A RE-CONSIDERATION OF CASSIUS DIO - (C.H.) Lange, (J.M.) Madsen (edd.) Cassius Dio: Greek Intellectual and Roman Politician. (Historiography of Rome and its Empire 1.) Pp. xii + 364. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016. Cased, €148, US$162. ISBN: 978-90-04-32416-9.

Abstract

Finally, H. Frangoulis' paper could have been printed as an epilogue, since it reverts the direction of the rest: it argues that Nonnos of Panopolis uses a number of novelistic techniques in his Dionysiaca when he enriches the narrative of the poem with parallel episodes (e.g. Calamos and Carpos in Book 11, the novella of Morrheus and Chalcomede in Books 33-5), gnomic sentences on love and scientific notes. Frangoulis analyses with some detail how Nonnus' narrative choices inform his selection and manipulation of the elements of the novelistic passages in which he seeks inspiration. The volume succeeds in promoting a view of the novel at the centre of complex generic interfaces. The editors should be commended for putting together a volume full of perceptive and penetrating readings, which, however, would have benefited from clearer connections between related papers.