• The Good, The Bad, and…The Funny?: The Fusion of Comedy and Horror in the Character of Polyphemus 

  Nicholson, Alice Elizabeth (2022)

  Polyphemus is a dynamic character appearing in multiple genres across Greco-Roman literature such as Homer’s Odyssey, Theocritus’ Idylls, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Within these works, there is a tension between his dual ...
• Beyond Augustus as Aeneas: Parallels between Ascanius and Octavian in Vergil's Aeneid 

  Fitzpatrick, Mallory Mae (2022)

  This thesis examines surprising parallels between the figure of Vergil’s Ascanius and the historical figure of Octavian, later known as Augustus Caesar, which have been overlooked. A close examination of the text reveals ...
• Dismembered According to the Rigor of Harmony: A Structuralist Reading of Zosimos' "Visions" 

  Lawson, Devin Nicole (2022)

  The "Visions", a spiritual alchemical text by the Late Antique alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis, abounds in bizarre and violent imagery: a sacrificing priest is dismembered harmonically, people are boiled alive and transformed ...
• Love, hate, pain, and revenge in Seneca’s tragedies 

  Glaser, Jenni (2021-05)

  The perennial problem of reconciling the character of Seneca the philosopher and Seneca the playwright is both my concern in this thesis, and not my concern at all. While Seneca the Stoic preaches a strict control of ...
• Cato Maior and Laelius as imagines maiorum 

  Shaw, Joshua (2019)

  Cicero’s Cato Maior and Laelius, just a “pair of minor dialogues,” have struggled not only to secure consistent names for themselves but even a dependable characterization of their genre. However much the variations of ...
• Atalanta as a repoussoir for erotic and competitive ephebic excellence 

  Fritzell, Stella (2019)

  In this paper I suggest that Atlanta rather functions as a repoussoir for the inherent homoeroticism of the male athletic spaces and practices in which the various episodes of her myth take place. Her unexpected presence ...
• Seeking the self in a sentence : arguing for ethical reception of self-writing with two Late Antique case studies 

  Hopewell, Olivia (2019)

  It is commonly held that we read autobiographies because we want to see ourselves represented in others’ accounts of their experiences; we want to be able to appropriate the authorial identity, and we engage with texts ...
• The anthropophagic epic : cannibalism, poetics, and the poet(s) of Statius' Thebaid 

  Dolson, Katharine (2017)

  If, as the popular saying goes, we are what we eat, then what nature of beast is the Thebaid, an epic that participates in a consumption most extreme – cannibalism? This perverse and perverted consumption is not limited ...
• Persius and the poetics of stoic laughter 

  Barnes, Robert (2017)

  The satires of Persius are famously humorless. As Heinsius suggests, the dearth of humor may derive from the satirist’s adherence to the staid ways of Stoicism, since, at first blush, Stoicism and laughter would seem to ...
• Defending the indefensible : the case(s) for Helen of Troy 

  Wallace, Audrey (2017)

  Helen of Troy, arguably the most famous adulteress in literature, has captivated audiences for millennia. She stands at the crux of many intellectual debates which were occurring in Classical Athens, such as the unresolvable ...
• Referto praedonum mari : piratical propaganda in the fourth through the first centuries BCE 

  Villarreal, Christina McGuire (2017)

  There have been numerous studies concerning piracy as an occupation by such renown scholars as Henry Ormerod and Erich Ziebarth, who consider piracy to be an unambiguous trend that occurred throughout history up through ...
• Seditio and civil war: mutiny and loyalty in Lucan's Pharsalia 

  Somerville, Mary (2017)

  Lucan's Pharsalia has been noted for many things: violent battles, lengthy and formal speeches, failed, if unusual, prophecies, even the frequent personal interjections of its narrator. The mutiny scenes in Books 5 and ...
• The mother and the bride: gender paradigms in the Homeric Hymns 

  Slininger, Shayna (2016)

  In this study I employ a literary approach to analyze the poet’s presentation of Demeter and Aphrodite as divine representatives of gender paradigm in the Homeric Hymns to Demeter and Aphrodite. To begin, the notion of ...
• The final lines of Sophocles’ Electra 

  Dickman, Megan (2016)

  Sophocles’ Electra ends with the chorus’ declaration that the House of Atreus is now free. ὦ σπέρμ᾽ Ἀτρέως, ὡς πολλὰ παθὸν δι᾽ ἐλευθερίας μόλις ἐξῆλθες τῇ νῦν ὁρμῇ τελεωθέν. Sophocles, Electra 1508-1510 O seed of Atreus, ...
• The ‘New Song’ of Eunomos : dragons and materiality in the Protrepticus of Clement of Alexandria 

  Crosby, Daniel Jordan (2017)

  At the very outset of his Protrepticus, Clement of Alexandria runs through a short list of mythical musicians and alludes to their magical powers: Arion and his enchantment of the dolphin, Amphion and his musical assembly ...
• Mimetic syntax in the tragedies of Seneca 

  D’Anselmi, Luca A. (2015-07-28)

  In CHAPTER I, I briefly review previous scholarship that focuses on mimesis in classical literature. I argue in CHAPTER II that Seneca’s plays strongly display mimetic syntax, a feature previously ascribed to his poetic ...
• Ἕκτωρ δ’ ὡς εἶδεν: Homer’s focus on Hector in the conflict between Hector and Achilles 

  Lee, Jessica (2015-07-28)

  In my thesis I explore the implications of this shift in the focus of the Iliad from the μῆνις of Achilles against Agamemnon to the opposition between Hector and Achilles. I examine the implications of the plot-shift ...
• Proclus on the myths of the Works and days 

  Hilton, Colin M. (2014-09-16)

  This thesis argues that a combination of inspired and didactic poetry, a combination of metaphysical content and ethical nature should be considered when discussing Proclus' Works and Days Commentary.
• An angelic digression : the significance of 1.16-18 in the Cur Deus Homo 

  Kuper, Charles Nestor (2012)

  The aim of this thesis is to give a new reading of sections 1.16-18 of Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur Deus Homo (published in 1098) that argues against the almost unanimous opinion of previous interpreters that this passage ...
• Love Drunk Puppets : on the politics of philosophic erotic reciprocity in Plato’s laws 

  Hays, Paul (2012)

  This 2012 master’s thesis argues, contra the previous work of Karl Popper and Gregory Vlastos, that the role of philosophical eros, and love more broadly, in Plato’s political philosophy is worthwhile and beneficial for ...

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