The omnipresence of myths in images and texts in Greek and Roman societies poses a broad spectrum of general questions. This article discusses, first, the different capacities of the media: while texts focus on narration and an author's reflection, images achieve visual presence, respond to the public's expectations and testify to social preferences. Regarding the significance of myths for actual societies, their ontological status is defined not as symbols or metaphors of abstract concepts but as real models of a primordial past for human action and behavior. Regarding the references between present-time societies and their mythical past, four categories are established: genealogical descent, local reciprocity, paradigmatic exemplarity, and individual identification. The uses of these modes are shown to be stamped by the conditions of historical epochs. In Archaic Greece Herakles serves as a paradigmatic hero of the anthropological concept of competitive polis societies. In Classical Athens Theseus is conceived as a local protagonist of a new political concept of the polis-state based on collective identity. In the Hellenistic kingdoms from Alexander on heroic genealogy and identification are introduced as factors of monarchic charisma. Finally, the superior power of genealogical over paradigmatic strategies is demonstrated in the transition from the late Roman Republic to the principate of Augustus.

This paper first critically discusses the doxa concerning the origin of exegesis in Greece, the existence of so called “mythical thought”, and the use of the terms allegory and rationalization, which are misused by researchers when applied to ancient texts related to mythology. There is no special approach that can be called rationalist and set apart from other exegetical practices. We try to propose another characterization of the mythographic tradition: it distinguishes between the allegorical interpretation of a (usually poetic) text, which conceives of myth as an intentional disguise, and the “allomythic” reformulation of a (popular) narrative, which conceives of myth as the distortion over time of a historical experience. Then we discuss the singular features of Palaephatus' work - the only systematic attempt to transpose/translate Greek myths into historical screenplays. The ancient author does not adopt the suspicion of lying that traditionally weighs on myths in antiquity, and that is accompanied by criticism of poets. It is language and its ambiguities that constitute, according to him, the main root of the myths: the account given by the first witnesses of certain events was misinterpreted by the listeners. This semiological etiology is original, and leads Palaephatus to seek the palimpsest of myths and to propose a rewriting of the myth (remythification), following a familiar (and often dull) scenario, in an idealized primitive cultural context. This recycling process gives rise to a new version of the myth and paradoxically reinforces - as is probably the author's intention, - the popular belief in its “truth”.

The specific topic of this paper is the tale of the Cyclops Polyphemus in Odyssey 9 and its connections to the story of the Odyssey as a whole, including the hero’s account of his travels in his Apology and Homer’s presentation of Odysseus’ return to his home on Ithaca in the second half of the poem. I also attempt to situate Polyphemus in a larger social, political and above all else economic framework, arguing that he is a less exceptional figure than Odysseus makes him out to be, and that thinking of him as a generic epic herdsman offers insights into his treatment at the hands of Odysseus and the poet, into the Cyclops society of which he is a part, and into the overall moral structure of the epic. As I note in Section 1, the Polyphemus incident plays a key role in Homer’s story. My larger and more controversial thesis is that this is due at least in part to the story’s moral and social complexity, which makes it a powerful tool to unlock other, more problematic issues both in the Odyssey and outside of it. Section 2 offers an initial consideration of the Polyphemus episode, its seeming intentions within the Apology and some of its peculiarities. Section 3 embarks on a second reading of the tale, designed to challenge the first by declining to take it at face value. Section 4 considers another Homeric herdsman, Odysseus’ slave Eumaeus, and his place on Ithaca and within the political, moral and narrative economy of the poem. Section 5 uses that perspective to look back at Polyphemus and Cyclops Island, and to reassess their connections to Homeric society generally and the story of the Odyssey as a whole.

According to Virgil’s Aeneid Dardanus, the son of Zeus who is the ancestor of the Trojan kings and people, came originally from Italy, and specifically from a mysterious town called Corythus, located somewhere in Etruria. This version is not attested elsewhere either before or after Virgil. Usually Dardanus was either an autochthon of the Troad (Homer), or an immigrant from Samothracia (Hellanicus); in other traditions, he was originally from Arcadia (Varro, Dionysius of Halicarnassus). Even if the issue is not without its complications, it is clear that in the Aeneid we have a manipulation of mythical ‘history’ in order to give a justification for Aeneas’ divinely ordered settlement in Italy. This manipulation is most probably to be attributed to Virgil himself. On the one hand, there is no convincing proof that the legend of Dardanus the Italian was significantly developed in any source prior to Virgil, while on the other hand there are in the Aeneid hints that lead us to think of this legend as Virgil’s own invention. First, the fact that in Book 3 the Trojans completely misunderstand the oracle of Apollo, who, after having addressed them as Dardanidae (‘descendants of Dardanus’), tells them to ‘look for their ancient mother’, suggests that - on a metaliterary level - they could not have any clue about the ‘right’ interpretation of what seems to be a most ‘clear’ response because no such version ever existed before Virgil. Virgil’s manipulative attitude towards the traditions about the origins of the Trojan race is emphasized by the presence, in the same oracle of Apollo, of the ‘manipulated’ version of Poseidon’s prophecy at Il. XX.306-308. Second, while Ilioneus in Book 7, speaking to the Italian King Latinus, introduces the Trojans emphatically as the descendants of Italian Dardanus, a legend King Latinus himself declares to be vaguely aware of, when Aeneas speaks to the Greek Evander in Book 8, he does not say anything about an Italian origin of Dardanus, insinuating instead that Dardanus might have been an immigrant from Arcadia. By representing his characters, and especially Aeneas, as manipulators and mythmakers, Virgil reflects on his own manipulations and his own politically interested mythmaking.

The so-called Einsiedeln Eclogues are two short bucolic texts published by H. Hagen in 1869 from a single Carolingian manuscript and traditionally dated to the Neronian age. Recent polemics about the date of Calpurnius’ eclogues (which also used to be dated to Nero’s time after M. Haupt’s seminal 1854 dissertation, but are now redated by some scholars to the 3rd century AD, with other scholars still insisting on Haupt’s date) have provoked attempts to redate the Einsiedeln Eclogues as well to a later date. An in-depth discussion of the problem would be out of place here; instead, the present paper focuses on the parallels between the Einsiedeln Eclogues and the Neronian traditions of power representation that have been overlooked by proponents of the post-Neronian dating for the text. In particular, the following topics are discussed: the image of the praised emperor as a poet; the importance of Trojan connections for the emperor; a particular construction of the image of Apollo in the first poem, perhaps in some connection with the emperor; and the very extravagant style of the praise itself, together with the extreme degree of politicization of the texts, unusual even for the traditionally politicized bucolic genre.

The paper deals with three mythological poems (epyllia) by the Carthaginian 5th century poet Dracontius: De Raptu Helenae, Medea and Orestis Tragoedia. As a rule, researchers extract them from the corpus of the other texts by Dracontius and study them as a whole, because, to a large extent, they seem similar in terms of structure, motifs and plotlines. Comparison of these poems with another work by Dracontius (Controversia de statua viri fortis, Satisfactio) leads to the conclusion that they can be examined not just as separate and similar pieces of fiction, but as a kind of trilogy. They have in common the representation of the Trojan war as a conflict between absolutely ‘good’ and absolutely ‘evil” forces, with the Trojans depicted as an object of the author’s sympathy, and the Greeks, their antagonists, paradoxically appearing as an incarnation of natural barbarity. Analysis of the terms and symbols used by Dracontius in these texts allows us to suggest links between this plot and very specific political processes: on the one hand, the confrontation between Roman and Vandal political elites, on the other - the struggle for power among the Vandal nobles themselves. Thus, the Trojans appear as the predecessors of the Romans, and the ‘barbarian’ Greeks as a symbolic resurgence of the Vandals.

Little is known about the time and circumstances of the appearance of the prose hymn genre. The first mention of it appears in the rhetorical literature of the Roman era, which also focuses on examples from late antiquity. Probably the most important such example for Greek rhetoricians was the corpus of prose hymns produced by Aelius Aristides - an orator, Atticist, and major representative of the Second Sophistic (2nd century A. D.). Based mainly on these texts, Menander of Laodice almost a century later drew up stylistic prescriptions for this genre. Aristides' prose hymns were written between 142 and 177 A. D. and addressed to various gods: Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Heracles, Serapis, Dionysus, Asclepius and others. Apparently, prose hymns were not widespread before Aristides: at religious holidays hymns in honor of the gods were usually performed by poets. The adaptation of this genre to prose, carried out by Aristides, consists in the contamination of traditionally poetic elements with the classic panegyric. This kind of “encomium” often served not only to glorify a particular deity, but also to honor the center of its worship, the inhabitants of a given area, and even Roman power. The high social and political status of rhetoric in the era of the Second Sophistic and Aristides' personal authority may have contributed to the further development of this genre, the formation of its canons, and its affirmation in the rhetorical system of late antiquity.

The article deals with the two sacrileges at the end of the Trojan war: that of Neoptolemos who killed Astyanax in a most brutal way and that of Ajax who dragged Kassandra away from the statue of the city goddess Athena with whom she had taken refuge. These sacrileges were not isolated heroic acts, but have to be seen in the reactions of the offended gods and the resulting consequences for all the Achaeans on their way home. In addition to written sources, vase painting around 500 B.C.E. can help us understand the concern of the Greeks for this topic. The question arises as to how the two sacrileges were evaluated in the assessment of the heroes since they were not damned for their brutality but instead honored in their home towns. This opens the view on transgression of heroes and warriors in a general way. They were admired despite and because of their transgression. Therefore modern moral criteria in the evaluation of scenes in Greek vase painting must be questioned. The article tries to give an answer to the question why the attic vase painters chose this subject in the years of the conflict with the Persians at the beginning of the 5th century.

The Hermitage silver plate no. W-1 represents Meleager and Atalanta, accompanied by two servants, at the beginning and at the successful end of the Calydonian hunt. Five stamps applied on the back of the vase allow us to date it in the first part of the reign of Heraclius (before 630).The plate can be compared with the famous David plates discovered in Cyprus, for some decoration details but also for their aim in political communication or propaganda. Heraclius - the first Roman/Byzantine basileus - probably used the Homeric myth of Meleager in order to express his ambition or pride at defeating the most terrible boar ravaging his empire - the Sassanian “Boar of the Empire”, Šahrbarāz/Šahrwarāz, military chief of Chosroes II. Moreover, the conflicts determined by the marriage of Heraclius with Martina, the daughter of his sister, in the Roman Christian society, could have been compared with the tragic myth of Meleager, who sacrificed his victory over the Calydonian boar and finally his own life in the family conflict which followed the hunt, for his love and faith towards Atalanta. Both the epic and the tragic hypostases of Meleager are well illustrated in the long Roman tradition of literary and iconographic representations, especially from the 2nd to the 5th century AD. Even if we lack literary sources confirming it, we must assume that these representations were still well known at the beginning of the 7th century. The external and internal political motivations we assume for the Hermitage plate lead us to date it around 622-624, when Heraclius and Martina (alias Meleager and Atalanta) obtained their first important victories against the Sassanians in Asia Minor.

The paper presents an analysis of the poetics of the Coen brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) in relation to motifs of Homer’s poem The Odyssey. The film opens with an epigraph quoting the opening lines of The Odyssey. This is a direct reminiscence, but the film’s authors employ a wide range of other artistic means, especially multiple allusions to the content and motifs of Homer’s’ poem. One should note that the principles of intertextual arrangement in the film pertain more to literary reception than to the cinematographic one, where the connection to the source plot and imagery is evident. At the same time, inasmuch as the meaning of the Coens’ movie is, in general, clear, without the direct reference to Homer’s text at the start of the film multiple allusions and references to the poem might have been hidden too deeply. Thus, the direct quote from The Odyssey on the one hand, and the indirect allusions and references to it in the body of the film on the other hand, help the authors to foreground social and political trends in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. In other words, allusions to Homer add more depth to the film, whose intertext embeds it in the text of world literature. Also, analogies and parallels both to the classical text and to cinematographic texts of the Coens’ predecessors exist in the film as a travesty, and that brings the poetics of their movie even closer to the poetics of literary reception.

On 2 September 31 BC a battle took place near the promontory of Actium between the fleet of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII Philopator. Octavian’s victory in this battle marked the end of the Roman civil wars of 44-31 BC. It is believed that architecture, both in Rome and beyond, was used to mythologize the battle of Actium. Octavian completed the construction of the building of the Roman Senate - the curia in 29 BC in Rome. The paper considers the exterior and interior of the curia in order to answer the question, whether or not the visual program of the building alludes to victory in the 31 BC battle. In our opinion, there are three types of architectural and decorative elements. The features of the first type allude exclusively to the victory in the battle of Actium. The elements of the second type relate to the victory in 31 BC but also have other ideological meanings. The features of the third type are not connected with the victory: they have a completely different message. The Senate house’s visual program had several ideological messages; nevertheless, glorification of the victories over Egypt and in the battle of Actium played an essential role among them. Not only elements of the exterior of the building but also those of the interior referred to the victory which made Octavian ruler of Rome. These features established Octavian’s image as the victor.

Gaius Iulius Solinus (3rd cent. AD) is the author of an excellent compilation written in Latin, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, in which all the inhabited world known at that time is depicted in all its diversity. In peripleutic description Solinus mentally traverses three continents, starting from Italy and following the route of Pliny the Elder (1st cent. AD). It would seem that we have here yet another traditional ancient geographical work. However, Solinus prefaces his description of the inhabited world with an excursus on the history of Rome, from its mythological origin and up to the Principate of Augustus (I.1-52). Such arrangement of the material is not found in other ancient geographical works and thus violates traditional models. This passage seems to demonstrate the specifics of the cultural memory and historical situation in the 3rd century AD, considering that the geographical and political priority of Rome is so clearly emphasized here. My paper analyzes the content of the passage (I.1-52) and argues for a conclusion about the political and geographical image of the Eternal City as the world capital in Solinus’ work and in his time: Rome first was the head of Latium, then of Italy, and finally of the whole world.

The article deals with the problem of the origin of two holidays in the ancient Roman calendar - the Poplifugia and the Nonae Caprotinae. In the ancient narrative tradition, the prevalent view apparently was that these celebrations were independent memorable days with their semi-legendary histories of origin. However, in the 2nd century, thanks to Plutarch, there appeared a version about a single celebration, which was embellished with a myth about a female servant with a double name - Tutula or Filotida. This myth was developed in the 5th century. For Macrobius, the issue of the holidays becomes secondary: he transforms both the name of the heroine and her story in order to rhetorically prove the presence of valor in women of low social status. The author of the article focuses on the possible connection between the appearance of this character and the development of the cult of Dea Tutela in the imperial period. Tutela was a patron goddess of a certain place, settlement, town. It took some time for Dea Tutela to become an independent personification; it grew out of an epithet characteristic for Juno. Starting with the reign of the Flavian dynasty, Tutela was also connected with the imperial cult. As a guardian of the imperial family, Tutela was close to such goddesses as Salus and Securitas. However, the author thinks that she stands out, since she has something like a cult myth.

The founding of Constantinople was one of the most significant events of Constantine’s the Great epoch and his major building project. It has always attracted serious attention of historians. Along with purely technical issues (the period of construction, the amount of money and materials spent, etc.), it is worth paying attention to how the project on building a new center of Pax Romana was ideologically justified. According to Ammianus Marcellinus (Res Gest. XXI.10.8), Constantine’s nephew Julian upbraided his uncle for his reckless commitment to innovations. However, as some modern scientific researches show us, many of the emperor’s innovations were based on a clever interpretation of old ideologemes. In this respect, the use of traditional myths about the origin of Rome in connection with the founding of Constantinople looks especially interesting. These are the myths about the Trojan War, as well as the story of Aeneas, the Capitoline She-wolf, Romulus and Remus. The direct reference to the image of Romulus, the founder of Rome, is evidence of Constantine viewing the new city founded by him as the new Rome, and its foundation as a new landmark in the history of the Roman state (which Constantine himself called in his letter to the poet Porphyrius - saeculum meum).

The article focuses on the figure of an evil bishop in Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae in connection with the image of a tyrant. Analysis of the text demonstrates that the notion of a bad bishop is noticeably determined by the image of a tyrant. Thus, the set of the key vices of a bad bishop (first of all, pride, anger and cruelty) corresponds within the Roman rhetorical tradition to the key characteristics of a tyrannus, which has already been reinterpreted in Christian terms. The activity of a bad bishop, like that of a tyrant, results in social disorganization and in the destruction of the populus. The image of a tyrant is applied to an evil primate because the figure of the bishop was rooted in a system of political values which already had been transformed significantly. The anger and pride of a wicked bishop placed him in the sphere of the secular and connected him with the devil, thereby destroying the very essence of episcopal ministry. As a result of desacralization the bishop ceased to be the center of all social ties of the community. The rhetoric associated with the image of a tyrant most adequately reflects this perception of the social role of the bishop.

This article focuses on a passage from letter I.6 of Pope Gregory I the Great addressed to the Byzantine noble Narses, with whom the Pope became closely acquainted in Constantinople. Gregory rebukes his addressee for trying to “plow the field of the Lord” with the help of oxen (bubali), which are unsuitable for this matter. Gregory also advises Narses to “smite them with the sword of his mouth”. In order to unravel the meaning of Gregory’s metaphor we analyze the context of his letter (including references to the Bible), as well as all his messages to Narses. Four extant letters touch on theological and church matters, so Narses could be close to the circle of patriarch John IV. His help to Gregory in the case of accused eastern presbyters or with Church Councils’ manuscripts could be metaphorically designated as “plowing the field of the Lord”. Letter I.6 by Gregory probably points to some theological or church dispute that took place in the patriarchal or imperial court. Bubali in biblical context are oxen unfit for plowing, because they are too ferocious. In view of the conflict between Gregory I and John of Contantinople bubali may designate any persons from the patriarch’s circle. The content of the letters shows how vividly Gregory was interested in the affairs of the Church of Constantinople and in Greek theology. The context of the messages allows us to make an assumption about what the Pope had in mind when speaking of bubali.

A review of: Neklyudov, S. Yu., Petrov, N. V. (Eds.) (2018). Pamiatniki knizhnogo eposa Zapada i Vostoka [Literary epic in the West and the East]. Moscow: INFRA-M. (In Russian).

The review focuses on materials from the international conference “Marginalia-2019: Borders of Culture and Text” that took place August 30 - September 1, 2019 in the town of Ostashkov.