PROGRAMME:
Greek and Roman literary sources for the eastern Alpine area and the western Balkans

The long-term goal of the project is to collect and comment upon those passages in Greek and Latin writers which refer to the territory mentioned in the title. Since present-day Slovenian lands are part of these regions, collecting the pertinent sources and writing historical commentaries to accompany them is a priority in terms of ancient history of the present-day Slovenian territories. The results of this research, combined with archaeological, linguistic, numismatic, and other data, will contribute towards a better understanding of the history of these regions.

	Appianus Alexandrinus, Historia Romana, 1494 (bound together with the Declamationes of Quintilian from 1482). It had been kept in the Carthusian monastery at Bistra (Vallis Iocosa), to the west of Ljubljana, founded between 1255 and 1260, whence it came to the “K. K. Lyceal Bibliothek zu Laibach” and eventually to the National and University Library in Ljubljana (NUK). Courtesy of the NUK.

In the next years, Greek geographers will be studied, especially Pseudo -Scylax (4th century BC) and Strabo (the period of Augustus). With the collaboration of the University of Zadar a commentary to Strabo’s 7th book of his Geography will be prepared for print.

	Polyphemus and Galatea, the parents of Celtus, Illyrius and Galas, and mythical ancestors of the Illyrian peoples and tribes (from Roscher, Lexikon, s.v. Galateia, c. 1587).

The project is part of the European Research Network “History and Archaeology of the Balkans”, directed by the University of Grenoble.

	‘Illyrian’ peoples mentioned in Appian’s genealogy. << The length of the Histrian, Iapodian, Liburnian, and southern Adriatic littorals according to Strabo. At the time of his source the Liburni dominated the sea routes at least as far as the Naro River.

An important part of this research is Greek mythology, particularly the problem of how much historical reality is reflected in mythological stories. Some studies will be devoted to identifying reasons for which some mythical stories and legends had been created, and how they were later transformed.

Contact:
Marjeta Šašel Kos

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