THE DOUGLAS CHALMERS GRADUATE SCHOLARS LECTURESHIPS

Compared to Cleopatra VII, that famous Ptolemaic queen and Antony’s lover, few people are aware of Octavia Minor, Emperor Augustus’ elder and only full sister. Livia, Augustus’ influential spouse, has also been much more closely studied. This lecture focuses on Octavia’s presence in Plutarch’s Life of Antony. Van Geel ties the focus of her talk to her current book project on Plutarchan female characters in the age of Caesar and how their literary presentations reside in the cultural imagination. 

Watch the video introduction to Lien Van Geel’s lecture



Lien Van Geel received her PhD in Classics at Columbia University in June 2022 after she defended her dissertation “Soror Augusti: Octavia Minor’s lives and afterlives.” During the 2022–2023 academic year, she is teaching and conducting postdoctoral research as an Early Career Fellow in Classics.

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