Lampas - Volume 52, Issue 4, 2019

Summary Though it is generally agreed upon that the Greeks borrowed (and modified) the alphabet from the Phoenicians, there is no consensus about the moment when this took place. Over the years, several dates have been proposed, ranging from the 14th to the 8th – 7th century BCE. In classical studies the prevalent opinion is that the alphabet was introduced in or shortly before the 8th century BCE, when the first attesta Read More

Summary This paper examines the themes of Plato´s Symposium and the general functions of the first five speeches. It also discusses the importance of the person of Socrates as a subject of the dialogue and his connexion to eros. Eros and Socrates together form the focus of the Symposium. The second part of this article analyses the speech of Aristophanes in detail. This funny speech has several functions: Plato Read More

Summary The present article discusses three hotly debated interpretational issues in Diotima´s speech in Plato´s Symposium. The first of these is the relationship of Diotima´s speech to other dialogues, such as the Phaedo and the Republic, with regard to the immortality of the soul. It is argued that there is no discrepancy at all, because the immortality of the soul does not play any role in the Symposium. The second issue is the Read More

Summary In this article I will apply an intertextual perspective to a selection of epigrams from the Greek Anthology in order to assess the role of variation within these epigrams. Within the tradition of the literary epigram, the element of variation had always been important, yet some Hellenistic and Imperial epigrammatists, such as Archias and Zosimus, took this dimension of the genre to extremes, in creating strings Read More

Summary This article sketches and critically discusses the scenarios that have been postulated for the establishment of a canon of Euripides´ tragedies in what is generally believed to be the second or third century CE. Although the establishment of the canon has received some critical attention over the years, criteria that fit all the canonical Euripidean tragedies are yet to be drawn up. This article discusses the difficulti Read More

Summary There were four classicists named Leopold who obtained a PhD in the Netherlands between 1892-1904, one of whom was the poet J.H. Leopold (1865-1925). This is cause for considerable confusion, as one is easily given the mistaken impression that some of their theses were in fact written by the same person. This article aims to provide biographical clarity and charts the progress of their careers as indicative of the Read More