Il dono e il debito


Book Description




Cicero's De Provinciis Consularibus Oratio


Book Description

Perhaps no other single Roman speech exemplifies the connection between oratory, politics and imperialism better than Cicero's De Provinciis Consularibus, pronounced to the senate in 56 BC. Cicero puts his talents at the service of the powerful "triumviri" (Caesar, Crassus and Pompey), whose aims he advances by appealing to the senators' imperialistic and chauvinistic ideology. This oration, then, yields precious insights into several areas of late republican life: international relations between Rome and the provinces (Gaul, Macedonia and Judaea); the senators' view on governors, publicani (tax-farmers) and foreigners; the dirty mechanics of high politics in the 50s, driven by lust for domination and money; and Cicero's own role in that political choreography. This speech also exemplifies the exceptional range of Cicero's oratory: the invective against Piso and Gabinius calls for biting irony, the praise of Caesar displays high rhetoric, the rejection of other senators' recommendations is a tour de force of logical and sophisticated argument, and Cicero's justification for his own conduct is embedded in the self-fashioning narrative which is typical of his post reditum speeches. This new commentary includes an updated introduction, which provides the readers with a historical, rhetorical and stylistic background to appreciate the complexities of Cicero's oration, as well as indexes and maps.




Gift and Gain


Book Description

Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome shows how, over the course of Rome's classical era, a vibrant commercial culture progressively displaced traditional systems of gift giving that had long been central to Rome's material, social, and political economy, with effects on areas of life from marriage to politics.




Ethics, Identity, and Community in Later Roman Declamation


Book Description

The Major Declamations is a collection of nineteen full-length Latin speeches attributed in antiquity to Quintilian but most likely composed by a group of authors in the second and third centuries CE. Though there has been a recent revival of interest in Greco-Roman declamation, the Major Declamations has generally been neglected. This is the first book devoted exclusively to the Major Declamations and its reception in later European literature. It argues that the fictional scenarios of the Major Declamations enable the conceptual exploration of a variety of ethical and social issues. These include the construction of authority, the verification of claims, the conventions of reciprocity, and the ethics of spectatorship. Chapter 5 presents a study of the reception of the collection by the Renaissance humanist Juan Luis Vives and the eighteenth century scholar Lorenzo Patarol. A brief postscript surveys the use of declamatory exercises in the contemporary university and will inform current work in rhetorical studies.




Brill's Companion to Seneca


Book Description

This new and important introduction to Seneca provides a systematic and concise presentation of this author’s philosophical works and his tragedies. It provides handbook style surveys of each genuine or attributed work, giving dates and brief descriptions, and taking into account the most important philosophical and philological issues. In addition, they provide accounts of the major steps in the history of their later influence. The cultural background of the texts and the most important problem areas within the philosophic and tragic corpus of Seneca are dealt with in separate essays.




Parricide and Violence Against Parents throughout History


Book Description

This book combines the approaches of history and criminology to study parricide and non-fatal violence against parents from across traditional period and geographical boundaries, encompassing research on Asia as well as Europe and North America. Parricide and non-fatal violence against parents are rare but significant forms of family violence. They have been perceived to be a recent phenomenon related to bad parenting and child abuse often in poorer socioeconomic circumstances – yet they have a history, which provides insights for modern-day explanation and intervention. Research on violence against parents has concentrated on child abuse and mental illness but, by using a rich array of primary and secondary documents, such as court cases, criminal statistics, newspaper reports, and legal and medical literature, this book shows that violence against parents is also shaped by conflicts related to parental authority, the rise of children’s rights, conflicting economic and emotional expectations, and other sociohistorical factors.




Reconstructing the Roman Republic


Book Description

In recent decades, scholars have argued that the Roman Republic's political culture was essentially democratic in nature, stressing the central role of the 'sovereign' people and their assemblies. Karl-J. Hölkeskamp challenges this view in Reconstructing the Roman Republic, warning that this scholarly trend threatens to become the new orthodoxy, and defending the position that the republic was in fact a uniquely Roman, dominantly oligarchic and aristocratic political form. Hölkeskamp offers a comprehensive, in-depth survey of the modern debate surrounding the Roman Republic. He looks at the ongoing controversy first triggered in the 1980s when the 'oligarchic orthodoxy' was called into question by the idea that the republic's political culture was a form of Greek-style democracy, and he considers the important theoretical and methodological advances of the 1960s and 1970s that prepared the ground for this debate. Hölkeskamp renews and refines the 'elitist' view, showing how the republic was a unique kind of premodern city-state political culture shaped by a specific variant of a political class. He covers a host of fascinating topics, including the Roman value system; the senatorial aristocracy; competition in war and politics within this aristocracy; and the symbolic language of public rituals and ceremonies, monuments, architecture, and urban topography. Certain to inspire continued debate, Reconstructing the Roman Republic offers fresh approaches to the study of the republic while attesting to the field's enduring vitality. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.




Il potere della mente che spacca l'atomo (Tradotto)


Book Description

LA MAGGIORANZA delle persone ha idee rozze o distorte sul carattere e la posizione dello Spirito. Pensano che lo Spirito non abbia alcun ruolo negli affari mondani e che possa essere conosciuto da una persona solo dopo la sua morte. Ma Gesù disse: 'Dio è Spirito'; disse anche: 'Il regno di Dio è dentro di voi'. La scienza ci dice che c'è una vita universale che anima e sostiene tutte le forme dell'universo. La scienza ha fatto breccia nell'atomo e lo ha rivelato carico di un'energia tremenda che può essere liberata e resa capace di dare agli abitanti della terra poteri oltre l'espressione, quando la sua legge di espressione sarà scoperta. Gesù evidentemente sapeva di questa energia nascosta nella materia e ha usato la sua conoscenza per fare i cosiddetti miracoli. I nostri scienziati moderni dicono che una sola goccia d'acqua contiene abbastanza energia latente da far saltare un edificio di dieci piani. Questa energia, la cui esistenza è stata scoperta dagli scienziati moderni, è lo stesso tipo di energia spirituale che era conosciuta da Elia, Eliseo e Gesù, e utilizzata da loro per compiere miracoli. La scienza sta scoprendo la dinamica miracolosa della religione, ma la scienza non ha ancora compreso il potere direttivo dinamico del pensiero dell'uomo. Tutti i cosiddetti operatori di miracoli affermano di non produrre da soli i risultati meravigliosi; di essere solo gli strumenti di un'entità superiore. Gesù non sosteneva di avere l'esclusivo potere soprannaturale che gli viene solitamente attribuito. Aveva esplorato l'energia eterea, che chiamava il 'regno dei cieli'; la sua comprensione era al di là di quella dell'uomo medio, ma sapeva che altri uomini potevano fare quello che lui faceva se solo ci avessero provato. Incoraggiò i suoi seguaci a prenderlo come centro della fede e ad usare il potere del pensiero e della parola. Chi crede in me, farà anche lui le opere che io faccio; e ne farà di più grandi".. La grande rinascita moderna della guarigione divina è dovuta all'applicazione della stessa legge che usò Gesù. Egli esigeva la fede da parte di coloro che guariva, e con quella fede come punto di contatto mentale e spirituale liberava l'energia latente nella struttura atomica dei suoi pazienti ed essi venivano restituiti alla vita e alla salute. Abbiate fede nel potere della vostra mente di penetrare e liberare l'energia che è repressa negli atomi del vostro corpo, e sarete sbalorditi dalla risposta. Le funzioni paralizzate in qualsiasi parte del corpo possono essere ripristinate all'azione parlando all'intelligenza e alla vita spirituale dentro di loro.




Timing and Temporality in Islamic Philosophy and Phenomenology of Life


Book Description

The puzzling nature of temporality and timing of reality remains controversial. This book offers a collection of studies that seeks a new answer by initiating a novel investigation informed by the ancient wisdom of the Greaco-Arabic-Islamic sources and inheritance, on the one side, and the contemporary discernment of Occidental phenomenology of life, on the other, in a common dialogical effort to unravel this great enigma of existence.




Lucan's Imperial World


Book Description

These new essays comprise the first collective study of Lucan and his epic poem that focuses specifically on points of contact between his text and the cultural, literary, and historical environments in which he lived and wrote. The Bellum Civile, Lucan's poetic narrative of the monumental civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus, explores the violent foundations of the Roman principate and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The poem, composed more than a century later during the reign of Nero, thus recalls the past while being very much a product of its time. This volume offers innovative readings that seek to interpret Lucan's epic in terms of the contemporary politics, philosophy, literature, rhetoric, geography, and cultural memory of the author's lifetime. In doing so, these studies illuminate how approaching Lucan and his text in light of their contemporary environments enriches our understanding of author, text, and context individually and in conversation with each other.