Professor Gavin Kelly

Event details

Lecture title: "Late Roman History and Latin Philology"

Venue: Playfair Library, Old College, The University of Edinburgh

Lecture abstract

The historical study of the classical world is unusually dependent on philology, the close study and interpretation of works of literature – something which helps to explain the interdisciplinary nature of the discipline of Classics.

The lecture argues from a range of examples that this is even more the case for the later Roman empire than the rest of Graeco-Roman Antiquity, that recent scholarly developments make the present a particularly good time to study philology, especially late antique philology, with benefits for our understanding of the broader history of late antiquity.