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Professor of Classics and Grote Professor of Ancient History
Departmental tutor
(Classics) 2009-2010
Email: s.hornblower@ucl.ac.uk
My chief current interest is classical Greek historiography (esp. Herodotus and Thucydides) and the relation between historical texts as literature and as history. I have published a large-scale historical and literary commentary on Thucydides in three volumes (OUP 1991, 1996, 2008). My most recent monograph is Thucydides and Pindar; Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry (2004), but in 2010 I shall publish, with OUP, a collection of essays to be called Thucydidean Themes. I am also co-editor, with Prof. Cathy Morgan of King's, of Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals: From Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (OUP 2007), a collection of papers by experts on historical, literary, archaeological and anthropological aspects of Pindar and his world. In addition, I am still, as I have been since 1979, heavily involved with the on-going Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and in 2000 I co-edited a book called Greek Personal Names: their Value as Evidence (OUP for the British Academy). My next large-scale project is a commentary for OUP on Lykophron. Finally, I co-edited the new (3rd ed., 1996) Oxford Classical Dictionary, and work on a 4th edition is in progress.
As regards teaching, since I came to UCL in 1997 I have taught undergraduate courses in Greek history (The Greek and Hellenistic Worlds, Classical Greek City 508-336 BC, Alexander the Great and his Early Successors , Ancient Greek Religion, Greek Historiography (both in Greek and in translation), Greek literature (reading classes on Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Lysias, Andokides) and Greek language (Intermediate Greek), and was for many years co-ordinator of the Life and Death in the ancient world course (core course for AWS students).
For the federal (intercollegiate) MA, I gave for ten years a 2-term course on Thucydides books 6 and 7 (the 'Sicilian Expedition' narrative), studied in Greek, but stopped when vol. III of my commentary was published. In 2008-9, I gave an MA course with Prof. Carey on Herodotus books 5-7, and in 2009-2010 I will be teaching books 5 and 6 on my own, also for the MA; I am under contract to do a 'green-and-yellow' commentary on book 5 for CUP. At the moment I am first supervisor for seven PhD theses in my two departments, on topics such as Kinship in Thucydides, Personal Names in Thucydides, Thucydides and Game Theory, Arrian's Indike, Lykophron's Alexandra, and the history and cults of hellenistic Krete.
Books:
1.) Mausolus (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982), pp. xxvi+398
2.) The Greek World 479-323 BC (Methuen, 1983; revised edition Routledge London, 1991; 3rd edition Routledge 2002, with two new chapters) pp. xix+396 in 2002 edition. Translated into Spanish, Italian and Modern Greek
3.) (co-edited) LACTOR The Athenian Empire ed. 3 (1984) pp.xxv+175
4.) Thucydides (Duckworth, London, 1987, reprinted with additions 1994), pp.x+230 (modern Greek translation 2003). Ch. 5 ('Intellectual Affinities') reprinted in J. S. Rusten (ed.) Oxford Readings in Thucydides (2009), with a new appendix on work since 1987
5.) Commentary on Thucydides Vol. 1: Books I-III (OUP, 1991), pp. xii+548 (modern Greek translation 2006)
6.) (edited) Greek Historiography (OUP, 1994), pp. 286 (paperback 1995)
7.) (co-edited) Ritual Finance Politics, Athenian Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis (OUP, 1994), pp.408
8.) (co-edited) Cambridge Ancient History vol. 6 (1994), 2nd ed, 'The Fourth Century BC', pp. 1077
9.) (co-edited) Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. 3 (OUP, 1996, revised ed. 2003), pp. lv+1640
10.) Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 2: Books IV-V.24 (OUP, 1996), pp. xvi+516 (modern Greek translation 2006).
11.) (co-edited), Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (OUP, 1998), pp. 794
12.) (co-edited), Who's Who in the Ancient World (OUP, 2000), pp. 440
13.) (co-edited), Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence (OUP for the British Academy, 2000) pp. viii+184
14.) Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry (Oxford, 2004, corrected paperback 2006), pp. xvii+454
15.) (co-edited), Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals: from Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2007
16.) Commentary on Thucydides
Vol. III: Books 5. 25- 8. 109 (2008), pp. xix+ 1107
For a fuller list of publications, click here.
