Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte

Die wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit der griechischen Komödie des 5., 4. und 3. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. spiegelt in besonderer Weise die Paradigmenwechsel der philologischen und literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschung der letzten Jahrzehnte wider. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes haben in entscheidender Weise zu diesen Perspektivverschiebungen beigetragen und der Komödienforschung neue Impulse verliehen. Es wird auf die Utopie-Diskussion ebenso eingegangen wie auf die kontrovers und in extenso diskutierte Frage des Spottes und der Verspottung von Persönlichkeiten des öffentlichen Lebens, seien es Politiker wie Perikles oder Kleon, seien es Intellektuelle wie der Philosoph Sokrates, der Mathematiker Meton oder die Tragiker Agathon und Euripides, wobei dem Verständnis des sog. persönlichen Spotts sowohl vor dem Hintergrund zeitgenössischer Texte als auch psychologischer, anthropologischer und soziologischer Studien neue Zugänge eröffnet werden.

Die Arbeiten zur Metrik, die im Sinne einer hermeneutischen Disziplin („interpretative Metrik“) verstanden wird, haben wie die Studien zu den Formen der griechischen Komödie einen dezidiert rezeptionstheoretischen Ansatz und zeigen, wie Aristophanes (und die anderen Komödiendichter dieser Zeit) die durch die jahrelange Theatererfahrung geprägten Erwartungen des Publikums evoziert, enttäuscht oder bestätigt.

In Latin literature, young men cultivate a speech style that sets them apart from other characters. Analyses of texts from the second century BCE to the first century CE, as well s the discussions of adolescent language in Cicero and Quintilian, reveal that the speech style of young men (sermo iuvenilis) is characterized by extreme linguistic behavior and is visible diachronically and across genres, much like their deficient societal position.

In Lucian’s Toxaris, the characters’ speeches play a performative role as they become their deeds of friendship. Between irony and (self-)othering, past and present, the dialogue negotiates a mixed form of identity by affirming a Hellenocentric position and deconstructing an Athenocentric per-spective on Greek culture. Eventually, both aspects converge, as the characters’ ability to make speeches on friendship displays their mastery of Greekness.

The Hymn to the Mother of the Gods is the first text with which Emperor Julian launches his anti-Constantinian revolt against Christianity and tries to revive the old Greek-Roman religion and its cults. This book provides an introduction to the political and historical context of Julian’s treatise, a German translation, and an in-depth philological, philosophical, historical, and literary studies commentary on the text.

Early manuscripts attest to Ambrose as the author of the five-book Latin version of the 'History of the Jewish War against the Romans', which Flavius Josephus had given in Greek in seven books. This attribution of the work, which has mostly run under the pseudonym 'Hegesippus' since around 830, is confirmed in this study by recourse to prose rhythm, particle usage, idiomatic word combinations, as well as the use and further development of classical quotations (as measured by Aelius Donat and Arusianus Messius) against today's communis opinio, and the origin (in Pannonian Sirmium) is narrowed down to the years 367-372.

The second part sheds light on the historiographical technique and historical interpretation of the early Ambrose, his demythicisation of the priestly prophet, general and historian Josephus, whose fictional self-stylisation as the god-sent herald of Vespasian's future he systematically banishes from his account. Detailed analyses explain the new structure of the work, its literary form based on the "classical" historians Sallust, Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius with a distinctly Vergilian and Sallustian colouring and the specifically Ambrosian view of the Roman generals and emperors from Pompey and Julius Caesar to Titus and Domitian.

Above all, however, is the image of the Christian interpreter of biblical, above all Old Testament writings, who, even before his episcopal office, sharpened Josephus' criticism of his fellow tribesmen who had deviated from the tradition of the fathers into an anti-Jewish polemic and, following Origen and Eusebius, developed a concept of history in which the Jewish-Messianic expectation of salvation was overtaken by the appearance of Christ.

The Imperium Romanum was dominated by Roman-Latin and Greek language and culture. Others were – often derogatorily – seen as barbarian. But what did Romans think of Barbarians appropriating Greek-Roman culture? How did this kind of cultural transformation in the multicultural Roman state manifest and how was it negotiated? This book delves into these pertinent and highly topical questions.

Despite the relevance of astrology in Graeco-Roman mentality, our information about the early period of Hellenistic astrology is marred by the scarcity of original sources. Personal astrology did not take off until the late Hellenistic period, due to the more substantial Hellenization of Mesopotamia facilitating the import of Babylonian theories. The most relevant doctrines, mostly surviving as references and partial paraphrases in later authors and astrological miscellanies, are attached to the pseudepigraphical names of Nechepsos and Petosiris, which have been traced back to the Egyptian Demotic tradition. Critodemus, who is classified as a later author even if Firmicus Maternus invokes him as a founding authority, appears as a parallel to these Egyptian transmitters, in that he presented astrology, like them, in the form of a didactic poem, but employing an Orphic frame instead of Egyptian. By collecting, contextualizing, and analyzing all the evidence on this author, this book establishes a relatively early chronology for Critodemus and aims both at distinguishing his original contributions and at explaining the various forms in which his text was used and modified in the later tradition.

This companion volume to the new Teubner edition of the late antique prose comedy Aulularia sive Querolus combines prolegomena and a text-critical and linguistic commentary. This is the first detailed modern commentary on this play.

The Prolegomena are divided into two parts. In the first part, the play is categorised in the context of its origins and its intellectual and literary-historical environment. It is shown that, contrary to doctrine, Querolus is Christian in character. In addition, the linguistic, stylistic and rhythmic peculiarities of the text are analysed. The second part comprises studies on the history of transmission, on which the new, two-column stemma on which the edition is based. The detailed commentary sheds light on linguistic and content-related peculiarities and difficulties. It also justifies the editorial decisions and the textual constitution of the Teubneriana.

Laevius is the only pre-Catullan Latin love poet whose work can still be reconstructed. This book collects and discusses approximately 50 fragments from his Erotopaegnia, a collection of narrative poems dealing with various themes from Greek myths. Through comprehensive studies and a detailed interpretative commentary, this publication not only illuminates the significance of Laevius himself but also sheds new light on republican poetry as a whole: The Erotopaegnia are not an example of 'neoteric' poetry, but rather serve as an important representative of archaic Latin love poetry, differing significantly from Catullus and the love elegiacs in both content and style.

Alongside Cicero and Pliny the Younger, Emperor Augustus has been the third important writer of private letters in the Late Republic period and the early Principate. However, his letters have only been preserved by indirect transmission, i.e., as quotations and paraphrases in the work of later authors. Together with a study on the ancient textual and reception history of the letters, this volume contains an edition of the fragments with a commentary.

This is the first large-scale edition with introduction and commentary of Pindar’s First Pythian Ode. Composed for Hieron of Syracuse to mark his Delphic chariot victory of 470 BC and his recent foundation of the city of Aetna, the poem is not only a literary masterpiece, but also of central importance for our understanding of Greek history and culture in the early fifth century BC. As our only contemporary written source for the Sicilian Wars against the Carthaginians and Etruscans, it stands on a level with Simonides’ Plataea Elegy and Aeschylus’ Persians on the Persian Wars. This is a period where epoch-making Greek victories in the east and west were celebrated by the greatest poets in a way that reveals much about the atmosphere in which their works were created and received.

The book offers a new edition of the text with a detailed introduction and commentary, which discuss textual problems, language, metre and transmission as well as a variety of literary questions, the historical background and the early performance and reception history of the ode. It will be of interest to scholars and students of archaic and classical Greek poetry and of Greek history of the early fifth century BC.

In Greek and Latin, tropes (τρόποι) are generally defined as variations from a linguistic and stylistic norm (κυριολογία), either for stylistic purposes or for necessity. In this sense, they lie somewhere between a purely grammatical and a more rhetorical nature, since they may involve alterations of morphology, the semantic sphere of words, or syntactic peculiarities aimed at achieving a special expressive effect. Because of their ambiguous nature, tropes are in close proximity to what are commonly known as rhetorical figures (σχήματα). From the Ancient times all the way to the Byzantine era, Greek grammarians wrote several treatises on tropes (περὶ τρόπων). This book offers a critical edition of the extant texts on tropes transmitted by mediaeval codices, i.e. the ones attributed to grammarians such as Concordius, Georgius Choeroboscus, and the so-called ‘Trypho I’, ‘Trypho II’, ‘Trypho III’, ‘Anonymus III’ and ‘Anonymus IV’. Each text is accompanied by an Italian translation. In the Introduction, besides a generic overview on the concept of trope (its genesis, its meaning(s), its development throughout centuries), an analysis of the contents and of the reciprocal relations between all these treatises is provided.

Diodoros of Sicily’s book XIX is the main source for the history of the Diadochoi, Alexander the Great’s Successors, from 317 to 311 BCE. With the first full-scale commentary on this text in any language Alexander Meeus offers a detailed and reliable guide to the complicated historical narrative and the fascinating ethnographic information transmitted by Diodoros, which includes the earliest accounts of Indian widow burning and Nabataean culture.

Studying both history and historiography, this volume elucidates a crucial stage in the creation of the Hellenistic world in Greece and the Near East as well as the confusing source tradition.

Diodoros, a long neglected author indispensable for much of our knowledge of Antiquity, is currently enjoying growing scholarly interest. An ample introduction discusses his historical methods and sheds light on his language and style and on the manuscript transmission of books XVII-XX. By negotiating between diametrically opposed scholarly opinions a new understanding of Diodoros’ place in the ancient historiographical tradition is offered.

The volume is of interest to scholars of ancient historiography, Hellenistic history, Hellenistic prose and the textual transmission of the Bibliotheke.

By examining the forms of literary communication in the Archaic and Classical periods, this volume reconstructs for the first time the emergence of titles in ancient Greek literature, systematically investigating the causes of the phenomenon, analyzing its consequences, as well as its effects, on the manuscript tradition of Classical Greek authors.

Although there is no shortage of works on the language of Lycophron's Alexandra, more circumstantial studies on various morphological, lexical, and semantic issues are still needed. The linguistic and philological studies collected here try to partially remedy this lack: the object of research is nominal compounding, a very relevant phenomenon in the Alexandra. Several compounds (hapax and primum dicta) are analyzed in their context of occurrence in order to highlight their pragmatic and literary value; however, where possible, general considerations are not waived. In this sense, this book can also serve as a propaedeutic tool for the exegesis of some passages of the Alexandra.

This monograph focuses on the mobility of Greek scholars – pepaideumenoi – between the 1^st and 3^rd centuries CE. It examines the required or tacitly accepted mobility in the context of educating physicians, lawyers, philosophers, and sophists. It also explores travel activities in the context of one’s public life as a scholar and for bolstering or publicly displaying one’s own paideia.

Amphiaraus is the central prophetic character in the Thebaid. In a close reading of selected text passages, the author reveals Statius’ use of liminal and ritual motifs in the text as a means of transforming the character from a prophet on Mount Aphesas into a visionary god in the underworld.

The book examines the structure of the Latin hexameter. Focused on the six great epics from the Augustinian and Flavian periods, it applies statistical methods to investigate basic phenomena, including issues of word boundaries, punctuation, breaks, and the distribution of dactyls and spondees. Moreover, using quantitative methods, the author determines and compares the versification styles of the texts and authors.

Gorgias’ Helen is an essential sophist text. The first comprehensive commentary on the work, this book considers its philological, literary, philosophical and historical significance in every aspect. The introduction places Helen in the context of Gorgias’ life, work and legacy, making this volume an important contribution to the field of Gorgias studies.

There is no modern commentary on the whole of Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia, though commentaries on books 1 and 2 have been published by, respectively, David Wardle (1998) and Andrea Themann-Steinke. Progress is likely to be made by further commentaries on individual books and John Briscoe contributes to this with a commentary on Book 8, of particular interest because of the variegated nature of its subject matter.

The commentary, like those of Briscoe’s commentaries on Livy Books 31-45 (OUP, 1973-2012), deals with matters of content, textual issues, language and style, and literary aspects. An ample introduction discusses what is known about the author, the time of writing, the structure both of the work as a whole and of Book 8 itself, Valerius’ sources, language and style, the transmission of the text, editions of Valerius, and the methods of citation used in the commentary. The commentary is preceded by a text of Book 8, a slightly revised version of that in Briscoe’s edition in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (1998), with an apparatus limited to passages where the commentary discusses a textual problem.

The book will give readers an understanding of an author once very popular, then long neglected and now enjoying a revival.

Those cultural assets of the ancient world that the fathers of early Christianity recognised as usable according to the standard of Christian truth, they liked to call χρήσιμα. Their Χρῆσις (Chrêsis; Latin: usus iustus) itself, i.e. the method of diacritical judgement and selective use, was not only practised in practice, but was also repeatedly thought through theoretically, without ever turning it into an abstract concept detached from the concrete object. Anyone researching chrêsis, one of the decisive forces of that world-changing transformation that represents the transformation of ancient culture into early Christian culture, therefore always starts from the exploration of a χρήσιμον.

Early Christian chrêsis has received particular attention in recent research, not least due to the studies of Christian Gnilka. However, meaningful individual studies in which the principle of usus iustus in praxi is proven and demonstrated are urgently needed. This volume aims to fulfil this desideratum and the authors have dedicated the contributions to Christian Gnilka on the occasion of his 80th birthday in December 2016. The value of his research approach is also demonstrated by the fact that the studies presented here cover the entire period of early Christianity up to late antiquity (from the Apologists to the Cappadocians, Jerome, Augustine and Prudentius), starting with an Old Testament text, and also deal with archaeological and art-historical monuments in addition to literature.

Unlike most of Lucian’s satirical dialogues, Hermotimus pursues a rather serious theoretical question: which are the fundaments of true philosophy? The introduction to this study of Lucian’s longest dialogue contextualises the work within the multifaceted phenomenon of the Second Sophistic, the Italian translation makes the Greek text accessible to a wider public, and the commentary examines the wide range of literary and philosophical contents.

Scholarship has rarely taken into consideration the Greek grammatical treatises on barbarism and solecism. While some of them remain unpublished down to the present day, others were edited within the large 18th- and 19th-century collections of Greek grammatical and rhetorical works, although the chosen manuscript basis was inadequate, sometimes indeed wholly arbitrary. For this reason, a new edition was urgently needed. The book is opened by a general critical overview of the phenomenon of linguistic correctness in the Greek-speaking world: it is against this benchmark of Hellenismós that barbarism and solecism acquire their sense as phenomena of corruption. The present critical edition has the ambition to publish the known ancient and Byzantine texts related to these phenomena, as they appear in manuscripts preserved throughout the world: a fresh check of all printed library catalogues has revealed 88 relevant codices, all of which are here described, philologically investigated, and used for the constitutio textus. Three texts receive here their editio princeps, others rest on a wider textual basis, and each is equipped with a selective critical apparatus: hypotheses on chronology and authorship can therefore rely on much firmer elements than before.

The concise critical commentary on Dracontius' 'Carmina christiana' presented here serves to prepare the new Teubner edition announced by R. Jakobi. Following the example of the previous volume that accompanied the Teubner edition of the 'Carmina profana' (UaLG 127, 2017), it aims to clarify controversial passages, heal corrupt ones and explain misunderstood ones. Blossius Aemilius Dracontius, an advocate of senatorial descent in Carthage, was imprisoned by the Vandal king Gunthamund (484-496) for a loyalty offence.

During this time, he wrote an elegiac 'penitential poem' (Satisfactio) in 316 verses and three hexametric books De laudibus Dei, which are indebted to late antique biblical poetry (approx. 2,430 verses). The Satisfactio is a poetic plea for mercy that is addressed to both God and the king. The hexametric work praises the benefits that God has shown mankind from the beginning of creation, his fatherly love and his constant willingness to turn anger at human iniquity into gracious mercy. It ends with the poet's confession of guilt and a plea for God's mercy, which should also be understood as an invitation to the king to do the same as the heavenly Lord.

The headings inserted in the commentary are intended as a guide: in the sense of an organisation of the structure of the work, they provide information about the respective context in which the text passages dealt with stand. As a rule, these are made accessible for understanding through translations.

Around 5000 Greek funerary poems on stone are known from antiquity. The peculiarity of this inscription genre lies in its sub-literary character: the deceased are to be permanently recognised under the diverse, individual conditions of the everyday world, but at the same time through the means of expression of a 'classical' tradition.

The study explores this tension systematically and through detailed commentary on 19 texts from the Greek East, some of which are new. For example, the relationship between the stone poems and book epigrammar is examined and the extent to which Homer's epics, with their language, motifs and figures, which were familiar from ancient school lessons, were paradigmatic for the epigrams compared to other literary models. The educational milieu of the stone poets and their patrons comes to light, as do the methods used to compose the poems.

This study of epigraphic sources against the background of the literary tradition contributes to the literary-theoretical localisation of sepulchral stone epigrammar and also opens up important approaches to the history of education and everyday life in antiquity.

The first part of this companion volume to the new Editio Teubneriana of Donato’s commentary on Terence’s Andria offers a detailed presentation of the work’s history of transmission from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. The second part includes a critical commentary with detailed explanations of the contested portions of the text.

Lying between the grammarians' and rhetors' domains, Aesop's fables were known and employed in the Western and Eastern educational environments mainly for their intrinsically moral essence. Once having explored the literary and grammatical texts concerning the educational role of fables, the book is focussed on the direct witnesses of Latin and bilingual Latin-Greek fables (III-IV AD) coming from the Eastern school environments, of which a new annotated edition is given.

A relevant contribution is offered both: 1. to the complex and (almost) anonymous tradition of fables between the ancient Greek Aesop and the Medieval Latin Romulus, and through Phaedrus, Avian and the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana; 2. and to the role fables played in the second-language (L2) acquisition and in teaching/learning Latin as L2 between East and West.

In this companion volume to the new Editio Teubneriana of Carmina Profana by Dracontius (ca. 480–510 CE), the first part (Prolegomena) sheds lights on the tradition and organization of the written manuscripts. The second part accounts for the constitution of the text, justifies necessary amendments, and explains controversial aspects. In the appendix Dracontius’ chronological priority over the “Aegritudo Perdicae” is demonstrated.

During the reign of Ptolemaios VI Philometor (180–145 BCE), the Jewish author Aristobulos wrote an extensive text that he addressed to the ruler personally, which dealt with the correct interpretation of the Pentateuch. The few preserved fragments still offer multifaceted insights on the early phase of Jewish exegesis – 200 years before Philo, in the conflicted world of the Alexandrine Greeks and Egyptians.

It is well known that Early Modern philosophers rejected Aristotelian philosophy of nature. At the same time, they passionately embraced the major Hellenistic schools of philosophy. The study takes this fact as a point of departure to explain the fundamental differences between Aristotle and his Hellenistic successors. At the heart of the investigation lies Aristotle’s discussion of motion, which is essential for many Aristotelian conceptions.

In two large chapters, the volume introduces the Carolingian and humanistic tradition of Lucretius’s text, basing its analysis in the new Teubner edition of Lucretius. Two additional chapters discuss how the new edition deals with the Lucretian paratexts and the orthography of the Lucretius text.

Unlike most of the biblical poetry of late antiquity, the Alethia of Claudius Marius Victorius has major links to didactic poetry as well as the pagan epic, especially to the works of Lucretius. This is the first systematic study to examine the relationship between epic and didactic elements in the Alethia and their implications for situating the work within the Christian poetry of late antiquity.

The places destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., especially Pompeii, have preserved a precious trove of non-monumental inscriptions relating to ancient daily life. Then as now, eroticism and humor were often combined and sometimes put into verse. These carmina are presented here for the first time in a critical edition with German translation and extensive commentary.

When can word order be considered expressive? And what we do mean by “expressiveness”? This work, based upon a statistical and stylistical enquiry into Virgil’s Aeneid as well of other hexametric poetry, aims to answer these questions from an appropriate perspective.

Through offering a detailed analysis of selected passages, the author stresses the evident recurrence of the same figures in similar contexts and with the same stylistic effects. In this view, a rare word order as well as a relevant metrical and syntactical pattern appear to constitute a deviation from the norm stylistically motivated, that can highlight significant words or iconically stress the semantics of a passage. By combining the main notes on style from the Aeneid commentaries and the stylistic readings also applied to modern texts, the author, with a clear approach, systematically discusses the various structures of Latin hexameter – enjambement, synaloepha, hiatus, four-word lines, name-lines, relevant juxtapositions etc. – in terms of “effects”, showing how they interact and converge in the text. This introduction to Virgil’s expressiveness aims to be an effective tool for a stylistic reading of any Latin hexametric text.

As accompaniments to the edition of the Commenta in Ciceronis Rhetorica (BT), these volumes provide prolegomena and a critical commentary. The first volume lists for the first time all extant textual sources with their stemmatic interrelationships. It traces the reception history of the Commenta from late antiquity through modern era. The second volume explains the choice of variants and conjectures in the edition and includes detailed indices.

The tractate “On the Environment” is one of the oldest and most famous writings of the Hippocratic corpus. It includes a discourse on the influence of the environment on human health. This complex medical theory, which finds confirmation in many other works in the collection, is closely related to the theory of the humors, which significantly shaped the view of human nature in early academic medicine.

Primmer’s Papers on the Structure of Action in the Nea and Palliata brings together the writings of the late Viennese classical philologist in the field of research on comedy. Reviewing the full corpus of his work on this topic makes it possible to track Primmer’s quest for structural principles in Greek and Roman comedy, which formed the foundation for his unitary analytic research.

The fragmentary remains of the Carmen Saliare have been the object of scholarly discussions for centuries, but no exhaustive collection has been published after 1894. This work intends to fill this gap by gathering all the testimonies on this ancient hymn. This new commentary takes into account all the various issues posed by the text. First of all, it undertakes a philological reassessment of the most important manuscripts in which the fragments are preserved (Varro’s De Lingua Latina, T. Scaurus’ De Orthographia and Festus’ De Verborum Significatione). The readings thus established are the basis for the ensuing linguistic analysis conducted on the fragments, in which new suggestions are proposed. In the hypothetical restoration of the text, a scheme of antiphonic recitation is reconstructed in which different ‘voices’ are identified. The review of the testimonies as a whole - together with a comprehensive collection of the classical sources on the Salian tradition - presents a picture of the linguistic and cultural frame in which the hymn was composed. By combining linguistic, philological and cultural data, this work offers a thorough survey of the Carmen Saliare to scholars interested in the most ancient phase of old Latin.

Using ancient Armenian versions, it has been possible to retrieve the original Greek short version of both martyrologies. The textual layers can be interpreted as a mirror of the norms of Christian behavior during the period of persecution. The critical editions are followed in Volume 2 by a textual history and reconstruction.

This book provides an interpretation of Plato’s Euthydemus as a unified piece of literature, taking into account both its dramatic and its philosophical aspects. It aims to do justice to a major Platonic work which has so far received comparatively little treatment. Except for the sections of the dialogue in which Socrates presents an argument on the pursuit of eudaimonia, the Euthydemus seems to have been largely ignored. The reason for this is that much of the work’s philosophical import lies hidden underneath a veil of riotous comedy. This book shows how a reading of the dialogue as a whole, rather than a limited focus on the Socratic scenes, sheds light on the work’s central philosophical questions. It argues the Euthydemus points not only to the differences between Socrates and the sophists, but also to actual and alleged similarities between them. The framing scenes comment precisely on this aspect of the internal dialogue, with Crito still lumping together philosophy and eristic shortly before his discussion with Socrates comes to an end. Hence the question that permeates the Euthydemus is raised afresh at the end of the dialogue: what is properly to be termed philosophy?

The pseudo-Euripidean Rhesus is the only extant Greek tragedy based on an episode from Homer’s Iliad and a unique witness for the history of the genre in the 4^th century BC. This new edition, with introduction and commentary, discusses textual problems, language, metre and dramaturgy as well as the mythological and literary-historical background of the play. It is an indispensable aid for serious students of the text.

Book 3 of Cicero’s de finibus is generally regarded as an accurate description of Stoic ethics. This study shows that Cicero did not present Stoic orthodoxy but combined it with contemporary peripatetic theory. This has implications for our understanding of Stoa and Peripatos and offers new insights into Cicero’s methods and the philosophical discourse of the 1st century BC.

This volume is an accessible yet in-depth narratological study of Euripides’ Alcestis - the earliest extant play of Euripides and one of the most experimental masterpieces of Greek tragedy, not only standing in place of a satyr-play but also preserving at least some of its typical features. Commencing from the widely-held view, so lamentably ignored within the domain of Classics, that a narratology of drama should be predicated upon the notion of narrative as verbal, as well as visual, rendition of a story, this unique volume contextualizes the play in terms of its reception by the original audience, locating the intricate narrative tropes of the plot in the dynamics of fifth-century Athenian mythology and religion.

This book provides insight into the ideas and practice of learning in late antiquity. In Macrobius’s Saturnalia and Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii two fathers write letters to their son with advice for life. In his Letters Sidonius Apollinaris offers a clear vision of his ideas about education.

The present volume taps into the heretofore scarcely leveraged potential offered by a codicological and paleographic approach to reconstruct the history of Ptolemy’s Geography. The author presents many of the work’s manuscripts for the first time, and also provides a number of illuminating insights about the history of the reception of Ptolemy’s Geography.

In studying the debate between Peter and Paul and the resulting primacy on the Latin Church, Otto Zwierlein defends the arguments of Petrus in Rom (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 96; 2009, 2010) and provides additional evidence backing up his claims. The second part of the book contains three studies on the acts of Peter, Paul, and John. The focus lies on the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, which is shown to be part of the apocryphal acts of Paul.

The author uses metrical funerary inscriptions to reconstruct the beliefs about immortality held by ancient Greeks. In her analysis, she illuminates not only their ideas about the afterlife and thoughts about activities after death, but also their diffuse conceptions of the immortal soul. The beliefs examined in this volume illustrate the reciprocal interplay between high culture and popular religion.

In Antiquity Klearchos of Soloi enjoyed a reputation as a first-class peripatetic. However, mainstream modern research has not yet given him due credit. This work contributes to a better understanding of some of the fragments of Klearchos. It demonstrates how various philosophical schools and directions influenced his work. His writings also provide interesting evidence for the history of the early Peripatos.

One of Lucian’s main topics is the critical observation of religious life. His criticism of religious ideas, however, takes place exclusively as dispute with the forms and models of literary tradition. Even when discussing the positions of philosophers, he remains a writer; his gods are literary gods. Nowhere in his oeuvre is there evidence of a personal religious feeling. As a consequence of this study, the traditional image of Lucian as a revolutionary and nihilist is put into another perspective.

So far, the critical writings of Dionysius of Halicarnassus have mainly attracted interest from historians of ancient linguistics. The Ideology of Classicism proposes a novel approach to Dionysius’ œuvre as a whole by providing the first systematic study of Greek classicism from the perspective of cultural identity. Drawing on cultural anthropology and Social Identity Theory, Wiater explores the world-view bound up with classicist criticism. Only from within this ideological framework can we understand why Greek and Roman intellectuals in Augustan Rome strove to speak and write like Demosthenes, Lysias, and Isocrates.

Topics addressed by this study include Dionysius’ view of the classical past; mimesis and the aesthetics of reading; language and identity; Dionysius’ view of the Romans, their power and the role of Greek culture within it; Greek classicism and the contemporary controversy about Roman identity among Roman intellectuals; the self-image as Greek intellectuals in the Roman empire of Dionysius and his addressees; the dialogic design of Dionysius’ essays and how it implements a sense of elitism and distinction; Dionysius’ attitudes towards communities competing with him for leadership in rhetorical education and criticism, such as the Peripatetics and Stoics.

In Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae the lack of homogeneity of form and content is an explicitly declared programme, and the work has been assigned to the miscellanies of the 2nd century AD. This volume finds and follows a common thread through the confusing variety of forms of representation and themes of Gellius’ commonplace book. Starting with the ancient author’s opening remarks and drawing on modern cultural sciences, memoria is described as a concept that permeates the entire work.

The question of what time is and how it is relevant for humans also occupied the Roman world. Philosophical discourse only played a small part; of more interest were the functions of “time” within society. This study pays particular attention to situations in which temporal order underwent changes in the Roman Empire – for example with the introduction of clocks in Rome, the Julian reform of the calendar, the extension of the Empire to new lands and cultures – and investigates literary reflexion on these changes in the Roman literature of the Republic and the Early Empire.

The Greek poet Pindar (c. 520-440 BC) wrote odes honouring the victors of Greek sporting festivals such as the Olympic Games. They have long been a source of curiosity to scholars, particularly since they appear to mention the victor only in passing. This book, using the methodology of Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics and by reconstructing the cultural historical setting, reveals that this impression is misleading: in songs with a coherent and meaningful structure, Pindar uses elaborate sporting metaphors to praise the victors exuberantly and presents them as present-day heroes.

Present-day research is gradually finding a new approach to Isocrates, the 4th-century Greek orator who due to the influence of Plato was largely neglected in the 19th and part of the 20th century. His Euagoras, an encomium of the Cypriot king Euagoras I, had a decisive influence on the establishment and development of the prose encomium. This volume presents the first modern edition and commentary of Isocrates' Euagoras. It offers a detailed introduction, the Greek text and an interpretational commentary.

Tacitus’ works still have a profound effect on the way we see the early Roman Principate. However, the level of truth in this picture must be examined critically. For on closer analysis, in his portrayal Tacitus did not always stick to his principle of impartial reporting. Often the apparent objectivity of the description of events has an undertone of purely subjective interpretation. Drawing on the books covering the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius, this volume traces the various techniques Tacitus used to influence his reader.

Menander’s Kolax (The Flatterer) was very popular in the Ancient World and played a central role in the history of the parasite on the comic stage. This volume provides an edition and a translation of the fragments and testimonies. A dramaturgical commentary, chapters on the sources, on the number of parasites and on the date, as well as notes on terminological history form the basis for a reconstruction and interpretation of the comedy. A concordance and bibliography as well as two plates complete the volume.

Early Skepticism and its founder, Pyrrho of Elis, were introduced to the world in the third century BCE by the poet and philosopher Timon of Phlius. This is the first book-length study in English of the fragments of Timon’s works. Of his more than 100 titles, four fragments remain of a catalogue elegy, the Indalmoi, and 133 verses of the Silloi, a hexameter parody in three books in which Timon ridicules philosophers of all periods whom he observes on a trip to Hades. Dee L. Clayman reconstructs the books of the Silloi starting from an outline in Diogenes Laertius and the book numbers assigned to a few fragments by their sources. This has not been attempted since Wachsmuth’s edition of 1885, and carries his approach further by careful observation of syntactic and contextual clues in the text. Using the Greek text of Lloyd-Jones and Parsons of 1983, all of the extant fragments are translated into English and discussed as literature, rather than as source material for the history of philosophy. Separate chapters demonstrate that the principle Hellenistic poets, Callimachus, Theocritus and Apollonius of Rhodes, were aware of Timon’s work specifically, and of Skepticism generally. The book concludes with a definition of “Skeptical aesthetics” that places many of the characteristic features of Hellenistic literature in a skeptical milieu.

In Late Antiquity, and above all in the fourth century, far-reaching changes took place in the political, social and religious environments. The pagan authors of the Roman East (the Emperor Julian, Libanius, Eunapius, Themistius) experienced this process as a threatening crisis, and reacted with the pen. This study considers important contemporary themes such as the construction of identity, ideal rule or the correct interpretation of current reality, so providing the first exposition of the specific character of these writings.

This revised and supplemented second edition of Zwierlein’s best-selling volume undertakes a systematic study of the ancient texts testifying to St Peter’s time in Rome. It evaluates inter alia texts by Early Christian Church teachers (Justin Martyr, Dionys of Corinth, Irenaeus of Lyons), the letters by Ignatius of Antioch (classified as unauthentic), and the legends recounting the Apostle Peter’s encounter with Simon Magus and Nero’s persecution of the Christians. The analysis includes a detailed examination of the dating of the First Epistle of Clement and the late New Testament writings. The analyses are complemented by a critical edition (with commentary) of the martyrdom accounts, using new manuscript sources.

The present volume undertakes a systematic study of the ancient texts testifying to St Peter’s time in Rome. It evaluates inter alia texts by Early Christian Church teachers (Justin Martyr, Dionys of Corinth, Irenaeus of Lyons), the letters by Ignatius of Antioch - classified as unauthentic - and the legends surrounding the Apostle recounting Peter’s encounter with Simon Magus and Nero’s persecution of the Christians. The analysis includes a detailed examination of the dating of the First Epistle of Clement and the late New Testament writings. The analyses are complemented by a critical edition (with commentary) of the martyrdom accounts using new manuscript sources.

The collection of poems preserved under the name of Theognis is - apart from Homer and Hesiod - the only extant poetic text handed down in manuscript from the time before Pindar. Its peculiar form has provoked a long-running debate on its authenticity and genesis, which has gone so far as to cast doubts on the existence of the poet Theognis.

How did the Theognidean corpus come about, and what was Theognis’ influence on it? In response to this question, the present study works through the extensive research literature on the topic and shows the possibilities and limits of an answer.

This work considers the function of the speeches in Thucydides’ history, and how they are related to the presentation of the historical facts. In a detailed analysis of the war speeches dealing with the origins of the Peloponnesian war in Thucydides’ first book, the author shows how the historian went further than Herodotus in functionalising the epic tradition of incorporating direct speech into the narrative for the processes of historical analysis.

The literature of Greek and Roman Antiquity handed down in manuscripts was exposed to the constant danger of texts being corrupted by manipulations not sanctioned by the author concerned. This can also be demonstrated in translations, for example if the text of a foreign-language book was altered by a translator without the original author’s consent. The authors, however – i.e. those affected themselves – were highly conscious of their auctorial status and condemned the secondary manipulation of their works as a presumptuous attack on the integrity of the original text. The present study devotes itself to these practices of falsification and distortion using evidence presented by the authors concerned over a period stretching from Early Greece to the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Thomas Gärtner addresses Johannis , the great epic about the military commander by the late antique poet Corippus. This work is dedicated to the achievements of Johannis Troglita, the general who succeeded in reconquering North Africa under Emperor Justinian I in 548 AD. The present study pursues twofold aims; firstly, it throws light on Corippus’ use of historical sources – especially of Procopius. No less significant is the systematic historical location of Corippus’ work in the literary tradition of Latin poetry.

The book is a detailed study on the structure and the topics of Ovid’s compedium of the Trojan Saga in Metamorphoses 12.1-13.622, the section also referred to as the “Little Iliad”. It explores the motives and the objectives behind the selected narrative moments from the Epic Cycle that found their way into the Ovidian version of the Trojan War. By thoroughly mastering and inspiringly refashioning a vast amount of literary material, Ovid generates a systematic reconstruction of the archetypal hero, Achilles. Thus, he projects himself as a worthy successor of Homer in the epic tradition, a master epicist, and a par to his great Latin predecessor, Vergil.

Agriculture was a subject of the highest social relevance to Rome. Thus it is no surprise that Cato’s, Varro’s, Columella’s and Palladius’ handbooks on farming, written at key moments in Roman history and reacting as they do to economic and socio-cultural upheaval, have survived. Silke Diederich shows that Rome’s elite handbooks on farming became more than just a means of disseminating knowledge of the “science of power” and a form of sophisticated literature; they also became a medium for the preservation of identity and ensuring intellectual continuity.

This book aims to offer a contemporary literary interpretation of the play, including a readable discussion of its underlying historical, religious, moral, social, and mythical issues. Also, it discusses the most recent interpretative scholarship on the play, the main intertextual affiliations with earlier Thebes-related tragedies, especially focusing on Sophocles’ Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus, and the literature and performance reception of the play; it contains an up-to-date bibliography and detailed indices.
The book won the Academy of Athens Great Award for the Best Monograph in Classical Philology for 2008.

Propertius’ Elegies are among the most original products of Latin literature. Understanding the poems, however, is complicated by the idiosyncratic language and forms of composition on the one hand and the defective transmission of the texts on the other. The most striking stylistic characteristics are the bold use of metaphor and the combining of often disparate images. The study examines this central aspect and demonstrates that the boldness is not due to the vagaries of textual transmission but can be traced back to Propertius himself.

Aristophanes and Eupolis, together with Kratinos, were the most significant poets of Attic old comedy in the 5th century BC. Their names are usually linked because in antiquity they were seen as bitter rivals who attacked each other on the stage. Natalia Kyriakidi examines the expression of mutual rivalry between the two comic poets and shows that the competition which can be sensed in the comedies can be explained in the context of the atmosphere of mockery in the genre.

Examining Seneca’s works of prose as the writings of a Stoic and placing them within the context of the Stoic system – Jula Wildberger takes on this task in the first detailed and elaborate overall and new interpretation of Stoic physics to be published in years. In a new, thematically-structured overall reconstruction of the Stoic system, bits of theory discovered in Seneca's works are classified and analysed in detail. The volume is designed to be an introductory work, as well as a handbook and a reference work.

The engagement with Aristotle’s newly rediscovered Poetics is fundamental to the beginnings of modern literary theory in 16th century Italy. Based on present-day research into Aristotle, Brigitte Kappl takes central themes from the Poetics (poetry as imitation, action and character, tragic flaw, cathartic effect) to examine whether and to what extent the literary theory of that age actually presents a ‘rationalistic’ or ‘moralistic’ re-interpretation of Aristotle’s theory, as is usually maintained.

This book approaches Augustine’s great work “De civitate Dei”(The City of God) by considering the rhetorical techniques employed in it. It determines precisely the significance and consequences of Augustine's philosophical and theological statements on the relationship between humans and God, on freedom and responsibility and on Christian ethics by analyzing their argumentative function and contextual connection. The techniques of Augustine’s argumentation are then placed in a wider historical educational context by considering his reflection on education and the tradition of classical rhetoric.

Bruno-Snell-Prize 2007 awarded to Christian Tornau.

This study examines the Silvae of Statius from the point of view of their place within Roman literature and their place in literary life at the end of the first century AD. The author places the interaction between literary production and its social context in the centre of his study.

This work is the first major commentary on Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris to appear in English in more than 65 years. It offers detailed analysis of a fascinating play that scholars so far had considered mainly as a source of information about Athenian cult and viewed as a romantic adventure story with happy end. Apart from including sober assessments of textual, linguistic and metrical problems, the commentary sheds new light on the play’s treatment of myth, its intricate structure, presentation of character, and place in Euripides’ work. In particular it offers fresh insights into the play’s relationship to the literary tradition, especially its treatment of the crimes of the Pelopids, and its presentation of the complex, ambiguous relationship of humans and gods as well as that of Greeks and barbarians. Unlike most other tragedies, Iphigenia in Tauris does not feature any villain and avoids concentrating on past crimes and their corrosive influence on the characters’ present. The Taurians are not portrayed simply as savage and slow barbarians and Iphigenia, the most intelligent character, fails to transcend her limitations. Religion and cult in both myth and contemporary Athens are a mixture of traditional and invented elements and the play as a whole turns out to be an intriguing and unique experiment in Euripides’ career.

Nearly 50 hagiographic dossiers were compiled in Gaul during Late Antiquity between the 4th and 8th century. The ‘Martellinus’, named after the Monk Bishop of Tours, was the largest and most influential of them, and the model it created had an effect on the whole of European culture. Using the changing form of the story of St. Martin in the different epochs, Meinolf Vielberg demonstrates the overarching unity of the model behind the changes.

'The literary form is the true contents of Plato's dialogues' - This thesis has heralded a new direction in Plato research over the last 25 years, particularly among Anglo-American scholars. This book discusses this modern thesis and its claim to mark a revolutionary turn from traditional interpretations of Plato, which since the Ancient Neo-Platonists have read Plato in a dogmatic fashion and neglected the form of his philosophy. Here, the interpretations by Proclus, the most significant Neo-Platonist since Plotinus, of the literary form of Plato's philosophy, are presented in detail for the first time as an alternative to modern approaches. Thus it can be shown that the charge is untenable that these are naïve and dogmatic and constrain the openness of Plato's philosophizing with their systematicity.

The commentary on Cicero’s De inventione by Grillius, the rhetor of late antiquity, was newly edited in 2002 by Rainer Jakobi. As a supplement, Jakobi now offers an introduction into and an in-depth annotation of the text. Jakobi first dates Grillius’ commentary to the turn of the fifth century and describes the academic culture of Grillius' time, including his social context as well as his position in the long tradition of commentary on Cicero’s De inventione. In addition to a detailed discussion on the manuscript tradition and the reception of the text, the principal part of the book offers an annotation of the Grillius text lemma by lemma, always with a view to the original text, Cicero’s De inventione. Each section is preceded by an analysis, a representation of the structure and a commentary on the sources.

This study investigates the attitude of Lucian of Samosata towards the Greek tragedy. It presents for the first time a comparison between the Lucianic oeuvre and the Greek tragedy according to three points of view: i) the tragic language, ii) the tragic themes (philosophy, religion, morals, mythology), and iii) the literary forms (an analysis of the parodic Podagra). It also deals with the later history of the Greek tragedy, starting from the 4^th century B.C. up to the Imperial times. Using the Lucianic corpus as a witness and a document of its time concerning the tragedy, we aim to gain a better knowledge of Lucian as a writer, of the history of the tragic genre through the antiquity and of the feeling which one had in the imperial times about the Greek civilization and the Greek language.

Aphrodite and Eros – the portrayal of these two gods and the depiction of their active intervention have a significant impact on the plots of numerous classical tragedies. Focussing upon a selection of dramas from Aeschylus to Seneca, the author demonstrates how the images of these two multifaceted gods have been transmitted and altered, at the same time that certain features have been preserved. The tension between a powerful Aphrodite, working on a cosmic scale, and a goddess whose influence is restricted to matters of personal love relationships – as it emerges from a survey of relevant passages in early epic texts – is palpable in tragedy as an oscillation between a goddess presented as a mighty authority, whose existence is never really questioned, and a conventional name devoid of substance, which is invoked only as an excuse. The emphasis on the destructive side of the twofold love gods is shown to be characteristic of tragedy. This is demonstrated particularly with regard to the motif of divine anger, which serves also as starting point for the concluding reflections on Theocritus, Ovid and Nonnus.

To what extent is Roman comedy dependent on the Greek? The author pursues this old controversy using a comprehensive study of the figure of the Parasite. The Parasite, stemming from the Greek socio-historical context and at first an alien phenomenon for Roman society, itself reflects the historical literary relationship of Roman comedy (located in a Greek milieu) to its Attic precursors.

By investigating the development of the figure of the Parasite on the Roman stage, Andrea Antonsen-Resch gains new insights into the degree to which the relevant plays are dependent on Greek models. One result is to demonstrate that Plautus and Terence follow Greek comedy to a far greater extent than has often been thought.

This study constitutes the first modern book-length, in-depth critical analysis of Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623–14.582. In this unit Ovid, by challenging openly the artistry of his great predecessor Vergil, redraws the parameters associated with the definition and appreciation of epic poetry. The book first introduces the methodological complexity of the Ovidian embrace strategy, and, subsequently, it reads the ‘little Aeneid’ closely, discussing the network of allusions to its prototype. It assesses the structure and thematics of each episode in the cluster, and traces the recurrence of prominent motifs throughout the Metamorphoses. Not least, it explores poetics, arguing that Ovid’s selective incorporation of the Aeneid reproduces the spirit and fundamental ideas of the model in an idiosyncratic sophisticated manner.

This study of the gooi or personal laments in Homer´s Iliad once and for all articulates the poetic techniques regulating this type of speech. Going beyond the tendency to view lament as a repetitive and group-based activity, this work shows instead the primacy of the goos, a sub-genre which the Iliad has "produced" by absorbing the funerary genre of lament. Oral theory, narratology, semiotics, rhetorical analysis are deftly applied to explore the ways personal laments develop principal epic themes and unravel narrative threads weaving the thematical texture of the entire Iliad (and beyond): the wrath of Achilles, the deaths of Patroclus and Hector, the grief of Achilles and his future death, the foreshadowing of Troy´s destruction.

Winner of the Annual Award in Classics (2007) of the Academy of Athens.

The Gnomai in the Epinician Odes and Dithyrambs of Bacchylides have hitherto been regarded as an allegedly conventional accompaniment and thus attracted little attention in research. Following the development of a genre model for the epinicion, individual interpretations demonstrate the central significance of the Gnomai in constituting the sense of the Epinicion. As the gnome essentially represents ethical and moral values to a large audience, a second stage of the study relates it to the contemporary historical context of the relevant text. It takes this rigorous contextualisation to show how Bacchylides skilfully fits his Gnomai to the various socio-political factors and the expectations of his audience.

These observations cast new light on the communication process in lyrical choral poetry between the composer of the epinicion, his patron and the public.

This fundamentally new interpretation of the Partitiones oratoriae shows the small dialogue to be a demanding compendium of the whole system of rhetorical doctrine and places it at the centre of a specifically Ciceronian concept of rhetoric. By drawing upon Cicero's other philosophical and rhetorical works, the author reveals the political relevance: Cicero's learned writings present criteria for the selection of suitable politicians, to whom powers of decision-making should only be given after they have proved themselves to have studied and to possess methodical abilities. Thus Cicero's work as a writer after his exile cannot sensibly be separated from his political activity.

The biblical epic by the Spanish priest Juvencus is the first great piece of Christian literature in Latin. Heinsdorff provides a commentary on Christ's conversations with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman (John 3 and 4) from this biblical epic. In addition to providing an explanation of the theological statements in the text, the author also presents philological observations, which show the presence of both traditional epic elements and specifically Christian features in the language. The appendix gives a statistically evaluated collection of material which shows the strong European influence on the Latin text of the Bible.

What is the tragic in Euripides' Bacchae? A nowadays predominant view sees it in the self-reflexion of the genus 'tragedy' and the medium 'theatre': The presence of the theatre god Dionysos on stage turns the tragic of the Bacchae into metatragic. In contrast, by carefully scrutinizing the premises of structuralist methods applied and by interpreting the complete text of the play, Gyburg Radke reads the Bacchae as a 'textbook example' of an Aristotelian tragedy evoking fear and pity, in which the combination of the individual character of the protagonist Pentheus and of his failure constitutes the tragic quality of the plot.

Galen, as gladiator doctor in Pergamum, friend of several members of the Roman upper class, and family physician of the emperors in Rome, was well acquainted with the living conditions of all strata of Roman society of the second century A.D. For the first time, in this book all of Galen's writings are analyzed as a contribution to the social history of the Roman Empire. The author considers the special perspective offered by Galen's background, career, and motives for writing. The material is presented first following Galen's biography; the study then branches out to chapters on slavery and other overarching aspects of the world Galen knew.

This work presents the first critical edition of a hitherto unknown commentary on Seneca's 'Hercules furens'. The author was Giovanni Segarelli, a lawyer and early humanist previously known to local historians only. Hafemann reconstructs his biography and work from scattered manuscript sources. Against the background of 14th century traditions of commentary, she undertakes an analysis of the author's exegetic interests, his understanding of tragedy, his method of paraphrastic exegesis, his sources and textual basis, together with his language, style and clausula technique.

This study of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus demonstrates the applicability of narrative models to drama. It presents a major contribution not only to Sophoclean criticism but to dramatic criticism as a whole.

For the first time, the methods of contemporary narrative theory are thoroughly applied to the text of a single major play. Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus is presented as a uniquely rich text, which deftly uses the figure and history of the blind Oedipus to explore and thematize some of the basic narratological concerns of Greek tragedy: the relation between the narrow here-and-now of visible stage action and the many off-stage worlds that have to be mediated into it through narrative, including the past, the future, other dramatizations of the myth, and the world of the fifth-century audience.

After his death, the comedies of the Roman dramatist Plautus continued to be staged, and were interpreted by scholars and read by enthusiasts and students. The present study deals with the textual history and reception of these comedies from their first performances (approx. 220 - 185 BC) until the start of their direct transmission (approx. 400 AD). The author traces the changes that occurred in the course of the comedies' performance, commentary and exploitation by scholars and teachers. In the process, he not only draws a fascinating and comprehensive picture of the history of Plautus reception and scholarship in classical times, but also provides important insights into the history of literary and linguistic studies in Rome.

Philippus Arabs was Emperor of Rome from 244 to 249 AD. Using extant sources, this volume presents the first account of this ruler from the Province of Arabia. The author deals particularly with the troubled domestic and foreign political situation, the Emperor's origins and family, and his attitude towards religion, especially Christianity. Finally, his position is developed in the changes and reforms of the 3rd century, and it is shown how much his understanding of power is guided by the Severan dynasty and Marcus Aurelius. The present volume is the first monograph on Philippus Arabs; the paucity of original sources led to little interest being shown in the Emperors from this period.

Virgil’s works are regarded as being the best preserved of any Latin author’s. However, the earliest extant mss. were produced at least 400 years after the originals, and tell us very little about the history of the texts in the generation following the death of the greatest Roman poet.

Otto Zwierlein demonstrates the existence of a complete edition produced around 20‑25 AD which, in addition to Virgil's works ‑ extended by textual insertions ‑ also included the alleged poems from his youth which we can now read in the Appendix Vergiliana. Previously the same editor had obviously taken care of Ovid. Zwierlein identifies him with Iulius Montanus, a figure from the world of declamation in the early Imperial Age, who is referred to as an elegiac and epic poet in one of the Epistulae ex Ponto.

The present volume affords an insight into ancient Virgil criticism and the editorial practice of classical antiquity, and summarizes the findings of a critical commentary on the whole of Virgil’s work and exemplary selections from all of Ovid's work (including the relevant appendices) which removes the later alterations from the time of Tiberius and thus attempts to restore the original text as far as possible.

A deeper understanding of Virgil’s Aeneid can only be achieved through the Iliad and Odyssey as its most important models. As the author shows, Classical views of Homer differ significantly from those prevailing today, and this allows the conception of the Aeneid to be seen in a new light. In the first part of the study, the author analyses the way in which Virgil indirectly characterises the protagonists of his epic (incl. Aeneas, Turnus, Dido) through allusions to the contemporary philosophical and ethical understanding of Homer’s models. In the second part, the author examines how the “poeta doctus ” creatively transforms the Hellenistic critique of Homer in the Aeneid.

Porphyrio’s commentary for school use is the oldest extant commentary on Latin poetry. It forms part of the Graeco-Roman grammatical tradition, and offers a unique insight into 3rd century school and education systems. The investigation gives a detailed account of the educational aims, conditions, contents and methods used and reveals the academic categories on which they were based. The reader thus gains an impression not only of the state of Horace scholarship at the time, but also of the average educational standards of the Roman elites.

How old are the manuscript titles of Latin poems from Antiquity and Late Antiquity? Why were they written, and who created them? With these questions, the author enters virgin philological territory. Her interest is directed at the organisation of ancient texts.
She shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the headings which subdivide poetry collections and provide preliminary information for the reader were not invented by medieval scribes or early modern editors; their development can in fact be traced back to Classical and Late Antiquity. The headings in Latin poetry collections handed down through medieval mss.

The headings in collections of Latin poetry handed down through medieval mss. (incl. Horace, Ovid, Martial, Commodian, Ausonius, Luxurius) are partly authentic, and were partly added in late Classical Antiquity. In their function and linguistic form, they can be compared with book titles and other structural textual devices such as tables of contents and chapter headings. The present study also deals with the development of these devices, which are important for the history of books and of reading habits.

This volume contains an introduction, new edition of the Greek text, English translation, and detailed linguistic and historical commentary of Apollodoros’ speech “Against Neaira” (4th century BC).

The introduction provides a comprehensive account of the historical and legal background, authorship, style, technique, manuscripts and textual tradition of the speech, and a radically new interpretation of the case against Neaira. The edition of the Greek text is based on independent collations of manuscripts written before the 14th century, bringing a new sensitivity to the stylistic preferences of Apollodoros. The commentary contains discussions on textual points, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, style and technique, while the historical notes illustrate the constitutional, legal, social and political background of the speech.

The book is of the highest interest to scholars and students of the Attic Orators, Athenian society, daily life, women and gender relations, law, constitution, institutions, religion and culture.