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Treats a compelling narrative of two of history's most famous battles, and assists translation and literary and historical appreciation.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Livy's life and work; 2. Course of the war; 3. Sources; 4. Structure; 5. Chronology; 6. Language and style; 7. Literary aspects; 8. Religion in Livy; 9. Roman politics and Fabian strategy; 10. Manpower; 11. The text; Livy Book XXII; Commentary.
About the author
John Briscoe spent his academic career at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and the University of Manchester, where he is an Honorary Research Fellow. He is a Member of the Academia Europaea. He has published four volumes of commentary on Livy books 31-45 (1973–2012), and critical editions of books 21-25 (2016) and 31-45 (1986–1991); Liviana (2018) is a companion volume to the OCT. He has also published a critical edition of Valerius Maximus (1998) and a commentary on book 8 (2019). He made substantial contributions to Fragments of the Roman Historians (ed. T. J. Cornell, 2013).Simon Hornblower lives and works in London. He began and ended his academic career in research posts at All Souls College Oxford (1971–77, 2010–16). In between, he taught at the University of Oxford and then at University College London, where he was Professor of Classics and Grote Professor of Ancient History. He has written, edited, or co-edited twenty-two books, most recently editions of Books V and VI of Herodotus for Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (2013 and 2017 respectively), Lykophron Alexandra: Greek Text, Translation, Commentary and Introduction (2015), Lykophron's Alexandra, Rome, and the Hellenistic world (2018), and The Returning Hero: Nostoi and traditions of Mediterranean settlement (co-edited, 2018).
Summary
Book XXII, narrating Hannibal's defeats of Rome at Trasimene and Cannae, is Livy's most dramatic book in which he transformed Polybius' source material into a rhetorical masterpiece. A new text is provided and the introduction and commentary treat historical, religious, literary and linguistic matters. It is suitable for students at all levels.
