Cicero has long been seen to embody the values of the Roman republic. This provocative study of Cicero's use of history reveals that rather than promoting his own values, Cicero uses historical representation to explore the difficulties of finding any ideological coherence in Rome's political or cultural traditions. Matthew Fox looks to the scepticism of Cicero's philosophical education for an understanding of his perspective on Rome's history, and argues that neglect of the sceptical tradition has transformed the doubting, ambiguous Cicero into the confident proponent of Roman values. Through close reading of a range of his theoretical works, Fox uncovers an ironic attitude towards Roman history, and connects that to the use of irony in mainstream Latin historians. He concludes with a study of a little-known treatise on Cicero from the early eighteenth century which sheds considerable light on the history of Cicero's reception.

Inspired by the example of his predecessors Chaucer and Gower, John Lydgate articulated in his poetry, prose and translations many of the most serious political questions of his day. In the fifteenth century Lydgate was the most famous poet in England, filling commissions for the court, the aristocracy, and the guilds. He wrote for an elite London readership that was historically very small, but that saw itself as dominating the cultural life of the nation. Thus the new literary forms and modes developed by Lydgate and his contemporaries helped shape the development of English public culture in the fifteenth century. Maura Nolan offers a major re-interpretation of Lydgate's work and of his central role in the developing literary culture of his time. Moreover, she provides a wholly new perspective on Lydgate's relationship to Chaucer, as he followed Chaucerian traditions while creating innovative new ways of addressing the public.

This volume collects the most recent essays of Richard Hunter, one of the world's leading experts in the field of Greek and Latin literature. The essays range across all periods of ancient literature from Homer to late antiquity, with a particular focus not just on the texts in their original contexts, but also on how they were interpreted and exploited for both literary and more broadly cultural purposes later in antiquity. Taken together, the essays sketch a picture of a continuous tradition of critical and historical engagement with the literature of the past from the period of Aristophanes and then Plato and Aristotle in classical Athens to the rich prose literature of the Second Sophistic. Richard Hunter's earlier essays are collected in On Coming After (Berlin 2008).

"The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a Modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc. Jackson Crawford's modern versions of these poems are authoritative and fluent and often very gripping. With their individual headnotes and complementary general introduction, they supply today's readers with most of what they need to know in order to understand and appreciate the beliefs, motivations, and values of the Vikings." -Dick Ringler, Professor Emeritus of English and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin--Madison

The interaction between orator and audience, the passions and distrust held by many concerning the predominance of one individual, but also the individual's struggle as an advisor and political leader, these are the quintessential elements of 4th century rhetoric. As an individual personality, the orator draws strength from his audience, while the rhetorical texts mirror his own thoughts and those of his audience as part of a two-way relationship, in which individuality meets, opposes, and identifies with the masses. For the first time, this volume systematically compares minor orators with the major figures of rhetoric, Demosthenes and Isocrates, taking into account other findings as well, such as extracts of Hyperides from the Archimedes Palimpsest. Moreover, this book provides insight into the controversy surrounding the art of discourse in the rhetorical texts of Anaximenes, Aristotle, and especially of Isocrates who took up a clear stance against the philosophy of the 4th century.

This volume constitutes the first large-scale collaborative reflection on Xenophon's Anabasis, gathering experts on Greek historiography and Xenophon. It is structured in three sections: the first section provides a linear reading of the Anabasis through chapters on select episodes (from Book 1 through Book 7), including the opening, Cyrus' characterisation, the meeting of Socrates and Xenophon, Xenophon's leadership, the marches through Armenia and along the Black Sea coast and the service under Seuthes in Thrace. The second section offers an in-depth exploration of hitherto overlooked recurrent themes. Based on new approaches and scholarly trends, it focuses on topics such as the concept of friendship, the speeches of characters other than Xenophon, the suffering of the human body, the role of rumour and misrepresentation, and the depiction of emotions. The third section offers a more thorough investigation of the manifold reception of this work (in Antiquity, Byzantium, Renaissance, modern period, in cinema studies and illustrations). Finally, in acknowledgement of the Anabasis' long history as a pedagogical text, the volume contains an envoi on the importance and benefits of teaching Xenophon and the Anabasis, more specifically.

Martyrdom and Literature in Early Modern England is the first literary study to compare how Protestant and Catholic martyrs were represented during the Reformation, the most intense period of religious persecution in English history. Through its focus on martyrs, it argues that Catholic and Protestant texts are produced by dialogue, even competition, with texts across the religious divide, rather than simply as part of a stable and discrete doctrinal system. The first section of the book clearly traces the development of competing discourses of martyrdom; the second section considers the deployment of these discourses through a range of Protestant and Catholic literary texts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Monta pays extended attention to many texts popular in their own day but now considered unliterary or insignificant. This study is an important contribution to scholarship on early modern literature, drama, and religious history.

The essays in this volume address central problems in the development of Roman imperialism in the third and second century BC. Published in honour of the distinguished Oxford academic Peter Derow, they follow some of his main interests: the author Polybius, the characteristics of Roman power and imperial ambition, and the mechanisms used by Rome in creating and sustaining an empire in the east. Written by a distinguished group of international historians, all of whom were taught by Derow, the volume constitutes a new and distinctive contribution to the history of this centrally important period, as well as a major advance in the study of Polybius as a writer. In addition, the volume looks at the way Rome absorbed religions from the east, and at Hellenistic artistic culture. It also sheds new light on the important region of Illyria on the Adriatic Coast, which played a key part in Rome's rise to power. Archaeological, epigraphic, and textual evidence are brought together to create a sustained argument for Rome's determined and systematic pursuit of power.

The medical literature of ancient Greece has been much studied during the 20th century, particularly from the 1970s on. In spite of this intense activity, the search for manuscripts still relies on the catalogue compiled in the early 1900s by a group of philologists led by the German historian of Greek philosophy and medicine Hermann Diels. However useful the so-called Diels has been and still is, it is now in need of a thorough revision. The present five-tome set is a first step in that direction. Tome 1 offers a reproduction of Diels' catalogue with an index of the manuscripts. The following three tomes provide a reconstruction of the texts contained in the manuscripts listed in Diels on the basis of Diels' catalogue. Proceeding as Diels did, these three tomes distinguish the manuscripts containing texts by (or attributed to) Hippocrates (tome 2), Galen (tome 3), and the other authors considered by Diels (tome 4). Tome 5 will list all the texts listed in Diels for each manuscript in the catalogue. The present work will be a reference for all scholars interested in Greek medical literature and manuscripts, in addition to historians of medicine, medical book, medical tradition, and medical culture.

In the two Books of De divinatione Cicero considers beliefs concerning fate and the possibility of prediction: in the first book he puts the (principally Stoic) case for them in the mouth of his brother Quintus; in the second, speaking in his own person, he argues against them. In this new translation of, and commentary on, Book One--the first in English for over 80 years--David Wardle guides the reader through the course of Cicero's argument, giving particular attention to the traditional Roman and the philosophical conception of divination.

The medical literature of ancient Greece has been much studied during the 20th century, particularly from the 1970s on. In spite of this intense activity, the search for manuscripts still relies on the catalogue compiled in the early 1900s by a group of philologists led by the German historian of Greek philosophy and medicine Hermann Diels. However useful the so-called Diels has been and still is, it is now in need of a thorough revision. The present five-tome set is a first step in that direction. Tome 1 offers a reproduction of Diels' catalogue with an index of the manuscripts. The following three tomes provide a reconstruction of the texts contained in the manuscripts listed in Diels on the basis of Diels' catalogue. Proceeding as Diels did, these three tomes distinguish the manuscripts containing texts by (or attributed to) Hippocrates (tome 2), Galen (tome 3), and the other authors considered by Diels (tome 4). Tome 5 will list all the texts listed in Diels for each manuscript in the catalogue. The present work will be a reference for all scholars interested in Greek medical literature and manuscripts, in addition to historians of medicine, medical book, medical tradition, and medical culture.

Previous scholarship on classical pseudepigrapha has generally aimed at proving issues of attribution and dating of individual works, with little or no attention paid to the texts as literary artefacts. Instead, this book looks at Latin fakes as sophisticated products of a literary culture in which collaborative practices of supplementation, recasting and role-play were the absolute cornerstones of rhetorical education and literary practice. Texts such as the Catalepton, the Consolatio ad Liviam and the Panegyricus Messallae thus illuminate the strategies whereby Imperial audiences received and interrogated canonical texts and are here explored as key moments in the Imperial reception of Augustan authors such as Virgil, Ovid and Tibullus. The study of the rhetoric of these creative supplements irreverently mingling truth and fiction reveals much not only about the neighbouring concepts of fiction, authenticity, and reality, but also about the tacit assumptions by which the latter are employed in literary criticism.

Homeric Greek has a particularly rich system of moods which are analysed afresh in this book in the light of recent theoretical interest in the semantic domain of modality. The domain is one of the most complex and interesting, since modal forms are used for the most 'subjective' of messages, expressing our beliefs, intentions, desires, abilities and wishes. Incorporating findings from the theory of grammaticalisation, this study considers the Homeric Greek modal system from a diachronic perspective and offers a radical revision of traditional accounts. Providing insights into both individual constructions as well as the overall system of modality in Greek, it will be of interest to general linguists, linguists studying ancient Greek, and also scholars interested in fundamental questions of meaning in Greek. The indices, where all the instances of the moods in the Homeric poems are categorised into types, also make it useful as a research tool.

The purpose of this volume is to investigate scholastic culture in the Hellenistic and Roman eras, with a particular focus on ancient book and material culture as well as scholarship beyond Greek authors and the Greek language. Accordingly, one of the major contributions of this work is the inclusion of multiple perspectives and its contributors engage not only with elements of Greek scholastic culture, but also bring Greek ideas into conversation with developing Latin scholarship (see chapters by Dickey, Nicholls, Marshall) and the perspective of a minority culture (i.e., Jewish authors) (see chapters by Hezser, Adams). This multicultural perspective is an important next step in the discussion of ancient scholarship and this volume provides a starting point for future inquiries.

This book provides a translation of the complete poems and fu of Cao Zhi (192-232), one of China's most famous poets. Cao Zhi lived during a tumultuous age, a time of intrepid figures and of bold and violent acts that have captured the Chinese imagination across the centuries. His father Cao Cao (155-220) became the most powerful leader in a divided empire, and on his death, Cao Zhi's elder brother Cao Pi (187-226) engineered the abdication of the last Han emperor, establishing himself as the founding emperor of the Wei Dynasty (220-265). Although Cao Zhi wanted to play an active role in government and military matters, he was not allowed to do so, and he is remembered as a writer. The Poetry of Cao Zhi contains in its body one hundred twenty-eight pieces of poetry and fu. The extant editions of Cao Zhi's writings differ in the number of pieces they contain and present many textual variants. The translations in this volume are based on a valuable edition of Cao's works by Ding Yan (1794-1875), and are supplemented by robust annotations, a brief biography of Cao Zhi, and an introduction to the poetry by the translator.

The medical literature of ancient Greece has been much studied during the 20th century, particularly from the 1970s on. In spite of this intense activity, the search for manuscripts still relies on the catalogue compiled in the early 1900s by a group of philologists led by the German historian of Greek philosophy and medicine Hermann Diels. However useful the so-called Diels has been and still is, it is now in need of a thorough revision. The present five-tome set is a first step in that direction. Tome 1 offers a reproduction of Diels' catalogue with an index of the manuscripts. The following three tomes provide a reconstruction of the texts contained in the manuscripts listed in Diels on the basis of Diels' catalogue. Proceeding as Diels did, these three tomes distinguish the manuscripts containing texts by (or attributed to) Hippocrates (tome 2), Galen (tome 3), and the other authors considered by Diels (tome 4). Tome 5 will list all the texts listed in Diels for each manuscript in the catalogue. The present work will be a reference for all scholars interested in Greek medical literature and manuscripts, in addition to historians of medicine, medical book, medical tradition, and medical culture.

Why were the stars so important in Rome? Their literary presence far outweighs their role as a time-reckoning device, which was in any case superseded by the synchronization of the civil and solar years under Julius Caesar. One answer is their usefulness in symbolizing a universe built on "intelligent design." Predominantly in ancient literature, the stars are seen as the gods' graffiti in the ordered heaven. Moreover, particularly in the Roman world, divine and human governance came to be linked, with one striking manifestation of this connection being the predicted enjoyment of a celestial afterlife by emperors. Aratus' Phaenomena, which describes the layout of the heavens and their effect, through weather, on the lives of men, was an ideal text for expressing such relationships: its didactic style was both accessible and elegant, and it combined the stars with notions of divine and human order. In especially the late Republic extending until the age of Christian humanism, the impact of this poem on the literary environment is out of all proportion to its relatively modest size and the obscurity of its subject matter. It was translated into Latin many times between the first century BC and the Renaissance, and carried lasting influence outside its immediate genre. Aratus and the Astronomical Tradition answers the question of Aratus' popularity by looking at the poem in the light of Western cosmology. It argues that the Phaenomena is the ideal vehicle for the integration of astronomical 'data' into abstract cosmology, a defining feature of the Western tradition. This book embeds Aratus' text into a close network of textual interactions, beginning with the text itself and ending in the sixteenth century, with Copernicus. All conversations between the text and its successors experiment in some way with the balance between cosmology and information. The text was not an inert objet d'art, but a dynamic entity which took on colors often contradictory in the ongoing debate about the place and role of the stars in the world. In this debate Aratus plays a leading, but by no means lonely, role. With this study, students and scholars will have the capability to understand this mysterious poem's place in the unique development of Western cosmology.

The study is a fresh interpretation of the Roman foundation myth and one of the most important Roman festivals - the Lupercalia, an annual celebration of youth and sexuality by Roman men and women. Written with clarity and force the book spans the whole of Roman history and takes the Lupercalia back to its Indo-European roots by presenting clear parallels between Roman and Indian traditions.

The core of this book is the life story of a manuscript codex, British Library Royal MS 13 E IV: the Latin Chronicle (from the Creation to 1300) of Guillaume de Nangis, copied in the abbey library of St-Denis-en-France. The authors shed new light on the production process, identifying the illuminator of the Royal MS and naming the scribe. Detailed evidence links the codex to important events in history, such as the Council of Constance, and famous actors like Jean de France, duc de Berry, Sigismund of Luxembourg, Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, and Henry VIII, to name a few. The authors show how it traveled from one capital to the other, narrating the entire life and interesting times of this codex. Another dimension of this study accounts for all twenty-two copies of the Chronicle, now scattered in nine cities from London to Vienna, placing each one in a scrupulously drawn stemma codicum and sketching its history.

Moving away from the verbal and thematic repetitions that have dominated Homeric studies and exploiting the insights of cognitive psychology, this highly innovative and accessible study focuses on the visual poetics of the Iliad as the narrative is envisioned by the poet and rendered visible. It does so through a close analysis of the often-neglected 'Battle Books'. They here emerge as a coherently visualized narrative sequence rather than as a random series of combats, and this approach reveals, for instance, the significance of Sarpedon's attack on the Achaean Wall and Patroclus' path to destruction. In addition, Professor Strauss Clay suggests new ways of approaching ancient narratives: not only with one's ear, but also with one's eyes. She further argues that the loci system of mnemonics, usually attributed to Simonides, is already fully exploited by the Iliad poet to keep track of his cast of characters and to organize his narrative.

Reading Illegitimacy in Early Iberian Literature presents illegitimacy as a fluid, creative, and negotiable concept in early literature which challenges society's definition of what is acceptable. Through the medieval epic poems Cantar de Mio Cid and Mocedades de Rodrigo, the ballad tradition, Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares, and Lope de Vega's theatre, Geraldine Hazbun demonstrates that illegitimacy and legitimacy are interconnected and flexible categories defined in relation to marriage, sex, bodies, ethnicity, religion, lineage, and legacy. Both categories are subject to the uncertainties and freedoms of language and fiction and frequently constructed around axes of quantity and completeness. These literary texts, covering a range of illegitimate figures, some with an historical basis, demonstrate that truth, propriety, and standards of behaviour are not forged in the law code or the pulpit but in literature's fluid system of producing meaning.

Drawing on Arabic, English, French, Irish, Latin and Spanish sources, the essays share a focus on the body's productive capacity - whether expressed through the flesh's materiality, or through its role in performing meaning. The collection is divided into four clusters. 'Foundations' traces the use of physical remnants of the body in the form of relics or memorial monuments that replicate the form of the body as foundational in communal structures; 'Performing the Body' focuses on the ways in which the individual body functions as the medium through which the social body is maintained; 'Bodily Rhetoric' explores the poetic linkage of body and meaning; and 'Material Bodies' engages with the processes of corporeal being, ranging from the energetic flow of humoural liquids to the decay of the flesh. Together, the essays provide new perspectives on the centrality of the medieval body and underscore the vitality of this rich field of study.

Humanism is usually thought to come to England in the early sixteenth century. In this book, however, Daniel Wakelin uncovers the almost unknown influences of humanism on English literature in the preceding hundred years. He considers the humanist influences on the reception of some of Chaucer's work and on the work of important authors such as Lydgate, Bokenham, Caxton, and Medwall, and in many anonymous or forgotten translations, political treatises, and documents from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. At the heart of his study is a consideration of William Worcester, the fifteenth-century scholar.
Wakelin can trace the influence of humanism much earlier than was thought, because he examines evidence in manuscripts and early printed books of the English study and imitation of antiquity, in polemical marginalia on classical works, and in the ways in which people copied and shared classical works and translations. He also examines how various English works were shaped by such reading habits and, in turn, how those English works reshaped the reading habits of the wider community. Humanism thus, contrary to recent strictures against it, appears not as 'top-down' dissemination, but as a practical process of give-and-take between writers and readers. Humanism thus also prompts writers to imagine their potential readerships in ways which challenge them to re-imagine the political community and the intellectual freedom of the reader. Our views both of the fifteenth century and of humanist literature in English are transformed.