Craige Champion
Syracuse University, History, Faculty Member
- I spent the academic year 2019-2020 as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Russia. Living in Moscow, I taught a seminar, "Dem... moreI spent the academic year 2019-2020 as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Russia. Living in Moscow, I taught a seminar, "Democracy, Ancient and Modern," at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU) in the fall 2019 semester. There I wrote 7 of 12 chapters for a new book titled, CITIZENS, EMPIRE, DEMOCRACY: ANCIENT CONVERSATIONS WITH AMERICA. I also finished the English language translation of Polybius' complete text for the LANDMARK POLYBIUS, SCHOLAR'S EDITION, in two volumes, which we hope to publish in 2024.
I have been teaching ancient history and classics since 1990 in institutions of higher education in the United States (Princeton University, The College of New Jersey, Rutgers University, Reed College, Allegheny College, and Syracuse University). From 2006-2009 I served as Chair of the History Department at Syracuse, where I currently teach. In 2004 I received the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award from Syracuse's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, in recognition of outstanding performance in teaching, research, and community service, and in 2014 I was the recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award from Syracuse University and University College.
I earned my PhD. under the humane, jovial, and exacting direction of T.J. Luce. While at Princeton I studied Greek epigraphy with Christian Habicht and Roman history with Erich Gruen (when he was visiting professor at Princeton). I also enjoyed the great honor of meeting Frank W. Walbank, the most important Polybian scholar in the modern period, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. As a young graduate student, I discussed with him there some of my burgeoning ideas about the ancient Greek historian Polybius.
My primary research interests are Polybius, the Middle Roman Republic, Hellenistic Greece, Roman republican religion and Roman elites, the politics of culture in Mediterranean antiquity, imperialism and citizenship in classical Athens and republican Rome, classical influences in American culture and in the western tradition, and the historiography of ancient Greece and Rome. I have lectured all over the United States and Canada, as well as in Argentina, Armenia, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom, including public lectures at Bryn Mawr College, Dickinson College, Reed College, Scripps College, Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), Princeton University, the University of Liverpool, the University of Chicago, McGill University, Cornell University, Columbia University, the University of St. Petersburg, Università Sapienza di Roma, the Norwegian Institute in Rome (Oslo University), the European Studies Center (Yerevan, Armenia), Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina), Tel Aviv University, Université de Franche-Comté (Besançon, France), Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalyuna (Barcelona), and the Sorbonne.
My major publications include THE PEACE OF THE GODS: ELITE RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN THE MIDDLE ROMAN REPUBLIC (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017); CULTURAL POLITICS IN POLYBIUS'S HISTORIES (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004); ROMAN IMPERIALISM: READINGS AND SOURCES, Editor (Oxford and Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2004); the award-winning WILEY-BLACKWELL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANCIENT HISTORY, in 13 volumes, Founding General Editor, Area Editor (Historiography), and Contributor (Oxford and Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2013); and THE LANDMARK POLYBIUS, SCHOLAR'S EDITION, in 2 volumes, Co-Translator and Editor-in-Chief (New York: Pantheon Books, forthcoming). I have published articles in Phoenix, American Journal of Philology, Mediterranean Antiquity, Historia, Histos, Classical Philology, and Transactions of the American Philological Association, numerous book chapters in Wiley-Blackwell's Companions to the Ancient World series, and about sixty book reviews in various journals, including Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Classical Philology, American Historical Review, and the Journal of Hellenic Studies. I produced, maintain, and periodically update two sites for Oxford Bibliographies On-Line: "Roman Imperialism" and "Polybius". I have written several articles on ancient Greek historians for the on-line Brill's New Jacoby (BNJ) project (new editions of Greek text, English translations, and commentaries). I have served as a consultant and reader for the Oxford University Press and the Princeton University Press, as well as article referee for American Journal of Ancient History, Athenaeum, Classical Journal, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Phoenix, Mediterranean Antiquity, Classical Philology, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, Greece and Rome, Histos, Historia, Classical World, Political Studies, and the American Journal of Philology.
Craige B. Champion
Department of History
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York 13244-1020 USA
cbchamp@syr.eduedit
's violent end has engendered impassioned, unending debate: « how to tell a tyrant from a just king; how to tell envious murderers from heroic republicans; how and when to justify assassination 1 .» But any notion that his killing had the... more
's violent end has engendered impassioned, unending debate: « how to tell a tyrant from a just king; how to tell envious murderers from heroic republicans; how and when to justify assassination 1 .» But any notion that his killing had the potential of being an act of conciliation or intermediation appears to be absurd. Even the site of the murder, the Senate chamber in Pompey's theater complex in the Campus Martius, seems to preclude it, suggesting furious retribution. Indeed, Plutarch underlines the irony of the location of Caesar's slaughter: Pompey's
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Readers of history judge historians for what they say. But what about historians' silences, what they have left unsaid? Giving attention to this dimension of an historian's writing can pay rich dividends. By looking at specific omissions... more
Readers of history judge historians for what they say. But what about historians' silences, what they have left unsaid? Giving attention to this dimension of an historian's writing can pay rich dividends. By looking at specific omissions we may gain understanding about what historians wanted us to believe, how they attempted to manipulate their readers, and how they arranged their narratives to achieve their objectives. In this chapter, I pursue this line of inquiry concerning the history of the Greek historian Polybius. As a political hostage at Rome, Polybius necessarily offered a foreigner's perspective on Roman imperial power. Despite his well-deserved reputation as an ancient historian of the first order 1 , several bewildering aspects of his treatment of Rome, especially in the sixth book, have
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T HE SPEECHES IN POLYBIUs' HISTORIES provide important insights into what is perhaps the most controversial topic in Polybian studies: the Greek historian's attitudes towards Rome. A great deal of modern scholarly debate has... more
T HE SPEECHES IN POLYBIUs' HISTORIES provide important insights into what is perhaps the most controversial topic in Polybian studies: the Greek historian's attitudes towards Rome. A great deal of modern scholarly debate has revolved around mutually exclusive interpretations that Polybius was essentially either pro-Roman or anti-Roman.' A close reading of the Histories suggests a more nuanced approach to the question of Polybius' views on Rome. Viewing Polybius' barbarian category in relation to his representations of the Romans provides a key to the historian's stance(s) on Rome, and here his speeches are of the utmost importance. The objectives of the present study are to analyze Polybius' "barbarology" vis-'a-vis Rome, with a special focus on the medium of the reported speech, and to explore its implications regarding the political predicament of Greek statesmen of the second century in the face of Roman power. In only one passage in the Histories (12.4b.2-3, discussed in Section II below), does the Achaean historian say in his own voice that the Romans were a barbarian people. Yet in three reported speeches, Polybius allows his historical agents Agelaus, Lyciscus, and a Greek ambassador, probably the Rhodian statesman Thrasycrates, to call the Romans "barbarians."2 Without discounting the historicity of these ambassadors' charges against the Romans, I shall argue that Polybius employs these speeches as a vehicle for indirect expression of hostility towards Rome, a hostility conforming to widespread Greek public opinion at the time of composition of the Histories.3 I refer to this Greek view of the Romans as fdpfa3pot, according to
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Ancient historians have paid scant attention to political scientists in general, and what has come to be called International Relations (IR) Theory in particular. In terms of classical antiquity and international relations, Adcock and... more
Ancient historians have paid scant attention to political scientists in general, and what has come to be called International Relations (IR) Theory in particular. In terms of classical antiquity and international relations, Adcock and Mosley's 1975 study deserves mention, but the first part of the book (written by Adcock) was historical narrative and the second (written by Mosley) was an analytical account of the forms and institutions of ancient diplomacy. Neither paid any attention to general theories in political science.
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Review Article: BMCR 2023.01.08: J. Mackey, Belief and Cult: Rethinking Roman Religion (Princeton 2022)
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This is a pre-publication draft. There is time for suggestions for improvement, which I welcome.
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Paper published in Polybius and His Legacy: Tradition, Historical Representation, Reception
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Review discussion on recent scholarship on POLYBIUS (to 2022)
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A study of the Academic philosopher Carneades and the "philosophical embassy" to Rome in 155 BCE. It considers Carneades' career as both philosophy and diplomat, and how he reconciled his two callings. Keywords: Carneades, Academic... more
A study of the Academic philosopher Carneades and the "philosophical embassy" to Rome in 155 BCE. It considers Carneades' career as both philosophy and diplomat, and how he reconciled his two callings.
Keywords: Carneades, Academic philosophy, skepticism, Stoicism, Greek and Roman diplomacy
Keywords: Carneades, Academic philosophy, skepticism, Stoicism, Greek and Roman diplomacy
A survey of the question of peace movements in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.
Review of collected essays (in German) on the topic of the notion of "state" and "statehood" and their applicability to the study of ancient Rome.
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Book Review of collected essays by K.-J. Hoelkeskamp.
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Study of Greek perceptions of Roman generals and statesmen in the second century BCE.
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Study of Polybius' influence on Livy.
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Paper delivered at the Symposium, The Roman Legacy, at the University of Minnesota, 21 April 2017
This is chapter 2.5 of the forthcoming Oxford History of the Roman World. It is at the copy-editing stage, not yet in press. This means there is a little time to solicit feedback: comments, criticisms, suggestions for improvement. I... more
This is chapter 2.5 of the forthcoming Oxford History of the Roman World. It is at the copy-editing stage, not yet in press. This means there is a little time to solicit feedback: comments, criticisms, suggestions for improvement. I invite you to comment.
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A conference presentation on the assassination of Julius Caesar. The paper focuses on the exact location of Caesar's murder: the Senate chamber in Pompey's theater complex in the Campus Martius, arguing that the "liberators" decision to... more
A conference presentation on the assassination of Julius Caesar. The paper focuses on the exact location of Caesar's murder: the Senate chamber in Pompey's theater complex in the Campus Martius, arguing that the "liberators" decision to assassinate Caesar there was highly charged symbolically, according to the dictates of "pomerial ideology."
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Edited volume on Roman Imperialism.
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A monograph on ancient Roman religion published in 2017 by the Princeton University Press.
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Monograph on the Greek historian Polybius, published in 2004 by the University of California Press.