The status of Athens and its culture in the Hellenistic period.

My research proposal is a study of the cultural role of Athens in the Hellenistic period (c. 300-100 BC). From c.480 to c.320 BC, Athens had dominated Greek culture; Macedonian conquests massively expanded the Greek world and shifted cultural centres. This project aims to investigate the afterlife of Athenian cultural dominance, to see whether Athenian artefacts and literature faded from view, became ossified classics or maintained contemporary importance.

The history of Athens as an ideal in the early Hellenistic period is increasingly attracting scholarly interest (Canevaro and Gray 2018). My contribution to this field will be a detailed study of the dynamics governing engagement with Athenian culture. This includes the cultural self-representation of Athens and how this was received by the wider Greek world, especially in the context of the new geographical extension of Greek political power in this period.

In the Hellenistic period rhetoric became central to education in Greek cities and spread to new geographical areas, raising questions about innovation and the traditions of Athenian oratory. First-century writers enshrine Athens as the pinnacle of oratory, and construct a narrative of post-classical decline in Asia (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Or.1), and there were significant changes in rhetorical style.

I will investigate how innovations relate to interest in Attic traditions and the widespread interaction with Demosthenes' speeches in this period.

Fragments from the rhetoricians Hybreas and Hegesias display innovation in their use of prose rhythm and word play. I will gather more inscriptional evidence, building on the work on prose rhythm in the aretalogy of Isis from Maroneia (Papanikolaou 2009), and the monument of Antiochus I of Commagene. There was also engagement with fourth-century Athenian rhetoric.

Cleochares wrote the oldest attested work on Demosthenes in the third century, while two third-century papyri record rhetorical declamations showing careful engagement with Demosthenic style (Canevaro 2018). Further research is necessary to evaluate what this engagement signified-whether it was simply used at early stages of rhetorical training or whether claiming connections with Attic orators, as the third-century orator Hegesias did (Cicero, Orator 226), was important for professionals.

In the context of the geographical expansion of theatrical practices, the important question for my project is the place of Athenian drama, particularly in relation to two new trends: re-performance of old plays and the popularity of 'New Comedy' (Lightfoot 2002; Konstan 2018). I will be asking what the place of Athens was in the production of tragedy.

Athens' contemporary cultural relevance through New Comedy will be evaluated through its influence on poets such as Herodas, Theocritus and Asclepiades and artistic representations of the plays. Beyond the texts, I hope to investigate the development of theatrical practices through the archaeological evidence for the spread of theatres (Csapo and Wilson 2020).

Inscriptions illuminate contemporary practices such as the new guilds of the Artists of Dionysus and re-performance of old plays. For example, an inscription from Tanagra c.85 BC records the different financial value of prizes for different kinds of performances, giving us an insight into the cultural capital of old tragedies and comedies alongside new compositions (SEG 19, 335).

The cultural significance of Athens as the centre of philosophical study in this period will also be an important area of research. Aside from an awareness of the important historical tradition of philosophy in Athens, especially in the figures of Plato and Socrates (Long 1988 and 2006), Hellenistic Athens continued to attract the most significant philosophers.

The philosophies of schools established in this period, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, came to dominate philosophical debate and permeate non-philosophical literature (Ha