For centuries the myth of Oedipus, the man who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, has exerted a powerful hold on the human imagination; but no retelling of that myth has ever come close, in passion, drama, and menace to the one that we find in Sophocles' Oedipus the King. This new full-scale edition of that classic play - the first in any language since 1883 - offers a freshly constituted text based on consultation of manuscripts ancient and mediaeval. The Introduction explores the play's dating and production, its creative engagement with pre-Sophoclean versions, its major themes, and its reception during antiquity. The Commentary offers a detailed analysis, line by line and scene by scene, of the play's language, staging, and dramatic impact. The translation incorporated into the commentary ensures that the book will be accessible to all readers interested in what is arguably the greatest Greek tragedy of all.
For centuries the myth of Oedipus, the man who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, has exerted a powerful hold on the human imagination; but no retelling of that myth has ever come close, in passion, drama, and menace to the one that we find in Sophocles' Oedipus the King. This new full-scale edition of that classic play - the first in any language since 1883 - offers a freshly constituted text based on consultation of manuscripts ancient and mediaeval. The Introduction explores the play's dating and production, its creative engagement with pre-Sophoclean versions, its major themes, and its reception during antiquity. The Commentary offers a detailed analysis, line by line and scene by scene, of the play's language, staging, and dramatic impact. The translation incorporated into the commentary ensures that the book will be accessible to all readers interested in what is arguably the greatest Greek tragedy of all.
In the third century CE, the North African polymath, soldier, and provincial official Q. Gargilius Martialis (died 260) wrote a treatise on the cultivation and medical use of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. The agricultural part of this work survives in a fragmentary state in a single manuscript. Despite this impediment, the agricultural writings are noteworthy for the clear marks both of their meticulous research and of the application of independent judgement and experience. Gargilius furthermore presents his advice in a stylized and literary form that strives for elegance through the use of prose rhythm, rhetorical variatio, and figurative language. The fragments will be valuable for those interested in ancient agriculture, in Greco-Roman authorship on the technai or artes, and in the history and sociolinguistics of Latin. This volume offers a new edition and the first English translation of Gargilius' agricultural fragments as well as an introduction and full-scale commentary.
This volume provides a new critical text of the Prologue and the first two books of Venantius Fortunatus' Vita Sancti Martini, a work, written in the latter half of the sixth century, which paraphrases in epic verse the famous prose hagiography of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus. This edition offers the first English translation of and the first full commentary on that part of Venantius' poem. Venantius was one of the last writers in a recognisably classical Latin tradition and his Vita affords a fascinating insight into the language and literary culture of his time. It is, however, a deceptively allusive and difficult poem, and the introduction and commentary of this book deal extensively with matters of exegesis, textual criticism, language, metre and much else. It will be valuable for students of the literature and culture of late Latin antiquity, and for those interested in early Christianity and hagiography.
In this forgotten treatise, preserved largely in medieval translations into Arabic and Latin, the greatest medical scientist of antiquity investigates the relationship between conscious and unconscious movements. He looks at the structure of the tongue and the oesophagus, and asks why mental perceptions can have physical effects on the body. Some of his questions still trouble modern scientists, although they would not accept most of his answers. The extensive Introduction and Commentary explain the medical background for non-medical specialists, and discuss the place of this treatise and of anatomy in medieval medicine down to Leonardo da Vinci. As well as being the first English translation of this important work, this is also the first comparative study of medieval translations of the same ancient text, and is based on new editions and collations of all three. The Commentary pays special attention to the linguistic elements involved in making these translations.
This is the first modern edition of Book X of the Historia Animalium. It argues that the first five chapters are a summary, from the hand of Aristotle, of a medical treatise by a physician practicing in the fourth-century BCE. This gives short shrift to Hippocratic staples such as trapped menses and the wandering womb, and describes a woman's climax during sex in terms that can be easily mapped onto modern accounts. In summarizing the treatise and examining its claims in the last two chapters, Aristotle follows the method described in the Topics for a philosopher embarking on a new field of study. Here we see Aristotle's ruminations over the conundrum of a woman's contribution to conception at an early stage in the development of his theory of reproduction. Far from being an insignificant pseudepigraphon, this is a central text for understanding the development of ancient gynaecology and Aristotelian methodology.
The epic poet Dionysius, who probably flourished in the first century CE, is a key transitional figure in the history of Greek poetry, sharing stylistic and thematic tendencies with both the learned Hellenistic tradition and the monumental epic poetry of the later Roman period. His Bassarica is the earliest known poem on the conquest of India by the god Dionysus and was an important model of Nonnus' Dionysiaca. His Gigantias related the battle of the giants against the Olympian gods and legends surrounding it, with particular focus on the figure of Heracles. This is the most comprehensive edition to date of his poetry, expanding the number of fragments available and providing a more reliable text based on a fresh inspection of the papyri. The volume includes a substantial introduction contextualising the poetry, a facing English translation of the text, and a detailed linguistic and literary commentary.
Books 5 and 6 of Tacitus' Annals cover the last years of the emperor Tiberius. Although most of Book 5 is lost, Book 6 survives complete and offers a vivid narrative of the increasingly tyrannical princeps, secluded on the island of Capri; the book ends with his death and obituary notice, one of the most celebrated passages of classical literature. This volume presents a new text of Books 5 and 6, restoring the division between them which was proposed by Lipsius, as well as a full commentary on the text, covering textual, literary, linguistic and historical matters. An Appendix discusses 'The Tacitean Tiberius'. The volume rounds off the sequence which began with commentary on Books 1 and 2 of Tacitus' Annals by F. R. D. Goodyear (1972, 1981) and was continued by commentary on Book 3 by A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin (1996).
In this forgotten treatise, preserved largely in medieval translations into Arabic and Latin, the greatest medical scientist of antiquity investigates the relationship between conscious and unconscious movements. He looks at the structure of the tongue and the oesophagus, and asks why mental perceptions can have physical effects on the body. Some of his questions still trouble modern scientists, although they would not accept most of his answers. The extensive Introduction and Commentary explain the medical background for non-medical specialists, and discuss the place of this treatise and of anatomy in medieval medicine down to Leonardo da Vinci. As well as being the first English translation of this important work, this is also the first comparative study of medieval translations of the same ancient text, and is based on new editions and collations of all three. The Commentary pays special attention to the linguistic elements involved in making these translations.
This edition presents a radically improved text of Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers. The text is accompanied by a full critical apparatus on three levels. A lengthy introduction lists all the manuscripts of the Lives and discusses its transmission in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There is also an index of personal names, a bibliography and notes covering several features of the text and its interpretation. Professor Dorandi has used the Nachlaß of Peter Von der Mühll, for the first time in its entirety, to verify and consolidate material that he had previously gathered. This is by far the most detailed and elaborate edition which Diogenes' Lives - a unique work which has had a profound influence on European literature and philosophy - has ever received.
Book 11, the first of the later books of the Annals to survive, narrates two years in the reign of Claudius, AD 47–8. While Claudius is busy with the duties of his censorship, his wife Messalina is having a very public love affair with the young aristocrat Silius that eventually ruins her. In a book that also treats German, eastern, and other Roman internal affairs, a third of the surviving narrative is devoted to the destruction of Messalina. Here we encounter the classic portrayal of a Claudius ignorant and manipulated by those around him in an extended narrative that shows Tacitus at his dramatic and cynical best. This edition of Book 11, the first scholarly one in English in over a hundred years, contains a full introduction, a newly-edited Latin text with apparatus, and a comprehensive commentary that illuminates historical, historiographical, textual, linguistic, and literary issues that arise from the narrative.
The tragedy Rhesus has come down to us among the plays of Euripides but was probably the work either of fourth-century BC actors or producers heavily rewriting his original play or of a fourth-century author writing in competition. This edition explores the play as a 'postclassical' tragedy, composed when the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides had become the 'classical' canon. Its stylistic mannerisms, cerebral re-use of the motifs and language of fifth-century tragedy, and endemic experimentalism with various models of intertextuality exemplify the anxiety of influence of the Rhesus as a text that 'comes after' fifth-century drama and Book 10 of the Iliad. The anachronistic adaptations of the world of the epic heroes to the new reality of the polis and the irresistible rise of Macedonian power also reveal the Rhesus attempting to be both seriously intertextual with its models and seriously different from them.
The Colloquia are manuals written to help ancient Greeks and Romans get around in each other's languages; they contain examples of how to conduct activities like shopping, banking, visiting friends, hosting parties, taking oaths, winning lawsuits, using the public baths, having fights, making excuses and going to school. They thus offer a unique glimpse of daily life in the Early Roman Empire and are an important resource for understanding ancient culture. They have, however, been unjustly neglected because until now there has not been any modern editions of the texts, no translations into any modern language, and little understanding of what the Colloquia are and where they come from. This book makes the Colloquia accessible for the first time by combining a new edition, translation and commentary with a ground-breaking, comprehensive study of their origins. It is clearly written and will interest students, non-specialists and professional scholars alike.
The epic poet Dionysius, who probably flourished in the first century CE, is a key transitional figure in the history of Greek poetry, sharing stylistic and thematic tendencies with both the learned Hellenistic tradition and the monumental epic poetry of the later Roman period. His Bassarica is the earliest known poem on the conquest of India by the god Dionysus and was an important model of Nonnus' Dionysiaca. His Gigantias related the battle of the giants against the Olympian gods and legends surrounding it, with particular focus on the figure of Heracles. This is the most comprehensive edition to date of his poetry, expanding the number of fragments available and providing a more reliable text based on a fresh inspection of the papyri. The volume includes a substantial introduction contextualising the poetry, a facing English translation of the text, and a detailed linguistic and literary commentary.
The Colloquia are manuals written to help ancient Greeks and Romans get around in each other's languages; they contain examples of how to conduct activities like shopping, banking, visiting friends, hosting parties, taking oaths, winning lawsuits, using the public baths, having fights, making excuses and going to school. They thus offer a unique glimpse of daily life in the early Roman Empire and are an important resource for understanding ancient culture. They have, however, been unjustly neglected because until now there were no modern editions of the texts, no translations into any modern language, and little understanding of what the Colloquia are and where they come from. This two-volume set makes the Colloquia accessible for the first time by combining a new edition, translation and commentary with a groundbreaking, comprehensive study of their origins. It is clearly written and will interest students, non-specialists and professional scholars alike.
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes is the longest surviving hymn from early Greece, our fullest source for the god Hermes, and an entertaining narrative of theft, invention, cheekiness, and learning to get along. This study contains a new text of the poem, based on advances in our understanding of its transmission, and a commentary which brings together a range of methodologies to address points of linguistic difficulty, poetic technique, and cultural background. The introduction discusses the possible context for the first performance of the hymn, and makes an original argument about the hymnist's remarkable approach to praise and to the epic tradition. This book will therefore be an essential point of reference for students and scholars interested not only in the Hymn to Hermes but in Greek literature and religion.
Books 5 and 6 of Tacitus' Annals cover the last years of the emperor Tiberius. Although most of Book 5 is lost, Book 6 survives complete and offers a vivid narrative of the increasingly tyrannical princeps, secluded on the island of Capri; the book ends with his death and obituary notice, one of the most celebrated passages of classical literature. This volume presents a new text of Books 5 and 6, restoring the division between them which was proposed by Lipsius, as well as a full commentary on the text, covering textual, literary, linguistic and historical matters. An Appendix discusses 'The Tacitean Tiberius'. The volume rounds off the sequence which began with commentary on Books 1 and 2 of Tacitus' Annals by F. R. D. Goodyear (1972, 1981) and was continued by commentary on Book 3 by A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin (1996).
Stesichorus' lyric poetry vividly recreates the most dramatic episodes of Greek myth: the labours of Heracles, the sack of Troy, the vengeance of Orestes, and more besides. It can be appreciated today as never before, thanks to the recent discovery of ancient manuscripts buried for some two millennia in the sands of Egypt. This fresh edition of Stesichorus' poems presents the first full-scale analysis of all his surviving works. The detailed introduction and commentary investigate a wide range of key issues, such as Stesichorus' imagery and style, his narrative technique, and his mythological innovations. The controversial question of how Stesichorus' poems were originally performed receives careful scrutiny; particular attention is paid to the fascinating story of the transmission, disappearance, and recovery of his work. A translation integrated with the commentary renders this book accessible to all readers with an interest in early Greek poetry and its legacy.
