Texts and Violence in the Roman World

Monica R. Gale is Professor in Classics at Trinity College Dublin. Her publications include Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994), Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (Cambridge, 2000), and a commentary on Lucretius Book 5 (2009). J. H. D. Scourfield is Professor of Classics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and a Vice-President of the Classical Association. His publications include Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (1993).

Introduction – reading Roman violence Monica R. Gale and J. H. D. Scourfield; 1. Comic violence and the citizen body David Konstan and Shilpa Raval; 2. Contemplating violence: Lucretius' 'De rerum natura' Monica R. Gale; 3. Discipline and punish – Horatian satire and the formation of the self Paul Allen Miller; 4. Make war not love: militia amoris and domestic violence in Roman elegy Donncha O'Rourke; 5. Violence and resistance in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' Carole E. Newlands; 6. Tales of the unexpurgated (Cert PG) – Seneca's Audionasties (Controversiae 2.5, 10.4) John Henderson; 7. Dismemberment and the critics – Seneca's 'Phaedra' Duncan F. Kennedy; 8. Violence and alienation in Lucan's 'Pharsalia' – the case of Caesar Efrossini Spentzou; 9. Tacitus and the language of violence Bruce J. Gibson; 10. Cruel narrative: Apuleius' 'Golden Ass' William Fitzgerald; 11. Violence and the Christian heroine – two narratives of desire J. H. D. Scourfield.