Twelves Voices from Greece and Rome by Christopher Pelling and Maria Wyke sounds like a title specially commissioned by this very journal, though, alas, we can claim none of the credit!Footnote ¹ The collaboration arose out of a BBC Radio 3 series on classical literature in collaboration with the Open University and should have a broad appeal. Of the twelve voices six are Greek, six Latin: for the poets, Homer, Sappho, Virgil, Horace; for the tragedians, Euripides; for the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, Caesar, Tacitus; with Cicero for the orators (and philosophers…) and Juvenal for the satirists, paired with the final ‘voice’ in the collection: Lucian (a striking sign of the growing interest and marketability of Second Sophistic and Imperial Greek authors). This is a stimulating and enjoyable read, which carries one swiftly along. It is not a didactic regurgitation of literary and cultural history (though the final section on ‘Translations and Further Reading’ gives all the references one needs for further research) but a celebration of the continuing relevance of the Classics:

From Patrick Shaw-Stewart's lines written in 1915 during the Dardanelles Campaign (‘Stand in the trench, Achilles, Flame-capped, and shout for me’) and preserved in the fly-leaf of his copy of Houseman's A Shropshire Lad (2–3) to the use of Wilfred Owen's Horatian tag of dulce et decorum est within an exhibit at the 2012 Gardening World Cup (183), Classics continues to resonate.

The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World, edited by Judith Evans Grubbs and Tim Parkin, marks an important stage in the development of a relatively recent subject field (childhood is, of course, always destined to remain a growth industry…).Footnote ² The 1990s may have been the ‘decade of the ancient family’, but it was ‘only in the 2000s…that children in Greek and Roman antiquity became the central focus of both monographs and edited conference volumes’ (3). The current volume is divided into six parts. Part 1, ‘Gestation, Birth, Disease, and Death’, covers issues from the status of the embryo (from medical, legal, and philosophical standpoints) to infanticide and matters related to the raising of disabled children; Parts 2 and 3 consider children and childhood in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, including consideration of the role of children in Athenian religion (Robert Garland) and ‘Toys, Dolls, and the Material Culture of Childhood’ (Mary Harlow); Part 4 focuses on ‘Education and Educational Philosophy in the Classical World’, tackling issues such as the role of education in Sparta (Nigel Kennell) and the literacy of girls and women (Matthew Dillon). The final two parts present a welcome advance beyond the traditional spatial and temporal boundaries of the child in the ancient world: ‘Children in the Eastern Mediterranean’ (Part 5) and ‘Late Antique and Early Christianity’ (Part 6).

‘The 2010s are a watershed moment in the history of comedy scholarship. Comedy's 2,500th birthday is at hand. Celebrate!’ (22). Such a celebration is certainly well provided for by The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro.Footnote ³ Scafuro's ‘Introduction. Ancient Comedy: The longue durée’ (1–27) adeptly charts the various acts, actors, and intellectual scene-changes that have characterized the study of ancient comedy from the 1960s until the present day (including a description of a 1974 Yale Rep. production of Aristophanes’ Frogs set in a swimming pool with Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver in the chorus). Part 1 covers Greek comedy from ‘Beginnings’, ‘The Greek Comedians and Their Plays’, ‘Attic Comedy and Society’, through to ‘The Diffusion of Comedy in the Hellenistic World’; the structure is mirrored for the second part on Roman Comedy, but in place of a section on the diffusion of Comedy in the Roman world comes a free-standing part on ‘Transmission and Ancient Reception’, including chapters on ‘Later Greek Comedy in Late Antiquity’ (667–79), ‘Menandrian Mosaics and Terentian Miniatures’ (717–34), and ‘Greek Comedy, the Novel, and Epistolography’ (735–52). Two appendices supply information on Greek comic texts that have been published between 1973 (the year of Colin Austin's landmark Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta) and 2010 (the year of his death), and an overview and checklist of Post-Menandrian Comic poets.

Both of the preceding handbooks devote either sections or chapters to late antiquity. Scott Fitzgerald Johnson goes the full nine yards and more as editor of a vast 1247-page handbook to the period as a whole.Footnote ⁴ It would, of course, be impossible to do justice to the richness of this volume in the space of a few hundred words. Suffice it to say that this is a very impressive volume (and a particularly remarkable feat for a single editor to pull off) that does a great service to the study of the late antique world in all its diversity. Both literally and intellectually weighty, it is a work that is likely to resonate for many years to come. It is also good to see a number of translations of francophone contributions – which might not otherwise have had the chance of such wide dissemination. For all its diversity, the structure of the work is refreshingly straightforward. Part 1 considers ‘Geographies and Peoples’ (taking us from the Western Kingdoms to Arabia and Ethiopia, via the Balkans and Armenia); Part 2 is devoted to ‘Literary and Philosophical Cultures’ (including a highly stimulating article on ‘Late Antique Greek Poetry’ by Gianfranco Agosti); Part 3 covers ‘Law, State, and Social Structures’ (from economics to concepts of citizenship); Part 4 takes ‘Religions and Religious Identity’ as its focus (with an interesting discussion on ‘Sacred Space and Visual Art’ by Ann Marie Yasin), while the concluding part sets ‘Late Antiquity in Perspective’ (with a fascinating contribution by John Haldon on ‘Comparative State Formation: The Later Roman Empire in the Wider World’).

After three Oxford Handbooks come three more Wiley-Blackwell Companions. First up is A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, edited by Thomas K. Hubbard (with a front cover illustration of the is-it-or-isn't-it-real Warren Cup).Footnote ⁵ It comprises thirty-seven articles presented, somewhat unusually for a volume of this kind, without any division into parts (and with no introductory essay). Greece and Rome are not treated separately, but ‘with sensistivity to both the continuities and the differences between the two classical civilizations’ (ix). There is, nevertheless, a clear enough structure, starting with more obviously theoretical articles on, for example, ‘Studies of Ancient Masculinity’ by Mark Masterson and ‘Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Discipline of Classics’ by Kirk Ormand, moving on to thematic articles on such topics as ‘Sexuality in Greek and Roman Military Contexts’ by David Leitao and ‘Sex in Ancient Greek and Roman Epic’ (that is, Homer and Virgil – no space, alas, for any discussion of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca and its highly-sexed late antique hero) by Ingrid Olmberg, before drawing to a close with articles on the reception of ancient sexuality, such as Alastair Blanshard's ‘The Early Modern Erotic Imagination’ and Monica S. Cyrino's ‘Ancient Sexuality on Screen’. This is a very accessible volume which offers an excellent synthesis of current research in the field of Graeco-Roman sexualities. It is, one should add, well illustrated with a number of quite unforgettable images.

The Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity edited by Paul Christesen and Donald Kyle adds to an already impressive stockpile of volumes on sport and athletics in the Classical World.Footnote ⁶ Justification for adding yet another title to the bibliography of sport and spectacle comes from ‘the sheer quantity of the available secondary literature on ancient sport and spectacle [which] makes it functionally impossible for nonspecialists to stay up with the field. Moreover, the continuing, rapid development of the field means that the scholarly consensus about such basic issues as when the Olympic Games began or where the first Roman amphitheatres were built has shifted significantly in the past decade’ (3). The volume is expicit about its ambition not to treat ancient sport and spectacle in isolation, but as part of its wider social context; it also expresses a desire to avoid as far as possible the strong gravitational pull of the Olympic Games and the Roman Colosseum. This social history of ancient sport is divided into two sections covering Greece and Rome respectively. Section 1 features four parts (1: Background, 2: Places, 3: Peoples, Settings, Ideas, 4: Later Greek Sport and Spectacle) – a structure closely mirrored in the section on Rome. The forty-three articles provide plenty of material to exercise the minds of all shapes and sizes of reader, with discussions ranging from ‘People on the Fringes of Greek Sport’ by Christian Mann, ‘Etruscan Sport’ by Giampiero Bevagna to ‘Women with Swords: Female Gladiators in the Roman World’ by Stephen Brunet.

A Companion to the Ancient Novel, edited by Edmund Cueva and Shannon Byrne, aims to provide an accessible introduction for the reader new to the genre while also engaging the interest of the more experienced reader of the ancient novel.Footnote ⁷ It is divided into four parts. Part 1, ‘Novels and Authors’, introduces the usual suspects of Chariton, Achilles Tatius, Apuleius, and friends, but also widens the net to consider the relationship between the ancient novel and Christian narrative (in an interesting contribution by David Konstan and Illaria Ramelli [180–97]). Part 2 focuses on ‘Genre and Approaches’ (including discussion of dialogue and characterization). Part 3's line up of ‘Influences and Intertextuality’ includes discussion of the intersections between the ancient novel and Archaic Greek literature, and Roman Elegy; Niall Slater guides us through Apuleius’ relationship with ‘a popular network of ass narratives’ (397), while Angela Holzmeister explores the function of ekphrasis (or should that be ekphr-asses?) in the ancient novel. The final part of the volume presents eleven ‘Themes and Topics’, from gender and Greek love to the literary transmission and reception of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe. The range of themes explored and the sophistication of the analysis clearly show just how far the ancient novel has come since it was dismissed as romance-writing for those with little taste and even less education.

Women and Weasels. Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome by Maurizio Bettini was first published in Italian in 1998 as Nascere. Storie di donne, donnole, madri ed eroi.Footnote ⁸ The mythological genesis of this story can be traced back to the moment when Alcmene was struggling to give birth to Heracles. Hera, in her anger at Zeus's infidelity, had arranged for Alcmene's labour to be frustrated, but her plot was foiled by a quick-thinking midwife (called Galanthis by Ovid). Heracles was thus born, but for her pains Galanthis was transformed by Hera into a weasel. From this mythological starting point, Bettini embarks on a cultural, social, and anthropological study of the symbolic relationship between weasels and women. The clue is in the name: in a number of languages, including Albanian, Portuguese, and Italian (look at the title above), the word for ‘weasel’ is based on the word for ‘woman’ (see 198). This is much more than ‘all you ever wanted to know about weasels, but were afraid to ask’, but an exuberant celebration of scholarly curiositas and humanitas, meticuously researched, yet reminiscent at times of the playful mytho-scholarship of Roberto Calasso's Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. Perhaps it is more like a Moby Dick for weasels. Consider the opening paragraph to Chapter 10, ‘The Forest of Symbols is Full of Animals’:

From women and weasels we move to women and dogs. Shameless. The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, by Cristiana Franco (translated from the Italian by the appropriately named Matthew Fox, with new preface and appendix), presents an anthropological study of the symbolic and ideologically charged relationship between women and dogs in the Greek imagination.Footnote ⁹ The starting point for this exploration is the question of how it might be that ‘man's best friend’ (as true for ancient Greeks as it is for Western societies today) came to be used as a symbol of transgression and feminine deceit. Hesiod's Pandora, for example, has ‘the mind of a dog’, and Homer's Helen is famously described as both ‘bitch’ and ‘dog-faced’ (the latter insult also used by Agamemnon's ghost in Odyssey 11 to describe Helen's sister, Clytemnestra). For Franco an explanation lies in the closeness of the relationship between humans and dogs, a relationship which allowed for the co-option of the dog into a system of ethical thinking:

As Franco well shows, the dog becomes an excellent image to think with when considering the position of women within male society. The similarity of position between canines and women (trusted/distrusted; tame/wild)