• Introduction Latin text and translation Additional Exempla.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This volume presents, for the first time, an edition and facing English translation of all of the stories that belong to the Anglo-Latin corpus of the immensely popular and influential collection of moralized stories from the Middle Ages, known as Gesta Romanorum ('The Deeds of the Romans'). The Anglo-Latin branch of the Gesta is of particular interest and importance as it is the source of the Middle English versions of the stories as well as the earliest English printed version, and includes stories that are either not found in continental Gesta collections or that differ significantly from the continental versions. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 310 has been chosen as the base manuscript for the edition and has been collated with seven other Anglo-Latin manuscripts in order to illustrate the nature and degree of textual variation that is a feature of the Anglo-Latin Gesta tradition, and to facilitate comparison between the Anglo-Latin versions of the stories and the Middle English and Early Modern English versions. An edited text and translation of the stories that do not form part of the collection in Douce 310, some of which are found in only one or two manuscripts, have also been provided. In addition, the volume includes notes that identify the sources, analogues, and folktale motifs of the stories and that explain key literary, cultural, and linguistic features, and an introduction that provides an overview of the history and significance of the Gesta and a detailed account of the Anglo-Latin tradition.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780198205562 20190423

• INTRODUCTION
• 1. Date
• 2. Life and Biographical Tradition
• 3. Iambus and Elegy a) Iambus b) Elegy
• 4. Relationship with Other Genres a) Heroic Epic b) Wisdom Poetry
• 5. Blame, Abuse, and Morality
• 6. Animal Fable
• 7. Colonization and War
• 8. Sex and Desire
• 9. Style
• 10. Transmission and Reception a) Archaic and Classical Greece b) The Hellenistic Period c) Latin Literature d) Imperial Literature e) After Antiquity TEXT, APPARATUS CRITICUS, AND TRANSLATION COMMENTARY Endmatter Bibliography Index Locorum General Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In antiquity Archilochus of Paros was considered a poet rivalled only by Homer and Hesiod, yet he has been relatively neglected by modern scholarship. This is largely due to the fragmentary state of his surviving poetry, though our knowledge has expanded significantly since the middle of the twentieth century as new papyrological finds continue to augment the corpus and our understanding of the poet and his work evolves. This volume is the first ever complete commentary on Archilochus, filling a substantial gap in scholarship on archaic Greek poetry and playing an important and timely role in re-establishing him as a major author and in locating the recent discoveries in the broader context of his oeuvre. Presenting the fragmentary texts alongside brand new translations, the volume also contains a comprehensive introduction offering an accessible guide to Archilochus' work and context, and a detailed commentary providing textual, literary, and historical analysis of all of his surviving poetry and discussing broader questions of performance and genre in early Greek poetic culture. The scope and depth of the analysis not only highlights the diversity and sophistication of Archilochus' work, but also sheds new light on our understanding of Greek iambus and elegy, while his influence on later writers means that the commentary will be of significance to scholars and students of Hellenistic and Roman literature, and the later lyric tradition, as well as archaic and classical Greek literature.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780198768074 20190415

• An overview of Wasps
• Father and son
• Cleon, politics, and the Peloponnesian War in
• 422 BC
• The jury system of the Athenian democracy
• Philocleon the juror
• The chorus of Wasps
• Social values in Wasps
• The culture of symposium society
• The comedy of Wasps
• The festivals of Dionysus at Athens and Aristophanic comedy
• Wasps in Aristophanes' career
• The structure of Wasps
• Stage, costume, and performance
• The language of Aristophanes
• Word roots
• Abbreviations used in the commentary
• Commentary
• Appendix A: a glossary of grammatical and rhetorical terms
• Appendix B: legal procedure and language in classical Athens and Wasps
• Appendix C: the structure and meters of Wasps: an overview
• Appendix D: metrical scansion
• Vocabulary.

• Art of rhetoric
• Outline of book
• 1
• Book
• 1
• Outline of book
• 2
• Book
• 2
• Outline of book
• 3
• Book
• 3
• Interpretive essay.

For more than two thousand years. Aristotle's "Art of Rhetoric" has shaped thought on the theory and practice of rhetoric, the art of persuasive speech. In three sections, Aristotle discusses what rhetoric is, as well as the three kinds of rhetoric (deliberative, judicial, and epideictic), the three rhetorical modes of persuasion, and the diction, style, and necessary parts of a successful speech. Throughout, Aristotle defends rhetoric as an art and a crucial tool for deliberative politics while also recognizing its capacity to be misused by unscrupulous politicians to mislead or illegitimately persuade others. Here Robert C. Bartlett offers a literal, yet easily readable, new translation of Aristotle's "Art of Rhetoric, " one that takes into account important alternatives in the manuscript and is fully annotated to explain historical, literary, and other allusions. Bartlett's translation is also accompanied by an outline of the argument of each book; copious indexes, including subjects, proper names, and literary citations; a glossary of key terms; and a substantial interpretive essay.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780226591629 20190415

Delves into the history of the ancient Greek word nomos (and related words) to reveal the interdisciplinary depth of this term beyond its later meaning of 'law' or 'law-making' This is a highly original, interdisciplinary study of the archaic Greek word nomos and its family of words. Thanos Zartaloudis draws out the richness of this fundamental term by exploring its many uses over the centuries. The Birth of Nomos includes extracts from a wide range of ancient sources, in both the original and English translation, including material from legal history, philosophy, philology, linguistics, ancient history, poetry, archaeology, ancient musicology and anthropology. Through a thorough analysis of these extracts, we gain a new understanding of nomos and its foundational place in the Western legal tradition.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9781474442008 20190304

• Callimachus on philology and poetics
• Callimachean voices
• Religion and the gods
• People and places
• Envoi: the end of the Aetia, and Callimachus in Rome.

• Introduction
• Part 1: The tradition of the contest between Homer and Hesiod
• Part 2: Textual tradition
• Part 3: Text and translation
• Part 4: Commentary.

This book provides a comprehensive study of the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi, an influential ancient Greek text that narrates the lives of Homer and Hesiod and their legendary poetic contest. It offers new perspectives on the nature, uses, and legacy of the text and its tale of literary competition. Located within a recent trend in scholarship that treats ancient biographies as modes of literary reception, the first chapter discusses how, for authors throughout antiquity and beyond, staging an imaginary competition between Homer and Hesiod was an adaptable and flexible way to convey a diverse range of speculations on epic poetry. The study of the manuscript tradition reassesses the relationships between the text of the Certamen preserved in its entirety in one single manuscript, and a small number of fragmentary witnesses on papyrus. It also presents new textual evidence demonstrating the success and circulation of the text in the Renaissance, and a new critical edition with translation. The commentary focuses on how the text characterises the two poets and encourages reflection on their respective wisdom, aesthetic and ethical values, divine inspiration, and Panhellenic appeal. It also addresses the role of Alcidamas as a source for the Certamen and identifies other sophistic influences.

• Introduction (M. Jourde, J.C. Monferran et N. Dauvois)
• Les renaissances d'Horace (jusqu'au milieu du XVIe siècle)
• Ce que dit "le poethe Orace" aux "grands rhétoriqueurs"
• Rimpasti oraziani nelle odi del Poliziano
• La dédicace du Roland furieux de 1544 et le Paradoxe contre les Lettres : un tournant horatien dans le milieu lyonnais autour de 1545 ?
• Horace chez Bernardo Tasso : réécrire les odes en vers italiens
• Le modèle horatien dans les Carmina de rebus divinis de Marcantonio Flaminio (1550) : renoncement ou conversion ?
• On a volé l'Horace de Ronsard
• Après 1550 : théories et pratiques
• Usages d'Horace dans les poétiques néo-latines. Les traités de Bartolomeo Fonzio et de Giovanni Antonio Vipertino
• La fable dans l'Art poétique d'Horace, d'après les commentaires de Grifoli et Denores
• Les Ruisseaux horatiens de Fontaine (1555) : une réponse à la Deffence et Illustration de la Langue Françoyse ?
• Qui est Atrée ? Traduire Horace, interpréter l'Art poétique
• Membra disjecta : Vauquelin et autres détournements de l'Épître aux Pisons
• Le droit à la satire chez Horace et ses disciples
• Horace en Europe et en toutes langues aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles
• Les champs, la ville, la cour : le laus ruris horatien au service de la critique sociale et politique chez Fischart et Opitz
• Horace contre Aristote ? Les Tablas poéticas de Francisco Cascales : une réponse à la Philosophia antigua poética de López Pinciano
• Horace Englished : modes de l'appropriation dans le paratexte des traductions anglaises des oeuvres d'Horace (1557-1640)
• L'utile dulci dans la théorie du théâtre (Italie, France, Espagne, 1550-1650)
• L'Horace sublime de Boileau.

"La réception des auteurs classiques est toujours multiple. Elle donne lieu à des lectures diversifiées et à des usages éditoriaux distincts. Cette pluralité des lectures vaut peut-être plus encore pour Horace. C'est qu'à la différence de Virgile qui n'était pas théoricien ou d'Aristote qui n'était pas poète, Horace offre à la fois une théorie et une pratique, et que celles-ci cultivent l'ambiguïté, sinon la contradiction. C'est aussi sans doute qu'Horace est sensible, comme poète et comme théoricien, à la variété, à la différence et au droit de l'appropriation. C'est enfin peut-être que ses textes permettent, loin de tout système et par morceaux épars, de mettre au premier plan des questions essentielles, littéraires, linguistiques et sociales, sur l'autorité de l'usage, la portée de l'innovation, la relation au modèle, questions qui ne cessent d'occuper la première Modernité. Aussi selon les milieux, les options poétiques, les générations, chacun s'accapare Horace et s'en réclame, l'accommode à ses propres idées, la plasticité du texte horatien permettant ces adaptations concurrentes ou successives. Dans l'Europe du début de l'époque moderne, parmi les commentateurs ou les poètes humanistes, les praticiens et les théoriciens des différents vernaculaires, chacun a "son" Horace, lyrique ou satirique, grave ou comique, chantre de la propriété ou du langage figuré, pourvoyeur de concepts ou bien de modèles d'écriture, qu'il lit à sa guise et parfois (souvent) contre d'autres.

• 1. Cicero presents himself: writing, revision and publication of the speeches--
• 2. Beyond the author: Cicero's speeches from publication to the medieval manuscripts--
• 3. Between praise and blame: Ciceronian scholarship from the early Empire to Late Antiquity--
• 4. Teaching Cicero.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Cicero saw publication as a means of perpetuating a distinctive image of himself as statesman and orator. He memorialized his spiritual and oratorical self by means of a very solid body of texts. Educationalists and schoolteachers in antiquity relied on Cicero's oratory to supervise the growth of the young into intellectual maturity. By reconstructing the main phases of textual transmission, from the first authorial dissemination of the speeches to the medieval manuscripts, and by re-examining the abundant evidence on Ciceronian scholarship from the first to the sixth century CE, Cicero and Roman Education traces the history of the exegetical tradition on Cicero's oratory and re-assesses the 'didactic' function of the speeches, whose preservation was largely determined by pedagogical factors.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9781107068582 20190325

The Roman statesman, orator, and author Marcus Tullius Cicero is the embodiment of a classic: his works have been read continuously from antiquity to the present, his style is considered the model for classical Latin, and his influence on Western ideas about the value of humanistic pursuits is both deep and profound. However, despite the significance of subsequent reception in ensuring his canonical status, Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic demonstrates that no one is more responsible for Cicero's transformation into a classic than Cicero himself, and that in his literary works he laid the groundwork for the ways in which he is still remembered today. The volume presents a new way of understanding Cicero's career as an author by situating his textual production within the context of the growth of Greek classicism: the movement had begun to flourish shortly before his lifetime and he clearly grasped its benefits both for himself and for Roman literature more broadly. By strategically adapting classic texts from the Greek world, and incorporating into his adaptations the interpretations of the Hellenistic philosophers, poets, rhetoricians, and scientists who had helped enshrine those works as classics, he could envision and create texts with classical authority for a parallel Roman canon. Ranging across a variety of genres - including philosophy, rhetoric, oratory, poetry, and letters - this close study of Cicero's literary works moves from his early translation of Aratus' poetry (and its later reappearance through self-quotation) to Platonizing philosophy, Aristotelian rhetoric, Demosthenic oratory, and even a planned Greek-style letter collection. Juxtaposing incisive analysis of how Cicero consciously adopted classical Greek writers as models and predecessors with detailed accounts of the reception of those figures by Greek scholars of the Hellenistic period, the volume not only offers ground-breaking new insights into Cicero's ascension to canonical status, but also a salutary new account of Greek intellectual life and its effect on Roman literature.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780198829423 20190325

• Preliminary Statement
• Prefatory Introduction to the Volume [A] Appendix to Footnotes 7, 11, 26, 132, 136, and
• 139
• Prefatory Introduction to the Volume [B] Ciceronian Rhetoric and Oratory from St. Augustine to Guarino da Verona Appendix to Footnote
• 17
• 1 Rhetoric Medieval and Modern Appendix to Footnotes
• 3 and
• 38
• 2 The Ad Herennium and the Rhetorical Works of Cicero and Quintilian in Relation to the Rhetorical Interests of the Middle Ages
• 3 The Textbooks and Rhetorical Instruction from Late Antiquity to the Eleventh Century
• 1 Late Antiquity
• 2 The Seventh to the Eleventh Centuries
• 3 The Eleventh Century Appendix to Footnotes 1, 6, 8, 26, 85, 101, 102, 172, 252, 327, and
• 342
• 4 The Textbooks and Rhetorical Instruction from the Later Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century
• 1 Rhetoric and Dialectic
• 2 Wisdom and Eloquence: The Integrated Scheme of Knowledge
• 3 Rhetoric and Civil Science (Politics)
• 4 Rhetoric and Law
• 5 Rhetoric and Dictamen
• 6 Rhetoric and the Colores: the Art of Prose and Verse Composition
• 7 Rhetoric and the Textbooks
• 8 The Study of Classical Rhetorical Theory in the North 1175-1300: The Universities and Mendicant Studia Appendix to Footnotes 72, 73, 82, 84, 112, 144, 152, 202, 297, 349, 356, 445, 512, 534, 535, 580, 599, 641, 719, 739, 761, 766, 769, 774, 777, and
• 813
• 5 Conclusion
• Appendix A 'G. Materia Tullii': The Durham Dean and Chapter (Cathedral) Library C.IV.29 Glossator Manegold and Martianus Capella Appendix B John O. Ward vita, and Abstract, Epigraphs and Preface for John O. Ward's Original Doctoral Dissertation Appendix C John Ward: Pronuntiatio or Delivery in the Commentaries on the Pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium in Medieval and Early Renaissance Periods Bibliography Acknowledgements and Abbreviations Used Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400-1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE is a completely updated version of John Ward's much-used doctoral thesis of 1972, and is the definitive treatment of this fundamental aspect of medieval and rhetorical culture. It is commonly believed that medieval writers were interested only in Christian truth, not in Graeco-Roman methods of `persuasion' to whatever viewpoint the speaker / writer wanted. Dr Ward, however, investigates the content of well over one thousand medieval manuscripts and shows that medieval writers were fully conscious of and much dependent upon Graeco-Roman rhetorical methods of persuasion. The volume then demonstrates why and to what purpose this use of classical rhetoric took place.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9789004368057 20190121

A delightful look at the epic literary history of the short, poetic genre of the epigram From Nestor's inscribed cup to tombstones, bathroom walls, and Twitter tweets, the ability to express oneself concisely and elegantly, continues to be an important part of literary history unlike any other. This book examines the entire history of the epigram, from its beginnings as a purely epigraphic phenomenon in the Greek world, where it moved from being just a note attached to physical objects to an actual literary form of expression, to its zenith in late 1st century Rome, and further through a period of stagnation up to its last blooming, just before the beginning of the Dark Ages. A Companion to Ancient Epigram offers the first ever full-scale treatment of the genre from a broad international perspective. The book is divided into six parts, the first of which covers certain typical characteristics of the genre, examines aspects that are central to our understanding of epigram, and discusses its relation to other literary genres. The subsequent four parts present a diachronic history of epigram, from archaic Greece, Hellenistic Greece, and Latin and Greek epigrams at Rome, all the way up to late antiquity, with a concluding section looking at the heritage of ancient epigram from the Middle Ages up to modern times. Provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the epigram The first single-volume book to examine the entire history of the genre Scholarly interest in Greek and Roman epigram has steadily increased over the past fifty years Looks at not only the origins of the epigram but at the later literary tradition A Companion to Ancient Epigram will be of great interest to scholars and students of literature, world literature, and ancient and general history. It will also be an excellent addition to the shelf of any public and university library.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9781118841723 20190304

This volume investigates an important and surprisingly widespread phenomenon in Latin literature, which has to date received little sustained discussion: the deliberate assumption of a weaker voice by speakers who in fact hold sufficient status not to be forced into this position. Though often associated with the markers of imperial hegemony and elite speech, Latin literature evinces a remarkably broad range of strategies designed to enable the adoption of a markedly disempowered voice- from topoi such as recusatio (professing a lack of ability to write in status-conforming, superior genres) and rhetorical devices such as prosopopoeia (artfully and strategically adopting a persona to garner favour, even when this means temporarily forfeiting one's higher status and discursive privileges), to the long-silenced female heroines of Ovid's Heroides and satire's irreverent take on the great and the good by framing its narratives as being articulated 'from below'. Even large-scale cultural self-positionings fall within this scope, be they expressions of Roman cultural inferiority vis-a-vis classical Greece or the tensions that arise between humble (yet spiritually superior) Christian writers and their grand, canonical, and classical (yet pagan) predecessors. The intersecting case studies offered in Complex Inferiorities examine this phenomenon in a wide range of genres, periods, and authors. By demonstrating that re-negotiating alleged weakness constitutes a central activity in Latin literature, this volume reveals the extent of the literary and cultural-political possibilities opened up by assuming and speaking in voices of weakness and inferiority. Authored by experts in their fields, the individual chapters explore the crucial role of the 'weaker voice' in establishing, perpetuating, and challenging hierarchies and values in a wide range of contexts- from poetics and choices of genre, to social status and intra- and intercultural relations- thereby offering invaluable insights not only for the study of classics, but for literary and cultural studies across the humanities.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780198814061 20190128

• Acknowledgements
• 1 Landino and his Works
• 2 The Xandra
• 1 Main Themes
• 2 Furor
• 3 Earthly Love-Heavenly Love
• 4 Civis poeta
• 5 Conclusion
• 3 Three Studio Courses of the 1450s and 1460s
• 1 Landino's Praefatio in Tusculanis Ciceronis (1458)
• 2 Landino's Prolusione to His Course on Petrarch's Canzoniere (1467)
• 3 Landino's Praefatio in Virgilio and 1462-63 Lectures on the Aeneid Books I-VII
• 4 Landino's De anima
• 1 The Date of the Dialogue
• 2 Summary of the Dialogue
• 3 Terminology Used in the De anima
• 4 The Mind
• 5 The Virtues
• 6 The Appetite and Will
• 7 Aristotle, Albert, and Argyropoulos
• 8 Plato, Bessarion, and Albert
• 9 Conclusion
• 5 The Disputationes Camaldulenses Books I and II
• 1 Title and Overview
• 2 Otium and negotium
• 3 Landino and Thomas Aquinas
• 4 Whether otium or negotium is Superior
• 5 Thomas, Ficino, and the Will
• 6 The Highest Good
• 7 Conclusion
• 6 The Disputationes Camaldulenses Books III and IV
• 1 Terminology
• 2 The Powers of the Rational Soul
• 3 The Reason, the Appetite, and Divine Illumination
• 4 Poetry
• 5 Virtue
• 6 The Virtues and Modes of Life
• 7 Conclusion
• 7 The
• 1488 Virgil Commentary
• 1 Overview
• 2 Comparing the Commentary with His Lectures
• 3 Poetry and Interpretation
• 4 The Aeneid Books VII-XII
• 8 The Commentary on Dante's Comedy
• 1 The Homer-Virgil-Dante Line of Epic Poets
• 2 Influence of Ancient and Christian Thinkers
• 3 Modes of Life
• 4 The Powers of the Soul
• 5 Virtue
• 6 Divine Grace and Divine Illumination
• 7 Conclusion
• 9 Conclusion Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In Cristoforo Landino: His Works and Thought Bruce McNair examines the writings, lectures and orations of Landino (1424-98), Renaissance Florence's famous teacher of poetry and rhetoric. McNair studies Landino's lecture notes, public orations, poetry, philosophical works and most popular commentaries to show how Landino's allegorical interpretations of Virgil and Dante grew in complexity as he studied philosophy and theology and how he understood Dante's Commedia as completing and surpassing Virgil's Aeneid. McNair also shows how Landino draws upon a wide range of thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Ficino, Argyropoulos and Bessarion, and how he incorporates his increasing knowledge of Plato into a scholastic framework and is better considered as a Dantean than a Neoplatonist.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9789004386518 20190204

• Introduction: the arts of peace
• Mutability: cycles of war and peace
• Translation: Virgil and Dryden in
• 1697
• Contingency: the Georgic poetry of Anne Finch --Imitation: the Georgics and the eighteenth century --Conclusion: "at their hours of preparation."

• Introduction Casper C. de Jonge and Richard Hunter-- Part I. Dionysius and Augustan Rhetoric and Literary Criticism:
• 1. Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the idea of the critic Richard Hunter--
• 2. Experiencing the past: language, time, and historical consciousness in Dionysian criticism Nicolas Wiater--
• 3. Dionysius' Demosthenes and Augustan Atticism Harvey Yunis--
• 4. Dionysius and Lysias' charm Laura Viidebaum-- Part II. Dionysius and Augustan Historiography:
• 5. The expansive scale of the Roman Antiquities Stephen P. Oakley--
• 6. Ways of killing women: Dionysius on the deaths of Horatia and Lucretia Clemence Schultze--
• 7. The prehistory of the Roman polis in Dionysius Matthew Fox-- Part III. Dionysius and Augustan Rome:
• 8. Dionysius on regime change Christopher Pelling--
• 9. How Roman are the Antiquities? The Decemvirate according to Dionysius Daniel Hogg--
• 10. Dionysius and Horace: composition in Augustan Rome Casper C. de Jonge-- Envoi: migrancy Joy Connolly.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The Greek author Dionysius of Halicarnassus came to Rome in 30/29 BC. He learnt Latin, developed a network of students, patrons and colleagues, and started to teach rhetoric. He published a history of early Rome (Roman Antiquities), and essays on rhetoric and literary criticism, including On the Ancient Orators, On Composition, and several letters. This volume examines how Dionysius' critical and rhetorical works are connected with his history of Rome, and the complex ways in which both components of this dual project - rhetorical criticism and historiography - fit into the social, intellectual, literary, cultural and political world of Rome under Augustus. How does Dionysius' interpretation of the earliest Romans resonate with the political reality of the Principate? And how do his views relate to those of Cicero, Livy and Horace? This volume casts new light on ancient rhetoric, literary criticism, historiography and the literary culture of Augustan Rome.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9781316998755 20190311

• Introduction: more than words
• Classics and the study of the book
• Writing and identity
• The text of the world
• Tablets of memory
• The Roman poetry book
• Ovid and the inscriptions
• Conclusion: texts and objects.

Shedding new light on the history of the book in antiquity, Empire of Letters tells the story of writing at Rome at the pivotal moment of transition from Republic to Empire (c. 55 BCE-15 CE). By uniting close readings of the period's major authors with detailed analysis of material texts, it argues that the physical embodiments of writing were essential to the worldviews and self-fashioning of authors whose works took shape in them. Whether in wooden tablets, papyrus bookrolls, monumental writing in stone and bronze, or through the alphabet itself, Roman authors both idealized and competed with writing's textual forms. The academic study of the history of the book has arisen largely out of the textual abundance of the age of print, focusing on the Renaissance and after. But fewer than fifty fragments of classical Roman bookrolls survive, and even fewer lines of poetry. Understanding the history of the ancient Roman book requires us to think differently about this evidence, placing it into the context of other kinds of textual forms that survive in greater numbers, from the fragments of Greek papyri preserved in the garbage heaps of Egypt to the Latin graffiti still visible on the walls of the cities destroyed by Vesuvius. By attending carefully to this kind of material in conjunction with the rich literary testimony of the period, Empire of Letters exposes the importance of textuality itself to Roman authors, and puts the written word back at the center of Roman literature.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780190915407 20190415

• The archaic context of vengeance
• Vengeance in the Odyssey: tisis as narrative
• Three narratives of divine vengeance
• Odysseus' terrifying revenge
• The multiple meanings of Odysseus' triumphs
• The end of the Odyssey and of revenge.

This book is the first in-depth examination of revenge in the Odyssey. The principal revenge plot of the Odyssey -Odysseus' surprise return to Ithaca after twenty away and his vengeance on Penelope's suitors - is the act for which he is most celebrated. This story forms the backbone of the Odyssey. But is Odysseus' triumph over the suitors as univocally celebratory as is often assumed? Does the poem contain and even suggest other, darker interpretations of Odysseus' greatest achievement? This book offers a careful analysis of several other revenge plots in the Odyssey - those of Orestes, Poseidon, Zeus, and the suitors' relatives. It shows how these revenge stories color one another with allusions (explicit and implicit) that connect them and invite audiences to interpret them in light of one another. These stories - especially Odysseus' revenge upon the suitors - inevitably turn out to have multiple meanings. One plot of revenge slips into another as the offender in one story becomes a victim to be avenged in the next. As a result, Odysseus turns out to be a much more ambivalent hero than has been commonly accepted. And in the Odyssey's portrayal, revenge is an unstable foundation for a community. Revenge also ends up being a tenuous narrative structure for an epic poem, as a natural end to cycles of vengeance proves elusive. This book offers a radical new reading of the seemingly happy ending of the poem.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780190909673 20190415