Author Description

Authoritative, wide-ranging, and unrivalled in its accessibility, The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World is a concise and lucid survey of life in ancient Greece and Rome, spanning 776 BC - AD 180, from the first Olympic games to the death of Marcus Aurelius. An approachable, user-friendly abridgement of the highly acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary, this book offers over 2,500 A-Z entries on aspects of life in the classical world, from politics, medicine, philosophy, art, and architecture, to history, myth and religion, mathematics, and literature, with biographical entries on the important individuals--both real and mythological--of the period. It provides a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the ancient Greeks and Romans towards key elements of everyday life, including science, the arts, politics, religion and mythology, philosophy, and social and family life. Appendices include a clear and comprehensive account of money and its value in the classical world; a chronology of events across Greece and the east and Rome and the west; maps; and a two-way quick-reference gazetteer.Affordable and easy to use, this is an invaluable resource for students and teachers of classics and classical civilization as well as being a fascinating guide for anyone interested in learning more about the foundations of Western culture.