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Book Club | January 2022: Pausanias Description of Greece, Book I

Our Book Club selection for January is Pausanias Description of Greece, Book 1. In this work we possess a plain, unvarnished account by an eye-witness of the state of Greece in the second century of our era. … Pausanias, a contemporary of Hadrian … wrote his description of Greece. He came in time, but just in time. … Again and again he notices shrunken or ruined cities, deserted villages, roofless… Read more

The Punic Wars Part II | From A (Alps) to Z (Zama)

The second great conflict between Rome and Carthage is the most well-known because of the famous Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca. While this war, like the first Punic War, ended in victory for Rome, it is Hannibal and his elephants, crossing the Alps into Italy, which has captured people’s imaginations. After the end of the first Punic War, and after defeating the rebellious (and unpaid) mercenaries in Carthage, Hamilcar, father of… Read more

Open House | Immigration and Belonging: Phoenician Immigrants in 4th-Century BCE Athens, with Denise Demetriou

We were pleased to welcome Denise Demetriou, University of California – San Diego, for an Open House discussion entitled “Immigration and Belonging: Phoenician Immigrants in Fourth-Century BCE Athens,” on Friday, October 9, at 11 a.m. EDT, which was recorded In preparation for this event, you might like to read this PDF handout of readings: Immigration and Belonging Handout You can watch the video on our YouTube channel, or in the… Read more

Open House | Experimental Archaeology of Ancient Greek Warfare

We were excited to welcome Natasha Bershadsky, Paul M. Bardunias, Christian Cameron, and Giannis Kadoglou for an Open House entitled “Experimental Archaeology of Ancient Greek Warfare.” The event took place on Friday, July 17 at 11:00 a.m. EDT and was recorded. To get ready for the event you might like to read the following (links are to the texts on Perseus Digital Library): Xenophon, Hellenica 4.3 Xenophon Agesilaus 2 Xenophon… Read more

Dreams | Part 2: Dreams in later Greek texts

In part 1, we looked at dreams as represented in Homeric epic. In part 2, we continue our exploration with some passages from other texts. Starting with tragedy, we learn from Jean Alaux Lectures Tragiques d’Homère that “According to Jacques Jouanna, there are two types of dreams: the vision-dream which offers the sleeper a symbol to decipher … and the visitation–dream where a god or a messenger or a ghost… Read more