Books by Daniele Miano
The histories of early Rome written in antiquity by the likes of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnas... more The histories of early Rome written in antiquity by the likes of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus include many sensational stories, from the she-wolf suckling the twins to the miraculous conception of Servius Tullius and the epiphany of the Dioscuri at Lake Regillus. Even the more sober parts of the narrative are of dubious historicity, and certainly include a good deal of rhetorical invention, aetiologies and folktales. The essays composing this volume attempt to analyse these stories to explore the porous boundaries and the hybrid borrowings between myth, history and historiography, and the limits of historical knowledge.
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This collection explores the multifaceted nature of the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient ... more This collection explores the multifaceted nature of the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Italy. It examines Italic, Etruscan, and Latin deities in context and in the material remains, and also in the Greco-Roman written record and later scholarship which drew on these texts.
Many deities were worshipped in ancient Italy by different individuals and communities, using different languages, at different sanctuaries, and for very different reasons. This multiplicity creates challenges for modern historians of antiquity at different levels. How do we cope with it? Can we reduce it to the conceptual unity necessary to provide a meaningful historical interpretation? To what extent can deities named in different languages be considered the equivalent of one another (e.g. Artemis and Diana)? How can we interpret the visual representations of deities that are not accompanied by written text? Can we reconstruct what these deities meant to their local worshippers although the overwhelming majority of our sources were written by Romans and Greeks? The contributors of this book, a group of ten scholars from the UK, Italy, France, and Poland, offer different perspectives on these problems, each concentrating on a particular god or goddess.
Gods and Goddesses in Ancient Italy offers an invaluable resource for anyone working on ancient Roman and Italian religion.
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Frontmatter
List of Figures
List of Maps
0: Introduction: Word and Concept
1: The City of Fortuna... more Frontmatter
List of Figures
List of Maps
0: Introduction: Word and Concept
1: The City of Fortuna
2: Fortunae in Italy
3: Archaic Rome
4: Fortuna and the Republic
5: To Each His Own
6: Fortuna in Translation, Fortuna as Translation
7: A Godless Goddess
8: Conclusions: Fragmentation and Unity
Endmatter
Bibliography
Index
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Journal Special Issues by Daniele Miano
Intellectual History Review 32:3, 2022
In this special issue, we advocate for a more integrative history of knowledge across disciplinar... more In this special issue, we advocate for a more integrative history of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries through a reconsideration of the language of 'ancient' and 'modern'. We discuss how the essays collected in this special issue seek to go beyond the recurring metaphor of quarrel and competition between antiquity and modernity, and the related representations of key individuals and groups as ‘pioneers’ of modern approaches, in order to move towards a more complex relationship of crossfertilization of 'ancient' and 'modern' knowledges. Each essay maintains that an appreciation of knowledge making as a fully embodied practice is vital for understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory role played by classical authors in the knowledge making of later periods. In different ways, all the essays demonstrate how ancient authors not only provided scholars in later ages (working in a range of disciplines) with a rich supply of evidence for their own works; more interestingly, perhaps, much of what has been viewed as innovation involved scholars drawing on ancient authors and techniques in new ways.
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Papers by Daniele Miano
This article discusses the connection between the goddess Fortuna and games, with a particular fo... more This article discusses the connection between the goddess Fortuna and games, with a particular focus on the period going from late republican Rome to late antiquity. There seems to be an irresolvable tension between the divine status of Fortuna and the randomness inherent to the theme of the “game of fortuna” (ludus fortunae), to the extent that when the ludus appears, fortuna can be personified, but she is never clearly identified as a deity. This semantic tension was exploited by a variety of authors to probe and redefine the boundaries between chance and divine will.
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This article examines the figure of Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457), and challenges his nineteenth-cent... more This article examines the figure of Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457), and challenges his nineteenth-century interpretation as a precursor of modern critical historiography and philology, by focusing on two of his works on the ancient Roman historian Livy. The first is the Letter to King Alfonso on the Two Tarquins (1444), where Valla claimed to have discovered a mistake in Livy, and the second is the Confutation against Morandi (1455), a defence of the former work against a critic. The article has two aims. The first aim is to offer a reassessment of the significance of these works, arguing against the view that Letter to King Alfonso represents the formulation of a radically new 'critical' methodology. The second aim is to consider these works in the broader cultural context on ritualised performance in which they were conceived. Vital to their composition was the so-called 'hour of the book', ceremonial readings of classical authors at the court of King Alfonso, and the broader cultural context of the veneration of Livy in late medieval Italy.
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Intellectual History Review , 2022
In this editorial, we introduce the main themes discussed in this special issue and advocate for ... more In this editorial, we introduce the main themes discussed in this special issue and advocate for a more integrative history of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries through a reconsideration of the language of 'ancient' and 'modern'. We discuss how the essays collected in this special issue seek to go beyond the recurring metaphor of quarrel and competition between antiquity and modernity, and the related representations of key individuals and groups as ‘pioneers’ of modern approaches, in order to move towards a more complex relationship of crossfertilization of 'ancient' and 'modern' knowledges. Each essay maintains that an appreciation of knowledge making as a fully embodied practice is vital for understanding the complex and sometimes contradictory role played by classical authors in the knowledge making of later periods. In different ways, all the essays demonstrate how ancient authors not only provided scholars in later ages (working in a range of disciplines) with a rich supply of evidence for their own works; more interestingly, perhaps, much of what has been viewed as innovation involved scholars drawing on ancient authors and techniques in new ways.
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Latomus, 2020
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In response to a dossier of different theonyms and iconographic profiles for a set of gods in cen... more In response to a dossier of different theonyms and iconographic profiles for a set of gods in central Italy from the 5th-3rd centuries that correspond to Dionysus, this chapter considers the relationship between Fufluns, Liber, Hiaco (and other by-forms) with reference to two main concepts. (a) Translation: based on the work of Jan Assman, Homi Bhabha and others, we may investigate to what extent these divine forms were 'translations' or 'interpretations' of a Greek archetype. (b) Multiplicity: following the work of Versnel, Henrichs and others, we may consider the cluster of gods under the rubric of religious polymorphism: was Dio-nysus one god or many? The chapter argues for the fragmentation of Dionysus in Italy in the 5th-3rd centuries, and for the significance of local myths and forms of worship of the god as against a generalized 'Roman' standard. The discussion focusses on two case studies, Vulci in Etruria and Praeneste in Latium, with particular reference to local colour. The Etruscan evidence surveyed comprises epi-graphic and iconographic attestations of Fufluns Paχie on fifth-century ceramics and a fourth-century mirror respectively. Praenestine evidence analysed includes bronze mirrors and cistae which depict Fufluns, L(e)iber and Hiaco. In conclusion it addresses the significance of the fragmentation of Dionysus in Italy for the interpretation of the Bacchanalian affair of 186 BCE.
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This paper discusses some aspects of the deities that bear the names of concepts. After discussin... more This paper discusses some aspects of the deities that bear the names of concepts. After discussing the problem of defining this kind of deities within the history of modern historiography, the article concentrates on three topics. The first is the competition and semantic struggle on the meanings of concepts; the second is the fluid boundary between deities, concepts, and personal attributes; the third is the connection between the Roman Empire and the diffusion of these deities.
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In this paper, I analyse the literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence for the goddess Victor... more In this paper, I analyse the literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence for the goddess Victoria in Republican Italy. I question the interpretation proposed by Stefan Weinstock that she was an inherently Roman goddess inspired by Hellenistic influences from the East, and subsequently exported by the Romans to the rest of Italy.
I argue that there is a significant amount of evidence suggesting that the cult of Victoria might have developed in Latium in the second half of the fourth century BC, perhaps in a ceremonial context, and that first Greek influences must predate the Hellenistic period. I also argue that it is not plausible that the goddess was perceived as a Roman deity by other peoples in ancient Italy.
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This article analyses the evidence on the goddess Ops in Archaic Rome, focussing on her two festi... more This article analyses the evidence on the goddess Ops in Archaic Rome, focussing on her two festivals in the archaic feriale, and on her connection with the god Consus. It contends that Ops was related to a nuanced concept of abundance, which included associations with sovereignty. At the same time, it questions the theory that Ops and Consus were associated with agriculture and granaries. It also considers the developing roles of Ops in Republican Rome, to verify if, and to what extent, they show continuity with the archaic period.
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Books by Daniele Miano
Many deities were worshipped in ancient Italy by different individuals and communities, using different languages, at different sanctuaries, and for very different reasons. This multiplicity creates challenges for modern historians of antiquity at different levels. How do we cope with it? Can we reduce it to the conceptual unity necessary to provide a meaningful historical interpretation? To what extent can deities named in different languages be considered the equivalent of one another (e.g. Artemis and Diana)? How can we interpret the visual representations of deities that are not accompanied by written text? Can we reconstruct what these deities meant to their local worshippers although the overwhelming majority of our sources were written by Romans and Greeks? The contributors of this book, a group of ten scholars from the UK, Italy, France, and Poland, offer different perspectives on these problems, each concentrating on a particular god or goddess.
Gods and Goddesses in Ancient Italy offers an invaluable resource for anyone working on ancient Roman and Italian religion.
List of Figures
List of Maps
0: Introduction: Word and Concept
1: The City of Fortuna
2: Fortunae in Italy
3: Archaic Rome
4: Fortuna and the Republic
5: To Each His Own
6: Fortuna in Translation, Fortuna as Translation
7: A Godless Goddess
8: Conclusions: Fragmentation and Unity
Endmatter
Bibliography
Index
Journal Special Issues by Daniele Miano
Papers by Daniele Miano
I argue that there is a significant amount of evidence suggesting that the cult of Victoria might have developed in Latium in the second half of the fourth century BC, perhaps in a ceremonial context, and that first Greek influences must predate the Hellenistic period. I also argue that it is not plausible that the goddess was perceived as a Roman deity by other peoples in ancient Italy.
Many deities were worshipped in ancient Italy by different individuals and communities, using different languages, at different sanctuaries, and for very different reasons. This multiplicity creates challenges for modern historians of antiquity at different levels. How do we cope with it? Can we reduce it to the conceptual unity necessary to provide a meaningful historical interpretation? To what extent can deities named in different languages be considered the equivalent of one another (e.g. Artemis and Diana)? How can we interpret the visual representations of deities that are not accompanied by written text? Can we reconstruct what these deities meant to their local worshippers although the overwhelming majority of our sources were written by Romans and Greeks? The contributors of this book, a group of ten scholars from the UK, Italy, France, and Poland, offer different perspectives on these problems, each concentrating on a particular god or goddess.
Gods and Goddesses in Ancient Italy offers an invaluable resource for anyone working on ancient Roman and Italian religion.
List of Figures
List of Maps
0: Introduction: Word and Concept
1: The City of Fortuna
2: Fortunae in Italy
3: Archaic Rome
4: Fortuna and the Republic
5: To Each His Own
6: Fortuna in Translation, Fortuna as Translation
7: A Godless Goddess
8: Conclusions: Fragmentation and Unity
Endmatter
Bibliography
Index
I argue that there is a significant amount of evidence suggesting that the cult of Victoria might have developed in Latium in the second half of the fourth century BC, perhaps in a ceremonial context, and that first Greek influences must predate the Hellenistic period. I also argue that it is not plausible that the goddess was perceived as a Roman deity by other peoples in ancient Italy.