The editors of this volume aim to challenge the precepts of New Historicism (á la Foucault) as they bear upon historical change. If New Historicism had focussed on the ‘operation of power’ through time, with its implications for the periodized social construction of the individual, the editors assert that such radical discontinuity may in fact distort modern perceptions of Greek and Roman antiquity. The essays presented, beyond addressing continuity and change in the broadest sense, are not methodologically coherent, but rather give a sampling of contemporary approaches to periodization.