Basil Dufallo

¬The captor's image : Greek culture in Roman ecphrasis

Abbreviations Introduction. Greek Culture in Roman Ecphrasis 1. Staging Ecphrasis in Early Latin Literature: From Naevius to Plautus and Terence 2. Becoming Ariadne: Marveling at Peleuss Coverlet with the Inconsistent Narrator of Catullus 64 3. The Challenge of Rustic Art: Ideals of Order in Vergil, Eclogues 3 and Horace, Satires 1.8 4. Describing the Divine: The Ecphrastic Temples of Vergil, Georgics 3.13-36 and Propertius, Elegies 2.31 5. Heroic Objects: Ecphrasis in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses 6. Sex, Satire, and the Hybrid Self in Petronian Ecphrasis 7. The Patrons Image: Philhellenism, Panegyric, and Ecphrasis in Statius and Martial Epilogue. Captives and Captors: Apuleius and Philostratus Bibliography Index

WORDS BORN AND MADE: HORACE'S DEFENSE OF NEOLOGISMS AND THE CULTURAL POETICS OF LATIN

The defense of neologisms at Horace Ars Poetica 48–69, with its famous simile comparing words to both leaves and feats of engineering (60–69), is among the most memorably poetic passages in Horace’s great poem on poetics. 1 The question of sources and analogues in the work of earlier poets as well as in poetic, rhetorical, and grammatical theory has consequently attracted much interest, since the passage, as has been shown, provides striking testimony both to Horace’s awareness of critical discussions and his originality as a poet (see esp. Brink 1971.132–60). But our emphasis on identifying sources for Horace’s concepts and imagery may have prevented us from perceiving all that the comparison with other discourses on language can tell us about the passage as a feature of Roman culture. The prescriptive discourses used to situate word-creation within “correct” Latin employed a distinction between what was “born” or “native” and what was “made” or “new.” Some Romans insisted on the avoidance of “new” words, and, although allowances were made for poetry, this nevertheless posed problems for anyone who, like Horace, sought to recommend their use. 2 1 All references will be to Rudd’s text of the Ars Poetica except where indicated. Translations are my own.