Connectivity – Corinthian Matters

One of the research projects I will not be working on all summer is my long-labored book, The Isthmus of Corinth: Crossroads of the Mediterranean World. I put the final touches on the manuscript during my fieldseason in Cyprus (with the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project) just in time for the deadline with University of Michigan Press. I’m happy to report that the manuscript is now out of my hands at last and will enter the production queue with a scheduled publication of Spring 2016. That’s all good news of course since this project required a full sabbatical to complete along with the better part of my summers for the last three years. I’ve updated the project page to reflect the final state of the manuscript. There may be small changes in the next few months, but nothing major.

Here is my description of the work from the project page:

The Isthmus of Corinth: Crossroads of the Mediterranean World is a study of the relationship of local, regional, and global interactions in the Roman Mediterranean. Its starting point is the ancient and modern view that the land bridge was a constantly connecting and essential landscape throughout Corinth’s history that altered its economy and character in consistent ways. From the destruction of the Greek city by the Romans to the end of antiquity, historians, poets, orators, and preachers characterized Corinth as an exceptional kind of maritime city made prosperous and powerful from its crossroads, facilities for traffic, commercial markets, pilgrim sites, naval fleet, and decadent pleasures. The ancient consensus that a timeless landscape determined the history, wealth, and character of the city, was adopted almost wholesale by European travelers and the first classical and biblical scholars of the 18^th-19^th centuries.

The book argues against the timeless view of the Corinthian Isthmus and shows instead how the landscape changed frequently in its connection to a wider Mediterranean world. The chapters of the work survey the extant Greek and Latin literature for the Isthmus and synthesize archaeological evidence, especially the data from the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey. The chapters begin with the sixth century BCE and step in chronological increments to the fifth century CE.

The table of contents with brief summary:

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Preface

1. Introduction

Outlines the problem of the essential or timeless view of the Corinthian Isthmus. Makes the argument for contingency.

2. The Isthmos

Surveys the conceptions and definitions of the isthmus in the Classical and Hellenistic era and offers a new interpretation of the famous passage in Thucydides about how the Isthmus made Corinth wealthy and powerful

3. The Gate

Surveys the physical landscape of fortifications and settlements that the Romans encountered in the late third century BCE. Outlines the physical developments of the regional structures from the archaic to Hellenistic periods, with special attention to the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey data.

4. The Fetter

Surveys the central place of the Isthmus in the interpretation the Roman destruction of Greek Corinth and the great catastrophe of the loss of Greek freedom.

5. The Portage

Analyzes the changing historical significance of ship portages over the Corinthian Isthmus in antiquity. The center of the chapter is the remarkable portage of the orator Marcus Antonius, grandfather of the famous triumvir, in 102/101 BCE. The chapter contextualizes Marcus Antonius in light of the frameworks of Roman aristocratic values and imperialism during the interim period.

6. The Bridge

Studies the important place of the Isthmus for the first century of the Roman colony’s history. Offers a new interpretation of Strabo’s influential interpretation of the landscape.

7. The Center

A study of the meaning of canalization in antiquity, and especially the Emperor Nero’s failed canal effort. Situates Nero’s enterprise within the particular imperial frameworks of the 50s-60s CE. Also discusses the long-term effects of the canal enterprise on the landscape during the later first to early third centuries CE, including settlement documented in the Eastern Korinthia Survey.

8. The District

A study of the fragmentation of the essentializing conception of the Corinthian Isthmus in the later third to early fifth centuries, including the later Roman transformation of the panhellenic sanctuary at Isthmia.

9. Conclusion

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I’ll be posting more on this project in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

This new article by Rinse Willet in the journal HEROM looks like a useful overview of different statistical approaches to modeling the distribution of common pottery types in the Roman Mediterranean. The article focuses on the late Hellenistic to early Roman table ware Eastern Sigillata A:

Willet, Rinse. “Experiments with Diachronic Data Distribution Methods Applied to Eastern Sigillata a in the Eastern Mediterranean.” HEROM 3, no. 1 (November 19, 2014): 39–69. doi:10.11116/HEROM.3.3.

This paper addresses and discusses three statistical methods to describe the diachronic development and distribution of the Roman ceramic tableware Eastern Sigillata A (ESA). These methods distribute the data over time based on the typo-chronological properties of the vessels. A linear distribution method was already devised in the late 1980’s and applied in Roman pottery studies. Although other methods were suggested, the linear method was applied uncritically in various studies and therefore this paper will assess alternative methodologies of diachronic data distribution, namely a Gaussian and gamma distribution method. These new methods have the benefit of modelling growth and decline in the circulation of each individual type of vessel, and are applied to ESA in this paper. For this, the data of most published ESA from the eastern Mediterranean are used and a comparative case-study for the ESA excavated at Athens, Antioch and Berenice is presented. The (dis)advantages of the methods are discussed and their usefulness as analytical tools for both artefactual and historical analysis is addressed by providing a brief historical overview of these three sites and introducing the diachronic distributions of ESA into their respective histories. Furthermore the applicability on ceramic and other branches of material culture studies of these methods is addressed.

Category: Connectivity

The Isthmus of Corinth Project (Coming Spring 2016)

Rinse Willet on the Distribution of Eastern Sigillata A