Schriften zur Mythologie und Altertumskunde
It was designed to be the crowning glory of his academic career, yet for centuries it remained almost totally ignored. The present volume contains the first scholarly edition of Karl Philipp Moritz' magnum opus on classical studies »Anthousa or the Treasures of Roman Antiquity« (1791), complete with a detailed commentary. The commentary examines the work in the context of the historical discipline of antiquitates and provides a careful analysis of the wide range of sources Moritz drew upon. In so doing it focuses attention on the author, in a hitherto unprecedented way, as an agent of literary transmission and an inheritor of the occidental tradition.
Karl Philipp Moritz’s studies of mythology are some of his most successful works. Appearing in a time of growing interest in the Greek pantheon, his Götterlehre (“doctrine of the gods”; 1791) was highly popular – it underwent multiple reprintings, and shaped the contemporary study of mythology and romantic conceptions of Greek myth. Moritz’s mythological writings appear here for the first time in a critical edition with commentary.
