Yearly Archives: 2008

Rutgers has an extraordinary collection of Roman Republican coins which is housed in its Alexander Library Special Collections and University Archives. At present it numbers about 750 individual pieces; in time, as a result of an ongoing gift, it will grow to more than double that amount. The Rutgers collection is remarkable for its comprehensiveness, historical value, and the fine condition of most of its individual pieces.

Above: Bronze (unworked) Aes Rude, 5th through 3rd centuries BC. Weight: 481 gm. Size: 78 x 65 x 24 mm.

It was in 2001 that an unusually generous anonymous benefaction brought these coins to Rutgers. The gift of this collection, which had been acquired with an expert eye and much continued effort over many decades, almost overnight made RU an important center for teaching (and, in time, research) in this area.

Above: Bronze (cast) Uncia 280-276 BC. Knucklebone seen from outside; beside */*. Weight: 23.55 gm. Size: 27 mm. Sydenham 13; Crawford 14/6

Since 2001 use of the Rutgers Republican Roman coin collection has been restricted to undergraduate and graduate courses in Classics.

But in fall 2005 Rutgers hosted an exhibition which was the first public display of these coins; Rutgers University Libraries published a 72 page catalogue to accompany the show. The exhibition had as its major themes the evolution of the technical aspects of coinage in the earlier Republic, and political and social developments that are reflected in Rome’s money during the period down to 91 BC, the start of Rome’s “Social War” against its Italian allies, and with it, a new era in the coinage.

Above left: AR Denarius 137 BC.

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Emily Allen was born in the United States but raised in Paris, where she studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne. She then went to Harvard to pursue a PhD in Classical Philology. She joins the Rutgers Classics faculty in the fall of 2009.

Her dissertation is a study of the representations of pain, both physical and mental, in archaic and classical Greek poetry and culture. This year she will be gearing up to defend her thesis before a French “jury” at the Sorbonne.

Allen has given several papers on both Greek and Latin literature, including at the APA in 2006, 2007 and 2008. This fall, she has been invited to give papers on pain and tragedy at McGill and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. She is also currently working on the first translation into English of August W. Schlegel’s Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d’Euripide, as a contributor to a project directed by Donald Mastronarde (UC Berkeley)

This summer she spent a few sun-drenched weeks in the hills just outside of ancient Olympia, teaching a course on “The Ancient Greeks and the Other” for Harvard’s Summer School, and exploring a few sites of the Peloponnese, including the beautiful Venetian fortress of Methoni and the palace of Nestor at Pylos.

Seems it’s time for another story about Rutgers (founded 1766) and a slightly older university (founded 1701) located in New Haven CT.

Thomas J. Biggs ’08 will be attending Yale University’s PhD program in Classics starting in the fall.

Tom graduated this May from Rutgers College summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and with Departmental honors, double majoring in English and Classics.

As a senior, Tom received funding from the Aresty Research Center for Undergraduates to complete his thesis, “Eunuchs and Castration Ritual in the Cult of the Great Mother.” Sarolta A. Takács, Professor of History and Dean of the Honors Program at the RU School of Arts of Sciences, directed the work.

The road to Yale might not have been long for Biggs, but it certainly was winding.

Tom started his undergraduate career at the Rutgers-Camden campus with a major in English. “I began studying Latin after taking a course on Renaissance epic”, Biggs explains, “and was encouraged to further develop my interests in classical literature by several professors who could tell where my interests were going. That year I went to Rome for the first time, and attended my first talk given by a classicist (which was a talk Corey Brennan gave in Camden on Roman games and chariot races). I then decided to transfer to New Brunswick so I could major in Classics as well.”

Hold on, there’s more.

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Well, that was quick.

Brian Beyer received his MAT from Rutgers Classics in winter 2007. And in fall 2008 Yale University Press will publish his master’s thesis, an edition of Book III of Eutropius’s Breviarium of Roman history, aimed at the introductory Latin student.

Beyer’s work aims to solve an age-old problem in Latin pedagogy, namely, to supply the beginning Latin student with his/her first “real” Latin text after a semester and a half or a year’s introductory work on forms and grammar.

To address this issue, Beyer has pressed into service Eutropius, a fourth century AD summarizer of Roman history. In just ten books, Eutropius’ Breviarium historiae Romanae somehow manages to cover the story of Rome in a clear and accessible style from Romulus and Remus to the accession of the emperor Valens in AD 361.

Book III of the Breviarium covers the period of Roman history that students often find most interesting—the Second Punic War. In Beyer’s edition of this book—entitled War with Hannibal: Authentic Latin Prose for the Beginning Student—Eutropius’s narrative is presented with no adaptations or omissions past the (digressive) first sentence.

“Eutropius writes in good, standard classical Latin,”, points out UNC-Charlotte’s Dale Grote in the Preface to Beyer’s work, “so we don’t have to undo what we taught our students. His style is lucid and simple, without being insultingly juvenile. It challenges the emerging Latin students without annihilating their confidence, as Cicero does more often than not. Beyer supplements the readings with generous notes, which deftly point out the way without eliminating the little bit of pain that’s necessary to leave students a sense of accomplishment when they’ve worked things out.”

Brian Beyer’s first degree was in English, from Rutgers College. There he was a witness to history. “While an undergrad I took courses with [RU Classics professors] Palmer Bovie during his last semester at Rutgers, and Lowell Edmunds during his first.” T. Corey Brennan advised the MAT thesis.

Beyer currently teaches Latin in central New Jersey at Montgomery High School (“where we have over 120 incoming Latin students next year!”). Previously he taught Latin at Princeton High School, as part of the New Jersey Department of Education’s World Languages Model Program. He also taught English at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles in the Humanitas program.

While earning his MAT in Latin in the RU Classics department, Brian Beyer played an invaluable role as the Interlibrary Loan borrowing coordinator for Rutgers University Libraries. He lives in Highland Park NJ with his wife and three children.

But wait, there’s more.

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When it comes to “double majors”, it’s hard to top Michael Sobota ’08.

Sobota graduated from Rutgers this May in Classics (Greek and Latin option) with a minor in Art History. This 2008 bachelor’s degree is his second from Rutgers, the first being a B.M. with a major in French Horn Performance awarded by Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2003.

This September Sobota starts graduate study as a doctoral candidate in Columbia University’s interdisciplinary Classical Studies program. He aims to use his background in classical philology, music and art history to work toward “a comprehensive social understanding of antiquity”.

During his time at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School, Sobota played french horn in as many performance ensembles as possible: orchestra, wind ensemble, brass ensemble, horn quartet, wind quintet, brass quintet.

“When I came back to Rutgers full-time in September of 2005 to start the second degree,” Sobota recalls, “I played in the wind ensemble for one semester. But when I found myself studying Greek verb flashcards during a recording session, I realized I couldn’t maintain a serious commitment to both performing and Classics beyond that fall.” Still Michael performs in New Jersey as a much sought-after freelancer.

Sobota received a Rutgers College scholarship to attend the Rutgers Summer Study in Greece program in 2006. He also won a scholarship and grant from Rutgers’ Aresty Undergraduate Research Foundation to complete a Henry Rutgers Honors Thesis in 2008 entitled “Greek Lyric: Socio-political Reflections from the Archaic through Classical Periods,” under the direction of Professor Thomas J. Figueira.

So far this summer? “I spent a week in Sicily, with highlights including a visit to the Greek temples at Selinunte, seeing the sculptures in the Archaeological Museum in Palermo, and viewing medieval churches and palaces in the province of Trapani.”

He sold cars at a Honda dealership, had a career in hotel management (night auditor), and has popped up here and there as an author, exhibited photographer, and musician (playing pretty much everything).

David Danbeck (Rutgers ’08) also founded a new venue for the dissemination of classical scholarship, The Pinax: A Journal of Classical Studies. Danbeck and his journal are soon to move to New Haven, where this September he will start graduate studies in Classics at Yale University.

The Pinax is a refereed journal published online twice yearly and consists of scholarship, reviews and opinion—all written by undergraduates. The inaugural January ’08 issue featured articles written by juniors and seniors at Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard (bis), Rutgers, and Stanford.

As for its scope, “The Pinax publishes papers on all topics concerning the history and legacy of ancient mediterranean culture”, writes Danbeck. “The Journal is committed to fostering an environment which is conducive to the open exchange of ideas among emerging scholars in all disciplines which inform our knowledge of Graeco-Roman culture.”

Danbeck himself focuses on Greek literature, “especially anything but the 5th/early 4th c… [I’m] wed to Archaic, flirt with Hellenistic, salivate over Imperial and Byzantine.” At Rutgers Danbeck completed the requirements for two separate Classics majors, in Greek and in Latin literature, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest departmental honors.

His Rutgers BA thesis treated the later reception of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women in the poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus. And he long has been at work on a new edition of the Catalogue, freshly examining and collating the relevant manuscripts and papyri. Danbeck lists as his “current obsessions: ‘Hesiodic poetry’, epithalamia, Fracastoro’s Alcon, and teaching my cat Henry to meow [Charlie Mingus’] ‘Nostalgia in Times Square‘ (a hint: you can teach your cat a tune by whistling).”

Serena Connolly is delighted to be returning to Rutgers this Fall!

She is a graduate of Cambridge (BA 1998) and Yale (PhD 2004), where she taught for three years before coming to Rutgers Classics in 2007 as a visiting assistant professor. This September Serena starts a continuing appointment in the department.

Connolly has just completed her book manuscript, in which she explores the social, political and legal significance of the system of petition and response, and she’s hoping for publication in 2009.

This summer she is editing part of a previously unpublished translation of the Codex Justinianus as a contributor to a project directed by Bruce Frier (University of Michigan).

She also plans to continue work on a new project, the first book-length examination of the Disticha Catonis—an Imperial collection of Latin aphorisms—in their classical context.

Serena has been enjoying spending June in the heat of the East coast, but will soon be heading to Norway, where she will experience for the first time hiking in the land of the midnight sun.

Rutgers Classics has been lucky to host Stefan Schorn, a visiting research scholar in the Department in residence from November 2007 till October 2008. He is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and hosted by former von Humboldt fellow (and Rutgers professor emeritus in Classics) William F. Fortenbaugh.

Schorn studied Classics at the Universities of Bamberg (Germany) and Rome and has been working afterwards as a research assistant and an assistant professor at the Universities of Bamberg and Würzburg.

During his stay at Rutgers, Schorn is working on a commentary on the fragments of Theophrastus’ work On Piety. “This is a great and complex text”, explains Schorn, “because it combines history of religion, literature, philosophy and mentalities. So work never gets boring. I have always loved to work on fragmentary texts since the days of my dissertation when I edited the fragments of the biographer Satyrus. As a research scholar I have all the time I need. And I have Bill Fortenbaugh—the foremost specialist of Theophrastus—to discuss it with (and someone to correct the English of my commentary).”

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And what is Rutgers’ senior ancient historian up to these days? A lot, as it so happens.

Among other recent publications, Thomas Figueira draws the attention of his readers to the long-delayed, but now imminent, appearance of his study on 5th- and 4th-century colonization, “Classical Greek Colonization,” forthcoming in A History of Greek Colonisation and Settlement Overseas, G.R. Tsetskhladze, editor (E.J. Brill, Leiden) 427-524.

He continues his collaboration with his younger sister, D.M. Figuiera, the noted comparatist, in a series of papers and contributions on critical theory, including 2007 appearances at the XVIIIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association in Rio de Janeiro and at the conference Sparta in Comparative Perspective, Ancient to Modern: History, historiography and classical tradition in Nottingham.

Figueira will give two papers in Cork, Eire (at the International Sparta Seminar and the Celtic Congress of Classical Studies) in July, and, next year, will speak at the Philadelphia 2009 APA Annual Meeting, and at conferences in Liverpool and at Corinth.

In Rutgers notes, Figueira will be representing the School of Arts and Sciences (New Brunswick) in the Rutgers University Senate, and continues his participation in the RU Honors program under colleague Dean Sarolta Takács.

He calls everyone’s attention to the recent completion of Ancient History themed dissertations by Andrew Scott and Gregory Golden (Corey Brennan supervising), and wishes to convey his warmest appreciations to Corey and Leah Kronenberg for their efforts resulting in the addition of Timothy Power, Serena Connolly, and Emily Allen as tenure-track Classics colleagues. (Many thanks to you too, Tom! Ed]

Fourth year RU Classics grad student Ben Hicks recently sojourned in Scotland, where he gave a paper at Identity, Representation And The Principate AD 14-68. The conference ran from 18-21 June 2008 and was sponsored by Dr. Alisdair Gibson of St. Andrews University.

Hicks’ paper, entitled “‘Unfortunate Rather than Wicked’: Failure to Communicate in the De Legatione ad Gaium,” explored the failure of Philo’s embassy to the emperor Gaius through the use of speech act theory.

The conference drew scholars of the early Principate from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany.

Benjamin Hicks is a native of North Carolina, having received his BA from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He is currently beginning work on a dissertation focusing on imperial consilia and decision-making.

Hicks also will be presenting a paper entitled “Evocatio Imagery in Tacitus’ Histories 4.83-84” in Philadelphia at the 140th Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association (January 2009).