Session 3

Alexander’s Scottishness: The Reception and Popularity of Alexander the Great in Premodern Scotland

Valerie Gruenzel (University of St Andrews)

Even though Alexander the Great appears in numerous medieval Scottish romances, chronicles, advisory texts, shorter poems, plays, and ceiling decorations, his popularity in premodern Scotland has received little scholarly attention.This paper will therefore firstly offer a brief overview of the contexts within which Alexander appears in the literature and material culture of premodern Scotland. This overview will then contextualize a discussion of Sir Gilbert Hay’s Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour (c.1460), a romance of 19,000 lines which makes use of an array of Old French, Older Scots, and Latin sources, which in turn draw on the Greek Alexander romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes. The discussion of the romance will focus on the ways in which Gilbert Hay adapted and altered both the historical Alexander, and the literary figure of Alexander in the medieval tradition. It will demonstrate that Gilbert Hay created a version of Alexander that was tailored to the interests and concerns of his patrons, while also responding to broader political concerns in Scotland. Gilbert Hay’s version of Alexander therefore also highlights the characteristics of the historical Alexander that allowed his figure to gain such popularity in premodern Scotland.

Paper

Exploring the companions of Alexander the Great in the Coptic Alexander Romance tradition

Isabel Hood (N/A)

The fragmentary surviving Sahidic Coptic Alexander Romance codex leaves from Egypt include some near identical content to key episodes from the Greek Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, but otherwise have huge content differences from any other known tradition. One such major deviation concerns Alexander’s companions.In the surviving Sahidic Coptic Alexander Romance paper codex leaves Alexander’s companions are Selpharios, Diatrophe and Menander. These are not the companions from any other known version of the Alexander Romance, or of the historical Alexander. Who these companions are, how they relate to the Alexander Romance, and just how ahistorical they are has long been a puzzle, with Menander particularly debated.These companions of Alexander are entirely unattributed elsewhere by name, other than on a rarely discussed Sahidic Coptic papyrus fragment of mixed content and uncertain provenance in Moscow, which is not part of the Alexander Romance codex. Other sources may also relate. A writing palette with a fragmentary Coptic text relating to Alexander and companions, and an Arabic Alexander story.While small in number, between them, these largely rarely discussed literary sources point towards a potential wider shared literary tradition for Alexander’s companions, and of Alexander himself, in Egypt that is different from elsewhere.

Paper

From East to West: The Legend of Alexander

Benedetta Muccioli (Albert Ludwigs Universität)

This study investigates the legacy of Alexander the Great at the intersection of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, focusing on the transmission and transformation of his image through key textual traditions. In 960, Leo the Archpriest traveled to Constantinople under orders from Duke John III of Campania, where he encountered a copy of the Alexander Romance attributed to the Pseudo- Callisthenes. Upon returning to Naples, Leo translated the text into Latin as the Historia de Preliis. In the Historia, Alexander emerges as a dual figure, embodying both heroic and hubristic qualities. On one hand, as an alter ego of Heracles, he undertakes the role of a world re-organizer. On the other, he defies both human and divine boundaries, venturing into realms forbidden to mortals. Within a Christian framework, Alexander’s role as a world conqueror is reinterpreted: he is seen as one who completes the process of creation, bridging heaven and earth and assuming a mediating position between the two realms.The main objective of this paper is to examine how Alexander the Great’s legacy evolved within Christian thought, particularly as a figure that straddles moral boundaries and acts as a liminal force between the divine and the earthly realms.

Paper

Cows, and dogs, and horses, oh my!: Human-Animal Relationships in Gallo-Roman Votives

Christiane-Marie Cantwell (University of Cambridge)

This paper, using votive, zooarchaeological, and textual evidence, argues that human-animal relationships in Gaul changed under Roman rule, reflecting long-term transformations in the province’s socio-economic structures. By analyzing the distribution of animal votives in Roman Gaul from 50 BCE to 250 CE, I argue that the types of animal statuettes differ between urban and rural sanctuaries, with dogs and horses dominating the former and bovines the latter. Further, while animal dedications disappear from urban sanctuaries around the mid-first century CE, they appear in rural sites at this time. Zooarchaeological evidence corroborates this shift, with animal sacrificial remains moving from horses and dogs to bovines in the early first century, a transformation mirrored in primary sources. This highlights possible changes in the hierarchy of human-animal relations in Roman Gaul, progressively prioritizing animals-as-farm-labourers over animals-as-guardians. This reveals that resources, at least in ritual, were increasingly allocated to agriculture in Roman Gaul, suggesting significant socio-economic transformations in the first century CE, from urban to rural concerns, revealing the long-term impact of imperial control on the region, past the direct effect of conquest.

Workshop

Animalizing the Enemy in Florus’ Epitome: A Conceptual Metaphor Approach

Connor Hickey (University of St Andrews)

This paper explores the use of animal metaphors in Florus’ Epitome. Focusing on Florus’ narratives of subaltern insubordination, I consider how Roman conceptions of military conquest were intimately tied to notions of ‘taming unruly animals’. Metaphorical associations between ‘barbarians’ and ‘wild animals’ were a frequent literary topos of Greco-Roman historiography. In Latin, this topos was often expressed through the language of ‘domestication’, that is, words predominantly associated with ‘taming animals’ being applied also to ‘conquering’ non-Romans (e.g. domo). Such language suggests that, at a conceptual level, the Romans perceived military conquest as akin to ‘domesticating wildness’ (i.e. CONQUEST IS TAMING). This paper offers a close reading of animalization metaphors in Florus’ prose, utilizing the critical models of Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a basis for discussion. I argue that, by perceiving military conquest as akin to ‘domesticating wildness’, Florus and his contemporaries could frame non-Romans as ‘unruly animals’, governed by irrational instincts, and predisposed towards recurrent resistance. Moreover, I stress how such discourse not only serviced in delegitimizing subaltern resistance, but also influenced Rome’s practical policies in ‘addressing’ provincial unrest. Overall, my paper provides fresh perspective on how the imagery of animals was exercised as a means of dehumanizing subaltern groups.

Paper

Purging Mania: Epicurean Metaphors of Cognitive Restoration in Vergil’s Georgics

Stephen Kershner (Austin Peay State University)

Vergil’s animal metaphors in the Georgics (e.g., the Beehive of 4.66-227) offer a exploration of Epicurean philosophical therapeutics, particularly regarding erotic desire and its effect upon cognitive states. This paper argues that the Mare in Heat episode (3.266-83) and its intertextuality with Lucretius’ screed against love in DRN 4 (1058-1287) reveal an Epicurean approach to treating excessive erotic desire as a form of mental disease that combines material and psychological properties.By examining the furor equarum (i.e., estrus) where mares experience “burning” (flamma amoris) and recklessness, Vergil develops a metaphor for cognitive dysfunction. The mare’s madness, culminating in impregnation by the Zephyr and the expulsion of hippomanes from her uterus, mirrors Lucretius’ description of love’s negative effects and the Epicurean therapy of “purging” disruptive psychological states.Drawing on Lucretius’ critique of love and analysis of cognitive disruption caused by delusive “wet dreams” (4.962-1036), I demonstrate how both poets conceptualize excessive erotic desire as material disease to be therapeutically managed. The purging of procreative fluids emerges as a philosophical therapy for the excision of bodily disturbance, which in turn caused mental disease. Vergil’s prescription for purging the diseased fluids causing mania demonstrates the effectiveness of Epicureanism’s emphasis on internal balance.

Paper

A Menagerie of Madness: Examining the Empathetic Portrayal of Interspecies Encounters and Animal Suffering in Statius’ Thebaid

Hector Tapia (University of California, Davis)

My paper challenges anthropocentrism and rethinks Statius’ use of animals throughout the Thebaid. Despite the attempts to address Statius’ animals, the scholarship is not concerned with the animals themselves so much as it is with how they function as symbols, highlight aspects of the human psyche, or serve as a backdrop for human identity. My study, therefore, addresses this gap by reading Statius’ animals qua animal. Statius’ empathetic portrayals of animal encounters not only underscore the foundation of madness on which the epic rests but they also force us to reconsider human exceptionalism. This post-humanist approach reveals new perspectives regarding two central concerns for readers of the Thebaid: its idea of madness and treatment of the natural world. I explore the two animal worlds that exist within the Thebaid’s narrative structure: the external metaphorical world of animal similes and the internal world of human and non-human animal encounters. These passages that have been either overlooked, reduced to symbolism, or rendered into markers of intertextual poetics, can offer us a reflection of the power dynamics shared between non-human animals and humans as they were experienced in antiquity and make us rethink what we owe non-human animals.

Paper

[Virgil] on sale. The “Appendix Vergiliana” and the Roman book market

Nicolò Campodonico (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (Italy))

In addition to Virgil’s authentic works, manuscripts have transmitted several poems attributed to him, collectively known as the Appendix Vergiliana. Scholars have argued that some were deliberately composed to resemble Virgil’s style and be received as his, while others were later attributed to him. This study explores how the Roman book market may have fostered the composition and circulation of such texts. Several poems present themselves as youthful works: the Culex as a lusus before more ambitious poems for Augustus; the Ciris as Virgil’s rudimenta; and the epigrams of Catalepton as his elementa. Roman authors such as Lucan, Martial, and Statius referenced these as early, lesser works of a great poet. Such references suggest a learned Roman audience interested in this kind of literature—essentially poetic fanfiction. The active book trade likely supported this demand. Martial (1.113) notes that even early poems he had disowned were still sold, showing the readers’ interest in juvenile compositions. Given reports of Virgil’s autographs circulating (Gell. 2.3.5), it is plausible that works falsely attributed to him were sold as genuine. Anonymous poems with Virgilian features, such as the Moretum or Copa, may have been rebranded under his name to ensure scholarly appeal and commercial success.

Paper

Dreams of Ovid: Forged Authorship and the Blurring of Ovidian Identity in Amores 3.5

Elena Castelnuovo (University of Trento)

The spurious works attributed to Ovid have traditionally been overlooked or studied in isolation. However, recent scholarship, including the 2020 edition of the Appendix Ovidiana by Ralph Hexter, Laura Pfuntner, and Justin Haynes, has revealed their relevance despite—or due to—their non-canonical status. This paper examines how pseudonymous practices destabilise fixed notions of authorship, using Amores 3.5, also known as Somnium (“The Dream”), as a case study. In the poem, the narrator recounts a dream in which a heifer and bull rest in a peaceful scene, before a crow strikes the heifer, who later joins other bulls—an omen of the infidelity of Ovid’s lover. After arguing that the poem is not authentically Ovidian, I explore how the Somnium constructs a complex authorial persona, creating mirrored reflections of Ovid’s identity. I will situate the Somnium within the broader context of pseudo-Ovidian texts. These works engage playfully with authorial identity, presenting Ovid as fragmented and reimagined. By examining these forged authorship mechanisms, I will offer insights into how pseudo-Ovidian texts interact with the fluid persona of Ovid in his authentic elegies. This study contributes to the broader discussion of fluid authorship in Latin literature.

Paper

When texts lie, are we deceived? Hyperbole and truth in Latin poetry

Rachel Philbrick (University of British Columbia)

This paper examines the issue of the authority of text/author by considering a scenario in which texts “lie,” specifically through the rhetorical device of hyperbole. In his remarks about hyperbole, Quintilian distinguishes between lying and deception: “it is enough to remind [readers] that hyperbole lies, but not in such a way that it aims to deceive with its falsehood” (monere satis est mentiri hyperbolen, nec ita ut mendacio fallere velit, I.O. 8.6.74). This paper considers the distinction between these terms, their applicability to poetic texts, and the role of reader reception in assessing the author as a liar. A comparative example is provided by two uses, by Vergil and by Ovid, of the same hyperbole: the detail that wine freezes in Scythia (Verg. Georg. 3.364, identified by Servius as hyperbole, and Ovid, Tr. 3.10.23–24).

Paper

Frankensteining the Canon. The composite truth of pseudepigraphal texts

Sandro La Barbera (University of Trento)

Discourse on Latin pseudepigrapha has been traditionally conducted from the point of view of each one critic analyzing each one work or corpus prompting questions about its authenticity, typically with the goal of either confirming it or expunging what has not been confirmed to be genuine.While recent scholarship has indeed reignited the interest in studying authorial impersonation as a productive phenomenon deserving interest regardless of authentication or expunction, nevertheless the approach has mostly remained one that considers one text at a time, each in its own specificity or at least within the bounds of the corpus, genre, or manuscripts in which it (allegedly)belongs. All in all, that of pseudepigrapha remains a field of case studies.In this paper I propose a different approach whereby texts belonging in different corpora, authentic or otherwise, are rather made to resound with each other and read together as they generate questions about their authenticity. By synoptically looking at different texts that have elicited suspicion or warranted expunction, I address the similarities of situations arising from such different texts and investigate patterns whereby these construe, mimic, or altogether forge authorial personalities while also dodging (or perhaps highlighting?) the inconsistencies deriving from their own idiosyncrasies.

Paper

Mother, Maiden, Crone: Magic and Classical Reception from Ancient Greece to the Present Day

Caitlin Yool (University of Aberdeen)

Paper cancelled

We Are Amused: Historical Accuracy and Cultural Authenticity in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II

Alice Rae (University of Edinburgh)

From the initial trailer release, Gladiator II divided audiences and sparked debate among scholars. Within the field of Classics, such debate has centred around the issue of historical accuracy. These discussions have raised concerns with the portrayal of 2nd century Rome, often citing historical sources to criticise the accuracy of the plot, characterisation, and set designs. However, such debates have often favoured a purely historical comparison and less frequently explored these concerns from a classical reception perspective. This paper therefore reconsiders some of the key concerns which have been raised with regards to historical accuracy from the perspective of film studies and classical reception, drawing on methodology from these wider fields, as well as exclusive interviews from prop designers of the film. Focussing on the animal combat scenes, this paper will offer an inter-disciplinary discussion of ‘spectacle’ in the ancient world and how this is translated to a modern, visual, audience.This paper therefore suggests that while aspects of the film are, undoubtedly, historically anachronistic or fictional, rather than a failure to accurately represent the historical record, such artistic decisions can be seen to portray a deeper historical authenticity to a 21st century audience.

Paper

The Chain of Guilt: The Genetic Opera

Yona Siero (Radboud University Nijmegen)

The Chain of Guilt: The Genetic OperaYona Siero, MA, the NetherlandsThe chain of guilt as presented in Aischylos’ Agamemnon, is equally present in modern media as ‘masked’ classical reception. Working from a single example, I will discuss the chain of guilt in Agamemnon, and the 2008 movie Repo! The Genetic Opera.In Aischylos’ tragedy, Agamemnon has inherited the sins of his ancestor Tantalos. When Agamemnon returns from the Trojan war, he is killed by Klytaimnestra. This results in Orestes having to choose between: not avenging his father or killing his mother. In Repo! the Largo family rents out organs. When customers cannot pay a repo man recollects the organs, thereby killing the bearers. The sins of Rotti Largo have caused the disturbing nature of his children. Consequently Rotti instead appoints Shilo Wallace as his heir. Shilo, like Orestes, has to decide whether or not to kill a parent, and perpetuate the chain of guilt. The chain of guilt that is passed on in Agamemnon and Repo! is rooted in moral transgressions and family ties, and both deserve our attention. These depictions showcase the theme’s importance throughout ancient and modern times, and the ‘masked’ classical reception by Repo!.

Paper

Neoptolemos Downunder

Babette Puetz (Victoria University of Wellington)

Ken Catran’s 1995 YA novel Neo’s War is a time-slip narration, in which New Zealand teenager Neo is shown to experience the final days of the Trojan War as the hero Neoptolemus from ancient myth. Like his ancient counterpart, Neo is a young man personally affected by war who learns to resist manipulation. By juxtaposing Neo’s experiences in 1990s New Zealand and during the Trojan War, this novel demonstrates how a historical children’s novel can be employed to depict the character development of its young protagonist, as the readers can follow him working through the ethical consequences of wars.This paper will look at the ways in which the author rationalises parts of the myth of the Trojan War to suit his purposes as a Young Adult fiction writer, at the ancient sources and characters he draws on and re-interprets and at the effect of Catran’s allusions to stylistic elements of ancient Greek epics. It will ask in how far Neo fits the model of a typical protagonist in children’s historical fiction written in New Zealand at the end of the 20th century, with a look at pity as a catalyst for a hero’s maturation.

Paper

Homer’s Legacy: A Workshop Discussion on Disabled People and Ableism in Classics

Alexandra F Morris (University of Lincoln and University of Nottingham), Jason C. Morris (Independent Scholar) , Jackie Bither (Newcastle Univesity)

In recent years, there have been several reports and publications on the state of inclusivity in Classical Pedagogy. However, publications and public discussions focused on the disabled community and ableism remain comparatively rare and disabled led conversations rarer still. In light of recent political changes taking place worldwide, CripAntiquity, as the academic body representing disabled people in the field, is organizing this workshop led by disabled scholars to initiate conversation on the topic. Convenors will present general information on the presence of disabilities and disabled scholars in the field including their own experiences as disabled scholars. In doing so, they will also ask one another questions intended to explore common themes and experiences amongst disabled people. Secondly, convenors will break participants into working groups to discuss having disabled students in the classroom and challenges facing disabled scholars in the field. Finally, the conveners from CripAntiquity will gather groups together to draw out common threads, and establish general questions needing to be answered. Where possible, the leaders will also attempt to answer questions from participants. This round table is intended as the first step in gathering information for a formal report on disability for presentation to the CA, CUCD, and SCS.

Workshop

Madison Grant’s Nordic Greco-Romans & The Nexus between Classics, White Supremacy, and Fascism

Jonathan Granirer (University of St Andrews)

Recently, scholars have highlighted how far-right groups in the USA use the cultural currency of Classical antiquity to further their political objectives. However, this scholarship lacks historical context before the 2010s. This paper advances a more robust history of this phenomenon by using Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916) as a case study to elucidate the relationship between Classics and extreme right-wing politics. This book popularised the theory of nordicism in the USA, which stipulates that the Nordic race is uniquely suited to create and sustain civilisation. Grant advances his argument with many references to Greco-Roman civilisation, which he depicts as rising because of influxes of Nordic migrants and falling due to intermarriage with non-Nordics. By framing antiquity in these racialised terms, Grant uses Greco-Roman history to justify his white supremacist political agenda. This book was instrumental in the passing of racist legislation in the USA, and it continues to be salient among far-right groups today. The book was also highly influential in Germany and was listed as recommended reading by the Nazi party. Further, Grant’s politicisation of Classical antiquity has parallels with many 20th-century Classicists, who likewise furnished racist and eugenicist readings of Greco-Roman history.

Paper

The Poetics of Autocracy: Fascism, Language and the Roman Past in Anacleto Trazzi’s Augustalia

Consuelo Martino (University of Edinburgh), Nicolas Wiater (University of St Andrews)

In 1937, the Fascist regime launched the ‘Mostra Augustea della Romanità’. Gerarchi and party members produced literary and historical works on ancient Rome to that effect. Even Mussolini himself, collaborating with Giovacchino Forzano, produced a play about Julius Caesar (Cesare). However, prominent party members were not the only ones to participate in this reinterpretation of the past. In 1938, Anacleto Trazzi, a Catholic priest from Mantua, published the epic poem Augustalia. The poem, written in Latin, appropriated the rise of Rome and the victories of Caesar and Augustus in the civil wars as a lens to praise Mussolini’s supposed re-establishment of empire in 1936. Trazzi was never actively involved with the regime. Nevertheless, his poem is imbued with Fascist rhetoric and thought, cast in the language of Classical Latin poetry. Our paper will examine how Trazzi drew on ancient history, literature and language to create a vision of the Roman past, and a concomitant ‘classical-fascist’ literary aesthetics, that supported the regime’s propaganda. Shifting the focus from the famous representatives of the fascist reception of antiquity, the paper explores the less prominent, decentralised production of the Fascist appropriation of Roman past.

Paper

Commemorating Augustus in 1930s Poland and Hungary: the political and the cultural

Penelope Goodman (University of Leeds)

The Augustan bimillennial celebrations held in Fascist Italy in 1937-38 have been well studied, but a parallel corpus of over 200 events outside Italy are all but unknown to scholarship. This weakens our understanding of the Italian agenda, and of the reasons why non-Italians also wished to commemorate Augustus at this time. This paper examines the bimillennial events held in Poland and Hungary as contrasting case studies. Both countries had long histories of humanistic engagement with antiquity and powerful ties with Italy through Catholicism, but very different relationships with Germany in the 1930s. Their engagement with the bimillennium was substantial, consisting of thirteen events in Poland, six in Hungary, and multiple academic publications and newspaper articles. These exemplify a broad range of commemorators, motivations and perspectives, including Italians pursuing soft power, locals seeking to ingratiate themselves with Fascist Italy, locals engaging with Augustus on a cultural level and some willing to criticise Mussolini and Fascism. The paper will explore the impact of Poland and Hungary’s differing political circumstances on their engagement with Augustus, and the extent to which those who believed they were commemorating Augustus on a purely cultural level unwittingly furthered the agendas of those with explicitly political goals.​

Paper

Building an Alternative Olympia: A Writing-Back to Riefenstahl’s Ancient Nazis in Kazantzakis’ Prometheus the Fire-Bringer

Anna Coopey (University of St Andrews)

From 1940 to 1944, Greece was under a triple occupation of Fascist Italian, Nazi German, and collaborationist Bulgarian troops. It was the Nazi occupation, however, that loomed largest in the Greek collective imagination, just as the Nazi flag loomed over the Acropolis – and the Nazis did not restrict themselves to a physical occupation, either. In Nazi propaganda, it has been widely shown how they conducted an extreme form what Gay (1974) has called “Western” “cultural colonisation”, taking the ancient Greek world and adopting it to push a eugenicist and fascist agenda, and adopting classical Hellenes as ancestors of the “Aryan race”, their illustrious “Nordic” predecessors.Nikos Kazantzakis wrote his Prometheus trilogy in the summer of 1943. This paper argues that Kazantzakis is directly writing back against Nazi eugenicist uses of Prometheus in his choice to write a Prometheus-centric play cycle under occupation, and that he is more specifically writing back against the distillation of Nazi eugenicist policy as evident in Riefenstahl’s film. Within this, it is evident how the language and cultural currency of fascism can be wrested back – both for the cause of anti-fascism, and for the cause of Greek nationalism under a brutal military occupation.

Paper

AI and the Humanities: Transforming Education Across Disciplines

Eleni Bozia (University of Florida)

Recent academic debates about Artificial Intelligence have focused on its challenges, such as maintaining academic integrity and its impact on education. However, AI also presents transformative opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. This paper explores a model where AI bridges disciplines, fostering collaboration while addressing academic challenges. The Data-Driven Humanities Research Group at the University of Florida engages undergraduates from diverse fields to analyze ancient Greek and Latin texts through socio-cultural and political lenses. Computer science students develop language models, classics students interpret original texts, and social scientists extract cultural insights. Each discipline offers unique contributions, converging through the power of AI.This approach enriches learning:STEM students learn data curation and ethical AI development.Humanities students reaffirm their field’s relevance by contributing to AI-driven research and serving as content experts.Social sciences and other disciplines access new tools to analyze previously inaccessible data.Yet, several challenges persist. Departmental structures and limited support for interdisciplinary efforts hinder progress. Faculty face conflicts between departmental expectations and cross-disciplinary demands, emphasizing the need for structural change.To enable such initiatives, universities must embrace collaboration and institutional support. Our model demonstrates how interdisciplinarity can reshape education, empowering students to become lifelong learners and contributors to society.

Workshop

Conversing with the Ancients: Using Generative AI to enhance learning in the Classics classroom

Eleanor Jenkins (Howell’s School GDST)

Sing, O Muse, of the future where ancient wisdom and modern technology converge, creating a harmonious symphony of learning. With apologies to Homer, AI wrote this opening sentence, weaving words with the precision of the gods.The increasing availability of Generative AI (GenAI) applications, such as ChatGPT, is revolutionizing education, sparking widespread debate on how educators can cultivate students’ critical and analytical skills. To engage students and allow them to gain greater insight into the ancient world, the ability of GenAI to mimic historical characters is very powerful. Examples will be provided for Key Stages 3, 4, and 5, related to examination specifications and learning texts. Practical tips and examples, supported by student feedback, will demonstrate the increasing scope of GenAI, and the ways in which this type of activity can be structured.This workshop will examine the literature surrounding GenAI in education along with discussion of the ways in which AI can streamline teaching practices. The mitigation of risks around ethical and data privacy issues will be addressed, and possible solutions and policies suggested. The workshop will not focus on any specific platform but will look at some of the wide range of platforms available to teachers and students.

Workshop

Inclusive Pedagogies in Practice: Comparing Digital Tools for Learning Latin

Katherine McLardy (Xavier College)

This paper explores ways to use digital technologies in the Latin classroom, presenting research conducted as part of an action research project on Inclusive Pedagogies. This project focused on supporting student engagement and academic progress in the Latin classroom for all students. The paper investigates how using three digital tools – Education Perfect, Wordwall, and Blooket – affected student engagement and academic progress in a cohort of fourteen-year-old boys, including several with diagnosed learning needs. Using this tools, the project sought to leverage the interest of students in the cohort in computer gaming to enhance their learning experience, and was conducted collaboratively with the students as an opportunity for them to have a voice in their own learning experience in the Latin classroom. In this paper, the interesting tension between what students thought was most effective for their learning and what the digital data shows was most effective will be unpacked. Through exploring the data collected during this project, I aim to provide insight into which tools worked best for supporting both neurotypical and neurodiverse students in the Latin classroom to maximise student academic progress and engagement.

Paper

Classics teaching and AI

Athina Mitropoulos (Queen’s Gate School)

Many are considering the benefits and dangers of turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their teaching and learning. Classics teachers are doubtless following this trend, experimenting with ways in which this can complement and enhance our teaching practice. In this discussion, I will focus on using AI for assessment, extension, scaffolding and supporting pupils with special educational needs or disabilities or who have English as an additional language. The focus will be on the teaching of Latin, Classical Civilisation and Ancient History in KS3 through to A-level. I will explore a range of AI platforms that have proved beneficial in the classroom.

Workshop

Sibling Rivalry and Civic Discord. The myth of Eteocles and Polynices in Greek tragedy and the dynamics of the democratic polis

Vasiliki Kotini (Zayed University)

The paper discusses Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes and Euripides’ Phoenissae, two plays centered on the myth of the rivalry between Oedipus’ sons, which culminates in mutual fratricide, and performed nearly sixty years apart. By addressing the depiction of the sibling bond in each work, the paper examines the rendering of the mythical story and argues that the tragic myth not only reflects the political and social realities of Athens, but also functions as a political manifesto, offering, in each iteration, a code of ethics and a guide for civic conduct for the citizens of the polis. While juxtaposing the contrasting treatments of the myth and highlighting their intertextual relation, the paper contends that in the aftermath of the Persian wars, Seven against Thebes presents the rapture of the sibling bond as a non-negotiable act of ultimate sacrifice. In contrast, Euripides’ Phoenissae, written against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian conflict, revisits the myth responding directly to Aeschylus’ version. In the fatal clash between the two brothers, the poet now sees the rise of individual ambition at the expense of the democratic polis, and his tragic play becomes a bitter commentary on the madness of civil war.

Paper

Sophocles’ Ajax in the shade of Bacchylides: reversal of fortunes, frustrated hopes, and epinician intertextuality

Alessio Ranno (Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa))

This paper contributes to the ongoing exploration of the early reception of Archaic/Classical choral lyric in Greek drama, by offering new insights into their pervasive role in shaping nuanced interpretations of tragic plays. Specifically, it examines the reception of epinician poetry in Sophocles’ Ajax, where Pindaric reminiscences and allusions in the choral parodos have already been compellingly analysed by scholars. Building on this critical foundation, the paper argues that the reception of epinician poetry in the tragedy extends beyond the parodos, constituting a more pervasive feature of intertextual interaction. In particular, it contends that this engagement is not confined to Pindaric intertextuality, but also involves a sophisticated dialogue with the other major voice of the genre: Bacchylides.Focusing primarily on Ajax’s Trugrede (646-692) and the second stasimon of the play (693-718), the analysis highlights the influence of Bacchylides’ Epinician 13, an Aeginetan ode whose mythical narrative centers on Ajax’s heroic exploits during the Trojan war. This intertextual engagement draws on thematic and discursive elements, as well as shared imagery, that are central to Bacchylides’ narrative: reflections on the unexpected, the vicissitudes of fortune (linked to gnomai about time and natural cycles), and the ultimate frustration of human hopes.

Paper

Temporal Folds and Ruptures in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon: A Materialist Reading

Adity Singh (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal)

This paper examines how Aeschylus employs complex temporal structures in Agamemnon to develop a sophisticated critique of wealth and power. Close readings of key episodes reveal how the play’s intricate layering of time serves to demystify the curse on the House of Atreus. Rather than presenting the curse as mere fate, Aeschylus portrays it as emerging from concrete acts embedded within material conditions of power, with each transgression of measure creating temporal folds that harbour future ruptures. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s conception of historical time, the paper explores how Agamemnon weaves together multiple temporal modes: linear historical time, a heterogeneous time laden with collective memory and suppressed voices, and moments of crisis where these temporalities suddenly converge. These temporal folds create spaces where marginalised voices—from the murmurs of the common people to prophetic utterances—can emerge to challenge dominant narratives. The resulting ruptures indicate that cycles of violence and retribution are rooted in tangible material conditions rather than divine necessity. This materialist reading illuminates both Aeschylus’ sophisticated dramatic technique and the way Agamemnon meditates on the intertwined relationships among economic excess, moral transgression, and collective justice—a meditation that continues to resonate with contemporary concerns about wealth, power, and justice.

Paper

A Euripidean Prequel: Paracomedy in the Songs of Helen and Alcestis

Maggie Tighe (Oxford University)

Paracomedy, the appropriation of comic elements within tragedy, is an area of research that has been overlooked in favour of the more explicit technique of paratragedy. Looking beyond generic appropriation in comedy will allow us to begin to understand the truly reciprocal and collaborative way ancient drama interacted. The comic elements in Euripidean drama were first noted in antiquity and investigated further in recent decades, although often limited to spoken episodes. The songs, one of the most integral features of performing a tragedy, are saturated in previously unobserved paracomedy. Euripides’ innovative compositional style is the perfect foundation through which to experiment with the technique of paracomedy. Helen (412 BCE) features a narrative structure entirely defined by its paracomic music and provides us with a wealth of information regarding Euripidean paracomedy. However, this was not confined to the tragedian’s later career. Similarities have been previously drawn between the plots of Alcestis (438 BCE) and Helen due to their generic ambiguities, often labelled ‘tragicomic.’ However, an intertextual relationship between them has not been previously investigated. Through analysis of their musical performances, I propose that Alcestis, as Euripides’ earliest extant attempt at paracomedy, is a precursor to the later Helen.

Paper

Duelling Adelphoi: Fifth Century Musical Competition and Performance Contexts in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes

Lauren Heilman (University of Birmingham)

The 5th century Homeric Hymn to Hermes provides intriguing insights into both the organology of the chelys lyre and the agonistic performance contexts in which the instrument was likely to have been played. The composer of the HHermes exemplifies 5th century musical competition in three chief ways: 1) depicting accurate methodology for creating and playing the chelys [tortoiseshell lyre] as has been demonstrated by modern reconstructionists [Bélis; Roberts] 2) employing the metapoetic leitmotif of youths singing at symposia 3) and providing an unusual view of the duel between lyre and pipes that has not yet been explored thoroughly in scholarship. The competition inherent within the Hymn to Hermes between sibling deities Hermes and Apollo expands to ongoing 5th c. musical rivalry between the lyre and aulos, as well as the larger metapoetic rivalry between the HHermes itself and its predecessor the Hymn to Apollo. This paper seeks to place the musical competition(s) embedded in HHermes within the larger agonistic performative contexts of the 5th century to nuance our view of the hymn and invite new dialogue in performance culture.

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What does Agamemnon know?

Chenxi Zhang (University of Chicago)

Witnessing Menelaus’ injury in Iliad 4 Agamemnon claims to know that Troy’s fall is sure (Il. 4.163-5). How does Agamemnon know this? One easy answer might be: in fact, he does not know it. As Xenophanes would put it some centuries later, Agamemnon merely chances upon what is in fact brought to pass (DK 21 B34). The difficulties of understanding the stakes of epistemology in archaic Greek literature, before epistemology as we know it marks off its own territory against archaic mythology and heroism (cf. Xenophanes B1), inversely signal that knowledge-claims in the Iliad are not divorced from its poetic ideology, or what we might call its “truth”. I suggest in this vein that Agamemnon’s sight of Menelaus’ wound parallels the perspective of the poet, instanced by the second-person address to Menelaus and the two similes that respectively infantilizes and effeminizes him (Il. 4.127-47). Agamemnon’s claim to knowing Troy’s fall therefore functions as a certain prescription of heroic kleos, which places Agamemnon himself vis-à-vis Menelaus as Menelaus is placed vis-à-vis Helen. But the Iliad is in fact not the poem that grants someone kleos for either losing or possessing his woman. As often with Agamemnon, he reads the poem wrong.

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The Performance of Mercy in the Case of Ligarius

Ioannis Ziogas (Durham University)

This paper discusses the extra-legal nature of clementia in Cicero’s Pro Ligario, and its debt to the performance of mercy in Roman Comedy. The case of Ligarius relies on dramatic precedence to invite Caesar’s act of clemency. Cicero begs Caesar, the pater patriae, to pardon Ligarius, like a comic orator asking a stern father to forgive his son (e.g., Plautus, Mostellaria 1123-82). According to Plutarch (Cicero 39.5-6), the dictator had decided to condemn Ligarius, but changed his mind after listening to Cicero. The dramatic metamorphosis of a harsh into a merciful father is characteristic of Roman comedy. Both Caesar and Cicero rely on the theatricality of this show trial. Their histrionics do not undermine procedural seriousness, even though they lay bare the courtroom’s performative fictions. Mercy as the resolution of conflict in the comic plot stages the festival’s relaxation of the rule of law. Instead of being carefully covered up, theatrical acts are to be displayed in the Forum, because Roman drama is a powerful mechanism for granting legitimacy to extra-legal clemency. Caesar’s clementia is the performance of a sovereign exception that laid the foundations of the principate.

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The Politics of Clementia in Neronian Rome

Pablo Rojas (University of Edinburgh)

This paper examines Tacitus’ portrayal of Nero as an emperor who utilised the legal space as a stage for his role-playing. Section one concentrates on the trial of Antistius Sosianus (Ann. 14.48-49) and analyses Tacitus’ depiction of a judicial farce wherein senators colluded in role-playing, prescribing a severe punishment so that Nero could pardon the convicted. It argues that Thrasea Paetus’ dissenting speech is relevant in two respects. First, it unveils the noxious dynamic of role-playing in the legal space: a senate eager to concoct a fake trial for Nero to perform clementia, and an emperor more interested in its performance than in its genuine exercise. Second, it offers competing discourses about mercy in Neronian Rome: clementia principis and clementia publica. Section two explores the connection between the trial of Antistius Sosianus and two episodes that underscore the insidious relations obtaining from Nero’s blending of spectacle/role-playing and the law: the extravagant punishment of Christians (Ann. 15.44) and the trial of Thrasea Paetus during the visit of the Armenian King (Ann. 16.23). The conclusion reflects on Tacitus’ narrative strategies in portraying Nero’s idiosyncratic approach to the law and the progressive erosion of his reign into an autocracy reminiscent of ‘Eastern-style’ despotism.

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Roman law and philosophical argument in Ad Marciam de Consolatione

Elizabeth McKnight (UCL)

This paper examines Seneca’s use of the language of Roman law to challenge Marcia’s excessive grief at her son’s death. At an early stage in his argument, Seneca uses metaphors drawn from legal contracts to persuade Marcia that she had no proper reason to resent her son’s early death; she enjoyed him, as it were, on a loan of uncertain duration. Yet Seneca argues later that Marcia participates in life, and raised her son, not on the basis of any kind of contract; for everyone, to live is simply a matter of choice, made with knowledge of all life’s potential risks and rewards. But when, as Seneca proposes, it falls to parents to choose life for their children, are they acting in exercise of a legal power to do so? And if that is what Seneca claims, does that enhance the persuasiveness or rhetorical efficacy of his argument? In addressing these questions, I propose that Seneca’s argument does not entirely depend for its overall efficacy on legal powers of Marcia’s parents to decide whether she should live, or otherwise to represent her interests. But the argument’s apparent engagement with a problematic area of Roman law is nonetheless of significant interest.

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Court Report or Declamatory Play – Seneca, Controuersiae 2.1.34-36

Matthew Leigh

Paper

Re-writing History: interrogating our construction of the Romans

Caroline Bristow (Cambridge School Classics Project (University of Cambridge))

Over 50 years ago, Dr John B. Wilkins, linguistic consultant for the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC), emphasized the importance of cultural context for Latin reading fluency. While the CLC was initially pioneering in the prominence it gave to cultural material, its presentation – short, authoritative lectures in the ‘voice’ of the authors – changed little over the decades. Meanwhile, history education has evolved significantly. Rather than “telling students what happened”, emphasis is on thinking critically about the past and those who interpret it.Recognizing that textbooks are shaped as much by present-day values as by historical facts, this paper argues for a similar shift in Classics pedagogy. It calls for a critical dialogue between materials, teachers, and students, positioning cultural learning not as static content but as an interpretive process.To that end, this session will explore the influence of modern pedagogical and historical thinking on the CLC’s cultural material alongside reactions of students, teachers and the wider community to this ‘re-writing of history’. This qualitative data will be used to reflect upon not only how we help our students to build an image of the ancient world, but also how we as educators build (and often try to protect) our own.

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Making the Romans

Lisa Hay (University of Cambridge School Classics Project)

This paper will consider some of the ways in which students make and remake the ancient world as they learn, and how teachers can design simple activities to encourage students to engage in critical approaches to reading ancient texts.We will discuss how students relate a new language and its culture to what they understand about their own language and lives, and the implications for this including how the Roman world may be reimagined as artificially similar to their own. We will also consider the resources we choose to use in our teaching as both a product of our own reception of the ancient world, and a catalyst for the imaginations of our students. Finally, we will look at how to design simple activities to open up fundamental ideas around the nature of history, translation and historical texts, from encouraging students to move away from trying to find ‘hidden English’ in the Latin they are reading, to larger ideas around storytelling and the representation of different cultures.

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Exploring ‘Explorers’: the role of click-and-tell textual analysis in the reading method

Mair Lloyd (University of Cambridge)

This paper contributes to the theme of Classical pedagogy and technology by exploring an iconic digital resource used to support the ‘reading method’ for Latin teaching and learning. The ‘story explorer’ (also known as ‘text explorer’ or simply ‘explorer’) is a signature resource of the Cambridge Latin Course (CLC). CSCP ‘explorers’ also support Eduqas GCSE Latin, and the Open University uses them on their beginner module, A276 Classical Latin. An ‘explorer’ consists of an online text where individual Latin words can be clicked to show a relevant dictionary entry, grammatical parsing and ‘notes’ giving extra help with some words or phrases. Drawing on experience as a developer, tutor and learner-user of story explorers, Mair will consider how ‘explorers’ can augment and enliven the reading method, supporting initial learning, preparing the way for explicit grammar explanations, and consolidating what has been learned. She will also describe her own recent efforts to enhance the alignment of the latest CLC explorers with the new edition student books that they accompany.

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A ‘patroness of the works of women’: reconsidering the role of Athena Ergane in the sphere of crafts

Emma Hawdale (University of Nottingham)

The cult epithet is a ‘focusing device’ that draws attention to a facet of divine power. Athena’s epithet ‘Ergane’ (‘worker’) has become synonymous with artisanal crafts. Previous scholarship has assumed that Athena Ergane was primarily a patron of textile and women’s work, whereas this paper seeks to challenge this assumption. The limited evidence provides scant information as to the significance of Athena Ergane. Although Pausanias attests to her worship in various locations, he reveals little about her nature or power under this title. Furthermore, epigraphic evidence provides sparse and incomplete information that leaves more questions than answers. This paper asks how far the extant evidence can substantiate the claim that Athena Ergane was specifically a ‘patroness of the works of women’ or whether she has other competences under this epithet.This paper will examine evidence pertaining to Athena, with or without this epithet, in the sphere of crafts. Athena Ergane (and Athena more generally) could be associated with textile work; however, this paper argues that the role of Athena Ergane may encompass a wider range of power than has previously been recognised. I hope this paper facilitates more nuanced approaches to the study of Athena in the sphere of crafts.

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Liars and Lyres: Exploring the Reception of Orpheus and Eurydice in Songs and Poetry 1950 – 2020.

Hannah Jorsh (king’s College London)

This paper is an enquiry into the representation of the characters of Orpheus and Eurydice in popular mediums dating between 1950 – 2020. This work considers the meaning of mythology and how modern society has used this particular myth to explore different themes in music, theatre, and poetry. By analysing these mediums, this paper hopes to uncover how these mediums, and the cultural context that surrounds them, have altered the myth and why it is still popular. The difference in the way these characters are represented may be ascribed to style, the culture of the work, or other factors such as the goals of the artist. For Orpheus, many musicians use him because of the combination of the tragedy and love of his story, with the frame narrative of Orpheus being a musician himself. Eurydice herself is a blank slate, but her story of being loved, lost and forgotten has inspired many artists who have experienced being wronged. The nature of these characters could be part of the reason that this story has regained popularity in recent years however, it could also be that humanity loves a tragedy and this may influence the publics infatuation with this myth.

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Penthesilea in the Middle English ‘Laud Troy Book’ – A (re)made Heroine and Worthy Woman

Flora Sophie Lemburg (University of St Andrews)

This paper analyses the reception of the Amazon queen Penthesilea in the medieval period, focussing on the anonymous Laud Troy Book (1400 CE), a Middle English romance and a loose translation and retelling of Guido delle Colonne’s Historia Destructionis Troiae (1278 CE). Tracing the source history of medieval retellings of the Troy Narrative from the late-antique authors Dares and Dictys to the first romance, Benoît’s Roman de Troie, the paper analyses the changing portrayal of Penthesilea in medieval literature. I argue that her narrative is extended and embellished in later medieval adaptations, specifically within the genre of romance, to fit her into the world of medieval romance as a female, chivalric knight. These texts portray her as a heroic character by attributing to her aspects of heroisation such as extraordinariness, transgression, affective charge, agonistic qualities, and agency. Most of these aspects are missing in Dares and Dictys, and Guido, but added in the romance adaptions of Benoît and the Laud Troy Book. Furthermore, I argue that adaptations that depict Penthesilea as a medieval knight and heroic character greatly influenced and informed a medieval literary motif called The Nine Worthy Women.

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Benoit de Sainte Maure’s Briseis: a heroine between Ancient Greek Novel and Roman Love Elegy

Maria Sandali (University of Athens, Ph.D. Candidate)

Benoit’s Le Roman de Troie (The Romance of Troy) is a novel of the Middle Ages. It was written in the 12th century as an adaptation of the Homeric epic, Iliad. The author varies the story, focusing our attention on Briseis. She is deeply in love with Troilus, from whom she is forced to be separated, something that reminds us the Ancient Greek novel where the same separation happens. The two young people experience incredible disappointment and pain in their last meeting, which is a tender moment. Briseis finally goes to the Achaeans’ side, where Diomedes expresses his feelings, swearing eternal loyalty and perpetual pleasure. But Briseis rejects Diomedes. This part of the text is reminiscent of the Roman Love Elegy. Domina Briseis with her beauty has dominated Diomedes’ mind, who willingly accepts to serve her, to become her puer, putting into practice the servitium amoris. Our three protagonists are servants of Eros, serving him in the same way: they are deeply in love. They are possessed by sincere love feelings. No one can resist against Love! The novel is a characteristic example of how Homeric poetry has influenced the Literature of the West and how Classics are still alive!

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The Plato OCT — Past, Present, Future

Mark Joyal (University of Manitoba)

Shortly after the Oxford Classical Texts series was established in 1896, the task of editing Plato’s works was assigned to John Burnet (1863–1928), Professor of Greek in the University of St Andrews, who completed the five-volume project between 1900 and 1908. The century that preceded publication had been a period of astonishing discovery and progress in the study of the Platonic text.Burnet had a justifiably high confidence in his editorial ability, but he seems also to have understood that his editions were not definitive and would be superseded, as some of them have now been in the same OCT series. Progress in our understanding of Plato’s textual tradition has, if anything, accelerated substantially in the 125 years since Burnet’s editions appeared. No less important have been technical and technological advances since the 1980s that have raised readers’ expectations for new editions of Plato’s works in the OCT series.The first third of this paper explains briefly Burnet’s historical place and his assumptions and practices as editor of Plato. The remainder identifies, with some examples, the most important characteristics in the construction and presentation of the editions in the new vol. II and in the production of vol. III.

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Quoting the Laches. The Reception of a Platonic dialogue from the 2nd century AD to the 15th century

Maria Vittoria Curtolo (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

This paper focuses on the indirect tradition of the Laches in the Greek world, with a foray into Rome as well. It takes into account the authors (and anonymous works) that ‘quote’ or allude to this Platonic dialogue.John Burnet in the apparatus criticus of his edition [Platonis Opera, III, Oxonii, e Typographeo Clarendoniano 1903 (19092)] – which is so far the most authoritative critical text of the dialogue – mentioned those indirect testimonies that are directly relevant to constitute the text.Yet, to study the history of transmission of the Laches, more testimonies should be considered. A deep search through the Indices of editions – in some cases following hints drawn from the TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, https://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/index.php) – allowed to increase the number of indirect sources of the dialogue. The paper presents the quotations (or allusions) and their ‘context’ (how the dialogue is referred to – in the case of explicit mention of it – and how its text is introduced, for instance).

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Changes to the text of Plato in the Academy? – Immortal souls and their heavenly procession at Phaedrus 245d-247e.

Fritz-Gregor Herrmann (Swansea University), Christopher Strachan (University of Edinburgh)

The Phaedrus has always been one of the best known of Plato’s dialogues. The nature images and the metaphorical and allegorical stories were adapted e.g. in the ancient novels by Longus and Achilles Tatius. Modern scholarly editions and commentaries include Moreschini 1966, De Vries 1969, Moreschini 1985, Rowe 1986 and Yunis 2011. The 5th-century commentary by Hermias has most recently been edited by Lucarini and Moreschini 2016.While the text of the Phaedrus available in antiquity can thus be reconstructed with fair certainty, that text was the result of modifications that happened in the first couple of centuries after Plato’s death. The two papers by Herrmann and Strachan focus on concrete examples that illustrate those issues and demonstrate in this regard the significance of the new edition of the text. The paper by Herrmann will look at the proof of the immortality of the soul at 245c-e and focus on the famous image of the soul as a winged team of horses with their charioteer at 246a-b. The paper by Strachan will look at the journey of the souls to the place outside the sphere of heaven at 246e-247e, with particular attention to what is said about Hestia at 247a.

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Aristotle’s Rhetoric in 21st century high school classrooms

Arlene Holmes-Henderson (Durham University)

This paper will chart the resurgence of the learning and teaching of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in classrooms in England and Scotland between 2020 and 2025. Although not formally part of the curriculum, teachers of Classics, English, Philosophy and Citizenship have variously introduced elements of Aristotle’s Rhetoric to boost students’ critical literacy, digital literacy and emotional literacy skills. At a time when young people are bombarded with advertising, mis/dis/malinformation, social media deepfakes and increasing polarization both online and offline, teachers have found Aristotle’s Rhetoric a valuable approach for building arguments, disagreeing agreeably, spotting weak reasoning and negotiating effectively. A number of free, open-access resources have been co-produced by the speaker (with practitioners) to support the expansion of rhetoric in English and Scottish schools. After showcasing their design and contents, she will outline the recent policy changes which herald the dawn of an exciting new era for the learning and teaching of rhetoric in schools. Classicists may find themselves at the heart of the curriculum once more, and they need to be ready to take full advantage of the policy window.

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Aristotle on Screen and Stage in the 21st Century

Edith Hall (Durham University)

Paper cancelled

AI_ristotle in the Third Millennium

Rory McInnes-Gibbons (Durham University)

This contribution explores whether Aristotle can proceed beyond the academy and find immortality in cyberspace. Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, opened his speech at Lund University in 1985 with an eerily accurate prediction of the future for generative AI. Although he could not talk to the Aristotle he read on the printed page, he hoped an Aristotle of the future could be captured and communicated for posterity: “Some day, some student will be able to not only read the words Aristotle wrote but ask Aristotle a question and get an answer.” Forty years on, his words have been taken literally by the futurists of the tech world who are seeking to resurrect Aristotle in AI, enabling users to ask him a question and get an answer. This contribution will explore the ways in which developers are attempting to capture what Jobs termed ‘the underlying worldview’ of Aristotle. From conventional GPTs to the new frontier of augmented and mixed reality, Aristotle is prevalent in the minds and designs of these technologists. I will take Apple Vision Pro’s “Talking Heads” app as my principal source material because it is the closest we can currently get to an Aristotle reborn in the digital realm.

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Summoning Aristotle

Sara Monoson (Northwestern University)

My paper introduces the idea of “summoning” as a useful concept in reception studies. While arguing for this taxonomy’s explanatory power, the paper addresses examples drawn from encounters with Aristotle’s works on animals, rhetoric, politics and metaphysics in 21st century America outside the academy, including deaf culture, rhetoric, business, politics, and the uses of artificial intelligence. Reception takes place in the “gaps” that separate ancient materials (e.g., a specific source, figure, or features of the ancient culture) from later work that creatively engages it (loosely or intensely). “Summoning” names the intellectual activity that happens in these gaps and produces encounters, offering researchers a framework for analysis. That framework includes a menu of activities suggestive of aspects of reception. These activities are as various as magical conjuring rituals (e.g., séance), juridical processes (e.g., issuing an indictment or a subpoena, calling up a witness), marshaling forces (e.g., mustering troops) and personally beckoning (e.g., recollecting). My work on 21st American encounters with Aristotle highlights the way conjurings are central to reception. It also points to the place of conjuring in critical scholarship that produces interpretations of sources and assessments of receptions.

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All Roads Lead to Revolution: Daniel De Leon, The People, and Marxist Classical Reception

Christopher Anaforian (University of St Andrews)

Born in 1852 to a Sephardic Jewish Dutch family in Dutch-controlled Curaçao, Daniel De Leon would become one of the most well-known and influential Marxist figures in American history. De Leon was the preeminent source of information, education, and Marxist theory for working-class Americans and, often, De Leon utilised ancient history, classical authors and their texts to help explain contemporary capitalist exploitation to working-class Americans. While the most well-known example of De Leon’s classical reception comes from his published lecture, Two Pages from Roman History, this paper will explore De Leon’s more frequent uses of antiquity in his articles for the Socialist Labor Party of America’s (SLP) official newspaper, The People.The People was the longest-running socialist newspaper in American history (1891 to 2011). De Leon became the editor of the People in 1892 and contributed over 4,200 editorials during his tenure and a significant portion of these articles utilise classical antiquity as a didactic tool to teach his audience about the corrupt world of contemporary capitalism. De Leon takes a Marxist approach to classical antiquity and uses key moments, figures, and texts from the ancient Mediterranean to warn, explain, and teach the proletariat about contemporary society under capitalism.

Workshop

E. B. Tylor and M. T. Cicero at the Dawn of Anthropology

Hannah Čulík-Baird (University of California, Los Angeles)

In 1936 Robert Ranulph Marett, a British ethnologist who had studied Classics as an undergraduate at Oxford University (i.e., literae humaniores), in part because “Anthropology” as an academic subject did not yet exist, published a biography of Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917). In the preface, Marett figured Tylor, the first to be appointed Professor of Anthropology at Oxford (1896), as the father of his discipline with a paraphrase of Plato’s Sophist (241D): “Who am I that I should lay hands on my father Parmenides?” I examine the classicisms which informed Tylor’s thinking, with a particular focus on the formative impact of Cicero’s theory of “culture” (cultura animi, Tusc. 2.13) upon the theories of culture and race in Tylor’s most famous work, Primitive Culture (1871), which defined “culture” as synonymous with “civilization” (1871: I, 1). This paper not only examines how Cicero’s exclusive definition of “culture” informed Tylor’s thinking, but shows how Tylor used Ciceronian texts such as De Natura Deorum, recently enshrined in scientific thought by the linguist Max Müller, to assert the supremacy of “our Indo-European race” (1871: II, 238). In sum, the paper asks not only what is “Ciceronian” about early anthropology but likewise what is “anthropological” about Cicero.

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Marginalized Classical Reception from 1800 until today: Transnational Trends in Research

Alexander Hammar (University of Southern Denmark)

The goal of this talk is to explore how classical reception among marginalized groups across national borders and linguistic-cultural spheres can be researched. When studying socially marginalized groups’ interactions with classics, it is often done with the focus on individual countries. However, the classics has a tendency to transcend national borders. The cultures of the ancient Greeks and Romans have affected people in many societies across classes.Within linguistic-cultural spheres – such as the Francophone, Germanophone, and Anglophone spheres – it is often the dominant nations which are the focal points, but many interesting engagements with the classics happen on the fringes of these spheres. In my own research on non-institutional classical reception in Denmark 1850-1900, I have discovered instances where influences from multiple linguistic-cultural spheres have interacted and merged in the Danish reception. In other cases, the Danish reception has taken on completely unique characteristics or anticipated classics debates in more influential European nations.Lifting the scope from individual and dominant nations, it is possible to gain new insights about both ancient culture and its reception in the modern era. Ultimately, I hope to encourage a discussion about research on marginalized groups’ classical reception from a cross-cultural point of view.

Workshop

Tacitus and the Silence of Resistance

Nicoletta Bruno (University of Basel/University of Liverpool)

Silence does not belong to the realm of incommunicability; it is a communicative language itself. In Tacitus, silence becomes a powerful form of resistance to authority—a deliberate withholding of expression that communicates with force and intention. Within the context of the Roman Empire, silence reveals underlying psychological tensions, vulnerabilities, and power dynamics. This paper examines the concept of ‘silence as resistance’ in Agricola and Annals. Tacitus, writing in an era marked by imperial oppression and political instability, presents silence not only as a form of rhetorical restraint but also as a subtle means of protest within autocratic regimes. Through his portrayal of senatorial figures (Thrasea), provincial governors (Agricola), and marginalised female voices (Epicharis), Tacitus illuminates how silence serves as a potent, albeit passive, form of resistance against the oppressive apparatus of the Roman Empire.This study employs narratological close readings of selected passages, examining how Tacitus’ strategic use of silence deepens the ethical and moral complexities of resisting tyranny. A cognitive approach is also employed to examine how silence engages readers’ psychological frameworks, cultivating empathy for individuals living under imperial power.

Paper

Silence and the Emotions of Crisis in Cicero’s Civil War Letters

Elaine Sanderson (University of Liverpool)

Cicero’s civil war letters (49-45 BCE) detail the experience of life-changing events threatening personal integrity and agency, events which would now be considered ‘traumatic’. Within these letters, Cicero reflects on broad notions of silence, complaining about his correspondents’ ‘silence’ (e.g. Cic. Att. 9.1, 9.6), contemplating refraining from speech (e.g. Cic. Att. 7.8, 10.8, Fam. 4.4, 4.8), and claiming that he is rendered ‘silent’ and unable to respond to unfolding events (e.g. Cic. Att. 7.6, 7.19, Fam. 2.11).This paper uses trauma theory – drawing on studies of the unspeakability of traumatic events (e.g. Caruth 1996, 2001, Stampfl 2014) and recent work on trauma in/and antiquity (e.g. e.g. Karanika & Panoussi 2020) – to unpack the presentation and function of silence in Cicero’s letters to Atticus in 49 BCE. I first highlight the ‘traumatic’ character of Cicero’s civil war experience detailed through his physical and emotional states (e.g. Cic. Att. 7.11, 7.12, 9.10) before outlining the broad connections between silence and emotional distress in this group of letters. I then consider the implications of Cicero’s presentation of silence as an element of distress, asking what this proclaimed unspeakability may reveal about wider notions of speech, silence, and agency in the Roman imagination.

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Kissing and not-telling: Sulpicia’s reticence in translation

Sharon Marshall (University of Exeter)

As one of few female poets from the ancient world whose work survives, Sulpicia plays an important role in the recovery of women’s voices. Her six short elegies (Tib. 3.13-18), amounting to just 40 lines, present us with a sexually liberated persona whose boldness belies the epigrammatic brevity of her verses. The opening poem, with its claim that she has found love and wants the world to know about it, reveals a preoccupation with the act of telling as much as with love itself. Yet it has long been acknowledged that Sulpicia’s rhetoric of disclosure – both here and in the wider corpus – is far from straightforward, exhibiting a tension between concealment and exposure or telling and not-telling. From one angle then, Sulpicia’s poems emerge as a meditation on what it means to speak out as a woman, even among critics who are more sceptical about whether they represent the work of a female author. This paper seeks to explore how translators of the Sulpicia poems handle a voice that mediates between positions of outspokenness and reticence, and the challenge posed for a translator when what is not said matters as much as what is said.

Workshop

Voices in the Silence: Le Guin’s Lavinia and Virgilian Soundscapes

Helen Lovatt

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