Faculty Research
Funding of Greek sanctuaries and festivals
William Bubelis’ research interests focus upon the economic and political history of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, including the Achaemenid Empire. In order to elucidate the surprising connections between politics, religion, and economics in ancient society, he works closely with inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and other languages, and also draws heavily upon the Attic orators, contemporary drama and philosophy, as well as the classical historians.
Bubelis is engaged on a monograph that investigates how various Greek states in the archaic and classical periods, ranging from Athens to Elis and Sparta, funded and administered their gods’ sanctuaries and festivals. This project explores how such sacral affairs were often the focus of intense political interest and also impacted the economic structure and prosperity of the Greek city-state. In addition, he is currently working on several article length projects, including the cult of Sarapis in Egypt, monetary circulation in the Crimea, and the use of tokens to counter identity fraud in the late classical and Hellenistic period.
Horses and Epic Poetry
Ryan Platte is currently conducting research for a book, tentatively titled, Horses and Horsemanship in the Oral Poetry of Greece and the Indo-European World. This work represents an evaluation of the Homeric hero and the poetic identity of the oral poet himself, as reflected in the treatment of heroic horses. His methodological approach consists principally of analysis of the synchronic, formulaic, and metaphorical networks by which horses, heroes, and poets are connected. He also employs comparative linguistics and poetics in order to incorporate parallel Indo-European traditions. The cognate oral poetry of Vedic Sanskrit, as well as that of Old Avestan, exhibits striking similarities in its treatment of horses, and may, when considered carefully, illuminate certain idiosyncrasies of the Homeric treatment. In combining these methodologies Prof. Platte is attempting to elucidate the mechanics of the horse’s symbolic functions in Homeric poetry, as well as the historic origins and larger cultural implications of these functions.
Ritual pyres and workers’ religion at Athens
Susan Rotroff’s work is centered in Athens, and in particular at the excavations in the Athenian Agora. Currently she is investigating a series of small ritual deposits discovered around the borders of the agora (public square) of Athens. Over fifty of these have been found, buried in small pits in and around private buildings, dubbed “pyres” because their contents were usually burned,. The offerings include large numbers of miniature plates and cooking pots, as well as an occasional lamp or drinking cup of normal size, and plates and alabastra of types familiar from funerary contexts. Small fragments of burnt bone have been found in many of the deposits, evidence which encouraged earlier researchers to identify the deposits as infant cremations. Recent analysis of the bone by zooarchaeologist Lynn Snyder of the Smithsonian Institution has identified the bones as the remains of sheep or goats, and the deposits clearly represent the aftermath of sacrifices.
No ancient text refers to the ritual, which was practiced at Athens from the latter part of the 5th century at least until the 3rd century, and possibly later. Rotroff’s project involves understanding this practice in the context of Greek popular worship and of Athenian life in general. A majority of the deposits have been found in structures that were used for commercial or industrial purposes, suggesting that the sacrifices were concerned with the protection of artisans and the industrial procedures central to their crafts.
Roman Satire
Cathy Keane's interests range broadly over Greek and Roman literature and culture, but center on the comic genres and their reception. Her research focuses on the Roman verse satirists Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. She is the author of the book Figuring Genre in Roman Satire (Oxford, 2006),which unpacks the conventional, intersecting, and often uncomplimentary comparisons of satire with drama, violence, legal process, and teaching. She has also published articles on satire and other ancient literature, and guest-edited a special issue of the journal Classical and Modern Literature, to which scholars contributed essays on ancient and modern satire from Lucilius to Eminem. Keane is currently writing two new books: one a study of Juvenal's multifaceted satiric persona and poetics, particularly his uses of anger, and the other a satire reader and commentary for Latin students (due to appear in 2010 from Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers).