From Homer to Sophocles and Greek Middle Comedy, and from Plato and Protagoras to Ovid, this volume features a panoramic and cross-generic overview of the diverse handling and ad hoc elaboration of the overarching literary notions of "time" and "space". The twenty-one contributions of this volume written by an international group of esteemed scholars provide an equal number of hermeneutic approaches to individual, distinct aspects of Greek and Latin literature. The volume is purposely designed not as a linear display of knowledge, but rather as an anthology of select paradigms that aim to demonstrate the multidimensional function and multifaceted role of the twin notions of "time" and "space" throughout ancient Greek and Latin literary texts. The volume opens with analyses of conspicuous cases from epic poetry, proceeds with examples from drama (tragedy and comedy), and concludes with diverse instances of chronotopes (empirical, imaginary, and even shifting ones), in various literary genres. The volume is of greatest relevance since it meets the cultural and theoretical trends of today’s Classics. It therefore will attract not only the interest of specialised Classicists but it is also intended for a wider general readership.

This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness regarding the definition of violence. But in daily life, Athenians had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They did so by enacting a discourse on violence in the performance of these genres, during which complex negotiations about the legitimacy of violence took place. Performances such as the staging of trials and comedies ritually defined the meaning of violence and its appropriate application. Speeches and curse tablets not only spoke about violence, but also exacted it in a mediated form, deriving its legitimate use from a democratic principle, the communal decision of the human jurors in the first case and the underworld gods in the second. Since discourse and reality were intertwined and the discourse was ritualized, actual violence might also have been partly ritualized. By still respecting the on-going desire to harm one’s enemy, this partial ritualization of violence helped restrain violence and thus contributed to Athens’ relative stability.

Ancient declamation—the practice of delivering speeches on the basis of fictitious scenarios—defies easy categorization. It stands at the crossroads of several modern disciplines. It is only within the past few decades that the full complexity of declamation, and the promise inherent in its study, have come to be recognized. This volume, which contains thirteen essays from an international team of scholars, engages with the multidisciplinary nature of declamation, focusing in particular on the various interactions in declamation between rhetoric, literature, law, and ethics. Contributions pursue a range of topics, but also complement each other. Separate essays by Brescia, Lentano, and Lupi explore social roles—their tensions and expectations—as defined through declamation. With similar emphasis on historical circumstances, Quiroga Puertas and Tomassi consider the adaptation of rhetorical material to frame contemporary realities. Schwartz draws attention to the sometimes hazy borderline between declamation and the courtroom. The relationship between laws and declamation, a topic of abiding importance, is examined in studies by Berti, Breij, and Johansson. Also with an eye to the complex interaction between laws and declamation, Pasetti offers a narratological analysis of cases of poisoning. Citti discovers the concept of natural law represented in declamatory material. While looking at a case of extreme cruelty, Huelsenbeck evaluates the nature of declamatory language, emphasizing its use as an integral instrument of performance events. Zinsmaier looks at discourse on the topic of torture in rhetorical and legal contexts.

Aristophanes' engagement with tragedy is one of the most striking features of his comedies. Tragedy on the Comic Stage contextualizes this engagement with tragedy within Greek comedy as a genre by examining paratragedy in the fragments of Aristophanes' contemporaries and successors in the fifth and fourth centuries.

Ephippus is an outstanding playwright of Greek Middle Comedy. He won a single Lenaean victory ca. 378-376 BC and continued being productive until the late 340s. His twenty-eight surviving fragments reveal a wide thematic range: myth burlesque (with a special fondness for Heracles), political allegory, sympotic themes, personal mockery, satire of philosophy (Plato), hetairai. His corpus features seven hapax terms, as well as the highest percentage of anapaestic dimeter lines of all poets of Middle Comedy.

Unlike many studies of the family in the ancient world, this volume presents readings of mothers in classical literature, including philosophical and epigraphic writing as well as poetic texts. Rather than relying on a male viewpoint, the essays offer a female perspective on the lifecycle of motherhood. Although almost all ancient authors are men, this book nevertheless aims to carefully unpack the role of the mother – not as projected by the son or other male relations, but from a woman’s own experiences – in order to better understand how they perceived themselves and their families. Because the primary interest is in the mothers themselves, rather than the authors of the texts in which they appear, the work is organized according to the lifecycle of motherhood instead of the traditional structure of the chronology of male authors. The chronology of the male authors ranges from classical Greece to late antiquity, while the motherly lifecycle ranges from pre-conception to the commemoration of offspring who have died before their mothers.