Articoli di riviste sul tema "Fauns (Roman mythology) in literature"

It is one thing to find Medea compelling, another to make her art, let alone funerary art. This article faces this complexity head on by examining Medea's visual identity within a sepulchral context. It interrogates her presence on Roman sarcophagi of the mid to late second century CE. The corpus is not insubstantial—nine intact relief panels plus further fragmentary pieces offer ample testament to Medea's presence in the funerary context. Beyond this sphere, Medea's emotionally charged legacy needs no introduction, and her characterisation—outsider, avenger, semi-divine sorceress, victim and murderer—is fleshed out by her capacity to fascinate and repel. Modern scholarship fans the flames, as she remains a popular subject for scholars of Latin and Greek literature, mythology and gender studies.In contrast, Medea's visual sphere of interest has attracted less in-depth attention. Recent studies have acknowledged the implications of her presence on pots and in freestanding sculpture, and most notably, wall painting is beginning to receive careful treatment. Yet art-historians have been more reluctant to confront Medea within the enclosed and predisposed funerary context. Traditional approaches to mythological sarcophagi more generally have favoured consolado as the dominant mode of commemoration, in which empathy and pothos are paramount and protagonists like Adonis and Endymion seen as positive exempla worthy of analogy and assimilation. The deceased is elevated by association with these figures (an association which is often underlined by the use of a portrait head) and the bereaved reassured by the implied interaction of mundane and heroic, mortal and divine. In this way, desire becomes a gloss for grief and loss is translated as yearning.

Of all known ancient authors writing in Greek, Philo of Alexandria is the one and related terms and concepts (the apostle Paul comes next, more or less). Something similar may only be found in Latin authors speaking of conscientia, like Cicero. This needs an explanation. After discussing some relevant passages from Philo's writings, with special stress on the texts from scriptures exposed by him, analogies in wisdom literature and in Graeco-Roman rhetoric and mythology are indicated. The following solution is proposed: Philo combines the punishing Furies (cf Cicero) and the benevolent guardian spirit (c. Seneca) of Graeco-Roman mythology and philosophy with the personified reproof from Jewish Wisdom literature, and so he creates a concept that helps him to give a visual description of the strict but nevertheless kind guidance God practices on man.

Review: Anna Mik, Signs of Exclusion. Monsters Inspired by Greek and Roman Mythology as Symbols of Rejected Minorities in Literature, Film, and TV-Series for Children and Young Adults: From Mid-20th Until Early 21st Century, Wydawnictwo DiG, Warszawa 2022.

Language is the carrier of culture and culture nourishes language. According to statistics, 56% of the commonly used 10,000 English words are adopted from Latin and ancient Greek, which are the carrier languages of Roman civilization and Greek civilization respectively. Greco-Roman mythology, with its rich cultural connotation, permeates all aspects of people's social life in English-speaking countries and becomes a source of vitality for the expansion of English vocabulary. Etymology, the scientific study of the origin of words, is crucial in English vocabulary teaching, as etymological study improves vocabulary learning. This paper adopts the methodology of literature research to gather materials about English vocabulary teaching methods, etymology theory, and Greco-Roman mythological origin of English vocabulary. In order to better explain the cultural connotation of words in English vocabulary teaching, this paper proposes method of applying Greco-Roman mythology learning in English vocabulary teaching, and classifies English vocabulary into four forms according to etymological motivation: direct use, metaphorical use, semantic transfer and derivation from the perspective of Greco-Roman mythological origin, thus stimulating English learners' interest and improving the efficiency of both teaching and learning.

Mythology refers to traditional stories often involving gods and heroes. Many of these tales have been widely popularized, and in turn, have been found to be of high significance in investigating the evolution of the English language and culture. As mythologies are often passed down through cultures, these tales heavily influence modern traditions and beliefs. They also play an important role in the evolution and development of certain languages. This paper discusses the relationship between mythology, language, and culture through the help of a comparative analysis of mythologies, vocabularies, literary works, and traditions regarding death. The analysis reveals that many English words and phrases originate from Greek and Roman mythology, and that an individual's belief is closely connected to the mythology of the culture they grew up in. This, in turn, proves that mythology cannot be ignored when investigating language and culture, and that an understanding of mythological tales will allow individuals to better appreciate both literature and cultural traditions.

The aim of the research: to identify changes in the nature of relationship between mythological, religious and social aspects in the sphere of agonistics in Ancient Greece in the Roman Era. Methods and research: Analysis of literature and written sources on the history of ancient agonistics. The result of the study is the determination of the specific traits of agonal traditions of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The article explores the sacral and secular aspects of the traditions and rules of antique agon. The Author shows a change in their ratio in Ancient Greece in the Roman Era. The paper focuses on the process of transformation of the sacral and secular content of agonistics and a variety of agon in Ancient Greece in the Roman Era, which is characterized by the clash of Hellenic and Roman agonal traditions. One of the most significant phenomena in the ideological life of that period was the cult of the Emperor, which was the official political religion of the Roman Empire. The Emperor’s cult with agon as one of the rituals became widespread in the western and eastern provinces including Greece. Greece had the status of "Achaea Roman Province" at that time. The Author describes the events that took place in Olympia and other religious centers of Ancient Greece at that time. Conclusion: Agonist features of the period were determined by changing the ratio of religious and social components of agonistics and transforming agony as a religious ritual into a spectacle that was widely used for political purposes.

Ahmet Midhat Efendi, one of the versatile writers of Turkish literature, saw mythology as a spring that feeds literary works and drew attention to the importance of mythology in the series of articles he wrote in periodicals. In his novel Taaffüf, which was published as a book in 1895, the author preferred the method of telling the conflict of the heroine (Sâniha) with ancient representations and tried to exemplify how mythology can be used in the novel genre. In the novel, the heroine's struggle in her married life is told through two characters of Roman mythology. Sâniha's this struggle between being chaste and not being chaste is also considered as a global issue and was associated with the opposition between Venus and Minerva. Sâniha, who obtained knowledge of painting, sculpture and mythology through Râsih, who is the voice of the author, re-established the balance of love and loyalty in marriage, not as dysfunctional decorations in the novel, but as Minerva's victory in the struggle between Venus and Minerva, which gained importance as two opposite points of the fundamental conflict. The study aims to analyse how the author includes mythology in the narrative and the ways of constructing the thought in the novel of Taaffüf, which is a projection of Ahmet Midhat Efendi's views on mythology.

Historians of antiquity are trained to be suspicious of accounts that may retroject onto the early years of figures, who were later dominant, positive traits that plausibly were exhibited only later, in essence the creation of a mythology. In the case of the Emperor Augustus, who exercised a firm control on the Roman world for over forty years after the defeat of his rival M. Antonius and introduced a new form of government, the probability that the years of his ascent to supreme power were subjected to careful recasting is very high. Here I examine an argument that was presented in 2004 on the very beginning of Octavian's public life, which, if correct, reveals a stuttering start by a young man inexperienced in the realities of Roman politics at a tumultuous moment in Roman history.

Incongruity and anachronism characterize Ovid's treatment of the gods and mythological figures in the Metamorphoses; frequently the resulting discrepancy between the superhuman world of mythology and characteristic aspects of Roman society serves to pillory that society as well as to undermine the dignity of the traditional mythology. Linguistic parody is one of the tools Ovid uses to highlight these discrepancies. An example recently noted is that of the serenade delivered by Polyphemus the landlubber to his marine beloved, Galatea (Met. 13.789–869): by casting this in the form of Gebetsparodie, Ovid mocks the literary topoi of the paraclausithyron as well as reducing the heroic status of the mythological protagonists. I suggest that in Tiresias’ brief appearance in Metamorphoses 3 Ovid imitates the pedantic locutions of jurists’ language in order to demonstrate how trivial and undignified are the preoccupations of the bickering Olympians.

The article proposes a typology of female characters of ancient literature. The typology is based on the dominant categories of «moral» (expressed by the dichotomy of «moral – immoral»), «heroic» («achievement – offence») and «aesthetic» («beautiful – ugly»). Through the prism of mythology, the semantics of the figurative gallery «woman-character» and «woman-author» reflects the specifics of the position of women in the ancient world. Misogyny is typical for the male world of antiquity. This determined the emphasis in the interpretation of women's masks, which were mainly given the role of the object of erotic posing. This, however, does not diminish the reception potential of female images of ancient origin in the subsequent world literary discourse.

The work of Luis de Góngora (1561–1627) arguably represents the peak of early Baroque poetic mythography, but even if myth is a recurring element in Gongorine poetry its appearance varies greatly. From the youthful poetry to the major works of the first decades of the 17th century and beyond we find important nuances and a recurring revaluation and redefinition of myth. Thus, starting off by the both moral and sensual interpretation characteristic of Renaissance literature in the early sonnets, passing through Ovidian aetiology in the Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea and the philosophical meditation on myth in the Soledades, the poet reaches the satirical-burlesque with a moral flavour in the Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe. However, underlying all these different phases we find a persistent ambiguity rooted in the ambiguous post-classical reception of Greco-Roman mythology. On the background of a brief survey of the ambiguous concept of classical mythology permeating Góngora’s work from beginning to end, the present article particularly explores the meditative phase of the Soledades, arguing its importance for our understanding of the Baroque period as well as for the origin of what may be termed the tradition of ’mythological literature’.

Abstract The turn of the millennium has brought a revival of interest in the ancient Greek and Roman texts. Obviously, the legacy of antiquity is a permanent feature of Western literature and visual arts; yet, its contemporary manifestation has taken a novel form, that of a retelling. It is a new trend in which a well-known text belonging to the canon is given an unorthodox interpretation, which exposes the ethnic, class, and gender prejudices present in the original. Mythological retellings are often written in an accessible manner containing features of genre fiction, which makes the revised version palatable to ordinary readers. A characteristic feature of mythic fantasy is the shift of focus from heroic exploits to private life as well as putting previously marginal characters into limelight. The retellings are a consequence of new, reflexive research angles that have appeared in the field of the classics.

Summary One of the key questions in the studies of the Roman cult of Mithras has been, since the works of F. Cumont, the question about the religious historical origin of the cult – regarding which there is no consensus to this day. Theories about the origin of the cult can be divided into three groups: (1) the so-called “strong” Iranian thesis, according to which the cult was imported from Iran; (2) the so-called “weak” Iranian thesis, claiming that just a few, mostly irrelevant elements of the cult originated in Iran; (3) a radical stance that there is no consistency between the Roman cult of Mithras and the Iranian cult of Mithra and what the two have in common is simply the similar name of a god. The author of this presentation has studied comparatively the character of Mitra in Indian religious literature, that of Mithra in Iranian religious and mythological texts as well as in Iranian religious iconography, and Mithras in the cult devoted to him in Rome, and has concluded that the radical belief common in current Mithras studies, according to which Mithras is connected with Mitra and Mithra only by them having similar names, is just as erroneous as the “strong” Iranian thesis defended by F. Cumont and G. Widengren. Although it is certain that the Roman cult of Mithras is not a cult imported from Iran, but a new cult that originated in the Roman Empire, the author of this presentation maintains that the Roman cult of Mithras contains a series of motifs that can be found both in the Vedas and in Iranian mythological texts: connection of Mitra/Mithras with friendship and a contract of friendship; certain military traits; connection with cosmogony and the cosmic order; connection with light, the Sun and the chariot of Sol; the role of the god as a giver of water and fertility; the idea of a sacrifice that stimulates fertility. Based on the sources linked to the Roman Mithras, in particular the iconography, it may be claimed that a large part of these motifs did not have a peripheral role in the mythology connected with the cult, but they carried an important, maybe even a central role. As the previously mentioned motifs were already interrelated in India and Iran, the author of this presentation believes that their coexistence in the mythology of the Roman cult of Mithras cannot be a coincidence but testifies to the wider Indo-Iranian background of the central figure of the cult, the god Mithras, which should not be ignored even if the Roman cult of Mithras is viewed as a new cult that evolved in the Roman Empire and within the context of the Greco-Roman religion.

The Hellenistic poet Lycophron, who wrote tragedies and assembled the texts of comedy under Ptolemy Philadelphus for the Library at Alexandria, was probably also the author of the long poem Alexandra, which deals mainly with the theme of Troy. Recent studies by Stephanie West have appreciably advanced our understanding of this rather difficult poet. For the passages where Lycophron surprisingly presents phases of Roman history she cogently adduces a later poet, a ‘Deutero-Lycophron, …to be sought among the artists of Dionysus in southern Italy’. A theme in Graeco-Egyptian mythology is the subject of the present paper; and one of my main points is that recent Egyptological research has a clear bearing on one of the problems.

We examine the concept of team performance and propose a framework to understand patterns of change over time. Following a literature review on team performance (focusing on empirical articles published between 2007 and 2017) and drawing on Greek and Roman mythology, we identify five team performance trajectories: “Jupiter” (consistently high performing), “Neptune” (relatively steady, average performance), “Pluto” (low performing), “Icarus” (initially high performing, with a downward spiral), and “Odysseus” (initially low to midrange performing, with an upward spiral), which we refer to as “team performance archetypes.” We discuss how they might be used in conjunction with growth modeling methodology to help facilitate theory building and data collection/analysis with respect to team performance. In addition, we discuss the future research implications associated with using the archetypes to help conceptualize patterns of team performance over time.

Abstract Challenges to rhetoric’s canon often occur under the rubric of revising that canon and its foundational, shared meaning. Read through the strategies of deconstruction, the secret offers a common ground for recanonizing approaches by centering either a concealed quantity in ancient rhetoric’s granular archive (the secret in discourse) or an unfolding idea whose transformation has rendered it unrecognizable to its original version (the secret of discourse). This article draws on Jacques Derrida’s “White Mythology” (1974) and A Taste for the Secret (2001) before addressing how the secret’s registers in and of discourse animate de- and recanonizing readings of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric. Its implications address scholars distressed by the durable forms of oppression ensconced in rhetoric’s ancient canon.

The article takes cognitive approach to precedent phenomena studies. The sources of precedentiality in detective discourse are Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, folklore texts, Shakespeare’s texts and classical European literature. In the analyzed texts universal-precedent and national-precedent phenomena of all the types are presented. Precedent names actualize precedent situations or act as namessymbols, precedent utterances appeal to precedent texts as reference standards. The analyzed material lets us deduce that incorporating Shakespearean, biblical and mythological topics, characters and images into detective texts is determined by authors’ intention to improve the status of their works as well as by universality of these topics and their criminal nature. Analyzing the sources of precedentiality within the cognitive approach may be of interest for studying transformations that take place within the genres based on the system-forming concepts.

This essay, by the editor of Common Knowledge, responds to a piece by Dionigi Albera that, in turn, responds to Jeffrey Perl’s introduction, published in May 2017, to CK’s multipart symposium on xenophilia. Albera argues that the ambivalence that Perl observes in many instances of xenophilia needs genealogical explanation, and Albera turns for this purpose to analysis of the relationship between Aphrodite and Ares in Greco-Roman mythology. In the present piece, Perl extends that exploration in analysis of a series of images in which the gods of love and war, along with their illegimate children Eros and Phobos (or philia and phobia), are given comical and often vulgar treatment by artists ranging from Botticelli and Mantegna, in the fifteenth century; to Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, in the sixteenth; to Rubens, Jan Bruegel the Elder, and Poussin, in the seventeenth; to Lagrenée, in the eighteenth; to David and Guillemot, in the nineteenth; to Jeff Koons in our own day. Perl and Albera agree with these artists that the antithetical pair, Aphrodite and Ares, have a fully logical, if furtive relationship in mythology, iconography, and psychology. The idealization to which the comic images respond—that when warriors make love, there is no warfare—is laughed, again and again, out of court. But Perl’s concern, unlike Albera’s, is that this cynicism on the part of artists and advanced intellectuals means that, despite their ostensible preference for peace over conflict, they will always find cause to undermine every effort to make way for peace.

Abstract The “Twelve Labours” of Hercules are among the topics most often associated with the illustrious half-god of Graeco-Roman mythology. This series of heroic deeds includes the defeat of a monstrous lion that ravaged the countryside of Nemea in southern Greece, an episode from the life of ancient Hercules that was handed down to medieval Europe through the works of classical authors, such as Virgil, Ovid and Statius, and their commentators. As is often the case, this process of textual transmission gave rise to variation and multiple interpretations: the sole Nemean lion is, in some instances, replaced by a pair of two felines or even a leonine trio, a phenomenon that can be observed both in text and iconography. The present contribution aims to elucidate the history of a particular variational pattern involving three Nemean lions, as seen in Raoul Lefèvre’s 15th century Recoeil des Histoires de Troyes. By tracing the evolution of this particular version of the episode, we will consider commentaries, mythographic treatises and historiographical compilations.

Abstract Contemporary actors and, later, historians and critics have long compared the Haitian Revolution to a tragic play. But the model of tragedy they invoke has changed over time. Today the best-known example comes from The Black Jacobins (1963), in which C. L. R. James narrates the events of the Revolution through the lens of a Hegelian definition of tragedy. David Scott has championed James’s “tragic mode of history” for political reasons, arguing that it is better suited to address the challenges of the postcolonial present. But a tragic mode of history can be of use for the postcolonial present only if it is firmly grounded in the world-changing events that it is supposed to illuminate. It should build on what tragedy was in the milieu of Toussaint Louverture and the slave rebels. To lay the groundwork for this critical shift, this essay traces how tragic performances and history intersected during the Revolution and shows how radicalized versions of Voltaire’s Roman-themed tragedies and Afro-Caribbean mythology and rituals played a prominent part in the fight for equality.

Abstract This paper reexamines the problem of the origins of a popular medieval and modern image of the devil as an anthropomorphic creature with hooves and horns and seeks to reconstruct the analogous ancient image of a satyr-like devil as it could be witnessed in diverse sources, including Hellenistic mythology, rabbinic legends, and early Christian texts. It seems that, not belonging completely to any of these worlds, this therianthropic motif emerges from a complicated literary history wherein Greco-Roman Pan, Jewish seirim, and other mythological figures graft themselves and their imagery around the forces of the demonic. The main argument of the paper as a whole centers around the place of 3 Baruch in this complicated history. This composition may contain the only physical description and detailed treatment of demonic seirim-satyrs in early Jewish literature and the earliest notion of satyr-like demons available to us.

Literature relies heavily on mythology. Myths are stories of deities, monsters or immortals which are transformed from one generation to the other. In addition to documenting the religious and cultural experiences of a specific community, myths also outline the consequent literary, artistic and dramatic customs. Some Greek myths have survived for thousands of years because they accurately depict historical events, cultural values, and trends. Among the most famous classical myths are the myths of Medusa and Medea. As for the myth of Medusa, the earliest known record was found in Theogony (700BC) by Hesiod (8 th-7th century BC). A later version of the Medusa myth was made by the Roman poet Ovid (43BC –17/18AD), in his “Metamorphoses” (3-8 AD). Then again, Medea is a tragedy produced in 431 BC by the Greek playwright Euripides(480–406BC) based on the myth of Jason and Medea. Both Medusa and Medea are among the most fascinating and complex female protagonists in Greek mythology which have captivated many writers and playwrights for ages. In the twentieth century, there were many adaptations of both mythological figures; among these adaptations were those made by contemporary American and Irish women playwrights like Carol Lashof (1956-) and Marinna Carr (1964-). This paper examines the myths of Medusa and Medea and analyses the ways these myths are borrowed, refashioned and exploited in Lashof’s Medusa’s Tale (1991) and Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (1998). Both playwrights explore hidden dimensions of the traditional myths, combining elements from the old and modern worlds.

Abstract Am Beispiel von Johann Kuhnaus Musicalischem Qvack-Salber (Dresden 1700) untersucht der Beitrag verschiedene narrative Verfahren, mit denen Musik in einem erzählenden Text zur Sprache gebracht werden kann. Zum einen integriert Kuhnau in seinen Roman alle Textsorten, in denen um 1700 Musik verhandelt wird. Zum andern nutzt er die antike Mythologie (Apollon-, Orpheus-Mythos) als Prätext, um Kohärenz zwischen den einzelnen Schwanknovellen, aus denen sich die Handlung zusammensetzt, herzustellen. Die antiken Mythen werden im Verlauf des Romans jedoch destruiert, und der Held bekehrt sich zu einem christlichen Virtuosentum.Using the example of Johann Kuhnau’s Musicalischer Qvack-Salber (Dresden 1700), the essay examines various narrative procedures with which music can be brought to expression in a narrative text. On the one hand, Kuhnau integrates into his novel all types of texts in which music is negotiated around 1700. On the other hand, he uses ancient mythology (Apollo, Orpheus) as a pretext to establish coherence between the individual comical novellas that make up the plot. However, the ancient myths are destroyed in the course of the novel, and the hero converts to Christian virtuosity.

The aim of this article is to find the sources of images of the Inner Sea Lands gods in Anna Brzezińska’s “Saga of Twardokęsek the Brigand”. The author presents the most important features of these characters, their most recognizable actions and attributes, comparing them with possible prototypes derived from Greek, Roman, Scandinavian, Slavic, and Hindu mythology, as well as Christianity. She points out that the gods in Brzezińska’s saga, although worshipped, are not omnipotent and do not possess full creative powers. They turn out to be only slightly more powerful than their off spring, the fruit of their relationships with humans — witches. Shaping human fates, they are only able to recreate ancient patterns over and over again and are subject to a higher power (similarly to how the Greek gods were subject to Fatum). In their images, we can also find traces of inspiration from the classic mythopoetic fantasy, especially Ursula K. Le Guin’s series about the Earthsea. Thus, these images can be seen as a magical-religious mosaic, which evokes associations with the considerations of classical anthropology on the relations between magic and religion. The author also puts forward the hypothesis about treating these images as a metaphor for the process of creating literature, especially in its original, oral form.

The term “grotesque”, derived from the Italian word “grotto” for underground caves, refers to the ornamental art in which human, animal, and plant motifs are intertwined on the walls of Nero’s Golden House (Domus Aurea), discovered during the Roman excavations in 1480. However, over time, it has abandoned its decorative meaning and become a form of expression in art and literature, which is sometimes associated with the humorous and sometimes with the tragic. Adjectives such as “absurd”, “outrageous”, “strange”, and “incompatible” characterize the grotesque, which is intended to surprise, frighten, and disgust an audience as well as make them laugh. More importantly, the grotesque exists across the folk mythology and pre-classical works of many cultures as a significant means of expression that takes and presents the ugly and formless from within an exciting life. The present study examines Crystal Manor Tales through the lens of the grotesque theory, which Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin conceptualized in his work Rabelais and His World (2005 [1965])1 by associating it with medieval and Renaissance carnivals. Therefore, it has been determined that the tales aim to expose society’s flaws through the grotesque images they convey, as well as to establish a healthier order by excluding un-desirable behaviors.

In 1811, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon painted an allegorical portrait of the infant Napoleon II for Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon's second wife and the child's mother, that was exhibited publicly at the Paris Salon the following year. Prud'hon's painting is distinctive because it lacks conventional imperial attributes that characterized Napoleonic imagery at the time. On one level, the portrait can be understood according to Christian iconography or as an allegory of the new French order according to ancient Roman mythology. I argue, however, that Prud'hon subscribed to early nineteenth-century Romantic ideals, freely interpreting traditional artistic conventions to show the unity between childhood innocence, women, and nature. This pictorial approach appealed to Marie-Louise, who faced an increasingly unfavorable reputation in the wake of Napoleon's 1809 divorce and mounting public suspicion of the emperor's character. The empress utilized Prud'hon's romanticized image of her son to cast herself as the ideal Napoleonic woman and mother, thereby demonstrating her inherent virtue, reassuring the public of the empire's stability, and legitimizing her place at court on her own terms. Importantly, Prud'hon centralizes Marie-Louise's position as the heir's protector to imply her imperial significance—a dynamic role for the consort in this painting that has remained unexplored until now.

The paper is focused on the adaptation of the image of Cerberus in Russian culture of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times. Fragmentary information about some characters of the Greco-Roman mythology penetrated into Russian medieval literature from the Byzantine. Christians often borrowed and reinterpreted those images in the traditions of Christian symbolism. One of these characters, Cerberus, the dog of Hades, became an infernal character: a guard or a demon of the Christian Hell. As a dog it turned into an Evil animal, executioner of sinners. Аs a three-headed creature it resembled dragons and other legendary monsters. Perhaps, the story about Hercules, who tamed Cerberus, became the basis of novel in the Sinai Patericon (story about Saint John Kolobos and graveyard hyena). At the beginning of the 18th century Russia experienced a secondary influence of Ancient symbolism through Western European emblematic collections and similar translated works. A lot of exotic images were rediscovered and aquired new meanings. Under the influence of the Jesuit theatre, the mouth of Cerberus became a variation of a well-known in Russia iconographic image of Hellmouth. In the plays by Dimitri of Rostov, the characters sent to the underworld found themselves in the mouth of a monstrous dog – inside an ingenious stage device. Toward the end of the 18th century Hell as a dog’s head appeared also in Russian popular prints, lubok.

The humanists of Riga began to compose various Latin poetry texts due to the currents of European humanism, which came to Livonia soon after the Protestant Reformation took place in Livonia in the first half of the 16th century. As a result of this historical and religious impact, the level of education increased, enabling an environment for the development of the literature. The aim of the article „Religious characters in the 17th-Century Nuptial Poetry in Riga” is to bring to light the content of nuptial (epithalamium, ὑμέναιος/hymenaeus, carmen nuptialis etc.) poetry written in Riga in the 17th century, providing insight into the most frequently mentioned characters and their meaning, as well as by exploring the specific features of occasional poetry to capture reader’s and researcher’s interest in the previously undiscovered cultural heritage. The subject of the study is more than 380 Latin nuptial poems, which are stored in the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the Academic Library of the University of Latvia. The poems are printed at the beginning of the 17th century by the second typographer of Riga city Gerhard Schröder (?–1657). The article includes data from a classification table (created by the author) in which the main characteristic of each poem is highlighted, including the mentions of all (more than 280) characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology, as well as biblical and historical characters. Fragments of Latin nuptial poetry written in Riga are included to portray the content of poetry more clearly. All translations of poetry in the article are done by the author.

Mud and stars make a strange mixture, yet here in brief is Manilius' universe, in which the rarefied heavens regulate the coarse earth. As shown by the recent spate of critical attention to theAstronomica, his various intellectual resources—astronomical calculation, mythology, astrological lore and Stoic physics—, while not forming a unified dogma, are less muddled than previously thought. He switches between these different discourses (or as it were, idioms) in pursuit of his own cherished goal: an optimistic eulogy to a fatalistic cosmos in which the study of the heavens holds supreme interest and value. Manilius' discipline is the most specialised and mathematical, as well as the most novel, of all Roman didactic poets. He therefore takes a decidedly concrete approach to the inevitable balancing act between technical content and poetic form, as is immediately obvious in his self-portrait as a priest-poetuatestending the twin altar-fires of poem and subject (carminis et rerum, 1.22). The proposal of this paper will be that the division between poetic and technical corresponds far more profoundly with Manilius' dualistic universe (mundus), in which the realm of the hierophantic astronomer and natural philosopher is the sky (caelum) and that of the mythological poet is the earth (terra). Likewise, the constellations are both cosmic stars (stellae) and mythic signs (signa). Because the cosmos is a dynamic system, terrestrial inconstancy—violence, mortality and mess of all kinds—interferes with the absolute constancy of the celestial clockwork. The paradigm for such interference is catasterism, the translation of something mortal into stars. It turns the constellations into duck-rabbits: from one perspective they are eternal parts in the machinery of fate; from the other, vestiges of mortal beings or objects, which are often of dubious and even monstrous provenance. In this article I propose that Manilius' fundamental view is that the stars represent order and the earth chaos, a conviction partly expressed through Stoic doctrine and partly through poetic tropes. He frequently uses the imagery of the four elements to divide the superior realm of air and fire from the inferior realm of water and earth. Significant themes contributing towards this include Gigantomachy, cosmic vapours, the planets, and the figure of the Whale (Cetus) in the Andromeda story near the close of the poem.

The article offers a new evaluation of the wellknown phenomenon of cultural renaissance of the peoples of the Middle East and Egypt of the Syrians, the Copts, the Armenians, the Georgians, etc., in the first centuries AD. This period is commonly associated with the spreading of Christianity around the territory of the Roman Empire and the Parthian, later on Sassanid Iran. According to the author there are reasons to regard the genesis of the Christianity in the Middle East as a single yet multifaceted process of transformation of the Late Antiquity culture in its totality of the Eucumene, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pamir mountains. The essence of this process could roughly be defined as overcoming the Hellenistic culture crisis called forth by the ever deepening disparity between the transcendental intellectual environment it had given rise to, on the one hand, and its ideological nucleus rooted in the archaic Greek mythology, on the other. The only feasible recourse out of this crisis was the appearance of a new cultural nucleus, conventionally described as the canonized sacred text (The Holy Scriptures). This nucleus, together with the Hellenistic cultural and technological achievements (general literacy, school education, science, literature, symbolic culture, etc.) gave rise to religious civilizations with Christianity as the principal example. Thus, the author describes the historical transition from the Late Hellenistic and Post Hellenistic cultures of the Ancient Rome and the Ancient Middle East that resulted in the new nationallytinged in form but supranational in content cultures of the Christianity in the Middle East.В статье предлагается новая оценка известного феномена культурного возрождения народов Ближнего Востока и ЕгиптоСирийцев, Коптов, Армян, Грузин и др. в первые века нашей эры. Этот период обычно связывают с распространением христианства по территории Римской Империи и Парфянского, позднее Сасанидского Ирана. По мнению автора есть основания рассматривать генезис христианства на Ближнем Востоке как единый, но многогранный процесс трансформации культуры поздней Античности в ее тотальности Ойкумены, от Атлантического океана до Памирских гор. Суть этого процесса можно приблизительно определить как преодоление кризиса эллинистической культуры, вызванного все более углубляющимся несоответствием между трансцендентальной интеллектуальной средой, которую она породила, с одной стороны, и ее идеологическим ядром, коренящимся в архаической греческой мифологии, с другой. Единственным возможным выходом из этого кризиса было появление нового культурного ядра, условно описываемого как канонизированный священный текст (Священное Писание). Это ядро, наряду с эллинистическими культурными и технологическими достижениями (общая грамотность, школьное образование, наука, литература, символическая культура и др.) породило религиозные цивилизации с христианством, в качестве основного примера. Таким образом, автор описывает исторический переход от Позднеэллинистической и Постэллинистической культур Древнего Рима и Древнего Ближнего Востока к новым национально окрашенным по форме, но наднациональным по содержанию культурам христианства в Cредние века.

The image on the cover of this second issue of JOLCEL shows a detail from the so-called Franks Casket, an early eight-century Anglo-Saxon chest made out of whale’s bone, possibly designed to hold a psalter. This artefact constitutes a truly breath-taking nexus of cultural traditions, juxtaposing tableaus as varied as Romulus and Remus being suckled by the shewolf, the mythical Germanic Wayland the Smith at work on his anvil, and the Adoration of the Magi. The scene which has been reproduced here depicts the consequences of the Roman emperor Titus’ sacking of the city of Jerusalem. The inscription in the upper righthand margin starts out in the Latin tongue and script: “hic fugiant hierusalim” (“Here flee from Jerusalem…”). This phrase is then continued vertically, still in Latin but rendered in Anglo-Saxon runes: “ᚪᚠᛁᛏᚪᛏᚩᚱᛖᛋ,” which can be transcribed as “(h)abitatores” (“…its inhabitants”). If we also were to take a look at the left side of this panel (not included here), we would encounter further runic inscriptions in Anglo-Saxon that describe the ancient siege itself. Clearly, Latin and its cultural past are being represented here as being part of a larger and more complex whole, a whole in which, at first sight, they do not even seem to occupy a central position. This leads us to the present volume’s overarching topic, ‘Latin on the margins’, which has its earliest origins in the Telling Tales Out of School-conference organised by RELICS in 2017. It might come as a surprise to the reader that, only having arrived at our second issue, we turn to the aspect of Latin on the margins. However, by placing these topics at the centre of our journal, and in dialogue with texts that are traditionally considered key texts of the Latin tradition, we seek to reconsider the aspect of centre versus margin in Latin literature, with a particular focus on how education in Latin played a crucial role in this. Indeed, the three articles we present to the reader in this issue deal with texts that are generally viewed as examples of the use of Latin in the margins. The margins in question are either geographical ones (Tlatelolco in Mexico City) or chronological ones (nineteenthcentury Sweden). This issue hopes to show that what we have come to define as ‘marginal’ is only a question of perspective. In the formation of writers that we consider today to be at the margin of the Latin tradition, Latin education still was—or had recently become—a central element. Andrew Laird (Brown University) and Heréndira Tellez Nieto (Cátedras Conacyt), in their respective articles, draw attention to the College of Tlatelolco, located in Mexico City. The use of Latin for the instruction of the Nahua peoples was never regarded as a ‘marginal’ phenomenon; on the contrary, Latin was a crucial medium to enhance mutual understanding, which in turn created a new and vibrant dynamic, far from Europe. This explains how Tlatelolco became a new centre for the study of the Latin language and its literatures, in interaction with the indigenous traditions of native Mexicans. Chronologically and geographically, nineteenth-century Sweden is, undoubtedly, at the margin of the Latin tradition; but, as Arsenii Vetushko-Kalevich (Lund University) explores in his article, for someone like Carl Georg Brunius, author of the longest Latin poem ever written in Sweden, the attempt to rewrite Nordic mythology in classical Latin hexameters probably felt more like a natural reflex than as an anachronism. By reinterpreting the classical echoes in the epic De diis arctois as more than mere “metrical necessities,” Vetushko-Kalevich seeks to give new meaning to the poem. Finally, in his illuminative response to the articles of this issue, Alejandro Coroleu (ICREA—Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) reflects more deeply on the consequences of this thinking in terms of what he calls “beyond Europe, beyond the Renaissance, and beyond the vernacular.” He makes a plea for the inclusion of these texts that are usually left out of the picture, in order to get a better insight in the aspects which make the Latin tradition a cosmopolitan one. The second issue of JOLCEL focuses on texts from the (early) modern period, but intentionally goes beyond those of the Italian humanist ideals. The articles analyse the use of Latin in contexts where the idea of translatio imperii is at first sight no longer a logical one: the Latin tradition has to impose itself on already existing traditions, such as the Nahua mythology or Nordic sagas. Interestingly, this imposition soon shifts to a renegotiation of the hierarchy of traditions. Latin, then, becomes a medium in which new traditions emerge.

Latvian folksongs of three types (LD 33802, 34043, 34047) and a Lithuanian song Aušrinė (‘the Morning Star’) published by Liudvikas Rėza (Ludwig Rhesa, RD I 62) depict a tree struck by the Thunderer (Latvian Perkons). The kind of the tree may vary: usually, it is an oak, but sometimes it may be an apple-tree. Researchers of Latvian mythology and folklore call it Saules koks (‘the tree of the Sun’). In different variants, the striking of the tree tends to be part of the plot of the heavenly wedding. Sometimes Perkons allegedly strikes the tree in order to express his objections regarding the Sun’s decision to marry off her daughter to an “unsuitable” groom.Scholars interpret this image of the thunderstruck tree in different ways. Wilhelm Mannhardt thought the image to have stemmed from a natural phenomenon – the rays of the setting Sun. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov attributed this motive to the symbol of the World Tree and the Indo-European “basic myth” that they had reconstructed. According to Pranė Dundulienė, the thunderstruck oak is a symbolic representation of the bridegroom. Having amassed considerable ethnographic and folklore data, the author of this article questions the earlier explanation presented by Leopold von Schröder and Haralds Biezais. According to them, the motive of Perkons striking the oak may stem from the traditional Latvian wedding custom: the bride’s coachman makes a sign of the cross on the gate or the door with his sword upon arrival, imitating the cutting. Our analysis employs the comparative method. The appreciation of this motive requires considering the connections between the Thunderer and the oaks that exist in numerous ancient Indo-European religions (including Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Baltic). The lightning strike to the oak, possibly, only added some extra meaning to this connection (the thunderstruck wood was used for magic purposes), which emphasized power and strength attributed both to the thunder and the oak. The plausibility of relating the powerful celestial oak to the sacred tree of the homestead would require further discussions. Some variants of the mythological folksongs suggest that the oak hit by Perkons must have been growing by the gate. However, in folksongs and customs, this particular location emerges as liminal and unsafe in relation to home.Although Biezais used the Latvian example, similar customs of imitated cutting of the gate, door, or beam are also widespread in the Eastern Slavic lands. This enables us to understand better their nature, variations, and possible origins. Currently, we can use more ample Latvian and Lithuanian data. In wedding customs, actions similar to cutting or striking mostly indicate the active or masculine principle, including clashing between the bride’s and the groom’s parties, and invading of the foreign territory; but generally are characteristic of both sides. The fierce and militant character of Perkons is especially evident in this liminal sphere; there, as wedding customs and songs clearly indicate, also the hardest clash between the opposing parties takes place at some stage of the wedding. Although this clash is most prominent at the beginning of the wedding ceremony (during matchmaking, and particularly when representatives of the groom arrive to take the bride to her new home), certain “active response” is also evident in the way that the bride’s party behaves at the gate or door of the groom’s house. This may also include new elements, such as threatening to break the table with a specific musical instrument. Taunting of the wedding parties while using similar images and formulas to those used by folksongs describing animals enable us to see more clearly some peculiarities of the Thunderer’s image apparent in the songs describing the heavenly wedding (his attribution to the bride’s party and unexpectedly destructive character). The selected folklore and customs serve to considerably widen and deepen the possibilities of discussing the hypothesis raised by von Schröder and Biezais. However, this does not solve the main issues inherent in the substantiation of this hypothesis – e. g., it contradicts the authentic storylines of the songs describing the heavenly wedding; objects that are cut differ as well, while the consequences of the action – the destruction of the oak – do not ground its possible ritual purpose. The use of the sign of the cross is also ambivalent in customs, since it can serve both as means of protection against the adversary of the Thunderer – the devil, and against the thunder itself.However, the collected comparative materials provide a better idea regarding the meaning of this mythic thunder strike in the wedding contexts, elucidating certain regularities and inconsistencies.

SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND THE PROTESTANT TRADITION: Retracing the Origins of Conflict by James C. Ungureanu. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. x + 358 pages. Hardcover; $50.00. ISBN: 9780822945819. *Mythical understandings about historical intersections of Christianity and science have a long history, and persist in our own day. Two American writers are usually cited as the architects of the mythology of inevitable warfare between science and religion: John William Draper (1811-1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832-1919). Draper was a medical doctor, chemist, and historian. White was an academic (like Draper), a professional historian, and first president of the nonsectarian Cornell University. Ungureanu's objective is to show how Draper and White have been (mis)interpreted and (mis)used by secular critics of Christianity, liberal theists, and historians alike. *Ungureanu opens by critiquing conflict historians as misreading White and Draper. The conflict narrative emerged from arguments within Protestantism from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, and, as taken up by Draper and White, was intended not to annihilate religion but to reconcile religion with science. Consequently, the two were not the anti-religious originators of science-versus-religion historiography. Rather, the "warfare thesis" began among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant historians and theologians attacking both Roman Catholics and each other. By the early nineteenth century, the purpose of conflict polemics was not to crush religion in the name of science but to clear intellectual space for preserving a "purified" and "rational" religion reconciled to science. Widespread beliefs held by liberal Protestant men of science included "progressive" development or evolution in history and nature as found, for example, in books by Lamarck in France and Robert Chambers in Britain. For Draper, English chemist and Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was a model of faith without the burden of orthodoxy. *So conflict rhetoric arose not, as we've been taught before, in post-Darwinian controversies, but in contending narratives within generations of earlier Protestant reformers who substituted personal judgment for ecclesial authority. Victorian scientific naturalists and popularizers often rejected Christian theological beliefs in the name of a "natural" undogmatic "religion" (which could slip into varieties of Unitarianism, deism, agnosticism, or pantheism). In effect, the conflict was not between science and religion, but between orthodox Christian faith and progressive or heterodox Christian faith--a conflict between how each saw the relationship between Christian faith and science. Draper, White, and their allies still saw themselves as theists, even Protestant Christians, though as liberal theists calling for a "New Reformation." Given past and present anti-Christian interpretations of these conflict historians with actual religious aims, this is ironic to say the least. *Ungureanu's thesis shouldn't be surprising. In the Introduction to his History of the Warfare, White had written: "My conviction is that Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with Religion … [i.e.] 'a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness' [quoting without attribution Matthew Arnold, who had actually written of an 'eternal power']." *As science advanced, so would religion: "the love of God and of our neighbor will steadily grow stronger and stronger" throughout the world. After praising Micah and the Epistle of James, White looked forward "above all" to the growing practice of "the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder of Christianity himself" (vol. 1, p. xii). Ungureanu quotes White that the "most mistaken of all mistaken ideas" is the "conviction that religion and science are enemies" (p. 71). *This echoed both Draper's belief that "true" religion was consistent with science, and T. H. Huxley's 1859 lecture in which he affirmed that the so-called "antagonism of science and religion" was the "most mischievous" of "miserable superstitions." Indeed, Huxley affirmed that, "true science and true religion are twin-sisters" (p. 191). *Chapter 1 locates Draper in his biographical, religious, and intellectual contexts: for example, the common belief in immutable natural laws; the "new" Protestant historiography expressed in the work of such scientists as Charles Lyell and William Whewell; and various species of evolutionism. Comte de Buffon, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, John Herschel, Thomas Dick, Robert Chambers, and Darwin are some of the many writers whose work Draper used. *Chapter 2 examines White's intellectual development including his quest for "pure and undefiled" religion. He studied Merle d'Aubigné's history of the Reformation (White's personal library on the subject ran to thirty thousand items) and German scholars such as Lessing and Schleiermacher who cast doubt on biblical revelation and theological doctrines, in favor of a "true religion" based on "feeling" and an only-human Jesus. As he worked out his history of religion and science, White also absorbed the liberal theologies of William Ellery Channing, Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lyman Abbott, among others. *The resulting histories by Draper and White were providential, progressive, and presentist: providential in that God still "governed" (without interfering in) nature and human history; progressive, even teleological, in that faith was being purified while science grew ever closer to Truth; and presentist in that the superior knowledge of the present could judge the inferiority of the past, without considering historical context. *Chapters 3 and 4 situate Draper and White in wider historiographic/polemical Anglo-American contexts, from the sixteenth-century Reformation to the late nineteenth century. Protestant attacks on Roman Catholic moral and theological corruption were adapted to nineteenth-century histories of religion and science, with science as the solvent that cleansed "true religion" of its irrational accretions. Ungureanu reviews other well-known Christian writers, including Edward Hitchcock, Asa Gray, Joseph Le Conte, and Minot Judson Savage, who sought to accommodate their religious beliefs to evolutionary theories and historical-critical approaches to the Bible. *Chapter 5 offers a fascinating portrait of Edward Livingston Youmans--the American editor with prominent publisher D. Appleton and Popular Science Monthly--and his role in promoting the conflict-reconciliation historiography of Draper and White and the scientific naturalism of Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall. *In chapter 6 and "Conclusions," Ungureanu surveys critics of Draper's and White's work, although he neglects some important Roman Catholic responses. He also carefully analyzes the "liberal Protestant" and "progressive" writers who praised and popularized the Draper-White perspectives. Ungureanu is excellent at showing how later writers--atheists, secularists, and freethinkers--not only blurred distinctions between "religion" and "theology" but also appropriated historical conflict narratives as ideological weapons against any form of Christian belief, indeed any form of religion whatsoever. Ultimately, Ungureanu concludes, the conflict-thesis-leading-to-reconciliation narrative failed. The histories of Draper and White were widely, but wrongly, seen as emphatically demonstrating the triumph of science over theology and religious faith, rather than showing the compatibility of science with a refined and redefined Christianity, as was their actual intention. *Draper's History of the Conflict, from the ancients to the moderns, suggested an impressive historical reading program, as did his publication of A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (rev. ed., 2 vols., 1875 [1863]). But one looks in vain for footnotes and bibliographies to support his controversial claims. White's two-volume study, however, landed with full scholarly apparatus, including copious footnotes documenting his vivid accounts of science conquering theological belief across the centuries. What Ungureanu doesn't discuss is how shoddy White's scholarship could be: he cherrypicked and misread his primary and secondary sources. His citations were not always accurate, and his accounts were sometimes pure fiction. Despite Ungureanu's recovery of German sources behind White's understanding of history and religion, he does not cite Otto Zöckler's Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft (2 vols., 1877-1879), which, as Bernard Ramm noted in The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954), served as "a corrective" to White's history. *Ungureanu certainly knows, and refers to some of, the primary sources in the large literature of natural theology. I think he underplays the roles of Victorian natural theologies and theologies of nature in reflecting, mediating, criticizing, and rejecting conflict narratives. Ungureanu seems to assume readers' familiarity with the classic warfare historians. He could have provided more flavor and content by reproducing some of Draper's and White's melodramatic and misleading examples of good scientists supposedly conquering bad theologians. (One of my favorite overwrought quotations is from White, vol. 1, p. 70: "Darwin's Origin of Species had come into the theological world like a plough into an ant-hill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakened … swarmed forth angry and confused.") *Ungureanu's is relevant history. Nineteenth-century myth-laden histories of the "warfare between Christianity and science" provide the intellectual framework for influential twenty-first century "scientific" atheists who have built houses on sand, on misunderstandings of the long, complex and continuing relations between faith/practice/theology and the sciences. *This is fine scholarship, dense, detailed, and documented--with thirty-seven pages of endnotes and a select bibliography of fifty pages. It is also well written, with frequent pauses to review arguments and conclusions, and persuasive. Required reading for historians, this work should also interest nonspecialists curious about the complex origins of the infamous conflict thesis, its ideological uses, and the value of the history of religion for historians of science. *Reviewed by Paul Fayter, who taught the history of Victorian science and theology at the University of Toronto and York University, Toronto. He lives in Hamilton, ON.

Sacrificial Tradition and Religion during the Early Iron Age in South Scandinavia – with Special Reference to Settlement SacrificesSacrificial customs and religion during the Early Iron Age (500 BC–400 AD) has occupied archaeologists from the infancy of archaeology. Most would probably agree that the religion was primarily fertility related, originating as it was in the existing peasant society. The literature does not reflect any disagreement about the religion of the Early Iron Age being polytheistic and consequently concerned a variety of gods. However, it is still unknown how the religion was integrated in the everyday life, and under which conditions it was practiced.The research interest and the overall synthesis framework have especially addressed sacrifices in bogs and wetlands (for instance weapon sacrifices, bog bodies, deposited earthenware, anthropomorphic wooden figures, domestic animals, cauldrons, ring sacrifices, etc.). Strongly simplified, the existing consensus may be expressed in one single sentence: The overall society-related sacrificial traditions develop from being almost exclusively connected with wetland areas during the Early Iron Age (until c.400 AD) to being primarily connected with dry land after this time, cf. Fig. 1.The question is whether – based on the intense data collection over the recent decades – archaeology can or should maintain this very simple picture of the development of the sacrificial traditions and the religions during the Iron Age? Is it possible that we – rooted in for instance narrow definitions of sacrificial finds, habitual thinking, and a “delusion” consisting of the numerous well-preserved, well-documented, spectacular, and impressive finds of bog sacrifices – fail to see numerous forms of deposits, which (as opposed to the impressive finds of sacrifices in bogs) are hidden in the archaeological material?The settlements of the Iron Age have been excavated in large numbers over the recent decades, and it is the ritual finds from these localities that provide the background for this article.The ritual deposits from the settlements can be divided into two superior groups distinguished by the physical context. One comprises sacrifices made to constructions, which are characterized by being directly connected to a specific structure; the other encompasses settlement sacrifices that are to a higher degree characterized by an overriding affiliation to the settlement. The establishment of a sacrifice definition suitable for scanning the archaeological material for relevant finds is of vital importance. As the definition should not beforehand restrict the search through the material, it is important not to narrow the basis by concentrating only on the physical characteristics of the individual artefacts. The general idea behind the present presentation is that the different ritual dimensions of a society are internally connected as they function within the same overall conventions and, as a consequence, make up parts of a general mental structure, which can leave physically recognizable traces across the different ritual dimensions, cf. Fig. 2. This principal viewpoint creates a theoretical starting point for my work and the established definition of sacrificial finds: All intentionally deposited objects, which analytically show significant similarities as regards their physical appearance and/or their deposition context with other recognized ritual objects/contexts, and which are closely connected to these in time and space, should, when analysed, be considered sacrificial finds.The British religious historian, Ninian Smart, describes religion as consisting of seven thematically describing situations, which – albeit not completely unconnected – may be described individually:1) A dogmatic and philosophical dimension, comprising doctrine systems.2) A mythical and narrative dimension, comprising tales of the deities, of the creation, etc.3) An ethical and judicial dimension, comprising the consequences of the religion in relation to the shaping of the life of the individual.4) A social and institutional dimension comprising organisations and institutions that tie together the individual religious society.5) An empirical and emotional dimension comprising the individual’s experience of god and the divine.6) A ritual and practical dimension comprising prayer, sacrifices, worship, etc.7) A materiel dimension comprising architecture, art, sacred places, buildings, and iconography.As archaeologists, we have a very limited possibility of investigating the very thoughts behind the practiced religion. It is therefore natural to concentrate to a higher extent on the overall setting for it – the ritual dimension and the materiel dimension respectively. The ritual dimension and in particular its sacrificial aspect is traditionally divided into groups characterised by their significance level within the religion as such.1) The first and most “important” group consists of cult rituals. These are characterized by being calendar rites based on the myths of the religion or the history of the people, and by playing a part in the events of the year.2) The next group comprises transition rites (rite de passage), which follow the life cycle of the individual.3) The last group comprises rites of crises, which serve the purpose of averting danger, illness, etc.It is important to realize that the two first ritual groups are predictable cyclic rituals addressing the gods, the myths, and/or the people/the individual respectively. Only the third and least central group of rituals is determined by non-predictable and “not-always” occurring incidences. On this background, it becomes central to analyse, which category one is facing when one wants to assess its importance for the religion as such, in order to evaluate the primary character of the religion.In an attempt to understand the overall importance of a specific ritual practice, one cannot ignore a very complicated problem, which is to evaluate whether the sacrifices were practiced by single individuals or by a larger group of people as part of more common and society-supporting rituals. The issue of the relation between different sacrifice types and the groups causing these has been addressed repeatedly. Often, narrow physical interpretation frames as to who sacrificed what are advanced (i.e. Fig. 3). However, the question is how suitable are these very narrow and rigid interpretation models? As mentioned above, a sacrifice is defined by the intention (context) that caused it rather than by the specific physical form of the object!The above mentioned methodical and theoretical issues provide the background for the author’s investigation of the archaeological sources, in which he focused especially on the relationship between ritual actions as they are expressed in bog deposits and in burial grounds and measured them against the contemporary finds from the settle­ments.The analysis of the archaeological material is based on those find groups (sacrifices of cauldrons, magnificent chariots, humans, animals, metals, and weapons), which have traditionally been presented as a proof that society supporting and more community influenced ritual sacrifices were carried out beside the bogs.The examination of the material supports that sacrifices of cauldrons, magnificent chariots, humans, animals, and earthenware are found in both settlements and wetlands (Figs. 4-12), and that the deposits seem to follow superior ritual conventions, i.e. Fig. 2. The sacrifices were not made in fixed sacred places but in a momentary sacred context, which returns to its daily secular sphere once the rituals have been carried out. Often, the ceremony consists of a ritual cutting up of the sacrificed object, and the pars pro toto principle occurs completely integrated in connection with both burial customs, wetland sacrifice customs, and settlement sacrifice customs. Sacrifices often occur as an expression of a rite de passage connected to the structures, fields, or infrastructure of the village. However, the repeated finds of earthenware vessels, humans, and animals in both wetland areas and in the villages indicates that fertility sacrifices were made regularly as part of the cyclic agricultural world. This places the find groups in a central position when it comes to understanding the religious landscape of the Early Iron Age. In a lot of respects, the settlement finds appear as direct parallel material to the contemporary wetland-related sacrificial custom and so one must assume that major religious events also took place in the settlements, for instance when a human or a cauldron was handed over to the next world. Both the selection of sacrificial objects, the form of depositing, and the preceding ceremonial treatment seem to follow superior ritual structures applying to both funerary rites and wetland sacrifices in Iron Age society.Often, the individual settlement-related sacrificial find seems to be explained by everyday doings, as largely all sacrifice-related objects of the Early Iron Age have a natural affiliation with the settlement and the daily housekeeping. However, it is clear that if the overwhelming amount of data is made subject to a comprehensive and detailed contextual analysis, settlement related find groups and attached action patterns appear, which have direct parallels in the ritual interpretation platform of the bog context. These parallels cannot be explained by pure practical or coincidence-related explanation models!As opposed to ploughed-up Stone Age axe deposits or impressive bronze depots from the Bronze Age and gold depots from the Late Iron Age, a ploughed-up collection of either earthenware, bones, human parts, etc. are not easily explained as sacrificial deposits. However, much indicates that the sacrificial settlement deposits of the Iron Age were not placed very deeply, and so they occur in the arable soil of later times. We must therefore assume that these very settlement-related sacrificial deposits from the Early Iron Age are extremely underrepresented in the available archaeological material. In order to clarify the sacrifice traditions in the Early Iron Age settlements, it is therefore necessary to have localities, which comply with a very rarely occurring find situation. The sites must have fine preservation conditions for bone material and, equally important, thick, continuously accumulated deposits of culture layers, as these preserve the usually shallowly deposited sacrifices. Further, it would be a great advantage if the site has a high degree of settlement continuity, as under optimal conditions, the investigation should comprise the activities of several centuries on the same spot.The Aalborg area holds Early Iron Age localities, which meet all of the above-mentioned conditions – for instance the settlement mound of Nr. Tranders, from which a few results will be pointed out. Time wise, the locality covers all of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the fist part of the Early Roman Iron Age. Around ten farm units have been excavated from the settlement, each of which can be traced across a period of several hundred years. The houses were constructed with chalk floors (cf. Fig. 13), which give optimal preservation conditions for bone material, and the culture deposits assumed a thickness of up to 2 metres. Around 150 houses were excavated at this site (cf. Fig. 14). The author systematically checked the comprehensive find material, and starting from the theoretical and methodical approach presented in this article, was able to isolate 393 sacrificial deposits – a very comprehensive material in comparison with the sacrificial wetland sites!In 279 cases, it was possible to isolate sacrifices in connection with constructions. These comprised such different items as Stone Age axes, fossils, dress pins, a bronze fibula, iron knives, iron arrowheads, a bronze ring, an iron axe, various pottery sacrifices, amber, bone stilettos, bone spearheads, a bone arrowhead, complete animal skeletons, animal skulls and jaws, various animal bones, an infant, humane skull fragments, etc. (cf. Fig. 15). Just as the sacrificed objects themselves vary, so does the sacrifice intensity in the different constructions. Thus, houses without any registered construction sacrifices occur, whereas other constructions showed up to 5-15 sacrifices. These intense sacrifice activities are mainly connected with the later settlement phases from the Late Pre-Roman and the Early Roman Iron Age.The most ordinary find groups are different animal bones, pottery, Stone Age axes, fossils, and various pointed or edged tools. It is a characteristic of the construction sacrifices that they almost never show any signs of having been burnt prior to the depositing. The fact that all finds are not comparable merely because they are related to a construction is obvious, as the find group comprises as different objects as a sea urchin and an infant! Whereas the first should probably be considered an amulet, human sacrifices are traditionally considered a far more radical and ultimate act, and thus a sacrifice concerning a wider circle than the individual household. The highly varied sacrifice material causes the traditional link between construction sacrifices and an extremely narrow celebrant group to be reassessed. The excavations at Nr. Tranders also stress the fact that the amount of registered construction sacrifices are highly dependant on the preservation conditions and context registration as well as an open mind towards ritual interpretations in a traditionally secular research setting.In 114 cases, it was possible to determine settlement sacrifices at Nr. Tranders (cf. Fig. 16). The variation between the sacrificed objects closely follows the above described construction sacrifice and bog sacrifice traditions – both as regards temporary intensity in the centuries around the birth of Christ and which objects were deposited. From a superior view, the settlement sacrifices are characterized by often having been deposited in small, independent sacrificial pits, which were merely dug down a few centimetres from the surface level of the time, and rarely more than 25 cm. This very limited deposition depth emphasizes the enormous problems and distorting factors, which are probably the reason why the settlement sacrifices are so anonymous in most Iron Age settlements. They were simply ploughed away! The dominating sacrificial animal in the settlements was the sheep, often a lamb. However, the dog, the horse, and the cow also occur frequently in the material, whereas the pig is rarely included in the finds. To judge from both settlement and structure sacrifices, the distribution of sacrificial animals seem to be a direct mirror image of the life basis of the Early Iron Age society in the Aalborg area.One ritual element in particular, however, fundamentally separates the group of settlement sacrifices from those connected to structures, namely fire. Whereas fire does not seem to be part of the ritual make-up concerning structure sacrifices, both burnt and unburnt sacrifices appear in the settlement sacrifice material (cf. Fig. 17 & 18). This condition is especially obvious when examining the deposited animal and human bones. The two maps on Fig. 19 show the finds of burnt and unburnt bone deposits respectively. On the background of these two plots (x, y, and z coordinates) the following analysis has been made: (interpolation “unburnt”)-(interpolation “burnt”), cf. Fig. 20. The analysis clearly points out that the relation between burnt and unburnt bone deposits is time related: the burnt deposits were made in the time before the birth of Christ, whereas the unburnt deposits were made during the following centuries. If this is related to the contemporary development of the grave custom in North Jutland, it is noteworthy that we can establish an obvious parallel development. Thus, the burial custom also changes around the beginning of the birth of Christ from a cremation grave custom to an inhumation grave custom. This coincidence probably indicates that within the two different religious and ritual contexts, the “ritual language” is to some degree identical when it comes to passing on humans and sacrificial animals.Irrespective of the superior sacrificial context – a bog, a lake, a field, a meadow, a structure, or a settlement – both the sacrifice intensity and the sacrificed objects seem to be based on objects from the daily household. As shown in the case of Nr. Tranders, the sacrifices occur in such large numbers on settlements with optimal preservation conditions that it is impossible to maintain the thesis that the Iron Age people had an especially one-sided preference for performing the sacrificial rituals in connection with wetland areas.As a supplement to the archaeological evidence, archaeologists have often sought support in historical accounts written by Romans in the centuries around the birth of Christ. The Roman historian Tacitus’ description of the religious activities of the Teutons is particularly describing and geographically differentiated. He mentions some general features such as the Teutons mainly worshipping Mercury (Mercury is the god of fertility, shepherds, etc.) and that they consider it a sacred duty even to bring him a human sacrifice on fixed days (i.e. a sacrifice cycle). Hercules and Mars (gods of strength and war) can only be reconciled with the allowed animal sacrifices. Besides, the Teutons consider it incompatible with the grandness of the heavenly powers to close them in behind walls and give them human features (cf. the lacking iconography). Tacitus´ overall description of the religion of the Teutons is thus primarily dealing with fertility sacrifices in relation to Mercury and the sacrifice of humans on certain days, i.e. a sacrifice cycle.More specifically, Tacitus describes the religious practice performed by tribes in South Scandinavia and North Germany at the time immediately succeeding the birth of Christ:“Nor in one of these nations does aught remarkable occur, only that they universally join in the worship of Nerthus; that is to say, the Mother Earth [Nerthus is phonetically concordant with the name Njord, a fertility goddess known from Norse mythology]. Her they believe to interpose in the affairs of man, and to visit countries. In an island of the ocean stands the wood Castum: in it is a chariot dedicated to the Goddess, covered over with a curtain, and permitted to be touched by none but the Priest. Whenever the Goddess enters this her holy vehicle, he perceives her; and with profound veneration attends the motion of the chariot, which is always drawn by yoked cows. Then it is that days of rejoicing always ensue, and in all places whatsoever which she descends to honour with a visit and her company, feasts and recreation abound. They go not to war; they touch no arms; fast laid up is every hostile weapon; peace and repose are then only known, then only beloved, till to the temple the same priest reconducts the Goddess when well tired with the conversation of mortal beings. Anon the chariot is washed and purified in a secret lake, as also the curtains; nay, the Deity herself too, if you choose to believe it. In this office it is slaves who minister, and they are forthwith doomed to be swallowed up in the same lake. Hence all men are possessed with mysterious terror; as well as with a holy ignorance what that must be, which none see but such as are immediately to perish.”Traditionally, the text is solely related to the numerous bog finds from the period. The question is, however, whether this is appropriate? Even a very limited analysis of the content of the text clearly reveals that the described religious exertion and the traces it must have left in the archaeological material can only be partly described from the numerous sacrificial bogs. The account of Nerthus may be split into two separate parts. One part that describes the common religious actions and another part comprising rituals carried out by a narrower group of people. The ritual mentioned with a severely limited circle (priest and slaves) comprises the washing of the goddess’ chariot by a lake and the succeeding sacrifice of the slaves chosen for the task. Far larger does the participant group appear throughout the rest of the Nerthus story. At first, there is a short mentioning of Nerthus driving about to the different tribes! This may be interpreted in such a way that the rituals described comprise actions, which take place where people are primarily moving about, i.e. in the villages! Perhaps the larger settlements of the Early Iron Age play a central part in relation to such common society-supporting ritual traditions. Tacitus decribes the physical context to be able to change its rules and norms at this sudden religious activity (cf. “They go not to war; they touch no arms.”) and in this way change sphere from an everyday, secular context to a religious context – a sacrosanct condition arises. The settlement thus enters different spheres at different times! Tacitus´ account of the execution of and the setting for the practiced ritual structure thus closely follows the structure known from archaeological excavations of bogs and settlements.How, then, does the religious practice of the Early Iron Age – and its sacrificial part in particular – appear on the background of the analyses above? (Fig. 22). May the sacrificial activity in actual fact be divided into two overriding groups, as was previously the tradition – individual structure sacrifices on settlements and both common and individual sacrifices in wetland areas – or is it necessary to revise and differentiate this view of Early Iron Age religion and the sacrificial customs in particular?The very unbalanced picture of the ritual displays of the society, involving chosen bogs as an almost “church-like” forum, is neither expressed in the archaeological material nor in the few written sources. On the contrary, the sacrificial activity appears as a very complex area, completely connected to the time and the regional development of the society of which it was part. Sacrificial objects primarily comprising everyday objects in the form of food, earthenware, animals, and humans did not differ from the secular culture until the actual ritual act took place.Considering the fact that the sacrificial objects comprised a wide range of everyday items, it is perhaps not so strange that the context in which the objects were sacrificed also varied considerably. It thus seems as if the conventional sacrificial customs were attached to the complete active resource area of the settlements, both in the form of wetland areas, and to the same degree of settlements. The conditions concerning burial sites, field systems, grazing areas, border markings, etc. still appear unclear, although it can be established that here, too, ritual activities took place according to the same conventions.The exertion of the rituals constituted a just as varied picture during the Early Iron Age as did the choice of sacrificial objects and place of sacrifice. Thus, we see objects deposited intact, as pars pro toto, smashed, burnt, etc. In spite of this very complex picture, patterns do seem to occur. There are thus strong indications that the rituals connected to settlement sacrifices of humans and animals during the Early Iron Age are closely connected with the rituals attached to the burial custom, and as such mirror a conventional communication form between humans and gods. Conversely, it seems as if structure sacrifices through all of the Early Iron Age primarily occur unburnt and that the ritual make-up connected to the finds of structure sacrifices is thus detached from the previously mentioned types of sacrifice, whereas the actual selection of the sacrificial objects seem to follow the same pattern.It is a characteristic of the ritual environments of the Early Iron Age that they appear momentary and as part of the daily life in the peasant community. Much thus indicates that permanent sacred environments and buildings did not exist to any particularly large degree. This does not imply that people would not return to the same sacred sacrificial places but rather that in between the sacrifices, these places formed part of the daily life, just as all the other parts of the cultural landscape.The examination of both published and unpublished material shows that the settlements were parallel contexts to the wetland areas and that these two contexts probably supplemented each other within the religious landscape of the Early Iron Age. In the light of the sacrificial find material there is no need to make a strong distinction between the religious societal roles of the settlements as opposed to the wetlands. The context (wetland and settlement) cannot in itself be understood as a useful parameter for determining whether we are dealing with large collective society-supporting ritual sites or sites connected to a minor village community. The question is whether the variation of sacrificial contexts should be related to different deities and myths, i.e. the mythical and narrative dimension of the religion, rather than to the size of the group of participants. On a few settlements, metal vessels, chariots, and humans were sacrificed – find types that are traditionally associated with the bogs and with groups of participants from a larger area than the individual settlement. This interpretation should also be applied to the settlements.In spite of the fact that from an overall perspective, the practiced religion in South Scandinavia seems homogenous, there is neither archaeological nor historical evidence for the presence of real ritual and religious units comprising large areas, such as complete provinces. However, we must assume that sacrifices of for instance humans, chariots, cauldrons, and the large weapon accumulations were made by groups of people exceeding the number of inhabitants in a single settlement. We thus have no reason for questioning the traditional concept that chosen wetland areas functioned as sacred places from time to time to major sections of the population – whether the sacrifices were brought about by for instance acts of war or as part of a cyclic ritual. The question is whether the large settlements of the Early Iron Age did not play a similar part to a hinterland consisting of a number of minor settlements, as the comprehensive finds from for instance the settlement mounds near Aalborg seem to indicate.During the Late Roman Iron Age and Early Germanic Iron Age, the previously so comprehensive sacrificial activity connected to the wetlands declined considerably. Parallel to this, the frequent settlement-related fertility sacrifices of bones and earthenware vessels in the Early Iron Age recede into the background in favour of knives, lances, craftsmen’s tools, and prestigious items representing the changed society of these centuries. During the Late Iron Age, the iconographic imagery, after having been throttled down for almost a millennia, regains a central role within the religion. This happens by virtue of a varied imagery on prestigious items such as bracteates and “guldgubber,” cf. Fig. 21. Seen as a whole, it seems as if – parallel to the development of the society during the Late Roman Iron Age and the Early Germanic Iron Age – there is a dimension displacement within the ritual and religious world, which manifests itself in an increased focus on the material dimension. The question is whether this very dimension displacement is not reflecting the religious development from the fertility-related Vanir faith to the more elitist Æsir faith.Jesper HansenOdense Bys Museer Translated by Annette Lerche Trolle

Abstract In this article, we showcase the pilot scenario of The Trojan War, an educational self-directed game that combines text inspired by ancient Greek (as well as Roman) literature with graphics based on the ‘Geometric style’, an authentic Greek style of painting contemporary with the composition of the Homeric epics. Our game uses interactive scenarios to support active learning strategies of students interested in Classical Studies in both tertiary and secondary education. Players can take on the role of key characters, making choices that can prevent, start, or stop the Trojan War, as well as determine their own personal outcomes. The learners are thus presented with the opportunity to explore alternative pathways to rewrite the history of the War. In the process, they can apply their subject knowledge and develop their intellectual and critical skills. They also become familiar with a distinctive and expressive early Greek artistic style, the so-called Geometric. Rather than focusing on winning, the game aims to give students the opportunity to engage with important ideas and values of ancient Greek culture by exploring multiple perspectives on the topic. It also provides a valuable lesson on the potentially wide-ranging consequences of individual choices, which is a core element of responsible citizenship.

The aim of this paper is to provide a new analysis of four latin fragments preserved on the verso of P. Gen. inv. Lat. 7 (2nd century AD). They have often been considered as an inventory of works of art linked to P. Gen. inv. Lat. 5, but content and palaeographical evidence indicate that they are two different texts. These four fragments contain two texts of mythographic content concerning Roman divinities and heroes, Egyptian mythology (the presence of Isis, Horus and Aegipan suggests a reference to episodes of the myth of Osiris), mutations of divinities and religious mysteries of Persephon, mentioned together with divinities and demigods traditionally linked to the underworld.

The article examines antiquity in the most successful young adult novel series in recent times, Időfutár. The text, which intertwines the genres of fantasy and alternative historical fiction, is built upon parallel time-travelling narrative schemes, the pathos of quest fantasy is replaced by absurd humor, Greek mythology by Roman history and some classical literary models. The plot takes place during Nero’s reign and it interweaves ancient artifacts and Latin literature with state-of-the-art scientific and technical developments, to create the symbiosis of modernity and antique culture. This bears an even more significant message in the era when the ancient languages and cultures, which provide the basis of European intellect, lose importance globally.

Fruits are not only useful and delicious food sources, but also an indispensable part of socio-cultural life (Çağlıtütüncügil, 2013: 78). Since the fruits on the tree are closest to the sky (that is, to God), they are under the privilege of lords, princes and nobles. Foods grown underground, such as potatoes, which are at the bottom of the hierarchy, are considered foods suitable for the substrate. In mythology, belief traditions, holy books, and mysticism, fruits represent saying something (Naksali, 2006, XII). Thus, various beliefs about fruits were born, fruits became symbols, and the language of fruits was formed. The development of humanity has, in many respects, been tied to fruition. The pomegranate fruit has come to the fore with its iconographic meanings rather than fruit. The pomegranate has enriched its location not only with its beauty of form, but also with its symbolic values, which have historical depth and intensity of meaning, reaching legends. Historical values and motifs play an important role in carrying culture forward. The pomegranate motif has positive meanings such as fertility, abundance, love, continuity of marriage, beauty and children in all civilizations. Expressing the value of such an important motif, expanding its usage area, keeping it alive and spreading it are among the aims. The fact that the motif has not been dealt with in terms of fashion design before has been effective in the selection of the subject. In this study, the literature on the subject was searched and the meanings attributed to the pomegranate fruit in Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Vietnamese and Japanese civilizations were examined. Inspired by the image, history and mythological meanings of the pomegranate, it has also been tried to be reflected in the fashion industry. In this context, a storyboard and six clothing designs were made. The drawings were created with the procreate program. In this study, which was carried out with the logic of collection, pomegranate motifs were stylized, clothing design suggestions were presented and the clothes were made ready for production. It is thought that this study will contribute to the employees related to the subject, especially fashion designers.

Abstract This essay explores the connection between adaptation and parable in Chigozie Obioma’s debut novel The Fishermen (2015). Obioma’s adaptation of parable revises this narrative form as radically relational. This revision of parable is tied to an equally relational understanding of adaptive processes. Using parable as the frame for its complex mixture of Igbo and Yoruba mythology, Biblical stories, and Greek and Roman myth, among others, enables the novel to reinterpret all these sources in the context of postcolonial Nigeria. This process thereby challenges the belief that we can dispel colonial power structures by simply rejecting canonical stories and their discursive frameworks and it suggests, instead, a notion of identity as relational and transient. Ultimately, the novel proposes an ethics of relationality that can help to re-assess processes of revision and their political and cultural impact.

Abstract Background The present paper focuses on eponyms, that is, terms with proper names, in particular, derived from world mythologies, the Bible, and modern literature. The study highlights the significance of this terminological phenomenon in the English sublanguage of medicine and discusses its role in the process of writing medical case reports. The objectives of the research are to study the prevalence of eponyms in the English language in medical case reports and to analyze the etymology of the revealed terms. The deeper purpose of our study is to demonstrate that eponymic terms in general, and mythological and literary eponyms, in particular, are present in doctors’ spoken and written discourse far more extensively than might seem at first glance. By drawing attention to this terminological phenomenon, we will provide relevant guidelines, which will ensure the correct use of eponyms by medical professionals who will deal with the genre of medical case reports. Methods We studied the prevalence of these terms in the issues of Journal of Medical Case Reports (2008–2022) and classified them according to their etymological origin and frequency of use. The selected medical case reports were considered using the methods of quantitative examination, and structural, etymological, and contextual analyses. Results We detected the major tendencies in using mythological and literary eponyms in medical case reports. We found a total of 81 mythological and literary eponyms, represented by 3995 cases of use in Journal of Medical Case Reports issues, and traced the etymology of their onomastic components. Hence, we delineated the five most prevalent sources of these terminological units: Greek mythology, Roman mythology, other world mythologies, the Bible, and fiction. The research revealed that modern medical case reports largely rely primarily on Greek mythology (65 eponyms, 3633 results), which is due to a rich informational and metaphorical arsenal of these ancient corpora of human knowledge. The group of eponyms rooted in Roman mythology ranks second, and these terms are much less prevalent in modern medical case reports (6 eponyms, 113 results). Four eponyms (88 results) represent other world mythologies (Germanic and Egyptian). Two terms with onomastic components come from the Bible (15 results), and four eponyms stem from modern literature (146 results). We also detected several widespread mistakes in the spelling of some mythological and literary eponyms. It is our opinion that the awareness of an eponym’s etymology can effectively prevent and minimize the appearance of such errors in medical case reports. Conclusions The adequate use of mythological and literary eponyms in medical case reports is an effective way to share one’s clinical findings with colleagues from all over the world, because these eponyms are internationally widespread and understood. Correct use of eponyms promotes the continuity of medical knowledge and ensures conciseness and brevity, which are indispensable features of medical case reports as a genre. Therefore, it is highly important to draw students’ attention to the most prevalent mythological and literary eponyms, used in contemporary medical case reports, so they could use them appropriately, as well as with due awareness of the origin of these terms. The study also demonstrated that medicine and humanities are closely related and inherently interconnected areas. We believe that the study of this group of eponyms should be an integral component of doctors’ training and continuing professional education. This will ensure the interdisciplinary and synergic approach in modern medical education, which in turn will promote the all-round development of future healthcare specialists, endowed not only with professional expertise, but also with extensive background knowledge.

The aim of the article is to give a panoramic view about the reception of ancient culture in contemporary Hungarian children’s literature. Because of the almost total disappearance of Latin and Greek instruction from secondary school education, the only way to present Antiquity to this generation is through literature, which carries genuine aesthetic and ethic messages. This analysis focuses on short stories and novels written in the last decade for children aged 8-12, highly influenced by the international trends of films and computer games which adapt Greek mythology for a popular entertaining narration (see the detective stories of F. Lenk or the action thriller series Percy Jackson by R. Riordan). The works analysed (Ida and the Golden Fleece by K. Baráth, Csoda and Kósza by Z. Czigány, the Siren-episode of J. Berg’s Rumini, Diabaz the Thunderbolt-throwing by E. Szakács, The Garden of Malena by K. R. Molnár), on the contrary, offer the up-to-date versions of Greek myths retold in a poetic or humorous register. Making the children acquinted by the most important elements of greco-roman culture, by the transmission of the humaniora, they help as well to create a humanistic attitude.

This article examines the nicor (pl. nicoras) of Beowulf, a type of aquatic monster that appears elsewhere in Old English literature only in the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle and the Blickling Homily XVI. These beasts that attack Beowulf during his swimming contest with Breca and that surround the mere of Grendel and his mother are unfamiliar to modern scholars in terms of their precise nature, being assumed in previous scholarship to be generic water monsters, or hippopotamus-like beasts. Other scholarly suggestions for their underlying influence have been crocodiles and whales. I argue, however, that the nicoras can better be understood as having been influenced by the ancient traditions of the kētos (pl. kētē), the sea monster par excellence of Greco-Roman mythology, which also occupied a prominent place in the Christian imagination. The nicoras in these three Old English texts can be understood, like the dragon of Beowulf, as fantastical creatures that were primarily the product of discernible ancient traditions, rather than generic beasts or purely monstrous versions of real-world animals.

High Culture on Duty or Mythology-Based Expressions in Contemporary Styles and Varieties of Polish The purpose of this article is to outline the stylistic and varietal extent of mythology-based expressions (of Graeco-Roman provenance), which include mythologically motivated linguistic units with varying formal (single words and polywords) and semantic (primary and secondary meanings) status. Due to their conventional origin, these units primarily belong to the literary variety of Polish. Additionally, they form the basis of numerous academic terms. To a much lesser degree, they also serve as fodder for other speech genres, styles and varieties of Polish that are conditioned by present-day cultural, civilizational and communicative changes, realized, for instance, in the language of journalists, internet users, public figures, manufacturers or owners of commercial and service facilities. The expressions in question are used in texts that differ stylistically, where they perform not only denotative-connotative but also axiological and expressive functions. Kultura wysoka na służbie, czyli o mitologizmach we współczesnych stylach i odmianach polszczyzny Celem niniejszego opracowania jest próba pokazania stylistycznego i odmianowego zasięgu mitologizmów (o grecko-rzymskiej proweniencji), do których można zaliczyć motywowane mitologicznie jednostki języka o różnym statusie formalnym (jedno- i wielowyrazowe) i semantycznym (o znaczeniu prymarnym i wtórnym). Jednostki te ze względu na swe konwencjonalne źródło przynależą przede wszystkim do książkowej odmiany polszczyzny. Dodatkowo, stały się one także podstawą wielu terminów naukowych. W nieznacznym stopniu zasilają też inne, warunkowane współczesnymi zmianami kulturowo-cywilizacyjnymi i komunikacyjnymi gatunki mowy, style i odmiany polszczyzny, realizujące się choćby w języku dziennikarzy, czynnych internautów, osób publicznych, producentów czy właścicieli obiektów usługowo-handlowych. Mitologizmy używane są zatem w tekstach o różnej stylistyce. Pełnią w nich funkcje nie tylko denotacyjno-konotacyjne, lecz także m.in. aksjologiczne i ekspresywne.

Textiles and clothing constitute a fundamental element of our cultural past, present, and future. Therefore, they were also represented in many mediums, such as iconographic depictions and literature. Images are a source of visual and mental illustration and are often dependent on the viewer’s perspective. As a result, the representations of textiles convey social constructions and their cultural perception. Their study is the focal point of this article: The ways in which textiles and clothing are described by the imagery shown in Greek and Roman statuary and iconography, as well as in contemporary Albanian literature and mythology. Representations illustrate the colorful, vibrant, complex and valuable reality that textiles and dress embodied. They visually tell past stories, for a particular audience, and place, but foremost with intention. It is the purpose behind textile depictions that is of interest, as it offers an insight into the conception, roles, usage, and views on textiles and garments in the past. Those are the kind of stories we want to investigate, so-called textile narratives. Iconographic evidence will be center stage in this effort of understanding past perceptions of textiles and dress. Therefore, it is crucial to indicate what our own definition of iconography is. This term is often used to conjointly gather all images and different artwork expressions, no matter the support or technique: Sculptures, mosaics, wall-paintings, vase decorations, coinage, and so much more. As C. Brøns and S. Harris perfectly summarize, “iconography is the study of representations in its many forms.” That same vision and definition is what this article refers to.

The practice among queer people of compiling lists of famous historical figures that modern eyes may comfortably identify as queer and/or trans* persists, and has persisted, as a form of communal transmission of memory for over a century and a half. These collections of names, described in this article as ‘gay lists’ in the spirit of their frequently casual deployment, acted as a key element of queer history and memory well before the Stonewall Uprising rooted itself in the popular consciousness as the beginning of queer history. This article explores English-language primary texts published in the US, the UK, and Italy between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries including personal statements in homophile magazines and Edward Prime-Stevenson’s book The Intersexes. The purpose of examining these texts is to discuss how gay lists were deployed to create a sense of a queer collective, a claim to history, and an imagination of ancestry in the wider consciousness. This article distinguishes lists naming recognizable historical figures from evocations of Greco-Roman mythology or Biblical antiquity. It also summarizes a brief selection of published literature describing the phenomenon so far and makes a case for exploring gay lists as a study in revisionist and popular historical memory.

We analyze the renewal of feminine paradigms from the rewriting of myths carried out by Claribel Alegría (1924-2018) in her poetic work. Through the verses of this Nicaraguan-Salvadoran author, we study the representation of various mythical characters, who distance themselves from the dialectics that present the woman in love as a witch and mad, characterized by the use of trickery and for being an irrational person. The voices of Circe, Phaedra and Medea, three women belonging to the tradition of Greco-Roman mythology and genealogically linked, are presented in dramatic monologues that examine the paradigm of the dangerous lover. The absence of previous studies on this topic and its relevance for literary representation of women today justify our contribution. Analizamos la renovación de paradigmas femeninos a partir de la reescritura de los mitos llevada a cabo por Claribel Alegría (1924-2018) en su obra poética. A través de los versos de esta autora nicaragüense-salvadoreña, estudiamos la representación de diversos personajes míticos, que se alejan de las dialécticas que presentan a la mujer enamorada como bruja y loca, que utiliza sus malas artes y que es irracional. Las voces de Circe, Fedra y Medea, tres mujeres pertenecientes a la tradición de la mitología grecolatina y vinculadas genealógicamente, se presentan en monólogos dramáticos que revisan el paradigma de la enamorada peligrosa. La ausencia de estudios previos sobre este tema y su relevancia para la representación literaria de la mujer hoy justifican nuestra aportación.

In recent years historians of the Renaissance and Enlightenment have paid increasing attention to the influence of Epicureanism upon European thought. As a result, Lucretius, the Roman who expounded Epicurean philosophy in his epic poem De rerum natura, has come to assume a foundational role in accounts of the development of modern science and philosophy. This change has been reflected within the world of Blake criticism, where, as scholars have become more interested in Blake’s complex response to materialism, so the presence of Lucretius, as both a focus for Blake’s hostility and as a shaping influence on his mythology, has become a subject of detailed scholarly investigation. We now have two studies specifically devoted to Blake and Lucretius. Stephanie Codsi has considered how Blake’s hostility to Epicurean Deism could help to explain his depiction of absent fathers in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Joshua Schouten de Jel, in a book-length study, develops a comprehensive account of the sources from which Blake could have learned about Lucretius and a detailed view of particular areas of his response (focused upon figures that he associated with Epicurean atheism, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and on specific areas of thought, including epistemology and cosmology). Since these studies have shed much light on this area, I need to explain why we need another discussion of Blake and Lucretius. In focusing upon the grounds of Blake’s hostility it is easy to overlook or underestimate the ambivalence that haunts his understanding of error and of prophecy. In this essay I shall argue that Blake saw in Lucretius not only a materialistic cosmology that he felt compelled to attack, but also a form of prophecy that represented an alluring alternative to his own prophetic mission, one whose malign influence could embroil those who tried to contain or oppose it—​including John Milton. The work that deals with this issue most directly is Blake’s creation myth, The Book of Los—​a work that seems to be nobody’s favorite, and that can appear frustratingly obscure.