Until recently, biblical studies and studies of the written and material culture of the ancient Near East have been fragmented, governed by experts who are confined within their individual disciplines' methodological frameworks and patterns of thinking. The consequence has been that, at present, concepts and the terminology for examining the interaction of textual and historical complexes are lacking. However, we can learn from the cognitive sciences. Until the end of the 1980s, neurophysiologists, psychologists, pediatricians, and linguists worked in complete isolation from one another on various aspects of the human brain. Then, beginning in the 1990s, one group began to focus on processes in the brain, thereby requiring that cell biologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, linguists, and other relevant scientists collaborate with each other. Their investigation revealed that the brain integrates all kinds of information; if this were not the case, we would not be able to catch even a glimpse of the brain's processing activity. By analogy, van Wolde's proposal for biblical scholarship is to extend its examination of single elements by studying the integrative structures that emerge out of the interconnectivity of the parts. This analysis is based on detailed studies of specific relationships among data of diverse origins, using language as the essential device that links and permits expression. This method can be called a cognitive relational approach. Van Wolde bases her work on cognitive concepts developed by Ronald Langacker. With these concepts, biblical scholars will be able to study emergent cognitive structures that issue from biblical words and texts in interaction with historical complexes. Van Wolde presents a method of analysis that biblical scholars can follow to investigate interactions among words and texts in the Hebrew Bible, material and nonmaterial culture, and comparative textual and historical contexts. In a significant portion of the book, she then exemplifies this method of analysis by applying it to controversial concepts and passages in the Hebrew Bible (the crescent moon; the in-law family; the city gate; differentiation and separation; Genesis 1, 34; Leviticus 18, 20; Numbers 5, 35; Deuteronomy 21; and Ezekiel 18, 22, 33).

SEG LVI covers the publications of the year 2006, with occasional additions from previous years that we missed in earlier volumes and from studies published after 2006 but pertaining to material from 2006.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Caesar's Army in peace and war
Students of military history have long been fascinated by the history, armies and great commanders of ancient Rome; for within its organisation, strategy, tactics, weapons, campaigns and wars are to be found the origins of each of the military disciplines, demonstrated by often sophisticated methods and practices, developed millennia in the past and yet still able to provide valuable lessons to strategists and tacticians in the modern world. Rome had a long history and in keeping with all empires marched a Hard road to its zenith before commencing an equally long decline. We often look towards the period of Gaius Julius Caesar and his legions to appreciate the Roman military machine in some of its finest hours. This book is an invaluable guide for those interested in the Roman Army during Caesars time. It details army organisation, weapons and equipment. It examines the Legions and the cavalry in detail both on and off the field of battle. Tactics, fortifications and siege engines are fully described, as are methods of fighting afloat. Finally, the enemies of the Roman Empire, from the Gauls to the ancient Britons, are considered and their battle tactics and fortifications examined. In this Leonaur edition the illustrations from the original edition have been enlarged to assist the reader and maps of notable campaigns, battles, sieges and marches are also included.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

Discussion of the nature of Sumerian wisdom literature and complete editions of many Sumerian wisdom texts, including the Instructions of Shuruppak, Instructions of Ur-Ninurta, Counsels of Wisdom, Sumerian fables, Nothing Is of Value, Ballade of Early Rulers, and more. This unusual book describes the Sumerian literature and many of their proverbs featured in speeches of wise men of that time.

What was Roman political praise for and what could it achieve? Could it have literary merit? What do the surviving examples of Roman political praise-giving reveal about the circumstances and milieu in which they originated?
Latin Panegyric brings together sixteen essays focusing on praise in the Roman Empire and, in particular, on praise of the emperor. Spanning a century of scholarship, and constituting landmark studies on different aspects of the largest collection of classical Latin oratory to survive after Cicero--the Panegyrici Latini--this collection includes speeches addressed to the emperors Trajan, Maximian, Constantine, Julian, and Theodosius, and traces three centuries of oratorical praise-giving in the Roman world. These influential readings consider textual, rhetorical, literary, political, and religious matters, and together represent the evolving landscape of academic attitudes towards praise discourse, with its strengths and problems, and towards some of the best-known Roman emperors. With a full introduction by the editor, and with four essays translated into English for the first time, this valuable volume plots the narratives of Roman praise and gives students of classical literature, history, and rhetoric direct access to key scholarship.

This book brings together new and original work by forty two of the world's leading scholars of Indo-European comparative philology and linguistics from around the world. It shows the breadth and the continuing liveliness of enquiry in an area which over the last century and a half has opened many unique windows on the civilizations of the ancient world. The volume is a tribute to Anna Morpurgo Davies to mark her retirement as the Diebold Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford.
The book's six parts are concerned with the early history of Indo-European (Part I); language use, variation, and change in ancient Greece and Anatolia (Parts II and III); the Indo-European languages of Western Europe, including Latin, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxon (Part IV); the ancient Indo-Iranian and Tocharian languages (Part V); and the history of Indo-European linguistics (Part VI).
Indo-European Perspectives will interest scholars and students of Indo-European philology, historical linguistics, classics, and the history of the ancient world.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Karl Valentin once asked: "How can it be that only as much happens as fits into the newspaper the next day?" He focussed on the problem that information of the past has to be organised, arranged and above all: selected and put into form in order to be perceived as a whole. In this sense, the process of selection must be seen as the fundamental moment - the "Urszene" - of making History. This book shows selection as highly creative act. With the richness of early medieval material it can be demonstrated that creative selection was omnipresent and took place even in unexpected text genres. The book demonstrates the variety how premodern authors dealt with "unimportant", unpleasant or unwanted past. It provides a general overview for regions and text genres in early medieval Europe.

Key aspects of philhellenism - political self-determination, freedom, beauty, individual greatness - originate in antiquity and present a complex reception history. The force of European philhellenism derives from ancient Roman idealizations, which have been drawn on by European movements since the Enlightenment. How is philhellenism able to transcend national, cultural and epochal limits? The articles collected in this volume deal with (1) the ancient conceptualization of philhellenism, (2) the actualization and politicization of the term at the time of the European Restoration (1815-30), and (3) the transformation of philhellenism into a pan-European movement. During the Greek struggle for independence the different receptions of philhellenism regain a common focus; philhellenism becomes an inextricable element in the creation of a pan-European identity and a starting point for the regeneration and modernization of Greece. - It is easy to criticize the tradition of philhellenism as being simplistic, naive, and self-serving, but there is an irreducibly utopian element in later philhellenic idealizations of ancient Greece.

The late antique and early medieval Mediterranean was characterized by wide-ranging cultural and linguistic diversity. Yet, under the influence of Christianity, communities in the Mediterranean world were bound together by common concepts of good rulership, which were also shaped by Greco-Roman, Persian, Caucasian, and other traditions. This collection of essays examines ideas of good Christian rulership and the debates surrounding them in diverse cultures and linguistic communities. It grants special attention to communities on the periphery, such as the Caucasus and Nubia, and some essays examine non-Christian concepts of good rulership to offer a comparative perspective. As a whole, the studies in this volume reveal not only the entanglement and affinity of communities around the Mediterranean but also areas of conflict among Christians and between Christians and other cultural traditions. By gathering various specialized studies on the overarching question of good rulership, this volume highlights the possibilities of placing research on classical antiquity and early medieval Europe into conversation with the study of eastern Christianity.

Rome's once independent Italian allies became communities of a new Roman territorial state after the Social War of 91-87 BC. Edward Bispham examines how the transition from independence to subordination was managed, and how, between the opposing tensions of local particularism, competing traditions and identities, aspirations for integration, cultural change, and indifference from Roman central authorities, something new and dynamic appeared in the jaded world of the late Republic. Bispham charts the successes and failures of the attempts to make a new political community (Roman Italy), and new Roman citizens scattered across the peninsula - a dramatic and important story in that, while Italy was being built, Rome was falling apart; and while the Roman Republic fell, the Italian municipal system endured, and made possible the government, and even the survival, of the Roman empire in the West.

This book affords new perspectives on urban disasters in the ancient Roman context, attending not just to the material and historical realities of such events, but also to the imaginary and literary possibilities offered by urban disaster as a figure of thought. Existential threats to the ancient city took many forms, including military invasions, natural disasters, public health crises, and gradual systemic collapses brought on by political or economic factors. In Roman cities, the memory of such events left lasting imprints on the city in psychological as well as in material terms. Individual chapters explore historical disasters and their commemoration, but others also consider of the effect of anticipated and imagined catastrophes. They analyze the destruction of cities both as a threat to be forestalled, and as a potentially regenerative agent of change, and the ways in which destroyed cities are revisited - and in a sense, rebuilt- in literary and social memory. The contributors to this volume seek to explore the Roman conception of disaster in terms that are not exclusively literary or historical. Instead, they explore the connections between and among various elements in the assemblage of experiences, texts, and traditions touching upon the theme of urban disasters in the Roman world.

A Brief History of Ancient Astrology explores the theory and practice of astrology from Babylon to Ancient Greece and Rome and its cultural and political impact on ancient societies. * Discusses the union between early astrology and astronomy, in contrast to the modern dichotomy between science and superstition. * Explains the ancient understanding of the zodiac and its twelve signs, the seven planets, and the fixed circle of 'places' against which the signs and planets revolve. * Demonstrates how to construct and interpret a horoscope in the ancient manner, using original ancient horoscopes and handbooks. * Considers the relevance of ancient astrology today.

A history of women in the Roman empire, including Livia, Octavia, Cleopatra, Livilla, Agrippina, and many others.

This volume is dedicated to the topic of the human evaluation and interpretation of animals in ancient and medieval cultures. From a transcultural perspective contributions from Assyriology, Byzantine Studies, Classical Archaeology, Egyptology, German Medieval Studies and Jewish History look into the processes and mechanisms behind the transfer by people of certain values to animals, and the functions these animal-signs have within written, pictorial and performative forms of expression.

The refreshed insights into early-imperial Roman historiography this book offers are linked to a recent discovery. In the spring of 2014, the binders of the archive of Robert Marichal were dusted off by the ERC funded project PLATINUM (ERC-StG 2014 n Degrees636983) in response to Tiziano Dorandi's recollections of a series of unpublished notes on Latin texts on papyrus. Among these was an in-progress edition of the Latin rolls from Herculaneum, together with Marichal's intuition that one of them had to be ascribed to a certain 'Annaeus Seneca'. PLATINUM followed the unpublished intuition by Robert Marichal as one path of investigation in its own research and work. Working on the Latin P.Herc. 1067 led to confirm Marichal's intuitions and to go beyond it: P.Herc. 1067 is the only extant direct witness to Seneca the Elder's Historiae. Bringing a new and important chapter of Latin literature arise out of a charred papyrus is significant. The present volume is made up of two complementary sections, each of which contains seven contributions. They are in close dialogue with each other, as looking at the same literary matter from several points of view yields undeniable advantages and represents an innovative and fruitful step in Latin literary criticism. These two sections express the two different but interlinked axes along which the contributions were developed. On one side, the focus is on the starting point of the debate, namely the discovery of the papyrus roll transmitting the Historiae of Seneca the Elder and how such a discovery can be integrated with prior knowledge about this historiographical work. On the other side, there is a broader view on early-imperial Roman historiography, to which the new perspectives opened by the rediscovery of Seneca the Elder's Historiae greatly contribute.