This collection of articles is an important milestone in the history of the study of time conceptions in Greek and Roman Antiquity. It spans from Homer to Neoplatonism. Conceptions of time are considered from different points of view and sources. Reflections on time were both central and various throughout the history of ancient philosophy. Time was a topic, but also material for poets, historians and doctors. Importantly, the contributions also explore implicit conceptions and how language influences our thought categories.

Aristotle's treatise De Interpretatione is one of his central works; it continues to be the focus of much attention and debate. C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system, basing this view upon a detailed chapter-by-chapter analysis. By treating the work systematically, rather than concentrating on certain selected passages, Dr Whitaker is able to show that, contrary to traditional opinion, it forms an organized and coherent whole. He argues that the De Interpretatione is intended to provide the underpinning for dialectic, the system of argument by question and answer set out in Aristotle's Topics ; and he rejects the traditional view that the De Interpretatione concerns the assertion and is oriented towards the formal logic of the Prior Analytics. In doing so, he sheds valuable new light on some of Aristotle's most famous texts.

St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662), was a major Byzantine thinker, a theologian and philosopher. He developed a philosophical theology in which the doctrine of God, creation, the cosmic order, and salvation is integrated in a unified conception of reality. Christ, the divine Logos, is the centre of the principles (the logoi ) according to which the cosmos is created, and in accordance with which it shall convert to its divine source.
Torstein Tollefsen treats Maximus' thought from a philosophical point of view, and discusses similar thought patterns in pagan Neoplatonism. The study focuses on Maximus' doctrine of creation, in which he denies the possibility of eternal coexistence of uncreated divinity and created and limited being. Tollefsen shows that by the logoi God institutes an ordered cosmos in which separate entities of different species are ontologically interrelated, with man as the centre of the created world. The book also investigates Maximus' teaching of God's activities or energies, and shows how participation in these energies is conceived according to the divine principles of the logoi. An extensive discussion of the complex topic of participation is provided.

"This is a superb new translation that is remarkably accurate to Plato's very difficult Greek, yet clear and highly readable. The notes are more helpful than those in any other available translation of the Laws since they contain both the information needed by the beginning student as well as analytical notes that include references to the secondary literature for the more advanced reader. For either the beginner or the scholar, this should be the preferred translation." -- Christopher Bobonich, Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University

Named by Rowan Williams as one of his Books of the Year (2021) in the New Statesman. Socrates On Trial tells of Socrates's return to a modern city that is plagued by prejudice, privilege and populism. On resuming his questioning in the agora he is arrested, interrogated by his prosecutors, questioned by his Judge, and confessed to by his inquisitor. On a Festival Day, he explores a new model for the just city --a city based not on mastery but on learning --before offering a new apology to the court that will, once again, decide his fate. This new/old Socrates offers the city a renewed vision of justice by reconceptualizing the meaning and significance of thinking and education. From the force of Socratic questioning, he unfolds a different logic of truth, freedom, and justice. His conversations exert a gravitational force that draws key cultural elements of the city -- property, wealth, money, family, essence, gendered and racialized identities, production, distribution and consumption -- into its educational orbit. At stake here is the vulnerability of modern democracy to authoritarian leaders and their sponsors. Influenced by sophisticated propaganda people's frustration with democracy is channeled into visceral anger on the one hand, and into disillusioned scepticism and cynicism on the other. Belief in truth and education collapses in exhaustion and fatigue, caught in the headlights of seemingly irresolvable and petrifying rational paradoxes that block all paths to social justice. Socrates On Trial, describing the return of Socrates to the modern city, heralds a new education for such a city.

Philoponus' On Aristotle Categories 1-5 discusses the nature of universals, preserving the views of Philoponus' teacher Ammonius, as well as presenting a Neoplatonist interpretation of Aristotle's Categories. Philoponus treats universals as concepts in the human mind produced by abstracting a form or nature from the material individual in which it has its being. The work is important for its own philosophical discussion and for the insight it sheds on its sources. For considerable portions, On Aristotle Categories 1-5 resembles the wording of an earlier commentary which declares itself to be an anonymous record taken from the seminars of Ammonius. Unlike much of Philoponus' later writing, this commentary does not disagree with either Aristotle or Ammonius, and suggests the possibility that Philoponus either had access to this earlier record or wrote it himself. This edition explores these questions of provenance, alongside the context, meaning and implications of Philoponus' work. The English translation is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index. The latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, the edition makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. Philoponus was a Christian writing in Greek in 6th century CE Alexandria, where some students of philosophy were bilingual in Syriac as well as Greek. In this Greek treatise translated from the surviving Syriac version, Philoponus discusses the logic of parts and wholes, and he illustrates the spread of the pagan and Christian philosophy of 6th century CE Greeks to other cultures, in this case to Syria. Philoponus, an expert on Aristotle's philosophy, had turned to theology and was applying his knowledge of Aristotle to disputes over the human and divine nature of Christ. Were there two natures and were they parts of a whole, as the Emperor Justinian proposed, or was there only one nature, as Philoponus claimed with the rebel minority, both human and divine? If there were two natures, were they parts like the ingredients in a chemical mixture? Philoponus attacks the idea. Such ingredients are not parts, because they each inter-penetrate the whole mixture. Moreover, he abandons his ingenious earlier attempts to support Aristotle's view of mixture by identifying ways in which such ingredients might be thought of as potentially preserved in a chemical mixture. Instead, Philoponus says that the ingredients are destroyed, unlike the human and divine in Christ. This English translation of Philoponus' treatise is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. The translation in each volume is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.

George James was a professor at a small black college in Arkansas during the 1950s when he wrote this book. Originally from Guyana, he was an intellectual who studied African and European classics. He soon realized something was wrong with the way the history of philosophy had been documented by Western scholars. Their biggest mistake, according to James, was they had assumed philosophy had started with the Greeks. James had found that philosophy was almost entirely from ancient Egypt and that the records of this had not only been distorted but, in many cases, deliberately falsified. His conclusion was that there was no such thing as Greek philosophy because it was stolen from the Egyptians. As a result, this was one of the first books to be banned from colleges and universities throughout North America. Although opponents have eventually found some flaws, it remains a groundbreaking book to this day. Even the famous Greek historian from the 5th century, Herodotus, admitted that the Greeks had borrowed many important ideas and concepts from the Egyptians. These ideas covered not just philosophy, but also medicine, architecture, politics and more. The purpose of this book is to restore the truth about African contributions to higher thought and culture.

Aristotle's account of place, in which he defined a thing's place as the inner surface of its nearest immobile container, was supported by the Latin Middle Ages, even 1600 years after his death, though it had not convinced many ancient Greek philosophers. The sixth century commentator Philoponus took a more common-sense view. For him, place was an immobile three-dimensional extension, whose essence did not preclude its being empty, even if for other reasons it had always to be filled with body. However, Philoponus reserved his own definition for an excursus, already translated in this series, The Corollary on Place. In the text translated here he wanted instead to explain Aristotle's view to elementary students. The recent conjecture that he wished to attract young fellow Christians away from the official pagan professor of philosophy in Alexandria has the merit of explaining why he expounds Aristotle here, rather than attacking him. But he still puts the students through their paces, for example when discussing Aristotle's claim that place cannot be a body, or two bodies would coincide. This volume contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, as well as a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.

From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in Aristotle discusses Aristotle's biological views about character and the importance of what he calls 'natural character traits' for the development of moral virtue as presented in his ethical treatises. The aim is to provide a new, comprehensive account of the physiological underpinnings of moral development and thereby to show, first, that Aristotle's ethical theories do not exhaust his views about character as has traditionally been assumed, and, second, that his treatment of natural character in the biological treatises provides the conceptual and ideological foundation for his views about habituation as developed in his ethics. Author Mariska Leunissen takes seriously Aristotle's-often ignored-claim that nature is one of the factors through which men become 'good and capable of fine deeds'. Part I ('The Physiology of Natural Character') analyzes, in three chapters, Aristotle's notion of natural character as it is developed in the biological treatises and its role in moral development, especially as it affects women and certain 'barbarians'-groups who are typically left out of accounts of Aristotle's ethics. Leunissen also discuss its relevance for our understanding of physiognomical ideas in Aristotle. Part II ('The Physiology of Moral Development) explores the psychophysical changes in body and soul one is required to undergo in the process of acquiring moral virtues. It includes a discussion of Aristotle's eugenic views, of his identification of habituation as a form of human perfection, and of his claims about the moral deficiencies of women that link them to his beliefs about their biological imperfections.

During the past three decades Jaap Mansfeld, Professor of Ancient Philosophy in Utrecht, has built up a formidable reputation as a leading scholar in his field. His work has concentrated on the Presocratics, Hellenistic Philosophy, the sources of our knowledge of ancient philosophy (esp. doxography) and the history of scholarship. In honour of his sixtieth birthday, colleagues and friends have contributed a collection of articles which represent the state of the art in the study of the history of ancient philosophy and frequently concentrate on subjects in which the honorand has made important discoveries. The 22 contributors include M. Baltes, J. Barnes, J. Brunschwig, W.M. Calder III, J. Dillon, P.L. Donini, J. Glucker, A.A. Long, L.M. de Rijk, D. Sedley, P. Schrijvers, and M. Vegetti. The volume concludes with a complete bibliography of Jaap Mansfeld's scholarly work so far.

Eusebius' magisterial Praeparatio Evangelica (written sometime between AD 313 and 324) offers an apologetic defence of Christianity in the face of Greek accusations of irrationality and impiety. Though brimming with the quotations of other (often lost) Greek authors, the work is dominated by a clear and sustained argument. Against the tendency to see the Praeparatio as merely an anthology of other sources or a defence of monotheistic religion against paganism, Aaron P. Johnson seeks to appreciate Eusebius' contribution to the discourses of Christian identity by investigating the constructions of ethnic identity (especially Greek) at the heart of his work. Analysis of his ethnic argumentation' exhibits a method of defending Christianity by construing its opponents as historically rooted nations, whose place in the narrative of world history serves to undermine the legitimacy of their claims to ancient wisdom and piety.

Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (December 8, 1767-March 25, 1825) was a French author, poet, and composer whose biblical and philosophical hermeneutics in?uenced many occultists, such as Eliphas Lvi and Gerard Encausse (Papus), and Ren Gunon. D'Olivet spent his life pursuing the esoteric wisdom concealed in the Hebrew scriptures, Greek philosophy, and the symbolism of many ancient cultures as far back as ancient India, Persia, and Egypt. His writings are considered classics of the Hermetic tradition. His best known works today are his research on the Hebrew language (The Hebraic Tongue Restored), his translation and interpretation of the writings of Pythagoras (The Golden Verses of Pythagoras), and his writings on the sacred art of music. In addition to the above works, Hermetica has published in consistent facsimile format for its Collected Works of Fabre d'Olivet series Cain and The Healing of Rodolphe Grivel, as well as Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social State of Man and the Destiny of the Adamic Race. D'Olivet's mastery of many ancient languages and their literatures enabled him to write (in the time of Napoleon) this extraordinary text which remains a landmark investigation of the deeper esoteric undercurrents at work in the history of culture. The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, so remarkable for their moral elevation, and standing as the most beautiful monument of antiquity raised in honor of Wisdom, were originally transcribed by Lysis, though it is to Hierocles that we owe the version that has come down to us. Fabre d'Olivet has translated them into French verse of special form (eumolpique), and in his Discourse upon the Essence and Form of Poetry in the present volume he explains and illustrates this melodious style. In his Examinations of the Golden Verses, which comprises the last division of this book, he has drawn with the power of his great mind the metaphysical correlation of Providence, Destiny, and Will.

Born in 70 BCE, the Roman poet Vergil came of age during a period of literary experimentalism among Latin authors. These authors introduced new Greek verse forms and meters into the existing repertoire of Latin poetic genres and measures, foremost among them being elegy, a genre that the ancients thought originated in funeral lament, but which in classical Rome became first-person poetry about the poet-lover's amatory vicissitudes. Despite the influence of notable elegists on Vergil's early poetry, his critics have rarely paid attention to his engagement with the genre across his body of work. This collection is devoted to an exploration of Vergil's multifaceted relations with elegy. Contributors shed light on Vergil's interactions with the genre and its practitioners across classical, medieval, and early modern periods. The book investigates Vergil's hexameter poetry in relation to contemporary Latin elegy by Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, and the subsequent reception of Vergil's radical combination of epic with elegy by later Latin and Italian authors. Filling a striking gap in the scholarship, Vergil and Elegy illuminates the famous poet's wide-ranging engagement with the genre of elegy across his oeuvre.