Cornell Classics
Mike Fontaine
Assistant Professor
(PhD, Brown University 2003)

120 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-3201
(607) 255-8640
FAX: (607) 254-8899
e-mail: mf268@cornell.edu
Research:
My interests are primarily in Latin and Greek language, literature, and textual criticism, more Latin than Greek, especially Roman comedy and Neoteric and Augustan poetry.
Recent articles and notes:
The titles should link to a PDF of the actual paper, where available, and the argument is summarized just below the title. (Links to newer and forthcoming papers will be added when they become available.)
• 2008. “Umbricius and Greek Shell Games (Juvenal, Sat. 3.74-81)”. SCI 27, 55-58.
Conchylia in Sat. 3.81 means “spiral shell, murex,” and is a metaphor for the achievements of Daedalus and the Greek immigrants.
• 2008. “Plautus, Truculentus 78,” Mnemosyne 61, 298-299.
Emend the verse to read omni ex pectore (vulgate omne)
• 2007. “The Lesbia Code: Backmasking, Pillow Talk, and Cacemphaton in Catullus 5 and 16,” QUCC 83 (forthcoming)
If you translate and reverse vivamus mea Lesbia in Greek, the entire poem implies fellatio, not just kissing; poem 16 is a response to two readers who have manipulated the text like this.
• 2007. “Parasitus Colax (Terence, Eunuchus 30),” Mnemosyne 60, 483-489.
Colax in this phrase should be viewed as a Latin adjective from colere (like aud-ax pertin-ax etc.) rather than the transliterated Greek word kolax “flatterer;” suprasegmental differences between the Greek and Latin words point the pun.
• 2007. “Freudian Slips in Plautus,” AJP 128.2, 209-237
Freud’s remarks in the Psychopathology throw light on farcical scenes in Rudens and Trinummus.
• 2006. “Troy Destroyed (Plautus, Bacchides 973-4 and 1053),” CP 101, 280-286
Plautus mocks Greek inability to articulate Latin f to pun on filios “sons” and philippos “gold coins”. In 1053 read scandunt “are climbing” (MSS and vulgate scindunt)
• 2006. “Sicilicissitat (Plautus, Men. 12) and Early Geminate Writing in Latin,” Mnemosyne 59, 95-110
The word combines Greek sikelizein “to affect a Sicilian atmosphere” and the Latin word sicilicus (an archaic diacritical mark indicating gemination of consonants), implying that the plot of the play “is double” or “counts twice”. The allusion to the sicilicus allows us to retrodate the use of sicilici to the era before Ennius' arrival in Rome in 204 BC.
N.B. addenda/corrigenda: (i) On. p. 97 for “Taubmann’s 1605 commentary” read “Taubmann’s 1612 commentary” (I foolishly confused his first and second edition); (ii) ibid., “Siberus” is Adam Siber, author of an important German-Latin dictionary. (iii) I omitted a note indicating that anteloquium is an old suggestion and therefore imply that the emendation is entirely my idea; that is wrong.
• 2005. “Unum Somnum (Plautus, Amphitruo 697): a Lost Example of Code-Switching?” RhM 148, 404-6
Unum is a corruption or hypercorrected transliteration of the Greek word oinon “wine”; Sosia scurrilously insinuates that Alcumena has been drinking.
• 2004. “Agnus kouriôn (Plautus, Aulularia 561-4),” CP 99, 147-53
A bilingual riddle joke is elucidated by adopting the text of Nonius.
• 2004. “Propertius 3.4, 1.1, and the Aeneid Incipit,” CQ n.s. 54, 649-50
An ephemeral response to a suggestion that Propertius mysteriously implies that the ille ego qui lines of the start of the Aeneid are spurious.
• 2003. “A Lacuna in Plautus’ Menaechmi V.2,” Mnemosyne 56, 72-4
As the title implies.
Book reviews:
The following book reviews all appeared in BMCR and are linked to the appropriate page:
• 2007. W. Krenkel, Naturalia non turpia. Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece and Rome. Schriften zur antiken Kultur- und Sexualwissenschaft. BMCR 2007.04.18
• 2005. A. Antonsen-Resch, Von Gnathon zu Saturio. Die Parasitenfigur und das Verhältnis der römischen Komödie zur griechischen. BMCR 2005.11.15
• 2005. R. Danese, Titus Maccius Plautus. Asinaria. Editio Plautina Sarsinatis, 2. BMCR 2005.07.39
• 2005. S. Monda (ed.), Titus Maccius Plautus. Vidularia et deperditarum fabularum fragmenta. Editio Plautina Sarsinatis, 21. BMCR 2005.05.36
• 2005. R. Calderan (ed.), Tito Maccio Plauto: Vidularia. Introduzione, testo critico e commento. Edizione riveduta (a cura di Salvatore Monda). BMCR 2005.05.35
• 2005. M. Schauer, G. Thome, Altera Ratio. Klassische Philologie zwischen Subjektivität und Wissenschaft. Festschrift für Werner Suerbaum zum 70. Geburtstag. BMCR 2005.02.40
• 2004. M. Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome. BMCR 2004.11.30
• 2003. C. Questa, R. Raffaelli, Due Seminari Plautini: La tradizione del testo; i modelli. BMCR 2003.12.14
In preparation:
My project that I am attacking pro virili parte is a monograph of verbal double entendre, especially of the obscene type, in the comedy of Plautus. I’ve gone over the history of interpretation of Plautus from the Renaissance to the current day, and the centerpiece will be a reinterpretation of the parasite figure in four comedies. The tentative title is “Obscaena in Scaena: Dirty Jokes and Double Meaning in the Comedy of Plautus,” although ultimately the title will be changed. It is scheduled to appear from Oxford University Press in 2009. Your suggestions for interpretation of individual passages of Plautus and Terence are most welcome!
Other projects include a review article on the new English translation of Eduard Fraenkel’s Plautine Elements in Plautus (translated by Frances Muecke and Tomas Drevikovsky, Oxford 2007).
Teaching:
I have offered courses at Cornell on a variety of classical Latin authors from the republican and imperial periods, mostly poetry, including Plautus and Terence, Cicero, Catullus and Neoteric poetry, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Juvenal.
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Rev. 09/27/07