Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies

Fresh examination of six non-joining fragments of the first of a series of stelai (Agora XIX L6) recording civic leases of sacred land in late-fourth century Athens reveals that these fragment belong not to a single stele but to four separate stelai, only one of which can be dated to 343/2 B.C.  These publication of the lists is linked to the reorganization of sacred finances that included the amalgamation of the treasuries of Athena and the Other Gods in c. 346/5.  The new arrangement of the fragments challenges previous estimates of the extent of sacred properties and the assumption that subsequent lists (Agora XIX L9-12, L14) were only produced at ten-year intervals.

At the end of the fifth century, an Athenian woman named Xenocratia dedicated a well-known marble relief (NM 2576) to a group of deities in gratitude for the upbringing of her son. She set the relief up in a small sanctuary (hieron) on the banks of the Cephisus River where it flowed between the Long Walls connecting the asty of Athens to the port at Piraeus. The chief deity of the sanctuary was the personified Cephisus, but he shared his altar with several gods, nymphs, and local heroes. The tall limestone pedestal that supported the relief also recorded Xenocratia’s claim to have founded the sanctuary itself (IG I3 987). This dedication is generally to dated c. 410-400 BCE, a date that challenges the belief that at this time women did not have the legal capacity to own or dispose of property of a value necessary for such a foundation.  Although it is the case that women were excluded from many aspects of the public sphere of the polis of Athens, within the private sphere of the oikos, women could exercise some authority, enacting transactions and making use of their own resources with and for the benefit of other members of the extended family. This might be especially true at this date; the last years of the Peloponnesian War brought much political and social upheaval to Athens. And it is especially in the religious life of the oikos that the private dealings of the women of the family might become public.
The question of whether Xenocratia did indeed found this hieron has divided scholarly opinion. The sanctuary must be a joint foundation by Xenocratia and Cephisodotus, a man who also dedicated a double-sided relief (NM 1783), set on a similarly inscribed pedestal (IG I3 986), in the same sanctuary. Xenocratia mentions no husband, so Cephisodotus must fill that role. But any relationship between Xenocratia and Cephisodotus cannot be proven and a husband’s name might well be omitted from any dedication made by an Athenian woman.  Moreover, the relative dates of all inscriptions found in the sanctuary are not secure. The answer must lie in the deliberate choices that Xenocratia made in the language of her dedication, the imagery of her relief, as well as in the nature of this type of foundation. However Xenocratia may have acquired the land she dedicated, her gift to the gods was essentially different from other types of transactions involving landed property. Management of a private sanctuary remained in the hands of the founder and his or her family. Xenocratia’s foundation ultimately kept the land she made sacred in the hands of her own family. Given the turbulence of the times, this foundation perhaps served to re-establish her family around a new cult, one that celebrated the survival of their children.

Archaeology has become a somewhat widespread subject or plot device in popular culture in the last three decades. From horror movies to videogames, up to books and tv shows, the audience has become 'familiar' with the remains of the ancient world and with the scholars who study them. However, the portrayal of archaeology and archaeologists in popular culture is still riddled with commonplaces, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and downright lies than cannot all be justified as artistic licenses. My presentation will briefly illustrate the categories in which pop culture usually encases archaeologists (the rude adventurer, the vamp, the sexy scientist, the bookworm, the villain), as well as the most common ways of misrepresenting antiquity (traps, treasures, aliens) and archaeology (looting and destruction) employed in movies and videogames. In the conclusion I will address the various social and ethical issues raised by these stereotypes, try to explain their historical and cultural reasons, and suggest some ways of preventing this from happening in the future.

Classicists are, perhaps, most familiar with Theocritus’ use of food as a temptation to romance in Idyll XI, where the Cyclops Polyphemus attempts to woo the “whiter-than-cream-cheese” Galatea by enticing her with the finest milk and an endless bounty of cheese. Elsewhere lovers offer their beloveds the ingestible produce of pastoral labor or, sometimes, the means to produce it: milk-bearing goats, oxen, fruits, herds, pastureland, and various other lures. In exchange, the lovers say that the objects of their affection offer certain food-like temptations of their own, a physique “riper than a pear” or skin “the color of honey.” In my paper I posit the existence of a pastoral-erotic food-driven economy in Theocritus’ Idylls, in which tempting foods serve not just as aphrodisiacs but as elements of an exchange between the lover and the beloved. The admirer trades his supply of food and his means of producing it, obvious symbols of pastoral success and the ability to provide sustenance, for the equally (if not more) tempting food-like charms of the admired. By unraveling Theocritus’ stylized erotic food economy, we may further understand the Hellenistic attitudes that created an inextricable link between the seemingly distinct bodily pleasures of eroticism and eating.