This book presents papers by fourteen distinguished Classicists on the ancient dichotomy polarity of 'city' and 'countryside' as a reflection of ancient values and cultural ideology.

Ralph M. Rosen, Ph.D. (1983) in Classical Philology, Harvard University, is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He has published extensively on Greek and Roman literature and intellectual history, including a new book Making Mockery: the Poetics of Ancient Satire (forthcoming, Oxford 2007).
Ineke Sluiter, Ph.D. (1990) in Classics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, is Professor of Greek at the University of Leiden. She has published widely on Greek and Roman literature, especially in the area of ancient linguistics, exegetical traditions, and intellectual history. She is currently working on a volume about grammatical and rhetorical texts of the early Middle Ages (with R. Copeland) The Reading Road (Oxford).