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Acropolis

Programme

Monday, March 11  – The Finnish Institute at Athens (Zitrou 16, GR-11742, Athens) 

17.00    Dr. Petra Pakkanen (Finnish Institute in Athens), From animal skins to leather: Aspects of leather and its production in Ancient Greece

18.00    Reception

 

Tuesday, March 12 – The Finnish Institute at Athens

Chair: Göttingen
9.00      Valentina Vari (Groningen) , 

In the past years, scholars have increasingly dealt with Roman Greece, and extensive monographic contributions have considered the theme of the use of Latin in this area (Mihăescu 1978; Rochette 1997), but the topic is still quite disregarded in the general panorama of specialistic studies. In my paper, I will consider the use of the Latin language in honorific inscriptions in Greece during the 2nd-1st century BCE, showing how language can shape and express identity. Starting from five case studies from Delphi and Delos, I will discuss the earliest attempts at the use of the Latin language, stressing the ways syntactic structures, and grammatical cases, could be employed to convey identity and affiliation. I will particularly discuss the implications of the use of the accusative, dative, and nominative cases for the honorand in the Latin honorific evidence respectively from a Greek and Roman perspective.

The equestrian monument of Aemilius Paulus at Delphi, erected in the aftermath of the Roman victory at Pydna (167 BC), stands out as the first great example of the celebration of Roman power in Greece in Latin. But it is only at the end of the century that a Roman proconsul is honored for the first time by the demos through the use of the Latin language (Kaimio 1979: 80). At this point, Latin became a deliberate means through which the Greeks approached Roman authority, rather than an act of self-referential celebration. The political implications of the use of Latin arise especially in connection with the class of the honorific inscriptions, if we think about them –in the wake of J. Ma – as “political acts” (Ma 2015,17). If honorific inscriptions are political acts, Latin can be meant as a political means through which cultural affiliation could be expressed. The Latin language stands, therefore, as a declaration itself, all the more when individual representation and connections with the Roman authority are at stake.

Greece stands as a privileged point of observation for understanding the evolution of the dynamics between the “conquerors” and the “conquered”, with developments that find no comparison with any other province of the Roman Empire. The study of Latin inscriptions of Greece is therefore anything but an exercise in collecting and cataloging. It can open a new way of meaning and interpreting ancient power dynamics from a different point of view, namely that of the Greeks who struggled in the creation of a new identity, in the Graeco-Roman world. The “search” for new types of expression mirrored, during the Republican age, a need for a common ground between the Greeks and the Romans. Syntactic strategies can be considered as a communicative level embedded within language choices, used by speakers to connect different languages and cultural backgrounds.

Kaimio, J., The Romans and the Greek Language, Helsinki 1979.
Ma, J., Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World, Oxford 2015.
Mihăescu, H., La langue latine dans le sud-est de l’Europe, Bucarest 1978.
Rochette, B., Le latin dans le monde grec, Bruxelles 1997.

9.30      Caroline van Toor (Groningen),

Language is an important marker of identity in the Graeco-Roman world. However, a language choice is not always as straightforward as the statement may sound. To better understand language choices, one has to take into account the use of all languages in a particular context. In this paper, I therefore consider the full epigraphic record of Thessaloniki to trace the introduction and use of Latin in this local Greek context.
  
The use of Latin in Thessaloniki follows a remarkable development. For despite becoming the seat of the Roman provincial administration as early as the mid-2nd c. BCE, it would take roughly a century before Latin started to be used. Latin inscriptions then quickly became very visible in the epigraphic record, especially in the cemeteries, only to virtually disappear again from the mid-1st c. CE. All in all, only 4-5% of the ca. 1700 inscribed monuments in Thessaloniki have a Latin inscription. 
Such statistics beg the question of when and in what contexts Latin inscriptions did appear, what we can say about the people who issued them, and what that says about the reason why they opted for Latin inscriptions. Addressing these questions and contextualising my findings, I show that while certain sociocultural groups do favour Latin, most members of the same groups do not. In highlighting the local context of the use of a global language, I nuance the importance of language as a marker of identity.

10.00    Rahel Toomik (Tartu),

Writing and performing orations was a staple of university life in Early Modern Era Europe, especially so for students as an academic exercise. However, the topic has garnered little attention due to bibliographical obstacles (i.e. lack of systematic cataloguing and/or the fact that student orations were often not printed) and a general lack of interest towards a genre of academic literature perceived as somewhat less refined and less valuable (a reasoning I would like to challenge). The corpus of Tartu University however is very well catalogued and easily accessible, consisting of roughly a couple hundred printed orations of which the majority are (at least nominally) authored by students and written in Latin – a highly valuable source.

The following presentation will tackle the topic of defining the oration genre via external and internal identifiers and explore its historical formation and classical influences. Focusing more closely on the Tartu orations, the presentation will discuss issues with establishing authorship and interdisciplinary fluidity and outline a few preliminary observations on the corpus.

10.30    Coffee break

Chair: Ghent
10.45    Anni Polding (Tartu),

My presentation gives an overview about the stylistics of Latin language in student papers from the beginning of the 19th Century. My corpus consists of student papers that were written at the Imperial Tartu University at the pedagogical-philological seminar which was opened on the initiative of a Neo-humanistic scholar Karl Morgenstern. Morgenstern was a true patriot of Cicero, and that leads to believing that he also followed Cicero’s style in his own Latin writings, and preached Cicero’s style in his teaching practices. Based on keywords found in Cicero’s work, Morgenstern’s work, and the student papers, I am going to present whether and in which extent Cicero’s style reflects in the students’ Latin. Mostly I am going to concentrate on the keywords relevant to Neo-humanism, and study how the students position themselves towards Neo-humanistic topics and whether that is influenced by Cicero’s style. My research also belongs to the field of Digital Classics, and shows how computational methods can be used to study Latin philology based on ancient authors like Cicero, and his reception.

11.15    Beatrice Veidenberg (Tartu), 

This study on the parodos of Aeschylus’ tragedy The Suppliants aims to discover a phenomenon largely characteristic of archaic literature in Antiquity—namely, ring composition and its possible functions. Although ring composition is not widely researched, its presence in Aeschylus’ work is immense. One can even argue that ring structures play an important role in Aeschylus’ style. Similarly, the parodos of The Suppliants presents numerous larger and smaller chiastic structures that rely on parallelism, primarily on parallels of meaning and radicals. The small ring structures—referred to as anaphoric structures— tend to visualize the text, focusing on emotions. On the other hand, the larger ring structures—known as inclusive structures—aim to develop the play’s plot and serve the continuation of the narration. In addition to identifying the small and big ring structures in the text, we are interested in describing the overall ring composition of Aeschylean style. Moreover, we aim to explore how these structures interact with each other in the context of recycling ring structures, namely the reusing of motifs and phrases in new positions, which create textual parallels.
In doing so, we aim to firstly reveal the possible functions of ring compositions and secondly, explore their rhetorical aspects concerning both readers and listeners.

11.45    Prof. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath (Göttingen) 

Today’s varieties of globalized comic theatre are all more or less direct descendants of Attic New Comedy of the late fourth and early third centuries BCE. Attic New Comedy itself, however, is already a product of developments that reflected both local phenomena and global interactions, and this is what this lecture would like to demonstrate with a few details.

12.30     Lunch break

Chair: Ghent and Groningen

13.45    Priit-Hendrik Kaldma (Tallinn), 

One of our main textual sources about the archaic era of Athens is the list of eponymous archons. It is preceded by the lists of mythical kings followed by the lifelong and the ten-year archons. All these lists together formed the reconstructed but continuous line of the past for the Athenians. The names figuring in the early part of the list of eponymous archons, and the clan affiliation of these persons, can give us an insight into the power relations in early Athens. However, the credibility of the list has been put under suspicion, especially the early part of it. In this presentation I try to figure out the identity of the clans present in the list, for establishing their possible historicity, and the way the list can illuminate the power relations in the Archaic Athens.

14.15    Yannis Brichant (Ghent),

Research into late Roman/early Byzantine aristocrats is scarce. Not only is the period after Justinian understudied, theoretical considerations are mostly lacking for the late antique period. Specific characteristics of the period are forgotten or it is not clear how factors relate to each other. Therefore, this presentation tackles some prolegomena for conducting research on the different levels of late antique aristocrats (imperial, provincial, and local) in the Roman East and Italy. Throughout the presentation, criteria used in scholarship will be discussed, just as criteria proposed by myself and the interrelationship of some of these criteria. I shall also draw inspiration from scholarship on later societies and periods to identify the importance of criteria that can be overlooked in studies focussing on imperial aristocrats in the late Roman period.

A good case-study to show the importance of my four proposed criteria (office-holding, estate-holding, political power and family) is the Apiones-family. This family is the best documented family throughout late antiquity thanks to the find of their archive in Oxyrhynchus. Nevertheless, we still have many gaps in our knowledge and we are left with many questions. By investigating documentary papyri of their archive with the proposed criteria and the available prosopographical material about their lives, we can get a better understanding of how this family maintained their aristocratic position. I would argue that the Apions are also an excellent case which shows how the different levels of aristocrats could be intertwined and interacted with each other. Although they were important imperial aristocrats, the papyri shows us how they had a strong grip on the local life as well.

14.45    Alexandros Drosinakis (Tartu), 


In recent decades, the research has largely enlightened the period between the 11th and 9th centuries, conventionally called the Dark Ages and has given several new approaches to the study of the Archaic period. However, the limited number of literary evidence and the fragmentation of the archaeological material make the work of the scholars difficult. Thus, of particular importance for reconstructing the large image of the Archaic Greek world, is the study of local dynamics and their diversities. We are dealing with a two-way relationship between the local and the regional. In this paper, we will focus on the divergent lines of socio-political development lines during the emergence of the Greek Polis in Andros, Naxos and Paros and their importance for reconstructing the large image of the Early Greek history.  The choice of these areas is more related to the existence of a sufficient number of publications that allow comparative approaches. More generally, much of the archaeological finds in the Cyclades remain unpublished, making it more difficult to draw safe conclusions.

15.15   Coffee break   

15.30    Prof. Mait Kõiv (Tartu), Hesiodos, Persēs, Askra and basilēes: Space and hierarchies in Hesiod’s world 

 

Wednesday, March 13

The Boiotian trip on Wednesday 13.03 will start at 8 AM (the place of departure will be specified), will include a visit of the Theban archaeological museum, a short walk in the Theban city-center (ancient Kadmeia), and a light lunch in a taverna in Askri (the village near ancient Askra) ca 25 km westwards of Thebes. The exact program of the visit of Askra and the valley of Muses in the afternoon will inevitably depend on weather and the participants’ attitude. However, the bus can approach, in the best case, only the fringe of the valley, which makes some walk inevitable. If we wish to visit the spot of the sanctuary of Muses, the site of the theatre, and to climb on the top of the acropolis (Pyrgaki hill) for inspecting the ancient tower and the rests of the fortifications, we must count with some exercise. The climb on the top of the hill with a superb view on the neighbourhood can be particularly demanding, as we must use a relatively steep and hardly visible
track through rough bushes. Good shoes and endurable clothes will be highly advisable. We will probably return through Leuktra and Plataia, which, if there is time, could allow a short inspection of the important battlefields and the remains of the Plataian fortifications. The return to Athens is planned for ca 8 PM.

 

Thursday, March 14 – The Belgian School at Athens (Makri 11, GR-11742, Athens)

Chair: Tartu
9.00    Eleonora Lauro (Ghent),

This paper seeks to underscore the role of Greek New Testament manuscripts as valuable witnesses to the intricate interplay of the multiethnic influences that shaped medieval Southern Italy.
Since Justinian’s Reconquest (533), Byzantium became an intellectual and ideological focal point for Southern Italy. Even after the Normans’ conquest in the eleventh century, Byzantine culture persisted in this region. However, it is also important to underline the fact that, throughout the Middle Ages, Southern Italy consistently served as a scene where different ethnicities like Arabs, Latins, and Syro-Palestinians peacefully converged. This multilingual and multiethnic society is mirrored in the material, textual and paratextual features of Southern Italian book production.
Specifically, the Greek New Testament manuscripts represent a rich source for this inquiry. The variety of written forms in which the biblical text has been transmitted reflects the profound influence it had on Byzantine Christianity and society.
Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in the study of the material history of the Bible. Now scholars recognize that the significance of manuscripts extends beyond their textual content: manuscripts harbor a multitude of untold stories, and the nuances in letter forms, text layout, ink types, and accompanying paratexts can offer insights into the world and the people that produced and consumed them (Kraus – Nicklas, 2006).
My research will consider the following questions:
1. how is the tension between center and local reflected in Greek New Testament manuscripts from Southern Italy?
2. what do paratexts (especially book epigrams) accompanying the biblical text reveal about this multiethnic society?
3. what was Southern Italy’s contribution to Byzantine book culture?
These queries will be based on a palaeographical analysis. Moreover, my project will conduct prosopographical/historical research with the aid of data and metadata stored in the DBBE (Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams). Book epigrams can help to reconstruct the identity and social status of scribes and patrons, shedding light on their historical and cultural context.

9.30    Kyriaki Giannikou (Ghent), 

Byzantine book epigrams, featuring as paratexts in manuscript margins, seamlessly intertwine poetic expression with practical details, shedding light on aspects such as the manuscripts’ patrons and the identities of the scribes involved in transcription. Deeply rooted in traditional book production practices, these epigrams exhibit remarkable formulaic qualities.1 A comprehensive exploration of their formulaicity offers an opportunity to investigate the use of formulas within written culture, a concept previously primarily associated with either everyday speech2 or oral poetry.3 The Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (DBBE) serves as an excellent corpus for this purpose, given that all textual data have been digitised, thereby enabling more extensive utilisation of (semi-)
This presentation highlights the challenge of identifying formulaic constructions that serve as ‘verse building blocks’, while considering the variation they present. It underscores the obstacles arising from the absence of a global, universal ‘formula’ definition in scholarly discourse and emphasises the necessity to address and accommodate the nuanced variation observed locally, at the level of individual epigrams. In this way, concepts such as the ‘low processing effort’4 in formulaicity scholarship are shown to require accommodation within the ‘text community’5 of Byzantine scribes, for example, as a means for compensating for low literacy or writing experience. Moreover, the inherent complexities of the Greek language – from its flexible syntax to its extensive morphological variety – compounded by significant linguistic variation across registers – spanning from Homeric and classicizing Greek to medieval forms interwoven with vernacular elements – pose difficulties. Furthermore, working with diplomatically edited texts (i.e., transcribed as in the manuscript) of epigrams allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the idiosyncrasies of original scribal choices, albeit complicating matters.
In light of idiosyncratic elements, one of the project’s objectives is to establish a typology of formulaic sequences used in composing Byzantine book epigrams. Illustrating through examples, this presentation seeks to act as a first step towards systematically categorising and analysing the prevalent formulaic expressions found within Byzantine book epigrams.

1 e.g., Bernard, F. and Demoen, K. ‘Book epigrams’. In Hörandner, W., Rhoby, R. and Zagklas N. 2019. A companion to Byzantine poetry. Brill, 404-429.
2 e.g., Kuiper, K. 2009. Formulaic Genres. Houndmills.
3 e.g., Lord, A. B. 1986. ‘Perspectives on Recent Work on the Oral Traditional Formula’. Oral
Tradition, 467–503; Bozzone, C. 2014. Constructions: A New Approach to Formularity, Discourse, and Syntax in Homer. University of California Los Angeles, dissertation.
4 Wray, A. 2008. Formulaic language: Pushing the boundaries. Oxford University Press; Wray, A. 2002. Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.
5 Stenroos, M. 2018. ‘From Scribal Repertoire to Text Community: The Challenge of Variable Writing Systems.’ In Cromwell, J. and Grossman, E. (eds.). 2018. Scribal repertoires in Egypt from the New Kingdom to the early Islamic period. Oxford University Press, 20-40.

10.00   Pim Schievink (Groningen),

For major sanctuaries such as the Asklepieion of Epidauros, it is tempting to interpret the material from a trans-regional perspective (e.g. Panhellenic or federal), but in turn this might cloud our understanding of the local importance of the sanctuary. The central question of this paper is: was the Asklepieion of Epidauros a federal sanctuary for the Achaean Koinon? Federal sanctuaries in Greek antiquity were fundamental places of meeting and administration for groups of poleis that decided to confederate (Funke & Haake 2013). The Achaean federal sanctuary, both in the Archaic and Classical past and after its Hellenistic revival, was the sanctuary of Zeus Homarios in Aigion (e.g. Polybios. 2.39, 5.93; Pausanias. 7.24.2-4). Aigion remained the central place of meeting until a rotation system between poleis was installed in 188 BC by the strategos Philopoemen (e.g. Livy 38.30; Rizakis 2013; Rizakis 2015). Nevertheless, upon Epidauros’ incorporation into the Achaean Koinon in the mid-third century BC, it is argued that Epidauros’ famous Asklepieion became a “sort of federal sanctuary of the Achaeans” and a “privileged location for the publication of decrees and documents of the Achaian League” (e.g. Melfi 2007; Melfi 2013; Griesbach 2014; Ager 2020). The evidence is primarily epigraphical and consists of documents with a connection to the Koinon (e.g. arbitrations and a ritual norm) and statues honouring individuals during the various wars of the Koinon. By looking closer at the sources, I will argue that despite the clear link between some sources and the Achaean Koinon, the initiative of these documents was mostly not federal. The Koinon was present in the sanctuary, but primarily made present in sources that directly concerned Epidauros itself. Epidauros likely only served as an incidental meeting place for the federation on various occasions. This paper will thus nuance the idea of Epidauros as a sort of federal sanctuary, whilst acknowledging that it clearly was a transregional hub of activity, and highlight local strategies and agencies in relation to these documents.

10.30   Break (without coffee)

Chair: Tallinn and Tartu
10.45   Sydney Jane Patterson (Ghent), 

Past funerary practices are important for our understanding not just of these rites but also of the community who had practiced them. Funerary traditions can offer such insights because the decisions behind the inclusion/exclusion of certain elements or activities are made by the living community, so the motivations behind these decisions can be informative of the community and its ideologies. Social ideals often expressed in burial customs are different identities of the deceased individual (e.g., age, gender, and status). Additionally, mortuary features reflect broader social identities or, in other words, the individual’s membership to not only the larger community itself, but sometimes also memberships to smaller subset communities (social class, citizenship, age groups, heritage, etc.). However, community ideals can be influenced by external ideologies, especially those of other groups with whom the community has close connections. Therefore, a comparative study between the funerary practices of different communities grants insights into both groups’ beliefs and ideals. 
In ancient Greece, Athens was an influential city-state, predominantly during the Classical period (ca. 480-323 BCE). Silver mining operations contributed to Athens’ growing socio-economic and political power. The best-known source for this silver came from the Athenian controlled Laurion mines in southeastern Attica, including the mines within the Thorikos deme. While mining has a long history within the deme and city of Thorikos, the connection between Athens and Thorikos was heightened during the Classical period as evident through the intensification of mining operations. However, it is reasonable to expect that the connection between these regions extends beyond the political and economic dynamics and extends into social practices and ideologies. Comparing the funerary practices of Athens and Thorikos preceding and up to the Classical period (900-300 BCE) is one research avenue to assess this connection. While there are strong similarities between the mortuary customs in Athens and Thorikos, there are still notable differences between the two cities’ burial customs. This paper aims to highlight these differences in funerary practices and the possible meaning behind such variations.

11.15    Zoom lecture: Prof. Johannes Bergemann (Göttingen), Prof. Roald Docter (Ghent), On the Gent-Göttingen excavation in Thorikos

12.00    Lunch, followed by a joint walk in Athens guided by Priit-Hendrik Kaldma.

 

Friday, March 15 – The Swedish Institute at Athens (Mitseon 9, GR-11742, Athens)

Chair: Ghent and Groningen
9.00     Anna Wiegand (Göttingen) 

The study of emotion has become a substantial sub-discipline in the fields of Classics and Ancient History. Lucan’s Pharsalia and Statius’ Thebaid – two epics that do not only share their dark, almost apocalyptic atmosphere, but are also quite similar with regard to their main conflict – show great potential to be studied with a focus on emotion-related questions: The high relevance of emotions for each poem is explicitly emphasized at the beginning of the two works (See Stat. Theb. 1,125–28 and Lucan. 1,120–26.); additionally, emotional excesses play a major role in both epics.

With the overall topic of the Winter School being “Big and small, global and local“, I would like to focus on the question to what extent certain emotions the single characters experience during the course of both works are associated with or mirrored by astronomical phenomena that affect the world of the respective epic on a larger scale – day and night, sunrise and sunset, solar eclipses etc.: Are some emotions, for example, more likely to be felt at night while others are more closely connected to the daytime? How does the change from night to day, from day to night mirror the shift in a character’s emotional disposition? In what way can the description of phenomena like sunrise and sunset vary in order to mirror the specific feelings a character is experiencing at a certain point of the respective epic?

Additionally, I would like to explore the question in what way the emotions characters feel are intensified or alleviated by the phenomena mentioned above, and whether the characters acknowledge the influence these phenomena exercise on their emotions: Under what circumstances, for example, does the night function as a catalyst for negative feelings; when and why does it offer emotional tranquillity? What role do night and day, sunrise and sunset as well as the properties and powers ascribed to them play when it comes to the strategies certain characters apply in order to cope with (negative) emotions?
With the help of such considerations, it is possible to generate interesting findings regarding the way in which emotions are depicted in both works as well as the strategies of coping with emotions that are typical of certain characters in the epics of Lucan and Statius. I would like to highlight the potential of this approach in the seminar and present some exemplary results. If possible, I would also like to draw some comparisons to Virgil’s Aeneid, the epic predecessor of the Pharsalia and the Thebaid.

9.30     Luca Beltramini (Göttingen),

Atticism is the most relevant phenomenon that characterised Greek literature (and, more generally, the Greek-speaking cultural world) in the first centuries of the Imperial Age. Originating as an evolution of ‘classicism’ (meant as the admiration and imitation of the literary models of the past, with a special reverence for the Attic authors of the 5th and 4th centuries BC), Atticism advocated the strict imitation and reproduction of the language and style of the old canonical authors of Attic literature and found in the production of prescriptive lexica (such as those of Phrynichus and Pollux) its most typical feature. Lucian of Samosata, despite his Syrian origins, was one of the authors who mastered Attic and followed Atticist prescriptions in the best and most brilliant way. Nevertheless, at the same time he despised (and laughed at) both the fanatical dogmatism of linguistic purists and the mediocre (but also overconfident) authors who were not able to handle the subtleties of Atticism. In his Lexiphanes he portrays and mocks one of those linguistic charlatans and, to do so, creates for him a monster-language, only apparently Attic but in fact made up of various errors, neologisms and obscure usages. In this paper Lexiphanes’ peculiar mock-Atticist language will be analysed in the light of (and in comparison with) the broader phenomenon of Atticism, in order to detect differences and similarities with its linguistic environment and to highlight Lucian’s satirical strategies, closely connected to his specific conception of language.

10.00   Coffee break

10.15   Prof. Onno van Nijf (Groningen), Global and Local Olympia – the appeal of an idea

11.00   

The trip to Thorikos and Sounion on Friday 15.03 will start after the morning sessions, at 11.30. We will have a light lunch in a taverna in Thorikos, will visit the Thorikos theatre and climb the small hill to inspect the Mycenaean tombs and the structures on the hilltop, and will hopefully, if time will allow, visit the sanctuary of Poseidon in Sounion. The return to Athens is planned ca 19-19.30.

20.30   Closing dinner

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