Latin dē, both in its prepositional and preverbal form, is characterized by multiple, varied, and seemingly unrelated senses. Unlike proposition-based lexicographical and historical linguistic accounts, an image-schematic definition systematically explains the range of its literal, physical senses and of its figurative, abstract senses, as well as the relations between them. Defining dē in terms of an image-schematic “scenario” portraying two entities connected by a directional trajectory in fact accommodates the co-existence of even antonymous senses within this word's semantic structure and (...) apparently radical divergences from its presumed essential literal meaning in Latin literature, due to the susceptibility of image schemas to “embodied” transformations such as perspective shifts and profiling effects. Dē's more abstract senses may also be linked in this way to widespread metaphorical patterns in Latin, showing that these senses are not haphazard but highly motivated semantically—with significant implications for lexicography, and literary and cultural history. (shrink)

This article presents a remarkable cache of five Attic curse tablets, four of which are published here for the first time. Excavated in situ in a pyre-grave outside the Athenian Long Walls, the texts employ very similar versions of a single binding curse. After situating the cache in its archaeological context, all texts are edited with a full epigraphic commentary. A discussion then follows, in which the most striking features of the texts are highlighted: in addition to the peculiar “first (...) four-year period” that the curses were meant to outlast, and the unparalleled term κυνωτόν, these texts are unusual in that they preserve over a full line of dactylic hexameter. The metrical formulae, combined with the presence of deictic language, may suggest that parts of the archetype curse underpinning these texts once circulated orally, in performative ritual contexts. The cache affords a singular glimpse into the process of curse-creation around 400 BCE, especially the ways in which a curse-writer could customize a fixed template spell to suit a client’s needs and circumstances. These tablets illuminate the shadowy process behind the creation of Athenian curse tablets, and the growing traffic in “magic” by the end of the fifth century BCE. (shrink)

For Seneca, the firmness of the Wise is shown in his ability to remain calm against attacks, as he explains in his treatise of that name. Attacks can come in the form of injustice, iniuria, and disparagement, contumelia; Seneca proves that neither of them affects the wise man. Contumelia is linked to contemptus in definition and conceptualization so that the remarks on how to deal with disparagement contain clues as to what contemptus means for Seneca. The article argues that Seneca (...) understands the term in a double sense: First, contemptus denotes a reprehensible attitude. Second, it designates a kind of indifference which is to be understood in the context of Stoic apatheia. (shrink)