“The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion”, edited by Simon Price and Emily Kearns

 

640 pages, Oxford University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0192802880

The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion is…a dictionary of classical (read: Greco-Roman) myths and religions, sooooo…no mystery there, right? The editors of this work are also what you would expect: Simon Rowland Francis Price (who died in 2011) was an English classical scholar who specialized in the imperial cult of ancient Rome; he was the son of the Anglican bishop Hetley Price and studied at Manchester Grammar School, Queen’s College, Oxford, University College London and Christ’s College Cambridge, as well as teaching at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; Emily Kearns, meanwhile, is still with us and teaches Greek literature and language at St Hilda’s, Oxford, where her main area of research is Greek religion, but she has also written on Homer, Greek tragedy and Renaissance Latin and is currently preparing a sourcebook on religion in archaic and classical Greece. So a couple of eminent Brit scholars went and wrote…er, Edited, a reference work in which a bunch of old gods ‘n stuff are given their days in the sun anew. But more than that, this particular Dictionary is unique in that in addition to Greek and Roman myths and festivals, it covers Greek and Roman religious places, monuments, religious personnel, divination, astrology and magic, as well as containing several entries on Judaism and Christianity in Greek and Roman times. Not a page-turner (I would think), but a handy reference work for anyone who just can’t remember their Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.