Michael Edwards

Sophia Papaioannou

Andreas Serafim

"This volume, examining the reception of ancient rhetoric, aims to demonstrate that the past is always part of the present: in the ways in which decisions about crucial political, social and economic matters have been made historically; or in organic interaction with literature, philosophy and culture at the core of the foundation principles of Western thought and values. Analysis is meant to cover the broadest possible spectrum of considerations that focus on the totality of rhetorical species (i.e. forensic, deliberative and epideictic) as they are applied to diversified topics (including, but not limited to, language, science, religion, literature, theatre and other cultural processes (e.g. athletics), politics and leadership, pedagogy and gender studies) and cross-cultural, geographical and temporal contexts"--

Brill's Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric

Myrto Garani

Andreas N. Michalopoulos

This volume is the first systematic study of Seneca’s interaction with earlier literature of a variety of genres and traditions. It examines this interaction and engagement in his prose works, offering interpretative readings that are at once groundbreaking and stimulating to further study. Focusing on the Dialogues, the Naturales quaestiones, and the Moral Epistles, the volume includes multi- perspectival studies of Seneca’s interaction with all the great Latin epics (Lucretius, Vergil and Ovid), and discussions of how Seneca’s philosophical thought is informed by Hellenistic doxography, forensic rhetoric and declamation, the Homeric tradition, Euripidean tragedy and Greco-Roman mythology. The studies analyzes the philosophy behind Seneca’s incorporating exact quotations from earlier tradition (including his criteria of selectivity) and Seneca’s interaction with ideas, trends and techniques from different sources, in order to elucidate his philosophical ideas and underscore his original contribution to the discussion of established philosophical traditions. They also provide a fresh interpretation of moral issues with particular application to the Roman worldview as fashioned by the mos maiorum. The volume, finally, features detailed discussion of the ways in which Seneca, the author of philosophical prose, puts forward his stance towards poetics and figures himself as a poet. Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings will be of interest not only to those working on Seneca’s philosophical works, but also to anyone working on Latin literature and intertextuality in the ancient world.

Intertextuality in Seneca’s Philosophical Writings

Kyriakos Demetriou

It is perhaps a truism to note that ancient religion and rhetoric were closely intertwined in Greek and Roman antiquity. Religion is embedded in socio-political, legal and cultural institutions and structures, while also being influenced, or even determined, by them. Rhetoric is used to address the divine, to invoke the gods, to talk about the sacred, to express piety and to articulate, refer to, recite or explain the meaning of hymns, oaths, prayers, oracles and other religious matters and processes. The 13 contributions to this volume explore themes and topics that most succinctly describe the firm interrelation between religion and rhetoric mostly in, but not exclusively focused on, Greek and Roman antiquity, offering new, interdisciplinary insights into a great variety of aspects, from identity construction and performance to legal/political practices and a broad analytical approach to transcultural ritualistic customs. The volume also offers perceptive insights into oriental (i.e. Egyptian magic) texts and Christian literature.

Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome

The chapters of this volume shed new light on the complicated relationship between religious discourse and rhetoric across several (con)texts from classical to late. Rhetoric is used to address the divine, to invoke the gods, to talk about the sacre

Consuelo Ruiz-Montero

PIERIDES IV This volume examines interpretation as the original process of critical reception vis-a-vis Terence’s experimental comedies. The book, which consists of two parts, looks at Terence as both an agent and a subject of interpretation. The First Part (‘Terence as Interpreter’) examines Terence as an interpreter of earlier literary traditions, both Greek and Roman. The Second Part (‘Interpretations of Terence’) identifies and explores different expressions of the critical reception of Terence’s output. The papers in both sections illustrate the various expressions of originality and individual creative genius that the process of interpretation entails. The volume at hand is the first study to focus not only on the interpreter, but also on the continuity and evolution of the principles of interpretation. In this way, it directs the focus from Terence’s work to the meaning of Terence’s work in relation to his predecessors (the past literary tradition), his contemporaries (his literary antagonists, but also his audience), and posterity (his critical readers across the centuries).

Terence and Interpretation

This is the first direct literary adaptation of Vergil's Aeneid. The present study demonstrates how, in less than one thousand lines, Ovid revisits the epic world of Aeneas and subjects it to a reading that is a paradigm of critical analysis, a statement of originality, and a powerful claim to the epic heritage and Vergilian succession.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623-14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid

Epic Succession and Dissension

Chrysanthi Demetriou

Alexandrianism was among the trends that defined the formation of Roman literature across genres since the early decades of Roman literary history. This volume introduces a collection of original essays that contribute to a developing appreciation of the comedy of Plautus, the leading representative of Roman comedy, as a multi-faceted text that engages in a creative dialogue with various contemporary cultural and literary developments. The studies here, both individually and as parts of a longer, interactive discussion, offer a comprehensive examination of the first complete expression of the intellectual reception of Greek and Hellenistic literature and culture in Rome, and, at the same time, examine Plautus’ correspondence with the popularization of science and medicine, the Romanization of philosophy, and contemporary religious practices. As the first Latin poet whose work survives in extant form, Plautus is also examined here as a major literary figure who significantly influenced the development of Latin literature. This book will appeal to specialist scholars of Roman comedy, but also to graduate students working in the fields of classics and literary history. All long quotations of Greek and Latin are translated.

New Insights into the Work of a doctus poeta

Plautus' Erudite Comedy

Patricia A. Johnston

Attilio Mastrocinque

This volume brings together a variety of approaches to the different ways in which the role of animals was understood in ancient Greco-Roman myth and religion, across a period of several centuries, from Preclassical Greece to Late Antique Rome. Animals in Greco-Roman antiquity were thought to be intermediaries between men and gods, and they played a pivotal role in sacrificial rituals and divination, the foundations of pagan religion. The studies in the first part of the volume examine the role of the animals in sacrifice and divination. The second part explores the similarities between animals, on the one hand, and men and gods, on the other. Indeed, in antiquity, the behaviour of several animals was perceived to mirror human behaviour, while the selection of the various animals as sacrificial victims to specific deities often was determined on account of some peculiar habit that echoed a special attribute of the particular deity. The last part of this volume is devoted to the study of animal metamorphosis, and to this end a number of myths that associate various animals with transformation are examined from a variety of perspectives.

Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth

Biographical note: Sophia Papaioannou, The National and Capodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

"recycling" the Epic Cycle in the "Little Iliad" : (Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1-13.622)

Redesigning Achilles

The book is a detailed study on the structure and the topics of Ovid’s compedium of the Trojan Saga in Metamorphoses 12.1-13.622, the section also referred to as the “Little Iliad”. It explores the motives and the objectives behind the selected narrative moments from the Epic Cycle that found their way into the Ovidian version of the Trojan War. By thoroughly mastering and inspiringly refashioning a vast amount of literary material, Ovid generates a systematic reconstruction of the archetypal hero, Achilles. Thus, he projects himself as a worthy successor of Homer in the epic tradition, a master epicist, and a par to his great Latin predecessor, Vergil.

Sophia Papaioannou

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