In this paper, I investigate how Ptolemaic poets’ presentation of their queens compares with and relates to the practice of their major rivals, the Seleucids. No poetic celebration of a Seleucid queen survives extant, but an anecdote preserved by Lucian sheds intriguing light on Seleucid poetic practice (Pro Imaginibus 5): queen Stratonice, bald…[Read more]

In this article for sixth-formers and school teachers, I explore the story of Achilles’ heel and Homer’s likely suppression of the myth in the Iliad. Homer’s Iliad appears to acknowledge, but simultaneously reject, an alternative tradition in which Achilles was more than mortal, part of a broader downplaying of heroic invulnerability and…[Read more]

Review of Poetic Style and Innovation in Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon, by Megan E. Hartman, Berlin/Boston, Walter de Gruyter, 2020, pp. XII + 213, £83.00, ISBN: 978-1-5015-1832-4

“Chapter 7: Maintaining the City Enslaved Labor and Trade in Roman Philippi” in Philippi, From Colonia Augusta to Communitas Christiana: Religion and Society in Transition, edited by Steven J. Friesen, Michalis Lychounas, and Daniel N. Schowalter (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

The study of Archaic Greece has undergone a fundamental transformation in recent decades. Whereas studies up to the 1980s had favoured narratives that converged on the more tangible reality of the Classical period and emphasized radical change, the increase in archaeological data and the cultural turn have led to an emphasis on long-term…[Read more]

This excel file contains structured and formalized data about all surviving and identified early medieval Western manuscripts containing the text of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, fully or partially. It records information about the place of origin, provenance, preservation, the date of origin, material properties, script, content, the…[Read more]

This excel file contains the raw data behind the digital scholarly edition of the glosses to the first book of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville published at: https://db.innovatingknowledge.nl/edition

This article provides an overview of the annotated pre-1200 manuscripts of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville and discusses the nature and character of the annotation of this work. It shows that the Etymologiae was annotated principally in the early Middle Ages. The glossing took place in three contexts: in the insular world, perhaps in the…[Read more]

Published in English Studies (2022)

Published in Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 80 (2020), 233-236.

Published in Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 76 (2016), 551-553.

Published in Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 76 (2016), 435–438.

Published in English Studies 96 (2015), 225–226.

Published in English Studies 94 (2013), 733–734.

Published in English Studies 92 (2011), 100–102.

Published in English Studies 92 (2011), 693–694.

Published in English Studies 94 (2013), 235–237

Cyprian’s Epistle 63 represents the earliest extant account of the proper meaning and administration of the eucharistic cup. Against a group of Christians who were taking only water, Cyprian argues that wine is necessary for the ritual to be effective. While there has been much discussion surrounding the biblical references marshaled by Cyprian t…[Read more]

Humankind, for Gregory of Nyssa, was poisoned through a primordial act of eating the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. As a result, the toxin of sin and death has been blended into the body and soul of each person, dispersing itself throughout the component parts of their nature. If eating and drinking initiated the spiritual and physical…[Read more]

Review of Douglas Boin’s Coming Out Christian in the Roman World