The Center welcomes Marco Tentori Montalto, University of Mannheim.

During my stay at the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies of the Ohio State University (OSU), I  combine my research on piracy in antiquity with the first results of a preliminary study on the epigraphical corpus I am working on, the “Supplementum Creticum.” The latter aims at collecting the inscriptions discovered after the publication of M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae opera et consilio Friderici Halbherr collectae, I-IV, Roma 1935-1950 (I.Cret.). I received an Alföldy Research Grant at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies (Rethymno, Crete) in order to create a list of the inscriptions from Western Crete in October 2023. At OSU, I am extending my list including the whole of Crete except Gortyna, a polis for which a similar epigraphical project already exists. The list of inscriptions for the “Supplementum Creticum” could allow me to discover further epigraphical sources from Crete on Hellenistic piracy. This would update the study of P. Brulé (La piraterie Crétoise hellénistique, Paris 1978), which quotes 27 inscriptions from Crete, all published in I.Cret. (p. 185). After the Roman conquest of the island by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus in 67 BC, we should not expect to find Cretan inscriptions related to piracy. However, in some parts of the Greek East, there are sources that attest the continued existence of pirates and brigands. Therefore, epigraphical sources may attest this historical phenomenon in Crete as well.