracle is worth celebrating not for any particular value achieved once and for all but, almost to the contrary, for instigating a process of change and transformation. In this sense, celebrating the Greek miracle is anything but conservative.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122938525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Programmatic “Ordior” of Silius Italicus","authors":"P. Hay","doi":"10.1353/syl.2020.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/syl.2020.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper examines an intertextual reference to Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (3.101ff.) in the first word, ordior, of the Punica of Silius Italicus, and argues that Silius deploys this allusion to reclaim the didactic persona for a traditionalist moral narrative of Rome. Ovid’s passage concedes a fundamental change in Roman morals after the Punic Wars but, radically, proclaims a preference for the mores of his own time. Silius, with this allusive ordior, appropriates the didactic persona of the Ovidian interlocutor to reaffirm the traditional narrative. The ordior also connects the poem to Livy’s preface, which twice uses the verb while discussing how to begin a monumental work. The ‘window-reference’ allusion shows that Silius combines Ovidian poetics with a Livian perspective on Rome’s moral history.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122547572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Portrayal of the Germani in Latin Textbooks in Germany, 1989–2009","authors":"J. McNamara","doi":"10.1353/syl.2020.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/syl.2020.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:A survey of the portrayal of the Germani in Latin textbooks from 1989 to 2009, tracing the resurgence of interest in the Germani in the Federal Republic of Germany after German reunification and leading up to bimillennial commemoration of the battle in the Teutoburg Forest. The central sources are textbooks for the teaching of Latin, while context is provided by academic scholarship and representations of the Germani in other cultural contexts, including film and theatre, museums and tourist attractions. The study traces a process of demythologisation and the rise of a myth of mythlessness in the handling of ancient Germanic history. Germany’s role in the European Union is considered as a developing influence on the portrayal of ancient Germania, including Germania Romana, the Roman provinces of Germania, and Germania libera, the lands outside the empire.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124873969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Numerosus Horatius: Some Thoughts on Ovid and Horace","authors":"Laurel Fulkerson","doi":"10.1353/syl.2020.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/syl.2020.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article draws attention to the numerous large- and small-scale similarities between the poetry of Horace and Ovid in order to argue that Horace is a key and unnoticed influence on Ovid. Finally, it more speculatively offers the suggestion that some of the difficulties we traditionally have in accommodating Horace’s changes of side are due to Ovid’s decision to set himself and his career in opposition to Horace.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127948904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Getting Lucky With Ovid and Propertius: Board Games, Games of Chance, and Amatory Strategies in Roman Elegy","authors":"Christopher S. Dobbs","doi":"10.1353/syl.2020.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/syl.2020.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Ovid invites comparison to Propertius just before advising women seeking lovers to learn how to play board games and games of chance in order to achieve their goal. Propertius, however, uses games to signpost romantic failures, not successes, though he subtly describes himself as a game to be played and won. This inquiry demonstrates the role games play in the amatory strategies of Propertius and deepens our understanding of the relationship Ovid has with his generic predecessor.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116481510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Homeric Attribution of Outcomes and Divine Causation","authors":"R. Scodel","doi":"10.1353/SYL.2018.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/SYL.2018.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:One branch of attribution theory in social psychology studies how people explain the outcomes of what they and others attempt. In Homeric epic, both narrator and characters stress ability. Effort is taken for granted unless it is inadequate. Task difficulty is salient only when characters try to persuade others. Luck is very important in the poems, but is not marked as such. Where luck would be especially significant, divine intervention appears instead. The characters, however, can often only infer divine intervention, and their ability to infer the gods' motives is limited. Claims about divine action are rhetorically motivated.","PeriodicalId":402432,"journal":{"name":"Syllecta Classica","volume":"420 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121824703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}