Ancient Greek Oracular Texts

Form, Content, Context
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-89226-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

This book offers a comprehensive and systematic – rather than historical – approach to ancient Greek oracular texts, showing their conceptual and formal unity and patternisation, as well as their meaningful diversity.

It provides even coverage of both oracular texts ascribed to major institutions, including Delphi, Dodona, Didyma, Clarus, and Abonoteichus, and those attributed to mythical poets such as the Sibyl, Bacis, and Musaeus. Chapters analyse the meter and phraseology of the texts and how they were recorded, transmitted, archived, and collected, as well as their narrative functions and authors. It also takes into account the later reception of Greek oracular texts: ‘theological oracles’; epigraphically attested lot oracles (dice and alphabet oracles); three extant Greek oracular texts which survived from the Libri Sibyllini of the Roman Republic; adoptions into – or imitations in – Latin literature of Greek oracular texts. With a lengthy appendix offering relevant texts in ancient Greek and English, readers gain a fuller understanding of the linguistic nuances and conventions of such texts and their place in the wider corpus of Greek literature.

The volume provides a fascinating resource and reassessment of oracular texts, suitable for students and scholars working on Greek and Roman oracles, divination, and ancient religion more broadly, as well as classicists, archaeologists, theologians, and epigraphists.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lipka, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike Griechische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte Religionen der Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; A. Meter; B. Phraseology; C. Recording, Transmitting, Archiving, and Collecting; D. Oracular Authors; E. Some Narrative Functions; F. Theological Oracles; G. Lot Oracles from Asia Minor; H. The Roman Republican Libri Sibyllini; I. Greek Oracles in Latin Literature; Epilogue: A Brief History of Ancient Greek Oracular Texts; Appendix I: Texts 1-30 (Greek-English); Appendix II: An Archaic (Metrical) Colonial Oracle from Didyma?

Über Autor(innen)

Michael Lipka is currently Professor of Classics at the University of Patras / Greece and has published widely on Greek on Roman religions, including monographs on “Roman Gods. A Conceptual Approach” (2009) and “Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism” (2021).