Nuntius Antiquus is a peer-reviewed biannual journal, sponsored by the School of Letters of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil) since 2008 and publishes scientific papers in the field of Ancient and Medieval cultures and literatures. Its mission is to promote scientific production in the field of Classical and Medieval studies, allowing researchers from Brazil and abroad to share their research and contribute to the debate and scientific progress in the area. The journal stands out as one of the rare Brazilian periodicals focused strictly on the Classical and Medieval domain. The journal accepts submissions all year round. When we have enough articles for a new issue we will take the initiative to publish and accept articles for the following issue number. Free of charge.
Ovidian Threads in the Maze of Westworld
Mixing science fiction and western, the HBO series Westworld was created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and premiered in 2016. It presents a theme park inhabited by human-looking androids, the so-called ‘hosts’, who were built with the aim of participating in a fictional world ruled by different narratives invented by the park’s creators, and intended for the amusement of human visitors. The series approaches contemporary issues concerning artificial intelligence, in a way that problematizes the boundaries between fiction and reality, human and machine, in order to raise questions involving consciousness, memory, and the act of creation itself (whether of narratives, or androids). This study investigates the reception of Greek and Roman mythology in the first season of the series, “The Maze”, establishing dialogues with two works by the Latin poet Ovid: the Metamorphoses (the narratives about Daedalus and the labyrinth, and that-one about Pygmalion) and the Heroides. The main focus of my approach is the meta-poetic nature of the creations and the prominence given to two female characters in Westworld. This way, the paper highlights the presence of elements from Classical literature in a current TV series, as well as provides new interpretations of the Ovidian mythological episodes in the light of the series. In addition, the paper presents theoretical reflections on Classical reception, on the importance of analyzing works of mass culture, and on the possibility of reinterpreting Ovidian works based on the structure of streaming series.
Dossiê: Abordagens à recepção dos Clássicos
Copyright (c) 2025 Júlia Batista Castilho de Avellar (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Introducing Latin Poetry Across Languages
Como parte da mesa-redonda que concluiu o Seminário Internacional da FALE/UFMG “Approaches to Classical Reception” em setembro de 2024, ofereci uma prévia, em inglês, das considerações e dos interesses de um projeto de livro meu recém-concluído, amplamente relevante para os temas do nosso seminário, que durou uma semana. Meu livro (que deve ser publicado pela Cambridge University Press em 2025) intitula-se “Latin Poetry across Languages: Adventures in Allusion, Translation and Classical Tradition”; ele se divide em duas partes, a primeira focada em textos antigos (I: ‘Leituras entre latim e grego’) e a segunda em textos “modernos” de 1300 em diante (II: ‘Leituras entre latim e vernáculo’). O que ofereço agora, graças aos colaboradores acadêmicos da UFMG, é uma versão dessa prévia para o público brasileiro. As páginas a seguir adaptam alguns trechos de minhas páginas introdutórias e finais, bem como apresentam uma pequena amostra de duas conversas em diferentes idiomas, presentes no corpo do livro no qual a literatura e a experiência vivida estão simultaneamente no centro das atenções: uma conversa do mundo antigo, de autoria do escritor de prosa latina Aulo Gélio, e uma conversa do mundo moderno, na voz do poeta irlandês Seamus Heaney, cujo trabalho já havia sido explorado anteriormente na sessão ‘cidade e campo’ do seminário da UFMG de 2024.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hinds (Autor); Adalberto Moraes Moreira Penna (Tradutor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Abstract: This article analyses the reception of Orpheus and Eurydice’s myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the movie Portrait of a lady on fire, by Céline Sciamma (2019). The theoretical contributions of classical reception and intermediality enable the understanding of the dialogue that takes place when a film receives an ancient text. The cinematic reception of the Metamorphoses reveals the process of cinemetamorphosis that is present in cinema both structurally and thematically. At the same time, this analysis is reinforced by gender and sexuality studies, which also show how the relationship between the female characters is established, centered on the theme of the visual arts. It concludes that the main subject that drives the film’s narrative is that of the gaze, which permeates both the turning of Orpheus towards Eurydice as well as the artist (Marianne/Orpheus) who looks at and is looked at by the muse (Héloïse/Eurydice) in order to produce art. Therefore, Portrait deals with artistic and amorous metamorphoses.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sara Anjos, Sofia Morais Coelho (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The aim of this article is to present a concise overview of the main problems faced by three major generations of interpreters of Aristotle’s Metaphysics over the past century. It begins with a brief reflection on the relationship between a philosophical work and its historical reception, with emphasis on the active role of the interpreter and the contextual conditions that shape the act of reading. Subsequently, three generations of interpreters are highlighted – each one associated with a specific philosophical tradition that informs their respective approaches – organized around three central interpretative issues: (i) the tension between ontology and theology, characteristic of the first generation, represented by thinkers such as Natorp and Jaeger; (ii) the problem of being as the object of ontology, which defines the second generation, with figures like Aubenque and G. E. L. Owen; and (iii) the question of substance, which has become the focus of the most recent debates in the contemporary interpretative landscape.
Dossiê Comemorativo em Homenagem ao Prof. Jacyntho Lins Brandão – Parte 2
Copyright (c) 2025 Gabriel Geller Xavier (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the first three decades of the 20th century, Platonism became more clearly defined in Brazil with the publication of the first translations of Plato’s dialogues, made by Maria Lacerda de Moura, and the courses led at the Colégio Pedro II by Professor José Oiticica, who regularly taught the texts of Aristophanes. In this context, the objective of this text is to show how the main anarchist thinkers in Brazil were influenced by Greek culture, especially by Plato’s work.
Maria Lacerda de Moura and the anarchist utopia of Guararema
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria das Graças de Moraes Augusto (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Character of the “Graceful Servant” in Camões’ Theatre
Bearing in mind the motifs bequeathed by the Greco-Latin comic tradition, the figure of the slave accomplice of the master persists in the dramatic production of several authors. Regarding Portuguese theatre, our study focuses on the work of Camões, more precisely in the reconfiguration to which the Renaissance playwright subjects the seruus of Greco-Latin comedy. Converted into a graceful and cunning servant, but always ready to help his master in matters of love, to what extent does the “young servant” of Camões theatre maintain, by means of imitatio, characteristic traits that come from the old tradition? Or are there cases or some situations in which the aemulatio of the imitated paradigms is verified? In this article, we intend to answer to these questions, based on a hermeneutic reading and analysis of two “graceful young servants” of Camões’ dramatic production, namely: Vilardo, from the play Filodemo, and Leocádeo, from the Comédia d’El-Rei Seleuco.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rui Tavares de Faria (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper aims to analyze, in the light of reception studies, how the conception of the myth of Orpheus, from the classical tradition in Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Metamorphoses, was received and interpreted in Marie Bonaparte's work entitled La faute d'Orphée à l'envers (The Guilt of Orpheus in Reverse). The author's main thesis is that the strength of Orpheus' evocation by his beloved, the nymph Eurydice, going to look for her in the world of the dead and his disobedience to the law of not looking back until they were completely safe in the world of the living, rests on the disturbing feelings of the Incest Taboo and necrophilia. Thus, through reception centered on the implicit reader and the receptive consciousness, the construction of meaning in the process of reading ancient texts stands out. After all, the fact that Eurydice is twice turned into a corpse is an essential attribute of the object of love for Orpheus.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sarug Dagir Ribeiro (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the present paper, we address the exemplum, a rhetorical-poetic procedure, and discuss the way in which this element is built and operates in Lucan’s epic poem Pharsalia. We attempt at verifying how it contributes to bring the poem closer to the historiograph discourse and stress the poetic and historiography boundaries present in the epic. In order to do so, we use ancient rhetoric manuals as Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Rhetorica ad Herennium and Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria to conceptually delimit the exemplum. We also make use of appreciation as a category of analysis introduced by Roller (2018, 2015), in order to observe how the exemplary narrative recalls the war between Sulla and Marius through the older civilian, allowing those characters to be read as tyrannical.
Copyright (c) 2025 Leni Ribeiro Leite, Thayrynne de Faria Coutinho (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Celina F. Lage, Pedro Ipiranga Jr., Olimar Flores Jr. (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Historical Reception of Diodorus Siculus
Until the middle of the last century, Diodorus was considered, by a good part of historiography, a mere copyist, and his value as a source lies only in the works that he supposedly used. However, this was not always the case. The author of Agyrium was praised and quoted for many centuries, especially by the early Christians and the Byzantines. His autonomy and uniqueness were rediscovered in the 1950s, and today they set the tone for studies on Diodorus. This article seeks to analyze the evolution and changes of Diodorian studies over the centuries, in order to understand what is the current stage of academic discussions.
Copyright (c) 2025 Leonardo Viola (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Typical Scene of Feasting in Circe’s Episode in the Odyssey (X, 230-477)
This article, as its title suggests, aims to investigate the typical scene of feasting (structural in this poem) in the episode of Circe in the Odyssey, comparing it with the most common and expected pattern of this scene and pointing out the points where (in relation to this pattern) there is a greater continuity or divergence and difference, in order to try to understand these continuities or differences in the singular context of this episode in the set of Odysseus’ narratives to the Phaeacians about his marvelous journeys on his return from the Trojan War; because Circe is a sorceress nymph with the dangerous ability to transform men into different animals and, from animals, re-transform them into men younger than before.
Copyright (c) 2025 Teodoro Rennó Assunção (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Prudence and the Self-Proclamation of Sacred Vate
The study investigates how Prudentius positions himself as a sacred vates of a politico-religious discourse, analyzing, in particular, how this notion intertwines with his thesis that the Christianized Roman Empire under Emperor Theodosius I embodies the power foretold in the Aeneid through its praise of Rome and an empire without end. By demonstrating how the poet employs both pagan and Christian literature, the research is primarily grounded in Prudentius' poetic corpus and critical scholarship on his work, such as Witke (1968), Wilken (1999), Pelttari (2019), Mastrangelo (2022), among others.
Copyright (c) 2025 Me. Regimário Costa Moura (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ideological Fictions and Collective Identities
Taking as a point of departure recent discussions on the mobilisation of classical Greece for the construction of the concepts of Western civilisation and of modern Greek national identity, this study turns to the public discourses of fourth century BCE Athens and examines the role of specific ideological constructs in identity formation processes of the time, showing that there seems to be a significant convergence in the way the past, and indeed the classical past, is employed both in modern and premodern (particularly, classical in the chronological sense of the term) processes of collective identity formation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Myrto Aloumpi (Autor); André Bomfim Mynssen Coelho (Tradutor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Recreating the "vertigo of time" (Brandão, 2017) experienced in reading the Enūma Eliš (Babylonian epic of creation) as a glimpse and enjoyment of the past through linguistic contextualization (Skinner, 2002) is the process by which this article seeks to understand the "enchanting power" of words in Ancient Babylon. Inspired by Foucault's notions of Discourse, Power and Institution as self-referential and constitutive (Foucault, 1999), the essay proposes the reading of the Babylonian foundational myth in two modalities: the aforementioned poem and the Festival of Ãkitu, paying attention to the choice and characterization of the heroes and locus of power portrayed therein as indicative of the institutional substrate(s) (powers) that sustained them – and vice versa. In this process, the complementary relationship between State and Temple in the exercise of power and authority will be highlighted, as well as the discreet priestly preeminence that shines through in a self-celebratory manner in the Enūma Eliš.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Edith Maroca de Avelar (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Grammatophagy, mythophagy and historico-epochalconsciousness in the Philosophical History
The theorizing about the ancient novel in the works of Jacyntho Lins Brandão, especially in “The invention of the novel”, mobilizes some theoretical concepts that transcend the mere formal analysis of fictional prose and provide general reflections within the scope of theories of the human sciences. This article aims to discuss the application of one of these categories – grammatophagy – to certain theoretical formulations about the relationship between historical change, literary genres and the theory of mythology in the Philosophical History, by the Neoplatonist Damascius. Written around 515-525, the Philosophical History, also known as “Life of Isidore”, is a compendium of prose narratives about the lives and misadventures of philosophers from the schools of Athens and Alexandria between the 4th and 5th centuries of the Common Era, and combines elements of the genres of biography, history, patriography and paradoxography. Damascius mobilizes a series of topoi and symbols from Greco-Roman pagan culture in his narrative, creating a kind of poetic and alchemical laboratory of pagan paideia in contrast to the Christian paideia that was then established as an epistemic model. Damascius’ reflection can be defined as grammatophagic or “mythophagic” and constitutes a good theoretical example of how the prose narrative of late antiquity – or post-antiquity – combines elements of different literary and poetic genres linked to the expression of the Greco-Roman mythological heritage. By way of conclusion, I will defend the embryonic idea that the concept of “grammatophagy” can also be qualified as “mythophagy” in Damascius, considering the close relationship between the literary genres mobilized by Damascius and pagan mythology, being an important interpretative tool for the historian of the post-Plotinian Neoplatonism.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tomaz de Tassis (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From the classical tradition to the era of artificial intelligence
Interview with Jacyntho Lins Brandão, Professor Emeritus at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Covering his academic trajectory from his first contact with the Greek language to his role in establishing the Brazilian Society of Classical Studies (SBEC) and organizing the International Federation of Classical Studies (FIEC) congress in Brazil, the interview also addresses the institutionalization of Classical Studies in the country, as well as his research on Lucian of Samosata, the ancient novel and, more recently, Akkadian literature, concluding with reflections on the impact of artificial intelligence on Classical Studies and considerations about Eros as a primordial force in ancient thought.
Copyright (c) 2025 Pedro Ipiranga Jr., Celina F. Lage (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In this article, the issue of intertextuality and its basic analytical assumptions are introduced firstly, with the aim of obtaining support for the comments that follow. These comments split into two parts: in the first one, in Book IV of the Georgics, the rescue of Eurydice is compared through intertextuality with that of Creusa, in Book II of the Aeneid. In the second part, the discussion focuses on the dialogue between the same rescue scene in the Aeneid, led by the hero Aeneas, and that of the parents of the twins from Catania. After going through the stages described, the results obtained point to contrastive differences involving the Aeneid, especially when considering Orpheus’ extreme attachment to his wife and the direct conduct of the pii fratres in the work of volcanology (Aetna).
Copyright (c) 2025 Matheus Trevizam (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The essay proposes, based on a classical reception of myths, a theoretical and poetic path about the Muses and the Sirens as literary compositional principles. Based on academic literature on such figures, the work also links the figure of Sirens to Queer Theory. The writing is performative, with the intention of incorporating the contents of the work into its form. The Siren is presented as an unruly Muse, having parallels with the goddesses of art, but differentiating herself through her unrestricted singing, in which there is no order and forgetfulness. Its subversiveness is thus associated with uncanniness, with queerness, in a reflection that reconciles the monstrosity of the Sirens with the dissidence of gender and sexuality. Like an impossible song, the Sirens’ song is incorporated by the Muses, who mediate its representation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carmen Ferreira Marçal (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Bernardo Lins Brandão (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper examines a fragment of Anchises’ speech in the underworld in which the relationships between fathers and sons have special relevance (6.817-835). The aim is to show, in the representation of different republican characters such as Brutus, the Decii, Torquatus, Julius Caesar, and Pompey, that Anchises’ assessments of their pietas and the way in which it has been properly exercised – or not – are central. My hypothesis is that the reading of this passage can shed light on the interpretation of the end of the poem: if Aeneas has an obligation of pietas towards Pallas due to a bond comparable to that between a father and a son, the decision to kill Turnus can be considered adequate.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Emilia CAIRO (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A medida do bom ânimo (euthumia) no quadro da reflexão ética de Demócrito
In a passage from Book IX of the Lives and Doctrines of the Illustrious Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius writes that the end of human life is, for Democritus, good cheer / euthumia (τέλος δ ̓ εἶναι τὴν εὐθυμίαν. DK68A1.45). By examining the terms that express this horizon, we have, in addition to the notion of euthumia, which appears there, whether as a noun, adjective or verb, many other terms pertinent to its lexical field. When it comes to establishing the conditions or procedures at its origin, we have a series of testimonies and fragments in which a whole series of operations of a noetic nature are attributed to the soul, among which are those expressed by the terms φρονεῖν / φρόνησις, λογίζεσθαι / λογισμός and βούλεσθαι. Through these operations it is possible to proceed to the calculation of measure, a notion that occupies a central position in the framework of the philosopher's ethical reflection, and on which the achievement of the state of mind that one seeks to achieve immediately depends. The vocabulary of measure is quite rich in the corpus democriteum. We have, on the one hand, a series of terms pertinent to the lexical field of the notion of measure, such as those formed from the radical μέτρ- (μετρεῖν, μέτριος, μετριότης, σύμμετρος, συμμετρία), and those that express the idea of ​​“temperance” or “moderation” in the execution of actions, in the satisfaction of desires and needs, in the conformation of attitudes and behaviors (σωφρονεῖν, σωφροσύνη). On the other hand, a significant number of terms formed by the addition of the adverb εὖ with the intention of characterizing a good and convenient state of attitudes and actions are noteworthy. I intend to show, throughout my text, the nuances and convergences that serve to affirm the internal coherence of the set of ethical fragments of the philosopher among themselves, as well as the connection between his physics and his ethics. To this end, we will make use of the fragments collected by Stobaeus in his anthologies, of the sentences that were transmitted to us under the name of "Democrates", in addition to other collections of sentences that constitute the so-called Gnomica Democritea, including material from the Corpus Parasinum and from some authors listed in the Patrologia Migne.
Copyright (c) 2024 Miriam Campolina Diniz Peixoto (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This paper presents a decasyllabic translation of the beginning of Aeneid’s Book III along with notes and comments. In this book, the hero gives an account of his travels across the Mediterranean, and the selected passage refers to the episode traditionally known as “The Bloody Bush” or “The grave of Polydorus”, a plot of horror, betrayal and violence, which is revealed to Aeneas when he and his companions land on the coast of Thrace, after leaving the beaches of Troy. The translation follows a parameter of metric proportionality adopted for the transposition of hexameters into decasyllables, and the viability of applying this criterion is verified based on the results measured in each paragraph.
Copyright (c) 2025 Márcio Thamos (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Story of Ahiqar and the contest of kings
The tale-type of the “wisdom contest of kings” is internationally attested in two variant forms. The simpler and older one involves only two rulers in intellectual competition with each other. In the other, more expanded form, one of the rulers has a counsellor, who undertakes the most important role in the action, solving the problems and securing the victory for his king. The introduction of the counsellor’s figure and the development of the expanded variant are related to a key narrative composition of the ancient world, the Story of Ahiqar, which exercised a vast influence on subsequent novelistic and wisdom texts. In the Story of Ahiqar, the sagacious counsellor is not only the main figure of the wisdom contest but also the protagonist of a broader biographical narration, into which the contest has been inserted as an individual episode. The reason for the extraordinary promotion of the counsellor’s character lies in the composite narrative construction of Ahiqar, in which two different story patterns (the “wisdom contest of kings” and the “disgrace and rehabilitation of the wise adviser”) are joined. The counsellor serves as the link between the two patterns; the intellectual competition, to which the king is challenged, is interposed between the counsellor’s fall and his restoration and provides the cause for the latter. Thus, the kings’ contest is refashioned in such a way as to revolve around the counsellor’s central role in the entire narrative. By artfully combining two distinct popular tale-types of the Near-Eastern imaginarium, the creator of Ahiqarshaped a new, groundbreaking narrative construct.
Dossiê Comemorativo em Homenagem ao Prof. Jacyntho Lins Brandão
Copyright (c) 2024 Ioannis M. Konstantakos (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In this text, in homage to Professor Jacyntho Lins Brandão, I intend to demonstrate that Heliodorus of Emesa, active in the 4th century AD and one of the five authors of the so-called Ancient Greek Romance, with his work The Aethiopica, created a synthesis of epic poetry, represented mainly by the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, with the Attic Theater of the 5th century BC. Nowadays, it is well established that this author frequently makes allusions and intertextual games mainly with the two great classics of the Greek epic e with theater. However, he does not operate in a servile or submissive manner. He starts from tradition to create his narrative, but works in a critical and creative manner. Furthermore, I want to argue that Heliodorus aimed to produce a work morally superior to the Homeric epic, by constructing a character, that is, Theagenes, the hero of the narrative, with a more dignified behavior than that of Achilles, from a certain point of view. In this way, his novel would also have a moral and educational quality superior to that of Homer's works. This becomes clear throughout the novel in moments when Heliodorus makes a series of subtle and coded self-praises, in passages that invite the reader to interpret the text and make his/her own assessment, as I intend to demonstrate.
Copyright (c) 2024 Roosevelt Rocha (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Euripides, Cresphontes and the mythical tradition of Messenia
Given the scarcity of information, both literary and archaeological, regarding the ancient history of Messenia, the available versions, which are generally brief and incomplete, are also controversial. The aim of this article is to focus on Euripides' tragedies, inspired by myths associated with Messenia. Taking into account the structural and scenic features suggested by the fragments, we will try to underline the poet's contribution towards a political reading and his influence on later versions of the same subject.
Copyright (c) 2024 Maria de Fátima Silva (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A case study on reception of the classics in the 19th century Brazil
Among the manuscripts deposited in the National Library archive, there is one undated and without a place of writing. In the database there is only information that it is a manuscript of Homer's Iliad. Analysis of a digitized copy of the manuscript revealed that it is the complete translation of Canto XIII of the Iliad. On the last page there is a significant entry: “Autographo de fr. José de Santa Maria Amaral. It is a precious fragment of a translation of Homer's Iliad made by that Benedictine religious and offered to the Bibliotheca Nacional by Dr. Ramiz Galvão”. Now, who would Friar José de Santa Maria Amaral have been? Why did he dedicate himself to translating Homer's Iliad? These are questions that this article focuses on, in addition to presenting an excerpt from the paleographic transcription of this manuscript.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ricardo Neves dos Santos (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This work aims to present a possible translation of Homeric Hymn XXVIII, dedicated to the Greek goddess Pallas Athena. The method used was free verse, seeking to approximate the meaning of the terms in the source language (Ancient Greek) with their correspondents in the target language (Brazilian Portuguese) and, as necessary, adaptations were made in order to preserve the essence of the composition. As a result, this work presents the entire translation of the hymn, so that students of Classical Languages and Literatures, as well as others interested in Classical Studies, have access to another possible translation of the composition dedicated to the goddess Pallas Athena.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hamilton Sérgio Nery de Medeiros, Robson (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In this article, I present a brief overview of human-animal studies in antiquity, pointing out aspects of proximity and specificity in relation to human-animal studies in a broad sense. To do this, I explain what human-animal studies are, how they came about and what their importance is, and then characterise the development of this discussion in the context of classical studies. Finally, I emphasise the mutual contributions that the intersection between these two fields can make. With this, I hope to offer not only a reflection on the theoretical and methodological possibilities and limits of the theme of animals in antiquity, but also to draw attention to the important role that classical studies can play in the discussion of the animal question in general in Brazil.
Copyright (c) 2025 Camila Condilo (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The poet, the worshipper of the Muses and the poetical enthusiasm
The present paper aims to reflect upon the concept of poetical enthusiasm developed in ancient Greek culture, with focus on Plato’s philosophy. To do so, after a brief overview on the presence of such idea in the archaic poets, we proceed to the analysis of two works from Plato in which the concept of enthusiasm is mainly developed, namely the Ion and the Phaedrus. While the former deals specifically with poetical madness, the latter develop a general typology of the modalities of enthusiasm. The reflection advances to consider if poetical enthusiasm may conduct the possessed poet to the dimension of Truth and contemplation of intelligible essences. In the end of the paper, two hypotheses on that question are presented.
Copyright (c) 2024 Thiago Saltarelli (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Poetry between divine inspiration and art
This article aims to investigate the notions of ἐνθουσία (divine inspiration) and τέχνη (art/technique) in Plato's Ion, related to the discussion about the aedo and its activity. Socrates understands the poetic activity not as a technique pressuposing a method, but simply as a form of divine possession, contrary to the claim of the character Ion, who understands it not only as a technique (τέχνη), but as science (ἐπιστήμη). Thus, in this article, we discuss how the limits of these concepts applied to poetry are drawn in this dialogue, comparing them with the ways in which one could, on the other hand, understand the “ancient muse” (Homeric and Hesiodic), from the analysis undertaken by Brandão (2005).
João Victor Silverio de Oliveira Moreira
Copyright (c) 2024 Fabio Fortes, João Victor Silverio de Oliveira Moreira (Autor) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0