This is the first book-length treatment of supplication, an important social practice in ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Despite the importance of supplication, it has received little attention, and no previous study has explored so many aspects of the practice. Naiden investigates the varied gestures made by the supplicants, the types of requests they make, the arguments used in defense of their requests, and the role of the supplicandus, who evaluates and decides whether to fulfill the requests. Varied and abundant sources invite comparison between the societies of Greece and Rome and also among literary genres. Additionally, Naiden formulates an analysis of the ritual in its legal and political contexts. In constructing this rich and thorough study, Naiden considered over 800 acts of supplication from Greek, Hebrew, and Roman literature, art, and scientific sources. 30 illustrations and a map of the relevant locations accompany the text.

In this penetrating and compelling reinterpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Kevin Crotty explores the connection between the "poetic" nature of supplication on the one hand, and, on the other, the importance of supplication in the structure and poetics of the two epics. The supplicant's attempt to rouse pity by calling to mind a vivid sense of grief, he says, is important for an understanding of the poems, which invite their audience to contemplate scenes of past grieving. A poetics of supplication, Crotty asserts, leads irresistibly to a poetics of the Homeric epic.

"In Ancient Supplication, the first book-length treatment of the subject, F. S. Naiden establishes the centrality of supplication to our understanding of ancient society. He investigates the varied gestures made by the suppliants, the types of requests they tender, the arguments used in defense of requests, and the role of the supplicandus, who evaluates and decides whether to fulfill the requests. Naiden formulates an analysis of the practice in its sacred and social aspect, articulating literary, legal, and political dimensions. In constructing this analysis, he considered more than 800 acts of supplication from Greek, Hebrew, and Roman literature and varied visual sources. The variety and abundance of these sources allow him to establish a typology of supplication, inviting comparison between diverse societies. Numerous illustrations and a map of relevant locations accompany the text. Classicists will benefit from Naiden's treatment of familiar passages while historians and legal scholars will find that a deeper understanding of supplication lends a new context to their own fields of study."--BOOK JACKET.

Renaissance Suppliants studies supplication as a social and literary event in the long European Renaissance. It argues that scenes of supplication are defining episodes in a literary tradition stretching back to Greco-Roman antiquity, taking us to the heart of fundamental questions of politics and religion, ethics and identity, sexuality and family. As a perennial mode of asymmetrical communication in moments of helplessness and extreme need, supplication speaks to ways that people live together despite grave inequalities. It is a strategy that societies use to regulate and perpetuate themselves, to negotiate conflict, and to manage situations in which relationships threaten to unravel. All the writers discussed here--Vergil, Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Milton--find supplication indispensable for thinking about problems of antagonism, difference, and hierarchy, bringing the aesthetic resources of supplicatory interactions to bear on their unique literary and cultural circumstances. The opening chapters establish a conceptual framework for thinking about supplication as facilitating transitions between states of feeling and positions of relative status, beginning with Homer and classical literature. Vergil's Aeneid is paradigmatic instance in which literary and social structures of the ancient past are transformed to suit the needs of the present, and supplication becomes a figure for the act of cultural translation. Subsequent chapters take up different aspects of Renaissance supplicatory discourse, showing how postures of humiliation and abjection are appropriated and transformed in erotic poetry, drama, and epic. The book ends with Milton who invests gestures of self-abasement with unexpected dignity.

This Companion covers a range of receptions of ancient Greek and Roman gender and sexuality. It explores ancient representations of these concepts as we define them today, as well as recent perspectives that have been projected back onto antiquity. Beginning in antiquity, the chapters examine how the ancient Greeks and Romans regarded concepts of what we would today call "gender" and "sexuality" based on the evidence available to us, and chart the varied interpretations and receptions of these concepts across time to the present day. In exploring how different cultures have "received" the classical past, the volume investigates these cultures’ different interpretations of Greek and Roman sexualities, and what these interpretations can reveal about their own attitudes. Through the contributions in this book, the reader gains a deeper understanding of this essential part of human existence, derived from influential sources. From ancient to modern and postmodern perspectives, from cinematic productions to TikTok videos, receptions of ancient gender and sexuality abound. This volume is of interest to students and scholars of ancient history, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and ancient societies, as well as those working on popular culture and gender studies more broadly.

Supplication captures a universal, cross-cultural approach to spirituality. Authored by Dr. Patricia Brown, The Supplicate Order defines supplication as an expression for the laws and principles that guide a spiritual aspirant toward communion with the sacred (mysteries), progressing toward an expanded perception of life and grateful reception of blessings, positive creativity, healing, and wisdom. It shows how humanity bridges the manifest explicate order and the unmanifest implicate order. Offering a fresh perspective on supplication, The Supplicate Order carries four messages that pertain to spiritual aspirants at any level: Dont abandon yourself (to self-loathing or to another persons or groups absolute power over you) Start with what you know to do (dont be too eager to get exotic or far removed from your resonant spiritual persuasion) Never think you know everything Dont give up Brown explains how key universal principles verify the human capacity to bring forth gifts of the spirit, while psychological health and development determine invocatory efforts and receptive capacities. The Supplicate Order integrates global spiritual wisdom and psychological knowledge with the trends of new science, highlighting the human invocation of the sacred.

The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood throws fresh light on narratives about Christian holy men and women from Late Antiquity to Byzantium. Rather than focusing on the relationship between story and reality, it asks what literary choices authors made in depicting their heroes and heroines: how they positioned the narrator, how they responded to existing texts, how they utilised or transcended genre conventions for their own purposes, and how they sought to relate to their audiences. The literary focus of the chapters assembled here showcases the diversity of hagiographical texts written in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac, as well as pointing out the ongoing conversations that connect them. By asking these questions of this diverse group of texts, it illuminates the literary development of hagiography in the late antique, Byzantine, and medieval periods.