Classical Studies

Once considered a period of poverty and isolation, devoid of impressive material culture, the Iron Age is now regarded as a pivotal era. It witnessed how the ancient Greeks lost and regained literacy, created lifelike figural representations and monumental architecture, and eventually established new and complex civic polities. The Companion to the Greek Iron Age offers an up to date account of this critical epoch of Greek antiquity. Including archaeological surveys of different regions, it presents focused discussions of the Early Iron Age cultures and states with which Greek regions had contacts and which are integral for understanding cultural developments in this formative period. They include Cyprus, Syro-Anatolia, Italy, and Egypt, regions in which, as in Greece, the Early Iron Age is diverse and unevenly documented. Offering a synthesis of the key developments, The Companion to the Greek Iron Age also demonstrates how new archaeological and theoretical approaches have enlarged and clarified our understanding of this seminal period.

The Self in Premodern Thought reconfigures the historical study of the self, which has typically been treated in disciplinary silos. Bringing multiple disciplinary perspectives into conversation with each other, it broadens the discussion to include texts and forms of writing outside the standard philosophical/theological canon. A distinguished group of contributors, from philosophy, classics, theology, history, and comparative literature, explores a wide range of texts that greatly expand our understanding of how selfhood was conceived in the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. The essays in this groundbreaking collection range from challenging new perspectives on well-known authors and texts, such as Plato and Augustine, to innovative explorations of forms of writing that have rarely been discussed in this context, such as drama, sermons, autobiographical writing, and liturgy.

What was fiction in the Roman world – and how did ancient readers learn to make sense of it? This book redefines ancient fiction not as a genre but as a sociocultural practice, governed by the institutions of Greco-Roman education. Drawing on modern fiction theory, it uncovers how fables, epic, and rhetorical training cultivated “fiction competence” in readers from childhood through advanced studies. But it also reveals how the ancient novels – including Greek romance, fictional biography, and the fragmentary novels – subverted the very rules of fiction pedagogy they inherited. Through incisive close readings of a wide array of canonical and paraliterary texts, this book reframes the classical curriculum as the engine of literary imagination in antiquity. For classicists, literary theorists, and anyone interested in ancient education, it offers a provocative reassessment of fiction's place in cultural history – and of how readers learned to believe, disbelieve, and decode narrative meaning.

Theophrastus' so-called Metaphysics presents a series of difficulties for various accounts of first principles, including Platonist ones but also – and especially – Aristotle's. Hence, many scholars think that Theophrastus abandons some of his teacher's core commitments, such as the prime mover or natural teleology. Other interpreters, by contrast, emphasize the aporematic character of the work and do not take Theophrastus to be truly critical of Aristotle. In the author's view, neither reading captures the character of the treatise. For, as argued in this Element, Theophrastus probes the Aristotelian account of first principles in earnest. But this is not to say that he abandons it. Rather, Theophrastus is an internal critic of an Aristotelian framework to which he himself is committed but of which he thinks that it requires further elaboration.

Past climate fluctuations significantly shaped human ways of life. This Element reconstructs the Southern Levant climate (ca. 1300–300 BCE) using high-resolution, well-dated paleoclimate records. Results show a 150-year arid phase ending the Late Bronze Age, likely driving the collapse of eastern Mediterranean complex societies. The Iron Age I saw a return to humid climate conditions, fostering highland settlement expansion and supporting the rise of the biblical kingdoms. This was one of the region's most profound cycles of collapse and revival. During Iron Age II, climate conditions were moderate, similar to today. The Achaemenid period began with brief aridity, followed by renewed humidity. Pollen evidence, along with additional data such as charcoal remains, was employed to trace environmental changes, including variations in the composition of natural vegetation. Human impacts on the environment were also identified, including fruit tree cultivation, deforestation, overgrazing, the introduction of new plant species, and landscape terracing.

Many think that reality is structured such that some beings are more fundamental than others and characterize this structure in terms of 'grounding.' Grounding is typically regarded as explanatory and as exhibiting certain order-theoretic properties: asymmetry, irreflexivity, and transitivity. Aristotle's notion of ontological priority, which inspired discussions of grounding, also has these features. This Element clarifies Aristotle's discussions of ontological priority, explores how it relates to other kinds of priority, and identifies important connections to metaphysical grounding. Aristotle provides numerous examples that appear to impugn ontological priority's order-theoretic coherence. This is Aristotle's “Priority Problem.” But Aristotle has an independently motivated solution that eliminates the threat from each of the apparently problematic examples and explains why such examples are ubiquitous. The author argues that a ground-theoretic analog of Aristotle's solution to the Priority Problem addresses recent challenges to grounding.

Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893 celebrated the quadricentennial of Columbus's 'discovery” of the Americas by creating a fantastical white city composed of Roman triumphal arches and domes, Corinthian colonnades, and Egyptian obelisks. World's fairs were among the most important cultural, socio-economic, and political phenomena of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: millions visited hoping to understand the modernity and progress of these cities and the nascent superpower of the United States. But what they found was often a representation of the past. From 1893 to 1915, ancient Greco-Roman and Egyptian architecture was deployed to create immersive environments at Chicago, Nashville, Omaha, St. Louis, and San Francisco. The seemingly endless adaptations of ancient architecture at these five fairs demonstrated that ancient architecture can symbolize and transmit the complex-and often paradoxical or contradictory-ideas that defined the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and still endure today.

Many people read the Crito primarily as a companion piece to the Apology and as one of Plato's statements on the nature of politics and the citizen's relationship to the state. This book challenges both of those assumptions and shows, by close analysis of the characters, the argument and the dramatic features of the dialogue, that it is best read as an exploration of the nature and significance of Socratic moral reasoning. It shows that there is a single argument throughout the dialogue and that the 'Laws of Athens' are best understood as supporting Socrates' attempt to convince Crito that a commitment to the currently best rational argument justifies his submission to the death penalty, despite the injustice of his sentence. The importance of the Crito for later political and legal theory is great, but the reception of the dialogue should not blind us to its original intention and significance.

Hipparchus was the most important astronomer of the ancient Greek world. This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to almost everything that can be known or reasonably surmised about his life and work. Hipparchus was the first to apply an effective geometric model to the cosmos, which enabled him to predict the positions of the Sun, Moon and stars more reliably than before. He was also the first to catalogue most of the stars that were visible in the northern hemisphere, giving a detailed account of their risings, settings and culminations. His most important discovery was the long-term movement of the sky, known as precession. Crucially, this study provides a translation and analysis of Hipparchus' only surviving work, the Commentary on the Phenomena of Aratus and Eudoxus, and reconstructs his catalogue of the stars, which has not survived, using a modern precession model.

This book, which draws on Lisa Bendall's lectures over three decades, provides an engaging and accessible survey of everything students need to know to read and understand texts in Linear B. As John Chadwick noted, the Linear B scholar must be 'not just an epigraphist, not just a linguist, not just an economic historian and archaeologist; ideally he or she…must be all these things simultaneously'. Volume 1 introduces the student to the writing system and the language, especially the phonology and morphology. It also explains the formal aspects of the documents and gives guidance on the tools available to the student and scholar. Volume 2 will provide a guide to using the documents to understand the Mycenaean world.

Interest in the relationship between Paul's letter openings and Koine Greek letter-writing conventions has been steady for over a century, but little new data has emerged in recent years. In this study, Gillian Asquith offers a fresh perspective on Paul's epistolary practice by adopting a multidisciplinary method that synthesises sociolinguistics and lexicography. Comparing the language of Paul's letter openings with the register of language in documentary papyri, she demonstrates that high-register language in Koine Greek epistolary formulae contributes to warm and friendly relations between correspondents. Asquith argues that Paul creatively modifies epistolary norms by using unexpected, high-register language in the remembrance motif and litotic disclosure formula. Such usage, she posits, emphatically reassures Paul's recipients of his pastoral concern for them and heightens the persuasive force of his letters. Asquith's nuanced analysis contributes valuable new data to long-running debates around Paul's practice of prayer and the structure of his letters.

In the Roman Republic, elite women were legally permitted to control substantial assets – and many demonstrably were in direct control of their wealth. They were also the mothers, wives and daughters of the politicians who built Rome's empire and, in a time of high mortality, could find themselves running households that did not contain adult men. This volume explores the political and social consequences of elite female wealth. It combines case studies of individual women, such as Licinia, wife of C. Gracchus, Mucia Tertia and Octavia Minor, with broader surveys of the institutional frameworks and social conventions that constrained and enabled women's wealth and its consequences. The book contributes to the recent upsurge of interest in re-evaluating the role of women in Republican Rome and will be invaluable for scholars and students alike.

To Galen, Plato was the great authority in philosophy but also had important things to say on health, disease, and the human body. The Timaeus was of enormous significance to Galen's thought on the body's structure and functioning as well as being a key source of inspiration for his teleological world view, in which the idea of cosmic design by a personified creative Nature, the Craftsman, plays a fundamental role. This volume provides critical English translations of key readings of the Timaeus by Galen that were previously accessible only in fragmentary Greek and Arabic and Arabo-Latin versions. The introductions highlight Galen's creative interpretations of the dialogue, especially compared to other imperial explanations, and show how his works informed medieval Islamicate writers' understanding of it. The book should provoke fresh attention to texts that have been unjustly marginalized in the history of Platonism in both the west and Middle East.

Latin poetry is defined by its relationships with poetry in other languages. It was originally constituted by its relation to Greek, and in later times has been constituted by its relation to the European vernaculars. In this bold and innovative book, distinguished Latinist Stephen Hinds explores these relationships through a series of vignettes. These explore ancient conversations between Latin and Greek verse texts, followed by modern (especially early modern) conversations between Latin and European vernacular verse texts, reflecting the linked stories of reception that make up the so-called 'classical tradition': conversations across language, across period, and sometimes both at the same time. The book's range is expansive, ranging from Homer through Virgil and the Augustans to late antiquity, the Renaissance, Romanticism and on to Seamus Heaney. There is an especial focus on the parallel vernacular and Latin output of Milton and Marvell in England and Du Bellay in France.

The reign of Constantine, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, was one of the most important periods in world history. Although literary texts often represented him as the first Christian emperor, the inscriptions engraved on monuments, statue bases, and milestones offer alternative perspectives. Inscriptions highlight the influence of the other emperors, the prominence of senators at Rome, the civic traditions for praising benefactors in provincial cities, the logistics of the economy, and the abiding importance of traditional cults. This book includes the Greek and Latin texts of over 800 inscriptions from the early fourth century, with translations and critical annotations. An extended Introduction and almost 200 short essays provide context by explaining the issues and problems, correlating the literary texts, and comparing the legends and images of coins. Without the emperor as the constant focus, the Age of Constantine becomes all the more fascinating.

Roman law is justly famous, but what was its relationship to governing an empire? In this book, Ari Z. Bryen argues that law, as the learned practice that we know today, emerged from the challenge of governing a diverse and fractious set of imperial subjects. Through analysis of these subjects' political and legal ideologies, Bryen reveals how law became the central topic of political contest in the Roman Empire. Law offered a means of testing legitimacy and evaluating government, as well as a language for asking fundamental political questions. But these political claims did not go unchallenged. Elites resisted them, and jurists, in collaboration with emperors, reimagined law as a system that excluded the voices of the governed. The result was to separate, for the first time, 'law' from 'society' more broadly, and to define law as a primarily literate and learned practice, rather than the stuff of everyday life.

The decipherment of Linear B, an early form of Greek used by the Myceneans, by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick has long been celebrated. But five other scripts from the Bronze-Age Aegean remain undeciphered. In this book, Brent Davis provides a thorough introduction to these scripts and uses statistical techniques drawn from linguistics to provide insights into the languages lying behind them. He deals most extensively with the script of the Minoan civilization on Crete (“Linear A”), whose decipherment remains one of the Holy Grails of archaeology. He discusses linguistic topics in clear language and explains linguistic terms in a comprehensive glossary. The book also includes all data on which the various analyses of the scripts are based. It will therefore be of great interest and use not just to experts in the undeciphered Aegean scripts, but to novices and aficionados of decipherment as well.

Reading Biblical Greek is aimed at students who are studying New Testament Greek for the first time, or refreshing what they once learned. Designed to supplement and reinforce The Elements of New Testament Greek, by Jeremy Duff, each chapter of this textbook provides lengthy, plot-driven texts that will be accessible as students study each chapter of The Elements. Each text is accompanied by detailed questions, which test comprehension of content from recent lessons and review challenging topics from previous chapters. The graded nature of the texts, together with the copious notes and comprehension questions, makes this an ideal resource for learning, reviewing or re-entering Greek. The focus of this resource is on reading with understanding, and the exercises highlight how Greek texts convey meaning. Finally, this book moves on from first-year Greek, with sections that cover the most important advanced topics thoroughly.

Classical Studies

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150168 results in Classical Studies

The Cambridge Companion to the Greek Iron Age

The Self in Premodern Thought

Fiction and Education in the Roman World

Theophrastus on First Principles

Climate and Environment in the Southern Levant, 1300–300 BCE

Aristotelian Ontological Priority and Metaphysical Grounding

Ancient Fantasies and Modern Power

Plato's Crito

The Astronomy of Hipparchus

Reading Linear B

The Cambridge History of International Law

The Conduct of Politics

Paul's Letter Openings

Women, Wealth and Power in the Roman Republic

Galen: Writings on Plato's Timaeus

Latin Poetry Across Languages

Inscriptions from the Age of Constantine

The Judgment of the Provinces

The Undeciphered Aegean Scripts

Reading Biblical Greek

Classical Studies

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Save Search

150168 results in Classical Studies

The Cambridge Companion to the Greek Iron Age

The Self in Premodern Thought

Fiction and Education in the Roman World

Theophrastus on First Principles

Climate and Environment in the Southern Levant, 1300–300 BCE

Aristotelian Ontological Priority and Metaphysical Grounding

Ancient Fantasies and Modern Power

Plato's Crito

The Astronomy of Hipparchus

Reading Linear B

The Cambridge History of International Law

The Conduct of Politics

Paul's Letter Openings

Women, Wealth and Power in the Roman Republic

Galen: Writings on Plato's Timaeus

Latin Poetry Across Languages

Inscriptions from the Age of Constantine

The Judgment of the Provinces

The Undeciphered Aegean Scripts

Reading Biblical Greek