Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
2013
Publication Title
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Pages
1-3
Publisher Name
Bryn Mawr College
Abstract
Ogden’s latest book examines the serpents of myth and cult from Homer to hagiography. This is a wide-ranging investigation in which both the monster Typhon and the healing pareias snake of Asklepios find a place, as they and other drakontes are approached through literature, linguistics, and iconography. It is an ambitious project that sometimes falls short of that ambition: the separate threads don’t quite come together, and the nuances of important scholarly arguments are often glossed over in footnotes. It is more encyclopedic than interpretive, in Ogden’s words, a “descriptive handbook” (p. 1). As the first comprehensive work in English on this topic, however, it will be indispensible to anyone working on any aspect of serpents in antiquity.
Recommended Citation
Gawlinski, L. "Review of D. Ogden, Drakōn: dragon myth and serpent cult in the Greek and Roman worlds" in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2013.
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Copyright Statement
© Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2013.
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Classical Literature and Philology Commons
Comments
Author Posting. © Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2013.