Rebecca Futo Kennedy is Assistant Professor of Classics, Denison University.
C. Sydnor Roy is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, Haverford College.
Max L. Goldman is Senior Lecturer, Vanderbilt University.
This collection of translated excerpts from Greek and Latin
authors, from the 8th c. BCE to the 3rd c. CE, brings together a
wide range of texts, chosen from historians, epic poets,
geographers, medical writers, satirists and others, marvelously
illustrating the curiosity of Greeks and Romans about 'race' and
'ethnicity,' self and other. Since for ancient Greeks and Romans
one essential element of identity and difference was customs, we
learn a lot from these texts about sex and marriage, funerals, and
warfare in the Mediterranean and surrounding lands. But the ancient
authors also featured banalities such as clothing, horse bits,
cooking, and even trash talking. The translations are fresh,
accurate, and accessible. . . . In a brisk and smart Introduction
[the editors] point out the absence of fixed words for race and
ethnicity in classical antiquity even as they provide some good
references for exploring the complexity of these modern concepts.
--Mary T. Boatwright, Duke University
Will allow students to understand for themselves how ancient Greeks
and Romans conceived of foreign populations and how they thought
about issues of racial, ethnic, and cultural difference. --Jonathan
Hall, University of Chicago
Very rich. . . . Following an introduction to classical
environmental, genetic, and cultural theories of difference, the
sources range over the many peoples of the ancient Mediterranean
and beyond, from Egypt to Europe. The reach of this text—and its
emphasis on the Greek and Roman views of the 'other'—will make it
particularly useful for courses on ethnicity taught in Ancient
Mediterranean Studies programs. --Molly Myerowitz Levine, Howard
University
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