Simonides Lyricus

Thursday 8th September to Saturday, 10th September 2011

Classics Faculty (Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge)

The Cambridge Faculty of Classics are happy to announce the conference  Simonides Lyricus, which will be held with the generous support of the British Academy.

The conference will bring together ten of the foremost scholars of Simonides and early Greek lyric, to discuss questions of the poet's life and oeuvre, his place in the culture of his times, his relationship to his poetic predecessors and his genres, and especially the problems of editing and attributing fragmentary lyric poetry. Papers will be forty minutes long, with time for discussion after.

Conference programme

Thursday, 8th September

1.30-1.40 pm Opening address

Simon Goldhill chairing
1.40-2.20 ANDREW FORD (Princeton): ‘Sophos kai Theios: Simonides’ Poetic Wisdom’
2.20-2.50 Discussion
2.50-3.30 DAVID SIDER (New York University), ‘Simonides Lyricus, Epigrammaticus, Elegiacus’
3.30-4.00 Discussion

4.00-4.30 Tea Break (room G.22)

Anna Uhlig chairing
4.30-5.10 ORLANDO POLTERA (Fribourg University): ‘Simonides: a kind of Janus? Biographical tradition and Poetical Reality’
5.10-5.40 Discussion

A reception will be held in the Cast Gallery (the Faculty of Classics) in the evening from 6.00pm

Friday, 9th September

Richard Hunter chairing
9-9.40 RICHARD RAWLES (Nottingham University): ‘Thus Homer and Stesichorus Sang to the Peoples: Simonides and his Sources’
9.40-10.10 Discussion

10.10-10.40 Tea Break

10.40-11.20 IAN RUTHERFORD (Reading): ‘Simonides’ kateuchai’
11.20-11.50 Discussion

12-1.30 Sandwich lunch in room G.22 of Classics Faculty

Renaud Gagné chairing
1.30-2.10 GIAMBATTISTA D'ALESSIO (KCL): ‘Dancing with the Dogs: Mimesis and the Hyporcheme in Pind. fr. *107 a-b S-M = Simonides fr. 205 Poltera’
2.10-2.40 Discussion

2.40-3.10 Tea break

3.10-3.50 KATHRYN MORGAN (UCLA): ‘Princes and Generals: Simonides and the Diplomacy of Victory’
3.50-4.20 Discussion
4.20-5 RICHARD HUNTER (Cambridge): ‘Clever About Verses? Plato and the Scopas Ode (542 PMG = 260 Poltera)’
5-5.30 Discussion

Saturday, 10th September

Lucia Prauscello chairing
9-9.40 ETTORE CINGANO (Ca' Foscari University, Venice) and Dirk Obbink (Oxford), ‘New Fragments of Simonides from Oxyrhynchus’
9.40-10.10 Discussion

10.10-10.40 Tea Break

10.40-11.20 GIUSEPPE UCCIARDELLO (University of Messina): ‘More Simonides Among the Fragmenta Adespota? The Case of P. Strasbourg inv. gr. 1406-1409 and fr. 1005 PMG’
11.20-11. 50 Discussion

11:50 Summing-up and closing discussion. Simon Goldhill

The conference is open to anyone who is interested in attending (those from outside Cambridge will be asked to pay a participation fee). The conference dinner is also open to anyone who would like to attend.

Organisers: Lucia Prauscello, Peter Agocs.