O ciclope de Eurípides é o único exemplo completo do que se conhecia na Grécia Antiga como drama satírico, ranqueando-se, portanto, como um dos textos mais elucidativos e preciosos para os estudos clássicos. Eurípides constrói o enredo na intertextualidade com o famoso canto IX da Odisseia, em que Odisseu e seus companheiros se encontram prisioneiros do monstruoso ciclope Polifemo: Eurípides reutiliza a tradição homérica, épico-mítica, em uma releitura cômica, típica do drama satírico. A fim de realizar um estudo sobre a natureza do drama satírico, esta dissertação se centra no estudo deste texto euripidiano, dividindo-se, deste modo, em três partes: na primeira, faz-se um estudo a respeito do gênero do drama satírico, analisando as características que se pode inferir do mesmo a partir de, especialmente, o texto de Eurípides, além de outras fontes; na segunda, desenvolve-se um estudo do coro do drama satírico e da figura que o compõe: o sátiro. Num terceiro momento, ainda, esta dissertação apresenta uma tradução do texto grego para o português moderno. / The Cyclops of Euripides is the one complete example of what was known in Ancient Greece as the satyr play, therefore ranking itself as one of the more enlightening texts and precious object to the classical studies. Euripides presents the plot in intertextuality with the famous book IX of the Odyssey, where Odysseus and his companions are prisoners of monstrous cyclops Polyphemus: Euripides reuses the homeric tradition, epic and mythic, in a comic retelling, feature that would be typical to the satyr play. In order to presente a study of the nature of the satyr play, this dissertation focuses itself in studying this Euripidean text, and so divided in three parts: first, a study of the gender that is the satyr play, analyzing its features that we can infer from Euripidean text, and also other sources; secondly, a study of the chorus of the satyr play and the figure that is part of it: the satyr. Thirdly, this dissertation presents a translation of the Greek text to modern Portuguese.

The dissertation investigates the concept of ethnicity and race in three related cultures from the ancient Eastern Mediterranean by analyzing key ethnological terms, in their original languages and contexts, in order to determine their similarity to and difference from a modern anthropological definition of ethnicity. It employs an ethno-symbolic approach to social identity in order to evaluate the similarity and difference of terms for so-called "ethnic groups" in Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, and Middle Babylonian. The evaluation is carried out using a historical comparative approach, first in three individual case studies and then synthetically. The study attempts to provide a documentary foundation for the critical, theoretical use of ancient documents in social and identity research, and the results suggest that a named collective of people from the first millennium BCE or later could be an ethnic group in the modern sense of the term (an ethnie), but that such terminology is generally imprecise before 1000 BCE.

Esta pesquisa é basicamente desenvolvida em duas partes: (i) um capítulo introdutório, discutindo os principais problemas que envolvem a obra, além de algumas informações que julgamos relevantes acerca de alguns personagens que figuram no livro II; e (ii) a tradução do livro II das Helênicas. Em ambas as duas partes inserimos notas de rodapé de natureza histórica, linguística e/ou literária que contribuem para o esclarecimento de aspectos relevantes do texto. Na primeira parte desta pesquisa, fazemos um breve resumo das Helênicas, com ênfase no livro II. Com base na leitura da bibliografia crítica, comentamos brevemente algumas das principais questões em torno da obra: (i) a questão da composição; (ii) a suposição de que a primeira parte das Helênicas seja uma continuidade da História da Guerra do Peloponeso de Tucídides; (iii) nexos com seus predecessores: Heródoto e Tucídides; (iv) o caráter didático de cunho moral das Helênicas e, finalmente, (v) a repercussão e receptividade das Helênicas na Antiguidade e nos estudos mais recentes. Para a tradução e o estudo do texto grego, utilizamos a edição de E. C. Marchant (Oxford Classical Texts, 2008) / This research is basically divided in two parts: (i) an introductory chapter, discussing the main issues concerning the work, and providing additionally some biographical details about the main characters of Book II; and (ii) the translation into Portuguese of Book II of Xenophon\'s Hellenica. The study is enriched by footnotes with historical, linguistic and/or literary informations in order to clarify relevant aspects of the text. In the introductory chapter, we present a brief summary of Xenophon\'s Hellenica emphasizing the content of Book II. Based on the recent literature on Xenophon, we comment briefly some important issues concerning the work as a whole, such as (i) the problem of its composition and arrangement; (ii) the assumption that the first part of the Hellenica consists in a continuation of Thucydides\' History of the Peloponnesian War; (iii) Xenophon\'s relationship with his predecessors: Herodotus and Thucydides; (iv) the ethical and didactical purpose of the Hellenica, and finally (v) the reception of the Hellenica in Antiquity and in the modern and contemporary literature on Xenophon. For the translation and the study of the Greek text we have used EC Marchant\'s edition (Oxford Classical Texts, 2008)

In this study, I show that the figure of Minos, the mythic ruler of Bronze-Age Crete, functioned in Greek literature of the Archaic Age to the fifth century BCE as a mythical conduit elucidating three notions central to the interests of Greek thought: epic kingship, tyranny, and thalassocracy. A destructive-minded individual and judge in epic, Minos resonates with the portrayal of Homeric monarchs, who display destructive behavior toward their subjects, yet bestow upon them the benefits of adjudication. Further, Minos is deliberately exploited as a precedent by Odysseus, as the hero resolves to use self-help against the suitors rather than a settlement in court. As a result, the epic representation of Minos is far from being marginal to the Homeric poems, as usually assumed. In fifth-century Athenian literature the character is demonstrably portrayed as a tyrant. The shift in the portrayal of Minos is only apparently inconsequent. Artistic and literary evidence is mustered to suggest that the Athenians perceived Minos’ epic role of judge as incompatible with their administration and conception of justice, and that adjudication could serve as a springboard for the achievement of tyranny. In his trajectory from judge to tyrant, Minos thus illustrated the fine line separating justice from tyranny. Again in the fifth century, Minos is envisaged as a thalassocrat. I contend that his thalassocracy is a construct developed by fifth-century historians and based upon earlier traditions that associated Minos’ sea power with the attainment of the status of supreme monarch. Minos’ thalassocracy instead had the quite different implication that its holder would incline toward tyranny. Minos’ thalassocracy, thus, is relevant to Athens maritime empire, also thought of as a tyrannical rule. An ominous model for Athens, Minos’ thalassocracy is both denied and accorded primacy among the sea powers by the historians. Whether accepted or denied, Minos constituted a reference point for the current Athenian archē. / text

This dissertation investigates how Augustan poetry imagines, redefines and reconfigures the idea of the chorus. It argues that the chorus, a quintessential marker of Greek culture, was translated and transformed into a peculiarly Roman phenomenon whereby poets invented their relationship with an imagined past and implicated it in the present. Augustan poets, I suggest, created a sustained and intensely intertextual choral poetics that played into contemporary poetic debates about the power of writing versus song and the complexity of responding to performance culture through multiple layers of written tradition. Focusing in particular on Virgil’s Aeneid, Propertius’ Elegies and Horace’s Odes, the dissertation uses a series of case studies to trace the role played by scenes of embedded choral song and dance in Augustan poetics. The scene is set by comparing how a range of texts respond differently to a single fundamental aspect of Greek choral culture—the figure of the chorus leader—and by establishing Catullus as an important predecessor to Augustan choral discourse. The dissertation then turns to explore how choral language and imagery become involved in some of the central issues of Augustan poetry: Latin love poetry’s construction of female desirability and male anxiety, the creation of poetic authority in Augustan lyric and elegy, and the search for the origins of Roman ritual in Virgil’s Aeneid. Finally, these embedded scenes are juxtaposed with Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, a text composed, remarkably, for choral performance on the Roman civic stage, which is shown to activate the choral metaphor that had been created by the Latin literary imagination. By demonstrating Augustan poetry’s engagement with this aspect of Greek performance culture, the study sheds new light on the relationship between Greek and Roman poetry, shifting the focus from the reinvention of Greek genres and the study of particular sites of allusion towards an understanding of the complex dynamics of reception and reconfiguration at work in these poets’ reappropriation of both a literary and cultural idea. / The Classics

Mythological figures play a number of roles in literature: they may, of course, appear in person as developed characters, but they may also contribute more indirectly, as part of the substratum from which rhetorical argument or literary characterisation are constructed, or as a background against which other literary strategies (for example, the rewriting of epic or the appropriation of Greek culture by the Romans) can be marked out. This thesis sets out to examine the way in which the figure of Penelope emerges from unknown origins, acquires portrayal in almost canonical form in Homer's Odyssey, and then takes part in the subsequent interplay of Homeric and other literary allusions throughout later Classical literature (with chapters focusing particularly on fifth-century Greek tragedy, Hellenistic poetry, and Augustan poetry). In particular, it focuses on the manner in which, despite the potential complexities of the character and the possible variants in her story, she became quintessentially a stereotypical figure. In addition to considering example where Penelope is evoked by name, a case is also made for the thesis that allusion, or intertextual reference, could also evoke Penelope for an ancient audience. A central point of discussion is what perception of Penelope would be called to mind by intertextual reference. The importance of approaching relationships between ancient texts in intertextual terms rather terms of strict "allusion" is thus demonstrated. The formation of the simplified picture is considered in the light of folk-tale motifs, rhetorical simplification of myth, and favoured story patterns. The appendices include a summary of the myth of Penelope with all attested variants, and a comprehensive list of explicit references to her in classical literature.

This thesis argues that sanctuaries of the gods played a significant role in the political life of the Greek polis in the archaic and classical periods, and that the politics of the period cannot be understood fully without consideration of religion. It uses the text of Herodotos as a source of evidence about the history and perceptions of the period, but also makes use of other literary and archaeological evidence, so that the resulting models may be considered generally useful for the study of the period. Ch. 1 lays out the background to the subject; ch. 2 is an analysis of the activities related to sanctuaries described by Herodotos; ch. 3 examines sanctuaries as the meeting places of federations of Greek states, as well as investigating the nature of sanctuaries as areas of bounded space, showing that political meetings were frequently, if not always, held in sanctuaries, and that this was perceived as allowing some divine influence on decisions; ch. 4 investigates the dedications made at sanctuaries by foreigners, as part of a diplomatic process, showing that they provided a means of access to the polis as well as the god; ch. 5 compares the dedication of booty at sanctuaries with the construction of the battlefield trophy; ch. 6 argues that Herodotos portrays divine intervention as always happening through sanctuaries; ch. 7 argues that Herodotos' frequent mentions of Delphi are a sign of its importance in Greek history, not his own interest; ch. 8 draws some of these ideas together and suggests some general explanations for the importance of sanctuaries, as providing symbolic control of access to the polis, and bestowing authority on decisions taken by assemblies. Finally it suggests that Herodotos's inclusion of religious matters in his histories increases his importance as a source and an historian.

This thesis investigates the construction and reflection of gender identities in the religious sphere, namely the gods, their worshippers, and the rituals which link them. Religiously-interested Greek texts written by Artemidoros, Pausanias, Plutarch and Heliodoros in the second and third centuries A.D. form the basis of four chapter- studies. The introduction explores how deploying gender as a tool for investigating the texts reveals the author's own perceptions of how male and female operate within his discourse, and considers how these perceptions relate to the world beyond the text. Chapter two examines Artemidoros' Interpretation of Dreams: his analytical system of dream interpretation reveals contemporary thought patterns. Artemidoros places striking reliance on gender in his structuring of divine and human power, and employs two differing divine models of gender, which have significant implications for the social construction of human gender. Chapter three emphasizes Pausanias' fascination with the marvellous in his Guide to Greece, and focuses on why he considers female priests more noteworthy than male. The problematic sexuality of female priests is frequently his focus in descriptions of myth and rite. The fourth chapter considers Plutarch's Pythian dialogues and Isis and Osiris. It is the marriage-like nature of their relationship with their gods that makes both human and divine females perfect mediators between worshippers and their male god, the Pythia with Apollo, and Isis with Osiris. Chapter five finds a middle way between opposing views that Heliodoros' An Ethiopian Story is either a religious mystery text or entertainment without religious meaning. It focuses on how the relationship between the two lovers, Theagenes and Charikleia, is patterned by their relationship to their gods, Apollo and Artemis. The concluding chapter draws out the significance of gendered hierarchy amongst the gods, and the importance of gender in the role and function of priests and prophets. It also considers the implications of the thesis' findings and approach for Jewish and Christian texts of the same period.

The material of this thesis is the area of personal humour roughly covered by τὸ ὸνομαστὶ κωμῳ<greek letter>ε<greek letter>ν - the body of jokes which involve reference or allusion to individuals from the contemporary or near contemporary world, and which gave rise to the ancient compilation of κωμῳδούμεν<greek letter>ι. In an introductory chapter I draw on the combined evidence of plays and fragments to give some impression of the role of this type of satire in Old Comedy as a whole in the later fifth century, stressing in particular the overlap between Aristophanes' choice of targets and his rivals', and suggesting that this indicates the genre's capacity to create publicity for its own exploitation. The second chapter analyses the treatment of personal jokes in the scholia on Aristophanes, and shows that this typically involves a questionable model of satire, largely taken over by modern commentators on the plays, as a reflector of the truth about its targets. In the third chapter I argue that we need to adopt a view of Aristophanes as a much more active creator of publicity and of satirical images which may often owe as much to the appeal of popular stereotypes of disapproved behaviour as to the facts about the individuals to whom they are comically attached. Chapter four concentrates on choral jokes, demonstrating in particular the special scope for inventive satirical colour allowed by the separation of the major choral sections from the concerns of the dramatic episodes. The final chapter focusses on a variety of functional, formal and technical aspects of personal jokes: these include the ways in which jokes are integrated into the composition of dialogue; comically expressive uses of antilabe; the importance of the position of a name within the structure of a joke; and visual elements in personal satire. An index of names and references is included.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request