(The Loeb classical library.)

Oppian of Cilicia flourished in the latter half of the 2nd century, and dedicated his Fishing (in five books) to Antoninus, presumably Marcus Aurelius. It deals with the habits and characteristics of fish as well as giving instructions for fishing: if not exactly poetical, it contains a great deal of curious information. The chase, dedicated to Caracalla, is an inferior composition and may even be the work of a Syrian imitator. The first book gives an appreciation of the huntsman's horses and hounds, the three remaining being devoted to the hunting of wild animals, from the lion to the hare. This edition is equipped with extensive zoological and ichthyological notes. This volume also includes the extant work of two epic poets of Egypt who wrote in the second half of the 5th century under the influence of Nonnus. The rape of Helen of Colluthus in 394 lines is a pleasant account of the Judgement of Paris and Helen's elopement with him; Tryphiodorus (papyri reveal the correct spelling to be Triphiodorus) deals with The taking of Troy in 691 lines, beginning with the Wooden horse and ending with the sacrifice of Polyxena. -- jacket.

"This volume collects important examples of Greek literary portraiture.". "The Characters of Theophrastus consists of thirty fictional sketches of men who are each dominated by a single fault, such as arrogance, boorishness, or superstition. Unassuming in style, his character sketches nonetheless bear resemblance to the vivid figures of the period's New Comedy. The Hellenistic poet Herodas wrote mimes, a popular Greek entertainment in which one actor or a small group portrayed a situation from everyday urban life, concentrating on depiction of character rather than on plot. Here too in a new text and translation are substantial portions of the mimes of Sophron, a Syracusan of the 5th century B.C. whose work Plato is said to have enjoyed, as well as a selection of anonymous mime fragments.". "The extant work of Sophron and the anonymous mime fragments are newly added to the Loeb Classical Library in this edition. And Jeffrey Rusten and Ian Cunningham have updated their editions of Theophrastus and Herodas (both first published in 1993) in light of the latest scholarship."--BOOK JACKET.

This is the first new rendition for a generation of The City of God, the first major intellectual achievement of Latin Christianity and one of the classic texts of Western civilisation. When he began to write The City of God in 413, St. Augustine's intention was to defend the Christian Church against the charge of having brought about the Sack of Rome in 410. Outgrowing this initial purpose, the work evolved into a detailed critique of the political and moral tradition of Rome and a synthesis of Platonism and Christianity which must stand as one of the most significant achievements in Western intellectual history. Apart from its intrinsic interest the Christian account of social and political relations which Augustine gives was to furnish one of the most fertile sources of material for the controversial literature of the middle ages. R. W. Dyson has produced a complete, accurate, authoritative and fluent translation of The City of God, edited together with full biographical notes, a concise introduction, bibliographical note and chronology of Augustine's life.

This volume (v. 3 out of a total of five volumes) contains book IX of the Greek Anthology, that is the Declamatory Epigrams.

"Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica, composed in the third century B.C.E., is the epic retelling of Jason's quest for the golden fleece. Along with his contemporaries Callimachus and Theocritus, Apollonius refashioned Greek poetry to meet the interests and aesthetics of a Hellenistic audience, especially that of Alexandria in the Ptolemaic period following Alexander's death. In this carefully crafted work of 5,835 hexameter verses in four books, the author draws on the preceding literary traditions of epic (Homer), lyric (Pindar), and tragedy (especially Euripides) but creates an innovative and complex narrative that includes geography, religion, ethnography, mythology, adventure, exploration, human psychology, and, most of all, the coming of age and love affair of Jason and Medea. It greatly influenced Roman authors such as Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, and was imitated by Valerius Flaccus." "This new edition of the first volume in the Loeb Classical Library offers a fresh translation and an improved text."--BOOK JACKET.

Terence the Tractor frees Thomas the Tank Engine when he becomes stuck in the snow.

In Astronomica (first century CE), the earliest extant treatise we have on astrology, Manilius provides an account of celestial phenomena and the signs of the Zodiac. He also gives witty character sketches of persons born under particular constellations.

In The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, Lucian is on a business trip to Greece when his curiosity gets the best of him and he finds himself accidentally transformed into a donkey. He then narrates his provincial odyssey in a world where old gods rule, myth informs life, Fortune is fickle, Thessalian witches are puissant, and a curious man seeking to learn their craft might well lament making an ass of himself. Apuleius was a second-century speaker and writer born in present-day Algeria who authors, narrates, and is the subject of this bawdy, picaresque, quasi-autobiographical story. He himself traveled extensively, studied philosophy, was initiated into mystery cults, and became a priest. He was also tried for witchcraft, accused of having betrothed his wife Pudentilla by charms other than those of his personality. The novel was translated into “Tudor prose” by Adlington in 1566 during the “golden age of translation,” and it was this version that was read by Shakespeare and influenced his work. The novel contains many digression, mythological references, and inset stories, the most significant being the story of Cupid and Psyche. This is the only complete Latin novel from antiquity that has survived to the present day, and has been called “a beginning of modern literature.” The Latin original was the one read by Augustine of Hippo who adapted Apuleius’ confessional style in his own writing—he even responded to Apuleius directly in his own philosophy. In its theology, The Golden Ass embodies an inclusive monotheism. From Kafka, to Pinocchio, to the motion picture The Fly, the influence of Apuleius and his Metamorphoses continues to be felt.

Ausonius, the most famous of the learned poets active in the second half of the fourth century, was born at Bordeaux and taught school there for thirty years before being summoned to court to teach the future emperor Gratian. He subsequently held important public offices, returning to Bordeaux and private life after Gratian's death in 383. The subjects of many of his poems are typical of the academic world of the time. His Commemorations of the Professors of Bordeaux, a sequence of light verse obituaries of local teachers, in which people are honored - or gossiped about - in their daily occupations, has been called an illustrious poetic precedent to Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. To a literary verse translation of the Commemorations, David Slavitt has added versions of Ausonius's Nuptial Cento, assembled from snippets of Shakespeare (Ausonius's original is a pastiche of Virgil) and selected epigrams.

Roman secondary education aimed principally at training future lawyers and politicians. Under the late Republic and the Empire, the main instrument was an import from Greece -- declamation, the making of practice-speeches on imaginary subjects. There were two types of such speeches: controversiae on law-court themes, suasoriae on delibertaive topics. On both types a prime source of our knowledge is the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Spaniard from Cordoba, father of the distinguished philosopher and stylist. Towards the end of his long life (?55 B.C. -? A.D. 40) he collected together under the title (it would seem) Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae, divisiones, colores, ten books devoted to controversiae (some only preserved in excerpt) and at least one (surviving) to suasoriae. These books contained his memories of the famous rhetorical teachers and practitioners of his day: their lines of argument, their methods of approach, their idiosyncracies, and above all their epigrams. The extracts from the disclaimers, though scrappy, throw invaluable light on the influences that coloured the styles of most pagan (and many Christian) writers of the Empire. Unity is provided by Seneca's own contribution, the lively prefaces, engaging anecdote about speakers, writers and politicians, the brisk criticism of declamatory excess.

"This volume, which completes the new Loeb Classical Library edition of Hesiod, contains The Shield and extant fragments of other poems, including the Catalogue of Women, that were attributed to Hesiod in antiquity. None of these is now thought to be by Hesiod himself, but all have considerable literary and historical interest. The Catalogue of Women is a systematic presentation in five books of a large number of Greek legendary heroes and episodes, organized according to the genealogy of the heroes' mortal mothers. The Shield provides a Hesiodic counterpoint to the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, with Heracles as the protagonist. The volume concludes with a comprehensive index to the complete edition." --Book jacket.

Index of proper names appended