Giuseppe La Bua
Biographic Data
| ID | 5635386 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Giuseppe La Bua |
| GIVEN NAMES | Giuseppe |
| FAMILY NAME | La Bua |
| SIGNATURE | LA BUA G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sapienza University of Rome |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Forging the Enemy
This paper explores the interconnection of fakeness, invective, and politics in the collection of the Panegyrici Latini and the imperial biographies known as the Historia Augusta. It shows that late rhetoricians and historians intermingled blame devices and fake narratives to demolish the moral and political authority of “bad” emperors and usurpers. It also demonstrates that fakeness played a key role in the subjective, ideologically oriented, re…
Deceptive Oratory
This paper draws attention to Sinon’s speech in Book 2 of the Aeneid as a specimen of deceptive oratory, profoundly indebted to Cicero’s rhetorical and political manipulation of exilic topoi. It also points to the association of Sinon and Cicero as masters of dissimulatio in rhetorical theory in Late Antiquity. Although the comparison between Sinon and Cicero may have originated in anti-Ciceronian propaganda, Vergil’s depiction of Sinon as a “Cic…
Portraying Cicero in Literature, Culture, and Politics
Cicero’s novitas has elicited different reactions throughout the centuries. Starting from a re-examination of a passage of Velleius Paterculus (2, 128, 1-4), a celebration of a notion of nobilitas founded on moral and political virtues, this paper revisits the role played by Cicero homo novus in the formation of a new, modern ideology of nobility. It argues that the status of Cicero as ‘new man’ and ‘new nobilis’ impacted on later reflections on …
Teaching the death of elegy
A compact unit of elegiac poems, the Lygdamus cycle ([Tib.] 3.1–6) recounts the end of the lover-poet’s affair with Neaera. Through a fictional account of his story, from the initial dedication of his libellus ([Tib.] 3.1) and the ‘celebration’ of his soon-to-be death ([Tib.] 3.2), to a visitation from Apollo ([Tib. 3.4]) and the closing hymn to Bacchus ([Tib.] 3.6), Lygdamus displays the credentials of a poeta-amator and provides lovers with a s…
Cicero and Roman Education
Cicero saw publication as a means of perpetuating a distinctive image of himself as statesman and orator. He memorialized his spiritual and oratorical self by means of a very solid body of texts. Educationalists and schoolteachers in antiquity relied on Cicero's oratory to supervise the growth of the young into intellectual maturity. By reconstructing the main phases of textual transmission, from the first authorial dissemination of the speeches …
Intratextual Readings in Ovid’s Heroides
Starting from the so-called Sabinus-elegy, Ovid’s Amores 2.18, this paper focuses on intratextual connections between the single love-letters, the fifteen fictional epistles imagined as written by female heroines lamenting abandon from the men they loved, Heroides 1-15, and the double epistles, letters from male heroes paired with replies from loved women, Heroides 16-21. It also argues that Helen (Her. 17), a very intratextual character, exploit…
Late Ciceronian Scholarship and Virgilian Exegesis
Late Antiquity witnessed intense scholarly activity on Virgil's poems. Aelius Donatus’ commentary, the twelve-book Interpretationes Vergilianae composed by the fourth-century or fifth-century rhetorician Tiberius Claudius Donatus and other sets of scholia testify to the richness of late ‘Virgilian literature’. Servius’ full-scale commentary on Virgil's poetry (early fifth century) marked a watershed in the history of the reception of Virgil and i…
Quo Usque Tandem Cantherium Patiemur Istum? (Apul. Met. 3.27)
Shortly after his accidental transformation into an ass, Lucius attempts to return to his human form by grabbing some roses decorating a statue of the patron goddess of the quadrupeds, Epona. But his servulus feels outraged at the sacrilegious act. Jumping to his feet in a temper and acting as a faithful defender of the sacred place, he addresses his former human owner as a new ‘Catiline’ (Apul. Met. 3.27): Quod me pessima scilicet sorte conantem…
Mastering Oratory
The playful manipulation of ritual, literary, and legal elements marks the Festival of Laughter in Book 3 of the Metamorphoses (1–11) as one of the most innovative episodes of Apuleius’ novel. This article examines the rhetorical and judicial strategy adopted by the prosecutor and the defendant in the mock-trial. It also argues that Lucius’ defense speech is modeled on Cicero’s Pro Milone . By revitalizing the portrait of Cicero acting in defense…
Patronage and Education in Third-Century Gaul
Eumenius' Panegyric for the Restoration of the Schools (9/4), delivered at Autun or Lyon in 297/298 CE, stands out against the other Latin Panegyrics as a "pedagogical" speech. Eumenius urges the emperors to rebuild the once flourishing rhetoric schools, known as Maenianae, ruined during the sack of the city in 270; focusing on the "cultural" and "political" message involved in the restoration of the school buildings, the panegyrist puts forward …
Laus deorum e strutture inniche nei Panegirici latini di etá imperiale
Latin prose Panegyrics are a fourth-century product of Gallic rhetorical schools; they celebrate the emperor's virtues by widely employing structures and topoi commonly associated with epideictic theory and practice. This paper explores the presence of hymnic features within the corpus of the Latin Panegyrics. The following passages are investigated: 1) the celebration of Diocletian and Maximian as Iovius and Herculius in Panegyrics 10(2).1–6 and…
Patronage and Education in Third-Century Gaul
Eumenius' Panegyric for the Restoration of the Schools (9/4), delivered at Autun or Lyon in 297/298 CE, stands out against the other Latin Panegyrics as a "pedagogical" speech. Eumenius urges the emperors to rebuild the once flourishing rhetoric schools, known as Maenianae, ruined during the sack of the city in 270; focusing on the "cultural" and "political" message involved in the restoration of the school buildings, the panegyrist puts forward …
Cicero and Roman Education
Cicero saw publication as a means of perpetuating a distinctive image of himself as statesman and orator. He memorialized his spiritual and oratorical self by means of a very solid body of texts. Educationalists and schoolteachers in antiquity relied on Cicero's oratory to supervise the growth of the young into intellectual maturity. By reconstructing the main phases of textual transmission, from the first authorial dissemination of the speeches …
Laus deorum e strutture inniche nei Panegirici latini di etá imperiale
Latin prose Panegyrics are a fourth-century product of Gallic rhetorical schools; they celebrate the emperor's virtues by widely employing structures and topoi commonly associated with epideictic theory and practice. This paper explores the presence of hymnic features within the corpus of the Latin Panegyrics. The following passages are investigated: 1) the celebration of Diocletian and Maximian as Iovius and Herculius in Panegyrics 10(2).1–6 and…
Patronage and Education in Third-Century Gaul
Eumenius' Panegyric for the Restoration of the Schools (9/4), delivered at Autun or Lyon in 297/298 CE, stands out against the other Latin Panegyrics as a "pedagogical" speech. Eumenius urges the emperors to rebuild the once flourishing rhetoric schools, known as Maenianae, ruined during the sack of the city in 270; focusing on the "cultural" and "political" message involved in the restoration of the school buildings, the panegyrist puts forward …
Quo Usque Tandem Cantherium Patiemur Istum? (Apul. Met. 3.27)
Shortly after his accidental transformation into an ass, Lucius attempts to return to his human form by grabbing some roses decorating a statue of the patron goddess of the quadrupeds, Epona. But his servulus feels outraged at the sacrilegious act. Jumping to his feet in a temper and acting as a faithful defender of the sacred place, he addresses his former human owner as a new ‘Catiline’ (Apul. Met. 3.27): Quod me pessima scilicet sorte conantem…
Mastering Oratory
The playful manipulation of ritual, literary, and legal elements marks the Festival of Laughter in Book 3 of the Metamorphoses (1–11) as one of the most innovative episodes of Apuleius’ novel. This article examines the rhetorical and judicial strategy adopted by the prosecutor and the defendant in the mock-trial. It also argues that Lucius’ defense speech is modeled on Cicero’s Pro Milone . By revitalizing the portrait of Cicero acting in defense…
Intratextual Readings in Ovid’s Heroides
Starting from the so-called Sabinus-elegy, Ovid’s Amores 2.18, this paper focuses on intratextual connections between the single love-letters, the fifteen fictional epistles imagined as written by female heroines lamenting abandon from the men they loved, Heroides 1-15, and the double epistles, letters from male heroes paired with replies from loved women, Heroides 16-21. It also argues that Helen (Her. 17), a very intratextual character, exploit…
Late Ciceronian Scholarship and Virgilian Exegesis
Late Antiquity witnessed intense scholarly activity on Virgil's poems. Aelius Donatus’ commentary, the twelve-book Interpretationes Vergilianae composed by the fourth-century or fifth-century rhetorician Tiberius Claudius Donatus and other sets of scholia testify to the richness of late ‘Virgilian literature’. Servius’ full-scale commentary on Virgil's poetry (early fifth century) marked a watershed in the history of the reception of Virgil and i…
Cicero and Roman Education
Cicero saw publication as a means of perpetuating a distinctive image of himself as statesman and orator. He memorialized his spiritual and oratorical self by means of a very solid body of texts. Educationalists and schoolteachers in antiquity relied on Cicero's oratory to supervise the growth of the young into intellectual maturity. By reconstructing the main phases of textual transmission, from the first authorial dissemination of the speeches …
Teaching the death of elegy
A compact unit of elegiac poems, the Lygdamus cycle ([Tib.] 3.1–6) recounts the end of the lover-poet’s affair with Neaera. Through a fictional account of his story, from the initial dedication of his libellus ([Tib.] 3.1) and the ‘celebration’ of his soon-to-be death ([Tib.] 3.2), to a visitation from Apollo ([Tib. 3.4]) and the closing hymn to Bacchus ([Tib.] 3.6), Lygdamus displays the credentials of a poeta-amator and provides lovers with a s…
Portraying Cicero in Literature, Culture, and Politics
Cicero’s novitas has elicited different reactions throughout the centuries. Starting from a re-examination of a passage of Velleius Paterculus (2, 128, 1-4), a celebration of a notion of nobilitas founded on moral and political virtues, this paper revisits the role played by Cicero homo novus in the formation of a new, modern ideology of nobility. It argues that the status of Cicero as ‘new man’ and ‘new nobilis’ impacted on later reflections on …
Forging the Enemy
This paper explores the interconnection of fakeness, invective, and politics in the collection of the Panegyrici Latini and the imperial biographies known as the Historia Augusta. It shows that late rhetoricians and historians intermingled blame devices and fake narratives to demolish the moral and political authority of “bad” emperors and usurpers. It also demonstrates that fakeness played a key role in the subjective, ideologically oriented, re…
Deceptive Oratory
This paper draws attention to Sinon’s speech in Book 2 of the Aeneid as a specimen of deceptive oratory, profoundly indebted to Cicero’s rhetorical and political manipulation of exilic topoi. It also points to the association of Sinon and Cicero as masters of dissimulatio in rhetorical theory in Late Antiquity. Although the comparison between Sinon and Cicero may have originated in anti-Ciceronian propaganda, Vergil’s depiction of Sinon as a “Cic…
Classical Antiquity Studies (11 works) · Art (10 works) · Literature (9 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Law (5 works) · Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods (5 works) · Cicero (4 works) · Classics (4 works) · Classics (4 works) · History (4 works)