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Vanished Libraries of Classical Antiquity

Michael Lapidge

in The Anglo-Saxon Library

By the time the first Anglo-Saxon libraries were assembled, during the course of 7th century AD, libraries both public and private had been a significant feature of Mediterranean civilization for ... More

By the time the first Anglo-Saxon libraries were assembled, during the course of 7th century AD, libraries both public and private had been a significant feature of Mediterranean civilization for more than a thousand years. This chapter considers Mediterranean libraries under three headings: Alexandria and the libraries of the Greek world, the libraries of Ancient Rome, and the Christian libraries of the patristic period.Less

Androgynous Gods in Archaic Rome

Anthony Corbeill

in Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome

This chapter examines the role of grammatical gender in daily religious experience by focusing on androgynous gods in ancient Rome. It shows that the grammatical gender of a god's name matches the ... More

This chapter examines the role of grammatical gender in daily religious experience by focusing on androgynous gods in ancient Rome. It shows that the grammatical gender of a god's name matches the perceived sex of its imagined incarnation. This observation is extended to an analysis of the indigetes, a set of minor deities who seem to have ruled every aspect of daily life, and to whom the Romans appealed, in particular at significant transitional stages such as birth, marriage, and death. A tendency to group gods in sexed pairs is evident in the numerous extant allusions to these deities, as well as to other divine powers. The chapter concludes by showing how this originary state of divine androgyny—whether historical or the product of intellectual speculation—collapses over time in ways analogous to the loss of fluid gender for nouns.Less

Introduction: Law in Society

Thomas A. J. McGinn

in Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome

This introduction discusses the subject of the book, namely the legal rules affecting the practice of female prostitution in Rome during the central part of its history, a period extending from ... More

This introduction discusses the subject of the book, namely the legal rules affecting the practice of female prostitution in Rome during the central part of its history, a period extending from approximately 200 BC to AD 250. The book looks at the origins and content of the legal norms created for prostitution. The aim is to examine these norms in relation to the wider social context, discuss how the legal and political authorities were able to adapt this to society's needs, and illustrate crucial issues relating to marginal groups, marriage, sexual behavior, the family, slavery, and citizen status, especially the status of women. Prostitution, for years a marginal theme in historiography, stands at the center of some fundamental modern concerns with past societies.Less

Afterword: English Bards and German Professors

Glenn W. Most

in Romans and Romantics

This concluding chapter reconsiders some of the main claims of the volume by emphasizing the importance of the ancient Romans for German and British Romanticism. It then surveys some of the reasons ... More

This concluding chapter reconsiders some of the main claims of the volume by emphasizing the importance of the ancient Romans for German and British Romanticism. It then surveys some of the reasons why subsequent scholarship and literature has tended to focus so much more on Romantic images of ancient Greece than on those of ancient Rome. From there, it illustrates the fascinating complicities, but also the tensions, between Rome and Romanticism by considering the examples of the Römische Geschichte of the German professor Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776–1831) and the Lays of Ancient Rome by the English poet, historian, and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59).Less

The Taxation of Roman Prostitutes *

Thomas A. J. McGinn

in Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome

The tax on prostitutes instituted by Caligula provides solid evidence on its economic importance and the attitude of the imperial administration to it. The scattered and fragmentary nature of this ... More

The tax on prostitutes instituted by Caligula provides solid evidence on its economic importance and the attitude of the imperial administration to it. The scattered and fragmentary nature of this evidence is given close attention here so we can extracat the true significance of the tax. This chapter examines the information given by Suetonius and Dio and discusses the motives for its introduction, methods of collection and calculation, later history and eventual abolition, and, finally, the provincial evidence for details of administration. The aim is to assess not only the success of the tax in terms of the original motives for its introduction but also the other effects of the tax, for it has some important implications for Roman public policy toward prostitution in general.Less

The Lex lulia de Adulteriis Coercendis

Thomas A. J. McGinn

in Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome

This chapter examines the ancient Roman law lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, a companion statute to the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus that was brought before the concilium plebes by Augustus ... More

This chapter examines the ancient Roman law lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, a companion statute to the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus that was brought before the concilium plebes by Augustus acting once more on the authority of his tribunicia potestas. The lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis had as its principal aim the repression of those forms of non-marital sexual relations considered unacceptable by Roman society, particularly adultery. Aside from adultery and criminal fornication, there is disagreement as to what the adultery law punished. There is controversy over whether it punished incest, but the late classical jurists treat this as a separate crime, to the extent that even incestuous marriages might in some cases receive protection under the adultery statute. Before the passage of the lex Iulia, the repression of sexual misbehavior was generally conceded to the private sphere.Less

Civic Disabilities: The Status of Prostitutes and Pimps as Roman Citizens

Thomas A. J. McGinn

in Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome

The disabilities that were imposed on prostitutes and pimps constitute infringements on their rights and their standing as Roman citizens. This chapter examines a segment of these: disabilities ... More

The disabilities that were imposed on prostitutes and pimps constitute infringements on their rights and their standing as Roman citizens. This chapter examines a segment of these: disabilities relating to political and social life, on the one hand, and to the operation of the courts, on the other. Citizenship is an ambiguous concept, one of whose basic functions is to discriminate. Like many such definitions ancient and modern, that of Roman citizenship was informed by certain criteria that excluded individuals from the category that it defined. The definition is of necessity complicated by the fact that, once the dividing line between citizen and non-citizen was drawn, the definition did not stop there but articulated a range of differences on the citizen side of the line.Less

Introduction: Latin Grammatical Gender Is Not Arbitrary

Anthony Corbeill

in Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome

This book presents some evidence from ancient Rome to dispute the notion that the grammatical gender of inanimate objects is a convenient linguistic convention, having no correspondence with any sort ... More

This book presents some evidence from ancient Rome to dispute the notion that the grammatical gender of inanimate objects is a convenient linguistic convention, having no correspondence with any sort of imagined sexual characteristics of those objects in the real world. It argues that in the world of Latin grammatical gender, the sex and sexuality behind a given gender was always available for exploitation by the learned speaker. The book provides a historical perspective to the ongoing debate over the extent to which the structure of language affects perception of the world. Using the stable data of the Latin language and Latin literature, it examines the consistent overlap, and even occasional identification, of grammatical gender with biological sex by speakers in ancient Rome, and shows that this overlap finds an analogue in the Latin nouns commonly used to denote “gender” and “sex.”Less

Poetic Play with Sex and Gender

Anthony Corbeill

in Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome

This chapter examines selected instances of grammatical gender-bending that occur in extant poetic texts, for most of which instances scholars both ancient and modern have largely chosen not to offer ... More

This chapter examines selected instances of grammatical gender-bending that occur in extant poetic texts, for most of which instances scholars both ancient and modern have largely chosen not to offer explanations. The passages chosen are meant to demonstrate the potential range of approaches that the poets could apply to the manipulation of grammatical gender. The chapter begins with a survey of visual evidence from antiquity to demonstrate that, with only apparent exceptions, personifications in ancient Rome are depicted with the sex that corresponds to the grammatical gender of the noun that describes them. It then considers poetic texts that provide various examples in which a poet plays with the notion of personification through the exploitation of a noun's gender. It concludes with an analysis of Catullus 6, where sensitivity to grammatical gender contributes to the riddling nature of the poem.Less

Introduction

Mark Golden and Peter Toohey

in Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome

This book offers a selection of scholarship on sex and gender in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, beginning from the end of the eighteenth century, a time of turmoil and ferment. The model of ... More

This book offers a selection of scholarship on sex and gender in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, beginning from the end of the eighteenth century, a time of turmoil and ferment. The model of separate spheres – women relegated to private sphere, men to public sphere – never worked particularly well for Rome. Men, especially citizen men, occupied the public sphere of the community, both literally – they alone ranged freely throughout the Greek and Roman worlds – and metaphorically, as participants in politics, litigants in courts, theater audiences. Women, contrariwise, were restricted to the home. Meanwhile, sex occupied a separate sphere of its own, sometimes the province of specialists in ancient medicine, at others the pastime of collectors of curiosa, of investigators into sexual positions, sex sellers, the erotic vocabulary. These fields have been transformed by the work of the past forty years, first Kenneth Dover's, then, following in his footsteps, that of Michel Foucault. This book explores sexuality and gender in the ancient world, focusing on how the roles and spheres of the sexes were divided.Less

A Volscian Mafia? Cicero and his Italian Clients in the Forensic Speeches

Kathryn Lomas

in Cicero the Advocate

In the aftermath of the bitter Social War between ancient Rome and the Italians, ending in the extension of Roman citizenship to all Italians, the competing claims of existing local loyalties and the ... More

In the aftermath of the bitter Social War between ancient Rome and the Italians, ending in the extension of Roman citizenship to all Italians, the competing claims of existing local loyalties and the new demands made by integration into the Roman State, created an intense debate amongst the Italian nobility about the nature of regional identity and how to reconcile this with the profound changes in the relationship of Italian states to Rome. This chapter examines two interconnected themes: first, the Italians who were defended by Cicero or otherwise appear prominently in his forensic speeches, their background and the municipalities from which they originated, and Cicero's connections with them; second, how the Italian clients are characterised in the speeches, the role they play, and what this implies about Roman and Italian identity in the generation after the Social War.Less

The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200–1815

Richard Bonney

in The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200–1815

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to study the rise of the ‘fiscal state’ in Europe through a series of case studies. It also considers the effectiveness of the ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to study the rise of the ‘fiscal state’ in Europe through a series of case studies. It also considers the effectiveness of the fiscal system of Ancient Rome, and the extent to which the period between the fall of Rome and the gradual emergence of settled dynastic monarchies after c.1000 had led to fiscal reversion.Less

A Brief Semantic History of Securitas

John T. Hamilton

in Security: Politics, Humanity, and the Philology of Care

What does the term “security” express? What are or have been its semantic functions: its shifting cultural connotations and its divergent discursive values? This chapter examines the figures and ... More

What does the term “security” express? What are or have been its semantic functions: its shifting cultural connotations and its divergent discursive values? This chapter examines the figures and metaphors that have been deployed to think about security across the ages. It outlines the main stations along the word's complex itinerary through historical usage. It begins with a cursory overview that marks the major turning points of this history, beginning with ancient Rome and concluding with seventeenth-century Europe. Among the topics covered is the positive sense of security that established its position as a central topic in political philosophy in the work of Thomas Hobbes. Throughout, the affirmation of security as a good is fundamentally connected with the power of sovereignty to alleviate the cares and concerns of its subjects. The state emerges as an institution that protects its citizens from all varieties of existential threats, from external aggression as well as from internal discord.Less

Building a New Ancient Rome

Lisa Maurice (ed.)

in STARZ Spartacus: Reimagining an Icon on Screen

This chapter investigates how the world of ancient Rome is portrayed onscreen in the Spartacus series by assessing the physical sets—including the buildings and cities, interior design, and ... More

This chapter investigates how the world of ancient Rome is portrayed onscreen in the Spartacus series by assessing the physical sets—including the buildings and cities, interior design, and furniture—as well as the art direction in terms of color and costume design. With productions set in particular periods or places, the physical set and mise-en-scène provide vital clues as to when and where they are conceived as taking place. This chapter thus analyzes the distinctive look of the physical settings of the series, especially the villas and the cities (Capua, Sinuessa, and Rome), arguing that Spartacus offers a vision of a dark and turbulent new Rome that owes as much to contemporary thinking as to its past, both historical and cinematic.Less

Conclusion: Diversity and Unity in Roman Legal Perspectives on Prostitution

Thomas A. J. McGinn

in Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome

This conclusion reviews the topics discussed. Firstly it presents an analytical summary of the findings contained in all the chapters and then in brings together a synthetic conclusion for the book.