Bret Devereaux

Bit of discussion on what the future of Classics should look like (or if it should have one). I'll leave that question to scholars who can survey it from greater height. Instead, I want to talk about how I think of my field, around the idea of a 'broad(er) Mediterranean' 1/15

Historically and today structurally, 'Classics' is organized around the Greek and Latin language traditions first, and thus around Greece and Rome (as societies) mostly by consequence of the first thing. 2/15

But as our understanding of the past has improved, we've come increasingly to understand that, contrary to the 19th century notion of Greece and Rome as singular pillars alone in an empty field, they existed as part of an interconnected system. 3/15

I see that system - defined by connection to the geographic Mediterranean Sea - as my field of study. Greece and Rome, sure, but equally (and I mean 'equally' not 'as junior partners') Carthage, N. Africa, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Persia... 4/15

...and also non-state peoples in Spain, Gaul, etc. I think we can identify a more-or-less interconnected region, including much of Europe, the Near East, and North Africa, as a functional, useful unit of study (ofc with connections outside to other places!) 5/15

And that's what I mean when I say I study the 'Broader Mediterranean.' I've tried to express in my scholarship, where I aim to treat the different component societies (state and non-state) of this Broader Mediterranean with equal weight, in so far as the evidence allows. 6/15