REAL, UNREAL AND MAGIC IN PLINY THE ELDER’S NATURALIS HISTORIA

This paper considers some reflections on healing, witchcraft and magic in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, published around AD 77-79. As scholars of Classical antiquity, we find ourselves dealing with authors’ different ideas about re...

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THE MANIFESTATION OF A STAR AS THE GOD ARCTURUS’ PERSONIFICATION

The figure of a divinity, in the case of Plautus’ Rudens, Arcturus, in the role of a persona prologans was very current in archaic Latin comedy. The god ― or star ― Arcturus appears to his audience as a magnificent vision: the costume worn...

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OBSERVATIONS OF THE MARVELLOUS IN STRABO’S GEOGRAPHIKA – THE USE OF THE UNREAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE WORLD IN ANTIQUITY

In his cultural geography, Strabo gathered important, useful and amusing information concerning the structure of earth's nature, its regions and the different peoples who inhabit the world. The author was therefore also interested in myths...

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INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF POSTGRADUATES IN ANCIENT LITERATURE 2013

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UNREALITY INTO REALITY: HOW CHARACTERS OF OVID’S METAMORPHOSES RECEIVE AND (DON'T) ACT ON MYTHS

The inset-narrative structure of Ovid’s Metamorphoses has long been noted as a technique to allow the poet to distort both the timeline and context of his narrative. However, much less attention has been paid to the use of these stories as...

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MONSTROUS OMENS IN HERODOTUS’ HISTORIES

Monstrous omens appear four times in Herodotus: a concubine of the king of Sardis gives birth to a lion (1.84), a mule is born with male and female genitalia (7.57), a horse gives birth to a hare (7.57) and some fish come back to life whil...

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HEARING THE ERINYES’ VOICES: THOUGHTS ON THE ‘BINDING SONG’ (EU. 307-96)

In Eumenides, the chorus of Erinyes confronts Orestes in Athens. They surround him as he supplicates Athena, singing: Let’s dance as well as sing around him, hand in hand, and let’s reveal the terrifying power of our dark melody (Eu. 307-...

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DREAMS, VISIONS AND EPICUREAN GODS

The Epicureans, far from being atheists, did believe in gods, and were atheistic only in the sense that they did not believe in the gods that society at large readily accepted. The only evidence that the Epicureans assert for the existence...

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CHANGING THE SELF AND THE WORLD. THE HOMERIC HYMNS AS PATTERNS OF TRANSFORMATION AND PROGRESS

The Homeric Hymns represent the gods in a crucial and decisive moment of change in their lives, which also instigates a cosmic development. The Hymn to Demeter is built on the concept of crisis, which can be considered the first stage of p...

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PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS ON THE PROCESSES OF NEGATION

One of the most intriguing characters of Late Antiquity is the author who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Dionysius, the Areopagite’. Although the 19th century German scholarship challenged the authenticity of the Corpus Areopagiticum, interest...

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