As long as there has been a need for language, there has been a need for translation; yet there is remarkably little scholarship available on pre-modern translation and translators. This exciting and innovative volume opens a window onto the complex world of translation in the multilingual and multicultural milieu of the ancient Mediterranean. From the biographies of emperors to Hittites scribes in the second millennium BCE to a Greek speaking Syrian slyly resisting translation under the Roman empire, the papers in this volume – fresh and innovative contributions by new and established scholars from a variety of disciplines including Classics, Near Eastern Studies, Biblical Studies, and Egyptology – show that translation has always been a phenomenon to be reckoned with.

Accessible and of interest to scholars of translation studies and of the ancient Mediterranean, the contributions in Complicating the History of Western Translation argue that the ancient Mediterranean was a ‘translational’ society even when, paradoxically, cultures resisted or avoided translation. Indeed, this volume envisions an expansion of the understanding of what translation is, how it works, and how it should be seen as a major cultural force. Chronologically, the papers cover a period that ranges from around the third millennium BCE to the late second century CE; geographically they extend from Egypt to Rome to Britain and beyond. Each paper prompts us to reflect about the problematic nature of translation in the ancient world and challenges monolithic accounts of translation in the West.

Introduction
A Sea of Languages: Complicating the History of Western Translation
Siobhán McElduff and Enrica Sciarrino

PART 1: THE TRANSLATOR AS AGENT
1. A Handbook for the Translation of Greek Myth into Latin
Parthenius, Gallus, and the Erotica Pathemata
Kristopher Fletcher
2. Sappho Under My Skin
Catullus and the Translation of Erotic Lyric at Rome
Elizabeth Marie Young
3. Cicero’s Translation of Greek Philosophy
Personal Mission or Public Service?
Han Baltussen

PART 2: TRANSLATION AS MONUMENT
4. Bilingual Inscriptions and Translation in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Jennifer Larson
5. The Translation Politics of a Political Translation
The Case of Augustus’ Res Gestae
Sophia Papaioannou

PART 3: TRANSLATION AND THE CO-CIRCULATION OF THE SOURCE TEXT
6. Translation and Directionality in the Hebrew-Greek Tradition
Dries De Crom
7. The Political Aims of Lucretius’ Translation of Thucydides
Edith Foster
8. Horace and the Con/straints of Translation
Diana Spencer

PART 4: TRANSLATING CULTURES, CULTURAL RESPONSES, AND RESISTANCE TO TRANSLATION
9. Herodotus and Ctesias: Translators of the Oriental Past
Jan P. Stronk
10. How Not to Translate
Lucian’s Games with the Name(s) of the Syrian Goddess
Daniel Richter
11. Translating Rome
Plutarch’s Skeptical Etymology in Romulus and Numa
Bradley Buszard

PART 5: TRANSLATION BEFORE TRANSLATION THEORY/TRANSLATION AFTER TRANSLATION THEORY

12. Translation among the Hittites
Dennis Campbell
13. Three Histories of Translation
Translating in Egypt, Translating Egypt, Translating Egyptian
Thomas Schneider

Afterword
Contributor Biographies
Bibliography
Index