Mind, Culture and Society

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Plaintive nightingale or strident swan? : the reception of the Electra myth from 1960-2005.
(2007) Steinmeyer, Elke Gisela.; Sharland, Suzanne Jane.; Gosling, Anne.; Hilton, John Laurence.; Mackay, Anne.
The ancient myth of Electra has a rich history of reception through the ages, which is well documented in scholarship. The scholarly debate, however, ceases when it comes to the reception of the myth after 1960, especially after 1970. Very few scholars have critically engaged with the adaptations of the Electra myth in the last three decades. In my thesis I intend to fill in this gap in scholarship by presenting eight adaptations of the Electra myth between 1960 and 2005 covering a span of three continents, three (or four) languages and three media (drama, comic series, film). The common factor between all of these adaptations consists in the fact that they have strong political and societal connotations. I selected them in order to illustrate my underlying argument in this thesis that the Electra myth survives from antiquity until today because it appeals to the creative imagination of authors and playwrights from different historical backgrounds, who use this specific myth as a vehicle in order to engage with their political and societal situation in their respective countries at their respective time. This selection also serves the purpose of illustrating a new trend in the reception of antiquity in modem times, a shift from more traditional high culture adaptations to the more unconventional popular mass media. With my thesis I would like to make a contribution to Reception Studies, a subdiscipline of Classics which has recently emerged from the long-standing field of Classical Tradition, by combing the methodologies of traditional Classical Philology and modern Literary Theory into one single comparative study. It is also an attempt to make some rather lesser known yet not less rewarding plays accessible to a wider audience. I hope that this attempt will prove to be fruitful and that my thesis will be the starting point for further research on more recent adaptations of the Electra myth.
The many faces of Cleopatra : from propaganda to myth.
(2003) Hardman, Naomi Susan.; Lambert, Michael.
Few women of antiquity have gripped the public imagination as Cleopatra has. For centuries, she has inspired playwrights, poets, artists and film-makers, with the result that she and Antony are arguably history's most famous lovers. However, I have not yet encountered a study which discusses, in one work, the multiple constructions of Cleopatra across the range of genres in which she has been represented. Certainly, many books and articles are devoted to revealing how Cleopatra has been constructed in one or other specific genre, but it seems as though no attempts have been made to portray, in juxtaposition to one another, the many faces of Cleopatra. This dissertation seeks to do just that. Although I could not possibly include a discussion ofevery genre in which Cleopatra has been constructed, I have chosen six areas for study: ancient Greek biography (using Plutarch's Life ofAntony); the poetry of the Augustan poets: Vergil (the Aeneid), Horace (Ode 1.37) and Propertius (Elegies 3.11); Shakespearean tragedy (Antony and Cleopatra); art (numismatics and ancient sculpture); film (Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra), and, briefly, Africanist historiography. I have chosen these areas because each offers such diverse constructions of Cleopatra that one begins to appreciate how historiography, propaganda and representation have contributed to the shaping ofthe Cleopatra myth, coloured by the ideology ofthe age in which she has been interpreted afresh. Current Africanist appropriations ofCleopatra suggest that historiography is never neutral: race and gender often intersect to create 'historical' identities.
From marriage comes virgin flesh : a comparison between classical male and Christian male perceptions of female sexuality with the advent of Christianity in the Roman Empire in the first four centuries AD.
(2002) Haskins, Susan Louise.; Hilton, John Laurence.
From the first to the fourth century AD, male perceptions of female sexuality underwent a radical change with the advent of Christianity. This thesis is an investigation into classical male and Christian male perceptions of female sexuality, to determine the manner and extent to which this change in perceptions took place. The investigation will be two-fold, studying both the laws that established these perceptions, as well as representations of female sexuality within specific, subjective male-authored texts. A study of the marriage legislation of Augustus and a male writer of the early Empire, Apuleius, shows an underlying pattern of thought, or paradigm, of female sexuality among classical males. Female sexuality was perceived as existing for the sole purpose of procreation, and males in positions of authority thought that it needed to be under male control in order to ensure acceptable sexual behaviour. They believed this would be best achieved by situating it under the authority of the family. With the advent of Christianity, however, a new competing paradigm on female sexuality emerged, which challenged the perceptions of men of the classical era. The church fathers spurned the classical view of female sexuality by instead advocating lifelong celibacy. They too, believed female sexuality had to be controlled, but they placed it under the authority of the church, and outside the family. Since the basis of the classical and Christian patterns of thought differed so markedly, especially when the Christian paradigm was first being formulated in the second century, it was inevitable that they would come into " conflict. Advocates of the classical paradigm tried to suppress Christianity by persecuting its supporters. Some Christian women became victims of this conflict. This thesis will also include an example of this conflict - the martyrdom of the female Christian Perpetua, who left a record of her persecution in the form of a diary. The conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the fourth century brought about the end of the conflict ana a victory for the Christian paradigm. The church fathers suggest that the shift from classical to Christian was total and complete. However, closer examination of Constantine's legislation and the work of the influential church father Jerome shows that while this shift was complete in theory, it did not extend very far into social and legal practice. Although the Christian ideals of the church fathers were a major component of thenew paradigm, it also came to be composed of classical notions - now motivated by Christian thought - that were held by Constantine and the upper classes. It was these classical notions that shaped the social reality of life in the fourth century AD. The nature and extent of the paradigm shift was therefore radical and far-reaching in theory, but not in practice.
The future in the past: belief in magical divination and other methods of prophecy among the archaic and classical Greeks and among the Zulu of South Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
(2003) Kirby-Hirst, Mark Anthony.; Hilton, John Laurence.
Magic and the supernatural have always been fascinating topics for investigation, none more so than the belief in prophecy. Actually being able to predict future occurrences, sometimes long before they take place, is certainly a desirable ability, and so naturally it was something that was much sought after in ancient Greece and amongst the Zulu people of South Africa. This is the domain of this dissertationbelief in the power of divination and how this belief could appear to be interrelated between two distinct peoples who are separated not only by the passage of time and their geographical locations, but also by socio-economic changes like industrialization and globalisation. The beliefs of both societies in this particular area are sometimes strikingly similar, especially in how each group understood such esoteric notions as the human soul and the afterlife or underworld. The function of magic in these cultures is also of -importance, since divination is almost always classed as a magical activity. The relative closeness to each other of their metaphysical knowledge allows a closer study of the figure of the diviner or prophet, more specifically who it was that could become a diviner and the reasons for this 'calling'. Several examples like Teiresias, the blind seer, are also useful in demonstrating certain beliefs and patterns. The major part of this dissertation deals with certain ritual practices of diviniilg. Although there exist many variations on a theme, the most important forms studied here are dreams, oracles, oionomancy (divining by understanding the song or flight of birds) and necromancy' (divining with the aid of the spirits of the dead). The method of divining by studying one's dreams is a universal constant and seems to take place in all cultures, making the practice useful for the purposes of comparative study. In terms of oracles, I contend that oracular divination is not a uniquely ancient fonn,but can be clearly seen in certain elements of the practice of Zulu divining, especially in the work of the abemilozi (diviners working with familiar spirits) Because of these similarities it is quite difficult to maintain that oracular divination· as occurred in ancient Greece, is not also practiced among the Zulu to some extent. Birds have always held a certain fascination for people and so it is not surprising that they are also used for divining. For the Greeks they could herald the favour of the gods, while the Zulu made use of them mostly for foretelling changes in the weather. Finally, necromancy because of its connection with ghosts and the dead was often frowned upon, but for both the Greeks and the Zulu it was one of the most powerful methods of divining because it was the spirits, who had already crossed to the other side and so were believed to have access to supernatural knowledge, that were thought to be able to answer the questions posed by the diviner. Most importantly I conclude that there is an indication that the souls of these two peoples were close to each other. The beliefs and the manner in which they go about establishing, using and confirming them are much the same for the ancient Greeks and the Zulu, despite the fact that they are separated by time, space and socio-economic context. In all, the only real difference is that the Greeks came to later explore science as another knowledge system. For the Zulu, one system was enough.
Simulacrum, paragon, holy man : fundamentalist perspectives in the writings of Flavius Philostratus.
(2010) Kirby-Hirst, Mark Anthony.; Hilton, John Laurence.
Flavius Philostratus was a Greek author working in the early third century CE, attached to a circle of philosophers and thinkers under the patronage of the Roman Empress Julia Domna. It is he who coined the term that we today use to describe this period in literary history-the Second Sophistic. While it was a time of startling literary productivity, it was also a time of increasing moral decline and confusion for the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. The old beliefs and morality of Graeco-Roman polytheism was fast becoming outmoded in the light of new developments coming out of the East and places like Palaestine in particular. Faiths like Christianity that placed the individual believer and his or her desire for salvation at the heart of the system were challenging the older Olympian style of religion, wherein the polis or city-state was all important. Add to this the growing influence of the cult worship of the Roman emperor and upheaval was the only foreseeable outcome, with not even the mas maiorum remaining intact as a moral compass for the average citizen. Flavius Philostratus struck out against this growing tide of moral and religious uncertainty by proposing a solution founded in religious fundamentalist tendencies. He could not do this in an obvious fashion, for fear not only of losing his imperial patroness, but pOSSibly also his life as well for speaking ill of emperor and empire. Instead, Philostratus pretends to submission, while at the very same time suggesting a return to the old ways of Graeco-Roman paganism when the needs of the many outweighed individual desires. He also suggests a way of counteracting the popularity of foreign individualized cults by regenerating the almost forgotten cult of the ancestors, with the hero-cult a particular focus. Indeed, Philostratus' approach addresses every possible concern that may have arisen in his imperial milieu, ranging from philosophy to politics to the rejection of the cult of the emperor. I have posited a theory of ancient religious fundamentalism as gleaned from the writings of Philostratus by envisioning a modified formulation of the twentieth century notion of religious fundamentalism itself. This new form removes fundamentalist dogma from its apparent reliance on a monotheistic faith and reconfigures it into a 'polyvalent' fundamentalism, wherein it is conceivable for an inhabitant of the Graeco-Roman world like Philostratus to have championed a variegated polytheistic belief system in the face of advancing Eastern influences and emperor worship, choosing to see Graeco-.Roman belief as a singular entity under threat. In an effort to conceal his beliefs from those who 111 might take offence at them, Philostratus makes use of a simulacrum for his ideals. This is the first century sage known as A pollonius of Tyana. My own approach to this idea has been twofold, with the first half being devoted to analysing the time and place in which Philostratus was working. I assess the literary tensions of the Second Sophistic itself and investigate how this may have impacted upon Philostratus' presentation of his argument I also look to the figure of Apollonius of Tyana, essential to the whole of the Philostratean fundamentalist 'project', and examine what changes Philostratus may have effected to the existing canon on Apollonius in order to make him useful to his fundamentalist perspective. The second half of my thesis involves the specific analysis of four of the works of Philostratus- the Vita Apollonii, Vitae Sophistarum, Heroikos, and Nero. Each is assessed in detail with respect to its representation of a specific aspect of Philostratus' beliefs. The Vita Apollonii presents Apollonius of Tyana as the paragon and champion of Philostratus' new belief system, teaching a Pythagorean way of life and personally reSisting Roman emperors like Domitian. The Vitae Sophistarum provides a catalogue of past sophists and offers up their behaviour as a guide for all good and wise men to follow, while the Nero presents Musonius Rufus as the archetypal philosopher battling imperial tyranny. Finally the Heroiiws is suggested as Philostratus' attempt at reinvigorating the cult of the ancestors as a means of providing an alternative individualized religious b•adition to ward off the encroaching Eastern mysteries. In all it is my contention that Flavius Philostratus deploys his sophistic talents in a manner reflective of his time, as a means of remedying Of, at the very least, positing a remedy, for the decline of belief and morality in the Roman Empire. He does this through four great literary works and chiefly through the figure of Apollonius of Tyana, his paragon and simulacrum.
Ambivalent goddesses in patriarchies : a comparative study of Hekate in ancient Greek and Roman religion, and Kali in contemporary Hinduism.
(2011) Behari, Jerusha.; Lambert, Michael.
The objective of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the ancient Greek and Roman goddess Hekate, and the goddess Kali in contemporary Hinduism, as revealed in literature from the respective cultures, removed from each other by time and geography, are constructs of the male imagination, resulting in the reinforcing of stereotypes about the dangers of women in power, and demonstrating that women are irrational, lustful, deceitful, close to nature, and inherently lawless. This dissertation aims to show that Hekate and Kali can be re-envisioned as challenging these stereotypes, and can be re-interpreted as positive role-models for women in their respective cultures. To situate this research within a scholarly tradition, the dissertation begins with an overview of research into the supposed existence of prehistoric matriarchal cultures, where the supreme mother goddess who gave birth to the universe was apparently venerated. This is based largely on prehistoric art and interpretations of symbols with the help of secondary source material. Then this dissertation aims to trace the evolution of Hekate from her origins in Greek literature as a generous and benign, yet potent goddess to a dangerous, chthonic deity of the Roman world associated with black magic, the crossroads, demons and the restless dead. This will be done by a thorough examination of selected ancient Greek and Latin sources in chronological order. Kali’s character and function in Hinduism will be determined through an in-depth analysis of Hindu scriptures written in Sanskrit, as well as by investigating devotional hymns written to her by poets during the 18th and 19th centuries CE. These Sanskrit and Hindi sources highlight Kali as a terrible and unruly manifestation of Durga or Parvati’s wrath while also emphasising her maternal qualities. Artistic representations of Hekate and Kali will also be examined. A comparison between the two goddesses and their roles within their respective cultural and religious systems will be undertaken in order to deduce why such goddesses were deemed necessary within patriarchal cultures. Special reference will be made to the reclamation of Hekate and Kali by feminists today as religious role-models for women over traditional role-models such as Sita, and the Virgin Mary. This dissertation seeks to show that whereas goddesses have been alive and well in Hinduism for thousands of years, Classical deities are far from dead, and are at present experiencing a revival and reinterpretation so as to cater for new forms of spirituality. It seeks to examine whether goddesses who have been rebellious in their patriarchal cultural systems are stereotypic representations or whether they can actually empower and make a difference to women.
Honour and revenge : a study of the role of honour in Euripides' Medea and Hippolytus with reference to a selection of contemporary societies.
(1998) Barrett, Deborah.; Lambert, Michael.
My purpose in this study is twofold. Firstly, I intend to examine the existence of honour in Greek society by an analysis of its presentation in works of Greek literature. In order to achieve this, I shall first examine the values of the Homeric, heroic society so that a picture of the code of honour that was used in those times, might be established. This code of honour provided the foundation upon which later honourable behaviour was based and from which it grew; it is, therefore, a necessary addition in a study such as this. Then, I shall proceed to a study of Euripides' Medea and Hippolytus, two plays that firmly incorporate the motif of honour and revenge. Secondly, I intend to examine a few examples of modern societies. The purpose of this is to ascertain whether any relationship between archaic, classical and contemporary cultures can be established. Shared values and beliefs will be examined in order to determine any possible similarities between cultures and societies that are chronologically separated by hundreds of years.
Post-traumatic and post-modern : a South African "Electra".
(University of Stellenbosch., 2009) Steinmeyer, Elke Gisela.
The ancient myth of Electra seems to be of particular interest to South African writers and playwrights. This article focuses on the adaptation by Mervyn McMurtry, entitled Electra, which was produced in Durban in 2000. The underlying theme of his adaptation, which is based on the four Greek “Electra” tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, is the question of truth. This question — an important post-modern one — was of particular relevance for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa as it tried to deal with the legacy of the former apartheid regime. McMurtry’s play begins with a prologue six days after the matricide, while the actual play is performed as a sort of flashback. All the characters suffer from various symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The chorus consists exclusively of women who all have been victims / survivors of male violence. This article proposes that McMurtry uses the ancient Electra myth to reflect on the situation of contemporary South African society (and particularly women), as it struggles to come to terms with a traumatic past.
Chanting the song of sorrow : threnody in Homer and Zakes Mda.
(Taylor & Francis., 2003) Steinmeyer, Elke Gisela.
This article examines the role of threnody in ancient Greece and contemporary South Africa. The main focus is on its representation in literature, in this case a passage from Homer's Iliad and the novel Ways of Dying (1995) by Zakes Mda, which are read in their respective historical contexts. The aim is to compare the different functions which threnody fulfills in different societies in different times with special emphasis on societies in crisis and transition.
Blessed or bloody? Antigone in Sylvain Bemba’s Noces Posthumes de Santigone.
(Association of French Studies in Southern Africa., 2010) Steinmeyer, Elke Gisela.
Dans sa pièce de théâtre Noces Posthumes de Santigone, l’écrivain congolais Sylvain Bemba a produit une adaptation africaine de la tragédie Antigone de Sophocle. Il se sert du mythe ancien pour illustrer la situation politique dans de nombreux pays d’Afrique pendant les années 1980. En utilisant un pays fictif, la République d’Amandla, il décrit le rêve et l’échec d’une utopie postcoloniale. Ses trois protagonistes, Melissa (Antigone), Titus Saint-Just Bund (Polynice/Hémon) et le conteur (Griot), vont préserver la mémoire de cette utopie. Melissa, comme Antigone, est chargée de l’enterrement et de la garde du tombeau du président Titus Saint-Just Bund, qui a été assassiné par ses ennemis, mais elle meurt dans un accident d’avion. Le conteur va préserver leur histoire pour le peuple. Il semble que dans cette pièce de théâtre Bemba voulait créer une mémoire éternelle pour le personnage historique Thomas Sankara, président du Burkina Faso, qui représente pour lui l’incarnation d’une vision africaine à la fois sainte et sanglante (blessée), exprimée par le nom de «Santigone».
The First Ethiopians: a critical perspective.
(University of KwaZulu-Natal., 2010) Hilton, John Laurence.
No abstract available.
Apuleius, Florida 23 and popular moral philosophy.
(Classical Association of South Africa., 2006) Hilton, John Laurence.
This article examines the links between Apuleius Florida 23, Philo De Providentia 2.22, and popular philosophical ideas in Seneca’s works. All these writings use the metaphors of a rich man whose wealth matters little in comparison with his health, and an expensively fitted ship whose costly features are useless in a storm. Such material is also to be found in Florida 14, 22, and 23, which suggests that all these fragments are related and may have come from the same original speech.
War and peace in the ancient Greek novel.
(Classical Association of South Africa., 2005) Hilton, John Laurence.
This article investigates how war and peace are represented in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe, the Ninus fragment, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, and Heliodorus’ Aithiopika. With the exception of the Cyropaedia and possibly the Aithiopika, these romances were composed at the height of the pax Romana when warfare between nations within the Roman Empire had declined. Nevertheless, war and battles constitute significant elements in these narratives, although they are often set in the remote past at the time of the Persian Empire and are frequently pastiches drawn from the historians. In Chariton, Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus, military episodes have an important narratological function. Attitudes to war vary: it is an intrusive element in the lives of most of the characters, and military bravado and imperial expansionism are sometimes viewed with irony. Occasionally the romances describe contemporary conflicts in considerable detail.
The influence of Roman law on the practice of slavery at the Cape of Good Hope (1652-1834).
(Classical Association of South Africa., 2007) Hilton, John Laurence.
This article investigates the extent to which Roman Law and received ideas about Roman slavery actually did form the basis on which slavery was practised and administered in the Cape of Good Hope between 1652 and 1834. Cape slavery was governed by plakaaten issued in Batavia as well as in Cape Town, but, particularly in capital cases, recourse was had directly to Roman Law and to the Roman-Dutch writers such as Simon van Leeuwen, Joost de Damhouder, Ulrich Huber, Andreas Gail and others. These writers frequently cite actual Roman laws, especially when considering the appropriate punishment. At this stage of our knowledge of how Roman Law was used in these cases, it is not possible to say whether its effect was ameliorative or pejorative, but there is little doubt that it was used both by owners and slaves, prosecution and defence, from the beginning until the end of this period.
A novel compendium.
(University of Otago., 1997) Hilton, John Laurence.
No abstract available.
Furor, dementia, rabies: social displacement, madness and religion in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius.
(Classical Association of South Africa., 2009) Hilton, John Laurence.
No abstract available.
Cohesion in Latin.
(Taylor & Francis., 1993) Hilton, John Laurence.
This article discusses ancient and modern concepts of textual coherence and in Latin. A number of ideas about the degree of cohesion in the letters of Cicero, compared with those of Seneca and Pliny are discussed. The article shows that Seneca and Pliny make more use of asyndeton within the sentence than Cicero, and undertakes a statistical analysis of coordinate and subordinate connectors in a selected corpus of texts. This analysis gives a reliable indication of the degree of cohesion in the corpus.
Varieties of narrative in antiquity.
(2004) Hilton, John Laurence.
No abstract available.
The meaning of antitheos (HLD. 4.7.13) again.
(Classical Association of South Africa., 1997) Hilton, John Laurence.
No abstract available.
The Roman-Dutch law of evidence at the Cape.
(University of Otago., 2001) Hilton, John Laurence.
No abstract available.

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