Transactions
of the American Philological Association
Vol. 134, Spring
2004
Papers
Daniel
W. Berman, “The Double Foundation of Boiotian
Thebes”
The mythic
tradition of the double foundation of Boiotian Thebes
presents an anomaly that has not been sufficiently
explored. Through analysis of early poetic material,
writings of the mythographers, and archaeological
evidence, this article argues that the two stories of
foundation existed in parallel in the early Greek poetic
tradition and represent two distinct contexts of
composition, one Mycenaean and the other archaic. Only
with prose mythographers and logographers such as
Hekataios and Pherekydes were these stories
chronologically and genealogically ordered. This ordering
represents a permanent change in how the mythic material
was and continues to be understood.
James
J. Helm, “Aeschylus’ Genealogy of Morals”
I examine
genealogical metaphors and related causal statements in
the plays of Aeschylus, particularly the Oresteia, and demonstrate how, when taken
together, they present a systematic view of ethical
behavior and its consequences, necessary for a
comprehensive understanding of Aeschylean thought. While
Aeschylus’ perspective falls firmly within the
Solonian tradition of koros-hybris-atê, he adds piety—mortals’
recognition of their common subordination to the divine,
which encourages them to respect the human status of
others—as an essential element for human behavior.
Piety is an essential prerequisite for justness,
particularly important for Aeschylus because of his
identification of Zeus with justice.
David
Rosenbloom, “Ponêroi
vs. Chrêstoi: The Ostracism of Hyperbolos and the
Struggle for Hegemony in Athens after the Death of
Perikles, Part I”
This paper
is divided into two parts. Part I explains the last
ostrakophoria as a struggle between leaders who enjoy
cultural validation, labeled chrêstoi (“good,” “noble,” “useful,”
“genuine”), and those who lack such legitimation, labeled
ponêroi (“bad,” “vile,” “useless,”
“inauthentic”). The ostrakophoria took place in 415 and
its catalyst was Alkibiades’ Olympic victory in
416, which prompted Hyperbolos, the quintessential ponêros, to move an ostrakophoria as “protector/leader
of the people” to ostracize a symbolic tyrant, to
cast suspicion upon chrêstoi as inimical to the demos, and to
legitimate his own leadership and that of his faction.
This ostrakophoria pit ponêroi against chrêstoi in the formers’ bid to become a
hegemonic class in Athenian society.
Raymond
Marks, “Of Kings, Crowns, and Boundary Stones:
Cipus and the hasta Romuli
in Metamorphoses 15”
This paper
argues that Ovid uses the story of the hasta
Romuli in Met. 15 to inform our reading of the Cipus
story, to which it is juxtaposed. Specifically, the poet
demonstrates that the challenge Cipus faces, namely, to
avoid kingship, constitutes not a moral dilemma, as it is
often understood, but an historical dilemma. That is, at
issue for Ovid is not whether Cipus should or should not
avoid being king, but whether he or anyone else at Rome
can avoid the legacy of kingship that Romulus left to the
city by his foundational act.
Carole
Newlands, “Statius and Ovid: Transforming the
Landscape”
This paper
examines Statius’ depiction of landscape in
comparison with Ovid’s. Three landscapes that
illustrate Statius’ important and complex debt to
Ovid are discussed: the sacred grove of Diana (Book 4),
the Nemean grove (Books 4–6), and the river
landscape of the Ismenos (Book 9). The analysis concludes
that the landscapes of the Thebaid are disconnected from the gods and provide a vivid canvas
on which Statius displays the spreading evil of a civil
war that burst beyond the bounds of the warring parties.
Humans are held accountable for the destruction of the
state as much as for the loss of a paradise described in
Ovidian terms as a locus amoenus.
D.
S. Levene, “Tacitus’ Dialogus
As Literary History”
The paper
examines the conceptions of literary history found in
Tacitus’ Dialogus. It argues that the speeches in the work,
despite being directly at variance with one another in
other respects, develop between them with increasing
sophistication a single account of literary history, with
a complex interrelation of aesthetic and political
factors. However, when one seeks to slot the Dialogus
itself into that account, one finds that the form in
which the work is written appears to challenge the very
analysis that it has developed. The paper concludes by
looking at the implications of this for the
interpretation of the Dialogus.