1st Edition
Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory
Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory explores the way in which ancient Greeks and Romans represented their past, and in turn how modern literature and scholarship has approached the reception and transmission of some aspects of ancient culture.
The contributions, organised into three sections – Political Legacies, Religious Identities, and Literary Traditions – explore case studies in memory and reception of the past. Through studying the techniques and strategies of ancient historiography, biography, hagiography, and art, as well as their effectiveness, this volume demonstrates how humanity has inevitably conveyed memory and history with (sub)conscious biases and preconceived ideas. In the current age of alternative facts, fake news, and post-truth discourses, these chapters highlight that such phenomena are by no means a recent development.
This book offers valuable scholarly perspectives to academics and scholars interested in memory, historiography, and representations of the past in the ancient world, as well as those working on literary traditions and reception studies more broadly.
1. Introduction: Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory Gillian Clark POLITICAL LEGACIES 2. The Generalship of Dionysius I and Dionysius II of Syracuse: Memory Unmade Richards Evans 3. The Making and the Unmaking of the Memory of Gelon of Syracuse Frances Pownall 4. Alexander in Jerusalem. Constructing a ‘Jewish Life’ for Alexander the Great, Josephus AJ xi 302-343 Adrian Tronson 5. The Forum of Augustus: Re-shaping Collective Memory about War and the State Tom Stevenson 6. An Age of Post-Truth Politics? Making and Unmaking Memory in Pliny’s Panegyricus Martin Szőke 7. Monster or Martyr? Contesting Nero’s Memory in Rome Eric Varner RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES 8. Misremembering Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus Harmut Ziche 9. Remembering Dystopia: Re-reading Chrysostom’s Homily On the Holy Martyr Babylas through the Lens of Disgust Wendy Mayer 10. Martyrdom and the Memorialisation of John Chrysostom in Ps.-Martyrius’s Funerary Speech in Praise of John Chrysostom Chris de Wet 11. The Emperor’s Floor and the Naked Wife: Chrysostom’s Retelling of Imperial History in In Philippenses hom. 16 and the Fate of Fausta Katherin Papadopoulos LITERARY TRADITIONS 12. ‘Lest We Forget’: Inventions and Their Memory on the Greek Tragic Scene Francesco Lupi 13. Treacherous Transmission: The Case of Augustine’s Sermons 151-156 Hubertus R. Drobner 14. Cultural Memory and Classical Education in Late Antique Gaul Alison John 15. ‘Some Power Unseen’: Gothic Agency, God and Creation in John Mason Good’s Lucretius Sean Moreland 16. ‘Fiery Color and Splendid Concentration of Passion’: The Classical Recollections of Oscar Wilde’s Poem Charmides Suzanne Sharland
Biography
Martine De Marre is an associate professor of ancient history at the University of South Africa. Her research to date has focused on the social history of Roman North Africa, particularly on issues of power and empowerment during the Roman period up to the wars of Justinian.
Rajiv K. Bhola was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University. He currently teaches in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. He specialises in the life and reign of the Emperor Constantine and the literature of Eusebius of Caesarea.
