Abstract The intertextual relationship between Flavian poetry and Greek literature has been of increasing scholarly interest in recent years. 1 Statius, specifically, adopted and reworked several themes which are central to Greek drama, not to mention the influence the latter exerted on his character sketching, descriptions, motifs and poetic art in general. 2
This article is a reinterpretation of the iconography of an ancient calendar frieze that stretches across the west side of Athens' so-called Church of Aghios Eleutherios, otherwise known as the Little Metropolis. This is the first article that identifies all forty-one figures that form at least three calendars. Symbols of the zodiac and other important constellations or stars (Bo & ouml;tes, Orion, and Perseus, as well as the Dog or Sirius) represent (1) the sidereal-year calendar; personifications of seasons represent (2) the solar year; and personifications of the synodic lunar months and their attending festivals represent (3) the Athenian festival calendar. It is the first thorough discussion of personified seasons as representatives of the solar year, accommodating both three- and four-season models, with the winged figure of Dik & emacr;/Eirene/Parthenos/Virgo serving as a season and constellation as well as a goddess. Festival representations include a victorious youth treading the grapes; Kronos and perhaps worshippers of M & emacr;n, an imported moon god; a lampadophoros riding a donkey at the Hephaistia; the crowning of an Archon Basileus; and Hebe and Herakles at the Genesia. These and other figures, e.g. the zodiac figure Ch & emacr;lai, rather than Zugos/Libra, encourage a Hellenistic date which, in consideration of the physical details of the frieze block, can be assigned to the prothyron or gateway of a gymnasium, most likely the Ptolemaion.
This is an exploratory reading of a distinctive text, a 43-line hexameter Greek poem composed for Domitian's Games for Capitoline Jupiter in 94 CE by Quintus Sulpicius Maximus, who was 11 years old. The following discussion considers the case of this talented but inevitably inexpert poet, and its implications for our reading practices as classicists.
The paper discusses a dozen passages from book 2 of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, proposing some twenty new conjectures.
This paper provides a close reading of Phylarchus Fragment 44 (Ath. 4.20-1, 141F-42f) against the backdrop of the Hellenistic discourse of kingship, on the one hand, and the developments in the Spartan kings' approach to monarchical rule, on the other. It argues that the characterisation of Cleomenes in Fragment 44 is rooted in a discourse on kingship that was contemporaneous with Phylarchus, and that his text's prevailing theme is the king's sigma omega phi rho omicron sigma upsilon nu eta as opposed to upsilon beta rho iota & varsigma;.
