Ancient Greek History

One of the main discussions related to the topic of the "human-made world" is the physisnomos debate. The historical roots of this debate can be traced back to the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. many philosophers, historians, and authors revealed different ideas about this subject. Some of them considered physis to be superior to nomos, while others considered nomos to be superior to physis. The main problem that arises in this discussion is the inclination to stabilize the tension between these two concepts by drawing thick boundaries between them. In this respect, we need to ask two significant philosophical questions. Firstly, is it possible to say that physis and nomos have definite conceptual schemes? The second question is connected to the first one and it deals with whether the tension between physis and nomos can be handled in a fixed manner or not. This paper discusses these questions from the perspectives of the Sophists and contemporary thinkers involved in the physis-nomos debate. It will be based on the idea of how human beings think while constituting the world, and it will evaluate how physis and nomos ought to be related.

Sport in ancient Athens was much more than the Olympics

David. M. Pritchard 

It is true that the Olympic Games were also a really big deal in ancient Athens. The Athenians followed how sports stars performed at the Olympics as obsessively as we do. They likewise swelled with national pride when one of their own was proclaimed an Olympic victor. In the fifth and fourth centuries BC, they gave such a victor their topmost public honours. These were free daily banquets and free front-row seats at local games – both for life. 

Yet, sport in ancient Athens was much more than the Olympics. Physical education was a well-established discipline of the education of Athenian boys. Ancient Athens actually had more local games than any other Greek state. 

Every day, there, schoolboys went to the classes of a paidotribes or athletics teacher. Today, physical education during schooltime usually does not focus on competitive sports. Instead, serious training for such sports takes place outside school hours. By contrast, Athenian physical education was all about the sports common to the Olympics and other games.

An athletics teacher, who was often a former Olympic victor (figure 1), owned his own palaistra or wrestling school. There, he taught his classes in wrestling, boxing and the pankration, which was like our kickboxing (figure 2). For the other common competitive sports, a paidotribes took his students out to a gumnasion or sports field. Democratic Athens had three such public sporting facilities just outside the city-walls. These open spaces were ideal for training in the pentathlon as well as the four common footraces (figure 3).

The two other disciplines of male education were music and grammata or letters. Music included lessons in lyre playing and singing poetry. The grammatistes or letter teacher taught basic reading and writing as well as arithmetic.

The Athenian state never subsidised this traditional education. Therefore, it was always difficult for poor families to cover private school fees. Such families often also relied on their boys to keep farms or businesses going. The end result was that poor families could afford to educate their sons only in a single discipline.

The one that they chose was letters because it was of greater practical value for working people. Consequently, rich boys were the only ones in the classes of the paidotribes. In ancient Athens, about 5 percent of male citizens were rich. This meant that it was only a tiny elite that got serious training in competitive sports.

Competition at games in ancient Greece was truly fierce. There were 1000 Greek microstates in the Mediterranean basin. The sports stars in them all made a beeline for the Olympic Games. Even the local games that each Greek state put on attracted international competitors. A good example is the Great Panathenaea in which 50 percent of sportsmen were non-Athenian.

In the face of such fierce competition, an athlete who had not seriously trained would come in dead last. Poor Athenians, who had missed out on such school-based training, understandably decided not to enter games. Therefore, competing in sport was also a preserve of the social elite.

Ninety-five percent of ancient Athenians might have missed out on participation in sport. Nevertheless, they still considered athletics to be unambiguously good. The poor agreed that every boy should ideally go to the classes of an athletics teacher. In their eyes, such sports classes helped to turn boys into just and temperate adults. Poor Athenians felt no less positively about local games, seeing victory at them as commendable. The demos or people even made sure that no one criticised sports stars in public (figure 1). 

In democratic Athens, soldiers who did their duty were seen as the ultimate role models. In battles, they endured ponoi or toils as well as kindunoi or dangers. In accepting the possibility of death, soldiers proved their arete or courage. Another aspect of the high regard in which sportsmen were held is that they were judged to be comparable to such role models. Like soldiers, they, it was thought, also bore toils and dangers, always putting their courage beyond doubt. 

Ancient Athens was, famously, a direct democracy, in which poor citizens set the political agenda. This made it possible for the demos to turn their high regard of sport into pro-sport policies. Consequently, they voted to create the largest program of local games in ancient Greece. Festival-based contests could be athletic, musical or equestrian. In these 15 Athenian festivals, athletics featured much more often than musical or horse-based events. On this program, the demos spent a truly staggering 2.6 tons of silver each year.

The biggest games that the Athenians staged were the Great Panathenaea. This festival honoured Athena, who was their chief goddess, and was staged, like the Olympics, every 4 years. On it, the demos spent an incredible 650 kilograms of silver each time. This explains why the Great Panathenaea had twice as many contests as the Olympics. The Athenians awarded victors and placegetters huge amounts of olive oil in beautifully painted amphoras. Each Panathenaic amphora depicted Athena as a warrior on one side and a sporting event on the other (figure 2). 

The Great Panathenaea had all the common competitive sports for men and horses. But it had too surprising numbers of events for musicians and dancers as well as for soldiers and sailors. A good example of such war-related contests was the race for ten warships (figure 4). Athenian soldiers were also a big part of the Panathenaic procession, which was depicted on the Parthenon frieze.

Most years saw the ancient Athenians also stage at Eleusis local games for Demeter and Persephone. These two goddesses were considered to be most responsible for good harvests. It was thus quite appropriate that athletes there competed for sacks of grain. At Marathon, every four years, there were games for Heracles, who, it was thought, had founded the Olympics.

The Athenian demos actually considered those fellow citizens who had died in war to be demi-gods (figure 5). Contests were a standard act of worship for demi-gods and gods alike. Each year, Athens thus staged local games for the war dead, for which the prizes were bronze pots.

Today, the torch relay is a cherished ritual of our Olympics. But there was never any such relay at the ancient Games. The closest ancient parallel is a contest that took place at 4 Athenian festivals: the relay race for runners carrying a torch.

It is truly remarkable that poor Athenians were so pro-sport in spite of never being sportsmen. A big reason was that local games brought them much terpsis or delight. As a games spectator, an Athenian got a holiday, watched gripping races or bouts, and enjoyed a free picnic. For the sake of such picnics, the demos constantly voted to expand sacrifices at local games. By the 320s BC, the state was sacrificing 1300 cows each year.

However, the biggest reason for this pro-sport stance was the close association of sport and war. The ancient Athenians waged almost nonstop wars. In their eyes, war was unambiguously good and always brought huge benefits. Sport being closely associated with war could thus only increase the regard that the demos had for it. Nonelite Athenians believed that sportsmen bore toils as much as they did when fighting wars. This meant that they also had a strong personal affinity for what sportsmen did.

David M. Pritchard is an ancient historian at the University of Queensland in Australia and the author of Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press). These are excerpts from a public lecture that he will be delivering at the Brisbane Greek Festival on 17 May 2025.

Figure captions:

Figure 1: This is the thanks offering that an Olympic victory from Athens left for Athena at her sanctuary at Sunium (National Archaeological Museum [Athens], inv. no. 3344). Photo courtesy of Hans Goette.

Figure 2: Depicted on this Panathenaic amphora is an athlothetes or games-organiser umpiring the kickboxing contest at the Great Panathenaea (Metropolitan Museum of Art [New York], inv. no. 16.71).

Figure 3: This Athenian wine cup depicts an athletics teacher training students in two events of the pentathlon (Powerhouse Museum [Sydney], inv. no. 99/117/1). Photo: Ryan Hernandez.

Figure 4: Athenian rowers are depicted on this victory monument for the race of warships at the Great Panathenaea (Acropolis Museum [Athens], inv. no. 1339). Photo courtesy of Hans Goette.

Figure 5: This was part of the public tomb for Athenian war dead from the Corinthian War (National Archaeological Museum [Athens], inv. no. 2744). Photo courtesy of Hans Goette.

Hero of Alexandria, likely a contemporary of the Roman emperor Nero, is one of the many ancient Greek authors whose work, for us, represents a whole tradition of ancient thought-in this case, mechanics. Anyone who has ever ventured into the five stately Teubner volumes collecting his writings (plus a halo of fragments and an extensive Near Eastern transmission) has, however, perhaps experienced a certain feeling of being helpless in the vast expanse of texts mostly starring tubes, wheels, diagrams, and numbers. Now there is relief. In The Mechanical Tradition of Hero of Alexandria, Courtney Ann Roby provides us with, as far as I can see, the first monographic guide to the Corpus Heronicum. Roby describes the corpus as "a system of interlocking information flows" (17), which is a fitting image for the corpora of a number of ancient authors, including the medical author Galen and the geographer Strabo (and certainly too for the book under review). Roby's book is divided into three parts. The first (chapters 2-3) explores how Hero presents and solves technical problems, drawing from a long tradition that he transforms and codifies for intellectual engineers at least up to the Renaissance. The second part (chapter 4) is structured as a thought experiment. Roby hypothetically imagines three historical contexts-Ptolemaic, Early Roman, and later Imperial Alexandria-and explores which aspects of Hero's corpus would align with each of these settings. This experimental framework enables Roby to engage with the entire tradition of Greek theoretical mechanics and applied mathematics. The third part (chapter 5) offers a succinct survey of Hero's impact on the Renaissance and the seventeenth century, tracing his works and concepts through a beautiful stream of names, places, and baroque frontispieces. Hero's treatises span various fields, including mechanics in general (extant in Arabic), seemingly self-moving devices ("automata"), machines powered by air or water pressure, ballistic machines, instruments for topographic measurements, applied mathematics, systems of measurement, a commentary on Euclid's Elements, and mathematical definitions. With many of these texts, he supersedes predecessors such as Philon or Ctesibius, who only occasionally come up as names; thus, he often comes close to developing disciplinary microhistories, even in texts like the Metrica. Roby identifies Euclid's Elements as Hero's model of textual organization. Therefore, we can take Hero to construct a "geometry of machines" (as Karin Tybjerg 2004, 50 has put it), a textual model, however, that he transformed. Roby excels in highlighting Hero's didactic strategies, which seem to adapt and vary mathematical traditions. At the heart of these traditions is the desire to explain-in Hero's case, to explain the mechanics of the world around us, inviting readers to see the world in a new way (a sentiment evident in the Ps.-Aristotelian Mechanical Problems, a possible origin of the tradition of mechanical writing). One of the lead differences that guides Roby's approach to Hero, is the one between "practical and theoretical", which here often coincides with the one of "materials vs. mathematics." Roby's Hero helps us observe, analyze and construct objects in the world, that is, he tries to teach us how to handle both categories, the one of material and the one of mathematics, and provides us with a "mixed" approach to theōria. Hero's focus on practical problem-solving sets him apart from Archimedes, positioning his use of mathematical features more as a rhetorical strategy.

Pubblicazione sistematica dei risultati dello scavo condotto nel 1983 sulla duna di Casa Brancazzi, lungo le sponde della laguna di Orbetello. Lo scavo mise in luce i resti di due strutture abitative frequentate nel corso del I secolo a.C., interpretate come capanne di pescatori in base alle restituzioni di attrezzatura da pesca, in piombo e in ceramica.

Recently built in the new downtown area of Ras al-Ayn in Amman, the Jordan Museum houses a selection of Greek inscriptions discovered on different sites, from Gadara in the north to Petra in the south. Some of these texts are well known to specialists. Others are unpublished. The aim of this article is to provide the researchers and the visitors of the museum with the edition of a collection that reflects the wealth of the Jordanian epigraphical heritage. Our work is also a contribution to the programme of the Greek and Latin Inscriptions in Jordan ('Inscriptions de la Jordanie'), which has received the renewed accreditation of the DoA and which is a part of the IGLS project ('Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie', 'Syrie' being understood here in its ancient meaning of 'Near East').

Alexander the Great was firmly entrenched in imaginaries of Roman ruling elites, from Scipio Africanus to the Roman emperor Caracalla and beyond.  This paper considers Polybius’ representations of the Macedonian conqueror and their impact on Roman elites, who were just beginning to formulate their ideas about Alexander and his significance to the history of the imperium Romanum and of the world, as Polybius was writing his work.  The historian’s generally positive assessment of Alexander, not without its ambiguities, is aligned with the generally positive Roman reconstruction of him, though again not without reservations.  A proper understanding of Polybius’ treatment of Alexander, however, turns on a more parochial perspective, highlighting Polybius’ own political position vis-à-vis Macedonia, Polybian didacticism, and a large narrative trajectory of the Histories.

Alexander the Great is motly remembered in history for two reasons. 1. His military invincibility and 2. His deification. The greatest hindrance for present day historians is described by Edward M Anson as the follows: "Part of the difficulty in assessing Alexander has always been the nature of the surviving sources.18 Given that he was even in his lifetime almost a mythic figure, it is both peculiar and frustrating that no contemporary narratives of his life have survived. These had been written by his generals and confidants, by his admiral, court supervisor, etc. Nor is this deficiency corrected by an abundance of surviving documents. The inscriptional evidence is hardly substantial. All of our earliest surviving narrative sources date from the Roman period, centuries after the conqueror's death.

Ce travail est une monographie sur les Illyriens vus à travers leurs contacts avec le monde grec. L’objectif est d’aborder l’histoire des populations illyriennes dans une perspective qui est celle de la frontier history, et à cette fin, de réinterpréter toute la documentation disponible sans hellénocentrisme ni a priori idéologique, en cherchant à dégager les vecteurs d’interculturalité.
La première partie de l’ouvrage s’attache à définir les contours géographiques et chronologiques du sujet. Dans un deuxième temps sont étudiés les lieux, les vecteurs, les occasions des contacts et la nature des échanges, en d’autres termes les facteurs d’acculturation. Sur cette base, la dernière partie vise à analyser les transformations observées dans tous les secteurs de la vie socio-culturelle.
Les contacts entre populations grecques et autochtones s’articulent autour de deux temps forts : celui de l’implantation coloniale qui entraîne plutôt une hellénisation dite verticale, touchant uniquement les élites, puis celui de l’unification au sein du royaume de Pyrrhus avec une hellénisation dite horizontale, très étroitement liée au phénomène d’urbanisation et au développement des classes moyennes représentées par les marchands et les artisans.

A reappraisal of the relations between the Seleucids and Crete between the 3rd and the 2nd century BC. After a general overview, the paper analyses the rise of the Cretan officer Lasthenes to the second most important role in the Seleucid kingdom to show how the power dynamics changed at the Seleucid court in less than a century. Moreover, the author provides a first English translation of a treaty between Seleucus II and Hierapytna (SEG LXIII 746) found in 2006.

Beshtasheni ‘settlement’ is located in southern Georgia, on the Trialeti plateau, in the western part of Beshtasheni village. In 1896, in the territory of Beshkenasheni, graves of the Antique Period were excavated by E. Takaishvili. In 1936, the archaeological study of the settlement was started by B. Kuftin. In 1991-2008 and 2019-2021, excavations were carried out by the Trialeti Archaeological Expedition (led by G. Narimanishvili), and in 2010-2014 by the Beshtasheni Archaeological Expedition (led by D. Narimanishvili).

Nella lingua italiana e non solo, catastrofe indica, nella sua accezione comune, un evento disastroso, una calamità dalle conseguenze gravissime. Anche il termine greco da cui proviene (καταστροφή, katastrophé) esprime prevalentemente l’idea di “distruzione”, “rovina”, “morte”, ma presenta anche, nella sua forma originaria, il valore neutro di “rivolgimento”, “rovesciamento”, a cui seguirà, solo in un secondo tempo, quello di cambiamento sventurato e irreversibile.

El comienzo del capítulo veintitrés de la Poética ofrece una serie de dificultades. Los editores modernos suelen preferir a las lecturas que ofrecen los manuscritos, por otra parte divergentes entre sí, un texto basado en la conjetura. En lo que respecta a tradición textual y ediciones hay que decir en primer lugar que poseemos cuatro fuentes autónomas del texto aristotélico: el Parisinus Graecus 1741, el Riccardianus 46, la traducción medieval latina de la Poética y una traducción árabe hecha a su vez sobre una traducción al siríaco. 1) El Parisinus Graecus 1741, llamado A por los editores, fue copiado posiblemente hacia el siglo x u xi. Se trata del mejor y más antiguo de los manuscritos griegos de la Poética; ofrece un texto de buena tradición en el que los errores son los ligeros descuidos corrientes. Su valor fue reconocido en el siglo xix y durante mucho tiempo gozó de una autoridad indiscutida. Hoy día su posición no es ya de preeminencia absoluta, pero se le sigue concediendo prioridad frente a otras fuentes. 2) A finales del siglo xix se vio que el Riccardianus 46, B o R para los editores, representa una tradición indepen-

The prosperity of Hallstatt (Salzkammergut region, Austria) is based on the richness of salt in the surrounding mountains and salt mining, which is documented as far back as 1500 years B.C. Substantial archaeological evidence of Bronze and Iron Age salt mining has been discovered, with a wooden staircase (1108 B.C.) being one of the most impressive and well preserved finds. However, after its discovery, fungal mycelia have been observed on the surface of the staircase, most probably due to airborne contamination after its find. As a basis for the further preservation of this valuable object, the active micro-flora was examined to investigate the presence of potentially biodegradative microorganisms. Most of the strains isolated from the staircase showed to be halotolerant and halophilic microorganisms, due to the saline environment of the mine. Results derived from culture-dependent assays revealed a high fungal diversity, including both halotolerant and halophilic fungi, the most d...

A number of mural paintings and building materials from monuments located in central and south Europe are characterized by the presence of an intriguing rosy discolouration phenomenon. Although some similarities were observed among the bacterial and archaeal microbiota detected in these monuments, their origin and nature is still unknown. In order to get a complete overview of this biodeterioration process, we investigated the microbial communities in saline environments causing the rosy discolouration of mural paintings in three Austrian historical buildings using a combination of culturedependent and -independent techniques as well as microscopic techniques. The bacterial communities were dominated by halophilic members of Actinobacteria, mainly of the genus Rubrobacter. Representatives of the Archaea were also detected with the predominating genera Halobacterium, Halococcus and Halalkalicoccus. Furthermore, halophilic bacterial strains, mainly of the phylum Firmicutes, could be retrieved from two monuments using special culture media. Inoculation of building materials (limestone and gypsum plaster) with selected isolates reproduced the unaesthetic rosy effect and biodeterioration in the laboratory.

Representan una generación, porque su infancia o juventud coincide con la dictadura de Sila (81-79 a. C.) y mueren entre las batallas de Farsalia (48 a. C.) y la de Accio (31 a. C.)  Muchos procedieron de la Galia Transpadana  Dejan el modelo de Ennio y lo buscan en los poetas de la literatura griega más reciente, la de los Alejandrinos como Euforión de Calcis (275-200 a. C.); Calímaco (310-240 a. C.); Arato (310-240 a. C.); Apolonio de Rodas (295-215 a. C.)  Se puede decir que cultivan un "arte por el arte" en el que la elevada expresión lírica no mira para nada afuera del poeta y su texto.  Búsqueda de motivos remotos o exóticos  Selecta erudición en el vocabulario y la métrica  Descripción de elementos pequeños, elaboración atildada de las vivencias personales más cotidianas  El nombre les fue dado por Cicerón:

In this study, two new inscriptions preserved in the garden of Kalecik Municipality
in Kalecik District of Ankara Province are introduced. One of the inscriptions was
identified by the Anatolian Civilizations Museum during research conducted in Kalecik
in 2019 and was placed in the open-air display area in front of Kalecik Municipality. It is
the epitaph of Aurelius Helios, dated to 228 AD. This inscription identifies the previously
unknown village of Ōnoukōme and the region named ALEBONŌN (Alebona?) in
Kalecik. The second one is thought to be a supplication to God. The inscription contains
meaningless letter combinations used to capture the listener's attention in the invocation
to the father of the light repository part of Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic text dated to the 3rd-
4th centuries AD. Additionally, it includes expressions composed of these combinations
found in the magical texts believed to belong to Mithras, preserved in the National Library
of France, in a broad codex referred to as the Greek Magical Papyri, also dated to
the 3rd century AD.

In this paper we analyze, discuss and present the design of the Antikythera Mechanism's central front parts. Based on the aligned and visual images of the same scale of Fragment C front/back face and X-ray CT scans, we designed and reconstructed in bronze, the four independent parts comprising the central front dial. We then correlated the zodiac dial ring with 365 equal subdivisions/days and we investigated the number of days per astronomical season and per zodiac month. Then, we adopted a specific number of equal subdivisions/days per zodiac month and we engraved these on the bronze zodiac month ring. The different number of days per zodiac month created 12 unequal central angles on the zodiac dial ring and therefore the solar anomaly and the unequal time span of the astronomical seasons were well represented on the Antikythera Mechanism. In this way, the functionality of the central front dial of the Mechanism was achieved by adopting the minimum number of hypotheses.

Representations of fear in Polybius' Histories constitute a special case in ancient Greek and Roman historiography. For many ancient historians depicting fear was an opportunity to showcase skills in literary style and rhetorical virtuosity. By contrast, Polybius was a selfavowed 'anti-stylist' who loathed such ornamentation. This study examines the theme of fear in Polybius' history, its role in his lived experience and interstate environment, his rejection of rhetorical flourishes in depicting fear, and his personal political circumstances and self-appointed role as fearless educator and advisor of Roman power elites.

Publié initialement en polonais (2014), cet ouvrage imposant a été revu et augmenté par l’auteur pour la présente édition en anglais , fort bienvenue. Il s’agit de revenir sur la question très controversée du rapport de l’Iliade à l’oralité, telle qu’elle a été définie dans le courant issu des travaux de Milman Parry et Albert Lord, appelé en général « Oral Poetry », dont l’auteur est très résolument partisan, avec une argumentation très détaillée et très bien informée des arguments adverses, en même temps que de celle de la monumentalité du texte, évoquée dès la première page.
La question met très largement en cause les fragments du Cycle épique et il faut signaler, me semble-t-il, qu’un livre récent, paru en 2022, avait un objectif tout à fait analogue : Andrew Porter, Homer and the Epic Cycle. Recovering the Oral Traditional Relationship, Leiden/Boston, Classical Poetry, Brill Research Perspectives. En 126 pages au lieu de 663 pour Zieliński, donc en visant un public très différent. Il vaut donc la peine d’analyser de près les arguments très détaillés et très savants de ce dernier.
Lisez la suite du compte rendu complet si vous êtes intéresse(e)

This paper argues four main points: 1) Polybius does not dwell on horrors of war, the insane chaos and unpredictable nature of battle, and terrifying experiences of rank-and-file soldiers in combat.  2) Warfare primarily interests him as a rational, chess-board affair, showcasing skills or weaknesses of power elites serving as field commanders.  3) While non-Greeks, such as Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, are masters of command, military science in Polybius’ narrative is mainly the preserve of Greeks, and he stresses that outnumbered possessors of Greek λογισμός have overcome vast numbers of mindless and impulsive barbarian hordes.  Romans, as honorary Greeks, can continue to do so if they will follow Polybius’ precepts. And (4), as intrusive, editorializing, first-person narrator, Polybius qua military scientist (we should remember that he wrote a lost Tactica), emerges as educator and advisor for elite Roman field generals who will read his history.

Questo contributo si sofferma sulla relazione tra
monetazione e statuti-tipo, quali civitas sine suffragio / munici
pium, civitas optimo iure, coloniae optimo iure / coloniae latinae,
ideati da Roma e adottati nei rapporti con comunità e territori,
entrati nella sua sfera di controllo tra la fine del iv sec. a.C. e i
primi del iii sec. a.C. In particolare, si esamina l’ambito campa
no-sannitico con le città o comunità, secondo i casi, di Capua e
Cuma, Atella e Calatia, Allifae e Venafrum.
Parole chiave · monetazione, statuti-tipo, municipium / muni
cipes, coloniae, Capua.
Suggestions on the relationship between Rome and the
Italici in Campania and in the Samnium between iv and iii century
BC: The coinages’ evidence · This paper focuses on the relation
ship between coinage and institutional status, such as civitas
sine suffragio / municipium, civitas optimo iure, coloniae optimo
iure / coloniae latinae in Campania and Samnium when Rome
strengthened its ties with these countries in the last decades of
the iv century BC and the first ones of the iii century BC.
With this topic in mind, some communities are taken into con
sideration, first of all Capua and Cuma, Atella and Calatia
among Campanian cities, Allifae and Venafrum among Samni
tian communities.
Keywords · Coinage, Institutional Status, municipium / muni
cipes, coloniae, Capua.

The city of Panopeus (aka Phanoteus) in Phokis, reputed in imperial times to be indigent according to the famous passage by Pausanias – which however still requires commentary –, can now be better understood thanks to recent advances in its archaeological and epigraphical exploration. These advances show in particular two breaks at the threshhold and towards the end of the Classical period, respectively in connection with the Persian invasion of 480 BC and the 3rd Sacred War (356-346 BC). Among the Phokian cities in Hellenistic times, Panopeus undoubtedly remained an average city, whose life is made manifest by two new inscriptions, a dedication to Herakles and an erotic text.

This is a draft of a paper now accepted by Hesperia in which Tyler Leblanc (a PhD student at McMaster) and I argue that Butera and Sears (Hesperia 2017) were correct to locate the Battle of Philippi at the eastern end of the plains of Philippi.  We bring into the conversation a letter of M. Antony that describes the battle location. We also note the letter refers to the affects of a volcanic event in the Aleutians in 42 BCE.  We argue that Appians reference to a gold mine near the battle line is likely the Hapte Hyle mines mentioned in several ancient sources.

Current modern attention and concern about (human-driven) climate change has prompted much focus on the historical/archaeological relevance and role of (natural) climate change in the past. The topic is both relevant and important-and especially those short(er)-term events that perhaps helped trigger historically substantive change episodes. But, at the same time, initial, somewhat naïve enthusiasm has now run headlong into the limitations of the available data sources before the early modern era, and the many complications of establishing actual causal associations. These need to be, first, closely defined in terms of timing and effects, and then also, second, established as relevant to the specific human societies/civilizations and contexts in question. This paper seeks to highlight the need for appropriate care and rigorous method when seeking to associate climate and environmental events with the available ancient historical and archaeological evidence, and investigates three illustrative, problematic, cases from the Classical Mediterranean world.

Late in the sixth century BCE, the ancient Athenians overthrew the previous tyrant rulers and adopted a new democratic form of government militarily establishing themselves as a regional power. They constructed a fleet which played a crucial role in defeating the Persian invasion of 480/79 BCE and led to their creation of a naval-based empire. A key funding source for the ships was silver from the domestic mines at Lavrion situated in the southeast corner of Attica (Hdt. 7.144; Ath. Pol. 22.7). The current consensus based on earlier metal analysis is that the Athenians must have found and exploited the rich, so-called 'third contact' silver mines in 520-515 BCE, a discovery that led to the introduction of the larger tetradrachm monetary unit (Kraay, 1956) and the iconic 'owl' coin 'type' (Picard, 2001) as a branded medium for exporting silver. Here, we present new lead isotopic and elemental abundance data for 52 archaic Athenian owls (pre-479 BCE) combined with previously published legacy data for 12 other owls. The results show that only a small proportion of the coins were wholly struck from Lavrion ore or other discrete sources while most of the coins were struck from Lavrion ore mixed with ore from a single or homogeneous, geologically older source. Crucially, this was not the multitude of external sources used for the preceding Wappenmünzen series. We deduce that the discovery of the third contact only occurred shortly before 483/2 BCE, precisely as claimed in the literary sources, at which point Lavrion silver came to represent the bulk of the supply. This forces a reappraisal of the current paradigm since it seems that there was no abrupt and complete change of ore source to Lavrion, and therefore this cannot be connected with the introduction of the owl coin type. It also impacts our understanding of the very low gold content of Athenian owls compared with the earlier Wappenmünzen series, which should be attributed to the replacement of ore sources.

Here is a valuable work: the first full commentary on the Iliad in one very handy volume, with I think all the useful bibliography, at least for the works available in English. It should involve the entire academic public, students and teachers, for a somewhat in-depth approach to the Homeric epic. On condition that non-English speaking teachers supplement the bibliographical reference arsenal with data from their linguistic field, it seems to me to provide the necessary information in a very accessible form (Paperback volume of reasonable weight, it also exists in bound form). After the introduction by the editor, the well-known specialist of homeric comparisons Jonathan Ready, each song of the Iliad is entrusted to a different author, all specialists of Homer in one title or another, so that no chapter seemed irrelevant. The list of contributors is at the end of the volume. A song and an author per chapter, this ensures a certain diversity. But the structure of each chapter is identical for each song: summary; study of the topics covered; poetics; list of themes related to other passages in the Iliad; essential bibliographical references. This aspect is obviously crucial for the rational use of the public, both teachers and students. I will of course comment on each chapter more closely, but first I would like to say that the the only point of criticism I would have to make in this general plan is the place given to the summaries-half a page to three printed pages-compared to articles of about ten pages on average, seems excessive, given that summaries are found almost everywhere in the school editions of the Iliad, and that abstracts can encourage students to dispense with a full reading, in which only, in my opinion, is what Barthes called the "pleasure of the text". Commentary on song 1, by Mary Bachvarova: the conflict of the Iliad is a conflict of words, eris, between two leaders of the same camp causing the anger of Achilles, mēnis; the poetics of this song organized around the fundamental orality of the poem, of the minimal compositional unit that is the formula to the typical scene, presenting in an allusive form a rich legendary background (fight of the Lapiths against the Centaurs, sacrifice of the daughter of Agamemnon, rescue by Thetes of Zeus prisoner of the other gods) ; second time devoted to comparative parallels that include the Iliad in an Indo-European context. Rachel Friedmann, chant 2: themes of the dream, of the dissension in the Achean army and the consequent threat, presentation of Ulysses as a good king in contrast to the ineptitude of Agamemnon and character of Thersite with a name that speaks; for the poetic, good analysis of the comparisons that punctuate the stages of the movement of the army, and mark the presence of the poet. The Catalogue of ships is poetic, the call to the Muse who introduced it and the story of the aedium Thamyris, punished for his claim to compete with the Muses, are proof.

This paper investigates the economic aspects of slavery in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Existing evidence reveals significant variation in the relative cost of slaves compared to unskilled wages: it appears that at different times and places, a typical slave could be purchased for prices equivalent to wages paid from 150 to 1000 days of unskilled labor. To explain this great disparity, we develop a principal-agent model that predicts the return on slaves relative to wages, which varies as a function of the prevalence of slavery in the labor force. This model implies that slavery may have increased aggregate labor productivity by reallocating workers from less productive to more productive regions within the Greco-Roman world.

Este material didático foi produzido por Andressa Resende Souza, Bárbara Franco Oliveira, Laura Ximenes da Costa e Nikollas Alves Silva (graduandos em História da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia – UFU), sob orientação da Profa. Dra. Semíramis Corsi Silva (INHIS/UFU), na disciplina de Estágio Supervisionado II, no segundo semestre letivo de 2024.

This thesis investigates leadership, power dynamics, and mass-elite relations in classical Athenian democracy (507-323 BCE), addressing critical theoretical and interpretive gaps in current scholarship. While much research either overemphasises the power of the dēmos (the people) or exaggerates elite influence, this study advances a balanced and theoretically informed perspective. Offering a nuanced understanding of leadership as a relational and process-oriented phenomenon that operates across formal and informal spheres, it adopts transactional and transformational leadership theories as a foundational framework. The study examines the distribution and exercise of power in the Athenian polis (city-state), extending beyond formal political institutions to economic, cultural, and social domains.

The research focuses on three primary areas: (1) the impact of factional alignments and elite networks on leadership dynamics and mass-elite relations; (2) the interplay of wealth, reciprocity, and philotimia (love of honour) in shaping leadership roles and civic obligations; and (3) the balance between individual influence and collective rule in political decision-making processes.

The findings reveal that leadership in Athens was characterised by a dual nature: while elite figures could wield considerable influence, their power remained conditional on the approval and sovereignty of the dēmos, which in turn relied on the resources and expertise provided by elites. This interdependent relationship can be conceptualised as a form of diarchy (co-rule) – a complex power-sharing arrangement between the dēmos and elites – where leadership was a dynamic process involving both social influence and institutional authority. Transactional leadership practices, underpinned by reciprocal exchanges and obligations, formed the backbone of Athenian politics, while transformational leadership surfaced less frequently, often through charismatic speakers in crisis-driven contexts.

The study concludes that effective leadership was largely situational and relied more on the social paradigm of reciprocity and charis (goodwill) than on specific individual traits. By integrating the political-legal, economic, and social dimensions of leadership, this thesis reframes Athenian democracy as a cooperative yet stratified structure, challenging simplistic narratives of popular dominance or elite capture. In doing so, it contributes to historical inquiry into democratic legitimacy, the role of socio-economic elites, and the applicability of leadership theories to historical contexts, offering fresh insights into the complexities of Athenian democracy.

A tanulmányban amellett érvelek, hogy a Gen. et Corr. I. 1 "helyes kezdet", eredeti része a mű érvelé sének. Ez ellentétes Jacques Brunschwig értelmezésével, aki szerint a Gen. et Corr. I. 1 "hamis kezdet". Két érvet adok, hogy ez miért nem lehet így. Egyrészt a monizmus és pluralizmus összehasonlításá ból Aristotelés azt a következtetést vonja le, hogy a minőségváltozást nem lehet hypokeimenon nélkül megmagyarázni. Nem adható a keletkezésről olyan elmélet, ami egyáltalán mindenféle hypokeimenont kizár a változásokból. Másrészt Aristotelés azért elemzi Empedoklés elméletét, mert talál nála olyan szempontokat, amelyek hasznosak lesznek a saját keletkezéselméletében. Amikor Empedoklés amel lett érvel, hogy az elemek az egységből keletkeznek, akkor egy minimális hypokeimenon segítségével próbálja megmagyarázni a keletkezést, azaz valami jelen van a keletkezés minden lépésekor, de ez nem ugyanaz az entitás. Ettől teljesen különböző módon a minőségváltozás hypokeimenonja szubsztanciá lisan ugyanaz marad. Ez lesz az alapja Aristotelés magyarázatának, és ezt akkor találja meg, amikor Empedoklés elméletét vizsgálja a Gen. et Corr. I. 1ben. A tanulmány végén két további megjegyzést teszek. Rámutatok arra, hogy Aristotelés nem köteleződik el az első fejezetben az első anyag létezése mellett, illetve, hogy az első fejezet meglepően hasonló a Phys. I. 4hez. A Gen. et Corr. I. 1 fontos része a műnek, és Aristotelés természetfilozófiai írásainak általában.

In this paper I argue that Gen. et Corr. I. 1 is a true start, it is a genuine part of the argumentation given in Gen. et Corr. This goes against an interpretation by Jacques Brunschwig who calls Gen. et Corr. I. 1 a “false start”. I give two arguments why this is not the case. On the one hand, from the comparison of monism and pluralism, Aristotle draws the conclusion that alteration cannot be explained without a hypokeimenon. We cannot give a theory of generation which excludes the existence of any hypokeimenon from changes whatsoever. On the other hand, Aristotle presents a discussion of Empedocles’ theory because he finds a hint in Empedocles which will be useful in his own explanation of generation. When Empedocles argues that elements are generated from the one, he tries to account for generation using a minimal hypokeimenon, i.e. there is something present in all stages of generation, but this is not the same entity. Quite opposed to this, the hypokeimenon of alteration remains substantially the same. This will be the basis of the explanation given by Aristotle, and he finds it while discussing Empedocles’ remarks in Gen. et Corr. I. 1. At the end of my paper, I point out that Aristotle is not committed to the existence of prime matter in the first chapter and that the chapter has a strikingly similar structure to Phys. I. 4. Gen. et Corr. I. 1 is a genuine part of Gen. et Corr. and of Aristotle’s natural philosophical works in general.

The Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies (JEMAHS) is a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to various facets of archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean region, covering a wide range of topics and periods. It aims to publish accessible articles for both professionals and the general public, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology and heritage studies. The journal encourages submissions from diverse archaeological disciplines and provides clear guidelines for authors and subscribers.

How should stories about enslaved people who became rich and/or famous after their manumission be understood? Given that manumission did not make former slaves legally equal to citizens in the ancient Greek world, do these stories reflect realities in the places where these slaves lived and acted? Do they reflect concepts about and hopes among slaves for social mobility and a general belief that slaves had equal mental abilities?
Or do they reflect the anxieties of slave-owners lest such scenarios materialize?
My aim here is to examine some of these stories in their social, cultural, and political contexts and offer some observations. Being written about 2,500 years ago by persons other than the slaves themselves, in various genres and for different purposes, these stories pose serious obstacles and present a complex and ambiguous picture. This very kaleidoscopic tableau, however, more than that portrayed in legal texts, may teach us about the concepts and attitudes to slaves and freed slaves in the  communities and periods in which they were written or – if the extant evidence allows inference – in which the subjects of these stories lived.

Le film américain Troy, réalisé par Wolfgang Petersen sur un scénario de David Benioff, a connu à sa sortie sur les écrans en 2004 un succès qui n'a pas été sans susciter les critiques de certains spécialistes de l'Antiquité et les interrogations du public sur sa vraisemblance historique. À l'amertume des uns et aux questions des autres, les contributions réunies par M.M. Winkler entendent apporter sinon des réponses tranchées du moins des éléments de réflexion en étudiant le film selon divers points de vue -de l'archéologie à sa place dans la filmographie sur la Guerre de Troie.

recueil Forgerons, élites et voyageurs d'Homère à nos jours est un hommage rendu à la mémoire d'Isabelle Ratinaud-Lachkar, dont les publications portaient sur les métaux et leurs usages dans les sociétés grecques de la période géométrique. Élue membre junior de l'Institut universitaire de France en novembre 2008, elle avait présenté dans son dossier de candidature plusieurs thématiques de recherche développées dans le présent ouvrage. L'introduction de ce volume coordonné par Marie-Claude Ferriès, Maria Paola Castiglioni et Françoise Létoublon, souligne l'intérêt de la méthode qu'elle avait adoptée en combinant les approches de l'archéologue, de l'historien et de l'historiographe, pour suivre la piste des métaux et interroger, chemin faisant, les élites et les échanges culturels. Les chercheurs à l'origine des vingt-trois chapitres qui composent ce volume, se réclament de cette pluridisciplinarité.

ser una aportación de gran erudición desde su misma concepción, cubriendo un vacío académico no tan evidente de los estudios helenísticos en general y de Filipo V en particular. El trabajo no pretende ser un estudio biográfico sobre el monarca, sino "to question our historical understanding of Philip V" (p. 1). Este cuestionamiento es efectuado siguiendo un orden cronológico, abordando la representación de Filipo V en las Ἱστορίαι por medio de la propuesta política, metodológica, estilística e historiográfica de Polibio. El primer capítulo, "Constructing Macedon and the World Through an Achean Perspective", desarrolla cómo Polibio impone una visión Aquea en la escritura de los asuntos de Macedonia y sus reyes. El vínculo de Polibio con la Liga Aquea y su líder, Arato de Sición, habilita comprender "how Polybius constructed his image of the Achaean leader and how his political bias affected the interpretation of events" (p. 38). Las argumentaciones de Nicholson sobre el enfoque sesgado de Polibio son minuciosas y bien construidas. Una argumentación que evidencia por qué durante los primeros años del reinado de Filipo V (221-218 a.C.), mientras Arato y el orbe aqueo influyeron sobre el monarca, la opinión de Polibio fue tan abiertamente positiva hacia el rey macedonio.

In this response to Holopainen 2019, I address problematic affricate sibilant substitutions of Iranian loanwords by Proto-Uralic; revise the relative chronology of early "Indo-Iranian > Uralic" contact; identify the Iranian language in question as "Scythian"; and finally, synchronize this contact period with Helleno-Uralic contact ca. 800-500 BCE, in order to outline a decisive model for early Uralic disintegration from its nexus on the Volga-Kama interfluve during the Ananyino culture.  Three phases of Scythian and Greek contact with Uralic are reconstructed: 1. "Archaic Uralic ~ Finno-Ugric", 2. "Finno-Permic +/- Ugric", and 3. "Finno-Mordvinic +/- Ugric".

Scholarly review of, and response to certain claims made by a Chicago professor regarding the presumably "African" or Egyptian origins of Greek civilization. Includes an examination of the textual evidence in the works Plato and Aristotle including Plato's account of the Myth of Atlantis in his book Timaeus. Author concludes with a few recommendations for unbiased research in the area of African American studies.

LOS CELTÍBEROS – La teoría de Enrique Cabrejas es un artículo que nos alerta de una posible “antinomia” todavía desapercibida en el caso de la denominación para los “celtíberos” y por el cual se abría malentendido al interpretarse por gentilicio aquello que se trató de un apelativo explicativo que los señalaba calificándolos por su antigua religión helena de carácter Dodecateísta.

Cabrejas nos propone y presenta una nueva teoría histórico-lingüística para la reflexión, en cuanto a que contrariamente a lo que se afirma desde la comunidad científica y es de aceptación pública en general de que los “celtíberos” fueron tribus celtas con ritos, costumbres y lengua celta en la península ibérica. Cabrejas cuestiona esta afirmación y sostiene que la denominación no tiene unas  connotaciones étnicas, todo y lo pueda parecer sino, por el contrario, que obedece al señalamiento “apelativo” -conativo-, mote o sobrenombre que se generó y se dio en antiguo griego a partir de la calificación de pueblos helenos con un extremado celo religioso. En el caso que nos ocupa, pueblos jónicos Cilicio-Cario que se mostraban en exceso observantes y muy devotos de sus propios dioses, los antiguos Titanes.

It is argued that the painting in the Stoa Poikile described by Pausanias as an engagement between Athenians and Spartans at Argive Oenoe in fact refers to Oenoe in Attica, and depicted the arrival of the Plataean contingent prior to the battle of Marathon. The dependence of Herodotus on the paintings in the Stoa Poikile for his account of Marathon is discussed.