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This edited volume, which has its origins in a Collaborative Research Centre (Sonderforschungsbereich) in Dresden, "Institutionality and Historicity", deals with the relationship between Roman values and the political strategies and changing social roles of the early Principate as reflected in contemporary literary communication.

Latin literature --- History and criticism --- Rome --- Civilization. --- Politics and government --- Augustus. --- Roman Culture. --- Roman Literature. --- Roman Principate. --- Roman Values.

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In May 2011, a conference on riddles and word games in Greek and Latin poetry took place at the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of Warsaw. The conference was intended as an open forum where specialists working in different fields of classical studies could meet to discuss the varied manifestations of riddles and other technopaegnia - both terms being understood broadly to encompass the full range of play with language in classical antiquity, in keeping with the use made of the two terms in ancient and early modern theoretical discussions. This volume offers revised versions of the papers presented during the conference. Contributions by scholars from Europe and the USA treat a number of interconnected topics, including: ancient and modern attempts to formulate a definition of the riddle; poetic games at Greek symposia; experimentation with language in late classical poetry; riddles in the book cultures of the Hellenistic age and late antiquity; the functions of word games carved in stone, written on papyrus, or inscribed on the wall as graffiti; authors famed for their obscurity, such as Heraclitus and Lycophron; wordplay in Neo-Latin poetry; oracles, magic squares, pattern poetry, palindromes and acrostichs.

Greek poetry --- Latin poetry --- Riddles in literature. --- Plays on words --- Rhetoric, Ancient. --- Ancient rhetoric --- Classical languages --- Greek language --- Greek rhetoric --- Latin language --- Latin rhetoric --- Play of words --- Play on words --- Word play --- Wordplay --- Semantics --- Wit and humor --- History and criticism. --- Rhetoric --- Greek and Roman Culture. --- Greek and Roman Literature. --- Neo-Latin Studies. --- Riddles. --- Word Games.

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Freed from the familial and social obligations incumbent on the living, the Roman testator could craft his will to be a literal "last judgment" on family, friends, and society. The Romans were fascinated by the contents of wills, believing the will to be a mirror of the testator's true character and opinions. The wills offer us a unique view of the individual Roman testator's world. Just as classicists, ancient historians, and legal historians will find a mine of information here, the general reader will be fascinated by the book's lively recounting of last testaments. Who were the testators and what were their motives? Why do family, kin, servants, friends, and community all figure in the will, and how are they treated? What sort of afterlife did the Romans anticipate? By examining wills, the book sets several issues in a new light, offering new interpretations of, or new insights into, subjects as diverse as captatio (inheritance-seeking), the structure of the Roman family, the manumission of slaves, public philanthropy, the afterlife and the relation of subject to emperor. Champlin's principal argument is that a strongly felt "duty of testacy" informed and guided most Romans, a duty to reward or punish all who were important to them, a duty which led them to write their wills early in life and to revise them frequently.

Social structure --- Wills (Roman law) --- Sociology & Social History --- Social Sciences --- Social Conditions --- Organization, Social --- Social organization --- Anthropology --- Sociology --- Social institutions --- Roman law --- Rome --- Social conditions. --- Rome. --- afterlife. --- ancient history. --- ancient rome. --- captatio. --- death. --- duty of testacy. --- emperor. --- family. --- freedom. --- heirs. --- history. --- inheritance. --- legal historians. --- legal system. --- manumission. --- mortality. --- nonfiction. --- patriarchy. --- philanthropy. --- public philanthropy. --- roman culture. --- roman family. --- roman history. --- roman society. --- roman testator. --- romans. --- rome. --- slaves. --- social obligations. --- society. --- testator. --- wealth. --- wills.

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The ancient Romans changed more than the map of the world when they conquered so much of it; they altered the way historical time itself is marked and understood. In this brilliant, erudite, and exhilarating book Denis Feeney investigates time and its contours as described by the ancient Romans, first as Rome positioned itself in relation to Greece and then as it exerted its influence as a major world power. Feeney welcomes the reader into a world where time was movable and changeable and where simply ascertaining a date required a complex and often contentious cultural narrative. In a style that is lucid, fluent, and graceful, he investigates the pertinent systems, including the Roman calendar (which is still our calendar) and its near perfect method of capturing the progress of natural time; the annual rhythm of consular government; the plotting of sacred time onto sacred space; the forging of chronological links to the past; and, above all, the experience of empire, by which the Romans meshed the city state's concept of time with those of the foreigners they encountered to establish a new worldwide web of time. Because this web of time was Greek before the Romans transformed it, the book is also a remarkable study in the cross-cultural interaction between the Greek and Roman worlds. Feeney's skillful deployment of specialist material is engaging and accessible and ranges from details of the time schemes used by Greeks and Romans to accommodate the Romans' unprecedented rise to world dominance to an edifying discussion of the fixed axis of B.C./A.D., or B.C.E./C.E., and the supposedly objective "dates" implied. He closely examines the most important of the ancient world's time divisions, that between myth and history, and concludes by demonstrating the impact of the reformed calendar on the way the Romans conceived of time's recurrence. Feeney's achievement is nothing less than the reconstruction of the Roman conception of time, which has the additional effect of transforming the way the way the reader inhabits and experiences time.

Calendar, Roman. --- Time --- Chronology, Roman. --- Synchronization. --- Historiography --- City and town life --- City life --- Town life --- Urban life --- Sociology, Urban --- Synchronism --- Time measurements --- Roman chronology --- Hours (Time) --- Geodetic astronomy --- Nautical astronomy --- Horology --- Roman calendar --- Social aspects --- Political aspects --- Rome --- Greece --- Historiography. --- Social life and customs. --- Civilization --- Greek influences. --- academic. --- aeneas. --- ancient greece. --- ancient rome. --- ancient time. --- ancient world. --- antiquity. --- argo. --- augustus. --- classical world. --- cross cultural. --- cultural studies. --- greek mythology. --- greek world. --- historical. --- history. --- international. --- mythology. --- power structure. --- reconstruction. --- roman culture. --- roman history. --- roman mythology. --- roman society. --- roman world. --- scholarly. --- social studies. --- true story. --- world power. --- worldwide.

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What was really going on at Roman banquets? In this lively new book, veteran Romanist Matthew Roller looks at a little-explored feature of Roman culture: dining posture. In ancient Rome, where dining was an indicator of social position as well as an extended social occasion, dining posture offered a telling window into the day-to-day lives of the city's inhabitants. This book investigates the meaning and importance of the three principal dining postures--reclining, sitting, and standing--in the period 200 B.C.-200 A.D. It explores the social values and distinctions associated with each of the postures and with the diners who assumed them. Roller shows that dining posture was entangled with a variety of pressing social issues, such as gender roles and relations, sexual values, rites of passage, and distinctions among the slave, freed, and freeborn conditions. Timely in light of the recent upsurge of interest in Roman dining, this book is equally concerned with the history of the body and of bodily practices in social contexts. Roller gathers evidence for these practices and their associated values not only from elite literary texts, but also from subelite visual representations--specifically, funerary monuments from the city of Rome and wall paintings of dining scenes from Pompeii. Engagingly written, Dining Posture in Ancient Rome will appeal not only to the classics scholar, but also to anyone interested in how life was lived in the Eternal City.

Social classes --- Posture --- Dinners and dining --- History. --- Rome --- Social life and customs. --- Civilization. --- Horace Serm. 2.8. --- Imperial period. --- Plautus' Stichus. --- Roman banquets. --- Roman convivia. --- Roman convivium. --- Roman culture. --- Roman dining practice. --- Roman dining practices. --- Roman dining. --- Roman foodways. --- Roman life. --- Satire 5. --- Trimalchio's dinner. --- ancient Rome. --- dining posture. --- drinking. --- eating. --- free adults. --- freeborn children. --- funerary moments. --- gender roles. --- historical aspects. --- ideological aspects. --- literary texts. --- male scrutiny. --- military service. --- moral decline. --- otium. --- physical environments. --- posture. --- reclining dining. --- rites of passage. --- slaves. --- social dynamics. --- social hierarchies. --- social position. --- social practice. --- social strate. --- social value. --- sociocultural approach. --- tabularium. --- toga virilis. --- wall paintings. --- women's dining.