Corinthian Matters

A Resource for the Study of the Corinthia, Greece

Category: Late Antiquity

2013-2014 Publications in Corinthian Studies: New Testament, Christianity, and Judaism

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This is the fourth and final post in a series of bibliographic releases of new Corinthian scholarship published or digitized in 2013-2014. See this post last last Monday for further information about the sources of this bibliography and instructions for accessing the Zotero database. For earlier releases, see these posts:

Today’s list presents scholarship published or digitized in 2013 and 2014 related in some way to the subjects of Christianity, Judaism, and early Christianity. This includes some scholarship on the Hellenistic and early Roman “backgrounds” of Christianity and Judaism but most of this material focus directly on questions of religion.

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I have divided these reports by year to keep them manageable. Download the PDFs by right clicking on these link:

I generated these reports through Zotero tags and searches, and there are undoubtedly missing entries as well as false positives. For best results, visit the Zotero library or download the RIS file into your bibliographic program.

If you see references missing from the list, please send to corinthianmatters@gmail.com

2013-2014 Publications in Corinthian Studies: Roman Period

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This is the second in a series of bibliographic posts related to Corinthian scholarship published, uploaded, or digitized in 2013-2014.

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Today’s report contains new scholarship broadly related to the Corinthia in the Roman and Late Antique periods, but not articles and books related to the New Testament (which we will post separately next week).

Download the PDF by right clicking on this link:

Corinthiaka at the AIA Meeting: New Orleans, January 2015

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One of the small benefits of not attending the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America next month is that I will not have to spend Christmas break frantically working on a paper that I was unable to complete during a busy semester. On the other hand, New Orleans in January should be fantastic, with pleasant weather that contrasts with the nightmare AIA in the Snow of Chicago 2014.

The conference website notes 150 archaeology sessions and 800 speakers—which doesn’t include papers of the parallel meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (formerly APA). As in years past, I’ll post the smattering of paper titles on Corinthiaka subjects, but first, I couldn’t resist another word cloud image of the AIA 2015 after playing around with SBL titles last month. This Wordle image is based on all the AIA paper titles stripped (or mostly stripped) of presenter titles, affiliations, institutions, and meaningless keywords. 

AIAWordle

The hit subjects this year are Mediterranean, the Roman period, and the State (I should probably have stripped Ancient and Age which are too generic to be useful). Conference attendees will hear much about – gasp – the traditional places of classical archaeology: Italy, Greece, Crete, Athens, Rome, and the Etruscans (Cyprus, Sicily, Turkey, Spain, and Israel remain secondary). The Roman period is most frequent, but Bronze Age and Classical topics follow close behind (note the smaller Hellenistic period – remarkable given its vast geographic scope – and the tiny Byzantine period that must appear in only a handful of papers). I am glad to see that the “public” makes a modest show and that “evidence” and “analysis” are so important, but the tiny “digital” is surprising given its prominence in the humanities disciplines.

The Corinthiaka papers from the Program include:

  • “Tombs, Burials, and Commemoration in Corinth’s Northern Cemetery”
    (Kathleen Warner Slane, University of Missouri)
  • “Isotopic Investigation of Late Antique Human Population Movement in
    Cemeteries from Corinth, Greece” (Larkin Kennedy, Texas A&M University)
  • “Reliefs from Early Roman Corinth” (Mary C. Sturgeon, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
  • “Corinth’s Economic Basis in the Eastern Adriatic during the Fifth – Second
    Century B.C.E.” (Jeffrey Royal, RPM Nautical Foundation/East Carolina University)
  • “The Ancient Corinth-South Stoa Roof Project: Previous Restoration and Conservation Treatments-New Approaches” (David Scahill, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and Nicol Anastassatou, Corinth Excavations)
  • “Tegulae Mammatae in the Roman Baths at Isthmia” (Jon M. Frey, Michigan State University, and Timothy E. Gregory, Ohio State University)
  • “A Sixth Century Church in Corinth” (Paul D. Scotton, California State University, Long Beach)

See also:

The Final Pagan Generation

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Over the Thanksgiving break last week, I found a few minutes to harvest a few of the thousands of unread Google alert emails about Corinthiaka. No promises that I’ll make my back through all or most of this vast collection of emails, but I have begun to update the Corinthian Studies Zotero Library as I’ve discovered relevant works (you can filter by CSM_2014_November or “CSM_2014_December, or sort the Library by “Date Added”). I’ll push out a few of these in the next couple of weeks as I recover from the semester.

One little gem turned up in my box yesterday. This new forthcoming book by Edward Watts on fourth century pagans and Christians looks like a great read. Not sure why the keyword Corinth triggered the book, but it may have had something to do with the well-known case of Aristophanes, the Corinthian elite in the imperial service who was accused of astrology, defended by Libanius, and eventually pardoned by the emperor Julian. That case is common to fourth century discussions of Paganism and Corinth, and is most fully discussed in Richard Rothaus’ Corinth: First City of Greece.

The book looks interesting and should contribute significantly to our knowledge of the fourth century, an period of transformation for the Corinthia as for other regions of the Roman world.

Here are the details:

Watts, Edward J. The Final Pagan Generation. Univ of California Press, 2015.

Front Cover“The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the “final pagan generation”—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.”

A couple of pre-reviews from the publisher page:

“Edward Watts has produced a scintillating portrait of the transformative fourth century of the Roman Empire. He employs the creative device of looking at the history of an era through the eyes of its own generation—like our Woodstock generation or Gen X—to show how its men and women witnessed, experienced, and engaged with the big and little events of their day. The results are variously quotidian and startling, ordinary and surprising, but never banal or entirely as expected. Understanding the oceanic changes in belief and behavior of the ‘last pagan generation’ in real time helps readers see that world from the perspective of the persons who lived it and not, as we often do, as if in some cosmic rear-view mirror. A real page turner!”—Brent D. Shaw, Andrew Fleming West Professor in Classics at Princeton University

“Edward Watts is a leading authority on the intellectual history of the later Roman Empire. Deeply nuanced and profoundly humane, this book shows what it meant to live through the Roman Empire’s initial transition to Christianity. In clear and eloquent prose, Watts introduces us to a wide range of persons who responded to the Emperor Constantine’s conversion in widely different ways, from hostility or distaste to excitement and profound life changes. Watts provides a fresh and exciting vision of one the great generations of Mediterranean history, whose choices shaped the legacy of antiquity and the future of Christianity. This is a book that should be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the rich variety of religious experience.”—David Potter, Francis W. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman History at the University of Michigan

The American School of Classical Studies: Recent Archaeological Work

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Let’s face it. Excavation is pretty boring. Hours of tedium, careful digging, and extensive notetaking with occasional glorious bursts of finds and findings (and often: nothing or very little at all). I admit that I still like the process of excavation and get enthusiastic about the prospects of discoveries that change the way we think about the local past – even when we are finding nothing.

Watching the videocast of the open meeting of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens at Athens is like watching a series of ‘highlights’ clips of a sporting event, say, basketball in March Madness (or, perhaps more accurately, like an average basketball game during regular season since the March Madness games tend to keep the attention). In these open meetings, the director offers a lecture of archaeological research in the past year both directly sponsored by the school (Corinth and Athens) and fieldwork conducted by the school’s affiliated institutions.

This year’s clip from Director James Wright gives an overview of the work of the school in 2014 and is followed by Merle Langdon’s lecture on “Rupestral Inscriptions in the Greek World”.

The bit on Corinth runs from 5:24 to 8:48 and surveys the programs of preservation and education, including plans for restoration of the Peirene Fountain and South Stoa (with discussion of the famous agonothetes / Isthmian games mosaic), excavations south of the South Stoa (which came down upon 11th century AD fills, a late antique house, and some earlier Roman levels), conservation of the Frankish city just outside of the museum, and educational programs with area schools.

Beyond Corinth, the lecture surveys recent fieldwork in the Athenian agora (near the Stoa Poikile), the Molyvoti Peninsula (in Thrace), Samothrace, Halai, Mitrou, among many others. My video crashed about the 27 minute mark yesterday so I’m not sure what lies beyond.

Call for Papers: Byzantine Maritime Technology and Trade

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I was happy to see that the Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America is (co-)sponsoring another session for next year’s annual meeting in New Orleans. Here are the details for submission.

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Proposed Colloquium Session for the 2015 AIA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Jan. 8-11, 2015 Sponsored by: AIA Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology Interest Group and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University

Organizers: Rebecca Ingram and Michael Jones, Institute of Nautical Archaeology

Session Overview:

Maritime activity played a vital role in the political and economic success of the Byzantine Empire. Recent fieldwork, both on land and underwater, offers a tantalizing glimpse into the complexity of the Byzantine maritime world. The 58,000 m2 rescue excavation of the Theodosian Harbor in the heart of Istanbul, begun in 2004, is perhaps the most significant of these new discoveries, yielding the remains of 37 Byzantine shipwrecks and tens of thousands of artifacts related to maritime trade, shipbuilding technology, and daily life in Constantinople from the late 4th to the early 11th century. However, because the Yenikapı finds are from the hub of a vast maritime network, they cannot be understood in isolation. Along with the finds from Yenikapı, results from recent studies involving shipwrecks, surveys and excavations of harbor sites, and studies of long-distance trade goods are poised to make a significant contribution to our understanding of Byzantine trade, society, and culture. In order to examine this new data within the proper overall context of late antique and Byzantine archaeology, this colloquium session, co-sponsored by the AIA Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology Interest Group and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, will present new discoveries from a range of sites concerning maritime activity in this period. This session aims to bring together archaeologists who focus on topics such as ship construction, harbors, metrology, coastal settlement, and maritime trade goods in the Byzantine world. By seeking greater integration between research from terrestrial and nautical archaeological sites, this session will provide an appropriate venue for the dissemination of recent finds and will shed new light on our understanding of the Byzantine Empire and its neighbors.

If you are interested in participating in this colloquium session, please complete the attached form and return it to Rebecca Ingram (rsingram@charter.net) or Michael Jones (rsingram@charter.net) by Friday, March 21, 2014. You will receive an email by the end of March with additional information.

Corinthian Scholarship Monthly (December-February). Part 1

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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.

Published Proceedings of Corinth Conference held in Urbino, Italy, 2009

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Big conferences seem to be the new thing in Corinthian studies. Gather a gaggle of scholars to hash out the complexity of ancient Corinth. In the last fifteen years, the recent flurry of conferences on the Corinthia have slowly been making their way to publication.

In December, someone kindly posted in the comments field of an unrelated post about a new book in Italian on the city of Corinth that publishes the proceedings of another conference held in 2009. Here’s the reference from Worldcat: 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.

I haven’t yet seen it, but the book apparently runs 300 pages with images, and includes essays on the history and archaeology of the city from the Bronze Age to the late antiquity. The focus, though, appears to be the archaic and classical city as revealed in studies of ancient literature. Essays include topics such as Eumelus, Pindar, lyric poetry, tyranny and Cypselus, the Argonaut myths, Thucydides and Herodotus, Aelius Aristides, Nonnus of Panopolis, and the Corinth canal. An abstract, bibliography, and purchase information are available here. I’ve copied the abstract below:

Abstract: “Polis di lunga storia, annoverata già da Omero nel Catalogo delle navi e ricordata nell’Iliade (13, 663-665), la città in epoca postomerica ebbe anche un cantore epico, Eumelo, quale che sia la sua identificazione, autore di un poema dal titoloKorinthiaka. Celebrata da Simonide e da Pindaro e più volte menzionata da Bacchilide, le sue vicende erano ben conosciute anche da Simonide. Nel complesso, nei versi dei poeti e nell’eco della loro poesia nel corso dei secoli troviamo lo specchio della rilevanza di questa città nell’arcaismo. Tucidide parla della sua ricchezza e prosperità, legate soprattutto alla singolare posizione geografica e all’ardire dei suoi commercianti. Tanti, dunque, i problemi di ordine mitico, storico, politico, religioso, letterario che la riguardano. Una città che poteva vantare due porti e che aveva l’opportunità di affacciarsi su due mari, vie di accesso verso l’Oriente e verso l’Occidente, veniva considerata singolare e fortunata, almeno dal punto di vista geografico. Nel corso del volume e nei vari contributi si incontrano, di Corinto, molte definizioni, legate all’approvigionamento idrico, all’abilità nautica e commerciale dei suoi abitanti, alla manualità tecnicoartistica, alla perizia degli armatori, alle qualità militari. E soprattutto al patrimonio religioso e mitico. Vengono inoltre illustrati gli aspetti politici e sociali delle vicende più significative cui la polis andò incontro fin dai primi secoli della sua storia; vicende che hanno lasciato un segno nella tradizione poetica e nella documentazione storiografica. Sotto tutti questi profili l’antica città di Corinto, grazie ai contributi qui stampati, può dire di più di quanto non sia stato rilevato fino ad ora.”

 

Sections and Chapters:

Introduction: Paola Angeli Bernardini, Premessa.

Myth:

  • Gabriella Pironti (Università di Napoli Federico II), L’Afrodite di Corinto e il ‘mito’ della prostituzione sacra
  • Marco Dorati (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), Il sogno di Bellerofonte: incubazione e modelli ontologici

Epic-Lyric Tradition:

  • Alberto Bernabé (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Bacchide, Dioniso e un frammento dell’Europia di Eumelo
  • Alessandra Amatori (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), Corinto, Corcira e il mito argonautico nei Naupaktia
  • Paola Angeli Bernardini (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), Le definizioni di Corinto e dell’Istmo nell’epica e nella lirica arcaica: semantica e retorica
  • Liana Lomiento (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), Lode della città in Pindaro, Olimpica 13 per Senofonte corinzio
  • Andrea Debiasi (Università di Padova), Riflessi di epos corinzio (Eumelo) nelle Dionisiache di Nonno di Panopoli.

Theater:

  • Suzanne Saïd (Columbia University, New York), Corinthe dans la tragédie grecque
  • Oretta Olivieri (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), Alcmeone, un eroe itinerante a Corinto: i frammenti dell’omonima tragedia di Euripide

Post-Classical Literature:

  • Luigi Bravi (Università G. D’Annunzio di Chieti-Pescara), Poeti, scrittori e artisti in area corinzia dopo la guerra del Peloponneso
  • Elisabetta Berardi (Università di Milano), Elio Aristide e il discorso Istmico a Posidone (Or. 46).

History:

  • Domenico Musti (Università Sapienza di Roma), Corinto città cruciale
  • Carmine Catenacci (Università G. D’Annunzio di Chieti-Pescara), Delfi e Corinto arcaica. Gli oracoli pitici sulla colonizzazione di Siracusa e sulla tirannide dei Cipselidi
  • Pietro Vannicelli (Università Sapienza di Roma), Aristeo figlio di Adimanto tra Erodoto e Tucidide
  • Maurizio Giangiulio (Università di Trento), Per una nuova immagine di Cipselo. Aspetti della tradizione storica sulla tirannide di Corinto
  • Eleonora Cavallini (Università di Bologna), Peripezie di unadynaton: il canale di Corinto nelle fonti antiche.

Archaeology and Iconography:

  • Adele Zarlenga (Roma), Culti e siti di area corinzia in alcune recenti ricerche
  • Cornelia Isler-Kerényi (Erlenbach), La madre di Pegaso
  • Sara Brunori (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), Eracle e l’Idra di Lerna nell’iconografia corinzia. Indice dei nomi. Indice dei passi discussi.

Contact me if you are interested in reviewing this work.

Excavations at Corinth 2013: Annual Report

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The annual report of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens has recently been released. Plenty of Corinthiaka inside, including a report on the 2013 field season at Corinth, and wider work in the region. Here is a snippet:

“Excavations at Corinth during 2012–13 continued under the direction of Guy D.R. Sanders, with Ioulia Tzonou­ Herbst serving as Assistant Director and James Herbst as Architect.

Excavations again concentrated im­mediately south of the South Stoa, where early ­sixth­ century a.d. levels of distur­bance may be a consequence of the earth­quake of ca. 525 a.d. In another area, a small votive deposit of the fourth century b.c. included an Early Archaic iron object embellished with gold and silver. A third area provided valuable evidence of
eleventh­ century a.d. occupation.

In June, work on the conservation and consolidation of the Frankish Area south of the Corinth Museum continued with completion of the work on Unit 1, con­sisting of 14 architectural spaces covering an area of 825 m2. Conservation of the tile floors will be done at a later stage. Work also began on Unit 2, the monastic complex…”

Read the rest here (see pp. 8-10).

The Isthmus of Corinth Project

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No end in sight for winter here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but a new semester is under way, and with that, you should see a little more activity here at Corinthian Matters.

Over the last six weeks, I’ve been busy bringing to completion a book on Corinth’s eastern landscape titled — at least for the moment — The Isthmus of Corinth: Crossroads of the Mediterranean World. As the book has been a long time in the making, it felt a bit strange when I completed the conclusions last Monday early in the morning, and sent the work back to the publisher for review. 

Generally, the work is a diachronic study of the changes in the conception and material structure of Corinth’s Isthmus from about the sixth century BC to fourth century AD. My temporal focus is the landscape in the broad Roman era, but the Roman landscape is wrapped up in the classical-Hellenistic period. In order to highlight what has changed, I have devoted space to the background. The study also makes extensive use of the data of the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey, and attempts to understand the distributional patterns in terms of the broader history of the territory known from texts and archaeological investigations. My goal has been to highlight the contingencies in the development, conception, and value of the landscape and its connectivity over a thousand year period.

Once I hear the fate of the manuscript, I will talk a bit more about the individual chapters. For now, here’s an annotated outline of the book as it has shaped up:

1. Introduction  = an intro to modern scholarship about the Isthmus as an “essential” and “timeless” landscape that constantly shaped the region’s history.  The book aims to replace the timeless view of the Isthmus as a connective landscape with an historically contingent view.

2. The Isthmos = the meaning of the concept isthmos in the classical to Hellenistic periods and its associations with connectivity.

3. The Concourse = the material development of the connective structures (settlements, harbors, roads, emporium) of the eastern landscape from the archaic to Hellenistic period, considering especially the picture from the Eastern Korinthia Survey data.

4. The Fetter and the Gate = how the connective Isthmus factored into the Roman destruction of Corinth in 146 BC and the historical interpretation of destruction and its aftermath

5. The Portage = explores the particular significance of the transfers of ships of war over the Isthmus during the interim period, in 102-101 BC (Marcus Antonius), and early colony, in 30 BC (Octavian)

6. The Bridge = picks up where Ch. 2 left off by outlining shifts in the meaning of the concept “isthmus” in the late Hellenistic -early Roman era, and explores the ways that the territory functioned (and did not function) as a bridge of the sea

7. The Territory = surveys the redevelopment of the eastern territory and its connective structure from the time of colonization to the early third century AD, considering data from the Eastern Korinthia Survey

8. The Canal = explores the particular contingencies that led the Emperor Nero to attempt to cut a canal through the Isthmus in 67 AD and its consequences on the landscape’s connectivity

9. The Crossroads = considers shifts in connectivity and settlement at the site of Isthmia between the second and fourth centuries

10. Conclusions