Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy

This book presents a radically revised version of some of the most important and innovative articles published by Alan Cameron in the field of late antique Greek poetry and philosophy. Much new material has been added to the account of the "Wandering Poets" from early Byzantine Egypt, and earlier judgment on their paganism is nuanced. The story of Cyrus of Panopolis and the empress Eudocia takes into count important recent work on the poetry of Eudocia. Several chapters discuss the date and identity of the influential poet Nonnus. The longest chapter reviews the celebrated story of the so-called closing of the Academy of Athens and the trip of its seven remaining philosophers to the court of the Persian king Chosroes, rejecting the fashionable current idea that they set up a new school at Harran on the Persian border. An entirely new chapter discusses a recently published papyrus containing poems of the Alexandrian epigrammatist Palladas, rejecting the editor's claim that Palladas wrote almost a century earlier than hitherto believed. A concluding chapter discusses recent claims about same-sex marriage in the Roman world.

Alan Cameron taught classics at Columbia University for more than 30 years. Educated at Oxford University, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the American Philosophical Society, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His most recent book wasThe Last Pagans of Rome (2011). In 2013 he was awarded the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies.