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Popular in its day both as a sourcebook for writers and orators and
as a guidebook for living a moral life, this remarkably rich
document serves as an engaging introduction to the cultural and
moral history of ancient Rome. Valerius' "thousand tales" are
arranged thematically in ninety-one chapters that cover nearly
every aspect of life in the ancient world, including such
wide-ranging topics as military discipline, child rearing, and
women lawyers. As a whole, the work gives the reader fascinating
insights into what it felt like to be an ancient Roman, what the
ancient Romans really believed, what their private world was like,
how they related to one another, and what they did when nobody was
watching.
Popular in its day both as a sourcebook for writers and orators and
as a guidebook for living a moral life, this remarkably rich
document serves as an engaging introduction to the cultural and
moral history of ancient Rome. Valerius' "thousand tales" are
arranged thematically in ninety-one chapters that cover nearly
every aspect of life in the ancient world, including such
wide-ranging topics as military discipline, child rearing, and
women lawyers. As a whole, the work gives the reader fascinating
insights into what it felt like to be an ancient Roman, what the
ancient Romans really believed, what their private world was like,
how they related to one another, and what they did when nobody was
watching.
The twin deities known by the ancient Greeks as the Dioskouroi, and
by the Romans as the Gemini, were popular figures in the classical
world. They were especially connected with youth, low status and
service, and were embraced by the common people in a way that
eluded those gods associated with regal magnificence or the ruling
classes. Despite their popularity, no dedicated study has been
published on the horse gods for over a hundred years. Henry John
Walker here addresses this neglect. His comparative study traces
the origins, meanings and applications of the twin divinities to
social and ritual settings in Greece, Vedic India (where the
brothers named Castor and Pollux were revered as Indo-European gods
called the Asvins), Etruria and classical Rome. In the Bronze and
Early Iron Ages of Vedic India, the young horse gods are seen to
have markedly similar characteristics to their Greco-Roman
counterparts. Quick to come to the rescue of those in trouble, the
Asvins are ready to assist the old, the weak and the humble.
Charting the parallels and correspondences between these ancient
myths, Walker uncovers not a single, universal coda but rather a
great variety of loosely related beliefs and practices relating to
the sibling deities. He demonstrates, for example, that, just as
the Dioskouroi were regarded as being halfway between gods and men,
so young Spartans - undergoing a fierce and uncompromising military
training - saw themselves as standing midway between animal and
human. Such diverse and creative interpretations of the myth seem
to have played a central role in the culture and society of
antiquity.
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