Classics Theses and Dissertations

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The Influence of New Comedy on the Narrative of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Rutherford, Kyle; Eckerman, Christopher
Much effort has been spent on interrogating the origins of the Ancient Greek Romance novel, focusing primarily on genres from which the novel may have arisen. Scholars such as Thomas Hägg, B.P. Rearden, and Kathryn Chew have explored the general influence of New Comedy on the development of the novel. I argue that, beyond the general influence of New Comedy in Daphnis and Chloe that has been well attested, specific Menandrean plays, namely Dyskolos, Epitrepontes, and Perikeiromene, can be said to be the likely origin of Longus’s treatment of specific new comedic tropes. Some of these allusions have been discussed in prior scholarship examining the influence of New Comedy on the Ancient Novel, but some have seen little scholarly attention. I suggest that the preponderance of specific Menandrean influence in Daphnis and Chloe comports with Hägg’s conjecture that the Greek romance novel arose as a more accessible replacement for the romantic drama of increasingly inaccessible new comedic plays.
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Disability and Ableism in Classics: A State of the Field Study
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Robb, Lydia; Dicus, Kevin
This study examines the prevalence of ableism and discriminatory behavior toward disabled students in Classics and related studies, such as History and Anthropology. This study focuses in on the existence of ableism in few specific areas of study rather than academia at large, as other previous studies have. To gather the necessary data, an anonymous survey was sent to all schools in the United States that have an active Classics program. The results of that survey were then studied and compared to understand fully the impact of ableism in Classics. Those who have invisible disabilities, particularly those who have a cognitive disability, are the most dissatisfied with their treatment as disabled students in Classics. The findings presented in this study show a great need for education for educators and universities for the betterment of disabled students in academia.
Open Access
Navigating the Odyssey: Exploring Place and Character in Homeric Epic
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Van De Laarschot, Kelsey; Jaeger, Mary
Homer’s Odyssey is a tale about many things: adventures, the importance of hospitality, returning home. However, it is ultimately a tale about place and all the ways in which it defines its inhabitants. Through the travels of Odysseus, we see how the entities Odysseus encounters and even himself are defined by their environments, resulting in each of their unique values, customs, and lifestyles. What we also see is how each of these lands and characters exist in contrast to the Greek world as exemplified by Ithaca, and in doing so, provide a map for the Greek imagination to explore its various fears and anxieties regarding the unknown beyond the Greek world. In this thesis, I shall endeavor to analyze how place creates identity, for Odysseus, as a Greek, as well as for the foreigner.
Open Access
Church Construction and Urbanism in Byzantine North Africa
(University of Oregon, 2021-04-27) Kolar, Aidan; Mazurek, Lindsey
The primary aim of this thesis is to examine the construction and re-construction of churches and their ancillary structures such as baptisteries, pilgrim accommodations, and cemeteries in Byzantine imperial rhetoric and in a select number of North African cities: Carthage, Sabratha, Lepcis Magna, and Sbeitla. in order to understand how church construction impacted these cities’ urban life and landscape in the period of Byzantine rule (534-647CE). A series of archaeological case studies focused on the aforementioned cities, in conjunction with the broad application of textual sources such as the Decrees (Novellae) of Justinian allow us to adjust some long-held assumptions about cities and churches in Byzantine North Africa. Most significantly, the changes to our case studies’ urban landscapes were driven by local interests and circumstances, not by the Byzantine emperors as Procopius’ Buildings and many archaeologists assume. Even so, most church buildings in the cities selected conform to empire-wide trends.
Open Access
Virgil's Aeneid, Book 8; An Experiment in Translation
(University of Oregon, 2019-09-18) Hamel, John; Bowditch, Lowell
English and Latin, though related, are very different languages, Latin with its inflections and small vocabulary, English with its overwhelming word order and expansive lexicon. Any translation from Latin to English will necessarily involve explanatory additions to the text. This is all the more true for Latin poetry, and above all for Virgil, who manages to create surprising and moving expressions line after line. Most modern translators have aimed for a literal version of the Aeneid, at the expense of mirroring in English some of the verbal magic and power of Virgil’s Latin. Dryden and Surrey strove to imitate these Virgilian features and in so doing created living poetry in English. This translation strives to render in English a hint of the power of Virgil’s expressions. And Virgil’s own treatment of Homer and Greek literature and the whole translation-orientated project of early Latin literature lend weight to such an approach.
Open Access
Building a God: The Cult of Antinous and Identity in the Eastern Roman Empire
(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Jamshidi, Niayesh; Bowditch, Phebe Lowell
This thesis attempts to understand the distribution of Antinous worship in the Roman Empire and why he was worshipped. By examining the written sources and material culture available on Antinous, primary sources both pagan and Christian, and material culture such as the sculptures of Antinous, Antinoopolis and temples dedicated to Antinous, I came to the conclusion that Antinous was worshipped primary in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. The Eastern part of the Roman Empire consisted of people who were of Greek descent. By examining Roman writings against Greek people and culture, I came to the conclusion that there were reasons that people worshipped Antinous. The first was to connect to the imperial center because a Roman emperor established the cult of Antinous. The second was that Antinous was Greek, and because Greeks were seen as inferior by the Roman west, his worship appealed to such people.
Open Access
Ovid's Tristia: Rethinking Memory and Immortality in Exile
(University of Oregon, 2015-08-18) Landry, Desiree; Jaeger, Mary
In my research, I take up the questions of Ovid’s relationship to his poetry and the rethinking of exilic motifs and poetic motifs through the lens of exile. Throughout the Tristia, in particular, Ovid illustrates a complex series of questions on why he writes in exile. He writes, “What have I to do with you, little books, my unlucky obsession, I, wretched, who was destroyed by my talent?” Ovid provides two direct answers to his own question: first, writing brings him comfort in exile, and second, it keeps his name alive in Rome. I explore how Ovid adapts the motif of poetic immortality to the exilic motif of exile as death and employs the act of writing as a resistance to Augustus.
Open Access
Ethnography and the Colonial World in Theocritus and Lucian
(University of Oregon, 2013-10-03) Parmenter, Christopher; Bowditch, Phebe Lowell
Scholars of migration, colonization, and cultural interaction in antiquity have increasingly turned towards a variety of concepts (such as hybridity, negotiations, and middle grounds) developed by postcolonial theorists to describe the dynamics of ancient civilizations beyond the major centers of Athens and Rome. Whereas older models of identity saw the ancient world as a series of geographically distinct cultural units with attendant language, religion, and practices--that is to say, a model of identity rooted in the modern concept of the nation state-- recently classicists have come to see ancient identities as abstractions of a series of individual choices that take place over long periods of time and that are always mediated by contact with different groups. Focusing on two authors from what I shall define as the `colonial worlds' of antiquity (Theocritus from Sicily and Lucian from Syria) this study will explore how representations of physical difference and cultural practice negotiate the presence of non-Greek peoples into Greek literary culture.
Open Access
The Rhetoricity of Ovid’s Construction of Exile and the Poeta Structus Exsulis (With a Special Addendum Concerning Alexander Pushkin)
(University of Oregon, 2012-10-25) Toman, Samantha; Toman, Samantha; Bowditch, Phebe Lowell
In Ovid’s Tristia and Epistulae Ex Ponto, the Latin poet constructs an elaborate poetic persona endowed with its own agency, which evokes the sympathy of the reader through engaging in various modes of discourse. This inquiry examines, in depth, how Ovid fashioned his poeta structus through complex modes of discourse and from making use of conventions of genre, namely elegy and epic. These modes of discourse are identified and explored, as well as Ovid’s markedly hyperbolic treatment of the landscape and inhabitants of his exilic outpost of Tomis on the Black Sea. The implications of the exile being surrounded by the Sarmatian and Getic languages are also expounded upon, both in the way the poeta presents the putative effects of the language of the other, as well as the evidence of linguistic evolution in the ‘actuality’ of Ovid’s situation. A comparison is drawn between Cicero’s notion of naufragium, ‘shipwreck,’ and Ovid’s refinement of the term, as well as the rhetorical treatment of exile as a form of death by both authors. Lastly, a special addendum takes a fresh look at Alexander Pushkin’s nuanced reception of the Ovidian poeta structus in his own exilic poetry from 1820-1825.
Open Access
A Matter of Life and Death: Gladiatorial Games, Sacrificial Ritual and Literary Allusion
(University of Oregon, 2010-06) Gerner, Desiree E., 1978-
Roman gladiatorial games had significance far beyond that of mere spectacle and were more than savage and brutal entertainment for depraved emperors and bloodthirsty crowds. Classifying the games as a form of ritual, and by extension a means of communication, this study approaches Roman gladiatorial games as a type of text and employs literary theories regarding allusion to bring to light the more profound implications of the games. I focus on the ways in which gladiatorial games alluded to funerary and sacrificial ritual as well as to the idealized representations of masculine virtue in Roman literature and the native myths and legends that Romans used to define themselves. The gladiator was both the community's ideal agent and its sacrificial offering, and gladiatorial combat was the embodiment of Roman social values, religious practice, and national identity.
Open Access
Undying Glory: Preservation of Memory in Greek Athletics, War Memorials, and Funeral Orations
(University of Oregon, 2010-06) Hainy, Joshua D.
Ancient Greek acts of commemoration aimed to preserve the memory of an event or an individual. By examining the commemoration of athletic victory, military success, and death in battle, with reliance upon theories ofmemory, this study examines how each form of commemoration offered immortality. A vital aspect was the way they joined word and material reminder. Athletes could maintain their glory by erecting statues or commissioning epinician odes, which often relied on image and words. The physical and ideological reconfiguration of the plain of Marathon linked the battle's memory to a location. Pericles' oration offered eternal praise to both the war dead and Athens, an Athens crafted as a monument by Pericles to remain for future generations. In different and complimentary ways, all of these forms of commemoration preserved the glory of a deed or an individual for posterity.
Open Access
Tzetzes' Letters and Histories: A Sample in English Translation with Notes and Introduction
(University of Oregon, 2009-03) Heinrich, Aaron I., 1977-
The letters and commentaries of the 12th century Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes are an important source of literary material from classical Greece and offer an invaluable record of classical scholarship in his era. Tzetzes explained the myriad and often obscure literary references he makes in his letters as part of his Histories, a long poem on various literary, mythological and historical subjects. The first of Tzetzes' letters and the accompanying section of his Histories incorporate subjects ranging from ancient Greek representations of idiocy, to the aspects of the god Hermes, to the friendship of Perithoos and Theseus, and incorporate material from authors including Herodotus, Aristophanes, and Homer. This translation of these sections makes a sample of Tzetzes' work available for the first time in English, and is accompanied by explanatory notes and introduction.
Open Access
Gyges' Dilemma: Morality and Happiness in Herodotus and Plato
(University of Oregon, 2009-03) Nidever, Timothy
Herodotus and Plato both tell of the usurpation of the Lydian throne by Gyges, a subject of the king. Both accounts, moreover, maybe interpreted as parables reflecting on moral choice, external contingency, and their bearing on human happiness. Herodotus' Gyges, properly understood, is endowed with the resources and affective responses of a respectable, if ordinary, moral agent. He successfully navigates a pair of perilous dilemmas that will catapult him, without ambition or malevolence, into ultimate power, privilege and, presumably, happiness. Plato's account teases out, clarifies, and reframes issues implicit in Herodotus' tale, exploring how and why ordinary moral agents may fail in their choices, despite apparently desirable outcomes, visiting ruin on their potential happiness. In the process Plato self-critically illustrates the inefficacy of the Socratic elenchus alone to prevent or correct the motivational mistakes of such agents, and vigorously expands the role of philosophy in securing human happiness.
Open Access
Cicero's Letters and Roman Epistolary Etiquette
(University of Oregon, 2007-12) Druckenmiller, Jenny D., 1979-
In his Second Philippic, Cicero portrays Antony as a person whose conduct places him on the fringes of polite society, where Cicero envisions him trampling upon the most basic standards of Roman decorum. Among Antony's many offenses is his broadcasting of the contents of Cicero's personal correspondence. This revelation may at first appear to be a trivial matter compared to Antony's more appalling misdeeds, but closer inspection of Cicero's letters reveals how Antony's breach of etiquette lends itself to Cicero's portrait of him as one who has transgressed the bounds of Roman decency. This study uses Antony's breach of etiquette as a point of departure for an inquiry into Roman anxieties concerning epistolary etiquette; the hazards of communicating at a distance and how one's treatment of a letter that one has received can, in the Roman view, reflect upon one's humanitas.

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