Gaia Benamati

Gaia Benamati is currently a research fellow in “Greek Language and Literature” at the University of Trento, where she is involved in the project Il dialogo tragico: funzioni, tradizione, ricezione, part of the larger PRIN 2022 project Dialogue in the Classical Age between Scene and Literature: Forms, History, Echoes, Reception. She completed her PhD in “Letters, Languages, Arts” (curriculum “ Literature and Philology”) at the University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ in June 2024, with a thesis on sea imagery in Euripidean tragedy, entitled Il mare nel teatro euripideo: lessico, metafore, immagini e funzioni nelle tragedie del ciclo troiano. She holds a Master’s degree in “Philology and Literary Criticism” from the University of Trento, where she wrote a thesis on the representation of the goddess Thetis in myth, cult, and literature. She also works as an archivist at the “Laboratorio Dionysos” (Digital Archive of Ancient Drama) at the University of Trento. Her research interests include Greek mythology, Greek tragedy (with a particular focus on Sophocles and Euripides), and the reception of ancient Greek drama.

The project

Title: In Dialogue with Thetis in the Ancient Mediterranean: The Sea Goddess between Myth and Cult

"Through an analysis of the epigraphic and literary evidence that has survived, this study aims to reconstruct the religious and cultic landscape of Thetis in the ancient Mediterranean and to describe, as thoroughly as possible, the associated contexts and peculiarities. The first part of the research will focus on the cults in which Thetis is the sole dedicatee.Particular attention should be given to those sources which document the existence of cults in which Thetis is associated with her son Achilles. The research must also include a comprehensive review of the cases in which Thetis is an integral part of collective cults dedicated to all the Nereids."

Hosting institution: Collège de France

Selected Bibliography

• Schede bibliografiche, s.v. Euripides, «Poiesis. Bibliografia della poesia greca» 15-13; 15-14.
• Il gelo d’amore negli Amanti di Achille di Sofocle. Una nota a fr. 149 Radt2 , «Frammenti Sulla Scena» 3.1, 2022, pp. 50-71.
• Il mare nel teatro euripideo: lessico, metafore, immagini e funzioni nelle tragedie del ciclo troiano, Bari 2024. [Phd Thesis].
• In the Jaws of the Sea Monster: Exploring the Kētos in Euripides’Andromeda, in D. D’Amico, L. Valle Salazar (eds.), Monstrum in Fabula: Exploring New Perspectives on Monsters in Ancient Contexts, Boston-Berlin 2025 [in press];
• “Riempi di cadaveri la cava insenatura d’Eubea” (Eur. Tro. 84). La topografia del naufragio nel prologo delle Troiane di Euripide, «Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica» [in press].