Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

In this important book Morgan (UCLA) examines how the Deinomenids and especially Hieron of Syracuse managed to establish their tyrannical regimes as monarchies in the aftermath of the Persian wars, when kingship was far from popular in Greece.  After an overview of Pindaric scholarship, Morgan analyzes in successive chapters the four odes that Pindar composed for Hieron (Olympian 1,Pythians 1,2, and 3), and in the last chapter those he composed for two of Hieron's associates, Chromius of Aetna (Nemeans 1 and 9) and Hagesias of Syracuse (Olympian 6).  Revealing his mastery of the historical context and Pindar's texts, Morgan describes the many forms of Hieron's propaganda: participation in the Panhellenic games; monumental dedications in Panhellenic sanctuaries; movements of population and foundation of cities; coinage; commissioning poetry to praise his military and political success; and involvement in civic cults.  Pindar's odes reflect all this and build a highly positive image of Hieron as the "good king" (a topos inherited from Homer and Hesiod), a model of peace, prosperity, Greekness (as against the barbarian invaders), and culture.  Obligatory reading for historians and literary critics alike.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.

Adopting a distinctive quantitative methodology, Palmer (history, Univ. of Chicago) presents a cumulative analytical survey of the paratexts routinely inserted by humanist readers and publishers into the earliest manuscripts, incunabula, and 16th-century printed editions ofDe rerum natura--paratexts that contributed to eventual "definitive" textual rendition of Lucretius.  In her conclusion, she posits a significant evolution in the "reading" of Lucretius that in 15th-century Italy focused more on philological repair and textual recovery than on the poem's heterodox content and climaxed in 1565 (in France and the Low Countries), when inexpensive pocket copies enabled readers to focus more on content "absorption than repair."  This radical transformation of the received text meant that the 17th-century audience had a new freedom in its reception ofDe rerum natura as a foundational element of modernity.  Released in the "I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History" series, Palmer's distinguished volume is a link in the catena of recent Lucretian scholarship, a literature that includes Stephen Greenblatt'sThe Swerve (CH, Mar'12, 49-3702), Gerard Passannante'sThe Lucretian Renaissance (CH, Apr'12, 49-4301), andLucretius: Poetry, Philosophy, Science, ed. by Daryn Lehoux, A. D. Morrison, and Alison Sharrock (CH, Mar'14, 51-3681).  Superbly supported with excellent portrayals of original manuscript pages and full apparatus.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

An entertaining translator, Hejduk (Baylor Univ.) seems to rival Ovid himself when she admits a longtime fascination with the poets exquisite exilic wit.  Best known for his multivolume work of myth and history,Metamorphoses, Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE17 CE) composed controversial, cheeky love manuals that were said to have offended the young Caesar (Augustus); the result was Ovid's exile to the shores of the Black Sea.  The verve and energy Hejduk musters and dedicates to these notorious and ironic poems will appeal to undergraduates, just as her nearly 60-page introduction and bibliography will appeal to scholars.  Accomplished and spirited, the translations read well (including aloud), the helpful footnotes illuminate, and the index is useful.  The very concept of bringing togetherArt of Love,Remedies of Love, andSad Things is groundbreaking, and this is the first book to include both the offense and the defense of Ovids amatory work in a single volume.  What is disclosed finally in these lines is not a groveling apology but a suffering artist himself snubbed by a capricious tyrant.  Hejduk provides the reader with a wickedly entertaining poetic tour of the literature, mythology, topography, religion, politics, and (of course) sexuality of ancient Rome.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

Pelling (Univ. of Oxford, UK) and Wyke (Univ. College London, UK) present 12 essays on individual writers from Greece and Rome, demonstrating how they continue to interest, engage, and challenge readers in the 21st century.  The collection is not an introduction to classical literature but protreptic; some introductory material appears (brief sketches of the authors lives and summaries of their works), but the focus remains on readers' relations with the writers.  The authors employ varied strategies. One essay focuses on Homers characters, posing difficult questions: What is worth fighting for? How can victims of war cope with its atrocity?  In others, the approach is through reception: Juvenals recipe for satire proved imitable for Samuel Johnson and others, but what will contemporary readers recognize in it?  The authors reprove reductive "conventional wisdom"e.g., that Herodotus dismissed all non-Greeks as a homogenous group of barbarians, that Caesar is for children learning Latinand challenge readers to return to the original texts.  The volume concludes with an annotated bibliography of translations, introductions, and scholarship.  Pelling's and Wykes writing is approachable and engaging, and their scholarship is impeccable.  Required reading for anyone thinking about why the classics still matter.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.