In collaboration with the University of Malta, the MCA organised an international conference to celebrate the 25th year anniversary from the re-introduction of the study of Classics at the University. The Conference, entitled Abhinc Annos Quinque et Viginti was held on the University of Malta’s Valletta Campus on the 11th and 12th of December,and attracted speakers from a host of different institutions around Europe. A number of the presented papers were later published in the 3rd volume of the Melita Classica. The MCA is eternally grateful to Prof. Horatio C.R. Vella for his role in organising the conference.

Thursday 11th

10:45 – Panel 1: Philosophy, and Slavery in Rome

Sanskrit: the Philosophy

Michael Zammit, University of Malta

The Role of Slaves in Roman Land Surveying

Levente Taka’cs, University of Debrecen

13:30 – Panel 2: Herodotus and Plato

Themistocles as a Trickster in Herodotus

Nijole Juchneviviene, University of Vilnius

Drawing Distinctions in the Laches and Charmides: Socratic Elenchus as Search

Jurgen Gatt, University of Malta

Friday 12th

09:00 – Panel 3: From East to West: Influence and Migration in Classical Times

The Medea Myth in the Literature of the 20th Century

Ojars Lams, University of Latvia

Aristotle on Historiography

Vita Paparinska, University of Latvia

Beyond Novelistic Heroism: the Untold Story of the Ancient Novel

Koen de Temmerman, Ghent University

Mutatas Formas: the Human, the Arboreal, and the Animalesque in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Gloria Lauri Lucente, University of Malta

The Migration of Religions from East to West in the Roman Era

Danny Praet, Ghent University

The Classical Elegiac Strain and the Stylised Expression of Grief in John Milton’s Lycidas

Peter Vassallo, University of Malta

Ferrying Nothingness the Charon Motif in Murnau’s Nosferatu and Dreyer’s Vampyr

Saviour Catania, University of Malta

14:30 – Panel 4: Byzantium, Rome and Malta

Byzantine Greek on Maltese Soil: the evidence of Tristia ex Melitogaudo

Jerker Blomqvist, University of Lund

Ovid on Gozo? Metamorphoses as a Source for the Tristia ex Melitogaudo

Stephen Harrison, University of Oxford

Tristia in retrospect – the Arabs in Malta, 870-1150

Stanley Fiorini, University of Malta

Through Western Eyes: Greek and Latin Sources for Byzantine-Iranian Relations

David Frendo, University College Cork

The Cult of Hercules in Roman Malta: a Discussion of the Evidence

Anthony Bonanno, University of Malta

Magnis Nata Triumphis Insula: Malta in the Liladamus of Jacques Mayre [1685]

Heinz Hofmann, University of Tubingen

Classical Theatre in Malta in the late 1940s

Carmel Serracino, University of Malta