This new "Satyricon" features not only a lively, new, annotated translation of the text, but fresh and accessible commentaries that discuss Petronius' masterpiece in terms of such topics as the identity of the author, the transmission of his manuscript, literary influences on the "Satyricon," and the distinctive literary form of this work as well as such features of Roman life as oratory, sexual practices, households, dinner parties, religion, and philosophy. It offers, in short, a remarkably informative and engaging account of major aspects of Imperial Roman culture as seen through the...

In Paul Among the People, Sarah Ruden explores the writings of the evangelist Paul in the context of his time and culture, to recover his original message of freedom and love while overturning the common--and fundamental--misconception that Paul represented a puritanical, hysterically homophobic, misogynist, or reactionary vision.

By setting famous and controversial words of Paul against ancient Greek and Roman literature, Ruden reveals a radical message of human freedom and dignity at the heart of Paul's preaching. Her training in the Classics allows her to capture the stark...

The most sophisticated and daring poetic ironist of the early Roman Empire, Publius Ovidius Naso, is perhaps best known for his oft-imitated Metamorphoses. But the Roman poet also wrote lively and lewd verse on the subjects of love, sex, marriage, and adultery--a playful parody of the earnest erotic poetry traditions established by his literary ancestors. The Amores, Ovid's first completed book of poetry, explores the conventional mode of erotic elegy with some subversive and silly twists: the poetic narrator sets up a lyrical altar to an unattainable woman only to knock it...