The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy

Several decades of scholarship have demonstrated that Roman thinkers developed in new and stimulating directions the systems of thought they inherited from the Greeks, and that, taken together, they offer many perspectives that are of philosophical interest in their own right. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy explores a range of such Roman philosophical perspectives through thirty-four newly commissioned essays. Where Roman philosophy has long been considered a mere extension of Hellenistic systems of thought, this volume moves beyond the search for sources and parallels and situates Roman philosophy in its distinctive cultural context.

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy emphasizes four features of Roman philosophy: aspects of translation, social context, philosophical import, and literary style. The authors adopt an inclusive approach, treating not just systematic thinkers such as Cicero and Augustine, but also poets and historians. Topics covered include ethnicity, cultural identity, literary originality, the environment, Roman philosophical figures, epistemology, and ethics.

Myrto Garani is Associate Professor of Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is the author of Empedocles Redivivus, co-editor with David Konstan of The Philosophizing Muse, and co-editor with A. N. Michalopoulos and S. Papaioannou of Intertextuality in Seneca's Philosophical Writings.

David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University. He is the author of Friendship in the Classical World, Beauty, In the Orbit of Love, and The Origin of Sin.

Gretchen Reydams-Schils is Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame and holds concurrent appointments in Classics, Philosophy, and Theology. She is the author of The Roman Stoics and Calcidius on Plato's Timaeus.

Introduction, David Konstan, Myrto Garani, and Gretchen Reydams-Schils

Part I. The Roman Philosopher: Affiliation, Identity, Self, and Other

1. Pythagoreans and Samnite philosopher, Phillip Horky
2. Epicurean Orthodoxy and Innovation: from Lucretius to Diogenes Oenoanda, Pamela Gordon
3. Epicureans and Stoics in Augustan Poetry, Gregson Davis
4. Seneca and Stoic Moral Psychology, Gretchen Reydams-Schils
5. Marcus Aurelius and the Tradition of Spiritual Exercises, John Sellars
6. Apuleius and Roman Demonology, Jeffrey Ulrich
7. Philosophers and Roman Friendship, David Konstan
8. The Ethics and Politics of Property, Malcolm Schofield

Part II. Writing and Arguing Roman Philosophy

9. Lucretius, Tim O'Keefe
10. Dialogue before and after Cicero, Matthew Fox
11. The Stoic Lesson: Cornutus and Epictetus, Michael Erler
12. Persius' Paradoxes, Aaron Kachuck
13. Plutarch's Platonism, George Karamanolis
14. Parrhêsia: Dio, Diatribe, and Philosophical Oratory, Dana Fields
15. Philosophical Therapy: Consolation in Roman Philosophy, James Ker
16. 'We' thinking: Cicero's Academic Arguments, Orazio Cappello
17. Stoic Poetics, Claudia Wiener

Part III. Inside and Outside of Roman Philosophy

18. Translation, Christina Hoenig
19. Politics, Ermanno Malaspina and Elisa Della Calce
20. Rhetoric, Erik Gunderson
21. The Subject at its Limits, James I. Porter
22. Medicine, David Leith
23. Sex, Kurt Lampe
24. Time, Duncan Kennedy
25. Death, James Warren
26. Environment, Daniel Bertoni

Part IV. After Roman Philosophy: Transmission and Impact

27. Roman Pre-Socratics: Lucretius to Diogenes Laërtius, Myrto Garani
28. Reading Aristotle at Rome, Myrto Hatzimichali
29. Christian Ethics: The Reception of Cicero in Ambrose's De officiis, Ivor Davidson
30. Recovering Platonism: Plotinus and Augustine, Anne-Isabelle Bouton-Touboulic
31. Byzantine Political Thought: Roman Concepts in Greek Disguise, Anthony Kaldellis
32. Latin Neoplatonism: the Medieval Period, Agnieska Kijewska
33. Transmitting Roman Philosophy: the Renaissance, Quinn Griffin
34. Nature, Anthropology, and Politics: the Enlightenment, Natania Meeker