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Dr Chiara Meccariello

Lecturer

I received a PhD in Classics from the University of Pisa, and then held research and teaching positions in Vienna, Oxford, Goettingen and Cambridge. Much of my research is in the field of papyrology: I enjoy combining editorial work with broader cultural-historical investigation, and I use papyri and other evidence to explore how Greek poetry was read, interpreted and studied in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.

Selected publications

Books:

• Uses and Misuses of Ancient Mediterranean Sources: Erudition, Authority, Manipulation, edited with J. Singletary, Tübingen 2022.

• The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, edited with J.H. Brusuelas, London 2016.

• Le hypotheseis narrative dei drammi euripidei. Testo, contesto, fortuna, Rome 2014.

Journal articles and essays in edited volumes:

• ‘Did Euripides’ Andromache Premiere Outside Athens?’ (accepted for publication in Classical Quarterly).

• ‘Teaching Propaganda: Water, Food and Power in the Livre d’Ecolier’, in L. Del Corso/A. Ricciardetto, Greek Culture in Hellenistic Egypt: The Literary Experience, Berlin/Boston (forthcoming 2024).

• ‘Myth and Actuality at the School of Rhetoric: The Encomium on the Flower of Antinous in Its Cultural and Performative Context’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 113 (2023), in press.

• ‘Eight and Counting. New Insights on the Number and Early Transmission of Euripides’ Satyr Dramas’, in A. Antonopoulos et al. (eds.), Reconstructing Satyr Drama, Berlin/New York 2021, 283-302.

• ‘Well Begun is Half Done’? Uses and Misuses of Incipits in Greek Antiquity and Beyond’, ​in F. Ginelli/F. Lupi (eds.),​ Piecing the Past Together. The Continuity of Classical Literature through Fragmentary Traditions, Berlin/New York 2021, 57-77.

• ‘The Fountain of Arsinoe in ​Supplementum Hellenisticum​ 978’,​ Segno e Testo 18 (2020), 1-16.

• ‘A Catalogue of Virtuous Women. Myth and Mythography in Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4.19.118-123’, Vigiliae Christianae 74 (2020), 411-432.

• ‘The First Medea and the Other Heracles. On Alleged Double Versions of Euripidean Plays’, Philologus 163 (2019), 198-213.

• ‘Impulso mitografico e mitografia nelle pratiche educative greche antiche’, Polymnia 4 (2019), 147-75.

• ‘An Emendation in Apollonius Sophista’s Lexicon Homericum’, Classical Quarterly 67 (2017), 332-5.

• ‘Title, Arche, Hypothesis. Notes on the Heading and Arrangement of the Euripidean Hypotheses on Papyrus’, in T. Derda et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Congress of Papyrology, vol. II, Warsaw 2016, 1185-200.

• ‘Plutarch’s Sympotic Forge and a Variant Reading in P. Oxy. LXXVIII 5156’ (with J.H. Brusuelas), Archiv für Papyrusforschung 61 (2015), 37-52.

Editions of papyri:

• ‘P. Oxy. 0000. Prose on Heracles’, forthcoming in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Series.

• ‘1128. Theoxena’, in S. Schorn et al. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. IV A: Biography, Leiden 2019, 213-24.

• ‘1136. On a Female Pupil of Plato, Speusippos, and Menedemos’, in S. Schorn et al. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. IV A: Biography, Leiden 2019, 413-28.

• ‘1139. Miscellaneous Lives’ (with M. de Kreij), in S. Schorn et al. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. IV A: Biography, Leiden 2019, 479-577.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5266. Sophocles’ Philoctetes 104-7 etc.’ (with S. Bocksberger), in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 52-7.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5271. Pseudo-Plutarch, De Proverbiis Alexandrinorum 50?’ (with J.H. Brusuelas and G. Verhasselt), in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 67-70.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5283. Hypotheses of Euripides’ Bacchae and Other Plays’, in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 111-34.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5284. Hypotheses of Euripides’ Heracles and Other Plays’, in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 134-46.  

• ‘P. Oxy. 5285. Hypotheses of Euripides’ Plays (More of LII 2455)’, in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 146-51.

Book reviews:

• F. Favi, Epicarmo e pseudo-Epicarmo (frr. 240–297). Introduzione, traduzione e commento, Göttingen 2020, Gnomon 95 (2023), in press.

• L. Rocchi, Studies on P. Oxy. XXXI 2537, Berlin/Boston 2021, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 151:2 (2023), in press.

• A. Boschi, Crizia Tragico. Testimonianze e frammenti, Tivoli 2021, Lexis 39 (2022), 1-6.

• F. Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek. Edited by M. Goh and C. Schroeder, Leiden/Boston 2015, Classical Review 68 (2018), 559-561.

Research interests

Greek literature (especially tragedy and satyr drama; Hellenistic poetry; Imperial prose); papyrology; textual criticism; ancient education; Greco-Egyptian cultural interactions

Research supervision

I am happy to discuss research proposals from potential PhD candidates in the following areas:

  • Greek Papyrology
  • Ancient scholarship
  • Textual transmission
  • Hellenistic literature and culture
  • Greek tragedy and satyr drama
  • Ancient education
  • Greek mythography

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