A Compilation of Important Women From Roman History
By Matthew Breier
Ancient Roman society clearly demarcated male and female roles. Women were expected to act as dutiful daughters, wives, and mothers full of virtue, honor, and chastity. With unquestioned constantia (steadfastness), fides(loyalty), and pudicitia (sexual virtue), women spent their time in the home contributing to economic production and were not welcome in the political world…
Negative Ethnic Stereotyping and Punica Fides
By Brooke Boyd
Punica fides, literally meaning “Punic faith,” is a derogatory Roman idiomatic expression synonymous with treachery; it alludes to the stereotype that Carthaginians had an inborn ethnic flaw that gave them a propensity for disingenuousness and faithlessness. The expression probably stems from allegations that the Carthaginians caused the Punic Wars by breaking several treaties. However, extant literary evidence suggests that the phrase did not enter the Roman vernacular until several generations after the Third Punic War’s conclusion, long past the point when there were any Punici in North Africa at whom the slur might be directed, though other negative ethnic stereotypes about Punics existed throughout Roman history…
The Allied Perspective on Athenian Imperialism
By Alex Larrow
The Delian League was a prominent institution during the fifth century BCE, as it encompassed most of the Aegean from 478 to 404. The dynamic between Athenian imperialism in the league and democracy at home is frequently discussed. Something less talked about though just as important, is the perspective of the other cities in the league. One difficulty surrounding this question is the absence of primary sources from the allied states; as historian Dominique Lenfant notes, all sources from the time of the league are Athenian…
Fifth-Century Athens: Despotic, Democratic, or Both?
By Arthur Li
In the Greek tragedian Aeschylus’ 472 BC play The Persians, the Persian queen Atossa asks, “Who is set over [the Athenians] as shepherd and is master of their host?” The chorus resonates, “Of no man are they called the slaves or vassals” (Aeschylus, Persians, 241-42). Indeed, the Greeks’—and in particular, Athens’—victories over Persia at the battles of Plataea and Mykale seven years earlier had marked a paradigm shift in their conceptions of eleutheria—freedom. Prior to the Persian Wars, freedom referred merely to the status of people not enslaved; afterwards, to the status of entire city-states devoid of foreign influence and domination…
Money and Identity: The Socio-Political Power of Ancient Coinage and the Emergence of Greco-Bactrian Culture
By Michael Pagano
Deep in the heart of Central Asia lies a civilization lost to time, a symbol of the interconnected nature of the ancient world near modern-day Afghanistan: the Kingdom of Greco-Bactria. For hundreds of years, this kingdom served as a hub of multiculturalism along the Silk Road. The taxation of luxury goods along the Silk Road and abundant natural resources allowed the Greco-Bactrians to fund massive initiatives to build hundreds of cities…
The Prosody of Latin S Impura Consonant Clusters in the Waltharius
By Blake Lopez
Comprising the single most comprehensive account of the exploits of Germanic legendary hero Walther of Aquitaine, the Waltharius is a ninth or tenth-century CE Latin epic poem whose nearly 1500 dactylic hexameters offer a goldmine for the study of prosodic developments in post-Classical Latin poetic meter. In 1992, Edoardo D’Angelo tapped many of these veins in his Indagini sulla tecnica versificatoria nell’esametro del Waltharius, where he adroitly discusses and categorizes many instances of innovative vowel lengthening within the prosody of the poem…
Representations of Memnon in Archaic Greek Pottery
By Maggie Yuan
Ancient Greek literary sources paint a complex picture of race and ethnicity, in which no consensus surrounding the parameters of identity exists. In particular, these sources differ in the way they portray Aethiopians; while some describe them as a “savage” people, others like Herodotus create an aura of mysticism around them (3.20-3.22). Material artifacts, such as pottery, only complicate this narrative further…
Analysis of a Surveyed Landscape: Euesperides, Cyrenaica
By Josiah Canon DeSarro-Raynal
Lying on the northwest coast of Cyrenaica in modern Libya, Euesperides is an important archaeological site that has been the focus of extensive research through surveys and excavations since the mid-twentieth century. Demonstrated through the findings later explored in this analysis, the site offers an exceptional opportunity to reconstruct the physical appearance of a Greek city from the late-sixth century to the mid-third century BCE…
The Anatolian Connection: Traditional Epithets of Apollo in the Iliad
By Garrett Lincoln Ashlock
Ever since Milman Parry’s foundational study on Homer’s use of traditional epithets, L’Épithète traditionnelle dans Homère (1928), scholars have recognized that Homer relied on an ancient deposit of epithetic formulae due to the form of his dactylic hexameter…
Athens and Its Allies
By Daniel Stein
In March of 2021, Discentes published an article by Andrew Liu entitled “Athens: Cruel Imperial Power or Falsely Maligned?” It argued that the fifth century Athenian Empire was “a cruel imperial power” that maintained a “regime of control . . . based on fear and intimidation, not willing compliance” over subject peoples, concluding, “it is hard to argue that the Athenians were not a cruel and hated empire.”[1] This essay will take the opposing position. I argue that the Empire was not universally hated…