The Epic Vantage-Point

Roman Historiographical Allusion Reconsidered

Bibliographic Data

ID9307327
AuthorsJackie Elliott (corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume9
Publication date2015-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2046-5963 • E-ISSN: 2046-5963
PublisherUniversity of Alberta Libraries (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.29173/histos293
OpenAlexW4402503863
LanguageEN
Citations received12

This paper makes the case that Roman epic and Roman historiographical allusive practices are worth examining in light of each other, given the close relationship between the two genres and their common goal of offering their audiences access to the past. Ennius’ Annales will here serve as epic’s representative, despite its fragmentary state: the fact that the epic shares its subject-matter with and pre-dates most of the Roman historiographical tradition as we know it suggests that the poem may have had a significant role in setting the terms on which the two genres interacted at Rome; and what the first surviving generation of its readers, as principally represented by Cicero, have to say about the epic rather confirms that suggestion (§I). Points of contact between the genres on which the paper focuses are: extended repetition of passages recognisable from previous authors (§II); allusion that is contested among the speakers of a given text (§III); citation practices (§IV); and the recurrence of recognisable material stemming from the Annales in the historiographical tradition’s latter-day, when all sense of that material’s original context has been lost, along with its ability to generate new meaning (§V)

Allusion · Archaeology · Art · EPIC · Geometry · Historiography · Literature · Point (geometry · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Mathematics

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Open DOIOpen Access