Bruce LaForse, “Xenophon's Anabasis: The First War Memoir ” Abstract: The Anabasis has long resisted definitive classification. Scholars have seen it as a philosophical tract, an apologia, an ethno-geographical treatise, and a commentary on a military campaign, among other proposals. While it contains elements of many such works, the Anabasis most closely resembles the highly personal modern war memoir as defined by Samuel Hynes. After Books one and two set the stage, the narrative focuses exclusively on Xenophon and records his transformation from an untried nobody into a respected and well-known commander.
Lisa Maurice, “A Calculated Comedy of Errors: The Structure of Plautus' Menaechmi” Abstract: Plautus’ Menaechmi consists of a two-part structure, built of parallel and balanced scenes, which emphasises the contrast between the two eponymous brothers. This contrast is shown by their relative acting ability, which directly contributes to their respective success and failure within the context of the play. Through his cunning and increasingly elaborate performances, Menaechmus of Syracuse comes over the course of the play to embody the festival spirit, and hence achieves his goal and finds his long lost brother. Menaechmus of Epidamnus in contrast fails to succeed at all until he also shows cunning, whereupon he achieves his own dream of escaping from the burdens of married life and duty in Epidamnus.
Mark E. Vesley, “Women and Civilization in Ovid's Metamorphoses ” Abstract: A prominent sub-theme of the Metamorphoses is the transformation of wilderness into civilization. The numerous stories in the poem dealing with wild, violent, or perverse behavior on the part of women underlie and support this theme. Three types represent stages of transformation: the figure of the virgin huntress (untamed by men) predominates at the beginning of the narrative; the Bacchant (violent in her worship) emerges later, and the woman victimized by mortal men and/or unnatural desire (violently lustful or vengeful) follows. Near the end of the epic Pomona symbolizes the new acquiescent role of women in a civilized world.
Mary Beagon, “Mors Repentina and the Roman Art of Dying ” Abstract: Sudden death features rarely in the ancient sources: the Elder Pliny and Suetonius supply the most detailed testimonials. Most discussions of dying are philosophical in tone and promote an image of “prepared” death which considerably influenced the later Christian tradition. Five aspects of a Roman art of dying emerge, elements of which are paralleled in a more pragmatic sixth, the will. The sudden deaths in Pliny and Suetonius, however, may indicate a popular tradition in which absence of pain or fear overrode preparation. Closer examination of two of these suggests that features of both traditions might be combined to produce the “ideal” death.
David Larmour, “Lightening the Load: Castration, Money, and Masculinity in Juvenal's Satire 12 ” Abstract: The fading or lost masculinity is a prominent issue in the Juvenalian corpus and in Satire 12 this is explored through a remarkable act of symbolic castration, when the merchant Catullus throws his goods overboard in a storm, “imitating the beaver, who makes himself a eunuch.” This reading focuses on the beaver simile as the ideological “ground zero” which ties together the poem’s complex interweaving of animal imagery, sailing, sacrifice and legacy-hunting. Through it, the satirist links castration and impotence in a novel way with the Roman moral discourse—visible in Seneca and others—surrounding greed and material possessions.
Steven J. Willett, “Reassessing Ezra Pound's Homage to Propertius ” Abstract: This paper is the first major attempt since J. P. Sullivan’s 1964 book Ezra Pound and Sextus Propertius. A Study in Creative Translation to assess the precise translational methods, structural organization, and poetic success of Ezra Pound’s Homage to Sextus Propertius. The assessment is based on an exhaustive line-by-line collation of the twelve English poems in the Homage with their disparate and fragmented sources in Propertius’ Latin. Pound used Lucian Müller’s nineteenth-century Teubner edition of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius for his Latin text. Since that is not readily available outside a major research library, the Latin text in Goold’s Loeb Library edition of Propertius, the best now available, was collated against Müller and the Homage. An appended table summarizes the results in easily readable form. The paper first cites the ancient testimonia to correct widespread errors about Propertius’s style and then falls into two parts: the first provides a section-by-section analysis of the techniques used by Pound in translating Propertius, the second explores the claim that the poem is a great technical feat in structural organization, versification, and English poetry.
Proceedings from the 2004 APA Panel: Electronic Publication and the Classics Profession
Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto, "Electronic Publication: The State of the Question" Abstract: Our paper will have two parts: we will begin by briefly introducing the project and describing our model and approach to scholarly electronic publishing, and we will take up the relationship of this project to the changes occurring in scholarly communication. We will concentrate on the experience from our own Project, but we will note progress on issues in electronic history publishing being made by the other important projects currently under way.
Peter Suber, "Promoting Open Access in the Humanities" Abstract: Open access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. It gives readers wider and easier access to the research they need and gives authors a larger audience and greater impact. It is desirable and attainable in the humanities, but it is less urgent and harder to subsidize than in the sciences. This article briefly explains what open access is, identifies nine reasons why progress is slower in the humanities than in the sciences, and makes eight recommendations for accelerating that progress.
Jeffrey Rydberg-Cox, "Electronic Publication and Academic Promotion" Abstract: This paper was written for the panel on Electronic Publication and Classics as the 2004 meeting of the APA was taking shape. As the organizers were preparing this panel, I was in the middle of my third year review at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. During this process, I found it very interesting to see what pieces of my academic output were counting in my review and what pieces were not. This process sparked a desire to gain a more general understanding of what kinds of electronic publication counted and what kinds did not in our field. To try to gain a better understanding, we asked members of the APA to complete a short survey about whether or not electronic publication counted at their institution and their personal thoughts about the issue. This paper discusses some of the survey results and also offers personal reflections about what elements of my research counted in the review process and what parts did not.
David Whitehead, "Response"
