Talk:Spes

Latest comment: 10 years ago by Cynwolfe in topic Removed "Merge" template

[1] ref for earlier anon edit. Alf 18:51, 29 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Removed "Merge" template edit

No discussion was opened in conjunction with what I see as a frivolous merge proposal, so I removed the template. The article makes it as plain as can be that Spes and Elpis were conceptually quite different in their respective cultures, and that Spes was cultivated as a deity in the Republican era at Rome and as a part of the Imperial cult of Virtues. There is also a specifically Roman archaeology of Spes. Elpis is a problematic part of the Pandora myth, and perversely connected to the pessimism that is considered characteristic of Greek culture in the Archaic period ("better never to have been born at all" and so on). I really see no benefit in conflating the two. The section noting that the equivalent concept is Elpis could of course do more to indicate what I would assume to be the conflation of the two in the classical tradition, which no doubt occurred under the name of Spes in medieval and Renaissance mythography and allegory. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:10, 28 August 2013 (UTC)Reply