Doug Braun, “A Kunstkammer on Capri? Imperial Roman Displays of Sea Monsters and Other Maritime Oddities”
In his biography of Augustus, Suetonius mentions the emperor eschewing the common elite practice of acquiring art in favor of a much more unexpected hobby, the collecting and displaying of the “monstrous bones of sea monsters” in his Capri residence. Augustus’ collection of marine oddities was not the first instance of “sea monsters” or other mythical creatures being exhibited in the ancient world. However, it was the first to be built around an individual, the emperor. The access afforded to the emperors allowed them to possess creatures that could only ever be “seen” in myth, art, or in second-hand accounts by scholars such as Pliny and Aelian. Through an analysis of artistic and archaeological material, written sources, and the broader historical context of later natural history collections, I argue that the imperial collection of marine oddities was an integral part of a wider program of collecting. This program explicitly linked the emperor to the power of the sea and implicitly hinted at his ability to acquire anything he wished, even the extraordinary. By keeping and exhibiting these curiosities, the emperor appropriated their own strength, demonstrating his power over the natural world by the act of collecting, as the experience of viewing a “sea monster” was taken out of the sea and into the presence of the emperor.
About the Presenter
Doug Braun is a third-year PhD student studying ancient Mediterranean art and archaeology at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. His research interests focus on the display of animals and animal remains in the ancient Greek world; the human and animal body in ancient Greek art; and intersections of myth, natural history, and art in the ancient Mediterranean. His dissertation, “Hide-ing in Plain Sight: Animal Skins and Bodily Display in Greek Sculpture,” will examine changing perceptions of animal pelts and skin-wearing in sculpture from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. He is also a member of the NYU-University of Milan excavations at the main urban sanctuary of Selinunte in southwestern Sicily. This Fall, he will be participating in the Regular Member program of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Emma Arnold, “The Empire and the Sponge: AN Invertebrate View of Class and Culture”
This paper examines perspectives on political power and material consumption through representations of the sponge in Imperial Greek literature. The sponge in the ancient understanding is neither wholly plant nor wholly animal, making it an ideal lens through which to explore the ambiguous identity of Greeks under Rome. The harsh realities of sponge-harvesting also make it a symbol of structural inequality. References to the sponge thus underscore the gulf between free and enslaved and between imperial center and periphery.
I focus on three representations of the sponge by Greek-speaking authors which show varied perspectives on class, nature, and empire.
The Ecphrasis of a Sponge by Mesomedes focuses on the divide between the sponge-divers and sponge-users. As a freedman in the imperial court, Mesomedes cannot be wholly identified with either the enslaved sponge-diver or the aristocratic woman who uses it. The implication that the woman uses the sponge after sexual intercourse questions how imperial maritime trade enables moral corruption.
Oppian’s Halieutica emphasises the physical dangers of sponge-harvesting in the context of the sea as the final frontier of the empire. The death of the sponge-diver in the jaws of a ketos serves as a metaphor for the violence of empire and the inability of any human entity to completely control the sea.
While in the previous examples the sponge was helpless, in Aelian’s On the Nature of Animals, the sponge escapes the fisherman by cooperating with the crab. When combined with Aelian’s refusal to dedicate his work to the emperor and his near-erasure of Rome from this text, the alliance of sponge and crab can be read as a form of political resistance in miniature.
Each of these examples uses the sponge’s position as a luxury good to critique the imperial
economy which valued it so highly.
About the Presenter
Emma Arnold is currently studying for her PhD in Classics at the University of Cambridge, focusing on ancient literary theory. Her previous research has focused on the representation of animals in Imperial Greek literature. She is the current secretary of the Philosophy Caucus at the Cambridge Classics Faculty and co-director of the Classical Reception Seminar. Other areas of interest are animal ethics and Platonism. She also teaches Ancient Greek Literature to undergraduates.
Manolis Mavromatis, “Globalizing the Northern Aegean: Thasos and Samothrace under Rome”
This paper examines how globalization manifested in the North Aegean during the Roman period through a comparative study of Thasos and Samothrace. Although both islands were incorporated into the Roman Empire, their distinct historical trajectories, political structures, and cultural identities produced markedly different responses to increased connectivity. Drawing on Justin Jennings’ definition of globalization as “complex connectivity,” this study analyzes archaeological evidence from three key domains: architecture and settlement layout, material culture, and language and administration.
On Thasos, a long-standing polis with established civic institutions, the effects of Roman integration are characterized by gradual adaptation, visible in architectural modification, hybridized coinage production, and the continued use of Greek in administrative contexts. In contrast, Samothrace, defined by its cultic landscape and the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, exhibits earlier and more pronounced shifts, particularly in religious practice and epigraphic evidence reflecting Roman participation and oversight.
By comparing these two island contexts, this paper demonstrates that globalization in antiquity was neither uniform nor linear. Instead, it unfolded through locally contingent negotiations between global forces and pre-existing social, political, and cultural frameworks.
About the Presenter
Manolis Mavromatis earned a BA in History with Full Honours from the American College of Greece, where he also completed a minor in Archaeology and received the Outstanding Graduating Student Award. He later completed an MSc in Archaeology with Distinction at the University of Oxford, specializing in Prehistoric Archaeology; his dissertation, “Politics and Archaeology in Knossos: From Kalokairinos to the Present Day,” was awarded the MSc Archaeology Dissertation Prize. His research interests focus on early archaeology and its entanglements with colonialism, imperialism, and nationalism, as well as urbanization and early state formation in Greece and Anatolia during the Early Iron Age and Early Archaic periods. He has participated in several archaeological and cultural heritage projects, including fieldwork and museum digitization initiatives, and is currently involved in the Lyktos Archaeological Project, where he contributes to topographical and GIS-based analysis. His work also incorporates digital methodologies, including coding in Python and R.
