Dionysus in Rome - 03-04/09/2015, London (England)

Though attested in Greek culture since the Mycenaean palace records, Dionysus always remained quintessentially ‘other.’ He is usually considered a Greek god in his Greek contexts, from the eastern Mediterranean to southern Italy. This international conference will shift the focus to his reception in Rome and Italy, aiming to establish what was essentially Roman or Italian about the naturalized Roman Bacchus, and examining the importance of Roman filtering to the ways in which Dionysus was understood in later ages, e.g. the Italian Renaissance.

Dionysus’ mythical conquest of India, and his passage from East to West make him a suitable figure to think about colonization narratives and cultural transfer. But we aim to go beyond the binary notion of ‘Rome receiving Greece’ and beyond the idea of hermetic national categories by looking at the closely-meshed interactions between Greek and Italian culture in early-Hellenized Italy, and by expanding the frame of reference to include countries around the Mediterranean that came under Roman control, including Greece itself. What is ‘Roman’ about the versions of Dionysus articulated by writers from north Africa or the Greek east of the Roman period? Do Romanized Greeks of the imperial period think differently about Dionysus from their pre-Romanized counterparts? What was the role of native Italian religion in taming the ecstatic Greek god for his new Roman audience? What does Roman policy about the cults of Liber and Bacchus tells us about the Romans’ relationship with this god?

Ancient historians, and historians of art, religion and literature will gather to offer collaborative perspectives on the Roman and Italian dimensions of this Greek god.

FECHA/DATE/DATA: 03-04/09/2015

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Gordon House - Department of Greek and Latin, University College London (London, England)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Fiachra Mac Góráin (UCL) ; Departmente of Greek and Latin (UCL)

INFO: web - dionysusinrome@gmail.com

INSCRIPCIÓN/REGISTRATION/REGISTRAZIONE: £20 - online (hasta/until/fino a 28.08.2015)

Thanks to the generosity of the Classical Association, a limited number of graduate bursaries will be available to cover costs (excluding transport) associated with attending the UCL conference, Dionysus in Rome, 3-4 September 2015. To apply for a bursary please explain the relevance of the conference to your research in not more than 500 words, and send todionysusinrome@gmail.com by 5pm on Friday 21 August. All applicants will be notified of the result of their application on or before Wednesday 26 August.

PROGRAMA/PROGRAM/PROGRAMMA:

Valentina Arena (UCL) - The temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera

Caroline Campbell (National Gallery) - Bacchus in Renaissance Italian furniture painting

Elena Giusti (Glasgow/Cambridge) - The Metapoetics of Bacchus: Dionysian Sublime in Seneca’s De Tranquillitate Animi

Steve Heyworth (Oxford) - Liber in Ovid, Fasti 3

Francesco Massa (Aix-Marseilles) - Liber and Dionysus in the Roman Imperial Period? - The Contribution of Latin Christian Literature

Daniele Miano (UCD) - Liber, Fufluns, and the Others. Identities of Dionysus in Latium and Etruria (5th- 3rd centuries BC)

John Miller (Virginia) - Ovid’s Bacchic Helmsman and Homeric Hymn 7

François Quiviger (Warburg) - Release and restraint: Rubens’ Sleeping Silenus and Renaissance Banqueting Culture

Alessandro Schiesaro (La Sapienza) - Flavian Bacchus

Julietta Steinhauer (UCL) - Dionysian Associations in Rome

Phiroze Vasunia (UCL) - Dionysus and India

Stéphanie Wyler (Paris – Diderot) - Dionysian landscapes in Augustan images