Hodie est Non. Jul. 2775 AUC ~ 9 Hekatombion in the second year of the 700th Olympia
In the News
- 1,600-Year-Old Mosaic Depicting Biblical Heroines Found in Ancient Synagogue in Israel | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com
- Earliest Inscription From Yerushalayim’s Ihr Dovid Deciphered | Matzav.com
In Case You Missed It
- Head of Hercules and other treasures found on Roman ‘Antikythera Mechanism’ shipwreck | Live Science
Classicists and Classics in the News
Greek/Latin News
Fresh Bloggery
- Roman Climate | Archaeology of the Mediterranean World
- WTF Do I Know about other Things? – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- AWOL – The Ancient World Online: Networked spaces: The spatiality of networks in the Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean
- AWOL – The Ancient World Online: Last Week in Pleiades (27 June – 4 July 2022)
- The Secrets That You Keep – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- Opinions and Minor Detail – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- The History Blog » Blog Archive » 4th c. purple and gold fabric revealed
- Atheense democratie – Mainzer Beobachter
- Laudator Temporis Acti: Native Soil
- PaleoJudaica.com: Rothschild, The Muratorian Fragment (Mohr Siebeck)
- PaleoJudaica.com: Red heifer detergent?
- Spencer Alley: Francesco Albani (1578-1660) – Sketches and Studies
Other Blog-like Publications
- 2000-year-old human remains and animal sacrifices found in Dorset
- Magnificent 1700-year-old mosaic returns home to Lod, Israel
Assorted Twitter Threads
- @DocCrom on Ovid Ex Ponto 1.1.67-76
- @DocCrom on some coins of Lysimachus depicting Alexander the Great
Fresh Podcasts
Homer’s Odyssey depicts an afterlife that is relatively dull, with heroic actions and glory reserved for the living. Nonetheless, people in Southern Italy in the fourth century BCE were captivated by the underworld and decorated large funerary vases with scenes of the afterlife—the domain of Hades and Persephone, where sinners like Sisyphus are tortured for eternity and heroes like Herakles and Orpheus performed daring feats. Little is known about precisely how these vases were used and seen in death rituals. A new book by Getty Publications, Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife in Ancient South Italian Vase Painting, brings together 40 such vases and explores new research on them. In this episode, Getty Museum curator of antiquities David Saunders discusses these enormous and often elaborate vases, explaining the myths they depict and what is known about the ways in which they were used. Saunders is editor of Underworld.
This week Dave and Jeff take a break from Vergil (well, kinda) and fast forward a few centuries to Augustine of Hippo. Now, here’s a guy that a lot of our audience should be able to relate to—openly hated learning grammar as a kid, beat his head against the wall trying to master Greek, pushed back against things his teachers forced him to do. But as an older man looking back through his life in his Confessions Augie feels guilt for loving the Aeneid so much and not appreciating, say, the foundational aspects of the dative of reference, as well as not weeping for his own flagrant dalliances. But were those tears for Dido really wasted? Can good art channel our emotions in a healthy direction or does it always take us off the path toward God? And why can’t Jeff just keep it together at the end of Pixar’s Cars? Tune in to find out.
In this first episode of a two-parter on the Samnite Wars, we focus in on one of Rome’s greatest rivals in early Italy. Based in modern day Campania, who were the Samnites? With three wars between the Roman Republic and the Samnite armies, beginning in 343 BC and the ending with a Roman victory in 290 BC, what happened in those explosive 53 years? In part one, Tristan is joined by Dr Kathryn Lomas from Durham University to find out more about these conflicts and the effect they had on the rise of Rome as an ancient superpower.
This week, we’re taking a bit of a detour into a previous, much-loved topic: Marc Antony, Cleopatra, and How it All Went Wrong. In this episode, we return to the beach at Actium with author, historian, and academic Barry Strauss as our tour guide. His new book, The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium, discusses the infamous sea battle Marc Antony and Cleopatra fought against Octavian and Agrippa for love, for supremacy, for their very survival. Join us as we deconstruct this battle, paint a vivid picture of ancient war at sea, and tackle the one question everyone’s asking: why did Cleopatra flee the battlefield?
Nobody asked for this! Bad Film Expert and friend of the show Dr Melissa L Gustin came back, and we watched the third Dan Brown film, Inferno. This time there’s maybe going to be a plague caused by a eugenicist tech bro, kind of inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy? And Robert Langdon the “Symbologist” has to stop it? It’s not good. We also got mad about the geography of Florence, museum security, and the many, many wasted opportunities in this film. Nature is very much not healing.
In the fifth episode of our podcast series on the end of Roman Britain, David Musgrove talks to Dr James Gerrard about how society changed as Britain slipped out of Roman control in the fifth century. They also discuss what the latest research can tell us about how people might have reimagined their identities in the face of a changing world.
Fresh Youtubery
- 16. Lucius Verus – Luxurious Invention – YouTube | Classical Association Northern Ireland
- Diana Smith, “A Classical Education for the Modern World”, Paideia Institute Public Lectures 2022 – YouTube | Paideia Media
- Aspettando il Premio Strega 2022 al Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia – YouTube | Etruschannel
Book Reviews
- AJA – Pottery from Tell Khaiber: A Craft Tradition of the First Sealand Dynasty, by Daniel Calderbank
- AJA – Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece, by Tyler Jo Smith Katie Rask
- AJA – Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art, by Kristen Seaman Stephanie Langin-Hooper
Online Talks and Conference-Related Things
- University of Florida: Call for Papers for our 6th Annual Graduate Student Symposium | Society for Classical Studies
- See what’s happening today in Dr Pistone’s Online Classics Social Calendar
- SCS Calendar: Classics, Ancient History, and Classical Archaeology Webinars
Jobs, Postdocs, and other Professional Matters
Alia
- Fauvel: The Frenchman Who Vied with Elgin for the Parthenon Marbles
- Argos, a visit to the oldest city in mainland Europe – Neos Kosmos
Diversions
‘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 rains which will be harmful to grain.
… 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)
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