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In this book, Maria Pretzler combines a thorough introduction to Pausanias with exciting new perspectives. She considers the process and influences that shaped the "Periegesis", and maps out its literary and cultural context. Pausanias' text records contemporary interpretations of monuments and traditions, and is concerned with the identity and history of Greece, issues that were crucial concerns for Greeks under Roman rule. Parallels with various texts of the period offer insights into Pausanias' attitudes as well as illustrating important aspects of Second Sophistic culture. A discussion of Greek texts that deal with fictional or actual travel experiences provides a background for a detailed study of the Periegesis as travel literature. Pausanias' treatment of geography and his descriptions of landscapes, cities and artworks are considered in detail, and there is also a study of his methods as a historian. The final chapters deal with Pausanias' impact on modern approaches to Greece and ancient Greek culture.
Strabo of Amasia, a Greek geographer of the Augusto-Tiberian period, observed the Roman world of his time. He collected his observations in his magnum opus, the Geography, which he described as a 'Kolossourgia', a colossal statue of a work. This term reflects not only the work's size in seventeen books, but also its multi-faceted nature, composed of many different elements like the detailing on a statue. In this 2005 volume an international team of Strabo scholars explores those details, discussing the cultural, political, historical and geographical questions addressed in the Geography. The collection offers a number of different approaches to the study of Strabo, from traditional literary and historical perspectives to newer material and feminist readings. These diverse themes and approaches inform each other to provide a wide-ranging exploration of Strabo's work, making the book essential reading for students of ancient history and ancient geography.
Characterization in Ancient Greek Literature is the fourth volume in the series Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative. The book deals with the narratological concepts of character and characterization and explores the textual devices used for purposes of characterization by ancient Greek authors spanning a large historical period (from Homer to Heliodorus) and a variety of literary genres (epic, elegy, historiography, choral lyric, drama, oratory, philosophy, biography, and novel). The book’s aim is not only to describe these devices, but also to investigate their effects and the implications of their use for our interpretation of the texts.
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This volume in the LACTOR Sourcebooks in Ancient History series offers a generous selection of primary texts on Sparta, with accompanying maps, illustrations, glossary, chronology and explanatory notes. It provides for the needs of students at schools and universities who are studying ancient history in English translation and has been written and reviewed by experienced teachers. The texts selected include extracts from the important literary sources but also numerous inscriptions, many of these being otherwise difficult for students to access.
Traditional and still prevalent accounts of late antique literature draw a clear distinction between 'pagan' and 'Christian' forms of poetry: whereas Christian poetry is taken seriously in terms its contribution to culture and society at large, so-called pagan or secular poetry is largely ignored, as though it has no meaningful part to play within the late antique world. The Myth of Paganism sets out to deconstruct this view of two contrasting poetic traditions and proposes in its place a new integrated model for the understanding of late antique poetry. As the book argues, the poet of Christ and the poet of the Muses were drawn together into an active, often provocative, dialogue about the relationship between Christianity and the Classical tradition and, ultimately, about the meaning of late antiquity itself. An analysis of the poetry of Nonnus of Panopolis, author of both a 'pagan' epic about Dionysus and a Christian translation of St John's Gospel, helps to illustrate this complex dialectic between pagan and Christian voices.
"Classics and the Bible" looks at story-patterns and themes which Greek and Latin literature shares with the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. Direct influence or a common source can explain some similarities, but uncannily parallel plots and forms of expression seem more often to occur independently. Classical and biblical texts constantly illuminate each other. Hospitality and recognition are central themes in both traditions, and also metaphors about the relation between them. Classical and biblical authors alike tell stories which need to be read in the light of other stories. The relation between the present and the heroic past is crucial to both traditions, and both raise fundamental questions about the relation of text and reader. The first three chapters consider the subject from the classical side: Homer, the Greek tragedians and Plato, and Virgil; the fourth turns to the New Testament; and the fifth to aspects of later reception. Readers should ideally be equipped with a Bible, English translations of a few major classical authors, and an open mind.
Offers the first comprehensive survey of mythographical impulses and output from the archaic period up to late antiquity, with further essays tracing the influence of mythography into the western Medieval. Byzantine, and Renaissance traditions, Features essays on the intersection of mythography and other intellectual pursuits, including ancient art and education, Includes contributions from both established scholars and emerging voices Book jacket.
The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies is a unique collection of some seventy articles which together explore the ways in which ancient Greece has been, is, and might be studied. It is intended to inform its readers, but also, importantly, to inspire them, and to enable them to pursue their own research by introducing the primary resources and exploring the latest agenda for their study. The emphasis is on the breadth and potential of Hellenic Studies as a flourishing and exciting intellectual arena, and also upon its relevance to the way we think about ourselves today.