Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography written by Koen De Temmerman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biography is one of the most widespread literary genres worldwide. Biographies and autobiographies of actors, politicians, Nobel Prize winners, and other famous figures have never been more prominent in book shops and publishers' catalogues. This Handbook offers a wide-ranging, multi-authored survey on biography in Antiquity from its earliest representatives to Late Antiquity. It aims to be a broad introduction and a reference tool on the one hand, and to move significantly beyond the state-of-the-art on the other. To this end, it addresses conceptual questions about this sprawling genre, offers both in-depth readings of key texts and diachronic studies, and deals with the reception of ancient biography across multiple eras up to the present day. In addition, it takes a wide approach to the concept of ancient biography by examining biographical depictions in different textual and visual media (epigraphy, sculpture, architecture) and by providing outlines of biographical developments in ancient and late antique cultures other than Graeco-Roman. Highly accessible, this book aims at a broad audience ranging from specialists to newcomers in the field. Chapters provide English translations of ancient (and modern) terminology and citations. In addition, all individual chapters are concluded by a section containing suggestions for further reading on their specific topic.

Download or read book The Limits of Ancient Biography written by Brian McGing and published by Classical Press of Wales. This book was released on 2007-12-31 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The genre of biography in the ancient world is interestingly diverse and permeable and deserves intensive study, bearing as it does on ideas of characterization and the individual. This volume considers both the form and the content of biography across the ancient world, and is particularly interested in the frontiers with other related genres, such as history. The papers range from the Old Testament to the Arab world, from the New Testament to the Lives of Saints, from the classic Greek and Roman biographers to less well known practitioners of the art.

Download or read book Writing Biography in Greece and Rome written by Koen De Temmerman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient biography is now a well-established and popular field of study among classicists as well as many scholars of literature and history more generally. In particular biographies offer important insights into the dynamics underlying ancient performance of the self and social behaviour, issues currently of crucial importance in classical studies. They also raise complex issues of narrativity and fictionalization. This volume examines a range of ancient texts which are or purport to be biographical and explores how formal narrative categories such as time, space and character are constructed and how they address (highlight, question, thematize, underscore or problematize) the borderline between historicity and fictionality. In doing so, it makes a major contribution not only to the study of ancient biographical writing but also to broader narratological approaches to ancient texts.

Download or read book After Ancient Biography written by Robert Fraser and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marrying life-writing with classical reception, this book examines ancient biography and its impact on subsequent ages. Close readings of ancient texts are framed by an assessment of their influence on the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and on the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, of responses to ancient biography of modern critics, and of its visible legacy in art and film. Crucially it asks what modern biographers can learn from their ancient predecessors. Are the challenges involved in life-writing still the same? Have working methods changed, and in what ways? What in the context of biographical writing is truth, and how are its interests best served? How is it possible, now as then, honestly to convey a life?

Download or read book The Life and Times of Homer written by Kathleen Tracy and published by Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2005-09 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For almost three thousand years, The Iliad and The Odyssey have thrilled people with tales of adventure in ancient Greece. The stories of Helen and Paris, the Greek gods, the Trojan War, Achilles, and of Odysseus’s ten year quest to return home after the war are known all over the world among all cultures. But so much about the life of the man responsible for those epic poems remains a mystery that for a while some scholars doubted he even really existed. Despite the controversies surrounding him, Homer is still honored as one of civilization’s greatest poets. He overcame childhood poverty and adult blindness to achieve fame as a legendary storyteller whose epics kept his audiences spellbound. His poems were so vivid that 19th century archeologists used descriptions in The Iliad to locate the city of Troy. Though many facts about his life remain unknown, his genius as a storyteller remains undisputed.

Download or read book The Life and Times of Pythagoras written by Susan Sales Harkins and published by Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pythagoras was a man of his time—and for all time. So important to mankind was his birth that the gods sent his birth announcement via the Pythian oracle. Tradition holds that he studied with the greatest minds the ancients had to offer. Pherecydes taught him that the soul is immortal. Thales and Anaximander taught him to trust only what he experienced. He studied with the first recorded scientist. Egyptian priests taught him radical ideas about the human soul. From the Babylonians’ magi, he learned higher mathematics and about the cosmos. He probably had the most well rounded higher education of any other living person of his time, but when most men were done with life, Pythagoras was just making his mark. Around the age of fifty, he founded a school of higher mathematics, philosophy, music, and religion. His lessons still impact our scientific and moral communities today.

Download or read book The Life and Times of Plato written by Jim Whiting and published by Mitchell Lane. This book was released on 2019-12-05 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many scholars regard Plato as the greatest philosopher of all time. Yet he was much more than a man with his head in the clouds. Plato grew up in a turbulent era. A violent civil war divided the Greeks. The turbulence carried over into his personal life. His beloved teacher, Socrates, was executed by the city of Athens. From the teachings of Socrates and his own experiences, Plato developed important theories about government, ethics, love, beauty—even reality. He founded what is probably the first university in the Western world. Plato risked imprisonment and death when he tried to put his political ideas into action. At one point he was almost sold into slavery. He left much for the world to contemplate.

Download or read book The Life and Times of Archimedes written by Susan Zannos and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematicians and inventors of the ancient world. His native city was Syracuse on the island of Sicily. When he was a young man, Archimedes was sent to study in Alexandria, which was the great intellectual center of the Mediterranean area during the Third Century B.C. There he met other brilliant mathematicians who became his friends. Even after they parted, when Archimedes returned to Syracuse, they wrote to each other sending the problems and theorems they were working on. Thanks to these letters we have many of Archimedes' theoretical writings. Back in Syracuse, King Hiero II, a friend and kinsman, asked Archimedes to use his mathematical genius to create practical solutions and inventions. The wonderful tools and weapons that Archimedes invented made him famous throughout the ancient world, and some such as levers and pulleys are still used today. Book jacket.

Download or read book Christobiography written by Craig S. Keener and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are the canonical Gospels historically reliable?​ The four canonical Gospels are ancient biographies, narratives of Jesus’s life. The authors of these Gospels were intentional in how they handled historical information and sources.​ Building on recent work in the study of ancient biographies, Craig Keener argues that the writers of the canonical Gospels followed the literary practices of other biographers in their day. In Christobiography he explores the character of ancient biography and urges students and scholars to appreciate the Gospel writers’ method and degree of accuracy in recounting the life and ministry of Jesus. Keener’s Christobiography has far-reaching implications for the study of the canonical Gospels and historical Jesus research. He concludes that the four canonical Gospels are historically reliable ancient biographies.

Download or read book The Life and Times of Alexander the Great written by John Bankston and published by Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2005-03 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander the Great led soldiers from his perch atop his horse, Bucephalus. He commanded the largest army the world had ever known. He ruled a kingdom that stretched across two continents. Before he was 30, he was the richest man on the planet. Alexander would know love, he'd know loss, but he'd never know an end to his ambitions. Only his death ended his conquest. Today, over 2,000 years later, generals still study Alexander's battle plans. Manuscripts preserved at libraries he founded were used by historians to give us a record of his life. Alexander was more than just a king. He embraced the culture of the countries he invaded. He spread democracy. In many ways, Alexander was more of a liberator than a conqueror. In this new book for young adults, middle grade readers can experience the life and times of Alexander the Great.

Download or read book The Development of Greek Biography written by Arnaldo Momigliano and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arnaldo Momigliano traces the growth of ancient biography from the fifth century to the first century B.C. He asks new questions about the origins and development of Greek biography, and makes full use of new evidence uncovered in recent decades from papyri and other sources. By clarifying the social and intellectual implication of the fact that the Greeks kept biography and autobiography distinct from historiography, he contributes to an understanding of a basic dichotomy in the Western tradition of historical writing. The Development of Greek Biography is fully annotated, and includes a bibliography designed to serve as an introduction to the study of biography in general.

Download or read book The Life and Times of Socrates written by Susan Zannos and published by Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2005-09 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socrates, the great Athenian philosopher, was born during the Golden Age of Greece, one of the most glorious periods in human history. He grew up during the exciting days of Pericles in Athens, in the midst of the flowering of drama and poetry, the creation of magnificent architecture and sculpture, the writing of literature that has inspired mankind for 2,500 years. The glory of Athens, inspired by the Athenians’ victory over the Persians against great odds, lasted less than 50 years. Socrates lived to see his city conquered by the Spartans from without and by a terrible plague from within. He tried to convince his fellow citizens to examine their own beliefs and behavior. The Athenians, looking for someone to blame for their troubles, arrested Socrates. They accused him of corrupting the young men who were his students. He refused to run away to save his life and was tried and executed.

Download or read book The Biography of Ancient Israel written by Ilana Pardes and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2000-04-03 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nation--particularly in Exodus and Numbers--is not an abstract concept but rather a grand character whose history is fleshed out with remarkable literary power. In her innovative exploration of national imagination in the Bible, Pardes highlights the textual manifestations of the metaphor, the many anthropomorphisms by which a collective character named "Israel" springs to life. She explores the representation of communal motives, hidden desires, collective anxieties, the drama and suspense embedded in each phase of the nation's life: from birth in exile, to suckling in the wilderness, to a long process of maturation that has no definite end. In the Bible, Pardes suggests, history and literature go hand in hand more explicitly than in modern historiography, which is why the Bible serves as a paradigmatic case for examining the narrative base of national constructions. Pardes calls for a consideration of the Bible's penetrating renditions of national ambivalence. She reads the rebellious conduct of the nation against the grain, probing the murmurings of the people, foregrounding their critique of the official line. The Bible does not provide a homogeneous account of nation formation, according to Pardes, but rather reveals points of tension between different perceptions of the nation's history and destiny. This fresh and beautifully rendered portrayal of the history of ancient Israel will be of vital interest to anyone interested in the Bible, in the interrelations of literature and history, in nationhood, in feminist thought, and in psychoanalysis.

Download or read book What Are the Gospels written by Richard A. Burridge and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-05-11 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compares the work of the evangelists to the development of biography in the Graeco-Roman world

Download or read book The Art of Biography in Antiquity written by Tomas Hägg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the whole spectrum of Greek and Roman biography, which explores the virtues and vices of philosophers, statesmen and poets.

Download or read book Why are There Differences in the Gospels written by Mike Licona and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are there differences in the stories of the Gospels? Licona turns to Greek classicist Plutarch for an answer, assessing differences that appeared when Plutarch told the same story more than once in his Lives. He suggests the differences in the Gospels often resulted from their authors employing the same compositional devices used by Plutarch.

Download or read book Cornelius Nepos Life of Hannibal written by Bret Mulligan and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trebia. Trasimene. Cannae. With three stunning victories, Hannibal humbled Rome and nearly shattered its empire. Even today Hannibal's brilliant, if ultimately unsuccessful, campaign against Rome during the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) make him one of history's most celebrated military leaders. This biography by Cornelius Nepos (c. 100-27 BC) sketches Hannibal's life from the time he began traveling with his father's army as a young boy, through his sixteen-year invasion of Italy and his tumultuous political career in Carthage, to his perilous exile and eventual suicide in the East. As Rome completed its bloody transition from dysfunctional republic to stable monarchy, Nepos labored to complete an innovative and influential collection of concise biographies. Putting aside the detailed, chronological accounts of military campaigns and political machinations that characterized most writing about history, Nepos surveyed Roman and Greek history for distinguished men who excelled in a range of prestigious occupations. In the exploits and achievements of these illustrious men, Nepos hoped that his readers would find models for the honorable conduct of their own lives. Although most of Nepos' works have been lost, we are fortunate to have his biography of Hannibal. Nepos offers a surprisingly balanced portrayal of a man that most Roman authors vilified as the most monstrous foe that Rome had ever faced. Nepos' straightforward style and his preference for common vocabulary make Life of Hannibal accessible for those who are just beginning to read continuous Latin prose, while the historical interest of the subject make it compelling for readers of every ability.