The Captor's Image

"This is a magisterial work, informed by a profound knowledge of the source materials and a total command of the contemporary scholarship relating to the subject. Highly recommended."--CHOICE "Using ecphrasis as a lens to focus on Rome's conflicted receptivity to Greek culture, Basil Dufallo's subtle and meticulous study offers a searching examination of a trope to which Roman authors repeatedly turn as they seek to articulate the cultural and ideological tensions in which they operate."--Duncan F. Kennedy, University of Bristol "Professor Dufallo's brilliant survey of ecphrasis in Latin authors from Naevius to Apuleius expands the conversation by moving from strictly literary readings to larger cultural issues. With Greek art and literature always in the foreground, Dufallo directs us through a series of comparisons with, and reflections of, the Hellenic past as a crucial formative influence on Rome's voyage of self-discovery. A major achievement."--Michael C. J. Putnam, Brown University "For a book that ranges over such a wide span of literary texts (from Plautus to Apuleius and Philostratus), this monograph has a remarkable intellectual coherence, and it repays sequential reading of the chapters." --Greece & Rome "[The Captor's Image] offers a series of savvy readings... Dufallo's command of the material -- the literature itself, its long and complex series of bibliographies in many languages, the theoretical frames in which ecphrasis has been received over the years -- is impressive." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review Dufallo produces many novel and thought- provoking interpretations of Latin ecphrases, and moreover shows how the figure is not merely a (meta-)literary device, but also a social mechanism to express Roman self-identity." -- Phoenix