Professor Simon Hornblower
Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of Oxford
MA, DPhil, FBA
Quondam Fellow since 2016
I work on the interface between ancient Greek history and literature. My commentary on Herodotus book 5 was published by CUP in 2013, and I am now working on book 6 for the same series, in collaboration with Chris Pelling, Regius Professor of Greek. My other main current interest is a 1474-line poem from the Hellenistic period, Lykophron’s Alexandra. My commentary (with introduction, Greek text, and English translation) was published by OUP in July 2015. I am now writing a follow-up monograph: Lykophron’s Alexandra and the Hellenistic World, also to be published by OUP. Finally, I am editing the metrical texts (mainly funerary epigrams) for the AHRC-funded Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions project.
- Professor of Classics and Grote Professor of Ancient History, University College London (from 2006 to 2010)
- Senior Lecturer, then Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University College London (from 1997 to 2006)
- Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow, Oriel College, Oxford (from 1978 to 1997)
- Prize Fellow, All Souls College (from 1971 to 1977)
- Undergraduate, Balliol College, Oxford (from 1969 to 1971)
- Undergraduate (scholar) Jesus College, Cambridge (from 1967 to 1969)
- Classical Greek historiography (especially Herodotus and Thucydides) and the relationship between historical texts as literature and as history
- Pindar
- Lykophron’s Alexandra
- Lykophron: Alexandra. Greek Text, Translation, Commentary and Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
- Herodotus Histories Book V (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
- The Greek World 479-323 BC (London: Routledge, 4th ed., 2011).
- Thucydidean Themes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3 vols., 1991–2008).
- (co-edited) Pindar’s Poetry, Patrons and Festivals, from Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
- Thucydides and Pindar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
- (co-edited) Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2000).
- Publications (External Link)
- Member of RAE 2008 sub-panel 59 (classics, etc.) (2008)
- Foreign member, Royal Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences (from 1999)
- Member, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies (from 1994 to 1995)
- AHRC research leave award (from 2006 to 2007).
- AHRB research leave award (from 2000 to 2001).