Thursday, September 24, 2026

Medicine and Practical Ethics in Galen

Galen was notable in the ancient world for his creative intermingling of medicine and practical ethics. This book is the first authoritative analysis of Galen's psychological and ethical works alongside a large number of his technical tracts, both medical and philosophical, and offers a robust framework through which we can comprehend his role as a practical ethicist - an aspect of his intellectual profile that has been little understood until now. Sophia Xenophontos explores a wide range of literature on moralia in the Roman imperial period, as well as topics including the pathology of emotions, the social role of medicine, and character formation and social ethics, to show the sophisticated and complex ways in which moral themes and controversies from antiquity were adapted and reinvigorated by Galen. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. 
 
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Publication date:
14 December 2023
ISBN:
9781009247795
Creative Commons:
Creative Common License - CC Creative Common License - BY Creative Common License - NC Creative Common License - ND
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.
https://creativecommons.org/creativelicenses

Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World

Edited by Blanka Misic, Champlain College, Lennoxville, Abigail Graham, Institute of Classical Studies, London 
How do the senses shape the way we perceive, understand, and remember ritual experiences? This book applies cognitive and sensory approaches to Roman rituals, reconnecting readers with religious experiences as members of an embodied audience. These approaches allow us to move beyond the literate elites to examine broader audiences of diverse individuals, who experienced rituals as participants and/or performers. Case studies of ritual experiences from a variety of places, spaces, and contexts across the Roman world, including polytheistic and Christian rituals, state rituals, private rituals, performances, and processions, demonstrate the dynamic and broad-scale application that cognitive approaches offer for ancient religion, paving the way for future interdisciplinary engagement. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details. 
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Publication date:
04 January 2024
ISBN:
9781009355513
Creative Commons:
Creative Common License - CC Creative Common License - BY Creative Common License - NC
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.

 

Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE

Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.



Die distanzierte Darstellung des Wunderbaren in der Apostelgeschichte: Eine erzähltechnische Konvention antiker Historiographie bei Lukas

Manuel Nägele
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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (WUNT I) 561

A widespread prejudice assumes that people in antiquity held a naive belief in miracles. Yet even back then, every conceivable stance existed, ranging from an unbroken belief in miracles to a radical skepticism toward them. In the works of ancient historians, the controversial nature of miraculous phenomena is reflected in the fact that accounts of miracles are presented in a distanced manner. Lukan scholarship, on the other hand, assumes that Luke does not adhere to this convention of miracle distance despite his historiographical claims, and may not even be aware of it. Manuel Nägele refutes this consensus by drawing on two recent insights from classical studies, according to which miracle distance is not necessarily tied to a critical-skeptical attitude of the historian toward the miraculous, and according to which it can be assumed that historians communicate their concerns not only through authorial comments but also intradiegetically through a corresponding shaping of the narrated world. Against this backdrop, Nägele draws on the literary discourse on the fantastic and employs narratological tools to identify the common distancing strategies of ancient historians, thereby examining whether and to what extent miracle distance is realized not only extradiegetically but also intradiegetically. The author then applies these insights to Luke-Acts. It becomes apparent that, in some miracle accounts - particularly in the second half of the Acts of the Apostles - Luke subtly employs miracle distance intradiegetically. Clearly, Luke is not only familiar with this convention but also knows how to use it for his own purposes. Nägele concludes with a discussion of what this insight might mean for Luke's audience and explores the question of why Luke does not portray all miracles in a distanced manner.
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Table of contents:

Kapitel I: Einleitung
1. Hinführung und Problemanzeige
2. Forschungsgeschichtliche Kontextualisierung des Problemhorizonts
3. Fragestellung und Anliegen der vorliegenden Untersuchung
4. Aufbau der vorliegenden Untersuchung
Kapitel II: Methodische und begriffliche Distinktionen
1. Das Wunder(bare) - eine literaturwissenschaftliche Schärfung seiner undeutlichen Konturen
2. Zum etischen Sprachgebrauch der vorliegenden Studie: Wunder(bares), Mirakulöses oder doch Übernatürliches?
3. Distinktionen zum Distanzbegriff
Kapitel III: Die distanzierte Darstellung des Wunder(baren) bei zeitgenössischen Autoren
1. Extradiegetische Distanzierungsstrategien
2. Intradiegetische Distanzierungsstrategien
3. Fazit zu den extra- und intradiegetischen Distanzierungsstrategien
Kapitel IV: Die distanzierte Darstellung des Wunder(baren) im lukanischen Doppelwerk
1. Interpretatorische Vorbemerkungen zu einer intradiegetisch realisierten distanzierten Wunderdarstellung bei Lukas
2. Die lukanische (Um-)codierung der geltenden Plausibilitätsstruktur
3. Der rationalisierende Umgang mit dem Wunder(baren) bei Lukas
4. Ironie und Sarkasmus bei Lukas
Kapitel V: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven
1. Synthese der Beobachtungen zur lukanischen Wunderdistanz
2. Auswertung und Ausblick

 

 


Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Soldiers, Wages, and the Hellenistic Economies

This book explains the military and economic developments that engulfed the ancient Mediterranean in the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods from the perspective of labour history. It examines the changing nature of military service in the vast armies of Philip and Alexander, the Successors, and the early Hellenistic kingdoms and argues that the paid soldiers who staffed them were not just 'mercenaries', but rather the Greek world's first large-scale instance of wage labour. Using a wide range of sources, Charlotte Van Regenmortel not only offers a detailed social history of military service in these armies but also provides a novel explanation for the economic transformation of the Hellenistic age, positioning military wage-labourers as the driving force behind the period's nascent market economies. Thi 
 
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Publication date:
21 May 2024
ISBN:
9781009408967
Creative Commons:
Creative Common License - CC Creative Common License - BY Creative Common License - NC

 Table of Contents

Contextualizing Imperial Borderlands: 9th Century BCE – 9th Century CE and Beyond

Robert, Rollinger / Degen, Julian
 

Afro-Eurasian Transformations ‒ Ancient Worlds and Beyond

The first volume of the new series Afro-Eurasian Transformations ‒ Ancient Worlds and Beyond comprises a collection of papers whose overarching topic pertains to the study of territories situated beyond direct imperial control. Nonetheless, more subtle and elusive traces of imperial impact can be detected in this geographical area.
The purpose of this collection is to introduce this expanse as “imperial borderlands”. In addition, it includes a variety of contributions from experts in selected fields. With its broad temporal and geographical scope, ranging from the 1st millennium BC to the end of antiquity and beyond, covering the Afro-Eurasia worlds, the volume presents the first concentrated study on the phenomenon of imperial borderlands. 
pages/dimensions: X, 515 pages, 56 ill.
language: English
binding: Book (Hardback)
dimensions: 17.00 × 24.00 cm
weight: 1365g
publishing date: 23.09.2026
prices: ca. 98,00 Eur[D] / 100,80 Eur[A]
ISBN: 978-3-447-12516-1
DOI: 10.13173/9783447125161

 

 

Materielle Kultur in Bewegung: Die hellenistische Keramik (LCI 1) aus Sirkeli Höyük

Marxer, Sophia Evamaria
 

 Schriften zur vorderasiatischen Archäologie

Keramik ist das am häufigsten erhaltenes Zeugnis materieller Kultur vergangener Gesellschaften und spielt daher eine zentrale Rolle in der archäologischen Forschung. Keramik kann – insbesondere durch feinteilige Untersuchungen – viel über deren Produzent*innen und Nutzer*innen aussagen. So lassen sich in einem Keramikkorpus auf Basis der Untersuchung von Form, Material, Oberfläche und Herstellungstechnik viele verschiedene kulturelle Marker in Gefäßen entdecken. Die Analyse solcher Marker kann genutzt werden, um gesellschaftliche Wandlungsprozesse und kulturelle Einflüsse archäologisch fassbar zu machen.
Im Fokus der Studie von Sophia Marxer steht der Übergang von der späten Eisenzeit (der lokalen Chronologie entsprechend NCI 5 bis 6) zur hellenistischen Epoche (der lokalen Chronologie entsprechend LCI 1) in Kilikien, dem auf der Grundlage bislang unveröffentlichter Keramikfunde aus den Grabungen in Sirkeli Höyük nachgegangen wird. Kilikien eignet sich hierfür besonders, da es einerseits in hellenistischer Zeit zwischen den Seleukiden, den Ptolemäern und lokalen Dynastien stark umkämpft war, also auch äußere Einflüsse ihren Weg in das Gebiet fanden, es andererseits aber auch eine Kontinuität kultureller Merkmale von der Bronzezeit bis zur römischen Epoche aufweist. Die Funde werden erstmals umfassend ausgewertet und eröffnen neue Perspektiven auf Kulturkontakte und regionale Identitäten im hellenistischen Kilikien. 

 
series:
volume: 25
pages/dimensions: XVIII, 330 Seiten, 223 Abb.
language: Deutsch
binding: Buch (Hardcover)
dimensions: 21,00 × 29,70 cm
weight: 1481g
publishing date: 30.09.2026
prices: ca. 98,00 Eur[D] / 100,80 Eur[A]
ISBN: 978-3-447-12611-3
DOI: 10.13173/9783447126113