Cary Library will host a streamed lecture and discussion from 5:30—7:30 p.m., Monday Feb. 24. Glen Hines will facilitate the pre- and post- discussion around the lecture, will focus on Greg Woolf’s book, “Rome, An Empire’s Story”.
Rome’s geographical reach was greater than that of any political entity that has existed in the Old World before or since. The 100 million-odd people who lived within the imperial boundaries spoke hundreds of languages, worshipped thousands of different gods, ate, dressed, married and buried their dead in countless ways. Yet that diversity of cultures seemed to create no political instability, no social tensions and the Caesars never seem to have worried, whether the eternal city was a salad bowl or a melting pot.
This seminar will explore how common values co-existed with diverse customs in antiquity, and why it so difficult to replicate that combination today.
Woolf has degrees from Oxford and Cambridge and had fellowships at both universities before moving to Scotland in 1998. He has had visiting positions in Brazil, France, Germany and Italy and has lectured very widely. His research concerns the cultural history of antiquity, viewed in the broadest sense. He has co-edited volumes on literacy, on Rome as a Cosmopolis, on ancient libraries and encyclopedias, on gender in the ancient city and published on Roman archaeology and the economy.
Woolfe is currently researching the process through which the first religions emerged between classical antiquity and the middle ages.
