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Lysias
By S. C. Todd. 2000
This is the second volume in the Oratory of Classical Greece series. Planned for publication over several years, the series…
will present all of the surviving speeches from the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C. in new translations prepared by classical scholars who are at the forefront of the discipline. These translations are especially designed for the needs and interests of today's undergraduates, Greekless scholars in other disciplines, and the general public.Classical oratory is an invaluable resource for the study of ancient Greek life and culture. The speeches offer evidence on Greek moral views, social and economic conditions, political and social ideology, and other aspects of Athenian culture that have been largely ignored: women and family life, slavery, and religion, to name just a few.Ancient Skies: Constellation Mythology Of The Greeks
By David Weston Marshall. 2018
Look to the sky and see the stories in the stars The stars and constellations are among the few remaining…
objects that appear to us just as they appeared to our distant ancestors From anywhere on Earth a person may view the celestial panorama simply by stepping outside at night and gazing upward This non- fiction narrative presents the tales of the forty- eight classical constellations compiled from literature spanning a thousand years from Homer c 800 BC to Claudius Ptolemy c 150 AD These age- old tales have captured the human imagination from ancient times to the present and through them we can examine the early practical astronomy philosophical speculation on the cosmos and fundamental moral beliefs of much of Western civilization Illustrations and star charts carefully reconstructed from ancient sources lend a visual element and immerse the reader in the world of ancient cosmology and constellation mapping Through Marshall s research and storytelling Ancient Skies brings the belief systems of the classical world to shining lifeDialogues of Love
By Damian Bacich, Leone Ebreo, Rosella Pescatori. 2009
First published in Rome in 1535,Leone Ebreo's Dialogues of Love is one of the most important texts of the European…
Renaissance. Well known in the Italian academies of the sixteenth century, its popularity quickly spread throughout Europe, with numerous reprintings and translations into French, Latin Spanish, and Hebrew. It attracted a diverse audience that included noblemen, courtesans, artists, poets, intellectuals, and philosophers. More than just a bestseller, the work exerted a deep influence over the centuries on figures as diverse as Giordano Bruno, John Donne, Miguelde Cervantes, and Baruch Spinoza.Leone's Dialogues consists of three conversations - 'On Love and Desire,' 'On the Universality of Love,' and 'Onthe Origin of Love' - that take place over a period of three subsequent days.They are organized in a dialogic format, much like a theatrical representation, of a conversation between a man, Philo, who plays the role of the lover andteacher, and a woman, Sophia, the beloved and pupil. The discussion covers a wide range of topics that have as their common denominator the idea of Love. Through the dialogue, the author explores many different points of view and complex philosophical ideas. Grounded in a distinctly Jewish tradition, and drawing on Neoplatonic philosophical structures and Arabic sources, the work offers a useful compendium of classical and contemporary thought, yet was not incompatible with Christian doctrine. Despite the unfinished state and somewhat controversial, enigmatic nature of Ebreo's famous text, it remains one of the most significant and influential works in the history of Western thought. This new, expertly translated and annotated English edition takes into account the latest scholarship and provides aninvaluable resource for today's readers.Epigraphy and the Greek Historian
By Craig Cooper. 2008
Epigraphy is a method of inferring and analyzing historical data by means of inscriptions found on ancient artifacts such as…
stones, coins, and statues. It has proven indispensable for archaeologists and classicists, and has considerable potential for the study of ancient history at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Epigraphy and the Greek Historian is a collection of essays that explore various ways in which inscriptions can help students reconstruct and understand Greek History.In order to engage with the study of epigraphy, this collection is divided into two parts, Athens and Athens from the outside. The contributors maintain the importance of epigraphy, arguing that, in some cases, inscriptions are the only tools we have to recover the local history of places that stand outside the main focus of ancient literary sources, which are often frustratingly Athenocentric. Ideally, the historian uses both inscriptions and literary sources to make plausible inferences and thereby weave together the disconnected threads of the past into a connected and persuasive narrative. Epigraphy and the Greek Historian is a comprehensive examination of epigraphy and a timely resource for students and scholars involved in the study of ancient history.Pre-Sargonic Period
By Douglas Frayne. 2008
The book Pre-Sargonic Period (2700-2350 BC) provides editions of all known royal inscriptions of kings who ruled in ancient Mesopotamia…
down to the advent of King Sargon of Akkad. Most of the inscriptions come from the city states of Lagsh and Umma; inscriptions from other sites are rather poorly attested. The volume includes a handful of new inscriptions recently uncovered in Iraq. Information on museum numbers, excavation numbers, provenances, dimensions, and lines preserved in the various exemplars are displayed for multi-exemplar texts in an easy-to-read tabular form. Also included in several commentary sections are notes on the find-spots of the inscriptions from Lagas and references about various toponymns to be discussed in a forthcoming study of the author on the geography of Lagas and Umma provinces. Indexes of museum numbers, excavation numbers, and concordances of selected publications complete the volume.A History of Exile in the Roman Republic
By Gordon P. Kelly. 2006
The Roman West, AD 200-500
By Simon Esmonde Cleary. 2013
This book describes and analyses the development of the Roman West from Gibraltar to the Rhine, using primarily the extensive…
body of published archaeological evidence rather than the textual evidence underlying most other studies. It situates this development within a longer-term process of change, proposing the later second century rather than the 'third-century crisis' as the major turning-point, although the latter had longer-term consequences owing to the rise in importance of military identities. Elsewhere, more 'traditional' forms of settlement and display were sustained, to which was added the vocabulary of Christianity. The longer-term rhythms are also central to assessing the evidence for such aspects as rural settlement and patterns of economic interaction. The collapse of Roman imperial authority emphasised trends such as militarisation and regionalisation along with economic and cultural disintegration. Indicators of 'barbarian/Germanic' presence are reassessed within such contexts and the traditional interpretations questioned and alternatives proposed.Theodahad
By Massimiliano Vitiello. 2014
Educated in Platonic philosophy rather than the military arts, the Ostrogothic king Theodahad was never meant to rule. His unexpected…
nomination as co-regent by his cousin Queen Amalasuintha plunged him into the intrigues of the Gothic court, and Theodahad soon conspired to assassinate the queen. But, once alone on the throne, his lack of political experience and military skill made him ineffective at best and dangerously incompetent at worst. Defeated by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, Theodahad was killed by his own subjects.In Theodahad, Massimiliano Vitiello rigorously investigates the ancient sources in order to reconstruct the events of Theodahad's life and the contours of sixth-century diplomacy and political intrigues. Painting a picture of an unlikely king whose reign helped spell the end of Ostrogothic Italy, Vitiello's book not only illuminates Theodahad's own life but also offers new insight into the sixth-century Mediterranean world.This book explores the relationships between ancient witchcraft and its modern incarnation and by doing so fills an important…
gap in the historiography It is often noted that stories of witchcraft circulated in Greek and Latin classical texts and that treatises dealing with witch-beliefs referenced them Still the role of humanistic culture and classical revival in the developing of the witch-hunts has not yet been fully researched Marina Montesano examines Greek and Latin literature revealing how particular features of ancient striges were carried into the Late Middle Ages through the Renaissance and into the fifteenth century when early Italian trials recall the myth of the strix common in ancient Latin sources and in popular memory The final chapter also serves as a conclusion to show how in Renaissance Italy and beyond classical accounts of witchcraft ceased to be just stories as they had formerly been and were instead used to attest to the reality of witches powersSea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean c.1400 BC-1000 BC
By Raffaele D'Amato, Andrea Salimbeti. 2015
Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age and Mediterranean features the latest historical and archaeological research into the mysterious and powerful…
confederations of raiders who troubled the Eastern Mediterranean in the last half of the Bronze Age. Research into the origins of the so-called Shardana, Shekelesh, Danuna, Lukka, Peleset and other peoples is a detective 'work in progress'. However, it is known that they both provided the Egyptian pharaohs with mercenaries, and were listed among Egypt's enemies and invaders. They contributed to the collapse of several civilizations through their dreaded piracy and raids, and their waves of attacks were followed by major migrations that changed the face of this region, from modern Libya and Cyprus to the Aegean, mainland Greece, Lebanon and Anatolian Turkey. Drawing on carved inscriptions and papyrus documents - mainly from Egypt - dating from the 15th-11th centuries BC, as well as carved reliefs of Medinet Habu, this title reconstructs the formidable appearance and even the tactics of the famous 'Sea Peoples'.Roman Social Imaginaries
By Clifford Ando. 2015
In an expansion of his 2012 Robson Classical Lectures, Clifford Ando examines the connection between the nature of the Latin…
language and Roman thinking about law, society, and empire. Drawing on innovative work in cognitive linguistics and anthropology, Roman Social Imaginaries considers how metaphor, metonymy, analogy, and ideation helped create the structures of thought that shaped the Roman Empire as a political construct.Beginning in early Roman history, Ando shows how the expansion of the empire into new territories led the Romans to develop and exploit Latin's extraordinary capacity for abstraction. In this way, laws and institutions invented for use in a single Mediterranean city-state could be deployed across a remarkably heterogeneous empire.Lucid, insightful, and innovative, the essays in Roman Social Imaginaries constitute some of today's most original thinking about the power of language in the ancient world.Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
By Gianni Paganini, John Christian Laursen. 2015
In this collection, thirteen distinguished contributors examine the influence of the ancient skeptical philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus…
Empiricus on early modern political thought. Classical skepticism argues that in the absence of certainty one must either suspend judgment and live by habit or act on the basis of probability rather than certainty. In either case, one must reject dogmatic confidence in politics and philosophy.Surveying the use of skepticism in works by Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant, among others, the essays in Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries demonstrate the pervasive impact of skepticism on the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe. This volume is not just an authoritative account of skepticism's importance from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution, it is also the basis for understanding skepticism's continuing political implications.A Student's Guide to Classics (ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines)
By Bruce S. Thornton. 2003
Bruce Thornton's crisp and informative Student's Guide to Classics provides readers with an overview of each of the major poets,…
dramatists, philosophers, and historians of ancient Greece and Rome. Including short bios of major figures and a list of suggested readings, Thornton's guide is unparalleled as a brief introduction to the literature of the classical world.Roman Legionary AD 284-337
By Sean O'Brogain, Ross Cowan. 2015
Diocletian and Constantine were the greatest of the Late Roman emperors, and their era marks the climax of the legionary…
system. Under Constantine's successors the legions were reduced in size and increasingly sidelined in favour of new units of elite auxilia, but between AD 284 and 337 the legions reigned supreme. The legionaries defeated all-comers and spearheaded a stunning Roman revival that humbled the Persian Empire and reduced the mighty Goths and Sarmatians to the status of vassals. This title details the equipment, background, training and combat experience of the men from all parts of the empire who made up the backbone of Rome's legions in this pivotal period.Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens
By David M. Pritchard. 2012
Athenian democracy may have opened up politics to every citizen, but it had no impact on participation in sport. The…
city's sportsmen continued to be drawn from the elite, and so it comes as a surprise that sport was very popular with non-elite citizens of the classical period, who rewarded victorious sportsmen lavishly and created an unrivalled program of local sporting festivals on which they spent staggering sums of money. They also shielded sportsmen from the public criticism which was otherwise normally directed towards the elite and its conspicuous activities. This book is a bold and novel exploration of this apparent contradiction, which examines three of the fundamental aspects of Athens in the classical period - democratic politics, public commitment to sport and constant warfare - and is essential reading for all of those who are interested in Greek sport, Athenian democracy and its waging of war.Macedonian Armies after Alexander 323-168 BC
By Peter Dennis, Nicholas Sekunda. 2012
The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC threw the Macedonians into confusion; there was no capable heir, and…
no clear successor among the senior figures in Alexander's circle. Initial attempts to preserve the unity of Alexander's conquests gave way to a period of bloody and prolonged warfare. For well over a century the largely mercenary armies of Alexander's successors imposed their influence over the whole of the Near East, while absorbing local military practices. After Rome's decisive defeat of Carthage in 202 BC, Macedonia came under increasing pressure from the Romans. Three wars between the two powers culminated in the Roman victory at Pydna in 168 BC, which laid Alexander's empire to rest and established Roman hegemony in the Near East. Drawing upon a wide array of archaeological and written sources and written by a noted authority on the Hellenistic period, this survey of the organization, battle history and appearance of the armies of Alexander's successors is lavishly illustrated with specially commissioned full-colour artwork.Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds
By Patrick James, Alex Mullen. 2012
Through words and images employed both by individuals and by a range of communities across the Graeco-Roman worlds, this book…
explores the complexity of multilingual representations of identity. Starting with the advent of literacy in the Mediterranean, it encompasses not just the Greek and Roman empires but also the transformation of the Graeco-Roman world under Islam and within the medieval mind. By treating a range of materials, contexts, languages, and temporal and political boundaries, the contributors consider points of cross-cultural similarity and difference and the changing linguistic landscape of East and West from antiquity into the medieval period. Insights from contemporary multilingualism theory and interdisciplinary perspectives are employed throughout to exploit the material fully.Aspects of Greek History 750–323BC: A Source-Based Approach
By Terry Buckley. 2010
Aspects of Greek History 750- 323 BC: A Source-Based Approach offers an indispensable introduction to the central period of Greek…
History for all students of classics, from pre-university to undergraduate level. Chapter by chapter, the relevant historical periods from the age of colonization to Alexander the Great are reconstructed. Emphasis is laid on the interpretation of the available sources, and the book sets out to give a clear treatment of all the major problems within a chronological framework. This new edition brings the book up-to-date with the latest scholarship and includes a more detailed study of Sparta, Delian League, and the Athenian Empire, expands the range of sources examined, and offers an extended discussion of the growth of Athenian Imperialism towards Samos, Mytilene and Melos. It includes: a critical discussion of the lives, works, usefulness and reliability of the main literary sources: Thucydides, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Aristotle numerous quotations and references from these and other sources, including inscriptional and archaeological evidence, accompanied by a critical analysis of their worth maps, a glossary of Greek terms, and a full chapter-based bibliography. Aspects of Greek History is an invaluable aid to note-taking, essay preparation and examination revision.The Greeks and the New
By Armand D'Angour. 2011
The Greeks have long been regarded as innovators across a wide range of fields in literature, culture, philosophy, politics and…
science. However, little attention has been paid to how they thought and felt about novelty and innovation itself, and to relating this to the forces of traditionalism and conservatism which were also present across all the various societies within ancient Greece. What inspired the Greeks to embark on their unique and enduring innovations? How did they think and feel about the new? This book represents the first serious attempt to address these issues, and deals with the phenomenon across all periods and areas of classical Greek history and thought. Each chapter concentrates on a different area of culture or thought, while the book as a whole argues that much of the impulse towards innovation came from the life of the polis which provided its setting.Constructing Communities in the Late Roman Countryside
By Cam Grey. 2011
This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the 'small politics' of rural communities in the Late Roman world. It…
places the diverse fates of those communities within a generalized model for exploring rural social systems. Fundamentally, social interactions in rural contexts in the period revolved around the desire of individual households to insure themselves against catastrophic subsistence failure and the need of the communities in which they lived to manage the attendant social tensions, inequalities and conflicts. A focus upon the politics of reputation in those communities provides a striking contrast to the picture painted by the legislation and the writings of Rome's literate elite: when viewed from the point of view of the peasantry, issues such as the Christianization of the countryside, the emergence of new types of patronage relations, and the effects of the new system of taxation upon rural social structures take on a different aspect.