Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity : Studies in Honor of Johan C. Thom /
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This volume celebrates the scholarship of Professor Johan C. Thom by tackling various important topics relevant for the study of the New Testament, such as the intellectual environment of early Christianity, especially Greek, Latin, and early Jewish texts, New Testament apocrypha and other early Christian writings, as well as Greek grammar. The authors offer fresh insights on philosophical texts and traditions, the cultural repertoire of early Christian literature, critical editions, linguistics and interpretation, and comparative analyses of ancient writings.
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1 online resource :
9789004517486
9789004517721
Rhetorical Adaptation in the Greek Historians, Josephus, and Acts vol II : Embedded Speeches, Audience Responses, and Authorial Persuasion /
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A detailed comparative analysis of speaker-audience interactions in Greek historiography, Josephus, and Acts that examines historians' use of speeches as a means of instructing/persuading their readers and highlights Luke's distinctive depiction of the apostles as adaptable yet frequently alienating orators.
Greco-Roman rhetorical theorists insist that speakers must adapt their speeches to their audiences in order to maximize persuasiveness and minimize alienation. Ancient historians adorn their narratives with accounts of attempts at such rhetorical adaptation, the outcomes of which decisively impact the subsequent course of events. These depictions of speaker-audience interactions, moreover, convey crucial didactic/persuasive insights to the historians' own audiences. This monograph presents a detailed comparative analysis of the intra- and extra-textual functions of speeches and audience responses in Greek historiography, Josephus, and Acts, with special emphasis on Luke's distinctive depiction of the apostles as adaptable yet frequently alienating orators.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004524057
9789004524040
Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity : Studies in Honor of Johan C. Thom /
:
This volume celebrates the scholarship of Professor Johan C. Thom by tackling various important topics relevant for the study of the New Testament, such as the intellectual environment of early Christianity, especially Greek, Latin, and early Jewish texts, New Testament apocrypha and other early Christian writings, as well as Greek grammar. The authors offer fresh insights on philosophical texts and traditions, the cultural repertoire of early Christian literature, critical editions, linguistics and interpretation, and comparative analyses of ancient writings.
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1 online resource :
9789004517486
9789004517721
Ammianus Marcellinus From Soldier to Author /
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Ammianus Marcellinus was a soldier and an author. This book explores how his experience of 4th-century military life affected his writing of history and conversely how his knowledge of literature influenced his writing about the Roman army.
Ammianus Marcellinus composed a history of the Roman empire from 96 AD to 378 AD, focusing on the mid-fourth century during which he served in the army. His experience as a soldier during this period provides crucial realia of warfare, while his knowledge of literature, especially the genre of historiography, enabled him to imbue his narrative with literary flair. This book explores the tension between Ammianus' roles as soldier and author, examining how his military experience affected his history, and conversely how his knowledge of literature affected his descriptions of the Roman army.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004525351
9789004525290
Herodian's World : Empire and Emperors in the III Century /
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The History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus of Herodian in eight books, written in Greek, is a key source for the period from the reign of Commodus (AD 180) to that of Gordian III (238). Herodian is an eyewitness and the only contemporary historian whose work has come down to us in full. His point of view is all the more valuable because he is an outsider with respect to both court historiography, whose flattery he stigmatized, and to senatorial historians, represented mainly by Cassius Dio and by the biographies in the Historia Augusta . Nonetheless, Herodian has often been harshly criticized as a historian. This volume aims to shed light on the different areas and themes in which his historical work moves - literary technique, political lexicon, religious conception, geographical space, economic, political, cultural and military themes - to better understand the relevance of his historiographical approach and his historical thought.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004500457
9789004500235
Sallust and the Fall of the Republic : Historiography and Intellectual Life at Rome /
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This book offers a new interpretation of the Roman historian Sallust, which places him at the centre of the rich intellectual world of late Republican Rome. Drawing on the evidence of Sallust's digressions in particular, and in contrast to previous views of his work as purely moralistic or unsophisticated, it argues that Sallust uses his historiography to advance a coherent set of ideas about the political chaos he saw around him, and to participate in the broader debates which characterised his period. It also offers a new perspective on the argumentative qualities of classical historiography more widely.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004501737
9789004501713
Ambiguities of War: A Narratological Commentary on Silius Italicus' Battle of Ticinus (Sil. 4.1-479) /
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The book lays bare the narrative form of Silius' text. It focuses on the phenomenon of ambiguity due to the epic's constant oscillation between fact and fiction, highlighting Roman triumph in defeat and defeat through triumph.
This Narratological Commentary on Silius' Battle of Ticinus lays bare the narrative form of the text by addressing numerous narratological aspects, including plot-development, focalization, space, and intertextuality. The book also focuses on the phenomenon of ambiguity with its dynamic processes of (un-)strategic production, perception, and resolution. Ambiguity is a central feature of the Punica because of the epic's constant oscillation between fact and fiction: it treats the changing fortunes of war and the tension between Rome and Carthage, which Silius translates into a moment of poetical equilibrium by his paradoxical problematization of triumph in defeat and defeat through triumph.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004522671
9789004522664
Canonisation as Innovation : Anchoring Cultural Formation in the First Millennium BCE /
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Drawing on case-studies from the first millennium BCE, this volume explores canonisation as a form of cultural formation. The book asks why and how canonisation works and thereby investigates the importance of the concept of anchoring to arrive at innovation in particular.
Canonisation is fundamental to the sustainability of cultures. This volume is meant as a (theoretical) exploration of the process, taking Eurasian societies from roughly the first millennium BCE (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and Roman) as case studies. It focuses on canonisation as a form of cultural formation, asking why and how canonisation works in this particular way and explaining the importance of the first millennium BCE for these question and vice versa. As a result of this focus, notions like anchoring, cultural memory, embedding and innovation play an important role throughout the book.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004520264
9789004520257
Visualizing the Poetry of a Statius : An Intertextual Approach /
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Scholars have long noted the strikingly visual aspects of Statius' poetry. This book advances our understanding of how these visual aspects work through intertextual analysis. In the Thebaid , for instance, Statius repeatedly presents "visual narratives" in the form of linked descriptive (or ekphrastic) passages. These narratives are subject to multiple forms visual interpretation inflected by the intertextual background. Similarly, the Achilleid activates particularly Roman conceptions of masculinity through repeated evocations of Achilles' blush. The Silvae offer a diversity of modes of viewing that evoke Roman conceptions of gender and class.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004498860
9789004498853
Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla /
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Long regarded as a sycophantic producer of overblown moral platitudes, Valerius Maximus emerges from a series of studies as an independent thinker capable of challenging his readers through the material he has collected: he makes them think about real moral dilemmas and grants to non-Roman societies a remarkable equivalence to Rome. Through his silences as much as his sermons he decodes the value- and political-system of his day. Valerius is talented as a reader of others and himself was read appreciatively in the Later Empire and even more so by Christians in Medieval Europe.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004499423
9789004499409