Seneca’s contribution to the development of Western European theatre and conceptions of theatricality has been underestimated in comparison to that of Greek tragedy. This thesis argues for the continuous importance of Senecan drama in theatrical theory and practice from the sixteenth century until the present day. It examines significant instances of Seneca in performance, and shows how these draw on particular aspects of Seneca’s style and dramaturgical technique to coalesce into a sub-genre of tragedy termed here ‘hypertragedy’ or the ‘senecan aesthetic’. The underlying premise of this representational mode is that verbal (vocal) performance is a physical act and induces physical responses. This entails the consequential inference that Senecan theatre is not mimetic – that is, based on an isomorphic identification of character with performer – but rather affective; like oratory, it functions through direct, quasi-musical manipulation of the auditor’s senses. The goal of this theatrical form is to articulate extreme states of mind or experiences which cannot be conveyed via conventional mimetic means: pain, frenzy, dissolution of the self. In tracing the theories of tragedy which comprise a narrative contrapuntal to the reception of Seneca onstage, it is possible to identify the factors which have successively constructed, promoted, suppressed, reviled and finally reinstated the senecan aesthetic as philhellenism’s other.

This thesis takes as its starting point current views on the relationship between man and god in Archaic and Classical Greek literature, according to which mortality and immortality are primarily temporal concepts and, therefore, mutually exclusive. This thesis aims to show that this mutual exclusivity between mortality and immortality is emphasised only in certain poetic genres, while others, namely those centred on extraordinary achievements or exceptional moments in the life of a mortal, can reduce the temporal notion of immortality and emphasise instead the happiness, success, and undisturbed existence that characterise divine life. Here, the paradox of momentary immortality emerges as something attainable to mortals in the poetic representation of certain occasions. The chapters of this thesis pursue such notions of momentary immortality in the wedding ceremony, as presented through wedding songs, in celebrations for athletic victory, as presented through the epinician, and at certain stages of the tragic plot. In the chapter on the wedding song, the discussion focuses on explicit comparisons between the beauty of bride and bridegroom and that of heroes or gods, and between their happiness and divine bliss. The chapter on the epinician analyses the parallelism between the achievement of victory and the exploits of mythical heroes, and argues for a parallelism between the victory celebration and immortalisation. Finally, the chapter on tragedy examines how characters are perceived as godlike because of their beauty, success, or power, and discusses how these perceptions are exploited by the tragedians for certain effects. By examining features of a rhetoric of praise, this thesis is not concerned with the beliefs or expectations of the author, the recipient of praise, or the surrounding milieu. It rather intends to elucidate how moments conceived of as extraordinary are communicated in poetry.

This thesis considers the geographical and chronological forms of ‘mirroring’ that offer a way of reading 'Annals' 1-6. It looks at how Tacitus’ depictions of non-Romans reflect back on Rome, and at the echoes of Rome’s past and future that can be discerned within his description of Tiberius’ principate. After an introduction that discusses key thematic and methodological questions, Chapter 1 shows that Tiberius’ accession and the Pannonian and German mutinies described in 'Annals' 1 echo Tacitus’ account in 'Histories' 1 of events of AD 69. Moreover, when the Romans attempt to conquer Germany, the Germans’ resistance to this and to other efforts to rule them shows up Roman responses to civil war and autocracy. Chapter 2 begins by examining potential similarities between Roman and both Parthian and Armenian history, and then focuses on Germanicus’ voyage in the east, recounted in 'Annals' 2. His actions associate him with many late republican and early imperial Roman figures, which suggests that there are continuities between those two eras. Chapter 3 extends this theme by discussing the echoes of Sallust and Caesar in the central books of the Tiberian hexad. Intertexts with Sallust’s 'Bellum Catilinae' especially hint that earlier civil conflicts are about to be replayed in some form, as the appearance of Sejanus, the ‘new Catiline’, confirms. Chapter 4 further considers Tacitus’ inferences about the overlap between republican and imperial history, and then examines anti-Roman revolts in 'Annals' 2, 3 and 4. Foreign rebels’ relative success in attempting to reclaim their freedom correlates with their distance from Rome, and this has clear implications for the status of Roman 'libertas' under Tiberius. Finally, the outbreak of ‘civil war within the principate’, and indeed within the imperial house, is analysed. Chapter 5 traces the continuation of this ‘civil war’, and proposes that the last book of the Tiberian hexad again looks directly to 69, as well as to the excesses of other Julio-Claudians. It also considers Tacitus’ account of Roman intervention in Parthia: this episode confirms imperial Rome’s propensity for autocracy and civil war. There follows a short conclusion in which some speculation is offered about how some of the themes discussed in this thesis with reference to the Tiberian hexad may have been represented in the lost central books of the 'Annals'.

Im September 2008 fand der 4. Potsdamer Lateintag statt. Er war Bestandteil des auf drei Jahre angelegten Brandenburger Antike-Denkwerks (BrAnD), das von der Robert Bosch Stiftung gefördert wurde. Der Band versammelt die Vorträge des Lateintags von Frau Prof. Dr. Chr. Kunst und Herrn Prof. Dr. M. Janka sowie eine Auswahl der Berichte zu den Schulprojekten. / In September 2008 the ‚Potsdamer Lateintag‘ took place for the fourth time. At the same time the second topic of the ‚Brandenburger Antike-Denkwerk‘, a project funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation, was presented: “o tempora. o mores. Relevance and relativity of values”. Nowadays, when the discussion ofmoral values has become relevant again, one is often looking at values of the ancient world but without thorough examination. In an attempt to differentiate themselves from other cultures or political/social systems politicians and social scientists go back to the common intellectual and cultural history of Europe. In this project the distinctivenessof the Roman values was to be examined: What was the meaning of the so called mos maiorum? How could these values be passed on over such a long time? How did they ‚work‘? What was the reason for the much lamented decline of the values in the late republic? Can we even compare these values with ours? In this volume you can find the lectures from the Lateintag given by Prof. Dr. Chr. Kunst and Prof. Dr. M. Janka as well as reports on the whole project and on some of the schoolprojects.

Zugl.: Oxford, University, Diss. - Bibliogr. S. (511)--548.

Le travail proposé est centré sur une incription d’Este retrouvée en 1979. Décrite à partir des années 1990 par des chercheurs comme Anna Marinetti ou Aldo-Luigi Prosdocimi, elle n’a cependant jamais été complètement traduite. Nous formulons des pistes de compréhension du texte, en partant d’une analyse la plus précise possible de l’objet en lui-même et en rapprochant les termes de l’inscription d’autres mots figurant dans le corpus vénète. L’étude de ce texte d’Este permet ainsi de parcourir l’ensemble des inscriptions vénètes et d’envisager à la fois la langue de ce peuple et leur civilisation, à travers notamment les rapports entre Este, Padoue et les Celtes. / The proposed study focuses on an inscription found during excavations in Este in 1979. From the 1990’s onwards researchers like Anna Marinetti or Aldo[…] analysed  the text,  but without being able to fully/completely  translate the inscription. Their interpretations form the basis of our (study/work/analysis). After studying the epigraphic characteristics of this inscription we will formulate new hypothesis on its meaning. The text cannot be separated from the rest of the venetic inscriptions. This study encompasses the language of the Venetic  People, its civilization and especially  relations between Padova, Este and the Celts.

This thesis presents the claimed Protovillanova pottery from Luni sul Mignone and San Giovenale through a typological study. The pottery from San Giovenale and Luni is then compared to Bronzo Finale, Bronzo Recente and Protovillanova pottery from various sites in central and northern Italy. The reason for the comparison is to establish if the pottery should be categorized as a cultural expression or to a certain time period. Included in this study is a discussion on whether the term Protovillanovan should be used or not and if it really describes cultural phenomenon active during the Bronze Age or if it describes the same phenomena of the Bronze Age but with a different name.

This thesis examines the hair imagery that runs through the works of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. Comparative analysis of the elegists’ approaches to the motif, with particular emphasis on determining where and how each deviates from the cultural assumptions and literary tradition attached to each image, sheds light on the character and purposes of elegy as a genre, as well as on the individual aims and innovations of each poet. The Introduction provides some background on sociological approaches to the study of hair, and considers the reasons why hair imagery should have such a prominent presence in elegy. Chapter 1 focuses on the elegists’ engagement with the idea of cultus (‘cultivation’), and their manipulation of the connotations traditionally attached to elaborate hairstyles, of sophistication on the one hand, and immorality on the other, to suit an elegiac context. Chapter 2 looks at how the complexities of the power relationship between the lover and his mistress play out in references to violent hair-pulling. Chapter 3 focuses on the sometimes positively and sometimes negatively spun image of grey-haired lovers, as a reflection of the lover-poet’s own contradictory wishes for his relationship with his mistress; it also considers grey hair as a symbol of physical mortality, as contrasted with poetic immortality. Chapter 4 examines the use of images of loose hair (especially images of dishevelled mourning) to suggest connotations ranging from the erotic to the pathetic, and focuses on the effects the elegists achieve by using a single image to communicate multiple implications. The Conclusion considers the ‘afterlife’ of elegiac hair imagery: the influence that their approaches had on later authors’ handling of similar images.

This thesis focuses on the ancient reception of the Categories of Aristotle, a work which served continuously, from late antiquity into the early modern period (Frede 1987), as the student’s introduction to philosophy.  There had previously been no comprehensive study of the reception of the Categories during the age of the first philosophical commentaries (c. 80 BC to AD 220). In this study, I have collected, assigned, and analyzed the relevant fragments of commentary belonging to this period, including some that were previously undocumented or inexplicit in the source texts, and sought to establish and characterize the influence of the early commentators’ activity on the subsequent Peripatetic tradition. In particular, I trace the early evolution of criticism and defense of the text through competing accounts of its aim (skopos), which would ultimately lead Stoic and Platonic philosophers to a partial acceptance of the Categories and frame its role in the later Neo-Platonic curriculum.

This thesis offers an approach to the history of mythographical discourse through the figure of Theseus and his appearances in texts from England, Italy and France. Analysing a range of poetic, historical, and allegorical works that feature Theseus alongside their classical and contemporary intertexts, it is a study of the conceptions of Greco-Roman mythology prevalent in European literature from 1300-1600. Focusing on mythology’s pervasive presence as a background to medieval and early modern literary and intellectual culture, it draws attention to the fragmentary, fluid and polymorphous nature of mythology in relation to its use for different purposes in a wide range of texts. The first impact of this study is to draw attention to the distinction between mythology and mythography, as a means of focusing on the full range of interpretative processes associated with the ancient myths in their textual forms. Returning attention to the processes by which writers and readers came to know the Greco-Roman myths, it widens the commonly accepted critical definition of ‘mythography’ to include any writing of or on mythology, while restricting ‘mythology’ to its abstract sense, meaning a traditional collection of tales that exceeds any one text. This distinction allows the analyses of the study’s primary texts to display the full range of interpretative processes and possibilities involved in rewriting mythology, and to outline a spectrum of linked but distinctive mythographical genres that define those possibilities. Breaking down into two parts of three chapters each, the thesis examines Theseus’ appearances across these mythographical genres, first in the period from 1300 to the birth of print, and then from the birth of print up to 1600. Taking as its primary texts works by Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate and William Shakespeare along with their classical intertexts, it situates each of them in regard to their multiple defining contexts. Paying close attention to the European traditions of commentary, translation and response to classical sources, it shows mythographical discourse as a vibrant aspect of medieval and early modern literary culture, equally embedded in classical traditions and contemporary traditions that transcended national and linguistic boundaries.