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This book demonstrates how Greek tragedy can be called a political art form and why this is an exciting idea both for modern scholarship and to modern theatre producers and audiences. The central argument is that Greek tragedy made itself politically relevant to the members of the Greek city-state (polis) generally, rather than to Athenian democracy narrowly. The book begins by explaining the historical and theatrical context of first performance and then proceeds (in chapter 2) through a critical analysis of modern scholarly approaches to tragic politics. Chapter 3 gives a working definition of ‘political’ as ‘a concern with human beings as part of the community of the polis’ and shows how these concerns are manifest in the very shape (staging, performance) of tragedy. Chapter 4 discusses four political plays and identifies political issues that would have mattered to their original audience. Chapter 5 considers two of these four plays in modern performance and draws conclusions from the different political readings thus yielded: modern political theatre has often been counter-cultural; ancient Greek tragedy, for all that it posed awkward questions relevant to the life of the polis, was part of the establishment.

This book presents a collection of historical anecdotes written during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius in the first century ad. The book aims to redefine the significance of the work of Valerius Maximus, author of The Memorable Deeds of the Men of Rome and Foreign Nations. It argues that modern scholarship's view of Valerius' work as a mere source-book for rhetoricians is misconceived. The popularity of the work during the Middle Ages and Renaissance was due to its value to the readers of those times as a source of moral exhortation and guidance that was as relevant to them as it had been to Valerius' contemporaries. The wider appeal of the book lies in its examination of earlier forms of exemplary literature, in its discussion of how Roman literature was communicated to its audience, and in its original theory concerning the identity of Valerius Maximus himself.

Twenty of the author's shorter pieces first published between 1963 and 2004 (when the book was initially prepared), which emphasize textual questions, verbal criticism, dramatic form and general interpretation. They are grouped roughly under the three words of the title, and handle subjects ranging from A: phenomena general to Greek Tragedy: its demand upon students and readers; stichomythia; the fragmentary tragedian Chaeremon; the attribution of a fragmentary Pirithous-play; the textual quality of quotations in Athenaeus; review of an important select edition of fragments; through (B): some topics particular to Euripides: scribal hands in a famous manuscript; the problematic Funeral Oration in Suppliants; that play's disputed date; appreciation of a choral ode in Hecuba; specialist lexicography of the poet; reviews of the now standard critical edition of the poet; to (C): appreciations of some scholars of Tragedy and particularly Euripides prominent since the 16^th Century: Dirk Canter, Joshua Barnes, Jeremiah Markland, Samuel Musgrave, Peter Elmsley, James Henry Monk, and Frederick Apthorp Paley. All pieces have been edited, revised and supplemented with notes and bibliography as far as 2006. The problems of collecting and editing fragmentary texts emerge as the author's regular interest, anticipating his concentration on this work since 1995, in five collaborative editions and some shorter studies, some of which are listed or heralded in his List of Publications at the end of the volume.