When it was announced several years ago that Cicero's Pro Caclio would be added as an acceptable alternate for the AP Latin Literature syllabus, teachers began searching for materials that would assist them in teaching this particular text. Now one of the best such resources, Katherine Geffcken's fascinating (though hitherto difficult-to-obtain) volume on the Pro Caelio...has been attractively and inexpensively reissued ....

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This is the OCR-endorsed edition covering the Latin AS and A-Level (Group 1) prescription of Cicero's pro Caelio, 51–58, 61–68, and the A-Level (Group 2) prescription of 33–50, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed material to be read in English for A Level. Pro Caelio is one of Cicero's finest and funniest speeches. In 56 BC, he defended Marcus Caelius Rufus who was being prosecuted on charges of violence, including the attempted poisoning of Roman noblewoman Clodia with whom Caelius previously had an affair. Cicero's primary tactic was to blacken the character and reliability of Clodia, whom he depicts as the woman scorned, prosecuting Caelius out of revenge. Drawing on characters well known from Roman comedy, Cicero casts Caelius as the decent young man victimized by the aggressive courtesan, thereby shaming Clodia and glossing over the more awkward charges levelled at his client. Supporting resources are available on the Companion Website: https://www.bloomsbury.pub/OCR-editions-2024-2026

The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence documents the ongoing popularity of Roman comedies, and shows that they continued to be performed in the late Republic and early Imperial periods of Rome. Playwrights Plautus and Terence impressed audiences with stock characters as the young-man-in-love, the trickster slave, the greedy pimp, the prostitute, and many others. A wide range of spectators visited Roman theaters, including even the most privileged members of Roman society: orators like Cicero, satirists like Horace and Juvenal, and love poets like Catullus and Ovid. They all put comedy’s varied characters to new and creative uses in their own works, as they tried to make sense of their own lives and those of the people around them by suggesting comparisons to the standard personality types of Roman comedy. Scholars have commonly believed that the plays fell out of favor with theatrical audiences by the end of the first century BCE, but The Life of Comedy demonstrates that performances of these comedies continued at least until the turn of the second century CE. Mathias Hanses traces the plays’ reception in Latin literature from the late first century BCE to the early second century CE, and shines a bright light on the relationships between comic texts and the works of contemporary and later Latin writers.

The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence documents the ongoing popularity of Roman comedies, and shows that they continued to be performed in the late Republic and early Imperial periods of Rome. Playwrights Plautus and Terence impressed audiences with stock characters as the young-man-in-love, the trickster slave, the greedy pimp, the prostitute, and many others. A wide range of spectators visited Roman theaters, including even the most privileged members of Roman society: orators like Cicero, satirists like Horace and Juvenal, and love poets like Catullus and Ovid. They all put comedy’s varied characters to new and creative uses in their own works, as they tried to make sense of their own lives and those of the people around them by suggesting comparisons to the standard personality types of Roman comedy. Scholars have commonly believed that the plays fell out of favor with theatrical audiences by the end of the first century BCE, but The Life of Comedy demonstrates that performances of these comedies continued at least until the turn of the second century CE. Mathias Hanses traces the plays’ reception in Latin literature from the late first century BCE to the early second century CE, and shines a bright light on the relationships between comic texts and the works of contemporary and later Latin writers.

Ancient philosophers considered question about laughter, humor, and comedy to be both philosophically interesting and important. They theorized about laughter and its causes, moralized about the appropriate uses of humor and what it is appropriate to laugh at, and wrote treaties on comedic composition. They were often merciless in ridiculing their opponents' positions, borrowing comedic devices and techniques from comic poetry and drama to do so. This volume is organized around three sets of questions that illuminate the philosophical concerns and corresponding range of answers found in ancient philosophy. The first set investigates the psychology of laughter. What is going on in our minds when we laugh? What background conditions must be in place for laughter to occur? Is laughter necessarily hostile or derisive? The second set of questions concerns the ethical and social norms governing laughter and humor. When is it appropriate or inappropriate to laugh? Does laughter have a positive social function? Is there a virtue, or excellence, connected to laugher and humor? The third set of questions concerns the philosophical uses of humor and comedic technique. Do philosophers use humor exclusively in criticizing rivals, or can it play a positive educational role as well? If it can, how does philosophical humor communicate its philosophical content? This volume does not aim to settle these fascinating questions but more importantly to start a conversation about them, and serve as a reference point for discussions of laughter, humor, and comedy in ancient philosophy.

Publisher description

Statues of the god Priapus stood in Roman gardens to warn potential thieves that the god would rape them if they attempted to steal from him. In this book, Richlin argues that the attitude of sexual aggressiveness in defense of a bounded area serves as a model for Roman satire from Lucilius to Juvenal. Using literary, anthropological, psychological, and feminist methodologies, she suggests that aggressive sexual humor reinforces aggressive behavior on both the individual and societal levels, and that Roman satire provides an insight into Roman culture. Including a substantial and provocative new introduction, this revised edition is important not only as an in-depth study of Roman sexual satire, but also as a commentary on the effects of all humor on society and its victims.

This volume offers a long overdue appraisal of the dynamic interactions between Roman law and Latin literature. Despite there being periods of massive tectonic shifts in the legal and literary landscapes, the Republic and Empire of Rome have not until now been the focus of interdisciplinary study in this field. This volume brings vital new material to the attention of the law and literature movement. An interdisciplinary approach is at the heart of this volume: specialists in Roman law rarely engage in constructive dialogue with specialists in Latin literature and vice versa but this volume bridges that divide. It shows how literary scholars are eager to examine the importance of law in literature or the juridical nature of Latin literature, while Romanists are ready to embrace the interactions between literary and legal discourse. This collection capitalizes on the opportunity to open a fruitful dialogue between scholars of Latin literature and Roman law and thus makes a major, much-needed contribution to the growing field of law and literature.