We supervise research across an exceptionally wide range of topics in Greek, Roman and Near Eastern history, archaeology and art, as well as Greek and Latin language, literature and thought, late antique and Byzantine studies, and reception studies.

We have a strong record of attracting major research grants. The Department has recently received funding from the AHRC, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust for major projects including Digitising the Prosopography of the Roman Republic, The Art of Making in Antiquity: Stone Carving and Carvers in the Roman World, Ancient Inscriptions of the Black Sea Region, and Classics & Class.

Other areas of activity we have been developing include Greek and Latin literature, reception studies and Byzantine and Modern Greek studies.

We have successful ongoing research projects in collaboration with the College's Department of Digital Humanities and the British Museum.

• Latest REF results: King’s Classics research has been ranked first in the country in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF2021). 100 per cent of the research environment and research impact at the department was recognised as either ‘world leading’ (4*) or ‘internationally excellent’ (3*).

• Research income: as well as funding for four major research projects, recent awards include, British Academy Postdoctoral and Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowships, a Philip Leverhulme prize, and substantial grants from the AHRC, Getty Foundation, Humboldt Foundation, and Leverhulme Trust.

• Current number of academic staff: 24.

• Current number of research students: 26.

• Partner organisations: British Museum.

• Recent publications:

  • A companion to the Neronian age;
  • Contextual Archaeology of Burial Practice: Case Studies from Roman Britain;
  • Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres;
  • Local History of Greek Polytheism: Gods, People and the Land of Aigina, 800-400 BCE;
  • Anatomizing Civil War: Studies in Lucan's Epic Technique;
  • Horace, Odes, Book I;
  • The Freedman in the Roman World;
  • The Iliad in a nutshell: visualizing epic on the Tabulae Iliacae;
  • The art of the body;
  • Cratinus and the Art of Comedy;
  • Jonson, Horace and the Classical Tradition;
  • The art of art history in Greco-Roman antiquity;
  • Truly beyond wonders: Aelius Aristides and the cult of Asklepios;
  • Mystery Cults in the Ancient World.
  • The Return of Ulysses. A cultural history of Homer’s Odyssey
  • Iphigenia in Tauris
  • Neo-Latin Literature
  • Sex: Antiquity and its Legacy
  • Variety: The Life of a Roman Concept

Other areas of activity we have been developing include Neo Latin, Roman mosaics and mosaicists, ancient religion, and Greek theatre and performance. We have successful ongoing research projects in collaboration with the College's Department of Digital Humanities and the British Museum. We work with the Faculty of Arts & Humanities’ Centre for Hellenic Studies, which combines the resources of Classics and Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies in organising major public lectures by leading scholars (the Runciman Lecture, the Greek Archaeological Committee Lecture) and biennial international conferences (recent topics include Lord Byron and Ancient Greek Theatre in the Black Sea).

Head of group/division

Dr Will Wootton