Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic

Corbeill, Anthony

doi:10.1515/9781400872893

Cited by 20 publications

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“…64 On the passage see especially Corbeill, 1996: 30-5, along with Kenter, 1972 115 and the further parallels listed by Dyck, 2004: 140-1 ad loc. 65 For uultus as 'an aspect, appearance (of abstr.…”

Section: Masquerade: Reading Between the Lines?mentioning

confidence: 97%

‘HOW TO READ A ROMAN PORTRAIT’? OPTATIAN PORFYRY, CONSTANTINE AND THEVVLTVS AVGVSTI

Squire¹

2016

Pap. Br. Sch. Rome

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This article takes its lead from research into the ‘language’ of Roman portraiture. More specifically, it explores a work that literalizes the idea of ‘reading’ a Roman portrait (to quote Sheldon Nodelman's classic phrase): a picture-poem by Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius — a much maligned poet active in the first decades of the fourth centuryad— that purports, through its iconotextual form, to visualize the countenance of the emperor Constantine (uultus Augusti). After a brief introduction to Optatian and hisœuvre, the article offers a close reading of his third poem, demonstrating the sophisticated ways in which it probes the latent iconic potential of written script. What particularly interests me about this case study is its underlying paradox: on the one hand, Optatian boasts that his painted page will outstrip antiquity's most celebrated painter (it ‘will dare outdo the waxes of Apelles’,uincere Apelleas audebit pagina ceras); on the other, the actual form of the picture seems to eschew mimetic modes of representation, rendering Constantine's ‘portrait’ a geometric pattern. So how should we make sense of this image? What does the poem reveal about ideas of portraiture in the fourth century? And how might we contextualize Optatian's abiding fascination with the limits of ‘seeing’ and ‘reading’?

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Section: Masquerade: Reading Between the Lines?mentioning

confidence: 97%

‘HOW TO READ A ROMAN PORTRAIT’? OPTATIAN PORFYRY, CONSTANTINE AND THEVVLTVS AVGVSTI

Squire¹

2016

Pap. Br. Sch. Rome

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“…However, when the young ladies read the sonnets, they dismiss them as "hypocrisy" (V.ii.31) and "pleasant jest" (V.ii.754). Of 15 This seems to follow naturally from Cicero's discussion of jesting in De Oratore, where he described "deformity" 16 as the most laugh-worthy object. For Cicero, physical deformity reflected moral deformity, so that laughter was seen as the natural response to ugliness and immorality.…”

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confidence: 94%

Jesting in Earnest in Love’s Labour’s Lost

Guéron¹

2015

shakespeare

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“…65.20: Vetas me caelo interesse, id est iubes me vivere capite demisso?) and, asCorbeill (1996) 122-3 argues, also conveys sexual passivity twice in Cicero (Dom. 83 and Phil.…”

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confidence: 99%

Human and Asinine Postures in Apuleius’ <em>Golden Ass</em>

O'Sullivan

2017

The Classical Journal

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3 Cf. the very last sentence of the Lucianic Onos (56), where the narrator notes that the gods had saved him "not from a dog's butt, as the saying goes, but from an ass's curiosity (οὐκ ἐκ κυνὸς πρωκτοῦ, τὸ δὴ τοῦ λόγου, ἀλλ' ἐξ ὄνου περιεργίας)." In both the Onos and the Met., the narrator claims that his asinine curiosity was the source of an ancient proverb (Onos 45: ἐξ ὄνου παρακύψεως, "all because of a peeping ass"; Met. 9.42.4: de prospectu et umbra asini, "about the peeping ass and his shadow"); the latter is actually a combination of two proverbs, on which see Hijmans, van der Paardt, et al. (1995) ad loc. 4 On the association of the donkey with carnal pleasures in antiquity, see Griffith (2006) 224 and 7. The earliest reference to the ass in classical literature, a simile at Hom. Il. 11.558-62, describes a donkey defying the efforts of his young overseers to enjoy some grain he is not supposed to be eating; see Gregory (2007) 200-2. Semonides' portrait of the ass-wife (fr. 7, 43-49) also emphasizes her hunger and her lust; see Gregory (2007) 203-5.

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Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

‘HOW TO READ A ROMAN PORTRAIT’? OPTATIAN PORFYRY, CONSTANTINE AND THEVVLTVS AVGVSTI

‘HOW TO READ A ROMAN PORTRAIT’? OPTATIAN PORFYRY, CONSTANTINE AND THEVVLTVS AVGVSTI

Jesting in Earnest in Love’s Labour’s Lost

Human and Asinine Postures in Apuleius’ <em>Golden Ass</em>

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