The German scholar Hermann Usener (1834-1905) made an important contribution to nineteenth-century scholarship in the fields of philology and comparative religion. In order to recreate a picture of the religions of the Greco-Roman world he drew on elements from the fields of ethnology, phenomenology and hermeneutics. This four-volume collection of essays and reviews was published posthumously in 1912-1914. Volume 2 (1913) is devoted to Usener's works on Latin grammar and literature. It covers a variety of topics including rhyme in old Latin poetry, Latin historians, Cicero and Horace, as well as the abolition of the gladiator schools. Works reviewed by Usener in this volume include publications by such prolific contemporaries as Mommsen and Plasberg.
