Comparisons like the one undertaken in this volume are part of a fast-growing sub-discipline known as classical receptions, an area concerned with examining the use or manifestation of classical culture in later periods in a variety of contexts – such as literature, drama, film, and visual arts – with the aim of enriching the understanding of works from both periods. This area of scholarly inquiry arose in part as a response to a related earlier movement known as the classical tradition, which also looked at manifestations of antiquity in later periods, but with the primary focus on the influence of classical works on later literary, artistic, and intellectual productions. The latter area of inquiry stems back to the work of Gilbert Highet, whose 1949 book The Classical Tradition sought to trace Greek and Roman influence on the canonical works of Western literature, a project much in line with the still-prevalent notion that Greek and Roman antiquity provides the cornerstone and foundation of Western civilization today. In recent decades, however, a counter-movement has emerged from those who see this approach as elitist, in that it seems to frame works from antiquity as eternal, untouchable repositories of truth to which a steady stream of pale emulators aspire in vain, so that “reception” has become the preferred term for those who want to trouble this uni-directionality and challenge the impression that classical works have a fixed and immutable value. The term “classical receptions” was coined in the 1990s, and since then the movement has gained momentum through the efforts of classical scholars like Lorna Hardwick and Charles Martindale. Unlike the classical tradition model, classical receptions is concerned not only with the ways in which the enduring works of antiquity continue to speak to different artists, writers, and thinkers in different times and how new meanings are both derived from and made out of these ancient texts, but also with how utilizing a receptions approach can provide a new lens on the hypotext on which it is based, suggesting new approaches or reviving those that have been neglected or marginalized.