Jenny Strauss Clay

Irad Malkin

Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos

This volume discusses the multidimensional aspects of the unique, and so far unprecedented for Macedonia, 191 sherds from Methone in Pieria, dated to ca 700 BCE, which bear inscriptions, graffiti, and (trade)marks inscribed, incised, scratched and rarely painted. The 191 vessels were unearthed during excavations in ancient Methone in Pieria, the oldest colony of Greeks from Eretria in the north according to tradition. The Methone find is unique for two reasons. First, most of the pottery dates between 730 and 700 BCE, a period from which very few examples of Greek writing survives. And second, inscribed ceramics, scratched or painted, are extremely rare in Macedonia. This new evidence of inscribed pottery from Methone is invaluable for classical studies, and the papers of this volume contribute notably to current discussions about: the Greeks and the Greek language in Macedonia; the Greek colonization; the pottery trade and the early Greek transport amphoras; trade, the symposium, and other contexts for the development of writing; the ‘alphabets’ of Methone and the introduction of the alphabet in Greece; the dialect(s) of Methone in relation to the Greek dialects; early Greek writing, literacy, and literary beginnings.

Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone, Macedonia (ca 700 BCE)

Panhellenes at Methone

Peter Burian

Gregson Davis

This book collects essays and other contributions by colleagues, students, and friends of the late Diskin Clay, reflecting the unusually broad range of his interests. Clay’s work in ancient philosophy, and particularly in Epicurus and Epicureanism and in Plato, is reflected chapters on Epicurean concerns by André Laks, David Sedley and Martin Ferguson Smith, as well as Jed Atkins on Lucretius and Leo Strauss; Michael Erler contributes a chapter on Plato. James Lesher discusses Xenophanes and Sophocles, and Aryeh Kosman contributes a jeu d’esprit on the obscure Pythagorean Ameinias. Greek cultural history finds multidisciplinary treatment in Rebecca Sinos’s study of Archilochus’ Heros and the Parian Relief, Frank Romer’s mythographic essay on Aphrodite’s origins and archaic mythopoieia more generally, and Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou’s explication of Callimachus’s kenning of Mt. Athos as "ox-piercing spit of your mother Arsinoe." More purely literary interests are pursued in chapters on ancient Greek (Joseph Russo on Homer, Dirk Obbink on Sappho), Latin (Jenny Strauss Clay and Gregson Davis on Horace), and post-classical poetry (Helen Hadzichronoglou on Cavafy, John Miller on Robert Pinsky and Ovid). Peter Burian contributes an essay on the possibility and impossibility of translating Aeschylus. In addition to these essays, two original poems (Rosanna Warren and Jeffrey Carson) and two pairs of translations (from Horace by Davis and from Foscolo by Burian) recognize Clay’s own activity as poet and translator. The volume begins with an Introduction discussing Clay’s life and work, and concludes with a bibliography of Clay’s publications.

Studies in Ancient Philosophy, History, and Literature

Euphrosyne

John F. Miller

Of all the divinities of classical antiquity, the Greek Hermes (Mercury in his Roman alter ego) is the most versatile, enigmatic, complex, and ambiguous. The runt of the Olympian litter, he is the god of lies and tricks, yet is also kindly towards mankind and a bringer of luck. His functions embrace both the marking of boundaries and their transgression, but also extend to commerce, lucre, and theft, as well as rhetoric and practical jokes. In another guise, he plays the role of mediator between all realms of human and divine activity, embracing heaven, earth, and the netherworld. Pursuing this elusive divinity requires a truly multidisciplinary approach, reflecting his prismatic nature, and the twenty contributions to this volume draw on a wide range of fields to achieve this, from Greek and Roman literature (epic, lyric, and drama), epigraphy, cult, and religion, to vase painting and sculpture. In offering an overview of the myriad aspects of Hermes/Mercury-including his origins, patronage of the gymnasium, and relation to other trickster figures-the volume attempts to track the god's footprints across the many domains in which he partakes. Moreover, in keeping with his deep connection to exchange, commerce, and dialogue, it aims to exemplify and further encourage discourse between Latinists and Hellenists, as well as between scholars of literary and material cultures.

Tracking Hermes, Pursuing Mercury

Alessandro Schiesaro

Phillip Mitsis

Il Destinatario Nell'epos Didascalico

Mega Nepios

Hesiod's Cosmos offers a comprehensive interpretation of both the Theogony and the Works and Days and demonstrates how the two Hesiodic poems must be read together as two halves of an integrated whole embracing both the divine and the human cosmos. After first offering a survey of the structure of both poems, Professor Clay reveals their mutually illuminating unity by offering detailed analyses of their respective poems, their teachings on the origins of the human race and the two versions of the Prometheus myth. She then examines the role of human beings in the Theogony and the role of the gods in the Works and Days, as well as the position of the hybrid figures of monsters and heroes within the Hesiodic cosmos and in relation to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.

Hesiod's Cosmos

A complex study that argues that Athena's wrath is essential to both the structure and the theme of the Odyssey shedding light on the central theme of the relations between gods and men and revealing subtleties of narrative and ambiguities of character.

Jenny Strauss Clay

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