Twelve leading scholars honour Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1960 to 1989, with wide-ranging and original papers on the Greek tragic poet Sophocles. They include general views of the poet, detailed work on individual plays, and essays on Sophocles in the European tradition.

'Muse, tell me of a man: a man of much resource, who was made to wander far and long, after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy. Many were the men whose lands he saw and came to know their thinking: many too the miseries at sea which he suffered in his heart, as he sought to win his own life and the safe return of his companions.' Recounting the epic journey home of Odysseus from the Trojan War, "The Odyssey" - alongside its sister poem "The Iliad" - stands as the well-spring of Western Civilisation and culture, an inspiration to poets, writers and thinkers for thousands of years since. This authoritative prose translation by Martin Hammond brings Homer's great poem of homecoming to life as Odysseus battles through such familiar dangers as the cave of the Cyclops, the call of the Sirens and his hostile reception back in his native land of Ithaca.

The supreme Roman epic and the greatest poem in Latin, the Aeneid has inspired many of the great European poets including Dante and Milton. The Trojan hero Aeneas, after surviving the sack of Troy, makes his way to the West, urged on by benevolent deities and following a destiny laid down by Jupiter, but harassed and impeded by the goddess Juno. He wins his way to Italy despite many trials, of which the greatest is the tragic outcome of his love affair with Dido, Queen of Carthage. In Italy Aeneas visits the world of the dead, and is forced to wage a fearful war with the indigenous Italian tribes before he can found his city and open the history of Rome. The Aeneid survives as a poem not only of Roman imperialism but also of the whole world of human passion, duty and suffering. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Book Nine is the turning point in the plot of the Iliad and the tragedy of Achilles. In this book Jasper Griffin, one of the most popular and respected contemporary Homeric scholars, provides an accessible and informative introduction. text, and commentary for students, discussing the problems and the achievements of this particularly rich and rewarding part of the poem. All quotations in the commentary are translated.

In less than fifty-three years, Rome subjected most of the known world to its rule. Written by a team of specialist scholars, this book traces the rise of Rome from its origins as a cluster of villages to the foundation of the Empire and its consolidation in the first two centuries CE.

This book demonstrates how Homeric poetry manages to confer significance on persons and actions, interpreting the world and the lives of the people who inhabit it. Taking central themes like characterization, death, and the gods, the author argues that current ideas of the limitations of "oral poetry" are unreal, and that Homer embodies a view of the world both unique and profound.

This authoritative study covers the period from the eighth century BC, which witnessed the emergence of the Greek city-states, to the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Greek monarchies some five centuries later.

"The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" stand at the very beginning of Greek literature. Much has been written about their origins and authorship, but Jasper Griffin, although he touches briefly on those questions, is here concerned with the ideas of the poems, which have had such an incalculable influence on the ideas of the West. He shows that each of the two epics has its own coherent and suggestive view of the world and of man's place in it.

"The Odyssey" is one of the earliest works of European literature, second only to "The Iliad". These two great epic poems, the astonishing first fruits of Greek civilisation, have together determined much of the course of Western literary culture and imagination. "The Odyssey" tells of the long and painful return of Odysseus from the Trojan War to his homeland of Ithaka, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachos. Even after he finally returns, there are enemies to be fought in his house. The action of the poem covers a huge canvas, ranging widely over time and place, exploring the known and the unknown worlds, involving magic and monsters, gods and ghosts, dangers defied: throughout there runs a strong and eloquent insistence on the humanity of man and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. This new translation by Martin Hammond complements his translation of "The Iliad". It aims to capture as closely as possible both the simplicity and the intensity of Homer's epic.

Virgil lived through the fall of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the Empire. In his poems we see a series of attempts, increasingly ambitious in scale and conception, to combine technical brilliance and beauty with profound meditation on the nature of imperialism and the relation of the individual to the State. From short pastoral poems on love and song he progressed to the heroic myth of the founding of Rome. "The Aeneid", immediately recognised as the greatest masterpiece of Latin literature, has had incalculable influence on European literature in the two thousand years since it was first published.

In "Latin Poets and Roman Life "Jasper Griffin studies the inter-relation of literature and life in the Augustan poets. The works of Virgil, Horace, Propertius and Ovid are characterized by a brilliant polish and a dazzling repertoire of devices for stylizing events and emotion; yet they remain convincing as a direct response to experience. Theories which deny that directness are criticized in this book as mistaken. The life of pleasure, in its kaleidoscopic variety - eating, drinking, bathing, love - is a central subject, but so is death. The book also discusses the uses of mythology, the influence of poetry on experience, and the interpretation of central passages in the poems of Virgil. All Latin quoted is translated into English.

This handy guide to The Odyssey will introduce students to a text, which has been fundamental to literature for nearly 3000 years. Readers will be introduced to the world in which the Odyssey was produced, to the text itself and to its origins in oral poetry. This volume gives a summary of the poem and examines its structure. The unity, values and techniques of the poem are clearly outlined, as are the reasons for its longstanding appeal. This guide delves into the diverse world of the story; that of monsters, gods, and enchantresses which interacts with the very different world of the home, marriage and the family. Students will be introduced to the essential themes of loyalty and betrayal, and guided through the narrative of Odysseus’ adventures, which also illustrate the workings of the world and the justice of heaven. Readers will find a very helpful guide to further reading.