Category: Article

Montone on Sidonius’ Health Lexicon

Francesco Montone writes on Sidonius’ health lexicon in ‘Alcuni specimina del lessico della salute nell’epistolario sidoniano, e intratestualità’, Vichiana 60 (2023) 71-86.

Find a specimen in Academia.

Abstract: Some Specimina of the Health Lexicon in Sidonius’ Correspondence, and Intratextuality. The paper deals with the health lexicon in Sidonius Apollinaris’ Letters; Sidonius’ illnesses and those of his relatives and friends are analyzed in order to show possible hypotexts of the literary tradition; words such as morbus, medicus, medicina, medicor are present several times in the correspondence, sometimes in the proper sense, sometimes in a figurative sense; Sidonius creates interesting intratextual mechanisms, following a principle of stylistic uarietas. Finally, the two antithetical descriptions of the healthy body of the Visigothic king Theodoric and the sickly one of the parasite Gnathon are compared.

Bąk on Aristocratic Upbringing

Out recently: Aneta Bąk, ‘Cele wychowania rzymskiego arystokraty w V wieku n.e. w świetle listów Sydoniusza Apollinarisa’ [Objectives of the education of a Roman aristocrat in the fifth century in the light of the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris], Res Gestae 15 (2022) 23-35.

Read from Res Gestae (Kraków) in open access.

Abstract: During the fifth century Gaul was struggling with barbarian tribes, which threatened the Roman order. Sidonius Apollinaris, as a representative of local aristocracy and bishop, believed that there was a possibility to protect at least part of Roman traditions from their disappearance. He saw the chance for keeping them in bringing up the next generations. In his letters there are many examples of what a model Roman aristocrat should look like. This article analyzes fragments from Sidonius’ letters, which are connected with the goals of upbringing: being inspired by right people, education, caring for beautiful and correct Latin language, caring for family name and creating social bonds. On their basis, a catalog of values, which were a hope for continuity of Roman life in restless times, was created.