Telling, Turning Moments in the Classical Political World

Jan H. Blits is professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware and author of New Heaven, New Earth: Shakespeare's Antony and CleopatraI, Spirit, Soul, and City: Shakespeare's Coriolanus, The Soul of Athens: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Deadly Thought: Hamlet and the Human Soul, The Insufficiency of Virtue: Macbeth and the Natural Order, The End of the Ancient Republic: Essays on Julius Caesar, and The American University: Problems, Prospects, and Trends.

• 1 Foreword2 1. Athens and Rome: Plutarch's Theseus and Romulus3 2. Redeeming Lost Honor: Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece4 3. The End of the Noble5 4. No Middle Way, No Second Way: Rome and the Caudine Forks6 5. The Politics of Authority and Rhetoric in Republican Rome7 6. Political Murder in Rome8 7. Power without Office, Office without Power: Augustus's Principate9 Afterword: Greece versus Rome10 Appendix: Greece and Rome Timeline11 About the Author

This engrossing book succeeds in its plan of presentation as well as in its interpretative vision. Selected events of Greek and Roman antiquity are presented in terms of 'turning moments,' each flushed out with memorable detail and each resonating with crucial human and political significance. The thesis that Athens and Rome are mutually illuminating opposites, related as poetry to prose, adds a unifying tenor. This is a thoughtfulhistory.