The 2nd annual Rumble Fund lecture by John Onians, Emeritus Professor in the School of Art History and World Art Studies at the University of East Anglia, discusses what made the Greeks rectangular and the Romans round.

'Today we are used to thinking of the cultures of Greece and Rome (and Graeco-Roman art especially) as the products of the interaction between conscious minds and social and economic realities. Earlier, though, many felt that the unconscious reactions of individuals and groups to geography and climate were equally important. The latest neuroscience sustains their arguments.  Indeed, as this lecture proposes, they can be greatly extended, shedding new light on critical aspects of mythology and philosophy, poetry and rhetoric, and art and architecture.'