The book “Gnomica Democritea” takes a panoramic view of the fate of Democritus’ ethics by establishing a connection between the lost body of works on ethics and the “gnomological” tradition which is at the core of Diels’ collection of fragments attributed to Democritus (in his book Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, chapter 68). The focus of the study is on the early and middle period of the Byzantine gnomological tradition which had not yet been analysed so far, and it leads to some modifications of the canon of texts established by Diels. Starting from a central “universal collection” (Corpus Parisinum), the author traces the erratic ways of tradition of the Democritea with unprecedented precision, and this results in new insight about the Byzantine florilegia.

Here, Klaus Lennartz presents for the first time his overall view of the antique genre of the Iambos: examining the “Truth effect” of the Solonic Iambic tradition and the integration of the Iambic “Classics” into the forms of discourse of the fifth century, together with the “Archilochus” and “Hipponax” questions, the Iambos Renaissance by Kallimachos and the Hellenists, the transformation of the Iambos into the Epigrammatic approach of Catullus and “client-orientation” of Horace as the Roman Archilochus. “Iambos. Philological investigations on the history of a genre in Antiquity” has been designed as a “molecular” reference work, while remaining a case study on the proliferation of a genre, that nevertheless exerts an influence beyond the boundaries of specialism.

This book offers an analysis of all subordinate clauses of the eleven extant comedies of Aristophanes, informed by syntax, semantics and pragmatics; new perspectives are opened for the linguistic interpretation of these texts. It emerges that such factors as position in a dialog and stylistic register exert a considerable influence on the linguistic formation of the whole sentence. By means of a precise description of the constructions considered, Aristophanes is situated in his historical-linguistic context. The conclusions drawn have wider implications, both for the understanding of Greek syntax in general and that for other languages.

The study is dedicated to a detailed evaluation of the existing manuscript evidence of Plato's Nomoi as well as to the explanation of the textual tradition of this work. The mutual relationships of the existing textual witnesses are explored in detail with the intention of determining their role in the reconstitution of the text. At the same time, the focus is on the copyists and scholars who produced, emended and annotated these manuscripts.

The orations of the rhetor Himerius, a professor in Athens in the late classical era, are here trans-lated for the first time into a modern language. They illustrate vividly the rhetorical education at an academy of the 4th century A.D. and give an insight into the relations between the inhabitants of the provinces of the Roman Empire and the imperial authorities. The detailed commentary (given in the footnotes) facilitates the understanding of the numerous historical and mythological allusions.

The “Vita Aesopi,” known today as “Aesop's Fables,” characterizes the life of the legendary fabulist Aesop up through his death in Delphi with a variety of funny individual episodes. Four versions from around 1600 are published here as evidence of early Modern Greek rhythmic narrative prose. A detailed text- and source-critical introduction with references to the profile of the "Metaphrastes," an extensive commentary on each chapter, and a German translation with illustrations from the "Ulmer Aesop" (1476) develop this key text of medieval popular literature.

Die Hamburger Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek besitzt 64 griechische Handschriften, deren Mehrheit erst 1989 und 1990 aus der Kriegsauslagerung (Ost-Berlin und Moskau) zurückgekommen ist. Die Kodizes entstammen dem 10. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert und enthalten Werke aus den verschiedensten wissenschaftlichen Gebieten: neben klassischen Autoren finden sich astrologische, theologische, grammatische und mathematische Abhandlungen. Der Bestand stammt hauptsächlich aus den Legaten Hamburger Gelehrten aus dem 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Verschiedenen Gelehrtengenerationen Norddeutschlands boten die Hamburger Handschriften die Gelegenheit, zahlreiche griechische Texte kennenzulernen und zu edieren. Die Kriterien der Beschreibung richten sich nach den modernen Beispielen wissenschaftlicher Handschriftenkataloge: außer einer ausführlichen Beschreibung des Inhalts bearbeiten die verschiedenen Lemmata die Handschriften nicht nur unter dem kodikologischen Hinsicht, sondern berücksichtigen auch die philologische, kulturgeschichtliche und textuelle Aspekte jedes Manuskripts.

Die Emotion „Phthonos“ spielt in Byzanz (definiert als „Schmerz über das Wohlergehen des anderen“) eine besondere Rolle: Sie ist das Böse an sich. Einerseits ist Phthonos die negative und aggressive Leidenschaft, die sich durch Heuchelei, Verleumdung sowie Mord äußert und mit der jede Form von Rivalität und Konkurrenz erklärt wird. Andererseits ist Phthonos eng mit dem Teufel verbunden, dessen Ursünde er ist. Mit der biblischen Satansfigur sind vorchristliche Vorstellungen des personifizierten Phthonos als missgünstiger Schicksalsmacht verschmolzen, die nach der Zerstörung menschlichen Glücks trachtet. Diese zweidimensionale Bedrohlichkeit des Begriffs wird in der Literatur vor allem dort eingesetzt, wo Konflikte in Form von Polemiken ausgetragen werden oder in der Erzählung ein negativer Handlungsumschwung eintritt.