NOVEMBER 2020
“Fifty Years of New Epicurean Discoveries at Oinoanda”, Cronache Ercolanesi 50 (2020) 241-258.
The article chronicles the remarkable story of the Greek inscription set up by the Epicurean philosopher Diogenes of Oinoanda (the longest inscription known from the ancient world) from antiquity to the present, with particular focus on the discoveries and rediscoveries made at Oinoanda in the fifty years 1968-2017. Since 1968, when Martin inaugurated new investigations, huge progress has been made. As he points out:
“The number of fragments [of the inscription] has much more than tripled, from 88 to 305, and the quantity of text has more than doubled, from about 3,550 words to about 8,000. The length of the known parts of Diogenes’ inscription is now only slightly less than the combined length of Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines (Kyriai Doxai).”
He concludes:“Diogenes’ inscription … deserves a special place in the history of classical studies as one of the most remarkable documents to have come down to us from antiquity.”
In a similar vein, Professor Alexander Verlinsky of Saint Petersburg wrote to Martin:“I firmly believe that your Diogenes is one of the most outstanding discoveries in classics of the last two centuries.” (E-mail, 12 November 2017, quoted here with the writer’s kind permission)
NEW READ HERE: https://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/pdf/CRONACHEERCOLANES.pdf
Lucretius, Boris Johnson, and Covid-19
A press release from 10 Downing Street in August 2020 stated that Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, was taking Lucretius’ philosophical poem, On the Nature of Things, with him to read during his holiday in Scotland. It has since emerged that he chose to pack the Loeb Classical Library volume, edited by Martin and published by Harvard University Press (see above, under LUCRETIUS). Its compact size makes it easily portable, and an added convenience (even for an Oxford Classics graduate!) is its display of the Latin text and the English translation on facing pages.
Lucretius concludes his work with a lengthy account of the plague that hit Athens in 430 BC, and this passage is likely to have been of particular interest to one who, as well as having had to wrestle with the national problems created by the Covid-19 pandemic, was seriously ill with it himself in early April 2020. Lucretius’ description of the plague of Athens receives prominent mention in Martin’s article on Covid-19 and Epicurean philosophy, published four times between April and August 2020. For links, see RECENT NEWS, AUGUST 2020, JULY 2020, APRIL 2020.
New book comingMartin’s book In and Out of Bloomsbury: Biographical Essays on Twentieth-Century Writers and Artists is to be published in 2021 by Manchester University Press, the publishers of his highly-praised book Dearest Jean: Rose Macaulay’s Letters to a Cousin. The new work is a collection of eleven biographical essays – six on members of the Bloomsbury group and five on others, with introduction, notes, index, and illustrations. Like Dearest Jean and Martin’s work on Diogenes of Oinoanda, these “modern” essays are highly original and include previously unpublished texts, pictures, and photographs.
AUGUST 2020
“Covid-19 and Greek Philosophy”, The Philosophers’ Magazine 90 (3rd Quarter 2020) 53-56. An invited contribution to a special issue of the journal (published online and on paper) entitled Thinking Through the Pandemic
READ HERE: http://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/COVID-19 and Greek Philosophy.pdf
For earlier versions of this article, see below under JULY 2020 and APRIL 2020.
JULY 2020
On 3 July Martin was elected a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut) “to acknowledge and commend your contribution to the field of Ancient Studies, and to further strengthen our existing bond”. In the latest phase of the investigations at Oinoanda in Turkey (since 2007) Martin has collaborated with German-led teams.
Martin’s article on Covid-19 and Epicurean philosophy, first published on 10 April 2020 (see below, APRIL 2020), has been republished, with minor alterations, in:
(1) the Durham University Classics Society’s blog, Ostraka, 24 April 2020, with two illustrations Confronting Covid-19 With Help from Ancient Philosophy;(2) the organisation Classics For All’s magazine Ad Familiares, 15 June 2020, with three illustrations An Epicurean view of Covid-19.

MICHIEL SWEERTS (1618-1674), “PLAGUE IN AN ANCIENT CITY”. LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART
APRIL 2020
“Confronting Covid-19 with Help from Greek Philosophy” (April 2020).
NEW! READ HERE http://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/COVID-19 AND EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY.pdf
The article was published in The Shetland Times, 10 April 2020, p. 16, under the (unauthorised!) title “Ancient Plagues Displayed Similar Symptoms”.
Trinity College Dublin, Scholars’ Dinner, 20 April 2020, on the 60th anniversary of Martin’s election as a Foundation Scholar of Trinity College, University of Dublin.
MARCH 2020
“Tribute to Diskin Clay and His Work on Diogenes of Oinoanda”, in P. Burian, J. Strauss Clay, and G. Davis (eds), Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Philosophy, History, and Literature in Memory of Diskin Clay (Berlin, 2020), pp. 109-111.
JANUARY 2020
"A New Look at Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fr. 157 Smith", Hyperboreus 25, 2 (2019) 351-362. 2 figures.
Contribution to an issue of Hyperboreus dedicated to Alexander Verlinsky, Professor of Classics, State University of St Petersburg, to mark his 60th birthday. The article presents a revised text, translation, and interpretation of a fragment of Diogenes' treatise Old Age - a fragment discovered by Martin at Oinoanda 50 years ago, in 1969.

DIOGENES OF OINOANDA, FRAGMENT 157 (SMITH), DRAWING (12:100) © Martin Ferguson Smith
NOVEMBER 2019
“A Complete Strip-off: A Bloomsbury Threesome in the Nude at Studland”, The British Art Journal 20, no. 2 (Autumn 2019) 72-77. Illustrated. The first presentation and discussion of a remarkable collection of nude photographs, taken out of doors, of Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, and Roger Fry at Studland, Dorset, in September 1911.
READ HERE http://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/Smith Studland BAJ XX 2 2019.pdf
VANESSA BELL AT STUDLAND, BY ROGER FRY, SEPTEMBER 1911. THE BERG COLLECTION, NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
SEPTEMBER 2019
“Clive Bell’s Memoir of Annie Raven-Hill”, English Studies 100 (2019) 823-854. Illustrated. With Helen Walasek. The first publication of Clive Bell’s frank recollections of his first lover, the wife of the illustrator and cartoonist Leonard Raven-Hill. The affair began in 1899, when she was 35 and he not quite 18, and continued on and off until 1914, seven years after his marriage to Vanessa Bell. The appearance of the article is timed to mark the centenary of the establishment of the Bloomsbury Memoir Club (4 March 1920).
READ HERE https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FIDXQIDSB9Z7E6BEINXI/full?target=10.1080/0013838X.2019.1658944
VANESSA BELL, “THE MEMOIR CLUB”, ca. 1943. © NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON. BY KIND PERMISSION OF HENRIETTA GARNETT.
JULY 2019
"Diogenes of Oinoanda: News and Notes XIII (2018)”, Cronache Ercolanesi 49 (2019) 301-313.
“The First Visit of Tristram Hillier (1905-1983) to Portugal”, The British Art Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2019) 90-97. Illustrated. The first study of the visit made by the quasi-surrealist artist to Portugal in 1947 – a visit of great importance for him both artistically and personally.
READ HERE Smith-Hillier-2019.PDF
TRISTRAM HILLIER, "CATHEDRAL SQUARE, VISEU", 1947. WOLVERHAMPTON ART GALLERY. PHOTO: WOLVERHAMPTON ARTS AND CULTURE. © THE ESTATE OF TRISTRAM HILLIER / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
JUNE 2019
Jürgen Hammerstaedt’s and Martin’s article “Diogenes of Oinoanda: The New and Unexpected Discoveries of 2017 (NF 214-219), With a Re-edition of Fr. 70-72” published in Epigraphica Anatolica 51 (2018) 43-79. Illustrated. The first publication of six new pieces of Diogenes’ philosophical inscription recorded at Oinoanda in October 2017. Two of the pieces (NF 214 and 215) are of particularly great interest and importance. The article includes a revised text of three already-known passages.

TITLE AND OPENING COLUMN OF THE “NEW” LETTER IN DIOGENES’ INSCRIPTION (NF 215)
OCTOBER 2018
Martin's and Jürgen Hammerstaedt's article "Diogenes of Oinoanda: News and Notes XII (2017)" published in Cronache Ercolanesi 48 (2018) 203-210.
SEPTEMBER 2018
Martin's article "Letters from Rose Macaulay to Katharine Tynan” published in English Studies 99 (2018) 517-537. The first publication and discussion of the letters from Macaulay, a British novelist who also wrote poetry, to Tynan, an Irish poet who also wrote novels.
9 JULY 2018
On 9 July 1968 Martin began his exploration of Oinoanda, in the mountains of southern Turkey, in search of the inscription of the Epicurean philosopher Diogenes. Over the past 50 years the number of known pieces of the longest-known ancient inscription has much more than tripled, from 88 to 305.
The 50th anniversary of the start of Martin's investigations at Oinoanda is the subject of a note in Cronache Ercolanesi 48 (2018) 224-225. The writer rightly compares the discoveries of new Epicurean texts made at Oinoanda with those made at Herculaneum, and points out that both Martin's 1993 edition of Diogenes of Oinoanda and his 2003 supplement to it were published in Naples.
1 JULY 2018
Martin became a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).
JULY 2018
Martin’s book Madeleine Symons: Social and Penal Reformer praised in a review by Lorraine Atkinson in the Howard League for Penal Reform's Early Career Academic Network Bulletin 36 (July 2018) 35.
READ HERE Early Career Academic Network Bulletin 36.PDF15 FEBRUARY 2018
A warm review of Martin’s book Madeleine Symons: Social and Penal Reformer, by the historian Cathy Hunt, was published in Women’s History Review 27 (2018) 642-643 (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2018.1437848)
16, 23 JANUARY 2018
In an interview published in the New York Times on 16 January 2018 and corrected on 23 January, the celebrated American novelist Philip Roth mentioned some of the
books he had read recently. They included Lucretius in Martin’s translation. (Roth died three months later, on 22 May.)
READ AT https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/books/review/philip-roth-interview.html
8 NOVEMBER 2017
READ AT https://blogs.londonmet.ac.uk/tuc-library/2017/11/08/madeleine-symons-social-and-penal-reformer-and-trade-unionist/