"Elogio, adulación y parodia: desconciertos en torno al encomio "Imágenes" de Luciano".

CHIALVA, IVANA.

Homo romanus Graeca Oratione. From 2nd. to 4th. centuries, 300 years of Greek culture in the Roman Empire".

Universitat de Barcelona

Lugar: Barcelona; Año: 2012;

A constant feature of Lucian´s writing is the plurality: plurality of voices, references, genres, topics and meanings. To this complex variety of his language, we should add the uncertain incidents of his biography. Undoubtedly, ?Lucian?s question? includes various enigmatic points of the life and work of Syrian author; one of these enigmas is the relationship between Lucian and the power of the Roman Empire. If certain criticism, traditionally, has seen a condescending tone to the Empire in his texts (tone related to the political post in Egypt assigned to him in his old age), new readings assert to recognize the cynical irony of the writer about the omnipotent might of Rome. Having in mind this other plurality, that of Lucian´s interpretations, our article researches into a work less analysed by scholars: Images (Eikónes). Supposed eulogy to the Roman emperor´s lover, a praise to a wonderful woman where there is explicit praise to Rome, this text is developed through ekphrasis: the description of woks of art. However, the excess of sophisticated procedures, the hyperbole of the analogy woman/art, the constant stereotypes of epideictic rhetoric and the original strategy of the portrait through the artificial composition of other bodies move the lines of text interpretation and appear the suspicion of ironical and ambivalent power of the cynical word, characteristic of this author, behind the political eulogy.