Focusing on the practice of declamation, the book explores its historical significance and how declaimers engaged with classical literature and history during their public performances. It highlights the cultural impact and techniques of these orators, shedding light on the art of rhetoric in historical settings.
The reemergence of a notorious terrorist, believed dead for six years, sends shockwaves through the White House as officials brace for an unprecedented attack. Spotted in a small town north of Boston, his survival raises alarms about a looming threat that could surpass any previous assaults on the United States. The urgency intensifies as a select few grapple with the implications of his return and the impending danger that looms over the nation.
Synesius' essay De insomniis ('On Dreams') - written soon after 400 AD by a man who was not only a highly educated Greek intellectual but also (in the last years of his life) a Christian bishop of the city of Ptolemais (Cyrenaica) - inquires into the ways and means by which a human being, while sleeping and dreaming, may make contact with higher spheres, and it does so in the light of a clearly recognizable Neo-Platonic concept of the soul and its salvation. Synesius' thoughts are thus an important contribution of Later Antiquity on topics - the place of man within the universe and his means of communication with higher powers - that not only were of high concern for his contemporaries, but still are today for religiously- and philosophically-minded people. Besides introduction and translation (with notes), several essays shed light on the work from the perspective of various disciplines.