Jonathan Prag: Research

Principal research interests:

Hellenistic & Roman Republican Sicily
Hellenistic and Roman Republican epigraphy (especially Sicilian epigraphy)
Mid- and Late Roman Republican history
Roman Republican provinces and imperialism
Punic identity
Cicero

My PhD (London 2004) was on the 'provincialization' of Republican Sicily, examining various aspects (identity, epigraphy, military presence) of the transformation of the island under Roman provincial rule and the development of Roman provincial government in relation to the first provincia of the Republican empire. The major elements of that study are now published in various articles (see publications). The majority of my current research begins from that general starting point, engaging with epigraphic evidence (particularly from Hellenistic Sicily), examining questions of identity in the western Mediterranean (including Punic identity), and exploring the origins and development of the provincial system under the Roman Republic, as well as continuing to work on the principal literary source for Roman Sicily, Cicero's Verrines. I am actively participating in collaborative projects with colleagues in France, Italy, and Spain.

Current projects • Articles in preparation

Current projects:

1. Non-Italian Manpower: auxilia externa in the Roman Republic: The core research for this project was undertaken with an AHRC Research Leave Award in 2008 and I am currently completing a monograph on the subject. A brief statement of the project's aims is available in pdf.
Preliminary work has been published as:

Prag, J.R.W. 2011. Troops and commanders: auxilia externa under the Roman Republic. In Truppe e Comandanti nel mondo antico, eds. D. Bonanno, R. Marino, D. Motta, Palermo = ORMOS – Quaderni di storia antica, n.s. 2 (2010): 101-113.
Prag, J.R.W. 2011. Provincial governors and auxiliary soldiers. In N. Barrandon and F. Kirbihler (eds), Les gouverners et les provinciaux sous la République romaine. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. 15-28.
Prag, J.R.W. 2007. Auxilia and Gymnasia: A Sicilian Model of Roman Imperialism.Journal of Roman Studies 97: 68-100

2. Cicero's Verrines: I am participating in a French research group (CNRS - UMR 8585, Centre Glotz, Paris), directed by Sylvie Pittia, working on a translation and commentary of Cicero, In Verrem II.3 (the 'De frumento'). Two conference volumes have already published as part of that project:

Dubouloz, J. and S. Pittia (eds). 2007. La Sicile de Cicéron, Lectures des Verrines. Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté.
Prag, J.R.W. (ed.). 2007. Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae: Rhetoric, Law, and Taxation in Cicero’s Verrines (BICS Suppl. 97). London: Institute of Classical Studies.

A second project has now begun to produce a translation and commentary of In Verrem II.2 (the 'De praetura siciliense'): I am participating in this as Chercheur associé in the laboratoire ANHIMA (=Anthropologie et histoire des mondes anciens), UMR 8210 du CNRS, for the project 'Edition, traduction et commentaire du De praetura Siciliensi (Verrines 2, 2) de Cicéron. Les communautés de Sicile à l’épreuve de la domination romaine'.

3. The Hellenistic West: a collaborative project, co-directed by Dr Josephine Quinn (Worcester College, Oxford), which aims to explore the culture of the western Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period. The object of the project, which has been supported by an AHRC Research Networks Award, is to challenge the prevailing tendency to treat the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean and the Roman western Mediterranean as essentially independent synchronous developments, only brought together through the rise of the Roman imperium. The project began with a set of 8 papers presented to the Oxford Ancient History seminar in the summer of 2006, and a workshop held at the British School at Rome, in July 2006. An edited volume of 14 papers derived from those meetings and with further commissioned contributions is now in production with Cambridge University Press, for publication in late 2013. A brief summary of the project and the volume is available in pdf.

4. The Taormina Financial Inscriptions: a collaborative project with Dr Filippo Battistoni (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Dr Lorenzo Campagna (Messina), Dr Alessia DiMartino (Pisa), and Dr Anna Magnetto (Pisa). The project aims to produce a complete new edition of the dossier of inscriptions on stone from the Hellenistic city of Tauromenium (modern Taormina) in Sicily, to be published in the OUP series Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents. Although all 13 texts have previously been published in various locations, no comprehensive study exists, and no study has examined the stones themselves in any detail (details and images of most of which are currently not in the public domain). The inscriptions contain in excess of 1,000 lines of text, recording financial incomings and outgoings over several years, probably in the course of the first century BC. A brief overview is available in pdf.

5. El Occidente romano durante la epoca republicana: modelos de integracion de las comunidades indigenas (The Roman west during the Republican period: models of integration with local communities): (Project funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Cicencia e Innovacion, within the national plan I+D+I 2008-2011 (Historia y Arte (Historia): HAR2008-02612). The project is directed by Dr Enrique García Riaza (Dep. Ciències Històriques i T. de les Arts Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain), with the participation of myself, Dr Laurent Lamoine (Clermont, France) and Eduardo Sánchez Moreno (Madrid, Spain). The aim of the project is to explore the nature of diplomatic interaction between Rome and local communities in the western Mediterranean in the period of imperial expansion.The group met three times, concluding with a conference on the subject in Palma de Mallorca, June 2011. A website, which includes an extensive thematic and regional bibliography for the subject, can be found at www.occidens.es.

6. Las clientelas provinciales en el Occidente del Imperio Romano. International research project financed by the Spanish Ministerio Educación y Ciencia, under the direction of Prof. F. Pina Polo, Universitat de Zaragoza, Spain, October 2010 to September 2013, in which I am an overseas co-investigator. The project is co-ordinating a conference for early 2013 which aims to reappraise the concept of provincial clientela.

7. A new bronze honorific in two copies from Halaesa, Sicily. Through the generous assistance of dott.ssa G. Tigano of the Messina Soprintendenza per Beni Culturali Ambientali, I am currently working on a new edition of a recently discovered honorific inscription, in two copies, from the Hellenistic site of Halaesa, in northern Sicily. Early verisons of this study have already been presented at research seminars at Oxford (Feb. 2010) and Pisa (May 2010), and more recently at Copenhagen (March 2012) and Pisa (December 2012).

Articles currently in preparation:

Prag, J.R.W. (forthcoming). Epigraphy in the western Mediterranean: a Hellenistic phenomenon? In J. Prag and J. Quinn (eds), The Hellenistic West, Cambridge.
Prag, J.R.W. (forthcoming). The provincial perspective on the politics of repetundae trials, in C. Steel and H. van der Blom (eds), Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome, Oxford.
Prag, J.R.W. (forthcoming). Contextualising the plebiscitum Claudianum, 218 BC, in Le luxe et les lois somptuaires dans la Rome antique (approche comparative). Table Ronde, École française de Rome.

Home • Publications • Teaching • Recent Presentations

Page last updated: 2 January, 2013

Jonathan Prag: Research

Principal research interests:
Hellenistic & Roman Republican Sicily Hellenistic and Roman Republican epigraphy (especially Sicilian epigraphy) Mid- and Late Roman Republican history Roman Republican provinces and imperialism Punic identity Cicero My PhD (London 2004) was on the 'provincialization' of Republican Sicily, examining various aspects (identity, epigraphy, military presence) of the transformation of the island under Roman provincial rule and the development of Roman provincial government in relation to the first provincia of the Republican empire. The major elements of that study are now published in various articles (see publications). The majority of my current research begins from that general starting point, engaging with epigraphic evidence (particularly from Hellenistic Sicily), examining questions of identity in the western Mediterranean (including Punic identity), and exploring the origins and development of the provincial system under the Roman Republic, as well as continuing to work on the principal literary source for Roman Sicily, Cicero's Verrines. I am actively participating in collaborative projects with colleagues in France, Italy, and Spain.
Current projects • Articles in preparation


Current projects:
1. *Non-Italian Manpower: auxilia externa in the Roman Republic: The core research for this project was undertaken with an AHRC Research Leave Award in 2008 and I am currently completing a monograph on the subject. A brief statement of the project's aims is available in pdf. Preliminary work has been published as: Prag, J.R.W. 2011. Troops and commanders: auxilia externa under the Roman Republic. In Truppe e Comandanti nel mondo antico, eds. D. Bonanno, R. Marino, D. Motta, Palermo = ORMOS – Quaderni di storia antica, n.s. 2 (2010): 101-113. Prag, J.R.W. 2011. Provincial governors and auxiliary soldiers. In N. Barrandon and F. Kirbihler (eds), Les gouverners et les provinciaux sous la République romaine. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. 15-28. Prag, J.R.W. 2007. Auxilia* and Gymnasia: A Sicilian Model of Roman Imperialism.Journal of Roman Studies 97: 68-100
2. Cicero's Verrines: I am participating in a French research group (CNRS - UMR 8585, Centre Glotz, Paris), directed by Sylvie Pittia, working on a translation and commentary of Cicero, In Verrem II.3 (the 'De frumento'). Two conference volumes have already published as part of that project: Dubouloz, J. and S. Pittia (eds). 2007. La Sicile de Cicéron, Lectures des Verrines. Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté. Prag, J.R.W. (ed.). 2007. Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae: Rhetoric, Law, and Taxation in Cicero’s Verrines (BICS Suppl. 97). London: Institute of Classical Studies. A second project has now begun to produce a translation and commentary of In Verrem II.2 (the 'De praetura siciliense'): I am participating in this as Chercheur associé in the laboratoire ANHIMA (=Anthropologie et histoire des mondes anciens), UMR 8210 du CNRS, for the project 'Edition, traduction et commentaire du De praetura Siciliensi (Verrines 2, 2) de Cicéron. Les communautés de Sicile à l’épreuve de la domination romaine'.
3. The Hellenistic West: a collaborative project, co-directed by Dr Josephine Quinn (Worcester College, Oxford), which aims to explore the culture of the western Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period. The object of the project, which has been supported by an AHRC Research Networks Award, is to challenge the prevailing tendency to treat the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean and the Roman western Mediterranean as essentially independent synchronous developments, only brought together through the rise of the Roman imperium. The project began with a set of 8 papers presented to the Oxford Ancient History seminar in the summer of 2006, and a workshop held at the British School at Rome, in July 2006. An edited volume of 14 papers derived from those meetings and with further commissioned contributions is now in production with Cambridge University Press, for publication in late 2013. A brief summary of the project and the volume is available in pdf.
4. The Taormina Financial Inscriptions: a collaborative project with Dr Filippo Battistoni (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Dr Lorenzo Campagna (Messina), Dr Alessia DiMartino (Pisa), and Dr Anna Magnetto (Pisa). The project aims to produce a complete new edition of the dossier of inscriptions on stone from the Hellenistic city of Tauromenium (modern Taormina) in Sicily, to be published in the OUP series Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents. Although all 13 texts have previously been published in various locations, no comprehensive study exists, and no study has examined the stones themselves in any detail (details and images of most of which are currently not in the public domain). The inscriptions contain in excess of 1,000 lines of text, recording financial incomings and outgoings over several years, probably in the course of the first century BC. A brief overview is available in pdf.
5. El Occidente romano durante la epoca republicana: modelos de integracion de las comunidades indigenas (The Roman west during the Republican period: models of integration with local communities): (Project funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Cicencia e Innovacion, within the national plan I+D+I 2008-2011 (Historia y Arte (Historia): HAR2008-02612). The project is directed by Dr Enrique García Riaza (Dep. Ciències Històriques i T. de les Arts Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain), with the participation of myself, Dr Laurent Lamoine (Clermont, France) and Eduardo Sánchez Moreno (Madrid, Spain). The aim of the project is to explore the nature of diplomatic interaction between Rome and local communities in the western Mediterranean in the period of imperial expansion.The group met three times, concluding with a conference on the subject in Palma de Mallorca, June 2011. A website, which includes an extensive thematic and regional bibliography for the subject, can be found at www.occidens.es.

6. Las clientelas provinciales en el Occidente del Imperio Romano. International research project financed by the Spanish Ministerio Educación y Ciencia, under the direction of Prof. F. Pina Polo, Universitat de Zaragoza, Spain, October 2010 to September 2013, in which I am an overseas co-investigator. The project is co-ordinating a conference for early 2013 which aims to reappraise the concept of provincial clientela.
7. A new bronze honorific in two copies from Halaesa, Sicily. Through the generous assistance of dott.ssa G. Tigano of the Messina Soprintendenza per Beni Culturali Ambientali, I am currently working on a new edition of a recently discovered honorific inscription, in two copies, from the Hellenistic site of Halaesa, in northern Sicily. Early verisons of this study have already been presented at research seminars at Oxford (Feb. 2010) and Pisa (May 2010), and more recently at Copenhagen (March 2012) and Pisa (December 2012).

Articles currently in preparation:
Prag, J.R.W. (forthcoming). Epigraphy in the western Mediterranean: a Hellenistic phenomenon? In J. Prag and J. Quinn (eds), The Hellenistic West, Cambridge. Prag, J.R.W. (forthcoming). The provincial perspective on the politics of repetundae trials, in C. Steel and H. van der Blom (eds), Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome, Oxford. Prag, J.R.W. (forthcoming). Contextualising the plebiscitum Claudianum, 218 BC, in Le luxe et les lois somptuaires dans la Rome antique (approche comparative). Table Ronde, École française de Rome.


Home • Publications • Teaching • Recent Presentations

	Page last updated: 2 January, 2013