It is 1980 and Clare Phillips, a beautiful, young British free-lance journalist based in Rome and her friend Daniel, a young American priest, visit an Etruscan tomb and make a macabre discovery. Clare realizes that a kidnapping has taken place and, with Daniel’s grudging help, decides to do some investigating on her own. With a background in archeology, Clare is also covering the announced purchase by the Vatican’s Etruscan Museum of a valuable antique Greek wine cup – a kylix - painted by the world famous Euphronius. A major exhibit has been planned. The purchase turns out to have been engineered by an unscrupulous Argentinian archbishop and a greedy French diplomat, and Clare – with Daniel’s help - uses her contacts to dig deeper. She gets advice from fellow journalists, including Luca, an Italian investigative reporter with whom she’d had a brief passionate fling, works closely with several of Italy’s top investigating magistrates. But her determination to make a name for herself leads her repeatedly to strike out on her own. Gradually several things become clear. First, that the purchase may have been made with “dirty money”, and second, that a avaricious Christian Democratic politician and his henchmen may also be involved in the kidnapping. Then, once the identity of the kidnapping victim becomes known, that the two events are inextricably linked. Clare’s ambition puts her at risk on more than one occasion. The kylix will leave a bloody trail and the story, spun out against its Roman background, highlights the life of a dynamic foreign journalist in Italy.

Nearly three hundred illustrations and a text reveal the entire range of the Vatican's artistic holdings, replete with priceless masterworks from all periods.

This agenda-setting text has been fully revised in its second edition, with coverage extended into the Christian era. It remains the most comprehensive and engaging introduction to the sexual cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. Covers a wide range of subjects, including Greek pederasty and the symposium, ancient prostitution, representations of women in Greece and Rome, and the public regulation of sexual behavior Expanded coverage extends to the advent of Christianity, includes added illustrations, and offers student-friendly pedagogical features Text boxes supply intriguing information about tangential topics Gives a thorough overview of current literature while encouraging further reading and discussion Conveys the complexity of ancient attitudes towards sexuality and gender and the modern debates they have engendered

Expanding the study of Etruscan habitation sites to include not only traditional cities but also smaller Etruscan communities, Cetamura del Chianti examines a settlement that flourished during an exceptional time period, amid wars with the Romans in the fourth to first centuries BCE. Situated in an ideal hilltop location that was easy to defend and had access to fresh water, clay, and timber, the community never grew to the size of a city, and no known references to it survive in ancient writings; its ancient name isn’t even known. Because no cities were ever built on top of the site, excavation is unusually unimpeded. Intriguing features described in Cetamura del Chianti include an artisans’ zone with an adjoining sanctuary, which fostered the cult worship of Lur and Leinth, two relatively little known Etruscan deities, and undisturbed wells that reveal the cultural development and natural environment, including the vineyards and oak forests of Chianti, over a period of some six hundred years. Deeply enhancing our understanding of an intriguing economic, political, and cultural environment, this is a compelling portrait of a singular society.

The Classical Athenians were the first to articulate and implement the notion that ordinary citizens of no particular affluence or education could make responsible political decisions. For this reason, reactions to Athenian democracy have long provided a prime Rorschach test for political thought. Whether praising Athens's government as the legitimizing ancestor of modern democracies or condemning it as mob rule, commentators throughout history have revealed much about their own notions of politics and society. In this book, Jennifer Roberts charts responses to Athenian democracy from Athens itself through the twentieth century, exploring a debate that touches upon historiography, ethics, political science, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, gender studies, and educational theory.

The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous expos's of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 17 is a compendium of articles and notes pertaining to the Museum's permanent collections of antiquities, decorative arts, drawings, and photographs. This volume includes a supplement introduced by John Walsh with a fully illustrated checklist of the Getty’s recent acquisitions. Volume 17 includes articles written by Elisabeth Doumeyrou, Gerhard Gruitrooy, Lee Hendrix, Clark Hulse, David Jaffé, Jean-Nérée Ronfort, and Belinda Rathbone.

Examines the way in which Sophocles' play "Oedipus Tyrannus" and its hero, Oedipus, King of Thebes, were probably received in their own time and place, and relates this to twentieth-century receptions and interpretations, including those of Sigmund Freud.

Deadly Dealings in Bloomington, Illinois Ashley Cummins, the granddaughter of a powerful judge, is unexpectedly shot while buying drugs from her dealer late one night on a city street. As detective Sasha Frank investigates her murder, all of his possible suspects start showing up dead or missing. Who is behind the killings? As pressure builds on Sasha to solve the case, he uncovers new information that begins to unravel a complicated web of evidence. Will Sasha be able to prove who the killer is and take down the person responsible for the murders? Cold Consequences is the exciting second book in David Rohlfing’s Detective Sasha Frank Mystery Series, serving as a prequel to Deliberate Duplicity. In this gripping new tale, full of exciting twists and turns, Sasha pursues every lead to find the killer. You won’t be able to put it down until the final thread is unraveled.