MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-05-08DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10254
Zhongxiao Wang
{"title":"The inscitia rei publicae ut alienae in the Preface to Tacitus’ Histories Revisited","authors":"Zhongxiao Wang","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10254","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, I aim to challenge previous interpretations of the phrase <em>inscitia rei publicae ut alienae</em> in Tacitus’ <em>Histories</em> 1.1.1, offering a new reading which has been overlooked in Tacitean scholarship. I argue that this phrase reflects Tacitus’ criticism of Augustan historians, who, in distancing themselves from the state, were no longer concerned with state affairs and abandoned historical writing. I trace parallels between <em>Hist</em>. 1.1.1 and <em>Ann</em>. 1.1.2, arguing that both texts refer synchronously to imperial historiography’s decline, which suggests that the <em>inscitia rei publicae ut alienae</em> emerged at the midpoint of Augustus’ reign. The rules that Augustus implemented to enforce the quorum for the senatorial assembly and the penalties imposed for absenteeism in 9 <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">BC</span> offer compelling evidence in support of this interpretation.</p>","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140925208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-04-04DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10240
Iwona Słomak
{"title":"Seneca’s Thyestes: Ode 920-969 as an Amoibaion","authors":"Iwona Słomak","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10240","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to revise the editorial and interpretive tradition that regards <jats:italic>Thy</jats:italic>. 920-969 as a monody. Based on a systematic analysis of attribution differences in three selected plays by Seneca and, comparatively, in several other problematic places, it confirms earlier general findings: the A-branch of the MS tradition shows traces of conscious interpolation, while the codex Etruscus (E-branch) contains largely mechanical errors, which—in the case of <jats:italic>Thy</jats:italic>. 920-969—makes its attribution more plausible. The article further discusses the problematic passages of the ode that might have motivated interpolations, provides a critique of the interpretive assumptions supporting the A reading, and demonstrates that the attribution in the E-branch is correct in the light of the rules of Senecan poetics, as well as from the point of view of the internal logic of the text and the ethopoeia of the eponymous hero.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"298 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140587687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-29DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10274
David Christenson
{"title":"The Art of Communicative Grammar","authors":"David Christenson","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10274","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This review article of the <em>Oxford Latin Syntax</em> (Vols. I-II, 2015 and 2021) demonstrates how the communicative approach of Harm Pinkster’s monumental grammar complements recent revivals of oral, aural, and active Latin pedagogical methods. I conclude with examples of how Pinkster’s analysis of discourse may be applied to select passages (from Plautus’ Rudens, as a productive means of explicating dramaturgical and narratological matters there) in order to illustrate the OLS’s manifold potential for exploring discursive strategies of Latin texts generally.</p>","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"92 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139646508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-27DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10189
Joseph Zehner
{"title":"Anchoring Genealogy","authors":"Joseph Zehner","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10189","url":null,"abstract":"The writings of both Hecataeus and Pherecydes focus on genealogies, but scholars have characterized their styles differently: Hecataeus is anti-traditional and idiosyncratic, while Pherecydes is an impartial recorder of myths. This contribution argues for a neglected side of each author: Hecataeus follows Homeric genealogical traditions, while Pherecydes constructed novel genealogies of his own. Both authors, then, used tradition to accommodate, or ‘anchor,’ their innovations in genealogical writing, a strategy which Herodotus, in turn, improves upon in his own use of genealogies.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-27DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10207
Mikolaj Domaradzki
{"title":"Lucretius’ Allegoresis and Invective","authors":"Mikolaj Domaradzki","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10207","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper suggests that Lucretius’ Magna Mater interpretation (2.598-660) can fruitfully be approached through the lens of invective oratory. While this difficult passage of <jats:italic>De rerum natura</jats:italic> has long puzzled scholars, this article argues that in his interpretation Lucretius masterfully transforms the encomiastic <jats:italic>topos</jats:italic> of allegoresis into a powerful means of blame: the poet allegorically interprets various aspects of the cult of Cybele with a view to showing how religious convictions and customs go awry. When thus exposing the cult as impious, Lucretius ingeniously exploits several <jats:italic>topoi</jats:italic> of rhetorical hymns (nurture, propitiation, etc.) for the purpose of making his vituperation all the more compelling. Hence, on the reading advocated here, the Magna Mater interpretation is a carefully constructed invective against those aspects of the cult (of Cybele) which an Epicurean is bound to frown upon (providential illusion, divine punishment, etc.).","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-24DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10217
Jan Maximilian Robitzsch
{"title":"Gegen wen ist Kuria Doxa 33 gerichtet?","authors":"Jan Maximilian Robitzsch","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10217","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars usually understand <jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">Κύρια Δόξα</jats:styled-content> (<jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">ΚΔ</jats:styled-content>) 33 as an antiplatonic polemic. This paper denies the <jats:italic>communis opinio</jats:italic>. First, it argues for an ontological reading of the maxim according to which justice (understood as virtue) is not a body but a property. Second, it shows that the Stoics hold the very thesis disputed in <jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">ΚΔ</jats:styled-content> 33, namely that virtue is a body. This makes the Stoa the natural target of the maxim. Finally, the paper deals with <jats:italic>De rerum natura</jats:italic> I.464-482: here Lucretius criticizes nameless opponents with regard to the thesis that events are to be understood as bodies. If these opponents can be identified with the Stoics, as is usually assumed, there is further evidence besides <jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">ΚΔ</jats:styled-content> 33 that the Epicureans engaged with the Stoic thesis of corporealism.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-24DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10249
Claire McGraw
{"title":"Statues, Roads, and Money","authors":"Claire McGraw","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10249","url":null,"abstract":"The differences between the narratives about Augustus’ silver statues in Cassius Dio, Augustus himself, and Suetonius are better explained in the context of gift-debt and gift-exchange rather than focusing on cult alone. Whereas Suetonius and Augustus emphasize Augustus’ correction of the statues as a pious act and a statement on imperial honors, Dio overlooks honors and gods, instead revealing how the statues funded road repairs. In his history, Dio adapts the narrative to underscore the gap between the reality and the appearance of events: here, the exchange of statues for monetary gifts in Augustan Rome. Augustus, treating the statues as a gift, transforms them into something greater for the people’s benefit. The connection between the statues, the roads, and the money appears elsewhere in the two earlier narratives, but Dio alone links the gift-exchange of statues for money to Augustus’ ‘gift’ of roads.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"167 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-24DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10238
Oscar Goldman
{"title":"Provoking Politeness","authors":"Oscar Goldman","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10238","url":null,"abstract":"Dialogic interaction plays important generic, poetic, and structural roles within hexametric Latin satire. One aspect of this interaction which has received little prior exegesis is the presence, or lack, of politeness. By adapting and applying existing models which study this sociolinguistic phenomenon, we can perceive not only patterned use of politeness across the genre, but further intertextuality between Latin satire and Roman comedy. Interactions in the works of Horace and Juvenal are illustrative of both shared ‘politeness-motifs’, as well as divergent stylistic adaptations which suit each poet’s literary agenda.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-24DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10218
Jamie Dow
{"title":"Pistis and Apodeixis: On the Disputed Interpretation of Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.1, 1355a5-6","authors":"Jamie Dow","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10218","url":null,"abstract":"‘We are convinced most of all whenever we take something to have been demonstrated’ (1355a5-6). The meaning and significance of this claim is a key point of dispute between those who take Aristotle’s project in the <jats:italic>Rhetoric</jats:italic> to be defending his distinctively argument-centred kind of rhetoric on the grounds that it is most persuasively effective, and those for whom he does so on the more normatively-charged grounds that this is the most valuable kind of rhetoric, and best delivers rhetoric’s distinctive benefits to civic communities. On the interpretation defended, the claim links being convinced (<jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">πιστεύειν</jats:styled-content>) and the things that get us convinced (<jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">πίστεις</jats:styled-content>) to the kind of epistemic merits possessed above all by demonstrations. This saves Aristotle from an implausible generalisation about the persuasive supremacy of deductive arguments. Since <jats:styled-content xml:lang=\"el-Grek\">πίστεις</jats:styled-content> are clearly central to Aristotelian rhetoric, this interpretation also lends support to the more normative understanding of Aristotle’s project overall.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"154 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139583411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2024-01-19DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10195
John Henry
{"title":"On Prodicus and the Derveni Papyrus","authors":"John Henry","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10195","url":null,"abstract":"Another identification for the author of the Derveni papyrus has been suggested: the fifth-century <jats:sc>BCE</jats:sc> sophist Prodicus of Ceos. Producing over 18 testimonia, Lebedev argues that the Derveni papyrus and the thought of Prodicus agree on many points that have previously been disregarded, including their linguistic approach and cosmological doctrines. On the basis of this evidence, it is suggested that Prodicus wrote the Derveni papyrus as an atheistic polemic and a sophistic deconstruction of popular religion. However, this article will suggest that the testimonia does not establish the case, and consequently the authorship of the Derveni papyrus remains undetermined.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139516555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}