Francis Cairns has made well-known contributions to the study of Roman Epic and Elegy. Papers on Catullus and Horace assembles his substantial body of work on Roman Lyric - about 30 papers published between 1969 and 2010 in many European and American periodicals, themed volumes and Festschriften, along with some new papers. Many aspects of the lyric poetry of Catullus and Horace are treated in this collection. Particular emphasis is given to the political and religious interests of both poets, to their interactions with their contemporaries, to the 'learning' which informs their poetry, and to their generic practices. Philological problems of text and interpretation are treated pari passu, as are relevant aesthetic questions. The volume is fully indexed and contains a composite bibliography and addenda and corrigenda. Papers on Catullus and Horace will make access to this body of important scholarly material easier and more convenient for scholars and students of Latin poetry.

This book offers scholars and students of Hellenistic and Roman literature an overview of Hellenistic epigram, a field closely related to other Hellenistic poetry and highly influential upon Roman poetry. In fourteen themed chapters, it foregrounds the literary, linguistic, historical, epigraphic, social, political, ethnic, cultic, onomastic, local, topographical and patronage contexts within which Hellenistic epigrams were composed. Many epigrams are analysed in detail and new interpretations of them proposed. Throughout, the question is asked whether epigrams are literary jeux d'esprit (as is often assumed without proper discussion) or whether they relate to real people and real events and have a function in the real world. That function may be epigraphic, for example an epigram can be the epitymbion for inscription at someone's grave, or the anathematikon for inscription on or beside a dedicated object, or a picture-label - an ekphrasis to accompany a painting or mosaic.

In 30-15 BC Sextus Propertius composed at Rome four books of elegies which range from erotic to learned to political and exhibit an unparalleled richness of themes, concepts and language. This book investigates their sources and motives, examining Propertius' family background in Umbrian Asisium and tracing his career as he sought through poetry to restore his family's fortunes after the Civil Wars. Propertius' progress within the Roman poetic establishment depended on his patrons - Tullus, 'Gallus', Maecenas and Augustus. Initially his poetry was influenced radically by his elegiac predecessor C. Cornelius Gallus, arguably also the 'Gallus' who jointly patronised Propertius' first book. New heuristic techniques help to recover the impact on Propertius of Cornelius Gallus' (mainly lost) elegies. Propertius' subsequent move into Maecenas', and then Augustus', patronage had an equally powerful, ideological, impact; in his latter books he became (alongside Virgil and Horace) a major and committed Augustan voice.

An examination of the main characters in the Aeneid - Aeneas himself, Dido and Turnus - in the light of Virgil's contemporary Augustan political and literary ideology. The characters and the plot and incident of the epic are seen as embodying and exemplifying first the ancient ideals of kingship and concord, and second the Roman self-identification as at once 'Italian' and 'Trojan', and finally as reflecting the literary self-evaluation of the Augustan age. In the literary area, Virgil's relations with contemporary Roman elegy, with early Greek lyric and, most important, with Homer, are studied and reevaluated. Virgilian scholars and students of Augustan literature in general will find this book of interest to them.

This book offers scholars and students of Hellenistic and Roman literature an overview of Hellenistic epigram, a field closely related to other Hellenistic poetry and highly influential upon Roman poetry. In fourteen themed chapters, it foregrounds the literary, linguistic, historical, epigraphic, social, political, ethnic, cultic, onomastic, local, topographical and patronage contexts within which Hellenistic epigrams were composed. Many epigrams are analysed in detail and new interpretations of them proposed. Throughout, the question is asked whether epigrams are literary jeux d'esprit (as is often assumed without proper discussion) or whether they relate to real people and real events and have a function in the real world. That function may be epigraphic, for example an epigram can be the epitymbion for inscription at someone's grave, or the anathematikon for inscription on or beside a dedicated object, or a picture-label - an ekphrasis to accompany a painting or mosaic.

In 30-15 BC Sextus Propertius composed at Rome four books of elegies which range from erotic to learned to political and exhibit an unparalleled richness of themes, concepts and language. This book investigates their sources and motives, examining Propertius' family background in Umbrian Asisium and tracing his career as he sought through poetry to restore his family's fortunes after the Civil Wars. Propertius' progress within the Roman poetic establishment depended on his patrons - Tullus, 'Gallus', Maecenas and Augustus. Initially his poetry was influenced radically by his elegiac predecessor C. Cornelius Gallus, arguably also the 'Gallus' who jointly patronised Propertius' first book. New heuristic techniques help to recover the impact on Propertius of Cornelius Gallus' (mainly lost) elegies. Propertius' subsequent move into Maecenas', and then Augustus', patronage had an equally powerful, ideological, impact; in his latter books he became (alongside Virgil and Horace) a major and committed Augustan voice.

An examination of the main characters in the Aeneid - Aeneas himself, Dido and Turnus - in the light of Virgil's contemporary Augustan political and literary ideology. The characters and the plot and incident of the epic are seen as embodying and exemplifying first the ancient ideals of kingship and concord, and second the Roman self-identification as at once 'Italian' and 'Trojan', and finally as reflecting the literary self-evaluation of the Augustan age. In the literary area, Virgil's relations with contemporary Roman elegy, with early Greek lyric and, most important, with Homer, are studied and reevaluated. Virgilian scholars and students of Augustan literature in general will find this book of interest to them.

Tibullus was one of the leading poets of Augustan Rome. Professor Cairns examines in detail aspects of Tibullus' poetic craftsmanship - his learning, his interest in the meanings of words, his use of suspense and deception, his control of the structures of his elegies - and demonstrates the original qualities of Tibullus' verse. This examination is carried out by relating Tibullus' work at all points to the Hellenistic poetic tradition and the literary genres and conventions it developed. This book will be of particular interest to students of Latin and Hellenistic Greek literature, and, as all Greek is translated, it should also be useful to students of comparative literature.