Browsing by Subject "Classics"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Divine childhood : a study of selected Homeric hymns in relation to ancient Greek societal practices
    (2009) De Castro, Paula
    This dissertation broadly addresses divine childhood, with particular reference to the Homeric hymns. Included in the discussion is an overview of ancient Greek practices involving the subjects of birth, midwifery, timai, kyrioi, theft, parent-child relationships, maturation and the role of female children and women in society. In addition to the Homeric hymns a variety of other sources ranging from Homer to Apollodorus is drawn upon. The methodologies employed to analyse this diverse material are eclectic but a comparative approach has been particularly productive. The comparative nature of this dissertation has allowed special emphasis to be placed on the relation between the human and divine worlds. The anthropomorphic nature of the Greek gods clearly allowed the mortal poets to superimpose their own conventions onto the divine realm. In sum this dissertation considers the way social practices shape myth and are themselves perpetuated and sustained by myth. The tendency exhibited by the ancient Greeks to write about mythological happenings clearly allows them to explore alternative ways of life. These alternatives allowed them to explore in turn the consequences of subverting the norm (as seen in the figure of Pandora). Paradoxically, while playing with these alternative and subversive possibilities, the myths, which we assume were composed by men, succeed in reinforcing these norms (take for example the Odyssey’s Penelope who represents an idealised version of how a woman was supposed to conduct herself).
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    Fauna in archaic Greek and Kalanga oral wisdom literatures
    (2016) Moyo, Madhlozi; Chandler, Clive
    Animals play an important role in the communication of wisdom. In songs, proverbs, aphorisms, riddles and other oral modes of communication, animals sometimes play the roles of human beings. Homeric similes, Hesiodic and Aesopic fables, and numerous oral figures of speech in Greek lyric poetry often incorporate animals in their figurative language. Likewise, Kalanga folktales, proverbs, and other didactic modes attest to the importance of animals within this culture as vehicles to teach moral lessons. This tendency is visible among many cultures across the world. As such, the broad concerns of this thesis are to compare the way Archaic Greek and Kalanga wisdom literatures resort to animal imagery in the dissemination of moral lessons. The study evaluates the way animals are deployed as metaphors to signify and express human actions and human attitudes in oral thought. In a narrow sense, I study the deployment of animals insofar as they shed light upon the human attributes of cleverness and stupidity; the use of animals' characters in political commentary; as well as in the economic and erotic didactics in Archaic Greek and Kalanga oral wisdom literatures. Judging from the frequency of their appearance, it seems that animals are one of the preferred ways through which people offer insights into themselves. Commenting on the human habit of integrating animals into one's religious and moral views, Peter Lum says 'The animal world seems to the mind of primitive man to be only a very short step from the human.' This dissertation seeks to arrive at answers to a number of questions through a comparative study of selections from the two traditions. What are the premises and presuppositions behind the deployment of each animal in such literature? What are the bases for building a human character on an animal? How do we compare and contrast the human and animal natures? And, what makes an animal assume a specific role, and not another, in folklore? What ecological and ethical concerns can be observed in this type of literature? Most importantly, what similarities are there between Greek and Kalanga oral modes of expression? By revealing similarities in animal imagery between two diverse wisdom traditions, this work explores what may be described as a natural, cross-cultural basic component of didactic poetry: a common denominator that gets to the root of archaic wisdom. Furthermore, as a poetic element seemingly rooted in the realities of agrarian society, such symbolism leads us to consider whether the moral authority it represents is purely poetic or whether it actually holds cultural capital. This exercise entails using the dynamics of a living tradition to understand more about one we access through texts and commentaries.
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    Female characterisation in the epic poetry of P. Papinius Statius
    (1990) Jorge, Diane; Coleman, K M
    "No serious Latinist will deny the probability that Statius will again emerge from the current scholarly re-evaluation of Silver Age Epic as the great poet he seemed to the finest spirits of High Middle Ages and Renaissance, rather than as the pale imitator of Virgil he appeared to the censorious criticism of the nineteenth century, obsessed as it was with its twin heresies of originality and inevitable progress." (Tanner, R G 1986. Epic Tradition and Epigram in Statius ANRW II 32.5, 3020) Publius Papinius Statius (c.AD 40-96) is best known for his occasional poetry, the Silvae, which is in scholarly vogue at present. He also composed a monumental twelve-book epic, little known until this century, concerning the myth of the Seven Against Thebes, as well as beginning a poem, popular in the Middle Ages, intended to chronicle the full career of the hero, Achilles. Death prevented the completion of the latter work, so that there are only 1127 lines extant. I here undertake an evaluation of female characterisation in the Thebaid and Achilleid, as a positive contribution to the rehabilitation programme described in the quotation above. Because Statius' poetry properly observes the ancient literary convention of imitatio, an examination of any feature thereof necessarily first takes account of the treatment of these myths before Statius. Although there is no precise literary precedent for the Achilleid, there are various possible Greek and Roman sources for the Thebaid, among them Euripides' Phoenissae and Hypsipyle, Apollonius' Argonautica and Seneca's Phoenissae. Naturally Homer's Iliad provided many of the poetical techniques for depicting the pathos of young warriors killed in battle and the subsequent grief of their relatives. A vital consideration, given Statius' reputation as a "pale imitator of Virgil", is to identify the influence of the Aeneid on Statius' techniques of characterisation, as well as to assess his usage of Virgilian style and phraseology. An equally significant contribution to Statius' presentation of women, and one of especial importance for the Achilleid, is made by Ovidian poetry, particularly the Metamorphoses and Heroides. To a lesser extent Statius was influenced by contemporary Latin epics: Valerius Flaccus' mythological Argonautica, Lucan's politico-historical Pharsalia and Silius Italicus' Punica. In analysing the presentation of heroines and goddesses in the Thebaid, little attempt is made to divine a method or spirit of characterisation "common" to both poems. Rather, the contrast between the portrayal of female personality in the two epics emphasises the very different tone of each: the distinctly comic tone of the Achilleid is reflected in the light-hearted portrayal of the three main characters Thetis, Deidamia and Achilles; on the other hand, the tragic atmosphere of the Thebaid is reflected in the intense portrayal of the chief female characters, Argia, Antigone, Jocasta and Hypsipyle. Insofar as it is ever valid or possible to expect literature to reflect the "real" perceptions and ideals of author and audience, I make some brief attempt to set Statius' treatment of his female characters against the prevailing attitudes and socio-cultural norms of his day. Statius' portrayal of women in his Silvae is of some relevance here, though chiefly the poems are to be regarded as literary texts rather than sociological documents.
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    The typical and connotative character of Xeinoi situations across the Apologue: Three studies in repetition
    (2017) Williams, Hamish; Chandler, Clive
    This dissertation engages in a close reading and analysis of the Apologue of Homer's Odyssey; specifically, I am concerned with characterizing the nature of xeinoi situations or interactions in these books - that is, the relationship between the Ithacan travellers and the various inhabitants whom they encounter in these four books. There is a significant amount of scholarship on the nature of these encounters in the Apologue, and as my first chapter explores, many of these are often hinged upon certain polarities: hospitality versus inhospitality, civilized versus savage, masculine versus feminine. My study is greatly indebted to these; however, this dissertation explores new avenues of interpreting these encounters. I have adopted an approach to the Odyssey, which is based upon the importance of repetitions and their connotations, what has been termed 'traditional referentiality'. The Homeric poems are defined by an aesthetic of repetition: certain 'units' (which may be isolated words, phrases, actions, scenes, etc.) are given prominence in the narrative through their frequency; when these units are examined with respect to their contexts, the particular units gain associative or 'connotative' meaning from their implementation. In my second, third, and fourth chapters, I explore how the xeinoi situations in the Apologue are pervaded by certain typical units - namely, (i) mountains, (ii) acts of eating, and (iii) acts of trickery - and then, importantly, how these units garner connotative senses of, respectively, (i) isolation, (ii) danger, and (iii) success, which characterize the relationships in these four books. While some of these typical units have received scholarly treatment in the Odyssey as a whole, their specific importance to the Apologue has not been studied extensively, nor have the connotative resonances of these repeated units been fully explored. The importance of these connotations is elaborated on in the conclusion, where I examine how the meaning derived from these xeinoi encounters interplays with the surrounding story of the Odyssey.
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    Violence and state response in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius
    (1995) Munro, Malcolm Frederick; Wardle, David
    This thesis examines the concept of violence during the transition from Republic to Principate. Many of the provisions against violence which evolved during the course of the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius were a direct response to the violence of the Late Republic. They were to a large extent, new and revolutionary, but were not caused by the violence of the Late Republic: rather they were developed as part of the new political scenario to stabilise Roman society and secure the princeps' position. A by-product of these measures was to provide a new context in which violence (particularly institutionalised state violence) could occur, be monitored and controlled. In chapter one I attempt to define violence and to extract the contemporary Roman attitude, without which any conclusions drawn would be inaccurate and unrealistic. I have used Roman legislation - especially the lex Julia de vi (c 18 BC) and have examined the works of Cicero for the frequency and function of vis, the Latin word which most closely corresponds to the English word "violence." I conclude that the Romans had a sophisticated understanding of the concept: i) anything that was not conducted through the due process of law was considered vis, ii) violence was tolerated only in exceptional circumstances, when state security was threatened. In chapter two I explore in greater detail the attempts by goverment to legislate against violence in particular the lex Julia de vi and the lex maiestatis. Although the latter was not employed initially to remove political rivals from the scene, its abuse during the reign of Tiberius became one of the great themes of the historians to illustrate the decline and moral bankruptcy of the Principate and to look nostalgically at the Republic. Chapter three examines how the structure of the Roman criminal system changed, the gradual disintegration of the legal principle of self-help, and the growth and exploitation of the cognitio procedure in Roman courts. The state intruded more into the lives of citizens and therefore exerted more control. The role of three new jurisdictions, imperial, senatorial and that of the urban prefect, in the context of the minimisation and control of violence, is also discussed. The fourth chapter deals with punishment and considers the theory that there was a trend to greater severity in this form of state violence. It examines, against the background of Roman penal aims, the evolution of the symbols and rituals which accompanied different types of punishment. Chapters five and six discuss collective violence, its manifestations and explain the absence of revolution by the plebs. The introduction of new forces into the city (something which was anathema in the Republic) is discussed in the context of policing and law and order. They had a significant impact in the limitation of violence. In the Early Principate violence manifested itself in new contexts and was controlled more effectively than in the Late Republic.
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    Word order in Cicero's Letters to Atticus : a multivariate approach
    (2008) McLachlan, Kathryn
    One of the most striking features of Latin is its flexible word order. Subjects and objects and verbs can be jumbled, seemingly indiscriminately, and there are generally a number of relative or temporal or conditional clauses in the mix as well. Sometimes these sentences can become so long and unwieldy that even their authors have to remind themselves and their audiences what they were saying when they embarked upon them. For example, in Pro Caelio 1.1 Cicero elaborates upon the dictates of a law by means of two relative clauses, one embedded within the other, and a tricolon, and then has to start the sentence over, having lost track of where he was grammatically before the subordinate clauses. I Small wonder Latin word order has been called a "bugaboo" (Gries, 1951 :87) or "unnatural and wholly without plan" (Robbins, 1951 :78). However, it is not as random as it appears at first sight. There is a basic order, and the variations upon it are not arbitrary. They are influenced by a combination of factors ranging from syntax to semantics, pragmatics to typology. In this dissertation, I investigate word order patterns in Cicero's private letters to his close friend Atticus. My Honours dissertation looked primarily at the arrangement of modifiers and heads within noun phrases in the Epistulae Ad AtticulI1 (McLachlan, 2006). This one develops upon my Honours dissertation, and whilst some of the material is perforce the same, such as the literature review, I have increased the number of examples studied for each construction and added to the potential factors influencing word order, as well as examining word order within verb phrases as well. Four constructions are studied in total, two within noun phrases and two within verb phrases. These are (1) adjective and noun order, (2) genitive and noun order, (3) adverb and verb order and (4) object and verb order.