This book addresses the performance and dissemination of Greek poems of the seventh to the fifth centuries BC whose premieres were presented by a chorus singing in a ritual context or in secular celebrations of athletic victories. It explores how choruses presented themselves; individuals' and communities' roles in funding performances and securing the circulation of texts; how performances continued inside and outside family and city, whether chorally or in symposia, with the consequence that Athenian theatre audiences could be expected to appreciate allusion to or reworking of such poetic forms in tragedy and comedy; and how such performances contributed to transmission of the poems' texts until they were collected by Hellenistic scholars.

This book addresses the many interlocking problems in understanding the modes of performance, dissemination, and transmission of Greek poetry of the seventh to the fifth centuries BC whose first performers were a choral group, sometimes singing in a ritual context, sometimes in more secular celebrations of victories in competitive games. It explores the different ways such a group presented itself and was perceived by its audiences; the place of tyrants, of other prominent individuals and of communities in commissioning and funding choral performances and in securing the further circulation of the songs' texts and music; the social and political role of choral songs and the extent to which such songs continued to be performed both inside and outside the immediate family and polis-community, whether chorally or in archaic Greece's important cultural engine, the elite male symposium, with the consequence that Athenian theatre audiences could be expected to appreciate allusion to or reworking of such poetic forms in tragedy and comedy; and how various types of performance contributed to transmission of written texts of the poems until they were collected and edited by Alexandrian scholars in the third and second centuries BC.

Why did the Greeks of the archaic and early Classical period join in choruses that sang and danced on public and private occasions? This book offers a wide-ranging exploration of representations of chorality in the poetry, art and material remains of early Greece in order to demonstrate the centrality of the activity in the social, religious and technological practices of individuals and communities. Moving from a consideration of choral archetypes, among them cauldrons, columns, Gorgons, ships and halcyons, the discussion then turns to an investigation of how participation in choral song and dance shaped communal experience and interacted with a variety of disparate spheres that include weaving, cataloguing, temple architecture and inscribing. The study ends with a treatment of the role of choral activity in generating epiphanies and allowing viewers and participants access to realms that typically lie beyond their perception.

Genre in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetryforegrounds innovative approaches to the question of genre, what it means, and how to think about it for ancient Greek poetry and performance. Embracing multiple definitions of genre and lyric, the volume pushes beyond current dominant trends within the field of Classics to engage with a variety of other disciplines, theories, and models. Eleven papers by leading scholars of ancient Greek culture cover a wide range of media, from Sappho's songs to elegiac inscriptions to classical tragedy. Collectively, they develop a more holistic understanding of the concept of lyric genre, its relevance to the study of ancient texts, and its relation to subsequent ideas about lyric.

The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Volume 1 offers a comprehensive survey of Greek literature from Homer to end of the period of stable Graeco-Roman civilation in the third century A.D. It embodies the advances made by recent classical scholarship and pays particular attention to texts that have become known in modern times. After its success in hardcover, this volume is now being issued in four paperback parts, providing individual texts on early Greek poetry, Greek drama, philosophy, history and oratory, and on the literature of the Hellenistic period and the Empire. A chapter on books and readers in the Greek world concludes Part 4. Each part has its own appendix of authors and works, a list of works cited, and an index.

Essays examining the influence of gods, oracles, and omens in the wars of the Archaic and Classical Greek world. Religion was integral to the conduct of war in the ancient world and the Greeks were certainly no exception. No campaign was undertaken, no battle risked, without first making sacrifice to propitiate the appropriate gods (such as Ares, god of War) or consulting oracles and omens to divine their plans. Yet the link between war and religion is an area that has been regularly overlooked by modern scholars examining the conflicts of these times. This volume addresses that omission by drawing together the work of experts from across the globe. The chapters have been carefully structured by the editors so that this wide array of scholarship combines to give a coherent, comprehensive study of the role of religion in the wars of the Archaic and Classical Greek world. Aspects considered in depth will include: Greek writers on religion and war; declarations of war; fate and predestination, the sphagia and pre-battle sacrifices; omens, oracles and portents, trophies and dedications to cult centers; militarized deities; sacred truces and festivals; oaths and vows; religion & Greek military medicine. Praise for Religion & Classical Warfare: Archaic and Classical Greece “Comprised of ten erudite and impressively informative articles by experts in the field of Greek antiquity. . . . A work of meticulous and detailed scholarship, Religion & Classical Warfare: Archaic and Classical Greece must be considered as a core addition to community, college, and university library Antiquarian Greek History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.” —Midwest Book Review

In this groundbreaking work, Claude Calame argues that the songs sung by choruses of young girls in ancient Greek poetry are more than literary texts; rather, they functioned as initiatory rituals in Greek cult practices. Using semiotic and anthropologic theory, Calame reconstructs the religious and social institutions surrounding the songs, demonstrating their function in an aesthetic education that permitted the young girls to achieve the stature of womanhood and to be integrated into the adult civic community. This first English edition includes an updated bibliography.