A window into the human lives of classical Greece through the words they left behind.
 
Myths, Muses and Mortals gives new insight into a multitude of life experiences in ancient Greece. The book introduces the lives of the ancient Greeks through extracts taken from a range of sources, including poems, plays, novels, histories, lawsuits, inscriptions, and private note tablets. The voices speak for themselves in fresh translation, but in addition, William Furley gives the narratives historical context and illuminates the literary genre in which they appear. The texts are grouped around important areas of life—love relations, travel and trade, social status, divine signs, daily events, warfare, philosophies, dress code, and private and public celebration—giving voice to the variety of lives experienced by the citizens of ancient Greece and an insight into the Greek mind.

William Furley is emeritus professor of Greek at Heidelberg University and research fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies, London. His publications include Greek Hymns and three editions of plays by Menander: Epitrepontes, Perikeiromene, and Misoumenos.

ForewordGlossary of Ancient Terms Note on Metre LOVE Epic love Comic love Passionate Love Wives and kept women Higher Spheres Down to Earth STATUS Gods Homer The Great and the Good New Men Salt of the Earth Status Symbols SAIL AND OAR For Those in Peril Gateway to Elysium SIGNS Birds and Beasts Oracles Dreams A Little Theory Pseudo-Sciences THE DAILY ROUND At Home The Agora Messaging Dinnertime Bedtime Street Crime A BETTER WORLD The Beginnings Elysian Fields Celibacy Out of the Dark Orphic Initiation WARFARE Epic Lyric: Love and War The Heroic and the not-so heroic War is the Father Lady Luck DRESS CODE Women Men CELEBRATION Myth History Private Celebration Notes on Ancient Authors and Sources ReferencesFurther ReadingAcknowledgments Photo Acknowledgements Index