Order of Service – The Leventis Lectures 2015
Leventis 2015: The Impact of Greek Culture: Tragedy and
Food - New Research Insights
Wednesday 25 February 2015 – 7 pm Great Hall, Hellenic Centre.
16-18 Paddington St. London, W1U 5AS (Nr Baker St Tube)
Two short lectures by University of Exeter scholars, followed by discussion,
bringing out key insights from ancient Greece for later societies:
Professor Matthew Wright: ‘In Search of Lost Tragedy’.
Dr Erica Rowan: ‘Greek food in the Roman kitchen? Examining the
impact of Greek food culture on Roman dietary practices’
The College of Humanities is delighted to invite you to join us at this free
event in London exploring the impact of Greek culture. Supported by the A.G.
Leventis Foundation, the evening is an opportunity to hear Exeter academics
draw on new, cutting-edge research to illuminate the impact of Greek culture,
both in the ancient world and beyond.
Greek tragedy has long been seen as a major influence on Western literature
and drama. Matthew Wright draws on his recent research on fragments of lost
Greek tragedies to give a taste of the wealth of dramatic material from writers
less well-known than Sophocles and Euripides. Greek food is not so well
understood as a big influence on Western culture - though plenty of people
enjoy it today! Erica Rowan uses new research techniques based on analysis
of food remains to show how the Greek diet helped to shape Roman patterns
of eating in antiquity.
These talks both open the window on the latest research methods in Classics
and bring out a fresh dimension of the widespread, continuing influence of
Greek culture. Organised by the University of Exeter and the Hellenic Centre,
this event forms part of the Initiative on the Impact of Greek Culture in the
ancient and modern world, which is sponsored by the A. G. Leventis
Foundation.
Order of Service – The Leventis Lectures 2015
Summary for Matthew Wright’s presentation on ‘Tragedy’
Tragedy is one of the best examples of how ancient Greek literature still
makes an impact on the modern world. The plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides are still widely performed and read, and they have influenced
many other works of literature and drama in the two and a half millennia since
their first performance. We tend to think that we know and understand Greek
tragedy quite well -- but in fact our knowledge is based on a very small
selection of material, since nearly all of Greek tragedy is lost. This talk
examines the evidence for some of the many lost tragedies and their authors
(including once famous and now long forgotten names such as Agathon,
Neophron, Achaeus), and it suggests that our ideas about tragedy might be
very different if more of these works had survived.
Summary for Erica Rowan’s presentation on ‘Food’
In both ancient Greek and Roman society the practice of sharing food and
drink were important social practices and food was frequently imbued with
symbolic and moral meanings. As Roman territory expanded eastwards
during the 2nd century BC, we see Greek foodways and consumption
practices influencing Roman society, at least in the ancient literary sources.
But did the non-elites also adopt these new foods and foodways or was this
practice restricted to the wealthy? Ancient food remains, including cereal
grains, fruit stones, fish bones and so forth, provide direct evidence for the
diets of regular individuals. This talk will examine the use of ancient literary
sources and physical plant remains, particularly from Pompeii and
Herculaneum, in finding concrete evidence of the adoption of Greek foodways
by the Romans.