Focusing on the moment of the hero’s death, Sophocles’ Ajax offers a brief, concentrated portrait of a variable, contested figure with diverse identities in epic and cult. Competing… Read More
In this paper, I share the results of recent efforts to reconstruct administrative and economic aspects of the kingdom of the Syracusan monarch Hieron II (r. 269–215 BCE). First, I examine an essential instrument of… Read More
Mention of ancient Roman gardens conjures images of lavish suburban estates outfitted with sprawling gardens containing specimen plantings from around the world, aviaries and fishponds, pergolas for outdoor dining,… Read More
In book 23, lines 213–224 of the Odyssey, Penelope explains her slowness to acknowledge Odysseus’s identity with her dread of being deceived like Helen, who, as she asserts, would not have slept with a… Read More
New work on the lives of Roman non-elites is changing the way we understand everything from Roman economies to social relationships. This talk presents new work from the Roman Peasant Project, an interdisciplinary… Read More
The concept of cosmic sympathy, highly developed by the Stoics, is at once deeply foreign to us in its claims regarding a mind fully immanent in the world and intriguing, as we struggle anew with imagining… Read More
How many worlds per cosmic cycle did Empedocles postulate? The answer to this question derives from a revised notion of Empedocles’ symmetry, which renders the standard hypothesis of two worlds per cycle… Read More
The ancient Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC), best known as the author of the Aeneid, holds a unique position in the Western tradition: because his fourth Eclogue was thought to prophesy… Read More
Over the last two decades, classical reception has become a wide-ranging and voracious discipline. Yet scholarly consensus is hard to find on many fundamental questions regarding what reception… Read More
Who divided the Roman day, and in the process divided Roman history? Ancient literature and material culture offer multiple possible perspectives on what it means to ask such a question, as well as multiple… Read More
