Classical material was traditionally used to express colonial authority, but it was also appropriated by imperial subjects to become first a means of challenging colonialism and then a rich field for creating cultural identities that blend the old and the new. Nobel prize-winners such as Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney have rewritten classical material in their own cultural idioms while public sculpture in southern Africa draws on Greek and Roman motifs to represent histories of African resistance and liberation. These developments are explored in this collection of essays by international scholars, who debate the relationship between the culture of Greece and Rome and the changes that have followed the end of colonial empires.

A thoughtful contribution. * Victoria Maul, Times Literary Supplement *
This volume will be indispensable to anyone working in the field of the Classical Tradition or Classical Reception. * Betine Van Zyl Smit, Acta Classica *
All nineteen essays offer glimpses of a field in energetic flux. The book is worth the plunge. * Translation and Literature *
an important indication of the newly prominent place of reception studies in the field of classics and also an interesting barometer of the current state of such studies. * Rachel D. Friedman, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

Lorna Hardwick is Professor of Classical Studies and Director of the Reception of Classical Texts and Images Research Project at The Open University. Carol Gillespie is Project Officer of the Reception of Classical Texts and Images Research Project at The Open University.