Alexander Steiner (Innsbruck)

Languages evolve in different pace and for different reasons. Language contact is one of the main (external) factors for language change. In this presentation, the linguistic diversity of the Aegean (and beyond) and some hitherto proposed connections from Greek to other languages will be discussed. Furthermore, some peculiarities of the Greek vocabulary will be discussed in the light of contact phenomena.

Florian Posselt (Innsbruck)

The lecture adresses the early Greek division into continents. The origin of the concept of continents and their division into either 2 or 3 original continents has been a highly controversial research topic ever since the late 17th century. The lecture will deal with several early sources (Hekataios, Pindaros, Sophokles, (Ps.-)Hippokrates, Herodotos) and problematize their interpretation against the backdrop of this long research history as well as the contemporary intertextuality of the sources. The currently accepted research opinion states that there was originally a division into a northern and southern continent, Europe and Asia. I will demonstrate in what way the interpretation approaches have been problematic. I will show that the earliest sources point towards an original tripartition that only later developed a bipartition into a northern and southern continent as an alternative.

Vittorio Cisnetti (Bologna)

The Persian empire is commonly seen as a prominent land-based power of the ancient Near East, while its performances on the sea are usually taken as complete failures. This interpretation almost exclusively relies on the Classical traditions around the battle of Salamis and its aftermaths. However, it generally tends to ignore the consistent attention paid by Greek historiography and literature for Persian maritime and naval activities, especially in the historical phase preceding the great Persian Wars. This has inevitably led to underestimate the realities of Persian sea power, and to a one-sided reading of the Greek sources. This lecture, therefore, aims at addressing the issue of the building of Persian naval supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, through the lens of authors (above all, Aeschylus and Herodotus) whose accounts should demonstrate how and how much the Greek world came to fear ‘the rising tide of the Barbarians’, at least since the end of the 6th century B.C.

Karolina Szula (Wrocław)

This lecture explores the perception and understanding of the female body and associated diseases in the context of ancien, greek medicine. In antiquity, the human body, in particular the female body, was an enigmatic subject for physicians, leading to different interpretations and hypotheses about its structure and functioning. The analysis will focuse on selected passages from the Corpus Hippocraticum. Particular attention will be given to the most common female diseases, theories on their causes and methods of treatment and remedies preparation. The presentation will also discuss certain descriptions of women's diseases that have been misinterpreted by later researchers, leading to the formation of inaccurate theories about women's health.

Martin Bauer-Zetzmann (Innsbruck)

The mountainous region of Epirus is often considered a latecomer within the Greek world; but on the other hand, people and places of Epirus are attested already in the Homeric epics and the oracle of Dodona was said to be the oldest Greek oracle by Herodotus. My presentation looks into the early history of this region and focuses especially on the interconnections between the Greek city-states and Epirote communities in the age of colonization. Both literary and archaeological sources and a survey of early travel routes can aid our understanding of the importance of Epirus for trading and commerce.