Understanding Classics – serie

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) introduced Romans to the major schools of Greek philosophy, forging a Latin conceptual vocabulary that was entirely new. But for all the sophistication of his thinking, it is perhaps for his political and oratorical career that Cicero is best remembered. He was the nemisis of Catiline, whose plot to overthrow the Republic he famously denounced to the Senate. He was the selfless politician who turned down the opportunity to join Julius Caesar and Pompey in their ruling triumvirate with Crassus. He was briefly Rome's leading man after Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE.And he was the great political orator whose bitter coflict with Mark Antony led to his own violent death in 43 BCE. In her authoritative survey, Gesine Manuwald evokes the many faces of Cicero as well as his complexities and seeming contradictions. She focuses on his major works, allowing the great writer to speak for himself. Cicero's rich legacy is seen to endure in the works of Quintilian and the Church Fathers as well as in the speeches of Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama.

This book provides a short and accessible introduction to Strabo’s life, times and cultural context. It outlines the importance of geography and geographical writing in the Augustan period and its development in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as explaining Strabo’s significance and impact in antiquity and beyond. Jessica Lightfoot also explores how Strabo engages heavily with the works of Homer and other prominent Greek literary figures of the past. Our ancient geographer has much to tell us about myth, fiction and literature and their relation to geographical and historical prose. As a result, the reader is given an insight into the fundamentally philosophical origins of geography and the first development of that discipline in antiquity.Strabo of Amasia is known to us today as the writer of the Geography, a seventeen-book monumental survey of the known world which dates to the early first century AD. As the earliest major ancient geographer whose work we possess, Strabo occupies an important place in the history of ancient culture, literature and science. His work is crucial in assessing the emergence of geography as a discipline. Its later reception had an important impact on conceptions of the world and the development of geographical and travel writing, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries.

This book provides a short and accessible introduction to Strabo’s life, times and cultural context. It outlines the importance of geography and geographical writing in the Augustan period and its development in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as explaining Strabo’s significance and impact in antiquity and beyond. Jessica Lightfoot also explores how Strabo engages heavily with the works of Homer and other prominent Greek literary figures of the past. Our ancient geographer has much to tell us about myth, fiction and literature and their relation to geographical and historical prose. As a result, the reader is given an insight into the fundamentally philosophical origins of geography and the first development of that discipline in antiquity.Strabo of Amasia is known to us today as the writer of the Geography, a seventeen-book monumental survey of the known world which dates to the early first century AD. As the earliest major ancient geographer whose work we possess, Strabo occupies an important place in the history of ancient culture, literature and science. His work is crucial in assessing the emergence of geography as a discipline. Its later reception had an important impact on conceptions of the world and the development of geographical and travel writing, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The 6th/5th century BCE Greek melic (or songwriting) poet Pindar was one of the most celebrated lyricists of antiquity. His famous victory odes offer a paean to the heroic athlete, and collectively are an attempt to encapsulate, through choral songs of exaltation, the glory of the sportsman's moment of victory - whether in athletics or horse-racing - at a variety of Panhellenic festivals and Olympian games. Yet Pindar, though still respected, is now considered a difficult poet, and is sometimes dismissed as a reactionary, celebrating an aristocratic world that was passing and that deserved to pass. In this first work on the subject for many years, Richard Stoneman shows that Pindar's works, while at first seeming obscure and fragmentary, reward further study. An unmatched craftsman with words, and witness to a profoundly religious sensibility, he is a poet who takes modern readers to the heart of Greek ideas about the gods, fleeting human achievement and fallibility. The author examines questions of performance and genre; patronage; imagery; and reception, beginning with Horace.

I hate and I love.' The Roman poet Catullus expressed the disorienting experience of being in love in a stark contradiction that has resonated across the centuries. While his description might seem to modern readers natural and spontaneous, it is actually a response planned with great care and artistry. It is that artistry, and the way in which Roman love poetry works, that this book explores. Focusing on Catullus and on the later genre of elegy - so-called for its metre, and a form of poetry practiced by Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid - Denise Eileen McCoskey and Zara Martirosova Torlone discuss the devices used by the major Roman love poets, as well as the literary and historical contexts that helped shape their work. Setting poets and their writings especially against the turbulent backdrop of the Augustan Age (31 BCE-14 CE), the book examines the origins of Latin elegy; highlights the poets' key themes; and traces their reception by later writers and readers.

I hate and I love.' The Roman poet Catullus expressed the disorienting experience of being in love in a stark contradiction that has resonated across the centuries. While his description might seem to modern readers natural and spontaneous, it is actually a response planned with great care and artistry. It is that artistry, and the way in which Roman love poetry works, that this book explores. Focusing on Catullus and on the later genre of elegy - so-called for its metre, and a form of poetry practiced by Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid - Denise Eileen McCoskey and Zara Martirosova Torlone discuss the devices used by the major Roman love poets, as well as the literary and historical contexts that helped shape their work. Setting poets and their writings especially against the turbulent backdrop of the Augustan Age (31 BCE-14 CE), the book examines the origins of Latin elegy; highlights the poets' key themes; and traces their reception by later writers and readers.

The greatest of Roman historians, Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 CE) studied rhetoric in Rome. His rhetorical and oratorical gifts are evident throughout his most substantial works, the incomplete but still remarkable Annals and Histories. In concise and concentrated prose, marked by sometimes bitter and ironic reflections on the human capacity to misuse power, Tacitus charts the violent trajectory of the Roman Empire from Augustus' death in 14 CE to the end of Domitian's rule in 96. Victoria Emma Pagan looks at Tacitus from a range of perspectives: as a literary stylist, perhaps influenced by Sallust; his notion of time; his modes of discourse; his place in the historiography of the era; and the later reception of Tacitus in the Renaissance and early modern periods. Tacitus remains of major interest to students of the Bible, as well as classicists, by virtue of his reference to 'Christus' and Nero's persecution of the Christians after the great fire of Rome in 64 CE. This lively survey enables its readers fully to appreciate why, in holding a mirror up to venality and greed, the work of Tacitus remains eternal.

Eusebius of Caesarea (263-339 CE) is one of the most important intellectuals whose writings survive from late antiquity. His texts made lasting and wide-ranging contributions, from history-writing and apologetics to biblical commentary and Christian oratory. He was a master of many of the literary and scholarly traditions of the Greek heritage. Yet he left none of these traditions unaltered as he made brilliant and original experiments in the many genres he explored. Aaron P Johnson offers a lively introduction to Eusebius' chief oeuvre while also discussing recent scholarship on this foundational early Christian writer. Placing Eusebius in the context of his age the author provides a full account his life, including the period when Eusebius controversially sought to assist the heretic Arius. He then discusses the major writings: apologetic treatises; the pedagogical and exegetical works; the historical texts; the anti-Marcellan theological discourses; and expositions directly connected to the Emperor Constantine.

Marcus Valerius Martialis, or Martial (born between 38 and 41 CE, died between 102 and 104 CE) is celebrated for his droll, frequently salacious, portrayal of Roman high and low society during the first century rule of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. Considered the 'inventor' of the modern epigram, Martial was a native of Hispania, who came to Rome in the hope of securing both patronage and advancement. From the bath-houses, taverns and gymnasia to the sculleries and slave-markets of the capital, Martial in his famous Epigrams sheds merciless light on the hypocrisies and sexual mores or rich and poor alike. Lindsay C and Patricia Watson provide an attractive overview - for students of classics and ancient history, as well as comparative literature - of the chief themes of his sardonic writings. They show that Martial is of continuing and special interest because of his rediscovery in the Renaissance, when writers viewed him as an incisive commentator on failings similar to those of their own day. The later reception of "Martial", by Juvenal and others, forms a major part of this informative survey.

Marcus Valerius Martialis, or Martial (born between 38 and 41 CE, died between 102 and 104 CE) is celebrated for his droll, frequently salacious, portrayal of Roman high and low society during the first century rule of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. Considered the 'inventor' of the modern epigram, Martial was a native of Hispania, who came to Rome in the hope of securing both patronage and advancement. From the bath-houses, taverns and gymnasia to the sculleries and slave-markets of the capital, Martial in his famous Epigrams sheds merciless light on the hypocrisies and sexual mores or rich and poor alike. Lindsay C and Patricia Watson provide an attractive overview - for students of classics and ancient history, as well as comparative literature - of the chief themes of his sardonic writings. They show that Martial is of continuing and special interest because of his rediscovery in the Renaissance, when writers viewed him as an incisive commentator on failings similar to those of their own day. The later reception of "Martial", by Juvenal and others, forms a major part of this informative survey.

Perhaps no classical writer has been so consistently in vogue as Horace. Famous in his own lifetime as a close associate of the Emperor Octavian, to whom he dedicated several odes, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BC) has never really been out of fashion. Petrarch, for example, modelled his letters on Horace’s innovative Epistles, while also borrowing from his Roman forebear in composing his own Italian sonnets. The echo of Horace’s voice can be found in almost every genre of medieval literature. And in later periods, this influence and popularity if anything increased. Yet, as Paul Allen Miller shows, while Horace may justifiably be called the poet for all seasons he is also in the end an enigma. His elusive, ironic contrariness is perhaps the true secret of his success. A cultured man of letters, he fought on the losing side of the Battle of Philippi (42 BC). A staunch Republican, he ended up eagerly (some said too eagerly) promoting the cause of Julio-Claudian imperialism. Viewed as the acme of Roman literary civilization, he was shaped by his Athens education at Plato’s famous Academy. This new introduction reveals Horace in all his paradoxical genius and complexity.

Perhaps no classical writer has been so consistently in vogue as Horace. Famous in his own lifetime as a close associate of the Emperor Octavian, to whom he dedicated several odes, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BC) has never really been out of fashion. Petrarch, for example, modelled his letters on Horace’s innovative Epistles, while also borrowing from his Roman forebear in composing his own Italian sonnets. The echo of Horace’s voice can be found in almost every genre of medieval literature. And in later periods, this influence and popularity if anything increased. Yet, as Paul Allen Miller shows, while Horace may justifiably be called the poet for all seasons he is also in the end an enigma. His elusive, ironic contrariness is perhaps the true secret of his success. A cultured man of letters, he fought on the losing side of the Battle of Philippi (42 BC). A staunch Republican, he ended up eagerly (some said too eagerly) promoting the cause of Julio-Claudian imperialism. Viewed as the acme of Roman literary civilization, he was shaped by his Athens education at Plato’s famous Academy. This new introduction reveals Horace in all his paradoxical genius and complexity.

Sappho has been constructed as many things: proto-feminist, lesbian icon and even - by the Victorians - chaste headmistress of a girls' finishing school. Yet ironically, as Page DuBois shows, the historical poet herself remains elusive. We know that Sappho's contemporary Alcaeus described her as 'violet, pure, honey-smiling Sappho'; and that the rhetorician and philosopher Maximus of Tyre saw her, perhaps less enthusiastically, as 'small and dark'. We also know that her 7th/6th century BCE island of Lesbos was riven by tyrannical and aristocratic factionalism and that she was probably exiled to Sicily. Much of the rest is speculative. DuBois suggests that the value of Sappho lies elsewhere: in her remarkable verse, and in the poet's reception - one of the richest of any figure from antiquity. Offering nuanced readings of the poems, written in an archaic Aeolic dialect, DuBois skillfully draws out their sharp images and rhythmic melody. She further discusses the exciting discovery of a new verse fragment in 2004, and the ways in which Sappho influenced Catullus, Horace and Ovid, as well as later writers and painters.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days. When Plutarch, a Greek historian and biographer writing under the auspices of the Roman empire, wrote these words, he left an enduring legacy that is still felt today. His masterwork, the Lives, is arguably one of the most important bodies of historical writing to survive from antiquity. Unique in its parallel format and frequent focus on the charmingly anecdotal as opposed to the great events in the lives of the men it described, it was in many ways a precursor to the modern biography. The Moralia Plutarch s collection of essays, dialogues and speeches may be lesser-known, but has been no less influential, inspiring Montaigne s famous Essais and the development of the essay as a popular form of writing throughout the Western world. In his new introduction to a literary giant, Mark Beck explores the cultural and philosophical influences on Plutarch s writing; the evidence for his life; the essential unity behind his work; his reception; and his great versatility as philosopher, moralist, historian and biographer."

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days." When Plutarch, a Greek historian and biographer writing under the auspices of the Roman empire, wrote these words, he left an enduring legacy that is still felt today. His masterwork, the Lives, is arguably one of the most important bodies of historical writing to survive from antiquity. Unique in its parallel format and frequent focus on the charmingly anecdotal as opposed to the great events in the lives of the men it described, it was in many ways a precursor to the modern biography. The Moralia - Plutarch's collection of essays, dialogues and speeches - may be lesser-known, but has been no less influential, inspiring Montaigne's famous Essais and the development of the essay as a popular form of writing throughout the Western world. In his new introduction to a literary giant, Mark Beck explores the cultural and philosophical influences on Plutarch's writing; the evidence for his life; the essential unity behind his work; his reception; and his great versatility as philosopher, moralist, historian and biographer.

Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides are often described as the greatest tragedians of the ancient world. Of these three pivotal founders of modern drama, Euripides is characterized as the interloper and the innovator: the man who put tragic verse into the mouths of slaves, women and the socially inferior in order to address vital social issues such as sex, class and gender relations. It is perhaps little wonder that his work should find such resonance in the modern day.In this concise introduction, Isabelle Torrance engages with the thematic, cultural and scholarly difficulties that surround his plays to demonstrate why Euripides remains a figure of perennial relevance. Addressing here issues of social context, performance theory, fifth-century philosophy and religion, textual criticism and reception, the author presents an astute and attractively-written guide to the Euripidean corpus – from the widely read and celebrated Medea to the lesser-known and deeply ambiguous Alcestis.

Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides are often described as the greatest tragedians of the ancient world. Of these three pivotal founders of modern drama, Euripides is characterized as the interloper and the innovator: the man who put tragic verse into the mouths of slaves, women and the socially inferior in order to address vital social issues such as sex, class and gender relations. It is perhaps little wonder that his work should find such resonance in the modern day.In this concise introduction, Isabelle Torrance engages with the thematic, cultural and scholarly difficulties that surround his plays to demonstrate why Euripides remains a figure of perennial relevance. Addressing here issues of social context, performance theory, fifth-century philosophy and religion, textual criticism and reception, the author presents an astute and attractively-written guide to the Euripidean corpus – from the widely read and celebrated Medea to the lesser-known and deeply ambiguous Alcestis.

What reader could fail to be enthralled by the Iliad and the Odyssey, those greatest heroic epics of antiquity? Yet the author of those immortal text remains, in the end, an enigma. The central paradox of 'Homer' is that- while recognized as producing poetry of incomparable genius- even in the ancien world nobody knew who he was. As a result, the myth-maker became the subject of myth. For the satirist Lucian (c.125-180 CE) he ws a captive Babylonian. Other traditions have Homer born in Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, or portray him as a blind and wandering minstrel. In his new and authoritative introduction, Jonathan S. Burgess addresses fundamental questions of provenance and authorship. Besides conveying why these epics have been cherished down the ages, he discusses their historical sources and the possible impact on the Iliad and Odyssey of Indo-European, Near Eastern and folktale influences. Tracing their transmission through the ancient, medieval and modern periods, the author further examines questions of theory and reception.

Alexandria was the greatest of the new cities founded by Alexander the Great as his armies swept eastward. It was ruled by his successors, the Ptolemies, who presided over one of the richest and most productive periods in the whole of Greek literature. Susan A Stephens here reveals a cultural world in transition: reverential of the compositions of the past (especially after construction of the great library, repository for all previous Greek oeuvres), but at the same time forward-looking and experimental, willing to make use of previous forms of writing in exciting new ways. The author examines Alexandria's poets in turn. She discusses the strikingly avant-garde Aetia of Callimachus; the idealized pastoral forms of Theocritus (which anticipated the invention of fiction); and the neo-Homerian epic of Apollonius, the Argonautica, with its impressive combination of narrative grandeur and psychological acuity. She shows that all three poets were innovators, even while they looked to the past for inspiration: drawing upon Homer, Hesiod, Pindar and the lyric poets, they emphasized stories and material that were entirely relevant to their own progressive cosmopolitan environment.

After centuries of neglect there is renewed interest in the life and works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (or Seneca the Younger, c 4 BCE-65 CE). At one time an advisor at court to Nero, Seneca and his political career came to ruin when he was implicated in a later plot to kill the capricious and matricidal emperor, and compelled to commit suicide. Discredited through collusion, or at least association, with a notorious and tyrannical regime, Seneca's ideas were for a time also considered derivative of Greek stoicism and thus inferior to the real thing. In this first in-depth introduction to be published for many years, Christopher Star shows what a remarkable statesman, dramatist and philosopher his subject actually was. Seneca's original contributions to political philosophy and the philosophy of the emotions were considerable. He was a favourite authority of Tertullian, who saw Seneca as proto-believer and early humanist. And he is a key figure in the history of ideas and the Renaissance, as well as in literature and drama. This new survey does full justice to his significance.

The works of Virgil (70–19 BCE) define the ‘golden age’ of Latin poetry and have inspired a long tradition of interpretation and adaptation that starts in his own time and extends to important modern authors. His ascent from the lesser genre of pastoral (the Bucolics) through a more ambitious didactic mode (the Georgics) to the soaring heights of epic (the incomparable Aeneid) shaped the canonical writings of other authors, from his younger contemporary Ovid through the medieval writers Dante and Petrarch to the early modern poets Spenser and Milton and well beyond. Virgil, as Alison Keith shows, has never gone out of critical or popular fashion. This wide-ranging introduction appraises a figure of central importance in the history of Western music, art and literature. Offering close readings of the Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneid, Keith places Virgil and his poetry in historical context before tracing their impact at key moments in the culture of the West. Emphasis is placed on Virgil’s reception of the classical literary and philosophical traditions, and on how his poetry has attracted modern interest from writers as diverse as T. S. Eliot and Ursula K. Le Guin.

The works of Virgil (70–19 BCE) define the ‘golden age’ of Latin poetry and have inspired a long tradition of interpretation and adaptation that starts in his own time and extends to important modern authors. His ascent from the lesser genre of pastoral (the Bucolics) through a more ambitious didactic mode (the Georgics) to the soaring heights of epic (the incomparable Aeneid) shaped the canonical writings of other authors, from his younger contemporary Ovid through the medieval writers Dante and Petrarch to the early modern poets Spenser and Milton and well beyond. Virgil, as Alison Keith shows, has never gone out of critical or popular fashion. This wide-ranging introduction appraises a figure of central importance in the history of Western music, art and literature. Offering close readings of the Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneid, Keith places Virgil and his poetry in historical context before tracing their impact at key moments in the culture of the West. Emphasis is placed on Virgil’s reception of the classical literary and philosophical traditions, and on how his poetry has attracted modern interest from writers as diverse as T. S. Eliot and Ursula K. Le Guin.