Roger P. H. Green – författare

Latin Epics of the New Testament is about the growth of Christianity, and in particular the challenge of engaging with the Roman intellectual elite and its highly sophisticated Graeco-Roman tradition. In this culture epics like those of Vergil and Lucan were highly valued for their language, their 'heroic' themes, and their Rome-centred ideologies. Roger Green examines each of these epics in detail, showing how the three authors Juvencus, Sedulius, and Arator repackage the New Testament as epic, and try to make a bridge between two very different cultures. He explores the fascinating questions of how these authors exploit epic themes such as gods, heroes, war, and fate, without playing down the very real theological concerns of their times. All these poets were popular in the Middle Ages and later, and are the pioneers of poetry that leads to Renaissance epic and the famous poems of John Milton.

Sidonius Apollinaris was an inhabitant of southern Roman Gaul in the mid fifth centuryAD, when it was threatened by invasions from beyond the boundaries of the RomanEmpire and by competing warlords. His many poetic works include three panegyrics to emperors at the beginnings of their reigns; these are carefully translated and annotated, and provided with comment and synopses. His multiple shorter poems, in a variety of metres, are translated into good and lively English and given separate introductions and notes of various kinds, historical and literary. There is anextensive and informative introduction to the whole work.This book by Roger Green, a lifelong expert in Late Antiquity, gives a firsthand account of the politicalstrife and manoeuvring of the times but also a vivid picture of the lives of Sidonius’s like-minded friends in an almost post-Roman episode of Rome’s existence. Sidonius was read widely in the Middle Ages, with a golden age in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and also in the fifteenth century revival of Late Antique literature. Today his poetry will awaken new study and interest, without the archaism of many older translations and with a fresh and updated approach to many issues.