Title: Cicero's social and political thought
Author: Wood, Neal
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Classical Philosophy | Political Theory
Publisher's Description: In this close examination of the social and political thought of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Neal Wood focuses on Cicero's conceptions of state and government, showing that he is the father of constitutionalism, the archetype of the politically conservative mind, and the first to reflect ex . . . [more]
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Title: Cleomedes' lectures on astronomy: a translation of The heavens
Author: Cleomedes
Published: University of California Press,  2004
Subjects: Classics | Science | Astronomy | History of Science | Classical Philosophy
Publisher's Description: At some time around 200 A.D., the Stoic philosopher and teacher Cleomedes delivered a set of lectures on elementary astronomy as part of a complete introduction to Stoicism for his students. The result was The Heavens (Caelestia), the only work by a professional Stoic teacher to survive intact from the first two centuries A.D., and a rare example of the interaction between science and philosophy in late antiquity. This volume contains a clear and idiomatic English translation - the first ever - of The Heavens, along with an informative introduction, detailed notes, and technical diagrams. This important work will now be accessible to specialists in both ancient philosophy and science and to readers interested in the history of astronomy and cosmology but with no knowledge of ancient Greek.   [brief]
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Title: The concept of neutrality in classical Greece
Author: Bauslaugh, Robert A
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Law | Classical History
Publisher's Description: Looking at Classical warfare from the perspective of the non-belligerents, Robert A. Bauslaugh brings together the scattered evidence testifying to neutral behavior among the Greek city-states and their non-Greek neighbors. Were the Argives of 480/479 B.C. really "Medizers," as many have accused, or were they pursuing a justifiable policy of neutrality as they claimed? On what basis in international law or custom did the Corcyraeans claim non-alignment? Why were the leading belligerent states willing to accept the inclusion of a "neutrality clause" in the Common Peace of 371? These questions have not been asked by historians of international law, and the answers provide a far more complex and sophisticated picture of interstate relations than has so far been available.Despite the absence of exclusively diplomatic language, the concept of respect for neutrals appears early in Greek history and remains a nearly constant feature of Classical wars. The problems confronting uncommitted states, which have clear parallels in modern history, were balanced by widespread acceptance of the need for limitations on the chaos of warfare.   [brief]
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Title: The Cynics: the cynic movement in antiquity and its legacy
Author: Branham, Robert Bracht
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Classical Literature and Language | Social and Political Thought | Religion | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: This collection of essays - the first of its kind in English - brings together the work of an international group of scholars examining the entire tradition associated with the ancient Cynics. The essays give a history of the movement as well as a state-of-the-art account of the literary, philosophical and cultural significance of Cynicism from antiquity to the present.Arguably the most original and influential branch of the Socratic tradition, Cynicism has become the focus of renewed scholarly interest in recent years, thanks to the work of Sloterdijk, Foucault, and Bakhtin, among others. The contributors to this volume - classicists, comparatists, and philosophers - draw on a variety of methodologies to explore the ethical, social and cultural practices inspired by the Cynics. The volume also includes an introduction, appendices, and an annotated bibliography, making it a valuable resource for a broad audience.   [brief]
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Title: The defense of Attica: the Dema wall and the Boiotian War of 378-375 B.C 
Author: Munn, Mark Henderson
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: Classics | Art and Architecture | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: The enigmatic three-mile-long Dema wall in the countryside outside ancient Athens has perplexed archaeologists and historians for decades. When was it built and what role did it play in Greek military history? In a tour de force of archaeological and historical argument, Mark H. Munn establishes the place of the Dema wall in the defense of Athens and offers a completely new perspective on the Boiotian War.Since no ancient reference to the wall survives, scholars have contested the date and purpose of the wall's construction, placing it anywhere between the Geometric Age and Hellenistic eras. While directing the excavation of a watchtower above the wall, Munn's chance discovery of a datable sherd in the wall's remains fixed the date of the wall's construction at 378 B.C., the onset of the three-year Boiotian War. Munn offers an absorbing narrative account of the war, and his descriptions and effective use of literary extracts render a vivid portrayal of the opposing generals, military tactics, and battle scenes.   [brief]
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Title: The development of Attic black-figure 
Author: Beazley, J. D. (John Davidson) 1885-1970
Published: University of California Press,  1986
Subjects: Classics | Art and Architecture
Publisher's Description: The eight lectures that comprise this edition were first delivered by John Davidson Beazley in 1949. They were published in 1951 and soon became a of classical study of ancient Greek vases. This revised edition includes many additional illustrations.
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Title: Dioscorus of Aphrodito: his work and his world 
Author: MacCoull, Leslie B
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: Classics
Publisher's Description: From the hand of Dioscorus of Aphrodito, sixth-century Coptic lawyer and poet, we have the only autograph poems to come down to us on papyrus from the late ancient world. Both the poetry he wrote for special occasions and the documents he produced in his legal career, in Greek and Coptic, reflect the major preoccupations of Dioscorus' society and his age: the nature of Byzantine imperial government, the patronage of the powerful elite, and the spirituality of the Egyptian Christian church. Thanks to residence in Egypt and many years of work with the original papyri, Leslie S. B. MacCoull is able to present a comprehensive picture of Dioscorus and his times. Through detailed analyses of the documents and poems, some previously unknown, she leads us to a fresh perception of the Coptic culture of Byzantine Egypt. She reveals the man and his world as inheritors of and contributors to the Egyptian-Classical-Christian fusion of society and intellectual life that gave birth to Gnosticism and the Desert Fathers. Dioscorus of Aphrodito epitomizes the little-known cultural flowering of late antique Egypt, which is now seen not as a place of sterility and decadence, but as the home of a strikingly original and creative culture whose subsequent eclipse still remains unexplained.   [brief]
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Title: Early Greek law
Author: Gagarin, Michael
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: Classics | Classical Politics | Law
Publisher's Description: Drawing on the evidence of anthropology as well as ancient literature and inscriptions, Gagarin examines the emergence of law in Greece from the 8th through the 6th centuries B.C., that is, from the oral culture of Homer and Hesiod to the written enactment of codes of law in most major cities.
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Title: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus
Author: Theocritus
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Classics | Classical Literature and Language | Poetry
Publisher's Description: 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 representation of poetic patronage in the Ptolemaic age. In particular, the book explores the subtle and complex links among Theocritus's poem, modes of praise drawn from both Greek and Egyptian traditions, and the subsequent flowering of Latin poetry in the Augustan age. As the first detailed account of this important poem to show how Theocritus might have drawn on the pharaonic traditions of Egypt as well as earlier Greek poetry, this book affords unique insight into how praise poetry for Ptolemy and his wife may have helped to negotiate the adaptation of Greek culture that changed conditions of the new Hellenistic world. Invaluable for its clear translation and its commentary on genre, dialect, diction, and historical reference in relation to Theocritus's Encomium, the book is also significant for what it reveals about the poem's cultural and social contexts and about Theocritus' devices for addressing his several readerships. COVER IMAGE: The image on the front cover of this book is incorrectly identified on the jacket flap. The correct caption is: Gold Oktadrachm depicting Ptolemy II and Arsinoe (mid-third century BCE; by permission of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).   [brief]
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Title: Epic traditions in the contemporary world: the poetics of community 
Author: Beissinger, Margaret H
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Literature | Classics | Classical Literature and Language | Comparative Literature
Publisher's Description: The epic tradition has been part of many different cultures throughout human history. This noteworthy collection of essays provides a comparative reassessment of epic and its role in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds, as it explores the variety of contemporary approaches to the epic genre. Employing theoretical perspectives drawn from anthropology, literary studies, and gender studies, the authors examine familiar and less well known oral and literary traditions - ancient Greek and Latin, Arabic, South Slavic, Indian, Native American, Italian, English, and Caribbean - demonstrating the continuing vitality of the epic tradition.Juxtaposing work on the traditional canon of western epics with scholarship on contemporary epics from various parts of the world, these essays cross the divide between oral and literary forms that has long marked the approach to the genre. With its focus on the links among narrative, politics, and performance, the collection creates a new dialogue illustrating the sociopolitical significance of the epic tradition. Taken together, the essays raise compelling new issues for the study of epic, as they examine concerns such as national identity, gender, pedagogy, and the creation of the canon.   [brief]
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Title: The eye expanded: life and the arts in Greco-Roman antiquity
Author: Titchener, Frances B 1954-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | Classical History | Classical Literature and Language | Art and Architecture | Classical Politics | Classical Religions | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Plato and Aristotle both believed that the arts were mimetic creations of the human mind that had the power to influence society. In this they were representative of a widespread consensus in ancient culture. Cultural and political impulses informed the fine arts, and these in turn shaped - and were often intended to shape - the living world. The contributors to this volume, all of whom have been encouraged and inspired by the work of Peter Green, document the interaction between life and the arts that has made art more lively and life more artful in sixteen essays with subjects ranging from antiquity to modern times.With topics ranging from Antigone to D. H. Lawrence and Norman Douglas, and from Bactrian coins to Livy's characterization of women, the scope, the zest, and the scholarship of these essays will illuminate new avenues in our understanding of the relationship between classics and culture, and in our appreciation of both the artistic products that have come down to us and the varieties of life from which they spring.   [brief]
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Title: Failure of empire: Valens and the Roman state in the fourth century A.D
Author: Lenski, Noel Emmanuel 1965-
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Classics | History | Classical History | Ancient History | Classical Politics | Autobiographies and Biographies
Publisher's Description: Failure of Empire is the first comprehensive biography of the Roman emperor Valens and his troubled reign (a.d. 364-78). Valens will always be remembered for his spectacular defeat and death at the hands of the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople. This singular misfortune won him a front-row seat among history's great losers. By the time he was killed, his empire had been coming unglued for several years: the Goths had overrun the Balkans; Persians, Isaurians, and Saracens were threatening the east; the economy was in disarray; and pagans and Christians alike had been exiled, tortured, and executed in his religious persecutions. Valens had not, however, entirely failed in his job as emperor. He was an admirable administrator, a committed defender of the frontiers, and a ruler who showed remarkable sympathy for the needs of his subjects. In lively style and rich detail, Lenski incorporates a broad range of new material, from archaeology to Gothic and Armenian sources, in a study that illuminates the social, cultural, religious, economic, administrative, and military complexities of Valens's realm. Failure of Empire offers a nuanced reconsideration of Valens the man and shows both how he applied his strengths to meet the expectations of his world and how he ultimately failed in his efforts to match limited capacities to limitless demands.   [brief]
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Title: Fiction as history: Nero to Julian 
Author: Bowersock, G. W. (Glen Warren) 1936-
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Literature | European History | Classical Religions | Christianity | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Using pagan fiction produced in Greek and Latin during the early Christian era, G. W. Bowersock investigates the complex relationship between "historical" and "fictional" truths. This relationship preoccupied writers of the second century, a time when apparent fictions about both past and present were proliferating at an astonishing rate and history was being invented all over again. With force and eloquence, Bowersock illuminates social attitudes of this period and persuasively argues that its fiction was influenced by the emerging Christian Gospel narratives.Enthralling in its breadth and enhanced by two erudite appendices, this is a book that will be warmly welcomed by historians and interpreters of literature.   [brief]
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Title: Final judgments: duty and emotion in Roman wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250
Author: Champlin, Edward 1948-
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Freed from the familial and social obligations incumbent on the living, the Roman testator could craft his will to be a literal "last judgment" on family, friends, and society. The Romans were fascinated by the contents of wills, believing the will to be a mirror of the testator's true character and opinions. The wills offer us a unique view of the individual Roman testator's world. Just as classicists, ancient historians, and legal historians will find a mine of information here, the general reader will be fascinated by the book's lively recounting of last testaments.Who were the testators and what were their motives? Why do family, kin, servants, friends, and community all figure in the will, and how are they treated? What sort of afterlife did the Romans anticipate? By examining wills, the book sets several issues in a new light, offering new interpretations of, or new insights into, subjects as diverse as captatio (inheritance-seeking), the structure of the Roman family, the manumission of slaves, public philanthropy, the afterlife and the relation of subject to emperor.Champlin's principal argument is that a strongly felt "duty of testacy" informed and guided most Romans, a duty to reward or punish all who were important to them, a duty which led them to write their wills early in life and to revise them frequently.   [brief]
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Title: Form and good in Plato's Eleatic dialogues: the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman 
Author: Dorter, Kenneth 1940-
Published: University of California Press,  1994
Subjects: Classics | Philosophy | Classical Literature and Language
Publisher's Description: In this innovative analysis, Plato's four eleatic dialogues are treated as a continuous argument. In Kenneth Dorter's view, Plato reconsiders the theory of forms propounded in his earlier dialogues and through an examination of the theory's limitations reaffirms and proves it essential. Contradicted are both those philosophers who argue that Plato espoused his theory of forms uncritically and those who argue that Plato in some sense rejected the theory and moved toward the categorical analysis developed byAristotle. Dorter's reexamination of Plato's insights implies an important new direction for modern philosophical inquiry.   [brief]
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Title: From popular sovereignty to the sovereignty of law: law, society, and politics in fifth-century Athens
Author: Ostwald, Martin 1922-
Published: University of California Press,  1987
Subjects: Classics | Classics | Classical History | Classical Politics
Publisher's Description: Analyzing the "democratic" features and institutions of the Athenian democracy in the fifth century B.C., Martin Ostwald traces their development from Solon's judicial reforms to the flowering of popular sovereignty, when the people assumed the right both to enact all legislation and to hold magistr . . . [more]
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Title: Greek athletics and the genesis of sport
Author: Sansone, David
Published: University of California Press,  1992
Subjects: Classics | Sports | Cultural Anthropology
Publisher's Description: How is sport in contemporary society related to sport in earlier civilizations? Why is the expenditure of energy involved in sport considered exhilarating, while the equivalent expenditure of energy in other contexts can be dispiriting? David Sansone offers answers to these questions and advances a revolutionary thesis to account for the widespread phenomenon of sport. Drawing upon ethnological findings to demonstrate the ritual character of sport, he explores the relationship between ancient Greek sport and sacrificial ritual and traces elements common to both back to primitive origins.   [brief]
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Title: The Greeks and the irrational
Author: Dodds, E. R. (Eric Robertson) 1893-
Published: University of California Press,  1962
Subjects: Classics
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Title: Guardians of language: the grammarian and society in late antiquity 
Author: Kaster, Robert A
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Classical Literature and Language | Language and Linguistics | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: What did it mean to be a professional teacher in the prestigious "liberal schools" - the schools of grammar and rhetoric - in late antiquity? How can we account for the abiding prestige of these schools, which remained substantially unchanged in their methods and standing despite the political and religious changes that had taken place around them?The grammarian was a pivotal figure in the lives of the educated upper classes of late antiquity. Introducing his students to correct language and to the literature esteemed by long tradition, he began the education that confirmed his students' standing in a narrowly defined elite. His profession thus contributed to the social as well as cultural continuity of the Empire. The grammarian received honor - and criticism; the profession gave the grammarian a firm sense of cultural authority but also placed him in a position of genteel subordination within the elite.Robert A. Kaster provides the first thorough study of the place and function of these important but ambiguous figures. He also gives a detailed prosopography of the grammarians, and of the other "teachers of letters" below the level of rhetoric, from the middle of the third through the middle of the sixth century, which will provide a valuable research tool for other students of late-antique education.   [brief]
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Title: Hegemony to empire: the development of the Roman Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 B.C 
Author: Kallet-Marx, Robert Morstein
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Classics | History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: In one of the most important contributions to the study of Roman imperialism to appear in recent years, Robert Kallet-Marx argues for a less simplistic, more fluid understanding of the evolution of Roman power in the Balkans, Greece, and Asia Minor. He distinguishes between hegemony - the ability of the Romans to command obedience on the basis of a real or implied military threat - and the later phenomenon of empire, demonstrating that Roman imperium was not the result of the sudden imposition of geographically defined provinces or permanent armies. Rather, the integration of the Greek world into a Roman imperial system was a complex process of evolution requiring mutual adaptation by both Romans and Greeks.   [brief]
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