Dr Matteo Zaccarini (PhD)

Research Fellow ERC Project Honour in Classical Greece; Greek history

Biography

Background

Born and bred in Italy, near Ravenna, I received my BA/MA in Cultural Heritage and Ancient History at the University in Bologna. I hold a co-tutelle PhD/Dottorato di Ricerca in Ancient History from King’s College London and the University in Bologna, with a doctoral partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I have carried out postdoctoral research periods at Bologna-Ravenna, Verona, Birkbeck College, and Edinburgh (IASH).

Responsibilities & affiliations

Currently, I am an Adjunct Professor (Greek history) in Bologna (Ravenna), students tutor (Bologna, Greek and Latin Summer school), peer reviewer for the National Science Centre of Poland (NCN), and author/copyeditor for the Brill’s New Jacoby digital project. 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

  • Classical-period Greek history, esp. regarding Athens and Sparta
  • Democracy in the late 6th-5th century
  • Ancient historiography
  • Greek military leadership and discipline
  • Xenophon, esp. the Cyropaedia and the Anabasis

Research summary

Places: 

  • Europe
  • Mediterranean

Themes: 

  • Ancient Civilisations
  • Culture
  • Ideas
  • Politics
  • War

Periods: 

  • Antiquity

Research interests

My research focuses on archaic and classical Greek history, ancient historiography, and the idealisation of the Greek past in sources up to the Imperial period (especially Plutarch).

I am especially interested in fifth-century Greek history in the period between the Persian wars and the Peloponnesian war, as well as in the intellectual discourse on the notions of democracy, oligarchy, and political power in general in the fifth and fourth century. I also devote an interest to classical reception, especially in relation to the modern and contemporary European thought, popular media, and built cultural heritage.

Current research interests

I am a Research Fellow in the ERC project Honour in Classical Greece, working on the status and recognition of high-ranking military officers (esp. the strategoi) in Classical Athens and more generally in Greece. My research will focus on the social role and political activity of the strategoi, both as individuals and as members of a small board of peers, aiming to explore the complex interactions that determined their status, as well as the way their status affected their ability to influence city politics. I will also deal with the institutional relationships between the strategoi and the governing bodies of the Greek polis.

Project activity

Honour in Classical Greece: esteem, status, identity, and society in ancient Greek literature, life, and thought (http://research.shca.ed.ac.uk/honour-in-greece/) (current)

Emotions through Time: from Antiquity to Byzantium (http://emotions.shca.ed.ac.uk/) (past)

The list below is a subset of the information held on the University of Edinburgh PURE system, and includes Books, Chapters, Articles and Conference contributions. For a f