Anthony Smart

Teaching

I love teaching, from the big lectures in first year, to the more focused workshops and seminars in Years Two and Three. Teaching is at the core of my academic practice. 

I was made a Fellow of the HEA in 2015, and that focus on pedagogic practice and research has influenced the development of my own teaching method. 

In everything I do, I am guided by a focus on student self-belief, and creating opportunities for students to build, with guidance, their own historical methodology. This requires a focus in every session on the “flipped classroom”, with inclusive learning at every stage. As my students progress, I offer them more academic freedom, in shaping the content and reading in sessions. I try, in every module, to create a distinctive learning community. I also hope that by studying elements of Roman history, such as rhetoric, my students will develop confidence in public speaking. 
In May 2022 I was invited to join the Classical Association's Teaching Board. This was a great honour, and over the last few years I have worked on modifications to subject criteria for Ancient History GCSE and A-Levels programmes, schemes of work for non-specialists, CPD for teachers, webinar series and advising exam boards on Roman content.

I have also worked with other institutions and museums because of my teaching specialisms:

• I have helped staff from the British Museum prepare a portfolio for CPD, as well as student facing source outlines.
• During the pandemic I worked with Sixth form and GCSE teachers with their online material, and created bespoke online lectures to help with their shift to remote teaching (e.g. Egglescliffe School Sixth Form: York College & New College, Swindon).
• I gave an online lecture on “The Augustan Principate”, to the Classics students at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia (2nd November 2021).
• In July 2022 I was invited to provide a lecture for 70 Year Ten Students as part of their History of York day, from the European School.
• I have also provided talks at several local colleges and schools, with yearly visits to York College. I tend to talk all things Greece and Rome, especially on Sulla, the Late Republic, and Athens before the Peloponnesian War. Emma Beetham Testimonial: “Anthony’s lecture he gave to my students at York College was brilliant. He was engaging, knowledgeable and very accessible for my students to understand. They all found it useful for their summer exams and we are very grateful for him giving up his time.”
• Video Lectures for English Module Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (LIT6005M) on the Roman plays and ancient historical constructs (2014).
• Roman Walking Tour for Academic Faculty Staff (2015).
• Guest Lectures on Beowulf for (LIT4006M; 3EN310) Canon & Canonicity, sometimes twice a year (2013-2018). Professor Sarah Lawson Welsh Testimonial: “Over several consecutive years, Anthony gave a guest lecture for my Literature module, 'Canonicity' on the Old English poem Beowulf and its historical contexts. In these lively and frequently interactive sessions, my students benefitted hugely from Anthony's reading of the opening of the text in its original Anglo-Saxon and from his specialist insights into the poem within various historical and interdisciplinary contexts”.
• Guest lecture on Roman York, Liberal Arts; Foundation Year (2017-2021)
• Guest speaker for the YSJ History Society (2015; 2016).
• From 2013-2015 I served on the FESEC Committee (Faculty Enhancement & Student Experience Committee).
• Co-Organiser of the Catalyst Funded History Teachers Network Day (29th June 2019).

I have also been nominated for several teaching awards at York St John: 

• Inspirational Staff Member (2022)
• Inspirational Teaching Awards (2021)
• Most Supportive Staff Member Award (2021)
• Inspirational Teaching Award (2019)
• Feedback Award (2019)
• Teaching Excellence Award (2017)

Level Co-Ordinator (2020-present)

For the last four years I have also served as Level Co-Ordinator for Level 5 (Second Year), Level 6 (Third Year) and now back to Level 5. This is a role I really enjoy, and allows me to work closely with Student Representatives, Course Leaders, and the Associate Head of History. 

External Engagement and Schools Liaison 

For the past seven years I have worked with colleagues to share research, arranged talks at schools and colleges, and have been the first point of contact for all school-based enquiries. 

With Dr. Jim Cooper I helped to create the Questions in History series, collaborating with my colleagues in History & War Studies.

I have also served as a staff mentor to Dr. Ben Garlick in Geography. 

Modules

• Researching and Presenting the Past
• The Roman Empire: Tiberius to Domitian
• Making History
• Why Wars Begin
• War and the Media
• Empires
• The Fall of the Roman Republic (third year special study in Ancient History)

Research

In my research, I am drawn to power, law and emotion. This means that my own historical methodology moves between close study of ancient sources, to bringing in questions and methods from law, anthropology, sociology and psychology. It is not designed to be traditional, but stretch the reading of the evidence as far as possible, even if in the end the argument itself can be challenged. I believe as historians we are not detectives, or unbiased judges of the past, but that we have a crucial role in uncovering the different “truths” of the worlds we study. The dead can no longer speak, but we can, and should, speak for them. This is how I approach the Greek and Roman material.   

I have completed my first big study (Grief and Sorrow in the Roman Republic), which provides a good example of this “expansive methodology”, and one that tries to forge new ways of interpreting the evidence. I really enjoy exploring the boundaries of comparative history, in the hope that we can provide new ways of interpreting the people of the past, and especially how they thought and felt. As an example, my chapter on Cicero begins with American letters of consolation from the eighteenth- and nineteenth centuries. In other sections I place the Roman evidence against a backdrop of sources including Beowulf, Norse Skaldic verse, Machiavelli’s writings and early photography, in an attempt to alter our understanding of Roman attitudes towards grief and sorrow. 

Where possible I try and draw upon different historical traditions from across Europe including French, Italian and German writings on ancient history. I believe it is important to read as widely as possible, to offer new insights into the people we study. 

For the last few years I have been working on a project that brings together scholars from across the world to reconsider the relationship of power and politics in the early Roman empire. I have enjoyed collaborating with many excellent scholars, teachers, and curators on this project. This will provide an opportunity to alter perspectives on the Roman political realities after Augustus. 

I am also interested in the ways different historical traditions have treated the “Fall of the Republic”, the competing images of Romulus through the ages, and the connection of religion and power in the urban spaces of the res publica.

I have been inspired by two recent works on the Roman Emperor, the first by Professor Olivier Hekster and the second by Professor Mary Beard to write a new history of the Roman Emperor. This will provide a good example of my comparative and thematic approach to historical study. This book is under contract and due to be completed by September 2024. 

Selected Research activity:

• I was invited to debate the death of Caesar with three other experts in History Today, the world’s longest running History monthly. I was up against Emma Southon, Peter Stothard and Valentina Arena (all well-known authorities on Ancient Rome). It was published in the March edition.
• I have served as an historical consultant for Songs of Praise, Delayed Gratification (part of the slow journalism movement), and was invited to appear on screen for Songs of Praise too.
• I have also served as an Historical Consultant for Roman Fiction author Ally Sherrick (put forward by the Historical Association). I proofed the historical notes for Vita and the Gladiator, advised on Roman society and naming practices.
• I have peer reviewed for Historical Research & International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church.
• I led a Students as Researchers project (Roman History in York: RES132) last year.

I am grateful to all the library staff here who help with scanning documents and books for me, and the RNIB Bookshare allows me to read in accessible formats books from all across the world. This can even turn printed books into audio files, which for people with visual impairments, can be a real help. Any students who face similar problems please do email me, and I will be happy to guide you through the process.

Publications and conferences

This is a list of my publications and projects as of February 2024. For a more up-to-date list please see my RAY page. 

Research Projects 

I have completed my first full manuscript Grief and Sorrow in the Roman Republic. This has been submitted to Bloomsbury’s Emotions in History series, and I am awaiting the outcome of the peer review process. 

I am now working on Emperor of Rome: How the Roman Empire Was Ruled (30 BCE to 476 CE). This is under contract with Pen & Sword History, and the manuscript is due in September 2024. 

Articles & Chapters

‘The PIP Crisis and the Protection of the Consumer in English Law’, King’s Law Journal, 24.1, (April, 2013), pp. 119-129

‘Bede, Wearmouth-Jarrow and Sacred Space’, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, (Feb. 2014), pp. 22-40 

‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the importance of paying God his dues’, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, Vol. 16, Iss. 1, (March, 2016), pp. 24-41

‘Pericles of Athens: Democracy and Empire’, in M. Gutmann (ed.), Historians on Leadership and Strategy: Case Studies From Antiquity to Modernity (Cham, Springer: 2020), pp. 255-267

‘Classical Ethnography and Celtic Identity: the world of the Rigante’, in The Celtic Obsession in Modern Fantasy (London: Bloomsbury, 2023), 91-116

The Death of Caesar: Debate. History Today, 73.3 (2023)

Encyclopaedia Pieces

‘Relics’, in P. J. Hayes (ed.), Miracles, An Encylopedia of People, Places and Supernatural Events from Antiquity to the Present, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2016), pp. 339-341

‘Slaves in Ancient Greece’ in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of the Daily Life of Women: How They Lived from Ancient Times to the Present, Vol. I., (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2020), 167-168

‘Midwives in Ancient Greece’ in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of the Daily Life of Women: How They Lived from Ancient Times to the Present, Vol. I., (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2020), 173-174

‘Wives in Ancient Greece’ in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of the Daily Life of Women: How They Lived from Ancient Times to the Present, Vol. I., (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2020), 175-177

‘Slaves in Ancient Rome’ in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of the Daily Life of Women: How They Lived from Ancient Times to the Present, Vol. I., (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2020), 218-220

‘Arsinoe II’ Women Who Changed the World, (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2022), 94-100

‘Cleopatra VII’, Women Who Changed the World, (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2022), 271-277

‘Gaius Gracchus’, Tacitus Encyclopaedia, (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023)

‘Granius Marcianus’, Tacitus Encyclopaedia, (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023)

‘Asciburgium’, Tacitus Encyclopaedia, (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023)

‘Suiones/Sitones’, Tacitus Encyclopaedia, (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) 

‘Disability’, Tacitus Encyclopaedia, (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) 

Reviews 

‘Sanctuary and crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500’, The Journal of Legal History, Vol. 34, No. 1, (April, 2013), 117-120. [author: Karl Shoemaker]

‘War as Spectacle, Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Display of Armed Conflict’, Classics Ireland, Vol. 23-24 (2016-2017), pp. 150-154 [authors: Anastasia Bakogianni & Valerie Hope]

‘The Barbarians: Lost Civilisations’, The Classical Journal, (March, 2018) [author: Peter Bogucki]

‘Ancient Law, Ancient Society’, The Classical Journal, (April, 2018) [authors: Dennis P. Kehoe & Thomas A. J. McGinn]

‘Destroyer of the gods. Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World’, Vigiliae Christianae, Volume 72, Issue 3, (June, 2018), pp. 341-344  [author: Larry W. Hurtado]

‘The wisdom of the Middle Ages’, Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, Volume 15, Issue 2, (August, 2018), pp. 334-337  [author: Michael K. Kellogg]

‘Amalasuintha, The Transformation of Queenship in the Post-Roman World’, Royal Studies Journal, Vol. 5, Issue 2, (2018), pp. 147-149 [author: Massimiliano Vitiello]

'Conceiving a Nation, Scotland to AD 900', Comparative Legal History, Vol. 6 Iss. 2, (2018), 264-267 [author: Gilbert Márkus]

‘Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World’, Classical World, Vol. 112, No. 3 (Spring, 2019), 241-243 [author: Adrian Goldsworthy]

‘Warfare in the Middle Ages: 400-1453’, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 83, No. 3 (July, 2019), pp. 873-874 [authors: Bernard Bachrach and David S. Bachrach]

‘From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism: Ancient and Medieval Christian Constructions of Jewish History’, Studies in Late Antiquity, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring, 2019), pp. 116-119  [author: Robert Chazan]

‘Troy: Myth, City, Icon’, The Classical Journal, (August, 2019)  [author: Naoíse Mac Sweeney]

‘The Emperor of Law, The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication’, Edinburgh Law Review, Vol. 23, Issue 3, (September, 2019), pp. 459-461 [author: Kaius Tuori] 

‘Mental Illness in Ancient Medicine, From Celsus to Paul of Aegina’, Medical History, Vol. 63, Issue 4, (October, 2019), pp. 515-517 [authors: Chiara Thumiger & P. N. Singer]

‘Making Manslaughter: Process, Punishment and Restitution in Württemberg and Zurich, 1376-1700’, Cambridge Law Journal, Vol. 78, Iss. 3, (November, 2019), pp. 668-671 [author: Susanne Pohl-Zucker]

‘Julius Caesar. The war for Gaul: a new translation’, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, (November, 2019) [author: James J. O'Donnell]

‘Performing the Sacra: Priestly roles and their organisation in Roman Britain’, Antiquity, Vol. 93. Iss. 2, (December, 2019), pp. 1686-1687 [author: Alessandra Esposito]

‘The Antonine Constitution’, The Classical Journal, (December, 2019) [author: Alex Imrie]

‘Rome: Republic into Empire: the civil wars of the first century BCE’, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, (January, 2020) [author: Paul Chrystal]

‘Legible Religion: books, gods and rituals in Roman Culture’, Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft, Volume 14, Number 3, (Winter 2019), pp. 484-487  [author: Duncan. MacRae]

‘The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World: Revisiting the Sources’, Central European History, 54, No. 1 (March, 2020), 257-59 [authors: Stefan Esders, Yitzhak Hen, Pia Lucas & Tamar Rotman]

‘How the Anglo-Saxons Read Their Poems’, The Review of English Studies, Vol. 71, Iss. 299 (April, 2020), 370-372 [author: Daniel Donoghue]

‘Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths’, European Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 23, Iss. 2, (May, 2020), 314-317 [author: Guy Middleton]

‘Imperial Ladies of the Ottonian Dynasty, Women and Rule in Tenth-Century Germany’, German Studies Review, 43.2. (May, 2020), pp. 395-397 [author: Phyllis G. Jestice]

‘Die “Ilias” und ihr Anfang: Zur Handlungskomposition als Kunstform bei Homer’, The Classical Journal, (June, 2020) [author: Sven Meier]

‘The Classical Art of Command: Eight Greek Generals Who Shaped the History of Warfare’, The Journal of Military History, 84.3, (July, 2020), pp. 873-874 [author: Joseph Roisman]

‘Ancient Legal Thought: Equity, Justice, and Humaneness From Hammurabi and the Pharaohs to Justinian and the Talmud’, Comparative Legal History, Vol. 8.1 (June, 2020), 52-55 [author: Larry May]

‘The Polis in the Hellenistic World’, Arctos: Acta Philologica Fennica, Vol. 53 (2019), pp. 289-292 [authors: Henning Börm & Nino Luraghi]

‘State Power in Ancient China and Rome’, Arctos: Acta Philologica Fennica, Vol. 53 (2019), pp. 298-299 [author: Walter Scheidel]

‘Burial Rituals, Ideas of Afterlife, and the Individual in the Hellenistic World and the Roman Empire’, Arctos: Acta Philologica Fennica, Vol. 53 (2019), pp. 295-296 [author: Katharina Waldner, Richard Gordon & Wolfgang Spickermann]

‘Ripensare la storia universal Giustino e l’epitome delle Storie Filippiche di Pompeo Trogo’, The Classical Journal, (August, 2020) [author: Alice Borgna]

‘Rome After Sulla’, Classical World, vol. 114, No. 1 (November, 2020), 109-110 [author: J. Alison Rosenblitt]

‘Infancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman World’, The Classical Journal, (April, 2021) [author: Maureen Carroll]

‘The Roman Community at Table during the Principate’, The Classical Journal, (April, 2021)  [author: John Donahue]

‘The House of Augustus: A Historical Detective Story’, The Classical Journal (April, 2021) [author: T. P. Wiseman]

‘Virtus Romana: Politics and Morality in the Roman Historians’ The Classical Journal (April, 2021) [author: Catalina Balmaceda]

‘Charlemagne: les temps, les espaces, les hommes, Construction et déconstruction d’un règne’, French Forum, 48.1, (2024) [authors: Rolf Grosse & Michel Sot]

Professional activities

Nero Symposium

In September 2021 I was invited to attend a small symposium by Dame Professor Mary Beard at the British Museum, where I gave a talk on the young Nero:

https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/news/2021/british-museum/

The small group of attendees included Professor Nicholas Purcell, the Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford and Fellow, Brasenose College, as well as Professor Catherine Edwards (Birckbeck), Hartwig Fischer, the Head of the British Museum, Thorsten Opper, Curator of Greek & Roman Sculpture at the British Museum, Professor Bert Smith, Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the University of Oxford and Fellow, Lincoln College and Professor Dame Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Newnham College, and Professor Katherine Harloe, the incoming Director of the Institute of Classical Studies.

Nero Classics Day

In October 2021 I gave a lecture as part of the British Museum’s Nero Classics’ Day, “Tiberius & the Augustan Principate”. The other speakers were: Francesca Bologna (Nero project curator, British Museum), Dr Sam Moorhead (National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman Coins, Portable Antiquities and Treasure (Learning and National Partnerships), Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum; Professor Annalisa Marzano (University of Reading); Professor Hella Eckhardt (University of Reading); Professor Dame Mary Beard DBE, FSA, FBA (classicist, author and Trustee of the British Museum); Dr Peter Liddel (University of Manchester); Dr Peter Swallow (Teacher of Classics and Research Associate, Kings College London) & Natalie Haynes (writer, classicist & broadcaster). My talk followed that delivered by Professor Mary Beard. This had 244 registrations (schools and colleges across the country).

Classical Association Teaching Board (2022-Present)

• Qualifications reform
• Creating teaching and learning resources
• Developing Continuing Professional Development for GCSE & Sixth Form teachers
• Work with examination boards and other subject associations
• Advocate for the wider Classics community
• I will be speaking at the Historical Association’s Conference this year.

Imperial Power in the Roman World 

Alongside my role with the Classical Association, my work with the British Museum and local schools and colleges, in Summer 2021 I organised a public lecture series on Imperial Power in the Roman World, bringing together academics from across the world. In part inspired by the new Nero exhibition at the British Museum, and recent thoughts on the nature of imperial power (and its legacy), this series of public facing lectures provided short studies of imperial power across the Roman World. I had four aims for the series:

1. Introduce students who might be new to studying the ancient past through a carefully curated lecture series.
2. Celebrate the diversity within classics, by drawing upon archaeological, literary and historical studies.
3. Demonstrate that as ancient historians and classicists we belong to a truly international community.
4. Provide detailed and thought-provoking analyses that would engage a popular non academic audience as well.

I scheduled two talks a week through the Summer (every Tuesday and Thursday), from July-September, in the hope that the talks could all be collected together for incoming undergraduate students (as well as advanced high school students, and interested members of the public). It has given prospective students across different colleges and universities the chance to engage with some ancient material before they start, as well as hopefully introduce important topics to students who may new classics and ancient history.

https://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/romanworld/programme-of-events/

Professor Greg Woolf, UCLA: “Imperial Power in the Roman World is a phenomenal initiative. This series of short lectures brings together an international line-up of researchers working on the Roman empire. It offers an unparalleled means of listening in to current debates, and of hearing new arguments about the Roman past. This will be a wonderful resource for students of all ages.”