The Getty Hexameters: Poetry, Magic, and Mystery in Ancient Selinous
ISBN: 9780191745768
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Oxford University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Religion in the Ancient World Classical Literature Greek and Roman Archaeology;

The Getty Hexameters looks in detail at a series of forty-four magical verses inscribed on a recently discovered lead tablet from Sicily in the fifth century BC, which is now in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Divided into two sections, the volume consists of a general introduction to the new inscriptions, together with a critical text and English translation, photographs, and drawings. The second section contains a collection of eleven interpretative essays which treat various aspects of the text, including religious and civic context, date and poetic language, transmission, and connections to ancient magic and ritual practice.

The volume is the first complete critical edition of the Greek text to appear in print and contains important scholarship for the field of classics from an acclaimed list of contributors.


Christopher A. Faraone is Frank Curtis Springer & Gertrude Melcher Springer Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago

Dirk Obbink is University Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature and Tutorial Fellow in Greek, Christ Church College, University of Oxford

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