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In a culture where the supernatural possessed an immediacy now strange to us, magic was of great importance both in the literary and mythic tradition and in ritual practice. Recently, ancient magic ha

In classical antiquity, there was much interest in necromancy--the consultation of the dead for divination. People could seek knowledge from the dead by sleeping on tombs, visiting oracles, and attemp

Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Wolrds is the first substantial survey to be focally devoted to the "dragon" or the supernatural serpent, the drakon or draco, in Greek and

Stories about dragons, serpents, and their slayers make up a rich and varied tradition within ancient mythology and folklore. In this sourcebook, Daniel Ogden presents a comprehensive and easily acces

Stories about dragons, serpents, and their slayers make up a rich and varied tradition within ancient mythology and folklore. In this sourcebook, Daniel Ogden presents a comprehensive and easily acces

Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) has become a figure emblematic of his age—as well as one continually reassessed in our own time by generations of scholars, historians, and critics. This

Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) has become a figure emblematic of his age—as well as one continually reassessed in our own time by generations of scholars, historians, and critics. This

Societies are defined at their margins. In the ancient Greek world bastards were often marginalized, their affinities being with the female, the alien, the servile, the poor, and the sick. The study o

In the chaos that followed the death of Alexander the Great his distinguished marshal Seleucus was reduced to a fugitive, with only a horse to his name. But by the time of his own death, Seceucus had reconstructed the bulk of Alexander's empire, built Antioch, and become a king in his turn, one respected for justness in an age of cruelty. The dynasty he founded was to endure for three centuries. Such achievements richly deserved to be projected into legend, and so they were. This legend told of Seleucus' divine siring by Apollo, his escape from Babylon with an enchanted talisman, his foundations of cities along a dragon-river with the help of Zeus' eagles, his surrender of his new wife to his besotted son, and his revenge, as a ghost, upon his assassin. This is the first book in any language devoted to the reconstruction of this fascinating tradition.

In the chaos that followed the death of Alexander the Great his distinguished marshal Seleucus was reduced to a fugitive, with only a horse to his name. But by the time of his own death, Seceucus had reconstructed the bulk of Alexander's empire, built Antioch, and become a king in his turn, one respected for justness in an age of cruelty. The dynasty he founded was to endure for three centuries. Such achievements richly deserved to be projected into legend, and so they were. This legend told of Seleucus' divine siring by Apollo, his escape from Babylon with an enchanted talisman, his foundations of cities along a dragon-river with the help of Zeus' eagles, his surrender of his new wife to his besotted son, and his revenge, as a ghost, upon his assassin. This is the first book in any language devoted to the reconstruction of this fascinating tradition.

Night's Black Agents offers an introduction to the world of witches and wizards in Greek and Roman antiquity, and to the ghosts of the dead that were often associated with them. In its pages Daniel O

The strix was a persistent feature of the folklore of the Roman world and subsequently that of the Latin West and the Greek East. She was a woman that flew by night, either in an owl-like form or in the form of a projected soul, in order to penetrate homes by surreptitious means and thereby devour, blight or steal the new-born babies within them. The motif-set of the ideal narrative of a strix attack - the 'strix-paradigm' - is reconstructed from Ovid, Petronius, John Damascene and other sources, and the paradigm's impact is traced upon the typically gruesome representation of witches in Latin literature. The concept of the strix is contextualised against the longue-durée notion of the child-killing demon, which is found already in the ancient Near East, and shown to retain a currency still as informing the projection of the vampire in Victorian fiction.

Aristomenes was the legendary hero of the Messenian wars who led resistence against Sparta and yet, despite a full account of his heroic deeds by Pausanias, is now almost forgotten. This detailed stud

The son of Zeus, Perseus belongs in the first rank of Greek heroes. Indeed to some he was a greater hero even than Heracles. With the help of Hermes and Athena he slew the Gorgon Medusa, conquered a m