Laetae segetes IX

Crates of Thebes, disciple of Diogenes of Sinope, is probably the Cynic author with the most substantial surviving body of written work, with around twenty poetic fragments surviving through indirect transmission. These texts reveal a highly original engagement with the Greek poetic tradition, which Crates reworks to express core Cynic ideals and to critique both conventional paideia and rival philosophical systems, particularly Platonism. Unconventionally, he chooses poetry—rather than dialogue or treatise—to articulate his thought, making his work an important example of philosophical poetry within the Hellenistic period. Despite their originality, Crates’ fragments have attracted only limited scholarly attention over the years. This paper aims to contextualize Crates, his thought, and his extant fragments within the broader philosophical and literary landscape of his time. It also explores his relationship with preceding philosophical traditions and the influence he exerted on later philosophy (especially Stoicism) and “philosophical poetry”. It ultimately aims to shed light on the complex relationship between poetry and philosophy in antiquity, highlighting the unique role Cynicism played in reshaping this relationship.

Giorgia Garuti holds an MA in Classics from the University of Bologna and a PhD in Classics from the University of Pisa. In 2023, she was a Visiting Researcher at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Her doctoral research explores Homeric parody in classical and Hellenistic literature, with a focus on philosophical texts. She is currently collaborating with various publishing houses, editing Greek and Latin textbooks, while working on the publication of her PhD thesis. Her research interests include epic parody, intertextuality, Cynicism, Platonism, and comedy.

The late Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus often illustrates the doctrines of his philosophy by way of commonly known stories or figures. Among the most prominent of these are the characters central to the Iliad. Epictetus uses characters such as Agamemnon and Achilles to demonstrate both moral shortcomings and triumphs, all from the perspective of Stoic ethical theory and psychology. He focuses on their perception of a given situation determining their subsequent right or wrong actions.
More often than not, these are cautionary tales, examples of the misuse of impressions (φαντασίαι). Occasionally, they are used to support Epictetus’ role ethics, playing a predetermined role or πρόσωπον in the drama of life. Epictetus is less interested in allegorical interpretations about the nature of the gods that are more typical of other Stoic philosophers. He is expediently practical, only referencing characters from the Trojan War insofar as he can utilize them to demonstrate a concrete example of an abstract psychological or ethical point. This is all part of his pedagogical persuasion, that is, using stories readily familiar to his students that they will find difficult to disagree with as examples.

Josef received a Bachelor of Arts degree in classical languages from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and is pursuing graduate studies at Charles University in Prague. His graduate research focuses on the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus, especially his pedagogical techniques. Josef is also a teacher at Argos Ancient Greek, leading reading groups in spoken ancient Greek.

The paper looks at the tradition of ancient prose translations into Latvian, analysing paratexts as well as target text itself to discern reasons for translation, both political and personal. Translations of literary texts from well established and influential cultures have played an active role of development of Latvian national literature. Paralel to translations from modern languages, translations from Ancient Greek and Latin have been made since the end of 19th century and have continued through times up to newest publications during 21st century. Reasoning of the choice of translated texts, target audience, and the way the target text is being represented, have changed throughout the history of ancient prose translations into Latvian. Paper aims to answer the question of why ancient texts keep their relevance within Latvian culture even in 21st century.

Agnese Upīte is a PhD student of classical philology in University of Latvia. Her thesis deals with various aspects of ancient prose translations into Latvian. For her master thesis she translated Aristotle’s treaty "De Memoria et Reminiscentia" and researched translation techniques used in Latvian translations of Aristotle and Plato. She has been involved with developing Latin–Latvian digital dictionary as well as promoting ancient literature and culture for Latvian non-academic public. Not only she is interested in theoretical side of translations from classical languages, but is enthusiastic about creating modern translations of ancient texts.

Myth, as a central tool of Comparative Literature, serves as a fundamental cultural unit and a gateway to a fragmented past. In post-war Greek poetry, myth reappears as both a narrative strategy and a mode of artistic reflection, expanding mythical intertexts while evoking an anti-heroic ethos tied to the historical moment. The literary reworking of ancient Greek mythological elements offered post-war poets a common framework, fostering intertextual dialogue and comparative approaches. In this context, myth functioned as a medium for exploring identity, ideology, and memory. Helen, one of the most iconic figures in Greek mythology, has undergone various reinterpretations in both modern Greek and Western traditions. Her multiform nature highlights the myth’s inherent dynamism. However, her literary presence in the post-war period remains insufficiently studied, apart from references by Lambros Varelas, who calls for a more thorough exploration. This paper will examine the transformations of Helen in post-war Greek poetry through tools of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature—reception theory, intertextuality, gender studies, and diachronic comparison. The myth’s role shifts: it reflects trauma, redefines femininity, or enables personal myth-making. Poets reshape Helen in response to ideological shifts and historical upheaval, using myth as both cultural memory and creative reinvention.

Dimitrios Cheilaris is a PhD candidate in Modern Greek and Comparative Literature at the University of Patras. He holds a BA in Philology (Classical Studies) and an MA in Modern Greek Studies, supported by the "Maria Kyriazopoulou-Mirasgezi" scholarship. His dissertation, funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (ELIDEK), explores mythical intertextuality in post-war Greek and European poetry. He is a member of the Organizing Committee of the Colloquium of Modern Greek and Comparative Literature and has collaborated with the journal @Up. His research interests include comparative literature, gender studies, and the reception of myth. His work appears in Embolimon and e-Comparison.

The following paper discusses the concept of Women’s time in Ifigeneia in Aulis as it is described in Julia Kristeva’s work («Women’s time», 1981). More specifically, the paper elaborates on the distinction between historical/linear time and women’s time (cyclical and monumental time) as it can be read both in the myth of Ifigeneia and in the text of Euripides’s tragedy. Through this aspect, I examine some parts of Ifigeneia in Aulis as traces of the monumental and cyclical female time, and I would add even revolutionary and subversive time (ex. Prologue, Second Episode). The appearance of female time in ancient tragedy can shed light in a new theoretical tool that examines time and gender. Besides this reading, the paper discusses issues of terminology (women’s time and female time) and of the theoretical intersection of contemporary literary theory and ancient tragedy.

Markia Liapi is a philologist and art historian. She has studied in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (MSc in Comparative Literature, MSc in History of Art, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), she is an undergraduate student in Theatre Studies in AUTH and a PhD candidate at the Department of Modern Greek Literature AUTH. She has worked in public education, as a digital editor in AUTH and as an oral project field manager in Istorima. She participated as Princeton research fellow in the 2024 Summer Institute of Ancient Greek Tragedy. She was rewarded with the New Professional Award in the 2024 Textile Society of America Symposium.

As an intriguing part of classical reception, the modern adaptations of ancient mythology and mythological characters from various cultures have become an integral part of the popular culture. These adaptations incorporate elements of ancient civilisations, cultures and histories into the present while reinterpreting them in a changed cultural context. Rick Riordan’s novel The Lightning Thief, which has sold over 18 million copies worldwide is a significant example of this, which has shaped the understanding and perception of ancient Greek mythology for a generation of young readers. This research examines the portrayal of gods in The Lightning Thief, studying how the depiction of ancient Greek gods has been reimagined for the modern target audience. The analysis delves into the portrayal of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, analysing their descriptions, actions and effect on the environment and surrounding characters, while examining the creative strategies employed by the writer to adapt the gods’ character in a way that resonates with young readers.
The study highlights the differences between the modern gods in the novel and their portrayal in ancient Greek mythology and literature. These changes are especially relevant, as the books aim to promote interest in antiquity and educate the target audience.

Ilona Lőrincz is currently pursuing her academic studies in Classics at the University of Szeged, and she is particularly interested in the contemporary representation of the ancient Greek civilisation. Her main area of interest lies in the appearance and perception of mythology and mythological characters in the popular media. She is interested in the pedagogical aspects of modern mythological adaptations and how they influence the way younger generations perceive antiquity.

Greek mythology is one of the most prominent mythological traditions in the world, comprising stories that have long been used to interpret the world and reflect religious or moral ideas. These narratives reached ordinary people primarily through poetry and visual art—forms of expression that continue to influence how we engage with mythological content today. The modernisation of classical texts is strongly shaped by the medium into which they are adapted, since they have traditionally been communicated through the most popular or culturally appropriate forms of the time. Among the many contemporary means of presenting mythology, comic books represent a recent but significant medium for preserving and reimagining classical themes and narratives. By examining the representation of mythological figures in works of popular culture, we can better understand the perception and relevance of classical mythology in contemporary society. Given Heracles’ frequent presence in ancient myth, drama, and comedy, it is unsurprising that he also appears frequently in modern reinterpretations, particularly in visual and popular media such as comic books. This paper explores how the Heracles myths have been adapted in popular culture, with particular emphasis on their reinterpretation in comic books.

Mercédesz Stocker is a PhD student of the Antique Literatures and Cultures subprogram of the Doctoral School of Literature at the University of Szeged. Her research interests include the representation of ancient mythology in popular culture.

This paper explores the intricate interplay between magical, medical, and symbolic conceptions of stones as preserved in ancient and Byzantine sources, with a focus on the tradition of lapidary texts from the 4th century BCE to the 14th century CE. Drawing on a wide spectrum of literary evidence —ranging from treatises attributed to Theophrastus and Psellos to poetic and theological works such as the Orphic Lithika and writings by Epiphanios of Cyprus— this study examines how the mineral world was perceived as a medium of cosmic sympathy, spiritual power, and therapeutic efficacy. Through the lens of Neoplatonic and Stoic cosmologies, as well as Eastern magical traditions, stones emerge not as inert matter but as active agents of healing and protection, often embedded within ritual and apotropaic contexts. The paper also analyzes the interdependence of magical and medical discourses and explores how the enduring appeal of lapidary knowledge shaped Byzantine attitudes toward nature, science, and faith. Ultimately, the project contributes to a cultural-historical understanding of the transmission of occult and scientific knowledge within the Greco-Roman and Byzantine intellectual milieu, based on textual sources.

Anastasia Petropoulou is a graduate of the Faculty of Philology (Classics) at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where she earned an honours degree with distinction. She holds two MA degrees in Byzantine Philology and in Papyrology and Classical Literature, both completed with top marks. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD on the Church’s role in the economy of Egypt from the Byzantine to the early Arab period, funded by a research fellowship. Her interests include Classical Philology, Greek Papyrology, Palaeography, and Late Antique literature. She has published six peer-reviewed articles and presented at international conferences.

This paper presents a methodology for mapping patterns in Latin lead amulet inscriptions by breaking them down into textual formulae. Lead amulets constitute a new corpus of medieval written sources. The current total corpus is approximately 400 specimens spread over Northern Europe, with a heavy majority in Denmark. The amulets are small lead plates with adjurations of disease-causing demons in the form of prayers, incantations, exorcisms, and divine names engraved. In this paper, I will discuss how to segment amulet inscriptions into the smallest possible meaningful formulaic phrases. I expand the framework developed by Franek and Urbanová (2025) on adjuration formulae in Europe to fit lead amulets specifically. For each inscription, I identify the verb of adjuration, subject of the adjuration, direct addressee(s), mediation syntagma, desired effect, liturgical prayer, and sanction or reward. In conclusion, lead amulets represent a new source material for understanding medieval medicine, liturgy, learning, and lived religion. Identifying the formulae that make up their inscriptions places them within the broader context of European cultural history and maps their relationships to manuscripts, liturgy, lived religion, and learning.

Dalsgaard's research is interdisciplinary and focuses on medieval magic as seen in both archaeology, such as amulets, and manuscript evidence, such as sermons, leech books, and grimoires. Her doctoral project explores medieval lead amulets as a European source group through relational database modelling of geographies, dating, physicalities, and inscription formulae. She has also previously worked on Old Norse and Viking Studies.

This conference contribution is devoted to paratexts with a focus on versed units which can be found in Latin grammar books published within the territory of present-day Slovakia from the 16th to the 18th century. These texts, which were traditionally placed at the beginning of grammar works, played a crucial role in the pedagogical practise of the time period – such as motivational, value or poetic framework of textbooks. The aim of this paper is to present preliminary research results into genre affiliation of these poems and the functions in the framework of publications devoted to grammar. This work also outlines the typology of these texts on the bases of their formal composition, thematic focus and intertext links with either ancient or Christian traditions. The analysed corpus comes mainly from the funds of the Slovak National Library in Martin, the State Scientific Library in Košice or the Lyceum Library in Bratislava. This research thus completes the content analysis of grammatography in Slovakia and helps bring a more comprehensive perspective on this type of material.

Mgr. et Mgr. Frederik Pacala Ph.D. focuses his research primarily on neo-latin. His scientific interest is currently focused on the research of Latin and partly Greek paratexts within the scope of neo-latin grammatography which were mainly published in the territory of present-day Slovakia. His research focuses on the literary analysis of poetic texts, their function within selected works, their relation to ancient traditions as well as their translation interpretation. Along the primary research, he also participates in several projects in the area of propagation of the Latin language or translation of Latin works into Slovak.

From Augustus onwards, Roman emperors regularly held ordinary consulships. It has been noted long ago that the consulships were held at special occasions. With a new approach however, building on Egon Flaig’s acceptance system, the imperial consulship may be seen as a mode of communication between the emperors and important status groups: Acting as consul was not so much a way of "disguising the monarchy", but was expected of emperors. I want to propose a new typology of imperial consulships and present it with case studies. Doing that, I investigate how imperial consulships were portrayed in different literary genres (historiography, letters, panegyrics) during the early principate and what those accounts might tell us about discourse on the "civilis princeps".

Felix Michler studied Ancient History and Linguistics at the University of Vienna, where he is currently a PraeDoc Assistant in Roman History. His research interests include Roman Political Culture, Social History, Latin Epigraphy and Documentary Papyrology. In his PhD thesis he is investigating the rank titles of the imperial Roman elite. In addition, he is currently working on the documentary texts found in Müllendorf (Pannonia Superior) and on the self-fashioning of the Roman emperors.

This paper deals with the riots in the theatre during Tiberius' reign, according to historian Tacitus. There are three examples with different methods of maintaining order, which are describing relationship between the senate, emperor, policing forces and keeping order. All of them occurred in the city of Rome and offer various kinds of reaction (of the authorities like the senate or the emperor). I will analyse these examples, more precisely the way Tacitus described them, and compare them with each other. Then I will propose a comprehensive image of security in the city of Rome based on what these examples can offer us.

Ondřej Trojan was born in Třebíč in 1997. He graduated from Czech language and literature and the History of Antiquity at the Masaryk University in Brno. Now he studies for a doctorate at the Department of Classical Studies. His fields of study are roman policing forces in the city of Rome, specifically at the end of Republic and during the Principate.

This paper presents a digital philological approach to studying the private diary of Karl Benedikt Hase, a Franco-German Hellenist, who traveled to Greece in 1837. Containing the record of his trip, Hase's private diary is written in a unique blend of Ancient, Byzantine, and Early Modern Greek, interspersed with transliterated fragments, neologisms, and code-switching patterns. The paper provides an overview of Hase’s use of Greek in the diary and investigates linguistic variation between the travelogue section and regular entries. Drawing on HTR-assisted transcription of the diary and semantic XML markup curated by the LAGOOS project, the paper showcases how digital tools enable both distant- and close-reading analysis of historical texts. By leveraging NLP methods, such as frequency analysis and TF-IDF topic modelling, the study highlights different historical registers of Greek in Hase’s writing and traces diachronic shifts in his vocabulary. This case study illustrates how integrating digital methods into literary analysis helps uncover stylistic and lexical shifts in hybrid Greek prose, offering new insights into the development of Early Modern Greek through the lens of diary-writing in the 19th century.

With Master’s degrees in Medieval Studies and Digital Humanities, Lev focused his previous research on a wide variety of Byzantine Greek literary sources, ranging from hagiographies to metrical paratexts. As part of the LAGOOS project at the University of Innsbruck, Lev makes use of his palaeographic and digital skills to study a Greek private diary of a Franco-German Hellenist Karl Benedikt Hase, focusing on HTR model training, NLP analysis and transcription correction tasks in preparation for a digital edition.

Rap, as an organic component of the wider hip-hop cultural constellation, constitutes a multi-layered and polymorphic mode of oral artistry in which the rhythmicity of speech interweaves with a nexus of lyrical, musical, and socio-cultural parameters. From the birth of the Greek scene in the 1990s to its most contemporary manifestations, Greek rap reflects a kaleidoscope of social, cultural, and technological transformations.This study deploys corpus-stylistic methodologies to critically examine the lexical fabric of Greek rap across three discrete temporal junctures (1990s, 2000s, 2010s). Particular emphasis is placed on the frequency of salient keywords and the lexico-grammatical selections associated with the interpersonal function of discourse.The findings foreground rap’s dual role as both a vehicle of self-expression and social critique and a cultural artifact shaped by intensifying globalisation and commodification. They simultaneously highlight the pressing need for further, more granular exploration of sub-genres and localised articulations of the form.

Panagiotis Delis is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His research focuses on the vocabulary of Greek hip-hop and rap, employing corpus stylistics to explore thematic patterns, corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis synergy, and Anglophone hip-hop. He has compiled and analyzed a 370,000-word corpus of Greek rap lyrics and a 750,000-word corpus of English rap lyrics. comparing it with other Greek and English song corpora. His work emphasises the stylistic and social functions of language in music. He has published on (im)politeness in hip-hop, and his studies on the stylistic features and pragmatic markers of contemporary Greek rap are currently in press.

In ancient Greek myth, Arcadia figures as mountainous-rural realm of gods and heroes wor-shipped by men who are said to be inexperienced seafarers and the oldest people, thus echoing a lost golden age. When Romans and Roman-friendly Greeks, due to the socio-economic grievances and political-military problems after the establishment of the province Achaea, were longing for such a heyday to become remaining reality (i.e., under the aegis of Augustus and his successors), literary sources attributed great value to mythical Arcadia as the arche-type, while they characterized the real region as poorly civilized: e.g., bucolic Virgil labelled it the idyllic counterpart of the urbs, and the cultural geographers Strabo and Pausanias de-scribed it as scarcely populated and lying mostly in ruins. From today's perspective, however, material evidence shows that not all considered rural or ruinous was actually abandoned. Our new project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation will examine where, how, and why so-called “lost cities” were constructed in imperial Arcadia. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it methodologically focuses on instances of diverging textual and archaeological evidence. In my paper, I will outline its philological approach and discuss hypotheses on moralistic and identity-establishing discourses and political propaganda as the pivotal driving forces.

Aaron Plattner is a classical philologist from South Tyrol. He studied Latin and Ancient Greek in Innsbruck and then completed his doctorate in Graz and at the Max Weber Kolleg in Erfurt on the Perigete Pausanias. In September 2023 he moved to Greece, where he has been working intermittently as a research fellow. He has mainly worked on Pausanias, descriptions, narratology, literary theories, and Greek myth, but his research interests are wide-ranging, from archaic-classical Greek to modern Latin literature. From autumn 2025, he will be part of a research fellowship from the Gerda Henkel Foundation (topic: imperial Arcadia’s "lost cities").

Libanius of Antioch (314-393 CE) was a prominent figure in the eastern part of the Roman Empire during the fourth century: head of a major rhetorical school, prolific author, and also correspondent to a vast and diverse network of people, including emperors.
This paper aims to analyse some controversial cases of reactions to Julian’s decision on the restitution of properties previously confiscated from pagan temples (362). One notable case involves Bacchius, a priest from Tarsus, who – apparently driven by the enthusiasm for Julian’s decree– stole a statue of Artemis, once part of the temple’s belongings (Epp. 710; 712; 757). Libanius highly praises his deed. Conversely, he also writes letters defending friends against the accusation of having built private houses on temple’s property. These epistles not only help to reconstruct the different consequences of Julian’s measures, but also offer a useful tool to deepen the understanding of Libanius’ attitude towards his ‘pagan’ and Christian friends.

Rebecca Penna is a MA graduate in Philology, Literature and History of Antiquity with honours. From November 2023, she is a PhD candidate in Roman History at the University of Torino, Italy (supervisors: proff. Andrea Pellizzari, Francesco Massa). From October 2024 to March 2025, she has been a visiting student at the University of Potsdam, under the guidance of prof. Filippo Carlà-Uhink. The main aim of her PhD project is to reconstruct the last year of Emperor Julian’s reign, focusing on his relationship with the city of Antioch and Libanius, through the translation of a selection of the author’s letters.

The proposed paper examines the use of participial complements in the accusative (AccPtcp) governed by verbs of seeing and knowing in classical Greek, exploring their role in encoding the acquisition and possession of knowledge. Building on recent advances in the study of evidentiality and epistemic grammar (Aikhenvald & Storch 2013; Bergqvist & Grzech 2023), I argue that constructions with AccPtcp in classical Greek exhibit a complex interaction between sensory perception and cognition. The component of perception stems from the original use of participial complements with verbs of seeing, and it is often retained when AccPtcp appears with verbs of knowing, which require propositional complements. The construction with predicates of knowing, which involve both verbs of seeing and knowing, invites the implicature that the subject of the matrix verb has unmediated access to the evidence that supports the proposition denoted by AccPtcp. This meaning corresponds to the evidential values of sensory source and inference building upon direct perception. Furthermore, predicates of knowing complemented by AccPtcp may also express epistemic authority. This notion describes rights to knowledge that follow from the subject’s privileged access to information or the personal importance of the described event. The research corpus comprises the works of the ten Attic orators.

Martin Masliš is a junior researcher who recently finished his PhD at Charles University in Prague. The aim of his dissertation project was to investigate evidential strategies in classical Greek prose, with special emphasis on the domain of inferential reasoning. His research interests include the study of grammaticalization, pragmatics, and discourse within the framework of functional grammar. He is currently employed at the Institute of Greek and Latin Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.

Texts that refer to periphrastic gradation in Latin usually contain two pieces of information. One of these is (somewhat inaccurately) based on information given by late Latin grammarians, claiming that adjectives with the suffixes -ius, -eus and -uus are phonetically incompatible with the comparative suffix -ior-, and, therefore, in their case gradation is achieved by means of the adverbs magis and maxime. However, as will be shown, this interpretation is not valid.

The second claim that appears in modern texts on Latin gradation is that periphrastic gradation – as a feature of colloquial Latin – gradually replaced morphological gradation and that the further we go in the development of the Latin language, the greater is the share of periphrastic gradation. This, after all, is consistent with a common sense view of linguistics: it is well known that morphological devices in Indo-European languages tend to be replaced by lexical ones, and it is also well known how the category of gradation developed in Romance languages. However, it will be shown that the extant literary texts (up to the 8th century AD) in fact show no such increase. At the same time, we will look at what the corpus of Latin literary texts tells us about the development of another means of gradation, the adverb plus, which eventually came to dominate in this function in much of the Romance world.

All of this, rather than providing information about the actual development of this grammatical category, is a contribution to the broad and fundamental question of Latin linguistics, namely how relevant the literary texts are as a source of data for tracing the natural development of the language, or at what period they still are or cease to be a relevant source.

In my paper, I am going examine the grammatical gender of the noun mancipium in the charters of the Chartae Latinae Antiquiores (ChLA) from the vicinity of St. Gallen. The word mancipium ('serf') is fascinating because, while formally neutral, it refers to humans. This contrast allows for the emergence of semantic agreement. This situation is further complicated by the fact that by this period the neuter gender was disappearing and, as Loporcaro (2016, 223) has shown, the disappearance could have gone through either merging into the masculine, or former neuter nouns could have been reassigned to an emerging gender, the alternating neuter (genus alternans). In light of these facts, we find many different uses of the noun mancipium in these charters. These do not, at first sight, give a clear indication of their assignment to a specific grammatical gender. In my paper, I will examine whether, based on Corbett (1991), this noun can be interpreted as a gender hybrid and whether the Agreement Hierarchy (Corbett 1991, 225) can explain the different uses of the noun. Based on these, I will discuss the morphosyntactic application of Herman's (1990, 10-28) quantitative method and the possible methodological differences necessary compared to phonological investigations.

Béla Szlovicsák is a PhD student at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest and a junior research fellow at ELTE-NYTK. His main research interests include the dialectology of Roman epigraphs, the application of computational and statistical methods in Latin historical linguistics and the Vulgar Latin gender system.

References:

• ChLA I–II. = Chartae Latinae Antiquiores. Facsimile Edition of the Latin Charters Prior to the Ninth Century. Bruckner, Albert – Marichal, Robert (ed.)
  – Vol I. Switzerland: Basle–St. Gall, Olten & Lausanne 1954.
  – Vol II. Switzerland: St. Gall– Zürich, Olten & Lausanne 1956.
• Corbett, Greville G. (1991). Gender. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Herman, József et al. (ed.) (1990). Du latin aux langues romanes. Études de linguistique Historique. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen.
• Loporcaro, Michele (2018). Gender from Latin to Romance. History, Geography,Typology. Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics 27, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Thanks to rapidly developing technologies, we can—and perhaps should—revisit certain long-standing questions in the study of ancient texts. One such topic is prosody, particularly in the comedies of Plautus. A new analysis of Plautine dialogic passages, currently underway at the Charles University Faculty of Arts in Prague, introduces innovation not only through its use of digital tools, but also through its broader methodological approach. Where previous scholarship has largely focused on the verse-ictus and its relation to word accent – often at the expense of the accent itself (as in the work of Drexler, Fraenkel, and Questa) – this project aims to give equal attention to all analysable prosodic categories. In particular, we seek to re-evaluate the role of accent, and to highlight its importance alongside ictus. This requires a renewed examination of Latin speech units: their internal structure, boundaries, and the accentuation of stress-groups. This paper will consider whether general rules for their identification can be formulated, and how this inquiry might contribute to broader discussions on metre, accent, and performance in antiquity.

Cecylia studies a joint Master’s programme in Latin and Czech Language and Literature Teaching for Secondary Schools at FF UK, to be completed in September 2025. Her academic focus lies in Latin linguistics and the prosody of Plautus’ comedies. Her MA thesis was titled Implicit and Explicit Standard in the Pronoun alius. In 2024, she received a two-year GA UK grant for the project Characteristics of Prosody in Plautus’ Comedies. She also collaborates on a LINDAT project aiming to digitise Plautus’ verse with full prosodic and metrical annotation. Her dissertation explores speech unit structure in Latin based on Plautine prosody.

This paper aims to present aspects of daily life for women in the Byzantine Empire in the sixth/seventh centuries CE, based on their literary representation in the stories of the Spiritual Meadow by John Moschus. This work comprises ca. 231 stories, of different dimensions and with different settings, which narrate experiences of monastic and ascetic life at a time when the Byzantine monasteries were facing various crises. These stories open a window upon the conditions of life in the Empire during the sixth and first half of the seventh century CE. The focus of this paper will be on female figures, their representation and their relationship with the greater purpose of the work: to present “the virtues of holy men who have distinguished themselves in our own times” (translation by John Wortley). With this in mind, the main research questions that arise are what historical traces of women’s day-to-day lives can we draw from Moschus’ narratives? And, what is their literary significance? To this end, my paper purports to 1) present various examples of how women are represented in Moschus’ work, 2) compare them and 3) analyse their potential historical value.

André Correia is a PhD student in Classical Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra and a Collaborating Researcher at the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies. There, he taught as Invited Assistant in the BA for Classical Studies (2024/2025). At the same institution, having graduated in Classical Studies, with a Minor in Portuguese Studies (2020), he concluded the Master's degree in Teaching Portuguese and Latin (2023). His main areas of interest are Byzantine studies, classical literature, ancient history and the teaching of Portuguese, Latin and Greek.

From the work of the Frankish chronicler Gregory of Tours, we learn that the Merovingian kings had their rivals' hair cut in the 6th century. This gave rise to theories linking Frankish kingship to the sacred significance of hair. Debates have raged as to whether this was an influence of pagan Germanic culture or whether there were biblical and Christian influences. However, the first text to write about the cultural significance of hair among the Germanic people was already Germania of Tacitus. It is also necessary to compare this information with the records that can be found in Visigothic and Vandal sources. Such a comparison will show us that it is wrong to associate the cultural significance of hair only with the Germanic/Frankish kings but will show us that hair probably had a much greater and wider significance in Germanic society. In the context of contemporary discourses of barbarian identities, it is thus possible to rethink the meaning of hair in the barbarian kingdoms of the 5th to 7th centuries and define its symbolic significance for the society of that time.

Oto Mestek deals with the transitional period between Antiquity and Middle Age. His main topics are the period of the Great Migration, the emergence of new political entities in the 5th and 6th centuries, transformation of society after the end of the Western Roman Empire, economic and social changes. The primary focus is thus on the administrative development of the new barbarian kingdoms and how civilizationally and politically the barbarians were influenced by Rome. Of the barbarian kingdoms, he is most concerned with the states of the Visigoths, the Suebi and the Ostrogoths.

In this paper, I explore textual emotionality as the means of identity construction and of sustaining socio-cultural boundaries between Romans and non-Romans in the Ostrogothic regnum in Cassiodorus’s Variae (late-530s-early 540s CE). This presentation argues that such emotions as love and hatred performed a rhetorical function in the Variae. Different emotive scripts of love and hatred attributed to the Italo-Roman and Gothic elites and regnum’s outsiders stood to produce and uphold the difference between the perceived Romanness of the Italo-Roman elite and ethnic/cultural Otherness within and beyond the polity.
By examining Cassiodorus’s scripts of love and hatred in the Variae, I intend to demonstrate the broader changes in post-imperial Italy, particularly new power relations between Ostrogothic rulers and their subordinates, the adaptation of late-imperial Roman social structures and texts along with struggles to (re)construct the Roman past. Social affection was central to the Roman civic discourse. Thus, while for the Italo-Roman elite and the Ostrogothic rulers Cassiodorus provides multiple scripts of love and hatred embedded in Roman imperial and civic culture, scarcity of love rhetoric and emphasis on hatred for ethnic/cultural Others demonstrates how emotions in the Variae navigated Ostrogothic political changes, Roman identity, and social, religious, and ethnic boundaries in Italy and beyond.

Anastasiia Morozova is a cultural historian with a specific interest in late-antique textuality, rhetoric, history of emotions, and methodology of history. At the moment, she is a third-year PhD student at Central European University (Vienna). She received her second MA at CEU, defending her MA thesis on “Gratia non debet occumbere cum dilectis: Love, Affection, and Affective Ties at the Ostrogothic Court in Cassiodorus’s Variae.” Her current PhD thesis aims to explore the social, emotional, gender, ethnic, material, and connotative dimensions of the expression of emotions in Cassiodorus's Variae. She also co-organised a reading group on theory and methodology of humanities (2024) and co-developed the course on history of emotions at CEU (2025).

The influence of Manichaeism on Augustine’s thought and writings is a rich area of research, yet it is largely overlooked in discussions of his Epistulae. His surviving collection of letters offers valuable insights into his intellectual journey from conversion to death, unveiling how he articulated his ideas and teachings in public discourse. Augustine spent his entire life refuting accusations of Manichaeism, resulting in the Epistulae featuring numerous explicit and subtle anti-Manichaean motifs. In Ep. 137, he rejects Manichaean views on Christ, while in Ep. 120, he confronts their understanding of the Trinity. In both instances, he alludes to their doctrines and employs their specific terminology. Notably, Augustine often substitutes derivatives or synonyms seen in Manichaean literature, such as using "infusus" rather than "commixtus" in Ep. 137, or "massa" in place of "moles" or "globus." This paper examines the anti-Manichaean rhetoric present in Augustine’s Epistulae, employing textual, rhetorical analysis, and close reading. The goal is to explore the intent behind Augustine’s indirectness, its significance in his literary output, and the function of synonyms in his texts.

Marc-Thilo Glowacki is a PhD student in Literature at the Institute of Classical Philology, AMU Poznań, and at the RU for the History of Church and Theology, KU Leuven. In his PhD project, he works on anti-Manichean rhetorics in Augustine's Epistulae. His interest revolve around, Greek literature, Religion, Philosophy, Ancient Christianity, Patristic Literature, Ancient Magic and Esotericism, Gnosticism and Christian Sects, Manichaeism.