Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

Th e story of the Epic of Gilgamesh is a timeless one of adventure, seduction, rivalry, peril, battles, twists of fate, and fl o ...

of clay mixed with spit and the blood of the god Aw-ilu, who dies in the process. Enki, who regards humans as his creation becau ...

be regarded as literature. Indian literature traces its origins to the Vedas, the main Hindu sacred writings, which were writ- t ...

aggerated nature of many of the characters leading to their easy recognition by the audience. While Sanskrit was the language us ...

anthology of poetry from the time of Confucius and includes some 305 separate poems. Four of the longer ones, about 400 lines ea ...

sea epics and journeys of early Polynesian sailors, many en- twined with legends of the gods and deities, oft en refl ecting s o ...

Th e ancient Gauls were Celtic peoples. During the sev- eral centuries before and aft er the birth of Christ, the free and indep ...

customs, heritage, and language, including reliance upon an- cient stories and songs to recall past heroes and heroic deeds. Th ...

gods, a will that no mortal man can hope to oppose. Th e war, however, ends with a spark of willful human improvisation— the def ...

Th e poem glorifi es the solid, earthbound values of hard- working agricultural people, who at that time constituted the majorit ...

a long syllable, as in the word betray). Th e earliest lyric poet, Archilochus of Paros (mid-seventh century b.c.e.), explores a ...

Aeschylus (525/524–456/455 b.c.e.), probably the world’s fi rst writer of tragic drama, expanded the possibili- ties of stage dr ...

PHILOSOPHY No discussion of ancient Greek literature would be complete without mentioning some of the major Greek philosophers. ...

long narrative poem that, for the ancients, detailed the deeds of a single hero or band of heroes. Th is heroic story plays out ...

versatile writer, Ennius wrote plays, elegies, epigrams, satires, and even a philosophical poem, Epicharmus, which describes the ...

whom he may have had an aff air. His main theme was faith- fulness in love and friendship. VIRGIL Th e second part of the golden ...

OVID Th e third of the major Augustan poets was Publius Ovidius Naso (43 b.c.e.–17 c.e.), or Ovid. From an aristocratic family, ...

LATER WRITERS Competent but minor poets populated Rome in its last cen- turies. Prose faired somewhat better. Th e Meditations o ...

pottery and murals. Th e central part of Popol Vuh deals with the myth of the Hero Twins and is considered the most ancient part ...

BOOK 14, CHAPTER 28: OF THE NATURE OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY Accordingly, two cities have been formed by t ...