Ancient History 58 - Thoughts and Further Reading

By Owain Williams

The latest issue of Ancient History, issue 58, has one of the more comprehensive themes that I have produced during my tenure as Editor. With a thematic focus on Magna Graecia, the area of southern Italy where Greeks established numerous colonies in the Archaic and Classical periods, there are seven theme articles. Together, I hope, these articles offer a comprehensive understanding of the region and its history, with articles on the culture of the region, such as pottery, theatre, and philosophy, as well as more political history, including the Greeks' interactions with their Italic neighbours, a history of Syracusan democracy, and the coming of Rome.

The scope of the theme was aided, in part, by the recent publications of several academic works with a focus on the region. Some of these publications, like a number of contributions to The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World series, had more specific focuses on particular sites in Magna Graecia, but these went into so much detail that we could barely scratch the surface of their content in the magazine. For example, Joseph Coleman Carter's chapter on Metapontum, which is only mentioned a few times in the magazine, is nearly 200 pages long, and that only covers the polis' Archaic history! Other publications had a broader focus, covering, much like the magazine, a mixture of political, cultural, and social history. The most influential of these was The World of the Western Greeks, edited by Kathryn Lomas, who was kind enough to also contribute to the magazine (most of the contributors to the magazine also contributed to this volume). The contributions to this volume were less comprehensive, numbering between 15 and 30 pages, so the topics were more suited to the magazine — and there was so much to take inspiration from!

The scope of the theme can also be explained by simple ambition on my part. Magna Graecia is an incredibly well-documented part of the ancient Mediterranean. For instance, as Edward Herring notes in his article on Apulian and Lucanian pottery, there are over 10,000 surviving red-figure pots from the region dating to the Classical period alone! So, thinking we had an abundance of imagery, as well as confidence in the content thanks to the recent publications, I decided that we could try a larger, more comprehensive theme.

As always, though, the best laid plans often go awry — awry is maybe a bit too dramatic, but the issue certainly was not the easiest to put together. As I have noted before, imagery is one of the primary factors we must consider when putting a theme together. A lack of useable imagery, especially a lack of variety, means that a series of theme articles will be harder to put together. This is why, when we touch on Mesopotamia, we do so in individual articles, not in entire themes. We had a similar issue with Magna Graecia. We had an abundance of imagery, but this imagery tended to be of pots, and there are only so many pots you can look at before they start to blur together! Furthermore, there was a lack of anchor images, meaning larger images of sites, frescoes, and larger objects, such as sarcophagi, which we need to properly lay out the articles.

Yet we persevered, and our image researcher worked wonders, as she always does, until we put together what, in my opinion, is one of the best issues we have created during my time as Editor. I would certainly like to cover topics in a similar depth in future, but we have also learned some lessons from this — also underestimate how much imagery is available!

In addition to the theme articles, we also had some excellent non-theme articles, focusing on the wider ancient Mediterranean. I thought, in this issue retrospective, that I would share some further reading options for these articles.

'The impact of Tyrian purple production' by Sem van Atteveld:

• Marzano, A. Harvesting the Sea: The Exploitation of Marine Resources in the Roman Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Ritter, S. and S. Ben Tahar. Studies on the Urban History of Meninx (Dejrba). The Meninx Archaeological Project 2015–2019. Vol. 43. Archäologische Forschungen, Rahden: Leidorf, 2019.
• Susmann, N.M. “Preliminary Approaches for the Identification and Classification of Mediterranean Murex Dye Production Sites.” Archaeological Textiles Review 57 (2015): 89–101. 

'Death (and life) in the gladiatorial arena' by Michael Carter:

• Carter, M.J. “Gladiators.” In The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, edited by Alison Futrell and Thomas Scanlon, 232–241. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
• Carter, M.J. "Gladiatorial Combat: The Rules of Engagement." The Classical Journal 102 (2006/2007): 97–114.
• Coleman, Kathleen. “Valuing Others in the Gladiatorial Barracks.” In Valuing Others in Classical Antiquity. Mnemosyne Supplements 323, edited by Ralph M. Rosen and Ineke Sluiter, 419–445. Leiden: Brill. 2010.

'Phoenician and Punic Masks' by Adriano Orsingher:

• Jasmin, M., Y. Thareani, and P. Abrahami. “A Rare Discovery at Tel Achziv: A Phoenician Clay Mask Mold from the Ninth Century B.C.E.” Near Eastern Archaeology 79 (2016): 276–279.
• Garbati, G. “‘Hidden Identities’: Observations on the ‘Grinning’ Phoenician Masks of Sardinia.” In “Identity” and Interculturality in the Levant and Phoenician West during the 8th–5th Centuries BCE (Rivista di Studi Fenici. Supplemento), edited by G. Garbati and T. Pedrazzi, 209–228. Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 2016.
• Orsingher, A. “Ritualized Faces: The Masks of the Phoenicians.” In The Physicality of the Other: Masks as a Means of Encounter (Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 27), edited by A. Berlejung and J. E. Filitz, 265–305. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018.
• Orsingher, A. “Disease, Demons and Masks in the Iron Age Mediterranean.” World Archaeology 52, 5 (2021): 765–783.

'Lawgiving, mobility, and patronage' by Alexander Thein:

• Eckert, A. and A. Thein. Sulla: Politics and Reception. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
• Keaveney, A. Sulla: The Last Republican, Second Edition. Routlege: Abingdon, 2005.
• Turchin, Peter. End Times. Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration. London: Penguin, 2023.

This was a long blog post, but there was lots to talk about. I hope you enjoyed this little retrospective, and I hope you enjoy your further reading!