Phlegon of Tralles' Book of Marvels (Exeter Studies in History)

About this book

The Book of Marvels, a compilation of marvellous events of a grotesque, bizarre or sensational nature, was composed in the second century A.D. by Phlegon of Tralles, a Greek freedman of the Roman emperor Hadrian. This remarkable text is the earliest surviving work of pure sensationalism in Western literature; it belongs to the genre of literature known as paradoxography, or "the recording of marvels". Not only was it mined by later writers on wonders as well as by writers of books on ghosts and demonology, but it also inspired Goethe's well-known vampire ballad, The Bride of Corinth, a translation of which is included in this book. The Book is arranged thematically: Ghosts; Sex-Changers and Hermaphrodites; Finds of Giant Bones; Monstrous Births; Births from Males; Amazing Multiple Births; Abnormally Rapid Development of Human Beings; Discoveries of Live Centaurs. It contains the only surviving extracts from the "Sibylline Books", the Roman state's collection of prophecies. This is the first translation into English of the Book of Marvels, and the volume also contains an Introduction covering Phlegon's life and his writings, and the rise and nature of paradoxography as a literary genre; commentary on the texts; as well as translations of fragments of two other works: Olympiads, containing an account of the founding of the Olympic Games, and Long-Lived Persons, quoting from Roman census documents.