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Vol 3, No 4 (2017)
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11-20 2
Abstract
Along with Solon of Athens, Alcaeus of Mytilene was one of the frst lyric poets with a clearly expressed political interest. However fragmentary his heritage, the remnants of his poetry and commentaries on it allow us to infer that he made a considerable contribution to development of political metaphor and allegory. This contribution was by no means limited to the allegory of the ship, which, it appears, did not always have to do with politics, even when the ship or sailing were arguably allegorical. The article gives a detailed survey of political metaphors which are attested for the frst time in Alcaeus' poetry: frr. 70.7 Voigt, 129.23–24 Voigt, 141.3–4 Voigt, 351 Voigt, 360BLib., 305a.1–14 Lib. Special attention is paid to metaphors connected with the topic of wine-drinking and sympotic games. Apparently, it was in Alcaeus' poetry that political activity was frst represented as a game of luck and skill. It is noteworthy that the political metaphors using the imagery of wine and games introduce into political language imagery connected with the symposion, where Alcaeus' songs were frst performed.
21-34 2
Abstract
The Athenian Empire was not only an empire of triremes and owls. It was also an empire of words. Beyond material forms of domination, Athenians developed a discourse that made of their city the center of the world of their time. If we are to believe Thucydides, Athenian political leaders presented their city as a model of self-restraint and moderation, thus asserting its moral superiority over the rest of the Greek world. Besides, from Aeschylus to Euripides, a series of tragedies makes of Athens the solution to the legal, religious or political challenges faced by various heroes of the common Greek mythology. The universalizing ambition of this discourse has, in fact, a performative aspect. The ethical superiority of the Athenians justifes their political superiority. The success of this performative discourse can be traced in the speech of Antiphon On the murder of Herodes, where before the Athenian court the Mytilenian Euxitheos praises the laws of Athens with a tone that directly echoes the praise of the Areopagus in Aeschylus's Suppliants. The defendant had seemingly perfectly internalized the superiority of the Athenian courts — or rather he thought it was his best interest to proclaim he had.
35-46
Abstract
This paper explores representations of warfare in Greek literature by considering literary personifcations of confict, in particular its frequent depiction in the act of consumption. War often appears in the characters of Ares, Polemos or Stasis, and one of its most frequent features in all of these guises is its formidable appetite. In Aeschylus' Suppliants, for example, Ares “reaps” humanity (636), and he is sometimes called φθῑσίμβροτος, ἀκόρητος, and similar epithets. Aristophanes, meanwhile, shows Polemos preparing to cook the cities of Greece as food (Pax 230–289), and Solon describes Stasis as sleeping, satisfying another type of appetite (S. 4.19). Humans who cause or conduct a war are often associated with the same desires and hungers (e.g. H. Il. 11.67, Alc. f. 70.6). Literary treatments of war thus suggest a political philosophy about the nature and causes of confict, which seems to both arise from and serve as the embodiment of a set of human appetites and desires. War often seems in fact to turn on its makers, inficting humanity's hungers back upon it to consume society or force men to consume one another, a tendency which suggests the dangers of giving in to such appetites in the frst place.
47-63
Abstract
The paper deals with the choice between the Greek words βασιλεύς and ἄρχων used in the LXX translation of the Pentateuch to render the Hebrew melek. Having adduced the relevant passages with necessary textual comments, the author discusses the hypothesis of E. Bickerman that the choice is to be explained by self-censorship of the LXX translators, worried about the reception of the Greek Pentateuch by the Ptolemaic court and administration. The author concurs with critics of the hypothesis and suggests that the solution should be sought elsewhere, namely in the attitude of Second Temple Judaism towards the institution of monarchy in Israel. The last part of the paper deals with the similar strategy employed by the translators in the Greek Ezekiel.
64-75 1
Abstract
This article begins by examining the two mentions of the polis in Sophocles' Ajax, using them to open up the wider question of to what extent the values found in the play can be said to be specifcally democratic. It goes on to argue that to understand the political aspects of this and other tragedies, we need to take into account the diverse composition of their audiences – in particular, the presence of non-Athenians, and of women, who have tended to be neglected by recent accounts of classical tragedy.
76-92 4
Abstract
The article explores current political interpretations of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus that treat its main character either as a sort of embodiment of Athenian democracy (B. Knox), or as a personifcation of its renowned leader, Pericles (V. Ehrenberg). These interpretations lead to the commonly accepted dating of the tragedy to the 420s BC. Having demonstrated some problems (both literary and historical) arising from such an approach, the author tends to agree with a recent suggestion made by M. Vickers who argued that the Sophoclean Oedipus has some characteristics in common with another prominent Athenian political leader, Alcibiades. The article contains several additional arguments supporting this idea (in particular, resulting from an analysis of the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Alcibiades Minor). However, contrary to Vickers, the author believes that such an understanding compels us to date the play to the 410s, perceiving in it allusions to the famous trial on the ‘mutilation of the herms' and to Alcibiades' exile, during which he spent some time at Thebes. Although this interpretation doesn't claim to make our comprehension of the eternal meaning of Sophocles' Oedipus much more profound, it still might give a more adequate insight into the ways the play was received and evaluated by the Athenian audience.
93-106 1
Abstract
The present paper considers the changes that took place in the reception of the Oedipus myth placed in the political context: these relate to both the plot-compositional and the ideologicalfgurative levels. The political relevance of the two French Oedipus plays is directly opposite in interpreting the image of the protagonist: Corneille's Oedipe refers to a legitimate king, while the Oedipe of Voltaire presents a regent who seized power illegally. Thus, myth is transformed from a tragedy into a pamphlet. Ozerov's tragedy
107-127
Abstract
In the article, a new interpretation of Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris is proposed. The main motif of the tragedy, the motif of barbarian human sacrifces, is constantly associated with intrafamilial murders in the house of Agamemnon, and the sacrifce of Orestes by Iphigenia, anticipated in the tragedy, is to join together the barbarian ritual and the tribulations of the Argos royal dynasty. The problem of human sacrifces in a barbarian land was in itself hardly of interest to Euripides; their constant comparison and drawing together with the events in Agamemnon's family enables us to assume that this motif served for symbolic expression of internal discords in the Hellenic world itself, that is, of the civil war in Argos solved with the help of Athens. It is possible to suppose that the tragedy celebrated an alliance between Athens and Argos, concluded after the war in spring 416 B.C.
128-140 2
Abstract
Eupolis' Demes certainly dates to between 417 BCE and the poet's death, generally put in 411 BCE. For almost two centuries, it was unanimously assigned to 412 BCE, after the failure of the Sicilian Expedition and the Spartan occupation of Deceleia, but before the oligarchic coup of 411 BCE, allowing the comedy to be read as a public response to a series of enormous political and military crises. This dating has been challenged by Ian Storey (who argues that Demes belongs in 417 or perhaps 416 BCE, before the fight of Alcibiades into exile and the Sicilian Expedition), and by Mario Telò and Leone Porciani (who put it in 410 BCE, after the overthrow of the democracy in 411 BCE). I begin with brief remarks about what is known about the on-stage action of Demes. I then argue that the alternative dates for the play face decisive objections, and that Demes is better kept in 412 BCE. Finally, I consider the sort of popular sentiment Eupolis' play must have been exploiting or echoing when it was conceived in 413 BCE.
141-150 4
Abstract
The article analyses the representation of oracles in ancient Greek comedy, namely, the genre of Old Comedy, including both the surviving plays by Aristophanes and fragments of his lost plays. The performance and interpretation of oracles in comedies is discussed from the point of view of their religious signifcance for society. The author argues that central to the representation of oracles is the art of the soothsayer and his/her ability to interpret the oracular text so that it evokes consent and approval in the audience and proves to be useful in a situation of crisis. The art of a prophet requires certain rhetorical skills. There can be traced in comedies two competing rhetorical models of the interpretation of sacred oracles, one of which turns out to be more effective for political aims. The rhetorical model of relying on “facts” and “honest” reading of an oracle loses in competition with the other rhetorical model which can be called (if it may be appropriate to draw modern parallels as some kind of analogy) the politics of “post-truth”, in which interpretation, clarity and accessibility for the listeners are more important than authenticity.
151-167
Abstract
For the topic of “Literature and Politics in Antiquity” the Augustan period, and especially the relationship of Augustus and the poets, has become a paradigm. This paper surveys and critiques the main trends of changing assessments, and the reasons for them, from antiquity to the present. I follow Peter White's foundational demonstration that the “political” interpretation of Augustan poetry is an anachronistic imposition; further, I briefy examine the imprecision of the notion of “ideology”. By analysis of some representative examples, such as Horace's Ode 1.2, I develop what is a more accurate notion, i.e. that of a national discourse or conversation with many participants besides Augustus with many different perspectives. While Syme's model of “the organization of opinion” has been largely discarded, binary models have proved too simplistic and have increasingly given way to more dynamic approaches, which are also more frmly grounded in the actual realities of the time, including the intentional polysemy of works of art. Another interpretive issue is the projection of the present into the past, which has been highlighted anew in studies of cultural and historical memory.
168-187 3
Abstract
Strabo's Geography is one of the frst historical sources which demonstrate the process of construction of “northern” stereotypes in the Roman Empire. On the one hand, it is a compendium of previous geo-political theories, and, on the other hand, Strabo's method of compilation corresponds to the political tendencies of the Augustan age. The term “North” refers to the geo-ethnological areas that are northern from a “Mediterranean” point of view: starting from Gaul and ranging through Germania up to the northern coast of the Black Sea. The article argues that Strabo's “northern stereotypes” not only answered the political interests of the Augustan age and in some way infuenced certain discourses, but were also used as an instrument of imperial ideology for enhancing the legitimacy of Roman power.
188-201
Abstract
L. Varius Rufus' lost tragedy Thyestes appears to have been one of the poetic texts that were most infuential and most supported by the state at the beginning of Augustus' rule; at the same time, by the end of his reign, Augustus seems to have abandoned serious support of its diffusion. The article puts forward the hypothesis that Seneca's Thyestes is to a considerable extent dependent on this tragedy and that some features of Varius' work can be reconstructed from Seneca's play. It appears that Varius criticized Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, recently defeated by Octavian, but failed to dedicate any extensive positive praise of the princeps. Early Augustus' interest in using drama for political needs can be explained by his wish, within the context of a fashion for esoteric learned poetry, to turn to a more conservative genre oriented towards communicating with the people as a whole: thus, he sought to restore the pragmatic context and the content features of Athenian tragedy. But the momentary relevance of Athenian-style tragedy was a bad ft with regard to its future use in propaganda, while the successful compromise between “democratic” features and learned style achieved in Vergil's Aeneid was the primary reason why Augustus reconsidered the guidelines of his cultural policies and abandoned his reliance on drama.
202-212
Abstract
Instead of trying to prove political allusion and political positioning for authors of poetic works, namely epic poetry, it seems more rewarding to look for contemporary sources. The paper suggests reading Silius Italicus' epic poem on the Second Punic War with a view to Valerius Maximus' work on the deeds and sayings of exemplary men. Exemplarity as a mode of thinking, narrating and evaluating historical facts is made evident by juxtaposing these two very diverse literary works.
213-223
Abstract
This paper investigates the indirect forms of psychological insight in Life of Alexander by Plutarch, which includes not only the portrayal of some gestures (the popular gesture of “taking hold of one's hand” is mentioned in the frst place), but also the overall non-verbal behavior of the character. The object under analysis is the biography of Alexander the Great, as it is here that the preamble about the crucial meaning of microgestures for understanding one's personality is found, and although this idea is important for other comparative biographies, it is the text of Alexander that serves, to our mind, as its best illustration. For instance, variations in the main hero's character are highlighted, on the one hand, by his diminishing ability to laugh and on the other hand, on the contrary, by the growing feeling of fear, and this fear is not so much for his life as for his power. At the beginning Alexander still has the necessary distance between himself and his image, that is, between his façade and his essence, which is proved by the emperor's ability to smile, joke and laugh in a variety of different situations and circumstances. When fear rather than laughter becomes predominant in his life, it is this fact and not only the external events, according to Plutarch, that brings his character's end closer. The motif of laughter, semantically rich, which is accentuated differently in the parallel work Life of Caesar as well as in Life of Alexander, emphasizes that the reasons why these rulers lost their lives lie in their fear of losing their power. Since the question of power is a political issue, the nonverbal text thus becomes involved in the political context.
224-233 4
Abstract
The fourishing of oratory in the East of the Roman Empire during the 2nd–3rd centuries A.D. is usually called the Second Sophistic — by analogy with the sophistical movement in Greece, mainly in Athens, in the 5th century B.C. The “teachers of wisdom” managed then to make rhetoric the most important instrument of political infuence on the life of the state and the society as a whole. The union of politics and rhetoric, state power and freedom of expression led to results that were completely unexpected and colossal in their signifcance: the fourishing of Athenian democracy, on the one hand, and the emergence of masterpieces in the feld of verbal creativity, on the other. The speeches of such outstanding orators as Isocrates, Demosthenes, and others had a tremendous impact on public opinion and state policy. In the Roman Empire, mainly in the cities of Asia Minor, where Greek cultural infuence predominated from time immemorial, the approach of the so-called “golden age of the Antonines” with its well-designed system of administration in the provinces and the extension of civil rights and freedoms of the population also contributed to a signifcant cultural rise in society. This was refected, frstly, in the appearance of a huge number of speakers and rhetoricians — sophists who traveled from city to city giving public recitations or reading lectures on rhetoric. Sophists made speeches on a variety of topics, and the most prominent of them were often granted the honorable right to deliver a solemn speech at a citywide celebration or a welcoming speech on the occasion of the arrival in the city of representatives of the Roman authorities and even the emperor himself. A typical example involves the two surviving “Smyrnean orations” by Aelius Aristides: their fame secured this orator a solid place among the classics of late Greek eloquence. Both speeches are addressed to Roman offcials and demonstrate well the close cultural and political ties between the Roman authorities and the Greek intellectual elite in the 2nd century A.D., strengthened, apparently, thanks to repeated trips of emperors to the East. This gives us reason to view the latter as the political underpinning of the so-called “phenomenon” of the Second Sophistic.
234-250
Abstract
Two of the most evanescent features of an archaeological site which have a huge effect upon how we interpret the original character of the site are: movement; and gardens (fgs. 1, 2). Recent excavations and studies at the large Roman villas of Stabiae near Pompeii by the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation and Pompeii Superintendancy since 2007 have brought new light on how the elite inhabitants and guests of the villas moved through the spaces. At the so-called Villa San Marco (fg. 3) excavations have suggested that that villa and the townhouse across the street (fg. 4) were part of a single property conjoined by a bridge across the street between them. At the Villa Arianna excavations and studies have revealed that the early phase of the villa (c. 80–60 BCE) was designed around a single axial “Durchblick” (through-view) while after the Augustan peace new spaces were added exploiting cross-axial views to the landscape (fg. 5). An extraordinarily well-preserved huge formal garden was excavated which revealed that it was designed not only to be walked in by groups of guests, but it was designed to manipulate the interaction between hosts and guests (fg. 6).


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ISSN 2412-9410 (Print)
ISSN 2782-1765 (Online)