Professor Guy Bradley

Publication

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Research

Research interests

My research has focused on the history and archaeology of Italy and Rome in the first millennium BC, using approaches that draw on comparative historical and anthropological studies and the integrated use of archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources. My interests in ethnic identity and the formation of ancient communities developed out of my PhD on ancient Umbria, a region of Italy, and have informed my subsequent research into Roman colonization, the peoples of ancient Italy, and early Roman history.

My first book was a development of my PhD on ancient Umbria. Since then I have remained interested in the regions and peoples of ancient Italy, editing two collected volumes on the subject: G. D. Farney, G. Bradley (eds), The Peoples of Ancient Italy (De Gruyter: Berlin, Boston, 2017), and G. Bradley, E. Isayev, C. Riva (eds), Ancient Italy: Regions without Boundaries (Exeter University Press: Exeter, 2007). I have also co-directed the Iuvanum Survey Project (2000-2005), in collaboration with Oliva Menozzi of the University of Chieti (Italy). The aim of the project was to investigate the territory of Iuvanum, a Roman town in Samnium by field walking and other survey techniques, and to integrate the results with a comprehensive and critical analysis of the evidence for the site's regional context. Our results make Iuvanum one of the most intensively examined ancient cities in the upland areas of Italy, showing both how a pre-Roman community living in a dispersed settlement pattern emerged in the first millennium BC and how the community disintegrated at the end of the classical period.

Over the last few years my research has focused on the history of early Rome within its Italian context. I have published articles on the demography and economy of early Rome, on the nature of central Italian elites, and on the the secessions of the plebs as part of the mobile environment of central Italy. Many of these ideas are incorporated into my book, G. Bradley, Early Rome to 290 BC: the Beginnings of the City and the Rise of the Republic, Vol. 1 of The Edinburgh History of Ancient Rome (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), and in a long chapter of the Oxford History of the Roman World (OUP, forthcoming).

I also have a long term research interest in Roman colonization, which developed out of postgraduate classes on the Romanization of Italy at UCL with Prof. Michael Crawford. I published an edited volume with J.-P. Wilson on Greek and Roman Colonization: Origins, Ideologies and Interactions (Classical Press of Wales: Swansea, 2006), which compared ancient and modern approaches to Greek and Roman colonization. I have also published various book chapters on ethnic identity in Roman and Latin colonies, and on the strategic planning behind colony foundation. I am currently working on a book project exploring postcolonial and comparative perspectives on Roman Republican colonization, and a collaborative conference project with Jeremia Pelgrom (University of Groningen).

Teaching

My teaching centres mainly on Roman history, covering a period from the development of the archaic city of Rome to the early Principate, dealing with both chronological periods and also thematic issues such as early Rome and the Etruscans. The modules I teach on are:

First year core and optional modules

• HS3103 Investigating the Ancient World

• HS3104 The Ancient World in 20 Objects

• HS3105 Ancient History I: Gods, Kings and Citizens, 1000-330 BCE

• HS3016 Introduction to Ancient History II: Empires East and West 323 BCE to 680 CE

Second and third year option modules

• HS3335 Roman Imperial History

• HS3385 Religion in Rome and Italy

• HS3333 Rome and Carthage

• HS3363 Roman Revolution

• HS4372 Early Rome and the Etruscans

Second and third year core modules

• HS4334 Independent Study
• HS4335 Dissertation
• HS4336 Pots, Poems and Pictures

Biography

Education and qualifications

1990 BA Hons in Ancient and Medieval History, University College London

1991 MA in Ancient History, University College London

1997 PhD in Ancient History, 'Umbria from the Iron Age to the Augustan Era', University College London

Career overview

1996-1998 Tutorial Fellow in Ancient History, Cardiff University

1998-2008 Lecturer in Ancient History, Cardiff University

2004-2007 Head of Ancient History Section

2008-2020 Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, Cardiff University

2016-2018 Chair of the Ancient History Board of Studies

2020-present Professor of Roman and Early Italian History, Cardiff University

Honours and awards

• 1992-1995 British Academy major state studentship for PhD

• 1994 British School at Rome Research Award

• 1998 British Academy conference grant for ICS conference on colonisation

• 2001 British Academy Small Research Grant for the Iuvanum Survey Project

• 2002 British Academy Small Research Grant for the Iuvanum Survey Project

• 2003 Research grants from the Roman Society and the Society of Antiquaries for the Iuvanum Survey Project

• 2002-2003 AHRB Research Leave grant

• 2003 Hugh Last Fellow at the British School at Rome

• 2009-2010 Visiting Fellowship at the Institute of Classical Studies

Professional memberships

• Member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (from 1996)
• Member of the Classical Association (from 1997)
• Elected Member of the Council of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (2002–2005)
• Joint Societies Library representative on the Institute of Classical Studies Library Committee, London (2010-2017)
• External Examiner for the MA in Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University (2005–2007)
• External Examiner for BA Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Oxford (2007–2010)
• External Examiner for BA Ancient History and related courses, University College London (2010-2014)
• External Examiner for BA Greek and Roman Civilization and related courses at University College Dublin (2016-2019)

Academic positions

• 1992-1995 Teaching Assistant, History Department, University College London
• 1995-1996 Temporary Lecturer, Department of Classics, University of Reading

Committees and reviewing

• Book proposal reviewer: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, Ashgate, and Routledge.

• Journal reviewer: Papers of the British School at Rome, Classical Quarterly, Cardiff Historical Papers, Ancient West and East, Acta Patristica et Byzantina, Phoenix, World Archaeology

• External assessor: Ancient History BA at Liverpool University

• Reviewer grant: Austrian Science Fund; Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research; Irish Research Council; Nottingham University; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Supervisions

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the areas of

• early Roman history and archaeology
• the peoples of ancient Italy
• Roman colonization
• ethnicity/ethnic identity and cultural change in Rome, Italy and the western Roman provinces
• Roman social and economic history

I am keen to support students applying for funding, such as via the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (the SWW DTP).

Current supervision

Joel Curzon

Graduate Tutor

Ludovico Runco

Graduate Tutor

Kieran Blewitt

Graduate Tutor

Matteo Calabrese

Research student

Past projects

• Alun Williams, 'British Scholarship on Greek Colonisation in Context' (PhD, 2012)
• Nadia Cracknell, 'Ne spolia figerentur nisi de hoste capta: Captured Arms and Roman Domestic Display Practices' (PhD, 2015)
• Joshua Hall, 'The Tyrrhenian Way of War: war, social power, and the state in Central Italy (c. 900 – 343 BC)' (PhD, 2016)
• Ioan McAvoy, 'The Effeminate East: Orientalism in Roman Military Contexts (c.200 BCE to c.200 CE)' (AHRC funded, PhD, 2017)
• David Colwill, '‘Genocide’ and Rome, 343-146 BCE: State Expansion and the Social Dynamics of Annihilation' (AHRC funded, PhD, 2018)
• Chiara Strazzulla, 'Etruscan Identity and Self-Representation in the Late Republic and Early Empire' (SWW DTP funded, PhD,  2019)
• Adele Burnett, 'Roman Forts in their Landscapes' (PhD, 2023)
• Rhian Williams, 'Childlessness in the Late Republic and Early Roman Empire' (PhD, 2023)