Peter Jones (1) (1942–)

A completely outstanding work of scholarship.

There is an abundant wealth of knowledge in this book. On each double page there are a few lines of the original text on the left hand page. Maybe three or so. Beneath these lines Peter Jones provides copious notes on the words, tenses, cases, grammar and usage. This is all designed to tease out painstakingly a satisfactory translation. Vocabulary lists are provided. I doubt that the notes could be more helpful. These notes and aids can extend to show more the facing page.

Starting somewhat lower down on the left page and underneath the grammatical and syntactical notes there will begin, in a larger font, an exploration of the themes, stylistic nuances and a wealth of other information about the wider ramifications of the text. These also extend to the facing page.

In the result, every three or four lines are afforded copious ellucidation. The assumption is that the reader wants to to be able to unravel the Latin. A reasonable grounding in Latin is generally assumed.

There is an Index and there are other appendices.

This book is a model of its kind, an examplar for the ages.

Mr. Jones is to be congratulated for providing this almost unique work of thoughtfully presented learning. There is an equivalent book devoted to parts of Metamorphoses. There is every reason to believe that it matches the high standard of excellence set by this Book. show less

Spanning from about 2000 BC to 27 BC (the end of Alexander's Empire) it's an interesting look at Classical Greek History and yes it's missing chunks but it's not meant to be in-depth. It is entertaiing and fun and I enjoyed reading it.It made me want to read mroe and honestly that's the best thing about this book. It's a good refresher on the history and society with a decent bibliography and index. A book to dip in and out of.

This is a great book to dip in and out of. All about Rome and the Romans during the Classical period, Peter Jones follows things in a chronological fashion making me want to do more research about some of the things in the tale. It's a perfect book to dip your toes into Classical History or refresh your mind.

Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Roman history. Easy readability with short chapters that focus on a particular theme/event; such as, social life, law, literature, kings, emperors and imperialism. Each chapter begins with a chronology of the events described in that chapter. The book covers a broad amount of Roman history starting with the origin myth/story of Romulus and the founding/establishment of Rome in 753 BCE and finishing around the 5th century. moreover the end of show more the book describes the rise of Christianity in the 4th century CE and Theodosius' outlawing of Paganism and convening of the council of Constantinople (381) determining the Christian orthodoxy and establishing Christianity as the official sole Roman religion - The books final page comments on roman native tongue of Latin and the continuation of the language through the roman catholic church and also eventually education (mostly starting in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries in cathedral and monastic schools (monasteries) ). show less