In many respects, starting conference sessions at 08:30 is cruel and unusual punishment, especially as my hotel’s coffee is slightly less caffeinated than ditchwater, but I have now worked out the Göteborg trams well enough to get to a decent cafe beforehand… #ESSHC2023 It might be tempting to stay in the cafe, if not for the fact that the first session is on New Approaches to Ancient Slavery, kicking off with David Lewis' study of the importance of Syrians within data for the origins of enslaved people in classical and esp. Hellenistic Greece.

One of the many interesting issues raised by @FlintDibble’s recent threads on Atlantan pseudoarchaeology, and still more the furious reaction of the programme makers, is the question of authority in constructing accounts of the past.

https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1433866892599599110

Is a claim necessarily true because it’s made by an academic specialist? Obviously not, given that academics disagree with one another the whole time. Is a claim necessarily false because it’s made by a non-academic? Again, obviously not.

So, how many quotes does anyone want from Thucydides and other ancient sources about Pericles dismissing the views of the people when he didn’t agree with them..? #PeoplesPMQs Pericles, at least in Thucydides’ account, articulates a vision of democracy, true, but it’s one that is distinctly odd in a number of respects. And he is praised for *not* paying attention to the wishes of the people, unlike his successors, but for getting them to follow him.