Author : Ian C. Beavis
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 25,34 MB
Release : 1988
Category : History
ISBN :
A comprehensive survey of insects and terrestrial invertebrates referred to by Greek and Roman authors from the earliest times to AD 600. Explains the extent and accuracy of their knowledge compared to current beliefs, and discusses the role of each animal type in classical life.
Author : Theophrastus
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 620 pages
File Size : 13,25 MB
Release : 2004-12-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9780521839808
Theophrastus' Characters is a collection of 30 short character-sketches of various types of individuals who might be met in the streets of Athens in the late fourth century BC. It is a work which had a profound influence on European literature, and this is a detailed and elaborate treatment of it. This edition presents an improved text, a translation which is designed both to be readable and to bring out fully the nuances of the very difficult Greek, and a commentary which covers every feature of the text and its interpretation and offers particularly full elucidation of the often enigmatic references to contemporary social practices and historical events. There is also a lengthy introduction, which discusses the antecedents and affiliations of the work, its date, its purpose, and the manuscript tradition. Extensive indexes are also provided, including an Index Verborum.
Author : Sian Lewis
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 771 pages
File Size : 18,56 MB
Release : 2018-01-09
Category : History
ISBN : 1351782495
The Culture of Animals in Antiquity provides students and researchers with well-chosen and clearly presented ancient sources in translation, some well-known, others undoubtedly unfamiliar, but all central to a key area of study in ancient history: the part played by animals in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. It brings new ideas to bear on the wealth of evidence – literary, historical and archaeological – which we possess for the experiences and roles of animals in the ancient world. Offering a broad picture of ancient cultures in the Mediterranean as part of a wider ecosystem, the volume is on an ambitious scale. It covers a broad span of time, from the sacred animals of dynastic Egypt to the imagery of the lamb in early Christianity, and of region, from the fallow deer introduced and bred in Roman Britain to the Asiatic lioness and her cubs brought as a gift by the Elamites to the Great King of Persia. This sourcebook is essential for anyone wishing to understand the role of animals in the ancient world and support learning for one of the fastest growing disciplines in Classics.
Author : Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr.
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 40,31 MB
Release : 2014-06-23
Category : History
ISBN : 1317577434
The ancient Greeks and Romans lived in a world teeming with animals. Animals were integral to ancient commerce, war, love, literature and art. Inside the city they were found as pets, pests, and parasites. They could be sacred, sacrificed, liminal, workers, or intruders from the wild. Beyond the city domesticated animals were herded and bred for profit and wild animals were hunted for pleasure and gain alike. Specialists like Aristotle, Aelian, Pliny and Seneca studied their anatomy and behavior. Geographers and travelers described new lands in terms of their animals. Animals are to be seen on every possible artistic medium, woven into cloth and inlaid into furniture. They are the subject of proverbs, oaths and dreams. Magicians, physicians and lovers turned to animals and their parts for their crafts. They paraded before kings, inhabited palaces, and entertained the poor in the arena. Quite literally, animals pervaded the ancient world from A-Z. In entries ranging from short to long, Kenneth Kitchell offers insight into this commonly overlooked world, covering representative and intriguing examples of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. Familiar animals such as the cow, dog, fox and donkey are treated along with more exotic animals such as the babirussa, pangolin, and dugong. The evidence adduced ranges from Minoan times to the Late Roman Empire and is taken from archaeology, ancient authors, inscriptions, papyri, coins, mosaics and all other artistic media. Whenever possible reasoned identifications are given for ancient animal names and the realities behind animal lore are brought forth. Why did the ancients think hippopotamuses practiced blood letting on themselves? How do you catch a monkey? Why were hyenas thought to be hermaphroditic? Was there really a vampire moth? Entries are accompanied by full citations to ancient authors and an extensive bibliography. Of use to Classics students and scholars, but written in a style designed to engage anyone interested in Greco-Roman antiquity, Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z reveals the extent and importance of the animal world to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It answers many questions, asks several more, and seeks to stimulate further research in this important field.
Author : Andrew Gardner
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 45,91 MB
Release : 2016-06-16
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1315435209
This book questions the value of the concept of 'agency', a term used in sociological and philosophical literature to refer to individual free will in archaeology using examples from European and Asian prehistory, classical Greece and Rome, the Inka and other Andean cultures.
Author : W. Geoffrey Arnott
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 373 pages
File Size : 46,98 MB
Release : 2007-09-12
Category : History
ISBN : 113455625X
Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z gathers together the ancient information available, listing all the names that ancient Greeks gave their birds and all their descriptions and analyses. W. Geoffrey Arnott identifies as many of them as possible in the light of modern ornithological studies. The ancient Greek bird names are transliterated into English script, and all that the ancients said about birds is presented in English. This book is accordingly the first complete discussion of ancient bird names that will be accessible to readers without ancient Greek. The only large-scale examination of ancient birds for seventy years, the book has an exhaustive bibliography (partly classical scholarship and partly ornithological) to encourage further study, and provides students and ornithologists with the definitive study of ancient birds.
Author : David Spooner
Publisher : University Press of America
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 11,63 MB
Release : 2002-03-19
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780761818786
This book is an extension of Dr. Spooner's previous work on the interplay of insect processes and human culture as discussed in The Metaphysics of Insect Life (ISP, 1995). It continues the application of the literary, philosophical, and scientific methods employed there to the main currents in the evolution of modern Hispanic literature.
Author : Gábor Horváth
Publisher : Springer
Page : 652 pages
File Size : 43,23 MB
Release : 2014-10-30
Category : Science
ISBN : 3642547184
This book covers advances made since the 2004 Springer volume “Polarized Light in Animal Vision” edited by Horvath and Varju, but also provides reviews and synopses of some areas. Part I examines polarization sensitivity across many animal taxa including vertebrates and invertebrates and details both terrestrial and aquatic life. Part II is devoted to the description of polarized light in nature and explores how the physics of light must be taken into account when understanding how polarized light is detected by the visual system. This includes underwater polarization due to scattering; polarization patterns reflected from freshwater bodies; polarization characteristics of forest canopies; normal and anomalous polarization patterns of the skies; skylight polarization transmitted through Snell’s window and both linearly and circularly polarized signals produced by terrestrial and aquatic animals. This Part also examines polarized “light pollution” induced by anthropogenic factors such as reflection off asphalt surfaces, glass panes, car bodies, and other man-made structures that are now known to form ecological traps for polarotactic insects. Part III surveys some of the practical applications of polarization vision including polarization-based traps for biting insects, ground-based polarimetric cloud detectors and an historical examination of the navigational abilities of Viking seafarers using the sky polarization compass. The deterrent qualities of ungulate pelage to polarization-sensitive biting insects is also examined in this section.
Author : Paul Turquand Keyser
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 1065 pages
File Size : 17,44 MB
Release : 2018
Category : History
ISBN : 0199734143
With a focus on science in the ancient societies of Greece and Rome, including glimpses into Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China, 'The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World' offers an in depth synthesis of science and medicine circa 650 BCE to 650 CE. 0The Handbook comprises five sections, each with a specific focus on ancient science and medicine. The Handbook provides through each of its approximately four dozen essays, a synthesis and synopsis of the concepts and models of the various ancient natural sciences, covering the early Greek era through the fall of the Roman Republic, including essays that explore topics such as music theory, ancient philosophers, astrology, and alchemy.
Author : James A. Kelhoffer
Publisher : Mohr Siebeck
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 20,56 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Health & Fitness
ISBN : 9783161484605
James A. Kelhoffer offers a comprehensive analysis of Mark 1:6c par. Matt 3:4c in its socio-historical context, the Synoptic gospels and subsequent Christian interpretation. The first chapter surveys various anecdotes about John's food in the Synoptic gospels and notes that there has never been a consensus in scholarship concerning John's locusts and wild honey. Chapters 2 and 3 address locusts as human food and assorted kinds of wild honey in antiquity. Chapter 4 considers the different meanings of this diet for the historical Baptist, Mark, and Matthew. Contemporary anthropological and nutritional data shed new light on John's experience as a locust gatherer and assess whether these foods could have actually sustained him in the wilderness. The last chapter demonstrates that the most prevalent interpretation of the Baptist's diet, from the third through the sixteenth centuries, hails John's simple wilderness provisions as a model for believers to emulate.
