Classics Colloquium with Jens Fischer

In ancient Greece, numerous poems existed whose authorship was attributed by their actual composers to mythical or at least semi-mythical figures in order to enhance their religious authority. The most well-known examples are the diverse texts attributed to Orpheus and the oracles of the Sibyls. Somewhat less familiar, however, are figures such as the singer Musaeus, the seer Bakis, or the purification priest Epimenides, to name just a few. Additionally, some of the oracles of the Delphic Pythia, as they appear in other sources, must under certain conditions also be included in this category of texts. Scholarly approaches to these texts have at times diverged significantly, even though modern researchers frequently emphasize their many points of overlap and commonality. This talk will explore the extent to which this type of text can be understood as a coherent and interconnected phenomenon. The focus will be on the role these texts played within a wide range of contemporary discourses, in which they were employed—albeit in often very different ways—as means of asserting authority.