Robert A. Kaster

Ghost Road, Queen of Roads

Appian Way

Describes travel down the Appian Way while analyzing the meaning of the road in modern and ancient context.

The Appian Way

Studies on the Text of Suetonius De Grammaticis Et Rhetoribus

The Tradition of the Text of the Aeneid in the Ninth Century

James Hankins

Virginia Brown

Annotation This volume covers six classical authors: Damianus, Geminus Rhodius, Hanno, Sallust, Themistius & Thucydides. The articles explore the influence of each in the medieval & renaissance world, followed in each case by a listing & brief description of latin commentaries before 1600.

Catalogus Translationum Et Commentariorum

Marcus Tullius Cicero

"These translations of the Brutus and Orator were conceived as a sequel to the excellent translation of the De oratore by James May and Jaap Wisse, also published by Oxford University Press (Cicero: On the Ideal Orator, Oxford 2001). The book's raison d'être is easily stated. No new, complete, and readily available English versions of the two texts have appeared since the Loeb Classical Library edition was published in 1939, with translations by G. L. Hendrickson and H. M. Hubbell. Though both translations are accurate and still readable (Hendrickson's, in fact, is excellent), the introductions to the two works are brief and insufficient, and the annotation (in the manner of older Loebs) is still less adequate. Furthermore, our understanding of Cicero and the late Roman Republic has changed significantly in the eighty years since the Loeb appeared, and the resources available to students of the Brutus, in particular, are much more ample. I have reason to hope, therefore, that this book will be of some use. There is no need to discuss here the overall plan of the book, which the table of contents makes clear, or the approach taken to the translation and annotation, addressed in Introduction par. 5. The annotation very likely provides more detail than some readers will require, but I thought it best to err on the side of inclusion and leave it to readers to ignore-as readers can be relied on to do-material that does not speak to their needs or interests. I should add two notes. First, because Brutus and Orator are the most important sources for our understanding of Roman "Atticism" (Introduction par. 3), I have included in Appendix A a translation of the third Ciceronian text that bears on that subject, On the Best Kind of Orator (De optimo genere oratorum), a brief fragment that Cicero wrote but abandoned in the interval between the composition of Brutus and Orator in 46 BCE. Second, for the fragmentary remains of orators other than Cicero I have retained references to the fourth edition of Enrica Malcovati's Oratorum Romanorum Fragments (e.g., "ORF4 no. 8 fr. 149"), despite the fact that its successor, Fragments of the Roman Republican Orators (FRRO)-the work of a team led by Catherine Steel-will soon appear. The orators in FRRO will not be numbered and ordered chronologically, as they are in ORF4, but will be organized alphabetically by clan name for ready location, and a set of concordances will facilitate movment back and forth between the two editions"--

Brutus and Orator

Cicero

"Kaster's book is both rich in its deployment of an extraordinarily wide range of little-known material and original in its approach to the subject. . . . There is no question at all that this book will be of great value to specialists in late antiquity, to historians of education, and to classicists in general. It will be a fundamental work in the field."--James E. G. Zetzel

The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity

Guardians of Language

Ruth R. Caston

The emotions have long been an interest for those studying ancient Greece and Rome. But while the last few decades have produced excellent studies of individual emotions and the different approaches to them by the major philosophical schools, the focus has been almost entirely on negative emotions. This might give the impression that the Greeks and Romans had little to say about positive emotion, something that would be misguided. As the chapters in this collection indicate, there are representations of positive emotions extending from archaic Greek poetry to Augustine, and in both philosophical works and literary genres as wide-ranging as lyric poetry, forensic oratory, comedy, didactic poetry, and the novel. Nor is the evidence uniform: while many of the literary representations give expression to positive emotion but also describe its loss, the philosophers offer a more optimistic assessment of the possibilities of attaining joy or contentment in this life. The positive emotions show some of the same features that all emotions do. But unlike the negative emotions, which we are able to describe and analyze in great detail because of our preoccupation with them, positive emotions tend to be harder to articulate. Hence the interest of the present study, which considers how positive emotions are described, their relationship to other emotions, the ways in which they are provoked or upset by circumstances, how they complicate and enrich our relationships with other people, and which kinds of positive emotion we should seek to integrate. The ancient works have a great deal to say about all of these topics, and for that reason deserve more study, both for our understanding of antiquity and for our understanding of the positive emotions in general.

Hope, Joy, and Affection in the Classical World

Cicero's Brutus and Orator constitute his final major statements on the history of Roman oratory and the nature of the ideal orator. In the Brutus he traces the development of political and judicial speech over the span of 150 years, from the early second century to 46 BCE, when both of these treatises were written. In an immensely detailed account of some 200 speakers from the past he dispenses an expert's praise and criticism, provides an unparalleled resource for the study of Roman rhetoric, and engages delicately with the fraught political circumstances of the day, when the dominance of Julius Caesar was assured and the future of Rome's political institutions was thrown into question. The Orator, written several months later, describes the form of oratory that Cicero most admired, even though he insists that neither he nor any other orator has been able to achieve it. At the same time, he defends his views against critics-the so-called Atticists-who found Cicero's style overwrought and favored a more restrained and plainer approach.

Cicero: Brutus and Orator

Cicero: Speech on Behalf of Publius Sestius

Considered a definitive source for scholars and students, this highly acclaimed series illustrates the impact of Greek and Latin texts on the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In publication since 1960 and now in its eighth volume, the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum furnishes concrete evidence of when, where, and how an ancient author was known and appreciated in monastic, university, and humanist circles. Each article presents a historical survey of the influence and circulation of a particular author down to the present, followed by an exhaustive listing and brief description of Latin commentaries before 1600 on each of his works. For Greek authors, a full listing of pre-1600 translations into Latin is also provided. Sources of translations and commentaries include both printed editions and texts available only in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. In the newest addition to the series, Volume VIII, six authors are treated in separate articles: Damianus, Geminus Rhodius, Hanno, Sallust, Themistius, and Thucydides. This volume is especially notable for its variety. Thucydides and Sallust were major historians and the interest their works generated -- in such diverse figures as Macchiavelli, Thomas More, and Thomas Hobbes -- has continued unabated. Damianus and Geminus Rhodius influenced optics and astronomy. Themistius provided a useful service to later students of Aristotle by paraphrasing Aristotle's treatises on logic, psychology, and natural science. Hanno's account of a voyage around the coast of West Africa has been regarded as a motivating factor behind the explorations of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral and was cited in controversies involving the Portugueseand Spanish claims to the coasts of Africa and America. A list of addenda and corrigenda to four previously published articles (Columella, Tacitus, Vegetius, Xenophon) concludes the volume.

Robert A. Kaster

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