#Thelxinoe ~ Classics News for November 2, 2020

Hodie est a.d. IV Non. Nov. 2772 AUC ~ 16 Pyanepsion in the fourth year of the 699th Olympiad

In the News

Classicists and Classics in the News

Greek/Latin News

Public Facing Classics

Fresh Bloggery

Blog-like Publications

Fresh Podcasts

How did certain people come to be called ‘the Great’? Is the notion of great men and women outmoded? Can anyone today be reckoned ‘great’? Historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook take a wide ranging stroll through the annals of time, from Nero to Nixon, with a bit of Trump thrown in for good measure.

What are the conditions needed for a civil war to start? Could we see a modern industrial nation turn upon itself again? Historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook explore examples from ancient history though to Spain in the 1930s and Yugoslavia in the 1990s to work out what it takes for neighbour to murder neighbour.

Join in as we look over the Netflix new show called Barbarians and how historically accurate it is! (hint: it is not).

… To talk through the life of Ancient Rome’s ‘bad boy poet’ (to quote our current Prime Minister Boris Johnson), it was an honour to interview Daisy Dunn, a leading classicist and Catullus’ 21st century biographer. In this podcast Daisy brilliantly talks through the life of Catullus and his remarkable legacy. This was a brilliant chat and I hope you enjoy as much as Daisy and I did recording it.

17th official episode of Spartan History Podcast, Apollo’s faithful.

68 – 98 – The Year of the Four Emperors came out of the chaos of the reign of Nero.  Find out how Vespasian managed to steady the Roman ship and whether his two sons would be able to continue his good work in the aftermath.

To rule over the largest and most diverse empire of the Hellenistic realms, the Seleucids needed to deal with serious logistical and administrative challenges. The identity of the Seleucid kings can be viewed through either a Macedonian-Greek, Near-Eastern, or Iranian lens. Its administrative system of satrapies and local power holders were kept in check by the peripatetic movement of the king and his court, on a never-ending journey to impose order on an unyielding political and cultural landscape. The Seleucid dynasty would even challenge the nature of time itself by instituting the revolutionary “Seleucid Era” model, which continues to influence down to the present day.

Professor Paul Cartledge has set the record straight on the Ancient Thebans in his new book Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece. Thebes has been ignored because of the spin from, what Cartledge calls, “the snooty and elitist Athenians”.

Season 2 of the podcast begins with an overview of the transition from Greek Theatre to Roman Theatre with the history of the early Roman Republic and the early forms of theatre, starting at 364 BCE and taking us through to the beginning of the end of the Republic in the second century BCE

Book Reviews

Online Talks and Professional Matters

See what’s happening today in Dr Pistone’s Online Classics Social Calendar

Alia

‘Sorting’ Out Your Day:

Today on the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar:

If it thunders today, it portends prosperity.

… adapted from the text and translation of:

Jean MacIntosh Turfa, The Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar, in Nancy Thomson de Grummond and Erika Simon (eds.), The Religion of the Etruscans. University of Texas Press, 2006. (Kindle edition)