Ennius' Annales, which is preserved only in fragments, was hugely influential on Roman literature and culture. This book explores the genesis, in the ancient sources for Ennius' epic and in modern ...scholarship, of the accounts of the Annales with which we operate today. A series of appendices detail each source's contribution to our record of the poem, and are used to consider how the interests and working methods of the principal sources shape the modern view of the poem and to re-examine the limits imposed and the possibilities offered by this ancient evidence. Dr Elliott challenges standard views of the poem, such as its use of time and the disposition of the gods within it. She argues that the manifest impact of the Annales on the collective Roman psyche results from its innovative promotion of a vision of Rome as the primary focus of the cosmos in all its aspects.
The memory of the Roman Republic exercised a powerful influence on several generations of Romans who lived under its political and cultural successor, the Principate or Empire. Empire and Memory ...explores how (and why) that memory manifested itself over the course of the early Principate. Making use of the close relationship between memoria and historia in Roman thought and drawing on modern studies of historical memory, this book offers case-studies of major imperial authors from the reign of Tiberius to that of Trajan (AD 14–117). The memory evident in literature is linked to that imprinted on Rome's urban landscape, with special attention paid to the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Trajan, both which are particularly suggestive reminders of the transition from a time when the memory of the Republic was highly valued and celebrated to one when its grip had begun to loosen.
Ann Vasaly introduces representation theory into the study of Ciceronian persuasion and contends that an understanding of milieu—social, political, topographical—is crucial to understanding ...Ciceronian oratory. As a genre uniquely dependent on an immediate interaction between author and audience, ancient oratory becomes performance art.
Vasaly investigates the way Cicero represented the contemporary physical world—places, topography, and monuments, both those seen and those merely mentioned—to his listeners and demonstrates how he used these representations to persuade. Her exceptionally well-written study deftly recaptures the immediacy of Cicero's oratory and makes a trenchant contribution to an important new area of inquiry in Classical Studies.
The historical importance of Claudian as writer of panegyric and propaganda for the court of Honorius is well established but his poetry has been comparatively neglected: only recently has his work ...been the subject of modern literary criticism. Taking as its starting point Claudian's claim to be the heir to Virgil, this book examines his poetry as part of the Roman epic tradition. Discussing first what we understand by epic and its relevance for late antiquity, Catherine Ware argues that, like Virgil and later Roman epic poets, Claudian analyses his contemporary world in terms of classical epic. Engaging intertextually with his literary predecessors, Claudian updates concepts such as furor and concordia, redefining Romanitas to exclude the increasingly hostile east, depicting enemies of the west as new Giants and showing how the government of Honorius and his chief minister, Stilicho, have brought about a true golden age for the west.
Theorising Rome asks the questions: what did 'Rome'--the physical location, the political entity, the literary construct--mean in antiquity? Equally, what has it meant in subsequent centuries? This ...volume addresses these broad questions in a number of complementary ways, and each chapter shows that ancient Rome has been recontextualised and remade--and, in fact, re-theorised--by successive historical periods and literary genres to perform their cultural labour. The contributions here approach this question through the lens of Roman literary, historical and philosophical texts, as well as reception texts which create a new vision of Rome through adaptation, allusion and critique. Whether ancient or modern, these studies show how Rome and Roman texts are recast for each new audience.
After centuries of near silence, Latin poetry underwent a renaissance in the late fourth and fifth centuries CE evidenced in the works of key figures such as Ausonius, Claudian, Prudentius, and ...Paulinus of Nola. This period of resurgence marked a milestone in the reception of the classics of late Republican and early imperial poetry. InClassicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry, Philip Hardie explores the ways in which poets writing on non-Christian and Christian subjects used the classical traditions of Latin poetry to construct their relationship with Rome's imperial past and present, and with the by now not-so-new belief system of the state religion, Christianity. The book pays particular attention to the themes of concord and discord, the "cosmic sense" of late antiquity, novelty andrenouatio, paradox and miracle, and allegory. It is also a contribution to the ongoing discussion of whether there is an identifiably late antique poetics and a late antique practice of intertextuality. Not since Michael Robert's classicThe Jeweled Style has a single book had so much to teach about the enduring power of Latin poetry in late antiquity.
Howard D. Weinbrot challenges the view that the period 1660-1800 is correctly regarded as the "Augustan" age of English literature, a time in which classical Augustan ideals provided a main source of ...inspiration. Scholars have held that British writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century considered Augustus Caesar to be the model of the wise ruler who enabled political, literary, and moral wisdom to flourish. This book shows on the contrary that classical standards, though often invoked, were often rejected by many informed citizens and writers of the day.
Anti-Augustan sentiment consolidated by the 1730s, when both Whig and Tory, court and country, viewed Augustus as the enemy of the mixed and balanced constitution that was responsible for British liberty. Professor Weinbrot focuses in particular on literature and its classical backgrounds, reinterpreting major works by Pope and Gibbon.
Originally published in 1978.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
When Cleopatra expresses a desire to die 'after the high Roman fashion', acting in accordance with 'what's brave, what's noble', Shakespeare is suggesting that there are certain values that are ...characteristically Roman. The use of the terms 'Rome' and 'Roman' in Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra or Jonson's Sejanus often carry the implication that most people fail to live up to this ideal of conduct, that very few Romans are worthy of the name. In this book Chernaik demonstrates how, in these plays, Roman values are held up to critical scrutiny. The plays of Shakespeare, Jonson, Massinger and Chapman often present a much darker image of Rome, as exemplifying barbarism rather than civility. Through a comparative analysis of the Roman plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and including detailed discussion of the classical historians Livy, Tacitus and Plutarch, this study examines the uses of Roman history - 'the myth of Rome' - in Shakespeare's age.
From its first complete Italian printing in 1872 up to the present day, Domenico Comparetti's Vergil in the Middle Ages has been acknowledged as a masterpiece, regarded by some critics as "a true and ...proper history of European consciousness from antiquity to Dante." Treating Vergil's poetry as a foundation of Latin European identity, Comparetti seeks to give a complete history of the medieval conception of the preeminent poet. Scholars of the time had transformed Vergil into a sage and a seer, a type of universal philosopher--even a Christian poet and a guide of a Christian poet. In the mid-twelfth century, there surfaced legends that converted Vergil into a magician, endowing him with supernatural powers. Comparetti explores the ongoing interest in Vergil's poetry as it appeared in popular folklore and legends as well as in medieval classical scholarship. This great synthesizing work, which has been unavailable for over twenty years, is now back in print, based on E.F.M. Benecke's 1895 translation of the Italian second edition. Comparetti begins with the period in which Vergil lived and goes on to evaluate how the later images, particularly the legends, of Vergil coincide with the more scholarly accounts of his life. The result is a grand sweep of literary history from the first century B.C.E. through the end of the Middle Ages, with implications for the nineteenth century and the rise of Italian nationalism.
In theAeneidmen, women, gods, and goddesses are characterized by the speeches assigned to them far more than by descriptions of their appearance or behavior. Most of the speeches are highly emotional ...and individualized, reminding us of the most powerful utterances of Greek tragedy.
Gilbert Highet has analyzed all the speeches in theAeneid, using statistical techniques as well as more traditional methods of scholarship. He has classified the speeches; identified their models in earlier Greek and Latin literature; analyzed their structure; and discussed their importance in the portrayal of character. He finds that Vergil used standard rhetorical devices with discretion, and that his models were poets rather than orators. Nevertheless, this study shows Vergil to have been a master dramatist as well as a great epic poet.
Originally published in 1972.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
