Articles, reviews, etc.

– Forthcoming –

An Audience of Intellectuals? The Readership of Latin Technical and Scientific Literature in the Early Roman Empire

in T. Fögen (ed.), Portrayals of ‘Intellectuals’ in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Mohr Siebeck)

Abstract: This paper revisits the difficult but important question of the audience of Latin technical and scientific literature of the early Roman empire: what kinds of Romans read such works? I begin with some methodological remarks and propose to narrow the scope of the study to the systematic prose treatises known as artes. I draw a distinction between ‘readership’ and ‘audience’, where the former is understood in a more restricted sense as those who the author expected would read his treatise in extenso. I argue that in this sense the readership of the artes was not limited to Romans with purely practical interests (such as professionals), but also included an ‘audience of intellectuals’: Romans engaged with the artes as worthy material for different kinds of chiefly intellectual activity. To argue this hypothesis, I survey the scholarly status quaestionis and examine the internal evidence for the readership of three artes of the early imperial period: Vitruvius’ De architectura, Celsus’ De medicina and Columella’s De re rustica. I conclude by suggesting that there were not only discrete audiences of intellectuals for different artes, but also Roman readers with polymathic interests in multiple artes.

 
 

Gargilius Martialis, De arboribus pomiferis / De hortis and Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis; Ps.-Gargilius Martialis, Curae boum

in J. Stover (ed.), Oxford Guide to the Transmission of the Latin Classics (Oxford University Press)

Entries (3) on the textual traditions of three works by Gargilius Martialis and ps.-Gargilius Martialis in the forthcoming Oxford Guide to the Transmission of the Latin Classics (~4,500 words, total)

– 2024 –

Abstract: This paper revisits the difficult but important question of the audience of Latin technical and scientific literature of the early Roman empire: what kinds of Romans read such works? I begin with some methodological remarks and propose to narrow the scope of the study to the systematic prose treatises known as artes. I draw a distinction between ‘readership’ and ‘audience’, where the former is understood in a more restricted sense as those who the author expected would read his treatise in extenso. I argue that in this sense the readership of the artes was not limited to Romans with purely practical interests (such as professionals), but also included an ‘audience of intellectuals’: Romans engaged with the artes as worthy material for different kinds of chiefly intellectual activity. To argue this hypothesis, I survey the scholarly status quaestionis and examine the internal evidence for the readership of three artes of the early imperial period: Vitruvius’ De architectura, Celsus’ De medicina and Columella’s De re rustica. I conclude by suggesting that there were not only discrete audiences of intellectuals for different artes, but also Roman readers with polymathic interests in multiple artes.

– 2023 –

The Agricultural Preface between Rome and China: The Virtues of Farming in Columella and Jia Sixie

Hermes 151.3: 71–104 (BiblioScout link)

Abstract: This paper compares the preface of Columella’s Res rustica with that of the earliest fully extant Chinese agricultural treatise, the Qimin yaoshu (‘Essential Techniques for the Common People’) of Jia Sixie. I argue that both prefaces have a similar function: to present to the reader the social world in which the author wishes his agricultural work to be understood. By drawing on authoritative literary and historical traditions, each author projects an idealized vision of farming in which the discipline acquires a deep moral significance. Granting these striking similarities, the authors’ views also diverge in certain illuminating respects: these include the moral agency of agriculture, the social location of expertise, and the historical development of agriculture in relation to society.

 
 

Book review, with Jonathan Master.

– 2022 –

Columella aduersus astrologos: Weather Signs and Stars in Res rustica 11

Materiali e discussioni 89: 157–68 (LIBRAweb link)

Abstract: This article reexamines the function of the topos opportunitas mortis ("the timeliness of death") in Seneca's Consolation to Marcia. I argue that Seneca does not use this consolatory topos in a purely conventional way, but rather in order to advance a complex and philosophically dynamic persuasive strategy. In particular, close attention to the recurrence of the topos in the final part of the work allows us to follow Seneca's manipulation of both Epicurean and Stoic philosophical principles for the purpose of consoling Marcia. The use of principles from both schools reveals Seneca's pedagogically sensitive approach to philosophical therapy in the Consolation.

– 2021 –

Abstract: This article reexamines the function of the topos opportunitas mortis ("the timeliness of death") in Seneca's Consolation to Marcia. I argue that Seneca does not use this consolatory topos in a purely conventional way, but rather in order to advance a complex and philosophically dynamic persuasive strategy. In particular, close attention to the recurrence of the topos in the final part of the work allows us to follow Seneca's manipulation of both Epicurean and Stoic philosophical principles for the purpose of consoling Marcia. The use of principles from both schools reveals Seneca's pedagogically sensitive approach to philosophical therapy in the Consolation.

 
 

Book review.

 
 

Entries (2) in TLL (print-only access for three years from publication date)

remugio, remulceo

Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Vol. IX.2, Fasc. VII

– 2021 –

Abstract: This article reexamines the function of the topos opportunitas mortis ("the timeliness of death") in Seneca's Consolation to Marcia. I argue that Seneca does not use this consolatory topos in a purely conventional way, but rather in order to advance a complex and philosophically dynamic persuasive strategy. In particular, close attention to the recurrence of the topos in the final part of the work allows us to follow Seneca's manipulation of both Epicurean and Stoic philosophical principles for the purpose of consoling Marcia. The use of principles from both schools reveals Seneca's pedagogically sensitive approach to philosophical therapy in the Consolation.

 
 

Book review.

 
 

Entries (2) in TLL (print-only access for three years from publication date)

remugio, remulceo

Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Vol. IX.2, Fasc. VII

– 2020 –

regressio, regressus

Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Vol. IX.2, Fasc. VI

Entries (2) in TLL (print-only access for three years from publication date)

– 2019 –

Abstract: This article explores the agricultural ‘digression’ at the end of the 86th letter of Seneca’s Epistulae morales (86.14–21), which famously recounts his visit to Scipio’s rustic villa. I make three connected points about the relationship between agriculture and philosophy in Seneca’s thought. First, I argue that Seneca’s remarks on Vergil’s agronomy indirectly characterize the proper method of philosophical instruction; next, that the technical language of the agricultural digression models the correct means of philosophical communication; and third, that Stoic physical theory underpins analogies between the growth and care of plants described in the letter and the growth and care of the human rational or moral faculty with which Seneca is above all concerned.

– 2018 –

A Stoic Source for the Monkey-Rope

Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies 20.3: 58–65 (Muse permalink)

Abstract: I identify a probable source for Melville's striking image of the "monkey-rope" (Moby-Dick, ch. 72) in his reading of the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. In a passage in his essay "On Peace of Mind" (De tranquillitate animi), Seneca argues forcibly that "all our whole life is a servitude" and exhorts us to bear up under our state of bondage with fortitude. Seneca's passage would have furnished Melville not only the striking metaphor of life-as-bondage that he adopts in the chapter "The Monkey-Rope," but also a philosophical basis for recasting his preoccupations elsewhere in Moby-Dick. In order to argue the allusion, I briefly survey Melville's knowledge of Seneca; identify the translations of "On Peace of Mind" known to have been in his possession; and call attention to the consonance of language and imagery between Seneca's and Melville's passages.

– 2017 –

Abstract: In this paper I offer a close reading of Ptolemy’s philosophical defense of the equant in Almagest 9.2. I identify the challenge to the equant that his defense is supposed to meet, characterizing it as a dispute concerning the origin and authority of the astronomer’s first principles (ἀρχαί). I argue that the equant could be taken to violate a principle fundamental to the Almagest’s astronomical project, namely, that the heavenly bodies move only in uniform circular motions. I show that Ptolemy is not unaware of this potential objection, and explore two ways in which he seeks to fend it off.