Building on the concept of enargeia, Chapter 4 examines the cinematism of epic ecphrases: passages containing detailed descriptions of remarkable objects. To the ancients, Homer’s vividness of presentation put him in the forefront of painters, while film directors, chiefly Eisenstein, have repeatedly referred to him as a precursor. In particular, the stories told on the shield of Achilles in the Iliad validate Eisenstein’s concept. Eisenstein wrote extensively about Lessing’s thesis, advanced in his influential Laocoön, about the limits of painting and poetry; both authors’ approaches are evaluated here, with Eisenstein’s argument proven the stronger one. The story of Theseus and Ariadne depicted on the coverlet in Catullus’ poem 64, the most complex ecphrasis in classical literature, is then treated as the basis of a film adaptation, which reveals the astonishing sophistication that can be discovered from the perspective of cinematism. Shorter observations about Virgil and, in passing, Juvenal round out this chapter.

The Introduction first sets the stage by inviting the reader to consider a few Roman sarcophagi in depth. Serving as an introduction to these compelling objects, this also reveals just how odd it was that deities and mythic heroes came to be expelled from their surface decoration in the third century. It then contextualizes that oddity through an overview of main developments within Roman sarcophagus production from the second through the fourth centuries. The book’s scope and terms are then addressed, and its structure laid out.

In his description of the coverlet in poem 64 Catullus describes Ariadne on the shore with her clothes falling off, a scene not required by the story but explicable if the text was the libretto for a danced performance, as suggested in Chapter 4. This chapter collects the evidence for erotic entertainment on the Roman stage, occasions when actresses and dancers (mimae) might perform naked. The sources make it clear that the modern distinction between poetry and performance did not apply in the Roman world: poetry was categorized as ‘dramatic’, ‘narrative’ or a ‘common or mixed type’ in which ‘the poet himself speaks and speaking characters are introduced’. Just as epic was an example of ‘the common or mixed type’, so too was Catullus 64, too short to be an epic in the Homeric sense but still a mythological narrative to be performed, whether in speech, song, dance or any combination of the three. As was normal in the ancient world, the written text on papyrus was a secondary phenomenon.

The description of Daedalus’ labyrinth, built as prison without possibility of escape for the Minotaur, is one of Ovid’s most famous passages. Modern, and especially postmodern, theory has often regarded the labyrinth as an analogy to complex literary compositions, with Ariadne’s thread as a kind of reader’s guide through such textual mazes. (Scholars regard Daedalus as a creative analogy to Ovid himself.) Chapter 4 accordingly centers on literal and figurative screen labyrinths. Since around 1960, elusive nonlinear plots became prominent in cinematic narratives, especially in French New Wave cinema. One film is of primary importance in this regard. Last Year at Marienbad, directed by Alain Resnais from a script by novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, is set in and around an intricate maze-like building, in which time and place seem to exert a hallucinatory effect on the film’s characters and, in equal measure, on its viewers. Fascinating labyrinths appear in various film genres as well. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining features one literal and one figurative maze; the latter, a large and complex building that exerts a demonic will, is the more deadly one. The titular house of Harry Kümel’s cult favorite Malpertuis is even more hellish – literally so because of its connection with classical Underworld mythology. Briefer discussions of two stylish mysteries, Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose, lead to a final section with appreciations of other screen labyrinths and Minotaurs.