The term 'cityscaping' is here introduced to characterise the creative process through which the image of the city is created and represented in various media - text, film and artefacts. It thus turns attention away from built urban spaces and onto mental images of cities. One focus is on the question of which literary, visual and acoustic means prompt their recipients' spatial imagination; another is to inquire into the semantics and functions that are ascribed to the image of a city as constructed in various media. The examples of ancient texts and works of art, and modern literature and films, are used to elucidate the artistic potential of images of the city and the techniques by which they are semanticised. With its interdisciplinary approach, the volume for the first time makes clear how strongly mental images of urban space, both ancient and modern, have been shaped by the techniques of their representation in media.

In Late Antiquity, and above all in the fourth century, far-reaching changes took place in the political, social and religious environments. The pagan authors of the Roman East (the Emperor Julian, Libanius, Eunapius, Themistius) experienced this process as a threatening crisis, and reacted with the pen. This study considers important contemporary themes such as the construction of identity, ideal rule or the correct interpretation of current reality, so providing the first exposition of the specific character of these writings.

The Gnomai in the Epinician Odes and Dithyrambs of Bacchylides have hitherto been regarded as an allegedly conventional accompaniment and thus attracted little attention in research. Following the development of a genre model for the epinicion, individual interpretations demonstrate the central significance of the Gnomai in constituting the sense of the Epinicion. As the gnome essentially represents ethical and moral values to a large audience, a second stage of the study relates it to the contemporary historical context of the relevant text. It takes this rigorous contextualisation to show how Bacchylides skilfully fits his Gnomai to the various socio-political factors and the expectations of his audience. These observations cast new light on the communication process in lyrical choral poetry between the composer of the epinicion, his patron and the public.