Frames and Framing in Antiquity 1 contents preface introduction

AD LECTORES!

The present volume comprises selected, double-blind peer-reviewed papers from the first conference on "Frames and Framing in Antiquity," held online from 16 to 18 October 2020 and jointly organized by the two editors, Sven Günther from the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations (IHAC), Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China and Elisabeth Günther, then Institute for Digital Humanities, University of Göttingen, Germany, now Classical Archaeology, University of Trier, Germany.

That the papers could appear within two years after the conference in these challenging times is due to many helpful and supporting hands and minds: first of all, the conference participants who submitted their papers and any necessary revisions and proof corrections on time; second, the anonymous reviewers who deeply engaged in the arguments and helped a lot to improve the final papers; and third, IHAC's assistant editor of the Journal of Ancient Civilizations (and its Supplements), Dr Shi Xueliang who -as always -made the papers ready for publication with his careful copy and meticulous layout editing. Furthermore, we thank IHAC's students for the help in the background, in particular Dr Zhang Hongxia and Zhang Duoduo, MA for helping in the conference preparation, and Luo Fuxing, MA for preparing the source index.

Moreover, we are extremely grateful to IHAC's director Prof Zhang Qiang for accompanying the whole process from conference organization to publication with his generous and profound support.

As the traditional "thanks"-frame has now been filled as expected we hope to satisfy, maybe also to challenge, and eventually to stimulate other of your frames related to research into antiquity within the following pages: tollite, legite, dissertate!

Changchun & Trier, in mid-October 2022

The editors

In the first book of his Noctes Atticae, the second-century AD author Aulus Gellius reports an academic discussion about a passage from the speech of the republican censor Metellus Numidicus 1 (1.6), who had admonished the people (populus) to marry women despite the annoyance (molestia) resulting from such wedlock with women (uxores). 2 His view of the state of marriage (res uxoria) as being inevitably linked to annoyance (molestia) and constant disadvantages (incommoda perpetua) is heavily criticized by certain erudites, since they consider such arguments harmful for the purpose, viz., to encourage the people to conduct marriages. Instead, they propose a different wording, that is, on the one hand, to deny any molestia occurring from marriages, and on the other to rationalize away any reported molestia as being small compared to the respective advantages, and being merely the result of specific misconduct by man or woman (maritorum culpa et iniustitia), rather than of a natural vice (naturae vitium). 3

1 On the discussion about which Metellus spoke as censor and the possible historical context, see McDonnell 1987. 2 Gell. 1.6.2 (trans. Rolfe 1927, as for the other passages): In ea oratione ita scriptum fuit: "Si sine uxore pati possemus, Quirites, omnes ea molestia careremus; set quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode, nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum est." / "In that speech these words were written: 'If we could get on without a wife, Romans, we would all avoid that annoyance; but since nature has ordained that we can neither live very comfortably with them nor at all without them, we must take thought for our lasting wellbeing rather than for the pleasure of the moment.'" 3 Gell. 1.6.3: Videbatur quibusdam, Q. Metellum censorem, cui consilium esset ad uxores ducendas populum hortari, non oportuisse de molestia incommodisque perpetuis rei uxoriae confiteri, neque id hortari magis esse quam dissuadere absterrereque; set contra in id potius orationem debuisse sumi dicebant, ut et nullas plerumque esse in matrimoniis molestias adseveraret et, si quae tamen accidere nonnumquam viderentur, parvas et leves facilesque esse toleratu diceret maioribusque eas emolumentis et voluptatibus oblitterari easdemque ipsas neque omnibus neque naturae vitio, set quorundam maritorum culpa et iniustitia evenire. / "It seemed to some of the company that Quintus Metellus, whose purpose as censor was to encourage the people to take wives, ought not to have admitted the annoyance and constant inconveniences of the married state; that to do this was not so much to encourage, as to dissuade and deter them. But they said that his speech ought rather to have taken just the opposite tone, insisting that as a rule there were no annoyances in matrimony, and if after all they seemed sometimes to arise, they were slight, insignificant and easily endured, and whether completely forgotten in its greater pleasures and advantages; furthermore, that even these This view is countered by Gellius' rhetorical "multi-purpose weapon," his teacher Titus Castricius. 4 He differentiates (Gell. 1.6.4) between what a rhetor and what censor must say, and then lists the different tricks and manipulations permitted to an orator as long as "they have some semblance of truth and can by any artifice be made to insinuate themselves into the minds of the persons who are to be influenced" (si veri modo similes sint et possint movendos hominum animos qualicumque astu inrepere). However, for the censor Metellus Numidicus, he outlines his complex entanglement in the Roman society based on the aristocratic value-and-honor system (Gell. 1.6.5). Having great reputation, standing, and trust within the society, he would endanger his position by covering something that is actually perceived as a reality in both his and every man's view. Hence, by speaking what fits to the perceived reality, he increased the people's confidence in his sincerity and truthfulness, and consequently could convince them to follow his admonition by thinking of the well-being of the whole state. 5 What reads like a normal struggle between two schools of rhetorical training -one in focusing on merely technical aspects, the other one in the application of rhetorical skills to real situations 6 -has a deeper meaning at the level of argument design: While the anonymous critics of Metellus rather technically recommend a denial or diminishing of any negative side of marriages (which must result in a positive picture of the institution "marriage"), Castricius considers the common and daily knowledge, experiences, and expectations of the audience of which the censor is integral part of, namely, the populus Romanus, with all the complex relations and networks of the speaker to different groups (especially to the elite noble families) that made any political statement from the nobilitas an issue.

Clearly, this could have its background and Sitz im Leben in a discourse about the proper role performance of imperial authorities, especially when addressing their target audience(s). 7 Yet, it is noteworthy that this reads like a perfect example of any modern discussion about the design of a public relations campaign and its communication: it is not the actual topic that counts, but rather how you market, sell, and frame it to the audience in the right way so that they perceive it to be correct, true, and real.

We strongly believe, in turn, that not only this episode can be described by using concepts of frame and framing. Rooted in the 1970's, frame and framing are clearly modern theories, but, nonetheless, offer (as we argue in this volume) excellent potential to describe, analyze, and interpret ancient sources, since they are concerned with the basic structures of human knowledge and their embedding in different forms of communication. As is outlined in more detail in Elisabeth Günther's introductory paper, "frames" are defined as cognitive structures that serve to classify and categorize all kinds of experiences, perceptions, and acts of communication. Their relevance to social life has been emphasized by Erving Goffman in his seminal work Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience in 1974, 8 which still contains many stimulating ideas for social, cultural, and historical studies. Two other "fathers" of frame theory formulated groundbreaking theses on the inner structure of frames and their importance for communication: the linguist Charles J. Fillmore (1976), 9 and the cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky (e.g., 1980). 10 According to this tradition which still influences current approaches, for instance, in respect of linguistic frame theory, 11 frames are network-like structures that can be divided into smaller sub-frames or merged into frame-bundles on higher level, both applicable to individual situations and to patterns shared in groups or societies. Thus, frames are not only dynamic mental structures which can be re-affirmed, modified, altered, or broken, but also can only exist in relation with other frames, intertwined in a complex mental network with numerous crosslinks and interdependences. 7 On the different roles the emperor had, or was expected, to perform to stay within the subtly designed system of acceptability, see the classic works by Flaig 1992/ 2 2019 and Winterling 2003 (English ed. 2011). On how this imperial order with the emperor as core to which everything gravitated was challenged and transformed in the first century AD by the rise of a class of "new rich," see Hartmann 2016. For the imitation of the emperor's roles on the senatorial level, see Page 2015 and Künzer 2016. On the patron-client-relations as inner core of the Roman world, see Ganter 2015. 8 Goffman 1974. 9 Fillmore 1976;2006. 10 Minsky 1980 For an in-depth study of the applicability of frame theory to linguistics, see the compendium of D. Busse: Busse 2012.

To apply frame theories means to disentangle such communication processes in order to understand the relationship between smaller pieces of information -and specially to think about how such information is embedded into the pre-existing frame network, i.e., how communication is framed by the background knowledge of the author and (target) audience, and their respective knowledge, experiences, and expectations. Since frame theories deal with the very basic processes of communication, and since frames serve to identify and investigate culturally specific elements within these processes, they are a suitable tool for approaching different cultures within different periods of time. Furthermore, they stimulate us as modern researchers to reflect and define our own viewpoint of and perspective on the past, to sort out the manifold relationships between past and present, to look with a new perspective on the per-and reception of (classical) antiquity, and to transfer the phenomena we extract from ancient sources to the many frames we encounter in our own times. This, in turn, enables us to understand the frames and the framing processes, innate in both our sources and research.

The term "framing" (and related terms such as "priming") have gained in significance and popularity during the last decades, especially in the fields of political and media studies, 12 as a means of describing the deliberate and systematic activation of unconscious connotations of words and/or images in order to influence or direct (public) opinion. Such a political (mis)use of framing seems, at first sight, not adequate for approaching ancient sources, since mass media in a modern sense did not exist in antiquity, 13 and since a clear agenda, clearly limited to a systematic influence of a specific audience, is in most cases hard to prove -or may even lead to a circular argument and a rather uncritical application of equally modern concepts such as "nudging" or "propaganda." Yet, Robert M. Entman, coming from the field of communication and media studies, proposed the currently most influential definition of framing in the 1990's, 14 aiming at a much broader concept: "Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described." 15 And in fact, this paves the way for an application of the framing concept to ancient studies, drawing attention to the selection and salience of specific words, aspects, symbols, figures, etc. in ancient sources, may they be literary or documentary texts, coins, inscriptions, archaeological objects, monuments, or images. 16 The discussion of Metellus Numidicus' speech as shaped by Aulus Gellius clearly demonstrates the potential of the framing concept, shedding light on rhetorical strategies to select pieces of information and to make them salient with the intent to "frame" the respective audience in order to win them. Rhetorical theory and praxis are, thus, the most promising starting point to apply frames and framing theories to ancient sources, as the papers of Riccarda Schmid and Jan Lukas Horneff demonstrate. Focusing on political communication in ancient Athens, Schmid understands framing as a dynamic, multilevel process. In her paper, she discusses in-depth the scope of different frame theories and their potential as analytical tools, and provides a comprehensive introduction to the application of frame/framing theory to actual framing processes in ancient Greek speeches delivered by Aeschines and Demosthenes who refer not only to historical arguments, but also to earlier speeches, of both sides. From this perspective, oratory reflects the public discourse in the communication process between the communicators, the composition of the content, and the audience. By means of this dynamic model, she highlights that frames of reference in the social memory of ancient Athens were constantly negotiated, adjusted, and updated.

Horneff studies the invective nature of Roman forensic oratory by analyzing passages from Apuleius' Apologia, the only completely preserved court speech from the Roman imperial period. Besides framing, skilful re-framing plays an important role in this context in rejecting and replying to the opponent's invective, as Horneff demonstrates in his analysis. The (quite colourful and intriguing) motif of the os impurum in the passage on which Horneff focuses sheds light on the rustic, sometimes abusive nature of Roman humor, and reveals playful puns which invert and pervert the underlying gender roles and respective social norms. This analysis leads Horneff to assume that the passage is a response to a (now lost) invective against Apuleius, which tried to label him as an effeminate vir mollis who practices cunnilingus. With a clever reframing, however, of the not only metaphorical term os impurum, Apuleius replied by eroding the plausibility of the accusation by ridiculing and distorting it, and by re-framing effeminacy with urban lifestyle while demoting his opponents' apparent masculinity to provincial and primitive behavior.

It is only a small step from oratory to history, since the orations analyzed by Schmid and Horneff with the methodological aid of frame and framing terminology had their Sitz im Leben in historically relevant discussions or discourses, respectively. Yet, the question arises to what degree historical sources other than speeches can be analyzed and interpreted with frame and framing methodology. Sven Günther addresses this question by re-assessing the fundamental work Outline of the Principles of History (Grundriss der Historik), deriving from a lecture series on historiology, i.e., the principles of History as a scientific subject at universities, by the (ancient) historian Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884). Droysen already realized that extant sources from the past offer (only) a specific perspective on historical events and/or developments, and that they must thus be analyzed and interpreted critically with regard to the pragmatic course of events, the conditions, the individual acts of wills, and the common ideas which all produced the sources and history. Hence, he formulated not only basic principles for History as an academic discipline of the modern Humanities, but also came close to modern frame and framing theories in seeking not to study "what actually happened" ("wie es eigentlich gewesen," Leopold von Ranke, against whose school of thought Droysen argued), but rather the different viewpoints ("Sehepunkte") on realities, and their relations to each other.

Such relative viewpoints of historical transitions in Athens and Rome are studied in the two papers of Sven-Philipp Brandt and Francesco Ginelli, respectively. Brandt focuses on the emergence of the autarkeia-framework in late classical Athens. By comparing the League-framework of the first, namely the Delian League of the fifth century BC (478-404 BC), and the second Athenian League system founded hundred years after the first (378-338 BC), he discusses the similarities in the overall framework of the two leagues, but also the differences in respect of some attributes ("slots" in frame and framing terminology) and values (concrete "fillers" of the "slots"). Furthermore, he demonstrates how the wording of the League-framework was modified after the devastating Social War (357-355 BC) in which Athens' allies revolted against the once-more visible and tangible imperial behavior of the leading polis. This re-framing resulted in the emergence of the autarkeia-concept within political discourse (which was eventually fully formulated by Aristotle) in order, on the one hand, to reflect and to return to the many, especially economic, advantages of the polis Athens and its inhabitants, and, on the other, to claim the natural leadership in Greece, not by force, but rather by drawing everything into the new (and equally imperialistic) framework of economic success and prosperity.

Ginelli touches on the important question of how to communicate political viewpoints by life-writing. For this, he investigates the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (RGDA) which were composed by the first emperor Augustus, and published after his death not only as an inscription in Rome, but also elsewhere in the Roman Empire, and thus must be seen as a political statement of both Augustus and his successor Tiberius, and, in turn, the Julio-Claudian imperial family. Examining two decisive episodes from Augustus' lifetime, namely the handling of the situation after his adoptive-father's murder on the Ides of March 44 BC, and the acceptance and refusal of political powers in the supply crisis of 22 BC immediately following the great political changes of 23 BC, he shows how Augustus framed the perspective on these events through selection and salience, and applies terminology from the communication model coined by Entman for his analysis. Moreover, he provides important hints about how this monumental inscription could have been perceived by viewers, not only in Rome, where we know about the setup from the heading of the RGDA and few literary sources, but also in the cities of the province of Galatia, where the three main fragmentary copies of the RGDA have been found and can -to some degree -be archaeologically contextualized.

The actual perception of not only spoken or written words, but also the physical monuments themselves and their related frames -being themselves a product of authorities with their intentions and frames -by the intended target audience but also others is an essential question which is up to now an oftenunderstudied topic in ancient studies. Hence, Ginelli's contribution is vitally complemented by Elisabeth Günther's application of the methodological toolkit for studying ancient material culture offered by frame theories, outlining an approach suitable for object-related and archaeological research. In her paper, she chooses an Athenian mug with a depiction of an owl "in armor" (housed in the Louvre) as an example to disentangle the manifold frameworks of the reception process in the human-object interaction. Decoration (iconography), object (shape/ purpose), and context of use and perception are the main avenues by which to shed light on the frames and levels of understanding that might have been salient for different users/perceivers of the mug in different periods of time, and that might have framed the reception process. That these different "readings" overlap, complement, and contradict each other causes, in her eyes, a comic effect contributing to the humorous character of this unique vessel.

Images and objects are, thus, not mere media transporting their producer's message directly to a receiver, but should rather be considered as a third entity in the reception process. According to both the producer's and receiver's frameworks, they may offer different levels of understanding, including ambiguities and transformations of meaning over time and in different places. 17 The application of frame theories to material culture raises many important questions about the relationship between individual experiences and frame patterns (e.g., discourses) in groups and societies, about the dynamics of perception, reception and interpretation processes, and about the cross-links within the respective frameworks, namely, the complementation or incongruency of meanings ascribed to images and objects by the viewer.

Hence, a second edition of our conference on frames and framing, "Frames and framings in antiquity II. Sources in contexts -materiality, affordances, entanglements, and communicative dynamics" was held online from 15-17 October 2021, in order to explore especially the potential of frame theories for the study of ancient material culture, and how this is embedded into communication processes (selected papers of which will be published in a subsequent volume). Such processes are, however, flexible and dynamic, and frame theories imply that the meaning of an object (or image, or text) may be changed due to alterations within the receivers' frameworks. Elisabeth Günther's paper touches upon this aspect in discussing the connotations of owls "in armor" within and beyond the Athenian context. Thus, we should be aware of a development and transformation of frameworks, and this immediately influences research, since each and every person approaches antiquity through his or her own frame-set.

These modern viewpoints ("Sehepunkte") add another layer to the analysis of frameworks through time, and arguably offer another field of applicability for frame and framing methodology. From a historiological perspective, the questioning of one's own view-and standpoint was the limit in Droysen's Principles of History, as Sven Günther argues. Droysen was aware of the close relation and interdependencies between the individual with the own acts of will and the moral potencies of the age an individual lives in, communicated through the groups in which an individual lives and acts such as family, neighborhood, state, etc. However, he failed to reflect critically on the common notion of continuous and constant progress and the trend toward a higher development present in his time, and therewith to review his own frames when he composed his notion of History as a university discipline.

That such reviews of the frames and framings of research into and reception of ancient history are fruitful tasks is particularly emphasized in the paper of Guendalina Taietti. She focuses on the end of the eighteenth century, when Greek diaspora thinkers felt that the time had come for Greece to be freed from Ottoman rule. These intellectuals became particularly active in educating the Greek masses in mainland Greece, in order to instill courage and to awaken national consciousness, preparing the ground for the Greek Revolution of 1821. Within this Hellenic revolutionary movement prompting European intellectuals both to help and to write about the Greek struggle for freedom, the ancient Greek spirit and Hellas as a cultural and politico-philosophical model was celebrated.

Philhellene scholars and initially also Greek scholars were very selective on what was counted as "truly ancient Hellenicity," and consequently favored the ancient democratic polis model over any mention of the Macedonian rule or the Byzantine era, both of which were considered to have been periods of oppression. However, the constitution of the Hellenic State in 1831 brought about new ways of thinking about Greek national consciousness; this "Hellenic Romanticism" movement aimed at proving the uninterrupted continuity of Hellenism not by obliterating or criticizing, but rather by integrating the Macedonian and the Byzantine periods into the national cultural and political discourse, as she demonstrates by analyzing the works of Spyridon Zambelios (1815-1881) and Konstantinos Paparrhegopoulos (1815-1891).

That these two writers gave birth to Greek National History should render it evident to us that the main potential of frames and framing lies precisely within a heuristically as well as methodologically stimulating achievement: accuracy of discrimination. If we see sources not as merely static media of historical events or developments, but as integral part of the dynamic establishment and communication of viewpoints between -unfortunately only to some degree reconstructable -communicators (authors, authorities, etc.) and audiences which were not passive receivers but actively involved in the communication process and could (and did) have retroactive effects on the original "senders," then we can more closely approach what Droysen considered the basis for any historical research:

The possibility of this understanding arises from the kinship of our nature with that of the utterances lying before us as historical material. A further condition of this possibility is the fact that man's nature, at once sensuous and spiritual, speaks forth every one of its inner processes in some form apprehensible by the senses, mirrors these inner processes, indeed, in every utterance. On being perceived, the utterance, by projecting itself into the inner experience of the percipient, calls forth the same inner process. (Droysen 1897, 12-13 [ §9])

Hence, we hope that this volume offers new chances to understand the past with the help of frames and framing, not as a strict theory, but rather as a tool by which to approach antiquity and the different layers of its per-and reception.