Ancient Greek Oracular Texts: Form, Content, Context
This book offers a comprehensive and systematic – rather than historical – approach to ancient Greek oracular texts, showing their conceptual and formal unity and patternisation, as well as their meaningful diversity.

It provides even coverage of both oracular texts ascribed to major institutions, including Delphi, Dodona, Didyma, Clarus, and Abonoteichus, and those attributed to mythical poets such as the Sibyl, Bacis, and Musaeus. Chapters analyse the meter and phraseology of the texts and how they were recorded, transmitted, archived, and collected, as well as their narrative functions and authors. It also takes into account the later reception of Greek oracular texts: ‘theological oracles’; epigraphically attested lot oracles (dice and alphabet oracles); three extant Greek oracular texts which survived from the Libri Sibyllini of the Roman Republic; adoptions into – or imitations in –  Latin literature of Greek oracular texts. With a lengthy appendix offering relevant texts in ancient Greek and English, readers gain a fuller understanding of the linguistic nuances and conventions of such texts and their place in the wider corpus of Greek literature.

The volume provides a fascinating resource and reassessment of oracular texts, suitable for students and scholars working on Greek and Roman oracles, divination, and ancient religion more broadly, as well as classicists, archaeologists, theologians, and epigraphists.

1147286445
Ancient Greek Oracular Texts: Form, Content, Context
This book offers a comprehensive and systematic – rather than historical – approach to ancient Greek oracular texts, showing their conceptual and formal unity and patternisation, as well as their meaningful diversity.

It provides even coverage of both oracular texts ascribed to major institutions, including Delphi, Dodona, Didyma, Clarus, and Abonoteichus, and those attributed to mythical poets such as the Sibyl, Bacis, and Musaeus. Chapters analyse the meter and phraseology of the texts and how they were recorded, transmitted, archived, and collected, as well as their narrative functions and authors. It also takes into account the later reception of Greek oracular texts: ‘theological oracles’; epigraphically attested lot oracles (dice and alphabet oracles); three extant Greek oracular texts which survived from the Libri Sibyllini of the Roman Republic; adoptions into – or imitations in –  Latin literature of Greek oracular texts. With a lengthy appendix offering relevant texts in ancient Greek and English, readers gain a fuller understanding of the linguistic nuances and conventions of such texts and their place in the wider corpus of Greek literature.

The volume provides a fascinating resource and reassessment of oracular texts, suitable for students and scholars working on Greek and Roman oracles, divination, and ancient religion more broadly, as well as classicists, archaeologists, theologians, and epigraphists.

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Ancient Greek Oracular Texts: Form, Content, Context

Ancient Greek Oracular Texts: Form, Content, Context

by Michael Lipka
Ancient Greek Oracular Texts: Form, Content, Context

Ancient Greek Oracular Texts: Form, Content, Context

by Michael Lipka

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Overview

This book offers a comprehensive and systematic – rather than historical – approach to ancient Greek oracular texts, showing their conceptual and formal unity and patternisation, as well as their meaningful diversity.

It provides even coverage of both oracular texts ascribed to major institutions, including Delphi, Dodona, Didyma, Clarus, and Abonoteichus, and those attributed to mythical poets such as the Sibyl, Bacis, and Musaeus. Chapters analyse the meter and phraseology of the texts and how they were recorded, transmitted, archived, and collected, as well as their narrative functions and authors. It also takes into account the later reception of Greek oracular texts: ‘theological oracles’; epigraphically attested lot oracles (dice and alphabet oracles); three extant Greek oracular texts which survived from the Libri Sibyllini of the Roman Republic; adoptions into – or imitations in –  Latin literature of Greek oracular texts. With a lengthy appendix offering relevant texts in ancient Greek and English, readers gain a fuller understanding of the linguistic nuances and conventions of such texts and their place in the wider corpus of Greek literature.

The volume provides a fascinating resource and reassessment of oracular texts, suitable for students and scholars working on Greek and Roman oracles, divination, and ancient religion more broadly, as well as classicists, archaeologists, theologians, and epigraphists.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781032892269
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 10/13/2025
Series: Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies
Pages: 302
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Lipka is currently Professor of Classics at the University of Patras / Greece and has published widely on Greek on Roman religions, including monographs on “Roman Gods. A Conceptual Approach” (2009) and “Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism” (2021).

Table of Contents

Introduction; A. Meter; B. Phraseology; C. Recording, Transmitting, Archiving, and Collecting; D. Oracular Authors; E. Some Narrative Functions; F. Theological Oracles; G. Lot Oracles from Asia Minor; H. The Roman Republican Libri Sibyllini; I. Greek Oracles in Latin Literature; Epilogue: A Brief History of Ancient Greek Oracular Texts; Appendix I: Texts 1-30 (Greek-English); Appendix II: An Archaic (Metrical) Colonial Oracle from Didyma?

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