Classics and Ancient History UG Newsletter 2016

CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER 2016

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Welcome to the January 2016 newsletter of the Department of Classics and Ancient History! In this issue, you will find out about our research projects, our engagement with the wider community through Latin teaching in local schools, classics events at the University of Manchester, and some of the new courses we are teaching. Please enjoy, and send questions or comments to Dr Peter Liddel, Admissions Tutor for Classics and Ancient History—peter.liddel@manchester.ac.uk

Dr Peter Liddel Senior Lecturer in Ancient History

1 CONTENTS Medical Mysteries & Linguistic Detective Work

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Classics for All: introducing and supporting Latin and Classics provision in Manchester schools

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The Ancient Greek Inscriptions of Liverpool

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Events at the University of Manchester

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New courses for Level 1 Classics and Ancient History Students Bryanston Summer School in Ancient Greek, 2016 Department News Contact Us

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Medical Mysteries & Linguistic Detective Work

David Langslow writes about his work on the ‘Latin Alexander’…

One of my research projects this year concerns an ancient medical text in Latin.

It is a long text (500-600 pages) in three ‘books’, or parts. The first two books set out diagnosis and treatment of diseases ordered from head to toe, from hair loss at the start of Book 1 to gout at the end of Book 2; Book 3 gives symptoms and treatment of various types of fever. Like many Latin medical texts, it is a translation of a Greek original. Often the Greek original is lost, but in this case it survives in two Greek works, the Therapeutics and the On Fevers by the Greek doctor Alexander, who lived around AD 500 and came from Tralles in what is now south-western Turkey. We know little of Alexander’s career except that in old age he accepted a high-level public medical appointment in Rome, which may explain why his Greek writings were translated into Latin soon after (even during?) his lifetime, and with less abridgement than is usual in Latin versions of long Greek medical works.

The first folio of the oldest known copy (made in Fleury in France about AD 800) of the Latin version of the medical handbook of Alexander of Tralles, perhaps the greatest Greek doctor of late antiquity (c. AD 500).

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Who made ‘the Latin Alexander’, when and where, we do not know, but it was something of a best-seller! It was widely copied both in its entirety and in various sets of excerpts, or ‘useful bits’. The Latin Alexander was one of the first medical books to be printed (first in 1504), even before the Greek original! In Greek and in Latin, Alexander remained central on European university syllabuses alongside Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen until the 18th century.

The Latin Alexander interests me for three main reasons. First, it has never been edited. That is to say, we have many hand-written copies (from the 8th to the 16th century), but no printed edition that attempts to capture the original version. No doubt the length and difficulty of the text explain perfectly why it has never been edited! Still, it is a challenge and a privilege to be at work on a first edition.

Secondly, the Latin Alexander is actually a compilation. Yes, it is very largely a Latin translation of the Greek Alexander, but it contains also chunks of other Greek works turned into Latin and inserted among the Alexander chapters. These include bits of Galen on facial and dental diseases, chapters on internal organs from Philagrius and Philumenus (which have not survived in Greek), and others of unknown origin. In other words, there are several different ‘voices’ in this single text.

Thirdly, the Latin itself is fascinating and raises several fundamental questions, including:  

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how many translators were involved? did the translator(s) of Alexander translate also Galen, Philagrius, Philumenus, etc? how ‘correct’ or poorly controlled is the Latin of the various parts? what was the first language of the translator(s)? – Latin or Greek? are there features of the Latin that link the Latin Alexander with other Latin medical texts? are there features of the Latin that allow us to locate the translator(s) in space and time?

In other words, this is a project that satisfies both the historian of medicine and the linguistic detective!

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Classics for All: introducing and supporting Latin and Classics provision in Manchester schools

The Manchester Classics for All scheme (MCfA) is run by the Manchester & District branch of the Classical Association in partnership with the Department of Classics & Ancient History and the Outreach & Widening Participation Office in the University of Manchester.

The Manchester scheme has recently won a grant from the national charity Classics for All to introduce Latin in particular and/or Classics more generally to local state primary and secondary schools where there is currently no provision of the subject.

In 2015/16 we have Latin classes in four primary (Gorton Mount Academy, Ladybarn, Green End, Mauldeth Road) five secondary (Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College, Burnage Academy for Boys, Helsby, Levenshulme, Parrs Wood) schools in the Manchester area. These include the following provisions: Latin Clubs after school and at lunchbreak; Latin in ‘Enrichment’ or similar slots within the school day; Latin to GCSE and beyond.

Our shared philosophy is that everyone should have the opportunity of learning some Latin; we believe that it is a fun and inspiring activity, one which enhances school provision of language tuition and literacy, and one which above all through language and communication increases and enhances the opportunities available to young people in education and in life.

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As well as increasing and supporting provision of Latin at school level in the local area, we are interested in training teachers who are enthusiastic about the ancient world. We offer support, mentoring and training for teachers of other subjects currently in post, university students, sixth-formers with some knowledge of Latin or Classics wishing to gain some teaching experience.

We intend to extend our reach by recruiting more schools for the 2016/17 school year – our ‘newest’ school is Medlock Primary in Manchester. We are hoping also to introduce Latin to Guides, Cubs and Brownies as a Challenge Badge. Please get in touch directly with one of us: david.langslow@manchester.ac.uk; peter.liddel@manchester.ac.uk; ruth.morello@manchester.ac.uk

Lauren Cox teaching a Year 6 class in Latin at Gorton Mount Academy

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The Ancient Greek Inscriptions of Liverpool

Polly Low and Peter Liddel are delighted to announce their publication of a new Greek inscription which has been kept in the storerooms of the Liverpool Museum. ‘New’ is, of course, a slightly misleading term here: the inscription itself is not new, nor is it a new arrival in the UK — it has been in the collections of the World Museum, Liverpool, since 1901. But the inscription has never been published, and, as far as we can tell, had been lying completely forgotten in the storerooms of the Liverpool Museum We now have produced an almost complete text of the inscription, and – perhaps more importantly – have a fairly confident theory about its nature, origin and date (none of which were immediately clear from either the text itself or the museum’s accession records). This is a decree of a private organisation, who call themselves the Phrikyladai. The decree honours three men for their work for the association – work which has something to do with the provision of wine. The ‘Our’ decree after cleaning and honour comes in the form of an inscription – that is, conservation. this (our) inscription. In other words: the association indicate its gratitude by allowing these men to set up, on stone, a copy of the decree.

Various features of the text (the terminology used; some of the names which appear in it; some stylistic features) lead us to believe that it originates from the city of Erythrae (a Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor), and was created some time in the middle of the third century B.C. We are now in the process of editing a number of inscriptions from the same museum which appear to derive from ancient Cyzicus (another Greek city of Asia Minor); in January 2016, Dr Polly Low announced our discovery of the texts to an excited audience in San Francisco!

Events at the University of Manchester The Manchester Classical Association is pleased to announce the following programme of events for 2016: 27th January, 2016, 5:30 pm - 6:45 pm: Dr Tom Rasmussen: ‘George Dennis, the Etruscans and beyond’, Samuel Alexander Building, Manchester 24th February, 2016, 1:45 pm - 4:00 pm: Latin and Greek Reading Competition 2016, Bolton School, Bolton 24th February, 2016, 5:30 pm - 6:45 pm: Dr April Pudsey: ‘ Growing Up in Roman Egypt: childhood and adolescence in ancient rural and urban settings’.

Venue: Samuel Alexander Building, Manchester 9th March, 2016, 12 noon- 4pm: Study day on GCSE and A-Level Ancient History and Classical Civilisation 16th March, 2016, 5:30 pm - 6:45 pm: Professor Rhiannon Ash: ‘Tiberius in Space: Proxemics and the Portrayal of a Princeps’. Venue: Samuel Alexander Building, Manchester 20th April, 2016, 5:30 pm - 6:45 pm: Dr Jamie Wood: ‘Literature, Education and Society in Roman Spain’. Venue: Cervantes Institute, Manchester

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New courses for Level 1 Classics and Ancient History Students

We regularly redesign the courses that we teach in order to ensure that they remain up-to-date with modern approaches to classics and ancient history. We are currently in the process of improving the list of courses that we offer to our students at Level 1.

This year we have introduced a course with the title Stories and Storytelling in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds course. This course forms an introduction to different forms of narrative literature from and ancient Greek and Roman worlds. It focuses on a range of representative texts and genres (e.g. epic, lyric, elegy, historiography, the ancient novel) in order to introduce the study of particularly significant narrative features, characteristics and devices (e.g. narrative voice, point of view, pace/time, order, characterisation, space, direct and indirect speech) and to provide an overview of the development of different types of story and storytelling throughout classical antiquity. Further topics for study include the interface between myth and history (e.g. at the start of works of historiography), the transformations of particular stories in new genres, and the use of narratives as didactic or ethical models.

For first teaching in 2016/17, we are designing a Level 1 course with the provisional title ‘Cities and Citizens in the ancient Mediterranean’. For the duration of your BA Ancient History degree programme, you will study the societies of the ancient Mediterranean and its hinterland; these pre-industrial societies, set in an age before the invention of the nationstate, were organised in ways which seem sometimes quite alien to the modern world. Exploring the multi-dimensional concepts of the city and

citizenship, this course introduces you to the sources, settings, cultures and identities that we encounter when studying the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world. You will engage with the main scholarly interpretations of key themes important to life in a city (such as ethnic identity, imperialism, religion, citizenship, status, commemoration, and disease). This course will equip you with the analytical tools which you will be able to deploy in the further study of ancient Greek and Roman history.

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Bryanston Summer School in Ancient Greek, 2016 Staff from Classics and Ancient History at Manchester make up two of the three directors of the JACT Greek summer school, which celebrates its 50 th anniversary in 2017. Every year it launches or boosts the Greek of about 340 young people in an intensive residential fortnight in an extraordinarily beautiful setting in Dorset with a rich and diverse programme of academic and nonacademic activities alongside the learning of Greek. For more details please visit http://www.jact.org/bryanston-greek-summer-school/ All our students (current and prospective!) are encouraged to attend. There is a generous bursaries scheme.

'Masks for the performance of Aristophanes' 'Birds', Bryanston, 2015.'

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Department News

Colleagues in Classics and Ancient History frequently are invited to give lectures and papers in other institutions across the world. Dr Polly Low recently gave lectures on Greek inscriptions in San Francisco and Copenhagen, and in 2016 Dr Andrew Morrison is scheduled to give lectures in Nice and Oslo. Just before Christmas, Dr Peter Liddel gave a lecture at the DICTYNNA workshop, Paris, entitled ‘Geopolitical Changes in Early Hellenistic Ionia’. Professor Alison Sharrock is also due to give the Don Fowler Memorial Lecture at Jesus College Oxford in May 2016, and, later that month, the Keynote lecture at the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters' symposium, "Ovid: A Critical Reappraisal", Stockholm.

In August 2015 Professor Tim Parkin, author of Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (JHU Press, 2003) took part in a public debate at Cambridge on the best age to have children; the panel was made up of sociologists and fertility experts, but Professor Parkin contributed a broader historical perspective. The question with which they engaged, 'Should we be having babies at 20?', has its roots in current medical recommendations that female fertility starts to decline after the age of 24.

11 More recent scientific studies have revealed that the quality of male sperm also declines after the age of 25.

The question of the ideal age to start a family is one which encompasses a complex web of social, cultural as well as biological aspects. Age is just be one consideration: throughout history different factors have been perceived to contribute to the production of healthy babies.

'Sarcophagus of Marcus Cornelius Statius from the Louvre.'

Finally, we are pleased to announce that our second-year student, Gemma Moring is just back from the University of Sydney where she sent a semester under the Study Abroad scheme. Welcome back, Gemma!

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CONTACT US ug-classics@manchester.ac.uk Undergraduate Admissions Office School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Room A19, Samuel Alexander Building The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PT United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)161 275 0322