Brown Classical Journal, Volume 32, 2020
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B Brown Classical Journal r o w n C l a s s i c a l J o u r n a l V o l u m e 3 2 Volume 32 2020 Editors in Chief Victoria Lansing Kaleb Hood Abby Wells Faculty Advisor Pura Nieto-Hernandez Editorial Staff Joseph Fleming James Flynn Shawn Kant JP Mayer Mia Brossoie David Sacks Rachel Sklar Anna Barnett David Del Terzo Braden Donoian Michael Geisinger Jeremy Jason Opal Lambert James Leroux Michal Loren Leo McMahon Colin Olson Kate Van Riper Cover Design by Rachel Moss “Vulcan’s Forge” This volume was published by the Department of Classics at Brown University. The Department gratefully acknowledges the Program in Medieval Studies, the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of Egyptology and Assyriology, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, the Program in Early Cultures, and Matthew V. Grieco ’91. © 2020 Brown Classical Journal ISSN 1043-0156 Brown Classical Journal Volume 32 2020 Brown Classical Journal Volume 32 The Philosopher’s Flight: Cicero’s Contempt for Earthly Life 1 in the Tusculanae Disputationes David Sacks Empathy Both Ways: The Use of Nature in Saigyo’s Poetry 15 JP Mayer The Presence of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the Conversions of 19 Augustine’s Confessions Kelly Clark Imperfect Representations of the Human Body in Hellenistic 25 Greece, Republican Rome, and Medieval Germany Kate Van Riper Prometheus, or for the Sake of Myself a God 33 Annabelle Hutchinson Menaechmi: Palla 35 Leo McMahon The Byzantine Hippodrome and Circus Factions: The 41 Political Power of Constantinople’s Sporting Culture Thomas Wilson The Sense of Smell in the Homeric Hymns 49 Victoria Lansing Vergil Eclogue IV Translation 61 Anna Barnett Commentary: Demeter’s Tale of Her Past (122-134) 65 Hannah Grosserichter How Do You Read Homer? Ethics, Epistemology, and the 69 Self in Homeric Scholarship Aliosha Pittaka Bielenberg “Deadly Erinys of Latium”: Cleopatra’s Power in Lucan’s 87 Civil War Michal Loren Cataline and the Confessions: An Indictment of Human 93 Sin Shawn Kant Pindar and the Artistic Self in Olympian 1 101 David Del Terzo Cato the Elder: A Model of Romanitas 105 Annabelle Hutchinson Xenophon’s Pragmatism towards Foreigners in the Poroi, 109 Lacedaimonion Politeia, and Hieron Zoë Mermelstein Lamentable Expectations: Understanding the Woman’s 115 Lament Through the Wealtheow/Grendel’s Mother Dichotomy in Beowulf Opal Lambert Agency in Ancient Exile Literature 121 Kaleb Hood The Last Struggle of Oenone 127 Michael Geisinger The Group and the Individual in Horace I:37 131 Jack Briano Ladies’ Latin 135 Mia Brossoie Restraint and Moderation in Archilochus’ Fragment 26 143 Reid Merzbacher Euripides, 2019 147 JP Mayer Embodying the “Ideal Wife”: An Exploration of Hera and 149 Penelope Jasmine Bacchus The Alexander Mosaic 159 James Flynn A Comparative Analysis of the Cretan Law at Dreros and 165 the Hammurabi Code Colin Olson Aeolus 171 Joseph Fleming What the Ancient Roman Taboo on eating Dormice Can 173 Tell Us About the Modern French Taboo on Eating Ortolan Daniel Betensky An Ode to My Past Self 181 Jeremy Jason दे िवमाहात, ∆ούργα Μεταφρασθεῖσα ἐκ τοῦ Βραχ3άν6/"7, 183 and Devimahatmyam, Markandeyi Purani Sectio Edidit Latinam Interpretationem: A Comparative Analysis of Greek and Latin Translations of the Devīmāhātmya Abby Wells List of Photographs and Artwork Rays of Light over the Pantheon 32 Rachel Sklar Tiberius’ ‘Mancave’ (Sperlonga, Italy) 64 Braden Donoion Discovering the Alcmaeonidae 100 Maya Smith Ruins of a Roman Street in Beit She'an 130 Rachel Sklar Temple of Hera (Paestum, Italy) 164 Braden Donoion Inscription at Ostia: Originally over the Porta Romana as 180 part of the walls of Ostia, parts of the phrase "Senatus Populusque coloniae Ostiensium" can be seen, April 2018 Rachel Sklar Cover Art Statement For this year's issue subject of Aeneas’ shield, I hoped to divert from the typical artistic depictions of the presentation of the shield or the battle with Turnus. Instead, for the cover I chose to depict the creation of Aeneas’ shield in the hopes of capturing allusions of divine creation, as well as the warmth of the forge and of creation itself. Somewhat visible behind the workers a figure alluding to Venus is seen, carefully observing the work’s creation on her son’s behalf. For the back cover, I chose to depict Aeneas holding the shield at his side just below his face. Such a presentation flattens the composition slightly, in some way evoking a distance from reality. In doing this, I also have cropped the shield itself and have placed upon it a fairly intense light, obstructing it, to some extent, from view. In this, the viewer is led to envision what such a creation may look like, as well as how it may be used in the conflicts that plague Aeneas’ tale. The Philosopher’s Flight: Cicero’s Contempt for Earthly Life in the Tusculanae Disputationes David Sacks “And therefore it is necessary hence to endeavor to flee thither as quickly as possible. And escape is an assimilation to God as much as possible; and this assimilation is to become just and holy, with wisdom.” — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a-b Introduction Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputationes delineates his unique role for philosophy through discourses on the contempt of death and earthly ills, and the attendant happy and productive life. It is framed by its historical moment, composed around 45 BC at the height of his political foe Julius Caesar’s power in Rome and precipitated by the death of his beloved daughter Tullia, which caused his turn towards “philosophy as consolation.” 1 The work consequently carries urgent civic purpose and a personal significance as well, which allow insight into Cicero’s mind as he begins his final years. Through his unique vision of philosophy, he employs contempt of earthly ills — especially of death — praise of self-sacrifice and patience in life, and a unique imagining of the immortal soul’s ascent to heaven in his own philosopher’s flight, inscribing himself in the tradition commenced by Plato and imagining a new, Roman conception of the journey of the immortal soul. This essay will explore how the Tusculanae Disputationes functions as Cicero’s own philosopher’s flight. It will discuss the work’s ideas and historical context before analyzing some of Cicero’s doctrine on perturbations, the virtuous life, and the immortality of the soul. It will then show how his characterizations of life and the soul fit into a larger tradition of the philosopher’s flight and constitute a new, Roman understanding of this Platonic idea. 1. See Gildenhard, Paideia Romana, pg. 279, and: Oxford Classical Dictionary. Tullia (2), daughter of Cicero, d. 45 BCE. 2 Sacks The Purpose and Motivations for the Tusculanae Disputationes Cicero’s period of literary and philosophical productivity came with a release from public duties. The Tusculanae Disputationes makes this clear from the outset; it is “after having been freed from the toils of legal defense and from senatorial offices…” that “after a long period of neglect” Cicero has “turned [him]self” at the “greatest exhortations” of Brutus to “those studies, which are called philosophy,” (Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.1). His aim is not merely to restate Greek philosophical axioms, but “to illustrate” the philosophy of the past “with Latin language” to produce an essentially Roman philosophy, stemming from the Romans being “wiser,” “in all ways…than the Greeks, whether having made discovery by their own merits or having better effected those things they received from them,” (Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.1). Cicero’s project is clear from the outset: he intends to romanize the philosophy of the past — that of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek schools — shaping it for Roman society, and finding it apt for “speaking ornately and plentifully about the greatest questions [of life]” as faced by his contemporary and future citizenry (Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.6). Cicero’s project seems to indicate his dim view of the Caesar government’s interest and success in adhering to these sacred values. Ingo Gildenhard sees the influence of Caesar’s tyrannical reign in the Tusculanae Disputationes from the beginning. He points out Cicero’s characterization of his ancestors’ Rome in the first two sections; Cicero uses tenses and irony to show how “the state of the maiores [forebears]” has been lost (Gildenhard, 114): “for what [nation] had such seriousness of purpose, was so steadfast, had such greatness of soul, probity, faith, what [nation] so excelled in every type of virtue in any place such that it should be compared with our elders?” (Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.2). Cicero extols his ancestors as unrivaled exemplars of virtue, models for all civilizations to follow, whose values are all but lost in Cicero’s contemporary moment. This seems a veiled jab at Caesar, and Cicero’s use of “having been freed” in 1.1 is ironic, as Gildenhard surmises (Gildenhard, 114).2 This reading is supported by Cicero’s view of Caesar in de Officiis 1.26: “the temerity of Gaius Caesar has…overthrown all laws divine and human on account of that principate which for himself he himself set up in error of opinion.”3 Cicero contends against Caesar’s tyranny, and turns to philosophy for comfort and education of the future generations to reclaim the old ways. In the Tusculanae Disputationes, Cicero considers philosophy with a uniquely conceptual approach, viewing its practice as essential to living a happy and virtuous life. Philosophy is to Cicero “the mother of all arts—what is it but, 2. See also Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.1, particularly the use of the word liberatus, to which I here refer.