William Wians, Professor of Philosophy, delivered the opening keynote address at the 2018 Fonte Aretusa conference in Siracusa, Sicily, on June 6. His topic was ‘Violence and the Origins of Beauty’. Prof. Wians discussed three figures closely associated with the Greek city of Syracusa on Sicily: Aeschylus, whose play Prometheus Bound was produced in the city’s outdoor theater around 405 BC; the poem of Empedocles, who was born in nearby Acragas; and the philosopher Plato, who spent 13 years in Siracusa in a failed attempt to produce a philosopher king out of the local ruler Dionysius the Second.