This book contains a wide-ranging discussion of the literature of religious apologetic composed by pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Roman empire up to the time when Constantine declared himself a Christian. The contributors are distinguished specialists from the fields of ancient history, Jewish history, ancient philosophy, New Testament studies, and patristics. Each chapter is devoted to a particular text or group of texts with the aim of identifying the literary milieu and the circumstances that led to this form of writing. When appropriate, contributors have concentrated on whether the notional audience addressed in the text is the real one, and whether apologetics was regarded as a genre in its own right.

Seneca's Natural Questions is an eight-book disquisition on the nature of meteorological phenomena, ranging inter alia from rainbows to earthquakes, from comets to the winds, from the causes of snow and hail to the reasons why the Nile floods in summer. Much of this material had been treated in the earlier Greco-Roman meteorological tradition, but what notoriously sets Seneca's writing apart is his insertion of extended moralizing sections within his technical discourse. How, if at all, are these outbursts against the luxury and vice that are apparently rampant in Seneca's first-century CE Rome to be reconciled with his main meteorological agenda? In grappling with this familiar question, The Cosmic Viewpoint argues that Seneca is no blinkered or arid meteorological investigator, but a creative explorer into nature's workings who offers a highly idiosyncratic blend of physico-moral investigation across his eight books. At one level, his inquiry into nature impinges on human conduct and morality in its implicit propagation of the familiar Stoic ideal of living in accordance with nature: the moral deviants whom Seneca condemns in the course of the work offer egregious examples of living contrary to nature's balanced way. At a deeper level, however, The Cosmic Viewpoint stresses the literary qualities and complexities that are essential to Seneca's literary art of science: his technical enquiries initiate a form of engagement with nature which distances the reader from the ordinary involvements and fragmentations of everyday life, instead centering our existence in the cosmic whole. From a figurative standpoint, Seneca's meteorological theme raises our gaze from a terrestrial level of existence to a more intuitive plane where literal vision gives way to 'higher' conjecture and intuition: in striving to understand meteorological phenomena, we progress in an elevating direction - a conceptual climb that renders the Natural Questions no mere store of technical learning, but a work that actively promotes a change of perspective in its readership.

That readers and biblical texts are somehow linked in a mutually transformative relationship is hardly a novel perception, especially in contexts where the Christian Bible has been received as normative Scripture for faithful worship and living. This study focuses on an aspect of this relationship and wrestles with it not only in theory, but also in practice by asking: How may a reader who wishes to read the Christian Bible as Scripture well today be formed; and how may interpretations of Scripture themselves inform such concern? Vincent Ooi begins by showing that such concern is not only contemporary but integral to Christian traditions of reading Scripture, and that it is only recently receiving some renewed scholarly attention. He reviews some of these recent works before setting out his own approach from the perspective of theological interpretation of Scripture. He then demonstrates his approach via close exegetical engagement with three biblical texts, namely Nehemiah 9:6-37, Ezekiel 20:5-32, and Acts 7:2-60, which offer different inner-canonical readings of Scripture in the form of distinctive retellings of Israel's story. He first considers how these texts portray readers of Scripture and use scriptural traditions in relation to the wider context of the Christian canon; he then discusses what they, individually and in concert, might suggest as significant for shaping readers seeking to faithfully appropriate Scripture today. The posture of prayer, the pulse of liturgy, and the patterning of Christ are among the things proposed as formatively significant.

The art of ancient Egypt that has been handed down to us bears no names of its creators, and yet we value the creations of these unknown masters no less than the works of later centuries, such as statues by Michelangelo or the paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. This book introduces some of the most important masterpieces, ranging from the Old Kingdom during the Third millennium BC to the Roman Period. The works encompass sculptures, reliefs, sarcophagi, murals, masks, and decorative items, most of them now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but some occupying places of honor as part of the World Cultural Heritage in museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Featured works include: Seated statue of King Djoser Wood relief of Hesire on a dining table Statue of a scribe made of various materials Funerary relief of Aschait Sphinx of Sesostris III Robed statue of Cherihotep Reliefs from the Temple at Carnac Sarcophagus of Queen Hatshepsut Murals from Thebes Seated figure of the goddess Sachmet Statue of Queen Teje Head of Akhenaten (Amenophis IV) Queen Nefertiti Golden mask of Tutankhamun Ramses II from Abu Simbel Horus falcon made of granite Stone relief from the temple ambulatory at Edfu About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art History series features: approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions a detailed, illustrated introduction a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a two-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist

During the Second World War the Bodleian Library in Oxford acquired a set of Aramaic letters, eight sealings, and the two leather bags in which the sealed letters were once stored. The letters concern the affairs of Arsama, satrap of Egypt in the later fifth century. Taken with other material associated with him (mostly in Aramaic, Demotic Egyptian, and Akkadian), they illuminate the Achaemenid world of which Arsama was a privileged member and evoke a wide range of social, economic, cultural, organizational, and political perspectives, from multi-lingual communication, storage and disbursement of resources, and satrapal remuneration, to cross-regional ethnic movement, long-distance travel, religious practice, and iconographic projection of ideological messages. Particular highlights include a travel authorization (the only example of something implicit in numerous Persepolis documents), texts about the religious life of the Judaean garrison at Elephantine, Arsama's magnificent seal (a masterpiece of Achaemenid glyptic, inherited from a son of Darius I), and echoes of temporary disturbances to Persian management of Egypt. But what is also impressive is the underlying sense of systematic coherence founded on and expressed in the use of formal, even formalized, written communication as a means of control. The Arsama dossier is not alone in evoking that sense, but its size, variety, and focus upon a single individual give it a unique quality. Though this material has not been hidden from view, it has been insufficiently explored: it is the purpose of the three volumes of Arsama and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context to provide the fullest presentation and historical contextualization of this extraordinary cache yet attempted. Volume I presents and translates the letters alongside a detailed line-by-line commentary, while Volume II reconstructs the two seals that made the clay bullae that sealed the letters, with special attention to Arsama's magnificent heirloom seal. Volume III comprises a series of thematic essays which further explore the administrative, economic, military, ideological, religious, and artistic environment to which Arsama and the letters belonged.

The 18 essays by members of the Canadian Society for Biblical Studies published in this volume showcase the work of leading authorities on ancient Israelite and Jewish historiography as it intersects with the phenomenon of prophecy. A deep divide exists between the traditions of historiography and prophecy in the academic study of the Hebrew Bible, and the concern of the contributors is to close that gap, to expose the close relationship between these two traditions in the literature of the Hebrew Bible. The first section of the book explores prophecy and prophets in ancient Israelite and Jewish historiographic books (Torah, Deuteronomistic History, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Second Temple Jewish historiography). The second section surveys historiography in Israelite and Jewish prophetic books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Book of the Twelve, Daniel, 1 Enoch). The contributors engage diverse methodological perspectives in these studies, the goal first being to show the role that the prophets played within the great Hebrew historiographic works and, second, to demonstrate the role that historiography plays within the great Hebrew prophetic works; this makes it clear that the influence is bidirectional. Prophets, Prophecy, and Ancient Israelite Historiography will be of value for advanced students and scholars working on historiographic and prophetic materials in the ancient Israelite and Jewish traditions, featuring the best of research and analysis and interacting with many major ancient literary traditions of historiography and prophecy.

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.

Roman Turdetania makes use of the literary and archeological sources to provide an updated state of knowledge from a postcolonial approach about the socio-cultural interaction processes and the subsequent romanisation of the populations in the southern Iberian Peninsula from the 4th to the 1st centuries BCE. The resulting communities shaped a new identity, hybrid and converging, resulting from the previous Phoenician-Punic substrate vigorously coexisting with the new Hellenistic-Roman imprint.

In recent years, classicists have begun aggressively to explore the impact of performance on the ways in which Greek and Roman plays are constructed and appreciated, both in their original performance context and in reperformances down to the present day. While never losing sight of the playscripts, it is necessary to adopt a more inclusive point of view, one integrating insights from archaeology, art, history, performance theory, theatre semiotics, theatrical praxis, and modern performance reception. This volume contributes to the restoration of a much-needed balance between performance and text: it is devoted to exploring how performance-related considerations (including stage business, masks, costumes, props, performance space, and stage-sets) help us attain an enhanced appreciation of ancient theatre.

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.

Situating the close relationship between Latin and music within its historical context, this volume presents an overview of Latin and music in the educational system of the time - schools, choir schools and universities - and the development and pervasive influence of musical humanism. This influence is seen primarily in the writings of music theorists, the documents of dedication found in music publications and above all in the settings of classical and Neo-Latin texts as well as in some liturgical and extra-liturgical ones. Discussion of this repertoire forms the centre of the volume. The emphasis is on practical matters: the study of Latin and music, and the music's composition, performance and reception.

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 Romans founded colonies throughout Italy and the provinces from the early Republic through the high Empire. Far from being mere 'bulwarks of empire,' these colonies were established by diverse groups or magistrates for a range of reasons that responded to the cultural and political problems faced by the contemporary Roman state and populace. This project traces the diachronic changes in colonial foundation practices by contextualizing the literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and numismatic evidence with the overall perspective that evidence from one period of colonization should not be used analogistically to explain gaps in the evidence for a different period. The Roman colonies were not necessarily 'little Romes,' either structurally, juridically, or religiously, and therefore their role in the spread of Roman culture or the exercise of Roman imperialism was more complex than is sometimes acknowledged.

Consensus holds that Lucretius admired the literary prestige of Homeric epos, the form that Ennius famously introduced to Latin literature. However, some hold that Lucretius disagreed with Ennius' quasi-Pythagorean claim to be Homer reborn, and so uniquely qualified to adapt Homeric poetry to the Latin language. Likewise, received wisdom holds that Lucretius followed in the path of poets writing in the wake of Ennius' Annales, most of whom employed an Ennian style. However, throughout the De Rerum Natura, Lucretius' use of Ennius' Annales as a formal model for a long discursive poem in epic meter was neither inevitable nor predictable, on the one hand, nor meaningful in the simple way that critical consensus has always maintained. Jason Nethercut posits that Lucretius selected Ennius as a model precisely to dismantle the values for which he claimed Ennius stood, including the importance of history as a poetic subject and Rome's historical achievement in particular. As the first book to offer substantial analysis of the relationship between two of the ancient world's most impactful poets, Ennius Noster: Lucretius and the Annales fills an important gap not only in Lucretian scholarship, but also in our understanding of Latin literary history.