This small book, the last work of a world-renowned scholar, has established itself as a classic. It provides a superb overview of the vast historical process by which Christianity was Hellenized and Hellenic civilization became Christianized.
Werner Jaeger shows that without the large postclassical expansion of Greek culture the rise of a Christian world religion would have been impossible. He explains why the Hellenization of Christianity was necessary in apostolic and postapostalic times; points out similarities between Greek philosophy and Christian belief; discuss such key figures as Clement, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa; and touches on the controversies that led to the ultimate complex synthesis of Greek and Christian thought.
Within the space of three centuries leading up to the great Persian invasion of 480 BC, Greece was transformed from a simple peasant society into a sophisticated civilization that dominated the shores of the Mediterranean from Spain to Syria and from the Crimea to Egypt—a culture whose achievements in the fields of art, science, philosophy, and politics were to establish the canons of the the Western world.
Oswyn Murray places this remarkable development in the context of Mediterranean civilization. He shows how contact with the East catalyzed the transformation of art and religion, analyzes the invention of the alphabet and the conceptual changes it brought, describes the expansions of Greece in trade and colonization, and investigates the relationship between military technology and political progress in the overthrow of aristocratic governments.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
A major new edition of the so-called Presocratics.
The fragments and testimonia of the early Greek philosophers (often labeled the ‘Presocratics’) have always been not only a fundamental source for understanding archaic Greek culture and ancient philosophy but also a perennially fresh resource that has stimulated Western thought until the present day. This new systematic conception and presentation of the evidence differs in three ways from Hermann Diels’s groundbreaking work, as well as from later editions: it renders explicit the material’s thematic organization; it includes a selection from such related bodies of evidence as archaic poetry, classical drama, and the Hippocratic corpus; and it presents an overview of the reception of these thinkers until the end of antiquity.
Volume I contains introductory and reference materials essential for using all other parts of the edition.
Volume II presents preliminary chapters on ancient doxography, the cosmological and moral background, and includes the early Ionian thinkers Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Volume III includes the early Ionian thinkers Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Volume IV presents Pythagoras and the Pythagorean School, including Hippasus, Philolaus, Eurytus, Archytas, Hicetas, and Ecphantus, along with chapters on doctrines not attributed by name and reception.
Volume V includes the western Greek thinkers Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus, Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and Hippo.
Volume Vi includes the later Ionian and Athenian thinkers Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, along with chapters on early Greek medicine and the Derveni Papyrus.
Volume VII includes the atomists Leucippus and Democritus.
Volume VIII includes the so-called sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, and Hippias, along with testimonia relating to the life, views, and argumentative style of Socrates.
Volume IX includes the so-called sophists Antiphon, Lycophron, and Xeniades, along with the Anonymous of Iamblichus, the Dissoi Logoi, a chapter on characterizations of the ‘sophists’ as a group, and an appendix on philosophy and philosophers in Greek drama.
The papers in this volume are based on a 2006 Princeton University symposium in honor of Glen W. Bowersock on the occasion of his retirement from the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study. Here a distinguished international group of ancient historians explores the classical antiquity that Bowersock has given us over a scholarly career of almost fifty years.
The topics offered in East and West range throughout the ancient world from the second century BCE to late antiquity, from Hellenistic Greece and Republican Rome to Egypt and Arabia, from the Second Sophistic to Roman imperial discourse, from Sulla’s self-presentation in his memoirs to charitable giving among the Manichaeans in Egypt.
This collection of essays represents the first attempt to take in Glen Bowersock’s well-developed scholarly interests as a whole. The contributors open up new avenues that often run well beyond the conventional geographical and temporal boundaries of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, leading to a host of fresh insights into antique thought and life.
Echoes of the Great Catastrophe: Re-sounding Anatolian Greekness in Diaspora explores the legacy of the Great Catastrophe—the death and expulsion from Turkey of 1.5 million Greek Christians following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922—through the music and dance practices of Greek refugees and their descendants over the last one hundred years. The book draws extensively on original ethnographic research conducted in Greece (on the island of Lesvos in particular) and in the Greater Boston area, as well as on the author’s lifetime immersion in the North American Greek diaspora. Through analysis of handwritten music manuscripts, homemade audio recordings, and contemporary live performances, the book traces the routes of repertoire and style over generations and back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, investigating the ways that the particular musical traditions of the Anatolian Greek community have contributed to their understanding of their place in the global Greek diaspora and the wider post-Ottoman world. Alternating between fine-grained musicological analysis and engaging narrative prose, it fills a lacuna in scholarship on the transnational Greek experience.
Halkias’s analysis combines telling fragments of contemporary Athenian culture, Greek history, media coverage of abortion and the declining birth rate, and fieldwork in Athens at an obstetrics/gynecology clinic and a family-planning center. Halkias conducted in-depth interviews with one hundred and twenty women who had had two or more abortions and observed more than four hundred gynecological exams at a state family-planning center. She reveals how intimate decisions and the public preoccupation with the low birth rate connect to nationalist ideas of race, religion, freedom, resistance, and the fraught encounter between modernity and tradition. The Empty Cradle of Democracy is a startling examination of how assumptions underlying liberal democracy are betrayed while the nation permeates the body and understandings of gender and sexuality complicate the nation-building projects of late modernity.
The religious transformations that marked late antiquity represent an enigma that has challenged some of the West’s greatest thinkers. But, according to Guy Stroumsa, the oppositions between paganism and Christianity that characterize prevailing theories have endured for too long. Instead of describing this epochal change as an evolution within the Greco-Roman world from polytheism to monotheism, he argues that the cause for this shift can be found not so much around the Mediterranean as in the Near East.
The End of Sacrifice points to the role of Judaism, particularly its inventions of new religious life following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The end of animal sacrifice gave rise to new forms of worship, with a concern for personal salvation, scriptural study, rituals like praying and fasting, and the rise of religious communities and monasticism. It is what Christianity learned from Judaism about texts, death, and, above all, sacrifice that allowed it to supersede Greco-Roman religions and, Stroumsa argues, transform religion itself.
A concise and original approach to a much-studied moment in religious history, The End of Sacrifice will be heralded by all scholars of late antiquity.
Greece sits at the center of a geopolitical storm that threatens the stability of the European Union. To comprehend how this small country precipitated such an outsized crisis, it is necessary to understand how Greece developed into a nation in the first place, Paschalis Kitromilides contends. Enlightenment and Revolution identifies the intellectual trends and ideological traditions that shaped a religiously defined community of Greek-speaking people into a modern nation-state--albeit one in which antiliberal forces have exacted a high price.
Kitromilides takes in the vast sweep of the Greek Enlightenment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, assessing key developments such as the translation of Voltaire, Locke, and other modern authors into Greek; the conflicts sparked by the Newtonian scientific revolution; the rediscovery of the civilization of classical Greece; and the emergence of a powerful countermovement. He highlights Greek thinkers such as Voulgaris and Korais, showing how these figures influenced and converged with currents of the Enlightenment in the rest of Europe.
In reconstructing this history, Kitromilides demonstrates how the confrontation between Enlightenment ideas and Church-sanctioned ideologies shaped the culture of present-day Greece. When the Greek nation-state emerged from a decade-long revolutionary struggle against the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century, the Enlightenment dream of a free Greek polity was soon overshadowed by a romanticized nationalist and authoritarian vision. The failure to create a modern liberal state at that decisive historic moment, Kitromilides insists, is at the root of Greece's recent troubles.
Much has been written about the world’s first democracy, but no book so far has been dedicated solely to the study of enmity in ancient Athens. Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens is a long-overdue analysis of the competitive power dynamics of Athenian honor and the potential problems these feuds created for democracies.
The citizens of Athens believed that harming one’s enemy was an acceptable practice and even the duty of every honorable citizen. They sought public wins over their rivals, making enmity a critical element in struggles for honor and standing, while simultaneously recognizing the threat that personal enmity posed to the community. Andrew Alwine works to understand how Athenians addressed this threat by looking at the extant work of Attic orators. Their speeches served as the intersection between private vengeance and public sanction of illegal behavior, allowing citizens to engage in feuds within established parameters. This mediation helped support Athenian democracy and provided the social underpinning to allow it to function in conjunction with Greek notions of personal honor.
Alwine provides a framework for understanding key issues in the history of democracy, such as the relationship between private and public realms, the development of equality and the rule of law, and the establishment of individual political rights. Serving also as a nuanced introduction to the works of the Attic orators, Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens is an indispensable addition to scholarship on Athens.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
Plato’s most influential disciple and proponent.
Plotinus (AD 204/5–270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he went to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius “Saccas” for eleven years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians, he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he settled in Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write, and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master’s death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads).
Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Muslims, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plotinus is in seven volumes.
The first fruits of Greek botany.
Theophrastus of Eresus in Lesbos, born about 370 BC, is the author of the most important botanical works that have survived from classical antiquity. He was in turn student, collaborator, and successor of Aristotle. Like his predecessor he was interested in all aspects of human knowledge and experience, especially natural science. His writings on plants form a counterpart to Aristotle’s zoological works.
In the Enquiry into Plants Theophrastus classifies and describes varieties—covering trees, plants of particular regions, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and cereals; in the last of the nine books he focuses on plant juices and medicinal properties of herbs. This edition is in two volumes; the second contains two additional treatises, On Odours and Weather Signs.
In De causis plantarum Theophrastus turns to plant physiology. Books 1 and 2 are concerned with generation, sprouting, flowering and fruiting, and the effects of climate. In Books 3 and 4 Theophrastus studies cultivation and agricultural methods. In Books 5 and 6 he discusses plant breeding; diseases and other causes of death; and distinctive flavors and odors. The Loeb Classical Library edition is in three volumes.
Theophrastus’ celebrated Characters is of a quite different nature. This collection of descriptive sketches is the earliest known character-writing and a striking reflection of contemporary life.
The first fruits of Greek botany.
Theophrastus of Eresus in Lesbos, born about 370 BC, is the author of the most important botanical works that have survived from classical antiquity. He was in turn student, collaborator, and successor of Aristotle. Like his predecessor he was interested in all aspects of human knowledge and experience, especially natural science. His writings on plants form a counterpart to Aristotle’s zoological works.
In the Enquiry into Plants Theophrastus classifies and describes varieties—covering trees, plants of particular regions, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and cereals; in the last of the nine books he focuses on plant juices and medicinal properties of herbs. This edition is in two volumes; the second contains two additional treatises, On Odours and Weather Signs.
In De causis plantarum Theophrastus turns to plant physiology. Books 1 and 2 are concerned with generation, sprouting, flowering and fruiting, and the effects of climate. In Books 3 and 4 Theophrastus studies cultivation and agricultural methods. In Books 5 and 6 he discusses plant breeding; diseases and other causes of death; and distinctive flavors and odors. The Loeb Classical Library edition is in three volumes.
Theophrastus’ celebrated Characters is of a quite different nature. This collection of descriptive sketches is the earliest known character-writing and a striking reflection of contemporary life.
The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”
The medical treatises collected under Hippocrates’ name are essential sources of information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body. In this seventh volume of the ongoing Loeb edition of the Hippocratic Collection, Wesley Smith presents the first modern English translation of Books 2 and 4–7 of the Epidemics (the other two books are available in the first volume).
In the casebooks and notes that make up the seven books called Epidemics—the title originally meant ‘visits’—we can watch ancient physicians observing patients, noting and pondering symptoms, evaluating treatments, and developing theories about the body. They appear to be physicians’ notebooks from several areas of the Aegean basin. Smith supplements his clear translation with explanatory notes.
The works available in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Hippocrates are:
Volume I: Ancient Medicine. Airs, Waters, Places. Epidemics 1 and 3. The Oath. Precepts. Nutriment.
Volume II: Prognostic. Regimen in Acute Diseases. The Sacred Disease. The Art. Breaths. Law. Decorum. Dentition.
Volume III: On Wounds in the Head. In the Surgery. On Fractures. On Joints. Mochlicon.
Volume IV: Nature of Man. Regimen in Health. Humors. Aphorisms. Regimen 1–3. Dreams.
Volume V: Affections. Diseases 1–2.
Volume VI: Diseases 3. Internal Affections. Regimen in Acute Diseases.
Volume VII: Epidemics 2 and 4–7.
Volume VIII: Places in Man. Glands. Fleshes. Prorrhetic 1–2. Physician. Use of Liquids. Ulcers. Haemorrhoids and Fistulas.
Volume IX: Anatomy. Nature of Bones. Heart. Eight Months’ Child. Coan Prenotions. Crises. Critical Days. Superfetation. Girls. Excision of the Fetus. Sight.
Volume X: Generation. Nature of the Child. Diseases 4. Nature of Women. Barrenness.
Volume XI: Diseases of Women 1–2.
A condensed Roman history of non-Roman civilizations.
To Justin (Marcus Junian(i)us Justinus), otherwise unknown, is attributed our abbreviated version of the lost Philippic History by (Gnaeus?) Pompeius Trogus, a massive account, in forty-four books, of the non-Roman world and its civilizations, from mythic beginnings through Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and Parthia. Trogus’ work thus complemented the monumental history of Rome by his Augustan contemporary, Livy, and in high style traced similar moral themes: rulers and states that lack such virtues as moderation, justice, and piety bring harm or ruin on themselves, and often on their realms as well.
Justin, working at some time in the late second to the late fourth century AD, did not produce a strict epitome or summary but what he calls “a brief anthology”: not unlike Florus (LCL 231), who used Livy’s history as the primary source for a brief but original military history of Rome, Justin freely selected what suited his own purposes, favoring “what makes pleasurable reading or serves to provide a moral,” with an eye to the kind of emotive anecdotes that might be useful to orators. He also blends Trogus’ language with borrowings from literature of subsequent generations. Justin’s anthology became one of the most widely read and influential books in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, indeed the main authority on world history other than Roman, surviving in more than 200 manuscripts.
Also included in this edition are the “Prologues,” summaries of Trogus by some other compiler, which preserve many details that Justin omits or reports differently.
A condensed Roman history of non-Roman civilizations.
To Justin (Marcus Junian(i)us Justinus), otherwise unknown, is attributed our abbreviated version of the lost Philippic History by (Gnaeus?) Pompeius Trogus, a massive account, in forty-four books, of the non-Roman world and its civilizations, from mythic beginnings through Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and Parthia. Trogus’ work thus complemented the monumental history of Rome by his Augustan contemporary, Livy, and in high style traced similar moral themes: rulers and states that lack such virtues as moderation, justice, and piety bring harm or ruin on themselves, and often on their realms as well.
Justin, working at some time in the late second to the late fourth century AD, did not produce a strict epitome or summary but what he calls “a brief anthology”: not unlike Florus (LCL 231), who used Livy’s history as the primary source for a brief but original military history of Rome, Justin freely selected what suited his own purposes, favoring “what makes pleasurable reading or serves to provide a moral,” with an eye to the kind of emotive anecdotes that might be useful to orators. He also blends Trogus’ language with borrowings from literature of subsequent generations. Justin’s anthology became one of the most widely read and influential books in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, indeed the main authority on world history other than Roman, surviving in more than 200 manuscripts.
Also included in this edition are the “Prologues,” summaries of Trogus by some other compiler, which preserve many details that Justin omits or reports differently.
Equine Poetics is a literary analysis of horses and horsemanship in early Greek epic and lyric poetry, especially those facets that reflect the prehistory of Greek language and culture.
The book begins with Ryan Platte’s analysis of Homeric formulas for horses, proposing a model by which most such formulas may be understood as members of a single verbal network, with roots in preliterate antiquity. He then considers the poetic relationship between horses and humans, leading to an analysis of the figure of the metapoetic charioteer. Finally, the work compares myths featuring chariot races and bridal contests, focusing on the supposed mythological inventiveness of Pindar’s Olympian 1.
Platte develops a methodology rooted in oral verse mechanics to understand contest-based mythical parallels that have defied easy historical explanations—in Greece and beyond. Drawing from the fields of comparative poetics and historical linguistics, Equine Poetics sheds new light on fascinating and puzzling aspects of these central figures in early Greek verbal art.
The Essential Isocrates is a comprehensive introduction to Isocrates, one of ancient Greece’s foremost orators. Jon D. Mikalson presents Isocrates largely in his own words, with original English translations of selections of his writings on his life and times and on morality, religion, philosophy, rhetoric, education, political theory, and Greek and Athenian history. In Mikalson’s treatment, Isocrates receives his due not only as a major thinker but as one whose work has resonated across time, influencing even modern education practices and theory.
Isocrates wrote extensively about Athens in the fourth century BCE and before, and his speeches, letters, and essays provide a trove of insights concerning the intellectual, political, and social currents of his time. Mikalson details what we know about Isocrates’s long, eventful, and complicated life, and much can be gleaned on the personal level from his own writings, as Isocrates was one of the most introspective authors of the Classical Period. By collecting the most representative and important passages of Isocrates’s writings, arranging them topically, and placing them in historical context, The Essential Isocrates invites general and expert readers alike to engage with one of antiquity’s most compelling men of ideas.
The sophisticated schoolmaster.
The importance of Isocrates for the study of Greek civilization of the fourth century BC is indisputable. From 403 to 393 he wrote speeches for Athenian law courts, and then became a teacher of composition for would-be orators. After setting up a school of rhetoric in Chios he returned to Athens and established there a free school of “philosophia” involving a practical education of the whole mind, character, judgment, and mastery of language. This school had famous pupils from all over the Greek world, such as the historians Ephorus and Theopompus and orators Isaeus, Lycurgus, and Hypereides. Isocrates also wrote in gifted style essays on political questions, his main idea being a united Greece to conquer the Persian empire. Thus in his fine Panegyricus (written for the 100th Olympiad gathering in 380) he urged that the leadership should be granted to Athens, possibly in conjunction with Sparta. In the end he looked to Philip of Macedon, but died just as Philip’s supremacy in Greece began.
Twenty-one discourses by Isocrates survive; these include political essays, treatises on education and on ethics, and speeches for legal cases. Nine letters are also extant; they are concerned more with public than with private matters. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Isocrates is in three volumes. Volume I contains six discourses: To Demonicus, To Nicocles, Nicocles or The Cyprians, Panegyricus, To Philip, and Archidamus. Five are in Volume II: Areopagiticus, On the Peace, Panathenaicus, Against the Sophists, Antidosis. Volume III contains Evagoras, Helen, Busiris, Plataicus, Concerning the Team of Horses, Trapeziticus, Against Callimachus, Aegineticus, Against Lochites, and Against Euthynus, as well as the nine extant letters and a comprehensive index.
Marriage is a central concern in five of the seven extant plays of the Greek tragedian Sophocles. In this pathfinding study, Kirk Ormand delves into the ways in which these plays represent and problematize marriage, thus offering insights into how Athenians thought about the institution of marriage.
Ormand takes a two-fold approach. He first explores the legal and economic underpinnings of Athenian marriage, an institution designed to guarantee the legitimate continuation of patrilineal households. He then shows how Sophocles' plays Trachiniae, Electra, Antigone, Ajax, and Oedipus Tyrannus both reinforce and critique this ideology by representing marriage as a homosocial exchange between men, in which women are objects who may attempt—but always fail—to become self-acting subjects.
These fresh readings provide the first systematic study of marriage in Sophocles. They draw important connections between drama and marriage as rituals concerned with controlling potentially disruptive female subjectivities.
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