A Resource for the Study of the Corinthia, Greece
This fourth installment in a series of bibliographic reports for 2015 focuses on post-antique bibliography. Download the report as PDF here:
The first three 2015 Bibliographic Reports:
A Companion to Latin Greece, recently published by Brill, offers 11 essays that provide “an introduction to the study of Latin Greece and a sampler of the directions in which the field of research is moving.” Edited by Nickiphoros Tsougarakis and Peter Lock, the work surveys society, culture, and economy in Greece from the 12th to 14th century (with occasional forays beyonds). As the abstract / book description notes:
“The conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the armies of the Fourth Crusade resulted in the foundation of several Latin political entities in the lands of Greece. The Companion to Latin Greece offers thematic overviews of the history of the mixed societies that emerged as a result of the conquest. With dedicated chapters on the art, literature, architecture, numismatics, economy, social and religious organisation and the crusading involvement of these Latin states, the volume offers an introduction to the study of Latin Greece and a sampler of the directions in which the field of research is moving.”
Sharon Gerstel’s review of the work in Medieval Review does note the lack of substantial discussion and exploration of archaeological evidence from either excavations or surveys, but concludes positively that
What this volume makes clear is the central importance of Latin Greece to the study of the Mediterranean and, indeed, to the study of late medieval and Early Modern Europe. The region’s enduring ties to both the West and Byzantium, its role in agricultural production and the exportation of vital commodities, its mixed population, and its multiple religious confessions, place Latin Greece at the center of current discourses about identity, networks, and globalism. Providing an impressive range of materials, this volume challenges the reader to think critically about local and regional transformations at a time of political uncertainty.
For further information:
This is the third in a series of bibliographic posts related to Corinthian scholarship published or digitized in 2013-2014:
This list contains new scholarship broadly related to the Corinthia in the following periods:
Download the PDF by right clicking on this link:
If you see references missing from the list, please send to corinthianmatters@gmail.com
We will complete the series next week with New Testament and Religion.
With the end of last semester, holidays, and deadlines, I fell a bit behind on the Corinthian Scholarship Monthly posts. Yesterday I started to dig out, sift through emails, and find the gems in the bunch. This will be the first of two posts on new scholarship that went live in December to February. I’ll try to get the second part of CSM Dec-Feb by the middle of the month.
And kudos to the google bots for doing such a good job. While we’ve been sleeping, playing, teaching, and resting, those bots have been working non-stop to bring all sorts of little nuggets to our network. As always, I’ve included a broader range of articles and essays that mention the Corinthia without focusing on the region — on the assumption that you will be as interested as I am in a broader Mediterranean context. There are also a few entries from past years that the bots have just brought to my attention.
You can find the full collection of articles and books related to Corinthian studies at the Corinthian Studies Zotero Page. The new entries are tagged according to basic categories. Version 2 of the library in RIS format is scheduled to be released by summer.
Finally, I am always looking for reviewers of articles or books listed in the CSM posts. If you can write and are qualified, drop me a line.
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Ambraseys, N. N. “Ottoman Archives and the Assessment of the Seismicity of Greece 1456–1833.” Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering 12, no. 1 (February 1, 2014): 5–43. doi:10.1007/s10518-013-9541-5.
Angeli Bernardini, Paola, ed. Corinto: luogo di azione e luogo di racconto : atti del convengo internazionale, Urbino, 23-25 settembre 2009. Pisa [etc.]: F. Serra, 2013.
Baika, Kalliopi. “The Topography of Shipshed Complexes and Naval Dockyards.” In Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by David Blackman and Boris Rankov, 185–209. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Balzat, Jean-Sébastien, and Benjamin W. Millis. “M. Antonius Aristocrates: Provincial Involvement with Roman Power in the Late 1st Century B.C.” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 82, no. 4 (December 2013): 651–672. doi:10.2972/hesperia.82.4.0651.
Blackman, David, and Boris Rankov. Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Borbonus, Dorian. Columbarium Tombs and Collective Identity in Augustan Rome. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Boyle, A. J., ed. Seneca: Medea: Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Collins, John J., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Docter, Roald, and Babette Bechtold. “Two Forgotten Amphorae from the Hamburg Excavations at Carthage (Cyprus, and the Iberian Peninsula) and Their Contexts.” Carthage Studies 5 (2011) (2013): 91–128.
Forbes, Hamish A. “Off-Site Scatters and the Manuring Hypothesis in Greek Survey Archaeology: An Ethnographic Approach.” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 82, no. 4 (December 2013): 551–594. doi:10.2972/hesperia.82.4.0551.
Frangoulidis, Stavros. “Reception of Strangers in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: The Examples of Hypata and Cenchreae.” In A Companion to the Ancient Novel, edited by Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne, 275–287. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Hall, Jonathan M. Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Hawthorn, Geoffrey. Thucydides on Politics: Back to the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Heil, Andreas, and Gregor Damschen, eds. Brill’s Companion to Seneca: Philosopher and Dramatist. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Hollander, William den. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
James, Paula. “Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: A Hybrid Text?” In A Companion to the Ancient Novel, edited by Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne, 317–329. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Jeffreys, Elizabeth. “We Need to Talk about Byzantium: Or, Byzantium, Its Reception of the Classical World as Discussed in Current Scholarship, and Should Classicists Pay Attention?” Classical Receptions Journal 6, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 158–174. doi:10.1093/crj/clt032.
Kamen, Deborah. “Sale for the Purpose of Freedom: Slave-Prostitutes and Manumission in Ancient Greece.” The Classical Journal 109, no. 3 (March 2014): 281–307. doi:10.5184/classicalj.109.3.0281.
Kampbell, Sarah Marie. “The Economy of Conflict: How East Mediterranean Trade Adapted to Changing Rules, Allegiances and Demographics in the 10th – 12th Centuries AD.” PhD Thesis, Princeton University, 2014.
Klapaki. “The Journey to Greece in the American and the Greek Modernist Literary Imagination: Henry Miller and George Seferis.” In Travel, Discovery, Transformation: Culture and Civilization, Volume 6, edited by Gabriel R. Ricci, 59–78. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014.
Kolluoğlu, Biray, and Meltem Toksöz, eds. Cities of the Mediterranean: From the Ottomans to the Present Day. I.B.Tauris, 2010.
Korner, Ralph J. “Before ‘Church’: Political, Ethno-Religious, and Theological Implications of the Collective Designation of Pauline Christ Followers as Ekklēsiai.” PhD Thesis, McMaster University, 2014.
Kreitzer, L.J. “Hadrian as Nero Redivivus: Some Supporting Evidence from Corinth.” In Judaea and Rome in Coins 65 BCE-135 CE: Papers Presented at the International Conference Hosted by Spink, 13th-14th September 2010, edited by David M Jacobson and Nikos Kokkinos, 229–242. London: Spink, 2012.
Legarreta-Castillo, Felipe De Jesus. The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15: The New Creation and Its Ethical and Social Reconfigurations. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014.
Matz, Brian J. “Early Christian Philanthropy as a ‘Marketplace’ and the Moral Responsibility of Market Participants.” In Distant Markets, Distant Harms: Economic Complicity and Christian Ethics, edited by Daniel Finn, 115–145? New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Mitski, Efterpi. “Commodifying Antiquity in Mary Nisbet’s Journey to the Ottoman Empire.” In Travel, Discovery, Transformation: Culture and Civilization, Volume 6, edited by Gabriel R. Ricci, 45–58. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014.
Morhange, Christophe, Amos Salamon, Guénaelle Bony, Clément Flaux, Ehud Galili, Jean-Philippe Goiran, and Dov Zviely. “Geoarchaeology of Tsunamis and the Revival of Neo-Catastrophism in the Eastern Mediterranean.” Rome “La Sapienza” Studies on the Archaeology of Palestine & Transjordan 11 (2014): 61–81.
Ong, H. T. “Paul’s Personal Relation with Earliest Christianity: A Critical Survey.” Currents in Biblical Research 12, no. 2 (February 7, 2014): 146–172. doi:10.1177/1476993X12467114.
Pachis, Panayotis. “Data from Dead Minds? Dream and Healing in the Isis / Sarapis Cult During the Graeco-Roman Age.” Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1, no. 1 (January 23, 2014): 52–71.
Pallis, Georgios. “Inscriptions on Middle Byzantine Marble Templon Screens.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 106, no. 2 (January 2013): 761–810. doi:10.1515/bz-2013-0026.
Polinskaya, Irene. A Local History of Greek Polytheism: Gods, People and the Land of Aigina, 800-400 BCE. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Priestley, Jessica. Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture: Literary Studies in the Reception of the Histories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Punt, Jeremy. “Framing Human Dignity through Domination and Submission? Negotiating Borders and Loyalties (of Power) in the New Testament.” Scriptura 112 (2013): 1–17. doi:10.7833/112-0-82.
Rankov, Boris. “Slipping and Launching.” In Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by David Blackman and Boris Rankov, 102–123. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Reed, David Alan. “Paul on Marriage and Singleness: Reading 1 Corinthians with the Augustan Marriage Laws.” PhD Thesis. University of St. Michael’s College, 2013.
Saliari, Konstantina, and Erich Draganits. “Early Bronze Age Bone Tubes from the Aegean: Archaeological Context, Use and Distribution.” Archeometriai Műhely [Archaeometry Workshop] (2013): 179–192.
Shpuza, Ermanl. “Allometry in the Syntax of Street Networks: Evolution of Adriatic and Ionian Coastal Cities 1800–2010.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design (2014). doi:doi:10.1068/b39109.
Siek, Thomas James. “A Study in Paleo-Oncology: On the Identification of Neoplastic Disease in Archaeological Bone.” Master of Arts Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2014.
Thein, Alexander. “Reflecting on Sulla’s Clemency.” Historia 63, no. 2 (April 1, 2014): 166–186.
Toffolo, Michael B., Alexander Fantalkin, Irene S. Lemos, Rainer C. S. Felsch, Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, Guy D. R. Sanders, Israel Finkelstein, and Elisabetta Boaretto. “Towards an Absolute Chronology for the Aegean Iron Age: New Radiocarbon Dates from Lefkandi, Kalapodi and Corinth.” PLoS ONE 8, no. 12 (December 26, 2013): e83117. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083117.
Waterfield, Robin. Taken at the Flood: The Roman Conquest of Greece. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Williams, Drake, and H. H. “‘Imitate Me’: Interpreting Imitation In 1 Corinthians in Relation to Ignatius of Antioch.” Perichoresis 11, no. 1 (June 1, 2013): 77–95.
Wright, Christopher. The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Medieval episodes of portaging the Corinthian Isthmus are unsurprisingly scant. The only account cited with any frequency is the remarkable portage of Niketas Ooryphas’ in AD 872. The portage is disputed, but the historical records for the account are certain.
Two other supposed medieval portages turn out to be dead ends. In an article titled “Railways in the Greek and Roman World,” M.J.T. Lewis notes (p. 12) that the 12th century Moroccan geographer Al Idrisi refers to the transfer of small ships over the Corinthian Isthmus (see p. p. 123 of this volume). Indeed, he does, but the account is a derivative summary of Strabo 8.2.1, not first-hand observation. In a similar way, Apostolos Papaphotiou, who notes the Al Idrisi account in his book on the diolkos, also records a text about a man who traveled by boat from Venice to Corinth and from there to Armiro (which Papaphotiou places in Thessaly), where he takes another boat to Constantinople. Papaphotiou reads this as evidence for transfer of ships over the isthmus, but the text doesn’t actually say that, and we should not and cannot rule out a circumnavigation.
So, no unambiguous accounts for the Medieval or Ottoman era. That is, until I stumbled upon one as I was was reading some early travel accounts to the Corinthia. On page 240-241 of his Travels in Greece (1776), Richard Chandler gives us an interesting reference to ship portaging:
“The root of mount Oneius extending along the lsthmus rendered the Corinthian territory which was not rich in soil browy and uneven with hollows. On the side of the Corinthian gulf the beach receded toward that of Schoenus which was opposite. There the neck was most narrow, the interval between the two seas being only forty stadia or five miles; and there was the Diolcos or drawing-place, at which it was usual to convey light vessels across on machines. The same practice prevailed in the wars of the Turks and Venetians.”
Which of the wars were opportunities for ship portaging is unclear from the passage, but Chandler clearly believed for some reason that it occurred. I have not yet found an earlier source that refers to this, although it perhaps is still out there waiting to be discovered. That Chandler mentions it so casually in passing reminds me a bit of how scholars have frequently read Strabo’s casual reference to ship portaging—but here, Chandler clearly places portaging in some murky time frame. Nakas and Koutsoumba have noted better-documented accounts of Venetian portages in their forthcoming piece on the diolkos, so there’s no reason at least to dismiss Chandler’s account out of hand. Of course, it may be that Chandler was thinking about these other accounts as he visited the Isthmus.
When I floated the question about this portage to the Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology FB group, Diana Wright remarkably dug up a letter referring to the dragging of cannon between Corinth and Kenchreai in May 1480! So far as I know, that is the only account preserving the dragging of anything between Corinth and its eastern harbor.
So, I’ll add these to the list, and update the diolkos page, and scratch my head about Chandler’s reference, until someone clarifies it all for me or I stumble by accident on another forgotten document.
The latest round-up of digital scholarship and references over the last month. These references are now available with abstracts and tags at the Corinthian Studies Online (Zotero) Library.
Diachronic
Bronze Age
Archaic-Hellenistic
Roman
Late Antique / Early Medieval
New Testament
Medieval-Modern
The second installment of Corinth-related scholarship that went digital in June-August. Happy reading!
Geology
Archaic-Hellenistic
Roman-Late Antique
New Testament and Early Christianity
Medieval and Post-Medieval
Corinthian Matters 