This widely acclaimed book offers an introduction to the ancient novel and presents the latest research findings in the field. For this English translation, Professor Holzberg has substantially updated and expanded the German edition of 1986.
Niklas Holzberg considers the ancient novel as encompassing idealistic and comic realistic narrative with central themes of love and adventure. He develops his definition of the genre and offers explanations of why this literary form was so popular during the Hellenistic period. He goes on to examine the individual texts in chronological order,...

This widely acclaimed book offers an introduction to the ancient novel and presents the latest research findings in the field. For this English translation, Professor Holzberg has substantially updated and expanded the German edition of 1986.
Niklas Holzberg considers the ancient novel as encompassing idealistic and comic realistic narrative with central themes of love and adventure. He develops his definition of the genre and offers explanations of why this literary form was so popular during the Hellenistic period. He goes on to examine the individual texts in chronological order,...

The Roman poet Ovid is enjoying a renaissance. Though relegated to the margins in the Romantic period, since the mid-1980s he has become popular again, not only with classicists and other lovers of ancient poetry, but also with poets and prose writers. He himself is the protagonist of a number of recent novels and stories, including Jane Alison's The Love Artist, Derek Mahon's Ovid in Tomis, and David Malouf's An Imaginary Life. Ovid's greatest work, the Metamorphoses, has inspired authors such as Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes to publish retellings of certain of his stories of...

Mitten im Peloponnesischen Krieg ergreifen die atthenischen Frauen die Initiative. Sie wollen sich ihren Mnnern so lange verweigern, bis diese endlich Frieden schlieen. Ein Stck mit ernstem politischen Hintergrund, vor allem aber eine Komdie la Aristophanes.

Die "Anthologia Graeca" (eine Kompilation der "Anthologia Palatina" aus dem 10. Jh. und der um 1300 veranstalteten Sammlung des Mönchs Maximos Planudes) enthält über 4000 griechische Epigramme von der Mitte des 5. Jh. v. Chr. bis hinein ins byzantinische Mittelalter. Diese Auswahl von 275 Gedichten bietet einen beispielhaften Querschnitt, der die verschiedenen chronologischen Schichten des riesigen Korpus abbildet und seine thematische Vielfalt aufzeigt: Erotische Gedichte von zart bis obszön, Weih- und Grabepigramme, Mahnendes und Sinnendes, Spottverse und Trinksprüche, Rätsel und...