Stanley Lombardo is Professor of Classics, University of Kansas. His previous translations include Homer's Iliad (1997, Hackett) and Odyssey (2000, Hackett), Hesiod's Works & Days and Theogony (1993, Hackett), and Sappho, Poems and Fragments (2002, Hackett), a PEN Center USA 2003 Literary Award Finalist.W. R. Johnson is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, University of Chicago. His previously published works include Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil's Aeneid (1976, University of California Press), Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom (1993, Cornell University Press), The Idea of Lyric (1982, University of California Press), Lucretius and the Modern World (2000, Duckworth), and Momentary Monsters: Lucan and His Heroes (1987, Cornell University Press).

Adapting words of the ancient critic Longinus, [Lombardo] refers to the intense light of noon of the Iliad, the magical glow of the setting sun in the Odyssey, and the chiaroscuro of the Aeneid, a darkness visible. This latter phrase is the title of a famous interpretation of the Aeneid by W. R. Johnson, who contributes a splendid essay to the translation. Whether recited or read, the present volume stands as another fine performance on Lombardo's part. Summing up: Highly recommended. --C. Fantazzi, CHOICE