Lykophron's Alexandra, Rome, and the Hellenistic World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hornblower
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Historical Document ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Greek World ◽  
Area Of Origin

This book is an original, accessibly written, contribution to Roman and Hellenistic history. Its subject is a long (1474-line) ancient Greek poem, Lykophron’s Alexandra, probably written about 190 BC. The Trojan Kassandra foretells the conflicts between Europe and Asia from the Trojan Wars to the establishment of Roman ascendancy over the Greek world in the poet’s own time, including the founding of new cities by returning Greeks through the Mediterranean zone, and of Rome by the Trojan refugee Aineias, Kassandra’s kinsman. Simon Hornblower now follows his detailed commentary (OUP 2015, paperback 2017) with a monograph asserting the Alexandra’s importance as a historical document of interest to political, cultural, and religious historians and students of myths of identity. Part One explores Lykophron’s geopolitical world, especially south Italy (perhaps the poet’s area of origin), Sicily, and Rhodes, and argues that the recent (in the 190s) hostile presence of Hannibal in south Italy is a frequent if indirectly expressed concern of the poem. Part Two investigates the poem’s relation to Sibylline and other anti-Roman writings, and argues for its cultural and religious topicality. The Conclusion shows that the 190s BC were a turning-point in Roman history, and that Lykophron was aware of this.

scholarly journals Urbanisme régulier, occupation des campagnes et rapports interethniques en Grande-Grèce

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (29) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Airton Pollini
Keyword(s):  
The South ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Native Populations ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Greek Colonization ◽  
Greek World ◽  
Written Sources

L’Italie du Sud est probablement la région la mieux connue du monde grec antique. Quelques sources écrites mais surtout des études archéologiques menées depuis longtemps ont permis le développement des recherches sur plusieurs aspects au cœur de la thématique de la colonisation grecque. Ce travail se concentre sur trois aspects essentiels : l’appropriation de l’espace colonial, l’interaction avec les populations indigènes et l’urbanisation des nouvelles installations. The South Italy is probably the best known region of the ancient Greek world. Some written sources but especially archaeological work undertaken for a long time allowed the development of research on several aspects at the heart of the issues of Greek colonization. This paper concentrates on three essential aspects: the appropriation of colonial space, the interaction with the native populations, and the urbanization of new establishments.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hornblower
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
South Italy

The Alexandra is a strongly political poem. Other candidates for the description are considered. The 190s BC are argued to be a turning-point in Roman history, especially in the sphere of colonizing policy. The poem reflects this, especially in connection with Croton (citizen colony sent out in 194). The intended audience/readership of the poem is discussed. It is suggested that the poet was a bilingual citizen of south Italy and was excited at the possibility of blending Greek and Roman myths.

The Returning Hero

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Place Attachment ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Theoretical Tool ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Material Evidence

This interdisciplinary book, which takes its origin from an international conference held in Oxford, brings together experts in ancient Greek (and Roman) history, literature, archaeology, and religion. It is about ancient Greek returns and returning, chiefly—but by no means only—of mythical Greek heroes from Troy. One main, and certainly the most ‘marked’, ancient Greek word for ‘return’ is nostos, plural nostoi, as in the English derivative ‘nostalgia’. The nostos theme runs through Greek literature (prose and poetic) and history from Homer’s Odyssey to Lykophron’s Alexandra, and nostoi were archaeologically and epigraphically commemorated. nostos-related traditions were important ingredients of colonial foundation myths, and helped to define Greek ethnicity, and to crystallize personal and communal identities: two chapters are concerned in different ways with emotions and personal identity, making use of the theoretical tool of place attachment. The special problems and vocabulary of exile are explored in the long Introduction. One chapter shows that failed nostoi can be more interesting than successful ones. Evidential absence (notably that of women) can be as important and illuminating as presence: mythical women are the main subject of another chapter, and they feature extensively in several more. The chapters in this book explore both literary and material evidence so as to achieve a better understanding of the nature of Greek settlement in the Mediterranean zone, and of Greek and Roman perceptions of home, displacement, and returning.

Social Ecology of the Ancient Greek World

1975 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-218
Author(s):  
Simon Cornelis Bakhuizen
Keyword(s):  
Social Ecology ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek World

CONSTRUCTING THE ‘URBAN PROFILE’ OF AN ANCIENT GREEK CITY: EVIDENCE FROM THE OLYNTHOS PROJECT

2020 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 329-378
Author(s):  
Lisa C. Nevett ◽  
E. Bettina Tsigarida ◽  
Zosia H. Archibald ◽  
David L. Stone ◽  
Bradley A. Ault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Legacy Data ◽  
Greek World

This article argues that a holistic approach to documenting and understanding the physical evidence for individual cities would enhance our ability to address major questions about urbanisation, urbanism, cultural identities and economic processes. At the same time we suggest that providing more comprehensive data-sets concerning Greek cities would represent an important contribution to cross-cultural studies of urban development and urbanism, which have often overlooked relevant evidence from Classical Greece. As an example of the approach we are advocating, we offer detailed discussion of data from the Archaic and Classical city of Olynthos, in the Halkidiki. Six seasons of fieldwork here by the Olynthos Project, together with legacy data from earlier projects by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and by the Greek Archaeological Service, combine to make this one of the best-documented urban centres surviving from the Greek world. We suggest that the material from the site offers the potential to build up a detailed ‘urban profile’, consisting of an overview of the early development of the community as well as an in-depth picture of the organisation of the Classical settlement. Some aspects of the urban infrastructure can also be quantified, allowing a new assessment of (for example) its demography. This article offers a sample of the kinds of data available and the sorts of questions that can be addressed in constructing such a profile, based on a brief summary of the interim results of fieldwork and data analysis carried out by the Olynthos Project, with a focus on research undertaken during the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.

scholarly journals Bodies Out of Time: Sculpting Queer Poetics and Queering Classical Sculpture in the Poetry of C. P. Cavafy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Raw Material ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
The Past ◽  
Greek World

AbstractTwo major themes dominate the poetry of the Alexandrian poet, C. P. Cavafy: homosexual desire and Greekness, broadly defined. This paper explores the interconnectivity of these motifs, showing how Cavafy’s poetic queerness is expressed through his relationship with the ancient Greek world, especially Hellenistic Alexandria. I focus on Cavafy’s incorporation of ancient sculpture into his poetry and the ways that sculpture, for Cavafy, is a vehicle for expressing forbidden desires in an acceptable way. In this, I draw on the works of Liana Giannakopoulou on statuary in modern Greek poetry and Dimitris Papanikolaou on Cavafy’s homosexuality and its presentation in the poetry. Sculpture features in around a third of Cavafy’s poems and pervades it in various ways: the inclusion of physical statues as focuses of ecphrastic description, the use of sculptural language and metaphor, and the likening of Cavafy’s beloveds to Greek marbles of the past, to name but three. This article argues that Cavafy utilizes the statuary of the ancient Greek world as raw material, from which he sculpts his modern Greek queerness, variously desiring the statuesque bodies of contemporary Alexandrian youths and constructing eroticized depictions of ancient Greek marbles. The very ontology of queerness is, for Cavafy, ‘created’ using explicitly sculptural metaphors (e.g. the repeated uses of the verb κάνω [‘to make’] in descriptions of ‘those made like me’) and he employs Hellenistic statues as a productive link between his desires and so-called ‘Greek desire’, placing himself within a continuum of queer, Greek men.

Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Rousselle ◽  
David M. Halperin ◽  
John J. Winkler ◽  
Froma I. Zeitlin
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek World

Private Associations in the Ancient Greek World

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Private Associations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Greek World

Private associations abounded in the ancient Greek world and beyond, and this volume provides the first large-scale study of the strategies of governance which they employed. Emphasis is placed on the values fostered by the regulations of associations, the complexities of the private-public divide (and that divide's impact on polis institutions) and the dynamics of regional and global networks and group identity. The attested links between rules and religious sanctions also illuminate the relationship between legal history and religion. Moreover, possible links between ancient associations and the early Christian churches will prove particularly valuable for scholars of the New Testament. The book concludes by using the regulations of associations to explore a novel and revealing aspect of the interaction between the Mediterranean world, India and China.

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