Public Lecture by Dr. Daphne D. Martin, University of Cambridge
ATHENS
Thursday 29 May 2025
7:00pm
The presentation will be held at the Institute Hostel (Fourth Floor, Promachou 2, 11742, Makriyianni (buzzer reads AAIA).
This is a free event!
To register for participation, please contact us at aaia@otenet.gr or call us on 210 924 3256 before Monday 26 May.
Recent scholarly attention to globalisation, migration, mobility and local identity in the ancient Mediterranean has made possible much more subtle and sensitive interpretations of how Greeks interacted with each other and with non-Greek communities in the first half of the 1st millenium BCE. Yet, curiously little work has been devoted to Sparta’s relationship to this wider world, and in particular where Sparta fits in connecting distant local horizons, whether through trade-networks, political alliances, Spartan settlements abroad, or Dorian cultural influence. In this talk, I will explore two case studies, Taranto and Cyrene, in order to consider how
and why they articulate and maintain a material relationship to Sparta over time. By examining the extant archaeological evidence for Spartan influence at each locale, as well as how such influence was perceived by local communities and changed over time, a novel understanding of how Sparta cultivated and maintained its relationship with ‘diaspora’ populations beyond its territory emerges.
Dr. Daphne D. Martin completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2024 on the material construction of identity in Archaic and Classical Sparta and Lakonia. Prior to this she earned a B.A. in Classics and History of Art from Yale University in 2019. She has 8+ years of archaeological experience in Greece and Italy, and has worked at museums in the USA, UK, and Europe. In August and September 2024, she was awarded the William Ritchie Visiting Fellowship at the University of Sydney to pursue her postdoctoral research on Sparta in the broader Mediterranean.
Download the Lecture’s programme.
