Represents the only full-length commentary in any language on Book 2 of Silius Italicus' Pun... more Represents the only full-length commentary in any language on Book 2 of Silius Italicus' Punica Juxtaposes the full Latin text with an accessible English translation and extensive contextualizing introduction Provides comprehensive detail in a keenly focused line-by-line commentary Expands greatly on previous critical editions of the entire poem to offer an invaluable up-to-date resource
Hercules is the best-known character from classical mythology. Seneca's play Hercules Furens pres... more Hercules is the best-known character from classical mythology. Seneca's play Hercules Furens presents the hero at a moment of triumph turned to tragedy. Hercules returns from his final labor, his journey to the Underworld, and then slaughters his family in an episode of madness. This play exerted great influence on Shakespeare and other Renaissance tragedians, and also inspired contemporary adaptations in film, TV, and comics. Aimed at undergraduates and non-specialists, this companion introduces the play's action, historical context and literary tradition, critical reception, adaptation, and performance tradition.
Rhetorical training was the central component of an elite Roman man's education. Controversiae (d... more Rhetorical training was the central component of an elite Roman man's education. Controversiae (declamations), imaginary courtroom speeches in the character of a fictional or historical individual, were the most advanced exercises in the standard rhetorical curriculum. The Major Declamations are a collection of nineteen full-length Latin speeches attributed in antiquity to Quintilian but most likely composed by a group of authors in the second and third centuries CE. Though there has been a recent revival of interest in Greco-Roman declamation, the Major Declamations have generally been neglected.
Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation is the first book devoted exclusively to the Major Declamations and its reception in later European literature. It argues that the fictional scenarios of the Major Declamations enable the conceptual exploration of a variety of ethical and social issues. These include the construction of authority (Chapter 1), the verification of claims (Chapter 2), the conventions of reciprocity (Chapter 3), and the ethics of spectatorship (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 presents a study of the reception of the collection by the Renaissance humanist Juan Luis Vives and the eighteenth century scholar Lorenzo Patarol. A brief postscript surveys the use of declamatory exercises in the contemporary university and will inform current work in rhetorical studies.
PROBINO CONSULIBUS 83-90 AND ITS TRADITION Claudian's panegyric for Olybrius and Probinus, the yo... more PROBINO CONSULIBUS 83-90 AND ITS TRADITION Claudian's panegyric for Olybrius and Probinus, the young consuls of 395, includes a passage describing Rome armed in the image of the goddess Minerva. Lines 83-90 read as follows: 1 ipsa, triumphatis quae possidet aethera regnis, assilit innuptae ritus imitata Mineruae. nam neque caesariem crinali stringere cultu 85 colla nec ornatu patitur mollire retorto; dextrum nuda latus, niueos exserta lacertos; audacem retegit mammam laxumque coercens mordet gemma sinum; nodus, qui sublevat ensem, album puniceo pectus discriminat ostro. 90 The tradition before Claudian is full of 'descriptions of characters who keep their breast or arms bare in order to allow greater freedom of movement in battle or in the hunt'. 2 Virgil's portrait of the Amazon Camilla is one of the typical sources for the description of the huntress's 1 Text from W. Taegert, Claudius Claudianus. Panegyricus dictus Olybrio et Probino consulibus (Munich, 1988), 68. 2 M.J. Dewar, Claudian: Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Oxford 1996), 237, ad 299.
This paper presents a quantitative picture of the interactions between poets in the Latin hexamet... more This paper presents a quantitative picture of the interactions between poets in the Latin hexameter tradition. The freely available Tesserae website (tesserae.caset.buffalo.edu) automatically searches pairs of texts in a corpus of over 300 works of Latin literature in order to identify instances where short passages share two or more repeated lexemes. We use Tesserae to survey relative rates of text reuse in 24 Latin hexameter works written from the 1 st century BCE to the 6 th century CE. We compare the quantitative information about text reuse provided by Tesserae to the scholarly tradition of qualitative discussion of allusion by Latinists.
The description of the reflection of light on water, whether sunlight, moonlight, or firelight, i... more The description of the reflection of light on water, whether sunlight, moonlight, or firelight, is a topos which originates in epic at A.R. Arg. 3.755-60: πυκνὰ δέ οἱ κραδίη στηθέων ἔντοσθεν ἔθυιεν, ἠελίου ὥς τίς τε δόµοις ἔνι πάλλεται αἴγλη, ὕδατος ἐξανιοῦσα τὸ δὴ νέον ἠὲ λέβητι ἠέ που ἐν γαυλῷ κέχυται, ἡ δ' ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα ὠκείῃ στροφάλιγγι τινάσσεται ἀίσσουσαὧς δὲ καὶ ἐν στήθεσσι κέαρ ἐλελίζετο κούρης. Apollonius illustrates Medea's anxiety and confusion by comparing her emotions to the ripples of light reflected in a pitcher of water. The Roman epic poets extensively adapted this wellknown scene. 1 Most famously, Virgil compares Aeneas' curae as he travels up the Tiber to Pallanteum to sunlight or moonlight reflected in a pitcher of water (Aen. 8.22-25): 2 sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen aënis sole repercussum aut radiantis imagine lunae omnia peruolitat late loca, iamque sub auras erigitur summique ferit laquearia tecti.
Declamation was an essential component of elite male rhetorical education in the Roman imperial p... more Declamation was an essential component of elite male rhetorical education in the Roman imperial period. In the controversia, the most advanced exercise in the standard sequence of rhetorical pedagogy, students would deliver speeches on both sides of fictional law cases. Several of the controversiae involve scenarios of torture. Masters torture their slaves and then choose to report or withhold the testimony they extract thereby; or a tyrant who has usurped control of the community tortures free persons. In a small number of cases, an abusive father or the declamatory court itself subjects a free person to torture as part of punishment for a conviction. Not long after completing their training, some of the elite male students who practised declamation would present appeals before governors, courts, and public audiences. Others would become magistrates empowered to use torture as part of judicial quaestiones (investigations). By examining several controversiae that involve scenarios of torture, this article looks at how rhetorical education in the Roman imperial period guided elite male students to think critically about both the ethical and the pragmatic considerations involved in the employment of torture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
Represents the only full-length commentary in any language on Book 2 of Silius Italicus' Pun... more Represents the only full-length commentary in any language on Book 2 of Silius Italicus' Punica Juxtaposes the full Latin text with an accessible English translation and extensive contextualizing introduction Provides comprehensive detail in a keenly focused line-by-line commentary Expands greatly on previous critical editions of the entire poem to offer an invaluable up-to-date resource
Hercules is the best-known character from classical mythology. Seneca's play Hercules Furens pres... more Hercules is the best-known character from classical mythology. Seneca's play Hercules Furens presents the hero at a moment of triumph turned to tragedy. Hercules returns from his final labor, his journey to the Underworld, and then slaughters his family in an episode of madness. This play exerted great influence on Shakespeare and other Renaissance tragedians, and also inspired contemporary adaptations in film, TV, and comics. Aimed at undergraduates and non-specialists, this companion introduces the play's action, historical context and literary tradition, critical reception, adaptation, and performance tradition.
Rhetorical training was the central component of an elite Roman man's education. Controversiae (d... more Rhetorical training was the central component of an elite Roman man's education. Controversiae (declamations), imaginary courtroom speeches in the character of a fictional or historical individual, were the most advanced exercises in the standard rhetorical curriculum. The Major Declamations are a collection of nineteen full-length Latin speeches attributed in antiquity to Quintilian but most likely composed by a group of authors in the second and third centuries CE. Though there has been a recent revival of interest in Greco-Roman declamation, the Major Declamations have generally been neglected.
Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation is the first book devoted exclusively to the Major Declamations and its reception in later European literature. It argues that the fictional scenarios of the Major Declamations enable the conceptual exploration of a variety of ethical and social issues. These include the construction of authority (Chapter 1), the verification of claims (Chapter 2), the conventions of reciprocity (Chapter 3), and the ethics of spectatorship (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 presents a study of the reception of the collection by the Renaissance humanist Juan Luis Vives and the eighteenth century scholar Lorenzo Patarol. A brief postscript surveys the use of declamatory exercises in the contemporary university and will inform current work in rhetorical studies.
PROBINO CONSULIBUS 83-90 AND ITS TRADITION Claudian's panegyric for Olybrius and Probinus, the yo... more PROBINO CONSULIBUS 83-90 AND ITS TRADITION Claudian's panegyric for Olybrius and Probinus, the young consuls of 395, includes a passage describing Rome armed in the image of the goddess Minerva. Lines 83-90 read as follows: 1 ipsa, triumphatis quae possidet aethera regnis, assilit innuptae ritus imitata Mineruae. nam neque caesariem crinali stringere cultu 85 colla nec ornatu patitur mollire retorto; dextrum nuda latus, niueos exserta lacertos; audacem retegit mammam laxumque coercens mordet gemma sinum; nodus, qui sublevat ensem, album puniceo pectus discriminat ostro. 90 The tradition before Claudian is full of 'descriptions of characters who keep their breast or arms bare in order to allow greater freedom of movement in battle or in the hunt'. 2 Virgil's portrait of the Amazon Camilla is one of the typical sources for the description of the huntress's 1 Text from W. Taegert, Claudius Claudianus. Panegyricus dictus Olybrio et Probino consulibus (Munich, 1988), 68. 2 M.J. Dewar, Claudian: Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Oxford 1996), 237, ad 299.
This paper presents a quantitative picture of the interactions between poets in the Latin hexamet... more This paper presents a quantitative picture of the interactions between poets in the Latin hexameter tradition. The freely available Tesserae website (tesserae.caset.buffalo.edu) automatically searches pairs of texts in a corpus of over 300 works of Latin literature in order to identify instances where short passages share two or more repeated lexemes. We use Tesserae to survey relative rates of text reuse in 24 Latin hexameter works written from the 1 st century BCE to the 6 th century CE. We compare the quantitative information about text reuse provided by Tesserae to the scholarly tradition of qualitative discussion of allusion by Latinists.
The description of the reflection of light on water, whether sunlight, moonlight, or firelight, i... more The description of the reflection of light on water, whether sunlight, moonlight, or firelight, is a topos which originates in epic at A.R. Arg. 3.755-60: πυκνὰ δέ οἱ κραδίη στηθέων ἔντοσθεν ἔθυιεν, ἠελίου ὥς τίς τε δόµοις ἔνι πάλλεται αἴγλη, ὕδατος ἐξανιοῦσα τὸ δὴ νέον ἠὲ λέβητι ἠέ που ἐν γαυλῷ κέχυται, ἡ δ' ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα ὠκείῃ στροφάλιγγι τινάσσεται ἀίσσουσαὧς δὲ καὶ ἐν στήθεσσι κέαρ ἐλελίζετο κούρης. Apollonius illustrates Medea's anxiety and confusion by comparing her emotions to the ripples of light reflected in a pitcher of water. The Roman epic poets extensively adapted this wellknown scene. 1 Most famously, Virgil compares Aeneas' curae as he travels up the Tiber to Pallanteum to sunlight or moonlight reflected in a pitcher of water (Aen. 8.22-25): 2 sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen aënis sole repercussum aut radiantis imagine lunae omnia peruolitat late loca, iamque sub auras erigitur summique ferit laquearia tecti.
Declamation was an essential component of elite male rhetorical education in the Roman imperial p... more Declamation was an essential component of elite male rhetorical education in the Roman imperial period. In the controversia, the most advanced exercise in the standard sequence of rhetorical pedagogy, students would deliver speeches on both sides of fictional law cases. Several of the controversiae involve scenarios of torture. Masters torture their slaves and then choose to report or withhold the testimony they extract thereby; or a tyrant who has usurped control of the community tortures free persons. In a small number of cases, an abusive father or the declamatory court itself subjects a free person to torture as part of punishment for a conviction. Not long after completing their training, some of the elite male students who practised declamation would present appeals before governors, courts, and public audiences. Others would become magistrates empowered to use torture as part of judicial quaestiones (investigations). By examining several controversiae that involve scenarios of torture, this article looks at how rhetorical education in the Roman imperial period guided elite male students to think critically about both the ethical and the pragmatic considerations involved in the employment of torture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
This chapter discusses two of the key programmatic functions performed by ghosts in the Bellum Ci... more This chapter discusses two of the key programmatic functions performed by ghosts in the Bellum Civile: (I) ghosts' roles in the development of the relationship between the Bellum Civile and the earlier epic tradition represented principally (though not exclusively) by the Aeneid; and (II) ghosts' contribution to the epic's pessimistic vision of Roman history and of the imperial regime. I consider both the appearances of ghosts as actors in the narrative represented through direct mimesis as well as their evocation through the rhetorical figure of eidôlopoeia.
The "Gift" Child as Commodity oman declamation generally presents a negative view of attempts to ... more The "Gift" Child as Commodity oman declamation generally presents a negative view of attempts to commodify adoptive relationships. The following excerpt from the elder Seneca derisively portrays a hypothetical Roman adoption in the terms of a straightforward market transaction. If the would-be adopter is found to possess adequate capital, both material (bona) and social (maiores), and offers an adequate price (satis magno) for the transaction, then the prospective adoptee will permit himself to be legally relocated from one family to another (Sen. Controv. 1.6.6): aliquis in adoptionem iuvenis petitur: si volet ire, quaerat senex ille qui petit quales et quot habeat maiores, quanta bona, an satis magno se possit addicere. aliquis capere orbos senes vult et suas spes in alienas mortes diffundere: excutiat testamenta, scrutetur census.
Recent scholarship has examined Pliny's efforts to embed his acts of patronage in the rhetorical ... more Recent scholarship has examined Pliny's efforts to embed his acts of patronage in the rhetorical context of paternity. This paper examines how Pliny employs the discourse of paternity in representing himself as a mentor and exemplary model for young men, with particular focus on Book 8 of the Letters. Though he lacks a child or adoptive heir himself, Pliny embeds his work in a tradition in which Roman writers from the Elder Cato onward presented literary authority as coextensive with paternal authority. In Ep. 8.14, Pliny presents an idealized image of education by fathers or paternal surrogates that legitimates both his receipt of benefits from his mentors and his own efforts to instruct young men in the manner of a father. Pliny presents his published work as a model for Genialis in Ep. 8.13 and his personal life as an example for Junius Avitus in Ep. 8.23. Ep. 8.10, 11 and 18 provide further contexts for Pliny's discourse of paternity. Two additional examples of the creation of relatedness in elite Roman culture (interactions with caregivers and the experience of contubernium) are briefly discussed. I consider in conclusion how study of Pliny's Letters may contribute to the larger cross-cultural project of understanding how otherwise unrelated persons, through informal activities such as mentorship, may construct relationships more salient to them than their biological or legal kinships.
Tesserae (http://tesserae.caset.buffalo.edu) is a free web interface for exploring the phenomenon... more Tesserae (http://tesserae.caset.buffalo.edu) is a free web interface for exploring the phenomenon of verbal allusion in Latin literature (Coffee et al. 2012a). Tesserae rapidly identifies all instances of shared phrases between two texts, and can also be configured to indicate the frequency of a given phrase in its growing corpus. This paper discusses the prospects offered by Tesserae to commentators on Latin poetry. I discuss: a) tracing the evolution of phrases; and b) visualizing the frequency and density of allusion. Examples are drawn from a commentary in preparation on book 2 of Silius’ Punica.
a) Tesserae facilitates tracing the evolution of common phrases across the corpus. The user may quantify the rates of adaptation of a phrase, alteration of its morphological forms, or substitution of synonyms. The commentator may now evaluate the use of a common phrase in terms of its evolutionary history rather than simply noting it as a “typical” parallel (Gibson 2002). b) As Tesserae generates the total set of instances of phrase reuse, rates of frequency and density of reuse of given predecessors’ texts can easily be determined. Patterns of text reuse in a particular span of text may thus be compared to typical rates of reuse within the poem as a whole. While interpretive judgments of the significance of allusion remains the commentator’s subjective task (Farrell 2005), Tesserae can be used to highlight exceptionally “dense” passages of text reuse.
Allusions in passages of Latin poetry have been traditionally understood as a series of points of conceptual contact between texts. They may also be quantified in terms of their degree of variation from the poet’s typical allusive practice. The ability to generate a large volume of instances of interpretable intertextual data accordingly shifts the discussion of intertextuality from the local and subjective to the global and quantitative.
Works cited
Coffee, N., J.-P. Koenig, S. Poornima, R. Ossewaarde, C. Forstall, and S. Jacobson. “The Tesserae Project: Intertextual Analysis of Latin Poetry.” (2012). Literary and Linguistic Computing. doi: 10.1093/llc/fqs033.
Farrell, J. 2005. Intention and intertext. Phoenix 59: 98-111.
Gibson, R. K. 2002. 'Cf. e.g.': A Typology of 'Parallels' and the Role of Commentaries on Latin Poetry. In R. K. Gibson & C. S. Kraus (eds.), The classical commentary: histories, practices, theory (pp. 331-358). Leiden: Brill.
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Books by Neil Bernstein
Juxtaposes the full Latin text with an accessible English translation and extensive contextualizing introduction
Provides comprehensive detail in a keenly focused line-by-line commentary
Expands greatly on previous critical editions of the entire poem to offer an invaluable up-to-date resource
Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation is the first book devoted exclusively to the Major Declamations and its reception in later European literature. It argues that the fictional scenarios of the Major Declamations enable the conceptual exploration of a variety of ethical and social issues. These include the construction of authority (Chapter 1), the verification of claims (Chapter 2), the conventions of reciprocity (Chapter 3), and the ethics of spectatorship (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 presents a study of the reception of the collection by the Renaissance humanist Juan Luis Vives and the eighteenth century scholar Lorenzo Patarol. A brief postscript surveys the use of declamatory exercises in the contemporary university and will inform current work in rhetorical studies.
Papers by Neil Bernstein
Juxtaposes the full Latin text with an accessible English translation and extensive contextualizing introduction
Provides comprehensive detail in a keenly focused line-by-line commentary
Expands greatly on previous critical editions of the entire poem to offer an invaluable up-to-date resource
Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation is the first book devoted exclusively to the Major Declamations and its reception in later European literature. It argues that the fictional scenarios of the Major Declamations enable the conceptual exploration of a variety of ethical and social issues. These include the construction of authority (Chapter 1), the verification of claims (Chapter 2), the conventions of reciprocity (Chapter 3), and the ethics of spectatorship (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 presents a study of the reception of the collection by the Renaissance humanist Juan Luis Vives and the eighteenth century scholar Lorenzo Patarol. A brief postscript surveys the use of declamatory exercises in the contemporary university and will inform current work in rhetorical studies.
a) Tesserae facilitates tracing the evolution of common phrases across the corpus. The user may quantify the rates of adaptation of a phrase, alteration of its morphological forms, or substitution of synonyms. The commentator may now evaluate the use of a common phrase in terms of its evolutionary history rather than simply noting it as a “typical” parallel (Gibson 2002). b) As Tesserae generates the total set of instances of phrase reuse, rates of frequency and density of reuse of given predecessors’ texts can easily be determined. Patterns of text reuse in a particular span of text may thus be compared to typical rates of reuse within the poem as a whole. While interpretive judgments of the significance of allusion remains the commentator’s subjective task (Farrell 2005), Tesserae can be used to highlight exceptionally “dense” passages of text reuse.
Allusions in passages of Latin poetry have been traditionally understood as a series of points of conceptual contact between texts. They may also be quantified in terms of their degree of variation from the poet’s typical allusive practice. The ability to generate a large volume of instances of interpretable intertextual data accordingly shifts the discussion of intertextuality from the local and subjective to the global and quantitative.
Works cited
Coffee, N., J.-P. Koenig, S. Poornima, R. Ossewaarde, C. Forstall, and S. Jacobson. “The Tesserae Project: Intertextual Analysis of Latin Poetry.” (2012). Literary and Linguistic Computing. doi: 10.1093/llc/fqs033.
Farrell, J. 2005. Intention and intertext. Phoenix 59: 98-111.
Gibson, R. K. 2002. 'Cf. e.g.': A Typology of 'Parallels' and the Role of Commentaries on Latin Poetry. In R. K. Gibson & C. S. Kraus (eds.), The classical commentary: histories, practices, theory (pp. 331-358). Leiden: Brill.