Roman Audience Research Articles

T. P. Wiseman: The Roman Audience. Classical Literature as Social History.

T. P. Wiseman: The Roman Audience. Classical Literature as Social History.

Mirum e fides: meraviglia vs. credibilità nelle opere ovidiane dell'esilio

Mirum and fides. Wonder vs. credibility in Ovid’s exilic works. It is well known by critics that in Ovid’s Metamorphoses a crucial aspect of the narrative is represented by the narrator’s tendency to mark the miraculous, astonishing, and thus incredible side of the stories he tells: the infinite number of tales narrated through the poem sets the reader in front of a series of miracula, whose unbelievable character is constantly emphasized. It is worth noticing that in his elegies from exile Ovid does not seem to lose his interest in the mirum : in the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto , the descriptions of Tomis and its surroundings (the remote Pontic locality where the poet was banished) concentrate upon those elements which cannot but sound incredible to the Roman audience. The exile’s purpose, in fact, is that of making his readers sensible to his bad condition, so that they can decide to bring him their help; this practical aim, which lies at the heart of Ovid’s exilic output as a whole, finds expression in a hyperbolical and ‘spectacular’ representation of the Pontic reality: in Tomis the exiled poet faces risks rare to find elsewhere and experiences phenomena that seem quite unnatural – and difficult to believe. Through such a representation the poet wants to show his friends and readers (not least, the emperor) that the place where he now lives is the ‘worst of all possible worlds’, a place where adynata become real and the standard laws of nature are not followed; but such an account of the Pontic reality can easily lack credibility, thus invalidating the poet’s persuasive efforts – something Ovid is well aware of. It is therefore interesting to see how the poet faces the problem of his own truthfulness ( fides ), an issue that is taken into consideration up to the last of Ovid’s collections. edoardo.galfre@sns.it

Shored Against Our Ruins

These are exciting times for the study of Roman literature. New editions of the fragmentary poets and prose writers either have appeared or are in preparation, while renewed interest in the nature and character of the early Roman audience, and in the development of Roman literature itself, has sought to explain the larger context in which these writings arose and were read. Monographs and commentaries on early writers and genres have appeared in profusion, with four volumes on Ennius'Annalsalone published within two years, at least one of which has raised serious questions of what we can and cannot know of the structure, orientation and contents of a poem that was (uniquely) influential on both later poetry and history.

Archimedes and the Roman Imagination

The great mathematician Archimedes, a Sicilian Greek whose machines defended Syracuse against the Romans during the Second Punic War, was killed by a Roman after the city fell, yet it is largely Roman sources, and Greek texts aimed at Roman audiences, that preserve the stories about him. Archimedes' story, Mary Jaeger argues, thus becomes a locus where writers explore the intersection of Greek and Roman culture, and as such it plays an important role in Roman self-definition. Jaeger uses the biography of Archimedes as a hermeneutic tool, providing insight into the construction of the traditional historical narrative about the Roman conquest of the Greek world and the Greek cultural invasion of Rome. By breaking down the narrative of Archimedes' life and examining how the various anecdotes that comprise it are embedded in their contexts, the book offers fresh readings of passages from both well-known and less-studied authors, including Polybius, Cicero, Livy, Vitruvius, Plutarch, Silius Italicus, Valerius Maximus, Johannes Tzetzes, and Petrarch.

The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino: Understanding the Roman Games, by Jerry Toner

The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino: Understanding Roman Games, by Jerry Toner. Witness Ancient History Series. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 136 pp. $49.95 US (cloth), $19.95 US (paper). Thanks in part cinema, gladiatorial fantasies of Emperor Commodus (died ce 192) are well known. Son of noble philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus abandoned his father's conquests in Germania and retired city pursue his passions: most famously, games of amphitheatre. We know so much about them because they were witnessed, recorded, and vilified by senator and historian, Cassius Dio. Toner's little book tries put Commodus's gladiatorial interests into context. The book is first of new Witness Ancient History series from Johns Hopkins University Press and its aim is to provide an up-to-date and graphic analysis of Roman games for a general and introductory though Toner also wanted develop a number of new ideas that he had on topic (p. 121). The result is a small book that takes Commodus's interests in arena as a jumping off point into a wider exploration of this key Roman cultural institution. Toner is aware of preconceptions that many modern readers, especially those from his target audience, will bring any study of Roman arena and he is keen put these stereotypes aside. For example, when describing Roman audience's willingness witness fatal spectacles, he notes that while the modem Western world tends see most forms of violence in moral terms, ancient spectators saw combination of grace, control, and aggression, when done well, as both beautiful and virtuous (p. 96). At other times, however, he slips and so we still read of gladiator facing death in front of fifty thousand baying (p. 12) or the bloodlust of crowd (p. 60). And what are we make of a chapter about organization of games entitled Feeding Monster? Still, Toner's ability confront and handle such stereotypes, both modern and ancient, is a real strength of book. Another strength is Toner's astute perception of popular appeal of performers--the gladiators and charioteers in particular--especially for average Roman. While he explores fully importance of shows for elite (politicized leisure), it is his understanding of how poor majority would have seen such men that is so insightful. These men needed be resourceful, competitive, skilled, and tough survive, all qualities shared by everyday Romans. Toner also explores opposition games, mostly through a retelling of Martyrdom of Perpetua in Carthage (CE 203). At one point Toner states that Romans hunted down and attacked Christians (p. 110) though on next page admits that such persecutions were actually rare. Indeed, Hilarianus, official who condemned Perpetua and her fellow Christians, has been shown have been an unusually extreme religious fundamentalist (J. …

DINING AND OBLIGATION IN VALERIUS MAXIMUS: THE CASE OF THE SACRA MENSAE

The phrase sacra mensae appears in only a select number of instances from the first century a.d. onwards. This paper seeks to demonstrate that references to sacra mensae are not coincidental, and that they were employed deliberately by authors such as Valerius Maximus and, after him, Quintilian, Tacitus and Seneca, based on an assumed shared understanding of their significance on the part of Roman audiences. Although it appears across a variety of literary works and in a range of contexts, the phrase does not seem to have been used in reference to a specific rite or rites performed at the table. Instead, sacra mensae appears to have been used primarily in a metaphorical sense, designed to epitomize the customs and respect attached to dining in Roman culture. Religion certainly played an important part in creating the aura surrounding the table, which was subject to various rituals and superstitions that were discussed by ancient authors. However, beyond the sphere of religion there was the equally important social emphasis on dining, which enforced notions of conviviality and personal obligation between hosts and guests. Disregard of such traditions came to be identified as a hallmark of tyranny, which provided the writers of the Principate with an opportunity to use the sacra mensae as a powerful literary device against those who failed to respect established customs of hospitality.

“Your Obedience is Known to All” (Rom 16:19)

In Romans does Paul refer on several occasions to Christians other than the addressees. This essay gathers these references and examines their function in the overall argument of the letter. It argues that these references to individual Christians, the Christians of whole regions or even the wider Christian community, play an important role for the self-representation of Paul. In addition, they serve to place the Roman audience in the wider community of faith in which Paul claims to be well rooted and accepted. Thus he deserves full support for his further mission in the West. His upcoming visit to them and his request for their future support is far from a mere private matter. Furthermore, these references contribute to our understanding of Paul’s understanding of the nature of the church and to understanding the translocal nature of early Christianity.

Revenge/Porn: Django Unchained, Terence's Eunuchus, and the Role of Roman Slavery in the American Imagination

Revenge/Porn: Django Unchained, Terence’s Eunuchus, and the Role of Roman Slavery in the American Imagination RICARDO APOSTOL Slavery is sexy. Just ask Thomas Jefferson. Ask any reader of Fifty Shades of Grey, or, for that matter, any viewer of Caligula, Spartacus, Sebastiane, Fellini’s Satyricon , or a whole host of Roman sexploitation flicks. There is no point in denying it: slavery and sex have always gone hand in hand (not least among its disturbing aspects), unsurprising since it is in the very nature of the institution that one person receives complete control over the body of another, to do with as they will; and whether as living institution or fantasy , people have taken advantage of, and continue to take advantage of, slavery as a way of getting their kicks. I can hear the hue and cry already: “Classicist condones slavery and rape!” No, not by a long shot. If anything, this essay is a buzzkill. It seeks to elucidate the link between a particular use, for purposes of entertainment, of ancient Rome in the modern imagination, and aspects of sexual enjoyment which consumers of that entertainment would rather not think about. I want to force readers to confront the source of that enjoyment, thus perhaps ruining it for them. Like one part of its source material, and any good revenge fantasy, this enterprise is all about the return of the repressed, with predictably messy results for the guilty, who may not have even realized their guilt before the superego kicks their door down, guns a-blazing. 1. film structure and psychic apparatus guilt is an absolutely necessary part of the equation. Since guilt requires conviction, I will have to say a few words arion 23.1 spring/summer 2015 about the choice of Django Unchained and the Eunuchus, to prove that they’re not random lines of argument but rather two crosshairs aimed squarely at something within our collective psyche. These two comedies (for such they are) bear marked structural similarities: both tell the story of an intelligent , tricky slave working to secure illicit sexual favors for their inept and boorish masters (Calvin Candie, Chaerea) from another slave (Broomhilda, Pamphila) over whom somebody else bears a prior claim (Django, Thais), and who turns out to be essentially free. The central subterfuge on which the plot depends consists of sending a free man dressed as a slave (Django, Chaerea), a character over whom the shadow of castration looms but never lands, into the household where the female object of desire is kept, to take her for his own. A flamboyant bit part gets much attention, but is ultimately frustrated (Dr. King Schulz and Thraso, respectively; this part exists because in both cases there are odd doublings among protagonists and objects to give the storyline further richness). And finally, quite improbably and against all odds, free man and suddenly free woman reunite while the churlish enemy gets what he deserves, although everything is just slightly too morally ambiguous for comfort (at least for sensitive members of the audience—both works are designed to appeal on multiple levels). The observant reader will have noticed that I elided one structural pair in the above description, since upon it hinges the major contrast between the two works, and the starting point for my discussion. The tricky slave in Eunuchus is Parmeno, member of a proud lineage of subordinate trickster-heroes that includes such worthies as Figaro and Plautus’ Sosia. One difference, though, perhaps, is that Parmeno in the Eunuchus may be involved in shadier shenanigans than is commonly the case among his cunning confraternity; this may render him a slightly tarnished version of a normally quite Teflon-coated troupe. This is not at all clear, however. There is debate about how outraged certain moralistic members of the Roman audience may revenge / porn 92 have been, but we have no evidence of widespread condemnation of the play, for whatever such silence is worth. More anecdotally, I can say from my own teaching that the vast majority of students to whom I’ve taught the play in a vain effort to incite them to outrage have given Parmeno a pass, but only after I have...

Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry by Dunstan Lowe

BOOK REVIEWS 506 CAROLINE STARK Howard University, caroline.stark@howard.edu * * * * * * Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry. By DUNSTAN LOWE. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 2015. Pp. x + 278. Hardcover, $75.00. ISBN 978-0-47211951 -6. Like the figures Lowe explores in this welcome study, Monsters and Monstrosity is itself a hybrid text. Veering from the curious social practices of freak-fetishism in Augustan Rome to the metapoetics of sublime gigantomachy in Latin epic, Lowe conducts various explorations of monstrosity through a wide array of methodologies. While parts of the monograph are more successful than others at employing insights from the field of monster studies (see 27–32 for a literature review), all readers interested in the poetic techniques of Vergil and Ovid, as well as the shifting face of Augustan engagement with all that smacks of the “strange,” will find something ofinterest in this monograph. Monsters is particularlyvaluable foritscontributionstothestudyofgenderandmonstrosity,aparadigmofanalysis that surfaces in several chapters, and is a notable addition to scholarship on metapoetics and sublimity. Following a brief Introduction, in Chapter One (“Monster Theory”) Lowe defines the ancient monster, wisely eschewing a tidy conception; his analysis is replete with useful interrogation of the Greek and Latin terminology for monstrosity. He depicts the unique cultural context that allowed Roman “monsters” to shift from fear-inducing religious oddities and portentous errors of nature to objectified commodities embodying an aesthetic akin to that found in Augustan culture more widely. The monster as metaphor—for both text and object—is an extension of this transformation, and when viewed in an Augustan light, it begins to stand for novelty and innovation. Through readings of Horace’s multiform creatures, Neronian grotesques, and Vitruvian strictures, Lowe also delvesintotheAugustanaestheticsofamonstrousculturewarbetween“ancients” and “moderns.” In the second Chapter (“Real Monsters”), Lowe turns to the presence of monstrosity and deformed bodies within Roman life, particularly in the urban milieu. His analysis of the museological display culture that circulated around BOOK REVIEWS 507 mythical monsters contains much of note. Significant, if digressive, discussion is also devoted to ancient science concerned with spontaneous generation, environmental determinism, and the landscapes of monstrous birth. For Roman audiences, much of the monstrous production of these “othered” landscapes was considered eastern, exotic, and/or feminine, all features developed by the arguments of later chapters. Subsequent analysis of zoology and ethnography leads Lowe to consider modes of viewing the monstrous; the power of formlessness(and thisis key) rests in itsintractability. Lowe turns his gaze in Chapter Three (“Feminine Exteriors”) to Scylla, the Sirens, and Medusa, showing how all were reinvented and “maidenized” by Augustan poets. Psychoanalytic approaches most visibly emerge in this chapter, largely in service of exploring the “monstrous-feminine.” At the risk of generalization, for Lowe the Augustan approach to such figures is to combine misogynistic nightmare with some form of pleasurable curiosity, both visual and psychological.Within the learned poeticsofVergiland Ovid,one alsoencounters the implications ofrationalizinginterpretationsof Scylla and Charybdis (78–84), while the temptations of the Sirens tell a story particularly redolent of moral allegory(90–96). Medusa’s legacy featuresdiachronic changes similar to thoseof Scylla and the Sirens, but she largely symbolizes the visual; it is through Medusa that we encounter image-making and ekphrasis, as well as Freud, Cixous, castration, and the un-viewable face. Lowe’s analysis of Medusa in the Perseus episode of Ovid’s Met.is particularly strong(106–110). Chapter Four (“Feminine Interiors”) focuses on the Harpies and Furies, those “nightmares of femininity” (114). Unlike the previous chapter’s Scylla or Medusa, Augustan Harpies and Furies “represent sheer threat, undisguised by beauty or pathos” (115). Lowe incorporates in this chapter Bakhtin’s grotesque and carnivalesque, but the fit with Bakhtin is by no means perfect (122). In line with one of Lowe’s main points concerning monstrosity, there is a further metapoetic slant to reading these negative bodies: the blurry in-between notion exemplified by Horatian satire—the “lower” genre—is akin to a lower creature like a Harpy. Lowe suggests that within Vergil’s epic, the Harpies’ lack of shame and modesty (and their unclean excretions) pollute a poetic world in which they do not belong. Although I have some reservations about his readings...

POLITY ACROSS THE POND: DEMOCRACY, REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE IN PHAEDRUS <em>FABLES</em> 1.2

Throughout his allegedly biographical prologues and epilogues, Phaedrus represents his work as developing gradually from submissive translation of Aesop to independent literary creation. While scholars usually take this progression at face value, closer scrutiny reveals that Phaedrus modifies Aesopic material to serve his own ends long before he overtly asserts his poetic autonomy. In poem 1.2, Phaedrus adapts a fable about Athenian democracy for uniquely Roman audiences, engaging allusively with Cicero's De Re Publica. At the same time, he adjusts Cicero's ideas about political change in the Republic to fit realities of life in the Empire. Poem 1.2 also functions programmatically by establishing Cynic-Stoic resignation as a major theme for the rest of the fable collection.

Empiricist Dogs and the Superiority of Philosophy in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura

Lucretius uses hunting in the De Rerum Natura both to craft a model of Epicurean epistemology and to challenge his Roman audience to consider an alternative to traditional animal hunting. Dogs, representing Epicurus, Lucretius, and the reader, follow tracks to knowledge with the help of Ratio and Natura . Nets, on the other hand, are a sign of unnecessary developments that distract from superior lifestyles, and Hercules’ violent deeds are equally unnecessary in modern life. Lucretius’ philosophical and poetic manipulation of hunting encourages active philosophy students rather than a passive audience.

Ciceronas apie vertimą. Ką mums atskleidžia žodžių reikšmės

The author of the article reveals Cicero’s attitude towards translation, exploring some passages from his rhetorical and philosophical treatises which deal with translation from Greek to Latin, and paying most attention to the usage of words with the meaning “translate, translator”. To conclude, the regular Latin verb for “to translate” (con)vertere in Cicero’s usage implies neither the accuracy or literalism of translation. For a close literal translation he uses interpretari or such expressions as ad verbum (verbum de verbo verbum e verbo, ad verbum) exprimere, verbum pro verbo reddere. The verbs exprimere, explicare, reddere are used more or less metaphorically to express various aspects of translation from Greek, which includes also a free interpretation of the original and borrowing some elements from the original. According to our observations, Fin. I. 7 is the only case in Cicero’s extant scripts, as well as the first in Latin literature, when the verb transferre , while meaning “to transfer, to borrow, to use in context” comes closest to vertere. By contrast, the authors of I–II AD, such as Seneca, Pliny the Elder and the Younger, Quintilian use the word transferre with the meaning of translation quite regularly. We argue that when Cicero calls himself not interpres, sed orator , he tries to indicate first of all not the closeness or freedom of translation, but rather the rhetorical power of his text. He is not afraid to use a word in not a very common sense, or two words for one in the original, or to create a new one if necessary, which may seem too bold for the interpretes indiserti not so skilled and well-trained in rhetorics. Cicero approached his work of translation without any preconceived rules, and the main standard referred to is his own taste based on the ruling principle of rhetorics – decorum, aptum, prepon – i.e. appropriateness. Cicero, as a translator as well as an orator, matches every word, rhetorical figure and phrase to the style, conception and situation of the work in order to express most effectively vim orationis . In other words, converti ut orator means converti optime. Yet more, to translate as orator means to convey to the reader the original function of the source text and to make it act in the new cultural context of the translation language. In the case of De optimo genere oratorum , the Latin translation of the Demosthenes’ and Aeschines’ orations must become a weapon in Cicero’s polemics with the Neoatticists and persuade the Roman audience to value critically their limited eloquence. A really good translation, on the one hand, enables the author of the source text to speak throught it (Aeschinem ipsum Latine dicentem audiamus; Opt. gen. 23) , on the other, such a translation manages to displace the original work: to learn the Attic rhetoric, Roman youths will be able to turn to the Latin translation made by Cicero, which must become a standard for the other Roman orators (erit regula, ad quam eorum dirigantur orationes qui Attice volent dicere; Opt. gen. 23).

‘Praise the Lord, All you Gentiles’: The Encoded Audience of Romans 15.7-13

Romans 15.7-13 addresses an encoded gentile audience. The best solution to the syntactical challenges posed by 15.8-9a places the focus on the gentiles who now glorify God as a result of Christ’s servanthood. Paul’s identification of the Jewish people as ‘the circumcision’, a negative category earlier in the letter (2.25—3.30; 9.18), is hardly apt if he is also addressing Jewish Christians. Romans 15.6-9a links the Roman audience’s mutual welcoming ‘for the glory of God’ to the gentiles’ glorifying God. The Scripture citations in 15.9b-12 remain riveted on God’s purpose for the gentiles and address the Romans as gentiles. Romans 15.12-13 links the Roman audience’s hope with the hope of the gentiles. The preceding context identifies the ‘weak’ not as Jews but by customs that were popular among gentile sympathizers. Romans 15.14-21 conforms to Paul’s pattern elsewhere in the letter of identifying the encoded audience as the recipients of his gentile ministry.

Quaestiones Plinianae: Plinij in njegovi grški vzori

Kljub temu, da sta življenje in delo Plinija Starejšega razmeroma dobro znana, ostajajo številna dejstva še vedno predmet domnev in raziskav. Pričujoči prispevek se osredotoča na dve plati njegovega enciklopedičnega dela Naravoslovje, ki sta tesno povezani z avtorjevo uporabo in predelavo grške znanosti in izrazoslovja: na uporabo virov in na jezik. Unikatnost dela ni v njegovi izvirnosti, ampak v avtorjevem svojevrstnem kompilacijskem pristopu, s katerim je rimskemu bralstvu skušal v zgoščeni obliki posredovati grško in rimsko vedenje o naravi. Poleg tega članek predstavlja nekaj prevajalskih problemov, s katerimi se prevajalec sooči ob prevajanju Naravoslovja.

Josephus’ Rewriting of 1 Samuel 25

This article seeks to present Josephus’ retelling of the story of David, Nabal and Abigail in 1 Samuel 25. It tries to answer the following questions: what was the text on which Josephus based his story? What are the differences between the biblical version and Josephus’ retelling and how can they be explained? My conclusion is that Josephus’ version is very similar to the MT, while the differences stem from various reasons: he tries to make the difficult text of MT clearer; omits long speeches; and accentuates David’s piousness. As to his view of women as reflected in this story, I rejected the view that it is misogynic. In Josephus’ version, as in the Hebrew Bible, Abigail is depicted as beautiful, wise, assertive and very suitable for King David as a wife. Josephus’ retelling of 1 Samuel 25 is connected to the circumstances in which he lived in Hellenistic society. He appeals to both Jewish and Roman audiences, trying to promote sympathy for the Jewish people and the Roman Empire.

The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (review)

Reviewed by: The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy John Barsby C.W. Marshall . The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 320. US $90.00. ISBN-13 978-0-521-86161-8. This is an important book, which will be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the performance of Roman comedy. It combines a mastery of the ancient evidence for Roman comedy and modern discussions thereof with the experience of a successful director of the plays of Plautus and a familiarity with other dramatic traditions and with theoretical work on dramatic performance. Marshall does wonders in teasing out answers from the fascinating but often inconclusive or contradictory evidence, and there is simply not enough space in a relatively brief review to list his many interesting conclusions on specific points, let alone to debate them. The picture Marshall paints of Plautine drama (it is a book largely about Plautus rather than Terence) is that it belonged within a healthy, vibrant, even raw, comic tradition which drew its effect from the interaction of scripted and unscripted material. The "Introduction" (1–15) provides a concise account of Roman Comedy's relation to Greek New Comedy and to the various known preliterary entertainments (with a particularly coherent summary of the elusive genre [End Page 81] of Hellenistic mime). This is followed by a long first chapter "The Experience of Roman Comedy" (16–82), which deals with opportunities for performance, the business of comedy, performance spaces, set, costume, stage properties and audience. One crucial question, following Goldberg's demonstration (JRS 1998) that the audience at the Ludi Megalenses must have largely sat on the temple steps, which cannot have held much more than 1,300 people, is whether we can still talk of mass popular entertainment. Marshall believes that the space for the Ludi Apollinares ad Apollinis may have been similarly restricted, and he reduces Moore's audience space in the Forum for the Curculio (AJPh 1991) by making the actors face west instead of east. At the same time he identifies a number of less cramped performance spaces, including the Comitium itself and the temporary wooden amphitheatres in the Forum posited by Welch for gladiatorial shows (JRA 1994: see now her The Roman Amphitheatre [2007]), which he thinks may have held some 3,400 for dramatic performances. Another related question is whether in order to meet "popular demand" we should envisage multiple performances of the same play at the one festival. Marshall believes that "each troupe would present a single play at a festival and the same play would run for its length" (81), a not implausible suggestion but one lacking positive evidence: he relies on the ambivalent Pl. Ps. 1334–5, which might alternatively refer to a second play by the same troupe. The second chapter (83–125) is entitled "Actors and Roles" and is mainly concerned with the size of Plautus' troupe and the question of the doubling of roles. Marshall curiously insists several times that, contrary to the conventional view, the size of Plautus' troupe is defined by the largest number of performers on stage (including non-speaking actors) at any point of a given play, only to undercut this view by a conclusion that "[p]erhaps we do best to imagine a core troupe of four or five performers … who were in the habit of hiring one or two others for most performances" (113–114), which is not far from the standard view of a core troupe of five or six. His purpose seems to be to argue that any doubling of roles was not governed by a limitation on the number of actors, as in Greek New Comedy, so much as by "a desirable, Roman aesthetic" (104). In fact he is a great believer in the doubling of roles, claiming that the Roman audience would have appreciated the virtuosity demanded of the actors, and argues that in many cases the leading two or three actors, each playing several roles, would have performed the bulk of the play. All this is backed up by detailed analysis of the length of roles in the individual plays and of the off-stage manoeuvres required to...

THE EAR OF THE BEHOLDER: SPECTATOR FIGURES AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN POMPEIAN PAINTING

The debate on spectator figures in Roman painting has traditionally concentrated on their function as virtually meaning‐free space‐fillers, or on their potential to make external viewers aware of the fact that they are looking at a picture. This article takes a different approach and uses the spectator figures of two frescoes from a house within the Scavo del Principe di Montenegro in Pompeii as a means of exploring the narrative strategies of Pompeian mythological painting. The satyr ear of one of the spectators, which in previous research has gone unnoticed, and the elements of gender masquerading which come with it, form the ground for reconsidering the spectators' contribution to the reception aesthetics of an image, its mythological and its emotive content. The result is a fresh assessment of Pompeian painting as a laboratory for the exploration of visual story‐telling and of the shifts in the engagement of Roman audiences with mythological stories throughout the first century ce.

From Syracuse to Rome: The Travails of Silanion's Sappho

Cicero's Verrine Orations offer a glimpse into the complex political posturings surrounding the reception of Greek art by Roman audiences. Cicero downplays his own (legitimate) collecting habits, and accuses Gaius Verres, the corrupt governor of Sicily from 73–71 bce, of abusing his political office by looting the island's art treasures. One example that particularly disturbs Cicero is the theft of a statue of Sappho, commissioned by the Syracusans from the early Hellenistic sculptor Silanion for their town hall. This theft is shown to be part of a pattern in Verres' behavior, as he repeatedly removes public images of women and female divinities from their civic or cultic sites of honor, and transfers them to his private dwelling. The language of sexual exploitation pervades Cicero's narratives as he argues that Verres perverts the statues by using them for private delectation. Because Verres leaves behind the inscribed base of the Sappho statue, she may no longer be identifiable as the archaic lyric poet once she has been carried off to Rome. Verres' inappropriate passion for Greek artwork, according to his accuser, destroys the statue's identity as a famous female poet from archaic Greece, and reduces it to a nameless female body, a victim of imperialism and greed.

History as an Ekphrastic Genre in Early Modern Spain

As a rhetorical figure, ekphrasis creates both aesthetic immediacy--by appealing explicitly to our sense of sight-and remove, by suggesting a description not of life but of art. It is at the same time vivid and a copy of a copy. In practice, ekphrasis tends to play games with temporal distance, too; Aeneas' shield is itself ancient, but the scenes Virgil describes, worked on the shield's surface, are contemporary for its Roman audience. It was in part the ability to modulate distance that made ekphrasis a favored rhetorical device for early modern Spanish historians; the pomp of courtly life could be made suitably impressive yet decorously far off through the description of works of art that, under the Hapsburgs, increasingly became the preferred means to express regal power. In his biography of Philip II, Luis Cabrera de C6rdoba suggests a further reason for describing works of art in historical accounts. After mentioning the sculptures of Pompeo Leoni and Juan Bautista Monegro at the Escorial-works that enviaban al que las miraba muda voz, ciega vista, sangre fria-Cabrera explains that royal patronage of the arts is worthwhile because it teaches the powerful to rule and subjects to obey (792).' Art seems to be, as Cabrera describes it, the perfection of Quintilian's idea of history; it delights, it teaches, and

Ennius after the Banquet

Though Ennius's Annales stood tall in the Roman cultural landscape, what the poem was in origin and what it became in retrospect were not necessarily the same thing. Creating a text is neither identical to nor always coextensive with creating "literature." The former task requires the talents of an author. We are told that, at Rome, the latter took some carelessness, in particular the carelessness of Crates of Mallos, the Pergamene scholar who arrived on a diplomatic mission in the early 160s, stepped into a drain, and broke his leg. He spent his convalescence lecturing on the fine points of Greek literary exegesis and, in the process, apparently awakened his Roman audiences to the possibility that they too might have some literature worth studying. Under Crates' influence, says Suetonius, Romans of the later second century were inspired to popularize certain poems that were not yet widely known and, in doing so, both laid the foundations of grammatical study in Latin and cultivated an interest in that special set of socially and aesthetically marked texts that we (and they) call "literature." Prominent among these works was the Annales, which the otherwise unknown Q. Vargunteius brought to public attention through public recitations that attracted large audiences.1 [End Page 427] Suetonius's account of these developments makes for occasionally dubious history: neither the precise service Vargunteius performed for Ennius's poem nor Crates' contribution to that service is at all certain. What matters for our purpose, however, is less the specific nature of Vargunteius's role in popularizing the Annales than the fact that this poem should ever have required that help. Ennius's achievement may itself have limited the appeal or hastened the eclipse of Naevius's Bellum Punicum, the other epic on Suetonius's list of targeted works, but it comes as a surprise to be told that the greatest poem of the Roman republic once languished among carmina parum . . . divulgata. Did its eventual status really owe as much to later scholarly intervention as to original poetic genius? It was no doubt a "classic" for later generations, but what do we know about the Annales' contemporary reception? The testimony is elusive and equivocal. Perhaps the most deflating example of the interpretive problem it presents is a famous passage from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations that appears to suggest that Ennius's epic career originally met with criticism as well as praise (Tusc. 1.3): Sero igitur a nostris poetae vel cogniti vel recepti. quamquam est in Originibus solitos esse in epulis canere convivas ad tibicinem de clarorum hominum virtutibus, honorem tamen huic generi non fuisse declarat oratio Catonis, in qua obiecit ut probrum M. Nobiliori, quod is in provinciam poetas duxisset; duxerat autem consul ille in Aetoliam, ut scimus, Ennium. quo minus igitur honoris erat poetis, eo minora studia fuerunt, nec tamen, si qui magnis ingeniis in eo genere exstiterunt, non satis Graecorum gloriae responderunt. Poets thus received late recognition or welcome from our countrymen. Although we find in the Origines that guests at dinner were accustomed to sing to the pipe about the deeds of famous men, Cato's speech in which he criticized M. Nobilior for taking poets to his province (the consul [End Page 428] had, in fact, as we know, taken Ennius to Aetolia) nevertheless declares that there was no honor in this activity. And so, the less poets were honored, the less attention was paid to them, although those whose great talent enabled them to stand out in that activity nevertheless matched the glory of the Greeks. Cicero is illustrating here what became a commonplace of Roman literary history, that is, that literary culture came relatively late to the Romans' bellicose ancestors.2 The terms of his assertion, however, prevent him from being as clear a witness to that phenomenon as we might wish. The argument in the Tusculans—and it is important to recognize that this is an argument, not an exposition—conflates and distorts what are three quite distinct levels of...