February 2015
CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND
Hosted this year in Queen’s University Belfast’s Canada Room, the CAI Summer School took as its theme ‘Voyages and Journeys in the Ancient World’. And with such a subject, who better to start things off than the man behind the Barrington Atlas? Professor Richard Talbert (UNC Chapel Hill) looked at two items that might have helped a Roman get to where he was going. On Friday evening he examined the portable sundial in the Roman empire. Useful timepiece or a rich man’s trinket? The following morning Prof. Talbert shifted his attention to the great Tabula Peutingeriana, revealed as a remarkable testament to mapping in the ancient world. As an accompaniment, a copy of the great map was unearthed from the QUB Library and put on display (below).
Professor Talbert on portable sundials (Photos in this report: Peter T. Crawford)
CAI Annual Summer School: Queen’s University Belfast 15th-17th August, 2014
From traversing land and sea to the actual and metaphorical journeys of the classical philosopher with Professor Andrew Smith (UCD). Perhaps the most eye-catching of those journeys was where classical philosophy met Romanticism, with the revealing of that “steep and rugged ascent” in William Blake’s The Sea of Time and Space. In investigating how the passing of emperors changed depending on their reputations, Oliver O’Sullivan (NUI Maynooth) demonstrated not just an in-depth knowledge of Suetonius but also how in giving early career academics a platform to present their research the CAI fosters the next generation of Irish scholars on Classical antiquity. In addition to Oliver, generous bursaries funded by the CA (UK) also helped five early career academics to attend. With Dr Raoul McLaughlin (QUB), we turned to a specific and extremely lucrative
voyage of the ancient world – the shipping lanes of the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden to the African, Arabian and Indian coasts sailed by the Ptolemies and Romans. Seeing ancient western traders and soldiers stationed in such far-flung places never ceases to amaze. Building on his recent work on Roman waterways, Professor Brian Campbell (QUB) spoke on the multiple, even contradictory visions of rivers – bringers of life or destruction, arteries of transport, imperial boundaries, artistic inspiration, or divine entities in themselves: all sprung from the inspiration of a Spanish bleach advertisement! At the close of proceedings school-goers participated in a lively exchange of ideas at a local establishment, a reception in the cloisters of the Lanyon Building and a wonderful meal in the Great Hall, provided by QUB (below). These festivities did not mark the end of the weekend’s activities, however, and the
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