Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Speaker: THOMAN HARRISON
1:00 PM ET/ 10:00 AM PT (90 minute lecture and Q&A) 

Marathon2500 Lecture #4: "The Persian Version: What did the Battle of Marathon look like from the Persian side?"

The Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool, Professor Harrison’s research on the Achaemenid Persian empire will be discussed (he has a forthcoming book on the topic) and, based on those insights, he will address the Battle of Marathon from the perspective of the Persians.

Location: Teleconference from anywhere in the world
Free registration: http://marathon2500-4.eventbrite.com

Marathon2500 

People around the world will get a chance to participate in the celebration of the battle of Marathon, thanks to a cultural campaign initiated by the Reading Odyssey, a New York not-for-profit. The Reading Odyssey and Marathon2500 chairman Paul Cartledge of New York University and of Cambridge University will recruit the world’s best Hellenic scholars and sports historians to deliver eight lectures on the cultural, intellectual and athletic legacy of the Battle of Marathon. The talks will be given before live audiences, webcast online and archived for viewing or listening on demand. Lectures will begin in September 2010 and run through June 2011. To multiply their impact, the Reading Odyssey will work with thousands of universities, colleges, high schools, museums and sports organizations to create satellite listening centers.

Whole lecture series - free registration/information:  
http://marathon2500-fullseries.eventbrite.com

Herodotus free phone/web-based reading groups: 
http://herodotus2010-readinggroups.eventbrite.com

Individual lectures (from fall of 2010 - spring 2011):

Paul Cartledge, Cambridge/NYU, Tue Sep 28 @5:30pm ET, "The Context and Meaning of the Battle"
http://marathon2500-1.eventbrite.com   

Peter Krentz, Davidson College, Tue Oct 12 @ 7pm ET, "The Battle Itself"
http://marathon2500-2.eventbrite.com

Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution, Wed Nov 10 @ 1pm ET, "Life of a Soldier—Greek and Persian"
http://marathon2500-3.eventbrite.com   

Thomas Harrison, University of Liverpool, Tue Jan 18 @ 1pm ET, "The Persian Perspective"
http://marathon2500-4.eventbrite.com

Dean Karnazes, world-renowned ultramarathoner, Wed Feb 9 @ 1pm ET “The Battle and Modern Sports”
http://marathon2500-5.eventbrite.com

Thomas Scanlon, UC Riverside, Tue Apr 5 @ 2m ET “Sports in the Ancient World”
http://marathon2500-6.eventbrite.com   

Robert Strassler, Independent Scholar, Tue May 10 @ 1pm ET “Herodotus and the Invention of History”, 
http://marathon2500-7.eventbrite.com

John Marincola, Florida State University, Wed Jun 8 @ 4pm ET “Epilogue: What happened after the Battle"
http://marathon2500-8.eventbrite.com 

Thomas Harrison Biography

The Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool, Tom Harrison’s research is concerned primarily with Greek history and historiography: especially with Herodotus, religious belief, and the representation of foreign peoples. A short book on the modern historiography of the Achaemenid Persian empire is forthcoming; other current projects include a volume of essays, jointly edited with Bruce Gibson, arising from a Liverpool conference in honour of F.W. Walbank, Polybius 1957-2007, a book on Greek religious belief, and a book on Herodotus.  

T. Harrison, Writing Ancient Persia, London, 2010.

T. Harrison (ed.), Greeks and Barbarians, Edinburgh, 2002.

T. Harrison, Divinity and History. The Religion of Herodotus, Oxford, 2000.

T. Harrison, The Emptiness of Asia. Aeschylus’ Persians and the History of the Fifth Century, London, 2000.