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I am currently Professor of Classics at the University of Cape Town where I have been based since April 2008. Prior to that, I was a Research Fellow of Peterhouse (Cambridge) and held a Fellowship (Experienced Researcher category) of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (AvH) at the University of Cologne from January 2015 to June 2016. For March and April 2024, the AvH has granted me a short-term renewal of my Fellowship, which I will take up at the Institut für Archäologie und Kulturanthropologie at the University of Bonn prior to entering on my term as AD Trendall Fellow at the ICS during May and June.

In general, my research focuses on the history and material culture of Italy during the Republican period. My publications include the monograph Styling Romanisation (Cambridge 2007), numerous journal articles and book chapters, as well as the edited volumes Roman by Integration (with J. Keller, Portsmouth, RI 2007), and Empire, Hegemony or Anarchy (with S. Karataş and K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Stuttgart 2019), and I furthermore have a continuing – if temporarily dormant – stake in an excavation project at La Civitucola (Provincia di Roma), the site of ancient Capena.

During my time as AD Trendall Fellow, I will be completing work towards a forthcoming monograph on the origins of the Roman empire in Italy, from about 400 BCE to the outbreak of the Social War in 91 BCE. One focal area of this monograph is the emergence of distinctive regionalisms which we encounter across a spectrum of written sources and archaeological evidence, and this will be the principal theme of my research while at the ICS. Fittingly, some of the pioneering work conducted by AD Trendall himself is indispensable for understanding those dynamics, and especially for the earlier part of my period. In addition, I plan to host a workshop around the topic of consumption as an integral part of Roman imperialism.