Biography
Professor Peter Wilson returned to Cambridge, where he took his PhD, in 2022, as a Fellow of Trinity College. He divides his time between Cambridge and the University of Sydney, where he is the William Ritchie Professor of Classics. He is keen to foster exchange between the two centres and can be contacted for information about short-term visiting fellowship opportunities in Classics between Cambridge and Sydney. His research is in Greek literature and culture, especially drama and poetry. He is currently completing a large-scale social and economic history of the Greek theatre, in collaboration with Eric Csapo.
Publications
Books
2022 Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, ed. E. Csapo, H.-R. Goette, J.R. Green, B. Le Guen, E. Paillard, J. Stoop, P. Wilson, De Gruyter, Berlin–Boston.
2020 Theatre Beyond Athens: A Social and Economic History of the Theatre ca. 510 – ca. 300 BC. Vol. 2, with E. Csapo, Cambridge University Press.
2014 The Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century, ed. with E. Csapo, H.-R. Goette, J.R. Green, De Gruyter – DAI, Berlin.
2013 Dithyramb in Context, ed. with B. Kowalzig, Oxford University Press.
2008 Performance, Reception, Iconography: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin, ed. with M. Revermann, Oxford University Press.
2007 Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies, Oxford University Press.
2006 Greek Drama III: Studies in Honour of Kevin Lee, ed. with F. Muecke, J. Davidson, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 87.
2004 Music and the Muses: the Culture of ‘Mousike’ in the Classical Athenian City, ed. with P. Murray, Oxford University Press.
2000 The Athenian Institution of the ‘Khoregia’: the Chorus, the City and the Stage, Cambridge University Press; paperback edition 2003.
Selected Chapters and Articles
2020 ‘The Politics of Greece’s Theatrical Revolution, ca. 500-ca. 300 BC’ in H. and C. W. Marshall eds. Greek Drama V: Studies in the Theatre of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BCE. London, 1-22.
2019 ‘Dancing for Free: Pindar’s Hyporcheme for Hieron’. Classical Antiquity 38 (2): 298–363.
2018 ‘The Theatres and Dionysia of Attica’ in A. Kavoulaki ed. Πλειών: Papers in Memory of Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood. Ariadne, Supplement 1. Rethymno, 99-146.
2017 ‘A potted political history of the Sicilian theater (to ca. 300)’ in H. Reid, D. Tanasi and S. Kimbell eds. Politics and Performance in Western Greece. Iowa.
2015 ‘Drama Outside Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC’ in A. Lamari ed. Reperformances of Drama in the Fifth and Fourth centuries BC, (Trends in Classics 7.2) de Gruyter, Berlin; co-authored with E. Csapo, 316-395.
2015 ‘The festival of Dionysos in Ikarion: a new study of IG I3 254’ Hesperia 84.1: 97-147.
2014 ‘Dionysos and Theatre in Sphettos’ Logeion 4: 40-69.
2012 ‘From Choregia to Agonothesia: Evidence for the Administration and Finance of the Athenian Theatre in the Late Fourth Century BC’ in D. Rosenbloom and J. Davidson eds. Greek Drama IV: Texts, Contexts. Performance, Oxbow Publishers, Oxford, 300-321.
2011 ‘The glue of democracy? Tragedy, structure, and finance’ in Why Athens?: rethinking tragic politics, ed. D. Carter, Oxford University Press, 18-43.
2010 ‘How did the Athenian demes fund their theatre?’ in L’argent dans les concours du monde grec, ed. B. Le Guen, Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 37-82.
2010 ‘Pronomos of Thebes: the man and his music’ in Pronomos: his Vase and its World, ed. O. Taplin and R. Wyles, Oxford University Press, 181-212.
2009 ‘Tragic Honours and Democracy: neglected evidence for the politics of the Athenian Dionysia’, CQ 59: 8-29.
2009 ‘Timotheus and the New Music’ in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric, ed. F. Budelmann, Cambridge University Press, 277-294.
2008 ‘Costing the Dionysia’ in Performance, Reception, Iconography, ed. P. Wilson and M. Revermann, Oxford University Press, 88-127.
2008 ‘Thamyris: the archetype of the wandering poet?’ in R. Hunter and I. Rutherford eds. Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture, Cambridge University Press, 46-79.
2007 ‘Choruses for sale in Thorikos?: a speculative note on SEG 34, 107’, ZPE 161: 125-32.
2007 ‘Pronomos and Potamon: two pipers and two epigrams’ JHS 127: 141-149.
2007 ‘Comic victory: the end, and going beyond’ in J. Elsner, H. Foley, S. Goldhill, E. Hall, C. Kraus eds. Visualizing the Tragic: Essays in Honour of Froma I. Zeitlin, Oxford University Press, 257-287.
2007 ‘The Athenian Thargelia’ in P. Wilson ed. The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies, Oxford University Press, 150-184.
2007 ‘Sicilian choruses’ in P. Wilson ed. The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies, Oxford University Press, 351-377.
2006 ‘diken in the Oresteia of Aeschylus’ in P. Wilson, F. Muecke, J. Davidson eds. Greek Drama III: Studies in Honour of Kevin Lee, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 87, London, 187-201.
2003 ‘The Politics of Dance: Dithyrambic Contest and Social Order in Greece’, in D. Phillips and D. Pritchard eds. Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World, Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 165-198.
2003 ‘The Sound of Cultural Conflict: Kritias and the culture of mousike in Athens’, in L. Kurke and C. Dougherty eds. The Cultures within Greek Culture: Contact, Conflict, Collaboration, Cambridge University Press, 181-206.
2000 ‘Powers of horror and laughter: the great age of drama’ in O. Taplin ed. Literature in the Greek and Roman Worlds: a New Perspective, Oxford University Press, 88-132; in Literature in the Greek World (paperback edition), 70-114.
1999 ‘The Aulos in Athens’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne eds. Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 58-95.
1997 ‘Leading the Tragic Khoros: tragic prestige in the democratic city’, in C.B.R. Pelling ed. Greek Tragedy and the Ancient Historian, Oxford University Press, 81-108.
1997 ‘Amymon of Sikyon: a first victory in Athens and a first tragic khoregic dedication in the city? (SEG 23, 103b)’, ZPE 118: 174-178.
1996 ‘Tragic Rhetoric: the use of tragedy and the tragic in the fourth century’, in M. Silk ed. Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond, Oxford University Press, 310-331.
1993 ‘The “Aetiology” of Tragedy in the Oresteia’, PCPS 39: 169-180; co-authored with O. Taplin. Reprinted in the Norton Critical Edition of Aeschylus’ ‘Oresteia’ ed. J. Billings, trans. O. Taplin. New York 2018.
1991 ‘Demosthenes 21, Against Meidias: democratic abuse’, PCPS 37: 164-195; re-printed with introduction in E. Robinson ed. Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources, Blackwell’s, Oxford 2004, 211-31.
