Malta Classics Association

HADES II is a direct sequel to Supergiant's HADES. This time you'll play as the immortal Princess of the Underworld, and you'll explore a bigger, deeper mythic world, vanquishing the forces of the Titan of Time with the full might of Olympus behind you, in a sweeping story that continually unfolds through your every setback and accomplishment. Infuse your legendary weapons of Night with ancient magick, so that none may stand in your way. Become stronger still with powerful Boons from more than a dozen Olympian gods, from Apollo to Zeus. There are nearly limitless ways to build your abilities.

Rich, atmospheric presentation and storytelling fused with responsive action is the hallmark of Supergiant's titles. Vivid new hand-painted environments, even smoother real-time 3D characters, and an electrifying original score make this mythic world burst with life.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145350/Hades_II/

HEGEMONY ROME: THE RISE OF CAESAR is a real-time strategy game released by Longbow Games for PC in 2014. The player takes charge of Caesar and his legions as he ventures into Gaul and commences his many-year campaign to subdue the region and bring it under full Roman control. The historical campaign is organised in chapters that closely follow the divisions of Caesar's own De Bello Gallico, and make the game a fun accompaniment to anyone studying the work. The fighting aspect of the game is beautifully balanced by an expanded resource and logistics management aspect that keep the game from feeling too repetitive.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/227060/Hegemony_Rome_The_Rise_of_Caesar/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony_Rome:_The_Rise_of_Caesar

The Thargelia was an essentially agricultural festival in honour of Delian Apollo and Artemis held on their birthdays in Athens. The ritual was meant both as an expiatory and as a thanksgiving festival. On the first day of the festival (the 6th of the month Thargelion) a ship was sacrificed to Demeter Chloe on the Acropolis and wine was poured for the Fates. Then, acording to Hipponax's sixth-century account, the ugliest man and woman that could be found were led around with strings of figs around their necks, whipped with rofds of figwood and squills and then stoned on the seashore. The bodies were burnt and the ashes thrown into the sea. Modern scholarship has found many issues with this solitary account of human festival and serious doubts have been raised about its veracity. It is now more likely that some form of physical punishment was exacted upon a volunteer or chosen human scapegoat but ex*****on might only have taken place when the same was a convicted criminal who would have been executed anyway. On the following day, children tied olive branches bound with fool to the doors of their houses as a way to watd away crop failure and choruses of men and boys participated in musical contests. Finally, on this day, adopted persons were solemnly received into the families and social groups of their adoptive parents.

Image: Leto with the infants Artemis and Apollo, now at the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth House: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leto #/media/File:Latona_with_the_infants_Apollo_and_Artemis,_by_Francesco_Pozzi,_1824,_marble_-_Sculpture_Gallery,_Chatsworth_House_-_Derbyshire,_England_-_DSC03504.jpg

On this day the College of Asclepius and Hygia in Rome celebrated the Festival of Violets, one of several instances throughout this month when various communities used flowers to celebrate or honour different persons and divinities. In May especially, families were accustomed to adorn family and ancestor tombs with flowers, while soldiers were known to adorn military standards and their war trumpets with rose garlands and other flower arrangements. It was not too uncommon for well-off persons to leave bequests in their wills on condition that their tombs were adorned with flowers on specific days and periods.

Image: a cult statue is wreathed with roses in Sebestiano Ricci's (1659-1734) A Bacchanal. In a private collection. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalia_(festival) #/media/File:A_Bacchanal_(Sebastiano_Ricci).jpg

The obscure festival of the Agonalia was celbrated three times every year, on 9th January, on 21st May and on the 11th of December. Like that of many other religious festivals and intitutions, its institution was attributed to the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius. Not much else is known about the festival except that a ram was sacrificed by the Rex Sacrificulus at the Regia to the guardian gods of the State.

Image: ruins of the Regia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regia #/media/File:Regia_pano.jpg)

HEGEMONY GOLD: WARS OF ANCIENT GREECE is a real-time strategy game released for PC by Longbow Digital Arts in 2011 as an expanded form of an earlier game called HEGEMONY: PHIIP OF MACEDON. The game contains three main historical campaigns as well as a sandbox version where you can take charge of one of several Greek city states fighting for supremacy in the 5th and 4th centuries BC Aegean. The first historical campaign centres on Philip II's efforts to raise Macedon from a backwater of the Greek world to its leading power. The second historical game has the player take charge of Athens at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, while the third historical campaign centres on the Athenian expedition to the coastlines of Asia Minor during the Ionian campaign. Although war and the military remain the main concerns of the game, the player must also oversee logistical connectivity by land and sea to ensure that armies and controlled cities remain well supplied at all times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony_Gold:_Wars_of_Ancient_Greece
https://store.steampowered.com/app/202690/Hegemony_Gold_Wars_of_Ancient_Greece/

Alongside the usual rites and sacrifices which accompanied the monthly Ides, the Ides of May also marked the day on which the Vestal Virgins performed rites to ensure the supply of water for the coming year. On this day, the Vestal Virgins would proceed along a number of shrines of the ""Argei"" around the Servian regions. Some sources claimed there were 24 stations, others 27 and yet others 30. At each of these shrines the Vestals would correct small small human-like figures with bound feet and hands made of straw, and carry these with them onwards. The procession would ent at the Pons Sublicius, the oldest known bridge over the Tiber, and the effigies would be thrown into the river. Opinions on the meaning and root of this weird and obscure practice differed. Ovid provides two interpretations. The first that the ritual was born of a human sacrifice ordered by the oracle of Dodona in ancient times when the area was believed to have been populated by Greeks, with Argei being derived from Argivi or ""Argives"", as the Greeks are sometimes referred to in the Iliad. The second is that the early Greek inhabitants of the region grew homesick and asked to be buried in the river as a symbolic way of returning to their homeland. Dionysius of Halicarnassus claims that the rite replaced ancient human sacrifice to the river-god Tiberinus.

Image: 2nd century AD Roman statue of the Virgo Vestalis Maxima, now at the Terme Museum in Rome. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin #/media/File:VestalisMaxima.jpg

HADES: Hades is a god-like rogue-like dungeon crawler that combines the best aspects of Supergiant's critically acclaimed titles with the allure of the ancient Greek pantheon.

As the immortal Prince of the Underworld, Zagreus, you'll wield the powers and mythic weapons of Olympus to break free from the clutches of the god of the dead himself, while growing stronger and revealing more of the story with each unique escape attempt. Meet Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and many more, and choose from their dozens of powerful Boons that enhance your abilities. Characters you meet include the hero Achilles, and the infamous furies of the underworld.

The game happens to have a wonderful soundtrack too, one that merges god-like vocals with atmospheric instruments that give you a mesh of modern sound and ancient-Greek like ambiance. Once you hear it the first time you won't want to stop.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/

HAPPENING TOMORROW: https://fb.me/e/4Eu4gU8O0

The paper examines the Xenokrateia relief, a votive relief dated to ca. 410-400 BCE and dedicated by Xenokrateia at the sanctuary of Kephisos at Phaleron. The relief has attracted considerable scholarly attention, already from the 19th century and has been interpreted from a variety of perspectives. Most recently, during the 21st century, most scholars have focused on the examination of the location and context of the sanctuary (Purvis 2003; Βουτυράς 2011) or the gender aspects of Xenokrateia, the dedicator and founder of the shrine (Williams 2015; Blok 2018). By adopting a holistic approach that integrates literary, epigraphic, iconographic, and topographical evidence, this study re-examines the iconographic program of the relief, mostly focusing on its kourotrophic aspects, attested both in the central scene, as well as the peripheral figures. It argues that the relief conveys a coherent kourotrophic message centered on the protection and nurturing of Xenokrateia’s child, expressed through the interaction between the mortal figures and a carefully selected group of deities associated with childbirth, fertility, and child nurture.
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Ioannis Mitsios is a Classical Archaeologist, educated in Greece and the United Kingdom, and currently serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University. His research interests include iconography and the intersection between art and myth. His most recent publication is a monograph entitled The West Pediment of the Parthenon: Iconography and Iconology, published by Brill in 2025.

What does it mean for a goddess to travel?

This talk follows Marine Isis across the ancient Mediterranean, tracing her presence in inscriptions, coins, and portable objects. As she moved between ports and communities, she was not simply carried, but continually reinterpreted, adapted, and integrated into local worlds.

By exploring these processes, the lecture questions familiar categories such as ‘Egyptian’, ‘Greek’, and ‘Roman’, and instead highlights a more fluid and interconnected Mediterranean shaped by movement and exchange. Ultimately, this talk invites us to rethink the Mediterranean not as a collection of fixed cultures, but as a dynamic space of movement, where both people and objects played an active role in shaping belief, identity, and experience.

James Farrugia holds a B.A. in Classics and Anthropology and an M.A. in Mediterranean Studies from University of Malta. His postgraduate research explored questions of identity, cultural interaction, and connectivity in the ancient Mediterranean, with a particular focus on Maritime Isis, which forms the basis of this lecture. He works at the Notarial Archives Foundation, where he is involved in public engagement, cultural programming, digital content, and the communication of archival and historical initiatives to wider audiences. His interests centre on making history accessible and meaningful through storytelling, design, and a focus on the human element that connects people with the past.

Event link: https://fb.me/e/61U01Yc6m