Department of Classics

Academics for current students Graduating and Convocation Ceremony Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Department of Classics Faculty and staff Courses and programs Resources for students Crake Endowment Torre Mordillo Archaeological Field School Classics Society Torre Mordillo Archaeological Field School Community Engaged Learning program Ron Joyce Centre for Business Studies Pierre Lassonde School of Fine Arts Department of Geography and Environment Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Department of Modern Languages and Literatures Frank McKenna School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Department of Politics and International Relations Department of Religious Studies Visual and Material Culture Studies program Feminist and Gender Studies program These classical civilizations provided the cultural foundations of the western world, as well as the basis of many other elements of our modern life.

Guided by a supportive faculty, students explore all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman civilization and are introduced to Latin and Greek, which provides the ability to study ancient texts in their original language.

The study of classics helps students develop a broad perspective.

It also cultivates the capacity to write clearly, an ability to balance different viewpoints, and a talent for critical analysis.

The Department of Classics at Mount Allison University warmly congratulates Dr.

Christopher Forstall on the publication of his new co-edited volume, Direct Speech in Greek and Latin Epic: Expanding the Methods and Canon (Brill, 2025), co-edited with Dr.

Berenice Verhelst (University of Amsterdam).This innovative volume brings together an international group of scholars to explore the role of direct speech in Greek and Roman epic poetry, from Homer to Late Antiquity.

Combining traditional philological approaches with digital humanities and new theoretical perspectives, the contributors examine how speeches shape characterization, narrative structure, and emotional expression in epic literature.The book also accompanies the launch of the DICES (Database of Greek and Latin Epic Speech), a digital research tool that maps speech representation across the epic tradition and opens new avenues for interdisciplinary and computational research in Classics.We congratulate Dr.

Forstall and his collaborator on this significant contribution to the study of ancient epic and to the growing field of Digital Classics.

From March 14–16, the Classics Department at Mount Allison University led a field trip to Montréal to visit the extraordinary exhibition The Torlonia Collection: Masterpieces of Roman Sculpture at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

This landmark exhibition brings to Canada, for the first time, highlights from what is widely considered the most important private collection of Roman sculpture, assembled in the 19th century by Prince Alessandro Torlonia.

Featuring remarkably lifelike portraits, mythological figures, and exquisitely carved reliefs, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter masterpieces that were hidden from public view for decades.

Before arriving in Montréal—its only Canadian stop—the exhibition was presented in North America at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, as part of an exceptional international tour.

Students were accompanied by Dr.

Fae Amiro, Dr.

Ilaria Battiloro, and Dr.

Christopher Forstall, who guided them through this remarkable encounter with ancient Roman art.

The participation of students in this trip was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Crake Foundation.

The trip was a truly momentous experience, allowing students to engage directly with some of the finest works of classical sculpture and to deepen their understanding of Roman visual culture beyond the classroom.

An unforgettable opportunity, and a highlight of the academic year!

Public LectureDr.

Maria A.

Liston, University of WaterlooFriday, September 26th4:30pmDunn 106Part of the ACA/CAC lecture tour AbstractExcavations in the Sanctuary of Ismenion Apollo in Thebes also revealed a later cemetery of Early and Middle Byzantine burials, which are apparently associated with an early Christian hospice or hospital.

The skeletons showed that a remarkably high percentage of individuals suffered from significant pathologies with high rates of infectious diseases.

Two mass graves are probably associated with the early spread of the Plague of Justinian or a smallpox epidemic.

Another epidemic, leprosy, affected nearly everyone in the cemetery, including those who suffered comorbidities such as cancer, brucellosis, and severe trauma.

Hospitals serving the whole community were an early innovation of the Byzantine church in Greece, and this project provides a vivid glimpse of the patients whose lives ended there.

Thebes also may have been a site of pilgrimage in the early church, drawn by the tomb of St.

Luke the Evangelist, located near this cemetery. “Women in the city of Ostia, Rome’s port: what epigraphy and iconography can tell us”Monday, November 17th, 4:30pm, Windsor Grand RoomOstia was Rome’s booming port town during the period of imperial peace (1st – 2nd century CE).

Hundreds of ships brought in the goods needed for the empire’s capital and immigrants flocked to the site.

In this environment of weather-beaten sailors, labouring dock workers, and shrewd merchants, was there any space for women at all, except in the traditional ‘service sector’ typical of ancient harbours?

With the help of ancient inscriptions, thousands of which survive from Ostia, one can tell a different story: women owned real estate, they determined the use of space for tombs and burials, and even a owners of slaves they played a more marked role than their peers in the nearby capital of Rome.

And we have images which let us see them, both