CL311
Unit 6
Inns, Lodging and Shops: Bodel on Epigraphy, or,
"Qui sommes-nous?" Feb. 26, 2004
Feb.
26 (today):
A few questions
to prompt discussion:
What
did the famous epigraphiste Louis Robert mean when he said "qui
somme-nous," and what did it imply about the field of epigraphy? What
roles do place of discovery, vehicle of transmission, medium of writing,
material of the writing surface, motives for creating the text, and audience
for the text all play in defining the epigrapher and epigraphy?
To what social
and political changes can we attribute some evolutionary changes in epigraphic
activity, and why? Where are inscriptions generally found, and what are the
main motives for inscribing/painting/scratching a text?
Who read inscriptions?
Who wrote inscriptions? What do John Bodel, William Harris and Rosalind Thomas
theorize about the relationship between orality and literacy? Did inscriptions
put into words orginally oral publication, or did they produce oral communication?
What role does "voice" play in a static, inscribed/painted/scratched
text?
How are epitaphs
useful to the epigrapher? For example, what do we learn from the gravestone
of L. Herennius Epaphroditus?
Dis Manibus
L. Herennius Epaphroditus
sibi et Herenniae Clade et He-
renniae Marcellae patronabus
et Herennio Fideli et Herennio
Crescenti et Herenniae Tyche con-
iugi suae et libertis meis liber-
tabusque posterisque eorum et
Volussio Lamyro nepoti et Herennios Synergo
et Herennio Africano et Hereniae Meniadi.
What does Bodel
mean by "epigraphic bias"?
What difficulties
await the epigrapher who attempts to date an inscription / graffito? What
tools does the epigrapher have to get past some of these obstacles?
What did Ernst
Badian mean when he described the dangerous intellectual path of "history
from square brackets" and how does the case of the lex parieti faciendo
from Puteoli illustrate the dangers?