Simon Elliot and Anna Kouremenos featured on Ancient Rome Refocused

Today I interviewed Simon Elliot the author of Roman Britain's Missing Legion, and Anna Kouremenos, lecturer from Quinnipiac University. Both will be featured in future episodes of Ancient Rome Refocused.

Simon Elliot, writer, historian and archaeologist and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent holds a PhD in Archaeology on the subject of the Roman military in Britain. He also has an MA in War Studies from King's College London, and an MA in Archaeology from University College London. He frequently gives talks on Roman themes and is co-Director at a Roman villa excavation being conducted near Maidstone, Kent.

In the morning he kindly greeted us on zoom wearing his S.H.A.D.O. T-shirt (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization, based on a very popular 1970s TV show called UFO). Hey, I loved that show! A very accommodating guy he showed us his office (how do you imagine a former defense writer and archeological historian might decorate his private abode?).  Listen to the podcast. He takes us on a tour.  

Additional subjects include information on the IX Legion, last sightings, theories, and ancient mass graves of decapitated heads found in an ancient Roman burial site. Do not miss the show, and be sure to pick up his book on Amazon. 

My second interview for the day was Anna Kouremenos from Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Kouremenos, a graduate of Oxford University, is a scholar of antiquity specializing in Roman Greece and identity in the Graeco-Roman world. She is currently conducting research on Greece in the 2nd century CE, Roman imperialism, Graeco-Roman identities, and migration in the Greek and Roman worlds. Kouremenos not only provides a quick tour of the world of Greece during the Roman period, but shares with us modern Greek perceptions of the Golden Age when compared to a Graeco-Roman world that came after Actium. I contacted Kouremenos after reading her paper: Pωμαιοκρατ?α ≠ Roman occupation: (mis) perceptions of the Roman period in Greece.   A must read. It is currently available on Academia.edu.

Do our modern perceptions govern how we see history?  This is just one of the points covered in the podcast. 

If you get the chance, you must listen to a portion of her interview on Zoom (I hope to use a bit of the Zoom interview if I can find a place to hang it). Kouremenos has a rare gift to impart knowledge over this electronic medium as if she is in the same room as the listener. Sometimes I thought she was across the table, not over 300 miles away via the I-95. Attending a Kouremenos lecture is a must.