The Classical Tradition, Harvard Press

How do we get from the polis to the police? Or from Odysseus’s sirens to those of an ambulance? The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome is all around us, imitated, resisted, reworked, and misunderstood. In this beautifully illustrated and encyclopedic compendium, a team of leading scholars investigates the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science. From Academy to Zoology, Aristotle and the Argonauts to Pegasus and Persia, in over 1,000 pages the Classical Tradition looks at facts and adages, people, places, and ideas to reveal how the Classical tradition has shaped human endeavors from government to medicine, drama to urban planning, legal theory to popular culture. At once authoritative and accessible, learned and entertaining, it illuminates the vitality of these enduring influences. The sleeve cover is a bit rough around the edges along the spine, but otherwise in good shape. The book itself is like new (I never did get around to reading it).