The aim of this article is to reopen the investigation of the ablative absolute in Latin and to analyse this construction and its use from one angle, namely, the coreferentiality rules. The examples for analysis have been taken from the Gallic Wars. As has been noticed before, in several works, the use of the absolute construction in texts written by classical authors, such as Caesar or Cicero, allows us to formulate a rule concerning its coreferentiality. As far as the syntactical coreferentiality is concerned, the classical rule requires an absolute construction to be — unsurprisingly — absolute, i. e., non-coreferential. This rule seems to be increasingly ignored by later authors. However, a deeper analysis taking into account not only syntactical but also semantical coreferentiality shows that the absoluteness of the construction is not so absolute after all, even in classical Latin. The examples of such use of the ablativus absolutus may be seen as forerunners of the change that occurred between classical and late Latin. The author proposes a hypothesis that an independent but similar development of the use of absolute constructions in different languages may suggest that there is a kind of interlinguistic tendency to substitute nominal phrases for subordinate clauses, especially in spoken language
This article revises current perspectives on the generic status, composition, and subject matter of Phoenician Women by Seneca. It adopts a new approach, focusing on selected elements of text organisation. In particular, emphasis is given to the construction of characters and the analogies and contrasts between them which were already of interest to ancient poetics and rhetoric. Moreover, the article refers to observations, accurate but isolated and largely ignored, made by scholars who recognised Seneca’s originality and suggested that his plays might have been inspired by the declamatory tradition and should be read in the context of evolving postclassical literature. By adopting this perspective, it becomes possible to bring together a large number of partial conclusions that are related to Phoenician Women as well as other plays by Seneca. What is more important, the work brings to light the purposeful composition of the drama and its thematic unity, allowing us to return to the MS versions that until now have been replaced by conjectures, which often distort the meaning of the text. After dismissing the emendations and adopting a new method of reading, Seneca’s Phoenician Women can be regarded as complete and well-organised. The play has certain characteristic features of a tragedy, of all Seneca’s dramas, it is the one most inspired by the genre of declamation and the poetics of Seneca the Elder’s anthology, and it is an example of the use of plot material typical of tragedy for presenting the problem of pietas in all its complexity
The article addresses the pragmatic and sociolinguistic constraints of interrupting in Roman comedy. It starts with a redefinition of the phenomenon informed by the methods of Conversation Analysis (CA): apart from syntactically incomplete utterances (as a result of interruptions by others), the analysis also includes the cases of interruptions reported by the characters. Furthermore, a distinction is made between intrusive (disaligning) interventions and other forms of competitive turn encroachments. The term ‘interruptions’, however, has been reserved only for the former, antagonistic type which serves to express disagreement and disinterest or to usurp the speaking turn. Using the revised criteria, the article proceeds to comment on quantitative data extracted from all the extant plays by Plautus and Terence. Accordingly, interruptions are viewed in relation to gender, age and status of the speakers, whereas some more detailed analysis concerns male and female citizens, prostitutes and servants. After comparing every character’s share of talk with their proportional use of turn incursions (both collaborative and disruptive), it is argued that the violation of the turn-exchange system is significantly associated with some interlocutors and less so with others. The last section presents interrupting as a pragmatic means of exerting power in interaction while discussing the phenomenon also from a (sociolinguistic) cross-gender perspective
The present article offers a reassessment of Hom. ἄφρων [adj.] ‘unreasonable, senseless, foolish’, which is traditionally accounted for as an ablauting compound (of the type πατήρ: ἀπά- τωρ) based on the simplex φρένες [f. pl. tant.] ‘midriff, diaphragm’ (+Il.). This archaic ablauting pattern (viz. °φρων vs. simplex φρήν*) is totally unparalleled for body parts; besides, the Ancients’ interpretation of φρένες as ‘diaphragm’ is flawed. Φρονέω ‘to have (good) understanding or intelligence’ is a back-formation coined after ἀφρονέω ‘to act senselessly, to be foolish’. From zero-graded ἀφραίνω (via a synchronic reanalysis of -αίνω as a deverbative suffix of the type °φαίνω), an adverb *ἀφρα-δόν ‘senselessly, foolishly’ was eventually coined, which was the starting point of a whole new group. From this group was reanalyzed a “new” synchronic root √φραδ- ‘to heed, to consider’, reflected by Hom. φράζω. The lack of comparative evidence for this sprawling word family leads the author to assume that Hom. ἄφρων [adj.] ‘senseless, fool, heedless’ is in fact the reflex of a PIE etymon *ń̥ -gʷʱr(h1)-on- ‘without sense of smell, not able of scenting’, from PIE *gʷʱreh 1- ‘to smell’ (cf. Ved. jí-ghr-a- < *gʷʱí-gʷʱr(h 1)-V-). This verbal compound of the type νήφων [*-on-adj.] ‘sober’ (< PIE *ń̥-h 1gʷʱ-on- ‘not having drunk’) would have been eventually reanalyzed as a privative bahuvrīhi (viz. ‘lacking φρένες’).
This article examines the Greek noun σαγγάνδης ‘messenger’ which is attested in two lexica, dated to the Roman or early Byzantine periods: the Cambridge Rhetorical Lexicon by an anonymous author and Difficult Words in the Attic Orators by Claudius Casilo. In both works, σαγγάνδης appears together with three words of likely Iranian provenance: ὀροσάγγης ‘benefactor of the Persian king; bodyguard’, παρασάγγης ‘parasang; messenger’ and ἄγγαρος ‘messenger, courier; workman, labourer’. The word σαγγάνδης is analysed in comparison with ἀσγάνδης/ἀστάνδης ‘messenger’ occurring for the first time in Plutarch’s works and closely linked to the Achaemenid administration. According to the hypothesis put forward in the present paper, both σαγγάνδης and ἀσγάνδης (with its secondary variant ἀστάνδης) are connected to Manichaean Middle Persian/Parthian ižgand ‘messenger’, Sogdian (a)žγand/(ɔ) žγand/ž(i)γant ‘id.’, Jewish Aramaic ʾîzgaddā ‘id.’, Syriac izgandā/izgaddā ‘id.’, Mandaic ašganda ‘helper, assistant, servant; the Messenger’, and go back to Old Persian *zganda- or to early Middle Persian/early Parthian *žgand- (or *zgand-) with the original meaning ‘mounted messenger’. The reconstructed noun is derived from the Proto-Iranian root *zga(n)d- ‘to go on, gallop, mount’, attested in Avestan (Younger Avestan zgaδ(/θ)- ‘to go on horseback, gallop’) and in some Middle and Modern Iranian languages. The original form of the loanword in Greek was probably *σγάνδης which then underwent certain transformations
The present article aims to elucidate an interesting narrative that forms a portion of Aelian’s paradoxographic work Περὶ ζῴων ἰδιότητος (On the Characteristics of Animals, Lat. De natura animalium). The passage under discussion describes some horned animals of oriental origin that were involved in the annual fighting contests during a one-day competition held on the initiative of a “great king of India” — probably Chandragupta (4th–3rd c. BC), the founder of the Maurya dynasty. Aelian’s chapter (NA 15, 15) was perhaps taken from Megasthenes’s Ἰνδικά (Description of India). The passage includes two hapax legomena referring to two species of animals: †μέσοι† and †ὕαιναι†. The first of these should be identified with the Ladakh urial (Ovis orientalis vignei Blyth); cf. Prasun məṣé ‘ram, urial’ (< Vedic mēṣá- m. ‘ram’). Aelian’s exact description of the horned animals called †ὕαιναι† clearly demonstrates that the alleged “striped hyena” (Gk. ὕαινα) must represent the chinkara, i. e., the Indian gazelle (Gazella bennettii Sykes). The Indo-Aryan term for ‘chinkara’ (Ved. hariṇá- m ‘Indian gazelle’, hariṇī́- f. ‘female gazelle’; cf. Pa. and Pk. hariṇa- m., hariṇī- f.) suggests that the corrupted form in Aelian’s passage should be emended as ὑάριναι [hyárinai]. This seems a near-optimal adaptation of the Pali or Prakrit appellative háriṇā pl. ‘chinkaras’
There has been much controversy regarding the date, the performative context, and the generic quality of fragment 926 PMG, which has been preserved on papyrus (P. Oxy. 9 + P. Oxy 2687) in a rhythmical treatise by an unknown author. The verse fragments on this papyrus were composed in iambic dactyls (∪ — ∪ –) and used as examples of the occurrence of syncope in various lyric meters. Fragments 926(a) and (g) PMG are from a composition performed by a maiden chorus which bear similarities to Alcman’s partheneia and have affinities with archaic epic and lyric poetry. Supposedly, these fragments might have been fragments of partheneia composed in the time of the New Music. Nonetheless, they are not shaped according to the bulk of the aesthetic values and the compositional rules of the New Music. These fragments seem to belong to cultic songs created for maiden choruses, possibly, to honor Dionysus. The alternative is that they imitate such songs within a dramatic context. We may assume that these quasi-dithyrambic partheneia were composed to serve religious needs or at least imitated cultic songs. They looked backward to the archaic and early classical tradition of partheneia, and their existence is an indication that, in the days of the New Music, there was a poetic tradition upheld by “reactionary” poets
Ἐπικράτεια and ἐπαρχία are two terms used by the ancient sources to describe the Carthaginian presence in Western Sicily. Due to a lack of information about the character and details of this presence, it is crucial to precisely understand the terminology employed by our sources and all its nuances. The article challenges the widely accepted opinion that the nouns ἐπικράτεια and ἐπαρχία can be treated as synonyms. To verify whether this assumption is correct or not, a careful analysis of how the ancient authors (Polybius, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch) used both nouns, as well as other related forms, is conducted. To make up for the limited number of occurrences of ἐπικράτεια in the analysed corpus, the relevant part of the examination also includes the use of this noun in Strabo’s Geography. The analysis allows us to highlight a significant change in the meaning of the two terms between the 2 nd century (Polybius) and the mid-1st century BC (Diodorus). This change reflects a development in the Greek political and administrative vocabulary, which was adjusting to a new reality of the Mediterranean world being organised into Roman provinces. The conducted analysis also allows us to better understand the complexity of the Carthaginian position in Western Sicily
Matro of Pitane’s cento of Homeric verses, The Attic Dinner Party contains a puzzling episode in which the narrator throws sea-urchins, which he has apparently already eaten, among the feet of the slaves, where they clatter “where waves were washing the beach”. The slaves then draw out the spines “from the head”. Following Elena Ermolaeva’s comparison of Matro’s lines to the Unswept Floor mosaic, I suggest that his banquet took place in a normal dining room rather than on a beach or in a room with a window facing one. The floor of this room, being a pebble mosaic, could aptly be called a beach from which the slaves were washing the detritus of the meal, a procedure (as we know from Olynthus) the dining rooms of private houses were expressly designed to facilitate. This interpretation entails reading *λύματ ̓… κλύζεσκον for the manuscripts’ κύματ ̓… κλύζεσκε). The scribal alteration I postulate has the effect — unique in this poem, and therefore suspect — of reproducing an entire Homeric line unaltered. Lastly, the phrase “from the head” does not refer to whence the slaves are pulling the sea-urchin’s spines (for that will be from their own feet), but to where they came from in the first place: a sea-urchin’s head
Статья «Максим Горький как толкователь Аристотеля. К теории трагического очищения», написанная крупным московским латинистом А. А. Грушка в 1929 году, незадолго до смерти, заслуживает интереса как документ эпохи, несчастливой для русской науки и культуры в целом. В этом любопытном, довольно пространном, этюде повествуется, в частности, о том, с какой необычайной прозорливостью и художественной силой Горький раскрыл в одном из своих ранних творений — повести «Тоска» — сущность процесса, который Аристотель понимал под катарсисом. Грушка ранее не писал на греческие сюжеты, и время создания статьи было исключительно неподходящим для такого рода дискуссии. Замечая небрежность, с которой он пересказывает, казалось бы, ключевую для своего рассуждения сцену из названного произведения Горького, невольно приходишь к выводу, что Горький, предмет его восхищения в 1900-е годы, в конце 1920-х, когда «пролетарского писателя» восхваляла советская пропаганда, перестал представлять для него какой-либо интерес. Ностальгические мотивы в статье Грушка выдают его истинное настроение. Статья была написана по необходимости и второпях, с многочисленными включениями Lesefrüchte широко образованного автора — чтобы спасти то, что, как он наивно полагал, еще можно было спасти
Переход от силлабического к силлабо-тоническому стиху в русском стихосложении в конце 1730-х — начале 1740-х годов связан с деятельностью трех выдающихся поэтов: Василия Кирилловича Тредиаковского (1703–1769), Михаила Васильевича Ломоносова (1711–1765) и Александра Петровича Сумарокова (1717–1777). Реформа затронула в первую очередь двусложные и трехсложные размеры и подготовила выработку более сложных метров, в том числе силлабо-тонических аналогов для эолийских метров. Сапфический гендекасиллаб из них пользовался наибольшей известностью и распространенностью. Также и сапфическая строфа была весьма популярна в европейских литературах. Она состоит из трех сапфических гендекасиллабов и адония в четвертой строке. Русские поэты-силлабики охотно создавали рифмованные сапфические строфы. В одиннадцатисложниках цезура после пятого слога была обязательна, а ударения во всех четырех строках не были упорядочены. Такие сапфические строфы Тредиаковский включил в свой перевод галантного романа Поля Тальмана «Езда в остров любви» (Paris, 1663; СПб., 1730). В 1735 году Тредиаковский опубликовал «Новый и краткий способ к сложению российских стихов», ставший точкой отсчета для реформы русского стиха. В своем трактате поэт предложил, помимо прочего, и реформированную сапфическую строфу: гендекасиллабы в ней, по его мнению, состояли из шести хореев и должны были иметь три хореические стопы перед обязательной цезурой, причем третья должна была быть каталектической. Все строки оканчивались женскими рифмами. Во втором издании трактата (1752) Тредиаковский пересмотрел свое понимание сапфической строфы. Теперь он призывает видеть в русском сапфическом одиннадцатисложнике четыре хорея, между которыми вклинен дактиль с цезурой после первого слога. Под влиянием «Письма о правилах российского стихотворства» Ломоносова Тредиаковский приходит к убеждению о необходимости альтернанса, а потому считает, что первые два стиха в сапфической строфе должны быть с мужскими рифмами; как следствие они оказываются усечены до десяти слогов. В утраченном «Письме о сафической и горацианской строфах» (1755) Сумароков выразил резкое несогласие с этим воззрением Тредиаковского. Десятисложники в сапфических строфах были для него недопустимы; он был также против регулярной цезуры. Все же метрическую структуру сапфического гендекасиллаба он понимал так же, как и Тредиаковский. В 1755 и 1758 годах Сумароков опубликовал три стихотворения, написанных сапфическими силлабо-тоническими строфами. Часть из них с рифмами, а часть без; но цезура во всех них иррегулярна. В 1762 году Тредиаковский перевел две строфы из «Юбилейного гимна» Горация. Их форма позволяет заключить, что поэт учел мнение своего оппонента и потому отказался от десятисложников в них. Лишь в вопросе о цезуре он остался непреклонен
The article examines an unpublished inscription conserved in the Nerantzia Castle of Kos (Greece). It consists of four elegiac couplets that Coan scholar Stamatios K. Pantelidis (Παντελίδης) composed some time before 1879. It was supposed to be located in the facade of the school founded the year indicated in the inscription. Seemingly, after the earthquake which devastated Kos in the year 1933, it was relocated in the warehouse of the Nerantzia Castle in northern Kos along with many other inscriptions. On the one hand, it provides the possibility of knowing how stonegravers work, to what extent Greeks knew their very own language in its ancient form and the way they dealt when it came to use (then and now) unusual forms of the language. On the other hand, the inscription is relevant to the cultural history of Greece in the last years of Ottoman rule and in the years after it, as Kos was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912, date in which it passed under Italian rule until 1947, when the isle was incorporated into the Hellenic Republic. Therefore the purpose is to clarify the historical and real circumstances of the inscription, as well as to analyze the compositional process of this dedicatory epigram from the metrical point of view (it contains many deviations from to the classical precepts), style and classical tradition. The inscription has not been previously studied due to its peculiar characteristics. Indeed, it is an epigram written in modern times but in an archaizing Greek (i. e. roughly respecting the rules of classical grammar), so it is not studied by neohellenists given the ancient character of its language, nor by classicists because it was composed in recent times