Dr Edward Bispham

Position

Tutorial Fellow in Ancient History, Brasenose College.

Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Oxford

Qualifications 

BA, MA, D.Phil. Oxon

Academic Background and Previous Positions

I read Literae Humaniores at Jesus College, Oxford, where I subsequently did my D.Phil. Subsequently I held a post-doctoral award at the British School at Rome (1994/5), before lecturing in the Department of Classics at Edinburgh for three years. In 1998 I returned to Oxford to become Stipendiary Lecturer in Ancient History at Brasenose and St. Anne’s Colleges, and was fortunate enough the next year to be appointed as a Tutorial Fellow in succession to Greg Woolf, and thus indirectly to David Stockton; the position entails a Stipendiary Lectureship at St. Anne’s College.
Vice-Principal at Brasenose College until September 2024.
 

Undergraduate Teaching 

I teach a number of Greek and Roman history papers for Classics, and for CAAH and AMH prelims.  Recently my lecturing has been on Cicero; on Rome in the Mediterranean in the republican period; and on the census and public contracts.

Research Interests 

I currently work on:

• the history, archaeology and epigraphy of Italy, especially the impact of the Roman conquest;
• the political and cultural history of the Roman Republic;
• early Roman historiography;
• the city of Rome.

Between 1999 and 2012 I was Co-Director of the Sangro Valley Project (Phase II), with Prof. Susan Kane, of Oberlin College, Ohio; since 2019 I have been collaborating with the Università degli Studi “G. D’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara and the British School at Rome on work at Iuvanum and Capestrano in Abuzzo, Italy. I am currently a member of three collaborative early-stage projects: Italian Power; The Lungs of Savage Dis; Law and Life in Pompeii.
 
Principal Publications

‘The Social War: Causes and Excuses’, in L. Cappelletti & S. Pittia (eds), L’Italie entre déchirements et réconciliations: la guerre sociale (91-88 avant notre ère) et ses lendemains (Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2024), 25-44

Violence, Justice and Law in Classical Antiquity. Collected Papers of Andrew Lintott. Impact of Empire 46, ed. with J. Alison Rosenblitt (Brill: Leiden / Boston, 2024), including ‘Introduction’ (with A.J. Rosenblitt), 1-3, ‘As the Romans Saw It …’, 177-80

‘The Politics of Impermanence: Latin migration in the Second Century B.C.’, in L. Maganzani & M. Miglietta (eds), Migrare a Roma. Latini ed altri popoli. ‘Cattedra Giorgio Luraschi’. Centro di ricercar per lo studio e la diffusione del Diritto pubblico romano. Quaderno II. Edizione di Milano – Università Cattolica del “S. Cuore”, 16 settembre 2019 (Bari: Cacucci Editore, 2022), 13-127

‘Romans, Latins and Allies’, in V. Arena & J.R.W. Prag (eds), A Companion to the Political Culture of the Roman Republic (Wiley: Chichester, 2022), 318-331

‘Small Towns, Big Futures: between Italy and Iberia’, in J. Andreu Pintado (ed.), Parva Oppida. Imagen, patrones e ideología del despegue monumental de las ciudades en la Tarraconense hispana (siglos I a.C. – I d.C.). Serie Monografías “Los Banales” (Uncastillo: Fundación Uncastillo, 2020), 25-37

Gods and Goddesses in Ancient Italy, ed. with D. Miano (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2020), including ‘Preface’ (with D. Miano), xi-xiv

‘The Regiones of Italy: between Republic and Principate’, in M. Aberson, M.C. Biella, M. di Fazio & M. Wullschleger (eds), Nos sumus Romani qui fuimus ante … Memory of Ancient Italy. EGeA 6 (Geneva: Peter Lang, 2020), 23-51

‘Boundaries in Strabo’s Italy: Space, Time and Difference’, in F. Luciani & E. Migliario (eds), Boundaries of Territories and Peoples in Roman Italy and Beyond. Documenti e Studi 71 (Bari: Edipuglia, 2020), 9-31

‘Sulla and the populi Italici’, in M.T Schettino & G. Zecchini (eds), L’età di Silla. Atti del Convegno, Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica, Roma 23-24 marzo 2017. Centro Ricerche e Documentazione sull’Antichità Classica, Monografie 44 (Rome: <<l’erma>> di Bretschneider, 2018), 1-43

‘Una, nessuna or centomila romanizzazioni?’ in M. Aberson, M.C. Biella, M. di Fazio, P. Sanchéz & M. Wullschleger (eds), L’Italia centrale e la creazione di una koiné culturale? I percorsi della ‘romanizzaznione’. EGeA 3 (Geneva: Peter Lang, 2016), 5-14

‘The Social War’ & ‘The Civil Wars and the Triumvirate’, in A.E. Cooley (ed.), A Companion to Roman Italy. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World (Malden MA / Oxford 2016), 76-89, 90-102

‘The Middle Sangro Valley under the Empire: A Productive Landscape?’ (with S.E. Kane), in A.M. Small (ed.), Beyond Vagnari. New Themes in the Study of Roman South Italy. Munera 38 (Bari, 2014), 227-36

‘Roma iudex: Interstate Arbitration and Rome’s Mediterranean Hegemony’, in J. Dubouloz, S. Pittia & G. Sabatini (eds), L’imperium Romanum en perspective. Les savoirs d’empire dans la République romaine et leur heritage dans l’Europe médiévale et modern (Besançon, 2014), 231-42

T.J. Cornell (ed.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians (3 vols, Oxford, 2013): member of editorial board and contributor: ‘Q. Fabius Pictor’ & ‘L. Cincius Alimentus’ (with T.J. Cornell); ‘C. Acilius’ (with S.J. Northwood)

‘The Lucanians: Historical Perspective’, in M. Aberson, M.C. Biella, M. di Fazio & M. Wullschleger (eds), Entre Archéologie et histoire: dialogues sur divers peoples de l’Italie préromaine. EGeA 2 (Geneva, 2014), 311-330

‘The Hellenistics of Death in Adriatic Central Italy’, in J.W.R. Prag & J. Quinn (eds), The Hellenistic West (Cambridge 2013), 44-78

‘Rome and Antium: Pirates, Polities and Identity in the Middle Republic’, in S. Roselaar (ed)., Processes of Integration and Identity Formation in the Roman Republic (Leiden, 2012), 227-245

‘Time for Italy in Velleius Paterculus’, in E. Cowan (ed.), Velleius Paterculus: Making History (Swansea, 2011), 17-57

‘Excavations at Acquachiara (Atessa), 2002-2009 (with M. MacKinnon, N. McFerrin, C. Shelton, K. Swift, N. Wolff), Quaderni di Archeologia d’Abruzzo 3 (2011), 31-6

Roman Europe (ed), Short Oxford History of Europe (Oxford, 2008): ‘Introduction’ (1-7), ‘Warfare and the Army’ (135-69) & ‘Religions’ (203-33)

Vita Vigilia Est. Essays in Honour of Barbara Levick (ed. with G. Rowe & E. Matthews), BICS Supplement 100 (London, 2007): ‘Pliny the Elder’s Italy’ (41-67)

‘The Samnites’, in G.J. Bradley, E. Isayev & C. Riva (eds), Ancient Italy. Regions Without Boundaries (Exeter, 2007), 179-22

From Asculum to Actium: The Municipalization of Italy Between the Social War and Actium (Oxford, 2007)

The Edinburgh Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. with T. E. Harrison & B.A. Sparkes (Edinburgh, 2006): ‘Roman Historiography’ (384-90), ‘Politics’ (447-64), ‘The Calendar’ (485-88)

‘Literary Sources’, in R. Morstein-Marx & N. Rosenstein, The Blackwell Companion to the Roman Republic (Oxford, 2006), 29-50

‘Coloniam deducere: how Roman was Roman Colonization during the Middle Republic’, in Greek and Roman Colonization. Origins, Ideologies and Interactions, eds G. Bradley and J.-P. Wilson (Swansea, 2006), 74-160

Religion in Archaic and Republican Rome and Italy: Evidence and Experience (Edinburgh, 2000), (editor, with C.J. Smith): ‘Introduction’ (1-18)

‘Mimic. A Case Study in Early Roman Colonization’, in State Identities in the First Millenium B.C. (London, 2000), eds E. Herring and K. Lomas, 157-186

‘Carved in Stone: the Municpal Magistracies of Numerius Cluvius’, in The Epigraphic Landscape of Roman Italy (London, 2000), 39-75

‘The End of the Tabula Heracleensis: a Poor Man’s Sanctio?’, Epigraphica 59 (1997) 125-56

Email

ed.bispham@bnc.ox.ac.uk

Links 

http://www.sangro.org/

https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-edward-bispham