Am currently reviewing Jerry Toner’s new book on Roman Disasters for BBC History Magazine. Wont reveal too much of the review content here – should be out in the Magazine in a couple of months – but reading it made me think of the series of Darwin Lectures I co-organised a couple of years ago with Dr Layla Skinns and Tony Cox on the subject of Risk. The Darwin Lecture series is a great inter-disciplinary institution in Cambridge, where a single theme, is, over eight lectures, approached from a variety of disciplines. In Risk in 2010, we had statistics, criminology, astronomy, governance, climate change and classics! Mary Beard took to the stage to think about Risk in the Roman world and about how the language of risk, and of betting, pervaded Roman culture.
The series resulted in a book of essays, which you can find here
And you can still watch Mary’s lecture
Look out for when I get hauled up on stage as an unsuspecting candidate in a consultation of the oracles of Astrampsychus!
My blog at the time on the experience can be found here
