Project MUSE®: Illinois Classical Studies - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Illinois Classical Studies.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 40 (2015) through current issueLatest Articles: Illinois Classical StudiesTWOProject MUSE®Illinois Classical Studies2328-52650363-1923Latest articles in Illinois Classical Studies. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Editor’s Preface
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979905
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This, the second of the two issues of the Illinois Classical Studies 2025 volume year, brings together articles on topics ranging from Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses in the Theogony to receptions of Epicurean didacticism and psychagogy in the early Christian poets Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola, and much else of interest in between. Editing a journal such as ICS is, to say the least, a time-consuming task, yet it is also an immensely enjoyable one, as I am afforded the pleasure of corresponding with Classicists from around the world and the opportunity to read their submissions. Thank you to all the authors who have submitted work to Illinois Classical Studies for consideration. The many anonymous reviewers who
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallEditor’s Preface2026-01-13text/htmlen-USEditor’s Preface2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®31182026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13Hesiod and the Muses in the Proem of the Theogony
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979906
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The beginning of the Theogony memorably opens with the Heliconian Muses, the subject matter of the song they sing, and Hesiod’s Dichterweihe. I do not think that scholars have fully understood Hesiod’s intent in this passage. Accordingly, I put forth here a few new suggestions. First, I develop a new interpretation of lines 25–26: I suggest that the quotation should begin at line 25, not at line 26, and I interpret the syntax of lines 25 and 26 in a novel manner. Thereafter, I develop original exegesis of the statement that the Muses make, based on my syntactic interpretation.I provide Glenn Most’s text and translation of lines 22–35 for convenience’s sake and to begin the argument:One time, they taught Hesiod
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallHesiod and the Muses in the Proem of the Theogony2026-01-13text/htmlen-USHesiod and the Muses in the Proem of the Theogony2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®424652026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13Iphigenia, Helen, and the Rhetoric of the Body in Euripides’s Iphigenia at Aulis
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979907
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In Euripides’s Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia begs Agamemnon to spare her life only to willingly walk to her death a little more than 100 lines later.1 This sudden shift provided Aristotle with an example of poor character composition: “the girl who supplicates in no way resembles her later self ” (Arist. Poet. 1454a32–33). Nevertheless, many have come to Euripides’s defense, arguing that her change of mind is not out of character—either for Iphigenia or Euripides. Christopher Collard and James Morwood point out in the introduction to their commentary on the play that “changes of mind turn the action repeatedly; [the IA] is distinctive in this respect.”2 For Iphigenia, madness, affection for her father, love for
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallIphigenia, Helen, and the Rhetoric of the Body in Euripides’s Iphigenia at Aulis2026-01-13text/htmlen-USIphigenia, Helen, and the Rhetoric of the Body in Euripides’s Iphigenia at Aulis2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®1522102026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13Between One and Many, Present and Future, Pity and Fear: Retracing Sophocles’s Ajax Within Seneca’s Troades
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979908
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Dealing with the aftermath of Troy’s sack, the Senecan Trojan Women presents a thorough depiction of female pain, with Hecuba starring in the prologue.1 Among the women of the royal household affected by the event, Andromache faces new dismay in the central act of the play: Ulysses is determined to find out where her child is, for Astyanax needs to die, as the Greeks decided (Troad. 524–622). Scholars have given different evaluations of Ulysses. Some have viewed his behavior in an entirely negative light.2 Others have suggested more balanced evaluations, focusing on how his actions become progressively more coercive, a point with which I agree.3 Odysseus’s multi-faceted characterization depends on Seneca’s
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallBetween One and Many, Present and Future, Pity and Fear: Retracing Sophocles’s Ajax Within Seneca’s Troades2026-01-13text/htmlen-USBetween One and Many, Present and Future, Pity and Fear: Retracing Sophocles’s Ajax Within Seneca’s Troades2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®1952612026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13Plutarch’s Presentation of Philopoemen as the “Last of the Greeks”: A Homage to Fading Greekness
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979909
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In Plutarch’s biography of Philopoemen, stylistic choices and evocations of thematic tropes particular to Greekness unfold in both subtle and direct expression of the notion of the end of the Greek era.1 This is pursued through allusions to previous Lives, aspects of tragedy, and allusions to Homeric prosaic similes and heroic motifs. These are intertwined in a tone conveying a reminiscence of past glories relived for one last time through the agency of Philopoemen, whose Life acts as a vehicle in an overarching synecdoche referring to Greece herself, which is the subject of this paper.Philopoemen is chronologically the last of the Greeks whose biographies are included in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives project.2 The
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallPlutarch’s Presentation of Philopoemen as the “Last of the Greeks”: A Homage to Fading Greekness2026-01-13text/htmlen-USPlutarch’s Presentation of Philopoemen as the “Last of the Greeks”: A Homage to Fading Greekness2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®1147512026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13Tragedy in Nemea: Premature Death and Maternal Grief in Statius’s Thebaid Through Seneca’s Troades
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979910
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At the heart of his major epic poem, the Thebaid,1 Statius incorporates the tragedy of the nurse Hypsipyle and her foster child Opheltes,2 who is killed by the Nemean serpent after she leaves him on the grass to rescue the Argive warriors, stranded in the forest due to an unexpected drought. Despite the strong connections with Euripides’s tragic play Hypsipyle,3 Statius also draws on other dramatic intertexts as a basis for the Nemean episode. Among these, Seneca’s Troades plays a relevant role: while its influence has been acknowledged in the Achilleid,4 it has not yet been fully explored in the Thebaid.5 This paper, therefore, aims to interpret Statius’s Nemean episode in light of Seneca’s Troades, a tragedy
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallTragedy in Nemea: Premature Death and Maternal Grief in Statius’s Thebaid Through Seneca’s Troades2026-01-13text/htmlen-USTragedy in Nemea: Premature Death and Maternal Grief in Statius’s Thebaid Through Seneca’s Troades2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®1357492026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13Early Christian Reception of Epicureanism: Didactic and Psychagogic Resonances
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979911
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Early Christian reception of Epicureanism operates within an intellectual context of denial and dismissal. Epicurus’s rejection of divine providence, which for early Christians amounted to a form of atheism, doomed it to a nearly nonexistent role in early Christian ideology.1 The Epicurean doctrines of the mortality of the soul and a materialist, randomly created universe furnished more than just pagan strawmen for the arguments of Christian theologians and poets; it offered a radical set of dangerous beliefs that had to be snuffed out. Nonetheless, the school’s communal focus, together with its emphasis on the founder, allowed it to persist in several recognizable guises in early Christianity. Although
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/653/image/coversmallEarly Christian Reception of Epicureanism: Didactic and Psychagogic Resonances2026-01-13text/htmlen-USEarly Christian Reception of Epicureanism: Didactic and Psychagogic Resonances2026-01-132026TWOProject MUSE®1136282026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-13