Laudator Temporis Acti: A Poem by Agathias Scholasticus.

ante diem v idus apriles

• ludi Megalesia continue (day 6)
• 193 A.D. — Septimius Severus given the rank of Augustus

Saw this a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times (inter alia):

The story of his influence on the Princeton project is told by the American technology historian, George Dyson, in his book “Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe.” A compelling book, if puzzlingly discursive at times, it describes how a team of young mathematicians and engineers led by John von Neumann at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study applied Turing’s ideas to develop, not the first electronic computer, but the fastest machine of its era and among the first with the type of random access memory, or RAM, for short, that we still use today.

Mr. Dyson is particularly well equipped to tell this tale, having grown up at Princeton after his father, the physicist, Freeman Dyson, joined the institute in 1953, the same year that von Neumann’s “stored-program computer” was completed. He paints a vivid portrait of campus life: from the snooty classicist who complained of his “dismay” at learning that “a group of electronic experts” had arrived at the institute; to the custom of serving tea in china cups at 3 p.m. each day.

• via: Genius and Tragedy at Dawn of Computer Age (New York Times)

… wonder who the Classicist was …

Seen on various lists:

Bologna University Greek and Latin Summer School (25th June – 13th July 2012)

The Department of Classics and Italian studies of Bologna University welcomes applications to its intensive Greek and Latin Summer School (http://www.ficlit.unibo.it/dipartimento/summer-school).

Registration is now open.

The school offers courses in Greek and Latin language (at different levels: beginners and intermediate) and the possibility of combining two courses (Latin & Greek) at a special rate.
The courses will be held in Bologna from 25th June to 13th July 2012 and are open to students (undergraduate and post-graduate) and non-students alike. Participants must be aged 18 or over.

The teaching will be focused mainly on Greek and/or Latin language with additional classes on Classical literature; further classes will touch on moments of classical history and history of art, supplemented by visits to museums and archaeological sites (in Bologna and Rome).

All teaching and activities will be in English.

To register please visit:
http://www.eng.unibo.it/PortaleEn/Academic+programmes/SummerWinterSchools/2012/greco_e_latino.htm

and then contact: diri_school.latin AT unibo.it

• 2012.04.09:  Lee Fratantuono, Madness Transformed: a Reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
• 2012.04.08:  James J. O’Hara, Vergil. Aeneid Book 4. Focus Vergil Aeneid commentaries.
• 2012.04.07:  Jennifer R. Ballengee, The Wound and the Witness. The Rhetoric of Torture.
• 2012.04.06:  Lucia Athanassaki, Ewen Bowie, Archaic and Classical Choral Song: Performance, Politics and Dissemination. Trends in Classics – supplementary volumes, 10.
• 2012.04.05:  Alberto Cavarzere, Gli arcani dell’oratore: alcuni appunti sull’actio dei romani. Agones. Studi, 2.
• 2012.04.04:  Madalina Dana, Culture et mobilité dans le Pont-Euxin. Scripta antiqua, 37.
• 2012.04.03:  Ioannis Fappas, Έλαιον ευώδες, τεθυωμένον: Τα αρωματικά έλαια και οι πρακτικές χρήσης τους στη μυκηναϊκή Ελλάδα και την αρχαία Εγγύς Ανατολή (14ος -13ος αι. π.Χ.). Κρητική Εστία, 13 (2009-2010).
• 2012.04.02:  Manuela Callipo, Dionisio Trace e la tradizione grammaticale. Multa paucis, 9.
• 2012.03.59:  Edward J. Kenney (ed.), Gioachino Chiarini, (trans.), Ovidio Metamorfosi. Volume IV. Libri VII-IX. Scrittori greci e latini.
• 2012.03.58:  Elizabeth Schofield, Ayia Irini: the Western sector. Keos, 10.
• 2012.03.57:  Andrew Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. Second edition (first published 1990). Bristol Classical paperbacks.