These slides accompany my talk ‘The Fragility of Democracy’, presented at the Faculty of Classics, Oxford Open Day, 27th June 2018, and also at other venues and events.

An essay on the Greeks in Egypt during the Archaic and Classical periods.

The resemblance between the Gospel story about Jesus stilling a storm in the Sea of Galilee (Mt. 8:18, 23-27, Mk. 4:35-41, Lk. 8:22-25) and the Jonah story (Jon. 1:1-16) has been long acknowledged by scholars. This article contends that since the relations between the two stories are those of polar opposition, it should be possible, by way of…[Read more]

This paper assesses the evidence for the collapse or otherwise of the northern frontier of Britannia, including Hadrian’s Wall, relative to received paradigms of ‘the end’ of Roman Britain.

This paper examines structural changes to stone-built granaries at fort sites along Hadrian’s Wall, with particular attention given to the latest phases of alterations that indicate a demolition or changed use of granary buildings.

The aim of this contribution is to review some of the major areas of current research on the Arabic Bible, along with the factors and trends contributing to them. Also we present some of the tools that are currently under development in the Biblia Arabica team, Munich.

We provide here a very condensed survey of the transmission of traditions,…[Read more]

Review of Jenny Strauss Clay, Irad Malkin, Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos (ed.), Panhellenes at Methone: graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone.
Trends in classics – supplementary volumes, 44 .

During most of Antiquity, the Greek-speaking kingdoms in Cyprus used syllabic writing systems for the Cypriot dialect. Paphos, which was one of the most powerful kingdoms in the island, used a special variant of the Cypriot syllabary. Although the circumstances seemed to favour the adoption of the Greek alphabet as a writing system, the Paphians…[Read more]

During the older excavation of Messene by Anastasios Orlandos a quite original smaller than life-size marble statue of a Roman emperor wearing a short tunic and holding in his left hand the orb had been located and dated to the 4th c. AD. Further exploration of the area by Petros Themelis in the 1990s unearthed a magnificent Roman urban domus of…[Read more]

Both in terms of its content and its methodology, Pious Irreverence is a pioneering work. Weiss artfully employs all the tools of textual analysis developed over the last four decades of rabbinic scholarship and brings them to bear on TY, a largely neglected corpus. Tanhuma-Yelammedenu has never been studied as a work of theology, nor from a…[Read more]

This paper has two parts. First, I examine Basil of Caesarea’s theological anthropology and show how he understands the human being as a body-soul unity. The body is the good instrument of the soul. It is marvelous because it has been molded by God’s own hands. In the second part, I examine what I call Basil’s theological physiology, which flows…[Read more]

This paper has two parts. First, I examine Basil of Caesarea’s theological anthropology and show how he understands the human being as a body-soul unity. The body is the good instrument of the soul. It is marvelous because it has been molded by God’s own hands. In the second part, I examine what I call Basil’s theological physiology, which flows…[Read more]

Basil of Caesarea, in his polemic against astrology (Homiliae in hexaemeron 6,5−7), makes direct, creative uses of Origen’s anti-astrological treatise (Philocalia 23). My argument is based on an identical context, namely the interpretation of Gen 1:14b, and five close similarities in content, some verbatim, between Basil’s sermon and Orige…[Read more]

Basil of Caesarea, in his polemic against astrology (Homiliae in hexaemeron 6,5−7), makes direct, creative uses of Origen’s anti-astrological treatise (Philocalia 23). My argument is based on an identical context, namely the interpretation of Gen 1:14b, and five close similarities in content, some verbatim, between Basil’s sermon and Orige…[Read more]

Aristotle’s account of kingship in Politics 3 responds to the rich discourse on kingship that permeates Greek political thought (notably in the works of Herodotus, Xenophon and Isocrates), in which the king is the paradigm of virtue, and also the instantiator and guarantor of order, linking the political microcosm to the macrocosm of the u…[Read more]

This course explores the art, archaeology, and culture of the Greek world from the prehistory to the Roman period. The course focuses on architecture, sculpture, painted pottery, and wall painting as its main object classes and situates artistic and stylistic developments within their social, political, and historical context. We will consider…[Read more]

This first-year seminar provides an introduction to the archaeology and urban development of the city of Rome from antiquity through to the present day. Students will survey the period from the foundation of the city through to the twenty-first century with an eye toward understanding the urbanism and material culture of the city of Rome. Case…[Read more]

This provocation contests the familiar construction of classical Athens as an ideal exemplar of democratic politics through a focus on the city’s material fabric, its visual artworks, and the performances which took place within its public spaces. It highlights the city’s ongoing process of material re-building (particularly following the Per…[Read more]

“And Both are Equal”: Exegesis Creating Values in Ancient Jewish Texts

Amit Gvaryahu

There are many gaps between the primary or literal interpretation of what is written in the Torah and the way the Sages interpreted it in midrashim, the Mishnah, and the Talmud. Many scholars see these gaps as a result of the Sages’ imposition of exter…[Read more]

Book review of The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, by Lisa Marie Mignone , 2016. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press; ISBN 978-0-472-11988-2 hardback $70.00; 264pp., 12 figures, 2 tables