Compitum

James E. G. Zetzel, Critics, Compilers, and Commentators. An Introduction to Roman Philology, 200 BCE-800 CE, Oxford, 2018.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
446 pages
ISBN : 9780195380514
£ 64

"To teach correct Latin and to explain the poets" were the two standard duties of Roman teachers. Not only was a command of literary Latin a prerequisite for political and social advancement, but a sense of Latin's history and importance contributed to the Romans' understanding of their own cultural identity. Put plainly, philology — the study of language and texts — was important at Rome.
Critics, Compilers, and Commentators is the first comprehensive introduction to the history, forms, and texts of Roman philology. James Zetzel traces the changing role and status of Latin as revealed in the ways it was explained and taught by the Romans themselves. In addition, he provides a descriptive bibliography of hundreds of scholarly texts from antiquity, listing editions, translations, and secondary literature. Recovering a neglected but crucial area of Roman intellectual life, this book will be an essential resource for students of Roman literature and intellectual history, medievalists, and historians of education and language science.

Source : Oxford University Press

David Konstan, In the Orbit of Love Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome, Oxford, 2018.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
Collection : Classical studies
232 pages
ISBN : 9780190887872
£ 20

This book is about love in the classical world — not erotic passion but the kind of love that binds together intimate members of a family and very close friends, but which may also extend to include a wider range of individuals for whom we care deeply. David Konstan begins the book with a discussion of friendship, focusing particularly on the Greek notion that in friendship the identities of two friends all but merge into one. The book then turns to the question of loyalty, and why loyalty seems not to have achieved the status of a virtue in classical thought, before considering love in relation to generosity, favors, and gratitude. There follows a discussion of grief, which is a symptom of the loss of a loved one. The book concludes with an examination of love as the basis of civic solidarity.