King Arthur in Antiquity
King Arthur in Antiquity

Author: Graham Anderson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-03

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1134372027

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Although King Arthur's identity is so frequently debated, he is almost always set somewhere in the Celtic Britain of the Early Christian Era. This original and wide-ranging study argues that the roots of the Arthur legend are to be found in classical antiquity and that the traditional British Arthur is a much later imitation. Graham Anderson examines hitherto neglected evidence for two much older figures, known to classical writers as early kings of Arcadia and Lydia, who supposedly flourished more than a millennium earlier than traditional accounts suggest. He outlines the correspondence betw.

Athenian Economy and Society
Athenian Economy and Society

Author: Edward Cohen

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-11-07

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1400820774

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In this ground-breaking analysis of the world's first private banks, Edward Cohen convincingly demonstrates the existence and functioning of a market economy in ancient Athens while revising our understanding of the society itself. Challenging the "primitivistic" view, in which bankers are merely pawnbrokers and money-changers, Cohen reveals that fourth-century Athenian bankers pursued sophisticated transactions. These dealings--although technologically far removed from modern procedures--were in financial essence identical with the lending and deposit-taking that separate true "banks" from other businesses. He further explores how the Athenian banks facilitated tax and creditor avoidance among the wealthy, and how women and slaves played important roles in these family businesses--thereby gaining legal rights entirely unexpected in a society supposedly dominated by an elite of male citizens. Special emphasis is placed on the reflection of Athenian cognitive patterns in financial practices. Cohen shows how transactions were affected by the complementary opposites embedded in the very structure of Athenian language and thought. In turn, his analysis offers great insight into daily Athenian reality and cultural organization.

The Earliest Arthurian Texts
The Earliest Arthurian Texts

Author: Graham Anderson

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13:

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This volume offers for the first time a comprehensive collection of over one hundred Greek and Latin sources which point to certain Classical antecedents to the Arthur tradition, offering texts, translations, and commentaries for all of these. This work should appeal to scholars interested in Arthurian tradition and medieval and classical literature. ancient Greek and Latin sources needed to deal with figures answering to names like Arktouros, Ardus, and Artorius, where the bearers seem to have some kind of 'Arthurian' character. It challenges proponents of later British Arthurs to explain or explain away various Classical antecedents to the Arthurian tradition. This collection includes text and translation of over one hundred short texts concerning Arthur-figures, enabling Medieval scholars to examine for themselves the basis for claims of 'Arthurship' before the age of the historical Gildas. A detailed commentary is provided to introduce classicists to the Medieval tradition and vice-versa. The new texts raise as many questions as they answer; but for that very reason serious students of Arthurian origins cannot afford to ignore them.

King Arthur
King Arthur

Author: N. J. Higham

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-01-01

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0300210922

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A prominent scholar explores King Arthur's historical development, proposing that he began as a fictional character developed in the ninth century According to legend, King Arthur saved Britain from the Saxons and reigned over it gloriously sometime around A.D. 500. Whether or not there was a "real" King Arthur has all too often been neglected by scholars; most period specialists today declare themselves agnostic on this important matter. In this erudite volume, Nick Higham sets out to solve the puzzle, drawing on his original research and expertise to determine precisely when, and why, the legend began. Higham surveys all the major attempts to prove the origins of Arthur, weighing up and debunking hitherto claimed connections with classical Greece, Roman Dalmatia, Sarmatia, and the Caucasus. He then explores Arthur's emergence in Wales--up to his rise to fame at the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Certain to arouse heated debate among those committed to defending any particular Arthur, Higham's book is an essential study for anyone seeking to understand how Arthur's story began.

Researches Into the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the Greeks, Phoenicians and Babylonians
Researches Into the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the Greeks, Phoenicians and Babylonians

Author: Robert Brown

Publisher:

Published: 1899

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13:

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Researches into the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the Greeks, Phoenicians and Babylonians by Robert Brown, first published in 1899, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

Geographers of the Ancient Greek World: Volume 2
Geographers of the Ancient Greek World: Volume 2

Author: D. Graham J. Shipley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2024-04-18

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 1009207180

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Ancient Greek geographical writing is represented not just by the surviving works of the well-known authors Strabo, Pausanias, and Ptolemy, but also by many other texts dating from the Archaic to the Late Antique period. Most of these texts are, however, hard for non-specialists to find, and many have never been translated into English. This volume, the work of an international team of experts, presents the most important thirty-six texts in new, accurate translations. In addition, there are explanatory notes and authoritative introductions to each text, which offer a new understanding of the individual writings and demonstrate their importance: no longer marginal, but in the mainstream of Greek literature and science. The book includes twenty-eight newly drawn maps, images of the medieval manuscripts in which most of these works survive, and a full Introduction providing a comprehensive survey of the field of Greek and Roman geography.

Tragic Narrative
Tragic Narrative

Author: Andreas Markantonatos

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-10-24

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 3110895889

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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.

Thucydides and Internal War
Thucydides and Internal War

Author: Jonathan J. Price

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-07-19

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1139428438

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In this 2001 book Jonathan Price attempts to demonstrate that Thucydides consciously viewed and presented the Peloponnesian War in terms of a condition of civil strife - stasis, in Greek. Thucydides defines stasis as a set of symptoms indicating an internal disturbance in both individuals and states. This diagnostic method, in contrast to all other approaches in antiquity, allows an observer to identify stasis even when the combatants do not or cannot openly acknowledge the nature of their conflict. The words and actions which Thucydides chooses for his narrative meet his criteria for stasis: the speeches in the History represent the breakdown of language and communication characteristic of internal conflict, and the zeal for victory led to acts of unusual brutality and cruelty, and overall disregard for genuinely Hellenic customs, codes of morality and civic loyalty. Viewing the Peloponnesian War as a destructive internal war had profound consequences for Thucydides' historical vision.

Euripides and the Boundaries of the Human
Euripides and the Boundaries of the Human

Author: Mark Ringer

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2016-07-29

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1498518443

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Euripides and the Boundaries of the Human presents the first single-volume reading in nearly fifty years of all of Euripides’ surviving plays. Rather than examining one or a handful of dramas in monograph or article form, Mark Ringer insists on the thematic and stylistic parallels that unite a diverse canon of works. Euripides is often referred to as the most modern of the three Ancient Greek tragedians, but in what way can the work of this fifth-century B.C. artist be claimed as modern? The multi-layered presentation of character is new within the context of Athenian Tragedy. The plays also reveal equal concern with the preservation and re-vitalization of tradition, especially with respect to the portrayal of the Olympian gods. Euripidean drama upholds tradition just as vigorously as it posits a new kind of realism in character portrayal in the Ancient Theatre. Euripidean drama fuses what was old with what was new in order to revitalize and perpetuate the art of tragedy. This book will be of interest to professionals and students in the fields of classics, Greek drama in translation or in the original Greek, theater studies, comparative literature, tragedy, and religion.

The Theban Plays
The Theban Plays

Author: Sophocles

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2001-12-01

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1585106267

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This anthology includes English translations of three plays of Sophocles' Oidipous Cycle: Antigone, King Oidipous, and Oidipous at Colonus. The trilogy includes an introductory essay on Sophocles life, ancient theatre, and the mythic and religious background of the plays. Each of these plays is available from Focus in a single play edition. Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.