At Christmas, Christians celebrate that Jesus was born on December 25 as the son of God andthe Virgin Mary. But this event is not unique. In this article, I show that the birth of Jesus hasseveral non-Christian predecessors, whereby various elements of the ritual dynamics have beenChristianized and implemented into the figure we know today as Jesus Christ.

Elodie Paillard, ‘Greek Theatre in Roman Italy: From Elite to Autocratic Performances’, in E. Csapo, H.R. Goette, J. R. Green, B. Le Guen, E. Paillard, J. Stoop, P. Wilson, Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, De Gruyter, 2022

Elodie Paillard, ‘Greek Theatre in Roman Italy: From Elite to Autocratic Performances’, in E. Csapo, H.R. Goette, J. R. Green, B. Le Guen, E. Paillard, J. Stoop, P. Wilson, Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, De Gruyter, 2022

This book explores the staging of non-élite characters in the seven extant tragedies of Sophocles and how they related to contemporary middling citizens. The structure of fifth-century Athenian society underwent deep changes between the early and late plays of Sophocles. The appearance and growing political importance of a middling…[Read more]

This book explores the staging of non-élite characters in the seven extant tragedies of Sophocles and how they related to contemporary middling citizens. The structure of fifth-century Athenian society underwent deep changes between the early and late plays of Sophocles. The appearance and growing political importance of a middling…[Read more]

This article is a report of a roundtable discussion organised by the authors at the UK Classical Association conference, Cambridge, April 2023, under the aegis of #WCCWiki, the Women’s Classical Committee’s Wikipedia-editing project. It presents a summary of the participants’ wide-ranging uses of Wikipedia editing at schools, universities, and…[Read more]

This is the final post of a series of 12 blog posts discussing 10 open problems in computational diversity linguistics.

This is the eleventh of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the typology of semantic promiscuity.

This is the tenth of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the typology of sound change.

This is the ninth of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the typology of semantic change.

This is the eighth of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the problem of statistical proof of language relatedness.

This is the seventh of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the problem of simulating sound change.

This is the sixth of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the problem of simulating lexical change.

This is the fifth of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the problem of automatic phonological reconstruction.

This is the fourth of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the problem of automatic sound law induction.

This is the third of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It discusses the problem of automatic borrowing detection.

This is the second of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It presents the problem of automatic morpheme segmentation.

This is the first of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It presents a list of 10 problems on computational diversity linguistics.

This is the first of a series of 12 blog posts published in 2019, discussing open problems in computational diversity linguistics. It presents a list of 10 problems on computational diversity linguistics.

More detailed discussions on Thomas Biggs: Sown Men and Rome’s Civil Wars. Rethinking the End of Melinno’s Hymn to Rome (Mnemosyne 76.3) and Gerlinde Bretzigheimer: Intertextualität und Intratextualität in Ausonius’ Epitaphia heroum (Wiener Studien 135).