The most common definitions of popular culture suffer from a presentist bias and cannot be applied to pre-industrial and pre-capitalist societies. A survey reveals serious conceptual difficulties as well. We may, however, gain insight in two ways. 1) By moving from a Marxist model to a more Weberian approach . 2) By looking to Bourdieu’s “cultural capital” and Danto’s and Dickie’s “Institutional Theory of Art,” and defining popular culture as “unauthorized culture.”.

Why were the Vestals virgins? An explanation drawing on anthropological studies of witchcraft and the work of Giovannini, Girard, and Douglas allows a partial solution to this and three other puzzles: 1) their unique legal status; 2) their murder at moments of political crisis; 3) the odd details of those murders. The untouched body of the Vestal Virgin is a metonymy for the untouched city of Rome. Her unique legal status frees her from all family ties so that she can (...) incarnate the collective. Thus, in times of crisis, she serves as a pharmakos/pharmakon. Equally, Roman society reveals a deep fear of witchcraft directed at its own matrons. Danger to the urbs is warded off by the punishment of women, both Vestals and wives, and the foundation of public cults of chastity with admonitory and apotropaic functions. A series of incidents over a thousand-year span reveals a world view deeply rooted in sympathetic magic, where the women embody the state and their inviolability is objectified as the inviolability of the community. (shrink)

The idea that ‘Horace repeatedly puns on his name’ has recently sprung up again. Flaccus we are told means ‘limp’ and Horace uses his name to make various jokes about impotence. This is a load of cobblers.

An eleventh-century manuscript in the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence preserves a short excerpt of a calendar outlining stages in the development of the foetus. It is headed Δαμναστού έκ τού Περί κυουσών καί βρεΦών θεραπείας, ‘Damnastes, from On the Care of Pregnant Women and of Infants’. Though its existence has long been noted, it has not been previously edited or published.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.4 (2000) 559-570 [Access article in PDF] Horace Epodes 11.15-18: What's Shame Got To Do With It? Holt N. Parker HORACE RECALLS how in his cups he cried on the shoulder of his friend Pettius about the affair he was having with Inachia: quod si meis inaestuet praecordiis libera bilis, ut haec ingrata ventis dividat fomenta volnus nil malum levantia, desinet imparibus certare Ýsummotus pudorÝ. (...) 1 If my bile ever boils up free in my heart, so as to scatter to the winds these useless poultices which do nothing to alleviate the pain of my evil wound, shame removed will stop trying to contend with those who are unequal. Or so at least the text seems to be saying. It is one of those passages that almost seem to make sense. 2 The explanations proffered have sometimes been equally difficult to understand. The problem seems to lie in fixing the meaning of pudor. There are two main schools of thought, corresponding to the two main senses of pudor: as Scham "a feeling of shame, a sense of embarrassment," or as Schande "a source of shame, a reason for embarrassment." Recently Mankin suggested reading furor instead of pudor as "another possibility" (1995, 292). I would like to add some arguments that this is indeed the correct reading. [End Page 559]The main problem with the transmitted text is that none of the attempts to give a meaning to pudor manages to deal with the implications of line 18. The problem can be made clearer by restating it: if "shame," once it is removed (summotus pudor), will result in Horace ceasing to fight against his rivals (desinet imparibus certare), 3 this can only mean that pudor (in whatever sense) must now be still in operation and that pudor (in whatever sense) is the cause of Horace continuing to fight against his rivals. 4 But it is difficult to see how this is supposed to work. What sense of "shame" can cause one to take up an unequal battle?The first interpretation, pudor as Scham, goes back at least to Lambinus in 1561 (1829 ed., 490-91), who rather laboriously paraphrased the passage as desinam impudenter cum potentioribus contendere, vel pudebit me non cedere superioribus, vel desinam summoto et deposito pudore certare cum adversariis meis, qui plus apud te pretio et pecunia possunt.... summotus pudor, id est, impudentia desinet certare cum aemulis me superioribus, proinde ac si ita dicat, desinam usque eo esse impudens, ut certem cum superioribus. 5 So too Desprez ([1694] 1825, 218): non amplius Inachiae procaci me summittam pudens nimium; and Orelli (1850, I 706): ut exsecrari ipse possim vanas spes et querelas.The problem with this line of reasoning is that it makes pudor mean the exact opposite of what the situation requires: summotus pudor is made to mean impudentia, but the summotus is left in place. 6 [End Page 560] Horace is made to say: "Before I was impudent, now I am humble. I had no sense of shame, no sense of the realities of the situation. I have been too proud, thinking that I had a chance. Now I will cease my impudence and just give up." That is, Horace had started the affair with a mistaken sense of pride. However, this reading really needs Horace to have written impudentia summota, "once my brazenness has been removed," then I will act sensibly.In a development of this reading, Horace does not want to end the affair out of a mistaken sense of pride, shading off into a mere desire not to be beaten. The lurking military metaphor of certare is brought to the fore. Horace is made to say, "I would have long ago given up this unequal fight but for a sense of shame." So Mitscherlich (1800, II 575): ego haud erubescam palam ipsis concedere; Baxter (1815, 290): pudor, h.e., mea dignitas; Döring (1826, 274): ego, quem ante, se prae ditioribus contemni, pudebat; Kiessling (1884, 375): "the feeling of shame which now keeps him... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plautus vs. Terence: Audience and Popularity Re-ExaminedHolt N. Parker Ich seh’, die Philologen, sie haben dich, so wie sich selbst betrogen.—Goethe, Faust II, 7426–27The cliché that Plautus was boffo at the box office while Terence was an aesthetic snob kept alive only through a series of NEA grants seems ineradicable. Since the most recent book on Plautus once again bases much of its argument on this old chestnut, it (...) seems necessary to correct the widespread myth. 1 The ancient testimonia are unambiguous and will, I trust, put an end once and for all to this false picture.I. PlautusThere is exactly one piece of direct evidence about Plautus’ popularity during his lifetime. The prologue for the revival of Casina 2 states that this is a play (14): quam vos probastis qui estis in senioribus and (17): haec cum primum acta est, vicit omnis fabulas. 3 Admittedly, this is not necessarily first-person testimony, but it certainly implies that Casina, at least, had been a hit at its original performance. That is it. The endlessly repeated statements calling Plautus “the most successful comic writer of antiquity” 4 rest on nothing else. [End Page 585]Career and BackersOther than this single passage, the following have been used as evidence of Plautus’ success:Plautus wrote at least twenty-one plays, almost certainly those we now have, which were held to be his consensu omnium (Gell. 3.3.3). 5 There were probably some others which we do not have. 6 This implies a career with some degree of popularity, although over how long a period we do not know. 7 However, applying the same criterion (number of plays) with the same uncertainty (length of time), we have thirty-four titles of comedies for Naevius, forty-two for Caecilius, the same number of fabulae togatae from Afranius, and forty-three mimes from Laberius.Plautus was associated with T. Publilius Pellio for Stichus (didasc.; 200 B.C.), Menaechmi (404), 8 Epidicus (Bacch. 214–15), and probably Bacchides itself. 9 Though we have no idea how long the association lasted, Pellio’s presence in at least three plays seems to imply some form of standing relation. This in turn implies that Pellio had faith in Plautus’ popularity and that, if Pellio stuck with him for a while, his faith was justified. This association, however, allows us to infer no more about his popularity from play to play than does the steady backing of L. Ambivius Turpio for Caecilius and Terence (Hec. 14–27; see below).The only other didascalic notice for Plautus says that Pseudolus was presented at the Ludi Megalenses in 191 B.C. under M. Junius Brutus (cos. 178, RE 48), the city praetor. These were the games at which the temple of the Magna Mater was dedicated. 10 E. Fraenkel argues that [End Page 586] Plautus’ selection for such an event means that he, “a quell’epoca era considerato da giudici competenti il migliore commediografo di Roma.” 11 Rather, it means that Plautus was considered one of the best. 12 Plautus was not the only playwright presented. 13Revivals and ReputationThere is also evidence from the period after Plautus: Great stress has been laid on the fact that Plautus’ plays were given revivals. The problem lies in the word “revival,” which is used anachronistically to invoke an image of modern long runs, usually assumed to have taken place during the poet’s lifetime. 14 The best evidence for these revivals is Cas. 5–22. 15 Careful reading, however, reveals several things (11–15):nos postquam populi rumore intelleximus studiose expetere vos Plautinas fabulas, antiquam eius edimus comoediam, quam vos probastis qui estis in senioribus; nam iuniorum qui sunt non norunt, scio.After we learned from the talk of the people that you were eagerly longing for plays by Plautus, we have produced an old play of his, [End Page 587] which you approved, you who are in the older generation, for those who are younger don’t know it, I’m sure.Not only is there no evidence for any repetition during the poet’s lifetime, the passage states explicitly that Plautus, far from having... (shrink)