About the Book
'offers not only that breakfast for the mind we keep hearing about, but lunch, tea, dinner, supper and non-stop snacks...offers a cornucopia of accurate and succinct knowledge that would be hard to equal' (Peter Green, Washington Times about the third edition).
For over sixty years, The Oxford Classical Dictionary has been the unrivalled one-volume reference in the field of classics. Now completely revised and updated to
include the very latest research findings, developments, and publications, this highly acclaimed reference work will be the most up-to-date and comprehensive dictionary available on all aspects of the classical era. In over
6,700 entries written by the very best of classical scholars from around the world, the Dictionary provides coverage of Greek and Roman history, literature, myth, religion, linguistics, philosophy, law, science, art, archaeology, near eastern studies, and late antiquity.
New entries supplement the existing material, including entries on topics such as Adrasteia, Latin anthologies, Jewish art, ancient religious
beliefs, emotions, film, gender, kinship, and many more. Other specific developments include an added focus on two new areas: 'anthropology ' and 'reception'. All entries are written in an accessible style and all Latin and Greek words have been translated to
ensure ease of use. Under the editorship of Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow, a huge range of contributors have revised and updated the text, which has made an already outstanding work even better.
The Dictionary covers:
1) politics, government, economy - from political figures to political systems, terms and practices, histories of major states and empires, economic theory, agriculture, artisans and industry, trade and
markets
2) religion and mythology - deities and mythological creatures, beliefs and rituals, sanctuaries and sacred buildings, astrology
3) law and philosophy
- from biographies of lawgivers and lawyers to legal terms and procedures, from major and minor philosophers to philosophical schools, terms, and concepts
4) science and geography - scientists and specific theory and practice, doctors and medicine, climate and landscape, natural disasters, regions and islands, cities and settlements, communications
5) languages, literature, art, and architecture - languages and dialects, writers and literary terms and
genres, orators and rhetorical theory and practice, drama and performance, art, painters and sculptors, architects, buildings and materials
6) archaeology and historical writing -
amphorae and pottery, shipwrecks and cemeteries, historians, and Greek and Roman historiography
7) military history - generals, arms and armour, famous battles, attitudes to warfare
8) social history, sex, and gender - women and the family, kinship, peasants and slaves, attitudes to sexuality
Table of Contents:
Preface List of New Entries Area Advisors Contributors Abbreviations Note to the Reader A-Z Dictionary Entries
About the Author :
Simon Hornblower is a Senior Research Fellow in Classical Studies at All Souls College, Oxford. He is the author and editor of many books, among them a Commentary on Thucydides in 3 volumes (OUP, 1991-2008). Antony Spawforth is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Newcastle, UK. Among his publications are The Complete Greek Temples (Thames and Hudson, 2006) and (ed.) The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies (CUP, 2007).
Esther Eidinow is Lecturer in Ancient Greek History at the University of Nottingham. Her publications include Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks (OUP, 2007) and Luck, Fate, and Fortune: Antiquity and its
Legacy (I.B. Tauris, 2010).
Review :
`Review from previous edition this magnificent book'
Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph
`a classic...a highly readable and browseable delight...should be in every reference collection'
B. Juhl, Choice
`a delight for anyone with any curiosity about the roots of our Western culture...a browser's paradise, and I would think a researcher's quick rescuer'
Arthur Miller, London Review of Books
`the third edition of The Oxford Classical Dictionary should be saluted'
Nigel Spivey, Guardian
`a remarkable feat...Simon Hornblower and Tony Spawforth deserve a round of applause for the spread, exactness and range of this massive overhaul'
Robin Lane Fox, Observer
`offers not only that breakfast for the mind we keep hearing about, but lunch, tea, dinner, supper and non-stop snacks...offers a cornucopia of accurate and succinct knowledge that would be hard to equal'
Peter Green, Washington Times
`the ultimate useful book'
Peter Jones, Sunday Telegraph
`an astonishing book'
Robert Beaumont, Yorkshire Evening Press
`the book's substance speaks for itself: 364 distinguished scholars contribute scrupulously sourced intellectual meat of a texture that Socrates himself would savour'
Sunday Times
`For classical scholars, the Oxford Classical Dictionary is what Wisden is for cricket fans: the one indispensable reference book...this book is more than a crossword-filler's vade mecum. In the sense of our collective intellectual domestication, it is a household object.'
The Week
