Biography
I read Classics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, before doing an MPhil and DPhil in Byzantine Studies, writing my thesis on the Emperor Anastasius I (491-518). I have been teaching in the Classics Department at King’s since 2000, and I am the Secretary of the Hellenic and Roman Societies.
Research interests and PhD supervision
- The history and literary culture of the 5th and 6th centuries
- The governance of late antique cities
- Transition and transformation in the late antique world
- Developments in Classical and Byzantine Greek
I am interested in the history of the 5th and 6th centuries as a period of transition from the classical to the medieval & Byzantine world: how cities declined, adapted or transformed; how pagan festivals managed to survive in various guises; and how readily classicising Greek on pagan themes was composed alongside new forms (hymns) and more vernacular writing (chronicles). I am also interested in what traditional imperial biographies can tell us about the general politics and workings of government (secular and ecclesiastic). My current research projects include a Byzantine Greek Reader which will include texts from the 4th century to the 15th.”
Teaching
MA: Beginners’ Greek Language
Expertise and public engagement
Secretary, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Secretary, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Editor, Bulletin of British Byzantine Studies
Director, London Summer School in Classics & Ancient Languages KCL Summer School
Fellow, Society of Antiquaries
Selected Publications
- Justinian. Empire and Society in the Sixth Century, Edinburgh 2022.
- Ed., AD 410. The History and Archaeology of Late and Post-Roman Britain, SPRS Monograph, London 2014.
- Anastasius I: Politics and Empire in the Late Roman World, Cambridge 2006