Alice Oswald’s recitation of her 2011 poem Memorial is an intensely modest, self-effacing performance. Yet it is also one which invites us to consider key questions about the ancient practice, and modern re-performance, of epic poetry. Oswald explicitly cites the antiphonal lament of Homeric funerary ritual as an influence upon her r…[Read more]

Ted Hughes’ version of Euripides’ Alcestis (1999) is a play which diverges significantly from its ancient source-text, most notably in an interpolated sequence during which the drunken Heracles re-enacts his own labours, before experiencing traumatic visions. This article identifies this un-Euripidean interlude as a characteristic instance of int…[Read more]

This review-essay discusses George Brant’s play Grounded (2013) in the context of its production at the Gate Theatre (London). It begins with a critical examination of my own “mis-seeing” of the play’s protagonist as a version of the tragic Heracles. The analysis which follows compares key aspects of The Pilot’s narrative with Euripides’ Heracles…[Read more]

A study of grappling (both athletic and martial) from ancient Egypt to Victorian England. It was written as a Classics & Ancient History PhD thesis, so half the verbiage focuses on the ancient world.

Since its first attempts to understand natural phenomena, early modern science devoted great attention to the problematic issue of the origin of springs. This essay examines the lively debate that emerged from the studies on fresh water during the years spanning from the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth. By focusing on the…[Read more]

In 1687, after he graduated in Medicine, young Antonio Vallisneri (1661-1730) returned in the Duchy of Modena and Reggio. In those years he mainly served as general practitioner; nevertheless, he also devoted many studies to various aspects of the natural sciences. He performed many observations, accurately reporting them in seven “Quaderni”…[Read more]

This paper deals with the identification of the microscope used by the Italian physician and naturalist Antonio Vallisneri (1661-1730) during his research activity. The investigation was structured in three phases: a) a first text analysis on published and manuscript sources, looking for information about the microscope(s) used by Vallisneri; b)…[Read more]

This monograph is the first in-depth examination of articulated Roman plate armour since H. Russell Robinson published his ground-breaking reconstructions of lorica segmentata in The Armour of Imperial Rome. With detailed discussion of all the significant evidence (including previously unpublished material), the book looks at each of the principal…[Read more]

Abstract: In Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, springs are a central motif of the Prologue
and the novel as a whole. This motif counters male domination, since it
is associated with Chloe, while the flowers watered by springs in this novel
are identified with Daphnis. This study will examine how the motif of springs reflects
the resistance of D…[Read more]

This article discusses various rabbinic approaches to the story of Elisha and Gehazi (recorded in the Book of Kings), in which the former sends the latter with his staff to resurrect the Shunammite woman’s dead child. Gehazi proves unsuccessful in that endeavor and Elisha himself ultimates revives the dead child.

English original of the entry for ‘Érudition (Grecque)’ in C. Urlacher & D. Meyer (eds.) Dictionnaire analytique de l’épigramme littéraire dans l’antiquité Grecque et Romaine, Turnhout, forthcoming.

English original of the entry for ‘Clôture, fermeture’ in C. Urlacher & D. Meyer (eds.) Dictionnaire analytique de l’épigramme littéraire dans l’antiquité Grecque et Romaine, Turnhout, forthcoming.

This paper discusses an apparent contradiction in the Bible regarding east of the Jordan River, that lies between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok. In Numbers 21 it seems that this land belonged to the Moabites, while in Judges 11 (during an exchange between the Jewish judge Jephtah and the Ammonite king) it seems that this land belonged to the…[Read more]

An Honours course taught by me at Edinburgh in 2011

An Honours course taught by me at Edinburgh in 2009 and 2012

This article traces the notion in rabbinic writings that Ezra–a leader of the Jewish people in the early Second Temple period–also functioned as a High Priest (Kohen Gadol).

Part of a much larger study in the intellectual history of Sophocles (and Greek tragedy in general) in the 18th century, this chapter brings to light, for the first time, Jean Terrasson’s incisive and highly influential attempt to dismantle Christianising and Neo-Classicist interpretations of both Greek tragedy and Aristotle’s Poetics and to…[Read more]

Review of Edward J. Watts, Hypatia. The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher

Review of Edward J. Watts, Hypatia. The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher

This essay examines what the paradigm of ‘globalization’ can tell us about the Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 550-330 BCE).