MYTH, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY & MEDICINE

Cults and Creeds in Graeco-Roman Egypt. H. Idris Bell.

Valuable information from ancient papyri on the previously confused history of the religions and cults of Greco-Roman Egypt. Special selections on the pagan amalgam, Jews in Egypt and the rise of Christianity. ISBN 0-89005-088-0. x + 117pp Pb. $12.50

Stoics and Sceptics. E. R. Bevan.

This collection of four lectures on stoicism and scepticism will give the reader a fundamental understanding of these intellectual beliefs in the ancient world. ISBN 0-89005-364-2. 152pp Pb. $15.00

Sarapis and Isis: Collected Essays. T. A. Brady.

For every scholar engaged in the study of Near-Eastern religions and the influence of Egyptian and Syrian cults on Hellenistic and Roman paganism, the "Brady papers" form the cornerstone on which should be based any study of Sarapis and Isis. Thomas Allan Brady (1902-1964) began working on Sarapis and Isis first under the direction of W. S. Ferguson and A. D. Nock at Harvard. His monograph, The Reception of the Egyptian Cults by the Greeks 330-30 B. C. (1935), made him internationally known as an authority. A few years later, Brady collected all the known monuments about those cults in his Repertory of Statuary and Figured Monuments Related to the Cults of the Egyptian Gods (1938) which was issued in a very limited mimeograph edition, but was never printed or officially published until now. The last "Brady paper" on A Head of Sarapis from Corinth was published in 1941. It retains a prominent place in all the bibliographies on Hellenistic art and Sarapis. ISBN 0-89005-253-0. viii + 129pp PG. $25.00

Astrology in Roman Law and Politics. F. H. Cramer.

Cramer reviews the use and abuse of religious practices in Roman politics from the late Republic to the triumph of Christianity. The growing influence of Stoicism led to the introduction and acceptance of astrology and the use of horoscopes to predict the future. ISBN 0-89005-560-2. Pp + illus. $35.00

Select Passages Illustrating Neoplatonism. E. R. Dodds.

Neoplatonism, as we know, entered and formed the thought of Byzantine theologians and of such Western thinkers as John the Scot and Anselm. At the same time, through the de Causis and the so-called Theologia Aristotelis (really a cento of passages from Plotinus), it profoundly affected the Arabian and Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages. Mediated by Averroism, a fresh stream of Neoplatonic influence reached down to the later scholastics and beyond them to Malebranche. Mediated by Ibn. Gebirol and Maimonides, it was carried over to Spinoza. Finally, Neo-platonism was kept alive in the Byzantine Empire by Psellus and his successors, and by them handed on to Pletho and Bessarion, and so to Pico della Mirandola and the other humanists of the Renaissance. The translations in this collection are made by E. R. Dodds from his own text which will be seen to be somewhat more conservative than Volkmann's text of the Enneads. Where original conjectures affecting the sense are adopted, they are indicated in footnotes. ISBN 0-89005-302-2. 128pp Pb. $15.00

Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. A. B. Drachmann.

Defining atheism in pagan antiquity as the point of view which denies the existence of the ancient gods, the author gives the accounts of deniers, their confrontation with the judicial conception of atheism and then expands to the philosophical origins of the criticism of popular religion among the Greeks and the Romans. Fully documented with references to the classical writers and to the earlier literature on the subject, this work has a place on the reference shelf of every student of ancient history, literature and philosophy. ISBN 0-89005-201-8. x + 168pp Pb. $15.00

A History of Cynicism. D. R. Dudley.

An account of Cynicism from the time of Diogenes to the last years of the Roman Empire. Rather than a belief which invigorated people to take political action, Dudley views the belief as little more than a semi-comic relief especially in the era between Socrates and the Stoics. Cynicism was a phenomenon which promoted a vagrant ascetic life, an assault on established values and a body of literary genres adapted to satire and philosophical propaganda.. ISBN 0-89005-365-0. 224pp Pb. $20.00

The Hippocratic Oath. L. Edelstein.

The Greek text of the Hippocratic Oath from the Hippocratic Opera edited by I. L. Heiberg in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum with facing English translation. The book also contains an appendix by Edelstein on the Hippocratic physician and his patient. ISBN 0-89005-272-2. 90pp Hb. $15.00

Greek Hero Cults. L. R. Farnell.

This work is a "continuation and supplement" to the author's earlier massive work The Cults of the Greek States. Farnell has collected all the references found in literature, inscriptions, art and archeology for the hero-cults. The materials are arranged geographically according to the particular hero or his attributes. ISBN 0-89005-547-5. xvi + 434pp Hb. $35.00

The Cults of the Greek States. 5 vols. L. R. Farnell.

Farnell's monumental work is a survey of the most important texts and monuments expressing the actual religious concepts of various Greek communities at different historical epochs. Major and minor cults, their monuments and statues are carefully examined in this definitive work on the subject. ISBN 0-89005-024-4. 2,142pp + 208pll Pb. $115.00

Philosophy and Medicine in Ancient Greece. W. H. S. Jones.

The author traces the development of Greek medicine from the Pythagoreans to Hippocrates. The book includes a treatise on medical etiquette and a Greek text (with translation) of "Ancient Medicine". ISBN 0-89005-286-7. 100pp Pb. $15.00

Apollonius of Tyana. G. R. S. Mead.

Were it but possible to enter into the living memory of Apollonius, and see with his eyes the things he saw when he lived nineteen hundred years ago, what an enormously interesting page of the world's history could be recovered! He not only traversed all the countries where the new faith was taking root, but he lived for years in most of them, and was intimately acquainted with numbers of mystic communities in Egypt, Arabia and Syria. ISBN 0-89005-350-2. 196pp $15.00

Simon Magus. G. R. S. Mead.

Mead's outstanding 1892 study is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the development of Gnosis. ISBN 0-89005-258-1. 91pp Pb. $10.00

Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times. J. G. Milne.

The best collection of information from both literary sources and archeological monuments on the types of ancient surgical instruments used by the physicians of the Greco-Roman world. Fifty-four plates illustrate the surgical instruments discussed in this valuable reference work. ISBN 0-89005-127-5. 187pp + 54pll Pb. $30.00

Sallustius: Concerning the Gods and the Universe. Edited by A. D. Nock.

Greek text and facing translation of a late imperial pagan treatise which deals with man's relationship to the gods. ISBN 0-89005-550-5. cxxiii + 48 pp. Pb. $15.00

How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. Darcy L. O'Leary

This book attempts to supply the missing link between the science of Alexandria and that of Baghdad by which Greek natural science was conveyed from the ancient world to the medieval West. The Arabs deserve credit for the scientific renaissance in Western Christendom in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The direct transmission of the inheritance from the later Greek world began in the early ninth century, but the Arabs had already obtained a great deal of this legacy indirectly from the Asiatic world, an oriental version of Greek science which left its imprint on the knowledge they passed to Western Europe. Greek scholarship had a vigorous and fruitful life in Asia especially in the oriental Christian churches such as the Nestorian and Monophysite which were cut off from the Orthodox Greek Church. This work traces the life and intellectual activity of the oriental churches in the obscure period between their separation from the main Greek church and their reappearance as teachers of the Moslem community. ISBN 0-89005-282-4. 196pp Pb. $15.00

Athenian Mythology: Erechthonius and the Three daughters of Cecrops. B. Powell.

An analysis of the fundamental story concerning the mythical period immediately following the foundation of Athens, with a collection of all the relevant myths and plates showing works of art which illustrate various aspects of this myth. ISBN 0-89005-121-6. 86pp + 12pll Hb. $15.00

Pythagoreans and Eleatics. J. E. Raven.

An introductory study of the controversy between Pythagoreanism and the Eleatics in the 5th and 4th c. BC. ISBN 0-89005-367-7. viii + 196pp Pb. $20.00

Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Ancient Greeks. E. Rohde.

A treatise on the Greek belief of the immortality of the soul. The author relies upon the Greek poets for the Hellenic concept of an "afterlife" as none of the state cults ever produced any wisdom literature or sacred books. ISBN 0-89005-477-0. xvi + 526 pp. Pb. $35.00

Greek Votive Offerings. W. H. D. Rouse.

First published in 1902, the book is a collection of votive offerings which were made for tithes, first fruits, the deceased (from war and natural causes) as well as memorials of honor and office. The work contains copious references to literary and epigraphical texts. ISBN 0-89005-558-0. xviii + 463 pp. Hb. $45.00

The Cults of Ostia. L. Ross Taylor.

A very important monograph examining the known literary and inscriptional references to cults in the port of Rome. This is a pioneering study, especially for the scholar who is interested in the geography of ancient religions. ISBN 0-89005-114-3. v + 98pp Pb.$15.00

Arguments of the Emperor Julian: Against the Christians and Upon the Sovereign Sun. Translated by Thomas Taylor.

Texts from the Emperor Julian relative to his views on the Christian belief. Also included are two letters To the Alexandrians and On Priestly Duties. In the first text the emperor urged his audience to return to their ancestral faith while in the latter extract he pleads with the pagan priests to emulate their Christian counterparts! A new bibliography and two plates of coins complete this book. ISBN 0-89005-301-4. 184pp Pb. $20.00

Asklepios; The Cult of the Greek God of Medicine. A. Walton.

Walton's book is the basic reference for the establishment of the cult of Asklepios and its rituals. The various sanctuaries of the god are also described. ISBN 0-89005-227-8. 136pp Pb. $15.00

Greek Historical Writing and Apollo. Translated by Gilbert Murray.

The two lectures delivered by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff before the University of Oxford in 1908 represent the best of the ideas of the leading German classical scholar of the period before World War I. Translated by Murray, as some specialists say they read better in English than in the original German text. ISBN 0-89005-320-0. 46pp Pb. $6.00

Know Thyself in Greek and Roman Literature. E. G. Wilkins.

An study of the ancient (500 BC) Delphic maxim and how it was interpreted by the Greeks and Romans. Wilkins suggests that this principle was so widely held that it eventually found its way into early Christian belief where it was able to grow. ISBN 0-89005-366-9. 104pp Pb. $10.00

Last Updated 29-Dec-2020 by MM, CT

Return to Current Titles