Classical linguistics and racecraft have an intertwined history, in that Indo-European linguistics arose concurrently with scientific racism, and shares many of the same metaphors and conceptual frameworks. This chapter touches on this shared history, before exploring some aspects of the metalinguistics and sociolinguistics of race in the ancient world. In particular, the concept of ‘linguistic racism’ will be used to look at how ancient texts use lack of (shared) language to imply a lack of humanity, and how non-Greek speakers are compared to animals. It will also look at depictions of foreign-language speakers as the linguistic ‘other’, particularly in depictions of enslaved people.

In this chapter, the ties between the nation, racial identity, and the role of classicism are traced as an identity marker. Alt-right – or identitarian – movements and the nation are coterminous in their racialization, an association that their redeployment of antiquity reifies. Analysis of the nation, Whiteness, and antiquity draws examples from the West, particularly the United States, in terms of the wayward identitarian movements that have been proliferating. Although the nation controls the apparatus of the state, identitarian movements benefit from new means of communication, namely, the Internet, and social media. I imagine a way out of the paradox of identitarianism through alternative uses of classicism. This way out is also an end of nation, as opposed to Fukuyama’s end of history, which depends on the strength of nations and states.

Corinth is often associated with the emergence of Greek monumental architecture. The long absence of worked stone in post-Mycenaean architecture cannot be explained by the loss of the necessary tools and techniques. Worked stone slabs were used in pit and cist graves in the northeastern Peloponnese from the Mycenaean through the Geometric periods, and large monolithic sarcophagi appeared at Corinth ca. 900 BCE. Such burials, sometimes containing valuable grave goods, apparently belonged to high-status individuals. By contrast, until the early seventh century BCE at Corinth and elsewhere, buildings had fieldstone foundations, mudbrick walls, and thatched roofs; isolated worked stones occurred rarely, e.g., as beddings for wooden thresholds. In the second half of the eighth century, grave goods disappeared from Corinthian burials, and the elite displayed their status with rich dedications in sanctuaries. During these years, Corinth became increasingly wealthy, first under the oligarchic Bacchiads and later in the tyranny of Kypselos. The first Greek temples with single-skin walls of cuboid stone blocks and roofs of terracotta tiles, built ca. 680–650 at Corinth and Isthmia, represent elite dedications. As with the worked stone in elite Corinthian burials, the quarried stone blocks used in these temples enhanced their display of wealth.

The story of the Iron Age Greeks in the western Mediterranean is currently under revision. The still dominant story is that Greeks migrated there in search of better land and greater economic opportunities unavailable in their homeland and encountered peoples who were backward in terms of their cultural, social, political, economic, and technological development. Through this interaction, the region’s cultural development was brought into line with these more sophisticated Greek newcomers. In the last fifteen years, however, a new picture challenging this traditional story has emerged, thanks to growing and better-interpreted archaeological data particularly from Etruria and Sardinia in Italy. This new picture has included significant changes to absolute chronologies, which have established that Italian developments are earlier than previously thought and are hardly describable as backward. Scholarship remains polarized between these two competing narratives. This chapter seeks to bridge these polarized divides and to take a more nuanced approach to the current block thinking. It argues that Etruria and Sardinia were indeed important regions in the Early Iron Age, capable of attracting Greeks westwards, and that Greeks had the greatest impact on those areas of Italy where they founded city-states.

This chapter explores Egypt’s interactions with Greeks and Greek culture during the Iron Age, particularly from 1000 to the early sixth century BCE. These interactions stemmed from Egypt’s integration (or lack thereof) into broader Mediterranean and Near Eastern trade and political networks. While evidence of Greek presence in Egypt before the seventh century BCE is limited, Egyptian or Egyptianizing goods were widely circulated in the Aegean, suggesting indirect contact through intermediaries like Phoenician traders. The Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BCE) was marked by political fragmentation and foreign dynasties, leading to an internal focus and limited engagement with Greek material culture. However, by the early Saite Period (664–332 BCE), foreign mercenaries and traders began settling in Egypt, culminating in the Greek emporion at Naukratis under Psamtik I. Archaeological evidence, including imported Greek pottery and Egyptian bronzes found in Greek sanctuaries, underscores the shifting dynamics of these interactions. The Saite rulers embraced foreign goods and influences as strategic tools for consolidating power, in stark contrast to their predecessors. This study emphasizes the role of archaeological data over Greek literary sources, offering insights into the evolving relationship between Egypt and Greece and the broader implications for Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange.

How did the songs of Pindar solicit the language of Greek polytheism? How could their words generate ritual knowledge and provoke experience? Pindar was long recognised as a master of piety and an authority on divine matters, and his poems remained privileged points of reference for thinking ritual occasions like festivals, the sanctuaries where they were held, and ritual types like sacrifice. Focusing on sacrifice, this chapter looks at the ritual language produced by Pindaric poetry, rather than the one it reflects, and its inscription in the ritual archive of Greek culture. It is concerned with the poet’s enduring role as an agent in the dynamic system of Greek polytheism. After a brief survey of the prominence of sacrifice in the Pindaric biographical tradition, different aspects of the sacrifices found in the poems of Pindar are reviewed and illustrated through case studies, most notably passages from Pythian 5, Isthmian 4, and Olympian 10.

What emerges from a study of the Pindaric odes is a fascinating, and possibly surprising, panorama of creative responses by translators, ranging from freestyle ‘pindarizing’ to deeply philological modes of translation that are at the same time rigorous and adventurous. The rewards of translating this challenging author are therefore considerable. The chapter concludes by outlining some perspectives for future Pindar translations: as an integral part of philology and commentary; a landmark case study within a ‘topography of translation’ in the field of classics more generally; a ‘play space’ for creative exploration (including in the classroom); and an opportunity to reach beyond mere textual translation towards broader forms of (performative) re-mediation.