A reliable, readable translation for scholars and students

The Refutation of All Heresies (ca. 225 CE) is a treasure-trove of ancient philosophy, astrology, medicine, magic, Gnostic thought, numerology, heresiography, ecclesial politics, and early Christian studies in general. Offered here for the first time in almost a century is a full English translation, along with a newly-edited Greek text, extensive notes, and a thorough introduction.

Features:

• A full English translation with extensive notes
• Newly edited Greek text that avoids the pitfalls of the most recent edition
• A thorough-going introduction that addresses the questions of authorship, date, and audience, as well as the purpose of the book, its organization, method, and importance for Gnostic studies

The Platonic ideal of government.

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family ca. 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-six dialogues developing Socrates’ dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with thirteen letters.

Republic, a masterpiece of philosophical and political thought, concerns righteousness both in individuals and in communities, and proposes an ideal state organized and governed on philosophical principles. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Paul Shorey, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.

The Platonic ideal of government.

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family ca. 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-six dialogues developing Socrates’ dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with thirteen letters.

Republic, a masterpiece of philosophical and political thought, concerns righteousness both in individuals and in communities, and proposes an ideal state organized and governed on philosophical principles. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Paul Shorey, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.

Aurelio Lippo Brandolini’s Republics and Kingdoms Compared is the most fascinating and least-known work of humanist political theory before Machiavelli. A Socratic dialogue set in the court of King Mattias Corvinus of Hungary (ca. 1490), the work depicts a debate between the king himself and a Florentine merchant at his court on the relative merits of republics and kingdoms.

In effect a searing critique of Florentine civic humanism, the work discusses such issues as free trade and the morality of commerce, the inequalities of wealth typical of republics, the nature of freedom and justice, the reasons for the rise and fall of empires, the causes of political corruption, and the conditions necessary for the flourishing of arts, letters, and culture generally. This is the first critical edition and the first translation into any language.

The clever peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse when, on a summer’s day in 1560, a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. The astonishing case captured the imagination of the continent. Told and retold over the centuries, the story of Martin Guerre became a legend, still remembered in the Pyrenean village where the impostor was executed more than 400 years ago.

Now a noted historian, who served as consultant for a new French film on Martin Guerre, has searched archives and lawbooks to add new dimensions to a tale already abundant in mysteries: we are led to ponder how a common man could become an impostor in the sixteenth century, why Bertrande de Rols, an honorable peasant woman, would accept such a man as her husband, and why lawyers, poets, and men of letters like Montaigne became so fascinated with the episode.

Natalie Zemon Davis reconstructs the lives of ordinary people, in a sparkling way that reveals the hidden attachments and sensibilities of nonliterate sixteenth-century villagers. Here we see men and women trying to fashion their identities within a world of traditional ideas about property and family and of changing ideas about religion. We learn what happens when common people get involved in the workings of the criminal courts in the ancien régime, and how judges struggle to decide who a man was in the days before fingerprints and photographs. We sense the secret affinity between the eloquent men of law and the honey-tongued village impostor, a rare identification across class lines.

Deftly written to please both the general public and specialists, The Return of Martin Guerre will interest those who want to know more about ordinary families and especially women of the past, and about the creation of literary legends. It is also a remarkable psychological narrative about where self-fashioning stops and lying begins.