Andrej Petrovic joins me in the Lesche to discuss a new verse-inscription from Teos (in Turkey) discovered in 2013 by Musa Kadıoğlu, director of the excavations at Teos. Together with Mustafa Adak (Professor of Greek Language and Literature, University of Akdeniz) and Christian Marek (University of Zurich), Andrej has co-authored a monograph with edition, commentary, and interpretative essays on the inscription (publication details TBD).

Ankara University press release announcing the discovery (in Turkish)

Harvard Gazette article on the new monumental portrait statue from Sardia

Ancient authors/works 

• Theognis of Megara/the Thegonidea, esp. lines 19-20 (the σφραγίς, 'seal') and line 460, πολλάκις ἐκ νυκτῶν ἄλλον ἔχει λιμένα. 
• Semonides of Amorgos
• The "Sosthenes inscription"
• The "Mnesiepes inscription"
• The "Salmacis poem"/"Pride of Halicarnassus"

Modern scholarship

• Adak, M. and Thonemann, P. 2022. Teos and Abdera: Two Cities in Peace and War. Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents. Oxford University Press. 
• Bernsdorff, H. 2021. Anacreon of Teos: Testimonia and Fragments. Oxford University Press. 
• Bowie, E. 2012. "An early chapter in the history of the Theognidea"
• West, M. L. 1974. Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, ch. III "On the history of the Theognidean Sylloge"
• See also esp. Diskin Clay's 2004 Archilochus Heros: The Cult of Poets in the Greek Polis (Center for Hellenic Studies), which contains many translated ancient testimonia. BMCR review here.

About our guest

Andrej Petrovic is a specialist in Greek literature, epigraphy, and religion. Born in Yugoslavia and trained in Serbia and Germany, he held academic positions in Munich, Heidelberg, and Durham (UK) before becoming Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. He edits Greece and Rome and serves as president-elect of the American Society for Greek and Latin Epigraphy. He has published books on Simonidean verse-inscriptions, co-authored (with Ivana Petrovic) Inner Purity and Pollution in Greek Religion, and written some 50 articles on archaic and classical epigram and text materiality. He has held Humboldt, Mellon, and CHS fellowships. 

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Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!

Podcast art: Daniel Blanco
Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius

This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study.

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