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Article

alcoholism, Roman  

John Maxwell O'Brien and Barney Rickenbacker

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Material Culture
The ancient Romans were as interested in the harmful effects of excessive drinking and chronic intoxication as their Greek counterparts. In On the Nature of Things, *Lucretius writes that wine's fury disturbs the soul, debilitates the body, and provokes quarrels (3. 476–83). The younger *Seneca warns that habitual drunkenness so weakens the mind that its consequences are felt long after the drinking has stopped (Ep. 83. 26). He notes that some men become so tolerant of wine that even though they are inebriated they appear to be sober (Ep. 83. 11). Seneca also suggests that drunkenness tends to disclose and magnify character defects (Ep. 83. 19–20). In his Naturalis historia, *Pliny (1) the Elder finds irony in the fact that men spend hard-earned money on something that can damage the mind and cause madness (14. 137). Like the Greeks, Pliny comments on truth in wine (‘in vino veritas’), but emphasizes that the truths therein revealed are often better left unspoken (HN 14.

Article

Apicius  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture
Apicius, proverbial cognomen of several Roman connoisseurs of luxury, especially in food, in particular M. Gavius Apicius (PIR2 G 91), notorious resident of the resort of *Minturnae in the Tiberian period, i.e. early 1st cent. ce (he wrote on sauces and claimed to have created a scientia popinae (‘eating-house cuisine’): Sen.

Article

Athenaeum  

Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture

*Hadrian's famous institution for the study of Greek *rhetoric and letters in the centre of Rome. In the 4th cent. ce it was the setting for public *declamation in Latin as well. Its location is uncertain.

Article

Athenaeus (2) Mechanicus  

David Whitehead

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Science, Technology, and Medicine
  3. Roman Material Culture
Athenaeus (2) Mechanicus is the named author of a surviving treatise On Machines; military ones, for use in siege-warfare. The work is addressed to a ‘Marcellus,’ and nowadays orthodoxy identifies him with M. Claudius Marcellus, the short-lived (42–23 bce) nephew & son-in-law of Augustus. That in turn makes it plausible that the writer himself is Athenaeus of Seleucia-on-the-Calycadnus, a Cilician Greek intellectual known to have been in Rome in the 20s, and a contemporary, in that milieu, of Vitruvius. There is indeed material common to A.’s treatise and to sections of Book 10 of Vitruvius' On Architecture—material that, it seems, they took from their teacher Agesistratus of (?)Rhodes.Short and not always coherent though it is, the On Machines has a two-fold importance. One is in the material mentioned already: Athenaeus and Vitruvius in tandem (together with a middle-Byzantine version of the same material) provide a succinct but useful summary history of military machinery from its beginnings to the early Hellenistic period, highlighting especially the mechanici who served Alexander the Great.

Article

books, Greek and Roman  

H. Maehler

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Greek Material Culture
  3. Latin Literature
  4. Roman Material Culture
Books existed in *Egypt long before they came into use in Greece. Systems of writing had been invented and developed for administrative purposes in both Egypt and *Mesopotamia by c.3000 bce. While the Sumerians (see sumerian) and Babylonians used clay tablets for their *cuneiform scripts, the Egyptians used papyrus. A blank sheet of papyrus was found in the tomb of the vizier Hemaka in Saqqara of c.3000 bce. The oldest surviving inscribed papyrus texts are the temple accounts of Abusir of c.2450 bce. A number of fine statues of seated scribes of the same period suggests that this profession was already well established and that writing had been practised for centuries, long enough for the ‘hieratic’ script to develop through the adaptation of hieroglyphs to the use of reed-brush and papyrus. The hieroglyph for ‘book-roll’ is first attested in the first dynasty (c.

Article

Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus  

M. Stephen Spurr

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture
Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella (cf. CIL 9. 235) fl. 50 ce, b. *Gades in Spain (Rust. 8. 16. 9; 10. 185) author of the most systematic extant Roman agricultural manual (written c.60–5 ce) in twelve books. Book 1: introduction, layout of villa, organization of slave workforce; 2: arable cultivation; 3–5: viticulture (mainly) and other arboriculture; 6, 7: animal husbandry; 8, 9: pastio villatica (e.g. specialized breeding of poultry, fish and game, and bees); 10: horticulture (in hexameter verse); 11: duties of vilicus (slave estate-manager), calendar of farm work and horticulture; 12: duties of vilica (female companion of vilicus), wine and oil processing and food conservation. Another surviving book (the so-called Liber de arboribus) probably belonged to a shorter first version of the subject, while his works criticizing astrologers (11. 1. 31) and on religion in agriculture (if ever written, 2. 21. 5) are not extant. Columella defends the intensive slave-staffed villa—characterized by capital investment (1. 1. 18), close supervision by the owner (1. 1. 18–20), and the integration of arable and animal husbandry (6 praefatio 1–2)—against influential contrary views on agricultural management (1 praefatio 1).

Article

Domus Aurea  

Larry Ball

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Material Culture
The Domus Aurea (Golden House) was the opulent residence of the emperor Nero (r. 54–68 ce), set in a vast park in Rome. Ancient literary sources on the Domus Aurea are abundant, albeit not wholly reliable or fair to Nero. Both Suetonius (Ner. 31) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.38–40 and 42) describe the construction. The first phase started in c. 60 ce. This was called the Domus Transitoria, which was interrupted by the great fire of 64 ce. “Domus Aurea” refers to the second phase, after the fire. Given its enormous scale, the Domus Aurea may not have been fully completed in just four years, but at least part of it was finished, most likely the core of the residence, on the Palatine Hill, near the forum, and Nero did move in. The palatine core is largely unknown to us, but the vast parklands created to the east of the forum area include a fine villa on the Esquiline Hill that bespeaks a spectacular new standard both for architectural design in vaulted Roman concrete and in decoration. After Nero, systematic obliteration of the Domus Aurea began with Vespasian (r. 69–79 ce), who sought to erase Nero’s memory.

Article

ekphrasis in Latin literature  

Basil Dufallo

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
28 February 2020
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture
The imperial-age Greek Progymnasmata in which the term ekphrasis first appears show that the rhetoricians of the Greco-Roman world identified “descriptive speech” as an important component of rhetorical narrative and other elements of an oration insofar as it created “vividness” (ἐνάργεια) and “clarity” (ͅσαφήνεια) so as to bring persons, places, events, objects, etc. “before the eyes” (ὑπ’ ὅψιν) of listeners. The Roman rhetoricians draw upon Greek concepts and terminology to express the value in oratory of vividness (evidentia, illustratio, repraesentatio) imparted through description (descriptio, sub oculos subiectio, etc.). Many examples of such techniques can be found in Roman oratory as well as the Roman historians, who, like most Roman authors, share with the orators a strong familiarity with rhetoric. But if, in general, neither oratory nor historiography exhibits a high degree of self-consciousness about differences between ekphraseis/descriptiones in Greek and Latin, one type of ekphrasis—that of art objects in Roman poetry and the Roman novel—does. This constitutes one reason why it merits separate attention, in spite of the fact that the Progymnasmata suggest that in Antiquity it was viewed as a subcategory of the larger phenomenon.

Article

epigraphy, Latin  

Joyce Reynolds

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture

The study of Latin texts inscribed on durable objects, usually of stone or bronze. It is concerned both with the form of the inscriptions and with their content, and so impinges on many other fields, e.g. art history, palaeography, philology, history, law, religion. It excludes, but cannot ignore, texts on coins and gems; it has a strong interest in Greek inscriptions of the Roman period; it includes some texts written with paint or pen and ink (see e.g. amphorae and amphora stamps, roman).

2. The epigraphist must first decipher all that can be read on the inscribed object, however much damaged it is and then, where possible, propose restorations of what is illegible or lost: processes for which modern techniques, such as computer-enhanced photographs and computerized indices of formulae, are currently supplementing long-standing aids, such as photographs taken in raking lights and squeezes (impressions made with absorbent paper or latex). The resulting text can then be interpreted as a historical document.

Article

graffiti  

Jacqueline DiBiasie-Sammons

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 May 2024
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Greek Material Culture
  3. Latin Literature
  4. Roman Material Culture
Graffiti are informal, unofficial writings or drawings on surfaces not first produced for writing purposes, such as walls, pavement stones, rocks, and ceramics. Graffiti elucidate a great deal about life in the ancient world including topics such as social history, literacy, linguistic variation, sexuality, religious practices, and the use of space in ancient cities. These texts were composed in a variety of media: typically, they were scratched into the physical support, but paint, charcoal, and chalk were used as well. Graffiti have been found in many cities of the Greco-Roman world and in a variety of spaces including houses, tombs, religious spaces, and public areas. Since the texts were often inscribed or written on delicate surfaces such as wall plaster, only a small portion of the thousands that were once inscribed survive to the present.Graffiti (singular graffito) are informal, unofficial writings or drawings on surfaces not first produced for writing purposes, such as walls, pavement stones, rocks, and ceramics. A narrow definition of the word from its Italian root meaning “to scratch” only includes texts or drawings scratched into a hard surface such as plaster, stone, or marble. Because informal writings made with materials such as charcoal and chalk served the same purposes and were written in the same locations, and, in some instances, by the same authors as their inscribed counterparts, they are also included in the genre. The term graffiti, now used in English for writing of this sort from any era, was coined by .

Article

Iulius Atticus  

M. Stephen Spurr

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture

Iulius Atticus, probably of Gallic origin, wrote, in *Tiberius' time, the first specialized monograph on viticulture (*Columella, Rust. 1. 1. 14). He apparently aimed to produce *wine in bulk while cutting costs (ibid. 4. 1–2).

Article

libraries  

P. J. Parsons

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Greek Material Culture
  3. Latin Literature
  4. Roman Material Culture
By the end of the 5th cent. bce, books were in general circulation, even if some regarded them as a fad of intellectuals like *Euripides (Ar. Ran. 943, cf. fr. 506 KA); Athens had booksellers (Eup. fr. 327, Aristomenes (2) fr. 9, KA), and exports reached the Black Sea (Xen. An. 7. 5. 14), see euxine. Individuals collected the best-known poets and philosophers (Xen. Mem. 4. 2. 1); an imagined collection of the later 4th cent. bce includes *Orpheus, *Hesiod, *tragedies, *Choerilus (probably (2)), *Homer, *Epicharmus, and all kinds of prose, including Simus' Cookery (Alexis fr. 140 KA). Of famous collectors (Ath. 1. 3a), *Aristotle took first place (Strabo 13. 1. 54); but his library, like that of the other philosophic schools, remained private property (for its chequered history, see Strabo, ibid.; Plut. Sull. 26. 1–2).Institutional libraries begin with the Hellenistic monarchies; the ‘public’ library of *Pisistratus (Gell.

Article

papyrology, Latin  

J. David Thomas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Law
  4. Roman Material Culture
In comparison with Greek papyri, Latin papyri are uncommon, even when “papyri” is understood in a wide sense so as to include *ostraca and parchment scraps. This is so because the vast majority of papyri come from the eastern Mediterranean, where the language of administration was Greek even under the Roman empire. Latin was in regular use in this area until c. 300ce only in the military sphere; and although *Diocletian made an effort to encourage the use of Latin in the eastern provinces, this did not have any great effect.Since the turn of the 20th century, some 600 Latin papyri have been published, less than a quarter of which are literary. Most come from Egypt, but finds have also been made at Dura-*Europus, Nessana, and *Masada, as well as in the west. Two literary papyri dating from the reign of *Augustus are known: the much discussed elegiac verses from Qasr Ibrim attributed to *Cornelius Gallus1 and a fragment of *Cicero, In Verrem (CPL 20).

Article

phallus  

Richard Seaford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Gender Studies
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Greek Material Culture
  4. Greek Myth and Religion
  5. Latin Literature
  6. Roman Material Culture
  7. Roman Myth and Religion
Phallus, an image of the penis, often as erect, to be found in various contexts, in particular (a) in certain rituals associated with fertility, notably Dionysiac *processions (see dionysus): see e.g. Ar. Ach.243 on the Attic rural Dionysia (see attic cults and myths), *Semos in Ath. 622b-c on groups of ‘ithyphallics’ and ‘phallus-bearers’, *Varro in Aug. Civ. 7. 21 ‘for the success of seeds’ at the Liberalia (see liber pater);(b) as a sacred object revealed in the Dionysiac *mysteries, as in the Villa of the Mysteries fresco at *Pompeii; *Iamblichus (2) (Myst. 1. 11) mentions it as a symbol of secret doctrine;(c) in the costume of comedy (see comedy (greek), old), *satyric drama, and various low theatrical genres; *Aristotle (Poet. 1449a11) says that comedy originated in phallic songs;(d) on permanent display, often as part of a statue such as those of *Priapus or the *herms identified with *Hermes;(e) as apotropaic: e.

Article

Res gestae  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Material Culture
Res gestae (of *Augustus). Augustus left four documents with the Vestal Virgins (see vesta) to be read, after his death, in the senate (Suet. Aug.101). One of these was a record of his achievements (Index rerum a se gestarum), in the style of the claims of the triumphatores of the Roman past, which was to be erected on bronze pillars at the entrance of his mausoleum in the *Campus Martius at Rome. This is known to us from a copy, updated after Augustus' death, which was piously affixed (with a Greek translation) to the antae of the front of the cella of the temple of Rome and Augustus at *Ancyra, capital of *Galatia and therefore centre of the imperial cult of the province. Small fragments of other copies have been found at *Apollonia and *Antioch (2) in Pisidia (also in the province of Galatia); it is likely but not established that copies were widely set up in the provinces.

Article

Septimius, Publius  

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture

Publius Septimius, a republican writer on architecture mentioned by Vitruvius (7. praef. 14).

Article

theatre staging, Roman  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture
The staging of the plays of *Plautus and *Terence has to be worked out almost entirely from the texts themselves; the theatres in which they were performed have not survived. (The first Roman theatre to last for any length of time was built by *Pompey in 55 bce, with a seating capacity estimated at 10,000. Later theatres in the Roman world were increasingly elaborate: see theatres (greek and roman), structure.) Plays put on at the Megalesian Games (see ludi) were performed outside the temple of *Cybele on the *Palatine, others probably outside other temples or in the *forum Romanum, normally on wooden stages erected for the occasion. As in Greece, plays were performed in daytime in the open air, and the action was supposed to take place out of doors.The stage generally represents a street, fronted by at most three houses, and with side-exits/-entrances to left and right; the street is normally called platea, rarely angiportum (more commonly used to refer to a back street not visible to the spectators).