The paper offers a summary of the two days’ work 7 and 8 November 2019 on the theme ‘going to theater in Rome in the first century B.C.’, about the epochal socio-political transformations that have changed dramatic genres, performing art, theatrical structures and collective sensitivity towards the theater in the Capital, influencing the peripheries. The combination of different disciplinary approaches (archaeology and history of theatrical architecture, history of literature, history of performative arts and genres, political history of Rome during the civil wars and the beginning pf the Principate; history of Roman culture between conservatism and innovation) allows us to arrive at a more varied and complete synthetic framework than those already available.
This contribution focuses on the reception of the Roman tragedy of the archaic age, as can be retrieved from Cicero’s testimony, based on the attendance of theatrical representations and stimulated by the contiguity between the dramatic performance and that of the orator (as often emphasized by Cicero himself ), with regard, in particular, to vocal and gestural language and to the role played by pathos for the purpose of capturing the audience. After a quick synthesis on the innovations introduced by Cicero in rhetorical theory in relation to these aspects, an anthology of passages illustrates the dramatic techniques adopted by the actors, the use of dramatic representations for political purposes, and the different responses of the audience to the ethical and emotional solicitations produced by the texts performed on stage.
In the pro Sestio Cicero documents the complex relationship of the Latin theater of the first century BC with the ‘evenemential’ reality. In fact, he describes the rituals of collective presence, the whistles and the applause, that is, those significationes, which manifest the will of public opinion. But Cicero, through the story of the theatrical day of 57 BC, makes us understand how the practice of actualizing dramatic texts was a usual way. Roman spectators were ready to grasp in the theatrical communication those topics that seemed to cadere in tempus. An important fact to understand a theatrical reception that passed through a ‘Romanization’ and that in otherness could find its identity and even the present.
An epigraph from Cuma but nowadays lost commemorates Gnaeus Lucceius, author of Atellan comedies and exodia similar to those of Lucius Pomponius. The identification of two iambic senari into the inscription allows to better understand the life and the work of this poet, who was probably a member of the affluent and prestigious family of the Luccei of Cuma in the 1st century BC.
In this paper I aim to propose some reflections on the developments and transformations of Latin comic theatre during the first century BC, a period characterised, as we know, by an evident decline of the comoedia palliata and during which the public’s preferences are directed towards the togata and those comic genres that draw inspiration from the popular Greek and Italic tradition, such as mime and Atellanfarce, but that develop new forms with respect to their origins.
The article analyzes the testimonies regarding the revival phenomenon in Republican tragedy. Based upon an outline given as a starting point, in which a Republican tragedy may be distinguished from an Augustan matrix, it discusses socio-political reasons, which have led to the various cultural changings in between 2nd and 1st centuries BC, and specifically the transformation of the theater perception by the public and by the same playwrights. Therefore it examines sources that give information on Republican period tragedians and which are the object of the revival.
The aim of the present contribute is to provide an outline of the theatralical forms in Rome during the first century BC, collecting literary texts with contemporary archaeological sources, epigraphic documents and papyri. The data are framed in the social context in which the traditional forms of theatre – tragedy and comedy – and other entertaining shows, such as pantomime and mime have developed.
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between Sulla and people of the stage, the evolution of luxuria concept in the generation after Sulla particularly focusing on Lucullus and at last the possible link between the conquest of the Hellenistic East accomplished by Pompey and the building of a permanent theatre in 55 BC.
FORUM. Repenser la religion à Rome: crise de la République et représentation des dieux
In spring of 56 BC Cicero delivered a speech before the senate in which he attempted to prove that a recent earthquake prodigy arose as a result of the actions of his political opponent, Publius Clodius. Cicero employs evidence that resembles Varro’s three different ways of treating the divine: the mythic, the civic, and the philosophical. This essay examines the intersections between Cicero’s tactics and the so-called ‘tripartite theology’ of Varro.
The use of the auspicia was an extraordinary instrument of political struggle in Cicero’s Rome; for this reason it was the object of numerous attentions, such as those, entirely theoretical, of Cicero, and that, much more practical, of his enemy Clodius.
My contribution aims to offer a new reading of fr. 1 Cardauns from Varro’s Divine Antiquities. In this fragment the association of the Sabin goddess Vacuna with Victoria can be linked to the dedication of the work to Caesar and to the political context of the Civil War. The etymological explanation of this interpretatio, in turn, sheds light on the philosophical character of the passage. In fr. 1 Cardauns, religion, philosophy, and politics ultimately constitute a compact whole, where each element supports and legitimates the others.
Virgil reflects knowledge of Varro’s Divine Antiquities (Antiquitates rerum divinarum) in the Aeneid. Virgil responded to and transformed Varronian material, and related it to his Homeric framework and the other literary traditions that he used. This article gives an overview of the relations between the Aeneid and Varro’s Divine Antiquities, covering the following topics: antiquarianism in the Aeneid; antiquarian prequels between myth and history; the politics of antiquarianism; the Varronian and Samothracian origins of Virgil’s penates; and the Aeneid’s tripartite theology.
Horace is commonly considered to be close to Epicurean thought and, therefore, skeptical when it comes to the ultimate validity of traditional religion. However, a more thorough investigation of Horace’s philosophical education, in relation to the distinction between hexametrical sermo and lyrical carmen as literary forms, allows us to observe the actual presence of the ‘irrational’ and the divine in Horace. In building his lyrical architecture, Horace reveals that he regards divine figures as structural points of reference, whose description follows a precise ritual pattern.
In Ovid’s mythological poetry, the rare adjective pudibundus defines some female characters (first of all, Philomela; but also Lucretia, Echo and the incestuous heroines: Canace, Byblis and Myrrha) characterized by the impossibility, or difficulty, of speaking. The article inspects the narrative and rhetorical patterns that stress such impossibility, by creating a true rhetoric of reticence that discloses the narrow link between pudor and the loss of speech.
The medieval reviewer (B3) of the codex B (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica, Pal. lat. 1615; Plautus) has made interesting corrections, especially in the first eight Plautus’ comedies. This essay is part of a larger project aiming to study the work of B3. In this paper, we investigate the various interventions of B3 in Plautus’ Asinaria. This research project will be useful for every philological study to Plautus’ comedies and to the medieval approach to classical texts.
The paper focuses on frg. 447 B. of Varro’s satire Quinquatrus and on its testimony, a lemma (p. 340, 13-14 Lindsay) in Nonius Marcellus’ De compendiosa doctrina, suggesting a new textual arrangement for the passage and advancing some hexegetical reflections for the interpretation of both the fragment and the satire on the whole.
Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon quotes Homer less frequently than other Greek novels, but it often refers to the epic tradition in a subtle and sophisticated way. A few intertexts suggest that gender issues (such as role exchanges between men and women) and cultural mediations (other texts, literary genres, or figurative arts providing a bridge between epic and the novel) are important elements in the evolution of an epic hero into a novelistic character. Parallels with the Homeric scholia show that Achilles Tatius’ writing style can combine learning and humour, two of the most important features of the ‘heroism’ of some of his characters.
Il 22 marzo al Museo Diocesano, in occasione del festival Soul, i filosofi Hunyadi e Benasayag rifletteranno sulla fiducia nell’altro nell'era digitale.
19-23 marzo torna SOUL, il Festival della Spiritualità di Milano: tra gli autori Petrosino, Bartolomei, Wolf, Sequeri, Spadaro, Ossola. Scopri gli eventi
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