(11-12 APRIL 1997, TACOMA, WASHINGTON)
Douglas Edwards
University of Puget Sound
This report addresses 1994-1996 excavations of the Black Sea Project at ancient
Chersonesus in the Crimea.
The Hellenistic period was a time of prosperity with wide ranging links with
the Greek city-states and colonies. A period of decline followed with the
coming of the 1st cent. BCE with new building activity and a different
orientation. Now the city saw itself in cultural and economic conversation
with Rome. Fish tanks next to our excavations represented an economic response
to an increased Roman presence in the 2nd and 3rd century. Jewish presence is
likely to have come to the city in this period since little evidence exists for
Jews in the Crimea prior to the first century CE.
The fourth century brought a change to our part of Chersonesus, though much of
the building activity continued to follow the grid established in the
Hellenistic period. Now clear evidence exists for Jews in the form of a
public building that existed from at least the fourth and into sixth century
C.E. Further those Jews sought a symbolic connection to Jerusalem as indicated
by an inscription or graffito on the plaster wall of the building. Moreover,
the Hebrew inscription indicates an effort to express allegiance to the Holy
Language, a source of identity.
The sixth century brought a dramatic change to the entire city. In our area
the grid of the city, which had govern the landscape for almost 700 years was
largely ignored. A lower basilica was replaced by a sixth century basilica
which changed the orientation of this area by about 15 degrees. Frank Tombley
discusses what he calls "temple conversion" in the fifth and sixth centuries
which he defines as "demolition or partial dismantling of a sacred edifice and
its modification into a church or martyrion". Demolition of buildings was one
way to make way for Christian basilicas since most of the prime public space.
Christian rebuilders had no qualms about using stones with clear pagan and
Jewish symbols. At best this was benign indifference. But the hostility of
hagiographies associated with Chersonesus suggest contempt for both pagan and
Jewish symbols.
David Lupher
University of Puget Sound
The Spanish conquest of the New World was the first chapter in the
"anti-classical tradition" in the Americas. Partly in compensation for what
they regarded as insufficient rewards and recognition for their achievements,
many of the conquistadors insisted that their exploits far outdistanced those
of the most famous men of antiquity. But it was the mid-sixteenth century
Spanish debate over the justice of the conquest that most powerfully
engaged---and challenged---classical models. While some defenders of Spanish
ventures in the Indies appealed to the model of Imperial Rome as a "civilizing
power" for modern Spaniards to emulate, others, notably a number of eloquent
and learned Dominicans, excoriated the "tyranny" of the Romans as an anti-model
to be avoided at all costs. Indeed, some of these Spanish critics of the
conquest liked to remind their compatriots that their own Iberian ancestors had
once resembled the Indians in being pagan "barbarians" who were overrun and
exploited by a brutal imperialist power---the Romans. These same critics,
especially Bartolomi de las Casas, also insisted that the Aztec and Inca
civilizations of the New World far surpassed "the insensible blindness,
dishonor and bestiality" of Roman culture. Las Casas went so far as to suggest
that vestiges of Roman religious practices in modern Europe were a more serious
problem than "idolatrous" survivals in the New World.
A. J. Podlecki
University of British Columbia
Many scholars believe that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed
orally and perhaps also -- though here there is less concord -- orally
transmitted, perhaps down to the sixth century and the so-called "Peisistratean
recension." It has also become something of a dogma of Homeric criticism that
the Iliad and Odyssey are by different composers. I shall argue
that these two propositions are incompatible. In a nutshell: the Odyssey-poet
could not have become sufficiently imbued with the Iliad features which
he incorporates (language, characterization, "resonance") if his interface with
the Iliad was in oral form. I also hope to survey some recent positions
on this question.
Lorina Quartarone
Whitman College
Ecofeminism argues that the ecological success of this planet is inherently
linked to the liberation of the female, and that the male desire to control and
suppress the female is parallel to the male desire to dominate the earth. When
Herodotus delves into the 'aitiai' of the East-West conflict in his
introduction to the Histories, he attributes the source of that tension to rape
('harpage', I.5). Although his attitude reflects contemporary Greek misogyny,
Herodotus' observations are nonetheless sensitive to the link between two male
desires: 1) to control the female, and 2) to control the earth. Xerxes'
invasion of Greece offers elucidation. Mardonius convinces Xerxes, at first
disinterested in invading Greece, of the desirability of the enterprise by
describing the Greek land as exceedingly beautiful ('perikalles') and fertile
(VII.5). The later episode of Xerxes' attempted seduction and subsequent
mutilation of Masistes' wife (IX.108-113) parallels his various offenses to the
earth during his expedition (e.g., cutting a canal through Mt. Athos, VII.23;
bridging, lashing and branding the Hellespont, VII.34-36; drinking various
rivers dry: Scamander, VII.43, Melana, VII.58, Lisus, VII.108, Echeidorus,
VII.127, etc.). Thus, this tale of the Persian invasion of Greece represents
not only the Greco-Persian (or East-West) conflict, but the Man-Earth conflict,
or, in ecofeminist terms, the Man-Woman conflict.
David Madsen
Seattle University
The Athenian boule and ekklesia have heretofore served as the
primary examples or proofs of the radical nature of Athenian democracy.
Athenian jury courts may, however, provide more fundamental evidence of how
thoroughly democratic fifth and fourth century Athens was. The dicastic oath,
particularly the expanded version of it proposed by A.R.W. Harrison in The
Law of Athens, affords the dicasts a remarkable degree of competence and
marks the Athenian court as the place where Athenian democracy was daily
renewed and ratified. Far from being at odds with the rule of law, the
Athenian citizen legislated as an ecclesiast and applied legislation as a
dicast. Citizens were not subject to the laws; they wrote law with each jury
decision.
Galen Rowe
University of Idaho
The time is long overdue for re-examining the standard perception that
"Isocrates was essentially a teacher of oratory" (H. I. Marrou, A History of
Education in Antiquity, 121). In fact oratory, or logos, was but
one of the three divisions of his instructional program and came to be
emphasized by him only in the later years of his career. It was the remaining
two divisions, kairos and doxa, which Isocrates emphasized in the
beginning and which made his school the favorite of the wealthy and upwardly
mobile in Athens. Through his precepts, especially about kairos,
"opportunity," Isocrates taught his students how to make money. As his
earliest students were close to him in age and in social background, one can
hardly envision any of them as the "traditional student," dutifully attending
lectures or practicing composition. This essay offers evidence from the known
activities of his students that Isocrates employed something akin to the "case
study" approach, exposing his pupils to real situations in the courts, in
domestic politics, and in foreign affairs.
Eric Nelson
Pacific Lutheran University
Greek literature and history are full of examples where the words of an
emissary or ambassador play a crucial role. Nevertheless, since Greek rhetoric
was primarily concerned with the orator speaking within the political and
rhetorical community of one's own polis, ambassadorial speaking was not
studied systematically until the third century BC. No theoretical work
survives from this period, but we can glean some of what makes for effective
and ineffective ambassadorial speaking as Hellenistic rhetoricians did -- from
exempla preserved in the historians. These observations, when combined
with changes in ambassadorial speaking and education in the Roman period,
indicate that a pseudepigraphic example of an ambassadorial address, the
Presbeutikos Thessalou, is itself not an independent rhetorical
composition but an excerpt of a lost historical work.
Sheila Colwell
University of Washington
Pseudolus, the servus callidus in Plautus' comedy of the same name,
triumphs over the vicious pimp, Ballio, by gaining possession of one of
Ballio's girls for the benefit of a typically comic, love-lorn youth.
Surprisingly, when we examine the speeches of each character, we see that
Ballio and Pseudolus are not unequally matched combatants, rather they each
exercise power skillfully and in a manner characteristic of the stock roles of
leno and servus. In this paper, I examine the character of
Ballio in order to show how Plautus exalts the power of language over the power
of physical violence in the Pseudolus. Ballio is defeated not merely
because he is stupid, but also because he has no faith in words nor in the
power of words; rather he believes only in actions and in power manifest
through violence. Thus, the triumph of Pseudolus serves as a comic
demonstration of the efficacy of verbal power in competition with physical
power.
Catherine Connors
University of Washington
This paper (which is to appear in an essay collection entitled Roman
Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature, W. Dominik, ed. [Routledge])
examines representations of rusticity and agriculture in Roman rhetorical
texts. In one strategy, rhetoricians oppose rusticity to the good orators'
urbane sophistication. Excluded from the rhetorical training available to the
urban elite, rustics make poor orators; therefore, incompetent or unpolished
orators are metaphorically called rustic. In addition to contrasting rusticity
with oratorical competence, and as part of an overall interest in making the
growth of the orator look like a development of nature rather than an artifact
of culture, rhetoricians also use the cultivation of land as a metaphor for the
proper cultivation of oratory. Attempts to connect growth in the natural world
with the development of oratorical expertise also underlie the designation of
certain oratorical styles as Attic and Asiatic. Such representations of
rusticity make it look natural that elite men receive privileged access to
persuasive speech. They should also lead us to question that process of
naturalization.
Karen Eva Carr
Portland State University
The standard description of Roman provincial law calls for injured parties to
bring their case before the local aedile of their civitas, for minor cases, and
before the governor, for more serious cases. In the later Empire, cases might
be brought to the comes civitatis, or to the bishop. But although we
have many records of such cases, we have few which seem to deal with the
poorest of the poor, who are nevertheless precisely the group which has the
most contact with the law in our own society, and probably was the most tempted
to crime in antiquity as well. The rural poor do not seem to have used the
municipal courts, preferring instead either to settle their cases themselves or
to bring them to the vilicus of the estate to which they belonged. Even when
they are the accused rather than the accuser, it seems to be relatively rare
for a case to be taken as far as the local aedile. As concerns the rural poor,
the workings of the law in the Roman period seem remarkably similar to its
workings under the feudal system.
Thomas H. Talboy
Boise State University
The Emperor Hadrian, known for his military ability and his keen sense of
timing in strengthening the fortification of the Roman Empire, instead of
expanding it, is sometimes overlooked as having any significance as a poet.
Some of his poetry survives, and perhaps at first glance, a reader might be
tempted to give no more than an affectionate grim in reading what remains --
ranging from a comical retort to the more serious and more well-known obloquy
to his soul.
Textual analysis of Hadrian's dedication to his horse Borysthenes, coupled with
rightful appreciation for the sensual side of Hadrian as experienced in his
relationship with Antinous, reveals that the assumed staid military strategist
is quite capable of engaging the language of the empire, as well as the
language of the soul in smoothly and effectively addressing a dedication to his
horse, while at the same time dedicating his heart to his beloved.
This paper will focus on the explication of Latin poetry with the ominous task
of keeping meaning intact. The difficulty in doing so will be specifically
addressed in the translation of obvious double entendres present in the poem,
that must necessarily be admitted to be of a man who is not just a military
leader, but is capable of expressing himself in poetic terms. In doing so,
this paper will address the desirability of understanding the poetry of Hadrian
as more than a mere side-line associated with him; rather, to comprehend it as
it accentuates and broadens our understanding of the more sensual part of
Hadrian.
James Scott
University of Montana
Immediately aware that the influence of the Homeric epics would not quietly
disappear, the early Greek Church Fathers attempted through the use of allegory
to neutralize the pagan message and to turn it into Christian teaching. But
these narratives seemed not to adapt themselves well to extended
symbolism. The entire Aeneid, however, is naturally agreeable to
Christian theme and allegory. Although the allegorists have represented Aeneas
as a man making moral and spiritual progress in the world, the idea of Rome as
a new Jerusalem seems not to occur until the Renaissance; and Aeneas as a St.
Peter figure apparently did not interest the allegorists at all. I propose a
reading of the Aeneid that would leave the entire Vergilian narrative
undisturbed and would accommodate the epic for Church use.