Brill’s Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

Helen Roche, Ph.D. (2012), University of Cambridge, is an Affiliated Lecturer in History at Cambridge University. She has published extensively on the classical tradition in Germany, and on Nazism. Her first monograph, Sparta’s German Children (2013), charted Spartan influences on German 19th-20th-century elite education.Kyriakos Demetriou, Ph.D. (1993), University College London, is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Cyprus. He is editor of Polis, the Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought. He is the author and editor of several articles and books on classical reception and the history of political thought. Contributors are: Stefan Altekamp, Joshua Arthurs, James J. Fortuna, Alan Kim, Flavia Marcello, Jan Nelis, Dino Piovan, Arthur J. Pomeroy, James I. Porter, Stefan Rebenich, Helen Roche, Iain Boyd Whyte, Felix Wiedemann, and Daniel Wildmann.

"The editors, Helen Roche and Kyriakos N. Demetriou, are to be commended for so successfully juxtaposing the totalitarian Classicism of Fascist Italy with that of National Socialist Germany, as there is much to be gained by examining these two approaches to “totalitarian Classicism” together. (...) This Companion is also a disturbing reminder of how often scholars and teachers have instigated and conspired in the dissemination of a particular version of history that aligns with a corrupt leader’s own identification with an idealized past." Susan A. Curry, University of New Hampshire, in: CJ-Online Review 2021.03.08.“The sixteen chapters by fourteen contributors are all well-written, relevant and carefully edited. Some offer useful overviews of broader themes (e.g. the fine chapters by Nelis and Arthurs), whereas other contributions discuss more specific topics in detail (e.g. interesting chapters by Wildmann, Piovan, and Porter). (…) One of the merits of this excellent concluding chapter is the fact that Fortuna’s contribution actively seeks a dialogue with the previous chapters, offering reflections that underline the high quality of this last section, and of the companion as a whole.” -Nathalie de Haan, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020.03.30"It may be tempting to mine an edited volume simply for the individual chapters that pertain to a researcher’s area of interest, but a complete reading here provides considerable additional rewards. To begin with, the Companion is masterfully edited, with not only numerous cross-references, but actual dialogue across chapters dealing with similar or parallel issues. As I hope to have described above, the volume, whileorganized thematically, is also constructed to introduce concepts and interpretations with increasing complexity." - Genevieve S. Gessert, in: History of Humanities, Fall 2018, pp. 456-459"[I]n Brill’s Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany fourteen authors (in sixteen contributions) give an excellent introduction to the role and position of the classical tradition in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. (...) The classical past, so this companion brilliantly teaches its readers, was not only an ornamental, a rhetorical or aesthetic propaganda instrument, but an integral part of Fascist and National Socialist reality. (...) This rich and much-needed companion not only stimulates discussion on a factual and theoretical level, but also inspires additional research. After all, during the first part of the twentieth century, the classics were part and parcel of European society as a whole." - Martijn Eickhoff, in: Fascism vol. 7, no. 2 (2018)

• List of IllustrationsNotes on ContributorsIntroduction1 “Distant Models”? Italian Fascism, National Socialism and the Lure of the ClassicsHelen RochePeople2 The Aryans: Ideology and Historiographical Narrative Types in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth CenturiesFelix Wiedemann3 Desired Bodies: Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, Aryan Masculinity and the Classical BodyDaniel Wildmann4 Ancient Historians and Fascism: How to React Intellectually to Totalitarianism (or Not)Dino Piovan5 Philology in Exile: Adorno, Auerbach, and KlempererJames I. PorterIdeas6 Fascist Modernity, Religion, and the Myth of RomeJan Nelis7 Bathing in the Spirit of Eternal Rome: The Mostra Augustea della RomanitàJoshua Arthurs8 “May a Ray from Hellas Shine upon Us”: Plato in the George-CircleStefan Rebenich9 An Antique Echo: Plato and the NazisAlan Kim10 Classics and Education in the Third Reich: Die Alten Sprachen and the Nazification of Latin- and Greek-Teaching in Secondary SchoolsHelen Roche11 Classical Antiquity, Cinema and PropagandaArthur J. PomeroyPlaces12 Classical Archaeology in Nazi GermanyStefan Altekamp13 Building the Image of Power: Images of Romanità in the Civic Architecture of Fascist ItalyFlavia Marcello14 Forma urbis Mussolinii: Vision and Rhetoric in the Designs for Fascist RomeFlavia Marcello15 National Socialism, Classicism, and ArchitectureIain Boyd Whyte16 Neoclassical Form and the Construction of Power in Fascist Italy and Nazi GermanyJames J. FortunaGeneral Index