Nigeria and the classics最新文献

{"title":"Terence’s Eunuchus","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0373","url":null,"abstract":"Suetonius (Vita Terenti 3) asserts that Eunuchus was Terence’s most commercially successful play. While we cannot confirm this claim, Eunuchus (as all Terence’s plays) enjoyed continuous readership after performances of it ceased in antiquity, was often cited by ancient writers and grammarians, and received a commentary in the 4th century ce. While Eunuchus is not without its critics—some have found fault with its dramatic structure and the ethics of its finale, to say nothing of its unique (in New Comedy) foregrounding of violent rape—it has generated enormous interest in both medieval and modern cultures, including numerous commentaries and translations. Eunuch’s unusual deception-plot, that is, the impulsive Chaerea’s costuming as a eunuch to sexually overpower Pamphila, no doubt accounts for much of the attention the play has attracted. For scholars of gender and sexuality, Eunuch invites interrogation of Roman attitudes toward sexual violence, norms of masculinity, and constructions of gender, as well as of the sexually ambiguous figure of the eunuch in this dramatic and cultural context. Eunuch’s prologue has also captivated scholars of Roman comedy and literary history more generally, as it so clearly articulates recurring concerns of Terence’s characteristically metadramatic prologues: Terence’s adaptation of both his Greek and Latin sources, including charges of “contamination” and “plagiarism,” and the broader challenges of finding novelty within circumscribed comic tradition (for Terence’s “anxiety of influence” see esp. Eun. 35–43). Some scholarship has been conducted on linguistic differentiation among Eunuch’s characters, and it is hoped that burgeoning sociolinguistic work on Plautine Latin will continue to be extended to Terence. Recent criticism has largely focused on aspects of Eunuch’s performance, both on the micro-level of costumes, stage movements, and musicality, and more broadly on the play’s pervasive metatheatricality.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72819683","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":"Ancient Mediterranean Baths and Bathing","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0370","url":null,"abstract":"Studies of ancient Mediterranean baths and bathing are now so ubiquitous that it is easily forgotten that these subjects received relatively little scholarly attention before the late 20th century, with the exception of the great imperial thermae of Rome that have fascinated architects and antiquarians since the Renaissance. Bathing establishments were among the most common and the most important types of civic architecture in Rome and its empire. They range in size from intimate to monumental, and they were an integral part of lives and daily routines. Their appearance across the Mediterranean world and beyond, from the British Isles to the Euphrates, speaks to the expanse of Roman rule and cultural influence. Roman-style baths and communal bathing for relaxation and sensory pleasure, as well as hygiene, became trademarks of Romanitas in the provinces. Baths were often among the first structures built after Roman conquest, often established and funded by members of the local elite. Only the wealthiest families had their own domestic bath complexes, so public baths were places where men and women of all ages and all levels of society spent time washing, relaxing, recreating, and sometimes crossing paths. Men and woman were sometimes segregated by architecture or scheduling, but probably often bathed together. Informal meetings also occurred, between friends and lovers, and with prostitutes. Roman thermae often included spaces designed for varied activities, from lecture halls and libraries to exercise grounds and gardens. They were places for politics and business gatherings. More modest in size than their Roman successors, Greek public baths (balaneia) have also come into their own in recent scholarship. Greek bath building peaked in the Hellenistic period in Greece, Sicily, and South Italy, and especially in Egypt. Particularly interesting are studies of the evolution of bathing practices from the more personal Greek experience in relatively small complexes, through Hellenistic and Roman Republican technological advances, to social bathing in the great thermae of the high Roman Empire. Publications represent a wide variety of approaches, focusing on literary sources, archaeological excavations, architectural form, technology, and more. New questions are offering new insights into ancient baths and bathing even as field surveys and excavations continue to add to the corpus.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"548 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77198481","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":"Plautus’s Curculio","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0366","url":null,"abstract":"Plautus’s shortest play Curculio has not drawn the same attention from scholars, authors, and performers over the centuries as his Menaechmi, Amphitruo, Pseudolus, and Miles Gloriosus, yet the play offers a set of dramatis personae that encompasses all the main stock characters of Roman comedy (with the exception of mother and father figures), a plot that ties together three common Plautine storylines (erotic, deception, and recognition), and an unparalleled metatheatrical monologue from a truly unique character, the Choragus. The young citizen man Phaedromus desires Planesium, enslaved to the sex-trafficker Cappadox, who is asking for more money than Phaedromus has. Phaedromus’s parasite Curculio, sent on a journey to Caria in search of a loan, comes back instead with a ring stolen from the soldier Therapontigonus, who has contracted with Cappadox to purchase Planesium. Using the ring to forge documents and an eyepatch disguise, Curculio (under the pseudonym Summanus) tricks both Cappadox and Lyco the banker into handing Planesium over. Therapontigonus arrives, enraged at being tricked, but soon learns that Planesium, who has recognized Therapontigonus’s stolen ring on Curculio’s finger, is his long-lost sister. They are reunited, Planesium is acknowledged as a citizen, the two of them agree to a marriage between Planesium and Phaedromus, and Cappadox is physically abused and forced to repay Therapontigonus. The title character influences Terence’s Phormio and Catullus’s erotic persona, as well as the stock character Ligurio in Italian commedia dell’arte; meanwhile, the recognition and reunion of the soldier Therapontigonus with Planesium, his sister and erstwhile object of erotic desire, inspires similar plot twists in Molière, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and more. The play’s concision and nonstop action have made it a popular choice for student productions, particularly at North American colleges and universities. This article comprehensively catalogues scholarship on Curculio, beginning with overarching works (general studies, editions, the manuscript tradition, commentaries, translations) and then moving into the major topics of scholarly interest in the play: Greek original and Plautine adaptation; plot, staging, and music; themes and characters; social and historical contexts; humor and language; and reception and performance history. For other surveys of Plautine scholarship, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies articles Plautus, Plautus’s Amphitruo, and Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies articles on the main surviving playwright of Greek New Comedy, Menander of Athens, and Plautus’s Roman comedic contemporaries Terence and Caecilius Statius.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84883053","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":"Ancient Thebes","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0362","url":null,"abstract":"The principal city of Boiotia, Thebes exerted influence and at times control over the great expanse of Central Greece, from the South Euboean Gulf at east to the Gulf of Corinth at west. Lying north of the massif of Parnes (and its most famous spur, Cithaeron), Thebes bestrides the western reaches of a low mountain range running east toward Tanagra and governs access to the flatlands along the Asopus river to the south, to the plains stretching north and east toward Helicon and the Copais (the Teneric plain), and to the level expanses extending west toward the sea south of the Messapion-Ptoon line (the Aonian plain). Thebes itself sits on a dense cluster of hills. One such hill, the Cadmea, is the age-old acropolis. The river Dirce runs just west of the Cadmea. Two rivers lie east: the Strophia (or Chrysoroas), which runs immediately next to the Cadmea, and, further east, the Ismenos. Thebes has a grand mythic history. Founded by the Phoenician Cadmus (in one tradition) while in search of his sister, Europa, the city is the birthplace of two sons of Zeus, Dionysus and Heracles, and an imposing mortal line which includes Oedipus. Impressive Bronze Age remains have long lent intrigue to these traditions. Thebes had regional and extra-regional aspirations by the 6th century, with mythic, epigraphic, and historical references indicating rivalry with neighboring Boiotian communities as well as Athens and Thessaly. Famous for medizing during the Persian Wars, Thebes likely acted within a Boiotian collective by the middle of the 5th century. Thebans joined the Peloponnesian cause in the Peloponnesian War but thereafter came into running conflict with Sparta. The city expelled an imposed Spartan garrison in 379, and the leaders Epaminondas and Pelopidas brought forth a period of expansive Theban hegemony after Leuctra (371). Following the shared defeat at Chaeronea in 338—where Thebes’ renowned Sacred Band came to ruin—the city endured a Macedonian garrison. Destroyed by Alexander in 335 for rebellion, Thebes was rebuilt in the time of Cassander (316). The city functioned as a member of a Boiotian collective subsequently, but Sulla stripped its territory in 86 for Thebes’ backing of Mithridates. Thebes sank to relative insignificance thereafter and did not rise to prominence again until Byzantine times. A prosperous international city after Justinian and into the Middle Ages, Thebes’ importance receded under Ottoman domination.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"205 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83573119","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":"Roman Roads and Transport","authors":"Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0358","url":null,"abstract":"The total length of the Roman Empire’s highway network is not known, but can be estimated at well above 100,000 kilometers. Some roads were surveyed and built from scratch, others created by upgrading pre-existing routes. The bibliography on the subject is correspondingly vast, running into thousands of titles. Most published studies are focused on the remains of the roads as preserved in the landscape, taking a morphological approach and identifying or dating roads on the basis of their alignment and construction. Some more recent studies, however, take a contextual approach (“dots on the map”), identifying and dating ancient roads from their relation to known and datable features such as settlement sites, necropoleis, or forts. Within ancient history generally, focus has shifted from the construction and administration of roads or their use for military campaigns to a wider consideration of their place in the economic life of the Roman world. Unlike sea transport, which exploited the winds, ancient land transport was at all times dependent on muscle power, human or animal, and hence more costly than sea transport. On the other hand, transit times by land were more predictable and communications could be maintained throughout the year, whereas ships mostly remained in port during the winter months. The highway network was also fundamental to the maintenance of official communication through the so-called cursus publicus or vehiculatio, with stations along the major overland routes. In some areas, road transport was complemented by shipping on navigable rivers or—rarely—canals.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88818299","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":"Death","authors":"P. Chrystal","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0355","url":null,"abstract":"Life and death is a vast subject, potentially taking in a massive chunk of the published output of Greco-Roman scholarship since the time of Homer and his contemporaries. So, some serious restriction of extent is required: this article will focus on life and death and how the two interrelate throughout the Greek and Roman periods. “Death” will cover eschatology, funeral and burial rites, funerary epigraphy, as well as different forms of death such as suicide, death in war and in the arena, death through disease, and murder. Poisonings, toxicology, osteoarchaeology, and forensics are also covered. “Life” will take in life where death impinges on it in whatever form. As with any culture and civilization, life and death were inextricably linked in ancient Greece and Rome: how one led one’s life was dictated to a large degree by belief in and expectations of a further life in the afterworld; similarly, the kind of afterlife one might expect was thought to be predicated on how one conducted oneself during life. The Greek tragedies underscore the absolute necessity for proper burial rites in Greek society while the Romans too had strict rules relating to funerary protocol and ritual. Epigraphy takes in military inscriptions and the formulaic praise, particularly of wives, husbands, children and mothers. We will see much on necromancy, communion with the dead, the underworld journey, underworld topography, and denizens of Hades and Tartarus such as Charon. The section on Postmortem Studies takes in works on memories of the departed, mourning, commemoration of the dead, the Parentalia, dining with the deceased, death pollution, corpse abuse, and cremations that went badly wrong. War death covers military and civilian death in battle and siege, disasters, and atrocities while suicide gives us Lucretia, euthanasia, and depictions of suicide in art. Finally, from murder, toxicology, and forensics we find studies on the effects of lead poisoning, the patricide of Verginia, three infamous women poisoners, and amateur toxicologists—Mithridates and Cleopatra. The citations range from Homer to late Roman, from the Greek polis to the Roman Empire at its widest extent and to its fall; they take in all available types of evidence as found in journal articles, books, visual arts, epigraphy, archaeology, architecture, science, and online sources.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76669143","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":"Cicero's Rhetorical Works","authors":"J. M. May","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0357","url":null,"abstract":"Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bce) rose to prominence in the state during the final decades of the Roman Republic. Blessed with a goodly measure of natural ability, an extraordinary amount of self-discipline, and a remarkably broad and deep education not only in rhetoric but also in philosophy and the other noble arts, Cicero employed his oratorical skill to establish himself in the courts and on the Rostra as Rome’s finest orator. He was elected to the state’s chief political offices at the youngest possible age, and during the final months of his consulship (63 bce), he foiled a plot by L. Sergius Catilina to overthrow the government. His decisive action in that affair was the source of great glory and pride in having saved the state, but also of great pain and heartache, for some five years later he was forced into exile for his part in the summary execution of Catilinarian co-conspirators who were also Roman citizens. Following his return to Rome, he found himself at loggerheads with members of the so-called “First Triumvirate,” a situation that resulted for him in something like a forced retirement from political activity. A decade later, in the wake of Julius Caesar’s victory in the civil war and subsequent dictatorship, Cicero was placed in a similar situation. During both these occasions (namely, the mid-50s and mid-40s bce), he channeled his energies in the direction of his other great love, i.e., contemplation, study, and writing. Remarkably, these two periods saw him produce nearly a score of treatises, including his most important and influential rhetorical writings, wherein he enunciated his deeply-held conviction that eloquent speech (coupled with reason) was a chief civilizing factor in human society—a glue that binds and builds well-ordered communities when employed responsibly by its most expert practitioners. Following the assassination of Caesar and the emergence of Marcus Antonius as a force who appeared to be aiming to secure his own dictatorial powers, Cicero once again took up the mantle of the Republic, hoping for its restoration. He opposed Antonius and his actions by writing and delivering to the Senate and people a series of speeches known as the Philippics. But on the brink of success, young Caesar Octavianus allied himself with Antonius, and Cicero’s name found a prominent place on the list of those proscribed: his head and hands, severed by Antonius’s henchmen, were gruesomely displayed on the speaker’s platform in the Roman forum. See the separate Oxford Bibliographies article in Classics Cicero for a general and more comprehensive bibliography of Cicero and his other works. Other Oxford Bibliographies articles that may be of interest include Greek Rhetoric, Latin Rhetoric, and Rhetoric.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75185729","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":"Death and Burial in the Roman Age","authors":"John Pearce","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0356","url":null,"abstract":"Evidence for death and burial in the Roman age extends across all materials surviving from Antiquity, literary texts, the remnants of memorials to the dead, inscriptions, images, and burials themselves, both the remains of the dead and the objects used in the rituals for burying them. This diversity of source material and the relevance of funerary evidence to so many aspects of ancient life continue to fragment scholarship. The allocation of epitaphs, architecture, images, artifacts, and the remains of the dead to separate disciplines has compounded their decontextualization from funerary ensembles. The subject area has also been divided by different approaches depending on the region and period concerned: the dominant interests in late Roman burials, for example, have been the investigation of Christian conversion or migration into the Roman world. However, some unifying trends can be observed. In recent decades attention has shifted to exploring the mass of burial evidence for what it reveals of Roman society, its social structures, demographic characteristics, and so on. This has been given extra impetus by the results of archaeological fieldwork, creating a sample of well-excavated burials and human skeletal remains which now rivals the numbers of inscribed memorials. The optimism of reading off social structures or demographic characteristics from funerary evidence has been replaced with an emphasis on exploring how groups and individuals negotiated their relationships to their communities through rituals and monuments. This essay presents Roman behavior in relation to death, bereavement, and commemoration, mainly using material evidence in its broadest sense. It is necessarily selective, giving examples of key syntheses and datasets and of developing approaches. In some cases (especially monuments) it gives some greater weighting to English language publications, especially where they provide gateways to non-Anglophone scholarship. After opening sections on general works on death and burial and on the Roman funeral and mourning, the essay discusses in turn monuments, funerary rituals as reconstructed from archaeological evidence, and late Roman burial practice, including its relationship to conversion to Christianity. It concludes with case studies where different forms of evidence, architectural, artistic, artifactual, osteological, etc. combine to produce a richer view of monuments and processes, in specific cultural and social contexts across the empire. Study of human remains from a demographic or paleopathological perspective is outside the scope of this essay, though some bibliographic pointers are given in the first section (Overviews of Death and Burial). Recent work on osteological and biomolecular characteristics of the skeleton is however noted where its integration with the evidence for rituals has significantly enriched the study of identities in death.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90562324","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":"Greek New Comic Fragments","authors":"S. Nervegna","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0354","url":null,"abstract":"The expression “Greek New Comedy” traditionally indicates a specific phase of Attic Comedy dated to the late 4th and 3rd centuries bce, although New Comedies continued to be written well into the Imperial period. New Comedies bring onto the stage fictional characters, domestic situations, and love-stories, and their plots tend to repeat common elements. Ancient sources identify over sixty New Comedy poets and consistently name three dramatists as the main representatives of this genre: Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon. Menander was born in 342/1 and died around 290 bce; the biographies of his two rivals are largely obscure but Philemon was reportedly older than Menander while Diphilus was one of Menander’s contemporaries. Unlike Menander, they were both born outside Athens. Two or three more authors were added to the list of the best New Comedy poets: Philippides, Apollodorus of Carystus, and Posidippus. New Comedy poets were generally more prolific than their 5th-century colleagues, but their plays are largely lost. Menander is the only author whose comedies survive thanks to a series of lucky papyrus findings in the 20th century: we have one complete comedy, Dyskolos, and substantial portions of several more. The dramas written by other New Comedy poets survive only in short fragments preserved by a few papyri and, most often, by ancient authors largely interested in linguistic peculiarities or moralizing excerpts. The standard collection of the fragments (F) of Greek Comedy and the testimonia (T) for Greek comic poets is Kassel and Austin 1983–2001 (Poetae Comici Graeci, cited under Editions and Translations), which is generally abbreviated as “K-A.” While surviving fragments are typically not very informative, an important source for our knowledge of Greek New Comedies is Roman Comedy. Roman poets adapted select plays into Latin, often disclosing the titles, the authors, and other details of their Greek models. Roman comedies give us indirect access to their now lost Greek originals.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85588956","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":"Amicitia","authors":"Christian Rollinger","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0353","url":null,"abstract":"The question of what constitutes friendship—a true friend—is one that has been asked in many societies and historically contingent periods, and from a number of different vantage points. Just as the Romans interrogated themselves as to the precise nature of their amicitiae, so, too, have ancient historians and classicists investigated the vast field of that relationship. They have asked widely divergent questions: What was the philosophical or emotional basis of Roman friendship? How did Roman authors, from the comedies of the middle republic to later imperial works, discuss friendship? What role did it play in society, in economic or political contexts? How was the traditional notion of amicitia changed by the changing circumstances first of the imperial period and, more profoundly, by the advent of Christendom? Ancient historians and classicists have been attempting to answer these questions for a long time. Scholarly discourse can be broadly divided into two large fields, the first of which was (and is) concerned with the development of Roman philosophical thought on amicitia and, particularly, with Cicero’s famous treatise Laelius de amicitia. As the study of Roman amicitiae is rendered exceedingly complicated by the intentionally vague semantics of Roman terminology, which employs amicitia for a variety of social relationships, not all of which a majority of people would now term “friendships,” little consensus has been reached beyond strictly philological questions. In addition to these philological and philosophical enquiries, however, a second field emerged in the early 1980s, which emphasized the importance of Roman institutions of personal relationships for the study of Roman history, particularly in the field of politics. This perspective has been enlarged in recent years by a renewed interest in the role of amicitia in, e.g., the Roman economy and in the communicative and affiliative strategies that were essential in creating and maintaining amicitiae. Additionally, there appeared what might be called a “democratization” of friendship studies, with amicitia no longer seen as an exclusive phenomenon between elite Roman males. The advent of Christianity (but also of new philosophical schools) in Late Antiquity was accompanied by a distinct rethinking of amicitia from a Neoplatonic and Christian perspective. Schramm 2013 and White 1992 (both cited under General Overviews) offer exemplary approaches and further references, but the changing interpretations of amicitia in the later Roman world make this a distinctly different subject and consequently this period is excluded from this bibliography.","PeriodicalId":82164,"journal":{"name":"Nigeria and the classics","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81964019","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}