'A countryman cleaves earth with his crooked plough. Such is the labour of his life. So he sustains his native land ...' Virgil's affectionate poem of the land does not admit brief excerpts, any more than the labour of the farmer can easily be shortened. His verse, descriptive and narrative, brings us the disappointments as well as the rewards of the countryman's year-round devotion to his crops, his vines and olives, livestock great and small, and the complex society of b...

'A countryman cleaves earth with his crooked plough. Such is the labour of his life. So he sustains his native land ...' Virgil's affectionate poem of the land does not admit brief excerpts, any more than the labour of the farmer can easily be shortened. His verse, descriptive and narrative, brings us the disappointments as well as the rewards of the countryman's year-round devotion to his crops, his vines and olives, livestock great and small, and the complex society of b...

The Greek poet Pindar (c. 518-428 BC) composed victory odes for winners in the ancient Games, including the Olympics. The Odes contain versions of some of the best known Greek myths and are also a valuable source for Greek religion and ethics. Verity's lucid translations are complemented by insights into competition, myth, and meaning. - ;'we can speak of no greater contest than Olympia' The Greek poet Pindar (c. 518-428 BC) composed victory odes for winners in the ancient Games, including...

From popular histories through to reworkings of classical subject matter by contemporary poets, dramatists, and novelists, the classical world and the masterpieces of its literature continue to fascinate readers and audiences in a huge variety of media. In this Very Short Introduction, William Allan explores what the 'classics' are and why they continue to shape our Western concepts of literature. Presenting a range of material from both Greek and Latin literature, he illustrates ...

Xenophon's Anabasis, or The Expedition of Cyrus, is one of the most exciting historical narratives--as well as the most important autobiographical work--to have survived from ancient Greece. It tells the story of Cyrus, a young and charismatic Persian prince, who in 401 BC enlisted more than ten thousand Greek mercenaries in an attempt to seize the vast Persian empire for himself. Cyrus was killed in a great battle, most of the Greek commanders subsequently fell victim to...

A wide variety of texts by the Latin satirists are presented here in a fully loaded resource to provide an innovative reading of satire's relation to Roman ideology.Brimming with notes, commentaries, essays and texts in translation, this book succeeds in its mission to help the student understand the history of Latin's modern scholarly reception.Focusing on the linguistic difficulties and problems of usage, and examining aspects of meter and style necessary for poetry appre...

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consu...

During the tenth century England began to emerge as a distinct country with an identity that was both part of yet separate from 'Christendom'. The reigns of Athelstan, Edgar and Ethelred witnessed the emergence of many key institutions: the formation of towns on modern street plans; an efficient administration; and a serviceable system of tax. Mark Atherton here shows how the stories, legends, biographies and chronicles of Anglo-Saxon England reflected both this exciting time of innovation...

What is poetry? Why do human beings produce and consume it? What effects does it have on them? Can it give them insight into truth, or is it dangerously misleading? This book is a wide-ranging study of the very varied answers which ancient philosophers gave to such questions. An extended discussion of Plato's Republic shows how the two discussions of poetry are integrated with each other and with the dialogue's central themes. Aristotle's Poetics is read in the context of his understanding...

Is Ancient Greece still meaningful to the twenty-first-century world? The vitality of the classical tradition, which has been a long-enduring and important element in our culture, is the concern of the seven scholars who in this book present their answers to this question.In various ways their essays support editor Frederic Will's statement that the "complex and mature group of awarenesses" embodied in the classical tradition still help to maintain the continuity of human culture, ...

The first translation, produced by a team of eight scholars, of the Declamations and Preliminary Talks of the sixth-century sophist Choricius of Gaza. Declamations, deliberative or judicial orations on fictitious themes, were the fundamental advanced exercises of the rhetorical schools of the Roman Empire, of interest also to audiences outside the schools. Some of Choricius' declamations are on generic themes (e.g. a tyrannicide, a war-hero), while others are based on specific motifs from ...

Virginia Burrus explores one of the strongest and most disturbing aspects of the Christian tradition, its excessive preoccupation with shame. While Christianity has frequently been implicated in the conversion of ancient Mediterranean cultures from shame- to guilt-based and, thus, in the emergence of the modern West's emphasis on guilt, Burrus seeks to recuperate the importance of shame for Christian culture. Focusing on late antiquity, she explores a range of fascinating phenomena, from t...