Suchergebnisse

"This is an anthology of private funerary poems in Greek from the archaic period until later antiquity. The vast majority of these poems were inscribed on tombs or grave stelai and served to identify, celebrate and mourn the dead. It is not in fact very difficult to distinguish such 'funerary' poems from other types of inscription, even if there are important overlaps in style and subject between, say, some honorific and some epitaphic verse-inscriptions; what can be much more difficult, however, is to distinguish 'public' from 'private' inscriptions, and indeed to decide what, if anything, is at stake in the distinction and how that distinction changed over time. Our earliest verse epitaphs seem to be 'private', in the sense that, as far as we can tell, they were designed and erected by the family of the deceased. For the fifth century, however, our evidence is predominantly Attic, and, from the first three-quarters of the century in particular, we have very few clearly 'private' such inscriptions, as opposed to those either sponsored or displayed (or both) by public authorities; this was the age of public burials and public commemorations in polyandry or 'multiple tombs', which (quite literally) embodied the spirit of public service demanded of male citizens. 'Private' poems too, of course, reflected the ideology of the city in which they were displayed, and we must not assume that a 'public-private' distinction mapped exactly on to some ancient equivalent of a modern 'official-unofficial' one. 'Private' inscriptions, for example, might need 'public' blessing to be erected in a particularly prominent place or even to use a particular language of praise."--

The late James Adam's edition of The Republic of Plato was published in 1902 and has long been out of print; it still remains among the most detailed and valuable critical editions available. D. A. Rees, Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College, Oxford, has written an introduction of 15,000 words for this edition. In it, he surveys Adam's work on The Republic and reviews subsequent work on the textual problems, language and meaning of the book. The book is divided into two volumes; Volume I. Introduction and Books I–V, and Volume II, printed here, Books VI–X and Indexes

Lisbeth S. Fried's insightful study investigates the impact of Achaemenid rule on the political power of local priesthoods during the 6th-4th centuries B.C.E. Scholars typically assume that, as long as tribute was sent to Susa, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, subject peoples remained autonomous. Fried's work challenges this assumption. She examines the inscriptions, coins, temple archives, and literary texts from Babylon, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Judah and concludes that there was no local autonomy. The only people with power in the Empire were Persians and their appointees, and this was true for Judah as well. The Judean priesthood achieved its longed-for independence only much later, under the Maccabees

One of the most widely studied texts of ancient philosophy and politics, Plato's Laws is his last and most substantial dialogue, debating crucial questions on the subject of law-giving and education. This two-volume edition of 1921 was prepared by the classicist Edwin Bourdieu England (1847–1936), who describes the dialogue as 'the treasury of pregnant truths which Plato in extreme old age left … as his last legacy to humanity'. Generally held to have been written after Plato's failed attempt to influence Syracusan politics, it concerns the just city and its constitution, including discussions of divine revelation, the role of intelligence in the creation of laws, and natural law itself. This edition comprises a short introduction, England's helpful analyses, the Greek text of the dialogue, and extensive notes. Volume 2 is devoted to Books 7–12. It also includes indexes of subjects and Greek words