Classics Day 2016In partnership with the British Museum and UCL

“At the Edges of Empire”27 February 2016 – British Museum, BP Auditorium

Battle of Issus, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

IntroductionA journey to the provinces and frontiers of the Classical WorldThe empires of the classical world covered vast areas, encompassing many different regions. It was therefore inevitable that different populations came to be included in the same territories. What did these peoples think of each other? What do our sources tell us about the conquerors and the conquered? Classics Day, a partnership between City Lit, The British Museum and University College London, offers an opportunity to find out more about the relationship between the provinces and the empires, the centre and the fringes.Starting from this year, the first lecture of Classics Day will be dedicated to Elizabeth Teller who recently passed away. Elizabeth taught Classical Languages for over 40 years at City Lit and was instrumental in the creation of Classics Day.

Programme10.30 Welcome

10.35-11.20 The Elizabeth Teller lectureGreek travels in Asia in Xenophon’s Anabasis – Rosie

Harman, UCLThis talk will examine how the experience of Greek travel in Asia is described in Xenophon’s Anabasis, considering the variety of responses to foreign landscapes presented in the text. In the Anabasis, Asian lands can be experienced as fertile, abundant potential colonial sites, or as harsh and threatening sites of entrapment from which the Greeks are desperate to escape. The talk will consider how the complexity of such responses frames Greek self-conception.Rosie Harman is Lecturer in Greek Historiography in the Department of Greek and Latin at University College London (UCL). Her research interests include the historiography, ethnography and geographical thought of Classical Greece.

11.20-11.50 Break – Refreshment provided outside the Auditorium

11.50-12.35 Foreign Pharaohs: the Impact of Greece and Rome on Egypt – George Hart, British MuseumFor nearly a thousand years Egypt was controlled by Greek Rulers and Roman and Byzantine Emperors. This lecture will look at selective aspects of the history, religion and culture of Egypt during this period, including the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, Cleopatra, traditional and new cults, temple architecture and funerary art.George Hart joined the British Museum in 1973, where he was the Principal Lecturer on the British Museum’s antiquities collections covering Egypt, the Levant and the Bronze-age and Classical Civilisations of the Mediterranean World. He took early retirement from the British Museum in 2004 to devote more time to writing and travelling.

12.35-13.35 Lunch break

13.35-14.25 Roman identity and the land: from centre to fringes – Deborah Hyde, City LitThis talk will look at how ancient Roman identity was closely tied to the land and nature. A central idea – reflected in artistic and literary output -- was that hardy, austere farmers made the best soldiers and leaders, ready to conquer and empire-build; from Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf and raised by shepherds, through the story of Cincinnatus returning to his plough, and on into the agricultural world from which the smallholders of Virgil's

Eclogues are dispossessed. Communities engaging with romanitas right across imperial territories also produced images of agricultural life and nature, often in ironically elite and lavish ways and settings. We will explore the origins of these ideas, and their links to identity-building and notions of ‘us and them’ which are still good to think with today.Deborah Hyde holds an MA in Classical Civilisation from Birkbeck, University of London and was joint winner of the 2011 Catherine Jane Booth prize for the study of Classics: her interests range from archaic Greek poetry to early Christian saints. Having first discovered the ancient world as a mature student, widening participation in its study is her key interest; she creates and teaches courses for the City Lit which are designed to be accessible and enjoyable for people of all levels of knowledge. She also leads reading groups exploring classical texts in translation, and is a WEA approved tutor.

14.30-15.15 Empire and Propaganda in Ancient Assyria – Lorna Oakes, City Lit

We explore the royal palaces of the Assyrian Empire period. After a brief historical introduction we examine the fruits of the kings’ military successes as they were poured into their massive building programmes. The decoration of their palaces leaves us in no doubt about the propaganda value of the reliefs.Lorna Oakes worked for many years worked as a Special Assistant at the British Museum and frequently gave Gallery Talks on the history and culture of Ancient Egypt ad the Near East. She now teaches these subjects at City Lit and U3A.

15.15-15.30 Break – Café open on the ground floor

15.35-16.30 Rome in a cool climate – Gesine Manuwald, UCLThis talk will discuss the role of the most northern parts of the Roman empire, i.e. the modern countries Britain and Germany. By looking at texts and archaeological evidence it will survey the history of the Roman presence in these areas and explore how the Romans perceived these countries, what elements of their culture they brought there, how they adapted their own ways of life and how Roman and local ways merged to create a particular provincial form of life and cultureGesine Manuwald is Professor of Latin and Head of Department in the Department of Greek and Latin at University College London (UCL). Her research interests include Roman epic, Roman drama, Roman oratory and the reception of classical antiquity, especially in Latin literature of the Renaissance; she has published widely on all those areas.

16.30 Conclusion – Gesine Manuwald, UCLBritish Museum objects mentioned in the

talks

George Hart - Foreign Pharaohs: the Impact of Greece and Rome on Egypt :

Room 4: Egyptian Sculpture Gallery, northern endPtolemaic and Roman objects from Egypt

Room 22: the Hellenistic World Cases from Alexandria

Room 70, Rome: City and Empire Cleopatra and Roman emperors

Rooms 62 and 63: Egyptian funerary archaeologyMummies and portraits from Roman Egypt.

Deborah Hyde – Roman identity and the land:

Coin showing the She-wolf suckling the twins Romulus and Remus (Room 70)

A section of the Months And Season pavement mosaic from Carthage (second half of 4th century CE) (West staircase)

Some of the passages read:

Romulus and Remus suckled by a she-wolf, brought up by a shepherd and his wife, and gaining hardiness and military skills from hunting: Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri—often shortened to Ab Urbe Condita (The History of Rome), Book One, Chapter 4.

Romulus the world-beating empire-builder: Virgil, Aeneid Book One, line 276 onwards.

Cincinnatus leaves his plough to save Rome .... and then shuns the spotlight to return to his farm:

Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Book Three, chapter 26 onwards

Roman soldier/farmers abhor the looming threat of being dispossessed from their smallholdings amid all the turbulence as Rome transitions from republican to imperial rule.

Virgil, Eclogue One

Mosaic pavement: hunt in marshlands – Roman Utica (North Africa) (Room 70) Gesine Manuwald – Rome in a cool climate:

Military tombstone of Gaius Saufeius, from Lincoln, 1st century CE (Room 49, Roman Britain)

Cast bronze figure of the Roman deity Marsfrom Southbroom (Devizes, Wiltshire), 3rd century CE

(Room 30)

London, Romano-British mosaics (Room 49/wall)

Wooden writing-tablets from Vindolanda (Northumberland) (Rooms 41 and 49)

Head of Jupiter, copper alloy sculpture, showing the combination of classical and native religious traditions from Felmingham Hall (Norfolk), 2nd–3rd century CE

(Room 49)

Notes