Mathias Hanses
Biographic Data
| ID | 4682313 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mathias Hanses |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mathias |
| FAMILY NAME | Hanses |
| SIGNATURE | HANSES M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3952-2474 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Race and Slavery in Roman Comedy
This chapter examines a form of racialization at Rome that declared certain non-Romans to be innately suitable to enslavement. In an instance of racecraft through stagecraft, Roman comedy contributed to the naturalisation of this noxious ideology by presenting a cast of characters whose visual appearance and social or legal status corresponds directly to predictable sets of character traits. At the same time, the enslaved and freed themselves wro…
The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race
Race as a concept has had a fraught role in the history of Classics, woven into its formation as an academic discipline. While the texts and artefacts of the ancient Mediterranean world provide complex understandings of what race might mean and how it might operate, they have also provided fodder for modern racial ideologies. This Companion offers a wide-ranging and groundbreaking overview of 'race' and 'racism' in ancient Mediterranean cultures …
Caesar—Lucan—Addison
This paper examines the complex entanglement of ancient sources and modern concerns in the racist portrayal of Numidians in the 1778 staging of Joseph Addison's Cato at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The analysis proceeds in three interconnected case studies, all related to the African ‘theatre’ of the Roman civil war of 49–46 Bce: (1) the racializing presentation of King Juba I and his Numidian cavalry in the Caesarian corpus (especially the pseudo…
Publilius Syrus and the Maw of Luxury
This paper provides a literary analysis of the longest fragment of the mimes of Publilius Syrus (fr. 3–18 R = 241–56 Bonaria), understanding it to be expressing the views of a formerly enslaved man during Julius Caesar's dictatorship. Abstract: Ce chapitre propose une analyse littéraire du plus long fragment des mimes de Publilius Syrus (fr. 3–18 R = 241–56 Bonaria), qu'il comprend comme l'expression des opinions d'un homme précédemment réduit en…
Africa ipsa parens
Following recent developments in the scholarship on premodern racial formation, the present article examines Cicero's racializing representations of Sardinian provincials in the Pro Scauro (54 b.c.e.). In this speech, Cicero defends Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, former governor of Sardinia, against charges of provincial mismanagement. In order to secure Scaurus's acquittal, Cicero portrays the Sardi as a distinct and "deficient" genus , characterized …
Epicurus in Rome
The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily (although not exclusively) on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosophe…
Epicurus in Rome
The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily (although not exclusively) on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosophe…
Ovid and the Magic Doll
This paper explores the depiction of magic in Amores 3.7, an elegy in which "Ovid" suffers from impotence and wonders if a witch is to be blamed for his predicament. Adding to existing metapoetic readings, I argue that the poem combines allusions to famous witches from earlier Greco-Roman literature with detailed evocations of actual rites that are familiar to us from the material record, such as the piercing of magic dolls and the casting of bin…
The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence
The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence documents the ongoing popularity of Roman comedies, and shows that they continued to be performed in the late Republic and early Imperial periods of Rome. Playwrights Plautus and Terence impressed audiences with stock characters as the young-man-in-love, the trickster slave, the greedy pimp, the prostitute, and many others. A wide range of spectators visited Roman theaters, including even …
Men among Monuments
The description of Roman life at Plautus Curculio 462–86 is commonly treated as a straightforward guide meant to help the reader or spectator identify buildings and characters in the mid-Republican Forum. Relying on recent scholarship on Roman memory, this article argues instead that the choragus who speaks the monologue creates a contrast between buildings associated with grandiose historical events and comedic characters who flock around the st…
Love’s Letters
The Pun and the Moon in the Sky
Aratus has been notorious for his wordplay since the first decades of his reception. Hellenistic readers such as Callimachus, Leonidas, or ‘King Ptolemy’ seem to have picked up on the pun on the author's own name at Phaenomena 2, as well as on the famous λεπτή acrostic at Phaen. 783–6 that will be revisited here. Three carefully placed occurrences of the adjective have so far been uncovered in the passage, but for a full appreciation of its elega…
The Pun and the Moon in the Sky
Aratus has been notorious for his wordplay since the first decades of his reception. Hellenistic readers such as Callimachus, Leonidas, or ‘King Ptolemy’ seem to have picked up on the pun on the author's own name at Phaenomena 2, as well as on the famous λεπτή acrostic at Phaen. 783–6 that will be revisited here. Three carefully placed occurrences of the adjective have so far been uncovered in the passage, but for a full appreciation of its elega…
Africa ipsa parens
Following recent developments in the scholarship on premodern racial formation, the present article examines Cicero's racializing representations of Sardinian provincials in the Pro Scauro (54 b.c.e.). In this speech, Cicero defends Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, former governor of Sardinia, against charges of provincial mismanagement. In order to secure Scaurus's acquittal, Cicero portrays the Sardi as a distinct and "deficient" genus , characterized …
Ovid and the Magic Doll
This paper explores the depiction of magic in Amores 3.7, an elegy in which "Ovid" suffers from impotence and wonders if a witch is to be blamed for his predicament. Adding to existing metapoetic readings, I argue that the poem combines allusions to famous witches from earlier Greco-Roman literature with detailed evocations of actual rites that are familiar to us from the material record, such as the piercing of magic dolls and the casting of bin…
The Pun and the Moon in the Sky
Aratus has been notorious for his wordplay since the first decades of his reception. Hellenistic readers such as Callimachus, Leonidas, or ‘King Ptolemy’ seem to have picked up on the pun on the author's own name at Phaenomena 2, as well as on the famous λεπτή acrostic at Phaen. 783–6 that will be revisited here. Three carefully placed occurrences of the adjective have so far been uncovered in the passage, but for a full appreciation of its elega…
Love’s Letters
The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence
The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence documents the ongoing popularity of Roman comedies, and shows that they continued to be performed in the late Republic and early Imperial periods of Rome. Playwrights Plautus and Terence impressed audiences with stock characters as the young-man-in-love, the trickster slave, the greedy pimp, the prostitute, and many others. A wide range of spectators visited Roman theaters, including even …
Men among Monuments
The description of Roman life at Plautus Curculio 462–86 is commonly treated as a straightforward guide meant to help the reader or spectator identify buildings and characters in the mid-Republican Forum. Relying on recent scholarship on Roman memory, this article argues instead that the choragus who speaks the monologue creates a contrast between buildings associated with grandiose historical events and comedic characters who flock around the st…
Epicurus in Rome
The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily (although not exclusively) on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosophe…
Ovid and the Magic Doll
This paper explores the depiction of magic in Amores 3.7, an elegy in which "Ovid" suffers from impotence and wonders if a witch is to be blamed for his predicament. Adding to existing metapoetic readings, I argue that the poem combines allusions to famous witches from earlier Greco-Roman literature with detailed evocations of actual rites that are familiar to us from the material record, such as the piercing of magic dolls and the casting of bin…
Epicurus in Rome
The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily (although not exclusively) on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosophe…
Africa ipsa parens
Following recent developments in the scholarship on premodern racial formation, the present article examines Cicero's racializing representations of Sardinian provincials in the Pro Scauro (54 b.c.e.). In this speech, Cicero defends Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, former governor of Sardinia, against charges of provincial mismanagement. In order to secure Scaurus's acquittal, Cicero portrays the Sardi as a distinct and "deficient" genus , characterized …
Publilius Syrus and the Maw of Luxury
This paper provides a literary analysis of the longest fragment of the mimes of Publilius Syrus (fr. 3–18 R = 241–56 Bonaria), understanding it to be expressing the views of a formerly enslaved man during Julius Caesar's dictatorship. Abstract: Ce chapitre propose une analyse littéraire du plus long fragment des mimes de Publilius Syrus (fr. 3–18 R = 241–56 Bonaria), qu'il comprend comme l'expression des opinions d'un homme précédemment réduit en…
Race and Slavery in Roman Comedy
This chapter examines a form of racialization at Rome that declared certain non-Romans to be innately suitable to enslavement. In an instance of racecraft through stagecraft, Roman comedy contributed to the naturalisation of this noxious ideology by presenting a cast of characters whose visual appearance and social or legal status corresponds directly to predictable sets of character traits. At the same time, the enslaved and freed themselves wro…
The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race
Race as a concept has had a fraught role in the history of Classics, woven into its formation as an academic discipline. While the texts and artefacts of the ancient Mediterranean world provide complex understandings of what race might mean and how it might operate, they have also provided fodder for modern racial ideologies. This Companion offers a wide-ranging and groundbreaking overview of 'race' and 'racism' in ancient Mediterranean cultures …
Caesar—Lucan—Addison
This paper examines the complex entanglement of ancient sources and modern concerns in the racist portrayal of Numidians in the 1778 staging of Joseph Addison's Cato at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The analysis proceeds in three interconnected case studies, all related to the African ‘theatre’ of the Roman civil war of 49–46 Bce: (1) the racializing presentation of King Juba I and his Numidian cavalry in the Caesarian corpus (especially the pseudo…
Classical Antiquity Studies (11 works) · Art (8 works) · History (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Classics (4 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (4 works) · Cicero (3 works) · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome (3 works) · Race (biology) (3 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (2 works)