Thomas Tsartsidis – författare

This volume is the first book-length study on Prudentius' Hymn to Romanus in English, and the first full-scale commentary. Prudentius' text, written at the end of the fourth/beginning of the fifth century AD, is an inventive verse rendering of the martyrdom of St Romanus of Antioch (d. 303). Basing his verse on prose narratives regarding this saint, Prudentius transforms his source material, producing a poem that integrates Classical and Christian elements. Although printed in modern editions as part of the Peristephanon fourteen-poem collection, it differs significantly from the other poems in aspects of form and content. What is more, by creating the impression that Romanus' martyrdom takes place in Rome, Prudentius presents the martyr, whose name also means 'Roman', as a model for the ideal Roman Christian. The volume offers a detailed introduction, discussing the writer's life and works, information surrounding the manuscript tradition, the linguistic texture, the sources for Romanus, and the intertextual and generic links with both the Christian (Scriptures, biblical exegesis, martyrological literature, Christian apologetics, contemporary Christian literature) and Classical literary tradition (epic, tragedy, rhetoric, satire). The text printed in this volume improves in various ways on that in the most recent editions, and the English translation, which is faithful to the original text, will make the poem more accessible to students and scholars alike. Combined with line-by-line and often word-by-word commentary, this volume aspires to elucidate the originality of Prudentius' endeavour, and the place that this complex poem deserves in literary, intellectual, and social history.

Early Christian prose writers of the Latin West (2nd–5th c. AD) have long been studied predominantly from theological and historical perspectives. Hence, there is a conspicuous scarcity of comprehensive studies approaching these texts from stylistic and literary angles. This volume will be an important step towards filling this substantial gap in recent scholarship. It will include chapters on selected Latin Christian writers such as Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Firmicus Maternus, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. It aims at investigating, on the one hand, ways in which these texts can be appreciated as literary texts in their own right, by exploring the style and imagery employed in them; and, on the other, the intricate and meaningful modes in which these writers interact, develop, and transform phraseology, topoi, concepts, and techniques found in Classical literature. This volume will offer a paradigmatic overview as to the usefulness of approaching early Christian writers through a literary lens, thus opening up new paths of research across various disciplines including Classics, Literary Studies, Theology, and (Social) History.