The title of this volume is Greek and Roman Aesthetics. However, aesthetics as a separate branch of philosophy with a distinctive subject matter (questions about beauty, the nature of fine art, forms of aesthetic judgement, etc.) which admits of a systematic but unitary treatment, is hardly older than the eighteenth century. Its origin is generally dated to Alexander Baumgarten (1714–62), who coined the term and devoted a specific treatise to the nascent discipline, and to Immanuel Kant, who investigated the issue of aesthetic judgement and its fundamental role in philosophy in more depth in the Critique of Judgement in 1790. What, then, is Greek and Roman aesthetics? How do ancient discussions relate to what we now call aesthetics and on what basis have we selected the particular texts included in this volume? This introduction will begin by briefly addressing these questions, before offering an account of the Greek and Roman precursors of aesthetics which should help to place the texts in this volume within their intellectual context.