Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature
Published on 26. September 2013
Book
Hardback
416 pages
978-0-19-966574-7 (ISBN)
Description
Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature offers a broad set of perspectives on the diverse forms of epigraphic material present in ancient literary texts, and the variety of responses, both ancient and modern, which they can provoke.
This collection of essays explores the various ways in which ancient authors used inscribed texts and documents. From the archaic period onwards, ancient literary authors working within a range of genres, such as oratory, philosophy, poetry, and historiography, discussed and quoted a variety of inscriptions. They deployed them as ornamental devices, as alternative voices to that of the narrator, to display scholarship, to make points about history, politics, individual morality, and piety, and even to express moral views about the nature of epigraphy.
This collection of essays explores the various ways in which ancient authors used inscribed texts and documents. From the archaic period onwards, ancient literary authors working within a range of genres, such as oratory, philosophy, poetry, and historiography, discussed and quoted a variety of inscriptions. They deployed them as ornamental devices, as alternative voices to that of the narrator, to display scholarship, to make points about history, politics, individual morality, and piety, and even to express moral views about the nature of epigraphy.
Reviews / Votes
Peter Liddel and Polly Low have done us all a great service by assembling this extremely useful and well-produced volume of essays ... The volume should become the standard handbook on the subject, and one can only hope that it will be regularly updated. It is difficult to offer anything other than praise for this collection. * Timothy F. Winters, Classical Journal *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
13 in-text illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
780 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-966574-7 (9780199665747)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Peter Liddel is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Manchester.
Polly Low is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Manchester.
Polly Low is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Manchester.
Content
PREFACE ; LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ; LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ; 1. Introduction: The Reception of Ancient Inscriptions ; PART I: LITERARY EPIGRAPHY AND THE ANCIENT PAST ; 2. Cui vetustas fidem faciat: Inscriptions and Other Material Relics of the Past in Greco-Roman Antiquity ; 3. Herodotus and Temple Inventories ; 4. Illustrating, Documenting, Making-Believe: The Use of Psephismata in Hellenistic Biographies of Philosophers ; 5. From Inscriptions to Literature (and Sometimes Back Again): Some uses of the epigraphic sources in the ancient literary traditions on Delphi ; 6. Inscriptions as Literature in Pausanias' Exegesis of Hellas ; 7. Archaic Latin Inscriptions and Greek and Roman Authors ; 8. Inscribed Epigrams in Orators, Epigrammatic Schools, Epigrammatic Collections ; PART II: LITERARY EPIGRAPHY: COMPLEMENTARITY AND COMPETITION ; 9. Epigraphic Literacy in Fifth-Century Epinician and its Audiences ; 10. Kleos versus Stonea Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization ; 11. Inscriptions on the Attic Stage ; 12. Aristotle's Hymn to Virtue and Funerary Inscriptions ; 13. Speaking from the Tomb The Disappearing Epitaph of Simonides in Callimachus, Aetia Fr. 64 Pf. ; 14. Inscriptional Intermediality in Latin Literature ; 15. Furor Epigraphicus: Augustus, the Poets, and the Inscriptions ; 16. Epitome and Eternity: Some Epitaphs and Votive Inscriptions in the Latin Love Elegists ; 17. Shuffling Surfaces: Epigraphy, Power, and Integrity in the Greco-Roman Narratives ; INDEX