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Wiener Studien Band 138/2025Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, Patristik und lateinische Tradition
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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Wiener Studien 138/2025, pp. 87-108, 2025/07/21
Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, Patristik und lateinische Tradition
This paper studies the presence of echo as a natural phenomenon in Latin poetry fromthe first century BCE to the sixth century CE, with particular attention to the production of the sound – the sources of echo, the locations favorable to it – the quality of the sound, and the roles echo performs in poetic texts. Echo functions differently if it derives from a single source or multiple sources. The former is common in the classical period, often communicating pathos or a sense of alienation; the latter predominates in late antiquity, contributing to ritual, ceremony, or spectacle, and communicating praise, acclamation, celebration, or worship. In the sixth century Venantius Fortunatus exploits both associations of echo. Echo also acts as a metaphor for epistolary exchange (Ausonius) and the articulation of speech (Prudentius).