Böcker av Gregson Davis

The collection of essays in this volume offers fresh insights into varied modalities of reception of Epicurean thought among Roman authors of the late Republican and Imperial eras. Its generic purview encompasses prose as well as poetic texts by both minor and major writers in the Latin literary canon, including the anonymous poems, Ciris and Aetna, and an elegy from the Tibullan corpus by the female poet, Sulpicia. Major figures include the Augustan poets, Vergil and Horace, and the late antique Christian theologian, Augustine. The method of analysis employed in the essays is uniformly interdisciplinary and reveals the depth of the engagement of each ancient author with major preoccupations of Epicurean thought, such as the balanced pursuit of erotic pleasure in the context of human flourishing and the role of the gods in relation to human existence. The ensemble of nuanced interpretations testifies to the immense vitality of the Epicurean philosophical tradition throughout Greco-Roman antiquity and thereby provides a welcome and substantial contribution to the burgeoning field of reception studies.

The role of Greek thought in the final days of the Roman republic is a topic that has garnered much attention in recent years. This volume of essays, commissioned specially from a distinguished international group of scholars, explores the role and influence of Greek philosophy, specifically Epicureanism, in the late republic. It focuses primarily (although not exclusively) on the works and views of Cicero, premier politician and Roman philosopher of the day, and Lucretius, foremost among the representatives and supporters of Epicureanism at the time. Throughout the volume, the impact of such disparate reception on the part of these leading authors is explored in a way that illuminates the popularity as well as the controversy attached to the followers of Epicurus in Italy, ranging from ethical and political concerns to the understanding of scientific and celestial phenomena.