The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae

The Tabulae Iliacae (Iliac tablets) are a collection of twenty-two miniature marble reliefs from the early Roman Empire; all of them are inscribed in Greek, and most depict the panoramic vistas of Greek Epic. This book brings the tablets to life as never before, revealing the unassuming fragments as among the most sophisticated objects to survive from the ancient Mediterranean world. The Iliad in a Nutshell is not only the first monograph on this material in English (accompanied by a host of new photographs, diagrams, and reconstructions), it also examines the larger cultural and intellectual stakes--both in classical antiquity and beyond. Where modern scholars have usually dismissed the Tabulae Iliacae as secondary 'illustrations' and 'tawdry gewgaws', Michael Squire advances a diametrically opposite thesis: that these epigrammatic tablets synthesize ancient ideas about visual-verbal interaction on the one-hand, and about the art and poetics of scale on the other. By reassessing the artistic and poetic aesthetics of the miniature, Squire's radical new appraisal shows how the tiny tablets encapsulate antiquity's grandest theories of originality, fiction, and replication. The book will be essential reading not just for classical philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, but for anyone interested in the intellectual history of western representation.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables List of Colour Plates List of Abbreviations Opening Sesame: The Book in a Nutshell Putting the Pieces Together Mastering Theodorean Technê Choosing Your Own Adventure Turning the Tables The Art and Poetics of Scale Ecphrastic Circles Taking the Tablets Appendices Appendix I: Inventory of the Tablets Appendix II: 'Tablet 23Ky' (Tabulae Cumaea)? Bibliography Index Locorum General Index

About the Author :
Dr Michael Squire is Reader in Classical Art at King's College, London

Review :
Squire has taken interpretation of the tablets to a new level . . . His account, comprehensive and theoretically sophisticated, has much in common with the visual and literary production of Hellenistic Alexandria: it is highly complex, deeply learned, and knowingly playful. In its physical weight and explicit ambition, it still manages to intimate its subject matter in being simultaneously intense and delicate. Squire offers rich analyses of various aspects of the Tabulae. This is a remarkable and challenging book, full of learning and imagination ... Squire successfully challenges much of the received wisdom about the Tabulae Iliacae, provoking us to look at them anew even when we may not agree with his take on them. His eye for telling detail is acute; never before have these objects been given such elaborate treatment. It is helpful that Squire enjoys fun with words, as the tablets are complex entities and from time to time, when Squire is at his most scholarly, even serious-minded readers may find relief in his academic diversion.