This work discusses the decline of Greek religion and the christianization of town and countryside in the eastern Roman Empire between the death of Julian the Apostate and the laws of Justinian the Great against paganism, c. 370-529. It examines such questions as the effect of the laws against sacrifice and sorcery, temple conversions, the degradation of pagan gods into daimones, the christianization of rite, and the social, political and economic background of conversion to Christianity. Several local contexts are examined in great detail: Gaza, Athens, Alexandria, Aphrodisias,...

The author uses an extensive study of the five Greek novels preserved by tradition since Roman times (Chariton, Chaireas and Callirhoe, Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, Xenophon of Ephesus, Ephesiaca, Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon, Heliodorus, Ethiopica) to show how the novel form, from its origins, has been based upon the repetition of commonplaces, τόποι, which allows an interplay with the reader. The commonest of these commonplaces, love-Eros, provides the plot of the five novels, in an order which is itself topical: meeting...

This is the first commentary to be written in English on Seneca's Phoenissae, an intriguing work on account of its unusual structure and state of incompletion. The substantial introduction deals, inter alia, with the question of the unity and purpose of the work; the absence of an ending and of choral lyrics; the philosophical, rhetorical, and political content; Seneca's treatment of the Theban legend. The commentary is primarily a literary analysis of the text, but textual, linguistic, metrical, and grammatical difficulties are also elucidated. With the resurgence of interest...

This volume evaluates a single element of tragic art, namely the way in which narrative descriptions of place participate in the poetry of tragedy. They join together structures of the theater to create a context for tragic performance, and ultimately reflect upon tragedy's connection to earlier narrative forms and to the traditional tales that regularly supply tragic plots.
The first part of this book examines the introductory function of spatial descriptions and the peculiar resources offered to the playwright by cult settings. In the second part, the spatial oppositions, that are...

This book offers a text and translation of Theophrastus' "Metaphysics," together with a full commentary, which may be used as an introduction to the terminology of Aristotle's school. The Introduction provides an assessment of Theophrastus' contribution to Peripatetic thought on the principles of being.

It is largely thanks to Zvi Yavetz that the Roman plebs has become "Salonfahig." In numerous important studies Yavetz has focused his -- and our -- attention on the problem of the relationship between the ruler and the masses of the ruled. Thus, it seemed natural to choose various aspects of this relationship as the topic of a volume in his honour. The articles here contributed by thirteen eminent friends and colleagues deal with historical and theoretical questions of the relationship between "the one" and "the many," covering a period from the second century B.C., through the times of the...

Euripidea contains material to supplement Volume One of the author's Loeb Euripides. It consists of two parts, Testimonia Vitae et Artis Selecta and Textual Discussions. The Testimonia, ancient notices about the life of Euripides and his career as a tragic poet, are printed together for the first time, together with a facing English translation. The Loeb Introduction examines this material critically. Equipped with this body of evidence, students of Greek tragedy and of ancient biography will be able to assess for themselves the reliability of the biographical tradition, in...

This handbook for the reading of early Greek poetry is intended to be both a manual for teachers and a guide for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. It covers poetry in the elegiac and iambic genres, as well as melic poetry which is provisionally divided into the personal and the public. The book takes a critical look at scholarly trends applied in interpreting this poetry, exploring, for example, the problems of defining the nature of the elegiac genre, the origins of iambic poetry, the personal voice used by the poets, and the validity of historical criticism. Appearing in the...

This is the first thematic study of Statius' "Thebaid" to be published in monograph form in English in the past twenty years. It examines in detail the thematic design and intent of the "Thebaid" and considers the question of its contemporary relevance. The book focuses on the central theme of power how it is exercised on the supernatural and human levels and the consequences of its pursuit and abuse in terms of the human condition. An ensuing discussion explores the political undercurrents of the epic. This discussion is in four main parts: (1) 'Use and Abuse of Supernatural Power'; (2)...

This volume is the first English-language survey of Homeric studies to appear for more than a generation, and the first such work to attempt to cover all fields comprehensively. Thirty leading scholars from Europe and America provide short, authoritative overviews of the state of knowledge and current controversies in the many specialist divisions in Homeric studies. The chapters pay equal attention to literary, mythological, linguistic, historical, and archaeological topics, ranging from such long-established problems as the "Homeric Question" to newer issues like the relevance of...