Shannon White, “Fishing for Ionians in the Upper Sea: Considerations for the Creation of Assyrian Imperial Geography”
During the mid to late eight century BCE, the Neo-Assyrian empire undertook a concerted effort at westward expansion, most notably under the kings Tiglath-pileser III (743–725 BCE) and Sargon II (721–705 BCE). It was during this period that the longstanding Mesopotamian designations “Upper Sea” and “Lower Sea” became attainable borders for the expanding empire, whose territory spread to encompass much of the Levantine coast by the end of the eighth century. It was in this same period that the evidence for Greeks (Yauneans: KUR.ia-am-na-a-a/URU.ia-am-na-a-a, Greek Ἰάϝονες) first appears in Assyrian cuneiform sources, in the form of two letters from the reign of Tiglath-pileser III, and again several decades later in the royal inscriptions of Sargon II. In the annals of Sargon II, these Yauneans feature, most colorfully, as fish caught by Sargon’s imperial net. The comparison to fish is rare in Sargon’s inscriptions; a specific reference to “living in the sea” is rarer. In fact, it is unique only to two entities—the Yauneans, “who live in the middle of the sea like fish,” and the king of Dilmun, who likewise resides in the middle of the sea “like a fish.” The general scholarly understanding of Assyria’s borders in the eighth century relies on interpretations of the geographical extent of Assyrian military and economic influence—traditionally, this influence stretched from Dilmun, long an important center for the trade networks of the Persian Gulf, to Phrygia, where Mitâ (Midas) of Mushku reigned in violent opposition to Assyrian encroachment. Based on the language employed in Sargon’s inscriptions, I propose a new understanding of Assyrian imperial geography which places the as-yet undefined homeland of the Yauneans within the same sphere of control as the empire’s southern border in Dilmun. In the absence of the ability to physically memorialize its borders in the form of boundary monuments, and indeed in the face of ongoing violent opposition hindering Assyria’s campaigning in Anatolia, the choice to represent a fundamentally uncontrollable territory as one tamed by the king holds extreme significance for our understanding of Assyrian boundary-making and the role of the wider Mediterranean on the empire’s periphery.
About the Presenter
Shannon Oliver White is a PhD student in the Classical Studies program at Columbia University. He is interested in the history and archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean in the early first millennium BCE, with a primary focus on Greek sites along the Anatolian and Levantine coasts. He has excavated in Greece and the Middle East, and is currently involved with projects in northern Greece (Pella Urban Dynamics Project) and Iraqi Kurdistan (Rural Landscapes of Iron Age Imperial Mesopotamia).
Izzy Martin, “Odysseus Through the Looking Glass”
The phenomenon of parallel characters, or doublets, in the Homeric epics are well familiar to scholars. Often recognized is the parallel between Odysseus and his loyal swineherd Eumaeus (Wright 2019; Scodel 2002). Both are the only sons of Kings, leaders (Eumaeus of pigs, Odysseus of men), and experience hardships far removed from their homelands (Louden 1999; Scodel 2002). Building on these studies of parallels between Odysseus and Eumaeus, this paper argues for a secondary doublet between Scylla, whom Odysseus describes as most terrible (οἴκτιστον) of anything he has seen in his wanderings (Od. 12.258), and the Phoenician woman who kidnaps Eumaeus in his early years. I draw on Hopman’s (2013) semantic realms of woman, sea, and dog to establish a connection between the monstrous Scylla and the rapacious, pirate-
canoodling Phoenician. Both Scylla and the Phoenician kidnapper are characterized by their canine voraciousness, connections to the sea, and inescapability. Next, I will argue that Odysseus’ encounter with Scylla and Eumaeus’ with the Phoenician woman correspond to two Carrollesque mirror worlds: the realm of fantastical adventure and the realm of grim reality. Odysseus the intrepid hero and Scylla the unvanquishable villain reside in the world of fantasy and adventure. The world of grim reality is inhabited by the everyday man Eumaeus and the morally grey Phoenician antagonist, both of whom suffer tragic royalty-to-slavery reversals of
fortune.
About the Presenter
Izzy Martin is a fourth year PhD student at Bryn Mawr College in the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. Their recently defended MA thesis entitled, “(Fan)tastical Worlds: Odysseus, fanfiction, and storytelling”, is interested in the active adaption process used to create stories in the Odyssey and beyond. Her research interests include reception (especially in literature, films, and video games), monsters and other entities that go bump in the night, horror, and story worlds.
