Latin Poetry Research Articles

Ancient Latin Poetry Books: Materiality & Context by Gabriel Nocchi Macedo

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 351 sustained emphasis on continuities with nuanced and appreciative readings of late antique Latin poetry is a welcome challenge to a field that may just now be leaving behind its rebellious adolescent years. University of Waterloo Andrew Faulkner Ancient Latin Poetry Books: Materiality & Context. By Gabriel Nocchi Macedo. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (New Texts from Ancient Cultures). 2021. Pp. xii, 365, 5 plates. Attention to the material contexts of Roman book production and use has increased in recent years with a cluster of recent books and projects focusing on Roman bibliography in a variety of contexts, from the literary1 to the papyrological.2 The book under review is an important addition to the field. Nocchi Macedo examines thirty-five extant ancient and late antique manuscripts of classical Latin poets, providing a detailed analysis of manuscripts of hexametric, elegiac, and dramatic poems in turn; these are bookended by an introductory chapter on poetry and its writing in Greece and Rome and a concluding chapter on “Book Typology and Contexts of Reception.” The narrative portion of the book is followed by a descriptive catalogue of the thirty-five manuscripts covered by the author, as well as two appendices, one providing hypothetical reconstructions of the original manuscripts and one outlining the metrical layout of Vat. Lat. 3226 (a fifth- to sixth-century manuscript of Terence). Nocchi Macedo shines in his detailed analysis of the manuscripts in Chapters One to Three, displaying his considerable expertise and careful study of the manuscripts on almost every page. He is particularly good on the Barcelona Alcestis manuscript, on which he has published extensively elsewhere,3 and makes important observations on the ruling of late antique manuscripts (esp. on page 58) which add greatly to our understanding of the development of techniques of page preparation over the course of the first millennium . I have my quibbles, however, about the book’s organisation, which has Nocchi Macedo looking in turn at all the hexametric, then elegiac, then dramatic manuscripts. In arranging the material by metre the author implies that he seeks to find common elements in the mise-en-page of manuscripts in the same metrical mode. This is most successful in Chapter Three, where there are important things to be said about the ways in which dramatic metres are laid out on the page. But is it really helpful to juxtapose palaeographical considerations in the same way? After all, the Gallus fragment (first century b.c.e.) is surely more palaeographically similar to the Carmen de Bello Actiaco fragment of the same date, rather than the fifth-century snippet of Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto with which it is paired. It would also have been a service to the reader to provide a brief conclusion to each chapter summing up the important common features of each group of manuscripts, as well as the ways in which those differ from manuscripts of other genres. 1 For example, S. A. Frampton, Empire of Letters (Oxford 2019), reviewed by E. Barbiero in Phoenix 73 (2019) 213–215. 2 Above all S. Ammirati, Sul libro latino antico (Pisa 2015). 3 For example, G. Nocchi Macedo, L’Alceste de Barcelone (P.Monts. Roca inv. 158–161): Édition, traduction et analyse contextuelle d’un poème latin conservé sur papyrus (Liège 2014). 352 PHOENIX Only someone who has spent time cataloguing or doing detailed codicological analysis of manuscripts will appreciate the sheer amount of work this kind of project requires. Nocchi Macedo has done us all an important service in re-examining as many of these manuscripts as possible (either in person or via high-resolution digital images; for the four that were entirely inaccessible to him he relies on previous descriptions and older photographs). A major drawback of toiling away on manuscripts is that the academy does not always consider this work to count as scholarship by itself: context and the all-important “research question” are needed too. The necessity to make a case for the significance of his work is perhaps what has led Nocchi Macedo to frame his detailed analysis of the manuscripts with two contextual chapters, both of which add little and...

Ovids Enzyklopädie der Liebe: Formen des Eros, Reihenfolge der Liebesge-schichten, Geschichtsphilosophie und metapoetische Dichtung in den Metamorphosen by Vittorio Hösle

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 339 contribute to key themes in each poet’s work. For Propertius, they create a variety of ways to explore elegy’s competing claims to emotional immediacy and artful discourse; for Catullus, they participate in defining and interrogating the relationship between poetry as communication and poetry as a social artifact; and for Horace, they help to cast the tension between public life and private relationships as a circumstance that not only conditions but also serves his poetic agenda. I, the Poet is more invested in demonstrating McCarthy’s method than in generating new interpretations of first-person Latin poetry, and McCarthy is explicit about this goal. Her readings “are not meant to correct or substitute for other readings these poems have attracted, but to stand alongside them and enlarge the range of tactics we can use in approaching these poems” (35). As a result, although it is textually grounded in meticulous close readings, I, the Poet still feels experimental, but productively so. The Epilogue on Ovid’s exile poetry shows the potential of McCarthy’s approach to open new angles on further first-person Latin poetry. Because her reading method is designed to examine not specific rhetorical figures or thematic content but the structural strategies that highlight the ambiguity of the first-person speaker, it will be a flexible tool in further readings. Like all innovative methods, McCarthy’s leaves room for refinement, and this is a good thing. For example, although it is fundamental to her readings, she leaves the concept of “storyworld” undefined.1 Because she does concretely explain her use of the terms “story” and “discourse,” this vagueness does not impede her readings, and the storyworld remains a compelling site for further investigation. In incorporating the idea, however, she opens first-person Latin poetry to complementary models of imaginary worlds from, for instance, possible worlds theory and media studies, both of which offer more robust theorization while raising further questions about fictionality and the reader’s role.2 In addition to offering new reading strategies, then, McCarthy in I, the Poet also provides a launchpad for further scholarship. University of Toronto Rachel Mazzara Ovids EnzyklopÈ adie der Liebe: Formen des Eros, Reihenfolge der Liebesgeschichten , Geschichtsphilosophie und metapoetische Dichtung in den METAMORPHOSEN. By Vittorio HÈ osle. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter (Bibliothek der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaften. Neue Folge. 2. Reihe, 161). 2020. Pp. x, 288. In this book Vittorio HÈ osle sets out to show that the narrative development of the Metamorphoses is determined by Ovid’s focus on an encyclopedic ordo amorum. He argues that this order is in line with the poem’s overall historical-philosophical structure, 1 McCarthy is not alone in this; intuitive definitions of the worlds of story or fiction are common in narratological scholarship. On the vagueness of Gérard Genette’s use of this concept, for instance, and a discussion of the questions that it leaves, see R. Bunia, “Diegesis and Representation: Beyond the Fictional World, on the Margins of Story and Narrative,” Poetics Today 31 (2010) 679–720. 2 See, for example, the essays collected in A. Bell and M.-L. Ryan (eds.), Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology (Lincoln 2019); M. J. P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation (New York 2012). 340 PHOENIX and attributes a “historical consciousness” (“Geschichtsbewußtsein,” 25) to Ovid. The author succeeds in his epic task of analyzing the amatory narratives of the Metamorphoses without neglecting other central episodes and the coherence of the work as a whole. He never loses sight of his central theme as he sheds light on each story and guides the reader through his book. Each chapter heading is accompanied by a caption summarizing the arguments to follow. These captions and the resulting table of contents (vii–x) are unusually detailed, but are, in my opinion, quite helpful, as they allow for a well-founded overview of the book (also useful is the index of real and literary figures, 275–288). In his preface (1–2) Hösle addresses the question of why one should read a book about Ovid’s Metamorphoses written by a philosopher, and presents the advantages of his perspective...

Ennius Noster: Lucretius and the Annales by Jason Nethercut

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 335 with the concerns of the separate homicide courts, where both litigants and witnesses had to swear that their side’s case was true. Her speculative explanation is that the homicide laws, which were the oldest in Athens, were enacted primarily to replace retaliatory murders (the common response to homicide before written laws) and thus had to produce verdicts that were factually credible to the victim’s relatives. When the popular courts were established more than a century later, the same circumstances no longer prevailed. I would add one other factor to her account, namely that the popular courts were established by the new democratic government led by Cleisthenes, and democratic ideology required that the courts consider justice in their decisions. The eight contributions in this volume cover a wide range of topics. All are interesting and valuable in their own right, but only the Roman law papers really address issues concerning law and fact. University of Texas at Austin Michael Gagarin Ennius Noster: Lucretius and the ANNALES. By Jason Nethercut. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021. Pp. 260. These are happy times for the study of Latin literature’s first few hundred years: dusty, “archaic” poets are starting to appear fresh and exciting;1 republican genres that once were thought to have died young now seem to have lived into ripe, imperial old age;2 and the contours of Roman literature’s very “beginning” have received renewed and probing attention.3 It might not be an overstatement to say that the history of Latin poetry, ca 240 to 40 b.c.e., is in the process of being rewritten. Enter Jason Nethercut. The first book-length study of the relationship between Lucretius and the Annales in any modern language, Ennius Noster does more than fill a “gap”: this is a bold and important work of scholarship, with provocative things to say about Lucretius, Ennius, and Latin literary history writ large. Though not every reader will buy everything on offer, Ennius Noster is sure to become a major point of reference over the coming decades. Scholars of republican literature will need to have it on their shelves, and I, at least, will be keeping it within arm’s length of my laptop. The book’s central thesis is tidy and easy to summarize: Lucretius systematically alludes to the Annales in order to dismantle the worldview that he attributes to that poem; Ennian ideology thus stands as the unenlightened foil to Lucretius’ vera ratio— Epicureanism. Nethercut argues this credible thesis over a lucid and to-the-point introduction , four chapters, a conclusion, and five valuable appendices. The prose style is punchy and readable, and the text has been carefully copy-edited throughout. It is a real pleasure to encounter scholarship written with so much love and labour. Chapter One, “Ennius and the Tradition of Republican Epic,” sets the stage. Reconsidering the hexametrical poetry written between the Annales and De rerum natura, 1 For Ennius, see J. Elliott, Ennius and the Architecture of the Annales (Cambridge 2013); for Livius Andronicus and Naevius, see T. Biggs, Poetics of the First Punic War (Ann Arbor 2020). 2 On republican comedy’s afterlife, see M. Hanses, The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence (Ann Arbor 2020); C. Polt, Catullus and Roman Comedy: Theatricality and Personal Drama in the Late Republic (Cambridge 2021). 3 D. Feeney, Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature (Cambridge, MA 2016). 336 PHOENIX Nethercut here argues that Ennius’ influence on second-century b.c.e. epic was much less pronounced than is currently believed and that, consequently, Lucretius’ appropriation of Ennius in the mid-first century was unexpected. A version of this argument has already appeared in a recent volume on the Annales, which I reviewed in the last issue of Phoenix.4 So, I will be brief: this chapter does well to criticize the stale scholarly narrative that second-century Rome was full of Ennianisti, writing cookie-cutter imitations of the Annales. Yet the new story that it tells—that Ennius’ influence on epic before Lucretius was slight—seems to me little better, predicated, as it is, on significant omissions (e.g., Nethercut...

Translating from Greek as Source Language? The Lasting Influence of Latin on New Testament Translation

Translational choices in New Testament translation appear to be influenced far more strongly by the Latin tradition and Martin Luther’s towering translation than hitherto acknowledged. This contribution uses examples from the synoptic gospels to trace the influence of Martin Luther, the Vulgate, Erasmus and the Old Latin version of the New Testament in current dictionaries like the Bauer/Aland and BDAG.

Doing It in Greek

While a considerable amount of scholarly energy has been devoted to the Latin versions of the Passion and Acts of the African martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, by comparison rather little serious attention has been devoted to the Greek translation of the narrative of their martyrdom. Such an investigation requires a focus not just on technical problems of the similarities and differences between the Greek translation and a putative Latin original, but also attention to the more strategic problem of its place in the context of translations of Latin Christian texts. Although a Greek translation could have been made soon after the first appearance of the Latin narrative, this essay argues that a more likely context for the translation and for a heightened interest in the cult of Perpetua in Italy and in the East is a much later fifth- and sixth-century one. When we consider the cultural as much as the literary “translation” of Perpetua's martyrdom, we see that the drive to exploit the images and social power of a specific group of African martyrs explains the emphasis placed on them not only in Africa (specifically at Carthage) but also in a cluster of sites at the head of the Adriatic. These particular connections logically suggest concomitant ones with the eastern Mediterranean of the Byzantine state of the fifth and sixth centuries C.E.

Legal evidence theory: are we all “rationalists” now?

This paper focuses on the rationalist theory of evidence and identifies a set of two basic theses and their underlying philosophical assumptions shared by the Anglo-American and the Latin versions of rationalism: the thesis of the pursuit of truth as the preferential aim of legal evidence; the thesis of evidentiary justification as a special case of general epistemic justification; the assumption of the notion of truth as correspondence; the assumption of ontological and epistemological differentiation of rationalism from both skepticism and naive cognitivism. The author sustains that these theses and assumptions are imprecise in important aspects and that this is what allows the adoption of the rationalist conception to function as the common frame for current debates in legal theory of evidence, a frame that closes some discussions (namely, those concerning the notion of truth) and opens others (those regarding the degree of specificity of legal evidentiary justification and the appropriate way to allocate the risk of error).

Traces of Wulfila’s Bible Translation in Visigothic Gaul

Abstract The analysis of the biblical names transmitted by the – now lost – mosaic inscriptions of the church Notre-Dame de la Daurade, in Toulouse, suggests the possibility that they may represent the Latin adaptation of Gothic names deriving from Wulfila’s Bible translation. These forms would therefore be significant witnesses to the circulation of the Wulfilian text in Visigothic Gaul. They would also testify to the ongoing Latin acculturation of the new settlers in Gaul, or at least in the capital Toulouse, where the (relatively) peaceful relations with the Gallo-Romans, encouraged by a court open to Roman culture, may have promoted a rapid bilingualism – although not a complete assimilation – of the Visigothic population. The mosaic inscriptions of the Daurade would perfectly represent this cultural amalgamation, by joining the traditional religious belief (Arianism-Homoianism) and texts (Wulfila’s version) of the Goths, with forms of art (mosaics) and language of the Gallo-Romans.

Benjamin Franklin and ‘Good Old Mantuan’

In the 25 March 1731 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette, Benjamin Franklin published an editorial urging people to treat the sick with compassion during the current smallpox epidemic. In lieu of a title, two Latin epigraphs head the work. The first comes from Juvenal’s tenth satire: ‘Mors sola fatetur / Quantula sint hominum corpuscula’(Death alone reveals how small our bodies are). The next epigraph presents a second Latin verse: ‘Post obitum benefacta manent, aeternaq; virtus / Non metuit Stygiis, nec rapiatur aquis’(Good deeds transcend death, and virtue, eternal virtue, never fears the Stygian undertow). Franklin identified Juvenal as the author of the first quotation but did not name the author of the second. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, which began publication in 1959, excluded this editorial, but Alfred Owen Aldridge identified it as Franklin’s composition in 1962. Two decades later, J. A. Leo Lemay confirmed Aldridge’s attribution and reprinted the editorial as ‘Compassion and Regard for the Sick’ in his 1987 anthology of Franklin’s writings. Lemay’s notes for the anthology do not identify a source for the second epigraph.1

Old and Middle English translations of Greek and Semitic words in the Latin version of St John’s Gospel

AbstractThe majority of Greek and Semitic words found in the Latin version of St John’s Gospel express specific biblical terms, closely connected with Jewish and Christian religion and culture, but almost entirely unknown to most of the English population until the evangelisation that took place in the 7th century. The comparison of the Old and Middle English translations of the Latin source text presented here attempts to identify the procedures and methods which both Old and Middle English translators used to make the Latin items understandable to their audience, as well as to explain the reasons for the differences between the translations, where possible.

TRANSFORMINGARMA VIRVMQVE: SYNTACTICAL, MORPHOLOGICAL AND METRICAL DIS-MEMBRA-MENT IN STATIUS’THEBAID

Arma uirumque cano… ‘Je chante les armes et l'homme …’ ainsi commence l’Énéide, ainsi devrait commencer toute poésie.It is far from an overstatement to make the claim that in the surviving corpus of Latin poetry no phrase is more immediately identifiable than the pronouncement of the Virgilian narrator on the ‘arms and the man’ of his subject matter. The presence ofarma uirumquein a particular formation cannot fail to put us in mind of theAeneidand its concomitant ideological associations. A consequence of the epic's centrality as a canonical text was the emergence in antiquity ofarma uirumqueas a synecdochic quotation for the work as a whole and, as such, for the figure of the poet himself. This transformation was further actuated by the ancient practice of ascribing titular authority to a poem's incipit, ensuring that arms and the man took on especial resonance. Even within theAeneid, self-referential intratextual play with the Virgilian utterance can be detected. Furthermore, in post-Augustan verse, Fowler argues thatarmaalone is always loaded in a metaliterary fashion, serving as an identifying marker for Virgil's epic or, more broadly, for epic in general. This was so marked a phenomenon that the opening word of the poem was recycled and reworked by Ovid around a decade after the compositional beginnings of theAeneid, in the first book of theAmores, in what formed an announcement of the redeployment of epicarmainto the elegiac world ofmilitia amoris(Am. 1.1–2).

Fabulae and Imaginatio in Gianfrancesco Pico’s Thought

In Renaissance philosophy, the term fabula is often used to mean a poetic or fantastic tale that conceals the truth beneath metaphorical language. This article will focus on a rather different concept of fabula found in Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s works. To the younger Pico, the entire tradition of Greek and Latin poetry is a fabula: that is, a false and immoral narration inspired by demons. In the first part of this article, I will trace the origin of this use of fabula to the early Christian apologists. I will argue that Gianfrancesco’s intention was to build on this idea through an interpretation of ancient thought that differed from the historiographical model of prisca theologia proposed by Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico. In the second part, I will show the close relationship, in Gianfrancesco’s philosophy, between fabula and imaginatio.

A Matter of Philosophers and Spheres: Medieval Glosses on Artephius’s Key of Wisdom

The article examines the two Latin versions of Artephius's Clavis sapientiae (Key of Wisdom) that have been preserved in early modern collections of alchemical texts. A comparative analysis of the two versions shows that one of them has undergone a process of textual manipulation. In particular, an interpolation of short philosophical passages concerning the doctrine of prime matter has relevant interpretative implications. These additions appear to be grounded in the early thirteenth-century philosophical debate on cosmology and the first Latinate reception of Aristotle’s metaphysics.

Satire and The Cambridge Introduction to Satire

Satire and The Cambridge Introduction to Satire

Rīgā 17. gadsimtā sacerētās latīņu kāzu dzejas komponentes

Soon after the Protestant Reformation took place in Livonia in the 16th century, the currents of European humanism came to Livonia. As a result of the historical and religious impact, the level of education increased, enabling an environment for the development of the literature. Soon various Latin poetry texts int. al. 17th-century occasional poetry written by the humanists of Riga started to appear. The aim of the article is to bring to light the components of nuptial (epithalamium, ὑμέναιος/hymenaeus, carmen nuptialis, etc.) poetry written in Riga in the 17th century, as well as by exploring the specific features of occasional poetry to capture readers’ and researchers’ interest in the previously undiscovered cultural heritage. At the beginning of the article, the tradition of nuptial poetry is explained. Then, by examining the basic principles one must take into account in composing occasional poetry based on works of the ancient rhetors – Menander (Μένανδρος Ῥήτωρ, c. 3rd century), pseudo-Dionysius (pseudo-Dionysius/Διονύσιος), Himerius (Ἱμέριος, c. 315–c. 386) and the book “Seven Books on Poetry” (Poetices libri septem, 1561) written by Italian humanist Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558) – a table of the most used topics in nuptial poetry is formed. Afterwards, the poetry written in Riga and its most typical components (didactics, laudation, inducement, foresight, wishes/congratulations and prayers) is compared to the topics offered by previously mentioned theoreticians. Fragments of Latin nuptial poetry written in Riga are included to portray the components of poetry more clearly. All translations of poetry included in the article are made by the author of the article.

On the problem of legality-legitimacy in theory of law and philosophy of law

The subject of this research is the problem of understanding and interpretation of the meaning and designation of one of the key concept of modern legal lexicon – “legitimacy”. Legitimacy became an attribute of the current scientific paradigm of legal thinking, because broadening the area of application, it is used as a certain standard of highest legality, often perplexing comprehension of the problems of legal theory, as on etymological level its leans only on one of the Latin versions of the word “legal”. In the same platitude, legitimate legality and legal legitimacy are a common tautology, which in the context of theory of law and philosophy of law, insistently dictates the necessity to clarify this term and definition. Research methodology suggests the analysis of the problem of legality-legitimacy from the perspective of differentiating legal and other disciplinary approaches: political scientific, sociological, etc. The novelty of this study consists in the problematic-critical analysis of the concept of “legitimacy” on the context of theory of law and philosophy of law. The conducted research demonstrates that the problem of legitimacy represents is a terminological substitution within the framework of legal-positivistic doctrine for the so-called not “purely” legal aspects: sociological, psychological, political scientific, and other. 

The schoolboys’ revenge: how the golden line entered classical scholarship

AbstractThe golden line, a Latin versification exercise in British classrooms since at least 1612, appears to have no basis in the classical tradition. It was resisted by the academy for decades — if not centuries. Then, as Latin versification ceded its central role in schools and universities, resistance withered. New generations of scholars had never encountered the golden line as a composition exercise, and they saw instead the golden line as a critical tool for interpreting Latin poetry. After the 1950s, the golden line spread to Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, France, and beyond. A classroom exercise helped shape scholarship worldwide. Yet the golden line is an even more striking example of scholarship from below, because it thrived due to its documented appeal to the students who identified and composed them. From the 1600s until today, students have expressed pride and joy in identifying and composing golden lines. Student preferences often shape pedagogical canons and classroom practice, but the golden line went still further. Today, Latinists worldwide analyse poets of the classical canon by counting and discussing their golden lines. Student preferences for a school exercise have changed not only pedagogy but scholarly practice.

Classicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry by Philip Hardie

Reviewed by: Classicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry by Philip Hardie Dennis Trout Classicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry Philip Hardie Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. Pp. viii + 293. ISBN: 978-0-520-29577-3 Specialists in early imperial literature have discovered the treasures of late Latin poetry. Prominent among them is Philip Hardie, who has already published discerning essays on Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola. Perhaps it is unsurprising that scholars who have labored in the well-tilled fields of Augustan and post-Augustan poetry should migrate to fresher terrain. Hardie himself identifies "the relative youth of studies of late antique Latin poetry" as one of the discipline's defining features (3). That such emigrants to this new frontier should also bring along the tools that have proved so effective in rehabilitating Ovid, Lucan, and Statius is equally unremarkable. Nevertheless, it is an act of loyalty that thrusts them into the center of debates over the exceptionality of late Latin poetics. By championing critical principles honed on the poetry of Vergil and his successors, Classicism and Christianity takes its stand on the side of those who see the writing and reading practices of late Latin poets and their audience as fundamentally continuous with those of the classical past. The first chapter of Classicism and Christianity ("Farewells and Returns: Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola") models Hardie's approach and, as he notes, introduces most of the book's themes and strategies. The poetic epistles exchanged by Ausonius and Paulinus have long been a favorite site for exploring the intersection of biography and literature in the later fourth century. Though less interested in lives than some scholars, Hardie like others spotlights the interplay with Vergil (especially the Eclogues) and Ovid (especially the exile poetry) that undergirds the textual maneuvers and emotional complexity of these letters. For Hardie, the "noise and clatter of classical poets" that animate these letter-poems (21) and the "patchwork of old intertexts" (19) that structures them are clear evidence that even the radically committed Christian poet (Paulinus) was licensed to deploy the "verbal resources and stylistic ornament" (43) of pre-Christian poetry in the service of Christian truth. Consequently, Hardie argues, content constitutes the primary difference between Late Antiquity's Christian and traditional Latin poetry and contrastimitation stands as a privileged technique by which Christian poets bridged content and form (e.g., 2 and 39). This position is not in itself new, of course, but Hardie [End Page 440] further argues that late antique Kontrastimitation is broadly continuous with the "emulative and agonistic practices of pre-Christian poetry" (8). In short, as the readings of this chapter are meant to illustrate, the critical methods developed in recent decades by scholars of early imperial poetry are appropriate and effective for assessing late ancient poetry, Christian and traditional alike. There are, then, two ways of engaging Classicism and Christianity, as an assemblage of close readings and as an interpretative primer. Chapters 2–4 focus on late antique elaborations of themes and narrative ploys already present primarily in the works of Vergil. In these chapters Hardie foregrounds the late antique absorption, modification, and transvaluation of Vergilian narratives and ideologies of imperial renewal and exilic longing; the adaption and occasional subversion of the Aeneid's ruminations on cosmic and imperial order; and late Latin poetry's recapitulations of Vergil's emphasis upon the dialectic of concord and discord in perceptions of Roman history and identity formation. Claudian, Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Rutilius Namatianus claim most of the spotlight but the poets of Biblical epic, centones, and carmina figurata, as well as Augustine, that shrewd reader of Vergil, edge in. Less linear argument than a run of soundings bringing to light the classical formations underlying late Latin poetry's political, religious, and aesthetic surfaces, these chapters also reaffirm the centrality of Vergil to the late antique consciousness. In the following two chapters this literary archaeology is brought to bear on topics that are often heralded (inappropriately in Hardie's view) as quintessentially late antique. Chapter 5, which includes an emblematic discussion of the intertextual tapestry that voices the De ave phoenice's program of...

Procne, Philomela, And The Voice Of The Peplos

Procne, Philomela, And The Voice Of The Peplos Stamatia Dova* Philemon A.P. 9.452.1–5; text Beckby 1968 Rejoice, Procne, in greetings from your sister Philomela, if indeed such greetings can bring you joy. May the robe [peplos] become the messenger of all the pain that savage Tereus inflicted on my heart, when he shut me, ill-fated girl, in a shepherd's hut, and took away from me first my virginity and then my voice. Sophocles' Tereus represents a pivotal moment in the development of the myth of Procne and Philomela (Gantz 1993.240). Almost all later versions of the story can be traced back to the lost tragedy, in which a woven fabric, possibly a peplos (robe), was prominently featured as the catalyst for the development of the plot. According to a second- to third-century ce hypothesis of Sophocles' Tereus preserved in P.Oxy. 3013 (Parsons 1974.50), Procne, elder daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, was given in marriage to Tereus, king of Thrace, with whom she had a son, Itys. [End Page 69] Missing the company of her sister Philomela, Procne asked her husband to bring his sister-in-law to Thrace for a visit. Indeed, Pandion entrusted his younger daughter to Tereus, who conceived a passion for her and raped her; he then cut out her tongue in order to prevent her from revealing his crime.1 Unable to speak, "Philomela revealed her sorrows by means of a woven fabric" (, P.Oxy. 3013.21–23).2 Upon learning the truth, Procne, mad with jealousy, killed Itys, cooked his flesh, and served it to his father, who unknowingly partook of the meal. After Procne and Philomela revealed to Tereus the nature of his perverse dinner, they fled as he tried to kill them. In the end, all three turned into birds, presumably after divine intervention. Procne became a nightingale (ἀηδών),3 Philomela a swallow (χελιδών),4 and Tereus a hoopoe (ἔποψ).5 What kind of textile, we may wonder, was Philomela's ὕφος? In extant sources, the first references to it as a peplos are in Apollodorus's mythographical works (first-second century ce) and Achilles Tatius's novel Leucippe and Clitophon (ca. 150 ce). As Vayos Liapis shows (2006.222–27, [End Page 70] 235–38), however, Achilles Tatius is drawing on Sophocles' Tereus. Thus the ὕφος or peplos featured in Tereus, though markedly "feminized" in terms of production, was co-opted for purposes quite unintended by traditional material culture and gender boundaries. As preserved in Greek and Latin poetry, mythography, and scholia that echo Sophocles (Gantz 1993.239–41), on the other hand, the myth of Philomela's incriminating fabric encompasses elements with which the peplos is in close association: women's attire, weaving, and storytelling through weaving.6 As a traditional garment produced and worn by women, the peplos also constitutes a symbol of female domesticity and devotion to the marital household. Defining a woman's figure in ways that both safeguard and suggest her sexuality (Lee 2005.55–64 and 2015.100–06), the peplos was the apparel of choice for women of the early archaic period, and it may have been revived in the fifth century as a cultic garment. Through its associations with marriage, a peplos may be offered as a gift to a prospective bride, as in Odyssey 15.124, where Helen gives Telemachus an exquisite peplos for his future bride to wear on her wedding day.7 This richly ornate robe is one of the many πέπλοι παμποίκιλοι that Helen wove herself and kept in her chest (105–06). Its significance is twofold: it shows Helen's approval of the young prince, while also foreshadowing his marriage and thereby his transition to adulthood. As a perverted gift,8 however, a peplos can kill a bride: this is the function of the colorful garment (πέπλους ποικίλους, 1159) sent by Medea to Jason's future bride in Euripides' Medea. Delivered by her children (, 1188) along with a poisonous diadem (786 = 949, 960, 983, 1065), this fine (λεπτός, 786 = 949, 1188, 1214) peplos constitutes the first part of Medea's revenge, which concludes with her slaughter of the innocent couriers. The peplos in Euripides' Medea raises the question...

Singing the Crusades: French and Occitan Lyric Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137–1336 by Linda Paterson

Reviewed by: Singing the Crusades: French and Occitan Lyric Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137–1336 by Linda Paterson Keagan Brewer Paterson, Linda, Singing the Crusades: French and Occitan Lyric Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137–1336, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2018; hardback; pp. xviii, 332; 4 b/w maps; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781843844822. Linda Paterson has for many years been leading a collaborative project that makes available a corpus of around two hundred crusade-related songs in Old French and Occitan. It is the culmination of decades of study of the troubadours. This project was a collaborative effort involving the Universities of Warwick, La Sapienza (Rome), and Royal Holloway (London), and was funded by the AHRC from 1 June 2011 to 31 January 2016. The project website has been live for several years (<https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/research/french/crusades/background/>), and includes full translations of each text into English and Italian, accompanied by useful and detailed notes on the often murky issues of dating and context. The present book is a digest of 'the best bits' that places the songs in their historical contexts over the period 1137–1336. Paterson's introduction is helpful and lucid, offering thoughts on thorny questions such as the extent to which these songs can be considered popular culture, public opinion, or secular voices. The introduction also discusses modes of performance, which are largely unknowable. From there, Singing the Crusades is structured chronologically, starting around the time of the second crusade because that is when the corpus of French and Occitan songs begins. There are chapters covering each of the major canonical crusades from the second to the [End Page 278] eighth, as well as the Albigensian crusade and the Barons' crusade of Thibaut de Champagne. Each chapter begins with a short description of the crusading context in which the poems are placed, followed by a discussion of how the poems contribute to our understanding of motivations, emotions, and to a lesser extent the events themselves. The book has three appendices. The first is a linguistic analysis by Marjolain Raguin-Barthelmebs, in which she asks to what extent the Occitan troubadours and French trouvères were imitating the themes set forth by crusade preachers. The second and third appendices offer respectively a chronology of the texts and a table showing which songs have melodies preserved in the manuscripts. Overall, the book does an important service in diversifying crusade studies away from Latin accounts. A 'best bits' approach saves one from trawling through hundreds of crusade poems on the website. The website and book thus complement each other, the former as a repository, the latter as a more approachable narrative of the crusades told through the songs themselves. The poems cover themes that are often difficult to get at through chronicle accounts, including love (of women, god, Jerusalem), piety, pilgrimage, masculinity, departure, commitment, service, duty, and irreverence. The volume is overall incredibly helpful and enlightening, with translations that are accurate and readable, accompanied (as should be the case) by text in the original languages. I nevertheless found myself harbouring a few small complaints, as comes naturally to any scholarly reader. First, while the book is for the most part approachable, Paterson occasionally assumes knowledge of poetic terminology and indeed medieval poetic terminology (planh, canso, sirventes, etc.) that may alienate non-specialists. The nature of her material necessitates this, but a glossary (such as appears in Mary Egan, The Vidas of the Troubadours, Garland, 1984, pp. 113–14) could have been helpful. There is a glossary on the website, but it is not very thorough, and could indeed be improved post hoc. More importantly, greater signalling of the existence of other crusade songs beyond her corpus would have been helpful. Every study must draw its boundaries, of course, and so I can understand why Paterson did not include discussion of German poetry, Latin poetry, or Old French and Occitan epic poems (such as Ambroise, or the famous Old French cycle relating to the first crusade). However, I worry that a student who picks up Singing the Crusades might leave with the mistaken impression that Paterson's is the only...

Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen Harrison (Edd.): Life, Love and Death in Latin Poetry. Studies in Honor of Theodore D. Papanghelis.

Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen Harrison (Edd.): Life, Love and Death in Latin Poetry. Studies in Honor of Theodore D. Papanghelis.