Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

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  A New Anacreontic Poem on Stone, with Andrej Petrovic 09.09.2026 46นาที

  Andrej Petrovic joins me in the Lesche to discuss a new verse-inscription from Teos (in Turkey) discovered in 2013 by Musa Kadıoğlu, director of the excavations at Teos. Together with Mustafa Adak (Professor of Greek Language and Literature, University of Akdeniz) and Christian Marek (University of Zurich), Andrej has co-authored a monograph with edition, commentary, and interpretative essays on the inscription (publication details TBD). Ankara University press release announcing the discover...
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  Migration and the Early Greek World 01.07.2026 48นาที

  Naoise Mac Sweeney joins me in the Lesche to discuss her ERC-funded multi-year project "Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World" (MIGMAG). Read more about the project here. The first major output is a volume titled Local Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World (c.1200-550 BCE), edited by MIGMAG team members Naoíse Mac Sweeney, Jana Mokrišová, and Francesco Quondam. Naoise refers briefly to Euripides' tragedy Ion in the episode. The book she recommends at th...
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  Dream Interpretation, from Homer to Aristotle 17.06.2026 51นาที

  Mirjam E. Kotwick joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book The Ancient Interpretation of Dreams: Early Greek Hermeneutics and Its Sources, which is hot off the (Princeton University) press. For more on Katerina Evangelatou's 2015 production of Rhesus, as part of the Epidaurus-Athens Theatre Festival, see this article by Scott Andrew Cally in Didascalia. Ancient works Homer, Odyssey: Penelope's dream in Book 19Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (Clytemnestra's dream)Aristophanes, Was...
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  Luck (and Lucklessness) in Ancient Greek Thought 03.06.2026 47นาที

  Daniel Schillinger joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Luckless: The Idea of Luck in Ancient Greek Thought, which recently appeared with Oxford University Press. Find out more about Daniel's work here: https://www.danielschillinger.com/ Ancient authors and texts Sophocles, Oedipus RexEuripides, Trojan Women (and Hippolytus)ThucydidesAristotle, Physics, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics (Daniel's book also contains a chapter on the Eudemian Ethics)Other works/authors Machiavelli, Discours...
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  Stasis: Political Violence in Classical Greece 20.05.2026 55นาที

  Scott Lawin Arcenas joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book, Political Violence in Ancient Greece: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500-301 BCE (Cambridge University Press 2026). Ancient texts (select) Homer, Odyssey and IliadAlcaeusSolonHerodotus, esp. the account of the stasis in ChiosThucydides, esp. the account of the stasis at Corcyra (Book 3) Xenophon, Hellenika, esp. the account of stasis in ElisAeneas Tacticus, Stratagems[Aristotle], Athenaion Poli...
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  Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome 06.05.2026 56นาที

  Content warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of childbirth complications -- including maternal and infant mortality -- and of how such complications were handled by ancient midwives and physicians. There are graphic references to surgical procedures. Tara Mulder joins me in the Lesche to discuss her brand new book, A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome (University of California Press 2026). You can read a Q&A with Tara on the UC ...
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  A Social and Economic History of the Theater to 300 BC 22.04.2026 59นาที

  Eric Csapo and Peter Wilson join me in the Lesche to discuss their three-volume A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC (Cambridge University Press). Volume 1, The Theatre Festivals of Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary, appeared earlier this year. Volume 2, Theatre Beyond Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary, came out in 2020. Volume 3, on theater personnel and individuals associated with the theater, is in the works. Ancient texts (many are m...
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  (Translating) the Scholia to the Iliad 08.04.2026 48นาที

  Bill Beck joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new translation of the vetera scholia to Iliad Book 1-2: The Ancient Scholia to Homer's Iliad: A Translation, Volume 1 (Cambridge 2025). The book is the first in a series dedicated to translation of the Iliadic scholia. For an episode on the Iliad itself, and its translation, see Lesche episode 1.6, "Translating the Iliad, with Emily Wilson" (by far the most popular Lesche episode ever!). Ancient works Homer's Iliad (and Odyssey)The various scho...
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  Seal-Impressions (typoi) and Ancient Image Making 25.03.2026 50นาที

  Art historian Verity Platt joins me in the Lesche to discuss her much-anticipated new book Epistemic Impressions: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (Oxford 2026). On May 11, the Queen Mary University of London Imagination Research Network will be hosting a "launch symposium" to celebrate the book's publication. Information and tickets are available here. The novel that Verity recommends at the end of the podcast is When the Museum is Closed, by Emi Yagi. Read an excerpt here, in Yuk...
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  Time and Ancient Textiles 11.03.2026 52นาที

  Marie-Louise Nosch, former director of the Centre for Textile Research at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen, joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Time of Textiles in Ancient Greece (DeGruyter 2025). If you like this episode, you might also enjoy Lesche episode 1.10, "Wedding Poetics in Ancient Greek Literature," with Andromache Karanika. Ancient texts Homer, Iliad and Odyssey (lots of weaving scenes)Hesiod, on the creation of Pandora (Theogony and Works and Days)Aes...
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  The Doloneia (Iliad Book 10) 25.02.2026 48นาที

  Christos C. Tsagalis joins me in the Lesche to discuss the Doloneia, i.e., Iliad 10, which is the topic of both Christos' monograph The Homeric Doloneia: Evolution and Shaping of Iliad 10 (Oxford 2024) and his chapter in Jonathan Ready's recent edited volume, the Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad (Oxford 2024). The Doloneia/Iliad 10 is traditionally divided into two sections: the Nyktegersia (the 'night watch' or nocturnal council scene, lines 1-179) and the spy-mission itself. Bib...
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  Reappraising the Choruses of Greek Tragedy 11.02.2026 54นาที

  Rosa Andújar joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book, Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2025). Tragedies mentioned Aeschylus Agamemnon (chorus fragmentation)Seven Against Thebes (use of semi-choruses)Suppliant Women ("choral swarm" with multiple groups)Sophocles Oedipus Rex (actor-chorus interaction)Euripides Phaethon ( "augmentation" and secondary choruses)Trojan Women (chorus entering in fragmented small groups)Hippolytus ( subsidiary chorus appears before the main chor...
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  The Enchanted World of Late Antiquity 28.01.2026 48นาที

  Michael Satlow joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity, which will be published on February 3 by Princeton University Press. Resources "Lived Religion Project" at the University of Erfurt's Max Weber Institute If you're new to Late Antiquity, the foundational work is Peter Brown's 1971 The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750. It's been reissued in various editions, including a 2024 illustrated one from Tha...
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  The Influence of Plato's Timaeus: Beauty & Creation 14.01.2026 50นาที

  Piero Boitani joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Timaeus in Paradise: Metaphors and Beauty from Plato to Dante and Beyond (Princeton University Press 2025). Ancient texts Hebrew Bible, GenesisPlato: Timaeus, Phaedrus, Symposium, ApologyAristotle: Nicomachaean EthicsLucretius, De Rerum NaturaOvid, MetamorphosesPhilo of Alexandria, On the Creation (de Opificio mundi: treatise on the Genesis creation narrative)New Testament: Acts of the ApostlesPseudo-Longinus, On the SublimeCa...
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  The Life (and Times) of Diogenes 'the Cynic' 31.12.2025 52นาที

  Inger Kuin joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic (Basic Books 2025). Ancient sources Aristotle, Politics 1.3-7 (on 'natural' slavery)Diogenes Laertius, 2.6, Life of DiogenesPlutarch, Life of Alexander 14 (on the 'get out of my sun' episode)Xenophon, Anabasis 5-6 (on Sinope, Diogenes' birthplace)Other Diogenes testimonia from a variety of sourcesFor an accessible English-language collectio...
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  Enchantment Technologies of Ancient Greek Religion 17.12.2025 52นาที

  Tatiana Bur joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge University Press 2025). Ancient texts Homer, Iliad 18 (on Hephaestus and his self-moving tripods) Many Athenian tragedies and comedies that made use of the μηχανή or κράδη (in comedy)Aristotle, Poetics (on the theatrical ‘crane’/μηχανή) The Aristotelian/Peripatetic work Mechanical Questions (Μηχανικά)Philo of Byzantium, Μηχανική Σύνταξη Works on m...
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  Book Reviewing in Classics, with Clifford Ando (BMCR) and Mary Beard (the TLS) 03.12.2025 59นาที

  Mary Beard, Classics editor at the Times Literary Supplement, and Clifford Ando, senior editor of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, join me in the Lesche to discuss the state of Classics reviewing today. How do the TLS and BMCR assign appropriate reviewers? What makes for a good review? What's the line between critique and nastiness? Why are reviews these days so often lacking in susbtantive criticism? What do editors wish review authors knew or would consider before w...
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  The Ancient Shore 19.11.2025 54นาที

  Harvard University historian Paul Kosmin joins me in the Lesche to discuss his recent book The Ancient Shore (Harvard University Press 2024), winner of the American Historical Association's 2025 Prize in History Prior to CE 1000. Works mentioned Agatharchides of Cnidus, On the Erythraean Sea (2nd C. BC)Philip de Loutherbourg, "Shipwreck" (painting, 1793).Demuth, Bathsheba. 2019. Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait. W. W. Norton.Dening, Gregory Moore. 1980. Isla...
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  The Life of Demosthenes 05.11.2025 51นาที

  James Romm joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new biography Demosthenes: Democracy's Defender. The book is a part of Yale University Press's Ancient Lives series, of which James is also the editor. James's author website Ancient texts mentioned Demosthenes, speechesAeschines, speechesAbout our guest James Romm is an author, reviewer, and the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization....
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  "Bilingual" Ionic Column Capitals 22.10.2025 48นาที

  Sam Holzman joins me in the Lesche to discuss "bilingual" Ionic column capitals (i.e., column capitals that combined an archaic convex style of relief carving with a more modern concave style). These are the subject of his book Retrospective Columns: Ionic Capitals and Perceptions of the Past in Greek Architecture, which just came out with Princeton University Press. Ancient source Vitruvius, de Architectura, esp. Books 3 & 4.Modern works Architectural drawings in James Stuart and Nichola...