Santiago Segura Munguía

Santiago Segura Munguía (Ph.D. in Classical Philology) holds the Chair of Latin and is Professor Emeritus of the University of Deusto. An indefatigable researcher and writer with dozens of works to his name, he has had a long, prestigious career focused on the study of Classical culture. A great many of his published volumes are textbooks and study aids, which have helped university students both inside and outside Spain to gain a solid basis for their studies. His best-known works include two magnificent dictionaries Diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas and Diccionario por Raíces del Latín y de las voces derivadas, essential tools not only for language specialists, but also for researchers wishing to further their knowledge of their field, since in the final analysis, language contains the entire potential of human science.

But Prof. Segura has also explored the history of daily living and sought to further our overall understanding of Classical civilizations. He has therefore written works that bring the world of Classical antiquity closer to us through studies that are not strictly academic, but instead focus on the daily occupations of those civilizations, precursors to our own. Such works include Los jardines en la Antigüedad and Frases y expresiones latinas de uso actual, which seek to further our understanding of the global factors that enabled these (Greek and Roman) civilisations to sow the seeds of the modern world with all its flaws and virtues, many of which we can trace back to the Classical soul. Also in this vein is his latest publication, El ocio en la Grecia clásica, a work in which we discover that our leisure society is not at all a contemporary invention, but one of the pillars on which was based the revolution of Classical thought and the acquisition of human dignity as a noteworthy ethical trait of that period. With the Sophist postulate, «Man is the measure of all things», European civilisation woke from its Mediaeval sleep and entered a new Age.

Javier Torres Ripa

Director de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Deusto, y pertenece a la Junta Directiva de la UNE (Unión de Editoriales Universitarias Españolas). Entre sus aportaciones simbólicas figuran la obra Los Jardines en la Antigüedad, en colaboración con el profesor Santiago Segura Munguía, y que mereció el Premio Nacional al Mejor Libro Universitario en el año 2006. Acaba de editar con el mismo profesor la obra Historia de las plantas en el mundo antiguo, en colaboración con el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) de Madrid.