Division of Languages and Literature Events Calendar

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Bellona in Flavian Epic: Romanizing the Greek Past

Laura L. Garofalo, Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Loyola University, Maryland

Monday, February 12, 2018
5 pm

Olin Humanities, Room 102
The talk will analyze the character of the Roman goddess of war, Bellona, in Statius's Thebaid and Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica as a marker of the Roman cultural past. I will also discuss several contemporary parallels in Flavian-era material culture and Roman religious history.Sponsored by: Classical Studies Program; Dean of the College; Division of Languages and Literature.

For more information, call 845-758-7283, or e-mail [email protected].

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Bizarro Hercules: The Omphale Myth in Augustan Rome

Matthew P. Loar
Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Monday, February 19, 2018
5 pm

Olin Humanities, Room 102
Following decades of civil war in the first century BCE, two separate myths of Hercules attained sudden popularity in Augustan Rome (ca. 31 BCE–14 CE): his epic battle with the robber-monster Cacus, and his transvestite servitude to the Lydian queen Omphale. Traditionally, both myths have been seen as part of an elaborate propaganda campaign orchestrated by/for Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, where the monster-slaying Hercules stands in for Augustus while the cross-dressed Hercules stands in for Marc Antony, Augustus’ onetime rival. However, lost amidst this political jousting are some of the striking similarities between the two myths and the contexts in which they appear. This talk will focus on how one Augustan poet in particular, the Roman elegist Propertius (ca. 47–16 BCE), treats the two myths, arguing that Propertius casts the Omphale myth as a kind of multiform of the Cacus myth, using the former to dress up some of the more troubling aspects of Hercules’ violent interventions in Rome’s mythic pre-history.Sponsored by: Classical Studies Program; Dean of the College; Division of Languages and Literature.

For more information, call 845-758-7283, or e-mail [email protected].

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Recomposing Romanness: Asceticism and Poetry in Late Antique Gaul

David Ungvary, PhD Candidate, Harvard University

Monday, February 26, 2018
5 pm

Olin Humanities, Room 102
This talk takes as its focus the intersection of Christian asceticism, Latin poetry, and Roman identity at the twilight of the Western empire. Under the influence of asceticism, Gallo-Roman writers experimented with poetry—a traditional literary tool of the Roman nobility—as an instrument of pious practice, spiritual transformation, and Christian identification. The talk investigates how innovations in ascetic poetry leveraged the power of classical literature to promote radically new cultural agendas that shaped the postimperial West. At the center of the investigation are the final poems of Sidonius Apollinaris. After renouncing poetic composition for more than a decade, Sidonius returned to verse writing at the end of his career to contemplate the relationship between poetry and Christian life. Close examinations of texts and context reveal how Sidonius’ authorial practice evolved in his post-imperial environment to meet the demands of conflicting social roles and ideologies—Christian and Roman, secular and spiritual, ascetic and poetic. Sponsored by: Classical Studies Program; Dean of the College; Division of Languages and Literature.

For more information, call 845-758-7283, or e-mail [email protected].