This volume commemorates the 65th birthday of William Vernon Harris (on September 13, 2003), when a group of his former students agreed to honor him with a collection of essays that would represent the wide variety of interests and influences of our advisor and friend. The fifteen papers in fact range chronologically from the first Olympics to late antiquity and discuss various questions of imperialism, law, economy, and religion in the ancient Mediterranean world. The essays share a social historical perspective from which they challenge as many commonly accepted notions in ancient history. The contributors acknowledge their intellectual debt to the formative scholarly acumen of William V. Harris, which adds up to the "tall order" of engaging with his work.

The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture is the first comprehensive, historical account of the afterlives of ancient Greek monumental sculptures. Whereas scholars have traditionally focused on the creation of these works, Rachel Kousser instead draws on archaeological and textual sources to analyze the later histories of these sculptures, reconstructing the processes of damage and reparation that characterized the lives of Greek images. Using an approach informed by anthropology and iconoclasm studies, Kousser describes how damage to sculptures took place within a broader cultural context. She also tracks the development of an anti-iconoclastic discourse in Hellenic society from the Persian wars to the death of Cleopatra. Her study offers a fresh perspective on the role of the image in ancient Greece. It also sheds new light on the creation of Hellenic cultural identity and the formation of collective memory in the Classical and Hellenistic eras.

The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture is the first comprehensive, historical account of the afterlives of ancient Greek monumental sculptures. Whereas scholars have traditionally focused on the creation of these works, Rachel Kousser instead draws on archaeological and textual sources to analyze the later histories of these sculptures, reconstructing the processes of damage and reparation that characterized the lives of Greek images. Using an approach informed by anthropology and iconoclasm studies, Kousser describes how damage to sculptures took place within a broader cultural context. She also tracks the development of an anti-iconoclastic discourse in Hellenic society from the Persian wars to the death of Cleopatra. Her study offers a fresh perspective on the role of the image in ancient Greece. It also sheds new light on the creation of Hellenic cultural identity and the formation of collective memory in the Classical and Hellenistic eras.