Event
Senior Colloquium is devoted to celebrating this year’s graduating majors in Classical Studies and Ancient History, and reflecting on what their work tells us about what it means to do Classical Studies and Ancient History NOW. All welcome!
Introduction: Kim Bowes, Undergrad chair
Student Presentations (3 minutes; SRP writers: 4 minutes)
Celebration
Noah Apter: Invention or Imitation? A Comparative Analysis of Greek and Etruscan Musical Iconography [LANG] [HON]
From the early 6th to late 5th century BCE, thousands of Greek vases were imported to Etruria, and many contained Greek musical iconography. Etruscan tomb paintings also depict musical scenes with Greek—and occasionally Etruscan—instruments. Given these connections, it is important to ask whether the musical iconography in these tomb paintings reflects Etruscan lived experiences of music or is a result of blind copying. This thesis, through an analysis of Greek vases and Etruscan tomb paintings, concludes that Etruscan musical iconography on tombs often reflects actual musical practice. However, two exception cases indicate that this is not always the case.
Liat Arginteanu: Object Biography of a Kylix (MS4851) [ARCH]
This essay explores the symbolic and metaphorical significance of the kylix MS4851 housed at the Penn Museum, focusing on the iconography of the painted eyes and the vessel’s broader cultural context within the ancient Greek symposium. Drawing on scholarship that links the symposium to maritime imagery and experience, the paper argues that the kylix was understood not merely as a drinking vessel but as a symbolic ship navigating the tumultuous “seas” of intoxication and communal ritual. The painted eyes on the kylix are paralleled with those on Greek triremes, suggesting their purpose may have been to guide the drinker through the metaphorical storm of drunkenness. Through interdisciplinary analysis, including literary texts, iconography, and spatial design of the andron, the essay posits that the symposium functioned as a journey, and the kylix as the vessel of passage, connecting participants both physically and metaphorically. Ultimately, this object biography emphasizes the richly layered meanings embedded in everyday ancient Greek artifacts and their role in shaping communal identity and symbolic experience.
Constructing women
Dara Sanchez: “I’m Your Man”: Narratives of Female Agency in Late Republican Rome Through the Laudatio Turiae [LANG][HON]
The Laudatio Turiae (LT) is a Roman funerary inscription dated to the early first century CE written for an unidentified wife by her husband. The LT preserves unique aspects of elite women’s agency demonstrating that women engaged in Roman political life under specific social constraints. Using various contemporary example of Republican women, I argue that the LT is a carefully constructed narrative to justify the wife’s assumption of agency: the husband emphasizes male absence, highlights the wife’s hesitancy to assume authority, and reaffirms her womanly qualities to counteract her masculinization as she is present in socially-male political spaces.
Hadleigh Zinser: Charite Dulce [LANG]
This paper examines Apuleius’ novel The Golden Ass, focusing on the character Charite, the young woman to whom the Cupid and Psyche story is told. I argue that Apuleius draws deliberate parallels between Charite and the novel’s protagonist, Lucius, similar to those he creates between Lucius and Psyche. By examining Charite’s delayed naming, cycles of captivity and escape, and her eventual rescue through marriage, I demonstrate how her narrative reflects and anticipates Lucius’ own transformative journey.
Sutton Grossinger: Examining Gender Roles through Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans [LANG]
This paper examines the ways in which Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans reflects ancient gender norms and stigmas. I focus specifically on the sixth dialogue, “Crobyle and Corinna” (ΚΡΩΒΥΛΗ ΚΑΙ ΚΟΡΙΝΝΑ), which depicts a mother persuading her daughter to act as a courtesan (ἑταίρα) in order to financially support the two of them. By analyzing word choice and using supporting evidence from Against Neara by Apollodoros, I argue that there is a stark contrast been the social standing of a courtesan and a wife. This paper concludes by acknowledging that, although Lucian’s depiction of Crobyle’s excitement about courtesanship is most likely dramatized for satirical effect, it sparks a discussion about the structure of ancient Greek society and the expectations for women in this period.
Overturning orthodoxies
Maggie Yuan: ‘I Contain Multitudes’: Identity Construction in Apuleius’ Apologia 24 [CIV][HON]
In 158/159 CE, the North-African author Apuleius was put on trial in the town of Sabratha. His subsequent speech, published as the Apologia, is a defense against a variety of charges concerning his alleged use of magic. The text not only offers glimpses into the world of a provincial Roman courtroom, but it provides rich material on non-Roman constructions of ethnic and racial identity. Using Apologia 24, I demonstrate that Apuleius holds allegiance both to his local African hometown and to the Roman intellectual elite. Any apparent contradictions can be explained by viewing his identity as existing on multiple levels — local over national, and Roman over non-Roman.
Audrey Lehnis: Hellenistic “Grotesques”: Form, Function, and Terminology [CIV]
This paper examines the Hellenistic “grotesques,” unmonumental terracotta and bronze figurines found mainly in the private sphere. Despite their small stature, they continue to fascinate modern viewers with their exaggerated bodily features and distorted facial expressions. However, the label “grotesque” carries assumptions and judgements that dictate a specific relationship of the viewer to these figurines. Through describing nuance both between and within three broad categories (apotropaic, performers, and realistic), this paper will address the validity of using the term “grotesque.” Ultimately, “grotesque” will be rejected as an adequate label, as it obscures the figures’ true meanings and contexts.
Daphne Glatter: Augustine the Naturalist: Understanding Divinity Through Material Aesthetics [ANCH]
This paper addresses a small but significant gap in Augustine scholarship: what do we make of Augustine’s nature writing? Descriptions of the natural world litter Augustine’s literary output, and his appreciation for nature’s material aesthetics is understudied. Augustine, however, is not just a naturalist: I argue that his material aesthetics are not just an interesting piece of his literary output, but an essential component for his understanding of divinity. Augustine’s theology is thus more bottom-up than top-down, as beauty on earth — from fish in a pond to a spider spinning its web — informs his conception of divine perfection above.
Alethea Lam: Echoes in the Forest: Fable Tradition and Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Phaedrus 1.12 [LANG]
This paper analyzes Phaedrus’s rendition of the animal fable wherein a deer criticizes his reflection in a spring of water. Poem 1.12 draws on tropes shared by other fables in the author’s corpus as well as in the classical fable tradition at large. Further authorial choices and innovations, however, suggest a trans-genre influence. Parallels and contrasts between this tale and Ovid’s Actaeon and Narcissus narratives in Metamorphoses draw out themes such as nature’s role in determining fate, the animal mind as contrasted with that of humans, deception and misperception, and storytelling.
Making things
Sarah Hinkel: Finishing Touches: An Investigation of Early Iron Age Greywares from the Vedi Fortress, Armenia Through Surface Treatment Technology [ANCH] [HON]
Excavation of the Vedi Fortress in southeastern Armenia has begun to reveal new insights into the understanding of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age settlements associated with the Lchashen-Metsamor culture. Pottery excavated between 2019 and 2024 has yielded many greywares dating to the Early Iron Age which exhibit a variety of surface finishing techniques and decorations. Studying the surface treatments visible on the material from the site will give insight into the technological choices made in the creation of vessels for the site and how these relate to broader patterns in the Southern Caucasus, including the emergence and organization of polities and the process of technical diffusion between them.
Riley Glickman: Mapping Knapping: An Exploration of Sardinian Neolithic Settlement Patterns on the Giara di Siddi through Spatial Analysis of Lithic Distributions [ARCH][HON]
This research explores the Siddi Plateau, a basalt outcrop in South Sardinia, renowned for its dense Nuragic monuments and long-term occupation. Integrating lithic surveys, GIS spatial analyses, and multidisciplinary studies, the project identifies Neolithic settlement patterns and their intersections with later Bronze Age structures. Findings from extensive surface surveys at Nuraghe Sa Conca Sa Cresia reveal significant lithic1 densities, primarily obsidian, reflecting production and settlement activities. These patterns suggest intentionality in land use, with evidence of persistent reuse from the Neolithic to Medieval periods. By linking lithic distributions with archaeological features, this study deepens our understanding of Sardinia’s prehistoric socio-economic organization.
Beyond the classical world
Jack Purple: Becoming Shiva. The Influence of Dionysus and Greek Culture on the Development of a Hindu God [CIV][HON]
I argue that the development of the Hindu god, Shiva, was influenced by the worship of Dionysus. Shiva’s development, as understood through the chronology of Hindu texts, features a large gap. During this gap, Greek and culturally Greek-influenced empires ruled northern India, and maintained thriving traditions of Dionysus worship. The latter of these empires, the Kushans, were some of the earliest verified worshippers of Shiva, while having a religious tradition that freely combined gods and beliefs. I examine coins and art to conclude that this gap should be understood as bridged by the introduction of elements of Dionysus into Shiva.
Autumn Cortright: In the Mouth of the Wolf: Putin’s Escalation to Tyranny [CIV]
This paper examines Vladimir Putin's rise to power using Plato's concept of the tyrant from The Republic. It draws a chilling parallel between Putin's ascent, actions, and personality, and Plato’s description of a tyrant’s moral degradation, bloodlust, and eventual despotism. Historical and political examples including the invasion of Ukraine and the violent murders of powerful dissidents exemplify how Putin mirrors the tyrant in his insatiable thirst for power. Ultimately, the paper warns that Putin, who like Plato's tyrant is an isolated, fearful, and dangerous figure, must not be underestimated by the global community.
Professor Rita Copeland, Sheli Z. and Burton X. Rosenberg Professor of Classics and English: Meditations on “commencement” and “classics”
Discussion