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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 mythic tradition and in ritual practice. In this book, Daniel Ogden presents 300 texts in new translations, along with brief but explicit commentaries. Authors include the well known (Sophocles, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny) and the less familiar, and extend across the whole of Graeco-Roman antiquity.
"Roman Ghosts is an English translation of Luigi Malerba's late novel, "Fantasmi romani," which was published in Italian in 2006. The work offers a view of contemporary Rome with a critique of its middle-class society"--
Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and paint. In this fresh and wide-ranging study, he uses the figure of the ghost to offer a new understanding of the status of the image in Roman art and visual culture. Tracing the shifting practices and debates in antiquity about the nature of vision and representation, Crowley shows how images of ghosts make visible structures of beholding and strategies of depiction. Yet the figure of the ghost simultaneously contributes to a broader conceptual history that accounts for how modalities of belief emerged and developed in antiquity. Neither illustrations of ancient beliefs in ghosts nor depictions of afterlife, these images show us something about the visual event of seeing itself. The Phantom Image offers essential insight into ancient art, visual culture, and the history of the image.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER For millennia, Carthage’s triumph over Rome at Cannae in 216 B.C. has inspired reverence and awe. No general since has matched Hannibal’s most unexpected, innovative, and brutal military victory. Now Robert L. O’Connell, one of the most admired names in military history, tells the whole story of Cannae for the first time, giving us a stirring account of this apocalyptic battle, its causes and consequences. O’Connell brilliantly conveys how Rome amassed a giant army to punish Carthage’s masterful commander, how Hannibal outwitted enemies that outnumbered him, and how this disastrous pivot point in Rome’s history ultimately led to the republic’s resurgence and the creation of its empire. Piecing together decayed shreds of ancient reportage, the author paints powerful portraits of the leading players, from Hannibal—resolutely sane and uncannily strategic—to Scipio Africanus, the self-promoting Roman military tribune. Finally, O’Connell reveals how Cannae’s legend has inspired and haunted military leaders ever since, and the lessons it teaches for our own wars.
The Roman Empire sends a barbarian warrior to faraway Britain in this historical novel of love and survival in the ancient world. A Sarmatian warrior-prince, Ariantes is uprooted from his home and thrust into the honorless lands of the Romans. The victims of a wartime pact with the emperor Marcus Aurelius, Ariantes and his troop are sent to watch over Hadrian’s Wall. Unsurprisingly, the Sarmatians hate Britain—an Island of Ghosts, filled with pale faces, stone walls, and an uneasy past. Struggling to command his own people to defend a land they despise, Ariantes is accepted by all, but trusted by none. The Romans fear his barbarian background, and his own men fear his gradual Roman assimilation. When Ariantes uncovers a conspiracy sure to damage both his Roman benefactors and his beloved countrymen, as well as put him and the woman he loves in grave danger, he must make a difficult decision—one that will change his own life forever.
Glevum, AD 187: Despite the opulence of the evening's banquet, Libertus is keen to return to his wife and a warm bed. But this feast has a finale to put any diner off his dessert - the guest of honour is found dead in the vomitorium. To Libertus's horror, his patron Marcus Septimus is arrested on suspicion of murder. Then when Libertus is accused of being Marcus's accomplice, he is forced to go on the run. Hiding in a dark corner of the city, he quickly realises he's an unwelcome visitor to those who haunt the shadows. Soon Libertus is in danger, and this time there's no one to help...
A fascinating look at Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Vesuvius eruption in comparison with other historically significant volcanic eruptions, including the World Trade Center disaster. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, which obliterated the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, was a disaster that resounds to this day. Now palaeontologist Charles Pellegrino presents a wealth of new knowledge about the doomed towns – and brings to vivid life the people, their last moments, and the aftermath. The lessons learned from modern scrutiny of that ancient eruption produce disturbing echoes in the present. Dr Pellegrino, who worked at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, shares his unique knowledge of the strange physics of volcanic 'downblast' and 'collapse column', drawing a direct link from past to present, and providing readers with a poignant glimpse into the last moments of the 'American Vesuvius'.
Stories of ghostly spirits who return to this world to warn of danger, to prophesy, to take revenge, to request proper burial, or to comfort the living fascinated people in ancient times just as they do today. In this innovative, interdisciplinary study, the author combines a modern folkloric perspective with literary analysis of ghost stories from classical antiquity to shed new light on the stories' folk roots. The author begins by examining ancient Greek and Roman beliefs about death and the departed and the various kinds of ghost stories which arose from these beliefs. She then focuses on the longer stories of Plautus, Pliny, and Lucian, which concern haunted houses. Her analysis illuminates the oral and literary transmission and adaptation of folkloric motifs and the development of the ghost story as a literary form. In her concluding chapter, the author also traces the influence of ancient ghost stories on modern ghost story writers, a topic that will interest all readers and scholars of tales of hauntings.
The ancient Romans quite literally surrounded themselves with the dead: masks of the dead were in the atria of their houses, funerals paraded through their main marketplace, and tombs lined the roads leading into and out of the city. In Roman literature as well, the dead occupy a prominent place, indicating a close and complex relationship between literature and society. The evocation of the dead in the Latin authors of the first century BCE both responds and contributes to changing socio-political conditions during the transition from the Republic to the Empire. To understand the literary life of the Roman dead, The Ghosts of the Past develops a new perspective on Latin literature's interaction with Roman culture. Drawing on the insights of sociology, anthropology, and performance theory, Basil Dufallo argues that authors of the late Republic and early Principate engage strategically with Roman behaviors centered on the dead and their world in order to address urgent political and social concerns. Republican literature exploits this context for the ends of political competition among the clan-based Roman elite, while early imperial literature seeks to restage the republican practices for a reformed Augustan society. Calling into question boundaries of genre and literary form, Dufallo's study will revise current understandings of Latin literature as a cultural and performance practice. Works as diverse as Cicero's speeches, Propertian elegy, Horace's epodes and satires, and Vergil's Aeneid appear in a new light as performed texts interacting with other kinds of cultural performance from which they might otherwise seem isolated.
Greco-Roman religions and superstitions, and early Christianity's engagement with them, are explored in 12 unique studies. The beliefs and fears with regard to demons (or daimons), their origins, and threatening behavior are examined, both in their pagan and Judaeo-Christian contexts. These new studies look at the Greco-Roman heroic gods, how they faced death, and how James and John, the “sons of Thunder,” may well have been viewed in some circles as the equivalent of the “sons of Zeus”, Castor and Pollux. The contributors also explore Roman omens, especially as they relate to Rome's legendary founder Romulus and what light they shed on the omens that accompany the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Particular focus is placed upon Paul, binding spells, women and hymns of exaltation, along with atheism in late antiquity, with special consideration of the charlatan Alexander. Finally, there is a re-visitation of the confusion, misinformation and legends surrounding the discovery of the Qumran caves, including fear of jinn. This book provides invaluable resources for precisely how early Christians interacted with different ideas and traditions around gods and spirits - both benevolent and malevolent - in the Greco-Roman world.