How do different cultures think about race? In the modern era, racial distinctiveness has been assessed primarily in terms of a person's physical appearance. But it was not always so. As Denise McCoskey shows, the ancient Greeks and Romans did not use skin colour as the basis for categorising ethnic disparity. The colour of one's skin lies at the foundation of racial variability today because it was used during the heyday of European exploration and colonialism to construct a hierarchy of civilizations and then justify slavery and other forms of economic exploitation. Assumptions about race thus have to take into account factors other than mere physiognomy. This is particularly true in relation to the classical world. In fifth century Athens, racial theory during the Persian Wars produced the categories 'Greek' and 'Barbarian', and set them in brutal opposition to one another: a process that could be as intense and destructive as 'black and 'white' in our own age. Ideas about race in antiquity were therefore completely distinct but as closely bound to political and historical contexts as those that came later. This provocative book boldly explores the complex matrices of race - and the differing interpretations of ancient and modern - across epic, tragedy and the novel. Ranging from Theocritus to Toni Morrison, and from Tacitus and Pliny to Bernal's seminal study Black Athena, this is a powerful and original new assessment.

The three major Roman love poets - Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid - are celebrated for the ways in which they used social and historical contexts, as well as a highly developed sense of place and landscape, to inform their explorations of passion and desire. These writers pursued both men and women, and expressed romantic attachments to the bucolic countryside as well as to the city of Rome. At the same time, they initiated a vibrant exchange with other genres and authors, and explored the art of writing as much as the experience of love itself. This new and attractive survey of a genre that is often called elegy - because of its metre - discusses the poets and their writings against the turbulent backdrop of the Augustan age (31 BCE-14 CE). It examines the literary origins of Latin elegy, highlights the poets' key themes and traces their reception by later writers and readers. Introducing the chief Latin elegists, as well as these poets' main sources of inspiration (Catullus, Cornelius Gallus and earlier Greek elegists like Euphorion of Chalcis), the book shows that love elegy is the defining genre of Roman poetry.

The three major Roman love poets - Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid - are celebrated for the ways in which they used social and historical contexts, as well as a highly developed sense of place and landscape, to inform their explorations of passion and desire. These writers pursued both men and women, and expressed romantic attachments to the bucolic countryside as well as to the city of Rome. At the same time, they initiated a vibrant exchange with other genres and authors, and explored the art of writing as much as the experience of love itself. This new and attractive survey of a genre that is often called elegy - because of its metre - discusses the poets and their writings against the turbulent backdrop of the Augustan age (31 BCE-14 CE). It examines the literary origins of Latin elegy, highlights the poets' key themes and traces their reception by later writers and readers. Introducing the chief Latin elegists, as well as these poets' main sources of inspiration (Catullus, Cornelius Gallus and earlier Greek elegists like Euphorion of Chalcis), the book shows that love elegy is the defining genre of Roman poetry.

How do different cultures think about race? In the modern era, racial distinctiveness has been assessed primarily in terms of a person's physical appearance. But it was not always so. As Denise McCoskey shows, the ancient Greeks and Romans did not use skin colour as the basis for categorising ethnic disparity. The colour of one's skin lies at the foundation of racial variability today because it was used during the heyday of European exploration and colonialism to construct a hierarchy of civilizations and then justify slavery and other forms of economic exploitation. Assumptions about race thus have to take into account factors other than mere physiognomy. This is particularly true in relation to the classical world. In fifth century Athens, racial theory during the Persian Wars produced the categories 'Greek' and 'Barbarian', and set them in brutal opposition to one another: a process that could be as intense and destructive as 'black and 'white' in our own age. Ideas about race in antiquity were therefore completely distinct but as closely bound to political and historical contexts as those that came later. This provocative book boldly explores the complex matrices of race - and the differing interpretations of ancient and modern - across epic, tragedy and the novel. Ranging from Theocritus to Toni Morrison, and from Tacitus and Pliny to Bernal's seminal study Black Athena, this is a powerful and original new assessment.