Agamemnon in Herodotus and Thucydides: Exploring the historical uses of a mythological paradigm
This paper explores the use of the myth of Agamemnon in Herodotus and Thucydides. I argue that the deployment of Agamemnon in their works is shaped by, and sheds additional light on, the historians’ attitude toward myth (and its use in rhetoric), their narrative aims and historical outlook. Herodotus’ readiness to embrace myth in both narrative and speeches, his representation of complex motivation, his description of the conflict between the Greeks and the Persians, and his panhellenic outlook, influence the function of Agamemnon: as king of Sparta and the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War, he reflects the idealistic and pragmatic motivation of the Spartans in the context of the Persian Wars. Agamemnon’s function in Thucydides is different since it is affected by the general avoidance of mythological argument – especially in rhetoric – and its merely relative significance, the description of a war between the Greeks, Thucydides’ pragmatism, and his writing for posterity: aptly replaced by Sparta’s Dorianism in the context of the war against Athens, Agamemnon becomes a contemporary tyrant king who may represent any city or individual yearning for power and empire.
Epic interactions : perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the epic tradition : presented to Jasper Griffin by former pupils
1. Homer and the Early Epic Tradition 2. Homer's Religion: Philological Perspectives from Indo-European and Semitic 3. Homer and Herodotus 4. Hellenistic Epic and Homeric Form 5. The Aeneid: Inheritance and Empire 6. The Epic and Monuments: Interactions between Virgil's Aeneid and the Augustan Building Programme 7. Augustan Responses to the Aeneid 8. Statius and the Sublimity of Capaneus 9. Achilles, Beowulf, and Cu Chulainn: Continuity and Analogy from Homer to the Medieval North 10. Quantum mutatus ab illo: Moments of Change and Recognition in Tasso and Milton 11. The Idea of Epic in the Nineteenth Century 12. Epilogue
Fortune and Responsibility in Calderón's La gran Cenobia
La gran Cenobia deals with the war between Queen Zenobia of Palmyra and the Emperor Aurelian. Calderón de la Barca draws most of his information from historical sources; the dramatist, however, changes history and adapts it to his own dramatic purpose. The theme of Fortune gives unity to the play. Aureliano is portrayed as a tyrant who, to prove his independence from Fortune, behaves tyrannically, causing his eventual downfall. Cenobia believes that Fortune controls her life, but does not acknowledge that her own actions contribute to her misfortune. The analysis concludes that Fortune, as depicted in this play, is not an omnipotent and blind force, but what one has forged with his or her own actions coupled with the actions of others and circumstance.