Homer in Stone
The Tabulae Iliacae in their Roman Context

A study of the Trojan War as retold in carved images and texts at the dawn of the Roman Empire.

David Petrain (Author)

9781107029811, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 February 2014

273 pages, 30 b/w illus. 9 colour illus. 2 tables
24.9 x 17.3 x 2.3 cm, 0.73 kg

'The book is handsomely produced and well-illustrated, with few typographical errors; the two appendices provide an invaluable conspectus of the iconography and inscriptions on all the known Tabulae. Petrain has done a great deal to advance the study of these perplexing and intriguing objects, and all scholars of the Roman reception of Greek culture will learn much from his superb monograph.' Thomas R. Keith, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

The Tabulae Iliacae are a group of carved stone plaques created in the context of early Imperial Rome that use miniature images and text to retell stories from Greek myth and history - chief among them Homer's Iliad and the fall of Troy. In this book, Professor Petrain moves beyond the narrow focus on the literary and iconographic sources of the Tabulae that has characterized earlier scholarship. Drawing on ancient and modern theories of narrative, he explores instead how the tablets transfer the Troy saga across both medium and culture as they create a system of visual storytelling that relies on the values and viewing habits of Roman viewers. The book comprehensively situates the tablets in the urban fabric of Augustan Rome. New photographs of the tablets, together with re-editions and translations of key inscriptions, offer a new, clearer view of these remarkable documents of the Roman appropriation of Greek epic.

Introduction
1. Reading visual narrative in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds
2. Tabula and taxis
3. The semantics of the center
4. Narrative in frieze and panel
5. Findspots, display contexts, and the Roman public library
6. Epic in miniature
Appendix 1. Conspectus of the Tabulae Iliacae
Appendix 2. Description of selected Tabulae: texts and images.

Subject Areas: Ancient religions & mythologies [HRKP], Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]