‘Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing…in Greece, Greeks throw themselves (at you)’
Melina Mercouri, source unspecified.
The morning of 3 July was electrifying, in epigraphic terms — in three ways, to be precise.
Electrifying, perhaps most tangibly, in that the sun was unrelentingly zapping its heatwaves into us, sapping away our meagre energy remaining from that morning’s freddo espresso. We were slowly transcribing some letters on a few stones with Drs Matthaiou and Papadopoulou, just outside Paros’ archaeological museum. It was a hot, humid 8.30am in July — the stickiest part of the day.
But for all the discomfort it caused us, that electrifying heat was in fact the catalyst for my understanding of the biggest lessons about Greek epigraphy that I now appreciate. As we saw that morning, and would come to experience on many subsequent days, it takes a lot of grit to kneel down on all fours or stretch on a ladder for hours in the sun, at the mercy of being graced by just the right angle of light, to transcribe even a few letters of a word. That morning’s heat put into perspective just how much (very-real) physical stamina, time, and determination it takes to record — let alone interpret — the neatly-restored lines of Greek inscriptions handed down to us in textbooks and conveniently browsable in our libraries. This immense effort required of epigraphists is challenging to take stock of while sitting in a classroom faced with a standard text (and minuscules), and might rightly put some prospective students off. So much for lamenting about the challenges of navigating the labyrinthine concordance of epigraphic editions from BÉ to SEG — none of that could even happen without this step. Yet, this one-upmanship in yardsticks of difficulty is unhelpful and becomes boring, and doesn’t do justice to the whole deal. That morning equally showed me just how fun this process of recording inscriptions can be — especially for us students. True, recording epigraphy is tough (and Zeus forbid there be spectators nearby, since the activity of flapping notebooks over the stone to make out letters tends to resemble an absurd cormorant). Yet the feeling that fluttered through my chest that morning as I made out a sentence on my own made the process all worth it. It is a stimulating intellectual challenge that puts all the skills of budding Classicists to the test — it somehow makes those letters so intimately your own.
What’s more, that morning’s summer glare also showed me, daringly contrary to prevailing opinion, just how attainable this exciting process is, with the right training — and how we students can make a difference too. This very difficultly of transcribing a weathered inscription in a field (and the shortcomings of human perception) often mean that the precise contents of an inscription can be anyone’s educated guess — including, with the right determination (and eyesight), a student’s. If trained in the right epigraphic ways (and we’ll get to the course’s unique approach to this later) we can directly participate in deciphering these inscriptions and reorienting debates on them, and offer some real service to scholarship. My electrifying eureka-moment with this empowering fact, as I fervently transcribed what I deciphered to be a funerary decree onto my χαρτί μιλιμετρέ that torpid morning (and when my peers later found an unlocated inscription on one of Paros’ surrounding hills), is one of the many lessons this spectacular summer course opened my eyes to: we can all tentatively do epigraphy, with the right tools and training.
And perhaps the most exciting of these lessons was realising that our student-led recording of epigraphy, especially via the course’s approach, is not just doable but also valuable. Still drowsy after a five-hour Blue Star Ferries ride from Athens the night before, that morning became even more electrifying (in the second regard) when I realised just how powerful an inscription right next to us heat-stricken transcribers, and a certain way of studying it, was in helping to rethink long-standing historical questions. What hit me then, and what I want to focus on in the rest of this reflection, are three sub-themes: the importance of autopsy (i.e. analysing an inscription in-person with the time it deserves, whether in a field or museum), of appraising not only new inscriptions but also old dogs and constantly challenging our assumptions, and finally — closest to my heart — of realising just how valuable a full appreciation of modern Greek scholarship and culture today is when studying ancient inscriptions.
To unite these points with an anecdote (and reveal the final reason why this morning was so electrifying). It was through a divisive, ethnically-charged conflict between Dorians and Ionians in this inscription that I understood how far epigraphy, approached through these themes, can open new doors for interpreting big historical questions. The mythical Dorian figure of ‘Electra’ only galvanises our link tangentially (alas for my pun), but a conflict does.
In the back left-hand corner of the Paros archaeological museum is a seemingly innocuous stone: a stele made of white marble. DGE 773’s contents (also IG XII Supp. 223), however, have the potential to quite significantly change our interpretation of one of the most contentious cultural aspects of Archaic/Classical Greek history: the dating, nature, and extent of the ethnic conflict between ‘Dorians’ and ‘Ionians’. The fascinating thing is that, without this particular inscription, we might otherwise not realise the scope of this historical phenomenon. Thus the power of epigraphy. But we can also begin to see how important studying inscriptions first-hand is, as is listening to historically less-cited groups of scholars (e.g. female, Greek).
For a while, the distinction between Ionian and Dorian was believed to be a construction of the fifth century, finding its fullest form (if any, as Will suggests in his important 1956 work Doriens et Ioniens) in the propaganda of the Peloponnesian Wars and in historians like Thucydides and Herodotus. In this light, some scholars have taken this ‘cultural’ distinction to have been a largely political phenomenon. In our inscription, however, in this corner of Paros, something different is happening: ‘it is not lawful for a Doric stranger or a slave (?) to [be a spectator of] the [rites] of (the goddess) Kore of the City’ (Χσένωι Δωριῆι οὐ θέμι[ς ἐσιέναι] / οὔτε δ…ωια Κό(υ)ρηι αστῶι ε[ — -]). Framed in interesting dialectic forms, we have a prohibition of entry by certain parties into a sanctuary, not unattested in our sources (often involving women and foreigners, see Syll.3 981 from Arcesine on Amorgos). What makes this inscription different is that it includes Dorians in this religious space. Although a single case, we can begin to chisel away at the surety of a few basic facts. First, the date. The hero of many an Archaic epigraphist, Lilian Hamilton Jeffery, was one of the first scholars to discuss this inscription (Archaic Greece: The City-States 700–500B.C., 1976, 48 n.4; also F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques, 1969, no.110). She dated it to the first quarter of the fifth century, and therefore highlighted the presence of this ethnic Ionian/Dorian divide already by the end of the Archaic Age (thus revising the ‘dating’ of this divide) — and outside of Athens and Sparta, too (thus the ‘extent’). This has other important ramifications for Greek history, including this ethnic divide’s ‘nature’: it also pervaded religious activities, alongside the political sphere. Far from being separated as our modern notion of the ‘state’ and ‘church’ would have it, religion and politics were inseparably intertwined in the Greek world, which we should appreciate more broadly. What this inscription opens us up to, then, is a much older history of this division, with other origins, connotations, and links (we may reconsider, for example, the importance of Cleomenes’ being barred from Athens’ Acropolis in 507 in Hdt. 5.72, as Hornblower suggests in HSCP 1992, 174). But this anecdote also tells us something about ourselves. From a more historiographical perspective, it is also Jeffery’s and Sokolowski’s sometimes-overlooked insights, and the autopsy of previous scholars, that we should be more grateful for. We should also value these scholarly voices as well.
What underlie this example, then, are three themes: the potential for innovation through epigraphy, the need to listen to other (particularly Greek) scholarly voices, and first-hand, in-person study. What’s most exciting is that precisely these strands guided the outlook of our summer course in Aegean epigraphy — and made it so original, valuable, and much-needed for studying epigraphy and indeed ‘Classics’ today.
So, with these three lessons in mind, complemented by the first two about the challenges of epigraphy and its many opportunities for us students, let’s see just how successful this summer course’s refreshing focus on studying epigraphy from a modern Greek methodology was, and why — in the context of decolonising the Classics and moving the discipline forward — it is a wake-up call for all those studying the ancient world today.
During the two weeks between 27 June and 10 July, I had the opportunity to attend a summer course in Greece dedicated to ancient Greek Epigraphy with ten other students. The course was organised by the Hellenic Education & Research Centre (HERC), an independent Greek academic institution based just off Athens’ Mitropoleos Street and conceived as a brainchild of the Greek Epigraphic Society (1986). Shamefully, I (and perhaps other Anglophone students) had never heard of these names before — to our loss. What makes HERC so special are two broad hallmarks, which give it the tools to do something quite unique with its courses. First, HERC is Greece-based: it is run by modern Greeks and its classes are taught primarily by Greek scholars from various cultural and academic institutions. It therefore stands as one of the few summer schools catered to Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, Germanophone, and other students by Greek scholars, squeezed in among the many well-established Anglophone courses (although such Greek-oriented courses are becoming more frequent, cf. the Kapodistrian’s 2020 new BA course). Making full use of this advantage, HERC is unapologetically Greek in its outlook — and with remarkable success. The course taught us a uniquely modern Greek way of studying inscriptions, from methodological and interpretative approaches to lecturing styles and general wisdom, with the very people publishing them. And (as the second hallmark), thanks to its connections with the Greek ministry of culture, HERC is dedicated to teaching these lessons hands-on and in situ…and, where possible, in situm. Access to rare inscriptions and hard-to-reach sites? You name it. (Swimming around Despotiko and Tsimintiri, for example, was phenomen[ologic]al).
So: rare in-person access to inscriptions, taught from an exciting Greek perspective. How did this play out in practice?
The course focused on the epigraphy of the Aegean islands from the Archaic to Byzantine eras. The in-person (Covid-regulated) classes ranged from close analysis of the content, context, and significance of individual inscriptions from Thasos to Thera and Seriphos to Samos; to extrapolating overarching socio-historio-economic trends, learning to make academic editions of inscriptions, appreciating the long scholarly tradition of Greek epigraphy, and testing out exciting, emerging methodologies on Greek epigraphy. First, in terms of the physical locations and resources we had at our disposal for these lessons, HERC shines out once again. Embodying HERC’s second hallmark, our lessons were taught directly in the Epigraphic Museum in Athens (27–30 June) — which conveniently houses many Cycladic inscriptions we studied and indeed has the largest epigraphic collection in the world (13,500 inscriptions) — and the Archaeological Museum on Paros (1–10 July) — the main and perhaps most intriguing island we studied. These incredible settings allowed us to dive into close autopsy for hours on end and come to grips, quite literally, with the material. In our time there, we studied many important inscriptions held in crowded storerooms, some unpublished inscriptions, and others still in fields. Access to these would normally take tribute-list-sized organisation and paperwork; HERC even got us into some new places last-minute. Perhaps most excitingly, we were the first official visitors to the exhibition in the Epigraphic Museum commemorating 2,500 years after the battle of Salamis, given an exclusive tour by one of the directors of the museum.
To complement the opportunity to study inscriptions in situ, HERC brought in some of the leading Greek scholars in epigraphy today. Our classes were taught both by well-established epigraphists like Dr Matthaiou, Dr Malouchou, Prof Chaniotis, and Prof Papazarkadas, and by newer scholars entering the scene with refreshing research, like Dr Rassia. We also engaged with the extensive and intimate epigraphic-collections knowledge of the curators of various museums and institutions like Dr Themos, Dr Zavvou, Dr Choremi (Epigraphic Museum); Dr Papadopoulou (Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades); Prof Chaniotis (IAS); Prof Hallof (IG); and Dr Pitt (College Year in Athens), to name a few. Finally, various scholars taught us about the history of epigraphic scholarship, including Dr Malouchou and Dr Pitt — which we’ll see formed an integral part in realising the course’s outlook. Thus, we had a vibrant motley of perspectives, both academic and topic-wise. To accompany this, we were not only graced by the provision of notebooks and epigraphic paper, but also (very generously) by copies of four seminal books on epigraphy (the [sadly] late Stroud, Matthaiou, Hamon, Kritzas), courtesy of the Greek Epigraphic Society. Giving them to us and organising the lessons, we always had a cheerful and truly inspirational organiser in Dr Andronike Makres, who also shared valuable insights on Greek epigraphy and culture from a different angle with us. Indeed, she was also perhaps the most important individual in realising the program, and the most vibrant: in many strokes of much-appreciated welfare genius, she often encouraged us to make full use of our breaks in the long learning-day by dipping into the crystal sea. And on the other side, the vibrant mix of UK, US, Portuguese, Italian, and French students on the course gave us even more diverse ideas and ‘ways of thinking’ to bounce off each other. Aided by this line-up and the chance to engage with these Greek colleagues, we were set for an immersive experience every morning we left Hotel Omiros and Helliniko at 9am after their scrumptious breakfasts.
To cap this all off, the unique choice of the course’s topic — the epigraphy of the Aegean islands — most clearly embodies the innovative, boundary-pushing outlook of HERC’s mission. Attic epigraphy often tends to dominate the syllabi of introductions to Greek epigraphy –understandably so, given its abundance, variety, and extensive scholarly treatment. Cursory is the look given to other Greek epigraphy. This isn’t because it’s not interesting — there is just less of it, and less well documented. Our HERC course, however, by geographically concentrating on 16 islands but being diachronically inclusive, was spearheading research into this understudied region. By tapping into the rich diversity of inscriptions (from decrees to graffiti) and their relevance to the alphabet’s origins and literacy, the course enabled us to get to grips with Greek epigraphy from an alternative perspective, including via the new, increasingly-valued topics of cross-cultural interaction and the experiences of the ‘subaltern’. We were at the forefront of the field, physically and conceptually — that was exciting. Guided by IG volumes, supplements, and our χαρτί μιλιμετρέ, we embarked on this HERC chronicle.
And while our chronicle turned out to be a successful, self-contained course in itself, our exposure to many Greek people thanks to HERC and the stimulating discussions we continued beyond class taught us so much more than just epigraphic secreta obscura. Most importantly, these opportunities to interact with our lecturers, peers, local Greeks around Paros, and site-directors across the trip opened us up to a myriad of perspectives on some of the big debates challenging Classics’ direction and utility today. We got to see how various Greeks viewed it, and what they thought should change. To do justice to how valuable this engagement was, I want to conclude this reflection with two particular strands, which took me by surprise but crystallised my understanding of our subject’s history today and commitment to including others to join in. These are the constant permeation of the backdrop of 19th-century Greek scholarship in epigraphy on all our lectures, and the remarkable similarity between the landscapes and culture of ancient and modern Greece. Through the sheer joy of talking with other people again and seeing how these strands played out on our little Cycladic islands, the course helped me to listen to and engage with Greek voices and perspectives, and through them to take action and begin making Classics more inclusive and useful in today’s world. This is the biggest lesson I shall take to my future studies and which I am so grateful to HERC for.
It was during our introductory talk on the afternoon-lit steps of Klepsidras alley in Plaka on a Sunday (the one exception to ποτέ την Κυριακή), that we first touched upon this issue.
While still bumping elbows and asking each other’s names, Andronike began to remind us of the schedule — now scribbled down in my Athenian-owl notebook bought earlier that afternoon on our Acropolis Museum visit. Αfter we had discussed the perks of Alpha Banka and prohibition on bars (alas for Couleur Locale), she paused. We had drifted onto the final, and judging by the flagging pace perhaps most sensitive, topic: modern Greece’s relationship with ancient Greece and modern Greek scholars’ teaching on it — and what both would mean for us. It started with a warning. Be lenient, she began her preamble: there would be different cultural expectations between our culture(s) and the Greek one. Mutual understanding would be fostered by both parties, of course — but please respect the Greek side of things, as well. Too often the Greeks and their customs were dismissed and overlooked, creating unnecessary harm. But she also reassured us that our experience wasn’t going to be seared in strict commands: in class, it amounted to making sure to address professors by their appropriate titles and erring on the side of formality. And that wasn’t the whole deal, again. Most importantly, she indicated with a warm smile, here too was an opportunity. Alongside enjoying the weather and museums, we also had the chance to undergo the modern Greek way of learning epigraphy. That is, we could be immersed in a rather different way of doing things — if we were willing to open our minds to it. If we chose to, we could appreciate a whole world of insights from scholars who have the most frequent access to and local knowledge of Greek inscriptions, and yet who are often overlooked because of their language and nationality. Most of all, you can make your own judgement about their value today.
And how programmatic that preamble was: the course’s lessons are some of the clearest venues to date that elucidated a different, equally valuable Greek way of treating the evidence and appreciating Classics. Before the course, I imagined that the Greek approach to epigraphy was going to be rigorous, somewhat antiquated, and to be feared (given what I had heard of the educational system’s high demands for ancient literary knowledge). While the course did confirm the rigour of the modern Greek approach, our carefully-tailored classes also gradually exposed us to just how valuable an appreciation of this Greek approach can be not only in advancing our knowledge, but also in the move to decolonise our field and cultivate ways forward.
Now, this is a loaded topic. There are many threads and calls for action implied in ‘decolonising the field’, and to be effective they must be implemented in unison. The way I am primarily using it here is as a call to appreciate and incorporate into our own research the scholarship of academics who have traditionally been marginalised or side-lined by dominant scholarship. Whatever stance one adopts, it must be understood that, when we stand in their shoes, it is a cruel reversal of fate for those who now live in what was geographically an ancient territory and identify with that past, to become overlooked and less-valued in their scholarly contributions on that ancient culture. This spans many cultures in different configurations, from the Turks to Egyptians to Iraqis to Native Americans; our course highlighted the Greeks’ situation. Many of the problems stem from the ignorance and anxieties of the now-dominant Anglophone perspective in Classical scholarship — yet they not only harm the identities of these people, but also the quality of our shared research.
There is, on the one hand, a very practical reason why Greek scholarship is less read today. Many Anglophone scholars do not know modern Greek, often because of a lack of time and resources. While it takes a lot of both to learn a language, it does not mean that we cannot dedicate time to learn modern Greek, and should not be used as a justification for actively side-lining Greek scholarship (as few would do). The harm done to Greek scholars and our research lies in the more problematic motivations that sometimes lurk behind this neglect. As Dr Elena Giusti pointed out a few years ago from her cognate experience with her Italian heritage, some people (including scholars) outside the modern countries which now encompass the core territories of ancient Greece and Rome, strive to appropriate and claim ‘the ancient Greeks’ and ‘Romans’ as their own. (Think, for example, of the potential for misusing the fabricated British aetia of Brutus coming from Troy to found England). They see themselves as their sole rightful descendants and stake exclusive rights on the narratives that should be told about the ancient cultures. There is no room for modern Greeks. But on a more detrimental level, some people also justify the superiority of these ‘Western’ narratives by additionally caricaturing the modern Greeks as ‘orientalised’ from their Ottoman past. They project onto the modern Greeks the generalising stereotypes of laziness, decadence, and ‘Easternness’ that stem back from the British Empire’s colonial views of the Near East (one needs only think of how Elgin justified his acquisition of the Parthenon sculptures as saving them from ‘barbarous’ destruction by the Turks, as this recent conference by ‘Decolonize Hellas’ does. 19th-century romantic poets like Haygarth and parts of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage paint the Greeks as enslaved, sluggish, and failing to live up to their past). In this thinking, modern Greeks are neither worthy nor mentally capable of portraying and living up to the golden days of Hellas — even though this othering reflects more about the doers’ anxieties than the caricatured’s reality.
This ownership and gatekeeping not only hurt the publishing opportunities of an entire group of people, but also deeply affect their everyday experiences and identities. In the name of propping up some egos, this narrative affects the personal cultural identities of many modern Greeks: a look at the blogs of Greek students like Katerina Apokatanidis show how far-reaching the effects of the externally-imposed mandate that ‘modern Greeks are not worthy of the ancient Greeks’ is. What really hit me is the aspect about language: to be considered valuable on an international level, Greek scholars must often give up their native language and learn to write in academic French, German, and English. Try as they might, though, they are still often criticised for even small mistakes. There is often no respite from the other side, either: some deign to learn modern Greek by vilifying it as a simplification and vulgarisation of its former glory, bereft of breathings, the dative, and moods which make ancient Greek, sometimes even by the slightest prolongation of a single vowel, so intimately nuanced.
Yet, to tackle this narrow-minded view on its own terms, this overlooks the value of the modern language. On the most basic level, modern Greek is descended from the ancient, as knowing the latter will make clear when learning the former, and is a fact in which pride can be (and is) taken. Yet this inheritance also extends to areas that we might not at first appreciate. One is precisely a region that we Anglophone scholars are famously and sheepishly uncomfortable with: we might complain less about not knowing where to position the accents on ancient Greek words if we appreciated modern Greek more, since its pronunciation corresponds closely to the accent-allocation of the ancient. Second, our modern assumption of direct transfer (and deterioration) between ancient and modern fails to see the rich diversity and expressive potential of the many other linguistic influences that permeate modern Greek (especially Italian and Turkish), from nations that have historically engaged with Greece: the words for our morning’s delicious ‘φλιτζάνι’ of freddo espresso and ‘κεφτέδες’ are Ottoman Turkish in origin. On a broader cultural level, some modern Greeks also base their identity more on the Byzantines and Greek Orthodox church, naming themselves Ρωμιοί — beyond this Classical past. Younger generations are moving beyond both identities. Nevertheless, many modern Greeks are still measured against this Classical past constructed from external perspectives. They are set at a disadvantage and their identities undermined right at the outset. On top of this, as much as the (often-Anglophone) authors of these views believe they are bolstering their own academic authority, this gatekeeping self-defeatingly inhibits our own research as well. As Prof Johanna Hanink has clarified, this constant labelling of Greek scholarship as inferior inevitably seeps into mainstream academia. It impedes our engagement with their scholarship on a systematic and institutional level (few modern Greek classes are provided in Classics departments) — even though, ironically, it makes sense to do so, since Greek scholars tend to have the best access to the ancient material in Greece.
This is not to say that modern Greek scholarship has disappeared: many Anglophone scholars do try to read Greek scholarship, and some is helpfully made available to us through the work of Greek scholars summarising Greek research in English. Yet this comes nowhere near to rebalancing the extent to which modern Greek scholars, especially in their own language and terms, are shut out from mainstream academia. They are equally displaced from a past that happened in their territory and they identify with. Academically and culturally, it is a cruel fate. The question is: can we quantify how deep-rooted this is, and begin to offer recompense and reverse this spiral?
The recent awareness about the endemic problems of ‘Classics’ as a label and discipline, amplified by the Black Lives Matter movement, pandemic, and a series of opinion-pieces since December 2019, have helped to clarify the extent of this issue, including in Greece. It has also catalysed action, in a more hopeful light, to remedy them. Some departments and courses have changed their names (e.g. Berkeley recently from ‘Classics’, which implies a preference of languages and literature, to ‘Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies’, which encompasses many other areas of the ancient world) to make clearer the scope of their research and avoid implicitly eliding out equally valuable ancient cultures. Others have dedicated more resources to teaching other less-studied ancient Mediterranean cultures, especially Phoenician, Egyptian, Levantine, and Near Eastern, to teaching about different aspects and constituents of ancient Greece (e.g. slavery), and hiring and funding more historically-marginalised scholars and students. Difference is being made on scales small and large. We all can, for one, take the initiative to learn modern Greek, to appreciate their scholarship. (I, as my own small step, started a modern Greek course at my uni’s Language Centre last year, which has proved remarkably fruitful for my own thesis research and, on the ground, helpful in conversations with locals and site-guards during my summer in Greece. It is also a token of respect to the Greeks. I have also become obsessed with Melina Mercouri, and my project this summer was reading her autobiography; I have Korto’s Neoelleniki Mythologia which Hanink recommends in her article awaiting on my bookshelf…).
This is where our course comes in from a unique perspective: it specifically showed us how marginalised modern Greek scholars themselves view this problem, and the change they are asking for. Thanks to our first-hand discussions and the overarching themes highlighted through the course, I came to appreciate just how valuable these modern Greek voices are and how we students can incorporate them into our studies, to carve out new interpretations and collectively broaden our appreciation of Classics.
In all this optimism, however, a few cautionary points need to be made as well. We cannot pass over the fact that there are also problems with this proposed model of decolonisation and Greek scholarship more broadly: we cannot uncritically adopt a rosy-tinted lens with the expectation that it will all be fixed in one go. Like any culture’s scholarship, Greek scholarship is set in its own cultural context and history, which like others can be and in some areas is formed by inflicting the same colonial actions on others. Some (and I want to emphasise this ‘some’, and not all Greeks — collectivising ‘Greeks’ into one group is highly misrepresentative and feeds into this branding) Greeks do hold stereotyped, violent, and unfair views on other cultures, most notably those in the Balkans and Turkey, and this translates into their scholarship. These strands of cultural exceptionalism and nationalism are equally unacceptable: wounds cannot be healed by inflicting other wounds, and scholars from these countries do bring valuable perspectives onto Classical material, based on their own histories and experiences. It has also been debated whether it is feasible and effective for everyone to learn modern Greek to appreciate Classics, or the language of every culture for that matter; some have asked: why Greek over other languages? (Although this strand can fall into the argument about ‘which culture is more deserving’, which defeats the purposes of such rehabilitatory debates). More seriously, this clashes with another aspect of decolonising Classics and making it more accessible: if part of the gate-keeping of Classics arises from the need to master many languages, then asking students to learn another on top of an already hefty workload has the potential of making Classics still more inaccessible (although I do believe that the principle of learning other modern languages is absolutely key, and re-balancing our commitment to other disciplinary requirements is a worthful change to make). As a correspondent later pointed out to me, there is considerable weight behind the argument that English can be re-appropriated as a lingua franca of communication by the marginalised to reverse the restrictions on their speech imposed by colonialism and can enable communication with more people than via individual languages. (I am grateful for their thoughtful revisions). This must be said and considered, but it also does not undo the suggestions that we have proposed: a contextually-appropriate balance is needed. Whatever we decide (I discuss this more at the end), this discussion is part of broader issue of undoing the harm associated with Classics and its scholarship, in which there are no easy solutions. We need to keep on reflecting; it is a process, a dialogue, we need to continue and refine.
Our first formal encounter with this perspective occurred soon after Andronike’s introduction. On the afternoon of the very first day, Dr Malouchou usefully set out the history of 19th-century scholarship in epigraphy — but specifically by Greek epigraphists, rather than the better-known dilettanti and travellers on Grand Tours. We spent that afternoon in the Epigraphic Museum browsing over the old archives and papers of the three main Greek epigraphists in the century following Greece’s liberation: Kyriakos Pittakis (1798–1863), Panayiotis Eustratiadis (1815–1888), and Stephanos Athanasiou Koumanoudis (1818–1899). It was surprising, but unfortunately part of a broader reality, that I had never heard of these scholars before in my university courses — even though they had published on many inscriptions that form the core of 5th-century Athenian history. But as we began to look at these scholars’ interpretations and methods, and compared them to later arguments on the same inscriptions by scholars who overlooked these Greek scholars, a pattern began to emerge. Through painstaking autopsy, these early Greek scholars produced thorough and often correct analyses of various inscriptions (proved by fragments discovered later), long before Anglophone scholars came in to assert (and sometimes gain credit for) similar points and neglect these Greeks. By doing so, these mainstream scholars of the 20th century impeded the advancement of knowledge and unfairly propagated the skewed image of Greek irrelevance. And yet, far from being lazy or unlearned, it was inspiring to learn that Pittakis had already started copying inscriptions by the age of 16, and to see the importance of the fruition of this work and collaboration with Boeckh: the CIG. Perhaps what should be thought of as surprising is how Pittakis was often not esteemed by foreign scholarship, given that he spearheaded research into ancient Greece by founding the Archaeological Society at Athens alongside writing a foundational book on the Acropolis.
Likewise his successor. Here, Dr Malouchou brought out the value of Eustratiadis’s work for our knowledge of the past and the harm in our neglect of him by tracing the afterlife of one of his studies. It also demonstrates just how adaptable, thorough, and prescient these Greek scholars were in their work — and continue to be. In 1867, Eustratiadis excavated fragments of the epigram for the Athenian heroes who died fighting the oligarchs at Phyle in 403 (IG II2 10, Acropolis). Rather than sitting on his reconstructions, Eustratiadis kept on looking for other fragments and possible restorations of this inscription. When he found another part of it, he was not only proved partly right but also had the humility to modify his interpretation to better represent the past. What is interesting, however, is that his work continued to facilitate new advances on the subject — after being neglected. Eustratiadis copied the inscription in his archive in 1873, yet this was neglected for a long time. Without consulting it, later scholars posited interpretations proven incorrect by later fragments. But by returning to his work and treating it holistically with the fragments around 2002, Malouchou herself was able to re-think the inscription and proposed an exciting interpretation that the stone was in fact a dedicatory base, not an honorary decree, with subsequent ramifications. Therefore, Eustratiadis’s rigorous work continued to be invaluable to our understanding today, when valued. Moreover, like Pittakis above, this example also gives testament to Greek scholarly rigour: these were not just epigraphists, but also archaeologists and historians. Rather than burrowing their heads in one specialism, this holistic outlook was key to their accurate, contextualised reconstructions, and a tribute to their hard work (much can equally be said about Koumanoudis, especially with regards to his correct dating of the controversial Athenian Decree for Miletos, IG I3 21). Indeed, Malouchou said, these scholars continued to be the inspiration for many current Greek students — their ‘underdog’ nature made them all the more enticing to study and use as model epigraphists as we did every day on our course.
The fact that HERC chose to begin the course with the history of this scholarship highlights its commitment to giving voices to the Greeks and preparing us for hands-on editing. Programmatic it was: this lecture set the tone for many of our discussions with the great epigraphist (and current director of the Epigraphic Society) Dr Matthaiou, on his (infinite) experience restoring inscriptions with the insights and methods of these previous scholars. But perhaps most importantly, this strand also highlighted HERC’s dedication to sharing this knowledge and legacy with foreign students and the future generation, rather than conservatively keeping it for themselves, as scholars had done to them for so long. HERC wanted to give a fair, open view about the past: indeed, to complement Malouchou’s lecture, it also organised a stimulating talk by Dr Pitt on the study of epigraphy by British and French travellers in the 18th-century. This balanced holistic approach, openly showing the advantages and limitations of each group of scholars, is what made HERC’s lessons so important in decolonising Classics and putting into perspective just how useful Greek scholarship and knowledge could be. Most excitingly, it showed us that we were the vehicles for this change — the first step by being on this course.
And our Parian symposium had only just started. This methodological strand set us up perfectly for noticing innovative patterns in our hands-on sessions with the material in Paros. For me, the most down-to-earth, ‘electrifying’ lesson I learnt from appreciating modern Greeks’ views turned out to be the very claim frequently levelled against the merit of Greek scholarship: the fact that modern Greek customs and landscapes are actually very similar to the ancient ones. To be sure, there is often no way to assert this definitively — and overreliance on it can blindside us to contrary evidence. Yet while these claims for continuity are sometimes dismissed as baseless rallying-cries of modern patriotism, modern studies have shown that they do hold some water and, when applied properly, can decisively help us to decipher some major historical questions about the everyday life of islanders in the longue durée. This diachronic theme, which was my favourite topic to explore when visiting different areas of Paros on our free days, organically developed in four stages into a thread that tied the whole course together.
It was in Prof Papazarkadas’ lecture on Amorgos and later Siphnos that we first saw how taking into consideration modern Greek farming techniques (especially terracing) and pasturage can elucidate the puzzling and seemingly futile lists of repairs in various inscriptions as repairs on a farm and thereby give tantalising glimpses onto the everyday lives of farmers and their technology (especially in 4th-century RO 59). As we came to learn through first-hand interactions on Antiparos, modern Greek farmers also often speak about the continuity of their techniques with ancient Greece (especially on the continual problems of goats destroying crops and archaeological sites as at Despotiko, mirroring the inscriptions banning goats in ancient sanctuaries, cf. RO 59.35–39). In this light, their knowledge is key to deciphering our inscriptions: various words in their dialect are remarkably close to ancient ones (like ‘fallow’ land, with modern νέα echoing νεὸν ἀροῖ, RO 59.8, also Langdon’s great article) and help us to define them, while their knowledge of the islands’ maritime interconnectivity and ownership helps decipher the ancient political landscape in epigraphy (like their claim that Antiparos/ Oliaros still belongs to Siphnos, only 20 miles away, as implied in IG XII 5 471 and Isocrates 19.18–19). The ancient often continues with few changes in the modern, and this modern perspective can help us uncover a whole subset of people and their daily lives in ancient Greece.
Now, we must also be careful not to go too far: Chaniotis (1999), 191, among others, has soberly and rightly warned of the dangers of uncritically equating ancient and modern practices. We must always keep this comparison within perspective and the remit of the extant evidence. Nevertheless, when backed up with archaeological study, the evidence does bear these transhistorical links out, with highly fruitful results.
As this fact began to pop up across different lectures, Andronike pulled us aside one Parian night for a deeper discussion on modern Greek farming and the relationship between modern and ancient Greeks today (mentioning the recent discovery that Athens’ chic district of Pankrati was its ancient name as well). It was inspiring to see how much it meant to her and the other lecturers. We took this view of the continuity between ancient and modern on board as we visited various sites on our free days and understood how the Cyclades operated as a whole — our second encounter. At the Mycenaean citadel of Kolympithres and earlier at Despotiko, for example, by gazing directly from the citadel at the many islands dancing around Paros, my friend and I realised just how true it was that the visibility of the islands facilitate ancient social connectivity and porthmeutikai in the Cyclades. It was only by visiting Greece in-person today that I was able to gauge the extent of travelling’s vitality in the past. The lived landscape, emotions, and mountain climbing all coalesced into one — it brought to life the myriad stones listing dedicands from different islands across the Cyclades, and constantly mobile. It made so much more meaningful Prof Constantakopoulou’s monograph on the interconnectivity of the dancing Cyclades, and Prof Anderson’s recent paradigm-shifting monograph on the importance of emotions, experiences, and belief in ancient Greece. All this could now be read in a set of dry, silent, white inscriptions I spotted on Paros. Modern Greece can bring out the ancient in new ways — both in forming personal connections and advancing academia. In this light, the course’s emphasis on studying later periods as well, as we did in a fascinating lecture on Christian inscriptions with Prof Pallis, was also fruitful, since it highlighted the possibilities of appreciating the continuity between past and present.
Third and finally, the way this culminated was perhaps the most meaningful. On our final night in Paros, we broke free from the program and, with our hair loose, made a slight change of plans. Andronike organised a car and special tour for the team to a local farmhouse (Katikia) near Kostos, which had homemade wine and the motto ‘almost like in the past…’. Touristy-sounding, but (fitting in with the theme again) it was spontaneously discovered by one of our peers when he went searching for ancient vineyards, and struck up a conversation with that farmer about ancient Greece. And so we had a glimpse into the traditional local life of a Parian farmstead, and acquired a special insight into what an ancient one might have been like. And it was from there that everything fell into place for me: as we drank the wine on the small house’s roof on the top of the mountain and overlooking self-sufficient Naxos, I realised how the incredible visibility of Naxos and all the Cycladic islands around us explained the connectivity between the islands, and made real their mobility and local life that Isocrates’ Aegineticus perhaps recounts most vividly. I saw how combining a modern approach with close autopsy reveals the similarity of present and past and can help shed new light on old epigraphic questions. Most importantly, it was by listening to the Greeks’ points of view and being open to their oft-criticised arguments that we can begin doing research that was previously unattainable.
And so the party never ends. This is not to say that everything about the perspective of ‘the Greeks’ is perfect. It is true that there was still some confusion on the Greek side about what they wanted in ‘decolonising the field’, especially among non-academics. On our final night in Athens, two friends and I had the chance to chat with the waiter of a (food-wise delicious, especially the κολοκυθοκεφτέδες) restaurant in Plaka, and the topic of decolonising the Classics in the US came up, in particular on Princeton’s recent decision to no longer make mandatory the learning of ancient Latin and Greek. A browse on their website and discussion on mailing lists demonstrates that this is a complex issue involving various academic, accessibility, and PR factors. And while we were open to discussing this with our waiter in a mix of modern Greek and English, a disconnect still obscured certain parts, and the discussion tended to circle around an oversimplified version about the continual malignant de-valuing of ancient and modern Greek culture. It also cannot be ignored that, among some Greeks, there is a nostalgia for a Greek past that can resurface and be used in harmful ways. ways. Some Greeks do unfortunately project the orientalising tendencies, which they suffer(ed) at the hands of colonialist powers, onto other Eastern countries even today. But while finding a balance in this topic is difficult, it is understandable: the Greeks feel hurt, and we need to have discussions between us to clarify the issues. We need to work on mutual understanding to move forward — as the very fact that we were having this conversation in Plaka showed.
There were other related issues of cultural clash as well: some students on the course also had difficulty understanding the English of various lecturers and, rigorous as it might seem, a full day’s length of lecturing in the second week could become a bit much even for a seasoned epigraphist. Yet the point is that HERC tried: there were missteps and cultural misunderstandings as Andronike warned us, but the course foresaw the initiative to take the first step to make change. It would be self-defeating to throw everything away because of it. Building on the initiative that HERC was taking, we have a duty to be cautious and critical, but always to listen to these underappreciated voices. It helped me realise that we need to take Greek scholarship more seriously and try to learn modern Greek as a language of scholarship, or at least offer more courses for it. Finally, it is the balance and honesty of the HERC course in addressing these issues that made it so educative. It is something ripe for today’s day and age — an electrifying pulse and wake-up call enabling us students to also move Classics in new directions, enriched with a more holistic Greek perspective.
The view from the hill northwest of Parikia at sunset is legendary. Mythos-like, in fact.
One of my favourite things to do is to go up there to spot Blue Star Ferries and look for inscriptions by shepherds, with a cold mythos at hand, in towel. Take a left after passing Paralia Parikia and you’ll get onto the slope that meanders to its hidden peak. I had learnt about it last summer from the Twitter posts of Evan Levine, who works with the American School at Athens (and is one of my academic heroes). Best of all would be if you could have a dear little Argos or dingo to follow you and bask in the view with.
Connectivity is key here, too. It was a place of importance and visible across the entire Cyclades. Perched on a hill by Paroikia, it offered views directly to the other more famous temple of Apollo at Delos, and all the way west to Kimolos/Melos, and east to imposing Naxos past Naoussa. And in between, dotted in the shining sea, are 16 beautiful islands at 360˚. More than the three points we started with. The centre of the Cyclades? Move aside Delos… (also cf. the Keros excavations). The Cyclades become alive here.
The Delion of Paros is, of course, the fourth and final place where all these lessons coalesced, and the most special. It was a place where I put into practice all the technical lessons from the course, and where the new ones became seared into my future academic vision. It was to here that I used to go up with my good old Greek friend Σωτήρης, who taught me many lessons about the past and present of Greece. We used to go up there in search of the unlocated Parian temple of Demeter and its inscriptions, and count the islands.
But what the Delion really helped me realise was just how far this course itself has helped me coalesce these promising new perspectives and strands of research. Up there, as we gazed for πέτρες με γράμματα and lone shepherd scribblings, we weren’t too different to what, for example, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades and Norwegian Institute were doing with the innovative Small Cyclades Islands Mapping Project. We were the future — epigraphy could be done by anyone, with the right training and eyesight. It might mean looking under a lamp and spending an entire summer deciphering a single line. But as I stood in the distance from Paroikia and looked onto our classroom below, watching the sunset brighten up the sky and add a flickering hue of blood orange to the islands dancing around us, I came to appreciate just how special this course was. If anything, coming out of the serious challenges that the Classics as a field has faced this past year, it gave me hope that Classics and epigraphy have a future. HERC opened my eyes to this by making this epigraphy more accessible to future students via hands-on study, a unique approach and theme, a perfect line-up of scholars, and crucial lessons on our subject today.
So much for the electrifying experience of the summer course. As I write this four months later in frigid Oxford as our term is just beginning, I have three last things to say. First, a massive thank you to HERC. My and Josh’s red stapler gift inscribed with an Archaic inscription can never fully express our gratitude: you have crystallised the trajectory of my academic career and made my lifetime. Second, thank you so much Τζόση, for making it the summer of a lifetime — and being that perfect companion. And finally, to dear Paros: I’ll hopefully see you from the other side next time, squinting my eyes for still more inscriptions on nearby Naxos and Amorgos next summer.
This is for the HERC Team, especially to Dr Makres and Matthaiou for organising everything, and for all my ten peers. Thank you so much to all the lecturers for making it so special — including Profs Scafuro, Choremi, and Hamon, who did not make it in the final draft but had an equally formative impact (with the Samian inscriptions, Kea, and the book on Thasos). But most of all, my dearest thanks go to Joshy. This is dedicated to you. The party never ends — I’ll see you next summer grazing goats and γαλακτομπούρεκο on Siphnos under that oak tree with Isocrates and Theocritus…
