Peter Thonemann
Biographic Data
| ID | 5627099 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Thonemann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Thonemann |
| SIGNATURE | THONEMANN P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2239-9281 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A New Epigram from the Region of Philadelpheia
The author publishes a new inscribed funerary epigram discovered in 2024 in the village of Badınca, near modern Alaşehir (ancient Philadelpheia). The epigram commemorates a woman by the name of Diodora, daughter of Menandros, who died in childbirth at the age of thirty. The epigram is closely modelled on a famous Hellenistic literary epigram by the poet Leonidas of Tarentum, whose dialogue-form was widely imitated in funerary epigrams of the Hell…
Lucian’s Phalaris
Defending the indefensible and praising the unpraiseworthy were staples of Greek declamation in the Roman imperial period. Lucian’s Phalaris I and II have generally been considered as undemanding rhetorical exercises, inverting the standard tropes of anti-tyrant invective to produce a paradoxical encomium of the proverbially wicked tyrant Phalaris of Akragas. This paper argues that Phalaris I and II are in fact considerably more sophisticated and…
A New Epigram from Magnesia on the Maeander
The author publishes a new inscribed statue-base discovered in 2023 during ongoing excavations at Magnesia on the Maeander. The statue-base bears an epigram in honour of a certain Mandron son of Artemidoros, who died in the course of an embassy to “King Alexander”, presumably Alexander the Great. The statue-base dates to the mid-second century AD, and the author discusses the reasons why the Magnesians might have chosen to honour such a relativel…
Romans and Greeks in Early Imperial Lydia and Phrygia
This paper collects the evidence for corporate groups of “Romans and Greeks living at (village toponym)” in Lydia and western Phrygia in the early Roman imperial period. The author discusses seven honorific inscriptions and dedications, three of them very recently published; four derive from the near vicinity of Akmoneia in western Phrygia, reflecting the large number of resident Romans in the region. The author offers a detailed commentary on a …
An Honorific Decree from Laodikeia on the Lykos
The author offers a full re-edition of a newly discovered inscription from Laodikeia on the Lykos, preserved in three fragments, only two of which were recognised by the first editor as belonging to the text. The inscription is an honorific decree of the mid-second century AD for a civic benefactor named Amphilochos, who had held the civic magistracies of exetastēs, ephebarch, and dekaprōtos; the author provides parallels for the formulaic langua…
Lucian's Hippias
Lucian's Hippias or The Bath , traditionally considered to be a straight-faced encomium of a historical architect and real-life bath-house of the Antonine period, is now often judged to be a work of satire, though what exactly is being satirized has remained elusive. This article argues that the architect ‘Hippias’ is closely modelled on Plato's caricature of the sophist Hippias of Elis in the Hippias Minor , and that his bath-house is a comic ex…
Two Greek Cities in Peace and War
The authors conclude with some brief reflections on kinship diplomacy in the Hellenistic world—the mediation of Greek interstate diplomacy through real or mythological ‘kinship’ between civic communities—with a particular focus on the ‘reactivating’ of such links during the various geopolitical crises of the early second century BC. The new decree of Abdera for the Teians is set firmly in its immediate historical context, as a characteristic witn…
Prologue
This short introductory chapter lays out the literary sources for the Roman sack of Abdera in 170 BC, in the course of the Third Macedonian War. The main narrative, that of Livy, is discussed in detail, and set in the context of our broader evidence for Roman treatment of Greek cities during the war. Thanks to an extraordinary new epigraphic discovery from the city of Teos in western Asia Minor, the full story of the slow and painful recovery of …
The Teian ‘Dirae’ (Documents 2–3)
The richest sources for the institutional history of Classical Teos, and for ongoing relations between Teos and Abdera in the generations after the Teian colonizing enterprise, are a pair of Greek inscriptions from Teos of the early fifth century BC, recording public curses to be read out by magistrates at major Teian festivals. The first of these two texts, ‘Dirae I’, has been known since the early eighteenth century, but no previous edition of …
Abdera and Teos after the Third Macedonian War
This chapter consists of a full edition with translation and commentary of a major decree of Abdera in honour of the Teians, almost certainly dating to the mid-160s BC. The decree recounts the restoration of Abdera with Teian help after the Roman sack of 170 BC, and confers extraordinary honours on the people of Teos in gratitude for their assistance over many years. The upper part of this decree (Fragment A) was discovered at Teos near the templ…
The Statue of the Dēmos of the Teians
As part of the honours conferred by Abdera on the Teians, the Abderites voted to erect a colossal bronze statue of the personified Dēmos of the Teians in the agora at Abdera. This statue has an altar associated with it, and was at the centre of what appears to be a new civic cult of the personified Teian Dēmos at Abdera. The honorific statue is described at remarkable length, prompting a new assessment of the varieties of visual representations o…
Teos in the Second Century BC (Documents 4–5)
This chapter offers a new synthesis of the history and culture of Teos in the late third and early second century BC, a period of Teian history for which sources, both epigraphic and archaeological, are unusually rich. The great Teian temple of Dionysos, designed by the architect Hermogenes, was built during this period, and relations between Teos and the Hellenistic monarchs (particularly the Seleukid king Antiochos III, and subsequently Eumenes…
A Hellenistic Decree from Apollonia under Salbake
The author identifies a fragmentary honorific decree in the Archaeological Museum of Denizli-Hierapolis as the upper part of a long-known Hellenistic decree from Apollonia under Salbake in honour of the ambassador Pamphilos, dating shortly after 188 BC. The author proposes various new readings and restorations to the text of the upper part of the decree
The Lives of Ancient Villages
Our conception of the culture and values of the ancient Greco-Roman world is largely based on texts and material evidence left behind by a small and atypical group of city-dwellers. The people of the deep Mediterranean countryside seldom appear in the historical record from antiquity, and almost never as historical actors. This book is the first extended historical ethnography of an ancient village society, based on an extraordinarily rich body o…
Teos and Abdera
In late summer 2017, ongoing Turkish excavations at the site of Teos in Ionia uncovered one of the largest and most important Greek inscriptions to have been discovered this century. It records, in thrilling and moving detail, the assistance provided by the Teians in the repopulation and rebuilding of their daughter-city, Abdera in Thrace, after its sack by the Romans in 170 BC during the Third Macedonian War. The new text, published here for the…
Inscriptions from Eastern Phrygia and Galatia
The author publishes sixty-one epitaphs, all dating to the Roman and late Roman periods, from eastern Phrygia and southern Galatia. These inscriptions were recorded by Sir William Calder in July 1908 in the course of an extensive epigraphic journey through the steppe north of Konya, and are published here on the basis of Calder’s notebook copies. The texts published here include a large number of indigenous personal names, as well as some interes…
Teos und Abdera in hellenistischer Zeit
An Abderite honorific decree for Teos, passed around 166 BC, suggests that the calendar year at Abdera began with the autumn month Apatourion, while the Teians set the start of the year in the summer month Leukatheon. Every year in the month Apatourion, the Abderites appointed two ambassadors, who travelled to Teos in the summer month Leukatheon to perform sacrifice at the [Leukatheia] in honour of the Demos of Teos, now the subject of cultic hon…
Inscriptions from Abdera and Maroneia
The present article is concerned with three inscriptions from the Greek citiesof Abdera and Maroneia in coastal Thrace. Nos. 1 (Abdera) and 2 (Maroneia) were first published in the 2004 corpus of the inscriptions of Aegean Thrace (I.Thrac.Aeg. E1 and E181α), and improved texts of both are offered here; no.3 (Maroneia) is new. The first text is a fragmentary early-fifth century law from Abdera, concerned with upper and lower ages of eligibility fo…
An Ancient Dream Manual
Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica (‘The Interpretation of Dreams’) is the only dream-book which has been preserved from Graeco-Roman antiquity. Composed around ad 200, it is a treatise and manual on dreams, their classification, and the various analytical tools which should be applied to their interpretation. Artemidorus travelled widely through Greece, Asia, and Italy to collect people’s dreams and record their outcomes, in the process casting a vivid …
Gender Bias and the Journal of Roman Studies
Reflecting on present unease about structural biases in the discipline, and aiming to offer a data-rich response to some recent criticisms of this Journal , the Editorial Board has undertaken a study of the representation of female scholars in the Journal of Roman Studies . To that end, we have gathered data on publications, submissions and JRS Editorial Board membership for the past fifteen years, from Volume 95 (2005) through to the present vol…
From Alexander to Augustus
‘From Alexander to Augustus’ describes the twists and turns of Hellenistic history, from Alexander’s accession (336 bc ) to Cleopatra’s death and the end of the Ptolemaic kingdom (30 bc ). It begins by outlining Alexander’s reign and the first generation after his death (323–281 bc ), when his empire fractured into three successor kingdoms, each ruled by a Macedonian king: the Antigonids in Macedon, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids in we…
Eratosthenes and the system of the world
Few aspects of the Hellenistic world have captivated the modern imagination so much as the Museum and Library of Ptolemaic Alexandria, a dedicated institution of learning and research, populated by librarians, poets, and scholars, and munificently endowed by an enlightened Ptolemaic state. The 3rd and 2nd centuries bc saw spectacular developments in the fields of mathematics, geography, the natural sciences, humanistic scholarship, and poetry. Th…
Priene
In the mid-4th century bc , the small Greek city of Priene was founded in the Maeander river valley in western Asia Minor. It flourished for around 250 years, before the city’s harbours were sealed by silt from the Maeander. Most of the known Greek inscriptions and public documents (civic decrees, honorific statue-bases, letters from Hellenistic kings) from Priene date from the 1st century bc or earlier and provide an exceptionally clear and vivi…
Demetrius the Besieger and Hellenistic kingship
Kingship in the early Hellenistic world was primarily a matter of power and war was at the heart of Hellenistic kingship. ‘Demetrius the Besieger and Hellenistic kingship’ begins with the mission of Demetrius, son of Antigonus, in 307 bc to ‘liberate’ the cities of Greece from the Macedonian dynast Cassander, Antigonus’ chief rival for control of the Aegean. It describes the outstanding charisma, dazzling military success, and colossal personal w…
The idea of the Hellenistic
The word ‘Hellenistic’ is used to refer to a historical epoch, a geographical region, and a range of cultural phenomena seen as characteristic of this region and period. There is a wealth of documentary evidence from bureaucratic and literary papyri to gold, silver, and bronze coins. ‘The idea of the Hellenistic’ explains that most modern histories of the Hellenistic period begin in 323 bc , with the death of Alexander the Great, and finish in 30…
Athenian democratic origins
In these interconnected essays the late Geoffrey de Ste. Croix defends the institutions of the Athenian democracy, showing that they were much more practical, rational, and impartial than has usually been acknowledged. A major essay provides a new view of Aristotle's use of sources in The Constitution of the Athenians, on which so much of our knowledge of Athenian constitutional history depends. Ste. Croix also argues that commercial factors had …
Attalid Asia Minor
This book is dedicated to the political economy of one of the major states of the Hellenistic world, the Attalid kingdom of Pergamon in north-western Asia Minor. In the third century bc, the Attalid dynasts of Pergamon were relatively minor players in Hellenistic great-power politics. In 188 bc, after Rome's victory over the Seleukid king Antiochos III, the Attalids were granted the lion's share of the former Seleukid territories in western and i…
Athens and Kydonia
A Hellenistic inscription from the Athenian Agora (Agora 17602) concerning syngeneia between Athens and Kydonia in western Crete is reedited here with full commentary. The history of Athenian relations with Kydonia is briefly reviewed. The authors propose a reconstruction of the Kydonians' arguments for mythological kinship between the two cities. Agora 17602 appears to be the earliest firm attestation of mutually accepted syngeneia between Athen…
Roman Phrygia
The bleak steppe and rolling highlands of inner Anatolia were one of the most remote and underdeveloped parts of the Roman empire. Still today, for most historians of the Roman world, ancient Phrygia largely remains terra incognita. Yet thanks to a startling abundance of Greek and Latin inscriptions on stone, the cultural history of the villages and small towns of Roman Phrygia is known to us in vivid and unexpected detail. Few parts of the Medit…
A Copy of Augustus’ Res Gestae at Sardis
The present article identifies the fragmentary Greek inscription Sardis VII.1 no. 201 as a fragment of a hitherto unknown copy of Augustus’ Res Gestae. Unpublished correspondence between Sir William Ramsay and William Buckler from the late 1920s suggests that Buckler may already have suspected the identification. The Sardis fragment of the Res Gestae - the first to be recorded outside the province of Galatia - appears to contain a Greek translati…
An Ancient Dream Manual
Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica (‘The Interpretation of Dreams’) is the only dream-book which has been preserved from Graeco-Roman antiquity. Composed around ad 200, it is a treatise and manual on dreams, their classification, and the various analytical tools which should be applied to their interpretation. Artemidorus travelled widely through Greece, Asia, and Italy to collect people’s dreams and record their outcomes, in the process casting a vivid …
Gender Bias and the Journal of Roman Studies
Reflecting on present unease about structural biases in the discipline, and aiming to offer a data-rich response to some recent criticisms of this Journal , the Editorial Board has undertaken a study of the representation of female scholars in the Journal of Roman Studies . To that end, we have gathered data on publications, submissions and JRS Editorial Board membership for the past fifteen years, from Volume 95 (2005) through to the present vol…
Lucian's Hippias
Lucian's Hippias or The Bath , traditionally considered to be a straight-faced encomium of a historical architect and real-life bath-house of the Antonine period, is now often judged to be a work of satire, though what exactly is being satirized has remained elusive. This article argues that the architect ‘Hippias’ is closely modelled on Plato's caricature of the sophist Hippias of Elis in the Hippias Minor , and that his bath-house is a comic ex…
Teos and Abdera
In late summer 2017, ongoing Turkish excavations at the site of Teos in Ionia uncovered one of the largest and most important Greek inscriptions to have been discovered this century. It records, in thrilling and moving detail, the assistance provided by the Teians in the repopulation and rebuilding of their daughter-city, Abdera in Thrace, after its sack by the Romans in 170 BC during the Third Macedonian War. The new text, published here for the…
Amphilochius of Iconium and Lycaonian Asceticism
Non-orthodox Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity is known to us largely through the distorting lens of orthodox heresiology. This paper aims to reassess the character of the ascetic communities of rural Lycaonia in the fourth century a.d . in the light of the surviving funerary and ecclesiastical epigraphy, including three inscriptions published here for the first time. We are fortunate to be able to read these texts in the light of a neglecte…
Athenian democratic origins
In these interconnected essays the late Geoffrey de Ste. Croix defends the institutions of the Athenian democracy, showing that they were much more practical, rational, and impartial than has usually been acknowledged. A major essay provides a new view of Aristotle's use of sources in The Constitution of the Athenians, on which so much of our knowledge of Athenian constitutional history depends. Ste. Croix also argues that commercial factors had …
Athens and Kydonia
A Hellenistic inscription from the Athenian Agora (Agora 17602) concerning syngeneia between Athens and Kydonia in western Crete is reedited here with full commentary. The history of Athenian relations with Kydonia is briefly reviewed. The authors propose a reconstruction of the Kydonians' arguments for mythological kinship between the two cities. Agora 17602 appears to be the earliest firm attestation of mutually accepted syngeneia between Athen…
The Women of Akmoneia
This article is the first publication of a Greek inscription from Akmoneia in Phrygia, dated to a.d. 6/7. The monument is an honorific stele for a priestess by the name of Tatia, and was voted by a body of ‘Greek and Roman women’. As a document of collective political activity by a female corporate group, the inscription has no real parallels in either the Greek or Roman world. The monument is set in the context of the Roman mercantile presence i…
The Maeander Valley
This book is a study of the long-term historical geography of Asia Minor, from the fourth century BC to the thirteenth century AD. Using an astonishing breadth of sources, ranging from Byzantine monastic archives to Latin poetic texts, ancient land records to hagiographic biographies, Peter Thonemann reveals the complex and fascinating interplay between the natural environment and human activities in the Maeander valley. Both a large-scale region…
Maeander Valley
Amphilochius of Iconium and Lycaonian Asceticism
Non-orthodox Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity is known to us largely through the distorting lens of orthodox heresiology. This paper aims to reassess the character of the ascetic communities of rural Lycaonia in the fourth century a.d . in the light of the surviving funerary and ecclesiastical epigraphy, including three inscriptions published here for the first time. We are fortunate to be able to read these texts in the light of a neglecte…
Alexander, Priene, and Naulochon
This chapter offers a new reconstruction of Alexander the Great's fragmentary edict to Priene (I. Priene 1; Rhodes–Osborne, GHI 86, probably of 334 bc). Alexander's edict, concerning the status of a number of dependent communities in the vicinity of Priene, such as Naulochon, has played a prominent role in modern scholarship on Alexander's Philhellenism, the nature and extent of ‘royal land’ in the former Achaemenid empire, the civic life of the …
A Copy of Augustus’ Res Gestae at Sardis
The present article identifies the fragmentary Greek inscription Sardis VII.1 no. 201 as a fragment of a hitherto unknown copy of Augustus’ Res Gestae. Unpublished correspondence between Sir William Ramsay and William Buckler from the late 1920s suggests that Buckler may already have suspected the identification. The Sardis fragment of the Res Gestae - the first to be recorded outside the province of Galatia - appears to contain a Greek translati…
Phrygia
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Households and families in Roman Phrygia
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The Attalid State, 188–133 bc
Roman Phrygia
The bleak steppe and rolling highlands of inner Anatolia were one of the most remote and underdeveloped parts of the Roman empire. Still today, for most historians of the Roman world, ancient Phrygia largely remains terra incognita. Yet thanks to a startling abundance of Greek and Latin inscriptions on stone, the cultural history of the villages and small towns of Roman Phrygia is known to us in vivid and unexpected detail. Few parts of the Medit…
Attalid Asia Minor
This book is dedicated to the political economy of one of the major states of the Hellenistic world, the Attalid kingdom of Pergamon in north-western Asia Minor. In the third century bc, the Attalid dynasts of Pergamon were relatively minor players in Hellenistic great-power politics. In 188 bc, after Rome's victory over the Seleukid king Antiochos III, the Attalids were granted the lion's share of the former Seleukid territories in western and i…
The Hellenistic World
Coinage is one of our key sources for the rich and fascinating history of the Hellenistic world (323–31 BC). This book provides students of the period with an up-to-date introduction to Hellenistic gold, silver and bronze coins in their cultural and economic contexts. It also offers new perspectives on four major themes in contemporary Hellenistic history: globalisation, identity, political economy and ideology. With more than 250 illustrations, …
From Alexander to Augustus
‘From Alexander to Augustus’ describes the twists and turns of Hellenistic history, from Alexander’s accession (336 bc ) to Cleopatra’s death and the end of the Ptolemaic kingdom (30 bc ). It begins by outlining Alexander’s reign and the first generation after his death (323–281 bc ), when his empire fractured into three successor kingdoms, each ruled by a Macedonian king: the Antigonids in Macedon, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids in we…
Eratosthenes and the system of the world
Few aspects of the Hellenistic world have captivated the modern imagination so much as the Museum and Library of Ptolemaic Alexandria, a dedicated institution of learning and research, populated by librarians, poets, and scholars, and munificently endowed by an enlightened Ptolemaic state. The 3rd and 2nd centuries bc saw spectacular developments in the fields of mathematics, geography, the natural sciences, humanistic scholarship, and poetry. Th…
Priene
In the mid-4th century bc , the small Greek city of Priene was founded in the Maeander river valley in western Asia Minor. It flourished for around 250 years, before the city’s harbours were sealed by silt from the Maeander. Most of the known Greek inscriptions and public documents (civic decrees, honorific statue-bases, letters from Hellenistic kings) from Priene date from the 1st century bc or earlier and provide an exceptionally clear and vivi…
Demetrius the Besieger and Hellenistic kingship
Kingship in the early Hellenistic world was primarily a matter of power and war was at the heart of Hellenistic kingship. ‘Demetrius the Besieger and Hellenistic kingship’ begins with the mission of Demetrius, son of Antigonus, in 307 bc to ‘liberate’ the cities of Greece from the Macedonian dynast Cassander, Antigonus’ chief rival for control of the Aegean. It describes the outstanding charisma, dazzling military success, and colossal personal w…
The idea of the Hellenistic
The word ‘Hellenistic’ is used to refer to a historical epoch, a geographical region, and a range of cultural phenomena seen as characteristic of this region and period. There is a wealth of documentary evidence from bureaucratic and literary papyri to gold, silver, and bronze coins. ‘The idea of the Hellenistic’ explains that most modern histories of the Hellenistic period begin in 323 bc , with the death of Alexander the Great, and finish in 30…
Encounters
‘Encounters’ travels to the outermost limits of Hellenistic civilization, where Graeco-Macedonian societies of the Mediterranean and western Asia interacted with sophisticated and powerful non-Greek neighbours. In the Far East, it visits the Greek city of Aï Khanoum, on the banks of the Oxus in north-east Afghanistan. To the south, it follows Eudoxus of Cyzicus on his explorative journey across the Southern Ocean, forging the first direct link be…
The Hellenistic Age
Drawing on inscriptions, papyri, coinage, poetry, art, and archaeology, The Hellenistic Age: A Very Short Introduction opens up the history and culture of the vast Hellenistic world, from the death of Alexander the Great (323 bc) to the Roman conquest of the Ptolemaic kingdom (30 bc). It navigates the power struggles and wars in the three centuries that followed the conquests of Alexander. In this age of cultural globalization, a single language …
Gender Bias and the Journal of Roman Studies
Reflecting on present unease about structural biases in the discipline, and aiming to offer a data-rich response to some recent criticisms of this Journal , the Editorial Board has undertaken a study of the representation of female scholars in the Journal of Roman Studies . To that end, we have gathered data on publications, submissions and JRS Editorial Board membership for the past fifteen years, from Volume 95 (2005) through to the present vol…
Teos und Abdera in hellenistischer Zeit
An Abderite honorific decree for Teos, passed around 166 BC, suggests that the calendar year at Abdera began with the autumn month Apatourion, while the Teians set the start of the year in the summer month Leukatheon. Every year in the month Apatourion, the Abderites appointed two ambassadors, who travelled to Teos in the summer month Leukatheon to perform sacrifice at the [Leukatheia] in honour of the Demos of Teos, now the subject of cultic hon…
Inscriptions from Abdera and Maroneia
The present article is concerned with three inscriptions from the Greek citiesof Abdera and Maroneia in coastal Thrace. Nos. 1 (Abdera) and 2 (Maroneia) were first published in the 2004 corpus of the inscriptions of Aegean Thrace (I.Thrac.Aeg. E1 and E181α), and improved texts of both are offered here; no.3 (Maroneia) is new. The first text is a fragmentary early-fifth century law from Abdera, concerned with upper and lower ages of eligibility fo…
An Ancient Dream Manual
Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica (‘The Interpretation of Dreams’) is the only dream-book which has been preserved from Graeco-Roman antiquity. Composed around ad 200, it is a treatise and manual on dreams, their classification, and the various analytical tools which should be applied to their interpretation. Artemidorus travelled widely through Greece, Asia, and Italy to collect people’s dreams and record their outcomes, in the process casting a vivid …
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