Frontmatter --Contents --Acknowledgements --List of Tables --Religion and Rhetoric in Ancient Graeco- Roman Texts and Contexts --Part I: Religion, Rhetoric and Law --Religion and the Rule of Law in the Greek Polis --Speaking for the Gods: Greek Cultic Regulations and their Silent Informants --Religious Arguments in Antiphon Rhetor --Part II: Magic and Religion --Performing the Rhetoric of Magic in Ovid's Epistulae Heroidum and Metamorphoses 10 --Transcultural Context in Graeco-Egyptian Magic: Two Case Studies from a Bilingual Theban Handbook --Part III: Religion and Rhetorical Performance --Trends in the Rhetoric of Prayer: The Actio of Prayer and the Eloquentia Popularis --Between Compassion and Aggression: The Rhetoric of Mourning in Republican and Early Imperial Rome --Argument and Performance in the Creation of a Rhetorical Matrix in Paul's Congregations and Beyond --Part IV: The Rulers' Religion --Beloved of the Gods, Son of the Gods, Rival of the Gods: Alexander and the Rhetoric of Religion in Plutarch, Arrian and Curtius Rufus --What Makes a Divus? The Prospective Rhetoric of Deification in Pliny's Panegyricus --Tua Divinitas: Religious Self-fashioning in Tiberian Rome --Part V: Rhetoric and Religion in Verse Style --Biblical Epics: Intersection of Rhetoric and Religion in Greek and Latin Hexametric Paraphrases of Psalm 136 (137) --Notes on Editors and Contributors --General Index --Index Locorum It is perhaps a truism to note that ancient religion and rhetoric were closely intertwined in Greek and Roman antiquity. Religion is embedded in socio-political, legal and cultural institutions and structures, while also being influenced, or even determined, by them. Rhetoric is used to address the divine, to invoke the gods, to talk about the sacred, to express piety and to articulate, refer to, recite or explain the meaning of hymns, oaths, prayers, oracles and other religious matters and processes. The 13 contributions to this volume explore themes and topics that most succinctly describe the firm interrelation between religion and rhetoric mostly in, but not exclusively focused on, Greek and Roman antiquity, offering new, interdisciplinary insights into a great variety of aspects, from identity construction and performance to legal/political practices and a broad analytical approach to transcultural ritualistic customs. The volume also offers perceptive insights into oriental (i.e. Egyptian magic) texts and Christian literature
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