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In recent decades, outreach and service learning have become buzzwords in higher education. For many fields, these terms connote issues both of relevance (how is our field applicable “real world” problems?) and of access to educational opportunities (how can we reach out to non-traditional groups of students?). This paper will address these questions as they apply to classics.

The purpose of this talk is to argue for a “service” model of outreach, and discuss two underused avenues for public service among professional classicists: podcasting, and digital project reviews. Classical outreach programs are proliferating.

This illustrated paper explores the unusual emphasis on imperial mothers and daughters in second-century Rome. With the inception of the dynastic Principate women became key players in Roman politics (e.g., Severy 2003; Milnor 2005), and throughout the first century imperial women’s depiction in arts, documents, and literature predominantly stressed their relationship to men, especially sons. Their roles as carriers and nurturers of sons and “princes” was foremost: for instance, on a coin of 13 BCE Julia I appears flanked by her sons Gaius and Lucius (BMC 1, no.

Recent research into Hellenistic dynasties has emphasized an understanding of the tensions, discord, civil strife, and weakening of royal houses caused by polygamy (e.g. Ogden 1999). At the center of this body of research lies the father-son bond, which could be considerably weakened by the fact that kings often had multiple wives who championed their own sons. Far less attention has been paid to key mother-daughter relationships in the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Despite Anyte’s prominent place in Meleager’s Garland, modern scholars have not generally given her epigrams the same attention and approbation as her Hellenistic contemporaries, Erinna and Nossis. Feminist scholars have re-evaluated Anyte’s worth, considering her to be an influential and innovative poet (Snyder 1989; Barnard 1991; Gutzwiller 1998). These scholars have shown how Anyte may be the first epigrammatist to “project a distinct literary persona,” defined specifically by feminine sensibilities and values.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the goddess Rhea plays a crucial role in convincing her daughter Demeter to put aside her anger and return to the company of the gods. Rhea’s significance to the hymn as a whole, particularly her mother-daughter relationship with Demeter, has largely been overlooked. While scholars have generally focused on Rhea’s role as Zeus’ final messenger to Demeter, Rhea’s importance as a mother figure is signaled much earlier in the poem when Demeter is twice referred to as the “daughter of lovely-haired Rhea” (Ῥείης ἠυκόμου θύγατερ, H.H.Dem. 60, 75).

Of the extant literary sources, Cassius Dio's Roman history provides the fullest portrait of Julia Domna (despite its epitomized nature) and remains the earliest extant account of the empress' actions and role in the court of Septimius Severus. Analyses of the figure of Julia Domna, combining the literary evidence with the vast repository of visual media (numismatic, epigraphic, sculptural, and monumental) related to the empress, have portrayed her as a powerful empress who wielded a significant amount of influence (e.g. Williams 1902, Ghedini 1984, Levick 2007).

One of the main methods of interpretation of Cassius Dio's Roman history has been through the author's biographical sketches or depictions of particular reigns (e.g. Millar 1964: 119-173, Manuwald 1979, Pelling 1997). This paper examines the various depictions of the Flavian emperors as a thematic unit, a portion of Dio's history that has received relatively little comment (with the notable exception of the commentary of Murison 1999).

In his extended description of Augustus' funeral (56.34-47), Dio provides several layers of post-mortem evaluation of the first emperor, from Tiberius' extended direct-discourse speech (§35-41) to the anonymous comments of his contemporaries (§43) to the narrator's own propria persona assessment (§44).