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Unfinishedness and incompleteness are a central feature of ancient Greek and Roman literature that has often been taken for granted but not deeply examined; many texts have been transmitted to us incomplete. How and to what extent has this feature of many texts influenced their aesthetic perception and interpretation, and how does it still influence them today? Also, how do various editorial arrangements of fragmentary texts influence the reconstruction of closure? These important questions offer the opportunity to bring together specialists working on Greek and Roman texts across various genres: epic, tragedy, poetry, mythographic texts, rhetorical texts, philosophical treatises, and the no...
A collection of papers by international experts on one of the most paradoxical and influential poetic genres of classical antiquity.
This volume is an edition of the poetical and grammatical fragments of Philitas of Cos, the early-Hellenistic scholar and poet who served as an exemplary model for the great Alexandrian poets. His output includes frivolous Hermes and Demeter which both had fundamental impact on later metapoetic imagery, and the Ataktoi Glossai, a glossary interpreting mainly Homeric idiom in pre-Aristarchean fashion. The body of the book consists of an Introduction discussing life, literary affiliations and metre; an edition of testimonies and fragments along with a commentary elucidating matters of language and influence on the scholar-poets, Propertius and Longus. The study of Philitas is brought up to date with new testimonies and new neglected sources for the fragments. Recent papyrological findings, verse inscriptions, lexicographic sources and inscriptions from Cos are taken into consideration. Passages dubiously ascribed to Philitas are discussed. The book closes with three Appendices and comprehensive Indexes.
The word 'athletics' is derived from the Greek verb 'to struggle for a prize'. After reading this book, no one will see the Olympics as a graceful display of Greek beauty again, but as war by other means. Nigel Spivey paints a portrait of the Greek Olympics as they really were - fierce contests between bitter rivals, in which victors won kudos and rewards, and losers faced scorn and even assault. Victory was almost worth dying for, and a number of athletes did just that. Many more resorted to cheating and bribery. Contested always bitterly and often bloodily, the ancient Olympics were not an idealistic celebration of unity, but a clash of military powers in an arena not far removed from the battlefield.
In classical scholarship of the past two centuries, the term “epyllion” was used to label short hexametric texts mainly ascribable to the Hellenistic period (Greek) or the Neoterics (Latin). Apart from their brevity, characteristics such as a predilection for episodic narration or female characters were regarded as typically “epyllic” features. However, in Antiquity itself, the texts we call “epyllia” were not considered a coherent genre, which seems to be an innovation of the late 18th century. The contributions in this book not only re-examine some important (and some lesser known) Greek and Latin primary texts, but also critically reconsider the theoretical discourses attached to it, and also sketch their literary and scholarly reception in the Byzantine and Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern Age.
Chance, in addition to the unavoidable ambiguity caused by time, is one of the main guilty parties in the transmission of ancient texts – or lack thereof. However, the same cannot be said for what concerns the mechanisms of selection and loss of historical and literary memory, where the voluntary awareness of obscuring is often part of a precise aim, thus leading the cultural memory of a literate society to become fragmented. The present volume explores the devices and criteria of selection and loss in Ancient and Medieval texts and the subsequent fragmentation of such literature, but it also addresses the questions of the damnatio memoriae, of literary strategies such as reticence and omi...
First published in 2005. With updated documents including papyri, inscriptions and ostraka, this book casts fresh and original light on the administration and economy issues faced with the transition of Egypt from an allied kingdom of Rome to a province of the Roman Empire.
This rich collection of essays by an international group of authors explores a wide range of commentaries on ancient Latin and Greek texts. It pays particular attention to individual commentaries, national traditions of commentary, the part played by commentaries in the reception of classical texts, and the role of printing and publishing.
Ancient Greek hymns traditionally include a narrative section describing episodes from the hymned deity’s life. These narratives developed in parallel with epic and other narrative genres, and their study provides a different perspective on ancient Greek narrative. Within the hymn genre, the place and function of the narrative section changed over time and with different kinds of hymn (literary or cultic; religious, philosophical or magical). Hymnic Narrative and the Narratology of Greek Hymns traces developments in narrative in the hymn genre from the Homeric Hymns via Hellenistic and Imperial hymns to those in the Orphic tradition and in magical papyri, analysing them in narratological terms in order to place them in the wider context of ancient Greek narrative literature.
Late antiquity extends from the accession of the Christian emperor Constantine to the rise of Muhammad and early Islam (ca. 300-700 AD). This volume takea account of the scholarship published in the last 30 years and provide a foundational synthesis for students of late antiquity.