This dissertation explores the use of ‘ancestral constitution’ arguments in Athenian political theory of the fourth century BCE. It shows how the ‘patrios politeia’ is invoked by authors such as Isocrates and Xenophon as a means of expressing opposition to current democratic practice, and also how the use of such arguments is explored, parodied…[Read more]

This paper investigates the application of the legal stigma of infamia (disrepute) in Late Antiquity. The legal status is used as a lens through which to view the changing systemic, religious, and social landscapes between the reigns of Diocletian and Justinian, indicating the various uses and, ultimately, abuses of the status, as well as the…[Read more]

This chapter provides a series of case studies that explore different ways Archaic and Classical Greeks conceptualized human diversity (modern race and/or ethnicity) in relation to environment, in particular, the land. It explores three inter-related approaches the Greeks took towards understanding this relationship: myths of metals, autochthony,…[Read more]

Explores the connections between imperialism, language about the courts, and geographic references within Aeschylus Eumenides, the third play of the Oresteia trilogy.

A re-assessment of what we know about women known as hetairai in Classical Greece within the context of the elite women from the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE.

Arguably, the most famous myth told about Persephone is her abduction and marriage to Hades. The story clearly articulates the strong connection between marriage and death, and this episode became significant in both literature and religious practice in the wider classical Greek world. Reference to the story of Persephone’s abduction came to be u…[Read more]