“How did you get from Classics to policy?!” – a question often posed to me, often incredulously, during my internship at the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). And yet, far from being irrelevant to the “real” world, the ancient world cropped up again … Continue reading
In Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, Alexander is faced with taming a horse he rashly claims he can handle better than any of his father’s attendants. Waging the full price of the horse, he sets to taming the ferocious beast and does so by turning the horse’s face towards the sun. Alexander, it turns out, has … Continue reading
While doing research for my PhD thesis I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of anachronism. Broadly defined, anachronism means taking something from one historical time period and placing it in another. This can mean attributing modern ideas to ancient people, judging them by our values (or us by theirs), or it can mean … Continue reading
Stop press! Breaking news from Greece! Like a notable compatriot philosopher, a Greek archaeologist by the name of Kostas Sismanidis has this week (metaphorically) run naked through the streets, shouting ‘[h]eureka!’ He has found it – the it in question being the last resting place of Aristotle, philosopher, lecturer, encyclopaedist, tutor to Alexander the Great … Continue reading
There was widespread excitement last weekend (widespread within some very restricted circles, admittedly) when it emerged that The Times newspaper was reviving its Latin crossword after 85 years. To be published weekly in the Saturday edition, it is entitled ‘O Tempora,’ an allusion to “O tempora! O mores!,” the famous exasperated exclamation of that foremost … Continue reading
This is not the first debt crisis in Greek history. In the 500s BCE, the Athenian politician and poet Solon had to confront a major crisis that threatened to tear his country apart, and tread a difficult line between the stubbornness of the rich and the anger of the poor. Read about it in my … Continue reading
In my best efforts to be the Cicero to Graham’s Hybrida, the Caesar to his Bibulus, the Pompey to his Crassus, I am uploading this GIS report almost grotesquely early. Read on for dynasties, drinking and destruction, sex and slaughter, propaganda and psychoanalysis, and all sorts of alliterative delights. (Content note: rape, murder, incest.) Continue reading
On Wednesday of this week, Trinity College hosts a production of Tom Stoppard’s play “The Invention of Love”, a biographical drama about the great classicist and poet A. E. Housman. While possibly best known for his poetic cycle “A Shropshire Lad”, Housman was also one of the foremost Latin textual critics of the 20th century, … Continue reading
Are you interested in studying Classics at university, but haven’t learned any Latin at school? Come to the free Classics Taster Day in Cambridge on the 21st June! For more information, and to register, see the Faculty website. Continue reading
As I think I may have mentioned once or twice, I was a Lego-mad child. Of all the things under the tree on Christmas morning, Lego was always the most prized. Like many, I ‘grew out of’ Lego in my teens, only to come back to it as I’ve got older and had more disposable … Continue reading
res gerendae 