UNC Asheville will host a talk on "The Search for the Battle of Actium" by William Murray, chair of history at University of South Florida. The presentation will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, in UNC Asheville's Ramsey Library, Whitman Room. The talk will focus on the important features of the last major naval battle of antiquity, which took place in 31 B.C.E. and involved Marc Antony, Cleopatra and Octavian. The event is free and open to the public.

Murray is a noted scholar of Greek and Roman history, Greek archaeology, and ancient maritime history, archaeology and warfare. For the last 30 years, he has conducted fieldwork throughout Greece, Israel and Turkey. He is author of "Octavian's Campsite Memorial for the Actian War," "The Athlit Ram" and numerous journal articles. He is president and cofounder of the American Institute of Archaeology Tampa Bay Society, a speaker in the National Lecture Series and has served as chair of the Underwater Archaeology Committee.

The talk is 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.