Menschen und Tiere in den Kaiserviten Suetons

The ancient biographical tradition, mainly represented by writers such as Nepos, Suetonius, Plutarch and the authors of the Historia Augusta, has been the subject of classical studies for a long time. Most investigations have focused on the analysis of what the extant sources have to say on certain prominent historical figures and the socio-political context in which they occur. In addition, philological studies have examined the narrative structures of biographical texts and have viewed them as literary products, not just as purely historical documents. However, what has been neglected thus far is the exploration of the roles of animals in Graeco-Roman biography, although they are more or less omnipresent and fulfil different functions. This article considers the various relationships between humans and animals, as described in Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which the actions of humans and animals are interwoven in the narrative and what this says about the literary character and intention of the work

Gattungsvielfalt in den Briefen des Jüngeren Plinius: Episteln im Spannungsfeld von ethischer Unter­weisung und literarischer Pluridimensionalität

Dieser Beitrag beleuchtet anhand einiger ausgewählter Beispiele, in welcher Weise Plinius sich die flexible Natur der Epistolographie zunutze macht, um verschiedene etablierte literarische Gattungen in die von ihm gewählte Briefform umzugießen. Besonders aufschlußreich ist dabei, wie er mitunter gleich mehrere Genres in denselben Texten miteinander verbindet. Dies wird anhand einer näheren Betrachtung von Epist. 9,12 gezeigt, in der Elemente aus der Komödie, philosophisch-pädagogischen Lehrschriften und bis zu einem gewissen Grad auch aus der exempla-Literatur verschmelzen und für eine wirksame ethische Unterweisung nutzbar gemacht werden. Darüber hinaus werden weitere Briefe – vor allem Epist. 2,6, 7,26 und 8,22 – in die Untersuchung einbezogen

Introduction

The Introduction surveys scholarly work on letter-writing in the ancient world. While generally of a high standard and often interdisciplinary in nature, bridging such fields as Near Eastern and Jewish Studies, Biblical Studies, Patristics, and Classics, research on ancient epistolography often marginalizes the role of letters in constituting and sustaining communities of various stripes (political, social, ethnic, religious, philosophical). The introduction explores various reasons for this oversight (the overriding importance given to face-to-face communication in public settings, the apparently ‘private’ nature of corresponding via letters, its low rank in the hierarchy of genres, and the marginal status this aspect of letter-writing has in ancient epistolary theory) before outlining why letters played such a vital role in ancient community-building, with an emphasis on long-distance communication, permanence, and the genre’s ideological flexibility and strong pro-social outlook. The second half offers a narrative of the volume, with summaries of its thirteen case studies