The ancient sailing season /
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Providing a comprehensive examination of the capacity of ancient ships and seafarers to cope with seasonally changing sea conditions, this book draws on a wide range of ancient literary sources while also taking account of modern weather records, hydrological data, and recent archaeological discoveries. Taking a fresh look at the various ways in which seasonality affected maritime transport across the sea-lanes of the ancient world, this book offers new perspectives on the nature of seaborne trade, naval warfare and piratical operations. The result is a volume that questions many long-held scholarly assumptions concerning the strength and seaworthiness of ancient vessels, as well as the abilities of Greek and Roman mariners, to regularly undertake voyages across hazardous stretches of sea.
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Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 3, 2012). :
1 online resource (xv, 364 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004241947 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Novel Perspectives on Communication Practices in Antiquity : Towards a Historical Social-Semiotic Approach /
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Documentary texts are vital to our understanding of many aspects of the ancient world, such as its administration, education, and economy. The value of these texts goes even further however: being autographs, they directly testify to ancient communication practices, a field of study which so far has remained underexplored. In this volume, specialists in the field engage with a broad range of documentary sources. They discuss not only how various modes of communication, such as language, handwriting, and lay-out, are employed in specific contexts of writing, but also how these different modes are interrelated. Building on insights from contemporary social-semiotic theory, the volume makes a case for the establishment of historical social semiotics as a discipline.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004526518
9789004526525
Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity: My Lots are in Thy Hands.
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Sortilege-the making of decisions by casting lots-was widely practiced in the Mediterranean world during the period known as late antiquity, between the third and eighth centuries CE. In My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity , AnneMarie Luijendijk and William Klingshirn have collected fourteen essays that examine late antique lot divination, especially but not exclusively through texts preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Employing the overlapping perspectives of religious studies, classics, anthropology, economics, and history, contributors study a variety of topics, including the hermeneutics and operations of divinatory texts, the importance of diviners and their instruments, and the place of faith and doubt in the search for hidden order in a seemingly random world.
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1 online resource. :
9789004385030
The limits of historiography : genre and narrative in ancient historical texts /
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This volume explores the intersection between historiography and related genres in antiquity. Papers cover the geographical range from China through the near east to the classical period in the Mediterranean. Topics addressed include the place in ancient Chinese historiography of philosophical argument; the nature and kind of historical text in the Hittite, Babylonian, Persian and biblical periods, including (for the first time) a full transliteration and translation of the Old Hittite story of Anum-hirbi and Zalpa, and a new interpretation of the Darius inscription at Behistun; and the relation of rhetorical stratagems and theory to Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. Contributors also consider the relationship between texts, including the war narratives of Herodotus and Thucydides, and the propriety of different schemes of generic classification.
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1 online resource (ix, 363 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004351295 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Inscribing devotion and death : archaeological evidence for Jewish populations of North Africa /
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Reliance on essentialist or syncretistic models of cultural dynamics has limited past evaluations of ancient Jewish populations. This reexamination of evidence for Jews of North Africa offers an alternative approach. Drawing from methods developed in cultural studies and historical linguistics, this book replaces traditional categories used to examine evidence for early Jewish populations and demonstrates how direct comparison of Jewish material evidence with that of its neighbors allows for a reassessment of what the category of "Jewish" might have meant in different North African locations and periods and, by extension, elsewhere in the Mediterranean. The result is a transformed analysis of Jewish cultural identity that both emphasizes its indebtedness to larger regional contexts and allows for a more informed and complex understanding of Jewish cultural distinctiveness.
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1 online resource (xviii, 342 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-334) and index. :
9789047423843 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Priests, tongues, and rites : the London-Leiden magical manuscripts and translation in Egyptian ritual (100-300 CE) /
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This book is an investigation into the sphere of production and use of two related bilingual magical handbooks found as part of a larger collection of magical and alchemical manuscripts around 1828 in the hills surrounding Luxor, Egypt. Both handbooks, dating to the Roman period, contain an assortment of recipes for magical rites in the Demotic and Greek language. The library which comprises these two handbooks is nowadays better known as the Theban Magical Library. The book traces the social and cultural milieu of the composers, compilers and users of the extant spells through a combination of philology, sociolinguistics and cultural analysis. To anybody working on Greco-Roman Egypt, ancient magic, and bilingualism this study is of significant importance.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Leiden University, 2003). :
1 online resource (xiv, 342 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-328) and indexes. :
9789047406747 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Legendary rivals : collegiality and ambition in the tales of early Rome /
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In Legendary Rivals Jaclyn Neel argues for a new interpretation of the foundation myths of Rome. Instead of a negative portrayal of the city's early history, these tales offer a didactic paradigm of the correct way to engage in competition. Accounts from the triumviral period stress the dysfunctional nature of the city's foundation to capture the memory of Rome's civil wars. Republican evidence suggests a different emphasis. Through diachronic analyses of the tales of Romulus and Remus, Amulius and Numitor, Brutus and Collatinus, and Camillus and Manlius Capitolinus, Neel shows that Romans of the Republic and early Principate would have seen these stories as examples of competition that pushed the bounds of propriety.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004281851 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Neokoroi: Greek Cities and Roman Emperors /
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The neokoroi, or 'temple-wardens,' were Hellenized cities of the eastern Roman empire who received that title for possessing their provinces' temples to the living emperor. This work collects and analyzes all the evidence for the neokoroi, including their coins and inscriptions, contemporary and subsequent historical texts, and the archaeological remains of the temples themselves and the statues that stood within them. There were at least thirty-seven neokoroi, and each is examined in a separate chapter. The results are then re-analyzed chronologically, clarifying the development of the institution. Finally the statues, temples, cities, and provinces are compared, resulting in new insights into the rivalry and hierarchy among the cities, and the dialogue of worship that related them to their Roman overlords.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Harvard, 1980) under title: Neokoroi, Greek cities of the Roman East. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401506
9789004125780
Brill's companion to ancient Greek scholarship /
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Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship aims at providing a reference work in the field of ancient Greek and Byzantine scholarship and grammar, thus encompassing the broad and multifaceted philological and linguistic research activity during the entire Greek Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The first part of the volume offers a thorough historical overview of ancient scholarship, which covers the period from its very beginnings to the Byzantine era. The second part focuses on the disciplinary profile of ancient scholarship by investigating its main scientific topics. The third and final part presents the particular work of ancient scholars in various philological and linguistic matters, and also examines the place of scholarship and grammar from an interdisciplinary point of view, especially from their interrelation with rhetoric, philosophy, medicine and nature sciences.
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1 online resource (2 volumes (xx, 1504 pages)) :
Includes bibliographical references (volume 2, pages 1267-1426) and indexes. :
9789004281929 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A commentary on the letters of M. Cornelius Fronto /
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This is the first commentary on the letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 90-95 - c. 167). It aims at an extensive grammatical, stylistic and historical interpretation of the letters and the ancient testimonies on Fronto. The author demonstrates where Fronto stands in Latin literature; hence the numerous quotations of parallel, similar and dissentient passages from Fronto and other writers. The letters are written in a pure, simple style, with a great deal of colloquialisms and many a post-classical turn of phrase. The many archaisms show how Fronto as a philologist had a comprehensive knowledge of pre-Cicero Latin. This commentary, based on the Teubner-edition by the author (Leipzig 1988), offers a thorough explanation of Fronto's style and language, e.g. of his archaisms and colloquialisms, identification of the persons mentioned, and the chronology of the letters. Seven elaborate indices complete this book.
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1 online resource (xi, 725 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 701-717) and indexes. :
9789004351301 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Museum archetypes and collecting in the ancient world /
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Museum Archetypes and Collecting in the Ancient World offers a broad, yet detailed analysis of the phenomenon of collecting in the ancient world through a museological lens. In the last two decades this has provided a basis for exciting interdisciplinary explorations by archaeologists, art historians, and historians of the history of collecting. This compendium of essays by different specialists is the first general overview of the reasons why ancient civilizations from Archaic Greece to the Late Classical/Early Christian period amassed objects and displayed them together in public, private and imaginary contexts. It addresses the ranges of significance these proto-museological conditions gave to the objects both in sacred and secular settings.
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1 online resource (xiv, 222 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-192) and index. :
9789004283480 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rabbinisme et paganisme en Palestine romaine : étude historique des Realia talmudiques (Ier-IVème siècles) /
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This study deals essentially with the knowledge of the Palestinian Rabbis concerning paganism in the days of Mishna and Talmud. The Late Professor Saul Lieberman wrote that "Many isolated items on idolatry and idol worshippers are scattered all over rabbinic literature. It would require a large volume to treat this topic". This valuable and exhaustive study proves methodically that the Rabbis had deeper knowledge about Syrian, Arabian, Anatolian and Graeco-Roman Pagan cults than is commonly believed. Clear, accessible and displaying considerable scholarship this work will undoubtedly provide an important challenge to both historians, archaeologists, and scholars of Rabbinic texts. *** Cette étude traite essentiellement du niveau de connaissances des Rabbins de Judée et de Galilée concernant les cultes païens dans le sens le plus large du terme. Le Professeur Saul Lieberman affirmait : "Many isolated items on idolatry and idol worshippers are scattered all over rabbinic literature. It would require a large volume to treat this topic" Ce travail exhaustif, à travers l'ensemble du corpus talmudique et au regard de la réalité historique propre à la Palestine romaine, montre méthodiquement que les connaissances des Sages, tant sur les divinités du paganisme que sur des rites syriens, arabes, anatoliens voire gréco-romains, étaient bien plus vastes et approfondies, que ce qu'il est communément admis aujourd'hui par la recherche historique. De part sa clareté et son accessibilité, ce livre intéressera aussi bien les historiens du peuple juif, que ceux des religions antiques. Les archéologues, les historiens du Levant à l'époque romaine, ainsi que les spécialistes de la littérature talmudique y trouveront également un vif intérêt en vertu de son aspect extrêmement novateur.
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1 online resource (xx, 447 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 385-421) and indexes. :
9789047408277 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Greek Identity in the Western Mediterranean : Papers in Honour of Brian Shefton /
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The Greek colonies of the Western Mediterranean were central to the evolution of many aspects of Greek culture and in many cases developed an identity which was significantly different from that of mainland Greece and the Aegean. This volume seeks to explore aspects of the cultural identity of these colonies and how it evolved. It covers the colonial foundations in Italy, Sicily, Southern France, Spain and North Africa, and ranges from the 8th century BC to the early Roman empire. Topics covered include the ethnic identity of the earliest colonial foundations, the evolution of Greek states in the West, the Greeks' perceptions of their own identity and ways of representing it, and the role of the indigenous populations in the evolution of Western Greek culture.
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1 online resource (xxii, 504 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
List of Brian Shefton's works (p. xviii-xix).
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047402664 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Individuals and society in Mycenaean Pylos /
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This book revises our understanding of Mycenaean society through a detailed analysis of individuals attested in the administrative texts from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos in southwestern Greece, circa 1200 BC. It argues that conventional models of Mycenaean society, which focus on administrative titles and terms, can be improved through the study of named individuals. A new, methodologically innovative prosopography demonstrates that many named individuals were not only important managers of palatial affairs but also high-ranking members of the community. This work significantly broadens the elite class and suggests that the palace was less of an agent in its own right than an institutional framework for interactions amongst individuals and social groups.
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1 online resource (xvii, 448 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004251465 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Private and public lies : the discourse of despotism and deceit in the Graeco-Roman world /
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Graeco-Roman literary works, historiography, and even the reporting of rumours were couched as if they came in response to an insatiable desire by ordinary citizens to know everything about the lives of their leaders, and to hold them to account, at some level, for their abuse of constitutional powers for personal ends. Ancient writers were equally fascinated with how these same individuals used deceit as a powerful tool to disguise private and public reality. The chapters in this collection examine the themes of despotism and deceit from both historical and literary perspectives, over a range of historical periods including classical Athens, the Hellenistic kingdoms, late republican and early imperial Rome, late antiquity, and Byzantium.
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"Represents the proceedings of the conference ... held at the University of Melbourne from 7-10 July 2008"--Pref. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [387]-423) and indexes. :
9789004188839 :
1572-0500 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Clause combining in ancient Greek narrative discourse : the distribution of subclauses and participial clauses in Xenophon's Hellenica and Anabasis /
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This study describes the usage of subclauses and participial clauses in Xenophon's Hellenica and Anabasis , with additional examples from other texts, using a text grammar-oriented approach, which can map more factors underlying the distribution of these clauses, and offers a more satisfactory explanation of a larger number of instances than is possible using the traditional sentence-level approach. The discourse-analytic description of the different clause types focuses on how relations are coded by means of subordinating conjunctions, the differences in form and function as discourse boundary markers between preposed, sentence-initially placed subclauses and participles, and the differences between clause types with respect to the information flow in on-going discourse. The discussion of many examples from the work of Xenophon makes this book interesting for both linguists and classical philologists.
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1 online resource (x, 277 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-268) and index. :
9789047406976 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Materiality of Texts from Ancient Egypt, New Approaches to the Study of Textual Material from the Early Pharaonic to the Late Antique Period.
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The volume The Materiality of Texts from Ancient Egypt contains nine contributions from well-known papyrologists, Egyptologists, archaeologists and technical specialists. They discuss the materiality of ancient writing and writing supports in various ways through methodological considerations and through practical case studies from the early Pharaonic to the Late Antique periods in Egypt, including Greek and Egyptian papyri and ostraca, inscriptions and graffiti. The articles in this volume present new approaches to the study of textual material and scribal practice, especially in the light of the ongoing development of digital techniques that uncover new information from ancient writing materials. The aim of the book is to encourage researchers of ancient texts to consider the benefits of using these new methods and technological resources.
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1 online resource. :
9789004375277
Religious practices and Christianization of the late antique city (4th-7th century) /
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In Religious Practices and Christianization of the Late Antique City , historians, archaeologists and historians of religion provide studies of the phenomenon of the Christianization of the Roman Empire within the context of the transformations and eventual decline of the Greco-Roman city. The eleven papers brought together here aim to describe the possible links between religious, but also political, economic and social mutations engendered by Christianity and the evolution of the antique city. Combining a multiplicity of sources and analytical approaches, this book seeks to measure the impact on the city of the progressive abandonment of traditional cults to the advantage of new Christian religious practices.
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1 online resource (vii, 243 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004299047 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Euripides' Bacchae : the play and its audience /
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The purpose of this book is to investigate what it was Euripides intended to convey to the theatre-going public of his day when he wrote his most exciting and most gruesome play, the Bacchae . The meanings which are to be attached to the action of a play are woven by an audience, both during and after the performance, into a single dramatic experience, labelled in this book as 'audience response'. After some introductory chapters dealing with the history of the interpretation of the Bacchae and with the theory of audience response, the main part of the book is devoted to a detailed analysis of the action of the play (chapters 4 and 5), and to a study of Dionysus in his various apects in Athenian life and in his appearances in earlier literature and on the tragic stage. The discussion of the choruses concentrates on the choruses' repeated utterances about cleverness and wisdom, which form the core of the Dionysian propaganda of the play. The most immediate results of this new interpretation of the Bacchae are that the widely-accepted view of Pentheus as a dark puritan, a man possessed by the Dionysian qualities of his divine opponent, proves to be untenable, and that that which in the past has been rightly called the overriding theme of the play - the god's epiphany - also contains the poet's most serious and ironical discussion of divinity and of man's treatment of it. The problems of the Greek text are given full discussion, mainly in the nots and appendices. In many cases new solutions are proposed; some new problems are however added.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Free University of Amsterdam. :
1 online resource (200 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-198) and index. :
9789004328051 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.