Classics Commons^™

Walking With Odysseus: The Portico Frame Of The Odyssey Landscapes, Timothy M. O'Sullivan

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This article examines the cultural and artistic context of one of the most famous Roman frescoes, the Odyssey Landscapes. It argues that the painting’s fictive portico frame would have evoked in the Roman viewer the experience of the ambulatio, the act of walking for leisure and contemplation that came to be an essential element of a properly Hellenized otium. The painted portico thus puts the viewers in the proper frame of mind to appreciate the intellectual associations of the painting as they walk with Odysseus on a parallel journey of philosophical reflection.

Kingship In The Mycenaean World And Its Reflections In The Oral Tradition [Review], Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Shear undertakes a detailed comparison of archaeological evidence from Mycenaean Greece, the surviving Linear B tablets, and the Homeric epics with the aim of showing that, contrary to the reigning scholarly consensus, Homer preserves a detailed and accurate portrait of the age he purports to describe. Indeed, Shear believes that both epics and much of Greek myth took shape during this period and reflect actual historical events (hence the reference to "oral tradition" rather than "Homer" in the title). Thus, because Pelops is the eponym of the Pcloponnesos, "he should logically belong to the early tradition that evolved soon after …

The Modern Construction Of Myth [Review], Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

The Modern Construction of Myth, by Andrew yon Hendy, is an interdisciplinary survey of the construction of myth in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The author's thesis is that modern theories of myth can be divided into three broad groups, folkloristic, ideological, and constitutive, and that they all derive from an original, romantic, construct. The survey is organized diachronically, with some attention to taxonomy and axiology. I find the author's thesis entirely persuasive: what follows is meant to serve as a guide to the overall argument and additionally to highlight various important threads that remain somewhat diffuse in …

The Mind In Motion: Walking And Metaphorical Travel In The Roman Villa, Timothy M. O'Sullivan

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Cicero’s De oratore imagines a conversation on eloquence among the leading Roman statesmen of the late second and early first century B.C.E., including L. Licinius Crassus and Q. Lutatius Catulus. As is typical in his early philosophical and rhetorical works, Cicero goes to great lengths to defend his choice of subject matter, and he transfers his anxieties to his characters, who frequently reflect in a rather self-conscious manner upon the form of the dialogue itself. On the morning of the second day of their discussion, for example, Crassus voices a concern that with their Socratic style of question and response, …

Vases Marked For Exchange: The Not-So-Special Case Of Pictorial Pottery, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Large, bold marks are painted or incised on the handles or bases of thirty-seven pictorial vases. These same kinds of marks and same patterns of marking are found on non-pictorial Mycenaean pottery. In general, marks on Mycenaean pottery are rare and the circumstances of their use are not yet fully understood. It is clear that they are associated with Cyprus, and it is most likely that they are associated with Cypriot traders. The marks do indicate that pictorial vases were handled through the same channels and documented in the same manner as the trade in linear and pattern-decorated Mycenaean pottery.

An American "Classic": Hillman And Cullen's Mimes Of The Courtesans, Thomas E. Jenkins

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This is a study in classical reception, one that examines the ways in which a work of erotic classical literature was appropriated in the 1920s for a specific social and artistic goal: pornography with a point. More specifically, I analyze how Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, a work often located on the periphery of the classical canon, became a nexus of sorts for (homo)sexual discourse in the 1920s and 1930s, and how a specific edition of this work demonstrates the interplay between contemporary social trends and the interpretation of the classical world. In 1928, the charmingly named Press of …

Palamedes' "Writing Lesson": On Writing, Narrative, And Erasure, Thomas E. Jenkins

Classical Studies Faculty Research

In this essay, I shall consider some striking parallels between legends of writing as manipulated by both Jacques Derrida and Euripides; more specifically, I shall investigate how each author dissects a narrative-or narratives-of writing's invention in order later to construct writing as an inherently unstable semiotic system. In each instance, a seemingly straightforward "myth" of writing is re-narrated in a dark and sardonic vein, one that downplays the technical aspects of writing and highlights instead the hermeneutical ambiguities encoded within this new technology. The Greek myth of Palamedes (as re-narrated by Euripides) hinges on the invention and eventual misapprehension of …

Die Zyprische Keramik Aus Dem Schiffswrack Von Uluburun, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Mehr als 150 zyprische Gefäße Öllampen und Vorratsbehälter (Pithoi) wurden aus dem Schiff herausgeschleudert und auf dem Meeresgrund zerschmettert, als dieses Schiff in der Spätbronzezeit bei Uluburun unterging. Zyprische Keramik zählt zu den bekannten Exportprodukten der Spätbronzezeit. Sie wurde in zahlreichen Siedlungen des östlichen Mittelmeerraums angetroffen, einschließlich Sardiniens als westlichstem Punkt. Jedoch gibt die Entdeckung dieser Keramik in entlegenen Siedlungen Anlass zur Überlegung, wohin, in welchen Mengen und zu welchem Zweck sie exportiert wurde. Folgende Fragen wären zu beantworten: War dieser Exportartikel von Angebot und Nachfrage abhängig? Stellt diese Keramik ein Mittel im Geschenkeaustausch dar? Wurde sie durch private oder …

Eastwards Via Cyprus? The Marked Mycenaean Pottery Of Enkomi, Ugarit And Tell Abu Hawam, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Based on her study of distribution patterns, Vronwy Hankey suggested that Cyprus or Cypriots played some role in the trade of Mycenaean pottery eastwards to the Levant. She also noted that some of the Mycenaean pottery which reached both Cyprus and the Near East carried marks incised on handles or painted on bases. This paper examines the possible relationships between the marks, Mycenaean pottery, Cyprus, and the trade in Late Bronze Age ceramics. Special reference is made to the evidence from the sites of Enkomi, Ugarit, and Tell Abu Hawam.

À partir de son étude sur les schémas de répartition, …

Near Eastern Sources For The Palace Of Alkinoos, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

The last quarter century of archaeological discoveries have significantly enriched and nuanced our understanding of interactions between the Greek world and the Levant during the Greek Archaic period (conventionally defined as 776-479 B.C.E.). They have also allowed us to construct an increasingly detailed model explaining the diffusion of knowledge from Mesopotamia to Greece at this time. In addition, advances in our understanding of oral cultures, and the role of oral narrative traditions within them have cast valuable new light on the ways in which the Homeric epics appropriate, adapt, and preserve cultural knowledge. The palace of Alkinoos, described in Book …

Singing Heroes: The Poetics Of Hero Cult In The Heroikos, Corinne Ondine Pache

Classical Studies Faculty Research

In this essay, I explore the poetic, emotional, and ritual dimensions of hero cult as presented in Philostratus's Heroikos. After a short digression on hero cult in the Greek period, I focus on the emphasis placed on the emotional bond between worshiper and hero, as well as the important role played by hymns and laments in the narrative. l propose to investigate these twin themes in depth by focusing on examples provided by Philostratus himself, and particularly the cult of Melikertês. Because Philostratus associates hymns and laments with initiation or mystery cults, I also consider the link between hero …

Agamemnon's Test Of The Army In Iliad Book 2 And The Function Of Homeric Akhos, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

I offer a reading of the Diapeira episode based on the semantics and thematics of akhos. My findings resolve a crux at 2.171, where Homer identifies akhos as the reason Odysseus is not launching his ship. Homer clearly signposts the nature of Odysseus' akhos as grief over loss of time in Athene's subsequent speech to him, but the reference is proleptic and has consequently eluded the commentators.

The Raft Of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination Of Homer's Odyssey [Review], Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

In The Raft of Odysseus, Carol Dougherty wishes to read several major episodes of the Odyssey as ways of imagining colonial experience, and as informed by the discourse of colonial foundation. Odysseus can be compared to an ethnographer, who gains self-knowledge through a process of “decoding” a foreign culture and “recoding” it for one’s own, so that “the strange becomes familiar and the familiar strange” (p. 10). At the same time, he is also a colonist, whose experiences among the Phaeacians and Cyclopes offer complementary images of colonial encounters, and a traveling poet, who trades his stories for commercial …

Marks On Pots: Patterns Of Use In The Archaeological Record At Enkomi, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Marks scratched or painted on the Late Bronze Age (LBA) pottery of the eastern Mediterranean are often highly visible elements of the ceramic assemblage because of their bold rendering and prominent placement (fig. 1). Nevertheless, often they have been overlooked. In those instances where they have been noted, interest in them has been primarily epigraphical. Certainly some of the potmarks are connected somehow with contemporary writing systems. But all of them, signs of script or not, have some reason(s) for being painted or incised on certain vases. This paper begins the process of looking systematically for those reasons.

Die Kyprominoische Schrift: Texte Und Kontexte, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Vor 199 Jahren veröffentlichte Josef von Hammer die erste moderne Entdeckung einer in die Steinwand eines Grabes im antiken Paphos (Kouklia) eingemeißelten kyprisch-syllabischen Inschrift. Die weiteren Funde mit dieser Schrift versehener Objekte häuften sich rapide und 1852 publizierte Honoré Albert de Luynes die erste wissenschaftliche Studie der kyprischen Schriften, 1869 wurde in Dhali eine Bilingue mit der lokalen Schrift und Phönizisch gefunden. Sie erwies sich als Schlüssel zur Entzifferung.

Cypriots To The West? The Evidence Of Their Potmarks, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Three amphora handles (Fig. 1), of Mycenaean type, bear the only possible traces of Cypriot writing found in Bronze Age Italy, and they are the only known possible direct traces of Cypriot participation in trade with the western Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age. In this paper, I proceed first with a brief description of the marked handles and their provenience; second, I illustrate their Cypriot associations; and finally I discuss possible implications of this identification.

Barbarian Bond: Thracian Bendis Among The Athenians, Corinne Ondine Pache

Classical Studies Faculty Research

In this chapter, I gather the evidence for the Athenian cult of the Thracian goddess Bendis, who was officially worshipped both by Thracians and by Athenian citizens from the end of the fifth century B.C. on. I also compare the historical record with the literary characterizations of the Thracians, and I examine the connection between religious, political, and ethnic identity and the ways in which the cult of Bendis reflects ambivalent Athenian attitudes toward their northern neighbors. The cult of Bendis in Athens reproduces on the level of ritual the polarity of Greeks versus barbarians that exists on the level …

Introduction, Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Corinne Ondine Pache, John Watrous

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This book gathers essays that are all, in one way or another, connected with ancient Greek and Roman religions. The essays cover a wide range—both chronological and geographical—of religious discourse and practice from Classical Athens on to seventeenth-century America via medieval Europe. Thus, there is no attempt at comprehensiveness. Rather, we hope that these essays will serve to problematize some common distinctions that readers generally bring to the study of ancient Greek and Roman religion and its legacy—such as the distinctions between Greece and Rome, Greco-Romans and barbarians, pagans and Christians, religion and politics, and religion and magic, to name …

The Returns Of Odysseus: Colonization And Ethnicity [Review], Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

The Returns of Odysseus will be essential reading for specialists in Homer, early Greek history, and ancient ethnology. They and others willing to expend the time and energy necessary to read this densely argued and worded book will win a perspective on Greek (pre)colonization and its mythology unavailable from any other source. I myself required a full week for a careful reading, after which I noted to my surprise that I had taken over 50 pages of notes, many of which now belong to my permanent files. If, in what follows, I concentrate on some illustrative problems with Malkin's (M.) …

War Games: Odysseus At Troy, Corinne Ondine Pache

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This paper examines two aspects of Odysseus' behavior that fundamentally set him apart from the other Greek heroes in the Iliad. Odysseus at Troy superficially appears to share many traits with the other Homeric heroes: he is a prominent participant both in assemblies and in combat, and he takes part in many of the decisive episodes of the narrative. He shares in the kleos ("glory") of the other renowned warriors by association, but closer examination shows that he speaks and behaves in an idiosyncratic, often unconventional, manner, and that many of his words and deeds reflect a stance of …

"Active" And "Passive" Heroics In The Odyssey, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

The Cypro-Minoan Corpus Project Wins Best Of Show Award, J. S. Smith, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

The tum of the millennium also marks a century of study of the undeciphered Late Bronze Age script of Cyprus, Cypro-Minoan. In 1909, Sir Arthur Evans labeled it "Cypro-Minoan" based on its visual similarity to the linear scripts he found at Knossos on Crete. We began to discuss the need for a detailed corpus of Cypro-Minoan a decade ago when we both attended a seminar on ancient Cypriot writing conducted by Thomas G. Palaima of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP) at the University of Texas at Austin. We went on separately to pursue specific problems in the …

The Cypro-Minoan Corpus Project Takes An Archaeological Approach, J. S. Smith, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

It has now been more than a century since the first studies of a still undeciphered script, one used both on Cyprus and in Syria between 1550 and 1050 BCE, began to appear. Based upon visual similarity to the linear scripts he found at Knossos on Crete, Sir Arthur Evans, who had been writing about the inscriptions since 1895, coined the name Cypro-Minoan for them (1909: 69). Since that time a host of international scholars have attempted to unravel the meanings of the inscriptions. Our effort, one begun in 1996 and titled The Cypro-Minoan Corpus Project, builds on that …

Odysseus And The Phaeacians, Corinne Ondine Pache

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Two unique events occur in Book 11 of the Odyssey as Odysseus tells the Phaeacians about his visit to Hades: first, Odysseus includes a story known as the "catalogue of women" that seems to have nothing to do with himself and his own adventures or with anybody else in the Odyssey; second, there is an interruption, known as the "intermezzo," in Odysseus' story, and a conversation takes place among Odysseus, Arete, and Alkinoos before the narrative is resumed. These two occurrences have much to say about the interaction between Odysseus and the Phaeacians, and also about the interaction between …

Ways Of Exchange In The Lba Eastern Mediterranean: The Evidence Of Marked Vases, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Thousands of Late Bronze Age vases were traded among the nations of the eastern Mediterranean littoral. At least 900 still preserve marks incised or painted on their handles, bases or bodies. At first sight, the variety of mark-types, the range of vases marked, and the wide dispersal of the marked vessels yields an impression of jumble. But on closer inspection, patterns of marking begin to become evident. The fact that patterns do appear lends credence to the task of trying to discover what those marks might mean.

Heroism, Suffering, And Change, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Today I will address the issue of identity in the Odyssey. To do so I need to make a few general observations about the structure and content of the poem. It is immediately apparent that the Odyssey is organized by three narrative sequences: the story of Telemachus in Books 1-4, including his journey to Pylus and Sparta, the journey of Odysseus from Ogygia to Scheria in Books 5-12, and the return of Odysseus and his revenge on the suitors in Books 13-24. It is well recognized that Books 1-4 recount Telemachus’ coming of age, and that his journey plays a …

Homer, His Art And His World [Review], Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

First let me say what this book is not. Although the dust-jacket claims that the book includes "sections on the relevance of Homer to modern issues in literary criticism", it cannot be said to offer anything approaching a representative, let alone a comprehensive, survey of modern criticism, even as it is currently applied to Homer (H.). It does, in 34 pages, outline "the historical background to Homer and his poetry", but only for those who share the author's assumptions on the time, place, and circumstances of composition.

Appendix G: Trireme Warfare In Thucydides, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Ships, sea battles, and naval policy are key features in Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides—who served as a general and commanded a squadron of triremes himself (4.104.4-5; 4.106.3)—clearly viewed naval power as the key to supremacy in the Aegean (1.15); Athens' rise to empire and fall from glory was inextricably bound with her fortunes at sea. [par 1]

Cypriots In The Mycenaean Aegean, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Many different types of evidence provide clues to the nature of commercial exchange among the regions of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. I approach this topic through the study of marks which were incised or painted on pottery traded between the Near East and the Aegean. Thanks to the kindness of many excavators and museum officials in Cyprus and Greece, I have been able to examine firsthand much of the marked pottery found in those regions.

A Note On Odyssey 3.216-38, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

No abstract provided.