The book shows how the Franciscans in Jerusalem in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries wrote works which standardized the cultural memory of the Holy Land. The experience of the late medieval Holy Land was deeply connected to the presence of the Franciscans of the Convent of Mount Zion in Jerusalem, who welcomed and guided pilgrims. This book analyses this construction of a shared memory based on the continuous availability of these texts in the Franciscan library of Mount Zion, where they were copied and adapted to respond to new historical contexts. This book shows how the Franciscans developed a representation of the Holy Land by elaborating on its history and describing its religious groups and the geography of the region. This representation circulated among pilgrims and influenced how contemporaries imagined the Holy Land

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 relationship between Latin and Greek literature is one of the most fundamental questions for Latin literature, and for the reception of Greek literature. This innovative volume shows some of the contexts in which the interaction of the literatures should be viewed. Professor Hutchinson investigates Roman conceptions of their own literary history and Greek literary history as two chronological sequences, artificially separated, and takes the reader around the Mediterranean to see the different places where Romans encountered Greek art with words. The volume looks at Roman perceptions of the contrasting Greek and Latin languages, and compares in detail Latin adaptation of Greek writing with Latin adaptation of Latin. It views the different approaches to Greek material, ideas, and works between three prose 'super-genres', and within the poetic 'super-genre' of hexameters. It is based on an independent collection of evidence, and draws extensively on inscriptions, archaeology, papyri, scholia, and a wide range of texts.

The standard view in scholarship is that disease in Lucretius' De rerum natura is mainly a problem to be solved and then dispensed with. However, a closer reading suggests that things are more layered and complex than they appear at first sight: just as morbus causes a radical rearrangement of atoms in the body and makes the patient engage with alternative and up to that point unknown dimensions of the sensible world, so does disease as a theme generate a multiplicity of meanings in the text. The present book argues for a reconsideration of morbus in De rerum natura along those lines: it invites the reader to revisit the topic of disease and reflect on the various, and often contrasting, discourses that unfold around it. More specifically, it illustrates how, apart from calling for therapy, disease, due to its dominant presence in the narrative, transforms at the same time into a concept that is integral both to the poem's philosophical agenda but also to its wider aesthetic concerns as a literary product. The book thus sheds new light on De rerum natura's intense preoccupation with morbus by showing how disease is not exclusively conceived by Lucretius as a blind, obliterating force but is crucially linked to life and meaning-both inside and outside the text.

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 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.

More than ten years ago, some mediaevalists of the K.U.Leuven and the University of Ghent joined together to create a repertory of medieval narrative sources focusing on the southern Low Countries. A pre-print was published in a paper version and was soon followed by the electronic database entitled Narrative Sources which is available through the Internet. Since 1996, Narrative Sources has been adapted, supplemented and rearranged every year and over the years the number of inventoried items has been increased to far more than 2150 titles. The information present thus far in Narrative Sources already allows and facilitates the study of the sources as such, individually or collectively, qualitatively or quantitatively.In a next step the goal would be the exploitation of the contents, with a specific focus on monastic historiography, its social setting, and self-image. In this book some of the scholars working on this project present their work, their methodology and their results to-date.

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 Ruthwell Cross is one of the finest Anglo-Saxon high crosses that have come down to us. The longest epigraphic text in the Old English Runes Corpus is inscribed on two sides of the monument: it forms an alliterative poem, in which the Cross itself narrates the crucifixion episode. Parts of the inscription are irrevocably lost. This study establishes a historico-cultural context for the Ruthwell Cross's texts and sculptures. It shows that The Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem is an integral part of a Christian artefact but also an independent text. Although its verses match closely with lines of The Dream of the Rood in the Vercelli Book, a comparative analysis gives new insight into their complex relationship. An annotated transliteration of the runes offers intriguing information for runologists. Detailed linguistic and metrical analyses finally yield a new reconstruction of the lost runes. All in all, this study takes a fresh look at the Ruthwell Cross and provides the first scholarly edition of the reconstructed Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem-one of the earliest religious poems of Anglo-Saxon England. It will be of interest to scholars and students of historical linguistics, medieval English literature and culture, art history, and archaeology.

Where is the pleasure in tragedy? This question, how suffering and sorrow become the stuff of aesthetic delight, is at the center of Charles Segal's new book, which collects and expands his recent explorations of Euripides' art.
"Alcestis, Hippolytus," and "Hecuba," the three early plays interpreted here, are linked by common themes of violence, death, lamentation and mourning, and by their implicit definitions of male and female roles. Segal shows how these plays draw on ancient traditions of poetic and ritual commemoration, particularly epic song, and at the same time refashion these traditions into new forms. In place of the epic muse of martial glory, Euripides, Segal argues, evokes a muse of sorrows who transforms the suffering of individuals into a "common grief for all the citizens," a community of shared feeling in the theater.
Like his predecessors in tragedy, Euripides believes death, more than any other event, exposes the deepest truth of human nature. Segal examines the revealing final moments in "Alcestis, Hippolytus," and "Hecuba," and discusses the playwright's use of these deaths--especially those of women--to question traditional values and the familiar definitions of male heroism. Focusing on gender, the affective dimension of tragedy, and ritual mourning and commemoration, Segal develops and extends his earlier work on Greek drama. The result deepens our understanding of Euripides' art and of tragedy itself.

The Mahabharata preserves powerful journeys of women recognized as the feminine divine and the feminine heroic in the larger culture of India. Each journey upholds the unique aspects of women's life. This book analytically examines the narratives of eleven women from the Mahabharata in the historical context as well as in association with religious and cultural practices. Lavanya Vemsani brings together history, myth, religion, and practice to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the history of Hindu women, as well as their significance within religious Indian culture. Additionally, Vemsani provides important perspective for understanding the enduring legacy of these women in popular culture and modern society.

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.

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.

This book consists of individual studies of Pindar's eleven odes for Aiginetan victors, preceded by a brief survey of the history of the island and the nature of its aristocracy. Anne Pippin Burnett's discussion is particularly attentive to questions of mythic self-presentation, as exemplified in the pedimental sculptures of the Aphaia Temple and the parallel "narrative" sections of the odes. The overall concern is with Pindaric techniques for unifying an audience and leading it into a shared experience of inspired success, but there is also a concern with the realities of athletic contest and its celebration.

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.

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.

This study approaches virtus as a moral value concept. The author argues that it is only through conceptual analysis that the meaning and value of virtus are given adequate illustration, and that philology should be regarded as a part of practical philosophy. The study covers Roman literature from the beginnings until Livy. During the Roman Republican Age, virtus was considered a man's contribution to his society and state, in terms of collectivism. Virtus ('manliness') was thought to be more real than any of its particular and transitory representations, i.e. individual male citizens. On the other hand, as an existentialist value concept, virtus at a relatively early stage denoted a man's intrinsic or ontic value or his true self, without regard to any worldly success whatsoever. The final analysis shows that virtus ('virtue') is congruous with or even synonymous to individualism. This book also presents a contribution to gender studies from the standpoint of a man.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chaucerian Conflict explores the textual environment of London in the 1380s and 1390s, revealing a language of betrayal, surveillance, slander, treason, rebellion, flawed idealism, and corrupted compaignyes. Taking a strongly interdisciplinary approach, it examines how discourses about social antagonism work across different kinds of texts written at this time, including Chaucer's House of Fame, Troilus and Criseyde, and Canterbury Tales, and other literary texts such as St Erkenwald, Gower's Vox clamantis, Usk's Testament of Love, and Maidstone's Concordia. Many non-literary texts are also discussed, including the Mercers' Petition, Usk's Appeal, the guild returns, judicial letters, de Mezieres's Letter to Richard II, and chronicle accounts.
These were tumultuous decades in London: some of the conflicts and problems discussed include the Peasants' Revolt, the mayoral rivalries of the 1380s, the Merciless Parliament, slander legislation, and contemporary suspicion of urban associations. While contemporary texts try to hold out hope for the future, or imagine an earlier Golden Age, Chaucer's texts foreground social conflict and antagonism. Though most critics have promoted an idea of Chaucer's texts as essentially socially optimistic and congenial, Marion Turner argues that Chaucer presents a vision of a society that is inevitably divided and destructive.

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.