This volume reflects on liminality as it relates to initiatory themes in Greek literature and on literary works, especially tragedy, that represent heroes and h

Scholars of classical history and literature have for more than a century accepted `initiation' as a tool for understanding a variety of obscure rituals and myt

A remarkable number of Greek myths concern the plight of virgins – slaughtered, sacrificed, hanged, transformed into birds, cows, dear, bears, trees, and puni

Numerous ancient texts describe human sacrifices and other forms of ritual killing: in 480 BC Themistocles sacrifices three Persian captives to Dionysus; human

Greek and Roman mythology is forever linked for a myriad of reasons. Historians believe this could be because many of the Roman deities were adopted from the Gr