Dr Pablo Rojas (BA, MA, MPhil, PhD)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Biography

Background

I joined the University of Edinburgh as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow funded by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID-Chile), after graduating with an MPhil and a PhD in Classics from the University of St Andrews. Before coming to the United Kingdom, I graduated with a BA in History and an MA in Classical Studies in my home country, and completed an intensive, year-long course in classical languages in Rome.

Qualifications

PhD in Classics (University of St Andrews, UK)

MPhil in Classics (University of St Andrews, UK)

MA in Classical Studies (Centre of Classical Studies, Chile)

BA in History (Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile)

Research summary

I am a Latinist specialising in Roman historical writing, with a keen research interest in the history of Roman law. My training in literary criticism and traditional methodologies of classical philology has also prompted a profound interest in the history of classical scholarship and the evolving nature of Classics as a discipline.

My research is interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on literary texts to investigate Roman legal culture from a different perspective to that offered by traditional legal sources. In my PhD thesis, I analysed Tacitus’ views on the law and the narrative function of law-related episodes in the Annals (the abstract can be found here). I am currently transforming my doctoral thesis into a book, provisionally titled Law and Empire in Tacitus’ Annals.

My previous work established the foundations for my current postdoctoral research on law and literature in Ancient Rome here at the University of Edinburgh. My project ‘Trial Scenes in Latin Literature’ investigates the strategies whereby Roman authors constructed, embedded, and utilised trial scenes to engage readers with the legal and non-legal controversies portrayed in their texts.

Organiser

I am co-organising the following panels:

Law and Literature in Ancient Rome. Classical Association Conference, St Andrews - July 2025

Modes of Textual Engagement and the Reader's Experience Greco-Roman Historical Narratives. Celtic Conferences in Classics, Coimbra - July 2025

Papers delivered

'Tiberius and the Trial of Libo Drusus in Tacitus' Annals 2.27-32' at the Classical Association of Scotland Research Seminar, Aberdeen – UK (February 2025)

'Peritia Legum: Legal Expertise and Political Action in Tacitus' Annals' at the International Conference Tacitus and the Paths of History, University of Lisbon – Portugal (November 2024)

‘Geographic, Strategic and Tactical Space: Caesarian Spatial Thinking in Tacitus' Agricola’ at the Classics Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh – UK (March 2024).

‘Tacitus on Jurists: Archetypes of Jurisprudence in the Early Roman Empire’ at the Research Workshop, Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research, University of St Andrews – UK (May 2023).

‘Tiberius and the Law in Tacitus’ Annals’ at the Classics PG Work-in-Progress, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London – UK (October 2022).

‘Gaius Cassius Longinus, a Jurist in Politics’ at the Tübingen & St Andrews PG Workshop, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen – Germany (June 2022).

‘The Trial Scene of Valerius Asiaticus in Tacitus’ Annals’ at the Classics PG Research Seminar, University of St Andrews – UK (March 2022).

‘Death Narratives and the Politics of Exemplarity in Imperial Rome’ at the Workshop: Imperial Power, Imperial Truth, University of Bristol – UK (October 2019).

‘Genre, Structure, and Style: Notes to Tacitus’ Agricola’ (in Spanish) at the Tradition in Translation Colloquium, Universidad Alberto Hurtado and Ediciones Tácitas, Chile (July 2015).

 

Books (in preparation)

- Law and Empire in Tacitus’ Annals. Under preliminary contract with Brill, within the series ‘Historiography of Rome and its Empire’ (series editors: Carsten Hjort Lange and Jesper Majbom Madsen).

Publications:

- Rojas, P. (Accepted) ‘Callidus Emperor: Tiberius and the Law in Tacitus’ Annals’. Mnemosyne.

- Schola Aestiva 2022 (Forthcoming) Noctivagus, -a, -um (co-authored dictionary entry). Thesaurus Linguae Latinae

- Rojas, P. (2024) on: Encyclopedic Tacitus. Review of Pagán, V. E. (ed.) The Tacitus Encyclopedia (Wiley-Blackwell). The Classical Review 74.2 (pp. 494-497).

- Rojas, P. (2024) on: Cooley, A. The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre (Cambridge University Press). BMCR 2024.02.08.

- Rojas, P. (2023) on: Tacitean Miracula. Review of McNamara, J. and Pagán, V. E. (eds.) Tacitus’ Wonders (Bloomsbury). The Classical Review 73.1 (pp. 149-153).

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