Besides exhortations to live a moral, simple and contemplative life, these pithy aphorisms allow a glimpse of a bit of the Pythagorean schools' deeper knowledge.Contents:IntroductionThe Golden Verses of PythagorasNotes on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras from the Commentaries of HieroclesThe Golden Sentences of DemocratesThe Pythagorean Sentences of DemophilusThe Similitudes of DemophilusPythagorean Ethical Sentences from Stob?usSelect Sentences of Sextus the PythagoreanPythagorean Sentences from the Protreptics of IamblichusThe Symbols of Pythagoras

    First published in German in 1977, it has now been translated into English with the assistance of the author himself. A clearly structured and readable survey for students and scholars, it will be welcomed as the best modern account of any polytheistic religious system.Burkert draws on archaeological discoveries, insights from other disciplines, and inscriptions in Linear B to reconstruct the practices and beliefs of the Minoan–Mycenaean age. The major part of his book is devoted to the archaic and classical epochs. He describes the various rituals of sacrifice and libation and explains Greek beliefs about purification. He investigates the inspiration behind the great temples at Olympia, Delphi, Delos, and the Acropolis—discussing the priesthood, sanctuary, and oracles. Considerable attention is given to the individual gods, the position of the heroes, and beliefs about the afterlife. The different festivals are used to illuminate the place of religion in the society of the city-state. The mystery cults, at Eleusis and among the followers of Bacchus and Orpheus, are also set in that context. The book concludes with an assessment of the great classical philosophers’ attitudes to religion.Insofar as possible, Burkert lets the evidence—from literature and legend, vase paintings and archaeology—speak for itself; he elucidates the controversies surrounding its interpretation without glossing over the enigmas that remain. Throughout, the notes (updated for the English-language edition) afford a wealth of further references as the text builds up its coherent picture of what is known of the religion of ancient Greece.

    This book makes extensive use of Dee's library and annotations to clarify this mystery by providing a detailed analysis of these conversations. Professor Harkness contextualizes Dee's angel conversations within the natural, philosophical, religious, and social contexts of his time, arguing that the conversations represent a continuing development of John Dee's earlier concerns and interests. This book will appeal to those with an interest in the history of science, students of religion, and everyone who approaches the new millennium with a wary eye.

    Rice, Jr. draws together the main lines of change that account for a period of rapid transition from medieval civilization to early modern. From a chapter on science, technology, and the voyages of exploration, Professor Rice goes on to examine economic expansion within Europe, Renaissance society and the new humanist culture, the rise of the sovereign state, and, ultimately, the clash between the established Church and the Protestant reformers.

    Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, the companion volume to Perry Anderson’s highly acclaimed and influential Lineages of the Absolutist State, is a sustained exercise in historical sociology to root the development of absolutism in the diverse routes taken from the slave-based societies of Ancient Greece and Rome to fully-fledged feudalism. In the course of this study Anderson vindicates and refines the explanatory power of a Marxist conception of history, whilst casting a fascinating light on Greece, Rome, the Germanic invasion, nomadic society, and the different patterns of the evolution of feudalism in Northern, Mediterranean, Eastern and Western Europe.