Join us to watch in-person or online!
Lectures are held at AKS Lytham, Clifton Drive South, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, FY8 1DT on Thursday evenings (see map in the right sidebar). Doors open at 6.15pm for refreshments and a chance to meet the lecturer, and talks begin at 7pm. After a short question and answer session, meetings normally finish by 8:30pm. We are a really friendly bunch and can always guarantee visitors a warm welcome, a great lecture and some lovely homemade cake!
In-person events are £5 a ticket, or free to members. If you’d like to become a member for just £12 a year (or £5 for students), please click here.
We continue to offer online access to our lectures: please email us at lsaclassics@gmail.com for more details.
2022-23 PROGRAMME
29 September 2022, 7pm
Alexander the Great is Dead! What Happened Next?
Calling all lovers of ancient history! Tristan Hughes, producer and present at History Hit, and host of The Ancients podcast opens our season with a talk that will take us a back to 10/11 June 323 BCE, when King Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander ‘the Great’, died in Babylon aged 32. In his lifetime, he had forged one of the largest empires the world had yet seen, theoretically stretching from Greece to the Punjab, from Egypt to Samarkand. What followed his death, however, was an imperial implosion. As soon as Alexander died, the thin thread holding much of his empire together disintegrated. Tristan Hughes will tell the story of the crisis that ensued after his demise. We do hope you can join us then.
13 October 2022, 7pm
Plato and Us: The Ethics of Community
Emerita Professor at King’s College London and an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, Professor MM McCabe is a distinguished scholar and expert on Plato and his philosophy. She is the general editor of the Cambridge University Press series Studies in the Dialogues of Plato and has published widely onAristotle and on the Stoics, as well as on Plato’s predecessors, the pre-Socratics and Socrates. A former President of the British Philosophical Association (2008-12) and of The Mind Association (2016-17), she is currently the Honorary President of the national Classical Association. Her long-held research interest in philosophy and concepts of punishment led her to become the Founder and a Trustee of Philosophy in Prisons. MM will guide us to learn more about what Plato can teach us about modern living, the ethics of being in a community, and why we do what we do.
17 November 2022, 7pm
Journey to Britannia: From the Heart of Rome to Hadrian’s Wall
An author and journalist with a life-long interest in the ancient world, Bronwen Riley is fascinated by how and why people travel and their experiences and perceptions of the places they visit; she therefore devises her own cultural journeys and literary events, including speaking for BBC History Magazine, English Heritage, the Romanian Cultural Institute, the Transylvanian Book Festival as well as for charity events, local history societies and schools. Her latest book Journey to Britannia, from the Heart of Rome to Hadrian’s Wall AD130 (Head of Zeus) came out in paperback in March 2022 and will form the content of her lecture when she transports us back to trace the route of a newly appointed governor of Britain and his team from Rome to Hadrian’s Wall at the time of the emperor Hadrian. We will travel across borders, countries and civilisations, and we hope Bronwen, a fellow Lancastrian, will enjoy her own trip to the Lytham St Annes seaside!
5 January 2023, 7pm
‘X Marks the Spot’: The Discovery and Discoverers of our Past
Join our President Professor Michael Scott for a very special celebratory event and what promises to be an excellent lecture, as he takes us on a journey of intellectual discovery and adventure through some of the world’s greatest archaeological discoveries, whilst offering a reflection on the nature of history and discovery itself. He will peel back layers of history to simultaneously examine the time of an artefact’s creation, as well as the time of its discovery millennia later, and uncover the fascinating characters behind great discoveries.
Michael is Professor in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick; Director of the Warwick Institute of Engagement and the winner of the 2021 Classical Association Prize. A Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy he is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an Honorary Citizen of Delphi and in 2022, he became the International Lego Classicist of the year!
9 February 2023, 7pm
London in the Roman World
Professor Dominic Perring is the Director of the UCL Centre for Applied Archaeology, and he has been responsible for the management and interpretation of archaeological sites in London, Milan and Beirut. As well as an eminent archaeologist, Dominic is also a broadcaster and has authored nine books and over eighty academic papers addressing key themes in the management and interpretation of archaeological sites and landscapes. His latest book, London in the Roman World, presents a ground-breaking study of how Rome ruled, and how the Roman empire failed, adding to the debate over how archaeology might help us to understand the forces that can create and destroy cities and empires.
Thursday 9 March 2023, 7pm
Life and Sex in Sparta
This online-only event will take place at the start of March when legendary historian and Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, Paul Cartledge, sheds light on some of the more under-discussed aspects of ancient Spartan life and culture, with a particular focus on love and relationships (NB: some ancient images shown may include erotic graphics).
Paul came to visit Lytham St Annes back in 2016 and he has remained a friend to the branch, and a tremendous support, as patron of our national Classics Competition. A prolific writer and researcher, he is also the President of the Hellenic Society, an honorary citizen of (modern) Sparta, and a holder of the Gold Cross of the Order of Honour of Greece.
27 April 2023, 7pm
Decoding the Hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt
Dr Chris Naunton is an Egyptologist and author of Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt, Egyptologists’ Notebooks and two books for children including Cleopatra Tells All! He has presented numerous television documentaries, including The Man Who Discovered Egypt (BBC4 2012), Secrets of King Tut’s Treasures (Channel 5, 2018), Egypt’s Lost Pyramid (Channel 4, 2019) and most recently The Story of Egyptology (History Hit, 2022). He was Director (CEO) of the Egypt Exploration Society from 2012 to 2016 and President of the International Association of Egyptologists from 2015 to 2019.
We are hugely privileged that Chris will round off our 2022-23 programme in style, when he will introduce a subject that is much loved amongst ancient world enthusiasts – how to decode Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs!
Lytham St Annes CA 
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