Among Aristotle’s recommendations on how to collect extracts from the works of other authors, the act of παρασημαίνεσθαι plays a role that is often misunderstood. This paper argues that the proper meaning of this technical term is that of recording alongside the extracts, usually in the margins, the names of authors whose words are quoted anonymously in the body of the text. This practice should also be considered when trying to explain why many quotations by Aristotle and his associates are anonymous or attributed to a generic τις, with special reference to works by medical authors.

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In Book 3 of the Historiae, Herodotus relates how the usurpation of the Persian throne by two Magi is uncovered by Otanes with the help of his daughter. This daughter is one of the King’s wives and exchanges several secret messages with her father. Herodotus leaves it open how these messages are transmitted. It has so far been assumed that father and daughter communicate through intermediaries via oral messages. However, an exchange of letters would not only be more appropriate to the situation described, but also better fit patterns and recurring topoi in the narration of the Histories.

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This essay aims to illustrate how Lucian treats obscene topics in the Dialogi deorum, which terms he employs to maintain decency, and which strategies he makes use of to amuse rather than disgust the readership.

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This paper analyzes imagery of thunder and lightning-flashes in the description of speech in its powerful and grandiose effects and in the definition of a literary canon in Latin rhetoric. In particular, firstly used in Cicero’s rhetorical works and letters on the basis of Greek models and in a clear polemic against the Atticists, the imagery allowed Cicero to place himself in competition with the Greek canon, after Pericles and especially Demosthenes, and at the forefront of the Roman literary tradition. In this respect, the imagery defines a literary Canon that was variously adopted or rejected by subsequent rhetors and writers.

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The world of the fable is usually linked in the collective unconscious to the feelingfor nature, more specifically since La Fontaine. Some critics, albeit without analysing the issue in depth, have argued that such an attachment to the natural world was missing from Phaedrus’ collection. A detailed examination of the way the fabulist tackles the theme of the seasons, scarcely present in his works, allows us to confirm, illustrate, and better understand this peculiarity. The writer prefers to focus on, show, and criticise human behaviour than to describe at length natural phenomena independent from the core of his subject.

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This paper studies the presence of echo as a natural phenomenon in Latin poetry from the first century BCE to the sixth century CE, with particular attention to the production of the sound – the sources of echo, the locations favorable to it – the quality of the sound, and the roles echo performs in poetic texts. Echo functions differently if it derives from a single source or multiple sources. The former is common in the classical period, often communicating Pathos or a sense of alienation; the latter predominates in late antiquity, contributing to ritual, ceremony, or spectacle, and communicating praise, acclamation, celebration, or worship. In the sixth century Venantius Fortunatus exploits both associations of echo. Echo also acts as a metaphor for epistolary exchange (Ausonius) and the articulation of speech (Prudentius).

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This essay traces the development of the use of the ape 1 as a term for imitators and imitations from Plautus to Boccaccio, delineating both the contexts in which the simia imitatrix was typically deployed and its connotations. In Latin Antiquity, it was primarily found in Literat contexts, denoting the slavish epigone, but it was also deployed with reference to the ape’s superficial similarity to humans as a dehumanizing insult for those who possessed the external accoutrements of office but lack the internal qualities required. In the Middle Ages, the semantic field was greatly expanded, with the ape used to denote anyone and anything, including objects and abstract concepts, perceived as derivative. While still serving as a term of abuse for the hypocrite, the ape gradually lost some of its stigma and it began to function as a value neutral or even baroquely charming term for the imitator. This paved the way for its incorporation into the Renaissance revival of the ancient mimesis discourse and secured the ape a place in the literary history of Europe.

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In 2024, the Groupe de Recherches sur l’Afrique Antique (GRAA) under Jean Meyers published a critical edition of the 22 Sermones Leroy preserved in the manuscript Vienna, ÖNB lat. 4147. This article not only corrects numerous reading errors of this edition, but also presents ten manuscripts that were not used for the edition. A collation of all textual witnesses makes it possible to detect and fill numerous gaps in the Vienna manuscript and to improve the printed text by arguing for more plausible variant readings. In addition, a long list of conjectures shows that still much work has to be done to receive a reliable critical edition.

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The poetry of Venantius Fortunatus offers exceptional insight into a feminine form of leadership, exemplified by the former queen Radegund in sixth-century Gaul. His poems depict various forms of authority, with Radegund’s enduring royal status – recast as a form of heavenly queenship – being a prominent theme, particularly in book 8. The first ten poems of this book, dedicated to Radegund, are considered both individually, as compositions for specific occasions, and collectively, as they were probably published after the revolt of highborn nuns in 589–590 with a new communicative function. The paper shows that this collection served to restore the authoritative image of the monastery’s founder after her death. Other poems by Fortunatus demonstrate that Radegund enlisted her protégé to manage her political networks and reinforce her authority before contemporary magnates, notably when she sent an embassy to the Byzantine court to request a relic of the Holy Cross. The posthumous poems of Fortunatus, on the other hand, unveil a more private side of Radegund, portraying her primarily as a mother (mater) and a lady (domina).

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This article deals with a widely unknown part of the scientific work of one of the most important Austrian philologists of the 19th century: Karl Schenkl. In the CSEL archive I found his preparatory work for a critical edition of Ambrose’s works on virginity and widowhood. This article will describe the “Nachlass” and how it (indirectly) influenced more recent editions, especially Otto Faller’s Editio minor of De virginibus. Furthermore, collations of a now lost codex from Chartres, which were also found in Schenkl’s documents, will be presented and some of his textual decisions will be discussed.

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