Thundering Zeus

Thundering Zeus
Author: Frank L. Holt
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2023-12-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520920090

Thundering Zeus uses an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to resolve one of the greatest puzzles in all of Hellenistic history. This book explores the remarkable rise of a Greek-ruled kingdom in ancient Bactria (modern Afghanistan) during the third century B.C. Diodotus I and II, whose dynasty emblazoned its coins with the dynamic image of Thundering Zeus, led this historic movement by breaking free of the Seleucid Empire and building a strong independent state in Central Asia. The chronology and crises that defined their reigns have been established here for the first time, and Frank Holt sets this new history into the larger context of Hellenistic studies. The best sources for understanding Hellenistic Bactria are archaeological, and they include a magnificent trove of coins. In addition to giving a history of Bactria, Thundering Zeus provides a catalog of these coins, as well as an introduction to the study of numismatics itself. Holt presents this fascinating material with the precision and acuity of a specialist and with the delight of an admirer, providing an up-to-date full catalog of known Diodotid coinage, and illustrating twenty-three coins. This succinct, energetic narrative thunders across the history of Hellenistic Bactria, exhuming coins, kingdoms, and customs as it goes. The result is a book that is both a history and a history of discovery, with much to offer those interested in ancient texts, archaeology, and coins.

Hesiod's Cosmos

Hesiod's Cosmos
Author: Jenny Strauss Clay
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2003-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139440586

Hesiod's Cosmos offers a comprehensive interpretation of both the Theogony and the Works and Days and demonstrates how the two Hesiodic poems must be read together as two halves of an integrated whole embracing both the divine and the human cosmos. After first offering a survey of the structure of both poems, Professor Clay reveals their mutually illuminating unity by offering detailed analyses of their respective poems, their teachings on the origins of the human race and the two versions of the Prometheus myth. She then examines the role of human beings in the Theogony and the role of the gods in the Works and Days, as well as the position of the hybrid figures of monsters and heroes within the Hesiodic cosmos and in relation to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.

Cygnifiliana

Cygnifiliana
Author: Roy Arthur Swanson
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2005
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780820478807

In the course of an academic career spanning five decades, Professor Roy Arthur Swanson established himself as an internationally recognized scholar and outstanding teacher in Classics and literary studies. He is the author of five books and the co-author of three books, and has been active as an editor and contributor of articles and reviews to scholarly publications. Twelve former students, colleagues, and friends have contributed papers in honor of Professor Swanson's seventy-fifth birthday. These papers all touch on subjects close to his heart, ranging from Greek, Roman, Italian, Scandinavian, and German literary studies to modern pop culture.

The Poems of Hesiod

The Poems of Hesiod
Author: Hesiod
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2017-08
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0520292863

"The Theogony is one of the most important mythical texts to survive from antiquity, and we devote the first section to it. It tells of the creation of the present world order under the rule of almighty Zeus. The Works and Days, in the second section, describes a bitter dispute between Hesiod and his brother over the disposition of their father's property, a theme that allows Hesiod to range widely over issues of right and wrong. The Shield of Herakles, whose centerpiece is a long description of a work of art, is not by Hesiod, at least most of it, but it was always attributed to him in antiquity. It is Hesiodic in style and has always formed part of the Hesiodic corpus. It makes up the third section of this book"--Provided by publisher.

Orphic Hymns Grimoire

Orphic Hymns Grimoire
Author: Sara Mastros
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2019
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1733096175

Orpheus, the famed oracle orator hero of Greece, began to teach a new religion at the dawn of the Archaic Age. Deeply rooted in ancient paganism, Orphism taught a doctrine of peace-seeking, reincarnation, and universal brotherhood. The followers, like their leader, worshiped their gods with song. Eighty seven of these ancient hymns have survived to the present day, and are called The Orphic Hymns. They've been translated into English many times. In this new collection of translations, from noted magician and pagan teacher Sara L. Mastros, the hymns come alive for the modern pagan. In addition to her inspired translations, this book also contains fascinating historical and social commentary on the hymns from a modern, feminist, pagan viewpoint, as well as spells and devotional practices for modern worshippers of the Greek gods, and brilliant "color your own" ikons.

Olympus Inc

Olympus Inc
Author: Tim Dalmau
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429916744

In Olympus Inc., the authors use the ancient Greek Gods to explores the values, practices and beliefs that underpin businesses, schools, corporations and the like, and through this they illuminate the complex forces and currents that are at work in modern organizations.They demonstrate that autocratic Zeus, uber-efficient Apollo, the slippery trickster Hermes in fact, all the gods of the Greek pantheon - are alive and thriving in our workplaces, clubs and institutions. By combining ancient myth with archetypal psychology, the authors deliver an approach to the complex issues of organizational change. Their approach is creative and engaging, but also down-to-earth and practical. Olympus Inc. includes a discussion of the DNAI (Dalmau-Neville Archetypology Indicator), a powerful and easily applicable tool that distills the theory, or archetypal psychology, in ways that enable organizations to see themselves not only as they are... but as they want to be.

Rumour and Renown

Rumour and Renown
Author: Philip R. Hardie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 707
Release: 2012-02-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521620880

Major study of the literary treatment of rumour and renown across the canon of authors from Homer to Alexander Pope, including readings in historiographical and dramatic texts, and authors such as Petrarch, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. Of interest to students of classical and comparative literature and of reception studies.

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths
Author: John Heath
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2019-04-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429663749

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility – almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible—for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh’s Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don’t live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer’s polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer’s tragic world – an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad – one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have – especially between disciplines – about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.