The Meaningful Life in Antiquity

The Meaningful Life in Antiquity: Tuesday 1 December 2026, 18:30–20:30, Holstebro Bibliotek, Holstebro. Admission is free.

In antiquity, people did not speak of the meaningful life as such, but of the good and successful life - and of how one faced and overcame the challenges that life brings. These are questions that were central in antiquity and still resonate with our time.

Cand.mag. and retired lecturer Finn Lyngholm Christensen begins with the Greeks but places the main emphasis on the Romans. Philosophy naturally plays a role, but Finn Lyngholm Christensen also gives great weight to literature: Homer, Herodotus and Plato on the Greek side, and in the Roman world Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, Catullus, Virgil and Tibullus among others. Literature provides, as he sees it, a broader perspective and deeper understanding of the ancient person's relationship to life.

The lecture is part of Vidensfestival 2026, where Holstebro Folkeuniversitet focuses on the meaningful life as illuminated by philosophy, literature, theology and antiquity's own concepts of the subject.