Best of
Classical-Studies

1996

Stoic Studies


Anthony A. Long - 1996
    A. Long has been at the forefront of research in Hellenistic philosophy. In this book he assembles a dozen articles on Stoicism previously published in journals and conference proceedings. The collection is biased in favour of Professor Long's more recent studies of Stoicism and is focused on three themes: the Stoics' interpretation of their intellectual tradition, their ethics and their psychology. The contents of the book reflect the peculiarly holistic and systematic features of Stoicism. The papers are printed here in their original form for the most part, but the author has made some minor corrections and stylistic or bibliographical changes. He has also added a postscript to three papers whose topics have been the subject of much discussion during the years since they first appeared.

Athenian Democracy


John Thorley - 1996
    Separate sections examine the prelude to democracy, the emergence of a democratic system, and the way this system worked in practice. A final section focuses on the questions:how should we judge the success of Athenian democracy? who benefitted? was it an efficient system of government? in what sense was Athenian democracy the forerunner of modern democracies?

Homeric Questions


Gregory Nagy - 1996
    Was the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey a single individual who created the poems at a particular moment in history? Or does the name "Homer" hide the shaping influence of the epic tradition during a long period of oral composition and transmission?In this innovative investigation, Gregory Nagy applies the insights of comparative linguistics and anthropology to offer a new historical model for understanding how, when, where, and why the Iliad and the Odyssey were ultimately preserved as written texts that could be handed down over two millennia. His model draws on the comparative evidence provided by living oral epic traditions, in which each performance of a song often involves a recomposition of the narrative.This evidence suggests that the written texts emerged from an evolutionary process in which composition, performance, and diffusion interacted to create the epics we know as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Sure to challenge orthodox views and provoke lively debate, Nagy's book will be essential reading for all students of oral traditions.

The Greek Language


Leonard R. Palmer - 1996
    Palmer now provides a history of The Greek Language, including an overview of the coming of the Greeks, the Linear B. Tablets, the Greek dialects, genres (in poetry and prose), and a comparative-historical grammar. Palmer discusses the transformation of the Greek language from its Indo-European roots, through the Bronze and Dark Ages, to the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods and beyond. Major authors and genres are discussed throughout the history, including essays on Homer, Melic poetry, tragedy, Herodotus and Thucydides.

Ovid: Heroides XVI-XXI


E.J. Kenney - 1996
    These are the letters, as Ovid imagined them, exchanged between three famous pairs of lovers, Paris and Helen of Troy, Hero and Leander, and Acontius and Cydippe. Interest in Ovid has never been more lively than it is today, and this book will have much to offer students at all levels. This is the first commentary in any language since 1898 on these double letters. It complements Peter E. Knox's selection of the single epistles in the same series.

The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220


John M. Dillon - 1996
    . . . From the opening pages on Plato's oral teaching and the work of his immediate successors Speusippus and Xenocrates, the book is very clear, judicious, and surprisingly enjoyable. The book will do much to open this neglected and fascinating period to contemporary scholars and students at all levels."―Choice

Aspects of Greek History 750-323bc: A Source-Based Approach


Terry Buckley - 1996
    Chapter by chapter, the relevant historical periods from the age of colonization to Alexander the Great are reconstructed. Emphasis is laid on the interpretation of the available sources, and the book sets out to give a clear treatment of all the major problems within a chronological framework.The book covers:the main literary sources: Aristotle, Diodorus, Herodotus, Plutarch, Thucydides and Xenophon Greek political and military history from the eighth century to Alexander's conquest of Persia.To ease understanding, the book also includes maps, a glossary of Greek terms and a full bibliography.

Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine


Tal Ilan - 1996
    This investigation concludes that extreme religious groups in Judaism of the period influenced other groups, classes, and factions to tighten their control of women. They also encouraged an understanding of ideal relationships between men and women, represented in the literature and the legal codes of the time, that required increasing chastity. Despite this, the lives of real women and their relationships to men continued to be varied and nuanced.This book integrates both Jewish and Early Christian sources together with a feminist critique. It is the most comprehensive work of this sort published thus far and offers a vast repository of relevant material, as well as a fresh interpretation.

Temples of Ancient Egypt


Byron E. Shafer - 1996
    Shafer here summarize the state of current knowledge about ancient Egyptian temples and the rituals associated with their use. The first volume in English to survey the major types of Egyptian temples from the Old Kingdom to the Roman period, it offers a unique perspective on ritual and its cultural significance. The authors perceive temples as loci for the creative interplay of sacred space and sacred time. They regard as unacceptable the traditional division of the temples into the categories of "mortuary" and "divine," believing that their functions and symbolic representations were, at once, too varied and too intertwined."

A Commentary on Thucydides: Volume II: Books IV-V. 24


Simon Hornblower - 1996
    Books iv-v.24 cover the years 425-421 BC and contain the Pylos-Spakteria narrative, the Delion Campaign, and Brasidas' operations in the north of Greece. This volume ends with the Peace of Nikias and the alliance between Athens and Sparta.A new feature of this volume is the full thematic introduction which discusses such topics as Thucydides and Herodotus, Thucydide's presentation of Brasidas, Thucydides and kinship, speech--direct and indirect--in iv-v.24, Thucydides and epigraphy (including personal names), iv-v.24 as a work of art: innovative or merely incomplete?Thucydides intended his work to be an everlasting Possession and the continuing importance of his work is undisputed. Simon Hornblower's commentary, by translating every passage of Greek commented on for the first time, allows readers with little or no Greek to appreciate the detail of Thucydides' thought and subject-matter. A full index at the end of the volume.