The Worlds of Aulus Gellius

Book excerpt: This is the first collection of essays in any language on Aulus Gellius; its contributors, both established and younger scholars, include Gellian experts looking out with specialists in other fields looking in; they combine traditional and new approaches. Subjects range from the bilingual culture in which Gellius wrote, through his stylistic judgements, his skills in etymology and narrative, his relation to the antiquarian tradition, the generic expectations of miscellany, his claim to educate his readers, the theory of 'Gellian humanism', and his attitude towards intellectuals, to his reception in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution.