This volume comprises articles by an international team of twenty-three scholars. The contributions focus on the historical genesis, stylistic and narrative features and evolution of pastoral, both as genre and mode, from Theocritus to the Byzantine period. Special attention has been paid to the idea of the 'invention of a fictionalized tradition', and to pastoral’s thematic and formal relationship with other literary genres. In their totality, the contributions, as well as offering a comprehensive overview of the more or less familiar issues and ideas discussed in connection with pastoral, point to new emphases, trends and insights in current scholarly work in this area. The volume is addressed to a wide range of students and scholars in classics, but much in it will also be of interest to those working in the fields of comparative and modern literatures.

In classical scholarship of the past two centuries, the term “epyllion” was used to label short hexametric texts mainly ascribable to the Hellenistic period (Greek) or the Neoterics (Latin). Apart from their brevity, characteristics such as a predilection for episodic narration or female characters were regarded as typically “epyllic” features. However, in Antiquity itself, the texts we call “epyllia” were not considered a coherent genre, which seems to be an innovation of the late 18th century. The contributions in this book not only re-examine some important (and some lesser known) Greek and Latin primary texts, but also critically reconsider the theoretical discourses attached to it, and also sketch their literary and scholarly reception in the Byzantine and Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern Age.

Brill's Companion to Theocritus offers an up-to-date guide to a thorough understanding of Theocritus’ literary output. Exploring his corpus from a variety of novel perspectives, it presents a detailed account of the intricacy of Theocritus’ poetic art.

This volume on Thucydides, the most important historian of the ancient world, comprises articles by thirty leading international scholars. The contributions cover a wide range of issues, including Thucydides’ life, intellectual milieu and predecessors, Thucydides and the act of writing, his rhetoric, historical method and narrative techniques, narrative unity in the History, the speeches, Thucydides’ reliability as a historian, and his legacy through the centuries. Other topics dealt with include warfare, religion, individuals, democracy and oligarchy, the invention of political science, Thucydides and Athens, Sparta, Macedonia/Thrace, Sicily/South Italy, Persia, and the Argives. The volume aims to provide a survey of current trends in Thucydidean studies which will be of interest to all students of ancient history. Brill's Companion to Thucydides was awarded Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2007.

Bilingualism has seen an explosion of work in recent years. This volume introduces classicists, ancient historians and other scholars interested in sociolinguistic research into evidence of bilingualism in the ancient Mediterranean.

A Companion to Greek Literature presents a comprehensive introduction to the wide range of texts and literary forms produced in the Greek language over the course of a millennium beginning from the 6th century BCE up to the early years of the Byzantine Empire. Features contributions from a wide range of established experts and emerging scholars of Greek literature Offers comprehensive coverage of the many genres and literary forms produced by the ancient Greeks—including epic and lyric poetry, oratory, historiography, biography, philosophy, the novel, and technical literature Includes readings that address the production and transmission of ancient Greek texts, historic reception, individual authors, and much more Explores the subject of ancient Greek literature in innovative ways

Few figures from Greco-Roman antiquity have undergone as much reassessment in recent decades as Callimachus of Cyrene, who was active at the Alexandrian court of the Ptolemies during the early third century BC. Once perceived as a supreme example of ivory tower detachment and abstruse learning, Callimachus has now come to be understood as an artificer of the images of a powerful and vibrant court and as a poet second only to Homer in his later reception. For the modern audience, the fragmentation of his texts and the diffusion of source materials has often impeded understanding his poetic achievement. Brill’s Companion to Callimachus has been designed to aid in negotiating this scholarly terrain, especially the process of editing and collecting his fragments, to illuminate his intellectual and social contexts, and to indicate the current directions that his scholarship is taking.