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Hallowed Stewards
Solon and the Sacred Treasurers of Ancient Athens
William S. Bubelis
University of Michigan Press, 2016
Students of ancient Athenian politics, governance, and religion have long stumbled over the rich evidence of inscriptions and literary texts that document the Athenians’ stewardship of the wealth of the gods. Likewise, Athens was well known for devoting public energy and funds to all matters of ritual, ranging from the building of temples to major religious sacrifices. Yet, lacking any adequate account of how the Athenians organized that commitment, much less how it arose and developed, ancient historians and philologists alike have labored with only a paltry understanding of what was a central concern to the Athenians themselves. That deficit of knowledge, in turn, has constrained and diminished our grasp of other essential questions surrounding Athenian society and its history, such as the nature of political life in archaic Athens, and the forces underlying Athens’ imperial finances.

Hallowed Stewards closely examines those magistracies that were central to Athenian religious efforts, and which are best described as “sacred treasurers.” Given the extensive but fragmentary evidence available to us, which consists mainly of inscriptions but includes such texts as the ps.-Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians, no catalog-like approach to these offices could properly encompass their details, much less their wider significance. By situating the sacred treasurers within a broader religious and historical framework, Hallowed Stewards not only provides an incisive portrait of the treasurers themselves but also elucidates how sacred property and public finance alike developed in ancient Athens.

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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 105
Kathleen M. Coleman
Harvard University Press
This volume includes Carolyn Higbie, “Divide and Edit: A Brief History of Book Divisions”; Ho Kim, “Aristotle’s Hamartia Reconsidered”; Andrew Faulkner, “Callimachus and His Allusive Virgins: Delos, Hestia, and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite”; José M. González, “Theokritos’ Idyll 16: The Χάριτες [Kharites] and Civic Poetry”; Matthew Leigh, “Boxing and Sacrifice: Apollonius, Vergil, and Valerius”; Sviatoslav Dmitriev, “The Rhodian Loss of Caunus and Stratonicea in the 160s”; Radosław Piętka, “Trina tempestas (Carmina Einsidlensia 2.33)”; James Uden, “The Vanishing Gardens of Priapus”; Maria Ypsilanti, “Trimalchio and Fortunata as Zeus and Hera: Quarrel in the Cena and Iliad 1”; Martin Korenjak, “Ps.-Dionysius Ars Rhetorica I–VII: One Complete Treatise”; Jarrett T. Welsh, “The Grammarian C. Iulius Romanus and the Fabula Togata”; Silvio Bär, “Quintus of Smyrna and the Second Sophistic”; and Simon Price, “The Road to Conversion: The Life and Work of A. D. Nock.”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 106
Kathleen M. Coleman
Harvard University Press
This volume includes Natasha Bershadsky, “A Picnic, a Tomb, and a Crow: Hesiod’s Cult in the Works and Days”; Alexander Dale, “Sapphica”; Andrew Faulkner, “Fast, Famine, and Feast: Food for Thought in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter”; Guillermo Galán Vioque, “A New Manuscript of Classical Authors in Spain”; Jarrett T. Welsh, “The Dates of the Dramatists of the Fabula Togata”; Andrea Cucchiarelli, “Ivy and Laurel: Divine Models in Virgil’s Eclogues”; John Henkel, “Nighttime Labor: A Metapoetic Vignette Alluding to Aratus at Georgics 1.291–296”; Salvatore Monda, “The Coroebus Episode in Virgil’s Aeneid”; Mark Toher, “Herod’s Last Days”; Bart Huelsenbeck, “The Rhetorical Collection of the Elder Seneca: Textual Tradition and Traditional Text”; Robert Cowan, “Lucan’s Thunder-Box: Scatology, Epic, and Satire in Suetonius’ Vita Lucani”; Erin Sebo, “Symphosius 93.2: A New Interpretation”; Christopher P. Jones, “Imaginary Athletics in Two Followers of John Chrysostom”; and William T. Loomis and Stephen V. Tracy, “The Sterling Dow Archive: Publications, Unfinished Scholarly Work, and Epigraphical Squeezes.”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 107
Jeremy Rau
Harvard University Press
This volume includes "Proemic Convention and Character Construction in Early Greek Epic" by Adrian Kelly and Sarah Harden; "Alcman's Nightscapes (Frs. 89 and 90 PMGF)" by Felix Budelmann; "Epicharmus, Tisias, and the Early History of Rhetoric" by Wilfred Major; "drakeís, dédorke and the Visualization of kléos in Pindar" by Timothy Barnes; "Dance, Deixis, and the Performance of Kyrenaic History in Pindar's Fifth Pythian" by Robert Sobak; "Of Chaos, Nobility and Double Entendres: The Etymology of xaîos and bathuxaîos (Ar. Lys. 90-91, 1157; Aesch. Supp. 858; Theoc. 7.3)" by Olga Tribulato; "Hercules, Cacus, and Evander's Myth-Making in Aeneid 8" by Davide Secci; "The Literary and Stylistic Qualities of a Plinian Letter" by Thomas Keeline; "Between Poetry and Politics: Horace and the East" by Giuseppe La Bua; "Nero's Cannibal (Suetonius Nero 37.2)" by Tristan Power; "Systems of Sophistry and Philosophy: The Case of the 'Second Sophistic'" by Jeroen Lauwers; "The Plagiarized Virgil in Donatus, Servius, and the Anthologia Latina" by Scott McGill; and "Textual Notes on Palladius Opus Agriculturae" by John Fitch.
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 108
Richard F. Thomas
Harvard University Press
This volume includes Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, “‘Trust the God’: Tharsein in Ancient Greek Religion”; Jordi Pàmias, “Acusilaus of Argos and the Bronze Tablets”; Karen Rosenbecker, “‘Just Desserts’: Reversals of Fortune, Feces, Flatus, and Food in Aristophanes’ Wealth”; Yosef Z. Liebersohn, “Crito’s Character in Plato’s Crito”; Alexandros Kampakoglou, “Staging the Divine: Epiphany and Apotheosis in Callimachus HE 1121–1124”; Christopher Eckerman, “Muses, Metaphor, and Metapoetics in Catullus 61”; Christopher P. Jones, “The Greek Letters Ascribed to Brutus”; Jefferds Huyck, “Another Sort of Misogyny: Aeneid 9.140–141”; Mark Heerink, “Hylas, Hercules, and Valerius Flaccus’ Metamorphosis of the Aeneid”; Lowell Edmunds, “Pliny the Younger on His Verse and Martial’s Non-Recognition of Pliny as a Poet”; Eleanor Cowan, “Caesar’s One Fatal Wound: Suetonius Divus Iulius 82.3”; Graeme Bourke, “Classical Sophism and Philosophy in Pseudo-Plutarch On the Training of Children”; Jarrett T. Welsh, “Verse Quotations from Festus”; Benjamin Garstad, “Rome in the Alexander Romance”; James N. Adams, “The Latin of the Magerius (Smirat) Mosaic”; Lucia Floridi, “The Construction of a Homoerotic Discourse in the Epigrams of Ausonius”; Massimilliano Vitiello, “Emperor Theodosius’ Liberty and the Roman Past”; and Thomas Keeline and Stuart M. McManus, “Benjamin Larnell, the Last Latin Poet at Harvard Indian College.”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 109
Richard F. Thomas
Harvard University Press
This volume includes: José Marcos Macedo, “Zeus as (Rider of) Thunderbolt”; Nikoloz Shamugia, “Bronze Relief with Caeneus and Centaurs from Olympia”; Hayden Pelliccia, “The Violation of Wackernagel’s Law at Pindar Pythian 3.1”; John Heath, “Corinna’s ‘Old Wives’ Tales’”; Maria Pavlou, “Lieux de Mémoire in the Plataean Speech (Thuc. 3.53–59)”; Robert Mayhew, “A Note on [Aristotle] Problemata 26.61”; Sam Hitchings, “The Date of [Demosthenes] XVII On the Treaty with Alexander”; John Walsh, “A Note on Diodorus 18.11.1, Arybbas, and the Lamian War”; Loukas Papadimitropoulos, “Charicleia’s Identity and the Structure of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica”; Ian Goh, “Kun-egonde”; Javier Uría, “Iulius Romanus’ Remark on Titinius (123 G.)”; Henry Spelman, “Borrowing Sappho’s Napkins”; Fabio Tutrone, “Granting Epicurean Wisdom at Rome”; Boris Kayachev, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”; Florence Klein, “Vergil’s ‘Posidippeanism’?”; Gianpero Rosati, “Evander’s Curse and the ‘Long Death’ of Mezentius (Verg. Aen. 8.483–488, 10.845–850)”; Fiachra Mac Góráin, “The Poetics of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid”; Ioannis Ziogas, “Singing for Octavia”; Benjamin Victor, “Four Passages in Propertius’ Last Book of Elegies”; and David Greenwood, “Julian and Asclepius.”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 110
Richard F. Thomas
Harvard University Press
This volume includes: Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz, “Half Slave, Half Free: Partial Manumission in the Ancient Near East and Beyond”; Chris Eckerman, “I Weave a Variegated Headband: Metaphors for Song and Communication in Pindar’s Odes”; Alexander Nikolaev, “Through the Thicket: The Text of Pindar Olympian 6.54 (βατιᾶι τ’ ἐν ἀπειράτωι)”; Tobias Joho, “Alcibiadean Mysteries and Longing for ‘Absent’ and ‘Invisible Things’ in Thucydides’ Account of the Sicilian Expedition”; Peter Barrios Lech, “Menander and Catullus 8—Revisited: Menander Misoumenos and Catullus Carmen 8”; Katharina Volk, “Varro and the Disorder of Things”; John T. Ramsey, “The Date of the Consular Elections in 63 and the Inception of Catiline’s Conspiracy”; Brian D. McPhee, “Erulus and the Moliones: An Iliadic Intertext in Aeneid 8.560–567”; Julia Scarborough, “Eridanus in Elysium: The Underground Poetics of Virgil’s Violent River”; Geert Roskam, “Providential Gods and Social Justice: An Ancient Controversy on Theonomous Ethics”; Rafael J. Gallé Cejudo, “Progymnasmatic Alteration in the Love Letters of Philostratus”; Moysés Marcos, “Callidior ceteris persecutor: The Emperor Julian and His Place in Christian Historiography”; Valéry Berlincourt, “Dea Roma and Mars: Intertext and Structure in Claudian’s Panegyric for the Consuls Olybrius and Probinus”; Fabio Stok, “What is the Spangenberg Fragment?”; George M. Hollenback, “Do Not Steal Seed: An Overlooked Double Entendre in Oracula Sibyllina 2.71”; and Paolo Pellegrini, “R. A. B. Mynors and Harvard: An Unpublished Letter to E. K. Rand (10.10.1944).”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 111
Richard F. Thomas
Harvard University Press
This volume includes: Daniel Kölligen, “Ὄρθος, The Watchdog”; Richard L. Phillips, “Invisibility and Sight in Homer: Some Aspects of A. S. Pease Reconsidered”; Antonio Tibiletti, “Pondering Pindaric Superlatives in Context”; Matthew Hiscock, “Αὐθέντης: A ‘Mot Fort’ in the Discourse of Classical Athens”; James T. Clark, “Off-Stage Cries? The Performance of Sophocles’ Philoctetes 201–218, Trachiniae 863–870, and Euripides’ Electra 747–760”; Giuseppe Pezzini, “Terence and the Speculum Vitae: ‘Realism’ and (Roman) Comedy”; Neil O’Sullivan, “Quotations from Epicurean Philosophy and Greek Tragedy in Three Letters of Cicero”; Ernesto Paparazzo, “A Study of Varro’s Account of Roman Civil Theology in the Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum and Its Reception by Augustine and Modern Readers”; Joseph P. Dexter and Pramit Chaudhuri, “Dardanio Anchisae: Hiatus, Homer, and Intermetricality in the Aeneid”; Michael A. Tueller, “Dido the Author: Epigram and the Aeneid”; Benjamin Victor, Nancy Duval, and Isabelle Chouinard, “Subordinating si and ni in Virgil: Some Characteristic Uses, with Remarks on Aeneid 6.882–883”; Richard Gaskin, “On Being Pessimistic about the End of the Aeneid”; Gregory R. Mellen, “Num Delenda est Karthago? Metrical Wordplay and the Text of Horace Odes 4.8”; Kyle Gervais, “Dominoque legere superstes? Epic and Empire at the End of the Thebaid”; D. Clint Burnett, “Temple Sharing and Throne Sharing: A Reconsideration of Σύνναος and Σύνθρονος in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods”; Charles H. Cosgrove, “Semi-Lyrical Reading of Greek Poetry in Late Antiquity”; Byron MacDougall, “Better Recognize: Anagnorisis in Gregory of Nazianzus’s First Invective against Julian”; Alan Cameron, “Jerome and the Historia Augusta”; Jessica H. Clark, “Adfirmare and Appeals to Authority in Servius Danielis”; and Jarrett T. Welsh, “Nonius Marcellus and the Source Called ‘Gloss. i.’”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 112
Jan M. Ziolkowski
Harvard University Press
This volume includes: Olga Levaniouk, “The Dreams of Barčin and Penelope”; Paul K. Hosle, “Bacchylides’ Theseus and Vergil’s Aristaeus”; Vayos Liapis, “Arion and the Dolphin: Apollo Delphinios and Maritime Networks in Herodotus”; Nino Luraghi, “The Peloponnesian Peace: Herodotus, Thucydides, and the Ideology of the Peace of Nikias”; Andrea Capra, “The Staging and Meaning of Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen”; Konstantine Panegyres, “Moses, Pharaoh, and the Waters of the Nile: Artapanus FGrHist 726 F 3”; Roy D. Kotansky, “Underworld and Celestial Eschatologies in the ‘Orphic’ Gold Leaves”; Vittorio Remo Danovi, “New Citations from the Libri Etruscorum and Varro in Vergilian Scholia”; T. H. M. Gellar-Goad, “Tears and Personified Nature in Juvenal 15.131–140 and Lucretius 3.931–962”; Tristan Power, “Textual Conjectures on Catullus 55.9-12”; Francesco Rotiroti, “From Beneficent God to Maddened Bull: The Shepherd of Men in the Works of Virgil”; J. S. C. Eidinow, “The Critic and the Farmer: Horace, Maecenas, and Virgil in Horace Carm. 1.1”; Shirley Werner, “The Rules of the Game: Imitation and Mimesis in Horace Epistles 1.19”; Francis Newton, “Ovid Met. 1: Jupiter’s Plebeians, the Titles of Augustus, and the Poet’s Exile”; Simona Martorana, “Omission and Allusion: When Statius’ Hypsipyle Reads Ovid’s Heroides 6”; Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, “The Chronokratores in Greek Astrology, in Light of a New Papyrus Text: Oxford, Bodl. MS Gr. Class. B 24 (P) 1–2”; Konstantine Panegyres, “ΒΟΜΒΟΣ: Heliodorus Aethiopica 9.17.1”; Andrew C. Johnston, “Aemilius and the Crown: Rome and the Hellenistic World of the Alexander Romance.”
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Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Volume 113
Jan M. Ziolkowski
Harvard University Press
This volume includes: Andrew Merritt, “ἔρυμαι and ἐρύκω”; Georgios Kostopoulos, “Vowel Lengthening in Attic Primary Comparatives”; Christian Vassallo, “Xenophanes on the Soul: Another Chapter of Ancient Physics”; Guy Westwood, “Making a Martyr: Demosthenes and Euphraeus of Oreus (Third Philippic 59–62)”; Peter Osorio, “Trust and Persuasion: Testimony in [Plato], Demodocus”; James J. Clauss and Scott B. Noegel, “Near Eastern Poetics in Callimachus’s Hymn to Apollo”; Robert Cowan, “Ucalegon and the Gauls: Aeneid 2 and the Hymn to Delos Revisited”; Christoph Begass, “Aktia and Isaktioi Agones: Greek Contests and Roman Power”; and Chiara Meccariello, “Myth and Actuality at the School of Rhetoric: The Encomium on the Flower of Antinous in Its Cultural and Performative Context.”
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Haunted Greece and Rome
Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity
By D. Felton
University of Texas Press, 1998

Stories of ghostly spirits who return to this world to warn of danger, to prophesy, to take revenge, to request proper burial, or to comfort the living fascinated people in ancient times just as they do today. In this innovative, interdisciplinary study, the author combines a modern folkloric perspective with literary analysis of ghost stories from classical antiquity to shed new light on the stories' folk roots.

The author begins by examining ancient Greek and Roman beliefs about death and the departed and the various kinds of ghost stories which arose from these beliefs. She then focuses on the longer stories of Plautus, Pliny, and Lucian, which concern haunted houses. Her analysis illuminates the oral and literary transmission and adaptation of folkloric motifs and the development of the ghost story as a literary form. In her concluding chapter, the author also traces the influence of ancient ghost stories on modern ghost story writers, a topic that will interest all readers and scholars of tales of hauntings.

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The Heart of Achilles
Characterization and Personal Ethics in the Iliad
Graham Zanker
University of Michigan Press, 1996
In The Heart of Achilles, Graham Zanker addresses the task of reconstructing the ethical thought-world in which the characters of the Iliad live and move. It is only against this background, Zanker argues, that we can convincingly place the ethical status of the heroes and their actions. This in turn helps us to form a comprehensive view of the Iliad'scharacterization of its people, especially that of Achilles, by examining all his responses to the question of allegiance, the value of heroic prowess, and of life itself.
"[Zanker] investigates altruistic behavior in the epic with professional sophistication but in a way that makes his investigation available to a wide audience from undergraduates to advanced scholars. . . . [A] very useful interpretative study." --Choice
Graham Zanker is Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
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Hecale. Hymns. Epigrams
Callimachus
Harvard University Press, 2022

The premier scholar-poet of the Hellenistic age.

Callimachus (ca. 303–ca. 235 BC), a proud and well-born native of Cyrene in Libya, came as a young man to the court of the Ptolemies at Alexandria, where he composed poetry for the royal family; helped establish the Library and Museum as a world center of literature, science, and scholarship; and wrote an estimated 800 volumes of poetry and prose on an astounding variety of subjects, including the Pinakes, a descriptive bibliography of the Library’s holdings in 120 volumes. Callimachus’ vast learning richly informs his poetry, which ranges broadly and reworks the language and generic properties of his predecessors in inventive, refined, and expressive ways. The “Callimachean” style, combining learning, elegance, and innovation and prizing brevity, clarity, lightness, and charm, served as an important model for later poets, not least at Rome for Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and the elegists, among others.

This edition, which replaces the earlier Loeb editions by A. W. Mair (1921) and C. A. Trypanis (1954, 1958), presents all that currently survives of and about Callimachus and his works, including the ancient commentaries (Diegeseis) and scholia. Volume I contains Aetia, Iambi, and lyric poems; Volume II Hecale, Hymns, and Epigrams; and Volume III miscellaneous epics and elegies, other fragments, and testimonia, together with concordances and a general index. The Greek text is based mainly on Pfeiffer’s but enriched by subsequently published papyri and the judgment of later editors, and its notes and annotation are fully informed by current scholarship.

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Hellenica, Volume I
Books 1–4
Xenophon
Harvard University Press

A continuation of Thucydides.

Xenophon (ca. 430 to ca. 354 BC) was a wealthy Athenian and friend of Socrates. He left Athens in 401 and joined an expedition including ten thousand Greeks led by the Persian governor Cyrus against the Persian king. After the defeat of Cyrus, it fell to Xenophon to lead the Greeks from the gates of Babylon back to the coast through inhospitable lands. Later he wrote the famous vivid account of this “March Up-Country” (Anabasis); but meanwhile he entered service under the Spartans against the Persian king, married happily, and joined the staff of the Spartan king, Agesilaus. But Athens was at war with Sparta in 394 and so exiled Xenophon. The Spartans gave him an estate near Elis where he lived for years writing and hunting and educating his sons. Reconciled to Sparta, Athens restored Xenophon to honor, but he preferred to retire to Corinth.

Xenophon’s Anabasis is a true story of remarkable adventures. Hellenica, a history of Greek affairs from 411 to 362, begins as a continuation of Thucydides’ account. There are four works on Socrates (collected in LCL 168). In Memorabilia Xenophon adds to Plato’s picture of Socrates from a different viewpoint. The Apology is an interesting complement to Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense at his trial. Xenophon’s Symposium portrays a dinner party at which Socrates speaks of love; and Oeconomicus has him giving advice on household management and married life. Cyropaedia, a historical romance on the education of Cyrus (the Elder), reflects Xenophon’s ideas about rulers and government; the Loeb edition is in two volumes.

We also have his Hiero, a dialogue on government; Agesilaus, in praise of that king; Constitution of Lacedaemon (on the Spartan system); Ways and Means (on the finances of Athens); Manual for a Cavalry Commander; a good manual of Horsemanship; and a lively Hunting with Hounds. The Constitution of the Athenians, though clearly not by Xenophon, is an interesting document on politics at Athens. These eight books are collected in the last of the seven volumes of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Xenophon.

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Hellenica, Volume II
Books 5–7
Xenophon
Harvard University Press

A continuation of Thucydides.

Xenophon (ca. 430 to ca. 354 BC) was a wealthy Athenian and friend of Socrates. He left Athens in 401 and joined an expedition including ten thousand Greeks led by the Persian governor Cyrus against the Persian king. After the defeat of Cyrus, it fell to Xenophon to lead the Greeks from the gates of Babylon back to the coast through inhospitable lands. Later he wrote the famous vivid account of this “March Up-Country” (Anabasis); but meanwhile he entered service under the Spartans against the Persian king, married happily, and joined the staff of the Spartan king, Agesilaus. But Athens was at war with Sparta in 394 and so exiled Xenophon. The Spartans gave him an estate near Elis where he lived for years writing and hunting and educating his sons. Reconciled to Sparta, Athens restored Xenophon to honor, but he preferred to retire to Corinth.

Xenophon’s Anabasis is a true story of remarkable adventures. Hellenica, a history of Greek affairs from 411 to 362, begins as a continuation of Thucydides’ account. There are four works on Socrates (collected in LCL 168). In Memorabilia Xenophon adds to Plato’s picture of Socrates from a different viewpoint. The Apology is an interesting complement to Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense at his trial. Xenophon’s Symposium portrays a dinner party at which Socrates speaks of love; and Oeconomicus has him giving advice on household management and married life. Cyropaedia, a historical romance on the education of Cyrus (the Elder), reflects Xenophon’s ideas about rulers and government; the Loeb edition is in two volumes.

We also have his Hiero, a dialogue on government; Agesilaus, in praise of that king; Constitution of Lacedaemon (on the Spartan system); Ways and Means (on the finances of Athens); Manual for a Cavalry Commander; a good manual of Horsemanship; and a lively Hunting with Hounds. The Constitution of the Athenians, though clearly not by Xenophon, is an interesting document on politics at Athens. These eight books are collected in the last of the seven volumes of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Xenophon.

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Hellenicity
Between Ethnicity and Culture
Jonathan M. Hall
University of Chicago Press, 2002
In today's cosmopolitan world, ethnic and national identity has assumed an ever-increasing importance. But how is this identity formed, and how does it change over time?

With Hellenicity, Jonathan M. Hall explores these questions in the context of ancient Greece, drawing on an exceptionally wide range of evidence to determine when, how, why, and to what extent the Greeks conceived themselves as a single people. Hall argues that a subjective sense of Hellenic identity emerged in Greece much later than is normally assumed. For instance, he shows that the four main ethnic subcategories of the ancient Greeks—Akhaians, Ionians, Aiolians, and Dorians—were not primordial survivals from a premigratory period, but emerged in precise historical circumstances during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Furthermore, Hall demonstrates that the terms of defining Hellenic identity shifted from ethnic to broader cultural criteria during the course of the fifth century B.C., chiefly due to the influence of Athens, whose citizens formulated a new Athenoconcentric conception of "Greekness."
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Hellenistic Aesthetic
Barbara Hughes Fowler
University of Wisconsin Press, 1989

“Fowler’s . . . own insights are apparent throughout, and they seem to distill the personal appreciation and understanding of a scholar who has devoted much of her career to both contemplating and enjoying Hellenistic poetry. . . . [This book] would make an excellent background text for courses in later Greek and Roman art, and it can be read with profit by anyone interested in exploring the character of Hellenistic culture.”—J. J. Pollitt, American Journal of Archaeology

“Outstanding is the range of examples discussed both in poetry and art. Theocritus, Callimachus, Appolonius, the epigrammatists, and others—that is, the major figures of the time—are considered at length and in several different contexts. Passages are quoted in the original Greek, translated, and analyzed. Fowler’s sensitivity to poetic forms, evident in her other published writings, is again evident here. In addition, however, the philosophical context is not overlooked. . . . Also highly commendable are the liberal references to works of art. Sculpture in the round and in relief, portraits, terracotta figurines, original paintings (grave stelai) and Campanian murals, mosaics, gold and silver vessels, and jewelry are introduced at various points. Every work of art discussed is illustrated in astonishingly clear photographs, which are interspersed in the body of the text.”—Christine Mitchell Havelock

The Hellenistic Aesthetic provides classicists with their first thorough discussion of the aesthetic unity found in Hellenistic art and literature. . . . Fowler examines parallels both in subject matter and in artistic approach among a diverse group of literary genres and artistic forms. In twelve chapters, The Hellenistic Aesthetic surveys Alexandrian epigrams, pastorals, epics, sculptural groups, mosaics, paintings, and jewelry to supply a convincing, and frequently unexpected, picture of a unified aesthetic vision.”—Jeffrey Buller, Classical Outlook

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Hellenistic Poetry
A Selection
David Sider, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 2017
This collection of texts is designed to supplement those currently available for use in courses on Hellenistic poetry. Most have never before appeared in a similar collection; several have only recently been discovered. The individual commentaries have been written by the leading international scholars on Hellenistic poetry, and are designed to help the reader with more difficult aspects of the language, as well as to provide some basic guidance to each poem’s literary value and relevant scholarship.

The text of each poem is presented, together with basic help on obscure vocabulary, morphology, dialect, meter, syntax, and similar philological issues. The modern commentators also offer guidance on a poem’s literary significance and a brief introduction to the scholarship.

Among the 44 named and anonymous poets represented here are Apollonius of Rhodes, Archimedes, Aristotle, Callimachus, Cercidas, Corinna, Eratosthenes, Erinna, Ezekiel, Hermesianax, Herodas, Lycophron, and Phanocles.

Contributors to the volume in addition to David Sider include: Silvia Barbantani, James Clauss, Dee Clayman, Christophe Cusset, Claudio De Stefani, Marco Fantuzzi, Andrew Ford, Kathryn Gutzwiller, Johanna Hanink, Regina Hoeschele, Richard Hunter, David Konstan, Pauline LeVen, Kelly MacFarlane, Enrico Magnelli, Jackie Murray, Pura Nieto, Maria Noussia, Douglas Olson, Floris Overduin, Richard Rawles, Ralph Rosen, Chad Schroeder, Alexander Sens, Evina Sistakou, Michael Tueller, and Athanassios Vergados.

Although designed primarily as a textbook for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates, the book offers texts and subsidiary information not easily found (if at all) elsewhere. Since Latin poets made constant allusion to Hellenistic poetry, it will also be an important resource for Latinists.
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front cover of The Hellenistic, Roman, and Medieval Glass from Cosa
The Hellenistic, Roman, and Medieval Glass from Cosa
David Frederick Grose (R. T. Scott, editor)
University of Michigan Press, 2017
The Hellenistic, Roman, and Medieval Glass from Cosa continues the exemplary record of publication by the American Academy in Rome on important classes of materials recovered in excavation from one of the principal archaeological sites of Roman Italy. Over 15,000 fragments of glass tableware, ranging in date from the mid-second century BCE to the early fifth century CE, were found at Cosa, a small town in Etruria (modern Tuscany). Cosa’s products were chiefly exported to North Africa and Europe, but its influence was felt throughout the Mediterranean world.

The research and analysis presented here are the work of the late David Frederick Grose, who began this project when no other city site excavations in Italy focused on ancient glass. He confirmed that the Roman glass industry began to emerge in the Julio-Claudian era, beginning in the principate of Augustus. His study traces the evolution of manufacturing techniques from core-formed vessels to free blown glass, and it documents changes in taste and style that were characteristic of the western glass industry throughout its long history.

At the time of Grose’s unexpected passing, his study was complete but not yet published. Nevertheless, the reputation of his work in this area has done much to establish the value and importance of excavating and researching Cosa’s glass. This volume, arranged and edited by R. T. Scott, makes Grose’s essential scholarship on the subject available for the first time.


 
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The Hellenistic World
Revised Edition
F. W. Walbank
Harvard University Press, 1993
The vast empire that Alexander the Great left at his death in 323 BC has few parallels. For the next three hundred years the Greeks controlled a complex of monarchies and city-states that stretched from the Adriatic Sea to India. F. W. Walbank’s lucid and authoritative history of that Hellenistic world examines political events, describes the different social systems and mores of the people under Greek rule, traces important developments in literature and science, and discusses the new religious movements.
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Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia
Histories, Ideologies, Structures
Nino Luraghi
Harvard University Press, 2003

The name “Helots” evokes one of the most famous peculiarities of ancient Sparta, the system of dependent labor that guaranteed the livelihood of the free citizens. The Helots fulfilled all the functions that slaves carried out elsewhere in the Greek world, allowing their masters the leisure to be full-time warriors. Yet, despite their crucial role, Helots remain essentially invisible in our ancient sources and peripheral and enigmatic in modern scholarship.

This book is devoted to a much-needed reassessment of Helotry and of its place in the history and sociology of unfree labor. The essays deal with the origins and historical development of Helotry, with its sociological, economic, and demographic aspects, with its ideological construction and negotiation.

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Hereditas
Seven Essays on the Modern Experience of the Classical
Edited with an introduction by Frederic Will
University of Texas Press, 1964

Is Ancient Greece still meaningful to the twenty-first-century world? The vitality of the classical tradition, which has been a long-enduring and important element in our culture, is the concern of the seven scholars who in this book present their answers to this question.

In various ways their essays support editor Frederic Will's statement that the "complex and mature group of awarenesses" embodied in the classical tradition still help to maintain the continuity of human culture, thus sharing in the unbroken process of developing a Western civilization. These awarenesses are not self-perpetuating but must be sustained by the guardians of tradition—schools, literary creators and critics, libraries, and scholars. In this book, particular attention is devoted to the literary creators. In discussing the impact of Greek myth, Greek literature, and Greek philosophy on modern writers, the present essayists try to determine how alive Greek classical culture is today, how meaningful it is, and how it can be perpetuated. Through their presentations in these seven essays, the contributors prove that the tradition does not suffer from lack of able guardians.

These studies in the interpretation of literature and thought afford stimulating evidence that the classical tradition is still alive in our modern age.

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Heresy in the University
The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals
Jacques Berlinerblau
Rutgers University Press, 1999
One of the most controversial books to come out of the academy in the last fifteen years is Martin Bernal's Black Athena. It has been a true cause celebre. Afrocentrists have both praised the book and claimed that Bernal stole from the work of black scholars to create his study of the Afroasiastic roots of classical civilization. Classicists feel passionately about what they perceive as an attack from an outsider on the origins not only of ancient Greece but of their own discipline. It seems that everyone has something to say about the book; the question is how many really understand it. In Heresy in the University, Jacques Berlinerblau provides an exegesis of the contents of Black Athena, making it accessible to a wider audience. As he clarifies and restates Bernal's opus, Berlinerblau identifies Bernal's flaws in reasoning and gaps in evidence. He cuts to the heart of Bernal's prose, singling out the key points of Bernal's argument, explaining and arranging them in a cogent manner. Berlinerblau addresses the critics' really important objections, including his own, and links each of them to the appropriate substantive argument in Black Athena. He goes beyond simple summary and exposition to present the underlying --stated and unstated--agendas of Bernal and his critics. Ultimately, he exposes both sides and asks what the flawed reasoning from all concerned reveals about the stakes in this key academic dispute and what that, in turn, says about the modern academy. Jacques Berlinerblau is an assistant professor and director of Judaic studies at Hofstra University.
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Heretical Hellenism
Women Writers, Ancient Greece, and the Victorian Popular Imagination
Shanyn Fiske
Ohio University Press, 2008

The prevailing assumption regarding the Victorians’ relationship to ancient Greece is that Greek knowledge constituted an exclusive discourse within elite male domains. Heretical Hellenism: Women Writers, Ancient Greece, and the Victorian Popular Imagination challenges that theory and argues that while the information women received from popular sources was fragmentary and often fostered intellectual insecurities, it was precisely the ineffability of the Greek world refracted through popular sources and reconceived through new fields of study that appealed to women writers’ imaginations.

Examining underconsidered sources such as theater history and popular journals, Shanyn Fiske uncovers the many ways that women acquired knowledge of Greek literature, history, and philosophy without formal classical training. Through discussions of women writers such as Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Jane Harrison, Heretical Hellenism demonstrates that women established the foundations of a heretical challenge to traditional humanist assumptions about the uniformity of classical knowledge and about women’s place in literary history.

Heretical Hellenism provides a historical rationale for a more expansive definition of classical knowledge and offers an interdisciplinary method for understanding the place of classics both in the nineteenth century and in our own time.

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Herodotean Narrative and Discourse
Mabel Lang
Harvard University Press, 1984
Mabel Lang offers a new interpretation of Herodotus. Her reading of the “Father of History” pinpoints the aspects of his style that clearly derive from oral composition. Lang examines oral techniques in storytelling, known from folktales and other oral literature as well as from Homer. She shows how the dramatic use of speeches—so characteristic of folk literature—played an important part in Herodotus' development of history out of the chronologies and geographies that he knew. Story form and speeches attributed to historical persons, she demonstrates, follow traditional formulas. She also studies in detail Herodotus' distinctive use of proverbs and rhetorical questions. Throughout, Lang draws on a variety of materials and offers particularly revealing comparisons of Homeric and Herodotean styles. This analysis of the evidence for oral composition in Herodotus' Histories opens a new perspective for students and scholars of Greek history.
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Herodotus and the Question Why
By Christopher Pelling
University of Texas Press, 2019

In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus wrote the first known Western history to build on the tradition of Homeric storytelling, basing his text on empirical observations and arranging them systematically. Herodotus and the Question Why offers a comprehensive examination of the methods behind the Histories and the challenge of documenting human experiences, from the Persian Wars to cultural traditions.

In lively, accessible prose, Christopher Pelling explores such elements as reconstructing the mentalities of storyteller and audience alike; distinctions between the human and the divine; and the evolving concepts of freedom, democracy, and individualism. Pelling traces the similarities between Herodotus's approach to physical phenomena (Why does the Nile flood?) and to landmark events (Why did Xerxes invade Greece? And why did the Greeks win?), delivering a fascinating look at the explanatory process itself. The cultural forces that shaped Herodotus's thinking left a lasting legacy for us, making Herodotus and the Question Why especially relevant as we try to record and narrate the stories of our time and to fully understand them.

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Heroic Offerings
The Terracotta Plaques from the Spartan Sanctuary of Agamemnon and Kassandra
Gina Salapata
University of Michigan Press, 2015
Heroic Offerings sheds light on the study of religion in Sparta, one of Greece’s most powerful city-states and the long-term rival of Athens. Sparta’s history is well known, but its archaeology has been much less satisfactorily explored. Through the comprehensive study of a distinctive class of terracotta votive offerings from a specific sanctuary, Gina Salapata explores both coroplastic art and regional religion. By integrating archaeological, historical, literary, and epigraphic sources, she provides important insights into the heroic cults of Lakonia and contributes to an understanding of the political and social functions of local ritual practice.

This volume focuses on a large group of decorated terracotta plaques, from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. These molded plaques were discovered with other offerings in a sanctuary deposit excavated near Sparta more than fifty years ago, but they have remained unpublished until now. They number over 1,500 complete and fragmentary pieces. In technique, style, and iconography they form a homogeneous group unlike any other from mainland Greece. The large number of plaques and variety of types reveal a stable and vigorous coroplastic tradition in Lakonia during the late Archaic and Classical period.

Heroic Offerings will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek history, art, and archaeology, to those interested in ancient religious practice in the Mediterranean, and to all inspired by Athens’ chief political rival, Sparta.

This volume received financial support from the Archaeological Institute of America.

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Heroicus. Gymnasticus. Discourses 1 and 2
Philostratus
Harvard University Press, 2014

How to cultivate Greek heroes and athletes.

In the writings of Philostratus (ca. AD 170-ca. 250), the renaissance of Greek literature in the second century AD reached its height. His Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Lives of the Sophists, and Imagines reconceive in different ways Greek religion, philosophy, and art in and for the world of the Roman Empire. In this volume, Heroicus and Gymnasticus, two works of equal creativity and sophistication, together with two brief Discourses (Dialexeis), complete the Loeb edition of his writings.

Heroicus is a conversation in a vineyard amid ruins of the Protesilaus shrine (opposite Troy on the Hellespont), between a wise and devout vinedresser and an initially skeptical Phoenician sailor, about the beauty, continuing powers, and worship of the Homeric heroes. With information from his local hero, the vinedresser reveals unknown stories of the Trojan campaign especially featuring Protesilaus and Palamedes, and describes complex, miraculous, and violent rituals in the cults of Achilles.

Gymnasticus is the sole surviving ancient treatise on sports. It reshapes conventional ideas about the athletic body and expertise of the athletic trainer and also explores the history of the Olympic Games and other major Greek athletic festivals, portraying them as distinctive venues for the display of knowledge.

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Hippocrates, Volume I
Ancient Medicine. Airs, Waters, Places. Epidemics 1 and 3. The Oath. Precepts. Nutriment
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 2022

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

This is the first volume in the Loeb Classical Library’s complete edition of Hippocrates’ invaluable texts, which provide essential information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body. Here, Paul Potter presents the Greek text with facing English translation of five treatises that showcase the range of Hippocratic theory, philosophy, and practice: Ancient Medicine; Airs, Waters, Places; Epidemics 1 and 3; Precepts; and Nutriment. Also included is the famous Hippocratic Oath.

This Loeb edition replaces the original by W. H. S. Jones.

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume II
Prognostic. Regimen in Acute Diseases. The Sacred Disease. The Art. Breaths. Law. Decorum. Dentition
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 2023

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

This is the second volume in the Loeb Classical Library’s complete edition of Hippocrates’ invaluable texts, which provide essential information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body. The first two treatises, Prognostic and Regimen in Acute Diseases, are manuals respectively on how to predict the course and outcome of acute diseases and how to apply appropriate dietetic measures. Sacred Disease, The Art, and Breaths are rhetorically polished monographs, each arguing in favor of a specific hypothesis: that sacred disease is a misnomer; that medicine is a legitimate art; and that air plays important roles in life and health. Law sketches a new model of medical education; Decorum summarizes a public address on the components of medical wisdom; and Dentition collects pediatric aphorisms dealing mainly with the nursing of infants and ulcerations of their tonsils, uvula, and throat.

This Loeb edition replaces the original by W. H. S. Jones.

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume III
On Wounds in the Head. In the Surgery. On Fractures. On Joints. Mochlicon
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

Hippocrates, said to have been born in Cos in or before 460 BC, learned medicine and philosophy; traveled widely as a medical doctor and teacher; was consulted by King Perdiccas of Macedon and Artaxerxes of Persia; and died perhaps at Larissa. Apparently he rejected superstition in favor of inductive reasoning and the study of real medicine as subject to natural laws, in general and in individual people as patients for treatment by medicines and surgery. Of the roughly seventy works in the “Hippocratic Collection” many are not by Hippocrates; even the famous oath may not be his. But he was undeniably the “Father of Medicine.”

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume IV
Nature of Man. Regimen in Health. Humours. Aphorisms. Regimen 1–3. Dreams. Heracleitus: On the Universe
Hippocrates. Heracleitus
Harvard University Press

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

Hippocrates, said to have been born in Cos in or before 460 BC, learned medicine and philosophy; traveled widely as a medical doctor and teacher; was consulted by King Perdiccas of Macedon and Artaxerxes of Persia; and died perhaps at Larissa. Apparently he rejected superstition in favor of inductive reasoning and the study of real medicine as subject to natural laws, in general and in individual people as patients for treatment by medicines and surgery. Of the roughly seventy works in the “Hippocratic Collection” many are not by Hippocrates; even the famous oath may not be his. But he was undeniably the “Father of Medicine.”

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume IX
Coan Prenotions. Anatomical and Minor Clinical Writings
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 1923

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

This is the ninth volume in the Loeb Classical Library’s ongoing edition of Hippocrates’ invaluable texts, which provide essential information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body. Here Paul Potter presents the Greek text with facing English translation of eleven treatises, four previously unavailable in English, that illuminate Hippocratic medicine in such areas as anatomy, physiology, prognosis and clinical signs, obstetrics, and ophthalmology.

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume V
Affections. Diseases 1–2
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 1923

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

Hippocrates, said to have been born in Cos in or before 460 BC, learned medicine and philosophy; traveled widely as a medical doctor and teacher; was consulted by King Perdiccas of Macedon and Artaxerxes of Persia; and died perhaps at Larissa. Apparently he rejected superstition in favor of inductive reasoning and the study of real medicine as subject to natural laws, in general and in individual people as patients for treatment by medicines and surgery. Of the roughly seventy works in the “Hippocratic Collection” many are not by Hippocrates; even the famous oath may not be his. But he was undeniably the “Father of Medicine.”

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume VI
Diseases 3. Internal Affections. Regimen in Acute Diseases
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 1923

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

Hippocrates, said to have been born in Cos in or before 460 BC, learned medicine and philosophy; traveled widely as a medical doctor and teacher; was consulted by King Perdiccas of Macedon and Artaxerxes of Persia; and died perhaps at Larissa. Apparently he rejected superstition in favor of inductive reasoning and the study of real medicine as subject to natural laws, in general and in individual people as patients for treatment by medicines and surgery. Of the roughly seventy works in the “Hippocratic Collection” many are not by Hippocrates; even the famous oath may not be his. But he was undeniably the “Father of Medicine.”

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume VII
Epidemics 2 and 4–7
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 1994

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume VIII
Places in Man. Glands. Fleshes. Prorrhetic 1–2. Physician. Use of Liquids. Ulcers. Haemorrhoids and Fistulas
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 1923

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 eighth volume of the ongoing Loeb edition of these invaluable texts, Paul Potter presents ten treatises that offer an illuminating overview of Hippocratic medicine.

Three theoretical works—Places in Man, General Nature of Glands, and Fleshes—expound particular theories of anatomy and physiology and then elaborate on how disease and healing occur in the systems depicted. Prorrhetic 1 and 2 and Physician deal with symptoms and prognosis and with other aspects of the physician-patient relationship. And four practical manuals—Use of Liquids, Ulcers, Fistulas, and Haemorrhoids—give specific instruction for treatments. Thus from the writings in this volume we gain insight into the Hippocratic physician’s understanding of the body, his approach to his patient, and his methods for dealing with a variety of disorders.

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.

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Hippocrates, Volume X
Generation. Nature of the Child. Diseases 4. Nature of Women. Barrenness
Hippocrates
Harvard University Press, 2012

The definitive English edition of the “Father of Medicine.”

This is the tenth volume in the Loeb Classical Library’s ongoing edition of Hippocrates’ invaluable texts, which provide essential information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body. Here, Paul Potter presents the Greek text with facing English translation of five treatises, four concerning human reproduction (Generation, Nature of the Child) and reproductive disorders (Nature of Women, Barrenness), and one (Diseases 4) that expounds a general theory of physiology and pathology.

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.

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Histoires Grecques
Snapshots from Antiquity
Maurice Sartre
Harvard University Press, 2009

In a series of brilliant snapshots, each a distinct bit of a larger story, Maurice Sartre’s Histoires Grecques spans the grand narrative of Greek culture over a thousand years and a vast expanse of land and sea. From Homer to Damascius, from recent discoveries in Kandahar to an account of the murder of Hypatia in 415 CE, each snapshot captures a moment in the history of Greek civilization. Together they offer a fresh perspective on an ancient culture whose wealth and depth of thought, variety and multiplicity of accomplishments, and astonishing continuity through time and space have made it the Western world’s culture of reference.

A textual fragment, a coin, an epigraph: each artifact and image launches Sartre—and his readers—on a journey into the practical mysteries of Greek civilization. Ranging from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean world, these excursions—step by step, moment by moment—finally amount to a panoramic vision of one of the most important civilizations of all time. Histoires Grecques shows the newcomer and the seasoned scholar alike how history itself is written—and imparts the experience, and the pleasure, of discovering history as discrete stories seen through the eyes of one of the most eminent historians of ancient Greece.

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A Historical Commentary on Thucydides
A Companion to Rex Warner's Penguin Translation
David Cartwright
University of Michigan Press, 1997
Much of the modern way of thinking about history and historiography in fact begins with the great Greek historian Thucydides, an Athenian general in the latter half of the fifth century b.c.e. It is also Thucydides who provides us with the historical framework for fifth-century Greece, a period of progress and creativity rarely equaled in human history. His work, The Peloponnesian War, recounts that destructive conflict and also includes the only surviving contemporary record of the rise of the Athenian empire. Thucydides teaches his readers that the most powerful states in the world can come to a humiliating end, that a careless tyranny, especially toward the weak, and, nearly two millennia before Machiavelli, that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, David Cartwright aims to guide the Greekless reader through Thucydides' fascinating yet demanding narrative. Cartwright's is the only such full-length, one-volume commentary and companion: it is based on Rex Warner's Penguin translation of Thucydides--the most widely used translation--and requires no knowledge of Greek. The introduction to A Historical Commentary on Thucydides includes a brief biography of Thucydides: his approach, aims, and methods are discussed, as are the general character of his work and his contribution to historiography. The commentary gives brief accounts of the people and places mentioned by Thucydides and puts events in their immediate and wider contexts. Cartwright provides occasional summaries, explains Greek concepts and technical terms, and offers interpretations of difficult or controversial passages. The author also picks out important historiographical issues and discusses the themes' underlying events.
For both first-time readers and seasoned students, this commentary gives broad access to one of antiquity's most profound and difficult writers. Historians, classicists, and anyone else interested in the cultural and intellectual achievements of ancient Greece will find A Historical Commentary on Thucydides a welcome addition to their library.
David Cartwright is Head of Classics at Dulwich College, London, England.
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Historical Miscellany
Aelian
Harvard University Press, 1997

A literary cabinet of curiosities.

Aelian’s Historical Miscellany is a pleasurable example of light reading for Romans of the early third century. Offering engaging anecdotes about historical figures, retellings of legendary events, and enjoyable descriptive pieces—in sum: amusement, information, and variety—Aelian’s collection of nuggets and narratives could be enjoyed by a wide reading public. A rather similar book had been published in Latin in the previous century by Aulus Gellius; Aelian is a late, perhaps the last, representative of what had been a very popular genre.

Here then are anecdotes about the famous Greek philosophers, poets, historians, and playwrights; myths instructively retold; moralizing tales about heroes and rulers, athletes and wise men; reports about styles in dress, food and drink, lovers, gift-giving practices, entertainments, religious beliefs and death customs; and comments on Greek painting. Some of the information is not preserved in any other source. Underlying it all are Aelian’s Stoic ideals as well as this Roman’s great admiration for the culture of the Greeks (whose language he borrowed for his writings).

The Historical Miscellany is now added to the Loeb Classical Library, the Greek text facing a skillful and helpfully annotated new translation by Nigel Wilson. In his trenchant Introduction he discusses the literary genre of Aelian’s miscellany, its style and historical setting.

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The Histories
Laonikos Chalkokondyles
Harvard University Press, 2014

Among Greek histories of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the work of Laonikos (ca. 1430–ca. 1465) has by far the broadest scope. Born to a leading family of Athens under Florentine rule, he was educated in the classics at Mistra by the Neoplatonist philosopher Plethon.

In the 1450s, Laonikos set out to imitate Herodotos in writing the history of his times, a version in which the armies of Asia would prevail over the Greeks in Europe. The backbone of The Histories, a text written in difficult Thucydidean Greek, is the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from the early 1300s to 1464, but Laonikos’s digressions give sweeping accounts of world geography and ethnography from Britain to Mongolia, with an emphasis on Spain, Italy, and Arabia. Following the methodology of Herodotos and rejecting theological polemic, Laonikos is the first Greek writer to treat Islam as a legitimate cultural and religious system. He followed Plethon in viewing the Byzantines as Greeks rather than Romans, and so stands at the origins of Neo-Hellenic identity.

This translation makes the entire text of The Histories available in English for the first time.

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The Histories
Laonikos Chalkokondyles
Harvard University Press, 2014

Among Greek histories of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the work of Laonikos (ca. 1430–ca. 1465) has by far the broadest scope. Born to a leading family of Athens under Florentine rule, he was educated in the classics at Mistra by the Neoplatonist philosopher Plethon.

In the 1450s, Laonikos set out to imitate Herodotos in writing the history of his times, a version in which the armies of Asia would prevail over the Greeks in Europe. The backbone of The Histories, a text written in difficult Thucydidean Greek, is the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from the early 1300s to 1464, but Laonikos’s digressions give sweeping accounts of world geography and ethnography from Britain to Mongolia, with an emphasis on Spain, Italy, and Arabia. Following the methodology of Herodotos and rejecting theological polemic, Laonikos is the first Greek writer to treat Islam as a legitimate cultural and religious system. He followed Plethon in viewing the Byzantines as Greeks rather than Romans, and so stands at the origins of Neo-Hellenic identity.

This translation makes the entire text of The Histories available in English for the first time.

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The Histories, Volume I
Books 1–2
Translated by W. R. PatonRevised by F. W. Walbank and Christian Habicht
Harvard University Press, 2010

Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BC, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

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The Histories, Volume II
Books 3–4
PolybiusTranslated by W. R. PatonRevised by F. W. Walbank and Christian Habicht
Harvard University Press, 2010

Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BC, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

[more]

front cover of The Histories, Volume III
The Histories, Volume III
Books 5–8
Translated by W. R. PatonRevised by F. W. Walbank and Christian Habicht
Harvard University Press, 2010

Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BC, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

[more]

front cover of The Histories, Volume IV
The Histories, Volume IV
Books 9–15
Translated by W. R. PatonRevised by F. W. Walbank and Christian Habicht
Harvard University Press, 2010

Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BC, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

[more]

front cover of The Histories, Volume V
The Histories, Volume V
Books 16–27
Translated by W. R. PatonRevised by F. W. Walbank and Christian Habicht
Harvard University Press, 2010

Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BC, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

[more]

front cover of The Histories, Volume VI
The Histories, Volume VI
Books 28–39. Unattributed Fragments
Translated by W. R. PatonRevised by F. W. Walbank and Christian HabichtFragments edited and translated by S. Douglas Olson
Harvard University Press, 2010

Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BC, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

[more]

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The History
Herodotus
University of Chicago Press, 1987
David Grene, one of the best known translators of the Greek classics, splendidly captures the peculiar quality of Herodotus, the father of history.

Here is the historian, investigating and judging what he has seen, heard, and read, and seeking out the true causes and consequences of the great deeds of the past. In his History, the war between the Greeks and Persians, the origins of their enmity, and all the more general features of the civilizations of the world of his day are seen as a unity and expressed as the vision of one man who as a child lived through the last of the great acts in this universal drama.

In Grene's remarkable translation and commentary, we see the historian as a storyteller, combining through his own narration the skeletal "historical" facts and the imaginative reality toward which his story reaches. Herodotus emerges in all his charm and complexity as a writer and the first historian in the Western tradition, perhaps unique in the way he has seen the interrelation of fact and fantasy.

"Reading Herodotus in English has never been so much fun. . . . Herodotus crowds his fresco-like pages with all shades of humanity. Whether Herodotus's view is 'tragic,' mythical, or merely common sense, it provided him with a moral salt with which the diversity of mankind could be savored. And savor it we do in David Grene's translation."—Thomas D'Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

"Grene's work is a monument to what translation intends, and to what it is hungry to accomplish. . . . Herodotus gives more sheer pleasure than almost any other writer."—Peter Levi, New York Times Book Review

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History of Alexander, Volume I
Books 1–5
Quintus Curtius
Harvard University Press

Adventurous history.

Quintus Curtius was apparently a rhetorician who lived in the first century of the Roman empire and, early in the reign of Claudius (AD 41–54), wrote a history of Alexander the Great in ten books in clear and picturesque style for Latin readers. The first two books have not survived—our narrative begins with events in 333 BC—and there is material missing from books 5, 6, and 10. One of his main sources is Cleitarchus who, about 300 BC, had made Alexander’s career a matter of marvelous adventure.

Curtius is not a critical historian; and in his desire to entertain and to stress the personality of Alexander, he elaborates effective scenes, omits much that is important for history, and does not worry about chronology. But he does not invent things, except speeches and letters inserted into the narrative by traditional habit. “I copy more than I believe,” he says. Three features of his story are narrative of exciting experiences, development of a hero’s character, and a disposition to moralize. His history is one of the five extant works on which we rely for the career of Alexander the Great.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Quintus Curtius is in two volumes.

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History of Alexander, Volume II
Books 6–10
Quintus Curtius
Harvard University Press

Adventurous history.

Quintus Curtius was apparently a rhetorician who lived in the first century of the Roman empire and, early in the reign of Claudius (AD 41–54), wrote a history of Alexander the Great in ten books in clear and picturesque style for Latin readers. The first two books have not survived—our narrative begins with events in 333 BC—and there is material missing from books 5, 6, and 10. One of his main sources is Cleitarchus who, about 300 BC, had made Alexander’s career a matter of marvelous adventure.

Curtius is not a critical historian; and in his desire to entertain and to stress the personality of Alexander, he elaborates effective scenes, omits much that is important for history, and does not worry about chronology. But he does not invent things, except speeches and letters inserted into the narrative by traditional habit. “I copy more than I believe,” he says. Three features of his story are narrative of exciting experiences, development of a hero’s character, and a disposition to moralize. His history is one of the five extant works on which we rely for the career of Alexander the Great.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Quintus Curtius is in two volumes.

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A History of Argos to 500 B.C
Thomas Kelly
University of Minnesota Press, 1977

A History of Argos to 500 B.C was first published in 1977. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Specialists in ancient history will find some long-held beliefs challenged by this study. Professor Kelly reconstructs and discusses the history of the ancient Greek city of Argos, which was located in the northeastern Peloponnese, from the Bronze Age through the Archaic period. He relies primarily on the archeological evidence and considers the literary evidence in the context of the physical remains. In determining the broad pattern of historical development, his findings and conclusions frequently contradict previous conceptions about the city and its role in history.

The study shows that Argos existed in the shadow of Mycenae in the Bronze Age but that throughout the Dark Age it was one of the most progressive centers in Greece, though not a wealthy or powerful community. Its contacts with other areas were limited and it had no influence beyond its own village and fields. By the end of the Dark Age the city was growing and extending its influence throughout the Argive plain, but its external contacts remained limited. Contrary to theories of earlier historians, Professor Kelly finds that Argive foreign policy was not dominated by a rivalry with Sparta, and reports that the two states fought on numerous occasions, the Battle of Hysiae included, are erroneous. The present study also indicates that the tyrant Pheidon of Argos fits more logically into the early decades of the sixth century B.C.E. rather than the seventh century as had been thought. The fragmentary nature of the evidence does not make possible an assessment of the long-range impact of Pheidon's policies on the history of Argos, but it is clear that his reign was followed by important political changes in the city.

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A History of Crete
Chris Moorey
Haus Publishing, 2019
Known by the Greeks as ‘Megalónisos,’ or the ‘Great Island,’ the island of Crete has a long and varied history. Steeped in historical and cultural heritage, Crete is the most visited of the Greek islands. It has also been of paramount strategic importance for thousands of years, thanks to its location close to the junction of three continents and at the heart of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. For much of its long history, the island has been ruled by foreign invaders. Under the rule of the Mycenaeans, Dorians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Venetians, Ottoman Turks and, briefly, the Third Reich, Cretans, who are fierce lovers of freedom, have adapted to living with their conquerors and to the influence of foreign rule on their culture. In a dazzling contrast to these three thousand years of domination, we see two periods of the island’s independence: the vibrant apogee of the Minoan civilization and the brief period of autonomy before union with Greece at the beginning of the twentieth century.

To guide us through this spectacular history, Chris Moorey, who has lived in Crete for over twenty years, provides an engaging and lively account of the island spanning from the Stone Age to the present day. A History of Crete steps in to fill a gap in scholarship on this fascinating island, providing the first complete history of Crete to be published for over twenty years, and the first ever that is written with a wide readership in mind.
 
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History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I
Books 1–2
Thucydides
Harvard University Press, 1919

Classic political realism.

Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others.

The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

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History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume II
Books 3–4
Thucydides
Harvard University Press, 1991

Classic political realism.

Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others.

The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

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History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume III
Books 5–6
Thucydides
Harvard University Press, 1991

Classic political realism.

Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others.

The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

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History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume IV
Books 7–8
Thucydides
Harvard University Press, 1991

Classic political realism.

Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he described so graphically. Later, as general in 423 he failed to save Amphipolis from the enemy and was disgraced. He tells us about this, not in volumes of self-justification, but in one sentence of his history of the war—that it befell him to be an exile for twenty years. He then lived probably on his property in Thrace, but was able to observe both sides in certain campaigns of the war, and returned to Athens after her defeat in 404. He had been composing his famous history, with its hopes and horrors, triumphs and disasters, in full detail from first-hand knowledge, along with the accounts of others.

The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. His history of the first conflict, 431–421, was nearly complete; Thucydides was still at work on this when the war spread to Sicily and into a conflict (415–413) likewise complete in his awful and brilliant record, though not fitted into the whole. His story of the final conflict of 413–404 breaks off (in the middle of a sentence) when dealing with the year 411. So his work was left unfinished and as a whole unrevised. Yet in brilliance of description and depth of insight this history has no superior.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Thucydides is in four volumes.

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History of the Wars, Volume I
Books 1–2
Procopius
Harvard University Press

Late antique military operations.

Procopius, born at Caesarea in Palestine late in the fifth century, became a lawyer. In AD 527 he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians, and went with Belisarius again in 533 against the Vandals and in 535 against the Ostrogoths. Sometime after 540 he returned to Constantinople. He may have been that Procopius who was prefect of Constantinople in 562, but the date of his death (after 558) is unknown.

Procopius’ History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532–546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536–552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire’s enemies and boldly criticizes emperor Justinian. Other works by Procopius are the Anecdota or Secret History—vehement attacks on Justinian, Theodora, and others; and the Buildings of Justinian (down to AD 558) including roads and bridges as well as churches, forts, hospitals, and so on in various parts of the empire.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Procopius is in seven volumes.

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History of the Wars, Volume II
Books 3–4
Procopius
Harvard University Press

Late antique military operations.

Procopius, born at Caesarea in Palestine late in the fifth century, became a lawyer. In AD 527 he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians, and went with Belisarius again in 533 against the Vandals and in 535 against the Ostrogoths. Sometime after 540 he returned to Constantinople. He may have been that Procopius who was prefect of Constantinople in 562, but the date of his death (after 558) is unknown.

Procopius’ History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532–546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536–552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire’s enemies and boldly criticizes emperor Justinian. Other works by Procopius are the Anecdota or Secret History—vehement attacks on Justinian, Theodora, and others; and the Buildings of Justinian (down to AD 558) including roads and bridges as well as churches, forts, hospitals, and so on in various parts of the empire.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Procopius is in seven volumes.

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History of the Wars, Volume III
Books 5–6.15
Procopius
Harvard University Press

Late antique military operations.

Procopius, born at Caesarea in Palestine late in the fifth century, became a lawyer. In AD 527 he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians, and went with Belisarius again in 533 against the Vandals and in 535 against the Ostrogoths. Sometime after 540 he returned to Constantinople. He may have been that Procopius who was prefect of Constantinople in 562, but the date of his death (after 558) is unknown.

Procopius’ History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532–546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536–552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire’s enemies and boldly criticizes emperor Justinian. Other works by Procopius are the Anecdota or Secret History—vehement attacks on Justinian, Theodora, and others; and the Buildings of Justinian (down to AD 558) including roads and bridges as well as churches, forts, hospitals, and so on in various parts of the empire.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Procopius is in seven volumes.

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History of the Wars, Volume IV
Books 6.16–7.35
Procopius
Harvard University Press

Late antique military operations.

Procopius, born at Caesarea in Palestine late in the fifth century, became a lawyer. In AD 527 he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians, and went with Belisarius again in 533 against the Vandals and in 535 against the Ostrogoths. Sometime after 540 he returned to Constantinople. He may have been that Procopius who was prefect of Constantinople in 562, but the date of his death (after 558) is unknown.

Procopius’ History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532–546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536–552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire’s enemies and boldly criticizes emperor Justinian. Other works by Procopius are the Anecdota or Secret History—vehement attacks on Justinian, Theodora, and others; and the Buildings of Justinian (down to AD 558) including roads and bridges as well as churches, forts, hospitals, and so on in various parts of the empire.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Procopius is in seven volumes.

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History of the Wars, Volume V
Books 7.36–8
Procopius
Harvard University Press

Late antique military operations.

Procopius, born at Caesarea in Palestine late in the fifth century, became a lawyer. In AD 527 he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians, and went with Belisarius again in 533 against the Vandals and in 535 against the Ostrogoths. Sometime after 540 he returned to Constantinople. He may have been that Procopius who was prefect of Constantinople in 562, but the date of his death (after 558) is unknown.

Procopius’ History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532–546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536–552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire’s enemies and boldly criticizes emperor Justinian. Other works by Procopius are the Anecdota or Secret History—vehement attacks on Justinian, Theodora, and others; and the Buildings of Justinian (down to AD 558) including roads and bridges as well as churches, forts, hospitals, and so on in various parts of the empire.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Procopius is in seven volumes.

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A History of Trust in Ancient Greece
Steven Johnstone
University of Chicago Press, 2011
An enormous amount of literature exists on Greek law, economics, and political philosophy. Yet no one has written a history of trust, one of the most fundamental aspects of social and economic interaction in the ancient world. In this fresh look at antiquity, Steven Johnstone explores the way democracy and markets flourished in ancient Greece not so much through personal relationships as through trust in abstract systems—including money, standardized measurement, rhetoric, and haggling.
Focusing on markets and democratic politics, Johnstone draws on speeches given in Athenian courts, histories of Athenian democracy, comic writings, and laws inscribed on stone to examine how these systems worked. He analyzes their potentials and limitations and how the Greeks understood and critiqued them. In providing the first comprehensive account of these pervasive and crucial systems, A History of Trust in Ancient Greece links Greek political, economic, social, and intellectual history in new ways and challenges contemporary analyses of trust and civil society.
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History, Tragedy, Theory
Dialogues on Athenian Drama
Edited and with an introduction by Barbara Goff
University of Texas Press, 1995

Greek tragedy has held sway over the imagination of audiences for well over two millennia. This collection of essays on Athenian drama, the proceedings of a conference held at the University of Texas at Austin in 1992, demonstrates that Greek tragedy still retains its power to provoke debate and to engage the interest of specialists and non-classicists alike.

The book includes essays by seven of the foremost scholars of Greek drama—Helene Foley, Michelle Gellrich, Peter W. Rose, David Rosenbloom, Richard Seaford, Bernd Seidensticker, and Froma I. Zeitlin. These writers explore the work of all three great tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and approach them from a variety of perspectives on history and theory, including poststructuralism and Marxism. They investigate the possibilities for coordinating theoretically informed readings of tragedy with a renewed attention to the pressure of material history within those texts. The collection thus represents a response within classics to "New Historicism" and the debates it has generated within related literary disciplines.

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History, Volume I
Books 14–19
Ammianus Marcellinus
Harvard University Press

A soldier’s chronicle of Rome in decline.

Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. AD 325–ca. 395), a Greek of Antioch, joined the army when still young and served under the governor Ursicinus and the emperor of the East Constantius II, and later under the emperor Julian, whom he admired and accompanied against the Alamanni and the Persians. He subsequently settled in Rome, where he wrote in Latin a history of the Roman empire in the period AD 96–378, entitled Rerum Gestarum Libri XXXI. Of these 31 books only 14–31 (AD 353–378) survive, a remarkably accurate and impartial record of his own times. Soldier though he was, he includes economic and social affairs. He was broadminded towards non-Romans and towards Christianity. We get from him clear indications of causes of the fall of the Roman empire. His style indicates that his prose was intended for recitation.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ammianus Marcellinus is in three volumes.

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History, Volume II
Books 20–26
Ammianus Marcellinus
Harvard University Press

A soldier’s chronicle of Rome in decline.

Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. AD 325–ca. 395), a Greek of Antioch, joined the army when still young and served under the governor Ursicinus and the emperor of the East Constantius II, and later under the emperor Julian, whom he admired and accompanied against the Alamanni and the Persians. He subsequently settled in Rome, where he wrote in Latin a history of the Roman empire in the period AD 96–378, entitled Rerum Gestarum Libri XXXI. Of these 31 books only 14–31 (AD 353–378) survive, a remarkably accurate and impartial record of his own times. Soldier though he was, he includes economic and social affairs. He was broadminded towards non-Romans and towards Christianity. We get from him clear indications of causes of the fall of the Roman empire. His style indicates that his prose was intended for recitation.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ammianus Marcellinus is in three volumes.

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History, Volume III
Books 27–31. Excerpta Valesiana
Ammianus Marcellinus
Harvard University Press

A soldier’s chronicle of Rome in decline.

Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. AD 325–ca. 395), a Greek of Antioch, joined the army when still young and served under the governor Ursicinus and the emperor of the East Constantius II, and later under the emperor Julian, whom he admired and accompanied against the Alamanni and the Persians. He subsequently settled in Rome, where he wrote in Latin a history of the Roman empire in the period AD 96–378, entitled Rerum Gestarum Libri XXXI. Of these 31 books only 14–31 (AD 353–378) survive, a remarkably accurate and impartial record of his own times. Soldier though he was, he includes economic and social affairs. He was broadminded towards non-Romans and towards Christianity. We get from him clear indications of causes of the fall of the Roman empire. His style indicates that his prose was intended for recitation.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ammianus Marcellinus is in three volumes.

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The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando
Rebecca Fromer
University of Alabama Press, 1993
A poignant reminder of the ways enslaved Jews and others were forced to destroy their families and fellow prisoners

In The Holocaust Odyssey, Rebecca Fromer leads us through the experiences of Danny Bennahmias, a Greek Jew of Italian citizenship whose forced labor as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz included the disentangling of hundreds of thousands of gassed men, women, and children. The book is the result of a diligent collaboration. As it unfolds, it becomes a poignant reminder of the manner in which enslaved Jews and others were forced to destroy their families and fellow prisoners. It is a story of human decency, the spark of which remains against all odds.
 
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Holy Men of Mount Athos
Richard P. H. Greenfield
Harvard University Press, 2016

Often simply called the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos was the most famous center of Byzantine monasticism and remains the spiritual heart of the Orthodox Church today. This volume presents the Lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and Philotheos. These five holy men lived on Mount Athos at different times from its early years as a monastic locale in the ninth century to the last decades of the Byzantine period in the early fifteenth century. All five were celebrated for asceticism, clairvoyance, and, in most cases, the ability to perform miracles; Euthymios and Athanasios were also famed as founders of monasteries.

Holy Men of Mount Athos illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries. The Lives also demonstrate the diversity of hagiographic composition and provide important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.

All the Lives in this volume are presented for the first time in English translation, together with authoritative editions of their Greek texts.

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Homer in Performance
Rhapsodes, Narrators, and Characters
Edited by Jonathan L. Ready and Christos C. Tsagalis
University of Texas Press, 2018

Before they were written down, the poems attributed to Homer were performed orally, usually by rhapsodes (singers/reciters) who might have traveled from city to city or enjoyed a position in a wealthy household. Even after the Iliad and the Odyssey were committed to writing, rhapsodes performed the poems at festivals, often competing against each other. As they recited the epics, the rhapsodes spoke as both the narrator and the characters. These different acts—performing the poem and narrating and speaking in character within it—are seldom studied in tandem. Homer in Performance breaks new ground by bringing together all of the speakers involved in the performance of Homeric poetry: rhapsodes, narrators, and characters.

The first part of the book presents a detailed history of the rhapsodic performance of Homeric epic from the Archaic to the Roman Imperial periods and explores how performers might have shaped the poems. The second part investigates the Homeric narrators and characters as speakers and illuminates their interactions. The contributors include scholars versed in epigraphy, the history of art, linguistics, and performance studies, as well as those capable of working with sources from the ancient Near East and from modern Russia. This interdisciplinary approach makes the volume useful to a spectrum of readers, from undergraduates to veteran professors, in disciplines ranging from classical studies to folklore.

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Homer the Classic
Gregory Nagy
Harvard University Press, 2009

Homer the Classic is about the reception of Homeric poetry from the fifth through the first century BCE. The study of this reception is important for understanding not only the all-pervasive literary influence of ancient Greek epic traditions but also the various ways in which these traditions were used by individuals and states to promote their own cultural and political agenda. The aim of this book, which centers on ancient concepts of Homer as the author of a body of poetry that we know as the Iliad and the Odyssey, is not to reassess the oral poetic heritage of Homeric poetry but to show how it became a classic in the days of the Athenian empire and later.

This volume is one of two books stemming from six Sather Classical Lectures given in the spring semester of 2002 at the University of California at Berkeley while the author was teaching there as the Sather Professor.

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Homer
The Very Idea
James I. Porter
University of Chicago Press, 2021
The story of our ongoing fascination with Homer, the man and the myth.
 
Homer, the great poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, is revered as a cultural icon of antiquity and a figure of lasting influence. But his identity is shrouded in questions about who he was, when he lived, and whether he was an actual person, a myth, or merely a shared idea. Rather than attempting to solve the mystery of this character, James I. Porter explores the sources of Homer’s mystique and their impact since the first recorded mentions of Homer in ancient Greece.
 
Homer: The Very Idea considers Homer not as a man, but as a cultural invention nearly as distinctive and important as the poems attributed to him, following the cultural history of an idea and of the obsession that is reborn every time Homer is imagined. Offering novel readings of texts and objects, the book follows the very idea of Homer from his earliest mentions to his most recent imaginings in literature, criticism, philosophy, visual art, and classical archaeology.
 
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Homeric Questions
By Gregory Nagy
University of Texas Press, 1996

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

The "Homeric Question" has vexed Classicists for generations. Was the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey a single individual who created the poems at a particular moment in history? Or does the name "Homer" hide the shaping influence of the epic tradition during a long period of oral composition and transmission?

In this innovative investigation, Gregory Nagy applies the insights of comparative linguistics and anthropology to offer a new historical model for understanding how, when, where, and why the Iliad and the Odyssey were ultimately preserved as written texts that could be handed down over two millennia. His model draws on the comparative evidence provided by living oral epic traditions, in which each performance of a song often involves a recomposition of the narrative.

This evidence suggests that the written texts emerged from an evolutionary process in which composition, performance, and diffusion interacted to create the epics we know as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Sure to challenge orthodox views and provoke lively debate, Nagy's book will be essential reading for all students of oral traditions.

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Homeric Responses
By Gregory Nagy
University of Texas Press, 2003

The Homeric Iliad and Odyssey are among the world's foremost epics. Yet, millennia after their composition, basic questions remain about them. Who was Homer—a real or an ideal poet? When were the poems composed—at a single point in time, or over centuries of composition and performance? And how were the poems committed to writing? These uncertainties have been known as The Homeric Question, and many scholars, including Gregory Nagy, have sought to solve it.

In Homeric Responses, Nagy presents a series of essays that further elaborate his theories regarding the oral composition and evolution of the Homeric epics. Building on his previous work in Homeric Questions and Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond and responding to some of his critics, he examines such issues as the importance of performance and the interaction between audience and poet in shaping the poetry; the role of the rhapsode (the performer of the poems) in the composition and transmission of the poetry; the "irreversible mistakes" and cross-references in the Iliad and Odyssey as evidences of artistic creativity; and the Iliadic description of the shield of Achilles as a pointer to the world outside the poem, the polis of the audience.

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Homer’s Versicolored Fabric
The Evocative Power of Ancient Greek Epic Word-Making
Anna Bonifazi
Harvard University Press

Anna Bonifazi suggests that the Homeric text we have now would have enabled ancient audiences to enjoy the evocative power of even minimal linguistic elements. The multiple functions served by these elements are associated not only with the variety of narrative contexts in which they occur but also with overarching poetic strategies.

The findings relate to two strategies in particular: unfolding the narrative by signaling the upcoming content with αύ- adverbs and particles, and letting the complexity of Odysseus’s identity resonate through the ambiguous use of third-person pronouns. The words’ evocative power springs from the deliberate merging of distinct meanings, which prompts multifaceted interpretations. The text allows the incorporation of different viewpoints, just as an iridescent fabric allows the simultaneous perception of different colors.

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Honor and Profit
Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of Greece, 415-307 B.C.E.
Darel Tai Engen
University of Michigan Press, 2010

Honor and Profit offers a welcome corrective to the outmoded Finleyite view of the ancient economy. This important volume collects and analyzes economic evidence including government decrees for all known occasions on which Athens granted honors and privileges for services relating to trade.

The analysis proceeds within the intellectual framework of substantive economic theory, in which formal market behavior and institutions are considered to be but a subset of a larger group of economic behaviors and institutions devoted to the production, distribution, and exchange of goods.

Honor and Profit merges theory with empirical historical evidence to illustrate the complexity and dynamism of the ancient Greek economy. The author's conclusions have broad implications for our understanding not only of Athens and environs but also of the social and political history of Greece and the ancient Mediterranean world.

Darel Tai Engen is Associate Professor of History at California State University, San Marcos.

Also of interest

An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine (323 B.C.---A.D. 337)
By B. H. McLean

The Athenian Empire Restored: Epigraphic and Historical Studies
By Harold B. Mattingly

The Athenian Experiment: Building an Imagined Political Community in Ancient Attica, 508---490 B.C.
By Greg Anderson

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How Philosophers Saved Myths
Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology
Luc Brisson
University of Chicago Press, 2004
This study explains how the myths of Greece and Rome were transmitted from antiquity to the Renaissance. Luc Brisson argues that philosophy was ironically responsible for saving myth from historical annihilation. Although philosophy was initially critical of myth because it could not be declared true or false and because it was inferior to argumentation, mythology was progressively reincorporated into philosophy through allegorical exegesis. Brisson shows to what degree allegory was employed among philosophers and how it enabled myth to take on a number of different interpretive systems throughout the centuries: moral, physical, psychological, political, and even metaphysical.

How Philosophers Saved Myths also describes how, during the first years of the modern era, allegory followed a more religious path, which was to assume a larger role in Neoplatonism. Ultimately, Brisson explains how this embrace of myth was carried forward by Byzantine thinkers and artists throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance; after the triumph of Chistianity, Brisson argues, myths no longer had to agree with just history and philosophy but the dogmas of the Church as well.
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front cover of How to Do the History of Homosexuality
How to Do the History of Homosexuality
David M. Halperin
University of Chicago Press, 2002
In this long-awaited book, David M. Halperin revisits and refines the argument he put forward in his classic One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: that hetero- and homosexuality are not biologically constituted but are, instead, historically and culturally produced. How to Do the History of Homosexuality expands on this view, updates it, answers its critics, and makes greater allowance for continuities in the history of sexuality. Above all, Halperin offers a vigorous defense of the historicist approach to the construction of sexuality, an approach that sets a premium on the description of other societies in all their irreducible specificity and does not force them to fit our own conceptions of what sexuality is or ought to be.

Dealing both with male homosexuality and with lesbianism, this study imparts to the history of sexuality a renewed sense of adventure and daring. It recovers the radical design of Michel Foucault's epochal work, salvaging Foucault's insights from common misapprehensions and making them newly available to historians, so that they can once again provide a powerful impetus for innovation in the field. Far from having exhausted Foucault's revolutionary ideas, Halperin maintains that we have yet to come to terms with their startling implications. Exploring the broader significance of historicizing desire, Halperin questions the tendency among scholars to reduce the history of sexuality to a mere history of sexual classifications instead of a history of human subjectivity itself. Finally, in a theoretical tour de force, Halperin offers an altogether new strategy for approaching the history of homosexuality—one that can accommodate both ruptures and continuities, both identity and difference in sexual experiences across time and space.

Impassioned but judicious, controversial but deeply informed, How to Do the History of Homosexuality is a book rich in suggestive propositions as well as eye-opening details. It will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of sexuality.
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