Roman Public Gardens to be topic of Nov. 8 Moses Finley Memorial Lecture

Roman Public Gardens to be topic of Nov. 8 Moses Finley Memorial LectureNovember 01, 2006Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Kathryn L. Gleason, associate professor of landscape architecture at Cornell University, will speak on “Imagining Rome’s Public Gardens: Views of Politics and Idleness” Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 207 of the Hall of Languages.

This lecture, the first of this semester’s Finley Lecture Series sponsored by the Program in Classics in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the University’s lots on Comstock and Waverly avenues.

Gleason is a graduate of Oxford University (Ph.D. in Archaeology 1991) and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (M.A. in Landscape Architecture, 1983). Her specialties include the archaeology of the late Hellenistic/Roman Mediterranean and Near East, landscape and garden archaeology, landscape architectural history, and the design, preservation and interpretation of archaeological sites. Among her numerous publications are “The Archaeology of Garden and Field” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), as well as chapters and articles on public gardens of the Roman world, entertainment complexes in the the late Hellenistic world, tomb gardens, Horace’s Villa, gardens in pre-classical times, the first public park in ancient Rome and Herod’s seaside palace.

The Finley Lecture Series, honors the memory of Sir Moses I. Finley. Finley, one of the most influential historians of the 20th century, enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a professor of ancient history and master of Darwin College at Cambridge University. He was a 1927 graduate of SU.