From BMCR:

Daniel M. Gross, The Secret History of Emotion.

Ségolène Demougin, Xavier Loriot, Pierre Cosme, Sabine Lefebvre, H.-G. Pflaum: un historien du XXe siècle. Actes du colloque international, Paris le 21, 22, et 23 octobre 2004. École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Historiques et Philologiques. III Hautes Etudes du Monde Greco-Romain, 37

Paul Erdkamp, The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political, and Economic Study.

Roger Beck, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun.

Jakob Munk Højte, Roman Imperial Statue Bases from Augustus to Commodus. Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity 7.


Abstracts:

In Classical Antiquity 25.2 (inter alia; more tomorrow):

Euhemerus in Context
Franco De Angelis De Angelis,Benjamin Garstad

Euhemerus, the famous theorist on the nature of the gods who lived around 300 BC, has usually been discussed as a disembodied intellectual figure, with scholars focusing on his literary and philosophical sources and influence. Although he is called “Euhemerus of Messene,” there is uncertainty as to where he was born, lived, and worked, in particular whether he came from Sicilian or Peloponnesian Messene. Until now, the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Successor Kingdoms have been considered the only context for Euhemerus. This paper will draw upon literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to argue that Euhemerus belongs in a Sicilian context. The long history of the worship of rulers in Sicily from the oikistai to the tyrants of Syracuse, the wealth of Sicily, the proximity of the Lipari Islands, the multiethnic milieu of Sicily with its vigorous interaction and syncretism, all contributed to Euhemerus' experiences and thought. We suggest that centuries of Sicilian cultural and political experience, not merely the “phenomenon” of Alexander the Great and the dawn of the Hellenistic Age, provided the impetus to the ideas of Euhemerus, and that Euhemerus brought this Sicilian contribution to bear on the new problems of the wider world.

A History of Lost Tablets
L. Roman

This study examines a recurrent scenario in Roman poetry of the first-person genres: the separation of the poet from his writing tablets. Catullus' tablets are stolen (c.42); Propertius' are lost (3.23); Ovid's (Am. 1.11–12) are consigned to disuse and decay by their disappointed owner. Martial, who does not reproduce the specific narrative of loss, nonetheless engages with the tradition of lost tablets from within the fiction of festive gift-exchange in his Apophoreta (14.1–21): rather than losing or rejecting the tablets, he gives them away to guests/readers at his Saturnalian party. I argue that the representation of writing tablets and their loss is involved in the production of authorial presence. The scene of lost tablets demonstrates how the poet retains the capacity for poetic speech even when deprived of the aid of his material medium. The ostensibly accidental and sometimes lamented loss of the poet's tablets thus contributes to a sophisticated strategy of authorial self-representation. The tablets do not so much stand for the literary text as provide a focus for metapoetic concerns with voice and writing, author and text, presence and absence, immortal ingenium and expendable materia. Examination of the shifting representation of writing tablets from Catullus to Martial will provide insight into the invention of the Roman poetic author.

In TAPA 136.2 (inter alia; more to come):

Mitchell-Boyask, Robin, The Marriage of Cassandra and the Oresteia: Text, Image, Performance

In this paper I seek, first, to re-examine the bridal imagery surrounding Cassandra in Aeschylus's Agamemnon, and, second, to suggest how iconography, and its relationship to performance, can connect this scene's concerns more thoroughly with the two successive dramas of the Oresteia. Cassandra's language casts her as the bride of Apollo, in contrast to the staging of her entrance as Agamemnon's bride. Other aspects of staging, moreover, cast Cassandra as a surrogate for Iphigenia. Attention to language and performance also suggests that Cassandra's cries to Apollo Agyiates are initiated by her perception not of an aniconic stone block, but of a statue of Apollo. My main concern throughout the argument will be the effect of Cassandra's relationship with Apollo on the action of the Oresteia as a whole.

Grethlein, Jonas, The Unthucydidean Voice of Sallust

Since antiquity, Sallust has been said to have modeled his historiography after Thucydides. Focusing on the voice of the narrator, this article draws attention to an aspect that distinguishes Sallust from Thucydides and reminds us more of Herodotus. While Thucydides's narrative seems to unravel itself, Sallust makes his presence as narrator strongly felt by first-person interventions and expressions of uncertainty (I). Moreover, he integrates other voices at the extradiegetic level (II). These features of Sallust's voice give his account a strong mimetic aspect, underscore his reliability and engage the readers in the "act of reading."