Biography
Before starting teaching at Cambridge in 2026, I was Fellow by Examination at All Souls College, Oxford (2006–2013); Chancellor’s Fellow in Classics at the University of Edinburgh (2012–2017); Alexander von Humboldt research fellow at the Humboldt University in Berlin (2016–2018); and taught for several years at Birkbeck College, University of London (2018–2025).
Research
My research concentrates on the entwined evolution of Greek society, politics and political thought from the end of the Peloponnesian War to the early Roman Empire. Central to this work is studying Greek inscriptions as context for, but also contributions to, Greek political thinking, including on questions of mobility, disorder, justice and civic virtue. I have written especially on, first, civil war, exile and reconciliation in the Classical and Hellenistic periods; and, second, the crisis and reinvention of the polis and cosmopolitanism in the transition from the Hellenistic to the Roman world, connecting Anatolian inscriptions with literary and philosophical texts. In future, I intend to explore further how greater attention to the complex, much expanded Greek world of the Hellenistic period, especially its inscriptions, can transform our understanding of ancient Greek politics and political thinking in context, and why they matter for the subsequent history of democracy, citizenship and political theory. The ancient world in modern politics and political theory is another major concern of my work, especially in connection with modern refugee history and German history.
Publications
Monograph:
- Stasis and Stability: Exile, the Polis, and Political Thought, c. 404–146 BC (Oxford 2015).
Edited volumes:
- Mobility and Migration in Antiquity: Rethinking the Ancient World through Movement (Routledge, forthcoming 2026), co-edited with S. Ferruh Adalı, E. Isayev, E. Jewell, T. Kaçar, L. Mazurek and J. Mokrišová.
- The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought (Oxford 2018), co-edited with M. Canevaro.
- Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science (Edinburgh 2018), co-edited with M. Canevaro, A. Erskine and J. Ober.
Articles and chapters:
- ‘Hellenistic Civic Identities: Evolving Intersections of Classical Athens, Paideia and Democracy’, in E. Bowie and C. Maciver (eds.), The Fabric of Hellenism: Hellenic Culture and Civic Identity in the Imperial Greek World (Edinburgh 2026), 35–53.
- ‘Resilience as a Tool for Interpreting the Hellenistic Polis: Beyond “Survival” and “Vitality”’, in A. Hartmann, C. Schliephake and K. Rieger (eds.), Ressourcen der Resilienz in der Antike. Materielle, performative und narrative Praktiken und Strategien (Propylaeum 2025, open access), 131–49.
- ‘Narrative in Hellenistic Civic Decisions: Persuasion, Legitimacy and “Cultural Democracy”’, in R. Kirstein and S. Schmidt-Hofner (eds.), Recht als Erzählung. Narratologie und Recht von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart (Schwabe 2025), 87–116.
- ‘Struggles to Define and Counter-Define Unrest in the Cities of the Early Roman East’, in L. Eberle and M. Lavan (eds.), Unrest in the Roman Empire: a Discursive History (Campus 2024), 75–102.
- ‘Le pain et le cirque : le pouvoir symbolique des bienfaits’, in P. Cournarie and P. Montlahuc (eds.), Comment Paul Veyne écrit l’histoire. Un roman vrai (Presses Universitaires de France 2023), 103–136.
- ‘L’invention du social ? Délimiter la politique dans la cité grecque (de la fin de la période classique au début de la période impériale)’, Annales HSS 77.4 (2022), 633–671; the English version (‘The Invention of the Social? Debating the Scope of Politics in the Greek Polis from the Later Classical to the Early Roman Period’) is available online through the Annales.
- ‘Civic and Counter-Civic Cosmopolitanism: Diodorus, Strabo and the Later Hellenistic Polis’, in J. König and N. Wiater (eds.), Late Hellenistic Greek Literature in Dialogue (Cambridge 2022), 149–77.
- ‘Beyond the Classical Polis: Expanding Citizenship and Connecting Communities’, in C. Atack and P. Cartledge (eds.), A Cultural History of Democracy in Antiquity (Bloomsbury 2021), 197–217.
- ‘Historical Consciousness and Political Agency among Ancient Greek Refugees’, Pallas 112 (2020) (= L. Loddo (ed.), Political Refugees in the Ancient Greek World: Literary, Historical and Philosophical Essays), 231–45.
- ‘Seeking New Classics in a Crisis: Modernity as Ancient History in German Thought’, in B. Goff and M. Simpson (eds.), Classicising Crisis: the Modern Age of Revolution and the Greco-Roman Repertoire (Routledge 2020), 148–67.
- ‘Debating the Benefits and Problems of Philanthropy in Later Hellenistic Anatolia’, in E. Akyürek, C. Roosevelt and O. Tekin (eds.), Philanthropy in Anatolia through the Ages (Koҫ University 2020), 3–12.
- ‘Freedom, Ethical Choice and the Hellenistic Polis’, History of European Ideas 44.6 (2018) (= V. Arena (ed.), Liberty: an Ancient Idea for the Contemporary World? Ancient Liberties and Modern Perspectives), 719–42.
- ‘A Civic Alternative to Stoicism: The Ethics of Hellenistic Honorary Decrees’, Classical Antiquity 37.2 (2018), 187–235.
- ‘A Later Hellenistic Debate about Classical Athenian Civic Ideals? The Evidence of Epigraphy, Historiography and Philosophy’, in M. Canevaro and B. Gray (eds.), The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought (Oxford 2018), 139–76.
- ‘Approaching the Hellenistic Polis through Modern Political Theory: the Public Sphere, Pluralism and Prosperity’, in M. Canevaro, B. Gray, A. Erskine and J. Ober (eds.), Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science (Edinburgh 2018), 68–97.
- ‘Citizenship as Barrier and Opportunity for Ancient Greek and Modern Refugees’, Humanities 2018 7(3), 72, open access at https://doi.org/10.3390/h7030072 (part of journal special issue: E. Isayev and E. Jewell (eds.), Displacement and the Humanities: Manifestos from the Ancient to the Present).
- ‘Exile, Refuge and the Greek Polis: Between Justice and Humanity’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30.2 (2017) (= Kleist, J.O. (ed.), The History of Refugee Protection: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges), 190–219.
- ‘Civic Reconciliation in Later Classical and Post-Classical Greek Cities: A Question of Peace and Peacefulness?’, in E. Moloney and M. Williams, Peace and Reconciliation in the Classical World (Routledge 2017), 66–85.
- ‘Civil War and Civic Reconciliation in a Small Greek Polis: Two Acts of the Same Drama?’, in H. Börm, M. Mattheis and J. Wienand, Civil War in Ancient Greece and Rome. Contexts of Disintegration and Reintegration (Franz Steiner 2016), 53–85.
- ‘Justice or Harmony? Reconciliation after Stasis at Dikaia and the Fourth-Century BC Polis’, Revue des Etudes Anciennes 115.2 (2013), 369–401.
- ‘Scepticism about Community: Polybius on Peloponnesian Exiles, Good Faith (Pistis) and the Achaian League’, Historia 62.3 (2013), 323–60.
- ‘The Polis Becomes Humane? Philanthropia as a Cardinal Civic Virtue in Later Hellenistic Honorific Epigraphy and Historiography’, Studi ellenistici 27 (2013) (= M. Mari and J. Thornton (eds.), Parole in movimento. Linguaggio politico e lessico storiografico nel mondo ellenistico), 137–62.
- ‘Philosophy of Education and the Later Hellenistic Polis’, in P. Martzavou and N. Papazarkadas (eds.), Epigraphical Approaches to the Post-Classical Polis, Fourth Century BC–Second Century AD (Oxford 2012), 233–53.
- ‘From Exile of Citizens to Deportation of Non-Citizens: Ancient Greece as a Mirror to Illuminate a Modern Transition’, Citizenship Studies 15.5 (2011) (= B. Anderson, M. Gibney and E. Paoletti (eds.), Boundaries of Belonging: Deportation and the Constitution and Contestation of Citizenship), 565–82.
- Translation of and commentary on the fragments of the historical works of Persaios of Kition (584) (published in 2016) and Dioscurides (594) (published in 2018) for Brill’s New Jacoby.
- An entry on ‘Polis’ for Oxford Bibliographies Online, an annotated critical bibliography of scholarship on the Greek polis from the Archaic Period to Late Antiquity (first published online 2015).
Teaching and Supervisions
I teach a wide range of topics in ancient history, especially Greek. I also supervise postgraduate students working on Greek history, including its connections with modern politics and political theory.
