... to see if this gets past our school filters ...

ante diem viii idus maias

1737 -- birth of Edward Gibbon (Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire)

moiety @ Dictionary.com

[apologies for missing this feature for a couple of days ... my del.icio.us bookmarks weren't available for some reason]

From iAfrica:

Italian police recovered a valuable Roman-era marble bathtub stolen from Italy after spotting it by chance in a Barcelona antique dealership, Spanish police said on Tuesday.

The officers, specialists in stolen artwork, were in the Spanish Mediterranean port city on other business when they stumbled across their find, which had been stolen from the garden of a villa in Rome in 2005.

The owner of the antique dealership said he thought the oval-shaped bathtub, was a modern copy of an antique.

He said he had bought it at the end of 2005 for €3000 from another dealer and had it on sale for a mere €6000.

In fact the bathtub, which dates back to the era of the Roman emperor Hadrian, in the second century anno domini, is worth a cool €300 000.

The only other surviving example is on display at the Vatican Museum.

Spanish police believe the bathtub, which weights half a ton, was transported to Spain by sea, most likely hidden in a shipping container.

It was handed over to the Italian authorities on Tuesday, they said.

From ANSA:

Italian archaeologists have found more than two dozen new tombs at the famed Etruscan burial grounds at Tarquinia north of Rome.

''This is the most exciting discovery here in decades,'' said the archeological superintendent for southern Etruria, Maria Tecla Castaldi.

So far 27 tombs have been added to the thousands at the site since a chance discovery during building work two months ago, she said.

''I've just been down and visited the only tomb that is open, which was probably broken into around 50 years ago,'' she said.

''The other tombs are sealed and presumably intact''.

Police have cordoned off the area, less than half a mile (500m) from the main necropolis, to ward off tomb raiders as digs go on. The well-preserved tombs at Tarquinia and nearby Cerveteri have been described by some experts as 'cities of the dead'. Experts believe the Etruscans wanted their deceased to have everything they might need easily to hand in the afterlife, and so crammed the tombs with everyday objects.

Archaeologists say women were buried in stone tombs separate from the men and that slaves were cremated and their ashes placed in urns besides their masters' remains.

The general span of the graves stretches from the seventh to the first century BC.

Excavations first began on the Tarquinia site in 1489 and since then over 6,000 tombs have been uncovered.

The Tarquinia tombs also have wall paintings, some probably dating back to the eighth century BC, depicting scenes from the lives of the dead.

The paintings give an insight into the habits and customs of the Etruscans, showing a refined, flourishing, and highly developed culture.

Experts say the later wall paintings show Greek and perhaps even Eastern influences, reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of this civilization.

Some of the most popular ones, such as a sexually explicit fresco from the Flagellation Tomb, have been posted on the Web.

The Etruscans lived mainly between the rivers Tiber and Arno in modern-day Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany, in the first millennium before Christ.

By the sixth century BC they had become the dominant force in central Italy, but repeated attacks from Gauls and Syracusans later forced them into an alliance with the embryonic Roman state, which gradually absorbed Etruscan civilization.

However, the Etruscans had the upper hand in the early days and supplied Rome with the last three of its first seven kings including the famous Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud).

Like his predecessor Tarquinius Priscus, he was from Tarquinia. Most of what is known about the Etruscans derives from archaeology as the few accounts passed down by Roman historians tend to be hostile, portraying them as gluttonous and lecherous.

This problem is compounded by the fact that Etruscan cities were built almost entirely of wood and so vanished quickly, leaving little for archaeologists to investigate.

In 2004 Tarquinia and Cerveteri became Italy's 37th World Heritage Site.

They have since been joined by the Val d'Orcia in Umbria, the ancient Greek city of Siracusa and the Palazzi Rolli in Genoa.

With 40 sites including Venice, Rome, Naples, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Verona, Vicenza, Ravenna, Ferrara, Urbino, Assisi, San Gimignano, Pienza and the Amalfi Coast, Italy has more treasures on the UNESCO list than any other country. Among UNESCO's other ancient Italian listings are Pompeii, Agrigento and Emperor Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana) at Tivoli.

nonas maias

431 B.C. -- the "Peloponnesian War" began (according to one reckoning)

399 B.C. -- death of Socrates (according to one reckoning)

1941 -- death of Sir James Frazer (The Golden Bough)

From a Barnard press release:

Helene Peet Foley, a professor of classics, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers. Foley is among a group of 212 distinguished scholars, scientists, artists, and civic, corporate and philanthropic leaders selected this year for their preeminent contributions to a variety of fields. Other Fellows elected this year include U.S. Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice John Paul Stevens; computer company founders Michael Dell (Dell Computer), and Charles M. Geschke and John E. Warnock (Adobe Systems, Inc.); two-time cabinet secretary and former White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III; Academy Award-winning filmmakers Ethan and Joel Cohen and Milos Forman; blues guitarist B.B. King; and corporate CEOs Margaret Whitman (eBay) and Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo).

A leader in the study of women in antiquity, Professor Foley is renowned for her expertise in many aspects of Greek tragedy. Widely published, she is the author of "Female Acts in Greek Tragedy" (2001), and co-editor of and contributor to "Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth, and Ritual in Greek Art and Literature" (2007). She served as president of the American Philological Association in 1998, and has received numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1991, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1992, and a Loeb Library Classical Foundation Grant in 2005. While on leave from Barnard this semester, she is serving as Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and focusing on the ultimately successful struggle of Greek tragedy to find a place on the American stage.

AAAS is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected as members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership of 4,000 American Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members includes some 200 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

The BBC goes on a preview tour (video) of the new museum ... taking a while to load this a.m. ...

From the Philly Inquirer:

He doesn't look like a Latin teacher - no tie or sports coat with elbow patches.

J.D. Munday is more a jeans, button-down shirt and hoop earring kind of guy.

But spend five minutes in his class at Cherry Hill High School West and you will find the unmistakable evidence of a Latin teacher who loves what he's doing, declensions, Ovid and all.

Judging by the honors his students routinely earn - gold medals for the National Latin Exam and state championship titles at the National Junior Classical League's Certamen competition, a Knowledge Bowl-type event - Munday is pretty good at his work, too.

"I've always had a soft spot in my heart for kids, and I love to play with words," said Munday, 44, of Lindenwold. "I love my job."

Munday didn't start out hoping to become a Latin instructor. The Minnesota native, who moved to Malvern as a teenager, was a philosophy student at Temple University one summer when he saw a flyer challenging students to learn to read an ancient language in a few weeks.

On a whim, he signed up for Latin lessons.

"I didn't think Plato sounded like a 19th-century Englishman, which was what the translations I was reading made him sound like," Munday said.

He proved to be a natural and soon could do his own translations.

"I thought it was so easy and fun," he said of mastering the language.

Munday continued to study Latin and added a dual major in the classics. (He also speaks ancient Greek "and a little French.")

He figured he had three career options: lawyer, minister, or teacher.

"I was too heretical to become a minister and too moral to become a lawyer, so I thought, 'I'll become a teacher,' " Munday said.

After two years in the Willingboro school district, he came to Cherry Hill West in 1994 to revive a Latin program that had been dormant several years. Though by no means universal, the language is not uncommon at area schools where a large percentage of graduates go on to four-year colleges and universities.

West's program exploded. From teaching just a handful of students, Munday soon had more than 130 students in five classes, Latin I to Latin IV Advanced Placement. He added a Latin Club, and his kids began winning state awards.

"It's not just useful for doctors and lawyers and scientists. It's useful if you want to use English well. It's very useful for the SATs," Munday said, adding that learning the ancient language helps students build their English vocabulary.

Some students were attracted to the class for those reasons. Others heard of Munday's reputation as a fun teacher.

On a recent weekday, his classroom was a hive of activity.

Jingly Italian music played softly in the background as students worked on translations and read poetry. At the front of the room, Munday, a tall man with slightly spiky hair and a frequent smile, kept things flowing.

"What does est opus mean? It is the work, the task," he told his students.

West's Latin program is not the biggest in the region, and the number of students who take the language is small compared to those enrolled in Spanish, Italian and French classes. But there is something special about the program, administrators and students say.

Munday is a star, said Joseph Meloche, West's principal. "He brings the language alive," he said.

From reenacting scenes from ancient plays alongside his students to encouraging struggling students to stick with it, "he's a teacher that inspires kids to want to take Latin," Meloche said.

Jeremy Silver, now in AP Latin IV, has been with Munday for four years, having switched from Spanish after middle school. He's president of West's National Latin Honor Society, was on three first-place Certamen teams, and recently received a perfect score on the National Latin Exam.

"I've learned much more about English in Mr. Munday's class than I have in any English class," said Silver, 17, who will attend Princeton University in the fall.

When Munday veers off topic even the diversions are edifying, Silver said.

"He's got an entertaining personality, and he can make the subject matter interesting, especially in the upper levels," Silver said. "We translate poetry, and we make connections to other things."

Dave Washick, another senior, says he's not the best student, but he's stuck with Munday because his class is a thrill.

It's not just the corny jokes and games intended to help students with their memorization. When Washick, 18, got to a state competition, he had a revelation:

"I knew more than I thought," he said. "When you see what's around the state, you realize we have a really good Latin program, and that's because of Mr. Munday."

"Kids soak up my energy," said Munday, who emphasizes fun as well as form.

When his students need to leave the room, their hall pass is not a slip of paper, but a long wooden stick topped by lush green leaves, the remnant of a Latin project from years gone by.

"My kids aren't all stars, but they're great kids," Munday said.

As an instructor, "I don't have to compete with native speakers," he said, joking. "Those are all dead."

This seems to be a sidebar to a larger article ... from the Daily Herald (originally in the Post):

• The so-called "Cuirass-Torso," discovered on the Acropolis in Athens in 1896, would have been carved about 470 B.C. At first glance, the piece looks like a typical classical nude. In the 1990s, however, close study of the marble's surface revealed traces of an elaborately decorated undertunic that had once been painted poking out from all around the figure's torso. In ancient times, that would have made it doubly clear that the warrior's six-pack in fact represents a body-contoured breastplate made of beaten bronze. Almost invisible scratches in the marble had once acted as guidelines for the painting of the undertunic's pattern, and later weathering marks indicate that several different colors had been used to fill it in. The colors actually used on the reconstruction are hypothetical, based on other painted statues of the period. The marble of the breastplate might have been gilt, as a great many ancient sculptures were, but its gleaming metal could also have been rendered in shades of yellow.
• A marble nude, presumed to represent the god Apollo, survives in a museum in Kassel, Germany. The glowing whiteness we now see probably has nothing to do with how the work originally looked. The marble is almost certainly a Roman copy of a Greek original made hundreds of years earlier, about 450 B.C., perhaps by the great innovator Phidias. It would have been cast in bronze, like perhaps two-thirds of all Greek statuary -- almost every single piece of which has long since been melted down.

It's almost certain that the sculptor would have polished his figure to some kind of brassy sheen and added suitable accessories to it. In a bronze reconstruction in Kassel, the metal has been buffed and varnished to the point of imitating solid gold -- which, we know, was the prestige material for making monumental sculptures in the ancient world.

• The Augustus of Prima Porta, a marble sculpture of the Roman Empire's first emperor, was discovered in 1863 and is now in the Vatican Museums.

"Can you imagine the family-values, back-to-basics, republican emperor Augustus ... represented by something that looks like a cross-dresser trying to hail a taxi?" says Fabio Barry, an art historian at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who's not overly fond of the Prima Porta sculpture's colored reconstruction. Barry, who is an expert on the history of marble and worked for a time in Washington, D.C., insists that the Romans cherished the whiteness of fine marble as an important symbol of light and purity. He doesn't deny that the precious Parian marble of the Prima Porta statue would have had some tints on top of it -- the colors noted when the piece was first unearthed were confirmed when it was cleaned in 1999 -- but he cannot buy their wildly unsubtle reconstruction. "I'm vehemently against any notion that people in the past were stupid or didn't have taste." Vinzenz Brinkmann, leader of the recent work on color in antiquity, doesn't disagree. He has a house on the Greek island of Paros, and often visits its ancient quarries. Their Parian marble, he raves, is "whiter than sugar and more beautiful than snow." And he says he's almost sorry there's such clear evidence that the Greeks and Romans often covered it in paint.

• A bronze head of a boy, cast by Roman artists about 20 A.D., survives in the Glyptothek collection in Munich. Eyeless and dark green, it represents our classic vision of classical art -- and one that's largely wrong. A bronze reconstruction shows it with the polished surface it once would have had; ancient texts refer to athletes' skin as glowing like "a well-mixed bronze," and to how sculptors labored to achieve lifelike colors in their metals. The reconstruction also re-creates the kind of inlaid eyes the sculpture had when it was found in the 1790s -- they were lost early on -- and the golden lips and eyebrows that still show traces on the Munich head. (Other ancient bronzes used polished copper inlays to represent red lips and nipples and even bloody wounds.) The dark hair is just a guess, but it evokes the broad range of finishes that ancient sculptors would have used for realist effects.

ante diem iii nonas maias

ca 300 A.D. -- martyrdom of Jovinian

Since I didn't get to them yesterday (football road trip) ...

Archaeology Magazine has a feature on the Sebasta (Augustus' games at Naples) ...

The conversation continues about electronic publication at the CSA Newsletter site ...

Last, but certainly not least, I've added to the ClassiCarnival/blogroll/sidebar some entries from Roger Travis' Living Epic blog, which examines the intersection between gaming/gamer culture and the ancient world ... there's also an online course ...

From the Hereford Times:

A ROMAN cemetery containing items of national importance has been uncovered in Herefordshire.

One of the biggest historical finds in the Marches has been made at Stretton Grandison. A complete wooden coffin – only the third to be found in the UK – was one of the items uncovered by Leominster-based Border Archaeology (BA).

A kiln, various urns and a working brooch were also unearthed, along with the remains of up to 19 bodies.

The results of the four-month dig – kept secret until now for fear of theft – were revealed to a packed Ashperton Village Hall on Tuesday.

Neil Shurety, BA managing director, was thrilled at the discovery, but believes the site is hiding more.

“We found a hell of a lot and it’s probably the largest find of its kind in Herefordshire,” said Mr Shurety.

“We had indications it was a Roman site, but we had no idea it was going to be this big. The major find was the coffin – this is only the third complete Roman coffin ever found in the UK, and the others were found in London in the Thames.” The dig coincided with major pipeline work, being carried out by Welsh Water and Laing O’Rourke between Lyde and Ledbury. The cemetery was discovered east of Watery Lane, one of 13 sites earmarked for investigation either side of the A417.

The coffin and the body – nicknamed Lucius – is being preserved, following tests at Durham University.

According to archaeologists, Lucius was 46, 5ft 9ins tall, suffered toothache and died around 1,800 years ago.

Most bodies were from the second to the fourth centuries AD, but some dated to the Middle Ages.

One find, dating to 650AD, was much more grisly – a decapitated 15-year-old girl who suffered multiple sharp blows.

Neolithic stakes, used for fishing, were also discovered, suggesting much earlier occupation.

“To have found these stakes I think, personally, was one of the highlights of our dig,” said Mr Shurety.

“These are made of alder and they date to 3,500 BC – it’s so humbling to think that man has been working on this land for all this time.” The coffin, Lucius, and recovered items will go on display in Hereford next year, while the other bodies will be given a proper burial. A book is also being planned, while BA intends to meet villagers to discuss their finds.

Dorothy King sent this one in (thanks!) ... a documentary on the wall from the BBC:

This story's making the rounds again ... from the Daily Herald:

The statues of ancient Greece and Rome are masterpieces.
Here's an idea for making them better: We should equip every gallery of ancient art with paints, in red and green and even gold, then set museum-goers loose on all their sculptures. How else are we going to convince ourselves that those pure-white marbles of Venus and Caesar, or those dark-green bronzes of athletes and Apollo, look better when their surfaces are tarted up?

For nearly two centuries, some scholars have been arguing that white-on-white and green-on-green were not the true tints of antiquity. The Parthenon in Athens and the Forum in Rome might have been almost gaudy. But such ideas have never trickled down, or even sideways: In Hollywood today, but also in many experts' talk, the ancient world comes off as monochrome. In Ridley Scott's "Gladiator," when Russell Crowe strides down the streets of ancient Rome, circa A.D. 180, he's backed up by the proper complement of bronzes and marbles. All of them are green or white.

A flood of recent exhibitions has set out to put their color back. Over the past five years, audiences in Amsterdam, Athens, Basel, Boston, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Munich and Rome have been treated to a bright new image of Greek and Roman art. Now, with an exhibition called "The Color of Life" at the Getty Villa in Malibu, it's Californians' turn.

One of the greatest statues of Augustus, first emperor of Rome, has come down to us in marble. His carved armor and rippling robe meld into the symphony of cream on cream we all expect. At the Getty, a reconstruction of the piece, retouched with colors based on tints that still cling here and there to the original, has the great Augustus togaed in a cherry red that matches his lips. His tunic's touched with blue. What he's lost in elegance he's regained in verve.

A carved portrait of Caligula, the mad Roman emperor who died in the year 41, looks blank-eyed and remote in the marble that's survived. His reconstruction, computer-carved into another block of marble and then painted, now has nice pink cheeks, red lips and brown eyes and hair. The insane leader who declared himself a god now comes across as the Roman next door.

More than anyone else, German scholar Vinzenz Brinkmann has led the way in putting color back into our view of ancient statues. After 25 years of scientific study, he says he finds it "very hard to imagine" that they could have ever started life as monochromes. Lifelike sculptures were the pride and joy of Greek and Roman art, so why would artists have missed out on using paint to liven them up further?

We haven't always thought of classical antiquity as dull and dingy. In the later Middle Ages, artists naturally depicted the rich culture of ancient Rome as full of gold and lavish ornament. Aesthetic fancy filled in for a lack of evidence of what ancient artists had actually made.

It was the evidence that screwed things up, once it came along. In the years to either side of 1500, more and more ancient sculpture began to be recovered. Centuries of burial or neglect had bleached the marbles, and greened the bronzes, beyond their makers' recognition. But it was those altered colors that became the model for how the ancient world had looked, and for what all new sculpture ought to look like.

By 1764, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, often named as the founder of art history, could look at the classical marbles that had come down to him and definitively pronounce that "the whiter a body is, the more beautiful it is as well."

That view went on to dominate. It led Lincoln in his Memorial to come out white on white.

It also touched the modernist opponents of historic styles. The stripped-down Getty Center in Los Angeles -- head office for the organizers of the Malibu color show -- is faced in gleaming travertine. Richard Meier, its designer, once declared that "white is the most wonderful color of all, because within it one can find every color of the rainbow."

Tell that to Praxiteles.

"Oh Praxiteles, which are your greatest marbles?" a fan once asked that famous sculptor, who pioneered the art of female nudes in Athens around 350 B.C. The artist -- or so the story went in ancient times -- answered that he preferred those works whose stone had been colored over by Nicias, a leader in the art of realistic panel painting. So much for the ancients' taste for sculpture's white perfection.

"For the Greeks it was all about mimesis," says Getty curator Kenneth Lapatin, using the Greek word for realistic imitation. Beauty depended on it.

"If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect / The way you would wipe color off a statue," says Helen of Troy, in lines written by Euripides in 412 B.C. For Greeks of that era, not only were sculptures assumed to be painted, but also if you stripped their paint you stripped their good looks, too.

Nineteenth-century experts took a new look at such texts, and at newly unearthed colored objects and murals, and rethought their image of ancient art. Some artists followed suit: They sculpted neoclassical nudes, then tinted them in living color, or painted scenes of what a bright-hued antiquity might have looked like.

And then, for most of the 20th century, nothing.

Most artists, more interested in modern life than dead antiquity, simply lost interest in the issue. Those who stuck with classical figures often came to cater to a Fascist taste for white triumphalism.

In academia, not much new evidence emerged to keep the topic hot. Some of the earlier evidence actually faded away: Colors that had once been seen on newly excavated objects were bleached by exposure and overzealous cleaning. On top of that, classicists came to prefer issues of social history to questions of aesthetics and taste, which meant that what an artwork had originally looked like came to matter less and less.

That was how things stood in 1981 when Brinkmann was a graduate student working on toolmarks in Greek marbles. He realized that the special lighting used to spot where a chisel had once passed could also reveal where ancient colors had been. Even where the paint itself had absolutely vanished, it had left behind patterns of "weathering relief" -- areas of marble that the elements had etched more or less deeply, depending on the kind of pigments that had once protected them.

If you looked closely enough, with scientific equipment and rigor, many sculptures started to look like a coloring book just waiting to be painted in. Lab analysis of the microscopic grains of pigment that had survived here or there on many sculptures, along with close examination of the faded tints that had survived intact on another few, supplied the colors of the paint. Coupling that research with other information about statues' vanished hues -- classical vases and murals that depict sculptures being painted; new readings of ancient texts and the color notes of early archaeologists -- led experts to achieve a larger picture of the coloring of ancient art.

Painted reconstructions of that art, commissioned by Brinkmann and others, are meant to start to bring that image home to all the rest of us.

There are signs it's working.

The Boston show called "Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity," which closed a few months ago, had visitors "lining up on the stairs" to get in, according to curator Susanne Ebbinghaus -- not a situation they're particularly used to at Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum of classical and Asian art.

All of us "need help visualizing colored antiquity," Ebbinghaus says, as well as help in fighting the cliches of an all-white classical world.

The Sackler show provided that. Its reconstructions depend almost as much on conjecture as on science, she admits. But they still get us closer to the ancient masterpieces than gleaming marble ever could.

I still suggest the colors weren't as garish as Brinkmann suggests ... color, yes, but faded/muted (and possibly designed with fading/muting in mind) ... a possible piece of evidence is that fresco of a harbour scene at Stabiae from Pompeii ... there are a series of statues on top of columns in what appears to be varying states of colorization ...

From AP via Google:

The project: Atlas, scrubbed.

Rockefeller Center's iconic statue of Greek mythology's burdened giant is set to get its most thorough cleaning in decades, starting next week.

The four-story-tall, seven-ton sculpture is among the complex's cherished attractions. It stands across Fifth Avenue from St. Patrick's Fifth Cathedral.

Wax and lacquer have built up and dulled the bronze statue's surface since it was installed in 1937.

EverGreene Painting Studios expects to spend six weeks cleaning the artwork with steam and solvents, applying a protective coating and hand-waxing it. Initial steps are to begin Monday.

The results should accent the play of highlights and shadows across the statue's surface, said EverGreene President Jeffrey Greene. The statue was washed and waxed regularly through at least the late 1980s, but Greene believes the upcoming cleaning may be its most extensive restoration.

Rockefeller Center's statue of Atlas' brother, Prometheus, was refurbished nine years ago.

"What we try to do is keep track of the artwork and what needs tending to," said Jerry I. Speyer, the chief executive of Rockefeller Center owner Tishman Speyer Properties. "It's a fascinating piece of what nobody sees but what you really have to do if you're going to be a fiduciary for a place like that."

According to ancient Greek lore, Atlas and fellow Titans battled Zeus for control of the universe, and lost. As a punishment, Atlas was condemned to hold up the heavens forever. He is often depicted, as in Rockefeller Center, carrying a globe on his shoulders.

4.00 p.m. |DCIVC| First Olympian
Examine the remains of an ancient athlete called Ikkos; forensics detail the competitor's tip-top conditioning, diet and best sports; witness training and events from early Olympics when athletes weren't worried about doping but simply staying alive.

9.00 p.m. |HISTC| ROME II | Heroes Of the Republic
Against Pullo’s advice, Vorenus returns to the Collegium with his rescued daughters and Lucius, who are soon reunited with Lyde and undergo a cleansing ritual for past sins. Denied a triumph in Rome, Octavian urges Cicero to embrace his request to be made Consul; in exchange, Octavian promises not to make a move without consulting Cicero first. Octavian is reunited with Atia and Octavia; while the former begs for forgiveness, the latter doesn’t like what her brother has become. Octavian’s first act as Consul takes Cicero and the Senate by surprise. Vorenus attempts to make peace with Memmio and Cotta, who wonder if he’s gone soft. To gain advantage over Brutus and Cassius’ army, two adversaries patch up their differences.

DCIVC = Discovery Civilization (Canada)

HISTC = History Television (Canada)

From the Chicago Tribune:

Sometimes a guy just has to ungird his inner gladiator.

Sergio Iacomoni used to look up from his desk at Banca d'Italia and wonder about the likes of Spartacus. The father of two consumed books on ancient Rome. He tracked news of archeological digs, daily fare in Italy, for nuggets on how gladiators might have trained or lived. He socialized with buddies—accountants and bureaucrats cooped up in their own office or government jobs—who shared the same kind of Walter Mitty daydreams.

"One day, we were talking. We had played enough tennis, worked out with enough sports. So we decided: OK, now we'll be gladiators," Iacomoni said.

The men, whose graying temples hadn't dimmed memories of boyhood soldiering, began spending hours thinking up games and exercises that they imagined ancient warriors would use.

Iacomoni went further: He began calling himself Nerone and wondering whether this lifestyle could fit into a modern Rome budget.

The middle-age dad began pounding out metal helmets, twisting leather straps into sandals and designing the kind of garb that Charlton Heston, in his "Ben-Hur" days, might have appreciated. He then floated a petition to scout for other people who might want to join a club, a foundation of sorts, to preserve some Roman heritage.

Gruppo Storico Romano, as he called it, quickly pulled in dozens of members. More than a decade later, about a hundred Romans are loyal to the cause. Iacomoni qua Nerone said the initial response led him to explore a business opportunity.

In 2004 he opened a school for modern-day gladiators, a small, shady rural outpost off the Via Appia Antica, the ancient Roman road. It is part learning center, part tourist attraction and even provides a lovely spectator sport for those not inclined to swing a sword on a warm spring day.

Trident in hand
These days, the 56-year-old said with a laugh, are spent doing what every Roman boy dreams. He dons leather sandals and a deep-red tunic and spends hours heaving wooden swords and metal tridents up and down the dusty little arena he has created for the gladiator-wannabes. He works every day in the sunshine. His friends come by after work, all still eager to play gladiator.

"This is our passion," said 60-year-old Michele Forglione, a logistician at Italy's Defense Ministry.

Any day of the week, Nerone has schoolchildren from around Rome learning the fine art of slaying their imaginary dragons or foes. "Head and back, neck and back," he calls out, teaching the youngsters to swing and step back, deftly challenging their opponents' body parts and protecting their own. If it seems like shtick in the first minutes, children quickly learn that there is a purpose to the play.

Nerone keeps youngsters—and adult tourists or families who enlist in far more challenging exercises—on their toes. The 1st Century warriors were men to be remembered, he believes, and his courses take Roman history seriously. He also runs a small museum in the back of his lot. He admits that not a lot is known about the actual life of a gladiator, so Nerone spends his time—and his buddies'—contemplating how to hone Roman physical glory.

"The history of Rome is all along the ruins," he said. "But for gladiators, a lot has to be interpreted. The fact is that there is not a lot of documentation. ... So we've tried to understand what was real and what was known. If an archeologist finds something or tells us something was not really used, we no longer do it.

"You have to build something authentic. If you build something strong from the beginning, there will always be a strong base to build on."

Net flicks (and DVDs too)
Instructors teach with fishnets at first, swinging them, side to side and overhead, to encourage coordination. Students joust with 5-pound helmets on their heads to understand the weight, emotional and otherwise, of battle. Nerone, during breaks in the three-hour classes, also taps into a computer and flips through DVDs to bring Rome's ancient treasures into this century.

He markets his specialty well: The group has been featured on the Discovery Channel. His school, one of several in Rome, is booked with private groups and educational sessions throughout the year.

And every April his merry band of self-made historians takes over the streets of Rome—tromping from the Forum to Colosseum to the Circus Maximus—for an eye-popping celebration. They parade in costume to mark "Natale di Roma," the anniversary of Rome's founding, according to legend. This year, Rome was teeming one Sunday with short-skirted men roaming the cobblestones with authority.

"I think lots of people come here and want to feel Roman," Nerone said as he prepared for another class. "Some people have it in their blood. Foreigners come and envy the history."

From the Northern Echo:

HISTORIANS hope to acquire a Roman brooch found on North-East farmland to exhibit in London.

It was discovered by a man with a metal detector in 2000, but was left forgotten in his drawer for six years.

This week, an inquest heard that the item is attracting the interest of the British Museum, which hopes to add it to its collection.

The hearing, in Spennymoor, County Durham, on Tuesday, was told that experienced metal detectorist David Scott made the find.

Mr Scott, from Seaham, east Durham, was searching farmland at Seaton, near Easington, in October 2000 when he found the trumpet-shaped fragment.

He reported it to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records objects of historical importance found by members of the public, and Durham's county archaeologist.

Initially, it was believed to be a bronze item that would not be classed as treasure, but in 2001 it was found to be made of silver and dating from the Second Century. It is known as a trumpet-headed brooch because of the flared head, and features an acanthus leaf decoration.

It was probably used to fasten a cloak or tunic and could have connected to another brooch by a chain.

Mr Scott said: "It lay in a drawer for over six years until someone followed up on it recently and realised it could be special."

Coroner Graham Hunsley found the item to be made of a precious metal and older than 300 years, so declared the item as treasure trove.

It will now be valued and if no museum in the region expresses an interest in it, the British Museum hopes to buy it.

Dr Rob Cillins, finds liaison officer for the North-East, said the brooch was a fine example because the details of craftsmanship had not been corroded.

He said: "Mr Scott is a very responsible metal detectorist who always records his finds, even those he is not legally obliged to report.

"Because of this, Mr Scott has added to our knowledge of the past in County Durham."

Richard Hobbs, the British Museum's Roman Britain curator, said: "This type of brooch is reasonably rare. There are maybe a dozen like it.

"We feel if no local museum is interested, that it would complement our existing collection."

The Classics Department of the University of Athens is hosting a one-day Conference entitled:

«Rhetoric and Literary Genres in Ancient Greece and Rome»

The Conference will be held on Friday, 9 May 2008, at 18:00 - 21:00, in the Propylaia Hall of the University of Athens (30, Panepistimiou st).

The program is as follows:


Bernhard ZIMMERMANN (Universit"at Freiburg): Rhetoric and Critique of Rhetoric in the Drama of the 5th century BC.

Christopher CRAIG (University of Tennessee): The Courtroom Speech as Literary Genre: the reader’s experience of rhetoric in Cicero’s Pro Roscio Amerino.

Jacqueline DANGEL (Universit'e de la Sorbonne-Paris IV): Genres litt'eraires et rh'etorique `a Rome : la po'etique 'epidictique dans l’Institution oratoire de Quintilien.

James MAY (St. Olaf College): Cicero’s Ideal Orator and Liberal Arts Education: Wisdom and Eloquence in the 21st century.


The event is followed by a reception at the Cultural Centre «Kostis Palamas».

All welcome.

Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, who died in May of 2007, was one of the most influential Hellenists of her generation, and one of the strongest voices in the study of Greek religion. The focus of much of her work was the religious system of the Greek polis, or more precisely the ways in which the political structure of the Greek city-state shaped religious practices and representations, and within this field she devoted special attention to myth and ritual, adolescent transitions, representations of the afterlife, variations of panhellenic religion found in specific cities ("divine personalities") and the articulation of polis religion in Greek tragedy. Her work in these areas drew on a methodology which she called "reading", applicable equally to iconographical and archaeological sources as to literature and epigraphy.

As a tribute to Dr. Sourvinou-Inwood's scholarly achievement, and as a contribution to the ongoing debate, the Classics Department at the University of Reading will host on July 4-6 2008 a symposium exploring central themes in the area of polis-religion and its interpretation.

Keynote speakers are Jan Bremmer (Groningen), Julia Kindt (Sydney) and Froma Zeitlin (Princeton). Other speakers include Joan Connelly (NYU), Esther Eidinow (Oxford), Radcliffe Edmunds (Bryn Mawr), Milette Gaifman (Yale), Alexander Herda (CHS/Munich), Sarah Hitch (Bristol), Athene Kavoulaki (Rethymno), Johannes Mylonopoulos (CHS/Erfurt), Fred Naiden (UNC), Petra Pakkanen (RHUL), André and Ivana Petrovic (Durham), Julia Shear (Glasgow) and Hannah Willey (Cambridge).

Full details of the conference, including booking forms and information on accommodation and travel, may be obtained from the conference website:

http://www.reading.ac.uk/humanities/conferences/PolisReligion/PolisReligionInsideOutside.asp

For booking inquiries contact Nina Aitken (n.l.aitken AT reading.ac.uk).

We particularly bring to your attention the fact that, thanks to generous funding from the Classical Association, we are able to offer a few bursaries to eligible postgraduate students. Please encourage them to contact one of the organizers directly and as soon as possible.

Sarah Hitch (Bristol), clssh AT bristol.ac.uk
Milette Gaifman (Yale), milette.gaifman AT yale.edu
Ian Rutherford (Reading), i.c.rutherford AT reading.ac.uk

**Digital Classicist Work-in-Progress seminars**
Institute of Classical Studies

Fridays at 16:30 in NG16, Senate House, Malet St, London, WC1E 7HU
(June 20th, July 4th-18th seminars in room B3, Stewart House)
(June 27th seminar room 218, Chadwick Bdg, UCL, Gower Street)

**ALL WELCOME**

6 June (NG16)
Elaine Matthews and Sebastian Rahtz (Oxford), The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and classical web services

13 June (NG16)
Brent Seales (University of Kentucky), EDUCE: Non-invasive scanning for classical materials

20 June (STB3)
Dot Porter (University of Kentucky), The Son of Suda On Line: a next generation collaborative editing tool

27 June (UCL Chadwick 218)
Bruce Fraser (Cambridge), The value and price of information: reflections on e-publishing in the humanities

4 July (STB3)
Andrew Bevan (UCL), Computational Approaches to Human and Animal Movement in the Archaeological Record

11 July (STB3)
Frances Foster (KCL), A digital presentation of the text of Servius

18 July (STB3)
Ryan Bauman (University of Kentucky), Towards the Digital Squeeze: 3-D imaging of inscriptions and curse tablets

25 July (NG16)
Charlotte Tupman (KCL), Markup of the epigraphy and archaeology of Roman Libya

1 Aug (NG16)
Juan Garcés (British Library), Digitizing the oldest complete Greek Bible: The Codex Sinaiticus project

8 Aug (NG16)
Charlotte Roueché (KCL), From Stone to Byte

15 Aug (NG16)
Ioannis Doukas (KCL), Towards a digital publication for the Homeric Catalogue of Ships

22 Aug (NG16)
Peter Heslin (Durham), Diogenes: Past development and future plans

**ALL WELCOME**

We are inviting both students and established researchers involved in the application of the digital humanities to the study of the ancient world to come and introduce their work. The focus of this seminar series is the interdisciplinary and collaborative work that results at the interface of expertise in Classics or Archaeology and Computer Science.

The seminar will be followed by wine and refreshments.

(Sponsored by the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, and the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London.)

For more information please contact gabriel.bodard AT kcl.ac.uk or simon.mahony AT kcl.ac.uk, or visit the seminar website at http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2008.html

*Platonism and Aristotelianism** in the moral philosophy of the Scottish
Enlightenment

A workshop to be held in the Philosophy Department, University of St
Andrews,
Saturday June 7th 2008, starting at 10am.

Giovanni Gellera (UCSC, Milan)
'Aristotelianism in Pre-Enlightenment Aberdeen'

Alexander Broadie (Glasgow)
'Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Enlightenment Values'

Michael Gill (Arizona)
'From Cambridge Platonism to Scottish Sentimentalism'

Aaron Garrett (Boston University)
'Mind against Mechanism: Monboddo's Platonic Anti-Newtonianism'

Craig Smith (St Andrews) will chair a roundtable discussion


For further information, and to register, please contact James Harris
(jah15 AT st-and.ac.uk).

The Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies invites applications for a one-year Limited Term position at the rank of Assistant Professor, effective July 1, 2008. We are seeking a candidate with a research specialty in Greek history (including social history) and who is competent to teach courses in Greek history, ancient Greek language and Classical civilization. Preferred applicants will have completed a PhD or be close to completion by the time of appointment. Other requirements include a demonstrated excellence in teaching and evidence of a research program; publications are preferred. Applicants are asked to submit, in hard copy, a curriculum vitae, a covering letter outlining research interests and teaching experience, a short teaching dossier, and the names and contact information for three professional referees, to Professor Gerald P. Schaus, Chair, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, N2L 3C5. Applications will be assessed after May 23, 2008, until the position is filled. Wilfrid Laurier University is committed to equity and values diversity. We welcome applications from qualified individuals of all genders and sexual orientations, persons with disabilities, Aboriginal persons, and persons of a visible minority. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. Members of the designated groups must self-identify to be considered for employment equity. Candidates may self-identify, in confidence, to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dr. David Docherty.

... we're still adjusting to kids' sports schedules ...

kalendae maiae

1700 -- death of John Dryden (poet and translator of many of the versions of ancient poetry which abound on the internet)

cloy @ Dictionary.com (wow)

sphinx @ Wordsmith

salad days @ Merriam-Webster (sort of)

I don't think I mentioned this last weekend (I meant to) ... Expatica seems to have the best coverage of what is still available:

A town gate that was probably built with a grant from Roman Emperor Nero has been discovered in Cologne, Germany during work on a new underground train line, archaeologists said.

"This is finest Roman handiwork," said Hansgerd Hellenkemper, director of the Roman museum in the city.

The gate, found complete with 11 meters of wall, was a goods-delivery entrance to the Roman town from its river port outside on the Rhine. The sturdy Roman wall protected Cologne for 1,000 years.

The city fathers have appropriated 3 million euros to preserve the site with a train line underneath and a road deck overhead.

"I'm delighted it's going to stay in the ground where it has always been," said Hellenkemper.

Recently diggers also found the bottom of a Roman wooden barge in Cologne.

The assumed Nero connection is based on the fact that the wall was built in the second half of the 1st century AD and that the city itself could not have afforded the cost. Nero's mother had been born in Cologne, so the emperor is thought to have fortified the town.

In the late Roman period, the inhabitants walled up the gate for fear of attack by the warlike Frankish tribe, using any rocks at hand including tombstones. Hellenkemper said the closure would not be undone and the gate would be left as is.

Birgitta Hoffmann sent along some German coverage for Explorator (thanks!) which includes a very nice video news report from WDR ...

From the Telegraph:

The remains of 91 men, women and children are believed to have been hurriedly dumped during an outbreak of disease in the 2nd or 3rd century.

It is the first officially-recognised Roman mass grave to be found in Britain.

The site was first discovered in Gloucester in 2004 and archaeologists have now gone public after four years secretly excavating the site and analysing the bones.

Louise Loe, Head of Burial Archaeology at Oxford Archaeology who led the analysis, said: "The skeletons were lying with their bones completely entangled, reflecting the fact that they had been dumped in a hurried manner.

"When we studied the skeletons we looked for evidence to explain why they had been buried in such a way.

"This has led us to conclude the individuals were the victims of an epidemic."

The burial site is now occupied by Cathedral Court, a complex of retirement homes opposite the Church of St Mary Magdalene, a former 12th Century lepers hospital.

Two other mass Roman burial sites have previously been found in York in the 1870's but were not properly recorded and are therefore not officially recognised.

It is believed the bodies were victims of the Antonine Plague, which tore through Europe in the second century.

Archaeologists spent a painstaking 18 months analysing the bones, which were dumped about a century before the Romans quit Britain.

Project officer Andrew Simmonds added: "This is very exciting and is unique in as much as we are able to tie the find in with an actual historical event.

"By analysing the pottery and broaches found on the women we have been able to determine the date as the second half of the second century AD.

"This ties in with an outbreak of the Antonine Plague, which was probably small pox.

"The bones were not in a very good condition because of the manner in which they were discarded.

"We have managed to identify 21 of the bodies as definitely male and eight have been confirmed as female."

Two 1st Century sculptured and inscribed tombstones were also found at the site.

One was for a 14-year-old slave and the other was for Lucius Octavius Martialis, a soldier of the 20th Legion.

The legion was stationed at Gloucester until the 70s AD and the mass grave may have been civilian descendants of the Roman military.

The discovery is significant not only because it pre-dates the Roman departure from Britain but also because it is so rare to discover remains in such a hap-hazard manner.

The Romans were very particular about where remains were buried, which makes the find so unique.

Roman Gloucester is thought to have been founded in 48AD by the river, at Kingsholm.

In about 97AD Glevum, the Roman name for Gloucester, was given the status of 'colonia' – the highest urban status.

The Daily Telegraph gives us some interesting news about Rome's new mayor:

ROME'S new Mayor Gianni Alemanno has renewed a pledge to remove a modern structure on the banks of the Tiber designed by US architect Richard Meier to protect an ancient monument.

The glass and marble structure surrounding the 2000-year-old Altar of Augustan Peace, inaugurated in 2006, is something "to remove," the right-wing Alemanno said today after taking the oath of office.

"It's obviously not the first priority," the former neo-fascist said, while adding: "We should review the structures in the city centre."

Mr Meier's work took seven years to build and drew harsh criticism, especially from the right.

The ancient white marble altar, built to commemorate the peace after the Emperor Augustus' triumphal return from wars in Spain and Gaul, features finely sculpted bas-reliefs.

The dictator Benito Mussolini had the structure moved to the banks of the Tiber in 1938.

Mr Alemanno, who unexpectedly won a run-off election on Tuesday against outgoing national Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, in 2006 called Mr Meier's work a "scar in the heart of the city, an act of intellectual arrogance against the citizens".

He vowed that if the right took City Hall it would move the structure to the suburbs.

From a press release of some sort:

Rome, as they say, wasn’t built in a day. But it was built with great imagination and engineering brio. From elegantly simple pulleys to arches, aqueducts, and catapults, the Romans harnessed and improved all kinds of technology, building in the process one of the most modern cities in the ancient world.

Consider the Pantheon, built by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century CE as a temple to all the gods and a monument to his power. Its concrete dome was unprecedented in weight and size, spanning 142 feet in diameter. For almost 1,800 years the massive, coffered dome with its twenty-seven foot oculus stood unparalleled in the world. Just how did the Romans engineer such a structure?

Dan Perl ’08, a neuroscience, biology, and psychology major, could tell you how because he helped build a small-scale version of the Pantheon’s dome, albeit out of Styrofoam blocks. He is one of forty students enrolled this semester in “Roman Technology and Art,” a course in which the students explore Roman technologies by applying modern physics.

Perl and his classmates are learning first-hand how the ancient Romans engineered and built architectural monuments like the Pantheon and the Colosseum, Roman baths, aqueducts, mosaics, and catapults. At the same time, they are learning about Roman daily life, from art and architecture, to transportation and urban planning.

Under the expert team teaching of professors Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, chair of the department of classical studies, and physicist Robert Meyer, the students are covering highlights of Roman technology from the 8th century BCE to the end of the Roman Empire in the 4th century CE, focusing particularly on the imperial period, from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE.

The Romans were technologically savvy enough to astound even Meyer, whose current research interests include hyper-complex fluid systems, liquid crystals, and smart materials. He says he was amazed at how the Romans managed to import about 400,000 tons of wheat a year from Africa, mostly from Egypt, to feed one million people in the city during the first and second centuries CE.

“In our course, the students calculate how many ships this took, how many containers for the wheat were used, and other interesting facts to see the implications of a central fact like this one for other aspects of Roman culture and economics,” explains Meyer. “The Romans had ships that could carry well over 1,000 tons of wheat from Egypt to Rome, very big ships that were not surpassed in size for well over a thousand years!”

Koloski-Ostrow, a classicist who is also a leading expert on Roman water and sanitation systems, provides the “humanist” side of the lectures, while Meyer weighs in with class demonstrations and models. “His own clear teaching style explains the science behind the accomplishments of the Romans both to me and to many humanist students who would be afraid to confront it without his steady guidance," says Koloski-Ostrow.

“I love the class; it’s a really nice blend of physics and culture,” says English major Justine Root ’10.

“I like the pulleys the most because it brought the math together with reality,” explains Perl, adding, “this is a good class to see why physics is important.” The students recently devised compound pulley systems to get an idea of how the Romans were able to hoist huge and enormously heavy stones into place.

In addition to lectures and discussions, a series of afternoon labs enable the students to learn by doing, creating small mosaics, Roman arches, catapults, and of course, domes inspired by the Pantheon’s dome. In the process they are asking questions about the causes of technological change, what role technology played in Roman life and culture, and how they fulfilled needs and desires by manipulating nature.

When studying Rome, do as the Romans did, you might say.

CELTIC CONFERENCE IN CLASSICS - University College Cork, 9-12 July 2008
This summer's Celtic Conference, in Cork, will begin from 2pm on Wednesday 9th July, and will end at midday on Saturday 12 July.

A provisional list of panels, speakers and topics is given below. Some of the panels are open to further recruitment of speakers. If you are interested in giving a paper, please contact the relevant panel chair(s).

Attendance at the Celtic Conference is open to all. The cost of the event to each member will be 260 Euros, payable on arrival. This includes 3 nights' bed-and-breakfast close to the Cork campus, two lunches, two dinners and various refreshments. There is no registration charge. Speakers will receive booking forms in the near future, and some travel information later. Others wishing to attend are invited to contact the Organiser as soon as possible: powellanton AT btopenworld.com.

For students attending the Conference a limited number of small travel grants are available, thanks to the generosity of learned societies. Those wishing to apply should contact the organiser, as above.

Accommodation (b&b) is available for those wishing to stay (an) extra night(s) before or after the event; if you require this, please give the organiser early notice.

Anton Powell, Organiser, CCC
powellanton AT btopenworld.com
---------------------
Panel: VISION AND POWER
(Chairs: Nancy Rabinowitz, Sue Blundell, Douglas Cairns)
Judith Barringer, (Edinburgh) "Images of Victory, Shades of Immortality"
Sue Blundell (London) and Douglas Cairns (Edinburgh): Introduction
Elizabeth Craik (St.Andrews) `Sight, Sex and Reproduction in Hippocratic Medicine'
Gaelle Deschodt (University of Paris) "Seeing the Gods in Ancient Greece"
Michael Duigan (Courtauld Institute) "Power and Gendered Viewing in Greek Scenes of Craftsmanship"
Rosie Harman (Nottingham) "Vision, Travel and Greek Identity in Xenophon’s Anabasis"
Melissa Haynes (Harvard) "Framing a View of the Unviewable: Architecture, Aphrodite, and Erotic Looking in the Lucianic Erôtes"

Fritz-Gregor Herrmann (Swansea) "Vision and Viewing in Plato"
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (Edinburgh) "Ogling the Concubines: Harem Fantasies à la grecque"
Helen Lovatt (Nottingham) "The Epic Gaze: Genre and Viewing in Archaic and Classical Greece" (Hesiod)
Robin Osborne (Cambridge) "How the Gauls Broke the Frame Gauls"
Georgia Petridou (Exeter) "Close Encounters: The Power of Ritual Viewing in Greek Mysteric Cults"
Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz (Hamilton) "Tragedy’s Women as Subjects and Objects of the Gaze"
Ian Ruffell (Glasgow University) "Humiliation? Voyeurism, Violence and Humour in Greek Comedy"
Anastasia Serghidou (Crete) "The Eye of the Master: Seeing, Authority and Dependency in Greek Tragedy"
Michael Squire (Cambridge) "Viewing and Reading in the 'Greek Anthology'"
Eva Stehle (University of Maryland) "The Eleusinian Mysteries: Vision and Representation"
Deborah Steiner (Columbia) Sixth century vase painting
Chiara Thumiger (UCL) "‘Rather than seeing he was seen by them’. Views and Viewers in Euripides’ Bacchae"
Susanne Turner (Nottingham) "Viewing Relationships on Classical Attic Stelai."
Froma Zeitlin (Princeton)
--------------
Panel: La religion des femmes en pays grec. Mythes, cultes et sociétés
(présidantes: Lydie Bodiou & Véronique Mehl)
Lydie Bodiou (Poitiers) « Les femmes et les odeurs »
Sandra Boehringer « Monter au ciel : Kallisto et Artémis dans la mythologie grecque »
Louise Bruit « Femmes et religion dans les Lois de Platon »
Pierre Brulé (Rennes II) « En revenant de Besançon »
Florence Gherchanoc (Paris VII) « Des cadeaux pour numphai : anakaluptêria, epaulia, etc ? »
Claudine Leduc « Oliviers sacrés ou méthodologie d’Athéna et l’olivier »
L. Llewellyn-Jones (Edinburgh) "Hera's Veil: second-hand brides and born-again virgins"
Véronique Mehl (Lorient) « Femmes, rites et parfums »
Philippe Monbrun «Artémis ? Une belle plante ! La vierge courotrophe au palmier-dattier»
Jacques Oulhen (Rennes II) « Les noms théophores athéniens »
Marta Pedrina Un petit groupe d’oenochoés à figures rouges représentant Athéna
Gabriela Pironti « La féminité des déesses à l’épreuve des épiclèses »
Pauline Schmitt-Pantel (Paris I) « La religion des femmes dans les « Vertus de Femmes » de Plutarque »
Jérôme Wilgaux « De l’exil au partage : la transmission féminine des identités parentales et religieuses »
--------------------------------------------------
Panel: ARISTOCRATS, ELITES AND SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ANCIENT SOCIETIES
(Chairs: Nick Fisher and Hans van Wees)
Guy Bradley (Cardiff) [Early Italy]
Alain Duplouy (Paris) [Elites in early Greece]
Nick Fisher (Cardiff) `Aristocracy in Aegina?'
Stephen Lambert (Cardiff) [Athenian gene]
Kathryn Lomas [Literacy and elites in S.Italy]
Olivier Mariaud [Archaic Samos]
Sato Noburo (Tokyo, KCL) `Greek aristocratic culture'
Corinna Riva [Archaic Etruria]
Benet Salway `New and old in the Roman senatorial aristocracy of the 4th century AD'
Gillian Shepherd `Burial and elites in archaic Sicily'
Rens Tacoma (Leiden) [Imperial Roman municipal elites]
Hans van Wees (UCL)
James Whitley (Cardiff) `Agonistic aristocrats? The curious case of archaic Crete.'
----------------------------------
Panel: OLD COMEDY
(Chair: Keith Sidwell)
Valeria Cinaglia (Exeter) `Comic knowing: "Samia", the misleading power of passion and perceptions'
Ashley Clements (TCD) `A comedy of mortal error? Paraphilosophy and politics in Aristophanes' "Thesmophoriazusae" '
Greg Dobrov (Loyola) `Problems with satyrs in Old Comedy'
Hallie Marshall (Vancouver) `From Nigeria to Greenham Common: Tony Harrison's adaptations of "Lysistrata" '
Toph Marshall (Vancouver) `Three actors in Old Comedy, again'
Sarah Miles (Nottingham) `Strattis and paratragedy: a comic poet at tragic play'
Ralph Rosen (Pennsylvania) `Badness and intentionality in Aristophanes'
"Frogs" '
Ian Ruffell (Glasgow) ` Another look at the formal structure of Old Comedy'
Keith Sidwell (Cork) `Aristophanes the democrat: the politics of Old Comedy, again'
Ian Storey (Trent, Ontario) `New thoughts on an Old Comedy: Kratinos'
"Dionysalexandros" '
Mario Telo (Pisa) `Embodying the tragic father in Aristophanes'
John Wilkins (Exeter) `Nature and culture in Comedy'
Matthew Wright (Exeter) `Did the comedians want to win prizes?'
----------
Panel: AUTHORITY AND AUTHENTICITY IN ANCIENT NARRATIVE
(Chairs: John Morgan, Mirjam Plantinga, Ian Repath)
Pavlos Avlamis `Life of Aesop'
Lynn Fotheringham (Nottingham) [Cicero]
Fritz-Gregor Herrmann (Swansea) `Socrates' story-telling'
John Morgan (Swansea)
Mirjam Plantinga (Lampeter) `Hellenistic Poetry'
Ian Repath (Swansea) `Courting authority in Achilles Tatius'
Federico Santangelo (Lampeter) `pseudo-Sallust: the invective to Cicero and the letter to Caesar'
------------------------
Panel: HERODOTOS AND THUCYDIDES ON SPARTA
(Chairs: Stephen Hodkinson, Ellen Millender, Anton Powell)
Nancy Bouidghaghen (Cambridge) `"...whose names I learnt...": Herodotos on Thermopylai'
Paula Debnar (Mt.Holyoke) `The coast of Sparta and the Archidamian War'
Thomas J.Figueira (Rutgers)
David Harvey (Exeter) `Thucydides in Sparta'
Ned Lebow (Dartmouth) `Thucydides' counterfactuals on Sparta'
Katerina Meidani (Athens) `Herodotos and Thucydides on Pausanias'
Ellen Millender (Reid)
Anton Powell (ENS, Paris and UWICAH) `Thucydides and Sparta: a certain credulity?'
Nicolas Richer (ENS, Lyon) `Thucydide et la mentalite/ des Lace/de/moniens'
---------------
Panel: THE LATE ANTIQUE CHRONICLE AND ITS CONTINUATORS
(Chair: David Woods)
William Adler (North Carolina) `History and opposition history in the "Chronographiae" of Julius Africanus'
Dmitri Afinogenov (Russian Academy of Sciences) ‘The Eighth Century Byzantine Chroniclers and Their Sources’
David Dumville (Aberdeen) ‘The Multiple Origins of Early Mediaeval Insular Chronicling’
Nicholas Evans (Glasgow) ‘The Medieval Irish Annals: Continuations of Late Antique Chronicles or Separate Creations?’
Joseph Flahive (Cork) `Medieval Irish Annals'
Maria Kouroumali (Oxford) `Byzantine chronicles'
M. Kulikowski (Knoxville) ‘Mosaics of Time: Revisiting the Late Antique Chronicle Tradition’
Sergei Mariev (Munich) ‘John of Antioch’
Dan McCarthy (TCD), ‘The Origins of Insular World Chronicles and Their Evolution over c.425-740’
Roger Scott (Melbourne) ‘Christianization and the Limits of Tolerance: Interpreting the Late Fifth and Early Sixth Centuries from Byzantine Chronicle Trivia’

Diarmuid Scully (Cork) ‘Bede’
Frank Trombley (Cardiff) ‘Greek and Syriac Chronographic Documents on the 7th century’
Witold Witakowski (Uppsala) ‘The Syriac Chronicle of AD724’
Jamie Wood (Sheffield) ‘Time for some 'RnR': Reception and Reuse in Isidore of Seville's Chronica Maiora’

A Symposium on Horace in Honour of Margaret Hubbard: St. Anne's
College, Oxford, Saturday 17 May, 2008.

The St. Anne’s College Classics Society invites you to attend the
following event to be held in the Tsuzuki Lecture Theatre, Ruth Deech
Building, St. Anne’s College.

10.45 a.m.: Arrival and Coffee

11. 15 a.m. Greeting

11. 25 a.m. Dr. Llewelyn Morgan (Brasenose College, Oxford): ‘Odes
3. 13: The One and Only Fons Bandusiae’

12. 45 p.m. Lunch

2 p.m. Dr. Victoria Moul (Queen’s College, Oxford): ‘Horatian Genres in
Jonson and Donne’

3. 15 p.m. Tea

Those wishing to attend are asked to notify Prof. Matthew Leigh (St.
Anne’s) on matthew.leigh AT st-annes.ox.ac.uk.

There will be no charge for refreshments.

There is no registration fee for this conference, and all are welcome. However, if you are planning to attend, please notify Professor Maria Wyke (m.wyke AT ucl.ac.uk in advance, as space may be limited. A few bursaries are still available to support the costs of attendance by postgraduate students.

*CLASSICAL EMPIRES IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE *

*ONE-DAY CONFERENCE*

Friday 23 May 2008

Rm 106, Gordon House, University College London

/Sponsored by the Classical Reception Studies Network, the Institute of Classical Studies, and the Department of Greek and Latin at University College London./

Programme

10.15-10.45 Coffee



10.45-11.00 Welcome & Introduction

Maria Wyke & Chiara Thumiger (University College London)

Lorna Hardwick (Open University & CRSN)


11.00-12.30 Panel 1- Chair David Hudson (Political Science, UCL)

- ‘Reviving classical knowledge while writing about globalization’,

Richard Hingley, (University of Durham)

- ‘Writing empires: neo-liberalism and the ends of civilization’

Richard Alston (Royal Holloway, University of London)

-’Empire, States of Exception, and Iustitium. Augustus and Agamben'

Ahuvia Kahane (Royal Holloway, University of London)

12.30-2.00 Lunch Break

2.00-3.30 Panel 2 – Chair Lindsay Allen (Classics, Kings)

- ‘The last Shah at Persepolis: The Iranian use of the Persian past 1960-2007’,

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (University of Edinburgh)

- ‘Hollywood versus Ahmadinejad: conquering the east in the third-millennial western cinema’,

Edith Hall (Royal Holloway, University of London)

- ‘Xena versus the Romans: Anti-imperialism in /Xena Warrior Princess/’,

Amanda Potter (Open University)

3.30-4.00 Tea and Coffee

4.00-5.30 Panel 3 – Chair Adam I.P. Smith (American History, UCL)

- ‘Athens and America: Comparing Empires in /The New York Times/’,

Adam Goldwyn (City University of New York)

- ‘The decline and fall of the Roman empire and its place in American political discourse’

Leslie Dodd (University of Glasgow)

- ‘Greeks and Persians all over again? The intellectualisation of imperial metaphors in contemporary politics’

Naoise Mac Sweeney (University of Cambridge)

5.30-6.00 Round Table Discussion

To enroll at enroll at Montclair State University as a visiting student is a fairly simple process. For more information, see
http://www.montclair.edu/Admissions/apply.html#Visiting .

For more information on the Department of Classics and General Humanities, see http://chss.montclair.edu/classics/classics.html
For more information on Montclair State University, see http://www.montclair.edu/

SUMMER 2008; Course Dates May 19 to June 26, 2008

GNHU 285-91 (11272) Mythology. Instructor: Dr. Patricia Salzman

Dr. Patricia Salzman, of the Classics and General Humanities Department and known particularly for her work on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, will offer for the first time an online course on Greek and Roman Mythology this summer. We will study the major gods, goddesses and heroic tales of Greek and Roman myth and we will read some substantial ancient texts where these myths are transmitted. The reception of classical mythology in later times, especially in art and film will also be a component of the course. The class will run from May 19th through June 26th There are no designated “class hours” but the student will have to complete different modules by specific deadlines. If you have any questions please contact Dr. Patricia Salzman (salzmanp AT mail.montclair.edu)

FALL 2008. Course Dates Sept. 3 to Dec. 19. 2008

GNHU 320-03 (16255) Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Humanities:
Imaging Woman from the Stone Age to Barbie.
Instructor: Dr. Senta German

Senta German, of the Department of Classics and General Humanities and the Department of Art and Design will also offer for the first time online her course “Imaging Women” which looks at the representation of women in the West in various media from prehistory through the modern era. Arranged chronologically, the course focuses on core themes in women’s history shown through a variety of representative evidence. This evidence includes painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and film. Major themes include religion, mythology, authorship, the male/female gaze, sexual identity, political activism and consumer culture. This promises to be a wide-ranging and eye-opening course.

For further information, contact Dr. Senta German (germans AT mail.montclair.edu.)
If there are any questions about prerequisites, contact Dr. German or
Dr. Jean Alvares, Chair of Classics and General Humanities (alvaresj AT mail.montclair.edu)

FALL 2008. Course Dates Sept. 3 to Dec. 19. 2008

GNHU 201-11 (16255) General Humanities I. To 1400.
Instructor: Dr. Senta German

Senta German, of the Department of Classics and General Humanities and the Department of Art and Design will also offer for the first time as an online course General Humanities I. This course is a broad survey of the history, culture, literature, art and philosophy of (primarily) the Western world from the Neolithic to the early Renaissance. At Montclair State University this course fills a General Humanities requirement and has a substantial writing component. There are no designated “class hours” but the student will have to complete different course components by specific deadlines. If you have any questions concerning the course please contact Dr. Senta German (germans AT mail.montclair.edu).

We have posted a somewhat fuller version of this announcement at
http://chss2.montclair.edu/classics/Homepage/clsgenhum_online.html


For more information on the Department of Classics and General Humanities, see http://chss.montclair.edu/classics/classics.html
For more information on Montclair State University, see http://www.montclair.edu/