The Argonautica Of Apollonius Rhodius Book Iii

Originally published in 1928, this book contains the ancient Greek text of the third book of the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, in which Medea falls in love with the hero Jason and determines to help him win the Golden Fleece. Gillies supplies a detailed commentary on the story and notes linguistic parallels with Homeric epic and Greek tragedy, in addition to a detailed introduction on the history of the legend and its place in the Hellenistic literary canon. This book will be of value to Classicists and anyone with an interest in ancient Greek literature.

The Argonautica is the only surviving epic between Homer and Virgil; Book IV is an extraordinary product of Greek poetry.

This is a commentary on the third book of Apollonius' Argonautica, one of the most influential and admired products of the Hellenistic era. The author sets out to deal comprehensively with all important aspects of the work; in particular, proper attention is paid for the first time to the poet's constant manipulation of the two Homeric epics; many thorny problems of text and interpretation are examined afresh; and a wealth of hitherto unadduced illustrative material drawn from Greek and Roman poetry of various genres and periods is used to shed light on a number of issues. The volume closes with a series of detailed digestive indexes dealing with diction, models and imitations, language and style, metre, transmission, mythology, religion, geography, ethnography and aetiology.