MNEMOSYNEPub Date : 2023-05-17DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10226
M. Zoeter
{"title":"The Art of Writing (and Collecting) Letters: the Case of Pliny’s and Symmachus’ Ep. 7.9","authors":"M. Zoeter","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10226","url":null,"abstract":"Although the Roman senator Q. Aurelius Symmachus (ca. ad 340-402) bequeathed a collection of over 900 letters, the search for allusions to earlier letter-writers in his letters has never been very successful. Although scholars used to argue that his collection of ten books was a deliberate imitation of Pliny’s collection, most scholars have now rejected this hypothesis. It is now accepted by most scholars that Symmachus published a first book and likely planned to publish another six books, which were posthumously published by his son Memmius.1 To this original collection of seven books, later generations added another three books to bring the number up to ten, which might indeed have been done in imitation of Pliny’s collection.2 It has long been recognized that Symmachus must have had some knowledge of Pliny’s letters, but the evidence is scarce. In his 1891 doctoral dissertation on Symmachus’ letters, Wilhelm Kroll listed all the resemblances that he could find between Pliny’s and Symmachus’ letters, but, as Gavin Kelly has demonstrated, only a few are convincing allusions.3 Kroll’s clearest finding of intertextuality, ep. 2.35 alluding to Pliny’s epp. 3.20 and 9.2, has been discussed by Alan Cameron in some","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91387991","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 : 2023-05-16DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10169
I. Karamanou
{"title":"Diphilus’ Paralyomenos (P. Louvre 7733v, col. ii, 32-35): Reading the Evidence","authors":"I. Karamanou","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10169","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000P. Louvre 7733v is the only source to attest a comedy by Diphilus entitled Paralyomenos and fr. 59 K.-A. from this play. This article ventures a cautious interrogation of the available—albeit limited and thus unexplored—evidence, with the purpose of extracting as much material as possible that could shed light on this play’s dramatic circumstances. It is argued that the present participle in the title is suggestive of a possibly critical situation (discharge from military service or physical disability) occurring within the course or shortly before the opening of the plot. Given parallel dramatic situations, it could reasonably be inferred that the title-character’s peculiar position may have got him involved in circumstances producing comic effect. Moreover, the restoration of fr. 59 proposed in this article may provide clues to a dramatic crisis. Overall, a close reading of the evidence in conjunction with comic practice could give scope for mapping the material concerning Diphilus’ Paralyomenos onto the dramatic contexts of fourth-century comedy.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86862919","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 : 2023-05-16DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10170
Silvia Speriani
{"title":"How to Turn a Hero into a Comic miles","authors":"Silvia Speriani","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10170","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper aims, on the one hand, at contributing to the analysis of one of the most enduring stock-characters in Roman comedy: the comic soldier, in its Plautine manifestations in particular. On the other hand, it will shed light on a much more serious soldier: Telamonian Ajax, and his in some way unfortunate reception. Weaving a twofold discussion of such apparently distant figures, I will evaluate the possible echoes of the mighty warrior Ajax in the parodic processes enacted by Plautus’ milites, as well as the role played in turn by these echoes in the Roman reception of Ajax himself. I will show how the Roman Ajax enhanced and developed comic nuances, which can be better understood through the trigger of Plautine memories and play a role in Rome’s own reflection on everchanging criteria for measuring valour.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84358642","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 : 2023-05-11DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10222
J. Neel
{"title":"The Capture of the Capitoline in Roman Historical Thinking","authors":"J. Neel","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10222","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article argues that the stories of Tarpeia and of Manlius Capitolinus are variations on a single, historically attested concern about internal enemies on the Capitoline. Moreover, the unusual presentation of these stories in Ovid in particular can be explained by various chemical properties of the mint, most likely located near the temple of Juno Moneta. Concerns about the safety of the mint in the late Republic may have driven authorial interest in these tales.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88700916","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 : 2023-03-31DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10221
Z. Biles, Thérèse M. Watkins
{"title":"Epic Boasts and Empty Threats","authors":"Z. Biles, Thérèse M. Watkins","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10221","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000An unnoticed allusion to Homer’s Iliad in Catullus c. 37 contributes to the poem’s recognized military theme by providing a clearer correspondence between figures from epic and those in Catullus’ poem, while also establishing a new framework for analyzing the dynamics of the poet’s verbal attack on his rivals that ultimately implicates him in his own mockery.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80166851","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 : 2023-03-31DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10168
Enrico Cerroni
{"title":"Searching for a Semantic Parallel to the Concept of Depression","authors":"Enrico Cerroni","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10168","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper examines whether a semantic parallel to the modern use of the word depression can be identified in ancient Greek. To that end, it retraces the development of the lexical family of the verb θλίβω, ‘to press’, and the abstract noun θλῖψις to gain the emotional and psychological meaning of ‘pressure’ or ‘affliction’. An analysis of the collected data suggests that a similar valence may be found in Hellenistic and Imperial Greek. However, this development is disregarded by authors with greater stylistic ambitions. Even physicians such as Galen continue to use θλῖψις solely in a physical, concrete sense. Conversely, the conceptualization in the singular of the word de-pression is lacking in ancient Greek. An antecedent may be identified in the formation of the prefixed verb καταθλίβω and the derived noun κατάθλιψις, found only from Late Antiquity onward, but this retains a concrete valence.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86416364","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 : 2023-03-31DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10177
{"title":"Revisiting Apuleius’ De re publica (Fulgentius, Expositio sermonum antiquorum 44)","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10177","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study focuses on a fragment of Apuleius’ lost De re publica preserved in Fulgentius, Expositio sermonum antiquorum 44. After reviewing earlier scholarship on this passage, it is argued that its Plautine vocabulary is consistent with Apuleius’ archaising style, far from being evidence against Apuleius’ paternity. An echo of Aristophanes, Knights 542 is discussed (a tag that later became a political adage), as well as of Plato, Republic 488a-489a and Cicero, Republic 1.11. It is suggested that the fragment might derive from a dialogue somewhat akin to the eponymous ones by Plato and Cicero, or from a speech on moral philosophy.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76286894","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 : 2023-03-31DOI: 10.1163/1568525x-bja10163
P. Agócs, J. Lightfoot
{"title":"Ovid and Petronius’ Pyramus and Thisbe (Satyricon 131.8-11 and Metamorphoses 4.55-166)","authors":"P. Agócs, J. Lightfoot","doi":"10.1163/1568525x-bja10163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10163","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Petronius’ engagement with Ovid’s poetry in the Croton episode of the Satyricon is more extensive than has previously been appreciated. As well as drawing upon Ovidian elegiac poetry, especially Amores 3.7, the description of Encolpius’ second failed tryst with Circe at Satyricon 131.8-11 also alludes to Ovid’s narrative of Pyramus and Thisbe at Metamorphoses 4.55-166. This ironic perversion of one of the Metamorphoses’ most innocent and tragic narratives parallels Petronius’ later Ovidian allusion at 135.3-137.12, where the story of the pious couple Philemon and Baucis (Met. 8.616-724) is recalled during Encolpius’ visit to Oenothea’s hut. Petronius’ engagement with the Metamorphoses during Encolpius’ exploits in Croton is thus shown to be deeper than has previously been realised.","PeriodicalId":46134,"journal":{"name":"MNEMOSYNE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84121261","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}