For all that Cicero is often seen as the father of translation theory, his and other Roman comments on translation are often divorced from the complicated environments that produced them. The first book-length study in English of its kind, Roman Theories of Translation: Surpassing the Source explores translation as it occurred in Rome and presents a complete, culturally integrated discourse on its theories from 240 BCE to the 2nd Century CE. Author Siobhan McElduff analyzes Roman methods of translation, connects specific events and controversies in the Roman Empire to larger cultural discussions about translation, and delves into the histories of various Roman translators, examining how their circumstances influenced their experience of translation. This book illustrates that as a translating culture, a culture reckoning with the consequences of building its own literature upon that of a conquered nation, and one with an enormous impact upon the West, Rome's translators and their theories of translation deserve to be treated and discussed as a complex and sophisticated phenomenon. Roman Theories of Translation enables Roman writers on translation to take their rightful place in the history of translation and translation theory.

For all that Cicero is often seen as the father of translation theory, his and other Roman comments on translation are often divorced from the complicated environments that produced them. The first book-length study in English of its kind, Roman Theories of Translation: Surpassing the Source explores translation as it occurred in Rome and presents a complete, culturally integrated discourse on its theories from 240 BCE to the 2nd Century CE. Author Siobhan McElduff analyzes Roman methods of translation, connects specific events and controversies in the Roman Empire to larger cultural discussions about translation, and delves into the histories of various Roman translators, examining how their circumstances influenced their experience of translation. This book illustrates that as a translating culture, a culture reckoning with the consequences of building its own literature upon that of a conquered nation, and one with an enormous impact upon the West, Rome's translators and their theories of translation deserve to be treated and discussed as a complex and sophisticated phenomenon. Roman Theories of Translation enables Roman writers on translation to take their rightful place in the history of translation and translation theory.

As long as there has been a need for language, there has been a need for translation; yet there is remarkably little scholarship available on pre-modern translation and translators. This exciting and innovative volume opens a window onto the complex world of translation in the multilingual and multicultural milieu of the ancient Mediterranean. From the biographies of emperors to Hittites scribes in the second millennium BCE to a Greek speaking Syrian slyly resisting translation under the Roman empire, the papers in this volume - fresh and innovative contributions by new and established scholars from a variety of disciplines including Classics, Near Eastern Studies, Biblical Studies, and Egyptology - show that translation has always been a phenomenon to be reckoned with. Accessible and of interest to scholars of translation studies and of the ancient Mediterranean, the contributions in Complicating the History of Western Translation argue that the ancient Mediterranean was a 'translational' society even when, paradoxically, cultures resisted or avoided translation. Indeed, this volume envisions an expansion of the understanding of what translation is, how it works, and how it should be seen as a major cultural force. Chronologically, the papers cover a period that ranges from around the third millennium BCE to the late second century CE; geographically they extend from Egypt to Rome to Britain and beyond. Each paper prompts us to reflect about the problematic nature of translation in the ancient world and challenges monolithic accounts of translation in the West.

Cicero (106-43BC) was the most brilliant orator in Classical history. Even one of the men who authorized his assassination, the Emperor Octavian, admitted to his grandson that Cicero was: 'an eloquent man, my boy, eloquent and a lover of his country'. This new selection of speeches illustrates Cicero's fierce loyalty to the Roman Republic, giving an overview of his oratory from early victories in the law courts to the height of his political career in the Senate. We see him sway the opinions of the mob and the most powerful men in Rome, in favour of Pompey the Great and against the conspirator Catiline, while The Philippics, considered his finest achievements, contain the thrilling invective delivered against his rival, Mark Antony, which eventually led to Cicero's death.