Ioannis Ziogas

Geography, topography, landscape : configurations of space in Greek and Roman epic

This collection of essays explores how epic narratives negotiate, define, and transform genre-specific geographical configurations. A team of international scholars engages in an interdisciplinary discussion about how Greek and Roman epic poetry interacts with the historical and cultural dynamics of geography. The book brings together the world of Classical literature with current trends in examining the politics of spatial constructions.

Love elegy and legal language in Ovid.

Ovid’s engagement with legal discourse is a version of the elegiac recusatio, a simultaneous appropriation and denial of legalisms. Set against the background of Augustus’ adultery laws, Ovidian elegy aspires to dictate and reform the rules of amatory conduct. The Ars Amatoria exemplifies the profile of love elegy as legal discourse by attempting to regulate love affairs under a regime that institutionalized passion. The conflict and interaction between the world of elegiac seduction and that of Roman law feature prominently in Acontius’ letter to Cydippe (Heroides 20). In this letter, literary sources legitimize poetic imitations; fanciful innovations mirror established traditions; wedding contracts converge with amatory deception and witness-statements with love letters. By construing an intricate nexus between the fantasies of desire and the reality and materiality of legal documents, Ovid suggests that, in the end, Cupid is in charge of both the letter and the spirit of the law.

Famous last words : Caesar's prophecy on the Ides of March.

Abstract Shakespeare’s Et tu, Brute has been influential in shaping a tradition that interprets Caesar’s last words as an expression of shock at Brutus’ betrayal. Yet this interpretation is not suggested in the ancient sources that attest the tag καὶ σύ, τέκνον (‘you too, son’). This article argues that Caesar’s dictum evokes a formula of funerary epigrams, which refers to death as the common lot of all mortals. The epitaphic connotations of καὶ σύ or tu quoque feature in epic poetry, a connection that lends a Homeric dimension to Caesar’s last words. The dictator’s oral epitaph predicts the death of Brutus as a consequence of his involvement in the assassination. It means ‘You too, son, will die’. The Greco-Roman belief that a dying man can foresee the future invests Caesar’s last words with prophetic authority.

The topography of epic narrative in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

When a geographical name enters the world of poetry, it is assimilated into the narrative milieu of a specific context. It ceases to be merely a signifier and interacts with the plot of the narrative. This chapter focuses on the literary topography¹ of geographical names in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and is divided into two parts. The first part examines the narrative dynamics of ancient etymologies and the way in which the meaning of geographical names is enmeshed with the characters and plot of a tale. The second part deals with the interplay between epic narrative and geographical setting, focusing on a number of geographical displacements in the Metamorphoses. Far from approaching literary space and geography as a decorative backdrop against which the main action takes place, I look at space as an important player in Ovid’s narrative.

Stripping the Roman Ladies: Ovid's Rites and Readers

Ovids disclaimers in the Ars Amatoria need to be read in this context. My main argument is that, in his disclaimers, Ovid is rendering his female readership socially unrecognizable, rather than excluding respectable virgins and matronae from his audience. Ars 1.31–4, Ovids programmatic statement about his works target audience, is a case in point. A closer look at the passage shows that he does not necessarily warn off Roman wives and marriageable girls: este procul, uittae tenues, insigne pudoris, quaeque tegis medios instita longa pedes: nos Venerem tutam concessaque furta canemus inque meo nullum carmine crimen erit. Ov. Ars Am. 1.31–4 Stay away, slender fillets, symbol of modesty, and you, long hem, who cover half the feet: we shall sing of safe sex and permitted cheating and there will be no wrong in my song.