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Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Late Bronze Age Lesbos, Mycenaean Hegemony, and the Name of a Great King of the Achaeans

By Annette Teffeteller

It has long been clear that the Linear B tablets will not provide us with any evidence for international relations of the Mycenaean kingdoms with other great powers of the period since the tablets preserve records of only the lowest levels of administration of the local centres in which they are found, diplomatic records having evidently been kept on perishable materials which have not survived.

Greeks and Anatolians on Lesbos: The Linguistic Evidence

By Alexander Dale

This paper brings to bear the linguistic evidence—focusing primarily on toponyms and personal names—for a hybridized Greco-Anatolian culture on Lesbos and its Anatolian hinterland. It is argued that several toponymic suffixes, such as –ηνη and –υμνα, seen in e.g. Mytilene and Methymna, have solid Luwo-Hittite etymologies, and attest to the prominent presence of Anatolian population groups on Lesbos in the pre-Archaic period (see Dale forthcoming 2013).

Religion in Aegean-Hittite Diplomacy: The Evidence of the Hittite Ahhiyawa Texts

By Ian Rutherford

Religion plays a major role in diplomacy in Bronze Age cultures, as we see from treaties between different states, where lists of gods on either side are called on as witnesses. In order for the treaty to have validity, it is essential that the ideas of the deities are understood by both sides, i.e. are "translatable" (see Smith 2008). No such treaty survives for relations between the Hittites and Ahhiyawa or between any Western Anatolian state and Ahhiyawa, although they probably existed.

Dion of Prusa and the Later Stoics on Participation in Politics

By Gretchen Reydams-Schils

Although Dion of Prusa’s work betrays more influences than strictly Stoic ones, our sources do tell us that he studied with Musonius Rufus, and scholars such as Brunt (1973) have already shown how fruitful an analysis of his speeches can be for reconstructions of Stoic viewpoints.

In this paper I will focus on the question of participation in politics, and more specifically on the challenges that such participation poses. Dion proposes a number of strategies, which all, one way or another, end up underscoring rather than undermining the importance of such participation.

Precept(or), Example, and Politics in Seneca

By Matthew Roller

This paper investigates the politics of Seneca’s stoic engagement with traditional Roman exemplary discourse. In the Epistulae, Seneca develops the argument that past social actors cannot provide usable models for action in the present, because our knowledge of such actors’ moral states is insufficient.

Valerius Maximus, Stoicism, and Roman Practices of Exemplarity

By Ermanno Malaspina

After the trailblazing works of Fleck 1974 and Maslakov 1984, in the last two decades an increasing number of articles and monographs have explored the concept of “exemplarity,” understood as key-concept for a deeper understanding of Valerius Maximus (V.M. henceforth). Even if the practical function of Facta ac Dicta Memorabilia as a repository for school and declamatory culture cannot be denied, the principles of selection, the elaboration of the sources, and, above all, the moral implications of these exempla have been systematically targeted.

Color and Variety in Stoic Physics

By Thomas Habinek

The aim of this paper is to explore the overlapping terminology and argumentation of Stoic physics and ancient aesthetic discourse, especially with respect to the color and variety of the natural world. The Stoics, like their pre-Socratic predecessors, drew heavily on visual phenomena in developing their account of a continuous, monistic universe, and in return they supplied ancient aesthetic theory with defenses against the philosophical critique of art articulated by the Platonic Socrates and various of his successors.

Reaching Out with Print and Web

By Ellen A. Bauerle

As learned societies have become aware that for the sake of survival they must communicate their larger purposes to their constituents and to yet-larger audiences, the APA has made wise and useful choices about the breadth and diversity of its outreach program. Under the auspices of its Vice President for Outreach, numerous initiatives, including print and web-based, are being deployed to make clear for a wider audience what they gain by having the APA, and its constituents, in their midst.

Making a MOOC of Greek History

By Andrew Szegedy-Maszak

Distance learning has undergone an enormous change with the advent of MOOC’s – Massive Open Online Courses – that are offered by consortia of colleges and universities, such as Coursera, EdX, and Udacity. I was asked to give such a course on Greek History for Coursera, and I will discuss the process of putting the course together, from formulating the initial outline to recording the lectures to launching the class and responding to its students.