Classics
Staff

My research concentrates on Hellenistic history and thought, and on the relationship between Greeks and Romans at the time of Roman expansion into the Greek world. In particular I am interested in cultural interaction, ethnicity and local identity, hence my book, Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Power (2001), which explores the stories of the Trojan War as told in both the Greek East and in Italy.

I wrote my doctorate in Oxford on Stoic political thought, published as The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action (1990), and occasionally return to the area of Stoic philosophy – a conference in Cyprus in 2005 gave me an opportunity to research the neglected figure of Persaios of Kition. In 2003 I was able to indulge all my Hellenistic interests by editing A Companion to the Hellenistic World for Blackwell.

Galway to Edinburgh

At the moment I am working on a study of Greek perceptions of the Romans in the first two centuries of Roman involvement in the East. What did the Greeks make of these barbarian intruders?

I have spent much of the last fifteen years working in Ireland, first in Dublin and then as Professor of Classics in the National University of Ireland, Galway, taking time out to live in Munich as Humboldt Fellow and more recently adjacent to the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.