Playful, popular visions of ruined cities demonstrate antiquity's starring role in nineteenth-century culture, developing new models for understanding classical reception.

Rachel Bryant Davies holds an Addison Wheeler Fellowship in Classics with the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies at the University of Durham and is an Early Career Associate with the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University of Oxford. She contributed to Cities of God (Cambridge, 2013) and is author of Victorian Epic Burlesques (forthcoming).

Prologue; 1. Troy and Carthage in the nineteenth century; 2. Homeric pilgrimage, topography and archaeology; 3. The Trojan War at the circus; 4. The Iliad and Aeneid burlesqued; 5. Carthage and future ruins; Epilogue: Troy and Carthage as 'a beacon and a warning'; Appendix A. List of burlesques; Appendix B. Select chronology.