Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar. 5th Volume. 1985.
Edited by Francis Cairns
ISBN 978-0-905205-28-1. ARCA 19. Cloth, viii+502. Publ. 1986.
Volume 5 of PLLS was the last of the Liverpool series of seminar volumes. Between 1975 and 1985 the Liverpool Latin Seminar held 52 ordinary meetings and 4 colloquia, involving altogether 156 papers and participants from all over the world. Although many diverse approaches were represented in the Seminar, it was underpinned by two underlying convictions: first, that ancient literature functions at the highest intellectual level and deserves to be studied at that level; and second, that the ancient literatures can only be understood properly against the background of the societies in which they originated.
CONTENTS
W.G. Arnott: Terence's prologues (1-7)
G.M. Paul: Sallust's Sempronia: the Portrait of a Lady (9-22)
G. Lieberg: Poeta creator: some 'religious' aspects (23-32)
J. Moles: Cynicism in Horace Epistles 1 (33-60)
R.F. Thomas: From recusatio to commitment: the evolution of the Vergilian programme (61-73)
A. Wlosok: Gemina doctrina: on allegorical interpretation (75-84)
P.R. Hardie: Cosmological patterns in the Aeneid (85-97)
S. Harrison: Vergilian similes: some connections (99-107)
M. Paschalis: Atlas and the mission of Mercury (Aeneid 4,238-258) (109-129)
E.L. Harrison: Foundation prodigies in the Aeneid (131-64)
M. Dickie: The speech of Numanus Remulus (Aeneid 9,598-620) (165-221)
H. Hofmann: Ovid's Metamorphoses: carmen perpetuum, carmen deductum (223-41)
R.E. Fantham: Ovid, Germanicus and the composition of the Fasti (243-81)
A.M. Wilson: The prologue to Manilius 1 (283-98)
H.D. Jocelyn: The new chapters of the ninth book of Celsus' Artes (299-336)
S. Harrison: Fronde verecunda: Statius Silvae 1,5,14 (337-40)
M. Billerbeck: Aspects of Stoicism in Flavian epic (341-56)
H. Funke: The universe of Claudian: its Greek sources (357-66)
J.M. Bremer: Four similes in Iliad 22 (367-72)
G. Burzacchini: Some further observations on Alcaeus Fr. 130b Voigt (373-81)
N.J. Richardson: Pindar and later literary criticism in antiquity (383-401)
T.C.W. Stinton: Heracles' homecoming and related topics: the second stasimon of Sophocles' Trachiniae (403-432)
Composite indexes to PLLS volumes 1 to 5 compiled by Neil Adkin (437-83)
Corrigenda to volumes 1 to 4 (484-87)
List of Meetings of the Liverpool Latin Seminar, 1975-1985
Reviews
Greece and Rome (1987) 221 (D.P. Fowler): "There is an excellent set of indices to all five volumes, by Neil Adkin, and this allows us to see not only the breadth of coverage of the papers they contain but also the variety of approaches represented: Francis Cairns deserves more credit than he is sometimes given for the ideological openness the seminar has always displayed. The present volume contains 22 papers on subjects from Homer to Claudian ... and it is as indispensable as ever for serious classical scholars."
Classical Review 38 (1988) 270-74 (Nicholas Horsfall): "A good book, this, and a melancholy task to review it: pp.491-2 contain a terse and dignified obituary of the Liverpool Latin Seminar. The reviewer enjoyed but once the unmistakable warmth and excitement of a meeting and the Cairns' exuberant hospitality and unforgettable black pudding. Over ten years, these 57 meetings (if I have my sums roughly right) were a powerful force for social and intellectual bonding within the profession, and the University of Liverpool, before turning carnufex, helped some forty overseas visitors participate in the proceedings. This last volume contains contributions from Holland, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and USA, Italy and Canada, and from at least eight scholars not teaching in the country in which they were - largely - educated. A volume, that is, more truly representative of the international character of Greek and Latin studies than most congresses and than all journals currently appearing. All contributions are in English and a clearly unusual and most laudable effort has gone into raising style and language to a high uniform standard. Though there are markedly 'generic' passages, the independence and varied outlook of the contributors does the editor much credit and there is no trace of the sectarian zeal which seemed to fire some of the participants in the Seminar's earlier years. The five volumes of PLLS apparently contain some papers never delivered and the list of papers delivered contains items both printed elsewhere and others apparently never printed. The means to resolve these bibliographical frustrations are unfortunately not provided, and of the indices, that of 'modern scholars', after study of the limitations expressed on 436, proves of limited value. But it should be said openly and with due emphasis that Cairns over an unprecedentedly hostile decade toiled valiantly to foster contact, collaboration and consolation. Of the twenty-two pieces in this volume, a third are on Virgil, and the rest range from Homer to Claudian. Inevitably, quality and interest are not maintained quite consistently, but the reviewer has derived a great deal of pleasure and instruction from the volume as a whole."