Papers by Laura Bottenberg
Katarzyna Jażdżewska and Filip Doroszewski (eds.) Plutarch and his Contemporaries Sharing the Roman Empire (Brills Plutarch Studies 14), 2024
This paper deals with the idea that, in ancient discourse on friendship, friends essentially cons... more This paper deals with the idea that, in ancient discourse on friendship, friends essentially constitute one entity and are represented as a union of bodies and minds. By comparing two early imperial texts on friendship - Plutarch’s 'De amicorum multitudine' and Lucian’s 'Toxaris' - it shows that the two texts use the same idea for specific purposes that reflect the authors’ idiosyncratic approach to ethics and moral norms. In Plutarch’s treatise, it represents the condition and simultaneously the real danger for true friendship. In Lucian’s dialogue, it becomes the expression of the universal value of elite education and its ethical ideals in friendship, but it simultaneously challenges Hellenic cultural hegemony. In both texts, the image of “union of bodies” in friendship is ambiguous. Whereas in Lucian, the ambiguity aims at negotiating a multicultural identity, in Plutarch, the concern is for practical ethical advice.
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The Limits of Exactitude in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Literature and Textual Transmission, Trends in Classics Supplementary Volume 137, edited by Nicoletta Bruno, Giulia Dovico, Olivia Montepaone and Marco Pelucchi, Berlin-Boston, pp. 83-105, 2022
This paper shows how Lucian's Toxaris, a dialogue about friendship in which the characters tell s... more This paper shows how Lucian's Toxaris, a dialogue about friendship in which the characters tell stories about exemplary friends, integrates the concept of exactitude in the characters' strategies of persuasion. The function of this rhetorical demonstration of exactitude, which builds upon methodological considerations in historiography, is to testify to the validity of the characters' stories. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that this discourse about exactitude is limited in two ways. From an extra-dialogical perspective, the rhetorical display of exactitude signals, through the characters' repeated expressions of disbelief, the opposite of factuality. From an intra-dialogical perspective, the importance of exactitude is limited by the way that the dialogue performs friendship, which builds upon belief and trust, notwithstanding the characters' expressions of doubts about the truthfulness of the stories told. Exactitude and its connotations of factuality thus reveals itself to be an ineffective instrument for the assessment of moral examples.
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Millennium, 2020
The aim of this paper is to analyse a literary response to antiquity's most alluring work of art,... more The aim of this paper is to analyse a literary response to antiquity's most alluring work of art, the Cnidian Aphrodite. It argues that the ecphrasis of the statue in the Amores develops textual and verbal strategies to provoke in the recipients the desire to see the Cnidia, but eventually frustrates this desire. The ecphrasis thereby creates a discrepancy between the characters' aesthetic experience of the statue and the visualisation and aesthetic experience of the recipients of the text. The erotic mechanisms of the ecphrasis, simultaneously arousing and frustrating the recipients' desire, mirror the effect of the statue on its viewers and disclose the erotic program-matics of the whole dialogue. The analysis shows that the Amores surpass the ongoing discourse on love from Plato's Phaedrus to the ancient novel-and Achilles Ta-tius and Longus in particular. The Amores, like the nude statue of the Cnidia, threaten to cross all bounds of decency in sexuality.
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Parola all'immagine. Esperienze dell'ecfrasi da Petrarca a Marino, a cura di Andrea Torre, 2019
In this paper, which is dedicated to the analysis of a sonnet by Giovan Battista Marino, “Venere ... more In this paper, which is dedicated to the analysis of a sonnet by Giovan Battista Marino, “Venere Ignuda di Fidia” (1620), I focus on aspects of production and reception of a Venus-statue by Phidias and its description. In particular, I concentrate on the literary motif of the artist’s source of inspiration “in cielo”, retracing the evolution of the concept of artistic imagination/phantasia from ancient epigrams through Neoplatonism to Petrarca. I argue that this sonnet presents traces of this evolution; the motif, here, alludes to a mental creative power, which is only reminiscent of Petrarca’s Neoplatonic and Christian ideology. The sonnet invites the recipient to revel in the intermedial agōn and is representative of an aesthetic of divertimento.
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Conflicts in Antiquity. Textual and Material Perspectives, D. van Diemen et al. (eds.), Amsterdam, 2018
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Conference Papers by Laura Bottenberg
This paper analyses the discourse on alterity and the negotiation of a multiple identity in Lucia... more This paper analyses the discourse on alterity and the negotiation of a multiple identity in Lucian’s Toxaris. This dialogue stages a Greek, Mnesippus, and a Scythian, Toxaris, who argue about the Scythians’ worship of friendship. They then engage in a story-competition where each has to tell exemplary stories of friends in order to decide which people is best at friendship. As they did not appoint any judge upon their competition, they agree to become friends instead.
Throughout the dialogue and the stories, Mnesippus resorts to subtle mechanisms of ‘othering’ by employing various stereotypes of the Scythian, or eastern, ‘barbarian’. Toxaris too uses such stereotypes. His self-characterisation as Scythian equals a gesture of ‘self-othering’, although he simultaneously demonstrates that he has a good command of ethical values and literary references of Greek paideia. This paper argues that the use of stereotypes in the Toxaris is ironical, or at least highly self-conscious of the way the dialogue engages with previous ethnographical descriptions of Scythia in other genres such as historiography, as the numerous allusions to Herodotus’ Scythian logos and Euripides’ Iphigenia on Tauris demonstrate.
The choice of the dialogic form as a means of discussing preconceived ideas about foreign peoples allows deconstructing the very prejudices it presents as well as taking distance from an Athenocentric view on the Graeco-Roman world, while nevertheless defending a Hellenocentric position. Therefore, Lucian’s dialogue shows how ethnographic discourses play an instrumental role in the representation of ‘otherness’ and in the negotiation of socio-cultural identities.
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With its complex structure and nexus of themes (storytelling, friendship, intercultural relations... more With its complex structure and nexus of themes (storytelling, friendship, intercultural relationships), Lucian's dialogue 'Toxaris' is not easy to interpret and has puzzled modern scholarship. In turn, it appraises the 'Toxaris' as a comic or parodic dialogue, as a pamphlet of cultural relativism, as a moralistic collection of tales on friendship, and cannot decide on whether the dialogue is comic or serious, fantastic or moralistic, or on how to reconcile the frame dialogue with the narrated stories.
The lack of a stable interpretation of the Toxaris is reflected by the story of its reception. The aim of this paper is to sketch the transformation of the Lucianic text and the way new meanings were attributed to it according to the interests and cultural background of its recipients. The analysis dwells on significant moments of the reception of the 'Toxaris'. The first example is Erasmus of Rotterdam’s translation of the dialogue into Latin, a translation which he dedicated to the English statesman Richard Foxe [= Ep. 187] and was published in 1506 in Paris by Jodocus Badius. The second example consists in Nicolas Poussin’s representation of Mnesippus’ story of Eudamidas’ testament to his friends Aretaius and Charixenus in ‘The Testament of Eudamidas’ (ca. 1644-1648). Although the painting went rather unnoticed by Poussin’s contemporaries, it found much positive critique in the mid-eighteenth century. The third example, which immediately relates to the second, deals with the reception of the 'Toxaris' – or rather its stories – in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century collections of moral examples of friendships such as Thomas Holcroft’s. In these collections, the stories serve as an illustration and memento of the obligations of a faithful friendship for contemporary recipients.
I argue that the way the representation of friendship in the 'Toxaris' was interpreted in the two periods to be analysed, the time of Erasmus of Rotterdam and the late seventeenth to late eighteenth centuries, reflects contemporary concerns. The Dutch humanist regards the 'Toxaris' as a means to discuss Christian ideals of friendship and philanthropy, whereas the eighteenth century sees in Lucian’s work a source for moral examples of virtuous friends. In both cases, the 'Toxaris' appears to trigger the recipients’ ethical reflection, although each time a different message is conveyed to the source text.
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This paper contributes to the study of intrageneric intertextuality, a field of growing interest ... more This paper contributes to the study of intrageneric intertextuality, a field of growing interest in novelistic scholarship. Up to now, scholars have focused on the sharing of narrative devices, recurrent themes, and features of characterisation. This paper offers a new case study that enriches the latter focus and compares Achilles Tatius (books 5-6) and Heliodorus (books 7-8) with regard to the characterisation of the antagonists Arsace and Thersander. This new discussion of intrageneric intertextuality increases our understanding of a key virtue of the novelistic genre as a whole, as I argue that the intertextual similarities in the characterisation of Thersander and Arsace have consequences for the characterisation of the protagonists and relates to their well-known sophrosyne. Leucippe, in this very episode, exemplarily defends her chastity. In Heliodorus, Charicleia is traditionally represented as the virtuous Penelopean spouse (5.22). Theagenes too is an example of sophrosyne (cf. 10.9).
First, I show that there are intertextual similarities between Thersander’s sexual proposals to Leucippe and Arsace’s to Theagenes. Thersander and Arsace, who are both antagonists to the protagonists’ couple, dispose of a go-between (Sosthenes/Cybele) who kindles his/her master’s false hopes (6.15.2, 7.19). Both Thersander and Arsace are ‘in fire’ for their beloved (6.18.2, 7.9), jealous of Clitophon/Chariclea (6.17.1, 7.26), and react violently when rejected, abusing of their power over their ‘slave’ Leucippe/Theagenes (6.20.3, 8.5). Moreover, these thematic similarities are enriched by allusions in narratorial gnomic statements (e.g., 8.6) and character-speeches. For example, when advising Theagenes to (fake) consent towards Arsace, Chariclea warns him of the possible consequences should he not fan her hopes (e.g., 7.21, 22). Whereas this warning is meaningful on an intratextual level, as De Temmerman has convincingly demonstrated, on an intertextual level, these threatening consequences may remind the readers of the outcome of the Thersander-Leucippe episode (7.1), where the latter’s obstinate refusal to the former’s desire leads Thersander to take violent action against the protagonists. The evocation of this episode from Achilles Tatius increases the readers’ suspense as they approach the Heliodorean scene, for they may fear for Theagenes’ adoption of a similar nefarious behaviour in the Arsace episode.
Second, I explain that this intertextual relationship points to a new parallel between Theagenes and Leucippe, which needs further discussion. The fact that Theagenes is paralleled to Leucippe, and less to Clitophon, not only impacts on the characterisation of Theagenes but also allows for drawing conclusions on an essential aspect of the novel as a genre. I suggest that the intertextual relationship thematises a tension between male fidelity and chastity in the two novels, and that Heliodorus wittily and seriously formulates positions on Achilles Tatius’ ambiguous representation of Clitophon’s chastity.
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This contribution argues that the characterization of Thyamis, a secondary character from Heliodo... more This contribution argues that the characterization of Thyamis, a secondary character from Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (Book 1, and 7-8), creates an impression of uncertainty in the recipients, as it disappoints the recipients’ expectations or invites them to explore possible parallel scenarios. In Book 1 of the Aethiopica, aspects of Thyamis’ characterisation such as his behaviour toward Charicleia, other characters’ thoughts, and so-called gnomic sentences function as ‘virtual prolepses’ for later events in Books 7-8, as they foreshadow events that are either not fulfilled, or not fulfilled as such. Moreover, the proleptic function of some aspects of Thyamis’ characterization is enriched or even triggered by intertextuality with the Iliad. Finally, this paper will relate these proleptic effects of Thyamis’ characterization to the general aesthetic program of the Aethiopica.
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Abstract Paper Conference JIHA VII, 2022
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In the present paper, I consider the relationship between exactitude and persuasion in the contex... more In the present paper, I consider the relationship between exactitude and persuasion in the context of fictional narratives. I propose to analyse the Lucianic dialogue Toxaris, which, with regard to the mechanisms of ‘make-believe’, leans on e.g. historiography and judicial oratory, and pushes the use of exactitude to its limits. The limits of exactitude, in this dialogue, emerge at the point where exactitude at the same time confers credibility and generates disbelief.
After introducing the Toxaris and defining its generic affiliations with regard to issues of fictionality, I analyse how exactitude manifests itself in the dialogue and show that its use is ambiguous at various levels – at an extra-dialogical and at an intra-dialogical level.
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In discourses on art, the concept of mimesis takes a central place, and Plutarch is no exception ... more In discourses on art, the concept of mimesis takes a central place, and Plutarch is no exception to this. This paper focuses on the De Gloria Atheniensium, where Plutarch gives much importance to the topic of art and its evaluation, and thereby constantly hints at and refers to Plato’s works and ideas. He employs Platonic discourse in order to enhance his image as a philosopher and teacher, and to express his own views on art: theoretical discussions about aesthetics are shown to be re-contextualised into a discourse on practical usefulness of artistic representations for the society and for the moral behaviour of every individual.
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Conference Programs by Laura Bottenberg
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Conferences and Seminars by Laura Bottenberg
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Papers by Laura Bottenberg
Conference Papers by Laura Bottenberg
Throughout the dialogue and the stories, Mnesippus resorts to subtle mechanisms of ‘othering’ by employing various stereotypes of the Scythian, or eastern, ‘barbarian’. Toxaris too uses such stereotypes. His self-characterisation as Scythian equals a gesture of ‘self-othering’, although he simultaneously demonstrates that he has a good command of ethical values and literary references of Greek paideia. This paper argues that the use of stereotypes in the Toxaris is ironical, or at least highly self-conscious of the way the dialogue engages with previous ethnographical descriptions of Scythia in other genres such as historiography, as the numerous allusions to Herodotus’ Scythian logos and Euripides’ Iphigenia on Tauris demonstrate.
The choice of the dialogic form as a means of discussing preconceived ideas about foreign peoples allows deconstructing the very prejudices it presents as well as taking distance from an Athenocentric view on the Graeco-Roman world, while nevertheless defending a Hellenocentric position. Therefore, Lucian’s dialogue shows how ethnographic discourses play an instrumental role in the representation of ‘otherness’ and in the negotiation of socio-cultural identities.
The lack of a stable interpretation of the Toxaris is reflected by the story of its reception. The aim of this paper is to sketch the transformation of the Lucianic text and the way new meanings were attributed to it according to the interests and cultural background of its recipients. The analysis dwells on significant moments of the reception of the 'Toxaris'. The first example is Erasmus of Rotterdam’s translation of the dialogue into Latin, a translation which he dedicated to the English statesman Richard Foxe [= Ep. 187] and was published in 1506 in Paris by Jodocus Badius. The second example consists in Nicolas Poussin’s representation of Mnesippus’ story of Eudamidas’ testament to his friends Aretaius and Charixenus in ‘The Testament of Eudamidas’ (ca. 1644-1648). Although the painting went rather unnoticed by Poussin’s contemporaries, it found much positive critique in the mid-eighteenth century. The third example, which immediately relates to the second, deals with the reception of the 'Toxaris' – or rather its stories – in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century collections of moral examples of friendships such as Thomas Holcroft’s. In these collections, the stories serve as an illustration and memento of the obligations of a faithful friendship for contemporary recipients.
I argue that the way the representation of friendship in the 'Toxaris' was interpreted in the two periods to be analysed, the time of Erasmus of Rotterdam and the late seventeenth to late eighteenth centuries, reflects contemporary concerns. The Dutch humanist regards the 'Toxaris' as a means to discuss Christian ideals of friendship and philanthropy, whereas the eighteenth century sees in Lucian’s work a source for moral examples of virtuous friends. In both cases, the 'Toxaris' appears to trigger the recipients’ ethical reflection, although each time a different message is conveyed to the source text.
First, I show that there are intertextual similarities between Thersander’s sexual proposals to Leucippe and Arsace’s to Theagenes. Thersander and Arsace, who are both antagonists to the protagonists’ couple, dispose of a go-between (Sosthenes/Cybele) who kindles his/her master’s false hopes (6.15.2, 7.19). Both Thersander and Arsace are ‘in fire’ for their beloved (6.18.2, 7.9), jealous of Clitophon/Chariclea (6.17.1, 7.26), and react violently when rejected, abusing of their power over their ‘slave’ Leucippe/Theagenes (6.20.3, 8.5). Moreover, these thematic similarities are enriched by allusions in narratorial gnomic statements (e.g., 8.6) and character-speeches. For example, when advising Theagenes to (fake) consent towards Arsace, Chariclea warns him of the possible consequences should he not fan her hopes (e.g., 7.21, 22). Whereas this warning is meaningful on an intratextual level, as De Temmerman has convincingly demonstrated, on an intertextual level, these threatening consequences may remind the readers of the outcome of the Thersander-Leucippe episode (7.1), where the latter’s obstinate refusal to the former’s desire leads Thersander to take violent action against the protagonists. The evocation of this episode from Achilles Tatius increases the readers’ suspense as they approach the Heliodorean scene, for they may fear for Theagenes’ adoption of a similar nefarious behaviour in the Arsace episode.
Second, I explain that this intertextual relationship points to a new parallel between Theagenes and Leucippe, which needs further discussion. The fact that Theagenes is paralleled to Leucippe, and less to Clitophon, not only impacts on the characterisation of Theagenes but also allows for drawing conclusions on an essential aspect of the novel as a genre. I suggest that the intertextual relationship thematises a tension between male fidelity and chastity in the two novels, and that Heliodorus wittily and seriously formulates positions on Achilles Tatius’ ambiguous representation of Clitophon’s chastity.
After introducing the Toxaris and defining its generic affiliations with regard to issues of fictionality, I analyse how exactitude manifests itself in the dialogue and show that its use is ambiguous at various levels – at an extra-dialogical and at an intra-dialogical level.
Conference Programs by Laura Bottenberg
Conferences and Seminars by Laura Bottenberg
Throughout the dialogue and the stories, Mnesippus resorts to subtle mechanisms of ‘othering’ by employing various stereotypes of the Scythian, or eastern, ‘barbarian’. Toxaris too uses such stereotypes. His self-characterisation as Scythian equals a gesture of ‘self-othering’, although he simultaneously demonstrates that he has a good command of ethical values and literary references of Greek paideia. This paper argues that the use of stereotypes in the Toxaris is ironical, or at least highly self-conscious of the way the dialogue engages with previous ethnographical descriptions of Scythia in other genres such as historiography, as the numerous allusions to Herodotus’ Scythian logos and Euripides’ Iphigenia on Tauris demonstrate.
The choice of the dialogic form as a means of discussing preconceived ideas about foreign peoples allows deconstructing the very prejudices it presents as well as taking distance from an Athenocentric view on the Graeco-Roman world, while nevertheless defending a Hellenocentric position. Therefore, Lucian’s dialogue shows how ethnographic discourses play an instrumental role in the representation of ‘otherness’ and in the negotiation of socio-cultural identities.
The lack of a stable interpretation of the Toxaris is reflected by the story of its reception. The aim of this paper is to sketch the transformation of the Lucianic text and the way new meanings were attributed to it according to the interests and cultural background of its recipients. The analysis dwells on significant moments of the reception of the 'Toxaris'. The first example is Erasmus of Rotterdam’s translation of the dialogue into Latin, a translation which he dedicated to the English statesman Richard Foxe [= Ep. 187] and was published in 1506 in Paris by Jodocus Badius. The second example consists in Nicolas Poussin’s representation of Mnesippus’ story of Eudamidas’ testament to his friends Aretaius and Charixenus in ‘The Testament of Eudamidas’ (ca. 1644-1648). Although the painting went rather unnoticed by Poussin’s contemporaries, it found much positive critique in the mid-eighteenth century. The third example, which immediately relates to the second, deals with the reception of the 'Toxaris' – or rather its stories – in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century collections of moral examples of friendships such as Thomas Holcroft’s. In these collections, the stories serve as an illustration and memento of the obligations of a faithful friendship for contemporary recipients.
I argue that the way the representation of friendship in the 'Toxaris' was interpreted in the two periods to be analysed, the time of Erasmus of Rotterdam and the late seventeenth to late eighteenth centuries, reflects contemporary concerns. The Dutch humanist regards the 'Toxaris' as a means to discuss Christian ideals of friendship and philanthropy, whereas the eighteenth century sees in Lucian’s work a source for moral examples of virtuous friends. In both cases, the 'Toxaris' appears to trigger the recipients’ ethical reflection, although each time a different message is conveyed to the source text.
First, I show that there are intertextual similarities between Thersander’s sexual proposals to Leucippe and Arsace’s to Theagenes. Thersander and Arsace, who are both antagonists to the protagonists’ couple, dispose of a go-between (Sosthenes/Cybele) who kindles his/her master’s false hopes (6.15.2, 7.19). Both Thersander and Arsace are ‘in fire’ for their beloved (6.18.2, 7.9), jealous of Clitophon/Chariclea (6.17.1, 7.26), and react violently when rejected, abusing of their power over their ‘slave’ Leucippe/Theagenes (6.20.3, 8.5). Moreover, these thematic similarities are enriched by allusions in narratorial gnomic statements (e.g., 8.6) and character-speeches. For example, when advising Theagenes to (fake) consent towards Arsace, Chariclea warns him of the possible consequences should he not fan her hopes (e.g., 7.21, 22). Whereas this warning is meaningful on an intratextual level, as De Temmerman has convincingly demonstrated, on an intertextual level, these threatening consequences may remind the readers of the outcome of the Thersander-Leucippe episode (7.1), where the latter’s obstinate refusal to the former’s desire leads Thersander to take violent action against the protagonists. The evocation of this episode from Achilles Tatius increases the readers’ suspense as they approach the Heliodorean scene, for they may fear for Theagenes’ adoption of a similar nefarious behaviour in the Arsace episode.
Second, I explain that this intertextual relationship points to a new parallel between Theagenes and Leucippe, which needs further discussion. The fact that Theagenes is paralleled to Leucippe, and less to Clitophon, not only impacts on the characterisation of Theagenes but also allows for drawing conclusions on an essential aspect of the novel as a genre. I suggest that the intertextual relationship thematises a tension between male fidelity and chastity in the two novels, and that Heliodorus wittily and seriously formulates positions on Achilles Tatius’ ambiguous representation of Clitophon’s chastity.
After introducing the Toxaris and defining its generic affiliations with regard to issues of fictionality, I analyse how exactitude manifests itself in the dialogue and show that its use is ambiguous at various levels – at an extra-dialogical and at an intra-dialogical level.