- Classics & Ancient History
38 North Bailey
Durham DH1 3EU
UK
Roy Gibson
University of Durham, Classics and Ancient History, Faculty Member
Pliny stands at the intersection between epistolary (biographical) fiction and fact. He is routinely studied by two academic constituencies whose critical assumptions do not necessarily align: ancient historians and literary critics.... more
Pliny stands at the intersection between epistolary (biographical) fiction and fact. He is routinely studied by two academic constituencies whose critical assumptions do not necessarily align: ancient historians and literary critics. Statements about biographical fiction in Pliny often proceed from unargued assumptions about 'how literature works'-assumptions generally derived from study of the Augustan poets. I argue that assumptions about autobiographical fiction in Ovid cannot simply be transferred to Pliny. We need to construct individual theories for individual authors, working from the text up to personalized theory, rather than from generalized theory down to text. The Augustan poetry book is central to the development of Latin letter collections (in sharp contrast to the lack of influence from poetry books on the Greek epistolographical tradition). But the poetics of the two Roman forms are fundamentally different. In Ovid's Amores, the signifier is centripetal and returns to reflect on its own programmatic status within a collection; but Pliny's letters are centrifugal and generally move outwards from internal signifier to external signified. Prospects for reading events in Pliny's life as primarily instantiations of a literary programme are diminished.
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A short history of the CUP green and yellow series of commentaries
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(2018). ‘Propertius and the unstructured self’, in S. Frangoulidis and S. Harrison (eds.), Life, Love and Death in Latin Poetry, pp. 13-36
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A mini-conference on the letters of Pliny the Younger. Organized by L. Mignone in coordination with her course LATN 1110Y: Latin Epistolography. October 22, 2010; Brown University. Featuring Ilaria Marchesi (Hofstra) and Roy Gibson... more
A mini-conference on the letters of Pliny the Younger.
Organized by L. Mignone in coordination with her course LATN 1110Y: Latin Epistolography.
October 22, 2010; Brown University.
Featuring Ilaria Marchesi (Hofstra) and Roy Gibson (Manchester)
with a response by John Bodel (Brown)
Organized by L. Mignone in coordination with her course LATN 1110Y: Latin Epistolography.
October 22, 2010; Brown University.
Featuring Ilaria Marchesi (Hofstra) and Roy Gibson (Manchester)
with a response by John Bodel (Brown)
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In the opening section of Ovid's Ars Amatoria 3 the poet, in an attempt to gain favour with his female addressees, lists a number of legends where it is men who are the deceivers. In this list he includes Aeneas, et famam pietatis... more
In the opening section of Ovid's Ars Amatoria 3 the poet, in an attempt to gain favour with his female addressees, lists a number of legends where it is men who are the deceivers. In this list he includes Aeneas, et famam pietatis habet, tamen hospes et ensem I praebuit et causam mortis, Elissa, tuae (39–40). The terms in which Aeneas' guilt is cast are striking. Aeneas is criticized not for his lover's faithlessness, but for his shattering of the rules of hospitium. At the heart of hospitium, in as much as it is friendship between strangers, lay the ideals of duty, loyalty, reciprocity, and the exchange of services, pietas (39) includes, in this context, a reference to the guest's sense of, or actual fulfilment of, the duty to pay a proper return on the hospitality received. Aeneas had a reputation for doing his duty as a hospes, i.e. as someone who was conscientious about his duty to make an appropriate return. But, according to Ovid, the return which he actually m...
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It is often said that amicitia, so prominent in the love poetry of Catullus, plays a negligible role in the elegies of Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid: the elegists avoid the vocabulary of amicitia and prefer to describe the relationships... more
It is often said that amicitia, so prominent in the love poetry of Catullus, plays a negligible role in the elegies of Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid: the elegists avoid the vocabulary of amicitia and prefer to describe the relationships with their beloveds in terms of militia and seruitium amoris. In this paper, however, I shall show that this is mistaken. While the elegists do not use the vocabulary of amicitia systematically, they clearly do continue to appeal to its protocols and moral code – Ovid above all. It will be seen that Catullus and the elegists share the use of the ideology of amicitia to pressurize their beloveds to accept or make a return on the benefacta which they as lovers bestow.
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There exists a strong link in modern thinking between letter collections and biographical or historical narration. Many ancient letter collections have been rearranged by modern editors along chronological lines, apparently with the aim... more
There exists a strong link in modern thinking between letter collections and biographical or historical narration. Many ancient letter collections have been rearranged by modern editors along chronological lines, apparently with the aim of realizing the biographical and historiographical potential of these ancient collections. In their original format, however, non-fictional Greco-Roman letter collections were arranged predominantly by addressee or by theme (often without the preservation of chronology within addressee or thematic groupings), or they might be arranged on the principle of artful variety and significant juxtaposition. Consequently, some purpose or purposes other than biographical or historical narration must be attributed to ancient letter collections. This paper asks what those purposes might be.
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... I have armed the Danai against the Amazons; there remain arms which I must give to you, Penthesilea, and to your troop. Green, drawing on Brandt's note on Ars 3.1, noted in this transition between the two books of the Ars a broad... more
... I have armed the Danai against the Amazons; there remain arms which I must give to you, Penthesilea, and to your troop. Green, drawing on Brandt's note on Ars 3.1, noted in this transition between the two books of the Ars a broad aUusion to the transition between the Iliad and ...
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... Such complaints are commonly found in the mouths of conservative Greek moralists from the sixth century BC on, and were enthusiastically echoed by Roman traditionalists both before and after the elegists' time; see Gibson (2003:... more
... Such complaints are commonly found in the mouths of conservative Greek moralists from the sixth century BC on, and were enthusiastically echoed by Roman traditionalists both before and after the elegists' time; see Gibson (2003: 21–5, 174–6). Clearly, so far as the elegists ...
... I have armed the Danai against the Amazons; there remain arms which I must give to you, Penthesilea, and to your troop. Green, drawing on Brandt's note on Ars 3.1, noted in this transition between the two books of the Ars a broad... more
... I have armed the Danai against the Amazons; there remain arms which I must give to you, Penthesilea, and to your troop. Green, drawing on Brandt's note on Ars 3.1, noted in this transition between the two books of the Ars a broad aUusion to the transition between the Iliad and ...
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3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in... more
3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong ...
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It is often said that amicitia, so prominent in the love poetry of Catullus, plays a negligible role in the elegies of Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid: the elegists avoid the vocabulary of amicitia and prefer to describe the relationships... more
It is often said that amicitia, so prominent in the love poetry of Catullus, plays a negligible role in the elegies of Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid: the elegists avoid the vocabulary of amicitia and prefer to describe the relationships with their beloveds in terms of militia and seruitium amoris. In this paper, however, I shall show that this is mistaken. While the elegists do not use the vocabulary of amicitia systematically, they clearly do continue to appeal to its protocols and moral code – Ovid above all. It will be seen that Catullus and the elegists share the use of the ideology of amicitia to pressurize their beloveds to accept or make a return on the benefacta which they as lovers bestow.