I am a classicist and historian with particular interests in early Christian and late antique history and literature. I studied Classics and Theology at Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester, before taking up a Fulbright Scholarship at Berkeley. I then held lectureships at Edinburgh and Durham before moving to Kings in 2017.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Early Christian history and literature
• Late antiquity
• Historiography
• Hagiography
• Persecution
• Epistolography

My first monograph, on Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, argued that the first narrative of early Christian history used events and individuals from Christianity’s past to create a new vision of Christianity tailored to Eusebius’ fourth century context. I have also edited collections of essays on hagiography, with Dr. Christa Gray, and on Justin of Rome, with Dr. Ben Kolbeck.

I am currently working on a new study of the persecution of the early Christians that aims to use comparative historiography to transform our understanding of this phenomenon, as well as edited projects on Roman governance, with Dr. Lisa Eberle, historiography and life writing in late antiquity, with Dr. Karl Dahm, and early Christian interactions with Graeco-Roman performance culture, with Dr. Ed Creedy.

Teaching

I teach a range of modules from Level 4 to Level 7 in the Department of Classics, with a focus on Roman history (of the late Republican, early and high imperial, and late antique periods).

I am the Director of the MA in Global Cultures, and have co-designed a module for it on "Creative Leadership for Global Challenges".

Expertise and public engagement

I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (2019–), a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (2016–), and was elected to the Council of the Roman Society (2018–2021), and the QAA Advisory Group for Classics and Ancient History (2021–). I am on the editorial board of the Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies (2023–), the Library Management Committee for the Combined Library of the Institute for Classical Studies and Hellenic and Roman Societies (2018–24), the Grote Prize Committee (2021–; Chair 2024–25), and the advisory board of the Save Ancient Studies Alliance.I have appeared on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time ("Early Christian Martyrdom"; “Julian the Apostate”), Times Radio’s On this Day (“Council of Carnuntum”; “Nika Riots”) and a number of podcasts, including HistoryHit (“Episode 9: Rome and the Mediterranean”), the Audible’s Hijacked Histories (“Episode 1: Caligula and Nero”), and The Know Show (“Eusebius: Regime Change and Upscaling Christianity”). I am also a Fellow of The Garden. In 2022-23 I curated the impact project, and public exhibition, Letters of Refuge. I give regular outreach talks in both secondary and tertiary education on a range of topics in Roman and Christian history and literature, and have organised and run various outreach events and summer schools. This includes a series on A-level Classical Civilisation, with ClassicsforAll, meeting a homeschooling need during the COVID19 lockdowns, and producing resources for ongoing use by teachers.

Selected publications

Books

Eusebius and Empire: Constructing Church and Rome in the Ecclesiastical History (Cambridge, 2019) [joint winner of the 2018 University of Oxford Faculty of Classics Conington Prize; winner of the 2020 North American Patristics Society First Book Prize; shortlisted for the 2020 Ecclesiastical History Society Best Book Prize].

The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood (Leiden, 2020) [co-edited with C. Gray].

Justin of Rome: Apology, Empire and Identity (Berlin, 2024) [special edition of Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28.1; co-edited with B. Kolbeck].

 

Journal Articles

‘Legislation and Christians’, Journal of Roman Studies 115 (forthcoming 2025).

‘Justin of Rome: Introduction’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28.1 (2024), 1–20 [co-written with B. Kolbeck].

‘Apologists on Trials: Justin’s Second Apology, the Literary Courtroom, and Pleading Philosophy’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 28.1 (2024), 49–75.

‘By Whom Were Early Christians Persecuted?’, Past & Present 261.1 (2023), 3–46.

‘Lactantius and Empire: Political Theology in On the Deaths of the Persecutors’, Journal of Late Antiquity 15.2 (2022), 333–66.

‘Emperors, Bishops, Art and Jurisprudence: The Transformation of Law in Eusebius of Caesarea’, Early Mediaeval Europe 27.1 (2019), 12-34.

‘Trouble in Pontus: The Pliny-Trajan Correspondence on the Christians Reconsidered’ TAPA 147.2 (2017), 371-411.

‘The Early Reception of Pliny the Younger in Tertullian of Carthage and Eusebius of Caesarea’, Classical Quarterly 67.1 (2017), 247-262.

‘A Man for the Times: Jesus and the Abgar Correspondence in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History’, Harvard Theological Review 110.4 (2017), 563-587.

‘A Literary Historian: Eusebius of Caesarea and the Martyrs of Lyons and Palestine’, Studia Patristica 66.14 (2013), 191-202.

 

Book Chapters

‘Letters of Refuge: From Ancient Lyons to Modern Calais’ in J. Lieu & M. den Dulk (eds), Letters and the Shaping of Early Christian Memory (Leiden, forthcoming).

‘Eusebius of Caesarea’, in Daniele Miano et al. (eds), Handbook of Universal History Writing (Oxford, forthcoming).

‘Towards a Discursive History of Christian Persecution’, in Lisa Pilar Eberle and Myles Lavan (eds), Unrest in the Roman Empire: A Discursive History (Frankfurt, 2024).

‘A Bishop’s Biography: Eusebius of Caesarea’s Life of Constantine’, in K. de Temmerman (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography (Oxford, 2020), 297-312.

‘How to Praise a Christian Emperor: The Panegyrical Experiments of Eusebius of Caesarea’ in A. Omissi & A.J. Ross (eds) Imperial Panegyric from Diocletian to Theodosius (Liverpool, 2020), 143-165.

‘Reading Thecla in Fourth Century Pontus: Violence, Virginity, and Female Autonomy in Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina’, in K. Cooper & J. Wood (eds), The Violence of Small Worlds: Conflict and Social Control in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2020), 277-298.

‘Introduction’, in Christa Gray and James Corke-Webster (eds) The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae (Leiden, 2020), 1-26 [co-written with C. Gray].

‘The First Hagiographies: The Life of Antony, the Life of Pamphilus, and the Nature of Saints’, in Christa Gray and James Corke-Webster (eds) The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae (Leiden, 2020), 29-62.

‘The Roman Persecutions’ in P. Middleton (ed.) The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Martyrdom (Chichester, 2020), 33-50.

‘Conversion, Conflict, and the Drama of Social Reproduction: Narratives of Filial Resistance in Early Christianity and Modern Britain’, in B. Bøgh (ed.), Conversion and Initiation in Antiquity: Shifting Identities – Creating Change (Frankfurt am Main, 2014), 169-183 [co-written with K. Cooper].

‘Mothers and Martyrdom: Familial Piety and the Model of the Maccabees in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History’, in A. Johnson & J. Schott (eds), Eusebius of Caesarea: Traditions and Innovations (Cambridge, MA., 2013), 51-82.

‘Author and Authority: Literary Representations of Moral Authority in Eusebius of Caesarea’s The Martyrs of Palestine’, in P. Gemeinhardt & J. Leemans (eds), Christian Martyrdom in Late Antiquity: History and Discourse, Tradition and Religious Identity. Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 116 (Berlin/New York, 2012), 51-78.

Ten entries in E. Orlin et al. (eds) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (London, 2015).