This article offers a usage study of the word φήμη throughout Herodian’s Roman History. It sets Herodian’s practice in a broader literary picture that includes other historians, but also epic and the novel, and then suggests that the extremely high frequency of φήμη in Herodian is unique among Greek-language historians and that Herodian is indebted to Latin-language historiography for this technique. The following sections examine how Herodian perceives the phenomenon of φήμη and makes it a salient feature of his historiographical (...) strategy. The discussion shows that φήμη, regardless of its truth status, has multiple functions in Herodian’s narrative. First, it contributes to the portrayal of historical agents. Second, it is a crucial dramatic factor that signals turning points in the story and generates vividness and an atmospheric narrative. Third, it acts as a plot-driver in the story. Fourth, it has a role in the composition of the narrative by creating intratextual associations and narrative patterns. Finally, it has metanarrative ramifications, since there is a parallel between the use of φήμη by the historical agents and by Herodian himself. Overall, the analysis advances our understanding of Herodian’s narrative technique and his construction of historical truth. (shrink)

This article explores Herodian's History of the Roman Empire alongside Chariton's novel Callirhoe with an eye to how the minds of collective entities are represented and function in the two narratives. It argues that Chariton, unlike Herodian, elaborates on the diversity of emotions that characterizes a specific collective experience and has groups use direct speech throughout. These choices add vividness to the narrative and intensify the fictional sensationalism and dramatic character of the novel. It also shows that, whereas collectives in (...) Chariton's narrative are primarily designed to highlight a specific characteristic of a hero, dramatize an event and enhance suspense, in Herodian's historiography they are an integral part of the plot and central to his historical analysis of contemporary political and social world. This article offers a new analytical tool geared towards the development of a poetics of the collective in ancient narrative as well as a poetics of fictional and factual narration in antiquity, and advances our understanding of the complex relationship between ancient historiography and novelistic writing. (shrink)

This paper presents an integrated framework applied towards the design and evaluation of a virtual museum of Byzantine art that combines the theorized fields of semiotics, virtual heritage (VH), and Byzantine art. A devised semiotic model, the case study semiosphere, synthesizes important principles from the theoretical background justifying the overall design and evaluation methodology. The approach presented has theoretical extensions to the understanding of the role technology plays in promoting a consummatory aesthetic experience for Byzantine art in virtual environments, complementing (...) the experience received from traditional Byzantine art media. Part A of the work presents the development of the semiotic foundation of the study prior to presenting the applied potential of the approach in design and evaluation of VH for Byzantine art, which appears in Part B. The final task of the proposed approach aims to support a meaningful interpretation, assisting in the promotion of the significance (value) of the virtual museum to potential interpreters/visitors. (shrink)

This paper presents an integrated framework applied towards the design and evaluation of a virtual museum of Byzantine art that combines the theorized fields of semiotics, virtual heritage, and Byzantine art. A devised semiotic model, the case study semiosphere, synthesizes important principles from the theoretical background justifying the overall design and evaluation methodology. The approach presented has theoretical extensions to the understanding of the role technology plays in promoting a consummatory aesthetic experience for Byzantine art in virtual environments, complementing the (...) experience received from traditional Byzantine art media. Part A of the work presents the development of the semiotic foundation of the study prior to presenting the applied potential of the approach in design and evaluation of VH for Byzantine art, which appears in Part B. The final task of the proposed approach aims to support a meaningful interpretation, assisting in the promotion of the significance of the virtual museum to potential interpreters/visitors. (shrink)

Continuing from Part A (2016), in which we discuss the semiotic foundation for designing a virtual museum of Byzantine art, Part B presents an applied methodology for the representation of cultural artifacts through virtual technologies and semiotic techniques. We discuss how our semiotic model, case study semiosphere, contributes to design and evaluation research of such unique art-form representation and why the approach contributes as a whole to the field of Virtual Heritage (VH). Theorizing further the design implications integrating the overall (...) approach including the evaluation experiment of three VH applications with the participation of young users and its semiotic analysis, we formulate design guidelines that can be applied also to other types of cultural heritage and art. (shrink)

Continuing from Part A, in which we discuss the semiotic foundation for designing a virtual museum of Byzantine art, Part B presents an applied methodology for the representation of cultural artifacts through virtual technologies and semiotic techniques. We discuss how our semiotic model, case study semiosphere, contributes to design and evaluation research of such unique art-form representation and why the approach contributes as a whole to the field of Virtual Heritage. Theorizing further the design implications integrating the overall approach including (...) the evaluation experiment of three VH applications with the participation of young users and its semiotic analysis, we formulate design guidelines that can be applied also to other types of cultural heritage and art. (shrink)