lectures

Mary E.V. McClanahan 2025 Essay Prize

Brian Gordon — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 21:46:03 +0000

Mary E.V. McClanahan 2025 Essay Prize Brian Gordon Tue, 01/07/2025 - 14:46

Sine Spoliis: The Commemoration of the Third Macedonian War through the Porticus Octavia
presented by Julius Arnold

Friday, January 17th, 2025 at 4:30 P.M.
Eaton Humanities 250

Abstract: The lost Porticus Octavia, constructed after the Third Macedonian War, remains an enigmatic monument of the Middle Roman Republic. Built to commemorate Gnaeus Octavius’ capturing of the last Macedonian king Perseus, the building has received scant attention in surviving ancient literature and modern scholarship. In this talk, I argue that the monument likely served as a display space for spoils of war taken by Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who had defeated Perseus in battle. I shed light on how Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gnaeus Octavius collaborated to control the public memory of their military successes, situating the Porticus Octavia within the broader context of the commemoration of victories over Hellenistic kingdoms and the display of war spoils in the city of Rome.

Download the event poster

Ancient map of Rome showing the Porticus Octaviae, confused with the Porticus Octavia by some ancient authors. The Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae: fr. 3 lu.

Congratulations to Julius Arnold! Winner of the 2025 Mary E.V. McClanahan Essay Prize

Off

Traditional

“The Triumph of Aemilius Paulus” (1789) by Carle Vernet. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

White

AIA Lecture: Feasts Fit for Pharaohs: Food and Drink in Ancient Egypt

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 16:59:20 +0000

AIA Lecture: Feasts Fit for Pharaohs: Food and Drink in Ancient Egypt Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/30/2024 - 10:59

Download the poster

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 at 7PM - CU Visual Arts Complex, Room 1B20

Off

Traditional

White

Lecture: Divine Witnessing and Dramatic Performance in Ancient Greece

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 19:24:28 +0000

Lecture: Divine Witnessing and Dramatic Performance in Ancient Greece Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/14/2024 - 13:24

Divine Witnessing and Dramatic Performance in Ancient Greece

Thursday, November 7th@ 5:00PM
Eaton Humanities 250
Download the poster

ABSTRACT

Theaters are ubiquitous pieces of monumental architecture in the ancient Greek landscape. They dominate landscapes, take advantage of sweeping vistas, and leave a tangible impression of ancient performance venues through their easily apprehended forms. Despite their ancient (and modern) popularity, however, they have frequently been left out of critical accounts concerning the articulation of sacred space. When they do appear in such studies, it is generally a cursory treatment or simple acknowledgement that some sort of performance took place in or adjacent to a sanctuary. On the other hand, accounts of ancient festivals involving dramatic performance, such as the Great Dionysia, or studies of Mediterranean-wide theoria networks, often leave the physical venue of performance in the background, as a static entity in which the dynamic ritual occurred. In both cases, the theater itself becomes a mere backdrop or footnote, unchanging, achronological, and uncomplicated.

It is perhaps the relatively simple architectural form of the theater, with its tripartite division of theatron (or cavea), orchestra, and skene, that belies its ritual and performative complexity. But within this straightforward schematic is a more dynamic space than generally acknowledged. Through an investigation of viewsheds and movement patterns, this paper demonstrates how theaters functioned as active participants in the ritual-architectural events that dominated the religious life of ancient Greece, thereby shaping the nature of dramatic performance and generating the expectation of divine witnessing on the part of the audience. Viewed in this light, theaters become complex and critical spaces of ritual, reflection, and transformation, for both their actor and spectator participants. Ultimately, such an approach, by centering theatral space within religious performance and knitting together threads of architectural and textual analysis, facilitates a more nuanced and deeply contextualized account of dramatic performance in ancient Greece.

Jess Paga, PhD | Associate Professor | William & Mary

Professor Paga specializes in Greek archaeology and history, particularly of the Archaic and Classical periods. Her research is primarily focused on Greek architecture, political history, and epigraphy. Professor Paga is also an active field archaeologist, and has excavated at various sites in Greece, including the Athenian Agora, Cyprus, Corinth, Argilos, and Samothrace, as well as Italy, at Segesta, Sicily.

Thursday, November 7, 2024 at 5PM - Eaton Humanities 250

Off

Traditional

White

AIA Lecture: Experiencing Epiphany in the Ancient Greek Sanctuary

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 19:12:15 +0000

AIA Lecture: Experiencing Epiphany in the Ancient Greek Sanctuary Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/07/2024 - 13:12

Experiencing Epiphany in the Ancient Greek Sanctuary

Wednesday, November 6, 2024 @ 7PM
Eaton Humanities 250 & Zoom
Download the poster

ABSTRACT

Sensory studies of embodiment have gained traction in recent years as unparalleled tools for examining the vicissitudes of ancient lived experience. When used in conjunction with cognitive studies, it becomes possible to tease out the links between (over)stimulation, deprivation, and religious transformation. Kinesthetics, in particular, can facilitate a nuanced embodied account of approach, (in)accessibility, and viewshed orchestration, by prioritizing the role of the body in movement within the landscapes and edifices of the built environment. The intersection of space, place, and body within the religious setting of the sanctuary thus becomes a nexus of gradually unfolding experience, understanding, and transformation.

Through a series of three case studies drawn from the 5th-3rd c. BCE, this paper focuses on how divine epiphany, made manifest through the multisensory experiences within the Greek sanctuary, served as the key to the transformative effect of ritual, a crucial component to understanding ancient religion. Eleusis, the site of the renowned Mysteries, serves as an example of how the combination of sensory overstimulation and deprivation can prime the body of the worshipper to receive the divine knowledge at the root of the ritual. Delphi, the oracular heart of Greece, showcases how physical exertion in service to the gods constituted its own form of worship and prepared both worshippers and priestly attendants to communicate with the god. And Samothrace, home of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, ties together the strains of sensory stimulation and physical expenditure of energy into a synesthetic encapsulation of ritual transformation within a charged sacred landscape.

Ultimately, this paper reveals the role of multisensory experience in the religious transformation that lies at the heart of Greek ritual practice by foregrounding kinesthetics as the link between the human participant and sacred built environment.

Jess Paga, PhD | Associate Professor | William & Mary

Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 7PM - Eaton Humanities 250

Off

Traditional

White

AIA Lecture: Caesar’s Cervisia

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:10:59 +0000

AIA Lecture: Caesar’s Cervisia Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/07/2024 - 10:10

Caesar’s Cervisia

Wednesday, October 16, 2024 @ 7PM
Eaton Humanities #150 & Zoom
Download the poster

ABSTRACT

Examinations of Roman cuisine often downplay the role of beer in the ancient Roman diet seeing it as a symbol of barbarity. This presentation examines the plausibility of beer as a standard component of the Roman soldier’s diet and seeks to highlight when it may have become necessary for military advancement. Julius Caesar’s reliance on auxiliary forces to campaign in the North from 58-51 BCE ensured that cultures known for producing beer influenced legionary forces reliant on local resources to survive. This lecture also asserts the implausibility of wine consumption amongst Caesar’s men and concludes that the acceptance of beer as a standard component of the Roman soldier’s diet begins with Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul and Britain.

Travis Rupp

is a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor in Classics, Art History, History, Anthropology, and Mechanical Engineering at the ��«��Ƶ, where he has taught for 13 years. Since 2010 he has taught Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman. His scholarly expertise focus on ancient food and alcohol production, ancient sport and spectacle, and Pompeii and the cities of Vesuvius. He worked at Avery Brewing Company for nine years as the Wood Cellar and Research and Development Manager. Rupp holds the title of Beer Archaeologist and founded Avery’s Ales of Antiquity Series, which ran from 2016-2020. He serves on the National Advisory board for the Chicago Brewseum and owns The Beer Archaeologist - a company dedicated to research and experimental archaeology of historic beer. As a result of his career and passions, Rupp is researching and writing about the beginnings of beer in the Roman military, brewing in the early monastic tradition, and beer production in Revolutionary America. His first book will be about the changing definition of beer throughout history. Recently Rupp’s travels and research abroad have focused on monastic brewing in Italy from 400-900 CE, brewing in Roman Britain during the 2nd century CE, beer production at Mt. Vernon and Monticello, and the survival of the Belgian brewing tradition during WWI.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024 at 7PM - Eaton Humanities 150

Off

Traditional

White

2024 Fountain Symposium

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 20:09:46 +0000

2024 Fountain Symposium Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/06/2024 - 14:09

Ninth Annual Celia M. Fountain Symposium

Greek Myths from Egyptian Sands: Discovering the New Euripides

Saturday, September 14, 2024
11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. MDT (GMT/UTC-6)
Cofrin Auditorium (Atlas 100, CU ��«��Ƶ) and via live-stream

A link to the video recording of the Symposium is available here

A complete program is available here: Fountain Symposium - 2024 Program

In November of 2022, a team of archaeologists led by Basem Gehad of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities recovered several papyri from a simple grave in the cemetery of Philadelphia in the Fayoum. The best preserved includes nearly 100 lines from two otherwise lost plays by the Athenian playwright Euripides - the most significant discovery of new tragedy in nearly 60 years. CƯ's Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, the team's papyrological expert, invited her colleague John Gibert, a specialist in Greek drama, to join her and Dr. Gehad in preparing the first edition of the text: here, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years readers will encounter gripping scenes from two plays based on little-known but intriguing incidents from the mythical careers of Dionysus' aunt Ino/Leucothea, the Cretan king Minos, and the seer Polyidus. The Ninth Annual Celia M. Fountain Symposium will introduce the discovery and explore its contexts in archaeology, literature, mythology, and vase painting.

The papyrus was officially published on August 27, 2024, in the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (vol. 230, pp. 1–40). It will take a while for it to reach libraries, but you may view the table of contents here.
Rob Cioffi discusses the papyrus in the London Review of Books here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound
Colorado Public Radio’s Anthony Cotton (“Colorado Matters”) discusses the papyrus and the upcoming Symposium with Yvona and John here: https://www.cpr.org/show-segment/digging-into-the-greek-life-cu-scholars-interpret-rare-euripidian-find/
Brown University Professor Johanna Hanink discuses the papyrus with John and Yvona on her podcast Λέσχη here: https://leschepodcast.buzzsprout.com/
In June, 2024, Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies hosted a two-day conference devoted to further exploration of the newly discovered text by specialists. The proceedings will eventually be published in an online, open-access book, but in the meantime, there is information about the conference here and here, including a repertory of conjectures and several pre-prints (or choose Preprints from the Publications pull-down menu on the main page).
This discovery was recently featured in CU's Arts & Sciences Magazine: Uncovered Euripides fragments are ‘kind of a big deal’
On September 4, 2024, the Times Literary Supplement (London) published “Greek tragedies from an Egyptian tomb: Discovering a new Euripides papyrus,” by Bill Allan.

The Fountain Symposium is sponsored by the generous support of Celia M. Fountain, the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, and the Classics Department.
It is free and open to the public

classics@colorado.edu | www.colorado.edu/classics | 303-492-6257

Ninth Annual Celia M. Fountain Symposium: "Greek Myths from Egyptian Sands: Discovering the New Euripides"

Off

Traditional

White

Re-considering the Roman “Arts and Sciences” (artes): Scope, Premises, Problems

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 20:28:38 +0000

Re-considering the Roman “Arts and Sciences” (artes): Scope, Premises, Problems Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/01/2024 - 14:28

James L. Zainaldin
Vanderbilt University

Tuesday, September 24th, 5:00PM | Eaton Humanities 250

Download the poster

Today, the great treatises called artes that survive from the Roman period on such disciplines as architecture, agriculture, land-surveying, medicine, and the art of war are seldom read and, when read at all, are generally handled in isolation from one another by specialists. In this talk, Prof. James Zainaldin (Vanderbilt) will introduce the artes of the early Roman Empire, the preeminent age of the flourishing of such literature, and argue that in spite of the modern situation they can only be fully appreciated if considered together as the several parts of an ancient Roman ideal of polymathy. When approached in this way, the artes are seen to participate in a common intellectual and literary culture that is in fact a specifically scientific culture. The purpose of this talk will be to characterize the significance of this uniquely Roman scientific culture, the recognition of which adds news chapters to Greco-Roman intellectual history, the history of Latin literature, and the history of science and technology in the pre-modern world, and to describe some of the dynamics informing its emergence and development. The artes are, ultimately, much more than manuals for practice or narrow specialist introductions to their topics. They are sophisticated works of literature, intended for a broad Roman audience, that reflect the Roman understanding of the natural and human worlds.

This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Department of Classics and the CU Center for Humanities & the Arts

The CU Classics department and Center for Humanities & the Arts present a talk with Professor James L. Zainaldin from Vanderbilt University: Re-considering the Roman “Arts and Sciences” (artes): Scope, Premises, Problems

Off

Traditional

White

Searching for the Goddess of Countless Names

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:55:28 +0000

Searching for the Goddess of Countless Names Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/26/2024 - 10:55

Searching for the Goddess of Countless Names: Isis, Gender, and Ethnic Identity in Vergil and Ovid

Lily Panoussi
Thursday, April 18, 2024
5pm - Eaton Humanities (HUMN) 250

ABSTRACT

This presentation will focus on the depiction of the goddess Isis in Vergil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses. The two authors seem to exploit her gender and ethnic identity to strengthen oppositions between male and female, Roman and foreign, victor and victim, establishing a Roman hegemonic narra-tive. However, the texts' embracing of Isis' Greek counterpart Io as champion of the defeated tells a different story about the clarity of these distinctions in Augustan Rome.

This event is sponsored by the Department of Classics, the Center for Humanities and the Arts, and The Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization

Off

Traditional

White

Labor Unions and the "Fall" of Rome

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 19:58:31 +0000

Labor Unions and the "Fall" of Rome Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/07/2024 - 12:58

Labor Unions and the "Fall" of Rome

Sarah E. Bond
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
5pm - Eaton Humanities (HUMN) 250

ABSTRACT

Arresting a charioteer in the late Roman world was a perilous act. A large portion of the Roman populace felt great affinity for members of one of the four factiones (“factions”) that dominated the chariot racing scenes in dozens of Roman cities with a hippodromes across the Roman Mediterranean. The arrest of a charioteer put the success of these factions at risk. It could also put hundreds of people out of work. Late Roman athletic unions and factions often consisted of up to 200 people, many with overseers, animal trainers, doctors, veterinarians, masseurs, stable hands, and a network of other individuals who worked collectively with the charioteers to put on races in the circus about every 5-6 days in cities like Rome and Constantinople. This talk looks at the internal structure of the late Roman athletic unions, entertainment groups (e.g. actors, musicians, bear trainers), and charioteer factions that underpinned the bustling economy of the Roman hippodrome. Although many people think of labor unions as a modern development, the roots of the medieval guilds and modern labor unions lay in antiquity. And charioteers were often the union figurehead, guiding both their faction and their fans to political ends. Re-viewing Late Antiquity through the lens of labor organization, strikes, work contracts, and—when deemed necessary—coordinated violence, leads us to a different narrative of the “fall” of Rome, this time from below.

Sarah E. Bond is an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the History Department at the University of Iowa. She is interested in late Roman history, epigraphy, late antique law, Roman topography and GIS, Digital Humanities, and the socio-legal experience of ancient marginal peoples.

She earned a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2011) and obtained a BA in Classics and History with a minor in Classical Archaeology from the University of Virginia (2005). Her book, Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professionals in the Roman Mediterranean, was published with the University of Michigan Press in 2016.

Generously Supported by: CU Center for Humanities & the Arts and The Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization

Off

Traditional

White

AIA Lecture - Power of the Ancestors at Pylos, Greece

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 19:24:38 +0000

AIA Lecture - Power of the Ancestors at Pylos, Greece Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/01/2024 - 12:24

Power of the Ancestors at Pylos, Greece

Wednesday, February 21st at 7:15pm
Eaton Humanities #250
Free and open to the public

Abstract

Tholos tomb near Palace at Pylos

Over the past few decades, archaeologists have assigned ancestors significant roles in the supernatural orders of most ancient societies. They argue that ancestors, through their connection to the divine or supernatural, wielded a power that could transform society and grant exclusive rights over limited resources to those who could argue either for a familial connection to the ancestor or have access to the dead. These arguments are primarily derived from ethnographic research carried out on communal, formal burial areas that were used for long periods of time. Several scholars have argued that Mycenaean elites (16^th-12^th c. BCE) in Greece drew power from their ancestors and were reliant on that source of power for their continued success.

Based on a detailed examination of the dates of the tombs’ use, the wealth of the artifacts in them, and location of the tombs at Pylos, I argue that the metaphysical components and significance of the mortuary arena and ancestors at Pylos fluctuated and instead of having a constant static function the manipulation of the ancestors cycled in relation to the changing political economy at the palace.

The varied lengths of time during which individual tombs were in use, the different locations of the tombs at different periods in relation to the palace, the changing quantities and values of the objects deposited in the tombs during the burials, and the chronologically limited evidence for any non-funerary rituals at the tombs all indicate diachronic changes in the importance of ancestors among the elite groups at Pylos.

Dr. Joanne Murphy (Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Joanne Murphy is Associate Professor with the Department of Classical Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She holds her degrees from the University of Cincinnati (Ph.D.), and University College Dublin, and her fields of study are Greek archaeology, archaeological methods and theory, the archaeology of religion, and the archaeology of mortuary systems. She is Director of the Kea Archaeological Research Survey, and Co-director of the restudy of the Pylian tombs. Publications include Ritual in Archaic States (edited volume, University Press of Florida, 2016), and Death and Palaces: A Detailed Study of Pylian Tombs (in preparation).

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

C.W. Blegen, M. Rawson, W. Taylour, and W. P. Donovan, The Palace of Nestor 3. Acropolis and Lower Town. Tholoi and Grave Circle. Chamber Tombs. Discoveries Outside the Citadel (1973).

J. Murphy, J. Davis, S. Stocker, and L. Schepartz, “Late Bronze Age Tombs at the Palace of Nestor, Pylos” in J. MURPHY (ed.), Variations on a Theme: Late Bronze Age Mortuary Practices in Greece (2021), pp. 26-44

Off

Traditional

White