In recent decades literary approaches to drama have multiplied: new historical, intertextual, political, performative and metatheatrical, socio-linguistic, gender-driven, transgenre-driven. New information has been amassed, sometimes by re-examination of extant literary texts and material artifacts, at other times from new discoveries from the fields of archaeology, epigraphy, art history, and literary studies. The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From the birth of comedy in Greece to its end in Rome, from the Hellenistic diffusion of performances after the death of Menander to its artistic, scholarly, and literary receptions in the later Roman Empire, no topic is neglected. 41 essays spread across Greek Comedy, Roman Comedy, and the transmission and reception of Ancient comedy by an international team of experts offer cutting-edge guides through the immense terrain of the field, while an expert introduction surveys the major trends and shifts in scholarly study of comedy from the 1960s to today. The Handbook includes two detailed appendices that provide invaluable research tools for both scholars and students. The result offers Hellenists an excellent overview of the earliest reception and creative reuse of Greek New Comedy, Latinists a broad perspective of the evolution of Roman Comedy, and scholars and students of classics an excellent resource and tipping point for future interdisciplinary research.

In this new and authoritative history of the Roman republic, distinguished historian Klaus Bringmann traces the rise of a small city state near the Tiber estuary into a power that controlled the Italian peninsula and created the final Empire of antiquity, an Empire that was to become both the most enduring in the ancient world and to have the most far-reaching consequences for posterity.

Whilst this book is chronologically organized, giving the reader a clear sense of the historical progress and dynamics of Roman republican history, it also offers a coherent and authoritative overview of the culture, economics, religion and military might of the Roman empire, presented in an original and stimulating way.

Thoroughly referenced and illustrated throughout, with a wealth of primary sources from great Roman writers such as Cicero and Plutarch, "A History of the Roman Republic" will be essential reading for university students in history and classical studies. It will also appeal to a wider audience of general readers who are interested in the history of the Ancient world and its legacy.

This study presents a comprehensive treatment of a crucial aspect of Greek religion hitherto largely neglected in the English language. Simon Pulleyn makes a full examination of all the relevant literary and inscribed material available in order both to describe ancient Greek practices and to explain their significance.

Death and Burial uses archaeological and textual evidence to examine death and burial in Iron Age Israel and Aram. Despite dramatic differences in the religious systems of these peoples, this monograph demonstrates striking connections between their basic material and psychological frameworks for dealing with death.

Pompeius Trogus, a Romanized Gaul living in the age of Augustus, wrote a forty-four book universal history (The Philippic History) of the non-Roman Mediterranean world. This work was later abbreviated by M. Junianus Justinus. Alexander the Great's life has been examined in minute detail by scholars for many decades, but the period of chaos that ensued after his death in 323 BC has received much less attention. Few historical sources recount the history of this period consecutively. Justin's abbreviated epitome of the lost Philippic history of Pompeius Trogus is the only relatively continuous account we have left of the events that transpired in the 40 years from 323 BC. This volume supplies a historical analysis of this unique source for the difficult period of Alexander's Successors up to 297 BC, a full translation, and running commentary on Books 13-15.

"The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact." --C. S. Lewis In From Achilles to Christ, Louis Markos introduces readers to the great narratives of classical mythology from a Christian perspective. From the battles of Achilles and the adventures of Odysseus to the feats of Hercules and the trials of Aeneas, Markos shows how the characters, themes and symbols within these myths both foreshadow and find their fulfillment in the story of Jesus Christ--the "myth made fact." Along the way, he dispels misplaced fears about the dangers of reading classical literature, and offers a Christian approach to the interpretation and appropriation of these great literary works. This engaging and eminently readable book is an excellent resource for Christian students, teachers and readers of classical literature.

The classic account of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated by Richard Crawley. Himself an Athenian general who served in the war, Thucydides relates the invasions, treacheries, plagues, amazing speeches, ambitions, virtues, and emotions of the storied conflict between Athens and Sparta in a work that has the feel of a tragic drama. Though in part an analysis of war policy, The History of the Peloponnesian War is also a dramatic account of the rise and fall of Athens by an Athenian man.

Covering figures ranging from Catherine Monvoisin to Vlad the Impaler, and describing murders committed in ancient aristocracies to those attributed to vampires, witches, and werewolves, this book documents the historic reality of serial murder. The majority of serial murder studies support the consensus that serial murder is essentially an American crime-a flawed assumption, as the United States has existed for less than 250 years. What is far more likely is that the perverse urge to repeatedly and intentionally kill has existed throughout human history, and that a substantial percentage of serial murders throughout ancient times, the middle ages, and the pre-modern era were attributed to imaginative surrogate explanations: dragons, demons, vampires, werewolves, and witches. Legends, Monsters, or Serial Murderers? The Real Story Behind an Ancient Crime dispels the interrelated misconceptions that serial murder is an American crime and a relatively recent phenomenon, making the novel argument that serial murder is a historic reality-an unrecognized fact in ancient times. Noted serial murderers such as the Roman Locuta (The Poisoner); Gilles De Rais of France, a prolific serial killer of children; Andres Bichel of Bavaria; and Chinese aristocratic serial killer T'zu-Hsi are spotlighted. This book provides a unique perspective that integrates supernatural interpretations of serial killing with the history of true crime, reanimating mythic entities of horror stories and presenting them as real criminals.

Trials for murder and manslaughter in ancient Athens are preserved in a singularly full and revealing record. The earliest surviving speeches were written for such proceedings, and the laws governing such trials - laws that tradition ascribes to Draco himself - also survive in large part. These documents bear witness to the birth of the jury trial and of democratic rhetoric. This book, the first study of its kind, offers a systematic interpretation of Draco's law and the legal reasoning that grew out of it. The author outlines the historical development (7th to 4th centuries BCE), and then analyses the surviving speeches to unravel the underlying issues and practical consequences.

Traditionally, in the year 312, the Roman emperor Constantine experienced a "vision of the Cross" that led him to convert to Christianity and to defeat his last rival to the imperial throne; and, in 394, a divine wind carried the emperor Theodosius to victory at the battle of the Frigidus River. Other stories heralded the discovery of the True Cross by Constantine's mother, Helena, and the rise of a new kind of miracle-maker in the deserts of Egypt and Syria. These miracle stories helped Christians understand the dizzying changes in their fortunes during the century. They also shed light on Christianity's conflict with other faiths and the darker turn it took in subsequent ages. In A Century of Miracles, historian H. A. Drake explores the role miracle stories played in helping Christians, pagans, and Jews think about themselves and each other. These stories, he concludes, bolstered Christian belief that their god wanted the empire to be Christian. Most importantly, they help explain how, after a century of trumpeting the power of their god, Christians were able to deal with their failure to protect the city of Rome from a barbarian sack by the Gothic army of Alaric in 410. Augustine's magnificent City of God eventually established a new theoretical basis for success, but in the meantime the popularity of miracle stories reassured the faithful - even when the miracles came to an end. A Century of Miracles provides an absorbing illumination of the pivotal fourth century as seen through the prism of a complex and decidedly mystical phenomenon.

House Ascendant presents the comings-of-age of the epic hero and his best friend by homeland Greece; they're both famous from The Odyssey by Homer, although the book assumes our readers have not the least knowledge of them. So, accordingly, from Odysseus' birth while under the care of his mother Anticleia our volume tells settings and tales about Odysseus as a boy. He meets Mentor while they're both lads at war campaign with their fathers, both acting as messengers until Mentor becomes Ward-of- House under the tutelage of Odysseus' father La rtes. An apprentice of naval command under his father, we learn of Odysseus' teenage years until just past his accession to the co-regent title of Fleetmaster. Mentor, meanwhile, becomes a student and practitioner at the difficult arts of dictation through his commitment to writ inscribed entablature - itself best known to scholars as the famous syllabary of pictograms called Linear B Minoan. Odysseus' eventual command over the Near Fleets of the Ithacan League has the able testament of Mentor to bring both their exciting lives through the zenith of the Mycenaean Age.

Protohistory, in contrast to our many novelistic approaches to historical fiction, employs biography as a framework against which events of authentic and plausible prehistory can be affixed. Expository fiction fills in the lost gaps by destroyed sources, while explaining robustly the regions and happenings surrounding the lives of several protagonists. It speaks, in general and solely, from the captured viewpoints of sovereigns, or of the highest peers attendant upon them.

History is sometimes regarded as impractical in this day and age, even though the realities we face are too often the outgrowth of manipulated interpretations of past events. Societies find this acceptable because just enough truth is incorporated into the accounts to disguise the myths that are being promoted; however, many important facts are omitted. This is especially true when a chronicler pretends to record "spiritual" objectives or guidance. There is always a measure of the unknown in "any" record, but it is predominant in "faith" accounts. If large portions of history are covered with deceit, then mankind is rendered incapable of understanding its higher potential.

In "Time Frames and Taboo Data: A History of Mankind's Misdirected Beliefs," author C. M. Houck examines these discarded facts and inspects the absurdities and hypocrisies of mankind's beliefs, in an effort to push the reader toward a better understanding of history.

The economy of ancient Rome, with its money, complex credit arrangements, and long-range shipping, was surprisingly modern. Yet Romans also exchanged goods and services within a robust system of gifts and favors, which sustained the supportive relationships necessary for survival in the absence of the extensive state and social institutions. In Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome, Neil Coffee shows how a vibrant commercial culture progressively displaced systems of gift giving over the course of Rome's classical era. The change was propelled the Roman elite, through their engagement in shipping, moneylending, and other enterprises. Members of the same elite, however, remained habituated to traditional gift relationships, relying on them to exercise influence and build their social worlds. They resisted the transformation, through legislation, political movements, and philosophical argument. The result was a recurring clash across the contexts of Roman social and economic life. The book traces the conflict between gift and gain from Rome's prehistory, down through the conflicts of the late Republic, into the early Empire, showing its effects in areas as diverse as politics, government, legal representation, philosophical thought, public morality, personal and civic patronage, marriage, dining, and the Latin language. These investigations show Rome shifting, unevenly but steadily, away from its pre-historic reliance on relationships of mutual aid, and toward to the more formal, commercial, and contractual relations of modernity.

This book is a definitive architectural study of Roman theatre architecture. In nine chapters it brings together a massive amount of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic information under one cover. It also contains a full catalogue of all known Roman theatres, including a number of odea (concert halls) and bouleuteria (council chambers) which are relevant to the architectural discussion, about 1,000 entries in all. Inscriptional or literary evidence relating to each theatre is listed and there is an up-to-date bibliography for each building. Most importantly the book contains plans of over 500 theatres or buildings of theatrical type, as well as numerous text figures and nearly 200 figures and plates.