Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more

Recommended product

Popular links

Popular links


Greek Epitaphic Poetry

Greek Epitaphic Poetry

Greek Epitaphic Poetry

A Selection
Richard Hunter, University of Cambridge
January 2022
Available
Paperback
9781108926041

Experience the eBook and the associated online resources on our new Higher Education website. Go to site For other formats please stay on this page.

    Thousands of Greek verse epitaphs, covering a millennium of history, survive inscribed or painted on stone. These largely anonymous poems shed rich light on areas such as ancient moral values, religious ideas, gender relations and attitudes, as well as on the transmission and reception of 'canonical' poetry; many of these poems are of very high literary quality. This is the first modern commentary on a selection of these poems. Problems of syntax, metre and language are fully explained, accompanied by sophisticated literary discussion of the poems. There is a full introduction to the nature of these poems and to their context within Greek ideas of death and the afterlife. This comprehensive edition will be of interest to advanced undergraduates and graduate students studying Greek literature, as well as to scholars.

    • The Commentary provides students with extensive help in understanding the Greek
    • Enables a full understanding of the poems by considering them from literary, historical and archaeological perspectives
    • Helps students and other readers new to the poems by focusing on those which are well preserved and therefore properly legible

    Reviews & endorsements

    '… it represents extremely good value, and is strongly recommended.' Colin Leach, Classics for All

    See more reviews

    Product details

    January 2022
    Paperback
    9781108926041
    294 pages
    216 × 138 × 17 mm
    0.37kg
    10 b/w illus. 2 maps
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction:
    • 1. Funerary verse-inscriptions
    • 2. The style of Greek epitaphic verse
    • 3. Who wrote Greek verse-inscriptions?
    • 4. Ideas of death in Greek verse-inscriptions
    • 5. About this edition
    • Source Text: Greek Epitaphic Poetry. A Selection
    • Editorial Matter: Commentary.
    • Richard Hunter , University of Cambridge

      RICHARD HUNTER is Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. He has published extensively in the fields of Greek and Latin literature; his most recent books include Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature: The Silent Stream (Cambridge, 2012), Hesiodic Voices (Cambridge, 2014), Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book IV (Cambridge, 2015), The Measure of Homer (Cambridge, 2018), and (with Rebecca Laemmle) Euripides: Cyclops (Cambridge, 2020). Many of his essays have been collected in the two-volume On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception (2008). He has edited the Journal of Hellenic Studies and is on the editorial board of Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, Cambridge Classical Studies and several European journals. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, holds honorary degrees from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Ioannina, is a Foreign Fellow of the Academy of Athens and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.