Classics - Princeton

Working Papers by Department

Classics Department, Princeton University

100901	Magna mihi copia est memorandi: Modes of Historiography in the Speeches of Caesar and Cato (Sallust, "Bellum Catilinae" 51-4)
	Andrew Feldherr, Princeton University
	Abstract: This paper analyzes the historiographic dimension of the paired speeches of Caesar and Cato at the climax of Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae. Where Caesar stresses the continuities between past and present and so the capacity of history, rationally analyzed, to offer general precepts for political behavior, Cato by contrast stresses the radical difference of the past. Each perspective allows a different reading of Sallust’s own narrative. Yet rather than privileging one point of view over the other, Sallust uses the tension between them to focus attention on the question of what history is for in an age of civil discord.


090905	On the Dual Nature of the "Carmen Saeculare"
	A. T. Zanker, Princeton University
	Abstract - Horace's Carmen Saeculare serves as a prayer to the gods, but also documents the felicity of Augustan Rome in the here and now. While the verbs of the first two-thirds of the poem are in the subjunctive, the final section is couched in indicatives. After a series of indicative statements concerning Rome's felicity of extraordinary boldness, however, Horace resumes the language of prayer, a fact that led a long succession of copyists and critics to interpret his statements as imprecations. This, I argue, is precisely Horace's point -- to mitigate the jarring insertion of positive statements into what had started off as a prayer.

060901	State Intervention and Holy Violence Timgad / Paleostrovsk / Waco
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - The investigation attempts to analyze the role of state violence in the particular circumstance of a religious community that is put under siege by state military forces. It does this by comparing three type cases: two pre-modern instances, those of Timgad in early fifth-century north Africa and of dissident monasteries and churches in mid-seventeenth-century Muscovy; and the modern-day siege at Waco, Texas.
	This paper replaces version 1.2 (020901) originally posted in February 2009.

030901	Itinera Tiberi
	Edward Champlin, Princeton University
	Abstract: Intended as a guide for quick reference, this paper tabulates all of the known movements of the princeps Tiberius from birth to death.

020904	Mapping Politics: An Investigation of Deme Theatres in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E.
	Jessica Paga, Princeton University
	Abstract - Deme theatres, or theatral areas, dot both the countryside of Attika and our epigraphic sources. This paper examines the evidence for nineteen deme theatres in Attika during the fifth and fourth centuries, in conjunction with an exploration of the festival of the Rural Dionysia. The overarching goals are to identify the distribution, shape, and functions of the deme theatral areas, while noting the ramifications of these elements for the administrative and organizational structures of the Athenian democracy.

020901	State Intervention and Holy Violence Timgad / Paleostrovsk / Waco
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	This paper has been revised. See 060901 entry.

010904	Horatian Lyric and the Vergilian Golden Age
	A. T. Zanker, Princeton University
	Abstract - Recent scholarship has focused on the way in which Horace avoids speaking of a returning golden age in his later poetry, even though Vergil had done precisely this in the sixth book of his epic. I argue that Horace realized that the concept was a problematic one; the golden ages constructed by the earlier tradition had been marked by characteristics that could never be achieved in reality. Horace therefore avoids the problematic terminology, instead defining the Augustan new age on his own terms.
	This paper is now forthcoming in American Journal of Philology December 2010.
120801	The Medieval Tradition of Macrobius' 'Saturnalia'
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Abstract - In laying the groundwork for a new edition of Macrobius’ Saturnalia, I have extensively checked the reports of the manuscripts in the Teubner edition of James Willis (1963), drawn on the collations of two important manuscripts published by M. J. Carton in 1966, and collated seven additional pre-humanist manuscripts wholly or in part (these collations are published in working papers #060803, 060804, and 060805). Drawing on the new data, this paper provides a refined understanding of the medieval tradition, including an improved stemma.
	This paper replaces version 1.0 (090801) originally published in September 2008.

090801	The Medieval Tradition of Macrobius' 'Saturnalia'
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Revised December 2008. See 120801 entry.

060806	A Neglected Witness to Macrobius' 'Saturnalia'
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Abstract - Bern Burgerbibliothek cod. 514 (= Q, s. X), which preserves Book 7 of the Saturnalia, is the oldest surviving member of the family β2. This paper analyzes its relations to the other chief witnesses to β2 (R = Vat. Reg. lat. 2043; F = Laur. Plut. 90 sup. 25; A = Cambridge Univ. Ff.3.5; C = Cambridge CCC 71); an appendix demonstrates that Q is also the source of the text of Book 7 found in Vatican lat. 3417 (= J). A complete collation of Q can be found in working paper #060804 (Four Manuscripts of Macrobius’ 'Saturnalia').

060805	A Collation of Cambridge Corpus Christi College 71 (Macrobius 'Saturnalia')
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Abstract - Cambridge Corpus Christi College 71 (= C), written in the twelfth century (St. Albans), can be shown to be a gemellus of Cambridge University Library Ff.3.5, also written in the twelfth century (Bury St. Edmunds). Used by Gronovius and judged by La Penna (1953) one of the three most important witnesses to the family β2, C was ignored by Willis in his Teubner edition. A and C together provide useful evidence, parallel with the earlier Vatican Reginensis latinus 2043 (= R, s. X ex. / s. XI in., Mont St. Michel), for one segment of β2. A collation of C is published here for the first time.

060804	Four Manuscripts of Macrobius’ 'Saturnalia'
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Abstract - Vatican latinus 3417 (J, s. XII, Books 1-4 and 7), Florence Laurentiana Plut. 51.8 (W, s. XII, complete), British Library Harleianus 3859 (H, s. XII, complete), and Bern Burgerbibliothek 514 (Q, s. X, Book 7) are all are affiliated with the family β2. J (in Books 1-4), W, and H are derived from Vatican Reg. lat. 2043 (= R). Q, ignored since it was used by Jan in his edition of 1852, gives important testimony independent of R.

060803	A Collation of British Library Cotton Vit. C.III and Vatican Palatinus latinus 886 (Macrobius' 'Saturnalia')
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Abstract - British Library Cotton Vitellius C.III (= O, s. IX3/4, northern France) comprises Books 1-3 of Macrobius’ Saturnalia. Ignored by James Willis in his Teubner edition, it can be shown to be an older sibling of Vatican latinus 5207 (L, s. X1/4), a collation of which was published by M. J. Carton: O and L together provide important new evidence for the constitution of family β1. A collation of O is published here for the first time. Vatican Palatinus latinus 886 (= K, s.IX in., Lorsch) is also affiliated with β1 and provides a set of excerpts from Saturnalia 1-3. K was used by Ludwig Jan in his landmark edition; a partial collation was published by K. Tohill.

060802	Vergil Translates Aratus: Phaenomena 1-2 and Georgics 1.1.2
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - This paper demonstrates that Vergil engages in a kind of verbal one-upmanship with Aratus by opening his Georgics with a multifaceted—and till now entirely overlooked—example of wordplay that is directly indebted to Aratus’ “signature” at the start of the Phaenomena. In all sorts of ways, terram / uertere is a "translation" of ἐῶμεν / ἄρρητον.
	This paper has now been published in Materiali e Discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 60 (2008), pp. 105-23.

060801	Etymology (A Linguistic Window onto the History of Ideas)
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - This short essay for a volume on the classical tradition aims to give a basic, lively account of the forms and development of etymological practice from antiquity to the present day.

040801	Rome's Mediterranean World System and Its Transformation
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - An analysis of the recent large-scale interpretation of the great transition from the ancient world of the Roman Empire to the worlds of its successor states, economies, and societies offered by Chris Wickham in his ‘Framing the Early Middle Ages.’
	This paper replaces version 1 (010801) originally posted in January 2008.
	A revised version of the paper with the title "After Rome" has now been published in The New Left Review vol. 52 (May-June 008), pp. 89-114.

020804	The Intersection of Poetic and Imperial Authority in Phaedrus’ Fables
	Brigitte B. Libby, Princeton University
	Abstract: Phaedrus wrote two fables featuring Roman emperors. In Fable 2.5 we find Emperor Tiberius giving a busybody his deserved come-uppance, and in Fable 3.10 Augustus miraculously solves a murder-suicide case. Yet couched among so many of Phaedrus’ fables that criticize authority figures, these positive portrayals of the emperors come as a surprise to the reader and present a significant problem of interpretation. In exploring the different possible readings of the two poems, this paper follows Phaedrus through a complex interpretive maze and shows how the fabulist’s own self-portrayal intersects with and colors his portrayal of the first two Roman emperors.

010803	Editing the Nation. Classical Scholarship in Greece ca. 1930
	Constanze Güthenke, Princeton University
	Abstract: This article looks at the role of classical scholarship in early twentieth century Greece and its discursive role in discussions of national literature and culture; it focuses on the (German-trained) young scholar Ioannis Sykoutris, particularly his edition of Plato’s Symposium; it is forthcoming in a volume on Classics and National Culture, ed. by Susan Stephens and Phiroze Vasunia for Oxford University Press.

010802	State Intervention and Holy Violence: Timgad / Paleostrovsk / Waco
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	A revised version of this paper is forthcoming Summer 2008.

010801	Rome's Mediterranean World System and Its Transformation
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	This paper has been revised. See 040801 entry.

090705	Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is a second attempt at a synthesis of the main problems for the forthcoming Cambridge History of Ancient Religions. The problems are complex and still threaten to overwhelm. This version remains a cri de coeur: any helpful comments and criticisms are encouraged.
	This paper replaces version 1 (010701) originally posted in January 2007.

070704	Tiberiana 4: Tiberius the Wise
	Edward Champlin, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is one of five parerga preparatory to a book to be entitled Tiberius on Capri, which will explore the interrelationship between culture and empire, between Tiberius’ intellectual passions (including astrology, gastronomy, medicine, mythology, and literature) and his role as princeps. These five papers do not so much develop an argument as explore significant themes which will be examined and deployed in the book in different contexts. This paper examines the extraordinary but scattered evidence for a contemporary perception of Tiberius as the wise and pious old monarch of folklore.
	This paper has now been published in Historia vol. 57 (2008), pp. 408-425.

070703	Dux reget examen (Epistle 1.19.23): Horace’s Archilochean Signature
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - This paper compares Horace the Honeybee to his iambic predecessor Archilochus the Wasp. In particular, I argue that a hitherto unrecognized way in which Horace promotes himself as the Italicus Archilochus is through his “signature” [qui sibi fidet, /] dux reget examen (Epistle 1.19.23) ‘[Who trusts himself] will rule the swarm as leader’ — an innovative Latin calque on the Greek name Arkhí-lokhos, literally “Rule-swarm.”
	This paper has now been published in Materiali e Discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 59 (2007), pp. 207-13.

070702	The Origin of the Greek Pluperfect
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - The origin of the pluperfect is the biggest remaining hole in our understanding of the Ancient Greek verbal system. This paper provides a novel unitary account of all four morphological types — alphathematic, athematic, thematic, and the anomalous Homeric form 3sg. ēídē ‘knew’ — beginning with a “Jasanoff-type” reconstruction in Proto-Indo-European, an “imperfect of the perfect.”
	This paper has now been published in Die Sprache 46 (2006, publ. 2008), pp. 1-37.

070701	The Epic Adventures of an Unknown Particle
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - This paper, a mini-"Autour de ‘ταρ épique’," is above all a contribution to the study of Homeric formulas and compositional technique. I give an overview and expand our understanding of the under-appreciated Homeric particle tar, whose Cuneiform Luvian cognate Calvert Watkins discovered over a decade ago and whose essential Greek-ness M. L. West accepts in his Teubner edition of the Iliad; demonstrate on linguistic and stylistic grounds that tar is part of the conjunction autár but not of the semantically similar near-look-alike atár; and explain why this unstressed and almost unknown monosyllable is of unexpectedly wide interest, being not just a bit of Homeric and Indo-European linguistic trivia, but an important rhetorical device in the description of ancient Greek ritual.
	This paper has been published in Greek and Latin from an Indo-European Perspective, ed. Coulter George, Matthew McCullaugh, Benedicte Nielsen, Antonia Ruppel, & Olga Tribulato (Cambridge, Cambridge Philological Society, 2007), pp. 65-79.

060702	A Dove and a Nightingale: Mahābhārata 3.130.18-3.131.32 and Hesiod, Works and Days 202-13
	A. T. Zanker, Princeton University
	Abstract - The Hesiodic Fable of The Hawk and the Nightingale remains a scholarly problem, but perhaps light can be shed on it by stepping outside the Greek tradition and comparing it with a story from the Indic Mahābhārata that involves not merely a hawk and a dove, but also a king who protects the latter.
	This paper has now been published in Philologus 1531 (2009), pp. 10-25.

030702	Religion in the Ancient Novel
	Froma I. Zeitlin, Princeton University
	Abstract - This chapter of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh, (2007) surveys the pervasive presence of religion and the sacred in the extant Greek and Roman novels and addresses the much discussed issues of its roles and functions, with an emphasis on the challenges the topic poses to the interpretation of the genre's core erotic ideology. It also explores instances of the fictional imagination at work in absorbing, modifying, and creatively refining a few selected religious elements.
	This paper has now been published as "Religion" in Tim Whitmarsh, ed. Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, Cambridge Univerity Press, 2008. pp 91-108.

020702	Towards Open Access in Ancient Studies: The Princeton-Stanford Working Papers in Classics
	Josiah Ober, Stanford University
	Walter Scheidel, Stanford University
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Donna Sanclemente, Princeton University
	Abstract - An investigation of the present impact and future prospects of open access electronic publication of scholarly research on working papers sites, based on the authors’ collective experience with developing and maintaining a WP site for Classics and Classical Archaeology.
	This paper has now been published in Hesperia vol. 76 (2007), pp. 229-242.

010703	Rereading the Death of Turnus: Ritual, Time and Poetics in the Aeneid
	Kellam Conover, Princeton University
	Abstract: The death of Turnus, which is depicted in terms evocative of sacrificial rite, evinces a close interconnection between ritual and poetics in Vergil’s Aeneid. By reincorporating Juturna into the economy of sacrificial imagery at the epic’s close, I argue that Turnus’ sacrificial death should be seen as a metapoetic act. Indeed, as suggested by an examination of how time operates in the epic and especially in its final scenes, time in the poem is structured like time in ritual practice. The Aeneid thus engages the reader in a process of ritually renewing the past.

010701	Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Revised September 2007. See entry 090705.

110603	What is the De Fisco Barcinonensi About?
	Damian Fernandez, Princeton University
	Abstract: The letter De fisco Barcinonensi is one of the few documents that we have on Visigothic taxation. In this paper, the evidence to determine the precise nature of the document is reviewed. It is suggested that the letter deals with the adaeratio (exchange rate between tributes in kind and tributes in coin), which can be explained both by a strict reading of the document and the political context in which this letter was issued. Consequently, the role of bishops in the process of tax collection is circumscribed to their function as representatives of the local communities and their elites.
	This paper has been published in L'Antiquité Tardive, vol. 14 (2006), pp. 217.24.

110602	Performance, Text, and the History of Criticism
	Andrew Ford, Princeton University
	Abstract: I argue that the study of ancient criticism is unduly narrow unless it combines an awareness of the materiality of culture—of the forms in which literary texts were produced, circulated, stored up, and accessed—with an appreciation for how strongly performance traditions could shape the reception and valuation of such texts. To illustrate, I analyze the 25th chapter of Aristotle’s Poetics to show that the theory behind “Problems and Solutions” was less significant culturally than the many-formed game of using poets in ethical debate. Also included is a brief overview of work since Vol. 1 of the Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (edited by George Kennedy in 1989) that fruitfully confronts the idea of the work of art as text with the reality of the work of art as performance.

110601	Die Katharsis im sokratischen Platonismus (Katharsis in Socratic Platonism)
	Christian Wildberg, Princeton University
	Abstract - In this paper, written in German, I am exploring the concept of purification (katharsis) in early Platonic dialogues. The evidence suggests that this variant of katharsis, which possesses a marked cognitive dimension, might well have Socratic roots. More importantly, however, its serves as a useful backdrop for an understanding of Aristotle's enigmatic conception of dramatic katharsis as broached in the Poetics. Modern discussions of the latter have so far largely ignored the Socratic-Platonic precursor, with which Aristotle was undoubtedly familiar.

090607	Simplicius und das Zitat Zur Überlieferung des Anführungszeichens
	Christian Wildberg, Princeton University
	Abstract - This paper was published in a somewhat inaccessible Festschrift for Dieter Harlfinger. Taking the lead from an obscure passage in Simplicius, which can only be understood if the quotation marks in the medieval manuscripts are taken into account, the paper surveys the usage of quotation marks in the medieval in extant papyri and some manuscripts. The evidence suggests that quotation marks and other signs of interpunctuation were widely used in late antiquity, and that it is a mistake of editors of texts written in late antiquity to ignore such marks if and when they appear in the manuscript tradition. The paper observes in passing that the famous "Sentence of Anaximander" is not marked as a direct quotation is the extant Simplicius-manuscripts.

090606	Herodotus and the Poets
	Andrew Ford, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is an attempt to describe Herodotus’ relation to Greek poets, both as historical sources and as “cultural capital.” It is a brief discussion (1500 words) written for a general audience; but it may be of interest as raising a matter not often considered outside of the excellent and long study by Ph.-E. Legrand in Vol. 1 of the Budé Hérodote (pp. 147 ff.).

090605	THE GENRE OF GENRES: Paeans and Paian in Early Greek Poetry
	Andrew Ford, Princeton University
	No longer available as a working paper. This is now published in the journal Poetica 38/3-4 (2006) pp. 277-296.

090604	From “Socratic logoi” to “dialogues”: Dialogue in Fourth-century Genre Theory
	Andrew Ford, Princeton University
	Abstract: This paper argues that we can only have a just appreciation of the rise and early development of philosophic dialogue in Greece by bracketing the immense influence that the Platonic version of the form has exerted and turning instead to tracing how “Socratic logoi” came to be recognized as a new prose genre in fourth-century Athens. A consideration of the early terms used to name the form suggests that dialogue should not be derived from fifth-century mime or drama but should be understood in the context of the burgeoning rhetorical literature of the period; in particular, dialogue will be shown to be one of many innovative kinds of fictional speech-texts that were proclaiming new and special powers for written prose.

090603	Tiberiana 3: Odysseus at Rome - a Problem
	Edward Champlin, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is one of five parerga preparatory to a book to be entitled Tiberius on Capri, which will explore the interrelationship between culture and empire, between Tiberius’ intellectual passions (including astrology, gastronomy, medicine, mythology, and literature) and his role as princeps. These five papers do not so much develop an argument as explore significant themes which will be examined and deployed in the book in different contexts. “Odysseus at Rome” is an appendix to the previous paper on Tiberius’ obsession with the Greek hero. It draws attention to some startling evidence for Odysseus’ unpopularity in the Roman world.

090602	Tiberiana 2: Tales of Brave Ulysses
	Edward Champlin, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is one of five parerga preparatory to a book to be entitled Tiberius on Capri, which will explore the interrelationship between culture and empire, between Tiberius’ intellectual passions (including astrology, gastronomy, medicine, mythology, and literature) and his role as princeps. These five papers do not so much develop an argument as explore significant themes which will be examined and deployed in the book in different contexts. Tiberius was intensely interested in the deeds and character of the hero Odysseus, to the extent that sometimes he seems almost to have been channeling him. “Tales of Brave Ulysses” considers the evidence for this obsession and suggests something of the fresh insight into the emperor’s character which it evokes.

090601	Tiberiana 1: Tiberian Neologisms
	Edward Champlin, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is one of five parerga preparatory to a book to be entitled Tiberius on Capri, which will explore the interrelationship between culture and empire, between Tiberius’ intellectual passions (including astrology, gastronomy, medicine, mythology, and literature) and his role as princeps. These five papers do not so much develop an argument as explore significant themes which will be examined and deployed in the book in different contexts. “Tiberian Neologisms” examines several words that seem to have been invented or given new meanings during his reign, often by Tiberius himself.

070601	A Prehistory of Hatred
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - A critical reconsideration of a recent foray into the vexatious problem of the origins of race and racism.
	This is now published in "Journal of World History" vol. 16 (2005), pp. 227-32.

050601	Saving the Appearances: The Phenomenology of Epiphany in Atomist Theology
	Jacob L. Mackey, Princeton University
	Abstract: In this paper I propose an approach to Epicurean theology that avoids the stalemate of "realist" and "idealist" interpretations. I argue that Epicurean theology is more phenomenological than metaphysical, its purpose less to ground and justify dogmatic commitment to whatever form of existence the gods may enjoy than to account for a prevalent aspect of ancient religious experience, epiphany, and to assimilate that experience to Epicurean philosophical therapeia. In the process I reconstruct and reassess the equally epiphanic theology of Democritus that forms a source for Epicurus' theological thought. His theology has also been unprofitably construed by modern scholars as a reductive dismissal of the gods as mere psychological effects or manifest fictions. Instead, Democritus was at least as accommodating of the phenomena of religious experience as Epicurus: his own theology is likewise founded on epiphany and he too attempts a therapeutic analysis of its attendant effects.

030602	Watching the Great Sea of Beauty: Thinking the Ancient Greek Mediterranean
	Constanze Güthenke, Princeton University
	Abstract: This is a contribution to be published in a volume entitled Mediterranean Studies, edited by Roberto Dainotto and Eric Zakim for the Modern Language Association (MLA), as part of a new MLA series on Transnational Literatures. The editors had asked their contributors to respond to their introduction in which they encourage new ways of conceptualizing cultural contact, and to suggest new approaches to reading and writing the Mediterranean, creating a new epistemology of place, especially with a view to literature. Contributions span all geographic areas of the Mediterranean. While I was initially asked to look at modern travelers with a view to Greek antiquity and ancient travelers, the paper gradually turned into an essay on how to integrate some recent work on the ancient Mediterranean within the editors’ agenda.

030601	On not forgetting the “Literatur” in “Literatur und Religion”: Representing the Mythic and the Divine in Roman Historiography
	Denis Feeney, Princeton University
	Abstract: Against recent attempts to argue that generic distinctions between history and other forms are not particularly relevant to analysis of how the divine is represented, this paper argues that generic distinctions are important from Herodotus on. History has its own distinctive discursive practices, however inventively historians work on the margins with other genres such as epic and tragedy.
	This paper has now been published in A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion: Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen Vol 2 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 173-202.

020603	Bad Boys: Circumcellions and Fictive Violence
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - The circumcellions were roving bands of violent men and women found in late Roman Africa. The problem is that far more of them have been produced by literary fictions, ancient and modern, than once existed. The fictions have their own intriguing history, but they are otherwise useless for those who are interested in the banality of what actually happened.
	This paper has been published in H. A. Drake et al. eds., Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006, pp. 179-96.

010602	Sabinus the Muleteer
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - A brief piece about possible sources and historical background of a bit of ‘Vergilian’ poetry. If you like mules and Vergil, then this one is for you.
	This is now published in Classical Quarterly vol. 57 (2007), pp. 132-38.

010601	The Fabric of Continuity
	Constanze Güthenke, Princeton University
	Abstract: Review article of M. Alexiou. After Antiquity. Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor (2002) and J.C.B. Petropolus, Eroticism in Ancient and Medieval Greek Poetry (2003), two recent books dealing with issues of continuity and methods of studying cultural transmission in post- classical Greek texts; forthcoming in Classical and Modern Languages.
	This paper has been published in Classical and Modern Literature, 26/2 (2006): 203-217.

120518	Map Resources for Roman North Africa
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - This is the early draft of a collation of the map resources that are available for the study of Roman North Africa. It is hoped that, even in this early stage of presentation, it will be of some use to those who are seeking cartographic resources for research on the region.

120515	Seasonal Mortality in Imperial Rome and the Mediterranean: Three Problem Cases
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	No longer available as a working paper. This is now published as Chapter 4 [in] Glenn R. Storey ed., Urbanism in the Preindustrial World: Cross-Cultural Approaches (Tuscaloosa, The University of Alabama Press, 2006), pp. 86-109.

120513	Religion in Roman Historiography and Epic
	Denis Feeney, Princeton University
	Abstract: A version of this paper is due to appear as a chapter in the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Roman Religion (edited by Jörg Rüpke). The paper gives an overview of the religious dimensions to Roman epic and historiography, and argues for taking seriously the literary questions of representation, genre, and convention which are often elided by historians who wish to disinter hard evidence for ‘real’ religious attitudes and practice from these texts.
	This paper has now been published in J. Rüpke (ed.), A Companion to Roman Religion (Oxford, 2007), pp. 129-142.

120505	The Riddle of the 'sp(h)ij-': The Greek Sphinx and her Indic and Indo-European Background
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - The name of the Sphinx, the Greek female monster who had fun killing passers-by who could not answer her riddle, has long been an etymological conundrum. On the basis of literary, linguistic, and anthropological evidence from, above all, Greece and India, this paper comes to a novel understanding of the Sphinx’ origin, concluding that her oldest moniker, (S)Phí:k-, is related to a newly uncovered Greek noun phíkis ‘buttocks’ and to a Sanskrit word for the same body part, sphij-, a hitherto misunderstood form of which appears, in turn, in a riddle in the oldest Indic text, the Rigveda. This derivation situates the Greek creature squarely in the cross-culturally typically aggressive and sexually charged genre of riddling.
	This paper is now published in La Langue poétique indo-européenne: actes du Colloque de travail de la Société des Études Indo-Européennes (Indogermanische Gesellschaft / Society for Indo-European Studies), Paris, 22-24 octobre 2003, ed. Georges-Jean Pinault & Daniel Petit (Leuven—Paris: Peeters, 2006), pp. 157-94.

120504	What Linguists are Good for
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - Linguists are good for a lot. This is a personal account of why departments of Classics should embrace them (us).
	This has been published in Classical World 100 (2007), pp. 99-112.

120503	Review of Joachim Latacz’s 'Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery'
	Joshua Katz, Princeton University
	Abstract - In this book, a translation of a German bestseller, the most vigorous proponent of the view that the Iliad is a reliable source of information about the city of Troy in the Late Bronze Age, presents the evidence from two very different fields: archaeology and linguistics/philology. Though especially sympathetic to the idea that certain significant details in Homer reflect society as it was long before the eighth century B.C., in a shared Greco-Anatolian setting, this reviewer, a linguist/philologist, is nevertheless dismayed by Latacz’s presentation of the evidence. To take just one egregious example of bias disguised as fact—a “fact” that certain colleagues are unfortunately already citing as gospel—there is, pace Latacz and Frank Starke, no evidence for the claim that an actual Hittite document reveals as a forebear of the king of Ahhiyawa (~ Achaia) a man by the name of Kadmos.
	This has been published in Journal of the American Oriental Society 125 (2005), pp. 422-25.

120502	Self-Aggrandizement and Praise of Others in Cicero
	Robert Kaster, Princeton University
	Abstract - Ciceronian invective has received a great deal of attention; yet Cicero’s deployment of praise — of himself and others— and others’ praise of Cicero open an equally revealing window on late Roman Republican culture. This paper uses Cicero’s defense of P. Sestius (March 56 BCE) to give this aspect of Ciceronian discourse some of the attention it is due.

120501	The Function of Criticism ca. 432 BC: Texts and interpretations in Plato’s 'Protagoras'
	Andrew Ford, Princeton University
	Abstract: Plato’s Protagoras is a unique text in the history of criticism, the only extended example of practical poetic criticism that we have from classical Greece. This long passage (338E-347C) shows a group of fifth-century intellectual luminaries debating the meaning of a dense lyric poem by Simonides: the text is quoted at length and its language examined closely and methodically and wildly. My paper first attempts to pinpoint how this passage — often written off as a parody or a joke or misunderstood as a simplistic polemic against “sophistry” — fits into the work. I argue that Plato is more serious here than is usually supposed, and that the passage gives his best account of uses and limits of literary criticism. In a coda, I consider an analysis of the passage by Glenn Most, which suggests some reflections on recent developments in academic literary criticism.

110516	Spartacus Before Marx
	Brent D. Shaw, Princeton University
	Abstract - The story of the pre-Marxian ideology of Spartacus is not without its own peculiar interests. It is a strange narrative prompted both by the birth of a modern analytical, and political, interest in slavery, and in parallel debates over the meaning of liberty and servitude.

110515	Thucydides and the invention of political science
	Josiah Ober, Princeton University
	Abstract - Thucydides self-consciously invented a new form of inquiry, which can reasonably be called “social and political science.” His intellectual goal was a new understanding of power and its relationship to human agency and the deep structures of human society. His understanding of agency and structure is in some ways reminiscent of the reflexivity theory developed by Anthony Giddens.

110514	Solon and the 'Horoi': Facts on the Ground in Archaic Athens
	Josiah Ober, Princeton University
	No longer available as a working paper. This is now published as: Josiah Ober, "Solon and the Horoi." In J. Blok and A. Lardinois (eds.), Solon: New Historical and Philological Perspectives (E.J. Bill: Leiden), 441-456.

110513	“I Besieged that Man”: Democracy’s Revolutionary Start.
	Josiah Ober, Princeton University
	Abstract - The origins of democracy at Athens should be sought in a revolutionary moment in 508/7 B.C. and the subsequent institutional reforms associated with Cleistehenes. An revised version of the argument first offered by the author in "The Athenian Revolution of 508/7 B.C.E: Violence, Authority, and the Origins of Democracy," in C. Dougherty and L. Kurke (ed.), Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, Performance, Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 1993), 215-232.

110512	Democratic Athens as an Experimental System: History and the Project of Political Theory.
	Josiah Ober, Princeton University
	Abstract - Athens as a case study can be useful as an “exemplary narrative” for political science and normative political, on the analogy of the biologicial use of as certain animals (e.g. mice or zebrafish) as “model systems” subject to intensive study by many researchers.

Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics

A collaborative project