Gorąco zachęcamy wszystkich zainteresowanych do wzięcia udziału w zajęciach prof. Bardo Marii Gauly'ego z Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, które odbędą się w ramach programu Erasmus dnia 5 czerwca b.r. Językiem zajęć będzie angielski.
Pierwsze zajęcia, zatytułowane "Comets in Roman poetry", odbędą się o godz. 11.30 w sali 406. Zajęcia drugie "The Nile and the borders of the Empire. The world of Rome in the literature of the Early Empire" odbędą się o godz. 15.00 w sali 223.
Streszczenia wystąpień
Comets in Roman poetry
For the Romans comets were prodigia, natural phenomena that indicate divine wrath so that man confronted with them is bound to reconcile the gods. This is the regular attitude to comets in Roman poetry, too. However, two poetic texts do not conform to it: The first one comes near the end of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (15,745-870) and speaks about the Sidus Iulium, the star (or comet) to be seen during the funeral games for Iulius Cesar – a phenomenon that immediately raised questions about its nature and meaning. The second one forms part of Manilius’s didactic poem on astronomy and astrology (1,809-926). Since he is explaining the celestial phenomena in a Stoic manner, we expect him to depict comets as part of an orderly cosmos. But, as we will see, this is not the case. So let us read these texts together and try to come to terms with their ambiguous ways to discuss this curious phenomenon.
The Nile and the borders of the Empire. The world of Rome in the literature of the Early Empire
Virgil’s Iuppiter had promised an imperium sine fine to Rome, an empire without spatial or temporal limits (Aeneid 1,278f.). This conception is put to test in Lucan’s epic on the civil war between Cesar and Pompey, in which the literal and metaphorical crossing of frontiers lead to a war that is interpreted as a world war. By deploying the destructive potential of this war the narration at least suggests the possibility of a new world beyond the Roman Empire. Thus Lucan reveals the inherent weakness of Virgil’s conception of history which left the question unanswered what should come after Augustus’s reign which is seen as the culmination of Roman history in the Aeneid. The lecture discusses how Lucan deals with the current problems concerning the unity of empire and cosmos in the so-called Nile excursus in the tenth book of his epic (10,172-331).
