Dunstan Lowe | University of Kent (original) (raw)
Books by Dunstan Lowe
"This book is about the many part-human mythological hybrids in late first century Roman culture.... more "This book is about the many part-human mythological hybrids in late first century Roman culture. Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses are the central texts. The first chapter discusses 'monster studies' and attitudes towards monstrous forms, both then and now; the second discusses abnormal bodies outside myth (distant races, religious prodigies, deformed humans); the next two address female monsters and the last two male ones.
Contents:
1: Monster Theory
2: Real Monsters
3: Feminine Exteriors
4: Feminine Interiors
5: Beast-Men
6: Hyperbolic Monsters"
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Classical culture belongs to us all: whether as academic subject or as entertainment, it constant... more Classical culture belongs to us all: whether as academic subject or as entertainment, it constantly stimulates new ideas. In recent years, following Gladiator s successful revival of the toga epic , studies of the ancient world in cinema have drawn increasing attention from authors and readers. This collection builds on current interest in this topic, taking its readers past the usual boundaries of classical reception studies into less familiar and even uncharted areas of ancient Greece and Rome in mass popular culture. Contributors discuss the uses of antiquity in television programmes, computer games, journalism, Hollywood blockbusters, B-movies, pornography, Web 2.0, radio drama, and children s literature. Its diverse contents celebrate the continuing influence of Classics on modern life: from controversies within academia to ephemeral pop culture, from the traditional to the cutting-edge. The reader will find both new voices and those of more established commentators, including broadcaster and historian Bettany Hughes, Latinist Paula James, and Gideon Nisbet, author of Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture. Together they demonstrate that rich rewards await anyone with an interest in our classical heritage, when they embrace the diversity and complexity of mass popular culture as a whole.
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Articles by Dunstan Lowe
Return to the Interactive Past, 2021
The golden age of beat-em-up videogames, in arcade and console gaming in the 1980s and 1990s, has... more The golden age of beat-em-up videogames, in arcade and console gaming in the 1980s and 1990s, has a large but neglected cast of Greek and Roman warriors. Gladiators and centurions represented Italy and Greece in worldwide tournaments such as Fighters History, reflecting the fantastical impressions of casual cultural tourists. There are traces of classical antiquity in the major franchises Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Tekken, and above all Soulcalibur, in which the Greek Sophitia is the chosen warrior of Hephaestus. At times the ancient world is literally a mere backdrop, as the Parthenon or Colosseum is incongruously overlaid with more contemporary spectacle. But this genre transforms this cultural background in surprising ways, exposing what it really means to audiences whose attention is focused on the foreground.
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in I. Gildenhard et al. (eds.), Augustus and the Destruction of History: The Politics of the Past in Early Imperial Rome (Oxford University Press)., 2019
This chapter argues that Virgil's uses of late Republican history in the Aeneid are not always pa... more This chapter argues that Virgil's uses of late Republican history in the Aeneid are not always partisan, and are better seen as uses of historical writing (historiography). As a case study I look at two stories about general Sertorius, which seem to inspire supernatural episodes in the epic: Hercules' assault on the monster Cacus in Aeneid 6, and the beloved tame deer in Aeneid 7. Sertorius was a rebel, and enemy of Pompey the Great. Nonetheless, Virgil seems to echo historical texts about him without taking a direct political stance.
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Complex Inferiorities: The Poetics of the Weaker Voice in Latin Literature, 2018
Our record of Roman love-poetry, from Catullus on into Propertius and Tibullus and finally Ovid, ... more Our record of Roman love-poetry, from Catullus on into Propertius and Tibullus and finally Ovid, shows a preference for ‘countercultural’ idioms. These authors switch between voices and vocabularies, as does Horace, the other great first-person poet of the Augustan period. But the love-poet persona builds heavily on subverting the idioms deemed appropriate for freeborn elite Roman males (military language, triumphal imagery, prayer formulas, legalese), and embracing alternative modes of expression (emotional outbursts, passive or submissive behaviour, metaphors of slavery and torture). The techniques of Roman rhetorical training might seem to belong in the first category. However, I propose that we include a different, more scurrilous brand of ‘rhetoric’ in the second category: that of the "praeco" (herald or auctioneer).
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Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not p... more Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not previously been charted. First, Pliny the Elder reports an architect's plan to suspend an iron statue using magnetism, and the later compiler Ampelius mentions a similar-sounding wonder in Syria. When the Serapeum at Alexandria was destroyed, and for many centuries afterwards, chroniclers wrote that an iron Helios had hung magnetically inside. In the Middle Ages, reports of such false miracles multiplied, appearing in Muslim accounts of Christian and Hindu idolatry, as well as Christian descriptions of the tomb of Muhammad. A Christian levitation miracle involving saints' relics also emerged. Yet magnetic suspension could be represented as miraculous in itself, representing lost higher knowledge, as in the latest and easternmost tradition concerning Konark's ruined temple. The levitating monument, first found in classical antiquity, has undergone many cultural and epistemological changes in its long and varied history.
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Monumental weathervanes have been overlooked as a tiny but important genre of ancient bronze scul... more Monumental weathervanes have been overlooked as a tiny but important genre of ancient bronze sculpture. This is the first collective study of all three definite examples: the so-called 'triton' on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, a copy of this somewhere in Rome, and the winged female 'Anemodoulion' on the Bronze Tetrapylon in Constantinople. I propose to identify the intended subjects of these sculptures as the weather-deities Aiolos and Iris, thereby restoring a part of each monument's original meaning that was unknown to the authors of our ancient written accounts. I also suggest that monumental weathervanes were first invented in Hellenistic Alexandria, which may explain why the Tower of the Winds shared the octagonal design of the Pharos, and why the Anemodoulion was mounted upon a bronze pyramidion.
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This half-page followup acknowledges that the conventional line numbering of Catullus 64 hides an... more This half-page followup acknowledges that the conventional line numbering of Catullus 64 hides an extra verse, meaning that the numerical correspondence with the Culex is not exact. However, there could have been an extra line there too, fixing the problem.
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I propose a new instance of ‘stichometric allusion’ (when poets allude to a source using correspo... more I propose a new instance of ‘stichometric allusion’ (when poets allude to a source using corresponding line-numbers) in the Culex. This example (an allusion to Catullus 64) is notable because it spans two lines, and because it contains a repetition. Since this makes coincidence very unlikely, we can consider the possible motives and potential implications.
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I propose that Manilius’ fundamental view is that the stars represent order and the earth chaos, ... more I propose that Manilius’ fundamental view is that the stars represent order and the earth chaos, a conviction partly expressed through Stoic doctrine and partly through poetic tropes. He frequently uses the imagery of the four elements to divide the superior realm of air and fire from the inferior realm of water and earth. Significant themes contributing toward this include Gigantomachy, cosmic vapours, the planets, and the figure of the Whale (Cetus) in the Andromeda story near the close of the poem.
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Some of the most colourful evidence for Roman sexual behaviour, such as Seneca’s charge of cunnil... more Some of the most colourful evidence for Roman sexual behaviour, such as Seneca’s charge of cunnilingus and ‘menophilia’ against Mamercus Scaurus, should not be regarded as factual. Seneca applies a longstanding stereotype, directly or indirectly inspired by the tactics of Scaurus’ prosecutors, who possibly exploited a medical treatment Scaurus used.
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Near the start of Grattius' Cynegetica, a cryptic mythological exemplum warns that careless hunti... more Near the start of Grattius' Cynegetica, a cryptic mythological exemplum warns that careless hunting brings disaster. Most editors, including the most recent, have turned this into a version of the Gigantomachy with some strange features. In fact a much more satisfactory interpretation lies at hand with very little emendation. The exemplum is about Orion. Not only does this fit the context and match known versions of the myth, but it gives a role in Grattius' hunting poem to the most famous mythical hunter of all, who is otherwise absent.
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According to the best available commentary (Stern 1996), the 36th myth busted by Palaiphatos (con... more According to the best available commentary (Stern 1996), the 36th myth busted by Palaiphatos (concerning Herakles and a certain 'Philoites') is the only one too corrupt to understand, and also the only one about a myth unheard of elsewhere. I argue that it is really about 'Philoktetes', the well-known hero who lit Herakles' funeral pyre on Mount Oeta. (In Palaiphatos' interpretation, Herakles failed to cure himself by applying leaves, but Philoctetes treated him more successfully using cauterization.) This proves that Palaiphatos always chose popular myths, and especially those which his readers would know from the tragic stage.
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When making an allusion, a poet can choose to make the line numbering (stichometry) correspond wi... more When making an allusion, a poet can choose to make the line numbering (stichometry) correspond with that of the source. A handful of examples in Roman poetry have been proposed, mostly in Virgil. This short paper collects these examples together and proposes a new one, in which Dido's appeal to the Furies in the Aeneid matches up with Medea's appeal to the Erinyes in Apollonius' Argonautica.
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Ausonius' poem on the number three has prompted at least four different avenues of interpretation... more Ausonius' poem on the number three has prompted at least four different avenues of interpretation aimed at answering the 'riddle'. I argue that all but one of them are misguided, and that the remaining one can only be speculative (though I offer some new speculations on it). I propose a different interpretation of the title, using the preface as the key to understanding the work in the wider context of Ausonius' age and individual poetics.
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The sensual bedroom epiphany of the Fury Allecto, by which Amata is driven into a Bacchic frenzy,... more The sensual bedroom epiphany of the Fury Allecto, by which Amata is driven into a Bacchic frenzy, resembles the initiation ritual of the cult of Sabazius, a "sacred marriage" in which a metal snake was dropped down the front of the initiand's clothes. This Thraco-Phrygian deity had a small but persistent presence in the Roman empire (attested in the army as early as the first century BC, and also at Pompeii), and was frequently identified with Dionysus. Virgil seems to have known of this cult and integrated it into the symbolic economy of the poem, in which feminine, sensual, oriental (including Phrygian) and ecstatic elements are opposed to the masculine self-control of the protagonist and his descendants.
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"The 'puer vetulus' described by Petronius is meant to represent a sufferer of the rare congenita... more "The 'puer vetulus' described by Petronius is meant to represent a sufferer of the rare congenital illness known as progeria or accelerated ageing. Survey the ancient evidence, I argue that Petronius' fondness for such an individual reinforces his portrayal as a gauche social climber.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of Debbie Felton, who has independently arrived at the same research topic and drawn many of the same conclusions."
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[NB this article is available online via the link provided.] Virgil's vision of Italy in the age... more [NB this article is available online via the link provided.]
Virgil's vision of Italy in the age of heroes places great emphasis on sacred groves (often the scene of encounters with gods), and individual sacred trees (like the stump of Faunus where Aeneas' spear lodges in the final duel). This reflects a more widespread belief among the Romans that their oldest and best cultural practices concerned intimacy with, and reverence for, ancient trees. This article surveys the historical and literary evidence to associate tree-reverence with the religious origins of Roman poetry and with the mysterious god Faunus. I also argue that Virgil falsely links the battlefield practice of suspended votives--the tropaeum--with tree-worship in order to make it a token of proto-Roman values.
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Ovid has been thought the inventor of the story that Scylla, the Odyssean monster, was once a bea... more Ovid has been thought the inventor of the story that Scylla, the Odyssean monster, was once a beautiful nymph subsequently disfigured by a jealous goddess. I argue that this Hellenistic-sounding narrative had a Hellenistic origin, specifically in the lost works of Aeschrion and Hedyle. I propose that the element spliced with Homer's monster is not (primarily) princess Scylla of Megara, as some have claimed, but instead the daughter of Scyllias, the diver who reputedly sabotaged the Persian fleet at Artemisium.
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In videogames, classical buildings and objects are usually tarnished and collapsed. This chapter ... more In videogames, classical buildings and objects are usually tarnished and collapsed. This chapter surveys how different styles of videogame from the 1980s to the 21st century depict antiquity. Four versions can be identified: its original freshness, its modern traces, and the moments of its destruction are three. The fourth is that ancient Greece and Rome were already made of ruins. This range reflects the nature of games themselves, as well as the tastes of modern audiences.
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"This book is about the many part-human mythological hybrids in late first century Roman culture.... more "This book is about the many part-human mythological hybrids in late first century Roman culture. Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses are the central texts. The first chapter discusses 'monster studies' and attitudes towards monstrous forms, both then and now; the second discusses abnormal bodies outside myth (distant races, religious prodigies, deformed humans); the next two address female monsters and the last two male ones.
Contents:
1: Monster Theory
2: Real Monsters
3: Feminine Exteriors
4: Feminine Interiors
5: Beast-Men
6: Hyperbolic Monsters"
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Classical culture belongs to us all: whether as academic subject or as entertainment, it constant... more Classical culture belongs to us all: whether as academic subject or as entertainment, it constantly stimulates new ideas. In recent years, following Gladiator s successful revival of the toga epic , studies of the ancient world in cinema have drawn increasing attention from authors and readers. This collection builds on current interest in this topic, taking its readers past the usual boundaries of classical reception studies into less familiar and even uncharted areas of ancient Greece and Rome in mass popular culture. Contributors discuss the uses of antiquity in television programmes, computer games, journalism, Hollywood blockbusters, B-movies, pornography, Web 2.0, radio drama, and children s literature. Its diverse contents celebrate the continuing influence of Classics on modern life: from controversies within academia to ephemeral pop culture, from the traditional to the cutting-edge. The reader will find both new voices and those of more established commentators, including broadcaster and historian Bettany Hughes, Latinist Paula James, and Gideon Nisbet, author of Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture. Together they demonstrate that rich rewards await anyone with an interest in our classical heritage, when they embrace the diversity and complexity of mass popular culture as a whole.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Return to the Interactive Past, 2021
The golden age of beat-em-up videogames, in arcade and console gaming in the 1980s and 1990s, has... more The golden age of beat-em-up videogames, in arcade and console gaming in the 1980s and 1990s, has a large but neglected cast of Greek and Roman warriors. Gladiators and centurions represented Italy and Greece in worldwide tournaments such as Fighters History, reflecting the fantastical impressions of casual cultural tourists. There are traces of classical antiquity in the major franchises Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Tekken, and above all Soulcalibur, in which the Greek Sophitia is the chosen warrior of Hephaestus. At times the ancient world is literally a mere backdrop, as the Parthenon or Colosseum is incongruously overlaid with more contemporary spectacle. But this genre transforms this cultural background in surprising ways, exposing what it really means to audiences whose attention is focused on the foreground.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
in I. Gildenhard et al. (eds.), Augustus and the Destruction of History: The Politics of the Past in Early Imperial Rome (Oxford University Press)., 2019
This chapter argues that Virgil's uses of late Republican history in the Aeneid are not always pa... more This chapter argues that Virgil's uses of late Republican history in the Aeneid are not always partisan, and are better seen as uses of historical writing (historiography). As a case study I look at two stories about general Sertorius, which seem to inspire supernatural episodes in the epic: Hercules' assault on the monster Cacus in Aeneid 6, and the beloved tame deer in Aeneid 7. Sertorius was a rebel, and enemy of Pompey the Great. Nonetheless, Virgil seems to echo historical texts about him without taking a direct political stance.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Complex Inferiorities: The Poetics of the Weaker Voice in Latin Literature, 2018
Our record of Roman love-poetry, from Catullus on into Propertius and Tibullus and finally Ovid, ... more Our record of Roman love-poetry, from Catullus on into Propertius and Tibullus and finally Ovid, shows a preference for ‘countercultural’ idioms. These authors switch between voices and vocabularies, as does Horace, the other great first-person poet of the Augustan period. But the love-poet persona builds heavily on subverting the idioms deemed appropriate for freeborn elite Roman males (military language, triumphal imagery, prayer formulas, legalese), and embracing alternative modes of expression (emotional outbursts, passive or submissive behaviour, metaphors of slavery and torture). The techniques of Roman rhetorical training might seem to belong in the first category. However, I propose that we include a different, more scurrilous brand of ‘rhetoric’ in the second category: that of the "praeco" (herald or auctioneer).
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not p... more Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not previously been charted. First, Pliny the Elder reports an architect's plan to suspend an iron statue using magnetism, and the later compiler Ampelius mentions a similar-sounding wonder in Syria. When the Serapeum at Alexandria was destroyed, and for many centuries afterwards, chroniclers wrote that an iron Helios had hung magnetically inside. In the Middle Ages, reports of such false miracles multiplied, appearing in Muslim accounts of Christian and Hindu idolatry, as well as Christian descriptions of the tomb of Muhammad. A Christian levitation miracle involving saints' relics also emerged. Yet magnetic suspension could be represented as miraculous in itself, representing lost higher knowledge, as in the latest and easternmost tradition concerning Konark's ruined temple. The levitating monument, first found in classical antiquity, has undergone many cultural and epistemological changes in its long and varied history.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Monumental weathervanes have been overlooked as a tiny but important genre of ancient bronze scul... more Monumental weathervanes have been overlooked as a tiny but important genre of ancient bronze sculpture. This is the first collective study of all three definite examples: the so-called 'triton' on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, a copy of this somewhere in Rome, and the winged female 'Anemodoulion' on the Bronze Tetrapylon in Constantinople. I propose to identify the intended subjects of these sculptures as the weather-deities Aiolos and Iris, thereby restoring a part of each monument's original meaning that was unknown to the authors of our ancient written accounts. I also suggest that monumental weathervanes were first invented in Hellenistic Alexandria, which may explain why the Tower of the Winds shared the octagonal design of the Pharos, and why the Anemodoulion was mounted upon a bronze pyramidion.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This half-page followup acknowledges that the conventional line numbering of Catullus 64 hides an... more This half-page followup acknowledges that the conventional line numbering of Catullus 64 hides an extra verse, meaning that the numerical correspondence with the Culex is not exact. However, there could have been an extra line there too, fixing the problem.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
I propose a new instance of ‘stichometric allusion’ (when poets allude to a source using correspo... more I propose a new instance of ‘stichometric allusion’ (when poets allude to a source using corresponding line-numbers) in the Culex. This example (an allusion to Catullus 64) is notable because it spans two lines, and because it contains a repetition. Since this makes coincidence very unlikely, we can consider the possible motives and potential implications.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
I propose that Manilius’ fundamental view is that the stars represent order and the earth chaos, ... more I propose that Manilius’ fundamental view is that the stars represent order and the earth chaos, a conviction partly expressed through Stoic doctrine and partly through poetic tropes. He frequently uses the imagery of the four elements to divide the superior realm of air and fire from the inferior realm of water and earth. Significant themes contributing toward this include Gigantomachy, cosmic vapours, the planets, and the figure of the Whale (Cetus) in the Andromeda story near the close of the poem.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Some of the most colourful evidence for Roman sexual behaviour, such as Seneca’s charge of cunnil... more Some of the most colourful evidence for Roman sexual behaviour, such as Seneca’s charge of cunnilingus and ‘menophilia’ against Mamercus Scaurus, should not be regarded as factual. Seneca applies a longstanding stereotype, directly or indirectly inspired by the tactics of Scaurus’ prosecutors, who possibly exploited a medical treatment Scaurus used.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Near the start of Grattius' Cynegetica, a cryptic mythological exemplum warns that careless hunti... more Near the start of Grattius' Cynegetica, a cryptic mythological exemplum warns that careless hunting brings disaster. Most editors, including the most recent, have turned this into a version of the Gigantomachy with some strange features. In fact a much more satisfactory interpretation lies at hand with very little emendation. The exemplum is about Orion. Not only does this fit the context and match known versions of the myth, but it gives a role in Grattius' hunting poem to the most famous mythical hunter of all, who is otherwise absent.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
According to the best available commentary (Stern 1996), the 36th myth busted by Palaiphatos (con... more According to the best available commentary (Stern 1996), the 36th myth busted by Palaiphatos (concerning Herakles and a certain 'Philoites') is the only one too corrupt to understand, and also the only one about a myth unheard of elsewhere. I argue that it is really about 'Philoktetes', the well-known hero who lit Herakles' funeral pyre on Mount Oeta. (In Palaiphatos' interpretation, Herakles failed to cure himself by applying leaves, but Philoctetes treated him more successfully using cauterization.) This proves that Palaiphatos always chose popular myths, and especially those which his readers would know from the tragic stage.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
When making an allusion, a poet can choose to make the line numbering (stichometry) correspond wi... more When making an allusion, a poet can choose to make the line numbering (stichometry) correspond with that of the source. A handful of examples in Roman poetry have been proposed, mostly in Virgil. This short paper collects these examples together and proposes a new one, in which Dido's appeal to the Furies in the Aeneid matches up with Medea's appeal to the Erinyes in Apollonius' Argonautica.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Ausonius' poem on the number three has prompted at least four different avenues of interpretation... more Ausonius' poem on the number three has prompted at least four different avenues of interpretation aimed at answering the 'riddle'. I argue that all but one of them are misguided, and that the remaining one can only be speculative (though I offer some new speculations on it). I propose a different interpretation of the title, using the preface as the key to understanding the work in the wider context of Ausonius' age and individual poetics.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The sensual bedroom epiphany of the Fury Allecto, by which Amata is driven into a Bacchic frenzy,... more The sensual bedroom epiphany of the Fury Allecto, by which Amata is driven into a Bacchic frenzy, resembles the initiation ritual of the cult of Sabazius, a "sacred marriage" in which a metal snake was dropped down the front of the initiand's clothes. This Thraco-Phrygian deity had a small but persistent presence in the Roman empire (attested in the army as early as the first century BC, and also at Pompeii), and was frequently identified with Dionysus. Virgil seems to have known of this cult and integrated it into the symbolic economy of the poem, in which feminine, sensual, oriental (including Phrygian) and ecstatic elements are opposed to the masculine self-control of the protagonist and his descendants.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
"The 'puer vetulus' described by Petronius is meant to represent a sufferer of the rare congenita... more "The 'puer vetulus' described by Petronius is meant to represent a sufferer of the rare congenital illness known as progeria or accelerated ageing. Survey the ancient evidence, I argue that Petronius' fondness for such an individual reinforces his portrayal as a gauche social climber.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of Debbie Felton, who has independently arrived at the same research topic and drawn many of the same conclusions."
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
[NB this article is available online via the link provided.] Virgil's vision of Italy in the age... more [NB this article is available online via the link provided.]
Virgil's vision of Italy in the age of heroes places great emphasis on sacred groves (often the scene of encounters with gods), and individual sacred trees (like the stump of Faunus where Aeneas' spear lodges in the final duel). This reflects a more widespread belief among the Romans that their oldest and best cultural practices concerned intimacy with, and reverence for, ancient trees. This article surveys the historical and literary evidence to associate tree-reverence with the religious origins of Roman poetry and with the mysterious god Faunus. I also argue that Virgil falsely links the battlefield practice of suspended votives--the tropaeum--with tree-worship in order to make it a token of proto-Roman values.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Ovid has been thought the inventor of the story that Scylla, the Odyssean monster, was once a bea... more Ovid has been thought the inventor of the story that Scylla, the Odyssean monster, was once a beautiful nymph subsequently disfigured by a jealous goddess. I argue that this Hellenistic-sounding narrative had a Hellenistic origin, specifically in the lost works of Aeschrion and Hedyle. I propose that the element spliced with Homer's monster is not (primarily) princess Scylla of Megara, as some have claimed, but instead the daughter of Scyllias, the diver who reputedly sabotaged the Persian fleet at Artemisium.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In videogames, classical buildings and objects are usually tarnished and collapsed. This chapter ... more In videogames, classical buildings and objects are usually tarnished and collapsed. This chapter surveys how different styles of videogame from the 1980s to the 21st century depict antiquity. Four versions can be identified: its original freshness, its modern traces, and the moments of its destruction are three. The fourth is that ancient Greece and Rome were already made of ruins. This range reflects the nature of games themselves, as well as the tastes of modern audiences.
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Why, in Ovid's account, is Orpheus' severed head attacked by a snake as it lies on the beach, and... more Why, in Ovid's account, is Orpheus' severed head attacked by a snake as it lies on the beach, and why is that snake turned to stone? I argue that this incident, instead of deriving from a lost episode in the Thracian bard's mythic cycle, is invented by Ovid as a rearrangement of elements from the Medusa myth told earlier in the poem. Both heads retain supernatural powers after death, and in Ovid each one provides a coda to a longer story by causing a petrifaction while deposited on a sandy beach.
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This chapter documents a range of video games which portray classical antiquity. Two trends are i... more This chapter documents a range of video games which portray classical antiquity. Two trends are identified. One is empire-building, which tends to treat classical (especially Roman) history and seek factual accuracy. The other is hero-centred action, which tends to treat classical (especially Greek) myth and seek creative reinvention. The two trends often intersect in surprising ways.
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Classical Review, 2019
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Classical World, 2019
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History Today, Feb 2014
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Journal of Roman Studies, Jan 1, 2008
Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... P. Mu... more Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... P. Murgatroyd, Mythical Monsters in Classical Literature. London: Duckworth, 2007. Pp. x + 200, 16 illus. ISBN 978-0-7156-3627-5. £16.99. ... P. Murgatroyd, Mythical Monsters in ...
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Jan 1, 2007
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Barbara Weiden Boyd, Virgil's Aeneid 8 & 11: Italy & Rome. Bolchazy-Carducci, 2006. Lowe, D. (2007) Review: Barbara ...
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The Classical Review (New Series), Jan 1, 2011
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Jan 1, 2005
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Yasmin Syed, Virgil's Aeneid and the Roman self. Subject and nation in literary discourse. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2005. ...
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Scholia Review, Jan 1, 2006
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Sarah Annes Brown, Ovid: myth and metamorphosis. Bristol Classical Press, 2005. Lowe, D. (2006) Review: Sarah Annes Brown, Ovid: myth and metamorphosis. ...
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Jan 1, 2005
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Andrew Dalby, Venus: a biography. Getty Publications, 2005. Lowe, D. (2005) Review: Andrew Dalby, Venus: a biography. Getty Publications, 2005. ...
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Jan 1, 2007
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Maria Plaza, The function of humour in Roman verse satire: laughing and lying. Oxford University Press, 2006. Lowe ...
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Scholia Review, Jan 1, 2006
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Michael Paschalis (ed.), Greek and Roman imperial epic. Crete University Press, 2005. Lowe, D. (2006) Review: Michael ...
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Jan 1, 2008
University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navig... more University of Reading. CentAUR: Central Archive at the University of Reading. Accessibility navigation. Review: Davide del Bello, Forgotten paths: etymology and the allegorical mindset. The Catholic University of America Press, 2007. ...
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Journal of Roman Studies, Jan 1, 2008
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Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy is the first collection of essays in English focusing on h... more Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy is the first collection of essays in English focusing on how fantasy draws deeply on ancient Greek and Roman mythology, philosophy, literature, history, art, and cult practice. Presenting fifteen all-new essays intended for both scholars and other readers of fantasy, this volume explores many of the most significant examples of the modern genre-including the works of H. P. Lovecraft, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series, and more-in relation to important ancient texts such as Aeschylus' Oresteia, Aristotle's Poetics, Virgil's Aeneid, and Apuleius' The Golden Ass. These varied studies raise fascinating questions about genre, literary and artistic histories, and the suspension of disbelief required not only of readers of fantasy but also of students of antiquity. Ranging from harpies to hobbits, from Cycl...
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Sidestone Press, Oct 27, 2020
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<p>This chapter brings into view another non-elite voice, one that lingers in the genre of ... more <p>This chapter brings into view another non-elite voice, one that lingers in the genre of Latin love elegy, and is typically overshadowed by elite oratory: that of the <italic>praeco</italic> ('announcer'). The term encompassed various kinds of informal public speaker, from hucksters to heralds, but usually the 'vigorous and none-too-scrupulous salesman'. Its practitioners had a significant role in Augustan Rome, and some became very rich and influential. This chapter discusses how, in keeping with love elegy's favouring of counter-cultural idioms that subvert the social ideals and expectations of freeborn elite Roman males, the <italic>praeco</italic> as a low-status, informal public speaker (details of whose speeches are lost to us) can be reconstructed as an important part of the playfully inferior self-stylization of the love elegists' poetic persona: the stereotype of a cunning yet charismatic persuader adding charm to his wares.</p>
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[Description quoted from an early draft of the introductory chapter:] Dunstan Lowe starts with a ... more [Description quoted from an early draft of the introductory chapter:] Dunstan Lowe starts with a nuanced survey of the territory, sensibly suggesting hermeneutic restraint in how to deal with the phenomenon of possible allegorization: in many instances, the allusive recall of a historical event or figure is perhaps just that: an allusive recall rather than a full-blown allegory. He then goes on to consider the intertextual presence of one late-republican figure who has so far eluded proper recognition, let alone received sustained discussion: Sertorius. Lowe shows how the tame stag of Aeneid 7 and Hercules and Cacus episode in Aeneid 8, while also standing in allusive dialogue with a wide range of literary texts also reworks themes and motifs from historiographical treatments of Sertorius. He concludes by reasserting the principle of hermeneutic abstinence: the intertextual presence of Sertorius in the fabric of Virgil’s epic narrative does not yield any obvious allegory or clear political message. Rather, what we find on display here is Virgil’s encyclopaedic desire which informs his approach to all areas of discourse – from literary to philosophy, as well as historiography. The ambition to offer, in and through the Aeneid, a preview (however allusive) of all of Roman history and its main characters operates independent of, indeed outside and perhaps even in contradistinction to, any narrow ideological commitments, complements the Augustan teleology that constitutes the backbone of Virgil’s conception of history (for better or worse), and enriches the historiographical dimension of his epic.
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Classical Antiquity, 2016
Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not p... more Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not previously been charted. First, Pliny the Elder reports an architect’s plan to suspend an iron statue using magnetism, and the later compiler Ampelius mentions a similar-sounding wonder in Syria. When the Serapeum at Alexandria was destroyed, and for many centuries afterwards, chroniclers wrote that an iron Helios had hung magnetically inside. In the Middle Ages, reports of such false miracles multiplied, appearing in Muslim accounts of Christian and Hindu idolatry, as well as Christian descriptions of the tomb of Muhammad. A Christian levitation miracle involving saints’ relics also emerged. Yet magnetic suspension could be represented as miraculous in itself, representing lost higher knowledge, as in the latest and easternmost tradition concerning Konark’s ruined temple. The levitating monument, first found in classical antiquity, has undergone many cultural and epistemological changes ...
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The Classical Quarterly, 2014
In a recent note, I collected instances of ‘stichometric allusion’, the technique in which poets ... more In a recent note, I collected instances of ‘stichometric allusion’, the technique in which poets allude, in one or more of their own verses, to source verses with corresponding line numbers. The technique existed in Hellenistic Greek poetry, but seems more prevalent (or at least, detectable) among the Latin poets of the Augustan era, who applied it to Greek and Latin predecessors alike, as well as internally to their own work. New illustrations of each type may be added here to those previously brought to light. Further examples, detected in an unsystematic fashion, no doubt lie dormant in published discussions and commentaries. Callimachus is still the only known Greek practitioner; perhaps his Roman successors considered the technique not merely Hellenistic but Callimachean. Authors of later ages employ the same techniques in equally haphazard fashion, although this does not mean that they had necessarily noticed examples from antiquity.
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The Classical Quarterly, 2015
I am grateful to Edward Courtney for observing that the stichometric correspondence between theCu... more I am grateful to Edward Courtney for observing that the stichometric correspondence between theCulexand Catullus 64 is close but not exact, sinceCulex132–3 really echoes not 132–3 but 133–4. The conventional line-numbering of Catullus 64 conceals the half-line 23b,progenies saluete iter<um>…, which is invisibly missing from the manuscripts but was salvaged by Francesco Orioli from the Scholia Veronensia on Verg.Aen. 5.80 and is universally accepted. Emendations vary, but all assume a haplographic error caused by an instance of the patterned repetition so typical of Catullus (which indeed is what theCulexauthor is imitating at 132-3). Consequently, theperfide … perfidecorrespondence becomes a partial and not complete overlap, belonging together with many of Knauer's Virgilian examples in the category of ‘near misses’.
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Roman poets of the Augustan period reinvented monsters from Greek myth, such as Harpies, Furies, ... more Roman poets of the Augustan period reinvented monsters from Greek myth, such as Harpies, Furies, and the warring Centaurs and Giants. These monsters represented the attractions and dangers of novelty in various contexts, ranging from social values to artistic innovation. Rome's two great epics of the early principate, Vergil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, are both filled with mythical monsters. Like the culture that produced them, these poets were fascinated by unfamiliar forms despite their potential to disturb and disrupt. This book takes a fresh approach to the canonical works of Vergil, Ovid, and their contemporaries, contributing to a very recent turn toward marvels, monsters, and deformity in classical studies. The volume proposes that monstrosity was acutely topical during the birth of the principate, having featured in aesthetic debates of the Hellenistic age, while also serving as an established, if controversial, means for public figures to amaze the population and display their power. Monsters provided a fantastical means to explore attitudes toward human nature, especially in its relationship with sex. They also symbolized deformations of poetic form. Such gestures were doomed to replay the defeat of hypermasculine monsters yet, paradoxically, they legitimized poetic innovation. Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry is the first full-length study of monsters in Augustan poetry, and the first metapoetic readingof monstrosity in classical antiquity. Intended primarily for scholars and students of classical Latin literature, it will also speak to interdisciplinary monster studies. It does not require knowledge of Latin or ancient Greek and quotations are translated.
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Ramus, 2014
Mud and stars make a strange mixture, yet here in brief is Manilius' universe, in which the r... more Mud and stars make a strange mixture, yet here in brief is Manilius' universe, in which the rarefied heavens regulate the coarse earth. As shown by the recent spate of critical attention to the Astronomica, his various intellectual resources—astronomical calculation, mythology, astrological lore and Stoic physics—, while not forming a unified dogma, are less muddled than previously thought. He switches between these different discourses (or as it were, idioms) in pursuit of his own cherished goal: an optimistic eulogy to a fatalistic cosmos in which the study of the heavens holds supreme interest and value. Manilius' discipline is the most specialised and mathematical, as well as the most novel, of all Roman didactic poets. He therefore takes a decidedly concrete approach to the inevitable balancing act between technical content and poetic form, as is immediately obvious in his self-portrait as a priest-poet uates tending the twin altar-fires of poem and subject (carminis et...
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The Classical Quarterly, 2012
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The Classical Quarterly, 2013
Intense scrutiny can raise chimaeras, and Virgil is the most scrutinized of Roman poets, but he m... more Intense scrutiny can raise chimaeras, and Virgil is the most scrutinized of Roman poets, but he may have engineered coincidences in line number (‘stichometric allusions’) between certain of his verses and their Greek models. A handful of potential examples have now accumulated. Scholars have detected Virgilian citations of Homer, Callimachus and Aratus in this manner, as well as intratextual allusions by both Virgil and Ovid, and references to…
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Classical Philology, 2011
Among many mythological reworkings in the Metamorphoses, Ovid provides pathetic origin stories fo... more Among many mythological reworkings in the Metamorphoses, Ovid provides pathetic origin stories for three female monsters whom Homer represented as inhuman and dangerous. The Gorgon Medusa, Ovid claims, was once a beautiful-haired girl raped by Neptune; the ...
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The Cambridge Classical Journal, 2016
Monumental weathervanes have been overlooked as a tiny but important genre of ancient bronze scul... more Monumental weathervanes have been overlooked as a tiny but important genre of ancient bronze sculpture. This is the first collective study of all three definite examples: the so-called ‘triton’ on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, a copy of this somewhere in Rome and the winged female ‘Anemodoulion’ on the Bronze Tetrapylon in Constantinople. I propose to identify the intended subjects of these sculptures as the weather-deities Aiolos and Iris, thereby restoring a part of each monument's original meaning that was unknown to the authors of our ancient written accounts. I also suggest that monumental weathervanes were first invented in Hellenistic Alexandria, which may explain why the Tower of the Winds shared the octagonal design of the Pharos, and why the Anemodoulion was mounted upon a bronze pyramidion.
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CE), one of the most influential periods in the history of Western literature, was a struggle aga... more CE), one of the most influential periods in the history of Western literature, was a struggle against a many-headed opponent. In forging a Roman literature to rival the cultural dominance of Greece, its authors set themselves the challenge of answering to a canon of texts from Homer to the Hellenistic era, and its rich collective legacy of myth. New ‘classics ’ in a range of genres, principally Vergil’s epic, the Aeneid, contributed to the construction of a new cultural identity to befit the nation ruling the world, while (and indeed through) acculturating the gods and monsters of Greek culture. The five-book astrological poem of Manilius, composed during the final years of Augustus ’ reign and under his successor Tiberius,1 was part of a growing tradition of rendering Greek science and mythology into Roman literature.2 The poetic project of the Astronomica is, in general terms, the attempt to discover the system by which divine ratio governs heaven and earth. The result, however, i...
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Near the start of Grattius' Cynegetica, a cryptic mythological exemplum warns that careless h... more Near the start of Grattius' Cynegetica, a cryptic mythological exemplum warns that careless hunting brings disaster. Most editors, including the most recent, have turned this into a version of the Gigantomachy with some strange features. In fact a much more satisfactory interpretation lies at hand with very little emendation. The exemplum is about Orion. Not only does this fit the context and match known versions of the myth, but it gives a role in Grattius' hunting poem to the most famous mythical hunter of all, who is otherwise absent.
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Horace's last Satire describes a disastrous dinner party hosted by the gourmet Nasidienus, wh... more Horace's last Satire describes a disastrous dinner party hosted by the gourmet Nasidienus, which is ruined by a collapsing tapestry. The food served afterwards is presented in a dismembered state. This article argues that several elements of the scene recall the greedy Harpies of Apollonius' Argonautica, and that Horace's friend Virgil shows the influence of this Satire in his own Harpy-scene in Aeneid 3. It also argues that the confusion in the middle of the dinner causes the food cooking in the kitchen to be neglected and burned. This explains the state of the subsequent courses, which Nasidienus has salvaged from a separate disaster backstage.
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This chapter documents a range of video games that portray classical antiquity. Two trends are id... more This chapter documents a range of video games that portray classical antiquity. Two trends are identified. One is empire-building, which tends to treat classical (especially Roman) history and seek factual accuracy. The other is hero-centred action, which tends to treat classical (especially Greek) myth and seek creative reinvention. The two trends often intersect in surprising ways.
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