This book contains fourteen studies, most of which were presented as papers at scientific conferences, while others were printed in literary yearbooks and honor volumes.

The title of this collection primarily defines the time period during which the authors and texts under investigation belong. However, the reader will quickly realize that, apart from the temporal designation and occasional themes, there are thematic connections and necessary complementarities that allow for a clearer division into three continuously researched sections: a) the Homeric epics and the uninterrupted survival of their elements in later times, b) the dramatic creation of the Greek tragedians with the related reflections on Aristotle's terms of pity, catharsis, etc., and c) the excessive glorification of display rhetoric during the so-called Second Sophistic period, whose stars infused their discourse with sayings and metaphors borrowed from the wealth of the poetic heritage of Homer and the dramatists.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]