Abstracts
Koen De Temmerman:
Where Philosophy and Rhetoric Meet: Character Typification in the Greek Novel
It is commonly accepted, and rightly so, that typification plays a major role in characterization in ancient literature. Assimilation to pre-existing character types in mythology, history or literature is one of the narrators’ basic tools to endow their characters with meaning. This paper focuses on the eight character types that the Greek novelistic corpus has in common with Aristotle’s ethical philosophical works on virtue and vice (Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, and Magna Moralia) and Theophrastus’ Characters (i.e., the character types of the δειλός, κόλαξ, ἄρεσκος, εἴρων, ἀλαζών, ἀναίσθητος, ἄγροικος, and ἀναίσχυντος). The questions that this paper sets out to answer are three. (1) Can we discern Theophrastean and/or Aristotelian echoes in the novelists’ engagement with these character types, and if so, (2) do these allow us to postulate any direct influence from Theophrastus and/or Aristotle? I will try to answer both questions by adding a third question: (3) in which thematic areas do these eight character types appear?
I argue that, although the novelists’ engagement with character typification is characterized, to a certain extent, by heterogeneity, it tends to cluster around three specific semantic areas in a number of cases, i.e. the military, the erotic and the social context. In these cases, resonances of Aristotelian and/or Theophrastean notions connected with the various character types appear frequently. Moreover, their original meaning is often dislocated into one of the three above-mentioned contexts. Rather than postulating any direct influence, however, I would argue that the character types, along with some basic notions intrinsically connected with them, became a part of the rhetorical education by the first centuries BC and, thus, of the cultural patrimony of rhetorically and literarily educated people. In my view, the novelists’ use of these character types is an aspect of their engagement with their literary toolkit developed in rhetorical education.
Ian Repath:
Platonic Love and Erotic Ignorance in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe
It is a well-known point that Daphnis and Chloe have to undergo a long and arduous process in order to find out what love is, what it involves, and what it is they want. It has also been established that Plato is one of the many authors to whom Longus occasionally alludes. The concept of ‘Platonic’ love, which represents the ideal of philosophical contemplation rather than carnal desire and satisfaction, is one which comes in for its fair share of humorous and satirical treatment in later authors, and especially in the fiction of the novels and the second sophistic (notably in Petronius and Lucian).
In this paper I shall argue that the allusions in Daphnis and Chloe to Platonic texts which deal with love, in particular his Phaedrus, constitute more than isolated examples and form a coherent and significant pattern. One passage of the Phaedrus, for instance, to which commentators have noticed Longus alludes is the point at which Socrates describes how the beloved ‘is in love, but with what, he does not know; and he neither knows what has happened to him, nor can he even say what it is’ (255d); later we find that the beloved has similar, but weaker desires to the lover: ‘to see, touch, kiss, and lie down with him’ (255e). Longus exploits these and other passages and leads his reader to see, through a series of verbal and thematic allusions, that both of his protagonists are ignorant of what they want and unwittingly play the part of chaste ‘Platonic’ lovers. They strive to become physical lovers, but require education and initiation, reversing the idea that these processes might lead to restraint from sex. Longus’ joke is in highlighting the undesirability and even ultimate impossibility of ‘Platonic’ love – it is not what his readers would want for themselves, and it is not what they want to read about!
Konstantin Doulamis:
Forensic Oratory and Rhetorical Theory in Chariton
Scholarship has recently started to reconsider its view of Chariton as one of the earlier, ‘pre-sophistic’ exponents of the ‘ideal’ Greek novel. It has even been suggested that Chariton should be aligned with the approach of the Second Sophistic, not only in terms of chronology but also in terms of sophistication.
In the literature of the Second Sophistic, sophistication is closely linked with rhetoric; and the use of rhetoric in Chariton’s novel Callirhoe, especially in the episode of the legal battle in Book 5, which occupies a large section that is central to the narrative as a whole, acquires particular importance in the light of the narrator’s self-introduction as ‘secretary of the rhetor (= lawyer?) Athenagoras’ at the outset of his work (Char. 1.1.1).
This paper explores the reception of Classical forensic oratory in Chariton, and its aim is to bring out the novelist’s knowledge of both rhetorical theory and practice. An analysis of the courtroom episode of Book 5 is used in order to showcase Chariton’s sophisticated method of utilizing well-known forensic models, skillfully adapting them to his own narrative context and alluding self-consciously and self-reflexively to this literary practice; a literary practice which Chariton’s alert, highly educated readers are expected, and, in certain cases, invited by the text, to recognise and applaud.
Thus, familiarity with the Greek legal system through knowledge of well-known forensic speeches of the Classical period and with Lysianic oratory and style, in particular, are instrumental to understanding and appreciating fully the trial scene at the heart of this seemingly plain love story.
Maria-Elpiniki Oikonomou:
Only Dreaming … Anthia’s Dream in the Ephesiaka
From the second Book of Homer’s Iliad onwards, dreams are an integral part of Greek literature in virtually all of its genres and the Novel is no exception. Already in the two earliest novels, Chariton’s Kallirhoe and Xenophon’s Ephesiaka, dreams of various types and functions occur at pivotal points in the narrative. In the Ephesiaka, there are three dreams, the first, by Abrokomes, in Book 1, preceding the attack by the pirates; the second, again by Abrokomes, in the middle of Book 2, when he is in prison; the third, in Book 5, is that of Anthia when she is in the brothel. While there is little controversy regarding Abrokomes’ dreams, Anthia’s has fared less well.
Dalmeyda, in his edition of 1926, remarked that ‘le songe d’Anthia n’est donc qu’un ornement dénue de signification précise’. There have since been numerous articles discussing the nature of Anthia’s dream focusing, most recently, on the oneirocritic theories of Artemidoros (see, for example, Plastira-Valkanou, SO (2001), Fernández Garrido, Habis (2003)).
This paper looks at Anthia’s dream and considers a different origin and inspiration for that dream, based on earlier Greek and Roman texts. In that it looks back to Hägg’s comment that the dream might be a ‘half-hearted working in a literary tradition or even a mechanical taking over on the part of the author of dream motifs used in other narratives’ (Hägg Narrative Technique 1971:232) – only it argues that the dream is neither half-heartedly worked nor mechanically taken over, but is the product of a consciously elaborate author who uses different techniques – for different effect – in his composition.
Elias Koulakiotis:
The Rhetoric of Otherness: Alexander’s Letter about India and the Alexander Romance
This paper concerns the function of certain apocryphal letters of Alexander the Great within the Alexander Romance; that is their position within its narrative, their influence on Alexander’s image as presented in the Romance, and their role in its reception.
The apocryphal letters of Alexander the Great hold a prominent position in the fictional literature concerning the Macedonian king. The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle (Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem magistrum suum de itinere suo et de situ Indiae), whose original version goes probably back to the Hellenistic period, presents the king’s journey to the end of the world. The Epistola is a multifaceted text that blends the most diverse literary genres and presents them as an engaging unity. Elements of zoological essays, geographical and ethnographical reports, and metaphysical tales are combined to portray Alexander as a ‘master of wonders’ and ‘a master of animals’. Yet this did not happen for nothing. To attain this status, the world ruler went into a zone in which important social practices and religious conceptions – such as sacrifice and hunt – were inverted or offended against. Consequently, it has to do with a zone that recognizes utopias and dystopias, but no proper political community.
Costas Panayotakis:
Petronius’ Iambics on the Condemnation of Luxury (Sat. 55.5-6)
In this paper I consider the sixteen iambic senarii on the condemnation of luxury which Trimalchio recites in Petr. Sat. 55.5-6, and I revisit the issues of the model and authorship of this elaborate composition. By looking at the metrical patterns of this poem and its deviations from Republican prosodic practices I corroborate Courtney’s view – expressed also in his recent Companion to Petronius (Oxford 2001) 107 – that this poem does not appear to be modelled on the verses of the mimographer Publilius. I will show that it follows the metrical habits of poets of the first-century CE, especially Phaedrus and Seneca, whose moral agenda lends irony to the fact that it is Trimalchio, the personification of luxury, who delivers this tirade against luxury.
Scholars who discuss the relationship of Petronius’ poem to the fragments of Publilius or other poets tend to speculate on the ‘model’ for this poem in terms of language and style. So, Sandy (RhM 119 [1976] 286-7) and, before him, Cèbe argue for the authenticity of the poem as a Publilian product; Giancotti (Mimo e Gnome [Firenze 1967] 238-74) attributes this poem to the other well-known mimographer of the Republican era, Decimus Laberius; Baldwin (Latomus 43 [1984] 402-3) claims that these verses were composed as a parody of Maecenas’ poetry. But the prosodic features of these senarii have been neglected so far in these scholarly discussions.
That these verses were carefully composed so as to please the ears of Trimalchio’s guests and Petronius’ readers cannot be denied. Consider, for instance, the way in which figures of speech, such as alliteration and assonance, are emphasized through the allocation of m sounds to the places where the metrical ictus falls after the caesura in the first line (in scanning these lines I adopt the system of alphabetic notation propounded by Gratwick in his editions of Terence’s Adelphoe and Plautus’ Menaechmi):
luxuriae rictu Martis marcent moenia (line 1)
AbbCD ABCD ABcD
On the other hand, the author of this poem clearly avoids ‘pure’ iambs (i.e. combinations of short-long or short-short-short syllables) at the beginning of the third metron (i.e. at the fifth metrical foot): for instance
marcēnt moenia (line 1) – D ABcD
pauō pascitur (line 2) – D ABcD
‘Pure’ iambs in this position are strongly favoured by Plautus, the tragic playwrights, and Horace, less strongly favoured by Terence, Laberius, Publilius, and Phaedrus, and not at all favoured in Seneca’s lofty iambics. Furthermore, the numerical distribution of ‘pure’ iambs in the first five feet of each of these senarii closely resembles the versification patterns of Phaedrus rather than the prosody of Republican playwrights.
Maeve O'Brien:
Writing the Pale Imitation: The Story of Meroe and Socrates in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 1. 1-19
This paper concerns only the story in Book 1 of the Metamorphoses where Apuleian Socrates is vanquished by the verbal dominance of Meroe, the witch, and how she succeeds in the world of magical discourse Apuleius constructs in Thessaly. The central character of this novel by Apuleius, a young man called Lucius, travels through Thessaly where he hears about the strange love story of Meroe and Socrates. Socrates, compared ironically by Meroe to Endymion and Ganymede (M.1.12), a traveller in Thessaly is ensnared by Meroe’s charms. Which elements of the story of his Apuleian counterpart compare and which differ from accounts of Platonic Socrates? How does Apuleius use magic as a device to illustrate the double-edged power of Meroe’s discourse? Apuleian Socrates feasts on a magical recipe or spell that is Meroe’s discourse. Plato’s Socrates is a lover of discourse but he is wary of its almost magical power. Meroe is the purveyor of the deceptive, Socrates calls it poisoned (noxam), discourse Socrates both fears and is attracted to and to which he eventually falls victim in the Metamorphoses.
The defeat of Socrates happens in Thessaly. Unlike Platonic Socrates, he leaves Athens. Platonic Socrates’ skills in discourse led to him being labelled a wizard. In Thessaly his wizardry is appropriated by the witch Meroe. Meroe is the shape-changer in the society Apuleius constructs in Thessaly. Apuleius illustrates the power of discourse and uses Meroe and her magic as a device to achieve this in the Metamorphoses. Apuleius sends Socrates to Thessaly, somewhere Platonic Socrates categorically refuses to flee to in Crito. Unlike Socrates in Phaedrus, Apuleian Socrates is mesmerised by the bewitching qualities of discourse. Socrates loses his philosophical soul when Meroe steals his heart (M.1.13). She is the expert in the discourse of Thessaly but Socrates is out of his depth. Does Apuleius in the Metamorphoses empower Meroe with special abilities in this type of discourse, a discourse that causes the death of Socrates in Thessaly where Meroe and her colleagues practice with impunity. In his novel Apuleius uses Meroe to illustrate the power of the discourse available to us as an instrument for seeking truth. Whether discourse is a remedy or a poison depends on its adherence to either the principles of superior discourse or to those of an inferior even magical discourse.