Browse

The text of the Periplous or ‘circumnavigation’ that survives under the name of Skylax of Karyanda is in fact by an unknown author of the 4th century BC. It describes the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, naming hundreds of towns with geographical features such as rivers, harbours and mountains. But, argues Graham Shipley, it is not the record of a voyage or a navigational handbook for sailors. It is, rather, the first work of Greek theoretical geography, written in Athens at a time of intellectual ferment and intense speculation about the nature and dimensions of the inhabited world. While other scientists were gathering data about natural science and political systems or making rapid advances in philosophy, rhetorical theory, and cosmology, the unknown author collected data about the structure of the lands bordering the seas known to the Greeks, and compiled sailing distances and times along well-frequented routes. His aim was probably nothing less ambitious than to demonstrate the size of the inhabited world of the Greeks. This is the first full edition of the Periplous for over 150 years, and includes a newly revised Greek text and specially produced maps along with the first complete English translation. In this fully reset second edition, the introduction is expanded to include a section on the late-antique geographer Markianos, and updates incorporated into both the Introduction and Commentary.

This is not a commentary on Juvenal 10 but a critical appreciation of the poem which examines it on its own and in context and tries to make it come alive as a piece of literature, offering one man’s close reading of Satire 10 as poetry, and concerned with literary criticism rather than philological minutiae. In line with the recent broadening of insight into Juvenal’s writing this book often addresses the issues of distortion and problematizing and covers style, sound and diction as well. Much time is also devoted to intertextuality and to humour wit and irony. Building on the work of scholars like Martyn, Jenkyns and Schmitz, who see in juvenal a consistently skilful author, this is a whole book demonstrating a high level of expertise on Juvenal’s part sustained throughout a long poem. This investigation leads to the conclusion that Juvenal is an accomplished poet and provocative satirist, a writer with real focus, who makes every word count, and a final chapter exploring 11 and 12 confirms that assessment. Translation of the Latin and explanation of references are also included so that Classics students will find the book easier to use and it will also be accessible to scholars and students interested in satire outside of Classics departments.

This book provides the materials needed for detailed study of Plato’s Atlantis story. It contains the two relevant Greek texts, the start of the Timaeus and incomplete Critias, in the Oxford Classical Text edition, with a new English translation of these texts. It also provides a full interpretative introduction, a medium-length commentary, and a Greek vocabulary. It is the only book which currently provides all these resources. Different kinds of readers will be able to use the book in different ways. Those primarily interested in Plato’s philosophy can focus on the translation and the introduction. Students or scholars of Greek can also use the text, commentary, and vocabulary.Distinctive features of the book include the full interpretative introduction, which takes account of recent scholarship on Plato’s story. Also, the commentary, interleaved with the Greek text for ease of reference, offers concise but informative help with the grammar and translation, supplemented by the complete Greek vocabulary. This makes the book useful in providing a medium-length prose text of considerable interest for students learning Greek and also for scholars wanting exegetical guidance. The book is based on an earlier edition, published in 1980 by Bristol Classical Press; however, the translation and most of the introduction are entirely new, and the commentary has been modified to match the new introduction and to take account of scholarship in the intervening years.

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.

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.

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.