Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature (Series Editors: Kathleen Coleman and Richard Rutherford) introduces individual works of Greek and Latin literature to readers who are approaching them for the first time. Each volume sets the work in its literary and historical context, and aims to offer a balanced and engaging assessment of its content, artistry, and purpose. A brief survey of the influence of the work upon subsequent generations is included to demonstrate its enduring relevance and power. All quotations from the original are translated into English.

Plato's...

The future of computing-the future of business
Rapid technological innovation is moving us towards a world of ubiquitous computing-a world in which we are surrounded by smart machines that are always on, always aware, and always monitoring us. These developments will create a world virtually without secrets in which information is widely available and analyzable worldwide. This environment will certainly affect business, government, and the individual alike, dramatically affecting the way organizations and individuals interact. This book explores the implications of the coming world and...

Under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled Egypt in the middle of the third century B.C.E., Alexandria became the brilliant multicultural capital of the Greek world. Theocritus's poem in praise of Philadelphus--at once a Greek king and an Egyptian pharaoh--is the only extended poetic tribute to this extraordinary ruler that survives. Combining the Greek text, an English translation, a full line-by-line commentary, and extensive introductory studies of the poem's historical and literary context, this volume also offers a wide-ranging and far-reaching consideration of the workings and...

Bucchero is a very common type of fine pottery that was made by the Etruscans when their civilization was at its height, from the seventh to the fourth century BC. This study concentrates on the products of South Etruria, where the earliest and finest bucchero was made, and where the tradition lasts longest. Until recently bucchero has been little studied, and the aim of this book is to present a sequence of pottery from archaeological contexts, so that the development of the ware can be seen as a whole within a chronological framework. Many of the tomb-groups catalogued are published here...

The economics of imperialism, its political background and institutional frameworks, the material benefits it conferred, the ideologies of ruler and ruled - these are some of the more important aspects of imperialism discussed in this volume. In presenting the evidence for ancient imperialims and suggesting concepts and methods of interpretation these articles, which are the work of the Cambridge University Research Seminar in Ancient History, range from New Kingdom Egypt and Carthage, through the classical Greek world of Athens and Sparta, to Macedonia and Rome. This book will be...

Commentaries on the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, an anonymous history of events in the Greek world in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC, have usually dealt almost entirely with problems of the text. In this book, Dr Bruce has written an historical commentary, basing his work on both the London and Florence papyri, which between them provide all the surviving fragments of the text. Dr Bruce begins with a brief description of the two papyri. He then discusses the Oxyrhynchus historian's style and method - his sources, chronology, bias, interest in causation, etc. The introduction ends with...

This book is a wide-ranging study of the language of the tragedian Sophocles. From a detailed analysis of sentence structure in the first chapter, it moves on to discuss how language shapes the perception of characters, of myths, of gods and of choruses. All chapters are united by a shared concern: how does Sophoclean language engage readers and spectators? Although the book focuses on the original Greek, translations make it accessible to anyone interested in Greek tragedy.

The Epicurean philosophical system has enjoyed much recent scrutiny, but the question of its philosophical ancestry remains largely neglected. This book traces its origins in the fifth-century BC atomist Democritus, in his fourth-century followers such as Anaxarchus and Pyrrho, and in Epicurus' disagreements with his own Democritean teacher Nausiphanes. The result is not only a fascinating reconstruction of a lost tradition, but also an important contribution to the philosophical interpretation of Epicureanism, bearing especially on its ideal of tranquillity and on the relation of ethics to...

This book explores the fragmentary evidence both for Anaxagoras' concept of mind and for his subtle, complex and elusive theory of matter and change.

Composed in the third century B.C., the Argonautica is the only extant Greek epic between Homer and the later Roman Empire. It tells of Jason's successful expedition with the Argonauts to recover the Golden Fleece from Colchis on the Black Sea. Medea, a young Colchian princess, falls in love with Jason and helps him survive the ordeals imposed by her father. The description of Medea's emotional suffering exercised a profound influence on subsequent writers and especially on Virgil in his account of Dido and Aeneas. Dr. Hunter's edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the poem and its...