Examines the philosophical and spiritual climate of the Roman Empire during the period between the accession of Marcus Aurelius and the conversion of Constantine. During this period, material decline was steepest and the ferment of new religious…
Exactly 500 years after its first publication by the great Venetian printing house Aldus Manutius, Francesco Colonna's weird, erotic, allegorical antiquarian tale, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, was translated into English and reprinted in full, together…
"This is the first book to describe and explain all of the ancient world's major mystery cults -- one of the most intriguing but least understood aspects of Greek and Roman religion. In the nocturnal Mysteries at Eleusis, participants dramatically…
"Much attention has been devoted in recent years to Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity. But Christianity did not introduce asceticism to the ancient world. An underlying theme of this fascinating study of pagan asceticism is that much of the work…