March 26, 1999		Oberlin College Presents 1999 Charles Beebe Martin Classical Lectures April 5-9 Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli
	In Search of Persius "Performing Privately" (Satire 1) Monday, April 5, 8 p.m.   "Voices and Bodies" (Satire 3), Tuesday, April 6, 8 p.m.   "Freedom or Slavery?" (Satire 5) Thursday, April 8, 8 p.m.   "Life, Death and Art" (Satire 6), Friday April 9, 4:30 p.m.   King Building Room 106 Free and open to the public. For more information, contact James J. Helm (440/775-8392)		OBERLIN, OH--In Search of Persius is the title of the 1999 Charles Beebe Martin Classical Lectures to be presented by distinguished classics scholar Kenneth J. Reckford April 5-9 at Oberlin College. The 1999 lectures mark the 72nd anniversary of the series established in honor of Charles Beebe Martin, Oberlin College professor of classics and classical archaeology from 1880 to 1925. The April series will focus on the Satires of Persius, a first-century Latin poet who criticizes and lays bare the hypocrisy of his Roman contemporaries, pressing them on to Stoic self-knowledge and virtue. "Professor Reckford is an expert on this notoriously difficult and obscure poet," says James J. Helm, chair of the Martin Lectures Committee and Oberlin's classics department. "He will throw further illumination on Persius's poetry, which is recognized for its important contribution to our knowledge of the thought of the era and its literary outlook." Reckford is Kenan Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina, where he has been a member of the faculty for nearly 40 years. He is a fellow of the University's Institute for the Arts and Humanities. Among his publications are Horace for the Twayne series on classical authors and Aristophanes' Old-and-New Comedy, a collection of essays on the premier comic poet of ancient Greece. He also has produced joint translations of the Euripides' plays Hecuba and Electra, dozens of scholarly articles, including Studies in Persius; and numerous reviews. Professor Reckford has lectured widely in the U.S. and Europe and has spent a number of years in Rome and Oxford, most recently as a resident faculty member at the American Academy in Rome. He also has been a junior fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University, where he also received his Ph.D. in classical philology.