Before one embarks upon reading Thracian Language and Greek and Thracian Epigraphy, one should keep in mind that one should be facing an extremely complex situation.There is a methodological problem, originating in the past, which caused various misunderstandings. It is due to the volume of different entries assembled in the goal to compose a thesaurus of the Thracian language. Somehow, over the years during the last two centuries, there was a whole set of methods applied that were not in accordance to the progress made by linguistics. For example, the choice made in assembling the two main corpora so far, that of Tomaschek and Detschew, present data from literary and epigraphic sources. These data combined were not at all times convincing. Sometimes controversial entries were included whose interpretation provoked long discussions. More attention was paid to details, which in most of the cases were not concerned with the discussion of the whole body of evidence. There was one other issue: whilst modern linguistics made a huge progress, Thracian scholars stayed within the general Indo-European theory of the Neogrammarians. The method the author used rests on the description of Thracian onomastics obtained after phonological analysis, because he is concerned with the fact that every single phonologically attested form of phonemes and morphs is relevant. For, it helps to list all possible forms of names thus showing all of the graphemes independently.

A Companion to Ancient Thrace presents a series of essays that reveal the newly recognized complexity of the social and cultural phenomena of the peoples inhabiting the Balkan periphery of the Classical world. • Features a rich and detailed overview of Thracian history from the Early Iron Age to Late Antiquity • Includes contributions from leading scholars in the archaeology, art history, and general history of Thrace • Balances consideration of material evidence relating to Ancient Thrace with more traditional literary sources • Integrates a study of Thrace within a broad context that includes the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, southwest Asia, and southeast Europe/Eurasia • Reflects the impact of new theoretical approaches to economy, ethnicity, and cross-cultural interaction and hybridity in Ancient Thrace

The proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities (Constanţa, 2017) is dedicated to the 90th birthday of Prof. Sir John Boardman, President of the Congress since its inception. The central theme returns to that considered 20 years earlier: the importance of the Pontic Region for the Graeco-Roman World.

Contributions to this volume, covering all shores of the Black Sea, draw on a mix of archaeological evidence, epigraphy and written sources to explore the activities and characteristics of those that inhabited or colonised the Black Sea area, as well as those that visited, acted in, or influenced the region, from the archaic to Roman periods.

Epic is dialectally mixed but Ionic at its core. The proper dialect for elegy was Ionic, even when composed by Tyrtaeus in Sparta or Theognis in Megara, both Doric areas. Choral lyric poets represent the major dialect areas: Aeolic (Sappho, Alcaeus), Ionic (Anacreon, Archilochus, Simonides), and Doric (Alcman, Ibycus, Stesichorus, Pindar). Most distinctive are the Aeolic poets. The rest may have a preference for their own dialect (some more than others) but in their Lesbian veneer and mixture of Doric and Ionic forms are to some extent dialectally indistinguishable. All of the ancient authors use a literary language that is artificial from the point of view of any individual dialect. Homer has the most forms that occur in no actual dialect. In this volume, by means of dialectally and chronologically arranged illustrative texts, translated and provided with running commentary, some of the early Greek authors are compared against epigraphic records, where available, from the same period and locality in order to provide an appreciation of: the internal history of the Ancient Greek language and its dialects; the evolution of the multilectal, artificial poetic language that characterizes the main genres of the most ancient Greek literature, especially Homer / epic, with notes on choral lyric and even the literary language of the prose historian Herodotus; the formulaic properties of ancient poetry, especially epic genres; the development of more complex meters, colometric structure, and poetic conventions; and the basis for decisions about text editing and the selection of a manuscript alternant or emendation that was plausibly used by a given author.

East and West in Late Antiquity combines published and unpublished articles by emeritus professor Wolf Liebeschuetz. The collection concerns aspects of what Gibbon called 'the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. This interpretation is now much criticized, but the author agrees with Gibbon. Topics discussed are defensive strategies, the settlement inside the Empire of invaders and immigrants, and the modification of identities with the formation of new communities. Liebeschuetz is interested in both the eastern and the western halves of the Empire. In the East he is particularly concerned with Syria, the expansion of settlement up to the edge of the desert, and Christianisation. The book ends with an examination of the role of the Christian Arab Ghassanids in the defense of the Syrian provinces in the century leading up to the conquest of the provinces by the Islamic Arabs.

This book combines careful reading of texts, inscriptions, coins and other archaeological materials to examine how religious practice, material culture and urban landscape changed as Philippi developed from a Roman colony to a major center for Christian worship and pilgrimage.