The online lecture titled “Classicism and Religion in the fourth century CE: the case of Corbridge lanx” marks the final event in the 6th Lecture Cycle on Late Antiquity “When our World Became Christian”, organised by the Undergraduate Programme “Studies in Hellenic Culture” of the Open University of Cyprus (OUC). The guest speaker is Dr Gianfranco Agosti, Professor of Classical and Late Antiquity Philology, Literature and Linguistics at University of Pisa. The lecture will take place on Thursday, 15 May 2025 at 19:00 pm (GMT+3), and will be broadcast online via the OUC’s distance learning tools at the following link: https://tinyurl.com/bdew2azv
Registrations link: https://forms.office.com/e/5AqsXLDLNE
The Lecture Series is supported by the Students and Alumni Association of the “Studies in Hellenic Culture” Programme and the Fata Libelli bookstore. The communication sponsor is the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
The lecture will discuss a reassessment of the silver tablet found in 1735 near the town of Corbridge, along Hadrian's Wall, which depicts a scene of divine epiphany and dates back to the 4th century. The iconography of the lanx is still controversial and it is not even clear whether it is based on a well- defined text or whether it arises from the combination of individual elements of classical culture in an unknown narrative. After a brief discussion of previous readings, Dr Agosti will focus on the interpretation that links the lanx to Emperor Julian, also examining coeval epigraphic texts and discussing the methodological problem of identifying classical themes with paganism in the 4th century.
Dr Gianfranco Agosti is Professor of Classical and Late Antiquity Philology at the University of Pisa, and Director of the Doctoral School in the Science of Antiquity and Archaeology at the Universities of Pisa, Siena and Florence. He is a member of the Academia Europaea and associate research fellow at institutions including the Collège de France (UMR 8167), Université de Strasbourg, and Université Laval. He was honorary research fellow at the University of St Andrews and the University of Newcastle. His main areas of research include Classical philology and textual criticism, Greek Literature, Late Antique and Byzantine culture and historiography, Greek epigraphy, and multiculturalism in late antique Egypt. Dr Agosti has delivered around 200 invited lectures internationally and authored over 150 scholarly works, including key monographs on Nonnus and edited volumes on late antique poetry. He is currently completing a French monograph on orality in Late Antiquity and a study on Greek metrical inscriptions.
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