Research Report
Descrição do Produto
at a conference which I am organising at LMH together with a colleague from the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Professor Anne Röthel. The conference is supported by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant awarded by the British Academy, and will be held at LMH on 27/28 March 2015. The event brings together a group of international legal scholars with the aim to investigate not only why people transfer their wealth through alternative devices, but also to explore the nature of the instruments that are used across &VSPQFBOECFZPOE5IJTXJMMCFDSVDJBMJO order to gain a better understanding of what testators actually do in practice, of how legal systems respond to the use of XJMMTVCTUJUVUFT BOEPGUIFUFOTJPOTUIFZ give rise to with policy considerations underpinning succession law. The proceedings of the conference will be collected in an edited volume published by Hart Publishing (Oxford).
Amin Benaissa Associate Professor in Classics
$&4VDI IPXFWFS BSFUIFWBHBSJFTPG tradition and transmission that none of the various ancient writers who mention or engage with Apion refers explicitly to this prominent side of his career, and not a single line of his poetry survives. Thanks to the new papyrus, we can reassess the nature of Apion’s fame and impact in BOUJRVJUZBOEBTLOFXRVFTUJPOTBCPVU the relationship between his scholarly and poetic activities. Through an emendation in the text of UIFGPVSUIDFOUVSZIJTUPSJBO"NNJBOVT Marcellinus (17.4.17), I have also argued that Apion should probably be identified with a scholar whom Ammianus cites as the source for the Greek translation of a hieroglyphic inscription on the obelisk in Rome’s Circus Maximus (brought to Rome CZUIFFNQFSPS"VHVTUVTJO#$& OPX in Piazza del Popolo).2 This singular text, XIJDI"NNJBOVTHPFTPOUPRVPUF XBT the only known Greek translation of a hieroglyphic text before the discovery PGUIF3PTFUUB4UPOFJOBOEXBTBO object of scholarly curiosity in the 16th and 17th centuries. It now constitutes our longest extract from Apion’s work. Perhaps papyrus fragments of his poetry remain to be discovered somewhere in the inexhaustible boxes of the Oxyrhynchus collection. 2 ‘Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 17.4.17 and the Translator of the Obelisk in Rome’s Circus Maximus,’ Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 186 (2013) 114–118.
Photo courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society
Part of my research is focused on the edition of unpublished Greek papyri in various collections. These are our oldest TVSWJWJOHNBOVTDSJQUTGSPNBOUJRVJUZ NPTUMZPSJHJOBUJOHGSPN(SBFDP3PNBO &HZQU c. #$&o$&
BOEQSFTFSWF literary texts as well as private and official documents. A couple of years ago I identified a papyrus of more than ordinary interest in the Oxyrhynchus collection at Oxford, which had been overlooked because of its tattered state and the dislocation of some of its fragments. It is a papyrus copy of a public stone inscription recording the honours and awards bestowed on a certain Apion for his victories in several poetry competitions: ‘Apion, son of Posidonius, from the division of Philopator (in Alexandria), grammarian and scholar, who was the first of men to be twice victor in verse in the Circuit (of sacred games), and thrice won UIFTIJFMEQSJ[FJO"SHPT BOEXBTDSPXOFE for a tragedy in Syracuse and at the august contest (in Naples), and took many other crowns, and was the first of poets to
have entered (Alexandria) in triumphal QSPDFTTJPOJOBXIJUFGPVSIPSTFDIBSJPU him his native city honoured with public maintenance in the town hall and a golden crown and a gilded crown of the Circuit … [12 lines poorly preserved] … the performers devoted to Dionysus and the other gods (honoured him) with a statue and a portrait tondo in the temple of Dionysus; in Rome the association of sacred victors from the whole inhabited world and their trainers IPOPVSFEIJN XJUIBTUBUVFBOEBHPME plated portrait tondo … statues of Apion erected(?) in Actium, Olympia, Delphi, the Isthmus, and Nemea; the Syracusans (honoured him) with a public statue and another statue which the people made through individual contributions, and with BHPMEQMBUFETIJFME BOEXJUIBHPMEFO crown (worth) fifty gold pieces, and they presented him with the whole Museum to reside in.’1 This can be none other than the infamous Alexandrian intellectual Apion, who flourished in the first half of the first DFOUVSZ$&"QJPOXBTBEJWJTJWFGJHVSF JOBOUJRVJUZ0OUIFPOFIBOE IFXBT prominent as a scholar: he headed the Alexandrian Museum, taught at Rome, and was admired for his erudition and FMPRVFODFCZBOVNCFSPGMBUFSBVUIPST #VUBTUIFUBSHFUPGUIFMBUFGJSTUDFOUVSZ writer Josephus, in a defence of Judaism posthumously titled Against Apion, he is also notorious as an opponent of the Alexandrian Jews and an exponent of scurrilous accounts of Jewish history and customs in his Aegyptiaca. Others DSJUJDJ[FEIJTPTUFOUBUJPVTTFMGQSPNPUJPO (the emperor Tiberius dubbed him ‘the DZNCBMPGUIFXPSME BOEIJTGBSGFUDIFE ingenuity. Though none of his works survive complete, they included, besides the AegyptiacaJOGJWFCPPLTPO&HZQUJBO wonders, an influential Homeric lexicon, commentaries on several Greek poets, a book on the Roman gourmet Apicius, and a treatise on the Latin language. Strikingly, this is the first time we learn that he was also a poet, and one of SPDLTUBSTUBUVTUPCPPU8FLOPXPG no Greek poet who achieved similar international éclat in this period. The Circuit (periodos) XBTUIFFRVJWBMFOUPG a Grand Slam and implied victory at all the great ‘Panhellenic’ sacred games (apart from the Olympics which did not host poetic contests). The theatrical victory in Syracuse–home to a grand theatre surviving to this day–probably coincided with contests organized in the city by the emperor Caligula in 1 ‘Copy of an Honorific Inscription for the Poetic Victor Apion,’ in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Vol. LXXIX (London 2014) 125–138.
5
Lihat lebih banyak...
Comentários
