A companion to the Neronian age
Introduction: The Neronian (Literary) "Renaissance" / Martin T. Dinter -- Part I. Nero -- The Performing Prince / Elaine Fantham -- Biographies of Nero / Donna W. Hurley -- Nero the Imperial Misfit : Philhellenism in a Rich Man's World / Sigrid Mratschek -- Part II. The Empire -- The empire in the age of Nero / Myles Lavan -- Apollo in arms : Nero at the frontier / David Braund -- Domus Neroniana : The Imperial Household in the Age of Nero / Michael J. Mordine -- Religion / Darja Eterbenc Erker -- Neronian Philosophy / Jenny Bryan -- Part III. Literature, Art and Architecture -- Seneca, Apocolocyntosis / Christopher L. Whitton -- The Carmina Einsidlensia and Calpurnius Siculus' Eclogues / John Henderson -- Seneca's Philosophical Writings : Naturales Quaestiones, Dialogi, Epistulae Morales / Jonathan Mannering -- Senecan Tragedy / Emma Buckley -- Lucan's Bellum Ciuile / Philip Hardie -- Petronius' Satyrica / Tom Murgatroyd -- Persius / Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols -- Columella, De Re Rustica / Christiane Reitz -- Literature of the World : Seneca's Natural Questions and Pliny's Natural History / Aude Doody -- Greek Literature Under Nero / Dirk Uwe Hansen -- Buildings of an Emperor : how Nero transformed Rome / Heinz-Jurgen Beste and Henner von Hesberg -- Portraits of an Emperor : Nero and the Sun / Marianne Bergmann -- Neronian Wall-Painting : A Matter of Perspective / Katharina Lorenz -- Part IV. Reception -- Nero in Jewish and Christian Tradition from the First Century to the Reformation / Harry O. Maier -- Haec monstra edidit : Translating Lucan in the early seventeenth century / Yanick Maes -- Haunted by Horror : The Ghost of Seneca in Renaissance Drama / Susanna Braund -- "Fantasies so varied and bizarre" : The Domus Aurea, the Renaissance, and the "grotesque" / Michael Squire -- Epilogue -- Nachwort: Nero from Zero to Hero / Miriam Griffin.
Seneca, Medea 723
Altum gurgitem Tigris premens: what is Tigris doing? Gronovius has no remark to the point. The context however points the way to interpretation. For in the list of four rivers, two others are given some word or phrase to characterize them: Hydaspes is gemmifer and Baetis is said to give his name to nearby lands. Thus altum gurgitem premens should refer to some characteristic act or condition of Tigris, not to a unique or casual occurrence. H. M. Kingery (1908, reprinted 1966) cannot be right in saying that ‘the Tigris, noted for its swift current, is pictured here as checking its deep torrent, so as to water the plants that grow in or near its bed’;
Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature
Relations between the sexes was a concern of ancient Greek thought and literature, extending from considerations of masculine and feminine roles in domestic and political spheres to the organization of the cosmos in a pantheon of gods and goddesses. This study explores the diversity and complexity of these interactions through the influential literary texts of the archaic and classical periods ranging from epic (Homer) and didactic poetry (Hesiod) to the theatrical productions of tragedy and comedy in 5th-century Athens. The author demonstrates the workings of gender as a major factor in Greek social, religious and cultural practices and in ideas about nature and culture, public and private, citizen and outsider, self and other, and mortal and immortal. Focusing on the prominence of female figures in these male authored texts, she enlarges perspectives on critical components of political order and civic identity by including issues of sexuality, the body, modes of male and female maturation, and speculations about parentage, kinship and reproductive strategies. Along with considerations of genre, poetics and theatrical mimesis, she points to the powerful myth-making capacities of Greek culture for creating memorable paradigms and dramatic scenarios that far exceed simple notions of male and female opposition and predictable enforcement of social norms.