Focus and Scope

Akroterion welcomes scholarly contributions on all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization. Preference is given to articles that will also appeal to the non-specialist. We particularly encourage submission of articles dealing with the influence and reception of the Classics.

Peer Review Process

All research articles submitted to Akroterion are submitted to rigorous peer review which involves initial editor screening and anonymized refereeing by at least two anonymous referees. The reviewers are requested to complete a brief written report along with a completion of a score sheet of whether the article is suitable for publication in the journal.

No editorial consideration will be given to manuscripts that have been published previously or are under consideration for publication elsewhere. To preserve the advantages of anonymous peer reviewing, authors are requested to avoid self-identification in the manuscript.

Publication Frequency

Akroterion is published once a year.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
Akroterion, Department of Ancient Studies, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa. Tel: (021) 808-3203. Fax: (021) 808-3480.
E-mail: bosmanpr@sun.ac.za. Home page: http://akroterion.journals.ac.za

SUBSCRIPTION
South African subscriptions: R105. Foreign subscriptions: US$15 / UK£11 / €12 (postage included). For electronic transfers and banking details see the Akroterion homepage.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Archiving in repositories

Stellenbosch University, Department of Ancient Studies, grants you the necessary permission to deposit scholarly articles authored or co-authored by your university's researchers and published in Akroterion, provided that the link to the original publication at http://akroterion.journals.ac.za and the doi number are included as part of metadata. Please also acknowledge the publisher (Stellenbosch University, Department of Ancient Studies) and indicate that the original version can be downloaded from http://akroterion.journals.ac.za. For statistical purposes, researchers downloading the article from your repository must cite the original publication available at http://akroterion.journals.ac.za. When archiving the article as part of your repository, please use the final publishers version as it appears at http://akroterion.journals.ac.za, and keep the layout and branding intact.

Digital Preservation

Akroterion. This journal is in the process of migrating from the Stellenbosch University preservation platform to the PKP PN (Preservation Network) platform.

ORCID iD

1. This journal programme cannot read the ORCID iD.  Please do not add it when you Register or when submitting a paper.

After Registration, can you Edit your Profile and then insert the ORCID iD, or please send your ORCiD ID, along with the name of the journal to, scholar@sun.ac.za to add to your Profile.

Stellenbosch University researchers/authors can create an ORCID iD here.

ORCID iD is a persistent, unique, numeric identifier for individual researchers and creators. It distinguishes you from researchers and creators with the same or similar names.  ORCID iD is similar to ResearcherID, Scopus Author ID, ISNI and other systems for identifying and distinguishing researchers and creators.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

1. Publication and authorship:

• Authors must list all references used in/for the article
• Authors must acknowledge financial support received and from which organization or firm
• Authors acknowledge that the article/s is their own original work and that no other author’s work has been used without referencing or in a manner which constitutes plagiarism.
• Authors acknowledge that their data is real and verifiable and that no fraudulent data is used
• Authors may not submit an article that has been published in another journal; nor may they submit to other journals when published in Akroterion. Articles must be published exclusively in Akroterion

2. Author's responsibilities:

• Authors are obliged to participate in the review process and refusal to do so may result in articles not being published or retracted
• Only people who contributed significantly to the research and/or article can be listed as ‘author’. People who contributed in a lesser role must be acknowledged as ‘contributor’
• Authors must provide retractions or corrections of any mistakes found by the reviewers

3. Peer review / responsibility of reviewers:

• Judgments will be objective
• Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funders of the research
• Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited
• Reviewers will treat reviewed articles as confidential

4. Editorial responsibilities:

• The editor has complete authority to reject or accept articles
• Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept
• The editor/s will only accept a paper when reasonably certain that all conditions have been met by the author/s
• The editor will promote the publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found in published work
• The editor will preserve the anonymity of the reviewers

5. Publishing ethics issues

• The editorial board will monitor and safeguard the publishing ethics of the journal
• The guidelines for retracting articles are as follows: (1) Articles that are seriously flawed and unreliable will be retracted. (2) Redundant articles (published in other journals prior to Akroterion) will be retracted. (3) Change of authorship or minor errors will not lead to retraction but to the publishing of a correction notice. (4) Notices of retraction will clearly state the reason and the retracted article will be clearly marked in all electronic versions of the journal, and a retraction notice will be published in the print copy of the journal.
• The journal will not compromise intellectual or ethical standards in favour of the business needs of the journal
• The editorial board will maintain the integrity of the academic record of the journal
• The editorial board will always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed
• No plagiarism and no fraudulent data will be tolerated in the journal

6. Copyright and access

• Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (BY-NC-ND 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
• Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
• Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
• Individual readers may access articles free of charge. Subscriptions to printed volumes are also available. 

Sources of Support

Akroterion gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Classical Association of South Africa

• The Classical Association of South Africa

Journal History

Akroterion had its humble beginning in April 1956 under the name Newsletter. It was a product of the initiative of Prof. Frans Smuts and was primarily planned as a means of contact between the Department of Latin of the University of Stellenbosch and its old students, but very soon it elicited wider interest and was adopted by the Classical Association of South Africa as its official news medium. Today it is still received by members of the Classical Association as part of their membership privileges.

The name Newsletter was replaced with Akroterion in 1970. The following is an excerpt from the editorial page of vol.15, March 1970 :

Now at last, as readers will have noticed, the editorial committee has decided on a new name to replace the rather colourless and no longer suitable "Newsletter". It was chosen for the following reasons: Firstly Akroterion is published in and serves the southerly part of the African continent and we wanted to bring out this geographical connection in a classical name. The quest for a suitable and as yet "unemployed" nymph or muse proved fruitless. We then thought of the first name by which the southmost part of Africa was known to Western Europe in the fifteenth century - Cape of Good Hope, which soon became just The Cape. The Latin name Caput (or Promunturium) Spei Bonae did not sound as if it could supply anything and besides Spes Bona was rather hackneyed. Then we had recourse to the Greek word for Cape - Akroterion which was actually suggested by some wit of the nineteenth century - I think it was a minister of religion - who in its Dutch form used the word Agathelpidacroterian to denote someone from the Cape of Good Hope.

Akroterion, and now we mean this journal, wishes to denote by its name that it comes from the southern part of Africa and that it has to do with the Classics in this land, which in a wider sense than a mere cape juts out between the two old oceans already known to the ancients - the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

But Akroterion in Greek also means a height, a pinnacle, and this was a further consideration in deciding on this name for this journal, which would like to be the point of vantage from which everything that happens in the Classics in South Africa and even further afield may be viewed.

For more details about the beginnings of Akroterion, see the article by Mrs S F de Vries titled "Akroterion alias Newsletter: The early days" (Akroterion 28 [1983] 63-66).

Prof Frans Smuts was followed as editor of the journal by Prof P J Conradie. During the period 2001-2008 Dr J C Zietsman functioned as editor, and he was followed by Prof J C Thom (2009-2019). The present editor, Prof P R Bosman, assumed the responsibility in 2020.