Description

Dr. Phiroze Vasunia is a Reader in the Department of Classics at the University of Reading. Educated in India and the United States, he now lives in London. He is the author of The Gift of the Nile; Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander (University of California Press, 2001) and of numerous articles on the ancient world.

He is presently completing a monograph on Greece, Rome and the British Empire and is co-editor of two forthcoming volumes, The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies and Classics and National Cultures. Among his other projects is a commentary on Book 2 of Herodotus’ History.

Dr. Phiroze Vasunia’s topic of research at the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute was Zarathustra and the Religion of Ancient Iran – The Greek and Latin Sources In Translation. The thoroughness and meticulousness of his investigation lays before the interested reader, names and marks of the classical writers who have until now been cited sketchily or just ignored.

There are sections of the book wherein inscriptions (mainly in Greek) are reproduced in translation. This feature is particularly useful as it gives an indication of the scope of references hitherto not placed before the eyes of interested readers.  This work of reference comprises within its covers a great deal of valuable material which previously was found – though not always – in numerous reference books and monographs.