Chapter 1. Introduction Problem Writing to a friend, Horace describes the man as fascinated by “the discordant harmony of the cosmos, its purpose and power” (Epistles 1.12.19). Horace refers to Empedocles’ doctrine of a world order in constant flux between cohesion and fragmentation, Love and Strife, harmony and discord. Compressed into a single concept, this flux represents, in Horace’s phrase, concordia discors, a dynamic tension whose… Read more
Chapter 2. “Lovers of It”: Erotic Ambiguity in the Periclean Funeral Oration And so it is that these men have proved themselves worthy of their city. As for you, the living, pray that your resolve will be no less unshakable, yet resolve to be no less bold against the enemy. And don’t just calculate the benefits of beating him back—benefits that it would take too… Read more
Chapter 3. He Loves You, He Loves You Not: Demophilic Courtship in Aristophanes’ Knights In the Acharnians of 425 BCE, Aristophanes promises to “shred” the leather merchant Cleon, a political bigwig and a thorn in the playwright’s side. [1] Delivering on that promise the very next year in Knights, Aristophanes portrays Cleon as a repulsively obsequious, yet violently quarrelsome house-slave named Paphlagon. Read more
Chapter 4. Forgive and Forget: Concordia discors in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen and Lysistrata In Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen, salvation—sôtêria—for Athens and its citizens dominates the agenda, not just of the political meeting whence the play’s title, but of the play as a whole. [1] To an Athenian audience, that will have suggested a city in crisis, [2] but what kind… Read more
Chapter 2. Ethnographic Archives of Vraisemblance in Attic Ceramics κλίνη, ἐάντε ἐκ πλαγίου αὐτὴν θεᾷ ἐάντε καταντικρὺ ἢ ὁπῃοῦν, μή τι διαφέρει αὐτὴ ἑαυτῆς, ἢ διαφέρει μὲν οὐδέν, φαίνεται δὲ ἀλλοία; If you look at a bed from the side or from the front or from any angle, does the bed itself become different? Or does it appear different, without being different? —Plato, Republic… Read more
Chapter 3. The Anthropology of Ancient Reception: The Late Archaic and Classical Periods ΠΙΚΡΑΓΚΑΘΙἘνεφανίσθη καὶ χάθηκε ἡ δεσποινὶς ποὺ συνήντησα μέσ᾽ στὸ συρτάρι μου. Στὴ θέσι της μιὰ τολύπηκρατεῖ τὸν φώσφορο τῆς ζωοφόρου της. Ἄποικοινέμονται τὶς ἐκτάσεις ποὺ ἐγκατέλειψε μὰ τὸ παιδὶτῶν ἀναμνήσεών μας κομίζει πλοκάμια ποὺ μοιάζουνμὲ… Read more
Chapter 10. The Rhetorics of Supplication and the Epic Intertext (Iliad I 493–516) Intertextual references that do not belong to specific epic traditions can become thematically associated intratextual sequences in Homeric epic. One form of this arrangement consists of proximal sequences, where topics originating from different versions of a given mythical context are presented intratextually as part of a thematic chain. Cumulative arrangement with its built-in linearity… Read more
Chapter 11. Intertextuality and Intratextual Distality: Thetis’ Lament in Iliad XVIII 52–64 Introduction The scene between Thetis and Achilles in Iliad XVIII 35–147 has attracted the interest of scholarly examination since the early analytical studies of Wilamowitz. [1] In line with the analytical approach to epic poetry that dominated 19th and early 20th century Homeric studies, Wilamowitz dissected the Iliad into… Read more
Chapter 12. Mapping the Hypertext: Similes in Iliad XXII In spite of the fact that Homeric similes have undergone exhaustive analysis, interest in them has been renewed in recent years, though the focus of research has shifted from studying their classification [1] to exploring their oral function [2] and the way they generate meaning. [3]… Read more
Bibliography Translations All translations of the Iliad are taken from Lattimore 1951, and of the Odyssey from Rieu 2003 (= 1946). For Aristotle I have consulted Halliwell 1995; for Herodotus, Waterfeld 1998; for the Homeric Hymns, West 2003; for Philostratus, Berenson, Maclean, and Aitken 2003 (= 2001); for Proclus, Burgess 2001; for Livy, Foster 1919; for Ovid’s Fasti, Frazer 19892 (= 1931); for Propertius, Goold 1990;… Read more
