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112 results

Page 1 of 6

  • 5 - Ancient Greece
  • from Part II - Atheisms in History
  • Edited by Stephen Bullivant, St Mary's University, Twickenham, London
  • Michael Ruse, Florida State University
  • Book: The Cambridge History of Atheism
  • Published online: 25 September 2021
  • Print publication: 16 September 2021, pp 84-99
  • View extract

    Summary

    The modern word ‘atheist’ derives from ancient Greek – theos means ‘god’, and the prefix a- denotes absence. The word atheos is first encountered in poetic texts of the fifth century BC, where it means something like ‘god-forsaken’ or ‘impious’, and is used of those who are thought to be uncivilized or in some other way beyond the pale. For example, in Aeschylus’ earliest surviving play, Persians (472 BC), the defeat of Xerxes’ army is said to be requital for ‘their outrageous actions and godless (atheos) arrogance’ (808). In later Greek literature, however, particularly in prose texts, the word took on an additional meaning close to the modern one – that is, ‘lacking in belief in the gods’.

  • LESS CARE, MORE STRESS: A RHYTHMIC POEM FROM THE ROMAN EMPIRE
  • Tim Whitmarsh
  • Journal: The Cambridge Classical Journal / Volume 67 / December 2021
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 August 2021, pp. 135-163
  • Print publication: December 2021
    • Article
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    This article considers a short text that was widely circulated in the mid- Roman Empire, in both a four-line and a six-line version, usually on gemstones. The text is a poem of sorts, but of a quite distinctive type. Part of it can be scanned according to the rules of classical (quantitative) metre, but more striking is the consistent rhythmic (stressed) pattern. Stressed poetry is not otherwise attested so early; this text may point to a substrate, now largely hidden from view, of popular verse that preceded the metrical revolutions of late antiquity and the Byzantine world. The poem is also a piece of visual artistry, designed to be looked at (particularly in its gemstone format). This hybrid status, between high art and popular culture, can also be detected in the content of the poem, which gestures towards both the poetics of intellectual elitism (using intertextual allusion, and dismissing the views of the masses) and a level of sexually aggressive assertion of embodied selfhood. It is a valuable witness to a form of middling literature (and a middling demographic), caught between aspirations to elite-style individuality and the mimetic imperative of an empire-wide consumer culture.

  • Altered States: Cultural Pluralism and Psychosis in Ancient Literary Receptions
  • Edited by Marco Fantuzzi, Roehampton University, London, Helen Morales, University of California, Santa Barbara, Tim Whitmarsh, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Reception in the Greco-Roman World
  • Published online: 05 June 2021
  • Print publication: 27 May 2021, pp 1-20
  • View extract

    Summary

    Why speak of ‘reception’ in classical antiquity, rather than ‘allusion’ or ‘intertextuality’? This chapter begins by assessing the reasons for the emergence of the term reception in the scholarship of the last thirty years, identifying (a) a shift away from unilateral models of ‘influence’; (b) a postmodern promotion of the status of the ‘copy’; (c) a pedagogical need for multiplication of access points into the ancient world. But the idea of ‘reception’ has been applied primarily to post-antique cultures: why? Speaking of reception helps us break down the idea that antiquity itself was sealed off from later cultures, and that it was a homogeneous monoculture through which a single, cohesive tradition ran. It puts the emphasis on discontinuity, and the specificity and idiosyncrasy of each act of receiving; such acts can therefore be understood as ‘theorisations’ of the idea of tradition. This approach to literary history creates an equivalence between all receptions, however apparently ‘central’ or ‘marginal’. It also spotlights the political embeddedness and materiality of each act of reception. The chapter closes by considering how the volume’s contributions further this agenda.

Reception in the Greco-Roman World
  • Reception in the Greco-Roman World
  • Literary Studies in Theory and Practice
  • Edited by Marco Fantuzzi, Helen Morales, Tim Whitmarsh
  • Published online: 05 June 2021
  • Print publication: 27 May 2021
  • View description
    The embrace of reception theory has been one of the hallmarks of classical studies over the last 30 years. This volume builds on the critical insights thereby gained to consider reception within Greek antiquity itself. Reception, like 'intertextuality', places the emphasis on the creative agency of the later 'receiver' rather than the unilateral influence of the 'transmitter'. It additionally shines the spotlight on transitions into new cultural contexts, on materiality, on intermediality and on the body. Essays range chronologically from the archaic to the Byzantine periods and address literature (prose and verse; Greek, Roman and Greco-Jewish), philosophy, papyri, inscriptions and dance. Whereas the conventional image of ancient Greek classicism is one of quiet reverence, this book, by contrast, demonstrates how rumbustious, heterogeneous and combative it could be.
  • Diagoras, Bellerophon and the Siege of Olympus
  • Tim Whitmarsh
  • Journal: The Journal of Hellenic Studies / Volume 136 / 2016
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2016, pp. 182-186
  • Print publication: 2016
  • View abstract

    A consensus has formed over the last 30 years that Diagoras was not really an atheist and that the famous Apopurgizontes Logoi were falsely attributed to him at a later stage. This note argues that the evidence is consistent with the view that Diagoras was indeed an atheist and did indeed compose the Apopurgizontes. Further hints in other sources allow us to reconstruct, albeit speculatively, aspects of Diagoras’ thought and self-presentation.

  • ATHEISTIC AESTHETICS: THE SISYPHUS FRAGMENT, POETICS AND THE CREATIVITY OF DRAMA
  • Tim Whitmarsh
  • Journal: The Cambridge Classical Journal / Volume 60 / 30 April 2014
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2014, pp. 109-126
  • Print publication: 30 April 2014
  • View abstract

    The famous Sisyphus fragment of a tragedy or satyr play is one of the best known documents of ancient atheism, proposing as it does a social-constructionist theory of the emergence of religion as a form of social control. This article argues that the fragment should be seen not just as a philosophical contribution to Presocratic and sophistic thought on the gods, but also as a work of theatrical poetics: it alludes to Hesiod's foundational role in the articulation of Greek theology, self-reflexively explores the role of the literary author in the creation of belief systems, and unpacks the specific role of the theatre in the manufacture of images of divinity, not just through acting but also through technical effects such as the bronteion.

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