Session I Friday 9:15-10:15
Paper Session I Huddleston Hall
Scott Smith, Did Seneca Believe That Evil Exists?
This paper seeks to explore a fundamental question: Did Seneca, a Stoic, believe that evil exists in a world governed by divine Logos and providence?
Although Stoics universally considered divine logos to be beneficent, Stoic opinions on the existence and the nature of evil are neither unanimous nor consistent. Diogenes Laertius (7.147 = SVF 2.1021) tells us that “[The Stoics] say that god is a living creature which is immortal...perfect in happiness, not admitting of any evil, provident towards to world and its occupants....” On the other hand, Chrysippus (SVF 2.1169 apud Gellius NA 7.1) argues elaborately that evil exists precisely because there can be no good without its opposite—just as there can be no pain without pleasure, truth without falsehood, or health without sickness—although he goes on to say that evil is not created intentionally but arises concomitantly with the creation of the good (cf. Cleanthes Hymn to Zeus).
The apparent paradox—one often criticized by opponents of the Stoics—is that if the world is ordered and controlled by a beneficent power, then why do bad things (Latin mala) happen to good people? This is just the question that Seneca wrestles with in his essay De Providentia, and one would expect that in the course of his discussion we would find an answer to our question whether Seneca believed that evil was part of the cosmological plan. But we do not get a clear picture. While he is insistent that mala cannot happen to good men (he prefers adversa, aspera, incommoda and the like), he seems to concede that evil exists. For example, at 3.1 he claims “I argue...that men willingly accept adversity, and if they do not wish for it, they deserve evil” (cf. 2.17, 4.7, 4.16, etc.). In the fifteen minutes allotted, I should like to argue that Seneca did believe that evils were part of the cosmological plan and that they were multifaceted—able to be turned to good by the good but reserved as evils for the wicked.
2. Karen Mower, Res Gestae As Shield against damnatio memoriae
This paper examines the purpose of the emperor Augustus’ Res Gestae. Although many purposes have been argued for the RG, such as political will and testament, apologia, and elogium,[1] I instead argue that one of the main purposes was defense against damnatio memoriae.
The paper considers the audience of the RG, coinage minted during the Emperor’s career, buildings constructed during the Emperor’s reign, political propaganda issued by the Emperor (Vergil’s Aeneid), and views of the Emperor by later Romans, such as Suetonius. This evidence contributes to the understanding of the RG as protection against damnatio memoriae.
Guven, in “Displaying the Res Gestae of Augustus: A Monument of Imperial Image of All,” states that the RG, “presented the life of Augustus the way he wished to be remembered.”[2] My paper shows that this is true. The RG painted the Emperor in a fine light so that posterity could find no fault with this “restorer of the res publica.” Its aim was to prevent his successors’ subjects from questioning what happened to the res publica now that the pax romana was no longer a novelty. By setting up the RG (one was even installed before his mausoleum), he was announcing that he was a wonderful and excellent princeps (with honors and distinctions) who had done many things for the res publica and done many at his own expense. When he set up the record of his deeds not only in Rome, but in the provinces, he hoped to ensure safety from damnatio memoriae from Rome’s future generations, from those who did not live under his pax romana.
3. Elizabeth Keitel, Feast Your Eyes on This: Vitellius As Tyrant (Tac. H. 3.36-39)
This paper will examine the death of Junius Blaesus, allegedly at the hands of the emperor Vitellius. Scholars have long agreed that Tacitus moderated the Flavian ‘line’ on Vitellius. Recently, Ash (1999.119-120) has argued that the Blaesus episode contributes to the historian’s picture of Vitellius as pitiable in his ineffectual leadership and one for whom the reader should feel compassion. This paper on the contrary argues that Tacitus uses the Blaesus episode to portray Vitellius not only as a tyrant, but also as a man fundamentally unfit to rule
Vitellius, manipulated by his brother, has the loyal and generous Junius Blaesus poisoned, allegedly because Blaesus was guest of honor at a banquet when the emperor was lying seriously ill nearby. Vitellius, having visited Blaesus, says that he feasted his eyes on a dead enemy. This episode, in Tacitus alone, encapsulates the tyrannical vices of Vitellius: his voyeuristic cruelty, the fearful and servile nature that keeps him from distinguishing correctly friend from foe, and his extravagance and gluttony (Blaesus is ironically punished for attending a banquet).
Tacitus mines these tropes to produce a deeper picture of Vitellius’ shortcomings.
To conceal his anxieties about the war, Vitellius abandons himself to pleasure “as lazy animals do” (Hist. 3.36.1). Sallust reckons such men’s lives and deaths the same, since no one ever hears of them (Cat. 2.8). Vitellius lacks the energy and ambition to seek power for himself and to win fama and gloria in the best Roman fashion by serving the state, and having gained power, proves woefully inadequate to rule.
Although Tacitus uses animal imagery to link Vitellius’ tyrannical qualities, he does not label him a belva. Perhaps he reserved such language for Domitian’s terror, as Pliny did (Pan. 48.3).
Workshop 1A Kenneth F. Kitchell, Taming the Chimaera: A Workshop on Producing the Next College-Level Introductory Latin Course
It is well known that the "revolution" in Latin introductory textbooks has been quite successful at the pre-collegiate level. But it is also well documented that there currently exists no suitable text for teaching Latin at the college level. Existing texts are seen as either too simple and puerile (reading method) or too fast and dull (grammar first method). While the latter books may do for smaller colleges with competitive admissions and low teacher-student ratios, they are rarely successful at larger, state universities. And yet this is where a large number of college students first encounter Latin.
A new textbook has been commissioned by Prentice Hall to address these problems. It hopes to take a totally new approach to teaching Latin at the college level, combining the best of each method and employing the resources of a major publisher to make the text appealing and relevant to college aged students. Combining the reading method with the grammar first method produces, admittedly, something of a chimera and the purpose of the workshop is to seek advice on how best to combine its various parts.
A brief introduction to the proposed text will begin the workshop and will include a description of the pedagogical philosophies guiding the construction of the text. The structure of the text, its proposed plot (with related cultural issues) and its scope and sequence will be distributed and will form the basis for extended discussion. Participants will also discuss practical issues. Should such a book have one or two volumes? What sort of teacher support materials are desirable? How important are art work, on-line resources, teachers' manuals, workbooks, and the like? What is an optimal cost?
The workshop hopes to attract collegiate instructors of Latin from a variety of institutions and Latin pedagogues from any level who are interested in the theory and practice of teaching Latin.
Workshop 1B; Ruth Breindel, Medieval Latin and Wisdom Literature
Peter Alphonsus (aka Pedro Alfonso, Petrus Alfonsus, etc) was a Converso of the late 11th - early 12th Century who lived in Spain and England. He wrote 2 books, but his most interesting one is Disciplina Clericalis, which is a group of stories for entertainment and enlightenment. These stories draw on many sources: Arabic, Jewish and Biblical. Sometimes he quotes (and misquotes) various anicent authors, especially Socrates and Alexander the Great, whom the Medievals thought was a magician. By using these stories to teach a lesson, people had their own "Dear Abby" - the stories explained how one should live: don't trust a sneak, understand that animals and people have inborn natures, and many other truisms of life. There is no magic, unless you count talking animals! Many of the stories use motifs in the Aarne-Thompson Index of Folk Motifs, and will be recognizable to a modern audience; some of these stories have appeared in other textbooks. Often one can see that the religious overtones were added on later; they appear mostly in the "afterwords" to the various stories. The stories are fun to read and give an interesting perspective on the Medieval world. I am editing his text for translation in Intermediate high school and college classes, and will discuss him, his life and his works; we will also look at some of the stories I've edited and read and discuss them.
Session 2 Friday 10:45-11-45 Huddleston Hall
PaperSession 2
1. Anne Mahoney, Friendship and Poetry: Catullus and Horace
Friendship and poetry are significant themes in the works of Catullus and Horace,but in different ways. For Catullus, friendship and poetry go together; his relationships seem almost to be built out of poetry. He approaches Lesbia with a poem (51), plays poetically with Calvus (50), even grieves for his brother in poetic form (101). Most of the poets Catullus mentions are his own contemporaries, whether friends or rivals, and most of the characters in his poems are at least occasional poets.
Horace, on the other hand, seems to keep poetry and daily life more separate. The poets he refers to, particularly in the Ods, are his canonical predecessrs, mostly Greek. The friends, public figures, slaves,and lovers in his poems are generally not poets. The major exception is Vergil (Od. 1.3, Sat. 1.5, etc.). Vergil, however, writes rather different poetry from Horaces’ own: epic and pastoral as opposed to lyric and satire.
I argue that the poets named by Catullus and Horace illuminate a significant difference between them. Poetry is deeply intertwined with everything Catullus does, while Horace’s first-person character is not necessarily always a poet.
Putnam has recently argued (Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace, Princeton 2006) that Catullus becomes a canonical poety as Horace uses him. As is well known, Horace only mentions Catullus by name once (Sat. 1.10.19, Putnam p. 1), but Putnam suggests that Catullus is a pervasive influence on the Odes. Yet Horace treates Catullus as one more predecessor, another member of a series stretching back to Alcaeus and Sappho. Horace compliments Catullus-the-poet almost at the expense of Catullus-the-man. For Horace, perhaps, these are separate ideas; for Catullus, they are not, and this deep commitment to poetry helps produce the intensity of Catullus’ verse.
2. Teresa Ramsby, Plutarch, Virgil, and the Final Death-Scene
Several of the Lives of Plutarch’s famous series of biographies end in scenes where a rival of the biography’s subject dies (by disease or natural causes), is killed, or takes his own life. In fact the greatest concentration of these endings is found in the biographies of the men whose lives are associated with the demise of the Roman Republic: Marius, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar and Cicero. At the end of Caesar’s biography the final lines report the suicides of Cassius and Brutus at Philippi. Indeed the final scene of Caesar reports a strange visitation to Brutus by his evil genius that menacingly warns the rebel that he will meet him on the battlefield. It is on that field that Brutus takes his life in the last few words of the biography. By contrast, the Lives of many other featured Greeks and Romans end with their funerals and the honors that accompany them. In this paper, I will examine the possibility that this and other final death-scenes, concentrated as they are within the narratives of the Late Republic, may have been influenced by Virgil’s rather startling choice to end his epic Aeneid with a scene in which Aeneas dispatches Turnus, the primary obstacle between him and the foundation of his new Troy, the future Rome.
That Plutarch gives attention to reporting the details of death and murder in his works has received attention before. Rhiannon Ash notes that the succession of deaths is “relentless” and “peculiar” in light of the fact that Plutarch has not set out to report the “accurate narration of events in detail,” but to provide a moral tale wherein the choices of great men lead to noble or tragic results (Mossman, ed., 194-5). Even so, no scholar has directly approached the idea that Plutarch may have had his eye on Virgil’s narrative of Aeneas’ soul-searching journey and bone-wearying battles as he conceived the lives of the heroes (or anti-heroes) of the Late Republic. I will explore the possibility that themes emerge from these Late Republic narratives to suggest that the brutal death of Turnus and the mortal justice that Aeneas inflicts upon him had an effect on the way Plutarch conceived the conclusions of his Republican biographies. At this early stage, I merely pose that perhaps Plutarch saw in these Romans’ lives (and appreciated in Virgil) a duality between the fated future of Rome as an imperial state, ruled by an emperor, and a system of divine justice by which those who cut down (or challenge) the great men who move Rome toward her future must meet violent ends.
3. Jeremiah Mead, Martial 5.18: Liberalis and Its Opposites
Martial uses the words liber and libertas to refer now to civic freedom, now to being free with words, now to absence of obligation. A few of his poems contain the word liberalis, which should mean “behaving as one would expect from a free person,” but which to Martial specifically means “generous” with one’s possessions. This sort of liberality, he observes, tends to dissipate as a person’s resources grow.
In V.xviii, however, the poet lets on that thre is an additional side to being liberalis. This poem treats a common theme in Martial, the treachery of gifts--and the unassuming nature of Martial as giver. Because he sent to Quintianus no gift at the Saturnalia, other than some homemade collections of poetry, perhaps Martial seems stingy (avarus) and lacking in fellow feeling (inhumanus). But when a poor man does not try to reel in a rich friend with a present, he is being liberalis--the word refutes both charges. Chalk one up for the liberales.
Workshop IIA, Katy Ganino, Ecce Romani Teacher’s Workshop
This is an opportunity for teachers using Prentice
Hall’s Ecce Romani series to share ideas, strategies,
and lessons. Participants are encouraged to bring
overheads, short powerpoints (5 minutes maximum),
handouts or other resources to demonstrate different
methods they use to bring the Cornelius family alive.
If you are planning on bringing a powerpoint, please
e-mail the facilitator, katyganino@yahoo.com in advance.
Workshop IIB, Neel Smith and Michael Kinney, Digital Text Encoding
This workshop will introduce participants to several uses of digital texts edited according to the guidelines of the international Text Encoding Initiative. We will illustrate how a single digital text can support both print applications, such as generating a course reader from a list of passage references, and interactive applications. Interactive applications will include examples of how multiple texts in a digital library can “talk” to each other, and how annotations structured in XML can connect scholarly or pedagogical commentary to digital texts.
Workshop IIC, Kat Braden, Latin Teaching Materials Exchange
This workshop is for those teaching Latin in regular courses, or before or after school, or as independent study, or as part of their other language classes, and for those wishing to introduce Latin in some way or other; teachers are invited to bring and share 40 copies of some print material or a sample of some electronic material (handouts, exercises, quizzes, projects, resource lists, etc.) that they have produced themselves. All are welcome, whether bringing materials or not, including those not yet teaching Latin. (Please bring 40 copies of activity or project description, clearly printed, with name, school, and e-mail or phone number, on a one- or two-sided sheet of paper. Limit: one double-sided 8.5 x 11 sheet. Hole punches are appreciated. Contributors will receive a collection of teaching materials.) After the copies have been distributed to workshop participants, the extras will be made available on a table near the plenary session hall. Contributors not able to attend should notify Kat Braden in advance for their copies.
Session III 1:30-2:45
Paper Session III 1:45-3:00 Holloway Commons, Piscataqua Room
1. William Wyatt, Two Cretan Etymologies
Ancient etymologies seem to us fanciful or even ridiculous. In this paper I shall approach two Cretan names demonstrating ancient etymological techniques.
We all know that Zeus was born in a cave on Mt. Ida in Crete. There is a cave on Mt. Dicte that has also claimed to be Zeus’s birthplace. Though fraudulent, there is an etymological basis for the claim. Dicte can be segmented: di – kt – e, and the word etymologized as “the place of Zeus’s birth,” as follows. Di- clearly can be regarded as the stem of Zeus’s name in the oblique cases; and –kt- clearly is the same cluster one finds in the verb tiktein “to give birth.” This etymology, clearly wrong (of a pre-Greek name), led to the idea that Zeus was born on Dicte.
Idomeneus appears in the Iliad, and is there one of the greater heroes, a member of the council, and with his own aristeia. He is firmly connected with Crete. It would seem likely that the first element Ido- has something to do with Mt. Ida. If we ignore the ending, we are left with the interior –men-, or if we want to consider vowels less certain than consonants, we have a root (of sorts) m – n – s. Idomeneus is a reformation of an earlier *Ida- minos or *Ido-minos, and thus in origin meant something like “king of Ida.” Or so the ancients though (perhaps). It may be that this etymology caused epic poets to associate Idomeneus with Crete.
2. A. Agelarakis, A. Dovas, G. Dovas, Reflections on Political and Military Organizational Capacities During the Late 8th c. BC/BCE in Paros Island, Greece
Cremated soldiers' bones in urns found at the burial ground next to the ancient harbor in Paroikia, at Paros island, in two monumental cist graves, offer evidence of a forgotten battle fought around 730 B.C.
What sort of society did the late eighth and early seventh‑century inhabitants of Paros and contemporary Greek cities have? The soldiers' burials in Paroikia offer some clues.
The cremated anthropological remains of 120 individuals were deposited as single and/or multiple interments in decorated funerary vases. They were all of male biological sex, ranging between 18 and 45 years at the time of death. Despite bone fragmentation sustained during pyre exposure and subsequent cultural and taphonomic processes, some of the skeletal remains showed paleopathological manifestations including perimortem trauma on cranial and infracranial loci, a number of which still preserve iron fragments embedded into endosteal surfaces.
These two polyandria, the earliest known in the ancient Greek world, provide testimony of socio-political conditions at the dawn of city‑state formation. That the dead were interred as a group rather than in individual family graves suggests a state supported funeral of the sort first described by Thucydides in Athens 300 years later. This is an indication of their status as citizens and their inclusion in the workings of the city. And two of the burial vases show the earliest evidence of citizen‑soldiers fighting in cohesive units, in a phalangeal hoplitic formation. Clearly, the people of Paros were acting as an organized city-state by 730 B.C. The community identity and centralized decision‑making processes necessary to undertake such ambitious expeditions it is proposed were already in place.
3. Lydia Haile, Don’t Stick to Your Knitting, Penelope!
In popular culture, Penelope's famous weaving is gradually being
replaced by knitting. This is an impossible anachronism based on
misreadings of an 1831 hypothesis. It is impossible for Penelope to
have been knitting; the craft and the word simply did not exist for
centuries and centuries after the time of the Trojan War. More than
that, it destroys the symbolism of her weaving.
The idea that Penelope was knitting first saw the light in 1831,
when Gravenor Henson claimed that Homeric weaving was not weaving,
but knitting on a frame like a child's knitting nobby. As frame
knitting became less and less common, people came to assume the
knitting this hypothesis referred to was the portable knitting on
needles.
Knitting is, after all, more familiar than weaving to the average
reader, and the dropping of stitches and unraveling of knitting are
far more familiar to most people than the unpicking of weaving. This
misperception has started influencing books on knitting; some misdate
the invention of knitting by centuries because they think Penelope
was knitting.
This replacement does great injustices to the symbolism of what
Penelope is doing. Weaving locks multiple threads together into a
whole, while knitting simply turns a yarn back on itself. Similarly,
weaving in Penelope's world was beaten into a tough, durable whole
with various tools. Knitting, on the other hand, unravels easily as
soon as the needles are removed. Likewise, because knitting is
portable, misidentifying her work as knitting removes the idea of
Penelope tied to her loom by day as she weaves and by night as she
picks out her work.
This anachronism unravels an important part of the Penelope story,
making her trickery much less complicated.
4. Dan Blanchard, Waking the Dead: Further Analysis of the Roman Army’s Punitive Expeditions into Dacia, 86-88 AD
The defeat and death of Pro-Consul Oppius Sabinus in Dobrudja in the winter of 85/86 A.D. precipitated the movement east from Viminacium of Moesia’s Governor Cn. Nigrinis. However, by late 86 A.D. Emperor Domitian sent the Praetorian Prefect Cn. Fuscus to take charge of the war. What was the cause for his removal from command? Very little biographical information of Nigrinis has survived. He may well have possessed similar civic traits as the German Governor Publius Quinctilius Varus, a gifted administrator who lacked the qualities for competent military command. A clue lies in Eutropius, who recorded an indecisive if not disastrous campaign prior to the arrival of Cn. Fuscus against the Rhoxolani and Sarmatians. The battle was sparsely recorded. All that was recorded was that one army with its commander was cut-off in Sarmatia. However, the commander was given the title of captain, not proconsul or praetorian prefect. Had Nigrinis commanded; he would certainly be recorded by Eutropius with a title befitting his rank as governor. What can be certain was that this vague battle did not refer to the defeat of O. Sabinus but to the defeat of a later expedition possibly led or though more likely planned and ordered by Nigrinis. Importantly, it was this sparsely recorded battle, the destruction of a legion and the death of its captain that prompted the creation of the shrine and trophy at Adamklissi. The praefect honored by the monument was not a prefect of a region or a military district, as some historians argue, but rather the praefectus castrorum of a legion who commanded in Nigrinis’ stead.
The role of Governor Nigrinis and the origin and purpose of the shrine and monument at Adamklissi are but two of several important historical and archaeological questions which must be analyzed in order to completely understand the conclusions from “An Unenviable Task: the Roman Army’s Punitive Expedition’s into Dacia, 86-88 A.D.”, and the motives of Trajan in waging his destructive and wasting campaigns in Dacia.
Workshop IIIA Holloway Commons, Cocheco Room
Mark Pearsall, Ancient Greek Anew! Developing a Standards-Based Curriculum
Great advances have been made in the teaching of Latin over the past thirty years. Latin programs are flourishing and more and more students are eager to learn about the ancient world. Greek has, unfortunately, lagged behind Latin in its development. While interest in studying Greek has increased, there are still few programs and little has been done to advance the pedagogy. National and state standards for Latin and Greek have been adopted but realistically have only been employed in teaching Latin.
This workshop will focus on developing a curriculum for Greek based on the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning. I will demonstrate a technique for designing a curriculum based on essential questions. We will examine how such a curricular design can be used to develop skills in students to make them better readers and help them understand Greek rather than simply translating it into English. We will discuss how cultural knowledge and thematic units may be used to spiral reading strategies in the students’ learning. I will give examples of thematic units that can be used and demonstrate how they can be spiraled through an articulated language system. I will also work with participants on an activity to develop interpretive and writing skills with their students.
Workshop IIIB Holloway Commons, Salmon Falls Room
Michelle LeBlanc with Jennifer Kuligoski and Tanya Whippie, Roman Jewelry Making
This workshop is based on a project that the Eta Sigma Phi chapter has
run successfully on several occasions for students at UNH. The
organizers will teach you how to make Roman-inspired earrings, necklaces
and bracelets, and how to teach others to make them as well. Making
ancient-inspired jewelry is a wonderful way to incorporate culture and
history into fun, hands-on learning activity with results that are
beautiful and wearable.
Paper Session IV 3:30-4:45 Holloway Commons, Piscataqua Room
1. Stephen Brunet, Kicking up Your Heels: Not Just for Spartan Girls. New Evidence for the Bibasis Dance
In Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (82), Lampito, the Spartan woman attending the peace conference, prides herself on her athletic ability, in particular her ability to jump up and hit her buttocks. Other scattered and late literary sources informs us that this activity was a dance called the bibasis and confirms that it consisted of jumping up and hitting one’s buttocks as one counted the number of times one could performed this physically demanding feat. Moreover, while one source does mention that boys took part in this contest, it is uniformly associated in the ancient sources, and hence in the mind of modern scholars, with Spartan girls.
The visual evidence for this dance paints a slightly different picture. As correctly identified by Martin Robertson but virtually unknown to scholars interested in the bibasis, this dance is represented on an Athenian red-figure vase in the MFA in Boston. In an interesting iconographical technique, this vase uses both sides to show the essential features of the bibasis. On one side, as a flute player accompanies their dance, two young men have jumped up and bent their legs backwards. On the reverse, the same figures are shown from the back at the point that their heels have nearly reached their buttocks. By itself the MFA vase might be considered an aberration, but it now possible to add the evidence of an Athenian black-figure vase from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Taranto. On one side, an unbearded individual is just starting his jump with his two feet just off the ground. On the reserve, an older bearded individual is further along in his jump with his heels nearly touching his buttocks. Each of them is accompanied by a flute player and is surrounded with other semi-nude men who may be athletes or other dancers. A particularly interesting feature is that both dancers hold spears in their hands, which suggests that the bibasis may have been a military dance like the Pyrrhic dance.
The visual evidence shows that the audience of the Lysistrata would have been familiar with the bibasis and that this dancing contest was not exclusively associated with either Spartans or with women. Athenian boys and men also practiced this dance as a form of exercise. So, it was not so much the association of the bibasis with the Spartans that Aristophanes was playing on. Rather, the focus was on the demanding physical nature of this dance and, as often with the physical training of Spartan women, on the inversion of roles in which they adopted the nudity and athleticism normally associated with men.
2.Pramit Chaudhuri, Capaneus, Lucretius, and the Ethics of Gigantomachy in Statius’ Thebaid
This paper offers a new assessment of Capaneus’ theomachy in Statius’ Thebaid (10.827-939) through close attention to its gigantomachic associations. The importance, originality and elevated tone of the episode are explicitly signalled by the poet (827-31). I argue that the poem suggests at least three ways—ethical, philosophical, and political—in which we can evaluate the theomachy. However, despite the illumination they shed, these approaches ultimately fail to resolve the problem of evaluation.
When Jupiter likens Capaneus’ theomachy to gigantomachy (909-10) the ethical implication is one of impiety and folly. The hero even calls himself a superum contemptor (9.550, cf. Mezentius at Aeneid 8.7 and Kronenberg). However, recent scholarship on the Thebaid has shown the extent to which the gods of the epic are morally compromised: Jupiter, in particular, resembles a tyrant. Proceeding from Feeney’s critique of the Olympians, I show that Capaneus’ theomachy is representative of a more nuanced conflict than the straightforwardly impious attack described by Vessey. This approach adds an ethical dimension to a movement begun by Lovatt and Leigh. Whether or not Capaneus’ own motivations are to be applauded, the act itself tests the authority of a morally suspect Jupiter. I argue that gigantomachy does not function as a purely negative ethical paradigm, and that Jupiter’s assimilation of Capaneus’ theomachy to gigantomachy is not unassailable (the hero’s wife, Evadne, rejects the comparison with the Giants at 12.553-57).
Philosophy also influences evaluation of the theomachy. Capaneus’ use of Lucretian language (e.g., 3.659-61) associates his impiety with the Epicurean project, which Lucretius compared to gigantomachy at DRN 5.117-21 (commented upon by Taisne). However, that connection alone is insufficient to redeem Capaneus since it is unclear whether we are to see Capaneus as alluding to or parodying Epicureanism, and it is also unclear whether the Thebaid as a whole valorises the Epicurean / gigantomachic project. I argue that the equivocal relationship between philosophy and gigantomachy suggests multiple readings of the theomachy, but cannot adjudicate between them.
Finally, gigantomachy is a longstanding political metaphor in Latin epic (Hardie), and also in Silvae 5.3.195-97, where through it Statius describes the civil wars of 69 CE. Despite the consequent temptation to read Capaneus’ theomachy as having specific political reference, such a reading is undermined by a lack of explicit mention of contemporary politics in the Thebaid. Recent work on Domitian (Jones, Southern) cautions us against the kind of negative assumptions about the emperor used in subversive readings of the Thebaid (Ahl, Dominik, Hill). I argue that the poem, far from encouraging a direct correlation of literary and historical figures, leaves the reader with little option but to read theomachy in abstract rather than specific political terms (cf. Malamud).
I have offered three ways of reading Capaneus’ impiety that take seriously the gigantomachic associations. While each approach sheds some light on the theomachy, all three are unable independently to determine evaluation of the hero or his act, and they even destabilise any purchase won by another approach. This important episode thus requires the reader to engage a complex network of moral choices and implications, a procedure that I argue offers the best approach to the whole poem.
3. Roger Travis, Adventure Video Games and the Epic Tradition
This paper suggests that adventure video games like “Halo” and “World of Warcraft,” far from being an utterly new form of storytelling—or even not being a form of storytelling, or art, at all—bear an interesting resemblance to a much older form of narrative, the Classical epic tradition.
Video games’ critics have argued—or, really, simply asserted—that, on the one hand, video games are a dangerous and seductive new medium, and, on the other, that they are without artistic merit. I call these the charges of non-aesthetics and of immersion; the paper deals with both of them. I argue that, to the contrary of the charge of non-aesthetics, video games do tell stories just like other forms of real narrative art, and some of these stories may be fruitfully analogized to the stories of the ancient epic tradition. That part of my argument is made mostly by implication, as I deal with what I consider the more interesting and important charge—the charge of immersion. I argue to the contrary of that charge of immersion that the interactive mode of story-telling in adventure video games is actually a re-awakening of the improvisatory nature of the ancient epic tradition. Further, Plato’s criticism of mimesis in Republic and Laws could very well be describing the dangers of video games and, therefore, whatever danger video games pose, like the old danger of Homer and tragedy, needs to be balanced with the possible benefits of a narrative medium with extraordinary potential.
Workshop IVA Sarah Bjorkman From canis est in via to Catullus: Reading Strategies That Bridge the Gap
What do you expect your advanced or AP level students will know and be able to do, and how do you get them there? The teachers of those upper level classes can’t do it alone -- it takes careful skill building from the very first days to develop students who can read, comprehend, and write about Latin literature with sophistication. This workshop will offer strategies and tips to use at all levels of Latin to encourage proficient advanced readers.
Workshop IVB 3:30-4:45 Holloway Commons, Salmon Falls Room
John Higgins, Materials for Greek Teachers: A Sharing Session
Greek teachers will meet to discuss what ancillary materials should be in a general, non-textbook specific, handbook for beginning Greek teachers on the high school level. Individual teachers are asked to bring
something they think should be included, with the aim of creating such a handbook for publication by NECN Publications. The session will be a sharing session, but with broader application.
The sections of such a guide might include mythological and historical material based on the syllabus of the National Greek Exam, some general approaches to grammatical concepts, some derivative work, and specific suggestions for teaching. Teachers are encouraged to bring some successful mini-lessons for extra enrichment work. The proposed guide should also contain materials on teaching a non-traditional population of students, such as several new programs have been attracting, and descriptions of teaching from specific textbooks.
Session V 9:00-10:15
Paper Session V Huddleston Hall
1. Mark Wright, Education as Self-Definition in Horace and Juvenal (winner of the Phyllis B. Katz Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Research)
2. Stephen Trzaskoma, The Virtues of the Organization of Apollodorus’ Bibliotheke
We can with precious little certainty answer any of our major questions about the single comprehensive Greek mythographic handbook to survive from antiquity. The author is entirely unknown to us, and we cannot say for certain when he lived, what his original audience was, or what his expressed purpose was. Likewise, we do not know for sure what sources Apollodorus used or how he used them. All of these issues have occupied scholars, but these last are of great consequence because the Bibliotheke is such an important source for our own modern investigation of Greek myths. Was Apollodorus an able and diligent researcher and compiler who can be relied upon or was he a hack who merely and poorly condensed the work of some predecessor(s)?
By examining the overall organization of the Bibliotheke and paying particular attention to the author's cross-references, I hope to show that it is structured upon admirably economical and intelligent principles. More particularly, I will demonstrate that the whole work was conceived of as a whole. Apollodorus, in other words, had a clear plan laid out from the beginning and deployed his incredibly complex material—the whole of Greek myth from the earliest gods to the end of the Trojan War—in the service of a larger vision. For instance, I will show that although genealogy and dynastic succession are the primary sources of narrative momentum and organization, Apollodorus carefully allows a third organizing principle to come to the fore in Book 3, namely geography, which earlier is merely incidental. This change is deliberate, as I will show by analyzing Apollodorus' treatment of the figure of Pelasgos (2.2, 3.96), and must have been consciously in our author's mind from his opening chapters (which explains, among other matters, why the treatment of as important a god as Hermes is so long delayed).
3. Ayelet Haimson Lushkov, Constructing Continuity: Africanus between Hannibal and Antiochus
This paper analyses Livy’s description of Scipio Africanus’ efforts to obtain the command in the east between 202-190 B.C. I focus on a re-interpretation of Livy’s notice on the arch of Scipio Africanus, erected in 190 BCE, directly before Africanus’ departure for the east (37.3.1-7). Previous scholarship on the arch focused on art-historical matters, and not on the historiographical function the notice performs (Spano 1951, Mastrocinque 1982, De Maria 1988, Richardson 1992, Levene 1993, and LTUR 2.267.s.v. “fornix Scipionis”). I set the arch within Livy’s account of Africanus’ public conduct in the years preceding his eastern campaign, and argue that the arch is one example of Africanus’ use of religious pageantry to construct continuity between the Hannibalic and Macedonian wars.
Livy’s notice on Africanus’ arch directly follows the report on the expiation of prodigies before the consuls’ departure. Further, the parallel structure of the report (37.3: Priusquam consules in prouincias proficiscerentur… P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, priusquam proficisceretur) corroborates the arch’s religious, if not expiatory, purpose, and implies that this religious purpose was bound up with the departure for war. The arch also had other military associations. It replicated the manubial construction of the fornices of Stretinius (Livy 33.27.1-5; Calabi Limentani 1982), built after a victory in Spain, in lieu of a triumph. Further, Livy reports the arch very shortly after the senate meeting in which the command in the east was assigned to the Scipiones (Livy 37.1.7-10). I therefore argue that the arch both participated in the immediate religious context of 190 B.C., and also forcefully evoked the victory against Hannibal. The arch thus connected Africanus’ past military successes with the future conflict, in which he would once again face Hannibal.
The emphasis on the continuity between the Hannibalic and Macedonian wars can be traced as early as Africanus’ second consulship in 194. The Livian narrative begins with the speech of Africanus, who makes the connection between the Hannibalic and Macedonian wars explicit (34.43: hinc Aetoli…illinc Hannibal, Romanis cladibus insignis imperator). Africanus then discharges religious obligations incurred during both wars (34.44): the ver sacrum vowed after the defeat at Thrasemene (217 BCE), and the celebration of the ludi Romani votivi, vowed by Sulpicius Galba for the success of the war in Macedon (210 BCE). I argue that Livy’s report on the year also shows structural parallels between military and religious matters.
I have shown a previously ignored religious context for the arch of Africanus, which adds an important dimension to an interpretation of the arch as a public monument. An analysis
of both Livian passages shows the arch as part of a consistent and coherent image of Africanus, his public activities, and the role of religion in his self-advertisement.
4. David Yates, The Role of Cato the Younger in Caesar’s Bellum Civile
Most ancient sources place Cato at the center of the tragic series of events that led the Republic to civil war. These judgments have been largely upheld by modern scholarship. It is then surprising that Caesar mentions Cato on only three occasions in the Bellum Civile. The first does little more than confirm Cato’s long-standing enmity toward Caesar (1.4.1). The second and longest describes his command in Sicily and the speech given before he flees his province (1.30). The third occurs less than a page away, where Caesar makes brief mention of Cato’s opposition to the law of the ten tribunes (1.32.3). More remarkable still is the fact that the little attention Caesar does pay to his rival is comparatively mild and on occasion even exculpatory. Briefly and with restraint is not how one expects Caesar to have cast his arch nemesis. Cato’s small role in the work can be explained in part by filtering out ancient and modern misconception about the importance of Cato in the years leading up to the civil war. Yet, such an explanation does not tell us why Caesar chose to treat him so mildly. The reason for this peculiar treatment is rather to be found in the narrative function Cato plays in the Bellum Civile. In this paper I shall argue that Caesar uses his Cato to underscore two major themes in the early chapters of book 1: the duplicity of Pompey and the needlessness of the war. Caesar achieves this end by giving Cato a brief speech in which his treatment of these themes anticipates Caesar’s own much longer speech two chapters later. Together, this pair of speeches serves to reaffirm the justice of Caesar’s arguments before the narrative shifts from the invasion of Italy to Spain.
Workshop VA Holloway Commons, Piscataqua Room
Emil Penarubia et al., Bringing the Polis to the Classroom
This workshop will provide a panel of three high school teachers, each of whom travelled to Greece to study at the Summer Session of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Kristen Morrison of Wethersfield HS (Wethersfield, CT), Emil Peñarubia of Boston College HS (Boston, MA), and David Harpin of The Hopkins School (New Haven, CT). Both Kristen and Emil received Fulbright Teacher Exchange Fellowships, and David was the recipient of the 2006 CANE Endowment Scholarship. Each participant will speak about their travels in Greece, and how they have integrated their unique experiences into their classroom teaching.
Kristen, an art teacher, will explain how she has incorporated the art and culture of Greece into her studio art and art history classes. She will highlight activities involving the creation and decoration of Greek vases (both red- and black-figure), as well as their various forms and functions. Additional attention will be given to the technique of marble and bronze sculpture. Students can examine photographs of museum pieces in situ, while tracing the history of Greek pottery. A personal account of the class where we actually held pieces of Greek vases in our hands will enhance the students’ understanding of their development. As an art teacher (and not a classicist), Kristen will provide an essential supplement to the language teacher: a cultural dimension of the ancient Greeks.
David, a Greek teacher, will speak about uniting textual places with their geographical counterparts (e.g., the stories/passages in Athenaze that focus on Greek sites and recall historical events), while passing on a living reminiscence of the country and its people. When teaching the Battle of Salamis in Athenaze, David’s students virtually transport to the very top of the Lykavittos Hill in the heart of Athens where one can see, on a clear day, the island of Salamis and the straits. Turning their attention to the Battle of Marathon, students hear a first-person narrative of the bus trip on the coastal road to the famous plain, through Cephisia, close to the footsteps of Miltiades’ hoplites.
Emil, a Latin teacher, will show the world of the ancient Greeks through the myths of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a required text for all first-year Latin students. His first major focus is the topography of Greece, showing the dizzying height of Mount Olympus or where Cupid alighted upon Mount Parnassus to shoot Apollo with the golden arrow. Using Google Earth’s satellite imagery, students learn the varied terrains and sheer distances which people travelled in the blazing sun, either on foot, by animal, or more recently, by bus. Students will view a long climb to the top of Mount Lykaion in the heart of the Peloponnesus, and get an aural “taste” of the rocky ground. At the summit, they can see the Temple of Apollo at Bassai across the valley, and learn about the construction of Greek temples and its connection with Roman temple characteristics, eventually comparing and contrasting the two peoples through their building styles. Other examples will be provided from the Aegina, Corinth, and Athens itself. All participants in this workshop will receive an extensive handout and a CD-ROM containing the images used in the presentation.
Workshop VB Holloway Commons, Salmon Falls Room
LeaAnn Osburn, Latin Verbs Rock
A new CD entitled "Latin Verbs Rock" contains songs for each of the indicative tenses, active and passive, of the four conjugations of verbs along with a song for each of these irregular verbs: volo, eo, fero, and sum. This presentation will focus on how to use these songs in a Latin classroom and will include activities to use along with and after playing the song.
Session VI
Paper Session VI 10:45-11:45 Holloway Commons, Piscataqua Room
1. Ornella Rossi, Eumolpus the Anti-Seneca: Possible Interpretations of Petr. Sat. 99.1
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problematic diction of the sententia at Sat. 99.1 ego sic semper et ubique vixi, ut ultimam quamque lucem tamquam non redituram consumerem. I intend to demonstrate that Eumolpus’ statement does not require emendation, but can instead be explained as an over-determined and distorted re-use of Senecan vocabulary with ironic purposes. This leads me to discuss how such a parodic strategy fits both the context in which this sententia is placed and the character of the poet Eumolpus, to whom it is attributed by the manuscript tradition. In doing this I hope to add one more piece to the picture of the presence of Stoicism—and, more particularly, of Seneca—in the Satyricon.
The problem with the sententia lies in the phrase ‘ultimam quamque lucem’: ultima lux means “the last/ fatal day of life” (cf. the famous line at Verg. A. 2.668 vocat lux ultima victos and [Quint.] Decl. 9.9), not just “the most recent day in the course of life”. So, too, does the similar phrase ultimus dies: cf. ThLL s.v. dies 1053.42-53 and in particular Sen. Brev. 7.9 At ille qui nullum non tempus in usus suos confert, qui omnem diem tamquam ultimum ordinat, nec optat crastinum nec timet or Ep. 93.6 Non enim ad eum diem me aptavi, quem ultimum mihi spes avida promiserat, sed nullum non tamquam ultimum aspexi. Eumolpus’s claim that “I have always and everywhere been living with the aim of using each last/ fatal day of my life as if it were not going to return” thus presents what appears to be a quite illogical tautology. This difficulty, of which neither editors nor interpreters have yet offered any serious discussion, is reflected very well in the ways in which almost all the translators have tried to evade the problem, rendering it as e.g. Walsh 1996 does: “as though I were spending my last day, AND would not see another”. The text is acceptable, however, if we follow a path already indicated by the translation of Ehlers 1965/1983. Instead of understanding ultima lux in the metonymical sense of “the final light/ day in one life”, we need to retrieve the literal meaning of “the final light in one day”, for which cf. Ov. Ep. 14.22 Ultima pars lucis primaque noctis erat. The metaphor between “one life” and “one day” then is obtained through an echo of the famous Catullus 5 soles occidere et redire possunt/ nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux/ nox est perpetua una dormienda. Therefore we can render the meaning of Sat. 99.1 thus: “I have always and everywhere been living with the aim of using up the light of each one of my days till its very last sparkle, as if this light were not going to rise again” (or as Ehlers more coincisely translates: “ich jede sinkende Sonne genoß, als zöge sie nicht neu herauf”).
Still, readers must have simultaneously felt the usual meaning of lux ultima/ dies ultimus. The reason why Petronius might express his carpe diem in such a complicated – yet certainly poetic – way is, in my opinion, from a desire parodically to distort and abuse some of Seneca’s key Stoic expressions. One might compare also his use of the verb consumo in this passage, which in Seneca is another key-term to describe the “wasting” of one’s time by those who are not wise philosophers (cf. Sen. Ira. 3.3.5, Brev. 12.2 et passim, and also Vita 27.5, where it refers to Epicurus).
This parodic carpe diem, couched in deformed Senecan terms, doesn’t seem out of place (pace Van Thiel 1971: 41) in a context where the protagonists are begging Eumolpus to put an end to his ira and the old poet, as a truly wise man, dismisses that dangerous passion which – a Seneca would say – could prevent him from using his precious time well. Eumolpus can certainly be considered the right character to mock Seneca in the complex way in which our sententia does. For throughout the Satyricon, Eumolpus looks precisely like one among the principle vehicles of the satire against Seneca and the Stoics (cf. Sommariva 1984, Ferreira 2000: 77-101).
Works cited for: Eumolpus the anti-Seneca: possible interpretations of Petronius, Satyricon 99.1
Ferreira, P. S. M. (2000), Os elementos paródicos no Satyricon de Petrónio e o seu significado, Lisboa.
Müller, K. (ed.) and Ehlers, W. (trans.) (1965), Petronius Satyrica. Schelmengeschichten, Münich.
Müller, K. (ed.) and Ehlers, W. (trans.) (1983), Petronius Satyrica. Schelmenszenen, Münich.
Sommariva, G. (1984), ‘Eumolpo, un “Socrate epicureo” nel Satyricon’, ANSP 14, 25-58.
Van Thiel, H. (1971), Petron: Überlieferung und Rekonstruktion, Leiden.
2. Nell Wright, Homeric Epic and Sometimes a Great Notion
Critics panned Sometimes a Great Notion. Too hard to read, too many first-person characters talking all at once, too complex an intersection of time periods and plots. Yet it is still in print, and deserves to be read more widely, especially by Classicists.
This perfect American novel is also the perfect epic, in the classical sense. Woven into the great themes of love, rivalry and revenge, Kesey cleverly deploys the characters and elements of ancient epic. One hero, Hank, is invincible, god-like. The other, his brother Lee, is emotionally lost, returning home after half his life away.
I first recognized this Odysseus when he set foot on the home ground -- (page 119) “one old deaf, half-blind redbone [hound] with mange on his rump, he gets down and limps over and licks Lee’s hand… The kid squats down. ‘Hank…is this Plover…could he still’-- Hank answers, ‘by God, look there, he acts like he recollects who you are.’”
On the next page, I saw Achilles. “Hank doesn’t just walk; he consumes distance, step by carnivorous step; every movement constituted open aggression against the very air”.
These hints make it easy to make out other epic roles emerging from Kesey’s broad landscape. There’s Patroclus, the beloved, simple cousin Joe Ben; Helen, abducted from her home to Oregon, source of gossip; Nestor, Hank’s and Lee’s garrulous father. Machaon and Thersites make repeated entrances.
Epic elements of plot and style abound: a night raid on Hank’s logs, two embassies to him by the union, the aristeias of Joe Ben and Hank, the epic language (Which one was the tallest, among these soldiers?… Which one was the handsomest? the wildest? the fastest Which soldier of them all had she liked the best? Page 57
3. Paul Properzio, Rigveda X, 117 and Odyssey VI: Liberality in Hindu and Greek Poetry
Two passages of ancient literature, one from the Rigveda X, 117, 1-36 and the other from the Odyssey VI, 190-216, express Hindu and Greek attitudes toward liberality. The general sentiments expressed in each passage, though derived from different cultural and geographical areas of the ancient world, are surprisingly similar. Both celebrate the ancient custom of hospitality, i.e., guest-treatment, to wayward travelers and beggars. This paper looks at the ancient Hindu and Greek attitudes toward liberality which, given the similar nature of the early Hindus and Greeks as expressed in their songs, shows a universal tendency of Bronze-Age peoples to interact with strangers in a civilized way.
Workshop VI Jacqueline Carlon et al., Oral Latin, Why or Why Not?
The recent trend towards including oral work in the Latin classroom has provoked a number of questions regarding the long term effects of a substantive change to a pedagogical approach that has long been valued for the analytical skills it fosters in its students. Will the assumption of oral methods threaten the value Latin instruction as an arena for “gymnastics of the mind”? Is there time in already demanding curricula for oral Latin? What benefits might accrue from speaking Latin in the classroom? How does a cadre of teachers who have rarely or never spoken the language undertake to introduce an oral component into its methodology?
This workshop will introduce some of the second language acquisition theory that may be applied to the use of spoken Latin in the classroom, discussing both the value and limitations of current research to our discipline. Several teachers from both the college and high school level will discuss ways in which they have begun to use oral work in their classrooms and the value they see in doing so. Time will be reserved for questions and discussio