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The following articles are in CJ 102.4
PROMETHEUS AND THE BASILEIA
IN ARISTOPHANES’ BIRDS
Carl Anderson and T. Keith DixAbstract: Aristophanes reworks the Prometheus of Prometheus Bound and the account of Peisistratos’ procession to the Acropolis for his own comic purposes.
THE VOX AND VERBA OF AN EMPEROR:
CLAUDIUS, SENECA AND LE PRINCE IDEAL
Josiah OsgoodAbstract: This paper analyzes Seneca’s representation of Claudius’ voice in the Apocolocyntosis, arguing that the emperor’s problems in speaking are humorous, but also constitute a real failing that renders him unsuitable as a princeps. I begin by reviewing the importance attached to physical voice in Rome, and then show how emperors were judged as speakers. Seneca’s satire (which also depicts the voices of Augustus and Nero), it emerges, helps construct an imperial ideal that animates such later works as Suetonius’ Caesars. In a final section I use the philosopher’s De ira to elucidate the ethical significance of Claudius’ irregular speech.
LEO STRAUSS AND THE EUTHYDEMUS
William H.F. AltmanAbstract: On the basis of an “evolving argument in defense of eristics,” Leo Strauss’s Socrates in “On the Euthydemus” takes the brothers’ eristic art seriously and seeks to become their student. Central to Strauss’s argument is the premise, based on Socratic doubts as to whether virtue is teachable, that “wisdom in the proper sense” is impossible. An alternate interpretation of the Euthydemus suggests that Plato’s Socrates is practicing the art of reproducing wisdom by teaching virtue to Ctesippus. The contrast between these interpretations distinguishes Strauss’s intentions from Plato’s.
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