Hodie est ad. XV Kal. Jul. 2774 AUC ~ 7 Skirophorion in the fourth year of the 699th Olympiad
In the News
- Works start on Small Roman Theatre in Pula | Croatia Week
- Roma, rinvenuti i tre fusti di colonne romane sul fondo del Tevere
- Scoperto nuovo tempio al “Campo della fiera”, scavi da agosto
- MONTALTO DI CASTRO (Vt). Importante scoperta a Vulci, ritrovata opera del “pittore delle rondini”. – Archeologia online – Archeomedia
- Cult statues of ancient Claros to be restored in western Turkey | Daily Sabah
In Case You Missed It
- Acropolis renovations face backlash
- Headless Statue of Ancient Woman Discovered in Turkey’s ‘Mother Goddess City’ | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine
Classicists and Classics in the News
- Sheffield student slams process to shut down Department of Archaeology as ‘unethical’ | The Star
- Author, Educator, Classicist, and Tattooer Phuc Tran ’95 to Give Book Talk in Honor of World Refugee Day
- A Latin Expert’s Odyssey, From the Vatican to the Gay Rights Movement – The New York Times
Fresh Bloggery
- The Purpose of Song – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- AWOL – The Ancient World Online: Αρχαιολογικό Κτηματολό – The Archaeological Cadastre
- Three Things Thursday: Blogging, Archaeology and Climate, and Poetry | Archaeology of the Mediterranean World
- AWOL – The Ancient World Online: The Bavarian Commentary and Ovid: Clm 4610, The Earliest Documented Commentary on the ‘Metamorphoses’
- Famous Latin Quotes | Latin Language Blog
- AWOL – The Ancient World Online: La monnaie dans le Péloponnèse
- Why Start In Medias Res? (Hint: Liars Do This…) – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- Laudator Temporis Acti: Talent versus Training
- The Wakeful Mind and Happiness – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (c. 1696-1770) | The Historian’s Hut
- Books about ancient Persia – Mainzer Beobachter
- PaleoJudaica.com: The archaeology of fingerprints?
- PaleoJudaica.com: Burnett on interpreting the New Testament through inscriptions
- Robbery art – Mainzer Beobachter
- Egyptian-Levantine copper trade was going strong
- 100 Days of Antigone – Antigone
- PaleoJudaica.com: Where did the Israelites cross into the Promised Land?
- Gap Week: June 18, 2021 – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
- Spencer Alley: Guercino – Drawings, before 1630 (Independent of Paintings)
Blog-like Publications
Assorted Twitter Threads
- @DocCromm’s #LatinForTheDay thread is on Seneca, De Beneficiis 6.32.1
- @DocCromm’s Ancient Coin of the Day is a cistophorus from Ephesus
Fresh Podcasts
In this week’s episode, curators Melissa and Poppy chat with the incomparable Liv Albert, host of the ‘Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby!’ Greek Mythology podcast. Join us for a whole bunch of ca-razy tales from Greek mythology, an impassioned defence of Medusa, and a bespoke Mini Myth with an appropriate jars theme!
Dr. Rhiannon Graybill is Associate Professor of religious studies at Rhodes College and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible whose work brings together biblical texts and contemporary critical and cultural theory. Her latest book, Text After Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible, is a study of sexual violence and rape in the Hebrew Bible and is out now from Oxford University Press.
This week we’re looking at the seductive Sirens from Greek mythology! What links these creatures of the shoreline to the abduction of the Spring goddess Persephone? How did they change from half-birds, half women to half-fish, half women? Find out on today’s episode!
Patron of the podcast Louis asks, what were the impacts of the introduction and subsequent spread of Christianity on the Roman military’s practices and that of its opponents? Were there any improvements in the treatment of the defeated, taking into account that most barbarians were also christians although of a different denomination? Or maybe changes in the way discipline was handled could be attributed to the new religious practices. Murray mulls this one over.
The Persian Empire had launched its first invasion against Greece in 492 BC after their involvement in the Ionian revolt. The campaign that came across the Aegean Sea would fall short of capturing Athens in 490 BC at the Bay of Marathon, seeing the invaders withdraw back into the empire. Though, Greece was not forgotten, Xerxes the new king launching the second invasion in 480 BC. The second invasion would see one of the largest forces ever assembled to march west, heading through northern lands into Greece. This invasion would see a number of land and naval battles fought over the next two years. Defeats at Salamis, Plataea and Mycale would see the second invasion stopped with the Persians failing in subjugating all of Hellas. How did the Persian army being the size it was fail to capture Greece? Had their equipment and training been up to the same standard as the Greeks? Had they underestimated the way the Greeks fought, with their lands and armies quite different to what they encountered in the east. Or had their sheer size and reliance on various nations for their numbers brought them undone? Although the Greeks had won a major victory with it defining a generation, how did this affect the Persian Empire? Victory verses defeat is not often a zero-sum game. The Greek theatre was on the extreme western fringe of the Empire and the integrity of the Persian Empire remained intact. But the defeat and the ongoing operations would have consequences as the decade’s past.
Was Alexander the Great really that *great* on his own? Or did he owe much of his success to the work of his father Philip II of Macedonia? Joining us to discuss the matter is Adrian Goldsworthy, military historian and author of the new book Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors.
Fresh Youtubery
- Sheffield Admin “Instructed” NOT to Share Critical Info & Crannog Centre Fire! – WB 18th June 2021 | Archaeosoup
- Disability, Diversity, and ancient Greece – Antiquity author interview: Debby Sneed | Antiquity Journal
- Jenny Teichmann, Πῶς λαλοῦμεν περὶ τοῦ νῦν λοιμοῦ Ἑλληνιστί; – LLaGO 2021 | Paideia Media
- ‘Narratives of Discovery’, a lecture by Dr Roberta Mazza | Egypt Exploration Society
- «Ιππείς» του Αριστοφάνη/ Σκηνοθεσία: Κωνσταντίνος Ρήγος [ΔΟΚΙΜΕΣ | BACKSTAGE | WORK IN PROGRESS] | National Theatre of Greece
- Temple Tales: Olympia and Eleusis in Myth and Reality | British School at Athens
- Giornate archeologia 2021 – Chiara Corbino | Pompeii Sites
- Giornate Archeologia 2021 – Vincenzo Amato | Pompeii Sites
Book Reviews
- [BMCR] Jeffrey Henderson, Richard F. Thomas, The Loeb Classical Library and its progeny: proceedings of the First James Loeb Biennial Conference, Munich and Murnau, 18–20 May 2017. Loeb Classical Monographs. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020.
- Dans le contexte du processus historique et des découvertes archéologiques, Bolu Seben, Abris sous roche/ Abris | Spartokos a lu
Exhibition Related Things
Dramatic Receptions
- From the Machine – KCL Greek Play 2021 Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite
- With 22 events come Aeschylia 2021 | ATHENS 9,84
Online Talks and Professional Matters
- See what’s happening today in Dr Pistone’s Online Classics Social Calendar
- SCS Calendar: Classics, Ancient History, and Classical Archaeology Webinars
Alia
- Underwater City of Heracleion, Egypt Gives Up its Treasures
- Some of the Weirdest Ancient Greek Customs
- Why Ancient Greek Philosophers are the greatest thinkers to have graced this earth – Greek City Times
- The Influence of Alexander the Great on Indian and World Cuisine
- From the Colosseum to Pompeii: How have Italy’s museums changed post-COVID? | Euronews
- ANE TODAY – 202106 – The Symbolic Representation of the Cosmos in the Hittite Rock Sanctuary of Yazılıkaya – American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)
- North Leigh Roman Villa’s secrets revealed in guide book – BBC News
‘Sorting’ Out Your Day:
- Homeromanteion | Online Homeric Oracle
- Sortes Virgilianae (English)
- Sortes Virgilianae (Latin)
- Consult the Oracle at UCL
Today on the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar:
If it thunders today, it portends destruction for the crops.
… 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)