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History,  Visiting Scholars

Open House | Plato and the Tyrant, with Professor James Romm

We were pleased to welcome Professor James Romm, The James Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics, Bard College, when he joined members of the Kosmos Society for the Open House discussion (below) on Plato and the Tyrant: The Tale of the Platonic Letters.  Plato made three trips outside Athens during his life, all of them to the Greek city of Syracuse (in Sicily). His relations with two powerful tyrants there, a… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | November 2020: Pliny the Younger Letters

Being at a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated backwards and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from… Read more