Not long ago, the publication of two volumes of essays devoted to a rereading and rethinking of imperial Latin literature would have been held up as a classic example of professional Latinists making a virtue out of necessity — since we cannot all write on Vergil and Horace, some of us must therefore stiffen our upper lips and attempt to produce ‘sound’ scholarship on the reams of inferior poetry that make up the rest of Latin literature. The unspoken assumptions behind this attitude are beginning to be voiced, scrutinized, and rejected. Poetic works that until recently appeared mannered, degenerate, and even perverse are now being interpreted in new ways, and revealing hidden pleasures and unexpected virtues. It is thus an appropriate time to reconsider the work of Prudentius, poet of an age of radical experimentation in both language and culture. I try in this essay to maintain a kind of double vision, for it is important for those unfamiliar with Prudentius' poetry to realize the extent to which shifting cultural paradigms affect and are reflected in the poet's textual strategies. This is a somewhat amorphous task, and the article falls into two main segments whose relationship may not be entirely clear until the end. I begin with some examples of Prudentius' abstract and punning poetic technique, intended to provide the reader with an understanding of how to ‘decode’ the poems; I then offer a reading of two of his poems which illustrate his textual response to a contemporary cultural phenomenon, the increasing popularity of sexual renunciation. My title refers to two attempts at revision: ours, as we attempt to reclaim the ‘perverse’ poetics comdemned by generations of classical scholarship; and that of the men and women of Late Antiquity, who reversed a centuries-old paradigm and created a new virtue, virginity, out of what had been a form of perversity.

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.Henry James, Life of Nathaniel HawthorneHistory is not what you thought. It is what you can remember.W.C. Sellar & R.G. Yeatman, 1066 And All ThatAs history Tacitus' Annals pose problems. On the one hand meticulously researched — on the other obfuscatory; self-avowedly unprejudiced and conspicuously prejudicial; evocative more than discursive; necessarily reliant upon the flawed historical tradition which they set out to correct. As historical epic they evidence rhetorical mastery and greatness of vision; a sense of dramatic moment and vivid rendering of character; a sense of history as dramatic process, seen through the eyes of contemporary and later observers. Moreover they engage the reader narratologically; point the distinction between Tacitus' insights and those of his occasionally self-deceived, subjective persona, ‘the historian’; signal a mechanism for interpreting the seeming distortions and inconsistencies of the text. This essay looks at six interrelated apsects of the Tiberian Annals, which elucidate Tacitus' purpose and vision as historical epicist, and which fix the rules by which the whole of the Annals are to be read and understood.

Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer, it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, no man good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power.Charles Colton,LaconThebaidis about power. On this cardinal themeThebaidreflects, its focus emphatic, its message incisive. (Virtually) every event is related in some way to the unfavourable aspects of the exercise of power. Prominent is the issue of its pursuit and abuse, the consequent suffering and impotence of its victims. As Statius observes of monarchal power in connexion with Adrastus, the least objectionable regent inThebaid, agit miseranda potestas inuigihre malis(‘distressing power compels him to be vigilant against ill fortune’, 8.262f.).

Although a great deal of energy has been devoted in recent years to the critical examination of the pastorals of Theocritus and Virgil very little (comparatively speaking) has been expended by way of literary study on their immediate successor, theEcloguesof Calpurnius Siculus. This may be due to ignorance — some theoreticians betray no knowledge of his existence — or to prejudice — Calpurnius belongs to the age of silver (or even worse). And yet, since he is the first poet to inherit pastoral as a fully formed genre, one would expect that his work might command critical attention. It is my intention in this study to examine the way in which Calpurnius handles the medium he inherited from Virgil and his treatment of those issues with which he is principally concerned. It is not my intention to examine his relationship to a specific historical and political context — a perilous task given the lack of hard evidence concerning his biography.

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This discussion is concerned with the structure of Sophocles'Ajax, in particular with the question of why, following the suicide of the hero, the dramatist makes Teucer engage in successive debates with Menelaus and Agamemnon over the fate of the corpse. The aim is certainly not just to dust the cobwebs off old talking points. Rather it is to use these (the talking points not the cobwebs) as a means of exploring different attitudes to Sophocles' supposed aims, methods and achievements as a dramatist, in order to work towards the adoption of a balanced critical position in this regard. Work by H.D.F. Kitto provides a special stimulus for the treatment of the broader issue, while the discussion of the double debate develops mainly in response to a recent article by Philip Holt.

The interpretation of Ovid's epic that is argued here has three related parts that have not been drawn together before:I. Ovid's panoramic presentation of myth, theMetamorphoses, presents provocative reflections in dramatic guise concerning human psychology, society, and art. Ovid is an engaged poet as well as an amusing one.II. TheMetamorphosesinclude, under the mantle of myth, pointed criticisms of the Emperor Augustus and his program of social, spiritual, and religious reform.III. Stories about artists in theMetamorphoseswere invented or elaborated by Ovid in order to illustrate the primacy of art and its spiritual value. Respect for love, truth, and human wisdom counts for more than fealty to the artifice of the new Rome.The relevance of these parts to each other and their consequences will be made clear in the Conclusion (IV), which examines the function of art in life for Ovid and his hopes for permanence in a world of transitions.

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In later antiquity it was universally held that Aeschylus was the most given, of the three fifth century Athenian tragic poets, to lavish spectacular display. This view rested on three foundations: first, consistent misinterpretation of the many jokes which Aristophanes makes in The Frogs about the archaic grandeur of Aeschylean drama — jokes which on close examination revolve almost entirely around the style of Aeschylus' language; second, the practice of importing scenes of spectacle and crowds of extras into Hellenistic and Roman productions of classical Greek tragedy; and, third, the ascription to this author of the play, Prometheus Bound, which undoubtedly calls for elaborate scenic requirements. The authenticity of Prometheus Bound has been increasingly called in question during the twentieth century: and no scholar who is prepared to accept the arguments and comparisons to be found in Mark Griffith's recent study would now care to place the composition of Prometheus Bound less than twenty years after the death of Aeschylus.If Prometheus Bound is not to be ascribed to Aeschylus, six of his plays survive. They are distinguished by their extreme theatrical economy; no device is used in them unless it bears close relevance to the playwright's purpose and theme. In his pioneering study, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oliver Taplin has drawn attention to a number of ways in which this feature is to be observed in the surviving plays; and his penetrating observations are by no means confined to the main subject of the book, which is the dramatic use made in Greek tragedy of the entrances and exits of the characters and of the chorus. But much remains to be done, before we can seriously claim to understand the genius of Aeschylus and his successors as theatre craftsmen. I want now to introduce and open up an area of debate which I find to have been seriously neglected in the work on Aeschylus which I have read.

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