UNC Asheville will host a talk on “To Live in Luxury: The Houses of Hellenistic Sicily” by Barbara Tsakirgis, professor of classics and art history at Vanderbilt University. The presentation will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22, in UNC Asheville’s Ramsey Library Whitman Room. The talk will focus on the luxurious houses of Hellenistic Sicily and the Greek influences found within them. The event is free and open to the public.

As a specialist in Greek architecture and archaeology, Tsakirgis has excavated in Italy, Sicily and Greece and has worked at the Athenian Agora since 1993. Author of “The Domestic Architecture of Morgantina in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods,” Tsakirgis has written a number of articles for the American Journal of Archaeology, Hesperia and Acta Hyperborea. Tsakirgis is president of the American Institute of Archaeology Nashville Society.

The talk is co-sponsored by the UNC Asheville Classics Department and the Western Carolina Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

For more information, call Laurel Taylor, UNC Asheville adjunct assistant professor of classics, at 828/251-6290.