The tradition concerning the regal period of Roman history which we can read in Livy is filled with calques inherited from Greek literature. Among them quotations from Herodotus' Historiae and from Greek topica regarding tyrants do stand out, and yet on occasions we appear to be dealing with pre-Hellenic mythological archetypes, already known by the Near-East cultures. The present work is a concise survey of the literary parallels between Roman tradition and the Graeco-Oriental legends, without investigating the causes and the responsibility for the phenomenon of the calques, a very complex question indeed, which would deserve a wider discussion and which I for my part have already dealt with in a recent study.

Literary archetypes for the regal period, in in B. Mineo (ed. by) A Companion to Livy, Malden Ma. 2014 (Wiley-Blackwell)

SCAPINI, Marianna
2014-01-01

Abstract

The tradition concerning the regal period of Roman history which we can read in Livy is filled with calques inherited from Greek literature. Among them quotations from Herodotus' Historiae and from Greek topica regarding tyrants do stand out, and yet on occasions we appear to be dealing with pre-Hellenic mythological archetypes, already known by the Near-East cultures. The present work is a concise survey of the literary parallels between Roman tradition and the Graeco-Oriental legends, without investigating the causes and the responsibility for the phenomenon of the calques, a very complex question indeed, which would deserve a wider discussion and which I for my part have already dealt with in a recent study.
2014
978-1-118-30128-9
Greek and Roman tragedy, Livy's sources, Roman historiography
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/928933
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact