Speaker 1: Oh hi, hello there. This is let's talk about miss Baby,
Speaker 1: and I am your host, she who unabashedly prefers Greece
Speaker 1: to Rome because frankly, it's better live today. I am
Speaker 1: here though, with a kind of melding of the two.
Speaker 1: Dan Stewart, a lecturer at the University of Leicestershire. Did
Speaker 1: I pronounce it right? Who knows? I'm Canadian? Joins me
Speaker 1: to talk about Greece during the Roman period, that enormous
Speaker 1: amount of time that Greece was ruled by the Roman
Speaker 1: and while they were still very Greek, they had some
Speaker 1: fascinating changes and peculiarities influenced or directly as a result
Speaker 1: of the Romans taking control. We talk about Roman Sparta,
Speaker 1: Roman Crete, Pausanius, Polutarch, and so much more. This was
Speaker 1: such a fascinating conversation. I rarely ever deal with Greece
Speaker 1: after the Classical period, because that's just when my own
Speaker 1: personal passion starts to dwindle. But I am so thrilled
Speaker 1: when people can come on the show and tell me
Speaker 1: why it's all interesting throughout all the time periods. Actually,
Speaker 1: particularly Roman Crete is fascinating because they were like taking
Speaker 1: control of this island. Like fifteen hundred years after the
Speaker 1: Minoan's ruled, so they're dealing with an already ancient culture,
Speaker 1: and then we come in as modern people and we
Speaker 1: have to navigate ancient culture that built a city on
Speaker 1: top of an even more ancient culture. Gods, I love
Speaker 1: conversation episodes. We will truly never even remotely exhaust all
Speaker 1: of the things that they're are to learn about the
Speaker 1: ancient world. They were just they were really cool, you know,
Speaker 1: those ancient Mediterranean people conversations when the emperors ruled Greece
Speaker 1: the Roman period with Dan Stewart, we're here to talk
Speaker 1: about Roman Greece, which is something I honestly know almost
Speaker 1: nothing about. I'm really obsessed with the archaic and classical periods,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of where all of my knowledge lies,
Speaker 1: which is why I love when people want to come
Speaker 1: onto the show and talk to me about time periods
Speaker 1: that are not that And especially because I just recently
Speaker 1: did my series on Sparta, where I talked about kind
Speaker 1: of what Sparta becomes under Rome, which seems to be
Speaker 1: sort of like a world in itself. So I'm really
Speaker 1: curious about really anything to do with Roman Greece. But
Speaker 1: you did mention Kenoso specifically too. So this is me
Speaker 1: getting rambly. Basically, please tell me any and everything and
Speaker 1: we'll kind of go from there.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, I mean, Roman Greece is a topic that's
Speaker 2: kind of very close to my heart, and I've been
Speaker 2: working like in Greece since two thousand, basically when I
Speaker 2: did my masters. And one of the things that really
Speaker 2: fascinates me about Roman Greece is how so much of
Speaker 2: what we think about the classical period in the Archaic
Speaker 2: period actually have their a lot of their roots in
Speaker 2: the Roman period. So, like I listened to your excellent
Speaker 2: series on Sparta to try and prepare for this as well,
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, And I teach a course on Sparta
Speaker 2: at Leicester, and we deal a lot with the Roman
Speaker 2: period because that's my specialty. And you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of the ideas that we have about what constitutes Spartanus
Speaker 2: see this kind of ratification in the Roman period, and
Speaker 2: we see a lot of kind of myths and tropes
Speaker 2: about aspects of classical and Archaic Greek culture really kind
Speaker 2: of coming to the fore in the Roman period and
Speaker 2: being banded about as Greeks, but also Romans at that
Speaker 2: time have kind of a lot of anxiety about like
Speaker 2: what does it mean to be Greek in the Roman period?
Speaker 2: You know, what does it mean to be a culture
Speaker 2: that has this kind of ingrained sense of superiority, which
Speaker 2: Greeks definitely have, and then to kind of realize that,
Speaker 2: like militarily, economically and politically, that that's not really true anymore.
Speaker 2: So how do they deal with this new reality of
Speaker 2: being controlled by this outside force? And a lot of
Speaker 2: it is about looking backwards, and that's part of what
Speaker 2: really fascinates me about kind of like that Roman period
Speaker 2: in Greece and for the Romans as well, they have
Speaker 2: this kind of general anxiety because they also think of
Speaker 2: the Greeks, like in very broad terms, as being slightly
Speaker 2: culturally superior to them. You know, you've got like the
Speaker 2: beginning of Virgil where he's kind of talking about arms
Speaker 2: and a man in order to juxtapose Roman culture with
Speaker 2: Greek epic like specifically right like, and you have later
Speaker 2: on in the Aid when you have basically you know,
Speaker 2: Eneus goes down to the underworld and he's getting kind
Speaker 2: of toured around the underworld like you do, and he
Speaker 2: gets presented with this parade of Romans to come basically
Speaker 2: you know, so in the Inneid, Virgil is saying, like,
Speaker 2: you know, here's all the great things that are going
Speaker 2: to come once Rome actually gets founded, whenever the hell
Speaker 2: that's going to happen, and we see in there like
Speaker 2: Anchises telling Aeneas. Look like the cultural mission of the
Speaker 2: Romans is to rule other people. Like other people will
Speaker 2: make better statutes, other people are going to write the poetry,
Speaker 2: other people are going to write the histories. There's your
Speaker 2: job to rule them. And so you have that kind
Speaker 2: of slight intellectual inferiority kind of built in to a
Speaker 2: lot of Roman intellectual life at around the same time
Speaker 2: when they are firmly in control of the each of
Speaker 2: Mediterranean and kind of the former cultural powerhouse of Greece.
Speaker 2: And that's just to find that really fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I were just saying it, like even just
Speaker 1: the existence of the Eneid is part of that, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason that the India takes place
Speaker 1: after the Trojan War and that it like I mean,
Speaker 1: I like to jokingly call it fan fiction because it
Speaker 1: is so you know, like it is this like rewrite
Speaker 1: affiliate in the Odyssey, like but make it roam and
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean it makes sense that even even
Speaker 1: that like in itself as a concept is like a
Speaker 1: kind of an ode to Greece or just like a
Speaker 1: sign of respect I guess to the grease of before.
Speaker 2: For sure, But also like it's a bit of a
Speaker 2: stake as well, isn't it, because they are like Virgil
Speaker 2: is essentially saying like, look, I can do in one
Speaker 2: book what you guys did in two.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm gonna punch it up. I'm going to make
Speaker 2: it more exciting, and we're going to have you know,
Speaker 2: it's like the Hollywood remake of a classic film Elosions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it'd always I have. My favorite part is
Speaker 1: just the idea that he kind of like it's like
Speaker 1: Aneas can do everything but better, especially in the like
Speaker 1: sort of Odysseus Eska bits, the like kind of avoiding
Speaker 1: all the monsters because he doesn't you know, he won't
Speaker 1: fall for that, and all of those little bits and piece.
Speaker 1: It's thriller. I haven't read any ad in Ages, but
Speaker 1: it was as like a person who's deeply obsessed with
Speaker 1: Greece alone. I remember just reading it and being perpetually
Speaker 1: blown away by by kind of everything he was playing
Speaker 1: with there, but so okay, so this is me him
Speaker 1: jumping ahead. But one of the things that I do
Speaker 1: have like a better knowledge base on is like the
Speaker 1: Hadrian aspect. Of course he's later but coming in and
Speaker 1: just like kind of being obsessed with Greece himself. He
Speaker 1: seems like an interesting He is certainly an extra interesting
Speaker 1: bit when it comes to the Romans appreciating Greece. Do
Speaker 1: you I don't know what question I'm asking there Hadrian. Sorry,
Speaker 1: my brain is still turning on today. Apparently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he's a fascinating figure. I think. You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that the emperors tried to do,
Speaker 2: and this goes all the way back to Augustus, actually,
Speaker 2: is they try to leverage local forms of power as
Speaker 2: much as possible to make their own rules as easy
Speaker 2: as possible. And Greece and Greek culture feature quite heavily
Speaker 2: in that, in the sense that if we go back
Speaker 2: in time to the Hellenistic period, we can see that
Speaker 2: Hellenistic monarchs, your Ptolemy's and your Salucids and your Antigonids,
Speaker 2: you know, the successors of Alexander the Great, They are
Speaker 2: competing with each other for power in Eastern Mediterranean. One
Speaker 2: of the ways that they do that is by trying
Speaker 2: to buy off the old centers of power, right, so
Speaker 2: they invest lots of money in Corinth and in Athens,
Speaker 2: and to a lesser extent, and to Sparta and to
Speaker 2: lots of other cities in Eastern Mediterranean to basically be
Speaker 2: in this form of like competitive benefaction, you know, in
Speaker 2: the same way that you might have you know, sports
Speaker 2: stadiums being named after different companies because of sponsorship deals
Speaker 2: and stuff like that in the contemporary world. You've got
Speaker 2: the same thing happening in antiquity, and the Romans kind
Speaker 2: of inherit big aspects of that in the Eastern Mediterranean,
Speaker 2: and they take on the mantle of these kind of
Speaker 2: Hellenistic monarchies to some extent when it comes to this
Speaker 2: kind of form of benefaction. And Augustus is kind of
Speaker 2: interested in doing it because he's just crushed Anthony and
Speaker 2: Cleopatra and they were big into doing the Hellenistic dynast
Speaker 2: thing and spending lots of money, and so Augustus is
Speaker 2: also spending lots of money, and he's kind of quelling
Speaker 2: rebellion while he's doing that. And an he writes about
Speaker 2: it and is raised Guesta because of course you do.
Speaker 2: So Hadrian is kind of following in kind of well
Speaker 2: established footsteps at that point. You know, he's like one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty years essentially, after maybe one hundred years
Speaker 2: after Augustus, from Augustus's death, and by that point, you know,
Speaker 2: the Eastern Mediterranean has kind of recovered economically from the
Speaker 2: shock of the Roman Civil Wars and kind of the
Speaker 2: period of turbulence in this late second and first centuries DC,
Speaker 2: and you have, you know, some really big The two
Speaker 2: other biggest cities in the Mediterranean apart from Rome, are
Speaker 2: Alexandria and Antioch, both in the East, and so they
Speaker 2: can't be ignored, right, So if you want to succeed
Speaker 2: as an emperor, you have to make sure that those
Speaker 2: places are are happy. And so Hadrian is kind of
Speaker 2: following in those footsteps. But he definitely has quite an
Speaker 2: affinity for certain aspects of Greek culture, and he's i mean,
Speaker 2: he's called the phil Helene in terms of his his
Speaker 2: kind of epithet as an emperor, and of course he
Speaker 2: piles around with lots of different Greeks, Greek architects who
Speaker 2: are responsible for like big building projects in Rome and
Speaker 2: across the Mediterranean. He's a big patron of the arts
Speaker 2: as well, So you know, his villa at Tivoli in
Speaker 2: Italy has lots and lots of copies of Greek statues
Speaker 2: and presumably Bronze originals as well don't survive, and he's
Speaker 2: getting Greek artists and artisans in there to build that
Speaker 2: stuff as well. And he's always going off on Greek
Speaker 2: vacations as well, turning around the Eastern med and and
Speaker 2: engaging in benefaction as he goes. So he builds a
Speaker 2: lot of like really big kind of infrastructure projects in Greece.
Speaker 2: There's there's a big aqueduct that he builds in the
Speaker 2: Peloponnese that takes water from Stymphalus in Arcadia down to Corinth.
Speaker 2: He builds lots of other kind of big infrastructure things
Speaker 2: within Athens as well, So there's a library, and he
Speaker 2: reverbs some buildings and temples and stuff. Kind of spreads
Speaker 2: the money around as well, and of course famously take
Speaker 2: he takes up with Antinous, who is complicated figure in
Speaker 2: his own right, but I think it's probably safest to
Speaker 2: explain him as like a victim of sexual violence. Probably
Speaker 2: in contemporary terms rather than a great gay love story,
Speaker 2: which is how he used to be presented. But he
Speaker 2: was a slave, he was bought, he was used. Adrian
Speaker 2: was sad when he died.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's yeah, I mean, that's the wilds bit
Speaker 1: is navigating that now, especially like the leftover kind of
Speaker 1: ways that Antinous is often referred to. But as somebody
Speaker 1: who's spent so much time in Athens, that's what always
Speaker 1: stands out to me so much, is like how what
Speaker 1: an imprint Hadrian had and that still has on Athens
Speaker 1: in this really interesting way, like between like you're saying
Speaker 1: the library and then the arch that he built, which
Speaker 1: I always find interesting that it's like, you know, the
Speaker 1: one side says something like the city of Theseus versus
Speaker 1: the city of Hadrian on the other side, which is
Speaker 1: just sort of a beautiful and interesting way of looking
Speaker 1: at how he handled that city. But I think a
Speaker 1: lot about the Temple of Zeus Olympion there too, where
Speaker 1: you know, he finished this epic temple that was sort
Speaker 1: of started and stopped so many times. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that's that's sort of the reason I even
Speaker 1: just bring it up is because that's sort of my
Speaker 1: entire knowledge point on Roman Greece is that like Hadrian
Speaker 1: just really put his mark in Athens. But it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to kind of remember that they did so much
Speaker 1: there for so long. It Yeah, it's often gets lost
Speaker 1: in my brain in favor of the classical anarchaic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would like for sure, like there's a
Speaker 2: lot of Roman investment in Athens from the get go.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is destroyed essentially by Sola in the
Speaker 2: eighties BC when there's a big siege in the Mithridatic War.
Speaker 2: And again Athens like famously always picks the losing side
Speaker 2: in every conflict from the late hell On Thistu period onwards.
Speaker 2: So we have like Julius Caesar pitching up during his
Speaker 2: own civil war and basically saying to the Athenians, like,
Speaker 2: how often will the glory of your ancestors save you
Speaker 2: from destruction? And that is is very much kind of
Speaker 2: the elite Roman attitude when it comes to the Greek East,
Speaker 2: that they are a shadow of what they once were, right,
Speaker 2: and it is only the past that makes them relevant
Speaker 2: in the Roman contemporary presence. And we see that kind
Speaker 2: of reiterated time and again in different types of literature.
Speaker 2: But at the same time we also have the Romans.
Speaker 2: You know, part of a standard Roman elite education is
Speaker 2: to send your kid off to the East to get
Speaker 2: like a philosophical education. So like that's what Cicero does.
Speaker 2: Like Cicero just like goes off on a tour of
Speaker 2: the East and studies philosophy in Athens and at Rhodes
Speaker 2: and then comes back and kind of spreads notions of
Speaker 2: Greek philosophy and rhetoric within Italy. And we also know
Speaker 2: that he spent some time at Sparta as well, So
Speaker 2: he's the one that kind of tells us about the
Speaker 2: evolution of the whipping contest that you talked about in
Speaker 2: relation to Artemis or thea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, there's always this kind of tension
Speaker 3: built into the relationship between the Romans and the Greeks,
Speaker 3: where the Romans want some of that cultural cachet that
Speaker 3: the Greeks have to offer, but at the same time
Speaker 3: they kind of look down their noses at what they
Speaker 3: see is the state of contemporary Greece, and a lot
Speaker 3: of that kind of rubs off, I think on Greek
Speaker 3: elite populations as well.
Speaker 2: So like unlike other areas of the Roman Empire. Greek
Speaker 2: elites don't really engage that much in the Roman imperial project,
Speaker 2: so we do not have a large number of Greeks
Speaker 2: taking up Roman citizenship before everybody has citizenship in two twelve.
Speaker 2: So there's some notable exceptions, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: it looks like there's a smaller proportion of Greek elites
Speaker 2: are voluntarily taking up Greek citizenship, unlike places like Gaul
Speaker 2: or Spain or bits of North Africa, where they seem
Speaker 2: much more inclined to do that. And we have many
Speaker 2: fewer Greeks kind of becoming senators and working with the
Speaker 2: imperial administration directly as Roman citizens as well in comparison
Speaker 2: to other areas of the Empire. So there is this
Speaker 2: kind of like reluctance to engage with the situation as
Speaker 2: it stands, I think in the Greek East, especially in
Speaker 2: mainline Greece, as compared to like Turkey or the Levant
Speaker 2: or Egypt. And I think that it's like that's really
Speaker 2: interesting to kind of think through kind of the implications
Speaker 2: of that, And I think it's also reflective in the
Speaker 2: way in which Greek authors write about their own past,
Speaker 2: So like Plutarch, I know, somebody that you've talked about
Speaker 2: a lot on the podcast, But you know, it's interesting
Speaker 2: to kind of think about the way that Plutarch framed
Speaker 2: his project. That you know, when you pick up a
Speaker 2: Penguin or an Oxfordoro Classics version of Plutarch, they're frequently
Speaker 2: packaged in a completely different way than it would have
Speaker 2: been in antiquity, because you know, you pick up you know,
Speaker 2: the Lives of Spartans or the Lives of the Athenians,
Speaker 2: or whatever kind of exerted version it is that you've
Speaker 2: got of Plutarch. But he's always written pairs of Greek
Speaker 2: and Roman lives, so he's always got a Greek paired
Speaker 2: with the Roman. And he is makes the claim, like
Speaker 2: several times in the Parallel Lives, that he's not a historian,
Speaker 2: he's not interested in writing history. He's writing character studies. Basically.
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting to kind of think about,
Speaker 2: like why is he doing, Like what is the point
Speaker 2: of this thing? Why is he writing like in Greek
Speaker 2: but pairing Greek and Roman lives, like to whose benefit?
Speaker 2: For what purpose? And I think a big part of
Speaker 2: it is about trying to explain to both a Greek
Speaker 2: and a Roman audience. Why being Greek still matters in
Speaker 2: the Roman Empire? Right, So he can say, look for
Speaker 2: every great Roman, there's an equally great Greek, and if
Speaker 2: we look at their characters, they can teach us lessons
Speaker 2: about leadership and how to be a good man, because
Speaker 2: almost all of the examples that he uses are people
Speaker 2: who have who have flaws of some sort. And as
Speaker 2: part of what makes him like a problematic source for history,
Speaker 2: because he's not interested in in accuracy. He's interested in
Speaker 2: character studies and biography, which is like a different thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but like that that kind of anxiety is like permeates
Speaker 2: the literature of the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. I just I had a listener
Speaker 1: point out to like actually contact me forget how but basically,
Speaker 1: when I talked about Plutarch and explained that he was
Speaker 1: interested in biography, and you know, in the way that
Speaker 1: I was talking about how he is both an interesting
Speaker 1: source and a source we have to question at all times.
Speaker 1: Somebody had to reach out to set to thank me
Speaker 1: for pointing that out, because I think it is something
Speaker 1: that when you're just coming to these sources trying to
Speaker 1: learn on your own, you really don't know. It's the
Speaker 1: same issue of like using Plutarch as a source when
Speaker 1: who's talking about you know, if they existed, they existed
Speaker 1: seven hundred year before he's writing or so, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's like, if you're not steeped in the context,
Speaker 1: often that does not come across. And then in addition,
Speaker 1: like you're saying the way they're packaged, where they're not
Speaker 1: packaged parallel now they're typically packaged as like you just
Speaker 1: want to know about this one person. That also, yeah,
Speaker 1: like without knowing the context, I think it really takes
Speaker 1: away a lot of what he's trying to do and
Speaker 1: like how much we actually can learn from him as
Speaker 1: a source.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And for each of the paired lives. He
Speaker 2: also wrote a comparison essay at the end of the
Speaker 2: second life that was like, now, what can we learn
Speaker 2: from these two lives? And most of those don't survive,
Speaker 2: So we've only got a couple of those kind of
Speaker 2: comparative essays that survive, and usually they don't make it
Speaker 2: into the Penguin or whatever, right, like because yeah, they're
Speaker 2: honestly a little bit boring, So they they're not they're
Speaker 2: not why people are addressing it, So I think it
Speaker 2: is interesting to kind of think about those kind of
Speaker 2: those anxieties and those tensions and the length of time
Speaker 2: that those anxieties last in the East in the Roman period. So,
Speaker 2: like another author that I love working on is pasaneous
Speaker 2: who I know you've also covered on your show, and
Speaker 2: Maria was on talking about him at one point, and
Speaker 2: she definitely knows way more than I do about Pasanius.
Speaker 2: But like the thing that i's he's a great source.
Speaker 2: He's he's one of my favorite sources for this particular period.
Speaker 2: And you know, he's not easy to read because he's
Speaker 2: not a great writer. So and for a long time
Speaker 2: he was called a dependable dullard because antiquarians when they
Speaker 2: visited Greece, they always took a copy of Pasaneus with them.
Speaker 2: But because he didn't seem to be particularly literary as
Speaker 2: an author, that his Greek was like kind of like
Speaker 2: cokey and complicated and grammatically kind of not that great,
Speaker 2: somehow made him more reliable as a reporter of what
Speaker 2: it was that he was seeing, right, And so he's
Speaker 2: like Pausanius lies at the heart of classical archaeology in
Speaker 2: Greece and one of the other hats that I wear
Speaker 2: is as an archaeologist, so I have I'm active in
Speaker 2: archaeology in Greece as well as being an ancient historian.
Speaker 2: And so like all the archaeologists antiquarians were using Pazzanius
Speaker 2: to try and identify sites and monuments and no sorts
Speaker 2: of things, and so, you know, like the Hephisteon in Athens.
Speaker 2: The only reason we call it the Hephaisteon is because
Speaker 2: of the description of that part of the Athenian agoraw
Speaker 2: in Pausanius. And yeah, and up until really immediately before
Speaker 2: the Second World War, everybody called the Hephistion the Thesaion, huh,
Speaker 2: because of it's got kind of the labors of theseus
Speaker 2: on the freeze on the temple. So they were like, well,
Speaker 2: it's obviously something to do with ESIAs, so it's the Theayan.
Speaker 2: But also Pizzaneus describes the Seyon in somewhere around that
Speaker 2: part of Athens as well, so a different reading of
Speaker 2: Pisanius supported this identification of it as being the Sayan.
Speaker 2: The Americans started working in the Agara in the thirties
Speaker 2: and they were like, this doesn't really make sense anymore,
Speaker 2: and suggested that it was the hepicion that has become
Speaker 2: kind of the dominant interpretation. But it's not the only one.
Speaker 2: There's other people that think it's a temple of Artemis.
Speaker 2: Really like even now, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Can't believe I didn't know any of this. I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's like, because so Pizzaneus lies at the
Speaker 2: heart of the classical archaeological project within Greece. Now, what's
Speaker 2: really fascinating about him as a text? It's like, we
Speaker 2: don't really know that much about him. We know he's
Speaker 2: from Asia Minor, we know he's writing in the second
Speaker 2: century AD. We don't really know that much more about him.
Speaker 2: We only get his name from a sixth century a
Speaker 2: d commentary on his writings. Doesn't look like anybody ever
Speaker 2: read him in the second century or the third century.
Speaker 2: It's just like he wrote the work and you know,
Speaker 2: like a million MySpace pages just went off into the ether. Nope,
Speaker 2: he ever looked at again.
Speaker 1: And my listeners are going to get that reference.
Speaker 2: That's right, I'm an old Your listeners can't see that
Speaker 2: I've covered a gray hair the Yeah, but when you
Speaker 2: read his travelogue, right, so he's traveling around Greece, in
Speaker 2: the second century, and he's recording all these different sites
Speaker 2: and sanctuaries that he's visited. He's in the Roman period.
Speaker 2: He's firmly in the Roman period. He barely ever mentions
Speaker 2: anything Roman. Yeah, right, And we can also we can
Speaker 2: see from some of its descriptions that he must, like
Speaker 2: he must literally be standing on a Roman monument in
Speaker 2: in order to be talking about the things that he sees,
Speaker 2: and yet he's not mentioning that monument, so he's not
Speaker 2: really an accurate reporter of what it is that he's seeing.
Speaker 2: He's not the equivalent of like a lonely planet or
Speaker 2: a rough guide to Greece. He's attempting to do something
Speaker 2: quite literary within his writings, and a big part of
Speaker 2: that is you can see in his focus on like
Speaker 2: Hellenistic stuff, but archaic and classical in particular, like he's
Speaker 2: touring around Greece and he's, as he says, pointing out
Speaker 2: what he sees as being most worth remembering within Greece,
Speaker 2: and that is the older stuff that shows to a
Speaker 2: Greek audience why it still matters to be Greek in
Speaker 2: the Roman period. And it's just like when you think
Speaker 2: of it that way, it's really kind of fascinating text. Right,
Speaker 2: it would be like describing a landscape, like like I
Speaker 2: live in London in the UK, and it would be
Speaker 2: like picking up a travel guide to the UK that
Speaker 2: stopped describing anything after the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, So if you want to come to the UK
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, if you've only got descriptions of
Speaker 2: things in the seventeen hundreds, it's like you can still
Speaker 2: see those some of those things, but it's going to
Speaker 2: be very difficult to navigate the city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: really enjoying Pausanias, like I mean broadly, I think I've
Speaker 1: read some of his stuff before, but after I spoke
Speaker 1: with Maria, I sort of really was taking in how
Speaker 1: fascinating he is and starting to find more things. But
Speaker 1: this additional context is so interesting, and just the idea
Speaker 1: that probably nobody read him, that we didn't even have
Speaker 1: his name from that time period, that's absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a sixth century eighty guy called Stephanus of
Speaker 2: Byzantian who's our first kind of mention of Pausanius. And
Speaker 2: then I mean the history of Pizaneus that we could
Speaker 2: do a whole separate podcast on him. He's so fascinating
Speaker 2: just because he's been essentially ignored until the fall of
Speaker 2: Constantinople in the fifteenth century, when obviously there's like massive
Speaker 2: libraries of ancient sources that were in Constantinople, and you
Speaker 2: have all of these Italian elites essentially trying to buy
Speaker 2: up these libraries around the time of the fall of
Speaker 2: Constantinople so that those sources aren't lost, presumably also because
Speaker 2: they thought it would be cheaper to do it then
Speaker 2: and previously. So we have like the Medici's buying essentially
Speaker 2: big chunks of this library from Constantinople, which included copies
Speaker 2: of Pasanius, and they're making then copies of Pisanius that
Speaker 2: get disseminated around kind of the non Ottoman parts of
Speaker 2: the Mediterranean, And at that point Pasaneus becomes really important
Speaker 2: for Greek diaspora communities. So once there is no longer
Speaker 2: kind of a Byzantine Empire, which is essentially Greek, all
Speaker 2: of those Greek communities now start to engage with Pasanius
Speaker 2: as a way to visit the homeland that they can
Speaker 2: no longer get to and that's what makes pasaneous kind
Speaker 2: of the important source for then Western Europeans when Greece
Speaker 2: starts to open up again in the in this eighteenth
Speaker 2: century and it can get over there as part of
Speaker 2: the Grand Tour. So it's just like he is like
Speaker 2: completely fascinating that this kind of neglected author in antiquity
Speaker 2: becomes so important for our understanding of the archaeology of
Speaker 2: Greece and our understanding of religion and a lot of
Speaker 2: myth as well, which just comes from this kind of
Speaker 2: this really weird path of this of this guy in
Speaker 2: the second century. We have Maria stuff, it's stuff to
Speaker 2: read about him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to read her book on him
Speaker 1: because he he's already fascinated me by just being the
Speaker 1: source where like you're saying, we can learn so much
Speaker 1: about religion and myth because you know, he went around
Speaker 1: and talked to people and ask them questions and described
Speaker 1: like he's the one who describes that like death oracle
Speaker 1: in the southern Peloponnese. Right, I think it was Maria
Speaker 1: who talked about that or No, no, it was doctor
Speaker 1: Ellie Mack and Roberts who can want to talk about
Speaker 1: that because of underworld deities. But like, yeah, so many
Speaker 1: things like that where we wouldn't know, oh, the more
Speaker 1: practical aspects because nobody wrote them down otherwise. I mean
Speaker 1: I talk about this all the time of just like
Speaker 1: we just don't know things because people didn't write them down.
Speaker 1: So then you have somebody like Paustanius who made an
Speaker 1: effort to try at least writing as much down as
Speaker 1: he was you know, intending with his goals, but it
Speaker 1: adds so much to our knowledge, Like without him, we
Speaker 1: would really be lacking on so much when it comes
Speaker 1: to like the practical aspects of Greek history. It seems
Speaker 1: or that from that time period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to overstate his importance, but it's also
Speaker 2: important to remember that he's just like he's one dude.
Speaker 2: It's one perspective. Yeah, and you know, if he just
Speaker 2: happens to rock up to Olympia on a day that
Speaker 2: Demetrius is a local guide and not antinuous, then he's
Speaker 2: getting totally different information and reporting that, right. So I
Speaker 2: mean he's not uncritical. He is skeptical of some of
Speaker 2: his sources. So there are some really interesting passages where
Speaker 2: he talks about like religh so like a big part
Speaker 2: of what Passanius is interested in is going to see
Speaker 2: kind of religious relics within sanctuaries in a way that
Speaker 2: you know, there are like four heads of John de
Speaker 2: Baptist kicking around Europe, and you know, if you put
Speaker 2: all the bits of the True Cross together, you'd have
Speaker 2: enough to make a boat. It's that kind of situation
Speaker 2: also within Greece in this period, where there are these
Speaker 2: kind of relics, and so he will talk about, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, I saw the scepter of Agamemnon, the supposed
Speaker 2: scepter of Agamemnon. It's like, I don't believe it. It's
Speaker 2: not true, whereas other ones he's he's more believing. So
Speaker 2: there's a like a chest in Corinth of a Corinthian
Speaker 2: tyrant sor it's the chest is in Olympia, but it
Speaker 2: was dedicated at Olympia by Kypsalis, the Corinthian tyrant. And
Speaker 2: he gives this really lengthy description of this object that
Speaker 2: he sees, and it's fascinating because it shows like it
Speaker 2: shows scenes from myth on the chest and it has
Speaker 2: like epigrammatic inscriptions on the freezes of the chest as well,
Speaker 2: like describing the scenes. It's a real Shane and we
Speaker 2: don't have it because it would be awesome to have it.
Speaker 2: But he basically says, like I saw this thing. They
Speaker 2: say it's archaic. It probably is, and from his description,
Speaker 2: it certainly sounds like he is seeing something that is
Speaker 2: that old and is accurately describing it as far as
Speaker 2: we can tell. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's the sad thing too, is the number of things
Speaker 1: he'll describe and then you're like, but why don't we
Speaker 1: have it now? Like I just want to see so
Speaker 1: many of those things, especially to have something that has
Speaker 1: the depicts myth and also explains it. Like I feel
Speaker 1: like that at least, I mean from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: which is not everything, but that seems like a rare
Speaker 1: thing to have it actually describe it versus having to
Speaker 1: try to interpret it ourselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yes, and no. I think that there's
Speaker 2: quite a few vases that are kind of labeled the story.
Speaker 2: They Yeah, yeah, they'll put names on, or they put
Speaker 2: scenes on, or they'll put kind of quotes from plays
Speaker 2: on sometimes like short short kind of line readings on vases.
Speaker 2: But I think it's kind of like literacy in writing
Speaker 2: is used as another way to show your elite status.
Speaker 2: And so those things become more precious if they have
Speaker 2: writing on them rather than rather than less precious, and
Speaker 2: that makes them kind of more valuable and more more
Speaker 2: subject to you know, if they're made of metal being
Speaker 2: melted down and reused and and kind of lost in
Speaker 2: that sense, right, But it is, Yeah, it would be
Speaker 2: nice to have a lot of the things that Pozanous
Speaker 2: is talking about. Yeah, like you can go to Olympia
Speaker 2: and you can see the statue bases and you can
Speaker 2: crack open your copy of Pazaneaus and they're in the
Speaker 2: same So it is that kind of stuff that makes
Speaker 2: people think that he is this accurate reporter or what
Speaker 2: it is that he's seeing. Yeah, when it's I think
Speaker 2: he's a much more complicated figure because of what it
Speaker 2: is that he's trying to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's it's interesting the ways that you know.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, this is very I feel like surface
Speaker 1: level thing to say, but as somebody who comes at
Speaker 1: this like without the full academic background, like it is
Speaker 1: hard to overstate how much I think people just sort
Speaker 1: of assume that ancient sources are all just accurate, like
Speaker 1: they're just like the thing we should trust because it's
Speaker 1: what we have. But it's so much more interesting to
Speaker 1: think about them in that way. Of Sure, but he
Speaker 1: had like other intentions in mind. He probably described a
Speaker 1: lot of things correctly, but like you're saying, he ignored
Speaker 1: a lot of things or chose not to write about them,
Speaker 1: And that makes it frustrating, but almost, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: certainly more interesting to sort of consider what he was
Speaker 1: doing and why, and what he might have left out
Speaker 1: and why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Like I mean, this is one of the
Speaker 2: things that we that we always struggle with in our
Speaker 2: study of the past, is the extent to which we
Speaker 2: can accept what our sources are telling us. And I
Speaker 2: think just there's no reason to treat people in antiquity
Speaker 2: as being somehow less complicated than people in the contemporary present, right,
Speaker 2: And so some people are trustworthy sometimes, some people are
Speaker 2: trustworthy are less trustworthy at other times. And it's the
Speaker 2: same in antiquity, and it's the same with what they're writing.
Speaker 2: That everybody always has an agenda, But that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that we can't use it as a source, right, And
Speaker 2: saying that a source is biased is not a reason
Speaker 2: not to use the source, because Ultimately, these are all
Speaker 2: ways that we've got, So what can we say about
Speaker 2: the past and behavior in the past and people in
Speaker 2: the past given disinformation? And I just think it makes
Speaker 2: the sources richer if we allow them to be trying
Speaker 2: to do other things successfully or otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think about that a lot when it
Speaker 1: comes to the plays, because so often, like a play
Speaker 1: is our only source for a myth, and so it's
Speaker 1: really all we have. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: like these people are creating their own version of something,
Speaker 1: and who knows what they might have changed and for
Speaker 1: what reason, and so like, yeah, considering that in respect
Speaker 1: of just mythology, which is of course, like what I
Speaker 1: spend most of my time doing, is particularly interesting and
Speaker 1: imagining like what maybe was invented or might have come
Speaker 1: from a source we don't have or what have you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Or it's just like, ultimately, like people are storytellers,
Speaker 2: and as much as people like to hear the same
Speaker 2: stories over and over again, a lot of the time
Speaker 2: those those retellings are also being modified in some way
Speaker 2: to fit to contemporary circumstances. And I think that you know,
Speaker 2: like myth in the Greek world, right and in the
Speaker 2: Roman world does a lot of that in terms of
Speaker 2: helping it explaining contemporary presence to people. And so when
Speaker 2: we're getting like versions of these myths being recorded and
Speaker 2: people are like, oh, well, they don't agree what's going on,
Speaker 2: it's like because for different audiences and they're meant to
Speaker 2: do different things, so just using the same characters, but
Speaker 2: they just will emphasize different episodes. And I think that's
Speaker 2: why it's really interesting to look at kind of the
Speaker 2: stories that the Greeks tell about themselves in the Roman
Speaker 2: period about their own past, because it then tells us
Speaker 2: about how they view their own histories and kind of
Speaker 2: complicates the stories of those histories, you know. And like
Speaker 2: a good example that I'd like to give for this
Speaker 2: sort of thing is again like going back to Sister
Speaker 2: and going back to Sparta. Cicero is a smart guy.
Speaker 2: If you ever read any Cisro, he will tell you
Speaker 2: constantly how smart he is.
Speaker 1: I had to read in university.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously not a fun hang, I'm pretty sure about that,
Speaker 2: all constantly bringing up that time he said the Republic.
Speaker 2: But the so he's a spark guy. He knows history,
Speaker 2: he knows philosophy, and he knows Greece, and yet he
Speaker 2: does tell us when he visits Sparta, he's like, it's
Speaker 2: amazing to be in Sparta, this place where it has
Speaker 2: an unchanging. It's the only place I know that whose
Speaker 2: constitution is not changed in seven hundred years. And it's
Speaker 2: like he obviously knows that's not true. He knows it's
Speaker 2: not true. He's sitting in this kind of sanctuary of
Speaker 2: Artemis or Thea, he's watching Spartan boys just stand there
Speaker 2: and get whipped to death. And he tells us this also,
Speaker 2: like you can see them not cry out, and you
Speaker 2: can see them like some of them die. But he's
Speaker 2: read Xenophon, so we know that he's read Xenophon. He
Speaker 2: tells us he's read Xenophon, and Xenophon describes a completely
Speaker 2: different situation in Sparta, right, And of course in the
Speaker 2: Sparta in CITs Rose days, it's not two kings, right,
Speaker 2: so obviously the constitution is very different. And yet he
Speaker 2: just says, like, here's this line, right, And presumably he's
Speaker 2: just bought into the story of what Sparta was so
Speaker 2: hard that it's just really easy to just let that lie,
Speaker 2: just like roll off the tongue, right, and One of
Speaker 2: the things that we can see is that people within
Speaker 2: Sparta in the Roman period are also telling themselves that
Speaker 2: same lie. Right, they would be very happy with that,
Speaker 2: Zack Snyder three hundred film, like, yeah, that's us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when they are are blatantly not that, when they can
Speaker 2: look around and they've got fortifications, and they've got Roman buildings,
Speaker 2: and they've got a fancy theater with a rolling stage
Speaker 2: and all these other things that you know, classical and
Speaker 2: archaic Sparta did not have, and yet also maintain the
Speaker 2: fiction that they are the same people in this unbroken
Speaker 2: line with an unbroken constitution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, Sparta seems like such
Speaker 1: a I mean, obviously I just spent like a month
Speaker 1: talking about how it's fascinating in that respect, but it
Speaker 1: seems very unique in that way like it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand that it seems like a lot of the
Speaker 1: Roman Greece was holding on to its greekness sort of
Speaker 1: as much as possible. But would you say that Sparta
Speaker 1: is like a little bit more of that like unchanging nature,
Speaker 1: that that idea of like they are the same as
Speaker 1: they were back then, or was that kind of like
Speaker 1: a broader.
Speaker 2: Idea I think. I think broadly within Greece in the
Speaker 2: Roman period, there is this desire to present themselves as
Speaker 2: being the equals to their forebears, right, and how that
Speaker 2: gets expressed differs from Paulus to Paulus, because the different
Speaker 2: polices have different reputations essentially, so Athens is desperate to
Speaker 2: hold on to its its status is kind of a
Speaker 2: cultural and intellectual center in the Roman period, and that's
Speaker 2: the thing that they push as much as possible. And
Speaker 2: the Spartans are desperate to hold onto their status in
Speaker 2: regards to like two things really, which is supposed would
Speaker 2: be the notion of their militarism and their piety as well.
Speaker 2: So the Spartans were held up as being kind of
Speaker 2: amongst the most pious of the Greeks, and that's the
Speaker 2: thing that they kind of promote to outsiders, which is
Speaker 2: why this kind of this whipping contest takes place in
Speaker 2: the context of a of a religious festival and a
Speaker 2: ritual which is related to the Spartan education system, which
Speaker 2: is related to these kind of myths of militarism, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that were promoted around the time. And it is interesting
Speaker 2: that you know, well into the Roman period Sparta is
Speaker 2: providing auxiliary troops to the Roman military when no other
Speaker 2: Greek polus on mainland Greece is really and it's like,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, they're sending off I don't know
Speaker 2: how many this is, let's say, like fifty guys to
Speaker 2: go serve the Roman military. It's like, are they going
Speaker 2: to be like, really does that matter? That doesn't make it,
Speaker 2: That doesn't make it. Damit a difference to the Romans
Speaker 2: whether these fifty Spartans show up, But it's I think
Speaker 2: I think the Romans would have liked it because then
Speaker 2: they can view themselves as being the inheritors of Spartan
Speaker 2: military prowess. And the Spartans in the Roman period obviously
Speaker 2: liked it because it played up to their notions of
Speaker 2: who they had been in the past in relation to
Speaker 2: the kind of the myth of Spartan militarism. And I
Speaker 2: think it is really in the Roman period that we
Speaker 2: begin to see the rareification of so many of those
Speaker 2: kind of tropes around the Spartan mirage that you talked
Speaker 2: about in that excellent series.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it was
Speaker 1: fascinating to try to learn all of that and distill it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Sparta just is so unique and weird, which
Speaker 1: I said a lot in that series. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that you mentioned when we were first talking
Speaker 1: about doing this is Roman crete. So I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: that because I know absolutely nothing about what was going
Speaker 1: on in crete in that time period. I feel like
Speaker 1: I don't know much about crete beyond the Bronze Age,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if it's just like my knowledge
Speaker 1: base or just that, Like there's not a lot talked
Speaker 1: about what was going on in crete after the Bronze Age,
Speaker 1: but I would love to know everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's not You're not alone, there's there's really not
Speaker 2: a lot on crete in the Roman period, or the
Speaker 2: Hellenistic period or the Classical period. To be fair, the
Speaker 2: focus of most scholarship on crete is is on the Minoans. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and obviously they're fascinating and stuff. But you know, one
Speaker 2: of one of my recent projects has been studying the
Speaker 2: site of Roman Canassas, And if anybody ever goes to crete,
Speaker 2: I'm sure they will visit the Palace of Conassas. It's
Speaker 2: the second most visited tourist site in Greece after the
Speaker 2: Acropolis and people that kind of get busted from Heraclion
Speaker 2: into this giant car park and then they get led
Speaker 2: into the Minoan remains and they tour around those remains
Speaker 2: and they get back in the bus and then they leave.
Speaker 2: But that whole palace complex sits within the remains of
Speaker 2: a seventy hectar Roman city. Wow, so there's a Roman
Speaker 2: city around and at one point on top of all
Speaker 2: of that Minoan stuff. And when Arthur Evans came in
Speaker 2: in the nineteen hundreds, he basically like blasted the Roman
Speaker 2: stuff away in order to get down to the Minoan stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what he did. And so there's like tons of
Speaker 2: Roman stuff on the island. Cree is like fascinating because
Speaker 2: it was seen even within our classical sources as being
Speaker 2: slightly backward and a problematic place. And it's largely, i think,
Speaker 2: because those sources are Athenian, and there's definitely a point
Speaker 2: in the late Archaic and the classical period where the
Speaker 2: Athenians and the and the and the po Lace of
Speaker 2: Crete are competing for economic access in the eastern Mediterranean,
Speaker 2: and so the Athenians are presenting the Cretans as being
Speaker 2: obviously you know, despicable and othered. And this is why
Speaker 2: we get theseus and the Minotaur and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff happening around that time, because they're they're like,
Speaker 2: those are the bad guys. We've got to defeat them,
Speaker 2: and we're going to take over their economic networks and
Speaker 2: be in control. Yeah, and so, and that's specific I
Speaker 2: think to the cities in on the north coast of
Speaker 2: Crete at around that time. So Canasos gets kind of
Speaker 2: out come by the Athenians in the Classical period and
Speaker 2: everybody kind of turns inwards in Crete and they're just
Speaker 2: all of those there's in between fifty and one hundred
Speaker 2: polace on crete in the Archaic and the Classical period.
Speaker 2: Nobody can really agree on the number. So there's it's
Speaker 2: kind of densely populated in terms of cities, and they're
Speaker 2: just constantly fighting with each other. In the Hellenistic period,
Speaker 2: it is a haven for kind of piracy, so we're told.
Speaker 2: And so we have kind of the extension of Cretan
Speaker 2: naval power at various points in the Hellenistic period, which
Speaker 2: other people don't like, and so they again call them
Speaker 2: names and clamp down on it. And this kind of
Speaker 2: reputation for piracy is what brings the Romans into Crete
Speaker 2: in the sixties. So marc Antony's father gets his ass
Speaker 2: handed to him by the Cretans when he's been said
Speaker 2: there to kind of like get rid of the pirates,
Speaker 2: and the Cretans defeat him, and then the Romans come
Speaker 2: back with a march much bigger force basically, and use
Speaker 2: that defeat as a pretext for invading the island and
Speaker 2: taking it over. And there's a brutal kind of two
Speaker 2: year campaign for the Romans. It kind of crush centers
Speaker 2: of resistance in really not very nice ways, and the
Speaker 2: result of that is that Conossos, which had been one
Speaker 2: of the most important and powerful poles on Crete, it
Speaker 2: was the center of resistance to the Roman invasion, and
Speaker 2: so it loses chunks of its territory and bits of
Speaker 2: its status, and its rival in the south, a place
Speaker 2: called Gordon, where Gortina gets rewarded because it did not
Speaker 2: oppose the Romans and kind of supported the invasion signed
Speaker 2: up to the Roman side, so reaps the rewards afterwards,
Speaker 2: and Crete then becomes a place that exports wine in
Speaker 2: the Roman period, so it's economy is based very much
Speaker 2: on kind of like wine exports, and it becomes it's
Speaker 2: kind of economically central part of the Eastern Mediterranean because
Speaker 2: all of the trade routes essentially passed by Crete, because
Speaker 2: you know, if you're coming from Egypt, then you would
Speaker 2: cross the water and you would follow kind of the
Speaker 2: south coast to Crete and then curve around it and
Speaker 2: then go up around the Peloponnese and over to Italy
Speaker 2: that way. And if you're going into the Eastern Mediterranean,
Speaker 2: maybe you would go along the north coast of Crete
Speaker 2: off the Peloponnese and then up over towards the Levant
Speaker 2: and Cyprus and stuff like that. So it's like sits
Speaker 2: on this nexus, but doesn't have like a ton of
Speaker 2: natural resources south that apart from wine and all of
Speaker 2: and the kind of standard agricultural fair that that means
Speaker 2: that it becomes super super central in that sense, it's
Speaker 2: more like a transhipment point. But it is like it
Speaker 2: is kind of really it's just quiet in the Roman period,
Speaker 2: like there's there's after the initial invasion, there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of rebellion, there's not a lot of revolts. Canassas
Speaker 2: becomes smaller in the Roman period than it had been
Speaker 2: in a Hellenistic period, but it's fantastically wealthy as far
Speaker 2: as we can tell. There's a ridiculous number of mosaics
Speaker 2: that have been recovered and mosaic tessa that have been
Speaker 2: recovered in the fields around the Minoan Palace, and Rebecca
Speaker 2: Sweetmen has written really well about those. We have lots
Speaker 2: of marble wallveniers, lots of kind of imported goods, so
Speaker 2: like conassas super rich place. Gordon just becomes this monster
Speaker 2: of the city because it becomes the capital of the
Speaker 2: joint province of Crete and Cyenaica, so syenic I was
Speaker 2: also a Greek bit of North Africa, kind of bits
Speaker 2: of modern day Libya. It is really wealthy in antiquity
Speaker 2: as well, and kind of the Romans kind of shove
Speaker 2: Crete and Cyrenaica together into one province and make the
Speaker 2: capital Gorton, and it becomes the city of perhaps like
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand people. Is massive. It has an amphitheater,
Speaker 2: it has like a couple of theaters. It's like gigantic.
Speaker 2: It's huge and becomes like pretty wealthy itself obviously as
Speaker 2: a result of its size, and becomes kind of a
Speaker 2: standard kind of protocol of Roman senators as they're moving up,
Speaker 2: kind of the imperial cursus that you'll do a stint
Speaker 2: in crete and you'll serve some time there and then
Speaker 2: you'll move on to like a nicer position somewhere else.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's really quiet. Doesn't show up in
Speaker 2: our source as much except for kind of generally disparaging
Speaker 2: comment from various outsiders who are complaining about dishonesty of
Speaker 2: the locals and those sorts of things, but it does
Speaker 2: it again also latches onto core aspects of its of
Speaker 2: its past as a way to explain its contemporary situation.
Speaker 2: So like the coinage of Conassas has the labyrinth on it,
Speaker 2: you know they're they're identifying with that myth of theseusts
Speaker 2: and the minotaur. We're told in various Roman sources that
Speaker 2: you know, as a tourist, you can pitch up on
Speaker 2: crete and there's at least three different places that are
Speaker 2: are claiming to be the site of the original labyrinth
Speaker 2: and you can go and see them. One of those
Speaker 2: is Connassauce, but there's like two other ones which are
Speaker 2: not Connassas, which go to also playing to be the
Speaker 2: home of the labyrinth. Yea, and so it's it's really
Speaker 2: kind of a fascinating place to kind of to think
Speaker 2: of the impact of Roman power on this island that
Speaker 2: doesn't feature much in our wider stories after the Bronze Age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so interesting. So did they. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: sort of I suppose it's like chicken or the egg,
Speaker 1: but like it's interesting that they would latch onto the
Speaker 1: labyrinth and not like I guess, I guess, I guess
Speaker 1: the labyrinth and the Minoan culture are like tied enough,
Speaker 1: but it just feels to me like the Labyrinth is
Speaker 1: like the bad part kind of, or like the minotaur
Speaker 1: is sort of the part that makes you look bad,
Speaker 1: whereas the sort of like wealth of the Minoans looks good.
Speaker 1: But again, like I mean, I'm now I'm just talking
Speaker 1: a loud because I do think I guess those two
Speaker 1: things are too closely tied in the you know, mythic
Speaker 1: historical kind of context to really be separated. But yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I mean it's interesting like in a literary sense,
Speaker 2: like where we do here see crete in like the
Speaker 2: Hellenistic and in the Roman period is in mythic retellings,
Speaker 2: and so it is is in those periods that absolutely
Speaker 2: at like loads of different versions of Ariadne, and she
Speaker 2: becomes quite a popular figure in the Roman period. So
Speaker 2: we have Avid writing poems about Ariadne and talking about
Speaker 2: her in various kind of metamorphosis and herodies and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. And but we also have like King Minus
Speaker 2: and his brother radamanthus who who become kind of representatives
Speaker 2: of law and law giving in the mythic tradition in
Speaker 2: the Hellenistic and the Roman period. So in like the
Speaker 2: standard mythic tradition, Minus in radamanthis end up as being
Speaker 2: judges in the underworld. And so there's whole there's this
Speaker 2: whole strand of myth that talks that is essentially setting
Speaker 2: the Cretans up as being the people who invented law
Speaker 2: and gave law to people, and that's represented within Minus
Speaker 2: and radamanthis. But of course the Athenian propaganda has Minus
Speaker 2: as being as bad guy who you know, defeats the
Speaker 2: Athenians and extracts like human sacrifices tribute, and so it
Speaker 2: gives us Catinus Everden as a result. And so it
Speaker 2: is kind of fascinating to see how you get these
Speaker 2: kind of competing visions occurring at the same time that
Speaker 2: in the Roman period, we can have them playing up
Speaker 2: the mythic tradition of the labyrinth and the minotaur and
Speaker 2: obviously the kind of connotations and relation to that, while
Speaker 2: also embracing kind of the law giving aspects and the
Speaker 2: kind of civilizing components of the mythic tradition in relation
Speaker 2: to crete as well, they see themselves as having the
Speaker 2: oldest cities and no sorts of things, and that is
Speaker 2: reflected then in the way in which in which Roman
Speaker 2: authors write about those mythic figures as well as being
Speaker 2: like central to the notion of law and order, which
Speaker 2: is really interesting, and you see it all over the
Speaker 2: place on the island. You see it in in kind
Speaker 2: of low pottery traditions, you see it in coinage, you
Speaker 2: see it in like wall decorations and those sorts of
Speaker 2: things as well with my archaeologist hat on as well
Speaker 2: at like places like Conossos. It's really fascinating because we
Speaker 2: sometimes have Roman buildings that are are using the Minoan
Speaker 2: foundations for the Roman buildings, so they're well aware of
Speaker 2: the existence of the Bronze Age Minoan structures on the island.
Speaker 2: Because like if you ever see it built by the Minoans.
Speaker 2: So you have these massive worth estates, they're like gigantic,
Speaker 2: and you know, in the Roman period they're just like,
Speaker 2: well we can we're not moving that, We'll just build
Speaker 2: on top of it. We'll just use it for ours.
Speaker 2: And so part of my work has been to kind
Speaker 2: of look at, you know, what is the form of
Speaker 2: the realm of the city in the Roman period, and
Speaker 2: we can see that it is essentially it is dependent
Speaker 2: on the Minoan city because it's using the same big
Speaker 2: blocks for its fundamental kind of layout of the grid
Speaker 2: on the city, which is really so they're obviously and
Speaker 2: they're digging down and they're like hitting the blocks, and
Speaker 2: the Minoans use mason marks on their blocks, and so
Speaker 2: some of those are the double headed acts the Labras
Speaker 2: as well. So they're like they're encountering like ancient material
Speaker 2: culture and ancient archaeological remains, and they're obviously thinking about
Speaker 2: it and then incorporating aspects of that iconography in the
Speaker 2: Roman period into their own, yeah, which is kind of fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm just going to say to like the
Speaker 1: casual listener of my show in case I haven't I
Speaker 1: probably drilled it in into them enough because I'm obsessed.
Speaker 1: But like, the difference in time period between the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age Minoans and the Romans is like seventeen hundred years
Speaker 1: probably right like that, It's that like a pretty decent guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a big it's a big
Speaker 2: gap for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's that's really ancient for them even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's like just in the same
Speaker 2: way that we have an interest and fascination with the past,
Speaker 2: so too did people in antiquity, and so you know,
Speaker 2: those people are also looking for ways to understand themselves
Speaker 2: in relation to what came before and are fascinated by
Speaker 2: the stories and by the histories, but also by the
Speaker 2: stuff as well. And there they are encountering the physical
Speaker 2: remains of the past themselves in their daily lives, and
Speaker 2: you know, are finding ways to make sense of it
Speaker 2: or incorporate it, or destroy it, or to profit from
Speaker 2: it or all the things that we do as well,
Speaker 2: they're also doing, which is part of why you know,
Speaker 2: when we think about uh Roman art and Roman statues,
Speaker 2: you know, we casually say, oh, this is a Roman
Speaker 2: copy of a Greek original, but it's like, why why
Speaker 2: are the Romans copying Greek statues?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Why is it that that the Romans are like shipping
Speaker 2: hundreds of statues which are original from Greece back to Italy,
Speaker 2: you know, taking it as booty, that's conquest. Why are
Speaker 2: they doing that? And part of it is is the
Speaker 2: same way that you know, people are buying antiquities now,
Speaker 2: like why do you why do people purchase antiquities? Why
Speaker 2: do you why do you go to Greece and try
Speaker 2: to buy a coin? It's like it's the same reason.
Speaker 2: You know, they're fascinated by aspects of that past and
Speaker 2: that culture and those stories that are associated with those things,
Speaker 2: and they want those things also in their fancy houses.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. So one of the things that's always been
Speaker 1: one of my sort of obsessions to talk about, but
Speaker 1: I've never really known how to go about learning more
Speaker 1: is what you mentioned of like the kind of Athenian
Speaker 1: propaganda that's so inherent in the story of Theseus because
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I've always just sort of found
Speaker 1: it to be obvious, because Theseus, I mean, I could
Speaker 1: talk about him forever, like he's just fascinatingly bizarre and
Speaker 1: like objectively bad hero who's a hero, and like there's
Speaker 1: just so much, but it's always interested me, like his
Speaker 1: connection to Canoso's and the Labyrinth and Ariadne and everything,
Speaker 1: because like you can tell it's the Athenians trying to
Speaker 1: make him look good. He still manages to not look
Speaker 1: totally great, but like it's one of his most redeeming stories.
Speaker 1: I would say, if you ignore the versions where he
Speaker 1: leaves her on an island, you know, which I doubt,
Speaker 1: he's just the worst. But it's always fascinating me because
Speaker 1: it's like it feels like a story that just exists,
Speaker 1: like so many other myths, like say the Homeric tradition,
Speaker 1: Like it almost feels like one of those, but when
Speaker 1: you really look at it, you see, like, no, it's
Speaker 1: deeply propagandic the but the Athenians seem to have gone
Speaker 1: about it in such a way that they even convinced
Speaker 1: people that it was like a more timeless myth. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious sort of if if people were convinced back then,
Speaker 1: I guess because I think certainly now you know, if
Speaker 1: you're not deep in this world, like it sounds like
Speaker 1: any other myth where it's sort of an oral tradition
Speaker 1: rather than propaganda. But this came up. I was doing
Speaker 1: an episode where I was answering leftover questions people had
Speaker 1: about Sparta, and somebody asked me about the like the
Speaker 1: myth of theseus abducting Helen, and like how that connects
Speaker 1: to like the relationship between Athens and Sparta and so
Speaker 1: many things. And what I wanted to emphasize is like,
Speaker 1: not only is it, you know, a connection to the
Speaker 1: relationship between those two city states, but it's also explicitly
Speaker 1: Athens trying to write themselves into the Homeric tradition, which
Speaker 1: seems like is kind of what they were doing all
Speaker 1: around with theseus.
Speaker 2: There is some really interesting stuff that kind of relates
Speaker 2: to it in a thematic sense around kind of foundation
Speaker 2: myths and so Niche McSweeney has written on kind of
Speaker 2: foundation myths, primarily in relation to Ionia, but it has
Speaker 2: themes which relate broadly to the Greek world, and I
Speaker 2: think that like one of the takeaways from that from
Speaker 2: a propagandistic sense is that is that I think that
Speaker 2: everybody is doing what the Athenians are doing with theseus.
Speaker 2: So everybody has a version of a local hero who
Speaker 2: is in their stories and helps justify aspects of their
Speaker 2: contemporary present. And everybody will have a version of that
Speaker 2: hero who will plug into the wider narratives like some
Speaker 2: sort of Marvel cinematic universe, right Like they all want
Speaker 2: to be part of it, and some of them are
Speaker 2: are more successful at plugging into that than others. And
Speaker 2: I mean, the great thing about myth as well is
Speaker 2: that nobody is ever striving to have a definitive version
Speaker 2: or or only one version, and so it's part of
Speaker 2: this part of the conception of myth within the Greek
Speaker 2: world is that it allows for multiple versions and for
Speaker 2: multiple stories. And that's why we can have so many
Speaker 2: different sanctuaries to Athena within one polus, for example. And
Speaker 2: bringing back to Pazaneous, he's very good at explaining to
Speaker 2: us the local mythic traditions that justify the existence of
Speaker 2: this particular sanctuary as opposed to the others sanctuary Athena
Speaker 2: that's just down the road. And I think, you know,
Speaker 2: and theseus isn't part a reaction to the to the
Speaker 2: success of Heracles, and like for me, in a way,
Speaker 2: like I see what the Athenians are trying to do
Speaker 2: with theseus is are trying to create this kind of
Speaker 2: attic version of the Dorian superhero who is Heracles, and
Speaker 2: to be like, look, we've got our own version. And
Speaker 2: he also does awesome stuff, and he has labors just
Speaker 2: like Heracles, and he like impregnates lots of people just
Speaker 2: like Heracles, and he treats people terribly just like Heracles.
Speaker 2: So it's like does all the stuff that a hero
Speaker 2: is supposed to do. And I think that that the
Speaker 2: difference is that the Heracles is just He's just a
Speaker 2: better version of that, And so's he's accepted more broadly.
Speaker 2: He's not Heracles isn't tied to a specific place in
Speaker 2: the way that Theseus is. Like, he's seen as being Dorian,
Speaker 2: but he's not seen as being like Spartan or Corinthian
Speaker 2: or Olympian or any of those other things. So he's
Speaker 2: he's broadly related to the Dorians, but he belongs to everybody,
Speaker 2: and certainly by the time we get into the Hellenistic period,
Speaker 2: he's strongly associated with physical education in Greek Polace, and
Speaker 2: that is what causes the explosion in his cult. So
Speaker 2: you have Heracles everywhere, there's a gymnasium there's there's a
Speaker 2: sanctuary or a shrine to Heracles within that genesium because
Speaker 2: he is associated with education. Theseus is just like he's
Speaker 2: just a less successful version of that because he is
Speaker 2: tied to Athens specifically rather than to an Ethnos in
Speaker 2: a way that Heracles is he seems to be more
Speaker 2: of a more of a an overtly propagandistic figure as
Speaker 2: a result of that. But and I think I think
Speaker 2: people by the Hellenistic period anyway, were more willing to
Speaker 2: see the flaws than the things that the Athenians were doing.
Speaker 2: And we're much more critical of what the Athenians have
Speaker 2: been up to in the Classical period, especially in the
Speaker 2: in the in the late Classical period, and so we're
Speaker 2: just weren't willing to accept a crappy substitute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Heracles. Yeah. Heracles has just always fascinated
Speaker 1: me because he seems, I mean, he is, like like
Speaker 1: you're saying, he's sort of from everywhere. It feels like
Speaker 1: everyone wants to claim him, so he just kind of
Speaker 1: gets to be this like all of Greece hero versus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Theseus being so specifically tied to Athens. But I like
Speaker 1: that description of him just being like a less successful Heracles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like a he's like a crappy knockoff of
Speaker 2: a stablished figure. You know, if you go to the
Speaker 2: second hand store and you pick up a Spider Man
Speaker 2: toy for your kid, and instead of it looks like
Speaker 2: Spider Man, but the package is just like Spider Guy
Speaker 2: or something, so it's like it's not it close. But no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even like everything he does is like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: other than the Minotaur, I think kind of is on
Speaker 1: the Heracles level. But it's always fascinating to me that,
Speaker 1: like most of what Theseus does is kill humans, whereas
Speaker 1: Heracles gets to kill these like terrifying monstrosities of you know,
Speaker 1: just like the wildest monsters. And then Heracles is like, well,
Speaker 1: this guy was like torturing people along a road and
Speaker 1: so I killed him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I read something I cannot remember where I read this
Speaker 2: years and years ago that basically talked about Heracles as
Speaker 2: being a hero of the rural world and Theseus is
Speaker 2: a hero of the urban world, and that's why the
Speaker 2: challenges that they face are different. If I buy that
Speaker 2: or not, but it's a kind of an interesting thing
Speaker 2: to think with in terms of the challenges that certainly
Speaker 2: if we think it would go back to Sparta again
Speaker 2: that you know, Sparta is a very different sort of
Speaker 2: community than Athens is significantly less urban. It is it's
Speaker 2: not really a proper city in the classical period because
Speaker 2: it is this collection of five villages that doesn't have
Speaker 2: a central urban core, whereas Athens is like the archetypical
Speaker 2: urban space in the classical world. It's like the biggest
Speaker 2: Greek city, and it's very very much focused on its
Speaker 2: urban core as opposed to its its territory or or horror,
Speaker 2: whereas I think in the Peloponnese there's much more of
Speaker 2: a balance between city and country within the territories of
Speaker 2: each Paula's mh, So maybe there's some truth to that.
Speaker 2: Heracles is kind of he's he he reflects more of
Speaker 2: the concerns of the rural folk, and that makes it
Speaker 2: more translatable to other places when most people don't live
Speaker 2: in cities in antiquity, you know, most people are stuck
Speaker 2: out in the fields. Yeah, and that also makes like
Speaker 2: Heracles translates further east as well, so he gets absorbed
Speaker 2: into the old Persian empire and stuff, and gets kind
Speaker 2: of syncretized or amalgamated with other local deities. So he's
Speaker 2: that kind of he's nebulous enough that he is palatable
Speaker 2: to many many audiences, whereas theseus is just too specific.
Speaker 2: It's hard to have Captain America being the hero of France.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so that's good connection. Yeah yeah, he's just
Speaker 1: like he's the Athenian hero. When it comes to Roman
Speaker 1: to Roman Greece broadly, like, were there any other areas
Speaker 1: where they were like particularly interested or doing particularly interesting
Speaker 1: things during that time, like areas of Greece.
Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, of course, there's like endless amounts of fascination
Speaker 2: fascinating topics that we could cover in relation to Roman Greece.
Speaker 2: But one of the one of the other things is
Speaker 2: really interesting is the Greek relationship with spectacle and like
Speaker 2: gladiatorial combats. So one of the things that we think
Speaker 2: of when we think of the Romans, it's like, you
Speaker 2: know what the big things we think of pompe We
Speaker 2: think of weird sex, and we think of gladiators. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and just like you know, Greeks were already doing weird sex,
Speaker 2: so they uh, when it comes to gladiators and spectacle entertainment,
Speaker 2: the Greeks have a very kind of specific response to it.
Speaker 2: So in the Western Empire, in the Western Mediterranean, where
Speaker 2: there's not a long history of urbanization or his or cities,
Speaker 2: loads of places build amphitheaters in the Roman period because
Speaker 2: it essentially becomes a religious and political test of your
Speaker 2: loyalty to Rome to house to put off spectacle entertainment.
Speaker 2: It gets tied very closely to the imperial cult in
Speaker 2: kind of the late first and early second centuries AD,
Speaker 2: and so it's kind of like you have to do
Speaker 2: it otherwise big brother will come and ask awkward questions.
Speaker 2: And so the Greek East they have to do it
Speaker 2: as well, but they don't build amphitheaters. Typically, they're not
Speaker 2: interested in importing this kind of new form of architecture
Speaker 2: in order to house spectacle. And for a long time
Speaker 2: this was interpreted as being like, well, the Greeks are
Speaker 2: generally impoverished in the Roman period. They don't have any money,
Speaker 2: so of course they're not going to build big amphitheaters
Speaker 2: and they'll make do with temporary structures or something else.
Speaker 2: But you know, research since the nineteen eighties has basically
Speaker 2: shown that that's not true. That the Eastern Mediterranean and
Speaker 2: is economically perhaps the richest part of the Mediterranean, and
Speaker 2: that there's loads of resources kicking around in the Greek
Speaker 2: East for building amphitheaters that they wanted to, but they
Speaker 2: just don't want to, and instead what they do is
Speaker 2: they take existing structures, primarily theaters, and convert those for
Speaker 2: spectacle entertainment. So the theater of Dionysus and Athens, you
Speaker 2: know that where all those plays were put off, gets
Speaker 2: converted for spectacle in the first century a d. And
Speaker 2: so they kind of they take out the first row
Speaker 2: of seats and they build this kind of this parapet
Speaker 2: and net system to protect the audience, and then they
Speaker 2: put off spectacle there. And then we see that this
Speaker 2: becomes kind of the predominant mode of conducting spectacle in
Speaker 2: the East is the conversion of theaters and to a
Speaker 2: lesser extent, stadia to be multi purpose entertainment venues basically
Speaker 2: that can also have spectacle. And it's really interesting because
Speaker 2: the Greek elites have a hard time with this. So
Speaker 2: we have various Greek authors who are like, what the
Speaker 2: hell is going on? How can we be desegrating these
Speaker 2: holy places with the blood of people and animals in
Speaker 2: this way because the theaters are they're almost always in
Speaker 2: sanctuaries or part of sanctuaries. But clearly the Greeks are
Speaker 2: deep into it, and they love their spectacle as much
Speaker 2: as anybody else. So there's loads of epigraphic evidence to
Speaker 2: show kind of the extent of the of the games
Speaker 2: that they're putting off. There's loads of evidence to show
Speaker 2: that from a relatively early stage they're kind of firmly
Speaker 2: embracing spectacle. But the big difference is we're not importing
Speaker 2: your building. We're going to do it the way that
Speaker 2: we want to do it, and that is within the theater.
Speaker 2: And it's really interesting that Corinth, which is one of
Speaker 2: the big cities of the Greek world, economic powerhouse in
Speaker 2: the Archaic and the classical world, kind of core part
Speaker 2: of the Peloponnesian League in the classical period, but it
Speaker 2: is also a seat of resistance to Rome in the
Speaker 2: second century BC, and when the Romans get fed up
Speaker 2: with the Greeks, they come in and they in BC
Speaker 2: they lay siege to the city of Corinth and they
Speaker 2: destroy it. And so in the same year that Carthage
Speaker 2: is destroyed, Corinth is also destroyed, and the Roman Lucius Mummius,
Speaker 2: you know, cuts off all the treasures and brings it
Speaker 2: back to Rome. And about a century later, Julius Caesar
Speaker 2: decides that he's going to refound the city of Corinth
Speaker 2: as a Roman colony, and he's suffers some several stab
Speaker 2: wounds before you can carry that plan out, but his
Speaker 2: successor Augustus kind of sees it through, and so Corinth
Speaker 2: has refounded as the Roman colony. And when the Romans
Speaker 2: turn Greece into a formal administrative province of Ikia, Corinth
Speaker 2: becomes the capital and not Athens. And so what's really
Speaker 2: interesting is that because it's Roman colony, it's the administration
Speaker 2: is Roman veterans. They use centuriation in the countryside around corns,
Speaker 2: so they turn it into like a Roman landscape. It's
Speaker 2: a Roman city full of Roman citizens as well as
Speaker 2: a bunch of Greeks. And they build an amphitheater because
Speaker 2: of course you have to have an amphitheater if you're
Speaker 2: a Roman city. But that amphitheater goes out of use
Speaker 2: after about a century of use, and instead the Corinthians
Speaker 2: convert their theater for spectacle entertainment, so they stop using
Speaker 2: the amphitheater that is the building that is designed for spectacle,
Speaker 2: and instead they convert their theater just like everybody else
Speaker 2: in the Greek East and kind of use that as
Speaker 2: the venue for spectacle. And I think it ties back
Speaker 2: into the kind of those notions of like of anxiety
Speaker 2: about what does it mean to be Greek in the
Speaker 2: Roman period. And one of the ways that they do
Speaker 2: that is by you know, adopting and adapting and changing,
Speaker 2: but not too much. You know, I'm trying to have
Speaker 2: some kind of control over it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they're willing to like take on the Roman
Speaker 1: form of entertainment, but in their very Greek way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, it sounds like that would be really close
Speaker 1: to the action in a way that like immediately makes
Speaker 1: me feel uncomfortable, like you, I mean, you were saying
Speaker 1: that there was like they would set up like nets
Speaker 1: and stuff like, but that feels like you're like really
Speaker 1: in it in those theaters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that there's a there's a couple of
Speaker 2: different ways that they modify theaters. So as we get
Speaker 2: further into the Roman period into the second and the
Speaker 2: third centuries, we see slightly different things being done depending
Speaker 2: on the nature of the theater, so at Ephesus and
Speaker 2: Asia Minor, they not only take out the first couple
Speaker 2: of rows of seats, but they kind of reinforce a
Speaker 2: parapet wall, so it creates that kind of like a
Speaker 2: twelve foot basic like a drop between the seats and
Speaker 2: what we might think of as the arena floor or
Speaker 2: the orchestra area of the old theater, and then they
Speaker 2: would have nets on the top of that, so it
Speaker 2: would be more kind of protect thee But they don't
Speaker 2: ever really do that in the Theater of Dionysis, and
Speaker 2: they don't do that at places like Argos. They just
Speaker 2: have this post and net system. So I imagine it
Speaker 2: is like the people are getting people in the in
Speaker 2: the first rows of seats. It's like going to sea world.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe they get that like a splash zone.
Speaker 1: That's horrified. God. Yeah. Yeah, Like there's a huge difference
Speaker 1: between like a twelve foot wall and a net on
Speaker 1: top and like the theater of Dionysius in Athens, which
Speaker 1: is all I can picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, health and safety is not a major
Speaker 2: concern as a robot period, but they do they do
Speaker 2: kind of get very enamored of their blood sports in
Speaker 2: the Greek East, which is one of the things again
Speaker 2: that we have various philosophers kind of complaining about, you know,
Speaker 2: about the desecration with the blood. Yeah, but obviously people
Speaker 2: love it, so there they keep doing it. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: it is it is like fascinating to kind of think
Speaker 2: about how culture translates between you know, the East and
Speaker 2: the West, and the ways in which Greek elites have
Speaker 2: different attitudes to the non elites and yet can't ignore
Speaker 2: entirely the attitudes of the populace as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're.
Speaker 2: Kind of, you know, giving them what they want in
Speaker 2: terms of the sport and the spectacle, but they're kind
Speaker 2: of trying to keep a rain on it a little
Speaker 2: bit so that it is has more of a local
Speaker 2: flavor perhaps.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm picturing the difference between like a performers of
Speaker 1: Aschylus and like a gladiator competition at like Epidavros or
Speaker 1: something like it. Just that feels absolutely wild. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: what an enormous change in culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean those theaters remain as theatrical spaces
Speaker 2: in the Roman period as well, so you know, you
Speaker 2: can take down your post on your nets and you
Speaker 2: can have a play but you know there obviously other
Speaker 2: they introduce the stage and the formalized scene building and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and the Hellenistic period, so it's like
Speaker 2: a different type of theater then you would get in
Speaker 2: a classical period. But they're they're keeping them as spaces
Speaker 2: that can be used for lots of different things, and
Speaker 2: in lots of polas as well, the theater would double
Speaker 2: as a political space. They wouldn't have a separate kind
Speaker 2: of meeting point like the pinnix that Athens has, that
Speaker 2: most of it would happen in the theater. Interesting, and
Speaker 2: I think that that stays in the Roman period as well,
Speaker 2: and the big it is practical, Yeah, but like one
Speaker 2: of the big distinctions I think like one of the
Speaker 2: things I think it's important to point out is that
Speaker 2: when we talk about like Roman Greece is for the
Speaker 2: most part, this is Greeks who are doing all of
Speaker 2: these things. This is not it's not the Romans coming
Speaker 2: in and deciding how things are going to be. For
Speaker 2: the most part, the Romans are quite hands off in
Speaker 2: laissez faire. So long as they get their taxes and
Speaker 2: as long as nobody is revolting, then you can do
Speaker 2: whatever you want, And so when we're talking about Greece
Speaker 2: in the Roman period, we're still talking fundamentally about Greeks
Speaker 2: making decisions on behalf of other Greeks about how things
Speaker 2: are going to function and how things are going to work,
Speaker 2: and that the major kind of stated, the major difference
Speaker 2: between kind of the lived experience of people in the
Speaker 2: Greek world would be would still be class and status
Speaker 2: as opposed to kind of notions of citizenship or Greek
Speaker 2: versus Roman or any of those other things. Like the
Speaker 2: thing that would be the determinant of whether you had
Speaker 2: like an easy life or a hard life would be
Speaker 2: your family and how wealthy you were.
Speaker 1: Right, interesting, Yeah, So like is it more so that
Speaker 1: I guess the culture is just spreading and so they're
Speaker 1: just sort of taking on some of the more originally
Speaker 1: specific Roman things purely because of sort of an evolution
Speaker 1: and cultural you know, shifting and sharing of those kind
Speaker 1: of traditions.
Speaker 2: Or it's just I mean, it's quite a big debate
Speaker 2: within ancient history about how cultural interaction and cultural change
Speaker 2: works in antiquity. And there are two broad schools of thought,
Speaker 2: I suppose. So there's really an excellent book written by
Speaker 2: Tony spawforth called Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution, which
Speaker 2: came out about a decade ago, which kind of seeks
Speaker 2: to explain one of those models, which is that culture
Speaker 2: change essentially happens from the top down, and so that
Speaker 2: when we see changes in broad culture, it is because
Speaker 2: of elite emulation, so that elites are changing the way
Speaker 2: that they're doing things because the power structures are different
Speaker 2: and they want to keep power, so they do the
Speaker 2: new thing, and then people lower down the social ladder
Speaker 2: are emulating those elites because everybody always wants to be
Speaker 2: like them, and that's how culture change happens. And the
Speaker 2: other school of thought would would be slightly more organic
Speaker 2: and haphazard. I suppose that said that it's not driven
Speaker 2: from the top, but rather like broad changes, largely driven
Speaker 2: from the bottom, I suppose. And essentially there's no way
Speaker 2: to reconcile those two points of view. So like that,
Speaker 2: the the elite emulation point of view, we used to
Speaker 2: call it romanization, so it was about other areas becoming
Speaker 2: more like Rome, the implicit kind of understanding that Rome
Speaker 2: is somehow remaining unchanged in that process. So it's a
Speaker 2: cultural monolith. It moves into a place, and then that
Speaker 2: place becomes more like Rome and less like what it
Speaker 2: had been, and Rome is just a monolith unchanged through
Speaker 2: that process. Now we have a much more kind of
Speaker 2: nuanced understanding. We don't really like to talk about Romanization anymore.
Speaker 2: If we do talk about Romanization, we put air quotes
Speaker 2: around it to show that we're being critical, and we
Speaker 2: think of cultural interaction as being a much more kind
Speaker 2: of complicated picture than that that number one, there is
Speaker 2: no monolith that is Rome. So there is no one
Speaker 2: thing that defines Roman culture in the same way that
Speaker 2: there's no Greek culture. There's like you know, there's twelve
Speaker 2: hundred different Polayce they all have their own culture. They
Speaker 2: just share a language and kind of bits of the pantheon.
Speaker 2: And that's the same for Rome essentially. But also we
Speaker 2: can see lots of ways in which Rome changes through
Speaker 2: its interactions with non Italic people's h and kind of
Speaker 2: adopts aspects of different culture. So, like you know, second
Speaker 2: century BC Rome what we would call kind of like
Speaker 2: the High Republic. It's the same as the Hellenistic period
Speaker 2: in the Greek East, and it's around that time when
Speaker 2: Rome is trying to emulate Hellenistic monarchies, and Greek becomes
Speaker 2: the second language of kind of elite Romans that if
Speaker 2: you want to show that you're educated, and you want
Speaker 2: to show that you got your finger on the pulse,
Speaker 2: and you also know Greek as well as Latin. And
Speaker 2: that causes problems in Rome where we have you know,
Speaker 2: old aristocrats being like, why does everything have to change?
Speaker 2: And then the young blood's being like, well, this is
Speaker 2: the reality. The Greek culture is school and I'm all
Speaker 2: over it, you know. Twas Ever, thus I.
Speaker 1: Suppose, yeah, nothing's changed.
Speaker 2: That I don't know that. That's what I'm like. When
Speaker 2: my kids are listening to crabby music, I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: why does this have to change the old stuff better?
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, that's kind of what's what
Speaker 2: we think about cultural interaction in the Greek East. There's
Speaker 2: like a long and sordid tale of some local Greek
Speaker 2: elites adopting aspects of Roman culture in order to get
Speaker 2: in with the new paymasters and kind of promote their
Speaker 2: own local careers. Because the Romans aren't going to have
Speaker 2: anti Roman people in charge of anything, so you have
Speaker 2: to be pro Roman, and so they adopt aspects of
Speaker 2: that in order to show themselves as being pro Roman.
Speaker 2: But they'll deploy that pro romanness for different audiences in
Speaker 2: different ways. So again, if we go back to Sparta,
Speaker 2: we get into the like the early Roman period in Sparta,
Speaker 2: there's one guy in charge of Sparta, guy called Eurycles,
Speaker 2: and he's in charge because his family supported Livia, Augustus's
Speaker 2: wife during the civil war hit her basically was she fled,
Speaker 2: and then they supported Augustus at the Battle of Actium.
Speaker 2: The Euroclids did unlike most of the rest degrees right,
Speaker 2: and so they were rewarded with like okay, well now
Speaker 2: you're in charge of Sparta. And so Eurycles is one
Speaker 2: of the one of the exceptions. He gets Roman citizenship
Speaker 2: in like ten BC. That's look quite rare at that time.
Speaker 2: So it's a Greek he gets Roman citizenship. All of
Speaker 2: the epigraphy we have related to Eurycles within Sparta never
Speaker 2: mentions his Roman citizenship. All of the epigraphy we have
Speaker 2: about Eurycles outside of Sparta mentions his Roman citizenship, right,
Speaker 2: so's he's using it for different audiences. So in Sparta
Speaker 2: he's a local boy, he's still a Spartan. He knows
Speaker 2: where he came from. He hasn't forgotten his roots outside
Speaker 2: in Corinth or in Argos or in Olympia, where he's
Speaker 2: like spending the money and flashing the cash because now
Speaker 2: he's got Roman money to spend. He's emphasizing his Roman
Speaker 2: connections to kind of rubb it in everybody's faces, like
Speaker 2: I'm Spartan and I'm Roman and you can't mess with
Speaker 2: me now. Yeah, And I think we see a lot
Speaker 2: of that in kind of aspect pockets of cultural change
Speaker 2: within the Greek East, of those kind of tensions always
Speaker 2: being played out.
Speaker 1: Well, that's yeah, that's fascinating. I like, I love those
Speaker 1: little aspects that just feel so very real and just normal,
Speaker 1: you know, compared to our world. Like that the idea
Speaker 1: of using using those things depending on where they're going
Speaker 1: to get you the most sort of benefits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, I mean, and that's the that's the
Speaker 2: elite game, right, that's the game is that if you
Speaker 2: want to be financially successful, if you want to be
Speaker 2: politically politically successful, then you have to have connections. And
Speaker 2: that it's like true in the classical world, and it's
Speaker 2: true the Roman world, Like it's your connections that secure
Speaker 2: your position and you don't ever do anything alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, honestly, this has been so fascinating.
Speaker 1: I didn't know I needed to know so much about
Speaker 1: Roman Greece. So thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's I mean, I, like I said at
Speaker 1: the top, I just like getting people talking because I
Speaker 1: get to learn so much and just nerd out a lot.
Speaker 1: Is there anything you want to share with my listeners
Speaker 1: in terms of like where they can read more from you,
Speaker 1: or if you want to be followed anywhere, whatever you
Speaker 1: want or don't want.
Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter, so you can find me there as
Speaker 2: doctor Dan Stewart. One. I think I can actually remember
Speaker 2: what my Twitter handle is.
Speaker 1: I can link it to the episode two.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'll be there for as long as that thing,
Speaker 2: as long as it takes for that house to burn down.
Speaker 2: And yeah, apart from that, I have that. I don't
Speaker 2: have anything else to promote. Really, I've come my academic work.
Speaker 2: I got my academic work. If anybody wants a copy
Speaker 2: of any of that, by all means, we're very happy
Speaker 2: to send it along.
Speaker 1: So well, thank you so much for doing this. I really,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. It's been incredibly fun to learn
Speaker 1: all of this uugh nerds. As always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. I fucking love conversation episodes. This one
Speaker 1: was so fascinating, so great to talk to Dan about God.
Speaker 1: All of these things, like Roman Greece was just a
Speaker 1: complete mystery to me, beyond generally having heard some stuff
Speaker 1: about Roman Sparta and being aware of Gorton as a
Speaker 1: place on crete. And that's honestly kind of the extent
Speaker 1: of my knowledge because I just really love the classical
Speaker 1: and Arcic periods. But there is so much value to
Speaker 1: learning beyond that, and thankfully I have people to come
Speaker 1: and tell me all the things that matter and are
Speaker 1: so interesting and even bigger thank you because all of
Speaker 1: you want to hear these things and you love it too,
Speaker 1: and God said so cool. Conversation episodes are the most fun.
Speaker 1: They are so rewarding. Anyway, I love you all. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Miths. Baby is written and produced by me
Speaker 1: Live Albert. Mikayla Smith is the hermes to my Olympian's Gods.
Speaker 1: She does so many things. She's the absolute best, just
Speaker 1: give her a hand ye out right now. I think
Speaker 1: when this airs she'll be in Italy doing like a
Speaker 1: cool archaeological dig, like a cool classicist. It's incredible. My god,
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