https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/437 Entrées d’index fr 0 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/846 This article invites a reading of Cydippe’s medical case in the third book of Callimachus’ Aetia (fr.75.10-19) in light of Hippocratic gynecology. In the first part, I discuss in detail Cydippe’s three illnesses, focusing on their rich medical allusions and illustrating how they all create a coherent medical record. While on the face of it Cydippe’s clinical symptoms resemble descriptions of lovesickness in Hellenistic poetry, it is precisely her absence of expressed desire, as I argue, that makes her sick in Callimachus, and thus differentiates her from other suffering female figures such as Medea in Apollonius Rhodius or Simaetha in Theocritus. In the second part, I move on to examine Callimachus’ problematisation of desire as an exclusively male prerogative in the narrative (that of Acontius) and I attempt to explain Cydippe’s dissociation from it by looking closely at the sexual politics of Hippocratic medicine: Cydippe’s silent transition from virgin to wife, and the illnesses that affect her so long as this transition is suspended evoke, as I illustrate, medical discussions on when and how virginity should be surrendered for a young girl to remain healthy ([Hipp.] De virginum morbis) as well as the Hippocratic notion that absence of desire defines both an adult woman’s sexual life but also the critical moment of her first sexual experience. mar., 14 juin 2022 10:44:05 +0200 mer., 13 déc. 2023 10:11:55 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/846 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/433 Glubit is one of the more infamous words in the Catullan corpus and for good reason. The verb represents a rare (at least in extant literature) piece of Roman sexual slang and it delivers the punch line for an insult poem belonging to the Lesbia cycle. Scholarship on glubere in Catullus has tended to focus on its vulgarity and which (if any) specific sex act the word denotes. Here, I revisit the word to interpret the implications of its agricultural origins. My own concern is not over which particular sex act the verb signifies but rather for the polysemic meanings imported by the slang metaphor’s literal definition. I do not aim to challenge or supplant the efforts of others to define glubere but instead to suggest an additional layer of meaning to its usage. I offer that the verb glubit introduces the specter of violence into the poem and serves to intensify and invert dynamics of power, portraying Lesbia as an overly active, dominant, and dangerous sexual being while compromising the masculinity of the Roman men she services. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:49:56 +0200 jeu., 16 mars 2023 10:21:32 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/433 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/746 A 2004 article argues that the word kitharisma as it appears on the defixio 22(A) Ziebarth refers to a variety of sexual foreplay. The argument is that a reading of kitharisma as ‘a piece of music for the cithara’ in an erotic curse is not germane to the context. Based on a semantic analysis of kitharisma, evidence for female lyre-players in ancient Greek culture, and the longstanding connections both historical and metaphorical between lyre music and sex, I argue that kitharisma should be understood literally as ‘a piece of music for the cithara’, which allows a contextualization of another obscure word on the curse, parodos, which should mean ‘a public recital’. In the course of this argument I address the dynamics of musico-sexual metaphors in ancient Greek literature in general with reference to conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). mar., 14 juin 2022 09:12:43 +0200 jeu., 16 mars 2023 08:59:07 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/746 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/708 The bust of Queen Nefertiti is a brilliant piece of artisan craftsmanship. Despite its ancient origins, the piece still perpetuates the same sensual allure and intrigue it undoubtedly did upon its creation around 1340 BCE. This article will propose that the enduring fame of the Bust of Nefertiti can be directly traced to the androgynous qualities of the Queen’s portrait. Nefertiti’s likeness possesses masculine features and this sexual ambivalence has contributed to the public’s continued fascination with this statue. Employing the writings of art historians Rudolf Anthes and Dorothea Arnold, as well as theorist Camille Paglia, this article will establish the sexual hybridization present within the bust and its role in the celebrity of the sculpture. mar., 14 juin 2022 09:11:07 +0200 jeu., 16 mars 2023 08:56:18 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/708 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/941 This article undertakes a survey of the plays of Aristophanes in order to reveal what they tell us about concepts of attractiveness and body image. Old Comedy presents us with a view of beauty from a largely male perspective, and, instructively, the vast majority of comments that male characters make concern the appearance of females rather than boys or youths. Women are regularly discussed in comedy in terms of their body parts, e.g. and especially their breasts, and the ideal woman is, perhaps predictably, youthful. Further characteristics in women such as pale, smooth skin and well-tended pubic hair also attract positive comments. Male beauty is perhaps more complex. One ideal is certainly that of the broad-shouldered, tanned youth with gleaming skin and a small penis who exercises in the gymnasium. But there is also evidence of pale-skinned, effeminate youths being viewed in a positive light. In addition to looks, clothing and scent can add to women’s erotic appeal, and actions such as playing with phallic-shaped food are seen as flirtatious in both sexes. This article explores overlaps in the ways in which male and female beauty is described and suggests that these correspondences are partly explicable through the similar ages at which boys and girls are considered to be at their peak. The discussion also reveals the almost complete lack of attention paid to facial features – both in Aristophanes and classical Greek literature as a whole. mar., 14 juin 2022 13:38:59 +0200 mer., 15 mars 2023 08:35:57 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/941 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/479 This paper examines Suetonius’ representation of Tiberius and sex on Capri at Vita Tiberii 43-44. Many of the features of Suetonius’ narrative move through normative elements of Roman sex culture: brothels and prostitutes, sex manuals, erotic paintings in domestic spaces, pederasty and elite garden spaces. But each element is reconstituted as something dehumanizing and dangerous in Suetonius’ telling. Tiberius constructs a radical sexuality, in which the closer an individual orbits the emperor, the more Roman notions of sex become deconstructed, atomized and reassembled in ways that expose a destructive and dangerous pathology. Nearly every structuring category that might delineate and demarcate Roman sexuality is distorted, obscured and blurred. Bodies are controlled and transformed. New functions and constructions of human embodiment are conceived. States of being become iterative replications of images imprinted in paint or on stone. Children become “bracelet workers”, little fishes or hybrid, hooved deities or woodland goddesses. Normative stages and transitions of human development are obliterated and replaced by an assemblage of activity that orbits the sexual organs of the emperor. Tiberius transforms traditional Roman sex culture and assembles an admixture of extreme and complex performances of a particularly disruptive and corrosive sexuality that confounds categories and frameworks. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:51:51 +0200 ven., 10 mars 2023 14:47:32 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/479