Making an Impression: Replication and the Ontology of the Graeco‐roman Seal Stone

Platt, Verity

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8365.2006.00500.x

Cited by 93 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Crowd: 'Sssh.' 59 Platt (2006) 238. 60 'Seals thus combine an intimate relationship between owner and object with a more widely circulated replicated image which acts as a public marker of the physical presence of the private self' (Platt (2006) 241).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Less Care, More Stress: A Rhythmic Poem From the Roman Empire

Whitmarsh

2021

Camb. class. j.

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This article considers a short text that was widely circulated in the mid- Roman Empire, in both a four-line and a six-line version, usually on gemstones. The text is a poem of sorts, but of a quite distinctive type. Part of it can be scanned according to the rules of classical (quantitative) metre, but more striking is the consistent rhythmic (stressed) pattern. Stressed poetry is not otherwise attested so early; this text may point to a substrate, now largely hidden from view, of popular verse that preceded the metrical revolutions of late antiquity and the Byzantine world. The poem is also a piece of visual artistry, designed to be looked at (particularly in its gemstone format). This hybrid status, between high art and popular culture, can also be detected in the content of the poem, which gestures towards both the poetics of intellectual elitism (using intertextual allusion, and dismissing the views of the masses) and a level of sexually aggressive assertion of embodied selfhood. It is a valuable witness to a form of middling literature (and a middling demographic), caught between aspirations to elite-style individuality and the mimetic imperative of an empire-wide consumer culture.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Less Care, More Stress: A Rhythmic Poem From the Roman Empire

Whitmarsh

2021

Camb. class. j.

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“…On seals and seal-usage (with clay a popular sealing medium as well as wax in the Hellenistic world), see Plantzos (1999), 18-32. 71. For outstanding discussion of these issues see Platt (2006). 72.…”

Section: Microcosms and Relational Aestheticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Webb (2009) and in relation to Hellenistic poetry Zanker (2004); most recently Zeitlin (2013) and Dufallo (2013). On ekphrastic epigram, see Bing (2009), 194-216;Bruss (2010); Coleman (2006); Goldhill (1994); Goldhill (2007), 15-19;Gurd (2007); Gutzwiller (2002a); Gutzwiller (2004); Männlein-Robert (2007a), 37-81; Männlein-Robert (2007b); Meyer (2005); Platt (2002); Prioux (2007); Prioux (2008); Squire (2010a); Squire (2010b); Tueller (2008), 141-65.…”

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confidence: 99%

Lithic Poetics: Posidippus and His Stones

Elsner¹

2014

Ramus

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The 20 poems collected together as thelithikaof Posidippus, the first surviving poems on a papyrus roll only published in 2001 and dating from the third century BCE, offer a range of spectacular new evidence for a series of issues in Hellenistic history, art and literature. The standard view is that Posidippus was probably author of all the epigrams in the roll known as P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309, although this has been contested and by no means need certainly be the case. For my purposes here, I do assume that the interconnected poetics of the poems in thelithikado imply a single poet who is quite likely to be Posidippus, since poem 15—independently anthologised in antiquity and known through a manuscript tradition—was attributed to Posidippus in the twelfth century by the Byzantine poet and grammarian John Tzetzes. Historically speaking, the fact that so many of these poems focus on gems from the east gives remarkable insight into the interchange between Hellenistic and Achaemenid cultures: specifically, they signal the prestige of treasures from the east in the Hellenistic courts. In the history of collections, they represent a very early example of exoticism in elite collecting, of the accumulation of valuables in what we may assume was a royal and non-sacredSchatzkammer, of the need for an aesthetic response (in this case through short poems) to ‘label’ and valorise the precious items in the collection. In the history of ancientWissenschaft, the poems’ use of late Classical gem-lore (exemplified in texts like theOn Stonesof Theophrastus) offers a vivid instance of the ways theoretical knowledge circulated at least in elite contexts around the royal circle.

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“…Democritus, the first philosopher to liken sense perception to wax imprinting, seems aware of these difficulties and may have even embraced them. 69 Democritus' analogy differs from those of Gorgias, Plato 68 See Platt (2006).…”

Section: T7 Aristotle De An 1419a13-17mentioning

confidence: 99%

Democritus' perspectival theory of vision

Rudolph

2011

J. Hell. Stud.

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Democritus' theory of vision combines the notions of images (εἴδωλα) streaming from objects and air imprints, which gives him the resources to account for the perception of the relative size and distance of objects, not just their characteristics. This perspectival explanation of the visual theory accommodates important but overlooked evidence from Vitruvius. By comparing Democritus' theory with ancient developments in visual representation, my analysis provides a new approach to the evidence of atomist vision. I begin with the process of vision before turning to the Peripatetic objections, showing how a unified theory of vision takes into account all of the ancient testimony and provides possible atomist responses to the criticisms raised against it. I also identify the importance of vision via air imprints as an important metaphor for the conventionality of sensible qualities. Understanding these fundamental issues puts us in a better position to assess Democritus' place in the development of ancient optics and of atomist approaches to sense perception.

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Making an Impression: Replication and the Ontology of the Graeco‐roman Seal Stone

Cited by 93 publications

References 11 publications

Less Care, More Stress: A Rhythmic Poem From the Roman Empire

Less Care, More Stress: A Rhythmic Poem From the Roman Empire

Lithic Poetics: Posidippus and His Stones

Democritus' perspectival theory of vision

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