Search

This comment occurs in the closing sequence of theepitaphiosof 431/0 attributed to Pericles. The speech was delivered at the public funeral held for Athenian casualties in the first year of the Archidamian War. The earlier part of the speech was devoted to praise of the characteristics, practices, and values of the Athenians as a democratic and imperial community. The features which Pericles is reported as stressing were those which ‘made Athens great’, those by which her dominance was shown. From these is derived the glory achieved by those who died ‘as became Athenians’ (2.43).

Book abstract: This landmark collection looks at the role reception plays, or could play, within the modern discipline of classics, and presents a wide variety of viewpoints on its value, use and theoretical underpinnings.Contributions by scholars from Europe, the UK, and the USA illustrate a range of different approaches and methodological commitments, and employ material from many different fields, from translation studies to the visual arts, and from politics to performance. Each chapter constitutes a theoretical exploration or a demonstration of the productive use of reception for the discipline of classics, or both. The collection is framed by a provocative position statement from William Batstone and a response by Duncan Kennedy.The volume as a whole offers readers an enriched theoretical understanding of reception and its uses, and makes the case for reception constituting a vital part of classics in the future.

The network of associations of the word Amazon still plays a part in the shorthand of modern discourse. Its connotations may vary from a slightly comic praise of sporting excellence in women to underlying insinuations that Amazons are not quite feminine. When applied by politicians and journalists to the women in the Peace Camp at Greenham Common during the 1980s, for example, the epithet Amazon carried the implication that these women rejected men and had developed a society apart (therefore (sịc) they must be subversives, lesbians, communists, hippies – etc. etc.). Modern usage perhaps emphasizes the unusual or even threatening associations; Amazons are, for whatever reason, outside the ‘normal’ parameters of life-style and achievements. Ancient usage presupposed an additional element, Amazons as a subject for artistic and poetic interest. The reasons why this was so do much to explain how and why the image of the Amazons communicated certain associations and how these in turn relate to underlying assumptions about the framework of Greek society and its values.

Examining the profusion of ways in which the arts, culture, and thought of Greece and Rome have been transmitted, interpreted, adapted and used, "A Companion to Classical Receptions" explores the impact of this phenomenon on both ancient and later societies. The book provides a comprehensive introduction and overview of classical reception - the interpretation of classical art, culture, and thought in later centuries, and the fastest growing area in classics; brings together 34 essays by an international group of contributors focused on ancient and modern reception concepts and practices; combines close readings of key receptions with wider contextualization and discussion; and, explores the impact of Greek and Roman culture worldwide, including crucial new areas in Arabic literature, South African drama, the history of photography, and contemporary ethics.

This chapter situates a Greek play from the fifth century BCE within an ongoing debate about the changing relationship between classical texts and modern critical approaches. It is argued that post-colonial readings of the text have given it a new role in the construction of dialogues which cross differences of time, place, language and culture. Understanding of the play’s part in the development of orientalism has in turn led to critical analysis of the dialogues embedded in the text, text which was itself a response to a historical process. Modern readers and audiences may therefore develop critical readings that identify commonalities as well as differences, both across ancient cultures and between ancient and modern. This process requires engagement with formal, poetic and ideological issues, and is aided by modern versions and performances and by technological opportunities in education. Thus Aeschylus’ play becomes an agent of critical enquiry in the late modern age, as it was in the fifth century.