This project consists of a translation and literary analysis of the Carmen de Bello Actiaco, a fragmentary Latin epic from the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum. The epic describes the events surrounding the battle of Actium and Octavian's conquest of Egypt. This analysis explores the importance of the Carmen as a product of a distinctly Augustan ideology, regardless of the exact date of its writing. The first chapter addresses the character of Cleopatra VII and how her portrayal is indicative of the contemporary Roman imperialistic conceptualization of Egypt and other foreign territories. The second chapter explores the theme of growth and renewal through war present in the Carmen and, more generally, the literature and material culture of the Augustan era.
This work provides a full commentary on the first book of Valerius Flaccus' "Argonautica," an epic which has received increased attention in the last few decades, as may be seen from two recent editions (1997 and 2003). Its first aim is to clarify the text, which is sometimes rather difficult and, in places, still not established with certainty. Apart from this philological aspect, the literary merits of the poem have also been taken into account.
Titi Livi ab urbe condita libri
Autor / Hrsg.: Livius, Titus ; Weißenborn, Wilhelm [Herausgeber] ; Müller, Hermann Johannes [Herausgeber] ; Livius, Titus ; Weißenborn, Wilhelm [Herausgeber] ; Müller, Hermann Johannes [Herausgeber]
Verlagsort: Berlin [u.a.] | Verlag: Weidmann
This is a condensed version of the lecture I gave at GrecoLatinoVivo's Lilium2 in September 2019. In this video, we read Ovid's Tristia 3.1 for which I simpl...
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Horace (65-8BC), who flourished under the Emperor Augustus. He was one of the greatest poets of his age and is one of the mos...
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'The Aeneid'. Out of the tragedy and destruction of the Trojan wars came a man heading West, his father on his back and his s...
1.° Albii Tibulli elegiarum libri quatuor. — 2.° Sexti Aurelii Propertii elegiarum libri quatuor. — 3.° Valerii Catulli , Veronensis, liber epigrammatum variorumque poëmatum. — 4.° Epistola Sapphus ad Phaonem. — 5.° Petronii Arbitri fragmenta, quae edita sunt. — 6.° Moretum, carmen quod Virgilio tribuitur. — 7.° Claudiani carmen de phoenice - 1401-1500 - manuscrits
Ovid: Metamorphoses. Manuscript: Italy 1380. MS Hunter 445 (V.5.15): Beginning of Book 2 (folio 20r) Ovid‘s vast Latin poem on the theme of transformation incorporates about 250 tales from Greek and Roman mythology. Of enduring popularity, it was widely read and well known in the medieval period. Many of Chaucer’s contemporaries would have been familiar with its stories via a fourteenth century French translation entitled the Ovide Moralisé. This allegorised version of the work imbued the stories with Christian overtones. Chaucer’s poetry is permeated by Ovidian allusions. Most famously, he adapts the story of Ceyx and Alcyone from Book Nine of the Metamorphoses in The Book of the Duchess, written to commemorate the death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and wife of John of Gaunt. Shown to the left is the opening to Book Six which tells of Arachne’s transformation into a spider. As can be seen from the pages displayed below, some sections of the work have been very closely read and annotated by a fairly early reader. The manuscript was made in Italy and the colophon at the end of the volume states that the scribe completed writing it on the third of October, 1380.