Myth, Literature, and the Creation of the Topography of Thebes

Myth, Literature, and the Creation of the Topography of Thebes PDF Author: Daniel W. Berman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107077362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This book shows how the legendary past of Greek Thebes influenced the development of the city's landscape from the time of the oral epics to the Roman period. It will appeal to readers with interests in the relationships between Greek myth, ancient topography and archaeology, and the development of urban space.

Myth, Literature, and the Creation of the Topography of Thebes

Myth, Literature, and the Creation of the Topography of Thebes PDF Author: Daniel W. Berman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107077362
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This book shows how the legendary past of Greek Thebes influenced the development of the city's landscape from the time of the oral epics to the Roman period. It will appeal to readers with interests in the relationships between Greek myth, ancient topography and archaeology, and the development of urban space.

Myth, Locality, and Identity in Pindar's Sicilian Odes

Myth, Locality, and Identity in Pindar's Sicilian Odes PDF Author: Virginia M. Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190910321
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Myth, Locality, and Identity argues that Pindar engages in a striking, innovative style of mythmaking that represents and shapes Sicilian identities in his epinician odes for Sicilian victors in the fifth century BCE. While Sicily has been thought to be lacking in local traditions for Pindar to celebrate, Lewis argues that the Sicilian odes offer examples of the formation of local traditions: the monster Typho whom Zeus defeated to become king of the gods, for example, now lives beneath Mt. Aitna; Persephone receives the island of Sicily as a gift from Zeus; and the Peloponnesian river Alpheos travels to Syracuse in pursuit of the local spring nymph Arethusa. By weaving regional and Panhellenic myth into the local landscape, as the book shows, Pindar infuses physical places with meaning and thereby contextualizes people, cities, and their rulers within a wider Greek framework. During this time period, Greek Sicily experienced a unique set of political circumstances: the inhabitants were continuously being displaced, cities were founded and resettled, and political leaders rose and fell from power in rapid succession. This book offers the first sustained analysis of myth in Pindar's odes for Sicilian victors across the island that accounts for their shared context. The nodes of myth and place that Pindar fuses in this poetry reinforce and develop a sense of place and community for citizens locally; at the same time, they raise the profile of physical sites and the cities attached to them for larger audiences across the Greek world. In addition to providing new readings of Pindaric odes and offering a model for the formation of Sicilian identities in the first half of the fifth century, the book contributes new insights into current debates on the relationship between myth and place in classical literature.

Aeschylus and War

Aeschylus and War PDF Author: Isabelle Torrance
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317196473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary experts who demonstrate that Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes is a text of continuing relevance and value for exploring ancient, contemporary and comparative issues of war and its attendant trauma. The volume features contributions from an international cast of experts, as well as a conversation with a retired U.S. Army Lt. Col., giving her perspectives on the blending of reality and fiction in Aeschylus’ war tragedies and on the potential of Greek tragedy to speak to contemporary veterans. This book is a fascinating resource for anyone interested in Aeschylus, Greek tragedy and its reception, and war literature.

The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths

The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths PDF Author: William Hansen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691195927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 579

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Book Description
The first anthology to present the entire range of ancient Greek and Roman stories- from myths and fairy tales to jokes Captured centaurs and satyrs, talking animals, people who suddenly change sex, men who give birth, the temporarily insane and the permanently thick-witted, delicate sensualists, incompetent seers, a woman who remembers too much, a man who cannot laugh-these are just some of the colorful characters who feature in the unforgettable stories that ancient Greeks and Romans told in their daily lives. Together they created an incredibly rich body of popular oral stories that include, but range well beyond, mythology-from heroic legends, fairy tales, and fables to ghost stories, urban legends, and jokes.

The Sacred Band

The Sacred Band PDF Author: James Romm
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501198025
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
From classicist James Romm comes a “striking…fascinating” (Booklist) deep dive into the last decades of ancient Greek freedom leading up to Alexander the Great’s destruction of Thebes—and the saga of the greatest military corps of the time, the Theban Sacred Band, a unit composed of 150 pairs of male lovers. The story of the Sacred Band, an elite 300-man corps recruited from pairs of lovers, highlights a chaotic era of ancient Greek history, four decades marked by battles, ideological disputes, and the rise of vicious strongmen. At stake was freedom, democracy, and the fate of Thebes, at this time the leading power of the Greek world. The tale begins in 379 BC, with a group of Theban patriots sneaking into occupied Thebes. Disguised in women’s clothing, they cut down the agents of Sparta, the state that had cowed much of Greece with its military might. To counter the Spartans, this group of patriots would form the Sacred Band, a corps whose history plays out against a backdrop of Theban democracy, of desperate power struggles between leading city-states, and the new prominence of eros, sexual love, in Greek public life. After four decades without a defeat, the Sacred Band was annihilated by the forces of Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander in the Battle of Chaeronea—extinguishing Greek liberty for two thousand years. Buried on the battlefield where they fell, they were rediscovered in 1880—some skeletons still in pairs, with arms linked together. From violent combat in city streets to massive clashes on open ground, from ruthless tyrants to bold women who held their era in thrall, The Sacred Band recounts “in fluent, accessible prose” (The Wall Street Journal) the twists and turns of a crucial historical moment: the end of the treasured freedom of ancient Greece.

The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion

The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Hans Beck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009301845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Explores the many ways in which ancient Greek religious beliefs and practices operated in their various local contexts.

Structures of Epic Poetry

Structures of Epic Poetry PDF Author: Christiane Reitz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110492598
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 2760

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Book Description
This compendium (4 vols.) studies the continuity, flexibility, and variation of structural elements in epic narratives. It provides an overview of the structural patterns of epic poetry by means of a standardized, stringent terminology. Both diachronic developments and changes within individual epics are scrutinized in order to provide a comprehensive structural approach and a key to intra- and intertextual characteristics of ancient epic poetry.

The Cambridge Guide to Homer

The Cambridge Guide to Homer PDF Author: Corinne Ondine Pache
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108663621
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 985

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Book Description
From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.

Lexicon of Argead Makedonia

Lexicon of Argead Makedonia PDF Author: Waldemar Heckel
Publisher: Frank & Timme GmbH
ISBN: 3732904059
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
This is the first lexicon focusing exclusively on Argead Makedonia. Spanning from the mythical foundation of the realm to the death of the last Argead ruler, Alexander IV, 247 entries written by 44 international scholars provide information on central aspects of the politics, culture, society, and economy of Argead Makedonia, on the ancient evidence, and on scholarly issues. Argead Makedonia emerged in the 7th century BC. From the late 6th century to its rise to hegemony under Philip II in the 4th century BC, it formed part of Mediterranean history and crossed the paths of the Greek poleis, the Persian Empire, and neighbouring regions such as Thessaly, Illyria, and Thrace.

Nomads of the Mediterranean: Trade and Contact in the Bronze and Iron Ages

Nomads of the Mediterranean: Trade and Contact in the Bronze and Iron Ages PDF Author: Ayelet Gilboa
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004430113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Three millennia of cross-Mediterranean bonds are revealed by the 18 expert summaries in this book—from the dawn of the Bronze Age to the budding of Hellenization. An international team of acclaimed specialists in their fields—archaeologists, historians, geomorphologists, and metallurgists—shed light on a plethora of aspects associated with travelling this age-old sea and its periphery: environmental factors; the formation of harbors; gateways; commodities; the crucial role of metals; cultural impact; and the way to interpret the agents such as Canaanites, "Sea Peoples," Phoenicians, and pirates. The book will engage any student of the Old World in the 3000 years before the Common Era.