Like the old soldier. Instigation, Prudence and Honor in the Homeric Interpretations from Antiquity to the Renaissance with Filippomaria Pontani, Events Series 2018

Date: 

Friday, April 27, 2018, 7:00pm

Location: 

University of Patras, University Campus, 26 504, Rio, Greece

Title:

Like the old soldier. Instigation, prudence and honor in the Homeric interpretations from antiquity to the Renaissance

Lecturer:

Filippomaria Pontani, Associate Professor of Classical Philology, University Ca’ Foscari of Venice

Language:

Greek

Collaboration with:

University of Patras

Synopsis of the lecture:

In the Homeric poems, heroes and kings perform various material tasks themselves, from cooking to laundry washing. This was often seen in antiquity either as a sign of their primitive status or of their sobriety, wisdom, and moral superiority: this topic was of course important in view of the special pedagogical value of Homer in education. Some partly unpublished works by a Greek humanist living in Rome in the 16th c., Christophoros Kondoleon, address this issue and invite thoughts on Homer’s paradigmatic role for kings throughout the centuries.

Short bio of the lecturer:

Filippomaria Pontani is Associate Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Venice “Ca’ Foscari”. He is primarily concerned with the manuscript transmission of ancient and Byzantine texts, with the exegetical tradition on Homer (he is currently editing the ancient and medieval scholia to Homer’s Odyssey), with the history of grammar, rhetoric and allegory, with the interpretations of various Greek and Latin texts (from Simonides to Callimachus and from Pindar to Virgil), with scholars of the Byzantine and humanistic age (from Eustathius to Politian), and with modern Greek poetry and literature (from Roidis to Karyotakis and from Kazantzakis to Vagenas.)

Events Series 2018 is implemented under the auspices of H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic Mr. Prokopios Pavlopoulos.