Papers by Micah Myers
Teaching Classics in the Digital Age, 2021
Mapping Ancient Texts is an ongoing digital-visualisation project undertaken by a team at Kenyon ... more Mapping Ancient Texts is an ongoing digital-visualisation project undertaken by a team at Kenyon College consisting of a classics faculty member, instructional technologists, and undergraduate students. MAT’s goal is to create digital visualisations of ancient Mediterranean travel narratives, and to investigate these travel narratives as reflections of the geospatial and travel-related conceptions of ancient authors and audiences. MAT’s visualisations have applications for teaching and research. This paper focuses on the pedagogical dimension of the project, in which student enrolled in a course on ancient travel and geography create digital visualisations using geospatial information in Cicero's letters. All the visualisations discussed here are available on the project website: http://mappingancienttexts.net.
B. Gladhill and M. Y. Myers eds., Walking through Elysium: Vergil's Underworld and the Poetics of Tradition, 2020
This paper explores how Vergil’s representation of the afterlives of lovers in the lugentes campi... more This paper explores how Vergil’s representation of the afterlives of lovers in the lugentes campi of Aeneid 6 engages with depictions of the underworld in contemporary Latin love elegy, while also affecting subsequent elegiac treatments of the afterlife. I start by analysing the epigram ascribed to Domitius Marsus on the death of Tibullus as evidence for contemporary awareness of the poetic links between Vergil and Tibullus on the topic of the afterlife (Part I). After reviewing the lugentes campi passage (Part II) and the underworld scenes in Tibullus 1.3 (Part III), in the fourth and longest section of the paper I discuss the relationship between the two texts. Tibullus 1.3 and Vergil’s lugentes campi have long been seen as drawing on the same literary traditions. I argue for specific correspondences that to this point have not been fully appreciated. Although it is impossible to answer definitively whether Tibullus 1.3 is responding to Aeneid 6 or vice versa, I follow the traditional chronology that places the publication of Tibullus 1.3 prior to Aeneid 6 reaching its final form. Part V turns to Amores 3.9, Ovid’s epicedion for Tibullus, a well-known site for allusions to Tibullus’ poetry, especially 1.3. I argue that Ovid alludes to Aeneid 6 as well as to Tibullus, with Vergil’s vision of the afterlife functioning as a lens and a refraction point that contributes to the reshaping of the afterlife of love poets in Amores 3.9. The paper concludes by briefly surveying other elegiac representations of the afterlife in order to show that the elegies discussed here are a testament to a larger series of interactions between elegy and Aeneid 6.
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Dictynna, 2019
This paper explores the Aeneid’s geopoetics and travel thematics in relation to Vergil’s inclusio... more This paper explores the Aeneid’s geopoetics and travel thematics in relation to Vergil’s inclusion of the Eridanus-Po river in his description of Elysium (Aen. 6.558-9). The paper proposes that the reference to the Eridanus evokes an aboveground journey from Cumae to the Po region that symbolically corresponds to Aeneas’ Underworld journey in Aeneid 6. To support this supposition, the paper surveys references to travel in Aeneid 6; reviews previous interpretations of 6.558-9 as well as mythical and literary traditions relating to the Eridanus; and demonstrates the fundamental role of rivers for Greco-Roman conceptualizations of geographical space. The final section of the paper speculates about how a journey from Cumae to the Po resonates with travel that Vergil himself undertook during his lifetime, and considers ways in which linking Elysium to the Po region recalls Vergil’s earlier poetic representations of his patria and imbues his Underworld with a Padane tint.
Tracking Hermes, Pursuing Mercury
This paper explores Ovid’s reception of hymnic traditions relating to Hermes in the Cupid-Apollo ... more This paper explores Ovid’s reception of hymnic traditions relating to Hermes in the Cupid-Apollo episode of Metamorphoses Book 1. Ovid’s depiction of Cupid alludes to Hermes in his quarrel with Apollo, as depicted in Alcaeus’ Hymn to Hermes and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Ovid’s allusions evoke the hymns’s thematic focus on theft, desire, competition, and divine prerogatives and attributes, themes that are also salient to the Metamorphoses more broadly. After exploring parallels between the Cupid-Apollo episode and the Hermes hymn tradition, I consider how Ovid, having presented a “Mercurial” Cupid, depicts an erotically motivated Mercury in subsequent episodes of Metamorphoses Books 1-2 and Fasti 5.663-92. Finally, the paper compares examples from ancient religion, art, and literature that link Eros/Cupid and Aphrodite/Venus with Hermes/Mercury, and considers ramifications of Ovid’s allusions to the Hermes hymn tradition in the Augustan context, particularly in relation to the princeps’ connections to the divine sphere.
M. P. Loar, C. MacDonald, and D. Padilla Peralta (eds.), Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2017
Living Poets: A New Approach to Ancient Poetry, 2015
P. Asso (ed.) Brill's Companion to Lucan, 2011
The geographical descriptions in Lucan's epic present a vision of the Roman world and of the civi... more The geographical descriptions in Lucan's epic present a vision of the Roman world and of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, which obsesses over boundaries and boundary violations. This paper analyzes in detail two instances of boundary violation in Book 1 (67-104 and 183-1')7), which present themes that resonate throughout the epic. I argue that Lucan dismantles traditional Roman notions of center and periphery, creating a volatile new concept of Roman space that is defined by the transgressions and violence of Caesar.
Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica, 2007
Reviews by Micah Myers
New England Classical Journal , 2019
Digital Project by Micah Myers
Translations by Micah Myers
in m. cooke, E. Göknar, and G. Parker (eds.), Mediterranean Passages: Readings from Dido to Derrida. (Chapel Hill: UNC Press), 2008
Abstracts by Micah Myers
This paper investigates the descriptions of travel that permeate and organize Propertius 4.3. I s... more This paper investigates the descriptions of travel that permeate and organize Propertius 4.3. I suggest that this poem uses travel as a metaphor for depicting the elegiac themes of desire, absence, and the separation of lovers. Propertius presents 4.3 as a letter written by a woman, Arethusa, to her husband who is away serving in the army. Propertius juxtaposes Arethusa's
Conference Presentations by Micah Myers
This paper looks at pedagogical applications of our web-based digital visualization project, Mapp... more This paper looks at pedagogical applications of our web-based digital visualization project, Mapping Ancient Texts (MAT). We discuss: (1) a course in which students use the web application Carto to create visualizations from geo-spatial information in Cicero's Letters; and (2) a student-researcher developing a digital visualization of Hannibal's movements during the Second Punic War. This paper explores how these projects teach important technical skills and engage students in detailed analysis of Roman mobility and history. We also discuss the challenges of using evolving technologies in the liberal arts setting. The " Mapping Cicero's Letters " project approaches epistles as travel texts, in so far as they move from author to addressee and frequently make reference to the journeys that Cicero and his correspondents undertook. The data for " Mapping Cicero's Letters " was created by Kenyon students enrolled in " The Ends of the Earth in the Ancient Imagination " in 2016 and 2018. The project was taught collaboratively by Assistant Professor of Classics, Micah Myers; director of the Kenyon College Center for Innovative Pedagogy, Joseph Murphy; and, in 2016, a student-researcher. Students, working in pairs, created their own digital visualizations as well as contributing to a collective dataset. To make visualizations, students learned to use the web application Carto, to analyze Cicero's letters for information related to travel and geography, to find geographical coordinates using the Pleiades gazetteer, to create properly formatted tabular data, and to use SQL and CSS to manipulate their data and style their visualization. Students also wrote brief reports and gave presentations of their work. All the groups succeeded in creating visualizations, although they faced challenges. In particular, students' baseline experience with technology varied greatly, and Carto, like many apps, has bugs that occasionally present issues. Moreover, Carto released a new version of its application between the first and second iterations of the project, which required the instructors to learn new methods and adapt instruction. These challenges, however, encouraged students and instructors alike to develop resiliency, troubleshoot problems, and refine their work until the visualizations were completed. In addition to bringing digital visualizations into the classroom, Myers also is advising a student, already contributing to the research side of MAT, as he develops his own related project, " Mapping Hannibal " , a geo-spatial narrative based on the Second Punic War, funded by a Kenyon Digital Summer Scholarship. " Mapping Hannibal " uses Carto, Leaflet, JSON Objects, and GIFs to visualize Hannibal's movements around the Mediterranean. It employs digital technology to make Hannibal accessible in a new medium to college and advanced high school students. The project is an example of the exciting innovations that an engaged student with technical skills can bring to digital visualization. It also demonstrates some of the challenges of undergraduate research that involves proficiency in both classics and technology. The paper concludes by discussing possible future pedagogical applications of digital visualization in the classics classroom.
Books by Micah Myers
Vergil and Elegy, 2023
Born in 70 BCE, the Roman poet Vergil came of age during a period of literary experimentalism amo... more Born in 70 BCE, the Roman poet Vergil came of age during a period of literary experimentalism among Latin authors. These authors introduced new Greek verse forms and metres into the existing repertoire of Latin poetic genres and measures, foremost among them being elegy, a genre that the ancients thought originated in funeral lament, but which in classical Rome became first-person poetry about the poet-lover’s amatory vicissitudes. Despite the influence of notable elegists on Vergil’s early poetry, his critics have rarely paid attention to his engagement with the genre across his body of work.
This collection is devoted to an exploration of Vergil’s multifaceted relations with elegy. Contributors shed light on Vergil’s interactions with the genre and its practitioners across classical, medieval, and early modern periods. The book investigates Vergil’s hexameter poetry in relation to contemporary Latin elegy by Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, and the subsequent reception of Vergil’s radical combination of epic with elegy by later Latin and Italian authors. Filling a striking gap in the scholarship, Vergil and Elegy illuminates the famous poet’s wide-ranging engagement with the genre of elegy across his oeuvre.
Routledge, 2021
This volume considers representations of space and movement in sources ranging from Roman comedy ... more This volume considers representations of space and movement in sources ranging from Roman comedy to late antique verse, exploring how poetry in the Roman world is fundamentally shaped by its relationship to travel within the geography of Rome’s far-reaching empire.
The volume surveys Roman poetics of travel and geography in sources ranging from Plautus to Augustan poetry, from the Flavians to Ausonius. The chapters offer a range of approaches to: the complex relationship between Latin poetry, Roman identity, imperialism, and travel and geospatial narratives; and the diachronic and generic evolutions of poetic descriptions of space and mobility. In addition, two chapters, including the concluding one, contextualize and respond to the volume’s discussion of poetry by looking at ways in which Romans not only write and read poems about travel and geography, but also make writing and reading part of the experience of traveling, as demonstrated in their epigraphic practices. The collection as a whole offers important insights into Roman poetics and into ancient notions of movement and geographical space.
Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry will be of interest to specialists in Latin poetry, ancient travel, and Latin epigraphy as well as to those studying travel writing, geography, imperialism, and mobility in other periods. The chapters are written to be accessible to researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.
Walking through Elysium stresses the subtle and intricate ways writers across time and space wove... more Walking through Elysium stresses the subtle and intricate ways writers across time and space wove Vergil’s underworld in Aeneid 6 into their works. These allusions operate on many levels, from the literary and political to the religious and spiritual. Aeneid 6 reshaped prior philosophical, religious, and poetic traditions of underworld descents, while offering a universalizing account of the spiritual that could accommodate prior as well as emerging religious and philosophical systems. Vergil’s underworld became an archetype, a model flexible enough to be employed across genres, and periods, and among differing cultural and religious contexts.
The essays in this volume speak to Vergil’s incorporation of and influence on literary representations of underworlds, souls, afterlives, prophecies, journeys, and spaces, from sacred and profane to wild and civilized, tracing the impact of Vergil’s underworld on authors such as Ovid, Seneca, Statius, Augustine, and Shelley, from Pagan and Christian traditions through Romantic and Spiritualist readings. Walking through Elysium asserts the deep and lasting influence of Vergil’s underworld from the moment of its publication to the present day.
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Papers by Micah Myers
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Reviews by Micah Myers
Digital Project by Micah Myers
Translations by Micah Myers
Abstracts by Micah Myers
Conference Presentations by Micah Myers
Books by Micah Myers
This collection is devoted to an exploration of Vergil’s multifaceted relations with elegy. Contributors shed light on Vergil’s interactions with the genre and its practitioners across classical, medieval, and early modern periods. The book investigates Vergil’s hexameter poetry in relation to contemporary Latin elegy by Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, and the subsequent reception of Vergil’s radical combination of epic with elegy by later Latin and Italian authors. Filling a striking gap in the scholarship, Vergil and Elegy illuminates the famous poet’s wide-ranging engagement with the genre of elegy across his oeuvre.
The volume surveys Roman poetics of travel and geography in sources ranging from Plautus to Augustan poetry, from the Flavians to Ausonius. The chapters offer a range of approaches to: the complex relationship between Latin poetry, Roman identity, imperialism, and travel and geospatial narratives; and the diachronic and generic evolutions of poetic descriptions of space and mobility. In addition, two chapters, including the concluding one, contextualize and respond to the volume’s discussion of poetry by looking at ways in which Romans not only write and read poems about travel and geography, but also make writing and reading part of the experience of traveling, as demonstrated in their epigraphic practices. The collection as a whole offers important insights into Roman poetics and into ancient notions of movement and geographical space.
Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry will be of interest to specialists in Latin poetry, ancient travel, and Latin epigraphy as well as to those studying travel writing, geography, imperialism, and mobility in other periods. The chapters are written to be accessible to researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.
The essays in this volume speak to Vergil’s incorporation of and influence on literary representations of underworlds, souls, afterlives, prophecies, journeys, and spaces, from sacred and profane to wild and civilized, tracing the impact of Vergil’s underworld on authors such as Ovid, Seneca, Statius, Augustine, and Shelley, from Pagan and Christian traditions through Romantic and Spiritualist readings. Walking through Elysium asserts the deep and lasting influence of Vergil’s underworld from the moment of its publication to the present day.
https://utorontopress.com/us/walking-through-elysium-3
https://utorontopress.com/us/walking-through-elysium-3
This collection is devoted to an exploration of Vergil’s multifaceted relations with elegy. Contributors shed light on Vergil’s interactions with the genre and its practitioners across classical, medieval, and early modern periods. The book investigates Vergil’s hexameter poetry in relation to contemporary Latin elegy by Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, and the subsequent reception of Vergil’s radical combination of epic with elegy by later Latin and Italian authors. Filling a striking gap in the scholarship, Vergil and Elegy illuminates the famous poet’s wide-ranging engagement with the genre of elegy across his oeuvre.
The volume surveys Roman poetics of travel and geography in sources ranging from Plautus to Augustan poetry, from the Flavians to Ausonius. The chapters offer a range of approaches to: the complex relationship between Latin poetry, Roman identity, imperialism, and travel and geospatial narratives; and the diachronic and generic evolutions of poetic descriptions of space and mobility. In addition, two chapters, including the concluding one, contextualize and respond to the volume’s discussion of poetry by looking at ways in which Romans not only write and read poems about travel and geography, but also make writing and reading part of the experience of traveling, as demonstrated in their epigraphic practices. The collection as a whole offers important insights into Roman poetics and into ancient notions of movement and geographical space.
Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry will be of interest to specialists in Latin poetry, ancient travel, and Latin epigraphy as well as to those studying travel writing, geography, imperialism, and mobility in other periods. The chapters are written to be accessible to researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.
The essays in this volume speak to Vergil’s incorporation of and influence on literary representations of underworlds, souls, afterlives, prophecies, journeys, and spaces, from sacred and profane to wild and civilized, tracing the impact of Vergil’s underworld on authors such as Ovid, Seneca, Statius, Augustine, and Shelley, from Pagan and Christian traditions through Romantic and Spiritualist readings. Walking through Elysium asserts the deep and lasting influence of Vergil’s underworld from the moment of its publication to the present day.
https://utorontopress.com/us/walking-through-elysium-3