Abstracts | LACC

LACC CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS

Workshop: Epic Heroism in Late Antiquity

Centre for Classical Studies
School of Arts and Humanities
Alameda da Universidade

University of Lisbon

1600-214 Lisbon

15–16 September 2022, Room B112.H, School of Arts and Humanities (FLUL)

Workshop Abstracts

Gianfranco Agosto (Pisa)

Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Classicizing Historians of Late Antiquity

So-called late antique classicizing historiography (from Eunapius to Procopius to Agathias, to mention only the major authors) is increasingly becoming the object of literary analysis, which sheds light on its originality in compositional structures and stylistic choices. In this paper I will deal with characters portrayed as heroic, such as Julian in the Histories of Eunapius; or as anti-heroic, such as Justinian in the Anekdota or the 'paradoxical portrait' of John of Cappadocia in the Histories of Procopius. In the second part, the case of a tragic hero (Gelimerus in the Bellum Vandalicum) will be analysed.

Adrien Bresson (Lyon)

Theodosius in Claudian’s III Cons. and IV Cons.: Building an Epic Model of Heroism

Upon reading Claudian’s panegyrics, one is struck by the way Theodosius is presented as an epic character, in the manner of the epic tradition. To further study this dimension, it is important to observe and interpret the direct or altered quotation of classical poets in Claudian’s work, in an intertextual perspective, as well as to identify Theodosius’ characteristics and to compare them with those of traditional epic heroes. This is further reinforced by the literary tools used by Claudian, which seem to be characteristic of epic poetry.

In the fourth century, the portrayal of Theodosius could be read as a transvaluation of epic heroism by the poet, through the creation of an epic hero who would be acceptable to the literary tradition. This perspective leads the poet not to mention Theodosius’ Christianity – although it was very impactful, whereas he does refer to the military and political contexts, in order to retain the best of tradition and modernity. A double movement thus appears in the construction of an epic figure, inspired by tradition and shaped by contemporary events.

Finally, Theodosius is the epic hero of a panegyric written in honour of Honorius’ consulship, which means that Claudian gives the main role to the Emperor’s father, while still presenting his poem as a panegyric for Honorius himself. Indeed, Theodosius was dead when Claudian wrote his panegyrics in honour of Honorius’ consulship and emperorship. As such, Theodosius could be studied as a means to create a new heroic ideal, in order to shape the heroic value of the very young Western Emperor, in a poem which could be read as a treatise dedicated to Honorius, with Theodosius as a model.

William J. Dominik (Lisbon/Otago)

Achilles as a Heroic Figure in Late Antique Latin Literature

The perspective of Achilles as a hero in Late Antiquity was shaped not only by the long Greek tradition from the time of Homer but also by Roman writers of the Republican and Imperial periods. The creation of a heroic ideal in the form of Achilles partly stems from the exempla provided in Homer’s Iliad of certain types of models appropriate for a Greek hero, particularly one who aims to achieve glory in battle in a short life instead of a long but mundance existence (cf. 9.410–416). Homer’s text assumed a prominent role as a didactic text in antiquity and the Late Antique reader was educated to examine it from different perspectives, which included a reassessment of Achilles’ actions and conduct as a hero in the Iliad.

In Late Antique literature Achilles is still viewed as a worthy poetic subject and there are numerous references to him in heroic terms, despite the negative aspects that prevail in regard to his depiction. Achilles as a heroic figure in the Latin literature of Late Antiquity presents similarities and contrasts with his depiction in Greek literature of the same period. Achilles’ role in Roman culture during Late Antiquity illustrates that he was viewed as both a positive and negative figure and the literary ambivalence of his representation is omnipresent. Both the negative and favourable aspects of the heroic Achilles that emerge in Late Antique Latin literature are linked to the aspirations of the Roman elite and the values emphasized by Christian writers.

Vicente Flores Militello (UNAM, Mexico)

The Hyperborean Maidens and Rome’s New Hero:

A Device of Heroization in Claudian’s "Epic Hunt" (Claud. Stil. 3.237-369)

This paper analyzes how a late antique poet, Claudian (fl. 395-404), refashions different poetic models in order to heroize a contemporary historical person –general Stilicho – by making him interact with diverse mythological figures. I will focus on the so-called "Epic Hunt" in Claudian’s De Consulatu Stilichonis (Stil. 3.237-369), a vivid epic scene which closes the poem: seven nymphs, two of them Hyperborean Maidens, help Diana to collect dangerous animals for Stilicho’s lavish consular games in Rome. For his political aims, Claudian resumes figures from ancient models, mainly Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Callimachus’ Hymns, but he also innovates within the literary tradition by creating a new nymph out of these. My paper asks how such a classical epic device works as a strategy for the heroization of a contemporary person. It focusses on the refashioning of ancient epic models and its projection on new heroes. A contrast with the nymphs’ remodeling in Nonnus’ Dionysiaka, who enters a literary dialogue with Claudian’s hunting scene that goes beyond mere intertextuality, helps us to understand the particular use of heroization strategies in Claudian’s political epics within the poetical and cultural context of late antiquity.

Fotini Hadjittofi (Lisbon)

Short-Circuiting Heroism: Suicidal Achilles(es) in Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica

Achilles’ particular brand of heroism was largely inappropriate both for the classical-age polis, as Sophocles’ Ajax shows, and for the Imperial period, marked by the rise of ideals such as endurance and forgiveness. Quintus’ Posthomerica, probably written in the third century, includes no fewer than three episodes in which Achillean characters bring about their own deaths: Achilles himself, Ajax, and Oenone. The last episode, involving Paris’ forlorn wife, is perhaps also the most subtle and original: Oenone’s modelling after the Homeric Achilles transposes onto a female character the words and emotions of the wrathful hero of the Iliad. Oenone’s unrelenting anger against Paris, her rejection of his desperate petition, and her consequent suicide are recounted in Book 10 of the Posthomerica. Coming so soon after the successful resolution of Philoctetes’ own wrath in Book 9, this vignette does not necessarily suggest that an Achillean type of heroism is unsuitable for women, but that it always and irrevocably leads to (self-)destruction and also that, in a certain sense, an epic poem written in the traditional mould cannot entirely dispense with this brand of short-circuiting heroism.

Anna Lefteratou (Cambridge)

The Christian Heroic Regime in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ A History of the Monks in Syria

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, a Syriac theologian, disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and friend of Nestorius, became a bishop of Cyrrhus ca 423. Among his many theological works there are two histories: an Ecclesiastical History and a Religious History. This latter is a collection of short biographies of thirty holy men, among them some women, who were renowned in Syria for the strictness of their renunciation practices, their wisdom, and holiness. This paper will address the concept of heroism found in the History of the Monks in Syria and will discuss how it relates to and subverts classicizing concepts of bravery in the battlefield and in the arena and its commemoration. Focusing on the work’s programmatic preface, the analysis will explore the debt of Theodoret to historians like Thucydides and Herodotus and discuss his reasons for writing monastic history; secondly it will explore the deconstruction of epic and dramatic classical models and their replacement by a Christian concept of heroism; ultimately it will show that despite the renunciation of classical kleos and its panegyrical commemoration in encomia and monumental statuary, the Christian biographer aims at an analogous repute with a twist: his commemoration of monastic klea is not an encomium but a euphemism that will guarantee both his renown and his salvation.

Laura Miguélez-Cavero (Madrid)

Too Much . . . Too Little . . . Just Right: Adjustments of Dionysus’ Heroism in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca

In the Iliad, warriors are admonished to "be men" (ἀνέρες ἔστε), an injunction often including a reference to bodily strength (ἀλκή, Il. 5.529, 6.112, 8.174, 11.287, 15.487, 15.734, 16.270, 17.185), and the collective actions of the troops are modelled on the physical and martial feats of the heroic "best man" (ἄριστος ἀνήρ). The Homeric poems do not refer to the manliness/masculinity of the heroes with the term andreia, which first occurs in Herodotus. When the characters or narrator refer "to the visible evidence of looking and acting like a man and doing what a man should do" they use ἠνορέη, often related to the semantic field of ἀλκή, σθένος and κάρτος, all three words for strength, which in the Iliad particularly is displayed in the battlefield.

At the same time, the ideal leader is not simply an efficient killer, but "a speaker of words and doer of deeds", in Phoenix’s words to Achilles (Il. 9.438-43). This means that although Achilles’ superhuman force and martial effectiveness make him a model for soldiers, his excessive manhood, source of his equally excessive passions (especially his unremitting thirst for vengeance after the death of Patroclus) and his deployment of physical and verbal violence, make him an unlikely ethical referent. What does Nonnus make of this quandary in the Dionysiaca?

Ἠνορέη is the element chosen to compare Dionysus with his half-brothers Perseus, Minos and Heracles in Book 25 of the Dionysiaca. This paper will analyse Book 25 and other relevant passages of the Dionysiaca to evaluate the processes of adjustment of notions of heroism to suit the image of Dionysus as a late antique hero.

Cillian O’Hogan (Toronto)

The Tragic Hero on the Epic Stage: Dracontius, Orestis Tragoedia

In this paper I focus on a single text that exemplifies many of the issues surrounding the epic tradition in later Latin antiquity: the Orestis Tragoedia of Dracontius. The text, a version of the fall of the house of Atreus (best-known otherwise from Aeschylus’ Oresteia) opens with a plea for the tragic muse to give way to epic. Despite this explicit statement of generic intent, however, the poem in fact draws both on the tragic and epic tradition, as well as on declamation and mime, to retell the story of Atreus. I examine the characterisation of Orestes as a hero from three angles: first, his displays of pietas, something that draws above all on the concepts of pietas in Virgil’s Aeneid; second, Orestes’ dilemma, the depiction of which is influenced both by declamation and by the long tradition by which Orestes and Octavian (another filial avenger) are associated in the Latin tradition; finally, Orestes’ purity of character, which has often been seen as reflecting the Christianity of the author. With attention to related texts such as Corippus’ Iohannis and Prudentius’ Psychomachia, I argue that the nature of Orestes’ heroism reflects the complexities of Latinate identity in Late Antiquity.

Sophia Papaioannou (Athens)

Re-Echoing Hylas: Dracontius’ Myth and the Classical Tradition

In his 2015 book Echoing Hylas, Mark Heerink examines the development of the story of Hylas from Apollonius and Theocritus to Statius. A nuanced episode of the Argonautic journey, the story of Hylas inspired several poets who aspired to break literary ground in their own particular ways to try their hands on alternative narratives of the myth and in doing so to comment on the contribution of their respective work in the literary tradition. Thus, Theocritus and Apollonius (on the Greek side), and Vergil, Ovid, Valerius Flaccus and Statius (in the Latin tradition), all incorporated a Hylas or Hylas-look-alike in their works, each self-conscious of engaging in a transgeneric metapoetical dialogue, each anxious to project innovation. Thus, for Theocritus, Hylas embodied the new genre of bucolic poetry which strives to distance itself from traditional epic, while for Propertius Hylas became the innocent elegiac lover. Ovid reinvented Hylas in his Narcissus and reflected on literary and generic self-consciousness. Capitalizing on this poetic dialogue Dracontius, at the end of the classical era, composes a paignion thereof, as he tries in his own account to incorporate all earlier treatments and to illustrate the poetics involved in each of them, all the while filling in the blanks in the myths and applying a closural echo to a long tradition.

Tine Scheijnen (Ghent)

Wild Women and Heroic Power:

Modern Perspectives on Late Antique and Medieval Women in the Trojan War

In the Homeric tradition of the Trojan War, heroism is a continuous power play. Shelves have been filled with studies on this ideological system, in which male heroes take a central place. In this discussion, female power is less conspicuous and sometimes may seem absent altogether. This paper focusses on gender roles in Quintus of Smyrna. To measure female (mortal) characters’ access to power, a heroic scale model is proposed, inspired by the modern theory of intersectionality. Applied to the thirteen most prominent female (mortal) characters in the Posthomerica, this model exposes trends that place Homeric gender conceptions in a new daylight. Of particular interest are three "wild" women, whose characterization suggests not only access to unique forms of power, but also marginalization despite their plot-steering potential. If Quintus’ epic displays explicit gender awareness, this reflection continues throughout medieval reception of the Trojan War. The final part of this paper traces a few remarkable changes to the characterization of Quintus’ "wild women". The modern lens of the Wild Woman archetype can be used to embed these findings in our modern-day understanding of womanhood and female empowerment.

Jan Stenger (Würzburg)

Can the Subaltern Speak? Deconstructing Epic Heroism in Late Antiquity

Epic heroes are a fixture of late antique rhetorical schooling and oratory, employed in epideictic for comparison and as subject of the exercises of encomium and invective. While speakers regularly refer to the key figures of the Homeric epics – Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Ajax, and Diomedes – one of Libanius’ Progymnasmata, an encomium, is devoted to the most unheroic character of the Iliad: Thersites. In my talk I will analyse how Libanius, in critical engagement with Homer and cleverly filling the gaps in the Iliadic episode, endeavours to rehabilitate Thersites in order to propose an alternative model of heroism that challenges the traditional heroic norms. Instead of the self-centred values of heroes like Agamemnon and Achilles, the laudatory speech praises the marginal figure of Thersites for his cooperative virtues and championship of the commonwealth. This alternative model of heroism centres around effective rhetoric, culminating in the exercise of parrhesia. I will argue that, although the speech is a paradoxical encomium, it has a serious message. It uses a subaltern figure to promote the civic ideal of the orator, to which the student of rhetoric was expected to aspire.

Thomas Tsartsidis (Munich)

Romanising Heroes in Prudentius’ Peristephanon

Prudentius’ martyrs in the Peristephanon represent the new Christian heroes. They are figures larger than life that are sacrificed for the Christians of the community to which they belong, and by extension, for Christians in general, thus embodying the ideal of the "synecdochic hero". The martyrs included in the Peristephanon come mainly from Rome and Hispania. In a way comparable to Vergil’s Aeneid, Prudentius exploits the narratives of the Roman saints to help shape a new national identity, and more specifically, an identity that combines Roman and Christian elements. Interestingly, Prudentius does the same with some of the non-Roman saints including Cyprian (Perist. 13), Quirinus (Perist. 7), and Romanus (Perist. 10). In order to achieve that, to portray these martyrs as carriers of the new Roman Christian ideology, Prudentius Romanises them in various ways. In this paper, I will investigate the different modes of Romanisation that Prudentius uses, and argue that by Romanising these saints, the new Roman heroes, Prudentius, as in the Roman epic, creates various types of role models that his readers can identify with and look up to.

Berenice Verhelst (Amsterdam)

Who's Speaking? A Computer-Based Analysis of the Homeric Voices in the Homerocentones (First Recension)

When the Samaritan Woman at the Well (Jo 4.4-26) in Homerocentones I 1073-1115 addresses Jesus, the Homeric lines used to represent her words are primarily culled from the exchanges between Odysseus and Nausicaa in Books 6 and 8 of the Odyssey. The cento author’s associative linking of these Homeric and Biblical scenes can and have been explained both by the aspect of xenia and that of the encounter, outside of the city, between a man and a woman. This paper proposes to make use of the advances in digital humanities research using linked open data to analyse on a larger scale the Homeric voices that are used in the cento to evoke the words of Old and New Testament characters. Did the associative composition process of the cento authors primarily focus on type scenes and speech types (that is, on context and content), or is it also possible to discover patterns on the level of the character (identity, gender) and (un-)heroic characterization (virtues, vices). With custom code using the DICES speech database (www.dices.uni-rostock.de/en/open-access-database), it will now be possible to generate detailed statistics. For example, does the Homerocentones' Jesus more often use the words of Odysseus or Hector, or Nestor or Achilles? And what would that tell us (1) about the Homerocentones’ Jesus, and/or (2) about the cento author's interpretation of Homer? In this exploratory study I will present the digital methods used to obtain my statistics and reflect on the interpretation of the statistic results and on the wider potential of such an approach to cento poetry.

Catherine Ware (Cork)

Arms and the Man I Praise: The Hero in Latin Prose Panegyric

The classical definitions of epic, whether Vergil’s reges et proelia (Ecl. 6.3), or Horace’s res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella (AP 73), could just as easily define the imperial prose panegyrics of late antiquity. Menander Rhetor’s treatise, The Imperial Oration, advises the orator to see the emperor in terms of a hero: a Hercules, an Achilles, a Hector. The emperors honoured in the Gallic orations of the Panegyrici Latini corpus could certainly claim to possess epic qualifications. They had earned rather than inherited their power and worked ceaselessly to maintain it. In these encomia, the emperors are always victorious against usurpers, always save the empire against barbarians and always display courage and bravery. Their battle performance is narrated in similes and in Vergilian allusion.

Yet while epic heroism is desirable, the emperor never truly becomes an epic hero in the panegyrics: heroes are flawed and panegyrists deal in perfection. Focusing on the prose panegyrics of late antiquity, this paper will examine the panegyrists’ understanding of epic heroism, its relevance to the imperial persona and its limitations.

Image: Marble relief showing two female gladiators, Amazon and Achillia, armed with swords and shields, either being released from service or being discharged after a draw. Below on each side of the platfrom on which they stand is the head of a spectator. British Museum, inventory no. 1847,0424.19, 1st-2nd century CE. Source