We have recently learned of wonderful publishing successes by one of our recent alumni, and by a current doctoral student.

Charles Stewart, who completed his BA in Ancient History in summer 2018, has had an article accepted by the Journal of Roman Studies.  The article is based on part of his undergraduate dissertation, which won one of the Department’s prizes for the best dissertation in 2017-18.  Entitled ‘Fractional arithmetic in the Tabula Alimentaria of Veleia’, the article posits a new way of understanding practical arithmetic was conducted in the Roman world of the second century AD, and in so doing resolves an apparent anomaly that has long plagued scholarly reconstructions of Trajanic alimentary schemes.  It will come out in the next issue of JRS, published in the autumn.  Charles is now a Research Associate of the Department, and is considering postgraduate study.

Rosie Mack is writing her PhD thesis on the depiction of horses on ancient Thessalian coins, under the supervision of Drs. Emma Aston and Rachel Mairs.  Her article, ‘Numismatic evidence (or not) for the aphippodroma horse race at Larisa’, has been accepted for publication in the numismatics journal Koinon.  Like Charles’, it takes on a long-standing misunderstanding of ancient material, in this case a series of Larisaian coins which have traditionally been taken as evidence for a certain equestrian contest at a Thessalian festival.  Rosie shows that, in fact, the coins depict an aspect of horse-training and so shed light on practical horsemanship in northern Greece as well as on the numismatic strategies of the polis of Larisa.

We are delighted by these publishing successes of our students: many congratulations to both Charles and Rosie!   

Charles Stewart (and Auguste Rodin!)

Rosie Mack at Delphi