Andreas Alföldi in the Twenty-First Century 

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

31 August – 2 September 2011

Photograph from L. Borhy (ed.), “Von der Entstehung Roms bis zur Auflösung des Römerreiches”: Konferenz zum Gedenken des hundertsten Geburtstages von Andreas Alföldi (1895-1981), Budapest 1999, reproduced with the kind permission of the publisher, Pytheas Kiadó (www.pytheas.hu).

Professor Andreas Alföldi (1895-1981) was an eminent ancient historian, numismatist, archaeologist and epigraphist.  His scholarly output was not only immense, it was also extremely diverse, covering archaic Rome, late Republican Rome, the provinces of the Roman Empire (especially the Danube region) and late antiquity.  His work was marked by extraordinary erudition, an ability to draw upon all manner of evidence no matter how disparate, and also by great fertility and originality.

Alföldi’s successful academic career took him from Budapest to Debrecen, and then back to Budapest, where he taught until 1947.  He subsequently went into exile on account of the political situation in Hungary.  He first moved to Switzerland, where he held professorships at Berne and Basle; then, in 1956, he moved to the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, where he worked until his death.  He maintained an impressive level of scholarly productivity until his final days, despite the trauma of exile and various health problems.

Alföldi died in 1981.  2011 seems the perfect year in which to revisit and reconsider the rich and diverse output of this extraordinary scholar, and also to consider the impact that his own times had on that output.  Almost all of the most prominent ancient historians of the twentieth century have received comprehensive scholarly attention.  Numerous conferences and publications have already engaged with the careers of other illustrious scholars, such as K. Beloch, A. Momigliano, E. Pais and R. Syme, and the work of G. De Sanctis and M. Rostovtzeff has almost become the object of a sub-discipline within the history of classical studies.  While a few important works have appeared over the years (such as K. Christ, Neue Profile der Alten Geschichte, 1990, 8-62 and L. Borhy (ed.), “Von der Entstehung Roms bis zur Auflösung des Römerreiches”: Konferenz zum Gedenken des hundertsten Geburtstages von Andreas Alföldi (1895-1981), 1999), it remains fair to say that comparatively little attention, and almost none in the English-speaking world, has been paid to the no less important scholarship of Alföldi.

This conference aims to address this imbalance, to draw renewed attention to the importance of Alföldi’s work, to discuss the areas in which it made an impact and those in which it is now superseded, and to explore how the historical context in which any scholar works can sometimes be just as important as the historical context of the evidence with which s/he works.  One of the main purposes of the conference is also to revisit some of the central problems with which Alföldi’s work engaged.  While some of his conclusions may not have stood the test of time, his pioneering approach of drawing not only on the literary evidence, but also the archaeological and iconographic, has remained fundamental to subsequent scholarship.

List of confirmed speakers and provisional titles of papers:

  • Géza Alföldy, University of Heidelberg: ‘Andreas Alföldi and the Crisis of the Third Century AD’.
  • Lucretiu Birliba, University of Iasi: ‘Andreas Alföldi and the Dacians’.
  • Anthony Birley, University of Düsseldorf and University of Newcastle: ‘Andreas Alföldi and the Historia Augusta’.
  • Dominique Briquel, University of Paris-Sorbonne: ‘ « Lavinium’s authentic myth of origin » Perspectives ouverts par une remarque d’Andreas Alföldi’ (in absentia)
  • Tim Cornell, University of Manchester: ‘Alföldi, Early Latium and the Latin League’.
  • Attila Ferenczi, Eötvös Loránd University: ‘Andreas Alföldi in the history of classical scholarship in Hungary’.
  • Peter Forisek, University of Debrecen: ‘Alföldi at the University of Debrecen’.
  • Peter Franz Mittag, University of Cologne: ‘Andreas Alföldi and the Contorniates’.
  • Mark Humphries, Swansea University: ‘Andreas Alföldi and Late Antiquity’.
  • Frank Kolb, University of Tubingen: ‘Alföldi, Caesar und die Tradition der deutschen Caesar-Forschung’.
  • Arnaldo Marcone, University of Rome III: ‘Alföldi and Rostovzeff’.
  • James Richardson, University of Wales Trinity Saint David: ‘Andreas Alföldi and the adventure(s) of the Vibenna Brothers’.
  • Federico Santangelo, University of Newcastle: ‘Saturnia regna revisited’.
  • Peter Wiseman, University of Exeter: ‘Dogma, Evidence and Authority’.

Conference organisers:

James Richardson (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): e-mail

Federico Santangelo (University of Newcastle): e-mail

Download a Booking form here: PDF-English ,Word-English , PDF-Cymraeg , Word-Cymraeg .

Please note that the deadline for booking a place at the conference is the 15th of August 2011.

PROGRAMME: Dowload the Conference Programme here: Conference Programme

For information about how to get to Lampeter please click here.

This conference is being generously supported by

The University of Wales Trinity Saint David

The Hungarian Cultural Centre, and

The Institute of Classical Studies

Photograph of Andreas Alfoldi: Photograph from L. Borhy (ed.), “Von der Entstehung Roms bis zur Auflösung des Römerreiches”: Konferenz zum Gedenken des hundertsten Geburtstages von Andreas Alföldi (1895-1981), Budapest 1999, reproduced with the kind permission of the publisher, Pytheas Kiadó (www.pytheas.hu)