Introduction
-
Alessandra Abbattista
Alessandra Abbattista is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Roehampton and Classics teacher at St. Olave’s Grammar School. Her research interests are ancient Greek language, literature and drama. She has published articles on the analysis and interpretation of animal imagery in the depiction of female avengers in fifth-century Athenian tragedy.Chiara Blanco is Lecturer in Classics at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University. Her main research interests lie in the intersections between ancient literature (Greek tragedy and Ovid in particular) and medicine, and she has produced several articles on the subject. Her published works include a new interpretation of Sophocles’Women of Trachis by reading the text side-by-side with Hippocratic treatises (‘Heracles’ itch: The first case of male uterine displacement in Greek literature’,Classical Quarterly , 2020) and a paper on the character of Philomela in Sophocles’Tereus (‘The Frenzied Swallow: Philomela’s Voice in Sophocles’ Tereus’,Classical Quarterly , 2023). She is currently working on a monograph on medical influences on Ovid’sMetamorphoses .Maria Haley is a researcher on Greek and Roman drama specialising in tragic fragments. Her monograph on theMyth of Thyestes in Greece and Rome is forthcoming. Maria has published on tragicomedy inRamus and mythic burlesque inLogeion and has a particular interest in lesser-known performance genres.Giacomo Savani is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leeds. His research explores the adoption and adaptation of Greek and Roman culture across different spaces and times, focusing on materiality as a vector of political, social, and cultural interactions. He is particularly interested in the potential of sensory approaches to the study of asymmetrical interactions in antiquity, which he explored in his monographRural Baths in Roman Britain: A Colonisation of the Senses (Routledge, 2025).
Abstract
References to the Tereus myth date back to the Homeric poems; it was addressed by renowned dramatists, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Accius, before being adapted by Ovid. These different versions raise questions about the reconstruction of the myth and its representation of women, revenge, paidophagia and metamorphosis. Aspects of the story reverberate in ancient material culture, especially Greek vase paintings, which stem from different variants and traditions. This volume aims to connect scholars from Greek literature, Latin literature and archaeology, applying assemblage theory to reconstruct the tradition of the Tereus myth without privileging a Greek original. Differently from the disparate studies of the myth that have appeared in journal articles, this new approach draws forth collaboration between specialists in Classical studies to examine how the myth how the myth evolved across the centuries. This volume will focus on the reconstruction, transmission, and reception of the Tereus myth by exploring its different adaptations and their interactions. As such, it will be of significant interest to researchers’ working on Greek and Roman tragedy, Ovid, classical reception and ancient material culture.
Abstract
References to the Tereus myth date back to the Homeric poems; it was addressed by renowned dramatists, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Accius, before being adapted by Ovid. These different versions raise questions about the reconstruction of the myth and its representation of women, revenge, paidophagia and metamorphosis. Aspects of the story reverberate in ancient material culture, especially Greek vase paintings, which stem from different variants and traditions. This volume aims to connect scholars from Greek literature, Latin literature and archaeology, applying assemblage theory to reconstruct the tradition of the Tereus myth without privileging a Greek original. Differently from the disparate studies of the myth that have appeared in journal articles, this new approach draws forth collaboration between specialists in Classical studies to examine how the myth how the myth evolved across the centuries. This volume will focus on the reconstruction, transmission, and reception of the Tereus myth by exploring its different adaptations and their interactions. As such, it will be of significant interest to researchers’ working on Greek and Roman tragedy, Ovid, classical reception and ancient material culture.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- (Re)assembling the Tereus Myth: Vase Painting, Memory, and the Senses 15
- Lamenting about the Wrong Crime: Homer, Sophocles and Demonising the Other 41
- Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles 61
- Passion, Knowledge and Truth: Second Thoughts on Sophocles’ Tereus 77
- ζηλοτυπ[ίᾳ ......] οἰστρηθεισ̃ α: Domestic Violence and Revenge in Sophocles’ Tereus 95
- Tereus’ Illicit Penetration(s): A New Reading of Fragment 581 R 115
- The Voice of the Shuttle: The Tereus Myth in Aristophanes’ Birds 131
- Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque 153
- The Tereus Myth in Roman Republican Drama 179
- “(In)Human, All Too (In)Human”: Ovid’s Tereus and the Vulnerable Body 191
- Postface 205
- Methodological Appendix: The Orchid and the Wasp — Reading Fragments with Assemblage Theory 223
- List of Contributors 241
- General Index
- Index of Sources
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- (Re)assembling the Tereus Myth: Vase Painting, Memory, and the Senses 15
- Lamenting about the Wrong Crime: Homer, Sophocles and Demonising the Other 41
- Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles 61
- Passion, Knowledge and Truth: Second Thoughts on Sophocles’ Tereus 77
- ζηλοτυπ[ίᾳ ......] οἰστρηθεισ̃ α: Domestic Violence and Revenge in Sophocles’ Tereus 95
- Tereus’ Illicit Penetration(s): A New Reading of Fragment 581 R 115
- The Voice of the Shuttle: The Tereus Myth in Aristophanes’ Birds 131
- Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque 153
- The Tereus Myth in Roman Republican Drama 179
- “(In)Human, All Too (In)Human”: Ovid’s Tereus and the Vulnerable Body 191
- Postface 205
- Methodological Appendix: The Orchid and the Wasp — Reading Fragments with Assemblage Theory 223
- List of Contributors 241
- General Index
- Index of Sources
