Programme

In the age of the Second Sophistic (later 1st – early 3rd century CE), being able to rhetorically communicate by imitating the „good old“ classic Greek prose authors of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and by expressing oneself in the classic Attic dialect of their times as flawlessly as possible is the key to success (and hence to fame and money) in the elite circles of (not only) the eastern half of the Roman Empire, and this success can even (at least up to a point) be achieved by ambitious and hard-working men who may have only a modest background and hail from the fringes of the Empire. Lucian is a case in point: though a native of Samosata, a medium-sized city on the Euphrates border of the Roman world, he managed to acquire an impressive amount of Greek paideia which enabled him to produce a prolific range of works that are still read today. By acknowledging (and sometimes even cultivating) a kind of „outsider status“, Lucian provides us with valuable insights into contemporary elite culture, by commenting on (and sometimes castigating) the characteristics (and excesses) of the archaizing and atticizing rhetoric of his times in a number of works (Rhetorum praeceptor; Lexiphanes; Pseudologista; Iudicium vocalium; Adversus indoctum), of which this paper will provide an overview.

The satirist and essayist Lucian represents an independent spirit in the Hellenistic literary scene and a creative mind within the so-called Second Sophistic. Native to Samosata, a flourishing city in Roman Syria, Lucian is an itinerant intellectual and writer who experienced different traditions (Syriac, Greek, Roman). Precisely for these reasons he is an author particularly receptive and sensitive to the political and cultural legacies of Hellenistic civilization. This intricate heterogeneity is also expressed in his works, which are ironic but also reflect contemporary phenomena. Lucian’s satire shows no mercy to anyone or anything and so the caricature involves philosophy, religion, myth and society. Extremely amusing is the satire contained in the dialogue entitled Gallus, a most remarkable conversation between Pythagoras and a cobbler. Through the use of the Pythagorean Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls, which it is also a hot-bed for deride many authors and thinkers, Lucian compares all the different lives experienced by the philosopher, now in the guise of a wise talking rooster, to show the dissatisfaction and meanness related to rich people’s lifestyle. In fact, Pythagoras will prove to the poor shoemaker Micyllus that the real happiness is a simple and modest life because wealth leads to misery and frustration. The author addresses a strong criticism of wealth and human desire for it, he mocks all the people who believe gold to be a source of joy and power because they cannot see how dangerous this yearning is that “afflicts” their existence. Only in a humble life it is possible to find glory and satisfaction because poverty is the indispensable promoter of man’s activity as the Cynic binomial πόνος-ἀγαθόν points out.

Palmyra has – and still is – often been described as a “cite grecque”, and outwardly this description has its merits: Dozens of Greek and Aramaic inscriptions mention the Institutions of a Polis: One finds both a Boule and a Demos, known magisterial titles are Strategos, Archon, Grammateus and Gymnasiarch. Owning to a perceived reform in the mid first Century A.D., the citizenry is thought to have been organized in civic tribes called Phyle. Yet something is off: Apart from one exception we know nothing about the members of the Boule, and although Palmyras Elite built impressive tombs for their afterlife, not a single magistrate chose to decorate his final resting place with a list of the offices he served or the honours he was awarded. Instead, we find long genealogies, sometimes spanning hundreds of years, often followed by the mentioning of tribal groups like the “sons of zbdbwl” or “the sons of mytˀ”. Tribal titles like “rš” – “head” and “rb” – “elder” – are common as well.  Expression of tribal identity is not confined to the usage in funerary inscriptions: It is found in all known categories of Palmyrene epigraphic material, from honorary statues on the Agora to Altar-Dedications in the temples. As shall be demonstrated, the tribes of Palmyra are far from passive: They actively engage in cultic affairs, they honour political, cultural and religious merits of members of Palmyras Elites and the activities of their leaders ranges from maintaining peace between the tribes to entertaining roman emperors. In effect, Palmyras “Greek” institutions seem to be but a veil, weaved to translate the mechanisms of a tribal confederation into a form that roman authorities could recognize and cooperate with.

The aim of this paper is to delineate the development of a lexical class of verbs, namely the states of spatial configuration, and their morphosemantic development from Proto-Indo-European to Latin. Having examined the derivational patterns of the most common verbs in the class in Latin (i.e. cubō, iaceō, sedeō, and stō) as well as having compared them with verbs belonging to the class in Ancient Greek, Old Indo-Iranian, and Hittite, I argue that the formation of such states in Latin depended on a derivational system and that this system underwent significant renewals in the development toward Latin. For instance the notion TO SITSTATE was likely denoted by the root *h1eh1s- (from which stative root present was derived, cf. Greek ἧμαι, Vedic a ̄́ste), while the notion of TO TAKE A SEATEVENT by the root *sed- (from which a root aorist was formed). As the former root was lost at some point in the prehistory of Latin, it was likely replaced by a nactostatic perfect derived from the latter root (*se-sód-/se-sd- ́). In turn, this nactostatic perfect came to be reinterpreted as a past tense form and thus a presentic counterpart was formed in *s(e)d-éh1- (cf. sedeō). Similarly, the notion TO STANDSTATE was likely denoted by the nactostatic perfect *ste-stóh2-/ste-sth2- ́ (preserved as stetī, i.e. the perfectum stem of stō, in Latin) in the proto-language and gained a new present in *sth2-éh1- (Latin stō). The complex derivational patterns displayed by this lexical class indicate the existence of a intricate derivational system, which underwent numerous innovations between the proto-language and Latin. Thus, the ultimate aim of my inquiry is to find a plausible chronology of these derivational innovations and, if possible, the underlying motivation thereof.

Midwifes are fundamental figures in a society, in charge of the moment of birth – therefore essential for every human life; this is true today, and was even more true in the past, but many things are still unknown about them. The Greco-Roman world developed an extensive knowledge in the field of gynaecology, based on an approach more scientific than magic relying on amulets and superstition, as can be read in the Γυναικεῖα of Soranus of Ephesus, the only work survived of one of the most important physicians of Antiquity; it was written during the II century AD, and adapted and translated several times, especially by a group of medical authors active in the Roman province of Africa during the V/VI century AD. Related to this group, even if not really belonging to it, is Mustio, an author unknown but for one work, his Gynaecia; this Latin text, on one hand, has its model in the Γυναικεῖα, on the other, has a new and unique aim – at least as far as we know: to be a handbook for midwifes unable to read Greek and therefore to have access to the literature written in this language. Apart from elements like drawings and a question & answer structure, which may be found elsewhere as well, I think that the most reliable trace of Mustio’s proposition is his usage of midwifes’ specific speech, as declared by himself in the introduction to the Gynaecia with the expression muliebribus verbis usus sum. Starting from the analysis of the meaning of muliebris in this text – not only feminine, but precisely gynaecological – I will present the main element of this speech, to see whether or not we can bring to light information about social condition, education and relationships of midwifes in the Ancient world.

There is no agreement on how and when the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed. Their composition, or the final fixation of the text, has been dated from the ninth to the sixth century BC while the “evolutionary model” suggested by Gregory Nagy and his school assumes a fluidity of the text until the Hellenistic period or even later. This uncertainty gives us no firm basis for specifying the “Age of Homer” as a more or less exactly and narrowly define period of time. Despite this, the historians attempting to reconstruct the socio-political organisation of the early Greece generally stick to the late eighth (and early seventh) century dating of the poems and consider the society described in the epics – the “Homeric society” – as a more or less adequate description of the realities of the of the eighth century and/or of the preceding Early Iron Age. The present paper points out the discord between the discussion of the Homeric question and the usual contextualisation of the “Homeric society”, and explores the implications of the different dating of Homer for the interpretation of the society described in the epics.

Over the past decade, the study of classical antiquity in video games has become a rapidly growing subdiscipline of classical reception studies. Classicists have increasingly started to study how classically inspired video games represent (processes of) history, create immersive audiovisual reconstructions of the ancient world, or may be used in educational contexts. One topic that has only recently begun to be examined is the way in which characters from Greco-Roman mythology are received and characterized in games. ‘Characterization’ is a term from literary studies and refers to the attribution of information or ‘traits’ to a textual entity through various textual devices. This presentation will present the current state of a research project that adapts the concept of characterization to the context of video games, and subsequently applies this framework as a method to study characters from Greco-Roman mythology in games. The presentation will primarily discuss the constructed framework of video game characterization, and indicate how these insights may and will be applied to a study of classical gods and heroes in a specific corpus of games. In doing so, this research hopes to shed light on current modalities and receptions of ancient mythological characters within a highly popular medium that has taken up a prominent place in the contemporary cultural imagination, as well as to illuminate the various medium-specific possibilities that video games offer the reception of classical antiquity.

Each archaeological survey project produces a dataset of archaeological remains with different standards. Notably, the attribution of a hierarchical rank (city, village, hamlet, farmstead, …) follows criteria that are not always clearly defined, and often different from one survey to another. This paper examines how the comparison of datasets from individual research projects can be used to study the evolution of the spatial organization of an ancient landscape. A special focus is given to two survey projects in central Crete, Greece: the Galatas and the Pediada survey projects. The extension of these two projects partly overlaps and enables us to compare data from an older, extensive survey project with data from a more recent intensive survey. Hence, the impact of survey methodology is assessed. Site location and site size data variability are also evaluated, and the hierarchical rank of settlement attributed by each survey project is compared. The variability in survey data from one project to another appears to give additional information on archaeological sites that should be considered while studying settlement patterns. Therefore, the comparison of multiple individual survey projects produces more data than the simple addition of already collected information.

The late archaic city-state of Athens was during a number of decades ruled by the Peisistratid dynasty: Peisistratos and his sons who secured inner stability in Athens after the preceding internal conflicts. The tyrants promoted political and religious unification and centralization of the Athenian community, which involved the establishment or promotion of festivals and the construction of various public buildings. Their policy required considerable resources, which could have been perceived as oppressive by the citizens. The paper will consider the Peisistratid strategies of confirming and maintaining the power and the consequent relationship between the tyrants and the Athenian civic community.

The Antonine plague, the beginning of the spread of which is usually said to have occurred in 165 A.D. when Roman troops returned from Seleucia as part of their Parthian campaign, was one of the events of the reign of emperor Marcus Aurelius that signaled what was to come for the Roman Empire. The outbreak lasted for roughly 23 years devastating the Mediterranean basin to the extent that it would not regain its level of the population until the sixteenth century. As a consequence, it also disrupted trade, production, agrarian output, Rome’s military capabilities, and the lives of tax-paying inhabitants in the Roman world. Because of the virulence of the virus and the impact it had on the Mediterranean world, the Antonine plague holds an important place for historians specializing in ancient Rome as well as those focusing on the history of medicine, for the latter, because of the plague’s connection to the physician Galen who saw and documented the spread and symptoms of the disease first hand. Having been a pivotal event in the history of the Roman Empire, numerous articles have been written about the consequences the pandemic had for the empire and its people, yet the economic effects of the outbreak are usually parsed out between them. The aim of this presentation is to give an overview of the effects the Antonine plague had on the urban populations of the Roman Empire in terms of changes in the economy and regional government.

In the context of my PhD I will deal with the acoustics of late antique architecture, especially church architecture. The term acoustics includes all audible phenomena, such as music, speech and other acoustic signals, as well as explicit silence. With regard to the architecture, it will be necessary to examine to what extent different types of architecture also differ with regard to their acoustic characteristics and whether, or how, these characteristics were taken into account in the liturgical use of the building. In order to discuss the importance attached to acoustic phenomena within liturgical spaces, it will also be necessary to take a look at the recipients and their assessment as well as their background of perception.