CLASSICS

ARIS & PHILLIPS CLASSICAL TEXTS

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All in one volume introduction, text, translation and commentary

This series, started over twenty years ago, now offers an impressively large list of new editions of the texts of classical authors. The aim is to accommodate students at school and university, and their teachers, who read the authors either in the original Greek or Latin or in translation, or in a mixture of the two. Each book contains:

Introduction, which sets the work in its literary and historical context

Greek or Latin text, with a selective apparatus

Facing translation, faithful to the original

Commentary, for the most part keyed to the translation. Grammatical questions are only occasionally discussed; it is in fact very often true that an accurate translation by a good scholar is the best form of interpretation of the text. The commentary is thus available for the elucidation of allusions and references in the work, and for the discussion of literary, historical and philosophical questions.

All books are A5 (15 x 21cms) unless otherwise stated; all are bound in sewn cloth bindings (cl) or in flexible limp sewn bindings (pb)

"The continuing expansion of the Aris & Phillips series is heartening proof that a sizeable readership is still keen to gain access to ancient literature." The Classical Review

NEW AND FORTHCOMING BOOKS 2001

AESCHYLUS Prometheus ed. A.J. Podlecki (British Columbia). Provides a well-based modern Greek text of this play, traditionally ascribed to Aeschylus, and a readable English translation, with explanatory notes. The background and cultural significance of the Prometheus myth is discussed, together with illustrative material from ancient Greek art. An attempt is made to assess the influence of the story upon later European literature and thought, with a side-glance at equivalent myths in other, non-European cultures. 240pp. A5 cl 471 6 $59.99 / £35; pb 472 4 $28 / $16.50

In preparation for 2002

ARISTOPHANES Wealth ed. Alan H. Sommerstein (Nottingham). This volume is the first edition with commentary since 1907 of Aristophanes' last surviving play, in which, as so often before, an audacious and imaginative hero finds a miraculous remedy for the all-too-real ills of the contemporary world in this case the concentration of wealth in the hands of those who don't deserve it at the expense of those who do. To achieve this he needs the aid of no less than three gods, and the play contains the fullest single surviving account of a visit to a sanctuary of the healing god Asclepius.

This volume includes the ADDENDA to all previous plays, but the INDEXES proved far more extensive than anticipated and will now be published as a separate volume 12 to complete the Aristophanes series. 336pp. A5 cl 738 3 £35 / $59.95 pb 739 1 £17.50 / $32

Published July 2001

2001

ALREADY PUBLISHED

EURIPIDES: Iphigenia in Tauris ed. M.J. Cropp (Calgary). Iphigenia in Tauris tells the story of the princess Iphigenia who was sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to expedite his campaign against Troy but rescued by the goddess Artemis and transported to the land of the Taurians. There she herself must perform human sacrifices as a priestess of Artemis in the local cult. Troy has now been sacked, and Agamemnon murdered by his wife and avenged by his son Orestes. With his mother's blood on his hands, Orestes is guided by the gods to seek purification through bringing the image of the Tauric Artemis to Greece, and so is reunited with his sister. The drama centres on her near-sacrifice at her hands, their recognition in the nick of time, and their ingenious and thrilling escape to bring the cult of Artemis to Halae and Brauron near Athens. 288pp. cl. 0 85668 652 2, pb. 0 85668 653 0

PROPERTIUS I ed. Robert J. Baker (New England). To offer, in a verse translation which attempts to simulate the discipline and constraints of the hexameter/pentameter alternation in the elegiac couplets of the original poems, a handily self-contained Augustan poetry book the earliest extant book of Latin love-elegy to a readership without Latin. The Introduction and Commentary furnish the reader with explanations of the literary, mythological, historical and geographical allusions necessary for an understanding of the poems. 208pp.; cl 0 85668 729 4; pb 0 855668 730 8

TACITUS: Annals V and VI ed. Ronald Martin (Leeds). Books V and VI of Tacitus' Annals, when complete, carried the narrative of Tiberius' reign from A.D. 29 to 37. Unfortunately, most of Book 5 has been lost, but Annals VI, which resumes the narrative two weeks after the execution of Sejanus, contains a fascinating variety of incidents. Whereas Suetonius talks of an elderly emperor who discarded all interest in public affairs from the time he retired to Capri, Tacitus portrays a more complex character one in which cruelty and vice stand alongside a deep concern for Rome's prosperity at home and abroad. 224pp.; cl 0 85668 721 9, pb 0 85668 722 7

EURIPIDES The Children of Heracles ed. William Allan (Harvard). The play is a powerful and challenging tragedy of exile and supplication. Driven from their homeland by Eurystheus, king of Argos, the children of Heracles flee as fugitives throughout Greece until they are granted protection in Athens. However, their acceptance as political refugees threatens to cause civil revolt among the Athenians and hostile invasion from the Argives. The self-sacrifice of Heracles' daughter ensures a victory for Athens and the Heraclidae, but Heracles' mother Alcmene refuses to spare the life of Eurystheus, although he is a prisoner of war protected by Athenian law. The play shows the amorality of the powerful and the vulnerability of refugees in the most disturbing terms, making for a drama of continuing moral and political relevance to the modern world. 240pp A5 cl 740 5 $59.99 / £35; pb 741 3 $28 / £16.50

Published November 2001

SOPHOCLES Electra ed. Jennifer R. March (London). The return of Orestes is the only episode from Greek legend treated in surviving plays by all three of the great Athenian tragedians of the fifth century B.C. Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. This gives us a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the very different treatments. For Sophocles the play is about Electra herself, her endurance and loyalty to the dead Agamemnon and her deliverance by Orestes' vengeance. Dr March's introduction includes a survey of the main interpretative issues, as well as a summary of other treatments of the myth. The commentary elucidates the action. 240pp. A5 cl. 575 5 $59.99 / £35; pb. 576 3 $28 / £16.50

Published October 2001