Colleagues also working on the Greek East under Rome may be interested in a very remarkable inscription from around the 50s BC concerning the financing of the festival of Basileia at Lebadeia in Boeotia – probably the document that brings out the realities in the immediate aftermath of Roman conquest more starkly than any other … Continue reading Basileia at Lebadeia and Roman conquest of Greece| Georgy Kantor's blog
An extremely fascinating inscription from the first year – indeed, probably, the first month – of the principate of Tiberius, casting new light on the Tacitean narrative of his succession, has come to light in Spain last year under rather murky circumstances. It consists of three joining fragments of the upper right corner of a … Continue reading A new document on the accession of Tiberius| Georgy Kantor's blog
In this year’s volume of the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Christopher Jones presents an argument – somewhat speculative, but not unpersuasive – that the historian Philip of Pergamon known only through the surviving inscription on the base of his statue at Epidaurus (Inscriptiones Graecae IV2.i 687), was identical with ‘Philip the historian’, one of the participants … Continue reading Philip of Pergamon: the common source of Plutarch and Tacitus?| Georgy Kantor's blog
At the beginning of this term I found myself discussing in class with my students the (in)famous pamphlet published by the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate at Antioch in 363 (seemingly in response to his local critics), Misopogon, at the same time as I was reading the brilliant book by Jonathan Spence about the early … Continue reading Emperors, books and resistance from Antioch to China: Julian and Yongzheng| Georgy Kantor's blog
The brilliant British Academy memoir of Donald Russell by Christopher Pelling and Michael Winterbottom, published last week, notes, no doubt correctly, that ‘it is unlikely that any scholar has ever made such brilliant contributions to textual criticism at so advanced an age’ (p. 227). This is to make public, in grateful memory, just one such … Continue reading what happened to Hipparchus: a crux in Philostratus| Georgy Kantor's blog
In 146 BC, the Mediterranean world must have been grasped by shock: two among the most important harbour cities in the world, Carthage and Corinth, were destroyed by the Romans in the course of the same year. ‘The two eyes of the sea coast were extinguished’, as Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 3.91, … Continue reading empire, slavery, violence and Roman politics| Georgy Kantor's blog
Over the past four weeks, I have been reading with my students (distantly) the first few sections of Book 1 of Caesar’s De bello Gallico. We were focussing on grammar comprehension, but as usual, this has been useful not least for myself in thinking through the text, and its historical implications. Just a brief note about … Continue reading distracting attention the Roman way| Georgy Kantor's blog
The days of lockdown have inevitably caused a proliferation of book lists, and I am afraid I have fallen prey to the fashion too. So here is my choice of forty books (for the historic number of days in the quarantine) on Roman history between the fall of Carthage and the ‘third century crisis’, inevitably … Continue reading forty books on Roman history| Georgy Kantor's blog
I thought I’ll share below, with some adjustments to eliminate purely local and personal elements, the advice sheet on Classics digital resources that I have written for my undergraduates. It…| Georgy Kantor's blog
A few quick comments on the rather remarkable new find from Pompeii, the tomb of Marcus Venerius Secundio, as reported today in The Guardian. The press attention has inevitably focussed mostly on t…| Georgy Kantor's blog
