Ancient history Books

Book SynopsisSignificantly expanded and updated in light of the most recent scholarship, the second edition of Garland's engaging introduction to ancient Greek society brings this world vividly to life--and, in doing so, explores the perspectives and morals of typical ancient Greek citizens across a wide range of societal levels. Food and drink, literacy, the plight of the elderly, the treatment of slaves, and many more aspects of daily life in ancient Greece also come into sharp focus. More than sixty illustrations are included, as are maps, a chronology, a glossary of Greek terms, and suggestions for further reading.Trade ReviewThis is really fine—lively and reliable—an excellent introduction to the classical world. --Peter Heinegg, Union College, review of the first edition

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Book SynopsisThough now associated mainly with Sophocles' Theban Plays and Euripides' Bacchae, the theme of Thebes and its royalty was a favorite of ancient Greek poets, one explored in a now lost epic cycle, as well as several other surviving tragedies. With a rich Introduction that sets three of these plays within the larger contexts of Theban legend and of Greek tragedy in performance, Cecelia Eaton Luschnig’s annotated translation of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, Euripides' Suppliants, and Euripides' Phoenician Women offers a brilliant constellation of less familiar Theban plays—those dealing with the war between Oedipus’ sons, its casualties, and survivors.Trade Review"Luschnig's goal is to offer translations that are both readable and speakable and in this she has succeeded admirably. Both the tragedy expert and the novice will enjoy reading these translations; the stage actor will enjoy speaking these lines. . . . Three Other Theban Plays offers a reliable, thorough resource to its primary audience of students. Undergraduates are likely to find these translations more accessible than those in the similarly targeted University of Chicago Greek tragedy translations and will certainly find this edition, as a whole, more supportive of their efforts to contextualize and interpret these plays." —Adriana Brook, Lawrence University, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Book SynopsisThough now associated mainly with Sophocles' Theban Plays and Euripides' Bacchae, the theme of Thebes and its royalty was a favorite of ancient Greek poets, one explored in a now lost epic cycle, as well as several other surviving tragedies. With a rich Introduction that sets three of these plays within the larger contexts of Theban legend and of Greek tragedy in performance, Cecelia Eaton Luschnig’s annotated translation of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, Euripides' Suppliants, and Euripides' Phoenician Women offers a brilliant constellation of less familiar Theban plays—those dealing with the war between Oedipus’ sons, its casualties, and survivors.Trade Review"Luschnig's goal is to offer translations that are both readable and speakable and in this she has succeeded admirably. Both the tragedy expert and the novice will enjoy reading these translations; the stage actor will enjoy speaking these lines. . . . Three Other Theban Plays offers a reliable, thorough resource to its primary audience of students. Undergraduates are likely to find these translations more accessible than those in the similarly targeted University of Chicago Greek tragedy translations and will certainly find this edition, as a whole, more supportive of their efforts to contextualize and interpret these plays." —Adriana Brook, Lawrence University, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Book SynopsisAn acclaimed translator of Euripidean tragedy in its earlier and more familiar modes, Diane Arnson Svarlien now turns to three plays that showcase the special qualities of Euripides’ late dramatic art. Like her earlier volumes, Ion, Helen, Orestes offers modern, accurate, accessible, and stageworthy versions that preserve the metrical and musical form of the originals. Matthew Wright’s Introduction and notes offer illuminating guidance to first-time readers of Euripides, while pointing up the appeal of this distinctive grouping of plays.Trade Review"Diane Arnson Svarlien's lively and accessible translations give an excellent sense of Euripides' poetic resources, from his artful blend of conversational idiom and high style, to his powerful displays of rhetoric and emotion, to the expressive rhythms and images of his songs. They are sure to delight readers and listeners alike. Moreover, they have been shaped by judicious use of the best and latest scholarship. The plays in this volume will surprise readers used to tragedy on the Aristotelian pattern and stimulate reflection about what tragedy is and what it is for." —John Gibert, Department of Classics, University of Colorado, Boulder

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Book SynopsisAn acclaimed translator of Euripidean tragedy in its earlier and more familiar modes, Diane Arnson Svarlien now turns to three plays that showcase the special qualities of Euripides’ late dramatic art. Like her earlier volumes, Ion, Helen, Orestes offers modern, accurate, accessible, and stageworthy versions that preserve the metrical and musical form of the originals. Matthew Wright’s Introduction and notes offer illuminating guidance to first-time readers of Euripides, while pointing up the appeal of this distinctive grouping of plays.Trade Review"Diane Arnson Svarlien's lively and accessible translations give an excellent sense of Euripides' poetic resources, from his artful blend of conversational idiom and high style, to his powerful displays of rhetoric and emotion, to the expressive rhythms and images of his songs. They are sure to delight readers and listeners alike. Moreover, they have been shaped by judicious use of the best and latest scholarship. The plays in this volume will surprise readers used to tragedy on the Aristotelian pattern and stimulate reflection about what tragedy is and what it is for." —John Gibert, Department of Classics, University of Colorado, Boulder

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Book SynopsisWhat did the ancient Greeks and Romans think of the peoples they referred to as barbari? Did they share the modern Western conception—popularized in modern fantasy literature and role-playing games—of "barbarians" as brutish, unwashed enemies of civilization? Or our related notion of "the noble savage?" Was the category fixed or fluid? How did it contrast with the Greeks and Romans' conception of their own cultural identity? Was it based on race? In accessible, jargon-free prose, Erik Jensen addresses these and other questions through a copiously illustrated introduction to the varied and evolving ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged with, and thought about, foreign peoples—and to the recent historical and archaeological scholarship that has overturned received understandings of the relationship of Classical civilization to its "others."Trade Review"A fascinating study of interrelatedness among peoples that does much to undermine the conventional notion of there being an essentialist divide between Greco-Roman and barbarian culture and peoples. Jensen's work is not only a testimony to the truly multicultural dimension of the ancient Mediterranean, but also a reminder of how cotemporary prejudices help shape our view of past societies. The world that the author paints is 'a tumult of different ideas, interpretations, and conflicts that had no final resolution.' What better reason could a historian offer for studying antiquity? Both readable and scholarly, Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World has a refreshingly modern ring and delivers an important modern message." —Robert Garland, Colgate University "This book is excellent, and even necessary, reading for any survey of the ancient world. Easy to read and unafraid to explain scholarly arguments, Jensen takes his readers on a tour of the so-called Greek and Roman world. While he follows traditional chronological and temporal boundaries, he does not adhere to the old scholarly lens. In fact, by directly challenging it, he opens our eyes to an entirely different ancient world. Rather than speak from the heart of the Roman forum or the Athenian agora, Jensen approaches ancient history from the position of an outsider, as a scholar unwilling to settle on simple narratives of progress from single centers, but rather forcefully admitting difference. Ultimately, Jensen illustrates the benefit of moving beyond the Greeks and the Romans and the importance of doing so. After all, as far as the Romans and Greeks were concerned, we—the English-speaking readers that form Jensen's audience—are as much, if not more, barbarian than Greco-Roman!" —Brian Turner, Portland State University“Encounters with so-called 'Barbarians' are one of the central themes of Greek and Roman history. In this well written and thoroughly researched book Erik Jensen provides students for the first time with an up-to-date account of the role of 'Barbarians' from the beginning of Greek history in the second millennium BCE to the fall of the Roman Empire almost three millennia later.” —Stanley Burstein, California State University, Los Angeles"An important book and a significant addition to the field. Written with verve and a bit of warm humor, it is also eminently readable. Moreover, Jensen’s clear exposition of the possible pitfalls awaiting unwary students as they try to make sense out of the available textual, artistic, and archaeological evidence marks him as a first-rate scholar and teacher." —Alfred J. Andrea, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Vermont"In their interactions with foreigners, ancient Greeks and Romans developed a rhetoric of 'the barbarian' whose legacy still shapes racial and ethnic stereotypes today. Yet as Jensen shows in this splendid study, the attitudes of Greeks and Romans to outsiders (including each other) could also be remarkably nuanced. Written in clear and accessible prose, Jensen's exploration of the cultural and social interconnectedness of the greater Mediterranean world from the Bronze Age to the collapse of Roman hegemony will reward the close attention of students, teachers, and indeed anyone interested in the classical past." —Jonathan Conant, Brown University"Erick Jensen offers a lucid and sweeping account of the ways in which Greeks and Romans conceived of and engaged with everyone else in the ancient world—that is, with barbarians. In addition to engaging with scholarly arguments and offering copious notes behind his approachable prose, Jensen includes an excellent chapter that grapples with the challenging topic of passing the mantle of civilization from Greece to Rome. This chapter embraces the difficulty using it as an opportunity to reveal the fissures in the artificial construct that is discourse about civilization." —Joshua P. Nudell, University of Missouri"This book aims to introduce the many cultures the Greeks and Romans encountered and the ways that both Greeks and Romans interacted with, and perceived, these different cultures. It is explicitly addressed to readers 'without many years of study behind them.' The author was thoroughly successful in this endeavor: he manages to give an overview on the subject from early Greece until Late Antiquity in a very readable and engaging manner. Jensen gives a fascinating picture of the multicultural world of the ancient Mediterranean and shows in every chapter that the Greeks and Romans and the ‘barbarians’ they encountered often had much in common. Especially to be appreciated is that every chapter contains a summary of the modern scholarship about the subject. The last chapter gives a general, very impressive overview of how far the perception of foreign cultures was shaped by ancient stereotypes and until very recently often described with phrases taken from ancient authors. In turn, modern (ideological or political) contexts often influenced the view of ancient societies. This book is not just about ancient cultures or ethnicities; by showing how stereotypes were forged and used already in antiquity, it is very relevant for present times, too." —Balbina Bäbler, University of Goettingen, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Book SynopsisWhat did the ancient Greeks and Romans think of the peoples they referred to as barbari? Did they share the modern Western conception—popularized in modern fantasy literature and role-playing games—of "barbarians" as brutish, unwashed enemies of civilization? Or our related notion of "the noble savage?" Was the category fixed or fluid? How did it contrast with the Greeks and Romans' conception of their own cultural identity? Was it based on race? In accessible, jargon-free prose, Erik Jensen addresses these and other questions through a copiously illustrated introduction to the varied and evolving ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged with, and thought about, foreign peoples—and to the recent historical and archaeological scholarship that has overturned received understandings of the relationship of Classical civilization to its "others."Trade Review"A fascinating study of interrelatedness among peoples that does much to undermine the conventional notion of there being an essentialist divide between Greco-Roman and barbarian culture and peoples. Jensen's work is not only a testimony to the truly multicultural dimension of the ancient Mediterranean, but also a reminder of how cotemporary prejudices help shape our view of past societies. The world that the author paints is 'a tumult of different ideas, interpretations, and conflicts that had no final resolution.' What better reason could a historian offer for studying antiquity? Both readable and scholarly, Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World has a refreshingly modern ring and delivers an important modern message." —Robert Garland, Colgate University "This book is excellent, and even necessary, reading for any survey of the ancient world. Easy to read and unafraid to explain scholarly arguments, Jensen takes his readers on a tour of the so-called Greek and Roman world. While he follows traditional chronological and temporal boundaries, he does not adhere to the old scholarly lens. In fact, by directly challenging it, he opens our eyes to an entirely different ancient world. Rather than speak from the heart of the Roman forum or the Athenian agora, Jensen approaches ancient history from the position of an outsider, as a scholar unwilling to settle on simple narratives of progress from single centers, but rather forcefully admitting difference. Ultimately, Jensen illustrates the benefit of moving beyond the Greeks and the Romans and the importance of doing so. After all, as far as the Romans and Greeks were concerned, we—the English-speaking readers that form Jensen's audience—are as much, if not more, barbarian than Greco-Roman!" —Brian Turner, Portland State University“Encounters with so-called 'Barbarians' are one of the central themes of Greek and Roman history. In this well written and thoroughly researched book Erik Jensen provides students for the first time with an up-to-date account of the role of 'Barbarians' from the beginning of Greek history in the second millennium BCE to the fall of the Roman Empire almost three millennia later.” —Stanley Burstein, California State University, Los Angeles"An important book and a significant addition to the field. Written with verve and a bit of warm humor, it is also eminently readable. Moreover, Jensen’s clear exposition of the possible pitfalls awaiting unwary students as they try to make sense out of the available textual, artistic, and archaeological evidence marks him as a first-rate scholar and teacher." —Alfred J. Andrea, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Vermont"In their interactions with foreigners, ancient Greeks and Romans developed a rhetoric of 'the barbarian' whose legacy still shapes racial and ethnic stereotypes today. Yet as Jensen shows in this splendid study, the attitudes of Greeks and Romans to outsiders (including each other) could also be remarkably nuanced. Written in clear and accessible prose, Jensen's exploration of the cultural and social interconnectedness of the greater Mediterranean world from the Bronze Age to the collapse of Roman hegemony will reward the close attention of students, teachers, and indeed anyone interested in the classical past." —Jonathan Conant, Brown University

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Book SynopsisHackett's Passages: Key Moments in History series titles include original-source documents in accessible editions, intended for the student-user or general audience. This edition, The Greco-Persian Wars, taps our knowledge of the Persian Empire and its interactions with the Greek world. The sources examined were created in different times and places, for different purposes, and with different intended audiences. Using these sources effectively requires recognizing their distinct characteristics. A general introduction about the Greco-Persian wars is included to provide historical background and an overview of the information contained in the original-source documents. Also included are a glossary of terms, a chronology, insightful headnotes to each document, and an index.

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Book SynopsisThis book on cultural heritage uses several points of view. Included are theories on cultural heritage preservation such as the cult of ancient monuments, our history and the economic value of cultural heritage preservation. A diagnostic evaluation is suggested through an integrated multidisciplinary approach, making use of quantitative and reliable data. This diagnosis helps in understanding the new properties of decayed wood and, in perspective, lets us classify the material according to its level of decay for better conservation. Also, the problems of global warming, rising seas, and coastal erosion on the conservation of archaeological, historical, and other types of tangible cultural heritage sites located along the world''s coastlines, are described. Frank R Thomas, using a case study from Micronesia (Kiribati), argues that tangible cultural heritage should not be limited to strengthening cultural identity in a rapidly globalised world, but could also serve as a benchmark in providing long-term perspectives on environmental change, biodiversity conservation and local opportunities for heritage tourism.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores how a civilization, specifically, Western civilization accommodates multiple cultures, their interactions and transformations, historical controversies, temporary suppressions and rebirths. It offers a framework for understanding the history of the West and perspectives for invigorating the contemporary global debate on multiculturalism, whereby it challenges the popular view that history is no more than a multiplicity of discontinuous histories demonstrating that there are, even in view of the rejection of a particular culture, ways of sustaining continuity. Two fundamental concepts of the philosophy of culture initiation and preservation are shown to underscore the cultural and social essentials of human society. This two-tier analysis is first concerned with cultural texts (mythical, epical, tragic, poetical, religious, and philosophical) constitutive of a certain cultural profile; it then reveals the dynamics of being, looking into the ways entities emerge, endure and disappear. The exploration of the Pauline notion of sin, for example, shows that Paul''s sense of spatiotemporality is embedded in his polycentric culture, with the societies of Jews, Greeks, and Christians accommodated within this complex. The key focus is on acts and their transformation into behavioral modes, re-centering Plato''s thought on how an entity "takes part" in its idea, and how its temporal being can be described in terms of biological and cultural existence. The same duality of biology and culture defines the opposition between need and the interrelated concepts of goodness and desire. The equivalent of self-sustaining existence in the worldly domain of time and change is actively sustained endurance. Ideal (cultural) human virtues are ranked higher than (biological) life. Homeric heroes, for example, establish a society founded on the value of glory, thereby embedding the cultural mindset of the generations to come, following their example in idealism. Endurance is secured in mythical, historical, religious, philosophical and legal discourses. As paradigms for human action, they incarnate essential human situations, implicitly involving the hearer, reader, or beholder into making choices and acting. Narrating a past dilemma, the text entangles the living ones into the world of its truths and values and thus sustains cultural continuity.

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Book Synopsis"Burstein’s The Essential Greek Historians is an excellent collection of texts representing the development of historiography in the ancient Greek world. Each text is presented in an engaging and readable translation, with an insightful introduction exploring the purposes behind its composition, the significance of its contribution to the growth of historiography as a literary genre, and the context in which its author thought and wrote. These texts include not only familiar favorites like Herodotus and Thucydides, but also sources such as The Parian Marble and Memnon’s History of Heracleia, which give a broader and richer view of the ways in which Greeks engaged with history. In one economical volume, Burstein has created an indispensable introduction to the historical thought of the ancient Greeks. No student of Greek historiography should be without it." —Erik Jensen, Salem State UniversityIncludes an introduction, maps, and selections from Herodotus' The Histories, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Xenophon's The Hellenica, Aristotle's The Constitution of Athens, The Parian Marble, Polybius' The Histories, Memnon's History of Heracleia, Plutarch's Life of Alexander. See the full Table of Contents on the www.hackettpublishing.com book title page.Trade Review"How best to introduce students and general readers to the foundational works of ancient Greek historiography? Is it better to assign the entirety of one or two major authors, or to provide a broader sampling of excerpted material from many writers? At last, Stanley Burstein has resolved the dilemma. His new compendium, The Essential Greek Historians, offers the most effective and efficient solution so far. The key is multi-layered contextualization. The book begins with an Introduction to Greek historiography that is rich, readable, and reliable. It distills a master teacher’s lifetime of study into the one essay every student should read on the subject. "Each one of the eight works to be sampled here is discussed in relation to the others, taking us from Herodotus and his precursors to Plutarch. Then, each excerpt is further contextualized within its own work. Explanatory notes provide additional connective tissue, leaving readers with the sense—and satisfaction—of encountering and absorbing the entire foundational text. This book, the kind of problem-fixing tool every teacher needs today, will become required reading in ancient history courses. For those outside academia who are self-instructors in ancient studies, this is the place to begin your exploration of the ancient Greeks."—Frank Holt, University of Houston

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Book SynopsisSeth is an ancient Egyptian deity, much maligned in popular, academic and theological thought. Up until fairly recently the only thing one needed to know about Seth was that he was the personification of evil and the prototype of the devil and Satan and all bad things in the world. He is the god who in one of the worlds most ubiquitous myths, kills another god, his own brother Osiris no less, then usurps his role as king, persecuting the orphaned Horus who only survives to manhood, due to the cunning of his sorcerer mother Isis. Horus then overpowers Seth and ensures he gets his just deserts. This book explores the mythos of the god and various ways of seeing him; these may even appear antithetical, as is encapsulated in what is sometime known as The Nagada Hypothesis which stands in contrast to the consensus that Seth was always a malign deity. Topics covered include historical views of Seth such as Plutarchs Anti-God; Modern views of Seth; The Outsider: Gods of Sex and Death; The Two Ways. Includes extensive liturgy, ritual and appendices such as the Seven Spells of Nekhbet - a fantastic piece of battle magic in which the ancient Vulture Goddess enlists the power of Seth to protect Egypts borders. Also a discussion of Apophis, an ancient personification of evil, who is often confused with Seth.

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Book SynopsisWorking “in the shadow of Eduard Norden” in the author’s own words, Nicholas Horsfall has written his own monumental commentary on Aeneid 6. This is Horsfall’s fifth large-scale commentary on the Aeneid, and as his earlier commentaries on books 7, 11, 3, and 2, this is not a commentary aimed at undergraduates. Horsfall is a commentators’ commentator writing with encyclopedic command of Virgilian scholarship for the most demanding reader. Volume One includes the introduction, text and translation, and bibliography,Volume Two includes the commentary, appendices, and indices.

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Book SynopsisThis commentary on the comedy Aspis des Menander mainly deals with text-critical and linguistic questions. The introduction also deals with observations on the dramaturgy, the actors and the Attic law. It provides highly insightful insights into Menander's linguistic art and uses the analysis of numerous parallel texts to refer to the gradations of expression from colloquial colloquialism to paratro-tragedy, which are used in accordance with the dramatic situation. As a result, the commentary is very suitable as an introduction to the Menander reading, but also offers considerable new knowledge for the connoisseur.

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Book SynopsisThis study reconstructs the Hellenistic philosophical debate on rhetoric. In the heterogeneous source situation, Liebersohn succeeds in distinguishing two phases in the debates about the value of rhetoric and two types of debates: one within philosophy and one between philosophers and rhetors The exact environment of this dispute (ie: the locations, dates and people, is then examined). Five main arguments against rhetoric are then reconstructed, all of which are based on the claim of rhetoric to be one of the arts. nf counter arguments are: the exclusivity of teaching argument; the falsa argument; the benefit argument; the end argument; the materia argument.

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Book SynopsisThis package contains the publicationsBruno Callegher, Coins from the Excavations at Khirbet Qumran (1951-1956) and Aïn Feshkha (1956-1958), ISBN 978-3-525-50194-8The Qumran coins (hoard and single finds) are worthy of a novel. They were perfectly examined by H. Seyrig and A. Spijkerman, then the popular conviction spread that the coins had been lost. In fact, they were always kept where they had been classified. Now they are finally published and provide the possibility to suggest that Qumran was a very open centre for trade and transactions, at least from finally the end of the second century BC until the destruction of the site in 70/72 CE.This documentation provides a new reasoning on effective data - not on assumptions.Bruno Callegher, From Hasmonean Period to Umayyad Rulers. Coins and economy in Magdala/Tarichea, ISBN 978-3-525-50193-1On a monetary basis, Magdala must be considered as one of the most important and active settlements between the 1st century BC and most of the 3rd century AD on Lake Kinneret, a place of production and trade, of supply for military forces, certainly in contact with other trading centres, Its monetary decline started on the early 4th century, when the economic and monetary strategies of the Constantinian era shifted the flow of money to other routes, especially between the great port cities of the Mediterranean.Bruno Callegher's study publishes new data, which allow us to overcome "clichés" and a stereotypical view of both the archaeological site and the economy of the Upper Galilee.

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Book SynopsisThe ancient site of Colossae in south-west Turkey has been sorely neglected by archaeologists and biblical commentators. It has never been excavated. Modern scholarship in general has been content to repeat nineteenth century assessments, especially those of J.B. Lightfoot and W.M. Ramsay. This is the first modern contribution to gather the archaeological, historical, classical and biblical materials related to the site and its region, some of which is published in English for the first time. It marks a major step forward in scholarship on Colossae, and is designed to restore Colossae to time and space, to its material and comparative significance. Colossae emerges as a site of uninterrupted human activity in dynamic interaction with its neighbours from before the Achaemenid period to beyond the end of Byzantine control. Evidence of a chalcolithic origin of Colossae is presented along with an assessment of the relationship of the site to the modern city of Honaz. An array of international scholars have brought their specialisations in various periods and disciplines to yield a radically new assessment of the history and importance of the site. All future scholarship will be able to use this volume as the necessary foundation for research. The volume includes the first chronology of the ancient site and the first English translation of the key Byzantine text centred on the ancient city, as well as major new insights into the text of the Epistle to the Colossians.

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Book SynopsisAll the Wisdom of the East is a tribute to Professor Eliezer D. Oren, a multi-faceted archaeologist of the Levant and its cultural connections with the Aegean, renowned student of the Negev and Northern Sinai, and founder of the Archaeological Division in the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva. The book includes an appreciation of the honoree and a list of his numerous publications.Thirty-nine scholars, colleagues and former students from Israel, Europe, the United States of America and New Zealand have contributed original studies in English (22), German (1) and Hebrew (5) to this volume. The spectrum of their papers covers various fields and periods, from pre-history to the Roman Period, from Egypt to the Aegean and the Western Mediterranean, from pottery to art, epigraphy and history. The book thus offers a wealth of knowledge and information of importance to anyone interested in the Ancient Near East.

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Book SynopsisThe aim of the present conference volume is to study the interrelationship of literary and material approaches to historical investigation of gender. Paradigmatically the significance and meaning of gender and sexuality is explored in the context of private and public, religious and secular spaces. Historical, cultural, and social norms (and deviations) of daily life are examined through the lens of textual, archaeological, and art historical investigations to interpret relics of ancient Israelite, Jewish, and Christian communities from the Iron Age through Late Antiquity. Scholars from varied disciplines such as biblical and classical archaeology, epigraphy, Old and New Testament exegesis and religious studies assembled to engage in a dialogue involving both texts and material culture.

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Book SynopsisStuart Miller examines the hermeneutical challenges posed by the material and literary evidence pertaining to ritual purity practices in Graeco-Roman Palestine and, especially, the Galilee. He contends that "stepped pools", which we now know were in use well beyond the Destruction of the Temple, and, as indicated by the large collection on the western acropolis of Sepphoris and elsewhere, into the Middle and Late Roman/Byzantine eras,must be understood in light of biblical and popular perspectives on ritual purity. The interpretation of the finds is too frequently forced to conform to rabbinic prescriptions, which oftentimes were the result of the sages unique and creative, nominalist approach to ritual purity. Special attention is given to the role ritual purity continued to play in the lives of ordinary Jews despite (or because of) the loss of the Temple. Miller argues against the prevailing tendency to type material finds -- and Jewish society -- according to known groups (pre-70 C.E.: Pharisaic, Sadducaic, Essenic; post 70 C.E.: rabbinic, priestly, etc.). He further counters the perception that ritual purity practices were largely the interest of priests and argues against the recent suggestion that the kohanim resurfaced as an influential group in Late Antiquity. Building upon his earlier work on "sages and commoners," Miller claims that the rabbis emerged out of a context in which a biblically derived "complex common Judaism" thrived. Stepped pools, stone vessels, and other material finds are realia belonging to this "complex common Judaism". A careful reading of the rabbis indicates that they were acutely aware of the extent to which ritual purity rites pertaining to home and family life had "spread," which undoubtedly contributed to their intense interest in regulating them.

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Book SynopsisThis book contextualizes Claudian's handling of the Proserpina myth and the underworld in the history of literature and religion while showing intersections with and differences between the literary and religious uses of the underworld topos. In doing so, the study provides an incentive to rethink the dichotomy of the terms "religious" and "non-religious" in favour of a more nuanced model of references and refunctionalisations of elements which are, or could be, religiously connotated. A close philological analysis of De raptu Proserpinae identifies the sphere of myth and poetry as an area of expressive freedom, a parallel universe to theological discourses (whether they be pagan-philosophical or Christian), while the profound understanding and skilful use of this particular sphere "a formative aspect of European religious and intellectual history" is postulated as a characteristic of the educated Roman and of Claudian's poetry.

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Book SynopsisSince the dawn of humanity, people have developed concepts about themselves and the natural world in which they live. This volume aims at investigating the construction and transfer of such concepts between and within various ancient and medieval cultures. The single contributions try to answer questions concerning the sources of knowledge, the strategies of transfer and legitimation as well as the conceptual changes over time and space. After a comprehensive introduction, the volume is divided into three parts: The contributions of the first section treat various theoretical and methodological aspects. Two additional thematic sections deal with a special field of knowledge, i.e. concepts of the moon and of the end of the world in fire.Trade Review"The book will mainly appeal to intellectual historians of antiquity, who will appreciate the case studies of ancient knowledge." T. Farmer, Choice, 57/8 (2020)

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Book SynopsisWhen talking about monuments, size undeniably matters - or does it? But how else can we measure monumentality? Bringing together researchers from various fields such as archaeology, museology, history, sociology, Mesoamerican studies, and art history, this book discusses terminological and methodological approaches in both theoretical contributions and various case studies. While focusing on architectural aspects, this volume also discusses the social meaning of monuments, the role of forced and free labour, as well as textual monumentality. The result is a modern interdisciplinary take on an important concept which is notoriously difficult to define.

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Book SynopsisThe work of Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War has not only decisively influenced our notion of history up until the present day; the complexity of his account also constitutes a particular challenge to philological and historical interpretations alike. Besides focussing on the political and military aspects, by virtue of its unpretentious, downright scientific perspective on historical events and their driving forces, this work set standards that have hardly been surpassed since. In the light of the remarkable sobriety with which Thucydides presents historical reality as a natural realm of existence beyond all theological, ethical or ideological embellishments, the history of thought and the hermeneutical implications behind this model of history are equally fascinating.This volume endeavours to explore the nature of the relation between historical reality and literary portrayal in Thucydides'' historical work. New insights are provided from different perspectives on the question how the contemporary 5th-century and the present-day reader is directed by the author as a violent teacher.

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Book SynopsisClassics as an academic discipline appears to belong to the lecture hall and the seminar. But Classics is alive outside Classics, as the studies collected in this volume show. We engage with Classics in the 19th century through the hymn Gaudeamus Igitur and a popular song on Herman the German, we meet Classics in the Early Modern school, in the 19th century celebrating the Olympics in King Otto's Greece, and identifying the gorilla, and in the 20th century invention of Spartacus as a Bulgarian. We encounter frauds, hoaxes, and the lexicographical tradition, by looking at two works fraudulently ascribed to a Byzantine author, at a joke presented as a New Testament agraphon, at the lexicographical invention of Euboean Cyme, and at the tradition of poking fun at lexica in lexica themselves. We learn about classicists ousted from Classics through the lives of Richard Laqueur and Victor Ehrenberg, and we engage with two publications which were highly influential in popularising Classics: Falke's cultural history of Greece and Rome, and Asterix. The volume thus presents fourteen studies on Classcis outside Classics.

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Book SynopsisHow did the Greeks respond to the experiences of uncertainty that they so acutely made in the aftermath of Alexander the Great's world-changing conquest of the Persian Empire? How were old values upheld and reshaped? And how did the societies of Greek cities and royal courts accommodate the overwhelming newfound power of Greek individuals? By developing a custom methodology, this book tries to shed new light on the complex textuality of the period of the Diadochi, the successors of Alexander. In four case studies, new readings are presented of Theophrastus Characters and Xenophon's Cyropaedia, but also of the substantial early Hellenistic anecdotal material, as well as the Colossus of Rhodes. The studies are united by an interest in how these texts cast the relationships between individuals and how they constructed various media of interrelation, such as money, friendship, women and the divine. Reading these texts on these terms reveals how values were renegotiated through paradoxes and inverted stories that subtly reshaped the utopias of the 4th century BCE. Overall, the study's hypothesis is that this particular brand of social storytelling contributed to the stabilisation of the nascent Hellenistic world by providing new visions of society capable of accommodating individual power and offering a new sense of control and place.

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Book SynopsisThe Gupta Empire describes the material and moral progress which India had achieved during the paramount sovereignty of the Gupta emperors in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. It traces the origin and rise of the ruling family to Srigupta (A.D. 240-280) and concludes with the reign of Kumaragupta III (A.D. 543). It discusses the spirit of the age and the various trends in the sphere of religion, economy, society, education, administration, are and architecture. It seeks to bring together all the facts and date derivable from different sources-literary, epigraphic and numismatic, the accounts of foreign visitors, particularly of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien who has left a detached and valuable record of India's civilization during the reign of Chandragupta II. Herein we get an accurate picture of India's golden age, the growth of her various institutions, here activities of expansion, colonization and her intercourse with Indonesia, China and other countries.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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