PhD in Classics (Classical Philology / Anthropology of the Ancient World),
2013-2017: PhD student (Università di Pisa, Université Côte d'Azur) associated to the CNRS research center "Cultures, Environnements, Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen Âge*, in Nice, and to the research center for the anthropological studies of the ancient world, "AMA", in Siena)
2018-2021: Post-doc research assistant at the University of Fribourg, ERC Project Locus Ludi
2021- : Post-doc research assistant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ERC Project Atlomy
Address: Hebrew university of Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus campus
Humanities main building
Build. 47 Room 624
Jerusalem 9190501
Israel
2013-2017: PhD student (Università di Pisa, Université Côte d'Azur) associated to the CNRS research center "Cultures, Environnements, Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen Âge*, in Nice, and to the research center for the anthropological studies of the ancient world, "AMA", in Siena)
2018-2021: Post-doc research assistant at the University of Fribourg, ERC Project Locus Ludi
2021- : Post-doc research assistant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ERC Project Atlomy
Address: Hebrew university of Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus campus
Humanities main building
Build. 47 Room 624
Jerusalem 9190501
Israel
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Books by Marco Vespa
À travers une analyse philologique rigoureuse des textes grecs et romains, des traités savants de la zoologie et la médecine grecques aux élaborations symboliquement plus complexes du théâtre comique ou de la fable, cette étude propose une analyse approfondie de la représentation discursive des primates non humains dans la culture antique depuis Sémonide d’Amorgos à Élien de Préneste.
Des questions essentielles pour la compréhension des cultures anciennes - de l'anthropomorphisme des animaux au débat sur l'intelligence des vivants en passant par les élaborations autour de l'importante catégorie de la mimésis – seront abordées selon une approche d’anthropologie historique. Les relations interspécifiques, la représentation de l'altérité géographique et culturelle, les jugements de valeur exprimés sur les groupes minoritaires et marginaux de la société ancienne seront traités à travers la perspective transversale donnée par l'analyse d'une partie spécifique de l'encyclopédie culturelle ancienne, à savoir le singe des Anciens.
Journal Articles by Marco Vespa
However, these claims largely repeat what is attested in lexicographical sources dating back to at least the first century AD. Through a detailed analysis of the enunciative contexts within the various texts that make up this complex corpus, and through a close examination of the ancient sources concerning the term skiraphos, the present study demonstrates that the association between gambling and the sanctuaries of Athena Skiras is a scholarly construction from the Roman imperial period. This association is based on an etymology derived from a paronomasia centred on the root *skir-. In fact, there is no evidence in the texts or religious practices of classical Athens to support the existence of such cultural representations of gambling within the sacred space of the sanctuary.
By examining part of the ancient zoological and geographic traditions, in particular the De natura animalium by Aelian, this article defends editing the text of Pliny with the adjective mitissima, already present in the first printed editions of the Naturalis historia, as follows:
Efferatior cynocephalis natura sicut mitissima satyris.
Volgendo l’attenzione alla problematica traduzione del cosiddetto basilicus iactus menzionato nella commedia Curculio di Plauto questo articolo cerca di fornire un nuovo contributo allo studio della cultura ludica latina. Sulla scorta di evidenze interne al testo, in particolare a proposito dell’identità drammatica dei suoi protagonisti e delle isotopie narrative presenti, e grazie a testimonianze esterne alla commedia, nello specifico alcune tradizioni cultuali greche e magno-greche, questa ricerca propone di intendere l’espressione basilicus iactus non come “colpo del re” bensì come “colpo della regina”, con un rinvio implicito alla dea Venus e al colpo degli astragali che dalla divinità prendeva il nome.
EN
By focusing on the challenging translation of the so-called basilicus iactus mentioned in Plautus’ play Curculio, this article attempts to provide a new contribution to the study of Latin play culture. On the basis of evidence from within the text, in particular regarding the dramatic identity of its protagonists and the narrative isotopies present, and thanks to evidence from outside the play, specifically from some ancient Greek cultic traditions, this research proposes to understand the expression basilicus iactus not as “king’s throw” but as “queen’s throw”, with an implicit reference to the goddess Venus implied by the knucklebones throw that took its name from the deity.
considérer dans la situation commune l’intention relationnelle de l’animal. En nous appuyant sur les témoins textuels et iconographiques de l’antiquité gréco-romaine (Ier s. av.-IIIe apr. J.-C.) relatifs à des situations de performance mimétique (spectacles, interactions accidentelles), nous verrons que certaines descriptions et mises en scène révèlent une intention communicative et positive du singe, dont l’imitation volontaire (et non toujours conditionnée par le désir humain) est un mode d’apprentissage et une voie d’interaction subjective du singe avec l’homme.
L’Egitto non sembra rappresentare un ambiente ecologicamente adatto alla vita dei castori (gr. kastores, lat. fibri) né oggi né nel mondo antico. Eppure un consistente numero di fonti greche e romane associa questi animali all’area del fiume Nilo. In che modo si può rendere ragione di una simile aporia? Il presente contributo ha lo scopo di mostrare come un’analisi di tipo etnozoologico delle testimonianze antiche possa aiutare a comprendere meglio un quadro apparentemente così complicato.
Parole chiave: Combattimento dei galli; Grecia antica; Modello animale; Costruzione della Natura; Strategie del ricordo.
Abstract-The social practice of cockfighting in ancient Greece has been the subject of numerous studies which have emphasized in particular the statute of educational spectacle, a real manifesto for the ideology of Greek kalokagathia. The rooster, a courageous animal and prototype of male gender identity, would have been the protagonist of several narratives, written or figured, aimed at enhancing or disambiguating some foundational experiences of the classical Greek social life from war behaviour to agonal performance passing through the homoerotic relationship. This contribution follows a different interpretative way, concentrating on the subjects of the enunciation of similar stories according to a historical and an-thropological perspective. At the centre of the investigation will be in fact the rhetorical models, the subjects and the contexts in which these tales about the fight between animals have been produced and disseminated, many centuries after the Athens of Pericles which they deal with. Secondly, the study will focus on an analysis of the terms most often associated with roosters in an attempt to reconstruct a part of the shared representation about this animal, to finally propose a further and more complex possibility of interpretation concerning the agones among the animals that will be able to take into account the ancient cultural representations oriented to present the alektryones as impulsive, patricidal and violent, putting them in fact outside the human cultural norms.