Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
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Natalie Haynes' 2019 novel A Thousand Ships (ATS) rewrites several classical texts from a female perspective. In doing so, the novel specifically engages with the epic genre and the epic tradition....Show moreNatalie Haynes' 2019 novel A Thousand Ships (ATS) rewrites several classical texts from a female perspective. In doing so, the novel specifically engages with the epic genre and the epic tradition. Inspired by the field of reception studies, this thesis aims to describe the (re)definition of epic offered in ATS, to understand where it comes from, and to critically assess it in the face of the ancient text(s) it is based on.Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
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The "Vita Sancti Mansueti episcopi Tullensis", the life of Saint Mansuetus, the first bishop of Toul, was written in the 10th century by the scholar and monk Adso of Montier-en-Der. The author...Show moreThe "Vita Sancti Mansueti episcopi Tullensis", the life of Saint Mansuetus, the first bishop of Toul, was written in the 10th century by the scholar and monk Adso of Montier-en-Der. The author himself reveals that he lacked information about the saint, which means that a considerable part of the life of Mansuetus was probably invented. This thesis is concerned with a possible guideline Adso had to follow when creating the life of Saint Mansuetus - the expectations of the commissioner of the work Bishop Gerhard of Toul. Therefore, this thesis approaches the Vita Mansueti by looking at the political, historical and cultural context in which it was written and asks the following: How did Adso construct a convincing story that would satisfy his commissioner bishop Gerhard of Toul? What strategies did he use to fulfill his assignment and what purpose do these strategies serve?Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
open access
Athena's aegis, her characteristic magical garment, often features a scaly texture, a fringe of snakes, or the head of the gorgon Medusa. These attributes sometimes make Athena look like a hybrid...Show moreAthena's aegis, her characteristic magical garment, often features a scaly texture, a fringe of snakes, or the head of the gorgon Medusa. These attributes sometimes make Athena look like a hybrid monster in ancient Greek art and literature. This thesis explores the scope of literary and artistic representations of Athena in which her aegis constructs her body as a monstrous, boundary-crossing hybrid. I explore four contexts or themes in which Athena’s body interacts with the monstrous through the medium of the aegis: gender, costume, monster battles, and image ontologies. In each context, the monstrous aegis places Athena’s body in multiple categories simultaneously: masculine and feminine, hybrid and humanoid, god and monster, image and moving body. It is an agent of transformation. I argue that this polymorphism grants Athena a similar fantastical or unrealistic body to a hybrid monster. She is an excellent vector for artistic and literary explorations of the nature, limits, and transgression of cultural and ontological taxonomies. Rather than only signifying dominion over the monstrous, as is conventionally argued, the hybridity of the aegis allows Athena to function in a similar fashion to a monster.Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
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In Spec. 3.1-6 the Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-49 CE) describes the ascent of the soul to heavens to "see God", a topic well-known from Plato. Philo, however, does...Show moreIn Spec. 3.1-6 the Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-49 CE) describes the ascent of the soul to heavens to "see God", a topic well-known from Plato. Philo, however, does not only use the concept for reasons of epistemology, but also to reflect about a personal experience that some scholars have labelled as a "mystic experience" and which had a tremendous impact on later neo-Platonic and Christian literature. The thesis explores several aspects of the passage, comparing its epistemological relevance by looking at its Platonic base, while a striking Ciceronian parallel allows reflection on the human aspects and a philosopher's duty between otium and negotium. The main question of this thesis’ "close reading" of the selected texts is "how does Philo as Jewish-Hellenistic thinker evaluate the role of God and human beings regarding seeing God?". In sum, this thesis presents an extensive contextualising discussion of Philo of Alexandria’s claim about heavenly ascent. By putting an emphasis on the distinct Philonian preoccupations and motivation, this thesis attempts to arrive at a novel way of understanding Spec. 3.1-6Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
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Deze scriptie onderzoekt de ontwikkeling in de karakterisering van het personage Pompeius tijdens de verschillende fasen van de Romeinse burgeroorlog in het historische epos Bellum Civile van...Show moreDeze scriptie onderzoekt de ontwikkeling in de karakterisering van het personage Pompeius tijdens de verschillende fasen van de Romeinse burgeroorlog in het historische epos Bellum Civile van Marcus Annaeus Lucanus.Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
open access
The objective of this research is to gain insight into why some deified persons in Classical and early Hellenistic Greece, more specifically in the 100-year period after the Peloponnesian war,...Show moreThe objective of this research is to gain insight into why some deified persons in Classical and early Hellenistic Greece, more specifically in the 100-year period after the Peloponnesian war, received divine cult while others received hero cult. For the purpose of this research, I will be analyzing case studies of deifications concerning divine as well as heroic cults in order to determine what the criteria are for a divine cult and successfully becoming a god. What I deem successful is that the deified person in question is not viewed “as if a god” or on “godlike status” but is viewed as an actual god. For the purpose of this, the research question 'why are some deifications of living mortals succesful, while others are not?’ has been formulated. To find an answer to this question, the following sub-questions have been drawn up: first, what are cults and what is deification? Second, what are the criteria for deified, living mortals to receive divine cult? Third, what are the criteria for the worshippers?Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
open access
2023-03-02T00:00:00Z
The response of Greek literature to Roman domination varied through different eras, authors and texts. During the so-called “Second Sophistic”, the renewed interest of the literate Greek elite for...Show moreThe response of Greek literature to Roman domination varied through different eras, authors and texts. During the so-called “Second Sophistic”, the renewed interest of the literate Greek elite for the accomplishments of the classical past led to a renegotiation of the relationship with Rome. The present paper examines the role of Rome in the Panathenaicus of Aelius Aristides. Basing my analysis on the rhetorical device of “figured speech”, I examine the rhetorical function of Rome inside the speech, its relationship with Athens, as well as the emerging stance of Aristides towards Roman rulership. I support that Aristides downsizes the status of Rome to extoll the greatness of Athens, while at the same time giving voice to his general hesitation towards the empire by highlighting the Greek cultural preeminence over the Romans. In this way, I hope to cover the relevant research gap, since scholarship on the relationship of Aristides with Rome is predominantly based on the homonymous oration, while the Panathenaicus has been mostly analyzed on the base of Athenian religious preeminence over the emperor.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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Were ancient Greek habitual drunks considered mentally ill? This thesis attempts to answer whether ancient Greek drinkers who did not drink according to the drinking rules of the social group they...Show moreWere ancient Greek habitual drunks considered mentally ill? This thesis attempts to answer whether ancient Greek drinkers who did not drink according to the drinking rules of the social group they belonged to (and did so in an excessive fashion) were viewed as behaving in a pathological way from a socio-cultural point of view (to stress: not from a bio-medical one). The study heavily depends on research from the social sciences that focuses on the social function of alcohol consumption, mainly Douglas 1987, and concludes by saying that in ancient Greece certain social conditions that are crucial for a a socio-cultural pathology of problematic drinking to develop were absent in ancient Greek society. Therefore, it appears as improbable that a socio-cultural pathology for 'problematic drinking' was already conceptualised in the ancient Greek world. The aim of the thesis primarily was to contribute to the field of Classics that studies ancient mental illnesses and to attempt to provide more information on the ancient Greek mind and social world. However, the findings also underline that alcoholism, the modern pathology for problematic drinking, should not be perceived as a universal concept, but as a relative one that depends heavily on the current milieu of the modern world.Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
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Deze scriptie gaat over de dertiende Olympische ode. Deze ode wordt geanalyseerd aan de hand van een retorisch kader, namelijk de taken van de redenaar. Daarbij ga ik in op waar Pindarus zijn...Show moreDeze scriptie gaat over de dertiende Olympische ode. Deze ode wordt geanalyseerd aan de hand van een retorisch kader, namelijk de taken van de redenaar. Daarbij ga ik in op waar Pindarus zijn informatie vandaan haalt (inventio), hoe hij dit ordent (dispositio) en welke stilistische middelen hij gebruikt (elocutio). Door middel van deze analyse reflecteer ik op de vraag wat een retorische lezing van een pindarische ode bijdraagt aan ons begrip van Pindarus in het algemeen en deze ode in het bijzonder. Enerzijds concludeer ik dat Pindarus op het gebied van de inventio, dispositio en elocutio grotendeels hetzelfde wil bereiken en dat we een pindarische ode kunnen lezen als een tekst die behoort tot het genus demonstrativum. Anderzijds plaats ik de kanttekening of we niet een bepaalde lading verliezen als we de tekst alleen retorisch lezen, omdat deze lezing vooral functioneel is. Een poëtische tekst heeft namelijk ook esthetische functies. Mijn eindconclusie luidt dat een retorische lezing nuttig is omdat het verschillende aspecten een het licht heeft gebracht die in eerder onderzoek onder de oppervlakte zijn gebleven.Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
open access
2022-12-30T00:00:00Z
Already in archaic times, wine was perceived as a substance of equivocal nature, χάρμα καὶ ἄχθος (Hes. Sc., 400). This idea also appears in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae (book II), a work where the...Show moreAlready in archaic times, wine was perceived as a substance of equivocal nature, χάρμα καὶ ἄχθος (Hes. Sc., 400). This idea also appears in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae (book II), a work where the recitation of various texts is presented as an account of the conversation occurred during and about the symposion. The ambiguity of wine is introduced by a medical excerpt by Mnesitheus, where both positive and negative effects of wine consumption are defined, with ascending severity; relevant citations of different genres follow. The purpose of this Master thesis is to facilitate a better understanding of the ancient Greek thought on the ambivalence of wine. Hence, the citations analyzed give prominence to this ambiguity, either directly or more allusively, organized according to their place in the book and their genre (comedy, elegy and lyric poetry, tragedy). Furthermore, it aims to re-introduce Mnesitheus, a 4th-century physician and writer of medical texts, frequently neglected by research, but above all, to cast light on the way Athenaeus is organizing knowledge while composing his work, what I call his “poetics of citation”. Beyond the net of texts weaved by word-based links, connections in terms of idea and structure are also showcased. It is argued that Athenaeus’ poetics of citation consist of the introduction of an idea and its subsequent extension while steadily diverging from its original form; while Mnesitheus’ excerpt clearly defines the ambiguous nature of wine building a crescendo of the effects of its consumption, both structure and idea get progressively lost as the work progresses.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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In 1573, the Spanish humanist Juan Latino wrote the Latin epic Austrias carmen, commissioned by the inquisitor Pedro de Deza. This is one of many literary celebrations of the Holy League victory...Show moreIn 1573, the Spanish humanist Juan Latino wrote the Latin epic Austrias carmen, commissioned by the inquisitor Pedro de Deza. This is one of many literary celebrations of the Holy League victory over an Ottoman fleet in the 1571 naval battle of Lepanto. This thesis deals with the work's depiction of the Ottomans: both its more generalised depiction of the Ottomans as a people, and its depiction of a specific Ottoman character, the admiral Ali Pasha. While at first glance, the work appears to paint the Ottomans in a hostile light, some scholars have argued that it also contains scenes that are more empathetic, even sympathetic to the Ottoman 'enemy'. By considering the epic's depiction of the Ottomans in light of its classical intertexts and other contemporaneous Western European responses to the Ottoman Empire, this thesis seeks to nuance this claim. I argue that the work uses many of the tropes of contemporary anti-Ottoman rhetoric, while having less in common with more 'positive' contemporaneous Western European evaluations of the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, I aim to demonstrate that the epic's 'sympathetic' passages on the Ottomans tend to have a strong European, and particularly Spanish imperial, bias: any sympathy hinges on Ottoman characters' acceptance of, or submission to, a Spanish imperialist worldview. Finally, I will connect the epic's depiction of the Ottomans to its depiction of the Spanish 'Moriscos' - the part of the Spanish Islamic population that had been forcibly converted to Christianity. The epic links them to the Ottomans, and the recent suppressed revolt of 'Moriscos' in Granada to the battle of Lepanto, thereby presenting these people as an internal enemy of Spain. Here, the epic may show the influence of Latino's patron Deza, who played an important role in the violent repression of the revolt.Show less
