research

Analysis of a Surveyed Landscape: Euesperides, Cyrenaica

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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…

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The Anatolian Connection: Traditional Epithets of Apollo in the Iliad

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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…

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Athens and Its Allies

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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…

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Plague, Climate Change, and the End of Ancient Civilizations

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Plague, Climate Change, and the End of Ancient Civilizations
By Daniel Stein

Periodically, civilizations collapse. Whether through war, disease, famine, or internal strife, complex societies can rapidly vanish, leaving the survivors to start a process of rebuilding that can take centuries. “A society has collapsed,” writes anthropologist Joseph Tainter, “when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of social complexity”…

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γνῶθι σαυτόν: A Reassessment of Plato’s Medical Metaphors, The ‘Self’ as a Scientific Subject of Ethics

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γνῶθι σαυτόν: A Reassessment of Plato’s Medical Metaphors, The ‘Self’ as a Scientific Subject of Ethics
By Sheena McKeever

Cohered with empirical knowledge, Plato’s medical metaphors illuminate the physical and ethical constituents of the human being. His interrogative dialogues set out to identify personhood, to know thyself (γνῶθι σαυτόν). Plato places the person, as opposed to physical elements of the universe, at the center of his philosophy. As a scientific subject, the person provides access to understanding human nature. Plato imbues his dialogues with medical analogies that delineate the person systematically as a subject of ethics. His medical metaphors, highlighting a range of phenomena…

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Seth, a Dynamic and Enigmatic God

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Seth, a Dynamic and Enigmatic God
By Will Byun

Multiple debates concern the true nature of Seth, Son of Nut. Since he is described as the god of confusion and disorder (te Velde, “Seth”), one may be tempted to compare him to Loki of Norse mythology, or even perhaps to Hermes of the Greeks, both notorious for being mischievous tricksters. However, Seth’s character is more complicated than this…

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The Ethics of Excess: Food and Satire

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The Ethics of Excess: Food and Satire
By Clare Kearns

Food and eating have always figured prominently in the work of satirists. That food plays upon the somatic realism of satire is evident, but the relationship between food and satire’s moral criticism is more slippery. What, if anything, makes food consumption an appropriate vehicle for the satirist’s moral commentary, rather than other forms of consumption and excess?

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A Window’s View into Egyptian Society

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A Window’s View into Egyptian Society
By Maria Murad

This window featured in the Penn Museum was once cemented in the walls of the Palace of Merenptah. The palace, along with the window, was built during Merenptah’s reign from 1213 to 1204 BCE in the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt’s New Kingdom. In order to understand the significance of the images and function of the window, it is important to consider the context in which the window was created…

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Travel Diary: the Tennessee Undergraduate Classics Research Conference

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Travel Diary: the Tennessee Undergraduate Classics Research Conference
By Rachel Winicov

Earlier this semester I had the opportunity to experience the study of Classics outside the walls of Penn. With the support of the Penn College of Arts and Sciences Travel Grant program and the University of Tennessee Knoxville Classics Department, I traveled to Knoxville, TN on February 22nd, for the Eighth Annual Tennessee Undergraduate Classics Research Conference (TUCRC).

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