Acknowledgments
The path toward this book has been circuitous and went through the covid-19 pandemic. For its completion I owe a debt of gratitude to the special people who supported me along the way. Foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors Hans Van Wees and Paola Ceccarelliâmuch of the book was developed under their supervisionâwith the addition of Julietta Steinhauer, and my examiners Markus Egetmeyer and Nino Luraghi for their comments and suggestions.
I would like to thank my sponsor the Leventis Foundation, which also paid for the copyright of some images, my current institution The Haifa Centre for Mediterranean History, my postdoc tutor Gil Gambash, Pippa Steele, PI of the Crews project, of which I am a visiting fellow this term, and everyone who helped me in any way to improve my knowledge of the subject and to get access to books or articles during the pandemic of covid-19, and who supported me during the writing of this book, amongst them: Maria Giulia Amadasi, Mohammad Arghandehpour, Gaia Barbieri, Valentina Barrile, Michele Bianconiâto whom I am particularly gratefulâFrancesca Bologna, Timothy Brady, Anna Cannavò, Marta Capano, William Cole, Carlo Consani, Steven Cosnett, Angela Cossu, Sara De Martin, Anna Lucia Furlan, Karolina Frank, Natalia Gandara Chacana, Anastazja Grudnicka, Agnieszka Halczuk, Alfred Hinrichsen Herrera, Maria Iacovou, Artemis Karnava, Thomas Kiely, Christian Körner, Silvia Lai, Cristiana Lucidi, Giulia Maltagliati, Cristina Mestre, Jordan Mitchell, Yoko Onodera, Orestis Mitintzis, Francesca Modini, Sotirios Peithis, Barbara Roberts, Martina Russo, Victor Salinas Silva, Katie Shields, Ted Szadzinski, Kely Tzortzopoulou, Dies Van Der Linde, Yannick Vernet, Matt Ward, Justin Yoo, José Zamora López.
A special thanks also goes to the librarians of the combined library of the Institute of Classical Studies in London.
Finally, my research would not have been possible without the support of my parents Paola and Giampiero.
London, 08/02/2022