https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/498 Numéros fr mar., 14 juin 2022 08:55:22 +0200 mar., 14 juin 2022 08:55:22 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/498 0 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/499 In depicting scenes of youths in the company of a herm, the painters of Athenian sympotic pottery ostensibly portray a scene of daily life. Some, however, construct these scenes for viewing through an erotic lens, drawing on the fact that the two key iconographic elements of the stone herm, the bearded male head and the erect phallus, recall the iconography of the ἐραστής, the older male lover in traditional Greek pederasty. Representing herms in the company of young males thus allows the artists to play on the iconographic schemes of pederastic courtship while implicating the symposiast’s gaze, which becomes equated with the herm’s. The fact that the erotic interplay in the scenes takes place between a living ἐρώμενος (the desirable boy) and inanimate ἐραστής (the herm) is also significant, for it consciously inverts another interplay of person and object: the adult male symposiast who views and handles the sympotic vase. In the latter relationship, the roles are reversed, for now the lover is alive, and the vase, with its painted youth, is the object of the erotic gaze. In light of this allusive power, the herm serves as one of a series of signs through which vase painters show an awareness of their own power to manipulate desire for the symposiasts who engage with their work. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:55:46 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/499 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/511 Since Homer was the main source for readers in primary education, the epigrammatist Palladas, who lived in Alexandria in the fourth century AD, exploited words or verses of the Homeric epics in his epigrams in order to refer to situations or examples which were familiar to all his readers. The Homeric heroes are revived in Palladas’ epigrams as caricatures through which he presents contemporaneous figures of his city. Therefore, issues of the Homeric epics become part of the reality of Palladas, but, since the figures are hidden behind the Homeric expressions, they are not immediately recognizable. In particular, the epigrammatist chose certain well-known female figures of the Homeric world and added a humorous element to the characteristics of these women. AP 9.395 is an example of such an epigram. “Odysseus said: “nothing is sweeter than a man’s fatherland”, for in Circe’s isle he never ate cheese-cake. If he had seen even the smoke curling up from that, he would have sent ten Penelopes to the deuce” (transl. Guichard). Palladas referred to two well-known verses of the Odyssey, 9.34 and 1.58 and used the figure of the Homeric Odysseus to remind the reader that this clever and strong hero never tasted Circe’s cakes, but just tasted the concoction that she offered him, and because of the antidote he had taken on Hermes’ advice, this drink had no effect on him. However, if he had tasted the concoction of Palladas’ Circe, he would never have returned to his own Penelope or other “Penelopes”. The aim of the poet by using this quip on Circe and his pun on the ἔκχυτον was to refer neither to Circes’ magic nor to Penelope’s patience, nor to Odysseus’ adventures during his wanderings. We could infer that ἔκχυτον in Palladas’ epigram was not the Homeric Circe’s potion in a cup from where Odysseus drank, but the juices poured out from the Palladian Circe’s vagina, when this latter Circe had sexual desires and excitement. The Homeric quotations may work as a springboard to describe a Circe of his city, probably a warm and seductive woman, or a prostitute. It is quite certain that not only whoever experienced the taste, but also all who could see the smoke (because of her hot excitement) rising up in the chimney of the house, were captivated so much that they would cheat on the most faithful wife many times to become her erotic slaves. The Homeric Odysseus is a man who would never return to his Penelope, if he had tasted the concoction prepared by Palladas’ Alexandrian Circe. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:56:17 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/511 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/519 L’article confronte les sources documentaires (papyrus et ostraca) et les sources littéraires (notamment Diodore, Tite-Live, Trogue Pompée/Justin et Orose) relatives à la guerre civile qui bouleversa l’Égypte entre 132 et 124 av. J.-C. et au rôle de la reine Cléopâtre II dans ce conflit. Les premières attestent que Cléopâtre II a été reconnue comme unique souveraine à Alexandrie et dans quelques villes du sud du pays pendant plusieurs mois, à partir de 132 av. J.-C., et dessinent les contours et les limites de l’action politique de la reine. Les secondes présentent la reine selon des stéréotypes de genre, en la décrivant essentiellement comme une victime de comportements masculins dominateurs ou comme une femme désemparée cherchant de l’aide auprès d’un homme. Cependant, quelques éléments de ces récits littéraires dérogent aux topoi attendus et concédent ainsi à Cléopâtre II, de manière discrète ou implicite, un rôle plus conforme aux informations livrées par les sources documentaires. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:56:30 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/519 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/531 Cet article, qui étudie l’épigramme 3.13 d’un point de vue intertextuel, met en évidence, à partir de convergences avec Lucrèce, Virgile et les autres poètes élégiaques, le fait que son modèle principal est, ce qui n’est pas surprenant dans un texte proémial, le fondateur du genre, Gallus. Il analyse comment Sulpicia, dans sa transposition au féminin de l’élégie, reprend et remanie des mots et des motifs galliens, qu’elle partage en particulier avec Properce, en même temps que la façon dont elle répond à la critique du furor élégiaque développée par Virgile à propos de Didon. Il se termine sur une étude de la réception de ce texte dans l’élégie 3.8 de l’amicus et dans l’Héroide 4 d’Ovide, tous les deux moins audacieux sur le plan moral. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:56:44 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/531 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/550 This article provides a gender perspective on the Roman imago, the male ancestor mask, by arguing that imagines were deeply entangled in elite women’s lives in the Republic and Empire. When an elite woman was a filia, they were a vivid and didactic presence in the atrium of her natal home. When she was a nupta and uxor, copies of her patrilineal and matrilineal imagines were transferred from her natal home to her marital home. When she was a matrona and mater, her marital home could accrue more imagines when her male relatives attained the aedileship (or the higher curule magistracies) and she herself could use them didactically with her children. If an elite woman’s marriage was dissolved by death or divorce, any surviving children might inherit copies of her bridal imagines. When an elite woman died, a pompa imaginum could be part of her funus. Finally, a female maior and her patrilineal and matrilineal imagines could constitute and signify elite identities. I argue that these imagines and accompanying tituli could function as an inheritance and dos for an elite woman, and as a deposit of symbolic capital, embodying her social position and status. The imagines were an important mechanism for transferring elite female social position and status between families, and an elite woman’s own commendatio maiorum. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:57:10 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/550 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/590 At Naturalis Historia 35.147, Pliny offers precious information on female artists of Greece and Rome. This article emends Pliny’s text, thereby attributing a more precise subject to a painting by a Greek woman. Linderski has discussed the difficulties associated with text and interpretation of the first sentence of 35.147 (ZPE 2003.83-87). Pliny lists female painters from antiquity, including Irene, daughter of Cratinus (text of Mayhoff 1897): Irene, Cratini pictoris filia et discipula, puellam, quae est Eleusine, Calypso, senem et praestigiatorem Theodorum, Alcisthenen saltatorem (sc. pinxit). Since the nineteenth century, scholars have debated whether Calypso is here in the accusative or nominative case; in other words, was she one of the known works of Irene or does Pliny include an unattested painter named Calypso? Linderski ingeniously reconstructed how ancient uncertainty over the form Calypso had corrupted the text. An overly meticulous scribe glossed Calypso with the more common accusative in late antiquity, Calypsonem. This form was subsequently incorporated into the text and miscorrected to Calypso senem. Linderski therefore proposed deleting senem and reading Calypso as accusative, the accusative form that we know Pliny preferred (Char. gramm. p. 162.6-11). While agreeing that Calypso is a painting, I propose here an emendation that is more plausible paleographically and accords well with known representations of the nymph. These fall into two main types: standing beside Odysseus at his raft (three examples) or seated alone (two examples, one of which is attested at Plin. nat. 35.132). I read Calypso sedentem for the transmitted text (Calypso senem et) and then discuss five points that favor this emendation. I close by conjecturing how Irene’s “new” subject – a Calypso seated, presumably after the departure of Odysseus – can supplement our appreciation of women artists of Greece and Rome. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:57:34 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/590 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/598 Five fresco fragments from a second-century villa at Tor Marancia outside Rome, now housed in the Vatican Museums, depict five mythological women guilty of crimes – adultery, incest, treason, bestiality, and suicide – shown in different moments of desire, intention, and remorse. The series recalls the popular literary catalogues of passionate women by Latin authors as well as performances, but painted on the walls of a small room, the static series invited particular kinds of viewer response. I argue that viewers could associate the figural types and poses (schemata) with well-known images of women in similar straits. The iconography of the figures suggests sophisticated viewing habits and a kind of intervisuality quite like the intertextuality found in written versions of the same tales. The Tor Marancia frescoes appear to be one surviving example of a much older, ongoing tradition of Greek and Roman pictorial galleries of tragic heroines. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:57:56 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/598 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/614 Au livre VI de la Guerre des Juifs, Flavius Josèphe rapporte un événement tragique survenu durant le siège de Jérusalem par les troupes de Titus en 70 après Jésus-Christ. A bout de ressources et d’espoir, une mère commet « un acte qui n’a d’équivalent ni dans les récits des Grecs ni dans ceux des barbares, aussi épouvantable à raconter qu’incroyable à entendre », comme le précise l’historiographe juif. Cette femme tue et fait rôtir son enfant encore au sein, tant pour assouvir sa faim que pour donner libre cours à sa colère et à son affliction. Ce récit tissé de références bibliques et antiques a connu une fortune considérable qui accompagne et souvent dépasse celle, pourtant immense, de l’œuvre dont elle est issue. La concomitance du lien nourricier de l’allaitement et du cannibalisme, ou plus précisément de la tecnophagie, pousse à sa limite ultime le lieu commun qui fait des mères et des nourrissons des icônes victimaires de la violence de guerre. Notre analyse porte sur les usages politiques et poétiques que font de ce récit les auteurs qui s’en emparent, à savoir Flavius Josèphe lui-même et Agrippa d’Aubigné dans ses Tragiques, mais aussi les compilateurs des réécritures vernaculaires médiévales de la prise de Jérusalem, connues sous le titre de Vengeance Nostre Seigneur. Cette anecdote funèbre, loin de se résumer à une simple condamnation des crimes de guerre, place le travail de la reproduction et la vulnérabilité que celui-ci génère au cœur d’un dispositif signifiant qui bouleverse les dichotomies de genre et fait de la mère criminelle un témoin impliqué, voir un acteur décisif des désastres civiques. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:58:13 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/614