Bacchae is one of the most troubling yet intriguing of Greek tragedies. Written during Euripides' self-imposed exile in Macedonia, it tells of the brutal murder and dismemberment of Pentheus by his mother and aunts who, driven temporarily insane, have joined the Bacchae (devotees of the god Dionysus, or Bacchus). The startling plot, driven by Dionysus' desire to punish his family for refusing to accept his divinity, and culminating in the excruciating pathos of a mother's realization that she has killed her son, has held audiences transfixed since its original performance (when it won first prize). It is one of the most performed and studied plays in the Greek tragic corpus, with a strong history of reception down to the present day. This collection of essays by eminent academics gathered from across the globe explores the themes, staging and reception of the play, with essays on the characters Dionysus and Pentheus, the role of the chorus of Bacchae, key themes such as revenge, women and religion, and the historical and literary contexts of the play. The essays are accompanied by David Stuttard's English translation which is performer-friendly, accessible and closely accurate to the original.

"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.

Disciplining Christians reconsiders several of Augustine's most well-known letter exchanges, including his famously controversial correspondence with Jerome and his efforts to engage his Donatist rivals in a letter exchange. It reads these letters with close attention to conventional epistolary norms and practices, in an effort to identify innovative features of Augustine's epistolary practice. In particular, it notes and analyzes Augustine's adaptation of the traditionally friendly letter exchange to the correction of perceived error in the Christian community. In transforming the practice of letter exchange into a tool of correction, Augustine draws on both the classical philosophical tradition and also scripture. His particular innovation is his insistence that this process of correction can-and often must-be done in the potentially public form of a letter exchange rather than in the privacy of a face-to-face conversation. This is particularly true when the perceived error is one that has the potential to jeopardize the salvation of the entire Christian community. In offering epistolary correction, and requesting reciprocal correction from his correspondents, Augustine treats his practice of letter exchange as a performance of Christian caritas. Indeed, in his view, the friendliest correspondence was that which was concerned solely with preserving the salvation of the participants. In recognizing Augustine's commitment to the corrective correspondence and thus reading his letters with attention to their corrective function, we gain new insights into the complicated dynamics of Augustine's relationships with Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, the Donatists, and Pelagius.

Creation, Migration, and Conquest: Imaginary Geography and Sense of Space in Old English Literature explores the Anglo-Saxons' spatial imaginaire; tracing its political, literary, and intellectual backgrounds and analyzing how this imaginaire shapes perceptions and representations of geographical space. The book elaborates new interpretative paradigms, drawing on the work of continental scholars and literary critics, and on complementing interdisciplinary scholarship of medieval imaginary spaces and their representations. It gathers evidence from both Old English verse and historico-geographical documents, and focuses on the juncture between traditional scientific learning and the symbolic values attributed to space and orientation. Combining close reading with an original theoretical model, Creation, Migration, and Conquest offers innovative interpretations of celebrated texts and highlights the links between place, identity, and collective identity.

"A" "Companion to Medieval Poetry" presents a series of original essays from leading literary scholars that explore English poetry from the Anglo-Saxon period up to the 15th century. Organised into three parts to echo the chronological and stylistic divisions between the Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Post-Chaucerian periods, each section is introduced with contextual essays, providing a valuable introduction to the society and culture of the timeCombines a general discussion of genres of medieval poetry, with specific consideration of texts and authors, including "Beowulf," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Chaucer, Gower and LanglandFeatures original essays by eminent scholars, including Andy Orchard, Carl Schmidt, Douglas Gray, and Barry Windeatt, who present a range of theoretical, historical, and cultural approaches to reading medieval poetry, as well as offering close analysis of individual texts and traditions

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.

New essays on aspects of Gower's poetry, viewed through the lens of the self and beyond. The topics of "selfhood" and "otherness" lie at the heart of these new assessments of John Gower's poetry. The first part of the book, on knowing the self and others, focuses on cognition, brain functions, imagination, and the internal and external factors that affect one's sense of being, from sensation and inner emotive effects within body parts to cosmic perspectives, morality, and theology as voiced by language and storytelling. The second, on the essence of strangers, explores the interconnections of sensation and aesthetics; it also considers kinds of social dysfunction, whether through racial or gender conflict, or religious and political warfare.The final part of the booklooks at social ethics and ethical poets, reassessing two of Gower's perpetual concerns: honest government and honest craft. It considers Gower as a constitutional thinker, whether in terms of law, judicial corruption, or a society of businessmen who would rewrite ethics in terms of business models. It concludes with an examination of the Confessio in the culture of Portugal and Spain. Russell Peck is the John Hall Deane Professor of English at the University of Rochester: R. F. Yeager is Professor of English at the University of West Florida. Contributors: Stephanie L. Batkie, Helen Cooper, Brian W. Gastle, Matthew Giancarlo, Matthew W. Irvin, Yoshiko Kobayashi, Robert J. Meindl, Peter Nicholson, Maura Nolan, Gabrielle Parkin, Russell A. Peck, Ana Saez-Hidalgo, Larry Scanlon, Karla Taylor, Kim Zarins, R.F. Yeager,

A new collective volume with over twenty important studies on less well-studied dialects of ancient Greek, particularly of the northern regions. The book covers geographically a broad area of the classical Greek world ranging from Central Greece to the overseas Greek colonies of Thrace and the Black Sea. Particular emphasis is placed on the epichoric varieties of areas on the northern fringe of the classical Greek world, including Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia. Recent advances in research are taken into consideration in providing state-of-the art accounts of these understudied dialects, but also of more well-known dialects like Lesbian. In addition, other papers address special intriguing topics in these, but also in other dialects, such as Thessalian, Lesbian and Ionic, or focus on important multi-dialectal corpora such as the oracular tablets from Dodona. Finally, a number of studies examine broader topics like the supraregional Doric koinai or the concept of dialect continuum, or even explore the possibility of an ancient Balkansprachbund, which included Greek too. This new reference work covers a gap in current research and will be indispensable for people interested in Greek dialectology and ancient Greek in general.

God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination is a unique exploration of the relationship between the ancient Romans' visual and literary cultures and their imagination. Drawing on a vast range of ancient sources, poetry and prose, texts, and material culture from all levels of Roman society, it analyses how the Romans used, conceptualized, viewed, and moved around their city. Jenkyns pays particular attention to the other inhabitants of Rome, the gods, and investigates how the Romans experienced and encountered them, with a particular emphasis on the personal and subjective aspects of religious life. Through studying interior spaces, both secular (basilicas, colonnades, and forums) and sacred spaces (the temples where the Romans looked upon their gods) and their representation in poetry, the volume also follows the development of an architecture of the interior in the great Roman public works of the first and second centuries AD. While providing new insights into the working of the Romans' imagination, it also offers powerful challenges to some long established orthodoxies about Roman religion and cultural behaviour.

Cicero has played a pivotal role in shaping Western culture. His public persona, his self-portrait as model of Roman prose, philosopher, and statesman, has exerted a durable and profound impact on the educational system and the formation of the ruling class over the centuries. Joining up with recent studies on the reception of Cicero, this volume approaches the figure of Cicero from a 'biographical', more than 'philological', perspective and considers the multiple ways by which different ages reacted to Cicero and created their 'Ciceros'. From Cicero's lifetime to our times, it focuses on how the image of Cicero was revisited and reworked by intellectuals and men of culture, who eulogized his outstanding oratorical and political virtues but, not rarely, questioned the role he had in Roman politics and society. An international group of scholars elaborates on the figure of Cicero, shedding fresh light on his reception in late antiquity, Humanism and Renaissance, Enlightenment and modern centuries. Historians, literary scholars and philosophers, as well as graduate students, will certainly profit from this volume, which contributes enormously to our understanding of the influence of Cicero on Western culture over the times.

The ancient Dormition and Assumption traditions are the earliest accounts of the Virgin Mary's departure from this life. They first developed in the eastern Mediterranean during the early Christian period. This book presents the first systematic study of these traditions in the English language, and it is intended as an introduction to the earliest traditions. Significant appendices include the first English translations of several of the most important narratives. The book will be of interest to all scholars of early Christian literature.

The advances in Xenophontic studies of the last generation have still not resulted in a definitive literary treatment of the Hellenica 1-2, so Xenophon's description of the Peloponnesian War deserves closer examination. This book aims to show that Xenophon has crafted his narrative in such a way as to reinforce the opinion of Thucydides, whose work he continued, that the development of the Peloponnesian War depended to a great extent on Persian money, but the factors that ultimately determined its outcome were the moral virtues and the skills of the military leaders of Athens and Sparta. Regarding Athens, Xenophon wants to show that despite Persia's support of Sparta, Athens lost the war because of its troubled relationship with Alcibiades; the moral disintegration of the Athenians who condemned illegally the Arginousai generals and the appointment of generals who were greatly inferior. Concerning Sparta, Xenophon leads his readers to believe that in spite of- not because of- the interference of Persia in the Peloponnesian War the moral and military qualities of Lysander and Callicratidas were what turned the course of the war either in favor of or against Sparta in each phase of the war.

Roslyn Weiss contends that, contrary to prevailing notions, Plato's Crito does not show an allegiance between Socrates and the state that condemned him. Weiss argues that Socrates considers the laws of the state to be more concerned with creating deference than justice, and asserts that, by submitting to his judgement, Socrates acts from a personal sense of justice rather than a set of imposed rules.

Giovanni Villani's New Chronicle traces the history of Europe, Italy, and Florence over a vast sweep of time - from the Tower of Babel to the great earthquake of 1348. In the eleventh and twelfth books, Villani depicts a particularly eventful period in the history of Florence, whose grandeur is illustrated in several famous chapters describing the city's income, expenses, and magnificence. The dramatic account follows Florence's internal affairs as well as its conflicts with powerful lords like Castruccio Castracani and Mastino della Scala. The chronicler's perspective, however, ranges beyond his city, as he documents such events as the imperial coronation of Louis of Bavaria, the penitential pilgrimage of Venturino da Bergamo, and the first campaigns of the Hundred Year's War.

Aristophanes' Peace was performed at the City Dionysia in Athens in 421 BC as a decade-long war with Sparta seemed finally to be drawing to an end, and is one of only eleven extant plays by the greatest Old Comic poet. Olson's edition of the play, which replaces Platnauer's of 1969, is based on a complete new collation of the manuscripts, many of which have never been adequately reported before. The extensive commentary explores matters of all sorts, but it focuses in particular on the realities of day-to-day life in classical Athens and also examines the practical problems of staging. The substantial introduction includes essays on Aristophanes' early career, the politics of the Greek world in the late 420s, and the poet's theology.

Alcestis is one of Euripides' richest and most brilliant - as well as most controversial - plays. But, apart from D. J. Conacher's student text, no annotated edition in English has appeared for more than fifty years. The present work is designed to aid close reading and to serve as an introduction to the serious study of the play in its various aspects. The introduction covers the background to the story in myth and folktale, its treatment by other writers from antiquity to the present, the critical reception of Euripides' play, and its textual transmission and metres. The notes are designed in particular to help readers who have been learning Greek for a relatively short time. More advanced matter, such as discussion of textual problems, is placed in square brackets at the end of the note.

Despite the ubiquitous importance of medicine in Roman literature, philosophy, and social history, the language of Latin medical texts has not been properly studied. This book presents the first systematic account of a part of this large, rich field. Concentrating on texts of `high' medicine written in educated, even literary, Latin Professor Langslow offers a detailed linguistic profile of the medical terminology of Celsus and Scribonius Largus (first century AD) and Theodorus Priscianus and Cassius Felix (fifth century AD), with frequent comparisons with their respective near-contemporaries. The linguistic focus is on vocabulary and word-formation and the book thus addresses the large question of the possible and the preferred means of extending the vocabulary in Latin at the beginning and end of the Empire. Some syntactic issues (including word order and nominalization) are also discussed, and sections on the sociolinguistic background and stylistic features consider the question to what extent we may speak of `medical Latin' in the strong sense, as the language of a group, and draw comparisons and contrasts between ancient and modern technical languages.

The aim of this book is to explore the definition(s) of 'theatre' and 'metatheatre' that scholars use when studying the ancient Greek world. Although in modern languages their meaning is mostly straightforward, both concepts become problematical when applied to ancient reality. In fact, 'theatre' as well as 'metatheatre' are used in many different, sometimes even contradictory, ways by modern scholars. Through a series of papers examining questions related to ancient Greek theatre and dramatic performances of various genres the use of those two terms is problematized and put into question. Must ancient Greek theatre be reduced to what was performed in proper theatre-buildings? And is everything was performed within such buildings to be considered as 'theatre'? How does the definition of what is considered as theatre evolve from one period to the other? As for 'metatheatre', the discussion revolves around the interaction between reality and fiction in dramatic pieces of all genres. The various definitions of 'metatheatre' are also explored and explicited by the papers gathered in this volume, as well as the question of the distinction between paratheatre (understood as paratragedy/comedy) and metatheatre. Readers will be encouraged by the diversity of approaches presented in this book to re-think their own understanding and use of 'theatre' and 'metatheatre' when examining ancient Greek reality.

Pre-modern critical interactions of nature and society can best be studied during the so-called "Crisis of the 14th Century". While historiography has long ignored the environmental framing of historcial processes and scientists have over-emphasized nature's impact on the course of human history, this volume tries to describe the at times complex modes of the late-medieval relationship of man and nature. The idea of 'teleconnection', borrowed from the geosciences, describes the influence of atmospheric circulation patterns often over long distances. It seems that there were 'teleconnections' in society, too. So this volumes aims to examine man-environment interactions mainly in the 14th century from all over Europe and beyond. It integrates contributions from different disciplines on impact, perception and reaction of environmental change and natural extreme events on late Medieval societies. For humanists from all historical disciplines it offers an approach how to integrate written and even scientific evidence on environmental change in established and new fields of historical research. For scientists it demonstrates the contributions scholars from the humanities can provide for discussion on past environmental changes.

This book explores central aspects of the period in Latin literature often depreciatingly termed 'Silver'. It is unusual in embracing both poetry and prose, and in offering close literary discussion of a large number of particular passages. It is not a history, but a selective and comparative study-throwing fresh light on the period as a whole, on individual authors, and on differences and affinities between genres. Most space is given to epic and tragedy, and to the prose of Seneca and Tacitus; but Juvenal, Martial, the Younger Pliny, and other authors are also treated. The book also considers large features of genre and relates these to fundamental elements of style and to the treatment of some vital themes. It aims to give the reader a feeling for this brilliant, and extraordinary writing, and a sense of the excitement and fascination of the literary period. All Latin in the text is translated.

Essays on the complexity of multilingualism in medieval England. Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne's scholarship on the French of England - a term she indeed coined for the mix of linguistic, cultural, and political elements unique to the pluri-lingual situation of medieval England - is of immenseimportance to the field. The essays in this volume extend, honour and complement her path-breaking work. They consider exchanges between England and other parts of Britain, analysing how communication was effected where languagesdiffered, and probe cross-Channel relations from a new perspective. They also examine the play of features within single manuscripts, and with manuscripts in conversation with each other. And they discuss the continuing reach ofthe French of England beyond the Middle Ages: in particular, how it became newly relevant to discussions of language and nationalism in later centuries. Whether looking at primary sources such as letters and official documents, orat creative literature, both religious and secular, the contributions here offer fruitful and exciting approaches to understanding what the French of England can tell us about medieval Britain and the European world beyond. Thelma Fenster is Professor Emerita of French and Medieval Studies, Fordham University; Carolyn Collette is Professor of English Language and Literature at Mount Holyoke College. Contributors: Christopher Baswell,Emma Campbell, Paul Cohen, Carolyn Collette, Thelma Fenster, Robert Hanning, Richard Ingham, Maryanne Kowaleski, Serge Lusignan, Thomas O'Donnell, W. Mark Ormrod, Monika Otter, Felicity Riddy, Delbert Russell, Fiona Somerset, +Robert M. Stein, Andrew Taylor, Nicholas Watson, R.F. Yeager

This book is a study of a colourful Athenian Politician of the fourth century BC, Apollodoros the son of Pasion. It provides the first full-length treatment of his career and of the seven law-court speeches he delivered, which have come down to us attributed - wrongly - to the famous orator Demosthenes. These speeches, which are our main source of information about Apollodoros, not only tell us about his political career but also illuminate Athenian banking and social attitudes, since his father had risen from servile origins to become a very wealthy banker and, ultimately, an Athenian citizen. Dr Trevett also considers the authenticity, style, and rhetorical technique of the speeches, and argues conclusively that they were all written by the same author, who was probably Apollodoros himself. At the same time, he shows that the speeches were composed with considerably more skill than has generally been recognized.

The Horatian formula prodesse et delectare was extremely influential in the production of texts across various languages and genres. While indeed didactic elements can be attested to in almost any medieval text, and while medieval literature displays a range of possibilities to teach and instruct, the scope of the present volume is more closely focused on explicitly didactic literature. This volume combines contributions that analyse didactic literature in high medieval Europe from different vantage points. They open new perspectives on education as a working principle or legitimizing strategy in the heterogeneous forms of writing intended to convey knowledge. This broad thematic, linguistic and geographical scope enables us to view didactic literature as the universal phenomenon it was and prompts us to understand its influence on many aspects of society in high medieval Europe and beyond. While the contributions explore case studies predominantly from this period of transition and the expansion of the categories of knowledge, they also trace some of these developments into the later Middle Ages to spotlight the lasting influence of high medieval teaching and learning in literature. The way medieval writers combine 'the pleasant' with 'the useful' is this book's main question.