While I was away watching the bulls get the better of some cowboys, the APA put out its June Newsletter and election insert. I note that in that newsletter, Amphora is looking for an assistant editor ... something I wouldn't mind doing, given my rants in the past about Amphora (especially in regards to layout), but I'm not a member of the APA so I probably don't qualify. Heck, they didn't even give me a second glance when they were looking for a webmaster lo those many years ago.

In any event, they also have put up the abstracts for the forthcoming issue of TAPA ... Leah Kronenberg's paper looks interesting:

Mezentius the Epicurean

This paper argues that Mezentius, the contemptor divum (“scorner of the gods”) in Virgil’s Aeneid , can be read as an allegorical Epicurean. His Epicurean element helps to explain his dramatic transformation from a symbol of impietas to one of pietas in Books 7–10, as well as pius Aeneas ’ reverse transformation into an impious Giant-figure. These transformations parallel the inversion of the traditional meanings of pietas and impietas in Lucretius and other Epicurean writers; in addition, the Giant-like Mezentius evokes the subversive Gigantomachy of Lucretius, which celebrates the archetypal scorners of the gods as positive symbols of Epicureanism. The “redeemed” Mezentius allows for an Epicurean reading of the Aeneid , in which impietas is redefined as true piety.