A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY116 start with L start with L
The first English translation of Greek Theology
The first-century CE North African philosopher Cornutus lived in Rome as a philosopher and is best known today for his surviving work Greek Theology, which explores the origins and names of the Greek gods. However, he was also interested in the language and literature of the poets Persius and Lucan and wrote one of the first commentaries on Virgil. This book collects and translates all of our evidence for Cornutus for the first time and includes the first published English translation of Greek Theology. This collection offers entirely fresh insight into the intellectual world of the first century.
Features
- Translation based on the latest critical text
- The first truly holistic picture of Cornutus’s intellectual profile
- A new account of the early debate over Aristotle’s Categories and the Stoic contribution to it
On virtue in education and argumentation.
Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BC. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates’ execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of “advanced” democracy is obvious. He lived to be 80 years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates’ mind fused with Plato’s thought.
In Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. Protagoras, Ion, and Meno discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In Gorgias, Socrates is estranged from his city’s thought, and his fate is impending. The Apology (not a dialogue), Crito, Euthyphro, and the unforgettable Phaedo relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous Symposium and Phaedrus, written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. Cratylus discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the Republic, concerns righteousness (and involves education, equality of the sexes, the structure of society, and abolition of slavery). Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues Euthydemus deals with philosophy; metaphysical Parmenides is about general concepts and absolute being; Theaetetus reasons about the theory of knowledge. Of its sequels, Sophist deals with not-being; Politicus with good and bad statesmanship and governments; Philebus with what is good. The Timaeus seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished Critias treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato’s last work, Laws, a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.
Here Rosen’s argue for the possibility of philosophy or the retrieval of human self-knowledge on the basis of a renewed argument for the partial intelligibility of ordinary experience or, in other words, for the Platonic Ideas. His book on the Symposium was an important contribution to the subsequent sea change in Plato scholarship that returned attention to the dialogue form and to the poetic side of philosophy even in its quarrel with philosophy. That change allowed us search for understanding in the light of the whole, a whole which is otherwise, as Rosen has shown elsewhere, fragmented by the scientism of analytical philosophy or the historicism of “Continental” philosophy.
The Language of Love represents a missing key to Stanley Rosen’s work and, much more significantly, to the rediscovery of philosophy in our time. The title of the book is not merely a play on words. It points to the incommensurability between the constructed or historical nature of language or culture and the pre-discursive apprehension of things that is necessary if speech is to make sense and be understood, as opposed to being mere nonsense.
Among many valuable insights along the way, Rosen unites the dialogue in two parts, treating both eros and rhetoric, showing the linkage between eros and writing, as between myth and analysis. He connects the comic attempt to subject eros to diaeresis in the Phaedrus with the attempt to understand non-being as an eidos in the Sophist. In both cases, the inadequacy of a technical understanding of philosophy returns us to the pre-technical world of ordinary experience.
Rosen’s interpretation is an expression of the Socratic claim that we can’t speak beautifully without knowing the truth and that whatever truth we speak or write is a reflection of the silent invisibility of beauty as the unity of form. However, “Like every good teacher, it does not simply state that link for us to memorize. Instead, we must recollect it.”
Gellar-Goad aims to track De Rerum Natura along two paths of satire: first, the broad boulevard of satiric literature from the beginnings of Greek poetry to the plays, essays, and broadcast media of the modern world; and second, the narrower lane of Roman verse satire, satura, beginning with early authors Ennius and Lucilius and closing with Flavian poet Juvenal. Lucilius is revealed as a major, yet overlooked, influence on Lucretius.
By examining how Lucretius’ poem employs the tools of satire, we gain a richer understanding of how it interacts with its purported philosophical program.
The Law Code of Viṣṇu (Vaiṣṇava-Dharmaśāstra) is one of the latest of the ancient Indian legal texts composed around the seventh century CE in Kashmir. Both because the Vaiṣṇava-Dharmaśāstra is the only Dharmaśāstra that can be geographically located and because it introduces some interesting and new elements into the discussion of Dharmaśāstric topics, this is a document of interest both to scholars of Indian legal literature and to cultural historians of India, especially of Kashmir. The new elements include the first Dharmaśāstric evidence for a wife burning herself at her husband’s cremation and the intrusion of devotional religion (bhakti) into Dharmaśāstras.
This volume contains a critical edition of the Sanskrit text based on fifteen manuscripts, an annotated English translation, and an introduction evaluating its textual history, its connections to previous Dharmaśāstras, its date and provenance, its structure and content, and the use made of it by later medieval writers.
The Law of Ancient Athens contains the principal literary and epigraphical sources, in English, for Athenian law in the Archaic and Classical periods, from the first known historical trial (late seventh century) to the fall of the democracy in 322 BCE.
This accessible and important volume is designed for teachers, students, and general readers interested in the ancient Greek world, the history of law, and the history of democracy, an Athenian invention during this period. Offering a comprehensive treatment of Athenian law, it assumes no prior knowledge of the subject and is organized in user-friendly fashion, progressing from the person to the family to property and obligations to the gods and to the state. David D. Phillips has translated all sources into English, and he has added significant introductory and explanatory material.
Topics covered in the book include homicide and wounding; theft; marriage, children, and inheritance; citizenship; contracts and commerce; impiety; treason and other offenses against the state; and sexual offenses including rape and prostitution. The volume’s unique feature is its presentation of the actual primary sources for Athenian laws, with many key or disputed terms rendered in transliterated Greek. The translated sources, together with the topical introductions, notes, and references, will facilitate both research in the field and the teaching of increasingly popular courses on Athenian law and law in the ancient world.
Final thoughts on an ideal constitution.
Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BC. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates’ execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of “advanced” democracy is obvious. He lived to be 80 years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates’ mind fused with Plato’s thought.
In Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. Protagoras, Ion, and Meno discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In Gorgias, Socrates is estranged from his city’s thought, and his fate is impending. The Apology (not a dialogue), Crito, Euthyphro, and the unforgettable Phaedo relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous Symposium and Phaedrus, written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. Cratylus discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the Republic, concerns righteousness (and involves education, equality of the sexes, the structure of society, and abolition of slavery). Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues Euthydemus deals with philosophy; metaphysical Parmenides is about general concepts and absolute being; Theaetetus reasons about the theory of knowledge. Of its sequels, Sophist deals with not-being; Politicus with good and bad statesmanship and governments; Philebus with what is good. The Timaeus seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished Critias treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato’s last work, Laws, a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.
Final thoughts on an ideal constitution.
Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BC. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates’ execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of “advanced” democracy is obvious. He lived to be 80 years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates’ mind fused with Plato’s thought.
In Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. Protagoras, Ion, and Meno discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In Gorgias, Socrates is estranged from his city’s thought, and his fate is impending. The Apology (not a dialogue), Crito, Euthyphro, and the unforgettable Phaedo relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous Symposium and Phaedrus, written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. Cratylus discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the Republic, concerns righteousness (and involves education, equality of the sexes, the structure of society, and abolition of slavery). Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues Euthydemus deals with philosophy; metaphysical Parmenides is about general concepts and absolute being; Theaetetus reasons about the theory of knowledge. Of its sequels, Sophist deals with not-being; Politicus with good and bad statesmanship and governments; Philebus with what is good. The Timaeus seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished Critias treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato’s last work, Laws, a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Scholars at dinner.
In The Learned Banqueters, Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century AD) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs; the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets; and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality. S. Douglas Olson has undertaken to produce a complete new edition of the work, replacing the previous seven-volume Loeb Athenaeus (published under the title Deipnosophists).
Young examines nine legends-Perseus and Andromeda; Demeter and Persephone; Pyramus and Thisbe; Pygmalion and Galatea; Daedalus and Icarus; Atlanta and Hippomenes; Philemon and Baucis; Echo and Narcissus; and Pomona and Vertumnus-explaining the legends themselves and tracing their dissemination through centuries and civilizations and across various art forms. In Young's view, classical mythology, through expressing humanity's enthusiasms, visions, and talents, might well be considered the “skilled midwife” of human civilization, proof of our constant effort to possess life symbolically and express it through arts.
This book offers a transcript of Strauss’s seminar on Plato’s Protagoras taught at the University of Chicago in the spring quarter of 1965, edited and introduced by renowned scholar Robert C. Bartlett. These lectures have several important features. Unlike his published writings, they are less dense and more conversational. Additionally, while Strauss regarded himself as a Platonist and published some work on Plato, he published little on individual dialogues. In these lectures Strauss treats many of the great Platonic and Straussian themes: the difference between the Socratic political science or art and the Sophistic political science or art of Protagoras; the character and teachability of virtue, its relation to knowledge, and the relations among the virtues, courage, justice, moderation, and wisdom; the good and the pleasant; frankness and concealment; the role of myth; and the relation between freedom of thought and freedom of speech.
In these lectures, Strauss examines Protagoras and the sophists, providing a detailed discussion of Protagoras as it relates to Plato’s other dialogues and the work of modern thinkers. This book should be of special interest to students both of Plato and of Strauss.
Mock trial—Roman style.
The Lesser Declamations, dating perhaps from the second century AD and attributed to Quintilian, might more accurately be described as emanating from “the school of Quintilian.” The collection—here made available for the first time in translation—represents classroom materials for budding Roman lawyers.
The instructor who composed these specimen speeches for fictitious court cases adds his comments and suggestions concerning presentation and arguing tactics—thereby giving us insight into Roman law and education. A wide range of scenarios is imagined. Some evoke the plots of ancient novels and comedies: pirates, exiles, parents and children in conflict, adulterers, rapists, and wicked stepmothers abound. Other cases deal with such matters as warfare between neighboring cities, smuggling, historical (and quasi-historical) events, tyrants and tyrannicides. Two gems are the speech opposing a proposal to equalize wealth, and the case of a Cynic youth who has forsworn worldly goods but sues his father for cutting off his allowance.
Of the original 388 sample cases in the collection, 145 survive. These are now added to the Loeb Classical Library in a two-volume edition, a fluent translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey facing an updated Latin text.
Mock trial—Roman style.
The Lesser Declamations, dating perhaps from the second century AD and attributed to Quintilian, might more accurately be described as emanating from “the school of Quintilian.” The collection—here made available for the first time in translation—represents classroom materials for budding Roman lawyers.
The instructor who composed these specimen speeches for fictitious court cases adds his comments and suggestions concerning presentation and arguing tactics—thereby giving us insight into Roman law and education. A wide range of scenarios is imagined. Some evoke the plots of ancient novels and comedies: pirates, exiles, parents and children in conflict, adulterers, rapists, and wicked stepmothers abound. Other cases deal with such matters as warfare between neighboring cities, smuggling, historical (and quasi-historical) events, tyrants and tyrannicides. Two gems are the speech opposing a proposal to equalize wealth, and the case of a Cynic youth who has forsworn worldly goods but sues his father for cutting off his allowance.
Of the original 388 sample cases in the collection, 145 survive. These are now added to the Loeb Classical Library in a two-volume edition, a fluent translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey facing an updated Latin text.
Belles lettres.
Sidonius Apollinaris, a Gallo-Roman, was born at Lugdunum (Lyon) about AD 430. He married Papianilla, daughter of the Emperor Avitus in whose honor he recited at Rome on 1 January 456 a panegyric in verse. Sidonius later joined a rebellion, it seems, but was finally reconciled to the emperor Majorian and delivered at Lyon in 458 a panegyric on him. After some years in his native land, in 467 he led a Gallo-Roman deputation to the Emperor Anthemius, and on 1 January 468 recited at Rome his third panegyric. He returned to Gaul in 469 and became Bishop of Auvergne with seat at Clermont-Ferrand. He upheld his people in resisting the Visigoths. After Auvergne was ceded to them in 475, he was imprisoned but soon resumed his bishopric. He was canonized after his death.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Sidonius is in two volumes. The first contains his poetry: the three long panegyrics, and poems addressed to or concerned with friends, apparently written in his youth. Volume I also contains Books 1–2 of his Letters (all dating from before his episcopate); Books 3–9 are in Volume II. Sidonius’ writings shed valued light on Roman culture in the fifth century.
Written as much for a general audience as for Lucilius, these engaging letters offer advice on how to deal with everything from nosy neighbors to sickness, pain, and death. Seneca uses the informal format of the letter to present the central ideas of Stoicism, for centuries the most influential philosophical system in the Mediterranean world. His lively and at times humorous expositions have made the Letters his most popular work and an enduring classic. Including an introduction and explanatory notes by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long, this authoritative edition will captivate a new generation of readers.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
To his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother. In Cicero's Letters to Atticus we get an intimate look at his motivations and convictions and his reactions to what is happening in Rome. These letters also provide a vivid picture of a momentous period in Roman history, years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic.
When the correspondence begins in November 68 BC, the 38-year-old Cicero is a notable figure in Rome: a brilliant lawyer and orator, he has achieved primacy at the Roman bar and a political career that would culminate in the consulship in 63. Over the next twenty-four years—until November 44, a year before he was put to death by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony—Cicero wrote frequently to his friend and confidant, sharing news and views and discussing affairs of business and state. It is to this corpus of over 400 letters that we owe most of our information about Cicero's literary activity. Here too is a revealing picture of the staunch republican's changing attitude toward Caesar. And taken as a whole the letters provide a first-hand account of social and political life in Rome.
D. R. Shackleton Bailey's authoritative edition and translation of the Letters to Atticus is a revised version of his Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries edition, with full explanatory notes.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
To his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother. In Cicero's Letters to Atticus we get an intimate look at his motivations and convictions and his reactions to what is happening in Rome. These letters also provide a vivid picture of a momentous period in Roman history, years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic.
When the correspondence begins in November 68 BC, the 38-year-old Cicero is a notable figure in Rome: a brilliant lawyer and orator, he has achieved primacy at the Roman bar and a political career that would culminate in the consulship in 63. Over the next twenty-four years—until November 44, a year before he was put to death by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony—Cicero wrote frequently to his friend and confidant, sharing news and views and discussing affairs of business and state. It is to this corpus of over 400 letters that we owe most of our information about Cicero's literary activity. Here too is a revealing picture of the staunch republican's changing attitude toward Caesar. And taken as a whole the letters provide a first-hand account of social and political life in Rome.
D. R. Shackleton Bailey's authoritative edition and translation of the Letters to Atticus is a revised version of his Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries edition, with full explanatory notes.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
To his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother. In Cicero's Letters to Atticus we get an intimate look at his motivations and convictions and his reactions to what is happening in Rome. These letters also provide a vivid picture of a momentous period in Roman history, years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic.
When the correspondence begins in November 68 BC, the 38-year-old Cicero is a notable figure in Rome: a brilliant lawyer and orator, he has achieved primacy at the Roman bar and a political career that would culminate in the consulship in 63. Over the next twenty-four years—until November 44, a year before he was put to death by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony—Cicero wrote frequently to his friend and confidant, sharing news and views and discussing affairs of business and state. It is to this corpus of over 400 letters that we owe most of our information about Cicero's literary activity. Here too is a revealing picture of the staunch republican's changing attitude toward Caesar. And taken as a whole the letters provide a first-hand account of social and political life in Rome.
D. R. Shackleton Bailey's authoritative edition and translation of the Letters to Atticus is a revised version of his Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries edition, with full explanatory notes.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
To his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother. In Cicero's Letters to Atticus we get an intimate look at his motivations and convictions and his reactions to what is happening in Rome. These letters also provide a vivid picture of a momentous period in Roman history, years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic.
When the correspondence begins in November 68 BC, the 38-year-old Cicero is a notable figure in Rome: a brilliant lawyer and orator, he has achieved primacy at the Roman bar and a political career that would culminate in the consulship in 63. Over the next twenty-four years—until November 44, a year before he was put to death by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony—Cicero wrote frequently to his friend and confidant, sharing news and views and discussing affairs of business and state. It is to this corpus of over 400 letters that we owe most of our information about Cicero's literary activity. Here too is a revealing picture of the staunch republican's changing attitude toward Caesar. And taken as a whole the letters provide a first-hand account of social and political life in Rome.
D. R. Shackleton Bailey's authoritative edition and translation of the Letters to Atticus is a revised version of his Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries edition, with full explanatory notes.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In his political speeches especially and in his correspondence we see the excitement, tension and intrigue of politics and the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches, delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political, before jurors if judicial, fifty-eight survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch and other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero and nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive and another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions and a number of others; and some lost. There is also poetry, some original, some as translations from the Greek.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In his political speeches especially and in his correspondence we see the excitement, tension and intrigue of politics and the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches, delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political, before jurors if judicial, fifty-eight survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch and other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero and nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive and another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions and a number of others; and some lost. There is also poetry, some original, some as translations from the Greek.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes.
The private correspondence of Rome’s most prolific public figure.
Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In his political speeches especially and in his correspondence we see the excitement, tension and intrigue of politics and the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches, delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political, before jurors if judicial, fifty-eight survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch and other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero and nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive and another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions and a number of others; and some lost. There is also poetry, some original, some as translations from the Greek.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes.
Private correspondence and dubious disquisitions.
Cicero had an affectionate relationship with his only brother, Quintus, down to the closing years of their lives. The letters from Cicero to him in this collection offer an intimate look at their world. Cicero’s close friendship with the intensely intellectual Brutus was signalized by Cicero’s dedication of his prized Orator to Brutus. The correspondence between the two collected here dates from the spring and summer of 43 BC, and it conveys some of the drama of the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Shackleton Bailey also provides in this volume a new text and translation of two invective speeches purportedly delivered in the Senate: Sallust attacking Cicero and Cicero attacking Sallust. These are probably anonymous ancient schoolbook exercises, but have come down to us with the works of Sallust and Cicero. Another work in the same category, the Letter to Octavian ostensibly by Cicero but probably dating from the third or fourth century AD, is included as well. Here too (with text by Shackleton Bailey and revised introduction and translation by M. I. Henderson) is the Handbook of Electioneering, a guide said to be written by Quintus to his brother, advising him on campaigning for the consulship of 63 BC. Whether or not this is genuinely the work of Quintus, it remains an interesting treatise on Roman elections. Letter fragments complete the volume; these were not previously available in the Loeb Classical Library.
Correspondence from a distinguished and eventful life.
The Younger Pliny was born in AD 61 or 62, the son of Lucius Caecilius of Comum (Como) and the Elder Pliny’s sister. He was educated at home and then in Rome under Quintilian. He was at Misenum at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 (described in two famous letters) when the Elder Pliny died.
Pliny started his career at the Roman bar at the age of eighteen. He moved through the regular offices in a senator’s career, held two treasury appointments and a priesthood, and was consul in September and October 100. On this occasion he delivered the speech of thanks to the emperor Trajan which he afterwards expanded and published as the Panegyricus. After his consulship he returned to advocacy in the court and Senate, and was also president of the Tiber Conservancy Board. His hopes of retirement were cut short when he was chosen by Trajan to go out to the province of Bithynia and Pontus on a special commission as the emperor’s direct representative. He is known to have been there two years, and is presumed to have died there before the end of 113. Book 10 of the Letters contains his correspondence with Trajan during this period, and includes letters about the early Christians.
Pliny's Letters are important as a social document of his times. They tell us about the man himself and his wide interests, and about his many friends, including Tacitus, Martial, and Suetonius. Pliny has a gift for description and a versatile prose style, and more than any of his contemporaries he gives an unprejudiced picture of Rome as he knew it.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Pliny the Younger is in two volumes; the second contains Books 8–10 of his Letters and Panegyricus.
Correspondence of a Cappadocian Father.
Basil the Great was born ca. AD 330 at Caesarea in Cappadocia into a family noted for piety. He was at Constantinople and Athens for several years as a student with Gregory of Nazianzus and was much influenced by Origen. For a short time he held a chair of rhetoric at Caesarea, and was then baptized. He visited monasteries in Egypt and Palestine and sought out the most famous hermits in Syria and elsewhere to learn how to lead a pious and ascetic life; but he decided that communal monastic life and work were best. About 360 he founded in Pontus a convent to which his sister and widowed mother belonged. Ordained a presbyter in 365, in 370 he succeeded Eusebius in the archbishopric of Caesarea, which included authority over all Pontus. He died in 379. Even today his reform of monastic life in the east is the basis of modern Greek and Slavonic monasteries.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Basil’s Letters is in four volumes.
Correspondence from a distinguished and eventful life.
The Younger Pliny was born in AD 61 or 62, the son of Lucius Caecilius of Comum (Como) and the Elder Pliny’s sister. He was educated at home and then in Rome under Quintilian. He was at Misenum at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 (described in two famous letters) when the Elder Pliny died.
Pliny started his career at the Roman bar at the age of eighteen. He moved through the regular offices in a senator’s career, held two treasury appointments and a priesthood, and was consul in September and October 100. On this occasion he delivered the speech of thanks to the emperor Trajan which he afterwards expanded and published as the Panegyricus. After his consulship he returned to advocacy in the court and Senate, and was also president of the Tiber Conservancy Board. His hopes of retirement were cut short when he was chosen by Trajan to go out to the province of Bithynia and Pontus on a special commission as the emperor’s direct representative. He is known to have been there two years, and is presumed to have died there before the end of 113. Book 10 of the Letters contains his correspondence with Trajan during this period, and includes letters about the early Christians.
Pliny's Letters are important as a social document of his times. They tell us about the man himself and his wide interests, and about his many friends, including Tacitus, Martial, and Suetonius. Pliny has a gift for description and a versatile prose style, and more than any of his contemporaries he gives an unprejudiced picture of Rome as he knew it.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Pliny the Younger is in two volumes; the first contains Books 1–7 of his Letters and an Introduction.
Correspondence of a Cappadocian Father.
Basil the Great was born ca. AD 330 at Caesarea in Cappadocia into a family noted for piety. He was at Constantinople and Athens for several years as a student with Gregory of Nazianzus and was much influenced by Origen. For a short time he held a chair of rhetoric at Caesarea, and was then baptized. He visited monasteries in Egypt and Palestine and sought out the most famous hermits in Syria and elsewhere to learn how to lead a pious and ascetic life; but he decided that communal monastic life and work were best. About 360 he founded in Pontus a convent to which his sister and widowed mother belonged. Ordained a presbyter in 365, in 370 he succeeded Eusebius in the archbishopric of Caesarea, which included authority over all Pontus. He died in 379. Even today his reform of monastic life in the east is the basis of modern Greek and Slavonic monasteries.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Basil’s Letters is in four volumes.
Correspondence of a Cappadocian Father.
Basil the Great was born ca. AD 330 at Caesarea in Cappadocia into a family noted for piety. He was at Constantinople and Athens for several years as a student with Gregory of Nazianzus and was much influenced by Origen. For a short time he held a chair of rhetoric at Caesarea, and was then baptized. He visited monasteries in Egypt and Palestine and sought out the most famous hermits in Syria and elsewhere to learn how to lead a pious and ascetic life; but he decided that communal monastic life and work were best. About 360 he founded in Pontus a convent to which his sister and widowed mother belonged. Ordained a presbyter in 365, in 370 he succeeded Eusebius in the archbishopric of Caesarea, which included authority over all Pontus. He died in 379. Even today his reform of monastic life in the east is the basis of modern Greek and Slavonic monasteries.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Basil’s Letters is in four volumes.
Correspondence of a Cappadocian Father.
Basil the Great was born ca. AD 330 at Caesarea in Cappadocia into a family noted for piety. He was at Constantinople and Athens for several years as a student with Gregory of Nazianzus and was much influenced by Origen. For a short time he held a chair of rhetoric at Caesarea, and was then baptized. He visited monasteries in Egypt and Palestine and sought out the most famous hermits in Syria and elsewhere to learn how to lead a pious and ascetic life; but he decided that communal monastic life and work were best. About 360 he founded in Pontus a convent to which his sister and widowed mother belonged. Ordained a presbyter in 365, in 370 he succeeded Eusebius in the archbishopric of Caesarea, which included authority over all Pontus. He died in 379. Even today his reform of monastic life in the east is the basis of modern Greek and Slavonic monasteries.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Basil’s Letters is in four volumes.
A charming Greek romance narrated by its hero.
Achilles Tatius was a Greek from Alexandria in Egypt; he is now believed to have flourished in the second century AD. Of his life nothing is known, though the Suidas says he became a Christian and a bishop and wrote a work on etymology, one on the sphere, and an account of great men. He is famous however for his surviving novel in eight books, The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon, one of the best Greek love stories. Clitophon relates to a friend the various difficulties which he and Leucippe had to overcome before they are happily united. The story is full of incident and readers are kept in suspense. There are many digressions giving scientific facts, myths, meditations, and so on, the interest of which redeems irrelevance.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Remains of a universal chronicle.
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily (ca. 80–20 BC), wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War; history to Alexander's death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Of this we have complete Books 1–5 (Egyptians, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Greeks) and Books 11–20 (Greek history 480–302 BC); and fragments of the rest. He was an uncritical compiler, but used good sources and reproduced them faithfully. He is valuable for details unrecorded elsewhere, and as evidence for works now lost, especially writings of Ephorus, Apollodorus, Agatharchides, Philistus, and Timaeus.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diodorus Siculus is in twelve volumes.
Antiquity’s most influential mythological handbook.
The Library provides in three books a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Written in clear and unaffected style, the compendium faithfully follows the Greek literary sources. It is thus an important record of Greek accounts of the origin and early history of the world and their race. This work has been attributed to Apollodorus of Athens (born ca. 180 BC), a student of Aristarchus. But the text as we have it was written by an author probably living in the first or second century of our era.
In his highly valued notes to the Loeb Classical Library edition (which is in two volumes) J. G. Frazer cites the principal passages of other ancient writers where each particular story is told and compares the various versions to those in the Library.
Antiquity’s most influential mythological handbook.
The Library provides in three books a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Written in clear and unaffected style, the compendium faithfully follows the Greek literary sources. It is thus an important record of Greek accounts of the origin and early history of the world and their race. This work has been attributed to Apollodorus of Athens (born ca. 180 BC), a student of Aristarchus. But the text as we have it was written by an author probably living in the first or second century of our era.
In his highly valued notes to the Loeb Classical Library edition (which is in two volumes) J. G. Frazer cites the principal passages of other ancient writers where each particular story is told and compares the various versions to those in the Library.
Greco-Roman antiquity’s premier Jewish historian.
Josephus, soldier, statesman, historian, was a Jew born at Jerusalem about AD 37. A man of high descent, he early became learned in Jewish law and Greek literature and was a Pharisee. After pleading in Rome the cause of some Jewish priests he returned to Jerusalem and in 66 tried to prevent revolt against Rome, managing for the Jews the affairs of Galilee. In the troubles that followed he made his peace with Vespasian. Present at the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, he received favors from these two as emperors and from Domitian, and assumed their family name Flavius. He died after 97.
As a historical source Josephus is invaluable. His major works are: History of the Jewish War, in seven books, from 170 BC to his own time, first written in Aramaic but translated by himself into the Greek we now have; and Jewish Antiquities, in twenty books, from the creation of the world to AD 66. The Loeb Classical Library edition of the works of Josephus, which is in thirteen volumes, also includes the autobiographical Life and his treatise Against Apion.
A Brill classic now in paperback from SBL Press
This critical edition of the Life of Adam and Eve in Greek is based on all available manuscripts. In the introduction the history of previous research is summarized, and the extant manuscripts are presented. Next comes a description of the grammatical characteristics of the manuscripts’ texts, followed by a detailed study of the genealogical relationships between them, resulting in a reconstruction of the writing’s history of transmission in Greek. On the basis of all this information, the Greek text of the Life of Adam and Eve in its earliest attainable stage, is established.
Features:
- Illustrations of textual relationships and variants
- Indices for subjects, passages, words in the text, variants, and additions and revisions Full critical apparatus with relevant evidence from the manuscripts
The Life of Aesop the Philosopher, an anonymous Greek literary work, presents one version of the novelistic biography of Aesop, which dates to the fourth to fifth century CE. In this volume, Grammatiki A. Karla offers an extended introduction to the Life of Aesop in general, the history of the textual tradition, and the MORN manuscript family and its relationship to other versions and papyrus fragments. She then presents a new edition of the late antique version (MORN) alongside David Konstan’s English translation. A commentary addresses editorial choices and focuses on words and phrases that are of interest for the history of the Greek language.
THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION.
Novel and biography are joined in this literary work with a historical core. Philostratus' life of the first century mystic from Tyana was written at the request of the empress Julia Domna. It portrays a man with supernatural powers, a Pythagorean who predicts the future, cures the sick, raises the dead, and himself prevails over death, ascending to heaven and later appearing to disciples to prove his immortality. The account has a rich and varied setting: Apollonius' ministering carries him throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, as far south as Ethiopia, and eastward to India. Philostratus' Life of Apollonius was long viewed by Christians as a dangerous attempt to set up a Christ-like rival.
This two-volume edition of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana includes, in the second volume, a collection of Apollonius' letters and a treatise by the Christian bishop and historian Eusebius attacking Apollonius as a charlatan.
Also available by Philostratus 'the Athenian' in the Loeb Classical Library is his Lives of the Sophists, a treasury of information about notable sophists that yields a good picture of the predominant influence of Sophistic in the educational, social, and political life of the Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION.
Novel and biography are joined in this literary work with a historical core. Philostratus' life of the first century mystic from Tyana was written at the request of the empress Julia Domna. It portrays a man with supernatural powers, a Pythagorean who predicts the future, cures the sick, raises the dead, and himself prevails over death, ascending to heaven and later appearing to disciples to prove his immortality. The account has a rich and varied setting: Apollonius' ministering carries him throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, as far south as Ethiopia, and eastward to India. Philostratus' Life of Apollonius was long viewed by Christians as a dangerous attempt to set up a Christ-like rival.
This two-volume edition of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana includes, in the second volume, a collection of Apollonius' letters and a treatise by the Christian bishop and historian Eusebius attacking Apollonius as a charlatan.
Also available by Philostratus 'the Athenian' in the Loeb Classical Library is his Lives of the Sophists, a treasury of information about notable sophists that yields a good picture of the predominant influence of Sophistic in the educational, social, and political life of the Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
The full extent of Plutarch’s moral educational program remains largely understudied, at least in those aspects pertaining to women and the gendered other. As a result, scholarship on his views on women have differed significantly in their conclusions, with some scholars suggesting that he is overwhelmingly positive towards women and marriage and perhaps even a “precursor to feminism,” and others arguing that he was rather negative on the issue. Like a Captive Bird: Gender and Virtue in Plutarch is an examination of these educational methods employed in Plutarch’s work to regulate the expression of gender identity in women and men. In six chapters, author Lunette Warren analyzes Plutarch’s ideas about women and gender in Moralia and Lives. The book examines the divergences between real and ideal, the aims and methods of moral philosophy and psychagogic practice as they relate to identity formation, and Plutarch’s theoretical philosophy and metaphysics.
Warren argues that gender is a flexible mode of being that expresses a relation between body and soul, and that gender and virtue are inextricably entwined. Plutarch’s expression of gender is also an expression of a moral condition that signifies relationships of power, Warren claims, especially power relationships between the husband and wife. Uncovered in these texts is evidence of a redistribution of power, which allows some women to dominate other women and, in rare cases, men too. Like a Captive Bird offers a unique and fresh interpretation of Plutarch’s metaphysics which centers gender as one of the organizational principles of nature. It is aimed at scholars of Plutarch, ancient philosophy, and ancient gender studies, especially those who are interested in feminist studies of antiquity.
Women’s voices and their desires are in the spotlight in this celebrated ninth-century Prakrit romance, set in modern-day coastal Andhra Pradesh.
The Prakrit romance Lilavai, an early ninth-century poem attributed to Kouhala and set in modern-day coastal Andhra Pradesh, is the most celebrated work in the genre. Complexly narrated in the alternating voices of its heroines and heroes and featuring a cast of semi-divine and magical beings, it centers on three young women: Lilavai, princess of Sinhala (today’s Sri Lanka); her cousin Mahanumai, princess of the mythical city Alaka; and Kuvalaavali, Mahanumai’s adopted sister. Following a prophecy that Lilavai’s husband will rule the earth, the princess happens upon a portrait of King Hala of Pratishthana and immediately falls in love. While journeying to meet him, she hears her cousins’ tales of their lost loves, and then vows not to marry until they are reunited. To win Lilavai’s hand, King Hala journeys to the underworld, faces monsters, and overcomes armies.
Lilavai explores themes of karma and female desire, notably privileging women as storytellers. A new edition of the Prakrit text, presented in the Devanagari script, accompanies a new English prose translation.
A new English translation of Raghuvaṃśa by the celebrated Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, who inspired such modern writers as Goethe and Tagore.
For a millennium and a half, Kalidasa’s works—from The Cloud Messenger to The Recognition of Shakuntala—have delighted audiences in India and beyond. Although the renowned poet and dramatist inspired many literary works over the centuries, little is known about his life. He likely lived in central India in the late fourth or early fifth century.
Kalidasa’s The Lineage of the Raghus, or Raghuvaṃśa, belongs to the Sanskrit literary tradition of mahākāvya, or court poem. It recounts the lives of ancient kings in the sūryavaṃśa, the Solar Dynasty who ruled from the capital city of Ayodhya. The poem describes, among other episodes, the quest for offspring by Dilipa, a descendant of the primordial king Manu; the world conquest of his son Raghu, which offers a panorama of the Indian subcontinent; the exploits of the famous Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu; and the debaucheries of Agnivarna, which jeopardize the future of the lineage.
This volume presents a new edition of the Sanskrit text in the Devanagari script alongside a fresh English translation of this enduring epic.
Inscribed some time after 264 BCE, the Parian Marble offers a chronological list of events with an exceptional emphasis on literary matters. Literary History in the Parian Marble explores the literary and historiographical qualities of the inscription, the genre to which it belongs, and the emerging patterns of time. Endorsing the hypothesis that the inscription was originally displayed at a Parian shrine honoring Archilochus, Andrea Rotstein argues that literary history was one of its main concerns. Though it may be conventional in its focus on the chronology of poets, their inventions and victories, the Parian Marble is nonetheless idiosyncratic in the range of authors displayed. By reconstructing the methods by which information might have been obtained, Rotstein contributes to an understanding of the way literary history was practiced within the local communities of ancient Greece, away from the major Hellenistic centers of scholarship.
The Parian chronicle has not been the subject of a comprehensive study for almost a century. Literary History in the Parian Marble brings to the English-speaking audience up-to-date information about the inscription, including a revision of Felix Jacoby’s Greek text and a complete translation.
Funny happenings.
The rollicking comedies of Plautus, who brilliantly adapted Greek plays for Roman audiences ca. 205–184 BC, are the earliest Latin works to survive complete and are cornerstones of the European theatrical tradition from Shakespeare and Molière to modern times. This fourth volume of a new Loeb edition of all twenty-one of Plautus’ extant comedies presents The Little Carthaginian, Pseudolus, and The Rope with freshly edited texts, lively modern translations, introductions, and ample explanatory notes.
Examined lives.
Diogenes Laertius, author of a work on Greek philosophy, lived probably in the earlier half of the third century, his ancestry and birthplace being unknown. He was an Epicurean philosopher, but his work is not philosophical. The title is History of Philosophy or On the Lives, Opinions, and Sayings of Famous Philosophers; the work, in ten books, is divided unscientifically into two “Successions” or sections: “Ionian” from Anaximander to Theophrastus and Chrysippus, including the Socratic schools; “Italian” from Pythagoras to Epicurus (who fills all the last book), including the Eleatics and Sceptics. It is a collection of quotations and facts, and is of very great value.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diogenes Laertius is in two volumes.
Examined lives.
Diogenes Laertius, author of a work on Greek philosophy, lived probably in the earlier half of the third century, his ancestry and birthplace being unknown. He was an Epicurean philosopher, but his work is not philosophical. The title is History of Philosophy or On the Lives, Opinions, and Sayings of Famous Philosophers; the work, in ten books, is divided unscientifically into two “Successions” or sections: “Ionian” from Anaximander to Theophrastus and Chrysippus, including the Socratic schools; “Italian” from Pythagoras to Epicurus (who fills all the last book), including the Eleatics and Sceptics. It is a collection of quotations and facts, and is of very great value.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Diogenes Laertius is in two volumes.
The papers in this volume are based on a 2018 conference in the Department of the Classics at Harvard University in honor of Richard Tarrant, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature, on the occasion of his retirement.
The breadth of authors, genres, periods, and topics addressed in The Lives of Latin Texts is testament to Richard Tarrant’s wide-ranging influence on the fields of Latin literary studies and textual criticism. Contributions on stylistic, dramatic, metapoetic, and philosophical issues in Latin literature (including authors from Virgil, Horace, and Seneca to Ovid, Terence, Statius, Caesar, and Martial) sit alongside contributions on the history of textual transmission and textual editing. Other chapters treat the musical reception of Latin literature. Taken together, the volume reflects on the impact of Richard Tarrant’s scholarship by addressing the expressive scope and the long history of the Latin language.
Antiquity’s imperial biographer par excellence.
Suetonius (C. Suetonius Tranquillus, born ca. AD 70), son of a military tribune, was at first an advocate and a teacher of rhetoric, but later became the emperor Hadrian’s private secretary, 119–121. He dedicated to C. Septicius Clarus, prefect of the praetorian guard, his Lives of the Caesars. After the dismissal of both men for some breach of court etiquette, Suetonius apparently retired and probably continued his writing. His other works, many known by title, are now lost except for part of the Lives of Illustrious Men (of letters).
Friend of Pliny the Younger, Suetonius was a studious and careful collector of facts, so that the extant lives of the emperors (including Julius Caesar the dictator) to Domitian are invaluable. His plan in Lives of the Caesars is the emperor’s family and early years; public and private life; death. We find many anecdotes, much gossip of the imperial court, and various details of character and personal appearance. Suetonius’ account of Nero’s death is justly famous.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Suetonius is in two volumes.
Antiquity’s imperial biographer par excellence.
Suetonius (C. Suetonius Tranquillus, born ca. AD 70), son of a military tribune, was at first an advocate and a teacher of rhetoric, but later became the emperor Hadrian’s private secretary, 119–121. He dedicated to C. Septicius Clarus, prefect of the praetorian guard, his Lives of the Caesars. After the dismissal of both men for some breach of court etiquette, Suetonius apparently retired and probably continued his writing. His other works, many known by title, are now lost except for part of the Lives of Illustrious Men (of letters).
Friend of Pliny the Younger, Suetonius was a studious and careful collector of facts, so that the extant lives of the emperors (including Julius Caesar the dictator) to Domitian are invaluable. His plan in Lives of the Caesars is the emperor’s family and early years; public and private life; death. We find many anecdotes, much gossip of the imperial court, and various details of character and personal appearance. Suetonius’ account of Nero’s death is justly famous.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Suetonius is in two volumes.
In this ambitious book, Karla Mallette studies the nature and behaviors of the medieval cosmopolitan languages of learning—classical Arabic and medieval Latin—as they crossed the Mediterranean. Through anecdotes of relationships among writers, compilers, translators, commentators, and copyists, Mallette tells a complex story about the transmission of knowledge in the period before the emergence of a national language system in the late Middle Ages and early modernity.
Mallette shows how the elite languages of learning and culture were only tenuously related to the languages of everyday life. These languages took years of study to master, marking the passage from intellectual childhood to maturity. In a coda to the book, Mallette speculates on the afterlife of cosmopolitan languages in the twenty-first century, the perils of monolingualism, and the ethics of language choice. The book offers insight for anyone interested in rethinking linguistic and literary tradition, the transmission of ideas, and cultural expression in an increasingly multilingual world.
Of the distinguished Lemnian family of Philostrati, Flavius Philostratus 'the Athenian', ca. 170205 CE, was a Greek sophist who studied at Athens and later lived in Rome. He was author of the admirable Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Loeb nos. 16 and 17) and of Lives of the Sophists, a treasury of information about notable sophists. Philostratus's sketches of sophists in action yield a fascinating picture of the predominant influence of Sophistic in the educational, social, and political life of the Empire in the second and third centuries.
The Greek sophist and historian Eunapius was born at Sardis in 347 CE, but went to Athens to study and lived much of his life there teaching rhetoric and possibly medicine. He was initiated into the mysteries and was hostile to Christians. His Lives of Philosophers and Sophists (mainly contemporary with himself) is our only source for knowledge of Neo-Platonism in the latter part of the fourth century.
Two sophists on the history of sophistry.
Flavius Philostratus, known as “the Elder” or “the Athenian,” was born to a distinguished family with close ties to Lesbos in the later second century, and died around the middle of the third. A sophist who studied at Athens and later lived in Rome, Philostratus provides in Lives of the Sophists a treasury of information about notable practitioners. His sketches of sophists in action paint a fascinating picture of their predominant influence in the educational, social, and political life of the Empire in his time. He is almost certainly the author also of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana (LCL 16, 17, 458) and Heroicus and Gymnasticus (LCL 521).
Eunapius (ca. 345–415) was born in Sardis but studied and spent much of his life in Athens as a sophist and historian. His Lives of Philosophers and Sophists covers figures of personal or intellectual significance to him in the period from Plotinus (ca. 250) to Chrystanthus (ca. 380), including one remarkable woman, Sosipatra, and then focuses on Iamblichus and his students. The work’s underlying rationale combines personal devotion to teachers and colleagues with a broader attempt to rehabilitate Hellenic cultural icons against the rise of Christianity and the influence of its representatives.
This edition of Philostratus and Eunapius thoroughly revises the original edition by Wilmer C. Wright (1921) in light of modern scholarship.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.
Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.
Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.
James Loeb (1867–1933), one of the great patrons and philanthropists of his time, left many enduring legacies both to America, where he was born and educated, and to his ancestral Germany, where he spent the second half of his life. Organized in celebration of the sesquicentenary of his birth, the James Loeb Biennial Conferences were convened to commemorate his achievements in four areas: the Loeb Classical Library (2017), collection and connoisseurship (2019), psychology and medicine (2021), and music (2023).
The subject of the inaugural conference was the legacy for which Loeb is best known and the only one to which he attached his name—the Loeb Classical Library, and the three series it has inspired: the I Tatti Renaissance Library, the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, and the Murty Classical Library of India. Including discussions by the four General Editors of each Library’s unique history, mission, operations, and challenges, the papers collected in The Loeb Classical Library and Its Progeny also take stock of these series in light of more general themes and questions bearing on translations of “classical” texts and their audiences in a variety of societies past, present, and future.
A paperback anthology of essential Greek and Latin texts with facing English translations.
“It is ideal reading for bar, bus, bed or beach. Everyone, teacher and taught alike, should have one. It is this year’s must-have present.”—The Journal of Classics Teaching
This selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from thirty-three of antiquity’s major authors includes poetry, dialogue, philosophical writing, history, descriptive reports, satire, and fiction—giving a glimpse at the wide range of arts and sciences, thought and styles, of Greco-Roman culture.
The selections span twelve centuries, from Homer to Saint Jerome. The texts and translations are reproduced as they appear in Loeb volumes.
The Loeb Classical Library is the only existing series that, through original text and English translation, gives access to all that is important in Greek and Latin literature. A Loeb Classical Library Reader offers a unique sampling of this treasure trove.
In these pages you will find, for example: Odysseus tricking the Cyclops in order to escape from the giant’s cave; Zeus creating the first woman, Pandora, cause of mortals’ hardships ever after; the Athenian general Nicias dissuading his countrymen from invading Sicily; Socrates, condemned to die, saying farewell; a description of Herod’s fortified palace at Masada; Cicero’s thoughts on what we owe our fellow men; Livy’s description of the rape of the Sabine women; Manilius on the signs of the zodiac; and Pliny’s observation of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
Here you can enjoy looking in on people, real and imaginary, who figure prominently in ancient history, and on notable events. Here, too, you can relish classical poetry and comedy, and get a taste of the ideas characteristic of the splendid culture to which we are heir.
For this first English edition of his distinguished study of Pythagoreanism, Weisheit und Wissenschajt: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos, und Platon, Walter Burkert has carefully revised text and notes, taking account of additional literature on the subject which appeared between 1962 and 1969.
By a thorough critical sifting of all the available evidence, the author lays a new foundation for the understanding of ancient Pythagoreanism and in particular of the relationship within it of “lore” and “science.” He shows that in the twilight zone when the Greeks were discovering the rational interpretation of the world and quantitative natural science, Pythagoras represented not the origin of the new, but the survival or revival of ancient, pre-scientific lore or wisdom, based on superhuman authority and expressed in ritual obligation.
Of all the writings on theory and aesthetics—ancient, medieval, or modern—the most important is indisputably Aristotle’s Poetics, the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. In the Poetics, Aristotle writes that he will speak of comedy—but there is no further mention of comedy. Aristotle writes also that he will address catharsis and an analysis of what is funny. But he does not actually address any of those ideas. The surviving Poetics is incomplete.
Until today. Here, Walter Watson offers a new interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics. Based on Richard Janko’s philological reconstruction of the epitome, a summary first recovered in 1839 and hotly contested thereafter, Watson mounts a compelling philosophical argument that places the statements of this summary of the Aristotelian text in their true context. Watson renders lucid and complete explanations of Aristotle’s ideas about catharsis, comedy, and a summary account of the different types of poetry, ideas that influenced not only Cicero’s theory of the ridiculous, but also Freud’s theory of jokes, humor, and the comic.
Finally, more than two millennia after it was first written, and after five hundred years of scrutiny, Aristotle’s Poetics is more complete than ever before. Here, at last, Aristotle’s lost second book is found again.
Yusuf and Zulaykha. Khusrau and Shirin. Layla and Majnun. For hundreds of years, Persian poets have captivated audiences with recitations and reinterpretations of timeless tales of earthly and spiritual love. These tales were treasured not only in Iran, but also across the neighboring Mughal and Ottoman Empires.
In Love and Devotion, leading specialists in literature, art history, and philosophy reveal new perspectives on these evocative stories and the exquisite illustrated manuscripts that convey them. Particularly in courtly settings, poetry was a key component of Persian cultural life from the fourteenth through the eighteenth century, and elite patrons commissioned copies of lyrical poems and epics told in verse. Beautifully presented here in full-page reproductions are more than one hundred folios from these illustrated manuscripts, representing masterful works from Hafiz, Rumi, and many others. Echoes of works by Persian poets are manifest across European literature from Dante and Shakespeare to the present, and this lavishly illustrated book reveals new perspectives on the universal theme of love.
Love in the Age of War explores soldier characters in Menander’s situation comedies, the oldest of their kind. Menander came to dominate and define comedy for centuries, and a soldier served as the central character in many of his plays. This study reveals that these soldier characters are not the bragging buffoons that later became the stereotype in this brand of comedy, but challenging and complex men who struggle to find a place in new families and in their local communities. In contrast to the traditional Greek stories of tragic warriors, these soldiers ultimately succeed in adjusting to civilian life.
Wilfred Major details how Menander dramatized these compelling stories, while later traditions instead turned these characters into clowns. Menander’s original soldiers, however, may be the ones whose stories resonate more powerfully today.
Widely praised for his recent translations of Boethius and Ariosto, David R. Slavitt returns to Ovid, once again bringing to the contemporary ear the spirited, idiomatic, audacious charms of this master poet.
The love described here is the anguished, ruinous kind, for which Ovid was among the first to find expression. In the Amores, he testifies to the male experience, and in the companion Heroides—through a series of dramatic monologues addressed to absent lovers—he imagines how love goes for women. “You think she is ardent with you? So was she ardent with him,” cries Oenone to Paris. Sappho, revisiting the forest where she lay with Phaon, sighs, “The place / without your presence is just another place. / You were what made it magic.” The Remedia Amoris sees love as a sickness, and offers curative advice: “The beginning is your best chance to resist”; “Try to avoid onions, / imported or domestic. And arugula is bad. / Whatever may incline your body to Venus / keep away from.” The voices of men and women produce a volley of extravagant laments over love’s inconstancy and confusions, as though elegance and vigor of expression might compensate for heartache.
Though these love poems come to us across millennia, Slavitt’s translations, introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda, ensure that their sentiments have not faded with the passage of time. They delight us with their wit, even as we weep a little in recognition.
Marx, Clark Gable, George W. Bush, Oscar Wilde, and Freud—Goldhill's range here is enormous, and he takes great delight in tracing both follies and fundamental philosophical questions through the centuries and continents to the birthplace of Western civilization as we know it. Underlying his brisk and learned excursions through history and art is the foundational belief, following Cicero, that learning about the classics makes a critical difference to our self-understanding. Whether we are considering the role of religion in contemporary society, our expectations about the boundaries between public and private life, or even how we spend our free time, recognizing the role of the classics is integral to our comprehension of modern life and our place in it.
When Goldhill asks "Who do you think you are?" he presents us with the rarest of opportunities: the chance to let him lead us, firmly but with a wink, back two thousand years to where we are.
The relationship between the soul and the body was a point of contentious debate among philosophers and theologians in late antiquity. Modern scholarship has inherited this legacy, but split the study of the relation of body and soul between the disciplines of philosophy and religion. Lovers of the Soul, Lovers of the Body integrates, with Plato and Aristotle in the background, philosophical and religious perspectives on the concepts of soul and body in the transformative period of the first six centuries CE, from Philo to Olympiodorus. The polyphonic—but not dissonant—philosophical and theological dialogue is recreated and rethought by an international group of leading experts and up-and-coming scholars in ancient philosophy, theology, and religion.
The synthetic approach of the volume presents the understanding of human psychology in late antiquity, without labels and borders. It invites both experts and enthusiasts to crisscross the pathways of philosophy and religion in pursuit of new crossroads and greater common ground.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press