Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae

Komödie und Pornographie

Heiko Ullrich — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Catullusʼ Carm. 10 seems to present the speaker as a miles gloriosus duped by the girlfriend of Varus, presumably a friend of the poet an fellow Neoteric. While it has been claimed that Plautusʼ Miles Gloriosus is the most influencial role model for Carm. 10, the present article shows that the speaker employs a variety of scenes both from Plautusʼ and Terenceʼs comedies to adopt and maintain the mask of the parasitus who suffers from his financial failure and personal humiliation during the time spent with the praetor Memmius in Bithynia. But Varus and his girlfriend want to hear other stories from the famous province of the infamous encounter between King Nikomedes and young Julius Caesar – and the speaker seems to perform according to this exspectations when he calls Memmius an irrumator and (one of) his hosts a cinaedior. But in the end he is not willing to write pornography on demand even if some of his friends (including Aurelius and Furius of Carm. 16 as well als Varus of Carm. 10) consider the poet not just up to the task but currently the best choice for such delicate matters.

Alexander was Great, but Rome is Greater: Considering Livy’s Depiction of Alexander

Nikolaus Overtoom — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The Romans were conquerors, and it is unsurprising that they looked favorably upon the greatest conqueror of antiquity, Alexander the Great. In Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, there are several passages in which he uses the image of Alexander to help craft his own concept of Rome’s place within the wider Hellenistic world, especially within the eastern Mediterranean. Livy, despite his generally positive opinion of Alexander, ultimately created scenarios where he portrayed the Romans as superior to the Macedonian king, first, because of the primary focus of Livy’s history, namely the rise of Rome to Mediterranean dominance, and second, because of the political atmosphere in which Livy was writing, namely the complete submission of the Mediterranean basin under Augustus’ empire. Although scattered throughout Livy’s extensive writing, when analyzed together these passages illustrate a persistent and connected motif that influences Livy’s larger narrative: Alexander was great, but Rome is greater.

Un aspetto dell’intelligence nel mondo greco: la parola d’ordine.

Elena Santagati — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

In the ancient world, visual and verbal σύνθημα appears to be of enormous importance during conflicts. It is one of the elements pertaining to the management and organization of political intelligence. In particular, the signal, declined in the verbal form, for its fundamental function of 'recognition' to validate the belonging of a soldier to a particular side, had to be chosen with great care. Its use appears to have intensified and, at the same time, perfected, according to what can be gathered from historiographical evidence and from military treatises, at the time of the transition between the Classical and Hellenistic eras, when the way of waging war also underwent an important transformation.

Λύχνος: Shedding Light on Daily Life in Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Egypt

Dimitra Makri, Helen Chouliara-Raios, Ioannis Drakos — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The present paper aims to examine the role of the oil lamp (λύχνος) in the daily life of the residents of Egypt through the documentation of Greek papyri and ostraca from the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine periods. Due to the fragmentary condition of the archival material, the sources of ancient Greek and Latin literature will also be taken into consideration with a view to corroborating some uncertain points of detail. Specifically, careful scrutiny is given to aspects such as the oil lamp’s price and material, the oil lamp’s domestic uses, their role as pledges (ἐνέχυρα) and part of inheritance, their function in various activities performed at night, their importance in the realm of theatre, the lamp’s connection to theft, the undesirable effects of light emitted by oil lamps, and the exploration of the figurative use of the term λύχνος as a literary device.

L’ALLEGORIA SVELATA: ELEMENTI MISTERIOSOFICI ED ESEGESI PORFIRIANA NELL’ANTRO DELLE NINFE

Anna Lucia Furlan — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Cover and uncover: is the attempt to unveil and reveal the hidden meaning of the mysteries a paradox (Porph. Antr. 4, 16-17)? The present contribution aims at exploring Porphyry’s interest in the commentary Περὶ τοῦ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ τῶν νυμφῶν ἄντρου (Cave of the Nymphs) for the allegorical interpretation of images, symbols and terms variously linked with the Mysteries and encapsulating truths on the nature of the divine, the soul and ultimately the cosmos. More specifically, attention will be drawn mostly (but not only) on features connected with Orphism, here defined and understood as a form of ‘mysteriosophy’. The scope of this analysis falls within the study of Porphyry’s use of allegorical exegesis but also within the broader discussion of different forms of philosophical religion in Late Antiquity, underscoring the complex but fruitful relationship between theology, philosophy and the Mysteries.

Sappho Fr. 1: A New Interpretation

Loukas Papadimitropoulos — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

My purpose in this article is to propose a new reading of Sappho fr. 1 by suggesting that the poetic “I”, in fact, intends to rupture her ties with the past and to break her previous erotic habits by asking from the goddess of love to assist her in a relationship that will prove to be permanent and stable this time instead of her multiple and rather casual affairs that had thus far predominated in her love life.