Tag: Literature in the Ancient World

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Pliny, Nero, and the 'Emerald'

One notes here that Pliny does not actually explain why Nero should have preferred to watch the games in this way. The temptation is to assume that he must have been suffering from some sort of eye-condition, whether temporary or permanent, which he thought that he could relieve in this way, not least because the colour green was believed to be soothing to the eyes.

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An Early Irish Visitor to the Island of Crete: The journey of Symon Semeonis from Ireland to the Holy Land

The project of the Irish translator of the Aeneid was strikingly different from that of a modern translator, of Virgil or of any other author: Whereas the modern translator will strive to convey in a different language both the substance and the form of his source (although there are always problems with metrical texts), the medieval translator, particularly of secular narratives, was primarily interested in

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A Sacred People: Roman Identity in the Age of Augustus

Studies of collective identity have grown rapidly among ancient historians in recent decades, particularly among scholars of the Greek world. Scholars have been fascinated by the development of Greek identity, from the dark ages of Greece through the classical period, from the Hellenistic Age through to its period of political dormancy under Roman rule. Despite this plethora of work being done on Greek identity, there is not a comparable genre of works on Roman identity.