Synopses & Reviews
This major dictionary provides a comprehensive, yet concise, guide to all features of the ancient world, including campaigns and battles; personalities and institutions; Greek and Latin authors, and the themes of their work; major deities and religious practices and festivals; philosophers, scientists and mathematicians.
Beginning in 776 BC - when the first Olympic Games were held - and ending with the fall of the Roman Empire in the West in AD 476, the Dictionary is a compendium of current knowledge of the Greco-Roman world, containing entries on the people and events the cradle of Western civilization. Greek and Roman history; literature; art and architecture; philosophy, science and mathematics; society and economics - all are included and described in accessible detail by the team of specialist contributors.
Designed to complement Pierre Grimal's Concise Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Blackwell, 1990), the Dictionary is an essential companion for all those interested in classical studies, whether as students or general readers.
Review
"A fresh look at the definition and current state of knowledge, the selection of material should be found useful and stimulating, by both laymen and students up to undergraduate level."
Times Educational Supplement"Excels in its remarkable range." Greece and Rome
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [685]-734).
About the Author
Graham Speake spent twenty years as a publisher of illustrated and reference books, and is now Director of Publications for the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, as well as a respected lecturer, writer and historian on the classical period. His academic publications include a study of the manuscripts of Sophocles' Oedipus Coloneus (1978) and a study of the traditional way of life in present-day Greece.
Table of Contents
Preface.
Introduction.
Contributors.
Dictionary Entries A-Z.