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Cambridge has always been at the forefront of classical scholarship. In one impressive collection, Cambridge Classical Classics showcases the most celebrated and influential works from the past fifty years. Each title has had a refreshed cover design and includes a dynamic new Introduction from the author or editor, acknowledging the developments in their field of study, and how their subject has had a pervading influence on classical scholarship to this day.

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8 results in Cambridge Classical Classics

The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome
  • 2nd edition
  • Catharine Edwards
  • Foreword by Caroline Vout
  • Published online:
    28 February 2025
    Print publication:
    06 March 2025
  • The question this book addresses is not how immoral the ancient Romans were, but why the literature they produced is so preoccupied with immorality. The modern image of immoral Rome derives from ancient accounts which are largely critical rather than celebratory. Far from being empty commonplaces, these accusations constituted a powerful discourse through which Romans negotiated conflicts and tensions in their social and political order. This study proceeds by a detailed examination of a wide range of translated ancient texts, exploring the dynamics of their rhetoric, as well as the ends to which they were deployed. Roman moralising discourse, Edwards suggests, may be seen as especially concerned with the articulation of anxieties about gender, social status and political power. This revised edition contains a substantial new Introduction which engages with critical and scholarly developments in the study of Roman culture since the original publication.

Interaction in Poetic Imagery
  • With Special Reference to Early Greek Poetry
  • 2nd edition
  • M. S. Silk
  • Foreword by Tim Whitmarsh
  • Published online:
    31 January 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025
  • This path-breaking book has made an unusual and original contribution to literary theory by means of a study of the literature of ancient Greece. It investigates an aspect of poetic imagery in the practical context of Greek lyric and drama up to and including Aeschylus and Pindar. Several hundred passages are systematically examined, with many passages from English verse introduced to provide illustration. Using these, Michael Silk formulates a new critical concept, 'interaction', which characterises certain features of metaphor and other imagery and explores in detail their nature and significance. He then proceeds to discuss related issues in the fields of stylistics and literary theory, give fresh insights into several features of ancient literature, and – above all – make important contributions to the theory and practice of 'literary lexicography' in a dead language. This reissue contains a substantial new Introduction engaging with critical and scholarly developments since first publication.

Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography
  • 2nd edition
  • John Marincola
  • Foreword by Christopher Pelling
  • Published online:
    31 January 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025
  • How did Greek and Roman historians claim the authority to narrate the deeds embraced by their histories? In this acclaimed and influential book, John Marincola examines all aspects of their self-presentation, surveying the entire field from Herodotus (fifth century BCE) to Ammianus Marcellinus (fourth century CE). He shows how each historian claimed veracity by imitating, modifying, and manipulating the traditions established by his predecessors. After discussing the tension between individuality and imitation, he analyses the recurring style used to establish the historian's authority: how he came to write history; the qualifications brought to the task; the inquiries and efforts he made in his research; and his claims to possess a reliable character. By showing how each historian used the tradition to claim and maintain his own authority, the book – now including a substantial new Introduction – helps us better understand the complex nature of ancient historiography.

The Romanization of Britain
  • An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation
  • 2nd edition
  • Martin Millett
  • Foreword by Charlotte Higgins
  • Published online:
    02 January 2025
    Print publication:
    16 January 2025
  • The Romanization of Britain was greeted, on first publication, as an innovative study of cultural change and interaction, offering a bold new perspective on Roman Britain based on archaeological evidence. It set out to explore the social dynamics of cultural change from a local perspective by looking at the patterns of interaction between provincial peoples and imperial power. Drawing together a wide range of excavated data as well as textual evidence, it provided a new synthesis of the province whilst offering an alternative way of understanding cultural change in the Roman Empire more widely. Its publication served to catalyse debate, stimulating very considerable discussion and generating a wide variety of responses in a range of publications. This revised edition adds a new introductory essay exploring the genesis of this classic work and reviewing the subsequent debate, while also recalibrating the author's perspective on cultural change within the wider Roman provinces.

Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean
  • 2nd edition
  • Irad Malkin
  • Foreword by Nicholas Purcell
  • Published online:
    31 October 2024
    Print publication:
    13 June 2024
  • Greek attitudes to settlement and territory were often articulated through myths and cults. This book emphasizes less the poetic, timeless qualities of the myths than their historical function in the archaic and Classical periods, covering the spectrum from explicit charter myths legitimating conquest, displacement, and settlement to the 'precedent-setting' and even aetiological myths, rendering new landscapes 'Greek'. This spectrum is broadest in the world of Spartan colonization – the Spartan Mediterranean – where the greater challenges to territorial possession and Sparta's acute self-awareness of its relative national youthfulness elicited explicit responses in the form of charter myths. The concept of a Spartan Mediterranean, in contrast to the image of a land-locked Sparta, is a major contribution of this book. This revised edition contains a substantial new Introduction which engages with critical and scholarly developments on Sparta since the original publication.

The Poet's Voice
  • Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature
  • 2nd edition
  • Simon Goldhill
  • Foreword by Emma Greensmith
  • Published online:
    31 October 2024
    Print publication:
    13 June 2024
  • How are poetry and the figure of the poet represented, discussed, contested within the poetry of ancient Greece? From what position does a poet speak? With what authority? With what debts to the past? With what involvement in the present? Through a series of interrelated essays on Homer, lyric poetry, Aristophanes, Theocritus and Apollonius of Rhodes, this landmark volume discusses key aspects of the history of poetics: tale-telling and the representation of man as the user of language; memorial and praise; parody, comedy and carnival; irony, masks and desire; the legacy of the past and the idea of influence. Detailed readings of major works of Greek literature and liberal use of critical writings from outside Classics help to align modern and ancient poetics in enlightening ways. This revised edition contains a substantial new Introduction which engages with critical and scholarly developments in Greek literature since the original publication.

Helping Friends and Harming Enemies
  • A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics
  • 2nd edition
  • Ruby Blondell
  • Foreword by David Konstan
  • Published online:
    06 June 2024
    Print publication:
    13 June 2024
  • Sophocles is often considered the least philosophical of the three great Greek tragedians. However, Ruby Blondell offers a vital examination of the ethical content of the plays by focusing on the pervasive Greek popular moral code of 'helping friends and harming enemies'. Five of the extant plays are discussed in detail from both a dramatic and an ethical standpoint, and the author concludes that ethical themes are not only integral to each drama, but are subjected to an implicit critique through the tragic consequences to which they give rise. Greek scholars and students of Greek drama and Greek thought will welcome this book, which is presented in such a way as to be accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. No knowledge of Greek is required. This revised edition includes a contextualising new Foreword which engages with critical and scholarly developments in Greek drama since the original publication.

Reading Greek Tragedy
  • 2nd edition
  • Simon Goldhill
  • Published online:
    19 October 2023
    Print publication:
    02 November 2023
  • This book is an advanced critical introduction to Greek tragedy. It is written specifically for the reader who does not know Greek and who may be unfamiliar with the context of the Athenian drama festival but who nevertheless wants to appreciate the plays in all their complexity. Simon Goldhill aims to combine the best contemporary scholarly criticism in classics with a wide knowledge of modern literary studies in other fields. He discusses the masterpieces of Athenian drama in the light of contemporary critical controversies in such a way as to enable the student or scholar not only to understand and appreciate the texts of the most commonly read plays, but also to evaluate and utilize the range of approaches to the problems of ancient drama. This revised edition contains a substantial new Introduction which engages with critical and scholarly developments in Greek tragedy since the original publication.