Books in the Sozomena series

Consists of linguistic case-studies of selected features of the language and meter of Plautus. This book investigates these phenomena for the light they can shed on the prosodic organization of Latin speech and the intersection between prosodic phonology and syntax.

The Villa of the Papyri is a unique archaeological site and has been very influential in the field of classical studies. This volume presents contributions on the Villa's architecture, decoration, and content; their reception since the 18th century; and the state of knowledge based on the partial excavations in the Villa.

It contains 65 short new studies on Orphic fragments by leading international scholars who comment one of the most controversial phenomena in Antiquity from a plurality of perspectives. Readers will acquire a global vision of the multiple dimensions of the Orphic tradition, as well as many new insights into particular Orphic fragments.

The Poetics of Philosophical Language

Ibycus is one of the nine canonical lyric poets, a crucial figure in the history of Greek poetry and the archaic world. His work has value both for its own poetic qualities and for its importance from a literary-historical point of view. Ibycus' imagery is complex and demanding, his intertextual relationships sophisticated and his use of metre both traditional and innovative. His work also helps us to understand the relationship between the poetry of West and East Greece and to further our knowledge of patronage and the epinician tradition. This commentary includes an introduction to Ibycus' life and poetry, covering the internal and external evidence for his life and the content, imagery and metre of his poetry. It then offers an individual analysis and detailed commentary on a selection of Ibycus' poems, including both the more famous poems and less well-known fragments, all of which give insight into his style and themes, as well as his relationship to other poets of the period. The commentary also offers a re-examination of the fragments preserved on the Oxyrhynchus papyri, providing a new edition of these poems which gets as close as possible to the material preserved.

Many recent discoveries have confirmed the importance of Orphism for ancient Greek religion, philosophy and literature. Its nature and role are still, however, among the most debated problems of Classical scholarship. A cornerstone of the question is its relationship to Christianity, which modern authors have too often discussed from apologetic perspectives or projections of the Christian model into its supposed precedent. Besides, modern approaches are strongly based on ancient ones, since Orpheus and the poems and mysteries attributed to him were fundamental in the religious controversies of Late Antiquity. Both Pagan and Christian authors often present Orphism as a precedent, alternative or imitation of Chistianity.This free and thorough study of the ancient sources sheds light on these controversial questions. The presence of the Orphic tradition in Imperial Age, documented by literary and epigraphical evidence, is confronted with the informations transmitted by Christian apologists on Orphic poems and cults. The manifold Christian treatments of Pagan sources, and their particular value to understand Greek religion, are illuminated by this specific case, which exemplifies the complex encounter between Classical culture and Jewish-Christian tradition.

This book provides the first full edition and commentary of the Oxyrhynchus Glossary (POxy 1802 and 4812). This is a unique document both for the history of Greek lexicography and for the study of the cultural and linguistic exchange between the Greeks and the "e;others"e; in the Hellenistic near East. The fragment contains a fully alphabetized glossary with lemmas defined as "e;Persian,"e; "e;Babylonian,"e; and "e;Chaldaean"e;, as well as lemmas taken from Greek dialects or common Greek. The entries are rich in quotations from ancient authorities including Berossus, Apollodorus and Erasistratus. This glossary had never been analyzed in depth previously.Francesca Schironiprovides a comprehensive introduction and commentary that places the Oxyrhynchus Glossary into the wider context of Greek lexicography and scholarship, discusses its interest for non-Greek languages and the problems related to linguistic exchanges in the Near Eastern areas, and shows the uniqueness and value of this document. The Oxyrhynchus glossary and this study will be of interest to classicists, papyrologists, comparative philologists, and scholars interested in the history of Greek lexicography and scholarship.

This book reconstructs the Stoic doctrine of prolepsis. Prolepses are conceptions that develop naturally from ordinary experience. They are often identified with preconceptions (i.e. the first conceptions one unconsciously forms of something). However, this is inconsistent with the Stoics' claim that prolepseis are criteria of truth. Rather, prolepseis are analytically true claims embedded within one's ordinary conceptual scheme (e.g. the good is beneficial). When they have been articulated and systematized, prolepseis can be used to judge conceptual claims that go beyond the scope of sense-perceptual knowledge (e.g. pleasure is the good). The Stoics often refer to prolepseis as "e;common conceptions"e; to emphasize that they are shared by everyone, although in most people they remain unarticulated. This reconstruction suggests that Chrysippus was influenced by Platonic recollection to a greater extent than previously recognized. It supports the orthodoxy of Epictetus' statements about prolepsis and suggests that later authors who assimilate the Epicurean and Stoic doctrines were misled by the polemical attacks of Carneades. The argument of the book is supported by a comprehensive collection of fragments relating to prolepsis in Epicurus, the early Stoa, Cicero, Epictetus, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, and Alexander of Aphrodisias.

The use of significant proper names is one of the most entertaining aspects of Aristophanes' art; unsurprisingly, it has received much scholarly attention. But although there are a large number of articles and scattered comments on individual names, the present book offers the first systematic study on the subject. It is, as far as possible, an exhaustive discussion of significant proper names that appear in Aristophanes' eleven extant plays: personal names (which occupy the largest part), theonyms, place-names, ethnics and demotics - all names that seem to be deliberately used for their meanings. Two appendixes discuss slave-names and selected names from Aristophanes' fragmentary plays. Names are carefully analysed in their context, taking into account a range of factors such as language (etymology and word-plays), the content of the plays (the plots, set against their political and social background), and issues of characterisation. This work is thus meant to contribute simultaneously to Aristophanic scholarship, by enabling a deeper appreciation of Aristophanes humour, and to the field of Greek literary onomastics.

Lucretius and His Sources

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference on the Presocratic philosophers Pythagoras and Heraclitus. Designed for all students of ancient philosophy, this volume will spur further investigations into these cardinal concerns of early Greek scientific thinkers.

Sozomena"e; bedeutet auf Griechisch Gerettetes"e;. Die Reihe widmet sich der Erschlieung von Texten, die aus der griechischen und romischen Antike nur durch ausserordentliche Fund-Umstande erhalten geblieben sind - allen voran durch Papyri, von denen Tausende in Universitaten und Bibliotheken unentziffert vorhanden sind. Die Reihe soll hauptsachlich Texte edieren und interpretieren, aber auch die Methoden der Erschlieung diskutieren. Verschiedene Buchtypen werden daher hier veroffentlicht: Texteditionen, Kommentare, Monographien und Sammelbande. Die Hauptsprache der Publikationen ist Englisch, daneben auch Deutsch und Italienisch. Herausgegeben werden die Sozomena von Alessandro Barchiesi (Harvard, MA), Robert Fowler (Bristol), Dirk Obbink (Oxford und Ann Arbor, MI) und Nigel Wilson (Oxford) im Namen der Herculaneum Society, die zur Forderung der Erschlieung des wichtigsten Fundkomplexes antiker Papyri gegrundet wurde: der Villa dei Papiri im Pompeji benachbarten antiken Herculaneum mit ihren zum Teil noch nicht ausgegrabenen Schatzen an Textrollen.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to the appreciation of the linguistic, literary and contextual value of Homeric personal names. This is an old topic, which famously interested Plato, and an object of constant scholarly attention from the time of ancient commentators to the present day. The book begins with an introduction to the particularly complex set of factors that affect all efforts to interpret Homeric names. The main chapters are structured around the character and action of selected heroes in their Homeric contexts (in the case of the Iliad, a heroic war; the Odyssey chapter encompasses more than one planes of action). They offer a survey of modern etymologies, set against ancient views on names and naming, in order to reconstruct (as far as possible) the reception of significant names by ancient audiences and further to shed light on the parameters surrounding the choice and use of personal names in Homer. An Appendix touches on the underexplored career of Homeric personal names as historical names, offering data and a preliminary analysis.