This book grew out of the Annual Meeting for Postgraduates in Ancient Literature, held in Nottingham in November 2007. It consists of a collection of articles on concepts of heroism in ancient Greek and Latin literature and their reception, ranging from Euripides' Alcestis to Monty Python's The Holy Grail. A work of remarkable scholarship, despite some stylistic inconsistencies, this book offers a wealth of perspectives on ancient heroism. The introduction by L. & R. uses twenty-first century examples of military distinction to introduce the ‘challenging’ and ‘elusive’ aspects of classical heroism; it continues with a survey of the concept of the hero in Homer, Plato and Sophocles, concluding with a streamlined overview of ‘Heroes and Zeroes in History’.
D. Kokkini's ‘Admetos as Everyman in Euripides' Alcestis’ discusses many important issues of the play, including Alcestis' bravery, Admetus' lack of courage and the resulting role reversal between the two spouses. K.'s characterisation of Admetus as the theatrical equivalent of ‘the everyday human sitting in the audience’ sheds new light on a character traditionally viewed with either sympathy or disdain (p. 39). Her analysis exonerates Admetus of cowardice by juxtaposing his profile as ordinary man to Heracles' extreme and therefore unattainable heroism; she convincingly argues that Euripides employs Admetus and Heracles as complementary agents of a (deliberately) fragmented masculinity, and posits that Admetus emerges as a different kind of hero through the comparison with Heracles and after the realisation of ‘the gravity of Alcestis' death’ (p. 43).
R. Knöbl's ‘Death of a Hero? Euripides in Hellenistic Epigram’ describes the process of Euripides' heroisation through the representation of his death in Hellenistic epigrams. The mechanism of poetic commemoration, K. argues, operates by either preventing the playwright's allegedly ignominious death from tainting his canonisation, as in the epigram by Adaeus (AP 7.51), or by enveloping him in an aura of legendary passions, as in Hermesianax’ mock-elegy (fr. 7.61–8 Powell); moreover, the biographical tradition according to which Euripides was devoured by dogs at the court of king Archelaus, as well as the symbolism of such a death, receive considerable attention. She demonstrates how, in contrast to his portrayal in Old Comedy, Hellenistic epigrams celebrate Euripides as a unique poet of Panhellenic renown, ‘well-established yet provocative’ (p. 52), with strong ties to Macedonia and the new centres of learning in the Hellenistic world.
In ‘Thesea Fide. Heroic Faith and Faithlessness in Ovid's Exile Poetry’ G. Trimble delves into the pathologies of heroic friendship in Ovid's Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. The poet uses four pairs of mythical friends (Theseus and Peirithous, Orestes and Pylades, Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Euryalus) to exemplify mutual loyalty and support in friendship. As T. observes, however, Ovid implicitly adopts the role of Ariadne, the archetypal female victim of male disloyalty and desertion. According to T., Ovid's predicament as exile ‘leads him to assume the female voice’ (p. 91), rendering futile his efforts to foster male friendships modelled after the ideal of amicitia. Following a thorough discussion of relevant passages in Ovid and Catullus 64, T. establishes that the paradox of Ovid's self-representation as an abandoned heroine in the context of poetic pleas for help is part of a ‘rhetoric of failure’ omnipresent in his exile poetry (p. 92).
In ‘Heroic Female Death in Tacitus' Annals 14 and 15’ E. Glendinning examines Tacitus' depiction of five female deaths at the time of Nero. G.'s analysis focusses on the uncertainties of heroisation in the context of the characters' gender, social position and national origin. She illustrates the varying degrees of unconventional heroism present in the murders of two female members of the imperial family, Nero's mother Agrippina the Younger and wife Octavia, as well as in the suicides of the Briton queen Boudicca and the freedwoman Epicharis; she also discusses the implications of Nero's intervention to stop the suicide of Pompeia Paulina, the wife of his teacher Seneca. All these narratives, G. suggests, reflect Tacitus' concern over Nero's ‘inverted Rome’ (p. 116) while evoking female deaths in Greek and Roman tragedy; further, she persuasively argues that Tacitus represents these five female deaths as non-traditional acts of heroic defiance against the emperor's corrupt rule and appalling degeneracy.
K. Yue's ‘Dying Like a Hero: Paulus and Varro at Cannae in Silius Italicus' Punica’ compares Paulus' death with Varro's flight from the battlefield at Cannae. According to Y., Silius views the two episodes as variations on the theme of deuotio, pronouncing Paulus' sacrifice a questionably effective yet ‘performed devotio’ (p. 122), and Varro's desertion a deuotio initially ‘refused’ but ultimately beneficial to Rome (p. 131). Moreover, Y. sets the account of Paulus' presumably confirmed deuotio against the background of Flaminius' death in Sil. 5, and juxtaposes Varro's seemingly deplorable (yet forgiven by Fabius Maximus in the narrative) conduct with Pompey's flight from the battlefield at Pharsalus (BC 7.647); enriched with the example of Statius' Menoeceus, Y.'s analysis highlights the ambiguities of deuotio, revealing a secondary discourse on heroic death that, contrary to the traditional rhetoric adopted by Silius, doubts the efficacy of self-sacrifice in battle.
D. Agri, ‘Madness, Pietas and Suicide in Statius' Thebaid and Silius' Punica’, continues the investigation of the dynamics of honourable death focussing on the suicide of the Saguntines in Silius, the sacrifice of Menoeceus in Statius and their reception of Aeneas' killing of Turnus in Virgil. A. considers the concepts of pietas and dolor-generated furor as structural elements in the process of heroic decision-making in all three exempla; her convincing thesis that both the Saguntines and Menoeceus end their lives under the misleading influence of a madness not incompatible with pietas points to a synergy that redefines ‘the heroic legitimacy of their deeds and their overall significance’ (p. 158).
In ‘Invisible Odysseus: a Homeric Hero in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man’ J. McConnell elucidates Ellison's reception of several sources: Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclops in the Odyssey, scholarly and traditional perceptions of heroism as formulated in Lord Raglan's 1936 The Hero, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western authors such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky and James Joyce, as well as African American folklore. Through a careful examination of the themes of descent to the underworld, namelessness and trickery, McC. eloquently reveals the complexities of Ellison's representation of Invisible Man as anti-hero, mock-hero and rising hero, also providing us with an enlightening contextualisation of the 1952 novel within the American Civil Rights Movement. Her discussion of Invisible Man as a ‘twentieth century reincarnation’ of Odysseus (p. 169), Polyphemus and Brer Rabbit combines a wealth of elements to produce a powerful piece of literary criticism.
T. Badnall, ‘Monty Python and the Lemnian Women: Argonautic Resonances in the Medieval and Modern Quest Tradition’, offers a comprehensive overview of the gunaikopolis motif in the Argonauts' encounter with the Lemnian Women in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, its medieval reception and incorporation into Arthurian Romance, and its parody in the ‘Tale of Sir Galahad’ episode of Monty Python's 1974 film The Holy Grail. Using examples from the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Morte Darthur and the Queste del Sant Graal, among other works, B. illustrates with impressive erudition the topos of threat posed to the hero's quest by female sexuality, domestic or predatory. Finally, as she contextualises the Pythons' manipulation of the gunaikopolis motif, B. provides a most fitting closure to the volume's Problematik by asking, ‘if masculine public values are threatened by female temptation, but the threat, in reality, lies within the hero constructed by those values, are they really an adequate social framework after all?’ (p. 203).
