The relationship between the living and the dead was especially significant in defining community identity and spiritual belief in the early medieval world. Peter Brown has called it the "joining of Heaven and Earth." For clerics and laypersons alike, funerals and burial sites were important means for establishing or extending power ......
In the first edition of Women in Greek Myth, Mary R. Lefkowitz convincingly challenged narrow, ideological interpretations of the roles of female characters in Greek mythology. Where some scholars saw the Amazons as the last remnant of a forgotten matriarchy, Clytemnestra as a frustrated individualist, and Antigone as an oppressed ......
The comedies of Aristophanes are known not only for their boldly imaginative plots but for the ways in which they incorporate and orchestrate a wide variety of literary genres and speech styles. Unlike the writers of tragedy, who prefer a uniformly elevated tone, Aristophanes articulates his dramatic dialogue with striking literary and linguistic ......
Archaeology provides an ideal avenue for examining long-term processes and interrelationships between human behavior and environmental stability, variation, and change. The American Southwest is particularly well suited for such 'deep-time' investigations because of its comprehensive archaeological record, rich ethnographic and historical data on ......
When the Spanish conquistadors first encountered the great commercial markets of central Mexico they were amazed by the richness and the diversity of products, as well as the level of organization. Ruling elites nurtured and supervised these markets, which were based on a complex division of labor within society, including a diversity of highly ......
In this bold work, Thomas Habinek offers an entirely new theoretical perspective on Roman cultural history. Although English words such as ''literature'' and ''religion'' have their origins in Latin, the Romans had no such specific concepts. Rather, much of the sense of these words was captured in the Latin word carmen, usually translated into ......
This special issue of the American Journal of Philology illuminates the nature and function of food and dining in the Roman world, offering historical, sociological, literary, cultural, and material perspectives.The articles collected here explore topics from diverse fields to analyze Roman culture and material practice, including the dietary ......
Composed in the third century A.D., the Trojan Epic is the earliest surviving literary evidence for many of the traditions of the Trojan War passed down from ancient Greece. Also known as the Posthomerica, or ''sequel to Homer,'' the Trojan Epic chronicles the course of the war after the burial of Troy's greatest hero, Hektor.Quintus, believed to ......
Worshiped throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, the 'Mother of the Gods' was known by a variety of names. Among peoples of Asia Minor, where her cult first began, she often shared the names of local mountains. The Greeks commonly called her Cybele, the name given to her by the Phrygians of Asia Minor, and identified her with their own mother ......
