Nikandre, the statue who speaks

Natalia has been talking about the Nikandre statue, whose inscription speaks directly to the reader, in the Classics Faculty’s #30secondsclassics video series.

You can read a little more about the statue in Natalia’s earlier post on talking objects.

 

Talking objects

In Ancient Greece people would write on almost any kind of object. For example, votes to send a politician to exile for 10 years were written on pottery sherds! This practice of the Athenian democracy was called ostracism because the name for “sherds” in Ancient Greek is ὄστρακα (ostraka).

Fragments of ceramic with votes for ostracism. Picture taken by the author: Agora Museum, Athens.