Leon Battista Alberti was one of the most important humanist scholars of the Italian Renaissance. Active in mid-fifteenth-century Florence, he was an architect, theorist, and author of texts on perspective and painting. Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting is a cardinal work that revolutionized Western art. In this volume Rocco Sinisgalli presents a new English translation and critical examination of Alberti's seminal text. Dr Sinisgalli reverses the received understanding of the relationship between the Italian and Latin versions of Alberti's treatise by demonstrating that Alberti wrote it first in Italian and then translated it into a polished Latin over the course of several decades. This volume is richly illustrated to help demonstrate how Alberti understood optics and art.
The contact zones between the Greco-Roman world and the Near East represent one of the most exciting and fast-moving areas of ancient-world studies. This new collection of essays, by world-renowned experts (and some new voices) in classical, Jewish, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Persian literature, focuses specifically on prose fiction, or 'the ancient novel'. Twenty chapters either offer fresh readings - from an intercultural perspective - of familiar texts (such as the biblical Esther and Ecclesiastes, Xenophon of Ephesus' Ephesian Story and Dictys of Crete's Journal), or introduce material that may be new to many readers: from demotic Egyptian papyri through old Avestan hymns to a Turkic translation of the Life of Aesop. The volume also considers issues of methodology and the history of scholarship on the topic. A concluding section deals with the question of how narratives, patterns and motifs may have come to be transmitted between cultures.
Book VI of the Histories is one of Herodotus' most varied books, beginning with the final collapse of the Ionian Revolt and moving on to the Athenian triumph at Marathon (490 BC); it also includes fascinating material on Sparta, full of court intrigue and culminating in Kleomenes' grisly death, and there is comedy too, with Alkmeon's cramming clothes, boots, and even cheeks with gold dust, then Hippokleides 'dancing away his marriage'. In Herodotus' time, Marathon was already reaching almost legendary status, commemorated in epigrams and monuments, and in this edition a substantial introduction discusses Herodotus' relation to these other memorials. It also explores the place of the book in the Histories' overall structure, and pays particular attention to Herodotus' treatment of impiety. A new text is then accompanied by a full commentary, covering literary and historical aspects and offering help with translation. The volume is suitable for undergraduates, graduate students, teachers
Outlines of Scepticism, by the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, is a work of major importance for the history of Greek philosophy. It is the fullest extant account of ancient scepticism, and it is also one of our most copious sources of information about the other Hellenistic philosophies. Its first part contains an elaborate exposition of the Pyrrhonian variety of scepticism; its second and third parts are critical and destructive, arguing against 'dogmatism' in logic, epistemology, science and ethics - an approach that revolutionized the study of philosophy when Sextus' works were rediscovered and published in the sixteenth century. This volume presents the accurate and readable translation which was first published in 1994, together with a substantial new historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Barnes.
The Birth of Tragedy is one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period. Nietzsche's discussion of the nature of culture, of the conditions under which it can flourish and of those under which it will decline, his analysis of the sources of discontent with the modern world, his criticism of rationalism and of traditional morality, his aesthetic theories and his conception of the 'Dionysiac' have had a profound influence on the philosophy, literature, music, and politics of the twentieth century. This edition presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. The volume also includes two essays on related topics that Nietzsche wrote during the same period, and that throw further light on the themes treated in the main text.
The works translated here deal with two major themes in the thinking of St Augustine (354–430): free will and divine grace. On the one hand, free will enables human beings to make their own choices; on the other hand, God's grace is required for these choices to be efficacious. 'On the Free Choice of the Will', 'On Grace and Free Choice', 'On Reprimand and Grace' and 'On the Gift of Perseverance' set out Augustine's theory of human responsibility, and sketch a subtle reconciliation of will and grace. This volume is the first to bring together Augustine's early and later writings on these two themes, in a new translation by Peter King, enabling the reader to see what Augustine regarded as the crowning achievement of his work. The volume also includes a clear and accessible introduction that analyzes Augustine's key philosophical lines of thought.
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
Kant's views on logic and logical theory play an important part in his critical writings, especially the Critique of Pure Reason. However, since he published only one short essay on the subject, we must turn to texts derived from his logic lectures to understand his views. This volume includes three previously untranslated transcripts of Kant's logic lectures: the Blomberg Logic (1770s), the Vienna Logic supplemented by the recently discovered Hechsel Logic (1780s), and the Dohna-Wundlacken Logic (1790s). Also included is a new translation of the Jäsche Logic, compiled at Kant's request from his lectures and published in 1800, and concordances relating Kant's lectures to Georg Friedrich Meier's Excerpts from the Doctrine of Reason, the book on which Kant lectured throughout his life and in which he left extensive notes.
Themistius' close relationship with Christian emperors from Constantius to Theodosius makes him one of the most important political thinkers and politicians of the later fourth century, and his dealings with Julian the Apostate have recently attracted much speculation. This volume presents a new critical edition, translation and analysis of Themistius' letter to Julian about kingship and government, which survives mainly in Arabic, together with texts, translations and analyses of Julian's Letter to Themistius and Sopater's Letter to Himerius. The volume is completed with a text, translation and analysis of the other genuine work of Greek political theory to survive in Arabic, the Letter of Aristotle to Alexander, which dates from an earlier period and throws into relief the particular concerns of Themistius, Julian, and the rulers of the fourth-century Roman world.
Livy's Ab urbe condita Book XXII narrates Hannibal's massive defeats of the Romans at Trasimene (217 BC) and Cannae (216 BC). It is Livy's best and most dramatic book, and the one most likely to appeal to students at every level. Livy drew on the Greek historian Polybius, but transformed his drier treatment into a rhetorical masterpiece, which by a series of insistent thematic contrasts brings out the tensions between the delaying tactics of Fabius and the costly rashness of Flaminius, Minucius and Varro. A substantial and accessibly written introduction by two experienced commentators covers historical, religious, literary and linguistic matters, including the place of Book XXII in the structure of Livy's long work. A new text by Briscoe is followed by a full commentary, covering literary and historical aspects and offering frequent help with translation. The volume is suitable for undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, and scholars.
Livy's Ab urbe condita Book XXII narrates Hannibal's massive defeats of the Romans at Trasimene (217 BC) and Cannae (216 BC). It is Livy's best and most dramatic book, and the one most likely to appeal to students at every level. Livy drew on the Greek historian Polybius, but transformed his drier treatment into a rhetorical masterpiece, which by a series of insistent thematic contrasts brings out the tensions between the delaying tactics of Fabius and the costly rashness of Flaminius, Minucius and Varro. A substantial and accessibly written introduction by two experienced commentators covers historical, religious, literary and linguistic matters, including the place of Book XXII in the structure of Livy's long work. A new text by Briscoe is followed by a full commentary, covering literary and historical aspects and offering frequent help with translation. The volume is suitable for undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, and scholars.
This volume provides a new critical text of the Prologue and the first two books of Venantius Fortunatus' Vita Sancti Martini, a work, written in the latter half of the sixth century, which paraphrases in epic verse the famous prose hagiography of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus. This edition offers the first English translation of and the first full commentary on that part of Venantius' poem. Venantius was one of the last writers in a recognisably classical Latin tradition and his Vita affords a fascinating insight into the language and literary culture of his time. It is, however, a deceptively allusive and difficult poem, and the introduction and commentary of this book deal extensively with matters of exegesis, textual criticism, language, metre and much else. It will be valuable for students of the literature and culture of late Latin antiquity, and for those interested in early Christianity and hagiography.
All Galen's surviving shorter works on psychology and ethics - including the recently discovered Avoiding Distress, and the neglected Character Traits, extant only in Arabic - are here presented in one volume in a new English translation, with substantial introductions and notes and extensive glossaries. Original and penetrating analyses are provided of the psychological and philosophical thought, both of the above and of two absolutely central works of Galenic philosophy, Affections and Errors and The Capacities of the Soul, by some of the foremost experts in the field. Each treatise has also been subjected to fresh textual study, taking account of the latest scholarly developments, and is presented with accompanying textual discussions, adding greatly to the value and accuracy of the work without detracting from its accessibility to a wider readership. The volume thus makes a major contribution to the understanding of the ancient world's most prominent doctor-philosopher in his intel
