Did the Greeks find it amusing, irritating, or threatening when they heard another Greek speaking in a different dialect? This book exploits the evidence of ancient Greek comedy in an attempt to answer some of the questions about ancient language attitudes. Colvin draws conclusions from a comparative study of the language of dialect speaking characters and other foreigners in Old Comedy, and on an examination of linguistic attitudes in other genres of Greek literature.

This book analyzes the narrative technique of Thucydides, relating his shifting uses of various techniques to his explanatory aims, and showing how he narrates the progression of one war and at the same time exposes various truths about the human condition.

This book offers a newly integrated interpretation of Homeric man. The author starts with the working hypothesis that, in this poetry, the human being is not divided into two parts - inner and outer; body and soul; flesh and spirit - but stands as an indivisible unity. The last part of this analysis leads to a reassessment of the Homeric psuche.

The critical century between the arrival of Constantine and the advance of Alaric in the early fifth century witnessed dramatic changes in the city of Rome. In this book Dr. Curran has broken away from the usual notions of religious conflict between Christians and pagans, to focus on a number of approaches to the Christianization of Rome. He surveys the laws and political considerations which governed the building policy of Constantine and his successors, the effect of papal building and commemorative constructions on Roman topography, the continuing ambivalence of the Roman festal calendar,...

Despite the ubiquitous importance of medicine in Roman literature, philosophy, and social history, the language of Latin medical texts has not been properly studied. This book presents the first systematic account of a part of this large, rich field. Concentrating on texts of "high" medicine written in educated, even literary, Latin Langslow offers a detailed linguistic profile of the medical terminology of Celsus and Scribonius Largus (first century AD) and Theodorus Priscianus and Cassius Felix (fifth century AD), with frequent comparisons with their respective near-contemporaries.

The Andromache has long been disparaged despite being a brilliant piece of theater. In this book Dr. Allan draws attention to the neglected artistry of this very impressive and intriguing text. Through careful analysis the Andromache emerges as a play that poses fundamental questions, especially about the polarity of Greek and barbarian, and the morality of the gods. Dr. Allan shows how the play also challenges revenge as a motive for action, and explores the role of women as wives, mothers, and victims of war, be they Greek or Trojan, victorious or defeated. These are among the central...

This is the first book-length study of Philo of Larissa (159-84 BC), leader of the Platonic Academy in its final period as an Athenian institution, and also the principal philosophical teacher of Cicero. The appendix contains full testimonia and "fragments" of Philo.

Throughout the middle and late Republican periods (fourth to first centuries BC) the Romans lived in fear and loathing of the Gauls of northern Italy, caused primarily by their collective historical memory of the destruction of the city of Rome by Gauls in 387 BC. By examining the literary evidence relating to the historical, ethnographic, and geographic writings of Greeks and Romans of the period focussing on invasion and conflict, this book attempts to answer the questions how and why the Gauls became the deadly enemy of the Romans. Dr. Williams also examines the problematic notion of the...

The era of Diocletian and Constantine--when the Christian church passed from persecution to imperial favor--saw far-reaching administrative changes that established the structure of government in the Roman Empire for three hundred years. This was a complex period of cooperation and rivalry between co-emperors, the result of Diocletian's experiment in government by four rulers, the tetrarchs. Drawing together material from a wide variety of sources, Corcoran studies the vast range of documents issued by the emperors and their officials, and assesses how effectively the machinery of government...

This book aims to provide the reader of Homer with the traditional knowledge and fluency in Homeric poetry which an original ancient audience would have brought to a performance of this type of narrative. To that end, Adrian Kelly presents the text of Iliad VIII next to an apparatus referring to the traditional units being employed, and gives a brief description of their semantic impact. He describes the referential curve of the narrative in a continuous commentary, tabulates all the traditional units in a separate lexicon of Homeric structure, and examines critical decisions concerning the...