The first Dorothy Tarrant Lecture

On Wednesday 24th January 2018, the ICS hosted the first Dorothy Tarrant Lecture, which was delivered by Prof. Anthony Corbeill (University of Virginia), 2017-18 Dorothy Tarrant Fellow at the Institute. This newly-inaugurated visiting fellowship for scholars from outside the UK was set up to commemorate the contribution of a pioneering figure in UK Classics; the holders (of whom there are two this academic year, with Prof. Joshua Katz of Princeton joining us later in 2018) spend a minimum of six weeks conducting their research at the Institute and deliver the named lecture.

Dorothy Tarrant (1885-1973), was the first woman to be appointed as Professor of Greek in the UK – in 1936 she became head of department and Professor at Bedford College, part of the University of London. Much of her scholarship focused on Plato, with her best known work being her 1928 publication, The Hippias Major Attributed to Plato; she was also president of the Hellenic Society from 1953-1956. Along with other leading women classicists Tarrant has recently been the focus of an initiative by the Women’s Classical Committee (UK) to increase the visibility of women scholars on Wikipedia. This new fellowship named in Tarrant’s honour also comes at a particularly fitting time, as 2018 marks 150 years since women were first admitted to sit exams by the University of London; the University is marking this anniversary with a whole series of events connected to its Leading Women campaign celebrating the contribution of women to the University.

Prof. Corbeill’s lecture, entitled ‘Earthquakes, Etruscan Priests, and Roman Politics in the Age of Cicero’, gave an insight into his current research as he prepares, with Andrew Riggsby (University of Texas at Austin) a new commentary on Cicero’s De Haruspicum Responsis, a text which offers a unique insight into the process of interpreting a prodigium (‘prodigy’ or ‘omen’) at Rome – in this case, the earth tremors which were heard near Rome in 56 BCE.