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Philodemus On Piety

Part 1, Critical Text with Commentary

Philodemus author Dirk Obbink editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:5th Dec '96

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Philodemus On Piety cover

This is a complete edition, with prolegomena, translation, and commentary of the first, "philosophical" part of Philodemus' De Pietate, preserved in papyri. Introducing a new method for reconstructing the fragmented papyrus rolls recovered from Herculaneum, this is the first edition based on the papyri themselves (where they still exist), rather than on faulty reproductions, and the first edition to bring together fragments hitherto thought to be from different rolls. It will also be the first translation of the work into any language. An innovative format presents on facing pages the technical details of the papyrus, and a conventional, continuous text with interpretive notes. The work itself comprises a polemical treatise on the gods, mythography, and religion, presenting a defence of Epicurus's view of religion as an outgrowth of cultural history, and a philosophical rationale for participation in traditional cult practices in order to further social cohesion.

This is a remarkable piece of scholarship. * Richard Wallace, Greece and Rome *
Magisterial edition of the first part of Philodemus's On Piety. * Phronesis *

ISBN: 9780198150084

Dimensions: 243mm x 164mm x 44mm

Weight: 1268g

696 pages