New in Scholarship — Research Guides

New Book Explores Author or Narrator in Classical Antiquity?

What it argues. This book investigates the validity of the modern distinction between the real author and a fictional speaking instance, often called the ‘narrator’ or ‘persona’, within Graeco-Roman contexts. It argues that this distinction is by no means universal and that identifying the literary speaking voice with the author as a formal concept does greater justice to ancient literary culture.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Plato, Aristotle. It demonstrates that narrative phenomena like intertextuality, epic exordia, and first-person framing are more adequately explained by an authorial rather than a narratorial model.

Key findings

• It demonstrates that narrative phenomena like intertextuality, epic exordia, and first-person framing are more adequately explained by an authorial rather than a narratorial model.
• Ultimately, the book suggests that the ancient approach may represent a default mode of literary communication that remains relevant for understanding fictionality and poetics today.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Plato

Publisher / DOI →

New Book Reexamines Rediscovering Homer

What it argues. A timeless tale of a heroic character's journey through life, Homer's Odyssey has captured the imagination of readers from antiquity to the present day. Michael Cosmopoulos approaches this epic, together with the Iliad, not as remote works of literature, but as a living record of human experience shaped by war, loss, memory, and survival.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Homer, Iliad, Odyssey. Based on decades of archaeological field work and study of classical antiquity, and written in an accessible style, his book powerfully demonstrates how the poetry of ancient Greece preserves collective memory across the generations – and why these poems still speak to modern readers.

Key findings

• He offers a poignant exploration of the aspects and consequences of war as captured in the Odyssey, including trauma, leadership and politics, human relations, religion and fate, and the struggle to return home and rebuild after upheaval.
• Based on decades of archaeological field work and study of classical antiquity, and written in an accessible style, his book powerfully demonstrates how the poetry of ancient Greece preserves collective memory across the generations – and why these poems still speak to modern readers.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Homer, Homer — Iliad, Homer — Odyssey

Publisher / DOI →

New Book Explores Plato the Choreographer

What it argues. This book uncovers a previously unexplored aspect of Plato’s work: his deep and inventive engagement with choreography. It discusses in detail major dialogues where the philosopher dreams up expansive imaginary panoramas of moving bodies that allude to or entirely reconfigure the dance culture of his time.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Plato.

Key findings

• Precisely because dance was a vital civic activity of paramount importance in ancient Greece, exploring the philosopher’s choreographic thought enhances our understanding of Plato as a keen cultural observer.
• The founding figure of Western metaphysical philosophy emerges as a visionary artist of movement whose imagination is surprisingly relevant to pathbreaking choreographic endeavors in the modern era.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Plato

Publisher / DOI →

New Book Maps the Field of Greek Terracottas

What it argues. This book, the first of its kind, aims to provide a road map and research perspectives for the study of Greek terracottas, or coroplastic studies. Named after the ancient Greek artisan, the koroplastēs, who is mentioned in Greek texts as a modeler of images in clay, coroplastic studies focuses on the tens of thousands of hand-modeled or moldmade sculptural objects that are referred to as terracotta figurines, or figurative terracottas.

Sources & evidence. This book, the first of its kind, aims to provide a road map and research perspectives for the study of Greek terracottas, or coroplastic studies.

Key findings

• Primarily dismissed as mere reflections of popular piety, it now has been shown that they provide important evidence for trading networks, household economy, social engagements, political alliances, artistic influence, geographic domination, and artisanal practice, among other areas of investigation.

Publisher / DOI →

New Book Explores The Animal World of the Ancient Greeks

What it argues. This book offers a modern, accessible, engaging overview of the interactions betweenancient Greeks and animals in all phases of their life, both inside and outside of the walls of the ancient polis. The field of ancient animal studies has exhibited rapid growth in recent years, typicallyfocusing on individual animals or on animals in ancient religion or art; however, there has been no modern book that offers an overview of how animals pervaded ancient Greek life.

Sources & evidence. Scholars in related fields, including literature, archaeology, art history, religion, numismatics, and social history will also find material that helps them better understand their speciality.

Key findings

• Scholars in related fields, including literature, archaeology, art history, religion, numismatics, and social history will also find material that helps them better understand their speciality.

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Book Explores Aristotle Beyond the Academy in Britain and Ireland 1660-1922

What it argues. This book explores the questions of when, where, how and why Aristotle has appeared in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales since the Restoration in 1660, through to Irish Independence in 1922.The primary focus is on ethics and politics, natural science, and rhetoric and the arts. Chapters explore the impact of specific events in the history of Aristotelian reception over this period, taking the reader thematically on a journey through Aristotle’s diverse academic interests.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Aristotle.

Key findings

• The authors argue that Aristotle's authority has been omnipresent but never monolithic: it has been vigorously contested.
• Aristotle’s authority has been invoked by apologists for absolute monarchy and by Chartist revolutionaries; by patriarchal opponents of women’s rights and by suffrage activists; by apologists for slavery and by advocates of universal suffrage; by critics of stage censorship and by its advocates; by Deists questioning God’s involvement in human affairs and Roman Catholics insisting upon it.

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Book Explores The Roman Craftworkers of Late Antiquity

What it argues. Craftworkers throughout history have nearly always worked anonymously, often as valuable assistants in the service of famed artisans but typically without proper credit or recognition. However, an unsigned piece can nevertheless reveal a world.

Sources & evidence. While these craftworkers' names may be lost to history, their contributions can be properly acknowledged and their working realities in large part reconstructed through fresh methodological approaches to architectural, artefactual and epigraphic evidence and other sources.

Key findings

• In this book, which will interest scholars in a wide range of fields, Hallie Meredith sheds new light on the crucially important but largely neglected work of fourth- to sixth-century Roman artists in traditional craft materials and processes, such as glass, ivory and marble carving.
• She uses these case studies to provide insights not just into the past but also into the continuing realities of uncredited creative labourers today.

Publisher / DOI →

New Book Explores The Platonism of Proclus

What it argues. This book argues that the key to understanding the philosophical connections between Plato and Proclus is found in Proclus' extant commentaries on the dialogues. Although none are complete, they comprise some 3000 pages of detailed exegesis and philosophical argument.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Plato, Proclus. This book argues that the key to understanding the philosophical connections between Plato and Proclus is found in Proclus' extant commentaries on the dialogues.

Key findings

• Gerson examines each of these commentaries and demonstrates how Proclus' constructive metaphysics is dedicated to filling in 'gaps' in Plato's own presentation of a philosophical system, gaps that Plato himself repeatedly flags in the dialogues.
• He shows that Proclus draws out many of the implications of what Plato says, supplies major premises in arguments that are missing, and makes crucial distinctions in terminology that are only implicit in Plato.
• Gerson asks whether Plato's philosophy and Proclus' philosophy stand or fall together and argues that the answer is highly relevant to understanding the nature of the dominant philosophical doctrine in the West for 2,000 years, namely, Platonism.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Plato, Plato (via Proclus)

Publisher / DOI →

New Study Examines Aristotle on Perceptual Delay

What it argues. Aristotle records cases of perceptual delay (a trireme’s oars raised before their sound reaches the shore) but does not see what they cost his theory of perception. Three of his commitments cannot all be maintained: that perception is of what is temporally present, that perceptible qualities are inseparable from their substances, and that perception requires a medium rather than direct contact.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Aristotle.

Key findings

• The actuality of being perceived belongs to the object but occurs in the perceiver; the argument holds even where the perceived object no longer exists.

Publisher / DOI →

New Study Examines The Afterlife of Greek Tragedy: Cultural Memory, Identity, and the Transformation of Tragic Myth Across Historical Periods

What it argues. This article examines the ways in which ancient Greek tragedy has contributed to the formation, negotiation, and transformation of cultural memory and identity across different historical periods. Focusing on the continuing circulation and reinterpretation of tragic myths, it explores how narratives originating in classical antiquity acquire new meanings when transferred into changing social, political, and intellectual contexts.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Sophocles. Bringing together classical studies, reception studies, and cultural-memory theory, the article approaches tragedy not simply as a corpus of ancient literary texts but as a dynamic historical phenomenon whose meanings are continually reconstructed through performance, translation, adaptation, and political appropriation.

Key findings

• Particular attention is given to the tension between continuity and transformation: recurring mythical structures, characters, and ethical questions preserve recognisable connections with antiquity, while successive communities reshape inherited material in response to their own concerns.
• These cases demonstrate that the afterlife of tragedy depends neither on unchanging transmission nor on complete reinvention.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Sophocles

Publisher / DOI →

New Study Examines Review Essay: Rome Dethroned? Towards a More Cosmopolitan Legal History of Antiquity

What it argues. The legal history of antiquity has long been dominated by the paradigms of Roman law. In The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law (‘The Cambridge Comparative History’), the legal traditions of Rome, Greece, China, India and the Near East are brought into sustained analysis alongside each other.

Sources & evidence. I argue that legal historians must engage even more closely with the evidence of practice to consider law as it was really experienced, which requires a greater emphasis on documentary sources alongside normative ones.

Key findings

• In this review essay, I discuss methodological questions regarding legal history, and consider how future research can build upon The Cambridge Comparative History.
• I argue that legal historians must engage even more closely with the evidence of practice to consider law as it was really experienced, which requires a greater emphasis on documentary sources alongside normative ones.

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Study Examines The Dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon (Iliad 1.57-257) as an Example of Oral Discourse and Egalitarian Mentality

What it argues. This paper aims to demonstrate how the characters of the Iliad use rhetorical strategies and how their hidden intentions would have been recognizable to an oral audience, using the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon as a case study. Martin (1989) shows that the discourse of Homeric characters is performative and, in order to succeed, is subject to strict rules.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Iliad.

Key findings

• In the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon, the question of blame for the plague is deliberately left unresolved, and the two opponents’ responses are symmetrical in form.
• Though the argumentation employed may not seem entirely rational, the discourse is nonetheless highly skillful and well suited to its adopted frame of reference (for example, in the way the speaker invokes tradition and adapts it to his own purposes).

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Homer — Iliad

Publisher / DOI →

New Study Examines Melodic repetition in the antistrophes of Greek tragedy

What it argues. Scholarship on Greek metre routinely asserts that responding stanzas were sung to the same melody, but the ancient evidence for this practice is difficult and rarely discussed. In response to several recent studies proposing that Archaic and early Classical antistrophes did not feature melodic repetition, this paper offers a thorough investigation of the evidence for melodic repetition in responding stanzas.

Sources & evidence. Scholarship on Greek metre routinely asserts that responding stanzas were sung to the same melody, but the ancient evidence for this practice is difficult and rarely discussed.

Key findings

• I conclude that the evidence strongly supports the view that responding stanzas did generally repeat the same melody, even if this overall pattern was subject to the variations and liberties characteristic of any artistic practice.

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Study Reexamines A dog’s justice and Euripides’ death

What it argues. This paper revisits the story of Euripides' death as found in the biographical tradition of the poet, and argues that the gruesome end described therein follows the well-established pattern of ancient biographers creating sensational stories about the death of prominent poets, and enhancing those very stories with elements from each poet's works. The paper argues specifically that the story of Euripides' end at the jaws of rabid dogs while in Macedonia, takes its cue from the poet's invention of Hecuba's transformation into a dog in the homonymous play, bringing a vengeful conclusion to the poet's long-standing feud with his female heroines, according always to the popular perception of his time.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Euripides.

Key findings

• This paper revisits the story of Euripides' death as found in the biographical tradition of the poet, and argues that the gruesome end described therein follows the well-established pattern of ancient biographers creating sensational stories about the death of prominent poets, and enhancing those very stories with elements from each poet's works.
• The paper argues specifically that the story of Euripides' end at the jaws of rabid dogs while in Macedonia, takes its cue from the poet's invention of Hecuba's transformation into a dog in the homonymous play, bringing a vengeful conclusion to the poet's long-standing feud with his female heroines, according always to the popular perception of his time.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Euripides

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Study Reexamines Negotiating Etruscan Heritage: Ethnicity, Cultural Integration, and Identity Formation in Early Rome

What it argues. This article re-examines Etruscan-Roman cultural interaction by integrating classical historical narratives with archaeological, philological, anthropological, and archaeogenetic evidence. Moving beyond traditional linear models, it conceptualises ethnicity and cultural integration as historically negotiated processes and approaches Roman identity through three interrelated dimensions: cultural selection, semantic or functional transformation, and institutional durability.

Sources & evidence. This article re-examines Etruscan-Roman cultural interaction by integrating classical historical narratives with archaeological, philological, anthropological, and archaeogenetic evidence.

Key findings

• Applied across six domains, namely politics, religion, language, architecture, society, and the arts, the SCNM reveals uneven and domain-specific combinations of cultural selection, semantic or functional transformation, and institutional durability.
• These patterns suggest that Roman identity developed through differentiated processes rather than uniform cultural transmission.
• By recontextualising the Etruscan-Roman relationship, the analysis clarifies the role of cultural interaction in early Roman state formation and offers an analytical framework whose wider applicability to other pre-modern societies requires comparative testing.

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Study Examines A New Sword From Spain: the Roman Adoption of the Gladius Hispaniensis

What it argues. The gladius hispaniensis was the quintessential weapon of the Roman Republican legionary. Yet the date and mechanisms of its adoption are not fully understood.

Sources & evidence. It will be argued, utilizing both the archaeological and literary record, that it was adopted and spread rapidly throughout the Roman army during the Hannibalic War, becoming a key element of the Roman armament in their wars of expansion in the second century bce .

Key findings

• It will be argued, utilizing both the archaeological and literary record, that it was adopted and spread rapidly throughout the Roman army during the Hannibalic War, becoming a key element of the Roman armament in their wars of expansion in the second century bce .

Publisher / DOI →Open-access version →

New Study Examines Tragedy and Politics in Horace, Odes 1.6

What it argues. This article foregrounds Horace’s underexplored engagement with tragedy in Odes 1.6, arguing that this interaction exceeds the conventional limits of recusatio and engages with both literary and political discourses of the period. First, by qualifying Ulysses as duplex (line 7), the poem not only humorously debases the epic genre but also participates in ancient debates about Odysseus/Ulysses, possibly originating in Greek tragedy.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Horace. Second, the reference to Varius’ Thyestes (line 8) may suggest an intertextual dialogue with tragic treatments of the saga of the Pelopids and its prominence in contemporary political discourse.

Key findings

• Second, the reference to Varius’ Thyestes (line 8) may suggest an intertextual dialogue with tragic treatments of the saga of the Pelopids and its prominence in contemporary political discourse.
• Third, I point out further tragic references in the last two stanzas of the poem.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Horace

Publisher / DOI →

New Study Examines Ovid in Exile and the Rhetoric of the Roman Frontier

What it argues. This article examines Ovid's exile poetry in relation to public writing from the vicinity of Tomis, as attested in inscriptions. By treating the surviving epigraphy not just as historical data but as rhetorical discourse in its own right, I expand our understanding of Ovidian intertextuality to include local written culture.

Sources & evidence. Centers on Ovid. This article examines Ovid's exile poetry in relation to public writing from the vicinity of Tomis, as attested in inscriptions.

Key findings

• It also shows Ovid speaking to the global Latin-speaking audience that he had long imagined.

Read the primary sources on Ad Fontes: Ovid

Publisher / DOI →

New Study Examines Sons and lovers: dynastic scenario thinking in the Roman empire from Augustus to Commodus

What it argues. This article examines if, and how, early Roman emperors planned for the future of their dynasties both in terms of their immediate successors and the possible routes for the transmission of power across multiple future generations. This process has recently be described by Jasper van der Steen (2022), in his study of the princely houses of the Holy Roman Empire, as ‘dynastic scenario thinking’.

Sources & evidence. Works from the primary texts and material record of the classical world; see the publisher's page for the full source list.

Key findings

• Van der Steen’s argument forms part of a wider ‘dynastic turn’ in the study of pre-modern and early modern regimes, as scholars have investigated how rulership was secured, represented, and negotiated in a collective dynastic framework.
• It will argue that in a political environment in which there were no fixed rules of succession, many emperors thought meaningfully about the future of their dynasties and deployed a range of strategies to ensure that the imperial purple remained in their family.
• However, not all emperors thought rationally about their future, the most egregious example being Commodus, whose actions showed that he did not consider the Antonine house beyond his own reign.

Publisher / DOI →