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Ibis (Ovid)
''Ibis'' is a curse poem by the Roman poet Ovid, written during his years in exile across the Black Sea for an offense against Augustus. It is "a stream of violent but extremely learned abuse," modeled on a lost poem of the same title by the Greek Alexandrian poet Callimachus. Identity of Ibis The object of the poet's curses is left unnamed except for the pseudonym "Ibis", and no scholarly consensus has been reached concerning the figure to whom this pseudonym might refer. Hyginus, Cassius Severus, Titus Labienus, Thrasyllus of Mendes,''The Athenaeum'', No. 2840, April 1, 188/ref> Caninius Rebilus, Ovid's erstwhile friend Sabinus, and the emperor AugustusA. Schiesaro, "''Ibis Redibis''," ''Materiali e Discussioni'' 67 (2011): 79–150. have all been proposed, as well as the possibility that "Ibis" might refer to more than one person,Martin Helzle, "Ibis," in ''A Companion to Ovid'', edited by Peter E. Knox (Blackwell, 2009online./ref> to nobody at all,A. E. Housman, "The I ...
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Literary Realism
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and th ...
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Sabinus (Ovid)
Sabinus (died 14 or 15 AD) was a Latin poet and friend of Ovid. He is known only from two passages of Ovid's works. At '' Amores'' 2.18.27—34, Ovid says that Sabinus has written responses to six of Ovid's ''Heroïdes'', the collection of elegiac epistles each written in the person of a legendary woman to her absent male lover. These are enumerated as Ulysses to Penelope, in response to ''Heroïdes'' 1; Hippolytus to Phaedra (''H.'' 4); Aeneas to Dido (''H.'' 7); Demophoon to Phyllis (''H.'' 2); Jason to Hypsipyle (''H.'' 6); and (presumably) Phaon to Sappho (''H.'' 15). Three of these Ovidian responses by Sabinus — the letters from Ulysses and Demophoon, along with a letter from Paris to Oenone (''Heroïdes'' 5) — are printed in Renaissance editions of the ''Heroïdes''. Modern scholars believe them to have actually been written in the 1460s–1470s by the humanist Angelo Sabino, who was a poet and editor of classical texts. His edition advertised the inclusi ...
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Pine Cone
A conifer cone (in formal botanical usage: strobilus, plural strobili) is a seed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants. It is usually woody, ovoid to globular, including scales and bracts arranged around a central axis, especially in conifers and cycads. The cone of Pinophyta (conifer clade) contains the reproductive structures. The woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cone, which produces pollen, is usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity. The name "cone" derives from Greek ''konos'' (pine cone), which also gave name to the geometric cone. The individual plates of a cone are known as ''scales''. The ''umbo'' of a conifer cone refers to the first year's growth of a seed scale on the cone, showing up as a protuberance at the end of the two-year-old scale. The male cone (microstrobilus or pollen cone) is structurally similar across all conifers, differing only in small ways (mostly in scale arrangement) from species to species ...
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Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, both in ancient and in recent times. The rate of cannibalism increases in nutritionally poor environments as individuals turn to members of their own species as an additional food source.Elgar, M.A. & Crespi, B.J. (1992) ''Cannibalism: ecology and evolution among diverse taxa'', Oxford University Press, Oxford ngland New York. Cannibalism regulates population numbers, whereby resources such as food, shelter and territory become more readily available with the decrease of potential competition. Although it may benefit the individual, it has been shown that the presence of cannibalism decreases the expected survival rate of the whole population and increases the risk of consuming a relative. Other negative effects may include the increased r ...
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Blinding (punishment)
Blinding is a type of physical punishment which results in complete or nearly complete loss of vision. It was used as an act of revenge and torture. The punishment has been used since Antiquity; Greek mythology makes several references to blinding as divine punishment, which reflects human practice. In the Byzantine Empire and many other historical societies, blinding was accomplished by gouging out the eyes, sometimes using a hot poker, and by pouring a boiling substance, such as vinegar, on them. In mythology and religious law Oedipus gouged out his own eyes after accidentally fulfilling the prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother. In the Bible, Samson was blinded upon his capture by the Philistines. Early Christians were often blinded as a penalty for their beliefs. For example, Saint Lucy's torturers tore out her eyes. In history In the Middle Ages, blinding was used as a penalty for treason or as a means of rendering a political opponen ...
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Physical Disability
A physical disability is a limitation on a person's physical functioning, mobility, dexterity or stamina. Other physical disabilities include impairments which limit other facets of daily living, such as respiratory disorders, blindness, epilepsy and sleep disorders. Causes Prenatal disabilities are acquired before birth. These may be due to diseases or substances that the mother has been exposed to during pregnancy, embryonic or fetal developmental accidents or genetic disorders. Perinatal disabilities are acquired between some weeks before to up to four weeks after birth in humans. These can be due to prolonged lack of oxygen or obstruction of the respiratory tract, damage to the brain during birth (due to the accidental misuse of forceps, for example) or the baby being born prematurely. These may also be caused due to genetic disorders or accidents. Post-natal disabilities are gained after birth. They can be due to accidents, injuries, obesity, infection or other illne ...
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Epic Catalogue
An epic catalogue is a long, detailed list of objects, places or people that is a characteristic of epic poetry. Examples *In ''The Faerie Queene'', the list of trees I.i.8-9. *In ''Paradise Lost'', the list of demons in Book I. *In the ''Aeneid'', the list of enemies the Trojans find in Etruria in Book VII. Also, the list of ships in Book X. *In the ''Iliad'': **Catalogue of Ships The Catalogue of Ships ( grc, νεῶν κατάλογος, ''neōn katálogos'') is an epic catalogue in Book 2 of Homer's ''Iliad'' (2.494–759), which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy. The catalogue gives the nam ..., the most famous epic catalogue ** Trojan Battle Order References Rhetorical techniques Narrative techniques Epic poetry {{poetry-stub ...
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Devotio
In ancient Roman religion, the ''devotio'' was an extreme form of ''votum'' in which a Roman general vowed to sacrifice his own life in battle along with the enemy to chthonic gods in exchange for a victory. The most extended description of the ritual is given by the Augustan historian Livy, regarding the self-sacrifice of Decius Mus. The English word " devotion" derives from the Latin. ''Devotio'' may be a form of '' consecratio'', a ritual by means of which something was consecrated to the gods. The ''devotio'' has sometimes been interpreted in light of human sacrifice in ancient Rome, and Walter Burkert saw it as a form of scapegoat or ''pharmakos'' ritual. By the 1st century BC, ''devotio'' could mean more generally "any prayer or ritual that consigned some person or thing to the gods of the underworld for destruction." The invocation Livy preserves the prayer formula used for making a ''devotio''. Although Livy was writing at a time when the religious innovations of Augus ...
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Curse Tablets
A curse tablet ( la, tabella defixionis, defixio; el, κατάδεσμος, katadesmos) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The tablets were used to ask the gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perform an action on a person or object, or otherwise compel the subject of the curse. Description Curse tablets are typically very thin sheets of lead with the text scratched on in tiny letters. They were then often rolled, folded, or pierced with nails, and the tablets were then usually placed beneath the ground: either buried in graves or tombs, thrown into wells or pools, sequestered in underground sanctuaries, or nailed to the walls of temples. Tablets were also used for love spells and when used in this manner they were placed inside the home of the desired target. They are sometimes discovered along with small dolls or figurines (sometimes inaccurately referred to as ...
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Hendecasyllabic
In poetry, a hendecasyllable (sometimes hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poetry, and the newer of which are syllabic or accentual-syllabic and used in medieval and modern poetry. Classical In classical poetry, "hendecasyllable" or "hendecasyllabic" may refer to any of three distinct 11-syllable Aeolic meters, used first in Ancient Greece and later, with little modification, by Roman poets. Aeolic meters are characterized by an Aeolic base × × followed by a choriamb – u u –; where –=a long syllable, u=a short syllable, and ×=an anceps, that is, a syllable either long or short. The three Aeolic hendecasyllables (with base and choriamb in bold) are: Phalaecian ( la, hendecasyllabus phalaecius): × × – u u – u – u – – This is a line used only occasionally in Greek choral odes and scolia, but a fa ...
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Iambus (genre)
Iambus or iambic poetry was a genre of ancient Greek poetry that included but was not restricted to the iambic meter and whose origins modern scholars have traced to the cults of Demeter and Dionysus. The genre featured insulting and obscene language and sometimes it is referred to as "blame poetry". For Alexandrian editors, however, iambus signified any poetry of an informal kind that was intended to entertain, and it seems to have been performed on similar occasions as elegy even though lacking elegy's decorum. The Archaic Greek poets Archilochus, Semonides and Hipponax were among the most famous of its early exponents. The Alexandrian poet Callimachus composed "iambic" poems against contemporary scholars, which were collected in an edition of about a thousand lines, of which fragments of thirteen poems survive. He in turn influenced Roman poets such as Catullus, who composed satirical epigrams that popularized Hipponax's choliamb. Horace's '' Epodes'' on the other hand ...
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Invective
Invective (from Middle English ''invectif'', or Old French and Late Latin ''invectus'') is abusive, reproachful, or venomous language used to express blame or censure; or, a form of rude expression or discourse intended to offend or hurt; vituperation, or deeply seated ill will, vitriol. The Latin adjective ''invectivus'' means 'scolding.' The genre of invective The "genre of invective" or "''vituperatio''" in Latin is a classical literary form used in Greek and Roman polemical verse as well as in prose. Its primary context is as rhetoric. The genre of ''vituperatio'' belongs to the ''genus demonstrativum'', which is composed of the elements of the praise and the blame. During the Roman Republic, personal invectives and character assassination were widely used as part of both forensic speeches and orations. Cicero made frequent use of the invective form against political foes such as Clodius, Catilina (in the Catalinarian speeches) or Mark Antony (Philippics). Common charge ...
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