Dear members of the Sheffield Classical Association community,
Despite the chill in the air and the leaves turning, the autumn is a time for new beginnings - including a new rich programme of events in Sheffield for those of us with classical interests. Our CA-sponsored speakers this year include Hella Eckardt speaking about Roman literacy and Judith Mossman discussing Plutarch, but the first talk of interest is on 11 October: Sandra Wheeler from the University of Central Florida), speaking about infants and children in Romano-Christian Egypt.
You can find a list of the Sheffield CA events for 2017-18 as well as other classical-themed talks attached or on our website.
The autumn is also when we collect subscriptions from renewing and new members alike. There will be an opportunity to do this in person at the first CA talk on 25 October but if you would prefer you can complete the attached form and send it to Peter Hulse, our branch Secretary. 


Yours with best wishes,
Jane Rempel
Sheffield CA Branch President

 Well, the answer is "No", or at least, he didn't write about it. How do we know? A quick way is to use this website, which searches the whole of surviving Latin literature ( Click the graphic to find out more ).

If you type the Latin word 'Tugurium', 'shed' ( I owe knowledge of this word to Richard Kerton of the U3A Sheffield Latin group). These are the results that you get:

The word is only used 10 times in Latin literature and while Cicero does use the word once, he never claims that he had one!
Peter Hulse

To follow in the tracks of Aeneas, click the buttons on the left hand side.

Florilegia have a long pedigree in literature history. Perhaps two of the most famous are first, the one gathered together by Stobaeus of Stobi, whose Latin title actually was Florilegium and then, of course, the famous Anthology Palatine, without which we would have little or no knowledge of the large body of ancient Greek Poetry known as the epigram.
It is good to know that such collections have survived into the digital age. One might rephrase the title of this piece: floreant florilegia digitalia! Perhaps the most influential is this one:

which is currently setting the standard for how Classical texts should be presented on-line but there is also it's sister site, which has some pleasing American elements to it:

Time for a Sheffield contribution, I think. While I don't know of any Latin written in or about the city (does anyone know differently?), Greek and Latin have been taught here since, and probably before, 1736 (see previous post and also this link pp. 13ff.) and it behoves us to bring Studia Escafeldensia Latina also into the digital age. With that end in view, the foundation stones of this collection have been laid:

We invite criticism, comment and even perhaps collaboration and contributions! It is very much an on-going work in progress.
​Peter Hulse 

A Latin proverb about holding a wolf by the ears and about danger. "Latin proverbs and expressions in 30 seconds or less" is a quick way of learning clever expressions to sprinkle your Latin conversations with. For more information about the proverb, how to use it and maybe some curiosities, visit: https://www.latinitium.com/latinprove...

1. AURIBUS TENEO LUPUMIt might seem odd to say that you’re "holding a wolf by the ears," but auribus teneo lupum--a line taken from Phormio (c.161BC), a work by the Roman playwright Terence—was once a popular proverb in Ancient Rome. Like "holding a tiger by the tail," it is used to describe an unsustainable situation, and in particular one in which both doing nothing and doing something to resolve it are equally risky.

This is a papyrus of part of Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica and I think there's a new reading lurking in it. If you look at the fourth line up, over on the right hand side, there is, what amounts to, a note in the margin, which can only be an alternative version of the line: It's –πην, a different case of a word in the transmitted text and the remains of a letter μ. I'm very excited because I'm going to see it 'face-to-face' next week in Manchester! Things might become clearer. The text of the Argonautica remains doubtful in many places, and papyri like this one warn us against over-confidence that we know exactly what an ancient author actually wrote in his text. Also, there is stuff written on the other side of this ms. and I can't, at the moment, find any reference to it in the scholarly literature. It seems to be Greek of a sort, together with a drawing of a small face! More anon maybe, when I've seen it.
​Peter Hulse