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En la década de 1640 se publican en Europa, especialmente en Alemania, numerosos textos y obras teatrales que reflejan el anhelo de paz que sienten los europeos ante la destrucción ocasionada por la Guerra de los Treinta Años. En este contexto, Elias Maior, rector del Elisabet-Gymnasium de Breslavia, organiza una representación pública el 25 de agosto de 1644 para que también resuene este grito por la paz en sus aulas. Para ello, decide realizar una adaptación de los siete primeros progymnasmata a la defensa de la paz y, como es habitual en esta época, publica un opúsculo en el que recoge a) la organización del acto, b) las fuentes que utilizarán los participantes y c) la relación de estos con la asignación de las tareas de las que deben hacerse cargo. En este trabajo se ofrece la edición del texto con un breve estudio, en el que se contextualiza la obra y se establece su estructura y las fuentes clásicas y humanísticas utilizadas.

El objetivo de este trabajo es reseñar dos importantes monografías sobre la democracia ateniense que brindan la oportunidad de reflexionar sobre la crisis de la democracia a finales del siglo V a.C. y el carácter de las posteriores reformas institucionales que permitieron la recuperación y pervivencia de una debatida ‘democracia moderada’, a lo largo del siglo IV a.C.

En este trabajo se analizan dos obras del humanista Cristóbal Escobar, De uerbis exceptae actionis y De uiris Latinitate praeclaris in Hispania natis, que fueron compuestas en dos etapas diferentes (aunque contiguas) de su vida, pero con un elemento común: la reivindicación de la latinidad hispánica que va desde la Antigüedad hasta su época. El análisis se centra especialmente en los recursos retóricos adoptados, en las fuentes utilizadas y en la finalidad de los textos a la luz del contexto en el que fueron compuestos

Appian’s Mithridatheios contains a considerable number of formal speeches, to which others found by the author in his sources could have been added, but he chose not to develop them. Most of these passages relate to the First Mithridatic War, in line with the prominence that Appian attributes to Sulla in the crisis of the Roman Republic. While the Roman general delivers the longest speeches in this work, Mithridates has only three, which also appear notably abbreviated. Very possibly, Pompeius Trogus’ historical work was the source for the main rhetorical passages.

El corpus epistolar de Focio de Constantinopla (c. 810-893 AD) sobresale no solo por su tamaño (solo segunda a la de Teodoro Estudita en la época bizantina), sino también por los destinatarios y remitentes, entre los cuales se encuentran Miguel III (842-867), Basilio I (867-886), Ašot I de Armenia (c. 820-890) y Boris I de Bulgaria (m. 907). Además, una cantidad considerable de estas cartas fue escrita durante el exilio que padeció en el 867 a raíz de los conflictos con el papado y los ignacianos, lo cual nos permite explorar su sentir durante este periodo. El objetivo de este trabajo es efectuar el análisis retórico a dos cartas importantes (98, 188) con el fin de examinar tanto el carácter (êthos) con el cual se presenta Focio a sus destinatarios, como la estructura y recursos empleados en ellas.

Reseña a: Aldo Manucio, De re impressoria: Cartas prologales del primer editor, selección, traducción y notas de Ana Mosqueda e introducción de Tiziana Plebani, Colección Territorio Postal, Madrid: Ampersand Ediciones, 2022. 174 páginas. [ISBN: 9788412397185]

Reseña a:

Noticia y comentario de libros recibidos: Eramo, Immacolata, (ed.), Frontino, Stratagemmi, Saggio introduttivo, nuova traduzione e commento a cura di Immacolara Eramo, Premessa di Giusto Traina (Testo Latino a Fronte), Milán: Rusconi Libri, 2022, 387 páginas. (ISBN 978-8818038002) Merino Jerez, Luis y Ramos Grané, Marta (eds.), Ars memorativa. Estudios sobre textos e imágenes de la memoria, Ágora. Estudos Clássicos em Debate 24, Universidade de Aveiro, 2022, 302 páginas. (ISSN 0874-5498) Durán Barceló, Francisco Javier, Los Consilia Hispaniensia de Alfonso de Palencia, Salamanca: Sánchez Álamo S.L., 2022, 316 páginas. (Depósito Legal: S 327-2022)

El objetivo de presente trabajo es ofrecer una reseña de dos importantes novedades bibliográficas dedicadas a la Historia de Herodiano, una escrita por Ch.S. Chrysanthou y otra editada por A. Galimberti, aprovechando para ofrecer al lector un cuadro general de la investigación que ha puesto las bases del reenfoque crítico y de la revalorización de la obra de Herodiano

Reseña a: Massimo Scandola, La madre assira. Il mito di Semiramide nella letteratura, Padova: Il Poligrafo, 2021, 203 páginas. [ISBN 978-88-9387-176-I]

En los últimos siglos de la Edad Media se multiplicó la actividad de los llamados ‘escribanos historiadores’, profesionales de la escritura que desempeñaron labores historiográficas. Este trabajo presenta un ejemplo de ello: una lista de anales que cuenta además con la particularidad de entrelazar la historia general con informaciones de tipo local y familiar, y aporta datos para inferir el nombre de su autor

El discurso del jesuita Girolamo Lagomarsini (1698-1773) In adventu Francisci III Lotharingiae, Barri et Magni Etruriae Ducis ad florentinos (Florencia, 1739) constituye un excelente ejemplo de la oratoria epidíctica de su época. Se trata de una alocución centrada concretamente en la figura de quien más tarde se convirtió en Francisco I, Emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano-Germánico. En este trabajo se ofrece una edición crítica del discurso, una traducción al español y una contextualización general en su marco histórico y retórico teniendo en cuenta la producción oratoria del autor

Stásis as a political phenomenon arises in Archaic Greece as a consequence of the absence of written law, tyrannical governments and the iniquities due to the excessive accumulation of wealth by the aristocratic class. Didactic epic, elegies and iambus describe social unrest in the different póleis. The stasis is narrated, sometimes explicitly, sometimes indirectly, in poems and fragments that transmit the state of permanent conflict during the first centuries of history of the Greek póleis.

In classical antiquity the debate arose about what was more important: human actions or their recreation in writing, in the form of history. Sallust perhaps stands out above the rest in this debate. The dichotomy between ‘agere historiam’ and ‘scribere historiam’, which serves the historian to justify his work by placing it at the same level or even above the protagonist of events, became a recurring literary topic in later historiography, and particularly in Renaissance Neolatin istoriography. Underlying this debate is the concept of ‘industria’, as an activity opposed to inaction, a concept assiduously repeated in the prefaces of Renaissance historiography, to reflect, in line with Sallust, the importance of the historian’s work as a transmitter from past events to future generations, with all its practical and pedagogical implications. We analyze the presence of the word ‘industria’ in the prefaces of some Neo-Latin historians, namely Poggio Bracciolini, Sánchez de Arévalo or Arnoul Le Ferron.

This note reviews the new translation of Aristotle’s De Anima and Parva Naturalia by Fred D. Miller Jr. Against its backdrop, the importance of these psychological treatises for interdisciplinary, rhetorical research is also analyzed, with special emphasis on both Aristotelian criticism and the arts of memory from Antiquity to the early modern period.

The aim of this paper is the study of the Almohad harangues delivered in a context of Holy War. These speeches will be analyzed not only from the point of view of their military functionality, but also from the perspectives of the ritualization of jihād launched by the unitary movement, the legitimation of the Mu’minid power through the leading of Holy War, and the transmission of the main ideas of the discourse of jihād that the Berber caliphate carried out.

This article intends to provide a new approach to the discursive mechanisms of the General History of Peru by Friar Martín de Murúa, shedding light on his work. We will show how he slips a clear criticism of the colonial order from which he writes resorting to the exemplary tradition and also how he sets a model for the administration. On the other hand, we must notice that the censorship existing at the time produces a convoluted text, with a carefully weaved argumentative web that plays on several topics by reworking them to the author’s benefit.

The authors of this paper translate from Classical Chinese and comment on various texts that are intended to illustrate the relationship between the theory and practice of persuasive discourse during the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries BC). The texts come from two different works: Zhanguoce, a compilation of pre-Qin documents made by Liu Xiang in the Han period (late 1st century BC), and Lüshi Chunqiu, an encyclopedic collection undertaken under the instructions of Lü Buwei, Qin State Minister, in the 3rd century BC. The political suasoria (shuì) has the counselor and the king as protagonists par excellence. In the anecdotes that provide concrete examples of the rhetorical exercitatio, an approach decidedly marked by the unequal power relations between both of them is observed, where dialogue dominates on monologue. Under such conditions, the persuader develops an indirect strategy that, disdaining any virtuosity of elocution, tries first and foremost not to challenge the expectations of his one-person audience.

Notice and commentary on books received

This review examines the edition of Edmund Bolton’s commentary on the first six books of Tacitus’s Annals by Patricia Osmond and Robert Ulery. The editors’ reading and interpretation of Bolton’s treatise within the historiographic, political and social context of Jacobean England are also described

Reseña a: Immacolata Eramo: Exempla per vincere e dove trovarli. Introduzione agli Strategemata di Frontino (Quaderni di Invigilata lucernis nº 48), Bari: Edipuglia, 2020, 184 páginas. [ISBN-13: 978-8872289464]

La llamada ‘colección anti-fociana’ conserva un resumen sintético del encomio al patriarca Ignacio compuesto por un tal Miguel Sincelo. La fecha de composición o el momento exacto de su pronunciación son desconocidos, pero es posible que fuera leído en el aniversario de la muerte del patriarca o de su enterramiento en el Monasterio del Sátiro. A pesar de ser un resumen, el texto conserva restos de la estructura retórica del original y, como βίος σὺν ἐγκωμίῳ, podría ser el modelo sobre el que Nicetas David compuso su Vita Ignatii. Presentamos una nueva edición del texto basada en los principales manuscritos y unas notas exegéticas.

Aunque tradicionalmente los anales se han considerado un modo de escritura historiográfica característico de la Alta Edad Media y en decadencia al menos desde el siglo XIII, se conservan numerosos testimonios que prueban que las series analísticas —esto es, los listados de registros historiográficos concisos ordenados cronológicamente— se copiaron, corrigieron, completaron y continuaron, actualizándolos, en los siglos XV y XVI. En este trabajo se estudia un listado analístico copiado en el siglo XV, pero compuesto con anterioridad, que recorre la historia de la Corona de Castilla prestando especial atención a la llamada Reconquista. Sus contenidos, como trataremos de mostrar, están directamente relacionados con otros textos del mismo tipo redactados en Andalucía en la primera mitad del siglo XIV, así como con composiciones similares más tardías.

Reseña a: Ida Gilda Mastrorosa (ed.), Attualizare il passato. Percorsi della cultura moderna europea fra storiografia e saperi degli antichi (Le botte di Diogene. Studi di Storia e Diritto, nº 2), Lecce: Pensa Multimedia Editore, 2020, pp. 387 [ISBN 9788867607457]

El predicador franciscano del s. XVI Alfonso de Castro escribe un conjunto de veinticinco homilías dedicadas al salmo 50. En su composición se mezclan de forma continua y magistral periodos de discurso que son propios del autor junto con otros ajenos al mismo y de procedencia distinta. En el presente artículo abordamos la presencia de este discurso ajeno en virtud de dos necesidades específicas: en primer lugar, revisar y actualizar una propuesta tipológica anterior y en segundo lugar profundizar en la distribución de tales periodos a lo largo de los sermones, así como en los mecanismos utilizados por el autor a la hora de intercalarlos entre sus propias palabras.

El discurso de César en Vesontio que Casio Dión recoge en su obra ha sido analizado habitualmente desde una perspectiva estrictamente legal o desde el análisis de fuentes, lo que ha hecho que los rasgos tucidídeos que presenta hayan sido minusvalorados o, incluso considerados como meros recursos sin intención clara. En este artículo se propone un examen de esos rasgos desde una perspectiva literaria, a fin de insertar su composición en el marco de la elaboración literaria propia de la historiografía imperial. Con ello se pone en duda la supuesta imagen negativa de César en la obra de Casio Dión propuesta recientemente, y el discurso cobra sentido dentro de la imagen general del personaje en la Historia romana.

Noticia y comentario de libros recibidos (2021)

Obituario de Carlos Schrader García

Noticia y comentario de libros recibidos. Talia dixit 16 (2021)

Review of Johanna Hanink (ed.), How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy. Thucydides Speeches from The History of the Peloponnesian War, Princeton y Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019. Pp. 276. ISBN 9780691190150

Paolo Giovio’s Elogi degli uomini illustri is a good example of that actualizing use of the past, especially of the ancient one, typical of the early modern age. Through the use of the ancient historiography, both Greek and Latin, skilfully reworked in its own way, and with the mediation of image, the comasco humanist presents the two founders of Rome, Romulus the warrior-king and Numa Pompilius the priest-king, as archetypical figure as well as models from which to draw for useful lessons to bring the city back to the centre of the international political scene

The novel by Xenophon of Ephesus has received attention for various reasons, but not precisely for his use of a literary style provided with the mark of rhetoric. It has been pointed out that the author was not able to use this kind of style. In spite of the characteristics of a text that many scholars consider just an epitomized version of a lost original work, this paper presents the proof that rhetoric must be taken into account in order to evaluate the style of the novel.

Review to: Johanna Hanink (ed.), How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy. Thucydides Speeches from The History of the Peloponnesian War, Princeton y Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019

Orationi in materia civile e criminale (1561), an anthology by the Florentine friar Remigio Nannini, is a work ignored by critics. Studies from the last decades have exclusively paid attention to Orationi militari (1557, reedited in 1560 and 1585), the first compilation made by the same author. Both works were published in Giolito de’ Ferrari’s printing press and they became a prototype of the anthology popularized in the 16th century: a compilation of speeches from Classical and Renaissance Historiography translated into Italian. The Orationi in material civile e criminale are structured in the same way. However, this anthology presents some flaws that might be the cause they were not as successful as the other Orationi militari were: the divided catalogue of historians, the speeches from civic and forensic genres less attractive than those pronounced in the context of war, and the repetition of some orations. This fact explains the lack of attention to this compilation by the critics, while other works from the same period did receive it instead. Nevertheless, an analysis of these Orationi in materia civile e criminale could be useful to future researches, as they prove an outstanding example of the recycling process of classical material in the Renaissance.

Obituary. In Memoriam Charles F. Fraker (1923-2020)

Noticia de libros recibidos, Talia dixit 12 (2017)

Noticia y comentario de libros recibidos

Reseña a : Anthony Grafton, What was history? The art of history in early modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, x +319 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-69714-9

El propósito de este trabajo es analizar en profundidad algunas de las implicaciones que tiene la reciente publicación del libro de J. E. Lendon (Soldados y fantasmas. Historia de las guerras en Grecia y Roma, Barcelona: Ariel, 2006) para el estudio de relaciones entre retórica e historiografía en la antigüedad grecorromana.

Reseña a : Antoine Foucher, Historia proxima poetis. L’influence de la poésie épique sur le style des historiens latins de Salluste à Ammien Marcellin, Bruxelles 2000 (Collection Latomus 255), 487 pp. ISBN 2-87031-196-6

The present volume is composed of nine studies on Greek tragedy and one on Greek comedy. The chronological framework approached in this study includes not only the Attic dramatic production of the classical period, with regard to works preserved in their entirety, but also dares with the subsequent tragedy and with the always delicate study of fragmented production.

Review to La creación de una historia nacional. Juan de Mariana y el papel de la Antigüedad en la Edad Moderna (Anejos de la Revista de Historiografía nº 8). Its author, the historian Francisco Gómez Martos, analyzes the transcendental role that Greco-Roman antiquity plays in Spanish historiography throughout the sixteenth century and, more specifically, in the formation of a national history at the end of that century, at the hand of the theologian and Jesuit historian Juan de Mariana (Talavera de la Reina 1536 - Toledo 1624).

Edition and translation of the speech Oratores ante poetas esse a pueris cognoscendos, pronounced by the Hungarian humanist Johannes Sambucus (János Zsámboky, 1531-1584) at Sorbonne University in Paris (September 1551) and published one year later in Basel, as appendix to his Δημηγορίαι, hoc est, conciones aliquot ex libris Xenophontis of Paedia Cyri, an anthology of speeches drawn from the Cyropedia that was aimed at students of Greek language in general and Oratory in particular. The edition and translation of the Latin text is preceded by a small introduction in which a brief sketch of the author and his work is specified, as well as the fundamental features of the speech under analysis.

This paper focuses on the rhetoric of kinship in the early biography of the founder of the Persian Empire included in Herodotus’ Histories, that is, within the Herodotean account of Cyrus II of Persia’s birth, childhood and accession to the throne. Its aim is to demonstrate the influence exerted by family ties among characters over the construction of Cyrus’ identity. To this end, the paper examines the speech acts through which characters articulate their family relationships, as well as the clarifications and interpretations made in this respect by the narrator. Results show that there is not a unique identity of Cyrus, but three of them (prince, slave and conqueror) that combine to create a prime example of a hero archetype applicable to men who are born to rule but face great difficulties caused by relatives or people around them.

As is known, antiquity has left us only one theoretical text on historiography, Quomodo historia conscribenda sit by Lucianus of Samosata, which goes alongside the programmatic and methodical declarations of historians and the critical observations of rhetoric, such as Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, or philosophers, like Aristotle. John Marincola, one of the greatest contemporary scholars of ancient historiography, proposes in this volume a selection of the most important steps in a new English translation preceded by an ample introduction and accompanied by presentation boards of the authors and notes placed at the bottom of the book.

In this paper we introduce the book that, not uncontroversially, has been dubbed “China's first treatise on rhetoric”: the Guiguzi. There is no Spanish translation of it as yet. It is attributed to a thinker and teacher who lived around mid-4th Century B.C., during the final stage of Chinese Classicism (Warring States). Until recently, the book has been marginalized, considered dangerous and traditionally excluded from canonical collections. Its idea of rhetorical efficacy has been linked to that of “manipulation” by sinologists such as François Jullien, who has used the expression “anti-rhetoric” to define its content. Its pecularities, such as the emphasis in listening and psychological insight, can be properly understood in the defensive context derived from the physical danger in which the suasor in Classical China incurs. As a contribution for the book to be known, we offer our translation of chapter 9, the first one in Spanish.

Review of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Horrillo (ed.), Xenophontis operum concordantiae. IV: Opera socratica (2 vol.). Pars I: Memorabilia (pp. 510); Pars II: Oeconomicus, Convivium, Apologia Socratis (pp. 508), Hildesheim, Zúrich y Nueva York: Olms-Weidmann, 2019 (ISBN: 9783487157894 y 9783487157900)

Review to: Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Horrillo (ed.), Xenophontis operum concordantiae. IV: Opera socratica (2 vol.). Pars I: Memorabilia (pp. 510); Pars II: Oeconomicus, Convivium, Apologia Socratis (pp. 508), Hildesheim, Zúrich y Nueva York: Olms-Weidmann, 2019

This paper presents the finding of an opuscule with the Latin version of Aphthonius’ progymnasmata by Rodolphus Agricola, which was printed in Barcelona at Carles Amorós’ workshop in 1546 and belonged to the Jesuit school there. This small book is an important piece in the history of Aphthonius’ text in Spain, since it is the earliest printing of progymnasmata which has been found up to now. In addition, this finding provides new evidence of the significant part played by the Crown of Aragón in the reception of the ancient rhetorical exercises. A brief initial study is offered in this paper, focusing on the content, the editorial and academic context and the possible filiation of the opuscule.

The aim of this work is to review and examine the volumes of the collection The I Tatti Renaissance Library on the prefaces that the editor based in Venice Aldus Manutius (c.1451-1515) wrote as preambles for his numerous editions of Latin and Greek texts, in light of the importance that such editions had for the dissemination of classical culture from Renaissance to the present day.