This chapter works to historicize and materialize a family of ritualized practices (molk-style rites) related to the burnt offering of perinatal infants, their deposition in a sanctuary space (conventionally dubbed “tophets”), and the dedication of carved-stone monuments alongside the deposits. Instead of religious permanence or diffusion, it argues for four moments, each with distinctive dynamics, that led communities to embrace these rites. First, between the eighth and fourth centuries BCE, these rites were tied to Phoenician colonization; then, between the fourth and second centuries BCE, the adoption of molk-style rites was tied to migration from these colonial centers. But in the long first century BCE, the boom in molk-style rites was instead tied to the creation of a new, interconnected civic elite in the space between Numidian kingdoms and the Roman province of Africa. Finally, in the second and third centuries CE, migrations related to the Roman army drove the foundation of new sanctuaries to Saturn where stelae (and often molk-style offerings) were dedicated. Stele-sanctuaries were deeply entangled with the power dynamics and institutions of empire.

Fictive Spartan colonies were so numerous in antiquity that modern scholars rarely want to have anything to do with the question of their historicity. This approach may be safe but is not always wise. Whereas obvious inventions of Spartan kinship should be excluded, questions about the possibility of Spartan colonization are legitimate, at least for the Archaic and Classical periods. The fact, for example, that in the Hellenistic period the Jews claimed kinship with the Spartans or that cities in Asia Minor such as Selge, Alabanda, and Synnada considered themselves Spartan colonies, is an excellent topic for the study of late attitudes, but such patently fictive Spartan kinships teach us very little about the Archaic and Classical reputation of Sparta as the mother city of cities such as Melos or Thera. With the latter it is at least legitimate to examine the possible factual basis of this reputation. Whether such cities were once in fact Spartan colonies is irrelevant to the study of attitudes to Spartan colonization in the Archaic and Classical periods. If, however, there were a kernel of truth in a claim such as that of Melos that Sparta was its mother city, it might clarify how that claim came into being and especially how it was sustained.

This chapter traces the different uses of the term φοῖνιξ / Φοῖνιξ, the cognate adjectives φοινικός and φοινικοβαφής, and verb φοινίττω, running from this last’s allusive use to describe Theagenes’ bloodstained cheek at the beginning of Book 1 to the revelation at the novel’s close that its writer is a Φοῖνιξ, ‘Phoenician’. Ι noted how these uses span the word’s range of meanings – crimson, date, palm, Phoenician – and how Phoenicia’s importance is augmented by the mysteriously unnamed Tyrian’s victory at Delphi and by the description of the ship on which the trio escape as Φοινίκιον … φιλοτέχνημα, ‘a Phoenician masterpiece’ (5.18), a mis-en-abyme of the literary masterpiece which transports the couple from Delphi to Meroe.

This chapter explores the modes of fictionality in Philostratus’ Heroicus and In honour of Apollonius.

Anatolia and Etruria have been separated by scholarship as much as by the Mediterranean itself. Although Anatolian archaeology has rested in the preserve of Near Eastern scholars, with Etruscan studies falling more within the domain of Classical-oriented scholars, neither sits at the center of Near Eastern or Classical Archaeology. Recent theoretical developments that seek to connect communities more effectively have begun to emphasize the links between these cultural groups and thus bring together their respective scholarly disciplines. This contribution examines the history of interest in the relationship between Anatolia and Etruria, and it reassesses our evidence for it within a Mediterranean-wide context. To do this, it considers historical interpretations of these connections and presents a new perspective that balances shared practices with localized differences, which increasingly is preferred to characterize this period of Mediterranean history.