This paper investigates the influence of the Aeneid on the ninth poem of Prudentius’ Peristephanon. In the poem, Prudentius is on his way to Rome when he discovers the tomb of St Cassian, and an account of the saint’s passion follows. The framing narrative employs some of the conventions of pilgrimage literature, while the poem as a whole con…[Read more]

This is a comprehensive reassessment of Aristotle’s concept of tragic hamartia, and its different interpretations from the 1530s to the present day, in the context of Aristotle’s theory of action.

Review of Stephens, S. A. Callimachus: the Hymns. Oxford/New York, Oxford University Press, 2015. xiv, 324 pp. Pr. £19.49 (pb). ISBN 9780199783045.

Review of P.J. Kosmin The Land of the Elephant Kings. Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire. Pp. xvi + 423, figs, maps. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2014. Cased, £36.95, €45, US$49.95. ISBN: 978-0-674-72882-0.

This paper focuses on potential instances of indirect labor mobilization at Pylos, in which workers are retained for palatial projects, but through the agency of named individuals. I will attempt to show that in some cases the palaces supplemented directly-acquired labor with labor obtained through administrative intermediaries, high-level…[Read more]

More detailed syllabus for second term (spring 2016) of the University of Warwick Sexuality and Gender in the Ancient Greek World module.

Course booklet for the Sexuality and Gender course I taught at the University of Warwick in 2015-16.

This dissertation explores the use of ‘ancestral constitution’ arguments in Athenian political theory of the fourth century BCE. It shows how the ‘patrios politeia’ is invoked by authors such as Isocrates and Xenophon as a means of expressing opposition to current democratic practice, and also how the use of such arguments is explored, parodied…[Read more]

Virginia Tech professor Brian Britt presents this far-reaching study on biblical curses and their reception history. Britt’s introduction clearly sets out his goals for the book, especially the importance of distinguishing between the general power of curses in the ancient world and the general profanity of curses in early modern modern Europe and beyond.

A dictionary length entry on conversion in early Judaism for the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

State of the art article on reading in Antiquity (in German).

Plutarch’s biography of Julius Caesar, compared with other accounts, deliberately plays down sexuality as a motive in Caesar’s life, in order to stress his single-minded political ambition.

An examination of how Plutarch explains Pompey’s loss in the war with Caesar partly by narrating his devotion to his wives, which distracts him at critical moments in his career.

This paper examines Plutarch’s accounts of ostracism and explores how he thought it worked in theory and in practice. Accounts of ostracism are found in six of the Lives, all of fifth-century Athenians, and in one of the Moralia. These accounts often relate the same event, and so they allow us to see how Plutarch presents the same material from…[Read more]

This chapter provides a series of case studies that explore different ways Archaic and Classical Greeks conceptualized human diversity (modern race and/or ethnicity) in relation to environment, in particular, the land. It explores three inter-related approaches the Greeks took towards understanding this relationship: myths of metals, autochthony,…[Read more]

The paper advances a new interpretation of Iamblichus’ De Vita Pythagorica and discusses its place in the history of neoplatonist biography from Porphyry’s Vita Plotini to Gregory of Nyssa’s De vita Moysis.

Bibliography for an advanced Greek seminar taught at Dartmouth in Winter 2015

Syllabus and bibliography for an advanced Greek seminar taught at Dartmouth in Winter 2016

Syllabus and bibliography for an advanced Greek seminar on Euripides’ Bacchae taught at Dartmouth in Winter 2017.

The paper proposes a new interpretation of Timon’s attack on Arcesilaus in fr. 806 SH.