Book launch: Maureen Carroll (Archaeology) and Daniele Miano (Ancient History) will be launching their new books (Fortuna; Infancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman World) at Blackwells University Bookstore on Thursday, 3rd May, at 6pm
And on the same evening at 7.30pm at the Grayson Lecture Theatre at Birkdale School, Ed Bispham (Brasenose College, Oxford), will give the joint lecture of the CA and the HA on "Reconsidering the Goddess Mefitis".
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No apologies for returning to a favourite topic. If everybody still communicated through Latin in Europe, we would a lot better off! End of rant-click below to see and learn more about a fascinating new project.
If you can read Latin hexameters to a reasonable standard, this is an unmissable opportunity. Emma Kirkby is undoubtably the greatest singing English Classicists ever. I've got all her records! From vinyl LPs to the present day. The performance referred in the following communication (through email) would take place in Gloucester Cathedral. If anybody is interested, I can put you in contact:
George Sharpley writes (The LATIN QVARTER) 'I am producing a presentation of Virgil's Aeneid (abridged to about 90 minutes), telling the story of the Aeneid from start to finish, if selectively. I have a very urgent problem (!). For the first presentation (Saturday 9th June) one of my female readers has had to stand down, and as the project is in its infancy we do not yet have a pool of seasoned performers. Can you pass this message on to anyone who might be able to help? A winner of a schools' reading competition - or similar - would be an obvious candidate. As possibly their teachers! There will be four Latin readers and an English narrator linking the pieces. The new reader will team up with Emma Kirkby (soprano singer and classicist), Matthew Hargreaves and Steve Wright. We hope to have a piper adding musical accompaniment. There is a sample of a previous reading here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04w3cks If you can help or have a suggestion please let me know! Vagnari Roman Imperial Estate:The Settlement and itsMaterial CultureA Workshop on Friday 1 June 2018
University of Sheffield Jessop West G03 14:00-18:00 Since 2012, excavations by the University of Sheffield have been ongoing at Vagnari, the site of a Roman village (vicus) in south-east Italy and the core administrative and distributive centre of a rural estate acquired in the early first century A.D. by the emperor. Fieldwork here has significantly contributed to an understanding of the profit-driven Roman exploitation of the environment in ancient Apulia. Revenues were generated, in part by the emperors’ slaves, through cereal crop cultivation and viniculture, the metal industries, and the production of tile and brick. In the most recent excavation seasons, new evidence reveals that an older settlement of at least the second century B.C. was acquired and transformed into the imperial vicus, prompting us to rethink the history and development of the region following the Roman conquest of Apulia in the third century B.C. The vicus and the imperial estate flourished in the first and second centuries A.D., but by the fourth century, the settlement was no longer inhabited, and its structures were quarried for building materials for a new, smaller village that was established nearby. For more information, visit the project website The workshop aims to present the archaeological research at Vagnari in its wider context and to discuss the impact of Roman expansion in south-east Italy on the culture and economy of the region. Speakers include Alastair Small who, together with Carola Small, discovered the site of Vagnari and conducted the first phase of fieldwork at the site from 2000, and Maureen Carroll, the director of excavations at Vagnari since 2012. A key and important part of the workshop is the presentation by the relevant project specialists of the artefacts and assemblages recovered in the Sheffield excavations. The workshop brings together these specialists to foster discussion of the artefacts themselves and their significance, and to engage participants at the event in this discussion. There will be coffee/tea in the afternoon break and light refreshments at the end of the workshop. Participation in the workshop is subject to a fee of £15; Roman Society members pay a discounted fee of £10. If you wish to attend the conference, please complete the registration form on the Online Store. University of Sheffield Online Store Queries can be directed to Maureen Carroll ([email protected]). Wednesday 18 April 2018
4:30pm, Seminar Room, Humanities Research Institute 34 Gell Street, S3 7QY For Sheffield CA Members (If you would like to join the Sheffield branch of the Classical Association, please contact Peter Hulse)
On Saturday afternoon, Alumni, and Alumnae of the Classics and Ancient History Department of the University of Sheffield (and many other interested parties) gathered together to reminiscence and swop memories of the time when Greeks and Romans held sway on Floor 7 of the Arts Tower (not HR) and the 'Pater Noster' lift was used by people who really understood what the words meant. This joyful occasion-many interesting stories were told and exchanged-was organised and facilitated by Dr. Daniele Miano to whom the greatest thanks are owed (omnes gratias maxumas -note the early form-agimus).
Payne (or sometimes Fitzpayne) Fisher (known in Latin as Paganus Piscator) – of whom sadly no image survives – was Oliver Cromwell’s unofficial Latin laureate. Here is an extract from Fisher’s ‘breakthrough’ hit, Marston Moor (printed in 1650). Fisher had fought at the battle of Marston Moor on the losing royalist side and in 1647 he was probably fairly recently out of prison, casting around for support and patronage in the political climate: This describes an historical event—the unseasonable weather at the battle of Marston Moor on 2 July 1650, when a summer storm caused confusion on the battlefield. The Scottish forces, fleeing in confusion amid the slaughter, are stopped, and the fortunes of the day reversed, only by the arrival of Cromwell himself: Anfractus vacuas, & hiulci Fragmina Campi Adductis reparauit Equis; per mille cohortes Perrumpens, mediaeque terens glomeramina Turmae. Na´mque globos Legionum, & concurrentia rupit Agmina, vulnificos gradiens intactus ad Enses, Atque per Imbriferi displosa tonitrua Plumbi. Turriger innumeris Elephas sic cinctus ab Armis Erigitur, spumı´sque Irae furialibus undans Ferrea nodoso regerit venabula dorso Toruus, et Obstantes Bellantum proterit hastas. He restored the ravaged horns, and the wreck of the cleft plain With horses that he brought in, forcing his way through a thousand companies And restoring to ordered smoothness the small groups of men of the middle squadron. For he burst the spheres of the Legions and the ranks of men Rushing together, stepping intact to the wound-bearing swords, And right through the bursting thunder of the shower-bearing Lead. Like a tower-bearing Elephant girded with innumerable weapons He draws himself up, seething with foaming fury Throws off the iron hunting spears from his knotty back And ferociously tramples the spears of the warriors in his way. Read more about this undeservedly little-known 17th Neo-Latin poet here. As an accomplished Latinist Payne Fisher would have undoubtedly contributed to the Save Classics at High Storrs fund. You can do the same here. Just a reminder about our spring Classical Association talk next Wednesday:
7 March, 5 for 5:30pm at the HRI (see events 2017-18 for details) Judith Mossman (Coventry), ‘Plutarch and the Roman Triumph’ |
Sheffield branch of the Classical Association, founded in 1920
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