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Profile
I am an Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Cambridge. I studied Classics at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa, and went on to complete a second MA in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, focusing on Hebrew and Syriac, before coming to Cambridge for my doctoral studies. I received my PhD in Ancient History from King’s College, Cambridge, in 2020.
My research investigates how exegetical practices, philosophical traditions—especially Neoplatonism—and Jewish and Christian imperial cultures intersected in the late Roman world. I am particularly interested in how intellectual and political authority were shaped and negotiated through acts of interpretation and rhetoric. My current work asks what distinguished sacred writings in the imperial and late antique Roman world, and how processes of interpretation and re-interpretation of scripture accompanied broader social and political change. More broadly, I am fascinated by all things late antique, and by the mobility of practices, texts, and ideas across the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East.
Teaching
I lecture on a range of ancient history papers, including: an introduction to social and economic inequalities in ancient Rome; the history of the later Roman empire; and a joint Classics and Divinity Paper on the religious cultures of ancient Rome.
I am always happy to supervise undergraduate and postgraduate research on any of the areas related to my interests. Works supervised so far includes topics ranging from imperial self-representation, Hellenistic Judaism, the social history of Neoplatonism, fourth-century Christian poetry, and the institutional asset of Italy in the fifth century CE.
Research
My research explores how exegetical practices, philosophical traditions—especially Neoplatonism—and Jewish and Christian imperial cultures intersected in the late Roman world. I am particularly interested in how intellectual and political authority was shaped and negotiated through acts of interpretation and rhetoric.
My first book, Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power: Constantine, Julian, and the Bishops on Exegesis and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023), reinterprets the conversion of the imperial court in the fourth century. It argues that Christian emperors drew on philosophical debates about interpretation to craft new forms of imperial power, a dynamic I describe as a “politics of interpretation.”
My current research asks what distinguished sacred writings in the imperial and late antique Roman world, and how evolving modes of interpretation reflected broader social and political change. I am also exploring how ancient readers sought meaning beyond words—through nature, the body, and symbols—and how texts and ideas circulated across the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.
Selected Publications
’From Constantinople to Edessa: Syriac Historians and the Justinianic City’, in E. Turquois, M. Ritter (eds.), Imagery and aesthetics of cityscapes in Late Antiquity, Brill 2025, p. 87–101.
‘Platonic hair: the symbolism of beard and baldness in Emperor Julian’s Misopogon and Synesius’ Praise of Baldness’, in D. LaValle Norman, L. Niccolai (eds.), Cultivating and Contesting the Spiritual Meaning of Male Hair, topical cluster, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 56.1 (November 2025): 41–57
D. LaValle Norman, L. Niccolai (eds.), Cultivating and Contesting the Spiritual Meaning of Male Hair, topical cluster, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 56.1 (November 2025): 41–57
Christianity, Philosophy, and Roman Power: Constantine, Julian, and the Bishops on Exegesis and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
‘Julian the Emperor and the Reaction Against Christianity: A Case Study of Resistance from the Top’, in J. Elsner & D. Jolowicz (eds), Articulating Resistance under the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, p. 219-38.
‘Malalas the Syrian’, in O. Gengler & M. Meier (eds), Johannes Malalas, der Chronist als Zeithistoriker (Malalas Studien IV). Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 2022, p. 25-55.
‘Synesius of Cyrene, Sophist-Bishop: Rhetoric and Religion in the Greek East at the Turn of the Fifth Century CE’, Rhetorica 39(2021): 209-33.
‘From Epic to Parable: A Syriac Reading of the Fall of Troy’, Le Muséon 132 (2019): 37-64.
‘The “House of Hesychius” and the Religious Allegiance of Synesius’ Family’, Historia 68 (2019): 368-85.
‘Julian, Plutarch, and the Dangers of Self-Praise’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017): 1058-84.