Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
Name	Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
Focus	Classical antiquity and Byzantine civilization
Disciplines	Classical studies, Byzantine studies, Ancient history
Country	International

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies covers the study of ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire from archaic to medieval periods, integrating philology, history, art history, archaeology, and theology. Scholars engage with primary sources such as the works of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Procopius, and Anna Komnene, and with material culture excavated at sites like Athens, Pompeii, Ostia Antica, Constantinople, and Ephesus.

Overview

The field unites study of authors including Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Sappho, Pindar, Hesiod, Aeschines, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Augustus, Hadrian, Constantine I, and Justinian I with analysis of inscriptions from Delphi, Pergamon, Athens Acropolis, and Ephesus Library. It draws on artifacts from collections at the British Museum, the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, the Hermitage Museum, and the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Comparative study often references medieval sources such as Michael Psellos, Nicetas Choniates, George Pachymeres, Symeon Metaphrastes, and legal texts like the Corpus Juris Civilis and the Ecloga.

History and Development

Modern institutional study traces back to humanists like Francesco Petrarca, Poggio Bracciolini, and Erasmus and to scholars such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Edward Gibbon, Theodor Mommsen, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and August Boeckh. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century developments involved figures like Richard Jebb, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, E. R. Dodds, Sir Arthur Evans, Heinrich Schliemann, Arthur Gardner, Martin Heidegger (in philological context), Friedrich Nietzsche (in reception studies), and Mikhail Rostovtzeff. Twentieth-century Byzantine studies expanded through the work of Nicolas Oikonomides, Steven Runciman, John Julius Norwich, A. A. Vasiliev, Ernest R. Dodds (classical reception), and Mango school scholars such as Roger Scott.

Academic Departments and Programs

Programs appear in departments at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, University College London, the University of Toronto, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the Sorbonne University, the Università di Roma La Sapienza, Heidelberg University, Leiden University, and the University of Athens. Graduate training often involves work at research centers like the Institute for Advanced Study, the Warburg Institute, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the American Academy in Rome, and the British School at Athens.

Research Areas and Methodologies

Key areas include epigraphy centered on collections such as the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg, papyrology using finds from Oxyrhynchus, textual criticism of manuscripts like the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, numismatics analyzing coins from Pergamon Mint and Alexandria, prosopography exemplified by the Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire, and archaeology with fieldwork at Knossos, Mycenae, Delos, Herculaneum, Levantine sites, and Antioch. Methodologies incorporate comparative philology influenced by Jacob Grimm and Franz Bopp, archaeological science linked to Flinders Petrie and Mortimer Wheeler, digital humanities projects such as the Perseus Digital Library and the TAPAS project, and interdisciplinary approaches engaging with Coptic studies, Islamic studies (for later Byzantine interactions), Judaic studies (for Hellenistic and Roman Palestine), and Medieval Latin scholarship.

Notable Scholars and Contributions

Influential classicists and Byzantinists include Farnell, G. E. R. Lloyd, M. I. Finley, Bernard Knox, Bernard Ashmole, Denys Page, John Boardman, Michael Grant, Oswyn Murray, Anthony Snodgrass, Bruno Snell, Kenneth Dover, Edith Hall, Mary Beard, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, John H. D. Greenwood, A. H. M. Jones, Robert Browning (scholar), Averil Cameron, Paul Stephenson, Mango, Cyril, Donald Nicol, John Julius Norwich, Iakovos Akalestos, Rodney Stark (on societal studies), and archaeologists like Carl Blegen, Spyridon Marinatos, John Evans (antiquarian), and Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

Publications and Journals

Major journals and series include Journal of Hellenic Studies, Classical Quarterly, Classical Philology, Mnemosyne (journal), Byzantinische Zeitschrift, The Classical Review, American Journal of Philology, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Speculum, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Journal of Roman Studies, Hesperia (journal), Numismatic Chronicle, Gnomon (journal), Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, Byzantinische Forschungen, Revue des études grecques, Revue des études latines, and series like Oxford Classical Monographs, Cambridge Classical Studies, and Loeb Classical Library editions of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristophanes.

Conferences and Professional Organizations

Professional bodies include the Society for Classical Studies, the British Academy, the Hellenic Society, the International Byzantine Association, the International Association of Byzantine Studies, the Canadian Society for Classical Studies, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Klassische Altertumskunde, and the Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino. Regular conferences and meetings occur at forums such as the Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, the International Congress of Byzantine Studies, the British School at Rome lecture series, symposia at the Dumbarton Oaks symposia, and workshops associated with the Institute for Advanced Study and the Warburg Institute.

Category:Classical studies Category:Byzantine studies