Panels and Conferences by Lothar Willms
Freedom is a core concept of the Western world; it is crucial to political discourse and theory a... more Freedom is a core concept of the Western world; it is crucial to political discourse and theory and fundamental in social and philosophical debates. The idea of freedom arose in ancient Greece and progressively unfolded.
Despite the plethora of studies in freedom, there is still scope for deepening our understanding of this notion, by systematically examining more terms and related expressions (e.g. ἐλευθεριότης, προαίρεσις, τὸ εφ᾽ ἡμῖν), by promoting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches, and by studying more closely the association (or possible equivalence) between ancient and modern concepts of freedom (e.g. ancient terms related to the freedom of will, sexual or religious freedom, moral freedom, freedom of choice etc.).
The aim of this panel is twofold:
a) first, to offer a forum for a methodological and terminological clarification of this notion, by examining underexplored authors and genres (such as the novel, the New Testament, theology, inscriptions, papyri etc. esp. philosophical) that might contain thus far undiscovered concepts of freedom;
b) to prompt a comparative reflection on freedom by focusing on two ancient civilizations, ancient Greece and Rome.
Edited volume by Lothar Willms
Cross-cultural Crossroads in Antiquity: On Celts, Romans, Greeks, Etruscans, and Germans , 2023
Cross-cultural contact is not just a phenomenon of our globalized world, but can already be found... more Cross-cultural contact is not just a phenomenon of our globalized world, but can already be found in many pre-modern cultures. The papers gathered in this edited volume examine the diversity and complexity of cross-cultural phenomena and practices in antiquity in which Celtic people were involved. A highly mobile culture with a wide geographical distribution from Europe to Asia Minor, they interacted as givers and receivers in linguistic, onomastic, archaeological and alphabetical exchanges with the Romans and Greeks, but also with non-classical cultures such as the Etruscans and Germanic peoples. Here, when adopted from one culture to another, cultural material is transformed with considerable creativity. Moreover, we also find complex scenarios of transmission and interaction in which more than two cultures are involved and which yield refined and varied forms of adoption. The chronological horizon extends from prehistory to the present, where the survival of Celtic words in the lexicon of modern languages illuminates the impact of ancient Celtic culture. Due to this broad temporal horizon and the range of disciplines involved, this volume is of equal interest to ancient historians, archaeologists, classical philologists, Celtologists, and scholars of cultural studies and modern philologies.
Books by Lothar Willms
Das vorliegende Arbeitsbuch bietet als Aufgabenstellung die deutsche Version lateinischer Texte, ... more Das vorliegende Arbeitsbuch bietet als Aufgabenstellung die deutsche Version lateinischer Texte, die ins Lateinische rückübersetzt werden sollen. Sie orientieren sich am üblichen Stilcurriculum latinistischer Studiengänge und sind Cäsars Gallischem Krieg (Grundstudium) und Ciceros Catilinarien und Tusculanen (Hauptstudium) entnommen. Die beiden Kursreihen über Cäsar und Cicero sind als voneinander unabhängig nutzbare Einheiten konzipiert und schließen mit einer Musterklausur ab. Die Originaltexte wurden für die deutsche Aufgabenstellung didaktisch leicht geglättet. Zu jedem Text wird ein lateinischer Übersetzungsvorschlag geboten, der ausführlich kommentiert wird. Dabei wird auch auf einschlägige und aktuelle Nachschlagewerke und Hilfsmittel des Lateinstudiums verwiesen (Neuer Menge und Neuer Georges, Rubenbauer-Hofmann-Heine, Menges Synonymik). Viele Texte behandeln grammatische Themen und verweisen zur besseren Vorbereitung auf die entsprechenden Kapitel lateinischer Grammatiken. Ausgewählte Grammatikthemen werden auch im Arbeitsbuch selbst in Übersichten kompakt und systematisch dargestellt. Eine kommentierte Literaturliste und ein Sach-und Wortregister runden das Buch ab. Das Arbeitsbuch kann sowohl als Unterrichtswerk in universitären Stilkursen als auch zum studentischen Selbststudium genutzt werden. Es wurde vom Autor in zahlreichen Stilkursen eingesetzt und im Dialog mit den Teilnehmern kontinuierlich verbessert.
Latin Prose Composition: Practice Exercises This is a book of Practice Exercises in Latin prose composition for German speaking students. Texts in German for re-translation into Latin are taken from Caesar's Bellum Gallicum as well as from Cicero's Catilinarian Orations and Tusculan Disputations. These texts have been slightly reworked for didactic purposes. For every text, the book provides a model translation into Latin. A detailed commentary accompanies these model translations, explaining the preferred solutions, any given alternatives and useful warnings against potential pitfalls in the act of composition. Relevant grammar rules and synonymous expressions are presented, drawing on standard reference books (both grammars and dictionaries) and often referring to them for further reading. Many texts train the student in his or her command of demanding aspects of Latin grammar. Apart from constant reference to the relevant paragraphs of standard grammars, the book offers didactically shaped overviews over several grammar topics. The Practice Exercises are suitable for use both in University classes and for students studying on their own for repetition and drill. It includes a bibliography with an accompanying commentary and an index listing the different grammatical subjects and German and Latin expressions.
Introduction into Linguistics for Classicists
Commentary on Epictetus' Diatribe On Freedom, with a Translation and an Introduction
English Summary of a German monograph
English abstract of a philological commentary on Avienus’ Phaenomena (Verses 1014–1325)
Papers by Lothar Willms
Modern Economics and the Ancient World: Were the Ancients Rational Actors? Selected Papers from the Online Conference, 29–31 July 2021 Edited by Sven Günther, 2023
Abstract: This paper argues that Plato and Adam Smith represent two different modes of economic a... more Abstract: This paper argues that Plato and Adam Smith represent two different modes of economic and social rationality and that Smith’s mode finds no match in ancient Stoics. This difference is part of his contribution to the constitution of modern economics. His mode of social rationality widely presupposes that people are able to behave as rational actors in both economy and ethics whereas Plato’s model requires intensive education and institutional initiation before people are qualified to act according to his particular pattern of rationality. Whereas Plato yields a hierarchic top-down organization in society, economy, politics, and psychology, Smith in both The Wealth of Nations (1776) and his ethical treatise The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), favours a horizontal and bottom-up model in economy, ethics, and psychology that is based on the individuals’ (peer-to-peer inter)action. Stoic theories such as proficients, cosmopolitanism, oikeiôsis and providence worked as ingredients and ferments to this new model that enhanced the confidence in the individuals’ fruitful cooperation. Transferring them from ethics and the cosmos to the economic system and complementing them by a model of self-regulatory interaction was Smith’s achievement.
Latomus, 2020
This paper explores how the lyric speaker constructs his poetic identity as a uates in Hor. carm.... more This paper explores how the lyric speaker constructs his poetic identity as a uates in Hor. carm. 1,1; 2,20 and 3,30. Ιn all three poems, we find a Cartesian coordinate system consisting of a vertical and horizontal axis. These axes structure the space and enable the poet's ascension to the gods on the vertical axis. In carm. 2,20 and 3,30 time serves as an additional parameter in the construction of identity: In carm. 2,20, the lyric speaker defines his identity in the face of death with a poetological metamorphosis into a swan, and in carm. 3,30 his oeuvre assumes this role. By the afterlife of his work, the speaker hopes to overcome the evanescence to which everything corporal or material is otherwise doomed. By identifying himself with the significate, the poet elegantly solves the problem of the materiality of the aesthetical sign which Dieter Mersch has brought to the fore.
David Goldstein, Stephanie Jamison, Brent Vine (eds.), Proceedings of the thirtieth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles. Bremen: Hempen Verlag., 2020
In his seminal work How to Kill a Dragon. Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, Calvert Watkins makes... more In his seminal work How to Kill a Dragon. Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, Calvert Watkins makes the “basic formula” *(e-)gwhen-t ogwhim ‘he slew the serpent’ (1995:viii, 365) the core of his reconstruction of the common PIE poetic motif of the killing of a dragon. In his monograph, Watkins investigates how this motif manifests itself in the literature of various IE languages.
My paper explores another instance of the afterlife of the dragon theme. It is found in the Persians, a tragedy by the Athenian playwright Aischylos (472).
Jochen Althoff, Sabine Föllinger, Georg Wöhrle (eds.), Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption [Ancient science and its reception]. Vol. 30. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 87–104., 2020
This paper explores the way in which Poseidonios and Seneca in his Naturales quaestiones dealt wi... more This paper explores the way in which Poseidonios and Seneca in his Naturales quaestiones dealt with the Presocratics. Due to indirect transmission by later authors, Poseidonios' reception is often hard to figure out and is an instance of reception itself (meta-reception). He focuses on cultural studies and elevates Pythagoras to an authoritative position (in addition to Heraclitus whom the Early Stoics revered), a canonization followed by the Imperial Stoics. His approach is mostly exegetical and doxographic whereas Seneca is the first Stoic to deal with the Presocratic positions on natural phenomena (winds, thunder and lightening, earthquakes, flooding of the Nile) in a critical and argumentative manner. Poseidonios renders his Presocratic predecessors more exactly than Seneca who is often surpassed in accuracy by Aristotle's parallel accounts. The reception of the Presocratics by both Stoics yields a complex intertextuality and an elaborate discursive rationality evidenced in quotations, naming the Presocratic authors, systematizing their views and dealing critically with them and even each other's interpretations of them. "The reception of the Presocratics in Poseidonios and Seneca's Naturales quaestiones [Zur Rezeption der Vorsokratiker bei
Béla Adamik, Andrea Barta, Edit Krähling (eds.), The Proceedings of 13th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin (Latin vulgaire – latin tardif XIII). Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 59. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó , 2019
The copious corpus of deviations from standard Latin from Trier spans more than 800 years (50 BC-... more The copious corpus of deviations from standard Latin from Trier spans more than 800 years (50 BC-800 AD) and comprises both pagan and Christian inscriptions, the latter exclusively on tombstones. This paper points out the most salient non-standard features in the categories of phonetics, morphology, syntax and vocabulary. Most of them conform to standard Vulgar Latin, but some yield features of the inscriptions' area, such as Western Romance (preservation of finals , voicing intervocalic stops), Gallo-Romance (qui instead of quae, nasalisation), and the extinct Moselle Romance. A few features might reflect Gaulish substrate influence ([u] > [y], e before nasals > i, ē > ī, ō > ū,-m >-n). Clues for palatalisation and the raisings ē > ī, ō > ū are the most prominent phonetic features, the latter supporting, combined with the preservation of finals , a renewed paradigm of nominal inflection. Morphosyntactic changes are driven by analogy and regularisations. Starting at the fringes, the erosion of case syntax ended up in a complete breakdown. Christianity fostered the recording of previously undocumented substandard features, completed the assimilation of Celtic (which pagan polytheism and the upwards mobility of Roman society had initiated) and supported the cultural integration of Germanic immigrants.
Rheinisches Museum, 2019
This paper investigates the metamorphoses which the concept of poetic identity and its permanence... more This paper investigates the metamorphoses which the concept of poetic identity and its permanence as contained in Horace’s Ode 3,30 underwent in Ovid, du Bellay, Ronsard and Pushkin. This concept can be mapped by a Cartesian coordinate system. The poet’s permanence is herein granted through the ascent on the vertical axis and through constant self-rejuvenation.
IPHIS, 2018
War is a paramount expression of violence. In the Greek literary and iconographical traditions, C... more War is a paramount expression of violence. In the Greek literary and iconographical traditions, Cassandra became the emblematic victim of rape after war. Most vase paintings which represent her show this iconic scene. In this paper, I shall highlight the different stages of evolution which this myth underwent in both literature and visual arts. I shall ask how Cassandra’s rape is presented and how it is assessed. I shall investigate whether and how the image of this act in the two aforementioned media is to be related to its political and cultural contexts.
This paper deals with the origin of those Latin nouns for botanic, zoological and mineralogical p... more This paper deals with the origin of those Latin nouns for botanic, zoological and mineralogical phenomena for which scholars have suggested a Celtic origin. It takes into account both geographical and migratory aspects. Apart from alauda ‘lark’ which most likely came from a Pre-IE substratum, all Celtic nouns can be tracked back to PIE roots. esox apart, all Latin nouns discussed here survive in Romance languages, and some entered Germanic languages.
In his RG Augustus deploys several strategies for the symbolic organization of his power, playing... more In his RG Augustus deploys several strategies for the symbolic organization of his power, playing with time and theatricality, as well as authority, sovereignty, and monumentality. The complex interweaving of past, present, and future in the RG recalls Virgil’s Aeneid. In the theatrical construction of his reign, Augustus created auctoritas by mustering the public’s consent to his persona, which is characterized by integrity, and converted his military sovereignty into symbolic and political sovereignty. This process is analyzed drawing on Schmitt, Bourdieu, and Agamben. Beyond Augustus’s death, public staging of the RG and its monumentality ensured the permanence of his persona.
Like a Dog Tied to a Chariot -On the Author of a Stoic Comparison for Man's Dependence on Fate" [... more Like a Dog Tied to a Chariot -On the Author of a Stoic Comparison for Man's Dependence on Fate" ["Wie ein Hund an einem Wagen" -Zum Urheber eines stoischen Vergleichs für die Schicksalsgebundenheit des Menschen]. In: Sabine Harwardt und Johannes Schwind (eds.), Corona Coronaria. Festschrift für Hans-Otto Kröner zum 75. Geburtstag. Spudasmata 102. Hildesheim: Olms 2005, 409-423.
This article discusses case endings, composition, analogy and borrowing for the origin of Latin s... more This article discusses case endings, composition, analogy and borrowing for the origin of Latin suffixes in-d-and-es,-itis. From pedes, formed on the model of PIE-inherited types of compounds in simple-t-, the suffixes ,-itis spread by analogy to further nouns. Despite the Etruscan borrowing satelles, an Etruscan origin for this suffix is unlikely. Composition and instrumental case endings are the origin of the suffix in d. From the instrumental case endings this suffix spread by analogy. Some new insights into the etymologies for the discussed compound nouns in-d-(custōs, cuspis, cassis) buttress the composition origin.
This paper will reexamine the origin of Greek (w)anax, (w)anaktos 'lord', nowadays still a subjec... more This paper will reexamine the origin of Greek (w)anax, (w)anaktos 'lord', nowadays still a subject of doubt and discussion. the search must depart from the oldest form (w)anakt-, which Szemerényi first segmented correctly as *wen-ag-t- or *wn-ag-t-, i.e. IE *wen- ‘kin’, ‘tribe’ + *ag- ‘to lead’ + agent-suffix -t. Later objections against this sound analysis help to clarify the meaning of the first component as ‘battle’, ‘victory’.
Paper on Epictetus’ gender discourse
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Panels and Conferences by Lothar Willms
Despite the plethora of studies in freedom, there is still scope for deepening our understanding of this notion, by systematically examining more terms and related expressions (e.g. ἐλευθεριότης, προαίρεσις, τὸ εφ᾽ ἡμῖν), by promoting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches, and by studying more closely the association (or possible equivalence) between ancient and modern concepts of freedom (e.g. ancient terms related to the freedom of will, sexual or religious freedom, moral freedom, freedom of choice etc.).
The aim of this panel is twofold:
a) first, to offer a forum for a methodological and terminological clarification of this notion, by examining underexplored authors and genres (such as the novel, the New Testament, theology, inscriptions, papyri etc. esp. philosophical) that might contain thus far undiscovered concepts of freedom;
b) to prompt a comparative reflection on freedom by focusing on two ancient civilizations, ancient Greece and Rome.
Edited volume by Lothar Willms
Books by Lothar Willms
Latin Prose Composition: Practice Exercises This is a book of Practice Exercises in Latin prose composition for German speaking students. Texts in German for re-translation into Latin are taken from Caesar's Bellum Gallicum as well as from Cicero's Catilinarian Orations and Tusculan Disputations. These texts have been slightly reworked for didactic purposes. For every text, the book provides a model translation into Latin. A detailed commentary accompanies these model translations, explaining the preferred solutions, any given alternatives and useful warnings against potential pitfalls in the act of composition. Relevant grammar rules and synonymous expressions are presented, drawing on standard reference books (both grammars and dictionaries) and often referring to them for further reading. Many texts train the student in his or her command of demanding aspects of Latin grammar. Apart from constant reference to the relevant paragraphs of standard grammars, the book offers didactically shaped overviews over several grammar topics. The Practice Exercises are suitable for use both in University classes and for students studying on their own for repetition and drill. It includes a bibliography with an accompanying commentary and an index listing the different grammatical subjects and German and Latin expressions.
Papers by Lothar Willms
My paper explores another instance of the afterlife of the dragon theme. It is found in the Persians, a tragedy by the Athenian playwright Aischylos (472).
Despite the plethora of studies in freedom, there is still scope for deepening our understanding of this notion, by systematically examining more terms and related expressions (e.g. ἐλευθεριότης, προαίρεσις, τὸ εφ᾽ ἡμῖν), by promoting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches, and by studying more closely the association (or possible equivalence) between ancient and modern concepts of freedom (e.g. ancient terms related to the freedom of will, sexual or religious freedom, moral freedom, freedom of choice etc.).
The aim of this panel is twofold:
a) first, to offer a forum for a methodological and terminological clarification of this notion, by examining underexplored authors and genres (such as the novel, the New Testament, theology, inscriptions, papyri etc. esp. philosophical) that might contain thus far undiscovered concepts of freedom;
b) to prompt a comparative reflection on freedom by focusing on two ancient civilizations, ancient Greece and Rome.
Latin Prose Composition: Practice Exercises This is a book of Practice Exercises in Latin prose composition for German speaking students. Texts in German for re-translation into Latin are taken from Caesar's Bellum Gallicum as well as from Cicero's Catilinarian Orations and Tusculan Disputations. These texts have been slightly reworked for didactic purposes. For every text, the book provides a model translation into Latin. A detailed commentary accompanies these model translations, explaining the preferred solutions, any given alternatives and useful warnings against potential pitfalls in the act of composition. Relevant grammar rules and synonymous expressions are presented, drawing on standard reference books (both grammars and dictionaries) and often referring to them for further reading. Many texts train the student in his or her command of demanding aspects of Latin grammar. Apart from constant reference to the relevant paragraphs of standard grammars, the book offers didactically shaped overviews over several grammar topics. The Practice Exercises are suitable for use both in University classes and for students studying on their own for repetition and drill. It includes a bibliography with an accompanying commentary and an index listing the different grammatical subjects and German and Latin expressions.
My paper explores another instance of the afterlife of the dragon theme. It is found in the Persians, a tragedy by the Athenian playwright Aischylos (472).
https://books.google.de/books?id=dcSXSFHgQZYC&pg=PA1017&dq=Lothar+Willms+Stoizismus+in+der+europ%C3%A4ischen+Philosophie,+Literatur,+Kunst+und+Politik.+Eine+Kulturgeschichte+von+der+Antike+bis+zur+Moderne.&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAGoVChMIv8zOlsmayAIVIwFzCh29uAf-#v=onepage&q=Lothar%20Willms%20Stoizismus%20in%20der%20europ%C3%A4ischen%20Philosophie%2C%20Literatur%2C%20Kunst%20und%20Politik.%20Eine%20Kulturgeschichte%20von%20der%20Antike%20bis%20zur%20Moderne.&f=false
In my talk I intend to argue in favour of this (second) view and against the first, again much en vogue nowadays. I shall base my interpretation on a close reading of chap. 18 and its manifold philological, contextual, and conceptual problems. In doing so, I shall also discuss the conceptual coherence of the philanthrôpon and the tragic with chap. 13. In a further step, I shall assess the coherence of philanthrôpon within Aristotle’s philosophy by aligning this term with the concept of distributional justice. Finally, drawing on Hellmut Flashar, I shall demonstrate that the special slant which Aristotle gave to philanthrôpon is a reaction to the humanitarian conceptions of this term which flourished in the contemporary Hellenistic zeitgeist and seem to persist in present day readings of Aristotle’s philanthrôpon as fellow-feeling.
The translation of Greek and Latin texts always involves a philological interpretation. Such interpretations are made explicit in commentaries, and some translators even explained their readings in commentaries. Likewise some Stoic passages on sexuality are still philologically controversial and this is reflected in their translation. Furthermore, we can study whether and where both genres used parallel strategies in dealing with sexually offensive content in the Imperial Stoa. Just as translations and commentaries are intertwined with each other, translations of Greek and Latin texts are no isolated monads but often draw on their predecessors, even on those in other languages, in their search for a good turn of phrase and the philological interpretation which is enshrined in the predecessors’ work. This practice enables us to look for lines of continuity and upheavals from the Renaissance to the 21rst century. Microscopic changes and characteristics might reflect the zeitgeist of a certain era (Victorian/Wilhelminian prudery, Freudian views on sexuality, open-minded attitude towards non-normative sexual behaviour from 1968 onwards). They vary the general tendency which prevailed from the Renaissance until the sexual revolution of the late 20th century: Whereas the Imperial Stoa names and proscribes non-normative sexual behaviour, translations and commentaries simply drop or euphemize it in paraphrases. Some translations are anthologies and can omit elegantly entire chapters with a sexually offensive content. They end up censuring these texts by applying an eclectic approach that had been used in the creation of some of the translated texts and led to their divulgation and canonization (e.g. Epictetus’ Handbook which is extract of his Discourses, both authored by his pupil Arrianus).
With Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Republic and Simplicius’ commentary on Epictetus’ Handbook, Neoplatonism offers probably the richest harvest of remarks on sex and gender within ancient philosophical commentaries. Yet, Neoplatonist commentaries are only the culmination of intertextuality in ancient philosophy in the field of sex and gender. For already Plato’s provocative idea of a community of women found a rich echo in later philosophers and Epictetus’ discourse on sex and gender refers not only to Cynic and Stoic texts but also to Platonic ones. Widening the chronological scope beyond ancient Platonism and Stoicism, I shall investigate whether and how these lines of commenting continue in three Christian adaptations of Epictetus’ Handbook. In every instance of this rich tradition I shall ask (i) how these texts treat sex and react to their predecessors’ way of treating it ([implicitly] reticent, [explicitly] censorious, downplaying, (re)contexualizing, moralizing, allegorizing, etc.); and (ii) whether this treatment is influenced by the texts’ philosophical school, religious adherence, or the zeitgeist. Finally I shall examine whether and how discursive and inter¬textual practices go along with the commented or recommended sexual practices, e.g. whether sexual restriction is dealt with summarily and sexual dissipation lavishly – or whether it is just the opposite.