Interests

I am particularly interested in questions of identity (ethnic and other kinds) in classical antiquity, and I engage with the material and literary cultures of the Roman world, especially Roman Italy.

My current research interests include Roman ‘imperialism’ and the retrospective writing (especially in antiquity) of the Republican and Augustan periods.

Selected Pubilcations

• Romulus Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)
• "Samnites in English: the legacy of E. Togo Salmon in the English speaking world" in Samnium. Settlement and cultural change. The proceedings of the third E. Togo Salmon conference on Roman studies (ed. H. Jones) Brown University, Providence: Archaeologia transatlantica 22, pp. 7-22 (2004)
• "Beyond Greeks and Barbarians: Italy and Sicily in the Hellenistic Age" in A Companion to the Hellenistic World (ed. A. Erskine) Blackwell, Oxford pp. 294-309 (2003)
• "Domination" in The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World (ed. G. Woolf) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/Ivy Press, Lewes, East Sussex pp. 108-137 (2003)
• From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modern Perceptions of Peoples from the Central Apennines Clarendon Press, Oxford (1995)

Contact Info

Boylston Hall

Room 218

Cambridge, MA 02138

dench@fas.harvard.edu

617.496.1956

Office Hours: Tuesday 1:00-2:00

Course(s): 70f, 1011, Classical Phi. 226