The so-called "First Synod of St Patrick" is a short (less than 4 pages) collection of assorted rules for the behaviour of (probably) Irish clergy and laity, possibly originating from the sixth or seventh century. The single manuscript itself is probably from the ninth or even tenth century. This volume prints the results of a symposium held by a group of scholars in Belfast to discuss various aspects of the text and its background. With the text itself in Latin with English translation, a commentary on it, and photographs of the manuscript, the editor and contributors provide a useful glimpse of a difficult but fascinating era in early medieval history.

CONTENTS Classical Latin Poetry C. Tuplin: Cantores Euphorionis (1-23) I.M. LeM. DuQuesnay: Vergil's fourth Eclogue (25-99) E.L. Harrison: Structure and meaning in Vergil's Aeneid (101-12) A. Hardie: Horace Odes 1,37 and Pindar Dithyramb 2 (113-40) C.W. Macleod: Propertius 4.1 (141-53) R. Seager: Horace and the Parthians (summary) (155-56) Medieval Latin Poetry P.G. Walsh: Pastor and pastoral in medieval Latin poetry (157-69) S.F. Ryle: The Sequence: reflections on literature and liturgy (171-82) M. Davie: Dante's Latin Eclogues (183-98) A.B.E. Hood: The Cambridge Songs (summary) (199-200) M. Levy: Persona in twelfth-century Latin poetry (summary) (201-2) K. Maguire: The revision of the Breviary Hymnal under Urban VIII (summary) (203-5) Greek Poetry J.G. Howie: Sappho Fr. 16 (LP): self-consolation and encomium (207-35) G.J. Giesekam: The portrayal of Minos in Bacchylides 17 (237-52) G. Giangrande: Three Alexandrian epigrams: APl 167; Callimachus Epigram 5 (Pf.); AP 12,91 (253-70) G. Giangrande: Aspects of Apollonius Rhodius' language (271-91) F. Cairns: The Distaff of Theugenis – Theocritus Idyll 28 (293-305)

CONTENTS Vergil and Roman Elegy E.L. Harrison: The Noric Plague in Vergil's third Georgic (1-65) H.D. Jocelyn: Vergilius cacozelus (Donatus Vita Vergilii 44) (67-142) T. Krischer: UnHomeric scene-patterns in Vergil (143-54) J.C. Yardley: The door and the lover: Propertius 1,16 (155-62) J.C. McKeown: Ovid Amores 3,12 (163-77) Medieval Latin Poetry and Prose W. Barr: Claudian's In Rufinum: an invective? (179-90) J.E. Cross: Popes of Rome in the Old English Martyrology (191-211) R. Wright: The first poem on the Cid: the Carmen Campi Doctoris (213-48) K. Bate: Twelfth-century Latin comedies and the theatre (249-62) J. Margetts: Christus vitis, praedicator 'quasi vitis': some observations on Meister Eckhart's Latin sermon style (263-76) J. Foster: Petrarch's Africa: Ennian and Vergilian influences (277-98) Greek Lyric and Drama J.G. Howie: Sappho Fr. 94 (LP): farewell, consolation and help in a new life (299-342) W.G. Arnott: Time, plot and character in Menander (343-60)

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Aristotle for a number of intellectual disciplines from Antiquity into the Middle Ages and beyond. However, Aristotle's philosophical ideas - both in themselves and as they were re-worked by later commentators - remain a subject of lively debate among contemporary philosophers and scholars. Form and Universal in Aristotle is a contribution to this controversy, offering the first full-length case against a conventional picture which presents Aristotle as holding an in re theory of universals. Chapters 1-3 argue that forms as such are not universals but particular and identical with particular things. Chapter 4 explains how Alexander of Aphrodisias filled some gaps in this theory and was followed by the Neoplatonic commentators. Excursuses at various points in the book suggest a bearing of this approach on other philosophical difficulties in Aristotle, such as the nature of thought, the extent of God's thought, and the functions of matter.

The International Courtly Literature Society was founded in 1973 to foster the study of all aspects of courtly literature – an interest not limited to European medievalists, although they provide one of the society's main focuses. The ICLS holds triennial international conferences, the third in Liverpool, England in 1980. Professor Glyn Burgess has edited a volume containing about one-third of the papers presented there. He opens it with the three plenary speakers, Charles Muscatine, Alan Deyermond, and John Benton, who illuminate conflicting aspects of life and literature held in tension in the productions of medieval court poets. The remaining 29 contributions represent the principal national literatures discussed at the Congress – English, French, German, Provencal and Spanish – and offer a wide variety of perspectives and approaches to courtly literature, including comparisons between literary and artistic artefacts.

The historical works of the fifth-century AD classicising historians originally covered the years from the death of Claudius II in 270 to the death of Zeno in 491, a period which saw the dismemberment of the western Roman Empire and the transformation of the eastern portion into the Byzantine Empire. These writers now survive only in fragmentary and indirect form. R.C. Blockley’s Fragmentary Classicising Historians has become an indispensable source and resource for students and scholars in this increasingly popular field of study, which offers an illuminating background to understanding current events in the near- and middle-eastern region. R.C. Blockley's reasoned arrangement of the fragments in this volume constitutes a work of absolutely fundamental importance for historians of the period. Part one analyzes the background, opinions and historiography of each of the four writers, with particular emphasis on recovering from the fragments the original structure of their works. Part two presents an annotated conspectus of the fragments, based on close study of all relevant writings, ancient and modern. Although this volume was originally conceived as a stand-alone monograph, it was obvious that the texts themselves in the Blockley order should be made available. Professor Blockley achieved this with Volume II, published separately in 1983, which contains the Greek texts, facing English translation, and historiographical notes.

Late Latin and Early Romance presents a theory of the relationship between Latin and Romance during the period 400-1250. The central hypothesis is that what we now call 'Medieval Latin' was invented around 800 AD when Carolingian scholars standardised the pronunciation of liturgical texts, and that otherwise what was spoken was simply the local variety of Old French, Old Spanish, etc. Thus, the view generally held before the publication of this work, that 'Latin' and 'Romance' existed alongside each other in earlier centuries, is anachronistic. Before 800, Late Latin was Early Romance. This hypothesis is examined first from the viewpoint of historical linguistics, with particular attention paid to the idea of lexical diffusion (ch. 1), and then (ch. 2) through detailed study of pre-Carolingian texts. Chapter 3 deals with the impact in France of the introduction of standardised Latin by Carolingian scholars, and shows how the earliest texts written in the vernacular resulted from it. The final two chapters turn to the situation in Spain from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries. Ch. 4 suggests, on the evidence of a large variety of texts, that before 1080 the new Latin pronunciation (i.e. Medieval Latin) was not used; Ch. 5 charts the slow spread, as a result of Europeanising reforms, of a distinction between Latin and vernacular Romance between 1080 and 1250. There is an extensive bibliography and full indexes. Wright's controversial book presents a wide range of detailed evidence, with extensive quotation of relevant texts and documents. When it was published in 1982 it challenged established ideas in the fields of Romance linguistics and Medieval Latin. The collectively established facts are however explained better by his theory that Medieval Latin was a revolutionary innovation consequent upon liturgical reform, than by the view that it was a miraculous conservative survival that lasted unchanged for a millennium. Late Latin and Early Romance draws on philological, historical and literary evidence from the medieval period, and on historical linguistics, and is a seminal work in these areas of scholarship.

Although writing in Latin, Statius (first-century AD) was, by origin and training, a Greek poet, and his collection of "occasional" poems, the Silvae, are a Roman extension of contemporary trends in Greek display poetry. No reading of the Silvae can be accurate without an understanding of this Graeco-Roman poetic milieu. This book therefore begins with a reconstruction of the professional background to the Silvae - the festival circuit, the conditions of work for writers, their opportunities for advancement in the Greek and Roman worlds - both in the Hellenistic period and in the first century A.D. In this setting, display oratory and poetry are shown to have developed in parallel and to have had a profound mutual influence. Further chapters consider Statius' performances as a Neapolitan poet at Rome, his portrayal of his own society and his friends, and his attitudes to his Latin predecessors. Literary patronage, both imperial and private, is a vital element in Statius' poetic career, and Hardie goes on to investigate the identity and social standing of the addressees of the Silvae . He also considers the career of the contemporary epigrammatist Martial in comparison to that of Statius. Many essential features of Flavian taste emerge from these studies. Large-scale interpretations of individual poems are offered throughout this volume, making many new suggestions about both points of detail and the overall significance of the major poems in the Silvae . Statius and the Silvae is an important contribution to the debate on the relationship between poetry and rhetoric, and to the understanding of how society and literature interconnected in the Flavian age.

Ex-library hardcover from Christ Church, Oxford, with unclipped dust jacket, in very good condition. Jacket is slightly marked, with a label to the spine foot, and a small tear to the front upper edge. Library plate, barcode, and stamp on the front pastedown, FEP, copyright page and page block face respectively. Pages are clear and bright throughout. LW

The Bellum Jugurthinum is the second historical monograph (the other is the Catilina) written by C. Sallustius Crispus (probably 86-35 B.C.), a senator, Caesarian general and historian whose political and literary career spanned the violent years which saw the end of the Roman Republic. The Bellum Jugurthinum describes an earlier war fought in North Africa at the end of the 2nd century B.C. against Jugurtha, an ambitious native prince who tried to win sole power in Numidia by challenging his family's traditional dependence on Rome. The main aims of this commentary are to elucidate Sallust's narrative and to clarify his historiographical principles and methods. Such topics as the chronology and topography of the war, Numidian customs and their royal family, Sallust's sources, the conditions of political life in contemporary Rome, and Sallust's personal views are therefore given ample treatment. Textual, linguistic and literary problems are discussed in so far as they relate to historical and historiographical understanding of Sallust's account. Sallust was indebted to Greek and Roman predecessors, as the commentary indicates. But he also set a new fashion in Roman historiography, as much by his sense of the realities of Roman public life as by the manner of his writing - a style which was later adopted and developed by Tacitus, the great historian of imperial Rome.

Sextus Aurelius Victor was an imperial bureaucrat whose life spanned most of the fourth century AD. Harry Bird describes how Victor, a man of humble African origin, acquired by virtue of his education and personal qualities a consular governorship in Pannonia and the urban prefecture at Rome. Victor's short historical monograph, the De Caesaribus, reveals his attitudes towards education, culture, history and politics - attitudes which probably reflect those of a considerable segment of fourth-century society. We can therefore glimpse how the emperors, the senate, the army and the bureaucracy were perceived, how the changing role of Rome was regarded by many in the West, what was thought of certain provinces and their inhabitants and what was considered to be the raison d'être of the writing of history. All these, together with other minor topics, are explored in Harry Bird's thorough investigation into Victor's life and work. This book will interest students of late Latin literature and thought and those involved in late imperial and early medieval history. It should also appeal to scholars engaged in the study of the Historia Augusta, whether they agree with its findings or not.

For this study of sheep-rearing in Roman Italy, Dr. Frayn presents and evaluates material from epigraphy, law, literature, archaeology, painting and sculpture to illuminate the social life of shepherd communities. Throughout, the ancient evidence for Italian practice is supplemented with comparative material from other ancient societies and (where relevant) from more modern farming experience.

The turning of biblical texts into Latin poetry - biblical paraphrase - was an important literary activity in late antiquity (third to sixth centuries AD). The most important surviving examples of this form are Juvencus and Sedulius (of the Gospels), Arator (of Acts), "Cyprianus Gallus" (Genesis to Judges), Claudius Marius Victorius (Genesis) and Avitus (parts of Genesis and Exodus). Generally described as biblical epics because they are written in hexameters and imitate pagan epic (especially Virgil, they have also been widely recognized to have drawn for their technique of composition on the rhetorical-school exercise of paraphrase. Dr. Roberts analyzes in convincing detail how the epic genre interacted with the biblical text through the medium of paraphrase in order to produce a distinctively Christian literature. He begins by offering the first modern study of paraphrase; two chapters describe its theory and practice, taking into account the standard rhetorical handbooks and more recently discovered papyrological evidence. From this perspective, he analyzes the types of alterations biblical epic writers made to the biblical text, thereby demonstrating the literary effects they were trying to achieve.

The late sixth-century A.D. Greek historian Menander the Guardsman (Menander Protector) wrote during the reign of the emperor Maurice (582-602). His work, which survives in extensive fragments, is a major source for the end of Justinian's reign and those of his successors, Justin II (565-578) and Tiberius II (578-582). Menander's particular interest was diplomacy, and his fragments are an invaluable, and often vivid, commentary on Roman relations with Persians, Avars, Turks and other nations on their eastern frontier. This edition opens with an introductory essay succinctly gathering the available information about Menander and his History and drawing judicious conclusions; the text has a facing English translation; the volume also contains historiographical notes, tables of correlations of the fragments with earlier collections, bibliography and indexes. This edition is part of R.C. Blockley's long-term project on those classicising historians of the later Empire whose work survives in substantial fragments.

In this volume (in Italian), Professor Marco Fantuzzi presents a critical text of the Adonidis Epitaphium by the Hellenistic Greek poet Bion of Smyrna, who worked between 130-120 BC and 57-55 BC. The text is accompanied by the first major commentary on this poet. The Adonidis Epitaphium, a lament for the 'dying god' Adonis, exercised literary influence both in its own time and during the Renaissance and later. In his detailed line-by-line commentary and three Appendixes Marco Fantuzzi examines Bion's language, metrics, literary antecedents (which range from Homer and the lyric poets through tragedy to Callimachus, Apollonius and the epigrammatists), and finally 'generic' aspirations.

The first volume of this major commentary begins appropriately with Prolegomena, before offering a text of Ovid's Amores . The Prolegomena has eight chapters: Tenerorum Lusor Amorum; Doctrina; Recitation; Chronology; The Arrangement of the Poems; The Title; Metre; The Text. Succinct, clear and learned, these chapters alone form an excellent all-round introduction to Ovid as a love-poet, and touch on many aspects of more general relevance to Augustan and Hellenistic poetry. Even in its incomplete form (the final volume is still in preparation), the Commentary on the Amores of Ovid has become a scholarly standard. The introductions to each elegy are succinct, readable and original, and take careful account of relevant modern discussions. The commentary is full of meticulous detail. McKeown's Ovid retains his lightness of touch, however, and poet and commentator share an interest in the wit arising from situation and word-play.

Professor Fehling's important study of source-citations in Herodotus first appeared in German in 1971 ( Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot ). It proved controversial at the time, setting its face as it did against the general trend of Herodotean studies over the preceding few decades. Herodotus and his 'Sources' re-opens the question of the veracity of Herodotus' source-citations, raised in the last century in Britain by A. H. Sayce and in Germany by H. Panofsky. Their view, in essence that Herodotus simply invented most of the sources to which he attributed his information, so that they were without factual basis, met with general disbelief. However, modern arguments in favour of a factual basis are, as Fehling suggests in his Introduction, logically untenable. A rigorous analysis in Chapters 1 and 2 of Herodotus' methods of source-citation, and of his narrative strategies, lays the foundation for chapters on the role of free invention in Herodotus and on Herodotus' use of 'typical numbers'. Some comparative material from other authors, mainly ancient but also medieval, is adduced. A short concluding chapter sketches some of the wider implications of the view adopted in this study. In this English edition, translated by J. G. Howie in close collaboration with the author, numerous small revisions and a few major ones are incorporated. The translator has aimed at clarity and ease of comprehension. This book will be of primary concern to ancient historians and historiographers; narratologists will also find much in it to interest them.

In this commented anthology of Latin prose, Michael von Albrecht selects texts from a span of Roman literature covering four centuries. A summary of the contents will indicate its range and M. Porcius Cato (the preface to De agricultura, a passage from the speech for the Rhodians of 167 B.C., and a section from the Origines ); republican oratory (C. Gracchus, from De legibus promulgatis of 122 B.C. and Cicero from In Verrem II ); Caesar as orator and historian; two passages of Sallust; a comparison of Claudius Quadrigarius and Livy as historiographers; philosophical texts from Cicero and the Younger Seneca; and chapters on Petronius, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Apuleius. The method of the book is practical, based on actual interpretation of specific texts rather than on literary theory (ancient or modern). Each text (printed first in Latin and then in English) is followed by a detailed and flexible discussion, somewhere between essay and commentary. No set pattern is imposed - rather the nature of the text governs the shape of its analysis - but Professor von Albrecht's vivid scholarly exposition covers most dimensions of the art of Latin prose-writing. The book's variety of texts and close treatment of specific Latin passages make it an ideal coursebook for the study of Latin prose. But behind its accessibility lies scholarship of the highest Professor von Albrecht's exemplary erudition reveals itself in the extensive annotation underpinning his main text; and researchers in any of the fields covered by Latin prose-writers - philosophy, politics, history, letters, practical handbooks, entertainment - will find this book a valuable resource. This book was originally published in German ( Meister römischer Prosa von Cato bis Apuleius, 1971). It has been accurately and sympathetically translated by Neil Adkin.

This lexicon provides as comprehensive as possible a list of explicit etymologies of Latin words found in Latin and Greek writers from the time of Varro to Isidore of Seville. Robert Maltby has extracted from glossaries and scholia as well as the standard ancient etymological source books. His policy of quoting extensively, rather than summarizing, reveals the relationships between the various sources and the reasoning behind many of their etymologies. It amounts to a major work of reference.

The fifth century AD has always been a period of intense interest for historians. At the beginning, the Roman Empire looked as impentrable as it had done for centuries, but by 500AD the world had changed beyond recognition. The western emperor had been deposed and the imperial government had lost control of most of Europe. From now on, inhabitants of western Europe lived in a post-Roman world. The writers of Latin histories in the fifth century were not concerned with the minutiae of politcs, or military affairs, they were Christians who saw the development of the world purely as God's plan for humanity. The connection between present and past was best shown through the new type of historical work, the Christian chronicle, the narrative structure of which was based around extensive lists, with minimal written detail. The three chroniclers whose work is discussed here were amongst the earliest to take up this new literary form, and each wrote a continuation of Jerome's chroncile, itself a translation of Eusebius' Christian world chronicle.

Eunapius' Lives of Philosophers and Sophists is a work of considerable importance for the cultural history of the eastern Roman Empire in the fourth century A.D. In particular, it opens a window onto two central aspects of late ancient paganism, Iamblichan Neoplatonism and academic rhetorical culture. This volume offers a close study of the Lives, much of it amounting more or less to a commentary in continuous prose. Greek Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth Century A.D. will interest classicists, students of the later Roman empire and those interested in the history of ancient philosophy.

The early Roman empire took a militaristic attitude towards its neighbours, but by the reign of Justinian a complex stance had evolved in which military force was tempered by diplomacy. Covering the period from the Peace of Nisibis in 299 to the death of Anastasius in 518, the author traces the development of the diplomatic element in late East Roman foreign policy from a mere adjunct or epilogue to war, into something with the capacity of being an alternative for war. Offers a detailed narrative history of the military and diplomatic activity in this field.

Up to the eighteenth century, the Latin biblical epic poets of late antiquity were much read, and were influential on various strands within European poetry. Milton's Paradise Lost is the culmination of the English branch of the tradition. Renewed scholarly interest in the literature of the late Roman period has included a revaluation of its biblical poetry. But attention has been concentrated on the rhetorical skill of the writers; in terms of content it is still often assumed that biblical epic is a straightforward rendering of the bible narrative. Doctrine and Exegesis in Biblical Latin Poetry throws light on an important but under-explored aspect of the content of these works. In a thorough study of how two areas of doctrine significant in late antiquity - the nature of God, and the theory of creation - are represented in the biblical epics, Daniel Nodes shows that the poets were actively commenting on, and propagating particular views of, the vital doctrinal issues of their time. The writers represented in this volume range in time from the fourth to the sixth the female poet Proba (whose Virgilian Cento is one of the earliest examples of biblical epic), Cyprianus Gallus, Hilarius poeta, Claudius Marius Victorius, the north-African Dracontius, and Avitus, Bishop of Vienne. The author draws on the works of the Church Fathers, both Greek and Latin, and on Jewish exegetical writings. The book should interest students of later Latin literature, church history, and theology and exegesis.

The eighth volume of PLLS 8, under the distinguished editorship of Dr Roger Brock (University of Leeds) and Professor A.J. Woodman (Durham University), is dedicated to Professor Ronald Martin for his 80th birthday. Many of the papers assembled in it reflect Ronald Martin's two main areas of scholarly endeavour, Latin comedy and Tacitus.

Updating and enlarging on a lifetime's work on Augustus and his constitutions' Lacey discusses the process of gradual encroachment whereby Augustus unobtrusively and with minimal opposition accumulated more and more power, whilst outwardly retaining the facade of a republic. Chapters examine the constitutional settlements of 27 and 23 BC, to which Lacey attributes less importance than most, the nature of the role given to Agrippa, the evolution of tribunician power, his religious prominence and dynastic arrangements. This all adds up to a very thorough and incisive study of how under Augustus the republic finally died and the principate was born.

A fundamental work on the Amores. McKeown combines the Oxford scholars' generic approach and distinctive layout with the German editor's gargantuan scale, austere manner and formidable philological learning'-JACT review.

The first modern account of the conflict between the eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanian kingdom. Greatrex traces the background to the war, investigating relations between Rome and Persia, the state of Roman defences in the East, and the chaotic situation in Persia at the end of the 5th century. He then examines the sources and the war itself, including the development of Roman defences, and the attempts by both powers to secure control of the Transcaucasian kingdoms.

Virgil's debt to Homer is well known but, as this detailed and specialised analysis demonstrates, Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, itself influenced by Homer, was a more immediate source. Assuming prior knowledge of the texts, Greek and Latin, Damien Nelis scrutinises and compares specific episodes, characters or passages of text from Virgil, Apollonius and Homer, providing a fresh perspective on all three authors, and looks for the reasoning behind Virgil's choice of sources. Extracts in Greek and Latin.

In this useful contribution to a subject of growing importance in contemporary classical studies, Andreas Michalopoulos has collected around 200 etymologies and etymological complexes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. These are listed with brief contextual information, evidence for the etymology from ancient grammarians, discussion of the artistic function of the wordplay, and examples of its use in other works of Ovid and in other Latin poets. The introduction sets out a conceptual framework and succinctly describes etymological techniques particularly typical of (although not unique to) Ovid. As well as adding to the corpus of etymological reference works, this study will increase appreciation both of Ovid's learning and of his wit.

Tibullus is one of the three great Roman elegists. In this volume, the award-winning poet A.M. Juster provides a faithful and stylish new translation of his major work, with parallel Latin text. The Introduction considers Tibullus' poems in the context of classical elegy and in particular the elegies of his contemporaries, Ovid and Propertius, and discusses the influence of his patron Messalla in the reign of Augustus. Finally, Maltby's comprehensive notes explain topical, literary, and mythological allusions and identify major themes. About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This is a major new commentary on Jerome's Libellus de virginitate servanda, the first in any language to be devoted to this work. Written in Rome in 384, this treatise sets out the manner of life appropriate to a Christian virgin. It takes the form of a letter to a specific person, Eustochium, the teenage daughter of an aristocratic family, encouraging her to persevere in her intention of remaining a virgin. The Libellus, however, is more than just a friendly lecture on morality; it is an extensive academic treatise, forty-one chapters long, covering many aspects of virginity. Although the practice of unacknowledged quotation was common and acceptable throughout antiquity, Neil Adkin's commentary shows how far Jerome went in his borrowings from his Greek and Latin patristic predecessors and contemporaries, and also demonstrates how Jerome's brilliance as a writer enhanced his stolen material.

When Anastasius I came to the throne in 491, the Late Roman Empire was in severe difficulty. Internal instability, exacerbated by the dominance of the unpopular Isaurians in Constantinople, resulted in a struggling economy, hostile relations with Persia, the abandonment of Italy to a barbarian king, and doctrinal schisms. Anastasius, an elderly statesman with long experience as an administrator and economist, turned his attention first to the Isaurians, ousting them from the imperial capital and defeating them in their homeland; he could then focus on streamlining the administration, improving the economy, and securing peace and stability on the borders. At his death he left three hundred and twenty thousand pounds of gold in the imperial treasury, a sum crucial for funding the ambitious and grandiose projects of his successor Justinian. Anastasius I: Politics and Empire in the Late Roman World systematically explores the complex interlocking reforms of Anastasius and examines the governance of the late fifth-century empire. Seven Appendixes discuss inter alia the primary sources, and the panegyrics of Priscian and Procopius. The book includes maps, a bibliography and indexes. Latin and Greek are given in the original and in translation; sources from other languages are quoted in English.

Among the works of the fifth-century BC lyric poet Bac­chylides are epinician odes celebrating victors in the cycle of Greek Games, which were occasions of major political, cultural and religious significance in the Greek world. Fourteen of Bac­chylides’ epinician odes survive wholly or in part. The five included in this volume are those that have come down to us in fullest form; they are of great importance for the study of epinician poetry in particular and of early fifth-century lyric in general. In his Introductory Essays and Commentary D. L. Cairns explicates the social, ethical, cultural, and artistic features of Bacchylidean epi­nician within the contexts in which it is so deeply embedded. The volume will be of interest to advanced students and scholars with a good knowledge of the Greek language. It is also designed to be usable by students with little or no Greek. The commentary is keyed to the translation as well as to the Greek text, and the emphasis throughout is more on contextual and literary interpretation than on purely technical aspects of language and metre.

In this pioneering study, first published in German as Pyrsos Hymnon. Festliche Gegenwart und mythisch-rituelle Tradition als Voraussetzung einer Pindarinterpretation (Isthmie 4, Pythie 5, Olympie 1 und 3) (1990), Eveline Krummen examines the related problems of the unity (or intelligibility and cohesion) and the ‘occasionality’ (the heuristic importance of the original performance situation) of Pindaric epinicia. She uses various approaches - including narratology, archaeology, and art history, as well as philology - to recover information about original performance occasions and original audience expectations, and thus to come to a clearer understanding of the structure and strategies of this sometimes baffing poetry. Throughout the book she focuses primarily on the interactions between myths and cult festivals, and on Pindar’s skill in integrating and innovating upon traditional material. An introductory chapter discusses ‘occasionality’ and surveys scholarly views of the unity of Pindaric victory odes in general. The four main chapters deal in turn with each of the Odes selected as ‘case-studies’. These all contain a passage referring to a cult festival. In Isthmian 4 and Pythian 5 the reference is explicit, and to a festival currently being in Olympian 1 reference is made to a festival celebrated earlier at the place of victory, and in Olympian 3 the reference is again arguably to a festival still in progress. Krummen delineates the historical settings of the cults and their related festivals, and each chapter ends with a consideration of how the cult passage fits into the poem as a whole. Brief appendixes list Pindaric allusions to festivals and cults are listed, and give sketch maps of the topography of Thebes and of Cyrene. A bibliography and indexes are included. Study of the cult passages naturally includes study of their related myths. Adopting the approach of modern researchers in religious history, Krummen details the basic patterns, the ‘programmes of actions’ underlying Pindar’s mythical and ritual narratives, patterns fixed in the cultures of the communities concerned. On this basis she shows, for example, that Pindar’s treatment of the myth of Pelops in Olympian 1 goes beyond mere rationalisation; rather he alters its role within the audience’s cultural expectations, in a way that makes his revision not only convincing but also profoundly acceptable. Modern approaches to Greek lyric narrative enable Krummen to clarify sequences of events in Pindar’s foundation myth of Cyrene in Pythian 5, and archaeology guides her to the true role of his topographical allusions within his narrative. Comparison with rituals in other parts of Greece helps to explicate the text in both Olympian 3 and Isthmian 4, and Weinrich’s theory of metaphor, in combination with archaeology, enables Krummen to identify the ‘new-built crownings of altars’ in Isthmian 4 and to reveal their full significance. Finally Krummen’s view of the original occasions and the myths of these odes makes full use of surviving works of art. Throughout, the Greek text is kept firmly in for instance, her meticulous discussion of text, grammar, and tense provides a sound basis for a convincing identification of the Antenorids in Pythian 5 and for the reconstruction of their role in the Carnea in Cyrene. Finally, Krummen reveals how in all four odes the cult passages contribute at literal, figurative, and associative levels to the praise of the patron. In that sense Krummen brings us closer to grasping the unity of these poems. Cult, Myth, and Occasion in Pindar’s Victory Odes has already proved influential in its original German form. J.G. Howie’s English translation will make it widely accessible to students and scholars throughout the English-speaking world. The author. Eveline Krummen has pursued the study of Classical Philology at the Universities of Bern, Zürich, Cambridge, and Tübingen, and she taught as an adjunct at the Universities of Bern and Zürich, occasionally standing in for Professor Most at the University of Heidelberg. At Zürich she was licensed in 1987 with a dissertation later published (1990) as Pyrsos Hymnon. Festliche Gegenwart und mythisch-rituelle Tradition als Voraussetzung einer Pindarinterpretation (Isthmie 4, Pythie 5, Olympie 1 und 3). She was habilitated at Zürich in 1997, with a two-part a monograph on the early Greek lyric in its cultural context; and a text and commentary of Jacoby;s FGrHist Teil IV fasc. 2 on ancient historical writings. In 1999 she was appointed to her present position as Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research interests are in early Greek literature, Greek historiography, and Greek religion, and she has contributed in these fields to a number of periodicals, collected papers, and encyclopaedias. The Translator. J. Gordon Howie studied at the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford (Balliol College), and taught in the Department of Greek (later Clas...