In 1583, five Jesuit brothers set out with the intention of founding a new church and mission in India. Their dream was almost immediately, and brutally, terminated by local opposition. When their massacre was announced in Rome, it was treated as martyrdom. Francesco Benci, professor of rhetoric at the Collegium Romanum, immediately set about celebrating their deaths in a new type of epic, distinct from, yet dependent upon, the classical tradition: Quinque martyres e Societate Iesu in India. This is the first critical edition and translation of this important text. The commentary highlights both the classical sources and the historical and religious context of the mission. The introduction outlines Benci's career and stresses his role as the founder of this vibrant new genre. This volume is the first one for a new subseries in the 'Jesuit Studies' series: 'Jesuit Neo-Latin Library'.

Lysistrata is the most notorious of Aristophanes' comedies. First staged in 411 BCE, its action famously revolves around a sex strike launched by the women of Greece in an attempt to force their husbands to end the war. With its risque humour, vibrant battle of the sexes, and themes of war and peace, Lysistrata remains as daring and thought-provoking today as it would have been for its original audience in Classical Athens. Aristophanes: Lysistrata is a lively and engaging introduction to this play aimed at students and scholars of classical drama alike. It sets Lysistrata in its social and historical context, looking at key themes such as politics, religion and its provocative portrayal of women, as well as the play's language, humour and personalities, including the formidable and trailblazing Lysistrata herself. Lysistrata has often been translated, adapted and performed in the modern era and this book also traces the ways in which it has been re-imagined and re-presented to new audiences. As this reception history reveals, Lysistrata's appeal in the modern world lies not only in its racy subject matter, but also in its potential to be recast as a feminist, pacifist or otherwise subversive play that openly challenges the political and social status quo.

This is the first volume dedicated to Plautus' perennially popular comedy Casina that analyses the play for a student audience and assumes no knowledge of Latin. It launches a much-needed new series of books, each discussing a comedy that survives from the ancient world. Four chapters highlight the play's historical context, themes, performance and reception, including its reflection of recent societal trends in marriage and property ownership by women after the Punic Wars, and its complex dynamics on stage. It is ideal for students, but helpful also for scholars wanting a brief introduction to the play. Casina pits a husband (Lysidamus) and wife (Cleostrata) against each other in a struggle for control of a 16-year-old slave named Casina. Cleostrata cleverly plots to frustrate the efforts of her lascivious elderly husband, staging a cross-dressing 'marriage' that culminates in his complete humiliation. The play provides rich insights into relationships within the Roman family. This volume analyses how Casina addresses such issues as women's status and property rights, the distribution of power within a Roman household, and sexual violence, all within a compellingly meta-comic framework from which Cleostrata emerges as a surprising comic hero. It also examines the play's enduring popularity and relevance.

In The Lyon Terence Giulia Torello-Hill and Andrew J. Turner take an unprecedented interdisciplinary approach to map out the influence of late-antique and medieval commentary and iconographic traditions over this seminal edition of the plays of Terence, published in Lyon in 1493, and examine its legacy. The work had a profound impact on the way Terence's plays were read and understood throughout the sixteenth century, but its influence has been poorly recognised in modern scholarship. The authors establish the pivotal role that this book, and its editor Badius, played in the revitalisation of the theoretical understanding of classical comedy and in the revival of the plays of Terence that foreshadowed the establishment of early modern theatre in Italy and France.

The missing piece in so many histories of Mesopotamian technical disciplines is the client, who often goes unnoticed by present-day scholars seeking to reconstruct ancient disciplines in the Near East over millennia. The contributions to this volume investigate how Mesopotamian medical specialists interacted with their patients and, in doing so, forged their social and professional identities. The chapters in this book explore rituals for success at court, the social classes who made use of such rituals, and depictions of technical specialists on seal impressions and in later Greco-Roman iconography. Several essays focus on Egalkura: rituals of entering the court, meant to invoke a favorable impression from the sovereign. These include detailed surveys and comparative studies of the genre and its roots in the emergent astrological paradigm of the late first millennium BC. The different media and modalities of interaction between technical specialists and their clients are also a central theme explored in detailed studies of the sickbed scene in the iconography of Mesopotamian cylinder seals and the transmission of specialized pharmaceutical knowledge from the Mesopotamian to the Greco-Roman world. Offering an encyclopedic survey of ritual clients attested in the cuneiform textual record, this volume outlines both the Mesopotamian and the Greco-Roman social contexts in which these rituals were used. It will be of interest to students of the history of medicine, as well as to students and scholars of ancient Mesopotamia. In addition to the editor, the contributors include Netanel Anor, Siam Bhayro, Strahil V. Panayotov, Maddalena Rumor, Marvin Schreiber, JoAnn Scurlock, and Ulrike Steinert.

Sophocles was the Aaron Spelling of ancient Greek world--his plays had all the makings of a modern soap But archaic translations of his ancient work make it almost impossible to see any of the Melrose Place-like plots BookCaps can help readers who have struggled in the past with Sophocles classic plays with this modern retelling. This book contains all the plays in Sophocles Oedipus Trilogy (Oedipus the King, Oedipus At Colonus, and Antigone) These plays are also available individually. The original text is also presented in the book, along with a comparable version of both text. We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.

Polyneices and Eteocles, two brothers leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, have both been killed in battle. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, has declared that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices disgraced. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites, and will lay unburied to become the food of carrion animals. Defying Creon's edict Antigone buries her brother and in so doing unleashes a terrible tragedy.

Adventure, sex, magic, robbery, and dramatic declamatory displays play a central role in the plot of Apuleius' Metamorphoses III. This volume completes the prestigious Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius series, which is available in its entirety as a digital resource as well: Apuleius Online. This volume on book III presents a new text of Metamorphoses III provided with an English translation and a full commentary, which covers literary, linguistic, textual, narratological, and socio-cultural matters. The introduction casts new light on many aspects of Apuleius' novel, including its relationship with its lost Greek model, with the Greek love novels and with other genres (epic, poetry, declamation), Apuleius' elaborate style, the narratological features of book III and its main themes. An appendix is devoted to the manuscript transmission of the Metamorphoses: it factors in new textual evidence gathered from the first examination of several recentiores since Oudendorp (1786) and Hildebrand (1842).

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

The Republic is a dialogue by Plato in which the famous Athenian philosopher examines the nature of an ideal society. The insights are profound and timeless. A landmark of Western literature, The Republic is essential reading for philosophy students.

Euripides' Medea is one of the most popular Greek tragedies in the contemporary theatre. Numerous modern adaptations see the play as painting a picture of the struggle of the powerless under the powerful, of women against men, of foreigners versus natives. The play has been adapted into colonial and historical contexts to lend its powerful resonances to issues of current import. Black Medea is an anthology of six adaptations of the Euripidean tragedy by contemporary American playwrights that present Medea as a woman of color, combined with interviews, analytical essays and introductions which frame the original and adaptations. Placing six adaptations side by side and interviewing the playwrights in order to gain their insights into their work allows the reader to see how an ancient Greek tragedy has been used by contemporary American artists to frame and understand African American history. Of the six plays present in the volume, three have never before been published and one of the others has been out of print for almost thirty years. Thus the volume makes available to students, scholars and artists a significant body of dramatic work not currently available. Black Medea is an important book for scholars, students, artists and libraries in African American studies, classics, theatre and performance studies, women and gender Studies, adaptation theory and literature. Theatre companies, universities, community theatres, and other producing organizations will also be interested in the volume.

The magnum opus of Plato's writings that detail out the utopia that Socrates had thought of when debating with his contemporaries in ancient Greece. While many people have criticized these views over the years, these ideas have sparked many ideas of what makes government work and what does not as well as laying down the foundations for our own democratic systems in the present day. Socrates has many things to say about people and society in general making it a very enlightening piece of work.