Roman Theories of Translation

Siobhán McElduff is assistant professor of Latin at the University of British Columbia. She is the translator of Cicero: In Defense of the Republic (Penguin Classics, 2011), a selection of Cicero’s political speeches, and co-editor of Complicating the History of Western Translation: The Ancient Mediterranean in Perspective (St. Jerome, 2011).

• Introduction 1. Language, Interpreters, and Official Translations in the Roman World 2. Livius Andronicus, Ennius, and the Beginnings of Epic Translation in Rome 3. Making a Show of the Greeks: Translation and Drama in the Third and Second Century Rome 4. Cicero’s Impossible Translation: On the Best Type of Orator and Beyond 5. Late Republican and Augustan Poets on Translation: Catullus, Horace, Lucretius, and Germanicus Caesar 6. The Post-Ciceronian Landscape of Roman Translation Theory Conclusion: A Roman Theory of Translation?

"I don’t know how we’ve done without Siobhán McElduff’s wonderful book for so long. I wish she had published it fifteen or twenty years ago; my understanding of the historical roots of contemporary translation theory would have been significantly different today. Whoever still believes that classics scholarship is dry as dust will find that stereotype smashed by this congenial, eminently readable book."- Douglas Robinson, Lingnan University, Hong Kong"This is a lively, accessible book ... McElduff attends meticulously to rhetorical nuance - close reading at its finest! Highly recommended." - A.M. Busch, College at Brockport, SUNY, for CHOICE"By examining translation across several centuries of Roman history, McElduff shows compellingly, how in translation, as in much else, understandings and sensibilities varied among individuals, but also evolved over the generations. McElduff’s work is important for the study of Western translation history in general." - James Hadley, University of East Anglia, UK, for Perspectives: Studies in Translatology"Students interested in translation will enthusiastically welcome the volume under review, which can be placed alongside other recent achievements in the field. This study certainly succeeds in making sense of Roman translation practices and providing both basic and advanced tools for Latinists interested in the topic." - Chiara Battistella, Université de Genève, Switzerland, for Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewSiobhán McElduff's fascinating study of how and why Romans translated may come as a shocking revelation to those of us used to contemporary views on translation, which emphasise an objective faithfulness to the source text. - Seppo Heikkinen