INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY AND CULTURE STUDIES FACULTY OF HUMANITIES CARDINAL STEFAN WYSZYNSKI UNIVERSITY IN WARSAW INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 17–19 SEPTEMBER 2015 JACEK MALCZEWSKI, ADORATION OF THE MADONNA (1910), THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN WARSAW PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN WARSAW NONNUS OF PANOPOLIS IN CONTEXT III: OLD QUESTIONS AND NEW PERSPECTIVES THURSDAY, 17TH SEPTEMBER 12.00 – 14.00 Registration 14.00 – 14.45 Opening of Conference 14.45 – 15.30 Opening lecture GENNARO D’IPPOLITO (PALERMO) SOLVED AND STILL UNSOLVED ISSUES ABOUT NONNUS AND HIS WORKS 15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break 16.00 – 17.30 SESSION 1: NONNUS AND THE LITERARY TRADITION (1) CHAIR: JANE LIGHTFOOT Berenice Verhelst (Ghent) “Breaking the fourth wall”. On literariness and metalepsis in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca Simon Zuenelli (Innsbruck) The Typhon episode and Dionysus as god of comical theater Laura Miguélez-Cavero (Oxford) Staphylos the imperial panegyrist? Old and new directions on the junctures of epic and encomium 17.30 – 18.00 Coffee break 18.00 – 19.30 SESSION 2: DIONYSIACA: STRUCTURE AND MOTIFS (1) CHAIR: KONSTANTINOS SPANOUDAKIS Sophie Schoess (Oxford) Visualising Acteon: The motif of recognition in Nonnus’ treatment of the metamorphosis Camille Geisz (Monmouth) Structure and meaning through analogy. Bathing scenes as an example of the use of spatial form in the Dionysiaca Nestan Egatashvili (Tbilisi) Anti-typical poetry as conversing silence 19.30 Evening reception 2 FRIDAY, 18TH SEPTEMBER 9.00 – 10.30 SESSION 3: NONNUS DOCTUS: PHILOSOPHY, RITUAL AND MEDICINE CHAIR: GIANFRANCO AGOSTI Delphine Lauritzen (Paris) Metempsychosis in Nonnus’ Dionysiaka Ewa Osek (Lublin) Sacrificing the snake: Nonnus’ Dionysiaca 2.672–79 and the Orphic Lithica 699–747 Anna Lasek (Poznań) Medical knowledge in the Dionysiaca of Nonnos 10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break 11.00 – 12.30 SESSION 4: PARAPHRASE: THEOLOGY AND PARAPHRASTIC TECHNIQUE (1) CHAIR: MICHAEL PASCHALIS Roberta Franchi (Budapest) Ἀληθείᾳ καὶ πνεύματι (Par. 4.114): Some doctrinal issues in Nonnus' Paraphrase and their theological implications Frederick Lauritzen (Paris) Nonnus’ interpretation of the ecumenical councils Jane Lightfoot (Oxford) In the beginning was the book? 12.30 – 14.00 Lunch break 14.00 – 15.30 SESSION 5: LATE ANTIQUE POETRY CHAIR: DOMENICO ACCORINTI Mary Whitby (Oxford) The epigrams of George of Pisidia Enrico Magnelli (Firenze) An uknown ‘Nonnian’ poet: John of Memphis Konstantinos Spanoudakis (Rethymno) The mystic reception of Theocritus in Late Antiquity 15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break 3 16.00 – 17.30 SESSION 6: DIONYSIACA: STRUCTURE AND MOTIFS (2) CHAIR: PIERRE CHUVIN Katherine LaFrance (Oxford) Weaving the κόσμος: Structuring motifs in the Dionysiaka Marta Otlewska-Jung (Berlin) Ἁρμονίη κόσμου and ἁρμονίη ἀνδρῶν. On the different concepts of harmony in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. David Hernández de la Fuente (Madrid) Awakenings in Nonnus: a conscious metaphor 17.30 – 18.00 Coffee break 18.00 – 19.30 SESSION 7: NONNUS AND THE LITERARY TRADITION (2) CHAIR: GENNARO D’IPPOLITO Anna Lefteratou (Göttingen) The Christianization of a metamorphosis tale: Virginity, rape or marriage in the Greek novel and in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca Benjamin Acosta-Hughes (Columbus) I had only an untimely love. The ephebic ‘epyllia’ of Dionysiaka XI-XII Katerina Carvounis (Athens), Sophia Papaioannou (Athens) Nonnus’ Dionysiaca and the Latin tradition: revisiting an old question 19.30 Dinner Evening: Songs of ancient Greece – a recital by Łukasz Szypkowski 4 SATURDAY, 19TH SEPTEMBER 9.30 – 11.00 SESSION 8: BETWEEN THE MASCULINE AND THE FEMININE CHAIR: BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES Cosetta Cadau (Dublin) Female characterisation and gender reversal in Nonnus and Colluthus Fotini Hadjittofi (Lisboa) Women in power? Inverted gender hierarchies in the episodes of Europa and Cadmus Laury-Nuria André (Lyon) The metamorphosis landscape in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis : a question of genre or gender? 11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break 11.30 – 13.00 SESSION 9: PARAPHRASE: THEOLOGY AND PARAPHRASTIC TECHNIQUE (2) CHAIR: ROBERTA FRANCHI Margherita Maria di Nino (Frankfurt am Main), Maria Ypsilanti (Nikosia) Shepherding the past. Michael Paschalis (Rethymno) Amplification in Nonnus’ Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John and in Juvencus’ Evangeliorum Libri IV Laura Franco (London), Maria Ypsilanti (Nikosia) Poetry and exegesis in portraits of biblical characters: the cases of John the Baptist and Pontius Pilatus in Nonnus’ Paraphrase of St. John’s Gospel 13.00 – 14.30 Lunch break 14.30 – 15.30 SESSION 10: RECEPTION OF NONNUS’ WORK CHAIR: DAVID HERNANDEZ DE LA FUENTE Fabian Sieber (Leuven) Boom years of Nonnian Studies? On the reception of Nonnos in Germany (1900–1976) Domenico Accorinti (Pisa) Photius, the Suda and Eustathius: Eloquent silences and omissions in the reception of Nonnus’ work in Byzantine literature 15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break 5 16.00 – 17.30 SESSION 11: THE CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF NONNUS’ WORK CHAIR: EWA OSEK Pierre Chuvin (Paris) In the Dionysiaca, was Nonnus really a poet of patria? Gianfranco Agosti (Roma) Nonnus and Coptic literature Nicole Kröll (Wien) Sites and cities in late antique literature. Athens as cultural self-identification in the Dionysiaka of Nonnus of Panopolis 17.30 – 18.00 Coffee break 18.00 – 19.00 Closing discussion Trends and uncharted territories of Nonnian scholarship Evening: Warsaw by night – dinner in a restaurant and a guided tour of the Old Town * * * THE CONFERENCE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE MISSION AND STRATEGY OF CARDINAL STEFAN WYSZYNSKI UNIVERSITY IN WARSAW FUND. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE JOANNA KOMOROWSKA [email protected] KATARZYNA JAŻDŻEWSKA [email protected] FILIP DOROSZEWSKI [email protected] INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY AND CULTURE STUDIES FACULTY OF HUMANITIES CARDINAL STEFAN WYSZYNSKI UNIVERSITY IN WARSAW DEWAJTIS 5, 01-815 WARSZAWA, POLAND WWW.WNH.UKSW.EDU.PL/NONNUSINCONTEXT_III WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/NONNUSINCONTEXT 6 ABSTRACTS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER OF PRESENTER'S SURNAME) Domenico ACCORINTI Photius, the Suda and Eustathius: Eloquent silences and omissions in the reception of Nonnus’ work in Byzantine literature It is well known among Nonnian scholars that a) Photius (c. 810–c. 893), Patriarch of Costantinople, does not mention the Egyptian poet in his Bibliotheca; b) a marginal gloss in one MS of the Suda, Marcianus gr. 448 (coll. 1047), s.v. Νόνναι (ν 489 Adler), refers to Nonnus as (1) a native of Panopolis, (2) ‘a very learned man’ (λογιώτατος), and (3) the author of an hexameter paraphrase of St John’s Gospel; c) Eustathius (c. 1115–1195), Archbishop of Thessalonica (c. 1115–1195), in his commentaries on Homer and Dionysius Periegetes, only quotes anonymously and inaccurately a few lines from Book 1 of the Dionysiaca, and passes over the Paraphrase in silence. This paper offers a reconsideration of these eloquent silences and omissions in the reception of Nonnus’ work in Byzantine literature, and aims to provide new insights into old questions. Benjamin ACOSTA-HUGHES I had only an untimely love. The ephebic ‘epyllia’ of Dionysiaka XI-XII The eleventh and twelfth books of Nonnos of Panopolis’ long hexameter Dionysiaka encompass a chain of shorter narratives of homoerotic love within a larger, self-contained narrative of the god’s love for Ampelos, and the latter’s death and subsequent metamorphosis into the vine. Turning self-consciously to earlier Hellenistic narratives of homoerotic love, these Nonnian episodes recreate the moment of beautiful ephebic death, a death made necessary to preserve for eternity a brief transitional phase in the evolution of a boy into a young man. Dionysios, in his lament for the dead Ampelos (11.276, ‘I had only an untimely youth’, simultaneously comments upon, as does the poet Konstantinos Kavafis’ ‘before time could change them’ upon the necessary brevity of ephcbic beauty. This paper comments upon Nonnus’ treatments of ephebic love in light of earlier poetry, and highlights Nonnus’ intricate, elaborate and often slightly ironic reworking of a particular eros with a long tradition in Greek poetic culture. Gianfranco AGOSTI Nonnus and Coptic literature Nonnian allusions to cults, customs, and aspects of everyday life, and the reworking of features of Egyptian folklore have been extensively studied in the last years, mainly in the works by D. Gigli Piccardi. But another source of influence remains largely unexplored: it is the role Coptic ‘popular’ culture and literature played in Nonnus’ narrative. Like the visual arts, Coptic literature is significant to understanding passages of Nonnian poems in terms not of direct derivation, but rather of a common ‘cultural imagination’. In this paper, in the wake of previous researches (on Dion. 47. 116–124), I will deal with a Coptic hagiographic text (the Life of Shenute by Besa) in order to explain the vexed passage of Dion. 17.385–397, where Nonnus characterizes the people of Blemmyes in surprisingly positive accents, emphasizing their prompt ‘conversion’ to the Dionysiac cause and carefully distinguishing them from Indians. Both Coptic text and Nonnian verses do not recount a historical event, but a representation shaped by the same rhetorical narrative about the Blemmyes and their relation to Egyptian society. In the second part of my paper I am going to examine a recently edited Coptic apocryphon, The Dance of the Saviour, (most likely from the end of the 4th century, representing Jesus dancing and singing hymns on the Mount of Olives, like a well- 7 known passage from the Acts of John)