Contact
Biography
I am originally from Sydney, Australia, where I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney. After a couple of years as a secondary school teacher, I came to the UK to do my doctorate at Cambridge. I subsequently held a Research Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and have also taught at the University of Auckland and the University of Wales, Lampeter.
After 18 years at Nottingham, I took early retirement in September 2020. I am now an Emeritus Professor, and am continuing to work on a number of writing projects relating to warfare in Late Antiquity.
Expertise Summary
The history of Late Antiquity, especially warfare , diplomacy and religious life.
Warfare throughout Roman history.
Teaching Summary
PhD Supervision
In recent years I have been principal supervisor of a thesis on gifts of clothing in late antique literature, another thesis on memory sanctions in the Constantinian period, a third on late Roman military logistics and most recently theses on the role of oaths in Late Antiquity and on the rhetoric of barbarism in the early Theodosian period. I have also been co-supervisor of a thesis on health and healing in Roman Egypt, and second supervisor of a thesis on female suicide in Roman literature.
Research Summary
My research interests lie primarily in the period of late antiquity - that is, the Roman world from the early third to the early seventh century AD. Within those centuries, I have particular… read more
Current Research
My research interests lie primarily in the period of late antiquity - that is, the Roman world from the early third to the early seventh century AD. Within those centuries, I have particular interests in diplomacy and international relations, warfare, and religious life. These interests are reflected in my first three books, which dealt respectively with the role of information in late Roman foreign relations, pagan-Christian relations in late antiquity, and the social history of warfare in late antiquity.
My fourth book (which appeared in 2013) was a more general history - the eighth and final volume of the Edinburgh History of Ancient Rome, covering the period from 363 to 565. In 2016 I also published a new edition of my sourcebook Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity, updated to take account of new publications since 2000, with the addition of some new material on aspects such as pagan monotheism and church controversies. Most recently, I have returned to my interests in the social history of warfare, but this time ranging more widely across Roman history from the Republic to Late Antiquity, in a volume on warfare in the Roman world for Cambridge University Press's Key Themes in Ancient History series. This was published in 2020. My next significant project is to write a substantial chapter on military power and violence as power in Late Antiquity for OUP's multi-volume Oxford History of the Roman World.