Volume 16, Issue 1

Various interpretative proposals in Archilochean fragments, transmitted either in inscriptions or papyri or a combination of the two, are collected in this paper. The notes attempt to introduce some different readings or supplements, occasionally conjectural, in order to show how, in the author’s view, the narrative should have progressed in a reasonable way. Naturally, to the extent that no new pieces are attached to the old ones, a definitive edition of these fragments is bound to remain more or less elusive.

Sources provide conflicting accounts of the role of Socrates during the trial of the generals after the Battle of Arginusae: in Plato’s Apology and Xenophon’s Hellenica he is presented as the only πρύτανις that opposed the will of the crowd to judge the generals in a single vote. In the Gorgias and Xenophon’s Memorabilia he is elevated to the status of chairman (ἐπιστάτης). This paper revisits the possible interconnections among the sources and re-examines the suggestion that Xenophon’s version in the Memorabilia is influenced by Plato’s Gorgias , while also considering Diodorus Siculus’ narrative of these same events. It is argued that Xenophon’s agenda at Hellenica 1.7.1–16 is driven by the political aim of highlighting the deficiencies of Athenian democracy, whereas similarities between Plato’s Apology and Euryptolemus’ speech at Hellenica 1.7.16–35 encourage the inference that the latter text should be viewed against the backdrop of Socratic literature. The conclusion reached is that Socrates cannot have served as chairman and that the performance of his civic duties may not have been of such overriding importance as might initially appear.

The paper argues that catharsis in Aristotle’s Poetics is a two-pronged process, which applies both to the construction of the mythos by the poet and its reception by the audience. Catharsis may plausibly be taken as the poet’s distillation of events that constitute a mythos so as to clear away anything that might undermine its coherence or disturb its unity. The sequencing of fearful and pitiable events in the plot according to probability or necessity allows the audience to evaluate or reevaluate properly the relative importance of factors that determine or influence the behavior of the tragic characters and the fulfilment of their fate. In several cases at least, the plot also leads the audience to realize that other features such as the heroes’ social and intellectual advantages, which they and/or the characters may have considered important in principle, because of their cultural or social background, and/or in the early stages of the plot, were not involved in the downfall (or salvation) of the heroes. This gradual and plot-induced shift in the audience’s appreciation of the relative importance of various factors constitutes the catharsis experienced by the audience. They gain a clear(er) understanding of the reason(s) why the heroes suffer and how they bring about (or escape) disaster. Sophocles’ OT and Euripides’ IT , which Aristotle praises highly in the Poetics , are discussed as examples that illustrate how their plots lead the audience to experience catharsis.

The Greek manuscript tradition transmits various fragments of works with the title Περὶ ποιητῶν , composed by both philosophers and grammarians from the Classical to the Imperial periods. The aim of this paper is to analyse these surviving fragments with a view to delineating the contents, forms, and characteristics of this type of literature. In the first part, I propose a survey of all authors and fragments of ancient Greek works On Poets . The second section outlines their literary-historical profile. Based on comparison with ancient works treating similar topics, I suggest a unitary reading of the writings Περὶ ποιητῶν . Through a combination of biographical, exegetical, theoretical, and (perhaps) technical information, this type of literature appears to have comprised the earliest “histories” of ancient poetry.

This paper studies the female gaze at the intersection of space, genre and gender in three Hellenistic poets who have explored the female viewpoint in their works, namely Apollonius of Rhodes, Theocritus and Herodas. The female gaze covers all the stages of desire from erotic fantasy to sexual fulfillment, and is contingent on both aesthetic factors and the sociocultural background of gender roles. It reflects the power dynamics between male and female and also becomes a means of subverting male authority by the gazing female. In Hellenistic poetry, the various degrees of female liberation through the control of the gaze vary depending on the spaces occupied by women. I argue that women, initially confined in the oikos according to the conventions of epic poetry, are represented as being gradually liberated in natural and urban spaces, the emblematic spaces of the neoteric genres of the bucolic idyll and the mime; this shift in gender dynamics is conveyed through the illustration of the female gaze in distinct genres of poetry and their respective symbolic spaces, namely the house, the natural landscape, and the city.

Despite the prevalence of audience-centred drama criticism, very little is actually known about the composition or nature of theatre audiences in antiquity. Metatheatrical passages in Plautus’ and Terence’s comedies in which the audience is described or addressed are usually treated as historical evidence for real-life theatre audiences in Republican Rome. This article argues that it is preferable to treat the comic audience as a fictional character. The scripted audience is recurrently portrayed by the comedians in a far-fetched and anti-realistic manner: it can be treated as a stereotype, along the other ‘stock’ characters of Roman comedy.

Memory is the topic of many modern engagements with antiquity, and it is also the modus operandi of many modern adaptations of antiquity, driven and shaped by the ever-changing ways in which ‘the classics’ are conceptualised within different time-periods and socio-cultural contexts. Popular awareness of classical materials, their socio-economic status, how famous characters and stories are perpetuated through mnemonic adaptation – these are important factors of memory-driven reception that deserve to be investigated as part of classical reception studies. In this article, we thus propose ways in which interdisciplinary connections between memory studies and classical reception studies can be established.