Departmental Papers (Classical Studies)

Mixing of Genres and Literary Program in Herodas 8

Ralph M. Rosen — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 05:54:37 PST

Comic Aischrology and the Urbanization of Agroikia

Ralph M. Rosen — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:01:21 PST

In the preceding chapter, Helen Cullyer has lucidly shown just how complex, even contradictory, the concept of agroikia was in ancient Greek culture. On the one hand, the harsh realities of a rural life in antiquity often gave rise to the notion that agroikoi were perennially dyspeptic and incapable of experiencing pleasure; on the other hand, lacking the kind of education and socialization of their urban counterparts, the agroikos was often conceptualized as lacking self-control and so prone to vices of an opposite kind, such as unrestrained indulgence in bodily pleasures or shameful speech. Cullyer is certainly correct, therefore, to see agroikia as a multivalent term that could connote quite different things depending on who was using it, and for what purpose. But one point is perfectly clear: whether the agroikos was conceptualized as a pleasure-seeking rustic boor, or a humorless misanthrope broken by the harshness of rural life, the term itself was rarely actively positive. The word belongs predominantly to the vocabulary of opprobrium and mockery, especially, as Cullyer has shown, among ancient ethicists such as Aristotle and Theophrastus, who found little philosophically or aesthetically appealing about a rustic life.

Aristophanes, Fandom and the Classicizing of Greek Tragedy

Ralph M. Rosen — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:14:08 PST

It is no doubt true that the questions I would like to address in this chapter, which concern Aristophanes’ role (and more broadly, the role of Old Comedy) in disseminating and popularizing Greek tragedy, can never be answered adequately, given the nature of the evidence we have to work with. But it is also true that if any progress can be made in answering them, Alan Sommerstein’s magisterial editions of Aristophanes, as well as his other voluminous work on Greek drama, deserve a good deal of the credit for it. For during the course of his long-standing scholarly engagement with Aristophanes, Professor Sommerstein has often shown a particular interest in the interaction of comedy and tragedy during the Classical period, and his own contributions to this topic throughout his Aristophanes commentaries have directly inspired the discussion that follows.

Performance and Textuality in Aristophanes' Clouds

Ralph M. Rosen — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:36:28 PDT

During the 5th century BCE Athenians honored the god Dionysus at two public events with ritual activity, political business and public spectacle. The smaller of the two, the Leneaen festival, took place in the winter, and the city Dionysia a few months later in the spring.² These festivals featured a number of musical and poetic events, but they are best known to us as the occasions for the performance of Greek tragedy and comedy.³

Aristophanes, Old Comedy and Greek Tragedy

Ralph M. Rosen — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:01:09 PDT

In a famous scene at the end of Plato's symposium, after a high-minded philosophical discussion about the nature of love at a festive dinner party had degenerated into a drunken free-for-all, only three of the guests were sober enough to continue the conversation: the philosopher Socrates, the tragic poet Agathon, and the comic poet Aristophanes.

The Gendered Polis in Eupolis' Cities

Ralph M. Rosen — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:59:16 PDT

Ever since Antiphanes brought on the stage a character, perhaps Comedy herself, complaining that comedy was more difficult to compose than tragedy (fr. 189.17-23 K-A), it has become something of a truism to say that the poets of Old Comedy had at their disposal much richer and less generically restricted literary possibilities than their colleagues working in tragedy.

Review of Gregory Nagy, Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past

Ralph M. Rosen — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:56:29 PDT

Although Pindar's Homer began its life as the Mary Flexner Lectures in the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College in 1982, it clearly represents far more than a revised transcript of that event. The book looks more like a lifetime's work: over five hundred pages, elegantly produced with expansive footnotes and copious bibliography, wrapped in a glossy black dustjacket that gives it an authoritative, if somewhat daunting, feel. It is, truly, a magnum opus, and although it is unlikely to be Nagy's last word on many of the subjects he treats, he has obviously taken great pains to present his material in the most comprehensive manner possible.

Review of H. Lloyd-Jones, Greek Comedy, Hellenistic Literature, Greek Religion and Miscellanea

Ralph M. Rosen — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:51:19 PDT

This book collects some of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones' [Ll.-J.] most important work on the subjects listed in its title, and forms, along with its companion volume on Greek epic, lyric and tragedy [reviewed in this issue by M. Halleran], an elegant and impressive tribute to the career of one of this century's most influential (if at times controversial) classical scholars. The book represents the full range of Lloyd-Jones' interests and expertise, including brief, incisive textual notes, full-blown "editions" of fragmentary texts, book reviews, and expansive, often polemical, treatises on various aspects of Greek culture and Classical scholarship.

Review of Thomas K. Hubbard, The Mask of Comedy. Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis

Ralph M. Rosen — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:46:52 PDT

Few formal elements of Old Comedy have troubled scholars as much as the parabasis. In its typical form, this choral "digression" appears to interrupt the dramatic fiction of the play with commentary on contemporary social or political issues and often brazen trumpeting of the poet's virtues. Its apparent discontinuity with the rest of the play encouraged scholars of an earlier age to consider it the original kernel of Comedy onto which dramatic episodes were eventually grafted.

Review of Neil O'Sullivan, Alcidamas, Aristophanes and the Beginnings of Greek Stylistic Theory

Ralph M. Rosen — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:32:27 PDT

Most of us tend to think of the fourth century BC as the time when a reasonably standardized vocabulary for rhetoric developed, and along with it an increasingly selfconscious and systematized notion of the TE/XNH of persuasion. There is certainly some truth in this; but it is also very likely that, if we simply had more evidence from the fifth century, particularly about the sophists, we would have to reformulate significantly our understanding not only of the development of rhetoric but of the entire contemporary intellectual landscape as well. O'Sullivan's monograph, a revision of a 1986 Cambridge PhD dissertation, cannot of course conjure up a new body of fifth-century evidence, but it does make us rethink many of the common presumptions about the early development of Greek rhetorical theory.

Review of A. M. Bowie, Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy

Ralph M. Rosen — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:18:02 PDT

This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the first edition of Francis Cornford's The Origin of Attic Comedy, a book that sought the origins and essence of Old Comedy in "primitive" ritual, cult, and myth. The sub-title of Bowie's book on Aristophanes might lead one to expect that he is continuing the project begun by Cornford, and the fact that Cambridge has published both books, even if a mere coincidence, also invites comparison between the two. It is likewise noteworthy that Bowie's book appears at a time when Cornford's work, long repudiated and ridiculed by classicists, has undergone something of a rehabilitation in certain circles. Kenneth Reckford, for example, offered a judicious and generous reappraisal of Cornford's approach in his 1987 study of Aristophanes (Aristophanes' Old-and-New Comedy, Chapel Hill), and just last year Michigan reprinted Cornford's book, with a useful assessment of its reception in twentieth-century scholarship by Jeffrey Henderson.

Review of Vivian Nutton, ed., Galen. On My Own Opinions. Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.3.2 Galeni De Propriis Placitis

Ralph M. Rosen — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:29:23 PDT

Galen surely numbers among the most insistently self-referential authors of classical antiquity. Although one can think of many others who felt called upon at various points in their careers to explain or defend themselves in their writings, few were as systematic as Galen in creating an official persona for himself or attempting to direct the future reception of his writings. Most of Galen's works (and his voluminous output is always astounding to contemplate) contain at least some autobiographical touches, and several treatises are explicitly devoted to his own career and writings.

Milanion, Acontius and Gallus: Vergil, Eclogue 10.52-61

Ralph M. Rosen et al. — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 07:52:18 PDT

In the rambling sequence of thoughts in Ecl. 10.31-69 that expresses the state of the lovesick Gallus, Vergil depicts his friend as proposing to abandoning elegy for bucolic poetry, and to take up a pair of activities resumably related to this change. These activities - carving love messages on trees and hunting - are to some extent typical of the unrequited literary, especially pastoral, lover:¹

Hipponax Fr. 48 Dg. and the Eleusinian Kykeon

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:01:52 PDT

Hipponax fr. 48 Dg. has been understood in the past as a statement of the poet's poverty and hunger.¹ More recently, however, scholars have pointed out the humor and ambiguity of the fragment, noting in particular the mock-heroic diction of the first two lines and the bathos that results when this sort of diction is applied to such an apparently trivial subject as one's own hunger.²

A Poetic Initiation Scene in Hipponax?

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:54:42 PDT

In a note in Heph. 3.1 ( = Hipponax Testim. 21 Dg), Choeroboscus relates several etymologies of the term "iambos." The first is the familiar derivation from the mythical Iambe, the servant of the King Celeus of Elusis, who cheered up the grieving Demeter by mocking her. This story, well known to us from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (198-211), functioned as an ation of the ritual jesting and abuse practiced at the various festivals of Demeter, and, by extension, of the poetic genre known as iambos.¹

Hipponax, Boupalos and the Conventions of the Psogos

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:42:38 PDT

Students of the Greek Iambos continue to dispute whether the poets' targets were fictional or real characters. Most recently the Cologne Archilochos has challenged scholars to square the received biographical tradition about the poet with its "new" evidence. Is the "I" of the poem Archilochos himself? Are the characters generic stock-figures, each bearing an appropriately significant name: Lycambes the "Wolf-walker", Neobule, the woman "of New Plan," for example?¹

Trouble in the Early Career of Plato Comicus: Another Look at P. Oxy. 2737

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 11:48:10 PDT

It has been nearly twenty years since the publication of P.Oxy. 2737, and the interpretation of lines 44-51 in particular still remains in dispute. These lines are especially vexing because they touch upon a wide range of issues, among them the early career of Plato Comicus and aspects of dramatic competition in fifth-century Athens. Four articles concerned with these lines have appeared in this journal alone over the past decade, and by now the central problems are familiar.¹

Euboulos' Ankylion and the Game of Kottabos

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 11:00:18 PDT

Euboulos' "Ankylion" is represented by only four fragments (frr. 1-3KA = frr. 1-4 Hunter), all culled from Athenaeus, which tells us nothing about the plot of the play or about the identity of its titular character. R.L. Hunter, in his recent commentary on Eubolus, discusses at length the name "Ankylion"¹ and concludes that it could belong to either (1) a humble and poor man;² (2) "a character from folklore notorious for sexual relations with his mother";³ or (3) "a wily slave such as those foreshadowed in Aristophanes and familiar from New Comedy".⁴ In view of our ignorance of the play's plot, each of these possibilities has an equal claim to our consideration. I believe, however, that the context in which the fragments are embedded in Athananeus allows us to refine our understanding of the name even further.

Poetry and Sailing in Hesiod's Works and Days

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:39:17 PDT

The section of Works and Days commonly known as the Nautilia (618-94), where the poet turns his attention from agriculture and "economics" to sailing, has both delighted and mystified students of Hesiod. The fascination that this passage elicits from all readers of the poem is easy to understand, for not only is the topic of sailing completely unexpected where it occurs, but the length of the digression is surprising in view of Hesiod's claim that he had little personal experience in the activity. Even more intriguing are the autobiographical details about his father's migration from Kyme to Ascra and his own competition at Chalcis at the funeral games for Amphidamas.

Hipponax and the Homeric Odysseus

Ralph M. Rosen — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:28:34 PDT

Few will doubt that tracing Homer (and Homeric epos) on subsequent classical authors, in all its varied manifestations, has proved to be an enlightening critical enterprise. Indeed, it has become nearly impossible to consider the poetry of the so-called archaic lyric period without acknowledging at some level its relation to Homer and the epic tradition. It is a pity, therefore, that in this respect, as in so many others, Hipponax has been largely neglected except by those with specialized interests in the early Greek iambus, for Hipponax was clearly intrigued, as the fragments demonstrate, by the potential - particularly the comic potential - that Homeric style and narrative held for his own idiosyncratic poetry.