Centre for Classical Studies Research Seminar Series
Contacts
Centre for Classical Studies Research Seminar Series 2025
Upcoming events
Professor Daryn Lehoux (Queen’s University): ‘Corruption, Correction, and Data Protection in Ancient Scientific Texts’
3.15–4.15pm 21 May 2025
Greek and Latin authors were acutely aware of the problems of knowledge transmission. Not only could manuscripts become corrupted, as we know all too well...Past events
Kate Howell (ANU): ‘Buddhist Relic Practice in Gandhāra: A Spatial and Temporal Network’
23 Apr 2025
Relic practice has long been identified as the most significant element of Buddhist religious culture in ancient Gandhāra. While scholars have noted the relic...Dr Edward Armstrong (ANU) 'Ritual and Friendship in the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars'
26 Mar 2025
This paper investigates the rhetoric and practice of ritualised friendship in the creation of treaties and alliances during the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars (431-...Dr Kate Edwards (Canberra Grammar School) 'The Future of Latin in Australian Schools'
12 Mar 2025
The teaching of Latin in Australian secondary schools has declined sharply over the past century, to the extent that Latin now faces an uncertain future in...Dr David Romey Smith (ANU School of History) 'Negotiating Unfreedoms: On the Varieties of Human Trafficking in the Mediterranean'
26 Feb 2025
In the 21st century, a new emphasis on decolonisation has prompted research on such models of human exploitation as underwrote colonial expansion and...Dr Daniel Hanigan (Trinity College, Cambridge)- ‘Counter-Mapping Empire: Dionysius of Byzantium in the Thracian Bosporus’
23 Oct 2024
The rhetoric of global territorial conquest was central to the propaganda of the early Roman Empire. Augustus and his successors frequently presented...Jemima McPhee (Australian National University)- ‘Fire, earth and astrologia: writing science under Augustan stars’
16 Oct 2024
What makes Roman science ‘Roman’? How did the Romans investigate natural phenomena? And how did changing institutions influence scientific discourse?...Dr Anthony Hooper (University of Wollongong) - ‘Epic kleos as a Model for Immortality in Plato’s Symposium’
9 Oct 2024
Epic kleos as a Model for Immortality in Plato’s Symposium The presentation of immortality in the Symposium persists as one of the most fraught topics in...Dr Sarah Lawrence (University of New England) - ‘The More Things Change: Exemplary Time in Valerius Maximus’
25 Sep 2024
The More Things Change: Exemplary Time in Valerius Maximus The way time functions in the short, didactic stories called exempla by the Romans is strange:...Dr. Michael Zellmann-Rohrer (Macquarie University)- ‘Interpreting the Horoscope of Octavian’
21 Aug 2024
Interpreting the horoscope of Octavian The young Octavian was encouraged in his political ambitions by a consultation with an astrologer, and he later...Prof. Philipp Stockhammer (LMU and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) - ‘Family and Migration in Bronze Age Greece: New Archaeogenetic Insights’
7 Aug 2024
Family and Migration in Bronze Age Greece: New archaeogenetic insights Since the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans, we have been trying to...Tyla Cascaes(University of Queensland) - 'Roman Empress Meets Modern Temptress: Cinema’s Fascination with Rome’s Leading Ladies'
24 Jul 2024
Roman Empress Meets Modern Temptress: Cinema’s Fascination with Rome’s Leading Ladies From its conception, cinema has been captivated by the morally corrupt...Dates-as-data for inscriptions: using summed probability analysis with Latin epigraphic databases to investigate population changes in the Roman Empire
29 May 2024
Since the 1980s, archaeologists have used Summed Probability Analysis (SPA) of radiocarbon dates to reconstruct demographic trends. This ‘dates as data’...Evaluating workplace relationships in the Homeric Iliad: bringing together digital approaches and social and cognitive theory
1 May 2024
In this paper I bring together a cluster of verbal behaviours in the Homeric Iliad, a recent psychological study of four interrelated modes of communication in...Alex Grigor (ANU) - ‘Achilles in Rome: Exploring 1st century CE Roman Representations of the Hero’
17 Apr 2024
In the century following the publication of Virgil’s Aeneid, there ensued a proliferation of literary and artistic works centred around the Trojan War and its...Associate Professor Catherine Frieman (ANU) - Resisting romanisation: Cornish kinship and connectivity at the edge of Empire
20 Mar 2024
With the Roman invasion of Britain in the first centuries AD, we see a clear transformation in settlement patterns, social practices, artefact forms and...Prof. Hartmut Leppin (Goethe University) - ‘Emperor Maurice: from failure to holiness’
21 Feb 2024
‘Emperor Maurice: from failure to holiness’ Although Emperor Maurice (582-602) emerged as one of the preeminent military leaders in late antiquity, and...Hippolytus’ Meadows: Weaving together Aesthetics and Ascetics in Christian reuses of Euripides’ ‘chastity hymn’ (Eur. Hippolytus 61-87)”
1 Nov 2023
In Euripides’ Hippolytus, the titular character enters on stage singing a hymn to Artemis with his hunting companions. He then proceeds to offer a garland to...Order and Disorder: Aspects of Homeric Hospitality
25 Oct 2023
Homeric hospitality is a total social phenomenon in which interactions with the ‘other’ are regulated to maintain social order and to confer mutual benefits on...The Enslaved Muse: Apostrophe and Authorship in Latin Literature
18 Oct 2023
The Muse is part of the furniture of classical poetry. By the time of Virgil, we barely notice she is there, and her importance as a repository of poetic...Plautus in space: comic discourse and the expansion of Rome
11 Oct 2023
It is well established that the defeat over Carthage in the 2nd Punic War marks a watershed moment for Roman and wider Mediterranean history. The centripetal...Coming to see the temple of Djoser: making graffiti in ancient Memphis over three millennia
27 Sep 2023
The desert plateau of Saqqara, to the west of the ancient capital of Memphis in Egypt, is saturated with graffiti, stretching in date from the 3rd Millennium...TPR Presentation: Homer and the Headless Monk
20 Sep 2023
Ancient Greek myths, including stories told in the Iliad and the Odyssey, have been sources of inspiration and adaptation throughout the ages for works of...The Emperor Writes Back: Changing Strategies of Political Communication from Augustus to Late Antiquity
30 Aug 2023
The appearance, character, and behaviour of Roman emperors were mocked and criticised in pamphlets, poetry, chants, and graffiti. The ideal ruler was supposed...The Political Bee: Apicultural Knowledge and Human Politics and in Ancient Greece
16 Aug 2023
My presentation revolves around a peculiar human habit that seems to have been popular in the ancient world but that is still with us today: attributing...A Hero for Our Times: The Emperor and Epic in Late Antiquity
2 Aug 2023
There has always been overlap between epic and panegyric. The classical definition of epic, Vergil’s ‘kings and battles’ (Ecl. 6.3), just as easily defines...Roman-Persian Relations: The Example of the Emperor Jovian (363-364) and the Syriac Julian Romance
7 Jun 2023
The Roman emperor Jovian (AD 363-364) only ruled for eight months and has not received much attention in scholarship. However, his reign is more than a...Ancilia, authenticity, and aura: the sacred shields of ancient Rome and the idea of the perfect copy
31 May 2023
Questions about the role of copies in how we study the ancient Roman world have been asked for hundreds of years. Stretching from the ancient Roman ‘copies’ of...Classics in Sri Lanka: Classical Reception of Three Modern Sri Lankan Anglophone Female Poets
24 May 2023
In my thesis, I explore how three modern Sri Lankan Anglophone female writers, Jean Arasanayagagam (1931-2009), Kamala Wijeratne (1939), and Kamani Jayasekara...Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion
10 May 2023
This talk will offer an overview of my forthcoming monograph Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion. The book examines the ways that...Caesar’s Experiments in Crafting a New Model Warrior
26 Apr 2023
Towards the end of Rome’s republic, Sallust delivers a familiar litany bemoaning the fallen military ideal: ambitious men now seek personal glory and wealth,...Contemporary Craft for Experimental Archaeology: Understanding Metalsmithing in Bronze Age Crete
19 Apr 2023
In the ANU Classics Museum, parked conspicuously in a case of Bronze Age artefacts, is a large copper vase—a modern vessel modelled after a Minoan bronze...Chios: Island and polis in the Archaic and Classical periods
29 Mar 2023
Epichoric histories aim to interpret localised phenomena and ask questions about specific places or people rather than establish generalised trends. Epichoric...Episcopal petitions to the emperor: norm, practice and representation
8 Mar 2023
Join us for the first ANU Classics Centre Research Seminar for the year, presented by Dr Fabian Schulz. This presentation runs for one hour in the AD Hope...
