Lucia Athanassaki (U Crete) : Talking Thalassocracy in late 5th-century Athens: Euripides' Troades

Talk begins at 5:15 PM, with light refreshments served at 5:00 PM.

This paper reads the Prologue of the Troades against Bacchylidean, Aristophanic, Herodotean, and Thucydidean testimony and explores its political significance for the Athenians and their allies. While conceding that the lament of the Trojan women could both evoke the violent crushing of Melos some months before the play’s production and the debates on the viability of the Sicilian expedition, it argues that the play voices far broader political concerns by drawing attention to the rationale of Athenian Thalassocracy as well as to its challenges and the threats to its existence. This reading takes into account both literary and visual representations of Athenian Thalassocracy.

Lucia Athanassaki is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Crete (Rethymnon Campus). She has worked extensively on Archaic and early classical Greek choral poetry. Her current projects include Art, Cult, and Politics on the Euripidean stage during the Peloponnesian War.