Holborn
London EC1N
UK
In 1887 the influential arts-and-crafts book illustrator Walter Crane published The Baby’s Own Aesop, bringing the homespun wisdom of ancient Greek peasants to a new generation of children. This lecture uses these fables to tackle the least attractive feature of ancient Greece – institutionalised slavery.
Beneath the semi-legendary figure of Aesop himself, a barbarian sold to a Greek slave-owner in the 6th century BCE, lie tens of thousands of his real-life equivalents. The lecture asks how the ancient fables address power relations in a slave society. Were they primarily stories for and by slaves, or did they serve ruling-class interests?
No reservations are required for this lecture. It will be run on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Doors will open 30 minutes before the start of the lecture.