$37.00
On Death, by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, is among the most significant philosophical treatments of the theme surviving from the Greco-Roman world. The author was an influential figure in first-century B.C.E. Roman society, associated with poets such as Virgil and politicians such as the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. The surviving copies of his treatises were carbonized following the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E. This edition contains the Greek text, newly reconstituted with the help of the infrared imaging technology that has revolutionized the study of Philodemus’s works in the twenty-first century, and completely translated into English for the first time. An extensive introduction provides background on Philodemus and his writings, accompanying notes enrich the text, and forty-four pages of photographs illustrate the papyrus manuscript from which the translation is drawn. (The SBL would like to thank Brigham Young University's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship for graciously funding the additional printing costs that enabled us to include photographs of all the papyrus leaves. Special thanks also to Roger T. Macfarlane of Brigham Young University for facilitating this special funding.)
W. Benjamin Henry has been a Harrington Faculty Fellow and ISAC Research Fellow and Lecturer in classics at The University of Texas at Austin.
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“C’est un bonheur d’avoir enfin un tel accès à ce miraculé du Vésuve, et la plus grande reconnaissance est due à W. B. Henry pour son œuvre tant d’édition que de traduction et d’accompagnement. La qualité du travail, celle de sa présentation, l’effort exceptionnel de pédagogie, de synthèse et de transmission d’une information par elle-même absconde, et souvent éparpillée, font tout ensemble de ce livre un très bel ouvrage, qui rendra les plus grands services à un public varié. J’ai eu pour ma part un très vif plaisir à le lire, et en ai tiré autant de profit.”
— François Prost,