New Surveys in the Classics - Böcker

This is the first general study of the earliest writers of Greek prose for students and teachers alike. Looking at history, medicine, science, philosophy and rhetoric, it asks why and how these new genres of writing came about in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE It is thus a study of the cultural and political revolution known as the Greek enlightenment, which has proved so influential and important for modern Western thought and society. Questions discussed include how and why rhetoric played such a role in democracy, how history written in prose changes a view of the past, and how science and philosophy construct new models of understanding what authority is. An exploration is offered of how literary history and social and political history interact. Written in a lively and clear style, the book makes a perfect introduction to the classical world of Athens.

The 'Second Sophistic' is arguably the fastest-growing area in contemporary classical scholarship. This short, accessible account explores the various ways in which modern scholarship has approached one of the most extraordinary literary phenomena of antiquity, the dazzling oratorical culture of the Early Imperial period. Successive chapters deal with historical and cultural background, sophistic performance, technical treatises (including the issue of Atticism and Asianism), the concept of identity, and the wider impact of sophistic performance on major authors of the time, including Plutarch, Lucian and the Greek novelists.

Four related themes in Greek thought are examined in this book: (1) personality and self, (2) ethics and values (3) individuals and communities, and (4) the idea of nature as a moral norm. Although the focus is on Greek philosophy (the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic period), links between philosophy and literature or the wider culture are also explored. The book combines a survey of recent scholarship on these topics with the author's own interpretations. It can be used by students or teachers of classical studies or philosophy as an introduction to key themes and issues in Greek ethics or psychology. One aspect of the subject given special emphasis is the relationship between ancient and modern ideas on the issues treated here. The book closes with a selective bibliography on modern work on Greek philosophy.

In recent decades there has been a complete revolution in the way we read the historians of Greece and Rome. Their works have been shown to be quite different in nature from those of today's historians; instead, their techniques and assumptions have much in common with those of Homer or Virgil. Using these narratives as sources for ancient history has become more problematic than ever before, as we come to understand better how their style (the medium) and content (the message) shape each other. This book briefly introduces this revolution as it affects our reading of Latin historical writing, and then provides authoritative and informative discussions of the three major Latin historians of the classical period: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. The focus is on narrative technique and structure, intertextuality, and close reading, and the discussions are as accessible to beginning students as they are useful to experienced teachers.

Greek Science, first published in 1999, is written for scientists, classicists, historians of science, and anyone with an interest in the beginnings of science. It surveys the range and scope of ancient work on topics now called science, at a lively pace and with colourful examples. It encompasses ancient empirical studies as well as theoretical works, the life sciences and the exact sciences, and is written by one of the foremost authorities on ancient science and technology. No knowledge of Greek, Latin, or ancient history is assumed.

The last forty years have brought about a transformation in the understanding of pagan Roman religion, rescuing it from the margins of the discipline and restoring its rituals and rhythms to their place at the centre of Roman life and literature. This book provides an up-to-date account of the religious history of Rome starting from its mythical origins, describing its character and development through the later Republican centuries and assessing the response of pagans to the coming of new religious forms during the centuries of Roman imperial rule. It places great emphasis on the fundamental difference between modern ideas of what a religion ought to be and the realities of ancient life. The book is designed to be accessible to all those approaching the subject for the first time, whether their interest is in the classical world or in comparing its religious forms with those of other times and places.

This survey of recent work on Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius focuses on new developments in the study of Greek historiography and synthesises some of the most important research from the last thirty years. There is a detailed treatment of each writer, with an emphasis on analysis of the historians' sources, their narrative methods, and their use of speeches. Also examined are the structure and themes of each man's work, together with consideration of the way each historian employs characterisation. The book provides a full bibliography of recent work done mainly (but not exclusively) in English, and suggests future directions that the study of these historians may take. It will be of interest to upper-level students and scholars who would like an overview of recent trends in the study both of the historians themselves and of ancient Greek historiography in general.

This is an introduction to the ancient genre of epigram, short poems literally written or inscribed 'on' an object or figuratively 'on' a topic. The authors set out what epigram means and why it matters, exploring its roots in inscriptions on stone and its literary flourishing in the Hellenistic world after Alexander. They trace its migration from Greece to Rome, where its most famous exponent was Martial, and consider the continuation of Greek epigram under the Roman empire in the so-called 'Second Sophistic'. The final chapter shows how Greek epigram achieved new importance in the nineteenth century as raw material for stories about the classical past.

Recent scholarship has emphasised that ancient oratory was primarily a performance art. At Rome during the Republican period, public speaking was one of the most important ways in which politicians created support for themselves among the citizen body. The change of political system to a monarchy transformed the functions of oratory but left its importance as an elite skill intact. This New Survey offers an introduction to the topic, and the modern scholarship on it, which emphasises the fact that the occasions of speaking were prior to subsequent written texts. Without ignoring Cicero as the major surviving textual exemplar of a Roman orator, this book establishes a context for his achievement within the preoccupation with public speaking common to the Roman elite as a whole and considers what oratorical education and practice at Rome can say about wider norms of elite behaviour.

Comedy is the classical world's most resilient and durable theatrical tradition. This volume offers a concise, accessible guide to the study of Greek and Roman comedy in light of current scholarship. It surveys the complex literary, theatrical, and cultural history of the classical genre from its beginnings to the death of Terence, with an overview of the work of each author and introductions to all the surviving plays of Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus and Terence, alongside discussions of lost works and of theories of comedy ancient and modern, with concise guides to the extensive modern bibliography.

This brief but highly informative book presents an outline of Greek religion in the classical period. After surveying its main characteristics, it offers a clear and innovative view of the great gods and heroes as well as their sanctuaries and also the main myths, rituals and mysteries: from Athena to Zeus, from sacrifice to the puritan Orphics, from the Indo-European roots to the influence of the ancient Near East. The approach pays attention to the sociological, anthropological, and psychological aspects of Greek religion and also to the gender roles. By paying attention to the often modern origin of many of the notions employed in the analysis of Greek religion, it illustrates the difference between Greek polytheism and the place of religion in modern Western society. This second edition has been updated to account for the latest developments, and its bibliography makes this book very useful for students and teachers alike.

Plutarch of Chaeronea is one of the most influential and fascinating authors of antiquity. His Parallel Lives and Moralia are storehouses of challenging questions, valuable insights and interesting observations. Moreover, they contain a wealth of quotations from and references to earlier writers and traditions, and thus provide one of the richest gateways to the ancient world. This book introduces the reader to Plutarch's life and to the different facets of his variegated thinking and writing, such as his tremendous erudition, his Platonism and (moral) philosophy, his interpretation of history and his view of God. Above all, Plutarch stands out as a particularly clever and subtle thinker, driven by a spirit of painstaking enquiry (zetesis) that shows authentic and impressive intellectual honesty and sincere love of the truth. In this respect, as in many others, he remains an inspiring model even for us today.

Xenophon of Athens wrote on a variety of subjects, ranging across history and politics (Hellenica, Constitution of the Spartans), biography (Cyropaedia, Agesilaus), leadership and economic advice (Poroi, Hipparchicus, Cynegeticus), memoirs of his own activities (Anabasis) and philosophical dialogue (Hiero), often drawing on his experience of Socrates (Apology, Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium). This book explores the coherent worldview which underlies these apparently disparate works, starting with his account of the household and moving out through city and army to large-scale imperial power, always framed by his respect for the divine ordering of the cosmos and featuring his distinctive and lively prose style. This book also places Xenophon's thought in its historical context, evaluating how he responded to the work of predecessors and contemporaries, both historians like Thucydides and philosophers like Plato and the other followers of Socrates, making him an important witness to the intellectual life of fourth-century BCE Greece.

The texts, images and events of the ancient world have been used both as sources of authority and exploitation in politics, culture and society and as icons of resistance and contest. How classical culture is transplanted into new contexts, how texts are translated and performed and how Greek and Roman values are perceived and used continues to be a force in current debates. The main concepts and explanatory frameworks used in the field are introduced through chapters on reception within antiquity and case studies of more recent receptions from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the USA. This revised second edition will be of use to all those interested in the relationship between the arts, culture and society as well as to students and teachers of classical subjects and of literature, drama, film and comparative cultural studies.

The works of Flavius Josephus provide us with a striking and unusual perspective on life in the Roman Empire. A learned Judaean priest, a provincial rebel turned Roman citizen and collaborator, and a Greek historian communicating Jewish history to a largely non-Jewish audience, Josephus' accomplished historical works supply a view of Roman rule from the perspective not of the conquerors but of the conquered and colonized. His complex, richly allusive and double-facing works brilliantly illuminate the intersection of Roman power, Greek culture and local identity in the Roman provinces, and constitute the most important historical sources for the history of Judaism, Christianity and the Roman East in the time of the early emperors. This book provides an essential introduction to the works of this complex, challenging and rewarding author, situating them in the context of Josephus' life and times, providing readings of each of his four surviving texts, and surveying the reception of those texts from antiquity to the present day.

Catullus is amongst the most widely read of Roman authors at school and university, but courses and textbooks have traditionally concentrated on a relatively limited range of poems. This study aims to broaden the focus, giving due weight to Catullus' invective and homoerotic verse and the carmina maiora or 'longer poems', alongside the more famous cycle centring on the poet's relationship with Lesbia. It situates Catullus within a range of cultural and literary contexts and takes full account of recent scholarship on gender and sexuality, Roman ideals of friendship and reciprocity, and the interpretation of intertextual echoes. A final chapter is devoted to the reception of Catullus' work, from the Augustan period to the present day. The volume also includes a glossary of Latin sexual and social terminology; an appendix surveying translations, commentaries and other resources for the study of Catullus; and an extensive bibliography.

This book tackles how and why 'landscape' (farms, gardens, countryside) set the scene in the first centuries BCE and CE for Romans keen to talk up and about (but also to scrutinize and understand) what it meant to be a citizen. It investigates what 'landscape' means now and reflects upon how contemporary approaches to 'landscape' can enrich our understanding of ancient experience of the interface between natural and artificial space. It encourages examination of 'landscape' from a range of angles, suggesting alternative ways of thinking about what landscape represents. These methodological approaches (presented initially via a set of key terms and definitions and then deployed thematically across four chapters), combined with a detailed interdisciplinary bibliography and a series of case studies of literary texts and material sites, enable readers to use this survey as a starting point for developing their own in-depth study.

This book sets out to give a full and authoritative survey of the scholarly literature on the Roman poet Horace (65-8 BC), a central figure in Latin literature and Western culture, concentrating on the period since 1957. It begins with a brief survey of key resources, focusing especially on material available online, and then looks at the overall shape of Horace's poetic career. The main chapters cover Horace's works chronologically, dividing them into early, central and late periods and thus echoing the trajectory of his poetic career. The final two chapters look at the poet's style and its variations across different genres, and at the extensive reception of Horace's work in Western European literature. This is followed by a full bibliography.

This survey, which centres mainly on Greek sculpture and vase-painting from 600 to 300 BC, examines research over the past twenty years. Organised chronologically in terms of media (free-standing sculpture, architectural sculpture, luxury items, ceramics), the chapters discuss polychromy, the ethics of collecting and the relationship between scenes of myth and everyday life. Attention is also paid to new approaches that question the concept of 'art' in Classical Greece (what is known as the 'paradigm shift') in which the purposes, contexts and effect of material culture are given greater prominence. To summarise recent research, the author adopts a balance between a broad treatment and detailed description. The text and images (fifty in number and largely in colour) will be particularly useful to students and teachers but will have a wider appeal.

This is a revised and updated version of the survey on Homer which the author originally published in 1996. It provides a wide variety of readers with a clear and detailed introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey, and to the problems which arise in dating, contextualising and interpreting these two epics, which are among the earliest poetic texts to come down to us from the ancient Greek world. A substantial introductory chapter discusses the so-called Homeric Question, the question of the identity and origins of 'Homer'. Among the important topics considered are the debate over oral composition, the structure, plot and themes of the two epics, and the religious and ethical ideas which figure in the poems; also discussed are characterisation, speeches, similes, symbolism and irony. An extensive bibliography gives expert guidance on these and many other aspects of these extraordinary poems.

Produced in Athens during the fifth century BC, the tragedies of Sophocles are a high point in world literature, vividly depicting unforgettable characters confronted with emotional crises, moral dilemmas, and the inscrutable ways of the gods. This volume examines Sophocles' reputation as a dramatic poet both in his own day and later in antiquity, considering how it was that some of his plays survived from his time to ours. It investigates the qualities of those plays, focusing on key aspects of Sophoclean dramaturgy such as stagecraft, narrative, rhetoric, and heroism. And it incorporates within its discussion not just the seven plays that survive in full, but those major fragments discovered in recent years which shed so much light on Sophocles' extraordinary ability as a poet and a dramatist. All Greek is translated, making this volume accessible to anyone with an interest in one of the greatest playwrights of all time.

From Socrates and Plato onwards, the Sophists were often targeted by the authoritative philosophical tradition as being mere charlatans and poor teachers. This book, translated and significantly updated from its most recent Italian version (2nd edition, 2013), challenges these criticisms by offering an overall interpretation of their thought, and by assessing the specific contributions of thinkers like Protagoras, Gorgias and Antiphon. A new vision of the Sophists emerges: they are protagonists and agents of fundamental change in the history of ancient philosophy, who questioned the grounds of morality and politics, as well as the nature of knowledge and language. By shifting the focus from the cosmos to man, the Sophists inaugurate an alternative form of philosophy, whose importance is only now becoming clear.