Milnor considers how the fragments of textual graffiti which survive on the walls of the Roman city of Pompeii reflect and refract the literary world from which they emerged. The volume looks in detail at the role and nature of 'popular' literature in the early Roman Empire and the place of poetry in the Pompeian cityscape.

Kristina Milnor considers how the fragments of textual graffiti which survive on the walls of the Roman city of Pompeii reflect and refract the literary world from which they emerged. She then looks in detail at the role and nature of 'popular' literature in the early Roman Empire and the place of poetry in the Pompeian cityscape.

In this volume, Milnor considers how the fragments of textual graffiti which survive on the walls of the Roman city of Pompeii reflect and refract the literary world from which they emerged. Focusing in particular on the writings which either refer to or quote canonical authors directly, Milnor uncovers the influence— in diction, style, or structure—of elite Latin literature as the Pompeian graffiti show significant connections with familiar authors such as Ovid, Propertius, and Virgil. While previous scholarship has described these fragments as popular distortions of well-known texts, Milnor argues that they are important cultural products in their own right, since they are able to give us insight into how ordinary Romans responded to and sometimes rewrote works of canonical literature. Additionally, since graffiti are at once textual and material artefacts, they give us the opportunity to see how such writings gave meaning to, and were given meaning by, the ancient urban environment. Ultimately, the volume looks in detail at the role and nature of 'popular' literature in the early Roman Empire and the place of poetry in the Pompeian cityscape.

A delightful look at the epic literary history of the short, poetic genre of the epigram From Nestor’s inscribed cup to tombstones, bathroom walls, and Twitter tweets, the ability to express oneself concisely and elegantly, continues to be an important part of literary history unlike any other. This book examines the entire history of the epigram, from its beginnings as a purely epigraphic phenomenon in the Greek world, where it moved from being just a note attached to physical objects to an actual literary form of expression, to its zenith in late 1st century Rome, and further through a period of stagnation up to its last blooming, just before the beginning of the Dark Ages. A Companion to Ancient Epigram offers the first ever full-scale treatment of the genre from a broad international perspective. The book is divided into six parts, the first of which covers certain typical characteristics of the genre, examines aspects that are central to our understanding of epigram, and discusses its relation to other literary genres. The subsequent four parts present a diachronic history of epigram, from archaic Greece, Hellenistic Greece, and Latin and Greek epigrams at Rome, all the way up to late antiquity, with a concluding section looking at the heritage of ancient epigram from the Middle Ages up to modern times. Provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the epigram The first single-volume book to examine the entire history of the genre Scholarly interest in Greek and Roman epigram has steadily increased over the past fifty years Looks at not only the origins of the epigram but at the later literary tradition A Companion to Ancient Epigram will be of great interest to scholars and students of literature, world literature, and ancient and general history. It will also be an excellent addition to the shelf of any public and university library.

In From Document to History: Epigraphic Insights into the Greco-Roman World, editors Carlos Noreña and Nikolaos Papazarkadas gather together an exciting set of original studies on Greek and Roman epigraphy, first presented at the Second North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (Berkeley 2016). Chapters range chronologically from the sixth century BCE to the fifth century CE, and geographically from Egypt and Asia Minor to the west European continent and British isles. Key themes include Greek and Roman epigraphies of time, space, and public display, with texts featuring individuals and social groups ranging from Roman emperors, imperial elites, and artists to gladiators, immigrants, laborers, and slaves. Several papers highlight the new technologies that are transforming our understanding of ancient inscriptions, and a number of major new texts are published here for the first time.

Offers an in-depth exploration of the only assured brothel from the Greco-Roman world, illuminating the lives of both prostitutes and clients.

The unique relationship between word and image in ancient Egypt is a defining feature of that ancient culture's records. All hieroglyphic texts are composed of images, and large-scale figural imagery in temples and tombs is often accompanied by texts. Epigraphy and palaeography are two distinct, but closely related, ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. This Handbook stresses technical issues about recording text and art and interpretive questions about what we do with those records and why we do it. It offers readers three key things: a diachronic perspective, covering all ancient Egyptian scripts from prehistoric Egypt through the Coptic era (fourth millennium BCE-first half of first millennium CE), a look at recording techniques that considers the past, present, and future, and a focus on the experiences of colleagues. The diachronic perspective illustrates the range of techniques used to record different phases of writing in different media. The consideration of past, present, and future techniques allows readers to understand and assess why epigraphy and palaeography is or was done in a particular manner by linking the aims of a particular effort with the technique chosen to reach those aims. The choice of techniques is a matter of goals and the records' work circumstances, an inevitable consequence of epigraphy being a double projection: geometrical, transcribing in two dimensions an object that exists physically in three; and mental, an interpretation, with an inevitable selection among the object's defining characteristics. The experiences of colleagues provide a range of perspectives and opinions about issues such as techniques of recording, challenges faced in the field, and ways of reading and interpreting text and image. These accounts are interesting and instructive stories of innovation in the face of scientific conundrum.

Winner of CAMWS' 2023 Bolchazy Pedagogy Award. Ancient Women Writers of Greece and Rome features the extant writings of major female authors from the Greco-Roman world, brought together for the first time in a single volume, in both their original languages and translated into English with accompanying commentaries. The most cost-effective and comprehensive way to study the women writers of Greece and Rome, this book provides original texts, accessible text-commentaries, and detailed English translations of the works of ancient female poets and authors such as Sappho and Sulpicia. It takes a student-focused approach, discussing texts alongside new and original English translations and highlighting the rich, diverse scholarship on ancient women writers to specialists and non-specialists alike. The perspectives of women in the ancient world are still relevant and of interest today, as issues of gender and racial (in)equality remain ever-present in modern society. Ancient Women Writers of Greece and Rome provides a valuable teaching tool for students of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, as well as those interested in ancient literature, history, and gender studies who do not have proficiency in Greek or Latin.

This book investigates the working mechanisms of public opinion in Late Republican Rome as a part of informal politics. It explores the political interaction (and sometimes opposition) between the elite and the people through various means, such as rumours, gossip, political literature, popular verses and graffiti. It also proposes the existence of a public sphere in Late Republican Rome and analyses public opinion in that time as a system of control. By applying the spatial turn to politics, it becomes possible to study sociability and informal meetings where public opinion circulated. What emerges is a wider concept of the political participation of the people, not just restricted to voting or participating in the assemblies.