In this first introduction to Plautus' Trinummus, students and non-specialists alike are guided through the themes, context, and enduring humor of this Roman comedy. The play portrays the story of an elaborate game of keep-away involving a hidden treasure, a hot-blooded spendthrift youth, his pious sister, her would-be fiancee, a con-artist, and the most unlikely of comic schemers-a group of overly pious old men. The conflict of the plot focuses on whether a pair of old men can help their absent friend Charmides by getting a dowry to his daughter without Charmides' wastrel son Lesbonicus first spending the money on the usual comic debauchery. The money is taken from a treasure hidden by Charmides when he left and a sycophant is hired to pretend to bring letters from Charmides along with the cash for the dowry. Comic confusion ensues when Charmides returns from abroad just in time to intercept the con-artist and overturn the scheming of his friends. Long neglected, Trinummus is one of many Plautine plays that is experiencing a resurgence. This volume elucidates the humor of the play, which is largely based on parody and clever inversions of typical characters and situations from Roman comedy. This discussion is accompanied by an examination of the religious, social, and historical context of the play, as well as its modern reception. The genuine humor of Trinummus has something to say to modern readers, as it showcases how parody can skewer those engaged in pompous moral posturing and presents readers with a playwright who astutely views issues of imperialism and moral justification through a comic lens.

In 399 BC Socrates was prosecuted, convicted, sentenced to death and executed. These events were the culmination of a long philosophical career, a career in which, without writing a word, he established himself as the figure whom all philosophers of the next few generations wished to follow. The Apologies (or Defence Speeches) by Plato and Xenophon are rival accounts of how, at his trial, Socrates defended himself and his philosophy. This edition brings together both Apologies within a single volume. The commentary answers literary, linguistic and philosophical questions in a way that is suitable for readers of all levels, helping teachers and students engage more closely with the Greek texts. The introduction examines Socrates himself, the literature generated by his trial, Athenian legal procedures, his guilt or innocence of the crimes for which he was executed, and the rivalry between Xenophon and Plato.

The third book of Lucretius' great poem on the workings of the universe is devoted entirely to expounding the implications of Epicurus' dictum that death does not matter, 'is nothing to us'. The soul is not immortal: it no more exists after the dissolution of the body than it had done before its birth. Only if this fact is accepted can men rid themselves of irrational fears and achieve the state of ataraxia, freedom from mental disturbance, on which the Epicurean definition of pleasure was based. To present this case Lucretius deploys the full range of poetic and rhetorical registers, soberly prohibitive, artfully decorative or passionately emotive as best suits his argument, reinforcing it with vivid and compelling imagery. This new edition has been completely revised, with a considerably enlarged Commentary and a new supplementary introduction taking account of the great amount of new scholarship of the last forty years.

The Iliad has had a far-reaching impact on Western literature and culture, inspiring writers, artists and classical composers across the ages. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by classicist, writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes, author of A Thousand Ships and host of her own BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics. Paris, a Trojan prince, wins Helen as his prize for judging a beauty contest between three goddesses, and abducts her from her Greek husband Menelaos. The Greeks, enraged by his audacity, sail to Troy and begin a long siege of the city. The Iliad is set in the tenth year of the war. Achilles - the greatest Greek warrior - is angry with his commander, Agamemnon, for failing to show him respect. He refuses to fight any longer, which is catastrophic for the Greeks, and results in personal tragedy for Achilles, too. With themes of war, rage, grief and love, The Iliad remains powerful and enthralling more than 2,700 years after it was composed. This edition is translated into prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers.

Sing of rage, Goddess, that bane of Akhilleus, Peleus' son, which caused untold pain for Akhaians, sent down throngs of powerful spirits to Aides, war-chiefs rendered the prize of dogs and everysort of bird.

Edward McCrorie's new translation of Homer's classic epic of the Trojan War captures the falling rhythms of a doomed Troy. McCrorie presents the sundry epithets and resonant symbols of Homer's verse style and remains as close to the Greek's meaning as research allows.

The work is an epic with a flexible contemporary feel to it, capturing the wide-ranging tempos of the original. It underscores the honor of soldiers and dwells upon the machinations of "Moira," each man's and woman's portion in life.

Noted Homeric scholar Erwin Cook contributes a substantial introduction and extensive notes written to guide both students and general readers through relevant elements of ancient Greek history and culture. This version of the " Iliad" is ideal for readings and performances.

"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus / and its devastation." For sixty years, that's how Homer has begun the "Iliad" in English, in Richmond Lattimore's faithful translation--the gold standard for generations of students and general readers.
This long-awaited new edition of Lattimore's "Iliad" is designed to bring the book into the twenty-first century--while leaving the "poem" as firmly rooted in ancient Greece as ever. Lattimore's elegant, fluent verses--with their memorably phrased heroic epithets and remarkable fidelity to the Greek--remain unchanged, but classicist Richard Martin has added a wealth of supplementary materials designed to aid new generations of readers. A new introduction sets the poem in the wider context of Greek life, warfare, society, and poetry, while line-by-line notes at the back of the volume offer explanations of unfamiliar terms, information about the Greek gods and heroes, and literary appreciation. A glossary and maps round out the book.
The result is a volume that actively invites readers into Homer's poem, helping them to understand fully the worlds in which he and his heroes lived--and thus enabling them to marvel, as so many have for centuries, at Hektor and Ajax, Paris and Helen, and the devastating rage of Achilleus.

The Poetics is a fundamental text that examines the development, production and effectiveness of poetry as it pertains to a writer and their intended audience. The author uses notable works to educate the reader on specific themes and methodology. The Poetics gives a basic definition of poetry that establishes format and intent. It's an early representation of criticism that explores the allure of literature, specifically tragedy. Aristotle provides the essential function of plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle. Each piece works together to create a cohesive story that delivers an emotional response. This can include a range of plot points highlighting love, loss, pain or acceptance. With this construction, the author elevates the narrative from superficial to significant. An examination of literary prose that illustrates the chief elements of poetry. The Poetics is a celebration of storytelling across multiple genres including tragedy, epics and romance. It's a revealing exploration of the potential and power of art. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Poetics is both modern and readable.

How is the history of antiquity told, and what is the role of narrativity in transforming the image of antiquity? This volume addresses the highly charged intersection between experience, narrative, and history that may be apprehended when we consider the great diversity of narrative practices in literature, the visual arts, and historiography. Individual chapters explore transformations in the imagery, content, stories, and narrative modes of antiquity as they were appropriated in medieval and early modern chronicles, images, and epics.

Nemesianus s didactic poem about hunting, written in 283-84 AD, is based in its structure and conception on Vergil s Georgics, the classical model for the genre. In its presentation of hunting as a leisure sport, the Cynegetica provides an un-heroic counterpoint to earlier hunting poems. This new critical edition includes extensive and detailed philological commentary. It also considers broader questions, such as the relationship to cynegetic literature, genre-related elements, and the author s self-perception."

This collection of essays analyzes the construction of the fall of Rome from a range of perspectives native to different disciplines. Subjects addressed include comparable discourses dating from the earlier history of Rome, the perception of this historical moment by writers living at the time it occurred, and its reception in Byzantium and Western Europe during the Middle Ages."

Cicero saw publication as a means of perpetuating a distinctive image of himself as statesman and orator. He memorialized his spiritual and oratorical self by means of a very solid body of texts. Educationalists and schoolteachers in antiquity relied on Cicero's oratory to supervise the growth of the young into intellectual maturity. By reconstructing the main phases of textual transmission, from the first authorial dissemination of the speeches to the medieval manuscripts, and by re-examining the abundant evidence on Ciceronian scholarship from the first to the sixth century CE, Cicero and Roman Education traces the history of the exegetical tradition on Cicero's oratory and re-assesses the 'didactic' function of the speeches, whose preservation was largely determined by pedagogical factors.

Pliny the Younger's nine-book Epistles is a masterpiece of Roman prose. Often mined as a historical and pedagogical sourcebook, this collection of 'private' letters is now finding recognition as a rich and rewarding work in its own right. The second book is a typically varied yet taut suite of miniatures, including among its twenty letters the trial of Marius Priscus and Pliny's famous portrait of his Laurentine villa. This edition, the first to address a complete book of Epistles in over a century, presents a Latin text together with an introduction and commentary intended for students, teachers and scholars. With clear linguistic explanations and full literary analysis, it invites readers to a fresh appreciation of Pliny's lettered art.

Maxim Gorky was dubbed the father of socialist realism in the Soviet period, but he had forged his career as an internationally known novelist and dramatist some three or more decades earlier. Posing questions that Soviet critics found difficult to confront, the author examines the effects of exile and religion on the content and form of the plays as well as the role played by women, and the personal and political implications of motherhood. All sixteen of Gorky's published plays are covered, and the book explores whether this body of work has themes and styles to unify it. While conflict is central to the core political themes and also infiltrates many aspects of the dramatic style (cartoonish and grotesque), other less expected themes and styles emerge. Viewing the post-revolutionary plays as a development of earlier work leads to a question rarely posed: are the plays written by Gorky in the process of defining the new Party-inspired socialist realism in fact less about socialist realist issues of conformity, and more about Gorky's own painful life experience? And what is equally under the microscope is a search for the monumental style frequently associated with socialist realist theatre: the proposed origins of the spatial grandeur in Gorky's plays come as a surprise.

Lusitanian playwrights who wrote comedias during and after the Dual Monarchy (1580-1640), when the Portuguese and Spanish thrones were united under Habsburg rule, continue to be largely unexplored. This edition highlights the contributions of one of this group's most successful and celebrated members, Jacinto Cordeiro. It describes the sparse critical attention that Cordeiro has received as well as his life, literary career, and historical context. Most importantly, it provides a modern critical edition of Cordeiro's most enduring play, El juramento ante Dios, y lealtad contra el amor, based on a collation of the twenty-one extant witnesses that comprise its textual tradition. Additionally, it includes an in-depth account of the transmission of the play with a stemma that documents the genealogical relationships between extant versions. It also provides an analysis of how Juramento may have been performed for seventeenth-century theatergoers, based on stage directions and performance cues written into the dialogue. In short, this edition introduces modern readers to both Jacinto Cordeiro, a bilingual author who successfully competed in a second language with the giants of Spain's Golden Age, and El juramento ante Dios, a play whose popularity lasted two centuries.

This collection of papers contains some 60 articles selected from the works of the philologist Ernst Vogt. They dealwith a variety of very different aspects of the study of ancient languages, for example the history of literary forms and genres, Greek literature of the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods, the history of transmission and reception, or the history of classical philology. All of the texts have been checked and additions or amendments made.

Ammianus is regarded as the greatest historian of late antiquity. Yet his geographic and ethnographic digressions were long underestimated as examples offeigned eruditionand as undue interruptions to the historical narrative. The author of this volume believes that the key to understanding Ammianus s work as a whole lies in his teaching of classical rhetoric, his metaphoric reading of landscapes, and the creation of spaces for memory and counterworlds to the Imperium Romanum. In this way, historical understanding and digressions concerning geographic knowledge must be viewed as interdependent features of the text. The author thus casts a new light on Ammianus s literary achievements."

This collection of essays is a seminal contribution to the establishment of translation theory within the field of Russian literature and culture. It brings together the work of established academics and younger scholars from the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, Sweden and France in an area of academic study that has been largely neglected in the Anglophone world. The essays in the volume are linked by the conviction that the introduction of any new text into a host culture should always be considered in conjunction with adjustments to prevailing conventions within that culture. The case studies in the collection, which cover literary translation in Russia from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century, demonstrate how Russian culture has interpreted and accommodated translated texts, and how translators and publishers have used translation as a means of responding to the literary, social and political conditions of their times. In integrating research in the area of translated works more closely into the study of Russian literature and culture generally, this publication represents an important development in current research.

Juvenal's fourth book of Satires consists of three poems which are all concerned with contentment in various forms. The poet adopts a more resigned and philosophical tone, unlike the brash anger of the earlier books. These poems use enormous humour and wit to puncture the pretensions of the foolish and the wicked, urging an acceptance of our lives and a more positive stance towards life and death by mockery of the pompous and comic description of the rich and famous. In Satire 10 Juvenal examines the human desire to be rich, famous, attractive and powerful and dismisses all these goals as not worth striving for - we are in fact happier as we are. In Satires 11 and 12 he argues for the simple life which can deliver genuine happiness rather than risking the decadence of luxury and the perils of sea-travel and legacy-hunting. Self-knowledge and true friendship are the moral heart of these poems; but they are also complex literary constructs in which the figure of the speaker can be elusive and the ironic tone can cast doubt on the message being imparted. The Introduction places Juvenal in the history of Satire and also explores the style of the poems as well as the degree to which they can be read as in any sense documents of real life. The text is accompanied by a literal English translation and the commentary is keyed to important words in the translation and aims to be accessible to readers with little or no Latin. It seeks to explain both the factual background to the poems and also the literary qualities which make this poetry exciting and moving to a modern audience.