Patrick O’Sullivan in Classics has recently given some invited lectures to Classics students outside UC.
On October 28 he spoke on ‘The Rise of Athens in the Fifth Century’ to Senior Classics students at Christchurch Boys’ High School, and focused on Athens in the wake of the Persians Wars as a cultural and imperial power from c. 480-430 BC.
On November 5 he gave an invited lecture via Zoom to students and staff in the Classics Dept. of Virginia State University, USA, entitled ‘Homer, Vergil and the Shield of Aeneas’; this focused on the Latin poet’s reworking of Homer’s famous ‘ecphrasis’ (description of an artwork) and discussed how both poets incorporate the shield-imagery into the broader themes of their epic poems and how they include influential ideas on the powers and interactions of the visual and verbal arts.
Image: ‘Venus Bringing Arms to Aeneas’ by J. Zoffany (1733-1810)
