A.J. Keulen’s new commentary on Seneca’s Troades is the fruit of a lifetime devotion to this play. This extensive philological commentary on the Troades is a most welcome contribution to the study of Seneca’s plays. Meaning, history and usage of Seneca’s vocabulary are thoroughly discussed. The author provides ample comparison with Senecan prose and rival poets. In addition, the commentary addresses composition and word order, and discusses textual, metrical and grammatical difficulties. A full bibliography and three indices complete this valuable book.
Troades (The Trojan Women) is a fabula crepidata (Roman tragedy with Greek subject) of c. 1179 lines of verse written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca."Troades" ("The Trojan Women") is one of the best-known tragedies of the Roman playwright Seneca the Younger, probably written around 54 CE. Largely based on "The Trojan Women" and "Hecuba" by Euripides, the play explores the folly of war, focussing on the trials of the royal family of the fallen city of Troy (Hecuba, Andromache and their children) as they mourn their past and current sufferings, and the continued assault of the Greeks on the survivors as they look to sacrifice two of the royal progeny, Polyxena and Astyanax.
Seneca (ca 1 B.C.-A.D. 65) sets his Troades in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Troy. The Trojan women (the troades) were to become the prizes of the victorious Greeks. As the play opens, their husbands and sons dead, their city in ruins, they wait, lamenting, to be allotted to their new masters. But before the Greek warriors sail home with their spoils, further horrors are in store. Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, demands the sacrifice of the Trojan princess Polyxena as a blood offering to his dead father. And the prophet Calchas decrees that the little son of Hecuba, wife of the Trojan prince and hero Hector, must be slaughtered. In this cruel situation the thoughts, actions and reactions of both sides, Greek men and Trojan women, create the unfolding drama. The themes of power, culture, freedom, delusion, history and death make Troades a brilliant piece of theatre, whose concerns speak as directly now as they did to the spectacular, histrionic and self-consuming world of early imperial Rome. The English translation, like that of Boyle's earlier Phaedra edition, is printed facing the Latin and aims at verbal and stylistic fidelity. The introduction and detailed commentary fill in the play's background for students of Latin and of Roman civilisation, and for the generally interested reader.
The Servian commentaries on Vergil are doubly distinguished: they are among the very few ancient commentaries on classical Latin texts to survive essentially intact; and they exist in two radically different forms-the original commentary created by the grammarian Servius early in the fifth century, emphasizing grammar and syntax, and an augmented version produced in the seventh century when a reader blended his Servius with much other recherché ancient lore. In the 1920s, the medievalist Edward Kennard Rand undertook to produce a truly modern edition that would fully reveal for the first time the character of the commentaries' two versions. All did not go smoothly, however: a volume devoted to Aeneid 1-2 appeared in 1946, and another, with the commentaries on Aeneid 3-5, in 1965; this edition of the commentaries on Aeneid 9-12 is the first new contribution to the series to appear in more than fifty years. On his death in 2013, Charles E. Murgia left publishable versions of the text, upper and lower critical apparatuses, and large parts of the introduction, and he had gathered most of the data for a testimonial apparatus. Robert A. Kaster completed the work on the testimonia and introduction (using some of Murgia's other writings to supplement the latter), added some subsidiary elements, and prepared the whole for publication. Thanks primarily to Murgia's work, this edition is superior to its predecessors in the series, and to all other editions of Servius, in every respect.
This collection of essays explores the rhetoric and practices surrounding views on life after death and the end of the world, including the fate of the individual, apocalyptic speculation and hope for cosmological renewal, in a wide range of societies from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Byzantine era. The 42 essays by leading scholars in each field explore the rich spectrum of ways in which eschatological understanding can be expressed, and for which purposes it can be used. Readers will gain new insight into the historical contexts, details, functions and impact of eschatological ideas and imagery in ancient texts and material culture from the twenty-fifth century BCE to the ninth century CE. Traditionally, the study of “eschatology” (and related concepts) has been pursued mainly by scholars of Jewish and Christian scripture. By broadening the disciplinary scope but remaining within the clearly defined geographical milieu of the Mediterranean, this volume enables its readers to note comparisons and contrasts, as well as exchanges of thought and transmission of eschatological ideas across Antiquity. Cross-referencing, high quality illustrations and extensive indexing contribute to a rich resource on a topic of contemporary interest and relevance. Eschatology in Antiquity is aimed at readers from a wide range of academic disciplines, as well as non-specialists including seminary students and religious leaders. The primary audience will comprise researchers in relevant fields including Biblical Studies, Classics and Ancient History, Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Art History, Late Antiquity, Byzantine Studies and Cultural Studies. Care has been taken to ensure that the essays are accessible to undergraduates and those without specialist knowledge of particular subject areas.
Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in classical studies in the ways meaning is generated through the medium of intertextuality, namely how different texts of the same or different authors communicate and interact with each other. Attention (although on a lesser scale) has also been paid to the manner in which meaning is produced through interaction between various parts of the same text or body of texts within the overall production of a single author, namely intratextuality. Taking off from the seminal volume on Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations, edited by A. Sharrock / H. Morales (Oxford 2000), which largely sets the theoretical framework for such internal associations within classical texts, this collective volume brings together twenty-seven contributions, written by an international team of experts, exploring the evolution of intratextuality from Late Republic to Late Antiquity across a wide range of authors, genres and historical periods. Of particular interest are also the combined instances of intra- and intertextual poetics as well as the way in which intratextuality in Latin literature draws on reading practices and critical methods already theorized and operative in Greek antiquity.
A full-scale critical edition of Seneca's Medea which offers a substantial introduction, a new Latin text, an English verse translation, and a detailed commentary. Boyle locates the play firmly in its contemporary, historical, and theatrical context and in the ensuing literary and dramatic tradition.
Considering the ubiquity of rhetorical training in antiquity, the volume starts from the premise that every first-person statement in ancient literature is in some way rhetorically modelled and aesthetically shaped. Focusing on different types of Greek and Latin literature, poetry and prose, from the Archaic Age to Late Antiquity, the contributions analyse the use and modelling of gender-specific elements in different types of first-person speech, be it that the speaker is (represented as) the author of a work, be it that they feature as characters in the work, narrating their own story or that of others. In doing so, they do not only offer new insights into the rhetorical strategies and literary techniques used to construct a gendered ‘I’ in ancient literature. They also address the form and function of first-person discourse in classical literature in general, touching on fields of research that have increasingly come into focus in recent years, such as authorship studies, studies concerning the ancient notion(s) of the literary persona, as well as a historical narratology that discusses concepts such as the narrator or the literary character in ancient literary theory and practice.
Volume 1 contains the following plays attributed to Seneca: Medea, The Phoenician Women, Phaedra, The Trojan Women, Octavia--obviously it has a slightly female spin.
The volume puts into the spotlight overlaps and points of intersection between Plutarch and other writers of the imperial period. It contains twenty-eight contributions which adopt a comparative approach and put into sharper relief ongoing debates and shared concerns, revealing a complex topography of rearrangements and transfigurations of inherited topics, motifs, and ideas. Reading Plutarch alongside his contemporaries brings out distinctive features of his thought and uncovers peculiarities in his use of literary and rhetorical strategies, imagery, and philosophical concepts, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the empire’s culture in general, and Plutarch in particular.
