This workshop aims to further our understanding of Manilius’ Astronomica by exploring how the concepts of time and space express and reflect the poem’s ideology, considered from multiple perspectives, such as cosmological, philosophical, narratological, and structural. The Astronomica portrays a world animated throughout by God, resulting in the perfect interconnection of its parts, shaping the universe into a coherent whole. From this totalising sympatheia the concepts of time and space emerge as a unified continuum, a “chronotope” (to use Bakhtin’s term), that permeates both Manilius’ ideology and the architecture of the poem itself, which obeys the same principles that govern the universe.

Date: 29 April 2026

Place: UCD Humanities Institute Seminar Room

The workshop is kindly funded by the UCD College of Arts and Humanities Seed Funding 2025-26

For enquiries, please contact the event organiser, Dr George Prekas (georgios.prekas@ucd.ie).

In order to ensure sufficient refreshments, those wishing to attend are kindly asked to register via email.

9.00–9.30: Coffee

9.30–9.45: Welcome

Session 1

Chair: Helen Dixon (University College Dublin)

1) 9.45–10.15

Matteo Rossetti (Università di Roma La Sapienza)

“Saecula dinumerare piget: Time of Stars and Time of Humans in Manilius’ Astronomica”

2) 10.25–10.55

Eleni Peraki-Kyriakidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

“The Divine and Human in Space and Time in Manilius’ Astronomica”

3) 11.05–11.35

George Prekas (University College Dublin)

“The Tapestry of Fate, Time, and Space: Manilius’ Greco-Roman exempla”

11.45–12.00 Coffee Break

Session 2

Chair: Monica Gale (Trinity College Dublin)

4) 12.00–12.30

Thomas Konrad (Universität Konstanz)

“Vicinam … cognoscere molem (Manil. 1,107): Distance and Proximity as Spatio-temporal Entities in Astronomica I”

5) 12.40–13.10

Katharina Volk (Columbia University)

“Manilius’ Southern Bears”

13.20–14.30 Lunch Break

Session 3

Chair: Oisín Parsons (University College Dublin)

6) 14.30–15.00

Dunstan Lowe (University of Kent)

“Static Electricity: Manilius’ Star-Signs as Stopped Time”

7) 15.10–15.40

Andreas Michalopoulos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

“Heaven as Stage: Theatrical Space and Celestial Drama in Manilius’ Astronomica”

15.50–16.00 Closing Remarks

16.15–16.45 UCD Classical Museum Tour