Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

• Why Classicists Should Care about Byzantium, with Anthony Kaldellis

  Anthony Kaldellis joins me in the Lesche to discuss an in-progress edited volume about the transmission of classical texts in the East Roman Empire (aka Byzantium), and why, more generally, classicists should be better informed about the Greek Middle Ages, aka the Byzantine Millennium.Anthony is the host of a wonderful podcast called Byzantium and Friends, which was (and still is) a major inspiration for Lesche.Ancient texts mentionedPhotius, BibliothecaEustathius of Thessalonica's commentaries on the Iliad and the OdysseySome bibliographyAnthony has written a huge amount. During this episode we mention in particular:his "minigraph" Byzantium Unbound (Arc Humanities 2019)his groundbreaking article "The Byzantine Role in the Making of the Corpus of Classical Greek Historiography: A Preliminary Investigation," in the 2012 issue of the Journal of Hellenic Studies (vol. 132).Baukje van den Berg, Homer the Rhetorician: Eustathios of Thessalonike on the Composition of the Iliad. (Oxford 2022).Elizabeth Jeffreys, "We need to talk about Byzantium: or, Byzantium, its reception of the classical world as discussed in current scholarship, and should classicists pay attention?" Classical Receptions Journal 6 (2014) 158-74.Filippomaria Pontani, "Scholarship in the Byzantine Empire (529-1453)," in F. Montanari, ed., History of Ancient Greek Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Byzantine Age (Brill 2020).Listen to Anthony's "Byzantium and Friends" podcast episdoe, in which he and Pontani discuss the article, here.L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature. 4th edn. Oxford 2013.About our guestAnthony Kaldellis is a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. He has published many books and articles on the history, culture, and literature of Byzantium, ranging from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. His most recent book is a comprehensive history of the eastern Roman empire: The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford, 2023). He is also the host of the academic podcast “Byzantium & Friends.”________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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• SPECIAL: Literary Sources for the Roman House

  Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book How to Make a Home: An Ancient Guide to Style and Comfort, a curated collection of passages (by Cicero, Juvenal, Ovid, Pliny, Vitruvius, and others) that relate to the design, decor, and ideology of the ancient Roman house and home. The book is part of Princeton University Press's "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers" series.Preview the book's Table of Contents here.Read Yung In Chae's 2020 article (in the Princeton Alumni Weekly) about the "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers" series.Ancient authors (selection)Bibaculus fragments 1 and 2Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares and de OfficiisJuvenal Satires 3; 8Ovid, Metamorphoses 8 (Baucis and Philemon scene)Pliny the Younger, epistles. Marden also mentions Christopher Whitton's 2013 "Green and Yellow," Pliny the Younger: Epistles Books II (Cambridge).Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome 2.13-14Vitruvius, de Architectura (various passages)Also mentionedStudies of the Roman house by scholars including Catherine Edwards, Elaine Gazda, Hérica Valladares, and Andrew Wallace-HadrillJosiah Osgood's books in PUP's "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers" seriesAbout our guestMarden Nichols is Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor and Chair of the Classics Department at Georgetown University. She is a scholar of ancient Roman literature, art, and architecture, whose work situates Vitruvius’ De architectura within the literary, cultural, and intellectual contexts of the ancient world. She is the author of Author and Audience in Vitruvius’ “De architectura” (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and translator of How to Make a Home: An Ancient Guide to Style and Comfort, a collection of ancient Roman writings about home design and decoration that has just appeared from Princeton University Press.________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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• Homer's Bronze Age Women

  Emily Hauser joins me in the Lesche to discuss the lives of the real Bronze Age women remembered in Homeric epic, the subject of her new book Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out Of It (UK title: Mythica). We also discuss the popularity of feminist retellings of Greek myth, and why (it's good) they're not going anywhere anytime soon.This is the last regular episode of Lesche's first season. We'll be back with a second season on September 10. Ancient textsHomer, Iliad and OdysseyAlso mentionedBeard, Mary, Women & Power: A Manifesto (Norton/Liveright 2017).Cline, Eric, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton 2014/revised edn. 2021) and After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations (Princeton 2024).Emily Hauser's own Golden Apple Trilogy (Penguin Random House): For the Most Beautiful (2016); For the Winner (2017); For The Immortal (2018).Haynes, Natalie, No Friend to This House (Pan Macmillan forthcoming 2025).Hewlett, Rosie, Medea (Random House 2024).About our guestDr Emily Hauser is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter and the Times bestselling author of Mythica: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out Of It (Penelope's Bones in the US). She also wrote a trilogy of novels reworking the women of Greek myth, including For the Most Beautiful (published in 2016). She has a PhD in Classics from Yale and was Junior Fellow at Harvard before returning to the UK.________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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• Symbola (Monetiform Tokens)

  Clare Rowan and M.E. (Mairi) Gkikaki join me in the Lesche to discuss the use of monetiform tokens in Greek (and a bit of Roman) antiquity. Clare was the PI on the ERC-funded project "Token Communities of the Ancient Mediterranean." Mairi was a postdoctoral researcher on the project, and her edited volume Tokens in Classical Athens and Beyond was published (open-access) with Liverpool University Press in 2023.See here for the project's Database of Token Types.Ancient texts (selection)Aristophanes, Ekklesiazousai (Assemblywomen)Aristotle, Athenaion PoliteiaHerodotus 6.86 (story of Glaucus)IG I3 34, the "Cleinias Decree"IG II3 4 76 (mention of tribal token distribution at line 79)Philochorus (Atthidographer)Plato, Symposium (Aristophanes' speech)Also mentioned (selection)Kroll, J.H. and Mitchel, F.W. 1980, "Clay Tokens Stamped with the Names of Athenian Military Commanders," Hesperia 49, pp. 86–96. Lang, M. 1959, "Allotment by Tokens," Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 8, pp. 80–89. Lang, M. and M. Crosby. 1964, The Athenian Agora X. Weights, Measures and Tokens. ASCSA/Princeton.M.I. Rostovtzeff's work on tokensSvoronos, I.N. 1900, "Κατάλογος των Μολύβδινων Συμβόλων του Εθνικού Νομισματικού Μουσείου," Journal International d 'Archéologie Numismatique 3, pp. 322-343.See further work by Svoronos on tokens (εἰσιτήρια) in the Journal International d’Archéologie Numismatique. About our guestsClare Rowan is an Associate Professor in the department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick. She specialises in ancient numismatics, in particular ancient tokens, iconography and small change. She was the principal investigator on the European Union Research Council-funded project "Token Communities of the Ancient Mediterranean" (2016-2021).M.E. Gkikaki is an honorary research fellow at the Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Warwick, where she has been a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow (2018–21) and a team member of the ERC-funded project "Token Communities of the Ancient Mediterranean" (2016–18). She is editor of the volume Tokens in Classical Athens and Beyond (Liverpool University Press 2023). Her monograph Symbola: Athenian Tokens from Classical to Roman Times will soon be appearing with Liverpool University Press. ________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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• Classical Athenian Funerary Sculpture

  Seth Estrin joins me in the Lesche to discuss Classical Athenian funerary sculpture -- the largest single corpus of classical sculpture -- and his emotion-based readings of it. Seth is the author of Grief Made Marble: Funerary Sculpture in Classical Athens (Yale University Press 2024).A couple of images that accompany this episode are on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leschepodcast/If you're interested in hearing more about Athenian funerary practice, check out this Lesche episode on The Athenian Funeral Oration.Ancient textsAristotle (see esp. Parts of Animals 640b35-641a8 on homonymy)Athenian funerary epigrams, as in Tsagalis (see below)Athenian tragedy, including Euripides' AlcestisAlso mentionedShear, T. Leslie (2016) Trophies of Victory: Public Building in Periklean Athens. Princeton.Tsagalis, Christos (2008) Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-Century Attic Funerary Epigrams. De Gruyter. Also recommendedArrington, Nathan (2018) Ashes, Images, and Memories: The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens. Princeton.Hunter, Richard (2022) Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection (a "Green and Yellow"). Cambridge.About our guestSeth Estrin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, where he specializes in the art, archaeology, and visual culture of ancient Greece. His scholarship and teaching explore the lived experience of art objects—their sensuous properties, their entanglement with felt experiences, and their place in shaping intersubjective encounters and personal histories. His work foregrounds interconnections across subfields of Classics, including those between archaeological, literary, and epigraphical sources.________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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