Presents numismatics from the ancient harbor town of Dor/Dora in modern Israel with a history that spanned from the Bronze Age until the Late Roman Era.

Human life is susceptible of changing suddenly, of shifting inadvertently, of appearing differently, of varying unpredictably, of being altered deliberately, of advancing fortuitously, of commencing or ending accidentally, of a certain malleability. In theory, any human being is potentially capacitated to conceive of—and convey—the chance, view, or fact that matters may be otherwise, or not at all; with respect to other lifeforms, this might be said animal’s distinctive characteristic. This state of play is both an everyday phenomenon, and an indispensable prerequisite for exceptional innovations in culture and science: contingency is the condition of possibility for any of the arts—be they dominantly concerned with thinking, crafting, or enacting. While their scope and method may differ, the (f)act of reckoning with—and taking advantage of—contingency renders rhetoricians and philosophers associates after all. In this regard, Aristotle and Blumenberg will be exemplary, hence provide the framework. Between these diachronic bridgeheads, close readings applying the nexus of rhetoric and contingency to a selection of (Early) Modern texts and authors are intercalated—among them La Celestina, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Wilde, Fontane.

This unique study examines the interface between contemporary philosophy and literature through Alexander Pope’s majestic translation of the Odyssey of Homer. Employing the lens supplied by the philosopher Graham Harman in his development of Object-Oriented Ontology, it explores the beautiful (and sometimes dazzling) figurative language of both Pope’s English and Homer’s Greek; in so doing, it uncovers something of the vast withdrawn and subterranean reality to which the poems can only allude, setting this against a contrasting sensual world—a world encrusted with shimmering images and objects that range from the quotidian to the metaphysically bizarre.

Herodotus, the great Greek historian, wrote this famous history of warfare between the Greeks and the Persians in a delightful style. Herodotus portrays the dispute as one between the forces of slavery on the one hand and freedom on the other. This work covers the rise of the Persian influence and a history of the Persian empire, a description and history of Egypt, and a long digression on the landscape and traditions of Scythia. Because of the comprehensiveness of this work, it was considered the founding work of history in Western literature. A must-have for history enthusiasts.

When a term is overused, it tends to fall out of fashion. Cynicism seems to be an exception. Its polytropic versatility apparently prevents any discontinuation of its application. Everyone knows that cynicism denotes that which is deemed deleterious at a given time; and every time will specify its toxicities – the apparent result being the term’s non-specificity. This study describes the cynical stance and statement so as to render the term’s use scholarly expedient. Close readings of textual sources commonly deemed cynical provide a legible starting point. A rhetorical analysis of aphorisms ascribed to the arch-Cynic Diogenes facilitates describing the design of cynical statements, as well as the characteristic features of the cynical stance. These patterns are identifiable in later texts generally labeled cynical – above all in Machiavelli’s Principe. With recourse to the Diogenical archetype, cynicism is likewise rendered describable in Gracián’s Oráculo manual, Diderot’s Le neveu de Rameau, and Nietzsche’s Posthumous Fragments. This study’s description of cynicism provides a phenomenon otherwise considered amorphous with distinct contours, renders transparent its workings, and tenders a dependable basis for further analyses.

What happened to Greek tragedy after the death of Euripides? This book provides some answers, and a broad historical overview.