The Romance between Greece and the East

Twenty essays by renowned scholars explore contact between Greece and the Ancient Near East through the medium of prose fiction.

Tim Whitmarsh (Edited by), Stuart Thomson (Edited by)

9781107038240, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 November 2013

409 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.8 cm, 0.73 kg

The contact zones between the Greco-Roman world and the Near East represent one of the most exciting and fast-moving areas of ancient-world studies. This new collection of essays, by world-renowned experts (and some new voices) in classical, Jewish, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Persian literature, focuses specifically on prose fiction, or 'the ancient novel'. Twenty chapters either offer fresh readings - from an intercultural perspective - of familiar texts (such as the biblical Esther and Ecclesiastes, Xenophon of Ephesus' Ephesian Story and Dictys of Crete's Journal), or introduce material that may be new to many readers: from demotic Egyptian papyri through old Avestan hymns to a Turkic translation of the Life of Aesop. The volume also considers issues of methodology and the history of scholarship on the topic. A concluding section deals with the question of how narratives, patterns and motifs may have come to be transmitted between cultures.

1. The romance between Greece and the East Tim Whitmarsh
Part I. Egyptians: 2. Greek fiction and Egyptian fiction: are they related, and, if so, how? Ian Rutherford
3. Manetho John Dillery
4. Imitatio Alexandri in Egyptian literary tradition Kim Ryholt
5. Divine anger management: the Greek version of the myth of the sun's eye (P.Lond.Lit. 192) Stephanie West
6. Fictions of cultural authority Susan Stephens
Part II. Mesopotamians and Iranians: 7. Berossus Johannes Haubold
8. The Greek novel Ninus and Semiramis: its background in Assyrian and Seleucid history and monuments Stephanie Dalley
9. Ctesias, the Achaemenid court, and the history of the Greek novel Josef Wiesehöfer
10. Iskander and the idea of Iran Daniel Selden
Part III. Jews and Phoenicians: 11. Josephus' Esther and Diaspora Judaism Emily Kneebone
12. The eastern king in the Hebrew Bible: novelistic motifs in early Jewish literature Jennie Barbour
13. 'Lost in translation'? The Phoenician Journal of Dictys of Crete Karen Ní Mheallaigh
14. Milesiae Punicae: how Punic was Apuleius? Stephen Harrison
Part IV. Anatolians: 15. The victory of Greek Ionia in Xenophon's Ephesiaca Aldo Tagliabue
16. Milesian tales Ewen Bowie
Part V. Transmission and Reception: 17. Does triviality translate? The Life of Aesop travels east Pavlos Avlamis
18. Mime and the romance Ruth Webb
19. Orality, folktales, and the cross-cultural transmission of narrative Larry Kim
20. History, empire and the novel: Pierre-Daniel Huet and the origins of the romance Phiroze Vasunia.

Subject Areas: Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], Old Testaments [HRCF1], Biblical archaeology [HDDH], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]