Auctores, ‘scuole’, multilinguismo: forme della circolazione e delle pratiche del latino nell’Egitto predioclezianeo

In such a multilingual and multicultural environment as Egypt, Latin language and literature are known to have circulated between I BC and VII AD. Different aims shaped the circulation of the language, as Latin moved from being the language of the army to that of law: Diocletian’s reforms gave new inputs towards an intensification of teaching and learning Latin, causing a restyling of already attested practices and the same themes (and auctores) known in Egypt since the I BC kept circulating in new forms. Vergil is an example: as far as we know, Vergil’s hexameters were one of the mainly favorite subject of the exercitationes scribendi till the III AD (e.g.: P.Tebt. II 686) and no Vergilian bilingual Latin-Greek glossaries are known before the IV AD. Through an analysis of Latin literary texts on papyrus (I BC-III AD) and focussing on learning Latin as secondlanguage (L2), this paper aims to highlight the knowledge we have of the forms of circulation and practices of Latin in Egypt

Significans vox (Anon. gramm. ~ P.Lond. Lit. II 184 ll. 6-7)

Showing an awareness of the distinction between vox articulata and vox inarticulata, the anonymous grammarian of the fragmentary Latin Ars contained in P.Lond. Lit. II 184 + P.Mich. VII 429 (second/third century AD) employs the concept of significans vox in his definition of dictio. The passage is analysed here in its relation to other grammatical contexts and to their possible sources: the contacts between the anonymous Ars of Karanis and the orthographical treatise by Velius Longus as well as those with the later grammar by Marius Victorinus open up several possible links between these respective texts, and may contribute to a hypothetical reconstruction of the author of this fragmentary Latin grammatical treatise contained in P.Lond. Lit. II 184 + P.Mich. VII 429

Seneca the Elder and his rediscovered ›Historiae ab initio bellorum civilium‹ New perspectives on early imperial-Roman Historiography

This is the first volume dedicated exclusively to the historiographical work by Seneca the Elder, after the recent discovery of a fragmentary roll from Herculaneum bearing traces of his Historiae. Contributions not only focus on the discovery of the papyrus roll, but also offer a broader view on early-imperial Roman historiography, to which the new perspectives opened by the rediscovery of Seneca the Elder’s Historiae greatly contribute

Papyri and LAtin Texts: INsights and Updates Methodologies. Towards a philological, literary, historical approach to Latin papyri (PLATINUM Project - ERC-StG 2014 no.636983)

An in-depth examination of the contribution of Latin texts on papyrus may lead to whole chapters of Roman linguistic, literary, educational, cultural and social history being rewritten. This is because as a result of the well-established boundaries that have arisen between these disciplines, the documents in question represent a domain scholars have not previously tapped to its full potential –despite the fact that such texts provide us with both a broad diachronic perspective (running from the first BCE to the eighth century CE) and an extensive diatopic view (covering Rome and its provinces) to explore the actual circulation and development of Latin language and literature and to offer new insights into the differing attitudes of the Greeks and the Romans towards learning and getting to grips with a second language. They represent commentaries on society and culture in the wider Mediterranean sphere, for writing transmits culture, allows the transmission of knowledge between generations, and engineers the operations of complex bureaucracies

Testi latini su papiro e lessicografia. In margine ad un contributo possibile al Thesaurus Linguae Latinae

Il contributo offre una riflessione metodologica sul contributo che alla lessicografia può venire dai testi latini trasmessi su papiro e, in particolare, dai testi letterari non altrimenti noti dalla tradizione manoscritta. Come per i testi integralmente schedati al fine della compilazione degli articoli del Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, il limite cronologico è fissato all’età degli Antonini, e dei testi viene attraversata una serie di problemi che enfatizzano la necessità di un rinnovato approccio. Dei testi vengono, inoltre, proposte delle nuove sigle che, seguendo in linea di principio i criteri del ThLL, tentano di uniformare l’oscillazione onomastica registrata nel ThLL stesso e, soprattutto, di richiamare l’attenzione su questi testimoni in quanto testi da sottoporre in modo ulteriormente critico all’attenzione della comunità scientifica

Per frustula ad commentaria: in margine a un testimone tardoantico dell’Andria e al suo contributo alla tradizione dell’esegesi terenziana

The article offers an in-depth examination of traces of anonymous readers intervening on a Late Antique fragmentary Andria from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. XXIV 2401; IV-V AD). On one side, Greek annotations over Latin words play a key-role in analyzing 1. how the text of Terence was adapted by an audience which did not have Latin as mother-language, and 2. how such annotations were not mechanical but exegetical translations, which open new scenarios on possibile bilingual Greek-Latin scholastic tools. On the other side, some Latin annotations deserve to be framed within the rest of the exegetical tradition on Terence, moving from Donatus and even going back to Probus, and stimulate new reflections on circulating editions of the plays bearing signs of emendatio, distinctio, and adnotatio