By the Roman age the traditional stories of Greek myth had long since ceased to reflect popular culture. Mythology had become instead a central element in elite culture. If one did not know the stories one would not understand most of the allusions in the poets and orators, classics and contemporaries alike; nor would one be able to identify the scenes represented on the mosaic floors and wall paintings in your cultivated friends' houses, or on the silverware on their tables at dinner.

Mythology was no longer imbibed in the nursery; nor could it be simply picked up from the often oblique...

The Greek Anthology is one of the great books of European literature, "a garden containing the flowers and weeds of 1500 years of Greek epigram." Cameron's study adds a wealth of new information about its growth over an even longer period, from the earliest papyrus anthologies down to the 1606 rediscovery of the Palatine Anthology (AP), our principal source for the entire history of Greek epigram, from Simonides to the Byzantine age. It was a Byzantine schoolmaster, Constantine Cephalas, who excerpted all the major ancient collections around 900. His work is reconstructed from a closer...

Rufinus' vivid account of the battle between the Eastern Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius by the River Frigidus in 394 represents it as the final confrontation between paganism and Christianity. It is indeed widely believed that a largely pagan aristocracy remained a powerful and active force well into the fifth century, sponsoring pagan literary circles, patronage of the classics, and propaganda for the old cults in art and literature. The main focus of much modern scholarship on the end of paganism in the West has been on its supposed stubborn resistance to Christianity....

This book presents a substantially revised version of some of the most important and innovative articles published by Alan Cameron in the field of late antique Greek poetry and philosophy. Much new material has been added to the account of the "Wandering Poets" from early Byzantine Egypt, and earlier judgment on their paganism is nuanced. The story of Cyrus of Panopolis and the empress Eudocia takes into account important recent work on the poetry of Eudocia. Several chapters discuss the date and identity of the influential poet Nonnus. The longest chapter reviews the celebrated story of the...