a
11
C classic
Sitting in Latin or Greek class, have you ever thought,“ when am I ever going to run into this stuff again?” Well, the answer is closer than you think: the classics are all around you, and Columbus is no exception! This fall, a myriad of classics-related festivals, plays, conferences, and seminars sprung up in the heart of Ohio. From August 29th to September 1st, the Columbus Greek Festival kicked off 2025’ s classics-filled fall. The Greek Festival celebrates both the wider culture of Greece and the Orthodox Christian religion, with traditional Greek food and drink, shops selling Greek clothing and pottery, fully costumed performances of traditional Greek dance and folksongs, and cathedral tours. In Dublin, a modern spin on an old Greek myth graced the stage: Eugene O’ Neil’ s“ Desire Under the Elms.” This play, whose father-son-stepmother love triangle is reminiscent of Phaedra, Hippolytus, and Theseus, was produced by Stage Right Theatrics as part of their homage series to O’ Neil. The show had a short but sweet run— two weekends— Sept. 19-20 and 26-27.
The( one and only) Ohio State University classics department also hosted a couple classics events of its own this fall, both open to the public.
First, from Oct. 17-18, the International Conference on Ancient Magic( ooh, ahh!) was held in our very own Ohio Union! Here, you could have come together with all of the worlds’ ancient magic scholars to speak, listen, and discuss, with seminars ranging from Veronique Dasen’ s“ I Love You a Little: Eros at Play in a Roman Glyptic”‘ to Radcliffe Edmonds’
FR call in ceview by Pheobe Bong,
central guber
“ What is the Question?: More on Magic and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance” and Michael Swartz’ s“ Kansas, I’ ve a Feeling We’ re Not In Toto Anymore: Thirty Years of Dialogue on the Concept of Ancient Magic”. The 17th was a packed day for Columbus classics scholars— concurrent to the Ancient Magic Conference, and also at the Union, the university held the 2025 Texts and Contexts seminar, focusing on Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in both Latin and the vernacular languages. Although the seminar is annual, there’ s a different keynote speaker every year. Richard Tarrant delivered this year’ s Virginia Brown Memorial Lecture, entitled“ Editing Horace: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Lastly, I can’ t forget our own central OJCL events! On Sept. 27, Fall Forum( and the OCC conference) was a blast at Columbus Academy. And still yet to come, central Make a Difference Day will be on Nov. 16 at the Childhood League Center( come out! It’ ll be so fun!!)
As I’ m sure we will all hear many times at state convention this year, gutta cavat lapidem.“ A drop hollows out a stone.” As sure as an apple a day keeps the doctor away, a drop of classical education a day brings great scholarship( and maybe a Certamen win) closer … so, central JCLers, go out there and surround yourselves with it!